Bums in the Bronx

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been involved a Twitter war. (Imagine that – Twitter has even encompassed warfare!) The topic: is it OK to boo players on a team you root for?

There are people who believe you should root for players who wear your team’s colors, regardless of their performance. As a fan of the New York Yankees for over 40 years, I find that idea to be incredibly naive. After all, Yankee Stadium is home to the “Bronx Cheer.” For generations, fans have filed through the turnstiles at the House That Ruth Built (and now, that George Built) and cheered our heroes and LOUDLY booed the players who didn’t measure up. The idea of “earning your stripes” originated in the Bronx. It means that a player needs to perform well if he wants to be accepted by the fans. And if he fails, well…his days at Yankee Stadium will be pure hell on earth.

The cause for the twit-war lately has been two recent additions to the Yankee’s pitching staff, Chan-Ho Park and Javier Vazquez. Park is brand-new to Yankee’s fans, but this is the second go-around for Vazquez (his first didn’t end well). Both have, over the past two days, been booed lustily as they exited the game.

The new breed of fan, who doesn’t believe in booing poor performances, is having a hard time reconciling this. In Parks’s case, he made a bad first impression – giving up the winning runs in the first game of the year and pitching poorly in two appearances against the hated Red Sox to begin the season. When he gave up a long home run to Kendry Morales during yesterday’s home opener, he lost whatever support the fans were willing to give him. After all, the hallmark of Yankees Pride throughout the years has been not cracking under pressure and rising to the challenge instead. There’s also CHP’s history to consider. Brian Cashman signed Park based on a half-season of relief work for the Phillies last year. Prior to that, his career wound through stops in LA, Texas, San Diego and Queens. His one year with the Mets? He started on the DL, came on to pitch in one game, giving up 7 runs over 4 innings. Then he disappeared onto the DL for the rest of the year. His prior AL numbers aren’t particularly eye-popping, either. A 5.89ERA, 23-24 record and 1.6 WHIP all point to a guy who’s been hit hard whenever he’s stepped away from the NL. Which is exactly what we’ve seen so far in his Yankee appearances – and thus, the booing.

Javy Vazquez is morphing into the second coming of Eddie Whitson. For those of you unfamiliar with the saga of Eddie Whitson, he came to the Yankees in the mid-80’s, fresh off a spectacular campaign with the Padres. Possessing a lighting fastball, big curve and devastating slider, Whitson was supposed to be the ace that would anchor the Yankees staff for pennant runs to come. Unfortunately for him and Yankees fans, it turned out he couldn’t handle pressure. The booing got so bad that Billy Martin, the manager at the time, didn’t dare pitch him at Yankee Stadium. Eventually, the Yankees traded him back to the Padres for the immortal Tim Stoddard. (Stoddard, by the way, was loudly cheered just for not being Ed Whitson).

Vazquez also possesses a hard fastball and slider, along with a good change-up. He also strikes out lots of hitters. Unfortunately for him, he tends to crack under pressure. In his last Bronx adventure in 2004, he was summoned out of the bullpen in game 7 of the LCS – and gave up the grand slam to Johnny Damon that ended the Curse of the Bambino. That came  after a second-half in which he was largely ineffective. Since then, the company line has been that he was pitching with a sore shoulder. Maybe. Or maybe, despite having “plus” stuff Javy just doesn’t have the heart needed to be a prime-time player.

Yankee fans are quickly deciding the latter. In two starts this year, Vazquez has displayed the electric stuff – he has 9 strikeouts in 11 innings – but we’ve also seen him wilt with men on base. He’s only allowed baserunners in 4 of his 11 innings – but those four innings have yielded 12 runs. In other words, when he gets into trouble, Vazquez tends to implode. Contrast that to a fan favorite, Andy Pettite. Pettite always has runners on base – but he makes the big pitch when he needs to and escapes trouble. Andy has HEART. Javy has jelly-legs. It’s also not the first time Vazquez has heard this, by the way. Ozzie Guillen, for whom he pitched in Chicago, got rid of him because he didn’t trust him during the White Sox pennant drive.

It’s the difference between being a Yankee, and simply being a good player who will never earn the right to call themselves a Yankee.