When The Singularity arrives, and humanity is eradicated, the automatons might view Saturday's Yankee game as the fulcrum point of history.

Saturday, on national TV, veteran home plate ump Chad Whitson did humanity no favors.

And the game of baseball changed, forever.

In last night's 3-1 Yankee win over San Francisco, seven Automatic Ball and Strike challenges reversed calls by umpire Whitson. One, in the 3rd, turned a called-third strike on Trent Grisham into ball three, leading to a walk and a run. Another, in the 9th, nearly led to a Giants rally. Whitson started the game as its Supreme and Undisputed Boss. He finished looking like a castrated flyspeck, a vestigial organ perched ornamentally behind the catcher.

Never again will home plate bullies - the mistake-prone Richie Garcia or the arrogant "Cowboy" Joe West - decide the outcome of ball games. 

From now on, the faceless, lifeless eyeball of A.I. - the HAL 9000 of sports: ("I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that") - will overturn calls that were accepted for more than a century.  

From now on, a K is not a K, until the ABS challenge is complete. 

And damn... here's the rub: 

I dunno if we should celebrate this... or fight it with all we got.

Soon, every stat, every outcome, every disputed play that was to eventually become a vagary of the game... they'll be gone. Someone will hit .400. Or a pitcher will throw back-to-back perfect games. Everything we once took for granted will be subject to review. Baseball history is no more.

This week, the Yankees swept SF. But the real winner was The Machine. For now, teams are allowed only two wrongful challenges per game. That rule will not hold. After all, why should a bad call in the ninth - or any time - be allowed? 

Every fan remembers at least one at-bat - a called third strike in the dirt, or a bases loaded walk, right down the middle - so botched by the home ump that we screamed at the TV and kicked the puppy, and - frankly, we will take the outrage to our graves. Never again, right? Well, we'll soon get our wish. 

But I wonder: Did baseball just kick humanity in the balls?

No Kings Day – San Francisco – 03/28/26 – ABOVE AVERAGE IS IN DA'GIANT HOUSE

WHAT WILL WARREN DO TODAY IN THE CITY BY THE BAY ?

 

"The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on."

 

Among the many things that Stephen A. Smith knows nothing about is, obviously, baseball.

Smith's random jeer at Aaron Judge the other day—after the Yankees won their opener, 7-0—referred to Judge as a "Goliath of a man," as if Judge's physical size should give him some invincible advantage in the game.

Yet there's a good reason why nobody remotely Judge's size has ever played major-league baseball at this level before, and it is that being very tall and very large confuses home-plate umpires and affords crafty pitchers all sorts of weak spots to hit if they can.

Someone who actually knows something about the game would understand this. But of course, Stephen A. Smith knows nothing about baseball.

Smith also tells us that in, "Too many moments," Judge "comes up considerably and conspicuously small"—clearly implying that the Yankees' Opening Day contest against a mediocre team not in their division or their league is a big moment.  

Anybody who really knows anything about the game of baseball knows that this "moment" was only considerable or conspicuous because a big corporate media sponsor decided to "buy" Opening Day and festoon it with all sorts of ads for its other, decidedly mediocre products.

But then, Stephen A. Smith knows nothing about baseball.

"Everybody around him came up big but him," Smith told us—as if we really needed Judge to, say, whack a finishing, three-run homer that would have turned a 7-0 game into a 10-0 game.

Anybody who really knows anything about baseball knows that it's great if the whole team is hitting, and that if the big kahuna doesn't get a poke that day, probably all the better, because it's all the more likely to come in a game where you really need it. 

As it did for Aaron Judge, in the very next game of the season.

But then, how was Stephen A. Smith supposed to know that? Stephen A. Smith, after all, knows nothing about baseball.  

The Contrarian feels that we really shouldn't hold this against Stephen A. Smith because Stephen A. Smith is not really supposed to know anything about sports. Because even though Stephen A. Smith appears constantly on channels and in shows, and on all sorts of other forums that claim to give us first-rate sports analysis, he is really just an "entertainer"—much like a rodeo clown, or a burlesque house tumler, or maybe the current president of the United States of America, which is a position that Stephen A. Smith apparently now aspires to.

Okay. But true wit proceeds from knowledge. 

Even the most foul-mouthed, obscene and transgressive of entertainers—say, Robert Smigel's Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog—manage to strike a deeper vein, if they are any good.  

Last week, on Stephen Colbert's show—canceled, in an unprecedented move, by the proto-Stephen A. Smith who currently resides in the White House he has so foully vandalized—Triumph went through his usual, filthy tirade...and ended by saying how Colbert was being canceled "for financial reasons only."

Smigel was willing and able to mock the powers that be throttling what used be the "Tiffany Network" of television, by dismissing their excuse for blatant, craven censorship. 

It was speaking truth to power—as opposed to what Stephen A. Smith prefers to do, which is to spew insults from a place of ignorance. 

Judging by what the American people now seem to prefer in a leader, Mr. Smith should be a lock in 2028.

 

 

Undefeated, untied and unscored-upon! Yanks could celebrate an Easter of Tomato Cans

Let's face it: Over the first two games, it wasn't certain if we were playing the San Francisco Giants, the team of Willie Mays, or the Jersey Giants, of Brian Daboll. Two remarkably stress-free victories over a team that played a 3B at 1B, and a DH at 2B. It just didn't seem real. Maybe, it wasn't.

Next up - after SF tonight - three in Seattle. Do they still have Jay Buhner?

Then three at home against lowly Miami. 

Then three at home against the homeless A's. 

Three against Tampa at George M Field.

Four against the Angels, LA's ugly sister.

Three against KC. 

The first four weeks resemble a march of animated tomato cans. It will be April 21 before the Death Barge faces a truly hateful foe - Boston, Houston and Texas will be lined up - and there is no reason why the Yankees should not be leading the AL East.

You almost don't want to say anything, or write anything, for fear of upsetting the bingo board. The Yankees can be their own cupcakes. But but BUT... 

1. If Max Fried and Cam Schlittler are for real, the chances of holding the pitching staff together until Rodon/Cole return suddenly look much better.

2. Hot or cold, Judge and Giancarlo still scare the hell out of opposing pitchers. 

3. In Scranton, the Martian went 1-5 (one K), and Spencer Jones 1-4 (Two K's.) Oswaldo played SS and went 1-5 (two K's.) And the pitching staff threw yet another shutout. 

Monday, Will Warren starts game three. It's one of those horrible West Coast starts, at 9:05 p.m., where everything seems out of kilter. Warren had a great spring, was the Yankees best starter. No jinxing here. Let's see what happens.

The Yankees are undefeated - just like Boston, Baltimore and Toronto. No tomatoes to be had.

Boone wants to give the platoon guys a chance to play

 

The media narrative on Aaron Judge is loathsome and tired.

Yesterday, midway barker Stephen A. Smith did what he is paid to do - create flames from broken wind - and the mere fact that you are reading this proves that he succeeded.

On that note, I apologize. 

The Yankees just enjoyed the most pleasurable 24-hour stretch in memory, beating up on the hapless, itinerant San Francisco Giants in a laugher victory that started Wednesday night in the second inning. Thanks to opening day schedules, we've had a full day to gloat, to imagine Cy Young awards and breakout seasons, and to bestride the planet like the colossi of truth and wisdom that Yank fans are known to be. 

It's all downhill from here. 

That said, let's enjoy this. The Yankees clobbered SF, even if Netflix was more self-absorbed with celebrities eating hotdogs than with the actual game. (I'm still wondering: No Sydney Sweeney?) And yesterday, that one game was being used to validate an entire winter of standing still, a front office strategy that remains only partially cooked. 

But, of course, that's only a fragment of the Yankee narrative. The larger, easier and more slow-moving plot line involves Aaron Judge. By now, even those self-isolating natives on that North Sentinel Island, off in the Pacific, the ones who kill Christian missionaries on contact - even they know that Judge, in the opener, went 0-5 with four strikeouts. 

It's a development that had to be reheated on every cultural burner because, well, Judge is Judge and the Yankees used to be the Yankees.

So, Stephen A. Smith - who is running for president, they say - went on a 90-second bender about Judge failing in big moments. This is the world according to anecdote - to the reality of podcasts. We all remember when Judge swings and misses. When he uncorks that massive lunge, when he swings through fastball, he is the Babe, he is Mickey, he is Roger, he is Reggie and he is A-Rod, because you don't get to fully appreciate the greatness of a player unless you also tag along when he fails. 

Two weeks from now, when Judge leads the league in every slugging category known to mathematics, Stephen A. Smith - who is running for president, they say - won't issue a retraction. And nobody will care. He'll be onto something else, creating flames from broken wind. 

For posterity: The predictions are in, and most of you foresee Yankee Doomsday

Here they are, everybody: Your predictions for 2026. Clip and save.

                              Reg Season Wins     Ben Rice HRs   Gerrit Cole W’s

Stang                                104                           49                     19
Oliver Tiberius              100                          34                      13
Mildred Lopez                  94                         33                      13
Vampfella                           94                         26                      14
Rufus T. Firefly                 94                         32                      12
DickAllen                            94                         29                      13
Carl Weitz                           93                          28                      11
Doug K                                 93                          23                       8
RtotheE                                93                         30                      10
Jaraxle                                  93                          36                     14
Kevin                                    93                          35                      14
Above Average                  92                          30                     12
Gary Frenay                       92                          37                     12
Hinkey Haines                  92                          29                    10
Publius                                92                           26                     8
Bern Baby Bern                91                           29                   13
Pgpick                                 90                           27                   10
Doctor T                             90                           26                     9
JM                                         89                           32                    15
Copelius                             88                           27                    13
el Duque                             86                           36                     9
Scottish Yank Fan          85                            19                      7
HoraceClarke66              83                            31                      4
BTR999                              83                           25                      9
Hammer of God              83                           27                      8
Der Kaiser                         82                           18                       7
13 Bit                                   79                           23                       7

So, it's official: The World Baseball Classic totally messed up Aaron Judge, and Netflix doesn't know how to interview anybody

 

You could foresee it, when they named him Captain of Team America. 

Captain? Here, you had a veteran lineup, full of stars, and the last thing it needed was somebody acting like King Tut. He didn't ask for it. They just anointed him.

(Maybe they should have named Tarik Skubal "Admiral." Maybe he would have pitched one more game?)

Early on, they asked for a speech. He hemmed and hawed. They were like wedding ushers, banging spoons against the snifters. They demanded a speech, which he botched. 

Their reaction: More hype. Heavier praise, grander accolades, more crapola. Now, he wasn't just the best player on the Yankees, or the best hitter on Team America, or the best slugger slugger in baseball. He was the best ever, the greatest of all time, and we should open the Hall now, rather than wait. 

Then came his final game in the WBC: 0 for 4 with three Ks and enough stranded runners to win the tournament.

And then came last night's new incarnation: A return to California as the prodigal son, and poster boy for a Netflix cultural power grab. 

And here's what America saw: 

Bad Aaron. 

Yep. We saw Judge, lunging at balls in the dirt, watching strikes right down the middle, unable to check faulty swings, then trudging back to the dugout, bat in hand, turning once to acknowledge his hopelessness. 

The Judge we've seen, off and on, throughout his career. 

The dirty little secret about baseball's greatest player: He goes through stretches where he couldn't hit your Aunt Gladys's fastball with a tennis racket. It's a lucky game when the Yankees can absorb a Judgean 0-for-5, and still win. And really, let's be thankful that, last night, he didn't waste a 9th inning HR to make the score 8-0. Those are the events that drive Yank fans crazy. 

Judge will come around. But clearly, the World Baseball Classic - and the overbearing hype of playing opening day in his geographical back yard - has messed him up. 

As for Netflix, what did you expect? Everything was hype. Everything. 

At one point, around the 5th, they wheeled in Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Hell, to be interviewed by CC Sabathia and Hunter Pence, swooning like OAN interns at a Melania photo-op. They were literally giggling with anticipation, claiming to have stayed up the previous night - I'm not making this up, they had been like first-night college freshmen, going over the pig book - thinking of great questions to ask. Then Manfred sat down, and the interrogation began:

Do you remember your first Opening Day?

My God. They didn't ask about rule changes, which now happen every season. They didn't ask about the impending lockout next winter, which threatens the future of baseball. They didn't ask about expansion, or salary caps, or A.I. umpires, or elbow surgeries, doctored bats, lost statistical frameworks - whatever you wanted to hear about - they didn't ask it, and their reaction to whatever Manfred blathered was to act the San Diego Chicken oogling a cheerleader. 

Insert sigh here.

Well, here's what we can say about last night.

1. We won.

2. Judge got it out of his system.

3. It's over. 

First place in the AL East, baby. Check it out!

Game Thread – San Francisco, CA – Opening Day – Caption Away

 "I'm so sorry Aaron but they just won't trade you here."

Goodbye Cruel World, It's Opening Day

The gods place bets with loaded dice
And all our earthly dreams betray,
But listen to one clown's advice,
Goodbye, cruel world; it’s opening day.

The politicians scrounge for power,
With consequences we shall pay.
But somewhere, it's our finest hour,
Goodbye, cruel world; it's opening day.

Our weary age is full of war,
The daily news brings dark dismay,
So surf the dreams worth living for,
Goodbye, cruel world; it’s opening day.

-- el duque, 2008 --

Project 2026: It's time for 10 cold-hearted predictions

Get down everybody! Hear those sirens, off in the distance? See those flashing lights? They're not drones. They're not missiles. They're gopher balls. They're signs of what's coming... 

The restart of the clock. 

The reboot of time.

The impending new reality.

Get away from the windows.

Ten Predictions of What's Ahead...

1. The Yankees - aka Our Antiques Road Show - will win 86 regular season games, enough to secure the final wild card slot. This will result from a second-half infusion of Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt, along with one rising young starter. (I'll get to that later.) 

2. Ben Rice will break out, make the AL all-star roster, and play an honest 1B. He will hit 36 HRs and bat .280. His opportunities will come after Paul Goldschmidt tweaks a gonad, forcing the Yankees to trust in youth. 

3. Cole will win 9 games. Due to occasional poundings, his ERA will hover around 4.00, but when he's on, he will show dominating command. 

4. Aaron Judge will suffer, as the cops say, multiple contusions and lacerations. He'll play about 100 games. Without him, the Yankees will play below .500. He will still hit 40 HRs and lead the team in offense. (Giancarlo, of course, will be injured 3/4 of the season. That's no prediction. It's just fact.)

5. When Judge goes down, Spencer Jones will be promoted from Scranton. He will take over in CF, with Trent Grisham moving to right. Jones will hit 21 HRs in about 50 games, becoming the new version of Joey Gallo/Shane Spencer/Kevin Maas. Yank fans will adore him, until he goes 0-15 in the postseason.

6. The Martian, aka Jasson Dominguez, will start slowly in Scranton and then fall into a deeper funk when the Yankees bypass him to promote Jones. He will be traded at the deadline for bullpen slop, probably to a team in the NL West, as far away as possible. There, he will cobble together a decent career, though he'll never the next Mickey Mantle, as he was so horribly touted. Someday, long after he is a memory - (as we shall be, too) - the Martian will be remembered for his  nickname and his fate: Just another a good-looking prospect who was eaten alive by the Yankee pressure cookier. 

7. The Yankees will finish third in the AL East, behind Boston and Baltimore, both of whom made a commitment to youth, which finally paid off. 

8. The Yankees will unveil a hopeful threesome of pitching prosects: Cam Schlittler, Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos Lagrange - the greatest potential trio since Ian Kennedy, Phil Phranchise and Joba. One will suffer elbow issues, one will disappoint, and one will excel. If you're lucky, you get one out of three. If. You're. Lucky. 

9. Jose Caballero will play a dutiful SS until mid-June, when he is replaced by Anthony Volpe. The new Volpe - featuring a new bat and rejiggered stance - will hit for two weeks, then fall into the floundering pit where he always ends up. By September, the SS will be Ryan McMahon. (Of, if we're lucky, George Lombard Jr.)

10. The Dodgers, of course, will win it all. They'll outlast the Mets in the NLCS, the de facto world series. Why would anybody think differently?

Play ball. (And get your predictions in.) 

WE'RE NUMBER THREE! WE'RE NUMBER THREE! WE'RE NUMBER...oh fuck it

 If, if, if...every team, every year, could be great. If. If everyone hits, if all the pitchers are lights out, if baserunners and fielders don't make a lot of mistakes and dunderheaded plays, if the manager had a brain.

He could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain. And his head he'd be scratchin' while his thoughts were busy hatchin', if he only had a brain.

And you know, he makes out the lineups himself, so we know who to blame for not having a brain.

If I was 20 years old and had a 100 mph fastball and 98 mph slider and could hit .450, I'd be playing big-league ball.

If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming you, you'll be a man, my son. Or something.

Don't ask me, ask Kipling. As Slim Pickens said, I'm working for Mel Brooks.

Yankees' latest gift to ungrateful fans: Opening Night on Netflix

Apparently, the QVC Home Shopping Network was taken. 

So, here it is, the latest spit-in-your-face show of disrespect by MLB - and, by proxy, the Yankees - to an ancient fan base that long ago forgot passwords and user-names. Don't go searching for tomorrow night's season opener on the usual channels, because the Lords of the Game found a new, squeezable money source, and - Fun Fact: It's you! 

 Remember that 30-page scrolling contract last month, where you clicked "AGREE" in order to watch Andy of Mayberry? Well, the lawyers remember, and you're either signed up, with money being siphoned off your Medicare account, or you'll watch the action on ESPN Game Cast. And good luck. 

The Yankees 2026 opening night lands on Netflix, as the first reality mini-series to strand 26 millionaires in a haunted clubhouse, and let human nature have its way. 

It's gonna be a long year.

On that note, if you haven't registered your 2026 predictions, you have until gametime Wednesday to make known your nightmares. I'll ejaculate mine tomorrow, after keyboarding the final factoids into the psychotronic, IT IS HIGH artificial intelligence mind meld with the brain of Brian Cashman, (who, fun fact, posts on this website under the name Alphonso.)

Before I unleash the hounds of my desperation Hell, here are the main questions of 2026, as I see them: 

1. How nervous should we be about Boston? (The Redsocks are all-in on 2nd-year-man Roman Anthony, while we just sent our vaunted 2nd-year-man, Jasson Dominquez, to Scranton. Are we flat-out doomed?)

2. Can Yank pitchers hold the line until Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt return?

3. Can they survive after Cole, Rodon and Schmidt return?

4. What happens when Aaron Judge gets hurt? Guy turns 34 in April. He's gonna miss time.

5. Randal Grichuk? What the Gri-fuk? 

6. Was Trent Grisham's 2025 a complete anomaly? And how did the Yankees allow his 2026 qualifying offer dictate their entire course of action?

7. Who pitches the 7th and 8th innings? (And, please, stop saying "Camilo Doval., you pussy)!" It's downright rude.

8. What happens when Anthony Volpe returns?

9. Will we ever - ever? - see Spencer Jones?

10. How much did the AL East improve?

Predictions, people. This is no site for cowards. 

Fresh from Above Average's in–box, courtesy of your NEW YORK YANKEES !

 I BET that most Yankees Fans CAN'T wait

to get in on THIS action !

Three Reasons Why This Is The First Season In Sixty Years That I Just Don’t Care About Opening Day...

And Three Reasons Why I Will Probably Watch Anyway.

1) The Game Is Exclusive To Netflix 

Opening Day is a national holiday for baseball fans. It shouldn’t be walled off and shoved on a streaming channel in the hopes that fans are desperate enough to sign up for it. 

Contractual obligations prevent the Yankees from showing their own opening day on their own network.  Consequently, most of my friends will be forced to skip it even though they pay for YES. 

Instead, Yankee fans who can access the game will have to put up with an overblown, over-hyped, second tier announcing team from Netflix instead of Michael Kay and...  Uh.. forget I wrote that. 

BTW the third game of the season is on FOX. Oh joy, we get to start our season with confirmed Yankee hater John Smoltz. 

So, to recap, even if you pay for the “privilege” of  watching the Yankees, you still can’t watch either of the first two games on the network you pay for.  

That’s bullshit.

It’s also short sighted. Taking away access to important games doesn’t get us to spend more. It gets us used to the idea that not watching baseball isn’t the end of the world.

As an aside... 

YES is now part of Gotham Sports a streaming channel that offers all the NY area teams (except the Mets) for an inflated price because you get all the NY teams (except the Mets).

One problem. If you like the Knicks you probably don’t give a crap about the Nets. Not to mention that quite often they are on at the same time so getting Nets games is virtually useless.

Same thing with the Rangers, Islanders, Devils.  Whichever team you are a fan of you are paying extra for teams you would never watch.

And don’t get me started on Bronx Buds.

2) The Yankees Claim To Be Running It Back 

Running it back means nothing new to root for. No new free agents of note. They demoted the young guys and aren't bringing anyone up. 

They were boring last year. They will be boring this year. 

Right now the biggest thing to look forward to is Cole and Rodon returning and hoping they are some form of effective. 

Plus, the team is actually worse. 

Replacing Jasson Dominguez because he can't hit lefties with a guy who can’t hit at all is short sighted. 

Maybe it's because he's short. I suspect that’s why they got rid of future big-time thorn in our side, Caleb Durbin.

No matter how many times we collectively say that Hal and Pal suck it doesn’t make it any easier to take.

3)  The Team Makes Me Sad

El Duque mentioned earlier that the Yankees have demoted pretty much everyone who smiles, well except Jazz, and he's a matter of taste.  

Judge, undeservedly so, is becoming a tragic figure based on a narrative that isn’t really true. It just seems true and now, no matter how well he plays during the year, and he should be great again, best player we’ve ever seen, it’s going to be six months until he get’s a chance to undo it.

Every time Goldschmidt or Stanton are in the line up we are just waiting for the inevitable injury.

And then there's the sinking feeling that no matter how well Caballero plays he will be replaced by Volpe as soon as they can bring him back.   

Meh.

---

I will probably watch anyway...  

It's Opening Day. 

If there's a will there's a way.

Tradition dies hard. 

---

But I won't enjoy it. Unless they win. I like when they win. 

Who's on first? Who's on second? Who's on third? Who's running this show, Abbott or Costello?

Lately, you hear a lotta buzz about that all-star Yankee OF - Cody, Grish, the Captain and - gulp, um - Randal "You're a mean one, Mr." Grichuk! 

Overcrowded, right? Until it's not. 

But maybe we should start pondering the unponderable - the 2026 Yankee infield, home to some of the most volatile question marks in recent years. You'd think Abbott & Costello were managing this team.

Who's on first? Well, Ben Rice, obviously. On most teams, he'd be the fulltime 1B, ready for a breakout season - 30 to 40 HRs. But but BUT the Yankees recently signed Paul Goldschmidt, creating a platoon situation, which will sharply limit Rice's at-bats. Now, he'll play, say, every other game, and maybe be replaced by pinch hitters in late innings. 

Goldy is a future Hall of Famer and a jolly good fellow - solid handshake, always flushes the toilet, remembers your mom's birthday - but he's in the twilight of his career. This looks to be Rice's defining season. Are the Yankees really going to platoon him? Shades of Ron Bloomberg. 

Who's on second? Well, Jazz Chisholm, obviously. Guy hit 31 HRs last year, stole 31 bases, even though he hit only .242. You'd think we're set. But  but BUT... Chisholm spent the winter ruminating about a long-term contract, which the Yankees did not offer. I wonder if that discussion is over. 

If Jazz starts off hot - a problem we'd love - he's gonna start talking about his future. And if he begins cold - and as Athony Volpe and Oswaldo Cabrera get closer - Chisholm's contract could become another distraction. I'm not saying the Yankees should give him a deal, just that it could be a silent storm inside every discussion.   

Who's on shortstop? Well, Jose Caballero, obviously! For now, anyway. The Yankees - inexplicably - still seem to believe in Volpe, who could be back around June. Then there's George Lombard Jr, down in Scranton, looking to escape. 

Caballero should do fine, for a while. But can he hold up over a regular season? We'll soon know.

Who's on third? Well, Ryan McMahon, obviously! As far as defense goes, no problem! This guy is the real deal. But McMahon struck out 189 times last year - 7th in all of baseball - (and most of those who fanned more - Schwarber, Devers, Suarez, etc - are far bigger sluggers.) 

The Yankee line has been that McMahon is using a new stance, aimed at putting balls into play. Well, this spring, he's fanned 14 times in 45 ABs. 

Look, everything will be fine, right? Maybe it will all work out...

AND DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR YEAR-END PREDICTIONS: 

NUMBER OF YANKEE REGULAR SEASON WINS>
NUMBER OF BEN RICE HRS.
NUMBER OF WINS BY GERRIT COLE.  

Same as it ever was?

 

Something that El Duque wrote in his excellent post about the Yanks' sending down The Martian reminded me that your New York Yankees did exactly that with Mickey Mantle during his rookie season of 1951.

On July 13th, almost precisely halfway through the season, they sent The Mick down to their Triple-A, Kansas City Blues farm team. Here he is, seen with manager George "Twinkletoes" Selkirk, an outfield star with the Bombers in the 1930s and '40s.

Today, of course, it would be illegal for players under the age of 21 to be managed by anyone called "Twinkletoes." Mick was still just 19, the all-American phenom out of Commerce, Oklahoma, who had torn up the Cactus League that spring. 

The Yankees of that time, not being run by geniuses such as Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner, decided that they had no choice but to keep him with the club when they went north. But by July, they decided that he needed more seasoning.

Why? 

On July 13th, Mick's batting line was .260/.341/.423/.763—not too shabby for a 19-year-old, pressed into the starting lineup on the biggest stage in sports. He was also leading the team in RBI, with 45. Nor was the team going badly. The Yanks were 46-30, .605 ball, just 1 1/2 games out of first place, behind both shades of Sox. 

So what was the problem?

Well, strikeouts, mostly. The Mick had 52—as opposed to 30 walks—in the 69 games he had played.

Today, that would make him a contact hitter extraordinaire, but at the time it was unacceptable. 

Also, his demotion seems as though it was done in a bit of pique. On that fateful Friday the 13th in July, the Yanks had blown a 6-0 lead to major rival Cleveland, losing 11-8. 

To the untrained eye, this would seem to have been mostly a failure of, oh, I dunno, the pitching? But Mickey struck out three times (against future HOFer Bob Lemon) and he became the fall guy.

Maybe it was an attempt to shake up the club. Maybe it was a decision to try out some of the other remarkable young talent the Yankees had (more on that later), but in any case, Mantle was sent packing to Kansas City. 

Which...shattered him. 

If the New York Yankees of the Great Dynasty were considerably better than the team today at identifying and signing talent, they could be—at times—just as foolish and callous in developing it. An incompetent trainer was allowed to actually burn the feet of The Mick's predecessor in center, no less than Joe DiMaggio. 

And once they had brought Mantle north with the town, they left the hick kid to his own devices, staying in a hotel up in the Bronx. There he was generally lonely and miserable—and predictably fleeced by a con man and his hired floozy. Like Willie Mays, the other new phenom in town, he wiled away the hours playing stickball in the street with the local kids.

(The Giants, by contrast—a team run by a hopeless drunk and casual bigot—nonetheless saw to it that Willie was ensconced in a Harlem boardinghouse run by a mothering older woman, and accompanied everywhere by a retired, local boxer. The Yanks? Not so much.)

Mantle arrived in KC—his second new city in the space of three months—in a deep funk. So much so that his father, Mutt Mantle—dying from his years in the zinc mines—had to be summoned to help. 

He arrived to find a distraught Mickey wanting to quit, to just walk off the team. Mutt braced him up, rather ruthlessly, but at least reminded him of what his alternatives were.

"I thought I raised a man," Mutt told him, starting to pack his son's suitcase. "I see I raised a coward instead. You can come back and work the mines with me."

Mickey got it together, and hit .361 with Kansas City. The Yanks brought him back up on August 24th.

They had not been exactly in a death spiral without him, going 29-16, or .644, while he was away.

For much of that time, DiMaggio was also out with an injury, but the Yanks—with their truly astonishing depth—got by rotating Gene Woodling, Hank Bauer, Jackie Jensen, Bob Cerv, and converted first baseman Joe Collins around the outfield. 

Still, the team was two games out of first on The Mick's return. Mantle seemed to give them an added thrust, as they went 23-10 (.697) the rest of the way, winning their third straight pennant and World Series. (Where Mantle permanently hurt himself stepping into an open sprinkler hole. Hey, what were players? They were interchangeable and infinitely replaceable. Right?)

That fall, Mutt Mantle (real name Elvin Charles Mantle) back in town for the World Series, got to help his son up the hospital steps. He collapsed—and was hospitalized alongside Mick. He was dead of Hodgkins Disease by the next May.

So who will help brace up Jasson Dominguez, if he wants to crawl into a hole when he gets back to Scranton? Is there an El Chucho Dominguez who can fly up and box his son's ears? Of course, The Martian's alternatives—thank God—are no doubt more appealing, starting with the $5.1 million he got as a signing bonus, and the $1.5 million he's made in the game so far. 

But all that means is that Dominguez will be less desperate to make it out of this silly, dysfunctional Yankees organization of today. For that matter, while the Yanks' front office of 1951 could be as cruel and indifferent as it is today, the organization was at least threaded with some of the best instructors, managers and coaches, in all of baseball. 

Not so much now. 

Is The Martian another Mickey Mantle? I doubt it—but then, who is? And Trent Grisham is sure as hell not Joe DiMaggio. Or Gene Woodling. Or Hank Bauer, who once held a record for the consecutive-game hitting streak in the World Series. Or Jackie Jensen, a future MVP. Or Bob Cerv, a lifetime .276 hitter who once belted 38 homers and hit .305 in a season. 

It sez here that the Yanks don't have the depth to drop The Martian—OR Spencer Jones—back in Scranton. That Food Stamps Hal ought to finally swallow the money remaining on Tennis Elbows Stanton, and send Randal Woodchuck back to Punxsutawney or wherever he's from, and let the two prospects battle for a spot. 

But hey, who are we to question Hal & Pal?

  

 

It's time to lay down your predictions for 2026

You're a mean one, Mr. Grich...

Of course, I mean Randal Grichuk, the non-roster free agent who has finally broken the six-year reign of Jasson Dominguez - aka, the Martian - as the Yankees' great hope. 

Nope. This is the Year of the Grich, whose RH platoon bat has chased the Martian to Scranton, or Wilkes Barre, or maybe Kansas City. Last year, he was our future star. This year, shall his name even be spoken aloud?

Randal is the new Jasson, Aaron Judge is the new A-Rod, Jose Cabalero is the new Volpe and Oswaldo - dear Oswaldo Cabrera - is the new Oswald Peraza. (He's also headed to Scranton.) For a team that generally stood pat this winter, the Yankees sure have managed to bleach their roster of hopeful smiles. 

Meanwhile, in Boston, all systems are GO for Caleb Durbin to become a fireplug, Yankee-hating 3B. In Toronto, Vlad Jr. has made his bones as a postseason star. In Baltimore, the Polar Bear has arrived, and in Tampa, the Rays now proudly play in "GMS Stadium," abbreviating the name of their host, (though unabbreviated sewers could still give Old George the last laugh.) 

Here comes 2026 - a year of wars, midterms, natural disasters and A.I. 

As for the Yankees, only God knows. 

Wait... God and you. 

It's time to show the world how pessimistic, dour, hopeless rooted we all are. 

Between now and Wednesday, put down into the comments sections your predictions for the 2026 Yankee sayer of sooth contest. The winner takes bragging rights in all conversations across the Yankiverse. 

Wednesday, I'll render unto humanity my predictions. In the meantime, here are the three categories. 

1. Number of Yankee regular season wins. (Playoffs don't count.)

2. First tie-breaker: Number of HRs that Ben Rice will hit in 2026. (On Yankees or with another team.)

3. Second tie-breaker: Number of games Gerrit Cole will win.

Last year, here were the predictions. 

Okay, everybody. You know the drill. Pour your insights into the comments sections, and I'll put together the prediction board. Remember all those games that didn't matter? They're about to disappear. Have at it!