Yankees Suck posts

In the Trump era, you grab joy where you can, and this isn't a bad one for me today. It wasn't just that the Yankees lost, 3-1, it‘s how they lost:

That’s a thing of beauty. Yanks down by 2, get the bases loaded with nobody out ... and then can't get the ball in play: foul out, strike out, strike out. Better, the pitcher who did this to them is Adam Kolarek, who's 29, in only his second MLB season, came in with a 6.00 ERA, and somehow managed to nab the save. His first. In his career. Helluva way to start out, kid.  

The win also gave the Rays their first series victory at Yankee Stadium since 2014, and, at 8-7, they‘re now one of two AL teams that have a winning record against the Baby Bombers. BoSox are 8-5.

If it almost feels over for the Yanks, it’s not. Yes, they‘re an astonishing 10.5 games back of Boston in the AL East, but they still have the second-best record in baseball. How nuts is that? It means that unless the A’s and Mariners can both steamroll past NYY for the two wildcard spots, and they're 3 and 5.5 games back respectively, Yanks are in the postseason again, where almost anything can happen.

But in the meantime: FO, K, K. Mm-wah.

“I confess it: There is some resentment. But it never degenerates into emulousness or envy. No one elsewhere wants to root for a team like the Yankees. The notion is appalling. Could any franchise be more devoid of romance? What has it ever represented but the brute power of money? One can admire the St. Louis Cardinals' magnificent history, or cherish fond memories of the great Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Reds or Oakland A's teams of the past. But no morally sane soul could delight in that graceless enormity in the Bronx, or its supremacy over smaller markets. It is an intrinsically depraved pleasure, like a taste for bearbaiting. And certainly none of us wants to be anything like Yankees fans — especially after seeing them at close quarters. ...

”Not that the horror is easy to recall clearly. The trauma is too violent. Memory cringes, whines, tries to slink away. One recollects only a kaleidoscopic flux of gruesomely fragmentary impressions, too outlandish to be perfectly accurate, too vivid to be entirely false: nightmarish revenants from the dim haunts of the collective unconscious ... monstrous, abortive shapes emerging from the abysmal murk of evolutionary history ... things pre-hominid, even pre-mammalian ... forms never quite resolving into discrete organisms, spilling over and into one another, making it uncertain where one ends and another begins. ... It really is awful.“

— David Bentley Hart, ”The New York Yankees Are a Moral Abomination," in The New York Times

This was a headline a few days ago on ESPN.com:

It took me a second to realize that Yankees pitcher Luis Severino wasn't chasing the single-season strikeout record (Nolan Ryan, 383, 1973), but the Yankees' single-season strikeout record (Ron Guidry, 248, 1978), which, in 1978, didn't even lead the Majors (J.R. Richard's 303), nor his league (Nolan Ryan's 260). In fact, the all-time Yankees mark simply tied 39-year-old Phil Niekro for third place that year. That's what's being trumpeted. That's the great glory Severino is pursuing. 

This is a headline how? A player is on pace to break a mediocre team record. Baseball Reference lists Guidry's mark as the 186th most strikeouts a pitcher has had in a season. If you remove 19th-century records, as you should, it's still tied for 127th. That's it. That's the mark Severino might break. 

Hell, this season, Severino is ninth in the Majors in strikeouts. Ninth.

Headlines like these are yet another reason people hate the Yankees. No other team gets this treatment. 

Got this from an anonymous reader the other day: 

i stg if you say anything about the yankees again i will hit you with the quadruple roundhouse spinning back fist to the femur, yankees are love, yankees are life. sir dont make me swing

Took me a moment to realize “stg” meant “swear to god.” Initially I thought he was just so filled with rage he couldn't type straight.  

The funny part? It was from an 8-year-old post. This one. Dude, I've said much worse since. Please consult my Yankees Suck posts. Some good stuff in there. 

Jordan Shusterman, a writer over at Cut4.com, has a piece from earlier this month called “Let's appreciate how long Ichiro has been playing professional baseball.” It's mostly timeline, and not bad, although my version would include different historic markers. But I like this one: Shohei Otani was born two years after Ichiro began playing professional baseball with the Orix BlueWave. How about that?

But that's not the best historic marker. This one is.

It's the combo of words and images. Jeter seems to be celebrating with us that he's leaving. It's like, Thank god! 

In reality, Jeter was celebrating because his last at-bat at Yankee Stadium yielded a game-winning single. It was a meaningless game—the Yanks missed the post-season by a big margin that year—so why such excitement? Because it helped secure his legacy and legend. It was another “Derek Jeter moment.” It was all about him. 

But if you put the above on a T-shirt, I'd wear it. It's the only Derek Jeter T-shirt I'd be caught dead in.

From David Schoenfield's ESPN article “The Evil Empire is Back! Why the Yankees being good is great for baseball”:

“The last three or four years had obviously been tough,” he said. “We made the playoffs a couple years ago and lost in the wild-card game to the Astros, but for the Yankees and our fans, it had been a disappointment, and nobody [was] more disappointed than the players inside this room.”

The he in the he said is Brett Gardner, who can drop and give me twenty. The above reads like a Wall Street exec saying the last few years have been rough because they‘ve only made 50 million instead of the 100 they were used to. Oh, and sorry, David, but can’t agree with your subhed. Suggested edit: “Why the Yankees being dangerous again is shitty for baseball.”

From Billy Witz's New York Times' post-mortem on the 2017 Yankees' season-ending loss to the Houston Astros in Game 7 of the ALCS:

It was the second consecutive game in which [Brian] McCann, who was traded by the Yankees to the Astros for a pair of low-level prospects last winter, had delivered a critical run-scoring double.

In a particularly painful twist, the Yankees are paying $5.5 million of McCann’s salary this year — and will do the same next season. The Yankees paid at least 15 players on their postseason roster less than they gave McCann this season.

Count 'em down:

• 2000: Oakland A's, Seattle Mariners, New York Mets
• 2001: Oakland A's, Seattle Mariners, Arizona Diamondbacks
• 2002: Anaheim Angels
• 2003: Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox, Florida Marlins
• 2004: Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox
• 2005: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• 2006: Detroit Tigers
• 2007: Cleveland Indians
• 2008: n/a
• 2009: Minnesota Twins, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Philadelphia Phillies
• 2010: Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers
• 2011: Detroit Tigers
• 2012: Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers
• 2013: n/a
• 2014: n/a
• 2015: Houston Astros
• 2016: n/a
• 2017: Minnesota Twins, Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros

In terms of the post-season, then, you gotta tip your cap to the Detroit Tigers. They've faced the Yankees three times and eliminated them three times. That's the way to do it, kids.

Astros? Twice and twice.

Angels were the first real Yankee killers of the 20th century, knocking them out in '02 and '05. But then '09. Oh well.

Every other Yankee killer is a one-fer: Diamondbacks, Marlins, BoSox (1-1), Indians (1-1), Rangers.  

(The team you don't want the Yankees to face in the post? The Twins, obviously, who are a woeful 0-5. A's and M's also suck: 0-2.)

Extra points to the D-backs and the Red Sox, for making it so, so painful. Send 'em out, Carey:

Key play: Bird clipped in the 5th. As The Wire‘s Omar said, “Just Bird to me.” 

I can’t lie. I couldn't watch Game 7.

Yesterday, Saturday, we had plans to see the Andrew Wyeth exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum with our friends Vinny and LoLo and we stayed until around 5:00 (gametime), and then we went out for drinks and dinner until around 7:30. I could‘ve watched then. But I didn’t. I didn't even go online. I left my phone off. Like all the way off. The day before a friend, who was a Yankees fan, texted me some snide comment mid-game, and I didn't want to know, so I turned the whole thing off that night and the next night. I didn't want to jinx it.

This is partly the result of what happened Tuesday night. Patricia and I were on our way to dinner before seeing “Ragtime” at the 5th Avenue Theater (full disclosure: it's rare when we get out this much), and beforehand I checked the score on ESPN.com: 4-0, Astros, in the 7th. Great! They'd be up three games to one with one more to win. But then I saw something on Twitter. Something about how someone, Joe Musgrove or someone, was supposed to be the Astros' Andrew Miller and it hadn't happened. I went back to ESPN.com with an awful feeling in my stomach. Yep. It was now 4-3 in the bottom of the 8th, one out, and the Yankees had runners on first and third. Then it was 4-4 in the bottom of the 8th, one out, and the Yankees had runners on first and third. Then it was 6-4, Yankees. Then it was over and the series was tied, 2-2, and the Yankees had momentum. 

All because I'd checked the score on ESPN.com. 

I don't know why baseball fans are like this but some part of me was thinking that. No, not thinking. Feeling. Stupidly feeling. I just had that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. So when the games went back to Houston, with the Yankees up 3-2, I decided not to watch. I didn't want to jinx anything. Last night, when P and I got home, I suggested we watch “Minority Report,” which I hadn't seen since it was released, and which some people feel is a great movie. (It's not.) Before then, Patricia wanted to show me a video of something someone shared on Facebook, something about corgis, and I told her no, not going to look. Couldn't risk it. Couldn't risk even that proximity to social media. Instead the movie. We watched half of it, before I grew tired, got in bed, read a bit of “The Snowman,” fell asleep with Jellybean on my chest. Woke up, fed Jellybean, made coffee, brushed my teeth while listening to NPR, and in the midst of the usual horrid Trump news, they gave us their World Series announcement.

They took their sweet time getting there, but even that was a good sign. If the Yankees had won, after all, that would be the lead. Yankees Yankees Yankees. Instead, they announced that the World Series would begin on Tuesday evening (right...) with the Los Angeles Dodgers representing the National League (OK...) and representing the American League (c'mon already...) ... the Houston Astros, who beat ... 

It was all I could do, at 6 AM in our condo on First Hill in Seattle, not to scream for joy. 

This is what that means. Instead of the New York Yankees winning their 41st pennant (second-best team has 20) and having the opportunity to win their 28th World Series (second-best team has 11), the Houston Astros won their second pennant and have the opportunity to win their first World Series.

Meaning, on this Sunday morning, in this awful Trump era, in this awful year of 2017, there is a little justice in the world.

Thank you, Astros.

Imagine if the Houston Astros hadn't done its job, we'd be getting Yankees vs. Red Sox in the ALCS again. Lord.

Last night the Cleveland Indians didn't do its job and so “for the first time since 2012” (as SI intoned on Twitter), the New York Yankees are going to the ALCS. Yeah, that five-year-long wandering in the wilderness they went through; I don't know how their fans stuck it out.

Overall, it will be the Yankees' eighth ALCS this century. Since 2000, we‘ve had 18 LCSes and the Yankees have been in eight of them. The Indians remain stuck on three. Scratch that: two. This will be Houston’s third LCS this century, and its first in the American League. The team with the most is the Cardinals, who have nine.  

But to Yankee fans, those aren't the numbers that matter. The numbers that matter are 40 and 27. As in pennants and rings. They‘ve been stuck on those since 2009 and want to move on. They want to add to them. Continually. Ad nauseum. And in case you don’t know, the team with the most rings after the Yankees is the Cardinals, who have ... 11. The team with the most pennants after the Yankees is the Giants, who have ... 20. So no one's close. The Yankees have most and want more. 

Last night, watching all of this at the QL, our local bar, with too much drink in me and surrounded by too few people who cared about the game, I thought of the famous slogan from the early 1960s: “Rooting for the New York Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel.” Meaning a powerful, faceless, pointless entity. A machine that kept producing this product on an assembly line. Rah.

I thought of the update while stewing (stewed) at the QL: Rooting for the New York Yankees is like rooting for white people. When I got home I plastered it all over Twitter. I interrupted Yankees fans online celebrations with it. Many didn't get the reference, of course, and thought to educate me by bringing up all the non-white players on the team.

In the remaining LDS, I'm rooting for the Nats (with zero LCS appearances and zero pennants) over the Cubs (last year's feel-good story). Mostly, though, I'm just rooting for Houston. To end it already.

Right now there's some mainstream-media confusion as to who is the underdog (and thus who you should root for) in tonight's winner-take-all American League Division Series matchup between the New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians. 

Cleveland, you see, went to the World Series last year. They forced a Game 7. They were one measly run from winning it all. And this year they set a modern record by winning 22 straight games. They had the best record in the American League. They's a powerhouse. 

The Yankees, meanwhile, haven't won it all since way back in 2009. (I can barely see back that far.) The team, for once, is not totally made up of high-priced free agents (although it's still got its share of those), but its heart is a couple of young, hungry, powerful players, like 6' 8“ monstrosity Aaron Judge, and 1930s Warner Bros. gangster Gary Sanchez. They've been dubbed the ”Baby Bombers," which is a cute name, and they do cute things. After a player hits a homerun, for example, the others, rather than congratulate him, conduct a mock press conference in the dugout. And they've turned a hapless Tampa Bay Ray fan's sign of disapproval, a thumbs down gesture after a Todd Frazier homerun, into a talisman. Now when they do good things, they use this gesture with each other. Shows that fan of that team that never won anything.

So, for some in the media, the Yankees are not completely the Goliath here. If you squint, like until your eyes are completley shut, they're a little bit of David. 

In this frame of reference, both teams are due. The Yankees have won 27 World Series championships throughout their storied career, which is an average of one every 4.15 years. And it's been eight years now, nearly twice that. Their fans are bereft. 

The Indians have won two World Series championships throughout their less-than-storied career, which is an average of one every 56 years. They last won it all in 1948, which is longer than 56 years. But is it twice that? No. So whose fans are truly bereft? 

A few more stats to continue the discussion. I posted these on Facebook yesterday.

Before baseball's expansion era began, meaning from 1903 to 1960, the New York Yankees won 25 pennants. That's 44% of all possible pennants they could've won during this period. The second-best AL team (the Athletics) won 8 pennants—or 14%. 

The Cleveland Indians won 3.

Once the expansion era began, and the number of league rivals grew from eight to 10 to 12 to 14, and now 15, the Yankees couldn't dominate the way they once did—but they still dominated. Since '61, they've won 15 pennants. That's 27% of all possible pennants they could've won during this period.
The second-best AL team during this era (Orioles, BoSox, A's) won 6 pennants—or 11%. 

The Cleveland Indians won 3.

But here's the best measure of the success, or not, of the two teams. Warning: There's some math involved.  

In both eras, i.e., from 1903 to today, the Yankees, with their 27 rings, have won 24% of all available World Series titles, while the Indians, with their two, have won 1.8%. So for the Yankees to reach the Indians' current percentage level of titles to opportunties, i.e., that 1.8%, they need to not win a World Series title for a while. How long? 

The answer is approximately 1,350 years. Until the year 3366. 

Essentially that's how much misery the Yankees and their fans have to make up in order to to reach the current misery-level index of the Cleveland Indians and their fans. Just a thousand years. And change. 

That's also my answer as to when I might begin to root for them. If the Yankees haven't won another World Series title by the year 3366, I'll consider it. I might throw them a bone. Until then, nah. Until then, I have another hand gesture for the Baby Bombers and their fans. It's a little less polite than the one used in Tampa Bay.

The other day I was looking through an old notebook from a trip Patricia and I took to Prague, Vienna, etc., in the summer of 2014, and came across this conversation we had the morning after we arrived in Salzburg, Austria. It wasn't about Mozart:

Me: Wow. Weirdest dream last night.
She: What about?
Me: OK, this will sound silly, but the Yankees were in the postseason against the Oakland A's. They'd won the first two games and were ahead in the third game, 22-6, and it was just awful. This awful feeling.
She: (Laughs) My nightmares are always about monsters and mean people.
Me: (Pause) So are mine.

Last night, in the one-game American League wildcard playoff, the Twins took a 3-0 lead against the Yankees in the top of the 1st, Yanks tied it in the bottom of the 1st, and went ahead for good in the bottom of the 2nd. The rest played out as normal. The Twins knocked out the Yankees starting pitcher sooner than any Yankees starting pitcher has ever been knocked out in the post-season, and they lost the game, 8-4. And the shocking thing was how unshocking it all was. Twins go up 3-0 and the thought was, “So how are they going to blow it?” I could tell from the player's faces on the bench. They weren't loose; they weren't having fun; they didn't have fire in the belly. They were tight. That team needs some Eric Hosmers or Sal Perezes or Tino Martinezes on it. The guys that whoop it up or burn. Or both. 

Here's a great passsage from Josh Ostergaard's great book, “The Devil's Snake Curve,” which my friend Dave gave me a few years ago and I've only recently gotten around to reading:

When the United States was testing its first atomic bomb in the summer of 1945, a code system was created so its success or failure could be communicated back to Washington without worry of the news leaking.

“Cincinnati Reds” would mean the test had failed. “Brooklyn Dodgers” would mean the test had gone as planned.

After scientists tested the first nuclear weapon, and knew the war in the Pacific would end, and that all life on earth could end, the signal of unimagined triumph went back to Washington.

The message read: “New York Yankees.”

So now we have scientific proof. It's not just me, scientists say this. 

“The Devil's Snake Curve” is part Midwest memoir, part Howard Zinn history of the U.S., and part baseball history from the perspective of a Yankees hater. So kinda up my alley.  

Elsewhere, as if to underline the sentiment unnecessarily, this year's Yankees, dubbed the “Baby Bombers” by a lovestruck press, clinched a playoff berth this past weekend. They look to play the Twins in the wild card game on October 3. Their record against the Twins since 2002? 89-33. 

Cliff Mapes (third from left) flanked by three future Hall of Famers: DiMaggio, Mize and Berra. 

When you talk about retired numbers in baseball, you have to talk about Cliff Mapes.

If you‘re a non-baseball fan, you’re probably going: Cliff Who? But if you‘re a baseball fan, you’re probably going: Wait. Cliff ... Who? 

From 1948 to 1952, Cliff Mapes was an outfielder for three teams in the American League: the New York Yankees, St. Louis Browns and Detroit Tigers. For his career, he appeared in 459 games, slugged 38 homeruns, and retired with the following BA/OBP/SLG line: .242/.338/.406. Not exactly Hall of Fame stats. So if we‘re talking retired numbers, why do we have to talk about Cliff Mapes?

Because Mapes wore three of the most iconic numbers in baseball history. 

Reminder: MLB players didn’t begin wearing numbers until 1929, and back then the numbers correlated to their spot in the batting order. That's why, for the Yankees, Babe Ruth was No. 3 and Lou Gehrig No. 4. It was an easy way to let people in the stands know who was who. The Indians and Yankees were the first to do it and by 1937 every MLB team was doing it. 

The first retired number belonged to the Yankees' Lou Gehrig, a beloved figure and the “Iron Man” of baseball, who died of a disease that now bears his name. In 1939, on Lou Gehrig Day, after he gave his “luckiest man” speech, the Yankees retired his #4. Essentially they were saying, “No one is fit to wear this uniform again.” Five years later, in 1944, the New York Giants retired Carl Hubbel's #11. Four years after that, on the 25th anniversary of Yankee Stadium, and as he was dying of cancer, the Yankees finally got around to retiring Ruth's #3.

Back then, numbers weren't quite as sacrosanct as they are now. Indeed, when the Yankees released Ruth in February 1935, they immediately gave #3 to the new right fielder George Selkirk, who wore it for seven years until he entered military service during WWII. Bud Metheny then wore it from 1943 to 1946, but he only lasted three games into the ‘46 seasons, so the number went to Eddie Bockman (who lasted four games), Roy Weatherly (two), and finally Frank Colman, a midseason pickup from the Pirates (five games). 

By now the number should’ve been a jinx. Allie Clark took it on in ‘47 and played 24 games, then was traded to Cleveland in the off-season. That’s how, in ‘48, it wound up on the back of Cliff Mapes, a rookie outfielder. Except the Yankees threw itself that party for the silver anniversary of its stadium, as well as its first championship (they’d won 11 by then), and that was when they planned to finally retire Ruth's number. BTW: Here's how big of a deal that wasn‘t. This is the report in the May 25, 1948 New York Times, and it’s buried on pg. 34, lost amid the box scores:

It got a bigger spread the day of (“Famous ‘No. 3’ to be Retired for All Time”) but we didn't get any highlights the next day. Nothing on Ruth's weakened state and cancer-ridden voice. Two months later, Ruth died. 

But back to Mapes. To replace his No. 3, he—as A-Rod would do in the 21st century—just added a “1” and went with 13. The following year, maybe figuring that 13 was unlucky, he chose No. 7. Which he kept through the ‘51 season, by which time he was in a limited role, coming to the plate as a left-handed specialist. Then a few things happened. In early July, rookie Mickey Mantle, of whom such great things were expected that he had been given No. 6—signaling that the Yankees expected him to be next in line after Ruth (3), Gehrig (4), and DiMaggio (5)—was sent to the minors for seasoning.  By the time Mantle returned in August, Mapes had been traded to St. Louis, and Mantle, figuring the No. 6 was a jinx, took Mapes’ No. 7. Which he wore until the Yankees retired it on Mickey Mantle Day: June 8, 1969. 

So that's why we talk about Mapes when we talk about retired numbers: When he died in 1996, the fact that he shared numbers with Ruth and Mantle was the primary focus of his two-paragraph New York Times obit. Almost nothing else was mentioned. 

But you know what the Times left off? Mapes wore the number of yet another Hall of Fame icon. In his last season in the Majors, with the Detroit Tigers, Mapes wore No. 5, which, throughout most of the ‘30s and ’40s had been the number for the original “Hammerin' Hank,” Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg. What was his number still doing un-retired in 1952? Well, the Tigers were late comers in the retiring-numbers biz. In fact, they were the 13th of the original 16 teams to retire a number—Al Kaline's No. 6 in 1980. By that point, the Yankees had retired nine numbers, the Dodgers six, and three expansion teams (Astros, Brewers, Mets) had gotten in the act. The Tigers didn't get around to retiring Greenberg's number (along with teammate Charlie Gehringer) until 1984—two years before his death at age 75.

So there you have it: the retired numbers of Ruth, Mantle and Greenberg, all on the back of Cliff Mapes.

Or is that it? As mentioned, Mapes' No. 13 was later worn by Alex Rodriguez, one of the greatest players of all time, if not exactly the most beloved. A lot will have to be forgiven before the Yanks ever retire it, but it could happen. Meanwhile, the fifth number Mapes wore, No. 46 for the St. Louis Browns, who later became the Baltimore Orioles, was worn by popular O's pitcher Mike Flanagan. 

I‘ve looked for others that might’ve shared the number of that many baseball immortals, but no one comes close to Mapes.

As the stomach turns.

Wall Street Journal sports editor Sam Walker has written a book about what makes a great team captain, and, anticipating it, or publicizing it, or simply tweaking the noses of Yankee fans everywhere, he has a piece on Deadspin about why Derek Jeter doesn't make the cut—and why it's not even close. It's called “Why Does Everyone Think Derek Jeter was a Great Captain?”

It's the greatest thing I've ever read.

OK, but nearly.

He brings up stuff I know all too well but not enough apparently do: How Jeter became captain in 2003, after the Yankees' great run, meaning the team won just one World Series under his stewardship—and that thanks mostly to Jeter's bete noir Alex Rodriguez; how Jeter never suggested moving away from shortstop when a better defensive SS came along (A-Rod again), not even in his dotage when he was, by any statistical measure, a massive defensive liability. Walker also brings up that awful farewell tour in 2014, when enemy teams bestowed gifts upon him, and enemy fans stood and applauded. The stomach turns at the thought. 

But this is the decisive blow:

There's another crucial piece of context to factor in, here too—money. It's true that Jeter's captaincy coincided with an aggressive new MLB luxury tax that forced the Yankees to surrender a chunk of their revenue to support the league's poorer teams, but the Yankees still had more than enough left over to maintain a sizeable spending advantage. In fact, according to payroll figures over those 12 seasons, the Yankees outspent the No. 2 MLB team by more than $1 billion.

All of that money, and Jeter's supposedly brilliant leadership, produced the same trophy haul as the Florida Marlins.

Read the whole piece. It's nice seeing this Macy's parade balloon popped.