What do Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, and Mariano Rivera have in common? They are Hall of Famers who played for the New York Yankees, the most storied franchise in sport. The Yankees, who play their home games in The Bronx, just happen to play these games in what is the world’s most famous sports stadium.

Winners of 27 World Series, The Yankees have been my team since the late-1950s. Yes, I remember watching Ryne Duren and Luis Arroyo as relief pitchers for the “Bronx Bombers” in the 1950s and 1960s, long before most teams had regular relief pitchers. And yes, I remember Whitey Ford pitching in the 1964 World Series. Finally, I was at a Yankees game in 1979, when it was announced that catcher, Thurman Munson, was killed in a private plane he was piloting.

For me, the start of the baseball season is a rite of spring that signals the impending end of winter and anticipates the summer weather in which my favorite sport will be played. I am an avid baseball fan, meaning my interest in the sport is beyond reason. Every year, my wife celebrates the end of the baseball season in October because, in a very real sense, she will “get her husband back.”

Last year, for the first time in my memory, fans, like me, suffered through an abbreviated baseball season because of the coronavirus pandemic. It might sound a bit trite, but baseball and the Yankees offer fans, like me, a much-needed escape from the trials and drudgery that are inevitable in our daily lives. This year, the start of a full year of baseball, the first since 2019, signals a hope that this horrible pandemic, which has killed more than half a million Americans, may be coming to the end all of us have been praying for.

I know that my wife wishes that I watched fewer Yankee games, but after all these years, she accepts the fact that I will follow my Heroes in Pinstripes game after game through a 162-game season. Yes, I follow other baseball teams, and the Major League Baseball standings, but the Yankees are clearly a passion for me, just as they are for thousands of fans in the Bronx, the New York Metropolitan Area, and other parts of the United States.

I remember how my late brother introduced me to the Yankees in the late-1950s and how I watched the thrilling World Series between the Yankees and the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 and 1958. 1955 is a year still fresh in my mind when the despised Brooklyn Dodgers, with Johnny Podres as the star, finally won a World Series over my diamond heroes. I remember watching Reggie Jackson hit three “homers” in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series. Then, there was Hideki Matsui’s amazing exploits in the Yankees’ triumph over the Philadelphia Phillies, a series in which he was the most valuable player even though he only played in games in which there were designated hitters.

Of course, I also have memories of the Yankees’ few lean years in the 1960s, when Horace Clarke was the team’s second baseman. There are few more exciting experiences for Yankee fans than sitting through a game in the bleachers, the seats where the most loyal supporters of the “Bronx Bombers” sit. The “bleacher creatures” cut across racial, ethnic and religious lines. Some of these fans seem to live and die, in a symbolic sense, for their Heroes in Pinstripes.

Throughout Major League Baseball, pinstriped uniforms are emblematic of the Yankees, a team that attracts intense “haters,” as well as its superfans. Through the years, many of the Yankees’ opponents have feared their rivals. However, the team has won the respect of foes and fans alike for exploits “on the diamond” [playing field]. Almost every year, the Bronx Bombers field a superior team, and 2021 promises to be no different. Once again, the team is stacked with homerun hitters, with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton leading the attack.

For me, baseball is the most American of professional sports, although many in our country might prefer the more dramatic paces that are synonymous with football, baseball, and hockey. For some of us, the more deliberate pace of baseball makes for more strategy in a game in which statistics reveal much about the history of the game and the achievement of its stars.

In any case, for a little over three hours on many nights between now and October, I will be escaping into my own world, a world that many Yankees fans have in common, a world dominated by the exploits of our Heroes in Pinstripes.

Michael Horowitz is a long-time journalist, Bronxite and Yankees fan.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.