Red Sox
“I’ve said it before, that if the Yankees were the last team to give me a contract, I’d retire.”
The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry might be the most contentious rivalry in baseball history, but several players have willingly played for both teams over the years.
Hunter Dobbins, though, has strongly aligned himself with one side of the rivalry, so much so that he can’t ever see himself playing for the other side.
“My dad was a diehard Red Sox fan,” the Red Sox right-handed pitcher told reporters, via the Boston Herald‘s Gabrielle Starr. “And I’ve said it before, that if the Yankees were the last team to give me a contract, I’d retire.”
Dobbins later admitted that he wasn’t as much of a “diehard” Red Sox fan as his father, Lance, saying that he watched the Astros and Rangers. However, Dobbins was still fond of the Red Sox growing up. The Texas native shared that Dustin Pedroia was his favorite player on the team and that he grew a dislike for the Yankees.
That’s why Dobbins, a 25-year-old rookie, has had Sunday’s game “circled for a long time” as he makes his debut in the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry.
“I grew up watching the Red Sox a lot, but I knew I wanted to do this as a career,” Dobbins said. “I didn’t get attached to a team, but I grew up watching [the Red Sox], and just, I think out of disdain for the Yankees, I watched anybody but them.”
While Dobbins’s dad has “been a Red Sox fan since he was little,” he might have other reasons to dislike the Yankees, too. Lance Dobbins was drafted by the Yankees twice, signing a deal with them after the second time he was selected. But they traded him to the Diamondbacks not long after.
As Lance Dobbins pitched in the Diamondbacks organization and later in Indy Ball, he eventually crossed paths with former Red Sox manager Grady Little. The two got to know each other well when Little’s younger brother coached Lance Dobbins.
Lance Dobbins was also fond of a key member of the Yankees’ organization from their dynasty run in the late 1990s into the early 2000s.
“Can I say all of them but Andy Pettitte? Andy Pettitte and my dad were really good friends,” the younger Dobbins said when asked if he had a least favorite Yankees player.
Now, Dobbins will get the opportunity to potentially make Yankees fans dislike him the same way many Red Sox fans dislike Yankees players. Dobbins, who the Red Sox took in the eighth round of the 2021 MLB Draft, has gotten off to a solid start in his MLB career, recording a 4.06 ERA with a 1.331 WHIP and 37 strikeouts over 44 1/3 innings pitched in nine appearances. He’s only allowed three runs over his last two outings, throwing eight innings of long relief.
Dobbins isn’t sure what he would’ve done had he been drafted by the Yankees in 2021, but he knows what he wants to do on Sunday.
“I think whoever I was playing with or whoever I would have been drafted by, I’d still hate the Yankees, so Sunday should be a fun one,” Dobbins said, “I’m hoping I hit a career-high in velo or something.
“I’m ready for it. Sunday can’t come fast enough.”
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