Dear Yankee Fans . . . Sorry to Hear of Your Loss

Stop! Yankee fans, stop right there! Don’t you dare try to re-define this season and the club’s benchmarks for success. Such adjustments are simply not allowed. Not for a club with four sure-fire hall of famers on its roster. Not for a club with a payroll of $210 million dollars. And certainly not for a club that has won every American League East Division title since 1997.

What am I talking about? Well, I am simply trying to head off those Yankee fans who are attempting a little bait and switch in the eighth inning of this 2007 baseball season. Less you haven’t noticed, there is a movement afoot within the evil empire to modify the club’s mission statement and re-define its measures of success. It’s happening slowly and in fits and starts, but what we are now seeing is a fan base grasping at semantics to assure itself that this season has not become a dismal failure.

Of course I refer to those in Yankee land who are now MINIMALIZING the inevitability that the club will finally lose its grip on the AL East division title. This treasure has been in the family for ten years and, in recent years, it has been used as a giant stick to whack Red Sox fans. The division championship is not some trivial point for Yankee fans. Instead, it is one of the foundations upon which the Yankee house is built. It’s not quite as important as the twenty-six World Championships, but it is a source of great pride. Moreover, the division championship run has been a faithful companion for Yankee fans in some of their darkest hours.

Case in point -2004. In the months after the Yankees were involved in the GREATEST AND MOST COMPLETE collapse in professional sports history, some Yankee fans took comfort in the fact that the Red Sox achieved their victory as a wildcard. “They may have caught lightening in a bottle, but we were the better team over the entirety of a season,” Yankee fans lamented. While intelligent Yankee fans couldn’t mumble such a line with a straight face, the bulk of the army bought into this Weimar Republic theory. If that weren’t the case, then how come I’ve heard it dozens of times since Johnny Damon cracked that slam off Javy Vasquez.

Example number two: 2005. Just in case that season’s finish has slipped from your memory, the Red Sox and Yankees finished that season with identical records yet the Yankees were awarded the division title because of their head-to-head record with the Sox. This was no small award in the mind of a Yankee fan. It was a hard-won victory and one that was deserving of great celebration even though the season was destroyed a week later by Mike Sciccosa’s Angles. “Hey, we may have been punked by the Angles once again, but at least we beat the Sox to the finish line!” That line of reasoning wouldn’t seem to be much solace but it comforted Yankee fans during the winter of 2006 and it is still referenced by Yankee fans to belittle Boston and the rest of baseball.

As most would agree, the Yankee mission statement is pretty clear. A successful Yankee season is comprised of two core achievements – a division title and a World Championship. PERIOD! The World Championship is obviously paramount but the division title is not a trivial addendum. Nowhere, and I repeat nowhere, can you find the word ‘wildcard” in the Yankee bible. That word is blasphemous in the Bronx church. “Wildcard? We don’t need no stinking wildcard!” Well it turns out the Yankees will indeed need that wildcard to prolong their season.


So what are Yankee fans now doing? Well, in recent weeks, you are seeing the fan base dust off the word “wildcard” and insert back into their lexicon. Slowly but surely, it has now become acceptable to advance into the playoffs via the wildcard. “Division title? We don’t need no stinking title. Others have won championships via the wildcard and that is all that matters.” Say what? Sorry guys – this is not permissible. When you have invested so much in the division title streak, you can’t simply walk away and now pretend that it isn’t deeply important. That is a bit like investing thirty percent of your portfolio in sub-prime loans and when those loans head south, you walk away and pretend that investment never existed.

But Yankee fans will now claim is the division title run was never important. That is the insecurity talking. That is the Yankee fan trying to invent ways to save a season that is half-way down the toilet. Sorry guys – the Yankees have a definition of success and a season ending up with a wildcard, or worse, is not a success. Clearly a world championship would help assuage the fans pain over losing the division title streak, but I find it comforting that 2007 WILL mark the year that the Yankee fan lost one of their best friends. Don’t let Yankee fans tell you otherwise – that friend was a great friend and it’s no longer. RIP . . . . . BITCH!