FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) – The Yankees are just two hours up the road, but nowhere in sight.

Neither are commemorative pins selling for $5.67 or T-shirts reading, “Hey Yankees. Who’s Your Daddy now?” Those were visible the last two years during much-hyped exhibition games at the Red Sox spring training home field.

This spring training, the rivals don’t meet there at all and only face each other once, Wednesday in Tampa, after meeting twice in each of the past two exhibition seasons.

Once the regular season starts, though, the intensity should pick up, at least by May 1 when they meet for the first time, at Fenway Park. Last year, New York and Boston already had faced each other six times by April 14.

“I think it’d be nice to have kind of a calm, easy introduction to the season and let us get our feet wet for a month,” Boston pitcher Bronson Arroyo said, “and then once we hit that rivalry, I know it’s going to be right back to where it was.”

It is the biggest rivalry in baseball – the team that bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox versus the team that won its first World Series in 86 years after beating the Yankees in the AL championship series in 2004.

Before that season, the Yankees obtained Alex Rodriguez from Texas after the Red Sox tried to trade for him. The pins were sold at A-Rod’s first exhibition game in Fort Myers. Before this season, the Yankees struck again, signing former Red Sox center fielder and fan favorite Johnny Damon.

If fans are lucky, they should be able to see Damon in pinstripes. He’s had tendinitis in his shoulder, so it’s not known if he’ll play, but he is due to return in time for Wednesday’s game after playing for the United States in the World Baseball Classic.

“If I make the trip, it’ll just be the same,” Boston right fielder Trot Nixon said. “I’ll go up and give him a hug if he’s there and say hello’ to him and see how he’s doing, but then just get what I need done on the field.”

Last year, the Yankees and Red Sox both were 95-67, but New York won the AL East in a tiebreaker. Boston got the wild-card berth, then was swept in a three-game AL division series by the Chicago White Sox.

The Yankees also lost in the division series to the Los Angeles Angels and the vastly improved White Sox went on to win the World Series.

Now an AL East team has made some moves to get better. The Toronto Blue Jays could even turn the division into a three-team race and, perhaps, diminish the rivalry.

“I look at it the same way we looked at it every year,” Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina said. “Everybody can have a good year. Anybody can challenge for the division in any given year. But the rivalry’s still the Yankees and the Red Sox.”

Kevin Youkilis has played only 116 games for Boston and will get his first full taste of the rivalry this season as its regular first baseman.

“You’re never going to diminish that rivalry,” he said. “There’s no team that can overlap, even if the Red Sox were in last place and the Yankees were in first place or vice versa.”

Still, this year’s schedule doesn’t provide the same drama as last year.

The Yankees held a one-game lead over the Red Sox going into their season-ending three-game series at Fenway Park. Boston won the first game but New York clinched the division by winning the second. The Red Sox won the finale but lost the tiebreaker.

One more win would have won the division for Boston so, Youkilis said, “The way I look at it, every game counts just as much as the Yankees.”

This season, their last series is at Yankee Stadium, three games from Sept. 15 to 17. The Red Sox have 12 games after that. They also have 25 games this season before playing the Yankees.

“I don’t know if it was the exact right thing to do to start the year off with em last year,” Mussina said. “So, let us play some baseball and see where we are and get into it a little bit and then we’ll go out and get into some games with the Red Sox.”

Said Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi: “The fans really love it. The media loves it. A lot of history there, a lot of big games.”

Boston manager Terry Francona’s first regular-season game as Red Sox manager against the Yankees was hard on him back in 2004.

“I couldn’t sit still. I was so nervous. It was exciting,” he said. “I’ve been in the game a long time, but I was bouncing around.

“I tried my first year to downplay the Yankees. You can’t do it. It’s off the charts.”