My Love/Hate Relationship with the Yankees

My Beloved Yankees:

First of all, I love you more than ever, but I cannot do this any more. I cannot watch the Yankees games and be awfully disappointed on a beautiful Saturday/Sunday afternoon/evening one more time. This game is killing me inside. If I watch Robinson Cano strike out one more time on a change-up, or see Posada hit another double-play, I will probably die of frustration. I. Simply. Cannot. Do. This. Any. More.

Supposedly, the ball club exists to entertain us. Supposedly you players, the coaches and the managers get paid millions of dollars because this game some how enriches our lives and brightens up our days. This is simply not true. This game is just another addiction designed to feed on the weakness of the human psyche. The best way to encourage a behavior in mammals is via intermittent reward, not consistent reward. In other words, if the team I root for, in this case the Yankees, wins every night, I will not be motivated to watch the games any more. Only when the outcome of a game is not predictable are we highly interested in watching it. This is just like a gambling addiction.

Unfortunately, nowadays even when the Yankees wins and the Red Sox loses on the same night, I feel no pleasure at all. I think my addiction has now reached a point where baseball can only bring me pain. In my not-so-wonderful postdoc life, I am already blessed with enough disappointment and frustration. I have therefore decided to say goodbye to you, my imaginary friends, for the rest of the 2007 season: Goodbye, Jeter, Matsui and Farnsworthless, I shall miss you. But you will no longer have any control over my happiness.

Of course I will still watch the Wang games; that is a matter of patriotism. And of course I will forgive all you other Yankees I now hate if you manage to drag your behinds into post-season.

Love,

Tri.