New York Yankees: 2019 campaign is underway with a unique first
The New York Yankees kicked off their 2019 MLB Season on Thursday with a 7-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles, but Yankees fans saw something they thought they’d never see on Opening Day.
The New York Yankees are off to a 1-0 start in 2019 after beating the Orioles 7-2 on Opening Day. With big expectations heading into the 2019 season, the Yankees kicked it off in the only way they know how, with a win.
The Yankees got a jump start from Luke Voit in the bottom of the first who hit a three-run home run scoring Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Judge would go onto score two more runs for the Bronx Bombers and a Greg Bird home run gave the Yankees a 7-2 lead which is where the game would eventually end at.
The game was a great start to the Yankees 2019 campaign, but at least for me the one thing I took away from today was something that was completely irrelevant to the game.
The Yankees are known as one of the classier franchises in Major League Baseball with rules up the wazoo often enforcing what players can and can’t wear, how they can and can’t look (no beards allowed for example) among other rules.
One of those rules used to be that players could not wear the number zero. That rule was broken for the first time in franchise history today with offseason acquisition, Adam Ottavino wearing the number for his first appearance in pinstripes.
We knew this was coming as it was announced a couple of weeks ago that the new Yankee would don the number amid some upset fans about tradition, but it is still weird to see.
Sure this isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, I mean at the end of the day it’s just a number. But it isn’t the number, it’s what the number used to represent within the organization. It used to be one of those things that just didn’t happen, no one wore it, no one knew why, but it just was. It was an unwritten rule for the Yankees.
Unlike written appearance rules such as the rule that Yankees may not have beards or hair past their shoulders, this was something you just don’t do.
I don’t expect those other rules to change, I don’t expect the Yankees to start walking around with caveman beards like the Red Sox had a couple of years back, but the Yankees allowing Ottavino to wear the number could be a hint that more changes may be coming.
Why does this matter to me so much you ask? I don’t know I guess it’s just something I’m so used to seeing, just like the Yankees don’t have names on their backs, no one wears the number zero.
Next. Three major storylines for the Yanks as they open the season. dark
I guess I just enjoy seeing the Yankees be different in one way or another even if it’s just a stupid number. Nonetheless, for the first time since 2014, a Yankee wore a single digit number on Thursday afternoon, showing that maybe changes are coming for the Yankees in terms of policy.