The Ghost of Jeffrey Maier: Why I Hate the Yankees

Nelson Cruz knows how Tony Tarasco felt when he got Maiered last week.

This month, 14 years ago, I was sent down a path of loathing and disdain from which there is no return.  As a nine-year-old who had witnessed his hero's consecutive games banners unfurl on the B&O Warehouse a year prior and had enjoyed an 88 win season that led to a wild card playoff berth, my allegiance to the Baltimore Orioles was steadfast.  We had beaten the Indians in the division series and were poised to take down the Yankees in the 1996 ALCS.

It was Game One in Yankee Stadium, and Brady Anderson and Raffy Palmeiro had slugged homers to give us a 4-3 advantage.  In the bottom of the eighth, the Yankee's young upstart shortstop came to the plate.  The eloquent, often easy-going Jon Miller was exasperated when he made the call.

We eventually lost the game in the eleventh and were sent home four games later.  The Yankees beat the Braves in the World Series.  This slugger was the hero of that series.

The fan who stole the game from Tony Tarasco and the Orioles was just a young boy.  He was a twelve-year-old from New Jersey (go figure) named Jeffrey Maier.  We know the saying "cheaters never prosper"...well, if Jeffrey Maier did not prosper, he at least benefited from his illegal act.  As a reward, he sat behind the Yankee dugout later in the playoffs, made an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, and received the key to New York City from Mayor Giuliani.  Yes, the key to the city.  For cheating.

This injustice stuck with me like an infectious malady.  From then on, I was not just an Orioles fan, cheering optimistically for my team.  I became an anti-Yankees fan, celebrating any negative event for my sworn enemies.  Not only lost games, but injuries, steroid allegations, and scandals were mini-triumphs.  I smiled when Darryl Strawberry was busted for soliciting sex and carrying coke.  I laughed when A-Roid admitted to PED use.  When Mark Teixiera's hamstring seized up during this ALCS, I hoped he was done for good.

This root of my hatred for the Evil Empire surfaced during Game Four of the Rangers/Yankees ALCS this past week.  This time, Robinson Cano launched a ball to right field that Texas' Nelson Cruz was tracking.  As Cruz went up for the grab, three scrubs reached out over the three-and-a-half foot thick wall and deflected the ball into the stands, swatting Cruz' glove out of the way.  He protested, pointing at the fans and yelling at the umpires.  TBS tried to show the altercation, but was forced to pan quickly away because the juicebag fan who ended up with the ball was jovially saluting Cruz with both middle fingers.  When I discovered soon after that the juicebag, twenty-year-old Jared Macchirole of Queens, was a Penn State student, I felt shame on top of anger.  This incident did not factor into the outcome of the game or change the direction of the series, and will not become a legend, like the Jeffrey Maier debacle, but it did force me to confront my hatred for the Yankees anew, like scraping open an old scar.

Now that my opinion of the New York Yankees is out in the open, I've created a History of Hatred to provide further evidence and reasoning for my sentiments.

1903– The Baltimore Orioles had been in the NL during the late 1800s, when they were a fiery bunch nicknamed the "Flying Spikes" who played dirty and slid with their cleats up.  In 1901, they became an AL team under John McGraw's leadership.  The larger, more powerful New York market desired another baseball team to join the New York Giants, which McGraw had secretly fled to.  A conference was held between the AL and NL to try to figure out a way to coexist.  McGraw demanded an AL counterpart in New York, and Baltimore was voted to relinquish its team and move it to the Big Apple.  Here began the subjugating and overpowering tendencies that New York wielded against Lord Baltimore's town as it related to baseball.  No wonder we have an inferiority complex.  The original O's were sacrificed to appease New Yorkers.

1914 – Everyone talks about the Red Sox giving up Babe Ruth to the Yankees, but Baltimore lays claim to him first.  Jack Dunn was the owner and manager of the Baltimore Orioles, which was a minor league team at the time.  He saw George Herman Ruth, Jr. pitch for a half hour and gave him a contract for $250.  It was while he was an Oriole that George received the nickname "Babe", and it stuck.  The Philadelphia Athletics and the Cincinnati Reds passed on Ruth, and he was eventually sold to the Boston Red Sox.  The Yankees most iconic and hallowed figure was a son of Baltimore, but no one remembers that because we were forced to be a minor league team.

1954- The Milwaukee Brewers/St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore to become the new Baltimore Orioles.  A 17-player trade between the Yankees gutted the organization, and Baltimore fought for a new identity.

1966-1983- The Glory Years.  Six pennants and three World Series championships.  The Orioles dominated the Bronx Zoo.

1992- In the Seinfeld episode "The Letter", Elaine Benes was told to remove her Orioles hat while at a Yankee game.  She refused and was thrown out.  Tension between the clubs grew.  Ok, not really, but yeah, even on television the Yankees persecute us.

1996- Jeffrey Maier gave me first-hand knowledge of the emotion called hatred.  

2001- The Yankees took Moose from the Orioles.  Mike Mussina had 147 wins with the Orioles over ten seasons.  We had courted the Pennsylvanian since high school and he was a mainstay within the organization.  The Yankees gave him a blank check (they offered him $10 million a year while we were paying him $6.7 million) and a set of pinstripes.  It just didn't seem right seeing Moose in that uniform.

2003- Derek Jeter was named captain of the Yankees.  I hate him.  How he slaps at the ball when he hits.  How he smugly spoils pitch after pitch.  How he does that stupid jump throw from the hole at short.  How his stupid haircut is always the same.  How calm confidence radiates from his stupid, ugly, blue eyes.  How every interview he does is the same.  How he is in fifty different commercials at any one time. How when you watch the Little League World Series there are kids from Chinese Taipei who say their favorite player is Derek Jeter.  How kids from Atlanta, Cincinnati, Oakland, and (GASP), Baltimore, love Derek Jeter.  How he has beaten us time and time again with grounders that bleed through the infield.  He's a golden boy, and I hate him.  To partially borrow from Michael Scott: "If I had a gun, with two bullets, and I was in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden and Jeter, I would shoot Jeter twice."

                --As a note, this is not an actual threat, it is hyperbole.  I don't want my truck blown up--

2007- Alex Roidriguez- Not only was he bought for a gazillion dollars, but here are some notches on the bedpost that would make Joe DiMaggio proud:  Bostonian stripper, Las Vegas "exotic dancer", Eliot Spitzer's call girls, Madonna, Kate Hudson, and Cameron Diaz (the first half of the list was acquired while Alex was a husband and a father of two).  And, he used steroids.

2008- Mark Teixeira- Another superstar who sold his soul to the Evil Empire.  We offered our hometown boy $160 million and it still wasn't enough to bring him back to Baltimore.  This was a real heartbreaker for fans.  We expected to acquire him.  We needed a first baseman with some pop.  It was supposed to be a perfect fit.  I was an usher in the stands on Opening Day in 2009, when Tex made his debut with the Yankees, along with CC Sabathia.  I have never heard a ballplayer booed louder than when Tex first came to bat.  O's fans brought monopoly money and threw it at him like confetti.  He was 0 for 4 that game, and we all roared every time he made an out.  CC gave up six earned and we started the year with a 10-5 victory.

2010- There's plenty of current event ammunition to damn the Yankees.

                On October 8, during the series with the Twins, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg started planning the Yankees World Series parade...How did that work out for ya?

                On October 19, beleaguered Yankee starter AJ Burnett was on thin ice, and had dropped seven of his last eight starts.  Yankees fans are not compassionate or understanding, and on Burnett's first batter that he had faced in 16 days, he started with two balls for a 2-0 count.  The fans booed him.  In the first inning.  For a 2-0 count.  Give me a break.

                On October 20, the night of the Maier-esque incident, Cal Ripken Jr. was working the post-game show for TBS.  As he discussed the next game's pitching matchup, THIS HAPPENED.  Yankees fans are mindless, heartless, bandwagoners who cannot begin to understand how angry this makes me.  Trying to dump a beer on Cal Ripken is as American as eating apple pie with chopsticks and smacking your mother with a 2 x 4.  That creature is lucky there aren't lynch mobs anymore.

                On October 22, the Texas Rangers won the pennant and are going to their first World Series.  But plenty of folks in the media are calling this more of a Yankees loss than a Rangers win.  There is bias everywhere, don't let anyone convince you otherwise.  Watch the ticker on ESPN.  Anytime the Orioles beat the Yankees or the Red Sox for that matter, I pay attention to how it is conveyed in the news.  It's always slanted in favor of the big dogs, even in a loss.  "Yankees Give One to the O's", "New York Struggles in Loss", and "Yankees Slip Up, O's Steal One".  How about "Orioles Pommel Yanks", or "Baltimore Dominates in Win"?  You'll never see those headlines.  The only time we make Baseball Tonight is to show A-Roid deflowering one of our young pitchers.  There's no equality of coverage; the media caters to the big-market teams.

By now, I hope I've made my point: I don't particularly like the Yankees.  They're a bunch of overpaid cheaters, adulterers, and Nazis.  If I ever have children, and they're acting too rambunctious before bed, I'm going to warn them that if they don't go to sleep, then Jeffrey Maier's going to get them.  After all, his crime has been haunting me ever since I was nine, and I turned out normal, right?...Right?!

Go to yankeeshater.com to get your own Orioles-version Yankee Hater hat.