Guess who’s comin’ to town, baseball fans?
The. New. York. Yankees. What a treat!
Those “Damn Yankees” are the gold standard in sports – not just baseball – in all of sports. Ruth. Gehrig. Joltin’ Joe. Yogi and The Mick. Or if you prefer the more modern list, if you’re a Gen X, Gen Y or just a Gen-eral sports fan, you’ve got Bernie, Andy and A-Rod; Mo, and of course, Jeeetahhh. Household names held by one-name guys, spanning multiple generations. The Yankees are sports in America.
The Yankees are also 31-32 at present.
In fact, they’re just one game shy of residing in the AL East’s cellar. They haven’t “really” been to the playoffs since 2012. (Yes, they played, and lost, in the one-game ALWC last season, but does that even count?) The Boss died in 2010 and his beloved ball club hasn’t been to the World Series since. The last time they made it to the Fall Classic was in 2009; they won their 27th World Series title that year.
These Yankees are not those Yankees. They don’t have the heart (Jeter) or talent that the ’09 club had. They’re a far cry from the modern era team that won three straight from ’98 to 2000. And compared to the Yanks of old (let’s say from ’27 to ’62, when they won 19 of their 27 world championships) they’re somewhat of an embarrassment.
These Yankees are more like the Yankees I remember growing up. From 1982 to 1994, the Yankees failed to make the playoffs even once. In that span, they finished out of the division lead by more than 16 games five times.
The Yankees that will be playing tonight at Coors Field tonight and Wednesday are still very much the Yankees in that they cost a bundle – $243,560,026 to be exact. That’s the second highest payroll in baseball. Your Colorado Rockies trot out less than half of that on any given night; the Rox payroll ranks 17th and comes in right at $112,378,536. At the exact moment, that extra $131 million has produced exactly one more win this season. Twenty-three million won’t even be on the bench, as star first baseman Mark Teixeira is currently on the 15-day disabled list.
Back when interleague play began back in 1997, seeing the pinstripes on the summer schedule was like winning the lottery. Now, it’s sort of ho-hum. The roster is no longer star-studded, but the tickets are more expensive (hey, they’re the Yankees, remember?). These days, interleague play has mostly managed to ruin the All-Star Game and create wide discrepancies from one team to the next in terms of the schedule.
Still, these are the Yankees, and every transplant New Yorker and wannabe local with a “great” story as to how or why they became the most diehard Yankees fan – ever – will be there yelling and groaning in their most Manhattan-est voice. They’ve been forking over Big Apple money like Murderer’s Row is visiting LoDo. For just a couple of nights, we’ll think we’re in the Bronx.
In 2007, the Rockies swept both of the New York teams when they visited Coors Field. And we all know what happened in 2007.
In 2016, the Mets have already been swept. Can the good guys do the same thing to the “other” New York team tonight and Wednesday?
I say they can.
After all, these are the Yankees.