From The Vault – My First Ever “Confessions” Post

January 27, 2011

Before I move over to the new digs at my web site (url to come Friday night), I thought I’d go
back to my first post at MLBlogs. It was from August of 2008 and it
looked like this.

In May of 2007, when the Yankees were in last place, I
couldn’t take it. All the losing was killing me, keeping me up at
night, making me snap at complete strangers, giving me a really bad
headache. One night, after a humiliating interleague loss against the
Mets, I stormed into my office and wrote an article about divorcing the
Yankees. The grounds? Mental cruelty. I didn’t have a blog then, so I
vented to the New York Times, which published my article. (You can read
it here.) As a result of that article I landed a book deal for a
nonfiction account of what it really means to be a fan. It’s called
“Confessions of a She-Fan” and it’ll be out in February.

Now that I’ve finished it, I’ve been feeling desperate to be in a
community of Yankee fans – people to commiserate with and celebrate
with. Writing books is a solitary business. You basically sit in a room
all day by yourself, wondering why in the world you didn’t pick another
line of work, waiting for your publisher to call with news about
something (your manuscript, your cover, your sales). I’m hoping that
blogging will fill the void and distract me from checking my hourly
ranking on amazon and the occasional snarky review.

Yes, it’s late in the season, but today’s game was a revelation.
I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to beat a team not named the
Mariners or Orioles. I’ve been second-guessing Girardi all year – from
not starting Kennedy because it might rain, only to use him in
relief…to resting Damon when we desperately needed his hot bat…to
giving non-answers to questions about players injuries. But he looked
like a genius today, juggling the bullpen and sending Giambi up to pinch
hit. Taking the finale against the Red Sox wasn’t as satisfying as
sweeping them would have been, but it was sweet nevertheless.

Do the Yankees have a prayer of making the postseason? I gave up
on them last year and vowed I wouldn’t do it again. But it’s looking
bleak. Seriously. A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay loom this weekend. My
heart tells me the Yanks can pull off a miracle comeback, but my husband
says I’ve been drinking the Kool Aid.

My heart was wrong, as it turned out. The Yankees didn’t make the
playoffs in ’08. Funny how I was so worried about A.J. Burnett as a Blue
Jay; now I’m worried about him for a whole different reason. And it’s
weird reading about Ian Kennedy; it’s almost as if he never existed.

Will the 2011 Yankees be non-contenders like the 2008 Yankees or will
they have the playoff magic of the 2009 championship team? Obviously,
I’m hoping for the latter.

As for blogging, I’ll be doing it win or lose. I blogged during the
wildfires here in California. I blogged while Michael was in the
hospital having surgery. I blogged when I should have been writing a
book. There’s no reason to think I’ll stop now.

Written by mlblogsjaneheller Posted in Dailies Tagged with 2008 team, 2009 championship season, A.J. Burnett, blogging, Ian Kennedy, Yankees