When I moved into the sports department two years ago and the editors asked me to write a regular column, I vowed to myself never to write about anything I know very little about. Such as basketball, football and baseball. Oh, I know quite a bit about some sports, including soccer. Well, OK, just soccer. But I don't pretend to be a sports expert or even an avid fan.
However, I do know one thing: There's a mystique surrounding baseball that affects a lot of people, including people who don't give a flying fig about any other sport.
I know this because of my mother-in-law.
Afton, my late, sweet, home-body of a mother-in-law, had a vague idea who the Jazz were and what they were doing, and she knew about BYU and Utah football from raising five sons.
But she had a secret love affair with baseball.
We all used to wonder why Afton spent so much time down in the basement in the summertime, ironing. She ironed items that really didn't need it, such as sheets and jeans. It took us a while to figure out she wasn't so much eliminating wrinkles from clothing as she was smoothing out the wrinkles in her life by watching baseball on TV.
Many years later, she got through hundreds of dialysis treatments by rooting for the teams she adored. The sweet-natured woman only lost her temper when somebody tried to change the channel on her.
Because Afton was sort of a closet baseball fan, it wasn't obvious which was her favorite team. But I seem to recall she was a Yankees fan.
Ah, the Yankees.
Talk about your baseball mystique. This particular team sparks emotional reactions in the same way the war in Iraq does. You either love them or you hate them. You wouldn't get many "undecideds" from a poll question about the Yanks. Entire books have been written on this subject (the DesNews book editor just handed me three).
In fact, in a little informal survey of friends, colleagues and acquaintances, I found that many consider themselves a die-hard fan of some Major League team, and if it isn't the Yankees, then their second-favorite team is any one that beats the Yankees.
Randy Iverson considers anti-Yankee sentiment a form of mental illness. Any sane person (who is not a sore loser or stupid) loves the Yankees, he says.
On the other side of the debate, Tad Walsh, a Red Sox fan, says, "As for the Yankees, I hate 'em. But it's the idea I hate, the dynastic, bombastic, look-down-your-nose empire embodied so well in George Steinbrenner. When one of the new Sox owners, Larry Lucchino, called the Yankees the 'Evil Empire,' he struck a vein with Boston fans everywhere."
There are people (see story at right) who have shrines — room-size shrines — in their homes to the Yankees. One mentioned burning a candle in the shrine while watching each Yankees game on TV. These people sometimes avoid wearing their Yankees jackets outside the house, however, because fans from the other camp — who are probably very nice, ordinary people in other areas of their lives — express hostility when they see a Yankees logo.
It's a semi-religious fervor that's hard to understand by those of us who haven't felt a strong connection to a sports team since high school. And it's often handed down from one generation to the next. Sometimes when someone in the family breaks rank and starts rooting for a different team, or, heaven forbid, becomes a Yankees fan when the family is pro-Red Sox or otherwise anti-Yankee, it causes vocal family divisions.
Scott Pierce said, "My whole family — despite different religions, different political parties, etc. — loves the Mets and hates the Yankees. Because my mother loves the Mets and hates the Yankees."
On the other hand, David Wankier said his relationship with his son deepened even further when he found his new daughter-in-law and her father were also avid Yankees fans. They're planning a trip together to watch them play the Angels.
Why the love-'em-or-hate-'em attitude toward this team? One man said rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Microsoft. But many of these Yankee lovers have stuck by the team for decades, even when they were playing badly and seldom winning.
Most mention the great players — Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Don Mattingly, Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter. One fan said if truth be told, it's the goal of every baseball player to play with the Yankees. They're simply the best.
And that's probably why so many people hate them.
E-mail: mlkarras@desnews.com