1. Bucket hats. The first 1,000 fans each take one home. Upstate fashion lives! It's reason to cut the tailgate party short. Sponsored by Gannon's Pest Control.
2. Mookie. The real one, Mookie Wilson. He'll throw out the first ball, then sign autographs and pose for selfies... in his bucket hat perhaps? Getting your picture with Mookie is cultural jury duty.
3. Estevan Florial. Yankee star of the future. He went 0-for-9 in Tampa with the mother ship. Lifetime .304 hitter (7 for 23.) He's now 24. Kids, they grow up fast... Also, Ryan Lamarre! LaMoonShots.
4. Parkas. We will need them. Once the sun goes down, Ice Station Zebra. Temps will plummet, mid-40s, with a January wind raging in from Onondaga Lake. By the eighth, you'll see snowflakes dancing around the light towers. By the ninth, the place will whistle with frost.
5. Hoffman Hot Dogs. Big local tradition. Trouble is, no napkins, because fans will have emptied the dispensers to insulate their coats. Also nachos, pizza and fries with gravy. Defibrillators on standby.
6. Poohbahs. Speeches by politicos with sway on the city-county budgets. Nobody listens. By the time they speak, everyone's eardrums have been punctured by the leather-lunged GM, Jason Smorol, who will spend about 30 exhausting minutes screaming at the crowd to "Make Noise." It's like a Trump rally in a prison camp.
7. Fireworks. At the end, when the park is empty, smoke will rise from the cold inversion layer. You hear them from home. Sponsored by Gannon's Pest Control. (You better believe Syracuse has no pests!)
Finally, it's time to predict the Yankees win total in 2022. Put down your number and why in the comments section. I'm still channeling The Great Carmac, and I'll have them tomorrow. It's showtime, folks.
Syracuse is a great place to take in a AAA game. On a balmy night, in July.
ReplyDeleteFlorial will be eligible for the Old Timers game soon.
ReplyDeleteI’ll be optimistic and say 90 wins. Tailon becomes the surprise hit and works for (at least one season) as the 1a to Cole. Judge has a monster year, Stanton is Stanton and Torres has a nice bounce back. Rizzo hits .272 with 25 home runs and opts out after the Yankees get bounced in the second round of the playoffs
ReplyDeleteBecause Lucky Luis has a revival and at least one other starter has a breakthrough season. Plus there's still too much tanking=97 wins.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWe all want 100 wins, don't we?
I don't believe we'll get there with this team. I'll go with 92.
Ex-Tigers pitcher sent to New York Yankees for $1
ReplyDeleteFormer Detroit Tigers pitcher David McKay is heading to the New York Yankees, the Associated Press reported Monday.
McKay, who played for the Tigers in 2019 and 2020, was traded by the Tampa Bay Rays to the Yankees for $1.
The Tigers selected McKay off waivers from the Seattle Mariners during the 2019 season. The 6-foot-3 right-hander pitched in 18 games for the Tigers in 2019 with a 5.59 earned run average.
The 27-year-old McKay allowed 15 hits, 12 earned runs and nine walks in 19 1/3 innings, striking out 29. He appeared in just one game for the Tigers in 2020, getting one out and giving up a homer.
McKay did not play in 2021 following hip surgery.
McKay signed with Tampa before the 2022 season in February, but the Rays had assigned him to their minor league team. In his two years of major league experience, McKay has no decisions with a 6.08 ERA in 26 games. In 26 1/3 innings, McKay has allowed 21 hits and 18 walks, striking out 34.
McKay, who still has minor-league options, was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the 14th round of the 2016 draft out of Florida Atlantic.
BIRD is back!!!!
ReplyDeleteRE Bird
ReplyDeleteGood. He can play in Toronto. Because Rizzo can't.
As to predictions...
As a lifetime Washington Generals fan I have consistently proven to be too optimistic when it comes to my sports teams.
This years edition of the product doesn't excite me. Rizzo and Donaldson will be hurt for extended periods. Higgy will fade under the workload. Gleyber will gleyber (a verb meaning to play without intensity) plus we lose 90% of our games in Toronto because certain guys won't be let into Canada.
93 Wins - Wild Card. and then... the usual. Early exit.
McKay. The better way.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see Headley Lamarre is taking the field tonight. Wear your long undies, dude.
Let's see...wins...will we have any? I suppose it's inevitable that we do.
I'll say 95, and apologize in advance if anyone else already took that number.
96 wins because that number makes me SMILE when its reversed :)
ReplyDeleteI'm going with 85 because this thing needs to implode.
ReplyDeleteThis is a .500 ball club. Yes, there is a chance that it could go a bit higher, maybe 86 wins, maybe a bit more if all the stars align. But I doubt it. It could make the playoffs, barely, like last year, only to get bounced out in the first round. Well, it's a new season. We can all dream.
ReplyDeleteBut Greg Bird...why?
ReplyDeleteI guess he's cheap and can play first if four or five guys on the major league roster get injured. At least until he gets injured.
Hope he's stocked up on Dr. Scholl's.
@JM...maybe it's a subliminal message...the Yanks are giving us the bird...?
ReplyDeleteIf I had to pick a number, I’ll say 87, and we sleaze into the last WC spot. I feel the starting rotation is a real liability, and the F/O can no longer be expected to bring in quality reinforcements.
ReplyDeleteWhile people may chuckle at the Bird signing, don’t completely discount the possibility of his return to the Big Club should injuries take their toll.
Gonna say 94. And I know that's being hopeful. Probably won't be enough to win the division. But should insure a place in the wild card, with the compulsory early exit. Ah, the optimism that spring brings...
ReplyDeleteMy mind says 93, but my heart says 86, in honor of Chernobyl and also in the hope the disaster is similar.
ReplyDeleteI'll go with my mind, if only because my heart is fickle and more often than not it causes me to do things that are bad and awful. For example, if the Yankees start winning, I'll be the dolt with the hats and the jerseys walking around the neighborhood like I bat leadoff for this fucking team.
83. Ca$hman still won't be fired. HAL won't sell the team. We enter the 9th circle of hell.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteGreg Bird finishes the season at 1B, DJ finishes at 3B because old men rarely play a full season. Gleyber gets traded mid-season for Joe Hardy, only to have the deal quashed when The Intern learns that Hardy didn't pass the physical.
Judge wins MVP and becomes a free agent, signing on Christmas Day with the Mets.
Setback Sevy suffers another setback and enrolls in medical school, Cole picks up an endorsement deal with Gorilla Glue.
At the All-Star break it is discovered that Boooooone has been suffering from noctambulism for years and is put on an extended leave. The Yankees announce the hiring of interim manager Jimmy Dugan. The Yankees go on their annual 13-game winning streak which is followed by their annual 15-game losing streak.
AND...
Gannon Pest Control becomes the official eradication sponsor of major league baseball.
In honor of another upstate delicacy, the Yankees announce the addition of a special, limited-time-only food court specialty item, The Garbage Plate.
The bullpen succumbs to a major sweat hog attack, the Yankees play too many 10-9 softball games that stretch to four hours and the team finishes barely ahead of the Orioles and doesn't make the playoffs with 86 wins.
And lastly, Brian Cashman has a Gethsemane moment and confesses to the world that he has secretly been in the employ of the Red Sux since 2010. Harold immediately signs him to a lifetime personal services contract.
I think that you are all wrong. Cashman has done a tremendous job stockpiling talent.
ReplyDeleteWe have a very deep and experienced team with live arms all along the pitching staff.
Now, they have added McKay and Greg Bird
100 wins is not out of the question for SWB.
Hopefully, the parent club will not abuse them with frivolous callus because of tweaks.
ReplyDelete87 wins
These are pretty hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI dunno. I was feeling all but overwhelmed with April optimism, thinking, 'Hey, they could win 92-96 games.'
No.
The collapse is long overdue. This is a team with no depth, no speed, no one who can hit in the up-the-middle positions, and a long, savage history of injuries and inexplicable regressions (Looking at you, Sanchez-Bird-Ford-Miggy-Gleyber-Hicks).
No one hits for average, and everyone strikes out too much. And in the minors, any help is at least a season away.
Then there is the Covid factor, whether we want to ignore it or not. Sure, Judge, Rizzo and how many other Yankees get a pass while garbagemen and nurses are being fired. We expect that here in Unfair Town. But microbes don't care. If and when these guys test positive, they'll sit.
Bottom line, though: It's all about the pitching. And your New York Yankees don't have it. The rotation essentially consists of one guy who looked severely diminished once they took away his favorite artificial advantage. The bullpen has some promising young arms, but a prematurely aged, very weird closer.
I'm sticking with my pick from last year: 77 wins. Sure, in the Age of Parody, uh, Parity, they could get 92. They could also drop to 67. I say 77, and no playoffs for you, HAL & Brain.
—The Soup Nazi
More roster moves..
ReplyDelete04/05/22 New York Yankees optioned 3B Miguel Andujar to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.
04/05/22 New York Yankees optioned LF Tim Locastro to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.
Looks like they will have 3 bench players to start the year (Gonzalez, Trevino and LeMahieu...
84 wins. I am honestly half hoping they miss the playoffs since there's no real chance of a Series win and it would mean less excuses from Hal, Cashman, and their deluded stans.
ReplyDeleteYeah, another advantage of the new baseball. ranger: no bench. Oy.
ReplyDelete70-92. This is the most pessimistic I have been throughout the entire championship drought. We have a weak rotation, a weak bullpen, and are lousy at the backstop. I also have zero confident in Gallo and Hicks.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, I think this year will simply be the beginning of very bad days ahead. I predict by July every Yankee fan will be bemoaning our twin albatrosses of Judge and Stanton. Remember (was it early last year?) when Judge was most recently injured and it just felt it was going to be that way forever? We all wondered, not for the first time, whether he was physically too big for the game? I can't help but expect he will "strain" something early on and never really return this time. The difference will be that by then we will probably be stuck with him... to the tune of $200 million. Jacoby-Ellsbury-type regret will settle in.
I hope I'm wrong and both our giant sluggers lead us to 100 wins and a championship. Who knows? I mean, hey, we did finally jettison the Sanchize, right?!
Anon Bosch,
ReplyDeleteGet the hell away from wherever you live and move .
Down in NC and SC, we have been back on schedule for surgeries for quite some time.
As a person who has had several hernias, two from cancer surgery after effects, what is happening to you is extremely dangerous.
Get the hell out and move to America
Anon Bosch> yes indeed, sending epic healing vibes your way my friend, we are ALL rooting for you!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm going with 88 wins, and hoping they miss the play in/play offs since that's the only path toward a regime change,,,,, And I too have never felt this ambivalent about this team!
eternal optimist here:
ReplyDelete96 wins for second place
Anon....if you do visit or move to America, I suggest not doing so south of the Chesapeake Bay or West of the highway, Interstate 81.
ReplyDeleteI thought Germany had a great health care system.
@A-Bosch, it did seem a bit slow around here, now we know why! Hope that surgery gets done & is successful. What a drag a hernia is. I just said a prayer for you. Godspeed!
ReplyDeleteI'm going with 93 wins, but I can also imagine 75-98 wins. Wrong guys get hurt.... But, if if the team gets some overdue health, hitters returning to the mean, and one to three farm players burst onto the team, long overdue..... Maybe they run the table. Yeah, I sound like every second division manager and fan. One other thing, most of you guys underestimate Gallo. I've been going through my Baseball Prospectus book more intently of late, he's one of the best all-around outfielders in the game. Not top tier like Judge, but a solid, versatile second tiered OF. Jettisoning low energy Sanchez will help, while we add a red-ass like Donaldson. We should, at long last have a real defense. DAMN shame that Hal wouldn't spring for a centerfielder.... And a quality number two starter. Severino coming back would warrant an investigation from the Vatican.
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