The Yankee Experience

"When did a baseball season in New York become solely about the finish line, and not about the journey? How can a team that clawed its way out of a 14½-game hole be deemed a failure for falling to a team -- the Cleveland Indians -- that features two of the league's top five starting pitchers? Do the memories of Alex Rodriguez's 54 home runs and Chien-Ming Wang's 19 wins and Derek Jeter's steely determination and Joba Chamberlain's meteoric rise fade to ashes without a diamond-studded ring?"

Thank you Jeff Pearlman for that paragraph and all the wisdom it posses.

Now being a long distance Yankee fan down here in Columbia, South Carolina I don't often get to experience the joy of watching my team every night. Inevitably whenever I call my parents on a spring/summer evening I usual find that they are tuned into the YES network watching their beloved Yankees play. This season was one of the most joyful in recent memory for a Yankee fan, so much so that at the beginning of August I coughed up the dough to subscribe to MLB TV just so I could watch the Yankees make their charger toward October.

Watching the young guns like Melky Cabrera and Robinson Cano fuel Alex Rodriguez and make him smile again was a joy to me as a fan, knowing that as a kid A-Rod like all if us picked up the bat and ball and fell in love with the beauty of the game. However most of that joy has been stripped away by the $250 million cloud that hangs over his head, but those young guys helped him rekindle that joy that lead to his success this year.

Watching Derek Jeter turn from media darling and Hollywood glamour good looks into now a grizzled veteran fighting through injuries to help keep his team alive. It was for me an interesting transition to watch Jeter go through, he is no longer the young up and comer, he is the battled hardened vet you love to root for.

The most joy might have been when the Yankees took a 5th or 6th inning lead knowing that the big kid from Nebraska was going to start warming up, then he would enter and throw a flurry of pitches that the batters couldn't touch. As he fist pumped his way off the mound the crowd would cheer wildly in the Bronx like they have for all their heroes.

Am I disappointed that they didn't go farther in the playoffs, sure I am, but really is it the end of the world, certainly not. As Pearlmen says enjoy the ride, the journey is the big part of sports. Let us not get too wrapped up in the losing the playoffs, let us enjoy all the moments we share together while watching our favorite team play.