If the New York Yankees’ brand of exceptionalism still exists, nobody told the Toronto Blue Jays. In a victorious visitors clubhouse on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium, the players danced to “New York, New York.” Manager John Schneider popped a bottle and reminded everyone to “start spreading the news.” Vladimir Guerrero Jr. leaned into a Fox microphone and took a jab at the timeless call of Yankees radio legend John Sterling: “The Yankees Looooooooooose.”
The whole celebration was drunk with champagne, beer and Haterade.
It was some high-octane grave dancing, and if its brutishness was unusual, its timing wasn’t. For the past 16 years, Yankees fans have watched their season end short of a World Series victory. This year, the Bombers’ tombstone read “Game 4 of the American League Division Series.” It was another jolt of disappointment for fans, whose senses are bombarded by a marketing machine that relentlessly pushes history, championships and glory.
Yet when spring training rolls back around next year, the Yankees’ promise to fans will begin anew and recent shortcomings will be ignored. They will be sold on the premise that the Yankees are in a class of their own, even though the years since their last title in 2009 have largely been marked by overpromising and underdelivering.
“Championship or bust” has become simply trying to compete with the other 29 teams in Major League Baseball. It’s dulled the sheen that once came with pinstripes.
“I wouldn’t say underachieve,” second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said after the chastening ALDS defeat. “We all thought we were the team to win the World Series. But baseball is baseball.”
While Aaron Judge noted the Yankees fell short of the “ultimate prize,” he added that his feelings about the season’s abrupt end were “tough to describe,” even though it’s happened every year of his otherwise brilliant 10-year career.
That’s become the new normal for this franchise.
Yankees exceptionalism now exists not on the field, but in the team store — on slogans and souvenirs, not titles and trophies.
The Blue Jays’ Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Andrés Giménez celebrate after eliminating the Yankees. (Brad Penner / Imagn Images)
The Blue Jays appeared to recognize this. They didn’t seem to see any reason the Yankees should be held in higher regard than any other team. They didn’t worry about being haunted by the ghosts out in Monument Park.
And why not? Really, what have the Yankees done of late to instill confidence that things will be different next year? Or the year after that? But don’t tell the most storied club in baseball that.
The YES Network theme song will still sound like the opening ceremony at the Colosseum in Rome. Black and white images of Babe Ruth, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford will flash across the screen as a reminder of the franchise’s rich past. At Yankee Stadium, the blown-up photos of past on-field celebrations and World Series trophies will still await fans forking over big bucks to attend Opening Day.
That occasion will come after a winter in which the Yankees almost certainly will dutifully do what they have always done: improve the roster around Judge enough to make a World Series title at least appear within their grasp. Of course, that’s no small feat in itself. The Yankees’ streak of 33 consecutive seasons of finishing .500 or better is lauded around the game, no matter how much they have spent. Plus, the realities owner Hal Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman deal with today are far different than what George Steinbrenner experienced, from harsh luxury tax penalties to an expanded playoff field that makes the path to a title more treacherous.
In fact, those running the Yankees’ baseball operations will be the first to admit that luck and randomness play a bigger role in reality than most fans are willing to accept, especially in the postseason. But good fortune isn’t what’s marketed to the diehards.
Instead, they get the promise of greatness. They get wistful invocations of Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio. They see signs around the stadium that mark the year of each of the Yankees’ 27 championships, with the expectation that this year will one day be etched on a banner, too. Indeed, they are sold the allure of exceptionalism.
For a long time, that exceptionalism was much more than slick marketing. The Yankees of the late-1990s actually won championships, and in the 2000s, they were still riding the grit of the Core Four and Joe Torre. They used to outspend everyone, too. Now, they’re not even the biggest spenders in the city, thanks to Steve Cohen and the New York Mets.
Another example: At the trade deadline, the Yankees were lauded for bringing in seven new players, but it was more patchwork. It signaled that they weren’t sold on the team’s ability to compete for a title, despite a fan base that expects rings.
For the fans, maybe it felt familiar in other ways. Nobody buys fast food expecting to get the version that appears in advertisements — but most times it’s close enough. Yankees fans, however, do want to believe that the history they are being sold can still be their reality. That hasn’t been the case for a decade and a half, yet they keep buying into it, desperate for that version of the Yankees to return.
The hard truth is there’s no guarantee that it will, and perhaps with some sensing that, the fans are understandably frustrated.
Yankees fans cheer on Aaron Judge during the Wild Card Series win over the Red Sox. For the past 16 years, they watched their season end short of a World Series victory. (Al Bello / Getty Images)
So, what sets the Yankees apart? More and more, it’s harder to tell, even in the small ways. Consider facial hair. Whether you were for or against the team’s decades-old ban on beards, it made the Yankees distinctive. That it was dumped in spring training was another step toward the homogenization of the Yankees with the rest of the league.
Then they joined all the other teams sitting at home after they were beaten by the Blue Jays, who finished with the same record as them, at 94-68, but proved to be the better team. Their star (Guerrero) outshined the Yankees’ star (Judge). The Jays had the edge in energy and pitching — and in identity. They rightfully saw themselves as Yankee killers, unafraid of the Bronx, and its ghosts and legends, and they partied as such.
Of course, at every turn this postseason, the Yankees tried to invoke the past. Before home games, they trotted out the likes of CC Sabathia, Bernie Williams, Hideki Matsui and Willie Randolph — more reminders of their bygone greatness. Come this spring, they’ll try to sell you on the memories all over again. No matter that it has been years since what the Yankees are selling has matched up with what they’re actually delivering. With each passing season, the disconnect grows even wider.
Ultimately, there was no mystique, no exceptionalism about these Yankees, who increasingly are just another one of 30.