LaTroy Hawkins, who wears number 21 to honor Roberto Clemente, has been forced by the assholiness of the lot of you at Yankee Stadium, to change his number to 22.
Paul O’Neill’s number isn’t going to get retired, you nits, yet you treat this pitcher like he’s a criminal just because he wants to wear Clemente’s number.
Excellent job. Way to be fans.
The best part of this story? Knowing what asses a lot of their fans can be, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and “other Yankees veterans” pretty much told Hawkins to ditch the number.
What the hell kind of message does that send?
Last year when JD Drew took number 7, I was upset. Trot Nixon wasn’t gone that long, and we were going to look at a new guy, in Trot’s position, wearing his number? I was pissed. But you know what? The minute the Spring Training games started, I let it go. JD was on our team, he wasn’t a bad guy for wanting “his” number, and I had to get over it. (And largely due to the abuse heaped on him last season, JD’s one of the guys I support strongly.)
Where do Yankees fans get off? They had already tortured Morgan Ensberg during Spring Training, forcing him to give up the number (which is how Hawkins was able to get it) – and now Hawkins?
I know ALL Yankees fans can’t be blamed for this, but it has gone on at every appearance Hawkins made at Yankee Stadium (and according to that article I linked, Ensberg was hearing ‘vulgarities’ at Spring Training).
Here’s a player who wasn’t getting booed for poor play (which I don’t agree with anyway) and he wasn’t being booed for being an ass (which I can get behind sometimes), he was being booed – mercilessly – just because he dared wear the number 21.
And this behavior was encouraged by the “Yankees veterans”. Instead of coming out and telling the fans to STFU and leave the guy alone, they tell the guy to change his number. It’s, truly, a pathetic story.
Regardless of the score right now (11-9 in the bottom of the 6th. It’s 10:08pm and the bottom of the 6th. Yeesh.), Yankees and Sox fans alike know it’s a new dawn. The Yankees are the ones jackhammering through foundations to unearth jerseys. They’re the team that hasn’t won a championship in this millennium. The Red Sox are the team players want to play on and the team networks want to show.
Do the fans think they have nothing to cheer so they focus on booing someone as innocuous as LaTroy Hawkins?
As pleased as I am that the Yankees and their fans having turned into the ‘poor souls’ that the Sox used to be, I still feel sorry for Hawkins. He deserves better for wanting to honor a man like Roberto Clemente.
(David Aardsma just gained a point in my book. Hitting ARod. Nicely done. Hey, I know it wasn’t intentional, and it could lead to another run, but I’ll take what I can get at this point!)