Why public ownership matters.

Here is Matt LaFleur, not simply the owner of the most finely trimmed facial hair in Christendom, but also coach and resident genius of the Green Bay Packers.

As you may know, I'm a lifelong Packers fan for complicated, person reasons. 

The Packers, just like the Yankees, own the most championships and the best, all-time winning percentage in the history of their respective sports.  (I know, I know: I do penance the rest of the year with the Knicks and the Rangers.)

For many years, roughly 1992-2018, the Packers had one of the very best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, first in Brett Favre, then even more so, in Aaron Rodgers. Sure, each of them was, well, kind of a dick. But still, they were damned good.

Somehow, though, the Pack only reached three Super Bowls during this time, winning two of them. Frustration mounted amongst the fans, particularly those of us who remembered the Lombardi era.

As a result, the Packers' front office brought in Matt LaFleur, widely known as an offensive genius. This seemed strange just on the face of it. If you have a great quarterback and regularly score a ton of points...why bring in a guy who knows offense? 

But many figured LaFleur would be just the sort of young, dynamic coach to take us over the top. We looked forward to him shoring up the generally under-performing defense and special teams with some great trades and draft picks. 

Instead, LaFleur acted like he was taking over a floundering college program, looking to remake it according to his ideas. He feuded with Rodgers, even as he won two more of his four MVP awards, and soon drafted Jordan Love, a quarterback nobody had ever much heard of.

We fans were...perplexed. Still, LaFleur had his advocates, mostly in the press. People who early on would point out that his regular-season winning percentage was better than Lombardi's.

Well, the Packers went from winning 13 games and the division title, three years in a row, to slipping further and further away from the Super Bowl, losing two conference title games and then a division game. 

Rodgers, the other resident ass, was finally pushed out. The LaFleur Packers kept winning—but fewer and fewer games, barely scraping into the playoffs in some low, wild card slot. This was always blamed on injuries and bad luck.

Hmm, sound familiar?

Last season the Pack actually looked as though it might have a shot at winning it all...only to lose the last four games of the regular season and their wild-card playoff game against their arch-rivals—often in humiliating fashion, blowing big, seeming insurmountable leads.

People stopped saying how LaFleur's record was better than Vince Lombardi's (because it wasn't). 

A proud franchise once known for winning and sustained excellence had become synonymous with choking and collapse. 

Again, sound familiar?

Calls for LaFleur's head rang throughout the land of milk and honey. For some reason, though, the Packers' management decided to double down, re-signing LaFleur to a new, multi-year contract.

So far, the Packers have looked so terrific after this vote of confidence that...they barely managed to beat the Jets.

I shrug. 

I shrug because I know that, sooner or later, as the Packers sink through the standings, people will be held accountable. The Genius of the Goatee, now in his ninth season leading the team (hmm, who does that remind me of?)...will be fired. 

The Packers are owned by the public, as all professional sports teams in America should be. As such, they are accountable, and some day the genius will ride off into the sunset, and we can begin again.

Not so much with the New York Yankees.

The Yankees' brainrust, uh, trust is younger than many of us. Brian Cashman is 59, Hal, 56; Boone a mere stripling of 53. Chances are, they will still be running the team when we die. 

And if they are not, no doubt another Steinbrenner nepo baby—crazy stupid like George, or coolly indifferent, like Hal—will take over the franchise, and surround himself with another bunch of flatterers and office politicians dedicated to maximizing...just how much money the Yankees make for their owner.

If they do manage to blow up the greatest sport that ever was this off-season, mayors across the nation should insist that any new baseball league be owned by the people who root for them.

 

Scientific pie chart of reasons why Yankees crumbled

 

Perspective.

 

This is mostly just to echo our Peerless Leader's sentiments—it is, I think, impossible to out do, "The Yankees exist as a massive cultural and political grift"—but I couldn't let this postgame quote from Aaron Boone pass:

"...all due respect, and with the perspective that they're playing a game..."

Nothing like the 21st Century, when millionaires lecture you on perspective!

Perspective.  Yeah.

—I had perspective when it cost less to get a seat in the grandstand than to go to a movie, and most days you could buy a ticket a few minutes before he first pitch.

—I had perspective when you didn't need to take out a bank loan to buy some stadium food, or a souvenir.

—I had perspective when the Yankees used to get beat out by, say, Earl Weaver's fine Orioles teams, or the Big Red Machine, or even the worthy opponents who were the Kansas City Royals or the Boston Red Sox. Not some bunch of pick-ups playing in softball uniforms and a gimcrack excuse of a stadium.

—I had perspective when the Yankees didn't run the bases or throw the ball around like drunken sailors.

—I had perspective when the Yankees dominated opponents in The House That Ruth Built, not when they lost playoff series to five different teams at home in nine years, in The House That Hal Squeezed Out of the Taxpayers and Locked Us Out Of.

—I had perspective when the Yankees were run by true baseball man who knew and loved the game, not a bunch of sullen, failed apparatchiks who are apparently here for life.

I know this is all terribly unfair to Aaron Boone who is, by all accounts, a perfectly nice man, and only a stooge of the greed heads who run this sad excuse of a baseball team.

But c'mon. "...they're playing a game"?

We were playing a game when my pals and I used to get out the whiffle ball and bat, and hit flies up amongst the tree branches in my yard, and ran around like crazy trying to tell where they'd come down and catch them.

What the Yankees are supposed to be doing in the postseason is giving a command performance by the best players in the world, one which will thrill and delight us. What we saw this fall—what we now see every fall—ain't that.

If you were to go see a performance of Hamilton—which isn't much more than a Yankees postseason ticket—and most of the star sang off-key, everyone missed their cues, the dancers kept falling down, and the whole cast kept sneezing and coughing because they'd just got up after weeks in bed with the flu, you would see the entire audience quickly reassemble at the box office, and demand its money back.

They would get it.

The Yankees regularly evoke the grandeur of their past as a selling point.  The walls of the mediocre, luxury hotspot they forced out of us are decorated with great stars of the past, winning great games.

Not so much anymore. 

Stop trying to sell us the glories of the past when your entire business plan has nothing to do with them. Stop pretending that you are here for the fan, when the people who run your franchise now don't even seem to much like baseball—or anything at all, beyond money.

Stop trying to tell us how we should view your abject failures, and give us something worth watching.

 

I'm CONVICTED that Booney will land on his feet somewhere . . . .

... and here we go, deja vu-ing (with the ghost of Yogi) toward another gaslit Yankee winter

Glance around the Yankiverse. Does anything feel, well, familiar?

Check the headlines... 

Sorry, folks. Something shorted out. I cannot march in another black parade. Fuck the lists. Fuck the questions. Fuck Cashman and Boone. Fuck Dax Kilby. Fuck the usual October collapse, the same shit show we've endured for 16 years. Let's face the truth.

The Yankees exist as a massive cultural and political grift - a means by the ruling, billionaire class to steal our money, our time, our emotions, our energy and our attention to a malevolent system that imprisons us in a permanent freefall. You think I'm overstating this? Well, here's the only fucking worthy story in the Yankiverse today.

That's right. Dua Lipa hoovered a hotdog, and the clickbait bots that control the Internet got a viral stiffy. Last year it was Taylor Swift. Five years ago, Lady Gaga. Eighty years, Rosemary Clooney. Nothing's changed. Fools like me followed the Yankees for 168 games - all for nothing. Now, it's suddenly hurricane season, and we're supposed to start mouthing crapola about the Jazz Chisholm/Anthony Volpe rip in the fabric of realty? 

So, yeah, it's all about clicks, right? That's why we exist. Okay, on that note, here you go, everybody... 

Yep. Trained seals. The scoreboard says, NOISE!, and we scream our lungs out. The world is collapsing, the oceans are hot, death row inmates are waking up with injection needles in their arms, the Pentagon plans televising executions, and I'm supposed to concoct the five essential questions about next year.

Okay. Here are my five:

1. What the fuck? 

2. How do I get to the exit?

3. Why should anybody care about the Yankees?

4. Seriously, is there a way out?

5. Will Dua Lipa get fat?

Here we go again.

Awww, the poor, bewildered moron

 

Imitation of greatness.

The sellout crowd was on its feet. It was getting very late, and the Yankees still trailed in a game they had to have. The tying run was on base, and the muscled slugger stood near the plate, watching while the new pitcher took his warm-ups. 

The TV cameras shot him from the side, a classic shot of the big man in the big house. They cut to numerous shots of the crowd, everyone standing, banging on the sides of the stands, hoping, cajoling, begging for one moment of ecstasy in what had become yet another dreary postseason of disappointment.

They would not get it.

In the past, other Yankee greats have come through in situations like this, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth with his called shot and Reggie Jackson with his three home runs on three pitches.

But they were immortals, and even so none of them faced quite the mountain Stanton had to climb last night, taking only his second at-bat after more than 160 days out of action.  

I've long believed Stanton to be a fraud, a chemical creation whose presence on the team has been hugely destructive, soaking up so much money that could have been spent acquiring ballplayers who could at least stay on the field.

But no one deserves to have happen what the Yankees did to him last night, batting him in such a critical spot where he had almost no possible chance of succeeding.

The idea that they would even consider resorting to just such a thing indicates only how brazen Yankees management has become in its indifference. Giancarlo Stanton was sent up there like a living, breathing avatar of the great Yankees and the great Yankees traditions that Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman, Aaron Boone, and other resident toadies constantly invoke but never seriously try to match.

Like all too much of America today, Steinbrenner and Cashman are men already wealthy almost beyond imagining but interested, respectively, only in the bottom line and a manufactured adulation, battening ceaselessly off a past that they neither understand nor truly respect.

Like Stanton at the plate last night, they have made our team merely an imitation of greatness.

 

Amid booing and self-immolation, the Yankees reveal their true identity

 Tomato can.

Ten takeaways on The End... as Jim Morrison-Boone would say... my only friend, The End.

1. Volpe's canceled HR was far too close to overturn. 

2. The fan who caught that ball didn't deserve to be duckwalked from the stadium. 

3. The Yankees are the only team to collapse and get swept in the second round.

4. Our best pitcher down the stretch, Carlos Rodon, never picked up a ball.

5. It was beyond hubris - more like madness - to think Giancarlo Stanton could return after six months and hit.

6. Yank fans should root for the looming lockout. Go ahead, MLB, padlock those gates!

7. Regardless of Boone's future, this sorry ending belongs to Cashman.

8. Aaron Judge is a failure as captain; somebody needed to pulverize a water cooler.

9. It's absurd that Ben Rice, at 27, is facing a career as fulltime DH.

10. Worst of all: The Dodgers will win again.

Instead of Jeffrey Maier, we got Jeffrey Dahmer

 

Is it his end ? My blogging friends, BØØNE'S end ? (Uhm – Game Three – ALDS)

 

 

Is it me, or is baseball ridiculous when they're catching fly balls off the ceiling?

 Seems to me that's a ridiculous home field advantage. The Rays turned a chaotic situation into an easy out.  Oh well... 

At the end of the world, Fire or Rice? (Apologies to Robert Frost)

 JAZZ OR RICE?   

Some say the year will end with Jazz,
Some say Ben Rice.
And if we're down to our last man,
I have no faith in Ryan McMahon.
For when they fail, we'll pay the price,
I think we'll find that even Goldy
Is too old for a golden oldie,
And playing Volpe over Jazz,
Won't matter much, I think, whereas,
I guess I'd rather go with Rice,
And hope our offense
Will suffice.

"History repeats itself..."

 ...the first as tragedy, the second as farce."

—Karl Marx

Okay, okay, the first time—the Phenomenal Flop in the Fifth, in the 2024 World Series—was pretty farcical, too.

A few observations regarding last night:

—Ryan McMahon, trying to summon up his best, postgame face of disgust, told the press that he was "pissed off with the way we played." 

This is nonsense, of course. 

Once a guy who could hit .240 with 20-25 home runs, get some walks, and play a very good third base, Ryan has shed skills over the course of his career quicker than a Times Square stripper (Do they still have those?). He can now do nothing well on a ballfield—yet he has still made almost $57.5 million playing baseball, and is guaranteed to make another $16 million next year, which will make him one of the very richest people who have ever walked the planet.  

To be truly "pissed off" about anything, he would have to be a psychopath, or a professional deeply devoted to his craft, and there is no evidence that he is either—just another mediocrity who has let his game deteriorate to the point where it can no longer be excused or ignored.

—The Yankees' roster is now filled with such players. Witness Jazz Chisholm, who is capable of doing anything at any time, none of it good.  Most of their other young players, a moment ago such an unexpected boon (sorry to evoke that name) from this season, now look like frightened rabbits in the terrifying AL Division Series.

—It occurred to me, watching last night's fiasco, just how much criticism was showered upon—of all people—Derek Jeter, over the course of his remarkable career. He didn't have enough range, he should have let A-Rod play shortstop, he was only "Captain Intangibles." 

Blah-blah-blah. Lost in all the inevitable blather of our online age, is the fact of what a consummate pro he was right from the beginning.

Not only did he hit .314 and score 104 runs in his Rookie-of-the-Year 1996, but in the miraculous playoff run the Yankees made that season, he was 22-61, and made only 3, inconsequential errors in 76 chances.

George Lombard, Jr., is not Derek Jeter. Which is okay. Almost none are. He may be a very good ballplayer someday—but then, he may also devolve into another Volpe. The odds are not good for him, if he stays on this awful example of a team.

—Perhaps most remarkable last night was how badly the veterans played, as well as the new kids.

Little remembered, for instance, is how the Dodgers actually rallied to win the game of the Fifth Inning Fiasco when Austin Wells managed to hit a badly injured Ohtani's bat with his glove. But there Wells was, in Tampa, making the exact same mistake in the first inning.

—Cody Bellinger, who has disappointed all year when we most needed him to step up, displayed that good ol' warning-track power of his—and once again butchered a ball in left field, as he has done all season. Luis Garcia proved to be yet another, power-hitting first baseman picked up by Brian Cashman...who cannot ht for power. Or play first base.

—Weirdly, the Yankees seemed completely unhinged by Tampa Bay's home dome. Admittedly, it's a ridiculous place to play a baseball game—but one where the Yankees repair to for 6 or 7 games every season, and where they had managed to play an errorless game just two nights previous.

Somehow, though—whether it was the Angry McMahon fielding a grounder, or a coltish Spencer Jones judging a flyball—they seemed completely unnerved by the park. If they were having trouble seeing or something, maybe they should have taken more grounders or flies, or otherwise found a way to adjust.

But no could do. Like so Yankees playoff games in the Cashman era—see the "Midge Game," or Stanton getting thrown out at second on a ball he hit off the Green Monster—the Bombers were thoroughly undone by their environment.

—A man who might have done something about that, of course, was their manager, Aaron Boone.

Talk about repeating yourself! Aaron Boone sat through almost the exact same, inning-long meltdown in that 2024 World Series, and did nothing. He did not come out to settle everyone down, he did not talk to them afterwards in the dugout.

Instead, every time the cameras found him in last night's game, he seemed to be deliberately trying to keep as great a distance as possible from the rest of his team. During the disaster with the Dodgers, he seemed to be almost curled up in a corner, looking like nothing so much as a begging street orphan. 

Last night, he stood up by the rail of the dugout, throwing sunflower seeds into his gullet by the handful, but still far from his players, as if he were embarrassed by them (which he should have been).

—It was Boone who managed to set up the most costly misplays of the game, which were not even official errors. That was in the latest Fifth Inning Fiasco when—after a game Cam Schlittler had managed to pitch out of most of the trouble his teammates had caused him, and Ben Rice, the only Yankee who seems interested in hitting this postseason had tied the game—Boone had the infield play half in and half out with men on first and third.

It was an all-too typical, either-or strategy of the Cashman era, and it ended predictably. The first batter hit the ball to Chisholm who was playing deep and could not make a play at the plate in time; the second one hit it toward McMahon, who Lombard cut off (wisely, methinks), but then bobbled the ball, allowing another run to score, while no outs were recorded.

—One might have assumed, for that matter, that any manager truly paying attention to the game, would have tried something to augment the Yanks' execrable hitting.

The Venerable Keefe reports that aside from Rice and Wells, of all people, who have gone a combined 4-12 in the ALDS so far, the rest of the Yankees are a combined 1-46, with a .086/.145/.224 slash line. 

This is, in itself, ridiculous. Tampa Bay has good pitching; they are not throwing Koufax, Drysdale, and Osteen out there. 

Still, once Rice homered to tie the game in the fourth, and Jones reached first with two outs, why not run the speedy Spencer? Did he really think Lombard was more likely to homer than single? Or was that just the analytics talking?

—Which brings us to the real problem with this Yankees team, and which is the same problem it is year-in, year-out.  

Aaron Boone is a bad manager because he has figured out that all he needs to do to keep his job is to do whatever General Manager Brian Cashman tells him. Brian Cashman is a bad general manager because he has figured out that all he needs to do to keep his job—apparently forever—is to do whatever owner Hal Steinbrenner wants him to do. 

Hal Steinbrenner is a great owner...for himself. He is a bad owner for the fans and the people of New York, because he has figured out that he can maximize his inherited fortune by not really trying to win it all, but just by contending enough to fill the seats and dominate the baseball airwaves in the biggest market in the country...and also by milking ever-greater subsidies out of the public treasury.

As soon as the postseason ends, he will apply himself to starting yet another labor war with the players, in the hopes of being required to annihilate his team's leading advantage over other teams in other cities, which is effective control of the biggest market in the game (sorry, Mets).

And hey, that tragedy/farce Marx was referring to? It was the "tragedy" of how Napoleon I ultimately squashed the original French Revolution of 1789, and the "farce" of how Napoleon III did the same to the 1848 revolution. 

Here is Bonaparte the Lesser, below. He sure does look the ultimate popinjay, and he couldn't live up to his uncle as a general. On the other hand, he rebuilt much of Paris, including the grand boulevards and so much of what made that city the most beautiful in the world...

When is Hal going to build us the equivalent of Baron Haussmann's Paris? Or even, you know, another championship?  

Keep dreaming, suckers.

 

I just have one thing to say.....

 1.  Most of us, on this blog, predicted that the Yankee ceiling in2026 would be to win the play-in round, and then bow out of the playoffs. 

2.  If Boone ever lets Jazz  play again for this team, we shall know he is the worst manager in the history of the game. 

3.  Judge will be ready for the next round and the World Series. 

4.  Stanton will strike out again today, if the game is close. 

5.  We played baseball against Boston ( bunts, advancing runners, catching grounders, making true throws to the bases, no catcher interference, etc.).  Against Tampa, everyone swung for the fences and all, except Ben Rice, struck out. 

6.  With a non baseball guy in the ownership position,  Cashman and Boone will stay until they are taken out for health reasons.   Or, perhaps, a flash flood. 

That's my one comment.  That's all I have to say for this season. 

What a waste of time. 

A Big Thank You to Our 2026 New York Yankees!

I mean it. Thank you! 

To tell all of you the truth... I appreciate the way the Yankees are playing.They are doing us  a huge favor. 

Two reasons leap to mind... 

Number one.  

All year when people ask me about the Yankees I say they are a bad team that is not good at baseball. 

To this they reply, "But they have the second best record in the AL. They are a playoff lock. Another winning season.  Etc."

It's hard to refute. Especially when they blow-out the Red Sox in the first round. 

BTW they really need to stop with the champaign celebrations after every step up.

My kids both graduated grade school and I didn't reward them with a trip to Disneyland.They had cake.

Celebrate when you win the pennant or, if you want to be like the Knicks, when the real job is done and you win it all!  

Yesterday they demonstrated what I've been saying all along. THEY ARE NOT GOOD AT BASEBALL. The team is filled with guys from bad organizations that don't know how to win. They are poorly constructed and poorly run. 

McMahon and Donaldson etc. instead of Machado! It was the same money! 

Almost forgot, poorly managed. Boone is a horrible manager. 

Last night the Yankees showed their true colors for all the world to see. They are in fact a bad baseball team and are not good at baseball. 

Thank you! 

Number Two. I love baseball and I love watching the Yankees. Always have. From the looks of things there might not be any baseball next year thanks to a greed induced lockout. 

Normally, and especially if the Yankees were a team worth watching or G-d forbid the World Champions. the thought of no baseball in the Spring would make me sad. 

But, they are so, so bad from the Front Office to the back-up catcher that I will not miss them. I will fill the time with something that sparks joy. 

So... Thank You 

Thank you for being he worst playoff team I've ever seen. 

Last night  Jazz had me wondering if they should have started Volpe. Volpe! 

Wells makes me miss Gary Sanchez. Gary Sanchez! 

I need to stop. 

So again, and for the last time... 

Thank You 2026 New York Yankees!  

A nice one year owner initiated, money grubbing, self own sabbatical sounds perfect right about now. 

Rays in three!

It's a hail of horrors, and the worst is yet to come

I believe that we at IT IS HIGH celebrate Yankee wins more joyously than anywhere in the known Rizzutonic universe. 

And when our heroes fail, we fling our buckets of flaming feces harder than anywhere else in God's creation.

Last night, we ran out of gasoline and shit. 

Last night brought what should have been the worst Yankee embarrassment since - say - Babe Dahlgren and Spud Chandler headed the war-ravaged teams of the 1940s. In fact, it was merely our worst game since Saturday and - if you want to travel back further - since the infamous Game 5 of the 2024 World Series. 

October embarrassments now happen on an annual basis.

Choking has become the Yankee brand. 

Seriously. How else do you explain the last two games against Tampa, when they have... 

Nearly been no-hit. 

Failed to plate one baserunner.

Struck out 18 times.

Turned every routine grounder into an adventure. 

Played as if watching the game on TV. (Can someone explain to Spencer Jones that, in the postseason, players dive?) 

Resembled the Redsocks. 

Against Boston, they made every play. 

Against Tampa, they've botched everything their way.  

Listen: This is where we're supposed to say it aint over, that we can win two in NYC and send this thing back south (maybe to coincide with a roof-shredding Gulf Coast hurricane.) 

Sorry, but it aint gonna happen. (Actually, the hurricane might.)

The 2026 Yankees are a team of destiny. 

Just not the kind we wanted. 

We know how this ends. Like last year, and the year before. The Yankees have mentally cleaned out their lockers. If Tampa scores, it's over. It will end on a cold, blustery night, with the Yankees down by a handful, with the TV announcers blathering excuses, with the umps hurrying things along, with the Rays pointing to objects thrown onto the field, and with the authorities fearing the cascade of boos will become something far worse. 

We're going home, where the anger will be hard to ignore. 

The worst is yet to come.

A L D S – Game Number Two – YES WE CAM !

(PLEASE DO NOT BLOW THIS)

I think we need a touch of Harry in the night...

 

As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Big Game Tonight... with ramifications for NYC, MLB and the USA

Writers have always cherished the existential metaphors between baseball and life. 

Nine players: Nine planets. 

Three outs: morning, noon and night. 

Pitcher and catcher: Man and Woman. (Additional Fun Fact: The duration of a home run corresponds EXACTLY to the length of the male orgasm.) 

And now comes the 2026 season, with the Yankees and humanity, teetering tonight on the brink...  

1. Win or lose, there will still be Yankee chest-thumping, as the series moves to the Bronx. We'll have the RF porch, the gnarly fan-thugs along the foul lines, and the raging, Pizza Rat, Knicks-in-five chaos that Tampa never experiences in its giant, climate-controlled ping pong ball.

2. Win or lose, the Yankees will still start game three with Max Fried or maybe Carlos Rodon, our best starter in late September, (who might still be waiting to throw a pitch.) We'll still have Ben Rice, the poor man's Judge, who - sadly - looks rather clownish, rooting from the dugout. (Love the guy, but if the Yankees flop, 2026 goes down as an incredible embarrassment.)

3. Down 0-2 and heading home wouldn't be history's worst deficit, but it sure would feel that way. Game One birthed our darkest fear: That the Yankees simply don't hit. It's already in our heads. Every Yankee faces that deepening sense of loss, fear and stress. It's happened repeatedly in this millennium. Yankee teams built around HRs suddenly go ice cold, unable to advance a runner. The growing crowd frustration only makes it worse. Is it already here? 

4. Already, "Hell's Bells" Austin Wells has become this team's official bonehead, joining Nick Swisher's flubbed liner in the 2012 ALCS, and Gerrit Cole pointing to first base in 2024. Wells being thrown out a car-length from third is already in the future embarrassment queue. Sadly, it might define his career. 

5. The lords of MLB and Fox Sports must already be pondering their worst nightmare, a world series between Tampa/Cleveland and Milwaukee/San Diego - small markets with stars that nobody knows. Tampa is particularly sad. The Rays can boast of selling out Game One, but that's probably because Yankee fans were in the mix. Will they sell-out against Cleveland?

6. If the Yankees fall tonight, the floor will start to give way. And here's the real rub: Their veteran lineup could be two years older the next time it takes the field. An ownership lockout looms over November, a dark and sketchy time for America and its national pastime. The world series starts Oct. 23. If it goes seven, the finale will occur within hours of the midterms. 

It's gonna be crazy. 

The Yankees better win tonight, or the course of humanity could be fundamentally altered forever. How's that for fucking ramifications!

Believing their own blarney.

 

On August 4th, 1963, Mickey Mantle stepped up to the plate in the seventh inning of a game against the Baltimore Orioles, pinch-hitting for reliever Steve Hamilton, he of "folly floater" fame. 

Mantle had not played for almost two entire months, after badly injuring himself running into one of the stupid, jerry-rigged walls in Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. Nonetheless, he belted a pitch from George Brunet of the Birds deep into Yankee Stadium's left field bleachers, tying the game at 10-10, and ran around the bases in his usual hurried, head-down way—with tears in his eyes, thinking, "Gee, I'm a lucky guy."

The Mick made a habit of such feats throughout his long, injury-riddle career. Just the year before, he had come back from four weeks on the disabled list to pinch-hit a three-run homer before some 50,000 fans at the Stadium, and in the 1961 World Series he had managed a key, pinch-hit single despite playing with a wound that started bleeding through his uniform.

Opponents often thought that Mantle was at his most dangerous when playing injured—or hung over—because it diminished his eagerness to over swing.

Who can say? But nonetheless, The Mick in that immortal, 1963 game, was batting in a regular-season game, after a "mere" 60 days on the DL.  

By contrast, Giancarlo Stanton was sent up last night to have his first at-bat in...132 days. In the ninth inning, of a an important playoff game. Against a top closer. 

Those familiar with this space will have noticed that I don't exactly have the highest regard for our Mr. Stanton.

I feel that he came to the New York Yankees under false pretenses, based on gaudy, National-League statistics that were probably augmented by various illicit substances (thanks again, Mr. Jeter). 

The results of whatever his training regimen was and is have been visited upon the Yankees. He has barely been able to play over half of his games in NewYork, and his production has been erratic at best.

Given ownership's loathing to spare an extra dollar of all that inherited lucre, his presence on the roster has been generally disastrous, preventing the Yanks from signing any number of other players who could, well, play—and who might well have put us over the top at last during these last, frustrating nine seasons.

But neither Giancarlo nor us fans deserved what Aaron Boone and the rest of the Bombers' braintrust clowntrust visited upon us last night.

As many of us have mentioned here, one of the most frustrating things about Stanton is that not only does he get hurt all the time, but it takes him days, even weeks, to get back in "form" after returning from those injuries (whereupon he usually gets injured again).

But far be it from the Yankees-in-charge to believe anything but their own childlike faith that Giancarlo is always so clutch, no matter the circumstances.

Could The Mick have come through last night? 

Maybe, but he was a god. Giancarlo is a mere mortal, in our fallen age, and liable to fail. As are we all.

I know, I know. October makes us all batty. Or should I say, even battier than usual. 

Already, otherwise astute and intelligent friends have told me seriously that the real problem last night was Austin Wells running into that out (Stupid, but as our Peerless Leader has pointed out, was McMahon—or Stanton—really going to come through with a hit?), or even that, had Carlos Rodon started, he would have been sure to match Drew Rasmussen "zero for zero" until...what? Our bullpen blew the game?

Stop it.

The fault for last night lies with our Clown-in-Chief, the man who our Nepo Baby Clown owner will not fire, and who seems to have on tap an endless supply of press box clowns willing to write yet another encomium to his many years of not having losing records.

The fact is that having Giancarlo Stanton and Trent Grisham on this post-season roster is ludicrous mismanagement.

The Yanks SHOULD have brought up the late lamented Oswaldo in the last month of the season, and seen if he could hit and field well enough to bench Ryan McMahon. 

They SHOULD have spent that last month, too—if they were not going to bother actually chasing hard after the TB Rays—trying to find ways to score runs without relying on solo homers.

Especially solo home runs from bums and perpetual invalids who were—and probably still are—injured.

All that said...

The Yankees still SHOULD have enough starting pitching to win this playoff series and at least reach the World Series. 

They might not. As someone wrote in an actual review of an Off-Broadway show I read the other day, there has been a "clown resurgence" of late (Somehow, that explains so much.). 

But the odds are in our favor, provided we can put on our big-boy pants (very big in Jazz's case), remember that we gotta have heart, and always, always, follow the Knicks.

I, for one, will gladly tip my own clown hat and red nose and call Brian Cashman my daddy if he does at last bring home a World Series trophy, all on his own.  

This is the year. Now is the time.

 

Another Yankee October of toothless doom.

Well, here we go again?

Over the last 15 Octobers, we've watched it every year: pumpkin-spiced beer, political attack ads, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, leaf-peeping, apple-picking, haunted hayrides and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. 

Here's what happens: A lineup of home run hitters (that's us) runs into buzzsaw pitching (the Rays), and turns into a slasher movie of strikeouts. 

It's the Great Thumpin,' Aaron Boone.

Last night, the Yankees delivered 12 Ks. Their one hit - a liner that landed inches from the foul line - was immediately erased by a ridiculous base running blunder. We watched Speedy Austin Wells become a meme. (Not that it mattered; does anyone believe Ryan McMahon was going to drive in a run?) 

It sure was fun, punching down on Boston. 

But we're not facing Sonny Gray anymore. 

Last night, against Drew Rasmussen - "The Yankee Killer?" It's hard to all him that, because there are so many - I counted maybe five hard-hit balls. Basically, the Yankees marched up to the plate, took their savage swings, and then marched back to the water cooler.   

We can tell ourselves that it was just one loss, not a catastrophe. Why bother? Nobody will believe it. All year, the Yankees barely touched Rasmussen, and he's lined up to pitch Game Five, if we get there.

Once again, we just can't hit in October, when pitching improves. Instead, we watch an endless progression of "sluggers" - from the GrandyMan to Doncha Know, from Swishalicious to Gleyber Day. And now, Spencer Jones? Beating Boston was too easy. It masked the reality of the 2026 Yankees. 

Well, at least our players get to sleep in their spring training beds, as we ponder Monday night. Cam Schlittler v the Tampa staff. One mistake, and the season could effectively be over. Can he pull a Rasmussen? 

Here we go again?

Kiss me goodnight, Boonie...

 

"If we should fail?"

 

"We fail?

But screw your courage to the sticking place

And we'll not fail."

Didn't see the game live, because the relatives were over.  But I don't care.

Yes, Wells should not have run past a stop sign after getting the only hit we had in the game.

But...I can't blame Wells for getting the only hit we had in the game.

Was Cole the right choice?

A record 14 straight, postseason starts without allowing more than 3 earned runs. Only 3 starts out of 23 in October when he allowed more than that. 

So I guess it wasn't a mistake to start him.

I guess our starting pitching has stood up.

I  don't know if this Yankees team can beat anybody coming out of the National League. Hell, I don't know if they'll even beat Cleveland or Chicago in the ALCS.

But I'll tell you this: Schlittler, Fried, and Rodon: Yanks will sweep the next three against the Rays, and take this series.

Screw your courage to the sticking place. We're going to win this series.

ALDS – Game "Number One" – Cole √s Rasamussen

 

 

 

 

Big game...75 years ago today.

 

Bobby Thomson's home run, "the shot heard 'round the world," wins the 1951 National League playoff for the New York Baseball Giants, 5-4.  

Pafko at the wall—because the idiot Dodgers manager, Charlie Dressen, had brought in Ralph Branca, who Thomson had just touched for a game-losing home run, two days earlier, in the first game of the playoff at Ebbets Field, to pitch to him again.

It would be as if Boone had put Nestor Cortes in to pitch to Freddie Freeman a second time, with the Series on the line. (Which...he might have done.)

Afterwards, Thomson goes...home to New Dorp.  

Hey, celebrity was different in those days. Also: the Polo Grounds was less than two-thirds full.  

Hey, it was a weekday. People worked. Thomson's own fiancée wasn't there; she had to do her shift as a hospital nurse.

Jackie Robinson, as you can see, was one of the last men off the field, watching to make sure that Thomson touched every single base.

Russ Hodges, the Giants' broadcaster gave out with his famous call, repeated over and over again:

"The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!...Oh, and they're going crazy!"

And so they were.

Incredibly, two of the greatest—maybe THE very greatest—plays in baseball history happened within three years in the Polo Grounds. Both in favor of the home team.

Whereupon...the Giants moved away and they tore the place down.

Oy.

But as they ask at the end of even the greatest stories...what happened next?

Well, there was this thing called the World Series. Featuring Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays.

Not to mention Yogi Berra, Sal Maglie, Monte Irvin, Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, Eddie Lopat...and more.

As might have been expected, the Giants came out roaring. They won two of the first three games, before the Yanks drubbed them, 6-2, and 13-1, to retake the lead in the Series. 

Game Six, the Yanks were up, 4-1, going into the 9th inning in the Stadium—just as the Dodgers had been in the final playoff game. 

Johnny Sain came in to put down a Giants rally against Raschi in the seventh, but in the ninth, the Giants loaded the bases against him with none out, and Monte Irvin—and then Thomson!—coming up.

Ruh-roh.

The Yanks brought in the immortal...Bob Kuzava, a journeyman swingman they had acquired from the Senators that summer. 

Kuzava got Irvin and "the Flying Scot" to fly out—scoring two runs. Next up was Sal Yvars, the Giants' little-used, back-up catcher, and he hit the ball hard...but right to Hank Bauer in right field. 

Ballgame over. World SERIES over.

The next year, Game 7 at Ebbets Field, the Yanks brought Kuzava in to face Duke Snider and Jackie Robinson in the 7th inning, again with the bases loaded, and one out. Kuzava got Snider to pop to third, then Jackie to pop up on that famous play where everybody froze but Billy Martin came running in to grab the ball off his shoe tops.

Kuzava went on to shut the Dodgers down in the 8th. And the ninth. 

Ballgame over...well, you know the rest.

So in the end, the Yankees all lived happily ever after.