As often happens when the Yankees make a long post-season run filled with exciting games that keep me wound up for hours after they end - especially when every game in the postseason seems like a classic, regardless of who played - I've come down with a lousy cold which - coupled with the same pressures that have killed blogging this month - have prevented me from venting about this year's frustrating loss to the Marlins. (I still have trouble comprehending that the Marlins are World Champions, and not just due to illness.)
Though I've promised many undelivered things, I am working on a lo-o-ong post about the State of the Yankees that will be worth the wait. I promise.
For now, I'll just say that this loss feels - to this Yankee fan - much worse than the one in 2001. The parallels to 1964 or 1981 are pretty scary.
And some of us who were eight years old in 1981, for whom Bob Lemon's pinch-hitting for Tommy John in Game 6 is the first managerial move we remember second-guessing, are very annoyed at the constant assertions by non-Yankee fans that we fans feel "entitled" to win or that we "don't appreciate" anything short of ultimate triumph. Like most Yankee-bashing, those sentiments are based on ignorance and jealousy. The truth is exactly the opposite. We remember how easy expectations of continued success can be transformed into despair, Hemingway-style - "gradually and then suddenly." We remember the decade whose high moments were the 1980s "treadmill" (see the 1988 Baseball Abstract), whose frantic attempts to get back to the championship level led to the low moments, a paranoia-fueled frenzy of Chuck Carys and Mel Halls. We see how hard it can be to get back to the championship level once the team has slipped off it - our friends in Boston are glad to remind us if we ever forget. And when the team returned to excellence in 1993, we promised ourselves that we would appreciate every triumph and achievement. It is the prospect of losing those moments - and who knows for how long? - that drives the Yankee fans crazy.
A little bit.
Seriously, congratulations to the Marlins (if only they had a different owner - more below on that); they were an awesome story and played very well. And even the poor, misbegotten Yankees had a great season to get to Game 6 of the World Series, for goodness' sakes.
It is just hard for a Yankee fan to not feel like an opportunity was missed, and who knows when the next one will come?
P.S. Bud Selig handing the trophy to Jeffrey Loria must have represented the greatest concentration of baseball malevolence since Charles Comiskey dined alone.
But I'm not bitter or anything.
UPDATE: In the New Republic, Spencer Ackerman has similar thoughts regarding an editorial by the NYT which endorsed a Cubs-Red Sox World Series:
[L]et me disabuse Yankee haters like Hartford resident Chad MacDonald, who was quoted in the Times as saying that Yankee fans simply "expect to win." That's not true. Yankee fans like myself had our fandom shaped by the miserable drought years of 1980 to 1995, when not even first-rate talents like Don Mattingly, Willie Randolph, Dave Winfield, and Dave Righetti could rescue the team from bitter loss after bitter loss. On the bus to my Canarsie elementary school in 1986, I remember watching formerly stalwart Yankee fans doing the Tim Teuffel Shuffle in the hope that the Mets would win the World Series. Even during the Yankee renaissance that began in 1996, the victories have always felt precarious (well, maybe not in 1998). It might surprise the Times to learn that today's Yankee fans have a sense of tragedy to go with the triumphalism. Maybe the Times will pay some attention next season.
Comments
Dr. Manhattan, I have been waiting for this post for almost a week. Let me outline why this loss was not a surprise or shock, and as Mrs. Manhattan said at a Clifford read along last Sunday that you were beyond distraught over the loss and I said you shouldn't be for the following reasons that we have seen all year and you should have seen too b/c they were all over the season:
1) No clutch hitting
2) No working of the count
3) Terrible defense
4) No relief pitching
5) No Guts for players to play a little hurt (Giambi)
6) No blocking of home plate b/c of the value of body (Posada)
7) Questionable managing all series long
8) No small ball to manufacture runs
9) Forgot how to play NL baseball
10) Always looking for the HR first
11) Jeff Weaver
12) Jeff Weaver
13) Jeff Weaver
14) Jeff Weaver
15) Joe Torre for pitching Jeff Weaver
All year they had problems and flaws with the above so to me it was no shock that they lost.
The Kicker is that they lost to the Friggin Florida Marlins. If there is 1 team I hate with a passion it's this bunch of .....
Jeff Loria and David Samson(team Preisdent and resident mascot) have to be the 2 biggest criminals and hoodlums that MLB has allowed to own a franchise after DESTROYING another. When they buried Montreal, whuch they only bought to try and get into another team they fleeced their minor league system, down to stealing computers and thousands of scouting reports and documents. To see David Samson first, when they won the NLCS wearing a uniform and hat with a bottle of champagne almost made me sick and puke, and to see him and "Jeffrey" getiing the trophy after the game made my stomacj turn in every which way, and it's my wife whose in her 9 month not me.
The Marlins & their FANS are so undeserving of the victory it's a farce. And now Loria said that the team will commit $270 million (which is MLB's probably b/c they were paid off by MLB when they got rid of the Expos) to a new stadium but it has to be signed and in place before the season. So they are now blackmailing the good citizens of Miami for their cash cow.
My brother, a die hard Expos fan who hates the Yankees, were talking about someone who was at David Cone's Perfect game against the expos at Yankee stadium and is still having nightmares about the game, even had on a Yankee hat for the series b/c he couldn't bear the thought of Loria winning. As the ball trickled to up the first base line and the tag was made my brother quickly hit teh off button and went to sleep to live yet another nightmare.
I remain.
Posted by: Jay Halick | October 31, 2003 9:42 AM
Nice JFK reference, Doc.
Posted by: Eric Jablow | October 31, 2003 3:57 PM
Frankly, those of us who were Mets fans in the Joe Torre Malaise Era (1977-81) had, if anything, even more contempt for those people who jumped from Yankee to Mets fans in the mid-80s.
Posted by: Crank | November 3, 2003 11:12 PM
Jay is absolutely right, although I have to confess annoyance at the constant goating of Jeff Weaver. Weaver is NOT the reason we lost this series. The game Weaver blew would have been one if Bernie or Boone had gotten a hit or a freaking fly ball respectively. So for god's sake stop putting it all on Weaver. Let me repeat: CLUTCH HITTING!
Thank you. As for Dr. M's assertion that this was worse than 2001, well hell no. You've got to be kidding me my good Yankee friend. 2001 was outs away, and it included 2 amazing comeback games. 2001 was incredibly painful that I busted my portable radio.
I was AT Game 6 this year folks and I can tell you not one of the people in the LF bleachers were really that bummed. The Yankees are destiny's team, WS they lost in the past, they played in 38 and won 26 of those 38, prior to this year. That's 12 losses, no 13..
So? I grew up with Mattingly as a hero. I know that it sucked, but man, stop making it sound like the Yankees are a team with a past of anguish. We who grew up in that era now know what it was like to be our fathers and grandfathers.
That is the way I prefer to look at it. And we will be back next year, and the year following.
Donnie Baseball is back, the spirit has returned since Paully, Tino, Brosiu have left. We have that missing link, even if its on the sidelines. Torre tires but he'll give us what we need for another year or 2.
Keep your chins up high Yankees fans. It may have sucked this year, but you got on the right train, the ONLY train in Baseball town when you were *born* a Yankee fan.
We are baseball!
Posted by: Ben Noah | November 6, 2003 12:27 AM
Yeah, well you bastard foreigners make me sick.
Oh, you mean the Yankees, baseball team?
Okay, I'm with you, right or wrong.
Posted by: m | November 12, 2003 9:33 PM
it was not the year for the yanks.
Posted by: MISS EXISTENTIALIST | November 16, 2003 3:57 PM
The other side of the coin:
In the interest of rekindling and nurturing interest in the sport of baseball, and putting Loria's past sins aside, this year's Florida Marlins have vindicated the rape and murder of baseball in South Florida by completing a miraculous season with a World Series Championship. The actions of the original Marlins owner at the end of the 1997 season left Miami fans disillusioned with the entire sport. Why do you think the yearly attendance by Marlins fans has been so miserable?
What better way for the Marlins to heal old wounds and reclaim their fan base than to beat the most successful team in baseball history, in the house that Ruth built, for the World Series championship ? David has indeed beaten Goliath. The Marlins have won another chance for South Florida kids and families longing to regain their enthusiasm for baseball. Attendance should pick up significantly this coming season.
As for a new stadium, the Marlins are long overdue. Don't blame Miamians for not wanting to foot any part of the bill to build a stadium for a team stripped of it's glory in 1997. Would you? *These* Marlins certainly deserve a home of their own, to begin buliding their own legacy.
Finally, it was the Marlins *players* who earned and won this championship with sweat, LOTS OF HEART, and a little bit of luck. Don't short-change the incredible effort and achievement by the players because of resentment for their owner. Give credit where it's due ...
A rejuvinated Marlins fan.
P.S. Although not winning a championship hurts, with the kind of success the Yankees have enjoyed in their glorious history, I would not be disheartened by this season. The Yankees are NOT the Red Sox, and they are NOT the Cubs; they are THE YANKEES!
Posted by: Dr. Sneeze | November 16, 2003 6:32 PM
"The Yankees are NOT the Red Sox, and they are NOT the Cubs; they are THE YANKEES!"
No kidding. That's why I think your WS win was a pimple on the arse of a century of Yankee legacy.
Not that I'm a typical arrogant Yankees fan or anything ;)
Posted by: Ben Noah | December 4, 2003 2:25 PM
Some commenters have mentioned clutch hitting. in the long run, hitters perform about as well in the clutch as they do in all situations. I have research on this posted at
http://hometown.aol.com/cyrilmorong/myhomepage/clutch.htm
Cyril Morong
Posted by: Cyril Morong | December 19, 2003 12:11 PM