Every sports fan has been there. You are having a friendly conversation with a new acquaintance when it hits you; this is the dumbest person you have ever met. There’s no escape. The moronic statements keep flowing out of his or her mouth and you start looking for a window to jump out of.

Luckily, the How to Talk to a Yankee Fan Institute came up with a handbook to help you avoid these horrible situations.

But this isn’t just an instruction manual for Red Sox fans; ‘How to Talk to a Yankee Fan’ is a book that can appeal to anyone. Even fans of the Bronx Bombers can insert their most hated team into any joke and still have a few laughs.

Andy Wasif, one of the book’s authors, graduated from Syracuse University before touring the country with a comedy show. He teamed with Rick D’Elia to put together this hilarious collection of baseball comedy.

The book dissects and analyzes every part of being a Yankee fan. The authors define the different breeds that exist in the Bronx Zoo, from ‘Jersey Mall Rats’ to ‘Bandwagon Bi-Yatches’ and ‘Matsuimen.’ They instruct readers how to get through the Yankee Spin Zone and even how to break down barriers and make friends with Yankee fans.

The HTTTYF Institute wants readers to know why Yankee fans say what they do, so they can better understand and their heads won’t explode. Also, the book teaches that knowing your enemy is the first step to outsmarting them, even as easy as that is with certain fans.

The best part of the book for everyone, including Yankee fans, is the chapter made up of Yankee jokes. The reason every fan can enjoy these is because ‘Yankee fan’ can be replaced by any team’s fan. So if you actually have a beef with Marlins fans, you can go to town on those fair-weather fish.

In fairness to Yankee lovers, they are probably unjustly singled out as a whole in the book. There are dumb, fair-weather fans of every team, from the Red Sox all the way to the Royals. The book is more of a commentary on how to deal with those fans, because they are usually the people that drive the diehards insane.

In the interest of transparency, I must admit I am a Red Sox fan. I know many Sox fans that fit the stereotypical Yankee depictions in the book, and they should be insulted at as much as their counterparts from New York.

Above anything else, this is the perfect book for the bathroom. You can pick it up, read a chapter, then go back to it the next day. Just be careful you don’t get too into it and spend a whole day on the toilet.

SIDEBAR

‘Fun Facts’ from the HTTTYF Institute:

‘4,000 Yankee fans polled were asked what the capital of New York is. Eighty-nine (more than four percent) said the capital of New York was George Steinbrenner.

‘Thirty-six percent of all Yankee fans acquire their baseball knowledge from beer commercials.’

‘Studies show that only three out of eight Yankee fans show up for work the day after their team is humiliated.’

‘In 1999, Yankee fans swiped more than 15,000 items from fans of other teams, including hats, souvenir balls, signed scorecards, ice cream sandwiches and a toddler’s pacifier.’

‘In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Yankee fans wore different colors when attending games. Their hats were a lighter shade of blue with a narrower N and Y set on the hat in orange. They revisited this merchandise in 1986 before settling for the retro monochromatic dark blue and white that you see them wearing today.’

Published on February 26, 2007 at 12:00 pm