Even in Paradise...

Sometimes the inspiration for hating the Yankees comes in the most unexpected places. There I was in Maui, miles away from ordinary, and the troubles of work, the big city, and hating the Yankees were supposed to be stowed away in my room back home. I thought I was safe.

Maybe I should have seen it coming that day when the skies of paradise turned gray and stormy. As the weather took a turn for a few hours, I did what any patriotic American would do and headed for the local mall. I’m not much the superstitious sort, and it’s been my custom to pick up a new hat at the beginning of each season. I thought, why not, here I am, kill two birds with one stone.

I walk in and receive a one-two punch to the gut and balls, respectively, as I stand face to face with a huge wall of Yankees hats, parked in rows and columns like so many IROC’s at a Bon Jovi concert. White on black, white on white, white on pink, white with green (eh?), curve brim, flat brim, fitted, one-size fits all, trucker, mesh, and denim. Issues of bad taste aside, WTF?

Here I am, about as far away from New York as I could possibly be without leaving the States, and I still have to put up with this shit? I stepped back and did a quick review of the baseball selection: 50% of the hats were Yankees, 40% were Dodgers, and another 10% were decidedly random, like Cubs or Braves. There were two White Sox hats.

“Can I help you?”

“Yea, I’m looking for a Mets hat. . .”

A blank stare is always nicer when a tanned woman delivers it while you’re on vacation.

“The New York Mets? Or maybe you know them as The New Mets? No? They play in the same city as the Yankees?” I say pointing to the wall of garbage.

“We don’t have any, they’re too far away.”

“But you’ve got all those Yankee hats, they’re about 10 miles from each other!”

“We don’t have any.”

Time to change the subject.

"So is everyone in Hawaii a Yankees fan?" I asked, innocently enough.

"Well, not really. People around here just sort of jump on the bandwagon. . . "

And that's just the point, Lisa. Just like my former roommate, the model, who wore her cute little pink Yankees hat around the streets of SoHo in August, Hawaiian fans are clueless – for them, wearing a Yankees hat isn’t about the team or the sport. For most, it’s just a brand, a variation on the swish and it only reminds me why I hate Yankees games and most of their and their bandwagoneer fans. The hat associates its wearer with the cover of Jay-Z’s black album or the video for 50’s “How We Do.”

I mean, it’s sweet – wearing one immediately brands you as cool, like getting a barbed wire tattoo or dating a chick with huge fake ones. You know, for a second, as I wrapped things up with my sales associate at Lids, I almost felt bad for the real Yankees fans, the ones that liked the team when they sucked, before Giuliani enshrined them as America’s team, and before every kid in Maui had no choice but to wear their pall-bearer hats… So today I’m offering a chance for redemption from baseball hell.

From now until Opening Day, any Yankees fan who loves the sport and is tired of overpaying for tickets because all the seats are full of loud-mouth’d bankers and starving models, come join us in Shea. No questions asked. Your first Italian Sausage is on me.

Pitchers and catchers report today. Let’s get ‘er done boys.

- TEC-9