From our own Carl J. Weitz...
The team may have lost the game yesterday, but there's a bright side! Most people didn't realize it, but the Yankees proclaimed "FAN LIBERATION DAY." All non-Yankees fans will be charged an additional 25% on tickets and concessions. THIS WILL QUICKLY LOWER THE PRICES WE PAY and enable Hal to spend heavily from this moment on for free agents. No more losing. We're going to be rich. MAKE THE YANKEES GREAT AGAIN!!!
Hey, I kid, I kid. Time to take a razor to that mailbox!
A certain Mr. Hammer from Planet Earth wonders if the Yankees are deliberately holding back the progress of Jasson Dominguez (of Planet Mars) to delay having to pay him—maybe even deliberately blowing out his throwing arm.
He wonders if the Yanks' signing of (bad) free agents over developing the kids is part of the same plot.
I feel ya, Hammer—but no need to go full conspiracy theory on us.
At last month's NYC SABR meeting—yes, I am everywhere—Anthony McCarron (helluva nice guy, incidentally), told us that "Hal is not cheap," pointing to the Yanks' $300 million payroll.
No question: $300 million is a lot of money. But if you're so willing to spend that in the cause of winning it all...why would you possibly keep Brian Cashman in charge of it?
As you may have heard, Cashman, at 28 years and counting, is now the longest serving GM of any North American sports team who did not also own said team...with the exception of Red Auerbach, who ran the Boston Celtics for 56 years.
Auerbach—and Red, knock it off with the cigars, already—won a total of 16 NBA championships (9 while doubling as coach).
Cashman championships on teams that did not include the Core of Four? 0. That's zero, zilch, nada.
So...why would you keep this guy on if you wanted your $300 million spent wisely? Only to AVOID winning the World Series.
No need to hatch plots to injure guys. Just leave the obedient fool in place to keep the team sort of contending, without ever winning it all. The result? Ever-increasing profit margins.
That's all ye can know, and all ye need to know on this earth (Hey, steal from the best!).
Incidentally, Duque? You're wrong: Hal's management is proof that there IS a God. He's just way too merciful to lesser cities.
Well, gotta step. Eternity doesn't last forever, you know—even though it probably seemed so at that Yankees game last night.
And like I always say: Numquam ponenda eat pluralitas sine necessitate.
See ya round the ballpark.
Five games in, any reaction is a kneejerk, and the wisest critique of the 2025 Yankees is to STFU and flush the toilet.
We can bemoan the bottom of the batting order, as the zeroes march to and from the plate. But tonight could bring a deluge, and we'll just look more like the overreactive fools that we are.
Here's a cheap prediction: One month from now, we will be embarrassed by whatever the fuck we said this week. Fortunately, we don't know what's coming. Otherwise, we'd grab the loaded Luger.
But but BUT... in the spirit of Warner Wolf, here are five fast takeaways.
1. In the super Dodgers - now 8-0 - MLB might finally be glimpsing the Babadook.
Entering last winter, they had the best team in baseball, which they then supplemented with the best player from Japan and the best free agent pitcher, with the highest payroll. They will steamroll the NL West - (San Diego's 7-0 is a blip) - then win the NLCS, and then the world series. And next winter, they'll do it again.
For decades now, the Yankees' vast upper level mediocrity has saved MLB from the super team that buys pennants. (When I look at Hal, I always have the same thought: There is no God.) Rather than spend on yesterday, the Dodgers build for tomorrow. The baseball world is witnessing what money and acumen can do. The Yankees did it in the 1990s, nearly 30 years ago. They didn't learn.
2. By June, talk this talk about torpedo bats will draw chuckles and - if there is a God - embarrassment from the chatterers. To make a bat actually matter, you must hit the baseball. Therein lies the problem.
Last night, the Yankees struck out 16 times. That's not a typo. They average 10 per game (ahead of six teams, including Boston, with 11.) Every spring, they bring in a new batting guru, with a new scheme and new philosophy - a new bullshit reason for us to think things will change. Then we watch everything coagulate into a chasm of strikeouts, walks and home runs.
Last night, as they marched to home plate - and then back to the dugout - one conclusion rose above all others: I can't watch nine innings of these games. It's just... boring.
3. Cody Bellinger can play CF. Last night, he handled blasts that I shudder to imagine how The Martian would have played. He turned his back to the ball, ran to the track, spun around and made it look easy. He saved Carlos Rodon from what could have been a two-inning battering.
Thus far, in the late innings, the Yankees have been replacing The Martian in LF, due to his still-questionable fielding. They move Trent Grisham into CF, and Bellinger takes left. But make no mistake: Bellinger can hold his own.
4. It's hard to note all the changes in the 2025 Yankees - Soto, Bellinger, Dominguez, et al - when this team so resembles last year's disappointing finale. Yeah, they won the AL pennant, but this lineup seems to have picked up right where Game 5 left off.
It is becoming part of Yankee lore to strikeout three or four times a game. Everybody does it. I wonder: Can Judge lead us from this fog?
5. Okay, gotta mention Babe Volpe. He's had a week. By golly, if he can hit, say, 30 HRs - that is, keep going to RF - this could be a breakout season. Everybody else, thus far, looks the same. Volpe looks different.
Then again, it's Overreaction Week.
The great Yankee bubble of 2025 has popped. It didn't last long: three (3) games to be precise, against a measles outbreak from Milwaukee, before our bullpen blew like a tire on the Thruway.
If you're scoring the category of GAMES WE SHOULDA FUCKINANY WON, the total now stands at one (1). In the Don Zimmer Thesaurus of terse explanations, we fuckinay shoulda won.
So, buck up and get used to it? Maybe. But the jolt will linger. For three games, we nosed the red button and received a food pellet. Last night, we nosed it and got 500 volts. The YES announcers reran Scott Brosius' world series HR, and Paul O'Neill relived his stadium tribute, but grainy videos cannot restore the last era when the Yankees ruled - an experience we probably won't see again in our lifetimes.
It happened against Arizona, which - it must never forgotten - celebrated its 2001 world series victory by mockingly playing "New York, New York" over the P.A. system, only days after the World Trade Center fell. I never need motivation to beat Arizona. I just remember them singing sarcastically with Frank.
But but BUT... this is not about 2001. It's about last night, when the Death Barge blew a completely winnable game - an outing we assumed would be ours, until it wasn't.
Grand slams will do that. Something about a Yankee Grand Slam Loss - it leaves a lifetime mark. Before last night, we were still mulling Freddie Freeman's blast in the 10th inning of game one, the homer that - in retrospect - sealed LA's championship march. But the list of Yankee soul-crushing HRs - from Mazeroski to Altuve, from Damon to Devers - rolls from our memories like bloody sequences from David Cronenberg films. Once seen, never forgotten.
You could call last night a bullpen loss, and - technically - you wouldn't be wrong. But that would mean ignoring our first four batters - Goldy, Bellinger, Judge and Jazz - who went 0-15 with nine strikeouts. So much for outlawing the torpedo bat. (If you're luxuriating in Boston's current woes, here's a Calgon Bath Oil Bead: Rafael Devers is 15 for 19 in strikeouts, he hates DH, and the Redsocks are 1-4. Ha ha.)
Generally, an out-of-body loss in April gets pitched out with the AARP junk mail. It's too soon to suffer a mortal wound. It's one game - one that WE FUCKINAY SHOULDA WON. Get used to it. There will be about 60 more.
Torpedo! From the Latin Tor, meaning a book publishing company specializing in Science Fiction paperbacks, and pedo, meaning uh, let’s not go there.
Torpedo!
No longer the answer to a trivia question about McHale's Navy, torpedos are back.
Hey, quick question... If the Yankees sink the Dodgers pitching staff in this year's World Series by means of their torpedo bats will any body make that connection? And will they lose their job?
But I digress...
Quick side story here…
During the 1980’s I had a friend who had a friend whose father was a jobber. He had several warehouses down in Santa Ana. I got invited to go look at them for some reason that is still not clear to me and in one of them, in sacks stacked floor to ceiling were actual Wham-O superballs. Real ones with the atomic sign on them and everything.
There were so many of
them that the floor of the warehouse was covered in loose ones that fell out of
ripped sacks, and you could glide across the room like on ball bearings.
They guy said I could take some and, being polite, I took ten. I should have stuffed my pockets. I still have two. I gave away
three and five more suffered from the fate of all superballs… the dreaded
second bounce into oblivion. Gone!
He told me that the ones in the warehouse were bought from the government. Apparently the Air Force was looking into using giant bowling ball size superballs as a weapon.
The idea
was to drop a superball into a building and let the bouncing action destroy the
room without an explosion or fire. It would also limit the damage to the room
in which it was dropped.
Couldn’t tell you how the bowling ball sized superball got
into the room but hey that’s what tax dollars are for. The plan obviously failed as any of us could
have told them. You drop it on Moscow. It bounces once. Hits Prague. And then
right into the Adriatic Sea. Gone!
But I digress…
Look, the Torpedo Bat is just an equipment upgrade. Like bigger infielder gloves or running shoes.
Did anybody complain when runners switched to running shoes?
I mean aside from Buster Brown whose ill-fated attempt at the Bruce Jenner
Buster Brown Running Shoe was a large part of why Buster Brown went out of
business.
If they stuck around they could have tried again with a line
of high heels.
But I digress…
As long as the bat is made of wood and meets the height,
weight, and length MLB specifications it’s fine. Besides, there’s a downside to moving the sweet spot,
in closer to the hands. The wood available for the outside pitch is reduced, affecting
the velocity when going to the opposite field on an outside pitch.
And therein lies the solution for the pitcher. Don’t come
inside. Work the outer half of the plate as much as possible to reduce the efficacy
of the torpedo bat.
In other news…
Rafael Devers is still hitless and has struck out 15 times 19 at bats. People are blaming it on weight gain. Maybe he’s been ordering too many of the wrong kind of torpedos.
(Don't watch this. It's stupid!)
Or, it could be because he’s trying to suck his way off the Red Sox because they gave 3B to a guy who can actually play the position.What does this mean for the Yankees? Well, we still haven’t overpaid for a third baseman yet and we’ve gotten third basemen from Boston before, albeit with mixed results. Boggs and Youklis. I hope this doesn’t come to pass although, I’ve heard pinstripes are slimming.
If Volpe can hit, say, 30 HRs, it would herald a breakout year. He could become a bedrock part of the Yankee infield and an offensive weapon. He's off to a great start: Two HRs! It's not exactly Ruthian: He's one of 34 MLB hitters with two or more. So, in a perfect world, NYC would be celebrating Volpe's potential big year. Start spreadin' the news, right?
Well, no. Sadly, Volpe's output has become Exhibit A in the media's ongoing prosecution of the Yankees, a tribunal that never ends. Instead of hope for Volpe, Austin Wells and Jazz Chisholm - each of whom has two or more HRs - the tabloids have questioned whether "torpedo" bats have caused the recent surge. Last night, like trained seals, the network TV news reports weighed in: Are torpedo bats a threat to your children? Do they undermine truth, justice and the American way?
It was as if Volpe didn't hit the HRs. His bat did.
Listen: If the KC Royals had belted 15 HRs over the weekend in Milwaukee, think we'd know about it? But in NYC, someone's gotta channel Al Pacino: "I'M OUTA ORDER? YOU'RE OUTA ORDER!" There's always an outrage, a reason to scream.
Listen: I'm not bemoaning "fake news." Warts and all, the feral news media remains one of the NYC's great traditions. Be it Pizza Rat or Abe Beam, there's always something to raise our blood pressure. But if you're a Yank fan - or if you follow any NY team - here we fucking go again.
The Yankees enjoy three high-scoring games, and - of course! - they must be using illegal undocumented bats. The Mets sign Juan Soto, and - of course! - they're overpaying. The Giants keep their coaches, because they cannot change. The Jets fire their coaches, because they are unstable. The Knicks and Rangers - fuckit - they're the Knicks and Rangers. Now, we can add St. John's basketball, and every glorious flop will reassure us that the media's doomsday rage was right all along.
Can't we ever have nice things?
Must we break every toy, moments after unwrapping it?
Listen: As cynical and pessimistic Yank fans, we know what's coming:
A market correction. Instead of 10 runs in one game, we'll score one run in 10. Volpe's third HR? It might come in May.
Is anything less meaningful than the first weekend of a baseball season. A guy hitting .400? An opposite field HR? A new season of Tracker? Something, anything, to do with a Kardashian? Damn...
But every year, we pour all our hopes into NY teams, and nothing changes, except - what? - the barrel of the bats? Gimme a break. Wake me at the end of April, then we'll debate Volpe's power surge.
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