Why you have to love those Yankees

Sean McAdam

• Last Updated: October 18. 2009 10:50PM UAE / October 18. 2009 6:50PM GMT

When the New York Yankees missed qualifying for the post-season last year, their absence changed the face of baseball’s play-offs.

It was the first time since 1993 that the Yankees had failed to play into October, and without them it just did not seem the same.

Few are neutral when it comes to the Yankees – fans either love them or revile them – and that is part of their inherent appeal.

Unlike, say, the Colorado Rockies or the Minnesota Twins, two other post-season participants, the Yankees engender emotion – be it positive or negative. Those who support them cite the history and tradition associated with the Yankees, symbolised by their 26 World Series championships.

Others view them as representative of all that is wrong with baseball – a bloated payroll, a steady parade of high-priced stars and a swagger commensurate with their many achievements.

Now that the Yankees are back in their customary spot in the post-season, having compiled the best record in either league, it is as if order has been restored to the sport. It is fashionable once more to root for or against baseball’s most celebrated and notorious franchise.

It would be impossible to tell the story of baseball without devoting a good deal of the narrative to the Yankees. They will always be the club associated with the game’s first superstar. Babe Ruth, a figure whose achievements and personality transcended the game and lifted him to the pantheon of American celebrities, a perch usually reserved for movie stars, tycoons and presidents.

The Yankees were the first club to establish a dynasty in baseball, winning a string of titles in the 1920s.

After Ruth came Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, Ford, Jackson, and, eventually, Jeter and Rivera – names synonymous with baseball, familiar to even the most casual observer.

When baseball first seemed to lose its grip on the American’s consciousness and ceded its pre-eminent status to professional football, it was the Yankees’ string of appearances in the World Series – 1976 to 1978 – that helped rejuvenate the game. In the mid-to-late 1990s, when the Yankees won four World Series in five years, the team took on an almost regal bearing.

True, when their financial might was flexed to obtain stars such as Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez, their spending was seen as profligate by some fans, who saw the Yankees as all that was wrong with the game.

Unlike the other major team sports in North America, baseball never adopted a salary cap, inviting the more prosperous clubs to spend to their hearts’ content. And the Yankees did.

But while some frothed at the mouth and decried such unchecked spending as bad for the game, the debate seemed a healthy one. Again, few lacked an opinion – one way or another – when it came to the Yankees.

If the Yankees’ methods can be debated, their significance cannot. Because they are situated in America’s biggest city, what the Yankees do – on and off the field – reverberates throughout the game.

That much was clear in the first two rounds of this year’s play-offs, when TV ratings were up sharply. What was new? What was behind the significant jump in viewers? A good guess would be the presence of the Yankees, who virtually demand people pay attention.

In this post-season, baseball has the Yankees as one of its final four teams, and with a 2-0 lead over the Los Angeles Angels in the American League Championship showdown, they are favourites to go on to yet another World Series. And that can only be good for the baseball business.



smcadam@thenational.ae