Yankees fans have got to stop traveling to boo Joey Gallo in road games

Though you've got to suspect this won't happen as much when Yankees fans have to travel further than Tampa-to-Fort Myers for road games, it's still worth stating out loud. After the reputational ding we took last year, it's probably not the best look to hop in the van and hit the road just so you can boo Joey Gallo.

Whether you agree with the characterization of Gallo's time in the Bronx or not, when he departed last summer, he claimed he felt like a "piece of s**t" and didn't want to set foot in the streets of New York. Even if that didn't seem representative of the way you would treat Gallo in public or in private, it's still the way he felt, and no amount of Michael Kay ranting can change that.

Did Gallo earn the fans' ire? Absolutely! He was one of the worst regular performers in Yankees history, hitting .160 and .159 in back-to-back years without the requisite power to make up for it (.707 and .621 OPS marks after posting an .869 OPS during the first half of 2021 in Texas). He came to New York as a very specific type of player with an unappealing veneer, especially for the old heads. He left New York as someone who couldn't channel any of that previous success, and only brought the ugly elements. He was an extremely bad fit.

Mercifully, though, that part of his career has passed. He's trying to move on and thrive with the Minnesota Twins. And yet ... here are those Yankee fans again, driving down the Florida interstate to boo Gallo in a game with zero implications on the standings. Can we just acknowledge that Gallo was bad -- relentlessly bad -- in pinstripes and move on? If making him feel uncomfortable last year was a tough look, this is an unjustifiable one.

Yankees fans actually don't need to travel to boo Joey Gallo, Aaron Hicks

Oh, yeah, and don't drive to Ft. Myers and yell at Aaron Hicks, too. He's, uh, actually still on your team and will probably start. You might not want that to happen, but if it has to happen, you should at least be rooting for him to perform well. Any other desire would be not normal.

Prior to the game Monday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone reflected on Gallo's disastrous final few months in the Bronx:

It was tough for him to get on track. … Sometimes you can want it too much and get in your way a little bit. The game is hard. And I never questioned his intent, his commitment, his work ethic. He never ran from anything. He never wanted out of the lineup, anything like that. He faced it head-on.

Gallo, a lifelong Yankee fan, desperately wanted to make it here, proving in the process that he could make it anywhere. Instead, the exact opposite conclusion was drawn from his tenure in pinstripes, and he's now trying to pick up the pieces in the midwest.

It's probably a good idea not to head to his new place of work and remind him of the 140-game stretch that threatened to mentally shatter him. Whether you scream at him or not, he's always going to know he wasn't a good Yankee. He won't forget it. Best to leave the past where it stands, especially if you don't want Aaron Hicks writing the same hit piece about you this July.