On Friday night, the Red Sox will be hosting somebody at Fenway Park in Game 1 of the American League Division Series.

Let's hope it's the Yankees.

Yes that means rooting for New York to beat Oakland in the Wild Card game, Wednesday, which is counterintuitive in New England. The idea of rooting first for the Red Sox and next for whoever is playing Yankees has long been ingrained. But this is not the cowering Boston fan base of the 20th century waiting for something cosmically awful to happen. The Red Sox might not beat the Yankees, but they certainly can beat the Yankees and that's the series you want to watch.

There are few sports experiences better than a Boston-New York series in any sport. It's especially true in baseball. People are going to stay up late and go to work groggy for a Red Sox-Yankees. They're going to pay hefty scalper mark-ups and parking prices to see it live.

Baseball in Boston was never better around here than it was in 2003 and 2004. The roller coaster of those two American League Championship Series was about as electric as baseball has ever been anywhere. The bouncer back to Keith Foulke that ended the World Series against St. Louis might have been the most memorable from those two seasons but the rest of the top 10 moments all came from Red Sox-Yankee games.

The A's are very good and obviously worthy of being where they are. If you didn't already have a team to root for in this race, the A's would be a good one to adopt. They are a terrific plucky underdog story, underpaid and underrated. Rooting against them has nothing to do with baseball quality.

It's hard to hate the A's. In a playoff series, hating is part of what fuels the passion. This isn't the Jose Canseco-Mark McGwire-Dave Stewart A's of the 1980's and 90's or the Reggie Jackson-Catfish-Vida Blue A's of the 1970's. This is a largely anonymous group. Khris Davis and Matt Chapman would be nationally famous on a lot of other teams, but in Oakland they're stuck in MLB's witness protection program. The only way most baseball fans would recognize A's All-Star Jed Lowrie off the field is if he's wearing his double earflap little league helmet.

The only thing particularly fun about beating the A's is that it guarantees more baseball. And that's fun for sure. But Boston vs. New York in the postseason is theater.

To be sure TBS, FS1 and the MLB Network already have highlight reels with Pedro Martinez & Don Zimmer, Alex Rodriguez & Bronson Arroyo. Fisk and Munson. Varitek & A-Rod, Aaron Boone, Bucky Dent, bloody socks and Dave Roberts.

The tabloid covers of the New York Post and Daily News will be must views every morning.

There's a whole new cast of characters waiting to write their chapters. What happens when it's Aaron Judge vs. Chris Sale with a runner on in the seventh inning? J.D. Martinez vs. Aroldis Chapman in with two outs and a guy on second in the ninth? Will David Price answer his nagging postseason questions and his slightly quieter but still present Yankee questions in one shot?

It's not the same with Marcus Semien or Blake Treinen in those spots.

Playing the Yankees is undoubtedly scarier with higher stakes. If the Red Sox lose to Oakland, there likely isn't a guy in Trevor Cahill jersey waiting to taunt them at work the next day. If they lose to the New York, odds are there's somebody two cubicles over wearing a Paul O'Neill jersey making Babe Ruth jokes.

But it's undeniable that baseball here is more fun when this rivalry is hot and something is on the line. It's too bad it would only be best of five.