Today, instead of being feted as Captain America, Aaron Judge might go down as baseball's version of the "Quad God," having gone 0-for-4 with a game-ending strikeout in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
Once again, we're back to wondering what happens to the sport's greatest slugger when a big game is on the line - when a lazy fly ball clanks off his glove in the 2024 world series, or he swings through strike three, as he did last night, with the tying run at the plate.
Listen: Yank fans love Judge. Always will. He's the greatest Yankee in this millennium - (and, yes, I realize the extent of such a statement) - and we should treasure the time on this earth that we get to watch him. But like Don Mattingly, he's never won a championship, and that's the only measuring stick we know.
Team USA may still advance to the knockout round, based on some ridiculously complicated scoring system, which makes the federal tax codes look like instructions for chewing gum. But if America's team fails, last night's loss to Italy - Italy! Mamma Mia! - is going to sour our tongues far beyond opening day. And, across the landscape of baseball, nobody will carry the burden of that disappointment more than the Captain.
All rise?
Maybe, all over.
Another sad moment in an era when the Yankees - the mighty Yankees - have lost their way.
In other news yesterday, both the Martian and Mr. Jones homered, salting the wounds of fans who dreamed of a breakout Yankee in 2026. Instead, we'll get Randal Grichuk in an algorithmic platoon with Trent Grisham. The homers came shortly after Spencer Jones was relegated to Scranton, with Jasson Dominguez's bus ticket all but printed out.
If there is a lesson to the upcoming Ides of March - a time that will be remembered for an unpopular war, endless airport lines, exploding gasoline prices and, now, the colossal disappointment of Team USA - it is that you cannot teach hunger, and a team of distracted millionaires will always lose to one of angry youngsters.
It's a lesson the Yankees do not seem capable of learning. What a fiasco.
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5 comments:
The Knicks have Captain Clutch. The Yankees have Captain Choke…
"I'm Artie Choke. And we're just a joke." as the Firesign Theater once put it.
It's true that no one player exemplifies this long Yankees drought more than Judge. He tears through the season putting up jaw-dropping numbers and then...splat. Just like his team.
The splat, that is. The team doesn't put up jaw-dropping numbers.
Beginning to feel a bit like Lucy and the football.
That football of which you speak - is it nuclear ?
DeRosa should be relieved of his duties.
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