It's Not a Juggernaut. It's a Clown Bike.

In general, the local sporting press has tended to describe your 2019 New York Yankees as a "juggernaut."

Depicted below is a real, original "car of the juggernaut," the celebratory wagon named for the Hindu god Jagannātha, meaning "world lord" that was pulled out and hauled about on feast days...from time to time inadvertently crushing any individuals who happened to fall under its wheels or get pushed there as, let's say, a holiday prank by one of their friends.



Pretty scary, huh?  You sure as hell don't want to meet up with one of these going full-speed down the streets of the Bronx.

But that's not what this New York Yankees team is.  This New York Yankees team is, let's face it, a clown bike act, in all the best senses of the phrase.





Not quite so scary, huh?  But I don't mean to ridicule.

In the circus—back in the days when we were allowed to have circuses—a clown bike act was a thing of wonder.  There might easily be four or five professional, trained clowns piled onto one of these teeny tiny bicycles, all hanging on for dear life while simultaneously performing amazing acts of derring-do.

This is what your 2019 New York Yankees truly are.

Think of Ma Boone peddling away like crazy while, say, LeMahieu balances on one of his shoulders juggling chain saws, and Gio stands on the other shoulder swallowing flaming swords, and, say, Maybin and Tauchman are standing on their respective heads, twisting balloon unicorns into shape.

Don't get me wrong.  It's a helluv'n act.

But clown bike acts are built to end in ruin.  Right now, the wheels are getting wobbly, and the handlebars are loose, and that incredibly tricky, loop-de-loop is coming up just ahead.  Chances are it all goes splat.

Will it matter?

Well, that depends.  Going into tonight's action, the Yanks are 9 1/2 up on the Tampa Bay Witness Protection Rays, thanks to the Rays' two-run, bottom of the ninth rally against Seattle today.

Still if NYY goes just 17-18 the rest of the way, TB—a.k.a., the Consumptives—would have to go 26-8 just to catch up, which is a hard go indeed.

But say the Bombers go 10-25—far from the worst meltdown in baseball or even franchise history (see September, 2000, "The Heart Attack Month").

All the Lungers would have to do then is play 19-15 ball...not so hard at all.  20-14 would put them ahead.  It's quite likely that the other Wild Card "contenders"—Cleveland and Oakland would also buzz by us, leaving us home for the holidays.  (Halloween, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, etc.).

Hell, even the Carmine Hosiery could catch us then with a relatively mild, 26-9 revival.

Hey, chances are this Yankees team will surprise me, and bring home a big win tonight.  They've been surprising me all year long.

But the things about clown bike acts is...they're built to crash.  So is this one, now far from home, with no pitching, the hitters regressing, the replacements reverting to mean, and the wheels about to come off.

What makes me think that, in the end, we'll feel like we've been run over by a juggernaut?