Was expansion for baseball a mistake?

 

I mean, not that it was done, but how it was done?

Would everyone have been better off if the existing major leagues had, say, started a whole new league—or two—where teams would have had a fighting chance, right from the start, to win pennants?  And, uh, games?

This World Series, as you may have heard, will make the first one since 1980 in which both teams—only one of them an expansion club—had not previously won a Series.  

What's more, it will be only the fourth—albeit the fourth since 2015—in which both teams were expansion clubs.

Obviously, the number of major-league teams needed to expand beyond the same, 16 clubs in 11 cities that existed from 1903-1952. But was adding clubs two-by-two and four-by-four the best way to do it?

The sad fact of the matter is that of the 14 teams that have come into existence since 1961, only one of them—the Houston Astros—has a winning record. And just barely, with a .503 winning percentage. 

Take away the electronic cheating, and maybe nobody "new" has won as many as they've lost. And all told, expansion clubs have won only 34 pennants and (after this Series) 15 World Series.

That comes to about 1 World Series and maybe 2.25 pennants apiece—a wretched record

All expansion teams, let us remember, have now been in existence for at least 29 seasons. Some, for as long as 66 years. 

I mean, when the Yankees had been in existence for 66 years, they had already had the greatest, longest-running dynasty in North American sports...and collapsed.

The lack of winning is astonishing. Five of the 14 expansionists—the Brewers and Rays, but also the Padres, Mariners, and Rockies—have never won a World Series (though of course that number will be reduced by one this fall). 

The Mariners, after 50 seasons, have never even reached a Series. The Marlins and Rockies, in 34 tries apiece, have managed that, thanks to the wild card—but neither has ever won so much as won a division title. 

What gives?

The cities chosen have generally worked out all right. Attendance has usually been good, even outstanding.

In the course of their existence, three teams have moved: the second Washington Senators to Texas, the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee, and the Montreal Expos to Washington, but that doesn't seem terribly excessive. (Does it mean anything that eight of the 14 clubs have changed their names? Probably not.)

Baseball probably should have vetted some of the new owners better—and certainly some of the people these clubs were sold to. But there were plenty of ownership groups that seemed to know what they were doing and tried their best to build good teams.  

Sometimes, as in Kansas City, Toronto, Houston, Tampa Bay, Texas, and with the Mets, they even succeeded. But then they all seemed to slump back into their losing ways. 

Maybe there was no other way. Maybe expansion cities would not have accepted these teams all playing in their own, "expansion leagues"—and then, perhaps, meeting winners of the Original Ray's World Series in...a "Super Series"? 

But wouldn't they have preferred that to the decades and decades of losing? Take a look:

                                                                              WS  Pen.  Div.  WC

1961

Los Angeles Angels:         5,155-5,305    .493        1       1         9     1

Texas Rangers:                   4,979-5,465  .477         1       3         7     2

1962

Houston Astros:                 5,171-5,121     .503         2      5       15     4

New York Mets:                  4,973-5,315   .483         2      5        6      5

1969

Kansas City Royals:         4,359-4,796   .476        2       4       8       2

Milwaukee Brewers:        4,508-4,654  .492       0       2       9       3

San Diego Padres:             4,308-4,860  .470       0       2       5       5

Washington Nationals:   4,408-4,750  .481        1        1        5       1            

1977

Seattle Mariners:               3,765-4,180   .478       0       0      4        2

Toronto Blue Jays:             3,934-3,939   .499       2       3       7       4             

1993

Colorado Rockies:              2,422-2,922   .453       0       1       0       5 

Miami Marlins:                   2,462-2,874   .461       2       2       0       4       

1998

Arizona Diamondbacks:  2,253-2,343   .490       1        2      5       2  

Tampa Bay Rays:                2,266-2,328   .493       0       3      5       5      

 

Smile, everybody. Hal says winning 93 games is a success.

Okay, lemme get this straight...

During the regular season, the '26 Yankees had the fifth best record in baseball. 

To do this, they spent $244 million on salaries, the fourth highest payroll in baseball. 

In the October postseason, they went 2-3 and were swept by a team they outspent in salaries by $130 million. 

The owner considers it a success, because the Yankees won 93 games. 

By his measure, they have achieved 10 successful seasons in the 17 years since their last championship.

A job well done, people!

Before we toast another glorious Yankee season, a brief announcement: 

The Yankees will bring back our "dynamic duo," our favorite GM and manager, for at least one more year, though we hope for many seasons to come! 

Unfortunately, there is a chance that no baseball will be played in '27, or that a shorter season will not launch until mid-summer. 

America will not have baseball. 

New York will not have the Yankees. 

Our owner will not have a team.

But as the years go by, we will always be able to think back on 2026 and smile. 

I'm popping my buttons. We won 93 games. 

"Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall..."

 

In its inadvertently hilarious coverage of Hal's Big Press Conference yesterday, the NY Times—which increasingly seems to be suffering from the lack of all those copyeditors they fired—told us that:

"This off-season, Cashman will have to replace a few holes, including second base and centerfield."

Truer than Times writers Chris Kirschner and Brendan Kuty likely intended.

Beside the obvious problems with that sentence, did Kirschner and Kuty not observe who was playing, say, catcher and third base for the Bronx team this year? 

In fact, right into the playoffs—and despite treating most of the season like an extended spring training—your New York Yankees couldn't say from day to day whom 6 or even 7 of their starting nine would be.

George Lombard, Jr., showed great promise at short, but made a pile of errors and hit .237 in the bigs. A sure-fire Derek Jeter going into his second year, he ain't, much as I like the guy. Most of 2026, the outfield pretty much resembled that three-card monte game the Yanks like to put on the scoreboard.

Essentially, the team is set—more than set—at first base, DH, and maybe the corner outfield slots. That's it.  

Which, all said and done, means we are now "LOCKED AND LOADED!" 

Uh, Brian Cashman that is, not so much his team. Yes, the Ageless Schlemiel will be back with us again, his ability to come up with a ludicrous, easily ridiculed slogan for a new year once more on display.

I didn't think it possible to top, "Run It Back." But once again, I underestimated The Great Deflector. 

For all of the very valid complaints about this year's shortcomings, Boone is back, Cashman is back, and Hal Steinbrenner tells us that the problem was that the Yanks didn't hit enough. 

With apologies to the immortal William Wyler: They fool you, these nepo babies. They got a lot on the ball.

Even more depressing than the above analysis from the Paper of Record had to be Kirschner & Kuty's conclusion:

"Now that Cashman's contract is concluded, Yankees fans will care only about how he plans to make the 2027 roster a championship contender."

As opposed to...what, exactly? 

How Bri's doing on the dating apps these days? Whether Hal will float his "Soccer City" idea for the Bronx again? Just who Boone is waving to in the stands?

Exactly what are we poor idiot fans, in our fandom, supposed to care about beyond the game on the field? 

Here's one: how obscenely expensive everything at Yankee Stadium is for us poor fans. Not that the K & K boys or any other reporters, from any other media outlet, ever report on that.

No changes coming for Yankees. And we all know what that means...

My fellow Sisyphusians, here we are...

Hell. 

Another lost season. Another dead October. Another dropped boulder. Another dark winter ahead.

Because now we know that nothing will change. 

Hal will remain atop his shit pile. Cashman will keep his preferred parking place. Boone will hold the dugout. Randy Levine will keep doing - um - whatever it is Randy Levine does. Count the money, I guess.

Giancarlo will soak in the jacuzzi. Cole will turn 37. Judge will reach 35. 

Volpe will play 2B. The Martian still won't know how to catch a pop fly. A committee will occupy the DH. The YES men will applaud each move.

Other teams will unveil new stars. The Yankees will find a new Heliot Ramos. Tampa will run away with the AL East. Or maybe Boston. Or Toronto. Or even Baltimore. It won't matter. 

In late July, the Yankees will trade packages of prospects, to the delight of the Gammonites, to chase another wild card. 

The country will remain fractured. The coastlines will be underwater. The forests will be on fire. The wars will be continuing. The billionaires will be fuming about the lack of respect they receive, and A.I. will be getting tired of listening to our bullshit. Who knows? Maybe there won't even be baseball, at all.

But rest assured: Next year, right around now, I'll start a post with, "My fellow Sisyphusians..." 

Because here we are. 

Hell.

Yankees, Giants speak to the press, mysteriously

The majority owner,
speaking for the Toyota Yankees.

Hal says the offense is to blame for our flameout against Tampa, during the regular season and in the playoffs. 

But the guy who put that offense together is blameless, and the guy who chose which individuals would make up the offense day to day is also blameless, including the order in which the players hit and where they played defense.

The pitchers, who did great in comparison, did so because they pay close attention to analytics, which some of the offense does not. Tsk, tsk.

Why so many injuries? It's a mystery. Why is the defense so lousy? Also a mystery. Why are a bunch of amateurs (that would be us) better at identifying who to sign and who not to sign, and who to trade and who not to trade (and when), and who to play and who not to play? It's yet another mystery, perhaps the biggest one of all.

Why are Cashman and Boone blameless for all of the horrible decisions they've made? Well, because Hal doesn't think they've made horrible decisions. They're just peachy. A rather mysterious conclusion.

In further news, the Giants' new head coach had this to say about the QB situation:

“It gives us the best chance to play the best offense we can,” Harbaugh said of starting McCarthy. “I thought Jameis has done a tremendous job, won us games, played well. We think (playing McCarthy) gives us some good options on offense.”

Why would you replace a guy who has done a tremendous job, won games for the team, and played well? It's a mystery.

As George Carlin once said, if God is all-powerful, can he make a rock that's too big for Him to lift?

It's a mystery.

 

Top Ten Reasons Aaron Boone will return as 2027 Yankee manager

1. The photographs.

2. The videotapes.

3. The fact that there will be no baseball in 2027.

4. Secret deal with Putin.

5. Would need to pay remaining year on Boone's contract.

6. Aaron Judge said it's okay.

7. Preferred replacement Gene Mauch is dead.

8. Won big on Kalshi.

9. Save money on printing new business cards.

10. He knows where the suitcase is buried.   

On Mickmas Day, a Memory of Class.

Last night's awful slough of a playoff game to decide the American League pennant inspired just the right homily for Mickmas Day.

That's the Mick above, running out his home run against Sandy Koufax in Game Four of the 1963 World Series. It was the seventh inning, and The Mick's homer tied the contest at 1-1. The Yanks would go on to  lose the game, and the World Series, on a Joe Pepitone error, but nobody knew that yet. 

It was a big deal, The Mick's homer. So was this one, his walk-off home run off Barney Schultz of the Cardinals, in the 1964 World Series:

It was Mantle's 16th World Series homer, breaking Babe Ruth's record, and putting the Yankees up in the World Series. As you can see, The Mick—being congratulated by Frankie Crosetti—has got around the bases so fast that Schultz was not even off the field yet. 

Mantle has a ghost of a smile on his face, but he's not even looking up. He's not even looking at Cro, much less the losing pitcher. It was how he ran out pretty much every home run, even his 500th, in a career that left him third in the all-time home-run totals when he retired, with 18 more in the Series.

As you saw last night, Junior Caminero's home run last night, which put Tampa Bay up by 5-1 against Cleveland—but did not end or even wrap up the game, as it turned out—led to a 43-second celebration by Junior as he circled, uh, vogued around the bases, pausing for assorted chest thumps, victory bellows, and the like. 

Someone on the internet timed this epic celebration against how long it took Caminero's speedy teammate, Chandler Simpson, to get to first base on a bunt. (It came to 10.3 Simpsons.) 

Junior hit his homer off Cade Smith's Cleveland's closer, and a fine pitcher...though of course, he is no Sandy Koufax. When it comes to comparisons, I wonder how long Caminero would have had to take getting around the bases for a game-tying, World Series homer off Sandy K. 

Maybe 20 Simpsons?  Thirty?

I know, I know. I'm old, and styles change, times change. 

Mantle used to say that he always ran around the bases like that because he was sure the pitcher felt bad enough and he didn't want to make him feel any worse. Also, of course, even a 5-Simpson celebration back in the day probably would have brought a fastball perilously close to his head in his next at-bat.

I'm aware, too, that there were plenty of ways in which The Mick was not so classy. Junior Caminero might just have been carried away with the moment, and for all I know he spends his every spare moment during the off-season doing great things for his family and friends and orphaned children. 

Really—he could be a great guy.

But...there's something to be said for showing class on the field, all the time, no matter what else you are. That was The Mick. That was another reason why we loved him.

In 2023, it was Anthony Rizzo. In 2024, it was Anthony Volpe. Now, we learn Austin Wells last year was playing through migraines. WTF, Yankees??

Question of the Day: Do Yankee trainers actually talk with their horses? 

Three years ago, the Bronx Butchers played Anthony Rizzo for three months, following a basepath collision that left him concussed and unable to hit. It wrecked his season and career, and the Yankees fell out of first.

Two years ago, Anthony Volpe squandered a relatively hopeful first half after playing for months with a jammed shoulder. It ruined his shot at SS, and the Yankees floundered. 

Now, we hear Austin Wells played most of 2026 playing through migraines stemming from foul tips to his facemask. He couldn't hit, and the Yankees - as usual - flopped.

What in the name of Jalen Hurts has happened to sports trainers?

Have we reached that financial hellscape where players cannot - or will not - confide in team trainers about their injuries? 

Of course, players wanna play. I get it. The manly ethos tells them to ignore pain and button up, or you'll be traded to KC. Nobody wants to lose his job over an ingrown toenail. 

But but BUT... Jumpin' Jehosavat and WTF? Are Yank trainers viewed as spies of management who cannot be trusted? Or are they so obsessed with running the horses that everybody simply pretends all is well?

Yankee trainers last fall had one job. ONE JOB: Get Aaron Judge back for the postseason. They failed. 

Now we hear Wells was so compromised that he almost lost his career. 

There is no reason why the New York Fucking Yankees cannot afford the best medical staff in pro sports. 

But nothing works if players do not communicate with trainers.  

One person bears the responsibility of maintaining an environment of communication.

The manager.

He failed. 

And nothing is going to change.

"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved" (Jeremiah 8:20)

Start Spreading, uh . . . like, you know – The News

 

News Flash! Austin Wells Says Foul Tips Sidetracked His Season. Is Aaron Judge to Blame???

 

Yankees catcher Austin Wells says that his wretched 2026 season at the plate—as opposed to his merely awful seasons at the plate in 2023, 2024, and 2025—may have been caused by multiple foul tips to the head. His condition only improved (marginally) after treatment, and switching to a "bulkier...hockey-style mask."

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7693650/2026/10/19/austin-wells-yankees-catcher-foul-tips/?unlocked_article_code=1.J1E.cx5Z.v3qhU92IChX7&source=user_shared_article&smid=ta-ios-share

Figures high in the Yankees' front office, who wished to remain anonymous, put the blame for Wells' injuries squarely where it belonged: on Aaron Judge.

"Actually, Wells wanted to go on the IL and switch to the bulkier mask much earlier than he did," one such source, who insisted that he be identified only as "LT," insisted. "Boone, Brian Cashman, all of us wanted Austin to get looked over. But Aaron Judge kept goading, taunting him into playing."

Some sources went even further.

"There is serious evidence that Aaron Judge actually inflicted those multiple blows to Austin's head," claimed another individual, who demanded that he be referred to only as "RL."  "I heard from someone who knows someone who should know someone that there is video evidence somewhere of Judge actually sneaking into the trainers' room while Wells was napping, and hitting him with Jazz Chisholm's baseball bat."

Asked why Judge would possibly do such a thing, "RL" merely shrugged.

"Who knows why Judge does what he does? The man is capable of anything. Remember when he concussed Anthony Rizzo, but kept making Rizzo play everyday? We didn't want to go along with it, but Judge is a big, big guy, and he will stop at nothing. I understand that he has access to a tactical nuclear device."

Above is a photograph of Judge allegedly making a great catch against the Dodgers in the 2024 World Series, though Yankees insiders claimed he actually used the opportunity to pass the Yanks' signals on to their opponents in the bullpen.

"It was completely irrational," confirmed another Yankees higher-up known only as "BC." "Not only did Judge disable Wells, but then he physically prevented us from acquiring a great catcher to replace him. I had a deal all lined up to get Hunter Goodman from Colorado, in exchange for two Dominican Summer League pitchers and $50 in ShopRite coupons. All I had to do was call the Rockies' GM back. But Aaron Judge pulled out my telephone, stood in front of my office door and would not let me out until it was too late."

To penalize Judge for his general savagery regarding Wells, the Yankees' front office said it would do nothing, save to continue to berate him in sleazy newspapers and on sports radio.

Boy-Oh-Boy – The New York Yankees Sure Could use a Laxative!

 

 

A Bitter Pill

I’m watching the playoff games, something I don’t usually do, but the Yankees were beaten so badly and so quickly that I had a whole bunch of unused rooting points.

I decided to use the rest of them against the Dodgers. KaChing!  

Apparently I still have a bunch left. 

I’m hoping that the Guardians ability to win on the road, while being sadly inept at home, carries the day. Probably not.

But, if the World Series pits Cleveland, a city I like,

and Milwaukee, home to Bob Uecker

I’m good with either. Not Tampa though. Screw them. 

--

The reason I’m writing is...

I keep getting shown a commercial for Caplyta. 

In it a wealthy white woman apparently suffers from depression. I can relate to that. Well, half of that description anyway.

They show her sitting in her sun room, doing group yoga in the park with other wealthy depressed women, and hanging out on what appears to be a private beach with her husband, kids, and of course, their golden retriever.

As it turns out she is only able to be happy because of the drug. OK. The mind is complex, I can't speak to hers. So, fine. Glad she’s happy now. 

What’s pissing me off is the commercial uses “This Little Light of Mine” to sell the product.

A little background. Shortened from Wikipedia…

"This Little Light of Mine" is an American gospel song that originated in the 1920s, when it was first sung in Christian churches and penitentiaries…

The gospel song became popular among African American Christians, and it was later adapted by Zilphia Horton, amongst many other activists, in connection with the civil rights movement.”

They’re using a classic civil rights song to help sell anti-depression medication to wealthy white women. Wow. Just wow.

So now when I hear it I no longer think of Martin Luther King. Now I think of the overwhelming struggle of someone getting the wrong kind of milk in their latte. 

That’s just offensive. What’s next… "Strange Fruit" to sell tangelos?

Look, I don’t do the performative anti-cultural appropriation schtick. 

Well, to be fair, I also don’t love the Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop but that’s more of a, I don’t like stadium sized crowds raising and lowering their arms and doing death chants, kind of thing. I always get a “Triumph of the Will” vibe. 

But that could just be me.

This is America. The great melting pot. Appropriate away. You can call me a schmuck and I’m not going to bitch and say, “Hey! That’s my word!” 

You want to wear a giant hat made out of beaver fur in the middle of July? You should live and be well.

Dashiki at Thanksgiving?  Knock your self out. 

A dirndl when it’s not Octoberfest? Thanks for the view. 

This is not a person wearing a dirndl. The view is similar though. This is Front Row Amy. As El Duque mentioned, she sits behind home plate at Brewers games.  See the notebook in her hands? She manually scores the game. Charts every pitch.  I like her even more.  Why can’t the Yankees have fans like that?

All we get is…

I shouldn’t complain. At least she goes to the games, unlike her brother Hal.

But I digress…

I guess what bothers me about the commercial, aside from everything, is that someone, anyone, should have known the history of the song and pointed it out during the approval process. 

It just goes to our general dumbing down as a country.

I’m bumming myself out and now I’m depressed. If only there was something I could take…

 

Tampa or the Brewers? Which team should receive the Yankiverse's prized juju?

Here is comes: Fox Sports' worst nightmare - a Rays/Brewers world series that will draw Dr. Pimple Popper ratings, as MLB's owners prepare to self-immolate. 

Last night, you felt it: Cleveland looks to be sliding into Lake Erie, the cheesiest great lake, which hasn't even been renamed by the Mango. As the game ended, their lone star, Jose Ramirez, sat in the dugout looking pissed and mystified - pisstified? It's all over but the whining. Tampa in six.  

So, the Rays v the Brewers? What a concept: The two best teams in baseball, the two ascendant rosters full of youth and promise, crashing headlong into each other. 

To which franchise should Yank fans bestow our priceless juju? 

The arguments...

FOR THE BREWERS:

1. Neither Jake Bauers and/or Gary Sanchez - ex-Yanks - invoke any grand sense of infidelity. Bauers had no place with the Yankees; it's nice to see that he made something of himself. Same with Gary; a lot of water under the bridge, but no hard feelings. They can't all be Jorge Posada. 

2. Milwaukee has never hurt us. You gotta go back to 1957 to find a bloodletting worthy of vengeance. Eddie Mathews is long gone. That's too long ago, even for me. Yeah, Paul Molitor and Prince Fielder crushed us for a few years, but the Yankees were so bad, it really didn't matter. 

3. Gotta love that cleavage lady fan who sits behind home plate and scores each game in a scrapbook. I thought she had to be a marketing ploy. Apparently, she's for real. Been doing it for years. 

4. Tampa loathes us. Might as well loathe them back.

FOR THE RAYS

1. If they win, they will realize the emptiness of sports success. It will get it out of their system, and they'll be bad for five years.

2. On the eve of the owners' lockout, baseball's cheapest team wins the ring? Not exactly the cleanest prevailing argument for a salary cap.

3. Drew Rasmussen = future Yankee. (Or, more likely, a Dodger.) Either way, he's gone.

4. The traditional "root for your division" viewpoint, as championed by America's Mayor, back in 2024? Remember how Topps inserted Rudy into the Redsock celebration? 

Not sure it brings bragging rights, but if Tampa runs the table, the Yankees don't look so putrid by being whupped. 

FOR THE ASTEROID:

1. Who cares, really? Isn't this why they created Monday Night Football?

A direct line to the current Yankee doldrums extends from Caleb Durbin

On December 13th, 2024 - a date that shall live in infamy - the Bronx Barge traded Caleb Durbin and Nasty Nestor Cortes to Milwaukee for 2-time all-star closer Devin Williams, master of the high-spin changeup known as the Airbender. 

"The Yankees got their man yesterday," beamed MLB.com, in its own form of bending air.  

And, alas, here we are... watching at home.

At the time, Durbin was a buzzy IF pizza rat who had become Maury Wills in the Arizona Fall Instructional League, setting records for base stealing and - at 5'6" - reminding Yank wags of Dustin Pedroia and Jose Altuve - the diminutives who perpetually kill us. 

Instantly, the trade was hailed as a glorious Yankee victory - by the Yankees, anyway. Durbin was too small, the whispers said. Cortes had passed his sell-bye date - (and somebody had to take the blame for the 2024 World Series) - and the Yankees needed a closer. Even if Durbin emerged, he couldn't hurt us in Milwaukee. I mean, when was the last time Milwaukee hurt us? (Are you old enough to remember Del Crandall and Warren Spahn?) 

Of course, Williams turned out to be a disaster. He lost his job to Luke Weaver, who got Scott Proctored, and both ended up on the Mets. Williams finished 2026 with a 4.43 ERA. Yikes. 

But last winter was when Milwaukee traded Durbin to Boston. That's where the Yankee nightmare begins. The Brewers received Shane Drohan, David Hamilton and Kyle Harrison - all of whom are on the current playoff roster. The Redsocks got Durbin, Andruw Monasterio and Anthony Seigler, all of whom played a role in their turnabout season. Durbin overcame a horrendous first two months to bat .248 with 13 HRs and 20 SBs, with a growing reputation as a sparkplug. He'll enter 2027 as Boston's everyday 3B.

And the Yankees? Well, they spent all of 2026 searching for a third-baseman, which turned out to be Ryan McMahon. He hit 11 HRs, batted .213, and - worst of all - let it destroy his defense. 

Yep, everything turned on that Durbin deal, where the Yankees traded rising youth for past performance. It's our signature move. Congrats to all. 

Okay, I died and went to Hell, right? Why else is everybody talking about Anthony Volpe?

Okay, what did me in? Was it those greenish, weirdly crunchy cheese curds, with the dead cockroach mouthfeel? Shouldn't have downed the package. But but BUT... who says no to a curd?  

Or was it last night's rainstorm, which turned low-beams into a laser-show. I was turning left into a swarm of lighthouse beacons, when the radio suddenly shifted into Don't Fear the Reaper. A cosmic moment? Didja know that Blue Oyster Cult was an upstate band? Seasons don't fear the Reaper...

Anyway, if we're together in eternity, this sucks. Today, I wake up to find practically everybody in this dark, Trump-weary universe talking about - gulp - the war, the economy, Sydney Sweeney Anthony Fucking Volpe. Yep, the Volpster. Aaron Judge started it. He said the Yankees need Volpe next year, and - listen - nobody around here ignores the Big Fella. 

Yeah, I'm thinking the cheese curds.

So here we are, in Hell, where there is a movement to figure out what went wrong, and come up with a quick fix for the '27 Yankees. And, of course, no simple solution exists. If you're debating 2B, good luck, because you might as well be discussing the cast of Knot's Landing. Here are the candidates...

1. Jazz Chisholm
2. Anthony Volpe
3. Jose Caballero
4. Amed Rosario
5. Max Schuerman
6. Luis Garcia Jr. 
7. Your mom.

Also, please note that this ignores the looming declaration of martial law End of Times lockout, which will suspend all rules from winters past, and the fact that we still have Dopey Dildox and his algorithm running the show. 

Donno if I'm dead. (If I've crossed over, why do I need to pee?) But if we're talking about Volpe, this is Hell. We've come a long, long way from Bobby.

Cashman is the problem, but Judge really should keep his mouth shut sometimes

Great ballplayer, solid captain (I guess), but he does come out with some of the dumbest quotes in Yankeedom.

Looking like John Schuck a bit

Keefe ripped into him too, too hard, and the whole "New York, New York" thing is a massive Who Cares?, after all.

But if we take Judge at face value, he does show that maybe he's not the brightest bulb in the  league. Which is fine. Again, Who Cares?

Although, I have to say, I cracked up reading the end of Keefe's diatribe. Maybe Judge was just trying to encourage his teammates, but he thinks Boone is A-OK and we really need Volpe to be a winner. Yeah, sure.

Encouragement is good, but this is hysterical:

“He can be one of the greats in the game,” Judge said of Chisholm. “I think this will be a big year for him to take that next step.”

Chisholm had the worst season of his career.

“I think this will be a big year for him,” Judge said of Wells, “he’s really going to take that next step.”

Wells had the worst season of his career.

“I think there’s just so much more potential,” Judge said of McMahon. “I think what he’s about to do with the bat this year, he’s going to take off for us.”

McMahon had the worst season of his career.

No, Aaron Judge is not the problem with the New York Yankees.

 

I know that I get very down on Brian Cashman on this site, and I really have to apologize. In fact, I think we all have to thank Mr. Cashman for not going into something like politics, where he would have been really, truly dangerous.

Compared to Cashman, Dick Nixon was an innocent waif, and Roy Cohn a piker.

With the New York sports world roasting The Brain over yet another, pathetic Yankees' playoff exit, Cashman managed to flip the script overnight, and shift the blame to the real culprit in the Yanks' awful October baseball this season: Aaron Judge.

Suddenly, a few innocuous comments that Judge made in the wake of the Bombers' latest flop have been blown up into a catastrophe the size of the Hindenburg.

What Judge dared to say was that, yes, the loss was disappointing. That the Yankees should go all-out to try to win the World Series. That he supported Aaron Boone, who he thought was a good manager, and that he supported his teammates.

Sorry, but I'm old enough to remember when ballplayers used to get chastised for knocking people—not saying, "Hey, fans, wish we had done better, hope we do better soon, and I support my manager and teammates."

Oh, the humanity!!!

The "controversy"—and as true controversies go, this one ranks somewhere around which wine to have with a good appetizer—was wholly manufactured within hours. And by guess who?

Oh, yes, it's The Great Deflector!

Suddenly, the New York Post, that soul of journalistic integrity, had an inside scoop saying that the Yankees' front office was upset by Judge's remarks. 

Gee, I wonder who their inside source could have been? 

Unfortunately, even some of the most astute NY sports commentators around fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Sal Licata, usually so much fun to watch on SNY, was quickly braying that Judge had to be held "accountable!"

Accountable for what? Saying nice things about his teammates, manager, and the fans?  That war criminal!

Even so beloved an observer as the Venerable Keefe, after excoriating Cashman and Boone with one of his best columns yet, took the bait, with a wild denunciation of Judge that went all the way back to...2018, and his great crime of daring to taunt the Red Sox by playing "New York, New York" on a boombox, after the Yanks' one victory in the ALDS that year.

"Acting like the Yankees had accomplished something simply by splitting the first two games on the road [in 2018], the face of the franchise's foolish decision served as a rallying cry for the Red Sox, who had won the AL East over the Yankees by eight games that year,"Keefe fumed—even crediting it with inspiring the Sawx to knock off the Astros and the Dodgers later in the playoffs.

Stop it. 

Can we please dispense of the notion that bulletin-board quotes really help outstanding big-league teams win championships—particularly in baseball?

Funny, I seem to remember the Yanks starting an injured and confused Luis Severino—whose injury they had ignored for months, and who didn't seem to know what time the game was even starting—in Game 3 of that 2018 series, and watching him get hammered.

Funny, I seem to remember Giancarlo Stanton fanning in the ninth inning of Game 4 in that series, against a pitcher who could not find the plate with a satellite location system.

Funny, I seem to remember Gleyber Torres in that same ninth inning failing to beat out a groundball that was traveling slower than the No. 1 train in the 1970s.

But Keefe goes on to pummel Judge, writing that:

"The narrative that the Yankees have failed Judge throughout his career makes me cringe. Judge has failed himself. He's the on with a postseason OPS two hundred points lower than his regular-season OPS. He's the one who has played in 17 rounds of the postseason and played well in six of them."

This is mostly true. Aaron Judge does have and OPS 198 points lower in the playoffs than during the regular season, from an astonishing 1.020 to a mere .822. 

But the playoffs can be strange. An even greater player than Judge did even worse at the plate than he did in 8 playoff series, his regular OPS dropping from .940 to a mere .668. That man was Willie Mays.

As it happened, Judge hit .500 in 2025's combined playoffs, driving in 7 runs in as many games, and compiling a .600/.684/.933/1.618 slash line against Toronto, without teasing a single Blue Jay. Still didn't help. 

(And incidentally, in 2018? Judge's slash line against the Red Sox was .375/.444/.750/ 1.194, as opposed to Clutch Stanton's .222/.222/.222/.444. But, you know: teasing.)

But here we are arguing about Aaron Judge, who didn't even play in the 2026 playoffs—much less empower the Rays by playing a boombox equipped with a Kander & Ebb tune—while once again, The Great Deflector dodges all blame.

As he has done since what seems like time immemorial.

Wonder why the Yanks didn't sign David Ortiz when Minnesota released him? That was Old George's call. Why they signed Garry Sheffield over Vlad Guerrero, Sr.? George again. The cruel canning of Joe Torre? The Steinbrenners. 

Convincing Hal Steinbrenner that, "The playoffs are a crapshoot"? ("Uh, I never said that.")

Now Keefe repeats the suddenly circulating story that it was Aaron Judge who wanted the Yanks to bring in Verdugo and Rizzo, and hang on to LeMahieu. 

Right.

No doubt, if it suited his purposes, The Great Deflector could convince NY sportswriters that it was Aaron Judge who made the deals for Curt Blefary and Rich McKinney.

But say he did. Say Aaron Judge "wanted" the Yankees to make a dozen bad personnel moves. 

So what?

You think Ed Barrow hopped to when Babe Ruth said they should sign somebody? Think Joe DiMaggio used to dictate deals to George Weiss?  Or Reggie Jackson to Gabe Paul?

Not so long ago—well, actually, too long ago—The Great Deflector was strutting around New York, boasting about how he had faced down Derek Jeter at contract time, and that if Jeets didn't like it, why the Yankees would just bring in Troy Tulowitzki. 

Now Macho Cashman is helpless whenever Judge so much as looks sideways at him. Once again, The Great Deflector has stuck the blame for his own failings on someone else.

But again, I suppose we should be grateful. I mean, imagine if he were president!

 

Ding-dong, the Dodgers are dead. And what does that say about us?

 

A-way back in 1998, when people interested in winning World Series still ran your New York Yankees, Peter O'Malley, inheritor of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Hal Steinbrenner of his day, announced that it was no longer possible for a single family's fortune to run a baseball team. (Something that must have come as news to almost all of his fellow owners.)

A few romantic souls suggested that, if O'Malley fils wanted to sell the Dodgers, why not bring them back to Brooklyn? Surely, an ownership group could be put together within about five minutes or so for such a venture, and if assorted Steinbrenners and Wilpons objected, well, what's a guillotine for?

Pete quickly put the kibosh on such notions, though, scornfully insisting that "commitment to the community, to Los Angeles and to Southern California is the number one priority."

O'Malley then sold the team to that longtime pillar of the community, Rupert Murdoch, for $325 million.

I am merely ecstatic that the Los Angeles Dodgers are out. They should not win another game, never mind another World Series—they or the Giants, both. Both teams left New York City out of greed and racism, and they should only die.

That said...I have to admit that if the Yankees were run like the Flock (as they were called in NYC newspapers until their move), I would be running through the proverbial field of nipples that our Peerless Leader so brilliantly evokes. 

The Bums (also a popular nickname in Brooklyn) spend money to make money. They go all out to win, and found a way around baseball's spending restrictions to go sign even more stars.  

They are what capitalism is SUPPOSED to be all about, and too rarely is:  building sustained excellence to make money. 

This is what the New York Yankees used to be all about. 

So, for the record, the Dodgers failed to become the first National League team ever to win three consecutive World Series. Only four NL teams have won two in a row:

1907-08:  Chicago Cubs*

1921-22:  New York Giants

1975-76:  Cincinnati Reds

2024-25:  Los Angeles Dodgers

From the American League, the following teams have won two or more consecutive World Series:

1910-11:  Philadelphia Athletics

1915-16:  Boston Red Sox**

1927-28:  New York Yankees

1929-30:  Philadelphia Athletics

1936-39:  New York Yankees***

1949-53:  New York Yankees****

1961-62:  New York Yankees

1972-74:  Oakland Athletics*****

1977-78:  New York Yankees

1992-93:  Toronto Blue Jays

1998-00:  New York Yankees******

*Cubs record should not stand due to awful Fred Merkle call, which led to Chicago's 108-year "Curse of Fred Merkle."

**Boo.

***Four consecutive World Series titles. 

****Five consecutive World Series titles. Still the record.

*****Three consecutive World Series titles.

******Three consecutive World Series titles.

 

The Dodgers are cooked, (like their books), and 10 other musings of the Apocalypse

It finally happened. Our long national nightmare is over. The Dodgers are toast, and for the next 20 years, no trip to Hollywood will be complete without mentioning the name "Bobby Bonillia." Long live the Brewers. No matter what happens, they slew the giant. 

Ten other ponderings...

1. Trouble in paradise. Tampa still can't fill its giant ping pong ball. Game II against Cleveland drew 32,125 - about 8,000 fewer than the Yankee massacre. This is not supposed to happen with a healthy sport. 

2. Fortunately, the Rays know who to blame: The fans, of course. And count me in. What a bunch of cheapos. They move to Florida, skip on taxes, rent a Lazy-Boy and a satellite dish, ride around on their scooters, scream about MAGA and complain about ticket prices - $84 for the Ueker seats. Pay up, grampa. 

3. Actually, they're pissed about the secondary markets, and how the Rays jiggle prices like hotel and airline reservations, all to sit in a sunless vacuum and watch baseballs kick up fake dirt and bounce off the ceiling rings. I thought domed baseball was done. 

4. Last year's Yankee fulcrum moment was when Trent Grishman accepted their $22 million one-year qualifying offer. It meant a clogged OF and no spending upgrades elsewhere. We'd play the same team, with the same fate. This year, it looks to be Jazz Chisholm. Will the Yankees make him an offer? Be careful. He might just take it.

5. I know it's moronic to do this, but close your eyes and imagine that the Yankees - instead of crapping the bed last week - had played the same quality of baseball they did against Boston. If the Yankees were still afloat - (of course, they are not) - we would be extolling the new Core 4 - Schlittler, Rice, Jones, Lombard - and fancying a new era for the franchise. Ugh. Parlor games, right?

6. Maybe let's not write the Dodgers' obit. They're still one of the richest teams in American sports, and there is no reason to think they won't continue their voodoo economics. Supposedly, their owner faces numerous federal investigations. What a joke. A couple campaign checks will solve that. Come February - a normal February, anyway - who thinks the Dodgers won't outspend the rest of humanity?

7. Some people claim a world series between Milwaukee and Cleveland - two small markets - will undermine the owners' argument about too money in sports. These people are fools. It wouldn't matter if the world series was Toledo v Reading. The forces behind this lockout have been edging into place for 20 years. No matter who wins the series, baseball is heading toward a dark place, (and, damn, so is America.)

8. One Yankee concern is already emerging: What to do with Ben Rice? This year, they bottled him up as a DH, a horrible fate for a generational star. He must play 1B or move back to catcher. You cannot expect him to waste his career as a DH. 

9. I suppose Shohei Ohtani will stay in LA, but I've always believed that before his career ends, he will try a stint on the East Coast, either in NY or Boston. That might not take place in 2027, but crazier things have happened. And the Yankees - see #8 - always need another DH, right? 

10. The Yankees are a handful of back pages behind the Knicks for tabloid cover supremacy. If they had reached the ALCS, they'd be well on their way to winning the year. Now, with injuries redrawing the NFL, the Giants and Jets might even show a pulse. And the Knicks will soon begin. It's a wide-open race. 

😂😂😂 That's Schadenfreude!