Yesterday, Food Stamps Hal Steinbrenner delivered the pizza. Were it a Saturday Night Live sketch, Heidi Gardner would have cracked up. But Hal came through. Talking about 2025, with a face as straight as Lindsey Graham, he said..
"We’re going to be better defensively this time around, if we make it. I believe, if we make it, we’ll get the job done."
If we make it...
This came as Hal was talking about the Dodgers, baseball's best team and most dominant franchise, the new Evil Empire, and the embodiment of everything the Yankees stood for through their first 80 years. As usual, Hal was griping about money, noting that his team - ranked by Forbes as MLB's highest valued franchise - cannot compete with the big-spending Dodgers, Phillies and Mets. Then he offered his solemn vow...
This year, if the Yankees make it, they won't be humiliated.
Nope. This time, it'll be different. No Game 5, inning 5. No dropped fly ball, no errant throw, no inexplicable failure to cover first base. This time, different. No embarrassment. If they make it...
In about two weeks, pitchers and catchers will start arriving in Tampa. The days will lengthen, the sunsets will brighten, and George M. Steinbrenner Field will open for another year. And with every returnee, the horror of last year's world series will replay on the Jumbotron of our minds.
I guess we at IT IS HIGH have a bit of a reputation for getting down on the Yankees. At times, we're unfair. We complain so vigorously that readers wonder if we even root for the Yankees.
Well, that's what happens when you love a team.
The Yankees had a great 2024, a wondrous season, right up to the fucking moment when everything turned to shit, when the comedy became farce. It was a great movie, a magnificent show, until the ending.
Until the memories of Game 5 are replaced with something great - or, gasp, even more ghastly - I'm sorry, but the images won't leave. We're stuck behind the couch, still watching Gerrit Cole point to first base. We've been there all winter.
Hal says, this year, if we make it, things will be different.
If only we could believe him...
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20 comments:
That YES interview was a joke. Old Hal claims the Yankees can't compete with the Dodgers, but Marakovitz didn't even ask him the most logical follow-up question: "Why can't you financially compete with LA?" Perhaps she feared for her job. And the NY Post never raised that in their article, either. So much for that so-called formidable NY press corps.
YES is a house organ that stifles dissent, but for the most part sports media has turned into a fawning flock of lemmings, eager to ingratiate themselves to the powers that be in return for access, or the almighty “scoop”….our little island at IIHIIFIIC , while wild and over the top sometimes, is a pinpoint of light in the darkness.
Carl, our media fails us, and has failed us, for years. Meredith was just bowing at the throne.
Which reminds me of...
"Your Majesty is like a stream of bat's piss."
"What? What's that you say?"
"What I meant was, your Majesty is like a shaft of gold shining out in the darkness."
"Oh. Very witty, Wilde, very witty."
Or words to that effect.
So many thrones- so little time.
“groan”
Nope. This time, it'll be different.
This time, that darn ol' Lucy won't pull the ball away. This time, I'm gonna kick that ball straight through the uprights. This time, it'll be straight through the uprights and then to the moon! This time, it'll be different.
He's already apologizing for 2025.
And he said it all with a straight face.
LOL, Steinbummer said the team is better now than last year, when they had
Juan Soto.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Amen, 999!!! Hear, hear!
I love the idea that HAL wants us to think he's seriously engaged with the team's defense—up late nights on the yacht, studying replays and going over fielding range quotients.
Incidentally, to prepare for the interview, last night's dinner on the yacht was steak points, along with scalloped potatoes and a soupçon of soup. Compliments to the chef all around!
Not that any of the aforementioned "press" corps will ever bring it up, but every single player who brought us that atrocious inning is back, save for the first baseman. Who has been replaced by someone three years older....
...Nor have any of the Knights of the Press Box pointed out that:
—Cole still had a 5-1 lead, with two outs in the inning, even after all the blunders.
—The Yankees actually regained the lead, at 6-5, and in fact lost that game on yet ANOTHER, egregious blunder, Austin Wells tipping the bat of the grievously injured Ohtani.
Wells' blunder, um, fuck-up, capped a 14-122 September & playoffs, good for .115. Yet his was yet another position that nobody on the Yankees—or amongst the people covering them—has even discussed improving.
Finally, I just love HAL's brave, "if we make it." It brings strains of "There's Got to Be a Morning After" to mind.
"There's got to be a morning after/ We're moving closer to the shore/ I know we'll be there by tomorrow/ And we'll escape the darkness/ We won't be searching anymore..."
Too bad that there wasn't a morning-after pill available for Hal's mother to take after George and her engaged in sex. Damn, now I can't get that visual out of my head.
Damn Carl. Is that how it happened?
Well, Hoss, as Sly once sang, we can make it if we try.
Just not with Hal and Cashman and Boone.
I thought he was found under a genetically altered cabbage leaf.
Hoss, it seems to be gospel for many Yankee fans that Wells is the next Posada, but I don’t see it. As you pointed out, he completely collapsed at the end of last season, putting up numbers that would make Joey Gallo blush. As of now, we don’t have a back up C, with the leading candidate being J.C. Escarra, a 30 y/o Minor Leaguer. Last year we traded the best C in the org, Agustin Ramirez, for Chisolm. I suppose we’ll see a scrap heap pickup sometime during S/T.
Fuck HAL.
Why can't Hal use the deferred money trick like the Dodgers? Especially considering that a lot of players will have their contracts end in one to three years? That coupled with Cole and Judge starting to near their Golden Years THIS was the year to go the extra mile. FWIW, the more I think about the Dodgers the more I see a very brittle team. Uhhh, kinda like the Yankees.....
Anyone else notice the deafening silence that surrounds Spencer Jones?
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