Talkin' Baseball

Tonight I sit back and watch at least the first six orr seven innings of THE game. Although, if Pedro and the Phillies fall more than three runs behind early on, I'll probably chug my beer and head for bed with a book in hand.

It's not that I'm a Phillies Phan, anything but. No, I'm a die hard anti-Yankees Fan. I thought Damn Yankees was a documentary. I discovered baseball fandom in 1962 when the Mets were born. Prior to that date, I didn't have a baseball team. Born in 1949, I could have been a Dodgers or Giants fan, but those teams had left NYC in 1957, about the time would have been getting into baseball. Living in northern New Jersey, the only team on radio or TV and in the newspapers day in and day out from 1958 through 1961 were those damn, insufferable, Yankees.

Oh, individual Yankee players were fine. I liked Yogi (really, who didn't!) and enjoyed the M & M boys (Maris and Mantle for those who need to ask) and their great year of 1961. Elston Howard, Whitey Ford, Boyer...each was an excellent player and had tremendous skills that were, well, admirable. It was the Yankee TEAM that I couldn't stand. Never did like bullies and that's what they seemed to be to me. They beat everyone!

They still do. What is it up to now? Forty (40) American League titles, 26 World Series Championships? Something like that. Pretty obscene for a team that came to NYC in 1903 as the Highlanders. (The name was changed to Yankees in 1913.) One hundred six years and they've got nearly 40% of the American League titles. Between 1949 and 1964 the freakin' Yankees were in the World Series 14 times! That's 14 times in 16 years! AND they won five in a row between 1949 and 1954.

It still gets my goat that so much was made of the Yankees return to the World Series after an absence of nine years. Cry me a freakin' river!

I still hate the Phillies. But for tonight--and hopefully tomorrow night, I'll be rooting for them like crazy.