Derek Jeter
My son and I have an old fashioned father-son relationship in many ways. None more so than through our mutual love of baseball. We actually could be a Normal Rockwell painting if Norman Rockwell was still around to paint. Through everything--and there have been things, of course--Kurt and I have baseball, the great conversation starter, and conflict-fixer.
He is a fanatic Yankee fan. I'm not talking big fan, or really big fan, I'm talking fanatic. As a child he cried when the Yankees lost a meaningless game to the Toronto Blue Jays in April. As an adult he cries when the Yankees lose a meaningless game to the Toronto Blue Jays in April.
I hate the Yankees, of course, because I grew up in the W O Y period in New York. Not sure what W O Y means? It means, We Own You, and by we I mean New York baseball, by you I mean everybody else, every other city with a baseball team. The Giants, Dodgers and Yankees owned baseball in the 50s when I grew up.
Because there were three teams in New York you had to choose. There was no such thing as having two teams you rooted for, or having a like-ing for one of the other NY teams. You loved one team and hated the other two. The end. When you met someone new at the playground you didn't ask them what school they went to or where they lived, you simply said "Giants, Dodgers, Yankees?" It was understood that was the only information you needed to size somebody up and decide if there was any chance you would hang around with him. Many a friendship started and didn't get off the ground based on the answer to that question.
I was a Giants fan because my father was a Giants fan. Pure and simple. Unlike the nonexistent financial inheritance, I inherited my love for the Giants from my father. That's how it worked. You rooted for who your father rooted for. Just like you couldn't decide to just up and change your family, you couldn't up and change your team.
So, I loved the Giants and inherited an intense hate for the Dodgers and Yankees. Especially the Yankees.
Because where NY was in an W O Y period, the Yankees were always in an W O Y period over the other two NY teams. The Yankees were always winning.
So we hated them even more.
I'm getting to Derek Jeter, I promise...
My son and my team preferences (mine being the Cubs... you remember them right? Last in the world series just before the Napoleonic wars?), is more complicated than just rooting for two different teams. He and my oldest daughter Jennifer root for the Yankees! Not only another team, but the team I hated the most... and he was supposed to inherit my love of the Cubs from me right? I mean, after watching the King's Speech last night and watching that blockhead King abdicate to follow a floozy woman you sensed the importance of following protocol and doing the right thing in the inheritance department.
But the guy abdicated and broke the chain. He followed a floozy...
My son abdicated and broke the chain. He followed a floozy...
Betrayal doesn't even begin to describe it.
But I've gotten over it a little. And that is because of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.
Because the other thing my son HAS inherited from me and followed is my old fashioned belief that there is a right way and a wrong way to be a baseball player (a person in general, too, of course, but that's for another time).
Here, take this test: which of these two guys does it the right way and which one does it the wrong way?
Derek Jeter
Alex Rodríguez
Get the idea?
Now I am one of the few people reading (or writing) this blog that can actually say he has spent some time with both of those guys. True my time with Derek Jeter was confined to a couple of contacts at Spring Training and a small press conference at Madison Square Garden but there I had a chance to actually talk to him as we waited for the camera crews (no idea what we were there for, however... obviously a Boys & Girls Club thing, but can't remember what. Sports Illustrated comes to mind). Somehow he just 'had it. You know what I mean right? He just had class. He smiled and talked to the kids we had there; he didn't complain during all the different things he had to do for the press conference. He just kinda had this aura around him that made you feel good to be near him.
Oh, and then he played baseball too. He was one of the few people I would pay to watch play. And he was a Yankee... get my point? I would pay my money (which, as my kids will tell you, I never did--didn't pay for a ticket to a sporting event until I retired in 2007), to see Derek Jeter play. AND HE WAS A YANKEE... THE-I HATE YOUR GUTS-YANKEES.
Alex Rodríguez? I spent a lot more time with him when in the early days of his career, while with Seattle and Texas, he did some things for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Verdict on my time with Alex Rodríguez? Not worth spending one more minute thinking about him let alone writing about him.
But stay with me now, Alex Rodríguez is the kind of Yankee that is supposed to be a Yankee... he makes it EASY TO HATE HIM. He does his job as a Yankee--he gives us Yankee haters the double benefit of hating him because of who he plays for and hating him because he's a jerk. See what I mean? Rodríguez plays his role right. Jeter just screws everything up. He and Rivera just didn't get the memo. They throw off the natural order of things. They have to force--- and I mean force---a true Yankee hater to care about the Yankees and suspend my hate, even if just for one more season.
Derek Jeter, who announced yesterday he is to retire, was so unbelievable he could make me like him. AND HE IS A YANKEE...
I'm going to get the over priced Major League Baseball internet package so I can watch Yankee games all season this year just to watch Jeter. AND HE IS A YANKEE...
And then next year I will return to where I belong in the universe of baseball fans: dedicated to the sorriest franchise in history and intensely hating the greatest franchise in history.
That's the way it's supposed to work.
He is a fanatic Yankee fan. I'm not talking big fan, or really big fan, I'm talking fanatic. As a child he cried when the Yankees lost a meaningless game to the Toronto Blue Jays in April. As an adult he cries when the Yankees lose a meaningless game to the Toronto Blue Jays in April.
I hate the Yankees, of course, because I grew up in the W O Y period in New York. Not sure what W O Y means? It means, We Own You, and by we I mean New York baseball, by you I mean everybody else, every other city with a baseball team. The Giants, Dodgers and Yankees owned baseball in the 50s when I grew up.
Because there were three teams in New York you had to choose. There was no such thing as having two teams you rooted for, or having a like-ing for one of the other NY teams. You loved one team and hated the other two. The end. When you met someone new at the playground you didn't ask them what school they went to or where they lived, you simply said "Giants, Dodgers, Yankees?" It was understood that was the only information you needed to size somebody up and decide if there was any chance you would hang around with him. Many a friendship started and didn't get off the ground based on the answer to that question.
I was a Giants fan because my father was a Giants fan. Pure and simple. Unlike the nonexistent financial inheritance, I inherited my love for the Giants from my father. That's how it worked. You rooted for who your father rooted for. Just like you couldn't decide to just up and change your family, you couldn't up and change your team.
So, I loved the Giants and inherited an intense hate for the Dodgers and Yankees. Especially the Yankees.
Because where NY was in an W O Y period, the Yankees were always in an W O Y period over the other two NY teams. The Yankees were always winning.
So we hated them even more.
I'm getting to Derek Jeter, I promise...
My son and my team preferences (mine being the Cubs... you remember them right? Last in the world series just before the Napoleonic wars?), is more complicated than just rooting for two different teams. He and my oldest daughter Jennifer root for the Yankees! Not only another team, but the team I hated the most... and he was supposed to inherit my love of the Cubs from me right? I mean, after watching the King's Speech last night and watching that blockhead King abdicate to follow a floozy woman you sensed the importance of following protocol and doing the right thing in the inheritance department.
But the guy abdicated and broke the chain. He followed a floozy...
My son abdicated and broke the chain. He followed a floozy...
Betrayal doesn't even begin to describe it.
But I've gotten over it a little. And that is because of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.
Because the other thing my son HAS inherited from me and followed is my old fashioned belief that there is a right way and a wrong way to be a baseball player (a person in general, too, of course, but that's for another time).
Here, take this test: which of these two guys does it the right way and which one does it the wrong way?
Derek Jeter
Alex Rodríguez
Get the idea?
Now I am one of the few people reading (or writing) this blog that can actually say he has spent some time with both of those guys. True my time with Derek Jeter was confined to a couple of contacts at Spring Training and a small press conference at Madison Square Garden but there I had a chance to actually talk to him as we waited for the camera crews (no idea what we were there for, however... obviously a Boys & Girls Club thing, but can't remember what. Sports Illustrated comes to mind). Somehow he just 'had it. You know what I mean right? He just had class. He smiled and talked to the kids we had there; he didn't complain during all the different things he had to do for the press conference. He just kinda had this aura around him that made you feel good to be near him.
Oh, and then he played baseball too. He was one of the few people I would pay to watch play. And he was a Yankee... get my point? I would pay my money (which, as my kids will tell you, I never did--didn't pay for a ticket to a sporting event until I retired in 2007), to see Derek Jeter play. AND HE WAS A YANKEE... THE-I HATE YOUR GUTS-YANKEES.
Alex Rodríguez? I spent a lot more time with him when in the early days of his career, while with Seattle and Texas, he did some things for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Verdict on my time with Alex Rodríguez? Not worth spending one more minute thinking about him let alone writing about him.
But stay with me now, Alex Rodríguez is the kind of Yankee that is supposed to be a Yankee... he makes it EASY TO HATE HIM. He does his job as a Yankee--he gives us Yankee haters the double benefit of hating him because of who he plays for and hating him because he's a jerk. See what I mean? Rodríguez plays his role right. Jeter just screws everything up. He and Rivera just didn't get the memo. They throw off the natural order of things. They have to force--- and I mean force---a true Yankee hater to care about the Yankees and suspend my hate, even if just for one more season.
Derek Jeter, who announced yesterday he is to retire, was so unbelievable he could make me like him. AND HE IS A YANKEE...
I'm going to get the over priced Major League Baseball internet package so I can watch Yankee games all season this year just to watch Jeter. AND HE IS A YANKEE...
And then next year I will return to where I belong in the universe of baseball fans: dedicated to the sorriest franchise in history and intensely hating the greatest franchise in history.
That's the way it's supposed to work.
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