Five Reasons to Loathe Yankee Fans.

I got to work early this morning and was killing time by making a list of the reasons to hate Yankee fans. Never figured that I would bother to type it up but then I got off work and read this story of Yankee fan idiocy and it seemed appropriate. First of all, it's probably the same guy who showed up when the World Series trophies went up to Vermont and thought it would be hysterical to have his picture taken with the trophies while wearing his Yankee cap. Also, dude was at a Phish concert, his memory of the event probably isn't particularly reliable. Without further ado, my thoughts from 5:00 am:

I don't dislike the Yankee organization. I find certain players extremely distasteful (Derek Jeter never seems to have an opinion on anything; Alex Rodriguez and Andy Pettitte are cheaters; and Joba Chamberlain and Johnny Damon could only be described as ridiculous) but I have no problem with the head honchos in the Bronx opening their collective wallet and having the championships roll in.

I do hate Yankee fans, though. I have never met one that I really liked. I came close once. Siobhan was my roommate freshman year of college; nice girl, intelligent, funny, and as long as we weren't talking about baseball we got along fabulously. But she still had the spectre of black, soulless-ness hanging over her head. And as soon as she opened her mouth she lost any appearance of individuality and become a mindless drone only capable of repeatedly bleating 1918 and 26. Yankee fandom, it turns out, is an unforgivable character flaw.

And so as we approach the first of these series to actually mean something in quite awhile, it's important to brush up on exactly why Yankee fans suck.

5. "We/Us", as in "We need to pitch better" or "The lack of timely hitting is killing us." I know that there are fans of other teams who do the same thing (undoubtedly, there are Red Sox fans guilty of this as well) but it drives me nuts and I've never met a Yankee fan who doesn't do it. Here's a free tip: Unless you're on the payroll, it's "they" or "them."

4. There's a displeasing arrogance that permeates Yankee fans; a belief that wearing pinstripes is a privilege and that any ballplayer would clamor to put them on. Yankee fans honestly seem to believe that there are 725 baseball players in this country who go home every night and cry themselves to sleep because they don't play for the Yankees. The arrogance also seems to extend to the belief that those pinstripes have restorative powers a la Frosty the Snowman's magic hat (always back to Vermont) and that not-so-hot ballplayers will suddenly become fabulous under the power of the stripes; i.e. back toward the beginning of the season there was talk in Yankee-land that Nady's injury wasn't a big deal because Nick Swisher was going to hit near .400. Nick freakin' Swisher (whom I may have developed a secret crush on back when he was with Oakland, one I still find myself unable to completely shake) who will strike out looking more times than you can imagine. The phenomenon of the awesomeness of the stripes did play itself out amusingly over the winter with the hand-wringing and general outrage when C.C. Sabathia waited around for someone, anyone else to make him an offer so that he wouldn't have to play in New York.

3. Curses. This might be an extension of the aforementioned arrogance. The only people who believe in curses are Dan Shaughnessy and Yankee fans. Shaughnessy's excuse is that he's an idiot. He writes beautifully (even if he does sidle up a little closely to purple on occasion for my taste) but the general idiocy behind his opinions make them invalid. Yankee fans? I'm not entirely sure. I suspect that it may come from the Greatest-City-on-Earth, Capital-of-the-World crap that they're so fond of spouting down there. In the tri-state area, they have this image of themselves as being very urbane. Of course, then, the rubes to the north would believe in curses and it would only be appropriate to taunt them with their silly superstitions. In the meantime, however, they've convinced themselves that sprinkling grass seed that came in Yankee packaging in Fenway Park will somehow curse the Red Sox. Don't get me wrong, I love New York but it would be a hell of a lot nicer without the New Yorkers.

2. Perhaps the most grievous sin, Yankee fans are incapable of original thought. They're unintelligent, unimaginative, boring, and liable to think no further than the back page of the Post or worse, admiring and parroting the work of John Sterling. Had everyone's favorite Vermont-er bought a square of sod from the old Stadium, snuck that into Fenway, surreptitiously cut up a hunk of the existing grass and replaced it with the Bronx sod, that would have been creative. Also, I've got to ask: Revenge for what? There's no thought process here but, again, Phish concert.

1. They're Yankee fans. Do you really need more than that?