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If the Yanks win again it's a shame
When the playoffs began two weeks ago, the cheers of Red Sox Nation turned from “Let’s Go Red Sox” to “Let’s Go A’s,” and now rest firmly on “Let’s Go Mariners!” With Red Sox players vacationing for the winter, all their fans are left to hope for is a year without champagne or ticker tape in New York City.
It is not because we are born to hate them. It is not because they are a team of odious, evil villains, (in fact quite the opposite is true). It is not because of an inferiority complex, raving jealousy, or simple cold-hearted cruelty.
No, we yearn for the Yankees’ demise simply because, for five straight seasons, pinstripes and playoffs have been like peas and carrots. And it’s high time we had some corn on the cob.
One of the significant problems Major League Baseball has been grappling with the past few years -- and will continue to deal with into the foreseeable future -- is the redundancy of the postseason. In 25 division series since Major League Baseball first went to the wild card playoff system, only 20 different teams have participated. Seven of those 20 made only a single appearance in the postseason. Most attribute the problem to the economics of baseball, an issue that could be discussed ad nauseum. Whatever the reason, the fact is that the same teams appear in the playoffs year in and year out, and for baseball fans it is becoming tedious. No team demonstrates this problem more than the New York Yankees, who have appeared in every one of those postseasons since 1995. They have been absent from only four series in that span, during which they won three World Series.
Though it pained Red Sox fans to see the Olde Towne Team out of the mix for the first time since 1997, the departure of mainstays like the Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers has brought a welcome freshness to October baseball in the year 2000. Watching newcomers like the young and exciting Oakland A’s and Chicago White Sox has already made the playoffs more interesting than they might have been had the same old elite teams forced us to sit through another year of familiar re-re-rematches.
This is why Red Sox Nation and neutral baseball fans everywhere should join forces in opposing the Yankees with even more fervor than in the past. Watching the Yankees celebrate postseason victories has become as exciting as the intentional walk. At this point, Mariano Rivera inducing the final out of a World Series generates more yawns than goose bumps from fans across the country.
Gone is the intensity. Gone is the unbridled joy fans love to see in the euphoric mob of teammates celebrating as World Champions for the first time. Real baseball fans need fresh desire in the World Series. Despite Joe Torre’s and Derek Jeter’s claim that winning never gets old, watching it certainly does. The professionalism and success of the Yankees the past few years have been remarkable and commendable. But above all, it has become boring.
And so, whether you swim in the Gulf of Mexico and cheer for the Florida Marlins, or sleep in the shadows of the mighty Rocky Mountains dreaming of the Colorado Rockies; whether you bake in the desert applauding the Diamondbacks, or work in a steel mill pulling for the Pirates; whether you munch on sausages supporting the Cubs, or build cars and spur on the Tigers; here is a call to arms to baseball fans everywhere:
From sea to shining sea, from the highest mountaintop to the lowest valley, as you watch the remaining games of the 2000 baseball postseason, remember to root, root, root against the Yankees. If they win again, it’s a shame.
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