Yankee Pride lives on

“Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio.” – Ernest Hemingway.

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There have been darker times to be a modern Yankees fan – cough, Stephen Drew, cough – but rarely has the team been so relentlessly slandered as it is right now.

The recent World Series provided ample fodder for snarky meme artists, of course, as the Yankees played sloppy fundamental baseball en route to a five-game defeat against the Dodgers. New York’s self-sabotage warranted exposure, but the glee with which baseball’s commentariat lambasted the Bronx Bombers overlooked their accomplishments in even reaching the Fall Classic. Sure, the Yankees were fairly beaten on the biggest stage, but the mockery they endured belied reality.

The barbs did not just come from fans, either. Several active Dodgers joined the pile-on, ill-advisedly. On his contrived podcast, Mookie Betts said the Padres were the best team Los Angeles faced in the playoffs – a fair assessment, perhaps, but dismissive of the Yankees, nevertheless. Then, utilityman Chris Taylor sounded off. “We all saw it,” said Taylor, who hit .202 in 2024. “They kinda shit down their leg, right? It was like one thing after the next, and I think our energy in the dugout was kinda feeding off that. It was like, ‘all we gotta do is put the ball in play right now.’” 

This statement contains a kernel of truth. The Yankees did play shoddy baseball during the World Series, especially in the fateful fifth inning of Game 5. However, the lack of class shown by Taylor in making such uncouth remarks is unbecoming – especially when he mustered just one plate appearance in the entire Series and rode his teammates’ coattails to a ring.

The onslaught continued, though, when Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly made similarly scathing comments on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast. “It was just a mismatch from the get-go,” said Kelly, who compiled a 4.78 ERA in 2024 and never threw a single pitch in the postseason. “Like, if we had a playoff re-ranking, they might be ranked the eighth- or ninth- best playoff team.”

Sure, the Dodgers were better than the Yankees – on paper, and on the field. Again, Los Angeles played clean baseball and deserved to win the World Series. But to characterise the Yankees as so inferior is entirely disingenuous. They won the American League pennant handily, losing just two playoff games before facing the Dodgers, so positing seven or eight better teams is preposterous. Moreover, it exposes Kelly as a biased, hyperbolic myth-maker with an axe to grind.

Remarkably, even the Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, got in on the act, dismissing the Yankees with similar nonchalance on Betts’ podcast. “That was the World Series,” said Roberts of the Dodgers’ NLCS matchup against San Diego. The undergirding point is acknowledged – San Diego was a formidable team – but, again, the Yankee shade is obvious.

Of course, Roberts was once a lightning rod in the bygone Red Sox-Yankees wars – his stolen base in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS a catalyst for Boston’s miracle comeback – but there is a certain humility one expects of big league managers. As a matter of course, they tip their cap to peers and acknowledge the common difficulty of marshalling millionaires. Roberts’ lack of modesty was conspicuous, and it hung Aaron Boone, his Yankee counterpart, out to dry.

The World Series chutzpah peaked, however, when MLB auctioned the baseball that Aaron Judge infamously dropped to catalyse the aforementioned Fifth Inning of Doom. Somebody paid $43,510 for the offending article, which is – well – their prerogative, I guess. Once again, though, the Dodgers appeared rather classless in allowing such a stunt to transpire via their branded website. Some have wrongly attributed the auction solely to the Dodgers, when in fact it was a league-sanctioned event, but associations stick - especially when people ignore the fine print.

Alas, the Dodgers are not alone in their zealous Yankee-bashing. Mets fans are also presently boisterous, stoked by the defection of Juan Soto from the Bronx to Queens. A minority of Yankee fans did not react well to the news, burning Soto jerseys and raging in staged videos, but a few attention-hungry jackasses are not representative of an intelligent fanbase that, generally, took Soto’s decision about as well as can be expected. Obviously, seeing him swathed in orange and blue stings, but most rational Yankee fans have bitten their lips, gritted their teeth and nodded wryly as the Mets enjoy their moment. Such courtesy – albeit reluctant – is contrasted by the merciless ribbing Yankee fans have received.

Before Soto, the Yankees-Mets rivalry was more jocular and jovial than terse and toxic. A thread of genuine hatred ran through the diehard wings of each fanbase, but on the whole, a witty civic kinship defined the friendly joust. After Soto, however, the mood has already changed. For the first time since Roger Clemens threw that bat shard at Mike Piazza during the 2000 Subway Series, authentic venom fuels the Yankees-Mets battle. Steve Cohen’s plan to dethrone the Yankees as New York’s team has always ruffled feathers, but it often felt abstract and unattainable. Prying Soto from the Bronx changed that, and the seismic shift in expectations has sparked vitriol between New Yorkers.

I offered several fairly balanced thoughts on the Soto signing in this notes column, and I’m generally excited to see how the Yankees pivot with renewed financial and positional flexibility in his absence. However, I badly misread the mood with a cheeky Threads post comparing Soto and Aaron Judge on Wednesday, incurring the wrath of triggered Mets fans the world over. 

Admittedly, I probably should have refrained from stoking the flames here. In hindsight, the post does come across a little bitter, but that was genuinely unintentional. The thought merely crossed my mind as GM Brian Cashman confirmed Judge – an objectively better player than Soto – will move back to right field for the Yankees in 2025. I fired off the Thread as little other than a pithy observation, grounded in the trademark Yankees-Mets whimsy of yore. But the backlash – 11.6k views, and a torrent of angry replies claiming ‘copium’ from uptight Mets fans – confirmed such geniality is dead.

In its stead, such invective is, sadly, intrinsic to contemporary sports fandom. Overall, people take sports far too seriously nowadays, with human self-worth tethered unhealthily to the triumphs and travails of chosen teams. Tribal groupthink has poisoned cordial, reasoned enjoyment, and ridiculing rivals has become a proxy for self-validation.

To be clear, I do not hate the Mets. Far from it, in fact. Their fans are passionate, and there is an alluring humanity to their stoic faith through adversity. David Wright was one of my favourite players growing up, and just last year, I gleefully had him sign a baseball for me during MLB’s annual London soiree. Ironically, I wore a Yankees cap at the time, but Captain America did not mind. A baseball fan is a baseball fan, after all. Or, at least, that was once the case. Not so much nowadays.

Rest assured, though, that the Yankees are quietly collecting receipts and clipping stories for the spring training bulletin board. There is dignity in their silence, and inspiration in their forbearance. Their time will come again, and every snipe will be remembered. So, get your quips in now. Unload that pinstriped hatred. Mockery today will become motivation tomorrow, and eventual victory – whenever it comes – will be all the sweeter as a result. 

I get it – people have waited their entire lives to dunk on the Yankees, who have long been cast as the big, bad bully. The Evil Empire, indeed. They are the most hated franchise in sports, and decades of perennial contention have yielded few genuine opportunities for ridicule. The time is now, the opportunity is here, and people are kicking the Yankees while they are down. Yankee fans know the rules of engagement, and expect such bitterness, but the flavour of current contempt is noteworthy, nonetheless.

I will not sit here and fall back on the much-parodied ’27 rings’ cliché. I know Yankee hegemony is over. I literally wrote about the Dodgers usurping the Yankees as baseball’s vogue behemoth following the World Series. I have even applauded the Dodgers’ quest for domination, because I’m a realist. Yankee stocks are plummeting right now. But still, there is an admirable nobility to the Yankees’ countenance these days. Mystique and aura may be on hiatus, but Yankee Pride still looms in the ether. 

As I wrote while reacting to the Soto signing: “There is a certain staid dignity in the Yankees’ refusal to pierce a new fiscal stratosphere for Soto. Though it may frustrate some fans, there is something classy and respectful in the Yankees knowing their own worth, making their best offer, and refusing to fuel Scott Boras’ farcical fever dream any further. To reiterate, I wanted Soto to remain a Yankee, but not for $805 million. Remaining sober, and refusing to become delusional, is to the Yankees’ credit in this debacle. I’m proud of how they conducted themselves.”

This remains true, and though difficult for some to comprehend, the feeling of austere honour has only intensified in recent days. Indeed, for all the talk of Yankee embarrassment and waning pinstriped influence, I have actually found solace in their quiet, solemn response to so many setbacks and sideswipes. Undoubtedly, there is disappointment that Soto rejected the Yankees, but there is no shame in offering a player $760 million. As such, the accusations of humiliation and disgrace are overwrought and misguided.

Though it will probably be dismissed as ‘coping,’ there is even pride and philosophical consistency in the Yankees’ refusal to include a free luxury suite in their proposition to Soto – apparently a point of contentious difference in the negotiations. Judge, the team captain, does not have a suite. Derek Jeter never had a suite. No Yankee has ever been gifted one, and I applaud the team for upholding such precedents, because they are what make the Yankees special – a spartan utilitarianism providing a base for elite conquests. If Juan Soto did not understand or appreciate that regal Yankee lore – that selfless, team-first doctrine – maybe it is better for everyone that he will spend the next 15 years elsewhere.

In this regard, the Yankees are regularly misconstrued, misrepresented and misunderstood. Detractors accuse them of being stiff, corporate and arrogant, citing the strict facial hair policy or the many retired numbers or the wearing of suits while travelling as evidence of stuffy anachronism. However, those are the elegant wrinkles that make them The Yankees. What critics deride as a refusal to change, admirers cherish as the maintenance of tradition.

To wit, haters typically say the Yankees are all about money – that they flash their wallet, throw their weight around, and chase back-page acclaim. The fact that Juan Soto is a Met punctures that myth alone, but diligent observers know it is untrue, regardless. Yes, the Yankees are incredibly rich, and they expend those resources accordingly, but their modus operandi is defined more by hushed and astute manoeuvring than by bold and extravagant gestures. Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner are cerebral introverts, not bombastic showmen, and that approach – that learned, conservative comportment – is a manifestation of Yankee Pride.

And what, exactly, is Yankee Pride? Well…

Yankee Pride is Lou Gehrig calling himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth despite facing imminent disablement and death.

Yankee Pride is Joe DiMaggio taking himself out of a pennant-clinching game due to injury, so he did not hurt the team’s chances.

Yankee Pride is George Steinbrenner eyeing slopping Baltimore Orioles jerseys during a spring training game and threatening to fire player development director Bill Livesey if he ever saw the hallowed pinstripes similarly besmirched.

Yankee Pride is Hideki Matsui never spitting on the Yankee Stadium turf because he considered it sacred.

Yankee Pride is Nelson Mandela proclaiming, ‘I am a Yankee,’ bedecked in the interlocking NY. 

Yankee Pride is sometimes cryptic, often unuttered, and delightfully esoteric.

Yankee Pride is decorum, discipline and deference.

Yankee Pride is impervious to trends.

It lives on through eras and exceeds any one individual.

Right now, then, Hal and Cashman are quietly seething – with Soto, with Boras, and with a changing game awash with venture capital – but they are channelling that anger into positive energy. Each jibe affirms their determination, and they are primed to go scorched earth in pursuit of vindication.

“No retreat, no surrender,” Cashman said in a recent MLB Network interview following the loss of Soto. “We’ll get back after it, and find a way to put together a roster that our fans are going to be excited about. We want to defend that American League title, get back to the World Series, and try to win it. So we’ll get after it.”

The shrewd GM has already initialised that promise by signing ace Max Fried to an eight-year, $218 million contract and using the resultant starting pitching surplus to trade Nestor Cortés for all-world closer Devin Williams. More reinforcements are on the way, too, with multiple paths to improvement in 2025. Hal has refused to implement any payroll restrictions, green-lighting Cashman to finally build the team he has desired for years.

Accordingly, at this point – perhaps the acceptance stage of grief – Yankee fans are riled up and ready to go. They are imploring management and ownership to creatively craft a more well-rounded roster. Part of me wants them to lean into the ridicule, continue to absorb the blows, and double-down on the villainous archetype. Heck, go and get Alex Bregman, and maybe put Pete Alonso in pinstripes – #22, of course – just for the sake of it. Just to show the world you do not give a damn.

This storm will pass, you see, and a new Yankees team will emerge. New stars will arrive, and new dynamics will form. Winter will melt into spring, and Opening Day will usher fresh perspective. Oh, and Yankee Pride will live on. Just as it always has. Just as it always will.