Anthony Volpe is barking hot. Dare we dream?

Uh-oh. Timmy's missing. A storm's a-brewin.' Mom and Dad are frantic. 

Bark. Huh? Bark! What's up with Lassie? Barkity-bark! What's the problem, girl? Barkbark, bark. Jeb, I think she's trying to say something. Bark, woof, barkbark. She wants us to follow her. Bark! Go ahead, girl. Bark woof! She's heading to the back 40, to that old abandoned well. Bark, bark, bark! 

Okay, for a moment, let's accept the concept of literary arrogance. Let's say Aaron Judge is - well - Timmy. 

I realize it makes no sense. Judge couldn't fit in a well, much less fall into one. But right now, across the Yankiverse, he is definitely missing, and one Yankee bat is barking, and it's Volpe's, and he wants us to follow, so whacha gonna do? Okay, girl, lead the way! We're right behind you. 

Before plummeting deeper into this hole, let's establish one thing: Lassie never bit people. She snarled and pawed you but never tasted the tangy sweetness of human flesh. (Unlike the wolfish Rin-Tin-Tin, who went straight for the testicles. Damn dog loved chewing a nut sac. Cujo barely ate better.) 

Last seven days, Yankee hitters

But... anyways... where were we? Ah, yes... Judge Timmy is gone, and Lassie Volpe is barking at us. He wants us to follow.

Over the last 15 days, Volpe is hitting .396, the sixth highest BA in all of baseball. 

Over the last seven days, he's at .364, ranked 19th in MLB. 

Lately, he has been our most productive hitter, while batting 9th, in front of Ben Rice, which means seeing hittable pitches. Bark.

Meanwhile, Jose Caballero seems to be running himself ragged, playing everywhere and, at times, hardly resembling a MLB outfielder. But Cabby has earned the right to fuck up. He's been one of the steadiest Yanks, and everybody knows Volpe - the fair-haired local boy - didn't deserve to have the SS position kept open for him. 

Still, here we are. Lately, Volpe is going with the pitches, hitting to right, and lashing line drives, rather than trying to power balls halfway to White Plains. At 25, he's hitting .267 on the season - serviceable - and fielding his position. 

Dare we believe that, in year four - with George Lombard Jr. breathing down his neck, with the team in need of a spark, with Judge barely halfway through his rehab, with a two-game lead (loss column) in the AL East, and with Boston on the horizon - Anthony Volpe might be the one to lead us? 

Hard argument to make. Still... what's that sound? 

Bark.

He represents the Lollipop Guild. Jazz Chisholm is quietly having a solid year. So why does everyone feel he's a goner?

 

AL second basemen

Weird night for Jasrado Prince Hermis Arrington Chisholm Jr. - a/k/a "Jazz."

His 6th inning HR basically beat the Tigers. He had a hand in three Yankee runs, in a 4-3 win. And in the post-victory glow, he pulled off a rarity: He publicly pissed off Aaron Boone.

Chisholm did this by sucking on a lollipop while in the field, at a time when the Yanks were losing 3-1. Bad optics - a Yankee to be slurping sweets, while his team seemed to be staggering to a 4th straight loss. Of course, everything changed after Chisholm's 2-run shot. But Boone learned about the lollipop during his postgame TV gaggle, in real time. Bad timing. You don't step on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't tear the mask off an old Lone Ranger, and you don't suck on a lollipop, even in a Yankee win. 

"I just don’t think he should have had a lollipop out on the field,” said Boone, the iron-fisted, hard-core disciplinarian. 

Weird, eh? Everything suggests that Jazz - at age 28, his peak, and, frankly, having a decent season - is a goner, come October. Why not? He is among that rare breed of ill-fated Yankees who wore #13, the devil's digits: A-Rod, No-Neck Williams, Mike Blowers, Curt Blefary, Alvaro Espinosa, Jim Leyritz, Joey Gallo, Vladimir Putin...  

His problem? Expectations. Last winter, Jazz vowed to become a "50-50" hitter - 50 HRs, 50 SBs - and win a $300 million contract. (If there's one sure way to piss off the Yankees, beyond joining the Lollipop Guild, boast about how much money you want.) On the surface, Chisholm's goal was outlandish. Below the surface, it was ridiculous. 

But but BUT...  a 30-30 season is possible, and that's not pickled pigs-feet. You can argue that Jazz, based on stats, is the AL's best 2B this season. (Ernie Clement of Toronto is in the chat.) But come October, he's out the door.

1. His contract is up. He'll want big money over many years.

2. Some team will be likely to bite.

3. The Yankees seem likely to keep Volpe and play George Lombard Jr., their top prospect, at SS.

4. Hell... everybody's probably gone. The season could be canceled due to a lockout.

Listen: There's one way Jazz and the Yankees can stay together. 

Win the World Series. That's all. The late No-Neck Williams (R.I.P.) would approve. What are the odds? Don't say fifty-fifty.

Wonder City.

 

Sorry I'm overdue on this, but I owe it to Doug K., especially.

So finally, when it comes to sports, at least, New York went from the City of Losers to the City of Wonder.

Having been a Knicks fan since 1968, I was true overwhelmed. What a season! What a series of comebacks! What a run!

And what a truly likable team, despite its awful bridge troll of an owner.

Is this good for New York in the long run? 

I doubt it. Now Dolan will never let his odious MSG incarnation be budged from where it squats like a poisonous toad above what could and should be a fabulous train station. 

The local minions of the Vampire-in-Chief are already moving in to tear the neighborhood apart and no doubt make untold billions with sweetheart federal contracts of one sort of another.

Is this good for the Knicks in the long run?

Again, I doubt it. This will undoubtedly give Dolan—already someone who has been ripping off the taxpayers for decades—carte blanche to pump as little money as possible into his teams, while jacking prices up even more. 

For what you can reasonably expect...look at the Garden's other tenant, after the Rangers finally snapped an even longer championship drought—54 years—and since have gone on a new streak of 32 more seasons of futility.

Is this good for your New York Yankees?

Nope. Unlike any other, red-blooded American male, HAL will not feel in the least envious of the adulation poured down upon Dolan and the Knicks, or likely to spend another dime trying to match their achievement.

And the Knicks' season no doubt makes Brian Cashman feel absolutely justified in all his inane statements about how the postseason is just a crapshoot. The Knicks had an up-and-down regular season, finished second in their division and third in their conference...then managed to avoid, thanks to luck and attrition, all of the teams (Boston, Detroit, OK City) that seemed most likely to beat them in the playoffs.

If the Yanks can just get Judge back in time for October...and Fried, and Stanton, and Cole rounds into shape (again), and some young gun emerges in the bullpen, and The Martian is for real, and SOMEBODY can catch and hit .220, and...and...and...

No, not gonna happen. Baseball is not basketball. Among other things, any team in the MLB postseason that manages to get up 5-10 runs in game after game—the equivalent of the leads the Spurs had—will not, cannot simply give it up by playing like idiots (even, ahem, if our boys did just that in the Infamous Fifth Inning of the Fifth Game).

But hey—all of that is the long run, and as the great Harry Hopkins once said, in the long run we are all dead. 

Better, in our precarious age, to celebrate the unexpected gift the Knicks have given us, their incredible

heart and smarts and abilities, their coach and their general manager, their insistence on being...unwavering.

Thanks to them, our city is looking pretty good just now.

If only we could believe it...

 

Boston has crapped the bed.

But New York will soon be coming.

Suddenly, the Yankees look lost. And this is about the time they fell apart last year.

Okay, let's get this over with:

Gerrit Cole hadn't looked this mystified since the last time he motioned for Anthony Rizzo to cover first. 

Bada-boom. 

There. It's done. It's over. Last night, Cole - no longer the Yankee staff ace, but still the Yankee staff face - experienced an old-school whuppin', a trouncin', a thrashin' - (we can throw words on this like wood pallets on a bon fire) - a beatin', a whackin', a wallopin...' He was Frankie Montas, Manny Banuelos, Andrew Heaney, the cast of Lost, the Solid Gold Dancers, the U.S. Congress, the White House reflecting pool, the San Antonio Spurs... whatever.  He pitched 4.1 innings, gave up 9 hits and 5 earned runs. He's now 2-2, with an ERA of 3.62, but but BUT... ignore his first two starts - a magical 12 scoreless innings - and, dear God, you do not want to calculate the ERA. Nope. Stick with the Thesaurus. He's been raked, pillaged, plundered...

And - insert sigh here - we knew this would happen. 

Listen: This isn't Netflix. Sigourny and Charlize are not coming. No superpowered stranger will return to save humanity. This is reality TV, and the cast of Lost is, well, lost.  

The problem: Cole had two great starts, so we ridiculously penciled him back in as Ace. Then came the crash. 

He's now started six games, pitched 32 innings and given up 5 HRs. Last night, the defense didn't exactly help him, but - OMG! - it could have been worse. Every inning, Cole was on the ropes. He doesn't look like the Cy Young starter who once dominated. Honestly, he looks like a guy at the end of those ropes. 

Which brings us to The Question: Can Cole - like Catfish Hunter, Justin Verlander and other greats have done - reinvent himself for a final incarnation? 

Face it: The old stuff isn't working. And if Cole falters, there is no stud pitcher in Scranton ready to replace him. The only replacement might come in a trade - a Cashman trade - need I say more?

Even scarier thought: It's June - when the Yankees last year fell apart. 

It may be happening again.

It's been 23 days since Aaron Judge went out with a fractured rib - (31 since Judge's last HR.) He probably has another month to go. 

It's been 11 days since Trent Grisham tweaked a hamster. Likewise, he's probably halfway to recovery. 

Meanwhile, the Yankees have turned their lineup over to The Martian, Spencer Jones and - mostly - Jose Caballero, playing multiple roles like Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove. Displaced from SS by the enigmatic prodigal son, Anthony Volpe, Cabby's recent OF appearances have been tough. Bad throws. And though he has 17 stolen bases, he's been thrown out 7 times - a 28 percent failure rate. Ouch. (FWIW, Jazz is at 15 percent failures.) 

It's been three days since the Yankees scored more than three runs in a game. Time after time, in critical at bats, they hit first-pitch pop-ups, or take called third strikes - sometimes challenging the call - as Volpe did last night - only to be embarrassed when the entire ball turns up in the zone.

Three straight losses - against tomato cans Cincinnati and Detroit. Three is a speed bump. But four is a streak. Lose tonight - and facing Skrupal for the final game - and history is repeating itself. We all could be standing on the mound, pointing to first. Bada-boom.

For Father's Day, Yankees disappoint their dads and send warning sirens across the Bronx

 

The Babadook arrived yesterday, around 4 p.m. E.D.T., while chess master Aaron Boone was playing perhaps the Yankees' worst-fielding outfield in this millennium. 

In LF stood utility infielder Max Schuemann. In CF, it was displaced middle infielder Jose Caballero. In RF, designated hitter Jasson Dominguez. (Apparently, the late Smokey Burgess was unavailable.) Together, this wondrous collection of talent and despair concocted an authentic Little League triple, a tragedy of foul-ups that put a Reds batter on third - from a soft bouncer up the middle.

Impossible, you say? Here's how they did it. 

A Red with the A.I.-generated videogame name of Spencer Steer hit a bouncer up the middle. Second baseman Jazz Chisholm glided over to snag it. Instead, he waved at it, saying, "Get into center, Mr. Ball!" Shortstop Anthony Volpe trotted over and said, "Hello, Ball. I hereby wish you safe passage through our Straits of Jeter." In short centerfield, Caballero picked up the ball and said, "Where do you want to go from here, Ball?" He then fired it toward second base, 10 feet over Chisholm's head, to a place where pitcher Camilo Doval should have been backing up. But Doval was elsewhere, shouting, "Where are you going, Mr. Ball?" The ball rolled all the way to the backstop, while Steer ran to 3B. He later scored, of course.  

Embarrassing, you say? Not really.  

I mean, this happened on a day when the Yankees went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position, in a series where - when their baserunners weren't getting picked off - they went 2-for-32 in RISP situations, when they lost two of three games, at home to the worst team in the National League Central, which had been decimated by injuries.

I don't know what the Yankees have against their dads. 

But sirens should be sounding across the Yankiverse, because as the team heads to Detroit, the Tigers are shopping Tarik Skubal. Having watched the Knicks trade a century of first-round picks - and win the NBA championship - should anybody NOT expect the Yankees to deal away their future for three-month rental?

Be afraid. Be very afraid. And good luck to you, Mr. Ball!

Hooray for Jazz Chisholm, striking a blow for father's everywhere: HE WILL NOT CUP-ITULATE

Friday night, NYC sports fans took a stark turn from their wild celebration of the 2026 Knicks, as Jumbotrons and phones across the globe suddenly showed Jazz Chisholm, writhing at home plate like a 5'11" slab of bacon.

He had just taken a foul ball to the bilge pump, a pain that withers the hearts of all men everywhere, except in the Yankee dugout, where his teammates were nervously grinning. 

The poor fellow could barely hobble to the clubhouse, where he'd spend the next 12 hours icing down his joystick. 

T'waz a moment frozen in time - and pain. Today, of course, the nattering nabobs of the nanny state want every player, everywhere, to immediately don plastic cups, clamping down on our God-given freedom to romp across fields of blooming nipples. It raises the ultimate question for modern man:

To cup, or not to cup?

Do you wear personal armor, knowing it might protect your billiards from a seeing eye grounder, or a surgically applied tag at home plate. But nothing can save you from a Paul Skenesian 102-mph direct hit? In simple terms, the system will not protect you.

So, do we go free, assigning the safety of our precious family jewels to the whims of the fates and juju gods?

For me, it's all about the C-word.

The Chafing. 

Yes, in the matter of cups, the unspoken question down the ages remains: 

How much chafing can a guy endure?

I'm talking about fiery rings of redness that no ointments or baby powder can sooth. I'm talking about pure, unadulterated chafing: With each step, each movement, the region where your groin intersects with the outside world becomes a volcano of spouting pain, until the skin around your domain seems to be bathing in acid. 

Yes, I suppose if you endure the chafing long enough - until the skin is like the underside of a Naugahyde recliner - the pain will subside. Maybe.

Honestly, I don't know. I was never able to make it.  

It's the chafing, Mr. Kurtz. And I hereby nominate Jazz Chisholm for some award in the Manoverse. He has chosen not to run the bases in a plastic codpiece the size of a bear trap? No way. He is going to let his spirited onions run free. And he is sending a message to us all.

Life, my friends, is not meant to be lived in a cage. You cannot protect yourself forever. Get out and expose yourself to the world - discreetly, of course. Let your seeds be sown where they are not planted. And in the case of Jazz, steal more bases! 

And happy Father's Day to all. 

Game Thread - Swoon da Twentieth – 2026

 OK – OK – OK

THIS ONE IS THE LAST ONE

UNTIL SWOON 25TH

Those were the days...

 

Shout out to our happy warriors today, and a message to HAL

I see AA has preloaded a game thread. This is not it.

If this were a World Cup, the Yankees would be advancing to the knockout round. Ten ponderings of the current reality.

 The Yankees enjoy a two-game lead (loss column) over hateful, jealous, petulant, frugal, ever-scheming Tampa, which squats in its putrid dome, awaiting the next hurricane.  

But but BUT... compared to the World Cup events, which bring gigantic walls of noise, Yank fans seem almost indifferent to the team's success. What's behind this nonchalance?

Fear, of course. And existential dread. 

Ten reasons to hold your cards close.  

1. We been here before. Midsummer meltdowns have become commonplace in modern Yankee lore. Last year, right about now, we lost six straight, tumbling into 2nd place, where we languished into October. 

2. The Knicks have sucked all the optimism from NYC. Didja hear Mamdani's speech? My God. It was beautiful, full of memories for a team he's supported all his life. It's comparable to Joe Torre's three-Kleenex, 2014 Hall of Fame induction speech. 

3. Secretly, we want to freeze Cam Schlittler into cryonic suspension. That way, he could emerge for Game One of the playoffs. We're three months away. Plenty of time for a tweak or a twiddle. Too much time, in fact.

4. Our success comes from beating tomato cans. We have MLB's best record against losing teams. Not so good against the cream. Bad omen.

5. We're over-stretched with injuries. Somehow, we filled the void left by the loss of Judge and Grish. In a strange way - for example, Goldy's golden opportunity - the injuries may have helped. But we're at our limit. 

6. And the injuries never stop. Especially for a veteran team. Just sayin...

7. It's too early to draw conclusions about Spencer Jones and Jasson Dominguez. Neither has sucked - (and we worried about The Martian in RF) - but it would be nice to see one go on a tear. 

8. Lowly Boston is still in the race. They are 13 games below .500 - but only 6.5 out of the postseason wild care. So profound is the state of mediocrity in the AL that the Redsocks are still alive. That scares me. It should scare everybody.

9. Our bullpen canl blow any lead. The Circle of Trust is Fernando Cruz, David Bednar and Brent Headrick. After that, you've got a better chance of sailing a redneck Trump flotilla through the Strait of Hormuz.

10.  In Scranton, George Lombard Jr. strained a finger and will miss a few weeks. Damn. He had just started hitting. But Oswaldo Cabrera, in his last three games, is 8-for-13, boosting his average 20 points, to .260. It would be an emotional moment if he returns. I really hope he doesn't get traded. A fan fave.

After this weekend, the days start getting shorter.  Enjoy the sunlight.

Remembering Lou Gehrig, born on this day, 1903. Pictured here in his audition for Tarzan, 1936.

[image or embed]

— TCMFanatics (@tcmfans.bsky.social) June 19, 2026 at 7:44 PM

Game Thread – Hopefully Schlittler Silences Lowder – 06/19/26

 FELLOW FELLOWS:

THIS WILL LIKELY BE THE LAST

GAME THREAD FROM ME

 UNTIL

THE 25th OF SWOON

PLEASE 'O' PLEASE

PLAN ACCORDINGLY

 

Jazzy signage

 

Let's Be Hopeful for Jazz

 When I was a sophomore in college,  a senior teammate at a Lacrosse practice took a hard shot to the gonads from a midfielder.  My teammate ( we later learned ) was not wearing a cup, similar to Jazz Chisolm's lack of protection last night. 

I can tell you this;  that injury required surgery and cost him the entire season. 

We always tend ( or try ) to laugh off these embarrassing "dings" and usually that works. Most often the injury is painful and debilitating, but fleeting.  Not in the case of my teammate. 

We can only hope that Jazz's " ding" will be of the fleeting nature. 

Thoughts and prayers for our second baseman. 

Close Enough for Jazz

 The Yanks have a slugger named Jazz

A second baseman possessed of pizzazz
An inaccurate swing
Racked a ball in his bling
Now he's shopping for cups, rumor has.

Last night, as Jazz Chisholm writhed in pain, the Yankee announcers surrendered their rights to free speech

Last night, enroute to a bullpen meltdown - (Cam Doval? Are you serious?) - a terrifying glimpse into the state of free speech in America played out at Yankee Stadium home plate. 

As Jazz Chisholm lay writhing in the dirt, victim to a foul that clipped him square in the balls, pearl-clutching YES announcers Ryan Ruocco and Paul O'Neill simply refused to say what happened. 

Remember the old rules about swearing on TV? They're gone. We now occupy a world where politicians say "fuck," and nobody bats an eye. Good grief, yesterday, the President nicknamed U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff from Georgia - Os-jerkoff.  Are you worried about the loss of decorum? Listen: That ship has sailed. Yet the two Yankee announcers danced around Chisholm's situation like ballerinas, taking for a solid five minutes without ever saying aloud what happened. 

Moreover, when Chisholm left the game, still in agony, both announcers acted surprised, denying verbal comfort to a fellow human being, one who was clearly suffering a pain that links modern man to prehistoric Neanderthals, and which - now and a million years ago - cuts to the heart of the male experience. 

They could not bring themselves to speak any of these words...

Balls
Testicles
Gonads
Cojones
Nuts
Bollocks
Genitals
Ballsacs
Ta-tas
Nads
Crown Jewels
Giggleberries
California Raisins
Weather Balloons
Seed bags
Cosmic Cubes
Queenmakers 
Happy Chandeliers 
The Straits of Hormuz

Free speech? What's that? Instead, they talked about talking about what they couldn't talk about - what Ruocco later called a "region" they could not discuss. And remember: This is cable TV, where even white bread Anderson Cooper has been known to swear. Of course, they showed video replays of Chisholm being neutered. They showed Boone, smiling through a grimace. They showed teammates laughing. They showed Chisholm's face, a mask of bottomless anguish. The poor guy took one square on the oysters. Today, those ping pong balls must be as flat as beer coasters. I'm feeling it, just writing the words.

Let's hope Chisholm doesn't sing falsetto for the rest of 2026. And come on, YES: How about joining the modern world! If a ball mashes some poor soul's testicles, for God's sake, say what happened. 

And by the way, bringing Doval into any close game is like kicking yourself in the nuts. I didn't think that was possible. But what do I know? Excuse me, just thinking about it, I gotta ice down my "region." 

Game Thread - 06/18/26 - Your New York, uh, like, you know - Yankeebockers !

The Yankees are baseball's hottest team, and nobody cares

Today, the Yankees can wake up in the city that never sleeps and see, firsthand, what it's like to be king of the hill, A-number one, top of the heap.

Tomorrow, they can watch how America coalesces around a national team that isn't - in its essence - another sporting manifestation of megalomanic money.  

Today, the Knicks will parade down the Canyon of Heroes for a rally at City Hall, and the world's little town shoes will be melting away. 

Tomorrow, the USA soccer team plays Australia in Seattle, showing the Yankiverse what unconditional fan loyalty looks like.

As the Yankees grow their lead in the AL East - now three up on Tampa - diehards are beginning to whisper the most perilous question of all: 

Dare we dream?

I mean, we're winning without Judge. Without Grisham. Without Giancarlo. Cole and Rodon are pitching well. Rice and Bellinger are for real. Goldschmidt is a Godsend, Clarke Schmidt will eventually return, and even Volpe has played well, lately...

Dare. We. Dream?

The answer, my friends, is... NO. 

They'll blow it. Of course, they will! This mini-winning streak - even without Judge - will simply lead into a devastating collapse, as soon as we stop playing AL Central cupcakes. 

I refer you to the most important Rule of Juju:

IF YOU HAVE GOOD FEELINGS ABOUT YOUR TEAM, KEEP THEM THE FUCK TO YOURSELF!  NOTHING IS EVER GAINED BY TALKING UP YOUR TEAM. ALWAYS STAY NEGATIVE.

Think of it this way: Speak ill of your team and, if they collapse - (as Yank teams have done since 2009) - you've merely burnished your reputation as truth-talking doomsday prophet, who sees through all the fake positivity. 

And if your team happens to succeed, you can claim that it was your caustic negativity that sparked the game-winning juju. 

One unspoken part of today's parade will be the unbridled belief - no, the absolute certainty that OG's game four put-back happened all by itself. Not a chance. Everyone knows his hand was guided by a million doubting Knicks fans, all of whom never stopped believing that their team would lose.

Today, along the Canyon of Heroes, the Yankees get to see how New York responds to greatness. Tomorrow, in Seattle, and throughout the entire World Cup, they can learn how whole countries react. 

But remember: Stay dour.