Baseball is more than just a sport in the United States, it’s a religion, a way of life and an antidote to the ills of day to day life – unless you’re a Colorado Rockies fan of course, then your team actively contributes to the ills of day to day life.
Unfortunately though, not all of us can support a team that makes a regular habit of winning the top prizes and playing sensational baseball along the way. Which makes fierce, raucous and family dividing rivalries such an important part of baseball fandom.
In this article we take a look at some of the biggest rivalries in the sport. Those that are guaranteed to not only get fans of both teams excited, but to attract the attention of fans of other teams fans who usually just keep an eye on other teams to see how it impacts their boys or for betting purposes.
Read on to find out about baseball’s biggest rivalries.
Chicago Cubs vs St. Louis Cardinals
The Midwest is a big place, but there are relatively few places you can go where you won’t find a fan of either the St. Louis Cardinals or the Chicago Cubs that vehemently despises the other.
Traditionally the Cardinals have maintained the upper hand over their rivals, winning 19 NL pennants to the Cubs 17 and 11 World Series championships to their rivals miserly 3.
In the head to head though things are relatively equal, with both sides having played each other over 2,500 times and the Cubs winning just 50 more than the Cardinals.
San Francisco Giants vs Los Angeles Dodgers
California may seem laid back from the outside, particularly when it comes to politics, but in terms of sports, things can get just as heated as the state’s summer time temperatures. The biggest rivalry by far in the state is the one between the Giants and the Dodgers. The LA Dodgers are the favourites to win the MLB championship according to the betting markets, something the Giants will be hugely envious off being as they’re seen as having little to no chance.
Similarly to the Cubs and Cardinals, both teams have played each other well over 2,500 times with the Giants – at the time of writing – 5 wins ahead of the Dodgers in the all-time stats. The most memorable sporting moment between the two was the 2021 NL Division Series which the Dodgers won 3-2 to secure state bragging rights.
(The Dodgers hold the most important recent bragging rights.)
New York Mets vs New York Yankees
There’s only one thing that New Yorkers hate more than tourists and that’s each other. If you ask someone for directions in the Big Apple you’re running the risk of a verbal tirade, so can you imagine what happens when you support the wrong baseball team in the wrong area?
If you’re from New York you have to support one of the Mets or the Yankees and part of that support comes with fiercely hating your rivals. Unlike some of the other rivalries in MLB, this is a truly heavyweight one with both teams regularly doing well on the national scale.
The best and perhaps most memorable clash of these two outfits came in 2000 when they faced off in the World Series, which that year became known as the Subway Series. Unfortunately for Mets fans, they had to watch on as Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens and Mariano Rivera powered the Yankees to a stunning series win.
Chicago White Sox vs Chicago Cubs
When a Chicago Cubs fans is born, their hatred of the St. Louis Cardinals is something that comes to them with age. As soon as they leave the womb though, they are born with an unnerving and never ending hatred of inter-city rivals the Chicago White Sox.
Known most often as the Crosstown Classic, this rivalry has gone under many different names, none of which come anywhere near close to accurately describing the level of feeling on both sides of the divide.
Unfortunately for outsiders and perhaps fortunately for local law enforcement, the two sides have only met 146 times, of which the White Sox have won 74 compared to the Cubs 72.
(On-field tempers often spill over in this game.)
Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees
We have left the best to last. The biggest and oldest in baseball, and perhaps one of the biggest and oldest in American sports period. This rivalry dates back to 1901 and the hatred between the two runs very deep indeed.
The starting point in this rivalry of ire supposedly came in 1919 when the Red Sox sold hall-of-famer Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919, starting the huge period of failure known as the “Curse of the Bambino”.
Poetically that drought of success ended in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox came back from a three game deficit to beat the New York Yankees and win their first World Series in 8 decades!
