Yanks Suffer First Virtual Pineapple Loss. Concerns Grow Over Master.

The Virtual New York Yankees seemed to be on the verge of sweeping the Cleveland Napoleons yesterday, only to suffer the team's first pineapple loss, 8-7 in ten innings.

In keeping with the Yanks' latest Season of Grit, the team battled back from early deficits of 1-2 and 2-3, behind desperation starter Luis "Unnessa" Cessa.  Their new call-up, 41-year-old Eric "Methuselah" Kratz, belted his first home run as a Yankee to tie the score in the seventh, then El Matador, Miguel Andujar lashed a grand-slam home run ten rows back in the left field stands, to put a little sunshine into the fans on a cold, drizzly day at Yankee Stadium.

But even with a 7-3 lead headed into the ninth, the Bombers' vaunted bullpen failed for once to bring it home.  First, Adam "Mr. Zero" Ottavino surrendered two runs on three walks followed by two consecutive wild pitches.  

Rushed in to try to salvage the game, Sweats Chapman walked another batter, struck out the next two Naps, then surrendered a two-run, game-tying double to Francisco Lindor.  In the tenth, Carlos Santana's long home run off Tommy Kahnle put the Bonapartists on top.

New York loaded the bases with none out against Cleveland closer Brad Hand in the bottom of the inning, but longtime Yankees nemesis Oliver Perez entered the game to strike out Brett Gardner, and induce late-game defensive replacement Estevan Florial to ground into a game-ending double-play.

Frustrated at his 0-23 start as a big leaguer, Florial leapt up and pounded the ceiling on his way back to the clubhouse, breaking two fingers and putting himself out of action for the next three weeks.

"Well, after all, it was a low ceiling," said manager Aaron Boone when he got the report on Florial.

Joining Florial on the DL was Kratz, after his first appearance replacing Chris Iannetta, who was felled by a bout of rheumatism.  Kratz's dramatic home run got the arthritis in his back and knees a-barkin' as he trotted around the bases, and they did not respond to the team doctor's usual arthritis remedy of rubbing bacon and toad scales on the injured areas.

Meanwhile, concerns continued to grow over the state of Yankees broadcaster John Sterling's mental health.

For the second day in a row, Sterling seemed possessed by bizarre delusions.  This time, he told doctors that he had once again been able to slip through the "time portal" he had previously found at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, where he is still undergoing a battery of tests.

"Unfortunately, you can only come out in 1904," related Sterling.

He then claimed to have lived through the next 16 years, until Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees for the 1920 season.  Sterling said that he altered the baseball events of that year, managing to keep Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman from being fatally beaned by Carl Mays at the Polo Grounds, and get the Yanks into a nine-game World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers—a Series that featured an astonishing home-run rampage by the Babe.

He further claimed to have stayed around long enough to make sure Ruth did NOT get an infected elbow against the Giants in 1921, enabling the Yankees to win that Series, too.

Asked by his doctors how he had possibly managed to survive in the American economy of over 100 years ago, Sterling said he had worked at all sorts of different trades:  "I was a breaker boy, a carney market, a roustabout, a lumberjack, a metal flanger, a ward heeler..anything I could do to help out the Yankees!"

Asked if he had "interfered" with any other events in history, Sterling said he had "tried to warn the duke"—referring to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which set off World War I—but that the royal heir's driver had taken an unexpected route to visit the wounded in a Sarajevo hospital.

"There's no predicting the actions of Habsburg chauffeurs in some provincial city they've never seen before!" Sterling tried to explain.

Doctors found the venerable radio voice's reports a disturbing reflection of his apparent inner turmoil.

Every ball fan, of course, already knows of Ruth's herculean 12 home runs in the Yanks' 5-4 win over Brooklyn in the 1920 World Series, along with the unassisted triple play pulled off in that Series by Frank "Home Run" Baker.  They also remember the 7 home runs the Babe followed with, in the Yankees' 5-3 triumph over McGraw's Giants in 1921.

Less well-known is Chapman, who baseball historians noted was not "killed" at all in 1920, but quit the majors to work in his father-in-law's utilities business, soon after the then-Indians finished a close second that season.  Chapman died at the age of 90 in 1981, surrounded by his large and loving family, and still lamenting the fact that the Indians had never won the World Series.

The fact that Suzyn Waldman managed to find a photograph of Gavrilo Princip being arrested by an Austro-Hungarian officer in a hussar's uniform who bore an uncanny resemblance to Sterling was discounted as a mere coincidence.