Tuesday, October 22, 2019

How Giancarlo Stanton became that girl in your high school play

Remember her?  The one with the green eyes and the way she had of flipping her hair that, well, just made your heart flip, too?

She was the lead in all of the Drama Club's musical productions.  And after graduation, she announced that she was going to New York to become a real Broadway actress.

You tried to break it to her easy.  You told her, "Gee, I know you can sing and dance, Alyssa, but, wow, that New York is a pretty unforgiving town."

And she flipped her hair again, and gave you that enigmatic smile that she developed from being the prettiest person in the room all her life, and told you, "Oh, I think it will be all right."

And she said it with such confidence that you even began to doubt yourself, and thought, well, maybe you just didn't want her to leave town.

And then she went to New York, and found out that while she could sing and dance a little, there were plenty of people there who could sing and dance even better, and who knew how to act, and yeah, it was a really tough town.  Until after about ten years of waiting tables she went back to school in business communications, and at your 20th high school reunion she tried to sell you life insurance.

That's our Giancarlo.

The Marlins thought they had a deal done to trade him to St. Louis, if I recall correctly.

That's a nice town for a ballplayer, St. Loo.  Great front office, always a contender.  A nice, warm, welcoming Midwestern college atmosphere, where they all wear the team colors in the ballpark.  The kind of place somebody who had never played games that much counted could feel right at home.

But no.

Like the pretty, green-eyed girl in all our hometowns, Giancarlo knew he wanted the big time.  He knew he could play on the big stage, and walk in the footsteps of the gods, and be a matinee idol.

He knew all these things until he got here, and couldn't go when it counted.

His leg hurt, and maybe his side ached, and he just didn't feel right, not right enough to actually play, even though the houselights were down and the footlights were on, and the tickets were all sold and everybody was waiting for him to appear.

And he couldn't do it.

Of course it's not really the same with Giancarlo as with that green-eyed girl.  Mostly because Giancarlo has already made nearly $89 million playing baseball, and has another $234 million guaranteed, which will be enough to take care of him and all the little Giancarlos and their descendants unto the generations.

But now he's finding out that it's not so easy and not so much fun to play on the biggest stage of all—not unless Reggie or Derek Jeter, or the Babe, at least.  And sometimes not even for them.

It's hard, it's unforgiving, and unless he somehow redeems himself very fast—something Giancarlo Stanton does not seem in the least equipped to do, physically or mentally—his every footstep is going to be dogged by the Furies here in NYC.

Now we're hearing word that he would like very much to leave.  That he would rather go to L.A., or...St. Louis.

That's nice—but it's too late.  To trade Giancarlo Stanton now would be for Brian Cashman to admit he made a mistake, and that's not something that Brian Cashman does.  And even if he wanted to, nobody is going to lay out that sort of cash to pay Giancarlo Stanton's contract, least of all Mr. Halliburton Q. Steinbrenner.

So there we are.  The moral of our story is that it's not a small thing to know what you want, before you go after it.  Because he did not, Mr. Stanton is going to spend a lot of time making us and himself very, very miserable here in New York.






10 comments:

TheWinWarblist said...

I can think of 89 million ways he could console himself this off-season. And then another 234 million more ways until he retires.

TheWinWarblist said...

You know, it's sad. I wish no ill on The Lummox Giancarlo. The big useless idiot wanted to be here to lead this team to victory. He really wanted to. How could he have known who he really was? He played in Florida. Who other than Jeter could have shown him his truth.

Oh yeah, Jeter. The guy who traded him. Jeter was always smart about things.




I wish pain and suffering and death on you Hal and on your toady Cashman in equal measure.

13bit said...

I wish that they get what they deserve in a just universe or, even more, in a just Yankiverse.

Stanton is going to a millstone around our necks for years. No way around it.

HoraceClarke66 said...

No, no, guys! Cashman's a genius! The deal for Stanton was GREAT, and he really duped Jeter!

He told us so himself, in the fanboy book he got Klapisch to write for him.

el duque said...

We are Ahab tethered to the whale.

JM said...

I think naming him our albatross might be more accurate. Though he does have the size for whaleness.

ranger_lp said...

This is what happens when the Yanks go for star power, the star is injured, then the tv ratings go down and advertising dollars go down. No one wants a feel good story about some players who are next up. Follow the money.

Platoni said...

I kept hearing during the playoffs that, "This Yankee team won 103 this season".

This was quite wrong.

Alphonso said...

Are we sure it was Cashman/ I think he is smarter than that. I think he remembered what happened with A-Rod and Jacoby. It was, in my view, Hal who saw the easy dollar signs. Bring 60 HRs to the stadium and watch the coffers fill.

Only Hal has never made a well reasoned decision in his life.

The best the Yankees can hope for is that Giancarlo is always injured, and the insurance coverage kicks in.

Remember, each year Giancarlo's muscle tone weakens, his speed ( already a plodder ) lessens, and his reflexes slow.

A different way of saying that each year, going forward, we can expect less from this mistake.

And if we look backwards ( 2019 e.g.) we see that the Yankees got nothing.

This deal was/is the albatross of all albatrosses.

Nice work, Hal, you were taken at the highest level.

Luckily, you don't care because you hate the Yankees.

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