How I Ended Up Rooting for the Yankees in the ALCS

I've been down to New Jersey twice in as many weeks. The first time was the Thursday after Columbus Day. All I knew then was that my oldest brother, Mike, had been hit by a car, and that it was "serious." On the car ride down, my dad mostly just slept, occasionally waking up to ask where we were and how I felt driving. "I'm fine", I would say. "Go back to sleep." After all, he'd already made the trip a few days before, and at a healthy 82 years old, and recovering from a recent bad fall, he needed his rest.

We got to the hospital and were greeted by my other brother, Dan. Always one to play host, he made small talk, asking about the ride down despite the exhausted look in his eyes. Our dad answered as if he remembered the ride down. After a couple of minutes we reached Mike's room. I went in, and he frankly didn't look as bad as I'd expected him to. Sure, some cuts and bruises, but his eyes were half open, and the nurse swore that he could hear, and maybe even understand us. I think what worried me the most that day were all of the tubes. I figured out that there was one for breathing, one for food, one for going to the bathroom (maybe two), and a couple for IV administration, but there were two that I didn't understand. And it were these unnatural ingressions into Michael's body that had me so worried and uncomfortable the first time I saw him after his accident, though I knew he'd be dead without them.

From Left to Right: Myself, Dan, and Mike

Walking back into the ICU's waiting room, I happened upon a conversation about baseball. My brother Dan and my dad were going at it because the Red Sox and the Yankees were both in the ALDS against the Houston Astros and Cleveland Indians, respectively. And frankly, if not for Mike's grave condition, this would have been all we were talking about. My dad is a Boston fan and raised me to be one as well, and that was all I'd ever really known having grown up on mostly Cape Cod (my early childhood in Yonkers ended before I could really pick a team). My brothers on the other hand are loud, proud Yankees fans, and unapologetically shoved it in my face growing up in the 90s before the Red Sox started winning pennants and rings, and back when the Yankees were an unstoppable baseball dynasty. Baseball was always a conversation at every family gathering I can remember, as is tradition in the households of New York and New England Jews, to the point that even when I was at my worst, having found myself a place in the New England heroin epidemic in the beginning of this decade, and not wanting to talk about anything, we could still talk baseball.

My beloved Sox quickly found their way out of the playoffs, while the Yankees went on to face the Astros in the ALCS. I found myself watching the Yankees games, lying to myself that it was just for entertainment, that I didn't care who won. I did, though, and soon enough I found myself openly rooting for them. And as news about Mike's condition became worse and worse, the series kept hope alive. Maybe I wanted something awesome for Mike to wake up to (it'd be badass to come out of a coma to news that your wildcard baseball team had made it to the World Series), or maybe I just wanted to keep that distraction on the table. Either way, the Yankees were eventually eliminated, while hope for Mike to recover slipped further and further away.

Yesterday Mike was removed from life support and passed away peacefully a few hours later. And so I'll be making my third trip to Jersey on Saturday, in just as many weekends. This time to lay my brother to rest. I'm not one to believe in any kind of a specific or tangible afterlife, but I plan on keeping the Yanks as my backup team as a way to keep spiritually close to my brothers. Both of them.