1. Say what you will about Aaron Boone, the man, the myth (Bob Costas comparing him to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon), the manager... His decision to play Alex Verdugo in LF was the right one. It says something about the state of the Yankee farm system that The Martian, Jasson Dominguez, was not ready to play the outfield at a major league level. (The idea that he was being groomed for CF is particularly troubling.) Maybe next year. Doogie made every play, every throw, and the game outcomes balanced on the thin thread of his defense. If he can get a few more hits, who knows? Maybe he could even return next year!
Wait, nah. He's gone. The Yankees' Project 2025 includes The Martian, somewhere. But that's for November.
2. Luke Weaver has been magnificent. I don't want to jinx him, but unlike so many other MLB closers, who are massive, hairy, lumberjack brutes, a few chromosomes from the Mad Hungarian, or Bigfoot, the slender Weaver looks almost David Cone-ish out there. Almost, gulp, Mariano-ish? No. It's a total hex to make such a comparison. But he's been great, and if he pitches the Yankees to a world championship, his legacy will be enduring.
Who imagined Luke Weaver - age 31, on his sixth team, with a career ERA of 4.85 - could be our salvation?
3. I cannot decide who to root for today between the Tigers and Indians Commanders Guardians. Whomever wins will be hungry and hot. I wish we could play the losers.
But I think it will be Cleveland, and if so, we should expect a long, hard seven-game series. The benches and bullpens will be emptying multiple times. And everything will revolve around Aaron Judge.
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I wonder if we should avoid overpraising Boone's acumen re Verdugo and Weaver. Not like he had a bunch of options in either case. The Martian can't catch a flyball and Holmes can't close. Sure, Boone could have put Chisolm in left, started Cabrera at third and Berti at first, or some similar nonsense. And he could have tried to make Stroman the closer. Three or so years ago stuff like that might have happened. So credit where it's due. Boone either didnt make obviously foolish decisions or prevented Cash's nerds from dictating foolish decisions. But the bar was low. And Austin Wells is still the presumptive clean-up hitter.
If players come through in the clutch...the manager looks like a genius....
"Easy to say, not so easy to do"...hmmm, where did I hear that before?
The Mets will face the Dodgers. They have to be massive underdogs. But, on the other hand, I just saw an article that said the Padres were the Bums' biggest obstacle to a ring. So maybe the jinx is in.
I suppose we’re better off playing the guardians instead of the tigers..
Apropos of nothing, how come there’s no uproar over Norte Dame being called the Fighting Irish? What if the U. Of Miami was called the Stingy Jews? How about The Thievin’ Gypsies of Arkansas?
If ND was the Drunken Irish, that would be a problem. Fighting is fine, and although it implies being drunk, it's not a requirement. If Miami tried the Happy Hasidim, they might have a chance. Or maybe the Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves of Arkansas, though Gypsies is a problem. Roma? Travelers?
DC doesn't appear to be concerned by "Commies". Apropos, maybe, but there's no bigger insult. So, why should anybody else care?
999, they're the Fighting Irish, and that's that! Why, questions like that make half of me want to punch you in the face. They make the other half of me want to offer you a very dry cocktail and have a good snicker.
And about five percent of me have you over for garlic snails.
The nickname doesn’t bother me, or any other Irishman I’ve ever met. In fact, they’re proud of it.
I hear ya, JM (in regard to my last post). But what I meant about handling the media was that Torre had it down to a "T" when it came to reporters running over to him to say things like, "George says that guy you keep starting is terrible," Joe would only reply, "Hey, he owns the team, he can say whatever he wants." That acknowledgement of George's ownership, ridiculous as it seemed, was needed. Also, Torre mostly kept clubhouse quarrels out of the tabs...
...To be sure, neither the best nor the worst baseball manager really changes things that much for their teams. (One of the best at making his teams better, ironically, was Girardi, who kept some unbelievably bad Yankees teams in wild card contention.)
And sure, near the end, Joe was a worse field manager than ever. But at least according to his memoir, he was quite willing to be flexible about a new contract. He describes, in excruciating detail, how Cashman went about gratuitously humiliating him, bringing him down to a Florida audience before a nearly senile George and his darling sons. It was truly awful, and he didn't deserve that...
As for Casey: lucky? Sure, he did not manage to turn the old Boston Bees or the Dodgers into contenders, when he managed those truly awful teams. And when he came to the Yankees, he was indeed coming to the franchise with the best front office and best farm system, this side of Brooklyn.
But the league had really come up on the Yankees. It wasn't like the 1930s, when our boys often had the best players at most positions. Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago had all become regular contenders. By 1960, Casey's last year, even Baltimore had become a player, finishing second that year.
What Casey did was to maximize the Yankees' main advantage, which was their depth. Hence the constant platooning, and the use of the pitchers in all sorts of innovative ways: holding them back for certain teams, using them in relief roles, improvising constantly in game situations.
Any manager would have been a winner with those Yankees teams—but I don't think any other would have won so much, so consistently. Ten pennants and seven World Series in 12 years. Had The Mick not been injured for most of the 1955 and 1957 Series—had the 1960s Series had not been played in part on a field that was substandard for a high school game—he might have won all 10 Series.
And as even the Yankees would not have dared to fire him had he done that, I think he would have gone on to take those next 4 pennants the Yanks won, and 3 World Series (no way they were going to beat the Dodgers' pitching in 1963).
So we might well have been talking 14 pennants and 13 World Series in 16 years.
you're reminding me of a favorite slogan, Hoss: Half of my mind is selling bullshit and the other half is buying it.
Also, another testament to Casey's greatness is that he knew what to do when handed the Mets, which was just to smile and call them the Amazin's and have some fun with his life.
Bitty, apparently he was angry about how bad they were—but he knew to keep up public appearances.
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