Missing My Yankees

I'm not a perfect baseball fan. A perfect baseball fan never leaves their seat early, whether that seat is in a stadium or in their house. A perfect baseball fan watches games until the very last play. I am not perfect. However, I am a true baseball fan. And on nights like these, my true colors come out.

Tonight the Yankees played Game 4 of a series against the Cleveland Indians. They haven't lost yet as I'm writing this, but they just look awful. It has me reminiscing instead of watching.

There was a time when I was closer to a perfect fan. In 1996, I watched the New York Yankees win the World Series after losing the first two games at home against the defending champion Atlanta Braves. I watched in utter contempt as Andruw Jones became the youngest player ever to hit a home run in a World Series. I watched the Braves manhandle the Yankees, Yankees who I had just begun to call my Yankees. Then I watched my Yankees claw back in Atlanta, beating the team that every kid around me in school pulled for on their home field, including Jim Leyritz's home run in game 5 that may have been the best moment of my young baseball life.

That series was pure victory. That was a team with no superstars. The final ball wasn't caught by $250 million Alex Rodriguez, but Charlie Hayes. The final pitch wasn't thrown by $4 million per month Roger Clemens but by John Wetteland. The catcher that jumped into his arms wasn't Yogi Berra but Joe Girardi. This is the stuff that championships are made of. Those were my Yankees.

Several of my Yankees are still around. Jorge Posada is my Yankee. Mariano Rivera is my Yankee. Derek Jeter is every Yankee fan's Yankee. He represents not only the skill and talent of my Yankees but the class and poise as well. Two of the moments when I felt proudest to be a Yankee fan involved Derek Jeter's. The first was during the regular season last year in a June classic against Boston when he ran down a ball in foul territory from forty yards away and went crashing head-first into the stands. My Yankees lay out to get their catches. My Yankees bleed when necessary.

My second moment however, happened off the field. This past June, when the Yankees were 12 games behind Boston in the A.L. East and it looked as if Derek Jeter was destined to spend his first October in the big leagues sitting at home, a reporter asked him in an interview, "What are you going to do? What's the solution?" He looked upset at the question. He looked frustrated. His answer was forceful and clear, "We're going to keep playing. What do you expect us to do? Do you expect us to pack it up and forfeit the rest of the season? We're going to keep on fighting every single game." That is class. Some players point fingers, some OWNERS point fingers, but Derek Jeter makes a promise he can keep. Derek Jeter was a Yankee from the moment he swung a bat. Derek Jeter is a true champion. Derek Jeter is one of my Yankees.

And guess what, folks: Joe Torre is my skipper. You can say what you want to say about the Yankees, but Joe Torre is untouchable. He has defined success in a city that will cut you down if you're not successful. He not only won 4 championships with the Yankees and has NEVER MISSED THE POSTSEASON AS A MANAGER, but he also taught some of the raw talent on the Yankees how to handle the New York press; what it means to wear pinstripes.

The '96 team. The '98 team. The '99 team. The teams that won because players like Tino Martinez became unstoppable in the postseason. The teams that would get two men on in the bottom of the 8th and leave their fates in the hands of Paul O'Neil, their sinewy and self-critical right fielder who would ALWAYS come through in the clutch. Those teams were my Yankees.

The 2007 Yankees are just...the Yankees. They are what everyone accuses them of being: bought, passionless, distracted and rich. They are not my Yankees, they are truly George Steinbrenner's Yankees. Each of these players are working for a boss who is completely inept as to the true needs of his team, but is so desperate to lay the blame elsewhere that he would fire one of the truest champions currently in pinstripes. He would fire Joe Torre despite the fact that the Yankee manager led his team to the postseason for the 11th STRAIGHT YEAR by leapfrogging 10 separate teams to win the Wild Card.

Why can't the Yankees win? The answers are easy to come by. They have no bullpen. They have an inconsistent starting rotation. They have a player who is worth more money than some franchises that is simply unable to hit after September 30th. What the Yankees truly lack, however, and what distinguishes them from my Yankees is that they have no passion. Passion wins championships.

My father tells the story of a pair of UNC football fans that had been sitting in front of us for 5 years at the Carolina football games. At one point in a particularly futile game against Furman, the old man stood up slowly with his alumni association sweater and an almost sarcastic "Beat Furman" pin, beckoned to his white-haired wife with a Carolina blue bow in her hair and declared to the crowd "Well, we don't usually give up on them...but they have...so we will." They never came back. A true fan can sense when their team is deflated. The air feels heavy even if the team is hundreds of miles away. The anger wells inside you as your team taps lazy fly balls into the outfield. A true fan can feel it when their team is no longer playing the game.

I haven't ever truly understood that feeling until tonight. I am not ready to pack up my Yankee gear. It's too big a part of who I am, and I would feel incomplete without it. However, I am beginning to wonder if the Yankees will ever again truly be my Yankees.