Well the Yankees and Red Sox renew their rivalry tonight, with Mike Mussina taking on Bronson Arroyo. With baseball armageddon upon us once more, I think I'm ready to admit something that I have been thinking for a long time but never said out loud. I do NOT enjoy Yankees-Red Sox games.
Sure, when the Yankees beat the Red Sox I feel great. Alex and Chris can attest to this. But when the Red Sox beat the Yankees? Forget it. I am scarred. I can literally feel the scar tissue surrounding my attention span: I can't watch, listen or have any contact with the Yankees, Red Sox, baseball and sometimes sports in general. And we're not talking about the 2004 collapse here. We're talking about the third game of a series in which the Yankees won the first two games. I care too much. It is bad.
It has been described this way a million times, but I think it's far more so for Yankee fans. It's like an addiction. The game itself hooks you. It's a beautiful game. Perfect, in fact. But then, slowly, creepingly, you start liking it when your team wins. You start liking it a lot. To the point where if they don't win it hurts. And when they do win it's more of a relief. Because you're paying those jerks $200 million, and you're certainly not paying them to lose. Oh I'm not paying them? How about all that money I spend on tickets and hats and pretzels and sodas and T-shirts and Cracker Jack? That's what I thought. So they'd better win every time.
Now times that by a million. That's what if feels like when the Yankees play the Red Sox. Is this healthy? Definitely, definitely not. But it's too late for me. Save yourselves.
Apologies to "Fever Pitch." The book, not the Red-Sox lovin' movie.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Yankees vs. Red Sox
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4 comments:
You sum up my feelings perfectly.
I banned SportsCenter from my life a good month after the 2004 ALCS. And because I went to Boston College, everyone and (sometimes literally) their dad called me up to harrass me about it. Not just the day of. Not just the day after. Many days since.
Go Yanks!
Oh if only it were as benign as an addiction. At least if you're hooked on heroin, you know after a few hours of stealing or prostituting you'll wind up with your reward. But with the Yankees you can go many many excruciating hours of rooting and hoping and wind up with absolutley nothing for your efforts. Just a hole where your soul once was. But who cares? Let's go Yanks! Goblins America!
this is my (very accurate) impression of Geoff Haggerty:
"My name is Geoff Haggerty and I love the Yankees, Microsoft, big oil companies, and everything else where rich people win."
And imagine it's done in a really stupid voice.
Also: Don't like the Packers.
Publicly owned sports teams are great, but Brett will break your heart. Break. Your. Heart.
When the Packers lost the Super Bowl in '96, I started a fight at my friends' house in Minneapolis, then walked home, alone, across 3 miles and the Mississippi. I also didn't answer my phone for two weeks.
My advice: like a team that will never win anything. People find it endearing. Choices abound: Clippers, Bengals, Brewers, etc.
Rollie Fingers
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