and not just a boston fan.
Page 2 has this to say:
You have to be from here to understand. You just do. It wasn't just that the Yankees always win. It was everything else that came with it -- the petty barbs, the condescending remarks, the general sense of superiority from a fan base that derives a disproportionate amount of self-esteem from the success of their baseball team. I didn't care that they kept winning as much as they were a-holes about it. Not all of them. Most of them. In 96 hours, everything was erased. Everything. It was like pressing the re-start button on a video game.
And yeah, I know. We need to win the World Series to complete the dream. But you can win the World Series every year. You only have one chance to destroy the Yanks. As my friend Mike (a Tigers fan) wrote me last night, "Everyone outside of Yankee brats are celebrating quietly with you guys. It's like you killed Michael Myers, Jason, Freddie Kreueger and Hannibal Lecter in one night."
...
One last story: I rolled into my Dad's house at 1:30 last night, only to find him in the living room, sound asleep, holding the TV remote in his hand like he'd been cryogenically frozen. On the television in front of him, Fox25 was showing live footage from Kenmore Square, as thousands and thousands of Boston fans were celebrating the impossible. After I muttered "Dad!" a few times, he finally jolted awake, glanced at me, then glanced at the TV.
"I can't believe it," he mumbled. "We beat the Yankees."
And it wasn't a dream.
1. 'Dali Llama' posted on the Thu 21 Oct 2004, 2:03 pm
ReplyDeleteI'm not even a big baseball fan, and I've just gotten sucked into watching the games because they've been so exciting. It's great seeing the underdog (at least in the eyes of the smug Yanks fans' eyes) Boston win and it's great to see evenly-matched teams in both leagues for a change.
Plus, my mother was born and raised in NYC. She was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan and later gravitated to the Mets. She lived there and celebrated when the Mets won the '69 series. In other words, she LOATHES the Yanks. When Boston won last night, she screamed like she was on a game show.
2. 'A visitor' posted on the Thu 21 Oct 2004, 2:44 pm
ReplyDeleteI'm fascinated by New Englanders like the ones described in this story, and heard personally many such stories during the year I lived 200 yards from Fenway. Obviously, though, this is not really about the flesh-and-blood Yankees, or about arrogant New Yorkers (although there are many, admittedly). It is about the tangled inferiority complex of an entire metropolitan area, heightened through a secular "mesorah" of sorts and transcending sports. Now that they've beaten the Yankees when it counted, can the chip come off? I wonder. At some point, I also hope to convince my friend Dr. Manhattan to collaborate with me on a manifesto explaining the thinking of real Yankees fans. Hint: not what you'd think.
Daniel
3. 'A visitor' posted on the Thu 21 Oct 2004, 3:00 p
ReplyDeleteThis is a global event. I have it confirmed that they are celebrating in Katamon.
Me(r)
4. 'A visitor' posted on the Thu 21 Oct 2004, 4:47 pm
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't doubt that -- you can take the fan out of Boston, etc. (And yes, I realize that present company includes non-native Bosox fans).
The original post was about being from Boston, though, and the reaction there being especially loaded, so I was responding to that.
Daniel