You will forget, for a moment, balls and strikes, wins and losses, Giancarlo's contract, and Brian Cashman's increasingly hairless head. You are now completely cleansed of all YES taint - aside from Coney, who remains the best thing currently happening in the Yankiverse. Now, open your eyes.
Wait. Close them again. What you are about to witness is the absolute bottom line for everything that we know of as the New York Yankees. I'm talking about butholes in the seat wells. In the end (no pun intended), in the seats of power (no pun intended) this is all that truly matters. Fannies. Okay, open your eyes.
Did you see it? Go back and take a second look. Hmm. At first glace, everything looks bleak, horrible, terrible! The Yankees, drawing below 18,000? Yikes, two years ago, they averaged nearly 42,000. That's a - gulp - I'm not going to calculate the percentage of decline. It's a whopper.
But but BUT... these numbers are clearly skewed by the pandemic. The Braves and Rangers - most successful teams in MLB? That's absurd. Their numbers run high because they play in states whose governors refuse to demand social distancing, masks, vaccinations, soap and Calgon Bath Oil Beads. Let's face it: That's the only reason in this world why those two wretched franchises could be leading all of baseball in attendance. Time will tell how wise a decision that was, though it certainly must please the teams' ownerships. (The Rangers even got to sell off their expensive players at the deadline! What a great time to own a shitty team! Well played, billionaires, you've done it again!)
But wait... who cares about Texas? Nobody I've ever known. I've met many Texans. They follow football. They clean their guns while watching Newsmax. Nobody cares about the Texas Rangers, and nobody ever will. Those people in the stands, they're just doing it to own the East Coast libs, and I salute them! Have another hot dog, Ranger fans. And don't be afraid to pass it from fan to fan across the bleachers. You're part of a movement! The Texas Rangers Enrichment and Financial Salvation Project! Have at it.
But this blog concerns the Yankees, who in 2019, averaged nearly 42,000 per game, ranking third in overall attendance, behind the Dodgers and Cardinals.
Go back to 2018, they stood near 43,000, second only to LA.
In 2017, they ranked 4th; in 2016, sixth.
The last time they led MLB in attendance was 2010, the year after they won the World Series. Before that, they were often described, rather glowingly, on the Yankee Radio Network as "the Beatles of baseball." That was a bit overripe, but they led the world. And those days are gone.
Obviously, today, we're all feeling mighty solid - three wins over Miami, McBrooming them in their own lair! Yesterday, we actually came from behind! We have a newly energized lefty lineup, four upcoming games with our cousins, the Orioles, and - hey, did you notice? Boston has fallen to second place in the AL East. If we can overtake Oakland for the last wild card, we would face the Redsocks in the fateful One Game Season. Anything can happen in one game.
Tampa, though, is starting to roll again. How do they do it, year after year, with the second worst attendance in baseball, and almost no movement at the trade deadline? (Yes, they did get Nelson Cruz, but they also traded to tweak their farm system.)
In attendance, the Yankees remain ahead of the Mets and Boston - the two teams they are always compared to.
If we consider that Atlanta, Texas, Colorado and the Cubs should suffer relatively large declines in attendance this month, the Yankees can still finish fourth or fifth this year in bleacher bodies. Thus, it won't matter whether they win in October (which, let's be real here, they won't.) The recent moves by Hal Steinbrenner to trade 10 minor league prospects for Anthony Rizzo, Joey Gallo and some bullpen lugnuts will be considered a success by nearly every measurement that the Yankee front office makes.
They salvaged the months of August and September. They've done what they needed to do. Let's see how they draw this week against the O's.
Need another sweep now. Then three of four against Seattle. Then a sweep of KC. Then see where we are. The White Sox come next...then a game with the Angels, then Boston at the Stadium.
ReplyDeleteWe are in prime tomato can season right now. Have to make the most of it.
Didn’t the BoSux sell out Fenway for like 10 years straight? To see them in 13th place as a first place team is shocking
ReplyDeleteDuque, with all due respect, count me OUT as someone who is feeling "mighty solid."
ReplyDeleteI am not solid, nor am I sold. The heart and soul of this team is still mushy, weak, and without fire.
There is no backbone, no core and no cutthroat desire to win at all costs. It's a bunch of unfocused dudes, led by the baseball equivalent of a pothead - Booney -= who gets glassy-eyed when there is trouble.
Have fun during tomato can season but, if you think we can reach the playoffs AND then compete against real teams, you're deluded. This is the Cashman Reality Distortion Field at work - to borrow a term used to describe Steve Jobs, who truly was a bloodthirsty, win-at-all-costs leader.
Cashman can fool me once, twice or even thrice, but he can go fuck himself forever until or unless he gives us more than the single championship that he bought in 2009. The long historical record on him is indisputable.
We just beat a dog shit team and you know what? We got lucky. Our hitting sucked.
Don't let the last few days go to your heads. I hate being the voice of doom here and I would love to be proved wrong, but I'm not even close to drinking that pinstriped Kool Aid for a very long time.
From the Keith Law chat on Saturday
ReplyDeleteQUESTION: Deivi Garcia has been pretty awful in just 33+ innings in AAA as a 22 year old. Is this cause for concern? Are you less convinced he can start after the first half of this year?
KEITH LAW: Yeah someone fucked up his delivery. He’s a low slot slider-slinger now. Complete disaster. If I were the GM there I’d be on the warpath over this – he was one of their top 3 prospects and right now he has no value.
KEITH LAW: All the deception, the depth on the CB, all gone. I don’t get it.
@unknown,
ReplyDeleteThe beantown racist townie assholes inflated their 'sellouts' for many years. I am in possession (somewhere) of a ticket during that time that has a appropriate cost printed on the ticket of $0.00.
I have not been to the tampa stadium, but I was at the old Kingdome. Fenway is worse.
Good post Zach. And typical of the Yankees organizational development of players in general and pitchers in particular. Pitchers are good before their Yankees tenure, bad while with the team and then very good again when they depart. There are too many to mention but the most recent examples are Sonny Gray and especially Lance Lynn. From top to bottom the administrative/managerial personnel are wretched.
ReplyDeleteThe Yankees constantly finished in the Top Five in attendance—and were frequently No. 1—for about 90 years.
ReplyDeleteThen they decided to deliberately build a new park—with lavish public subsidies!—that made this all but impossible due to the number of luxury boxes and restaurants included.
DEFUND THE YANKEES!
Rufus, love you to death and agree with you 90 percent of the time. But much as I hate the Boston Red Sox, Fenway is a great, great park.
ReplyDeleteI wish we had one like it. We used to.
Bitty, love you to death and agree with you 99 percent of the time.
ReplyDeleteBut—and I don't know if it will make a difference in the standings—BUT, the Yankees do have a clubhouse leader now. It's Rizzo. He's a guy who has overcome some major things in life, and still come out smiling. If anyone can pull this team out, it's him.
Do not let the attendance figures fool you. Those are inflation by some of the ticket price reductions that my brother and I receive at least once a week. I think oneswas like $76.00 per ticket and one hot dog and drink included. They are not selling tickets and not everyone is terrified of COVID.
ReplyDeleteThis week will be interesting because of this past weekend's sweep.However, All this week's games were on this discount package though.
the bottom line is not good for Hal
SELL HAL SELL.
Your Pal, The Archangel
Horace...As Mayor Koch once stated: " If you agree with me 90% of the time you're a genius. If you agree with me 100% of the time seek psychiatric help!"
ReplyDeleteRizzo is, indeed, a good guy, but we are dealing with far greater forces here - supernatural forces....
ReplyDeleteI will say this again ( Do I repeat myself? Very well then I repeat myself, (I am large[chubby really ed.], I contain monotony.)
ReplyDeleteWell, that was a load of pie in the sky pablum. You don't have to sugarcoat things for me. Just say it. These Yankees are terrible. They may need to be intubated and go to ICU. They will not survive the season, surely not. Hopefully they will have a comfortable and dignified passing. But I doubt it. I for one will be screaming at them, "Die already!! Die!! Die you miserable collection of thrombosed hemorrhoids!! Die!! Die already!!"
Hoss,
ReplyDeleteAll the love is on this side of the table, to quote the Bob's.
Fenway at least got rid of the seats that faced the bleachers (not even the bullpens or outfield). But, they also taught HAL et al. how to nickel and dime every fv<{ing thing they could out of a park, hence the Bronx shopping mall. Due to one of those I own the Bucky Dent Fenway brick, just inside the bleacher entrance.
However, the likelihood of ever seeing a black or brown person who is not either, employed by the redsux OR a fan wearing a Yankee jersey, approaches zero. The stands are full of racist townie assholes, except on days that the Yankees play and Yankee fans inhabit half the seats. By my estimate one in twenty are actual baseball fans that you would want to have a conversation with. Plus it is impossible to get to or from the park any easier than the Bronx shopping mall. That should not be the case in a major (sic) city.
Winnie, they need a trach. It's that bad.
ReplyDeleteIt’s beginning to look like they may be hoisting another Wild Card participant banner in Monument Park. What an accomplishment by HOF Cashman!
ReplyDeleteArchie,
ReplyDeleteIf only HAL would listen to you. We'd all be happier.
The only reason we won these three games in Miami is the new guy Rizzo, combined with terrible defense by the home team. Our offense is pathetic.
ReplyDeleteI think the pickup of the new lefty hitters will improve the team. But, in keeping with traditional Brain activity, we got rid of no one on the major league roster. So once again we have a big logjam of (mostly ineffective) players with nowhere to put them all. And chances are that Brain will send down Greg Allen and keep Brett Gardner. I'm virtually certain that Brain will retain Gardner for next year as well.
The Hammer of God
@ZacharyA Yeah, when Deivi Garcia came up for that one start earlier in the year, I was shocked because he seemed like a ghost of his former self. His fastball velocity was down to 92. And his curveball was just a big fat balloon with no bite. His body language was terrible. It sure looked like he had zero confidence.
ReplyDeleteThe Hammer of God
Hard to have confidence if your fastball is straight and sitting in the low 90s and your curveball has no break. You need Cone-like mastery of the pitching arts and big brass ones to get major league hitters out when all you've got is batting practice stuff.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Cone had both.
ReplyDeleteI am so fucking sick of seeing Gardner in the lineup nearly every day instead of Allen or Florial. This is symptomatic of everything that's wrong with this organization. Gardner should be DFA'ed immediately.
ReplyDelete