“You’re going to be a rich f*cker. Just remember when you’re on that horses**s Yankees team, and you guys are all playing for yourself — just remember, say, ‘This is the way we used to do it.’"

Printed above in a Jumbotron font is the terrifying warning from Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy - bellowed in the champagne-soaked aftermath of the world series - to Brewers' hero Jake Bauers.

Someday, when you're unfathomably wealthy and playing for a big market team where everyone chases personal stats, you must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a smile is still a smile...

Sorry. Got carried away.

In this millennium, no words have more frighteningly indicted the Yankees.

Ten ugly thoughts...

1. Every Yank fan on this planet agrees with Murphy.

2.  Though the owner, the management, and the YES propaganda mill would deny it, modern Yankee teams are compilations of individual players chasing stats.

3. What else explains the fixation with home runs at the expense of fundamentals? Regardless of the situation, batters take full, ridiculous swings - because that's where the money is.

4. In recent years, the Yankees have lacked one key component: A catcher. A 3B. A soul.

5. This vacuum begins at the top, where Hal Steinbrenner perpetually settles for a contending team. That lack of urgency percolates throughout the organization.

6. Even though the Yankee s are no longer baseball's biggest money pit, to small market teams and fans, they still epitomize excessive, runaway spending.  

7. When players become indescribably rich, they're never the same.

8. In professional sports, you cannot buy hunger.

9. The Yankee culture will not change under this management, and the owner will not make changes, because he is comfortable with second place. 

10. Yankee fans, and their opinions, simply do not matter.

That's China Town, Jake.

The World Series exposed...the Yankees.

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Brewers— 

(Even if their longtime owner did manage to wreck the 1994 season, turn a blind eye to a generation of juicing, and stand there hopelessly unable to determine how to break a tie in the All-Star Game, in his wholly compromised role as commissioner. This Bud IS you, Mr. Selig.)—

—though reportedly, the Brewers' fine manager, Pat Murphy, asked Jake Bauers, the surprise hero of the postseason, if he wasn't glad he was no longer with that "selfish" Yankees team that played the game the wrong way.

This quote sounds so bizarre that I question its veracity. Among other things, Mr. Bauers stunk up the joint as a Yankee, a Mariner, an Indian, and a Ray, before turning in a .199 first year in Milwaukee.  

The shock is not that Brian Cashman let him go, but that he didn't throw $22 million at him. 

Well, good for Jake Bauers. And good for Pat Murphy. The both deserve their rings. But here are 10(?) observations on how it was the Yankees who were really exposed by this World Series.

—After an ALDS in which they kept the Yanks from so much as taking a lead for one inning, much less winning a game, the TB Rays had to grind out an ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians of Traffic, then were steamrolled by the Brewers. 

—In the Series, the Rays hit .182 with 1 home run and only 5 stolen bases in 9 attempts, and committed 3 errors. They played poorly in every aspect of the game. Their starting pitchers lasted a combined 21 1/3 innings, or fewer than 5 per start, and surrendered 13 earned runs in that time.

—There was no reason to think they would do much better. While the Rays had the best record in the American League, they were only third in total WAR, at 7.9, behind both the Red Sox (14.6) and your New York Yankees (13.8).  

—At no position, save for José Caminero at third, did the Rays field the best player at that position. In fact, save for RF, where they were second, no Ray ranked no higher than fifth in the league at any position.

—The greatest disparity between the Rays and the Yankees came in pitching, which is almost always the difference in baseball. The Yanks, boasting their best starting pitching in 25 years, and what rounded into a highly effective bullpen, were at 13.4 in pitching WAR. The Rays were merely 7th in the AL, at 1.9.

—In other words, with pitching ranked almost TEN TIMES better than Tampa Bay's, the Yankees could not get closer than within 4 1/2 games of the Rays over the regular season, or snag so much as a lead during their playoff series. I don't know if this has ever happened before in the history of baseball, but I would bet that it has not. 

—For all the talk about "selfishness" in the Yankees' clubhouse, or Cashman's magical ability to deflect the fault to Aaron Judge—"He said nice things about Verdugo!"...Tampa Bay did not display any great advantage over the Yanks in almost any statistical category, throughout the season.

—In team fielding, the Rays fielded .984, the Yanks, .983. Tampa Bay made 4 fewer errors—the Yankees pulled off 23 more double-plays. 

—In team batting the Rays led with an OPS of .728 to .720, and an OPS+ of 103-101—hardly huge differences. The Yankees actually scored more runs, 739-736, and outhomered TB, 223-169. Tampa Bay had all of 11 more steals, 164-153.

—The one big statistical difference came in clutch hitting. TB outhit the Yanks, .258-.235. Also, the Yankees were second in the AL in most strikeouts, at 1,480 and last in total hits, with 1,250. Tampa Bay, by contrast, had the fewest strikeouts in the league, at 1,145, and led all American League teams with 1,405 hits.

—In other words, here is where Cashman's disastrous insistence on playing "Three True Outcomes" baseball came clearly into play. The Rays struck out 335 fewer times, and out of those 355 at-bats, slashed 155 more hits, for an average of .463 "non-strikeout hits." (Stat patent pending.)

—Throughout the World Series, the broadcasters (and everyone else) heaped praise upon the Brewers and Rays for playing baseball "like it should be played," and rightly so. 

But it's worth pointing out that the two teams in the Series just last fall—and what were obviously the two best teams in their respective leagues in 2025, the Blue Jays and the Dodgers—hit home runs by the bushelful, belting 191 and 244, respectively, during the regular season, and combining for another 19 during their seven-game set.

—In other words, there are many ways to play winning baseball. Brian Cashman is bad at all of them. 

—It's not just that the Yankees stick rigidly with "Three True Outcomes" ball. It's that they don't know how to play that, either.  

—The key to the Yanks' failure this postseason was that they had at least five players in their starting lineups—Austin Wells, Ryan McMahon, Jazz Chisholm, Anthony Volpe, and Trent Grisham—who had no business being there, after their repeated and abject failures all season, and in the recent past.

—Remarkably, three of those players—Jazz, Volpe, and Wells—had also made critical mistakes in the infamous, Fifth Inning Fiasco of the 2024 World Series. Two of them, along with McMahon and Grisham, were on the field to make equally disastrous flubs in the first inning of the critical, Game Two of the 2026 ALDS. 

—Even more incredibly, the Yanks managed to exhaust their pinch-runners by the end of the final game in that series, put a chronically injured player who had not batted since the end of April up in the two most crucial at-bats of the season, and ended it with Trent Grisham—a player not only injured but awful—up there for the last out, in a one-run game.

The only conclusion possible from all this is that the Yankees—despite one of the greatest advantages in pitching ever seen in their league playoffs—did not even get to the ALCS not because their players were "selfish," or their clubhouse atmosphere was bad, or Aaron Judge said nice things about his teammates, or even because of the general incompetence of Aaron Boone (incompetent managers having won plenty of World Series).

It was because their general manager, Brian Cashman, made once again the same mistakes that he makes year after year, and failed to put the right players on the field—.even after their proven failures in the recent past.

  

Significant 2026-7 Off-Season Dates and Events

Well the season's over but there's still plenty of baseball stuff on tap. The real games as it were. 

October 31^st 2026 – Cleaning Out

Not the lockers or the rosters.The cleaning out I’m talking about is the elimination of the last of the alcohol consumed while watching the World Series from my system.

November 2^nd - Negotiating Window Ends

There is an exclusive five day negotiating window where teams can try to re-sign their Free Agents. After November second the players can negotiate with the rest of MLB. During this period teams can also make the Qualifying Offer to their Free Agents.

Last year Cashman trying to be too clever by half decided to give Trent Grisham $22 million dollars to stay for the extra year. He looked at Grisham’s numbers and figured he wouldn’t take it because he could do much better in the open market and the Yankees would get a free draft pick.

Grisham looked in the mirror and said… KaChing!

This year the only guy being seriously discussed is the team's closer David Bednar. The QO is $23.15 Million. That’s a lot for one year of a closer.

The 2^nd is also the night before Election Day. Don’t forget to vote.

November 9-12 General Managers Meetings

Brian Cashman, he of his 29^thyear as GM of the Yankees is the dean of these meetings. Dean Wormer. He’s now the old guy at the bar.  

Typically not a lot of deals get made here. It’s more of a set up for the Winter Meetings but due to the potential lockout there will be even less to do. Well other than the traditional playing of “Pin The Third Baseman on the Yankee Roster.”

November 11^th  The Cy Young Award

Schlittler!!!!!  There are other awards but none that concern the Yankees. Schlittler!

Read more >>

Ten reasons to celebrate the World Champion Milwaukee Brewers

1. Former Yank Jake Bauers. No grudges here. Guy did right by us in 2023. (I remember a game-winning HR.) He was out of baseball, ready to bag groceries. Nice to see an expat succeed. 

2. Former Yank Gary Sanchez. Seriously. He flopped in NY, after a grand unveiling. Still, no regrets. And who'd'a thought he'd have a ring, and Judge doesn't? 

3. Fuck Tampa. Seriously. They love hating us more than they love their team. The stands were full of Brewers fans. I realize that, if the Rays won, it would hasten their collapse, as they systematically sell off their players. Still, it's nice to see them flounder. And Tropicana Field is terrible.

4. Milwaukee has never hurt us. To reopen a flesh wound, you must time-travel back to 1957, with Del Crandall, Lou Burdette and a 23-year-old Hank Aaron. Even I don't go back that far. (Also, Green Bay doesn't count.)

5. Milwaukee, the city. How can you hate on a town known for beer and sausage?

6. The Brewers' victory undercuts the owners' claim that a salary cap is necessary to restore competitive balance. What a load of crapola. 

7. The Brewers won via fundamentals: Singles, bunts, baserunning, glovework - I half expected to see a hidden ball trick. Do the lords of baseball, as they sabotage their sport, realize how utterly boring it is to watch a game with 30 strikeouts? Yet they chase the three true outcomes. 

8. Front Row Amy. First time I noticed the cleavage - (first batter, first inning, game one) - I figured she was some B-list scream queen, or a Kalshi's marketing answer to Sydney Sweeney. How refreshing to learn the truth: She's a true fan who has attended home games since 2007 and who scores each game by hand. Write this down: She's the greatest fan in American sports. 

9. Brewers manager Pat Murphy is a Syracuse native, from a modest city neighborhood called Eastwood. That's the heartland, folks. Kids on bikes. Halloween decorations. Root for the Cuse.

10. The Dodgers didn't win. Neither did Boston. And the Mets sucked. Baby steps, eh?

World Series Game Five:Open Thread

 

Last game at Tropicana Field.

Georgie juices up a Yankee embarrassment

Breaking News: Jorge Posada doesn't feel welcome with the Yankees anymore.

Apparently, his discomfort stems from 2011, Georgie's final days, when he was cut for ex-Dodger Russel Martin and the team's long-term future: Jesus "Ice Cream Sandwich" Montero. You remember 2011. The Death Barge fell to Detroit in a maelstrom of whiffs, though Old Urine Fingers - (he used to famously soak his hands in piss to toughen them) - hit .429 in the divisional series. 

Ever since, he's been a growing outlier with the company that put his bronze plaque in Monument Park. 

Posada says he has avoided spring training because the Yankees don't want him. 

Ten dispirited thoughts...

1. Honestly, I don't have time for this. The coastlines are crashing, the world is exploding, and we're supposed to sweat this? 

2. If somebody's feelings are hurt, soak them in piss and carry on.

3. Wasn't there once a rule that teams are supposed to avoid public controversies during the World Series? So who let this one out?

4. Obviously, the Yankees have blown this. There is no excuse - none - for pissing off one of the Core Four. This is why they have interns, to gladhand former stars whose feathers are ruffled. 

5. But but BUT... there is something here, because Jorge represents the kind of prickly, peppery, hard-ass personality that the Yankees could use as manager. If he's calling out the Yankees, it's because he won't accept their bullshit. Good for him. I only wish they listened. 

6. It's now 30 years since 1996, when the Yankees won their first championship under Joe Torre. 

7. Thirty years.

8. That's not a typo. Thirty fucking years.

9. That this has gone public should prompt Hal to apologize, and somebody should be flogged, but nothing will happen, because that's the modern, dead-eyed Yankees.

10. The Mets will invite him to camp, or maybe Boston. (Of course, there will be no camps, due to the lockout.) Or if they lose, maybe even Tampa. Either way, there are always teams out there who are delighted to carve off a piece of what was once a great Yankee legacy, and which shrinks further into the abyss every year. 

Thirty years.

Dangerous Times

This morning El Duque pointed out the absurdity of what we witnessed last night. Ten runs being scored without home runs. Something our analytic gurus have explained is no longer possible.

He may be correct that it is a space time or biblical level event that will usher in the apocalypse.

But, there’s another possible explanation.

One far more sinister.

One that has been lurking in the background since the 1930’s and is once again threatening its ugly head and threatening, not the fabric of the universe, but something far, far more dangerous… the American Way of Life ®.

Creeping Socialism. ®

The World Series® and therefore, America Itself®, is under attack. The idea that baseball is no longer beholden to a few John Galt level superstars. No longer beholden to launch angles and probabilities foisted upon us by analytical technocrats who claim to know what is best for the game… And for us. The T-Mobilization® of the world.

Creeping Socialism®

Last night the Brewers showed that games in the soon to be re-named One-World World Series® can be won by grinding it out. Everyone in it together. Sacrifice.

Giving up the body, like that great catch by Sal Frelick in the top of the fifth. Sal Frelick? There’s a commie name if I’ve ever heard one. Jacob Misiorowski? 

Prove me wrong!

This was a win for the men and women who fill the beer halls in Milwaukee not the luxury suites in the Tropicana Field. (Do they have luxury suites there? That is one crappy stadium. I’m surprised that the lights work.)

Yes, it was nothing short of a revolution taking place at Tropicana Field®.

Tropicana Field®! Birthplace of Anita Bryant®.  The very home of orange juice in concentrated form. Tubed and shipped fresh to your grocer. America’s Other Breakfast Beverage ®

Creeping Socialism. ®

I heard talk on a hot mike in the dugout about a Two-Strike Approach! Approaching a STRIKE. The number one tool in the Commie/Socialist playbook.  

The Brewers style of play sends a dangerous sub-conscious message to us all. We don’t need the Three True Outcomes® to win. We can do it by working together and getting back to fundamentals.

You know, Creeping Socialism®

---

All of the above said… Don’t worry. The American Way® is safe.

In a month’s time the owners will meet and decide to lock out the workers in an attempt to bust the player’s union. (Yay!)

They will seek to cap salaries. (Yay!)

They will seek to remove the advantages given to the uber-wealthy teams and create a more equitable distribution of money to…  

"Wait a minute!"you say.  "A more equitable distribution of money? That’s Creepin…'

No… it’s OK.

They are creating a more equitable distribution of money… among themselves. 

Good old fashioned collusion by the owners to deny the workers a higher wage.  

Thanks to American heroes like Hal Steinbrenner and soon to be convicted billionaire fraudster Mark Walter the game will return to the real Three True Outcomes®.  

Taxpayer subsidized stadiums.

Tax deductions to corporations for luxury suites.

And

Using gaslighting and myth to convince fans that raising ticket, parking, and concession prices while at the same time lowering their expenses by paying the players less is the only way the game can survive.

Whew!

Milwaukee just achieved what would be an impossibility for the '26 Yankees.

Last night, the Milwaukee Brewers mocked God... and the Yankees. 

They performed two impossibilities, two miracles, two glitches in The Matrix, two Old Testament cataclysms, two signs that the End Is Near... 

They scored 10 runs, without one homer. 

They scored eight runs in the 5th inning, all with two outs. 

Okay, settle down, everybody. For those of you who are deeply rooted into our Liberty-Bibberty, quicksand, time-and-space conundrum - aka our sad reality - let me recap...

The Brewers scored eight runs with two outs and not one homer. 

Impossible! you say. This challenges the boundaries of astrophysics, the landscapes of human consciousness. It might just prove the existence of God. Or Dave Kingman. Is it a mass hallucination? Did some supernatural entity, while we slept, just reboot our home page? Are we reliving this, over and over, to power a gigantic, otherworldly Commodore 64?

Listen. It's one thing to score 10 runs. Every now and then, the '26 Yankees would hang a ten-spot. They'd find some dishrag reliever and turn a close game into a laugher, often ending with a position player lobbing strikes. They would suddenly look like the powerhouse that our YES Channel overlords proclaimed them to be. And one of our supreme joys would be to look up the box score and tally the five or six HRs we hit. You never knew. Ten runs could mean 10 solo shots. 

After all, the Yankees finished second in all of MLB - with 223 home runs, three behind miserable Houston. Meanwhile, the lowly Brewers finished 28th (out of 30), hitting a mere 154. Pathetic, eh? I mean, what kind of baseball is that? 

And WTF happened last night? Oh well, disregard it. We've got Ruth, Maris, Reggie, Judge... the Yankees are synonymous with home runs, right? So, stay the course, right?

Old, tired, and sick of it

I finally became a fan in 1967, I believe it was. It was not a great time for the Yankees, but I had no first-hand experience to really understand that. So, I watched the games whenever an Albany TV station deigned to show one, always on the weekends, and I listened to almost all the rest on my transistor radio thanks to WSNY (was it?) in Schenectady, the home of the Polish Program every Sunday--a polkafest my dad never missed.

So this edition of the Sunday News, which dad subscribed to (providing one of my tenuous connections to the Big City, where I ended up living for 40 years), broke my Catholic schoolboy heart. The Mick. Quitting. The one real bright spot on a dismal team, along with Mel. 

I had come to sports a lot later than the other kids and did not exactly have any skill sets to speak of, so I ended up being the "Official Pitcher" a lot of times in neighborhood softball games. I pitched for both teams, never batted, and thereby earned the nickname "Mel," which hung on for a few years.

The Yanks weren't good, as you know, because most of you lived through that era, too. But I stuck with them, admiring Mike Burke's long sideburns and flare-bottomed windowpane suits when he showed up (groovy, man). I figured they eventually had to get better, which they did. It took 10 years before they won it all, and I was shocked to see that a number of Yankees were really, really good. Who knew?

Of course, by then I was at the tail-end of my college haze, and I don't remember much of the season. There were drugs to be found and music to be heard, and baseball became a side interest to some degree.

But I have kept following the Yankees, even when they sucked, and Mattingly was the bright light that saw me through the dark times. The late 90s were a miracle. Finally, the dynastic team that I had never known.

And it's been downhill ever since. In the face of failure, the management's attitude has been sickening. Fuck, CBS cared more about this team than the three-headed monster that runs it now.

None of this is news, insightful, or edifying in any way, shape, or form. But what a shitty way to slide into old age, and the limited years therein. Just another huge disappointment in a world that's devolved into nothing but a huge--and frightening--disappointment.

The Yankees are a shitshow that accurately reflects the larger shitshow we live in. The troika are a lot like our so-called leaders. They're doing it all right out in the open, blatantly lying about it, with no accountability whatsoever.

Living in Germany is not helping. It's all too deep in my bone marrow.

Fresh mush from Food Stamps Hal: “I was disappointed, quite frankly, with the offense throughout the course of the year, as a whole, even though there were some bright spots. As a whole, they were very inconsistent when it came to run scoring, and they were inconsistent for long periods. That made it difficult to catch the Rays and win the division. And as we all know, winning the division is a big deal in this playoff format. That is certainly one part of the organization and the team that I’m going to be looking at from top to bottom.”

I'm still processing the verbal kettle corn that spewed from Hal Steinbrenner's phlegm faucet this week, his first public hoo-ha since the Tampa fiasco. 

Old Food Stamps covered a lot of ground - conjuring excuses and gaslit dreams - but I believe the above quotation, in all its toxic smog and fog, offers the clearest portrait of why the Yankees are a perpetual 2nd-place team with a 1st-place payroll.

Hal was "disappointed" in the '26 offense. Well, yeah, I guess we all were. That's because the Death Barge entered the year with the same offense that disappointed us in '25, and throughout the regular season, all those acquisitions that were going to save us? Well, they didn't happen. We were left with a roster of disappointments, which now fits neatly into Hal's backwards reckoning.   

If you were to tell me last February that Cam Schlittler would chase the Cy Young, and Ben Rice would hit 40 HRs, I'd had have bet the house. 

Now, that's disappointment. 

After squandering the greatest seasons of Aaron Judge's career - Hall of Fame-level years - the Yankees may do the same with Schlittler and Rice. 

So, Hal is - um - disappointed? Golly. Does he realize how tired those words sound, how insulting they are to Yank fans who are watching time run out on the franchise's legacy? 

An entire generation now sees the Yankees as a bloated monstrosity that always comes close and never wins. They are a team that plays in a lunch-pail ballpark and that owns the primary media that covers it. Thus, you have hitters who swing for the porch and straddle the Mendoza line. (The Yankee lineup last season had three regulars - Wells, Grisham and McMahon - who hit below .215.)

It must be tough for Hal, watching Milwaukee and Tampa play old-school baseball, while he contemplates the murky future of a lockout. 

He's disappointed. 

Huh. 

Yank fans forced to watch a strange, alien version of baseball, featuring something called "fundamentals."

Weird, last night. 

No. Beyond weird.

I mean, WTF? Have we been hacked? Is this so-called 2026 "world series" an A.I. fueled slop animation? An imaginary dream orgasm? How else would you explain it? Because nothing makes sense. Nothing...

Last night, in case you missed it - or crashed a heel through your TV out of pure disbelief - something took place that is absolutely foreign to the bylaws of the Yankiverse.

I still can't understand it, but I'll try to Yanksplain: 

There we were, in our homes, clutching our beverages and hoisting our victory blankets, watching a team give up four runs in the first inning - FOUR RUNS... AND YET... dear God, I still can't process this, AND YET... 

The game wasn't over!

Okay, I know what you're thinking. Duque, put down the toad. You've lost your mind. You're hallucinating again, and dream shards are expanding like Jiffy-Pop from your drooling jawline. 

But no, I'm not making this up. I swear it. 

The Milwaukee Brewers - who knew this was going on? - were down by four in the first - game over, go home, everybody - and yet they battled back to win the game - and get his - they did it without hitting four solo home runs, which is, of course, the only way our Yankee Death Barge ever comes back.

By the laws and realities of the 2026 Yankee Home Run Derby Firmament, a four-run deficit requires four solo-home runs, preferably spaced around 12 strikeouts, as each Yankee performer showcases his grandest swing-'n-pose. 

I mean, what are we watching? Is this a Russian thing? Have the Iranians hacked Fox? Is John Smoltz a secret Canadian? This cannot be not real. I'm wondering... what really happened in the postseason? Will we wake up in December, locked out of baseball, only to learn that the Yankees - led by Giancarlo and Jazz - actually won the world series? How else do we explain this... I have no words... this thing? 

So now, they SAY it's going to Tampa. They SAY the Brewers are ahead. They SAY the Rays still have a chance. Well, I wonder. Where's Brent Headrick? Where's Ryan McMahon? What has happened to the 30 strikeouts-per-game model? What are they doing, moving runners into scoring position? 

Calgon Bath Oil Beads, take me away...

Vision.

 

The second key word of the day is: vision. Hal Steinbrenner needs to get one.

Another question that the sporting press might try asking Hal is this: what is your vision for the New York Yankees?

Is it to build an incredible system, from top to bottom, that will churn out terrific young players (at a reduced cost to you, not incidentally)?  

Fine! If so, that will mean replacing Brian Cashman and the many other hangers-on and incompetents around him (looking at you, Lonn and Randy!).

Is it to shoot the wad, bringing in all sorts of superstars to buy championships? Have at it!

Is it to...just mellow out? 

Say, 'Don't worry, be happy, and you know what: I'm going to make the Yankees the most terrific, affordable, wonderful fan experience in professional sports—and to top it off, I'm going to devote myself to reviving the long-suffering borough of the Bronx where we have played for so long."

I'd buy that. They wouldn't even have to win!

But Hal possesses none of these visions, of course. He has no vision whatsoever, other than to keep steadily increasing his incalculable, inherited fortune by so much more, year in and year out.

And if that's so...fine.

Sell the Yankees for the $12 billion or so they're supposedly worth, and make a big buy into Trump coin crypto, or whatever other "investments" strike your fancy.

If you really don't like baseball—and it does not appear that you do—and if you really don't want to learn much about the game—and it does not appear that you do—then sell the team, cash in, and spend the rest of your days spreading joy and light where're you tread, or whatever.

Nobody could possibly blame you for not loving a sport which your awful, horse's ass of a father made into an obsession—probably at the abject neglect of you and your siblings.

Instead...Hal complains about paying taxes. And is about to lead an effort to rain still more havoc and destruction on the sport of baseball.

Terrific. 

This is America in the age of the Nepo Baby Numbskulls.  

There is not the slightest concern for anything greater than themselves, in any way, shape, or form. 

Not even a Carnegie-style inclination for showering libraries and other good things upon the world (after horribly exploiting his workers for decades). Not even some remaining, rapacious sense of empire-building—the desire to construct the greatest of the greatest of the greatest, which (let's face it) our greedy Yankees-fan hearts would pound to see. 

Nope. Nothin'.

Hey, we get it. Your grotesque excuse of a pater familias so twisted and distorted you that you can't be a normal person. We get to see how that works everyday in the White House. 

But then...sell the team already.

The New York Yankees are a public trust. I could say that this is because they bring joy and entertainment to millions of people. But I won't.

Let's go to the receipts, as the kids say today. The Yankees are a public trust because we the bloody public have forked over millions to Hal and his family over the many years, and what he owes us in return is a greater vision than falling short the same way, year after year. 

To come into this world with so much, and have so little idea of what to with it, is both sad and contemptible.

 

Specifics.

 

We are trapped in semantics and vagaries. 

What the sporting press needs to get down to regarding your New York Yankees are specifics.

Does 93 wins constitute a "success"? Does getting to the ALDS? Is the attitude in the Yankees' clubhouse bad? Is no one being held accountable? Does Aaron Judge have too much to say?

Blah, blah, blah. 

All of this is very vague, and nearly unanswerable. It all but begs vague and useless replies.

Picking up on Doug's brilliant soliloquy of late:  somehow, none of our Knights of the Press Box are able to say, "Ryan McMahon never could hit and now he can't field. Why was he starting in the playoffs? Why did you get rid of a possible replacement—Oswaldo Contreras—in September instead of seeing if he could take over third?"

"Isn't it a fact that the only reason you're playing him because you're paying him a lot of money right now? And how does that make any sense?"

Why is it seemingly impossible for the working press to ask that direct a question of anyone on the Yankees? 

Do they feel it is impolite? Unfair to the players?

Ryan McMahon is a good-looking SOB, who according to baseball reference has made $57 million in the sport, with another $16 million guaranteed for next year. 

I bet he could survive such questions directed at his bosses.

Same, say, with similar Trent Grisham, or Austin Wells, or Jazz Chisholm—another good-looking guy who has made $29 million in his brief career.

Could it be that our sporting press simply hasn't done the research? Are they unable to follow the game they watch everyday for a living?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Seriously, if the top reporters in politics, world affairs, economics, science, or what have you asked such vapid questions they would be fired.

Study up on the subject for 15 minutes or so and ask Brian Cashman and/or Hal Steinbrenner specific questions about why they keep fielding such terrible players, year after year, in crucial games.  Ask them if it's just because of the money they're being paid.

I bet it unsettles them. Maybe we'll even get some real answers

 

The Future of the Franchise is Now . . . (sung to the tune of BEN)

 

BOONE

WE ALL KNOW THAT YOU'RE 

THE WORST

THEY SHOULD BANISH YOU

TO BENSONHURST

 

YOU 

CAN'T MANAGE WORTH 

A DAMN

ITS ALL BEEN JUST A SCAM

 I THOUGHT THAT YOU

SHOULD KNOW

ITS REALLY TIME TO GO

 

OH GOD !

WE'VE HAD ENOUGH 

JUNE SWOONS

AND

TERRIBLE PLATOONS

PLEASE GET RID

OF HIM

BY NOON

WE'RE DONE

WITH 

AARON BOONE 

 

If I Keep This Up I’ll Go Blind

Today I sat down to write my annual post on what the team should do next year. Standard stuff like don’t spend to acquire starting pitching, build the bullpen, get the Japanese free agent 3B, don’t give Jazz the Qualifying Offer… Things like that.

Then I had to stop. 

Because it’s all just jerking off...  And we are the jerks.

Sports fans are a curious blend of optimism and pessimism. Always hopeful that a few tweaks to the lineup, a couple of key additions, fewer injuries, and having the vagaries that make up a season break our way could make the difference and bring us the title.

Here at IIH IIF we tend to be more pessimistic that most but only because we’re a fairly well thought out bunch. 

Most of us, as reflected in the comments, are reaching a tipping point in our fandom. 

As long, long, time Yankee fans we have both suffered and been rewarded. That’s the natural course of rooting. 

This offseason the current state of the team feels different.

Ownership has broken the sacred trust that is the cornerstone of the relationship. We have to believe that the team is trying to win it all.

They aren’t. 

What’s worse is…

We know that we are being played.

And they are not trying to hide it.

We live in a time frame where powerful people seem to feel that they can say things that are demonstrably untrue and expect us to eat it. No accountability.  

Just Hubris.

Giving Brian Cashman another five years when he has proven to be inept is unconscionable. He is inept. All GMs make mistakes. That’s to be expected. To keep making the same ones? Inept.

Blaming the players and only the players for their failure and not the guy who spent over $300 million dollars acquiring them?  

Not firing Aaron Boone?

--

There is a point in life where you realize that what you want to happen and what is going to happen are two completely different things.

Extending Cashman was it for me.

I believe the phrase is, "irreconcilable differences".

Fan is short for fanatic. It’s also part of the word fantasy. I’m through fantasizing that the Yankees will figure it out. They won't and any time that I spend thinking about how it could be or might be is just jerking off.

Maybe it feels good short term, but in the end it's a waste of energy that would be better spent elsewhere.  

And, if I keep it up, I’ll go blind.

Baseball is heading for a free agent blitz, and the Yankees have $2.6 billion to spend. Will it matter?

According to The Athletic, the sports page for today's Gray Lady, the aftermath of the upcoming midterm elections - along with riots, floods and funny presidential burp vocalizations - will feature an MLB "free agent frenzy," as owners lock down rosters before the lockdown. 

If so, we could soon get a glimpse of Food Stamps Hal Steinbrenner's new, ultra-fortified money pile, following the $2.6 billion infusion from Apollo Sports Capital. That's cash on the barrelhead, people. Mad money.  With the Dodgers facing fraud investigations, and the Mets and Phillies still licking their wounds, the Yankees could - for a month, anyway - bestride the sports world as the swinging dick of dollars.   

Remember: It was the winter of 2009 when Hal shelled out for Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett - a $200 million spending spree - leading to our last championship. 

Dare we dream? 

Nah. There's a reason we call him "Food Stamps."

Still, with all that money... all that cash... here's what we could buy:

1. Tarik Skubal. Nothing complicated. He's the best player available. Get him. Don't buy into the bullshit that we already have enough pitching. We don't. He's our Sabathia.  

2. Michael King. Plan B, if Skubal signs elsewhere. And even if Skubal signs with us, King would be our AJ Burnett.

3. Sonny Gray. This won't happen. There is no universe where the Yankees would make up with this guy. But money is a healing balm, and signing this guy would kick Boston in the teeth, which is always pleasurable.

4. Brandon Lowe. Two-time All-Star 2B, which would keep us from having to depend on You Know Who. (Guy hit 35 HRs this year for Pittsburgh; he'll be 32.)

5. Teruaki Sato, third baseman from Japan. Our Hideki Matsui? Isn't it time for an Asian star?  

Either way, let's get to the bidding. These well-played world series games - with hustling, and defensive gems and timely hitting - God, they'll bore us to death. Onward to the post-midterm riots, everybody! Those flat screen TVs aren't going to loot themselves! 

Was expansion for baseball a mistake?

 

I mean, not that it was done, but how it was done?

Would everyone have been better off if the existing major leagues had, say, started a whole new league—or two—where teams would have had a fighting chance, right from the start, to win pennants?  And, uh, games?

This World Series, as you may have heard, will make the first one since 1980 in which both teams—only one of them an expansion club—had not previously won a Series.  

What's more, it will be only the fourth—albeit the fourth since 2015—in which both teams were expansion clubs.

Obviously, the number of major-league teams needed to expand beyond the same, 16 clubs in 11 cities that existed from 1903-1952. But was adding clubs two-by-two and four-by-four the best way to do it?

The sad fact of the matter is that of the 14 teams that have come into existence since 1961, only one of them—the Houston Astros—has a winning record. And just barely, with a .503 winning percentage. 

Take away the electronic cheating, and maybe nobody "new" has won as many as they've lost. And all told, expansion clubs have won only 34 pennants and (after this Series) 15 World Series.

That comes to about 1 World Series and maybe 2.25 pennants apiece—a wretched record

All expansion teams, let us remember, have now been in existence for at least 29 seasons. Some, for as long as 66 years. 

I mean, when the Yankees had been in existence for 66 years, they had already had the greatest, longest-running dynasty in North American sports...and collapsed.

The lack of winning is astonishing. Five of the 14 expansionists—the Brewers and Rays, but also the Padres, Mariners, and Rockies—have never won a World Series (though of course that number will be reduced by one this fall). 

The Mariners, after 50 seasons, have never even reached a Series. The Marlins and Rockies, in 34 tries apiece, have managed that, thanks to the wild card—but neither has ever won so much as won a division title. 

What gives?

The cities chosen have generally worked out all right. Attendance has usually been good, even outstanding.

In the course of their existence, three teams have moved: the second Washington Senators to Texas, the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee, and the Montreal Expos to Washington, but that doesn't seem terribly excessive. (Does it mean anything that eight of the 14 clubs have changed their names? Probably not.)

Baseball probably should have vetted some of the new owners better—and certainly some of the people these clubs were sold to. But there were plenty of ownership groups that seemed to know what they were doing and tried their best to build good teams.  

Sometimes, as in Kansas City, Toronto, Houston, Tampa Bay, Texas, and with the Mets, they even succeeded. But then they all seemed to slump back into their losing ways. 

Maybe there was no other way. Maybe expansion cities would not have accepted these teams all playing in their own, "expansion leagues"—and then, perhaps, meeting winners of the Original Ray's World Series in...a "Super Series"? 

But wouldn't they have preferred that to the decades and decades of losing? Take a look:

                                                                              WS  Pen.  Div.  WC

1961

Los Angeles Angels:         5,155-5,305    .493        1       1         9     1

Texas Rangers:                   4,979-5,465  .477         1       3         7     2

1962

Houston Astros:                 5,171-5,121     .503         2      5       15     4

New York Mets:                  4,973-5,315   .483         2      5        6      5

1969

Kansas City Royals:         4,359-4,796   .476        2       4       8       2

Milwaukee Brewers:        4,508-4,654  .492       0       2       9       3

San Diego Padres:             4,308-4,860  .470       0       2       5       5

Washington Nationals:   4,408-4,750  .481        1        1        5       1            

1977

Seattle Mariners:               3,765-4,180   .478       0       0      4        2

Toronto Blue Jays:             3,934-3,939   .499       2       3       7       4             

1993

Colorado Rockies:              2,422-2,922   .453       0       1       0       5 

Miami Marlins:                   2,462-2,874   .461       2       2       0       4       

1998

Arizona Diamondbacks:  2,253-2,343   .490       1        2      5       2  

Tampa Bay Rays:                2,266-2,328   .493       0       3      5       5      

 

Smile, everybody. Hal says winning 93 games is a success.

Okay, lemme get this straight...

During the regular season, the '26 Yankees had the fifth best record in baseball. 

To do this, they spent $244 million on salaries, the fourth highest payroll in baseball. 

In the October postseason, they went 2-3 and were swept by a team they outspent in salaries by $130 million. 

The owner considers it a success, because the Yankees won 93 games. 

By his measure, they have achieved 10 successful seasons in the 17 years since their last championship.

A job well done, people!

Before we toast another glorious Yankee season, a brief announcement: 

The Yankees will bring back our "dynamic duo," our favorite GM and manager, for at least one more year, though we hope for many seasons to come! 

Unfortunately, there is a chance that no baseball will be played in '27, or that a shorter season will not launch until mid-summer. 

America will not have baseball. 

New York will not have the Yankees. 

Our owner will not have a team.

But as the years go by, we will always be able to think back on 2026 and smile. 

I'm popping my buttons. We won 93 games.