Soto's HR
In 1976 I was twenty-years old. The Yankees had never made it to the series in my legitimate memory. The last time they made it I was eight and while I was a "Yankee fan" because I had a hat and a Roger Maris pop up home run trainer... it was not the same.
By the time 1976 rolled around I was a die hard. Attending 15-20 games a year. Rarely missing one in some form or another.
The Chris Chambliss HR against KC brought me to tears. Literally.
Maybe it was the excessive amounts of tequila. Maybe it was the Thai stick. Or maybe it was twelve years of frustrations. Twelve years of hoping that guys like Joe Pepitone and Ron Blomberg could bring us back to the promised land... They couldn't.
Either way that was my first GREAT Yankee HR.
There have been others. We all know them. Reggie's three against the Dodgers, Bucky Fucking Dent, Leyritz, Tino... Ending with Hideki owning Pedro (again and again) on the way to their last championship.
Then nothing. Nothing for fifteen years. Fifteen years of hoping guys like Raul Ibanez or Gary Sanchez could provide that thrill. The big, big home run, that catipulted the Yankees to the top of the baseball world... they couldn't.
Even Judge's 62nd, while feeling good, was kind of anti-climactic. Great personal achievement but different.
Last night's HR by Soto was the real thing. Start to finish it was a great at bat. You could see it in his eyes. Every foul ball turning wheels in his head. He was going to get this guy. He was not going to give in until he did... and while I didn't cry or even jump out of my chair, that was one GREAT Yankee HR.
It was about time.
The Post Game
I watched the on field celebration a couple of times. Primarily because I wanted to enjoy the moment a little longer, and secondarily because I was interested in seeing how each player celebrated after the initial jumping up and down.
Stanton
When people were jumping near Stanton all I could think of was "Dear G-d! Don't let them hurt him."
Stanton was mostly serious. Standing above it all, easy to spot because of his height, older than everybody else and not just in age. This is the first time he has gotten this far and it seemd like he understood the moment on a different level. He said they weren't done and you could tell he meant it.
Judge
My favorite Judge moment was when he bent way over to take a hug and a kiss from his mom. Judge was happy over all but there was a sense that he knows he still needs to do more. Probably a projection but you can tell he feels the weight of expectation. Fortunately for him, unlike other years he had Soto and Stanton to take some of the heat off. Ideally he is able to finally relax and get back into crushing the ball.
Soto
Someone hug tackled Soto. I'm pretty sure it was his dad. If that's true that's just awesome!
Gleyber
Gleyber was holding smiling at and kissing his (two year old?) kid. I rip him all the time, forgetting that he's a person. I will try not to do that as much. He's been really really good this last month.
My Favorite Moment By Far
When they introduced Hal, Brian, and Boone.
At that point there were pretty much only Yankee fans in the stadium... and they booed! They booed Hal. They booed Brian. And they booed Boone.
All is not forgiven. While Yankee fans are happy today it doesn't mean for a second that we think these three are not responsible for how long it took to get back. They got lucky. I guess we are stuck with them now.
Boooooooo!
Posts
37 comments:
You mentioning Ibanez’s HR has sobered me up. I thought THAT was the real deal. Maintain juju readiness.
on Alert
Soto’s whole at bat was him figuring out the pitcher. He’s such a pro.
My mom, who startled the neighbors by yelling at the TV when watching Yankees games with the windows open, died almost exactly four years ago. She wanted to see the Yankees win it all one more time. I still have the VHS tape she made for me of the clinching win in the 2009, since I was in Europe during the Series and had only seen highlights.
Thanks to Hal and Brian and Boone, she never did get to see that one more WS. Nice job, guys. I guess you're all geniuses now.
Doug, thank you for this post. It’s one of the best posts of the year. Thoughtful, realistic, and carrying emotion. I still don’t feel warm and fuzzy towards these guys, but I’m willing to be open minded. There might be an infinitesimal possibility that the last couple of games have fostered some long-dormant esprit de corps among these guys. Maybe it turned them into a team with a heart. I have my fingers crossed. If we don’t sign Soto, we are the biggest assholes on the face of the Earth, but I’ll wait to complain about that for a while. I have zero sympathy for billionaires who are cheap. In the meantime, strap on your flak jackets.
And JM, I also thought of my mom. She grew up two blocks from the stadium and was a Yankee fanatic her whole life. It’s been 24 years now and I still miss her. I know she would have been happy.
JM, thank you for that anecdote! May God bless her spirit! She didn't get to see it when she was alive, but she saw it from above, I'm sure.
Doug, I'm glad the Yankee fans are well aware of the hypocrisy that has been Yankee management & ownership since 2010. When you hear idiots crooning about how HAL, Cashman & Boone are the greatest, you start to wonder. But them getting booed shows that Yankee fans are in the know. It ain't just us on this here blog. Thank God for that.
13bit, I know she is happy!
Honestly I felt like this would happen as it was only the Royals and the Guardians. They got amazingly lucky they didn't face the O's or the Ass-tros. Even the Tigers I feared more than the Guardians but they did give them a bit more trouble than expected.
I don't have much hope with them against the Dodgers though. Probably a 40% chance? The Mets should be rather easy and they are mostly going on unbelievable luck which should be running out eventually.
Either way, I'm just happy to see the Yanks in the WS again regardless of the WS outcome. It's been way too long. They really need to pay Soto that Ohtani money and structure it for 20 years to afford it if they ever want to go back. They obviously need a second amazing player to go with Judge to give them the extra edge that they needed all these years. Imagine if they were able to get another Cole-like pitcher and a decent Mo-like closer!
Pennant winning 3 run HR. Can't beat that! The biggest hit of the year so far for the Yankees.
Another big home run I remember well is Bernie Williams' solo homer off Al Leiter in Game 5 of the 2000 World Series against the Mets. It was a 0-0 game, and early, but when he hit it out, (and it was a colossal moonshot to left), I knew the Yankees were going to be the 2000 World Series Champions. Still have the Sports Illustrated 2000 World Series Championship commemorative book and Tropicana Yankee watch as mementos!
Vampifella, Yeah, I agree about the O's, ASS-stros and the Tigers. Yanks probably lose to all of them. But about those Mets, Yanks lost all four games to them this year. Think this Yankee would beat the Mets easily? I think not. Believe or not, I think the Mets would pummel them in four or at most five.
I do want to see if the Yankees have got what it takes to beat Ohtani and sink Yamamoto's battleship. And if you think the Dodgers are the better team, than the Mets, and that I certainly agree with, it's trial by fire. If the Yankees win, they will have won my utmost respect.
I love you people.
Fuck the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Fuck Boone.
Fuck CashBrain.
Most especially fuck Hal.
Same age Doug.
I grew up near Pittsburgh, not as lucky as most everyone here, but my grandfather who raised me lived with his cousin in New York before he was shipped off to France and he brought his Yankees business with him when he finally settled. My first Yankees memory was 1960, out on the back porch with old Patrick, radio on, and the back porches all up and down the block erupted when Mazeroski got his hit. My grandfather tossed his can of Curve over the porch railing and we went in the house. I didn't know shit about shit but I knew that hurt for him and I was his best pal. From then on when the Yankees won Patrick won, and so I won.
I hope there's something on the other side and the old bastard downed a few Curves last night. I want to think that happened anyway.
I was for getting Soto when the Washington Gnats were doing their garage sale. Cashfuck passed on him, for God only knows what reasons.
Two blocks away! Wow. That must have been great.
Yeah, my dad is gone 25 years come Dec. 7. He was a big Yankees fan, too. I'm glad they could swing the deal for Soto on that date. Seemed fitting.
Thanks, Hammer. I'm sure she was yelling and disturbing her neighbors.
This is a little weird, so bear with me.
Did the regular season results point to which teams would still be standing? The teams that had a truly horrible team in their divisions have all been beaten. The Guardians and Royals had fattened up on the White Sox and are now gone. The Astros on the Angels and ditto.
The Mets and Dodgers are kind of anomalies, in that they each had a truly lousy team to beat up on in their divisions, the Marlins and Rockies, respectively. The Brewers, by this "logic," should have moved on, but while they did not have that horrible team in their division, they had true mediocrity up and down the line, and they took advantage of it.
The Dodgers and Mets, then, are both vulnerable to the "we had a really crappy team in our division and that helped us get here" explanation. The Mets more than the Dodgers, only because LA was 34 games over .500, and the Rockies couldn't help them pad their record THAT much.
The Yankees are actually the only team left that didn't have a really putrid team in their division. (Whereby Baltimore should have done better in the playoff, maybe, but these things happen.)
So, thinking along these lines, the Yanks should be able to beat either the Mets or the Dodgers. It might not be easy, it might not be pretty, but they should prevail.
Of course, this is all bullshit and means nothing. I'd have to do a lot of research to give this crackpot theory any teeth, and I'm way too lazy. Still, kind of a fun little exercise...for me, anyway.
Cashclown has passed on so many great players--even ones who wanted to be Yankees--and signed so many mediocre and crap players, the mind boggles.
Gleyber smoking that Cleveland pack will forever be etched in mind lol
"I'd have to do a lot of research to give this crackpot theory any teeth, and I'm way too lazy."
We're on the same ball club! Courtesy of Deep Purple:
Lazy
Just stay in bed
Don't want no money
Don't want no bread
But, by God, I hope you're right!
Who'd have thunk that the three clowns we despise most, Mr. Prima Donna, Gleyber Torres, and Giancarlo Stanton would have gotten it done and had great series? Especially Giancarlo Stanton, formerly known as The Blind Man, The Garbageman, Cantrun. Hell, he even inherited the mantle of "Gets hot, Gets hurt" (from another one who shall remain nameless here).
Hell, Stanton is a lot like fucking Count Dracula. He's hard to kill. He's been buried, staked, burned to ashes, yet still busted out of his coffin for the playoffs. The guy is the living dead! You can't kill him. Going by that, it could be that the Yankees just might be the Cinderella team. If they get it done and become the 2024 World Series Champions, we're gonna have to get out the big guns to do the IIHIIF...IIC 21 gun salute!
Love you right back, Warbler—and all you guys.
Great post, Doug. And great stories, JM, Bitty, Hammer, and Mildred. I hope all those great people in your lives are in Yankees Section in heaven right now.
I do wish I'd had a close relative who was a big Yankees fan. My father and my closest uncle were old NY Giants fans, having been born on Fordham Road, back in the day. My Uncle Bruce became a Mets fan (and took me to see Willie Mays), my father actually rooted for the Red Sox when we moved to Massachusetts (oy). No brother, my beloved mother hated sports (even though she carefully clipped out all my first articles in the local daily: "Rockport Field Hockey Girls Bested by Manchester, 8-1.")...
...I was pretty much a lone Yankees fan in Massachusetts, for almost ten years. Through the Impossible Dream year for the Sox, through their 1975 run to the Series. Yanks didn't win until I came back to NYC for school.
Night of Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS, I had a $3 ticket to see Equus. I went—great play—bolted out of the theatre, and stood in Times Square, staring at the ticker. No news! Grabbed the subway back to my dorm. It was 6-6, Royals threatening in the top of the 9th. Somebody (Grant Jackson? Lyle?) got us out of it. Barely. Then Chambliss.
Great moment, though I didn't think we could beat the Reds. Still. Amazing I complain at all, considering all the great thrills those New York Yankees have given me—and infinitely more important, the great friends I have made through following them. Don't know if we can win the Series, but great to get there!
Oh, and great post about TBS, O Peerless Leader! Yeah, Anderson's comments were ridiculous. You hear cracks like this about money all the time from sports announcers and TV news people. It's hypocritical nonsense, spewed out so they can pretend to be "just folks" like us. They are making small fortunes themselves—$1 mill, $2 mill, likely, in big markets—just to read the news off a monitor, or to describe the game happening before them on the field.
Everyone on this blog could do what they do with about a year of training. None of us could play major-league ball (or we'd be doing it).
It ain't just the stupid commentating on TBS. I'm INCREDULOUS that the entire baseball playoffs are not on one of the major free tv networks. How many inner city kids have cable or a dish network? How many lower working class people in the midwest or the south or anywhere are gonna have cable? And MLB is worried about kids not playing baseball or watching it. MLB is too stupid and greedy for its own good. Doesn't understand that 200 or 300 million dollars right now ain't what's important for the long run. In that respect, MLB ain't any different from Yankee ownership/management. Too stupid and greedy for their good. Missing the forest for the trees. Baseball is dying? You can't tell from the crowds at the stadiums, but it (the overlords of MLB) is killing the game.
Keep in mind that for a lot of people, a flatscreen TV and cable or dish are staples. Even when they have no money. Seems ridiculous, but I think it's true. Ditto for a cell phone of some kind.
Our priorities, even on the low end of the economic scale, are fucked up.
Hoss, my mom grew up in the Bronx - she could see the stadium from her window. MY DAD, on the other hand, grew up in Inwood and was the ultimate, diehard NY Giants baseball fan. When they moved to SF, and in solidarity with my mom, he went with the Yanks, but I don't think he ever forgave the Giants for the move. I went to a Yanks game with him in 06 or so, a couple of years before he died, and it's a really happy memory. My mom is actually the one who took me to the stadium for the first time in 1967, though. As you and others here know, being a Yankee fan from that generation was not always easy. It still isn't, come to think of it. Anyway, I'm going to put on my Yankees cap tonight when I walk the hound. Do you remember the Riviera Cafe, on 7th Ave. and w4th Street? You must know that was a major Red Sox hangout. In 2004, when those cocksucking, heathen, monstrous barbarian assholes won it, I was walking home and I heard these screams. All around me, assholes in BoSox hats were running to the Riviera so they could commune with each other, kind of like feral rats at a garbage can. It was one of those moments that scars you for life. I still live for our own morons to avenge that moment. But I'm sure Hal doesn't think twice about it. That's what makes us fans and him just a plutocrat. Okay, I'm foaming at the mouth and will shut up now.
I cut my cable years ago. It's either the radio or gameday for me when I watch. My real regrets at cutting it were YES and the Weather Channel. If those criminals who run cable TV had any brains, they'd let you pick your channels and pro-rate it. Between that, the Private Equity universe and what's happening to rural hospitals, I'm teetering in my commitment to unlimited capitalism, but I'll stop now. I have lots of fake money to not count.
mr. bit,
I highly recommend Carl's "magic TV box". Get the games and pay HAL nothing.
I love you all.
Great memories, Bitty, thanks! Yeah, 1967 was when my father, who also never forgave the Giants, took me to see the Yankees at the O.G. Stadium. They lost, 4-3, to the Angels, but I was so glad I got there, shortly before we moved.
Hammer, great points about how penny-wise and mega-dollar stupid MLB is. Everywhere, their prices today are killing the fan base for tomorrow. Of course, the word is that, once sports leaves for pure streaming, TV as we know it as dead. That's something that bends my mind. Never thought I'd see TV die in my lifetime.
Do you mean live TV, Hoss? The cable industry had YEARS to figure it out and maybe invent a soft landing, but they just would not do it. Nobody is thinking outside the box on how to integrate all the streaming services. They have all tried, but there is no clear winner. I think that most people don't differentiate anymore on what "TV" is. As long as they can sit in front of their screen and watch what they want, it's the same to them. Just as there are few actual "land lines" left, even when people think it's a land line, but it's actually an internet or cable phone that sits on a table. The boob tube is not going anywhere. How it is fed is another matter.
I read some years back that by Federal Law the cable companies MUST allow people to buy channels individually. How the money part works out I couldn't tell you. I also cut the cable, programming is putrid and I have a very large movie collection. Right now I'm suffering, but thankfully the WS is on Fox (well, "thankfully" is too strong of a word, but it'll do).
Doug, my compliments for your sublime post. And hey, I'm a year younger than you which means that I wasn't floating around, chemically yet in '76. But I got there!
Post a Comment