the Yankees as a team

The New York Yankees function throughout The Old Man and the Sea as a fixed point of reference for Santiago, a symbol of unassailable excellence and a vital link to a world beyond his solitary skiff. For the old man, the team represents a standard of performance and grace under pressure against which he measures his own epic contest with the marlin. His unwavering faith in the Yankees, and especially in their star player Joe DiMaggio, provides a source of psychological strength and a framework for understanding his own ordeal.

Identity and Symbolic Meaning

Santiago’s relationship with the Yankees is established from the very first evening of the story, when he declares with absolute certainty, "The Yankees cannot lose." This is not a casual opinion but a statement of faith, immediately challenged by the boy Manolin, who fears the Cleveland Indians. Santiago counters by invoking the team's talismanic figure: "Have faith in the Yankees my son. Think of the great DiMaggio." For Santiago, the Yankees are not merely a baseball team; they are the embodiment of a winning spirit, a force that transcends the ordinary fluctuations of luck and form. This belief is so central that he later, while locked in his struggle at sea, imagines that the great DiMaggio would be proud of him, directly linking his own physical suffering and endurance to the standards of the team's hero.

A Measure of Worth and Suffering

As Santiago endures the prolonged battle with the marlin, his thoughts repeatedly return to the Yankees and DiMaggio as a benchmark for his own performance. He wonders, "Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one?" and immediately answers himself with conviction: "I am sure he would and more since he is young and strong." This internal dialogue reveals that Santiago uses the imagined fortitude of the Yankee star to validate his own resolve. He also reflects on DiMaggio’s famous bone spur, a flaw that the player overcomes to perform perfectly, and contrasts it with his own physical afflictions—his cramped hand, his cut palms, his aching back. By framing his suffering in terms of DiMaggio’s, Santiago elevates his own struggle from a mere physical contest to a test of character worthy of a champion. He tells himself, "I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel."

Connection to the World and the Past

The Yankees also serve as a crucial thread connecting Santiago to the community and the world he has left behind. On his first night, he reads the baseball news in the newspaper given to him by Perico, and he and Manolin discuss the teams and players, from the great John J. McGraw to Dick Sisler. This shared knowledge is a form of intimacy and a ritual that reinforces their bond. Later, alone on the sea, the thought of the Yankees becomes a comfort against isolation. He muses, "It would be wonderful to do this with a radio," a wish to hear the baseball scores and feel less alone. The team represents a normal, social world of competition and shared experience, a stark contrast to the primal, solitary conflict he is engaged in. His thoughts of the Yankees are a conscious effort to keep his mind clear and to "think of other things" when the physical and mental strain becomes overwhelming.

Contrast and Thematic Significance

The Yankees’ invincibility in Santiago’s mind stands in deliberate contrast to his own situation as a man who has gone eighty-four days without a fish and is considered salao, the worst form of unlucky. His faith in the team is a form of vicarious participation in success, a way of maintaining hope when his own fortunes are at their lowest. Yet, this faith is not naive. After the sharks have destroyed his prize, Santiago reflects on his own actions and the nature of his struggle, and his thoughts return to the Yankees in a more complex way. He considers the idea of sin, wondering if it was a sin to kill the fish, and then connects this to his identity: "You were born to be a fisherman as the fish was born to be a fish. San Pedro was a fisherman as was the father of the great DiMaggio." Here, the Yankees are woven into a meditation on fate, vocation, and the moral weight of killing. The team, and DiMaggio’s fisherman father, become part of a lineage that justifies his life’s work, even as he questions its ultimate meaning. The Yankees, therefore, are not just a symbol of victory but a complex emblem of the human need for heroes, the search for meaning in suffering, and the enduring connection between an individual’s private battle and the public world of shared myth.