On the 18th of June, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte’s great army fell victim to the combined forces of the Allied Armies at the Battle of Waterloo. In 1876, Lieutenant Colonel Custer lost his life at the hands of more than 10,000 Native Americans at the Battle of Little Big Horn. And a Greek force hidden in a large wooden horse once besieged the Trojan Army.While the Yankees’ 22-0 shellacking by the Indians may not have the same historical importance, it was equally humiliating.
In front of more than 51,000 New York fans and their micromanaging owner, one Yankee pitcher after another was pounded by the young Cleveland lineup, led by a catcher, Victor Martinez, with less than a year in the big leagues.
Free-agent pitching prize Javier Vazquez allowed six runs in less than two innings and Cleveland’s soft-slapping shortstop Omar Vizquel tied an American League record with six hits in a nine-inning game.
That night was so wondrous not for the 22 runs, or ineptitude of the Yankee offense and pitching, but for the elation and (perhaps sarcastic) pity one felt as the Indians scored run after run, inning after inning.
The Yankees are built around their arrogant swagger. With their pretty-boy/poster-boy Derek Jeter always one model or one nightclub away from the tabloids’ front pages, the team looks better, plays better, dresses better and even strums a guitar better (i.e., Bernie Williams) than any other team.
The Yankees are like the proverbial captain of a high school football team: good looking, athletic and adorned with the prettiest cheerleader on his arm. Day after day, everyone at school watches as he saunters through the hallways, picking on prepubescent freshmen, believing he holds the school by its strings.
You can hope for small victories, a Red Sox win, a long Derek Jeter slump, even a World Series loss, but at the end of the day, you realize every other team in the league is just another pimply teenager.
But when the Indians embarrassed the Yankees on their home field, it was like the day the high school quarterback slips in the lunchroom, covers himself in mashed potatoes and watches his cheerleader leave him for the debate team captain.
A fall from grace of such magnitude, if only momentary, is never without poignancy, demonstrating that the quarterback is just another lost, vulnerable teenager trying to make it day by day.
The Indians made you forget about A-Rod, Jeter and Posada and remember that the Yankees are just a bunch of baseball players, overpaid albeit, but just simply and understandably human, with potential for the great and for the abominable.
No one can assume the Yankee train has derailed. As elated Red Sox fans and Yankee haters revel in the Yankee plight, I must remind myself, it is still the Yankees. While their overinflated payroll and exaggerated collection of pretty-boy stars dominate most of the headlines, it’s been their ability to overcome any obstacle that has made them champions. This won’t be any different.
The Yankees will once again walk away from this season with a division championship no matter how much a three-game lead teases Red Sox fans into thinking “This is the year.”
But for one night, the Indians let everyone cry, “Aren’t the Yankees just pathetic!”