The rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees is perhaps the most vitriolic and important in sports history. It is the stuff of baseball lore – the curse of the Bambino, Boston’s heartbreaking defeat in the 1986 World Series and, of course, the Yankees’ 26 successful pennant runs and seemingly eternal triumph over its resilient underdog rival.

Rivalry and conflict is the basis of sport and the reason millions of fans devote so much to the teams they love. Baseball can once again evoke in all of us the sense of excitement and joy once offered by America’s national pastime. Letting its rivalries play out is integral to maintaining interest in the sport.

With that in mind, and in the interest of baseball fans the world over, The Daily Orange is endorsing the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees.

The Yankees franchise has been on the top for too long. They won all those championships – its 38 AL pennants personify embarrassing American excess – and have made the playoffs every year since 1995. They boast a payroll of about $185 million (the highest in Major League Baseball) and consistently sign elite free agents that other teams lack the financial resources to acquire. In short, they’re no fun to root for. Boston is no spendthrift itself, but it lacks the imperial resources of the haughty Yankees and has experienced little of its success.

The Red Sox have tried valiantly and repeatedly to regain the former glory of 1918, the last time it won the World Series. The Red Sox, too, have had stellar talent, from Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski to Roger Clemens (now in the twilight of his career with the Yankees) and Pedro Martinez. Despite that talent and its close calls with triumph over the past eight decades, the Sox never attained the level of success touted by the Yankees. The Sox’s unbearable underdog status is what simultaneously endears and enrages its fans – it is the reason that rooting for Boston makes more sense and is simply more fun.

The charge from many Yankees supporters that Boston fans are rabidly over-invested in their team is bunk. Though they may start fights and riots, use ‘Yankees suck’ as their mantra and battle cry, their devotion to the Red Sox is unparalleled in the world of sports. That makes watching the team all the more entertaining.

Yankees fans, on the other hand, carry themselves with an air of superiority that adds nothing to the excitement of the sport. Their attitudes simply reaffirm their faith in a franchise that’s about as interesting as Hideki Matsui’s toenail clippings.

If the Red Sox triumph over the Yankees, MLB will benefit. Bosox fans will be ecstatic to see their beloved team once again attempt to end The Curse, and interest in the series from sports fans around the world will skyrocket.

If the Yankees win, as they have so many times in the past, interest from the casual viewer will regress further into boredom and history will continue its cycle of disinterest.