And they're not even the best two teams in the American League East anymore.

The Tampa Bay Rays, the AL champions in 2008, have forced their way into that rarefied company and even belong in any discussion of the majors' best clubs.

Which raises the question of whether the rivalry still matters as much as it did in 2003, when Aaron Boone's 11th-inning homer launched New York to the World Series, capping a classic seven-game AL Championship Series also remembered for the Pedro Martinez-Don Zimmer throwdown.

Or in 2004, when the Red Sox mounted their epic comeback from a 3-0 ALCS deficit on the way to their first World Series crown in 86 years.

The clubs haven't met in the playoffs since then, and the Rays' emergence has altered the division's balance of power, if not necessarily the rivalry. Boston goes into today's series opener 15-14, 6½ games behind division-leading Tampa Bay and five back of second-place New York.

"Yankees-Red Sox is going to be Yankees-Red Sox regardless," says former Boston outfielder Coco Crisp, now with the Oakland Athletics, "but the Rays have brought somewhat of an isosceles triangle to the mix."

Two very familiar foes

Most of the longtime participants reject the notion that Yankees-Red Sox might have diminished in importance or fervor.

"We try to treat all of the games the same, but with those guys, it's just different," says catcher Jason Varitek, who joined the Red Sox in 1998. "The history. The intensity. ... With the Yankees, it's just a different feel."

However, the clubs have finished within six games of each other in the standings once in the last four years. And their last regular-season game that decided the division was in 2005, when they each had a 95-67 record. But New York won the title because of its superior head-to-head mark. Boston earned the wild-card spot.

In addition, the unbalanced schedule adopted in 2001 increased their season series from 12 or 13 games to 18 or 19.

"With the schedule now, it seems like we play them every other day. So you see more of them," says shortstop Derek Jeter, a Yankee since 1995. "Other than that, it's the same. I don't think the rivalry's changed because it's the fans who bring the atmosphere."

But at least one new Yankee anticipated a rougher reception when the teams opened the season last month in Boston. Outfielder Curtis Granderson, acquired in an offseason trade with the Detroit Tigers, was used to heated battles with the Cleveland Indians, an AL Central opponent also from a Rust Belt city.

He figured the competition between baseball's biggest spenders would be even more fierce, but he found the vibe no different from when he played at Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium as a Tiger.

"To and from the ballpark, I guess I expected a little more — people recognizing the team coming in, out there to shout this or shout that," says Granderson, now on the disabled list with a groin strain. "But it could be partly because those were the first games of the season."

Some players say the bragging is limited to the fans and doesn't carry over to the field.

"It's like a boxing match. The boxers don't hate each other. It's all the hype around them trying to sell the fight," says Philadelphia Phillies reliever J.C. Romero, a member of the Red Sox for two months in 2007. "There's a rivalry to win the division, but that's the same thing the Mets and Phillies have."

Members of the Yankees and Red Sox acknowledge their rivalry is fueled by the news media's wall-to-wall coverage, which comes at the expense of other stories and feuds.

"We kind of thrive on it," A's second baseman Mark Ellis says of the attention given to the Red Sox-Yankees series. "If nobody knows who we are, we couldn't care less. As long as we're on TV in October, that's good enough for us."

And San Francisco Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff, formerly of the Rays and Baltimore Orioles, says he thinks those clubs — perennial losers when he played for them — also got short shrift.

"When the Red Sox and Yankees played each other, it was like a whole 30-minute special on Baseball Tonight and then just clips for everybody else," Huff says. "I think sometimes we didn't even make the show."

Certainly, the broadcast networks benefit from the interest the Yankees and Red Sox generate, whether it's created artificially or not.

Since 2003, ESPN ratings for their games have been at least 50% higher than for all of its MLB games, sometimes almost twice as high.

In a USA TODAY/Gallup poll conducted Monday among 358 respondents who described themselves as baseball fans, the Yankees and Red Sox finished 1-2 among AL clubs in both the categories of teams fans love to root for (16% and 11%, respectively) and love to hate (31% and 12%). The poll had a maximum margin of error of 7%.

University of Nevada-Reno history professor Richard Davies, author of the recently published book Rivals! The Ten Greatest American Sports Rivalries of the 20th Century, ranks the Yankees-Red Sox in his top three.

"The 24-hour news cycle, the talk radio shows, the several ESPN channels, all those people are desperate for something to talk about, and they beat these rivalries to death — and people listen," Davies says.

Game lengths scrutinized

Does the ardent competition account for their seemingly interminable games? Maybe in part.

The first three games this year, in which the Yankees won two, lasted 3:46, 3:48 and 3:21, with the latter one going 10 innings. Both teams stress the value of hitters working counts, but that doesn't totally explain why their nine-inning games last year averaged 3:30, compared with the league standard of 2:52.

Earlier this season, veteran umpire Joe West decried the teams' slow pace, calling it "pathetic and embarrassing."

Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon says he doesn't understand the concern. Then again, he was fined last season for throwing excessive pitches in the bullpen after being summoned to the game, then tore up the letter of discipline in front of reporters.

"Have you ever gone to watch a movie and thought, 'Man, this movie is so good, I wish it would have never ended,' " Papelbon told reporters after West's comments. "That's like a Red Sox-Yankees game. Why would you want it to end? ... If you don't want to be there, don't be there."

Says Huff: "I remember playing in Toronto, and we started at the same time, 7:05. ... We were done, eating spread, watching their game, and it was in the bottom of the fifth."

Jeter and catcher Jorge Posada are among the Yankees who blame the long games on television, pointing out that nationally broadcast games include 45 minutes of commercials. They're not totally off the mark, but the difference between commercial breaks for local TV (2 minutes, 5 seconds per half inning) and the networks (2:25) adds less than a minute an inning.

In the last two seasons, Yankees-Red Sox games on ESPN averaged 19 minutes longer than other ESPN games. In 2007, that figure was 44 minutes.

Posada, who visited the mound to confer with pitcher CC Sabathia eight times in one inning during the 2009 World Series, says the game's pace shouldn't be legislated.

"You can't tell me you're going to limit the amount of times I can go talk to a pitcher about strategy, whether he doesn't know the signs," he says. "You can't limit matters related to the game."

In which case, Yankees-Red Sox games figure to go on as slow, drawn-out affairs, which they think is just fine.

"The last I checked, fans weren't complaining," Jeter says. "TV stations aren't complaining. They always put us on."