At the risk of offending the baseball gods, I flipped over to watch the ninth inning on YES. After Michael Kay sourly deconstructed the chants of “Let's Go Mets!” filling Yankee Stadium, he invited me to stick around to find out who the player of the game was and get some thoughts on the game [1] and the Yankees. How sweet of him, I thought. I think I will.
Wow. Gary Cohen piling on Robbie Alomar has nothing on how Singleton, Kaat, Kay, Murcer, Justice tore apart this Yankee club. Justice kept repeating that “you may see this all year,” Kay mused hopefully about the Yankees starting a fight, Kaat patiently pooh-poohed that, and then Joe Torre was asked a bunch of questions that were the baseball equivalent of flaming bags of dog shit on your doormat.
“Has Bernie become a defensive liability?” Ding-Dong! Stomp stomp stomp. Squelch squelch squelch.
“The other day you described yourself as angry. How do you feel today?” Ding-Dong! Stomp stomp stomp. Squelch squelch squelch.
“What do you have to say to Yankees fans?” Ding-Dong! Stomp stomp stomp. Squelch squelch squelch.
I'd feel sorry for them … if they weren't Yankees and therefore didn't deserve it through and through. (Hee hee hee!) They may well beat us tomorrow night: It's hard to sweep any series, Randy Johnson (hurt back and all) knows he's got to stop the team's slide, I never bet against Derek Fricking Jeter, and that team ain't this bad. On the other hand, they just said on FAN that Tony Womack may play center tomorrow. Yikes. If they're gonna beat us, Randy Johnson better be prepared to strike out a dozen: The Yankees' outfield is just rub-your-eyes horrible. Their best outfielder is Gary Sheffield, nicknamed “Magellan” for his roundabout routes to balls. With the Matsui Who Can Hit hobbled, none of their options in left are better than bad (Womack? Ruben Sierra?), and Bernie Williams is just ghastly in center. He's Juan Samuel Bad. Keith Miller Bad. Todd Hundley in Left Bad. (OK, that last one was fun to type, but not even remotely true.) How many misplays has Bernie had in two games? They better do something about center, or they're done. (How about a typical Yankee trade like, say, Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang for Mike Cameron?)
BTW, the YESmen's player of the game was Tom Glavine. Wha? Did the Kay Korps see the quarter-mile worth of bombs Cliff Floyd hit today? Did they see Glavine's inability to step up with two outs? (Hey, come to think of it, Tom Glavine could really shore up that rotation. Or maybe play center.) Did they see David Wright go 2 for 4 and play another nifty game in the field? There are some games even Tom Glavine can't screw up.
Beyond that, there's not an enormous amount to say when you wallop a team 10-3. We're good. Hope we stay good tomorrow. Showdown of .500 teams. One of us is going to be underwater when it's over. I hope it ain't us.
Closing thought: When did we change ad agencies? The “Vote for Jose” ad, which says “other shortstops don't like children and animals, but Jose is a friend to everybody”? That's funny. The ads with a bored Mister Met preparing to trash the old Tug-era bullpen card jumping it off a ramp, or carving bats into little animals? Funny! Meanwhile, the last YES ad I saw was a promo for the Graig Nettles Yankeeography. To quote a great book [1], “Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage.”