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Pride, Power, Omnipitopinstripes

Okay, a bit clumsy. But not nearly as self-aggrandizing and glaringly awkward as “Yankees Universe.” Really? Wait, I misspoke. I meant, REALLY? At least RedSox Nation only laid claim to a country rather than plant a flag on the entire dimension.

74 replies on “Pride, Power, Omnipitopinstripes”

Were this not on the official Yankee Web site, I would totally have thought that was an Onion piece.
Sorry, YFs, but that’s downright pathetic.
And just for the record, despite the smarmy marketing attempts to make Red Sox Nation a pay-only affair, the actual phrase — and the accompanying meaning — was coined by a newspaper writer nearly 25 years ago. Ultimately, RSN as a phenomenon grew on its own (the team was laughably late in cashing in, even while I find its efforts to do so offensive) and carries far greater loegitimacy because of that. The fact that the Yankees apparently don’t understand this speaks to some of the tone-deafness for which the organization has been criticized over the past year or two.

How anyone can take this rivalry seriously in the age of steroids-these teams can do whatever they want when it comes to test results. Does anyone really believe that Manny Ramirez did not take steroids with the Boston Red Sox? These teams are favored by the press, the comissioner’s office,etc. And all these players care about is their contract year, and having the biggest contract pay-off (A-Rod). He must have taken steroids in the year when he searched the market for a even higher pay-off (the year he hit 52 home runs for the Yankees. I will no longer support MLB. These guys are professional steroid takers.It’s completely depressing.

Were this not on the official Yankee Web site, I would totally have thought that was an Onion piece.
My EXACT reaction. Wow.

These guys are professional steroid takers.It’s completely depressing.
Careful. SF has a baby of blanket statements:)

Technically, that blanket statement is untrue. They’re not paid to take steroids. They’re paid to play baseball. So they remain professional baseball players, regardless of what they do to enhance playing ability.
And since the whole post was incredibly stupid, I trust we won’t let it distract us from the other incredibly stupid thing we were talking about. :-)

I’m coufused…it’s just the Yankees fan club? Am I missing something? You guys are really bent out of shape over the name, “Yankees Universe”???
Um…OK?

maybe since a team is already named galaxy (albeit in a different spot) they couldn’t go for that, and had to settle on universe?

‘Bent out of shape’ might be a bit strong. I certainly am not bothered by this. Amused though. It’s almost like, well what else COULD they have called it? It wasn’t going to be “The New York Yankee Circle of Well-wishers and Concerned Parties.”

The term Yankee Universe has also been around for a bit. Not as long as the Red Sox Nation but its been in use as part of a charity effort the Yankees have ongoing with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. As for the fan club its equally as lame as the Red Sox Nation one. To say that it carries more “legitimacy” is frankly a joke in my opinion. Both are just marketing ploys to sell more MLB.com subscriptions. I wouldnt be surprised to find that MLB itself has been the one driving both of these fan clubs. Most of the MLB teams have them at this point. There is no name that they could come up with that wouldnt sound lame so there ya have it….

Hey, when “Yankees Universe” gets around to electing Presidents and whatnot, then you can talk.
The term has been around for a while, on shirts and stuff.
Boston fans are the LAST people who can make fun of the Yankees for this, unless they’ve been continually lambasting the Red Sox for their even lamer ‘official’ fanbase. The Red Sox fanbase has more “legitimacy”? Really? That’s pretty pathetic yourself, Paul.

> name that they could come up with that wouldnt sound lame
yeah, but they went right to the “lamiest.”
Bomber Boosters.
Bronx Brigade.
River Avenue Regiment.
Yankee Legion.
The Pinstripe Party.
New York Yankees Fan Club.
and that’s without even thinking hard.

And before you all pile on Paul, remember it was an (alleged) yankee fan who started this ridiculous thread because what else are you supposed to talk about when there isn’t any real baseball going on. :)

I think Paul was talking about the term, not the fanbase, with respect to its etymology, which is a fair point to make, I think. The Nation tag predates the current Sox ownership by 15 years or something.

> make some shirts
and sell them for less than $19.95.
gerbil now waits for the lawyers to C&D him.

> sounds like a law firm
First National Yankee Implementers Of Rooting And Osaka Seafood Concern.

Andrew and Sam, read my comment.
Now re-read it. I’ll wait.
Did you see this part?
the [Red Sox] was laughably late in cashing in [on Red Sox Nation], even while I find its efforts to do so offensive
Or this part?
…the smarmy marketing attempts to make Red Sox Nation a pay-only affair…
Or this part?
Ultimately, RSN as a phenomenon grew on its own … and carries far greater legitimacy because of that.
Seriously, it’s like you didn’t even read what I wrote. My comment criticized the Red Sox TWICE and specifically stated that the RSN concept had legitimacy BECAUSE it grew separately from the Sox’ marketing attempts — all this in response to a post started by a Yankee fan!
But of course it’s my comments that are pathetic, not the shrill, hypersensitive overreaction. Gotcha.

Geeze Paul I hope you arent lumping me in with Andrew completely. I certainly didnt make any personal attacks against you. I just dont agree that just because the term RSN was used longer than Yankees Universe it carried any additional legitimacy. Both of these phrases pre-dated their use by the clubs and MLB for marketing, you perhaps as a SF may not be familiar with the Yankees Universe phrase. I work at Sloan Kettering and see it around quite often. It has been around for the better part of the decade.

Why actually read the post (or recognize that the amusing, good-natured thread came from AG) when you can use it as an excuse to attack Sox fans?
I’m particularly fond of Yankee Duchy.

I meant this post to be hilarious, because that is how ridiculous “ANYTHING Universe” sounds to me. But the upside is that I learned more about Sloan Kettering. Thank you, Sam.
Still, I am disappointed that you missed the obvious retort: “infinity plus one!”

You guys are all missing the point. The Yankees paid a $51.1 million posting fee for the right to borrow the phrase “Yankee Universe” not because it has any real value in itself but because it positions them in a prefered place to exploit the vast talent that exists in a heretofore untouched market ripe for siginificant – in fact, infinite – expansion: outer space.
Besides, to signify a fan-base that is larger than RSN (which in fact claims more than a country Gerb as nations can and do stretch beyond the borders of individual countries) but that is also smaller than the universe, they would have had to opt for something like, “The Yankee Civilization”. Or “The Yankee Pangea”. Or “The Yankee Multilateral Organization”, none of which compare well with Yankee Universe (or Legion).
All things considered, I think they did quite nicely.
All things considered, I think they did quite nicely.

Both of these phrases pre-dated their use by the clubs and MLB for marketing, you perhaps as a SF may not be familiar with the Yankees Universe phrase.
Fair enough, Sam. I know it’s not the first time I’ve heard it, I don’t know how old it is. To me, he amazing part about the decision to market it is the fact that it’s blatantly a ripoff of Red Sox Nation. And while it’s one thing for a blatant ripoff to bang around in the background, kept alive by fans who don’t seem to mind that, it’s quite another to turn it official and market it. It strikes me, as I said before, as a bit tone deaf because it looks pretty awful — like rushing out and signing Kei Igawa just because the Sox got Daisuke Matsuzaka. But I guess if it will get money, that’s the bototm line.

Green-skinned Orion slave women with sick knuckle changes will dominate Scranton but never make the leap to the show.
IH, you just made my day.

sorry.. missed this comment.
> You guys are really bent out of shape over the name, “Yankees Universe”???
Yes.

I hear what you are saying Paul but the other side of the coin is that instead of a ripoff it could be an acknowledgement that the RSN marketing scheme worked well for some unknown (to me) reason. Not to offend any members (er, citizens?) here but you have to be a sucker to go for either of these deals and the more directly responsive to the sox such an effort is by the yankees the more it would attract the exact type of sucker they are looking for.

“it’s blatantly a ripoff of Red Sox Nation”
Are you serious Paul?
It’s cheesy. It’s silly. But a blatant ripoff of RSN? I think the delusions of grandeur emanating from the Bronx – including this one to which Gerb has alerted us – are starting to infect your own thinking. Are all silly marketing references to a fan-base that are tied to some geographic entity now a ripoff of RSN?

the RSN marketing scheme worked well for some unknown (to me) reason.
I’m with you 100 percent. I’ve said it many times that I find the RSN ploy personally offensive, as someone who doesn’t feel he needs to pay to prove his “membership” in a Nation he adopted since he was 8 years old. And while I don’t begrudge the team the oppoertunity to make money off a concept that was in wide use at the time, I think the way they went about it was just ham-handed, paying for membership, electing presidents, etc. But clearly, as you say, they found enough suckers to keep it going, so maybe I’m in the minority on that one.

> the exact type of sucker
I AM that type of sucker. I go to games that have no meaning in AAA in early May when there are 14 people wondering who is going to get up first to amble over to a foul ball in the stands. I’ll gladly drop $30 on beer for four buddies that rallied to come to the game because I know how hard it is to juggle work/family/parking. As an (alleged) Yankee fan, I just get a bit pissed off that they picked such an ego-driven slogan, but I am just trying to get a laugh because it is truly funny. And it is no big deal, only the Universe.

I personally want to sign up to be a member of Gerb’s “Anything Universe”. It sounds like a wild love-in where we can all be free to be you and me.

I just love this because it takes away something Yankee fans have loved to make fun of us for. Also, it is a blatent rip off, which makes it even sweeter!
For the record, I don’t know a single card carrying member of the official RSN.
When if first came out they said members would have some special ticket access and if that had been true, I would have been the first person to sign up. There are other benefits that would entice me to sign up, but they simply haven’t materialized.

> sounds like a wild love-in
You should have been at my birthday party. I have to track down 5 people’s cell phones to survive this latest debacle.

“and that’s without even thinking hard.”
He’s 40 and still sharp as a tack….

> sharp as a tack
Thank you RBF, but it’s more like “sharp as a marble.”

“it is a blatent rip off, which makes it even sweeter!”
OR
“No – OUR fanbase was the first to embrace stupidity – you’re just copying us!!!”
OK – you win.

okay, confession time. My wife, who was raised a Royal fan and thus has had a lifetime of baseball abuse to cloud her judgement, discovered RSN on her own and thought it would be a great Xmas present for me. As I am of the same mindset as other SF here I was mortified but didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I thanked her effusively.
Know what? It’s kind of sort of paid for itself. The seats we got for last Saturday’s game weren’t bad, we took the tour for free, and it’s provided some discounts here and there. Will I let her do it again? No, but it certainly wasn’t the biggest ripoff I’ve ever been snookered by.

That’s the point I was making, the real fanbase didn’t embrace it, but I’m sure enough 2004s did to make it continue. Feel free to fleece that group all you want.

“OK – you win.”
Ballgame over The Sox win…. Theeeeee Sooooooooox win….

Ponch, I would do it for ticket opportunities alone, but they cut that back to one game, limited list of games and only certain sections, right? There was even originally a promise for a pre-sale on playoff tickets that went away quickly. I’m glad to hear you got good value out of it.
Again, I’m not against the concept but I want to see significant tangible benefits first.

Lock – yeah, obviously there were no Yankee games available but there was a pretty decent selection, IIRC. The seats were right field grandstand, section 8, 2nd row of the wooden seats. Not 1st row behind the dugout, but not a single bit of the field was obscured either. As a dude from Jersey who makes the trip once a year, it ended up costing about the same as when I stub-hubbed for tickets last year.
I agree with you, though, that if they want people to pay they should sweeten the pot.

I think everyone is a little testy at the prospect of no meaningful baseball until Friday….

Wait, wait, wait. I’m confused.
Which Yankees team are we talking about here?
Are we talking about the classy, historical blokes who were DEFINITELY not raging alcoholics and womanizers?
OR
Are we talking about the modern-day franchise, which is headed by a family that makes Oedipus look like a fairly humble dude?
Come on, guys. I’m a YF with the best of them, but I know what we are. Love us, love our galaxy-spanning egos.
MLB is a business, and we wouldn’t have CC or Tex on our team if it weren’t for cheap stunts like this. That’s what brings in the bucks, which then go out to sign free agents and young talent. That’s how it works.
I grew up in New York and live in Boston, and the main difference between a devoted conscript of the RSN and a member of the Yankees Universe is the level of self-deception involved.
The Red Sox are new enough to prominence that Lockland can still have his mythical “real fanbase” that is absolutely not the douchebags who hang out along Boylston street after a Red Sox home game. I like to think that we live in a different universe.

> classy, historical blokes
Screw you, buddy! I’m not classy or hysterical! Hysterectomy? What?
I do think it is hilarious that the Yankees are playing “catchup” on the concept that you can get people to pony a Jackson just to feel that they are not letting anyone down.

Plus, the Yankee Legion has a scary, goose-steppy feel to it. I think “The Pinstriped Parliament” gets at the general rowdiness, lack of respect and boorishness of YFs.
But come on, we’re talking about the Steinbrenners here. We’re lucky we didn’t get something like the “Yankees Animated Newcomer Klatch and Exceptional Entertainment Syndicate” just so that it’d have a cool acronym.

Well, it started funny, until the first comment.
What was that about the fastest thread to satisfy Goodwin’s Law?

I do think Lockland has a point here re: content of the package being all-imprtant. If the Yankee organization offered a compelling affordable means of securing better seats to prime games – and especially if they included October ball – but in return you had to become a member of something called “The Association of Necrophiliacs and Fungus-Fetishers who also like the Yankees”, I’d sign up in a heart-beat.

Then again, even the post satisfied the Law!
Not really anything NEWLY pathetic about it, if you want to consider a charity organization, which it started out as, ‘pathetic’. Now, it’s expanded to pretty much an MLB audio subscription.
But yeah, this proves the team is ‘tone-deaf’. Right. And it’s not really legitimate because a newspaper didn’t come up with the phrase 25 years ago. I did read your post Paul, and I specifically said it was pretty pathetic on your part to even try and make “Red Sox Nation” better in any way than “Yankees Universe”.

I read this thread top to bottom four times, just so I wouldn’t f*ck it up. Paul nailed it in his first comment that people are getting set up to get fleeced, and that everyone seems to make this anything more than a caveat emptor situation boggles my mind. Yankees (yankees’??) Universe??? Comeon. Have a laugh at the sheep, which is what I will say to myself the next time a buy a $4 bag of peanuts at a Beavers game.

It’s a fan club with a cheesy name…who cares??? No crime has been committed and it’s certainly no reflection of the team. That’s why I don’t understand the horror at a stupidly named fan club. All teams have fan clubs and it seems to me that it’s mostly for kids, no?

I would like to ask you all to get off this thread and opine why no one signed Bonds last year, and how MLB ownership can talk their way out of this TrustBuster.

I was thinking this over, and I think Andrew’s right, this actually is a fulfillment of Goodwin’s Law in one post, but probably the only time it’s happened this way:
AG, a Yankee fan, posts something making fun of the Yankees. I respond with a comment that also criticizes the Red Sox for doing something similar. It’s bipartisan Goodwinning!

I hadn’t thought of it that way, Paul. YFSF is making new forays in the theory of Internet sport rivalry blogs every day!

Let’s leave the Gerb’s innocent mind untarnished, IH. It’s better that way.

Here’s the thing – when you go from nation to nation, you just need a passport. So ostensibly any American citizen can make the journey to the Sox, and anyone holding a foreign passport can head to RSN as well. But nobody has yet figured out how to port from Earth to the Planet Dumbotron. Hence, RSN is the more democratic, inclusive club. We’re ok with that.
(aside: what a slow day where this thread gets 70+ comments! We need a trade deadline!)

Sure, but the Yankees are making great inroads on Planet Dumbotron. They’ll have a great media contract, and once they get space travel all figured out, their pick of the best Dumbotronian baseball players.

Boy, am I late to this party.
…
Who the hell is Nancy?
…
I like Yankee Legion. I like Red Sox Legion, too.
Yankee Universe just sounds trite, and like a rip-off of RSN, which I also hate.
My reaction was, “Wow. They can’t do better than that?”
And remember the origins of the phrase. It was originally part of a Globe column that has been co-opted a bazillion times by every moron fan of a sports team. Because of RSN, we now get to hear things like Cub Nation, Hawkeye Nation, Anteater Nation, National Nation, and Carrie Nation.
We might beat each other around in here, but I think we have a right to expect quality. RSN is bad, and YU, particularly as a response, is worse.
…
Talked to my dad today for the first time since the surgery. He sounded good. Slowly, he making progress, but he’s still in the hospital. Thanks again for the prayers, guys.
And I think dad is an official member of RSN. But he saw Teddy Fucking Ballgame play. So I’m gonna let it go.

I approve of Yankee Universe! It totally fits the fifth grade level of one-upsmanship these two front offices/ownership groups have cultivated.
I like that they skipped right over World and Galaxy and went right for Universe, although honestly I would have preferred Yankee Multiverse, Yankee Omniverse, or Yankee Total Existence Infinity Plus-One No TakeBacks or Anti-Matter. You just can’t leave your opponent an opening like that.

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