Yankees lose again with Cardiac Clay: 10 terrifying takeaways

1. Simply stated: Clay Holmes cannot close. 

2. Everybody knows that Clay Holmes cannot close.

3. The mere sight of Clay Holmes warming up rouses the opposition into believing they will win.

4. We have nobody to replace Clay Holmes.

5. All our closer options are worse than Clay Holmes.

6. Nobody will trade us a replacement for Clay Holmes.

7. Our farm system has no replacement for Clay Holmes.

8. Boone will not make a change on Clay Holmes.

9. When Clay Holmes does get a grounder, the Yankee infield won't necessarily field it. 

10. If Clay Holmes could close, the Yankees would have a substantial lead over Baltimore.

A few days from now, when it happens again, I will be repeating these words...

I watched Bronx Buds

The YES Network--or the app, anyway--yesterday launched an animated series for kids, alternately titled Bronx Buds and HexClad Presents Bronx Buds. They plan to release episodes on Saturday mornings, because everyone cherishes the memory of Saturday morning cartoons except for kids, teens, recent college grads, and some of the people currently having kids, who are all too young to have watched them. Running time of the first episode is a generous 8:23. 

I was mainly curious about what message the show might try to put across. I mean, there would be at least one, because kids aren't allowed to enjoy themselves without having "sharing is good" hammered into them so it can be traumatically stripped away when they grow up and go to work for McKinsey. But would the message somehow relate to the Yankees? Is there any way a brief, uncomplicated cartoon could pass to a new generation the values of this team under Hal Steinbrenner? 

I am here to tell you yes, my friends, there is a way, and the producers of Bronx Buds found it. Indeed, they put their finger on the core of this organization's true faith. As anyone who ever watched or listened to a Yankee game can tell you, that simple, cherished ideal is in-show advertising. 

The climactic scene--consuming an extravagant 2:34 of running time--is a baseball game, the most important of the season, between your Bronx Buds, a Little League team, and their rivals, the fearsome and despised Queens Hamsters.  The game is played in a well-appointed ballpark with grandstands, dugouts, and an outfield wall peppered with real-life corporate logos. Ad clients on and off the wall include HexClad, which turns out to be a frying pan company (really?), the YES App (I get it), TZERO (which I'll get to), and, most jarringly... 

...Bical Auto Mall of Brooklyn (which exists). As a wide shot establishes the pitcher's POV, an animated beaver drives a car sporting the company logo to the middle of the frame, stops to leer at the viewer, then speeds off. Just like some animated plug on a real Yankee game. Friends, I fell to my knees and wept. Beauty moves me.

So far, we're being sold frying pans, cars, and a streaming app. Nothing a kid would buy. No harm done, right? But the door is open. How long before a Bronx Buds establishing shot is obliterated by an ad for DraftKids?  

I promised to tell you about TZERO. It's the animation studio behind Bronx Buds. Well, not an animation studio, exactly. According to its website it's "a team of visionary artists, storytellers, and animation enthusiasts dedicated to pushing the boundaries of animated entertainment." And push them they did. 

In a month of tomato cans, the Yankees turn into Chef Boyardee

Damn. August was gonna be our Cupcake Christmas. We had the Blue Jays, Angels, Rangers, White Sox - now the Tigers - our skip along the merry tomato can path, when we would happily pull away in the AL East.

Record in August: 8-6.

Amazingly, we have bypassed Baltimore, held off Boston and now possess the best record in the AL. Really, how dare we complain?  

Record in the last 10 games: 5-5.

The great American educator, Dean Wormer, once told us, "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." Wise words. That said, here we are, floundering in a .500 mediocrity, battling to hold our own against teams that are positioning themselves for a run in 2025, at the earliest. 

Next up, Cleveland, Colorado, Washington and St. Louis. I could list the rest - honestly, it's rather lame - but all will surely boil down to a three-game series in NY beginning Sept 24 against the O's.

Barring a complete meltdown - always a possibility, when two hitters basically comprise your offense - the Death Barge will reach the 2024 postseason. If Aaron Judge and Juan Soto stay healthy, we'll have a puncher's chance, no matter who is pitching and who we they play. 

The path to a world series is actually rather simple. Wrap Judge and Soto in plastic bubbles, keep running Gerrit Cole out there, find somebody who can close, and keep gaslighting the world about hitters "swinging  the bat good" and coming out of slumps.

Yesterday, well, we sank without a bubble. Shutouts happen. Today, in one of those showcase pinball games, we'll attend the Little League World Series, though the game will - hopefully - be rained out. (I worry about these boutique games, where fields might not be up to MLB standards. They can be be ripe for injuries.) 

We have faced the tomato cans, with mixed results. It's probably too soon to worry about Houston, 9-1 in recent weeks. But here we are - fat, drunk and stupid, and sitting atop the AL East. A winning streak sure would be nice...

Game Thread - TERRIFYING!

 

A Yankee victory served up last night in agate, wonderful agate...

Last night, the Yankees served up some damn sweet agate. 

Mm... mm... agate... 

To your right, take a healthy snort of this fine, rarified, felony-grade, kickass agate. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Consider: 

Gleyber's 19th double of the season. (he's 5th on the team, after Judge, Verdugo, Soto and Volpe.) A hustle double to lead off the  game. It's been a while since Gleyber showed actual baseball acumen. He sleepwalked through June and July. A hustle double. I like that phrase.

Jose Trevino's 1st stolen base of 2024. WTF? When does Trevino steal bases? He has four in his career, twice caught stealing. It was a botched hit and run, of course. Still, Trevy the Train is now tied with Trent Grisham and Jahmai Jones for 8th on the team in SBs.

Aaron Judge's 44th. Nothing to be said. The greatest Yankee slugger of my lifetime, and that includes Mantle, Maris, Jackson, Winfield, Mattingly and Danny Tartabull.  Think about that. The greatest. And Juan Soto might not be far behind.

Oswald's 1st HR, with the certified-as-fresh toe-tap. I was pissed that  Oswaldo Cabrera didn't start last night. I mean, the guy ignites a victory, scores from 2nd on a sac fly, and then sits out? WTF? Who's the manager, Gene Mauch? Well, you can't argue when Oswald homers. Can he keep it up?

Anthony Volpe botched an easy pop fly, nearly wrecked the game. He's been hitting lately, so I don't want to criticize. But I don't think he'll win the 2024 Gold Glove. (He ranks 5th in the AL in fielding percentage. His 13 errors are third highest.) 

Clay Holmes pitched a 1-2-3 ninth. I'd forgotten such outings existed. But the agate says otherwise. 

From watching the Yankees, I must say that this Judge fellow is pretty good

One of the elements to big-time bloggery is being willing to put in the elbow grease. That's me. When it comes to sentence-writing, I'm never afraid to work up an honest sweat - you know, to get down on your haunches and pick some verbal cotton. In fact, it's part of my slogan: Matter matters. And lately, on the matter of matters mattering, I've uncovered a gem of content, which I'd like to blog for you. 

This fellow, Judge, doesn't belong in Little League.

Seriously, where does he get off, a fully-grown man playing against children? It's not fair. You'd think the parents running MLB would not allow a teenager to compete against 12-year-olds. Somebody could get hurt. 

Seriously, has anyone checked his birth certificate? Look at him. He's at least 14. His testicles must have dropped. Watching him play against children, it's just wrong. 

That said - hey - I'm glad he's on the Yankees.

Like, the other night, there he was, coming to bat after the other team walked the Yankees' second-best hitter, who'd be first best hitter on any other team, including the Dodgers. But on the Yankees, Juan Soto is the second-best. And so the White Sox walked him... to pitch to Judge. 

In that moment, I thought, "What a clever and creative thing to do! It's as if they're saying to the world, Judge should not be playing in this league, and we will protest by standing up to Goliath, to this outsized bully!" I yelled to the TV, "Smart move, Chicago! Maybe it will work!"

Well, it didn't. Not a whit. And mark my words: If the owners of baseball let him continue to play Little League, somebody is going to get hurt. He's just too big. It's not fair. Someone should intervene. Williamsport deserves better.

That said, this fellow, Judge, he's pretty good.

Where's Oswaldo? Hopefully, in the starting lineup

Believe it or not, the coolest moment from last night's win over the white hot Chisox - (.500 over last two games!) - was not Aaron Judge's 300th HR, which came after Juan Soto was intentionally walked for the first time in 2024. (So much for that strategy, eh?)

Nope, the epic moment of singularity came when Oswaldo Cabrera - a career .232 disappointment - streaked around third and didn't stop, scoring from second base on a fly to center, where two White Sox outfielders intertwined, in a reenactment of the recent Olympics synchronized swimming competition, at the warning track. 

It happened because the third most dangerous Yankee - (over the last two weeks , anyway) - was streaking around the bases, and I'm talking about our Oswaldo. 

For three years now, Yank fans have waiting for Oswaldo Cabrera, the switch hitting everyman who belted 29 HRs in the minors in 2021, and who looked like our future franchise SS in the days before Anthony Volpe.

Three weeks ago, when the Death Barge traded for Jazz Chisolm, it sorta looked like the end of the conga line for Oswaldo. Third base was no longer an option, his BA was lagging in the .230s, flatlining since his hot opening weekend in Houston. Like so many other Yank prospects - including the other Oswald, Peraza - Oswaldo looked like a guy destined to come and go, and never reach full potential until wearing another uniform. Then came Tuesday's elbow injury to Chisolm, a sad development you couldn't wish on anybody, which cracked open the Oswaldo door for perhaps one last shot.

Check out the numbers over the last three weeks. Yeah, it's a small sample, but I can tell you what those numbers don't: The guy's been hitting line drives. (Last night, one snared by the first baseman supposedly hit 110 mph.) I know, I know... this is probably just another tease. But Oswaldo is still 25 - two years from peak foliage - and with DJ LeMahieu still watchiing called strike threes, it's time for one last audition. 

I mean, damn... We just watched a guy score from second on a sac fly. That's exciting. Let's see more. Please, Mr. Boone. LET'S SEE MORE.

Game Thread - - No Words . . .

 

Everything but the Montas.

 

Ah, how fondly we will look back on the Jazz Chisholm Era Years Month Weeks Days!

Who could have predicted that the Sabremetricious insistence that all players slide all the time, hand- and head-first, would come back to haunt us?

(Noticed, incidentally, that Miguel Andujar was in town this week with the A's, to take on the Mets. Didn't he...never mind!)

Let me re-phrase. 

Who could have predicted that Jazz Chisholm would get hurt, and stand to miss so many games?

Well, I did, actually—and so could anyone else who maybe had access to baseballreference. Thanks to that guide—recovered after many years of searching through dark, musty, cobwebbed, rat-infested archives beneath the Vatican—I saw that Jazz had missed 165 games in his previous, three full major-league seasons.

In other words, 55 games a campaign.

Huh.

As the astute Publius has noted, this makes Brian Cashman's latest trade deadline boffo extravaganza almost an exact replica of his 2022 fiasco.  

Then, as he notes, we gave up a ton of young arms and the Full(y serviceable) Monty, and got back a banjo-hitting outfielder already on the DL, plus Lou "Not Trevino" Trevino, and Scott Efforts, and I think one other bullpen arm who soon proved useless.

Looking at you, Leiter, Jr.. And that de los Santos guy, and...

Let's face it. It's the same rotten deal, save for the fact that Cashie did not get suckered on another, already-injured-and-always-overrated Frankie Montas. Everything but the Montas, with the Oft-Injured Chisholm subbing in perfectly for the Oft-Injured Bader.

What's the definition of insanity again? Yeah, I thought so. 

Meanwhile, we can only sing:

Where have you gone, Scottie Effross?

A nation turns its lonely eyyess to you.

Woo-woo-woo...

Yes, it's this rare.

 

Just to back up our Peerless Leader's thoughts on Aaron Judge and Juan Soto with a little history—NOT that I would ever back up his continued, reckless tempting of the juju gods WHAT are you thinking, o Peerless One, juju entities, if thou hearest me please smite him and not me thank you very much—Aaron Judge and Juan Soto are, right now, 1 and 2 in the American League in OPS.  

(Or as I prefer to call it, SLOB, for slugging average and on-base percentage.)

Sure, you tell yourself, this much have happened all the time in our vaunted history.

No, it doesn't.

In fact, if Judge and Soto were to hold on to those two top spots, it would only be the 6th time in all of our club's history that two Yankees have done it—and the first time in 64 seasons.

The others?

Well, these two fellas, the Babe and the Lou, in 1927 and 1928, then again in back-to-back seasons, 1930 and 1931.

And Mantle and Maris—but only in 1960.

That's it. 

That's how rare what we are seeing this year really is.

And Judge and Soto, mind you, are hitting in a lineup with virtually no support around them.

Those Yankees teams of Gehrig and Ruth, of course, were hitting juggernauts, with the likes of Earle Combs, Long Bob Meusel, Tony Lazzeri, Bill Dickey, Joe Sewell, and Ben Chapman on them.

The 1960s Yankees had Yogi, Elston Howard, Moose Skowron, and Gil McDougald on them, among others. 

This team? Whatta we got? Well, we ain't got heart, that's for sure. But we do have Flopsie Vertigo, Hammy Cantrun, The Headless Torres, and so much less.

Imagine if some tightwad owner and his idiot GM had let the likes of Gehrig or Maris walk off the Yankees without getting anything in return. 

Beyond our powers of comprehension, right? Well, start imagining. Last night on SNY, Sal Licata, Mets fan, was crowing over how great it was going to be that his favorite team would have a shot at Soto in the free-agent market.

Believe it and weep.

Wanna do something scary? Imagine the Yankees without Judge and Soto

Lately, there's been talk - angry, furious, tongue-lashings - that the '24 Yanks are fundamentally flawed, that they cannot rally, they cannot close, and they will not be around on Columbus Day.  

At times we have taken part in such rage-filled conversations. 

Were this blog a book club, we'd be reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. 

That said, let's ignore the shallowness of last night's victory over sad Chicago. We won. That's all that matters, right? Today, let's discuss the one clear path to an October float ride down the Canyon of Heroes. Here's how it happens:

Aaron Judge and Juan Soto go on simultaneous tears, hitting multiple HRs in every game, leading us to double-digit outcomes. We win by scores of 10-9, 12-11, 15-14 - games that run six hours and end with shortstops on the mound. We've seen these games. Whenever our batting order turns around, the other team weeps. And the Yankees win. Usually, anyway.

As Jake Barnes said to Lady Brett, isn't it fun to imagine? The modern era's Ruth & Gehrig, Mantle & Maris, (Winfield & Mattingly?) marching toward Cooperstown. The greatest one-two punch in this millennium. And there they are, right next to each other in the outfield - GASP - waiting for a FUCKING POP FLY IN THE GAP?

That's right. What if the worst happens - a fly ball into CF/RF - both fielders converging at high rates of speed, the kind of collision that totals a Chrysler and - in one eternal moment, sidelines baseball two best hitters... what if they, gulp, crash? 

Okay, before you get angry, I am only saying this as a way of ensuring that it doesn't happen. I mean, what are the odds that I would predict such an event? Impossible, right? Remember, I predicted Jesus Montero would be in Monument Park, and not eating an ice cream sandwich.  

Right now, Judge and Soto would finish 1-2 in the AL MVP vote. Both are legitimate contenders for the Triple Crown, (though, for that to happen, Bobby Witt Jr. must slump.) Yank fans probably view Judge as the rightful MVP - he doesn't have Soto protecting him in the order - but if the Asteroid hits, here is our lineup.

Actually, no. It's this:

Verdugo LF

Stanton DH

Wells C

Torres 2B

Grisham CF

Cabrera 3B

Volpe SS

LeMahieu 1B

The Martian? RF

Yes, they won't even have Jahmai Jones, who left for Tokyo. You are gazing at a team that finishes six games below .500, somewhere between the Tigers and Pirates. And let's face it, if Judge/Soto falls, wouldn't Giancarlo's hamstring be far behind?

The moral of the story? Simple. Some players - you know who they are - must start hitting. Not just a mini-streak. They must be AL Players of the Month. They must hit .350. They must save their seasons. And they must save the '24 Yankees. Because not even the greatest twosome in modern history save float this boat. They need help.

An Above Average Haiku Tuesday ~ "Our Infield! Our BullPen*! Our Manager! Our Team!" Edition

 

Nice try, Yankees, but the Worst Loss of the Season still remains Verdugo's Face Plant.

Let's give this plucky, artistic NY nine credit for perfecting The Art of The Great Loss. 

Last night, they not only fell to the worst MLB team in recent history, they were blown out - humiliated, embarrassed, pilloried as a steaming lump of sporting incompetence. For sheer fiasco cred, you've got the Spanish Armada, Napoleon's drive into Russia, Yahoo Serious... and now, a looming series loss to the fabled '24 White Sox. 

Still, I'm sorry, Yankee sprayers of dismay... 

Last night's disaster cannot top the loss to Baltimore on All Star Break Eve - our leader in the clubhouse, still the gold standard for mortification. On that bleak afternoon, we bundled two errors with a closer meltdown to gift 1st place to the O's, punctuating the event with Alex Verdugo's immortal face-plant, while chasing a routine fly. 

I have a feeling that Verdugo's flop will haunt him - and this franchise - for years to come - a dark symbol of Steinbrennerian malfeasance, and - perhaps - the precise moment when Brian Cashman's seat atop the Yankee tower of shit began to shift. 

Still, let's celebrate an incredible collapse. Last night was truly awful, amplified by a dreadful outing from the recent trade "acquisition," Enyel "Yerry" de los Santos. If you remember correctly - (I don't blame you if you blotted it out) - "Yerry" was supposed to bolster our crumbling bullpen. Last night, he gave up 7 earned runs, 5 before recording an out. His ERA is now 5.79. 

Any other pitcher would be released today. But he was Cashman's last door prize at the deadline, so he'll probably get another shot at throwing gasoline at the dumpster fire.    

This came shortly after Jazz Chisolm Jr. left the game with a sore elbow. Today, he will get an MRI. If you're keeping score, the third Yankee obtained at the trade deadline, Mark Leiter Jr., gave up two HRs the other night. Before that, he had given up just two HRs all season. 

We might go 0-for-3 in trades, though the YES apparatus will assure us that we gave up nobody of consequence. They always do. 

Yes, last night was a grand humiliation, maybe a fulcrum point for 2024. The Yankees either win the next two, or they will lose a series to what is basically a mediocre Triple A club. 

You could say that no MLB team looks like a champion. Last night, Baltimore lost again. They have squandered multiple ops to run away with the division. No team in baseball is on course to win 100 games. (The highest projections: 96.) If any team gets hot, the AL East is theirs for the taking.

But who pitches our 7th, 8th and 9th? Scott Proctor? As our journey continues, considering our bullpen, one troubling thought keeps rising: 

The worst is yet to come.

Happy 49er Day!

 

No, not this guy, or the football players.

This morning's standings show that every single team in the major leagues has now lost at least 49 games. 

Why is this significant? 

It means that no team can possibly surpass the 1998 Greatest Team Ever We Were Alive To See Them Yahoo And This Will Keep Us Warm In Our Old Age Of Otherwise Bitter Fandom Disappointment New York Yankees.

Those Yankees, you will recall, won a record 125 games, regular season and postseason combined. They took 114 games during the campaign, then 11 more in October. 

Nobody has ever done that. Not the 1906 Chicago Cubs—106-46 in the regular season, but only 2-4 in the World Series—or the 2001 Seattle Mariners (116-46 April-September, but only 4-6, in the American League playoffs).

Nope. Once you reach 49 losses, you can only win 113 regular-season games, which means only 124 total, one short of the 1998 GTEWWATSTYATWKUWIOOOOBFDNYY.

(I know, I know: Theoretically, a team could win 113 regular-season games, come in second, third, or even fourth in their division, then win 13 postseason games as a wild card—the way the Texas Rangers did last year. That would give them 126, total. But the odds against that happening—winning 113 and NOT finishing first—are so surpassingly great that I don't want to hear anything from you mathematically inclined hockey pucks.)

Happy 49er day. Raise a toast to the team with the most—especially when it came to the bullpen.

We shall not see their likes again.

The Olympia Beer Ideal

Two weeks of contests in Paris
Of every conceivable style
Athletes honed like hardened steel
Ladecky, Tebogo, Yee, Li, Biles

What focus and determination
To swim, box, dive, run, throw
Pushing their mental endurance
And how far their bodies can go

They remind me of what John Kruk
Once told a hotel lobby hater:
"Lady, I ain't an athlete--
I'm a baseball player."

It's hard - no, impossible? - to picture the Yankees winning anything great with this bullpen

Yesterday, in the 8th - mop-up time - the Death Barge sported a five-run lead over a certified tomato can, at Yankee Stadium, with their top pitching acquisition on the mound, and fans hitting the exits. It shoulda been quick, easy... painless. 

Yeah, right. 

If ever a win felt like one big, angry, hot, spicy - a crap-a-pineapple loss - this was that. 

And if you believe the 2024 Yankees will go the distance, ride down the Canyon of Heroes, and avoid the bellicose deliriums of another early October exit, well, I need whatever you're smoking.

Listen: Braced by an incredible spring - a month of May that feels like a million years ago - the Yankees will almost surely make the 2024 postseason. You can only fall so far, so fast. But try to imagine this Edmund Fitzgerald bullpen taking the team anywhere beyond Oblivion. Do we really think Cardiac Clay Holmes can hold a one-run lead in Houston? Or at Fenway? Or even at home?

In the end, yesterday, Commander Boone called upon Cardiac Clay for a four-out save. In the grand tradition of Aroldis Chapman, the human waterfall, Holmes in the 9th, up by two, gave us P.T.S.D. Here's how it went down.

He overwhelms the first two batters - strikeouts - then up comes - um - the great Wyatt Langford.

Of course, he walks Langford. He has no choice. It's predestined, karma, fate... 

Then comes Nathaniel Lowe. Yes, THE Nathaniel Lowe. Holmes gets ahead, an 0-2 count, then... walks him. OF COURSE HE DOES.

Tying runners on base. He goes to a 3-1 count against Adolis Garcia, is forced to throw a strike - and, of course, gives up a hit.

Tying run at third. Up comes Leody Taveras, who goes to a full-count before hitting a grounder to 2B, where - considering Gleyber's recent past, there is no such thing as a sure out. Gleyber almost bobbles it, but makes the play. 

Inning over. Ballgame over. Yankees win. The Yankees win. 

But it sure doesn't feel that way.

And if you're looking for a feel-good getaway game before facing Chicago, the worst team in baseball... yikes. I dunno. Our bullpen is shot. No lead is safe. How far can a team go that way? We're about to find out. 

Runk blog ending today

 Weren't we in first place before this started?

WTF?

My head hurts. 

Could it be.....YES! Another Doubleheader !!!

 

Runk blog continues: Debbie does Dannemora

Rain.

That's all it did yesterday.

And smash in our picture window. 

Today, two. Which means a split. Which means we'll have to win tomorrow, or we'll lose our second straight series, which means we'll start looking over our shoulder at Boston...

Is the booze affecting my normal joyous hope? 

Why We Stink: How Nepo Babies and Wealthfare Cheats Wrecked New York Sports, Part IX.

 ...and don't worry, the Grande Finale! (There's only so much moaning and groaning even I can do!) But here it is:

Once it became possible to make a fortune in the sports business with no known capabilities in either sports or business, the quality of ownership inevitably declined. Nowhere is this more inescapable than in New York.

No need to have a financial wizard like Charlie Dolan in charge of the Knicks, the Rangers, and Madison Square Garden anymore; a superannuated adolescent like James Dolan, living out his fantasy of fronting for the Eagles, will do just fine. 

No need for a George Steinbrenner, with his Barnum-like instincts for showmanship and a maniacal desire to win; pleasant, distracted Hal Steinbrenner can do the job from Tampa. John Mara is a long way from his roguish grandfather, Tim Mara, a teenaged newsie-turned-bookie, who supposedly won the Giants in a hand of poker. 

Robert Wood Johnson IV, heir to Johnson & Johnson, owns the Jets with his younger brother, who will likely succeed him. Jeff Wilpon would likely have succeeded his father as principal owner of the Mets, save that he was so inept that even his fellow nepo babies rebelled, and insisted that Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz sell the team before he wrecked it.

 

Our other owners are all venture capitalists by trade, most of whom seem more interested in real estate and finance than sports (or any other real business). Hence Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov buys and flips the Nets, and Steve Cohen launches an effort to get a casino in Flushing, immediately after buying the Mets.

Sports has become simply another pillaging opportunity for such magnates of today’s paper capitalism. They make this abundantly clear at the ballpark, where all save the Yankees—for obvious reasons—have sold naming rights to faceless corporations. Where ads are stuck on the players’ jerseys, and more ads dinned into the ears of fans at brain-splitting decibel levels, blasting away any remaining chance of quiet or conversation.

These are owners who, with a few exceptions, have only the faintest, passing interest in the sports their clubs actually play. They look, instead, at expanding their footprint into similar “entertainments,” that can be synergistically leveraged to create bigger killings in real estate and finance.

(Just take a look at these amazing, power faces...

...the visages of men who built inherited empires!

And, to be fair, some who actually are first-class grifters in their own right!)

Hence Cohen’s lust for a casino—and hence the Yankees, after failing for years to develop the “Soccer City” complex they wanted to build at the Bronx’s Harlem River Yards for the NYCFC soccer team they partly own…are putting up a 25,000-seat stadium in Willetts Point. It is expected to cost the city $516 million in tax abatements over the next 50 years.

(Please note, too, how different the finished products of these Wonder Stadiums and their surrounding neighborhoods look from the bait-and-switch "models" on which they are sold.)

Harrison, New Jersey, has already built a “soccer-specific” stadium for the Red Bulls—who do pay taxes—after a bitter court fight. Soon, no doubt, we will begin to hear that a separate facilities are needed for the NJ/NY Gotham FC team in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), or the New York Liberty, in the WNBA. 

The possibilities are almost endless. Climate change will doubtless lead to demands for new stadiums and arenas that are sturdier, elevated, domed—and climate-controlled. The next round of construction will begin in a few years, with the heirs of heirs of heirs of our sports owners demanding and getting what could be the last buildings left standing in this coastal city.

 

But hey, when it's all over, we will have proved that wildly subsidized sports teams and their billionaire owners can con us here, just as much as they can con them anywhere!