The New York Yankees are off to the best start in their storied history.
Tuesday, on the 100th anniversary of the Yankees' first game, they defeated the World Series champion Anaheim Angels 8-3 behind Jeff Weaver, whose 15-0 mark for their starting rotation (the only such streak to start a season since 1900), was the best beginning for starting pitchers ever by a major league team.
On Saturday, they owned a 20-4 record, a franchise-best season start.
This is the good news and the bad news. Because nearly everybody who loves baseball revels either in the Yankees' success or their failure.
Loving the Yankees or adoring some other team and hating the Yankees is part of the all-American sport of baseball. No other sport has the tradition — team traditions, family traditions, even national traditions — attached to it that baseball does.
Karen Seely, 53, of Cottonwood Heights, used to watch baseball with her grandfather as a child and developed a love for the great Yankees — Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig — for their history and for baseball.
In 1998, she got her first chance to watch her team play in Yankee Stadium, and not even a hurricane was going to stop her. She and her son, Matt, had tickets for a game on a Saturday in August, the day Hurricane Bonnie was expected to hit New York. So they flew to New Jersey on Wednesday, having no idea how to get to Yankee Stadium, asked directions all along the way, took a subway during rush hour, managed to get tickets from a scalper and got into the Wednesday game.
Seely says she is "not a crier," but she shed tears as she and Matt made it to their seats in her beloved Yankees' home that day.
Seely has a spare bedroom at home devoted to displays of Yankee memorabilia, including Bobblehead dolls, a Yankees Barbie and a 17-year-old Yankees Cabbage Patch doll, the entire 1998 team in Beanie Babies, pins, a Bronx license plate, Sports Illustrated covers from the years they won the pennant, commemorative Wheaties boxes featuring Yankee players, books, golf balls, even the light-switch cover. Well, you get the idea. Oh, yes, and a Yankees blanket has made it to the master bedroom. No traditional quilts for this woman.
David Wankier, music teacher and softball coach at Delta High School, is a third-generation Yankee fan, following the tradition of his grandfather and his parents and passing it along to his four children. Babies not yet born in the Wankier family have Yankees shirts and toys. His 21-year-old daughter plans to marry Derek Jeter.
Wankier grew up emulating his heroes Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. He can recount every game in the 1961 Series and all the players' records because he listened to the games by sneaking a radio with earplugs into his junior high classes. He later added Don Mattingly, Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter and others to his list. He holds Jeter up as a role model for the girls on his softball team at Delta.
Wankier says it was a real test of his loyalty when he served an LDS Church mission in Boston, home of the Yankees' arch rivals, the Red Sox. His loyalty to the church, that is, since he had to learn to live with Red Sox fans.
Like Seely, Wankier displays his Yankees souvenirs. His "Boy Wall" (which, he says, is really a Yankees wall) has posters, photos, signed baseballs, action figures, a game jersey, eight hats, jackets, a license plate cover, a set of Beanie Babies representing the Bambinos of 1998, just to name a few.
One musical that will never be performed at Delta while Wankier teaches: "Damn Yankees," of course.
Other fans are just as obsessed, er, avid about their teams.
Bob Fotheringham is more than a fan, he's a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals lover. The affair began when his father received a baseball from the Cardinals' traveling secretary, whom he'd known in the Navy during World War II. Stan Musial had signed the ball, and Fotheringham began checking the newspaper each day to see how Stan the Man was doing. The Cardinals and newspapers both became important in Fotheringham's life.
He continued following the team while in the Army, on a church mission in England (when the Cards "dismantled Mantle, Maris and Co. in seven games" in the 1964 World Series) and in graduate school in the Midwest, cheering for his team when they visited cities across the country.
For many years Fotheringham published the Redbird Express, a newsletter for Cardinals fans throughout the country. Jim Jardine, a Salt Lake attorney, tells about his professor at Harvard Law School, a rabid Redbird fan, who quoted from the Redbird Express in class one day.
An informal survey of Deseret News staffers turned up quite a roster of baseball fans, lovers of particular teams:
Jay Evensen, editorial page editor, Mariners fan: My oldest son and I are huge fans of the game in general, as well as its history. Two summers ago we took a two-week road trip, trying to see as many games as humanly possible. We ended up seeing games in Chicago (both the Cubs and White Sox), Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and New York, and we saw the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. We also spent an entire day wandering through Manhattan and Brooklyn, finding hidden plaques commemorating where old baseball stadiums had stood. We found Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds, Highland Park (where the Yankees played before Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds) and Washington Park, where the Dodgers played before Ebbets. Most of these are in parts of the city you wouldn't want to visit without armed guards, but we survived. We even found an old abandoned staircase on Coogan's Bluff with one of the landings engraved with "New York Giants."
Scott Pierce, TV critic, Mets fan: When I was a kid living in upstate New York, we had cable TV before cable channels existed. (Cable was for better signals and to bring stations from other cities.) The major reason we had cable was so that my mother could watch Mets games on Ch. 9 (WOR out of NYC at the time). And when the Mets weren't on, she'd turn to WPIX-Ch. 11 to root for whoever the Yankees were playing. I asked my mother once why she hated the Yankees and she said it's because when she was a kid (and she's 76 now) they had all the money and all the players and won all the time. So things haven't changed much.
Amy Joi Bryson, reporter, Yankees fan: What other team is there?
Sharon Johnson, marketing director, Yankees fan: The New York Yankees are and always have been my favorite baseball team. Mickey Mantle and Reggie Jackson have always been my favorites. Dave Winfiield was fun to watch and I enjoy watching the current Yankee team each year. The Yankees have (just about always) had great teams. Going way back to Don Larsen and his perfect no hitter. Whitey Fork, Gil McDougal, Billy Martin (in spite of his temper) Greg Nettles, Bill Skrowan, Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, Hank Bauer and, of course, Casey Stengal were all at one time part of the great Yankee teams. Reggie Jackson, Mr. October, was really fun to watch in the World Series. George Steinbrenner really made a mistake when he traded Jackson, which he later admitted to. A lot of people love to hate the Yankees, but not me, I love the Yankees. Someday I would love to be able to go to Yankee Stadium and attend a Yankee game.
Jerry Spangler, reporter, Twins fan: I have remained a Minnesota Twins fan for almost 40 years, all because Twin great Harmon Killebrew was my backdoor neighbor in Ontario, Ore., and would say hi to me from time to time. And once you are a fan as a little kid, you are a fan for life. My second favorite team is any one that beats the Yankees.
Jen Toomer-Cook, reporter, Yankees fan: My husband has been a rabid fan since a child, collecting baseball cards and the like. I'm not sure why, but I think Seinfeld's George Costanza puts it beautifully "Are you kidding? It's the NEW YORK YANKEEEES!!" They're an institution. We planned our Tampa Bay trip around the Yankees playing the Devil Rays, and I even got an autographed ball from my most favorite Yankee and, if you ask me, the nation's most eligible bachelor, Derek Jeter!!! I love this man!! I swear, if we were having a boy, I'd name him Jeter! Come to think of it, "Jetera" has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
Jody Genessy, reporter, Braves fan: I love the Atlanta Braves for the same reason I love the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Utah Jazz — I love misery! I thought as a little kid, 'What teams could I pick to root for that could get me close to ecstasy only to drop me and my championship hopes like a bad habit when it came to crunch time?" And, voila, Braves topped that list! When I was in my early 20s I finally got a chance to meet Dale Murphy, the guy I idolized. My buddy told me where he was going to be and told me to bring a baseball. So I did. When Murphy asked who to sign it to, I told him Vera Rhea. You see, my grandma was as big a Dale Murphy fan, as I was ,so I thought she'd appreciate it even more than I would. She treasured that ball until the day she died a few years ago.
Steve Speckman, reporter, Cubs fan: Section 223, Row 11, seats 9-12. Those are numbers burned into my brain. The ballpark is Wrigley Field. The team is, of course, the Chicago Cubs. My dad's dad was a Cub fan. Dad grew up loving the Cubs. The traditions: getting a bratwurst and beer before every game at Murphy's behind the bleachers and a bag of peanuts —"Cheaper on the outside!" the vendors yell. The talks on the phone with Dad in Illinois about who's got a hot bat or which pitchers got their stuff. Talks at the park about teams/players of old.
Steve Ashton, sports writer, Red Sox fan: Now, being a Red Sox fan is painful. They haven't won the World Series since 1918. No, that is not a typo. 1918 is the last year of glory for my beloved Red Sox. Many people believe that there is a curse on the team since they traded Babe Ruth away. Does the curse exist? Every spring, we Red Sox fans start wondering, "Is this the year? Does the streak end this October? Will the curse be broken? Pedro (Martinez) is looking good!!!" and so on and so forth.
The wait goes on for the elusive title . . .
Brice Wallace, business writer, Reds fan: I learned the game by watching it on TV and this all happened the same year the Reds were on their way to another World Series in the midst of their Big Red Machine years. In fact, the timing was great: to be in my middle-teen years and watching the "local" team (I grew up in West Virginia) become, in 1975 and 1976, world champions and arguably the best team ever. And, unlike a lot of fans at the time, I knew how rare and special all that was.
E-mail: mlkarras@desnews.com