I am a New Yorker, which makes me by natural law, a New York Yankees fan. When I read Joe Goldberg’s typical bitter Yankee-hater rant, I adjusted my Yankee’s hat that I was wearing so all Bostonian’s could cringe at the blue and white logo. (It is in fact, blue and white, not black and white like he said. That would be the Chicago White Sox.)
As a New Yorker and a die-hard Yankee fan, I speak for all fellow pinstripe lovers when I say this: Boston, get over yourself. This so-called “rivalry” is completely one-sided and I am sick and tired of having to defend myself, the city and the state of New York when sports teams come up.
The borough of the Bronx and Yankee fans everywhere could care less about Nomar Garciaparra or Manny Ramirez or your petty hatred. Granted, if you went down to the Bronx sporting your nice big “B”, you would be laughed at on the spot. But if you changed hats, to say, a nice big “A” for Atlanta, you’d be heckled then too. Yankee fans love their team, and hate all others. We don’t single out a team to dislike more than we like our own.
When I continued to read the piece, it became evident to me that Goldberg was more of a Yankee-hater than a Red Sox lover. He claims “rich New Yorkers” buy all the seats up in Fenway, but he forgot about all the rich fans in Southern Connecticut (part of New England) and the fans in northern New Jersey and the rest of New York State. Fenway tickets aren’t too expensive.
He then goes on to say the aforementioned Yankee fans ruin “unspoken traditions” of baseball. While the Red Sox only “unspoken tradition” is Yankee hatred and losing key games, Yankee fans have known about tradition since our great-grandparents came through Ellis Island in the 1920’s and started cheering for the Yankees. Not to mention the Yankees haven’t changed their uniform design in 90 years. The “Yankee Mystique” and a tradition of excellence that has won 37 AL Pennants and 26 World Series Titles shows that the Yankees have so much tradition you can trip on it walking into the House that Ruth Built.
I was disappointed when I saw the typical payroll argument as the reason for hating the Yankees, not the fact that the Yankees have been making Boston look ridiculous since about