Making The Call: A "Real Yankee"?

Our long nightmare is over, thanks to his dramatic two-run home run in the ninth on Friday, we can finally say that A-Rod is a “real Yankee”. And kudos to Mark Teixeira, who won the game with a home run and therefore is immediately promoted to “real Yankee” in his first Yankee postseason.

A-Rod’s success is reminiscent of Yogi Berra’s 1953 World Series performance. Berra entered that contest hitting .188 in over 100 World Series plate appearances, hardly the stuff of a “real Yankee”. Luckily, he started hitting in that postseason otherwise he never would have been called a “real Yankee”.

Tino Martinez is clearly a “real Yankee”, but he only hit .247 in the postseason, how did he qualify? Winning those four World Series titles of course. But wait, then how come Don Mattingly is a “real Yankee”? Mattingly didn’t even win a division title when he played for the team. Well Mattingly obviously makes it because of the way he played the game.

It’s too bad more of these guys can’t just be like “real Yankee” Derek Jeter who always turns it up in the postseason. Jeter a career .317/.388/.459 hitter elevates his numbers all the way up to .311/.381/.477 in the playoffs.

Hmmm…come to think of it maybe this “real Yankee” stuff is a load of crap and maybe we should just root for the players and not worry about trying to define them. Nah, where’s the fun in that?