“I want to say it’s been bigger than the World Series. I would say the crowd here and the crowd we had when we played against Mexico, it’s bigger and better than the World Series. The passion that these fans have, representing their country, representing some of their favorite players, there’s nothing like it.”

Uh-oh. Sirens! What's happening? Drone attack? Mass shooting? A celebrity down?  

Nope. Be calm. 

Aaron Judge has dropped a truth bomb on America. 

He said aloud what everybody is thinking: 

Suddenly, the World Baseball Classic matters. 

It wasn't always this way. Remember when nobody cared? The WBC was a fart, a bridge to March Madness, a distraction to the critical questions: do we go with Jake Bird or Angel Chivilli? When we talked about the WBC, we discussed our major fears: A tweaked gonad or overworked pitch count. The WBC mattered even less than spring games, which mattered nothing at all. 

And yet... this week, we saw veteran stars dance like teenyboppers. We saw old-timers leap dugout railings, as if the world suddenly encountered the intersection of human nature with pro sports.  

You cannot buy hunger. 

And nobody worth $300 million ever truly sweats a loss, as long as the next bank transfer pings on time. 

Yesterday's words from the Captain of Team America - and, cough, the Yankees - should not affect Judge's standing. Truth is truth. The WBC is more appealing, more genuine, more memorable, than anything we'll see until maybe mid-September, when the pennant race means life and death (in that figurative way.)  There are other reasons... 

1. The WBC lets fans root for players we otherwise miss, or worse, hate. We can close our eyes and imagine Bryce Harper as a Yankee (because he shoulda been one, dammit.) And Roman Anthony. And Gunner Henderson. Fuck, the whole damn team should be Yankees. Oh, well..

2. It raises an undercurrent of geopolitical realities. You felt it in USA v Canada, and USA v Mexico. We would have definitely felt it in a game against Cuba, or the Netherlands (winner takes Greenland!) Now... USA v Venezuela. Yikes. In a strange way, this game does matter. 

3. Soon, MLB and YES will launch their nightly fodder. And with nothing better to do, I will watch. The Yankees have been a thread running throughout my life. No matter how pissed I get at them, there is always a Cam Schlittler or Oswaldo Cabrera. (Wait. Anybody got a bead on Osvaldo Bido?) 

The WBC reminds MLB stars what it's like to be 12-year-olds, to play for family and the universe, and live on the edge. In the WBC, each day is a month, and each month is a lifetime. 

Judge just spake the truth. Good for him. We cannot buy hunger. Why did anybody ever think otherwise? 

And now, for something different...

You may not know this, but for the last nine years, I've moonlighted as CEO/King Cheese at AHOY Comics, the world's most delightful indie publishing house. Along with Mustang - who goes by the name "Peyer" - we have birthed great and totally weird comic books unto humankind, much in the way that Yangervis Solarte hit MLB pitching during the first month of his Yankee career. Until now, I have never mentioned an AHOY book, fearing it might distract us from our core mission: Celebrating the victories of the Yankee front office.   

Well, today... fukkit. I hereby break ranks. It's a graphic novel titled THE FORGOTTEN DIVINE, written by Eisner-award winner Mark Russell, and drawn by Russell Braun, the artist behind the most successful superhero satire in history, The Boys. 

We're breaking it out in a Kickstarter campaign.

Take my word: It's a masterpiece.

Go to the link and try something new. If everybody here joins in - you know, clap your hands and Tinker Bell will be saved! - who knows, maybe Spencer Jones will get the call from Scranton.  

Either way, this is the one. 

Team USA's run in the WBC should make Yank fans thankful... and nervous

Last night, while the gods of Tinsel Town self-pleasured, Team USA eaked out a victory over the mighty Dominican Republic, the most baseball-crazy nation on earth. With Japan eliminated, America's path to the 2026 World Baseball Classic looks to be festooned with group hugs and product endorsements. It's all over but the buying.

Seriously, after toppling Dominica, does anybody fear Venezuela or Italy? 

But but BUT... last night's victory - (by Team America, not Team Leonardo) - should provoke angst across the Yankiverse.

USA won on HRs by Gunner Henderson and Roman Anthony, two young, ascending stars who look to be long-term Yankee migraines. Both hit their second HRs of the tourney - either could be its MVP - and both could enjoy a breakout 2026 regular season. 

Henderson, 24, is returning from a down year, when he hit a mere 17 HRs and batted .274. (His first full seasons, he hit 28 and 37, and he's a career .270.) He'll play SS for Baltimore and, for the first time, be protected in the lineup (by Pete Alonso.)  If Henderson rebounds - a likelihood, based on what we're seeing - the O's will vastly improve. 

Then there is Anthony, age 21, coming off a short season that should terrify Yank fans. In June, shortly after belting a 497-foot grand slam - the longest HR recorded in professional baseball last year -Anthony was unveiled in Fenway, the youngest new Redsock since Rafael Devers. He hit .292 with 8 HRs before tweaking a lat and missing the playoffs. Had he faced the Yankees in that short series, well, I shudder to think about it. 

Both are rising stars, capable of transforming a lineup. (Boston has signed Anthony to a long-term contract that expires in 2034.) And if you hope for the Yankee franchise response - well - good luck with that! We have The Martian and Spencer Jones, both moving in reverse. Either could soon be traded for, well - you've heard of A.I. Slop? Yank fans know of Cashman Slop.

Listen: The problem with the 2026 Yankees is not that they stayed pat with last year's playoff-bound roster. 

The problem with the 2026 Yankees is that they stayed pat with last year's playoff-bound roster... while the rest of the AL East improved. 

So, let's celebrate Team America. But be prepared to look back... and wince. 

USA wins, ump goes back to day job

 

WBC Semi-Final Game Thread: USA vs. DR

 

Luis Severino set to start for the DR. Skenes for the USA. The US team needs to take advantage of that. 

The WBC Final Four is here. In a righteous world, who should Yankee fans root for?

And so, here we are... May I have the envelope please... 

After a year of hype, a month of dicking around, and two weeks of play, four countries - four teams, four narratives - remain in the World Baseball Classic, which remains ex-commissioner Bud Selig's third greatest life legacy. 

For the record, here are Selig's first two: 

1. The perennial, mustard-stained statue of him in Milwaukee, unveiled to a gasping world in 2010. It'd be interesting to stick the Selig monument next to the one of George Steinbrenner in the lobby of Yankee Stadium and see which draws the highest volume of condiments. 

2. The destruction of the Yankees, who stood for a century as the team every American loved or hated. After all, they were New York, a city of rudeness, ethnicity and big money, and the Heartlands rejoiced in Yankee failures. Selig's luxury tax eventually crushed Hal Steinbrenner's willingness to spend for free agents, though it failed to save a plantation structure that allowed owners to - as the ads say - "only pay for what you need." 

The funny part here is that the fall of the Yankees didn't help small market teams at all. The Dodgers simply took over, with a more efficient system of money, Hollywood hype and international stars, mostly from Japan. It's a money machine that Selig must still love, as he spins. (Note: There is also the Mets, who easily became the Yankees of the East.) 

But, but BUT... I got sidetracked. This is about the final four of the WBC. 

Who should Yankee fans support?

For me, here are the teams, in order of our rightful support.... 

1.Italy. This is our team. For starters, manager Francisco Cervelli - still a Yankee in his heart. Note to Cashman: Sign this guy. When the time comes to ditch Boone - I'd say, mid-May? - here's our replacement. Also, there are no Yankee nemeses on this team. The closest we get is Greg Weissert, the de facto closer, who we traded to Boston for "Face Plant" Verdugo. Let him waste his bullets in the WBC. 

Most of all, we owe Italy, big time, for beating Mexico, allowing the USA to make the second round and avoid baseball's biggest botch since Mr. Buckner.  

2. Venezuela. I'm thinking of Gleyber, of course. You barely recognize him with the Klondike beard. To me, he's still a Yankee, always will be. After Gleyber, nobody on this roster bothers me. There's also the geopolitical scene, still unsettled. I suspect this country, overall, could really use a win. 

Not sure how a WBC victory would affect things, but everything in this world is connected. That butterfly flapping its wings in China, it'll arrive in NYC in October.

3. Dominican Republic. It's full of ex-Yanks, shoulda beens and traitors. For starters, Juan "Luxury Box" Soto and Vladimir "I'll Never Be a Yankee/Check that, I'd Be a Yankee If They Paid Me/No, I'll Never Be a Yankee" Guerrero Jr. And Manny Machado, who wanted to play in the Bronx, but Hal wouldn't even make a bid. And Austin Wells (which I don't understand.) 

The only reason to root for this team is the hunger factor. If Soto leads his country to the WBC trophy, he'll be more arrogant than ever - and maybe less hungry - to bring one home to the Mets. 

4. USA. Honestly, after Aaron Judge, who cares? When I watch, I channel hop around the innings when Judge isn't coming to bat. I root for him. I root for the fans who root for him. Judge remains the great incentive to support Team America. (There is also David Bednar and Tim Hill - and either could be called upon in a situation that could define his career - but, overall, meh.)  

But really, it's all about Judge. Over the last two weeks, he has shown himself to be baseball's greatest star. Yank fans should fear the possibility that Team America's win in the WBC might be the only championship in Judge's magnificent career. 

Well, I don't want it. I don't like sharing him with Redsock fans. YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM, AMERICA! JUDGE IS OURS. AND HIS GREATEST MOMENTS NEED TO HAPPEN IN OCTOBER, NOT MARCH. 

So, altogether now, Let's Go Italy. 

NEWSFLASH: THIS JUST IN – HAL LOVES CASH !

 

He also thinks lots and lots of money is kinda nice too!

Yank fans don't need to visit Eastern Island to encounter a silent monolith: Hal Steinbrenner is hiding in plain sight.

The other day, NJ.com scribe Bob Klapisch - formerly of the Post, Times and Daily News, the trifecta of Gotham sports - chanced upon Hal Steinbrenner outside one of the secret wormholes to Hell that spackle the Yankee internment camp known as George M. Steinbrenner Field. 

Smelling a hot scoop, the veteran Gammonite asked Hal for a quickie - one minute's worth of gobble. He'd get the owner's views on the outfield, the bullpen, maybe Leonardo's chance in the Oscars. Whatever Hal said, it'd be copy. Content. Newsprint. Ink. It would chew up 20 inches and spare Klapisch from having to squeeze quotes out of some terrified Somerset-bound prospect.

Well, it didn't happen. Hal backed away, blubbering some excuse, as two elevator doors conveniently closed. 

For the record, two things: 

1. If the 68-year-old Klapisch approached me on the street, asking for a minute of my time, I'd hand him a dollar and sprint for the bus. The guy's a throwback. He doesn't look like the scruddilly, Gen-Z, human glory holes who have infested Camp Tamp. He might even use a cassette recorder. I mean, the guy speaks Portuguese. Who the fuck speaks Portuguese? 

2. If Hal had granted an interview, his words would fly 30,000 feet above anything meaningful. He'd deliver the rah-rah drivel for which Yankee front office humanoids are known. I think Hal is tired of sitting atop the shit pile, weary of the role he has been relegated to play. Every day, he's reminded that the Dodgers are what the Yankees were, and that, for all his family's billions, several owners have far more to spend, and they actually enjoy doing so.  

 What to say? Our top hitters will play in Scranton.

Listen: It could be that Hal is merely waiting for the World Baseball Classic to conclude, before he calls a news conference and says nothing. 

Or maybe there is something here. 

Really, now, how do you say no to the last standing Gammonite, a real deal, tethered to a past that you should be embracing, when he asks for one minute of your fucking precious time?

Maybe Hal has finally achieved separation. He's free to not care. He sets the Yankee budget and then goes shell-hunting, after watching Kelly and Mark. No more concerns about Volpe, no complaining about the rent, no more pretending that all is going according to plan. America is at war, and the Yankees - once a touchstone for success - are now a slightly glamorized version of the KC Royals. 

For the record, I hereby applaud Hal's silence. I hope it continues. Honestly, what can be said about the 2026 Yankees, aside from that they look like the 2025 version. Maybe it will work. The other plans didn't. Hal just sits atop that shit pile, and it's not easy to balance. 

What's to be said about this team? Nothing, really. Except soon, we shall see. 

Quarter Finals Game Day Thread: USA vs. Canada

 

It is very rare in sports that a team gets a second chance to redeem themselves after losing big due to hubris. Tonight the US team gets that chance. Hopefully they've learned their lesson. 

As an aside, the Dominican team has an amazing lineup.

Tatis Jr.

Marte 

Soto

Guerrero Jr.

Machado

Caminero

Rodriguez

Ramirez

Back up catcher is the famous Dominican, Austin Wells (Don't ask).

---

Update: DR advances 10-0 in seven. (Mercy Rule) on a walk off HR by... wait for it... Austin Wells.

Today, Friday the 13th, is 13 days and 13 exhibition games away from opening day.

In American culture, Friday the 13th is the day of "Jason," the hockey-masked killer of teens, most of whom were delightfully skewered, decapitated and/or impaled on movie screens since 1980. Hey, that's entertainment! 

Yesterday, the Yankees feted their own Jasson - Dominguez, aka "The Martian" or "Bruno Mars" - who hit his 3rd HR of this silent spring. Also, his astral twin, Spencer Jones - aka "Along Came" Jones - added a double. 

Beyond metaphor, both events carried the significance of a tree falling in a forest. Nobody cared, beyond the beer vendors and ticket holders of Scranton, where the pair will play in 2026.

Between now and March 25 - a weird 8 p.m. opener in San Francisco - Yank fans will experience a blitz of meaninglessness, far beyond Dominguez and Jones. Coming soon: a hellacious West Coast heat dome, the insufferable Oscars, the increasingly insane war in the Middle East and the World Baseball Classic.   

Tonight, Captain Aaron Judge and a few various Yankees - the newest being situational lefty Tim Hill - will seek redemption in the WBC, where Team USA was embarrassed earlier this week. 

We lost to Team Italy, a pickup team compiled by Francisco Cervelli, a native of Venezuela and former Yank, who twice went to a hospital after being brutalized by home plate collisions. (We'll never forgive Tampa for its horrible cheap shot on Cerveilli, then a rising young catcher, in a meaningless exhibition. He missed 2008 with a broken wrist, and - by the way - Tampa has never won a championship, thanks to the juju curse that remains.)

So, the Martian and Mr. Jones keep hitting, and the propaganda mill keeps churning - (hey, everybody, Ryan McMahon has a new stance!) Tonight, America faces another hateful Canadian team - the Blue Jays aren't enough - for the WBC trophy, or plaque, or belt - whatever the hell they hand out - and, if we win, an incoherent phone call from You Know Who.

So, the Martian homered, and Jones contributed a double. It's Friday the 13th. Our lucky day. 

Italy saves Team America, and the excursion in Tampa continues

As the WBC hits the knockout round, the afterthoughts in Team Tampa are still searching for their all-purpose version of Cory "Does Everything" Lewandowski.

Yesterday, Oswaldo Cabrera took his shot. 

Takeaways from a meaningless win over Toronto...

1. Giancarlo Stanton blasted two, one into a CF light tower. If we could cryogenically freeze him, to be opened March 28, who wouldn't sign the papers? When a guy can't open a bag of chips, we should savor swing, every blast, every sandwich. Nobody, aside from maybe Ed Sheeran, is more fragile.

2. Randall "the Anti-Martian" Grichuk played LF, and went 1-3 with a run and an RBI. No sign of Jasson Dominguez and/or Spencer Jones, who remain team leaders in RBIs (8, the Martian) and HRs (4, Mr. Jones). Since that horror movie reveal moment in December, when Trent Grisham accepted the Yankees' $22 million qualifying offer, neither had a chance. Steal yourselves for the inevitable sense of loss when Cashman trades either or both for his latest white whale. 

3. Oswaldo played RF, went 0-2. (He's 0-4 this spring.) Everyone wants him to succeed and, I suppose, it's good to give him reps in the OF. But... damn: Ryan McMahon is 3-25 this spring, with six strikeouts. The Yankees ditched Spencer Jones because of the Ks, but McMahon is as strikeout prone as they come. I'd love to see Oswaldo get an honest shot at 3B. Last year, before he broke his ankle, he seemed to be taking the position. Guy deserves a chance. 

4. Cam Schlittler pitched into the 4th, giving up a run and fanning five. Of all Yank starters, he's The Great Hope. If Schlit can repeat last September/October, we can survive April/May without Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon. If Schlittler gets hurt, or goes mental, the rotation will collapse, and the bullpen won't be far behind.

5. Bullpen? Oh, yeah. I had put up a block. Right now, it's hard to access the biggest disappointment. We've got Ryan Weathers (ERA 7.94), Jake Bird (4.50), Angel Chivilli (15.43) and Camilo Doval (9.00.) Yikes. This looks like a disaster. At some point, soon, alarms will sound, and Cashman will start making calls. 

6. Jazz Chisholm and Jose "The Gay" Cabellero returned from the WBC. A combined 0-3. No problem. That's our keystone, and I'm fine with it. 

7. Aaron Boone vows to continue screaming at the umps, despite the new robot strike zone. Nothing makes Yank fans happier than knowing that Boonie is back, and planning to yell his heart out. 

8. If anything should scare us, it's Roman Anthony. In the WBC, he's 5-15 with a HR. (Also, Redsock Jaren Durran, for Mexico, has 3 HRs, tied for the lead.) Listen: We should fear Boston. If Anthony becomes the star, as advertised, he could be our Babadook. They will be young and hungry, and we will be a year older, with a manager who howls insults at algorithms. 

Game Thread: Italy vs. Mexico. Italy needs one more run

Some pretty good Italian baseball players.

Italy is up 3-0 in the fifth. 

If I understand the tie breaker correctly the USA team gets in if:

Italy wins. 

Or 

Mexico wins but scores five runs.

So if Italy gets one more run then Mexico would HAVE to score at least five to win. 

UPDATE: Italy up 5-0.   

Supposedly there's some weird extra inning rule that changes the tiebreaker but as long as it's a nine inning game, we're good. 

Not us.

 

Back in the day—before my day—there was a particularly vicious sports columnist for something called the Boston Record, who made it his business to bring down the great Beantown idol who was Ted Williams.

Dave Egan headed an entire pack of Boston writers who took to doing the same, and you know, Dave Egan had two degrees from Harvard so he had to be right. Egan wanted desperately to prove that Teddy Ballgame was not clutch, and he kept a whole list of big games in which The Splendid Splinter had supposedly choked.

Egan's attacks grew so unhinged that, even on the verge of Williams heading off to war for the second time in his career, he ran a column saying that Teddy was actually a bad example to America's youth. 

Why?

Because Ted Williams never liked to wear a necktie, "even when the occasion clearly called for it." (I'm not making this up.)

A little later, the abominable Horace Stoneham, a stone drunk, moved the New York Giants from East Harlem to San Francisco because he didn't like how many Black people were coming to Giants' games, and he was afraid "all the good cities would be taken."

Like a barbarian looting a sacred temple, he took the incomparable Willie Mays with him, to a place that would prove to be where, as Frank Coniff would write, "They cheer Khrushchev and boo Willie Mays."

They did this in good part because of another pack of rabid hyenas posing as sportswriters, led by an unbearable blowhard named Glenn Dickey.

No matter how well he played, Dickey lambasted Mays for "lack of preparation and knowledge...indolence...uncertain intelligence and petulant personality."

Close as these insults came to outright racism, Dickey, a white man, nonetheless also had the temerity to castigate Mays for supposedly refusing to "speak out against racial inequality."

The charge that they are chokers has been leveled against the very greatest of ballplayers, and if you narrow your eyes and squint very hard at just the right statistics, there might seem to be some validity to it.

Teddy Ballgame, after all, hit only .200, with no extra-base hits and just one RBI, in his only World Series. Sure, he was said to be hurting after injuring his arm in a ridiculous, "warm up" game his manager had arranged before the Series. But never mind. Aren't the true greats supposed to rise above the hurts that fell mere mortals?

Willie Mays, for that matter, never hit a home run in the 20 World Series games he played, and had just 1 in the postseason. His teams went a combined 2-5 in October, and he hit all of .247, and just .239 in the Series. What a choker! Oh, yeah, there was the greatest catch ever made. But still!

It barely needs saying that Aaron Judge's postseason record had been erratic, at best. But we seem to bury the big games he has had, while anointing others as "clutch."

In 2017, for instance, Judge hit only .250 against Houston in the ALCS, but had 2 doubles, 3 homers, and 7 ribbies. In the 2018 ALDS, he had 2 homers and hit .375 in four games against Boston—while Mr. Clutch, Giancarlo Stanton, had 4 singles, 0 RBI, and 6 strikeouts, including a crucial K in the very last inning of the series, when Craig Kimbrel could not put the ball over the plate.

Then there was 2019, in the ALCS against Houston, when Judge had only one homer and hit .240...but Mr. Clutch begged out after homering in Game One. Aaron Hicks—Aaron Hicks!!—also played hurt in that one, but managed to hit a game-winning homer.

Then there was last fall when, after batting .364 against Boston, Judge went 9-15 with 4 walks—yes, he was on base 13 times in 4 games—and drove in 6 runs against Toronto, while hitting absolutely the most impossible fucking home run I have ever seen, and going .600/.684/.933/1.618. 

(Giancarlo did a little less well, batting .091 against Boston, then hitting .267 with no homers against Toronto.)

I write all this not to blame Stanton for the Yanks' many awful failures in the postseason in recent years, but just to point out how once somebody gets a reputation for "clutch" or "not clutch," it is very hard to shake it, no matter how deserving he may or may not be. (And I do blame Stanton for being unable to take the field so often in his Yankees' career, something—let's face it—that is almost certainly due in part to his usage of illegal steroids through the years.)

It is, of course, unlikely that Aaron Judge will ever get over his infamous drop in the 5th inning of Game Five of the 2024 World Series.

I choose to think that if the Yankees had won that game they might have gone back to L.A. and run the table. But of course the odds were much more likely that they would have been shut down again by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a better pitcher than anyone the Yanks had on staff.

And it's worthwhile to remember that even in that terrible Game Five, Aaron Judge also made a terrific leaping catch in deep center, and homered and doubled in the run that gave the Yankees back the lead. And that his drop would've been just a footnote, if the Yankees' braintrust of Brian Cashman and his human sock puppet, Aaron Boone, had not insisted on keeping an injured player at first, a man who couldn't play the position at third—and at short—and a catcher who actually got the Dodgers' winning rally going by managing to grab Ohtani's bat.

All of which is to say that there have been many reasons for why your New York Yankees have not gone all the way in recent years—and almost all of them begin and end with the sheer incompetence and greed of their front office, and the nepo baby who inherited the team. 

Aaron Judge, by contrast, is almost the only player who has given us much joy over the last decade or so. He is almost the only one who has been able to rise above the career-crushing idiocy of Cashman's coaching staffs; the only one who has been able to come back from injury after injury and play better than ever. He is, more than any other player, the man who did easily the most to get us into the postseason to start with.

It has been easy to call him a choker, and I admit, to my great shame, that I have joined in such behavior at times. We all do, in our frustration. But I'll be damned if I'm going to hurl insults at him for not winning a meaningless exhibition game in which Team USA's pitchers managed to give up eight runs to Italy(!).

I think that, despite our frustrations, we generally keep a pretty good perspective on the game. There's no reason for us to ape the Dave Egans and the Glenn Dickeys of the past. That's not us. It just makes us look small—while Aaron Judge will always look big.

Fiasco! So much for the idea that Aaron Judge would finally win the Big One.

Well, this got awful... fast.

Today, instead of being feted as Captain America, Aaron Judge might go down as baseball's version of the "Quad God," having gone 0-for-4 with a game-ending strikeout in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. 

Once again, we're back to wondering what happens to the sport's greatest slugger when a big game is on the line - when a lazy fly ball clanks off his glove in the 2024 world series, or he swings through strike three, as he did last night, with the tying run at the plate. 

Listen: Yank fans love Judge. Always will. He's the greatest Yankee in this millennium - (and, yes, I realize the extent of such a statement) - and we should treasure the time on this earth that we get to watch him. But like Don Mattingly, he's never won a championship, and that's the only measuring stick we know. 

Team USA may still advance to the knockout round, based on some ridiculously complicated scoring system, which makes the federal tax codes look like instructions for chewing gum. But if America's team fails, last night's loss to Italy - Italy! Mamma Mia! - is going to sour our tongues far beyond opening day. And, across the landscape of baseball, nobody will carry the burden of that disappointment more than the Captain. 

All rise? 

Maybe, all over.

Another sad moment in an era when the Yankees - the mighty Yankees - have lost their way. 

In other news yesterday, both the Martian and Mr. Jones homered, salting the wounds of fans who dreamed of a breakout Yankee in 2026. Instead, we'll get Randal Grichuk in an algorithmic platoon with Trent Grisham. The homers came shortly after Spencer Jones was relegated to Scranton, with Jasson Dominguez's bus ticket all but printed out. 

If there is a lesson to the upcoming Ides of March - a time that will be remembered for an unpopular war, endless airport lines, exploding gasoline prices and, now,  the colossal disappointment of Team USA - it is that you cannot teach hunger, and a team of distracted millionaires will always lose to one of angry youngsters. 

It's a lesson the Yankees do not seem capable of learning. What a fiasco. 

Game Thread: USA vs Italy . USA down 6-0 in the sixth

Make that 7-0!   They might not even advance.

Uh 8-0 now.... 

USA LOSES. JUDGE WAS THE FINAL OUT! 

He K'd!

Oh...Eddie!

A terrifying thought for Yankee fans: Could this World Baseball Classic turn out to be Aaron Judge's greatest moments?

 
Last night, while the baseball world watched America throttle Mexico, the lost and abandoned leftovers of Tampa - a roster of big names and the nameless - continued its spring quest for significance, (a mission that cannot succeed.) 

The Yankees did their annual mating dance with the Pirates of Bradenton, Brian Cashman's preferred trading partner over the last decade. But while Team Tampa cavorted before drunken spring breakers and diapered ex-cops, over in Houston, games of supercharged emotions were happening, with a few Yankees in key roles. 

1. First and foremost, there is Captain America, Aaron Judge. Last night, he did us proud: a HR, a single, two walks and a zipline throw to 3B, catching a runner.

Here's a terrifying thought: Could Judge's greatest career moments happen not as a Yankee, but in the jersey that says USA? When you look at the lineup around him, you see players who shoulda been Yankees - Harper, Schwarber, Bregman. Will he ever win a world series? Or are we seeing his zenith?

2. Jose Caballero, as SS for Panama, continues to show he belongs in the Yankee infield. Last night, he went 2-5 against Columbia, with a HR and stolen base, his 2nd of the tourney. The craziest Yankee notion is the one where Anthony Volpe returns in June and takes over his rightful position at SS. Nope.  

3. Elmer Rodriguez, 22, pitched three scoreless innings for Puerto Rico, striking out four and giving up one hit. He could be this year's Cam Schlittler - or maybe Carlos Lagrange. Over the winter, Brian Cashman decided to play a strategy: Stand pat and somehow spackle together a pitching staff until July, when Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and maybe Clarke Schmidt return. That's a grand infusion, if the Yankees can get there. If Rodriguez is for real, their chances are much better.

4. Giancarlo Stanton needs scissors to open a bag of Utz's Honey Barbecue. I cannot see him without imagining him tearing open the bag with his teeth, surging for a salt and vinegar rush. Yesterday, he homered for Team Tampa. What does it mean? Dunno. Nobody - anywhere, these days - nobody knows what to make of Stanton. He just comes and goes, a Shakespearian ghost. We don't get excited when he hits one. It's just a reminder that he's there. Could it be a good thing if he cuts back on the chips?  

5. The Randal Grichuk Era has begun. The Yankees newest RH platoon hitter went 0-2. Neither The Martian nor Mr. Jones saw a pitch. Unlike the pitching staff, the Yankee batting order won't see a Cole/Rodon infusion this summer. 

If anything, come April, Judge might need to rest his psyche, after the pressure-packed WBC. He'll face two colossal challenges: Ohtani 's Japan, and Juan Soto's Dominican Republic. I wonder if he'll miss the easy afternoons of Tampa? But there's no turning back now. It's on.