Last week, after the Yankees took three from Beard Town, and then stomped the Tampaoans in game one, I found myself so confident about this team that I actually pondered the possibility of winning six in a row. What absurdity! What hubris! I was drunk and stoned, babbling like Sally Field, incoherent from a cocktail of Ecstasy, Oxycontin, Boddington's and Yangervis. Most of all, I was sure we would win Friday.
Idiot. That's what I was. A pro-Yankee clod.
Sunday, after being flogged for 48 hours, and watching Ivan Nova board the Chien-Ming Wang train to Nowhere, I was sure the Yankees would lose to Tampa in some excruciating, permanently traumatizing way. I watched the late innings with remote in hand, prepared to snap-off the TV before the Tampa home run even landed. I paced the house, formulating acid-laced blog posts, planning to boil the entire Steinbrenner family in oil, condemning the Yankees in boldface italics! On this Easter Sunday, a day reserved for families, the Yankees were going to know that each of them was a disappointment to his parents.
And we won.
So... I go this.
If we think this team will win, it will lose.
If we expect it to lose, it will win.
That doesn't mean we have to constantly spit negativity. After Yankee victories, I can't always do that. But we must prime the pump. Once the juju is flowing, it moves on its own. That's how Boston won last year. You didn't find Redsock fans in April breast-beating over their team. Nobody claimed Johnny Gomes as lord and savior. They expected fourth place. That's what we must do.
If we don't believe we can win this thing, we can win this thing!
We don't have to scream about how bad the Yankees are. We can celebrate victory. But personally, privately, I am going to steel myself - discipline myself, like a great martial arts warrior - to not believe in anything hopeful that I write, even in the aftermath of a great Yankee victory. (Note: Every Yankee victory is a great Yankee victory.) For example, Dean Anna yesterday inscribed himself into Yankee lore. If he never does anything else, come 2030, there will still be lines of Yankee fans in front of his table in the Ramada, where he is signing 8x10 glossies. And Foghorn Claiborne might be sitting next to him, while a video loop shows Ichiro catching the final out. I have no doubt that these two career role players saved the entire Yankee 2014 season. Until tomorrow.
So, you are asking: Why does el Duque sound so happy and buoyant about the Yankees? That is a ruse, of course. From now on, even in the big bang euphoria of a Yankee triumph, such as yesterday, when we write and say good things about this Yankee team, we shall be secretly without hope. If we quietly expect defeat, we will win! Dammit, we can do thing! But we won't. But we could! But we won't. BUT WE COULD! (But surely we won't.)
Not for nutting', pal, but that's what I've been doing every season of my life.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the club.
We are a .500 team, at best.
But when you say those things, do you really mean them?
ReplyDeleteI think, frankly, you've got to alter your game. Yangervis Solarte will have to adjust to MLB pitching, and what has negative juju done for us in the last 10 years?
I'm talking about something new here: REVERSE reverse NEGATIVE negative juju. Two negatives connected by a reversal, a double lap, sort of like a surcharge on an excise tax. We can win this thing. (But we won't.)
I tend to agree. I need a new approach.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I keep wanting Solarte to emerge as rookie of the year. How do I deal with that?
"Solarte will be rookie of the year !" ( only he won't ).
This Nu-Juju resonates with me.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just being a fan with big dreams but realistic expectations. I know there is no way in hell that this team can go all the way, but then again, maybe they could!???? The elevator was in free fall this Fri and Sat, then what happens, a well pitched game from pitchers that I was sure would be clobbered.
Nu Juju is our adjustment to the Yankees shift.
EXACTLY! Alphonso is like Granderson, just swinging harder into the overshift.
ReplyDeleteIt's time to take it to the opposite field.
I knew the Yankees would lose yesterday, staring "TBA" against a team that had mopped the floor with them two days running.
ReplyDeleteI also know that the Yankees will lose 3 out of 4 in Boston. I've already reconciled myself to the inevitability.
I also know that they are playing well enough to win. So I have not completely given up on the team. Which means that neither negativity nor hubris will jinx the team. Which means, they might actually (gasp) win.
This two day beating had nothing to do juju, reverse juju or nu juju. It was all related to your prayer to Satan and your desire to attain the dreaded mark of the beast, 666. So the beast rose and we suffered for two days. Lucky for us it was Easter yesterday, Jesus rose and our sins were absolved and the beast was destroyed. It wasn't juju, but Christ that saved the season.
ReplyDeleteThankfully you didn't pray to Satan today and make us suffer a year of beat downs or whenever Easter rolls around again.
The untenability of remaining of fan of this crassly inept franchise has taken its final toll on duque's rational faculties: he's now sputtering deranged nonsense. He might need a full-time psychiatric nurse before the season is over.
ReplyDeletePray for him.