And I say it's good to smoke the bath salts before the games begin, when everybody is an ascending star, and nobody has yet to feel a gonad twinge. Because starting today, the juju gods take over.
Beginning today - the first game of spring, 1:05 p.m., vs. the Tigers - the herd gets culled. Last year, around now - (actually, it was Feb. 17) - Tyler Austin went down with a broken left foot. We shook our heads in disbelief. Some of us saw Austin platooning with Greg Bird at 1B, instead of the then-newly acquired Chris Carter, whom we greeted like plaque psoriasis. Our winter projections didn't even make it to the first spring game. Wait... ooh, ooh, think this: Baseball as metaphor for life!
Then, a few weeks later, playing 2B in the Bud Selig World Injury Classic, Didi Gregorius tweaked a shoulder. He missed the next six weeks. That injury likely cost Didi a 30 home run season, the kind of number that puts shortstops into contention for MVP awards. As a result, Gregorius remains underappreciated in rankings of the game's best players (but not by Yankee fans.)
Who can forget the final days of spring training 2016, when Bryan Mitchell - who had won a bullpen job - jammed his toe covering first base? He missed four months and, basically, the season. (Last summer, he got hit in the head by a line-drive and missed a month.) Poor guy never got to show his stuff. Now, he's in San Diego, given to the Padres in exchange for taking Chase Headley - (with Jabari Blash, the historical footnote, somewhere in that mix.) For Mitchell, everything changed on that spring training play.
The spring loss I most remember is Christian Parker, who the Yankees obtained from Montreal in 2000 for Hideki Irabu. Parker was the surprise of the 2001 spring camp, and pitched his way onto the opening day roster - no easy feat, as we were reigning champs. Then, kaboom. He appeared in one game, surrendered 7 runs in three innings. Afterward, he confided that his arm was hurting. Basically, he'd thrown out his elbow seeking to make the team. He never pitched in another MLB game.
They say, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Well, I guess that sums up baseball in the spring. Today, all our projections, all our secret plans, fly out the window. Beginning today, somebody we're counting on will slide the wrong way, or swing too hard, and everything will change. Today, the juju gods take over.
Well, I say, bring it on, you sick, slimy, arrogant motherfuckers. Just be fair. That's all. The Yankees have one of the deepest farm systems in baseball. With the exception of first base and catcher, we have young players backed up throughout the upper levels. Every team will suffer spring injuries. The 2018 Yankees should be able to power through. Do your worst, juju gods. Just be fair. That's all we ask. Just. Be. Fair. And what in hell was Tanaka laughing about?
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So no Soccer, no Yankees, as the Times becomes the last media outlet in the world to cover the women's hockey team triumph over Canada, and the continued falling of the figure skaters, hence to be known forever after as the Flopperoos, or the Legless Wonders, or maybe the Hooked Fish.
I have to go up to Boston to visit a collegiate niece, so I won't any more tallies until Sunday.
But rest assured, I watched "The Town" again the other night, and took copious notes on Ben Affleck's brilliant and subtle plan for knocking over Fenway Park. All I will need now is an ambulance, several cop and EMT uniforms, several months worth of surveillance on all the employees there, and enough firepower to arm a division.
Let's see them pay Martinez then!
I've been sick all week. It's a drag. At least I can fall asleep on the sofa watching a BASEBALL game today. That's how God intended it to be.
The thing is; by definition, the Ju-Ju gods are not fair.
So get ready for the storm.
All hands on deck; trim the sails, head for the leeward islands.
Have a Moscow mule !
I agree with Alphonso. The JUJU gods, by virtue of, well, being juju gods, are not fair. They are like the Greek gods (full disclosure, my people came from Greece and most likely lay down with their sheep and goats all winter. Does that make me a lesser mortal? Shit, I need to go to therapy) Anyway, like the Greek gods, they like to toy with men (and women, I know this is 2018, along with trans people and all others. They like to toy with us humans, WE are their entertainment. That's why, when they see a team that believes it can win it all, it's like we are GIVING THEM A RAISON D'ETRE. Far better to say "why show up? we suck. we can't win." Even if THEY KNOW that we are trying to trick them, they may just hesitate for a moment to make sure and THAT is when we bunt the man home, make the big catch, or get away with a bad pitch that doesn't cost us a run. I think it's quite dangerous to go calling them names and daring them to stick it to us, Duque. I fear and respect the Juju gods.
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