All hail Helen!!

All hail Helen!!
Helen Carmona and your humble blogger

Friday, April 25, 2008

Real Yankee fans are not happy today

I'm not going to be naming any names, but certain people who leave certain posts on certain Yankee-based blog sites need to grow up. The corpse from last night's 7-6 loss to the White Sox in Chicago was still warm when apparently gleeful Yankee 'fans' were all over the Internet laughing over the dent in the armor of relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain.

What kind of fan takes an ounce of pleasure in his team's loss? A pretty shitty fan, if you ask me. We all know the motivation behind these posts, but it's worthwhile to spell it out just the same.

The debate over Joba's role with the team has splintered Yankee fans into two camps, one hostile -- the 'he must start, and the sooner the better' bunch; and one still chilled out -- the status quo, Joba-as-reliever supporters. But that second camp is getting increasingly hot under the collar as the first camp gets more and more incensed over the uncertain timetable of the Yankee plan to move Joba into a starting role... eventually. As the fans who favor Joba as a starter grow angrier, they start to needle the members of the other camp, and that's what is happening this morning.

"Oh look! Mr. 'Perfect for the Eighth Inning' isn't so perfect now, is he?" seems to be the tone of the day. The pro-starter crowd is tickled to finally have some 'evidence' that Joba might not be the god of the set-up. Yet none of them, or very few of them, are mentioning that ace starting pitchers, which they think Joba is destined to be, don't win all their games, either. Nor are they bothering to mention that that other god of relief pitching, Mariano Rivera, doesn't own a perfect resume. All ballplayers fail, eventually and fail often. Last night was Joba's time, and he dealt with it, as I'm sure all the Yankees and most of their fans are dealing with it, like the non-event that it is.

But Hank Steinbrenner's childish belly-aching last Sunday, and the fervor it stirred up, have given Joba's every pitch and every outing a value far exceeding it's actual worth. He's one cog in the 25-man Yankee wheel that is trying to win as many games as possible. He's a minimum salary employee who's role happens to place him in the spotlight whenever he takes the mound, and now Steinbrenner has made that spotlight seem hotter and heavier than it needed to be. Now, every Yankee fan who demands that Joba enter the starting rotation will be pointing fingers and blaming the other Yankee fans, those who see Joba's time as a reliever as a matter of helping the team while it shores up a better bullpen, for the 'disaster' that was -- a one-run loss in Chicago -- and the 'disaster' that looms -- Joba being wasted by denying him a spot in the starting five.

Not to make too much of baseball -- because at the end of the day, we all have other lives to live -- but for those who do cherish this game and who do spend a lot of time and money following it, this is a dangerous time for Yankee fans. This wedge that divides Yankee fans is unfortunate. Rather than pulling together and cheering the team after losses, fans are hurling nasty comments at one another regarding an issue that not a single fan can control. Whatever a fan's position on the Joba matter, I hope all fans will remember that this is one Yankee team and we are one, united group of Yankee fans.

Personally, I'm more in the Joba-as-starter role than I was before. I've been persuaded by some terrific arguments that make a lot of sense. Whenever the Yankees get around to doing it, I'll support it. Until then, I'm backng the boys, all the way. Joba is a reliever now, and I want his every outing to be as dominant as it can be. For the life of me, I can't see how a single "real" fan is delighted by anything that happened with Joba in last night's ninth inning.

Let's all remember who we are, and which team we root for: the greatest professional sports team in the world. Let's act like it.

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