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Kevin Baker's book is here!
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Thursday, July 23, 2015

Forget TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT: He should run for Yankee owner

Whenever I see Robbie ".245" Cano in his Mariner pantaloons and freedom beard, I think of that early Star Trek episode, where Kirk accidentally beams into an evil mirror universe, where Spock wears a hipster goatee, and Uhura is studying to be a porn star. (One of the few positives for that universe.)

My theory: Somewhere in our past - I'm guessing fall of 2004, the exact moment that Johnny Damon hit the grand slam off Javier Vazquez - the Matrix twitched, and we were all plunged into an evil-but-kind-of-cool universe. It has upsides: Bad Miley Cyrus, flavored hummus, phone aps that tell you the closest bagel places... But we're still struggling to deal with Donald Trump, who is totally out of the wrong reality.

He's running for President when - dammitall - he should be running for Steinbrenner.

Don't get me wrong. He'd probably wreck the team, as Old George did in the eighties. I can see Trump having traded Dellin Betances for Mike Napoli, then announcing that he had personally won the 2015 World Series. You can imagine Trump making public Carlos Beltran's cell phone number, after the guy goes 0-6. God only knows what Trump would have done with A-Rod. Let's just say it would involve a broken leg. There are 10 billion reasons (by Trump's count) why he would be the worst Yankee owner since CBS - but at least he would be more fun to watch than CBS. Say what you want about Trump, he can fill a back page.

Which is why this universe sucks. Where did we go wrong, with billionaires running for President or - worse - buying Presidential candidates? They should be buying pennants. Throughout history, one of baseball's greatest gifts to America was to distract these idiots from politics - (aside from wrangling taxpayer money for stadiums.) It doesn't matter if you favor the Koch brothers or George Soros; these bozos would do humanity a favor if, instead coveting the world, they coveted the World Series.

But let's get back to Trump. He'd thrive as Yankee owner. For starters, all those things he said about Latinos - forget it. He'd have learned a long time ago to keep his trap shut. And he'd spend whatever it took. We would never be watching Stephen Drew swinging away into over-shifts, with his average 50 points below Mendoza. If Trump ran the Yankees, Robbie Cano would not be wearing a beard. He'd be wearing Pinstripes.

Wrong universe, that's all. Beam us up, Girardi. Take us home.

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