June 23, 2009 at 05:19pm by Matt Meltzer
The Marlins took two out of three from the Yankees this weekend. And had you been listening to the game on the radio, you would have guessed the games were in New York. Marlin fans, such as we are, don’t tend to make it out to the ballpark too much, so when the Yanks come to town the crowd tends to heavily favor the away team. And that, friend, is why a victory over a New York team is the sweetest victory a South Florida sports fan can have.
CITIES ARE DEBATABLE. BASEBALL IS NOT
Because all year, all we are subjected to are endless rants about how great the teams are back home. About how our city is such a terrible sports market and our local teams are a joke. All year it’s Yankees this and Jets that, Knicks this and Mets that. And when it comes time for the teams to actually put their money where their fans’ mouths are, the crowd is usually decidedly pro-New York. New York fans in South Florida have opposing forces to work against, so their inherent obnoxiousness becomes even more pronounced. They have that contrarian attitude of a visiting fan, combined with the group validation a home fan. It’s really the worst of both worlds.
And then, the good guys win. Then the “joke” team with a total payroll less that their third baseman’s salary takes two out of three games, and all their braggadocio and swagger is exposed as fraud. The television cameras show New Yorker after New Yorker looking down and defeated, crying in their Jeter jerseys . You can almost hear the New York accents saying, “Ahhh, the frigign Mawlins? How we lose to da figgin mawlins? Dey’re a firggin’ joke! Get some class!”
SHUTTING THEM UP. FOR NOW.
And while professional athletic success is never an accurate correlation to the quality of a city (Pittsburgh won two championships this year, for chrissakes) it does make New Yorkers shut up for a little while. It does give you one nice piece of ammunition when a New Yorker starts barking on and on about how their hometown is so much better in every way. Oh yeah, Guido? Who won the 2003 World Series? So I guess maybe you AREN’T the premiere team in all of sports, are you?
A South Florida sports win is always a win for the little guy, even if our team is the favorite. The fans are always against us, even in our home stadiums, and any win for Miami is a rejection of New York. At least for the time being. So I will revel in the Marlins series win over the New York Overpaid Crybabies. It just goes to show that a team that averages 15,000 fans a game and pays players the league minimum can be better than a team full of supserstars. And that bragging about how everything you have is better, is quite often proven to be grossly inaccurate.
AND HERE’S AN EXAMPLE OF THE TYPE OF CLASS INDIVIDUAL YANKEE FANS ARE
 | Matt Meltzer is a featured columnist at Miami Beach 411. Matt’s column appears Tuesdays. See more articles by Matt Meltzer > |
