About James Varghese
Well, to begin with, I was born April 3, 1981 in Bihar, India (that's north India to those playing along at home) but spent the first 6 years or so of my life growing up in Kerala, which is where the rest of my family is from (that's alllll the way at the bottom tip of south India). My parents busted their butts and got over to America in 1986, leaving my older sister & I with our grandparents for a year until they came back to get us in 87. We lived in Port Chester & Yonkers, NY, which are respectively about 25 and 10 miles away from Yankee Stadium, for two years apiece. I guess you could call that time period the beginnings of my Yankee foundation. You couldn't really move 10 yards without seeing someone talking about baseball or wearing some Yankee gear and before you knew it, I started getting caught up in that classic interlocking NY.
While my love of pinstripes began then, it didn't fully take hold until 1991 when the family & I moved across the Hudson River into beautiful suburban Valley Cottage, NY and I started heading to public school (ironically our team name was the Indians) for the first time. All of a sudden, I had to defend my Yankees (who were very, very bad at the time - remember Jeff Johnson, Kevin Maas & Andy Stankiewicz!?!) from people who were fans of other teams! This was practically unheard of where I was growing up in Yonkers. There were a few Mets fans but everyone in our 4th grade class assumed that they were "special". Rather than cave in to the pressure to switch allegiances, I started listening to sports radio pretty much 24/7, specifically WFAN 660 (the FAN!) which is HUGE in NY (and they used to be good back then) and if there was a Yankee game on the radio, I was tuned into to 770 AM for the duration. My parents might have thought it was slightly unhealthy at the time but I couldn't help myself and before you knew it, I was completely entrenched in the Yankee kingdom. I read up on the past Yankee greats, listened intently for Susan Waldman's reports (she was the FAN's Yankee reporter at the time) and even got into some fights with Mets fans (and Cowboys & Bulls fans but that's another story).
Buck signalled the turnaround of the franchise in 1993 and from then until now, I feel grateful to have been able to watch the run that the Yankees had and for the players that I found myself able to watch and root for, my favorites being Jeter, Mariano, Bernie & Andy Pettitte. The current groups isn't too shabby either but I find myself also growing more mindful of the Yankee farm system (and yes, we do have one) and looking for the young guns (Hughes, Duncan, etc.) that can carry on the legacy in pinstripes. Still, whatever the future may hold for the Yanks, I'll just be glad to be a fan of this great franchise.
While my love of pinstripes began then, it didn't fully take hold until 1991 when the family & I moved across the Hudson River into beautiful suburban Valley Cottage, NY and I started heading to public school (ironically our team name was the Indians) for the first time. All of a sudden, I had to defend my Yankees (who were very, very bad at the time - remember Jeff Johnson, Kevin Maas & Andy Stankiewicz!?!) from people who were fans of other teams! This was practically unheard of where I was growing up in Yonkers. There were a few Mets fans but everyone in our 4th grade class assumed that they were "special". Rather than cave in to the pressure to switch allegiances, I started listening to sports radio pretty much 24/7, specifically WFAN 660 (the FAN!) which is HUGE in NY (and they used to be good back then) and if there was a Yankee game on the radio, I was tuned into to 770 AM for the duration. My parents might have thought it was slightly unhealthy at the time but I couldn't help myself and before you knew it, I was completely entrenched in the Yankee kingdom. I read up on the past Yankee greats, listened intently for Susan Waldman's reports (she was the FAN's Yankee reporter at the time) and even got into some fights with Mets fans (and Cowboys & Bulls fans but that's another story).
Buck signalled the turnaround of the franchise in 1993 and from then until now, I feel grateful to have been able to watch the run that the Yankees had and for the players that I found myself able to watch and root for, my favorites being Jeter, Mariano, Bernie & Andy Pettitte. The current groups isn't too shabby either but I find myself also growing more mindful of the Yankee farm system (and yes, we do have one) and looking for the young guns (Hughes, Duncan, etc.) that can carry on the legacy in pinstripes. Still, whatever the future may hold for the Yanks, I'll just be glad to be a fan of this great franchise.
