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Kevin Baker's book is here!
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Sunday, June 17, 2012

A question from the throng at the Millbrook Book Festival yesterday caught me by surprise...

As I stood at the famous Millbrook multi-media podium, gazing out into a sea of 10,000 rapturous faces, one tall hand rose above the tide – the wailing criers, the emotionally overwhelmed and the young women who had disrobed and were fervently waving their bras to catch my attention – it was a stranger with a piercingly intelligent question:
“Considering the Yankees 17-4 record since the International Juju Intervention, what do you plan to do later in the season if the team encounters trouble?”

It was The WinWarblist, an IT IS HIGH commenter of infinite wit and insight. It was the first time I have ever met an IT IS HIGH commentator in the field, whom I didn’t already know. So caught off-guard by his appearance, I offered a Rick Perry-worthy response.


So, delayed… here is what I should have said:

On May 24, the Yankiverse dropped a juju Rizzutoanic bomb on Major League Baseball. We must let the dust settle. The players and teams still doesn’t know what hit them. Some even think they did it.

Nevertheless, the juju surge cannot last forever. We certainly don’t want to drain the Yankee juju well in the infancy of May-June. Some would opt for saving the entire juju well for October. These people are fools. We will surely need it for the tough trench of August – there is always a tough trench in August.

I say we should employ juju in the way that Girardi manages his bullpen: Use various juju strategies now and then to keep them fresh. We don’t want to upcap our vast juju reserves in October only to find they turned to vinegar in the barrel.

But we must not overuse it. I worry that we mixed too potent a juju intervention. (I was hoping for six out of 10 wins; nobody anticipated this.) Next time, instead of a mass Charging of the Mound – the most powerful juju intervention known – we might try a modified mass Lookaway. (below)

And it was great to see and meet the WinWarblist, whose complaints later about Teixiera surely were a factor in Tex getting the big hit three hours later. 

Now, if only I can find that guy Anonymous, who writes in Arabic…

4 comments:

TheWinWarblist said...

Tex CANNOT change his approach. At the rate he's declining, he'll be out of baseball by 2014. He is a big lunk-head who has been pulling the ball since he played T-ball; he can do nothing else. But he is our big lunk-head. Remember what he did in 2009. Cheer him on every time he grounds out into the shift. And if anyone has any of those BALCO steroids left over from the last decade, please FedEx them to the big lunk-head right away.

TheWinWarblist said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
el duque said...

WinWarblist...

That's solid juju you're using on Tex. He's had two good games since you've been ranting on him.

I'm with you, though. He's got creeping Giambinoism, and if he doesn't change his ways - (alas, he cannot, and we all know this) - it is fade-to-black time for him.

TheWinWarblist said...

What I did is just a bandaid! We need something better! What the Yankees need is a Great Player in Decline Special Juju! Something that's most active in late September to early November. Something that will help the aged veterans feel young again. Put a spring in their step, uncloud their fading vision and speed up their sleepy bats. Even if it's only for one critical game. A powerful Great Player in Decline Special Juju is what this club needs. It's that or a 55 gallon drum of leftover BALCO steroids.