Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Where are Yankees fans going?

Hey, Yankee fan. Where are you? Where is your head? Where are you when your team is in need?

I watched Games 3 and 4 of the American League Championship Series this week and in the late innings -- when you are generally at your best -- you were nowhere to be seen. I’ve seen fewer empty seats at an A’s midweek night game against the Royals in Oakland .

I never thought I’d ever see Yankees fans abandon their team in such droves. If I were you, I’d be embarrassed. I guess with 27 world championships you act like spoiled children when things don’t go your way. You go home. Early. Often.

Even when you had the lead in Game 5, you looked disinterested. I kept looking at the crowds at Yankee Stadium behind home plate and between the dugouts during television close-ups of hitters in the batter’s box and I couldn’t believe how many of you had your eyes down – looking at your iPhones and text messages – and not paying attention at all to the playoff game in front of you.

Of course, those people are not true Yankees fans. They’re big event fans, people who can afford to pay hundreds of dollars a game for those seats or get them handed to them by their corporation. Those people who would rather be seen than heard. They come with their crisp new Yankees caps and jerseys and root for the winners.

Those fans are losers. A true Yankees fan would know the last Yankees player, other than A-Rod, to be named the Most Valuable Player in the American League. You mean you don’t know?! Stumped?

It’s Don Mattingly or, as true Yankees fans know him, Donnie Baseball.

Oh, there are still a lot of those. True Yankees fans that stay to the end of the game because they want to be there to help the Yankees rally because they think they can make a difference in that rally standing and cheering for them. That’s the Yankees fans I’ve come to respect. The ones who stick with their team through thick and thin and multi-million dollar free agents. The ones who lean over the fence and turn a fly ball out into a home run and react like, `Whadda ya goin’ to do about it?”. The ones I hate so much.

I don’t hate you so much right now. I’m ashamed of you.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home