a yankee moment

am in mourning.

am a little behind on the news as well, but as you may or may not have heard, the evil team from boston with the colored footwear has edged past my yankees to win a spot in the world series.

someone remarked to me recently that rooting for the yankees is like betting on the house. (this person has clearly spent too much time in boston)

my yankees habit has waned on and off over the years.... I've never been really interested in sports, although I can occasionally muster the energy to pay attention to a football [soccer] match or a basketball game. But I've always liked baseball. I like watching the ball get thrown around the field-- there's something balletic about the way the players reach out to catch it, or lunge while they throw it. I like when they slide into a plate and whoever's on that plate has to touch them with the ball. I like that they have to touch.

My maternal grandfather, despite being from the Deep South, became a Yankee fan the minute he moved up north. This did not strike me as odd until a few years ago, after his death. In any context other than baseball, the word "Yankee" was an epithet. My mother, having grown up with the Yankees, every baseball season, would have them on in the house somewhere, whenever there was a game on. She gets very into the games and has been known to shout, cheer, and crow at the television when she feels particularly moved.

My sister inherited the Yankee blood. My father, on the other hand, was, in his boyhood, a diehard Brooklyn Dodgers fan. When they moved to LA, he felt abandoned, and took up the Mets as a consolation team. He can therefore never be a Yankee fan, and he's not authentically a Mets fan.

For a few years, following a series of relationships with boys from Long Island (read: Mets fans) I thought I was perhaps a Mets fan. this I think was equally an attempt to commiserate with the boy and an act of rebellion against my yankee background. But back in 2000, my family took me to a Yanks game, where I lost all will to resistance when I saw the way Bernie Williams could catch a ball way in the outfield. That was it.

And so maybe being a Yankee fan is like betting on the house-- but at the risk of sounding terribly like a weekly columnist, it's my house I'm betting on, gosh darn it! it's all about family! I haven't spoken to my mom since the defeat-- I'm giving her time to mourn.