Game Thread - Yankees in the Ravine - you've been WARREN duh

                       B A C O !             

Boston's Gammonites show that God is in His heaven...

 

Drink. It. In. 

Juiced Ball?

Originally, I wrote this in the comments of the other thread, but it seems like a worthy topic for its own post. 

I watched the game for the first five innings. It looked to me like the ball was juiced. For both sides, so this is not an excuse. 

Neither starter had a good feel for the ball and it was jumping of the bats. The home run by Grisham was a fairly casual swing.

One more example. The ball that got through the infield in the 5th (6th?) bounced over Volpe's glove. He was in position and the ball bounced so high that he didn't get any leather on it. It was not a natural bounce and it didn't hit anything to make it do that. 

MLB used what seemed liked juiced balls for the first Field of Dreams Game. There were I believe eight home runs in that game and it seemed like everything up in the air went out.

Same thing with the games played in London . Very exciting. Not natural.  

Here are a few reasons they would do this... (Thanks AA for the question.)

1) Last night was a showcase.

Bigger audience than usual for the World Series Rematch Game. (TM)

The two biggest stars in the game go head to head like a heavyweight fight. Judge v. Othani. If you watched, there were all kinds of "Tale of the Tape" graphics and stuff like that going on...

We need to see some homers.

2) More home runs "proves" baseball isn't a boring game.

Sort of like in the above examples of the Field of Dreams game and the ones in London. New viewers and maybe a dad or two is trying to get his kid interested.

3) Apple TV's broadcasts are geared towards a younger demographic. More HRs is more videogame like.

Imagine if it was a "boring" pitchers duel.

To not deliver lot of hits, runs, and homers is to invite the comment, "This game sucks." from the non-Yankee or Dodger fans.

Does anybody else think this? 

Last night, the Yankees once again fell to their greatest, most antagonistic rivals: Themselves.

Like a civil war re-enactment, or a Marvel team-up, or a Lady Gaga marriage, or a silently shrinking glacier, the Yankees last night inched forward to their inevitable 2025 destiny. 

We don't know what it will be. No one here is so cursed. But having seen both fire and ice, up close and personal, I think we all know exactly how The End will play out. Last night brought together all the ingredients... 

a) A seemingly impregnable lead, with our ace on the mound. (Somewhere, Gerrit Cole was farting a small child.) 

b) A catastrophic bullpen collapse, leading to a 3-2 pitch outside the strike zone, with the bases loaded. (Somewhere, Tyrese Haliburton was clutching his throat.) 

c) The early lights-out bedtime of our batters after three innings. (Somewhere, Steph Curry was pressing his hands together in slumber tribute.) 

Before last night, the last time we faced the Dodgers - the team that embodies what the Yankees used to be - we were undressed and humiliated in our home park. Now, thanks to last night, we did it again. We updated the file.  

Well, it's just one game. So it goes, right? It is what it is. Tally ho, Bobs yer uncle. And if you want to rubberneck, Tampa lost last night, so we maintained our 7 game lead in the AL East. So, yeahp, there's that.

But we know what's coming. Like a 20-point lead in a Knicks game, whatever bulge we build in May, it could be gone by July. 

Max Fried got raked. Nobody - not Loaisiga, not Hill, nobody - could stop them. We hit four HRs; didn't matter. One dreadful inning doomed us. 

Sometime, somehow, this fall, the Yankees must beat their ultimate nemesis - themselves. Are they such a team? 

 

When it comes to confronting Cashman, Boone is a BACO.

Remove the starter? Change the circle of trust? Demand help at 3B?  

Boone. Always. Chickens. Out. 

The secret hope of the 2025 Yankees happens to be at last year's scene of the crime.

 

Linebackers & limpers, underlings & Overbays: That's the parade of cupcake first-basemen we've endured thus far in this last and lost millennium. Seriously. The Yankees are the  franchise of Lou, Moose and Donnie Baseball, but what have we witnessed lately? 

A train derailment of Wally Pips. 

The fragile Anthony Rizzo. The elderly DJ LeMahieu. The Green Bay Packer, Luke Voit. The Princeton Tiger, Mike Ford. And the future star, Greg Bird. (I'll never understand what happened, but in a happier, much kinder Yankiverse, Bird is still holding the position.)  

Once upon a time, 1B was the domain of a Tino or a Tex, but in this real world, the brain trust turned it over to Overbay, as in Lyle. (Don't mean to belittle Overbay, but he was probably the most ineffectual Yankee 1B in this millennium. Wait? What's that? Tyler Austin and Chris Carter have entered the chat.)  

And regardless to how you assign blame, the Great 2024 Moment of Shit (TM) took place at first base: a routine grounder that neither Rizzo nor Gerrit Cole,  steely students of baseball and life - could decipher. You know the play. If the Yankees made it, the Dodgers would have ended the fifth with no runs. Ah... why torture ourselves? That's for another happier, kinder Yankiverse -  and the galaxies are moving father apart, not closer. 

When the Yankees play LA tonight, despite their slightly better won-loss record, everybody will remember Cole's failure to cover - along with Aaron Judge's botched fly and Anthony Volpe's 30-foot throw - and see the game as a mismatch.  

Which brings me to the the biggest Yankee improvement in 2025. (Max Fried and Carlos Rodon have left the chat.) I mean Paul Goldschmidt, who is chasing not only a ring but a plaque.

He might already have bronze. Goldy's career WAR (60+, for newfangled stat folks) is higher than Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda. His bulk stats rival and/or beat Fred McGriff and Todd Helton. Ten more HRs, and he'll be at 350, a Cooperstownish number. Seven-time all-star. Five gold gloves. All he needs is a big year in big media Gotham and  dammit - the man is closing that deal. 

Of course, it's May. Not long ago, Rizzo was wowing us in just such a month. Not long ago, we still awaited Bird to break out, or Chris Carter to do something. In May, we hadn't yet stared into the open jaws of hell, otherwise known as Lyle Overbay. (Whom I don't mean to criticize; he was what he was.) 

Last October, it was the overwhelming difference at first base - they had Freddie Freeman; we had the Rizz - that killed us. This year, maybe a change?

The View From Olympus: The Second Immortal.

 

A little something for an off-day. I apologize for the delay—and the length on this one. But you know, when it comes to your first love, you get carried away.

2. Mickey Mantle

 

This would have been a surprise when we were young. Almost undoubtedly, we would have considered Joe, Joe DiMaggio the Second Yankee Immortal, or just maybe Lou Gehrig. 

 

But whether we’re talking statistics, nostalgia, or just plain aura, The Mick is the second greatest Yankee who ever played the game.

 

We think of him as tragic now. The young god, reduced to hobbling around first base at the end. Wasting all those years in barrooms and on golf courses, shilling for this casino, that bank. Shaking all the hands, chasing all the tail there was to chase.  The prematurely old man, turning to the camera with a face weary as a ghost’s, warning us, “Don’t be like me.”  

 

Don’t be like me. Like what? A god? As if we could ever be anything like him.

This all-American rube, arriving for his first spring training in rolled-up blue jeans, white sweat socks, rubber-soled shoes, “a tweed sports coat and a tie that was about twelve inches wide and had a peacock painted on it.” Hands on his thighs, his cap rolled, blowing bubble gum bubbles in the middle of the game. 

 

He came out of nowhere—literally nowhere today, the corner of Oklahoma where he grew up the most toxic site on the Superfund list for over a generation.  A Chernobyl landscape, full of gargantuan, rusting mine machinery and acid-spiked water, the ground still crumbling away. 

Not much better when he was there, the slick alkali flats too poisoned for grass to grow, amidst “sludge ponds so toxically opaque that no shadows were cast upon them,” according to biographer Jane Leavy. The boys would play until the wind kicked up too much of the contaminated dust, running home with their eyes red. 

 

“End of game. We’d cough all the way home,” remembered Mickey. 

 

A hinterland full of children with learning disabilities, and mysterious illnesses such as osteomyelitis, which Mickey also overcame. Hell, what didn’t he overcome? (Besides himself.) A strangely cold mother, a female relative who molested him, a father who sat him up on the bar for his first drink.

 

“Wasn’t no such thing as underaged,” his cousin Max smirked.

 

Up in his first major-league camp at 18, he was clocked going to first in 3.1 seconds, the fastest ever. To this day. That speed was seriously diminished when he stepped into a sprinkler hole some idiot had left uncovered in the 1951 World Series, and tore the ACL and the medial meniscus in his right knee. 

Still, he would steal 153 bases in just 191 attempts, over the course of his career. Still, he would ground into an average of just 8 double-plays a season, just 2 in both 1953 and 1961. Still he would beat out “twenty to thirty” bunts a year in his prime, still got to everything in the o.g. Yankee Stadium’s endless expanse of a centerfield. 

 

Oh, and the torn ACL? Basically, nothing was done about it for the next two seasons, during which Mantle established himself as one of the best players in the game. After that, they did this or that, cleaned out the dead cartilage, etc.. But it wasn’t like today. They didn’t really have a way to repair a ruined ACL.

 

That’s right. Mickey Mantle played 17 of his 18 seasons with an improperly repaired ACL.

What didn’t he overcome? There were all sorts of other injuries. When Red Schoedienst plopped down on his throwing arm to keep him from advancing another base in the 1957 World Series, and permanently injured it. The freak injury that same year, when he tossed his putter into the air, and brought down a tree limb that cut his shin to the bone. 

 

There was the time he broke his left foot, and sustained serious ligament and cartilage damage in his left (good) knee, in 1963, getting tangled up in a chain link fence some idiot had erected in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. (The Mick would prove especially susceptible to the feckless way most of major-league baseball maintained its ballparks back in the day.) The mysterious shot for some mysterious ailment, from a Manhattan Dr. Feelgood, that took him out of the great home run race with Roger Maris.

 

By his last years, he was enduring a continual welter of pulled muscles and damaged ligaments. The right knee floating so free of cartilage that Mantle would amuse—and sometimes nauseate—teammates, friends, and family by pushing it up and twisting it about like a jar top.

 

One Yankees trainer, Joe Soares, claimed that “Mantle had a severe congenital condition,” that left his overdeveloped muscles constantly tearing apart his weaker joints and ligaments. A later observer, a specialist in athletic injuries, would call The Mick a “‘neuromuscular genius,’ one of a select few who are so well wired that they are able to compensate for severe injuries like this and still perform at the highest levels…”

 

What was he? A physical genius? Flawed superman? Maybe both? Who knows what one could pick up out in the diseased, rag-end of the heartland?

 

Nonetheless, even in those last two years at first, Mantle led the Yankees in games played. He also remained in the AL top ten in almost every significant hitting category, even in the top half of fielding first basemen when it came to chances and assists.

 

What else did he overcome? 

 

The Yankees, for one, who left him to live on his own as a green kid up in the Bronx, soon at the mercy of some local floozy and her “manager.” They sent him down though he was leading the team in RBI (!). Joe DiMaggio, for another, who ignored him as much as possible, and was partly responsible for The Mick falling in that gopher hole in the 1951 World Series. 

 

Us fans, for another, who actually booed him until we switched our mindless animosity to Maris in 1961. Booed him because his endless injuries kept him out of the army, booed him because we thought he struck out too much, booed him because he wasn’t everything the newspapers told us he could be. 

 

Shame on us.

 

I prefer to think of how he used to live at the St. Moritz and would routinely walk up to the Stadium for games. Must have been something: a big blond hill god rambling through the underbrush, larger than life. For we have seen the days.

Greatest moment: Hard to say. For such a star, Mantle had relatively few big, memorable moments—maybe because he played on such great teams. His own selection was hitting the two-run, walk-off homer off Barney Schultz that won Game 3 of the 1964 World Series. It also broke The Babe’s World Series home-run record. But Barney Schultz? 

 

In that same Series, Mantle homered off Bob Gibson, just a year after he had homered off Sandy Koufax in the World Series. But the Yankees lost both games and both Series. He hit 3 homers, drove in 11 runs, hit .400, and made a heads-up running play in the 1960 Series—but the Yanks lost that one, too.

 

His running catch to save Don Larsen’s perfect game was more difficult than it looked. The ball would have been in the seats in Ebbets Field. His home run was also the first run of the game. But it was Larsen’s afternoon.

 

Regular season, there were all the tape-measure jobs (more on that later), and the famous, first at-bat after missing 60 games in 1963, pinch-hit home run to tie the Orioles, in a game the Yanks would win, 11-10 in 10 innings. But the Bombers were already up 7 1/2 games on the league, which wasn’t going to catch them.

 

Maybe, as with so much to do with Mick, his greatest moment came shockingly early. Game 7, 1952 World Series, at Ebbets Field. A close, gritty game in a close, gritty Series. Mantle still just 20. He breaks a 2-2 tie with a 6^th inning homer off Joe Black (a righty), singles in an insurance run in the 7^th against Preacher Roe, a lefty. 

Products: “I want my Maypo!” And who could forget the temp agency, “Mantle Men, Namath Women”?

 

MVP Awards: 1956, 1957, 1962. 

 

Deserved MVP Awards: 9. Don’t take it from me. Bill James says he should have won it in 1952, 1955-1958, 1960-1962, 1964.

 

Triple Crown: 1956. Only one other Yankee—a fellow Immortal—has ever done it. Only three men (including one juicer) have done it since.

 

Rings on his fingers: 12 pennants, 1951-1953, 1955-1958, 1960-1964; 7 world championships, 1951-1953, 1956, 1958, 1961-1962.

 

Deserved World Series MVP Awards: This only came into existence in 1956. Maybe 1952, when Mick hit .345/1.061, with 2 homers and 3 RBI, including that Series-winning hit. But Johnny Mize hit .400/1.567 with 3 homers and 6 RBI that same Series, Allie Reynolds went 2-1, 1 save, 1.77; Vic Raschi, 2-0, 1.59. So maybe not.

 

He had a grand slam in the 1953 Series, but hit only .208. If they were going to give it to Bobby Richardson, which they did, in 1960, it should have gone to Mantle. But…Bill Mazeroski, anyone?

 

All in all, The Mick missed 12 of 77 World Series games, and only pinch-ran or pinch-hit in several more. A healthy Mantle would almost surely have won the Yanks the 1955 and 1957 World Series. 

 

Gold Glove: 1962. Another award that did not exist for much of Mantle’s career, and at first went only to the best fielder in both leagues. Hard to beat out Willie Mays.

 

Media: 3 movies (Safe at Home! with Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Ralph Houk, and William Frawley; That Touch of Mink, with Cary Grant, Doris Day, Yogi Berra, and Maris; 61*, the Billy Crystal ode to 1961, in which he was portrayed by Thomas Jane, with Barry Pepper as Maris. Also a mention in Damn Yankees! “On deck, Mickey Mantle!”). 

2 songs: “I Love Mickey,” by Teresa Brewster, with Mickey chiming in; “Talkin’ Baseball (Willie, Mickey, and the Duke),” by Terry Cashman.

 

So? Willie, Mickey, or the Duke? Which was better?: Mays, over the course of his career; Mantle, at his peak (sorry, Edwin).

John Thorn: “Mantle is superior to Mays—with a bat in his hands. If one is to judge them as all-around players Mays is superior because he was so much better in center field.  For pure offense, Mantle is it.”

 

Bill James ranks Mantle as the all-time, third greatest centerfielder, behind only Mays and Ty Cobb: “Mickey Mantle was, at his peak in 1956-57 and again in 1961-62 clearly a greater player than Willie Mays—and it is not a close or difficult decision.”

 

Cyril Morong’s “win shares per at-bat” ranks Mantle second only to Ruth, all-time.

 

Stickball: The great Allen Barra reports that The Mick, like Willie, played stickball on the streets of New York with local kids. The Yankees just didn’t bother to report it. Hey, mighta given the kid ideas, come contract time, if he got too popular.

 

Tape Measure: Mickey Mantle invented the term. Or rather, Arthur “Red” Patterson, the Yanks’ p.r. director did, following rumors that Mantle had hit a baseball 700 feet during a Yankees spring training exhibition at USC, in 1951. When Mantle hit a ball out of Griffith Stadium in Washington, on April 17, 1953, Patterson tracked it down, bought the ball off a local youngster, and claimed it had traveled a record, 565 feet. (Jane Leavy, investigating it carefully, thought that included some of the roll.)

 

Again and again, Mantle hit stunningly long shots, twice nearly becoming the only man to hit a ball out of the original Yankees Stadium in 1956—including the first game Billy Crystal ever saw—and again on a legendary May night, in 1963. Speculation abounded that that ball might have traveled 620 feet, had it not struck the Stadium filigree.

 

“I was pitching batting practice when [Mantle] took his first swings. The kid hit the first six balls nearly five hundred feet over the lights and out of sight. He hit them over the right-field fence batting right-handed and over the left-field fence batting lefthanded. And remember, Mantle was only 18 at the time. I played with Gehrig and with Ruth, and I’ve seen fellows like Jimmie Foxx and they hit prodigious home runs in their day but I have to say Mantle hit more tape-measure home runs consistently than any of those players.  Mantle outdrove them all.” (Bill Dickey)

 

Quotes from others: “His aura had an aura.” (Eli Grba) “He filled out that uniform like you wish you could have filled it out.” (Rollie Sheldon).

 

“I hate it when people say how much he wasted.  Christ, how much better could he have been?” (Clete Boyer). 

“My God, who is that?  Just the physical body, I’d never seen anything like that. There was something about his presence that was just absolutely stunning.” (Arlene Howard, wife of Elston).

“When I massage his arms and shoulders, they transmit some sort of extra something which I never experienced before in over thirty years of handling athletes.” (longtime Yankees trainer Gus Mauch.)  

 

Quotes from The Mick about The Mick: “I could have ended up buried in a hole in the ground, and I ended up being Mickey Mantle. I guess you could say I’m what this country is all about.”

“Fine place to be for America’s hero,”after another liquid, November evening at the Pierre Hotel, long after his retirement, when he tipped a hatcheck lady $100, pawed her chest, apologized, scribbled a note and autograph for her eight-year-old son, then staggered outside to end up face down in the curbside slush of Fifth Avenue.  

 

Nicknames: “The Commerce Comet,” from the sportswriters. “Ignatz” and “Whiskey Slick,” from Casey Stengel. “The Brute,” from his fellow players.

 

Onesies.

 

For pitching like this, we gotta go back to The Year of the Pitcher, 1968, when hurlers threw grapefruit seeds from the tops of mountains.

That year, the Yankees' very good pitching staff recorded 14 shutouts—while the team, which batted a major-league-record low of .214, was blanked 15 times. The Bombers had a team ERA of 2.79—and finished fifth, at 83-79.

(Somehow, this all got blamed on Horace Clarke's fielding.)

In 1-0 games, though, NYY went 6-3, with the winning hits provided, for the most part, by a remarkable ragbag of mediocrities, has-beens, and never-would-bes.

It started with Opening Day, when Mel Stottlemyre blanked the then-California Angels, 1-0, before all of 15,743 at the Stadium, in a game that lasted 1 hour and 43 minutes (Something tells me that it was cold that afternoon.).  

Stott scattered 4 hits, struck out 6, and walked no one. The winning hit was a home run by back-up catcher Frank Fernandez. 

Stottlemyre would go on to beat Jose Santiago at the Stadium by 1-0 (game-winning homer a long shot by the estimable Roy White), and lose by the same score to Mickey Lolich of the Tigers, who were en route to a world championship.

The oft-injured Steve Barber would also lose a 1-0 game, to Joel Horlen of the White Sox, while Fritz Peterson would best Sudden Sam McDowell in Cleveland, and pick up a relief win on May 25th, in a 10-inning victory against the ChiSox. Fred Talbot had pitched 7 shutout innings in that game. Talbot would finish with a 3.36 ERA—and a 1-9 record.

That May 25th win was the second, 1-0 triumph in as many days. On the 24th—what is it about late May?—rookie Stan Bahnsen threw ten shutout innings, but the Yanks didn't win until the 13th, on a Horace Clarke single and an error (thank you very much), with Joe Verbanic getting the win.

Bahnsen, a Red Sox killer throughout his career, also shutout the BoSox, 1-0, on August 1st, striking out 12. It was only the third major-league game I ever saw and the first one at Fenway Park—an early birthday present. He beat Dave Morehead, when Tom Tresh bunted his way on in the seventh, stole second, and was singled in by Bill Robinson. 

It was a beautiful summer evening, with nearly 25,000 in the stands. I'll never forget the charcoal smell of the pretzel vendors as we walked up from the Kenmore station, or the sight of all that green, the field blending into the wall. I was not quite ten.

Another win, another sense of the surreal

 Internet meltdown today. Working off phone. No Tiktok, no conspiracies, no celebrity bikini updates, nothing. How many times can you disconnect the power and then plug it back in, before you realize the issue is beyond your capabilities to fix?

Quiet. Radio silence. Too quiet.

The Angels were baseball’s hottest team, before the Yankees arrived. Suddenly, our pitching staff turned into the 1964 Dodgers. I mean… how does that happen?

Well… Juju can toggle on and off, like a light switch in the cellar. You can go from seeing nothing… to standing eye to eye with the hatchet killer, who has been waiting here all along.

And that’s how I feel about our current streak. Everything looks great. But we’re probably seeing the greatest week of the season.

Next up… the Dodgers. Our worst nightmare. They’ve been waiting silently here all along. The light is now on. We’re eyeball to eyeball. Here it comes. And no internet? Technology, where art thou?

This one's for AA

My favorite Cali team, now that the Raidahs! have abandoned the state.

 

Sorry, there's no Bo Peep in it.

 

 

An Above Average Haiku Tuesday - Nearly June - Injuries Loom, Edition !

 Hear that POP!  That TEAR!

FALLING apart EVERYWHERE!

I WANT MY MOMMY!

Yanks keep winning in ungodly LA time zone. Meanwhile, are we slumbering through Volpe's rise?

 

We at IIH waste a lotta gas, whining to the cosmos about Anthony Volpe's inability to replace Derek Jeter. God, do we look look like blubbering coots. We might as well complain about whether AOL can become the next CompuServe. Pathetic. 

Frankly, there's not much worse than fans who insist on comparing a modern Yankee to a Hall of Fame star, especially one whose legacy is so deeply woven into the team's lore. 

Jeter was/is the greatest Yankee of the last 30 years (though that mantle will soon shift to Aaron Judge.) The worst thing you could do would be to compare Volp to Jeet, right? On the blog level, it's almost criminal, eh? 

So, strap in, and let's go!  

Before we start, Fun Fact: Volpe leads all AL shortstops in RBIs. That includes the almighty future Hall of Famer Bobby Witt. (In the NL, almighty future Hall of Famer Elly De La Cruz has 40.)

I invite you to graze on Volpe's totals through his first two-and-a-third years... 

What stands out? Well, this season, Volpe is on a course to a) hit 18 HRs, b) drive in 92 runs, c) steal 21 bases and d) flirt with .250. That's not nuthin. 

But he's not Jeter... Take a gander... 

 

Look, there's no way to spin this: By his third season, Jeter had exploded into a certifiable star. (At first, he was being negatively compared to Nomar Garciaparra and ARod.) In late May of his third year - right around now - he was hitting .334 with 7 HRs, on his way to a fucking great season. (In fact, his career years came at age 25.)

So, in a nutshell, this is the year that Volpe either breaks out - an AL all-star - or becomes sort of a Brett Gardner Yankee: Loved by fans, respected by teammates, not ticketed for Cooperstown. You can compare the three: Always hustling, always going all-out, playing almost every game. Never to grow a beard. Yankees, through and through. Volpe is a little like Jeter - a lot like Gardner. 

Soon, Volpe might start looking over his shoulder at George Lombard Jr., the 19-year-old SS at Double A Somerset. He's the future golden child. (In 58 ABs, he's hitting .207 ; small sample.) Still, I cannot imagine the Yankees trading Volpe or letting him walk. About a month ago, there was a grounder to his right, when Volpe went down in a heap, clutching his knee, and looking like a guy we wouldn't see for a while. In that moment, the entire Yankiverse  shuddered. It was much like the scene when Jeter went down in the playoffs. 

Volpe has the air of a lifetime Yankee, and there aren't many. Keep fingers crossed, everybody. He's holding his own. And we could use a new Gardy. 

Yanks beat Los Angeles California Angels of Anaheim in ungodly hour: 10 quick takeaways

1. Aaron Judge goes 1-for-2, leaving BA at .398. He no longer leads MLB in RBIs, tied for third behind - gulp, among others - Rafael Devers.

2. Ryan Yarbrough, the surprise pitcher in all of baseball, continues to deal.  Six innings, 7 Ks, one earned run. 

3. He's 33 and already has thrown more innings (35) than last year (31.) In 2021, he pitched 155 for Tampa.

4. Anthony Volpe with the big hit, a bases clearing double. He has 31 RBIs, tied for 27th, just two less than Ohtani. 

5. Luke Weaver again toiling in the ninth. No runs, but a hit and a walk. Guy needs a rest, Boone.

6. Nothing from the bottom of the lineup. Vivas and Peraza both squandering great opportunities. (Chisholm to start rehab maybe next week.) 

7. Both Trent Grisham (.255) and Ben Rice (.244) steadily declining BAs. Should they bat one and two?

8. Bellinger, at .268, could soon be officially having a great season. (32 RBIs, he's ahead of Mookie Betts.) 

9. Rodon tonight. Is 2.88 ERA for real?

10. Yanks 2024 season still haunts. Last year, had a great month of May, then played around .500 for the rest of the year, before crapping the bed in WS. 

I object to these West Coast games

 

It's bad enough being six hours ahead of New York, but games that are nine hours behind my time zone are uncalled for.

There's no way on God's midnight blue earth that I'm going to be up at 3:30 AM to watch one of these. I have a better shot at waking up at 6:00 AM and catching the end of one. And that's not happening, either.

In the old days, MLB had the sense to keep games in the Eastern and Central time zones by having franchises there and nowhere else. Teams rode the trains, had time to play some cards, have a few drinks. The distances didn't require jets or SSTs or Warp drives.

I see Volpe had a big hit. Not in real time, but I saw it. I also see Judge at only .398, and Ohtani has tied him for the HR lead. Come on, big guy. Don't start fading on us. Six games up can evaporate quick, let's go.

Anyway, our possessions are finally at the Bremerhaven docks, and the moving company is threatening to bring them to our apartment on Monday. We shall see.

And AA is correct. Boone is an idiot.

Game Thread - Memorial Day 2025

What you got back home, to play your fuzzy Yarbrough on ?  

I bet you got, say, some pitiful, portable picnic players.  

Come with Uncle and hear all proper !  

Hear Angels' trumpets and Yankees' trombones.  

You are invited !

Uh...

I was trying to figure out where to bat Stanton in the lineup and suddenly realized something that does not portend well. 

If he bats fifth... 

DJ  (37) 

Goldy (38) 

Judge  (33) 

Bellinger (30) in July 

Stanton (35) 

Our one through five would be a combined one hundred and seventy three years old.

Six games up on Memorial Day, the Yankees await changes that will transform the team - for better or worse.

 

It's a strange expression - waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Fun fact: It extends back to 1963, the days of Little Peggy March, the diminutive one-hit wonder (I Will Follow Him) who loved to chew tobacco, dress like a rodeo clown, and wear football cleats into restaurants. One night, after a waiter confused her with Little Debbie, the snack cakes princess, Little Peggy cracked. She took off her footwear and beat the poor fellow senseless, not stopping until "the  other shoe dropped."   

Well, the Yankees -six up on the AL East (which is like a 20-point deficit in the 2nd quarter for the Knicks) - face a long, hard, Little Peggy March to October, and right now, they're waiting for multiple shoes to fall. Some of the events that loom...

1. Return of Giancarlo. The made-of-glass DH will be hit the batting order like a massive square peg pounded into a circular hole. Apparently, he won't do a rehab assignment. (Sorry, Scranton, they ditched you again.) Can he run? Will he hit? Is he the end of Ben Rice? Is he the end of civilization? 

Honestly, I dunno. But two entirely different alt-Yankiverses exist - one with Stanton mashing, and one with him battling a prolonged slump. And if it's the latter, a six-game lead is nothing.

2. Boone killing the bullpen. Yesterday, against the miserable Rockies, both Devin Williams and Luke Weaver held the line - barely - not without struggles. It was around this time last year when Clay Holmes ran out of gas and started peeing into a cup. Basically, the problem is this: 

When Boone latches onto a pitcher, he ruins the guy. 

The Yankees haven't seen a full, healthy year from a closer since the days of Mariano. 

Already, Boone is running Weaver ragged, pitching him three nights in a row, after vowing never to do so. (He claims the low pitch count justified it.) Practically every Yankee loss this season came from a bullpen meltdown. The Yankees hope Williams regains the form from last year in Milwaukee. If he doesn't, well, the bullpen is doomed. And the Yankees will follow.

3. The Cashman makeover. Come Aug. 1, again, I dunno know who we'll give up - probably another fullscale raid on the prospects list - but we should expect the Yankee GM-for-life to throw the kitchen sink at 3B, a black hole (thinking Josh Donaldson) for the last few years. 

Last summer, after DJ LeMahieu went down, Cashman traded for Jazz Chisholm, a leap of faith considering his lack of experience at 3B. I don't think they'll try that again. And it leaves LeMahieu with a month to save his twilight-facing career. 

I refuse to play the "What will Cashman do?" game, as it justifies his crimes against the Yankees. But close your eyes and cover your head. The cleats are coming, and Little Peggy is deadly. 

Sing us a song, you're the Pavano man... The Billy Joel Yankee playlist

Get well, sir. 

In the meantime, some songs to your team. 

Tweak us a groin, you're the Pavano man,
Tweak us a groin, tonight.
We're all in the mood for a Tommy John,
And we know you're not feeling all right.

*

Come out, Giardi, don't make us wait.
You went with Sabathia two innings too late.
I guess in the long run they'll say he was great,
But tonight he's just not the one,
Certainly not Cy Young.

*

Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Red Barber in the booth
Mickey Rivers, Fran Healy, Joe DiMaggio. 
Billy Martin, pine tar, Reggie Jackson candy bar,
Bobby Bonds, Catfish, Phil Rizzuto.

Ban on facial hair, Igawa in Wilkes Barre
Trade Jay Buhner, keep Joba, Phil Hughes
Syd Thrift, Paul Blair, Giambi's golden underwear
Boone on the hot seat, singing the blues

Bob Lemon, spin the wheel, Arod's got a new deal
Dock Ellis, Bobby Meachem, Daryl and Dwight.
Houdini, Jorge, lost season at Shea,
Roy White, game night, Thurman on that fateful flight.
Bucky Dent, came and went, how much money have we spent?

George didn't start the firings
Eggs were always laying since we started playing...

Aaron Judge, botched fly, Juan Soto, goodbye, 
Gerrit Cole points to first, all the moments, this is worst... 

Have at it, everybody... 

Game thread Rocky Mountain High

"I wonder if these people even like baseball sometimes."

 Someone posted a link to Duque's Friday morning cry-for-help at Reddit's r/NYYankees, prompting a discussion of how wrong we are that led into a discussion of how good the Yankees are. Takes all kinds, right?

Of course the Yankees would lose to the Rockies! Was there ever any doubt?

Listenup: Last night was a scam, a sham, a blemish on the sanctity of the game. The outcome was never in doubt. The Yankees were always going to lose. It was a Mathematical Certainty...  a Juju Grand Convergence... a Death Barge Singularity. 

We were always going to lose... 

How can I say this? WTF! It was obvious.

1. We were riding a hot streak.

2. We were playing the worst team in baseball.

3. They were throwing a meatball pitcher.

4. His strategy seemed to be walking leadoff batters.

5. The crowd was full of Yankee fans.

6. We took an early lead.

7. The YES team kept blathering about all the HRs we would hit.

Add two key DP grounders, a pile of RISPs, a simultaneous Knicks debacle, and you've got a juju recipe for par-boiled turd. And here's the secret sauce: 

We will lose again today. 

Of course, we will. Colorado is certifiably awful. Their pitching is horrendous. Thus, they will shut us down. Does anybody here not sense a looming Rockies sweep? 

That's what the Yankees have done to us over the last 15 years, and it's why - no matter what the standings say - it's damn near impossible to sustain hope for this team ever winning anything meaningful. 

Yeah, I sound like a spoiled brat, a princess on a pea. I should sit in my Fisher Price playhouse and count my testicles, delighted that the Yankees will clinched the AL East for Memorial Day weekend. I should leave it there. Trouble is, last October, we saw what we saw. The Dodgers held up to our pocked chin a funhouse mirror that magnified every Yankee flaw by a factor of - well - let's say 99. And we know it will happen again. Last night, the Knicks sent us a coded message: 

In the end, everything shall boil down to the bounce of a ball, and the days of expecting it to go our way - well - those days are gone.

For now, here's my best snakebite juju. Not sure it will work, but it's all I got. Here's my best shot at avoiding a Memorial Weekend sweep. 

In the name of Billy Joel, and in the grace of Captain Judge - the greatest player of the modern era - I hereby ask for a restraining order to be placed upon the juju gods, forestalling the outcomes of the next two games, and I submit Article A in his name...  

Okay, fate... or destiny... or luck... or whatever you call yourself,,, it's up to you. 

My father's assessment of sports

Hoss's post about the NBA made me think of my dad, who died in 1999 on Pearl Harbor Day.

I mean, Jesus

When I was growing up, I remember he would occasionally comment on sports. The only one he really liked was baseball, something he passed down  to at least his youngest child, which was me.

On basketball:

"A bunch of pituitary cases, running back and forth."

On football:

"You have to be a big guy to play football." (He was shaking his head; this, even though his older brothers took him down to Yankee Stadium in the 1930s to see the Giants play. I think more than once. At any rate, it seemed the New York Football Giants were the only team he cared for at all.)

On baseball:

"It's the only sport where you don't have to be big to play. Look at Phil Rizzuto. Even a small man can play baseball." (Though it doesn't hurt to be Aaron Judge or Frank Howard, you don't HAVE to be.)

He was a Yankees fan, of course. Near the end of his life, I finagled some seats in a luxury box for Old Timer's Day through a guy at work. My father had a good time. Loved the free beer, naturally, and the food. After downing a few, he told me he had come to the Stadium with his brothers as a kid, and saw Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig play. I asked him how he had never told me that, even though I had been a Yankees fan for over 30 years at that point. He just kind of shrugged. You might think he was bullshitting me and it was the beer talking, but he didn't tell tall tales and put a premium on telling the truth. Amazing.

I mean, Jesus, Mary, and Joe D

He was gone before I ever thought of asking him about curling, even  though the local curling club was located right behind my mother's house when she was a kid, something she never mentioned until I was approaching middle age. He did like bowling, as a participant and a TV viewer. But that wasn't a "sport" like the Big Three. (Soccer never even came up.)

So I mostly agree with Hoss. Basketball is now not only a game played by a bunch of pituitary cases, highly skilled, to be sure, but after a meaningless season so many teams make the playoffs it's kind of a joke. (Yes, I know, MLB has taken its time but got there, too.) And then it's just back and forth, back and forth, hundreds of times over. The old rules are out the window when it comes to double dribbles, traveling, and a lot of fouls. The playoff games are the only ones that count, and the last few minutes are the only minutes worth watching. 

Football is football. Too many games decided by field goals from insane distances and stupid calls by the refs. Plus, the Giants suck, so bah.

The powers that be keep trying to destroy baseball, but it's pretty resilient. Although the steroid era and the Ghost Runner put dents in it, as did interleague play, lowering the mound, shortening the fences, the Three True Outcomes, statheads, overmerchandising, and competitive balance, along with all the rules that removed a lot of the physicality of the game. Woe unto ye if you try to take out the fielder at second to avoid a double play. Brushbacks? Get outta here.

The great Little Freddie Patek

Yes, some of that has been a good thing in terms of avoiding injuries and curbing cussedness, but after watching games for 50 or 60 years, have you even seen so many injuries so often? And they aren't from player violence.

But for all that, I still pretty much agree with my father's assessment of the major sports. As Hoss said, baseball is still the one worth following and watching--even lazily as a game wears on, because   the game is still what it is, more or less. The interminable commercial breaks have lengthened the game so much more than mound visits, pitching changes, time between pitches, and such,     but of course that's never mentioned when MLB tries to tighten up game times.

So tonight, when it's about 10 pm here in Germany, I'll be signing in to watch the Yanks play the Rockies on my laptop, pouring a fresh rye on the rocks, and enjoying every minute of it that I can stay awake for. Because it's baseball, and it's still worth it.

 

Friday Night Game Thread - Uhm, uh ....Best caption wins nothing !

I don't get it.

I hate to spoil another glorious Yanks May by injecting a little Knicks in here, but I'm afraid I have to. If only to say...I don't get it.

I don't get how you blow a 14-point lead with just over 3 minutes to play.

I would put this down to just the Knicks being Knicks, a perpetually dysfunctional franchise owned by yet another, Nepo Noodnik.

But it's not just the Knicks. Just a round before, we witnessed the Boston Celtics, the gold chip franchise of the sport, and the defending NBA champions, blow not one but two, back-to-back leads of 20-plus points on the parquet covering of their home court. 

I don't get it.

I don't get how top, NBA team can no longer protect huge leads, at home, when it matters most. 

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a basketball guy, though I followed the sport, college and pro, pretty closely for over 30 years. Roughly Russell through Jordan. Since then, my interest has waned, severely—and for the same reason it's waned for most sports. 

Because it seems now there is only one way to play the game, and that way must be played all the time.

I know, I know. It's the NBA, and everybody makes a run, and the players are now so phenomenally big and fast and strong that the game has outgrown its arenas, and really should be played on Jupiter or Saturn, or some other planet of pure, fluid metallic hydrogen.  

I don't disagree. I was awed by LeBron in his prime, and Steph Curry is incredible.

But...it's the same game, all the time. All the way.

I rarely watch more than highlights now, I confess. I have to say, I agree with—was it JM? forgive me, if not—who called one of the playoff games so much garbage. An endless train of what used to be traveling violations, carrying, and uncalled fouls, all so someone can take what used to be considered a hopelessly poor-percentage shot.  

Your long game's not on? Doesn't matter. You have to keep firing from downtown. The algorithms command it.

You see where I'm going with this.

It's not just basketball. It's everything, in all sports. 

I love baseball, so I keep watching it, but our favorite game has been seriously diminished by a mentality that says you have to swing for the fences every time, on every pitch. That all pitchers must throw 3-5 innings as hard as they can, then come out.

There's no adjustment made for the situation on the field. For the score in the game, or the team you're facing.

All this does, particularly in basketball, is lay a scrim of excitement over a vast pattern of dullness. Sure, the big home-run bomb or a flurry of three-pointers might just turn this one around, so don't turn off your set and miss any of our ads, or leave the arena and stop buying our souvenirs and refreshments. 

It's so exciting!

Except it's not. More like...dull, and arbitrary. 

I don't get why that's better.