Sunday, September 4, 2022
Yanks loss column lead: THREE
At times, this crazed, chaotic world calls upon each of us - as sentient human beings - to do the right thing, even though it may seem cruel at the time.
This is your time. You have been called.
Finish it. Today.
End our suffering.
Make it quick. Make it decisive. Make it as painless as possible.
Kick our asses. Kick them all the way to Sarasota. Then kick them across the Tamiami Trail, to Fort Whatever, and then kick them out to sea, kick them all the way to that hurricane in the North Atlantic, and boot them so hard that we never see this sorry mess again.
Bring the broom. Bring the Roomba. Spray the water coolers. Disinfect the disinfectants. Leave no soap in the dispensers. Sweep the dugouts clean - don't forget to look under the benches - and throw everything out with the red tide. Sweep.
Put this Yankee shit show out of its misery.
In the meantime, this we know:
1. Bend It Benintendi's done. They aren't saying it. They aren't saying otherwise. Too bad. We were just getting to know the guy. Now, forget him. He's a Lance Berkman, a guy off the street. Were LF an Agatha Christie novel, Miguel Andujar would turn out to be the killer, driven insane by the front office. Isn't it weird how everybody who bypasses Miggy - Gallo, Locastro, Benni, et al - disappears. Estevan Florial better watch out.
2. Maybe it's impending fatherhood, but Josh Donaldson has become a one-man horror show, botching grounders and flailing at ridiculous pitches. For a while, it's been clear that he's been struggling, but who expected this? The Yankees should just tell him to go already, be with his girlfriend, do the breathing exercises and count the contractions.
3. In essence, the Yankees are now in their postseason. Every game is of playoffs magnitude. They hoped to ease through September, trying out young players and fortifying the rotation. That's out the window. They must win every game, treat each one like a wild card. And in that sense, they have already lost.
4. This afternoon, it's Frankie Montas. To win, he must throw a shutout. If the Rays score two runs, it's over. Three runs, and it's a laugher. Along with all the other changes MLB is plotting this winter, maybe a mercy rule?
Saturday, September 3, 2022
The One Thing That Yankees Fans Should Chant for the Rest of This Season
It is not "Fire Boone." It is not "Fire Cashman." It is not even that time-tested favorite, "Steinbrenner Sucks"—though I have to admit, it would bring back many fond memories to hear that defiant cry once again.
It is this: DER-EK JET-ER.
DER-EK JET-ER. DER-EK JET-ER.
At first, the various Knights of the Keyboard and other media types wouldn't get it. They would wonder what it even meant.
But then, slowly but surely, they would begin to understand. They would know who we want—who we DEMAND—take over this franchise and turn it to greatness again.
One man.
DER-
EK
JET-
ER.
C'mon, let me hear you!
Oct. 3, 1951
Everyone has danced around it, but I was there.
1951 is repeating itself but with different players.
On August 11th, 1951, the Brooklyn Dodgers had a 13.5 game lead over the second place Giants. and they appeared certain to face the Yankees in the World Series. " Unless the Dodgers completely fold in their last 50 games," wrote anAP writer , " they're in."
By September 20th, the Dodgers lead had diminished to 4.5 games. Editors note ( we now have a 5.0 game lead over Tampa, after 15.0 lead in August ). And it is only September 3.
In the end, the collapse continued and the Dodgers and Giants had a playoff game at the Polo Grounds ( yes, they once played Polo there ), on October 3, 1951.
We all know what happened.
Bobby Thompson hit the " shot heard round the world." and Ralph Branch lived in infamy ( though with grace and professionalism ). The giants won the pennant. ( or, the Dodgers lost the pennant ). Soon after, the dodgers owner bolted for LA.
So here we are. I feel the bells tolling again.
The yankees are losing well-pitched games. Key bats have gone silent. Injuries hare arrived from tattoo parlors to normal major league swings. Balls are fouled off and fracture a toe. The Yankees are losing one run games and 9-0 games. They can't get a lead, or hold a lead. A two run deficit can be seen as a death mask on the faces of every Yankee. No one plays baseball. Everyone thinks they are Babe Ruth.
Giancarlo Stanton has 3 hits in his last 56 at bats, since his extended ankle holiday. Donaldson can neither hit nor catch nor throw. You can see Aaron Hicks dreaming of a five iron into the cup.
It seems as though theYankee train is loose on the tracks, rushing toward an inevitable crash, just like the locomotive in " Silver Streak."
And Boone is in the drivers' seat, unable to tell the throttle from the break, wetting himself for lack of ideas. So he just keeps doing the same things he has always done, and saying the same things he has always said.
Meanwhile, the true villains, Brian and Hal, hide behind the rhetoric, " it a'int over yet ."
Yes it is.
This Yankee team is headed for a place in history no one thought would ever be repeated. The greatest collapse ever. A record year, indeed.
Someone had to say it.
Blahhhhhhch!
Normally I wait a while before posting after El Duque’s morning thoughts but he gave me so much food for thought that I need to puke some of it out. And as we all know, when it’s got to come up, it’s got to come up.
So…
Paulie
Yeah it's too bad he's unvaccinated or he could actually sit
down with the players and give them some advice or inspiration. Maybe he
could just go into the dugout when no
one is there and Smash the crap out of Boone's Dubble Bubble bucket and then fungo
the gum into the right field seats.
Donaldson
He's about to have a kid. Being there for the mother is the
single most import... ah bullshit, I was there for the birth of my son and I
still have PTSD. When I saw his head pop out of my wife's vagina it looked like
a Dali painting... if Dali went to Nam.
I'm just saying this because I want Donaldson to be with his
girlfriend and not on the team.
You know they say that the first two years of a child's life
are the most important. Maybe he should be there for that too!
Boone
He looked like he was going to cry. I actually feel bad for
him now. I still want him fired but he is a human being, albeit an incompetent over matched one, but this is bordering on tragic. Every move he makes turns to
shit.
The other night he pulls German who was dealing and the pen
blows the game. Last night he keeps him in and German gives up the death blow
two-run homer.
That a three run lead is insurmountable is another story, but
Boone is broken.
It’s sad. Fire him.
The Trade Deadline
El Duque forgot to mention Montgomery pitched another 7
innings of shut out ball last night.
“Montgomery, who is now 8-3 with a 3.15
ERA, improved to 5-0 with a 1.47 ERA since being acquired from the Yankees” (NY
Post)
It’s understandable. There was so much
else that went wrong it’s easy to miss something. Just as an aside. Montgomery
would be closing in on 20 wins if the Yankees actually hit while he was
pitching.
Dead Horse
I’m going to beat this to death but IKF
is a GOLD GLOVE third baseman. Bench Donaldson and start him there. That way
the two Oswalds can man the infield – you know their actual positions. You just know Boone is going to stick Perlata
somewhere else,
Bench Gleyber!
Hey did you see him bust it out of the box last night to
beat out an infield single? I guess he can hustle with his job on the line. It’s
too bad he doesn’t hustle because he’s a professional baseball player.
Last... Fiasco
Everyone loves watching a fiasco. Where the bad happens with
such frequency it becomes funny. We are not there yet but we are well into nightmare
and heading for disaster. Fiasco is just 7-10 games away.
Collapse continuing, loss column lead at FOUR: We are witnessing a brilliant and terrifying piece of performance art
Last night, watching the Death Barge squander opportunities - inning after inning, runner after runner - it was like watching a bad Mickey Rourke movie, which some might say is every Mickey Rourke movie, but I'm partial to Angel Heart, due to the exquisite way the plot unravels at the end. It's as if Errorin' Boone wrote the screenplay.
Yank fans should start appreciating the sheer artistry of this collapse. We are watching the type of meltdown normally associated with Gene Mauch, or the Spanish Armada, or Britney, and it comes as the pillars of democracy are flailing like Giancarlo after a pitch in the dirt. When this is finally over - (unless, like Mickey in Angel Heart, we are dead, this is Hell, and we are condemned to watch Michael Kay for eternity) - Armageddon will hardly faze us. Aaron Judge could walk, and it won't matter. We were embarrassed with him, we can be embarrassed without him.
This we know:
2. Boonie continues to amaze. Last night, he went for a "gutsy statement" by playing his vets - Hicksy, Gleyber, IKF, Donaldson, etc - the horses who got him this far. Naturally, it backfired. Thus, Boone: 1) Left Domingo German in too long, compared to the Rays, who pulled their pitcher before he got lit up, 2) Let his hitters lustfully swing away, never bunting, never moving a runner (though, to be fair, the Yankees cannot bunt, they clearly never practice it, or hitting against the shift, so bunts would only fail anyway,) and 3) O, why am I doing this? Everything Boone touches turns to monkey pox. The mere sight of this poor, homeless-looking man - hunched over his postgame folding table, sniveling like a second-grade Altuve caught cheating on a math test, as he tries to Baghdad Bob another loss - is there such a thing as "tragedy porn?"
3. If the Yankees do somehow make the postseason - praise the juju gods! - I believe El Chapo will not make the roster. And after all we've been through together, it's hard to say this, but here goes: GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE. Chapman's incredible tattoo infection excuse can never be forgiven. It needs to be his Yankee epitaph - no encores, no plaque in Monument Park, and maybe a generation or two should pass before he sets foot in an Old-Timers Day. It's sad that Chapman lost his fastball and then his mind. But when I think of him, I'll imagine puss leaking from an ink spot and water cascading off the brim of his cap. It works as performance art. Nothing else.
4. Last night, Andrew Benintendi went down, working his fingers as if something really bad just happened. X-rays came back negative. Today, an MRI. Even Boone, normally the Voice of Happytown, looked forlorn and abused. He said Benintendi heard something pop in his wrist. That's no good, no good at all. It probably means that Benintendi - lone positive from Brian Gettleman's wretched 2022 bundle of midseason trades - might disappear. I mean, as performance art... perfect!
5. Last night, JP Sears pitched six innings for Oakland, yielding two earned runs. The previous night, in his MLB debut, Ken Waldichuk went 4.2 innings and gave up a run. All that's left for Gettleman's Cashman's legacy is for some ex-Yankees to become stars. Think performance art. Perfect!
What? You came here for hope? Are you nuts? We damn well better win the next two. I can't take it...
Friday, September 2, 2022
Game 132: Beer & chicken time
 |
| The 2011 Red Sox went 7-20 in September. I don't know what made me think of them. |
All the Senior Vice-President's Nincompoops
"Deep? Deep Throat, is that you? Damn, you scared the hell out of me. Where you been all these years?"
"Here and there," the voice came back, chary as ever but sounding a little smug. "Let's just say that a whole new generation knows me as...'Q'"
"That was you? Eww! How could you do such a thing?"
"Hey! The insider leak business ain't what it used to be, okay? Sometimes you gotta generate a little business!"
"Okay, okay! So whattaya want with me?"
"I see how you and that superannuated bunch of juvenile delinquents you hang out with on the Sterling blog are all going around with your hair on fire these days about the Yankees—"
"You read It Is High—?"
"Like I said. Business has been slow since 1974. Anyway, I just thought you'd want to know: 'Follow the money.'"
"What does that mean? HAL Steinbrenner has all the money. And he wants more."
D.T. shook his head, stomped out a butt, lit up a fresh coffin nail, and coughed for the next ten minutes.
"You know you really should ease up on those. In fact, I thought you had died—"
"Quiet! You think that was the real Deep Throat they put in the coffin?" he smirked—then continued coughing for a while more. "Listen up: you're missing the gold bars for the dollar bills."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Which is what?"
"Soccer, my friend. Fútbol, as it's known around half the world. Le football, de Fussball, il calcio, Zúqiú, Futtobōru—"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Soccer. What about it?"
"That's what's up here, ace. They want to wreck baseball. It's the only way they can make enough room in the zeitgeist for soccer, at least here in America. Make baseball a complete bore. A playoff-time crapshoot. Make the game itself as dull as possible. They call it, Five True Outliers—"
"Don't you mean, 'Three True Outcomes'?"
"Whatever! Listen up, chum: that's their plan."
"Whose plan? Rob Manfred? MLB?"
"Nah, they're just the front men! The real mastermind has been implanted in the Yankees' front office. They call him, 'The Evil Weasel'—"
"Oh, you mean Brian Cashman? Yeah, I could see that."
"Really? Damn, I need better secret intel! I knew that guy down in Florida was conning me when he let me look through all those boxes—"
"You mean—"
"Never mind what I mean! Look, can't you see how it's all connected? The Steinbrenner Family is making its move into soccer. Buying into that I-talian team. Think it's coincidence that the only Steinbrenner-owned team to win anything in 13 years was NYCFC?"
"Nyke Fuck? What's that?"
"New York City Football Club! The champions of the MLS!"
"What kind of name is that for a team?"
"It's supposed to evoke English football clubs."
"Is it 'invoke' or 'evoke'? I never remember the difference—"
"It's fucking 'evoke'!"
"Don't they have a team nickname? You know, like 'Yankees'?"
"It's supposed to evolve organically. From the fans."
"Has it?"
"They call them the 'Blues.' Or sometimes, 'the Pigeons.'"
"The Pigeons? New York has a championship team called, 'the Pigeons'?"
"Get back on the fucking track! Look, point is, pally, HAL has been pushing for years to build 'Soccer City' for his team. You remember—big luxury housing complex, combined with a stadium at the Harlem River Yards? It's a nice, sweet payoff—if you like soccer."
"Why is every crazy building project in New York now built on 'the yards'?"
"It does look very cool at night, at least in the architectural model."
"What architectural model doesn't look cool, am I right?"
"True that."
"Anyway—point is, the son-of-a-bitch wants to wreck the Yankees and wreck baseball."
"He does?"
He dropped another butt to the floor and was starting to get a new cigarette out when I stopped him.
"Really? Have you read the latest reports on secondhand smoke?"
"Who are 'they'?"
"Why the Illuminati, of course! Who else would be behind a plot so colossal?"
"The Illuminati are trying to kill baseball?"
"Oh, don't kid yourself, kiddo! They've been at this for a long time. How do you think the Steinbrenner Family made all its money in the first place?"
"White slavery? Drug deals? The Children's Crusade?"
"Hank the First married into the top shipping family on the Great Lakes. Then, one lovely afternoon in 1892, all of his in-laws are out on a boating excursion. A squall comes up, sinks the boat. They all drown."*
"Well, squalls do that."
"Yeah. Especially if there are fifty holes drilled in the bottom of the boat."
"Are you claiming—"
"I ain't claiming anything. I'm telling you what happened!"
"Never mind about the squall for a minute. You're saying that 130 years ago, a secret, mythological society of super-geniuses deliberately drowned an innocent family on Lake Erie, so that almost 80 years later, their great-grandson would start destroying the game of baseball."
"That's right."
"Okay, fine, makes sense. But why should the Illuminati want to get rid of baseball?"
"Overhead, for one thing."
"Overhead."
"Too much of it. Cuts into the profit margins. Why do you think basketball and soccer have taken off, worldwide? They're cheap games. One ball, a couple goals. No protective padding, no bats or helmets."
"Then what accounts for the popularity of American football?"
He shrugged and looked down.
"Hey, who doesn't want to see men that big run into each other? Even the Illuminati got addicted to it. But that's not the whole story."
"No?"
"No. Think about what all that hitting a soccer ball with your head does."
"What?"
"Serious brain damage, moron! Think of it: a whole world full of brain-damaged people! How better for the Illuminati to control them?"
"That sounds pretty far-fetched—"
"Look at all the stupid crap over the last century! Starting a world war because some idiot plugged a fat archduke? Fascism? Communism? The Kardashians??"
"You have a point. But is there any proof?"
He snorted, then started ripping apart the next cigarette and swallowing the raw tobacco.
"Proof! You need proof? Look, it's all there. It's all connected. George Steinbrenner, turned out he actually liked baseball. They had to bring him under control. How do you think he got tangled up in Watergate? Or the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald? What was that?"
"Um, what was it?"
"A warning, that's what! Can't you see how it all ties together? Right now, the Yankees have guys on the team named Oswald and Oswaldo. More than coincidence??? When they sign somebody named Jack Ruby, it is go time, young son!"
"Stop calling me dated, semi-pejorative names! And what do you want from me?"
"Uh, try the Bronx Penny Pincher Weekly.** Hey, you think the inside leak business is bad, you should see journalism."
He pulled out another cigarette, and lit it disgustedly.
"Just remember what I told you," he said before he walked away. "Follow the money: it leads to a big, glowing soccer city by the river."
* True story!
** Actual newspaper name!
"There was a time, not more than three months ago, when we could compare the 2022 Yankees to the 1998 Yankees, and it wasn’t completely insane. Now the 2022 Yankees invoke the 1991 Yankees, one of the worst teams in franchise history. The Yankees went 10-18 (.357) in August. It was their worst month since Sept. 1991..."
Before our eyes, in YES-Mo, we are watching history: The Dorian Gray transformation of MLB's best team into its worst - courtesy of a front office/ownership that suffers no consequences for its failures.
The Yankee Doomsday Clock is clicking forward. It's nearly midnight for the Midnight Blue, and we are back in 1991 - the year of Mel Hall's pet cougars and Steve Sax Disease - and our earnest manager, Mr. Merrill, looks characteristically stumped.
This we know:
1. Last night, the Mariners and O's both won, inching ever upwards to the point - (should we have a pool on the date? I say Sept 24) - when they overtake us. The Yankees lost no ground. Nada. They didn't play. Hooray.
3. The Death Barge finally made a move: Promoting SS Oswald Peraza to the majors (and, in his wake, Anthony Volpe to Biden's home town.) This should have happened weeks ago. Instead, it comes hours after Aaron Boone comically proclaimed Isiah Kiner-Falefa one of the best shortstops in the league. I like IKF - he's always been a stopgap and certainly not the prime reason for this collapse -but by waiting this long for Peraza, it almost adds to the Yankee sense of panic. Talk about putting pressure on a kid...
4. In every way, this collapse belongs to management. Somehow, the Yankees poisoned the water fountains and created a horrible workplace. Players come to NY and, instead of thriving from the energy of the crowds, they wither into shells. We saw it with Joey Gallo. We're seeing it with IKF, Josh Donaldson and Frankie Montas. We're watching Yankee veterans - Aaron Hicks and Gleyber Torres - crumble under the strain.
I blame Food Stamps Hal's relentless frugality, his unwillingness to bend the bottom line, which eventually puts every player's contract under Gotham's searing and unforgiving microscope. If the Steinbrenners pay you a lot of their money, you better perform - or else. The Dodgers, Astros and Mets surround stars with more stars, each one lessening the weight upon the others. The Yankees put every player out there, and if he fails, Hal's Yankee-owned media points to them and says, "See, they're not worth the money!" And Hal pockets it.
5. Right now, here's how we score: Aaron Judge hits a solo home run, or the other team screws up. That's how we beat Anaheim: Their 3B threw a ball in the dirt that Mike Ford couldn't scoop, and two runs scored. If Ford catches that ball, we leave the bases loaded, we get swept.
Frankly, we shoulda been swept. And if not for opposing team meltdowns - Donaldson's extra innings grand slam, IKF's homer v Boston - we could be arriving in Tampa tonight with 1st place on the line.
6. Once this team slides into 2nd, it's over.
7. So... we're supposed to wait for Setback Sevy and Harrison Bader? Does anybody remember how Luis Severino was flailing at the end? Or that Bader had an on-base percentage of .302?
8. Brian Cashman has made some bad deals, but I cannot recall one so instantly and universally reviled as the Jordan Montgomery trade. Usually, it takes time for fans to realize we've been had. This was different. From the git-go, this one was nuts - so much so that I wonder about Cashman's state of mind.
Look, I harbor no malice for the guy. Over the years, we've gone through a lot of pain together. I bet if I met him, I'd like him. But this year is crazy. This year, if the Yankees fail, it's time to burn down the stadium. I doubt Hal will ever fire Cash; he's too much of a country clubber to fire an old family friend. But come November, I hope Cashman gets out... for his own peace of mind.
9. I'm thinking of calling for an INTERNATIONAL JUJU INTERVENTION, perhaps as early as next week. Originally, I planned to save our juju for the postseason. Now, I'm not even sure the 2022 Yankees are worth it. But stay tuned. We have to do something.
Thursday, September 1, 2022
"It's just unfortunate."
Courtesy of Peter Golenbock's fine history of the Yankees, 1949-1964, Dynasty:
ALLIE REYNOLDS
"When Kiner or Greenberg was over at Pittsburgh, they didn't have a good ball club, but they had that one big guy, and when some pitcher gets in in the late innings and gets runners on base, and then lets the big guy hit one out of the park, he's got to be the stupidest son of a gun that ever walked down the pike. Walk him. If they beat me with three singles, I can accept that. I was outdone. But just to say, 'Here it is. Hit it out of here.' You have to think."
"It's not like I'm thrilled about [the errors], but I'm looking at it as an opportunity to pick the guys up. You don't want to be in that situation all the time, but it's inevitable that you'll be there, so it's like, 'Let's pick somebody up.'
"It would have been nice to get out of that jam. It's just unfortunate."
Yankees Stats I Got from Other Sites
—The Yankees' 10-18 August is their worst August since the August of 1989, a year they finished 5th in the then, 7-team AL East.
—The Yankees' 10-18 August was their worst month, period, since 1991, when they went 9-19 in September, en route to another fifth-place finish in a 7-team AL East.
—Of the Yankees' 18 losses this August, 8 were by 1 run. Only 3 of their 10 wins were by 1 run. (Previously, they were 21-13 in one-run games.)
—According to one of the Sabremetrics rankings, Gleyber Torres is 193rd of all 199 major-league regulars in the second half of the season. This is outrageous and ridiculous, of course. According to another such statistical ranking, Gleyber is 195th out of 199 regulars.
—Giancarlo Stanton has now gone 45 straight plate appearances, dating back to July 15th, without hitting a home run.
—Gerrit Cole has the largest Adam's apple ever measured in a human being.
All right, I made that last one up. But it's true!
Timmy Trumpet and the Yankees rightful response
The Mets have unveiled their new closer music sensation, Timmy Trumpet.
Here's what the Yankees should pose as an alternative:
The Abyss is here: Yank loss column lead now down to five
Well, well, well... look who's here: Our old friend and captor, The Abyss.
Welcome home, sir. Can I call you Mr. Abyss? Or Abe? We hadn't seen you for a bit, almost started worrying. But last week, we heard you were asking about us, and - hey - here you are!
Don't mind the broken furniture. We've been, um, refurbishing. I see you've lost your chin. No problem. The Yankees ban facial hair, but management is okay with dangling eyeballs and cheekbone decay - both preferable to an infected tattoo. (Inside joke.) Also, about your zombie limp: I hope it's not plantar. (Another one; got a million.)
What's that? You cannot speak? Your throat caved in while cheering the Jordan Montgomery trade. I get it. We were all similarly affected.
Fun fact: On Aug. 1 - when Cooperstown Cashman, a future 7-foot statue in Monument Park, spun his magical web of trades - the Yankees sat three games ahead of Houston for the league's best record, and Tampa stood in 3rd place within the division, 16 games behind us. We held a 10-game lead over second place Toronto and were a shoe-in for a postseason bye.
Now - well - we face the possibility that, when our savior, Harrison Bader, returns in mid-September - we could be looking up at Tampa and seeking to stave off Baltimore. I sure hope Bader brings his .256 batting average, because we'll need that offensive jolt for which he is so famous. (Another joke.)
Last night, Aaron Boone played Aaron Hicks in CF and benched Oswaldo Cabrera, the lone crumb of excitement (after Aaron Judge) on this sad, rapidly plummeting roster. Tonight, we might feel a secondary pang when Ken Waldichuck - a young lefty we traded for Sonny Montas - makes his MLB debut with Oakland. It certainly would be icing on the cake if Waldichuck becomes the pitcher that Montas used to be.
So, Abe, I notice that your arm just fell off - I can send you to Michael King's doctor - but first, a question:
Do you know of any active quicksand pits near NYC? In the movies, there are quicksand bogs everywhere, and everybody knows that, once you're in one - the more you struggle, the faster you go down. Nowadays, aside from with existential metaphors, you don't hear much about quicksand. So I wonder: Are we better off struggling, or simply accepting our fate, and smiling as the elevator goes down?
Friday, we go to Tampa - the hateful, sinkhole- and python-infested knockoff of Sarasota - where the Rays will seek to take us down. If they sweep us - that is, bring your buddy, Ryan McBroom - our lead will be two, which is like being down a basket in an NBA game.
So... hello, darkness, my old friend... We've waited a long time, and now you're here. Are we better off struggling, or should we just hold our breaths and wait?
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
The Big Fella Takes Flight
I'm not going to say "the Yankees' club record" or any of that other folderol. The only players who ever surpassed Roger Maris' mark of 61 home runs in a 162-game season were known or confessed juicers, which to me invalidates what they did.
Hell, it's bad enough that we have to hear all about the thrilling question of whether Albert Pujols—yet another, obvious cheater—can "pass" the all-time home run mark of A-Rod, still another, known juicer, forcibly retired by the Yankees and MLB, lest he pass the all-time record of the all-time cheater, Barry Bonds.
Nonsense, all of that—and when major-league baseball is eventually reduced to something that draws lower ratings than pickleball, you will be able to trace the start of its demise to when it began to degrade and besmirch its own records and traditions.
There was simply a ruling by Commissioner Ford Frick that there be two lines in the record book, one stating the record for home runs in a 154-game season, the other for home runs in 162 games. As 162 games is just over 5 percent longer than 154 games, I never understood why this was widely regarded as a war crime.
Obviously, it seems to me, more games in a season, different record. Where would all those sportswriters have drawn the line? Ten percent more games? Twenty percent?
If you want to get into the weeds, you can raise all kinds of other reasons why this or that record is more impressive over time. Were endless train trips or flights across two-to-three time zones more disruptive to players? What's tougher: relief pitching, or awful woolen uniforms and no air conditioning? Etc. There's one obsessed chronicler of the Babe who claims that he would have hit 104 home runs in the 1921 season—instead of 59—playing with the fences and rules as they are today.
But that way, madness lies. As far as I'm concerned, if Aaron Judge hits 62 home runs in 162 games, he breaks ROGER MARIS' single-season, major-league home run record. Period. Breaking a 61-year-old sports record...that ain't nothin'. When did we see that last?
But if Judge hits 61 in 154 or fewer games...well then, he's broken the Babe's 1927 record. A 95-year-old sports record. It boggles the mind.
That is deceptive. While Maris had a strong September/October, finishing with 10 home runs in that month, Ruth's 1927 finish was staggering—these being the games in which many would-be contenders to the record fall by the wayside.
The Babe hit 17 home runs in September, 1927, 16 of them in the last 27 games of the season.
It all started with a doubleheader split up in Fenway, on September 6. Up until then, Ruth was actually still tied with his young teammate, Lou Gehrig, who had been a little ahead of him all season in the very first, home-run race.
Gehrig homered once in those two games, to bring his season total to 45—a number exceeded by no one in the game to that time save for Ruth himself. The Babe—hit three, moving up to 47. He was never headed.
Ruth hit two more the next day in Boston, numbers 48 and 49, including the game-winner in the 8th inning, as the Yanks rallied from an 8-1 deficit to win, 12-10. He also had a double, and drove in five runs.
From September 11-13, he hit home runs in three straight games, against the St. Louis Browns and the Cleveland Indians Traffic Statues, bringing him up to 52. But nobody was terribly excited. Ruth had already hit 54 and 59 home runs in a season, and there were just 15 games left to play. (The Yanks that year would play 155 games in total, because of a called game. Ruth played in 151.)
Only one home run followed over the next five games.
Then there was another little string. A home run in three more, straight games, one against the White Sox and two against Detroit.
His home run in the second Tigers game came in the bottom of the ninth, after the Yankees had blown a 6-3 lead, even without Aroldis Chapman. Not to fear. In their last ups, Mark Koenig led off with a single, and Ruth homered "deep to right field." (Nearly all of his home runs are described as "deep to" somewhere, maybe Yonkers.)
The Babe now had 56 homers in 151 games. Still, 60? It seemed a tall order, four more in as many games.
Next came perhaps Ruth's most impressive feat in the whole skein. On September 27th, he belted what proved to be a game-winning, grand-slam in the seventh inning off the Philadelphia Athletics' Robert Moses "Lefty" Grove, the greatest pitcher of his era;
(Ruth, incidentally, hit .311 lifetime against Lefty, tying Gehrig and Hank Greenberg for most home runs against Grove with 9, while his 33 RBI against the pitcher were topped only by Lou's 45. Thanks to Baseball Roundtable's "Who's Your Daddy?" series for those stats.)
Game 153 on the season, and the Yanks started a season-ending series against the Washington Senators. The Nats were not the tomato cans they usually were, in the midst of their one run of success which would see them take three pennants and a World Series in ten years, 1924-1933. In 1927, they were third in the AL with an 85-69 record.
Didn't matter. Ruth hit two home runs and a triple and drove in six runs, as the Yanks coasted to a 15-4 win over Washington. (In what must qualify as a contender for Most Great Pitchers' Names in a single game, the Nats' pitchers included Firpo Marberry and Hod Lisenbee, while Urban Shocker, who would soon die of heart disease, won his last game for the Yankees.)
Friday, September 30th. Next-to-last-game of the season. Washington pitched Tom Zachary, a good pitcher who spent much of his career with wretched teams (Traded to the Yankees the next season, he would win a World Series game, then go 12-0 in 1929.).
Bottom of the eighth inning, Mark Koenig on third with a triple, the Babe hit a drive "deep" down the right field line, that just stayed fair. Ballgame, as it turned out. And sixty.
As one sportswriter said, it was the Babe. For all they knew, he would come back the next year and hit 70. (No—only 54.)
Ruth himself quite enjoyed it, sitting around the locker room with a cigar, exclaiming, "Sixty! I'd like to see some son-of-a-bitch top that!"
Well, some son-of-a-bitch might just do that this year. Judge would be perfect, a good-natured, hard-playing individual who—at least as far as we know—is not cheating in an era of cheaters.
It would be great to see him do it—if just for the look on Brian Cashman's face.
The projected projections for the 2022 Yankees, and the rejected injections of Toronto's fanbase
27
Yank magic number for making 2022 postseason:
25
Aaron Judge projected regular season HR total:
64
Judge's projected salary next year:
Somewhere north of $40 million
Judge's projected team next year:
Somewhere north of San Diego
Yankee projected owner next year:
Is this a trick? Are you taunting me?
Tonight's projected pitcher:
Gerrit Cole, entire bullpen, including Chi Chi Gonzalez, if necessary.
Projected strategy for beating Tampa Bay this weekend:
Have Judge hit four HRs per game.
(Essay questions) Projected reasons for personal rage:
1. Whatever happens tonight, the Death Barge has squandered its last string of sub-.500 tomato cans, crapping their West Coast beds against two teams ready to phone in the month of September. What does it say when our pitching can't keep Mike Ford in the ballpark?
2. Who believes Boone's claim that Jameson Tailion's "contusion" won't cause him to miss a start, or maybe two? Whenever somebody gets hurt, Boone low-balls the severity and the expected time missed. He does this again and again. This isn't optimism. It's denial. Why doesn't the media call him out?
3. Don't you feel a growing belief that, in a season that was supposed to be magical, all other fan bases are having more fun than we are?
4. The world has grown bull-goose loony, we are staring into The Abyss, and the 2022 Yankees are doomed... which launches the final essay question:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
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