Hello Yankee fans. My Name is Harvey Pulawski. I am an avid listener of the Off the Wall Podcast with Chris Shearn and Joe Auriemma and I had to share my thoughts with you. I brought my son over to help me with this on-line stuff because I was around when morse code was how you "texted" someone. I reached out to Chris after I heard his recent podcast with Joe and they mentioned that a Cubs fan born in 1909, and still alive, has never tasted sweet success with their beloved North Siders. I am that guy. I was born in 1909. The year after the Cubs won their last World Series. Since then, your Yankees have won 27 championships, five in the last 14 years. My father always used to tell me about that magical '08 season. For you whippersnappers thats 1908 not 2008. Tinker to Evers to Chance. That was our last World Series double play combination. A very famous one at that, one of the best of all time in fact. Our shortstop Joe Tinker led the team with a whopping 6 home runs. He also had the most RBI as well, 68. It was a different game back then. Mordecai Brown led our pitching staff. He made 31 starts. 27 of them were complete games. He was 29-9 with a 1.47 ERA and threw 312.1 innings. Mordecai Brown was a man's man. In his first eight years, he didn't throw any less than 201 innings and topped out in 1909, the year of my birth, with 342.1 innings. Mordecai is enshrined in the Hall of Fame and his right arm should be bronzed and in there as well.
Now that you have a little background on the last time the Cubbies won it all let me give you a little lesson in how lucky you all are. In 101 years I have not seen one championship. Many of my friends are long gone and they never saw one championship.
I listen to Chris all the time and he is constantly commenting on this 'Twitter' thing where people 'Tweet.' The only tweeting in my day was handled by birds. I am so lost when it comes to all of these new fangled thingamabobs that all you kids are on these days. With the Mybook and the Facespace or whatever they are called. Don't get me started on internet dating sites. Whatever happened to meeting a special gal at the local pharmacy, buying her an egg cream and spending the rest of your life with her? My son, the one who is helping me with this blog is in his 70's, (he hasn't seen a championship either) and he barely gets the technology. Sorry, sometimes I go on tangents, I am 101 you know, let's get back to how Yankee fans are lucky.
If you were born in 1990, the year I turned 81, by the time you turned 6, you had something that I had been waiting 87 years to celebrate. In 1998 when you were eight, you had two championships. In 1999, when you were nine you had three, and in 2000 you had four. By the time you were 10, and I was 91 you had four more titles to experience in your decade on the planet while I had been here for nine long championship-less decades. Think about that the next time you want to get all stressed out about a loss in May to the Orioles, or an inning in which the Yankees go down by a run, or oh my goodness two runs. You people don't know how well you have it.
Think about the team in your backyard in Queens. It's been 24 years for them. 25 years for the Royals. 56 years for the Giants. It was 86 years for the Red Sox and the hated South Siding White Sox broke their long 88 year drought. Each and every day I ask the baseball Gods, "Why not us?"
Your drought always seems to get a monsoon of championships. Nine years had your tightie whitey's in a bunch? I can do that standing on my head.
I don't know how much longer I have in this God forsaken World Series-less existance of mine. My only hope is that my great-great grandchildren keep up with the struggle. We won't be making the playoffs this year, so the counter moves up to 102 years without a title. When was your last one? Oh yeah, last year. Stop stressing Yankee fans over the LITTLE things, your team always seems to make up for them in BIG ways.
Sincerely,
Harvey Pulawski
Cubs fan for 101 years and counting...I hope
P.S. I lived through the Great Depression...my entire life when it comes to the Cubs. Have a nice day.