Scorched Earth

“Adversity does not build character, it reveals it.” -James Lane Allen

I really haven’t been much for schadenfreude lately … not in the Yankee sense. Seems silly to completely revel in their failures when my team hasn’t made the playoffs in six seasons.

Be that as it may, I’m enjoying this particular collapse by the Yankees more than usual. First off, when did the so-called flagship franchise in all of sports become the Miami Dolphins with all their empty seats? If Game 2 against the Tigers was a football game it would have been blacked out. Not to mention Game 1 … and Game 5 against the Orioles where supposedly nobody could get out of work an hour early on a Friday for a deciding playoff game. Why does this make me happy? Because these are some of the same fans that think that they have an actual hand in it when the team wins. Well if that’s true, then that means that the 2012 playoffs are solely on these fans:

“I really think the booing spooked a lot of guys. A lot of guys hadn’t been booed before, and they couldn’t believe how nasty it got in the stands. A lot of guys were talking about it in the clubhouse. I was surprised by how much it bothered them. I really don’t think they ever recovered.”

That’s right. Your fault. Go look in the mirror.

And then, after laying low about the whole thing, I get tagged on facebook with a link to an article from 2010, and the basic gist of it was “Ha ha your Mets are still paying Bobby Bonilla.” And I’m like “is that the best you can do on the night you got embarrassed by the Tigers?” A link from 2010 about a story that we’ve known about since 2000? That’s the best these Yankee fans can do? I mean, it was like Eminem vs. Papa Doc. I know we’re bums. We’d shoot ourselves with our own gun all the time if the Wilpons could afford the bullets. You think that hurts us? Really? You’re going to tell me something I haven’t said a thousand times already? It’s like the guys who can’t get dates for the prom who resort to poking homeless people with sticks for sport.

Then I get the “how dare you Mets fans talk smack about us” schtick. Yeah, I have some nerve. Here, let me scoop my tears of regret out of your Grey Poupon. But of course it’ll be Mets fans who get tagged with the stigma of worrying about the Yankees and celebrating too hard when they lose in the playoffs when our season ends in July. Well I’m willing to take that chance. Call me pathetic if you wish. I’ve been called worse.

Ha Ha! Enjoy your $200 million payroll that can’t get a run off Phil Coke, and five more years of Alex Rodriguez hitting on women in the stands. If you’re lucky, he’ll get older while they stay the same age.