"Luck is the residue of design."

 

That was the favorite saying of one of the greatest of baseball men, Wesley Branch Rickey. 

It pertains to the continuing descent into unreality of your New York Yankees. The latest symptom of which being David Cone's claim from the broadcast booth yesterday that—according to their "exit velo"!—the Yanks SHOULD have been hitting .446 on the day...instead of the .290 they did end up hitting, or the .233 they were hitting until the last two at-bats of that dramatic, walk-off win.

Sigh. 

THIS again?

How long will the Yankees and their apologists continue to exist in this twilight reality?

"Exit velo" is not a real thing. It means nothing whatsoever. And the notion that the Yanks thus far have been hitting in "bad luck" and will soon break out—as evidenced by their "exit velo"—is fanciful, to say the least.

Sure, the Bombers are almost certain to improve on their hitting start to the season. They could hardly fail to do so. Before yesterday's game, that start rivaled the worst hitting done by any team, ever, since 1900.

But that doesn't mean this is a good-hitting team, just held back by luck. 

Line drives—and particularly huge, lazy flyballs—often get caught in baseball. This has always been so, and always will be.

Take it from somebody old enough to have seen Sparky Lyle as the Yanks' closer, back in a time when the Stadium outfield was much larger than it is today. With certain, right-handed batters, Lyle would just toss it in there and let them hit prodigious, harmless flies that were easily tracked down by Mick the Quick and company. 

What Branch Rickey—pictured above with his 40-year-old son, whose growth was unfortunately stunted by Rickey's insistence on smoking cigars everywhere—realized was that, yes, luck is part of the game. 

But more often than not, it's only going to reflect the preparation you have made. Rickey, who put together not one but two baseball dynasties on a dime, understood that where the mind leads, fortune will follow. Get some good hitters—hitters who know how to make contact—and the Yankees' "luck" will make a miraculous about-face.