CT Blue

A Yankee Fan admits the obvious, in a very funny article in the New York Times:

[E]very baseball season is a narrative, and this would have been much too early an exit for the villain of the piece. What is “Othello” without Iago, after all? That’s “Othello” the play, not the character. Othello the character would exist just fine without Iago; a lot like the Red Sox without the Yankees, he’d be better off, just not as interesting.

This is why I’ve always found it somewhat distasteful when Boston-ites make so much of the “rivalry” between the Red Sox and the Yankees. It’s presumptuous of them to claim the Yankees as “their” rival, their Moby Dick. That’s Moby Dick the whale, not the novel. The point is (and it’s not only permissible but a matter of pride for a Yankee fan to admit it) that the Yankees are the devil, the sporting version of a malevolent deity that can never be entirely defeated but only fought to a temporary standstill.

Well, I disagree somewhat. We Red Sox fans have a claim to being first among equals in the Yankee hating department. A long train of abuse and usurpations allow us to claim preeminence. From Ruth through Dent to the turncoat Clemens, we can claim pride of place in doing battle with (and unfortunately usually succumbing to) the Devil Incarnate.

But that’s a mere quibble. Author Bruce Weber, a Yankee fan himself, has it mostly right. We need the Yankees, for what is good without evil?

The only vague analog might be Richard Nixon, who was wrong when he claimed we wouldn’t have him to kick around anymore. Like the Yankees, he had his fans, too, but also like the Yankees, he never seems to go away. We — or at least Democrats — go out of our way to keep his memory alive to kick him around. What a pleasing coincidence that yet another batch of Nixon White House tapes surfaced just as the Yankees were poking their noses back into the pennant race.

Alas, there is more serious drama in the world, but it too is often spurred by what seems like pure villainy, entities so threatening or repugnant that masses of otherwise disconnected people are moved to stand together in outrage and resistance rather than cower individually in despair. And sport is a symbol, right? In this way, like literature or even politics, it’s a refuge — an alternate, benign universe where the hero doesn’t have to survive to satisfy us (which is why Harry Potter’s fate, it would seem, is inconsequential), and where no one terrorizes in the name of a god, where unfair advantage is a big payroll rather than a nuclear weapon and where dogs are safe from torture. It’s a place where evil can be blotted out with a big noise — Booooo! — like the name of Haman in a Purim service, and where the villain is, well, familiar. The devil you know versus the devil you don’t? No contest.

So you’re glad to have the Yankees hanging around, yes? A sniff of wickedness makes goodness seem all the purer, doesn’t it? And the most compelling and suspenseful story line, after all, is whether the devil gets his due.

Here’s hoping the devil does get his due. With only the Red Sox standing between him and triumph, that’s a slim hope indeed.