The Yankees will have a workout tomorrow in their new digs. It’s scheduled from 1:10 pm until 3:10 pm. (What’s up with the ten-past thing?) Gates to the Stadium will open at 11 am for season ticket holders who were invited – and for those willing to pay for tickets on StubHub, I suppose – to see the workout and get a look inside the new ballpark in the Bronx.
I had tickets to the event. But, since I could not attend, I gave them to my friend, Gary. He lives in Washington Heights and has a flexible work arrangement – so, getting to the Stadium on a Thursday afternoon is no problem for him. And, he’s a huge baseball fan – a fellow addict of the National Pastime – therefore, he lives for this kind of stuff.
I met Gary back in 1993. Actually, it’s a funny story. Back then, the internet-angle of fantasy baseball was zero. And, if you played, you had to have someone do your stats and then you got a weekly report via the regular mail. Back then, I worked with a fellow named Roy and we were in a fantasy league. We used a service called Express Stats to get our rotisserie reports.
One day, Roy and I were in an elevator at work, in our building that held several hundred employees, and we noticed a guy reading a report from Express Stats. It was Gary. We struck up a conversation and realized that we knew many of the same people. In fact, it turned out that Gary and I worked at Drexel Burnham Lambert at the same time in the mid-80′s. Small world, huh?
Gary and I became fast friends. He’s a very interesting guy – a tech-guy by trade but a musician by heart. His office was a stone’s throw from Ground Zero during 9-11. Luckily, Gary got out that morning. But, days later, he went back to get his tuba out of his car that was trapped in a parking garage. Like a baseball player with a lucky bat, he wasn’t letting that baby go.
Gary has about 11 years on me. But, we get along great. We’ve been to several Yankees games together through the years and he’s a die-hard fan. He keeps score at the games and never leaves until the last out – no matter if the game is close or not.
Also, back in the 1990′s, Gary taught me how to do the “USA Today Shake.”
Again, back in the pre-internet fantasy baseball days, you had to rely on print media for baseball news. And, the USA Today was a great source for updated stats and out of town boxscores on a daily basis. But, other than the sports section, most of us roto-heads had little use for the rest of the paper.
Gary had a thing – that I’m sure he learned from someone else – called the “USA Today Shake.” It was where you, after buying the USA Today at the newsstand in the morning, would hold the paper with one hand over a trash can, with your thumb and index finger pinching the sports section, and then give it a hard shake – retaining the sports section between your fingers while discarding the rest of the paper into the trash. Ah, the old days of rotisserie baseball…
Anyway, here’s the twist: Gary was born and raised in Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, and grew up a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates. And, he didn’t move to New York City until the 1970′s. However, once here, Gary began to love the Yankees. And, I can testify that, today, Gary is as devout a Yankees fan as one can possibly be – without question.
Stuff like this somewhat fascinates me. Actually, Gary is not the only person I know who has made this shift.
About a year ago, I met a guy named Fred. If I had to guess, I would say that he’s 8 years younger than me. In any event, Fred is also one of the nicest people that you could possibly meet – and a huge sports fan. When I first met Fred, I found out that he was originally not from the NY/NJ/CT area – and it was not until somewhat recently that he relocated here. So, of course, I asked him what baseball team he rooted for…me being me. And, he surprised me by saying it was the Chicago Cubs – even though he grew up about 325 miles from Chicago. As he explained it, the Cubs were always on WGN when he got home from school as a kid, and he just got hooked on them. However, today, he told me that he’s a fan of the Yankees. (Somewhat related to my “Gary story,” I gave Fred my tickets to Friday night’s Cub-Yankees game. It just seemed like the kind of game that he should attend.)
I’ve always wondered what I would do if I had to relocate to another state. For sure, I would attend baseball games there. I need to see baseball every year. I could not go without that fix. It’s my happy place. But, could I start to root for another team, and put the Yankees on the back burner? Somehow, I don’t think I could do that…ever.
I suppose, if I moved to a state that had a National League team, perhaps I could learn to root for that team and the Yankees. That’s the flip-side of what Gary and Fred did – they were fans of National League teams and then started rooting for the (American League) Yankees when they got to New York.
Come to think of it, I sort of remember someone once telling me that they were a Yankees fan because they grew up in Philadelphia – and once they moved here they started rooting for the Yankees…because they would rather die, as a Phils fan, than root for the Mets. Perhaps that’s how this whole thing works?
What about you? Have you ever rooted for another team before rooting for the Yankees? If you ever left Yankeeland, could you see yourself learning to love another team?
