Here’s young Gerrit Cole rooting on the Yankees with an awesome sign during the 2001 World Series

It was fate!

You have to love when the stars align and a player who grew up rooting for a team ends up with that franchise.

That appears to be the case for Gerrit Cole.

Despite the fact that he was born and raised in California, where he’d eventually pitch for UCLA, Cole was a Yankees die-hard growing up. He was initially drafted by the franchise in the first round of the 2008 MLB draft before he turned them down to go to college and was eventually drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2011.

Now, after agreeing to a record-breaking contract, Cole is a New York Yankee.

Back when he was 11 years old, Cole was in attendance at Games 6 and 7 of the 2001 World Series, which you may recall that the Yankees lost. Cole was snapped holding a sign showing his Pinstripes fandom, a photo that’s being shared everywhere now that he’s a member of the Yanks:

More on that moment from The Athletic:

Cole, then 11, hailed from Orange County, not far from Angel Stadium in Anaheim. Yet his parents had familia roots in upstate New York, and his father Mark had shared his affection for the Yankees. It didn’t hurt, of course, that Cole came of age during the dynastic period in the late 1990s, or that he revered closer Mariano Rivera. With the team back in the World Series and facing the Diamondbacks in 2001, the Coles traveled to Phoenix for Games 6 and 7.

The Yankees lost both games, coming apart in heartbreaking fashion in Game 7, but the image of a devoted young fan with an artistic sign was enough to intrigue William Perlman, a photographer at the Newark Star-Ledger. He snapped the photo in the moments before Game 6. It appeared soon after. Seven years later, it surfaced once more when the Yankees selected the same kid in the first round of the 2008 draft.

This is just the best.

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