Thursday, June 11, 2009

Video Break: Yankees roll call from May 1 game against Angels



God I love Nick Swisher (He was the only Oakland A's player I ever liked). Pay attention to his reaction to the crowd when they chant his name. No wonder Yank fans love this guy so damn much.

Look, I am no New York Yankee fan. In fact, I was ecstatic that they got swept by the Red Sox tonight and are currently 0-8 for the year against them. However, what I do appreciate, whether I like the team or not, are traditions. I'm really just a sucker for them, whether I like the team or not. The reason I'm so fond of real, legitimate (I don't like using the shortened version "legit" on a side note. It reminds me of someone and brings up bad memories) traditions is that nowadays they are so rare to come by. It's easy for something to be a fad, but rarely do fads become traditions. We see it all the time. The Giants fans in 2000 had this stupid trend of barking when there were two outs in the ninth inning because they played "Who let the dogs out" after each win. It only lasted though in 2000 and was never done again because the Baha Men, or Boys or whatever the hell their names were, became stupid and Giants ownership feared fans would start murdering people in their seats because of how much it had irritated people after it had been played a billion times on the radio and through other sporting events (Okay, I'm lying, but not much. It's only 95 percent true). In 2002, the Anaheim (excuse me...Los Angeles-Anaheim) Angels brought in a custom of a Rally Monkey (properly dressed in a cute, but incredibly idiotic mini-Angels jersey) to spark their 2002 World Series run. After 2002, they must have killed the monkey for fear of something happening like in the movie "Outbreak" (e.g. Monkey screwing over the entire human race through a virus) because we never saw that damn animal ever again at an Angels game.

And to be honest, I could list more but I would be deviating from my point. The fact of the matter is, you really have something special for it to become a tradition year after year after year. The Yankees roll call from the right field Bleacher Creatures is it. Basically, as you will see in the video, the right field chants each players name out in the field and chants the name until the player gives them some kind of reaction and then they move onto the next player. It's a really cool thing, and it shows that all that talk about how players drown fans out is hoopla. They're listening, they know what's up, they just choose to ignore it. They don't have special mechanisms like in "For Love of the Game."

Some of the players' reactions are pretty typical (you can tell Derek Jeter has been through this one time too many), but some of the players' responses to the Bleacher Creatures calls are actually quite hilarious. Like I said, I am no Yankees fans, but I must have watched this clip about a two dozens times in the last 24 hours. Great clip, and whether your a Yankee fan or hater, you have to appreciate the fan traditions like this one, mostly because there aren't many, especially in a day and age where most fans are on their laptops or reading books because a baseball game isn't good enough for them (God I hate those people. Do us all a favor and just watch the game on home or listen to it on a radio. You make going to a baseball game less enjoyable for everyone with your goddamn apathy).

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