Love/Hate

03/09/2010 5:41 PM -  Fred Zinkie

It was a question I had never been asked.

Before I gave a recent talk at Boston College, my introduction ended with “Matthew’s publicly talked about how much he hates the Yankees, so he expects a warm Boston welcome. …” I am nothing if not a panderer to my audience (by the way, you look great today!), and the response was enthusiastic if not expected.

After I gave my talk, during the Q-and-A session a young man asked me, very simply, why I hated the Yankees.

It occurred to me that I had never been asked that question before. Yankees hatred is so commonplace that it is taken for granted. If they are not your beloved team, chances are you hate them.

But why, specifically, do I?

I gave a quick answer about their arrogance and how, unlike most major league teams, they have an unlimited payroll and can afford to make mistakes. Contracts such as those given to Kei Igawa, Jaret Wright, Jason Giambi and Carl Pavano (not to mention renting Roger Clemens for half a season) would cripple most other teams, not allow them to shrug it off and sign CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira to a team already paying crazy money to Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. Although I acknowledge it’s not the Yankees’ fault that baseball refuses to have a salary cap, they are an example of all the things that are wrong with baseball.

But the real reason I hate the Yankees is a long story, I continued. I said that if anyone was interested, he could stay afterward, and I would tell him. I make you the same offer: If you just want to get to the names, click here. Otherwise, stick around. It’s the preseason. We have some time, and other than my Draft Day Manifesto, this will be my longest article of the year. So let’s take some time and enjoy it.

A handful of kids stayed after the talk was over, and this is the story I told them.

I’ve written about my late father-in-law, Joe Bendavid, before. In addition to loving the New York football Giants, Joe was a Yankees fan. And back when I was married to his daughter, Joe turned 71, and ex-Mrs. Roto and I decided to surprise him with tickets to see the Yankees.

This was way before I worked for ESPN, but my dad was friends with the guys who run Modell’s Sporting Goods in New York (a big Yankees sponsor), so he called in a favor for me, and we got front-row seats to a regular-season game against Toronto. Like, on top of the dugout, in front of first base, literally the very first row. Crazy good tickets.

My father-in-law was thrilled when we reached our seats. He couldn’t believe it. He’d never had seats this good. “Hey,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “maybe we’ll catch a foul ball.”

I looked around. “We got a shot,” I said.

“You know,” he continued, “I’ve been coming to Yankees games for 65 years. Never caught a foul ball.”

Never caught a foul ball? Celebrating his 71st birthday? My father-in-law? Kids, we have a mission.

So we got to the seats, and remember, these were crazy good, expensive seats. Sitting behind us in Row 2 were four kids who I’d guess were between the ages of 8 and 10. A couple of things immediately stuck out about these kids:

1. They were bragging to one another about all the different toys, vacations, servants, whatever they all had.
2. There were no parents in sight.

Apparently, they were just dumped there or something. I know baseball is America’s pastime and kids are cute, but let me tell you something, and I’m not gonna lie. These kids were superannoying. They came across as spoiled, rich kids. They were loud, demanding and, just like you would expect of unsupervised children, completely without a care about anyone around them.

They were discussing foul balls and bragging to one another about how many they had. This one had five, this one had three, a third had four, so on and so on. They apparently came to these seats a lot.

The game started, and we were close enough that the players could hear us. The kids knew this. And started screaming at the players.

“Throw us a ball! Give us a ball! Hey, mister, we want a ball! Give us a ball! Hey, throw the ball here! We want a ball! Please, mister, throw us a ball!” On and on they went. “Hey, mister! Mister! MISTER! GIVE US A BALL!”

Click HERE to read the full list of Matthew Berry’s Love/Hate list for 2010.