The November Series
I think it's probably cliche to say that you fell in love with the Yankees during the playoffs and subsequent World Series of 2001. But I can't help it, I did. I was ambivalent mostly, before then. In fact, I think I was probably pulling for the Mets the year before in the Subway Series - knee-jerk underdogism. But I was still mostly new to New York in 2001 having only lived in the city for a year and a half at that point. I had no long-standing or deep ties.
That changed in the fall of 2001. At that time my personal life was in ruins. I hated my job. No- I resented spending most of my time doing something I couldn't care less about. And every morning I took a ferry from lower Manhattan past the smoking pit of the World Trade Center directly across the river to my office building in Jersey City. Every day was a reminder of what had happened. There was no relief from collapse - whether the public tragedy and shock of 9/11 or the destruction of my own towering fantasies of marriage and love.
But for a few good weeks there were moments of escape watching the Yankees pursue the pennant. I was living in a studio apartment then. I'd go home from work to my little nest - I called it. Make some dinner. And then lie in bed, the comforter pulled in tight, fluffy pillows behind my back and watch baseball. It was a brilliant series - with extra inning games and late inning comebacks. You just kept believing that the Yankees would pull it out. That they would find a way. And they did so many times. The feeling then wasn't really one of "they have to win the Series" - it was more "please just win this game and give us another one to look foward to." And those Boys of October held on well into November.
One of my favorite writers is Roger Angell. He writes in the New Yorker, mostly about baseball. Of the best articles I ever read was "Can You Believe it?" in the November 26, 2001 New Yorker Magazine. He was able to put into perfect pitch the emotions of that Series in such a way that I shook with sobs after reading it one morning, on the ferry on my way to work.
That changed in the fall of 2001. At that time my personal life was in ruins. I hated my job. No- I resented spending most of my time doing something I couldn't care less about. And every morning I took a ferry from lower Manhattan past the smoking pit of the World Trade Center directly across the river to my office building in Jersey City. Every day was a reminder of what had happened. There was no relief from collapse - whether the public tragedy and shock of 9/11 or the destruction of my own towering fantasies of marriage and love.
But for a few good weeks there were moments of escape watching the Yankees pursue the pennant. I was living in a studio apartment then. I'd go home from work to my little nest - I called it. Make some dinner. And then lie in bed, the comforter pulled in tight, fluffy pillows behind my back and watch baseball. It was a brilliant series - with extra inning games and late inning comebacks. You just kept believing that the Yankees would pull it out. That they would find a way. And they did so many times. The feeling then wasn't really one of "they have to win the Series" - it was more "please just win this game and give us another one to look foward to." And those Boys of October held on well into November.
One of my favorite writers is Roger Angell. He writes in the New Yorker, mostly about baseball. Of the best articles I ever read was "Can You Believe it?" in the November 26, 2001 New Yorker Magazine. He was able to put into perfect pitch the emotions of that Series in such a way that I shook with sobs after reading it one morning, on the ferry on my way to work.
posted by bridget at
11:24 PM
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