Downtown's Greatest Hits

Published in Our Town News, April, 2007



Why I'll watch (and root) for the Yankees this year.

Like a great many American sons, it was my dad who taught me the game of baseball. I don't mean taught in the sense of say, explaining the infield fly rule to me, (he had no idea what that was) but in explaining the intangibles of baseball. Dad was the one who taught me about guys like Kirby Puckett and Donnie Baseball, and why everybody loved them. He taught me why everybody hated Albert Belle (I discovered this myself later in life, as I approached him for an autograph, and was greeted by the international driver’s salute). It was through him that I discovered the glory of cheap seats at minor league baseball games on those lazy summer nights. The romanticized baseball, the ones that sportswriters embellish a little every spring, was the one my dad taught to me, not the game rocked by steroid scandals and labor disputes.

Like every great story, baseball clearly had its heroes (like Donnie) and its villains (like Belle). Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my dad loved the worst, greatest sporting villain of all time, the New York Yankees. I felt like I found an "I Love Bin Laden" shirt in his closet or something. Sure, I was aware that my dad used to live in NYC, met my mom there, fell in love with the city blah blah blah…couldn't he have liked the Mets or something?

I tried everything with him. I appealed to his political sensibilities (Dad, the Yankees are the nastiest big business in sports, hopelessly driving up wages for small market teams, ruining baseball. Do you want to root for the Halliburton of sports? Would you wear an Enron baseball cap?). I tried attacking the players (Dad, Johnny Damon was a homeless bum 4 months ago, and now you want him to bat leadoff?). I even tried to bring mom into it (mom told me she likes the Indians best), even if I had to lie a little bit there. Nothing. That man was unshakable in his convictions, no matter how wrong they were.

Of course, this made watching baseball with him actually pretty fun, with me pulling hard for the hometown Cleveland Indians (and later, my second hometown team, the Washington Nationals), and my dad rooting for a team that basically included Darth Vader and Pol Pot in its bullpen. How lucky we were, that our biggest fights and disagreements weren't over substantive parenting rules, but over 2nd basemen.

Sadly, my dad passed away in September of 2006. In addition to losing my father and a wonderful friend, the Brown family baseball rivalry died as well.

So, Licking County is down a Yankees fan this season. Now that the Clippers have switched back to the light side of the force (Nationals), we suddenly have a dearth of central Ohio yankee-dom. This season, and this season only, I will fill that gap.

I will root for the Yankees, or as much as I can without making my skin crawl. I will be seen in public this summer with a Yankees baseball cap on. I might even play drums in one. I will not change the channel in disgust when the Indian’s bullpen gives up a 3 run shot in the 9th inning to Jeter. Somebody has got to do it…without an evil villain, what fun will watching baseball be?