Yankees Fans Likely Relieved To See David Ortiz-Less Red Sox Coming To Bronx

The Boston Red Sox enter Yankee Stadium on Tuesday for the first time in the 2017 season, and it will be the first time since 2002 they’ve done so without David Oritz.

That sound you just heard was Yankees fans breathing a collective sigh of relief.

Few players in the Yankees’ long, illustrious history have given the Bronx Bombers and their fans more sleepless nights than Ortiz. The former Red Sox designated hitter blasted 53 home runs and drove in 171 runs with an OPS north of .800 for his career against the Yankees and was even better in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium — old and new.

Oh, and there also was, you know, everything he did against the Yankees in the playoffs, particularly the fall of 2004.

Despite anything Pedro Martinez might say, it sure sounds like Ortiz is enjoying the retired life and doesn’t have any plans of staging some sort of dramatic comeback, meaning the next chapter of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry will be centered around a new cast of characters. Go ahead and exhale again, Yankees fans.