It's time for the Yankees to accept the reality about Jazz Chisholm.

Somewhere around East 161st Street, Mamdani should erect a giant bronze plaque that says:

WELCOME TO THE BRONX

BIRTHPLACE OF HIP-HOP

RESTING PLACE OF JAZZ

Of course, I refer to Chisholm, the saddest jazz in modern culture. 

Jazz Chisholm's plummeting career

In 2026 - a year of wars, heat domes and A.I. slop - we have witnessed the decline and fizzle of one Jazz Chisholm, morphing from MVP candidate to human pop-up machine, and the last Yankee you want to see with a game on the line. 

With his nearly every appearance, the YES happy talk machinery suggests that THIS could be the AB that saves Jazz's season and ends our ongoing national nightmare. Then he hits a pop fly. 

Moral: Never tell an open mic you plan to hit 50 HRs next year. 

So now, in these doggiest of August dog days, it's time for the Death Barge to finally accept a stark Jazzy reality: 

Jose Caballero should play 2B, not just against lefty starters, but every single fukking day. Not because he's an all-star. But because he grinds.

Cabby is Chaos, a walking stick of dynamite. He annoys pitchers, catchers, managers, umpires, juju gods, beer vendors and basically everybody being paid to attend the game. If he gets on base, he's gonna run, though he gets thrown out one-in-four times. And nearly every Yank rally - what few we see any more - there's Caballero, in the middle of the scrum, doing something that pissed off the opposition. 

Yesterday, his 8th inning single scored the go-ahead run and left him caught in no-man's land, between first and second. If Chisholm had not stopped momentarily at third, Cabby's run-down heroics would have produced a tack-on run that won the game in nine innings. 

Cabby's having a moment.

Turns out, the Yankees won anyway. 

But time has run out for Chisholm. He's mired in a deep, dark and dreadful drought. At 28, and facing a new contract, this should have been his career year. Instead, he has one foot out the door, and the December ownership lock-out cannot come fast enough. Maybe next year he'll go 50-50. This year, he should be watching and waiting for maybe one last chance, with no guarantee it will ever come. Yankee dreams die hard. This one is over.  

Game DREAD - ø8/ø∂/2∂ – Aaron Boone is the best manager on Earth *

 

Can they do it???

I'm not talking about "following the Knicks" anymore and winning it all. That's not possible, even with the best starting rotation in baseball...something I never thought I would write about any Yankees team.

I'm not talking about winning the division—also impossible—or even making the playoffs anymore (Highly unlikely, and what would be the point?)  

This is not only the dullest Yankees team I have ever seen, but also the most shamefully sloppy, uninterested, and unlikable—a hard combination to pull off.

No, I'm wondering if the 2026 Yankees can manage to break the club record for the lowest batting average in its history. 

Impossible, you say? 

Think again, my fine-feathered friends. Sure, the 1968 Yankees did set a record for the lowest team batting average since 1900, hitting just .214 in that "Year of the Pitcher." 

But but but...in the Year of the Pitcher, pitchers could still hit. The '68 Yanks' pitchers hit .090 in 450 plate appearances. Sure, that's a good number for Heliot "Charlie Hustle" Ramos (currently at .063), but well below what any potential DH at the time would've hit.

Take away the number 9 spot, and those 1968 Bombers hit .224. 

Could the 2026 Yanks, currently batting .230, challenge that mark? Or even go after the all-time, post-DH low of .216, achieved by the 2022 Oakland Athletics? Will we see history in the making???

Well, let's compare:

C: After a month of relatively hot hitting, Austin Wells still trails Jake Gibbs by 33 points (more words I never thought I would write), .213-.180. Also...can Wells top Gibbs' mark of 29 RBI in 450 PA? Currently, Austin is at 17 RBI in 279 PA.

1B: The Mick, in his last year, battling an array of injuries, any one of which would have killed Giancarlo Stanton dead...and still among the league leaders in most categories, while playing 144 games at first in those pre-DH days. Will ANYONE on the 2026 Yanks play 144 games?  

Maybe—maybe Ben Rice, now at 118 games and .251. The Mick ended up at .237. Anyone care to bet Rice is not below that at the end of the year? But wait! We also have the NL's slugging champ, Garcia, now with 1 HR and 2 RBI in 41 PA. Sigh.

2B: Jazz: .214. Horace Clarke, the watchword for Yankees futility, in the worst season of his life....230. Also, led the AL in putouts and assists at second. Mr. "The Ball Is Stuck in My Glove"? Leads AL second sackers in errors, with 8. 

Jazz also has 140 strikeouts. Hoss had 46 that year. Of course, with non-pitchers, the 1968 team had a total of 783 strikeouts; with pitchers, that number was 958. 

The 2026 team? 1123 whiffs, with a quarter of the season still to go.

SS: 1968: Tom Tresh, on his last legs, hitting .195. The whole gaggle of Yankees shortstops in 2026 tops this...though if you gave me a choice between the physically ruined Tresh and Mr. Volpe...

3B: 1968: Bobby Cox, in his one and only full season as a player, hitting .229, with 41 RBI. Ryan McMahon, 2026: .217, with 31 RBI to date. And...now beginning to make disastrous, game-losing plays in the field!

OF: 1968: Roy White, the team's best hitter by average, at .267; Joe Pepitone (.245); Andy Kosco (.240), Bill Robinson (.240. 2026: Cody Bellinger, the team's best hitter by average, at .259; Trent Grisham (.223), and the cast of thousands: Spence and The Martian, Stanton, assorted infielders, The Heliot, and Aaron Judge—still with the third most plate appearances for any Yankees outfielder, still tied for second on the club in home runs, with 17, in his 59 games.

I dunno. This is going to be one hell of a competition.

Oh, also? That 1968 team won 83 games and finished in the first division of a ten-team league. 

I wonder if the 2026 Yankees can finish in the top seven of this year's pathetic AL.

 

 

Will private equity ruin the Yankees? A thumb-sucker from NY mag

 Are we doomed?

Baseball Needs a "Return Policy"

If, anytime within 30 days, a player a team traded for does not perform as advertised, the team should be able to void the trade and get their players back.  

I'm looking at you San Francisco. We should be able to return Ramos.  I don't want hear this "No backsies." crap.  

Is Boone desperate enough to do something right?

Is Cashman desperate enough to let him?

Bench fucking Helios, or just give him his release. What a dumb trade, in a series of incredibly dumb trades. Bring back the Martian. At worst, it's a wash, and we don't have to see Helios' shitty beard anymore.

Let Rice play first. Garcia can DH until Judge or Stanton or both come back, then bench the guy. I'm tired of seeing his shitty beard, too. It turns out, he can't hit here. He hit pretty well somewhere else, but somewhere else is not here. Putting Rice back on the field might help him snap out of his incredibly bad funk, too.

Boone says he wants to "shake up" the lineup. Great. Put Jones in center, put Jazz in the toilet, put Grisham in right and bat him ninth. Cantrun II also can't hit.

Luis Gil has started pitching again, in High A. He might be a useful bullpen lugnut in a couple/few weeks. (Hard to believe he was Rookie of the Year just two years ago.) 

Give Tim Hill a fucking rest already. The guy's arm is falling off and you can see it in real time. Boone is an idiot. Matchups, my ass. Just use someone who can do the job and isn't running on fumes.

And let's get rid of the shitty beards all the way around.  Devin Williams is gone. Pee Wee was right.

"A boy has more self-respect when he's clean shaved."

Aaron Judge is throwing. Yank fans are throwing up. It's time to sound the alarm.

It won't be long, they say. 

In a week, maybe two, the Captain will start swinging a bat. From there, who knows? Live practice? A rehab in Scranton? The return of the cavalry... 

Let's say Food Stamps Hal, seeking to optimize his (and Apollo Global Management's) investment, bring Judge back on Sept. 11 - (the tabs will crap pinecones) - to start a three-game set against the Mets. 

That's 24 games from now. 

Twenty four. Too many. They won't make it, at least, not still in 2nd place. 

The Yankees are playing .500 ball, despite the strongest rotation they've seen all year. 

The starters cannot last another 24 games. You can't keep running pitchers out there, knowing if they give up two runs, the game is over. 

Something's gonna blow. 

The rotation cannot hold.  

They say Cody Bellinger is a week, maybe 10 days away. (Would he miss his Bobblehead Night, Aug. 21?) But are we talking about the Cody Bellinger who is batting .259 with lollipop power? And which Giancarlo Stanton will return - (assuming he ever does?) Will it be the Giancarlo whose swings defy the laws of physics, or the old guy, pushing 37, who can't run or open a bag of Fritos?

This is it. Hell Week. The dog days. Our worst stretch of 2026. Nobody is hitting. We botch plays in the field. And we're squandering great starts. Two weeks ago, the Blue Jays looked like a garage sale. Yesterday, we made them look like contenders. Today, they're going to sweep us. Does anybody on this team have a spark?

It's time to break glass. Sound the alarm. This is a full-blown emergency.

 

The State of the Yankees

 

So What Is The Message?

 After about 1 week in the major leagues, it is becoming clear to Yankee viewers that George Lombard is the best player we have at any position. 

The best of the rest is who, exactly?  The .218 sulking teenager,  with bad hands and no brain, named jazz;? The 40 year old Goldy ( time has eroded him )?  The rapidly deteriorating Ben Rice ( I think he feels the demotion from first base as a severe criticism of his defense).  

 Any handful of our .215 hitters? 

This would be okay if we had 7 more of George's quality to bring up.  But our minor leagues are full of waste paper.  If Volpe and Dominguez weren't there, even a 50 year long Yankee fan couldn't name a single position player of interest from A ball to AAA.  Our best prospect is  probably ranked 85th by MLB assessors. 

And the drought continues.  If a starter gives us 6 innings and 0 runs, it isn't enough.  Because if the opposition gets a run, we will eventually lose in extra innings.  12 strikeouts per game is now a minimum for the Yankee line-up.  We can't advance a runner and, if we are given a free pass ( balk, passed ball etc.) no one will hit more than a 120 foot lazy fly ball to left field.  We have more guys thrown out at the plate than we have runs. Or so it seems.

We have a Manager who is about as bad as you can find.  Sending Garcia on a mission to steal second?  He can barely outrun Stanton.  Putting that same line-up out there, every day with the same instructions ( " Go for the solo Home run"?.  No one can bunt.  Our base running is pathetic.  We make plays without baseball mitts having any role.  And Jazz is always one inch too short, or one foot length too slow. 

The only reason to watch any Yankee game is to see George play, and to see how long our starting pitcher can keep us in the game. 

So what does all this tell you?  What is the message?

 There are no moves to make at the player level ( want to give up more 18 year olds for another Heliot Ramos)?

It is either new management or continue to eat dirt. 

We are going for the dirt option. 

Game Dread – º8/15/2º2ºSUX – AT LEAST THE PITCHING HAS BEEN SOLID !

 

Still, they continue.

The 2026 New York Yankees season began around the same time the first wagon trains started heading out over the Western plains. Since that time, the Yankees have played some three or four hundred thousand games, in some of which they have even scored.

Like the early pioneers, many Yankees have been felled by various ailments and hazards: snake-bite, the pellagra, throwing balls, chasing balls, catching balls, diving for balls, swinging at balls, crashing into a big electronic sign, and trying to run out of the batter's box.

Over the two hundred years or so since the 2026 season began, at least one American League team has been eliminated, meaning that the Yankees still have a chance to make the World Series, much as the Donner Party had a chance to make California. 

Some insist that the Yankees' ongoing, 2026 campaign is just a myth or a mirage, and that no team could play so badly for so long and survive. But others maintain that the team is still out there, somewhere, making its way toward its final destination, whatever that may be. 

There are also old-timers who say that making one's way across half a continent at the pace of an ox's walk was more entertaining than an average, 2026 Yankees' games. But this sort are dismissed as win-greedy malcontents by the team's management and its servile media, who insist that they don't know how good they've got it.

As in any good Western, the Yankees' wagon train has been joined along the way by dubious characters who appeared out of nowhere and seem determined to sabotage its progress, while beloved supporting characters such as that apple-cheeked Volpe kid have been left to expire by the roadside.

Not to worry. The 2026 season is expected to continue for at least another millennium or two, at the end of which we are reliably assured that the Yankees will be gliding through the Canyon of Heroes in shiny new cars, festooned with confetti by their adoring fans.

  

Uh-oh. Remember that collapse we've been awaiting? It's here.

People, I stand before you - humbly and furtively, billiards unholstered and flag hoisted to the autumn wind - to speak darkness unto light, pain unto pleasure, beer unto wine...

The end is near. 

For the Yankees, things are about to go blooey. 

Not trying to scare you. (Actually, yes, I am.) Last night's giveaway in Toronto barely masks a cold reality: 

The Yankees have squandered a playoff-worthy set of starts, because their defense and hitting is more rancid than a mystery-meat burger on the U.S.S. Abe Lincoln. 

Consider our starting pitchers over the last nine:

Last night: (Cole) 6 IP, 2 earned runs. 
Aug 13 (Fried): 5 IP, 1 earned run.
Aug 12 (Warren): 4 IP, 5 earned runs.
Aug 11 (Weathers): 5.2 IP, 1 earned run
Aug 9 (Schlitler): 7.1 IP, 1 earned run.
Aug 8 (Cole): 7 IP, 2 earned runs
Aug 7 (Fried):6 IP, 0 earned runs
Aug 5 (Warren): 5.1 IP, 3 earned runs
Aug 4 (Weathers): 6 IP, 0 earned runs

Nine games. Fifteen earned runs. Less than two per game. 

Damn. We shoulda won at least seven.  

Instead, the Yankees went 5-4, thanks to a leaky pen, a shaky defense and an incredible dearth of hitting.  

We shoulda paced Tampa and pulled away from Boston. Instead, the Yankees burned through some of the season's best starts, their hold on the wild card increasingly greasy and weak.

People: This cannot hold. 

Soon, as Scotty once said, the dialythium crystals are gonna break, the matter/anti-matter pods are gonna come together, and the whole thing, Captain, she's a-gonna go!

This week, we play eight against Toronto and Baltimore. Suddenly, those lineups look flush with young and ascending talent, while we seek to coax the MLB minimum from Heliot Ramos and Ryan McMahon. One of these days, our starting pitching is gonna blow up.  

People, this is the fulcrum point of 2026. 

And the dam looks ready to go. 

Holy Christ on a bike, this team sucks

I can't watch game replays, I can't watch MLB.com condensed games, I avoid the MLB channel's Quick Pitch show, but I still sometimes watch. I just have to turn the channel when the Yankee game rolls around.

Heliot...Helium...Harriet...whatever his name is, is terrible. The Martian is a better option. 

Garcia is okay. Everyone makes an error now and then. And he hits at least as well as Goldie, maybe better. I'm too dispirited to look.

What the fuck is wrong with Ben Rice? Jesus. So much for the MVP.

Grisham is still batting first. He shouldn't be batting at all, these occasional spurts of home runs are not good enough. And he's too slow. Boone is an idiot.

Jazz sucks. 

This team sucks. Aside from the pitching, which has been fantastic. But if a starter can't give up even a single run to avoid a loss, what good is it?

I honestly don't know how the position players go out every day and humiliate themselves like this. 

The Lombard effect wore off awfully damn fast.

Canadian Game Thread – Can Coleºguard us against a loss tonight in Toronto?

 

The Yankees have become a team of Wayne Tollesons

 You know what's sad? I mean - beyond the national debt, or Caitlin Clark, or Count Binface, or electric shock gloves, or the reflecting pool, or that explosive diarrhea from bad lettuce, or - oh, fukkit - practically everything. 

What's truly sad is that Cody Bellinger leads the Yankees in hitting, at .259. 

Yeahp, two-five-nine. That's Don Slaught territory. That's Wayne Tolleson. That's a hopeless, toothless, run-resistant number, which optimizes shutouts and allows no sense of late-inning, or late-season, heroics. Every game, every strikeout, every squandered opportunity, feels like a microcosm of the Yankees, if not the floundering state of humankind, in this decade of the Donald. (Slaught, of course.)   

Two-five-nine. That's Lyle Overbay. That's Eduardo Nunez. And game after game, inning after inning - that's us.  

I know, I know - this is the modern era, and we're not supposed to give a Mexican whit about clunky old batting averages. It's a dead, horse-and-buggy stat, right? We value the OPS, or the OBP, or BABIP, or WAR - whatever makes whatever point you're trying to advance. 

But once upon a time, we dumbasses simply divided the number of ABs by the number of hits, and that was how we knew Rod Carew was not human. That's how we celebrated Don Mattingly when he retired (career BA: .307) and mourned when Mickey Mantle fell short of his greatest goal, a career BA over .300. (He finished at .298, a source of great sadness.) We used that ridiculous stat to dismiss Travis Hafner and marvel at Wade Boggs. (Who, btw, looks frighteningly bulked up in a photo shown on YES this week. WTF?)

Two-five-nine. That's our top BA among hitters with a qualifying number of at-bats. Eliminate the filter, and only two Yankees - George Lombard Jr. (8 games, .276) and Ali Sanchez (34 games, .271) make the cut. 

Two-fifty-nine. And that's from a guy currently out with an injury. 

This is beyond sad. It's past paltry. It's downright embarrassing. If you look at everyday starters, you find six Yankees - Grisham, McMahon, Chisholm, Jones, Wells and Ramos - batting below .225. 

And sorry, folks, but this won't necessarily correct itself when Aaron Judge returns. Last year, on August 12, Judge was hitting .337 and chasing a Triple Crown. This year, his numbers look ghastly - a BA of .248 - in part because he may have played several weeks with a slightly fractured rib - and he now might return with that same ailment.

Two-five-nine.  Where have you gone, Mr. Mattingly, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. 

GT – ø8•13•26 MAX a BILLIONS & BILLIONS & BILLIONS . . .

After 120 games, only three AL teams are out of it

The ESPN dorks keep calling the Yankees shoe-ins for the 2026 post season. Last night, one of them called us "a sleeping giant," because we expect Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton to return and beat the living crapola out of everybody. 

I call bullshit. Nine points:

1. The sad truth is that, heading for the home stretch, only three AL teams - the Royals, Angels and A's - have been eliminated. 

2. The sheer Mendoza Line mediocrity of the AL leaves several certified tomato cans in the wild card chase. 

3. Baltimore, for example, seemed to wave a white flag on Aug. 3, when they traded Adley Rutschman to Boston. They're still only two games out.

4. And last year's It Girl - Toronto - is suddenly hot, winning 7 of 10. They're a measly 1.5 games out.

5. The Yankees rotation - Schlittler, Cole, and Fried - stacks up against anybody. Also, Ryan Weathers has been lights-out, of late.

6. The Yankees also anticipate the return of the Big Three - Judge, Giancarlo and Cody.

7. That would bring a logjam at DH, 1B and the OF. And it could mean streak hitters, such as Stanton, cannot play every day. 

8. But let's not forget the one true Yankee reality. 

9. We are always in a continuum of injuries. The next wave will soon crash. There is no such thing as the Yankees at full strength. Do not unbuckle your seat belts. We are probably a lock for the playoffs. But we should thank the lowly AL for its generosity. 

Bits and pieces

I barely made it to the early innings last night, but Will Warren had one of his terrible starts. And against a crap team, to boot. You never know which Warren you'll get, and that's problematic whether you're a starter or a reliever. So the idea that he can move to the bullpen when Rodon comes back is questionable, to say the least. Of course, you never know which Rodon you'll get either, though it's too often the mediocre one. But he makes too much money to not be in the rotation.

Speaking of playing the money no matter what, Grisham is an embarassment in center. Doesn't he realize that about himself? Good reads and good routes can only go so far to make up for poor wheels. And I don't know that he's so terrific at the first two.

Spencer Jones should obviously be playing center. He's fast, he's good, he can hit. If Boone wants to use Grisham, he should go in right field. There's not much ground to cover there. But between the $22 million and not wanting to humiliate a veteran, Boone will do nothing,  especially after last night's offensive explosion by Grish. This is one of those terrible times when you just have to wish for a hinky hammy, even if it adds a few centuries to your time in Purgatory.

Garcia needs to shave. That beard is awful. One man's opinion. Ramos's is pretty bad, too, and he has shown zip at the plate. The change might do him good.

Last night in the comments, it was noted that Gary Sanchez is having a, for him, good year. Batting .224, OPS over .800. Better than Wells. (Have you noticed that Wells has suddenly started hitting? Not amazingly well, but amazingly well for him.) What wasn't mentioned is that in a blowout a couple days ago, Sanchez came in to pitch late in the game. There's a video out there of him throwing a 37 mph curve with a 213 degree drop, basically a slow pitch softball toss that arced high in the air. It might be the folliest Folly Floater of all time.

I continue to inch my way through the Joe D bio I've been reading, and he was one strange dude. But practical. At the best whorehouse in New York, all the beds had satin sheets, but Joe complained that his knees kept sliding when he was screwing. So they kept a set of cotton sheets for when he visited, known within the establishment as the DiMaggio Sheets. He saved his sliding for the basepaths.

Look at him go! Giancarlo can run the bases!

Hot scoop: Giancarlo Stanton - the galloping gonad - ran the bases yesterday!

I mean, wow! You can see it. He actually lifts one foot and sets it down in forward motion, you know?, like runners do. He ran. He really ran. Sorta.  

Not fast, mind you. Not a sprint. Dear God, do you want the baselines swamped in bodily fluid? He took his time, carefully, methodically. He ran to first. Then he ran to second. I didn't have a stopwatch. If he'd continued to third, we'd need a calendar. He ran solidly, contemplatively, as if hauling an invisible ice cream truck. In other words, he's back.   

So, it won't be long, right? We'll soon see him patrolling RF, eh? Well, dunno. The next time Giancarlo, 36, tweezers something - (surely, there's a red hot Polymarket for that) - it could be the last plucked banjo string in his unfinished, nine-year Yankee career. 

If the '27 Yankees get canceled by the impending ownership lockout, Giancarlo would finish his career with 456 HRs and a BA of .258. Borderline Hall of Fame, maybe? Trouble is, his time in NYC has been a pizza rat horror orgy - (he's averaged 85 games per season, hit 189 HRs, batted .245) - and I'm not sure how many people remember his eight years with the Marlins. Was anybody watching? 

Let's face it. For Giancarlo, this year has been a lost cause. Nobody expects him to return. Nobody expects him to return and hit. And certainly, nobody expects him to return, hit, and run the bases. He has been out since April 26, when he tweaked a McNugget while advancing to second on a walk. Unless Giancarlo comes back smoking hot, he'll probably get booed. 

And why not? We know what's coming. He'll skip the rehab assignment in Scranton and go 0-for-20. When Boone is on the verge of benching him, he'll hit a few HRs. Then he'll tweak something. That's the Giancarlo we know. No matter how he looks, he's a pitch away from the Injured List. 

Oh, well, at least he's running. Right? Or loping. Let's call it an anticipatory jog. If, say, he hits one into the right-center gap, and the outfielders collide, and both are knocked unconscious, and the second baseman must run out and retrieve the ball, and he slips on the grass - then Stanton gets a double. But God help us if he has to slide. 

So, at least he's running?   

And so are the Steinbrenners. They're running for the money. Yesterday, they announced a $2.6 billion cash infusion from an evil investment group - Hail Hydra!  - that will allow the family to expand its operations. Maybe they can buy Giancarlo a chair lift. He turns 37 in November. He'll need something to get around. 

The Thread of the Game – What do you think goes on in Boone's Brain?

 

"You'll take it and like it."

Great discussion yesterday guys, on how the Yankees manage to lose one extra-inning game after another, by refusing to ever adapt to the given situation. 

Even if you're convinced that the algorithms indicate that it is ALWAYS better to swing for the fences than to, say, bunt or hit to the opposite field—and I'm not convinced of that at all—this must change when the rules of the game change, as they do with the extra-inning, Manfred Man on second base.

In a larger sense, that is how all sports have always been played. At least, until a few years ago, when the managers, players, and front-office palookas who run major-league baseball all agreed that they would play the game—indeed, would play ALL games, in every sport—the way they decided was best, whether we fans objected or not.

You'll take it and like it.

The fact is that the very best teams—in baseball, and in pretty much all sports—have always been able to win in a number of different ways. They have almost always been the best at adjusting to what they are given.

Take the famous Boston Massacre of 1978. The Yankees went into cozy, homer-happy Fenway Park and won the first game, 15-3...without hitting a home run. Instead, they banged out 21 hits—16 of them mere singles.

Over the next three days, they went on to sweep the Sox, 13-2, 7-0, and 7-4 through a variety of ways: some homers, great pitching, taking advantage of Sox errors, and downright bloop hits. Check out almost any other championship team, in any sport, and that's how it is: they can beat you with small-ball, and beat you with the big boppers.

Take the Knicks' fabled comeback from 29 points down against the Spurs in the NBA finals this year—and from double-digits down in the second halves of, I think, every other win they had in the championship series. 

There is simply no way that happens in the NBA of up to, say 5-10 years ago.

Don't get me wrong. I was absolutely thrilled to see the Knicks win, and would have been if it turned out they had been carrying those joke buzzers to give Wemby and co. little shocks every time down court. 

But in the past, a team up 29 points in the third quarter of an NBA finals—ANY team—would have slowed the pace down, forced the Knicks to foul desperately, and coasted to victory. 

The Spurs, on the other hand, seemed to operate on the premise that they simply could NOT, for any reason, change their brand of play. They may have been particularly stupid about this, as Charles Barkley proclaimed, but it is not uncommon.

All teams in all American sports, at least, seem to have decided that they now have found THE best way to play their games, and that that is what they will do, no matter what changes in the real world.

Ghost runner on second, in extra innings? A lead so big it looks like you're playing the Bulgarian National Team? 

Doesn't matter. You have to be you. You have to play your game the entire way through, and that's that.

This is, by the way, not a particularly isolated idea in the America of the last 50-80 years.

Check out almost any cultural expression, and the ideology is pretty much the same. Want some new forms, even maybe some decoration, in architecture? Fuhgeddaboutit! You're getting the same crap everyone now gets all over the world.

Representational art? Whattayou, a hundred years old?  

On and on it goes, through almost every art form, every political custom, every way of doing business. Baseball is no exception. We, the elites, have decided what's best for you.

And you'll take it and like it.   

Boston has lost three straight and they face Toronto's last stand. It's time for the Yankees to try something crazy

 

Well, well, look who suddenly can't hit...

Boston just did a perfect stand-up impersonation of the Yankees, losing 2-1 - its third straight - in a game to Toronto. And get this: Toronto's starter Jameson Taillon - remember him? - tweaked an elbow, and a Triple A replacement came in and shut Boston down. 

Yep, a perfectly executed Yankee-style loss.

Could it be a market correction the Greatest Team Evah? We now lead them by two in the loss column, and let's table discussion on Tampa, which has practically clinched the hibernating AL East. 

The Yankees face a grim three weeks, culminating in a four-game home series against Boston, which then leads into a September of canned tomato. Here's what the rest of August looks like: 

Three against Seattle. (Home.)
Three against Toronto (Away.)
Three against Baltimore (Away.)
Three against Toronto (Home.)
Three against Houston (Home.)
Four against Boston (Home.)

If we're still cogent in Septemer, it's the Angels, Padres, Rockies, Mets, Diamonbacks, Rays and O's. I hate playing the Mets, who'll be in a frenzy to erase the '26 season. By then, several teams will be playing Triple A lineups, which - as Yank fans know - often kill us. 

The Yankees won't have a wave of young arms, having traded away four for Cashman's looming six-man DH rotation: Judge, Giancarlo, Garcia, Heliot, Goldie and Ben Rice. Which leads me to the blaspheme of the day.

Could Rice catch a couple games, just to see if he's viable? If he could catch a game or two in the postseason, the Yankees would go from the worst-hitting catcher in baseball... to the best.  

I know, I know... Rice is too valuable to ruin his knees from the wear and tear of catching. But we're not talking about a 162-game run. When the playoffs arrive, Judge will have to play RF, Garcia might need to play 2B, and we'll need an upgrade at catcher, if Rice is feasible. 

Isn't it worth a try? The Yankees are running out of moves. Close your eyes. What if this was real...

Rice C
Judge RF
Stanton DH
Bellinger LF
Garcia 2B
Goldschmidt 1B
Grisham CF
McMahon 3B
Lombard SS 

Dear Spencer Jones, learn to bunt and save your career

Dear Mr. Jones,

Congratulations! In a mere 112 MLB at-bats, you have officially achieved Joey Gallo 2.0 status.

Over Gallo's 10-season career, his batting average stood at .194. But let's ponder his salad years, Gallo's first seven in Texas, when he twice hit 40 HRs and made the all-star team. Over those seven years, he batted - gulp - .211. 

Right now, you're hitting - gulp - .212. 

Over his 10-year career, Gallo fanned 1,292 times - roughly 130 times per season. With the Rangers, in his halcyon years, he struck out 797 times - about 113 per season.

You're currently at 47, well on your way to beat him.

Gallo finished his career with 208 HRs. With Texas, he hit 145 - about 20 per season. 

You have five - on your way to about 20. 

And don't get me wrong. Your home runs are glorious. The ball springs off your bat, SpaceX trajectories, (and Fun Fact: The time it takes each ball to reach the upper decks corresponds exactly to the duration of the human male orgasm!) Your HRs make us believe. Trouble is, your strikeouts make us remember the horror show that was Gallo's final incarnation with the Yankees: a .159 batting average and 194 strikeouts - 48 percent of his ABs - over two years. 

Unfortunately, this fan base all too well recalls Joey Gallo. 

In fact, I doubt you'll reach seven years in NY without serious adjustments.  

Sir, with all due respect, you must bunt! Gallo did it. It's part of the reason why he lasted 10 years. You must bunt - push the ball between the pitcher and 1B, and use your speed to beat the defense. Right now, you're wasting that speed. Bunt enough times, and you'll force opposing 1B to move in, creating defensive gaps. Learn to bunt, and you can maybe add 20 points to your BA.  

Yesterday, in the 10th, with the tying run on second, you came to bat with one job: Advance the runner. The Braves didn't even bother to cover the chance of a bunt. Their 1B played back, daring you to lay one down. And you struck out swinging, uppercuts on balls high and inside, ridiculously unhittable. They never worried about a bunt. They knew you wouldn't. Or couldn't. 

Hey, I'm not blaming you for the loss. It was a team effort. The Yankees fanned nine times, and these days, that's nothing. But you are here under a strikeout cloud, and when Cody Bellinger returns - which could be soon - your playing time is about to become zilch. You might even find yourself in Scranton with Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez - the Big Three Former Yankees of the Apocalypse. 

Sir, if you've got any bunts in that bat, it's time to show them. And if you don't know how to bunt, Scranton will be a great place for you to learn.