Ok, yes, the Yankees lost the ALCS. Anyone who’s been following me for enough time will know that they’re my favorite team. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I celebrated my 15th anniversary of watching baseball. What was that anniversary, you ask? It’s the Bug Game in the 2007 ALDS, when Joba Chambrelain was swarmed by gnats, which helped the Guardians take down the Yankees in Cleveland in what would eventually also turn into a Yankees series loss. I still remember jumping up and down on my parents’ bed watching the game, not knowing who Derek Jeter or Joba were, but just enjoying the magnitude of the situation and the game being played in its simplest form. I joined my town’s Little League the next year and began watching the Yankees religiously soon after, cementing my love for baseball at the ripe young age of eight years old.
So, if you’re doing your math right, I’ve never seen the Yankees have a losing season. Their last losing season took place six years before I was born (1993). Believe me, I’ve seen some terrible Yankees lineups, but never bad enough to drag down baseball’s most successful franchise to below 81 wins. I wouldn’t call myself “enlightened” because I’m a Yankees fan (mostly because that would be pompous, but otherwise because it would be wrong), but I would say that I’m fortunate to have seen some awesome baseball in my lifetime and have developed a unique perspective on how the game should be perceived. That last part, my perception of baseball, developed over a decade of writing about its history and analyzing its greatest players, teams, moments, and eras. So, with that, I have the following to say.
The World Series is great. The thrill of winning it all is a special feeling indeed. All that hard work that your team put in pays off on the grandest and most legendary of stages. The euphoria of wearing World Series champion merchandise is truly unparalleled, and now, your favorite players are inscribed into baseball immortality.
But…
Why does it matter to you? For the everyday person who has a career to build, a family to manage, or a life to live, why should the success of a recreational sports team matter to you? Sure, there’s the spectacle of it all and the aforementioned euphoria, but at the end of the day, why do sports matter to the everyday fan?
This isn’t a “winning isn’t everything” post because that’s just tacky and untrue. Everybody likes to win, but that’s what drives the athletes actually competing to win. It doesn’t explain why we as sports fans need our favorite sports. Besides the financial investment you put into your favorite sports teams, you don’t really have a stake in the winning versus losing of your team (unless, of course, you’re Steve Cohen reading this and you own the Mets). I’ve thought about this question a lot as the Yankees continue to falter in the late stages of MLB postseason after MLB postseason, and the truth is that I really don’t have an exact answer for why I care so much about the Yankees.
I think my best answer is that I feel the most like myself when I watch baseball. Many of the virtues that point my life in whatever direction it goes have been accrued through falling in love with America’s pastime. Baseball is also how I’ve connected with plenty of my friends and family over the years. It’s what’s brought me the closest to my grandparents, my college friends, and even coworkers. Baseball’s taught me how to think critically, how to stay patient, and how to strategize. It’s educated me on everything from geopolitics to how I like my hamburgers cooked (medium rare to medium, if you were curious).
My days of waking up and dreaming of becoming a baseball player are long gone, yet my life has been shaped around this stupid game featuring a white ball, a wooden stick, and four marshmallows. It’s beyond remarkable how I come home from work every day and want to instinctively turn on the Yankees, a team made up of guys two times my size, four times my weight, and twenty times my caliber, who somehow feel like parental figures to me. I’ve never lived in the Bronx, yet Yankee Stadium feels like a home to me. No, not a house, a home. I feel more comfortable and familiar on 161st Street than I do in some neighborhoods right near my New York City apartment. All of this comes with the experience of being a baseball fan. Even just writing the word “baseball” is comforting. The game is just part of who I am, and I love every second of it.
Aaron Judge set the record for most home runs in a season in Yankee history. Anthony Rizzo became a team captain. Giancarlo Stanton hit bombs. Gerrit Cole lived up to his contract (sometimes). Nestor was nasty. It really didn’t matter how this season finished for the Yankees, and I knew it wouldn’t finish with a sweet aftertaste. The team strikes out way too much to contend during the later stages of the Big Dance to win it all, but it doesn’t matter. A baseball season happened when it was so close to not happening (yeah, remember the lockout?), and so many fans across the world got to experience their teams playing the sport that they value so much. Baseball relies too heavily on superlatives, like every sport, to be honest, but to put things into perspective, it’s a pretty great hobby to have.
Congrats to the Astros and Phillies. The Roy Oswalt Series is going to be fun. But this Yankees season was no failure. 99 wins is amazing, and I won’t take that for granted. I’m just going to be over here loving my team and loving baseball. Thanks for reading, and go Yanks.
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