What is Wrong With the New York Yankees?

Before I get started, I want to be completely transparent here: for the last few years, I’ve begun typing season retrospectives much like this one, and each year, they end up not getting published and are left to rot here in my drafts bin. The reason for this is because as I go back to proofread these things, I don’t necessarily like the way I come off in these pieces. I’ve always hated the notion that Yankees fans are entitled crybabies who need to be humbled. But the truth of the matter is that the team’s last owner, George M. Steinbrenner, III, instilled in fans of his team that to the Yankees organization, any season that doesn’t end with a World Series Championship is a failure.

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November 5, 2022 0

Yankees vs. Astros and The Building of a Rivalry

As a Yankees fan, the main rivalry for my New York Yankees has always been with the Boston Red Sox. It’s a rivalry that’s stood the test of time and has lasted well over a century now. From when Harry Frazee sold the contract of Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919 to fund his musical, “No, No, Nanette”, and that sparked the Curse of the Bambino for Boston, in which they would go championship-less for 86 years, experiencing postseason heartbreak after painful postseason heartbreak.

To me, the best rivalries revolve around postseason matchups & over my lifetime, the ones that built over the course of a few seasons would include the Angels, and most recently, the Astros. For a few seasons there in 2002 & 2005, it seemed that Mike Scioscia’s Angels had the Yankees’ number, defeating New York in the Divisional Series both years, but that demon was slayed in 2009 when the Yankees finally defeated the Angels in the American League Championship Series en route to their 27th World Series Championship.

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October 19, 2022 0

2017 New York Yankees Thoughts

So I’m not gonna lie…I’m still sore about the Yankees’ loss in game 7 of the 2017 ALCS to the Astros.

I know, I know…we’re supposed to be happy with the progress this team of youngsters made this year and marvel at the fact that this was to be the first “rebuilding year” of possibly many, only it turned out that this team of kids with a few veterans sprinkled in caught lightning in a bottle, were competitive all year long, made it into the wildcard game and actually won to advance on to the American League Divisional Series.

And they did it in true Yankee style…proving that they’re a team that plays the full 9 innings, that an early deficit can be overcome and that at Yankee Stadium, on a night in October, anything is still possible. Oh the ghosts were out and plenty of Yankees postseason magic was in the air in the Bronx, which really got me to thinking that this might be the year they get #28!

Until it wasn’t. So let’s go back and look at some of the amazing memories from this past season, shall we? And then we’ll come back to how it all ended. Continue reading “2017 New York Yankees Thoughts” →

October 25, 2017 0