Wednesday, March 18, 2020

The worst part of self-quarantines: The Yankees are probably self-injuring

Over the winter, when ball-players should be watching porn, the Yankees somehow managed to lose James Paxton, Luis Severino and Aaron Judge to injuries. I attribute this organizational knack to Jacoby Ellsbury, the master of free-time self-demolition. (Whither goest Jake, you asketh? In January, the Cubs supposedly were kicking his tires. That act probably broke three ribs, so he's probably out until 2021. Also, the Yankees lawyered up to screw him out of his $21 million, which should remind us that you don't become a billionaire by paying bills. Beyond that, I haven't heard through my one-page Google search sources. Hopefully, the Bury is home and watching porn.) 

So... um... how do we kill the next 12 weeks? Rubik's Cube? Jigsaw puzzle? Whittling? Anything's better than cable news. Wait... I got it: How about... long, drawn-out, time-consuming Yankee essay questions! 

Here's one: 

During the coronavirus hiatus, rather than watching porn, which Yankees are most likely to get hurt?

I hereby nominate Clint Frazier. (Note: This is not hoping Clint gets hurt. I wish him well. This is why I BELIEVE he'll get hurt.) Why? Because he was having a great spring, of course. Yankees don't tweak gonads during slumps. Nope. They hit a three-run dinger and feel a pop rounding third. This spring, Frazier was hitting .320 - after a slow start, no less. He was 8-25 with four doubles and a homer. Through injuries to Judge and Giancarlo Stanton - big surprises there, eh? - fate had granted Frazier an opportunity to avoid returning to Scranton for his FIFTH season, and he was making the most of it. Now, THIS is when Yankees get hurt. Poor guy. He's doomed. He might as well take up alligator wrestling.

Secondly, I nominate Rosell Herrera, this year's "Gio." In case you've forgotten, Herrera is a 27-year-old, switch-hitting former top 100 prospect, who has kicked around the fringes of MLB for the last three years, never hitting a lick, and who seems to have finally figured out how to lay off the breaking ball. He plays almost everywhere, and was 10-25 this spring, a lusty .400. Manager Aaron Boone was playing him every day, to see if the mirage was fading. Now, all that hard-earned momentum is lost. Wherever he is, Herrera is likely to break a toe on a coffee table. 

I nominate both players in the reverse-juju hope that - by mentioning them - it somehow protects them from actual injuries. I mean, what are the odds of my predictions coming true? (I thought Jesus Montero would someday end up in Monument Park, but not running a sweeper.) Someday, we'll look back on the first spring of 2020 - God, it seems like years ago - when Frazier and Herrera lit up our hopes? The fates were goofing on us. Did we fall for it, or what?  

So... what else are we supposed to do? Sit here for the next 12 weeks, watching Rachel and Sean? God... please... I beg of you... send a distraction. A sex scandal. A juicy murder. A 16-part Netflix series that doesn't suck. Anything to kill time, until it's safe to hit the bar. Oh, and maybe keep the Yankees from hurting themselves? Thank you and amen. 

26 comments:

TheWinWarblist said...

Reality check. I'm sorry.

Both our hospitals are filling up. Confirmed cases in both. Another death expected soon. More than 40 patients on the strictest of isolation. Please please please practice social distancing if you can.

Please stay inside and stay safe.

TheWinWarblist said...

I'm safe as I can be. Protocols are in place. Patient care must go on.

Anonymous said...

HOW ABOUT WATCHING PORN WITH GENTLEMAN JACK?

THIS IS LIVING!

Carl J. Weitz said...

Or as Trump told the 50 governors in a conference call the other day: "Go find your own medical equipment."

From the man who had the balls to proclaim at his coronavirus press briefing yesterday that he realized that the coronavirus outbreak was a pandemic before the World Health Organization (WHO) labeled it as such last week. "This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic, All you had to do was look at other countries."

Anonymous said...

In other baseball news. Justing Verlander had his groin operated on. Or at least that's what the kids are calling it these days.

Doug K.

TheWinWarblist said...

I hope Verlander's nutsack swells to the size of a cantaloupe. A large and smelly canatoupe.




Fuck you pandemic.

TheWinWarblist said...

Masturbating with Jack? Sounds like freshman year all over again.

Oh! Were my hands chapped!

Alphonso said...

On HBO, watch McMiliions

On Prime; watch Spies ( it is in Russian....decently translated with closed captions )

And we all may need to learn that language anyway.

That should get you through Friday.

DickAllen said...



on PBS, watch the magnificent Ken Burn's Baseball - free to you and me!

https://www.pbs.org/video/part-1-our-game-c6e5nn/

ranger_lp said...

Want to avoid getting the Coronavirus?

Put on a New York Mets jersey....






You wont catch anything...

HoraceClarke66 said...

Glad to hear that you are being careful, Warbler.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Though I swore I would not do it after Season Two's gorefest, I have to say the look of the imagined future world is simply stunning, and the story seems a lot better, too. Plus, Jesse Pinkman is a major character!

"Better Call Saul" also seems to have a second wind. And "The Plot Against America," while not great, is at least as creepy as the book.

TheWinWarblist said...

Altered Carbon on Netflix. Season 2 is available now too.

Local Bargain Jerk said...


I'll make a few suggestions that seem like they're different than other things being suggested here ... which might be a bad thing:

1) If you get Amazon Prime, check out "Nobody's Fool". It is an excellent Paul Newman movie from the 90s. It was Jessica Tandy's last movie.

2) Also on Prime is "The Score". It's a very good heist movie Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton, and Marlon Brando. It was Brando's last movie. It's a bit formulaic but, as they say, it would be worth 2 hours just to watch those 3 guys read the white pages out loud.

3) I've been working my way through some interesting B Movies from the 40s-50s of late. There was one that didn't have a tremendously satisfying conclusion but the plot turns in the first 30 minutes were dizzying to the point of being almost bizarre. We all like to think we know where a story is going, but this one was quite tough to figure out for quite a while: The Vicious Circle from 1957.

I'll stop there but there are plenty of others.

Anonymous said...

Perfect Sense, with Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, is a perfect movie for these apocalyptic times. It's available for free on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctBapV2F2gM).

Anonymous said...

Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Seems appropriate.

el duque said...

My suggestion:

Binge the entirety - from debut to finale - of:

The Wire
Sopranos
Breaking Bad
Game of Thrones

You could throw in Six-Feet Under, but you'd need to fast-forward through the second season.

Watch all those shows, and you'll cut a week out of this prison.

DickAllen said...



Add Sons of Anarchy to that most excellent list!

HoraceClarke66 said...

Speaking of Peter Krause, check out his very weird, mini-series pilot from 2006, "The Lost Room," is you can:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0830361/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_12

Had incredible potential...and did not get picked up. Major bummer.

Anonymous said...

MR. DUQUE...

THE SOPRANOS.

THE ABSOLUTE BEST OF THE BEST.

SO GOOD.

THE BEST ACTING. (GANDOLFINI AND FALCO ARE INCREDIBLE).

GREAT CHARACTERS THROUGHOUT. (LOOK FOR RICHIE APRILE, AND RALPH CIFERETTO ESPECIALLY)...

IT'S ALSO FUNNIER THAN ANY COMEDY ON T.V. AT TIMES, WHICH SETS IT APART FROM ANY AND ALL OTHER SERIES.

THE HUMAN CONDITION AND THE STORIES ARE PHENOMENAL.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET, DON'T MISS IT GANG.

P.S.) THE WIRE IS GOOD TOO, BUT A DISTANT 2ND PLACE TO KING "TONY".

BREAKING BAD IS VERY WORTHY TOO.

HAVEN'T SEEN ANY THRONES YET. JUST HAVEN'T HAD THE CHANCE.

el duque said...

And don't forget to buy and read our AHOY Comics!

Second Coming!

Billionaire Island (just out)

Ash & Thorn (coming soon)

JM said...

The best Russian show bar none is The Method. It's amazingly twisted, and the female lead will get your heart pumping again.

A truly fantastic show. And you can look it up.

Anonymous said...

DID ANYBODY SEE ONLY SEASON OF "VINYL" ON HBO A FEW YEARS BACK?

I WAS REALLY GETTING INTO IT AS IT WAS BUILDING UP INTERESTING EPISODES EVERY WEEK.

IT GOT TO THE POINT, I WAS REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEXT EPISODE.

BOBBY CANNIVALE WAS EXCELLENT AS THE WILD BUT CALCULATED, DRUGGED UP MUSIC PRODUCER.

SHORTLY AFTER SEASON ONE ENDED, THEY CANCELLED THE SHOW ON A COUNT OF THE ENORMOUS BUDGET IT TOOK TO DO A FULL SEASON.

I THINK THE AMOUNT SPENT ON SEASON ONE WAS NORTH OF $100 MILLION.

I BELIEVE MARTIN SCORSESE WAS ONE OF THE PRODUCERS OF THE SHOW.

GIVE IT A SHOT.

Carl J. Weitz said...

Bobby Cannavale was excellent as a sadistic NJ mobster in another great, Soprano-like series "Boardwalk Empire". Definitely worth binge-watching the entire series.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Yes, ALL-CAPS, that was terrific! Sad to see it go.

Bobby Cannavale is always good. I was disappointed in "Boardwalk Empire"—I thought Steve Buscemi was badly miscast, among other things (no gathering of Irish politicians in the 1920s would ever have had a bunch of midget dance in, pretending to be leprechauns)—but I love his performance.

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