Hello, my name is Shieva, and I’m a Yankees fan.
Before my friends (especially those in the Boston area!) disown me, I should explain: I root for the Yankees because they are the underdogs.
They are, I’ve been told, the most highly paid baseball team, and they’ve dominated the World Series for much of its history. So people root against them on principle. When the Yankees win, even their fans seem to expect it; when they lose, it’s viewed as almost offensive (though, for many, still a welcome outcome). After all, how can a team lose when it has so much going for it? While I suspect diminishing returns aren't being properly taken into account, the fact that the Yankees are so widely viewed unsympathetically makes me feel bad for them. Poor Yankees!
This is kinda like when I eat a cookie, then wish I still had it. Sure, it’s gone because it’s in my stomach, and I’m the one who put it there. But that should make people feel more sorry for me, not less, because that very fact will make people extra unsympathetic, when I’m still suffering in the absence of a cookie to eat.
Anyway, mid-June I got to see my favourite team play. Aaron Exum kindly invited me along to see the Yankees play against the Cleveland Indians, in the house that Ruth built. It was the first baseball game I’d ever watched, and goodness, was I surprised.
One thing I didn’t expect was this: the fun of attending the game began before I even got to the stadium. Those who know me may be shocked to hear this, but I’m not maximally fond of sports. Why spend time watching other people run about? Why is so much money spent on something that seems so pointless? And what’s up with getting emotionally invested in who wins and loses?
On the way to the game, I began to realise it’s not as pointless as I’d thought. In Penn Station I saw people wandering around in blue t-shirts, and blue and white jerseys, with Yankees logos on them or numbers and names on the back (though at the time I wasn’t sure, I found out later that, in many cases at least, these were the names and numbers of Yankees players). They were excited and chatty, and I caught bits of sports-related conversations: “ . . . but the American League is so much cooler than . . .”, “ . . . a lot of the coaches he worked with are Cleveland . . .”. I didn’t understand most of what I was hearing, but I understood the enthusiasm and joviality carried with the words.
On the subway things got even better: one of many relevantly similar events occurring around me, I witnessed a couple in their 70’s and two teenagers chat throughout the duration of the commute. The teenagers were wearing Yankees-regalia, which prompted the couple to ask about their interest in the team. After discussing coaches, expected outcomes of the season, how often they attended games and their favourite teams, the conversation veered toward plans for the fall, facts about their families, descriptions of hometowns, etc. (I even participated in the conversation for a while, until my confusing the Mets with the Mariners drew such an icy response that I clammed up and simply listened.)
It was fantastic to see complete strangers interact like this -- especially here, where people are typically so closed off, sometimes to the point of being rude. Though surrounded by others in this crowded city, it can be hard to find an excuse to interact, an avenue through which to forge connections with the members of the multitude. Sports give us a way to open up, to share common sentiments and create new bonds. It’s so nifty, it’s like being on the West coast again! Yup, I’m a fan of sports now.
So, by the time I got to the game I already had a favourite team and an adoration for baseball. Add to that the extensive knowledge about it that I gained from Encarta during the train ride from NJ (as well as what I knew from having watched A League of Their Own and a couple minutes of a baseball game on TV at a barbeque a few summers ago), and I was ready.
As the game progressed, I discovered two things: (i) it’s hard for me to remember to root for one team in particular, and (ii) watching baseball is stressful! These are related: I kept rooting for whoever was at bat. It was embarrassing when the Cleveland team was batting, because I’d be glad when the batter would get on base (or get a home run), and sad when the ball would be caught. Then I’d remember the implications for the Yankees that a good outcome for the batter would have, and my reaction would reverse.
Also, though I now appreciate baseball for its effects on NYC subway patrons, I’m in absolutely no hurry to watch another game. It’s normal, apparently, for batters to strike out most of the time. But I felt so bad for the batter whenever I witnessed it, it was somewhat traumatic to see it happen again and again. It surprises me that people actually use watching sports as a way to relax!
Still, it wasn’t as distressful as I make it sound: this is because I missed much of the game, since Aaron was kind enough to talk Philosophy with me. A lot of it was even baseball-related: we discussed how one might take my desire that the Yankees win to be irrational. Suppose (contrary to fact) that my desire is for the Yankees to win all of their games, and that this desire is justified by the Yankees being the underdogs. Suppose also (and also contrary to fact, given my use of ‘underdogs’) that if the Yankees won all of their games, then they wouldn’t be the underdogs anymore and my desire would no longer be justified. Then my desire is justified only as long as it isn’t fulfilled, if it's even really justified to begin with. Parfit discusses desires like this, I think, in his Climbing The Mountain (I got the link from PEA Soup, where there's an ongoing discussion of the manuscript). Anyway, though I’m in no hurry to see batters strike out again, I’m more than happy to sit and discuss Philosophy during another baseball game!
“Oh! somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light . . .” The Yankees lost the game that day, but that just makes them all the more endearing. Here’s hoping good things for them as the season goes on. Go Yankees!!
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