DAVID M. SHRIBMAN ON PITTSBURGH VS. BOSTON, ONE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN RIVALRIES

Friendly rivalries don’t get much better than the one between Pittsburgh and Boston

They both have a north shore. They both have fine universities. They both have rabid sports fans. They both have a quarterback out-of-towners love to deride. They both have a team in the AFC championship game Sunday at Foxborough.

My two hometowns — Boston, where I was reared, and Pittsburgh, where I have lived for 14 years — are at it again. Tom Brady vs. Ben Roethlisberger. Dion Lewis vs. Le’Veon Bell. Julian Edelman vs. Antonio Brown. Bill Belichick vs. Mike Tomlin.

A collision for the ages. A trip to the Super Bowl at stake. A cultural clash: MIT versus Carnegie Mellon. Mass General versus UPMC. Clam chowda at Legal’s versus chicken pastina soup at Legends. A city that, as former Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld would put it, had money (all those inherited Adams, Cabot, Lowell and Peabody fortunes) vs. a city that made money (all those Carnegie and Frick steel mills profiting from industrialization and wartime weapons spending).

These two cities begin the baseball season this year in April — the Pirates are at Fenway for Opening Day — but their rivalry is decades old. Pittsburgh and Boston played in the first World Series (Boston won, five games to three). Boston was the seventhbiggest city a century ago, Pittsburgh the ninth. Boston is the most successful sports city in the last half-century, Pittsburgh is second. But Pittsburgh unloaded Dick Stuart on Boston, which went on to witness feats of baseball fielding ineptitude never since equaled.

Yet they share so much. The architect Henry Hobson Richardson, who left his mark on both cities. The historian David McCullough, who was born in Pittsburgh and lives in Massachusetts and who restored John Adams to his rightful place in history. Babe Parilli, who grew up near Pittsburgh, quarterbacked the Patriots and was quarterback coach for the Steelers. Don Schwall, who was American League rookie of the year for the Red Sox and later pitched for the Pirates.

‘‘Neither has the big-city feel,’’ Mr. Schwall said in a conversation last week. ‘‘They both seem very local. I loved Boston — oh, my God, it was a great place. But so is Pittsburgh. The one difference is that Pittsburghers have a hard-nosed personality that Boston didn’t have.’’

Legend and literature link Boston and Phildelphia, a tie cemented by E. Digby Baltzell’s 1979 classic, ‘‘Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia: Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership.’’ But, in truth, the Pennsylvania city that best resembles Boston lies 300 miles west, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio.

Pittsburgh and Boston: Both have early spring marathons. Both have ports where epic American events took place (the Boston Tea Party; the beginning of the Lewis and Clark expedition). Both run Democratic, registering strong majorities this past November for Hillary Clinton. Both were stubborn redoubts of Federalism as the country changed in the early 19th century, sticking with the old party and its doomed nominee, Rufus King, in the James Monroe landslide exactly 200 years ago. The newspaper where I work today was described as the ‘‘lone outpost of Federalism in the West.’’

Both have signature American sandwiches (the lobster roll of Boston, and Pittburgh’s Primanti Brothers concoction of meat, coleslaw and a mass of fries stuffed between pieces of doughy white bread). Plus this, now that we’ve mentioned Baltzell: Both loathe Philadelphia, which sided with Monroe in that 1816 election.

But Boston is reserved, Pittsburgh exuberant. Boston flexes its muscles, Pittsburgh builds its muscles. Boston cultivates an urbane sophistication, Pittsburgh luxuriates in informality.

‘‘These are two classic American cities,’’ says Eddie Johnston, who played goalie for the Bruins and had two stints as coach of the Penguins. ‘‘Any athlete who has the chance to play in either Pittsburgh or Boston should be happy. They should be more than happy — they should feel blessed.’’ My guess is that Eddie is rooting for the Steelers. I am, too.

David M. Shribman is executive editor of the Post-Gazette (dshribman@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1890). This column also appears in The Boston Globe.