Baseball

I've been a baseball fan since 1984. Sometime near the end of that season I tuned into a Yankee game and decided I'd learn the game that night. I watched the whole thing through and ended up with a decent idea of the gameplay. More importantly, I was immediately hooked! I read up on the game in my trusty Encyclopedia Brittanica and caught a few more games before the season was over.

The following year I was ready to follow the Yankees. The local candy store was selling a baseball sticker collection book. You would buy the sticker packs and try to fill out each team. That endeavor taught me about all the teams in the League, the stadiums, and the players. That year I also learned about the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox. Don Mattingly and Wade Boggs were battling to have the best average and Boggs won.

1986 - Yankees didn't make it but the Mets did. I rooted for the Mets during that series because, hey, I'm a New Yorker. Plus I already had started harboring a dislike for the Red Sox due to the Mattingly/Boggs thing. The 1986 series was awesome!!

Anyway, so as you can see I've been a Yankee fan for 20 years. Back when I was growing up the huge influx of Dominicans hadn't quite started and so everyone I knew was some type of New York fan, either the Yankees or the Mets. We were proud of our City!! The concept of the NYC-mooching, Boston-smooching Dominicans hadn't come to fruition yet. Though I suspect it was probably going on back in the Homeland.

I continue to be disconcerted about the current state of affairs (most of the Heights residents - and even Bronx residents!!! - being Red Sox fans). It's not only about Dominican pride because even when we have Dominicans, these people fail to ackowledge them or pledge them any allegiance. It has become this weird, trastornado thing. Sometimes it seems pathological. I often get upset because I just don't understand why they are Boston fans with such ferocity.

It bothers me that they trash my team because it feels like an attack on my city. I am a product of a mixture of different cultures and because of that I've had a hard time feeling that I truly belong anywhere. Yet, I always feel at home in New York City. And it is probably the only place in the world where I can feel at home ALL of the time. And when you think NYC you think NY teams. Particularly the Yankees due to their rich history. So all the Boston loving sometimes feels like a personal attack to me.

Sometimes I feel guilty about how I feel. Deep down I think I am bothered by our people's unwillingness to accept the Yankees because I feel it is just a manifestation of their unwillingness to assimilate at all. Though I would NEVER want our people to lose themselves in vacuous American culture, I believe that if they did change some of their ways of functioning (especially with respect to education) they would do much better here in the US. Our people come here, always thinking it's on a temporary basis, and refuse to really settle in and focus on succeeding. This has resulted in a new generation of unmotivated kids who are confused and heading in no direction.

Anyway I'm rambling. To all my Red Sox loving brethren, contratulations. There, I said it.

Of course I'll be rooting for the Astros or Cardinals. But at least the Red Sox finally made it. And after that amazing come back, I have to admit they deserved it.