I think Yankee fan showed his spots yesterday as frustrated New Yorkers went a little overboard in their hatred of the Boston Red Sox and closer Jonathan Papelbon. 

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that the Yankee dynasty of 1996-2000 is getting smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror, and while GM Brian Cahsman has made some very smart moves over the past 2-3 years to replenish and rebuild the depleted Yankee farm system, resulting in prospects like Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes, the 2008 Yankees are old and injured, bereft of pitching, and therefore not going to seriously compete for the post-season.

If the Yankees don’t make the playoffs this year, it will be the first time since before the 1993 player’s strike.

Despite that run of succes, the last 7 seasons have been frustrating in the Bronx.  The team with the highest payroll in baseball, the most World Championships, and an owner and fanbase who care only for championships has viewed during that span a blown save by its uber-closer in the 9th inning of game 7, 4 first-round losses, a World Series loss in 6 games against an expansion team, and of course, the biggest collapse in the history of sports, blowing a 3 games to none advantage in the ALCS against their arch-rival the Boston Red Sox.

Meanwhile, those Red Sox, long residing under the heel of the Bronx Bombers, have morphed into the model franchise of major league baseball.  They have won 2 World Series’ in 4 years, each in a 4-game sweep, and they are regarded by many as teh team to beat again this year.  Over that stretch, Boston’s wunderkind GM Theo Epstein has infused young talent into a verteran roster with already and soon-to-be stars like Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Justin Masterson, Jonathan Papelbon, Jon Lester, Clay Bucholz, Jed Lowrie, Craig Hansen, and Manny DelCarmen.  This doesn’t even count All-Star Hanley Ramirez, who Epstein traded to the Florida Marlins for 2007 WS MVP Mike Lowell and 2007 CY runner-up Josh Beckett.

So, by juxtaposing the fortunes of these two arch-rivals, against a backdrop of New York’s seemingly endless historical dominance over Boston, it is easy to see why fans of the Yankees are frustrated, and its easy to guess the object of their ire.  That frustration was on full display yesterday in the lead up to the All-Star Game.

Jonathan Papelbon made some statements during media day on Monday, essentially deferring to Mariano Rivera’s greatness, going so far as to call Mo the “Godfather of Closers.”  But he apparently went on to make the unforgivable sin of saying that if he were the manager of the AL team, he would give himself the ball in the 9th inning to close out the win.

WOW!  A competitor thinking that he is the best at what he does.  What heresy!  What an ass!  Who does he think he is!?!?!

It didn’t take long for the New York media to take this non-story, on a day when there was LITERALLY no other sports news outside the ceaseless Brett Favre melodrama, and run with it.  The YES Network’s Michael Kay said that Papelbon “wasn’t playing with 52 cards.  Probably something like 49.”  Max Kellerman of ESPN 1050 called Papelbon “a boy to Rivera’s man.  He shouldn’t even be allowed to say his name”  The New York Daily News posted Papelbon’s picture on the back cover, titled “Papelbum.”  What’s more, every Gotham media hack with a mic or a keyboard simultaneously spewed both hatred for Papelbon and the Red Sox as well as stale, excessive, and unfounded dap for Rivera all afternoon.  Breathless callers to Kay’s radio show called Papelbon the 5th or 6th best reliever in the game while Kay decreed, as if unassailable fact, that Rivera is still the best closer in the game and it isn’t even close.

Frustrated and partisan New Yorkers drank it all in, and then proceeded to go out and act like idiots.

During the parade leading up to the game, Yankee fans booed, threatened, and threw things at Papelbon and his pregnant wife.  Mrs. Papelbon said later that she feared for her safety.

Now, to be clear, I’m no prude and I’m certainly not some PC policeman who is against booing.  I respect a fan’s right to boo, and I love the rivalry between Boston and New York.  I boo the Yanks every chance I get, and I probably would vene if I were a Diamondbacks fan.

But I always thought Yankee fans were supposed to take the high road.  After all, Derek Jeter, during ESPN’s “Titletown” series, called Yankee fans the smartest fans in the game.  But how smart can they be if they couldn’t see through the trumped-up hyperbole the media spoon-fed them all day on Tuesday?  How smart can they be if they are actually throwing things at a member of THEIR American League All-Star team and especially his pregnant wife?

Their focused frustration of New York fans, and some isolated acts of idiocy, tarnished the game as well as what should have been a tribute to Yankee Stadium.

Contrast that with the class and sportsmanship of Boston manager Terry Francona. He removed each of the Yankee players mid-inning, so that they could get their due from their fans. He put Rivera in the game in the middle of ninth, to make sure he had a chance to pitch in case the AL won in 9th. In fact, he jeopardized his bullpen, and home-field advanatge in a World Series that hsi Red Sox have an excellent chance of playing in, to make this gesture.  Tim McCarver, who might be the worst sports commentator in America, even understood this.

The American League won the game, and the MVP was Red Sox outfielder J.D. Drew (who this author predicted in March would start the game - pretty close if I must say), and the old park in the Bronx went out in style.

Unfortunately, the only thing many observers will remember from the 2008 All-Star game was another nail in the coffin of the Yankee mystique.  Even their fans are no better than anyone else, they may even be worse.  What’s next, beards for the players?