Sports: Hating the Yankees is hardly new

Hating the Yankees is hardly new

By GREG AUMAN

"Welcome! This is a webring for fans of the MLB that are sick and tired of watching the highest payroll in baseball buy themselves another ring. Join if you want to become a fellow Yankee-hater." "Welcome! This is a webring for fans of the MLB that are sick and tired of watching the highest payroll in baseball buy themselves another ring. Join if you want to become a fellow Yankee-hater."

Thus opens the "Anti-Yankee$ Webring," one of several sites created in opposition to the American League champions. What's most depressing about this one, for instance, is that it hasn't been updated since June 1999, which is two Yankees World Series championships ago.

Not to worry. As the dynasty has continued, resentment against the pinstriped pennant-winners has kept pace. Clubs.yahoo.com keeps a separate category for antiYankees pages, listing 16 sites with titles such as "Fine Art of Yankee Hating," mostly created by Mets and Red Sox fans, some deserted for months or years.

There are more established sites, however, such as yankeehater.com, which promotes a published book, This Date in New York Yankee Hating: Going Negative on America's Most Despised Team, written by Art McDonald of Greenville, S.C., in 1999. The book features a "Yankee-hurting event" for every day of the year. The site's excerpts include a gem from the late Catfish Hunter, saying of the once-popular Reggie Bar: "Open it and it tells you how good it is."

Visit yanks-s--k.com (you'll need to spell things out to get there) and you'll find a full line of antiYankees apparel -- the "26 Times Too Many" T-shirt, a risky long-term purchase by most estimates, can be yours for $12.99.

CNNSI.com ran a poll this week asking fans what their reaction was to the Yankees reaching their 38th World Series, with four options: elation, nausea, deja vu and indifference. Predictably, 47 percent of 46,000 votes cast chose nausea, with elation edging out indifference for second place.

Again, this resentment is nothing new: A California company felt the need to register not only yankeehater4ever.com, but .net and .org as well.

Refreshingly, not all sites are without tact in light of the tragedies of Sept. 11. Visit redsoxgripe.com, for instance, and the "Evil Empire" link has been removed -- temporarily, mind you -- because it "doesn't seem appropriate to have this page up now. Maybe next spring."

The sentiment can be carried out against specific players as well. ESPN.com's Page 2 section asked readers to submit their least likable ballplayers in August, and surefire Cy Young winner Roger Clemens topped the list. "He will wear pinstripes into the Hall ... and pinstripes into Hell," wrote someone from Minneapolis. Erstwhile Yankees outfielder Rickey Henderson ranked fourth, just ahead of current Yank PaulO'Neill.

Many antiYankees sites proudly link to a column written by Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly -- two years ago today -- in which he jokingly offered highlights from his "three-volume series, The 4,008 Best Reasons to Hate the New York Yankees."

Interestingly, the column's final paragraph is ominous: "4,008. Hating the Yankees is an American tradition that has been honored throughout this century. Remember, nobody ever wrote a play called Damn Diamondbacks!"

TID-BYTES: ESPN's Tom Jackson won't be getting a Christmas card from Warren Sapp this year, but give him credit for recognizing Tampa Bay's troubles before most analysts. He ranks the top 10 teams in the NFL each week for ESPN.com and has not included the Bucs this season. At CNNSI.com, veteran Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman dropped the Bucs from 11th to 21st in this week's power rankings. ... With Fox televising the World Series, recently redesigned foxsports.com has a chance to shine. It has a wide range of columns this week, from announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, radio host Jim Rome and former major-leaguer John Kruk, now on Fox Sports Net's The Best Damn Sports Show Period. Can predictions from Ally McBeal be far off?

-- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, e-mail staff writer Greg Auman at auman@sptimes.com.