Eff The Effing Yankees

photo Mark Garfinkel/in the Boston Herald

This One's For Gilly

I hate the Yankees.

It isn't because the Yankees buy championships.

Oakland...

-- if you haven't yet read Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, order it today; thank me by email telling me how what you've learned makes an enormous difference being successful in your job after you've read it (not kidding; send me an email detailing the difference; a thoughtful letter please. *smiles* I'll explain why once I have your letter. *smiles some more*) --

...Oakland proved a team with very little money can compete against the Yankees consistently at the very highest level.

I don't like the Yankees because they fail to appreciate history. They're playing baseball, by the sacred ovaries of Penélopê, in Yankee Stadium. And they just.don't.get it.

But what ever.

I really don't like the Yankees because they've got A-Rod playing for them. But that's personal. That fuck fucked over Seattle in his last season here, both in terms of production and by lying to us about what we could expect come contract renegotiation.

I'm rushing to get this post out so I don't have time to tell the story of how I, Jesse Wendel, personally fucked over A-Rod's agent, Scott Boras, the very first game the next season when the Texas Rangers & Alex came back to town. And don't try and get me to tell you in comments either. Ain't gonna. Either on the front page or nothin. Or, feel free to bribe me with sushi.

Speaking of the goodness of sushi, currently I'm reading:

• The Sushi Economy
• The Zen of Fish
• The Architecture of Happiness
• Shelter
• The Stillborn God
• The Punishment of Virtue
• The Non-Designer's Design Book
• The Law in Plain English for Writers
• Sex and Reason
• Building Trust
• All There Is
  
• Rescue Ferrets At Sea
• The Cry And The Covenant
• The Absolute Sandman, Vol. I

A fraction of what is on order for the next 30 days:

• The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2
• Into Great Silence
• The Illustrated Longitude
• Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World
• Who Hates Whom: Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up A Woefully Incomplete Guide
  

That's just what I can find on my bed that isn't totally buried under the bed covers, dictionaries, Supreme Court rulings, clippings, screenplays, magazines, and other detritus.

Returning to point...

There are as many reasons to dislike the Yankees as there are baseball fans. But to hate them. To actually hate a team... that takes something special.

I hate the fucking Yankees.

Let's define some vocabulary. NOTE: This will show up again in a GNB essay.

Arrogance: Linguistically, an assessment; made of someone by a competent observer(s) in a specific domain of action or human concern; an arrogant person claims competence they simply do not have, according to the grounded assessment or interpretation (opinion) of competent observers in that specific domain.

A "grounded assessment" is itself yet another an assessment, grounded both in still other interpretations (opinions) and in assertions (facts.) A grounded assessment by a competent observer in a particular domain is not easily subject to challenge. A better way of saying this might be, "expert witness" or "the opinion of a subject matter expert." All of us rely on grounded assessments all the time, e.g.: an instructor pilot's FAA 6-month check-ride on a 747 in specific type for night-time approaches under emergency conditions, or an oncologist saying, "That is a type-x cancer cell, not a type-y cancer. Therefore we must do cancer treatment z."

Arrogant people may or may not be aware they are not as competent as they claim in the assessment of competent observers in the domain; it is this assessment which by definition makes someone we reflexively think of as arrogant, "arrogant." An arrogant person also may or may not be aware that people think they are arrogant. Blindness to their public identity (full or partial) frequently goes hand and hand with the assessment of arrogance.

Penultimately, it is vital in the way we will speak of arrogance and other distinctions in the GNB Essay Series, to not think of arrogance as something someone IS. Arrogance is a distinction made in language by an observer, grounded in observation of a person's action over time in a specific domain of human action. Someone may be assessed as arrogant in one domain and assessed as a nice gal or nice guy in another domain. No one is perfect at everything. Everyone is a beginner or not even on the mat for learning in something else.

Everyone has the possibility of change. Our personalities, in the way we will speak in this Essay Series, are not fixed or immutable. (Except of course for the fucking Yankees.)

Finally...

• Most people think arrogant means, "I think I'm smarter/better than you."
• It does not.
• Arrogance means, "I think you're certain you're smarter/better than you really are. And you ain't. Asshole."

I hate the New York Yankees because they are arrogant. They are certain they're better than anyone else just because they wear pinstripes. Doesn't matter if they're batting .200 with 2 dingers in 2 years. "I'm a fucking Yankee. Who the fuck are you?"

Boston Herald

Griffin Whitman, a 10-year-old Red Sox [team stats] fan from Swampscott, was excited to attend his first Yankees vs. Red Sox game Friday night. The young autograph -collector was even more thrilled to score Yankees outfielder Shelley Duncan’s signature before the game. That is, until Griffin read the message from the 27-year-old rookie: “Red Sox suck! Shelley Duncan.”

Punch and Jude

Fuck the Fuckin' Yankees, Part MDCLXVIII

Thanks for being such a class act, Shelley.

Yeah, you're a New York Yankee.

Yeah, the Boston fans always give you shit.

But when a kid asks you for an autograph, just be a man, sign the fucking thing, smile at the kid, and go on with your life. Asshole.

The goddam game hadn't even started yet. Way to ruin a kid's night at the park. It's only Monday, and you've won Douchebag of the Week.

He's a kid... A rookie dissed a 10 year-old boy who was thrilled to be at a ballgame.

What a low class scumbag asshole. His mother should slap him. If I did that, my mother would make me come home to Tuscon, grab me by the ear, and knock me silly. Except of course, I'd never do that.

I hope the rookie gets hit with a quarter million dollar fine, titled, "Stop being an asshole."

Gilly -- this one's for you pal: Fuck the fucking Yankees.

PS. I'm running late this morning which is why there aren't two more posts here. Don't think I'll be able to post up till this afternoon. Maybe during my lunch; we'll see. Got to go get Kyle to school now. --jwe