Baby Yaz

This is the image leading MLB.com right now — it’s one of Mike Yastrzemski homering against the Brewers. The game is live as I write these words and Milwaukee leads 5-4. Rhys Hoskins has two hits for the Phillies. I have no idea why they keep insisting on putting Rhys Hoskins in the Brewers’ boxscore.

Anyway, that’s a beautiful photo … and I just cannot get over seeing Yastrzemski stretched across the back of a current player’s jersey. Yes, I know, I know, Mike’s no kid — he’s 34 now, and this is his seventh year, and there has been plenty of time to get used to seeing that name again.

But I have never gotten used to it.

It delights me every single time to remember that Carl Yastrzemski’s GRANDSON is playing major league baseball — and that he’s a left-handed swinging outfielder — and their swings are, if not identical twins, certainly identical cousins like in The Patty Duke Show.

I spend a lot of time thinking about ways to make baseball better.

But there are some things about baseball that simply can’t be better.

Joe’s Notebook is filled with web-only riffs. They will pop up whenever.