If you believe Jim Murray, the longtime columnist for the LA Times, he was the guy who first implied "rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for US Steel." He said that in an article for Life magazine in 1950, when US Steel was a lot more powerful than it is today.
It has since been modified, changed, bastardized and corrupted. The version I remember replaced US Steel with "General Motors," probably a conflation of Charlie Wilson's 1953 statement "What's good for General Motors is good for the USA" with Murray's earlier crack.
Well, these days I find it a lot easier to root for GM than I do for the Yankees, but nonetheless they are deserving champions, so congratulations.
Posted by Linkmeister at November 5, 2009 08:10 AM | TrackBackConsidering that U.S. Steel is essentially no more and the Yankees just racked up another one, I'd say you'd have done better all along to root for the Yankees.
Posted by: hedera at November 5, 2009 01:44 PMNo can do.
While the Yankees and their fans have been insufferable all along, they haven't been that much more so than the people who cheer for other successful franchises (Red Sox, Angels, Dodgers, and such).
Until yesterday.
Winning the WS instantaneously returned them to their full attitude of self-righteous arrogance and divinely-ordained entitlement to the trophy. As if the other teams were mere usurpers who'd seized their place at the peak for a few years.
The Yankee players, front office, ownership, and fans are disgusting vermin, who need to be removed from their self-proclaimed pedestal.
As I've said before, if the Yankees played the Taliban in the World Series, I'd be rooting for the guys in beards and turbans.
Posted by: N in Seattle at November 5, 2009 02:00 PMOf course, it was the Pittsburgh Steelers who put US Steel's corporate logo on their helmets, so now a lot people in PA actually do root for US Steel.
Posted by: DXMachina at November 5, 2009 03:06 PM