Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, May 4, 2007, Washington Post

An Anti-New York State of Mind

The baseball season has barely started, but I'm already hopeful that the New York Yankees will have a terrible year.

The Yanks have all-stars at almost every position and the highest payroll in the major leagues. Yet their record was 10-14 through Wednesday.

New York has been stumbling even though their superstar third baseman, Alex Rodriguez, has been spectacular, hitting .355 in April, with 14 home runs and 34 runs batted in. Yankees regulars Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi and Jorge Posada are playing well, too.

So what's wrong with the team? Pitching. Every Yankees pitcher is old, injured or not very good. Starting pitchers Mike Mussina, Chien-Ming Wang and Carl Pavano have been hurt. Together, they have one win so far.

And Mariano Rivera, baseball's most dependable relief pitcher for the past 10 years, has been awful. Maybe at age 37 he has run out of fastballs.

New York fans hope that the Yanks can sign pitcher Roger Clemens, who has won 348 games and seven Cy Young awards, to save their season.

But Clemens is 44 years old. How many wins can he have left in his magic right arm? And who says he will sign with New York? He wants to pitch for a winner, which the Yankees aren't right now.

The outlook isn't brilliant for the New York nine these days, and that makes me smile.

Why? I like the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees' biggest rival. Plus, there are teams I love to hate. Okay, "hate" is not a nice word. I don't hate Jeter, Rivera and Posada. And I felt bad when the team's star rookie pitcher, Phil Hughes, got hurt Tuesday night. Let's just say I root really hard against the Yankees.

Rooting against a team is almost as much fun as rooting for one. Lots of Washington football fanatics can't stand the Dallas Cowboys. In college basketball, the Duke Blue Devils make Maryland fans see red.

Folks root against the Yankees, Cowboys and Blue Devils because they win so much -- it's no fun to root against a bad team.

Teams such as the Yankees act as if they are supposed to win, and it's a big deal if they don't. The Yankees have won a record 26 World Series. Their fans think the world is ending because the team hasn't won a championship in six years. The poor Chicago Cubs haven't won a World Series in nearly 100 years.

As far as I'm concerned, the Yankees win too much. But if their pitching doesn't get better in a hurry, they won't be winners this season.

That thought makes me and other Yankee haters very happy.