Kevin Baker's book is here!

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

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Chris Young saves the night, the series, the road trip, maybe the season... and most of all, face

So shoot me. I was wrong about Chris "Forever" Young. Since April, whenever he's come to bat, I'd turn in the direction of Tampa and fart. I've had it with drain-circling ex-Mets, five years past peak foliage, who take a roster slot from a kid who shall never see the light of 100 Yankee at-bats. As a juggalo-level fan, I reserve the right to throw Faygo cola at Yankee teams that are built from the scrap heap. It is galling and insulting to watch prospects, year after year, rise up from the primordial ooze of Charleston and Trenton - the Danemora Correctional Facility of farm systems - and then get cockblocked because the front office iPad-Facebookers signed another Brennan Boesch... or... yep, a Chris "Inappropriately Named" Young.

It drives you even battier when the Boesch or the Mark Reynolds, or the Ben Francisco, or the Youk, or the Pronk, or - listen: I can go on forever - the Chris Young, fails to hit for us.

While we're on the subject of Hell... The other day, I was watching that four-Kleenex Stephen Hawking movie, where the Hawk is hooked up to the Univac dishwasher, speaking through a vaccum cleaner, and he says, "... where... there... is... life... there... is... hope..." and everybody boots it. Everybody but me. All I could think was, there is no life on a team of 39-year-olds, and where there is no life, there is no hope, nada, nope, nuthing.

And until last night, I was right.

So shoot me. You know by now that Young last night hit the game-winning, face-saving three-run homer (and Carlos Beltran - my other personal Yankee whipping mule - also deserves a foot massage for delivering a key base hit.) We were about to lose to Houston, a franchise exploding with youth - this year's KC Royals - when Young saved our sorry butts. (That wasn't even his first Yankee moment: Last year, when they picked him off the scrap heap, he went Ruthian for two nights, then tweaked a Higgs boson and went on the DL.)

Well, I was wrong about Young... but not about young players. Right now, the hope for the Yankees will not be found in the MLB discard pile or the July heat wave of salary dumps. It's down at Scranton and Trenton - the Heathcotts, Floreses, Mason Williamses, and the emerging nation known as Aaron Judge. The Severino kid last night threw seven shutout innings for Scranton. He's 21. Could CC have done that? DON'T ANSWER. 

Soon, the Yankees will do what they always do - trade prospects for this year's new old wave. Maybe we'll score a seasoned vet without giving up the future. (Jury still out on Pete O'Brien.) Or maybe we'll give away another Mark Melancon. But damn and gloriosky! - either way, take a bow, Chris Young. That was one helluva hit. Everybody, sing! ... where... there... is... life... there... is... hope...

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