The sellout crowd was on its feet. It was getting very late, and the Yankees still trailed in a game they had to have. The tying run was on base, and the muscled slugger stood near the plate, watching while the new pitcher took his warm-ups.
The TV cameras shot him from the side, a classic shot of the big man in the big house. They cut to numerous shots of the crowd, everyone standing, banging on the sides of the stands, hoping, cajoling, begging for one moment of ecstasy in what had become yet another dreary postseason of disappointment.
They would not get it.
In the past, other Yankee greats have come through in situations like this, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth with his called shot and Reggie Jackson with his three home runs on three pitches.
But they were immortals, and even so none of them faced quite the mountain Stanton had to climb last night, taking only his second at-bat after more than 160 days out of action.
I've long believed Stanton to be a fraud, a chemical creation whose presence on the team has been hugely destructive, soaking up so much money that could have been spent acquiring ballplayers who could at least stay on the field.
But no one deserves to have happen what the Yankees did to him last night, batting him in such a critical spot where he had almost no possible chance of succeeding.
The idea that they would even consider resorting to just such a thing indicates only how brazen Yankees management has become in its indifference. Giancarlo Stanton was sent up there like a living, breathing avatar of the great Yankees and the great Yankees traditions that Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman, Aaron Boone, and other resident toadies constantly invoke but never seriously try to match.
Like all too much of America today, Steinbrenner and Cashman are men already wealthy almost beyond imagining but interested, respectively, only in the bottom line and a manufactured adulation, battening ceaselessly off a past that they neither understand nor truly respect.
Like Stanton at the plate last night, they have made our team merely an imitation of greatness.
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In softball, we call giving a benchwarmer an at bat, "letting them touch the ball."
Turn off the lights when you leave, Giancarlo. Leave your keys with security.
Stanton showed us last night how $25 million per year can be worthless.
On target, both for Stanton and his enablers.
Was time to retire years ago. If he wouldn't retire, put him out to pasture years ago. Better yet, do what the Red Sox and Dodgers do and trade him away, years ago. Last night, Volpe got around on a 96 mph inside fastball. Pretty much the same pitch that Stanton swung through for strike 3 just the other day. It's a young man's game. Father Time beats everyone, including Thor, and all that.
So what's it mean if Cashman never gets rid of this washed up chump? It means Cashman ain't interested in winning, of course. What else could it mean when washed up chumps never get moved or put out to pasture?
Come now. Don't be angry at Giancarlo. The Marlins offered him a contract for $325,000,000.00 and 13 years, and he signed on the dotted line. No one twisted anyone's arm. They gave him 13 years knowing quite well how poorly some players age. And then HAL and CashBrain said, "Wait! We wanna get a piece of that!" And so they did. Stanton has given the Yankees 11.1 bWAR and has cost $225 million so far. A lousy return on investment, yes. It's in the same category as the Jacoby Ellsbury contract. Josh Donaldson and Ryan McMahon are equally bad despite shorter tenure. Andy Messersmith was worth -0.8 (NEGATIVE 0.8!) bWAR so that contract is even worse on a per bWAR basis.
What I'm saying here is that it's not the players fault for cashing the checks. It is ownership's and management's. The Yankees spend big with little regard on the return on those investments. Especially the current imbeciles.
I will never hate the players. I'm much too involved in hating HAL and CashBrain and The Imbecile.
Any one of the Commentariat could have been given the Yankee payroll and built a better team than this one.
Well said, Warbler. Yeah, I didn't mean to blame Giancarlo for that at-bat. That was insane, considering how long he'd been out, and entirely on the Yankees...
I DO mean to blame Stanton somewhat for not being able to be on the field. I suspect strongly that he juiced to become the player Miami was willing to pay so much for, thereby defrauding the Marlins. But again, Cashman should've seen through him.
I remember that it was a choice, at the moment of taking him or J.D. Martinez. (Alphonso saw through Stanton from the first.) I favored picking Stanton, fool that I am—but my "choice" was not to make a choice at all. Why not take both.?
Unfortunately, Cashman agreed, and let Martinez go to...the Red Sox, a team whose rivalry with us he has always refused to acknowledge.
But yes, now comes the really, really stupid part with the Yankees, where Stanton is done, but the Yanks absolutely will not let him go or even sit because they still owe him money.
Even money if there is a season next year, it ends much the same way, with Giancarlo, after a long absence, striking out late in the final game.
(Let's just hope we don't have Grisham still.)
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Aren't they getting the Ellsbury insurance write-off if he is on the dl? The accountants run the club
WE NOW KNOW that nothing we say or do here will make a difference. Brian's an idiot, Boone is useless, Hal doesn't care. We can repeat that forever. Nothing will change. What I want to know is WHO are the assholes buying tickets at the Stadium these days? I remember that, when the Yankees sucked in my youth, the crowds were smaller. Is this another indication that NYC is now filled with poseur morons? People who are just shallow imitations of New Yorkers? Who the fuck is paying to see these guys?
And Winnie and Hoss - yes to all you say.
I am nearly to the point, after more than 45 years as a fan, of adopting the Salt Lake Expansion team when/if we get it. The problem is that the head of the expansion bidder is the Miller family who ran the Jazz the same way that Hal runs the Yankees. Maybe I will just quit following baseball altogether.
Yep. It no longer adds much to my life, nor does it entertain. Thank God for this blog, at least.
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