But it's wrong, so wrong...
The Yankees aren't unveiling the "Youts" by design. (Also "My Cousin Vinny" came out in 1992; don't they have a more modern cultural reference?) This was never the plan. We spent half the season thinking Aaron Hicks would hold LF, and most of the second half with Josh Donaldson at 3B. The Martian wasn't supposed to arrive in September. As the YES team measures his plaque for Monument Park, you'd think Shane Spencer and Kevin Maas and Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird and - add your own horror names - never existed. Sorry, but I can't help but think the Tigers are closer to their next world series than we are.
A month ago, when the team imploded, our lone hope was that this organization, embarrassed and humiliated, would change its ways.
That it won't continue as MLB's municipal dump for bloated contracts.
That it would develop young stars rather than sign thirtysomethings near the ends of careers.
And that the engineers of this disaster would be held accountable.
Well, so much for that. Five wins, and it's none of the above. Moreover, this streak has been a testament to HRs - solo shots, for the most part - a strategy that has failed. Though it was great to finally - after all these years - tag Houston, beating Detroit is like sending Timmy to bed without supper. Why bother? Detroit could be the next Baltimore. And we'll remain the slogging Yankees. Fifteen years from now, we'll feature Ohtani batting cleanup; he'll be hitting .135.
Really, I apologize for being such a downer. But when the Yankees win, like last night, everything feels great for about two minutes. Then you look at the standings, and you realize that it didn't matter, not a whit. When Giancarlo homers, he's merely padding his numbers so this year's utter failure doesn't look quite so dark. Somebody, maybe 15 years from now, will look at Stanton's stats and say, "Hey, he wasn't so bad, after all. Let's sign Ohtani! Maybe he'll have a big year!"
I won't be there for that. But I'm here for this, and believe me: Bark, fucking, bark. Timmy is in trouble.
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58 comments:
I can't help it. I'm a fan. And it's good to see these mooks win.
23 to go. The improbable awaits.
Also "My Cousin Vinny" came out in 1992; don't they have a more modern cultural reference?
I thought the choice of 1992 was quite apt. 1992 was the last year the Yanks suffered a losing season.
Lassie was not on my bingo card...lol...
We wont know what the story is until after the Milwaukee series. Can't go by Detroit. We have to do this again against another real team first...
I don’t think the current streak will be sustainable through the MIL/BOS series, but yes I am concerned a strong finish will give cover to Boone/Cash/Stein and inhibit needed change. Still, I’m rooting for the youngsters…
I never thought they could beat Houston three straight, but these are strange days.
Starr Insurance call center is actually in Manila.
n.b., Starr Insurance was founded in Shanghai. Which is appropriate for the Yankees, having been shanghai-ed by the ANALytical idiots.
What was the master's HR call for the Martian? I haven't been paying attention, out of spite.
Somerset highlight from a couple of days ago:
https://twitter.com/BaseballQuotes1/status/1699164737416671457
Just checked the stats. Aaron Hicks in 2023
NYY: 69AB, .261 OBP, 1 HR, 5 RBI (7 walks)
BAWLMORE: 149AB, .358 OBP, 6 HR, 23 RBI (and 23 walks!)
I was really happy to see him leave. Now, I'm thinking this is confirmation of my worst fears -- Senility Before Seventy.
JM, at first I thought your optimism was the result of early morning drinking until I saw your reference to beating Houston three straight.
Then it dawned on me: psychedelics. Mushroom for breakfast. It's the only explanation that you, being the optimist that you are, would have missed that the Yankees took FOUR STRAIGHT from the ASStros. Unless I'm the one who's hallucinating.
He was jinxed in New York, Joe. The heebie jeebies. Less pressure in Bawltimore, even in a pennant fight.
Rufus....My favorite Martian preceded by El something or other.
Maybe MR B. should be the next manager of the Yankees
Rufus, Sterling's call was: "El Marciano ... he's my favorite Martian!"
Did anyone notice that Judge hitting #2 came up in the bottom 8th with two outs? That means he got that extra at bat!!! Whuppeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!
Back to The Martian, the kid looks real good. He hits off speed as well as he hits the fastball. He's a switch hitter. According to Ma & Pa Yankee, some scouts say that he's a better right handed hitter than a left handed hitter. That probably means that he's a natural righty hitter who learned to hit left handed. Yes, it's real early to make any predictions, but this is a natural talent, the likes of which I haven't seen in a Yankee uniform in 43 years. His talent and skills as a hitter appear to be better than Mattingly, Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter.
Yesterday, he turned around a 96 mph fastball and put it in the right field stands. That was a Mattingly-esque shot. Then he picked up a couple more singles, taking what the pitcher was giving him, including his first major league hit as a righty hitter. Too bad Judge made the 3rd out in the 8th inning, was looking forward to another Martian at bat.
Dick, was it four? I thought three.
On my second weissbier at the moment....
Mattingly-esque. I like that.
The ASS-stros series was a three gamer.
Hey, did ya'll check out the post game press conference with Boone last night? He looked like hell, like living death itself. He had raccoon eyes, with some red circles around them, and his face seemed very pale and drawn. Classic signs of vampirism. I think the Yankee medical staff had better strip him naked and check for signs of vampire bites. (Vampires can bite anywhere on the body, not just the throat.) They should check his teeth too. Have holy water and crucifix's handy, just in case. If they're aren't up to it, they better call in the Van Helsing family. (Van Helsing, the first and last name in vampire hunting! Call before the contagion spreads, the longer you wait, the more expensive the extermination bill.)
There's an old anthology movie, "Black Sabbath", with three horror/suspense stories. The middle story is about an eastern European vampire contagion. I swear Boone's face looked exactly like the granddad patriarch who got bit. Boone could've stood in for the granddad's son.
crucifixes, sorry, botched that grammar there!
Boone very nearly gave that game away. He left Schmidt in there too long, on a dreadfully hot & humid night. Then he left Peralta in there too long. At the presser, Boone says he was short of pitching and needed to stretch everyone. We need to get rid of this guy. He's an idiot, to the power of 10 trillion.
Our best hope is that the Yankee medical corps calls in Van Helsing. Abraham Van Helsing V, great grandson of the original vampire killer. This family never travels without their super sized violin cases, loaded with all the tools of their gruesome trade: crucifixes, bottles of fresh holy water, bibles (King James & the latest Catholic version approved by the Pope), bowie knives, kukris, silver daggers, iron bars, pistols loaded with silver bullets, pistols loaded with sea salt pellets, crossbows with silver tipped bolts, super soakers loaded with fresh holy water, wafers of the Host, extra large sized printouts of the holy rite of demonic exorcism, wooden stakes, and of course, hammers of all sizes and shapes.
Well, fuck me. It was three. My apologies, JM.
Maybe I was chewing on the mushrooms.
Abraham Van Helsing V, motto: When in doubt, hammer it out! The scourge of vampirism must be exterminated from the face of the earth, whatever the cost!
Too bad Bill Bixby & Ray Walston aren’t still with us, they could make a great promo.
Yankees B.S. I understand Genius Cashman was against bringing up the so-called Yuts. Hal must come to his sneses and ditch The Genius and his puppet manager.
Van Helsing immortalized by Christopher Lee in classic Hammer films, Hammer.
Sorry, Peter Cushing. Lee was a vampire most of the time.
JM - when I'm not talking about the TV show HAZEL - I can be found chatting about classics of 60's and 70's Amicus and Hammer and American International horror films with Kevin.
Celerino Sanchez --- AI can bring back decent representations of both Walston and Bixby for a great promo.
Although alternatively I would consider casting David Cone as Uncle Martin and Justin Shackil as Tim O'Hara
Van Helsing gets all the credit - big-deal vampire killer - but he doesn't do shit as far as the actual killing goes. Fiance Arthur hammers the stake into the Lucy vampire and Dracula has his heart stabbed and head cut off by Harker and Morris. Van Helsing does the thinking and the planning, sure, but the team on the field is Harker, Morris, and Lord Godlaming. (source: finished the book a few days ago).
Also and in addition, I like the kids and I'm rooting for the little bastards to do well. If for no other reason than they'll bring back slightly less-injured washed-up long-past-prime veterans in trades.
@ JM, AA, I saw many of the Hammer films when I was a wee lad, but I've rediscovered them in the last decade or so. I now have many of them on dvd or blu ray. There are so many of them that I'm still finding new ones I haven't seen.
I've read that Christopher Lee was the son of a Countess. I don't know if that automatically made him a Count, but if not, he was the closest thing to it in the movies. My favorite of Lee's Dracula movies is "Dracula: Prince of Darkness".
Peter Cushing was fabulous as Van Helsing. I loved his performance in "The Beast Must Die". And he also portrayed the commander of the Death Star in Star Wars!
I think my favorite Hammer movie is "Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter", which is about an ambidextrous superhuman two handed swordsman turned vampire killer. He uses a samurai sword and a rapier, at the same time. How cool is that? Rollicking great fun, and a duel to the death to close it out. Did I say I love duels?
@ Mildred, Van Helsing killed the three lady vampires in the castle, whilst waiting for the others to find Dracula on the road. Abraham Van Helsing the Fifth would take great umbrage at your suggestion that his great granddaddy didn't do any of the vampire killing.
And did you count how many times the word "whilst" comes up in that book? Must be at least 500 of them.
Professor Abronsius and his sidekick, depicted so admirably (and truthfully) in the movie "The Fearless Vampire Hunters", created an absolute mess on their Transylvanian vampire hunting trip. These amateur clowns ended up infecting half the countryside with the wretched disease. The governor of Transylvania eventually had to call in the Van Helsing family to clean up Abronsius' mess. And it cost a large fortune. Vampire hunting requires an experienced, licensed professional to get the job done.
I can't help but draw a parallel between Prof. Abronsius/his sidekick and Cashman/Boone. In both cases, they're in way over their heads. Blundering jackasses, charlatans fucking up everything they touch, making everything worse than it was before.
God, I remember going to the theater to see The Fearless Vampire Killers. It was pretty funny and there were some terrific boobs involved... wasn't Sharon Tate in that? Was that a Polanski movie?
Yep, Roman Polanski directed. Also co-starred as the sidekick. And voluptuous Sharon Tate, who was butchered in real life by the Manson family later on.
Sharon Tate was hot, but that chick in the middle part of "Black Sabbath" was unreal. Wouldn't you like to bed both of them at the same time? (The way they were back then, of course. Sharon Tate is a corpse now, unfortunately. And that Black Sabbath chick, I don't know if she's still alive.)
All you guys, don't sleep on WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS.
Duque, I was not aware of that particular enclave. I will, of course, report it to the Van Helsings. The scourge of vampirism must be expunged from the face of the earth!
Oh my gawd Hammer I completely forgot about the three temptresses. Thank you for reminding me! Jesus I'm senile.
My apologies to Van Helsing the Fifth Hammer. Whilst reading the book I was creeped out by the three lady vampires. The fact the horses were dead in the morning increased the creep factor exponentially for me, an animal lover person.
Lest not Forget:
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
Vampire Circus
Count Yorga
Blacula
and
Countess Vampire
It's Regular Rodon tonight. A run an inning.
Just read the comments. It's Mystery Science Theatre 3000 tonight I see. This season has a MST3K vibe for me with HAL and CashBrain and Ma Boone as "the Mads."
Where is Tom Servo now that we need him most?
Pizza rat is a more likeable rodent.
Recently uncovered video of Rodon's family reunion:
https://twitter.com/micieb/status/1692645155587637296
Winnie,
Aren't we the wise asses commenting on the horrible production we have to watch? I'd say we have it covered, including the incredibly bad movie.
Well, that's the These Our 2023 New York Yankees we've come to know. Torkelson is putting up a gaudy line score so far.
Can we release Rodent after the conclusion of tonight’s performance?
Mystery Science Tank 2023. At least the Rat is staying on message.
From the MST3K Wikipedia entry.
While the cast of MST3K changed throughout its history, the basic premise of the show remains consistent: a human test subject—first Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgson), then Mike Nelson (Michael J. Nelson), and most recently Jonah Heston (Jonah Ray) and Emily Connor (Emily Marsh)—has been imprisoned aboard the spacecraft Satellite of Love by mad scientists (collectively called "The Mads") and is forced to watch a series of bad movies in order to find one that will drive the test subject insane.
In an attempt to keep his sanity, Joel built sentient robots ("the bots") from parts aboard the Satellite of Love, and they subsequently remained aboard with Joel's successors as test subjects. The Bots include Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, GPC (formerly Gypsy) who is in charge of satellite operations, and Cambot, the silent recorder of the experiments.
Rufus T., we are definitely the prisoners made to watch this. Until we all go mad.
AA, Why wait so long?
How does Torres not score on that hit?
Never mind, rhetorical question.
The kids are the only reason to watch. But you already knew that.
Winnie, "until"?
Sorry Rufus T. Momentary loss of control of my grammar.
Get ready because Ca$hman Will signing 2-3 more Rondons/Stanton’s this off season out of panic
I just read this rather hilarious, off-beat chat and saw the word "rat" once or twice. Last night I caught "King Rat" for the first time. I'm sure that most(all) of you guys have seen it. Opinions, anyone?
I see that Tango Rodon is on the Two Steps Back part of the dance. It is weirdly reassuring, though. This winning streak was messing with my mind. For a second there I thought I'd soon see human sacrifice or dogs and cats living together or even mass hysteria.
OMG El Duque> WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS> ABSOLUTE BRILLIANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was Soooooooooooooo in love with the original film that I was hesitant to commit to the series, BUT BUT BUT, it's equally wondrous with the addition of energy vampirism and the new characters of Nador, Lazlo and Nadia, with the exception of a few episodes, it's by far my favorite evil guilty pleasure over the last 2 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, FUK HAL!
Have to check out that show. Always looked interesting.
Unlike certain ball teams we could name.
And...just out of curiosity...how is it FUCKING possible that Jake Bauers got an at-bat today?
All those kids, and they can't call up Andres Chaporro, ,250 hitter in Scranton with 24 homers?
They are idiots.
AA, too funny!. I remember, we were flying low and hit something in the air...
@ Mildred, Abraham Van Halsing the Fifth informs me that your apology is accepted. I think he was prepared to throw down the gauntlet and challenge you to a duel, a barbecued chicken wing eating contest. But no need to worry about acid reflux. All good now!
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