The Red Sox have, at times, griped bitterly about the "Evil Empire" to their south. About the Yankees' jack-up-the-Visa-card expenditures that, to many, long since ago moved from despicable to obscene.
And everyone already knew George Steinbrenner was Satan himself.
So now we come to the winter following Boston's highly disappointing 2006 season, and what do we have here?
The Red Sox paying a sum believed to be in the neighborhood of $51 million simply for the right to negotiate with much-heralded Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka?
Turns out, it's a short ride from where Boston was on Aug. 20 to Matsuzaka's doorstep.
It was on that day Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein explained that the Red Sox didn't have the resources to field an "uber team."
This was in the midst of watching the Yankees humiliate his club in a five-game sweep and in the aftermath of the Yankees having taken on $27 million in payroll to get Bobby Abreu -- an on-base specialist whose power had disappeared -- and the implication needed no translation.
Standing on the Fenway Park grass that day, asked whether Abreu was an example of the Yankees compiling an uber team, Epstein said:
"Yeah, conceivably that's an example where we didn't have the resources to take on his salary this year or next year. But we have tremendous resources, don't get me wrong. We have fantastic resources, that's just not something we can do with a (luxury tax bill) of $20 million-plus dollars. That's not something we can do.
"To upgrade in right field is not worth it to us because we have to spread that money around to execute our plan and build the '07 team."
Whether the Red Sox had plans for Matsuzaka at that time for the '07 team isn't clear, though the guess here is they did. Epstein and all successful GMs work on parallel paths, not only in the present but with one eye on the future at the same time.
While Epstein can be excused for taking a shot at the Yankees and their uber team that day -- you grade on the curve regarding statements when a club is absolutely getting its brains beaten in -- what's clear from the Matsuzaka bidding is that there is no more room for lectures, sour grapes or a false sense of moral superiority.
Not after Boston's estimated tab simply for the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka was three times the entire payroll of the 2006 Florida Marlins.