Damn Yankees.

Baseball's a given for me, and long ago, I became an American League fan for purely contrarian reasons. My friends all cheered for senior cirucit teams, mostly the Cincinnati Reds, and a few for the St. Louis Cardinals (the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves didn't come along to claim allegiance until cable television).

That wasn't good enough for me, so I chose a team in the other league,as far away as possible, and primarily because the Oakland A's wore green and gold, they won out over the Angels.

That was around 1969 or 1970, and I've supported the A's ever since.

Since Oakland seldom appears in the World Series, I usually root for the American League representative and call it good. That is, until this year. It looks as though the New York Yankees will defeat the Philadelphia Phillies and take the title back to my favorite league, but I feel absolutely no joy in it, and hope the Phils can muster a Red Sox-style comeback against the machine, however unlikely.

Considering the voluminous money and sheer corporate immensity of it all, backing the Yankees is like favoring Bud Light (in former times, US Steel was the preferred analogy), and I can no longer perform the mental gymnastics necessary to rationalize it.

Here's to Cliff Lee. Perhaps we'll see a Game Six. Damn Yankees.