As the World Series heads down I-95 to sunny Florida tonight, I can't help but worry for my Yankees in that humid wasteland of palm trees and elderly Jews. I was at home Saturday watching the Yankees lose in a terribly boring showing, but nevertheless, I could feel an energy in the air diametrically opposed to what I am feeling now, back in Waltham.I had to listen to Game two on the radio, driving the 200 miles from my home - which is located reassuringly six miles from Yankee stadium - to my college home, threateningly within 13 miles of Fenway Park. As I drove, and fumbled with my radio to find an appropriate station, I felt a pro-Yankee energy dissipate into static and be replaced by a dark cloud of Yankee hatred extending for miles from its epicenter at 4 Yawkey Way.

Now with the Series all tied up, I look forward apprehensively to watching the Yankees in my suite, which is home to four souls from the New York metro area, including three from within walking distance of the 4-train to Yankee Stadium. The atmosphere in my suite is only slightly shielded from the anger of Red Sox fans that permeates the walls of every town and home in New England. I am frightened to be a Yankee fan here, or as Red Sox fans call me, a front-runner.

My friends at home know Matt Bettinger is no Yankee front-runner. I was raised on a terrible Yankee squad that included the certainly great, but hardly reassuring Don Mattingly, Paul O'Neill, Bernie Williams, Scott Kamieniecki, Jimmey Key and Wade Boggs, always more a Red Sock than a Yankee. However many World Series rings the historic Yankees held, I knew only a team in the Bronx that had talent, but never enough to make it to the postseason. The Yankees finally made it in 1995, and I have been elated to watch them win ever since. I do apologize, but I am not going to cease to love my team just because they're good. Isn't that what everyone wishes for?

I must admit, however, that I made a horrifying discovery while I was home this past weekend. It turns out that perhaps I should be a Mets fan.

I always knew my paternal grandfather had been a New York Giants fan; he grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side and really had no choice in the matter. Somehow, though, I always had this idea that he changed allegiances in some great spectacle in which he renounced the National League and came on board with the real Big Leagues. As it turns out, my father, having no personal allegiance to any team left in New York, decided to go out for the Yankees.

My maternal grandfather, who grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, was of course a Dodgers fan, but like my father's father, grandpa ceased to love baseball quite as much when his team fled New York City for the West Coast. But of course I never felt any pressure to follow in my mother's baseball-rooting lineage; after all, it's only your father that matters when it comes to sports.

For those unfamiliar with baseball history - readers who are now scratching their heads at the idea of the New York Giants playing baseball instead of football - the baseball Giants used to play at the Polo Grounds in Harlem, but were moved to San Francisco in 1958. The Brooklyn Dodgers had played at Ebbets Field in Flatbush until they were moved to Los Angeles earlier that same year.

As both the Giants and the Dodgers were N.L. teams, most of their fans drifted aimlessly for four years until the Mets brought New York baseball back to the National League in 1962. By the rules of place of residence and paternal tradition, my grandfather should have become a Mets fan and my father should have followed suit. But my grandfather didn't care, and my father had had enough of the National League.

Now I am faced with a conundrum, however; is my Yankee-fan status tarnished by my family history or should I go on rooting as if nothing has happened? I don't think I'd even know how to root for the Mets if I wanted to.

And so, anticipating the many screams of "Yankees suck!" into the cold Boston night as I attempt to root for my Yankees, I wonder how my previously strong defenses will hold up. Perhaps, as I shed a tear, I will join the howlers in their chant. I doubt that will be the case, but - oh, God - I really do wish I could hate the Yankees.