State of a Yankee fan, feeling my age at last

  

 As a lifelong Yankee fan, there's a temptation to see me as a silver spooned baseball fan, however my life began in 1979, the year after the Yankees won a World Series.  They didn't win another until I was a Senior in high school.  When you're in grade school, it's the easiest time to change sports alliances but I didn't do so with the Yankees even though some regional teams, such as the Mets and Pirates had some strong runs and a solid youth fanbase throughout the 1980's.  Over those years I left the Cowboys to become a Raiders fan, left the Flyers to become a Capitals fan and Georgetown basketball for Indiana.....but never the Yankees.

  From around 1993 forward it's been a blessing to be a Yankees fan.  Sure all the huge money is spent but it had been spent properly.  Look no further than recent spending sprees by Boston, Anaheim, Miami, Toronto, etc... in recent year that have lead to disastrous results.  I always credited that Yankee core of home grown players and the right mix of veterans to keep the ship right.  When people would hit me with the "you bought the championship" argument, I could always counter with Posada, Jeter, Bernie, Andy, Mariano, and further down.... Rickey Ledee, El Duque, Shane Spencer and other guys they were lucky enough to hit on.

  There's a whole new kind of feeling now with the last piece of the mid-90's resurrection leaving us this season.  It feels like the team identity is leaving, when in reality it's been in flux for years.  Paul, Bernie, Jorge, Andy, Mo......each one took a little bit of that "it factor" along with them.  Only now that the final and biggest piece is coming to an end, do we realize how many years we've been fortunate to see this kind of run and just like our own best years, how quickly they seem to have passed by.

  Certainly to look around the team now, there are players that will be in line to succeed and carry the team through the next several years.  McCann, Ellsbury, Tanaka, Gardner......newer high ceiling guys like Solarte, Nova and Pineda.  Sadly, of that list, only Gardner and Nova are "home grown" and it's hard to say now how that group will pan out over the years.  If nothing else, I take solace that in the modern age of the game with the network revenue and the Yankee "global brand", there's no way we should expect much more than a down year or two, if any.  Still, it's an empty solace....seeing a team that will most likely be built on free agency instead of the organic way a crop of draft picks and international signings rose through the minor leagues to go on to win 4 championships in 5 years.

  So now we Yankee fans who grew up in the 80's, were showered in success through high school and college are now home owners, parents, bosses, a little more gray, a few pounds heavier and just to remind us of what our mid-late 30's feel like.....the guys we grew up watching are all just about out of the game.  But hey, what a ride it was!  Let's see our kids have a team that goes on a run that we can't throw the Yankees from 1994-2014 up against and knock them down to size.  Now I know where my dad was coming from with his Mantle/Maris talk when I was a kid watching Mattingly.