This month has been a great month on this note, I have been able to watch my team the New York Yankees five times including tonight.

That may seem silly to you. I will accept that. This is the first time that I can remember since moving to Kansas City, MO (not Kansas, please note) that my team has been on television. The NBA is holding its playoffs and that’s great too. I have tuned into every game of the playoffs, except for the time this week that the NBA got bumped for my beloved New York Yankees vs. the evil Boston Red Sox.

I know it is the Yankees are World Champions. I know it is the fact that networks can make tons of revenue by airing nationally the Yankees versus Boston, Tampa Bay, and the cross town New York Mets. I know that the Kansas City Royals sucks and have sucked since George Brett retired. Okay, Royals fans let’s be honest about that one. Remember the pine tar game?

The Yankees are my team. I grew up in the Bronx not far from the House that Ruth built. I remember being in the old Yankee Stadium as a kid with my Dad during a playoff game against the Angels. I loved it! I still don’t understand how my father fell asleep during the game and all the accompanying noise, but on that day my father taught me a lasting life lesson about sacrifice and love. It was a double-header in the middle of a heat wave years later as a teen my brothers and I sat in the bleachers and watched Reggie Jackson return to the stadium he inaugurated years earlier with three home runs in game six of the 1977 World Series except, he was now wearing the enemy’s uniform. It was on that Sunday afternoon that I learned the hard way that dark people can sunburn too!

It’s the late summer and fall when baseball really come alive. I guess I could be a boy of summer. I know I am a  Champion of Fall. That is the time when after 182 games the Yankees become the Monsters they are. They ratchet up their performances. They smell the thrill of the kill in destroying their opponents to meet their goal of getting “The Ring.” The fall is the season that as a fan is the best time. You have watched or in my case, followed the Yankees by internet, newspaper, and Blackberry app all this time and here is the payoff…the playoffs and World Series. Let’s be honest, late September and October New York, in Yankee Stadium is not the warmest. To truly be a fan is to have the ability to go to the Stadium dressed for the weather in October.

The Yankees brings me back to an earlier, innocent, happier time in my life. A life free of the stresses and pressure of everyday life. Am I a boy of summer? Naw, I’m a Champion of Fall.