My memories of hating the Yankees are among my earlies and most cherished. The local nine, the Rochester From a box on the first base line at the Red Wing’s Silver Stadium I Their conceit was, unfortunately, justifiable. In 1964, when I That same year I organized and circulated a petition at Council Rock Middle When I was 18 I moved to Boston and over the ensuing years my sporting After an eight-year stay in Cambridge which included the Red Sox excruciating My hatred of the baseball Yankees has a depth and dimension that quite But when I look into my soul I can find no sympathy, no pity, for George Such violent emotions frighten me. Who among us know what we are I see trouble ahead whatever the outcome. We all know the Red Sox can’t My hatred of the New York Yankees has deep roots and many rich layers of bitter memory to marinade and wallow in. I have hated the Yankees much longer and more intensely than I have cheered the Boston Red … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/damyan.jpg\")
My hatred
\n of the New
\n York Yankees<\/a> has deep roots and many rich layers
\n of bitter memory to marinade and wallow in. I have hated the
\n Yankees much longer and more intensely than I have cheered the Boston
\n Red Sox<\/a>, and the current matchup between the two teams, which I
\n quake at even mentioning for fear of adversely affecting the outcome,
\n rips
\n the scabs off wounds still raw after years of Sports Therapy.<\/p>\n
\n In those days I hated them because they annually thwarted
\n the ambitions of the major league team I followed in my youth, the Baltimore
\n Orioles. I
\n grew up a baseball fan and little leaguer in Rochester,
\n New Yor<\/a>k, a rather
\n boring slice of middle America despite its reputation as a hotbed of
\n liberal eccentricity. There wasn’t much to do during the summer (way pre-internet)
\n but play and follow baseball.<\/p>\n
\n Red Wings<\/a>, were the Triple A affiliate
\n of the Orioles, and I spent many hot summer nights watching them face
\n off with the Syracuse Chiefs, the Buffalo Bisons and the Toronto Blue
\n Jays. Back
\n in the day the International League included Toronto, Montreal and the
\n Havana Sugar Kings, making it authentically international. Rumor
\n has it that in the months immediately after the Cuban Revolution, Fidel
\n Castro himself, whose failure as a right-handed pitcher at a 1950 try-out
\n with the New York Giants may have directly led to the Cuban Missile Crisis,
\n would sneak out to the ballpark and actually suit up and slip into center
\n field during the late innings of ball games.![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/fidelatbat01isi-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n watched future major leaguers like Mark Belanger, Dave McNally, Jim Palmer,
\n Mike Epstein, Davey Johnson and Boog Powell working their way up through
\n the system, finally arriving at The Show only to be stymied in their
\n (and vicariously, my own) quest for the ultimate prize by the Murderers
\n Row of those heartless, over-paid, insufferably conceited Yankees.<\/p>\n
\n was 11, they had been in the World Series 14 of the previous 16 years,
\n and had won the damn thing 10 of those years. That
\n year the Bronx Bombers <\/a>fielded at team including Clete Boyer, Tony Kubek, Joe Pepitone, Elston
\n Howard, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Their pitching staff included
\n Jim Bouton, Al Downing, Mel Stotlemyre and Whitey Ford. They won 99 games
\n and ran away with the American League pennant. Again.<\/p>\n
\n School, asking Major League Commissioner Ford Frick to break up the Yankees,
\n for the good of baseball. They were ruining the sport! There was no drama,
\n no suspense, no fair play. Owner Bill Veeck had a payroll twice
\n the league average and was able to buy the best players from all the
\n other teams. 57 students and 4 teachers signed, demanding that the Yankees
\n roster be disbanded and the talent distributed to the other teams in
\n the league.<\/p>\n
\n allegiances gradually migrated to the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots,
\n although my hatred of the Yankees continued not only unabated, but amplified. My
\n personal sense of unjust persecution and Sisyphusian frustration found
\n fertile ground in the Red Sox decades-long quest to unravel the
\n Curse.<\/p>\n
\n loss to Cincinnati in the ’75 series and numerous seasons truncated by
\n the dastardly dudes from the Bronx, I started migrating south myself. My
\n academic and personal life led to prolonged stints in Austin, Texas and
\n the Andean region of South America. At each stop the whole concept
\n of "Yankee" acquired new implications of dastardly evil. The
\n whole process culminated when I was kidnapped and almost killed by the
\n Tupak Amaru Revolutionary Movement in Peru for BEING a Yankee myself!
\n Shortly after this incident I returned to the US.<\/p>\n
\n honestly makes me question to my core my own concept of what sort of
\n human being I am. I always considered myself a compassionate person,
\n siblings recollections notwithstanding. If anything, I am pathologically
\n over-empathic. I see the points of ALL sides in a dispute, deeply.
\n I can find the good side in ANYONE, even, for example, someone as universally
\n vilified as Adolf Hitler. I mean, the man loved dogs, he couldn’t have
\n been all bad.<\/p>\n
\n Steinbrenner, the New York Yankees and their unholy legions. If Boston
\n and New York were
\n city-states in ancient Peloponnesia, and Boston somehow managed to overcome
\n the Evil Empire on the field of honorable battle, I would be first in
\n line for the apres-conquest raping and pillaging.<\/p>\n
\n capable of when the situation around us awakens our deepest fears,
\n desires and hatreds? The next 10 days will be ones of exquisite torture
\n around the Dowbrigade household. The lovely but frustrating Norma Yvonne
\n has declared herself a Yankee fan, despite (or perhaps because of) knowing
\n absolutely nothing about the game. An iron curtain has descended across
\n the marital bed.<\/p>\n
\n win until Hell Freezes Ever. The Chicago Cubs are under a similar
\n diabolic edict. Should they meet in the Ultimate Series, it could
\n be a case of Apocalypse Now. Stay tuned…..\n <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"