An Open Letter To Yankee Fans
An open letter to Yankees fans:
By Dan McCarthy
dan@barstoolsports.com
Due to the Yankees' recent elimination, I think now is an appropriate time to put together something that has been brewing within me for some time: why I hate the Yankees. I'll clarify that I'm not really a fan of the Red Sox, so I wasn't required to hate them so violently - it just happened.
First off, let me say that the Yankee debate will never get resolved. If the Yankees lost every game from now until the Earth hurtles into the Sun, Yankee fans would continue to voice their opinion that the Yankees are the greatest team ever. Likewise, if God Himself parted the skies and specifically told us that, in His infinite wisdom, He had chosen to reincarnate Jesus as Derek Jeter, people who hate the Yankees would still continue to do so.
Let's just get this out of the way, though: By any measure, OF COURSE the Yankees are the greatest fucking team in the history of baseball. This is not up for argument. They have the most championships, they play in the capital of the world, and they have exhibited a remarkable level of consistent dominance over the last century. Also, I respect their players (with a few notable exceptions) immensely, and I think that Derek Jeter is one of the most clutch and professional players of our generation. And as for the charge that they buy their championships - heads up, Friedrich Engels, we live in a world of free enterprise. And to the Yankee fans: YES. THE REST OF US KNOW. WE ARE CONSTANTLY MADE AWARE OF THIS FACT VIA TELEVISION AND THE INTERNET. YOUR ADDITIONAL CLARIFICATION IS NOT NECESSARY.
Conversely, the biggest reason that Yankees fans are able to hold their own against people saying they suck is that, as with pretty much everything, the people who are the most vehement about their opinions are almost always ignorant and inarticulate. The vast majority of anti-Yankee arguments are immature and just end up sounding like the rantings of a jealous five-year-old ("Steinbrenner rich blah blah Paul O'Neill crybaby blah blah Jeter gay blah blah").
That said, the Yankee players do not suck. They are good. The Yankee front office does not suck. It is ruthlessly Machiavellian, and clearly it does its job well. However, the idea that is "the Yankees" still sucks incontrovertibly. The Yankees suck epically. They suck with the power of a thousand black holes for one reason:
The fans.
Dear Yankee fans-
You - not the Yankees - are the reason people hate the franchise. Look at yourselves. You sing "New York, New York" after every Yankees win. (For the record, I think "Sweet Caroline" is almost as atrocious a tradition.) You smugly venerate Jeffrey Maier for committing fan interference. One of you IS Jeffrey Maier.
You think simply by virtue of being born in one of the Five Boroughs - or by moving there, or visiting there once, or having a cousin there - that your sports allegiances are more important or historically credible than the rest of ours. The best way to describe this by analogy is like saying that because Robert Trujillo is now a part of Metallica, he is entitled to their legacy as a band. You treat Yankee pride like it was a racial birthright instead of something to be cultivated and respected.
You make everything concerning the Yankees a life-or-death matter of national importance. The fact that the Yankees happen to play in the heart of the media world makes their every tragedy a tooth-gnashing catastrophe and their every victory a celebration on par with V-J Day. The rest of us have to deal with an inordinate amount of Yankees news and highlights. Meanwhile, you remain blissfully ignorant of anything that takes place west of Jersey.
You revel in the fact that everyone hates you. 1% of the people who draw pride from the scorn of others turn out to be misunderstood geniuses who end up turning humanity in a new direction. Guess what the other 99% are.
You are the kings of bandwagons, and yet you ridicule others for their support for the teams that suck.
More than anything, being a Yankee fan has become a status symbol. It's a show of support for the city of New York and it's an easily adoptable sign of generic American tradition. It's not even about baseball anymore. Since Yankee playoff games appear on television more frequently than Tara Reid's rancid-pepperoni nipples, there's no competitive struggle or appreciation, so George Steinbrenner has to apologize to you even after winning his eleventh division title in five years. Even if victory isn't a given for you, you treat it as such. This is what we hate the most. We hate the fact that no matter how much you go through, you can never appreciate what we have gone through to support our teams. No pain you suffer will be our pain, and no pride or pleasure you feel will be on par with ours. You're like the privileged legacy brat who waxes poetic about feeling the pain of the homeless. And for the record, I'm fully aware that all this doesn't apply to all of you, but I'm also equally certain that exactly the people I'm talking about won't know it's really them. It has to be said.
So congratulations, Yankees fans. You have made one of the classiest and most dignified franchises in the history of professional sports an object of derision. Instead of polishing its sterling reputation, you chose to crow its greatness from the rafters. You are to sporting glory what Donald Trump is to tasteful wealth.
Because of you, I hate the Yankees. But I wouldn't hate them quite so much if professional sports took place in a vacuum. I'd get sick of them winning, but I wouldn't feel a borderline-sexual pleasure in seeing Mariano Rivera blow a save. I hate them by association, because every time I see them winning I imagine the entire state of New Jersey rising up out of its BarcaLounger and high-fiving Antnee across the room. I hate imagining Frank Sinatra spin in his grave like a diamond drill bit every time you bray that song. I hate the knowledge that you will draw pleasure from the fire burning within me.
More than three decades ago, Roger Angell described you as "overdressed, uncomprehending autumn arrivistes." To some extent I can't really blame you because you don't have to comprehend. You don't feel the need to step outside your insulated shell of Yankee greatness and experience the highs and lows (and yes, there are highs that don't end in a World Series victory) that come from rooting for other franchises. You'd rather just rub the highs in our faces. In some sense, people learn from both their successes and their failures, and a history filled only with successes just leaves you ignorant.
But as of last week, the Angels put another tick in the "failure" column. You're not past "uncomprehending" yet, but it's been five years and counting. Let me know when you're old enough to have children who can't remember when the Yankees last won the World Series. Then we'll talk. Until then? Fuck you.