Everyone has their cultural blind spots.
No matter how dedicated any one person is to enjoying the arts and cultures of the world, there’s simply too much out there to be aware of everything, all of the time.
This is especially true if you dedicate your life to one specific craft or piece of culture. Painting with a broad brush, a cinephile might not know who played in the previous year’s Super Bowl, and a die-hard sports fan might not know who won Best Picture at the Oscars last year.
Playing by this admittedly hasty and incomplete logic, it’s safe to say that those enmeshed in the world of professional sports are thus likely to have some extremely blind blind spots, which is how Joe Girardi was left befuddled by the existence of anime while in the Yankees booth on Tuesday night.
The confusion began when play-by-play man Michael Kay brought up the massive lines that had formed outside of Yankee Stadium ahead of the game, prompting the following exchange:
Kay: There was a giveaway today.
Girardi: Yeah, what was it? They were lined up really early today.
Kay: Like, anime cards. And the line… around the stadium.
Girardi: They were what?
Kay: Some kind of anime cards, I believe.
Girardi: Anna Mae? Like the name?
Kay: No, no. Not Anna Mae. It’s called Naruto.
Girardi: Well, you said Anna Mae.
Kay: It’s like Japanese cartoons. And all the Yankees are dressed up on the scoreboard as if they’re in that anime.
End scene.
Delightfully, a baseball game is still being played in the background of this entire conversation. At one point, one of the cameramen helpfully shows the audience the scoreboard, which featured Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. depicted as a character from Naruto.
yall please listen to joe girardi trying to figure out wat anime is pic.twitter.com/6OyCU89xMd
— sports live tweeter yadira (@jonmoxIeys) September 9, 2026
Anyways, as Kay did his best to explain, it was Naruto Night at Yankee Stadium, with the Bronx Bombers celebrating the long-running anime by giving out a Yankees-Naruto crossover trading cards to the first 40,000 fans in attendance.
FIRST LOOK: Naruto x Yankees TCG Promo 2026 pic.twitter.com/11NJqxfCSh
— yankees.moodboard • vintage nyy apparel + archive (@ymoodboard) September 8, 2026
Given that the anime community can sometimes take <a href="https://comicvibe.com/gamestop-q2-earnings-exceed-estimates-as-collectibles-sales-rise-57/” title=”GameStop Q2 earnings exceed estimates as collectibles sales rise 57%”>collectibles pretty seriously, the demand was high.
BIG GROUP of ppl waiting to EXIT Yankee Stadium after only going to get the Naruto giveaway 😂 They never heard of Aaron Judge. I’m 💀 ahahha pic.twitter.com/LtnC6GRaeg
— Keith McPherson (@Keith_McPherson) September 8, 2026
The @Yankees security was dragging people out by their hair for cutting the line… only for the stadium to be half dead after the Naruto cards ran out 🥲 pic.twitter.com/2mdwksMTOS
— Christian Spencer (@C_Spencer_) September 8, 2026
Let this be a lesson to anyone who was in attendance at Yankee Stadium last night — that trading card you got and forgot about could be worth a good amount of money to the right buyer online. Believe it.
