Sunday night, coming off a pointlessly protracted border crossing that added an hour and a half to what’s already an eight-hour drive in the best-case scenario, I started stabbing the radio console in the car, looking for something — anything — to distract me from the night’s worth of tunnel-vision tedium I had in front of me. I couldn’t find anything but staticky football play-by-play for several dozen miles, but then, somewhere around Batavia, what should my wondering ears should appear but WFAN itself, so I listened to it all the way home.

And all the way home, the discussion centered around the Giants. I don’t follow football; I gather the Giants played horribly; I heard so many callers bitching and moaning about the secondary that I could probably do a reasonably convincing imitation of someone who knows what “the secondary” even is (I don’t) or why Jeremy Shockey’s blunt “we got out-coached” assessment became the lead story.

And that is a story I could have gotten behind, if I’d gotten to hear a discussion of why an uncanned response from a pro athlete these days is such a big hoop-dee-hoo and compared it to the “Giambi calls A-Rod out in SI situation,” which apparently has a few people suuuuuuper up in arms about Giambi’s hypocrisy — but no, I had to listen to hours of dudes calling in to tell the host that he owed Bears fans an apology, complaining that nobody talks about the Chargers, how come they sent Chris what’s-his-nuts back into the game with a ruptured spleen, all while the host is promising to talk about the National League postseason slate “in the next hour.” For three hours in a row.

Look, dude: the baseball postseason is nearly upon us. It starts in, like, a week. It is week three of football season. I know the football season is much shorter, I know the games don’t really “count” right now for New York teams because they both already clinched playoff berths, but…dude! Both teams in the postseason! Dogfights for the wild card in both leagues! I got home at 2:40 in the morning and the guy never said word one about baseball, except to emptily promise that he would talk about it later and to talk about how some guy named Val stood him up at Shea over the weekend. I don’t care about football either way, but it does bug me that, once the NFL gears up, it just takes over — do we have to waste time trying to predict the Jets’ playoff chances in September? There is baseball happening, muhfuckah!

…Says the woman who, for the next month, will veer away from a sidewalk conversation mid-sentence (hers or someone else’s) because she’s passing a bar with a big-screen TV and she wants to get an NL division score; who will put a picture of Tim McCarver on her front door, fastening it with a push-pin through the eye and seeing how long it takes her upstairs neighbor to Sharpie “DOUCHE” on his face; who will have baseball on in the bedroom, and reality TV on picture-in-picture in the living room with more baseball while refreshing the Yahoo Sports page; who will respond to the question “So, what’s new?” by telling a story that isn’t funny to anyone but her about the Death Is Not An Option: Managers game she played with Joe R on IM — hey, did you ever notice that Mattingly looks like Kurt Russell? Because I didn’t either until Joe pointed it ou– wait, you don’t know who Kurt Russell is? …You don’t know who Don Mattingly is?! Um. I have to…go. Do this thing. I just remembered. Yeah, see you later.

It’s the best time of year, bundling into a blazer and heading out for drinks, whoever’s already in front of the TV at the bar texting the others with scoring updates, or dashing from dinner to the corner pub during the commercial so as not to miss anything. So much is going on: the Rocket is retiring (again), the NL wild card isn’t settled yet, the Red Sox fell into the third yesterday, Godzilla and Gammons are back, and so is FOX’s gnat-like coverage. Page 2 is making the case for Frank Thomas as the best hitter ever. Fire Joe Morgan shirts just went on sale.

And it’s time for Yankee fans and their haters to square off. Bring it on, Pete McEntegart. No doubt you’ve got something we haven’t heard eight thousand times before…

“Yankees fans have a greater sense of entitlement that the Hilton girls. If, heaven forbid, the Yanks ever failed to make the playoffs, Bombers backers would view it as a sign of the apocalypse.”

I just don’t understand why the anti-Yankee columnists and radio hosts think this is a legitimate plank — that Yankee fans cannot accept anything less than a World Series ring or the season is a failure. First of all, this is not true of me or of any other Yankee fans I know. We just like the team, dude. And excuse me, but as if fans of other teams stand around all, “Well, we don’t need to win to be happy — I’m just glad nobody got killed on the field!”

When you root for a team, you root for it to win, dumb-ass. That’s what rooting is. Of course we want the Yanks to win the whole shooting match; Red Sox fans and Twins fans and Angels fans want the same thing. Are we supposed to adopt a “we’re just happy to be nominated” attitude solely so that you can feel better about yourself? Because…we’ve tried it, and it doesn’t appease you, ever. The only thing that would satisfy you is if the Yankees not only left town but went into a wormhole and ceased to exist both now and in the past.

“Arrogant Yankees fans.” Jesus. Like whiny martyrdom-addict Met fans are such a shiny fuckin’ prize. (Not all Met fans do this, obviously, so please don’t email me; I mean petty dick-measurers like this guy who can’t keep their eyes on their own papers.) If we’re really so worthless, why don’t you just ignore us instead of constantly trying to bait us all the damn time? Because we really don’t care, dude. The Mets have a great team this year; enjoy it. Quietly. Elsewhere.

McEntegart also hates “bandwagon Yankees fans,” or so he would have us believe: “Listen, chumps: I know more about ‘your’ team’s history than you ever will, so pipe down. And yes, there was a time not that long ago (1986, anyone?) when New York was a Mets town, and just because your fresh-from-Omaha mind can’t fathom that doesn’t make it untrue.”

Oh my hairy God. Actually, Pete, I know a fair bit more about the mid-eighties Mets than you ever will — starting with the fact that the ’86 team was at least as widely loathed as the Yankees of the last ten years. I feel you on the bandwagon thing, and I am guilty of it because Vince Coleman broke me and I’m woman enough to admit it, but dissing the plains states doesn’t give you any authority. It makes you a snob — with, might I add, a poor grasp of this city’s baseball culture. Get out from behind your desk and walk around sometime; better yet, use the internet to look up the Mets’ last pennant. Yeah: 2000. Seemed like a Mets town then, pretty much, jackass.

“Some Yankees fans, secure with the near certainty that their team is headed for the playoffs, will magnanimously ‘root’ for your team as well. (This doesn’t happen, though, if your team is the Red Sox.) … I’d rather you showed my team some respect by hating it.”

See above. Why do Yankees fans have to hate the Mets in order to legitimize your existence? And “watching the Mets because the Yankees aren’t playing” doesn’t mean I’m “rooting for” them, patronizingly or otherwise. I just like to watch baseball games.

See, you hate the Yankees. You care about them. You’re invested. In a negative way, true, but still. Yankee fans hating the Mets is…well, it’s not a rarity, but it’s not really even hating, either. It’s more of a “the Mets, who cares” thing, but…who cares if we care about the Mets? French people cared more about the Yankees than I did twenty years ago; who gives a damn? Why take it so personally?

“When national media assume that all of New York roots for the Yankees: Never was this more prevalent than during the 2001 World Series, which took place just after 9/11.” First of all, I don’t really see this happening. If only one New York team is in the postseason, yes, the city is watching that team; that doesn’t imply “rooting.” Second of all, the Mets would have gotten the same heroes’ treatment if they had made the postseason that year instead. They didn’t. The Yankees did. It was kind of a tough time for the city, the team became a symbol of trying to overcome that, and to bag on the team and its fans for that is pretty cheap. Also, you don’t get to claim that it’s “a Mets town” in a previous paragraph and then argue that it’s a “two-team town” in this one.

The sad fact for fans of every team besides the Yankees is that the most legendary and recognizable player of them all, the one who symbolized not only the game but, for many people, America? Played for the Yankees, and is associated primarily with the Yankees. We’re sorry we had Babe Ruth and you didn’t, but we can’t do anything about it now. Grow up.

“While legitimate superstars who somehow don’t qualify as ‘true Yankees’ like A-Rod are pilloried, career mediocrities such as Scott Brosius and Luis Sojo are lionized because fans focus on the few clutch hits they contributed in their many postseason opportunities.”

…Where to start. Yes, some fans do this. I love Scotty Bro and Grandpa Sojo, but I don’t have any illusions about their Cooperstown chances. As for the “true Yankee” thing, it’s one of those media-echo-chamber things where maybe one out-there blog mentions it, Bill Simmons bitches about it, and the next thing you know the entire Yankee fan base gets tarred with the irrational brush.

Let me put it more succinctly: members of the baseball press who dislike the team and its fans make that shit up so we look like assholes. If you go out on the street and ask Yankee fans about A-Rod, without asking any leading questions like “Do you think he’s a ‘true’ Yankee?” — you just ask us to talk about him for a little while — maybe one or two fans will bring that phrase up on their own, and they will only do it because guys like you and Lupica won’t let up with it.

Most Yankee fans are not as in love with the franchise mythos as you would like to think. I only bring up the dozens of world championships when I’m trying to piss off Yankee-haters, and what do you know, it works every time, because instead of just enjoying the game and enjoying following a team, you have to compare its every goddamn accomplishment to the Yankees — you’re all torqued up about “career mediocrities” on a team you not two paragraphs ago claim you don’t even follow because you’re such a huuuuuuge Mets fan.

Do you ever get tired of being such a baby? Because you could stop any time.

“When Yankee defenders downplay their team’s financial advantages.” I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — I will brook this kind of complaining from a small- to mid-market team’s fans. For a Met fan to whinge about it, like the Yankees took the money from them, is horseshit.

I’ve said this before, too, but apparently Petey needs reminding: it has not worked in six years. Mmmkay? “Buying a championship” = not currently a strategy the Yankees are having any real success with. We haven’t gone to the Series since ’03. If it gives us such an unfair advantage, how come it isn’t actually buying us an actual championship?

“The Yankees’ best current young players — Chien-Ming Wang, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera — were all available to the highest bidder as amateurs. Gee, guess who that was?” Um…the Yankees?

If you want the big-ticket names, hold a bake sale and go get ’em. Better yet, go to Kansas City and complain out loud down there, see how that goes over.

…Nothing to say about the Braves winning like eighty-five division titles in a row, I see. Huh. Interesting.

Have we gotten to the part where he calls Torre overrated yet? Ah yes, here it is: “Did he not acquire his genius until late in life? Or does the Yanks’ typical surfeit of store-bought talent have something to do with Torre’s success in pinstripes?” Oh, right — because Willie Randolph, who learned a lot of what he knows about managing at Torre’s knee, drove a legally blind six-man church-league softball team to a division title.

Torre as a game manager is fairly overrated. He did not have a good record prior to his hiring as Yankee skipper ten years ago; I think he’d have a harder time in the National League, given what I’ve seen of how he handles a pitching staff.

None of this is news to Yankee fans, unfortunately. McEntegart makes it out like he’s scoring a big point here, but the fans’ frustration with Torre is not exactly undocumented. “Internet,” Pete. Get on it and do some reading. Have a vague grasp of what the average fan really thinks before making dated generalizations. “Your manager isn’t that great, dickheads!” “Yeah, we know.” “…Oh. WELL, FUCK YOU ANYWAY.” “Okay, ‘good one.'”

I just…this is like when someone comes roaring onto the RLYB blog all pissed off that we think Jeter is hot shit defensively, and then every single person in the comments is like, “Yep.” “Agreed.” “Word.” “He’s more valuable as a bat, you’re right.” Like, you know who might know about the weaknesses of the team? The team’s fans.

“The griping we’re about to hear about tearing down Yankee Stadium.” I can’t say I’ve heard any griping about that so far. The Stadium is a loud, dank toilet with crappy concessions and it’s a pain to get to. Level it, I say.

Of course, McEntegart’s real (unstated) point is that nobody is going to mourn the passing of Shea. Shea is also a daggy stadium, but it’s better than Yankee Stadium, in my opinion, in spite of the flight patterns going right overhead — and people are going to be sad when it’s gone. People who pitch for a living.

“Increasingly, the players who spout the bromide about how all the Yankees care about is winning the World Series are guys like Mr. BALCO, Jason Giambi. Last time I checked, Giambi owned as many World Series rings as I do.” Wait wait wait, I’m confused — the very first plank in your argument is that Yankee fans have an overly developed sense of entitlement. Now you’re turning it around so it’s a player thing? Because the way you phrase this, it sounds like you think this isn’t a bad attitude, unless it’s coming from Giambi. What are you…talking about? Do you just hate Giambi? …So just say that, then.

“The philosophy that only a World Series championship is sufficient for a successful season supposedly comes straight from the top, owner George Steinbrenner.” Yes, that sounds like George. Taking potshots at Steinbrenner is hardly cutting-edge journalism, but okay, he’s a megalomaniac. Stipulated. But nobody actually does what he says anymore; he’s not the fearsome King George of thirty years ago. He’s an old man. He was banned from baseball for a while. Torre and Cashman make him stay behind the line nowadays — if you know so much more about our team than we do, shouldn’t you have a sense of that, Pete? And shouldn’t you also understand that blaming an entire team, or fandom, for the sins of George Steinbrenner, who hasn’t exercised any meaningful influence since the Winfield era, says more about your obsessions than it does about ours?

It’s the smugness I can’t abide, like hating the Yankees is a virtue and not a widely held and not very original opinion. Hate is not by definition a rational thing. So — just hate us, then. Don’t elaborate; don’t list the reasons. We aren’t voting on it. It doesn’t change the facts.

Some Yankee fans are dicks. Generalizing that to all of us makes you look like the dick, and is boring old hat to boot. Hate the team all you want, but leave us out of it.

September 26, 2006

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