New Yorkers Struggling to Embrace Their "Daddy"

With spring finally reaching the Northeast, I was finally able to take a drive to the Country Club and play my first round of golf this season. After my round, I was a bit rusty but still managed to break par, I watched the final innings of the Red Sox vs. Yankees spring training game down in Florida.

As my collar-up friends and I ruminated about the upcoming baseball season, we chortled over the misery that has fallen on the fans of the New York Yankees. Though dirty and uneducated, Yankees fans (and New Yorkers in general) have always felt that as awful as their existence may be, they still felt a feeling over superiority over Bostonians because of the baseball team they rooted for.

On October 20, 2004, everything changed. Despite holding a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Red Sox in the ALCS, the Yankees erased 86 years of misery for Red Sox fans by becoming the symbol for sports futility by losing the series in seven games. While the odds of New York losing the series were just about impossible, the Pinstripers lost the next four games to become baseball's version of the Hindenberg Disaster and the "Dole For President" Campaign.


Yankee fans were angered when Cleveland chose to go for a two point conversion late in their early season contest at Yankee Stadium

With the new season about to get underway, I noticed a very peculiar thing when I was forced to visit New York this week for yet another financially lucrative business deal. For the first time in my life, I noticed some very subtle changes as I cruised around Manhattan in the backseat of my towncar: humbled residents from the Rotten Apple.

Despite having won 26 World Series title in their history, the Yankee fans that your superiors encountered have finally realized that their team has become an embarrassment. The sight of a Red Sox cap will put them into convulsions and the mere mention of Johnny Damon or David Ortiz will induce vomiting faster than a double shot of Ipecac.


Bottles of Ipecac Syrup are helping millions of Yankees fans deal with the pain of losing to the Red Sox last year

As if realizing the eternal question of "Who's Your Daddy" was finally answered on that cold Autumn night in the Bronx wasn't enough, the people you wish you were have actually noticed sociological changes throughout the uneducated population of "The City That Never Bathes". A quick check with the New York Police Department has uncovered some remarkable statistics since the Yankees lost the ALCS.

First, although the entire Yankee fanbase is still unemployed and continues to receive money from the Department of Social Services, the number of dead beat dads in the Tri-State area has actually decreased. Stats show that the percentage of fathers who have financially neglected their bastard children has decreased from 100% to just a smidge over 99%.

Similar, residents of New York City can sleep a bit easier at night as the odds of being murdered within the next 12 months has dropped from 82% to 80%. For you unsightly loverboys who have no alternative to finding a woman than having to pay for it, perk you ears. The odds of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease from a New York prostitute has dropped to an all-time low of 92%.


The 2004 Yankees, as well as the "Summer of George" came to an abrupt end last Fall

Is it possible that these sharp decreases can be merely a coincidence? Unlikely. The odds of that happening are smaller than the odds of former New York Mayor and opportunist Rudy Giuliani turning away from a TV camera. The reality is the Yankees loss and the acceptance that they are now "Property of the Boston Red Sox" has struck them harder than a Brooklyn gangland drive-by and has clearly changed their perception on life.


New York fans are still waiting for the Yankees to close out Game 4 vs. Boston

If you happen to come into contact with a New Yorker (assuming he's not mugging you or washing your windshield with a newspaper), try and feel his pain. The only bright spot and source of pride in his failed and loathsome life, the Yankees, has left him high and dry. The bad news for most Yankee fans is they must carry this badge of shame for the rest of their lives. The good news is since they live in crime ridden dump that is New York, their life expectancy is likely to be brief.

Collar Up.

- DW