Are the Yankees trying to ruin soccer by mismanaging their team?

Last week, the Yankees unveiled their best imitation of the ACME Co., as they sought to ensure that soccer never replaces baseball as the national pastime.

They enforced their new admission policy - the one that refuses to acknowledge home-printed tickets - on the New York Club Futbol team, which the Steinbrenners partly own. They did this without little advance publicity within the soccer community, thus creating long lines to get into the game at Yankee stadium.

Deadspin got the story. And it wasn't pretty.

Basically, the Yankees have declared war on against Stubhub, the online scalping giant. Last month, they announced they would no longer accept home-printed tickets, the staple of Stubhub's business model. Sunday was their first implementation of this plan, shocking the monkey (in this case, soccer fans.)

This Yankee policy will work until Stubhub figures out a new hack, which will force the Yankees to make a counter move. It's a chess game played by suits and heirs to suit-hood, by people who don't care about games or fans, because they know the sports are mere products. Thus, they use brinkmanship on every dispute. Consider the war between YES on Comcast, which could deny hundreds of thousands of fans TV coverage. It's one set of billionaire assholes against anothere. And of course, we fans always lose.

We are the ones stuck in disastrous lines, or unable to get a game on television, even though we pay outrageous cable fees.

Once upon a time, I rooted for the Yankees in business disputes. I naively believed that the more money the team brought in, the more it could invest in players, and the more it would win.

That view no longer applies. The Yankees are simply trying to grind out as much money as possible, and from whomever is foolish enough to desire their product. The profits? They can spend it on clam dip, or lawn ornaments, or politicians.

But last Sunday, tempers flared. Some fans were turned away. I wonder if they'll return. I wonder if we'll live to see a day of reckoning? It's been said that you reap what you sow. Who knows?

Drake LaRoche Will Never Play For The White Sox

If you want more proof that history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes, Adam LaRoche just gave it to you.

LaRoche -- admittedly at the tail end of his career and incredibly overpaid for his recent production -- has retired from the White Sox because management told him to stop bringing his son, Drake, to all of the Sox's games. You can argue whether or not it's really appropriate that "bring your kid to work day" is every goddamn day (personally, I think it's more than a touch on the weird side, but I grew up in a much different time and my dad never made $13 million for hitting .207), but if anyone in the clubhouse minded, they're not going on record during the lovefest being held in Papa LaRoche's honor.

The first thing this situation brought to mind was its uncanny resemblance to The Griffey Thing back in the 1980s. When Billy Martin was his usual alcoholic prickness and told Ken Griffey Sr. to keep Junior out of the clubhouse and locker room. Junior said that during the years his dad was with the Yankees, he was never once allowed to step onto the field at the old Stadium, and never did until he was a pro with the Mariners.

Junior's hatred of the Yankees for snubbing his young self kept us from ever signing him. We were picking up free agents right and left, but Ken Griffey Jr. steadfastly told us more than once to stick it where Billy Martin's son don't shine. (I don't even know if he had a son, but it seemed to work well in the story and was a bad joke I just couldn't resist.)

The White Sox learned nothing from Martin's curmudgeonliness. They weren't even drunk or hungover when they told LaRoche to limit the number of progeny visits to a more typical level. And now, if Drake LaRoche turns out to be a great ballplayer, you can bet dollars to beer nuts that he will never, ever even remotely consider signing with Chicago.

Unfortunately for the White Sox, they ignored the lessons of history. Which we do all the time, benching or trading youngsters to sign old, broken-down former stars or even current stars who we'll overpay long into their twilight years as they clog up the lineup.

It's kind of strange that a sport that fetishizes the past is so good at ignoring the lessons of history. But then again, you can't predict baseball. And if anyone says you can, punch him, and Trump or Goose will pay your legal expenses.

The story of Jesus - Seattle Book II - is coming to an end

Making peace with the end of Jesus.

"No Manager Can Run On The Field Anymore And Kick Dirt On The Umpire. That Was Exciting. That Was Part Of The Game. ... Now You Sit There For Five Minutes And Wait For A Fucking Replay."

And if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato at our 2016 New York Yankees, knock the crap out of them. Goose will pay for the legal fees. I promise.

After talk with Papi, Yog-Rod - the new Berra? - needs to hire new writers

Last week, the Gray Lady - in need of creative spring filler - proclaimed Alex Rodriguez as the new Yogi, when it comes to saying smart dumb things, if you don't think about them.

So yesterday, when Alex met with Big Papi to end their two-year Cold War shitlistings, it was an opportunity for the new Yog-Rod to unleash some howlers. Sadly, he failed.

"I spoke to him today. He's in a good place."

"He's one of our legends going out."

"I think he's been an incredible ambassador for the game."

"I'm looking forward to him leaving the game at a height."

"He crushed us over the years."

That's Yogi? No, that's Derek Jeter. That's the art of blathering slop. If A-Rod is going to heal his reputation and become beloved - thinking Hall of Fame here - he needs to Yogi-ize all future statements. This is what he should have said.

"I spoke to him today, and he talked back, without any talk back."

"He's in a good place, and vice-versa."

"He's one of our legends going out, but he sure wasn't coming in."

"I think he's been an incredible foreign embassy guy for the game."

"I am looking forward to him leaving the game at a height, and at a weight too."

"He crushed us over the years, and we always never had a crush on him."

Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry Found Dead

A-Rod and Papi make up. Is this the last drop of bad blood in a rivalry that hasn't mattered in this decade?

SXSW continued: What would Trump say?

AUSTIN _ Shouldn't have smoked the peyote. Are you supposed to smoke peyote? I'm channeling Trump: That's my new motto, straight from 93 degrees in Austin:

I hereby propose new writing guidelines for everyone - including commentators - on this site.

We talk like Trump. We capture the spirit of America. No more pansy-wanzy, pussy-wussy, Yankalitically correct, troweled-out, pee-and-spittle, mouthlet mush. We talk like Trump.

I mean, believe me, these are desperate times! Right now, other teams - like Tampa or Canada  - they're chopping off heads. These animals, they're putting players in steel cages and drowning them. And we're thinking of honoring Big Papi at the end of the season? How stupid can our leaders be! They are utterly incompetent! Believe me, as a fan, I'm not beholden to any general managers, like the writers are. I'm self-funding this website. So I don't have to worry about them calling me up and withdrawing the money. And I'm not going to be politically correct, and say we should all sit around and cheer Big Papi and his thug fan disrupters.

I'm thinking of the way old George Steinbrenner used to handle bad dudes like Papi. He lined up Redsocks, coated baseballs with pork fat, and threw at their heads. He wasn't afraid to throw at their heads. Then, after he had knocked down 50 of them, he would single out one Redsock - a Wade Boggs or a Roger Clemens - and let them win a World Series as a Yankees, just so they could go back to Boston and tell everybody what he'd seen. And you know what? We never had trouble with Boston. AND THAT'S THE KIND OF OWNER WE NEED NOW.

Ninety degrees in the shade

AUSTIN _ Not kidding. Ninety. I'm the only guy in Texas wearing pants. Sweat puddle on my T-shirt, which I carefully selected for this event. It says: VADER WAS FRAMED. When people ask, I say, "Obscure cultural reference, you're too young to get it." They move on. For a half hour, we sat under a tree outside a bar called Javelino's and watched a guy with his head wrapped in a t-shirt try to pick up every woman entering in the place, and then tried to steal someone's backpack. Class act.

Met the band in a food truck court around 9 o'clock and then found a place to eat called Moonshines. Chicken fried steak. My head really hurts.

Music everywhere. No parking anywhere. Crowds in the street. The band drove in from Denton. They play this evening, then they might do a free, renegade 2 a.m. concert on a bridge later. They did it last year. Not sure if I'll be up that far.

David Price pitches against us tonight. Not sure which I'd prefer to see - (Clarification: What I'd like to see, I can't print, because it would go against the happy-talk tide of good sportsmanship.) - Price waist a good outing or get hammered. Need to channel Bill Murray from "Meatballs:" It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.

OK, I'm going to live this festival with a new mantra: What

would Trump do?

Cover for me, boys. I'm heading to SXSW

I'm going to see the best rock'n'roll band in America: SHEER MAG (which today was named BEST NEW ALBUM on Pitchfork.) 

And last week made the New Yorker. And Rolliing Stone.

Not to mention this.

On this website, you know them as THE DEADLY SPINNERS, makers of the one and only WinWarble Song. 

(My reporting may be spotty. Cover me, folks.) 

Imagining the Yankees by the time Chapman arrives

On or about May 9, Aroldis Chapman will join the Yankees, having served his time for domestic and garage abuse. The team will be 30 games into 2016 - having already played one series each against the Blue Jays, Rays and Orioles, and home-and-away sets against the Redsocks. The season will be young, but we will have tasted the full buffet of the AL East.

Of course, the Yankees will use Chapman's suspension as hype: If the team has played poorly, Chapman will be coming, yea! If the team is doing well, just think how good things will be with Chapman! It's nice to have a rabbit in the hat.

But the trouble with middling teams is that everything looks fine... until it doesn't. By May 6, we will probably know a few things that right now look murky.

1. Is CC Sabathia even a fifth starter? Yesterday, management shrugged off his horror show against the mighty Phillies. Expectations have been lowered by the suggestion that CC is the last guy in the rotation - not the ace. He is this year's Chris Capuano, which means 5 innings and three-to-four runs, which means let's hope for an offensive surge. They suggest he can be the next Bartolo Colon, the old guy who gets by on guile. But there aren't many like Colon, and I'm not sure the Yankees would know one if they saw one: After all, they're the team that let Colon go four seasons ago. Had we kept him, Colon would have been our best pitcher over those four years. Who knew? Not us, that's for sure.

2. Is it time for Gary Sanchez? Odds are the Yankees in two weeks will send Sanchez to Scranton, no matter what he does - (and he hasn't done much this spring.) They want his MLB contract to start late, so they keep an extra year before arbitration. But by May 9, if they need a RH bat - or a youth infusion - Sanchez might be the guy. After all these years of bouncing around Scranton, can Austin Romine prove to be a solid backup catcher?

3. Is Chase Headley deadly? The Yankees yesterday made five errors - CC, Chapman, Aaron Hicks, prospect Derek Fowler and Starling Castro. But at least Headley didn't throw away any balls. Last year, they were sailing like Frisbies. He may be a middling hitter from now on, but if his throws continue to be erratic... Houston, we have a problem.

There are others: Brett Gardner's hand, most notably. But for the most part, April will be the usual slow start by some, fast start by others. And come May 9, we'll unveil our saver... hopefully not our savior.

Fingers crossed in saying it... but still no big spring injuries

Three years ago, in his first spring training at bat, Curtis Granderson broke his right forearm on a swing. He missed the next 10 weeks. He returned in late May and quickly broke his pinkie finger - gone for another five weeks. That year, the Grandyman played in 61 games and batted a painful .229. Worse, John Sterling sang the Grandyman home run theme a mere 7 times. Basically, our season was snake-bitten from the git-go.

Around this time last March, the fellow generally believed to be our fifth starter - Chris Capuano - strained a gonad while covering first base. As disasters went, this wasn't the Titanic - Capuano had his issues - but that was pretty much the end to his season. Throughout 2015, Cappy flat-out shat: 0-4 with an ERA of 7.97. He's gone now, and on a better day, I wouldn't even think of him.

But I do... because when the Oracle says you cannot predict baseball, he's sort of wrong. For example, we can say that, in a bad year, David Ortiz will still hit 20 home runs. But what we can't say is whether Ortiz will tweak a cheek and miss six months. You can't predict that Carlos Beltran will hit a wall, do a cartwheel, and slump for the rest of 2014, as he did.

What you can't predict are injuries.

Last February, the Yankee pitching ranks were decimated by several young prospects reporting arm issues. (Ian Clarkson, Jose Campos, Ty Hensley) This year, we lost Greg Bird to a shoulder operation - a cruel deal by fate - and we are still waiting for one big shoe to drop: Brett Gardner's bone bruise hasn't healed in three months... the most worrisome Tampa news of 2016.

Nevertheless, nobody's yet crashed into a wall - as Jose Pirela did last March. No front line starter has gone down... yet.

Could this be a side-benefit of the new, highly touted training hill - a mound built for Yankee strength and conditioning coach Matt Krause (now in his third year.) Or is this a veteran team that is verrrrrrrrrrrrrry slowly subjecting its elderly players to the stresses of game action? Is it a genuine good omen? Am I jinxing it, by mentioning it?

Let's be wise enough to enjoy a good thing while you have it.

Clearly, if someone goes down today, it's on me. I should have kept quiet. But we're hitting week four, and we haven't seen the ambulance... yet. The Redsocks are increasingly worried about Eduardo Rodriguez - one of their big starter hopes - who still isn't throwing off a mound. And their top pitching prospect - a first-round pick named Michael Kopek - broke his hand last week in a fight with a teammate. (You go, Redsocks! Trump, Trump, Trump!) Luck can be everything in a season, and the juju gods haven't yet shown us their dice.

Goody good

Goose says, "Nevermind," but he was the most interesting thing in the Yankee camp

The new line out of Tampa is that Goose Gossage got himself a talking-to, and he's now sorry for firing off a volley of f-bombs about uppity HR-hitting whippersnappers and squat-to-pee management types. Something came over him. Thus, the Gammonites can now focus their laser-like attention on the exciting 2016 Yankees.

That's a joke. Get it? "Exciting 2016 Yankees."

Listen: I don't know what's coming in 2016, but excitement? Nope. Thus far this spring, the Yankees have put more people to sleep than the Democratic debates. Almost all our key players are hovering near 40, each one a knee, a hip, a wrist, waiting to flare. We added nothing without yielding equal compensation - or in the case of Mr. Chapman - a potential chunk of our moral soul. This is the basically the same team that collapsed last fall. It's like the old Steven Wright joke: "I dreamed somebody replaced everything in my bedroom with an identical duplicate." This is like a school budget that's been voted down by the taxpayers, being put up for a second vote. I read write-ups from other spring camps, and I see teams with rising - maybe even outlandish - expectations. Our Hope Week will come in August. Until then, the Yankees have the Gray Goose.

OK, maybe I'm too harsh. Maybe Didi in 2016 will rise to All-Star level. Maybe Castro Starling will return to his glory Cub days. Maybe Chase Headley will... oh fuck that - he won't. When you look at the Yankees, everything hopeful comes with three ifs and two maybes. What does it say about expectations when one of the big questions of 2016 is how the Yankees should say farewell to David Ortiz?

Right now, our great Yankee hope rests with Luis Severino, the lone starter with a seemingly unlimited ceiling. We had another hope - Greg Bird - now lost for the season. I'm still not over it. And nobody has stepped up. Aaron Judge has struck out 7 times. Same with Slade Heathcott. Aaron Hicks now has 5 K's. Rob Refsnyder is ticketed for Scranton. Jorge Mateo is at least a year away. Gary Sanchez is looking for his first hit. His big moment, thus far, was drawing a walk. Tell me something hopeful. Please. Lie to me. I don't care.

So, for a day, we had Goose, straight from the Scooter Store, ripping them consarn young sluggers of today. None play for the Yankees.

Not looking hot for Heathcott

Still time to turn it around, but Slade Heathcott went 0-1 today with a strikeout - his seventh on the spring - and he made an error, his second.

Damn...

(FYI: Last spring training, he hit .333.)

Muslim Joke

A Muslim guy loses his wallet. A good Samaritan finds it and returns it.

The Muslim guy - enormously grateful - leans close and whispers, "Hey, you're a good guy, so I gotta warn you: This summer, whatever you do, don't go near Yankee Stadium."

"Dear God!" the Samaritan says, "what's going to happen?"

The Muslim guy says: "The fucking Yankees are gonna suck."

Localizing the Story 101

We will bury you.

Goose goes Trumpian: ""Bautista is a f---ing disgrace to the game,"

Amid yesterday's on field "meh" - (two games, no victory) - geriatric Trumpians of the Yankee fan base found a new cause to wave their fists at the Fox News lady, as Goose Gossage blamed Latinos for ruining baseball.

In a 10-minute f-word rant to ESPN, Gossage went full spittle on Jose Batista and Yoenis Cespedes for their bat-flipping, post-HR curtsies. He targeted them on the same day Bryce Harper - (the voice of his generation?) - praised HR dances as a sign of the times. It was MLB's version of a Twitter dust-up between Carly Fiorina and Lena Dunham.

Goose - (or maybe his meds were talking) - said this:

"The game is becoming a freaking joke because of the nerds who are running it. I'll tell you what has happened, these guys played Rotisserie baseball at Harvard or wherever the f--- they went and they thought they figured the f---ing game out. They don't know s---."

Listen: Gossage is a great ex-Yankee and a true gentleman. As a fellow geezer, I sort of agree when he whines about pimp dances and front office Waylan Smithers. But the sad truth is that Gossage just another old fart, hearkening back to a time that never existed. He might as well be visiting a Falwell theme park where people ride on dinosaurs. As long as baseball has been played, there have been young upstarts pissing off the elders. It might be Junior Griffey, wearing his cap backwards. It might be Bobby Murcer, unbuttoning the top of his jersey too soon. It might be Deion Sanders, not running out pop-ups. It doesn't matter. Old guys complaining about young guys is a baseball tradition as concrete as the clubhouse floor. Goose can yell about whatever gets his blood pressure back to 100/40 - but he's just another bag of wrinkles in a cowboy hat, looking for a scapegoat to the reasons why his erections aren't what they used to be.

Which is Donald Trump's America today, eh?

Lately, I'm wondering what the Yankees stand for, and if it's something I can stomach. Yes, I know... self-reflection combined with arrested development it's a dangerous mix. The Yankees are supposed to be a baseball team and nothing more. I absolutely refuse to think less of Paul O'Neill because his political beliefs are not mine. I absolutely refuse to dislike Goose Gossage, for whom I'd drive 100 miles just to shake his hand. But the slippery financial side of the Yankees - the tax breaks, the astronomical ticket prices, their broadcast fees for YES, and most of all, those sickening words last month by Lonn Trost about not wanting poor fans to ruin the elite experience - are piling up. Look, it's beyond my capabilities to root against the Yankees. They're like an eye-twitch. For every upper management asshole - (Goose got that part right) - there is a nervous 6'7" kid named Aaron Judge, who may or may not make it, but on whom our hopes rest.

One of the worst aspects of a U.S. Presidential election year is the way it polarizes every issue - from a Marvel superhero movie, to the Oscars, to a bat-flip by Jose Batista. But I can't help but notice that Gossage picked on Latinos, while the corn-fed poster child for pimping HRs got a pass. Maybe I'm just too zoned in on Trump crapola, which gets scarier every day. But if summer brings us pictures of Trump and Bill O'Riley preening behind the Yankee dugout like Katniss Everdeen after eating a Big Mac - I might find myself switching to the Mets game.

Oh, and Slade Heathcott got a hit yesterday. He's 1-13, but - hey - it's a start.

To Johnny Damon, Trump's War on Immigrants is About 'Paperwork'

Johnny knows walls.

Is Donald Trump a racist? Ask Johnny Damon, who yesterday announced his support for the moldy circus peanut:

"Everyone is calling him a racist. He just wants people to come into this country legally and fill out the proper paperwork."

Meanwhile, The Nation's Dave Zirin notes that working broadcaster Paul O'Neill's endorsement slaps Latino players in the face.

This year, current and former Yankees will make up a large and mockable cohort of political participants. I hope.

Why are they always "ex-Yankees?"

"Laff" Of The Day

"Regardless of expectations, the Yankees are designed to win a championship. "

--Andrew Marchand, ESPN Senior Writer

That outfield firewall in Scranton is suddenly looking thin

It's March, early March, too soon to see omens, and - besides, you can't predict baseball, right? Nevertheless, a Rubio-like deathwatch shadow has crept over what should be one of the 2016 Yankee strengths: that seemingly inexhaustible outfield depth, which suddenly looks as thin as a coat of Windex.

For starters, Brett Gardner still hasn't taken one pitch, due to a "bone bruise" inflicted last October, back when the idea of Donald Trump winning the GOP nomination was a late night punch line. In Gardy's rare 100 percent healthy moments, we love the man. But don't we fear the banjo-hitting mediocrity he becomes at 75 percent? Add the universal certainty that Jacoby Ellsbury is a break, a strain, a tweak or a tear waiting to flare up - and that leaves Carlos Beltran patrolling RF with less mobility than the statue of George Steinbrenner - and thus, the need for OF depth has never cried more loudly.

So... let's listen together... shhhh...

Right now, Aaron Hicks - "the Small Aaron" - is the Yankee OF firewall. Yesterday, he went 1-3 with a double. He switch hits and plays CF. Last year - his third shot at the Twins - Hicks seemed to finally figure out MLB pitching: He hit .256 with 11 HR. Cashman traded for him, and - thus, the franchise is invested in him. Let's hope.

Behind Hicks, it's been ugly. Slade Heathcott is having a terrible spring. He is 0-10 with six strikeouts. His lone positive molecule of play came in Game 2, when he drew a walk. Heathcott is one of the most intriguing Yankees, with a rare unknown ceiling. But unless he breaks out, he's ticketed for Year II in Scranton, at age 25. Last year, he hit .267 with 2 HRs down there. Time is running out.

Joining him in Scranton will be Mason Williams, the roller coaster ride who is still healing from a shoulder injury from last year - so he's out - and Ben Gamel, another Scrantonian who hit his way onto the Yankee roster. Gamel, thus far, is 2-7 on the spring, both singles.

Of course, the guy we all wanted to tear up Tampa is "the Big Aaron" - Aaron Judge, who hit a three-run HR last week to win a game. Unfortunately, he is now 1-10 with six strikeouts. Let's face it: His Scranton ticket is punched. The Yankees viewed him as a player who needs to play every day. One for 10 means he's done.

There are others - most notably a 26-year-old scrap heap acquisition named Lane Adams, who is 3-7 with 2 RBIs and a stolen base. He bats RH, which gives him a better shot. But hey - if we're down to Adams, it means injuries have reduced us to stems and seeds, and that was not supposed to be the case - at least not this early.

Of course, that's the good part: It is this early. We're in the phase of spring training when Zolio Almonte used to turn heads. If Heathcott goes 3-3 tomorrow, who cares about his first few games? On the 10th of March, Julius Caesar was still kicking, and so is Heathcott. Just don't say the omens were not there.  

Trump shows again why he should run the Yankees

It shouldn't surprise anybody that Paul O'Neill - our Pauly - would be endorsing Donald Trump in his quest to be elected Exalted Supreme Ruler of America. Trump's victory rally last night probably featured a $9.99 buffet, and anybody who watches YES knows what O'Neill can do with a knife and fork. His eating prowess gives Coney nightmares.

Nevertheless, the great and glorious Wizard of Trump stunned the Yankiverse last night by saying to the crowd:

“Stand up, Paul! You originally come from Ohio, right? Oh, wow. Paul O’Neill of the Yankees. Paul, you come from Ohio? Do you endorse me? I love you!”

Yes, I love you.

Yes, that's our Pauly - the breaker of water coolers, the man who drew The Walk, the brother to a Times reporter, our plaque inscribed eating-machine in Monument Park - who somehow materialized in a Trump clan rally like the reanimated corpse of Chris Christie, inching the Republican Party establishment one step closer to oblivion. 

First off, let's face it: Trump should run the Yankees, a far more important job than sitting atop the national shit pile. Last night proves once again that he is the rightful heir to old George, that Trump is the one who could lift the Yankee Excalibur sword from Babe Ruth's tomb, that he is the owner who would ruffle the secret society of ancient vampires that currently runs baseball. He would never count dimes while Boston signed David Price or Yoan Moncada. When you watch Trump so relentlessly and obsessively pursue a kingly crown that - if he wins it - would bore and destroy him, then you see a guy who would prod the Yankees to a pennant rather than the final, away-game Wild Card slot. You see the psycho, lunatic grownup third-grader who should be running the Yankees. 

Secondly, and I say this regardless of our feelings about Trump: Generally speaking, jocks are political cretins. They gravitate toward the festering human money-pimples, who own casinos and golf courses, and who hire suited smile buttons to suck up to ex-players and B-level celebrities. For every Tom Brady who accepts a foot-rub from one of Trump's publicists, there is a Peyton Manning eating Papa John's pizza, or an equally dim bulb endorsing Bernie, or Cruz, or somebody. They have no more business telling you what to think than I do, but America is now a celebritocracy, right?

Pauly O'Neill is on the Trump team? Didn't see that coming. Considering that he's also got Chris Christie in there, Trump had better keep the buffet well stocked.

Five records that won't be broken, and forgetting the biggest one of all...

This ridiculous report by the Daily News -  "Cal Ripken Jr.'s streak and five other unbreakable baseball records - somehow manages to ignore John Sterling's upcoming 5,000th consecutive announced game.

When that game happens - the Yankees have not released a date - we hereby propose - no demand - that The Master be appointed Official Yankee Captain.

Either that, or John should manage - with Suzyn as bench coach.

Powerful Yankees double their hit total from last October Wild Card against Houston

While we await the "Yelp for People" phone ap - which will surely change civilization - the Retrieval Empire yesterday exploded against the Astros with seven - 7! - hits. That's more than twice the output from last October's pre-post-season game, aka the "Wild Card."

This time, the Yankees only lost 1-0 and - more importantly - nothing matters! Hahaha! The joke is on Houston!

It's hard to gush giddy when the best you can say about yesterday is that nothing mattered. So let's do some hope-mining. After all, when Yelp-for-People gets here, you'll want to write nice things about everybody... right? I mean, anybody can dish up a cold nugget or two from the Google search. But the real dirt - the revenge dirt - that'll come from ex-spouses and playground rivals. Can you imagine what anonymous Yelpers will write about - say - A-Rod? Big Papi? Your mom?

So... the good news from yesterday:

Nobody hit. Nothing, nada, for neither team.

Luis Severino pitched three innings, gave up two hits, didn't walk anybody. Michael Pineda threw two shutout innings, and inspired another write-up by Ken Davidoff - of Jerry Hall's NY Post, crowing about how the Yankees won the Montero-Pineda trade. (Which is true, but couldn't the story wait until Pineda actually pitches in a game? Isn't crowing about about a two-inning exhibition outing sort of like proclaiming global warming is a myth because it's snowing?) The most important improvement was Jacob Lindgren, who couldn't throw strikes in his first spring outing. He seems to have regained control.

Let's keep this in mind all spring.

Jake Cave led the Yankees in hitting last spring with a .400 average. He had a fine season at Scranton, and he's now in Cinncinati.

The second best hitter last spring was Rob Refsnyder - who batted .372. He got bounced around like a traffic cone on the New Jersey Turnpike. And in third place last Grapefruit Season, it was Jose Pirela. He hit .370. He was traded to San Diego for a pitcher named Ronald Herrera. And both players spent almost the entire season in Scranton while the Yankees waited for Stephen Drew to hit. That's how much spring training means to a team built with contracts.

So nobody hit yesterday, and what is there to say? Nancy Reagan is still dead, and so is Marco Rubio. The Yankees have still won the Montero trade, and neither Cave nor Yoan Moncada - (that name! slooooowly I turn) - played for the Reds or Redsocks. But hear my warning: If the Yankees don't win this year, I'm going on Yelp for People and writing that Brian Cashman never flushes the toilet.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar in a Goodbarless universe

Yesterday's top 10 meaningful news stories across meaningless Yankiverse...

1. Downton Abbey ended. (Spoiler alert: Maggie Smith snapped, killed entire Crawley family in sado-masochistic bloodbath, then moved to London to live in van and not get nominated for Oscar.)

2. Nancy Reagan died. (World still awaiting remembrance from Mr. T.)

3. Marco Rubio won Puerto Rico. (Wait: Isn't there an actress named Margot Robbie? What is it with these actress names: Eva Longoria... Evan Longoria? Can't these women name themselves, without having to steal from great men?) 

4. Masahiro Tanaka pitched two innings: two hits and a walk. (First time back since surgery, now entering year three, and we still don't know what we've got.)

5. Brett Gardner's bone bruise - sustained last October on Wild Card - continued to rest. (Day 157 of the healing process.)

6. Chad Green, one of the two guys we got in the deal for Justin Wilson, gave up five (5) earned runs in 2/3 of an inning. (Oh, well...)

7. Jorge Mateo got another hit... (and STOLE A BASE.)

8. Austin Romine went 2-2 with three RBIs. (Doesn't everyone want him to get a shot at NYC this spring?)

9. Donald Trump said something outrageous - who cares what it was - and cable TV covered it, breathlessly.

10. Rob Refsnyder had a great game... (playing third base.)

I would like to discuss No. 10.

Refsnyder played 3B, made two outstanding defensive plays, went 1-1 and STOLE TWO BASES, raising his SB number to THREE on the spring. And, of course, it doesn't matter.

The more he does in March, the more disillusioned he will be in April, when the Yankees send him to Scranton, preferring to keep some journeyman infielder they will pluck from the scrap heap. We've seen this movie, over and over. Come April one, when they put him on the train to Scranton, they will assure Refsnyder that he's in the mix, but when he starts slowly in the Electric City, he will fade into the Poconos skyline.

Here's the reality: Barring an injury - or a flair-up of Chase Headley's yips - the Yankees are set contractually for the entire season at both 2B and 3B. Thus, they will play the old "Needs To Be Playing Every Day" card, and send Refsnyder back for his third year at Triple A. Three years in Scranton.

Nobody should play three years at Scranton.

He's still only 24. He seems like 29.

Two for two and two stolen bases... on the day Nancy Reagan died. Will it matter? Does anything matter in this meaningless universe?

Need some help here: We voted on the all-time greatest Yankee home run. What would be the all-time greatest Yankee double?

I'm thinking of two easy ones:

Jorge Posada's double off of Pedro, which helped tie the game that led to Aaron Boone's home run...

Charlie Keller's double off Hugh Casey, after Mickey Owens let strike three slide from his mitt, allowing Tommy Heinrich to get to first base, in game four of the 1941 World Series.

There have to be many more...

The all-time greatest Yankee double...

Girardi spills the beans: The Master is calling games on two new artificial knees

In the middle of yesterday's glorious Yankee exhibition triumph, Joe Girardi unleashed to the world a news kraken:

Over the winter, John Sterling underwent two (2) knee surgeries.

Yes, The Master called most - if not all - of 2015 on a pair of pain-shrieking stumps. You wouldn't known he was bone-on-bone. The Master never complained in public and, clearly, must have sworn Suzyn to secrecy - threatening her with a HIPAA violation lawsuit. Yesterday, Girardi - being atop the Yankee food chain - took it upon himself to blow the whistle - you know - spill the beans, pop the cherry, let the cat out of the bag... lift the cheek and let it sneak.  

"You hear the horror stories," John said, of the surgeries, but assured the Yankiverse that all is fine.

Sometime this season, Sterling will call his 5,000th consecutive Yankee game, making him baseball's Iron Lung. Let's hope the Yankees show the fundamental decency to win that game, allowing The Master to unleash a 7.00-second plus Win Warble, something that was increasingly rare last year. Of course, we didn't know he was win-warbling in pain.

Let's get one thing straight: Until the Yankee ownership starts acting like a Yankee owner, instead of the son of one, we are not a Yankee website.

We are a John Sterling website, even if it means hearing The Master's call a good 30 seconds after the play has appeared on TV, which was the case yesterday.

Other Sterling moments from the first radio broadcast of 2016:

Judge not, or be judged: The Master's home run call for Aaron Judge is rather predictable: "Here come da Judge!" (We'd prefer as the secondary line: "He's Judge, Jury and Executioner.") It's early.

Little Georgie? No home run call for Jorge Mateo - yet. All John could say was: "Woah." It's early.

Revelation: John reported that, in a recent talk, Chasen Shreve admitted that he was tired at the end of 2015, and that's why, in September, he was throwing like Betty White.

Outfield scrum: Discussing Ben Gamel, John mentioned that he, Slade Heathcott and Mason Williams are "all fighting for, frankly, a job that's not there." Scranton, here they come.

The unnamed scout: John had a talk with an unnamed scout, who revealed this exclusive info nugget: If Hanley Ramirez doesn't play well at first base this season, considering Sandoval at third, Boston could have the worst fielding infield in the A.L. Yes, you could hear The Master's smile coming through the microphone... Not even a pair of bum knees could silence that delighted grin.

Mateo homers... no personalized call by John

"Jorge Mateo homers over the left-center field wall. Pretty impressive. Woah."

That's all we got?

What about, "Teo, Teo, daylight come and me want to go home!"

Or... "Payday-o for Mateo!"

Or... "Mateo swings away-o!"

Or... "Little Georgie juices one!"

Or... "You say Mateo, I say potat-o!

"

Nothing. Nada. Is John - with a new two year deal - slackening in his work ethic? Or is The Master telling us that Mateo must work hard and deserve his personalized home run call?

Today, The Master and Your Mom take to the airwaves

Wherever you are, get to one of those electronic devices that pull voices from the air... because the newly, multi-year-secure John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman will be opening the 2016 Yankee Talk-a-thon.

At last, we shall learn...

What celebrity biographies did The Master read over the winter?

What new Yankee home run calls has The Master concocted?

How about these talented Yankee prospects!

Has something changed in the fabric of the universe, so that perhaps - just perhaps - we now CAN predict baseball?

There is no meaning here... and I mean it

Searching for the truth in a truthless world...

Refsnyder's early - way too early - troubles continue: 0-1 with a strikeout.

Same with Heathcott, though it's way too early.

It's way too early to get excited about Mitchell, or Kaprielian, or Cessa. Way too early.

It's just too early.

John Sterling Fact of the Day

John stopped paying attention to critics years ago. [Source]

Searching for meaning in a meaningless universe

Good news: Yankees score four! No more one and done!

Bad news: They give up 13. Thirteen. To the Phillies. Only one pitcher in camp - the eternal Trentonian, Mike Montgomery - has thrown a 1-2-3 inning.

Thank God it's early. But it is... really early. It's pre-dinosaurs, pre-cosmic seeding and planetory congealing - even pre-Big Bang. Time hasn't yet begun. Nothing matters, and as proof of that statement: A-Rod homered.

First AB of 2016. Yep, a giant, meaningless nothingburger.

But let's look at the players that - even in pre-matter state - matter:

Slade Heathcott goes 1-2 with a single. He also fanned and walked. (Minor interesting note: He played CF and led off.) Little Hands Ellsbury is nursing something.

Aaron Judge batted twice, struck out twice. Hm-mm. That's the problem with batting practice superstars - Tony Pena isn't always on the mound.

Gary Sanchez 0-2 with two walks. I'll take it.

Rob Refsnyder, playing 2B, goes 0-3 with a strikeout and leaves 6 runners on base. Hm-mm. In the field, he led a DP.

Basepath super demon Jorge Mateo tried his first steal against a major league battery. He was thrown out.

Pitchingwise, there's only way to say this: HORROR SHOW.

Pitching star of the game: Brandon Pinder.

Scariest outing: Jacob Lindgren couldn't throw strikes.

It's really really really early. But the Yankees have now spent two years congratulating themselves for drafting Lindgren - what a smart pick, aren't we crafty, didn't we show everybody, look - he's the first to reach the majors, gobble gobble gobble etc. Let's hope this outing gets gone. No worrying. Not yet. Let's at least wait until the dinosaurs see the asteroid.

Five hundred

Hal "Bristles" At Being Called Cheap, Then Explains How Cheap He Plans To Be

He said that when baseball's new collective bargaining agreement comes out, he will try once again to pare the Yankees' payroll below the threshold to avoid paying the luxury tax, as he tried to do in 2013. But he pointed out that even though he had trimmed the payroll to $190 million -- the threshold was $189 million -- he scrapped it all to sign Masahiro Tanaka because, he felt, "we weren't good enough to win." 

...And while he said that the Yankees will no longer carry such a bloated payroll, he left little doubt that under similar circumstances, he would do the same thing again. "We have a lot of money coming off the payroll in the next two years...And we're going to put a lot of it back in. But that doesn't mean I need a $240 million payroll."

Really, you have to read the whole story. He doesn't seem like a bad guy. Just maybe not great at how he spends his money sometimes, and then that prevents him from spending more money on better opportunities. See? He's not cheap, he just reaches a threshold of extravagance and lives with the mistakes instead of throwing good money after bad for players who are actually good.

It all makes perfect sense.

John Sterling Fact of the Day

John has won 12 local Emmy Awards. [Source]

Gardner's wrist still hasn't healed, and we've seen this movie before

They're saying Brett Gardner will start taking batting practice on or around March 15.

They're saying they're not worried.

They're saying if this were the regular season, he'd be playing.

Great. Just great. A partially injured Gardner... playing hurt... great.

No problemo. Rub some dirt on it. Bone bruise, that's all. Another day in Pleasantville, nobody's perfect, life is like a box of chocolates, and that's Chinatown, Jake... right?

Listenup, everybody: When Brett Gardner sprains a tweak, or bruises a turd... cue the sun, and say hello to my little friend; the horror, Mr. Kurtz, the horror. You're gonna need a bigger boat, because I got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

They're saying Gardy's bruise - which happened in the 2015 Wild Card game - hasn't completely healed. Mm-mm. Now, I'm no Sabermetrics, moneyball, power numbers, professional weenie dick - but let's do some old word math: By my count, there was...

October. November. December. January. February.

Let's see. One, two, three, four... my count: 5 months, and it hasn't healed.

We'll give him another two weeks?

Don't get me wrong. Of course, he should rest. The last thing we should do is send him out in meaningless games. But if there's one Yankee who is more compromised by injuries that Brett Gardner, I don't know who it is. Wait - I do - it's Jacoby Ellsbury! Last season, the Yankees popped like a fart balloon after that twosome turned into Ross Mosschito and Arturo Lopez due to nagging injuries. And now we find Gardner's hasn't gone away after five months?

I see dead people.

I'm wondering - just opining here - if Gardner's injury was known to the Yankees in November, when they shopped him to other teams. Or if other teams knew about it, and that's why nothing happened. I dunno. All we - as Yankee fans - can do is worry. (There's no point in being dumb and happy, when you have worrying to do.) And Brett Gardner has given us our first worry fart of 2016.

Could this open the door for Slade Heathcott? Hmm-hmm. Cue the son. May the force be with us. We're all Spartacus, right?

First

John Sterling Fact of the Day

Celebrity Net Worth estimates John's fortune at $2 million. [Source]

How the Yankees Will Win It All in 2016

Yesterday I learned about CloneZone, a site where you can duplicate existing pages, edit them, and post your altered copy to the web.

I found out because some naughty Democrat used it to fake a New York Times story in which Elizabeth Warren endorsed Bernie Sanders. Which she hasn't done. But the page was pretty widely circulated on Facebook, so a lot of people believed it. You can bet a lot still do.

Yankee fans, I don't have to tell you what this means as we reach the threshold of yet another campaign of tears. The miserly Steinbrenner and his toady GM have again stocked their team with the old, the unready, and the undeserving. In real life we are doomed from the starting line, but on the web--

--The 2016 Yankees can be champions. 

Let the Daily News discourage us, let the Post piss us off. They're not so powerful; report or distort, they're limited by the truth--a speck of it, at least. But with CloneZone, it's only a click and a keystroke from this--

--To this.

Who's with me?

Thirty games? We can't judge the fairness of Aroldis Chapman's suspension until other shoes drop

Yesterday, the Commissioner of Baseball ruled, and the Gammonites - as usual - approved.

But all we see in MLB's public relations war is a partial score: Aroldis Chapman, 30 games.

Without knowing Commissioner Rob Manfred's rulings on domestic violence cases involving Jose Reyes and Yasiel Puig, we can't appraise the Chapman decision, which - let's face it - is all about maintaining MLB's kind and gentler image, which is slowly turning into smoke and mirror.

Everybody opposes domestic violence. Morality-wise, it's a layup. If you throw the book at a wife-beater - I'm not suggesting you shouldn't - who will disagree? Not me!

But Chapman was never arrested. The incident stems from his girlfriend's claim that he choked her and fired shots into his garage - (a really, really stupid set of actions that obviously should set off alarms about the guy's mentality. The Yankees must watch him carefully.) Is a 30-game suspension fair? I dunno? But we can't judge Manfred's judgment until the other cases play out.

Last Halloween, Jose Reyes - now of the Rockies - was arrested for allegedly choking his wife and slamming her into a door. He's currently "on leave" - does that mean "suspended?" - and will appear in court April 4. We gotta believe Reyes will get the kitchen sink. Sixty games? Ninety? How do you compare the actions? Is slamming someone into a door worse than shooting up the garage?

In November, Puig - still a Dodger - got into a fight with a Miami bar bouncer, after Puig was said to have punched his sister. Police were called, he wasn't arrested. So... 30 games? What if the bouncer is an asshole? Why wasn't Puig charged? I dunno. Do you?

Did Chapman get a fair deal? Who knows? The general view of sportwriters is - of course - supportive of Manfred's move. Here's John Harper of the Daily News.

[Y]ou have to say that Manfred did get this right, all things considered. Since prosecutors in Florida, where the incident occurred at Chapman’s home in October, didn’t think there was enough evidence to file charges, clearly there were limits to how far Manfred could go here.

I don't mean to pick on Harper. I just get squirmy when the czars of professional sports inject morality into their product - which is basically a show of grown men fighting for survival. When a pitcher throws his 95 mph heater at a batter's chin, or a base-runner charges a pivoting shortstop, it's as violent an assault as any street thug visits upon his victim. And let's face it: The only thing that ever kills a career is mediocrity. As long as Chapman throws 105 mph, some team will have him. We might even root for that team, but that doesn't mean we think of him - or anyone - as a giant of morality. That "role model" crap ended 40 years ago.

That's why I sat out the three-year lynching party for Alex Rodriguez, accused of using steroids. (I always felt he was arbitrarily accused, caught in a media dragnet, while other players skated through MLB's famous "drug test program.") I don't think baseball - or football - is equipped to be the judge and jury on morality. Like I said, domestic violence is a layup. Everybody opposes it. But do you deny the player the right to make his living? And if you do, then what happens to the wife? Aren't you, in effect, punishing her for calling police? I dunno. Just asking.

Also, one of these days, Rob Manfred will watch a video of some star player choking a woman. What then? Videotapes are the steroids of the justice system. When such a tape comes out, the punishments expand exponentially. Nobody taped Chapman. For that, he should thank his stars.

But one of these days...

Thirty games? Sounds about right. But when you mix morality with public relations, things have a tendency to get murky. And we are now entering uncharted waters.

John Sterling Fact of the Day

Anchoring election coverage in his early career, John imitated Walter Cronkite. [YouTube, citation at 21:09]

They won't say it, no, they won't...

Will anybody say Aroldis Chapman is "firing bullets" in Tampa bullpen sessions?

Ugh.

OK, let's be done with this: UGHHHHH.

There. I belched it.

Done. Out of my system.

We can't pound through 2106, and maybe 2017, clutching our billiards in despair, whenever Yoan Moncada - the one who got away - hits a dinger for East Turpentine in the La Leche League. Let's accept that the Gammonites of Boston - the most Gammonitic Gammonites in the world of truth-lite journalism - will forever tout this guy, as if he hatched from Lady Gaga's egg, if only to remind us of our Beaver Cleaver-haired, trust-funding, boy owner, who squeezes money like a six-grader clutching his cards in an Airport Ramada Pokemon tournament.

Let's do this. The last painful time... let's imagine for a moment that Food Stamps Hal Steinbrenner hadn't finished second in the Moncada auction, roughly one year ago...

So... it's that alt-universe: We're coming off a string of Best Farm System rankings, which put us in the Top Five, rather than the middle-of-the-herd. Moncada is viewed as as our Top Prospect, and the best Yankee third-base hope since Donald Trump was doing Marla Maples. You have to go back to Mike Lowell to find a decent 3B grown on the Yankee farm. Now, we have our man.

The four-year deal with Chase Headley doesn't look so scary. We see Headley holding 3B for maybe one year, until Moncada arrives - rather than three more nightmare seasons. We don't have to ponder the creeping terror: That Headley's laser throws into the first base seats are not early warning signs of Chuck Knoblach/Steve Sax-disease - the festering yips that seem to burst out in pinstripes like sweat pores on Marco Rubio's forehead.

Nope. The buzz out of Tampa is "the next M&M boys," Moncada and Jorge Mateo - our second best prospect - are the 3B-SS duo in Trenton this year and - who knows? - maybe even Scranton, and a cup of September coffee. The trading of Eric Jagielo - (he went in the Aroldis Chapman deal) - doesn't sting, even with Greg Bird out for the year.

Nope. The Yankees might not win in 2016, but the future looks bold... with the M&M Boys.

Of course, one downside. The Steinbrenners are down $60 million. That puts their personal wealth around - what - $5 billion? Ten? Twenty? Infinity-minus 60...

Ugh.