The Unbearable Banishment: Are New York Yankee fans brain damaged?

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Are New York Yankee fans brain damaged?

Steiner Sports Gifts and Collectibles is an outfit that deals in sports memorabilia. Aside from the usual bubble gum cards and signed baseballs, they specialize in catering to wealthy micro-collectors. They cut “exclusive” deals with players and teams. They are big on partnering with the New York Yankees.

Yankee deity Derek Jeter hit his 3,000th major league hit this summer. Steiner Sports, in partnership with the Yankees consigliere, swooped in and created the following collectible items from the game where he achieved this milestone.
  • Bases used in the game: $7,000
  • Balls (unsigned): $2,000
  • Dirt that Jeter walked on from the shortstop and right-hand batters box: $250 for a half-ounce container
  • Jeter’s used sox: $1,000
Under a separate agreement, you can buy a vial of dirt from the old Yankee stadium that was demolished in 2008. And there’s no need to worry whether or not it’s legitimate Yankee Stadium dirt. Rest assured. All dirt sold by Steiner Sports Marketing is collected “under strict supervision to assure authenticity.” The target audience for these items appears to be brain damaged Yankee fans with deep pockets.

I understand the pull of nostalgia and the want to hold onto a piece of your youth. But this strikes me as both tragic and laughable. Ladies...if you walked into some guy's apartment and saw a container of (potentially bogus) Yankee Stadium dirt sitting in worship up on his mantle, would you not run for the hills as fast as your feet could carry you? I wouldn’t want The Daughters to date someone of this ilk.

* * *

Well! That was uncharacteristically mean-spirited! I usually try not to judge people too harshly but as long as I rang that bell, I might as well get it all out of my system. Buckle up.

* * *

If I was emperor of the planet for one day, I would write an irrevocable law that would state; if you are caught talking on a cell phone while walking down the sidewalk so loudly that everyone can hear you, you have to go to the county jail for seven days. If you’re using a Bluetooth, you have to go to a federal penitentiary for nine months. I know that sounds a bit harsh but things have gotten pretty bad out here.

* * *

I hurt myself at the gym in the stupidest way imaginable.

I was doing reverse curls (grab a barbell with palms facing inwards and pull it up to your chin). In front of me were two TV monitors. One was playing an interview with Sean Hannity and Dick Cheney. Sean, he of the steely look in the eye and jutting square jaw and Good Ole’ Dick, looking every bit the Bond villain he is, sat in front of an animated waving American flag backdrop. Two heroes. The other monitor played the corporate cyborg New York Yankees beating-up on the small-market Toronto Blue Jays.

My eyes frantically darted from one monitor to the other. I became so angry that I lost my concentration, pulled the barbell up too fast and smacked myself in the chin. My jaw snapped shut so hard that my teeth banged together. They still kind of hurt.

Anger. It’ll get you nowhere, brothers and sisters.

20 Comments:

Blogger LẌ said...

I'm with you on the mobile/bluetooth combo!

September 6, 2011 at 1:46 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

lx: It's reached epidemic proportions out here. Cell phones aren't going anywhere and we should just get over it but...

September 6, 2011 at 2:11 PM  
Anonymous dinahmow said...

Oh, bless you, UB, for being funny and hitting the nail(um...chin...not so much fun)
This is the sort of short column we used to find in newspapers;the sort of wit that, while stating a sometimes irksome fact, set us off on our day with a smile.
(when I was about 12, I picked up a chipped polo ball and the tall, blonde, handsome captain signed it for me, unasked.That ball lived in the bottom of my closet for years.I think my brain's OK!)

September 6, 2011 at 3:11 PM  
Blogger Ellie said...

That is indeed a painful sounding gym experience! Kind of funny on hearing though. ;-)

September 6, 2011 at 3:24 PM  
Blogger Adam Kenny said...

As a Yankee fan who is not brain-damaged (or perhaps just so far gone as to not be able to realize that I am) I loved your riff on the snake oil show that is the sports memorabilia biz. About a month or so ago, the Post ran a piece on some guy named Barry Halper who when he died was the world's foremost collector of all sorts of baseball stuff - so much so that they named a wing for him in Cooperstown to house all the "authentic" stuff he donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Only problem is that it turns out a lot of his 'treasures' were fakes, which fact he was allegedly aware of when he donated them to the HOF. You cannot make this sh*t up.

A vial of dirt from Yankee Stadium. Makes me wish that Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton were still walking around wearing vials of one another's blood like they did for the 11 minutes they were married. Combine all those vials and you have the makings of one high-end mud pie.

September 6, 2011 at 3:26 PM  
Blogger savannah said...

what lx said, sugar, but i swear i damn near spit out my sweet tea when i read about your unfortunate fit of pique in the gym! (oh yeah, darlin, i read it out loud to the MITM because he asked what was so funny!) ;) xoxoxox

September 6, 2011 at 4:05 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

dinah: That is high praise, indeed. Thank you, dear. A check is on the way.

Ellie: It's like my previous bad dream post; funny in the telling but not so much fun in the experience itself.

AK: Are you surprised that Jeter is a willing participant in these sort of sham activities? I sure am! He sure doesn't need the cash. I'm no Yankee fan (obviously), but I've got a lot of respect for that guy. You'd expect this kind of behavior out of a bottom feeder like A-Rod.

sav: All I want from this blog is to make people smile at my misfortunes. Seriously. If one of my posts accomplishes that, then I feel I've succeeded.

September 6, 2011 at 4:09 PM  
Anonymous daisyfae said...

i will sell you an authentic pair of Mary Louise Parker's socks. Used. what are those worth to you?

September 6, 2011 at 7:36 PM  
Blogger mapstew said...

Guess what? You got another smiler! :¬)

September 6, 2011 at 7:39 PM  
Blogger tennysoneehemingway said...

I'm sorry but that barbell story is one of the funniest things I've read in ages. Could've been a Seinfeld piece, back in the day.

September 6, 2011 at 7:40 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

daisy: Is she still in them?

map: Cha-ching! To me, it's as good as money in the bank. Human capital!

Hem: Never mind that! Congrats on the new daughter! Talk about buckle-up!? Everyone should go look at the pic of Hem's beautiful new arrival.

September 6, 2011 at 7:52 PM  
Anonymous looby said...

Relics of the cross, Elvis's sweat, sports memorabilia. An old trade but a profitable one. Benjamin's essay from 1936, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, describes just this, the way that insubstantial things acquire an "aura" from their meanings.

No it's OK thanks, I'm just going.

September 7, 2011 at 1:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Haha.... you do make me laugh UB. And I'm with you on the bluetooth punishment

September 7, 2011 at 4:32 AM  
Blogger Pat said...

I still wish I'd hung on to my collection of film star cigarette cards.
Sorry about your jaw - but it was a bit funny.
My new mobile mentions blue tooth. I've yet to discover what it is.

September 7, 2011 at 6:13 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

looby: I was in a church in Italy and mounted high above an alter was, supposedly, a shard of the cross that Christ was crucified on. I never believed it! Not for one second!

nurse: Glad to be of service. Your posts make me smarter.

Pat: Bluetooth is the dark side of technology. It's where madness begins. Beware!

September 7, 2011 at 6:32 AM  
Blogger Kono said...

I think the real jail time should come for people texting at red lights and not paying attention when the light turns green, i mean who the eff are you texting at 6:30 in the morning? seriously?

and i've never met a Yankee who wasn't brain-damaged, Go Tribe!

September 7, 2011 at 8:12 AM  
Blogger Sausage said...

Hannity and Darth Vader at the gym...tough workout...
wear a chin guard next time and ear plugs

September 7, 2011 at 8:12 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Kono: Yes, put me down for making ANY use of the cell phone behind the wheel as punishable by law. No hands free. No speaker phone. NOTHING. Just drive, goddamnit. If anything ever happens to my family and it's because of someone using a cell phone while driving, I'll go berserk.

SF: Or, perhaps I should just get a grip! Face it. That's not normal behavior.

September 7, 2011 at 8:58 AM  
Blogger Ms Scarlet said...

I hope your teeth are feeling better now?
Sx

September 8, 2011 at 6:14 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Scarlet: My teeth are fine. My sense of self control, sadly, is still lacking.

September 8, 2011 at 6:57 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home