While the world roils, the Yankees celebrate opening day.

So, here we are. 

Opening day in the House that Rudy Built.  

One game up in the AL East, with only 156 left.

A staff that has yielded six runs in 54 innings.

A looming cupcake caravan - the Marlins, A's, Rays, Angels and Royals - until Boston on April 22. 

Leading MLB in umpire-torturing ABS overturns.

MLB's second highest BA (among qualifiers): Giancarlo, at .500. 

The MLB leader in saves: David Bednar (with 3).

"Original" Ben Rice, with an OPS of 1.289.

In first, despite Aaron Judge batting .160. 

Trump threatening to bomb Iran into the stone age.

A government that prefers Kid Rock to Bruce. 

A country that - oh, hell with this. 

Why bother? You get the picture. The Yankees are winning, and nobody wants to hear me whinny about Brian Kashman Patel. We all should just shut up and enjoy April, the month of Yangervis Solartes and tornados, when every team is a contender and - besides, whatever we do this month will be eclipsed by the looming slumps of July and August, when the lineup's advanced age goes from Advantage to Liability.  

Why fret over August and September? It feels like they'll never get here. What will happen is what always happens: We will wake up around the July 31 trade deadline, with the Yankees is a few players shy of a wild card slot, so a bunch of prospects will be loaded onto a bus and sent to Pittsburgh or Milwaukee, or wherever the front office believes will be safe from immediate embarrassment. 

We will wake up on one of those endless summer days and realize that everything has changed, and the tomato cans of April, the teams that valued youth over creakiness, are ready eat our lunches. As for the world? Here's what the poet, Charles Bukowski, said...

"sometimes, you've got to kill 4 or 5
thousand men before you somehow
get to believe that the sparrow 
is immortal, money is piss and
that you have been wasting
your time."

Okay, it's opening day and, frankly, we're doing better than we had a right to expect. June looks a hundred years away. A lotta shit is gonna fly. Better enjoy this while we can. And how 'bout that Giancarlo!

Requiem for a Morning Glory.

 

So word came a few days ago that Ken Clay had passed away at the age of 71. 

Many of us here will remember Ken Clay, one of another generation of can't-miss pitchers from the 1970s who the Yankees—even before Brian Cashman's day—managed to squander in bad trades and bad decisions.

Is there anything sadder than a promising young pitcher who never makes it?

Ken Clay was supposed to be one of those unstoppable young talents. He had an up-and-down minor-league career, but he seemed to have figured it out early in 1977, going 5-1, 1.68 at Syracuse. The Yanks brought him up.

The "morning glory" epithet came from George Steinbrenner. May the failings of his son never let us forget what a first-class, gigantic, ignorant prick mad old George was. He was quick to get off similar barbs aimed at other young pitchers who displeased him. 

There was his unforgettable characterization of Hideki Irabu, as a "fat, pus-sy toad." I think it was Jim Beattie he accused of "spitting the bit"—like "morning glory," a term for an underperforming horse. But then, his players were always just so much more horseflesh for George, creatures that existed for him only in so much as they pleased or failed him, imbued with personalities that existed only in George's head.

Then there was Billy Martin, who never met a young pitcher whose arm he couldn't ruin.

Unsurprisingly, Ken Clay never flourished in the Bronx Zoo. But he did have his moment of glory. In the first game of the 1978 ALCS, with Martin gone (for the time being) and a rational human being running the club, the Yankees found themselves desperately short of pitching. 

The club had just finished its astounding, comeback run from 14 behind Boston, capped by the one-game playoff in Fenway. A lot of people thought they might be done for the year, that incredible rally a good enough moral victory. When they pulled into Kansas City, all they had to throw out there against a strong Royals team, seething for revenge after two straight, heart-ripping playoff losses, was a young rookie named Jim Beattie, who had never so much as pitched a complete game.

Beattie was a little wild that night, as who wouldn't be in such a situation. He walked five, but gave up only two hits, and going into the bottom of the sixth, somehow the Yanks had a 4-0 lead. Beattie was soon over 100 pitches, though, and out of gas. With two on and one out, Manager Bob Lemon turned to...Ken Clay.

Clay was lights-out. He gave up a sacrifice fly to the fearsome Hal McRae, the first batter he faced, then got Al Cowens to end the inning. In the seventh, he gave up a walk, but induced no less than George Brett to ground out and end the frame. Reggie Jackson soon put the icing on the cake with a three-run blast, and Clay finished the game, 3 2/3 innings without allowing a hit. The Yanks were on their way to a second straight world championship.

That was about it for Ken Clay, in the game, and his life, sadly enough. After an awful 1979 season, he was traded to Texas for Gaylord Perry, and out of baseball after 1981. He never seemed able to adjust. Repeatedly convicted of theft, grand larceny, and forgery, he had spent at least seven years in prison by 2012. 

Some make the transition to real life with all its shortcoming. Some don't.

Jim Beattie—dealt away in another stupid trade, this one for Ruppert Jones—ended up having some very decent years...in Seattle. Tippy Martinez and Scott McGregor, shipped to Baltimore to pick up insurance for a 1976 race the Yanks already had well in hand, ended up having excellent careers...for the Orioles.

A pitcher who was thought to have an even brighter future than any of them was Gil Patterson, another young righty who fell victim to the Yanks' longtime indifference to common sense when it comes to developing young arms. 

Patterson went a combined 16-4, 2.44 at two levels of the minors in 1976, conquering Triple-A at just 20. The next season he was brought up to the big club, and astonished everyone.

After he struck out 8 Red Sox in 5 2/3 innings of a losing effort, Carl Yastrzemski called him one of the best young pitchers he had ever seen, and said his stuff was harder to hit than Nolan Ryan's.  

But Patterson's arm was already throbbing with pain, after having been used on a cold minor-league night, or for one inning too many by Billy Martin. The stories vary. Gil Patterson tried everything he could to come back, even teaching himself to pitch lefthanded. But he was done.

George Steinbrenner, in one of his moments of grand largesse, discovered Patterson parking cars at a Fort Lauderdale restaurant in 1983, and offered him a job "coaching for life" in the Yankees system. "Life" ended the next year, when Gil Patterson refused to keep a sore-armed Al Leiter out on a minor-league mound. Leiter eventually became a major-league star, of course, and called Patterson, "one of the best pitching coaches anywhere."  

Patterson got to the majors again as a coach, and was widely lauded—even beloved—by people whose careers he didn't save. Despite having his greatest dreams dashed, he was able to hang on, bring out the best in himself, have a life worth living. 

We all react to adversity in different ways. It's never easy, but it's best to try to hang on to that person inside you, despite of what society, or a bloated blowhard like George Steinbrenner, or a sad, warped psychopath like Billy Martin might think of you.  

Call this a homily for Maundy Thursday.

Let's see if we can bring that down

Earlier this week The Athletic published its survey of baseball fans' optimism, ranked by team. We Yankee fans came in at 22nd (!) out of 30, between the Marlins and the White Sox. Yes: We have slightly less optimism than the Miamiphiles, and a hair more faith than the Pope. 

The green bar represents the percentage of optimistic fans; the orange bar represents IT IS HIGH. 

 

It's not Judge, Gio or Jazz. Within the Yankiverse, everything swirls around Ben Rice, and the juju gods of product endorsements are starting to take notice

 O, to be Ben Rice! 

Perched nightly in the geological and spiritual center of the Yankiverse - that is, two hitters behind Judge & Belli, and two ahead of Gio & Jazz -between Scylla and Charybdis, the Yankees' Strait of Hormuz. 

Last year, that fivesome hit 163 HRs, of which Rice contributed 26, which was, fun fact, his age.

Thus far in '26, every time he steps to the plate, something is cooking - and it's not necessarily rice. Often, the pitcher is peeing himself from having survived the game's greatest hitter and one of its cagiest. (Imagine, a batter who chokes up with two strikes.) Or it's not urine at all. He's halfway through the carwash, scrambling to plug the spray.

Rice may be the first Yankee-grown star whose entrance to the NYC pressure cookier was rescued by the newfangled stat of exit velo - that is, by miles per hour, rather than outcome per at-bat. He hasn't as Wee Williie once said, "hit 'em where dey aint." Nope. He hit 'em where dey is - often at a well-placed 2B or RF, that is, unless the ball leaves the park. Cuz dey aint in the bleachers.

Yesterday, in the win over Seattle, Rice went 2-3 with HR and a walk. Thus far, he's hit in every game. Woopie-doo. It's fucking April 2, fer kricesake. The YES team, famously known to gaslight young stars, has gushed over Rice's improved defense at 1B. But, honestly, it's not Micheal Kay blather. The guy has put in the work. He's made himself a legit 1B. 

And now, his future has been blessed - or at least acknowledged - by the juju gods of product endorsement. Rice has signed the most perfect sponsorship deal since George Herman gulped down his first Baby Ruth. He's endorsing Ben's Original Rice, which - ironically? or mockingly? - is owned by the Mars food company, which must surely be aware of Jasson Dominguez. You have to wonder: Could The Martian, at 23, exactly where Rice was four years ago, someday get a Mars Bar?

And why stop there? Surely, other Yanks deserve product endorsements. 

Max Fried Chicken. 
Ryan AccuWeathers
Jake Angry Bird
Paul Gold Bon Skin Lotion Goldschmidt
Elmer's Glue Rodriguez 

(Yikes. That bit sure ran too long. Should've quit after Fried.) But - wait, back to the Yankees - down in Scranton, The Martian homered yesterday! His first of the season. (He's 5-for-17, hitting .294.) He's no Paul Blair, in fact, he spectacularly blew a fly ball in game one, a video that went viral. But we cannot give up. In spring training, the guy hit .347 with 4 HRs. He was right up there with Spencer Gifts Jones (Wait... is Spencer Gifts still a thing?) who - sadly - struck out four times yesterday for Scranton. (Ugh. So much for that fantasy.) 

Last week, we put Ben Rice's HR total as a tie-breaker for the 2026 IT IS  HIGH predictions contest. That's because, until further notice, he sits in the center of the Yaniverse. So, have a dish of Long Grain! O, to be Ben Rice.

Cam Can, Cam Can, Cam Can, right Cash? ? I pity the (April) Fool ! (game thready thingy)

 

Yank fans better enjoy this, because it cannot last.

 Another shutout. Another stress-free ninth. 

How crazy is this?

1. We're winning without production from Aaron Judge. Last night, he blinged an 0-4 - which normally means the team falls apart. Instead, the heart of the order came through. 

2. Max Fried looks unbeatable. Last night, he skated. He's 32. Last season, his 2.86 ERA and 19 wins - most in AL - amounted to a career year. Could he beat it?  

3. Even the comedy team of Headrick & Hill finished with a poetic flourish. 

Headrick & Hill
To Victoryville! 

4. Who needs a bottom third of the lineup? Last night: a healthy 0-12. 

5. Giancarlo seems to be running wild. Last night, he took second on a wild pitch that barely skipped away, then head-butted the ball from the SS's mitt. It was the kind of play that usually costs him a month on the IL. Listen: He'll soon get hurt. We all know this. But it's nice to see him go for broke.

6. I keep saying this, but the April schedule offers a string of tomato cans. There is no reason why the Yankees should not be in 1st around May 15, when Carlos Rodon could return. (With Gerrit Cole on the brink.)  

7. It's almost - well - I don't wanna jinx this, but - criminey! - it's almost going too good. There. I said it. Should we be worried? Jeepers, yeah. I mean, there's gotta be a correction looming. For the rest of this season, the Yankee staff will not throw 3 out of 4 shutouts. This is not the 1964 Dodgers. But we have one option: Enjoy it, while it lasts.

8. Over the years, West Coast trips have haunted us. Maybe the way to exorcize those demons is to start the year there, get it out of our system? 

9. I sorta feel sorry for MLB umpires, who are watching their reputations get shredded by the new ABS system. They are also losing control. (Everyone thought the robot umps would end rhubarbs and ejections; if anything, they seem to be contributing to them.) I wonder if there won't be a backlash against the murderous, flesh-chopping machines. Nobody is challenging their scoreboard displays, which do NOT show the travel of a ball across the three-dimensional plane. Are we seeing true balls and strikes, or are we seeing simple mechanized versions of the strike zone, which do not make them necessarily better than the human component. Thank you for your attention to this matter. ED

PS: According to late report, Carlos Rodon tweaked a hammy during his rehab, and it will probably mean missed time. Seriously, and this isn't a knock on Rodon, but is anybody surprised? Of course it was gonna happen. The Yankees simply do not go through an entire spring training without injuries. 

Tuesday Game Thread Caption Time – Seattle Edition – Goodbye March !

Fried Funk or did Boone Fart again ?

Overturned calls are fulfilling and fun, but ABS cannot rescue the Yankees from IBS

 
Last night, in ghastly cold Seattle, where hamstrings can snap like a babysitter's chewing gum, the Yankees continued their communal feast/revenge tour on human umpires, via ABS, the new Automatic Balls and Strikes reality. 

They overturned five close calls on pitches, to be christened by The Athletic as the MLB team most likely to benefit from ABS. 

And it led to... drum roll, please... a run.

Yep. One run. All night. Five overturned calls. Five second chances. 

One stinking run. 

Listen: Every season is full of games like last night, dive-bar cocktails of well shaken hope, mixed with bitters of dread. You coax a dutiful start from your fourth starter, a guy with microscopic expectations, and then, as the innings burn off, you forget your pregame vow of apathy, and you start to believe the Yankees might steal a game... which then slithers between your fingers, with Scott Proctor, Adam Ottavino, Ian Hamilton Paul Blackburn on the mound. Forget ABS. It's IBS we should fear. 

As always, it's the little things. Jose Caballero getting picked off first. The bottom of the lineup going 1-12. The bullpen, creaky from overuse in San Francisco. 

Irritabelle, from
another era

A West Coast time zone, too late to be accepted as reality.

Listen: There will always be games like last night. They're actually quite common, maybe 15 per season. As soon as you get hopeful - and they reel you in so delicately that you don't even know they're doing it - they slap a walk-off single and slam the door.

Five overturned calls. One run. 

I wonder how long the Yankees will maintain an advantage with the ABS system? (If, in fact, they truly have one at all.) Yes, they have veteran hitters and, yes, they have two catchers skilled in the art of framing pitches. But they just pissed away a decent start from Ryan Weathers and five overturned calls. So much for that great, season-opening, self-congratulating win streak.  

Two more games in Seattle, then a relatively easy schedule through April. Cupcakes and tomato cans. And perhaps an advantage to exploit. But they better not have more games like last night. And they better watch those hammies.

On an off-day for the Mother Ship, down in Triple A, The Martian and Mr. Jones start hot

Yesterday, while the Yankees cruised the coast, up to Seattle - the city of Windows '95 - the Railriders of Scranton were shivering in Buffalo, Bronze winner in the 2026 Golden Snowball contest for upstate NY cities. (Note: It was won by Syracuse, the UCONN women's basketball program of snowfall, with 141 inches - or 11.5 feet.) 

After being frozen-out on Saturday, Scranton played two against the Buffalo Bisons, a farm of hateful Toronto, the Gainesville of Canada. 

Fortunately, our two most promising hitters, Jasson Dominguez and Spencer Jones, seem to have avoided an early Cashman Derangement Syndrome slump. At least, not yesterday. Here's what the kids did:

Jasson Dominguez: 3-for-8, three singles, an RBI, one K.

Spencer Jones: 3-for-8, a HR, 2 RBIs, 3 Ks.

Oswaldo Cabrera: 0-for-7, 3 Ks. 

Yanquiel Fernandez (an interesting 23-year-old Cuban OF castoff, via the Rockies): 1-for-8, a HR (his 2nd on the season), 3 Ks.

On the mound, Carlos "Radar Love" Lagrange pitched 4, fanned 3, gave up a run.

It's too soon to say nuthin. (Not that that ever stops us.) At least Dominguez and Jones are not mired in a hitless funk, depressed from being in Buffalo rather than the Pacific Northwest.  

Tonight, Ryan Weathers pitches. God knows how he'll do. If spring training showed anything, we're in trouble. To get Weathers, the Yankees went Flo - they bundled their home, life and car insurance - a full package of prospects. In Tampa, he pitched 17.1 innings and gave up 17 earned runs. If you're doing the math at home, for your own sake, stop.  

For Weathers, the Yankees paid heavily, then pretended they didn't, doubling down with Cat-4 hype. Ever since, he's been The Babadook. Thus far, our starting rotation has been otherworldly. We know this cannot last. And if Weathers doesn't start showing something, calls for Lagrange are going to increase. 

Technically, these April games matter. Spiritually, I'm not so sure. But tonight could be telling... 

Yesterday was just another day in the City by the Bay . . .

Started off like any other Saturday . . .

Rode on the Oracle Ferry - docked at the Ballpark . . . 

Everything seemed welcomingly familiar . . .

It was all "getaway day" business for the Yankees Players . . .

Chad Whitson may need to reevaluate his life choices . . .

Yankees Sweep !  Took the ferry back home . . .

This was the first time in seven years that I went to a Giants home game.  I would always go to see the Yankees play in Oakland so there was no reason to go see baseball in San Francisco.  The concession prices were easily 40-50% more than they were in Oakland in 2024.  (That is a huge difference in cost.)  Plus it was the first Fiesta Gigantes Saturday of the season. Every Saturday home game the Giants "celebrate latino culture" by featuring live music and entertainment before, during and after the game.  It was crazy, festive and loud in between innings.  Then, once the game was over the Yankees players and staff were quickly herded off the field by Jason Zillo and were gone.

When The Singularity arrives, and humanity is eradicated, the automatons might view Saturday's Yankee game as the fulcrum point of history.

Saturday, on national TV, veteran home plate ump Chad Whitson did humanity no favors.

And the game of baseball changed, forever.

In last night's 3-1 Yankee win over San Francisco, seven Automatic Ball and Strike challenges reversed calls by umpire Whitson. One, in the 3rd, turned a called-third strike on Trent Grisham into ball three, leading to a walk and a run. Another, in the 9th, nearly led to a Giants rally. Whitson started the game as its Supreme and Undisputed Boss. He finished looking like a castrated flyspeck, a vestigial organ perched ornamentally behind the catcher.

Never again will home plate bullies - the mistake-prone Richie Garcia or the arrogant "Cowboy" Joe West - decide the outcome of ball games. 

From now on, the faceless, lifeless eyeball of A.I. - the HAL 9000 of sports: ("I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that") - will overturn calls that were accepted for more than a century.  

From now on, a K is not a K, until the ABS challenge is complete. 

And damn... here's the rub: 

I dunno if we should celebrate this... or fight it with all we got.

Soon, every stat, every outcome, every disputed play that was to eventually become a vagary of the game... they'll be gone. Someone will hit .400. Or a pitcher will throw back-to-back perfect games. Everything we once took for granted will be subject to review. Baseball history is no more.

This week, the Yankees swept SF. But the real winner was The Machine. For now, teams are allowed only two wrongful challenges per game. That rule will not hold. After all, why should a bad call in the ninth - or any time - be allowed? 

Every fan remembers at least one at-bat - a called third strike in the dirt, or a bases loaded walk, right down the middle - so botched by the home ump that we screamed at the TV and kicked the puppy, and - frankly, we will take the outrage to our graves. Never again, right? Well, we'll soon get our wish. 

But I wonder: Did baseball just kick humanity in the balls?

No Kings Day – San Francisco – 03/28/26 – ABOVE AVERAGE IS IN DA'GIANT HOUSE

WHAT WILL WARREN DO TODAY IN THE CITY BY THE BAY ?

 

"The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on."

 

Among the many things that Stephen A. Smith knows nothing about is, obviously, baseball.

Smith's random jeer at Aaron Judge the other day—after the Yankees won their opener, 7-0—referred to Judge as a "Goliath of a man," as if Judge's physical size should give him some invincible advantage in the game.

Yet there's a good reason why nobody remotely Judge's size has ever played major-league baseball at this level before, and it is that being very tall and very large confuses home-plate umpires and affords crafty pitchers all sorts of weak spots to hit if they can.

Someone who actually knows something about the game would understand this. But of course, Stephen A. Smith knows nothing about baseball.

Smith also tells us that in, "Too many moments," Judge "comes up considerably and conspicuously small"—clearly implying that the Yankees' Opening Day contest against a mediocre team not in their division or their league is a big moment.  

Anybody who really knows anything about the game of baseball knows that this "moment" was only considerable or conspicuous because a big corporate media sponsor decided to "buy" Opening Day and festoon it with all sorts of ads for its other, decidedly mediocre products.

But then, Stephen A. Smith knows nothing about baseball.

"Everybody around him came up big but him," Smith told us—as if we really needed Judge to, say, whack a finishing, three-run homer that would have turned a 7-0 game into a 10-0 game.

Anybody who really knows anything about baseball knows that it's great if the whole team is hitting, and that if the big kahuna doesn't get a poke that day, probably all the better, because it's all the more likely to come in a game where you really need it. 

As it did for Aaron Judge, in the very next game of the season.

But then, how was Stephen A. Smith supposed to know that? Stephen A. Smith, after all, knows nothing about baseball.  

The Contrarian feels that we really shouldn't hold this against Stephen A. Smith because Stephen A. Smith is not really supposed to know anything about sports. Because even though Stephen A. Smith appears constantly on channels and in shows, and on all sorts of other forums that claim to give us first-rate sports analysis, he is really just an "entertainer"—much like a rodeo clown, or a burlesque house tumler, or maybe the current president of the United States of America, which is a position that Stephen A. Smith apparently now aspires to.

Okay. But true wit proceeds from knowledge. 

Even the most foul-mouthed, obscene and transgressive of entertainers—say, Robert Smigel's Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog—manage to strike a deeper vein, if they are any good.  

Last week, on Stephen Colbert's show—canceled, in an unprecedented move, by the proto-Stephen A. Smith who currently resides in the White House he has so foully vandalized—Triumph went through his usual, filthy tirade...and ended by saying how Colbert was being canceled "for financial reasons only."

Smigel was willing and able to mock the powers that be throttling what used be the "Tiffany Network" of television, by dismissing their excuse for blatant, craven censorship. 

It was speaking truth to power—as opposed to what Stephen A. Smith prefers to do, which is to spew insults from a place of ignorance. 

Judging by what the American people now seem to prefer in a leader, Mr. Smith should be a lock in 2028.

 

 

Undefeated, untied and unscored-upon! Yanks could celebrate an Easter of Tomato Cans

Let's face it: Over the first two games, it wasn't certain if we were playing the San Francisco Giants, the team of Willie Mays, or the Jersey Giants, of Brian Daboll. Two remarkably stress-free victories over a team that played a 3B at 1B, and a DH at 2B. It just didn't seem real. Maybe, it wasn't.

Next up - after SF tonight - three in Seattle. Do they still have Jay Buhner?

Then three at home against lowly Miami. 

Then three at home against the homeless A's. 

Three against Tampa at George M Field.

Four against the Angels, LA's ugly sister.

Three against KC. 

The first four weeks resemble a march of animated tomato cans. It will be April 21 before the Death Barge faces a truly hateful foe - Boston, Houston and Texas will be lined up - and there is no reason why the Yankees should not be leading the AL East.

You almost don't want to say anything, or write anything, for fear of upsetting the bingo board. The Yankees can be their own cupcakes. But but BUT... 

1. If Max Fried and Cam Schlittler are for real, the chances of holding the pitching staff together until Rodon/Cole return suddenly look much better.

2. Hot or cold, Judge and Giancarlo still scare the hell out of opposing pitchers. 

3. In Scranton, the Martian went 1-5 (one K), and Spencer Jones 1-4 (Two K's.) Oswaldo played SS and went 1-5 (two K's.) And the pitching staff threw yet another shutout. 

Monday, Will Warren starts game three. It's one of those horrible West Coast starts, at 9:05 p.m., where everything seems out of kilter. Warren had a great spring, was the Yankees best starter. No jinxing here. Let's see what happens.

The Yankees are undefeated - just like Boston, Baltimore and Toronto. No tomatoes to be had.

Boone wants to give the platoon guys a chance to play

 

The media narrative on Aaron Judge is loathsome and tired.

Yesterday, midway barker Stephen A. Smith did what he is paid to do - create flames from broken wind - and the mere fact that you are reading this proves that he succeeded.

On that note, I apologize. 

The Yankees just enjoyed the most pleasurable 24-hour stretch in memory, beating up on the hapless, itinerant San Francisco Giants in a laugher victory that started Wednesday night in the second inning. Thanks to opening day schedules, we've had a full day to gloat, to imagine Cy Young awards and breakout seasons, and to bestride the planet like the colossi of truth and wisdom that Yank fans are known to be. 

It's all downhill from here. 

That said, let's enjoy this. The Yankees clobbered SF, even if Netflix was more self-absorbed with celebrities eating hotdogs than with the actual game. (I'm still wondering: No Sydney Sweeney?) And yesterday, that one game was being used to validate an entire winter of standing still, a front office strategy that remains only partially cooked. 

But, of course, that's only a fragment of the Yankee narrative. The larger, easier and more slow-moving plot line involves Aaron Judge. By now, even those self-isolating natives on that North Sentinel Island, off in the Pacific, the ones who kill Christian missionaries on contact - even they know that Judge, in the opener, went 0-5 with four strikeouts. 

It's a development that had to be reheated on every cultural burner because, well, Judge is Judge and the Yankees used to be the Yankees.

So, Stephen A. Smith - who is running for president, they say - went on a 90-second bender about Judge failing in big moments. This is the world according to anecdote - to the reality of podcasts. We all remember when Judge swings and misses. When he uncorks that massive lunge, when he swings through fastball, he is the Babe, he is Mickey, he is Roger, he is Reggie and he is A-Rod, because you don't get to fully appreciate the greatness of a player unless you also tag along when he fails. 

Two weeks from now, when Judge leads the league in every slugging category known to mathematics, Stephen A. Smith - who is running for president, they say - won't issue a retraction. And nobody will care. He'll be onto something else, creating flames from broken wind.