Maybe it was the boom box that tipped everyone off, that this was going to be a different kind of team in 2009, that these Yankees were going to be far less about starch in the collar and far more about whipped cream in the face.
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From Day 1 at Steinbrenner Field, before every workout, after every exhibition game, the boom box was set up at the far end of the Yankees’ clubhouse, in the locker stall previously occupied by Jason Giambi. Now, Giambi was one of the most laid-back and enjoyable personalities ever recruited by the Yankees, but during the course of his seven years in pinstripes something happened to Giambi:
That personality? It was amputated.
Well, not entirely: Giambi was still good for a ribald story or two, and there was the porn ‘stache and the thongs in his final year, and there was always some kind of drama surrounding him. But the Giambi who charmed the American League in Oakland, in his previous life, was mostly missing during his time in pinstripes.
Hey, it happens, right? There are certain rules you have to accept when you sign on with the Yankees. Johnny Damon needed a haircut and a shave, too, so while he has been one of the brightest lights around the Yankees since he showed up in 2006, even Damon has been only a hint of the electric, eclectic character he’d been in Boston, Oakland and Kansas City. The Yankees always have demanded a certain decorum, and year after year, acquisition after acquisition, everyone acquiesced.
Then Nick Swisher moved into Giambi’s old locker in Tampa, he plugged the boom box in the wall, and what spilled forth wasn’t just a loud and lively mix of rap and rock and metal and meringue; what came tumbling out of those speakers — which always seemed to be set, as Spinal Tap fans understand, at “11” — was frantic and it was fun.
“I’m not trying to change the culture around here,” Swisher insisted in the middle of February, and maybe that wasn’t his intention, but the shift was as subtle as a pie to the face and the message was as clear as the hi-def scoreboard the Yankees would install in their new stadium: Stodgy was out. Beige was out. Vanilla was out.
Fun was in.
Fun? Around the Yankees? In the old days, it was Red Smith who observed, “Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel.” Updated, it meant rooting for Microsoft, or IBM, or Exxon, or any other corporate entity for which it was physically impossible to elicit any kind of upstart passion. The Yankees? That was like rooting for the principal in school, for the boss at work, for Perry Mason on TV. You would probably win, but where was the joy? Where was the joie de vivre?
Around the Yankees, over the past 15 years, there had developed the grinding, soul-exhausting credo that anything less than a world championship was unacceptable. And while this is understandable as a clubhouse rallying cry and certainly as a results-driven marketing maneuver, the yield the past few years was something else: a regular season rendered thrill-free and ordinary, a numbing 162-game warm-up for October.
That’s no way to enjoy the baseball season. Every once in a while, it is a good thing to stop and look around. To soak in the summer. And to enjoy yourself.
And that is why this regular season has seemed, and felt, so different. Swisher brought music to the clubhouse. A.J. Burnett brought his cream-pie shenanigans to walk-off wins, and while it may well have been a coincidence, there were more of them than ever before. The regular season was as much fun as any in recent memory, which may be a product of a beautiful new ballpark, may be the result of a dynamic team, and was certainly helped by Derek Jeter’s pursuit of an old Yankee hero.
The Yankees still demand results in October, still aspire to something greater. The destination is still the story. But for once, and hopefully for the future, everyone seemed to enjoy the journey, too.