Or are they just stupid?

It cannot truthfully be said that your New York Yankees have been great innovators in the business of baseball.  

Yes, Jacob Ruppert was smart enough to build his own stadium in the up-and-coming borough of the Bronx, acquire the game's transformative superstar, and assiduously reinvest in his team.

But Ruppert did not invent the farm system.  That was Branch Rickey, with the Cardinals and Dodgers. Nor, like all New York owners, did he recognize how radio was going to provide revenue and advertising for his team. That was Larry MacPhail, when he was still running the Cincinnati Reds.

But in what often works out better in capitalism, Ruppert and his successors were generally fast imitators in their business. Seeing Rickey's success with the Cards, they built the second, extensive farm system, augmented by a vast scouting network. 

Seeing how radio worked for the Reds—and then the Dodgers, when MacPhail came to Brooklyn—they quickly built the second biggest broadcast network (and stole away the most popular broadcaster) in radio.

Mysteriously, no less than William Paley at CBS missed the potential "synergy" of having America's most successful television network broadcast the Yankees. But that may have been because those pesky liberals enforced monopoly laws then.

Following the example of Ted Turner with the Braves—eventually—George Steinbrenner created the YES Network, giving the Yanks another leg up on the competition, a-way back in the 1990s.

In other words, if the Yankees weren't always first to grasp the future, they were close enough to swing their big-market money behind new ideas and win the race anyway.

But now, it seems, Hal has lagged woefully behind on the future. Incredibly, he is helping to lead the charge to throw the sport back into labor turmoil...mainly because he has failed to understand how cable is dying and how watching sports in general is changing.

Take a look at this long passage from Bill Simmons' podcast. It took me a couple reads to fully understand it (I think), but I've highlighted some of the more relevant passages. All of which spell out how our resident nepo baby is letting the Dodgers eat his lunch, and that of every other team.

There is one reason and one reason alone why the Dodgers are signing all the top players. Read below for the details:

The Dodgers are the only team in MLB that is not impacted by cord cutting. Cord cutting is when someone drops the cable TV bundle, meaning they no longer pay a monthly fee of $80-$100+ to Comcast, DIrecTV, YouTube TV etc. That money then gets paid to the content owners. Regional sports networks can be anywhere from $3 to $10 of that monthly bill, which is why YouTube TV dropped them for being too expensive. The reason why cord cutting is so detrimental to regional sports networks is because their fees have to be extremely high in order for them to pay for escalating contracts signed years ago. This means 90%+ of channel revenue is from these fees called carriage fees, as compared to a more 50/50 split for non-regional sports channels. When cord cutting is around 10% annually, this means that these channels, even with price hikes, are seeing revenue decline every year, at the same time the fees to the teams for the rights to the games escalate. Lower revenue + higher costs = bankruptcy risk, which is exactly what happened with Diamond Sports (Bally's Sports owner). MLB teams usually have one of two regional sports network arrangements. Some simply sell their rights to the highest bidder on a long-term contract. Think of the NBA's recent deal, but on a smaller scale and with one partner. Other teams own some or all of their regional sports network, wherein the team ownership benefits from owning the network and making money. However, their incentive here is not aligned with the team, which wants to make the most money on their rights fees. To better align incentives, often the team owns a % of the network. This creates a balance between a high fee to the team for rights, but not too high where the station can't make any money. The big market teams, obviously, make the most money from these deals. They both have more fans and can charge a higher carriage fee to the video distributors. However, they are not immune to cord cutting issues. Take the New York Yankees. They own 26% of YES Network, the highest % out of several minority owners including investment firms and Amazon. These investment firms want the network to be profitable. YES Network, in 2013 - notably before cord cutting - signed a 30-year, $5.7 Billion deal to show Yankees games. While that is great for the Yankees, if that deal becomes unprofitable for the network, the 26% ownership could end up being worth nothing and in bankruptcy the team may be forced to accept lower payments. If cord cutting continues, regional sports networks bankruptcies could increase beyond the Bally's networks. The Dodgers have a unique regional sports network deal that has two advantages over every other team. First, the deal is the largest. It was signed in 2014 at the absolute peak of cable TV. The Dodgers are getting $8.35 Billion over 25 years, or $334 Million annually. That compares to the Yankees at $190 Million annually and most teams around $100 Million. We can also compare it to the Mets: They signed a 25-year, $1.3 Billion deal in 2006, which amounts to $54 Million annually. They do have the benefit of owning 65% of SNY, but that doesn't make up for the massive $ differential. The second advantage is the one most unique to LA and why they are able to outspend everyone. Their rights deal, because of the team and time it was up, was extremely competitive with many bidders. This resulted in not only the high-$ fee, but something entirely new in the business: Time Warner Cable, which won the deal, agreed to cover subscription fees from other video distributors even if those operators didn't carry the new network. They assumed they'd be able to get the other distributors on board, but most balked at the extremely high price the channel demanded to even break even on the high rights fee. Time Warner Cable was later sold to Charter Communications, the #2 cable company in the country with 30 million Internet subscribers. They generate over $50 Billion of revenue and $20 Billion of earnings annually, and long ago wrote off the annual losses they take from paying out the extremely high fees. So, through the end of the contract in 2038, cord cutting simply does not impact the Dodgers. They are guaranteed the highest annual rights fee, by far, from a network inside of a massive cable company that derives their earnings from selling internet, not owning cable TV channels. This monetary advantage is why the Dodgers are going to be able to offer the highest $ amount for any free agent they want. The good news for the rest of MLB is that this ultimately will come to an end, in 2038. The bad news? The Dodgers know this, and thus the best way to help ensure a prosperous reign for the franchise beyond 2038 is to spend now to win as much as possible and create a winning legacy, memorable players, and as many Dodgers fans as they can.

Yanks add another 1B? WTF? Am I still RUNK?

Damn. One measly bender, a bowel-cleansing four days, and I wake up in a "Magic Fingers" rehab bed between Rip Van Winkle and Mitch McConnell. 

Seriously. A hard, cold, seemingly endless RUNK. Nonstop 500-watt smirks from Redsock fans - who expect to whoosh past us well before Aug. 28, when they visit for four. Then, halfway into my wake-up crap, I learn that the Brain Trust - chasing a C, 3B and RP- has traded for, gulp, another 1B.

Another first baseman? How many do we need?

Nope, I told myself. Can't be right. I went to Luis Garcia Jr's Baseball Reference pig book page. Guy must play 3B, right? Or SS? Eh? Nope. This year, he's played 93 games at 1B, two as DH. Last year, he played 129 at 2B. He's never played 3B. Last game at SS came in 2022. So, 2B? Is Jazz gone? And, gulp, they're suggesting Garcia might play RF, with less experience than The Martian, all of which means that - gulp, gulp, gulp - Aaron Judge is not returning? 

Last I looked, with Rice and Goldy (plus Bellinger in the cooler, if the sky falls) 1B was our best position. Now, with Garcia, we have a four-man 1B rotation, a bigger Circle of Trust than in the bullpen.

We should change this blog to, IT IS HIGH, IT IS FAR, IT IS... WTF? 

The Dodgers have Skupal. The Redsocks have a rising tide of youth. We have the explosive diarrhea of overpaid veterans. We have a plane with three wings and one propeller. The Yankees have spent $300 million to paint themselves into a corner, and gaskets will surely blow between now and 6 p.m., when this trade deadline horror show mercifully closes. 

I believe I speak for the Yankiverse in saying, God help us.

Since January, when the franchise bestowed $22 million on Trent Grisham, the front office has touted its "stand pat" stability, as if finishing second was the goal. Now, with everything collapsing, Cooperstown Cashman looks like a tanker captain heading through the Strait of Hormuz, and our future looks colder than next winter's lockout (for which we will still be blamed.)

I was tempted to do a "Fun Facts" thingy on Luis Garcia Jr., who is 26 and having a breakout season, (as Grisham did last year.) Why bother? The Yankees aren't done messing up the sheets. Today, Cashman will remake this roster, this team, this farm system, this infundibulum, and only God knows what we will look like Tuesday against St. Louis. 

Boston keeps winning. The Dodgers keep adding. Giancarlo still can't open a bag of Chitos. Dear God, I shoulda stayed RUNK.

And Peralta to the Rays, Gaussman to the Cubs

Trading Genius

 We just traded four pitching prospects for a guy who may be a worse defender than Dominguez.

And, he plays the one position where we actually have depth ( first base)..

So now we can, each day, sit one of our three best hitters ( Rice, Goldschmidt, or the new guy ).

This is how you build a contender.

And we have him nest year as well. 

Surely he can become a catcher by then. 

My hat is off to Brian Cashman who never fails to face this team into the abyss. 

A (A) GAME THREAD EXCLUSIVE – WHAT EL DUQUE DRANK DURING HIS "RUNK BLOG"

 

Here we go again.

 

"Luck is the residue of design."—Branch Rickey, former Yankee, greatest general manager of all time.

"Once we get to the playoffs, as we know it is, as Cashman would say, a bit of a crapshoot." Hal Steinbrenner.

"To the best of my knowledge, and I've seen it written and heard it several times over the years, I've never said that." Brian Cashman.

Sigh.

And here we are, with Brian Cashman, Yankees general-manager-for-life, once again outmaneuvered and out-thought approaching the playoffs that he did or did not say were a crapshoot, "to the best of my knowledge."

A few observations:

—The Dodgers were able to pull off the Skubal trade because they prepared. Over the last few years, they have not only discovered a way to maneuver around the luxury tax, but also built a first-rate farm system that gave them the flexibility to trade three leading prospects for one of the best starters in baseball.

—Included amongst the players they sent to Detroit was a Double-A, "upside" outfielder with the wonderful name of Zyhir Hope. But...they apparently have three other, highly regarded minor-league outfielders ahead of him, so..."Hope became expendable."

—We don't have four, highly rated minor-league outfielders. We don't have a single, highly rated minor-league outfielder that I know of. We don't even have hope, which long ago left the building.

—Brian Cashman's inability to anticipate or plan for the very most obvious things in baseball is astonishing. 

—When the Boston Red Sox beat him out to sign Dice-K, Cashie inked another Japanese pitcher, claiming he was just as good. 

Dice-K helped pitch the Sox to the 2007 World Series title. Kei Igawa gave us one of the weirdest, saddest stories in baseball history.

—A few years later, the Red Sox beat out Cashman to sign Yoàn "Slowly I turn to you..." Moncada. He turned out to be a disappointment—crapshoot time!—but the Sox insisted on trying anyway for four years to make him their starting shortstop...

—I kid, I kid! After just 8 games in the majors, they traded Moncada to the Pale Hose for Chris Sale, who went on to pitch the Carmine Hose to another championship in 2013, and has had a near-Hall-of-Fame career in Boston and Atlanta.

—Yes, the Red Sox used a highly rated minor leaguer to acquire an outstanding pitcher who would take the team over the top. What a strategy! Who could conceive of such a thing???

—Prior to the 2018 season, hitting-and-pitching sensation Shohei Ohtani shocked Cashman by passing up the Yankees' offer and signing with a team in a big, cosmopolitan city 3,000 miles closer to his home. Cashman's response was...nothing.

—Once upon a time, the New York Yankees could have been counted on to be the team that went full throttle after Tarik Skubal. Now, as always, they operate within the tightly circumscribed limits of contention imposed by Hal Steinbrenner, and such a coup is not possible.

—The results show. Over the past 25 years—25 YEARS!—Hal & Pal's New York Yankees have won exactly 1 World Series. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers have won 3, and bid fair to become the first National League team ever to win three straight World Series. The Boston Red Sox have won 4 rings—and eliminated the Yankees three different times. The Houston Astros have won 2 championships—and eliminated our boys four times. 

Even the San Francisco Giants, run as a small-market team, have won 3 titles in these same 25 years.

The shame of it all is that the Yankees, in this "run-it-back" year actually seem to have assembled a pitching staff that might be capable of competing even with the Skubal Dodgers in a short series. But they won't, because Brian Cashman once again will find the price at the trade deadline too high for any player who would actually help the Yanks (what a surprise!).

And Hal will spend the off-season fighting to...contain the Dodgers and make sure that he is less able than ever to bring the Yankees' enormous monetary advantage to bear in any future seasons.

Damn, what bad luck!

Runk Blog ends. The Dodgers and Redsocks ate my lunch

 

Four days of intense drinking and watching the Yankees bungle away the season. 

Tarik Skubal is a Dodger. 

Anthony Volpe is a Yankee.

The Redsocks are now two behind in the loss column.

They will soon overtake us. 

There is no certainty that Aaron Judge will return. 

Without him, we're dead.

Today, Brian Cashman will try to trade our way back to the top. 

Be afraid.

SKUBAL GOES TO DODGERS FOR A HANDFUL OF PROSPECTS

Fucking unbelievable.

Ate One, Twenty Twenty Six - side affects may include Light Headedness, Nausea and Explosive Diarrhea

 

 

 

Runk blog continues: Did will Warren and Spencer Jones just punch their trade tickets?

 

Man, this is too much thinking for a four-day binge. But Will Warren and Spencer Jones, in leading the Yankees to vaunted victory over the Cubbies yesterday, just added to their trade value by having a big game. So... follow me here...

Warren, pitching shutout ball into the 7th, now looks like a cost-controlled starting pitcher for some team, any team, that is willing to cough up a decent catcher. 

Unless, he's pitching so well that Cooperstown Cashman will decide to keep him, because we can't have another trade deadline where he gives up a Jordan Montgomery, which is what happened in 2022, when the brain trust whiffed on practically everything. 

And Jones homered yesterday, his second in a couple days, and we might be on the verge of seeing what he does when he's hot, which might be the best time to trade him... 

Unless... our lack of hitting means we need a hot bat more than ever, so why in God's creaton would we trade him, and let's get back to finding a new home and a decent return for Anthony Volpe who - beware - will probably hit three HRs today. So there. My head hurts. I need a drink. One more day of this. 

AN AA IIHIIFIIC EDITORIAL GAME THREAD MESSAGE –

 

A good faith effort.

 

That's about all you can reasonably expect from a sports team, and that's not what we are getting from our New York Yankees these days.

It's not what we're getting from the team the Yankees put on the field. It's not what we're getting from their befuddled manager, or their general manager. It's not what we're getting from their absentee owner. 

But it's also not what we're getting from the people who run the sport—and by that I include not only the awful, nepo owners and their odious commissioner, but also the militantly unionized, militantly right-wing, increasingly unaccountable ballplayers.

So here are 19 or 20 observations on all that:

—Dropped pop-ups, egregious baserunning mistakes, and gobsmackingly terrible decision-making: we have seen all of these help the Yankees fritter away game after game once again this past week, and really all season long.

You've seen them all; no need to nauseate ourselves further. But more than anything, I think, they display an overwhelming inattention.

—I understand that teams slump. I understand that the season gets very long, particularly out in Chicago on a hot summer's day. 

"You have no idea what a grind it becomes," I remember Reggie Jackson saying to me—or words to that effect—in explaining how wearying the long season really is. 

And I remember thinking (though not saying!), 'There are people in this country who work 12 hour days, six days a week, all year round, in meatpacking plants and sweatshops.'

—I'm not somebody who likes to accuse ballplayers of not playing hard. 

For the most part, in sports such as football and basketball, which are now played by giants at a terrifying pace, I think it's impossible not to play hard without getting torn apart.  

In hockey, maybe the players aren't so big. But it's still fast, and they give them sharp sticks they can whack each other with.

In baseball...the game depends much more upon being alert, all the time. Anticipating. Making instant, on-field decisions. That's not what we're seeing.

—Traditionally, this was something a manager might take care of. Chewing out players, benching them. Fining them. Shipping them down to the minors.

I realize that all of those methods are gone now. Guys have no fear that they are going to end up in those self-same meatpacking plants or sweatshops, and that's a good thing.

—Still, what methods there are—looking at you, Phil Jackson—seem beyond the capability of Aaron Boone. His lack of basic baseball instincts as a field manager is depressing—though of course it is hard to know exactly what orders he is getting from The Man In the High Castle.

—But his field smarts—or lack there of—aside, Boone seems to be operating from an archaic idea of what it is to be a Yankees manager. 

He seems to think that he is the new Joe Torre, here to protect his players from both their insane owner and a rabid sporting press, and keep them focused on the game.

Well, Hal is no George, and the sporting press barely exists anymore, sad to say. And Boone's players sure as hell aren't focused on the game.

—Of course, Boone is not responsible for the roster he has been given, or the prevailing culture of the team. That's on our general-manager-for-life, Brian Cashman. 

—We are about to be hit with yet another influx of trade deadline, pennant-drive acquisitions, as if Cashman were a modern-day George Weiss. He's not—and what we will get is the usual slop of burned out relief pitchers, back-up outfielders, and infielders who either can't hit or can't move. 

Mark my words: the suppurating wound that is the catching position on this team will not even be addressed.

—Yes, the 2026 Yankees are beset by injuries. As they are every year now, and as many teams are. Cashman promised to thoroughly investigate this...after, I think, the 2018 season. 

Nothing was done, and why would it be? Why should Cashie deprive himself of his usual excuse for the team underperforming?

—It doesn't help that the ballplayers themselves do nothing to ensure that they can stay on the field. 

The other day, Cody Bellinger topped a season of awful hitting and inexplicably bad positioning in the field by pulling a hamstring just by sprinting out of the box. He is laid up for 4-6 weeks, at a time when his team needs him the most.

—Injuries of this severity, in this circumstance, never used to happen. Four-to-six weeks, from taking two steps from home?  

They occur all the time now, and the reason they do is that, quite obviously, the players have bought into the algorithms and analytics, as instructed, and decided to routinely overwork their bodies in the weight room. 

But hard as they might work on the weight, this too is not a good faith, baseball effort.

—Bellinger, you'll recall, took part in an extended holdout this year before he realized that the Yankees were only bidding against themselves, and grudgingly signed a contract that pays him $42.5 million a year.

Look, I don't like to make everything about money, either. And I admit that, were I to get $42.5 million a book, I might lose a bit of motivation, too. 

—But at a certain point, as Casey Stengel used to say, the attendance is robbed. You get that sort of money, for any performance, you need to take a certain amount of responsibility upon yourself to...well, show up and perform.

—It's true that fish rot from the head down, and in Hal Steinbrenner, you have one rotten fish. 

What makes watching this team so unbearable is how bad the game is in general. This is something that has been imposed upon it by the owners, in the name of efficiency, and accepted by the players, both without a thought as to what the viewing millions might think about it.

—Boring, insipid play at mind-boggling prices for tickets and TV? These problems with baseball today don't seem to occur to Hal and his fellow owners.  

—They are too busy shoving their players into clown suits, mostly to milk still more money from the gearheads. Even great, traditional uniforms such as the Yankees' are now besmirched with advertisements, and it won't be long before they resemble the regular unis of racing car drivers and soccer players.

And the players go along with all this, without a murmur. 

—Incessant, blaring advertisements—and permanent, player-maiming ads on the outfield walls—obscene prices for all concessions, countless thousands of seats lopped off stadiums for the space required to build luxury boxes and bars, game-time lotteries in the ballpark, monopolistic TV channels that nonetheless peddle games off to other streaming services for still more money...

But you've heard me say this before.

None of this is a good-faith effort in regard to the entertainment they are providing. 

And neither the suits nor the players seem to actually know or care what the average fan experience is, or what we might think of the game they are steadily diminishing.

—Players and owners alike have decided to play the game they want, with as much effort and attention as they deign to expend, and geared solely to the elite customers they most value.

And now, on top of this, Hal is about to throw in with his fellow owners in yet another labor battle, and thereby make it all the more impossible to actually use his huge money advantage to compete.

—The ugliness of the game on the field, where today no one can hit .300, or pitch a complete game, or hit to the opposite field, or think for a moment, reflects the ugliness of its soul—and the shame of so many of us who let them get away with it.

 

Point blank

He should've been fired at least seven years ago, but calling a run "a point" is worth a man's job.

[image or embed]

— Richard M. Nixon (@dicknixon.bsky.social) July 31, 2026 at 8:27 AM

Contrast with Boone Culture

Runk Blog continues: Can't nobody hit? Are we simply waiting for the trades?

 

Two in a row, extra innings, a walk-off walk, are you kidding me? WTF is wrong with this team. I'm dealing with Redsock fans - filthy minded, smirking, with their funny green Redsock hats and their Tom Brady shirts and their fake Boston accents and their explosive diarrhea of the mouth, yeah, who can get a word in edgewise, not me, that's for sure, and is Mitch McConnell taking calls? Because that's who the Yankee offense reminds me of. They should call themselves the Mitch Ditch, because they play like they're in one. 

I watched the last inning yesterday. Don't know why. Just had to see it for myself. There was Fernando Cruz, kissing his jewelry, raising his eyes to heaven and going 3-0 on batter after batter - the previous guy swung at ball four and would have ended the game earlier and more humanly, and so he walks in the winning run, another blown opportunity, and this is getting tedious. I need a drink. 

I honestly now believe the Yankees are going to blow this Wild Card chase and finish out of the postseason. Something is really screwy, really bad, about this team. It's got 2013 written all over it. 

July 30th, 2027 Game Thread ∞ It starts tonight, Former True Believers™ . . .

 

The Chicago Seven...continues.

 

So Cashman's left us bound and gagged

And he's chained us to a chair

Won't you please turn off Chicago

So I can save my mind?

For a team that's known for winning

How can such a thing be fair?

Won't you please turn off Chicago

Before it leaves us blind?

We can change this team

Rearrange this team

It's dying

To get better

(Can't get any worse...)

Aaron Boone sit yourself down

There's nothing for you here

Won't you please just leave Chicago?

No, we're not being snide

Don't ask Hal to help us

Cause he'll turn the other ear

Won't you please just leave Chicago or join the other side?

(We can change)

Yes, we can change the game

(Or at least the channel)

Rearrange the game

(It's dying)

And if you believe in baseball

(It's dying)

Play the game like you've got half a brain

(It's dying)

Analytics who needs them?

Throw 'em out the door!

Somehow the Yankees must be freed

I hope the day comes soon

Won't you please turn off Chicago?

I can't find the channel anyway

From the back of the bullpen

To the lumps sitting on the bench

Won't you please just leave Chicago?

And rejoin the human race.

We can't find the game

(Believe me, you don't want to)

We can't stand the game

(When we do find it)

If you believe in greatness

(It's dying)

If you believe in more than money

(Not Hal or Pal)

Analytics, who needs 'em?

Throw 'em out the door.

With apologies to Graham Nash.

Runk blog underway. Did I dream that Michael Kay puts Brylcream in his tea?

Siri, write this down. Two nights ago, had a fever dream about Michael Kay and Joe Girardi, explaining how to stir tea. Kay takes off his glasses and sticks an arm into the cup and swirls the tea. Girardi thinks that's crazy, but Bryant Gumbel - I swear I'm not making this up - texts Kay and says he's been stirring drinks with his glasses for 20 years, so if it's good for Bryant Gumball, I mean, it's good for everybody, right, Siri. Siri? Siri?

(Do you want to keep going?)

Yeah, no, actually no. Siri, keep this going. There's nothing worse than a bullpen loss. We had the game, and we lost it. Terrible. I got nothing more to say.

(Send it to the blog?)

Send. 

Happy Happy JOY JOY JOY (SCHLiTT is on the Mound !)

 

Annual dRUNK blog begins today. For next four days, expect no cogency.

 

Every year, I gather with old college buddies for four days of nonstop drinking bullshit sharp social dialogue. Imagine the Burning Man festival merged with a Juggalo convention, which subsists on Labatt's Blue and Utz Honey Barbecue chips. It's not exactly the Chautauqua Institute, unless it hosted a weeklong salute to the Three Stooges, on mescaline and bad laxatives. 

Did I mention that we're all in our 70s?

The event includes a few straggling Redsock fans, to whom I shall gently pose the following questions.

1. WTF happened to the great and almighty Marcelo Mayer? I thought he was supposed to be the next Jeter? Your Jeter. Like Jeter Downs was? Hey, remember Jeter Downs?  

2. Is superman Roman Anthony still a thing? Didn't he bad cleanup for Team USA in the World Baseball Cup? Is it true that he's hitting .229? Wow. That's territory occupied by The Martian.  

3. So, lemme get this straight: Aroldis is gonna close all season. He's never gonna blow? Ever? He's just gonna keep throwing 104 mph strikes, with flash flood warning sweat glands, and everything's gonna be okay? Lemme get this on tape. Aroldis is gonna save the season? Uh-huh. 

4. Where is Jeter Downs, anyway? Drinking with Alex Verdugo? I wonder if they're talking about Mookie Betts?

5. Hey, you DO realize that neither the Yankees nor Boston are gonna win it all, right? We'll play 162 games, then three weeks of postseason, and the Dodgers will walk away with it, as they were always gonna, right?

6. Yeah, I hear you... Giancarlo, Giancarlo, Giancarlo... I yell "Jeter Downs," and you yell "Giancarlo." Do we sound like idiots?

7. Oh yeah? JETER DOWNS, pally. JETER DOWNS.

Okay, folks, I'm off the clock and chasing danger.

HE'$ COMING! BETTER LOOK OUT! 'CAU$E HERE COME$ MR CA$HMAN ! (07•28•26)

 

 

 

 

Last night, the Yankees witnessed what life could be like with a catcher who hits

Across this infinite and eternal universe - an endless expanse of time and space -surely there exists a carbon copy of our world, but for one micro-tweak: 

In this alt-Earth, the Yankees didn't trade away a generation of young catchers so they could hitch their future to Austin Wells. 

In this crazy world - a reality that strains our imagination - the Yankees actually get production from their 9-hole catcher. 

What a concept? Quality at-bats! Late-inning homers! RBIs! From the bottom of the order? Pinch me!

Last night, we visited this enchanted world. It evoked memories of Yogi, Ellie, Thurman, Jorge - even Gary Sanchez, the former future hall-of-famer. For one pristine night in this looming mildew of a season, one fated to end in early October... for one night, our catcher delivered, as they say at the CDC, "explosively."

Strange, isn't it, how the August trade deadline always seems to rouse a burst of hope from those we expect to bid adieu?

Last night, Ali Sanchez - a 29-year-old former Redsock, Marlin, Met, Cardinal and Blue Jay - crushed his first MLB home run, a three-run shot that basically won the game. By this time next week, Sanchez will probably be back in Scranton, replaced by a RH-hitting catcher in some trade that requires us to vastly overpay with young prospects. 

(Also, Anthony Volpe - another endangered Yankee species - continued his unlikely hitting spree. He's at .308 over last seven days, raising his season's average to a serviceable .250. He's out the door, right? George Lombard Jr. is coming, right? Besides, Volpe's botched pop fly in the 9th reminds us of his downsides, right?) 

One thing about the '26 Yankees, mired on this rather hopeless planet:

They play just well enough to win, and just bad enough to lose. 

Boston recently won 15 in a row. These Yankees won't do that. If they win seven in a row, they'll lose the next seven. They hold second place in the AL East like a fat person on a bus. They're hard to get around. But once they fall into a seat, there's no getting up. 

Ahh, a hitting catcher... what a concept. For one night, we got to see it...

07•27•26 – THIS JUST IN . . . ALERT THE PRESS AND INFORM ALL MEDIA OUTLETS

Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran into the Hall? And Bob Costas becomes a voice of reason? Yank fans must wonder W.T.F?

The last 15 games show Bellinger's loss

Maybe for Meat Loaf - (R.I.P.) - two out of three aint bad. But the Yankees last night had phumbling Philly encased in carbonite and ready to be dropped into Lake Michigan, then couldn't finish the job. 

That's our '26 team: Two baby steps forward, one giant hamstring-pull backwards. 

Next up, seven days in Chicago - the Sox and Cubs - with the trade deadline about to hit. We cannot fathom how they'll fare over the next few days, but this we do know: 

They will leave Chicago as a different team. And not necessarily a better one. 

For starters, George Lombard Jr. will probably be our SS. Last night, Anthony Volpe continued his assault on Jeter's tradition, hitting two doubles and then botching a throw to first, which opened the flood gates. At 3B, the comedy team of Rosario and McMahon will likely be replaced by Jose "Eight Seconds Over Tokyo" Caballero. We'll have a new catcher - somebody, from somewhere. And our farm system will be cleared out to a degree that - dear God, why am I thinking of the phrase "explosive diarrhea?"  

Which brings us to The Hall. Last night, on the NBC broadcast, Bob Costa made a grand pitch for Don Mattingly to get the call. Good for him. I believe Costa, in old age, is trying to compensate for the anti-George sentiments he often expressed as a young turk. Like many top baseball announcers, most notably Joe Gariogiola and Red Barber, Costas often criticized Steinbrenner for spending too much and ruining the game for cheap owners. In recent years, he has warmed to the family and the franchise. I think he came to realize how Yank fans suffer, while the baseball world views us as pampered fat cats. (I'd like to see a Royals fan deal with Giancarlo Stanton's injuries. You think they would whine?) 

Costa's plea for Mattingly was on the mark. The sad part, though, is that he had to be the one making it. Why aren't NYC writers screaming about Mattingly's absence? It's ridiculous - embarrassing - that Donnie Baseball is not in the Hall. Where is the thunder? Where are the death threats?  

Meanwhile, this weekend, two huge Yankee disappointments got in. Seriously, we missed the greatness of Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran. 

First off, Jones? For starters, there's the spelling. Was that a joke? Secondly, he came to the Yankees at 34, when some players still show a spark. He hit .220 with tiny tot power (27 HRs over two seasons.) His glove was a satire of what it had been. After year one, he moved in the A-Rod and vowed to rededicate himself to the game. Then he sucked again.

Here's a stunner: Jones' career batting average is .254. Two fifty fukkin' four. Bernie Williams (career average .297, plus a handful of rings) gets routinely passed over, and yet everybody is supposed to think the voters favor the Yankees? Are you kidding me? And it wasn't just the Yankees. Jones sucked for the Dodgers. (.158) He sucked for Texas (.215.) He sucked for the White Sox. (.230). Honestly, when they announced that Andruw Jones was going into the Hall, I thought it was a prank. 

Then there is Beltran. He came to us in 2014, Hal's last power play, when we signed three big free agents. (Brian McCann and Jacob Ellsbury were the others.) It backfired. Beltran, 37, batted .230 with 15 HRs. This effectively ended the Yankee owner's attempts to buy a pennant, or a wild card, or - frankly - anything. Beltran played three seasons with the Yankees - 56 HRs and a .270 average. I'll grant him some good years with Houston, KC and the Mets. But with the Yankees? His best season came in the broadcast booth.

As for Jeff Kent, the third Hall of Fame star this weekend? We never signed him. But don't be surprised if his son, Kaeden - the Yankees' third round pick two summers ago, and one of the jewels of their system - goes off in a trade. To get talent, you have to give it up. 

Damn. Seven days in Chicago. The winds are gonna blow.