You can brand me with this...cause I'll be a Yankee until I die.

Some people are born Catholic.

Some people are born Japanese.

I was born a Yankee.

From the day I took my first breath, I have known the blue and white.

“The Babe…Gehrig…Mickey Mantle…Berra …. DiMaggio…”

That is the sound of the pulse of tradition that I follow.

“Mattingly…Posada…Rivera…Jeter…Clemens…Matsui…Rodriguez…”

That is the rhythm of the heartbeat of the Bronx Bombers of my youth and the Yankees that I love.

And you can’t blame me for loving the Yankees.

To me, it’s part of my DNA. It is ingrained in the very fibers of my being. I was born in NYC. I was born in ’79, a year that the Yankees finished fourth in the AL East, but that was quite alright because they had hall-of-famer Reggie Jackson on the team and that was a good omen, as far as I am concerned.

In my lifetime, I have seen  five Yankees championships. In 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and now, 2009. I even survived 2003, when the Marlins murked my pinstriped heroes and I had to sit through the ridicule from all of my bandwagon, Miami-loving friends. But I never once wavered in my rooting or my loyalty to the Yanks. It is something that is simply not done.

Where does my love of this team come from? I think that the Yankees encompass everything that was ever good about my late father. He wasn’t the greatest, but I can remember being little and how his faced looked when we were cheering for the Yankees together. His smile. The way the corners of his eyes would crinkle. How he would have to get up and pace when the game got tense. The Yankees are the glue that hold those memories together and somehow, make my memories of my father pinstripe perfect.

That’s right. My pop was a huge yankees fan and the man who took me to my first Yankees game. I can, till this day, remember the distinct smell of Yankee stadium. A musty mix of the concrete and tradition and excitement. The way the blue of the seats would look come rain or come shine. The deafening surge of cheers from the crowd. The way the organ music sounded when we all sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame. There is nothing more-perfect that rooting for the home team and trying to catch a fly ball. There is no better heaven then watching the Yanks score a homer.

So you can imagine how many tears I cried when they tore it down. When Yankees stadium was gone. Like most fans, I was a little bit resentful. I was a little bit upset. I looked down my nose a little at the new stadium, too. Why wouldn’t I? Gone was the tradition and the worn-in magic.

And that is why this, the Yankees 27th World Series Championship, is so important to me.

Why?

Because my boys sprinkled the most magic they could into the first year in this, our new house for the Yanks. They broke it in, so to speak. They gave all of us New Yorkers, near and far, a new seed of tradition and they planted it right there, right under home base. They made this new base, our home. Our place to cheer for the team that was our parent’s tradition and is now ours by rite of passage.

To those of you who know what I am talking about, cheers. This one was for us.

To those of you who get that this win was to bring us home, that this was our boys saying NO ONE FUCKS WITH US IN OUR HOUSE. NO ONE, I raise a glass to you.

To those of you who know that this, #27, was the greatest moment, the most-amazing time for us, let us revel in this victory.

And to those of you who don’t understand…I feel sorry for you.

-Goobs