10 Things I Hate About Yankee Fans
So I'm trying to watch the Yankees v A's game tonight. I love baseball, I love watching the Yankees lose and I think the A's are legit. With no Mets game on it added up.
I'll tell you though, it was a struggle to get my roommate Maciej, a self-proclaimed Yankees fan, to focus on the game when he could have just as easily been watching The Office on DVR.
Throughout the course of the game, Maciej told me twice that he wishes he were a Mets fan. Pretty fucking weak.
So today, I embrace a truly important Top 10 List. The 10 things that I hate about Yankee fans. While the list could go to 1,000 and yes, I'm curious to hear what I left off, here we go.
10. "Why can't you just root for both teams?"
One of the more consistent comments from Yankee fans who are seemingly bewildered by my hatred of New York's other team. There are so many reasons you don't root for both teams but the two most important to me are pride and, well, more pride.
You can't like your rival, that should go without saying. The Yankees are our enemies, and all the implications of being enemies apply. For instance, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. For that reason, when the Sox beat the Yankees in 2004 I was truly happy. I loved that team for hating the Yankees. It wasn't the same as if the Mets had done it, but it was pretty damn sweet just the same.
Second and more important, rooting for both teams mean you never lose. As a sports fan, you have to understand defeat. You have to know how shitty a loss feels so that you can truly apprciate a win. Not only do Yankee fans seldom have to experience losing, but when they do, they go cry behind another winner, in this year's case, The New Mets.
9. The Homegrown Argument
This argument was great 5 years ago. Yankee fans used to say that their core came from within. Jeter, Bernie, Mariano, Pettite, Posada etc.
Save Jeter and Rivera, and the rest of these guys are washed up or gone. The core of this team is the top player on the market every offseason. 2001, Mussina. 2002, Giambi. 2003, Hideki Matsui. 2004, A-Rod and Sheffield. 2005, Randy Johnson. 2006, Jonathon Damon.
The Yankees don't have a system from within, they have a large bank account. As many readers back from last fall will remember, I believe that Wang and Cano suck. They are the benefactors of Yankee hype. They were never top prospects or players that you would read about in minor league top 100 lists. They were rushed up because the Yankees needed an excuse for why they were shitty.
8. Rooting For A-Rod
This dude is on an equal playing field to Fez. Any one that can root for him deserves bad things.
7. Acccepting Jonathon Damon
There is too much that can be said about this one. For those who missed it back when the trade first happened, check out another top 10 list, this one of analogies to Damon leaving Boston. (http://yankees2000.blogspot.com/2005/12/day-later-10-potential-analogies-to.html)
This guy makes me sick. Imagine Chipper coming to the Mets. Could you ever root for this guy? Could you ever clap when his name was called?
And just to nip this talking point in the bud, I never want to hear a discussion of whether Damon is a "true Yankee." The guy led the Yankees' blood rivals to a humiliating defeat of the Bombers on their home field. If there is ever any discussion of him being a "true Yankee," whatever the hell that means in this day and age, I'll hardly know what to say.
6. Baseball starts in April, guys
As we all know, Opening Day is my favorite day of the year. For Mets fans like all fans, Opening Day is a new beginning. Everyone has a shot and we think we have as good a shot as anyone.
But Yankee fans don't get this feeling. They know they will be in it in October so they don't appreciate the beauty of April. A-Rod is a guy who is going to hit 40 but do they have a guy like D Wright who you hope will? Is there any anticipation when a new season starts that doesn't involve the question of whether the Yankees will finally win another championship?
5. Girls love the Yankees
Forgive me for painting with a very wide brush, but girls and sports don't really mix. Sure, it's nice to have a nice lady by your side, but at the end of the day, is there anything more annoying than a girl who won't shut up about sports? Is it latent sexism? Maybe, but I don't care.
What really riles me up about Yankee fans though is that they use the Yankees to pick up girls. To all the readers representing the fairer sex, when some dude from Montana moves to the city, scores tickets to the Yankees and asks you if you'd like to accompany him, give him the most condescending, disgusted look you can possibly muster and decline the offer.
See, it's just a power play, and one that doesn't apply to Shea Stadium. You're not impressing any broad by taking her to Shea, but for my money that's a good thing. The result is that you know that everyone in the place, girls included, are there to see our boys because they care, not because of any social status conferred upon them by showing up at Shea.
Real men, such as Tony Soprano in Sunday's episode, go to Shea Stadium. Fact of life.
4. Every One of Them Was a Mets Fan in '86.
Granted I was 4, but from everything I remember and everything I've read the Mets were to this city what the Communists were to the Soviet Union. You were either on board or you were in serious trouble.
These guys were kings and we were their subjects, and the same is true of virtually every last Yankee fan out there. The fact that Yankee fans just can't admit that pisses me off.
3. The Trend Factor
So I'm sitting at a big sports bar in Gramercy. I'm there with a couple of buddies watching a Mets game back when the Mets were having their cable issues.
At the table next to me are 4 dbag bankers and 2 bankerettes, all NYC transplants catching a drink after work.
The Yankees were getting killed and they were talking about stocks. One of the dicks asks why everyone is so into the Yankees, to which one of the other two responds, "It's just what you do."
About a half hour later the Yankees mounted a pretty impressive comeback.
The table got excited because they knew they had to and the first db shouted for approval, "I am so on board with the Yankees!"
It is this guy who will then be at the big game in September because he can afford it, and all the other hyenas will embrace him because he can name a few members of their All-Star team.
2. "The Mets and Red Sox spend a ton of money too!"
This argument kills me. Yeah the Mets and Sox spend a lot of money. So do the Dodgers and the Cardinals and the Cubs. In fact, so do a bunch of the other teams.
The Yankees spend twice as much money as everyone.
It's ok. This is part of the economics of baseball, and it's not like they are breaking any rules.
But again, sack up and admit that they have an unfair advantage. That there is something terribly wrong when you play the D-Rays 19 times a year, a team whose entire payroll is less than your left side of the infield.
Still not convinced? The Yankees' payroll is somewhere in the $195-200 million. The Mets' payroll is around $100 million, but for the sake of argument let's say the Mets payroll is actually more like $110 million and the Yankees payroll is more like $190 million.
In that $80 million difference you could fit the salaries of Alex Rodriguez (25 mil), Derek Jeter (19 mil), Jason Giambi (18 mil), and Mike Mussina (17 mil), and still have 1 million left to kick around. Take those 4 players away from the Yankees, guys who aren't even necessarily their best or more important players, and ask yourself how dominant they would be?
The Yankees are playing in a different league, money-wise, and Yankee fans just need to admit it.
1. "My father was a Yankee fan."
The worst excuse to pop out of Joey from the Upper East Side's mouth. It's one thing if your dad is going to games with you on a Tuesday if baseball is truly a part of your family, but otherwise I'm selling this one.
Sure, pops may have had some influence. If Sippy Momo III dared to put a Yankee hat on, he would catch a back hand to the face faster than you can say "fresh toasted."
But I plan on raising a baseball household. Senior tried to raise a reading household, which unfortunately didn't work. But I'm not a Mets fan because of my dad. Sure, him watching the games contributed, but so did the fact that my friends and brother were Mets fans and truth is, it always just felt right.
Like knowing that you are straight or not, you just know that you are a Mets fan.
That's all for now. A special thanks to former Met Marco Scutaro for the A's win/ Yanks loss.
We have the best record in NY guys, hopefully that's not going anywhere.
VCD,
SM
I'll tell you though, it was a struggle to get my roommate Maciej, a self-proclaimed Yankees fan, to focus on the game when he could have just as easily been watching The Office on DVR.
Throughout the course of the game, Maciej told me twice that he wishes he were a Mets fan. Pretty fucking weak.
So today, I embrace a truly important Top 10 List. The 10 things that I hate about Yankee fans. While the list could go to 1,000 and yes, I'm curious to hear what I left off, here we go.
10. "Why can't you just root for both teams?"
One of the more consistent comments from Yankee fans who are seemingly bewildered by my hatred of New York's other team. There are so many reasons you don't root for both teams but the two most important to me are pride and, well, more pride.
You can't like your rival, that should go without saying. The Yankees are our enemies, and all the implications of being enemies apply. For instance, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. For that reason, when the Sox beat the Yankees in 2004 I was truly happy. I loved that team for hating the Yankees. It wasn't the same as if the Mets had done it, but it was pretty damn sweet just the same.
Second and more important, rooting for both teams mean you never lose. As a sports fan, you have to understand defeat. You have to know how shitty a loss feels so that you can truly apprciate a win. Not only do Yankee fans seldom have to experience losing, but when they do, they go cry behind another winner, in this year's case, The New Mets.
9. The Homegrown Argument
This argument was great 5 years ago. Yankee fans used to say that their core came from within. Jeter, Bernie, Mariano, Pettite, Posada etc.
Save Jeter and Rivera, and the rest of these guys are washed up or gone. The core of this team is the top player on the market every offseason. 2001, Mussina. 2002, Giambi. 2003, Hideki Matsui. 2004, A-Rod and Sheffield. 2005, Randy Johnson. 2006, Jonathon Damon.
The Yankees don't have a system from within, they have a large bank account. As many readers back from last fall will remember, I believe that Wang and Cano suck. They are the benefactors of Yankee hype. They were never top prospects or players that you would read about in minor league top 100 lists. They were rushed up because the Yankees needed an excuse for why they were shitty.
8. Rooting For A-Rod
This dude is on an equal playing field to Fez. Any one that can root for him deserves bad things.
7. Acccepting Jonathon Damon
There is too much that can be said about this one. For those who missed it back when the trade first happened, check out another top 10 list, this one of analogies to Damon leaving Boston. (http://yankees2000.blogspot.com/2005/12/day-later-10-potential-analogies-to.html)
This guy makes me sick. Imagine Chipper coming to the Mets. Could you ever root for this guy? Could you ever clap when his name was called?
And just to nip this talking point in the bud, I never want to hear a discussion of whether Damon is a "true Yankee." The guy led the Yankees' blood rivals to a humiliating defeat of the Bombers on their home field. If there is ever any discussion of him being a "true Yankee," whatever the hell that means in this day and age, I'll hardly know what to say.
6. Baseball starts in April, guys
As we all know, Opening Day is my favorite day of the year. For Mets fans like all fans, Opening Day is a new beginning. Everyone has a shot and we think we have as good a shot as anyone.
But Yankee fans don't get this feeling. They know they will be in it in October so they don't appreciate the beauty of April. A-Rod is a guy who is going to hit 40 but do they have a guy like D Wright who you hope will? Is there any anticipation when a new season starts that doesn't involve the question of whether the Yankees will finally win another championship?
5. Girls love the Yankees
Forgive me for painting with a very wide brush, but girls and sports don't really mix. Sure, it's nice to have a nice lady by your side, but at the end of the day, is there anything more annoying than a girl who won't shut up about sports? Is it latent sexism? Maybe, but I don't care.
What really riles me up about Yankee fans though is that they use the Yankees to pick up girls. To all the readers representing the fairer sex, when some dude from Montana moves to the city, scores tickets to the Yankees and asks you if you'd like to accompany him, give him the most condescending, disgusted look you can possibly muster and decline the offer.
See, it's just a power play, and one that doesn't apply to Shea Stadium. You're not impressing any broad by taking her to Shea, but for my money that's a good thing. The result is that you know that everyone in the place, girls included, are there to see our boys because they care, not because of any social status conferred upon them by showing up at Shea.
Real men, such as Tony Soprano in Sunday's episode, go to Shea Stadium. Fact of life.
4. Every One of Them Was a Mets Fan in '86.
Granted I was 4, but from everything I remember and everything I've read the Mets were to this city what the Communists were to the Soviet Union. You were either on board or you were in serious trouble.
These guys were kings and we were their subjects, and the same is true of virtually every last Yankee fan out there. The fact that Yankee fans just can't admit that pisses me off.
3. The Trend Factor
So I'm sitting at a big sports bar in Gramercy. I'm there with a couple of buddies watching a Mets game back when the Mets were having their cable issues.
At the table next to me are 4 dbag bankers and 2 bankerettes, all NYC transplants catching a drink after work.
The Yankees were getting killed and they were talking about stocks. One of the dicks asks why everyone is so into the Yankees, to which one of the other two responds, "It's just what you do."
About a half hour later the Yankees mounted a pretty impressive comeback.
The table got excited because they knew they had to and the first db shouted for approval, "I am so on board with the Yankees!"
It is this guy who will then be at the big game in September because he can afford it, and all the other hyenas will embrace him because he can name a few members of their All-Star team.
2. "The Mets and Red Sox spend a ton of money too!"
This argument kills me. Yeah the Mets and Sox spend a lot of money. So do the Dodgers and the Cardinals and the Cubs. In fact, so do a bunch of the other teams.
The Yankees spend twice as much money as everyone.
It's ok. This is part of the economics of baseball, and it's not like they are breaking any rules.
But again, sack up and admit that they have an unfair advantage. That there is something terribly wrong when you play the D-Rays 19 times a year, a team whose entire payroll is less than your left side of the infield.
Still not convinced? The Yankees' payroll is somewhere in the $195-200 million. The Mets' payroll is around $100 million, but for the sake of argument let's say the Mets payroll is actually more like $110 million and the Yankees payroll is more like $190 million.
In that $80 million difference you could fit the salaries of Alex Rodriguez (25 mil), Derek Jeter (19 mil), Jason Giambi (18 mil), and Mike Mussina (17 mil), and still have 1 million left to kick around. Take those 4 players away from the Yankees, guys who aren't even necessarily their best or more important players, and ask yourself how dominant they would be?
The Yankees are playing in a different league, money-wise, and Yankee fans just need to admit it.
1. "My father was a Yankee fan."
The worst excuse to pop out of Joey from the Upper East Side's mouth. It's one thing if your dad is going to games with you on a Tuesday if baseball is truly a part of your family, but otherwise I'm selling this one.
Sure, pops may have had some influence. If Sippy Momo III dared to put a Yankee hat on, he would catch a back hand to the face faster than you can say "fresh toasted."
But I plan on raising a baseball household. Senior tried to raise a reading household, which unfortunately didn't work. But I'm not a Mets fan because of my dad. Sure, him watching the games contributed, but so did the fact that my friends and brother were Mets fans and truth is, it always just felt right.
Like knowing that you are straight or not, you just know that you are a Mets fan.
That's all for now. A special thanks to former Met Marco Scutaro for the A's win/ Yanks loss.
We have the best record in NY guys, hopefully that's not going anywhere.
VCD,
SM
posted by Sippy Momo at 2:45 AM
3 Comments:
get a fucken life stupid met fan -
very solid bit of writing. i'd be interested in an analysis of YES announcing too at some point in the future. being a huge ricky harden fan, i watched my first full yankee game in years last night (can't pretend i didn't watch them in the days they used to actually make it to the world series...) and god are those guys incapable of real analysis. they remind me, to a lesser extent, of the espn sunday night football crew of thiesman et al. the game they call sounds good, but doesn't necessarily mirror what's happening on the screen. these guys are insufferable, and i'd put them at the level of the tbs braves crew in terms of sickening home-team bias. also, to the dude above me, i like the emily dickinsonian use of the dash at the end of your thought... also the Et tu, Damon sign at the colliseum was dope
A response to Budish's polemic:
1. Yeah, I was watching the office. I like to get a little fast forward time on baseball games so that i can skip through commercials. call me crazy.
2. i said i wish i were a mets fan only because it's annoying to constantly be harassed for being a yankees fan. i also don't hate the mets--they're not the yankees rivals; they just play in the same city. it's as easy as that. plus, it's fun to root for guys who never really come through. it lowers expectations.
sidenote: you're becoming akin to red sox fans.
3. your accounting of the mets '86 is hypocritical. as you write, everyone was supposed to root for the mets because they won it all, and new yorkers were their subjects. in other words, the mets were winning, and nyc (and you, although granted you were only 4) got on board the bandwagon. isnt that what you hate about yankees fans, the fact that people purportedly like them only because they win?
5. with regard to money, yeah, we pay a lot more than anyone else--and that kinds sucks. but we have the money, so why not spend it? how can you possibly blame the yanks for playing within the rules and doing their best to win a WS?
6. finally, like i said before, i dont hate the mets at all. i like them the way i like the jets: i follow them a little, i root for them unless they're playing the giants, and i wish them the best of luck. if they won a championship, i'd be happy for them.
but i grew up a yankees fan, back when they were terrible. my best friend when i was 5 was a diehard fan, his family was, and by dad was. let me repeat: the yankees were horrible. but i rooted for them nonetheless. not much to hate about that.
you got served.
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