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TOKEN GESTURE
Damn Yankees, damn Mets
That the tabloids have already worn the subway metaphor so thin, I’m ready to throw the entire
sports desk of the New York Post onto the third rail.
That a woman in my office who had never seen a
baseball game before this weekend but who is
“really
happy the Yankees won,” in relating the incident
in
Sunday night’s game in which Met catcher Mike
Piazza
(“I have a huge crush on him even though I
totally
hate the Mets”) dodged a pointed spear hurled at
him
by the same Yankee pitcher who had beaned him in
July,
referred to said pitcher as “Clementine.”
That it took almost 45 minutes to find a cab on
Sunday
evening –- the taxi drivers chose to beat it home
early
to watch the game.
These are all compelling reasons for Yours Truly
to
disdain the so-called Subway Series, but I
have a different one:
It reminds me of how badly I wanted this to
happen in
1986, 1991, 1994. And when I feel how little I
care
this year, it makes me sad.
There was a time, not that long ago, when the
Yankees
did not win the World Series every year, as they
do
now. In fact, when I started following baseball
in
earnest, the Mets were by far the best team in
New
York.
This was 1986, I was in junior high, and Keith
Hernandez, Gary Carter, Darryl Strawberry and a
youthful
Dwight Gooden were leading the Amazin’s to one of
the
best records in the history of the game. How I
loathed them! I preferred to cheer for the Bronx
Bombers of Don Mattingly, Dave Winfield, Willie
Randolph, and Mike Pagliarulo.
Rooting for the Yankees was (and still is)
difficult
business. They are owned by the meddlesome
George
Steinbrenner, who:
a) is a convicted felonb) employed 17 different managers in his first 17 years as owner
c) is dubbed “George III” by the Yankee beat writers
d) got in a donnybrook with some fans after his team’s Game 5 loss to the Dodgers in the 1981 World Series
e) was suspended from baseball for two years for his involvement with gambler Howard Spira
f) illegally contributed money to Richard Nixon’s 1972 presidential campaign
g) served, briefly, as his team’s manager OK, Steinbrenner never managed his own team. That was Braves owner Ted Turner. But Turner, unlike George III, was married to Jane Fonda. And Turner understood more quickly what it takes to build a championship contender: pitching, pitching, and more pitching. Steinbrenner was (and still is; see “Sosa, Sammy”) more interested in loading his roster with big names. Having ridden the coattails of Reggie Jackson to success in the 1970s, he sought to lure similar larger-than-life superstars to the Bronx in the 1980s. He spent exhorbitant sums of money signing free agent busts, and routinely exchanged promising young prospects for aging veterans on the decline (see also, “Buehner, Jay: Ken Phelps, trade for”). His penchant for dealing prospects was particularly annoying to inveterate fans like myself. Unlike their football and basketball counterparts, baseball players seldom make the major leagues right out of high school or college. Instead, they hone their skills in the minors, climbing (or trying to) the ladder to the parent club. Very few make the leap successfully. One of the greatest thrills in baseball, and one completely lost on Steinbrenner, is watching a player your team drafted blossom into an All-Star. In 1987, the Yankees summoned a young left-handed pitcher from their triple-A club in Columbus. (Good left-handed pitchers, you should know, are like those stamps where the airplane is flying upside down: there are only so many of them, so they are very valuable. Growing one in your own farm system is like striking a uranium deposit in your backyard). Blisters on his throwing hand kept him from doing much his first two seasons, but it seemed to me, and every scout worth his salt, that this kid was the answer to the team’s perennial pitching problem. He was going to win us the Pennant; I could feel it. So what does Steinbrenner do? He trades him to the arch-rival Toronto Blue Jays for aging Jessie Barfield, a wide-bodied slugger who plays the exact same position as Winfield. George III, ever the brand-name snob, was fascinated by Barfield's power; Uncle Jessie led the American League in home runs the previous year with 40 (this was before the current juiced ball/juiced slugger era we now enjoy). This was an asinine move. For one thing, you don’t trade promising southpaw pitchers for over-the-hill right fielders, especially if you already have a better right fielder already on your team. For another, the Blue Jays at that time were the team to beat, our greatest rival, The Enemy. No true Yankee fan wants one of The Enemy in pinstripes, no matter how good a player he is (see also “Clemens, Roger”). In protest, I stopped watching the Yankees for a year and a half. But rooting for another team was inconceivable (I tried), and I missed baseball, so I forgave my beloved Bronx Bombers. This was eased by the fact that Steinbrenner was suspended for two years in the early 1990s for -- as I understand it -- being a jerk. Right away things got better. Idiotic trades were put on hold. Prospects were given time to develop. Managers were fired less regularly. Mattingly was still around, joined by a new favorite of mine, Paul O’Neill. And, best of all, the team improved. My interest grew from casual to intense to borderline compulsive. Then came the magical 1994 season. It was the first year of the Wild Card (how I wish they had employed it sooner!), but that year, the Yankees didn’t need it. They stormed out of the gate, vanquishing all who stood in their path. O’Neill was having the kind of year players dream about –- he was batting, like, .491 in June, which is unheard of –- en route to a certain batting title. Mattingly, who had never tasted of the post-season, was rejuvenated, and you just knew that if given a chance to play in October, he would make Reggie Jackson look like Tito or Jermaine. The '94 Yankees were a Team of Destiny. After eight years of denial, I would finally see my Bombers in the World Series. But on August 12, 1994, the unthinkable happened. With the Yankees a whopping 10 games up in the standings, the players went on strike. A month later, with negotiations at an impasse, the owners cancelled the World Series -- the first break in the annual Fall Classic in 90 years. Or, to return to our hackneyed subway metaphor, the train that two World Wars could not derail was knocked off the tracks by the pig-headedness and greed of its own custodians. And my hope of a Yankee championship fell like a house of Metrocards. I was devastated. It was like the girl you had a crush on since fifth grade telling you, “We’ll have sex after the prom” -- and then they called off the prom. How could they call off the prom? How could they not have a World Series? In the movie Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner says, “No matter how bad things get, you always have baseball to fall back on.” Not so, Kev. The 1995 Yankees, though not as good as the '94 vintage, made the playoffs again (this, mind you, was after the work stoppage ended with neither players nor owners gaining anything). Despite valiant showings by Mattingly, O’Neill, and an unknown reliever named Mariano Rivera, they fell to the Seattle Mariners in an exciting five-game Wild Card playoff. It was almost enough to lure me back into the fold -- but not quite. The Madness of King George, now back at the controls, fired manager Buck Showalter and replaced him with retread Joe Torre (“He couldn’t manage a vegetable cart,” wrote ESPN’s preview magazine before the ’96 season –- I wholeheartedly agreed); traded for Seattle’s Tino Martinez, last seen kicking our butt in the ’95 playoffs; and forced Mattingly into retirement. To me, this last act was the coup de grace. The moves, though, paid off; in 1996, the Yankees won the World Series. I was placated somewhat, but even as I watched, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I was worshipping at the wrong church. Last year, I read a story about Mattingly watching the ’96 Series with his family in Evansville, Indiana. When the routine fly ball left the bat of the Braves’ Mark Lemke, and it became apparent the Yankees would win, Mattingly rose from his chair, walked into the bedroom, and quietly shut the door. No player suffered more because of the strike than he did. With each succeeding season, my interest waned further. Other than a few stalwarts –- O’Neill, Rivera, Andy Pettitte –- the current team does not resemble the one that played the Mariners in ‘95. Mattingly’s replacement as Yankee Poster Boy, Derek Jeter, I can’t quite seem to like. Donnie Baseball never had to date Mariah Carey to make himself more of a star. Jeter, on the other hand, needs reflected celebrity; like most of his teammates, the kid is dull. That brings us to the Subway Series. In one dugout, we have Paul O’Neill and a collection of former Mets, Red Sox, and Braves -- mercenaries in Yankee pinstripes. And warming up in the Mets bullpen, their Game One starter, is All-Star left-hander Al Leiter –- who also happens to be the former Yankee prospect whose trade so vexed me all those years ago. Whom to pull for? Me, I root for the Knicks.
By Greg Olear
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