Why did the Rays revert to the Devil Rays?
Wasn't there an evangelical backlash to the team's original name? And didn't that cause the switch?
Has God forgiven Tampa?
Or is Satan on the loose?
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Ten existential questions for the Yankees and their juju gods
2. On the last pitch of 2026, Jazz Chisholm was breaking for third. Would he have stolen it?
3. Did Paul Goldshmidt's two rather lame Yankee seasons help or hurt his Hall of Fame chances?
4. Will Aaron Judge ever again be Aaron Judge?
5. Are we going to wait on Anthony Volpe for the fourth straight year?
6. To be sated, how much money do the Steinbrenners need?
7. In our lifetimes, will the Yankees ever develop a homegrown all-star 3B?
8. Are the Yankees prisoners of a HR mentality that stems from the right field "porch?"
9. What happens if the Mets ever field a great team?
10. Considering the state of the world - from measles to diesels - should we even bother to think about 2027?
I mean, Tim Hill will be a free agent. Why the fuck should anybody care?
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
A Players' League?
Yes, it is a huge longshot.
But I don't know what club owners have in mind to keep this from ending up as another fiasco...and judging by past history, they don't know, either.
Total major-league attendance had been rising pretty steadily from around 1975, when it was just under 30 million, to 1993, when it hit a new high of about 70.3 million.
Then came the strike. The majors did not get back to that number until they drew 70.6 million in 1998, the year of the great, McGwire-Sosa Home Run Fraud Race.
After reaching an all-time high of 79.5 million in 2007, though, attendance began a slow decline, even before Covid.
(In good part, this was due to team owners repeatedly REMOVING seats from their ballparks, in favor of luxury boxes, suites, and tony bars and restaurants—making them a luxury destination.)
Still, in 2026, attendance was at 71.6 mill, after several seasons of moderate rises. And I assume that all prices are much higher than they ever were.
For the owners to destroy this growth, fighting for a salary cap they don't need, would be madness. But that's our club owners for you!
Would the owners be able to staunch a players' league, should one arise, by threatening to ban advertisers?
I don't know. If there is a players' league...what will the owners do for players? Even if they find enough scabs, won't the advertisers prefer to advertise on broadcasts of what will be easily the better league?
Carl J. Weitz mentions how Rush Limbaugh and other denizens of right-wing radio threatened advertisers into boycotting liberal Air America back in the day. But Rush and friends still had a product—albeit a noxious one—to offer in Air America's stead.
(By the way, as someone who was occasionally a guest—and, for one week, even a substitute co-host on Air America—I can attest that its problems went well beyond that. It was, for one thing, badly run—there would be entire, ten-minute gaps in broadcasting, filled only with ads. And...people of the liberal/left persuasion just didn't listen to talk radio. I sure as hell knew nobody who did.)
The big fight, I think, would be over who gets to use the ballparks. I have no idea what the contracts say, and quite possibly our elected officials were stupid enough or venal enough to give complete control to the owners.
But if they didn't...
Will all these cities, which have already foolishly forked over so much money to build these ballparks, really be content to have them sit idly, generating no sales taxes and no subsidiary revenues?
This could be their—our—big break—a chance to become a full partner in the game with the players, and grab back a lot of that public money.
I know, I know. Unlikely.
Most of the players are right-wing greedheads, too, and when it comes down to it, well, to quote Elvis Costello: Money talks/ And it's persuasive.
But still. We seem to me to be at a dead end in this country. Everything has got to change—the rip off that professional (and even college) sports are now, along with the rest.
Just getting the thought out there—just getting the idea out there—that there might be a different way is, I think, worth it.
Actually, it was a great World Series...
So sorry to be out of some of the best discussions we've had of late, but that terrible thing known as work has interfered.
(Remember that old ad for some aspirin, when the announcer used to say, "Isn't it terrible when something so unfair as a headache interrupts?"...which made every single person in the developing world hate us all the more.)
But I digress.
Stang, thanks so much for the great post on the 1926 World Series. I love me some Heywood Broun.
A Round Table regular and quite a character. Somebody—Dorothy Parker?—described him as always looking "like an unmade bed."
But actually, the 1926 was a helluva World Series.
It went seven games, with three of them decided by one run. Ruth did indeed become the first man ever to hit three homers in a World Series game—a feat that he, and later a certain, Mr. Reginald Jackson would match.
(We don't count Juice Ball boboes, Pablo and Albert.)
But it became most famous for Grover Cleveland Alexander striking out Tony Lazzeri, with the bases loaded in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium.
(Amazing fact: both men were epileptics!)
That was only in the seventh inning, though. The game ended when The Babe got, yes, another free pass, and tried to steal second with two out in the ninth.
Ruth was thoroughly lambasted for this, by sportswriters convinced it was a typically silly stunt by the big guy—or even hinting that he might have been paid off by gamblers.
Ruth, though, was not a bad base stealer, it was a close play, and he never regretted it. He was simply trying to put his team in a position to tie up the game.
The next hitter was Long Bob Meusel, who had had a triple earlier that afternoon, but only on a pop fly that the outfielder dove for and missed. He was hitting just .238 on the Series, and yes, the chances were way better that he might hit a single than a home run or another triple.
It also beat sending up Giancarlo Stanton or Trent Grisham to try to win the game.
Ten signs of the looming Yankeocalypse
Our long-anticipated Yankee existential crisis is here.
Sorry, folks, but it's time for sandbags, headlamps and Dinty Moore. Here are 10 signs that, at least for Yank fans, the end is near.
1. The Dodgers may bench Shohei Ohtani.
2. In the playoffs, no less.
3. Trump came to Syracuse and was snubbed by Ryan McMahon (the GOP Onondaga County Executive, not the 3B.)
4. In Syracuse, Trump called out Yankee president Randy Levine.
5. Of our loss to Tampa, Trump said, "He's won so much, it's not going to matter."
6. The Giants lead the NFC East.
7. They achieved this by playing miserable Washington to an overtime tie.
8. The Yankees next 2B could be Gleyber Torres.
9. Giancarlo's eternity contract is entering its final year.
10. Suddenly, the Rays can't catch foul pops?
I say, let it happen. At least for the next five months, we don't have to think about Michael Kay stirring tea with his glasses.
Monday, October 12, 2026
Goodbye, NY. Hello, Cleveland!
After careful consideration, and with due diligence and deliberation, I have decided to turn traitor and become a fan of the Cleveland Guardians. This is not a decision I have made lightly. My first and perhaps strongest memory of the game of baseball at large and the NY Yankees in particular was the sight of Bill Mazeroski sending the ball over Yogi Berra’s head and the left field wall of Forbes Field (the 66th anniversary of which is tomorrow Oct. 13 at 3:39 PM) to win Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. I was 8 years old, and devastated. The next season I followed the M&M boys as they chased the Babe’s home run record. My father had been a Yankee fan before me. I was hooked.
Today’s Yankees don’t thrill that little boy remaining in me anymore. The Cleveland Guardians do. What follows are the reasons why I am making the switch. Listicles are stupid and they suck, so however many reasons there are, that’s what it is.
I grew up in the NY metropolitan area. My parents followed the traditional post-war path from urban dwellers (144th and Amsterdam) to suburban dwellers (Nassau County). The 60s were a pretty good era overall for NY sports, but baseball and the Yankees were always the first in my heart. When the interloping Mets showed up in 1962, I would have nothing to do with them. Even Casey Stengel’s presence couldn’t make me switch.
But I don’t live in the NY metro area anymore. I live in western NY, between Buffalo and Erie PA, and the Guardians are the closest MLB team in the region (for the record, I live in the blackout region for the Yankees, Mets, Guardians, and Pirates). Cleveland is a two-hour drive away, and Progressive Field is a cozy place to take in a ball game. And for the rest of you old-timers out there, I just want to bring you up to speed and let you know that they put out the fire on the Cuyahoga River 49 years ago, and in the meantime built the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame, a beautiful new Science Center, the International Women’s Air and Space Museum, and a modern football stadium for the hapless Browns. It ain’t your father’s Cleveland anymore, and the Mistake on the Lake is history. So why not root for a local team?
Have you noticed, by the way, what a terrific young roster of players they have on the team? Let’s start with a player who may be the best all-around player both offensively and defensively in the game today - José Ramirez. He has played his entire career with the Guardians (14 years), spat on big-money contracts as a free agent to sign with Cleveland (7yrs/$128.5M from 2026-2032), hustles every single second of the game, plays through injuries, never complains, never a breath of scandal - nothing. He’s a career .276 hitter with 297 HR, 1002 RBIs, 1072 runs, and 324 stolen bases. He’s 33 and stole 37 bags this year. His lifetime OPS+ is 128. His 162-game average over 14 years is 28 dingers, 94 RBIs and 30 SBs. Give me this guy any day in my lineup. No one in the game today compares with him on an overall basis.
He leads a young collection of players who are showing surprising promise. There are five - FIVE - rookies on this team, all contributing. Chase DeLauter, Angel Martinez, Brayan Rocchio, Steven Kwan, Travis Bazzana, Petey Halpin - all of them contact hitters with some pop. They put the ball in play, run the bases hard, and force defenses to react. They are even getting production from guys like Jo Adell and Nathaniel Lowe. They could use a tad more slug, but hey - they’re in the ALCS. Which team isn’t? Oh and PS - not a head case in the bunch. Not one guy in the lineup who’s a veteran just hanging on for one more contract. No would-be stars looking for that big free agent payday. The exceptions are Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, nabbed in the 2025 gambling scandal for throwing games.
Pitching? They have pitching. Parker Messick, Gavin Williams, and Tanner Bibee form a strong starting core to go along with a strong bullpen, including Shawn Armstrong, Hunter Gaddis, Eric Sabrowski, and their closer Cade Smith. Joey Cantillo can start or go long from the pen. The Guardians have always had good starting pitching (Corey Kluber, Shane Bieber), and that continues with this core. TBH, NY’s pitching is better, but this pitching staff doesn’t suck.
And let’s spend some time with the organization. Stephen Vogt, their manager and 2x Manager of the Year, is light years better than BaBoone (a low bar, to be sure). He manages to get the most out of all his players, and they hustle like hell for him. Pitching coach Carl Willis can read the stats, but he also has years of on-field experience to go along with the numbers. Sandy Alomar Jr. coaching first base adds his knowledge, presence, and historical stature to the team chemistry. And GM Mike Chernoff, PBO Chris Antonetti, and owner Paul Dolan of the Dolan family don’t sit around just hoping to get to the playoffs and see what happens. They have a plan (gasp!). They are committed to building a winner with the resources that they have as a small-market team. They made smart pickups in the last trade deadline. I can’t help but wonder what they would become if they had the budget of the NY Yankees that Ca$hman seems to squander every year. Their 2026 payroll is $148,966,666, 24th in the league (two spots lower than Tampa Bay).
Finally, they are a franchise with a lot of remarkable history. No, they haven’t won 27 World Championships. Their last World Series title was in 1948, and they only have one other, in 1920. But they have 6 AL pennants, 14 Central Division titles, and two Wild Card series. They were the first American League team to sign a black player, Larry Doby (guess who was the among the last and tried desperately to keep that player on the bench?). They were the first franchise to employ the strategy of locking up young players early and developing them through their early careers as winners. They wisely and gracefully retired their Indians name and the racist stereotype mascot Chief Wahoo (unlike the smug southern hand-chopping racists in Atlanta), taking on the name of the four statues on the Hope Memorial Bridge, the Guardians of Traffic (fun fact - the Hope Bridge is supposedly named after Harry Hope, who represents all the stonemasons who carved the statues, and is the father of comedian Bob Hope, a Cleveland native). Those sculptures, by the way, would blend in nicely with anything you can see in Rockefeller Center. In short, a class organization, which would have been completely destroyed had George actually bought the team.
So yeah, in my dotage, I want to return to the feelings and excitement I had for baseball as a boy growing up and rooting for the Yankees. Today’s Yankees make me sad and depressed, and there’s enough about being old to be sad and depressed about without having to watch the Yankees play. I’ll just hop in my car, take a two-hour drive, grab a hot dog or three on Sugardale Dollar Hot Dog Days, and enjoy watching a young, hungry, motivated, and talented baseball team play the greatest game ever invented. And when I can’t get to the stadium, I can listen to one of the finest radio broadcasters for the past 35 years, Ford Frick Award winner Tom Hamilton, call the game from the corner of Carnegie and Ontario off the shores of Lake Erie (another fun fact - Hamilton spent the first three years of his broadcasting career with the AAA Columbus Clippers from 1987-90). All in all, I consider this a significant upgrade in fandom. Go, Guardians!
100 years ago today
The World Series
Heywood Broun
The New York World
October 12, 1926
The World Series just ended gave professional baseball the worst black eye which it has worn since the White Sox scandal. Crookedness alienated the rooters then, and the caution which became epidemic in the closing contest is not much more endearing. New York commentators have endeavored to take the defeat of the Yankees with grace and to say, “The best team won.” Maybe the better team did win, but not without nesting deeply among white feathers.
In the final game Babe Ruth was passed four times, and in the entire series he received eleven bases on balls. One editorial writer compares St. Louis to Cinderella. This is a comparison most unfair to the little lady. She took a chance. If her conduct had been governed by strategy such as that of Rogers Hornsby she would never have lingered at the ball until the clock struck 12 and her coach became a pumpkin. No, indeed; under the St. Louis system Cinderella would have left a little before 11 rather than run the risk of having the white horses turn to mice.
And, speaking of mice, I don’t understand why sporting writers should pay tribute to the grit and fighting spirit of the Cardinals. When a team grows so panic stricken that it will not allow a famous hitter a chance to swing at any ball within his reach I don't precisely understand just how or why it is called courageous. There was much big talk before the series about how St. Louis pitchers would pitch to Ruth, just as to any other batter. But after he broke out into home runs, they didn't do it.
There is no more tiresome spectacle in baseball than watching a catcher step way out beyond the plate while the pitcher tosses him four wide ones. If this practice is to continue, let's at least have some rule to simplify the procedure. The pitcher could advance to the plate and tap the batter on the wrist, thus indicating his intention of passing him. Such a system would save time and be less hypocritical.
Very much has been said and written about baseball as the national game. It is an institution almost as sacred as the Constitution, and we have all been given to understand that no other game in any land can be compared to it. Maybe so, but in despised cricket I believe the bowler cannot wave the batter away and say, “I'd rather not have anything to do with you.” On the contrary, I understand that the famous hitters are up for hours and whack drives all over the premises till they tire. It isn't too much, I think, to demand that Babe Ruth ought to be allowed at least one wallop in every turn at bat.
And, also, what is this stuff I've heard about the excellent moral training baseball affords to the young? Are the little lisping tots supposed to watch and get the notion that the best form of behavior is to dodge each issue if it happens to be a tough one? I'm not wholly out of sympathy with that, but unfortunately it will not always work. There are Dragons of a sort capable of reaching out and swatting even those who seek to go round about. Launcelot did not take a short cut across the meadows when he spied an approaching knight capable of giving him trouble.
But let's not be romantic, period. The thing is practical. Are ballplayers and managers by any chance forgetting that the game is played for the amusement of the people who pay at the gate to enter? Not even a hometown fan likes to see a dangerous batter purposely passed in the pinch. Out in St. Louis, they hooted their own man when Ruth was denied a chance to hit. The thing is too silly to be continued, and yet it has gone on season after season without interference by the rule makers. No wonder many prefer to stay at home and listen to games over the radio. There at least you can take a drink or read part of a good book while some timorous twirler is throwing four wide ones in the general direction of Babe Ruth.
I swear in all sincerity that it is nothing to me which city holds the world's championship. It isn't local pride which is offended. St. Louis had not even won a pennant for thirty-eight years. Until this season. But that's no excuse for all their pitchers, except Alexander, falling into a panic at the mere sight of our Babe Ruth. Let them have the flag and lock it in some strongbox or do whatever else with it they please. But I'm not going to join in any chorus of compliments to the Cardinals. They were and are a gutless crew.
____________________________
From The Best in the World: A Selection of News and Feature Stories, Editorials, Humor, Poems, and Reviews, from 1921 to 1928, Viking Press, 1973.
Top ten scary - and circular - "if"s for Yank fans in 2027
2. If there is a partial season, it might come with a cap on payrolls.
3. If there is a payroll cap, the Yankees will find themselves way over it.
4. If the Yankees are way over the cap, they'll have to cut players.
5. If the Yankees must make cuts, they will face big holes in their lineup.
6. If the Yankees face big holes, Hal will keep Cashman.
7. If Hal keeps Cashman, Cashman will keep Boone.
8. If Cashman keeps Boone, we'll have the same basic team as 2026.
9. If we have the basic same team, nothing will have changed.
10. If nothing changes, the owners will pull their lockout...
See Number One.
Sunday, October 11, 2026
With these four guys, the Yankees could have won the World Series.
Forget, for a moment, the outstanding players who came knocking on the Yankees' door over the years, all the Bryce Harpers and Manny Machados willing to take less money to play in the Bronx, only to have Brian Cashman hide under his desk.
Forget all the free agent greats they never seriously considered, all the J.T. Realmutos and Max Scherzers and Freddie Freemans, and the 45 available shortstops passed up because Anthony Volpe was going to be the next Jeter.
Forget all the terrible choices made over the many years, all the Sonny Grays over Justin Verlanders, the Giancarlo Stantons over J.D. Martinezes, all the way back to Garry Sheffield over Vladimir Guerrero.
Forget all that, if you can.
Let's look at all the quotidian mistakes, the smaller, offhanded, casual blunders that demonstrate every day, just how terrible Brian Cashman is as a general manager, and how terrible the management culture around him is.
I doubt if disposing of each of the four players below took up so much as a minute of his attention span.
And yet, if they alone had been on the New York Yankees this year—never mind any of the stars we scorned—this team would undoubtedly have won the AL East Division, and be in position now to win the World Series.
Of course, Ezequiel already won a ring with the Rangers, back in 2023, when he hit .276 with 14 homers for Texas.
Where does he play? Everywhere. Hence his great nickname, "The Situation."
Duran is basically a middle infielder, but he has played every single infield and outfield position during his time in Texas. He even pitched in 4 games in 2025, for a total of 3 1/3 innings...allowing 1 hit and 0 runs.
A hustling young guy who can play everywhere and do everything? Who would the Yanks possibly trade him for?
Why Joey Gallo, of course! Duran was part of the package—a package!—sent out to bring us back one of the very worst (and certainly the whiniest) players in Yankees history.
But hey, Ezequiel just didn't measure up as the kind of analytic, "Three True Outcomes" kind of guy.
T. J. Rumfield—Yeah, you might remember me writing about this guy a time or two. After wasting two years of what should have been his major-league career, Brian Cashman peddled him to Colorado in the off-season for one Angel Chivilli—a pitcher with a lifetime record then of 3-8, 6.18, though a veritable star compared to Joey Gallo.
(In fairness, Chivilli did go a much-improved, 1-1, 3.78 for us in 2026...and spent most of the year on the DL.)
Rumfield, by contrast, led the NL in OBP, at .390. He also hit .300, with 30 doubles and 16 homers, and an .843 OPS. Nor were these merely Rocky Mountain highs. On the road, Rummy hit .295 with less power, but got on base even more often (.395).
An excellent fielder at first base, Rumfield, you'll recall, might have helped us pull out the Fifth Inning Fiasco in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series, had he been at first instead of a crippled Anthony Rizzo. But again, not Brian Cashman's kind of ballplayer.
With Rumfield on the team this year, we at least might have been able to escape watching Luis Garcia, Jr., go 1-10 with 3 strikeouts against Tampa Bay. But don't worry: we'll get a chance to see that particular performance again and again in the years ahead.
Not so amazin'...until you compare it to the .186 our catcher of the future, Austin Wells, hit.
What's more, while our Mr. Wells threw out slightly less than the league-average percentage of base thieves, Torrens gunned down 38.6 of them, as opposed to an NL average of 23.3.
In 2025, he did even better, leading the Senior Circuit by nailing 40.8 percent of all attempting to steal (The league only caught 23.3 percent.).
Yet another game, all-around player, Torrens also can play first and the outfield, and even put in 2 games at second for Seattle a few years ago.
What the Yanks got for Torrens was...nothing. They drafted him in 2012, lost him in the Rule 5 draft to Seattle in 2016, signed him as a free agent in January, 2024...then sold him to the Mets before he ever played a game in the Bronx.
Because, you know, Hal Steinbrenner can never have too much money.
Oswaldo Cabrera—In what was perhaps the most inexplicably stupid move in Cashman's career, the Yanks watched Ryan McMahon and Anthony Volpe deteriorate miserably throughout 2026—and Jazz Chisholm hit the DL—and...DFA'd the one man they had who might have capably replaced all three.
This wasn't even a money deal, to refill the insatiable maw of the Steinbrenner coffers. They just let him go.
Cabrera, of course, had helped prevent the Yanks from blowing an enormous lead when he first came up in 2022, and was last seen in 2024, lying at the plate with a horribly busted leg, asking..."Was I safe?"
Yeah, no desire in that guy.
He had fought his way back at Scranton this summer, hitting .288 with 19 homers, stealing 12 bases in 13 attempts, and—yep—played every position on the field except pitcher, catcher, and centerfield.
We should have seen him up for all of September, seeing if he could replace—or at least push—all of the accumulated dead weight in the Yankees' infield.
Instead, we got to see Ryan and Jazz make ridiculous errors and strike out like industrial fans throughout another playoff collapse.
This is how you end a playoff series with no one left on the bench to pinch-hit or pinch-run. This is how you are reduced to fielding a team full of players who can't field the ball or run the bases...and don't seem to much care about it.
To master any profession is to master the details of it, to know the little things, the small improvements that make up a craft.
That is not what anyone in Yankees management knows or cares about.
Top Ten Yankee Reasons for Hope in 2027
2. Ben Rice.
3. Aaron Judge.
4. George Lombard Jr.
5. Redsocks still Redsocks.
6. Hal's $2.6 billion from Appollo Investments.
6. Owners' lockout.
7. Civil war.
8. Russian plague.
9. A.I. destroys humanity.
10. Giancarlo!
Saturday, October 10, 2026
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.
Friday, October 9, 2026
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.
... 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.
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.
Thursday, October 8, 2026
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.
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
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 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.
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