Parade

Yankee Stadium, courtesy of @Yankees

Mr. Commissioner,

I came here to tell you that I have tried and failed to reconcile my affection for New York City — Broadway, the MoMA, the Knicks, etcetera — with my distrust of the New York Yankees organization. In the trajectory of my sports fandom, they were the first super-team: prizing all the best players from rival clubhouses, paying them ridiculous salaries, establishing dominance from the front office instead of on the field. I recently closed my eyes and paid upfront for MLB TV, which is now easily my most used streaming service. I quickly found myself unconcerned too often with events at Yankee Stadium; too many winnable games, too many salvaged series. I came here to tell you the Chicago Cubs set my heart alight by simply taking the field, how gorgeous that field is, and that maybe changing countries is perhaps the perfect opportunity to finally switch allegiances. 

But then, just before I hit the ‘publish’ button, I started to think about what it’d be like to live somewhere brand new without familiar comforts. The voice of Michael Kay calling the games on television, John Sterling announcing them on the radio. Dan O’ Rourke and Patrick Hennessy debating the little things on the Yankees Avenue show. Hal Steinbrenner fielding questions from YES Network about a distinct lack of aggression by the front office, every off-season, in a world where the Yankees have learnt to practise restraint, austerity. The mighty roar of the Bleacher Creatures, and seemingly the entire city, when Aaron Judge goes yard. I have hate-watched the Yankees, on-and-off, for just over a decade; and despite possessing the appetite to watch other teams, to purchase more colourful merchandise, I’m not sure I have the emotional short-hand with which to follow anybody else. I don’t want to be alone somewhere, and not have all those familiar sounds and beats and cues. For all my harping these past few months, about the aesthetic and ethical differences that make up being, I’m unable to reject the aesthetically displeasing costume of Yankee fandom, and I’m at ease with the ethically diabolical notion of rooting for the bad guys. 

The oath has been sworn, whether or not the stars align in its favour. A bestselling novel is meant to enable outright purchase of a room at the Waldorf Astoria, where I can wind down opulently and in peace. Strike up friendships with revolving doormen, a newsstand seller, and a doctor whose complete disinterest in the Knicks I expect to find utterly appalling. Where we can frequent the falafel shops whenever you and your cousins are in town, get on first-name basis with the managers at all the best pizza places, yell at bewildered draft picks as we drift across the stadia. 

Actual butterflies float out of my ears and nostrils when the Cubs are on. If I am to live, so to speak, in the sanctum of Yankee Stadium, there is a reality in which Wrigley Field is what heaven looks like when I die. I am in love with the Cubs’ colours, their park, the old-timey font across their paraphernalia. I admire their payroll, and the fact that they’ve cobbled together a team full of well-known redemption stories. But after every other walk-off or no-hitter that the Chicago faithful witness, even after I adjust the follows on my socials, the ‘favourite team’ settings on my sports apps, I want to go home to my wife: the damsel from the Bronx I must pacify with lavish gifts, who throws pots and pans at me when I crawl in after 11, who says nasty things about my mother in questionable Italian.

One of the things I’ve learnt from this team, that I hope you will too, is how to be granular about the pursuit of success. Even the old empire, just as much as the modern Yankees, understood the value of small increments: how a personnel movement in the outfield or a different arm at third base could impact the win-total. It’s why they’re the only team in sports with a diligently enforced shaving policy. You’re ‘chosen’ to be a Yankee — and when you choose them, as a fan, you’re setting the highest possible standard for yourself in anything and everything besides sports. Even if it takes fifty years, you’re getting that room at the Waldorf Astoria. 

We’ve spoken about gentrification, you and I, with regards to all these ambitions, all these hopes — whether it’s even the same New York that’s out there anymore. That Marty and Roth and Spike and Biggie told us was the spiritual and even civic equivalent of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. But inside the walls of that arena, a romance similar to that within Madison Square Garden persists. Winning is everything if it’s dedicated to the little guy, in a city with a thousand different ways to celebrate, imported and embraced from all over the world. 

We don’t have a mascot, but we do have the ghost of George Steinbrenner roaming the locker room, inspecting Yankee chins for loose stubble. I don’t think we have anything close to the defensive telepathy of the Houston Astros, the great rival, when the ball has to be slung across the bases for outs. But we have Aaron Judge, and young Anthony Volpe, and Darth Bader, and the folly of the idea that all of this means something — that we’re headed somewhere special, and we’re ordering oysters when we get there.