There have been myriad poignant moments, some of them quite startling even though they were officially orchestrated. Being Boston born and bred, the one that really got to me was when fans at Fenway Park, a bastion of anti-New York vitriol and the home of the “Yankees Suck!” chant, began singing ‘“New York, New York” in tribute to its archrival.
But there’s a new notion that’s floating around Boston and, I suspect, in other cities that are left without a team in Major League Baseball’s postseason fight. That predicament is hardly new in Boston, Philly, Chicago, Detroit and other great sports towns, where the traditional remedy, when unable to root, root, root for the home team, is to root against the Yankees or indeed any New York entry. (That’s one of the reasons last year’s World Series was such a ratings bust; once fans elsewhere confirmed there was no way both New York teams could lose, they tuned out.) But now I’m hearing normally sane sports fans insist that this year we should all be pulling for the Yankees, as some kind of gesture of solidarity and because another Yankees triumph would be a needed emotional balm for the devastated city.
The idea that we should transform ourselves for the moment into Yankee fans is, while well-intentioned, completely ludicrous. (As is the suggestion, floated by the mayor of Rome, that the rest of the world bidding to host the 2012 Olympics should stand aside and let New York take that prize.) Anyone who knows New Yorkers understands that the last thing they want is some kind of misguided sports pity, which is what the sudden allegiance of Red Sox or Phillies fans would be. Indeed they don’t want us auslanders, and they don’t need us. After all, they’ve done pretty well rooting for theirs–and against ours–on their own. I can only imagine the dread that the died-in-the-wool Yankee fan might feel upon learning that Red Sox fans were now in their corner. Wouldn’t he or she shudder at the possibility that the “curse of the Bambino” might just be transferable, just as the Babe himself once was?
Anyone who has lived in New York–and I did my time, four years in the early ’80s–understands that life in the city isn’t easy in the best of times. The daily, bruising combat of negotiating that overcrowded terrain creates a hearty, resilient breed, as has been demonstrated repeatedly in recent weeks. And it inevitably produces more than a hint of arrogance. After all, who would put up with what a New Yorker must endure if the city wasn’t truly special and thus worth it? Which partly explains why New Yorkers believe that most everything in their city is the absolute best, from the theater to the pastrami, from the bagels to the ballclub.
Sadly they are right about most of it (especially the pastrami and the bagels), including the Yankees. The Yankees are a team that, in the mode of their sainted manager, Joe Torre, go about their business with such quiet professionalism that, despite winning four World Series in five years, they are perennially underestimated. How does a team with that record manage to go into the postseason as an underdog–even before they lost the opener–to wild-card Oakland? And the Yankees will be an underdog again if they get past Oakland and are matched up with Seattle in the next round.
A few weeks ago, watching a Yankees game, I was stunned to hear a normally astute Fox commentator opine that the Yankees have created this dynasty despite having no true superstars. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he must have been thinking of slugging stars in the Bonds-Sosa mold. Because there’s got to be some reason that the Yankees payroll, at $143 million, is the highest in baseball and almost $100 million more than the Athletics. And that reason is superstars galore, including one first-ballot Hall of Famer in Roger Clemens and four other stalwarts, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and Mike Mussina, who will someday, at the very least, rate consideration for enshrinement at Cooperstown. As one of the Yankee devout conceded, “It ain’t exactly the Bad News Bears.”
No less a New Yorker and a Yankee fan than Mayor Rudy Giuliani has implored folks in New York and elsewhere to strive for as much of a semblance of normalcy as possible. Spend a buck, go to a show, visit the Big Apple on vacation was his sentiment. And, this week at a Carnegie Hall comedy benefit for the relief funds, the mayor said it’s mandatory to laugh and even all right now to boo. Let’s show some respect for His Honor. Any non-New York baseball fan with a shred of normalcy not to mention decency will root for Oakland and against the fat-cat New York team that has ruled baseball’s roost far too often. To do so isn’t disrespectful of the Sept. 11 victims. It’s not a slap in the face of the city’s brave rescue workers. It’s just us being ourselves again. Then if you still really want to help New York, write a check.
