As a New Yorker this column is hard for me to write. I eat, sleep and breathe New York baseball. Every morning while eating my Lucky Charms, my face is immersed in the New York Times sports section. Typically, I fall asleep to the crew of Baseball Tonight running through the night's scores, though not before I find out how the locals faired.
But despite all this love for New York and New York baseball, I realize that the time has come for us to step aside - until next year.
While the New York Mets are my team, as a New Yorker I can't help but have some affection for the Yankees (when they are not playing the Mets). This October will mark the seventh consecutive year of October action for the Bombers. Not quite as impressive are the Mets, who had made two consecutive playoff appearances, but with an 82-80 mark, will sit out this postseason. The team mad a spectacular September run that saw them nearly make the playoffs after being fourteen games under five hundred on August 17th, but it was not enough.
It is a fact that the World Series runs through New York - the four teams that have played in the city, the Dodgers, the Giants, the Mets, and the Yankees have combined to win a ridiculous 33 World Series since 1903. To put that into perspective, a New York team has won more than 33 percent of all World Series ever played. The Yankees have won 26 of those titles.
This year, the Seattle Mariners surpassed the Yankees' all-time American League record for wins in a season, 114, and tied the Chicago Cubs all-time record of 116. But as the fans of a team that has not won a World Series since 1918 can tell you, the regular season means nothing unless it is followed by an extended postseason run. Chosen teams (see New York) can stumble through a regular season only to win a championship in October.
Take the 2000 Yankees for example. The Bombers fumbled their way through September on the way to an unimpressive 87 victories, losing their last seven games and 12 of their last 15. Despite the poor regular season, the Yankees managed to come out on top of the American League East and made their way through the playoffs before meeting their cross-town rival, the Mets, in the World Series. Simply put, the Yankees were built for the postseason and thus were able to coast through the regular season, doing just enough to make playoffs before becoming nearly unbeatable. The Yanks erased the Mets in a mere five games but more importantly, demonstrated that New York is the baseball capital of the world.
That brings me to my point. Baseball is too easy for New York teams. Sure there are other cities with lovable franchises but none can match New York's productivity. Whereas New Yorkers expect to win, fans and teams from such places as Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, Cleveland, and Atlanta, who either qualified for the playoffs or were in the playoff picture for much of the season (see Boston), just hope to win.
This should be the Seattle Mariners' year to shine. After losing three of the biggest superstars in the game over the past three years - Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Alex Rodriguez - some figured that the Seattle franchise was doomed. But Seattle general manager Pat Gillick prevented the expected implosion. He signed two key free agents in the off-season, second baseman Brett Boone and the wonderkind - a man simply known as Ichiro.
Ichiro, a batting champion in Japan, was seen as an oddity and Boone was an afterthought following a less-than stellar 2000 season. Yet the duo has propelled the Mariners and baseball into uncharted waters in the Pacific Northwest. Ichiro is an international icon, and Boone has emerged as an All-Star. Both are MVP candidates. The tandem has joined forces with blue-collar workers such as John Olerud, Edgar Martinez, Mike Cameron, Kaz Sasaki, and Freddy Garcia to give Seattle a team that even a New Yorker could love, or at least respect.
Seattle has all the New York ingredients - a matinee idol (Ichiro), a core of All-Stars and gamers, a strong work ethic, good defense, outstanding pitching, and a fantastic manager in Lou Pinella. It's not a coincidence that Pinella has a history in New York as both a Yankee player and manager. Perhaps more importantly, the Mariners have at least one New York fan (me) actually rooting for them. I view myself as the "X" factor. Who knows, maybe my cheering is enough to put them over the top. It's time to give another city the chance to taste victory.
New Yorkers know that it would be unfair if a New York team won every year. But we can take solace in the knowledge that if we don't win this year or even in 2002, the percentages all but guarantee a world championship in 2003.
I know that whether or not New York wins the World Series this Fall, we will undoubtedly be back next year. Sadly, a team like Seattle, which has never played a World Series game, has no such guarantees.
