WE WILL NEVER, EVER WIN AGAIN!

 

Pythagoras was a bum.

Hilarious fact of the day: after getting swept by the Milwaukee Brewers, your New York Yankees' chances of winning the World Series actually INCREASED, according to the wizards of analytics. 

The Yanks now have not only a 99.1-percent chance to make the playoffs and a 36.8-chance to win the AL pennant, but also a 20.1-chance to take the World Series.

That's higher than the chances of the team that just swept them, the Brewers (15.5 percent). It's almost 10 times as high as those of the Tampa Bay Rays (2.4), who swept them back in April. 

It's much higher than that of the Atlanta Braves (8.0), who have more wins than any other team in baseball, or that of the Chicago Cubs (7.9), who have already put together two, 10-game wins streaks on the season).  It's even higher than that of the Los Angeles Dodgers (16.2), who are still looking through the couch cushions for enough millions to make the late-season acquisition that will seal their third straight World Series title—something never previously accomplished by a National League team.

The very existence of such odds, to anyone who actually has to watch the brand of miserable baseball now permeating the Former National Pastime, is more proof that Americans not only have a gambling problem, they have a Gambling Stupid Problem. 

This gives employment to any number of alleged "experts," who make the real money gulling us into idiotic formulae for determining win probabilities.

Case in point, of course, is the Yankees' "Pythagorean record," the whole reason for their astounding popularity amongst the oddsmakers (Fun historical tidbit: "Pythagorean record" was the original title of "Fascinating Rhythm" by the Gershwin boys, but Irving Berlin told them it would never sell. It's true!).

The Pyth is a mirage, one created mostly by how the Yanks recently enjoyed a week of smashing cupcakes (Actually, the original name of Smashing Pumpkins...okay, okay, I'll stop.)

Thus, in keeping with the fashion of the time, I will give you my Top Ten reasons why the Yankees—brilliant Greek philosophers and mathematicians who have been dead for over 2,500 years to the contrary—will win absolutely nothing again this year:

1)—They can't win the close ones. There is no better example of where analytics, sabremetrics, saber-toothed tigers, etc., let us down. The Yankees are now 3-8 in one-run games. Five of these losses have come in games against the Brewers and Rays—young, aggressive, battling teams (with smart managers) that look much worse on paper. (The other two were against the plucky Mariners and Wandering A's—also young, feisty squads with nothing to lose.)

Has any team in history ever won anything with a less-then .300 percentage in one-run games? Without having read a single stat on it, I will say this: No, they have not.

2)—Fundamentals. We talk about this all the time, usually around October. But it's true. The Yankees don't field or run the bases particularly well, and are schooled not to ever, ever, shorten their swings, go to the opposite field, or bunt, no matter what the situation...this in the era in which regular-season games are decided by the Manfred Man.

3)—They only look dead. The rest of the AL East—and pretty much the rest of baseball—I mean. As Duque predicts, the likes of the Orioles and the Red Sox cannot possibly be this bad. Nor can the Blue Jays. They will rise again shortly, as will a bunch of the other tomato cans we have been pummeling.

And I agree with Duque: look out for the Mets. They may genuinely be a bad team—but the Subway Series is their World Series. No, it's more than that: it's their Götterdämmerung. Hold the umlauts: the Mets will play like their lives are on the line this week.

4)—What's in a name? Everything. I know this sounds crazy, but Cam Schlittler, one of the very, very few decent pitchers Brian Cashman has ever developed in his endless tenure as Yankees GM, will not be a great major-league pitcher. 

I'm dreadfully sorry to say this, as a I love the guy. But nobody named Schlittler will ever be a true great. That's just the way the juju gods have fixed it, the miserable bastards.

5)—"I can't get no relief." The joker was right. This is Brian the Brain's 29th year as general manager of the Yankees, and in all that time—the last 26 years—the Brain has never, ever gone into a season with a sufficient bullpen. 

(No doubt, he would have gone into every single season without enough pen, but the one that Gene Michael left him with for 1998-2000 was just too good and too inexpensive for even Cashman to eighty-six them in time.)

Cashie got lucky one year—2009—when the Yanks had enough starting pitching that Joe Girardi (still a relatively independent-minded manager) was able to stick both Joba and Phil Hughes in the bullpen for the playoffs. Even then, we almost lost it when he decided to pitch Pettitte on short rest. 

It's theoretically possible that, once we get Cole and Rodon back, we can do the same this year. But judging by Rodon's character and Cole's age...that's a bad bet.

6)—Waist deep in the big muddy. Pro sports today are all about depth—another asset that Hal & Pal have failed to provide (again). All seasons are battles of attrition, for which you'd better have a great bench and—in baseball—a good minor-league system, if you want to wade through everything. The Yankees' current BrainRust just doesn't care about such things.

7)—Ryan McMahon. How can I be so mean?? Why, just last week, McMahon went on a tear that got his BA up from .167 to .223. And...after a 1-7 performance in Milwaukee, it's already back to .218. You can expect it to keep plummeting. The man is simply not a major-league hitter. And this year, he has often not been a great major-league fielder, with 4 errors already. This is not a piece on a championship team.

8)—Jazz Chisholm. I genuinely feel bad for the guy. Also, exasperated. Last year, he demonstrated just how little being a 30-30 man has come to mean in the majors. This year, Mr. 50-50 is averaging fewer than 1 RBI every 3 games—and over 1 strikeout a game. And after leading the AL in errors at 2B last year with 12 (in just 100 games there, and another 6 in 30 games at 3B), he has continued his poor fielding, poor decision-making, and general loopiness. 

Chisholm is also a lifetime, .170 hitter in 24 postseason games. As with McMahon, how did anyone ever figure he would be a piece on a World Series winner?

9)—Austin Wells. Three years into his major-league career, Austin Wells looks more like Austin Powers (ba-dum-dum!). Five RBI in 31 games and a quarter of a season? These are stats from the deadball era. Someday, some stathead will get a Ph.D for a thesis figuring out how come Cashman catchers always regress to nothingness. Until then, we're left to figure it out. Nobody on the Yankees is.

10)—"You gotta have heart!" So sang the greatest baseball musical ever written, about the greatest baseball team that ever played. Ah, for the days when opponents had to sell their souls to the devil to beat us! Now all they need is...I dunno, maybe a two-year option with Elon Musk?

I know that desire is very hard to measure in athletes, and particularly in baseball, when you play everyday and keeping an even keel is essential. But c'mon. Who among us doubted that the Yanks were going to get swept by the Brewers—or the Rays—after losing the first two games? Who can remember them going into a postseason with fire in the belly? Or the eyes? Or would you believe...fire in the islets of Langerhans? 

Among his many failings as a manager, Aaron Boone is not someone able to keep his team motivated or focused over the course of a whole season, or even down the stretch and in the postseason. I don't know how a modern coach or manager does that, mind you. But the fact is there are too many games, for too many years, when the Yankees just don't come to play.

Yankees, undressed in Milwaukee, face one looming existential question.

It's still not time to panic.

Feel free to taste the Luger. Breathe. But don't pull the trigger. There is hope on the horizon. It's Baltimore - ahh, yes, Baltimore...

Tonight, it's Baltimore, in Baltimore, and our hope is that Baltimore does Baltimore, as only Baltimore can do, in which case we'll beat Baltimore like the Baltimore that Baltimore is, rather than the Baltimore that Baltimore thinks it is, which is Towson. 

It's barely mid-May, too early to toss in a towel. 

We sit one game below Tampa with 121 to play. Yeah, we sucked in Milwaukee, but wanna know who is really crapping its bed? Boston. The Redsocks didn't even make the standings screenshot on the upper right. 

The Redsocks are six games below .500 and 10 losses behind Tampa. Trevor Story is hitting .200, Roman Anthony is hurt (again), and their vaunted future Jeter, Marcelo Mayer, shows signs of premature Volpeheimers. Moreover, El Chapo hasn't yet blown up, which means Boston might be holding him when the music finally stops, which will be wonderful to behold. Remember their youth movement? It will take another year for the bodies to mature. I wonder if Boston will wait. 

After Aaron Judge, our best asset is the AL East, a division of cupcakes and Tampa.

Following tonight's upcoming three-game series, we'll still get to play Baltimore six more times this season: three in August and three on the final weekend, when we'll probably be chasing down the wild card. We play each AL East "rival" 13 times. And several might be even bigger tomato cans after the garage sales of August 1.

Still, one existential question haunts the Yankees:

Who pitches the last three innings? 

The current bullpen is a disaster. You saw it in Milwaukee. Hell, they saw it in Iran. To beat the Yankees, just outlast the starter and wait for the Doval/Blackburn/Bird Triad to take over. Yesterday, Brent Headrick became the latest bullpen "success" to go south. Then it was David Bednar's turn. 

Tell me, how do we get the final nine outs of any game? 

Surely, Cashman will make trades. That's how we ended up with the Triad.  Last July, the Yankees emptied the Class A levels of their farm system. This year, the trades would bleed more profusely - the Martian, Spencer Jones, Elmer Rodriguez, Anthony Volpe, maybe even George Lombard Jr. (though he looks untouchable.) There's always hope a late-season Cam Schlittler, up from Scranton. But for now, the cupboard looks bare. 

Let's hope Baltimore plays like last week's Baltimore, not the Baltimore that Baltimore once imagined. 

Happy Mother's Day ! Game Thread – 5,10,26

Sign Of The Times

Cam Schlittler gave up 2 hits and no runs in 6 innings.

 On most teams, that is good enough for a starter these days.  Not so for the Yankees.  They need 9 innings of no runs ( maybe 1 on a hot day for the offense).

The moment the bullpen arrived, the game changed for the worse.  The first pitch, I think, was a home run for the Brewers.  As if to say, " we've got you now."

People like Jazz Chisolm continued to not put the ball in play ( strike out looking) with an insurance run on third and only one out. Time after time.  

There was no clutch hitter this line-up....until MacMahon arrived in the ninth ( as a pinch hitter )  to drive in a run with a single to center.  All of a sudden, he is our most reliable contact hitter.  This, the golden glove player, who led the league in strikeouts for the past two seasons. 

The perfect metaphor for this pathetic offense is Boone's decision to pinch hit Grisham for Jones at our last critical moment .  This gives a demoralizing message to Jones ( who has trouble enough not striking out ), and resulted in absolutely nothing.  Grisham, as if in tribute to the rookie, strikes out himself.  Jones could not have done worse. 

This team is just older and slower than last year's team.  

Season is over. 

With the team suddenly struggling, the Yankiverse experiences a sense of deja-Boone.

And then they were in second...  

In the cement scrawl of history, the 2025 Yankees - a team of Judge, Fried and Bellinger - led the AL East into the July 4th weekend, when Toronto clipped their wings. They fell into second place and - well - there they remain. 

This year's Yankees, a veritable carbon duplicate of their predecessors, lasted in first place until last night, when a bullpen meltdown spawned one of those too-common "Out-of-Body, Shoot Me, Worst Loss of the Year" disasters, which plague and define the modern franchise. 

The Yankees lost to seemingly meager Milwaukee, one of the younger and hungrier prototypes that beat the Yankees every October, if not months earlier.

Listen: May 10 is too early to count out any team, even when they step from a time machine with nary a molecule of change. Today - game time, 2:10 p.m. - we shall glimpse the Yankees' new ballroom - featuring Carlos Rodon, in some degree of restoration, as yet unknown. 

But Yank fans have seen this movie before. To watch last year's lineup, virtually recreated down to the doorknob fittings, brings deja-vu, or worse... Deja-Boone. 

Last night, the bullpen killed us. Of course, it did. For 17 years now, it's been the bullpen. The truth is, we never replaced Mariano - or Mike Stanton, or Ramiro Mendoza, or Jeff Nelson - none of them. We tried Joba, Houdini, Scott Proctor, Aroldis, Luke Weaver, the cast of Glee, a progression of missteps that exists to this day in the form of Cam Doval and Jeff Bird. We still cringe when the late innings come into view. I suppose we always will.

Second place. Technically, we're tied for first. And there's a lot of baseball yet to play, a lot of chances to rectify this ship. But here we are, looking up at Tampa. It sure was nice, leading the AL East. Now, what? Hola, Mr. Carlos, can you go nine? 

Life stinks

 Oh wait... it's just our bullpen.

Game Thread – May Ninth – 2026 - Running this one, uh, like, you know – back out there

 

The past as prelude... are the 2025 Yankees ready to repeat?

Peabody, here. Sherman, set the WayBack to exactly one year ago, May 9, 2025...

1. The 22-16 Yankees lead the AL East, three up on Boston and four over the hateful Jays. (And four behind today's record, on the right.)

2. To the rapture of YES, Aaron Judge is chasing .400 - hitting a Ted Williamsesque .396 - though his HR total stands at only 10. (Today, he has 15, tied for the most in baseball, and hitting .270.)

3. Ben Rice has risen to No. 3 in the Yankee lineup, hitting .261. (That's 79 points below his current BA.)

4. Anthony Volpe is our everyday SS, batting .230. 

5. The Yankees are about to win 13 of their next 17 and seemingly run away with the AL East.

Well, so much for time machines. As you may recall, around Memorial Day, 2025, the Yankee Edmund Fitzgerald hit an iceberg and sank in the Strait of Boonefuk, off the coast of Cashmanland. Toronto took first, and the Yankees spent their summer chasing a wild card. Deja vu, all over again. 

I note this because last winter, the Yankee brain trust chose to rerun the same basic roster of 2025, and here we are, where we were, hiking circles in the deep dark woods like campers in The Blair Witch Project. We've been here before, but it remains a mystery how we got here. 

Listen: It's hard to find hope when your team looks completely outclassed, as the Yankees did last night. 

We can tell ourselves that the batting order hit a buzzsaw, an unhittable starter and a lights out bullpen. We're not playing Baltimore anymore, and the National League looks like a raging dogfight. We can tell ourselves that help is on the way - Carlos Rodon will pitch Sunday. We can tell ourselves that Spencer Jones is here, and an experiment has begun, and maybe the Yankee farm system will save the day, after all? (Last night, George Lombard and Volpe: 1-4, each with a SB.) 

Dunno. It's still too early to gauge this team. But last year's hot streak in May? We've gone through it, a bit ahead of schedule. We we've been here before. Has anything really changed?

Game Thread – 05/08/26 – Your New York Yankees √s Their Milwaukee Brewers

All wins and no losses makes Boone a dull boy

Tell me he's no Crazy Joe.

 

Oops. Wrong one.  

That's better. Isn't it?

Welcome to the major leagues tonight, Spencer Jones, and long may you thrive.

In anticipation of his grand debut, Carl J. Weitz was good enough to send us a comparative assessment by a major-league scout, Andy Singer, which concludes that the best we can hope for from Mr. Jones is that he will be another Joey Gallo. Which Mr. Singer feels he likely will not be.

You can read it hear, if you like:

https://www.startspreadingthenews.blog/post/projecting-spencer-jones#:~:text=It's%20not%20fair%20to%20Spencer,of%20fact%20or%20evidence%2Dbased%20analysis.

Singer acknowledges our Gallo trauma, but tells us that "Gallo was a very good Major League player at his peak." He insists that "peak Joey Gallo was an All-Star level offensive player" who "was enormously valuable offensively in the aggregate." 

"Despite all of his flaws," Singer insists, "Joey Gallo had a very valuable offensive peak."

Yeah...No.  

Joey Gallo was never a very good major league player. No player who hits a lifetime .194 over 10 years and would have averaged 223 strikeouts a full season (had he ever played one), has ever been a very good major league player. 

The fact that major-league baseball in general—and Andy Singer in particular—have convinced themselves that he was, embodies everything that is worst about our game today.

Joey Gallo was Mr. Three True Outcomes, walk-strikeout-home run—the most boring brand of baseball ever invented. Even at his "peak," when he was hitting 40 and 41 home runs in a season, Gallo batted .206 and .209—and struck out 403 times.

Over the whole course of his career, Gallo fanned 1,292 times. That's almost twice the number of walks and home runs (705) he had, combined. It is more than twice the number of total hits—557—he had.  

This is not what I want from Spencer Jones. This is not what anyone should want, from any ballplayer.

Forget about career peaks, and the like. What I'd settle for were the fill-in seasons that Mike Tauchman and Mike Ford had for us (suspiciously, both in 2019, the year the ball went crazy). Or the one that other Spencer, Shane, had filling in for us in 1998.

In the meantime, tell me no tales about how good Joey Gallo really was. The guy made Dave Kingman look like a contact hitter. He is no one to emulate, no one to hope that anyone becomes.

Unless you're talking about that other Joey:

Joey, Joey,

Man of the streets, child of clay...

Today in German media fun

 

Mine fought him. But I guess this is just for Germans.

The biggest news site in Germany, spiegel.de. Quite a move with the rise of the AfD party (Nazis in thin disguise.) Yeah, it's happening here, too. Scary.

And now, back to baseball...sorry for the diversion, but I felt I had to share this one.

The American League is a disgrace, and other non-controversial observations

After Tampa and the Yanks - high and far above the rest - only two American League teams stand above the Gene Mauch Line of Tomato Cannery. 

If the playoffs happened this week, two AL teams would compete with sub-.500 records. 

Meanwhile, in the NL, eight teams are above .500, and tonight, we'll see what a non-cupcake looks like. The Yankees face the Brewers - a team of bunts, steals and defense - missing ingredients that have plagued the Death Barge since 2009 (though that has changed with the arrival of one Jose Caballero, right?)  Milwaukee sports MLB's 9th best record. We won't be playing Baltimore anymore.

The Yankees are tied with the Cubs and Braves for MLB's best record, with Tampa a half-game behind. Then come the Dodgers who - oh, fukkit, they'll spend $100 million at the trade deadline and win it all, anyway, right? Why kid ourselves? 

But but BUT... this weekend just got a lot more interesting... 

1. Forget Dos Equis beer. The Most Interesting Man in the World (of Baseball) has joined the team. Yes, Spencer Jones! who was busting fences in Moosic. We're finally going to see him, live, full-sized and in-person. 

No more bogus stats about swing-and-miss rates or barreled balls - (who cares if they're barrels, if they don't bother his wife.) For four years, we've been hearing about this dude - his size (6'6"), his power (the 2nd highest exit velo batted ball in 2026) and his speed (I'll take their word for it.) Last time the Yankees brought up an outfielder with such beautistics, he only turned out to be the best hitter in baseball.

Look: Jones won't be the next Judge. But he might be the next Joey Gallo, the one we thought we were getting a few years ago, before he turned out to be Rob Deer. (If you're under 70, you might have to google him.) For years now, Jones has been the most intriguing prospect in the organization, if not in all of baseball, and now - finally - we'll get a taste. 

If he's outclassed, well, it won't take long for the Scranton bus to arrive. But I can't think of a less stressful place to launch a career than in Milwaukee, the home of Oprah Winfrey, Harley-Davidson, and cheap beer. On top of it, Giancarlo Stanton will soon return and end the experiment, regardless of what's happening. 

And if over the next week, Jones hits - aw, let's say 20 HRs - we'll cope with the strikeouts. 

2. I keep telling myself not to be concerned about Ben Rice. And I'm not. Sorta, anyway. Nope. I'm good here.

Oh, hell, I'm terrified. And we all should be.  

Here's the problem: Rice still leads all of MLB in OPS - 1.214 - above Yordan Alvarez, Mike Trout and - yes - Aaron Judge. Now that he's injured and missing a few games, he has basically no place to go but down. 

When he returns from the bone bruise, every stat wonk in YES captivity will start counting BEFORE and AFTER numbers. It's hard to imagine Rice improving on production before the injury. So, when he returns (tonight?) he'll slump, and that will become the defining numbers of his still-young season. 

Why why why... do Yankee injuries always seem to coincide with hot streaks? 

3. Beginning tonight, we will throw Max Fried, Cam Schlittler and Carlos Rodon. Clearly, the weak link is... Rodon. 

Imagine that. 

Spencer Jones has been called up

 

Yankees find secret to winning: Score at least 7.

 

Greedhead.

 So the news from Boone is that The Martian, Jasson Dominguez, somehow avoided a concussion in his left field collision with the wall, but did sprain his left shoulder, which will put him on the DL.  

There is no excuse—NONE—for the New York Yankees to put anything dangerous on the field in Yankee Stadium III. This isn't some archaic feature of the grand cathedral that was the original Yankee Stadium. Hal and his daddy put paid to that joint long ago.

Nonetheless, there is Dominguez banging his head against a chain-link fence—a chain-link fence!—covering the left field ad wall.

The ad wall has to be there because, of course, we can't just have ONE ad on the left field fence in the Stadium. We have to have constantly rotating, electronic ads. 

Hence the fence. It's not there to protect the players, but to protect the ads. 

Somehow, the bright lights who Hal hires to run his bright lights could figure out no better way or place to maximize the ads that already fill almost every inch of the ballpark we taxpayers built for him—or that blare incessantly over the sound system.

The "Your Ad Here" space is so bad, in fact, that we were fortunate Dominguez's injury was not worse. 

 Incredibly, some idiot also installed a step up to the chain-link fence.  (Hey, why not just a moat and alligators?)  You could see The Martian's shoe stick on this for a moment as he went down, in a daze. We're very lucky he didn't break his foot.

In what seems like a different age, Mickey Mantle tore up his leg in 1963 making a catch against the ridiculous, chain-link fence Baltimore used to have on its playing field. 

That wasn't the fault of the Yankees' management, but Mantle's initial, awful injury in the 1951 World Series, was. Sure, Joe DiMaggio was being a jerk to Mantle so he didn't want to step in front of the Great Man and sure, it was an accident: some thoughtless grounds crew guy leaving a sprinkler cap open.

But there sure as hell is no excuse for this. 

I could not help noticing that the Yankees went over the 800,000 mark in attendance today. In May. That's over 40,000 game even with the lousy weather we've had all spring, tops in the American League. 

But hey, no reason for our nepo baby owner to evvvvvvver give up another dollar, even if it means some young kid's career.

The "chat amongst yourselves" Belated Game Thread – 05/07/26

 

Tampa keeps winning. Yankees falter. Will the reinforcements reinforce?

Forget last night. It never happened.

We faced the dreaded Curse of Eovaldi, and we were never gonna win.

Damn Nathan Eovaldi. Guy played for six teams. We're hardly the only franchise to let him walk. Guy haunts us like an enraged telemarketer, and, by now, it's clear that he always will - at least until he retires, or the Doomsday Asteroid hits. Let's just hope that, at the August deadline, Texas doesn't trade him to a team we must beat. 

Like Tampa.

That's another thing. Tampa just keeps winning. You know how the Artemis astronauts used a gravity slingshot to soar home? The Rays are using the Tropicana Dome - (Note: They call it "Tropicana Field," but it's not a field, it's Trump's ballroom) - the most horrible venue in baseball - to slice through the AL. Visiting outfielders cannot track flies against the ceiling. Bouncers "splash" in the fake turf. The P.A. system never relents. ("EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS - clapclapclapclap-clap-clap-clap.") Yesterday, they won with six hits - six measly hits - beating Toronto with a bullpen game. They used five pitchers. Can you imagine what would happen if the Yankees tried a bullpen game? With the comedy team of Bird and Doval? 

Wait. Did someone say, "Bullpen game?" Funny, because that's what the Yankees will attempt today. Ryan Weathers was scratched due to a stomach bug - Hantavirus? - and Paul Blackburn, the 26th man, will start. It's hard to hold out hope for a bullpen that squandered three innings last night by Lana Del Ray Fernando Cruz Yerry de los Santos, who was quickly dispatched on the Scranton Shuttle.

 
Let's not panic. Tampa cannot win forever. Does anybody think Ryan Vilade - a 27-year-old Colorado castoff - can bat third? They will come to earth. The question is where we will be? 

So, here's where everything stands...

We're still waiting on Giancarlo. He's eligible to come off the Injury List, but the calf is still barking. The problem: We must not only wait for Stanton, but when he returns, we'll have to wait for him to heat up. He is starting to mimic the old Aaron Hicks' Cycle of Hell: Get healthy, get hot, get hurt, repeat.

We keep telling ourselves not to worry about Ben Rice. It's early in the season, with no reason to rush him back from what could be a nagging injury. Then again, how badly is he bruised? The Yankees lie about injuries. They don't even try to hide it. So, how bad is it... really?

Last night in Scranton, Anthony Volpe: 0 for 6 with a strikeout. Yikes. (George Lombard Jr., playing 3B, went 1-3 with three walks.) 

Meanwhile, The Martian is struggling - 1 for 12 over his last three games. When Stanton returns, he might find himself back in Triple A. He needs 150 ABs and a green light to steal bases, neither of which look likely. On top of everything, Trent Grisham isn't hitting, and Spencer Jones - last year's most intriguing Yankee prospect - is once again our most intriguing Yankee prospect. 

Everywhere, the lineup is churning. The first place Yankees are a roster in chaos. Weird, eh?

Ted Turner RIP

 Hey, wait a minute....is that....?

Game Thread – 05/06/26 "Will Will Thrill on the Hill ?"

 WE MISS YOU JOHN

WE WILL NEVER, EVER LOSE AGAIN!

 

Someone was good enough to point out that I did not give the link to the 144 calls by the Master that had been ranked by Andrew Mearns of Pinstripe Alley.

The link was provide by Stang, and can be found here:

https://www.pinstripealley.com/2024/4/19/24134263/yankees-john-sterling-home-run-call-ranking-all-time-bernie-goes-boom-jeter-judge

It really is a smart phone!

 

This is an actual screenshot of my phone.

 Apparently it knows me a little too well. 

Damn. The Yanks just can't shake Tampa. Nine respectful but terrorized ponderings

We lead Boston by 10, Toronto and Baltimore by nine. But the hateful Rays, in their renovated ping pong ball, just keep winning. It's too early to play scoreboard ball, but damn, one of these two teams will soon blink. Eovaldi, tonight. Ugh. 

Nine ponderings:

1. Isn't May 5 too early to subject your closer to a two-inning save? That's what Boone did last night with David Bednar. In the modern reality, no closer lasts the season without a series of meltdowns. Are we doomed to overuse Bednar until he frays? We did it with Clay Holmes. Here we go again.

2. Yanks' hype over the impending return of Geritt Cole and Carlos Rodon gleefully ignores the gorilla pooping in the woods: Both are getting pummeled in their minor league rehabs. Last night, for Scranton, Rodon gave up five ER in 6.1 innings. WTF?

3. Last night's big, beautiful bat: Jose Caballero's perfect bunt single, which led to the rally. I believe bunt singles unhinge pitchers even more than a HR. A bomb clears the bases, lets the pitcher start over. A bunt leaves a nagging distraction at first, and a reminder that we can steal a run without hard contact. (Yanks must use this tonight against Eovaldi.)

4. Last night for Scranton: Anthony Volpe, 2 for 4 with a SB. In Volpe's new reality, he must run, run, run... 

5.  Also for Scranton, George Lombard 0-3 and Spencer Jones 1-4 with a three-run HR. (He is 2nd in the IL, with 11, behind another giant outfielder, 23-year-old Kevin Alcantara, 6'6", whom the Yankees traded away for Anthony Rizzo.) Jones struck out once.

6. If you're a rookie appearing in Yankee Stadium for the first time, giving up three runs in the first inning is par for the course. Elmer Rodriguez walked his first two batters and ended up surrendering three runs in the first Still, he straightened out and lasted five innings. He's been sent back to Scranton, but I gotta believe he feels good about himself, and that he'll play a role in October. 

7. Down in Double A Somerset, a 24-year-old 2B named Marco Luciano is having a moment: batting .326 with 9 HRs. He's an ex-Pirates farmhand, picked up last winter by way of Baltimore. Last year, in the PCL, he hit 23 HRs, batted .224. Not the greatest record, but if he keeps hitting the Scranton infield could soon be crowded.

8. Considering how well the Yankee starting rotation has done, it's hard to justify how threadbare this bullpen looks. Last night, when Tim Hill faltered, the bullpen backed up like a sewer pipe. Blackburn, Bird, Doval... who has faith in any of them? This is our weakness, and it will take us down.

9. The death of John Sterling has unified the Yankiverse in a manner that few players could have done. Of all the words and emotions poured into moment, I'll take Suzyn's refusal to take last night's game off: She said John would never approve of missing a game. Fuck me. Tears. 

Look – Its a GEORGE M STEINBRENNER Game Thread ! [05/05/26]

HI GEORGE !

 

The lunatics at the failing New York Times mention It Is High and quote El Duque in their Sterling obit

 You can't predict journalism! (Gift link) 

I think some fine, upstanding Yankee fan put a link to this in the comments but I can't find it & want all of you to be able to savor El Duque's disgrace.  

 

 

Giovanni!

 

For me, the best way to pay tribute to John Sterling is through the world he loved almost as much as that of baseball: the American musical theatre. Hence, I present, Giovanni!, the Master's musical epic, as he might have written it.

We open with hordes of distraught, keening Yankees fans and players making their way into the Original Yankees Stadium, which has somehow manifested itself across River Avenue. They wail and sing dolefully:

Requiem aeternum don Giovanni

Requiem aeternum don Giovanni

HAL & PAL swagger into the Stadium. 

HAL is wearing his kinky boots and a yachting cap; PAL, his finest elf rappelling costume. They sing disdainfully:

Oh, what a circus

Oh, what a show!

New York has gone to town

Over the death of a man who got everything wrong!

Somehow, though, JOHN STERLING’S voice echoes out over the field:

He’s something sort of Grandish! The Grandy Man can! Oh, the Grandy Man can!

HAL & PAL tremble, and clutch each other, but resume singing derisively:

He had his moments

He had some style

For years the best show in town was the crowd

Outside the Drive-by-Jeep booth in the Stadium

Crying, “John!  John!  It is so gone!”

But STERLING'S voice resounds again through the PA system, enthralling the crowd:

Sir Lancelot rides to the rescue! C’est lui! C’est lui!

HAL & PAL persist:

But that’s all gone now.

Soon as the tears from the media clear

We’re all gonna see

How

He did nothing for US!

For a third time, Sterling's voice enraptures the Stadium:

Russell shows muscle! Monsieur Martin est la! Giancarlo, non si può stoppalaro! It is a Stentorian home run! Non dimenticar! That ball sure traveled far! Oh, McCann can! Yes, McCann can! El Comedulce! Bobby Abreu is as sweet as candy! 

JOHN'S coffin is brought into the ballpark, carried by eight pallbearers: THE CORE OF FOUR plus BERNIE WILLIAMS, PAUL O'NEILL, EL DUQUE, and TINO MARTINEZ. 

Atop the enormous catafalque, wearing a glimmering, sleeveless dress, is SUZYN WALDMAN. She raises her arms to the heavens, and the mourners are moved to song once more:

Salve regina mater misericordiae

Vita dulcedo et spes nostra

Salve salve Suzyn regina

Ad te clamamus exules filii Giovanni

Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes

O Clemens o roger

SUZYN extends her arms to them, and begins to sing:

Don’t cry for me, Suzyn Waldman,

For I am ordinary, unimportant

And undeserving

Of such attention

Unless we all are

I think we all are.

 

Climb on John’s catafalque 

O my Yankees!

And when it’s your turn to die 

You’ll remember

They wore those special hats

Sang lamentations

Not just for Giovanni

For everybody

So share his glory

So share his story.

SUZYN, the pallbearers, and the crowd are all reduced to sobbing. JOHN'S voice rings out again:

Oh, yes, in-Didi! Gregorious makes Yankee fans euphorious! This is the dawning of the Age of Gregorious! Robbie Cano, don'tcha know! The Giambino! The Bam-Tino! 

HAL & PAL slink away from the now ecstatic crowd. HAL, brooding, asks PAL:

How can we best monetize this?

(With many thanks to Andrew Mearns, managing editor for our brethren over at Pinstripe Alley, and to Stang, for bringing his ranking of all 144 of the Master's calls to my attention.)

WE WILL NEVER LOSE AGAIN!

 Neither will the Knicks!

An Absolute Legend Indeed

 
This popped up on my Facebook feed this morning.  Very nice.

Yanks still can't shake Tampa. As Butch would say to Sundance, "Who are those guys?"

Last winter, Boston and Baltimore stood out like four-hour erections in the AL East. 

The O's had signed Pete Alonso, their long-heralded missing piece, and the Redsocks officially launched their ultimate youth movement, led by The Next Big Thing, Roman Anthony.  

It's too early to count out anyone. (Somebody once said, you cannot predict baseball.)  But both teams sit at least 8 games down: Baltimore's bullpen is in tatters, and Boston fired everybody. (Suck on it, Jason Varitek; join a professional face-slapping league.)

The Yankees are in first... FIRST... but something is wrong.

They should be alone - drunken and self-pleasured, on a comfy couch in their softest pajamas, eating pizza and wings, so far atop their division that the pennant race seems like a distant butterfly fart.

But but BUT... Tampa keeps winning - now 10 of 11 - and the Yankee hot streak has merely allowed us to keep pace. (And since the Rays swept our only encounter, they technically own a postseason tie-breaker.)

Check out the names to the right. After Junior Caminero and Cedric Mullins, do you know anybody? WTF is going on?

Look, I'm not squawking. I wanna think that Yank fans know when the ham is smoked. Right now, we're sitting in a catbird seat, with a surplus of talent at Scranton and two ace pitchers about to return. We haven't felt this good since Clint Frazier was wowing Triple A. 

But, damn, we should be six up. At least! And beginning tonight, we face deGrom and Eovaldi? WTF, juju gods. We could hit the weekend in 2nd. Yeesh. WTF?

For posterity, the top 10 Memories of John Sterling, ranked

10. "An A-Bomb... from A-Rod!"

9. "Bern, baby, burn!"

8. "Robbie Cano, a-doncha-know!"

7. "... And I thank you, Suzyn..."

6. Show tunes.

5. "Thuuuuuuh pitch..."

4. "Tomorrow will be a completely different game, because of the pitchers."

3. "You can't predict baseball, Suzyn."

2. "It is high! It is far! It is gone!"

1. "Yankees win! Thuuuuuh... Yankees... win!"

Michael Kay's remembrance will help you know John better.

Rest in Peace, John – 05/04/26

Remembering The Master: A walk-off winwarble and the Deadly Spinners

 

Remembering The Master: John and Suzyn's book club

 

Remembering The Master: John vs. the Screamer

 

Remembering The Master: On Derek Jeter, an amazing human being.

 

Remembering The Master: The A-bomb... from Godzilla?

 

Ballgame over

 Rest in peace, Maestro. You were, indeed, sui genesis.

Notre Raison d'être est morte !

I can no longer access images via google ( I'll work with Mustang to get this corrected ), but I can't let this day pass without comment.  

John Sterling, our " reason for being" is dead.  In his 87th year, I believe.

"What," as the French writer , Albert Camus, once said, " do we do now?"

The honorifics and messages of condolence will last but a few days. 

Do we carry on as if unaffected?

As a line in one of my favorite country song states, " a link in that chain has been broken."

Can we continue to represent this man now that he is calling games for Babe Ruth and Lou?

I still remember meeting John on two occasions;  at the mayor's mansion in NYC after a World Series win, and in a bar in Tampa during spring training ( he was drinking martinis).

"It is high, it is far...." will live forever.  For John and all his calls. 

I'll drink to that

John Sterling is dead.

Heart attack. 

It is high. It is far. It is sad.

The Yankees are playing hardball... with themselves.

Hot news comes through the grapevine. Take yesterday... 

First, Alphonso texted that "Ben Rice has been pulled," and the season was over. Later, after The Martian homered, and the season was saved. Then Stang chimed in: "Volpe optioned to Scranton." Bedlam.

The rise and fall of humankind, neatly compressed into nine innings, and dispatched with a sense that the Yankees may have finally stopped believing their own crapola, and are throwing down hard decisions, the kind their fans have wanted for years. Consider...

1. Anthony Volpe to Scranton. This brought a jolt. Most Yank fans believed the team would restore Volpe to starting SS, despite being outperformed by Jose Caballero in almost every comparison - also with the Yankees streaking. But they didn't bite.

Volpe is a decent fielding SS (when not hurt) and a potential 30 HR hitter (19 last year.) He plays hard, always hustles, never whines, remembers birthdays, holds the door for ladies - a fine human being - but over three years, he's hit .222, and that's Jorbit Vivas after a sixpack. Still, it's a hard fall. At Scranton, he'll compete with George Lombard Jr. at SS, and Oswaldo Cabrera for utility IN. Volpe must do what he's never done before: Hit at Triple A. (In two Railrider incarnations, he hit .236 and .267.) Whatever he does, his future might be in another town - another ruthless decision by the brain trust?

2. Luis Gil to Scranton. You can't be Rookie of the Year forever. With an ERA over 6.00, Gil was demoted and replaced with Elmer Rodriguez, who will soon get caught in the shuffle behind Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon. It's a huge logjam for Gil. (FYI: In one start with Scranton, Gil went 4.2 innings and gave up 3 ER; for the Yankees, Elmer went 4 and gave up 2 ER.)  Gil might end up in another city, as well.

3. Two weeks ago, they ditched Ryan McMahon for Amed Rosario at 3B. Now, McMahon has started to hit. (His fielding was never questioned.) But Rosario's bat will keep him in the mix. (Also, fun fact: He is one of Suzyn's faves; she devoted an inning to his smile and beloved place on the team, the love of a true mom.) 

4. They released Randal Grichuk. This, after Cashman went out of his way to sign Grichuk and send The Martian to Scranton.

5. They benched Paul Goldschmidt against lefties, so Rice can play everyday. Another tough call. Goldy's a legit candidate for the Hall. His presence yesterday tempered the possible loss of Rice (which the Yankees say will only be a day-to-day loss. Sadly, they lie.) 

They will soon deal with the return of Giancarlo Stanton, which could send Jasson Dominguez back to Scranton. This won't go over well. Meanwhile, at Triple A, Spencer Jones hit two HRs yesterday, his second multi-HR game in a week.

Would Brian Cashman demand that Stanton play a few rehab games in the minors? Probably not. Stanton is the Grand Old Man. Still, this may be the Yankees' hottest streak of 2026, and they still can't seem to shake Tampa. It's no time to play sentimental faves. 

After Baltimore tonight, with Cam Schlittler, they face Texas, with deGrom and Eovaldi lying in wait. This is hardball, people. And today, nobody knows it more than Volpe.

Incroyable!

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

I never really thought it was possible. The vague maybes of Boone didn't convince me. The shit stats from Double A (Double A!!) didn't convince me. The pretty terrific play of Cabbie didn't convince me.

Who woulda thunk it? Cashman is abandoning his butt buddy Volpe for at least another three weeks? We will be spared the pain of Little Tony batting in the low .200s and choking on key plays?

Volpe is staying in the minors. The Martian is starting to whomp the ball. Rice doesn't have a broken hand. Cody is hot as a pistol.

Maybe there is a God.