Rivals Rumble: How 2004 Red Sox-Yankees Brawl Sparked World Series Run

2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the 2004 Boston Red Sox World Series championship team. Throughout the year, NESN.com will reflect on several key moments from that historic season.

Part 1: A fateful afternoon with the New York Yankees.

Rivalries bring out the best possible drama in sports. They’re even better when deep histories accompany the two sides.

The Red Sox endured 86 years of pain between World Series championships. The franchise felt plenty of that pain thanks to the New York Yankees.

The Bronx Bombers constantly found ways to halt Boston’s path to glory. The history of such defeats culminated with maybe the most crushing of them all: The Yankees clawed back to stun the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series after Boston got within five defensive outs of a trip to the World Series.

The following season, the story looked to be headed in a similar direction. The Yankees held a sizable lead in the American League East entering July. The teams set the tone for a crazy month with a marathon game at Yankee Stadium, with New York taking that game, too.

Twenty-three days later, the latest installment of the rivalry almost never played. Instead, the Red Sox wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and stood up to their biggest rivals in a defining moment of their season.

Speaking exclusively with NESN.com 20 years later, 2004 players Johnny Damon, Gabe Kapler, Bill Mueller and Jason Varitek, as well as Hall of Fame broadcaster Joe Castiglione, recounted a day that changed the attitude of the Red Sox’s season.

“It was a big moment because they showed they could beat the Yankees,” Castiglione said.

“It seems like the games were always like that with them over the course of time,” Varitek added. “When both teams are good, it comes down to making a pitch or having a significant hit at the right time.”

On July 24, 2004, the Red Sox ripped away the wheel and took back control of their own path to greatness.

THE WEATHER
The Red Sox and Yankees continued a series at Fenway Park in the midst of an already busy time for the city. The FleetCenter (now TD Garden) prepared to host the Democratic National Convention just days after this matchup.

The Red Sox fell the night before in brutal fashion, surrendering a lead as the Yankees stole the Friday night contest. Boston was ready for a response. Unfortunately for the Sox, the weather was not.

Rain poured down throughout the day, leaving bleak hope that the rivals would play. It appeared the game would be postponed shortly before the original start time. That message had some personnel around the park packing their belongings.

“It was a FOX game, I think either a 3:00 or 4:00 start,” Castiglione said. “It was pouring all day. We didn’t have this drainage system, which we put in the next year. The players wanted to play. The Yankees had already been told the game was called off. Jason Varitek and others met with ownership and decided to play it.”

Red Sox players felt the weight of the opportunity to take advantage of the strange day and turn the tide on their recent play, which rattled around the .500 mark for three months.

“With the matchup and how we’d been generating our play, guys really wanted to play,” Varitek said.

“Our team was definitely struggling at the time,” Damon said. “I was a bit banged up at the time as I play almost every single game. I’m worn out. There was talk about calling the game. The managers walked the field. Guys were demanding to play and fight through it. The game ended up being a very big turning point for our season.”

“Any time you get to the yard, you want to play,” Mueller said. “For most of us here, we’re just happy to get it on. Realistically, nobody wants to play a day-night doubleheader. Any time you get to play the Yankees, it’s a measuring stick. You want to see where you’re at.”

Ultimately, the uprising from the home clubhouse won out.

After two separate pregame meetings to decide the fate of the matchup, the grounds crew prepared the field. Both sides suited up and play indeed went on at Fenway Park that Saturday afternoon.

THE FIGHT
With the game underway, the Yankees picked up where they left off Friday night.

New York grabbed two early runs against Boston starter Bronson Arroyo in the second inning on an RBI double from Hideki Matsui and an RBI groundout from Tony Clark. A frame later, the Yankees scored again and looked for more with Alex Rodriguez at the plate.

Arroyo came inside on Rodriguez with an 0-1 pitch. On the 1-1 delivery, he plunked the star third baseman with an 87-mph pitch on the left elbow.

Rodriguez stared down Arroyo as he took off his elbow pad, slowly walking to first base. Varitek, named the Red Sox’s official captain the next offseason, followed the Yankees slugger down the line to keep him moving. That’s where the rivalry gained another chapter.

As Joe Buck proclaimed on the FOX broadcast: “Varitek and A-Rod, going at it!”

“Obviously, Bronson wasn’t trying to hit him,” Mueller said. “I think he hit him with a breaking ball. I think it just got blown out of proportion pretty quickly with the rivalry and everything. Probably Pedro (Martinez) doesn’t help with his ability to pitch inside. There’s probably a cumulative thing that goes down. Then, it just escalates and we get after it.”

“So many things happened in that game,” Castiglione remembered. “The Yankees led most of the way. Bronson Arroyo hit A-Rod and A-Rod started to mouth off. I don’t think he charged the mound, but he took a step or two. That’s when Jason Varitek gave him the leather sandwich. I know Jason doesn’t like to talk about that too much, especially around his kids. Hey, it was a big moment. It sort of set a tone.”

Benches cleared. Bullpens emptied. Side scrums followed, headlined by Kapler and New York starter Tanyon Sturtze.

White and gray jerseys rolled across the infield. The first ejections came with Varitek and Rodriguez making an early exit. Kapler and New York’s Kenny Lofton joined them.

More importantly, the Red Sox were awake and unified.

“At that point, I think we needed a spark,” Kapler said. “I always think that Jason had something in his stomach that said, ‘This is the right time to take this action.’ You could take the other side and say he was forced into it. He’s a very protective individual. I think he felt both an obligation to protect his team and also that maybe this is the right time to have this happen.”

From struggles to injuries to a search for an identity, the Red Sox needed a cause to rally around. It appeared the fight provided just that, and Tim McCarver knew it on the FOX broadcast: “There has been talk about the Red Sox not having the same unity that they had last year. Sometimes, something like that could be the initial stages of the unity that you’re seeking.”

Kevin Millar recalled the 2004 fight on NESN’s Red Sox broadcast on July 23, 2024. (Video Credit: NESN)

“In the fight, we came together,” Damon said. “We were a very close-knit team. We turned into a family after that. We knew we had each other’s backs. Obviously, Varitek played a major role in it. He doesn’t like to be called names to his face. The brawl was ignited.”

The teams were through the early rounds that day. A back-and-forth heavyweight fight was far from over at Fenway Park.

THE COMEBACK
Over the next few innings, the two lineups traded shots back and forth.

Following the fight, three straight baserunners helped the Red Sox take a 4-3 lead in the fourth inning. Boston manager Terry Francona got ejected in the following inning for arguing a forceout of Damon.

As the sixth inning began, Buck and McCarver summed up the game so far:

“This is a screwy game, isn’t it?

What’s next?”

Little did they know what that inning had in store.

The Red Sox and Yankees combined for 10 runs in an inning that lasted over an hour on its own. New York scored six runs before Boston answered with four.

Of course, the rivals had another marathon in store.

“You get used to playing four-hour games against the Yankees,” Mueller said. “It just became normal that it was going to be a while. It’s two juggernauts of a group. It is what it is, and you just continue to compete until the last out.”

The Yankees added a run in the seventh inning on a long home run over the Green Monster from Ruben Sierra and brought the two-run advantage into the bottom of the ninth inning. As New York manager Joe Torre turned the game over to closer Mariano Rivera, that seemed to be the end of the Red Sox’s bid.

That’s what Rivera’s entrance meant at the time, especially that season, when he entered the appearance with 35 saves and a 0.89 ERA to date.

But, on July 24, 2004, the Red Sox flipped the script against a generational finisher.

Nomar Garciaparra smacked a leadoff double to left field and came around to score on a single from Kevin Millar to cut the deficit to one. That brought Mueller to the plate.

“It seemed like Billy Mueller is the only guy on our team that can hit Mariano Rivera,” Damon said.

Mueller worked Rivera deep into a 3-1 count. On the final delivery of the evening, Mueller socked a fly ball to right field that cleared the bullpens for a walk-off two-run blast, launching the Red Sox to a dramatic 11-10 victory.

“I think he left something out over, which is unusual for him because of his pinpoint control and his ability to dominate the inside corner with distinct movement of his cutter,” Mueller said. “It’s just one of those things where you can’t miss it. A mistake out over and that’s what happened. I didn’t miss it, and man, it was fortunate the wind was blowing out to right. It carried out. It was nice.”

Boston made a statement that day against its greatest rival and did so when New York appeared to have silenced the comeback.

“It turned out to be prophetic because Bill Mueller owned Mariano Rivera,” Castiglione said. “He hit over .400 against him. I don’t think anyone else could claim that with the number of at-bats. Mueller hit probably the most important home run of the regular season. He hit it into the bullpen. That gave the Red Sox the win.”

The improbable Red Sox win rang out with the first intentional use of a triumphant call that has become a calling card around New England.

“That’s the first time I can remember saying, ‘Can you believe it?’ ” Castiglione recalled.

THE IMPACT
The Red Sox found their sense of fight, literally and figuratively, against the Yankees that Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park. At the height of a war-filled era of the classic rivalry, Boston delivered a major blow to get the ballclub on track.

“It leads to a little bit more beyond that,” Varitek said. “Our pitching had settled. We were in a lot of one-run ballgames. We just weren’t necessarily winning them. With the foundation of what we were, we were playing good baseball. Sometimes, you don’t win the game. It accumulates and you find a way to win a big game like that. You start to trend and now you’ve won one of those close games. It just continued to multiply.”

“It sure felt like it was one of the most important moments in Red Sox history,” Kapler said. “We really came together around that fight. There’s a lot of bonding that occurred. Nobody is condoning fighting on a baseball field. That’s not why we’re there. There was something about the way we came together. Literally to protect each other physically. I think that really matters.”

The Red Sox earned a Sunday night win to take the series over New York. The momentum set up a 21-7 month of August. Boston finished the regular season with 98 wins and returned to the postseason for a second consecutive year.

From there, of course, another classic tale with the Yankees was written.