Wednesday, November 6, 2019

What Is Everyone Drinking?



Interview, no interview.  Pitching coach?

Are you shitting me?  David Cone?

Get real folks.  David has a ton of money, a star like gig, the best seats in the house, and baseball when he wants to see it.

You think he covets the groveling, down and dirty of traveling with the team all year?  Spring training. Spitting seeds, Sweat and languages he doesn't understand?

Pitching coaches are guys who would otherwise be drinking from a paper bag in their motel room,  can't hold a real job that pays better than $35K per year, and used to play the game.  Maybe even well.

But the money thing changed it all.  A quality pitcher like Cone made multiple millions for many years.  It was the old guys...the Rothchilds of the world...who never made big bucks and are thrilled to have a Yankee coaching job.  They need it for rent, cars whiskey and steaks.  It is their family income.

The Cones and the Marianos and the Pedros and the John Smoltz's of the world already travel first class and in limos.  They  don't want or need the grime, the grit the hyper focus, the blame....there is nothing for them in coaching.  They have already earned all the awards and acclaim.

For a young, tech-focused pitching coach from U. Michigan, the Yankee job remains Nirvanna.  There will be a new regime of pitching and hitting coaches, and they will all come from a new source.

So stop with the David Cone talk.

Or send me some of that rum that has loosed your tongue and your brains.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK, I'll stop with Cone.

Fritz Peterson!

Brett

Anonymous said...

Then why did he bother to take the interview?

Some people love the game, the fellowship, and a challenge. Maybe he's got theories he wants to test. Maybe he's bored yakking it up with Michael Kay.

Money doesn't always satisfy.

Doug K.

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more, Doug. Cone would not have wasted his (and their) time if he didn't have a level of interest.

Look at Arod. Yakking it up announcing games and doing the pre- and post-game analyses. And Pedro. And Ortiz. And on and on. These guys don't NEED money. They enjoy being around baseball.

Brett

Anonymous said...

Thanks.

I would also add that he strikes me as a man who loves to compete. A gamer. A guy who would rather be a part of it than report or talk about it.

He spent a big part of his life whole life working towards team goals and he now doesn't have one.

If he can't pitch anymore he can help others, and hopefully, instill a little of that fire.

Doug K.

steve said...

Beltran doesn't need the money either yet he too wanted to coach.

Anonymous said...

I think David Cone would make a great pitching coach, if he wants to do that. He's very intelligent, has a great sense of humor, and was the ultimate competitor when he pitched. Now he's in the tv booth, and he's great at that too. He's one of those multitalented guys who can be great at almost anything, if his heart is in it.

The Hammer of God

TheWinWarblist said...

Let's be clear, Cone still dreams of exposing himself in the bullpen to fans in the bleachers. He needs that. Badly. More than blood flow to his right arm. He'd go back to baseball in an instant if it meant he could wave his junk around in the bullpen again. Even just once more would be worth it. Fancy clothes, limousines, big steaks and whiskey, all the high class baseball Annie's a city like NY can provide is nothing compared to the joy of reaching into one's uniform pants and whipping out one's package. Cone will not be able to resist. Like a sirens song it calls to him ...

HoraceClarke66 said...

So that seems to me like a fair trade-off, Warbler. Improves the pitching staff—gets to expose himself to the masses. Fair dinkum.

Why, back in the 1940s, Tuck Stainback would only agree to play for the Yankees if he was allowed to moon the fans along the third base line after the fourth inning. Sure, it seemed a little outrageous, but the war was on and the team was desperately short of players.

And the story was, all the fans used to get a good laugh out of it. People didn't so much sweat the small stuff then the way they do today. Why, many was the time, after a hard night's work riveting bolts into a Liberty ship, the guys and gals at the Brooklyn Navy Yard would say, "C'mon, let's head up to the Stadium. We can grab a beer an' watch Tuck show us his butt!"

Good times. Except for all the mass death, of course. Good times.

TheWinWarblist said...

Tuck's butt. Yes, indeed, Tuck's butt. Odd that his Wiki page doesn't say anything about him exposing himself. There's some drivel him helping organize the first pension system for major league ballplayers in 1947. Nothing about the mooning. Life is so strange sometimes.

TheWinWarblist said...

Hey Cone! Blow me!

13bit said...

Is naked butt really exposure?

Testicles, maybe, but butt? Really? And in this age where there is no more privacy, what's a little dick-waving in the bullpen between friends?

And yeah, that mass death. Think of how the guys who did play in the big leagues during the war must have made out with the ladies on the road. All the stars were overseas, fighting the good fight, and the scrubs were taking trains all over the place, playing baseball and consoling the women whose men were on the front lines. A tough life, indeed.

Anonymous said...

GENTLEMAN JACK IS GETTING TOUGHER TO DRINK.

EXPENSIVE CABERNET IS TOO.

AGE AND THESE PLAYOFF EXITS ARE REVERTING ME BACK TO SOLELY A BEER DRINKER.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Well, Bitty, most of the ballplayers were actually playing on base teams for most of the war. Joe D. actually had the temerity to complain about it, saying how all running after all the hits surrendered by those terrible pitchers wore out his legs.

Then, due to the complaints of gold star mothers, a bunch of them were suddenly put into combat zones—often completely unprepared and untrained.

There were exceptions. Ted Williams, of course. And Bob Feller, who hated Yogi Berra for decades because he thought he was a slacker. Then he found out that actually, Yogi saw action with the Navy, supporting the landing at D-Day among other things.

After that, Feller wanted to be friends. Very weird guy, Rapid Robert.

HoraceClarke66 said...

About the players back home: I used to love the stories my father would tell about watching one-armed Pete Gray play the outfield, and marvel over what a great story that was.

Turned out, his teammates on the St. Louis Browns felt he made what they were doing seem like a freak show, and regularly beat him up. Nice. Way to keep that karma going your way, Brownies!

JM said...

I've taken to keeping a couple bottles of Old Overholt rye, Antiqua Italian sweet vermouth, Meyer's or Gosling dark rum, Russian Standard or Ketel vodka, and Bombay Sapphire on hand. It takes a while to run through them all, and during the fall and winter the rye and vermouth make for copious Manhattans.

I'm with Brett. Fritz Peterson. Because, why the hell not?

HoraceClarke66 said...

Plymouth for gin, and I can usually cadge presents of Woodford Reserve and other fine bourbons. I also have several gift bottles of single malt accumulated, but as I don't live in Scotland, there are only so many days when I feel the inspiration to sample it. (No offense, Scotland).

Alphonso said...

HEY ALL CAPS.....why is Gentleman Jack "getting harder to drink?" I just bought a new bottle. Should I worry?

Also, I went the other direction...from beer to booze. I could no longer drink more than three beers because I felt " too full." And you can't get a buzz on three beers...ask Duque...it takes him about 16.

Hence, I focus more on Gentleman jack. Three beer cans full of that and one is, for sure, buzzed. And you don't feel so full.

P.S. I prefer the talk of alcohol to the talk of Cone. It is off-season when everything is; " let's pretend."

Anonymous said...

ALPHONSO....

MY PROBLEM IS I TEND TO DRINK THE GENTLEMAN LIKE I DRINK BEER.

NOT GOOD.

IT SHOULD BE SIPPED AND SAVORED (AS YOU KNOW).

INSTEAD, IT BECOMES NON-STOP, "THROAT OPENING" FUN.

THEN THE PROBLEMS BEGIN.

BEER SUCKS, BUT IT'S MUCH LESS THE LESSER OF MY FAVORITE EVIL.

HERE COMES THE STOMACH.

Mediasavvy said...

Here, here. The last thing the Yankees need is a celebrity pitching coach.

We already have one rich dilettante in the leadership - Boone - and the lack of experience shows. Painfully, sometimes.

The age of the geek may still be on the rise, but the age of the celebrity is about to crash. People are tired of unqualified rich people getting all the opportunity. Social media only speeds the process.

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