By HoraceClarke66
With apologies to William Blake. And the Church of England.
And did Dent’s feet in ancient time
Walk upon Fenway’s playing green:
And was the holy Lamb of Reg,
On Fenway’s pleasant pastures seen!
Bring me my Judge of burning gold:
Bring me my Stantons of desire:
Bring me my Sevvy: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
Horace, it's too bad Greg Lake isn't alive to sing this ode. There aren't many of left that saw this magical game. They wouldn't understand that the goal was to win a WS not a play in game. It's a shame that a 200m budget doesn't buy what it used to. Maybe Hal should've applied for PPE $$, because lord knows we could use some more overpaid DH's and 35 yr old starters on this time. I was listening to Mad Dog yesterday afternoon and he thought the Yanks would win the pennant. I guess he hasn't been the same without Francesa
ReplyDeleteBleacher seats were $2 for that game. Aluminum bench, but still a steal.
ReplyDeleteI have never been more nervous watching a ballgame, albeit on television. Absolutely nerve-shattering.
ReplyDeleteAnd they won. And the very next day, exhausted, frayed, etc...they flew out to Kansas City and beat the Royals, 7-1, pitching Jim Beattie and Ken Clay. And then they took a beat down and a tough, one-run loss to start the World Series...and beat the Dodgers the next four straight.
Now THAT was a team.
Not that there aren't some guys on this team who have shown the same kind of mental toughness. But they just don't have enough.
Did you know that Blake was a nudist? And that he and his wife would sit in their yard, naked?
ReplyDeleteIce Cream Sandwich, burning bright
In the ballparks of the night.
what immortal hand or eye
could frame they morbid symmetry...
William Blake?
ReplyDeleteI'm more of a Henry Blake guy
""Klinger, it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon and you're still in a housecoat?! Put on a dress! You never know who might be coming around! (to Trapper) Boy oh boy, you gotta stay on top of these guys every second!"
Or Maybe Robert Blake (as Baretta) on this year's Yankees
"Ya take all o' yer wouldas, yer couldas and yer shouldas in one hand, and a quarter in the other, and you can maybe buy a donut."
The 2021 Yankees need the catalyst of Mickey Rivers. The genuine straw that stirred the drink.
ReplyDeleteDoug K,
ReplyDeleteYou forgot B-Lak-E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw
If a vegetarian only eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
ReplyDeleteRufus,
ReplyDeleteNever saw that. Very funny. Thank you.
Watching more now.
Doug K,
ReplyDeleteThat was the reason A-A-Ron Hicks used that as his 'nickname' on player nickname games a few years ago.
Thaillon tomorrow. Hello, tiebreaker--keep your Monday schedule open.
ReplyDeleteRufus,
ReplyDeleteThat's even funnier!
I always liked the football player names one.
I really need to catch up with Key and Peale. They're both very talented.
This will give me something to do until the Arizona Fall League starts up. :)
Key and Peel are indeed hilarious.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Kid, we could use "The Old Gosslehead" indeed. For today's statisticians, he was an abomination. A lead-off man with all of 266 walks in 15 years? A centerfielder with no arm???
All I can say, though, was that he was a catalyst. In almost mystical ways, he would just make things happen. In that playoff game, too.
He had a double and two walks, the second one right AFTER Dent hit his home run. He then stole his second base of the day, and was driven in by Munson for the Yanks' 4th run.
Always something!
As for tomorrow, I suspect it will be a shit show, followed by a 4-way tie for the wild cards. Then they'll win on Monday, just to extend the agony, before losing in the 9th inning on Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteBitty, Doug K.—great stuff.
Anon Bosch, Bravo!
ReplyDeleteMr. Bosch,
ReplyDeleteWell said and with more than sufficient fiber to nullify any thoughts you might have of irregularity.
Doug K.
For what it's worth I think you nailed it, A.B.
ReplyDeleteMike
Smarmy, disinterested announcers? Sterling and Kay are two of the most insufferable homers in the business. Dave Sims, the Mariners' TV guy, is a former daytime host on WFAN radio--thirty years ago. He's a nice guy, and I'm glad he landed in a lucrative TV play by play gig, but his openly unhinged rooting is hyper to the point of clownish absurdity--his whole shtick is like an SNL parody of a sports announcer--sort of like Rizzuto in his later years, but on steroids, draining the game of its sense of tension, dignity, and gravitas. Listen to the old radio/TV work of the great postwar generation of announcers--Barber, Scully, Allen, Hodges, Gowdy: they could rise with the excitement of the game while maintaining a sense of proportion and taste as narrators/dramatists of a great sport. Guys like Sims make the proceedings sound like a pro wrestling match.
ReplyDeleteNow I am not upholding Kay and Sterling as counter-examples to Sims--they are slightly more modulated versions of the same syndrome, although it's a close call at times, with the buffoonish self-promoting homerun calls and signature calls for opening the game, closing the game, seventh-inning stretch, wiping one's tuchis, and so on.
There are guys out there today who approximate the classic virtues of the enthusiastic but dignified Homeric narration of this great sport, but none, alas, work for they Yankees: John Sciambi, Dave O'Brien, Gary Cohen, Howie Rose, Wayne Randazzo, Dan Shulman, Matt Vasgersian, and so on. Wouldn't we be delighted to have any of them working for the Yankees? In the hoped-for winter housecleaning, the current Yankee broadcast personnel (David Cone excepted along with Ken, who is gone now, alas) should be part of a badly needed organizational radical reconstruction, from the clubhouse manager to the general manager. In your dreams.
Thanks for the shout out, AB. And for what it's worth, your comments are NOT ignored. I think I speak for many here when I say that there is so much insight, humor, and just plain wackiness on this blog that we simply can't get around to acknowledging it all. Think of our silence not so much as being ignored as it is the rest of nodding in heartfelt agreement.
ReplyDeleteAs for the game...well, I can't ever hope for the Yankees to lose. And as for what a loss might bring—well, once again, this brings us to The Cashman Conundrum. And maybe The HAL Conundrum as well.
The Yanks have not done the things we have so wanted them to do for so long...for reasons most precious unto themselves.
HAL wants to make a certain amount of money. Period. Coops Cashman wants to preserve his job. Period.
Is this to say they don't want to win? Not at all! Just that they have other priorities. A loss on Sunday won't budge those priorities, especially with a lockout looming in December.
Another reason we might as well win...
...As for the nature of this team—I'm genuinely baffled.
ReplyDeleteAt times, they seem to have great spirit and remarkable resilience. I think of some of Cole's guttier efforts, how enthused Judge was against Toronto and his great play down the stretch, Giancarlo seeming to burn up in Fenway.
Other times, they have seemed more disinterested than any Yankees team I have ever seen. Who can forget that Monday game against the Orioles they dumped 7-1, or some such? Too many of those all year.
I think what this all boils down to different strokes for different folks.
Some players showed up, hustled, and played hard all year. Others, I suspect, have been suffering from nagging injuries—DJ, Voit, etc.
And then there are some that just seem to be malingerers—or as Mickey Rivers would put it, permanent gossleheads. Is Torres unmotivated, or just not all that smart (on the field)? Is Sanchez disengaged, or just overwhelmed? Does Chapman have some rare tropical disease, or is he just wearing too many shirts?
You be the judge. I truly don't know.
I think there are two things we can say about this team:
—As Bosch notes, they don't seem like a team. That's because they weren't constructed as one. It speaks to the slapdash quality of Cashman's work.
—Clearly, the effort of many players waxed and waned throughout the year. Ma Boone, for all his good qualities, just couldn't get their engines running.
In many organizations, the answer to this would be clear. Coops and Boone would get their laurels and hardy handshakes and be sent on their way, with nicer severance packages than any of us could ever hope to see.
The Yankees as an organization would then decide to rebuild or not.
But nothing like that will happen. Because of Coops and HAL...
Finally, the broadcasters:
ReplyDeleteI am really going to miss The Master and Suzy Q, for all their wonderful nuttiness.
On TV, I just don't like Kay, hard as he tries. Paulie seems too often bored or disgruntled for my taste. Only Cone seems to have raised his game, and he contributes real insights.
The Mets' big three, Darling, Hernandez, and Gary Cohen, is just so much superior. Our guys should take notes.
By the way, Anon Bosch--to give credit where it's due: the main purveyor of interesting, relevant stats on this blog is ZacharyA, not the person you named. I also occasionally offer some statistical analysis, but ZacharyA takes the palm on that score (pun intended).
ReplyDeleteWhile I am late to this particular rodeo, let mrewax eloquent like so many others here;
ReplyDeleteFUCK HAL,
FUCK CASHMAN,
FUCK BOONE.
Does anything else need be said?
Oh, yes, don't spend a dime on anything Yankee/MLB stuff, tickets and various Derek Jeter HOF bats until the Purge.
The Holier Than Thou Archangel
Herr Bosch,
ReplyDeleteYour comments are read here, as the many middle-of-the-night responses would attest to. I wholeheartedly agree with what Hoss stated about that.