People like to pretend Yankee fans have experienced so much joy that they’re numb to glory.
We’re not.
I’ve seen Tino Martinez clatter to home plate against the San Diego Padres, just after I’ve finished celebrating my eighth birthday. The bases are juiced. My best friend, also named Adam, and I sit on an inflated air mattress in my new home. I’ve just moved to the suburbs. I know two people, and they’re my parents. Adam has driven up from our old neighborhood to watch the one thing that could fully capture our attention. We can’t watch. Tino’s under too much pressure. We cover our eyes with a blanket, and let the audio paint the story of a thunderous crack, and four series-changing runs.
I’ve seen a Jorge Posada blooper into shallow center spell the beginning of the end of the most heinous group of gruff Schilling-supporters to ever take the field. In 2003, I’d accepted a loss to the Red Sox. I’d sat on the floor, glass-eyed, played with my bobblehead, and acknowledged that my diehard Red Sox fan uncle probably deserved this. I watched Aaron Boone erase all doubt with his brother Bret in the broadcast booth.
I’ve seen Alex Rodriguez, after the bases had been empty with two outs, step up in an April chill and send a no-doubt grand slam to the black seats to kick off 2007 and beat the Orioles. I’m watching the dots race around the bases on an early Blackberry with my father and mother, walking the streets of Washington D.C. I realize you can always be tuned in now, and my life forever changes.
I’ve seen a single by Mark Teixeira looped into right, followed by an Alex Rodriguez earth-shattering smack into the right field ‘pen, right into the waiting mitt of an exuberant bullpen coach Mike Harkey.
I’ve seen Teixeira step to the plate against Jose Mijares three innings later, after David Robertson has turned a bases-loaded death into a null-set deflation, my gloved hands scraping against each other, desperately breathing into a hot chocolate to further populate its warmth.
I’ve seen Teixeira hit the lowest possible liner into deep left. It disappears for a second, then takes one, concrete-infused bounce deeper into the seats. Yankees win. I squeal. I watch Mijares’ eyes completely bug out later on the replay. I watch the Twins’ hearts freeze and shatter. I know we might have a shot at winning nine more essential playoff games.
I’ve seen the champagne on ice in my sophomore year dorm. Or rather, the champagne in my mini-fridge, sans-ice. Even with Shane Victorino at the plate and two outs, I refuse to accept that victory is imminent. He keeps fouling off two-strike pitches. Chase Utley is near. The Damaso Marte strikeout two innings prior caused me to clap and preen, however. Deep down, that was the moment I knew I’d have an actual, genuine celebration. As Victorino bounced to first, six ardent Yankee supporters and I hugged and bounced in the center of our first-floor one-room triple in Minden Hall. Indelible. Iconic. Real. We’re all still close. One of us is getting married in two weeks.
People like to pretend Yankee fans have experienced so much joy they’re numb to real pain. To your pain.
We’re not.
I’ve seen Luis Gonzalez rob an entire city of the end portion of a miracle. The miracle will forever remain incomplete. The city will never be all the way whole again.
I’ve seen the Red Sox win Game 4 in 2004, late night as my birthday wrapped up. My father panicked all through Game 3. “They’re scoring too many runs,” he kept chillingly saying, during a 19-8 win. He wasn’t wrong. I knew we would lose three more at that very moment. I’m a pessimist now, but only since that moment. It broke me.
Early freshman year, I was a little lost. I was making friends, but they were all very different. I wasn’t sure if I’d figured out who to be yet. I knew I was a comedian, but I’d been denied admission to two separate comedy groups. I knew I probably wasn’t an a cappella singer, but I tried that, too. Denied again. The Yankees weren’t going to the postseason for the first time since I was four and there wasn’t a World Series. I was locked in the heart of Red Sox country, watching the pregame ceremony that preceded the final home game at the original Yankee Stadium. The stadium that shook. The stadium that awed me.
I began to sob.
That’s when my friend down the hall, the Yankee fan, the bride-to-be, came and sat on my bed and watched with me. And that’s the moment I knew I’d found my people. I could be a comedian and fail. I could be a Yankee fan, even if the Yankees didn’t win anymore. I was changing, sure, but so was everyone. My high school identity had no reason to die. It only had reason to map itself onto an older, wiser brain.
I’m a Yankee fan. We care. We live. We die. We prosper. We fade and fail. We’re young again. A new season opens. We may yet win another few of these things. I’ll be screaming either way.
