Sunday, October 02, 2005
The Showdown In Beantown
My father has said the above roughly 746 times in the last 72 hours (though he's been conspicuously silent following the Yankees clinch of the AL East), completely pleased with his originality. He's likened the Yankees/Red Sox series to the Super Bowl, while I've compared it to the 72 hour flu, as I was be sick to my stomach for most of it. Damn fragile nerves!
The Yankees/Red Sox rivalry is epic in my family. Epic. My father has long and complex ties to the Red Sox (I'm sorry, I can't type out "Red Sox Nation" without dying a little inside), while my mother was raised by a deeply devoted Yankees fan who named his daughter, my aunt, Jodi, as in Joe Dimaggio. I suppose that, since I inherited neat handwriting and extreme anal retentive tendencies from the man, it was only natural to inherit his baseball fanaticism as well. For my father, my decision to root for the Yankees was heart wrenching and he has spent the better part of my 22 year actively campaigning for me to switch allegiances, attempting to use the fact that I was born in Boston as cosmic proof that I should root for the Red Sox, believing that the eleven days I lived there for somehow trumps the rest of my life spent in New York. I don't know. He also thinks that Bernie Williams longs to star in the remake of A League of their Own because he didn't participate in a brawl once. Sense is not something highly valued as far as my family is concerned and, apparently, neither is cleverness.
Needless to say, this series was not good for the heart, soul or state of the family. It was ugly following the Yankees loss on Friday and I wound up in tears after an argument over whether or not the way Manny Ramirez watches his homeruns is annoying (I vote yes; my father votes "You don't cry when Gary Sheffield does it, dumbass), and there was a very chilly, cordial detente yesterday during the postgame show when Joe Torre started to cry and I followed his lead.
Had I seen a celebration like this before? Yes, sure, 8 years in a row. But this year was different because the Yankees...well, were wretched for a lot of it, from their 11-19 opening record to the heinous 17-1 losses to the Red Sox to the fact that the Devil Rays were their Kryptonite. But they managed, due in no small part to Shawn Chacon (who?), Aaron Small (???!!!?!), a monster year from Mariano Rivera and the continued success of Derek Jeter. So when Joe Torre teared up, I did, too.
The thing about liking the Yankees is that you get it from all sides. The way that the Red Sox fans regard you is obvious, but you get the same treatment from Blue Jays fans, people in Oregon who don't like baseball and Russian school children. It's an all too familiar mix of terror and revulsion similar, I'm assuming, to the look that you'd get if you admitted to kitten murder. There are multiple books written about how, why and when the Yankees suck, referring to the Yankees as "the evil empire" is commonplace and you know, you'd think I'd be used to it by now and just let it roll off of my shoulders, perhaps with a "Y'all just jealous!", but I don't, and I always get sort of hurt, which is silly, because I'm not on the Yankees, none of them are members of my family and it is just a game but I can't help it.
When I first started to follow baseball, the Yankees were dreadful, except for the shining beacon of light known as Don Mattingly. Such a phenomenal player and, I gather, person that it actually hurts my heart that he doesn't have a World Series ring. But I dutifully watched games and read box scores, and then the magical year of 1996 arrived with a manager the press deemed "Clueless Joe" and a rookie shortstop and, oddly, the pieces all started to fall together, and from 1996 on, they made their way to the playoffs, won three fall classics in a row and it was just such an amazing time to be a Yankee fan, you know? Because for all of the press the Yankees get about buying championships and sacrificing baby elephants to win, the core of the team was a mix of farm grown players (Jeter, Rivera, Williams, Pettitte, Posada) and players who weren't the biggest superstars, but were solid (Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez, O'Neill). And they all seemed to care about each other and have fun and, above all, respect Joe Torre and not act like entitled assholes, and they carried on the tradition of Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and the rest. Not to mention the most adorable cheerleader in the history of ever!
Have I always been happy about things the team has done? Um, no. Despite his returning to the team this year, I'm still upset over the way Tino Martinez was shafted in favor of the sweaty, large headed Jason Giambi. I dislike Gary Sheffield on principle, due to my strict "No assholes" standards and somebody with so little regard for the idea of a team qualifies there. Do I need to start on Kevin Brown and the acquisitions of Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano? Didn't think so. And remember Chuck Knoblauch, and his uncanny ability to throw the ball into the stands? Good times, good times.
I've tried to explain the above when asked to justify my love, and am usually met with one of three response:
"You're a frontrunner. It's easy to like a team when they have the highest payroll ever"
"Someone else needs to win for a change"
"Roger Clemens is fat"
While I happily concede that last point, I have to say that I've never bought into the payroll theory. I think that, as a major league team owner, you have the capability to finance a winning team and if you don't want to do that, you get a losing team (Big ups to Vince Naimoli). Besides, not every team with a high payroll advances to the postseason. So, to channel the spirit of every Maury guest ever, "You don't know my life!" Letting another team win for a change? What does that even mean? Come on, people, use your heads and don't be foolish.
I personally don't root against a team, though I guess it's easy to say that from up atop my high horse (I do, however, root against players, early and often, so baseball is one more pasttime that encourages the growth of my rampant misanthropy), so I don't fully understand the hatred, and I don't enjoy it, but I've come to accept it, if not welcome it. You choose a team when you're young and, if you have any dignity and character whatsoever, you stick with that team through thick and thin. I've seen the glorious ups of two perfect games and four championships, and I've seen the ugly lows of the Giambi steroid scandal and the unprecedented choke in last year's ALCS. And I still love this damn team.
This year encapsulated all of that. There were nights that I went to bed wanting to pull my hair out because the loss was so brutal--there was that dreadful road trip where I was on suicide watch--there were nights that I wanted to cry because the win was just so beautiful--Aaron Small leaving the field to the tune of "It's A Small World"--to the ones that just made my head hurt, like that bizarre 13 run 8th inning against the Devil Rays back in June. They weren't on autopilot this year like they had been in years past. They spent time in the basement of the AL East, rumors swirled about Joe Torre being fired and as recently as September 10th, they were 4 games behind the Red Sox and they sealed the deal yesterday with Randy Johnson proving that he wasn't entirely useless after all.
So as we look out to the west and the formidable Vlad, Colon and Chone Figgins, who we can never get out, and on behalf of CLC, I say that we can do it and take the Angels down. As the captain says...
The playoffs are so exciting. I hopehopehope that the Red Sox lose today and the Indians win, because a)I loathe Curt Schilling and ♥ Grady Sizemore, for starters and b)I want a one game playoff so damn badly, and the best type of high pressure games are the ones that have nothing to do with me.
October baseball, is there anything better? At the risk of sounding trite...I live for this.
Mallory at 10/02/2005 01:25:00 PM
2 Comments
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at 2:49 PM
CLC said... Your eloquent discourse on your love for 'dem Yanks, makes me cry (in a good "I am moved" sort of way). Then again, most things baseball (esp post-season related) do.
As one of those folks who is not part of the RSN (I can't write it out either) but who does freely bandy about the term "Evil Empire," I really want to be able to offer you some sort of comforting and salient explanation for the visceral reaction most people tend to have the Yankees (if they are not a Yankees fan). I am not sure that I can. I can however, offer you a few observations:
- The Yankees are much maligned for the payroll. And yes, it is huge and larger than the GDP of 36 3rd world nations, but the Red Sox are right up there as well. Why don't they get flack? The "we have been losers for nearly a century" kind of bought them some street cred last year, but now? Know that, at least here on the West Coast, everyone is just as sick of the Sox as they are of the Yankees. So there is something.
- I, personally, have spent a great deal of time maligning the Yankees for being old. Mostly because it makes the bazillions spent on the payroll seem even more ridiculous (e.g. the examples you mentioned - Johnson, Brown, etc.). The guys who saved their season this year were guys they took a chance on (e.g. Chacon, Small, Wong) and probably the only Yankees players who individually don't make more than the U.S. Senate. HOWEVER, I duly acknowledge that this is probably just a result of my taking out my frustrations with other more local situations (i.e. the ridiculousness of the Giants' starting 9 plus manager having a clear recollection of playing for Pharoah Tut Ankh Amen, and their resultantly hideous record, but the local media still paying them more attention to a certain more exciting team across the Bay).
- My personal Yankees issue is this: My last BF of 4 years was a Jersey native and a rabid Yankees fan. The 4 years in which we dated coincided with several choice playoff meetings b/t the Yankees and the A's (all of which I either watched with him or during which he kept calling me via speed dial). There were many things that contributed to the demise of our relationship, but I would have to say that the incessant cackling and rhythmless victory dancing around the room upon the A's repeated meltdowns ("Slide Jeremy, slide...damnit!"; "Gil Heredia...agh!)) were a big catalyst.
- All of the above being said, and I don't know that it was saying much, the truth of the matter is, everyone loves to be haters. Being hated for your team affiliation is a privilege: If you weren't sitting atop of the heap, no one would hate you, and, okay, so that would create less antagonism from perfect strangers, and would make for greater familial harmony, but, well, it would suck. I am sure K.C. fans or Brewers fans (are those oxymorons) are well liked by everyone, but it is cold comfort come October (ah hell, it is cold comfort come May).
I wish people would hate me for my team affiliation, but at most (even when the team is doing ridiculously well) it simply generates quizzical looks: "There is another team in the Bay Area? Oh how cute..."
I think many of us forget the Yankees' dark days. And so we root against the successful behemoth, because we are jealous - of the payroll, of the willingness to do anything to win at all costs, of the media exposure, of the success - because we think the Yankees fans know no suffering, they have never "been there." They are the most successful and storied franchise in all of baseball, so you do always have the comfort of history on your side. But every season is a long season, it is its own story, involves its own multitude of joy and suffering. I think the entire world of baseball fandom certainly has a lot of respect for what they Yankees pulled off in this particular year. My god, they are mere mortals with feet of clay like the rest of us, and yet they still managed to pull it off - through sheer strength of will. You can't deny the inspirational power of that. More than anything I have to believe that true baseball fans are suckers for a good story, and this year, the Yankees have an especially compelling original story. So, as one of the sad little baseball play-off orphans still looking for a place to temporarily stick her allegiances, you have my support.
What everyone needs to remember is that when you live and breathe baseball, when the game is such a presence in your life that it is more a feeling than an outside event, you don't pick your team, it picks you. And - successful or heartbreaking as the team may be - it is a love affair that lasts a lifetime.-
at 2:34 AM
said... That was a beautiful, beautiful post. It made me think of my love for the Cardinals. I was practically raised on baseball--when the Cards won their last World Series in '82, my parents did a champagne toast, while one-year-old me, diaper-clad, looked on and smiled. (According to my mom, anyway.)
I started watching games with my dad as far back as I remember. I became a die-hard fan in 1987, when six-year-old me got swept up in World Series fever. I was envious when my folks went to a WS game and left me with my aunt, and I cried so hard when the Twins won the Series in seven games. Who knew that the Cards would not only NOT be coming back to the Fall Classic for another seventeen years after that, but would also get their asses handed to them by the Red Sox in a laughable four games? None of us did--though it was the biggest thrill to watch the Cards clinch the pennant at Busch last year. Oh my god--the adrenaline? Contagious.
Baseball fandom has even extended to my usually prim-and-proper grandma, who's been a fan before TV broadcasts became regular. When there's a game on, don't bother calling her. It's like most women with soaps.
I agree, Mal. I live for this. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll see Game 3 of the NLDS vs. the Padres, as it starts at 10 Central and I am seeing Sleater-Kinney and a midnight movie tomorrow night. But I'll try and listen to Drunk Mike Shannon in between.