You remember the cool October nights when the old Yankee Stadium literally would shake, some 56,000 people sharing another glorious moment amid a dynastic run that often felt like it could keep going forever.
But unless you’re a snowbird or a Sunshine State vacationer, you probably don’t recall the front ends of those storybook seasons. The warm February afternoons when Legends Field exploded with energy at the first glance of the pinstriped supergroup.
To steal from the late Chris Farley, those were awesome.
These 2017 Yankees probably won’t win the World Series. A strong chance exists that the new Stadium — which lacks the ambiance and acoustics of its predecessor, anyway — will be dark for the fourth postseason in five years.
The front end, however? George M. Steinbrenner Field, as we now call Legends, should experience a significant uptick in buzz.
A vocal segment of Yankees fans, frustrated by a string of old, dull and underwhelming clubs, roared with approval when ownership authorized a bona fide youth movement last summer. Now those fans who make the trek to Tampa will enjoy the fruits of that labor: Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres, Clint Frazier, James Kaprielian and many more.
The season could be turbulent. The preseason, however, should be fun. And Yankees preseasons haven’t been fun for quite some time now.
The crowds at GMS Field have dwindled, the enthusiasm burnt down to a nub. Since Derek Jeter retired after the 2014 season, the only player to generate any sort of reaction has been Alex Rodriguez, whom many intelligent fans saluted for his perseverance and his sheer entertainment value. Now A-Rod will stop by camp in his new role to guide the very young players who yearn to rejuvenate this storied franchise.
Hal Steinbrenner, owning some yet not all of his late father’s DNA, required some considerable convincing to trade Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran and compromise the Yankees’ chances to make a Hail Mary 2016 playoff run. Much of that effort came from his general manager, Brian Cashman. Playing a critical supporting role were the fans themselves, many of whom drew no joy from a fledgling effort and wanted to see a reboot.
Last August, at the Major League Baseball quarterly owners’ meetings in Houston, Steinbrenner credited the team’s fans for pushing the team in the direction it chose. In particular, Steinbrenner mentioned what his employees noticed from the customer base on social media.
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Yankees' spring training has never been so intriguing 0:0 There are two months on the baseball calendar when individual… “We pay a lot of attention to it,” Steinbrenner said of social media. “We listen to our fans. There’s been excitement all year long, really starting [in 2015] when [Greg] Bird and [Luis] Severino came up, to start seeing more and more of these young kids that I’ve been talking about for three-plus years.”
That Bird and Severino soared in 2015, helping the Yankees procure an American League wild-card berth, then crashed in 2016 — with Bird missing the entire season due to right shoulder surgery and Severino earning a quick demotion to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barres before helping as a reliever — speaks to how perilous a journey this can be. Most of the players who make up the Yankees’ highly rated farm system will wind up with unproductive, unmemorable major league careers.
Which is why the key comes in quantity. We’ve seen other youth movements with this team since 2001, and they didn’t reap long-term dividends because the guys on top didn’t reach their full potential — The Post is looking at you, Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes — and no one stood behind them. The Yankees hope the odds favor them this time because of their abundance of high-ceiling youngsters.
The men to watch in Grapefruit League action will be Torres, and Jorge Mateo, and Aaron Judge, and Justus Sheffield, and Chance Adams, and the rest of the fleet. They’ll get the oohs and ahs during the first full-squad workout. They’ll represent a welcome change.
The buzz should back at Yankees camp. If it might lead to nothing, it at least beats nap-friendly quiet.
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