There’s a lot that you can say about us Yankee fans, and we’ll either tacitly acknowledge it or politely ignore you. You can call us spoiled, entitled, what have you and it really won’t get under our skin. We’ve heard it before and we’ll hear it again. If that’s the price to pay for a team that’s a perennial contender, we’ll gladly pay it.

When, however, you call us apathetic, we have a problem.

See, that’s just, plain, wrong.

I know it’s tempting to look at the businessmen in the Legends Seats and think “oh, Yankees fans don’t care”, but, look, I’ve been in New York–not just in October, but in April and May and June and July and August and September–and I know how much this city breathes baseball.

You think we don’t care?

Maybe you’ve never actually seen the Daily News or New York Post when the back pages compete to see who can more accurately sum up the zeitgeist after that evening’s game–a win and all is right with the world; a loss and humanity itself is doomed.

You think we don’t care?

Baseball is like oxygen in New York. Everything is just different in the summer, and it’s not just the weather. We love our team so much that we can tell you not just that Pettitte wears 46 and Mariano 42, but that Mike Pagliarulo wore 13 and Tony Fernandez was the shortstop before Derek Jeter If we can’t tell you where we were for Bucky Dent’s home run–in my case because I hadn’t been born yet–we can tell you where we were on October 17, 2003 when Aaron Boone inscribed his name in immortality’s ink.

We’re Yankee fans because it’s often in our blood, passed down from fathers to daughters, mothers to sons, as much as it is the traditional way. The Yankees are our family (extended as it might be) and you care about your family.

Sure, we have our faults. We may have a strange obsession with acquiring jewelry in late October, might be slightly blasphemous when we hail Rivera as a deity and yes, on occasion might get a little pushy on the subway. That does not mean we are apathetic.

So, yes, the Texas Rangers are in the 2010 World Series and the Yankees are not. It happens. It’s baseball. There are up and down years (and no, reaching the ALCS does not technically count as a down year), you take the good with the bad.

Thing is, no matter what, come next spring, the Yankees will be playing again, and we’ll be watching.

Watching, living, breathing baseball.

Anything else, for a Yankee fan, is simply unacceptable.