More Gloating!
Dear Columbus, THIS is what it looks like when you actually Carry The Flag.
If the title didn’t tip you off, this post will have nothing to do with the Crunch. Instead, we now return to MJ’s continued baseball hubris.
On June 22, 1978, Reggie Jackson took Dave Rozema deep to right field at Tiger Stadium in the 9th inning. The Yankees hung four runs on the Tigers in that 9th inning to win the game, 4-2. The Yankees were 7 1/2 games out of first place on that day. 117 days later, they wrapped up their 22nd World Series title, capping a second half charge that was, in a word, legendary.
Also of note from June 22, 1978:
– It is discovered that Pluto, in fact, had a moon, dubbed Charon.
– The nation paused to remember (ahem) the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish-American War. Remember the Maine, bitches!
– 345 years had fully passed since The Holy See muzzled Galileo for the crime of using logic, reason and scientific thought.
– Ed Bradley, Pete Maravich and Todd Rundgren enjoyed birthday cake.
– Magic’s Johnson was born.
For some reason, it seems appropriate I was born on a day where the Yankees won. According to baseball-reference.com, my father and grandfather were as well. My father and I were also both born in World Series years, which is profoundly fitting. For us, like many others, Yankee fandom was something we were born into, something inherited by us from our fathers. Unlike many others, we’re fortunate for this most beautiful of accidents of birth. I can imagine how that might sound to the uninitiated, but really, it’s one of those things where you either get it or you don’t. If you get it, no explanation is needed. If you don’t get it, no explanation will do.
In a lot of ways, it’s not about just some baseball team. It’s about something that’s unique and meant to be held as a treasure. Many mistake it for arrogance, but the truth is that we just have a disturbing amount of pride in Our Team. We walk with that little extra swagger and we hold our heads just a little bit higher than fans of other teams. We do it because we can…and because we know that on any given year, Our Team has the inside track to being king of the hill. Again. And again. And again.
We hear all the time how Our Team buys championships, how if baseball had a salary cap, the Yankees would suck, et cetera, et cetera. Guess what? We don’t care. The truth is that for all of Uncle George’s money, the late Ted Rogers and the late Carl Pohlad, owners of the Toronto Blue Jays and Minnesota Twins, respectively, died with a net worth four and five TIMES larger than that of George Steinbrenner. That doesn’t take the other seven billionaire owners of MLB franchises into account, either. Where those guys fail, though, is that they don’t reinvest into their teams. George does, and we’ve been spoiled because of it. It’s not our fault the guy wants expects to win it all every year. We’re just along for the ride. In turn, we expect to win it all every year. If we didn’t, we might as well go watch the Pirates or the Royals. So, really, if you’re expecting us to feel guilty or ashamed for the Yankees dropping 450 million dollars on three free agents last winter, don’t hold your breath. We’re going to be busy watching the parade this morning.
Look, we’re not bad people. We don’t mean to sound cocky or pompous. It’s just that we’re lucky. We’re lucky to be Yankee fans. And you know something? We know we’re lucky. We’re damn lucky, in fact. Those of us to have been born into it are the luckiest of all. We could have been Astros fans, Nationals fans, or, God forbid, Mets fans. Instead, we pulled the high card, and we ended up with an embarrassment of tradition and baseball pedigree. We know we’re lucky to have that, so we pass that on down to our children and continue the lineage. I know that for me, being able to hear my grandfather tell me about seeing Ruth and Gehrig in person, to hear my father tell me about idolizing Mickey and meeting Billy Martin once in a restaurant, to remember my first trip to the Bronx with my dad…that’s what makes it all so special. Really, the world titles are often just icing on the cake. In reality, it’s tradition. It’s family. It’s history. It’s the most beautiful of baseball aristocracies.
Nations come and go. Empires, though, are forever.
