Twenty-seven titles.

It's almost hard to fathom.  Some of us have only seen a fraction of them, dating back through what can only be called "The Steinbrenner Era."

I was three years old in 1977.  I wish I could tell you I have fond memories of that October, of Reggie Jackson in one of the few performances that can be put above what Hideki Matsui did in game six of the 2009 World Series.  All I have are vague memories of Reggie and of a baseball field swarmed by a pillaging crowd, ballplayers running for their lives to celebrate in the sanctuary of the clubhouse.

I was awestruck by the site of that crowd on my dinky little rabbit ear television.  Such mayhem, such reckless abandon, such lawlessness over the outcome of a sports game.

I was hooked.

Truth be told, that could have been 1977.  Or maybe it was 1976 when Chris Chambliss sent the rival Kansas City Royals home on one swing.

It doesn't matter what game it was. I was too young to perceive baseball beyond the most knee-jerk of reactions.  I lived and died with every play.  When Reggie made an out, I would immediately ask my dad when he would be up to bat again.

I didn't know Reggie and Thurman disliked each other.  I didn't care.  The greatest show on Earth, a three ring circus of Yankees, Dodgers, and the craziest crowd of people ever assembled outside of five cent beer night were showing every evening on my television.

As a kid, I don't think I ever understood why I loved baseball so much.  I never saw the Yankees win a World Series in the 1980s.  When they met the Dodgers again in 1981, my favorite player, Dave Winfield, went just 1 for 22 with five walks.  After looking so strong the first two games, the Yankees crumbled and lost in six.

I kept watching and the Yankees kept winning, although not enough to make the playoffs.  Then, Don Mattingly arrived and there was someone for me to latch onto.  I didn't totally get free agency or the concept of a homegrown player.  All I understood was this first baseman put the cool black lines under his eyes and seemed to get a hit in almost every at-bat.  And he seemed like a stand-up guy. 

By 1989, it became apparent that Mattingly's peak years had passed despite being just twenty-eight years old.  The Yankees' peak went with them.  They slipped below .500 and spent the four years trying to make their way back.

I'm sure this poor little sob story about a mere four years a frustration brings tears to your eyes.  It shouldn't, obviously.  The Yankees have managed to be a very successful franchise for an extended period of time, mostly because they have the resources to overcome even George Steinbrenner's decisions.  It's all been built on the concept he has beaten into our brains from the moment he bought the team: we are history, we are baseball, we are great.

That's been the interesting thing about writing about the Yankees and interacting with people on the internet.  Most non-Yankee fans believe all Yankee fans to be arrogant, greedy, loud-mouthed battery throwers with an over-inflated sense of entitlement.  We're all little versions of George Steinbrenner, more than happyto tell you about the greatness of the New York Yankees on a daily basis .

That's only partially true.

My biggest conflict in writing about the Yankees is answering the question, "why are you a Yankee fan?"  I try my best to write objectively about the Yankees and their relative place within the game.  I don't take delight in the Yankees financial advantage over the rest of baseball.  If anything, I'm bothered by it, too.

There's plenty of ways to rationalize it: What else should they do with the money?  Are they not entitled to make as much money as they can?  Would you rather the players make the money or the owners?  If more owners cared as much as the Steinbrenners, baseball would be a better game.

Maybe.  There comes a point, though, where it all gets a little embarrassing.

This winter, the Yankees spent a boatload of money on three players:  CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, and Mark Teixeira.  I think we were all expecting the Yankees to sign Sabathia.  The Yankees lack of a true front of the rotation starter pretty much guaranteed that they were going to pay whatever price to get Sabathia in pinstripes.

Burnett was obviously overpaid, both in years and in dollars.

But Teixeira... That was the straw that broke the camel's back. 

When that signing was announced, I finally knew what it felt like to be one of those people in television commercials that gets a Lexus for Christmas.  Those commercials are completely absurd and incomprehensible to about 99% percent of the population and so was the signing of Teixeira.

Sure, the Yankees kept their payroll at the same level as 2008, even going eight million less than the previous season.  It's not as if they missed the playoffs and tacked another $20 million onto their budget.  That assumes, of course, that having a payroll 33% higher than the second largest payroll in baseball is reasonable, which it probably isn't.

As if dropping $240 million on pitching in the span of two weeks didn't ruffle any feathers, the Teixeira signing put the exclamation point on everything that people hate about the Yankees.  After weeks of dismissals by Brian Cashman, claiming the Yankees had no more money, somehow at the last moment he dug through the couch pillows, emptied out the coin jar and scraped together an extra $180 million to steal Teixeira away from the Red Sox.

As a fan, I was stunned.  I was embarrassed.  I started to feel like part of the problem.

Big new ballpark, costing over a billion dollars (which I don't like very much, by the way), three new players costing $50 million between them for 2009, and the scorn of a baseball world that actually started to value draft picks over Proven Veterans ©.

I relished in the empty seats behind and around home plate.  They deserve it, I thought, to be embarrassed on national television by Joe Buck for what they're charging for those seats, pushing long time ticket holders out in an effort to get corporations to spend more and more money.  They deserve to be held accountable for their greed and miscalculation of an economy in crisis while their crosstown counterparts build a family-friendly park with prices that are more reasonable.

But I still rooted for the Yankees.  Every walk-off win, I was excited.  Even Alex Rodriguez, who neither shocked nor surprised me with his admission in February, brought a smile to my face with his first home run of the season in Baltimore.  It wasn't a "fairytale," as Michael Kay blurted out in his melodramatic way, but it was exciting.

I rooted throughout the summer when they somehow closed the gap on their 0-8 record versus the Red Sox and went 11-4 in the postseason.  I can't help myself.  This team became a part of my life when my skull hadn't finished hardening yet.  They've been a part of my consciousness for as long as I can remember.

I got a little misty when the Yankees won the World Series in 1996.  I'll admit it.  I had never seen them win before, at least, not that I could remember.  It felt like the culmination of twenty plus years of work finally paying off.  No one expected them to win, especially after going down two games to love to the Atlanta Braves, who already seemed poised to become the team of the decade.  That was a team that everyone could root for, not because manager Joe Torre's brother Frank needed a heart or because their other brother Rocco died earlier in the year.  It was a team of youngsters, of farmhands producing on the major league level.

Not this year.  I was happy when the Yankees won the World Series this year, but I wasn't proud.  Not like 1996.  This was a team that dug itself out of last year's malaise with money.  All of the Yankee stereotypes came together in one season and brought home a championship for all the world to hate.

They may not always make me proud, but they're my team.  I can't change that now.  I can't bring myself to root for the Mets or adopt another team at this stage in my life.  I have too much invested in the Yankees, too much history, too much childhood, too much love.

We're not all bad, us Yankee fans.  You may not hear us on talk radio or read our comments on ESPN, but we're out there, and we know how you feel.

And trust me: we get it.

Scott Ham writes about the Yankees at The Bronx View.  Feel free to reach him via email.