What is wrong with the Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM)?

They're limping toward the restrooms, three up with 19 to play. Nobody's hitting except Li'l Pete, and he's a living "Get well!" card. (See: Bird, Greg.) Tonight, they face the Oakland A's, a/k/a the Charlie Sheen School for Wayward Girls, and their prayers have been answered: They found someone - at 17 games below .500 - playing worse than they. Jubilation! Glory to Dombrowski, the Belichick of baseball! 

But it wasn't supposed to be this way.

Everybody knows the Redsocks, as God's most beloved tribe of suffering saints, continually consolidate all their woes, finish last for a while, and then rise to win miracle championships. Ever since vanquishing the evil curse of the Bambino, many years ago, Boston has lived the dream, embracing that puritanical New England spirit of hope and self-righteousness, knowing the dreaded Yankees have been exorcised like that Annabelle horror movie doll, and the new millennium belongs to those who are willing to lose for a few years in order to draft high. 

Last 30 days

And 2017 was going to cement their future. This would be the year when the B's - Benintendi-Bradely-Betts-Bogaerts - would replace Belichick-Brady, and the Sale-Price dynasty would begin. For the first half of the season, they simply lurked, waiting to make their move. In July, when the Yankees had punched themselves to sleep, Boston took first, and ever since, the only question was how much space they would put between themselves and the AL East.

Well, they're sputtering. The above chart shows Redsock hitting over the last 30 days, and it's not Ted Williams or even Trot Nixon. Most notable, I direct you to the numbers for Mookie Betts, now hitting .261 on the year with 19 home runs. (Keep in mind, practically everybody in baseball has at least 20.) We can debate hopes and fears about Aaron Judge throughout the coming winter, but Betts has dropped 60 points in average since last season, when the Gammonites pushed him for MVP. (Mike Trout won it, by the way.) Of course, he could go on a tear and lift his average 15-20 points, but that "future superstar" trajectory is no longer in place. He's just 24, so we won't dismiss him. But Boston's mad expectations have taken a turn.

And then there is Bogaerts, who last winter in the World Baseball Whatever forced Didi Gregorius to play 2B, causing him to hurt his arm on a twisting throw to first. Then, Bogaerts was the star and Didi the bench warming underling. Would anyone now buy such a comparison? For the record, Xander has 8 home runs and is hitting .266 on the season. Didi is the Yankees' best player. Period.

Still, with 19 games to go, it'll take a full collapse for Boston to lose the AL East. Once in the playoffs, anything can happen. But they are a team the Yankees can beat, and that - my friends - says it all.

That was a big Yankee win.

Tampa dodged the hurricane... 

But not the Toddnado.

It's over for the Rays.

The great doubler

From Jogginson Cano's p.r. man, aka Buhner's Ghost... this clip and putt:

Standing next to the Man: Cano’s double in the third inning with his 30th of season and moved him into a select club. Cano joins Hall of Famer Stan Musial as the only players in history to reach 30 doubles in 13 consecutive seasons.

Musial had a 16-year run from 1942-58 with 1945 omitted because of military service. Tris Speaker (1916-27) and Honus Wagner (1899-1910) are the only other players to have 30 doubles in12 consecutive seasons.

Cano is the only player in history to have his streak at the start of his career.

And No. 31 on the season came in the sixth inning.

Hurricane Bud's one-game Wild Card is three weeks away and approaching NYC dead-on

At last, we're seeing the Yankee storm surge - that long-anticipated rise within the MLB Cone of Mediocrity - as the team's one-game, wild card, Bud Selig Memorial post-season destiny becomes apparent. 

Today, the only thing that can keep New York City from hosting the Selig Single Game Home Field Wild Card Fake Post-Season is a directional change from Hurricane Jose, currently lonely and drifting somewhere out in the Atlantic.

Barring an unspeakable collapse - (wait, is that not a hallmark of the '17 Yanks?) - the former Evil Empire will reach the one-game post-season, allowing Cooperstown Cashman and his army of front office interns to claim YES Network vindication, as the team pursues its first playoff victory in six cold years. Close your eyes, and you can hear the accolades raining down from W.P. Mason and the Yankee Radio Network, driven by Jeep.

The Yanks have 20 games left - most against teams that are still sand-bagging the windows - and 17 of them in Gotham, thanks to the savagery of an increasingly angry god. If we win 10 - that is, play feeble .500 - the sad and measly Angels must go 16-3 to snatch away our rightful away-field spot. 

Ainta. Gonna. Happen.

Joe Girardi will also have the luxury of altering his rotation so either Sonny Gray or Luis Severino pitches. In the last month, both have gone 3-2; Gray has a 2.64 ERA, with Sevy at 3.16. There is no case for letting Masahiro Tanaka or CC Sabathia near the Wild Card, unless we're down by five in the third, and the boos are already cascading down from the upper decks. 

There remains, however, one major concern. It's not who'll start the one-game season, but who will finish it. Neither Gray nor Severino will pitch beyond seven innings. Neither has a complete game this season. Since the All-Star break, the best Yankee relievers - by far - have been David Robertson (1.50) and Chad Green (2.10) neither of whom are allowed to close games. Nope, the eighth and ninth belong to our two two most explosive cans of gasoline: Dellin Betances (2.84 since mid-July) and El Chapo (4.10.) (Joe will want them feeling good over the winter.) Both are overly stretched bungees, ready to snap at any time, if a call goes against them or a bloop single drops in. Can you imagine either holding a one-run lead? (Think of that 3-2 count on the lead-off hitter, or the speed merchant coming in to pinch run... ugh.) 

As we stare into the clouds of September, three things are now clear:

1. The Yankees will make the 2017 Wild Card.

2. The Yankees can beat Boston in a seven-game series.

3. It's hard to see the Yankees beating Cleveland or Houston, and thus reaching that seven-game showdown against our mortal enemies.

Eleven and nine, folks. For where we're going, that's all we need.

"Green has nothing today. 12 won't be enough."Alphonso suffers, invokes Lincoln

It starts with football, but Alphonso's most epic text-storm yet quickly circles back to a game the Yankees would win by a score of 16-7:

Read more >>

Wherever we face them, whatever their plight, Tampa will be playing on pure anti-Yankee spite

No team hates us like the Rays. Nobody. Yeah, the Redsocks are our "traditional rivals," but that's all marketing: They need us, like the Joker needs Batman, like peanut butter needs jelly. If not for us, they're Boston College playing West Virginia. Talk to a nutjob Redsock fan, and he'll tell you the Yankee pitching staff down to Caleb Smith, which many Yankee fans can't do. I've seen these poor Redsock people. They are closet Yankee fans, pinstriped trannies, all torn up inside due to their denial. They are living a lie. They simply hear people booing Aaron Judge, and they boo along with the mob. Sad.

Tampa fans are a different critter. The city fathers want them to be whipped into a froth by the mere image of the Yankees, but they just don't care. They're more inclined to root for the NFL Bucs or, better, watch reruns of Cougar Town. The Tampa Ray ownership desperately wants the city to hate the Yankees, because - kaching - it would fannies in seats and, besides, the Yankees have set up shop in Tampa, behind enemy lines. Their games are on Tampa radio, and they directly challenge old fashioned Tampa civic pride. 

Thus, when they hear the word "Yankees," Tampa Ray Ray players are programmed to explode with a blistering, coronal mass ejaculation of pure hatred. The Rays are always young and naive: Tampa trades them, as soon as they start earning money. This is their first taste of the Major Leagues. They'll not just climb a wall to steal a Yankee homer, they'll run through it. When the Yankees arrive, Eva Longoria becomes Evan Longoria. The Rays go nuts. They want to beat the Yankees because it's the last time in their professional lives that some fake home town spirit will motivate them. 

This week, we play Tampa at Citi Field, theoretically a Yankee home crowd. It won't matter. We should be very afraid of the Rays. They may be almost out of it, but they will be spiteful.

There will be fans rooting for them out of sympathy - (and who doesn't feel it? what's happening is a catastrophe; dear god, I have lifetime friends hunkered down, trying to ride it out in Punta Gorda!) - but nothing will more delight the Rays than knocking out the Yankees. 

Beware this series, folks. They're going to come at us with pitchforks.

The Jersey Giants start tonight and I don't give a damn

All my life, I've followed the New York "Football" Giants with a passion only slightly less than the Yankees. This is because when I was young, the Giants appeared to be the Yankees of the NFL. They had Andy Robustelli, Sam Huff, Jim Katcavage, Frank Gifford, Kyle Rote and Y.A Tittle - and I believed they would always dominate, just as I believed the Yankees would forever win.

Well, the NFL wanted no part of having a Yankee-style dominance, especially in New York, so it disbanded the three coaches that had built the Giants into a powerhouse. The defensive coach, Tom Landry, went to Dallas. The offensive coach, Vince Lombardi, moved to Wisconsin. And the team clipboard, Allie Sherman, stayed. We got the wrong of that deal, and the rest is history.

For the last 55 years, more or less, the Giants have been a roller coaster franchise, generally mediocre but with occasional bursts of unexplained joy. Nobody ever figured out how Tom Coughlin - who couldn't build a team that lasted more than six games - won two Super Bowls, but he did.

But today, with the Giants opening their season, all I feel toward the team, the league and the NFL is muscle memory. The reason: Injuries.

I mean, seriously, why should anybody devote five minutes to the Giants’ chances this year? Tonight, we could lose both our star defensive ends for the season. What we do know is that everybody – every single player on every single team – will get hurt at some point. This is because the players have gotten so big, so strong, so fast that the sheer blunt force of collisions is killing them, or at least posting threats to their futures that no athlete - pro or amateur - should ever face. 

If the Giants avoid injuries to their big players, they'll win the division. If not, they're done. What more is there to say?

They could win tonight and lose the season. It would be nice to beat Jerry Jones in Dallas – hell, I still hate the Cowboys - but you know what Giants fans should be hoping for? Injuries to the Cowboys. I should be literally hoping for players – real people – to get hurt, and who wants to live that way? I’m too old to give up football entirely. But if I could, I would.

That was a big Yankee win

Yep, a big Yankee win.

A list of thingys:

1. Severino is our Wild Card game starter.

2. El Chapo is our Wild Card game closer.

3. Once again, Tyler Austin delivered in the clutch.

4. Anybody wanna guess the next time we'll see Austin play?

Yankee fans face mandatory evacuation order from 2017 team

Lead by four. Lose by six. 

Run off the field by a trade deadline seller, that started the evening at one game above .500.

Two four-run cushions and our "ace" on the mound, and then... wow-factor embarrassment. 

On the Five Pineapple Scale of Yankee Fan Torture Porn, that's a four. 

Okay, I get it... everybody has a bad game now and then. But I ask you, how does one not feel like drinking Dewars and Draino after a game like last night in a season like this, where every omen feels like a sound truck in your neighborhood, ordering you to leave immediately?

We keep waiting for Aaron Judge to wake up from his self-induced coma, and then we sense fleeting eye movement, a twitch of a finger here and there, and we tell ourselves it's a sign of hope. And then, there he is - watching a called strike three that bisects home plate the way the European model has Hurricane Irma skewering Florida.

We keep waiting for Greg Bird to return and anchor the lineup,  but - gulp - where the hell is he? Do the Yankees have a new Brigadoon? Last month, the most hopeful scenario that didn't include Apple watches or A-Rod super-serum was that Bird would come, see and conquer - that is, revisit his spring training power surge and lead this team. It meant him playing every day, regardless of the pitcher. Now, we find he is platooning with Todd Frazier, which is like riding a seesaw with Chris Carter, except that Todd gets hit by more pitches. Seriously, people, what it is with Todd Frazier that has us waiting at the altar? 

For the record, in 184 at bats, Carter hit .205 and 8 home runs, and was stuffed in a bottle and put out with the Japanese tide. As a Yankee, in 142 at bats, Frazier has 7 HRs and is hitting .218 - and he's inconsistent in the field - yet when he steps to the plate, the YES announcers act as if Taylor Swift has a new boyfriend. Why are still running with this guy? Miguel Andujar is tearing down fences in Scranton, and he's not going to get so much as the light of day in 2017. They'll tell us that Andujar's glove isn't ready, but I'm still smarting from Frazier's two-error inning the other day, which - like everything else about the guy - seems to disappear into the memory hole by his next at bat.

And we keep waiting for somebody to rise in the bullpen and save this team. Well, the fact is, we're 140 games into the season, and Godot never came. We can sit here in the pumpkin patch until Halloween, but the vaunted farm system never provided reinforcements, and our great managerial handler of pitchers has no answers other than to do what hasn't worked. 

A four-pineapple loss in a four-pineapple season, and it's going to lead to a four-pineapple debacle if we're lucky enough to make the one-game Wild Card. All we're doing is proving that humankind will never invent a time machine, because otherwise, some diehard Yankee fan would have come back on July 29 and shot Cashman with a dope dart.

The curse of the Jogbino? So long, Seattle

Today, it is with giddy pleasure that I must report that, with three weeks left in this melted Popsickle of a season, the Seattle Mariners have effectively checked out of the 2017 Wild Card race.

Having lost three in a row, they have fallen four games out in the battle for the one-game, away-field berth, and - more importantly - must now gain ground on five teams. Sorry, Seattle. Your baseball team didn't even make it until the start of the NFL season. Oh, well, there's always next year!

What warms my heart is the red-black hurricane of vengeance, which stirs anew whenever I think of Jogginson Cano's grand quest to bring fame, or respectability, or maybe just Beyonce, to the Emerald City, after loping away from future iconic Yankee status for a few extra pieces of gold. Nope, I haven't forgiven him. And nope, nope... I never will. 

By the way, this year, at age 34, Cano is hitting .280 with 21 home runs - not bad, unless you recognize that among MLB second basemen, he ranks 11th in average and sixth in homers. He's a fine, upper-tier second baseman, unless you consider that Seattle has him for - gulp - six more years at - double-gulp - $24 million per. Yep. Trump will be 77 and Mitch McConnell 81, when Cano retires in 2023, at 40, and it is my sincere hope that he remains ring-less to the end. 

Okay, I know what you're thinking: My anti-Cano rage is irrational; he's got mouths to feed, a roof to put over his family. He merely did what anybody would do - score the extra year of cash and go wherever some fool is wealthy enough to supply it. If an owner wants to pay a guy $24 million at age 40, why say no? Besides, it's just Monopoly money to billionaires, and Food Stamps Steinbrenner he could have ponied up the extra $24 million out of his clam dip budget, thus sparing us the perpetual carnival sideshow - Stephen Drew, Brian Roberts, my boy, Brigadoon Refsnyder, (now .171 in 76 AB in Toronto) et al - that occupied 2B until Starlin Castro arrived, now at 27 and hitting .313. 

I'm angry - always will be - at Cano for his wandering eyes of greed, looking for more money when he had a team, a city and fan base that loved him. It's like a guy with a loving wife of eight years, who runs off with a hooker. He bought into Jay-Z's naive plan to become the new Scott Boras, to build a sports agency colossus, which required somebody to chase the most money he could find, regardless of whether it was the right move. Now, Robbie's gone four years without a playoff appearance - and another bungled season is nearly in the books. 

Good riddance. Not many players can make me side with Food Stamps Hal. But a jilted lover has a right to be resentful, and Cano still draws boos in Yankee Stadium. I just remember John Sterling back in 2013 assuring us that a deal would be made, that the Yankees would never - NEVER - let Robbie leave. Then came the day he left, and our response was to sign Jacoby Ellsbury to a nearly equally bad contract. Damn. Bad news all around. 

It's been a crapola four years since Robbie left. But the Yankees seem to be pulling out of it. With any luck, by this time next year, we should be awash in enough young infield talent - Glyber Torres, Miguel Andujar, Tyler Wade - (not to mention Didi and Starlin) - that the notion of keeping Cano would have us shaking our heads. We'll be done missing him. But he could have been a Yankee Hall of Famer. He could have been the next Jeter. He could have stayed a Yankee until his final days as a DH. He wanted an extra year of salary, when he'll already have too much money to count. So long, Seattle, and good luck: He's only going to jog slower.  

John Sterling was conflicted today...

The Master spent the day mourning...

1. The loss of Gene Michael, "a great friend."

2. The loss Tuesday night, with Dellin Betances: "This could have been a sweep." 

R.I.P.

Gonna miss this guy.

The end is near, and we have nobody to end it

Yankee pitching over the last 30 days.

And so it begins, the final act of the 2017 potboiler, "Ten Little Yanks." In the manner of all great Hollywood whodunits, Basil Rathbone has gathered all the suspects together in the game room, beneath the chandelier. One by one, he outlines the reasons why each wanted the young, drunken gadfly  Steinbrenner heir dead. Eventually, one of them - usually, the butler - breaks, pulls a gun, shouts his confessional speech, and impales himself on the wrought iron fence. Roll the credits. Hooray for Hollywood.

Today, after Tuesday's horrifying ninth-inning loss, Joe Girardi will summon the Yankee bullpen together like the collection of murder suspects that they are. Over the season, each has committed some nefarious crime against the Yankees. According to reports, Joe will name Aroldis Chapman - the living embodiment of Yankee boondoggles - as final act closer. El Chapo, the man who nearly single-handedly gave Boston the AL East, will be put in charge of nailing down the one-game Wild Card post-season nothing-burger.

The above chart displays Yankee pitching over the last 30 days. As you can see, it's a tale of three closers - David Robertson, Dellin Betances and El Chapo. One at the top, one in the middle, and one far down at the bottom, looking up at those paragons of bullpen prowess, Chasen Shreve and Bryan Mitchell. So whom is Girardi going with? Of course, the one with the biggest contract.

In a three-Kleenex Hollywood movie, Girardi would be the wise, white-haired manager whose loyalty to Gary Cooper wins the World Series. If only it were so. The sad fact is that Girardi, who took up managing the Yankees 10 years ago with a great portfolio and golden future, has devolved into a bad TV show - the other day, in a rainout theater, he and Meredith made pizzas - and collection of print-outs, because he can't use laptops in the dugout. Instead of grand expressions of loyalty, he follows shit-eating, corporate policy. And the guy the Yankees long ago brought in to the save our shattered, Scott Proctored bullpens has become the death of late inning games.

Of course, it's not all Girardi's fault. The Yankees' vaunted minor league system - of which we've heard self-congratulatory praise all year - never developed a big bullpen arm. (Chad Green, the closest we have, arrived last year.) Other teams unveil hard throwers. To stay afloat, the Yankees had to trade for Robertson, Kahnle and Garcia. The Ben Hellers, the Gio Gallegoses, the Holders and the Smiths - they either fell apart or never got a chance. Take your pick. 

Either way, this movie is coming to an end. And we have no final act. 

WHY ARE WE NOT SURPRISED?: "While the Red Sox won't get off scot-free, it appears the punishment will be nothing more than a 'slap on the wrist,' a source told The Boston Globe's Pete Abraham."

Likely punishments for Redsocks cheating scandal:

1. Team will be shouted at by Commissioner and told, sternly, "NEVER DO IT AGAIN!"

2. Team forced to wear undershirts inside-out for two days.

3. Players grounded with no TV for entire weekend!

4. Team must stay after game to clap chalkboard erasers.

5. League will ban Apple watches, so now nobody can have them.

6. Coaches and players to be suspended for first four Grapefruit games next February.

7. Yankees found guilty of taping of Redsocks in dugout, fined $1 million.

Rainout Theater

William Shatner and Adam West star in the failed 1964 TV pilot Alexander the Great. 

West called it “one of the worst scripts I have ever read and it was one of the worst things I’ve ever done.” Had it gone on to become a series, Star Trek and Batman--and therefore the world--would have paid a terrible price.

Note: the horndogs who posted this on YouTube set it to start near the 18 minute mark, when Shatner is bare nekkid in a bathtub. Pull the slider back to 00:00 to be bored by every wretched minute of this awful thing.

Words to live by

In case you missed this, a fan - Asshole Tom - speaks of the joys and thrills of following the Yankees during this exciting wild card season. We've all been there...

I am running my shaking fingers over the edges of curled and yellowed Strat-o-Matic Yankee cards from the 1998 season, talismans of a wasted life. Life had meaning then. Now it is a void leading to an abyss. 

I've thought of calling suicide hotlines, but even I cannot bear to face the thought of a grown man confessing to terminal despondency over an aggregation of steroidal mercenaries who care no more about me than my mother did. But I do need help. 

I need it, but I don't deserve it, because I am an asshole, and I therefore embrace this sickness unto death over a baseball team, spasmodically, comically clutching for rays of hope and meaning while typing manically to no one. The bleakest form of despair is the knowledge that one is damned and that there could be no other outcome--that my despair is a form of justice.

The 1927 Yankees of excruciating losses

Who knew their incredible talent? In a season of pineapple colonoscopy losses, the Yankees figured out a more painful event to inflict upon their masochistic fan base: The motorized hedge trimmer butt plug, now with turbo charge!

Obviously, I am typing while standing. But last night - two outs, nobody on - then kaboom... it's beyond performance art. It's beyond the lady who read a book pulled from her vagina, or the guy who crucified himself on a VW Beetle. It strains the limits of human creativity... and infliction of pain. This shall be the legacy of the 2017 Yankees: On the 90th anniversary of their greatest team in baseball, they tortured their fans like no team in history. 

But here's the rub, juju gods. We now know your dirty little plans. This hasn't ended yet. The worst is still out there, like the sequel to Bad Moms. We can see what's happening. You're setting us up for an ending so merciless, so stunningly efficient, that we beg for forehead crushing moments like last night, when we take a quick, clean bullet and go to bed. No, what you're planning will make the fake Bud Selig post-season - with that dinky, ridiculous wild card, a veritable Battle of the Network Stars showdown between Gabe Kaplan and Robert Conrad - look like the Olympics. And it won't be El Chapo who crushes us. We expect him to blow games. Nor will it be Dellin Bet Against Us. We'll never again feel confidence with him. No, it'll be someone new, something we never thought possible. It will be Knick-like, a paradigm of New York City pain. Paul Simon will throw himself off the 57th Street Bridge. Meat Loaf will crash his dashboard light. A new religion will spring forth. The Yankeeapocalypse is almost here.

Last night, we did the impossible: We made Baltimore look like a team of destiny. We breathed life back into their cadaverous carcass. Next up, the Texas Rangers, then the Rays. They say it takes strong magic to raise armies from the dead. Somehow, I think we can do it. This team is special.

So much for Cooperstown: "In the clips, the Red Sox assistant athletic trainer, Jon Jochim, is seen looking at his Apple Watch and then passing information to outfielder Brock Holt and second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who was injured at the time but in uniform. In one instance, Pedroia is then seen passing the information to Young."

NO COOPERSTOWN FOR CHEATERS!

Isn't that what self-righteous, downtrodden Boston fans say, when A-Rod's name comes up? (Though their indignation ends discussing David Ortiz?) Well, Mr. Baseball himself - Little Poppy - just got caught Redsock-handed breaking a league rule. Along with missing, say, the last month of the season, he should kiss the Hall of Fame goodbye, right?

What is it about cheating and Boston? Whether it's spying on opponents or deflating footballs, every few years, Bill Belichik gets caught doing something new. Last year, the Redsocks were nailed cooking the books on international free agents, running a fake system where they signed no-talents to excessive contracts, so they could funnel money under-the-table to star prospects and beat the spending cap. They ended up forfeiting several players because they skirted the rules.

Now this. If the Yankees hadn't caught them, they could have rolled through the rest of the season, en route to the World Series. So the question is, how did they cheat during their world championship years?

Why we live as Yankee fans

Ed Rosen 

A note from Austria's Only Baseball Fan...

VIENNA -- While I sit here in the middle of the night waiting to see if the rain stops in Baltimore, I think it’s time that I finally post something that’s been on my mind all season.

I haven’t posted as much here as in past years, and my passion for the game has distinctly lost an important component.

Back in the early 1970s, when I was in my teens attending university in New York, I met a guy named Ed Rosen, a New York native.  Ed and I both made our livings in the world of classical music.  He was the one and only person I knew with whom I could go to the opera one night and Yankee Stadium the next.

We stayed in touch all these years.  With the advent of Internet communication and MLB.TV, Ed and I often had a running chat during Yankee games which he watched on YES from his Manhattan apartment, and I on my computer here in the 6^th District of Vienna.  We had the same likes and dislikes.

And frustrations!  I can’t begin to count the number of times I typed “Get him off the mound – NOW!” to which Ed would reply with his most-used phrase: “Fire Girardi!”  His next most-used phrase was “I hate Michael Kay!”

He used to tell me when he was going out and DVR-ing the game and usually asked me to not write anything about it till he watched it.  Many times I would write him, “DO NOT WATCH!  Just take my word for it: you don’t want to see this!”

Because of our work, we were in touch year-round and would often exchange speculations about the upcoming season: dreams of trades, front office firings, swallowing the millions of the last years of a failing long-term contract, and praying for improvement for our favorite players when they inevitably fell into slumps.  And we damned well agreed that Bret Gardner is the de facto Captain of the Yankees, and should formally receive the title.

I was in a serious accident in mid-November last year which curtailed my e-mail access for a couple of weeks.  The last time I heard from Ed, he announced he was moving a few blocks to a smaller apartment on a higher floor with a view of Lincoln Center.

In late December I got an e-mail informing me that Ed became suddenly ill right after Thanksgiving and died a quiet, peaceful death a few days before Christmas.

So Yankee watching is no longer a shared experience for me, even if it was separated by six time zones and an ocean.  I shall never forget Ed, a close buddy for over 40 years: his good-natured sense of humor, his nostalgia, and his undying passion equally divided between music and the Yankees (he was the kind of diehard fan who never watched another team).

When Ed died, I lost not only one of my best friends but some of my love for the game.

In my personal Monument Park: Ed Rosen – 1940-2016

Big Rain Tonight

CAUGHT... RED-HANDED

Most Redsockian excuse comments (so far):

Charlie B

 USA 14 minutes ago

Another sore loser NY team gets their league officials to conduct a kangaroo court proceeding against a superior Boston opponent. Nothing new here.

StAndy

 Sacramento, Ca 20 minutes ago

Well its king of cheating but in baseball sign stealing is just as big part of the game and every team does it, from Little League to the Majors. Its one of the things that make Baseball great fun.

Adonalsium

 Stamford 33 minutes ago

At this point, I don't think the concept of "cheating" can any longer be fairly applied to professional sports. This article shows how widespread sign-stealing is, and still only covers the times teams have been caught! 

Whatever

 NH 34 minutes ago

This is a game in which "stealing" bases -- basically, running when the other guy is not looking -- is celebrated. Now we are told that's not the only thing they ALL steal -- they steal signs too. Apparently, some, like the Sox, do it in a fancier way. 

Louis

 Boston 56 minutes ago

It's unfortunate any team is deemed as cheaters despite their record good or bad. With that said in the world of sports cheating exists on all levels and in good and bad organizations. New York fans rejoice when Boston/New England teams are 'caught' doing something many teams do. This situation, Spy gate, as well deflated football's are all examples of rampant 'cheating' that is not seldom to Boston or New England teams. It's against the rules but everyone does it, like many things in this country.

Sorry to use space for this, but....

This is Pluto calling planet Netherlands ( Urban Dutch Farmer)

I plan to be in Amsterdam, with an exceptional entourage, on October 27 and 28.  I am leading a brief discussion on " dark matter" at your university there.

If you want to bring your glove, we can play catch in a canal. I know you live in Rotterdam, but that is a quick bicycle ride away, right?  I imagine that Aaron Hicks could throw a ball from Amsterdam to your house.

 If you have no glove, we could just drink and learn the traditions of your baseball country.  This is the preferred outcome, as my shoulder has Chuck Knoblach's disease these days.  Blame it on a horse.

You can laugh at us and ask questions about Trump America. We could hold that conversation in one of those " get happy " stores you have all over Holland ( now it makes sense that the Dutch are always rated the happiest nation).

And you can educate us;  e.g.  are Holland and the Netherlands the same place?  What about the Dutch?  Where do they live?  Does everyone get a bolt of that orange fabric at birth?

I apologize to all for using this space as a personal message site, but I could devise no other means of communication.

Hence, I am keeping it short.

And orange.  And fun to regard.

The heart of the Yankees sits at the keystone

Yesterday, in the fifth, with Showalter lackeys on first and second and no outs, Didi Gregorius turned a potential single into a stunning double play - a running, leaping, acrobatic throw that saved Jordan Montgomery's peach-fuzzed, lily-white, 24-year-old butt. This came shortly after Starlin Castro's 13th HR put the Yankees ahead 5-3 - which followed Didi's 20th. The pair hit third and fourth in the Yankee lineup.

Of course, they batted there only because Gary Sanchez is on MLB double-secret probation, and Matt Holliday had blasted two HRs in two games, thereby mandating a day off under the Joe Girardi Optimum Chaos System of Personnel Management, as taught at Trump University.

Here's my best version of reality: Didi and Starlin remain not only the Empire's heart and soul, but its lungs and liver. Though plucky Ronald Torreyes played magnificently in recent weeks, replacing Castro and anybody else with a strained boner, it wasn't the same. Castro can hit fourth. Torreyes bats ninth (unless Austin Romine emerges from cryonic suspension.) With Castro hitting - and, fingers crossed here, Greg Bird carrying his weight at first - the Yankees look like the wet dream we swam through during the season's first half.

They are one of MLB's top slugging keystones. These are HR totals. (I did the math.):  
Houston: Altuve-Correa... 41
Cincinnati: Cozart-Gennett... 40
Baltimore: Beckham-Schoop...39
Minnesota: Polanco-Dozer... 38
Cleveland: Lindor-Kipness.. 37
Texas: Andrus-Ordor... 37
Yankees: Gregorius-Castro... 33.
Cubs: Russell-Baez... 31 
Seattle: Segura-Cano... 29
Washington: Turner-Murphy... 28
Angels: Phillips-Simmons... 28
Dodgers: Seager-Utley... 26

I know what you're thinking: If we cook the books and note how Didi missed April and Castro lost seven weeks with tweaked gonads - we could add 15 HRs and beat our chests. Truth is, other teams have gonads, too. But the days of Chicken Stanley and Steady Eddie Brinkman up the middle are over: To make MLB's post-season, you need mashers. And with Castro and Didi healthy, I'll take comparisons to the Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM), even with Little Lord Pedroia twerking his dwarf butt in short right field. 

By Thursday, Gary Sanchez will hit third. As soon as he has suitably cooled off, Holliday will likely hit fourth. That leaves Didi and Castro fifth and sixth, with Judge seventh, Bird - gulp - eighth and Jacoby Ellsbury ninth. Yeah, ninth. (I'm figuring the newly reborn Headley bats second.) Jeez, folks. That's a decent lineup. A little pitching and bullpen and - holy crap! But make no mistake: It's all about the keystone. We can replace almost anybody, but not them.

Labor Day Texts (Updated)

Update:

The Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM) has a problem

Scotty said it best, I think, to those pesky Klingons:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Hence, as street-savvied students of the Yankee condition, we shalt not jettison our bedrock, hard-earned, core cynicism, and romp through the YES network's imaginary field of blossoming nipples, simply because our team finally won a meaningful home series. Nope. We'd be oafs, clods, Hodors. We're not drinking Hal's Kool-Aid. We're not chasing the AL East. This is a wild card race, nothing more. 

Still, woo-woo, three out of four! Plus, two Taylor Swift-breakup-song level ass-whippings! And write this down, Doris Kearns Goodwin, you stinking NYC turncoat, because one future historical finding is about to come down: The Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM) ain't gonna win a shittence of squatoolah. Haha! Misery loves company, and you're our favorite visitors.

Nope, sorry, Ben "I'd rather say I serve Satan than cheer for the Yankees" Affleck. Unless Big Papi leaves his stud pasture and comes out of retirement, Boston still has no Hurricane Harvey in the middle of the lineup, the one guy that scares us shitless every three innings. Here's a stunner: Keith Moreland doesn't do it. And Cy Young Sale, the Yankee killer in Chicago, never beat us once, not once, all season. 

Sorry, you self-righteous, Benintendi-masturbation fantasizing Superteam of Destiny fans. Here's my suggestion: Go to your basement, or that bunker where you keep the sex slaves, and don't come out until Nov. 1. By then, the Yankees will be writing a new marketing plan for 2018 - hint: "The Babied Bombers" - and Belichick will have your team leading the world's worst football division, ever, at any level, including Pop Warner. 

We won the series, 3 to 1. We won the season, 11 to 8. Unless the Astros can't swim, and Cleveland gets attacked by gnats, we're going nowhere. Welcome to our world, Doris and Ben.  

Texts from Today

First place Yanks gain on O's, Rays, Rangers, Royals in race for fourth

Quick, somebody peel me a grape! The big Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Bragging Rights series starts tomorrow, when the first place Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Yanks hit Baltimore, looking to extend their Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage Crown lead. Excelsior, dammit! Who stole the channel changer?

Tonight, our prospective Wild Card champions play a non-Wild Card '17 Single Game Home Field Advantage contender in a nothing burger exhibition. The outcome is hardly in doubt: Having won yesterday, the Yankees will honor their '17 traditions by losing, surely via some excruciating, out-of-body meltdown, too painful to be imagined.

Oh, hell - let's try! How can the Yankees lose tonight and outdo their other recent 500-year collapses? Having El Chapo blow the save no longer bothers us; meh, it's a mosquito bite. Just seeing him warm up loosens my bowels with the impact of ten bars of Ex-Lax and a prune Danish. He can shoot bullets into my garage door, but he can no longer hurt me. 

Another Aaron Judge golden sombrero runners-left-on-base fest? Sorry, juju gods. You'll have to do better. I don't care how many times Judge fans - let the big dog run! - he can't fall below .240 on the season, and he'll have 37 HRs - they can't be taken away - and somebody next winter will want him under their tree. (Let's remember that even as we speak, the Marlins are looking to peddle Giancarlo Stanton to anybody with an open checkbook, which rules out us.) Judge is earning rookie wages. In the worst of all scenarios, we can trade him to a small market team desperate for a program cover. Let September be Judgement Month - four weeks to judge Judge. If he goes 0-for-100, no problem. We'll know what we've got, and let's cue up Clint Frazier.    

How about a key defensive lapse? A Gary Sanchez passed ball? Been there, done that. The juju torturers would look lame, eh? I'm thinking pitchers' duel, Yanks take lead in the eighth, lose it with Betances, strand the bases loaded in the ninth, then lose in the 17th with - say - Ronald Torreyes on the mound. Now, that would hurt. 

Listen: I apologize for the negativity here. I'm just trying to get something started with the juju gods, because they have been on our cases all year. In the meantime, I'm looking at the real race.  

Tomorrow could bring Buck Showrunner's last gasp for the Home Field Advantage Wild Card '17 Single Game Berth. If Baltimore cannot take 2 out of 3 against the Yankees, they must focus on the Away Field Wild Card '17 Single Game Berth, which we could also be chasing. There's always excitement in the Wild Card. 

Texts from Alphonso

During the season, if you're lucky enough to have your number in Alphonso's phone, you might see the first of a nightly flurry of texts just as John is starting his vocal warmups in the Sunoco broadcast booth.

An evening's texts provide a steady feed of the wisdom, skepticism, disappointment, boredom, entitlement, disgust, and rage that Alphonso's readers here know well. When the opposition is up by two runs early, he surrenders; one pop-out from a Yankee rookie and he pronounces the death of a young career. When the Yankees have a comfortable lead, there is silence. Absent any reason to scold or complain, Alphonso ceases to exist until the Yankees need him again.

From today:

Yankees going though their fourth "500-year flood" in last decade

Gather 'round, chitlins, and I'll tell you of the greatest sports team on the planet, the franchise with more world championships than anybody else, with the tradition of the Babe, Lou, Joltin' Joe, the Mick, Reggie, Thurm, Jeter, Mariano and now - um - Judge, Jacoby, Headley - humina-humina-humina... I'll get back to you on that.

This team won so many American League pennants that, these days, it prefers epic, otherworldly and excruciating collapses. There's nothing like an incredible, seemingly impossible meltdown, especially when you're chasing the one-game, home-or-away, fake postseason joke wild card! Think of it as playing Division III, except the teams can give scholarships, but only to old guys on the way down. Last night the Yanks lost a tough one, darn it!, but - hey - can't win 'em all, haha. Frankly, they were playing a team way above their level - it's like Syracuse scheduling Clemson - who signed up all these Division I powerhouses, anyway? Either way, last night's drubbing gave Joe Girardi a chance to prepare for the big Division III, do-or-die, wild card rivalries ahead: Baltimore, Tampa and Minnesota! 

Last night, Joe got to see if Aaron Judge is coming out of his slump. (He isn't.) He could evaluate El Chapo's fastball (Still straight) and give Todd Frazier a chance to break out (Nope.) And because the Twins lost, we're still in first place in the battle for fourth! Better to reign in hell than rule in heaven? You betcha!   

Something tells me this wild card race will go down to the wire, deep into September! That will be really exciting, no? Yabadabadoo. And great for ticket sales! So hold onto your special designer weekend clown caps, everybody! The Yankees have their sights set on staying in the wild card race to the very end.  Soon, this crap Yankee team will be playing likewise crap teams, some of which may turn out to be actually crappier! Let's stop thinking about tomorrow. The future is now, here, ahead of us  unimportant. We have eliminated ourselves from Division I. Now, we have something special to watch - a collapse for the ages - a wild card race to fall out of. 

The Yankees = Democratic Party?

In simple terms, should the Dems go with veteran Joe Biden (aka: Jaime Garcia) - or try the real kids from Scranton? Are they Brian "Cooperstown" Cashman, or the latest version of Syd Thrift? 

Well, at least we know what Randy Levine - the original orange-haired clown - would do: He'd sign Nancy Pelosi to an eight-year deal and trade a boatload of prospects for the electrified cadaver of Joe Lieberman. (Of course, Randy works for the YES-sponsoring Koch brothers, who surely root for the Royals.) 

Essay question: Considering their respective "rebuilding plans," will the Yankees win the World Series before the Democrats win the White House?  

Regarding hope: Bird, bunts, Cleveland, Judge's Lou move...

Re: Last night...

1. If you are looking for any non-drug related reason for hope, it is standing before us in the form of Mr. Gregory Paul Bird, age 24, of Aurora, Colorado. Here's the otherworldly, non-drug scenario: Bird plays every day, bats fourth or fifth, goes on a hell-fire tear, and protects whomever is hitting in front of him. No matter what happens in October, we go into the winter secure about first base for the long-term future. Crazy, eh? Wouldn't it be nice?   

2. CC's complaints about Boston's bunting was not only wrong - I mean, everybody can see it - but it was a flat-out stupid idea, from a "cagey" veteran who slipped his cage. At the least, he just slapped a bumper sticker on his forehead that says: I CAN'T FIELD. In the post season, nobody considers bunting to be a craven and cowardly act. (Except maybe the 2004 Yankees, who refused to bunt on old Catsup Foot.)  

3. In 2016, a disastrous three game sweep by Tampa so demoralized the Yankees that they chose to rebuild: Ditching A-Rod, bringing up Sanchez and Judge Judy, trading for Glyber, Clint, Justus, et al. It was the most hopeful move in this wretched decade. Is it possible that we might look back at the recent wipe-out against Cleveland as a good thing? At least, it seems to have kept Brian Cashman from making a disastrous waiver trade - a la Verlander or Upton - thus far. This is the time of year when teams trade Mark Melancons for Lance Berkmans, and the Gammonites shower praise upon the team that obtained the aging slob. 

4. In case you missed it last night, Aaron Judge made one of the coolest RF fake-outs since Lou Piniella deaked Rick Burleson in the Bucky Dent game, long long ago in a universe far far away. Judge pretended he was going to catch a bloop single, freezing baserunner Rafael Devers between first and second. It bounced in front of Judge, who threw a bullet to Didi, forcing Devers. Instead of two on and one out, there were two outs with a man on first. Brilliant play. Key play. For the first time in weeks, I saw Judge beaming a smile. 

Wait a minute: Second non-drug ray of hope? Do we dare?

Yanks gain on O's, Rangers, Seattle in wild Wild Card race

Last night's big Yankee win - (Note: Every Yankee win is a big Yankee win) - keeps the team one game up on wily, low-budget Minnesota in the wild, wild, Wild Card brouhaha scrum.

Are you smelling Wild Card fever, too? 

If the Yankees can, say, somehow win three more this weekend, they'll pad their wild card home field advantage lead and virtually eliminate Seattle and Kansas City from the field of contenders for hosting that one game wild card extravaganza.

Coming up in September, seven games with the Orioles! Let's face it: The road to hosting that one incredible wild card game must go through Baltimore.

Wild Card fever... sense it!