Can We Please Get Back to Baseball?---George Vecsey, NY Times

...."Can we please get back to the business of squirm-inducing pennant races? ...Destiny’s darlings from the Bronx have inserted themselves back into contention,

• producing a tectonic grinding between the twin needs of Yankees fans to blame Brian Cashman, Joe Torre, and at the same time exult in their team being the hottest one in baseball.*

It was fun to hear a Yankees fan calling into WFAN on Tuesday night to note that the Yankees had won just as many games as the Mets, 63, going into last night. This behavior could definitely be construed as taunting.

• In my life I have one prototypical Red Sox fan (she knows who she is) and one prototypical Yankees fan (he knows who he is). ... At any rate, my Red Sox fan announced the other day that the Sox were “only” seven games up on the Yankees. I chided her for sounding like a Yankees fan, always worried. No, she said, Yankees fans expect to win. It was down to five games going into last night.

My Yankees fan has been fearful that the Yankees would not qualify for the postseason, but Tuesday night they unveiled their latest phenom, Chamberlain, who is of American Indian heritage. My friend is already seeing Chamberlain as the reincarnation of the so-called Big Chief, Allie Reynolds, a name that frightens old Brooklyn fans like me. Other Yankees fans are proclaiming Chamberlain as the next Mariano Rivera.

• All this is delightful, now that Bonds’s pursuit no longer dominates our minds. Bring on the baseball races."

Items from NY Times article by George Vecsey, "With Home Run Chase Over, Let's Get Back to Pennant Races," 8/9/07, NY Times, Times Select (fee)

• *This is of course a fleeting condition in baseball. (sm)

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