Tag Archives: yankees

Baseball

Must There Only Be One?

The question weighing on every Mets fan’s mind for the past week: Who to root for in the World Series? And if that question didn’t weigh on your mind, I’m sure you’ve met a Yankee or Phillie fan who was more than happy to lob the question at you until you pleaded for mercy.

Maybe the real question is, Do I have to root for anyone? Can’t I just watch the World Series in the hopes of seeing some exciting games? I watch football games all the time that I have zero rooting interest in, and enjoy myself quite a bit if the game is good. Can’t I just do that with the World Series?

Unfortunately, the answer is no, for two reasons: 1) This is already touted as a battle between two “evenly-matched teams”, which virtually guarantees that one team will slaughter the other. It’s always a five-game series where one team ekes out a win in, like, game 3, while the victor destroys the other team 10-3 in every other game.

Reason number 2: It’s the Yankees vs. the Phillies. No matter who a Mets fan roots for, it will be bad. If the Yankees win, they’ll have to hear it from their fans about how they easily dispatched the team that’s tortured the Mets the last three seasons. If the Phillies win, their fans might finally achieve the arrogance and entitlement of Boston fans, while retaining their traditional anger and penchant for mayhem, a deadly combo.

So can you root for one team to lose? No, you can’t. Because whoever loses will still have made it to the World Series. Losing in the World Series is not humbling, unless you blow a big lead or have totally disastrous meltdown a la Bill Buckner. In other words, even the loser can lord that fact over the Mets. And if you actively root for the team that wins and rejoice in their victory, you’ll need to shower for a week to wash the shame from your soul.

This is like Alien vs. Predator: no matter who wins, we lose. Or like a situation Tom Scharpling once called “the reverse Highlander”: must there only be one? Or, please let there be just one.

The Unanswerable Question raised its ugly head as I watched game 6 of the ALCS with my extended family. Most of them are Mets fans of varying degrees of fanaticism, but there are few Yankees fans in the mix as well–particularly an uncle who’s loved to torture my mom about the Mets’ woes. So when the Angels went down in order in the ninth, the ball had barely left Mariano Rivera’s hand before this uncle asked me and my brothers and cousins who we would root for.

Our initial response was, begrudgingly, the Yankees. Now that Roger Clemens is long gone and disgraced, I don’t hate anyone on the team, whereas the Phillies have several players I can not stand (exhibit A: Shane Victorino, an obnoxious, hypocritical punk who’d hit about 7 homers a year in any other ballpark and any other lineup). I know a lot of Yankees fans who are decent human beings and who will be happy if they win. The pain that the Phillies have inflicted on the Mets in the past few years is much more fresh and cutting than anything the Yankees done. And when the Phillies won last year, even during their championship parade, they wouldn’t shut up about the Mets, as if the only reason they won the World Series was because it might hurt the Mets’ feelings.

Yes, my first thought was that I could imagine myself quietly rooting for the Yankees in this situation. And then I saw this in today’s New York Post:

nypost_102709.jpg I have a hard time deciding which is worse: the front or the back cover. And yes, I realize this is coming from the Post, not the Yankees themselves. But it’s indicative of certain type of Yankee fan and organization arrogance, dismissiveness, and flat-out ignorance of anything outside of the Yankee Universe

Let’s start with the front cover. And let’s ignore the bad Photoshop job on Cheerleader Victorino. And I’ll try to forget the fact that I hate Victorino for a moment. The Phillies are the defending world champs. They’re a really good team. They beat the Yankees two out of three at the Stadium earlier this year. It’s really dumb and childish to write them off as if they’re nothing, just because they’re from Philly, and to think that they’ll wither and die under the MAJESTY and the AURA of the New York spotlight.

Not to mention the caveman sexual politics behind depicting someone in a skirt to imply that they’re weak. Because women wear skirts and they’re so weak and fragile and can’t drive! And don’t get me started on my mother-in-law!

Peep some of these idiotic quotes from the accompanying article, entitled “Their fans are second rate & so is their city”:

Yankee fans have a message for the Phillies and their hometown: This ain’t Rocky, and the underdog won’t win!

Are the Phillies the underdog? Maybe, but not by a huge margin. I think anyone with half a baseball mind knows that the Phillies are a strong team up and down. The bullpen has regressed (or Brad Lidge has, anyway), but their starting pitching and lineup is actually better than it was last year. A good chunk of Yankee fans wouldn’t know that, because they’re are about as familiar with the NL as they are with self-restraint and perspective.

“Philly fans are a bunch of whiners and should learn how to dress[, said a fan] “They should try reading GQ.”

This has to be the first time a sports fan has insulted other sports fans by suggesting they pick up an issue of a high class fashion magazine. “Those mooks down in Philly don’t even know how exfoliate! Yo, try pickin’ up some skin products from the fine people Aveda some time!”

And don’t even try to compare the iconic House That Ruth Built with the long-gone Veterans Stadium.

You mean the iconic House That Steinbrenner Tore Down so he could bully the city into building a new billion-dollar Yankee Stadium on public land? Or are you referring to the iconic NYY Steak/House of Blues/Johnnie Walker Pavilion with the baseball diamond in the middle of it?

Of course, the article is filled with fans talking shit about Philadelphia and saying how it can’t compare to New York. You will not find a more pro-NYC person than yours truly, but thumping your chest about the greatness of your city is lame at best, bullying at worst. If New York is truly as great as you think it is, you shouldn’t have to put down other places to prove it.

But if anything can top the idiocy and short-sightedness of the Post’s front cover, it’s the back cover. The Yankees wanna win one for The Boss? Really?

Here’s how George A. King III starts his article that rests upon this thesis:

The Boss has lost something off a Hall of Fame fastball, but that doesn’t mean the need to win has been sucked from his marrow.

There are quotes from Derek Jeter, Reggie Jackson, Brian Cashman, and the Steinbrenner sons, all insisting that winning this World Series would “mean a lot” to the ailing Boss.

You won’t see buttons attached to the pinstriped uniforms that read, “Win One For The Boss,” but there is a feeling in the organization that it would be a nice touch to give the 79-year-old Steinbrenner another title.

Sure, the Yankees have won six World Series under his ownership already, but that’s small potatoes. Ring number seven, that’s the real special one.

Winning a World Series would be “a nice touch”. Yankee fans, wanna know why everyone hates you? Peep that statement. It’s like an entire organization of those rich assholes from the Lexus commercials.

Look, I know that Alzheimer’s is terrible. I’ve had family members suffer from it. I don’t wish it on my worst enemy. The Wife and I have already said that if either one of us gets it, the other one is morally obligated to push them in front of a moving bus.

But the fact that George Steinbrenner suffers from it now shouldn’t make us forget the fact that, before he was banned from baseball in the early 90s, he was an insufferable prick. The fact that he ruined the franchise. Yankees fans literally cheered when he was banned–at Yankee Stadium. And after his reinstatement, he was only slightly less intolerable. I understand not wanting to speak ill of someone who’s sick, but this goes beyond that into the realm of historic revisionism.

So who am I rooting for? The meteor, the earthquake, the last-minute union job-stoppage, or the month-long rainstorm that would wipe out any hope of a World Series this year.

Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship

Decrees for My All Encompassing Dictatorship: No More Mystique

yankee_stadiums.jpgThis morning, my day was immediately dampened (as it often is) by WCBS Radio. The first words I consciously heard–seriously, the first words–came from the sports update. The announcer (whose name escapes me, but I know it wasn’t the usual guy, Jared Max) says, “I guess the aura and mystique followed the Yankees over to the new stadium.” That’s when I ran off to the bathroom to vomit.

What mystique are we talking about? The mystique of being able to blow everyone else out of the water with their deals for CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Mark Teixeira? Or the mystique of making a new stadium with short porches and wind streams, so high pop ups by Derek Jeter plop into the left field stands for home runs? Or the mystique of playing against an emotionally and physically drained opponent with less than 1/3 your payroll and who’s also missing their second best slugger?

Look, I don’t hate the Yankees. Honestly, I don’t. Not the team. It’s pointless to hate them. Living in New York, hating the Yankees is like hating pigeons. They’re everywhere and they ain’t going away, so deal with it or move.

What I do hate is the holier-than-thou bullshit the team wraps itself in–or which writers/commentators wrap them in when they can’t think of anything else to write about. As if spiritual superiority and unflagging patriotism is the key to their success, and having more cash than God squared has nothing to do with it.

I don’t begrudge the Yankees having so much dough. I do begrudge them perpetuating the myth that their success comes from The Land of The Great Baseball Beyond on a chariot led by Babe Ruth and Joltin’ Joe. And that they have their own channel which propagates this myth 24/7.

The fact that the Yankees are able to buy any free agent they want, and the fact that there’s not a true level playing field in baseball the way there is in other sports–that’s Bud Selig’s fault, not the Yankees’. They’re just taking advantage of a dysfunctional system. I have no right to bitch about that when the Mets have benefited from the same system (at least in the “signing players” department, if not the whole “winning games” thing).

So just own it. Yankees fans won’t care, and everyone else is going to dislike you anyway. And sportswriters, stop bending over backwards to shoehorn this mystical nonsense into your dumb pieces. Just say, “They’ve got a shitload of money and they spent it on awesome players.”

The “mystique” angle is especially galling when you consider that the Yankees just built a billion dollar monument to themselves and left The House that Ruth Built to rot across the street. You can’t have it both ways. Either you stay in the old Yankee Stadium and revel in history and tradition, or you move to the new one and get padded seats and your own steakhouse. Sorry, but you don’t get to invoke ghosts when you abandoned the place they used to play in. Unless you’re talking about the ghosts of the Hard Rock Cafe.

My decree is that any sportswriter who now mentions “ghosts”, “aura”, “mystique”, or any other variant thereof in connection with the new Yankee Stadium will be sentenced to covering the Washington Nationals from July through September.

I have spoken.

Baseball

For Yankee Fans, the Long Drought Is Finally Over

new_yankee_stadium.jpgNEW YORK–Yankee fans nationwide rejoiced Tuesday, as their team finally emerged from the wilderness and ended their playoff drought. The Bronx Bombers hadn’t made the playoffs since 2007, a staggering lapse that tried the patience of even the most die-hard loyalist.

“Today is all about the fans, after all we’ve been through,” said Brad Dunphy of Toms River, 26, one of the hundreds of fans who celebrated the occasion at the Hard Rock Cafe in the new Yankee Stadium. “We went almost two years without making the playoffs. You realize Bush was still president back then? I don’t think Obama had even been born yet.”

“Two years. That’s like, 104 weeks,” chimed in Brad’s friend Pat Sullivan of Yonkers, 25. “Think about this: Back then, I was really into Rush. Now, I’m kinda over them. That’s how long ago that is. Crazy.”

Dunphy concurred, “Dude totally used to be into Rush.”

“I got a real good feeling about this team,” Sullivan said. “I think they could go all the way. This has gotta be one of my favorite Yankee teams ever, and I’m a fan from way back, all the way to 1996.”

“We stuck with this team through thick and thin,” Dunphy added. “Like last year, when they were just an okay team. And those first couple of weeks this season, when A-Rod was hurt and Teixeira couldn’t hit for shit, and I called up WFAN and said Girardi and Cashman should be fired.”

After last night’s 6-5 win in Anaheim, Derek Jeter praised Yankees fans for their loyalty. “They’ve always been there to support us, in both the good times and the slightly-less-good times,” the shortstop said.

Not everyone in New York was elated, however. For instance, Frank Lopez, 29, a Red Sox fan from Washington Heights. He was “dragged” to the Stadium by Yankee fan friends, and was not in a celebretory mood.

“These people don’t know about suffering,” Lopez tsked. “You wanna talk about suffering? How about the Sox? They went all of 2006 without making the playoffs! That’s even longer ago than 2007! Some people got no perspective.”