It Is, But Hadn't Ought to Be

Today is August 17. The Major League Baseball regular season is three-quarters over. And the New York Yankees are 60-61.

They are below .500 at this point of the season for the 1st time since 1992, which is also when they last finished a season at below .500. That was 31 years ago. Almost a third of a century. 

To give you an idea of how long ago that was: George Bush was President. The father, not the son. Joe Biden had probably already given up on the idea of being President. Donald Trump was between his 1st and 2nd marriages, and the worst thing we thought he'd done was call for the death penalty for 5 innocent men.

How long ago was it? Red Barber, Charlie Gehringer and Roy Campanella were still alive. Of the current 30 Major League Baseball teams, 2 did not yet exist, 2 only existed on paper, 1 was in another city, and only 9 are playing in the same stadium today.

Commissioner Rob Manfred was a lawyer working for MLB. Brian Cashman was the Yankees' assistant farm system director. Aaron Boone had just started his senior year at the University of Southern California.

How long ago was it? The Internet was barely a rumor for most of us: We were calling it "the information superhighway." Mobile phones could not yet fit in your pocket. There had been 3 Star Wars movies, 6 Star Trek movies, and 3 Star Trek shows (and that's if you count The Animated Series). Superman still hadn't died and come back yet. Seinfeld was just becoming a hit. Friends hadn't debuted. Sinéad O'Connor was still considered a rising star. Kim Kardashian was 11 years old. Lady Gaga was 6. Margot Robbie was 2. Harry Styles hadn't been born yet. Nor had any members of BTS.

Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle were still alive. Phil Rizzuto was still broadcasting for the Yankees. Derek Jeter had just been drafted by the team. And Aaron Judge had just been born.

In 2023, the Yankees are 14 games out of 1st place. "Big deal," you say: "They were 14 games out of 1st place in 1978, and they won it." That was on July 20. This is August 17. They're even 6 1/2 games out of the last Playoff spot.

Every single relief pitcher is a crapshoot as to whether he's going to be any damn good that day. Every starting pitcher except Gerrit Cole is that, and also a crapshoot as to whether he's still going to be healthy next week. Same with the entire lineup. Having Judge be healthy again hasn't mattered.

The Yankees are scoring 4.25 runs per game, 10th out of 15 teams in the American League. They have 76 stolen bases, 10th. Their collective on-base percentage is .306, 11th. Slugging percentage, .400 even, 10th. They've grounded into 95 double plays, 3rd. Their fielding percentage is .985, 11th. They've made 66 errors, 5th.

They have 5 walkoff wins. They also have 8 walkoff losses. They are 10-18 in 1-run games, and 5-8 in extra innings.

These guys are not winners. They are not, as Boone likes to call them, "grinders." They certainly are not, as Boone once put it, "fucking savages in that box."

Remember the movie Major League? The list of Spring Training invitees? A member of the team's board of directors says, "I never heard of half of these guys." The implication being, "If they were good enough to make the major leagues, I would have heard of them." He adds, "And the ones I do know are way past their prime!" The general manager adds, "Most of these guys never had a prime." Sounds like a team that Brian Cashman would have assembled.

At the same point in the season that the Yankees are at now, the manager tells the GM, "60-61 is not a record to be proud of." The GM, "With this team, it's a miracle." The manager disagrees, saying the team should be better.

As it turned out, he was right. The Yankees? Of course, they should be better than 60-61. But half of these guys are past their prime, and the other half shouldn't be on the roster. It's Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, maybe 5 current Giancarlo Stantons, and 18 guys named Billy McKinney.

It has been 14 years since the New York Yankees have won an American League Pennant, much less a World Series. Since that time, they are 30-37 in postseason games, including 7-20 in the AL Championship Series.

Cashman has been the general manager through all of this. And since the Capitulation of 2016, designed to "rebuild the farm system" and achieve a championship team of "Baby Bombers," it's 21-23 in postseason games, 5-12 in the ALCS.

The consensus seems to be that, as long as the fans are coming out, and the Yankees are still making the Playoffs, then he's making money, and he's satisfied with the job that Cashman is doing. Cashman has replaced Joe Girardi with Aaron Boone, because Girardi got tired of being a yes-man. And he might replace Boone after this season with another yes-man. Well, as I've said before: Why fire the doll and keep the ventriloquist? I think we now know which one's the dummy: Hal.

The great poet John Greenleaf Whitter wrote, "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.'"

To which Bret Hart wrote, "More sad are these we daily see: 'It is, but hadn't ought to be.'"

And now, with the Yankees in this unenviable position, we have the eternal enemy, the Boston Red Sox, coming in.

As they say in Star Wars, I've got a bad feeling about this.