 THE EMPIRE STRIKES…OUT?
The Dallas Cowboys captured their fourth Super Bowl in franchise history with a 30-13 victory over the Buffalo Bills. Figure skater Tonya Harding hired her ex-husband to bash the right leg of Nancy Kerrigan prior to the Winter Olympics. The infamous O.J. Simpson highway chase is witnessed by the multitude. Netscape was founded as one of the first online internet platforms.
The year was 1994 and it marked the last time the New York Yankees weren’t prepping for postseason play.
It has been an unlucky 13 years for baseball fans who choose not to worship the Evil Empire run by a man as demonic as Al Davis, having endured seeing the boys in pinstripes in October action season after season.
Honestly, it doesn’t seem real. As long as I can remember watching playoff baseball, I can recall the Damn Yankees spoiling all the fun.
Haven’t they had enough? Three wild card berths, 15 Division crowns, 39 American League pennants and 26 World Series titles – the most championships by any American sports franchise. Isn’t it time this country dons a new dynasty for its pastime?
As I pinch myself and come to the realization the Spankees will not be participating in baseball games I will watch on TBS and FOX over the course of the next few weeks, a small grin begins to crack from my right ear over to the left.
I said small but this might be a full-on, goofy-bastard smirk that will last until Halloween.
Not even A-Fraud, not even Jeter, not even a trade that absolutely reamed the Pirates in getting Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte could send this club to the postseason. The Yanks even snatched a veteran leader in Pudge Rodriguez away from the Tigers to replace Jorge Posada, but not even that move could revive the injury-decimated Bronx Bombers.
And the second part of that nickname is what really proved to be the knife to the jugular.
The Yankees didn’t do much bombing in 2008. Rodriguez pounded out only 35 home runs compared to his 54 from the year before, as well as 53 fewer RBIs. Jeter had an off year by ONLY hitting .300 when in ’07 it was .322 and ’06 the .343 mark. As a team in 2007, the Yanks collected 968 runs and 929 RBIs while they put up a paltry 789 runs and 758 RBIs this season.
But I am not complaining.
To find a reason for this ultimate (and hopefully continual) demise, I have to point back to the way this year started for the Yankees, and how it ended.
Out with the old, in with the new. L.A. Dodgers manager Joe Torre, after 12 years of service to the Dark Side, was not brought back and former Yanks catcher Joe Girardi began his first season as the club’s skipper.
On April 18, 1923, the New York team unveiled Yankee Stadium where they enjoyed unparalleled success. Now 83 years later, the confines of this winning franchise have been closed.
We all know about the Babe Ruth curse that was lifted from the Red Sox in 2004. Could this be the beginning of a new curse? Maybe the Curse of Torre or the Curse of Old Yankee Stadium?
Without Torre and with the close of one of America’s most historic ballparks, perhaps the Yankees are finally doomed for an era of mediocrity. |
