Yesterday, Sonny Douglas Gray - aka "Pickles," according to Baseball Reference - addressed the word for the first time since becoming a Boston Redsock.
Make no mistake: Gray is a Redsock, 100 percent, all-in. He has guzzled the Kool-Aid, swallowed the Blue pill, donned the bloody shirt, requested the Grey Poupon. And by the time his 2026 teammates visit Gotham - June 5 - the world will know, once and for all, whether his miserable 2018-19 seasons were due to the mean streets of New York - or the fault of "Pickles," himself.
OF Dustin Fowler (played three seasons, a career BA of .215.)
SP James Kaprielian (four years, ERA of 4.61.)
SS Jorge Mateo. (Still going, a defensive fixture in Baltimore, .221.)
You could argue that, in the end, the Yankees didn't give away much. Fowler, Kaprielian and Mateo all showed flashes; Kaprielian looked like the real deal, until he hurt his arm. (Fowler's story was particularly tragic: In the first inning of his first MLB game, he chased a ball into foul territory at Comisky Park and wrecked his knee on an electrical box. Manager Joe Girardi wept as Fowler was carted off the field. He later sued the White Sox and, after a lengthy legal battle, settled out of court. Shades of Moonbeam Graham.)
Honestly? We've never squared Gray's wretched time in NY. We've never explained his rebound seasons in Cincinnati and St. Louis. Some players - Jason Giambi, Cody Bellinger, et al - seem to be born for NY. (Yet as Giambi showed, the first months can be hard.) Some simply never cut it. Gray is one of the most prominent examples.
Did we give up on him too soon? (The Yankees eventually traded him for Shed Long.) Or is there something in the NY experience that poisons certain players?
Will the booing of a supercharged rivalry upset Pickles?
On or about June 5, we'll know.
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We may have our own problems now as Yankee fans - indeed, this is the long winter of our discontent and it's going to go on for many more winters - but I think I can speak for all of us by saying - "Yes, we hear you Sasha Gray, but we can take a moment to acknowledge that you are a nonentity here, that we don't care about you, and that you can go fuck yourself in the deepest recesses of Fenway Park."
Somewhere in Upstate New York:
Scott has ordered us to eat the sled dogs, even though we are still somewhere short of Binghamton. Their toxic livers have poisoned half the exhibition, several of whom wandered off mad into the snow last night. Our one chance is to hope we can find the food cache Amundsen left behind for us...
Um, wait, sorry. Just having a bad dream. Yeah, Sonny Gray. Hated that guy. But what's the old saying? Once is an accident, twice coincidence, 575 consecutive times is your GM is a raging egomaniac blowhole, who can't put together a coaching staff to save his life...
And, Duque, you're wrong. Dead wrong. We didn't trade Sonny Gray for Shed Long. No, sir.
We traded Sonny Gray AND a promising young reliever, Reiver Sanmartin, for Shed Long, JR., I'll have you know! And...flipped Long on the very same day for OF Josh Towers, who never made it to the majors after hitting a lifetime .230 in the minors and who is now playing in Mexico. (Ahahaha! Just thinking of Mexico makes me feel a little warmed. Pass that leg shank, will you?)...
...Sanmartin has never amounted to much for the Reds, bouncing back and forth between Cincy and the minors. But his inclusion in the deal gives us an excellent chance to examine The Full Cashman, in all its beauty.
To wit:
—Passed on future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, who won two rings, made four World Series with other teams, and would have brought scrumptious Kate Upton around to every big game.
—Instead traded promising prospects for a good pitcher, who never has won anything.
—Let his incompetent coaching staff wreck said pitcher.
—Despite obvious demand from other teams, traded said pitcher to Cincinnati for a marginal, minor-league utility guy, AND THREW IN ANOTHER PROMISING PROSPECT just to sweeten the deal.
—Swapped marginal utility guy for complete OF flop.
The sheer idiocy of this is just dazzling in its evil beauty. Makes one want to put on the original, Shirley Bassey rendition of "Goldfinger."
Hey, wait a minute, chum! That's MY fried dog paw. You already had yours! I've got a knife—
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