BY DANIEL VICTOR
Of The Patriot-News
You’d never expect that leaving the new Yankee Stadium after the home team won the World Series would have an atmosphere roughly similar to leaving a nonconference Penn State football game or a Broadway play.
But most in the businesslike crowd leaving Game 6 couldn’t be bothered to high-five a stranger or participate in a “Let’s go Yankees” cheer, let alone a “Woo” or two. There were more murmurs than cheers, more July than November. It was time to file to the exits, get some sleep and go to work in the morning.
Trying to rally some excitement, Scott Detrow of Harrisburg — a lifelong Yankees fan — attempted a few chants, but none took. Frustrated with his fellow fans, he shouted: “Let’s go make some noise. We just won the World Series.” Few complied.
Let’s remember: This is the pinnacle of sports, the dream moment for every fan in the country, the utmost reward for thousands of dollars and hours spent in hopes your team might someday get to experience this day on just a few rare occurrences in your lifetime.
At least, that’s how everyone outside Yankee Stadium sees it.
But you earn indifference when you play in a $1.5 billion replica of a stadium, when the economics of baseball have priced out many of the Yankees fans who still care about winning the World Series an hour after it happened.
It also happens when you have a fan base so casually accustomed to winning that the phrase “nine long years” — the gap since their last World Series championship — was uttered repeatedly without a shred of irony.
That Yankees fans would consider nine years to be a significant cold spell, or that they actually find meaning in chanting the word “27” for their championship tally, turns the stomachs of fans of the Pirates, Phillies and Orioles.
Until 2008, Philadelphia hadn’t won a title in any sport since the year before I was born.
Pittsburgh Pirates fans, adorably, are so beaten down by an unreasonable amount of losing that they’re reduced to making a .500 record their multi-year goal.
The Baltimore Orioles haven’t had a winning record in those nine long years that Yankees fans suffered through eight playoff berths.
Yes, Yankees fans enjoy winning. When Robinson Cano threw to Mark Teixeira for the final out, the grandstands erupted as expected in cheers and hugs and high-fives. The stadium was loud during the postgame ceremonies, and certainly there were bars and streets where wild celebrations happened.
One of the legitimately celebrating streets was near the closest subway station, where this columnist in his Phillies T-shirt had many unholy chants tossed his way. I didn’t mind, though, as a lack of passion coming from a World Series attendee is more offensive to me than a few four-letter words.
But Detrow and I were both disturbed by that image of walking through the business-as-usual ramps and walkways inside and outside the stadium.
It’s hard to imagine that level of indifference outside a playoff game at PNC Park or any other title-starved city. It makes you appreciate how significant the 2008 championship was to the city of Philadelphia, and why that feeling may never be duplicated.
On our way back to Harrisburg, we talked about what it means to be a Yankees fan, and what a championship means to them. Detrow recalled stories of the ’90s, when he invited a friend to one of several championship parades the Yankees threw.
“No,” his friend said. “I’ll just go next year.”
While the 2008 championship allowed Phillies fans to lovingly release over two decades of frustration, fans of the 2009 champions somehow feel better about 27 championships instead of 26.
To his credit, Detrow said it still matters because he just loves baseball. “I still think it’s exciting and special,” he said, and his passion after the game showed he meant it.
Kudos to those Yankees fans who still find the game romantic, but I suspect there aren’t many cities in America where you’ll struggle to find rampant enthusiasm after a win that big.