Yankees Are Far Ahead, but That’s Regular-Season Talk

Yankees Are Far Ahead, but That’s Regular-Season Talk

Ho-hum. Another All-Star break, another season with the Yankees cruising to the playoffs. Someone once described a typical N.B.A. game as 46 minutes of foreplay before the real action. For Yankees fans, many years can seem like a 162-game warm-up.

But it’s kind of hard to complain when your team has the best record in baseball and a seven-game lead at the break. And besides the basic fact that baseball is the best sport there is and I’d watch an exhibition baseball game before I’d watch an N.B.A. or N.H.L. playoff game, it’s obviously fun to watch your team win most of the time.

Especially, say, when you’ve lost the best closer in baseball history, you haven’t had your left fielder almost the whole season, one of your projected starting pitchers is missing for the entire year and your highest-paid star has been one of the least productive regulars on the team.

But there is a downside to being a Yankees fan (I cannot wait to see the zingers from Mets fans). They can end the season with the best record in baseball and win the division by 15 games, and it doesn’t seem to mean a thing.

I think that’s a football-type legacy from the days of George Steinbrenner, and, for better or worse, it seems to have become part of just about every Yankees fan’s mind-set. Including mine.

Steinbrenner never seemed to quite get baseball, and loved football metaphors and the winning-is-the-only-thing mentality. Despite some disastrous signings, he did set a policy of going after top talent, whatever the cost. Sure, the Yankees are a little more payroll-conscious these days, but you know they can still open up the vault any time they want.
So they are virtually never in rebuilding mode, and every single year the expectation is that they will make the playoffs. You cannot expect them to win the World Series every season, given what can happen in a short playoff series, but anything less than a trip deep into the postseason feels like failure.

This year, despite the Yankees’ huge division lead, the second half is not completely a piece of cake. There remain a lot of games with American League East teams, against which the Yankees have not fared well this season (15-13, while 37-20 against everyone else). But let’s face it — it’s hard to imagine a collapse as long as they keep fried chicken and beer out of the clubhouse during games.

Plus, if Brett Gardner comes back reasonably soon, that’s the equivalent of a terrific midseason trade, and if Andy Pettitte returns even by late September and pitches the way he did before he was hurt, that adds a first-rate arm to the rotation just in time for the playoffs.

Ah yes, we’re back talking about the postseason. Meanwhile, in Pittsburgh, if the Pirates actually finish over .500 for the first time in 20 years, it’ll be time to break out the Champagne. In Kansas City, .500 itself would warrant a parade.
As for us, the fans of what was once known as the bankers’ team, we are indeed like poor little rich kids. First place in the regular season? Nice, but we do that all the time, and ultimately — see Steinbrenner, above — it doesn’t matter. Anything short of the A.L.C.S. is a compete downer.

Maybe a losing season or two wouldn’t be such a bad thing. If there are any sports fans in need of a reality check, it’s us. Back in 2001, it was crushing, to say the least, when Mariano Rivera blew Game 7 of the World Series in the ninth inning. I didn’t cry, as my 7-year-old son did, but I sure was down. Then the next morning it hit me: Wait a minute, I’m bummed out because my team didn’t win the World Series for the fourth year in a row? How crazy is that?

So it’s a double-edged sword. Really fun, if a tiny bit monotonous, to see your team slice up the opposition and make the playoffs every year, yet seeing them get there becomes less rewarding because it’s so routine. Sixteen times in the last 17 seasons to be exact, but who’s counting?

NYTimes