Yankees Factoid: 50 Minutes of My Life I Will Never Get Back

Steve HartlineMar 3, 2008

For starters, let me apologize for the time it is going to take you to read this.

I say this because it took me about 20 minutes to compile research and then another 30 minutes to type up something that would look presentable while not making me look like the fool that I am. All told, I have now lost 50 minutes of my life that I will never get back, and I am a little ticked off at what started this whole diatribe.

Bear with me, please. I have to decide on how I will approach this and establish the process of what eventually gets to be my point…

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Here is the windup: Have you ever heard someone state something as fact that you would normally just disregard as total stupidity, but then you dwell on it because, quite frankly, it’s so compelling in and of itself that you start to think that it has to be true?

Usually this is a comment that comes out of nowhere: a statement that just takes you by surprise. Typically, this stated fact will have an element of history to it, and it inevitably is in a subject in which you never claimed to be an expert. In your mind, you perform some minor level of evaluation and arrive at the conclusion a real conversation piece is at your disposal. You cannot wait until the opportunity happens to pass along this little nugget.

Although some time later, you doubt the validity of it. Just a little at first. You think, “That can’t be true!” Then, much later, when you are lying awake in bed as you try to work through the facts, if you are like me, you throw off the covers with a loud expletive-laden declaration that wakes your wife. You offer her a feeble apology as you decide now is the time to get serious and do some research. No longer do you believe that the scholar who mentioned this knew what he was talking about. In fact, the guy is now an airbag. It is time to end this obsession.

Now comes the pitch: For perhaps the third time in my life, someone said something along these lines when the conversation was about baseball and the New York Yankees. The comment was (or something along these lines): ”You know, the Yankees are cursed. Yes, they have a curse! Did you know that the Yankees have never won a World Series title when a Republican was president?”

The swing: Here are the results of the research. I hope like hell that anyone who has fallen for this feels vindicated in some measure. I know that now I can go back to bed, and fall asleep with a smug yet content smile on my face.

Title Year/President/Party

2000/Bill Clinton/Democrat

1999/Bill Clinton/Democrat

1998/Bill Clinton/Democrat

1996/Bill Clinton/Democrat

1978/Jimmy Carter/Democrat

1977/Jimmy Carter/Democrat

1962/JFK/Democrat

1961/JFK/Democrat

1958/Dwight D Eisenhower/Republican

1956/Dwight D Eisenhower/Republican

1953/Dwight D Eisenhower/Republican