NEW YORK — This one had its moments.
We saw three Red Sox homers. We saw Joe Kelly throw a 102.2-mile-per-hour pitch to Bunyanesque Yankee rookie Aaron Judge. (The kid fouled it off!) We saw Craig Kimbrel strike out five Yankees over 1⅓ innings (yes, five Ks in 1⅓ innings) fanning mighty Judge for the final out to preserve a 5-4 win. This means the Sox have won 11 of 15 and can pull into a first-place tie with the Yankees on Wednesday night in the Bronx.
Perhaps you are having trouble getting into a lather about Judge, Aaron Hicks, or Didi Gregorius. Don’t be ashamed. It’s great to see the Yankees and Red Sox once again dueling in the Bronx while sitting 1-2 atop the American League East, but we’re never likely to match the hostility and abject hatred from the emotionally charged days of the 1970s or in the early part of this century.
Tuesday’s game was darned good, and it was very civil with true sportsmanship and competition. There were no brawls, no dueling insults from the owner’s box, no Pedro headhunting, no A-Rod antics, no Bucky Bleeping Dent, and no Bill Lee raging about “Yankee brownshirts.’’
A crowd of 41,516 enjoyed the 3:35 game, but there was no throwback moment from the years of rage and thunder.
“It was very real in those days,’’ former Red Sox second baseman Jerry Remy recalled before Tuesday’s first pitch. “I picked up on it right away when I was traded from the Angels to the Red Sox before the 1978 season.
“We went to Fort Lauderdale to play them in a spring training game, and I hit a triple and the place went crazy. I stood up on third base and looked at Graig Nettles and said, ‘Wow, this stuff is serious.’
“I remember talking with Mickey Rivers [who dodged cherry bombs and darts while patrolling center at Fenway] while we were taking infield before a game. Mickey and I had been teammates in California, so that seemed natural enough.
“But Carlton Fisk came up to me after and said, ‘We don’t talk to the [expletive] Yankees around here.’ I said, ‘OK, Pudge.’ So many guys on those teams just despised guys.
“Rick Burleson was quoted in the paper saying, ‘I hate all the Yankees,’ and when I came up to hit the next day, [Thurman] Munson said, ‘Your buddy doesn’t like us, huh? You two better watch out at second base today.’ He was serious.’’
The clearest demonstration of Munson’s jealousy of Fisk came after a well-meaning Yankee publicist released a sheet comparing the stats of the rival catchers. The numbers showed that Munson was ahead of Fisk in virtually every category except assists, where he trailed by two.
Munson responded by allowing a handful of “strike three” pitches to roll out of his glove, prompting easy throws to first base to complete the outs. Once he’d passed Fisk with three “assists,” Munson turned to the press box and raised his middle finger. Revenge was his.
Now that is true hatred.
The early years of John Henry’s Red Sox ownership saw a return to the ancient days of Red Sox-Yankee name-calling. Henry had been a limited Yankee partner with George Steinbrenner, and the Boss’s first order of business upon learning that Henry had bought the Red Sox was to warn Henry about his two chief partners, Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner. Lucchino launched a retaliatory salvo, calling the Yankees “The Evil Empire,’’ and things escalated from there.
We had Roger Clemens throwing at Manny Ramirez, Pedro hitting Karim Garcia, then tossing Don Zimmer to the turf. We had Aaron Boone’s walkoff, and Yankee president Randy Levine insulting the Sox on the way out of town.
We had the border war for the services of Alex Rodriguez, followed by Jason Varitek vs. A-Rod, followed by A-Rod vs. everybody.
Finally, we had the biblical Red Sox comeback of 2004 at the expense of the Yankees . . .
And not much since.
It’s true. It’s been 13 long years since the Sox and Yankees met in the postseason. They have not finished 1-2 in the AL East in this decade. The last time they played a late-season series while ranked 1-2 in the division was 2011.
So now we have this little gift.
The Red Sox came into this season a prohibitive favorite to win the division. When Yankee GM Brian Cashman learned of Boston’s acquisition of Chris Sale, he dubbed the Red Sox “the Golden State Warriors of baseball.’’
Despite a fairly flat spring, the Sox look like they are finally ready to move. Mitch Moreland and Hanley Ramirez hit back-to-back homers in the fourth Tuesday and Andrew Benintendi crushed one into the second deck in the fifth.
Meanwhile, the Baby Bombers — led by Judge — are sitting in first place in the AL East, averaging almost six runs per game while starting 17-9 at home. They are the rarest of rare: a New York team that is over-delivering. Imagine.
The ghosts of the prickly past are finally all gone. A-Rod and David Ortiz — the last survivors of the War of 2004 — were retired by the end of the 2016 season. The torch has been passed to a new generation of stars who have no connection to what went on in the days when hate was hate.
“Any time you are here, there’s an added element,’’ Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “And now the teams are impacted by young players and have been rejuvenated.”
Judge looks like the AL Rookie of the Year and has MVP numbers thus far. He had two hits and made a spectacular catch of a Jackie Bradley Jr. blast in the second inning. But, like the rest of his teammates, Judge does nothing to provoke the Red Sox or their fans.
Everyone is just so friendly and polite. In many ways, the Orioles have replaced the Yankees as the Red Sox’ emotional rivals. Baltimore manager Buck Showalter is the ultimate provocateur. Manny Machado and Adam Jones are new Boston nemeses.
First place will be on the line when the Red Sox and Yankees meet again Wednesday night at the Stadium, but it’s never going to feel the way it felt 40 years ago or back in ’04 when the rivalry peaked.
Red Sox games at Yankee Stadium used to be like the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway with Hells Angels guarding the stage. Now it’s the soft smooth sounds of Kenny G.
Dan Shaughnessy can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com.