Damned Yankees' ...
I grew up within an hour of Yankee stadium, and yet I failed to fall in love with the Yankees'. My grandfather was a national league fan (St. Louis was his team) and that might have rubbed off (I had signed balls from Gibson and Carleton long before I had any idea what they meant -- we used them to play baseball in the neighborhood, major oops). Perhaps it was the disappointing teams from the late sixties through the seventies (or perhaps not, I was a catcher and loved Johnny Bench and Thurman Munson). I think the real catalyst was the Yankee purchase by George Steinbrenner. He made himself bigger than anyone else by using his incessant arguments with managers, players and anyone else who happened to disagree to push his message to the media (I'll admit that he was way ahead of his time in using all media outlets to push his agenda, the bad part was that he fought with everyone). It became the George Steinbrenner show, everyone else was secondary. In many respects, this is the same kind of problem people have with Jerry Jones in Dallas.
Either way, somewhere along the way, I went from being agnostic to pulling for anyone to beat the Yankees'.
The last few years have been interesting.
George has learned to tone things down and actually let others appear to run the team. I could still dislike the team, and I really have problems with the amount of money they spend relative to the rest of the league. But they have loads of talent, and people who make it fun to watch. So late in the season, I watch (and will continue to do so). This year was no different.
Except for one tiny detail, the Angels...
The Angels can't even get any respect in their local metro paper, The Los Angeles Times. Our local poison pen, one T.J. Simers (try this for some feedback: http://www.google.com/search?q=T.J.+Simers), barely even mentions them. Which is a good thing I suppose, because the nicest thing I've ever read about his daughter is that she's going to marry the local grocery bag boy (or something like that). It's sad that this was the venomous spirit chosen to replace Alan Malamud long term. Malamud wasn't a Jim Murray, but he was a very good (and often pleasant) read on page 2 each morning, he knew everyone and was always able to get good quotes from local athletes. No one talks to TJ if they can help it. But I digress...
The Angels had been having the same kind of magical year they'd had a couple of other times since I've lived in Southern California. Except this time, they didn't stop (well yes, they had a rocky stretch while trying to win the clinching games). The principle reason, from this fans perspective is Mike Scioscia (with a healthy dose of Mickey Hatcher).
Fred Claire said it all in this piece. Scioscia was schooled in the brand of NL little ball that the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers used to claw and scratch their way to a world championship. Hatcher was the class clown and utility fielder firebrand of that series. When the pressure started to become intense, and the team started wilting late in September; Scioscia, Hatcher and crew pushed the buttons to keep the team on track. This isn't exactly a young team, so my bet is that the veterans were more nervous at that late date than the young players who didn't know better. Some of them had blown it before...
I'm glad the Yankees' are toast and it would be a kick to see the Angels in the series. Considering the weird year this has been for baseball, it would also be really interesting to see the Twins there too. At this juncture, just what the hell would Carl Pohland say? Everyone thinks the speeches by owners are hypocritical (Disney has already done a weird PR flip-flop), but anything he says is going to painted in the worst light. Even now, the least damaging thing he can say is something like "We were wrong, I apologize." A simple apology can be criticized, but anything else will be analyzed to death. If they somehow win the series, oh my, how the ink will fly.
10:42:37 AM 
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