I became a Yankees fan in either the fall of 1952 or the spring of 1953, … accidentally.  I’d immigrated from the beautiful city of Manizales in the Republic of Colombia with my sister to the United States to join my mother and her new husband on what was then called Columbus Day and had been immediately enrolled in school, a traumatic event as though I was both literate and fluent in Spanish, I knew absolutely no English.  At some point during an absolutely confusing first grade, during physical education, the instructor had lined us boys up and was asking us which our favorite baseball team was.  It was in Miami Beach which was, at the time, primarily a strange blend of Cuban immigrants (before Castro) and Jews, mainly from New York.  I was a Colombian of French and Spanish descent, adopted into a Greek household so I was a sort of anomaly.  I was third in line for the selection of favorite baseball teams and my classmates ahead of me had already selected the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers.  The Yankees were the only New York team left and I’d only heard of New York teams so I selected them and have stayed loyal to the Yankees, profoundly so, through thick and thin ever since.  I was so attached to them that as an adolescent, when they lost a game I’d fall ill.  Fortunately, back in the 1950s, losses were rare and championships the rule.  I have followed the Yankees passionately ever since.

I recall the terrible end to the 1960’s World Series when, after the Mick had saved the game in the ninth inning by diving back to first base on a line drive, Bill Mazeroski ruined the year for me with his walk off home run in the bottom of the inning.  I was fourteen at the time, a freshman in Jamaica High School in Queens, New York, and I’d been watching that inning on a television in an appliance store along with a small group of other students on a street corner on my way home from school.  But then came 1961. 

At the end of the decade, the Mick was gone and the Yankees’ glory days soon morphed into an epoch of disappointment, Joe Pepitone and Phil Linz never panned out, nor did Tom Tresh.  Those were the days of Sandy Alomar (senior) and others whose names no longer spring to mind, and I suffered through them with the Scooter somehow keeping my spirits up; I recall the thrill of returning to .500 baseball.  Those were not good times, the CBS years, but somehow, they were not as depressing as this millennium’s Yankees, perpetual also rans, except for 2009, but especially since the arrival of Aaron Boone to join Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner at the helm.  This period has been more depressing, perhaps the absence of Phil Rizzuto at the mike and on the screen has something to do with it, and the lack of honest evaluations from most of the other announcers.  And it has lasted so long and seen a much greater breakdown, one involving tradition as well as performance, and perhaps it0s been aggravated by the difference in attitude between George the father, for whom the Yankees seemed held in trust for the fans, and Hal the son, a businessman interested primarily in merchandise sales and profits.

So, … 2025, … like 2024 and … 2023, and … 2022, and … 2021, etc., going back to 2010, was supposed to be the year of the 28^th pennant, but it turned out in a manner reminiscent of Charley Browne trying to kick a field goal while Lucy pulled the football away at the last moment, or, like being a New York Jets’ fan suffering through another Jets season since we promised the Divine that if he gave us Super Bowl III, we would never ask for anything again.

Anyway, … the foregoing is context for what follows: an analysis of sorts of the 2025 season and perhaps one more attempt at that field goal, trusting Lucy one more time.

2025 has become the year of the Dodgers, the first repeat World Series champions since the Yankees in 1999 and 2000.  The Dodgers 2025 World Series triumph was largely based on the performance of the series’ MVP, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, once more highlighting the ineptitude of Yankees’ general manager Brian Cashman who was too “frugal” to sign him, although perhaps that was Hal Steinbrenner’s decision.  Not only is the Cash Man’s decision making, at best, poor, but because of his legendary hubris, many excellent players prefer not to play for the Yankees, all things being even.  Which means even overpaying will not always draw them I, and neither Hal nor the Cash Man are fond of overpaying as, when they have, it’s usually been a huge mistake.  The Cash Man’s hubris is especially evident during negotiations with existing Yankees’ players, a prime example being his mistreatment of Derek Jeter during contract renewal negotiations.  Cashman’s “let prospects rot on the branch” approach while overhyping them has also been a disaster, notwithstanding a huge payroll, a payroll paid for, not by the Steinbrenner family but by the fans who make Yankees’ owners a fortune year in and year out.  The new Yankees’ motto seems to deal, not with excellence and tradition, but with what purported “real fans” will buy at the Yankees’ stores, especially email and online mail-order offers. 

That Aaron “speak no evil” Boone is the Yankees’ field manager makes things worse.  His ineptitude was highlighted again in this year’s World Series by the performances of both the Blue Jays’ and Dodgers’ managers who, while not perfect, demonstrated excellent managerial knowledge and instincts rather than reliance on a by the (analytics) book approach.

As for the future, the Yankees seem to have players currently on the roster and in the minors enough to win without major trades or free agent signings, a good thing, but we’ll see where that gets us.  The only current free agent I’d like to see resigned is Cody Bellinger because of his 1^st base/outfield versatility.  And it’s certainly time to bring up Spencer Jones. 

My two cents, and, … I know, I know, worth exactly that, especially to Yankees’ management where fans only matter as cattle of sorts.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.