The Yankee fan brain cannot summon a more terrifying omen than the image of Don Mattingly stalking us in... gasp... a Blue Jays cap.
According to the universe of podcasts, that's the likely future for Donnie Baseball, who is in "deep" talks with the BJs to become manager John Schneider's bench coach in 2023.
The Yankees' offer? A YES broadcasting gig.
Let's pause a moment to ponder this. Breathe. Pull the loaded Luger out of your mouth. The Yankees - 2009 World Champs! - view themselves so perfectly run, so flawlessly idealized, so immaculately mastered, so everlastingly uncorrupted, so unmitigatedly pluperfect, that they have no place in their system - beyond gobbling Michael Kay's leftover goo in a YES booth - for not one but two modern Yankee icons: Don Mattingly and Derek Jeter (also said to be offered a job as team announcer.)
I get it that both Mattingly and Jeter might make fine YES personalities. (Or not; sometimes, that happens.)
But these are two of the most upright characters - and baseball minds - on the planet, and both of whom are still identified as faces of the Yankees.
Apparently, both seek meaningful ways to make their mark in 2023. And the Yankees have no place for them, beyond marveling over exit velos and recalling how great the nineties were?
You almost wonder: Do certain people in the organization feel, well, threatened?
Mattingly in a Jays cap. What hath God wrought?
The shame of this organization goes deep and wide. The management should be forced to sell.
ReplyDeleteWhat if all Yankees fans everywhere pooled their money and made an offer for the team? We'd need billions, sure, but there are a lot of Yankees fans around the world.
JM - Last season I proposed a fan-based go-fund-me to help pay Judge what he deserved.
ReplyDeleteYou’re aiming much higher than that here.
And although I do disagree a bit with your previous comment (honestly, the organizational shame goes more wide and deep) you can put me down for $27 buckaroos to help acquire the team!
ReplyDeleteMotherfuckers. Not one red cent.
Next thing you know, Jeter will go to an organization in witness protection like the Marlins.
ReplyDeleteNot one red cent?
ReplyDeleteI hear that every year but that oath is rarely honored.....even by many in the IIHIIF universe. Hal doesn't believe it and, for once, I agree with him.
Not singling you out, Dick, but you get my point. Sure, I watch a lot of the games. But strictly in a Robinhood kinda fashion. I do not pay one penny to watch and will not attend another game until their ownership or front office changes. Preferably both.
Duque:
ReplyDeleteThe present Yankees are clueless. I was looking forward to hearing Donny on the Yes broadcasts. I believe that Donny wants to be on the field. As long as Genius Cashman remains in charge, Hal will back his every move. Thus, PR man Boone remains. The Yankees could have brought in Mattingly as the Manager. To make him a bench coach, as a manager in waiting, would pressure Cashman's boy Boone. So uh like you know. Donaldson 0-4. I thought Josh had some good at b ats. I liked what I saw.
ReplyDeleteI hear you Carl. Guilty as charged.
But it's been too many years of the same shit. I normally buy the MLB package for the entire year, but last year I didn't, but succumbed against my better judgement when they offered a deal I couldn't refuse - just in time to watch that miserable collapse after the all-star break.
Once the playoffs started, I barely listened to the Cleveland series and didn't watch or listen to any of the Asstros games. I knew what was coming. After that, nothing but a peek at the box scores.
I'm a junkie Carl, and weaning myself away from the Yankees has been a hard detox. I don't really know what I'm going to do next season, but if Judge walks, so do I. That much is certain, and hearing that Mattingly might go to Toronto sickens me.
The Yankees "brain trust" - that three-headed monster - has the team mired in a gilded mediocrity that won't allow for any innovation or creativity, and nothing will be able to penetrate the comfort that allows them to wallow in their collective dung. I fully expect another year of "championship caliber" baseball in the Bronx.
But I stand wholeheartedly behind the "Motherfuckers." If only I could kick them.
JimmyEHD - see JM's proposal above.
ReplyDeleteRed cents aside....
Agreeing with most of what Carl, Hoss, Doug, Dick, B2R, Rufus, LBJ, Duque, ETC opines....
Good or Bad......
I will always be a Yankees Fan.
That said - who is currently in NYC?
Mattingly is officially a Blue Jay!
ReplyDeleteEveryone, please introduce yourself to the group. I will go first.
" Hi all, my name is Carl Weitz. And I am a Yankee junkie. Today is the first day of the rest of my life."
Horrible.
ReplyDeleteBy the Last Dynasty (1995-2001), I was going to 20-25 Yankees games a year. I dropped that package, mainly because they were demanding even more games in order to get playoff tickets, but kept going to several a year. That dwindled and dwindled, with the team.
Since Jeter's next-to-last game, in 2014, I have been to exactly 1 Yankees game in person—that marvelous sojourn with this inimitable crew. Which I would gladly do again. Plus, I shell out a few bucks a month for YES.
But that's it. No gear, no yearbooks, no nothin'. There must be thousands of fans like me. One-time fanatics who pay less and less attention every year.
HAL doesn't think it's a problem. He thinks he's replaced thousands of people like me with a few big spenders in the luxury suites. He thinks he can always make up lost fan revenue with public subsidies and higher prices. He thinks he doesn't have to court a whole new generation of fans who really weren't all that fond of baseball to begin with, and who pay less and less attention to it with each passing year.
He thinks he doesn't need to field a winning team. He thinks he doesn't even need to field an interesting team. He think there are no alternative entertainments, in this the richest city in the world and the biggest city in America.
He is wrong. And he is going to find that out.
Schedule changes next year. Yanks play BJs only 12 times. Manageable.
ReplyDeleteOnce John is gone, following the Yankees as a near everyday activity will be over for me. Unless there's a much more dynamic on-field product and/or Ricky Ricardo becomes the English language voice of the New York Yankees. Doubt either will happen. The Yankees will for some time yet be a speed bump on some other team's journey to tje World Series title, and (insert name of bland corporate baritone here) will take over radio play by play.
ReplyDeletePer Jeff Passan:
ReplyDeleteYankees’ latest offer to Judge is in the neighborhood of eight years and $300 million, a deal which would set the record for the highest ever average annual value for a position player. The report also indicates that the Yankees would be willing to go up from that should the Giants, their expected top competition for Judge, make a similar push
Arch...I had Daredevil, X-Men and JLA #1s! As well as an extensive collection of comics. And a good baseball card assemblage. I remember my dad saying circa 1965, "what....are you nuts?
ReplyDelete$ 10.00 for each comic book and they're not even new???" LOL
Unfortunately, after my mom warned me to clean up my room (it was slightly tidier than Oscar Madison's bedroom) for the tenth time before I went off to college, which fell on deaf ears, she got rid of every card and comic book. She thought it was just clutter.
Needless to say, I could have put my kids through Ivy League colleges and had money left over from those collectibles. Sigh. Oh..... and my room is still messy. But I blame my 2 Yellow Labs. If only they were around 50 years earlier.