This post is about the Back Covers Championship.
Years ago El Duque correctly identified that the popularity of New York City sports teams and the measure of their zeitgeist could be tracked and quantified by the back pages of the sports section of NY's two major dailies.
This year the Knicks are, deservedly so, in a position to win it for the first time since El Duque started tracking.
There are twenty-four back covers left. The Knicks should win but a couple of Yankee FA signings plus the Giants and Jets owning Mondays will keep it close.
The Yankees are no longer the most interesting team in NY sports. The Knicks are. Soon it will be proven empirically.
Personally I hope the Knicks take it, but that's not the most important story here. After all, the Knicks and Yankees play different sports with a different length of season.
The Big Story Is About The Mets
Here is the current standing.
Yankees 177 Mets 153 Yankees + 24
The Yankees have done nothing this off season the Mets, by virtue of letting important players, some would say the heart and soul of the team, leave in FA keep racking them up.
But this isn't about wins, this is about ascendancy and differential.
Here are the standings from the last few years...
2024 Yankees 215 Mets 141.5 Y+ 75.5
2023 Yankees 150 Mets 119.5 Y+ 30.5
2022 Yankees 210.5 Mets 147.5 Y + 63
2021 Yankees 207 Mets 156 Y + 51
Last year the Yankees got 215 Back Covers. This year they'll be lucky to get to 180. Last year they trounced the Mets by 75. This year, under 30.
NOTE: El Duque split the cover on the defection of Luke Weaver. I would have given the full point to the Mets but arguing about which team deserves the back cover is what make this sport so exciting.
Today the Mets stole a cover by stealing a coveted international player. Hal's indifference, Brain's incompetence, and Boone managing somehow to retain his job, all chip away at our collective passion and as tabloids know... passion sells papers.
Posts
6 comments:
Pretty hilarious line about this making the sport exciting, Doug.
Also...CONGRATULATIONS, DUQUE! That is great news—about the only great news of late, in this bleak winter of the American soul. Fantastic. Peerless Leader III is here!
A couple other things, before they re-attach the chains, and lead me back down to the paper-grading dungeon:
Everyone should check out the magnificent keefetothecity's takedown of Sonny Gray—and Brian Cashman. https://keefetothecity.com. Here are a couple highlights:
"Long before exaggerating and flat-out lying about performances became the nightly routine it is now in the Yankees’ manager’s office and clubhouse, Gray was at the forefront of telling you what you watched wasn’t how it should be interpreted in the Aaron Boone era."
"Instead of becoming a young, controllable starting pitching success story for the Yankees, Gray was just another in the long line of young, controllable starting pitching failures Brian Cashman has acquired as Yankees general manager. After 28 seasons as general manager, Cashman has still failed to acquire a successful young, controllable starter. Gray, Jeff Weaver, Javier Vazquez, Michael Pineda, Nathan Eovaldi, James Paxton, Jameson Taillon, they all failed in New York and were traded or let walk in free agency. They all blew up in the postseason or were left off postseason rosters completely."
"He was left off the postseason roster, and the second the season ended, Cashman went to work openly showing his displeasure with Gray’s performance and ending his Yankees tenure by saying things like “It hasn’t worked out thus far” and “I think that we’ll enter the winter, unfortunately, open-minded to a relocation” and “It’s probably best to try this somewhere else” and “Our intention is to move Sonny Gray and relocate him.” "...
...Could not have said it better myself.
My only regret with the Keefe piece:
He did not recap how Cashman—
—Chose Gray over Jason Verlander.
—Did not spell out just how miserably Cashman end up handling the Gray trade (Something forecast by his idiotic remarks here. Yes, you always venture into the trade market talking about how you don't want to keep your player and don't like him. Oy.)
Congrats on the newest member of the Seeley family. Now there's an event worthy of a Back Page!
And I second Granddad's appreciation of Michael King.
Unlike so many of my prognostications regarding ballplayers—"We HAVE to sign Chone Figgins!" "We HAVE to sign Carl Crawford!" "Giancarlo Stanton is obviously a better player than J.D. Martinez!"—I liked King from the start, and was proved right.
He made himself into a good, highly versatile pitcher, who could start, pitch middle relief, and even close—all with nary a complaint.
Would he have been a good pick-up, being the age he is and with his recent injury history? Who knows? I do that—without taking a risk, spending money, or developing minor leaguers—there is simply no way left for the Yanks to win.
Post a Comment