I understand that you might not be a Yankee fan, and you might not agree with anything that I am about to say, but I ask you to at least give me a chance to explain myself. I revolve everything I do around what time the game is on, when I do my homework or when I go out. When the games are on the West Coast, I stay up until the end no matter how tired I might be the next day. Not only do I watch the wins, but I also watch the losses always hoping for a comeback.

This is not the first time I have had to explain myself for being a Yankee fan; actually I have to do it almost every day of my life. Boys don’t believe that I, a girl, could possibly know more stats then they do, or that I can name the full roster when they themselves cannot. They think it is fun to challenge my knowledge, thinking I’m just a classic “Jeter girl” (female Yankee fans who like the team simply because Derek Jeter is cute). For example, yesterday, a boy wanted to argue, “Jeter doesn’t deserve a Golden Glove (a prestigious award for excellence in defense awarded to every position in each league).” I readily silenced him with hard statistics, knowing off hand that Mr. Jeter had a career-low eight errors over 150 plus games during the 2009 season, could this boy find a better candidate? No, he had no support for his argument whatsoever!

This serves as proof of the intangibles that true baseball fandom bring to an individual, or at least, have brought to me. I can formulate and support an argument with facts much better as a result of the hours spent enraged at the inane comments on sports radio. Just as I can call upon stats to make my case for Mariano Rivera’s inevitable induction into the Hall of Fame, I know that I must call upon historical facts and legal precedents when I enter a debate in government class.

Another common debate that can’t be supported with facts arises with the question, “Is there such a thing as clutch hitting?” Here, I can turn to my studies in AP Psychology. As I read about psychosomatic symptoms, I become more aware of just how deeply the mind affects the body. If I can’t use statistics to prove that clutch hitting exists, I will instead turn to science. Hitting in a clutch situation causes a player to be worried about the at-bat, causing him stress. When a person is stressed, there is an imbalance in the hormones which the body needs to repair which may or may not have a negative affect on the at-bat.

Being a Yankee fan or a baseball fan in general, has helped me in many aspects of my life. It has provided me with an escape from my daily routine and an outlet to relax. It has also allowed me to parlay the passion I feel as a fan into my other endeavors. I might start by seeing the world through baseball diamond glasses, but in the end I am able to understand the world around me in a new context, with the confidence of a champion, and the passion of a fan.