Kevin Baker's book is here!

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

Sunday, October 22, 2017


6 comments:

13bit said...

Ommmmmmmm.....

KD said...

A bright spot?

HoraceClarke66 said...

As it happened, I spent the Weekend of Death up in the Boston area, visiting a niece who's a freshman at a school outside the city. We spent two days going all over Boston, where the the ALCS seemed about as important as a Fourth Division soccer game in Bulgaria, which was just as well by me.

Everybody was in full Brady and Patriots gear already, save for a smattering of Beantowners wearing Bruins and Celtics gear. The only exceptions were a number of students and tourists proudly wearing their Yankees hats and shirts.

I admired their bravado, but I didn't share it. I had a bad feeling about the games the whole time, and I was just as glad to only be getting sporadic reports.

Both nights, when I first flicked on my iPhone I got a shot of adrenaline, reading the score "New York 5, Houston 0." And both times, I quickly realized that the ALCS site was moronically showing the Game 5 score first, for some unfathomable reason.

(You can picture my state of mind that I fell for this two nights in a row.)

Every passing update I looked at was worse and worse. On Saturday night, with the score 4-0, my phone went on the fritz for some reason, which I was just as glad about.

I didn't want to know the final score, carefully avoiding any and every possible source. I didn't have any doubts about how it came out, but I wanted to avoid seeing it until I got back to this site, with my family of fellow sufferers.

So what's to say? Hey, I go along with the party line.

'It was miracle enough we got this far in a rebuilding year...We did great getting past Cleveland...Houston had a better team..."

I know all that. I think it was a terrific year, all things considered, and once the sting of these two hideous losses is gone, I will think so all the more.

I realize that in baseball, momentum is the next day's pitcher, and the Yanks just ran into some very good pitching by a very good team. I was—at least intellectually—prepare for this to happen all along.

Soooo...why is it that there's still this nagging doubt in the back of my brain?

Why is it that I still have the feeling that this MIGHT be 1995, the start of something big, etc...but that it's just as likely that Aaron Hicks, snagging that fly to end Game 5, will be the highwater mark of this team?

Why is it that I find it ominous that this team took so very little from such a scintillating three games in Yankee Stadium? That its best hitters never really seem to learn anything for very long?

Yeah, the future looks bright.

But Cleveland isn't going anywhere. Houston isn't going anywhere. Boston will likely reboot and come back strong. The White Sox have built up their farm (thanks in good part to us), and Oakland is looking to do the same.

Will this Yankees team progress? I don't know. I really don't know.

ranger_lp said...

"That light at the end of the tunnel is not hope...It's a freight train coming your direction" - Precious Paul Ellering

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