Why I root for those Damn Yankees.

In a few minutes, game six of the 2009 world series will start in the Bronx, with the New York Yankees up three games to two. They have a chance of winning their 27th title tonight.

Before the series started last week, the New York Times, on their website, asked readers who were diehard Yankees or Phillies fans to relate the time they decided that this was their team. By the time I saw this, and thought about what I would say, there were hundreds of responses up.

I decided to put it here instead. Here goes.

I'll start with a secret: In my 1995 elementary school yearbook, I said my favorite sports team was the Mets.

Yes. The Mets.

I didn't care about sports at all then. But I had a blank to fill in, and the last sports event I'd been to was a Mets game during summer camp.

The next year I went to my first Yankee game with my dad. (Actually, my dad was there for my first Yankee game that I ever went to, but he wasn't there with me. Long story.) We left in the seventh inning or so, with the Yankees leading, and came home to find out they'd lost. Made me realize that baseball was a game with interesting outcomes.

Later that year I happened to walk into my parents' room while the 9th inning of game six of the world series was on tv. Even I, who knew almost nothing about baseball, had predicted the Braves to win the series, and there I was watching Charlie Hayes catch that final out for a Yankee victory. I started jumping up and down and cheering. I found that yearbook, crossed out Mets and wrote in Yankees.

But this did not make me a diehard fan. I became one of those people who only started really caring when the team made the playoffs. And for this stretch, for a Yankee fan, that was really easy to do. The Yankees won the world series on my 14th birthday, and my cake that year looked like a baseball.

Then 2004 happened.

I watched the ALCS, game four, then five, then six, then seven, still believing that the Yankees were that team that could always come back and win. And they didn't. The Red Sox won the pennant just after midnight on my 20th birthday.

Somehow, this felt different than the end of the 2003 world series or the 2001 world series. It didn't make me sad, like Josh Beckett did in 2003, or numb with shock, as Luis Gonzales did in 2001. (Although the latter had some part to do with 9/11 I suspect. New York was supposed to win, dammit!) No, this made me angry.

I was going to stick with this team. They needed to beat other teams. And I needed to stick with them, even if sometimes they didn't accomplish said beating.

Starting with opening night 2005 (a win against the Red Sox, more incentive to watch), I've tried to watch every game since. And go to at least one game in person every year.

I have now a mental checklist of Yankee game events I'd like to see in person. One I accomplished this year was attending a playoff game. And I know that sometime in the future, I will check off attending a world series game on that list.

Speaking of, it's game time. Let's go Yankees!!!