How to Deal with a Meaningless Yankees Series

The season’s shot. The Yankees can’t hurt you any more than the Twins already have. And yet here we are, a 4-game series against New York on the road. The Yankee Stadium house of horrors should be causing you to [drink heavily/guzzle Pepto-Bismol/both] as the first pitch approaches. Instead, you feel nothing. What in the heck?!?

It’s not your fault. When the Twins are competitive, it’s almost always the Yankees who show up at summer’s end to bring sadness and pain. When the Twins aren’t competitive, it’s very often the Yankees turning an April or May series into a nightmare from which you cannot awake that confirms it’s just not happening this season.

This year? The 2021 campaign was circling the drain when the Twins dropped 2 of 3 to New York in June. Honestly, the fact that they won a game at all should have been a sign that something was different. Meanwhile, New York is in the thick of the American League playoff race, although not unbeatable by any means. How are Twins fans supposed to handle such an odd circumstance?

Twins Daily reached out to Jon Marthaler, a Falcon Heights-based expert on sports-derived frustration and boundless rage, to ask if he had any advice for struggling fans. He shared the following tips:

• Ease into it. Find clips from the last 19 Twins playoff losses, many of which came at New York’s hands. Remember the sorrow. Soak in it for a while. Cry if you must. Crying lets the sad out.
• Find a similar interest. He suggests looking for an activity that’s as equally frustrating/miserable as watching a standard Twins/Yankees game. For those wanting to get out of the house, Marthaler recommends golfing on a course overrun with fire ants. For the homebound, he put forward the reading of any American newspaper’s online comments section.
• Punch drywall. “It just feels good, and the repair work gives you something to do on a weekend,” says Marthaler. “My hand hurts very badly. This has some downside risks, frankly. Ouch. Ouch.”
• Watch the Vikings. “It looks like their season is going to be a hot mess,” speculated Marthaler. “They have a preseason game on Saturday. Even pretend Vikings games offer something to make your day just a little bit worse.”
• Extend grace to yourself and others. "If you just decide to sit on a park bench and crush heaters, that's OK. If you see someone in a Byron Buxton shirsey wandering around the mall and barely keeping it together, give them space. No one really knows what to do until its done." 

Marthaler said he personally will drive the entire 94/494/694 loop twice on Friday night with the radio off, contemplating eternity and drinking a tepid Sprite. 

Image license here.