Ah, for the days when frustrated managers used to overturn the postgame buffet, take a bat to the water cooler, and curse out their wayward players to their faces!
Instead, we are subjected to this sort of gobbledygook, after yet another brain fart on the field by a Yankee:
"It's a guy tryna make a play. I get it looks bad, and it's a bad play. But, it's not a case of a guy that's, you know, doggin' it or, like it's...it's...you know. Uh, just tryna make a play. And, you know, just because it's going bad right now, and the world's on fire, I'm not just gonna take guys out for giving a crap.
"You're gonna make some mistakes on the bases. I would argue with you that we're not making, in compared to the league, a number of outs advancing or outs on the base. I don't think that's, that's true. I'll, I'll dig into it some more, I looked into it a few weeks ago. But, when you're the New York Yankees and you're losin', and you make a mistake...Look what just happened. I can show you around the league, it happened all the time. Doesn't make it okay.
"We wanna be as clean and as perfect as we can be. Without question. Don't, don't get it twisted. Don't think, 'Oh, yeah, it's fine.' We have to be better. Don't get it twisted. Okay? We have really good players. We have a really good team. We haven't realized our potential yet. We gotta get there. We gotta couple months to do it yet. We better hurry."
All of that delivered, of course, with the quavering voice of an opera diva, or maybe Gladys Knight singing, "Midnight Train to Georgia."
It was yet another Yankees press conference dedicated to telling us things nobody asked and nobody wants to know.
Has Aaron Boone actually spent time digging into statistics on how many mistakes other American League teams make compared to the Yankees? Is he actually promising to do it again, and share the results with us?
It may be that the demise of any great institution is signaled when it starts comparing itself to others. The New York Yankees were always supposed to be themselves alone, a towering, formidable monolith of success that stands above and apart from all other teams.
Now they're down to wondering whether they make more or fewer boneheaded, base-running mistakes than other American League squads. Really?
What rankles even more is the constant lying and gaslighting, as many here have noted. Boone is really going to try to pretend that Jazz Chisholm was just trying a little too hard to make a play that would turn things around?
Chisholm is a histrionic but mediocre player who we acquired for a budding young catcher (hey, could we use one of those?), and despite his record of constant injuries and erratic play. Yesterday, he was not trying to, say, score from second on a single that was maybe hit just a little too hard, or to steal third when he didn't really need to.
The truth is that he lost track of how far he was from the bag on a routine pop-up to second, and got thrown out diving back to first. It was a very alert play by Miami's Xavier Edwards, a young slap hitter with all of 192 games in the majors. Edwards was maximizing his chances of staying in the majors despite limited talent.
Chisholm was doing no such thing. Neither was Austin Wells the other day. Playing on a team where no one is ever held accountable, they simply fell asleep during one more ballgame.
They are joined on this team by the likes of the Yankees' "ace," Max Fried, who is guaranteed to miss several starts every year with blisters that somehow cannot be healed, and their number two starter, such a mountain of maturity that he flipped off a couple of fans who dared to boo the great man after yet another dismal, disinterested start.
Most annoying of all, though, is Boone's flippant remark that "the world's on fire." He means the Yankees, of course, but the greater world, outside of the narrow cocoon of privilege and luxury in which he and all major-league players, managers, and top executives dwell, really is on fire.
There is a terrible war going on in Ukraine, and a terrible war going on in Gaza, and a runaway president who is systematically taking apart our nation, and a Supreme Court that keeps ruling that laws don't really mean anything, and a warming planet that seems ready to melt us all like so many birthday candles.
The last thing that those of us who turn to the Yankees for relief and distraction is to hear a manager having a hissy fit because he doesn't dare call out his malingering players. Or an organization that constantly sells itself on its winning legacy telling us, hey, we're not so bad compared to some other guys.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled tremor.
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7 comments:
All of this is just incredible. The Rockies are better at this stuff. And while they're 33.5 games out, they've maintained that for a long time now. So they aren't getting worse. Like we are.
The Yankees are failing at their main function, which is to distract me - me personally - from the news of the world. They have failed at this for a long time now and it seems as if they have no memory - none at all - about how to get the job done. How many times DURING THE CASHMAN ERA have they been flailing, ended up bring up some young guys, only out of desperation, not some grand plan, found "lightning in a bottle," as Torre used to say, and semi-saved the day? Even when they didn't win it all - and they are far fucking way from being anything close to a dynasty for over 20 years now, they would pull off some interesting season finishes.
Brian needs psychoanalysis. "If I only had a brain." Hal needs a heart and Boonie is too stupid to need courage. He also needs a brain, so there goes my Wizard of Oz analogy. We don't make good decisions anymore as a team, but you all know this already. The end times are nigh and it would be nice if we had the Yankees to lean on, but nobody is going to save us. We'll die a slow death here, one pitch at a time, and then prepare for another bleak fucking winter. At least we have each other.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
It is.
All.
Right.
In front.
To the side.
And the other side.
Behind.
Above.
Below.
In fact.
Uhm.
It’s all, all around us.
Getting closer.
And closer.
Until it surrounds us.
And begins.
To squeeze.
Tighter.
And Tighter.
And we struggle.
To get free.
But after a while.
We stop our straining.
Our fighting.
And give up.
Grab the remote.
And turn on YES.
Again.
(Thanks Hoss for your terrific post)
And Hoss, I forgot to also thank you for your post. We must hang together in these times. I remember reading in a book by William Manchester, whom I probably quote from too often, that battles are not usually won by large movements of men (I know, it's 2025, I should say "people."). It's more often than not small groups of men making small advances and covering each other's back. That's how I feel about this blog. We can somehow make it through this together. The question is, what does "through" mean here? Is our goal to win or to survive to see another dynasty? Asking for a friend who's a Cubs fan...
I am just reading Goodbye, Darkness and man, can that guy write.
Thanks, guys! Relieved to know that I'm not just midnight raving. And again, compared to what matters in the world just now, this is a very, very small thing. But there's just something about Boone gassing on like that which really rubs me the wrong way.
And Bitty, Wezil1, yes, Manchester is a terrific writer, and very astute about war. His history of the US, 1932-72, "The Glory and the Dream," is not always accurate, but full of brilliant writing and terrific insights.
A Professional Idiot.
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