Yankees fans: Spoiled brats

Enough already!

Yankees fans, we are tired of your act -- your spoiled rotten, childish, embarrassing act. For years you've flooded the airwaves with desperate cries for superfluous superstars. You've routinely bashed one of the great managers in postseason history. You've acted like winning the World Series is a your God-given right, not your once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime a privilege.

Now this.

You ruined a perfectly good baseball game -- good in contrast to Saturday night's mind-numbing 19-8 snorefest -- with your idiotic behavior. You defied the meaning of sportsmanship and humiliated yourselves, your team and your city.

There's an expression John Sterling, Michael Kay and the rest of the Yankee proletariate like to use: "The Yankee Way." It's supposed to represent a higher standard, as if World Series rings buy you class or perspective. After last night's game, the only thing The Yankee Way represents is a panicked fan culture that has alienated itself in many ways with its moronic behavior.

As I watched debris cascade onto the Yankee Stadium field last night and Alex Rodriguez made his absurd denials, I couldn't help but think to myself, These are not the Yankees fans of old. I thought of the fans I remembered from 1996. They were a fresh-faced group of diehards who'd been longing for a champion since 1981. They were like the '96 team itself. Scrappy. Homegrown. Bursting with energy and enthusiasm. But last night's audience seemed nervous, frustrated, confused. They were an anxious, obnoxious bunch impatiently waiting for their $200 million bats to wake up, numbed to the pure excitement of playoff baseball by years of storebought victory.

So when a few calls didn't go their way, they reacted the way spoiled children do: They threw a temper tantrum. It was a sad way for a proud team to go down, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the fans who know that winning does not entitle you to more winning. The ones who managed to keep their baseballs and popcorn in their laps.

When I think of the '96 Yanks I'll always remember Charlie Hayes' clinching catch and Wade Boggs' jubiliant trot around the Stadium. But if the Yanks choke away this 3-0 lead, my lasting memory may just be A-Rod's swat, and the NYPD ringing the Stadium walls.