I am a huge, huge baseball fan. I grew up in Jersey and only dreamed of going to Yankee Stadium. I had a crush on Bucky Dent, loved fellow Brick City native Rick Cerone and saw Goose Gossage shut it down many times before Mariano even signed on with the Yankees.
It almost horrifies me to say it, but I never did get to the old Yankee Stadium in my lifetime and I haven't been to a live home game in New York yet. Purists may argue that I'm not a real fan, since I've never been to a real home game. (I did watch the boys in Camden Yards though, but I know that doesn't count.)
Yet, the thing that gives me cred with the Yanks, at least in my humble opinion, is my passion for watching the game. My passion for watching matches their passion for winning, which is huge. While it may have been highly coincidental, and has most certainly never been statistically verified, I observed very early on in my watching career as a kid that if I did not watch the game to the end, the Yanks would lose. More importantly, if I watched the game, no matter how far behind the Yankees were, they would have a famous Yankee rally and go on to win the game. I've recently dubbed this phenomenon Maribel Magic.
I recall many nights on the couch, watching intently while the boys would come alive with two outs in the ninth inning and rack up over 5 runs to tie a game and send it to extra innings, or just clinch it right there. Those rallies were just amazing to witness and are the reason I will always hold the Yankees close to my heart. Payrolls and personalities aside, there has always been something transformational about their will to win, even when they struggled with weak pitching or hurt players from the 70's all the way to today.
Baseball fans are generally a superstitious lot, and I began to feel the pressure to watch my boys. I would feel a twinge of guilt when I fell asleep and the boys lost. I really felt remorseful when they lost a lead in my absence when I was growing up. Now, as a full-time mom, I can't watch a lot of baseball games and I don't live in Jersey anymore. But the Yankees have given me the pleasure of watching many Postseason contentions, even while here in Baltimore. So, while I don't believe Maribel Magic wields some actual, real power over Yankee wins, it's fun to think that if I can will it enough, the Yankees will take it all the way to another World Series title. And, it just seems to happen more often than not. When I watch the games, they win. When I don't? Oh boy....
