You’re right, that was really the sense of the OP, who also mentions “going a little against the curve” in rooting for the Yanks while growing up on Long Island (traditionally dominated by Mets fans in the NYC metro area)… And This post from an earlier thread gives my personal perspective on that topic.
Oh yes, and then this happened just this past week, amid the sudden resurgence to relevancy for the Yanks this year coupled with the “June swoon” that has hit the Mets.
One of the doormen to my father-in-law’s building in Manhattan is a big Yankees fan, who grew up and lives just a few blocks away from The Stadium, and generally exchanges some banter on the topic of baseball when he sees my father-in-law or my family (who are Mets fans).
On Monday (the day following the last “Subway Series” game, where the Yankees beat the Mets to even the season series at 3-3), he was on duty when my FIL was accompanied by my children to his apartment. He saw my son wearing a Mets jacket, and went a bit farther than the usual “Ooh, a Mets fan” expressions, and went into the “How Can You Possibly Root For The Mets” speech, accompanied with the verbal PowerPoint presentation of statistics.
“Come on! There’s really only ONE team in New York worth rooting for… Over 100 years of history, 26 world series championships, blah blah pennants, blah blah Hall of Famers, blah blah tradition, blah blah retired numbers blah, blah blah blah…”
Bear in mind, my son is three years old.
After he was done with his spiel, my son peered up at him, and said very seriously: “The Yankees… They’re really just people!” Laughter ensues. And the doorman could think of nothing further to say 
Almost agreed. Red Sox fans became what they despise the year or so after the championship. Bill Simmons on ESPN.com’s Page 2 is a devout Red Sox fan, and he gets emails about how he’s starting to turn into Yankee-Light. I agree. Red Sox fans came out in full force, even though a bunch of them were bandwagon fans when it was still a good story, but then they started to get annoying.
The Yankees, and “big market teams” like the Sox and Mets are shoved down our throats on Sunday nights as well. It’s not every week that one of those teams are playing, but it certainly feels like it. The media panders like crazy to these three teams as well because they encompass a chunk of people. They say that you can tell someone from New York City when they’re out of their element. There’s some truth to this. That’s also extremely annoying.
Hating the Yankees is a long and rich baseball tradition that predates Steinbrenner by quite a long time. Quoting from Veeck as in Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck (1962) at page 257:
“New York City is everybody’s Goliath. It is very important for other cities to beat New York. The best case in point is Milwaukee, which prided itself on being ‘Bushtown’ the year its team was beating the Yankees in the World Series (1957) a backdoor way of bragging that it was not Bushtown at all but a thriving metropolis with a wonderful ball team no matter what those New York city-slickers thought.”
There are three possible games Fox could be showing me. Yankees at Giants, Tigers at Braves, and Astros at Rangers. They are showing me the Astros game, easily the worst game of the three. With the Yankees game I could boo both teams and especially root against Bonds and Tigers-Braves could actually be a good game. And I can’t even watch the game on TBS or anything because Fox has the rights. (Yeah, I’ve got XM and could listen to the game, but it’s not the same for a lazy Saturday afternoon in front of the tube.)
So, when I’m not having the big market teams shoved down my throat I get the really crappy games to the point where I’d rather have a big market team shoved down my throat. I don’t think there are even 5,000 in the stands in Arlington. And the Rangers are starting an 0-1 pitcher with like a 10.5 ERA. That’s supposed to be worth watching?
The main reason I hate the Yankees is because of the coverage on all the national broadcasts. Yes, I know, a last place Yankees team will still draw a bigger audience than two smaller market clubs in first place. I understand why ESPN and Fox always show New York, Boston, or Chicago.
One good thing about the NFL, the small market teams will get broadcast time. Every game isn’t Giants, Jets, Patriots, or Bears. The small market Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl and will actually be featured on national broadcasts. ESPN didn’t jump to start showing St. Louis Cardinals or Detroit Tigers games this year.
Yeah. Even if something is best ever (which the Yankees may very well be), if the fans never shut the hell up about it, everyone else will hate them.
See also:
-Apple, Inc.
-Whedon, Joss
You find me ONE former Yankees fan who’s now rooting for the Red Sox. ONE is all I ask.
Look, I understand and accept that in every sport, there’s one team everybody adores or despises. In the NFL, that’s the Dallas Cowboys. In the NBA, that’s the Celtics. In the NHL, it’s the Canadiens. In college football, it’s Notre Dame. And in baseball, it’s the Yankees. Each of those teams inspires ridiculous, irrational love AND hate. And the nice thing about being a fan of one of those teams is, you really don’t CARE what other people think.
So, if there are people out there who work themselves into a righteous hissy fit when the Yankees are winning, fine. And if those same people are orgasmic because the Yankees are having a sub-par season so far, that’s fine, too. Just don’t expect Yankee fans to care or even to take you seriously.
I mean, if you’ve been a Red Sox fan over the past few decades, you SHOULD have blamed your teams problems on their racist scumbag owner, Tom Yawkey, for refusing to sign the black players who COULD have brough championships to Boston.
If you’re a Royals fan, you SHOULD be cursing your mega-rich owner (the CEO of Wal-Mart) for choosing to keep payrolls so low when he could easily afford to invest a few million in his farm system and create a profitable division contender.
If you’re a Cubs or Astros fan, you might ask how a team in America’s third or fourth largest city has the nerve to pose as a “small market” team.
But it’s easier to curse the Yankees, I guess.
At least in Canada, the love/hate thing is reserved for the Maple Leafs. I know that seems strange, and the opposite of what you would expect, since it’s the Canadiens who’re the ones with all the championships, but it’s true.
Yeah, it’s the Leafs. I recognize their history and love the fact that they (the fans) love the game, there’s no Goliath that I have more mixed feelings for than the Leafs.
Has it always been that way, or is it more a recent thing? I had no particular feelings at all for the Leafs prior to the Pat Quinn era, but then I was still pretty new to the game at that point.
It’s been that way since I’ve been coherent (I’m 26, by the way).
So…3 or 4 days, then?
Durrrrrrrrrrrrr…wha?
wipes some drool off his chin
Pretty much always, but probably even more so since the NHL expanded across all of Canada.
That were REAL fans in the first place? I can’t.
But I see people every day fully decked out in Red Sox wear that I remember most vividly flaunting their Yankee hats just 6 months ago.
This is bullshit, those weren’t Yankee fans in the first place, those were the same idiots around the country that once rooted for the Bulls, Cowboys, Lakers and 49’ers. Don’t count front runners as fans, they are a breed apart.
Yankee fans are true to the team no matter what and we number millions in this part of the country.
Come on Silenus, what is your basis for this, a few New Yorkers who disliked New York so much they moved to LaLa land and then got homesick?
Are you really saying NYC is the worst place?
I know you irrationally hate the Yanks, but in 1996 to 2000 what was the Dodgers payroll vs. The Yankees?
You are not going to find much of a difference.
Jim
There is a difference between irrational fans of the Yankees and irrational fans of the Yankees just because they are from NYC. Almost everybody I have ever encountered from NYC has an attitude I find repellant, and that is the attitude that NYC is the center of the Universe and that everything else is crap. It is those Yankee fans to which I was refering, the ones who point to their hats and wave it in your face. Do they care about baseball? Not really. But it gives them one more thing that they can feel “superior” about, and lord over other people from the rest of the country.
As an aside, I discovered what Heck must be like. Last night the only late game on TV was the Yankees vs the Giants. :eek: