Believe me, it's no ride in the park. But there are reasons for hope.
For starters, the Yankees in 1917-18 - the time of the Spanish flu - pretty much sucked. In 1917, they finished sixth behind the mighty White Sox with Shoeless Joe Jackson and Eddie Collins. The Giants, under manager John McGraw (Fun Fact: He stands today in a statue in his home town of Cuyler, NY, about 35 minutes southeast of Syracuse) won the NL but lost in the World Series to - gulp - Boston. In 1918, the Yankees finished fourth in a shortened season.
But when the flu finally ended, the Yankees rose. For example, their first-baseman during the pandemic was a fellow named Wally Pip. Why is that name familiar? And Boston was led by a P-OF - known today as "the American Shohei Ohtani" - named George Herman Ruth. The seeds were planted.
HIV/AIDS arrived in the early 1980s, arguably the worse decade in Yankee history. It peaked around 1985, when the Yankees finished 2nd. That was the year of Omar Moreno and Joe Niekro, with old George Steinbrenner constantly trading off talent, while KC and SL played in the World Series.
But but but... the Yankees that year unveiled a 24-year-old 1B named Mattingly. There was a light in the tunnel.
Still, we had Jeter at SS, Bernie in CF and Mo in the bullpen.
Ebola? It hit from 2013 to 2015, a mini-era of Yankee malfeasance, with the likes of Yangervis Solarte and Chase Headley (whom, if I remember correctly, we traded for each other.) It's one of the reasons why we still question the creds of Cooperstown Cashman.
Then again, we picked up Sir Didi and debuted the likes of Greg Bird, Gary Sanchez and Luis Severino. (Wait, is that a good thing?)
Historically, the Yankees have shat the bed during outbreaks, and I cannot shake the feeling that, entering 2020 as big favorites, the disappointment streak will continue. But in each case, we could see the seeds of a brighter future.
On that note, how about if we all make a pact to be around for the next great Yankee dynasty, whenever it comes. Because it will come.
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6 comments:
All right, Duque, I see that your fact checker must be in quarantine.
As I understand it:
—Muggsy McGraw's monument is actually in Truxton, his old hometown. He had a bulldog he named Truxton, and he used to like to say to him, "Truxton against the world!"
—Don Mattingly could not very well have been "unveiled" in 1985, having won the batting title in 1984. His first year with the Yanks was 1983.
C'mon, people! Let's not use this worldwide pandemic as an excuse to let our standards slip!!!
Another "fun" fact:
Some people think that a "precautionary" measure against the 1918 flu may have (eventually) killed Babe Ruth.
From Smithsonian Magazine, talking about how, in May, 1918, when Ruth reported having a sore throat to his Red Sox manager, Ed Barrow:
"Barrow agreed and immediately crossed Ruth’s name off the lineup card, sending him home with the doctor, who liberally swabbed his throat with a caustic compound of silver nitrate, probably a 10 percent solution, to ill effect. Among the dangers of using silver nitrate to treat tonsillitis, the standard American Journal of Clinical Medicine noted in 1914: “Caution: Great care must be exercised that no excess silver-nitrate solution oozing from the swab drops into the throat, lest serious results follow; for as we know, cases are on record in which edema [swelling] of the glottis, severe spasms of the larynx and other spastic affections of the throat, even suffocation, resulted from such accidents.”
The silver nitrate solution may well have been what caused the throat cancer that killed him in 1948.
And as for Staten Island: if the Yankees don't put a farm team in that park, the City of New York ought to sue them for every penny we can get.
There should also be an extensive series of minute inspections of Yankee Stadium by food, health, safety, building maintenance, and other regulators, when that building reopens.
This is simply public theft.
Hoss,
You're right about Truxton, but it's in the town of Cuyler, I believe.
They have a baseball field there that's worthy of FIELD OF DREAMS.
Interesting, that's what I get for knowing so little about "upstate," as we city troglodytes call all the territory from Westchester to the Canadian border, and out almost to Ohio.
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