Yankees and Clones
The ‘Clones are called such because they are designed to be a bioengineered superteam made up of cloned baseball greats of generations past. Unfortunately, as we all know, human cloning technology has yet to be perfected and some of these experiments went slightly awry with varying results. The lucky ones simply aren’t as good as their forefathers. Others have hideous and improbable deformities; despite greater success in reproducing the baseball talents of their gene donors in these ‘Clones, they are relegated to jobs such as mascot, water boy, towel boy, or janitor as they are not fit to be seen by the public. Rumor has it they play veiled late at night in the off-season. Despite only minimal success in producing the talents of past baseball greats, these players have been afforded every advantage in baseball achievement: since the day they were born they have been trained and fed as professional athletes at the Alexander Joy Cartwright School for Boys in South Brooklyn. Swaddling cloths are patched together from worn-out uniforms, crib mobiles are constructed from shattered bat shards, leftover bobbleheads, miniature batting helmets and trophy toppers. At the age of four each ‘Clone is gifted his own hickory bat for use in batting cages; maple, a lighter wood, is only allowed for scrimmages and league games. A lazy Sunday game of catch with pop and son is a foreign concept to these players, and not just because their dads were long in their graves by the time they were born. A ‘Clone is no mere “Sultan of Swing,” sultans lie around eating peeled grapes while being fanned with palm leaves by scantily clad concubines. No, for these Soldiers of Stick, who sleep with their hickory bat by their side like an infantryman and his M-16, “Sunday” is never modified by “lazy.” No corrupt “Colossi of Clout,” these are Constables of Cooperstown, who guard and defend the integrity of The Great American Passtime, with a singular drive that can come only to boys who could never look to their flesh and blood father for a proud nod or pat on the back after sliding into first or striking out a batter, but instead looked for a trace of approval in they eyes of men on trading cards and locker room posters of athletic heroes long passed; boys whose mothers never brought them orange slices or tended to their skinned knees, because they were surrogates who share no common lineage with their sons and who never had any choice but to surrender them to their true mother and destiny: baseball.
The SI Yankees, on the other hand, are a rough-and-tumble set of characters whose love of the game is like a drug, and not just metaphorically. This band of brothers was raised in a commune that spearheaded the Staten Island secession movement in the 1980’s and 90’s. Though generally a moderate movement that employed peaceful and democratic means, the group had a libertarian bent which included a belief that the consumption of dangerous substances is a choice that should be left to the individual. Their support for the legalization of drugs combined with the need for funding to further their political goals led them to form a methamphetamine lab. They attempted to operate as ethically as a mehtamphetamine lab can: they provided literature on the affects of drug use along with their product, provided support for those who wished to quit their drug use and required parental permission for underage clients. What they did not realize was the proximity of the lab to the commune’s baseball field would create a lifelong addiction in their children. The youngsters regularly inhaled odorless gases leaking from the lab that caused a dramatic increase in their endorphin release. This high brought the youngsters to the field with the fervor and dedication of, well, a meth addict. While the toxins were not in fact methamphetamines, they did produce some of same effects as meth: increased focus, energy, self-confidence and aggression. Noting the enthusiasm the boys were bringing to their pick-up games, some parents banded together and bought some locally made t-shirts and iron-on-letters to put together make-shift uniforms and registered their “team” in the Young Men’s Baseball League of Greater New York. (YMBLGNY) The established teams scoffed at their rag-tag opponents until they hit the field. The effects of the gases coupled with the hours the young addicts were putting in, the players quickly began to crush their rival teams and rose to challenge the previously unchallengeable Alexander Joy Cartwright School for Boys varsity team The Cyclones, and emerged victorious in their first encounter.
During this time, the Staten Island Yankees applied to the YMBLGNY to change their name to the Staten Island Secessionists, as they felt that the term “Yankees” did not accurately represent their political origins. However, the chairman of the board at the time was Abner Doubleday VI, the headmaster of the Alexander Joy Cartwright School for Boys, who denied their petition. He resented the team’s victory not just because it was the first time his own team had experienced defeat, wreaking psychological and emotional havoc on his boys who had nothing but baseball, but because he suspected foul play; specifically, the use of performance enhancing substances, though he could not prove it. Even without substance abuse, Doubleday resented the poor sportsmanship of the rival team: while no one denied the athletic prowess and dedication of the Yankees, many were taken aback at their tendencies to argue with the umps, trash talk batters and slide into basemen with their spikes up.
With the elimination of charges for the Staten Island Ferry in 1997 and the closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill in 2001 the commune determined (with some internal dissent) that enough of their political demands had been met that they could drop their demands for secession. At this, they closed their meth lab. The side-effects of the gases were eliminated, but the players had developed such a strong pavlovian response to playing baseball that their endorphin highs continued. They suffered a difficult season, scoring much lower against their opponents, and losing to their rivals, the Alexander Joy Cartwright School for Boys.
The demands for secession have fallen by the wayside, and the Yankees wear their name proudly in the image of those revolutionaries who succeeded from the British rather than those who fought against the threat of Southern secession. The resentment for their rivals who mocked their home-made uniforms, denied their petition and in the words of one SI Yank, “play the game like a Wehrmacht tactical drill,” lives on.
The ‘Clones continue to live and breathe baseball as they always have and always will. They will go on resenting the Yanks’ “complete disregard for the solemnity of each play, the sanctity of the stadium and the standards of dignity to which a man worthy of this American institution must hold himself.”
