NEW YORK -- This story starts with a Sharpie. A boy from Cohasset, Mass., standing inside Fenway Park on a family tour, pressed against the right-field foul pole and scrawling a defiant message: Yankees Rule!

Ben Rice laughs now at the memory, having called it “one of the very few, if any” examples of pro-Yankees messages hiding on the Pesky Pole . Yet that moment foreshadowed something greater.

The Ivy League kid who once wore a Derek Jeter pinstriped jersey for his first-grade picture day has grown into one of the Bombers’ most important October bats, ready to swing in an American League Wild Card Series showdown against the franchise he grew up needling.

“It’s a good team, and obviously it’s such a historic rivalry,” Rice said. “It’ll be a fun series to be a part of, and we’re

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