New England Patriots

What's This Yankees Sportswriter Doing - When Football's On!

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 6:56 p.m. ET

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Fansided, Steve Contursi/FanSided via Yanks Go Yard

This Yankees sportswriter is bound to be one of the few writers still pounding away on his laptop when the whole of a nation is turning it’s lonely eyes to the National Football League’s Championship games. What’s up with that, Steve?

The Yankees don’t even open their Spring Training camp for three weeks. There’s plenty of time to write all those stories that are dancing around in your head. Half of America has the beer chilled, the dips made, the wings in the oven, all bets made, and are trying to figure out to survive the ghastly pre-game shows without taking a nap before kickoff.

Not me, though. I’m thinking about the expanse of green grass in the Yankees outfield and the monuments in center field that are cold to the touch on this day in January. And I’m wondering whether I should dive into the secondary market trying to score a ticket for Mother’s Day when the Yankees will honor Derek Jeter. And I wonder too, how many home runs will Gary Sanchez have by then.

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And for a fleeting moment, I grudgingly admit to myself that Tom Brady is the best quarterback who ever played the game of football, but that if he were going head to head with Aaron Rogers today, Rogers would outduel him. And it occurs to me how similar the Patriots are to the Yankees as the team America loves to hate – because all they do is win.

Football, in recent years, may have captured the heart of America, but baseball will always have its soul. And no one that I know who has played the sport of baseball has ended up with a severe case of dementia. And we’ll never know as we watch these games today if we’ll be witnessing that one hit that gets added up with all the other hits previously taken, rattling a player’s brain to the point of no return.

Call me a sissy, whatever. But I’ll take the pastoral game of baseball and the Yankees along with it, even today. And maybe even, especially today, when the light is shining brightly on the NFL, in the same manner as when Commissioner Selig and MLB ignored the prevalence of steroids in baseball.

And sadly, the NFL is taking no action to curb the violence in their game for the same reason MLB took no action. And I don’t need to tell you what those reasons are. You already know them.

Even today, the steroid era plagues baseball, as witnessed by the recent controversy surrounding the Hall Of Fame selections. Football will learn the hard way too.

And that why I choose to write about the Yankees as kickoff time nears. Because I’d rather hear the crack of the bat rather than the crack of two heads coming together.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think my wings are almost done, and my favorite chair is calling me.

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