Those Yankees

Tonight i wore the baseball cap of a team that won the World Series and it felt pretty good.

This is one of two world series that I've watched through completely. The last time I invested like this was in 1998 when my hometown team, the San Diego Padres went to The Series. Then, too, the Yankees were there. They won in four games. It was ridiculous. No one really expected the Padres to win, but not even taking one game off the Yankees was sad. I hated the Yankees, I hated their money, and I hated their fans. As early as the third game, Yankees fans were bringing out the brooms. In the final game I felt like they all had brooms; and they had them in Qualcomm stadium. I don't even care about baseball. To my friends, that much is obvious. I think it's slow and wearying. Still, I hated those goddamn Yankee fans.

Today, I'm sitting at home in Brooklyn, New York. I'm wearing a Yankee cap that a friend, and avid Yankee supporter, bought for me. "Root for a team that wins once and a while," he said. He was only teasing but it's true. For the duration of the series I have done just that. I've rooted for the Yankees. Incidentally, I already knew half the players on the team. And so, for the past six or seven days, I watched the games and rooted for my team. It wasn't difficult. Everyone wants their team to win 27 championships. Everyone wants their team to be the Yankees. They are everything that baseball is. Everything from the pinstripes, to the logo, to the city they represent is legendary, and for that, rooting for this team was a beautiful thing.

Now, it is starting to rain. Mayor Bloomeberg is on the television in Yankee garb, people are gathering in the streets outside my apartment, going to or returning from the bars, the empire state building is lit-up in Yankee's blue and gray. Tomorrow I will wake up at half past five, and get on the subway. From the car, heading over the bridge through Brooklyn, I can see the lower Manhattan and off in the distance, the Empire Building. New York, for me, is still a little magical. I'm still star struck when i see famous sights and eat famous foods. For that, rooting for the Yankee's tonight was special. To simply feel like a part of something, to wear the hat to work tomorrow and have every customer comment on 'those Yankees". Wherever i go from here, I'll have the year that i was in New York and felt like a New Yorker.