A displaced fan writes...

Confessions of a Yankees fan abroad

Jim Maceda

Baseball

First published October 21 in MSNBC.

If you're in the US, it's easy. Watch F*x. In Canada, watch F*x. In Japan, watch Nippon 1. But in Germany..?

Nothing has taxed my ingenuity or tested my spirit more than trying to watch my team win a World Series on television.
I’ve covered wars, revolts, revolutions, famines, riots, and natural catastrophes, and reported from 97 countries on five continents. But nothing has taxed my ingenuity or tested my spirit more than trying to watch my team — the New York Yankees — win a World Series on television.
IT WASN’T always like that; in the 1950s, the Yankees, the Series, and television were as certain to me as the Good Humor Ice Cream truck at 4 p.m. But I suppose I’ve always been a frustrated Yankees fan. Even as a kid, on the streets of Queens, I swore by Mickey, and Whitey, and Yogi — while all the other kids on my stickball team were for the Dodgers. I hated Duke Snyder, Gil Hodges, and those Brooklyn bums.
I thanked God when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. I cried when my father said we were moving to L.A., too.
Since I left California after college for a career in television journalism abroad, living out my Yankee fantasies hasn’t gotten any easier. The sports pages of the International Herald Tribune have soothed me like a drug. But Octobers, for the most part, are grim.

RADIO REVOLUTION
In Iran, the Revolutionary Guard jammed the local Voice of America station, so good-bye Ron Guidry and the ’78 Series. (I had managed to catch — again, thanks to VOA — one game of the ’72 Series (Munson), on assignment in Greece. But, in those dying days of the Colonels, paranoia was so rampant that I was arrested and jailed as an American spy by the seventh inning.)
For years, it seemed, the Yankees never made it to the World Series, which was good, because Octobers found me in places like Beirut, or Bangladesh, or Baghdad or Beijing ... a million miles, or so it felt, from that other hellhole that begins with a “b”: the Bronx.
One fall, based in Manila, I had a 120-ft tower built on my property, because I was (wrongly) advised, that was the only way to get the Armed Forces Network (AFN) television signal, broadcast from Clark Air Base, about 50 miles beyond the surrounding hills.

For years, it seemed, the Yankees never made it to the World Series, which was good, because Octobers found me in places like Beirut, or Bangladesh, or Bagdad or Beijing.
The tower cost $1,200, and, while installing the antenna high above my house, one Filipino worker fell and nearly died. But, by Game One, the cement was set, the cables connected, everything was a go — except the signal. So weakened, it turned out, by the time it hit the valley where my house was, it slunk in around five feet (and not 120 feet) off the ground. I got a snowy picture, bending a clothes hangar out the window.
But, who wanted to watch the Blue Jays or the Tigers? I watched CNN instead.

CIVILIZED VIEWING?
By the time the Yankees finally made it back to the Series, in October 1996, things were looking up: I was based in Germany, in the heart of European civilization. Many Germans speak English. My God, there’s even a German baseball league! And with the advent of NBC’s pan-European television channel, NBC Europe, I could count, at least, on day-after coverage of every game.
So, I cracked open a beer, kicked up the bed sheets (even delayed, the games aired between 1 and 3 a.m.), and got a call from NBC’s New York assignment desk.
Russian General Alexander Lebed was kicking up his own storm of controversy in Moscow, threatening a coup even as Boris Yeltsin limped through his latest bout with “pneumonia.” I got on the first plane to Moscow.
The assignment, like the Series, lasted seven days.
Which brings us to this week, and the glorious 1998 Yankees, perhaps the greatest team to ever play the game, pardon my un-Mets-like manners. I am in Frankfurt, between assignments, and the war in Kosovo is fading like a Cone slider. But can I actually watch the games?
No!

I cracked open a beer, kicked up the bed sheets, and got a call from NBC’s New York assignment desk.
NBC Europe is broadcasting the Series live, from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. German time, but only on high-band cable, which my four year old TV isn’t equipped to handle. The AFN signal used to be strong in Frankfurt, but that was before most of the U.S. Army bases reduced staffing levels. Today, the signal dies about 20 feet beyond nearby Wiesbaden Air Force Base.
So, what do I do? I listen to the games, on AFN radio, and on earphones, so as not to disturb my wife who — strangely enough — maintains normal sleeping habits, even in October.
Which makes it more frustrating than ever. I can tell you David Wells’ ERA, or the speed of Jeter’s throw to first, or Bernie Williams’ right-hand batting average, but don’t ask me about this Series, unless I’ve read it on the MSNBC web site.
Maybe it’s a sign of age, or the accumulation of decades of just trying to be a Yankees fan abroad. For whatever reason, I wake up at daylight. Remove the earphones. Turn off the radio. Yawn. And wonder what ever happened after the Yankees, or the Padres, loaded the bases, with no outs.
Only then, fleetingly, do I have another thought: maybe it’s time to go home to the U.S.

NBC’s Jim Maceda travels just about everywhere from his home base in Germany.

Jim may wish to consider taking a week's vacation in Britain next time: Channel Five has live coverage of all the World Series games.

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Create: January 16, 1999


	Nothing has taxed my ingenuity or tested my spirit more than trying to watch my team win a World Series on television.	I’ve covered wars, revolts, revolutions, famines, riots, and natural catastrophes, and reported from 97 countries on five continents. But nothing has taxed my ingenuity or tested my spirit more than trying to watch my team — the New York Yankees — win a World Series on television. IT WASN’T always like that; in the 1950s, the Yankees, the Series, and television were as certain to me as the Good Humor Ice Cream truck at 4 p.m. But I suppose I’ve always been a frustrated Yankees fan. Even as a kid, on the streets of Queens, I swore by Mickey, and Whitey, and Yogi — while all the other kids on my stickball team were for the Dodgers. I hated Duke Snyder, Gil Hodges, and those Brooklyn bums. I thanked God when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. I cried when my father said we were moving to L.A., too. Since I left California after college for a career in television journalism abroad, living out my Yankee fantasies hasn’t gotten any easier. The sports pages of the International Herald Tribune have soothed me like a drug. But Octobers, for the most part, are grim. RADIO REVOLUTION In Iran, the Revolutionary Guard jammed the local Voice of America station, so good-bye Ron Guidry and the ’78 Series. (I had managed to catch — again, thanks to VOA — one game of the ’72 Series (Munson), on assignment in Greece. But, in those dying days of the Colonels, paranoia was so rampant that I was arrested and jailed as an American spy by the seventh inning.) For years, it seemed, the Yankees never made it to the World Series, which was good, because Octobers found me in places like Beirut, or Bangladesh, or Baghdad or Beijing ... a million miles, or so it felt, from that other hellhole that begins with a “b”: the Bronx. One fall, based in Manila, I had a 120-ft tower built on my property, because I was (wrongly) advised, that was the only way to get the Armed Forces Network (AFN) television signal, broadcast from Clark Air Base, about 50 miles beyond the surrounding hills.
	For years, it seemed, the Yankees never made it to the World Series, which was good, because Octobers found me in places like Beirut, or Bangladesh, or Bagdad or Beijing.	The tower cost $1,200, and, while installing the antenna high above my house, one Filipino worker fell and nearly died. But, by Game One, the cement was set, the cables connected, everything was a go — except the signal. So weakened, it turned out, by the time it hit the valley where my house was, it slunk in around five feet (and not 120 feet) off the ground. I got a snowy picture, bending a clothes hangar out the window. But, who wanted to watch the Blue Jays or the Tigers? I watched CNN instead. CIVILIZED VIEWING? By the time the Yankees finally made it back to the Series, in October 1996, things were looking up: I was based in Germany, in the heart of European civilization. Many Germans speak English. My God, there’s even a German baseball league! And with the advent of NBC’s pan-European television channel, NBC Europe, I could count, at least, on day-after coverage of every game. So, I cracked open a beer, kicked up the bed sheets (even delayed, the games aired between 1 and 3 a.m.), and got a call from NBC’s New York assignment desk. Russian General Alexander Lebed was kicking up his own storm of controversy in Moscow, threatening a coup even as Boris Yeltsin limped through his latest bout with “pneumonia.” I got on the first plane to Moscow. The assignment, like the Series, lasted seven days. Which brings us to this week, and the glorious 1998 Yankees, perhaps the greatest team to ever play the game, pardon my un-Mets-like manners. I am in Frankfurt, between assignments, and the war in Kosovo is fading like a Cone slider. But can I actually watch the games? No!
	I cracked open a beer, kicked up the bed sheets, and got a call from NBC’s New York assignment desk.	NBC Europe is broadcasting the Series live, from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. German time, but only on high-band cable, which my four year old TV isn’t equipped to handle. The AFN signal used to be strong in Frankfurt, but that was before most of the U.S. Army bases reduced staffing levels. Today, the signal dies about 20 feet beyond nearby Wiesbaden Air Force Base. So, what do I do? I listen to the games, on AFN radio, and on earphones, so as not to disturb my wife who — strangely enough — maintains normal sleeping habits, even in October. Which makes it more frustrating than ever. I can tell you David Wells’ ERA, or the speed of Jeter’s throw to first, or Bernie Williams’ right-hand batting average, but don’t ask me about this Series, unless I’ve read it on the MSNBC web site. Maybe it’s a sign of age, or the accumulation of decades of just trying to be a Yankees fan abroad. For whatever reason, I wake up at daylight. Remove the earphones. Turn off the radio. Yawn. And wonder what ever happened after the Yankees, or the Padres, loaded the bases, with no outs. Only then, fleetingly, do I have another thought: maybe it’s time to go home to the U.S. NBC’s Jim Maceda travels just about everywhere from his home base in Germany.