Edgar Renteria and David Ortiz are two key reasons why the Red Sox are pulling away from the pack in the ultra-competitive AL East. Fast friends off the baseball diamond, the two stars have been embroiled in a game within the game that has lasted the entire season — including the spring — with no clear end in sight.

It all started on the fourth day of the spring training. During a set of routine yet boring stretching drills, Renteria jokingly challenged Ortiz to fill his right cheek with sunflower seeds and shell ten of them in less than 30 seconds. When Ortiz fulfilled the task without any trouble, he re-challenged Renteria that he couldn’t do it himself. However, Renteria shelled the ten seeds in 30 seconds flat and with that, the contest was on.

“After a few days of these friendly challenges, we decided to make it interesting”, recalls Ortiz. “We decided on a full game of H-O-R-S-E, with the loser giving the winner one thousand dollars, a week’s worth of room service on the road, and the Herbie Hancock box set.” “We’re both big Herbie fans”, adds Renteria. “I think we both want that box set even more than the other stuff!”

On the face of it, the slim, light-hitting shortstop and the robust, power-hitting DH/first baseman couldn’t be any less alike. Despite their vastly different skill sets between the foul lines, they found themselves well-matched when it came to H-O-R-S-E. Try as they might, they remained tied by the end of spring training, with each man scoring just a single “H”. Both players expected it to be a spring distraction, but once Opening Day arrived with no clear winner, they felt they had to continue on until a victor was declared. They assured manager Terry Francona that the competition wouldn’t affect their on-field performance, and true to their word, it hasn’t, with both Ortiz and Renteria turning in excellent seasons thus far.

After his devastating loss in Challenge Twenty Six aka the Soufflé Battle on May 17, Ortiz found himself with “H-O-R” versus Renteria’s “H”. After twenty minutes in the oven, Ortiz’s soufflé collapsed while Renteria’s emerged light, fluffy, and delicious. A couple of weeks later in St. Louis, Renteria scored yet another victory in Challenge Thirty Eight (June 7) that put a stranglehold on his place in the competition. Ten minutes before game time, each man drank two liters of Gatorade, the object being to last five innings without visiting the restroom. “This particular challenge had been on my mind for weeks”, says Renteria, “but I needed to wait until interleague play began because I knew Papi would have to play defense. Sitting on the bench while we were in the field would have given him an unfair advantage.” Beaming, he cracks a smile. “I knew he wouldn’t last.” Indeed, Renteria’s prediction proved to be correct. By the third inning, Ortiz wasn’t able to stand up straight for more than ten seconds at a time. He finally broke the seal at the end of the third, while Renteria calmly lasted through the fifth to send Ortiz into a massive hole with “H-O-R-S”.

However, it wasn’t the first time that Ortiz had found himself down by three and needing four wins to secure the final victory (just ask the 2004 Yankees). During Challenge Sixty Five on July 28, he pulled to within one of a frustrated Renteria after a spirited all-night Yahtzee session. The task, which was to score over 200 points in twenty-five consecutive games, was completed by Ortiz whereas Renteria fell short by just two games after a grueling five hour Yahtzee marathon.

Always the cerebral assassin, Renteria had an ace up his sleeve. “We played a great game against Baltimore on June 2”, he relates, “where I bunted to set up Papi’s game-winning three run homer. Of course, we were overjoyed, but our roles were predictable in that game. I knew that the time would eventually come when I had the chance to win a game with a three run homer and when that happened, the tables would be turned and that Herbie Hancock box set would be mine”.

Sure enough, Renteria got his chance this past Sunday against the Angels. He had just two words for Ortiz as he left the on-deck circle in the eighth inning — “it’s on”. With those words, Challenge Seventy Eight began. Understanding the task at hand, Ortiz briefly buried his head in his hands, sighed, and approached the on-deck circle for the best view in the house with which to take in the unfolding drama. “I wasn’t worried”, states Ortiz, “because he still had to hit the homer, and he hadn’t hit a homer in forever. If he struck out, then I wouldn’t have to bunt and could live to fight another day.” But Renteria rose to the occasion, doing his part to reverse June 2 by smacking a towering three run shot off of Paul Byrd. It was his first home run in 199 at-bats and staked the Red Sox to a 3-0 lead. As he crossed the plate, he wasn’t just stomping on the plate to score the Red Sox’s third run — he was stomping on Ortiz’s throat. Ortiz had to bunt for a single or else the five month game of H-O-R-S-E was over.

“Of course I was nervous”, says Ortiz. “I still can’t believe he hit that ball out.” Fortunately for Ortiz, the Angels reorganized their defense and put on a radical shift, expecting him to try to pull the ball. This left a gaping hole on the entire left side of the infield. Still, Ortiz hadn’t been asked to bunt since his days playing for the Minnesota Twins. He couldn’t possibly pull this off, could he?

Guess again. To the astonishment of the Angels, millions watching on TV, the entire Red Sox dugout, and a horrified Edgar Renteria, Big Papi plopped a perfect bunt onto the infield grass. Byrd and catcher Bengie Molina moved toward the ball, but it was too far away from them and they had no chance for a play. Third baseman Chone Figgins, playing in the shortstop position because of the shift, was the only Angels infielder with a shot at Ortiz, but the bunt was so perfect that even the slow-as-supercooled-molasses Ortiz was able to beat it out without a throw. Standing on the bag, he smiled at first base coach Lynn Jones and paused for breath. Glancing toward the Red Sox dugout, he could see Renteria weeping miserably and slamming his fists against the dugout wall. This game of H-O-R-S-E wasn’t over yet.

“He got lucky with that bunt”, groans Renteria. “I’m still leading him by one, so I’m not worried. Mark my words, he’ll be begging me to burn him a copy of that box set.”

Naturally, Ortiz disagrees. “I know I can come back and win” he says, speaking through an ear-to-ear grin that hasn’t left his face since the weekend. “This bunt was my toughest challenge yet, so if I can get through that, I can get through anything. He can’t beat me, and he knows it.”