Why We Stink: How Nepo Babies and Wealthfare Cheats Wrecked New York Sports, Part IV.

Before we get all enraptured over the incredible players our general manager will surely bring home at the trade deadline...

In 1949, Title I of the American Housing Act had become law. A lasting monument to the problem with good intentions, Title I was intended to provide federal subsidies for “slum clearance” in the country’s worst urban areas. 

 

But Title I also gave cities considerable leeway in deciding just what to replace their “slums” with. The new construction only had to be “predominantly” residential, something that would also allow “office buildings…hotels [or] business plazas.”

Or ballparks. At least, that’s how The O’Malley figured it.

 

For years, Walter had been urging Robert Moses to do just that. Moses was no shrinking violet when it came to getting his hands on Title I funds or any other federal monies. But he still wanted any new ballpark to be out in Flushing, serving as an anchor to his new network of highways out there. 

And maybe, just maybe, even the man who had hacked his way through so much of New York, was a little afraid of what O’Malley’s plan would have entailed.  

For the Dodgers to get their brilliant new ballpark, federal formulas would have required a $250-million urban renewal project for a 110-block radius around the new stadium. 

This would, for starters, have temporarily removed at least $110 million of real estate from the city’s tax rolls. It would have meant tearing down the treasured apartment houses and brownstones that stand today in Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill; in Park Slope and Prospect Heights and Fort Greene.

There was no choice, O’Malley pleaded. The Brooklyn Dodgers couldn’t move to Flushing, he claimed…because of their name. 

They could no more be the “Long Island Dodgers,” than they could be “the Long Island Redskins.” And if they stayed in Ebbets Field, they were about to turn into the Washington Senators.

For now, anyway - as we await the Cashman Trade Teardown - the Redsock menace has been thwarted

The worst part of the 2024 Yankee Meltdown was going to be its location: Fenway, with middle fingers extended, amid chants of "Yankees suck," as the Redsocks tied us in the AL East. From there, we would freefall into Tuesday's trade deadline - the awaiting meat grinder, a grenade tossed into the clubhouse, scattering bodies everywhere. From there, NY could watch the Mets and wait for football, or for Labor Day, or for the schools to reopen, or for whatever people await when their team has proven the critics right, and the Yankees do, indeed, suck. 

Listen: By this time Wednesday, God knows what this team will look like.

According to the Internet, the front office is already planning what not long ago was considered blaspheme: To trade top draft picks like Spencer Jones and George Lombardi Jr. Moreover, they will deal them in pursuit of - gulp - a wild card slot, and with a lineup of key players who will become free agents on Nov. 1. In doing so, they will make the kinds of trades that have backfired for the last three seasons - ever since Yank fans heard the words "Joey Gallo," as we ponder another rancid October. 

Honestly, what should we make of the Jazz Chisholm trade, aside from that we dealt three solid prospects without touching our most glaring weakness - pitching, pitching, pitching. If Chisholm must play - (knowing Brian Cashman, that's a given) - the current lineup must be exploded. Tonight, supposedly, Giancarlo Stanton will return. In two weeks, so could The Martian, Jasson Dominguez. Do the Yankees really think Chisholm - a CF for the last two years - can play 2B - or 3B? He last played SS in 2021 - (10 errors, 37 games) - and hasn't played 2B until a few weeks ago, when the Marlins started shopping him. 

So, just as Alex Verdugo seems to be emerging from his fatherhood funk, the Yankees could have six OFs - Judge, Soto, Verdugo, Chisholm, Grisham and The Martian - plus Giancarlo, who cannot do anything but swing a bat. Certainly, Grisham can be dealt - (they'll get nothing for him, of course) - and if he's DFAed, don't be surprised if he ends up with a rival, another player with a special incentive to beat the Yankees. 

They can trade Ben Rice, who simply looks like a smart, disciplined batter - the kind of grinder who helps a playoff team and - let's not forget - who is supposed to be a catcher. They can empty the farm, whatever Cashman decides, as he desperately seeks to save a warping front office legacy. That plaque in Monument Park might be smaller than he expected. 

But strap yourselves in, and hold your breaths. For now, at least, the Boston Menace has been thwarted. But the grenade is about to blow. It's not going to be pretty. 

PS: I just reread this, and - yeah - you can say I'm overly down on the Yankees. But read the happy crap they're putting out about Jazz Chisholm Jr., and you wonder if anybody even bothers to look at this team. Does anybody care about the farm system? 

Noted

 The Rays traded away Padres, Eflin, and Arozarena.

We needed a third baseman, another starter, and an outfielder.

We got none of the ex-Rays (nyuck nyuck). We got a center fielder who was a second baseman who Cashhole thinks can be a third baseman learning on the job.

Good fucking God.

Nixon gets us

 

Acquiring Jazz Chisholm, Jr. is the baseball equivalent of losing the car on craps, don't know how the hell you're going to explain it to the wife, but the waitress just brought another drink and you're putting it all on black.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) July 28, 2024

Getting to the Bottom of This Awful Season

I'm sure no one has noticed but I've been away from IIHIIFIIc for awhile.  

God, it all started out so well.

Around the beginning of the season, life became much more frenzied than usual.  So much so, that I skipped my morning routine of starting the day with a cup of coffee and the merriment that is IIH.

After taking a week off, I returned and learned that I had just missed the annual "predict the Yankee final record" challenge.  Because the season had already started, I knew it was too late to get my guess in.  There's no past-posting in an honorable place like IIH.  Once the race has started, no more bets are taken

Right out of the gate, the team went 5-0!

I subscribe to the Wade Boggs school of superstition.  I eat chicken on game days.  5-0 was a reasonable enough sample size for me to conclude that my absence from IIH was causing the team to have success.  As much as it pained me, I stayed away from the foaming-at-the-mouth discourse in the comments section because I thought my absence was driving our success.  It was unpleasant but I took one for the team.

It continued to work.  By April 15, we were 12-5.  Then, we learned that John Sterling had announced his immediate retirement.  My fear was that Sterling's internal sensors -- which I assume are as sensitive as those in a seismograph -- had detected the approach of some major tremors on the team.  I looked to see if the dogs were spooked or the horses were whinnying in their stalls but I, a mere mortal, couldn't see or feel anything.

Sterling's abrupt retirement turned out to be a false alarm.  The Yanks kept winning so I kept staying away.  By June 14th, the team was 50-22.  Man, you can't argue with success!

It turns out, June 14th was the day THE GREAT SWOON OF 2024 began.  Since that date, the Yanks have gone 11-23.  My Samsung Galaxy Calculator tells me that makes for a .325 team.  As the losses mounted, I began reading the comments on IIH again.  I couldn't help but notice the classic symptoms of a sort of communal psychotic break.  The comments evidenced a group of people hearing, seeing, smelling, and tasting things that just aren't there, searching in vain for THE REASON.  Maybe that's just normal for many of us around here, but it did seem a bit more strident than usual.

Anyway, I'd like to step back in and offer my three reasons for the team's plunge into the Stygian abyss:

1. 
   Gerrit Cole Came Back -- Gerrit Cole re-joined the team on June 19th,  On that day, we were still 51 and 25.  Did everyone in the clubhouse get overly optimistic and remove their foot from the gas pedal?  Did Cole say some unknown something that annoyed his teammates, à la Rob Refsnyder?  I dunno but, man, it's awful hard not to connect the dots on that one.
   
   
2. 
   
   
   
   During the Win Streak, Alphonso Did Not Post Pictures of Pretty Basque Girls -- In years past, Alphonso would regale us with photos of pretty girls from the Basque country and would promise to do so until the photos stopped having an effect on the Yankees' record.  That didn't happen this year during our win streak and the team went into a nosedive. 
   
   More than coincidence?
   
   
3. The Real Reason: I Bought MLB.TV -- Out here in the hinterlands, if your local cable outlet doesn't carry YES, you need to buy viewing rights from MLB.TV to watch the games.  MLB starts out the season at $159.99 for all games.  That's a bit steep for the likes of me to pay to watch meaningless games in April.   This year, however, I was climbing the walls because I couldn't see the team kick the ass of everyone they went up against.
   
   Every year, right around June 1, MLB drops the price to $99.99 for the remainder of the season.  This piques my interest, but I've learned to wait because, right around Father's Day, they drop the price further and that's usually when I'm in.
   
   This year, the price dropped to $54.99 for just the Yankees or $59.99 for all games, all teams for the remainder of the season.  The Yanks' record had me feeling on top of the world so I splurged for the $59.99 package.
   
   I did this on June 14th.  Here's a screen shot of my Amex statement: 
   
   

 

On that day, a Friday, I poured myself a big glass of cold Sangria from a recipe I learned in the Basque country and enjoyed watching the Yanks whup the tar out of the hated Red Sox 8-1. 

And that was all she wrote.  The victory on June 14th was followed by two losses.  Then a win.  Then three more losses.  Then another win.  Then four more losses.  The bleeding hasn't stopped since then.  I snapped off MLB.TV in disgust.  I've barely watched it since.

It's easy to blame Hal, Cashman, Boone, et al, but there's no need to do so.  The real reason is shown in the screenshot above.  I parted with money on June 14th to watch the Yankees win.  The JuJu gods noticed and stepped in.

So, I'm sorry everyone.  It's on me.  I did it.  I'm not sure how I'll make it up to you.

The cross is a nice touch

 

What you got?

 So Cashman is wheeling and dealing again, to bolster a line-up that is weak.

One of the reasons for said weakness is the wheeling and dealing Cashman does, every year at this time.

We don't have a third baseman? Or a second baseman? Or a first baseman?  Or an outfielder?

Just look in the dog pen of former players Cashman brought here in exchange for our best prospects. 

We fans don't care, any longer, because we only get to the play-off game anyway.  And lose in the 9th. 

So this new guy ( an average player, by the way, with no exceptional position) can show up or not.  No one cares.  At least Harrison Bader ( after two years of planchar fasciitis ) could run. 

Jazz is a disgruntled .250 singles hitter who is no better than Carbrera  (who might be ascending, by the way...so it is time to dump him...or at least sit him down for the new guy ). 

What the great cloud of Yankee news covers is the fact that it is Cashman who is largely at fault for 15 years of Yankee failure. 

None of this trade crap means anything. 

 Just cloud cover. 

The Yankees steal a victory, but it's the Cashman Eve of Destruction

Congrats to the Death Barge, which last night shinnied down to its final out before beating Boston - a strange, hopeful farewell to a lineup that we will probably never see again. 

Earlier Saturday, the Yankees bundled three of their best prospects for 26-year-old Jazz Chisholm Jr., a Nassau-born, lefty- hitting OF/2B, whose next incarnation as a Yankee only makes sense if you believe that a massive roster makeover is imminent. 

Be afraid. Be very afraid. 

It would be fitting - karmic, maybe? - if on the day following Gleyber Torres' dramatic game-winning double, that the longtime Sterling call disappointment - (Like a good Gleyber, Torres is there...)  is traded for lint, to be replaced in the lineup by a longtime Marlin disappointment. Of course, the Yankees have a sterling trade record with Florida, as Giancarlo Stanton will attest. (Did I mention that Chisholm has a history of nagging injuries? He has never played more than 124 games in a season. A tweak-prone OF from the Marlins... what could go wrong?) 

Chisholm is a career .246 hitter, batting .249 this season, with 13 HRs and 22 SBs. He'll probably bat leadoff. If he plays CF, he'll knock out either Trent Grisham or Alex Verdugo, two of last night's heroes. If he plays 2B, Gleyber likely will disappear. Then there is The Martian, Jasson Dominguez, now starting a minor league rehab. He was going to be the third OF after Soto and Judge, right? Now, he has no place - unless a massive mudslide of deals is about to happen.

I fear that Brian "Cooperstown" Cashman is just warming up, on the verge of a massive draining of the farm system. Frankly, the GM might not have to worry about dealing prospects. If the 2024 collapse continues, despite all his barnyard photographs of Food Stamps Hal, Cash could be gone next winter, maybe kicked upstairs within the leaden Yankee bureaucracy.  

The MLB trade deadline is 6 p.m. Tuesday. By sunset that evening, the Yankees could be an entirely different team. 

So, do we slit our wrists now, or later? Yank fans know better than to be excited by the notion of "free" stars - players obtained in trades for nobody we know. In recent years, we have endured terrible trade deadlines: Joey Gallo, Harrison Bader, Scott Effross, Frankie Montas... et al. Chisholm's checkered past makes him a prime candidate for yet another disappointment, though the deals - as always - was quickly hailed this morning by the courtiers of the NYC press. It's impossible to fully gauge the talent that is being traded.  But one thing we know about dealing prospects, year after year after year... 

Keep trading away your youth, and eventually, you get stung.  

It's sad when you can't even celebrate a great Yankee win, like last night. Who believed that Mariano Holmes could hold the line? Who believed that Gleyber could put one off the wall (thanks to Mr. Universe, the worst defensive Redsock LF since Manny.) 

But who can ignore the dread of a looming trade catastrophe? 

This is the Cashman Eve of Destruction. 

The AL East, it is explodin'
Tampa sellin', Boston loadin'.
Your bullpen is shot, every lead is soon erodin,'
You get nothing but Ks when the bases are loadin'
And even with Cole starting, it's still so damn forebodin'...

And ya tell me over and over and over again, my friend!
How ya don't believe we're on the Eve... of Cashman!

Remembering - - - the Boston Boomer. A Gamey thread, indeed!

 

Why We Stink: How Nepo Babies and Wealthfare Cheats Wrecked New York Sports, Part III.

 Just what did Horace Stoneham and Walter O’Malley want from New York City by way of a new home?

The demands of Stoneham—the original “nepo baby,” and a lifelong alcoholic—were always the more nebulous, mostly because what Horace really wanted was to leave. 

 

The Giants floated ideas for a 150,000-seat stadium in Long Island City, or maybe up in Baychester, where Co-Op City stands today, or near the Whitestone Bridge. Or perhaps a stadium built on stilts over the West Side Highway in Manhattan, one that would seat 110,000 people and provide parking for 20,000 cars. 

It could be used for football, too, and maybe draw the Olympics to New York. Enormous skyscrapers would be built around it, and enough studio space to keep the television industry in the city. In fact, it could be called “TV City”…

 

Sound (all too) familiar?

Walter, on the other hand, had very specific plans ready. He even had pictures and architectural models, provided by certified geniuses such as Buckminster Fuller and Norman Bel Geddes, and featured in magazines like Mechanix Illustrated and Collier’s.

Fuller’s geodesic dome would cost only $1 million, and would increase Dodger attendance by 200,000 a year! 

Bel Geddes’ retractable dome would seat up to 52,000, situated over an enormous parking garage and surrounded by a shopping mall. It had numerous gates designed to let the stadium empty almost instantly, and “a fully automated ticketing system.”  

This design was much more expensive, but O’Malley claimed but the Dodgers would build it all with their own money, just so long as the city condemned the Fort Greene Public Market, where the Atlantic Terminal Mall stands today (very near the Barclays Center), and handed it over to them.

How would the Dodgers manage this? Mostly with money from Skiatron, a revolutionary pay-TV device where—I’m not making this up—a metal box would be attached to your television, and Dodgers fans would pop in 50 cents every time they wanted to see a game.

The only trouble was that Robert Moses wasn’t buying—and what Moses said went, in the New York of the 1950s. 

“The Master Builder” commissioned a study that found what O’Malley was proposing would actually cost anywhere from $21-$50 million, which was an awful lot of Skiatron quarters. 

What’s more, the giant, domed park Walter wanted would created “a China wall” of traffic in downtown Brooklyn. It would be “like building a stadium in Times Square,” as a New York Times critic put it. 

Instead, Moses had an idea of his own—one very close to what Walter O’Malley claimed to so admire out in Milwaukee. The city would build a new park out in Flushing—an all-purpose, publicly owned ballpark much like the Braves’ marvelous new County Stadium.

It, too, could be used for multiple purposes. It could host a football team, say, and other public events, such as concerts by any long-haired groups of English musicians who might happen by. And both the Giants and the Dodgers could rent this new park, each for an entirely reasonable, $500,000 a year.  

This was not all right by Walter O’Malley, who still had one more card to deal off the bottom of the deck.

Sorry, Last Night, but you are not the worst Yankee loss of the season

Dear Last Night,

Nice try! You brought excellent excrement, I mean, a golden, top-shelf Yankee fiasco, and we've seen doozies. That was a YES Anti-Classic, straight from the reverse universe where the Yankees have 27 last place finishes, the worst losing dynasty in U.S. sports, aside from the Washington Generals. 

But if you think you just hawked-up the worst Yankee loss of 2024, I'm sorry:

You still can't touch the Baltimore Belly-Flop. 

Nope. THAT loss - two weeks ago? - required performance art Hall of Fame fuck-ups from Clay Holmes, from Anthony Volpe, from Alex Verdugo and the entire batting order, which stranded runners on base like cat-ladies at a Hillbilly Elegy book club. Nope. THAT loss remains the gold standard, though it better not get comfortable, because - when it comes to dizzying, soul-crushing defeats, this plucky '24 team is just warming up.   

Nope. THAT loss was for the ages. Last night was simply another Christmas Eve visit from Santa Clay... Holmes, that is. I don't mean to harp on him; we got him in a trade, and he's given us more than we expected. But I suspect thousands - maybe millions - of Yank fans snapped off their TVs in that dreadful moment of recognition - when Aaron "Boonie" Boone motioned to the pen, calling upon his long-lost closer to attempt a five-out save. For two months now, Holmes has been a walking cadaver, a turnstile on the bases, so - of course! why not? - a five-out save!

Nope. Sorry, Last Night. But you came up short. As soon as Holmes arrived, everyone knew what would happen. To top Doogie's Belly Flop, you needed a muffed pop fly or three runners winding up on third. 

What's amazing today is how voices across the Yankiverse are calling for Cooperstown Cashman to fix things. That's like calling the Boston Strangler for a neck massage. They want Cash to "bolster" our bullpen before the 6 p.m. Tuesday MLB trade deadline. To "bolster" something means that you already need something in place. What the Yankees have is a massive, system-wide pitching drought, which was hastened, if not created, by a series of Cashman deals last winter that sent 11 young pitchers out the door, to be replaced by scrap heap signings and roster clearance trades. 

The Yankees believed their own crapola - that they had a secret outpost called "the Gas Station" - where fancy cameras and spin rates could build pitchers out of French fries. Today, they have a bullpen full of castoffs - they spent the recent draft desperately trying to replenish their staff - and they wonder what happened? (And they - gulp - now expect Cashman to save? Yikes.) 

Still though, nice try, Last Night. Like the 2024 Yankees, you'll receive a participation trophy in October. You were a truly stunning Yankee defeat, a marvel of incontinence. Keep it up, and someday, maybe there will be a place for you - next to Scott Proctor and Zolio Almonte - in the Anti-Monument Park. Dreams do come true.

No Accountability

 Duque, and others, have offered the reason why the Yankees have failed for 15 straight seasons. 

It is due to the triad of Hal, Cashman and  Boone. 

Hal doesn't care. The stadium is sold out; the bobbleheads are popular and the jerseys still sell.  Not to mention the TV and ( now ) streaming audience payments.  He never really liked baseball anyway.  He was always " the last guy picked" when kids chose " sides. "

Boone and Cashman define insanity.  That being;  when you keep doing the exact same thing but expect a different outcome. 

Each year they give up on rookies ( Andujar et al ). 

Each year they trade prospects and youth for sepia toned curriculum vitae.

Each year they are terrified to trade veteran players who have value( why is DJ still starting?).

Each year they draft poorly.

Each year they make a splash ( one) and feel that will do the trick. 

Each year no one develops and remains a star. 

Each year they sneak into the wild card playoff game and call it a season. 

Each year Boone and Cashman get bonuses.  For failing. 

Why We Stink: How Nepo Babies and Wealthfare Cheats Wrecked New York Sports, Part II.

(Please note bold new title.)

In 1957, after years of sporadic negotiations, Horace Stoneham and Walter O’Malley, the owners of the New York Baseball Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers, made their demands plain: if New York City did not subsidize massive new stadiums for their ball teams, the Giants and the Dodgers would move.

No ultimatum like this had ever been made before. 

Soon after World War II, cities such as Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Baltimore renovated or rebuilt publicly owned stadiums, in the hopes of attracting major-league baseball and football teams. But the idea of publicly subsidizing a new ballpark or arena for a particular, professional team—which would then own the facility in question and take its profits—was unheard of.

Then came Walter O’Malley.

For the first time, thanks to The O’Malley, professional sports teams would demand not only public subsidies, but also facilities built to the specifics they desired, in the places they preferred. Such demands have not stopped since.

Most fans must have been bewildered as to why any of New York’s sports teams were unhappy in that sepia year of 1957. All six teams in the city—the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Football Giants, the New York Rangers, and the New York Knickerbockers—had all been highly successful for years, in the standings and at the gate.

Over the previous 70 seasons, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers had won a combined total of 53 pennants and 28 world championships—with the Yankees about to embark on another string of 6 pennants and 3 championships in the next 7 years. 

The football Giants, in their 32 years of existence, had won 9 division titles and 4 NFL titles, and tied for 2 more division championships. They had shredded the Bears in the last title game, 47-7, and were about to run up 5 more division firsts over the next 6 seasons.

The Rangers, in 30 years, had won 3 Stanley Cups and appeared in 6 Cup finals. The New York Knickerbockers, still just 10 years old, had already made 3 NBA finals, extending 2 of them to 7 games.

 

All of the city’s baseball teams usually sat or near the top of their leagues when it came to attendance. The football Giants, playing first in the enormous Polo Grounds and then in the even more enormous Yankee Stadium I, were equally successful. 

The Rangers and the Knicks fared a little less well at the box office—mainly because they had trouble always getting into Madison Square Garden, blocked by college basketball, boxing, the circus, and other events, in what was then truly “the World’s Most Famous Arena.”

All these teams were loved on a deeply personal level—particularly the baseball teams, which had been around the longest, and whose players often lived year-round in the neighborhoods where they played. 

And yet, the Dodgers and Giants wanted more. 

O’Malley, in particular, pointed to how both teams’ attendance had declined since baseball’s peak, postwar year of 1947—the Dodgers’ had dropped from 1.8 million to 1.2 mill; the Giants, from 1.6 million to just 654,000. 

Both teams blamed their aging ballparks, with a lack of parking and the declining neighborhoods that surrounded them.

 

The Dodgers were still second in the NL in attendance—but far behind the team he painted as the emerging dynasty in baseball. This was the Milwaukee Braves, in their newly renovated County Stadium, with over 43,000 seats surrounded by an ocean of parking space.

“How long can we compete on an equal basis with a team that can outdraw us 2 to 1 and outpark us 15 to 1?” wailed Walter. If nothing were done, he insisted with a straight face, the Braves would become “the new New York Yankees,” while the Dodgers themselves would become “the new Washington Senators.”

With the 2024 season on the brink, here are 10 ugly truths about the Yankees

1. They consistently collect injury-prone players, then express shock when those players get hurt. 

2. Every winter, they sign just enough talent to compete for a wild card, then stop short of adding the final piece. 

3. As they continually trade young prospects, long term malignancies are starting to pile up. 

4. The team is full of players who desperately need a change of scenery, and the front office is terrified of letting them go. 

5. Their owner doesn't care, as long as tickets are sold.

6. The franchise has squandered some of the greatest individual seasons in modern history. 

7. Aaron Judge is a great player but - at least, thus far - a failure as captain.

8. They are slowly defining NYC as an impossible sports town.

9. They refuse to rebuild, even for one season, rejecting the path taken by almost every successful team. 

10. The new generation of fans knows them as a team that always loses. 

This weekend, Boston. It's been 46 years since the Massacre, 20 since The Curse was lifted. In this millennium, the Redsocks have the superior team.

In a nutshell... 

It's a terrible time to be a Yankee fan.

What Went Wrong: How Nepo Babies and Wealthfare Cheats Wrecked New York Sports. Part I.

It's an off-night, I know—but then, isn't every night an off-night for your 2024 New York Yankees?

I

Hey, I kid, I kid...not really. I was thinking tonight of launching yet another, seasonal query into "What's wrong with the Yankees??!" But then I figured...what's the point? (Spoiler alert: Cashman's an idiot, Hal doesn't care.)

So instead, I thought I'd go with this wild-eyed rant a multi-part, deep dive into why not just the Yankees but every New York area team now seems incapable of winning it all. Enjoy it as long as you can stand it.

It looked for a few moments, in our halcyon spring of 2024, that this was New York’s year in sports. The Rangers compiled the best regular-season record in the NHL, the Knicks suddenly looked like a contender, and the Yankees got off to a near-record start to the season. 

 

The Knicks and Rangers burst out to a combined, 13-2 start in their playoffs. The Yankees were 50-22. Even the Mets were winning—while Aaron Rodgers gamboled like a 40-year-old colt through the Jets’ early practices. Cue Alicia Keyes!

Then it all went wrong—again. What happened—and why does it always happen? Just when and how did we become such a town of losers?

For the answer to that, we have to go all the way back, back, back...to 1957, the apex of New York athletics, when there were six, major-league teams in the city, in the “Big Four” of professional sports: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. All of them well-liked, winning teams that brought home numerous pennants, championships, and playoff berths. 

They played in a total of four different stadiums or arenas, all of which were at least 32 years old, built and maintained entirely with private money, and as beloved as the teams that played in them. Admission and concessions were cheap, tickets were readily available even for big games, and fans could see nearly all their teams play for free, on television.

Today, there are nine major-league teams in New York and environs, playing in seven different stadiums or arenas.

This is not an improvement.

The sad fact is that no New York franchise has won a title since the New York Giants’ miraculous upset of the New England Patriots, in the February, 2012 Super Bowl—and this does not look likely to change any time soon.

Most of the city’s teams have gone decades without winning a ring, and several have become industry standards for ineptitude. 

Yet every one of these nine teams plays in facilities that have been built from scratch or wholly renovated within at least the last 17 years, almost always with massive public assistance. 

Despite such taxpayer giveaways, these interchangeable, cookie-cutter stadiums and arenas have purposely reduced the number of seats available, and driven the cost of all tickets and concessions well beyond the ability of most fans to afford them. Even watching at home now comes with a hefty price tag, and often requires subscriptions to several different cable channels and streaming services.

How did this happen?

How did team after team, in what is still the wealthiest city in the world and the most populous city in America—a city where many of these sports were invented, refined, or reached their zenith in skill and popularity—come to offer so little and demand so much?  How did sports in the city of the “World’s Most Famous Arena” and “The Cathedral of Baseball,” become such a feeble joke?

There are many parts to this answer, including general trends of wealth and exploitation, in the U.S. and the city; in the grasping nature of modern sports and monopoly capitalism. 

Above all, though, New York sports have been ruined by an unprecedented ascent of “nepo babies”—the unqualified and uninterested heirs to the thrones of many local teams—and “wealthfare,” public allotments and tax breaks bestowed in such enormous amounts that they have erased any real incentive to compete.

Let's speak it out loud: The Yankees are dreadful, and Cashman will soon trade their future for more crapola

 

The biggest fallacy of 2024, thus far:

Thinking the Yankees have hit rock bottom. 

Whenever they seem totally dead - as they now do - you think they'll turn the boat around and win a few. But they don't.

You think DJ LeMahieu, Alex Verdugo, Anthony Volpe, et al, will start hitting. But they don't. 

You think somebody in that horrendous bullpen, constructed almost entirely of used body parts and scrapheap signings, will start pitching lights out. But they don't. 

Instead, we await a looming trade frenzy, with the Yankees leaning toward trading their best prospects - a move Brian Cashman once swore he'd never do in the modern era - merely to stay afloat in this rapidly devolving wild card race.

The most likely prospect to go: Spencer Jones, 23, a 6’6” lefty CF who has twice represented the Yankees in the Futures Game. 

For two years now, Jones has made the top 100 list of MLB prospects, and now the Yankees will be dangling him for somebody, anybody, who might staunch the bleeding from one of the several gaping wounds on this team. 

By the end of the weekend, the Yankees could be tied for third in the AL East, having squandered one of their best opening months in history.

This is malpractice, malfeasance and madness. This is institutional rot. Does anyone think trading our best prospects is a good move? 

Frankly, right now, I'm too angry to write. But I'll tell who is our main prospect. This guy, who just came, courtesy of the Mets. 

Cy Gone

Last year he won the Cy Young award.

Best pitcher in baseball.

Today he was not.  Neither of the above.

He got clobbered and the Yankees looked laughable, again. 

So let's look into that. At the beginning of the season, when the Yankees were winning everything, various players regularly did remarkable, and unexpected, things. 

They got the big hit; the walk-off HR; the sacrifice bunt; the stolen base, the shutout; the three strikeout inning in relief; the great assist and fabulous catch. 

Now, the Yankees ( with the exception of Severino's identified two hitters) never do the unexpected.  Now, they do the expected.  They pop up those bunt attempts; they hit long fouls and then strike out; they kill rallies by hitting into double plays; they hit 3 home runs in one game and then strike out 21 times in the next 43 at bats; they blow easy ground balls and get thrown out stealing;  they ground out to second with the bases loaded and the lead run in scoring position.

And Boston stole 9 bases against them in one game. 

Then the no name bullpen shows what they've got. 

Zip.

Luckily, the olympics are beginning.