"It's only a movie."

 

I keep thinking over El Duque's fine soul search over whether or not we're too "negative" here, a perception that keeps some of his friends from visiting our hilarious selves.

What we offer, I think, is a pretty open, fact-based discussion of your New York Yankees, for all of the fun we manage to have with it. Save for one, notable exception, I can't think of anyone here who has ever abused anyone else for their takes on the team or the game.

Sure, okay, most of us respect the sacred precepts of JuJu, and the dark gods who presideth over it—but that's just common sense.  And, as Winnie justly reminds us, even our Peerless Leader has been given to occasional fits of optimism.  

Are we "negative"? I guess, though I'm not even sure what the word means in this context. We're critical when the team loses, less critical when they win. Okay?

It's not just Duque's friends. I noticed that, when the Yanks managed to salvage the last three games of an otherwise disastrous homestand, the NYC sporting press, reverting to its default posture of the Mocking Sneer, started to slip words such as "paranoia" and "overly critical" in their fawning questions to our heroes. (Hint: They were talking about us.)  

Again, I'm baffled. What does our being "negative" matter? We're not trying to bring Tinkerbell back to life here. It's more as if the very act of being critical, of booing even awful, indifferent play is considered somehow impolite or distasteful.  

It's as if we're guilty of caring too much.

I have a friend, a great director who is also a fanatical Yankees fan. (No, I am NOT sending your head shots to him, Bitty. Get that RIGHT out of your head, right now!).

My friend occasionally goes to movies by other directors with friends, who ask what he thought about the flick afterwards. Sometimes, my friend will say he didn't like it. The writing stunk, the pacing was off, it was badly directed, acted, thought out—whatever. 

"Hey, it's only a movie!" his friends will say. As if to argue that, 'Hey, we were only turning off our brains for a couple hours. What's the big deal?'

We speak about things in such weird ways nowadays. If "it's only a movie," why go? If you don't much care about the ballgame, why watch? It has no intrinsic meaning—ONLY what we give to it.

Strangest of all, we're not supposed to care...but we are supposed to "believe."

Brian Cashman was talking about his team in this way again the other day—how much he "believed" in it. Say what?

Believe in God, Mr. Cashman. Believe in your loved ones or the hope of democracy, or the essential goodness of mankind. Don't "believe" in the Yankees. Apply your cold-eyed analysis to making them better.

Another curious feature of this criticism of criticism? The Yankees—and pretty much all of MLB—approach us with nothing but demands for money.

Prices for seats, souvenirs, ballpark food go up constantly, all the time. Thousands of affordable seats are eliminated in favor of luxury boxes. Even luxury seats are now so expensive that the Yanks cannot fill them behind the plate—and moat them off so that none of the hoi pollo can sit there, either.

Want to talk to your friends between innings? Good luck! Time to amp up the ballpark ads a few dozen decibels.

For our viewing pleasure, the games are shifted around from one media site to another, so they can dig even more money out of our pockets for watching at home—something that used to be entirely free, not that long ago. 

For those who don't choose to "believe" in baseball? Too bad. Your local team regularly extorts enormous public subsidies—billions of dollars in taxpayers' money, not to mention the beloved, century-old public park or two—from our elected officials. (The Steinbrenner family alone is now on their second, subsidized Stadium.)

But we're not supposed to be critical—or even critique, it seems. 

I don't want to make it seem like this is all about money, because it's not. After all, we freely shell out the bucks. (Save for the massive public subsidies.)

But for us not even to be allowed to utter a peep when the product on the field is decidedly poor, slovenly, or uninterested—for us to not even be allowed to object when it seems obvious the team owner is colluding with other owners in his cartel to NOT have the team be as successful as it could be..?

It's a creeping plague in our society, this demand for our devoted inattention. You see it on Broadway, where it seems that every play today now gets a standing ovation—followed by the audience rushing out of the theatre as soon as possible. 

Show up, pay your money, applaud nicely, and leave. Thanks for coming! 

No. While movies can be art, for baseball to have any meaning, we have to invest it with same. If "it's only baseball," why pay any attention at all?