Your New York Yankees are playing .737 ball, 5 1/2 games ahead of their leading division rivals, and 6 in the AILC (All-Important Loss Column). The sun is out, the heat is on, and we got a twinbill lined up against the same Pale Hose baseballers we just thrashed in Chicago.
The good folks at baseball reference give the Bronx team an 11.3 percent chance to make the World Series and a 98.2 percent chance to make the postseason—both percentages trailing only the mighty, Los Angeles Juggernaut Dodgers.
What's not to love?
(And hey, was Winona ever so young? Were any of us?)
The hard, honest truth is, folks, this Yankees team—at least as presently constituted—is not making the Fall Classic, unless we're talking the PGA RSM Classic at Sea Island, Georgia.
Much less winning it.
There just aren't enough hitters in this lineup to overcome top playoff pitching. The bullpen is already giving way.
And already, Cashman's paper-thin depth is wearing through—thanks in part, of course, to our Peerless Leader, El Duque's Icarus-flying-too-close-to-the-sun moment, when he just HAD to go poke the juju gods (We understand the impulse, Duque. It's like John Cusack needing to "tickle-the-dragon" in that Los Alamos movie. Before he even got to sleep with Laura Dern.)
Friends, this team ain't gonna make it through another four months. Get those dreams of a World Series—or even a division title—out of your head, lest they trouble your sleep.
Let us look instead to some realistic goals. And they would be impressive accomplishments:
—Nothing in our world today is 98.2 percent certain. BUT, this year's Yankees might just make the much-adulterated playoffs (that is, finish in the top 40 percent of the league). Which would make the 24th time in 28 seasons. Which is not nothing.
—All the Yankees have to do is go 54-70 the rest of the way to clinch their 30th straight winning season. Which is also not nothing, second only in major-league history to the 39 straight winning years the Pinstripers compiled from 1926-1964.
That's all ye can hope for in this world, and all most of ye baseball fans can hope for. Welcome back to HAL's Big House of Mediocrity.
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23 comments:
A slammer for DJL! The hot weather must be heating those balls up.
King is hereby demoted to Viscount.
Hicks hits a weak dribbler to third. Michael Kay tells us, "The third baseman had to hurry because of Hicks' speed."
Hicks was out by five feet—and visibly slowing down as he got up the line.
I feel like we are all involved in a huge game of "The Emperor has no clothes." Or in this case, the Oft-Injured Hicks.
Ruiz taking days to throw pitches...on a 90-plus day at the Stadium. Gee, I wonder why baseball's popularity keeps nosediving.
Castro is the gasoline, Water Rooster the match
No Torrents, despite the day off.
I guess they were afraid there'd be a Margaret Hamilton on a day like today.
Holmes on a roll.
Hold the mustard.
Donaldson rapidly being railroaded off the field in the postgame.
The accusation is that he said something "racist" to Tim Anderson.
Tony La Russa could not say what it was—thereby implying, of course, that it was "n-word." Instead, he set his face grimly and looked down, as if he had just seen infants and women slain before him.
Anderson was asked about it, and SEEMED to say that Donaldson referred to him as "Jackie Robinson." He also looked vaguely ashamed to even have to discuss the whole, horrible episode, barely mumbling around a toothpick. When some reporters asked hi, to repeat the insult, all he would say was, "I already said it."
Well, okay, I'm not saying it didn't happen. No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of professional athletes.
But doesn't "Jackie Robinson" sound like an awfully weird insult for this day and age? Who would call someone that in 2022?
Not saying it could not have happened. But it's also possible that Anderson might have misheard him (and of course, La Russa looks to be in PTSD for something he did not hear firsthand at all), or there was some other misunderstanding.
It would just be nice to hear from Donaldson before MLB disappears him.
Ah, and now we have clarification.
Apparently, Tim Anderson called HIMSELF "today's Jackie Robinson" in a 2019 SI piece. Donaldson has been mocking him for it ever since, calling him, "Jackie."
So...a jibe at a player putting on heirs by comparing himself to a Hall of Fame—a player, incidentally, who has had a sudden and suspicious explosion in his game happen a few years ago, but who knows?—much like us mocking "Babe" Benitendi...now becomes a racist slur, with suspensions and slanders to follow.
Nice job, Tony and Tim.
Hc66 and all others on this site,
Though I have referred to myself as "The Archangel" on this site,
no one on this blog may call me 'Archie" because that is an angel-ist remark and an insult to all Cherubim.
Thank you very much.
Reparations in the form of indulgences greatly accepted.
NO doubt that if Donaldson said "Jackie" he meant Jackie Penthouse Joke Page Martling.
Use your finger!
What I think...
Donaldson is an asshole. Anderson does an SI interview calling himself today's Jackie Robinson and Donaldson the asshole breaks his balls over it. Been breaking his balls for a couple years now.
Yankees beating the Whites like rented mules, Nestor (Nestor!) making fools out of them, hot weather, and Donaldson picks today to bust Andersons' balls real hard. We've all been there.
Racist? Maybe. Maybe Donaldson is a red-assed racist prick. There's plenty of them around these days. But maybe Anderson is just frustrated on the wrong side of the score. Hard to say.
Josh Donaldson might be a racist. Depends on his batting average.
.246
Hmmm.
In years past he’d absolutely be a racist. Lately it’s hard to tell with the dead ball.
Get sucked in at your own risk.
The Juju gods are watching you and they are NOT friendly at the moment.
Just saying...
Oh it was fucking racist. Donaldson isn't hitting like Ty Cobb, and even if he was, he shouldn't be playing that shit. Start a fight and risk someone important getting hurt? Donaldson needs to get his shit in order.
Mildred, Donaldson certainly does seem like a permanently pissed-off asshole, and I have no idea if he's racist down deep.
But when you declare yourself something like that, in public, I think you have to expect a little mockery like this. And for Anderson and La Russa to immediately insist that it's racist, strikes me as attempting to use what is today a pretty serious charge—AND SHOULD BE!—for a quick, tactical advantage.
And as such, it is something that also mocks the seriousness of racism.
If Anderson wants to be a swinging dick, a la, say Rickey Henderson—which is definitely one way to play the game—well, then have the balls to do it. Henderson went around for years calling himself the greatest. If Donaldson had tried to mock him with that, Rickey would've just felt he was getting his just due.
I don’t much like Donaldson, but what kind of narcissistic jackass compares himself to Jackie Robinson, an immortal both on and off the field? Certainly Donaldson should be prudent enough to avoid this type of remark, but to throw a little flak Anderson’s way in light of such an egotistical comment shouldn’t be treated as a big deal. La Russia (who should be home with his grandkids) really brought unwarranted attention to it with his vague, thoughtless statement.
I apologize, incidentally, for so vulgarly resorting to both "swinging dick" and "balls" in the same sentence. But of course, such are, no doubt, the origin of our favorite game. I wonder what navel-gazing Neanderthal first thought, "Hey, this would make a great sport!"
I agree about La Russa, 999. He seems unable to inspire his rather jocular, sloppy team to get serious—something that must be a real annoyance to a manager as experienced and successful as he is. I wonder if he encouraged Anderson to take offense at this, in order to jump-start the ChiSox.
If so, it's a dangerous thing to play at in today's atmosphere. MLB is now saying it will "investigate." Oh, joy. Lots of behind- closed-doors wind-testing to see if this will cause a stir or not.
But then La Russa was a guy who turned a blind eye to blatant juicing, in all his clubhouses, for years. There's little he won't do for a win, no matter the ultimate damage to his players or his game.
And I apologize Horace for referring to the Whites as being beaten like "rented mules". Nobody anywhere should joke about animal cruelty, even if the animal is a rental. I take that shit seriously.
Note to Jacklyn Anderson;
If you seriously compare yourself to a social and sports icon/hero, please,
A) Play like one
B)Expect to get your balls busted
C) Call the guy out and then stay above the fray like a grown up
and D) Steal home in a World Series.
Hey, how about you just pray to the JuJu gods that you even get to play in a World Series.
screw those guys! they are trying to steal our mojo and our Juju at the same time. But they suck, especially their weird-as-fuck manager and their ego-crazy shortstop. the Whites -- as Mildred so aptly called them -- were supposed to be good this year, but they are struggling to keep their nose above water. Now they deserve a serious kick in the balls from the Juju gods, but I fear that the tables may tilt against Donaldson and the Yankees because of the popular perception that anyone who's called a racist is a racist.
Rarely has anyone deserved to be swept in a doubleheader as much as Jackie and the Sox today.
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