I have spent a lifetime hating the New York Yankees. In candor, my hate is mixed with envy. I grew up a rabid fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Roger Kahn’s "Boys of the Summer." I learned the meaning of heartbreak early from the Yankees. Each season, the mighty Dodgers would roll through the National League (there were exceptions, like 1951 – the year of Bobby Thomson’s shot heard round the world. I spent two weeks of self-imposed exile in my room after that cataclysmic event), and then would come the World Series against the Yankees and, inevitably, bitter defeat. Not even ethnic pride in Joe DiMaggio was enough to mitigate my intense dislike of the New Yorkers across the bridge, something for which my Uncle Nunzio still won’t forgive.
When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in ’58, I thought I could finally get over what the Yankees had done to my young life. I should have been able to put aside my hatred. I should have been worried about girls and cars and, as the Bible says, "put away childish things." That was not the case. Uncle Nunzio claims I was no more successful with girls and cars than I was in wishing bad fortune on that New York team. I became a professional Yankee hater.
A pro always finds new reasons to despise the team: their imperialistic, smug attitude or their ability – in the era before free agency – to use teams like Kansas City as their own farm to rob stars like Roger Maris. Why those arrogant (add your own favorite profanity) even fired Mel Allen and Red Barber, the two best play-by-play announcers in the universe. The Yankees were their own Axis of Evil. They were the Republican National Committee! Even during their down period under CBS ownership, the misfortunes of the Yankees were not enough to assuage my appetite for their destruction. Alas, CBS sold the team. They rose again from the ashes, a personal demon I will never vanquish. And that’s when George Steinbrenner entered the picture.
I would have invented George Steinbrenner as owner of the Yankees if he had never existed. Here was my own personal Darth Vader in a pin-striped suit. Steinbrenner was born to be my villain: an overbearing stereotype of the worst boss ever imagined. He fired employees on a whim, feuded with star players, and even was caught not reporting a contribution to the Republican Party. Here was a man who surely must also be polluting America’s streams and cutting down Redwood trees while we slept. Here was a man who would think global warming could make him a profit if he could get into the air conditioning business. Good does not always triumph over wickedness in this lifetime. With Steinbrenner’s money, the Yankees won and then they won some more.
By this time, I had to invest my rooting interests in a team that could be the Yankees foil, since the Dodgers no longer met my needs. It is not enough to hate, one must also find a source of love. Homophobic overtones aside, I needed my own Luke Skywalker. I needed to become a member of the Red Sox nation, something my Uncle Art from Lynn, Mass., had been urging me to do for years. The Boston Sox had the money to counteract Steinbrenner. Who better to act as a home for my king-sized hatred of the Yankees, the team that once sold them Babe Ruth? I made my pilgrimage to Fenway Park, bought my Red Sox cap and settled in for the long war ahead of me. Note: As I root for the Red Sox, I’ve had to ignore Curt Schilling’s love affair with George W. Bush, but one must make sacrifices for the overall good.
Unfortunately, Uncle Art (who once claimed he taught Pedro Martinez the "feazle" ball) died before the magic moment two seasons ago. It wasn’t only that the Red Sox defeated the Yankees for the pennant, it was the wonderful way they did it, coming back from being down 3-0 in the series, defeating the great Mariano Rivera. It was the stuff of a Yankee hater’s dream, the triumph of the good and virtuous knight in slaying the fire-breathing dragon.
I write this sweat-drenched column in deep despair after spending a humid night at the ballpark supposedly watching the Phillies, but really watching the scoreboard where the Red Sox were in the midst of losing a doubleheader to the despicable Yankees. I had rushed home after the game in time to watch Derek Jeter double with the bases loaded to rally the Yanks to their second win of the evening. I lay awake all night hoping the wart on Joe Torre’s nose grows as big as Big Rock Candy Mountain. I should not have allowed myself the comfort of air conditioning to do penance for the abominable happenings at beloved Fenway.
God, I hate the Yankees.
