The first thing you see when you enter the official Yankees website is "27." The 27 obviously represents the 27 World Series' that the Yankees have won. Once the first pitch is thrown of the baseball season Sunday night, the 27 World Series' don't matter. At all. It's a new season, a new team, a new goal. 28. If the Yankees struggle to start the season you can't just pin the fact that they struggled to start last season too and say everything is ok. (Which it probably is considering it's the beginning of the season.) If Nick Swisher is brought into a game to pitch, that isn't a thing that you can just say doesn't matter. For him to be brought in you would need a big blowout in the oppositions favor.
In 2008, when I was first blogging, I received numerous emails saying the fact that the Yankees didn't make the playoffs "meant nothing because they made it so many times before." This year if the Yankees make the playoffs I'm sure we will hear fans say "oh, the Yankees are going to win it all because they did last year." This isn't last year, folks. Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, etc. are gone. New faces such as Curtis Granderson have arrived. This team is better in my opinion, but you can't say they will win it all because nothing has changed. The team has changed.
Joe Girardi has now won a World Series. Does that make him the best manager in baseball? No. In the poll, he beat out some of the best managers in the game, in what I would guess is hometown bias. Still, fans will point out in times of trouble that the Yankees are the 2009 World Series Champions. Does that affect 2010? No.
This is a new season. The Yankees aren't the only team trying to win it all. There are the 2008 World Series Champions that bragged all of last season about how they were going to repeat. There are the 2007 World Series Champions within the same division as the Yankees.
Hopefully Yankees fans know this and while the 2009 team will likely affect the personas of the 2010 team in a way, keep in mind that this is a new season and a new 30 teams trying to win it all. To those who emailed me asking where to get 2010 World Series Champions gear....you might want to wait until that actually happens. This should be a great season for the Yankees and I predict a repeat. Will that happen? We'll begin to find out game by game starting Sunday.
Writers note: I will be away in Boston (without getting to see a Yankees game!!) on a family trip until Tuesday. have fun with opening day and don't miss me too much! (Jokes)