The boos arrived for Aaron Judge on Friday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, and in the moment, they were puzzling, and after a bit to digest them, they were alarming. But they shouldn’t have been in the least bit surprising.
Booed in New York?
Seriously: Who hasn’t been booed in New York?
Let us all remember the afternoon of Wednesday, April 6, 2005. The Yankees had tried to put the misery of their previous October collapse behind them, beating the Red Sox in the first two games of the season at old Yankee Stadium. They were about to make it a clean sweep, leading Boston 3-2 going into the top of the ninth, when “Enter Sandman” started blaring from the stadium PA, the crowd of 55,165 roared, and Mariano Rivera came trotting into the game.
Good times all around.
Except Rivera didn’t have it that day. He gave up a walk and two singles. He was hurt by an error. He walked two more, allowed another hit, and by the time Joe Torre went to get him, he had allowed four runs (and was charged a fifth after Felix Rodriguez replaced him). The Red Sox went on to win the game, 7-3.
And a far different soundtrack than Metallica was played then.
Yankee Stadium booed Mariano Rivera, the only player in the history of baseball to be unanimously voted into the Hall of Fame. It was actually a funny bookend to what happened the next week, when Rivera was introduced at the Sox’s home opener and received a rousing ovation from Boston fans thanking him for being less than perfect the previous fall in the ALCS.
So, yes, if Mariano Rivera can get booed, anyone can get booed. And in truth, almost everyone has gotten booed. Babe Ruth had an off-year in 1925; he got booed. Joe DiMaggio held out for more money in 1938; he got booed. Mickey Mantle got booed for not being DiMaggio, and Roger Maris was booed for not being Mantle. Tino Martinez was booed for not being Don Mattingly, and Jason Giambi was booed for not being Martinez.
Joe Namath was booed.
Mark Messier was booed.
Phil Simms was booed. Eli Manning was booed.
There was one day — just one — at Yankee Stadium when Derek Jeter was booed.
Clyde Frazier, maybe the single-most beloved athlete in the history of New York sports, he was booed plenty toward the end of his time with the Knicks, before he was shipped into exile in Cleveland. Patrick Ewing was booed. Mike Piazza was booed. Last week, after spending most of the season head-over-heels in love with Max Scherzer, Citi Field let him have it as he walked off the field after getting battered by the Padres.
The next night, Darin Ruf was booed after striking out, and as he made his way to the dugout you could read Daniel Vogelbach’s lips in the dugout: “Wow. Tough crowd.”
Well, it is. It’s a tough town. Whether the booing is fair or not — whether booing is ever something a grown-up should do in any form, that’s a fair question — the fact is, you get booed here. It’s a tough crowd. It’s a tough town. It’s a tough room.
Sometimes, in rare instances, a player can make it though an entire career boo-free. It is fairly acknowledged that Lou Gehrig was never booed. Gil Hodges never heard boos directed his way. Maybe someone can contradict this, but Don Mattingly was never booed. Neither was Tom Seaver. If anyone has ever heard Jacob deGrom get booed, please step forward.
We aren’t the only tough town. Philadelphia, famously, once booed Santa Claus. Boston has been rough on some folks. There are others.
But we have more teams, so more athletes, than anyone else. Our expectations are always a smidge higher than everyone else’s. So there are simply more opportunities for booing. In retrospect, it probably feels silly that anyone ever booed Babe Ruth. Soon enough — if not already — it’ll probably seem equally laughable that anyone booed Aaron Judge, in the same season Judge hit 62 home runs,
Aaron Boone brushed it off Friday by saying, “It’s The Bronx, man,” but we know it’s not merely limited to one borough. It’s the city, man.
Vac’s Whacks
It’s OK to believe, Giants fans, it really is. And if the lads in blue can take care of Lamar Jackson and friends in the Wink Martindale Bowl at MetLife on Sunday … well, at some point it goes from belief to faith, and the Giants will have made that leap.
It is a grand time of the season to be a baseball fan, whether your team is still alive or not, which makes it a perfect time to read “The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series,” Tyler Kepner’s elegant ode to the Fall Classic.
I suspect that, deep down, Tom Thibodeau is awfully excited about coaching this group of Knicks, even if he sometimes looks like he’s getting a boil lanced when he talks about them after games.
It’s unfathomable to think that Yordan Alvarez actually started his American baseball life with the Dodgers organization. And even more impossible to believe he was traded for someone named Josh Fields, who hasn’t pitched in four years and had a lifetime record of 9-10 when the deal was made.
Whack Back at Vac
Arnold S. Mazur: I’m also in favor of signing Brandon Nimmo. In addition to the fact that he’s still improving, amazingly for this era he actually runs to first base on walks, while so many others don’t run even on hits.
Vac: CC: Donaldson, Josh.
Roland Chapdelaine: On the bright side, the Mets did play “meaningful games” in September and October. Unfortunately they lost the crucial ones. But Mets fans can amuse themselves by counting all the former Mets still playing on other teams still active in the playoffs!
Vac: My personal favorite was Rafael Montero vs. Jared Kelenic the other night in Houston, when Kelenic fell about three feet shy of being a genuine hero.
@cOsein: The Butterfly Effect — I think it still traces back to the Duaner Sanchez taxi accident in 2006.
@MikeVacc: Now THAT is a fascinating Mets narrative: the Six Degrees of Duaner Sanchez!
Gary Bochner: Great win by the Giants last week! Good win by the Jets! Real football has returned to New York!
Vac: Exclamation points have been few and far between for our local elevens in recent years. Let’s enjoy this era of good feeling while it lasts.
