The New York Yankees Have Completely Lost Their Aura

It’s Game 3 of the World Series. The Yankees’ backs are against the wall. They’re losing the series 2-0, and in the fourth inning—with Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. coming to the plate—they’re losing by three. The home nine desperately need a win—to get back into the series and keep their title hopes alive, but also to restore some of the aura that used to define this proud franchise. A three-run deficit can evaporate in the blink of an eye, and with the meat of the order coming up, this particular moment felt like the time to strike. Sitting high up in the right field grandstand, where the Yankees had set up their auxiliary press box (the “aux box”), I rose with the crowd (who hadn’t seen a World Series game at Yankee Stadium in 15 years) and felt the rush of October baseball.

As I looked around at the anxious faces that made up the crowd, the ghosts of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle swirled in the autumnal air—but something felt off. A new character had emerged. While the entire section clung to every pitch in hopes that Judge could get a rally going, a digital glow snuggled its way into the corner of my eye. The kid in front of me had his iPad out. Peter Griffin was blasting his way through the Fortnite universe.

This is not meant to be some defining statement on Generation Alpha, but rather the state of the New York Yankees. That aforementioned aura—which all previous generations of sports fans were innately aware of—has been slowly dissipating with each of the last 14 World Series that did not include the boys in pinstripes. There was a glimmer of its return during the Game 4 win and the early stages of Game 5, but when the Yankees experienced a Deepwater Horizon-level disaster in the fifth inning, the aura made its way toward the ledge. It climbed up when the New York bullpen faltered in the eighth, and jumped when the final out was recorded, cementing a brutal loss on the biggest stage. The Yankees, the New York Yankees, became the first team in the impossibly long history of Major League Baseball to lose a World Series clincher by squandering a five-run lead. For those of a certain age, the idea of the Yankees melting down so dramatically in the literal World Series is incomprehensible. When everything started to unravel in Game 3, it happened in a way that maybe was less exciting than a YouTube clip of someone else playing video games. It’s not the kid’s fault, it’s just the world he was born into.

Aaron Judge had just four hits in five games in the 2024 World Series. MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images

There are many theories about why the Yankees feel different now, why they don’t feel like the Yankees anymore. Hard-nosed fans will say it’s because George Steinbrenner isn’t around to kick them in the ass anymore. The online delegation loves to gripe about the front office prioritizing analytics to a detrimental degree. But the biggest difference I felt in the stadium is that Yankee fans expect their team to lose these big games now. Rather than carrying an immense pride for their guys, the fans have started to hate their team. Ask any Yankee fan in your life if they have faith in this team, its manager, or their future. See how many players outside of Judge, Juan Soto (who is no guarantee to return next year), and Gerrit Cole they would go to war for. The collection of people seated way up in the nosebleeds next to the aux box—seemingly miles away from the field, but close enough to God that the big man himself could reach out and console them after another stunted rally—implored their team to show some heart. That wasn’t a problem in the glory days, when the team embodied that elusive idea, and its only concern was which free agent they would chase after the championship parade was over.

The counterargument here, of course, is that the Yankees have done so much winning that it’s old hat for their fans. I don’t think that was the case for the Peter Griffin kid, who I would venture to guess was not born when the Yankees last won it all, in 2009. In his lifetime, the Yankees have become the Dan Marino Dolphins, the Seven Seconds or Less Suns, or even the Dodgers of recent years, until they figured out the playoff thing. They are a team that puts a good product on the field every year, commands respect from the rest of the league, but doesn’t have the postseason juice. In fact, since that triumph in ‘09, their postseason glory has almost exclusively come against a division that is also famously lacking in juice.

Despite the Yankees wilting under the bright lights, there was intrigue to be found all around the stadium. I arrived for Game 3—again, the first World Series game at Yankee Stadium in 15 years—some five hours before first pitch, and the Bronx was already alive. The notoriously grimy bars that litter the surrounding area were pulsing, and when the pregame press conferences began, catcher Jose Trevino assured the massive media contingent that if there’s any team that could take a gut punch, it’s the 2024 Yanks. He also said, “there’s a reason why this is the best stadium in the world,” though the experience differs greatly between those playing the game and the ones watching.

The type of person who attends a World Series game in New York City—where ticket prices for the lower bowl were comfortably exceeding four digits—is fascinating, both on a sports fan level and on a societal level. More than half the people were wearing some sort of Yankee paraphernalia, sure, and a huge percentage of the fans were diehards. But in my 30 minutes or so before Game 3 milling through the sea of people on the concourse, I also saw a wealthy, but surprisingly accurate snapshot of America distilled. Children and parents unlocking a new stage of their relationship. The absurdly rich hoping to see and be seen. Older folks muttering things in a tone that certainly didn’t sound that way 25 years ago. Over here, a Ralph Lauren jacket with the Dodger logo on it. Over there, a gray crewneck sweatshirt with wording that I couldn’t quite make out until taking a few steps closer: “Barstool Golf.” The New York or Nowhere crowd was accounted for, but so were the salt-of-the-earth types whose only fashion concern was whether to wear their Judge or Soto jersey. Just like the country at large, this slice of American life was both frustrating and beautiful. (If you want to feel pessimistic about the future of this country, try navigating the concourse at a crowded sporting event.)

When the game started, though, all semblance of life was sucked out of the stadium within ten minutes, when Freddie Freeman clocked a first-inning home run. The more wholesome fans continued to offer encouragement to a slumping Judge throughout the evening, but his 0-for-3 night gave them no actual results to cherish. From there, the Dodgers added on while the Yankees went belly up. The most energy from the crowd in the late innings was injected by EDM artist Zedd’s “Clarity” blaring over the speakers. (It is, admittedly, a banger.) As I abandoned the aux box and went back to the main media area to prepare for the postgame pressers, I passed a resigned Yankee fan smoking a sneaky heater on one of the stadium’s neverending ramps. The graveyard of butts around him told me he wasn’t the only one.

Coming back for Game 4, there was some not-so-quiet chatter in baseball circles that we were gathering for a funeral. Nothing the Yankees had done had inspired true confidence, and the vibes on 161st Street matched that energy. There were way fewer people—both media and fans—filing in during the early hours, and the vibes were souring if not already curdled. The bozos who tried yanking the ball out of Mookie Betts’ glove certainly didn’t help, though they did add some much needed comic relief.

There are certainly jokes to be made about how those two briefly saved the season, how they showed more fire than most of the 26 men in uniform. But let’s be clear about something: putting hands on a player like that is loser shit of the highest order. The organization that exalts their own history, dignity, and status to a very tiring degree—the Yankees show a video before games in which players of yore gush about how much being a Yankee meant to them—is also the one that didn’t immediately ban the right field stooges! Steinbrenner would have given a booming speech about how they do not represent Yankee Global Enterprises, LLC, and seen to it that those men became classified as domestic terrorists.

One day later, the Yankees’ championship dreams died not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Dodgers’ game-winning surge in Game 5 was death by a thousand paper cuts: a standard single into left field, a broken bat dribbler that found a hole, a walk, a sacrifice fly, catcher’s interference, and another sac fly. The fabled baseball club in the Bronx lost a do-or-die game on their own soil like that, and with each Dodger at-bat, the Yankees felt smaller and smaller. They may have 27 rings, 21 retired numbers, and even the second-most wins in the whole league since hoisting their last trophy. But the things they’re really chasing now belong to the Dodgers, who happen to be the team with the most wins since 2009. Los Angeles not only has this World Series, they’ve also ascended to MLB big dog status, leaving the Yankees in their dust. They’re the team that you expect to win. The one that has the aura.