ItsTheBlog™

For those that have followed this year's baseball season, you have been rewarded with a memorable one: Frank Thomas reaches the 500 homerun plateau and then gets ejected, Craig Biggio collects hit number 3000 only to be thrown out at second base, and we are treated to the best matchup of maybe all time: Barry Bonds vs. Roger Clemens. Clemens came out of relief, for the first time in 23 years, and not surprisingly walked Bonds on 5 pitches. But the the icing on the cake, is that the New York Yankees are well for the lack of a better word, normal.


For as long as I can remember, I was taught to believe Yankees stadium possessed some aura about it. When you entered Yankees stadium, you are made to believe you are entering into hallowed and sacred grounds. Take off your shoes and remember that: baseball is a religion with the Yankees being at the forefront of it all.

Was it the tradition speaking? Or was it just a belief that turned real because you were told it?

What makes a dream a dream? The awakening. Santa Claus sure seemed real when I was 5 and then 10 and then 15...The point here is that something doesn't even have to be "realistic" to be led to believe it. You don't need any DNA evidence. All you really need is the absence of a competiting theory. Throw in the success the Yankees have had in the past and what you have is a belief that Yankees stadium (allegedly but I will know hopefully this weekend) maybe is hallowed and sacred.


Big deal. So what? Well, if you've ever played golf, you've sworn. And if you've sworn during golf, you've played bad. And if you ever played badly, you attempt to provide some justification or in some cases, excuses for such a poor performance. You blame the golf gods or the bum shoulder sustained pitching the complete game shutout in a baseball game a day earlier. But something that goes unmentioned sometimes is the mental aspect.

"Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical." Yogi Berra is known exclusively by people for this quote. It's an accomplishment to show utter brilliance and obvious stupidity in one sentence. I've accomplished the latter on several occasions and now I'm just trying to polish up the former. We believe sports contain a mental aspect because we are told it and we have no competiting theory to explain performances when health is not a matter of question.

And we see it throughout sports. Icing the kicker on the last play of the game by calling a timeout before the snap is one of just many indications that this belief is not isolated. Having the mental edge can allegedly determine the outcome of the game.

The New York Yankees have enjoyed many years of success. They've had 12 straight seasons of reaching the playoffs, 15 straight seasons of winning 85+ games, and have won more championships in baseball then any team has in any sport. They have won more championships then the Cardinals, Red Sox, Dodgers and Athletics combined. They're the only team in baseball history to have a hall of famer at each position. They've retired 15 jersey numbers, tops in baseball. There's no doubt about it. They have been the most successful franchise in all of sports. But to say they've only gotten there because of the superior talent or 200 million dollar payrolls would be a mistake. When they pay their luxury tax of 30+ million a year, they aren't just paying for their high payroll, they're also paying for a mental edge the Yankees possess over any opponent that steps onto that grass and into that batter's box.

Does the mental aspect affect the physicalities of sports? Or asked in better terms: do you really think the Angels could have won the 2002 World Series without the Rally Monkey?