Earlier this week, the New York Post pondered the possibility that the Houston Astros are, vis-a-vis the Yankees, the new iteration of the Red Sox.
In other words, a rival rolling down the decades.
They are not. Though the World Series champions are formidable, fun, wildly gifted, with a deep farm system, it takes more than their first title to establish them as part of baseball’s long-term aristocracy. Even if they are the talk and chalk of 2018, and just got better by reportedly landing right-hander Gerrit Cole, you can’t just slide your way into the 90 years of white-hot hatred between Boston and the Big Apple.