Rivalries can make even the most dismal-seeming sporting events amazing. I mean, no Ivy League football team has competed for a national title in more than 50 years, but when was the last time anyone left a Harvard-Yale game bored? And let's not even talk about the NFC North Division.

My point is that rivals don't necessarily need to be great teams, or even good teams. All a rivalry needs to exist is two teams who play each other often over a long period of time with each team winning a relatively even number of the contests. Which brings me to the subject of this column: the supposed 'rivalry' between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

Now, before anyone bursts a blood vessel, I'll be the first to admit that, over the last three years or so, the Yankees and the Red Sox have had the fiercest rivalry in baseball, maybe even in all of sports. During that period, the two teams battled evenly in regular season match-ups and even met in the ALCS two years in a row.

No, my problem does not lie with the current rivalry shared by the divisional foes. Rather, my problem lies in the way their historical rivalry has been portrayed. Sports fans have been lead to believe that this sort of intense competition has highlighted the all-time series between the Yankees and the Red Sox. This is simply not true.

While the Red Sox did dominate the League for a short time during the early part of the century, that quickly changed after they dealt Babe Ruth to the Yanks in 1919. During the 84-year period that followed, the Yankees finished ahead of the Red Sox 66 times. In addition, New York won 39 American League pennants and 26 World Series titles compared to Boston's four pennants and zero titles.

New York would become a symbol of dominance, while the Red Sox would become synonymous with losers, no matter how loveable they may have been. As if this wasn't enough, where as most rivalries have two fan-bases who share a mutual hatred, this 'rivalry' has one fan base, the Red Sox nation, who frantically try to direct their frustration at another fan base, Yankees fans, who are busy going about the business of cheering for title-winning teams.

Does this sound like a rivalry? To me, it sounds more like a prolonged massacre. Maybe if the Red Sox spent more time worrying about baseball and less time worrying about the Yankees, they would win more than one title every 90 years (and this is coming from a White Sox fan who has never seen his team win a title and probably never will).

Some of you probably think I'm crazy, I mean think of the long history between these two teams. Well, I did. And all I found was a long history of the Yankees beating the Red Sox. Others are probably irate because so many crucial moments in baseball history have occurred during a Yanks-Bo Sox game. But, until recently, the Yankees always came out on top of those situations.

I'm not trying to insult the Red Sox. They have had much more historical success than my White Sox, even before they won last year's title. I'm not trying to side with he Yankees, that would just be wrong. All I'm saying is, while ESPN tries to force the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry down everyone's collective throat as the 'greatest rivalry ever,' real, competitive rivalries like the Bears-Packers, Browns-Steelers and Giants-Dodgers get the proverbial shaft.

Don't fall for the hype. While the Yankees-Red Sox match-up is currently very exciting, it is far from the best rivalry ever. Do the research, numbers don't lie.