I became a fan of the New York Yankees in arguably the darkest days of the franchise, the late 1980’s. I guess the lure of Mel Hall’s Jheri curl, Rickey Henderson’s snatch catches and Alvaro Espinoza’s sheer athletic ability was too much for this Staten Island kid to pass up on. Sure, most of the neighborhood kids jumped on the New York Mets bandwagon after the 1986 World Series, but after hearing countless stories from my dad about Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Roger Maris and other Yankee greats, how could I jump ship?  I remember my first trip to Yankee Stadium, it was late in the 1987 season, as usual the Yanks were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, but I didn’t mind. I was so excited when I got to the stadium, I grabbed a hot pretzel from a vendor and a No. 1 navy blue foam finger before heading into the house that Ruth built. We had pretty lousy seats down the first base line, but I was psyched just to be there. I got to see my first Yankees’ game and my first Yankees’ loss all in the same day. Fred McGriff crushed two homers against our suspect pitching en route to a big win for the Blue Jays. Anyway, I was in love with the game and the Yanks after going to my first game. I was a loyal Yankees fan until the early 90’s when I moved away from the city. Go figure, as soon as I moved away the Yanks started to win again. But don’t feel too bad, as a “long time” Marlins fan I have enjoyed two titles.