They say familiarity breeds contempt.

There has been plenty of contempt between Boston and New York over the years, but baseball fans in each city are wondering if the two teams are getting too familiar with one another.

On Thursday, the Sox and Yankees played for the 10th time this season, and the 1,949th time since first they first met back in 1903.

Since the start of 2003, the Sox and Yanks have now played each other 81 times (including the post-season.) The results couldn’t be much closer – the Sox leading with a 41-40 record. The Sox have a 34-33 regular-season record, and a 7-7 record in the post-season

In that stretch, we’ve seen walk-off Game 7 homers (thanks for nothing, Aaron Boone), historical come-from-behind series wins (thanks, Dave Roberts), fights, balls slapped out of pitchers hands, each team celebrating in the other team’s park, marquee players switching sides and backup catchers being whisked through rush hour in the back of a state trooper’s car.

For several years now, I’ve said the rivalry couldn’t get any more intense. Somehow I’ve been proven wrong every year.

So where does it go from here? Two weeks ago, when New York came to Boston to start a three-game set, it was impossible not to notice that the old Sox/Yanks fire was lacking from the crowd. It got better as the series went along, but it wasn’t the same. Was it because the two teams were playing a mid-week series? Perhaps.

Perhaps you can have too much of a good thing. The 10 meetings between the 2006 editions of these teams have come in a 39-day stretch. That’s a lot of games in a short time – even for these so-called mortal enemies. Maybe Major League Baseball ought to spread these games out over the season. Three games a month, a test of wills before heading off to face other teams.

Tuesday night’s game was an absolute gem, despite the outcome. A 2-1 thriller that featured a game-saving catch by Melkey Cabrera and 6.2 solid innings from 22-year old David Pauley.

Maybe that’s part of it, too. We’ve watched players in Red Sox and Yankees uniforms go at it this week, but the games have been decided by the likes of Cabrera, Andy Phillips, Miguel Cairo, David Pauley, Rudy Seanez, and Josh Beckett. Guys who have hardly faced one another.

There’s a Web site, jumptheshark.com, that tries to track when a television series reaches its peak – the moment when a great ongoing storyline begins to go downhill. It’s an intriguing concept.

Has the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry “jumped the shark?” It’s hard to say. While the intensity seems to have dropped a bit, it wouldn’t take a lot to bring it back. After all, old-time Sox fans probably thought the series reached a climax 20 years ago when Carlton Fisk and Lou Pinella started a benches-clearing brawl for the ages.

This series has survived the test of time. It may be going through a bit of a dry spell as the two teams work through their injury problems, but each team knows the road to the playoffs goes through Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. With five games in four days this August in Boston, and four games in three days a month later in New York, there will be no lack of intensity with star players back in the lineup and a post-season spot on the line.

Lewiston native Tom Caron is the studio host for Red Sox telecasts on NESN.