Altuve's Birthday Party, and Mine: A Report from Yankee Stadium, May 6, 2021

Back in the winter, a friend mentioned going to the Astros-Yankees series in the Bronx casually, and I met that thought with trepidation.  Go to an Astros-Yankees game?  This year?  Did I really want to go see my team get booed and jeered?  To watch a game where the focus was not on the game, but on events of four years ago?  To deal with Yankee fans? 

The decision was made for me. In late April, my wife said "You will receive your birthday present in a calendar invite I'm about to send you."  And there is was, seconds later:  May 6. 1:05 pm EDT.  HOU vs. NYY. Yankee Stadium.  

"You got me tickets to the Astros-Yankees series! Oh, wow.  What a present."  I was going.  And my friend couldn't go, so my wife would go with me. Her mother would come down to babysit.  It was a date. And it left a question in my mind: how would an Astros fan be treated in Yankee Stadium in 2021?

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I'm not a novice to the intensity of Yankee Stadium. I have attended several regular season and three playoff games at Yankee Stadium, and know the stark difference in the atmosphere between the two. I know how loud the place is in the first inning of a playoff game, and how much louder it got when the Astros coughed up the lead in the bottom of the 8th of Game 4 of the 2017 ALCS, and how quiet it got as Dallas Keuchel kept hitting the outside corner at the knees in the 2015 Wild Card Game.

For me, this seemed to be the baseline to compare the game today. I presumed that it would have an atmosphere similar to one of those playoff games. Yankee fans wanted to "make their feelings known," as the euphemism goes, and coverage of the first two games of the series had centered heavily on the booing and jeering from Yankees fans. 

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There was one early effect of all the attention on the Yankee fans booing the Astros: it took away much of the fun of anticipating the game. Instead of focusing on whether Lance McCullers could match zeroes with Gerrit Cole or the opportunity to shell peanuts for innings at a time or to day drink, I was focused on how we would be treated. 

But could the script change when we got the Bronx? We parked, and started walking to the stadium, and heard very little.  Not nothing. One guy yelled "cheater" at me while waiting to show our vaccination records to enter the stadium; Another yelled "I got your trash can here" at the same point. While standing in line to get a beer, another dude looked my Astros gear and said "Bold move." 

And yet, despite this handful of jeers, the Stadium seemed normal in atmosphere and intensity. There was a lot of booing of the Astros players, but there were tons of moments in the game when the booing and the negativity subdued or even disappeared.  The game's atmosphere was pro forma. This was nowhere close to the intensity of the playoff games I had attended. It was different from the regular season games I had attended, but little got in the way of enjoying sunny weather, a beer, a hot dog, and great conversation with my wife. 

It is of course notable in this context that Yankee Stadium is limited to 25% capacity, and attendance was below that pandemic-induced capacity. My wife is a Red Sox fan and she quipped "I think any place would be better with 75% fewer Yankee fans."  She's right about that one.

Photo Credit: A Kind Yankees FanThe Yankee fans we did engage with were quite pleasant.  The guy sitting across the aisle from me engaged me in a conversation about what I think about the sign stealing, and clearly was trying not only to listen to my thoughts, but also to ask about it in a deferential and neutral way. And when my wife and I took a selfie when we arrived  (we haven't been on a date in a year because of the whole pandemic thing; we were happy to be out together). A Yankee fan a couple of rows above us asked if we'd like him to take a picture of us.  "Yes, thank you."  "This way," he replied, "You'll know there are kind Yankee fans." 
Are there?  Well, at least a few.

Many Yankee fans were of course not very kind. They booed, and booed lustily.  But, and this surprised me the boos were basically limited to the players from the 2017 team.

Here's how the pre-game introductions went

"Batting first for the Astros, the second baseman, Jose Altuve"  Loud boos.

"Batting second, the left fielder, Michael Brantley"  A few boos.

"Batting third and playing third base, Alex Bregman."  A return to loud boos.

"Batting fourth, the designated hitter, Yordan Alvarez."  Almost no boos.

"Batting fifth, the shortstop, Carlos Correa"  A return to loud boos. 

And so it went.  Loud boos for Gurriel, and then the basically stopped for Tucker, Straw, and Maldonado.  Lance McCullers was then introduces, and the boos were at a medium level. This continued during the game itself. The Yankee fans would boo Altuve, Bregman, Correa, and Gurriel, but not the other guys in the lineup. 

It was shocking. Instead of taking out their venom on everyone who happened to wear the orange and blue. It was focused on the guys who had heard all the bangs in the 2017 season.  

 Well, except for Altuve. 

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As most Astro fans and few baseball fans know, data collected by Tony Adams and publicly available at AstrosSignStealing.com show that Jose Altuve heard the lowest share of "bangs" of any Astros regular. The data indicate that Altuve heard some bangs at the beginning of the season, and then asked not to receive the "help" anymore. He didn't, 

Yet, Altuve was booed not just as lustily as the other players, but more so. He was jeered with chants of "Fuck Altuve," to the rhythm of the "Let's Go Yankees" chant.  They chanted it when Altuve was at bat, and then at seemingly random intervals when he was in the field. It did not require a ball to be hit to Altuve for Yankee fans to start up the chant; it apparently just required some yahoo in pinstripes to start it. 

Of course, we all know the reason that Altuve is the subject of the ire of Yankee fans, rather than someone who used the banging system and who seeks out the spotlight like Bregman or Correa (I mean, "Fuck Correa" fits the meter of "Let's Go Yankees").  It's the buzzer rumor. The conspiracy theory that the Astros used wearable buzzers to receive information on what pitch was coming cropped up shortly after The Athletic's blockbuster revelations about what Rob Manfred would call "the banging scheme." These rumors were believable not because there was any evidence, but because confirmation bias is a helluva drug.

It may not be a fact, but for the man who ended the Yankees season in 2019 by drilling an Aroldis Chapman hanger into the left-center field walkway at Minute Maid Park, it's a reality. Undeservedly, Jose Altuve is a villain to New Yorkers. They chanted "Fuck Altuve."  They chanted "Fuck Your Birthday." They chanted "Cheater." 

One has to wonder how this make Jose Altuve feel.  Taking the brunt of fan's anger over something he didn't do, which is an offshoot of a scandal that his teammates did. I always assume that major leaguers have developed the ability to drown out the noise and the jeers of fans--how would they make it past AA if they couldn't.  I trust that Jose Altuve developed that skill years ago. 

And it was on display in the top of the 8th, when Altuve silenced the boos and chants by slugging a go-ahead three-run homer. It was just as much atmosphere-changing as it was game-changing. The Astros had finally gotten to the Yankee bullpen.  The game was fun. 

Was it worth going to this game?  Absolutely. The booing was mild. The Yankee fans were manageable, and the story of the game--a maligned man overcomes his tormentors--was memorable.  Victory is sweet.