Rooting for the Yankees is like...

[George Thompson]

I have been on leave these last few months and have been keeping up
with email only sporadically.  Some one of these days, you-uns will get
a deluge of tid-bids, but for the moment:

>From and articles dated October 6, 1953, reprinted in Red Smith on
BAseball, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000, p. 170:
"How can you root for the Yankees?" an actor named Jimmy Little had
asked a friend earlier in the series.  "It's like rooting for United
States Steel."

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bapopik at AOL.COM
Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 9:22 pm
Subject: Re: Rooting for the Yankees is like...

> 21 October 1953, Sporting News, pg. 1, col. 5:
> Give or take a syllable or two, the most significant quip to come
> out of  the
> World Series press box during the late departed classic was: "Rooting
> against the Yankees is like rooting against U.S. Steel." The
> author could  scarcely
> have called upon a more powerful simile.
> ...
> It ranks up there with the one coined after someone had dusted off
> PhilRizzuto and in the next inning three rival batters had to sit
> down in a hurry to
> keep from being brained. The crack then was: "Throwing at Phil is
> like hitting
> a  cop."
> ...
> The last crack may expire eventually from disuse because there is
> only one
> Phil Rizzuto and he isn't getting any younger, but they're likely
> to be talking
> about, and linking, the Yankees and the nation's No. 1 steel
> corporation for
> some time to come.
> ...
> ...
> 6 January 1954, Sporting News, pg. 36, col. 1:
> Best gag line in the stands came from Jim Little, the TV actor,
> who said,
> "Rooting against the Yankees is like rooting against United States
> Steel."...
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------
> --------------------------------------------------------
> LARRY URDANG COMMENT ON ANS-L
> ...
> It was a minor thing that brought forth that comment.
> ...
> This is all part of my promotion for the world tour of: THE TWO
> LARRYS!URDANG AND HORN! LINGUISTICS! LAFFS!
>