On Saturday, Jim recounted on his webble everything that is wrong with today's Yankee "fan".

"...[W]e are sitting a few rows behind a douchebag in a home Mariano jersey (with name) and a blue "26 time world champions" hat. Underneath the jersey he is wearing one of those dark blue t-shirts with "Damon 18" emblazoned on the back in white."

There are plenty of reasons to not be a Yankee fan. The old stadium, steeped, marinated, and barrel-aged in tradition as it is, is kind of a shithole, and the new stadium will require a credit check to get a hot dog.  The inflated (and oft-cited) payroll leaves fans and non-fans alike with unreasonable expectations - success is met with a shrug, and failure is met with a hounding chorus of gleeful haters too busy hating on my team to notice or care about the success of their own.

The best, and sometimes only reason to be a Yankee fan is because of the tradition.  The pinstripes, the numbers on the outfield wall and the names on the plaques in Monument Park speak to a legacy that few other teams in sports can match.  It's fun to follow a team that feels like a truly professional sporting organization, and has a history of success that you can enjoy and feel good about even when the team on the field isn't showing up.  And showing up to a game in a jersey with a name on the back, with a Johnny motherfucking Damon T-shirt on underneath, and a 26 time World Champions hat completely misses the point.

You don't need to put his name on the back, because pinstripes + 42 = Mariano Rivera.  You don't need a hat that says 26 time World Champions on it.  A blue hat with a white interlocking N-Y says it all. And if you were looking for a player to represent the worst of the modern day mercenary athlete, you couldn't do much better than Johnny Damon.

Jim is not even a Yankee fan, but at least he gets it.  What the fuck is your problem?

Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this guy's sartorial crimes, but I think it speaks to the larger problem.  Jim continues:

"Enter Sandman.

This guy takes off his jersey and holds it up. He starts seriously headbanging. He appears on the Jumbotron, achieving his 15 seconds of fame (Warhol got the units wrong). [...] He [finally] sits, ready to cheer his favorite player on.

Minutes later, Aubrey Huff blasts a solo shot out of the park.

Without hesitation, our subject stands, turns, and exits the stadium. As he passes by, I have but two words: 'Exit Sandman.' "

After 13 straight years of making the playoffs (the longest active stretch in baseball), this year's injury-wracked Yankees team will be watching October baseball from somewhere other than the dugouts.  As a spoiled Yankee fan, I'm supposed to be enraged.  I'm disappointed, but not enraged.  I understand that, $209 million payroll or not, there are 29 other teams vying for a World Championship every year, and only 4 playoff spots in the American League.  It was bound to happen eventually.  What, did I think that the Yankees were going to make the playoffs every year for the rest of my life?

But this run of success has bloated the Yankee bandwagon to the point where a grown man covers himself head to toe in tacky, overpriced Yankee merchandise just to get noticed, and runs out of the stadium at the first sign of trouble.  Because he isn't a real fan. 

Listen, douche, wherever you are: if you get to go to Yankee stadium and see the greatest team in professional sports play, and then scurry out of the stadium like a bitch when things go sour, do me a favor next time: make sure you take the millions of other bandwagon fans with you.