The Futility Infielder

If you're a Yankee fan, the funk is everywhere today, and I don't mean in the good, George Clintonian sense. It's on every back page tabloid, every local newscast, and the look of every interlocking NY-wearing fan. Gray skies and rain in the city, combined with an off day, leave little to think about but the severe beatdown administered by the Red Sox. Behind a fairly vintage-looking -- in result, if not speed of fastball -- Pedro Martinez, Boston took the third game from the Yanks on Sunday, completing their sweep of the weekend series and extending their advantage to 6-1 thus far this year. Javier Vazquez gave a noble effort on three days' rest, but one hanging mistake to Manny Ramirez cost him the ballgame, 2-0. The Yanks scored four measly, stinkin' runs the entire series, two of them merely window dressing on a game that had long been decided.

With apologies to the ASPCA, Yankee GM Brian Cashman summed it up best for Lawrence Rocca of the Newark Star Ledger:

"I'm going to go home, kiss my wife, hug my kids," Cashman said, "and kick the (blank) out of my dog."

Even Derek Jeter got booed, and with that 0-for-25, it's understandable. Red Sox fans and even local writers such as George Vescey get it wrong if they think that Yankee fans are spoiled, short of memory and quick to turn. Jeter is the Yankee captain, carrying a $189 million contract, and when Yankee fans boo him, they're not booing the clutch shortstop of six World Series teams so much as releasing their pent-up frustration at the lousy play of this overpriced team and reminding, in the words of a man from nowhere near New York City, "Nobody Slides, My Friend." We know the Yankees will do better, but polite applause and encouragement won't tide us over until then. New York City -- and the Yankees -- ain't for the fragile or the faint of heart. Fuck that weak shit.

Bless his intangibles, Jeter knows this as well as anybody else, which is why he didn't give anything but his usual pat, bland answers when questioned about the booing on Friday:

"I don't blame them," Jeter said flatly... "We would have booed ourselves tonight, too. It's hard to imagine being worse than we were tonight. Put me at the front of that list."

A civic crisis might have erupted if Sox fans had treated Nomar similarly -- Pedro would have demanded a trade -- but in Da Bronx, it comes with the territory. If our hometown heroes can't get over a case of the April boo birds, then they won't be worth a tinker's damn when the chips are down in October.

Which isn't to say any Yankee fan should walk around miserable, looking to bust the nearest Sox fan in the chops when he taunts you over the weekend's results. Smile, play nice, adjust your imaginary monocle and tell him something like, "Your Beantown side surely got the best of us in this exhibition, old chap, but when the real games start, our Bronx nine shall top you." In the grand scheme of things, both the season and the all-time rivalry, this weekend's sweep quantifies as small tater tots. As a wise man said back in 1978: "It doesn't matter where you are when the leaves are on the trees, it matters where you are when the leaves are on the ground."

Better days lay ahead, but if you want to revel in the past, check out Cecilia Tan's list of The 50 Greatest Yankee Games of all time -- she's working on a book, due out next February, and she's left one slot open to be decided via a readers poll (I'm going to suggest nine in the ninth from '98). Who knows? By this October the next Aaron Boone may make that last slot a moot point.