My Biggest Sports Pet Peeve

I will start this off by saying that I completely respect the New York Yankees organization.  I love their history and some of the players that they have had.

That being said…I can’t stand their fans.  Generally speaking, I can’t stand the arrogance and the sense of entitlement.  Yankee fans from my generation (born around 1980) have basically only missed one year of playoff baseball in their “real fan” years.  I believe that most kids become truly entrenched and understand their team between the ages of 12-15.  So if you are 30 years old, you missed 2008.  That’s it.

This afternoon I was coming back from grabbing lunch at work and saw my biggest pet peeve in all of sports.  In my office, we (by “we” I mean the 5 real Yankee fans in the office out of 45) are lucky enough to have season tickets for the Yanks.  It’s nice that everyone gets a chance to go to 2 or 3 games per year.  Even though our office comprises of mainly Cubs/White Sox/Mets fans, that’s cool.  I think it’s a great perk for working with my company.  But today I saw something that I wanted to head-butt one of the “real” Yankee fans for.

I was walking back to my desk, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this crisp, brand new, white pin-striped Yankee jersey.  What a beautiful looking jersey.  I saw the number 42 on the back and I knew is was a Mariano Rivera jersey. The greatest reliever in the history of baseball.  The Yankee that I respect the most. The jersey was draped over the back of this guy’s chair, and as I got closer, he re-adjusted it.  There it was.  I almost lost it.   It was like someone took a black Sharpie to the Mona Lisa and put her in a Captain Morgan’s ad.  RIVERA was plastered across the back of the jersey.

As my blood started to boil, I restrained from calling the guy out because I actually like him.  If it was one of my co-workers that I didn’t like, I would have lit them up.  For a fan base that prides itself so much on their history, how come so many Yankee fans don’t know that they don’t have names on the back of their jerseys?  Seriously.  It pisses me off beyond all belief when I see a “Yankee” fan who buys a jersey with a name on the back.  If you are a true fan, you know that they have never had a player’s name on the back of their jersey….. EVER. You know what they did do though? In 1929, the New York Yankees became the first team to make numbers a permanent part of the uniform. Numbers were handed out based on the order in the lineup. In 1929, Earle Combs wore #1, Mark Koenig #2, Babe Ruth #3, Lou Gehrig #4, Bob Meusel #5, Tony Lazzeri #6, Leo Durocher #7, Johnny Grabowski #8, Benny Bengough #9, and Bill Dickey #10. I bet the clown with the brand new “TEIXEIRA” duds had NO clue about that.

So I ask you, Mr. Yankee fan with the crisp, clean, pristine, pin-striped “RODRIGUEZ” jersey….how big of a “FAN” are you?  Way to be a “REAL” fan bro.