Yankees and Their Fans Make It All the Hotter

Here we are at Edison Field, one of Orange County’s better tanning salons, slurping $6 beer from warm, waxy cups. Beer as warm as blood. Which somehow seems appropriate. For the Yankees are in town. That’s right: New York.

“Come on, Rocket!” a fan screams.

In Round 1, Yankee hitters go down one-two-three, and the Anaheim Angels collect a quick run off pitcher Roger Clemens, baseball’s patron saint of heat.

“Come on, Rocket!” the Yankee fans keep calling to Clemens, who doesn’t appear too worried.

In Round 2, the Yankees begin to stroke base hits, soothing their long-deprived fans. The Yankees haven’t won a World Series in 10 months, and their fans are growing a little hungry.

Before this second inning is over, eight Yankees come to the plate. Three runs are scored. Someone swings open a door in the back of the stadium, and a partial breeze stirs the toasty air. Yankee fans can breathe again.

“Let’s go, Derek!” a mother sitting below us calls out, then puts her fingers between her teeth to whistle at Derek Jeter.

“You whistle?” I ask my date of 20 years.

“Not like that,” she says.

They are a different breed, these Yankee fans. Proud. Confrontational. Sweaty.

They jeer at the outnumbered Angel fans, dare them to make noise in their own house. Some do, then regret it.

“Hey, what you saying now?” a Yankee fan calls down to an Angel fan a few rows away. “Shut your mouth, that’s what you’re saying.”

Syntax aside, it’s an enjoyable game. You’ve got these Yankees, on their way to their 44th consecutive playoff season--or something--against these scrappy Angels, who always give the Yankees a tough time.

You’ve got a sold-out stadium on a hot August afternoon, 43,000 turkeys basting in our own juices.

You’ve got bikini tops and body art, which gets a guy to thinking: When did every young woman in America opt for a tattoo on her lower back?

Tulips. Roses. Aerosmith decals. The small of a woman’s back wasn’t fetching enough without this muddy-looking graffiti? At what point did bare skin become not enough?

“Got any tattoos?” I ask my date.

“Not yet,” she says.

But most of all, you’ve got these Yankees. Like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, the Yankees are a slice of Americana. The only slice that will outlive us all.

There’s this Clemens guy, on his way to another Cy Young, baseball’s Academy Award. Clemens has a jowly, Ruthian face and the hips of the guy who fixes your furnace. A caboose big as a Costco.

Thirty-nine now, Clemens is, and he realizes that longevity depends on what’s in your legs, not your arm. Inning after inning, he blisters hitters barely half his age.

Then there’s Jeter, the Yankees’ Backstreet Boy, too good-looking to root for, except of course for the female fans. They all love the skinny shortstop. Must be his hitting.

He stands up at the plate like a guy chopping wood. It’s an odd stance, unless you’re trying to tip over, which Jeter does on every outside pitch--lunging, flailing, falling. Somehow, he’s hitting .315. If you’re looking for batting tips, look elsewhere.

Look at Paul O’Neill, for instance, the Yankee your dad would’ve rooted for, who mutters to himself in the on-deck circle.

O’Neill’s not intense. He’s beyond intense. There is no English word for how intense this guy is. The Germans, they probably have a word for it.

“This is Steve’s favorite player,” Steve’s wife says.

“He’s intense,” I say.

But I don’t much admire O’Neill’s stance. He stands pigeon-toed at the plate, his front foot turned grotesquely inward. When the pitch arrives, he lifts his leg like a Vegas showgirl.

In the fifth inning, O’Neill takes his showgirl step and jacks a second pitch into the troposphere. It goes 500 feet high, then 390 feet over the right-field wall. If his timing were a little better, he would’ve brought down the space shuttle.

Along the dugout, there’s Joe Torre, the Yankee manager who’s put on more fall shows than Aaron Spelling. And Don Zimmer, his longtime sidekick, growing more fluorescent with every pitch.

Zimmer’s head is a beefsteak tomato, ripening in the 90-degree heat. For a moment, I consider passing the guy some sunscreen.

“Here, pass this down to Zim,” I’d say. Like he’d ever use it.

The Yankees, like all good teams, score early and often. Most teams can generate runs at the beginning and end of a game. But the really good teams seize the middle innings, when the starting pitcher begins to weaken.

Three runs in the second. Two in the fifth. Another deuce in the sixth.

Angel hitters, meanwhile, come up empty in the middle innings. But who doesn’t against Clemens?

With runners on in the third, the Angels’ most reliable hitter comes to the plate.

He fouls off a dozen Clemens pitches, slapping a gutter ball, then another gutter ball, then fouling 10 pitches back to the screen. Finally, he finds something he really likes and sends a lazy fly ball to center for an easy out.

“Let’s go, Yankees!” the crowd chants.

“Let’s go, Angels,” the Anaheim fans respond.

“Hey, ump!” a Yankees fan screams after a questionable call. “You need a sightseeing dog!”

Doesn’t everyone.

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is [email protected].