Strong Team. Weak Fans?
By Potfry
The sound started last week as a faint growl, right around the time that Mariano Rivera blew his second save. It was like the sound of a waterfall when you’re still far off and not quite sure what you hear. Yesterday, after the Yankees had looked bad all afternoon flailing at the flutterings of Tim Wakefield, the sound became a more discernable whine. “Is it time to get a new manager?”
It was the sound of impatience and entitlement. After 4% of the season, the leaders of the Privileged Yankee Fan Brigade emerged triumphantly on the Yankee message board, their suspicions confirmed by the loss to the Red Sox. The Yankee ship has run aground, they declared, and Joe Torre is locked in his cabin, trying to sober up before the authorities arrive. The venom and hostility in these public diatribes suggested that these feelings had been bottled up since the first Yankee loss, that the urge to say “I told you so” had been keeping some people awake nights.
“Let’s face it, the Yankees are soft”
The Yankees and Red Sox are both 3-4 this morning. The similarities end right there. For the most part, the Red Sox message board is it’s normal self: a range of posts, many about yesterday’s ring ceremony. There is no angst. In New York, the moderates still outweigh the reactionaries, but it’s getting so you can’t swing a dead cat on the Yankee message board without hitting a sputtering, distressed insurgent.
“Unbelievable, just pathetic…”
Yankee fans have been stereotyped as a front-running throng of entitled elitists, a characterization that I’ve found repulsive and unfair. Today, I find that there is some truth in it. Too many of you expect to win like you expect to put on a clean pair of underwear each morning. That is not sport. That is a video game.
“This team stinks.”
What’s most unsettling is this: the fans in Boston understand better than some in New York just how strong this team is.
