Bat Masterson Is Dead

Back in the day—and it was a long day—New York had the best sportswriters in the world.  How do we know?  Why, they'd tell you so themselves.

Ring Lardner and Franklin Pierce Adams, Grantland Rice and Paul Gallico and John Kieran, Jimmy Cannon and Red Smith, irascible old Dick Young and Roger Kahn, and all those Chipmunks (no, not the ones who sing, "Christmas, Christmas, Christmas"), and even Bat Masterson, who did indeed die with his boots on—at his typewriter (whereupon he was elevated into the firmament by his fellow knight of the press box, Damon Runyon, who made him into the "Guy and Dolls" character, Sky Masterson).

Yep, they were quite a collection.  Sure they could be stupid, and self-serving, and arrogant and pretentious.  Jimmy Powell, I think, once wrote that Lou Gehrig might have infected his fellow Yankees with polio, and Dick Young of course rushed to the defense of M. Donald Grant, and Jimmy Cannon used to say of Red Smith that, every article, "He was going to leave writing dead on the canvas."

But hey, they transformed the profession, and they transformed the sports they covered, and they didn't do it by NOT wanting to watch the very best in action.

They loved being in a town where they consistently got to watch the very best in pro football, and especially in baseball, and often in college sports as well.

They wrote odes to Babe Ruth, and Joe DiMaggio, and Willie, Mickey, and the Duke, and so many others.  They gave them unforgettable nicknames, sang their great deeds, made them legends.

Sure, they were forever "godding up the players" as one of their editors used to say.  But they always wanted to see the best.

Then one day, for some reason, they switched their allegiance to the best interests of those curious, soulless, corporate cartels known as MLB, and NFL, and NBA.  Except for the last, elegant holdout, Roger Angell—who was, usually, writing only a couple times a year in The New Yorker—we got to hear all about the importance of competitive balance, and keeping payroll under control, and what the Lords of Baseball are thinking tonight.

It was as if every single sportswriter in America got dragged into that boardroom in Network, where Ned Beatty explains the facts of modern capitalism to poor, crazy old Peter Finch.

The latest example is Joel Sherman, who joined the thundering herd of tabloid reporters yesterday in telling us how horrible, awful, tragic, really bad it would be for the Yankees to sign the two best and youngest free agents to ever hit the market.

(The Times, of course, was too busy covering ice-fishing in Patagonia, or some such.)

https://nypost.com/2019/02/12/destroying-the-myth-yankees-needed-machado-or-harper/

Sherman reliably gives us the corporate razzle, right down the line, and devoid of anything resembling logic or common sense, of course.

Didi will be back by June, don'tcha know, and it would be crazy to sign Machado as a stopgap.  The Yanks have plenty of outfielders, and they're still paying off that Ellsbury contract (yes, he actually said that), and anyway, it's way too much money to commit.

This ignores the fact that, in the next year or so, the Yankees will be ponying up major bucks just to re-sign Didi and Aaron Hicks, much lesser and considerably older ballplayers than Manny and Bryce.

But even better, Sherman informs us that players such as Judge, Sanchez, and Severino "are about to get more expensive," and that signing Manny "could extinguish the chance of finding out if Greg Bird/Luke Voit were for real," and-and-and, you know, "Mr. Zero," Adam Ottavino, is better than Robertson anyway, everybody says so.

His best pitch, though, is more of the same:  You fans think you're unhappy now?  Why, you'll REALLY have something to cry about when the Yanks have to pass on Chris Sale and Mookie Betts in their free agency years!

Yes, fool me once, shame on you.  Object to me trying to fool you twice?  I'll take a mallet to your head, you ungrateful little wretch!

"I sense many Yankee fans felt lowering payroll in 2017/2018 was to sign one or the other [Manny or Bryce]," Sherman sneers, with the barely concealed contempt for us pathetic fans that now, weirdly, seems to characterize most tabloid sportswriting.

You SENSED that, did ya, big boy, from your lofty spot a-high up in the press box?  Your fabled antennae were out?  And why DID you pick up those signals, bright stuff?  Could it be that you and your friends up there have been diligently selling it to us fans for the last two years?

And now—'Just hold on, maybe you'll get Mookie Betts!'

All right, all right.  But what I don't get is this:

If you're a sportswriter, why don't you want to cover the best?

That used to be the first priority, back in the day when the Knights of the Press Box still had enough brain cells left to understand that if any of their prose lived on, it was going to be in praise of Willie Mays—not about how D.J. LeMahieu is a nifty little utility guy.

You know, I don't read opera criticism.  But somehow, I doubt that the columnists in Milan are telling fans of that art that they should just pipe down and realize that Pittsburgh needs some sopranos, too.

I do read theatre reviews—and I've yet to read a reviewer in this town write, 'Aw, gee, that danned Streep is opening another show on Broadway, when does Cleveland get a chance?  Lin-Manuel Miranda—what, he can't do his next musical in Baltimore?'

Somehow I missed all the pandering, breathless interviewers with the Broadway suits, from which they impart the information that, 'Hey, we just can't AFFORD that many stars!  Do you know how much ushers make???  And look—we picked up one snazzy triangle player for the orchestra!'

This is the big town.  This is the Crossroads of the World.  This is the Lights on Broadway, mofo.  This is, explicitly, why Jacob Ruppert bought the Yankees and not the Cubs:  "Chicago is a long way from Broadway."

This is why you worked and scraped and fought to get here, Joel baby—and Wallace Matthews, and all the rest of you.  To see the very best you can, night in and night out.

If that doesn't thrill you anymore—if all that really makes you tingle anymore is that thick, black bottom line on some cartel annual report—then get out and get a flak job and let someone else do what you do.

Your replacement will be a whole lot easier to find than another Bryce Harper.  And you won't have to worry about anyone immortalizing you.