Talkin' Baseball

Wow, that was some FA Cup, wasn't it? Oops sorry, baseball. I'm a New York baseball fan, which means I follow both the Yankees and the Mets. If pressed I'd probably say the Mets are my favorite team, as I remember getting into them around 1967 or so. But I've been to Yankee Stadium far more often than either Shea or Citifield, and now that I live in da Bronx I feel kind of obligated to root for the Bombers. Thing is, they don't make it easy. Oh, I love the players, and I have no problem with Paul O'Neill doing color commentary. However... The Bleacher Creatures are horrid - not on an individual basis, mind you, I once rode the elevator from the ground floor to the bleacher level with one of them and she was quite nice. But collectively they tend to exhibit a mob mentality almost as bad as the Liverpool Kop. The powers that be honestly think George Steinbrenner (the Donald Trump of baseball, whom I didn't mourn when he died) and scions can do no wrong, and the BC's go along with it to the point of booing Juan Soto because he decided to abandon the Yankees for their crosstown rivals without so much as considering that management should take the credit (in Steve Cohen's case) or the blame (yon Steinbrenners). I hate how they celebrate Star Wars by acting like they're the evil empire (that's the sound you hear every time a Yankees pitcher gets two strikes on a batter). I really despise how you're made to stand at the seventh inning stretch for the Two Minutes Hate; the whole God Bless America schtick was corny and outdated jingoism even when they added it in the wake of 9/11, but if you're in the stadium you have to go along with it (can you tell when I usually take my bathroom break?). And the noise! To be honest I'm sure the decibel levels are just as high at Citifield. But anyway, when the two New York teams go head to head I usually find myself rooting for the Mets. The Yankees won yesterday and the Mets prevailed today so this 3-gane set will be decided tomorrow. Oh, and by the way the spam emails have slowed to a trickle, thank goodness.