It won’t take long for everyone to reacclimate. Fifteen years may seem like an eternity when discussing Yankees appearances in the World Series, but when you have muscle memory this strong, it all comes back pretty quickly. The sights. The sounds — especially the sounds. The energy.
And, yes, the magic.
The Mets may have co-opted October’s magic this time around, but they never put a down payment on it. Yankee Stadium has been the home office for October magic — for World Series magic — since a time when silent movies were still the most popular form of entertainment.
We can list all of those memories but it would be redundant, because if you are a Yankees fan, then you know them all by heart. If you’ve been lucky enough, maybe you’ve witnessed one or two of them through the years, either at the current address or at the old one across the street.
The others, you’ve seen enough, read enough about them, that it doesn’t take much to believe you were in the bleachers on those days and nights. Yankee Stadium in the World Series is a civic treasure passed along generation to generation. It’s your turn now.
“We have the greatest fans in the world,” Aaron Judge said Saturday night, after the Yankees tried to create another forever October moment but fell one swing short, dropping a 4-2 decision to the Dodgers, falling into an 0-2 hole in this, the 120th edition of the World Series. “They’ll have our backs. They always do.”
The great majority of Yankees fans understand what a joy it is to have followed such a franchise, and while brimming with confidence is generally their default position, they also can recognize a seminal moment when it presents itself, as it has across so many World Series across so many Octobers across so many decades. That is Game 3. That is Monday night.
The mouth-breathers who gave the rest of Yankee Fandom a bad name Saturday, caught on film cheering Shohei Ohtani’s injury at Billy’s, and offering up a few vulgar single-finger salutes, they don’t represent the bulk of Yankees fans. And those fans — the good ones, the loyal ones — surely were happy to hear Dave Roberts’ words late Sunday afternoon, saying that Ohtani is likely to be good to go Monday night.
“Shohei was feeling good this morning, range of motion, strength,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “If he feels good enough to go, I don’t know why he wouldn’t be in there. Guys have had this before and played. I don’t see him being compromised.”
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Real Yankees fans, the ones who’ve been with them for parades and for predicaments, never shy away from facing teams at their best. They welcome it, in fact. And so while Ohtani can expect a loud wave of boos when he’s introduced before the game and if, as expected, they double that up in the top of the first when he leads off the game, he’ll get a fair reception from the lucky ones in the stands.
It isn’t the Dodgers that the grandstand denizens will be most worried about. Forget the health of the LA superstar; the Yankees need for their offense, which scored 815 runs this year (third-best in all of baseball) to show signs of life, to show how robust it can be.
Yes, this will be helped along if Aaron Judge — and, again, maybe set the amplifier on 11 when he’s introduced Monday night — can shake himself free from his October funk. But it also means that the bottom of the lineup has to show up, too.
The Yankees lost Game 1 from ahead and Game 2 from behind, but what they could really use is a crooked number, early as possible, especially on Monday. Give themselves a little room to breathe. Give the masses a little material to work with. The Dodgers are relentless, frustratingly so, but they’re also human.
An early hole, and an earsplitting and sustained roar, would pave the clearest pathway toward shaving the Dodgers lead to 2-1 in this series. Let the Dodgers hear the rancor for a few hours, and then let them stew on it overnight. That’s the immediate mission here.
And they’ve come to the right place. It’s not surprising that the Yankees are responsible for 40 percent of the World Series comebacks when a team started 0-2 —four out of 10 — since they’ve been in more World Series than anyone else. And there aren’t any players on the roster who were there in 1996, or even alive in 1978 or 1958 or 1956.
Won’t matter Monday. Won’t matter in The Bronx, where an old friend, the World Series, returns, where the faithful have been waiting, and where they’re ready. The countdown has started for the roll call, Fall Classic edition. Clear your throats. We’re nearly there.
