Did George Steinbrenner have a conniption fit? Mark Sperandio hopes so.
“That’d be a treat, watching Steinbrenner have a temper tantrum,” Sperandio said the morning after.
“He’ll just fire people and spend more money. Next year they’re gonna put a better team out there and they’re still not gonna win the World Series.”
And how satisfying would that be?
Extremely.
Arrogant Yankee owner gets his comeuppance again despite spending bazillions.
To see Steinbrenner red-faced and sputtering mad would be about as good as it gets.
For Sperandio and legions of Red Sox fans who have had the Yankees stuffed down their throats for years, nothing is better than what happened this past week.
The Damn Yankees went down.
Went down in the ALCS after blowing a 3-0 series lead. Went down despite playing Games 6 and 7 on their home turf. Went down despite the biggest payroll in baseball.
Went down, down, down…
Ever felt better, Mark?
“Words cannot describe how wonderful I feel right now,” Sperandio, the former owner of the Everett AquaSox, said Thursday morning. “There is nothing that a Yankee fan can say to me ever again that will anger me or p— me off again.
“They – lazy, unappreciative Yankee fans – now know what it is like to choke, fold and break under pressure.”
They know how Sperandio felt after Game 7 of the ALCS last year.
Disconsolate.
“The Curse is GONE, period,” Sperandio said. “Win or lose the World Series, we beat the Yankees, in Yankee Stadium.”
At mid-morning Thursday, he still hadn’t come down from his emotional high of the night before.
He might never come down. This feeling might last a lifetime.
“That was my World Series last night,” he said of the Red Sox’s 10-3 pounding of the Yankees to clinch the American League pennant.
He had watched the game in the solitude of his home. His wife and daughter were flying back from visiting relatives in the Midwest.
He would either mourn or celebrate alone.
After four innings, it looked good. The Red Sox were up 8-1.
Still, he felt uneasy. He knows the Red Sox history. “I just kept going, ‘Let’s get these next three outs.’
“I do pitch counts. I knew if we could get into the Yankee bullpen, that’s their soft underbelly.”
He needn’t have worried.
The Yankees were dead.
And Mark Sperandio had never felt so alive.
Throughout the game, he was on the phone with his three best buddies on the East Coast.
Guys he had played Little League baseball with in Brockport, N.Y.
There was T.J. Burch in Buffalo, Mike Corbin and Jason Noni at the latter’s house in New Hampshire.
Noni lives on a cul-de-sac and when the game ended, neighbors came pouring out of their homes to celebrate with champagne.
“I suspect that happened in towns all over New England,” Sperandio said. “My buddy said he heard church bells ringing.
“It’s been so ingrained in us that the Yankees are better. We’ve had all the names and history shoved down our throats for so long.
“But you could argue that this is the greatest comeback in baseball. The greatest choke, too. It’s kind of fun to flip the roles.”
When Joan Sperandio got to O’Hara International in Chicago, every bar in the terminal had the game on TV. And when the Yankees got beat, she said there was much cheering.
That’s the great thing about the Yankees. They’re unifiers. Everyone hates them.
Sperandio can say the ALCS triumph was his World Series, but does he really mean it?
“It does matter,” he said of the World Series, which began Saturday with the Red Sox, seeking their first world championship since 1918, hosting St. Louis. “But to me, it’s the icing on the cake.
“I got my cake last (Wednesday) night. If we hadn’t been able to win, I’d feel bad, but not as bad as Game 7 last year when we imploded.
“For many in New England, last night’s win was our World Series. We beat the Damn Yankees. Yeah, I want to win the World Series real bad, but if we don’t, I witnessed something real special.”
If the Series goes to six or seven games, Sperandio, Joan and their year-old daughter will hop a plane and get together with his buddies and their families in Boston.
It’s very unlikely that they’ll score any tickets but to just be back in Beantown immersed in the atmosphere of a team that beat the Yankees to get to the Series will be enough of a thrill.
Enough to last a lifetime.
“I’ll have my one World Series,” Sperandio said, “and I won’t ask for anything else.”
Except a conniption fit by the Boss.
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