Last night (Tuesday, October 6th 2009) the Major League Baseball regular season came to an end with the Minnesota Twins defeating the Detroit Tigers in a one-game playoff. It was the 163rd game of another thrilling season, and now the Twins move into the postseason to meet the New York Yankees, winners of a major league-high 103 games, and favorites to win a 27th World Series.
For the Twins and their fans last night was an occasion for nearly immeasurable excitement and happiness. It was the thrill of the unexpected: they were down seven games with less than a month to play, and three games with only four to play, but they are still alive to tell the tale.
The Twins and their fans have almost everything to gain and nothing to lose, while the Yankees and their fans are in the opposite position because they are expected to win. If they win it will be said to be nothing out of the ordinary, and if they lose it will be a shock. Victory will bring only relief, while defeat will bring the pain of failure.
An Insatiable Appetite for Winning
The Yankees are the most successful franchise in the history of North American team sports, having won 26 World Series Championships, all since 1923. The franchise has won a championship in every decade since the 1920s except for the 1980s (when they won an AL Pennant in 1981, but lost in the World Series to the L.A. Dodgers). They began a new dynasty late in the 20th century under and into the 21st by winning the World Series in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000. They were managed by Joe Torre and led on the field by super stars Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, and Andy Pettitte.
In 2001 the Yankees lost the World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks in seven games, and it marked a change in the direction of the franchise. Team owner George Steinbrenner, always obsessed with winning, became even less patient than he had previously been and decreed that anything short of a championship was a rank failure; fans of the team, seemed to agree with him, and the pressure to succeed grew out of all proportion to reality. Winning was absolutely demanded, and losing was not tolerated.
Taking the Fun out of the Game
Although the Yankees did not win another championship after 2000, they continued to be great in 2001-2003, winning two AL Pennants. However the Steinbrenner way of looking at things (World Series or bust) was absorbed into the organization, and despite an ever-expanding payroll, the Yankees declined. From 2004-2007 they never made it past the second round of the playoffs and from 2005-2007 they did not make it out of the first; after the 2007 season, ownership pressured Torre to resign.
Amidst the fall from grace came the debacle of the 2004 American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox, in which the Yankees would take a three games-to-none lead only to watch the Sox roll off four wins in a row. Fans endured the greatest defeat in Yankee history to the team’s most bitter rival. The year prior the Yankees had defeated the Red Sox in another seven game ALCS, but the primary emotion that fans felt was relief instead of joy; they were able to relax now that the “Curse of the Bambino” still stood and the Red Sox fans could not triumph. 2004 showed that although they could not return to 1996-levels of happiness, Yankees fans could still endure the most humiliating defeat.
Learning to Live with Heightened Expectations
Fans of other teams have also found themselves in a situation where losing stings just as badly as ever, but winning has lost its thrill: it can happen to any incredibly successful franchise. In this decade alone the fans of the New England Patriots and L.A. Lakers have won so often that it has become expected of them, just as it has for the Yankees. When it is expected, it cannot be as purely enjoyable (as it would be for the Colorado Rockies this year) as it would be if they came out of nowhere.
There have been eight champions crowned in MLB since the Yankees last won a title in 2000. If the Yankees win the championship this season and become baseball's team of the decade, perhaps the small drought will allow their fans to truly enjoy it the same way they did in 1996, even if a lot of the excitement about that title was because it was the first for the Yankees in 18-years. Only time will tell if they can feel again the joy that is such an important part of being a sports fan: the fun that makes it all (both victory and defeat) worth it.
Source:
- Buster Olney, Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness (Harper Collins; New York; 2004)
 |
 |
 |
 |
