Tensions between the teams began to simmer right from the beginning.
The first game pairing American League representatives of Boston and New York took place on May 7, 1903, at Boston’s Huntington Avenue Grounds, a relatively uneventful 6-2 Boston victory. There was already an underlying friction between the franchises, given that the Highlanders had spent the previous two seasons as the Baltimore Orioles, and Baltimore had long been Boston’s most bitter municipal enemy on baseball diamonds.
The next day, though, the paying customers at the Grounds received the first hint that a fresher, fiercer feud had officially arrived, the moment New York’s Dave Fultz barreled into Boston’s George Winter at first base.