Kevin Baker's book is here!

Kevin Baker's book is here!
"... an exemplary sports book..." Kirkus Reviews

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Are we supposed to celebrate another homerrific team?

When the Retrieval Empire last winter inked Sergeant Youkilis to a one-year deal, a few writers dusted off the old punch line about him being the "Greek God of Walks." OK, fine. Unfortunately, in their quest to re-enact a Greek tragedy, the Yankees embody no god. Nope. We follow the blind poet, Homer.

Yesterday, before Cleveland called in sick, the Yankees were tied for the MLB lead in home runs. This news restored some sense of hope to a spring full of doubters. As Stump would say, "Runs is runs, as long as they aint the ones on the terlit." But I dunno.

Last fall, the Yankiverse received a harsh reminder of what we knew all season, but were called trolls whenever we mentioned it. It's not a pretty sight when homer hitters run into playoff pitchers. They swing like blind poets. Last October, the revelation hit us so fast we barely lasted four games. If it was fight, they'd a stopped it.

Listen: We are either a team that moves runners and drives them in, or we are just another traveling water cooler, rumbling from town to town until we run out of gas. We've had fun in Cleveland. Eight run leads are like chicken soup for the Yankee fan soul. Still, I'd like to win a 3-2 game. We need to know who can hit with everything on the line. We need to see Mariano go one-two-three, no room for error.

Maybe it's just me. But as Joe Torre used to say, I don't get comfortable until we're 20 games over .500. We won't homer our way to that plateau. Can anybody bunt?

4 comments:

JM said...

Same shit, different year. Maybe when the 'real' Yankees all come back, this will change and we'll go back to being a club that takes a lot of pitches, walks a lot, and....oh, wait. Those guys were the guys playing last year.

What amazed me when reading this post is that I actually agree with Joe Torre about something.

Anonymous said...

D'OH!

Dave "Kong" Kingman, ex-Yankees OF said...

Doin' it, Kingman style!

John Kruk, sportscaster and ex-ballplayer (but not an "athlete") said...

Great photo of me! Thanks for getting me back on the front page of your blog!