Yesterday's New York Daily News had an article by Mike Barnicle, a Boston-born and bred columnist, about the recent domination of sports by the New England teams called "Boston getting used to idea of beating New York following so much heartbreak. " The basis of the article was the new attitude of New England sports fans, and how that section of the country is now the center of the American sports world right now. Here's the article:http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/2007/12/28/2007-12-28_boston_getting_used_to_idea_of_beating_n-2.html
I found the article more humorous than anything else. (Barnicle did get one thing wrong it in that I must correct him on. He wrote: "The Red Sox are fan favorites who attract big crowds in every town, annoying local ownership." That's not true. Local ownership LOVE when the Red Sox fans come to their town, as the additional Sox fans put more money in their wallets. It's the local fans who hate to see the Red Sox throng come to their parks and drown them out.) But you can guess the reaction of the New York sports fans to it, especially that of Yankee fans. From today's News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/2007/12/29/2007-12-29_new_yorkers_wont_stand_pat_on_boston_wri-1.html
I love these Yankees fans. They don't have their beloved "Curse" to fall back on any more (and make no mistake about it, THEY embraced that moronic, idiotic, media-created "Curse of the Bambino", while true Red Sox fans NEVER did), so they go back to the old "we've won 26 titles and you haven't" stuff. But at least one Yankee fan admitted this: "Me and my buddies still try to fall back on the 26 World Series wins, but most of us can only actually name a few of them," a Yankees fan named Jim Surge wrote.
A refreshing bit of honesty where one usually doesn't find it.
Let's face the facts right now. New England has the NFL team of the decade, and so far, Boston has the baseball team of the decade as well. And it's one bitter pill for New Yorkers, especially Yankee fans to swallow. (Here's an intelligent, thoughtful observation from a Mets fan to Barnicle in the second article: "Go back to Boston!") The years of smug, arrogant entitlement that many Yankee fans felt finally came home to roost against them on October 20, 2004, and they still haven't gotten used to the fact that the team they felt it was their birthright to dominate has won not one, but two World Series championships in this century, while their club is still without one. They now have just a smidgen of an idea what it was like to root for the Red Sox all these years.
Barnicle may have been boasting in his article, but he's got a right to boast right now. The days of "mystique and aura" are gone for good. It makes the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry all the more interesting and exciting now that the Red Sox have two titles in four years under their belts. No more idiotic "curses" or "ghosts." Now it's just about baseball.
It's a "golden age" for Boston sports fans. And it's driving New Yorkers, and especially Yankee fans, bananas.
Get used to it.
In one pub on Woodhaven Blvd, people came dressed in Indians Gear, but their IGNORANCE Gave them away:
ReplyDeleteThey were the Same Middle Village Yankees Fans, who tried to pass themselves off as St Louis Cardinals Fans in '06;
Yankees Fans-ONLY GOOD for trying to RUIN a Good Time, EVERYWHERE THEY GO;
I'm of the belief that Yankees Caps in NYC are worn out of SHEER Ignorance, or for Undercover Assignments In The Bronx.
& Barnicle is as Tongue In Cheek as ever:
ReplyDeleteHe even mentions The Rockaways;
Roidger Clemens' Injector comes from there;
& Mookie Wilson, on the Mets Dime, wearing a Cardinals Cap;
As Fitzy would say, a Back Bay "GFY" to Mookie, to which I heartily Concur.
I never blamed Mookie Wilson in the least for pulling for the Cardinals in the 2006 NLCS Game 7. His stepson was on that team, and Mookie was there to support him, as he should have.
ReplyDeleteAnd besides, what would Preston think if he saw Mookie in the stands rooting AGAINST him? Do you really think Mookie would say to him,"Oh, my first loyalty is to the Mets and NOT you"? I'd lose a LOT of respect for a good man like Mookie if he actually did that. And it doesn't matter that he was there on the Mets dime.
Family, blood comes before team loyalty. Always.
I have addressed that in one of my essays, to day:
ReplyDeleteBut, though it was odd, I also recalled when Sterling Mets LP, kicked Mr Wilson to The Curb;
Though if "Fitzy" was an '86 Iteration of a Mets Fan, one who hasn't grown up since then, he would've been doing a "GFY" for W'm Heywood Wilson;
I, myself in the '06 NLCS, was NOT
I said that "It's Life & Move On."
ReplyDeleteI think any fan with half a brain would have seen Mookie pulling for the Cardinals had to know he was pulling for Preston, for his son to go to a World Series. Any fan who gives him crap for that needs to get his head examined, including the "Fitzy" types.
ReplyDeleteMy Revision is Completed & my intense ire is for the '86 Iteration Of Mets(?) Fans.
ReplyDelete