Alright so I didn’t get my way and here I am sitting at my computer admitting to myself, it’s over, the New York Yankees have won the World Series. I didn’t want to begin the twenty-third year of my life in despair but some things are out of your control. If all the fans weren’t complete assholes about it I don’t think this would matter so much but I guess that comes with being involved in one of sport’s greatest rivalries. At least that’s the excuse I’m going to give all the Yankees fans for their attitude problems. I do, as a south New Hampshire native, has a disparity towards that God forsaken state as a whole but I’m trying to set that aside. Even when I do I still dislike New York and most of the sports fans from that state.
I’m not actually upset the Yankees won. A lot of those players are indeed the best in the game and they had the best team this year and deserved to win. I’m not arguing that at all. In fact I’m even happy for some of the people on the Yankees squad. I’ve mentioned before that although i’m a die-hard Red Sox fan, I’m not ignorant to the sport and I can appreciate the achievements of anyone who plays. Alex Rodriquez, for example – I’m glad he got a chance to win it all. The “steroid” scandal will always tarnish his name. [I’ll blog about how dumb this entire steroids era is later on] I’m glad he got a chance to win the big game because that is something no one will ever be able to take away from him. Mariano, Jeter, Swisher, and Hughes are just a few others on the top of my head that I’m genuinely glad got an opportunity to win it all. Some one more time before they wrap up their careers and some who are just starting off can use this as a confidence booster to improve their game and become even better ball players.
I’m very disappointed in Pedro Martinez though. He’s always going to be a Red Sox is my heart and I was really counting on him to bring this series to a game seven. If the Yankees had won at that point at least it would have been better baseball – which in the end, is what everyone wants. That suspense, that intensity and that energy in a game seven cannot be duplicated and its something we all live for. Charlie Manuel can also be blamed for not having the gumption that Girardi had to use a 3-man rotation when it counted. The one two punch should have been Cliff Lee [arguably the best pitcher in baseball right now] and Cole Hamels. The Phillies were relying on their starting pitching to give them an extra push and instead it just gave out.
The Yankees did what they had to do to get the job done. They didn’t go out and buy everything on the free agent market – they went out and bought the tools they needed. Low and behold here we are watching them celebrate on the diamond and they did it. The Phillies are in the top five in payroll so they can’t argue they were “out-spent”. Both teams had lots of momentum going into this series and the Phillies just could not keep up. If I, as a complete radical, can commend the boys in blue for a job well done then you can too – or hell might freeze over.
In the end it is just a game. I love that we can get so passionate about sports and really rally behind our teams as a community of fans but its important to remember our loved ones still love us, our jobs are still paying us, the sunrise will come up where it always does and we should keep our smiles on our faces just as we normally would. Remember – even if our teams let us down, they will always be there next year for us to cheer again.
State of My Union 