'Live, From Tokyo'

It was barely 30 degrees in Boston Tuesday morning when the Red Sox opened defense of their 2007 championship-thankfully, almost 7,000 miles away, in Japan, in the air-conditioned comfort of the Tokyo Dome.

Though my family and friends would probably cast me on the high side of baseball and Red Sox lunacy, I am not an early-to-riser and had absolutely no intention of catching the first pitch at 6 a.m. But clearly the passion is hardwired, because my head simply popped up at 5:50 in the morning, in plenty of time to see Dustin Pedroia take up where he had left off in October, rifling a hard single up the middle.

The opener against Oakland was something of a thriller, with the Red Sox tying the game in the ninth and winning it in the 10th, spared an A's comeback only by a baserunning gaffe that would have been unacceptable at the Little League level. Yet despite a host of dramatics, my body didn't respond as it had in the past: with elevated heartbeat and other signs that the Red Sox were exacting a physical toll on me.

Winning does change everything-especially that second championship in four years, which should have convinced even the most tortured Red Sox souls that the team's cursed past was as much a historical remnant as the Salem witch trials. Now, don't mistake me for one of those who long for the poignant past of failure, insisting it was more distinctive and truer to our Puritan heritage of joylessness and suffering. I won't even pretend that come October-and I sure hope it brings more than great foliage-I won't feel an onset of rabidity. But my body doesn't lie-among the many things it doesn't do anymore-and on the occasion of this 2008 season opener there simply wasn't that desperate sense of urgency that had infected me for so many seasons past.

The New York Yankees will arrive in town early this year, and Fenway Park will witness a few beery brawls and, of course, the familiar and tired "Yankees suck!" chants. But while the rivalry certainly endures and remains heartfelt, the honest fan would admit that the two teams, at least in their present incarnations, have become increasingly indistinguishable. The Red Sox are the new Yankees, on top now with a perennial championship contender fueled by an economic juggernaut. At the same time, the Yankees have begun to mimic Boston, eschewing high-priced and aging free agents while investing in young talent. On the mound Hughes, Kennedy and Chamberlain could be the mirror reflection of the Red Sox's Buchholz, Lester and Papelbon.

Last season's second-place finish in the A.L. East, after nine straight years atop the division, coupled with what by Yankee standards is a championship drought (seven years and counting) has liberated the Steinbrenner Generation Next to try another way. And is there a Yankee fan out there that wouldn't prefer to ride these kids at the risk of missing the playoffs this season rather than take their shot at the ring with the next Carl Pavano, Kei Igawa, Jaret Wright or even Randy Johnson? (From this fan's vantage point, it will be scary again if the Yankees become as smart as they are rich. And with a new stadium next year, they will be richer than ever.)