Commentary: Yankees fan grapples with harsh reality
The day I moved back on campus a few weeks ago, I wore a New York Yankees t-shirt. I wasn't trying to make a statement or be an obnoxious Yankees fan; it just happened to be the shirt I wore that day. That afternoon, as I was walking with my parents across the Wiess College Acabowl, a friend of mine yelled from the fourth floor balcony, "Yankees suck!" My dad, a lifelong Yankees fan, muttered to himself, "The truth hurts," demonstrating that this season, more than any in recent history, has been rough for Yankees fans everywhere.
The fact is, as difficult as it is for me to admit it, my friend and my dad were right. This season, the Yankees are just downright bad. They are a bad team, plain and simple. There is simply no other way to say it.
On that day, Aug. 12, when my friend so accurately described the talent level of my team, the Yankees were a mere eight games behind first-place Tampa Bay and five behind second-place Boston. Being the optimistic fan that I was, I did not agree with my father or my friend on that day. The season still had 42 games remaining, and the Bronx Bombers had series remaining with both Tampa Bay and Boston with ample opportunities to regain that ground.
That was then. As of Sept. 1, 2008, the Yankees were 12 games out of first place and seven behind in the wild card race. There were 25 games left in the season. While a postseason that includes the New York Yankees is not yet a mathematical impossibility, I feel quite sure their season is over.
Even a week ago today I did not feel that way. Last week the Yankees had a series with the Red Sox on the agenda. If somehow, some way, they found a way to sweep Boston, hope would not be lost. Now, with the team having lost two out of three and four over the course of the week, an October without the Yankees becomes more likely with each game.
How did this collapse happen? On paper, the Yankees are not a "bad" team. Sure, this year's team has had an inordinate number of injuries and disappointments. Predicted rookie phenom hurlers Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy crashed and burned at the start of the season. Thus, a month into the season, the Yankees had lost 2/5 of the starting rotation. On June 16, the Yankees' pitching took another blow when last season's 20- game winner Chien-Ming Wang, staff ace, went down with a foot injury. The rest of the season, the team has been forced to "make do" with only two of the team's original five starters in the starting rotation - Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte. It is no small coincidence that these two are the oldest two members of the staff.
Injury has not been limited to the pitchers, either. Alex Rodriguez spent time on the disabled list at the start of the season, and slugger Hideki Matsui returned to action Aug. 19 after being on the DL since late June. Jorge Posada has been battling shoulder problems all season and now is all but a designated hitter for the Yanks. Thus, perhaps the entire demise of the team is not entirely the result of poor play.
Nevertheless, despite all the problems with injury, at the end of July, the Yankees looked like they were just waiting for the chance to snatch first place, only three games behind. Since then, the team has all but gone into free-fall, a fact made all the more painful seeing as how this is the final season in the House That Ruth Built, the Cathedral, host to dignitaries from Springsteen to the Pope: Yankee Stadium.
Every true Yankee fan hoped desperately that this team would make the playoffs this season not just because they are the Yankees, but because we desperately want to extend the season in the sacred confines of The Stadium. The place where Ruth called his shot, the grounds where Reggie Jackson hit four home runs in one World Series game, where Don Larsen threw the only perfect game in World Series history, where fans witnessed thirty-three World Series. The place where on April 18, 1923, 74,200 fans packed in for the opening of the stadium built in just 284 working days. With this season continuing on the same path that it is, Sept. 21 against the Baltimore Orioles at 8:05 p.m. ET, the final first pitch will be thrown. Only nine innings of baseball will remain to be played in the stadium that has meant so much to fans and players of baseball alike.
Truly, it will be an end of many eras. The new stadium will never see a game played against a Red Sox team still plagued by the curse of the Bambino, broken in 2004. It will no longer have the quirks of the older stadium, from the dank concourses to the "cramped" seating. Perhaps most importantly, even though fans and players will be making the move across the street to the new Monument Park, who's going to ensure the ghosts make the trip? I'm not convinced the ghosts of Yankees past will lurk in a stadium built simply to up the revenues of perhaps the most profitable franchise in the history of professional sports.
Ghosts or no ghosts, new stadium or old stadium, the fact is that this season has been a bust for this team. With elder statesmen aplenty on this team (Derek Jeter himself is 34), this season may have been the last chance for these Yankees to accomplish postseason success. So, to Yankee haters: rejoice - a period of Yankee desperation may loom on the horizon. To Yankee fans everywhere: Do not lose hope - deep down, I can't imagine the ghosts deserting the Bombers.
Natalie Clericuzio is a Wiess College sophomore and Thresher sports editor.
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