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The Yankees Lose the Pennant--Again, Again
of TheColumnists.com
One of the rascally Tommy LaSorda commercials (I like them) urging fans to watch post-season baseball had the raucous LaSorda shouting, “The playoffs is the time to root against the Yankees.”
Well, baseball fans, to adopt the bleat of a man who may no longer rate as the worst President of all time, “We won’t have the Yankees to kick around anymore,”-- or at least during the run-up to this World Series.
These are the figures that will resound
through the long, cold New York winter leading up to the 2007
season:
a) $200 million; b) not since 2000; c) $25.2 million; d) 1 for
14; .071 batting average; e) 4 for 41.
They underscore the Yankees' failure in the 2006 playoffs:
a) the Yankees $200 million payroll, largest by far of any team;
b) it’s been six years since the Yankees won a World Series;
c) $25.2 million is the salary per year for 10 years for Alex
Rodriguez, the highest paid player in baseball, the biggest bust
of all the guys who wear the vaunted pin-striped uniform; d)
Rodriguez’ batting average as the Yankees were eliminated
by the Detroit Tigers; e) His hitting figures for the 12 playoff
games he has played as a Yankee.
The hue and cry this winter for the Yankees to get rid of Rodriguez might actually surpass the fustian and whim wham that has polluted the media the past year about pro football nudnick Terrell Owens.
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The Tigers are the feel-good story of the playoffs. I like the description of them as the “rust-belt Cinderellas.” Detroit has had hard times for such a long time, and its baseball team has been one of the symbols of its depressed state. It hasn’t been in the playoffs since 1987 and hasn’t won a World Series since 1984. This has always been a good baseball town and in all the dreary days of almost two decades, there hasn’t been any talk of moving the franchise. They deserve a run to the World Series.
A Tigers World Series victory might almost guarantee that the Chicago Cubs, the hapless Chicago Cubs, would achieve glory next year. The reasoning is that two of the other long-sufferers, the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox, finally won World Series the past two years. As everybody knows, the Cubs, who haven’t won a World Series since 1908, have had the longest Series victory draught of any major league team. Go Cubbies, indeed.
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Some Yankee fans showed early-on this season that they didn’t deserve any joy because they booed reliever Mariano Rivera when he had some bad outings in the first few weeks. Rivera is the greatest post-season closer in baseball history. He has been the man most responsible for much of the Yankee dominance the past decade, yet these yahoos wouldn’t give him any slack for those rare failures.
A sudden thought: I don’t declare that all Yankee fans are bad people, but I do know that almost everybody I meet who is anti-Yankee is a good person.
Another thought: will Illinois-native Hillary Clinton, who embarrassed herself when she first ran for the U.S. Senate in New York by claiming to be a Yankee fan now disassociate herself from them? Note to Hillary: Please don’t start adopting the Mets.
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I have no love for the fans who, some 30 years ago, started the mindless practice of getting up and clapping for a strikeout when their pitcher has two strikes on a batter. I am old and lazy, I guess, because I prefer to stay in my seat watching a game. But I do enjoy watching or participating in a wave when the action of a game is dragging.
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Baseball incidents invariably prod memories. The hilarious play in the first New York Mets-Los Angeles Dodgers game when two Dodgers--Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew-- were tagged out in succession at home plate by Paul Lo Duca reminded many of the time two Yankees, Dale Bera and Bobby Meachan, were tagged out on a similar play in 1985. Roger Angell, the New Yorker sage, recalled a time in 1933 when Bill Dickey and Dixie Walker were caught the same way at home. And I recalled a 1939 World Series incident. The Yankees’ Charley Keller, scoring on a single by Joe DiMaggio, barreled into and knocked down Cincinnati Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi, and then, as Lombardi sprawled on the ground, DiMaggio ran by him to score as well.
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Mets fans have come up with a good thing, adapting the singing chants of soccer fans. They sing, “Jose, Jose, Jose, Jose-Jose” when Jose Reyes is performing some heroics. It lights up Shea Stadium. The ESPN announcers show themselves up to be dolts because they don’t explain to the uninitiated what the lovely sound is all about.
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It seems every TV announcer but Tim McCarver--and particularly Joe Morgan--harps on batters hitting pitchers’ “mistakes” for a home run or crucial hit. Actually, pitchers make many so-called mistakes that are not hit safely. I have stood behind batting cages and watched batting practice when batters are served up grooved fast balls and they don’t bang out home runs or safe hits the majority of the time.
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Credit to the Mets, Cardinals, Tigers, A’s, Padres and Twins for the Bill Veeck-inspired, fan-friendly act of putting the names of the players on their backs. Onions to the Dodgers and Yankees for not employing names on the backs, a disservice to the legions of fans who don’t know all the players cavorting on the TV screen.
©2006 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The Alex Rodriguez drawing is an artist's conception of a news photo. This column first posted Oct. 9, 2006.
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