Saturday, February 4, 2017

Saturday morning breakfast links

Just 10 days - (240 hours!) - 'till the de facto start of spring, and a veritable Old Country Buffet of free agents is still roaming the MLB badlands - naked and uncircumcised. Not that it matters to Fallow Hal Steinbrenner. He's keeping his family safe and secure with New York Life. A driven man - (by Jeep, that is) - he's into Month Two of his personal spending freeze, where his only public profile is an occasional dumb statement - like saying we should forget El Chapo's little police and girlfriend thingy, whatever it is, nevermind.

So, today's first link is the MLB Free Agent Tracker. Scroll down and you'll see several vets who don't fit our roster - Matt Wieters, Mike Napoli and Chase Utley - and a few who sure-as-Hell do. Still out there: Jason Hammell, Doug Fister, Sergio Romo, Travis Wood, Colby Lewis and others. Right now, we'll open camp with "Insert Name Here" as our 4th and 5th starter - and that's if everybody else stays healthy. Listen: I'm down with the Yankees' rebuilding plans. But to not offer one-year deals to these guys borders on criminal negligence. 

Friday in Tampa, Justus Sheffield, James Kaprielian, Daniel Camarena, and Gleyber Torres served meals at the local Salvation Army. No snark here. Good for them. In their lives as golden, gifted athletes, may they never forget the souls on the other side of the sneeze-guard... and never be there themselves.  

Something has happened to the ageless Gammonite Bob Klapisch. (Fun fact: He's only 60!) The guy thinks he's Barbara Walters. Here - because the world demanded it - is his List of Baseball's 10 Most Interesting People. If he had a TV interview show, could he get them to weep?

OK, you're wondering where Tito Polo - the 5'9" bundle of potential we received for half of Ivan Nova last August - fits into The Big Picture? Here's the entire Yankee farm system, projected player by player, down to the bullpen molecules at Charleston. BTW, Tito looks to be in Trenton, and - thank god - early reports listing him at 1B were wrong. He is hereby the Official Yankee 2017 Pet Prospect of IIHIIFIIc.

Enjoyable thumb-sucker about the Yankees and the NFL from It's All About the Money, a great Yankee blog. It covers George Halas, John Elway, Deon Sanders and, of course, Drew Henson - who was going to form the Axis of Michigan at 3B, next to Jeter.

Of course, the NFL was structured with one rule in mind: There would be no goddamm New York Yankees, who spent too much on players - no dynasty, no superpowers, no big market supremacy, and all teams were required to be as inept as the Washington Redskins. To a kid in upstate New York, who watched Sam Huff, Frank Gifford and Andy Robustelli, and who naturally assumed the Giants would be the football equivalent of Mantle and Maris, the NFL offered my first revelation that there is no god. Now, 60 years later, MLB is the NFL. If you're a KC Royals fan, you're in luck. If you're a San Diego Chargers fan, well... enjoy the Super Bowl! 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

First off, Duque, you can scratch Sergio Romo from your FA tracker (according to Yardbarker, anyhow - - which, btw, loves 'em some IIH, IIF....)

Second, perhaps Prince Hal-Tosis ought to hire Kellyanne Motor-Mouth to convince us nothing ever happened, nothing to see, move along - - I'm sure she'd take on a bit of moonlighting.

Speaking of the MOON, I don't know about you, but at precisely 4 PM,tomorrow, I'm facing to the east (Yankee Mecca), and dropping trou (further kudos to our own LBJ) - - but only for precisely 10 seconds (I have tiny hands, too, you see, and they get cold without bein' in my pockets in the winter).

Speaking of football & Michigan, "Jeter, si, Henson, no!" - - not to even MENTION Brady - - "Brady, no, Brady, NO, NO, NO!" ....and, to think when Jeet was at MI., I lived less than a mile from the ball-field!! (and too close to the Big House, too).

....and, hey, what's wrong w/ too many first-basemen?? I wuz' one of those, myownself, about 55 years ago. LB (No J)

JM said...

Those sausages made me hungry. Which reminds me, there was a story floating around on the Twitter about America facing a bacon shortage, but it turned out to be a misinterpretation of a Department of Agriculture stat about pork bellies. Thank God (but not Allah, who keeps a-knockin' but he can't come in--at least not anymore. Considering all the pork products here, that might be just as well.).

Remember recent history. You can never have too many first basemen. They can crash and burn and end up on the DL with frightening speed. (Has anybody here seen my old friend Deon? Can you tell me where he's gone?)

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