Heresy! Blasphemy!

On October 31, 1517, a rather excitable monk named Martin Luther nailed his famous Ninety-Five Theses to the doors of All Saints Church in Wittenberg (and you think I'm long-winded!).

No, it wasn't some kind of Halloween trick-or-treat stunt.  Luther was attacking key elements of established Catholic doctrine, and the world would never be the same.  Welcome Protestant work ethic, restricted golf clubs, and drinking hard liquor as soon as the sun was over the yard arm.

In the same vein, Ma Boone—who henceforth shall be known as "Mad Monk Boone" (and no, it's nothing to do with the old Dodgers and Phillies hurler who surrendered The Mick's World Series grand salami).

What Boone did was to say—for publication!—that the key to the Yanks success was going from the third most strikeouts in the AL last year to only the 11th most this season:

"Contact is important; it matters.  It's something we talked about in spring training."

"We talk about controlling the strike zone over and over in the dugout," chimed in batting coach Marcus "Huldrych Zwingli" Thames.  "We talked about [it] in the spring and now in every meeting, before every series.  We keep stressing how important it is to get your pitch  We never stop having that conversation."

No doubt, those meetings are held deep in the catacombs of Yankee Stadium by torchlight, probably between the bones of Lou Gehrig and Earle Combes.

I'm sure there's some part of Pope Brian that would prefer to set up a lovely little auto-de-fé for the heretics somewhere near the pitcher's mound.  But the Pontiff is having too good a season himself to unleash the Inquisition.

Could it be the Reformation has arrived?  Yankees stealing bases, not trying to pull balls that can't be pulled, hitting into the yawning gaps left by shifts...Our season of miracles and wonders continues.