Sports Then and Now

With number championship #27, the divide between Yankee fans and haters grows ever wider.

For the first time since 2000, the New York Yankees are World Series winners.  There game six victory over the Philadelphia Phillies was a hard fought battle that came down mostly to dominant pitching and, to a lesser extent, timely hitting.  After a decade away from the trophy and after a turbulent season, one thing remains the same:  The Yankees are loved or hated, but never ignored.

There is no team in professional sports that raises a higher wall or a greater divide between fans and non-fans than do the New York Yankees.  The detractors state that they cannot find any reason to support the “Evil Empire” while the Yankee faithful don’t seem to understand how anyone could root for another team.  The gap is so wide that any story that shows the slightest civility between Yank fans and others (particularly Boston fans) automatically becomes newsworthy.

So why is it that the Yankee fans are so devout and the haters are so rabid?

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Sporting the highest payroll in baseball, the New York Yankees finally regained the World Series title for the first time since 2000.

In a decade in which greed and excess have been dominant themes in all walks of life, it may be only fitting that the final major sports championship would be claimed by the franchise that best personifies those qualities, the New York Yankees.

No team in all of sports has been as blatant or as successful in turning money into championships.

In all, the Yankees have won 27 World Series Championships since claiming their first title in 1923.

And, the Yankees have been leveraging their economic advantages since the very beginning of that run.

When New York acquired Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox in 1920, they began the practice of buying the best talent. It is a strategy that they have continued for 90 years.

While it may seem like I am bashing the Yankees, the reality is that the real problem is with the current system. The team is simply working within the rules of the game to give themselves the best opportunity to win.

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Ryan Howard and the Phillies will look to launch more long balls as they return home for game three of the World Series.

Game Three of the 2009 World series shifts today to the new launching pad in the National League, Citizens Bank Park. It’s a bit ironic that the Philadelphia “Mashers” at one point in time had a far better record on the road than they did at home. They righted that situation in the second half of the season to finish nine games over .500 at home.

The post-season is a completely different story as the Phillies have lost a grand total of three games over the past three post seasons. They’ve won 12 games and the only team to beat them at home was the Colorado Rockies.

Today they try to keep that streak going with 2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels going up against one of the great post-season pitchers, Andy Pettitte.

Game three has always been a critical game in the World Series. In the past 10 World Series where the two teams were tied at one a piece, the team who took Game Three went on to win the World Series nine out of the last ten times. Those are pretty darn good odds for the winner of today’s game.

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Fans of the Phillies are hoping to have more to celebrate following the World Series.

Asked last April who were the last two teams I would like to see in the World Series, anybody and everybody who knows me well enough would have said the Yankees vs. the Phillies.

As a lifetime New York Mets fan and college student Red Sox, fan nothing in baseball could be worse than to have these two rivals competing for a world title. For close to 15 years, I hated the Atlanta Braves. They gave me so many ugly nights and subsequent nightmares it’s no wonder I still can’t get enough sleep.

In the last three or four years or so, the Phillies and their legions where I lived for 20 years, have crept past the Braves to receive my ultimate disdain.

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Last year’s World Series was marred by inclement Philadelphia weather.

Since the playoffs were modified for the 1995 season and the divisional rounds were added, only one World Series has gone into November. In 2001 the Yankees’ game seven loss to the Diamondbacks was played on November 4th. Beyond that, the latest any World Series has gone is October 28th.

This year, if either the Yankees or Phillies sweeps, game four will be played on November 1st. Should the series need all seven games, the last one would be played (barring weather delays that are certainly possible in cities like Philadelphia and New York) November 5th.

Shouldn’t baseball be over by the time November rolls around? Why doesn’t it?

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In what might have been a game that could have put the Los Angeles Dodgers back against the wall, this series stands even at one game a piece. Charlie Manuel’s decision to remove Pedro Martinez after seven brilliant innings in Game Two, only to see his bullpen give away the game in the 8th inning.

The bright side is that Pedro will certainly be ready for a repeat performance in Game Six if it should go that far. As I have mentioned in earlier stories I like the way the Phillies rotation sets up for the rest of the series.

Today in Game Three, Cliff Lee who has been nothing short of un-hittable takes the mound against eight game winner Hiroki Kuroda pitching in his first playoff appearance in the 2009 post season.

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