On Being a Yankee Hater
Last week was one of my favorite weeks watching sports. Not only did the Oklahoma Sooners and Michigan Wolverine football team bookend the week with a pair of victories, I watched the team for which I have grown quite a soft-spot, the Boston Red Sox, vanquish their hated rivals. The New York Yankees legendary history failed them, losing four straight games.
Throughout the series, I was fascinated by what I was seeing. I have been a marginal Red Sox fan since I spent a summer in Rhode Island a few years back. But what was really driving me to see the Red Sox undo the Yankees was more simple: I am a hater.
Since I was a little boy, I have hated the Yankees. I stopped playing baseball in junior high, and watched very little of it on TV. But I knew about the Yankees. They were those guys. You know, they were the ones who were supposed to win. They reminded me of the kid who had a mustache in the sixth grade. When he played football with everybody else, we all knew what was gonna happen. Or the girl who had been head cheerleader since the fourth grade. She just felt entitled because of her history, and nobody was going to question it. That, to me, sums up the Yankees. They were supposed to win because they always have. They had no skeletons in their closet, nothing even resembling a curse in their history. Now, they do.
I also find it to be profoundly theological. Now, to a seminarian everything is theological. But think about it: isn't the gospel about such things? The high and lofty are undercut, and the things that count are to be found among the poor and lowly. No one is entitled to anything nor is anyone left out, no matter where they have been or what they have done. In short, all things are made new.
This is what happens when a seminary student watches too much baseball during a week he should have been studying his arse off!
Throughout the series, I was fascinated by what I was seeing. I have been a marginal Red Sox fan since I spent a summer in Rhode Island a few years back. But what was really driving me to see the Red Sox undo the Yankees was more simple: I am a hater.
Since I was a little boy, I have hated the Yankees. I stopped playing baseball in junior high, and watched very little of it on TV. But I knew about the Yankees. They were those guys. You know, they were the ones who were supposed to win. They reminded me of the kid who had a mustache in the sixth grade. When he played football with everybody else, we all knew what was gonna happen. Or the girl who had been head cheerleader since the fourth grade. She just felt entitled because of her history, and nobody was going to question it. That, to me, sums up the Yankees. They were supposed to win because they always have. They had no skeletons in their closet, nothing even resembling a curse in their history. Now, they do.
I also find it to be profoundly theological. Now, to a seminarian everything is theological. But think about it: isn't the gospel about such things? The high and lofty are undercut, and the things that count are to be found among the poor and lowly. No one is entitled to anything nor is anyone left out, no matter where they have been or what they have done. In short, all things are made new.
This is what happens when a seminary student watches too much baseball during a week he should have been studying his arse off!
posted by matt at 5:42 PM
1 Comments:
Hey, speaking of Yankees, here is a good joke I heard today:
Q: What do you call 25 guys at home watching the World Series?
A: The New York Yankees
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