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Instant Coffee Isn’t Always The Answer

June 11, 2009   ·     ·   Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees

This writer is an old guy who grew up before cable TV, microwave ovens, cell phones, laptops and instant news on the World Wide Web. Our world has become a place where there is no time for anything.

Instant gratification is the only answer.

I remember when my grandmother grew almost all the food we ate. Starting with hand plowing the garden and planting the seeds and living off last year’s canned food until the new fresh garden produce was available.

Now no one has the patience to wait for anything to sprout from a seed. No one has the time to actually walk to the garden and pick their own food and then, heaven forbid, actually cook if for themselves.

No one has time to even go into a restaurant and wait for someone else to cook it for you. Now everyone has to pull into the drive through to the point that it takes longer waiting for the line of cars to pass than if you had gone inside.

In the small town where this old guy lives you can even go to the corner grocery store and get a cheeseburger wrapped in tin foil that has been sitting under a warming light for three hours and you can have lunch in two minutes.

No one has time to wait for a whole pot of coffee to brew. Now you have individual coffee pods that are ready in just seconds.

Or if you are really impatient you can spoon some instant coffee in a cup and have it faster from the microwave.

The same is true with our sports teams.

Yankee fans are not patient. They have no time for Chien-Ming Wang or Phil Hughes to develop.

They have no memory for 2005, 2006, 2007 or even 2008. They only know about right now.

They only know that Chien-Ming Wang has not brought them instant gratification. There is no time to wait for him to work his way through his problems, not in New York and not in Scranton.

There is no time to contemplate. There is no time to consider.

There is no time to realize that following the lis franc injury in June 2008, Wang was not permitted any physical activity that would have put strain on his right foot until he came to Spring Training.

We only know frustration. We only know denial.

We only know we had high expectations and that part of the source of those hopes has let us down so far this year.

This old guy knows that I can get some things fast. This old guy also knows that some of the things I get fast aren’t worth the trouble it took to get them.

I am still an old guy who would prefer to take the time to make my own egg salad sandwich to bring to lunch so I can avoid the three hour old cheeseburger somebody else made.

I am also the old guy who would prefer to grind my own coffee beans and brew a whole pot of coffee for my wife and myself rather than spoon instant in a cup and wait impatiently for the bell on the microwave to ding.

I am also old enough to have some compassion for those who struggle and want not to give up on them too early. I am also the old guy who remembers that a baseball season is still 162 games and six months.

I would urge all my fellow Yankee fans to look at Wang again and realize that instant coffee is not always the right answer.

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