I hate the Yankees and I love the Lakers for exactly the same reason! How can that be?
The Yankees have a payroll of around $200 million. Most other teams don’t break $100 million. They buy the best players. That’s not fair. Boo, Yankees!
The Lakers lead the league in payroll and buy the best players. Yay, Lakers!
Every morning I open to the sports section of my newspaper. I find the baseball standings and previous days scores just to see if the Yankees lost. If they won I actually boo!
This morning I read the sports section and it told me to go to the Internet 17 times. The newspapers are wondering why everyone is using the Internet instead of reading their product. They might want to stop advertising it!
That makes about as much sense as my love-hate thing for the Lakers and Yankees.
The Angels are my angels! After all, they are the only team in baseball since 1998 to have won more games against the Yanks than they lost! My heroes!
My Dodgers at least did something against the Yankees last week. Not enough, but something! It just isn’t fair that the Yankees can just go out and buy their pennants and World Series flags. They don’t earn wins, they buy them.
The Lakers, however, earn every win. Every day we read about them playing with injuries and through the pain. They had the third-best record in the NBA this year but still won it all. Remember that seventh game against Boston?
Yankee fans tell me they like to side with the winners. Every year they can root for their team in the World Series. The Yankees are winners! That, somehow, makes their fans winners!
It’s different if you are a Lakers fan. You cheered for them on all year. You helped them through the rough times. I think they had some rough times. Anyway, you ARE winners if they are.
Is it really healthy for a team to Three-Peat? If I was a Phoenix Sun’s fan I might want to get into a different league. There isn’t one now but if the same teams win every year you can bet on it.
How many times do the Yankees have to win the World Series? How many times do the Lakers and Celtics have to win NBA titles? Some say that about the Pac-10 but USC’s string of seven championships ended last year.
Why do we “hate” our sports rivals? Think about it. Why? They stand in the way of OUR success. Our success? I haven’t played a minute for MY Lakers, or MY Angels and Dodgers, or any other team I root for. It is a bit strange, isn’t it?
When is the last time you raced to work on Monday to gloat about your team beating his team on the big game last Saturday? It is kind of crazy, isn’t it?
So why do we live and die with sports? My daughter Dixie thinks we are all nuts, I’m sure. She thinks you take someone with chest pains to the hospital even if the seventh game of the NBA championship game is tied with 30 seconds left to play. I just can’t get through to her. Besides, Gramps didn’t want to go until after the game either and he came out just fine!
Meanwhile I’ve had years to brainwash my 9-year-old granddaughter who lives in Merced with her San Francisco Giants’ fan, Gordon, her dad. Daughter Debbie, who learned how to drive taking me to Dodger Stadium, won’t get in the middle of it but little Julie does say “Go Dodgers” when I see her.
When it comes right down to it, who cares who wins? My life goes right on like nothing happened. Except the Yankees have to lose and the Lakers and Dodgers and Angels have to win. USC, too! Is has to do with the cosmic universe or something.
Contact Don Alexander and tell him why you love your team. Journaldon@aol.com or dalexander@ggjournal.com.
