Thursday, November 5, 2009

It's Been 9 Long Years.... WHAT?!

So, Last night I had the displeasure of watching the Yankees win the 2009 World Series. For the fifth time in my life, the baseball season ended with the Yankees on top, and I saw it live, on TV.

OK, I'll admit: in 1996, I was a fan. They were playing the braves, and in my young age, I was a bisexual baseball fan - the Yankees and the Mets. Plus, this was back when the Mets were unwatchable.

By 1998, my age had hit double digits - I was a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and the Mets were becoming legitimate, with the acquisition of Mike Piazza.
I was totally hoping the surprise underdogs, the Padres, would pull it off. Led by Tony Gwynn, the NL representative posted no threat, and got swept.

In 1999 the Yankees were again playing the Braves, so I was silently rooting for team NY.

Then, in 2000, the turn of the millennium, the amazing happened: the Mets were in the World Series! However, so were the Yankees.

That fall was an interesting time; everyone in the tri-state area seemed to be rooting for both New York teams. Everyone wanted to see the Subway World Series, the Mets VS the Yankees for the championship. Well, while the rest of the country was too busy trying not to barf, baseball's pockets were treated with an all-New York World Series.

I wanted so much for the Mets to win, for three umbrella reasons:

1 ~ They were my team, and I wanted to see them win.

2 ~ I hated the Yankees, and I wanted to see them lose.

3 ~ I wanted to shut up all of my Yankee friends and classmates.

Game One: Benitez blew the save in the bottom of the 9th, and the Mets bullpen lost it in extras.

Game Two: Clemens throws the broken bat piece at Mike Piazza (it still blows my mind how he was not thrown out of the game at that point - completely deliberate). The Mets posted 5 runs in the ninth, but came up one short and again lost by one run.

Game Three: The Series turning to Shea, the Mets get the win by breaking the tie-score in the
bottom of the 8th. They're back in this series! Right?!

Game Four: Mets lose a one-run game, to go down in the series 3-1.

Game Five: The Yankees scored two runs in the top of the ninth to break the tie-game, and won the World Series.

Although the 2000 World Series showed the Yankees winning 4 games, and the Mets only taking one - every game was extremely close. The Mets had a genuine chance to win each and every one of those games; and if it wasn't for Benitez and the rest of their bullpen blowing games late, they really could've won it.

It broke my thirteen-year-old heart. We'll just have to get 'em next year, right?

Yeah, sure.

In 2001, I was so strongly rooting for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Nevermind that I happened to somehow get Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling as my two top starting pitchers in Fantasy Baseball (yippee!) and had enjoyed watching them dominate all year (except for whent hey played the Mets, of course), I really wanted - no, I needed them to beat the Yankees.


Without getting in to description, we all now know how they came back and beat the Yankees in possibly one of the most exciting World Series finishes in a long while (1997, Marlins beat the Cleveland Indians in an extra-innings walk-off game-7-winning hit, but - who was watching? Honestly?)

I remember watching the series on my couch with my family, painfully watching as the Yankees swept the middle three games in New York as B.H. Kim, who had a pretty impressive season as Arizona's closer after Matt Mantei was lost the rest of the season due to injury, blew it. My dad was rooting for Rivera and the Yankees to win game 7, I was praying it went the other way.

Luis Gonzalez gets the game-winning hit off Rivera, the expansion-team from Arizona wins the World Series, and most importantly, to me, the Yankees did not.

In 2003, I was happy to see the where-did-they-come-from Marlins, led by Josh Beckett, beat the Yankees in the World Series [this, of course, after the ALCS Game 7 debacle that saw the Red Sox losing a sure thing, which I really don't need to get in to]. I was happy to see all the snotty self-entitled Yankee fans that I called friends feel some semblance of heartbreak that I endured in 2000.

Over the next handful of years, whether it was the Angels or the Red Sox, I was happy to see that
the Yankees didn't reach the World Series. I will refrain from the 2006 NLCS as, well, it's still just too painful to re-live. And the Mets have never been the same since.

Plus that is not the point of what I would like to say here.

2009 - the Yankees VS the defending World Series Champion, and NL-East champs, Philadelphia Phillies. As the big debate arised of who would Mets fans be rooting for? - the Yankees or the Phillies, I chose the Phillies.

How could you root for the Phillies? The Mets' rival? It's New York VS Philly, baby! I would do a lot of things before I would EVER root for the Phillies. We, as Met fans, HATE them! It's New York baby!

I couldn't agree any less with the above sentiments. Until 2007, when did Mets fans hate the Phillies? Sure, they're division rivals, but as one of my friends pointed out to me, it never really mattered. Either the Mets were too awful to care about their rivals, or the Phillies were a complete non-factor. I grew up despising the Atlanta Braves, they were the absolute devil. The Phillies were like the Montreal Expos, a complete non-factor in the world of Mets' rivals.

The Mets sucking, or blowing it two years in a row - yeah, it was painful. EXTREMELY painful. Luckily for me in 2007, I was in London for the fall... as the Mets lost game after game, it wasn't hard to ignore the reality of their downfall, being five time zones away from New York.


It wasn't so much the Phillies defeating the Mets, it was the Mets defeating the Mets. 2008 was more of the same. And yay, this year, everyone and their mother in a Mets jersey decided to get injured, as the Mets had a positively atrocious 162-game season.

It had nothing to do with the Phillies beating the Mets. Sure, I don't like them. I'd rather see the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies hold the record for worst single-record in baseball history than the 1962 inaugural New York Mets holding that distinction with 120 losses, to 42 wins.

But I have no hatred for the city of Philadelphia, or their fans. I never look at baseball as the CITY OF NEW YORK versus THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA.

There is, however, one team in baseball that I do despise, and that feeling will never change or leave me: the New York Yankees.

Despite my father's plea that It's New York! How could you root for Philadelphia against New York? You're a New Yorker.

First of all, in my life-time, where is the significant New York - Philadelphia rivalry? The only Philly team that I really ever hated was the Eagles, as a Giants fan. Before the Phillies won the World
Series, no Philadelphia sports team had won a championship since the 76ers won the NBA Finals in '83, four years before I was born.

If being a New Yorker means rooting for the Yankees because they're in the World Series and the Mets are not, then I suppose I'm not a New Yorker.

New York City, baby!, right? Wrong. Even though one team plays in the Bronx, and the other plays in Queens, people talk about these teams representing "the greatest city in the world" - New York City. I always thought that was a joke - with a hockey team out in Uniondale, Long Island... two football teams in East Rutherford, NJ - and the Bronx and Queens baseball teams, I always assumed the "New York" to mean New York state, not New York City.

I'm from Seaford, Long Island, a 55 minute train ride from Penn Station. I am NOT from New York City, nor have I ever claimed to be. Especially after a recent road trip, where I saw cities all over the country, the small chance that I was going to stay in New York, or at least the NorthEast, is all but kaput!

Aside from my sport team allegiances, I have no attachment to New York. If I had it my way, I'd be on the other edge of the country by next week, and I wouldn't care about leaving Good Ol' New York behind.


Yes, I am from the state of New York; but I don't live in Manhattan, therefore, I suppose I'm not a New Yorker. What the hell does it matter? I don't care.

Okay, I'm sure by now you get the point: I see no reason to root for the Yankees based on the New York VS Philadelphia argument.

I refuse to every root for the Yankees because I hate everything they stand for, and mostly, I hate their fans. Their sense of self-entitlement is what drives me crazy.

I once had a conversation with a Yankees fan, where they said the following line to me: The Yankees are bigger than baseball.

I thought my head was about to explode. I couldn't believe what I heard. When I told that little story to another person, their response was: Well, it's true. The Yankees are bigger than the game of baseball.

That was it for me. I could not believe what I had just heard.

The "typical Yankee fan," not that I need to get in to a long description, permeates a large
percentage of the Yankee fans that I know, see, and come across.

For nine years, when I wore Mets jerseys, I heard some jerk-off yell "26, baby!" at me from across the street. Congratulations Tony, or Johnny, or Junior, whoever you are. How many did you win? And why do I care about how many titles your team won in the 20s and 50s? Whoop-dee-freakin-doo.

The Mets became a team in 1962, and won the World Series just seven years later in '69. In 1986 the Mets pulled off a classic win against the Red Sox and, nine months later, I was born [Yes, I've come to the realization that I was a Mets celebration baby = I owe my very existance to the Mets, and their World Series victory in late October 1986].

Though I found it hilarious, it was no big surprise to me last night to see once the Yankees World Series Championship was complete, how many facebook status updates were IMMEDIATELY posted, and dedicated to the Yankees winning number 27.

I found it fairly rediculous that when the Yankees won the World Series, how many people made it their proiority to update their facebook status. Though, I suppose that reflects more on the state of technology, and my generation and where people place their priorities, rather than it reflects on Yankees fans.


But what some of those posts said just blew my mind. Aside from the massive amounts of references to 27, which just makes me nauseus, I saw a rediculous amount of this, which is what made me dumbfounded:

"it's been too long..."
"It's been way too long! Champs once again
"
"FINALLY! Champs again!"
"YANKEES ARE WORLD SERIES CHAMPSSS ONCE AGAIN!!!!!"

"I'VE WAITED 9 YEARS FOR THIS MOMENT!!!!!!!! AND ITS FINALLY HERE. 27."


Are you kidding me?

One of my friends said to me last night that if the Mets had won the World Series, I'd be doing the same thing, in regards to the facebook status updates. I was SO HAPPY she said this, because it allowed me the opportunity to unload on one of my Yankee-fan-friends with some fan reality. When she said that I'd be doing the same thing, my response was - "That is false, ______. If the Mets won the World Series, I would be no where near my computer, or my house... I would be out, with many many other people enjoying and celebrating."


I went on facebook to check the status updates that would surely innundate my newsfeed, because I was sure (again, like I said earlier - this doesn't say so much about Yankee fans as it does the state of my generation and the role that technology plays in today's society) people were sitting by their computers, with their line already typed out, wating for Teixera to make that catch at first base so they could click "Share" to share to the world, and to their fellow Yankee-fan-friends that they're Yankee fans, and that they're happy about the World Series win.
And as I said to my friend, I can assure you that if the Mets were in World Series and in a game-clinching situation, I would most certainly not be sitting at my computer, or with my cellphone clicked to facebook in my hand. Updating my "status" would be the farthest thing from my mind. I would not be home, or at my computer, I would not be alone, sitting on my couch - I would be OUT, with friends, with fellow fans, celebrating in a sure-to-be parade atmosphere. Buthey, maybe that's just me and my silly Met-affiliation mindset. I would thoroughly enjoy and treasure a Mets victory, because I understand, through 22 years of athletic infertility, how much a championship would mean.

Along with hearing the fan comments on news shows and reports last night, and this morning, you'd think it was the Cubs that just won the world series after a cuntury-long drought.
But no, it was the New York Yankees winning number 27.

The sense of self-entitlement is what gets me. They truly believe, far beyond that they have a great chance to win the World Series every year,a nd that they are favorites every year, because those are, unforunately, facts... but what gets me is they feel that they deserve it.

Back on the throne where we belong, the championship is back in its rightful city. Are you kidding me?

I actually watched some interviewee who was 125 pounds overweight (irrelevant? yes. funny? double yes) stuck in the driver-seat of his car, saying into the microphone that "this one was different, this one was for the fans. the fans who never gave up on the team, and who'se stuck with them all this time."

All this time? Nine LONG years?! Are you kidding me, people? Have some sense of reality, get down from your high horse, and feel free to celebrate all you want, as a fant hat's your right and privilege... but still remain a respectable member of society, please. Is that too much to ask? Hearing and reading too many people saying the most rediculous things. Think of all the cities who host long-tenured sports teams who haven't seen a championship since before World War II... people who can only say that their grandparents remember their team winning a championship.

In 2004 when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, it was after an 87 year drought. Their last title came in 1918. Being in New York, I heard one side of the argument on who has "worse" fans, New York or Boston? Try enduring decades upon decades of letdown, and having your team leave you short of the ultimate prize for your entire life. Young people whose parents, neigh their grandparents, couldn't say that they saw a Championship title in their lifetime.

The Cubs last won in 1908. Can a Yankee fan even fathom what that must be like? I suppose the better question is, would they even care? No, they wouldn't care.

Because they're Yankee fans, baby.

27, baby.

The greatest city(? what?) in the world, baby.

If I'm supposed to be happy, because I'm a New Yorker; then strip me of my New-Yorkership. I don't care about the stigma of being a New Yawkah. In fact, I'd rather not be a part of it. There's a reason why other people hate New Yorkers, and you know what? I agreee with it. I'm not especially proud to call myself a New Yorker, for the sake of being a New Yorker.

I'm not from NYC, I'm from Long Island.. and that's been enough to deal with without trying to find off being a New Yorker.

If being a New Yorker means a blind allegiance to the Yankees, then no, I'm not a New Yorker.

Nine long years? Finally? Really? Psh...