We mortals can only imagine the superhuman charm duel currently raging - ever so tastefully - between these two huggable Olympian gods of love, trust and wisdom. Surely, money will be a factor, but both titans will offer Yamamoto more yen than he can spend in 20 lifetimes, which means the battle could become more than mere dollars.
It shall be a supreme battle of honor, of friendship... of humanity.
This might just be the most defining contests of the two billionaires' lives. It's a duel not merely for one pitcher, but for the total validation of one's life and times, a battle of everlasting souls. The contestants:
The Nepo Baby.
Estimated worth: Billions, since birth.
Age: 54, old enough to be Yamamoto's dad.
Personals: Once divorced, married since 2009 to girl from Staten Island. Two kids. Yank owner since 2008.
Likely strategy: Tout Yankee heritage as most successful sports team in U.S. history. Show treasured artifacts from Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter, et al. Then get down on knees and beg.
Known for: Hating luxury taxes, buddying with Brian Cashman, winning nothing since 2009 - longest drought in Yankee history. Might like horses more than people.
The Hedge Fund Mogul
Estimated worth: Cannot be counted. In the time you spent reading this, he likely made another $1 million.
Personals: Once divorced, married girl from Harlem, two kids. Mets owner since 2020, after buying his way out of criminality.
Likely strategy: Show the paintings, thrust his hand through the damaged Picasso and pull out check for $1 billion.
So here it is, everybody. The pampered Nepo Baby heir, or the notorious Hedge Fund motherfucker? Who do you throw in with? Who more embodies modern America? Who will take home the Yamamoto?
Posts
35 comments:
YAAAAAAAAAAAA AH! MAMOTO
Will you please take our 40 Mil a year
Our fans are cheer in’
And our surgeons prepp’n
To slice into your
Ulnar collateral ligament tear
Maybe they can have the Vapors show up at the Yamobethere meeting and they can serenade him with an updated version of "Turning Japanese"
Duque--great post! I'm pretty sure it's a Burger King in Goshen, though. The McDonald's is in Chester!
How did I miss this?
https://rrrick.tumblr.com/post/722644483896999936
This conundrum reminds me of a scene from "Master and Commander" where Captain Aubrey leans across the dinner table and says to Dr. Maturin, who is examining two boll weevils on his dinner plate:
"Don't you know, Stephen, that in the service, we always choose the lesser of two weevils."
Yamamoto would be a fool to go to Flushing. When the Mutts flush the season down the toilet by June, he'll wind up being traded to Texas before the TD. And he would be wise to accept.
Ask me to guess, I’d say he ends up with the Dodgers. We may know as early as later today.
Let’s hope the team has a Plan B and a Plan C.
The Vapors. Classic.
If Yamamoto goes to Flushing he is assured early tee times next October...
"Who will take home the Yamamoto?"
Nice. I suppose that only the future will tell the actual value of "The Yamamoto". Is it going to be equal to "The Igawa"? or to "The Tanaka"? Frankly we could really use, "The Ford" or "The Guidry" Little guys who kick ass.
That's pretty good, JM. Didn't that bartender in "Gone, Baby, Gone" have a baseball bat, too? There could be a whole all-star team.
Why is it that my gut feeling is
-- if we get the guy, we'll regret it
-- if we DO NOT get the guy, we'll regret it.
I know the answer to this question. It's the period from 2010 to yesterday.
If it just comes down to money—and why should it not?—YY will go bye-bye to Queens. But maybe there's a figure high enough that Cohen will just say, 'The hell with it. I COULD pay that, but this whole team needs to be reworked.'
If it comes down to wanting to be five hours closer to his homeland—and why should it not?—YY will go to LA. But maybe he doesn't want to play in Ohtani's shadow, and watch the Japanese media mob his old World Baseball Classic after every game.
If it comes down to heritage and extremely tall outfielders—and I don't know why it should—we're a lock.
I wonder what it would take to get the Monster of the Reiwa Era...
"I wonder what it would take to get the Monster of the Reiwa Era..."
Me too. For some reason I feel like he's the better choice. Don't forget he's not a true free agent so it will only be international money which I believe is bupkis and comes with a lot of control.
As an aside... The Yankees traditionally do horribly when pivoting to the second and "lesser" choice. It's how we got Stanton. It's how we got Igawa. Maybe this will be different.
Let's try to decipher the tea leaves, shall we?
Yamamoto requested the second Yankee meeting. Why would he do that? I would think that he got a giant offer from Cohen's Mutts and wanted to know if the Yankees would match it. So then the question is, did the Yankees match it? And if they did, would it come down to the Dodgers and the Yankees? Or does Yamamoto go back to Cohen and ask for even more? Who gets the Yamamoto, Dodgers, Yankees, or Mutts?
I think this guy is smart and knows what he's doing. He already knows where he'll go, but he's working over everyone to get the maximum bang out of the team that he wants.
Love the Wendy Torrance card, JM.
Very good article El Duque.
It boils down to whether Mr. Y wants to be an ensemble player for the Dodgers at 25 or show the baseball world that he can pitch as well or better than Ohtani and blaze his own Wikipedia profile trail. I predict it's the latter. I'd bet he has a robust ego and wants to be "The" star. If that's the case, the Yankees have a better cast of supporting players to help achieve his goal. So, when it concerns the Yankees I'm usually a pessimist, my objective psychological analysis says it's the Yankees! Uh, no-I have no training. Not even one college course in the field. Call it my strong intuition.
HOG, I think you might have the right take on this.
Yam should definitely be in New York, many miles away from the Ohtani media madness and hype. I hadn't considered that aspect before (mostly because my brain is old and pickled in cheap liquor), but it makes a lot of sense. Go where your name and your achievements won't be overshadowed by History's Most Overpaid Athlete (discounting Stanton, of course).
After the Dodgers dropped a bomb on Ohtani and then signed Glasnow for 136MM, I can’t imagine them going whole hog on Yamamoto.
I did a deep dive into the shallow waters available exploring Yamamoto's background. He appears to be a thoughtful, respectful and intelligent carbon unit. Pitching in NYC will likely have little impact on his ability to deliver - so his stuff should "translate" nicely to MLB.
Lettuce hope that Matsui or Tanaka didn't have anything too cautionary or negative to share about their experience with the Yankees ("Its a great place to play - just be careful about that narcissistic head-case Cashman").
I'm hopeful that if Hal made a proper offer, he'll be a NY Yankee by end of day Thursday.
We don’t have a Mc’d’s in Goshen, it would have to be Chester 😂
I'm getting a little testy over the waiting. There may be intemperate language from me in the future no matter which way this goes.
I suspect he'll care mostly about 3 things:
1. Who gives him the most Salmon P. Chases
2. The team that has the best chance of winning the WS
3. The team least likely to break their ballplayers like breadsticks
In which case, the Yankees will go 0-3.
@ AA, Carl, JM, DickAllen, You guys might be right! Maybe the Moto Man told the Yankees that he'd give them the last bid. Maybe the Yanks are crunching numbers right now to match the best offer that he got from the others.
It explains his recent visit to the Yankees after meeting the Mutts.
It would verify the rumor that he preferred the Yankees.
It would explain why he went to Los Angeles and made everyone come to him. It might have been what's known as a diversion strategy. He makes it look like he's into the Dodgers and gets them to make him a big offer. Then he negotiates with the Mutts, Yankees and gets even bigger offers. Then he goes to the Mutts, gets an even bigger offer. Then he goes back to the Yankees again, where he really wanted to sign, and gets a final, even bigger offer.
If that's what he's doing, then I tip my cap to the Moto Man. A true master of negotiation. Eschewing the direct frontal assault, which is frowned upon in Sun Tzu's "Art of War". Using every advantage, combined with a classic diversion tactic, to get what he really wants.
Every good magician uses the diversion. A good fighter rarely makes a direct attack. He uses the "feint", which is nothing more than a fake, a bold-faced lie, to open up the area that he is really going to attack.
If that's what he's doing, then the Yanks better give him what he wants and get this done quickly before he gets the wrong idea that the Yanks are not really interested, gets pissed, and walks away.
Winnie, intemperate language from you? No fucking way!
The Yankees traditionally do horribly when pivoting to the second and "lesser" choice. It's how we got Stanton. It's how we got Igawa.
And it's how we got Ellsbury.
Maybe this will be different.
Probably not.
There are no teams on the west coast that want him?
Why would he want to play in this anarchist jurisdiction, this den of perversion and sodomy, this pit of evil?
He should go somewhere warm and sunny, someplace where they believe in God and country, not this hotbed of heathen billionaire horse shit.
I do love New York, but this poor boy's soul comes first.
Maybe he should play for Houston, that grand exemplar of American values...
@ 13bit, I've an idea for a new movie called "Den of Iniquity" starring Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Alex Verdugo, & Trevor Bauer. They play hard & dirty on the field. After games, they ride around on motorcycles terrorizing mothers pushing babies in strollers and old ladies crossing the streets. They frequent brothels & dens of iniquity. They want to experience "the deep mystery of sin" as Nathaniel Hawthorne so eloquently put it. They finally have to choose between good (winning the championship) or evil (opium dens, nightclubs, & hot women with vampire fangs).
@ 13Bit - The anarchists have left. They couldn't afford the rent and Giuliani used the cops to evict them from their squats almost 30 years ago.
Disney now owns that den of iniquity, Times Square. Still evil to be sure, but only if you are kinky about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
That hotbed of heathen billionaires (Wall Street) is still here, so all hope is not lost.
God, however, has left the country entirely, so don't look for him in America. And global warming is running amuck. By the time their contracts expire, a warm and balmy NYC will be preferable to the withering heat of the south.
Plus, California will cleave off into the Pacific (or so I've been promised for 50 years), while God-fearing, climate change-denying Florida submerges below the waves, so...
Good news!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/À_rebours
A guidebook for the debauchery.
The yellow book cited in the Picture of Dorian Gray.
Remember, sex is natural. Unless you do it right
Love it, Hammer! But...why would they ever choose the pennant over hot women with vampire fangs?
AboveAverage, love your use of "Lettuce" there. Reminds me of that great JFK speech:
"We won't finish this salad in the next five seconds, or the next five minutes, or even a quarter hour. But lettuce begin."
Hoss - there was a kids show in the 60's (1960s) where at one point during the narrative several characters excitedly darted about chirping, "lettuce eat lettuce! lettuce eat lettuce! lettuce eat lettuce!'
It sorta romaine'd with me over the years . . .
Doctor T - as a resident of California - I claim OTISBURG as my future home . . .
Take Nepo Baby...Never know when them hedge fund chickens will finally come home to roost and the checks bounce
Post a Comment