"Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall..."

 

In its inadvertently hilarious coverage of Hal's Big Press Conference yesterday, the NY Times—which increasingly seems to be suffering from the lack of all those copyeditors they fired—told us that:

"This off-season, Cashman will have to replace a few holes, including second base and centerfield."

Truer than Times writers Chris Kirschner and Brendan Kuty likely intended.

Beside the obvious problems with that sentence, did Kirschner and Kuty not observe who was playing, say, catcher and third base for the Bronx team this year? 

In fact, right into the playoffs—and despite treating most of the season like an extended spring training—your New York Yankees couldn't say from day to day whom 6 or even 7 of their starting nine would be.

George Lombard, Jr., showed great promise at short, but made a pile of errors and hit .237 in the bigs. A sure-fire Derek Jeter going into his second year, he ain't, much as I like the guy. Most of 2026, the outfield pretty much resembled that three-card monte game the Yanks like to put on the scoreboard.

Essentially, the team is set—more than set—at first base, DH, and maybe the corner outfield slots. That's it.  

Which, all said and done, means we are now "LOCKED AND LOADED!" 

Uh, Brian Cashman that is, not so much his team. Yes, the Ageless Schlemiel will be back with us again, his ability to come up with a ludicrous, easily ridiculed slogan for a new year once more on display.

I didn't think it possible to top, "Run It Back." But once again, I underestimated The Great Deflector. 

For all of the very valid complaints about this year's shortcomings, Boone is back, Cashman is back, and Hal Steinbrenner tells us that the problem was that the Yanks didn't hit enough. 

With apologies to the immortal William Wyler: They fool you, these nepo babies. They got a lot on the ball.

Even more depressing than the above analysis from the Paper of Record had to be Kirschner & Kuty's conclusion:

"Now that Cashman's contract is concluded, Yankees fans will care only about how he plans to make the 2027 roster a championship contender."

As opposed to...what, exactly? 

How Bri's doing on the dating apps these days? Whether Hal will float his "Soccer City" idea for the Bronx again? Just who Boone is waving to in the stands?

Exactly what are we poor idiot fans, in our fandom, supposed to care about beyond the game on the field? 

Here's one: how obscenely expensive everything at Yankee Stadium is for us poor fans. Not that the K & K boys or any other reporters, from any other media outlet, ever report on that.