New York, NY (WFAN) -- Listening to WFAN since the Yankees won their first World Series since 2000 has me very annoyed. First, here are the things I’ve had to hear from Mets fans.
The Yankees won because of their payroll.
They should win every year with the money they spend.
They won because of guys who are steroid cheats, A-Rod and Pettitte.
Even more disturbing is the stuff I’m hearing out of Yankees fans.
What free agents should the Yankees sign in the offseason?
Should they resign Matsui, Damon, or both?
Joe Girardi still can’t manage.
First, ignore the haters. Money helps in the regular season but as everyone has seen since 2000, it offers less help and no guarantees in the postseason. As for the steroids, nobody knows who is using what right now. You can’t worry about. Mets fans have such a psychological complex about the Yankees they need a team of professionals from Bellevue to fix it. Let them yap, and smile at their whining.
Second, for you Yankees fans out there please stop for a second. Take a deep breath. Say to yourself: “The Yankees won the World Series.” Soak it in. Think about smacking around Pedro Martinez in the deciding game of the World Series. Remember all the big homeruns A-Rod hit, and how the monkey was taken off his back and sent screaming over the centerfield fence. Savor finally knocking the Angels out of the playoffs. How about the story of Damaso Marte going from bust to hero? Think about Captain Clutch, the Great Mariano, the team’s emotional Captain, Jorge Posada, and the always gritty Andy Pettitte. Their performances and legacies are very special things.
Winning the World Series is very hard. So many things have to go right over the course of a 162 game season and three playoff series to win a title. A couple slumps and a couple bad pitching performances can end a 100 win season in a course of a week. The Yankees beat two great teams in Anaheim and Philadelphia to win their 27th championship. One has been their foil for a decade. The other was the defending champion. Enjoy the success. It’s not easy to win in the playoffs. No one knows when it will happen again.
The Yankees are going to be better next year because of this championship. The pressure is off all the players on this team that never won a World Series. If A-Rod was relaxed this year, he should be as serene as a Buddhist Monk (or a centaur) next year. Sabathia, Teixeira and Burnett have shown what they can do on the biggest stage. The team will have a swagger and confidence about them that only comes with a championship.
After five long years the dark cloud that was 2004 is finally gone. The stigma of blowing a 3-0 lead to the Red Sox is off this group of players. All postseason that memory hung over everything, casting doubt even when the Yankees were playing their best baseball. I had trouble believing, even with a 6 run lead in Game 6 at home, up three games to two. All I could think about was blowing that lead to Boston, and maybe this group would do it again. That’s gone now. This group proved they could win.
Yankees fans began to expect titles in the late nineties. It got to the point that winning the World Series was as much a relief as it was joyful. Should the Yankees be expected to make the playoffs? Yes. Winning the World Series cannot be an expectation. It should be the only ultimate goal to define a successful season, but never something that’s assumed. It’s not the Yankees God-given right to win a World Series. They have to earn it like every other team. Every Yankees fan should have learned that the last 8 seasons when they were knocked out of the playoffs with team that have less talent.
Enjoy it when it happens. Love it. Let loose. Go nuts. Buy your World Series Championship gear. Wear it with pride. Be happy all weekend. Savor 2009. Enjoy being on top of the baseball mountain. Right now the Yankees are the best team in baseball and no one can dispute it.
Don’t worry about next year. Save that for next week.
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