Joe, I love your blog, and as I lifelong Yankees fan I can say you're spot on with this one! You know the saying, though, which applies to good times as well as bad: "This, too, shall pass!" I have to correct you about the whole "Highlanders" vs "Yankees" thing. Before teams adopted official names, they just had nicknames that were used by fans and sportswriters alike. There was no point at which the AL New York team was designated "officially" as the Highlanders, nor Hilltoppers. The "Yankees" nickname is found in newspaper headlines and stories as early as 1904 and was contemporaneous with "Highlanders" and several others. So no need to say they weren't the Yankees yet in 1912. They absolutely were!
And then the topper, to turn on Judge in the post-season after the regular season he had. I hope this pushes him to leave his heart permanently in San Francisco. That would be the best outcome of all.
There is no way that playing for Boone can be any fun. His constant outward fury toward all slights and elements must make for some pretty brutal plane rides and post-game lockers.
The worst thing that can happen to a franchise and fan base is to devalue every non-championship season as a failure. Of course it’s the goal but falling short of a goal, while in the process achieving a lot of success, can’t be the reason to throw the rest out.
They're starting to feel like the Facebook of baseball - a lot of desperate flailing around the last few years, attempting to copy what is hot elsewhere, without understanding it or having any genuine insights of their own. I remember thinking the day of the Joey Gallo acquisition..."okay, you've got an off kilter lineup full of swing and miss guys who only maybe occasionally run into one and bash it out of the park...your solution to that is...adding Joey Gallo? Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this the LAST player in all of baseball that you would need?" Or how they basically paid the Twins to sign Correa (eating up $50 million of Donaldson's contract) instead of signing him themselves. It just feels like a bunch of aimless thrasing around.
But the fans are doing themselves no favors. They want you to feel sorry for them when an Astro hits a cheap shot over the right field wall...but then tell you to get over it and stop being a crybaby when Judge or Stanton pad their totals with such. Or this hot start that Joe mentions here - I was telling my Yankee loving friends, "okay, but 4 out of your 5 starting pitchers have NEVER pitched at this high of a level before. Do you seriously think they are ALL going to keep this up the entire season?" Or out of nowhere relievers (Holmes, etc) looking unhittable for a couple months. To that of course they are pretty much screaming that they have 27 rings, and how many does your team have, and so therefore shut up because you don't know what you're talking about. Or everyone on down to Brian freaking Cashman whining still as of this year that the Astros "stole" a ring from them...even though it's a proven fact that the Yankees were also stealing signs during that same era.
They refer to themselves as the "best fans in baseball" based mostly upon the fact that...they have the amazingly difficult task of backing a frontrunner every year, and boo their own players after a bad game or two. During the ALDS, they even booed the bat boy for bringing an oven mitt out to a baserunner. Presumably because he was holding up the game?
This doesn't make you the best fans in the game. It makes you the worst. Here's a simple mental exercise to demonstrate what I mean: when you boo your own players, does this make the Astros or Red Sox (or Guardians, etc) happy, Y/N? Okay, that alone is reason enough not to do it.
More than anything else, though, I think their collapse demonstrates some flaws with even this deep of a playoff field: you can get as far as the LCS with nothing more than a hot start and just barely squeaking by Cleveland. That doesn't exactly make you a juggernaut. Based on their early exit and what happened in the NL, I wouldn't be surprised to see the 5 game series tweaked to 3 at home for the top seed followed by 2 on the road for the bottom seed.
I think what has happened is that the advantage of not having to deal with revenue sharing is turning against them. With escalating salaries, the declining value of their RSN, and no salary cap, even the Yankees have to manage against a budget if they want to act like a viable business. Their fans don't get this and demand they go after every free agent. Case in point, fans are bashing the team for not signing Bryce Harper three years ago. Now, they have to compete against the Mets and their Bobby Axelrod-inspired owner with the resources of a Saudi sheik. They haven't been able to win since 2009 because it isn't 2009 anymore.
Teams like the Astros and Braves focus on player development, make shrewd moves, and have the freedom to go against their own fans and make unpopular decisions that likely are in the best interest of the team. Teams like the Blue Jays, Phillies, and Padres are making the big signings that the Yankees used to make. The Dodgers are still the Dodgers, but have adapted to what these other teams are doing better than the Yankees have. Why would a free agent like Judge want to sign with the Yankees when they can go somewhere else and get paid, win, and not have to worry about the fans turning on you when you have one bad week after a historic season?
Yankees fans booing Judge was like the ultimate sin. Sorry to go Philly-centric on you again, but can this please mark the end of my city's reputation as cruelest fanbase to its own stars/Santa Claus?
I wonder when the Yankees will remember what made them great in the late 90s. Solid professionals throughout the lineup, a great starting pitching staff, the best closer in history (admittedly hard to find) and other excellent relievers. I think that is still the formula. I put this in another comment, but if I were the Yankees I would buy the best pitching staff I could, expense be damned.
George Steinbrenner didn’t give a darn what the other owners thought, so he spent freely. Now, I think the Yankee ownership are more “team players” with the other owners, so they don’t buy as many players. Or, they have done some kind of cost benefit analysis and realized that when they paid all that free agent money, they were usually paying for past production.
If I were a Yankees fan I would be pissed. But it helps teams like the Rays compete, so fine with me.
I dunno if it was 60 years ago. The late 90's Yankees had a run as good as any that happened 60 years ago. They went to 5 World Series in 6 years (96-01) winning 3 straight at one point with a record setting win total in one of those years. It felt inevitable that the Yankees were going to win the Series every year during that run and if not for a most improbably blown Rivera save they would have won 4 straight.
I understand the ridiculous privilege of being a Yankees fan: the 30-year stretch of winning records, being constantly in the hunt to win it all (which doesn't make the annual playoff losses any less disappointing...)
But I just want to mention that the Yankees haven't been the all-caps YANKEES in SIXTY YEARS. It's been that long (if ever) that they have had a stretch like what the Dodgers are currently having (of course, the playoffs have robbed Dodger fans of full enjoyment of their stretch, but that's a different topic)
But the Yankees have been just another (very good) team for a long, long time. The Yankees history of dominance that everyone hates them for is different from the actual lived experience of most Yankees fans today
Speaking as a long-time Red Sox fan (since 1975, age 8), the events of 2004 and the subsequent three additional World Series championships (including seeing game 6 of 2013 in person) have rendered the Yankees as almost an afterthought on my sports psyche. I always enjoy watching them lose, but they've been relegated to a benign place where they just aren't successful enough to generate inside me the energy for full-on Yankee hating. They've won one World Series in the 21st century (as pedantics all know, 2000 was actually the last year of the 20th century). Steinbrenner is long dead. The ghosts have been exorcised. They're like Henry Hill at the end of Goodfellas: no longer badass gangsters, just a bunch of shnooks eating egg noodles and ketchup. Long may they shnook.
"(as pedantics all know, 2000 was actually the last year of the 20th century). " Which is why pedants shouldn't be in charge of deciding when centuries and millenniums begin and end. Let me suggest an easy solution to them. The first century after Christ was only 99 years long, instead of 100. Guess what, that changes absolutely nothing at all about our understanding of that century AND it allows us to put all years that begin with 19 in the 20th century and all years that begin with 20 in the 21st century.
As someone whose Yankee hatred does not involve them celebrating against a team I’ve rooted for, I may not be the most qualified to speak to this, but I will anyway. I can’t stand the Yankees because to me they are the epitome of being born on third base and acting like they hit a triple. Blame the system or MLB owners as a group for the cause, but the level of arrogance spewing from a team that has such a huge advantage to start is too much for me.
With that in mind, I am looking for maximum humiliation. A hundred loss season - why just one? Why not 0-162 indefinitely? Hopefully accompanied by the most bloated payroll in the majors. At least until the decades of arrogance are balanced out.
Understanding we live in the real world, I do think a slightly better ALCS scenario would’ve been Judge hitting .400 with 5 solo homers in the series, still being swept. Jack up his price even more.
I'm not sure I understand what "huge advantage to start" the Yankees have, other than history/pedigree/27 World Series titles. Do you mean money? The Mets and Dodgers obviously have deeper pockets and bigger payrolls, yet they flamed out even earlier than did the Yankees this postseason. There's nothing that prevents any owner (all of them quite wealthy) from spending as much as the Yankees are (in)famous for spending. To further your analogy, are the Mets leading well off third, with the Dodgers trying to lap them?
Yes, I mean the money. I understand what you’re saying about the Dodgers and Mets (and you can throw the Red Sox and others in there if you want) living in the same world financially. And I’m sure there are lots of cheap owners who could spend and choose not to - I don’t defend them. I’m talking strictly from a fan’s perspective, as someone who has no control over who owns the team or how much money they put into it, that it’s not a level playing field in terms of spending.
A lot of why the Yankees and not others is the legacy of the George Steinbrenner era, when they were pretty much the only ones doing that - at least consistently. When they have the kind of revenue they do and can outspend so many other teams - and their own stupid deals that would hamstring lower revenue teams - they should win. Acting like they’re special when they do - whether that’s from the media, players, front office, owner - as if this is all just proof about how much better/smarter they are at building a team is ridiculous. And for me that became the Yankee brand, whether they’re still the only ones playing that game or not.
I don't have just one favorite MLB team. I have 29. So I enjoyed this article very much.
I'm not exactly a hater, that's maybe too extreme, but...
That may have been the best baseball story of the year for me. It's so enjoyable to read about Yankee misery, especially being a Royals fan.
Joe, I love your blog, and as I lifelong Yankees fan I can say you're spot on with this one! You know the saying, though, which applies to good times as well as bad: "This, too, shall pass!" I have to correct you about the whole "Highlanders" vs "Yankees" thing. Before teams adopted official names, they just had nicknames that were used by fans and sportswriters alike. There was no point at which the AL New York team was designated "officially" as the Highlanders, nor Hilltoppers. The "Yankees" nickname is found in newspaper headlines and stories as early as 1904 and was contemporaneous with "Highlanders" and several others. So no need to say they weren't the Yankees yet in 1912. They absolutely were!
Last time the Yankees have lost 10 in a row was…1913. Mike Trout has been on two Angles teams that have lost 10 a row.
And then the topper, to turn on Judge in the post-season after the regular season he had. I hope this pushes him to leave his heart permanently in San Francisco. That would be the best outcome of all.
There is no way that playing for Boone can be any fun. His constant outward fury toward all slights and elements must make for some pretty brutal plane rides and post-game lockers.
The worst thing that can happen to a franchise and fan base is to devalue every non-championship season as a failure. Of course it’s the goal but falling short of a goal, while in the process achieving a lot of success, can’t be the reason to throw the rest out.
They're starting to feel like the Facebook of baseball - a lot of desperate flailing around the last few years, attempting to copy what is hot elsewhere, without understanding it or having any genuine insights of their own. I remember thinking the day of the Joey Gallo acquisition..."okay, you've got an off kilter lineup full of swing and miss guys who only maybe occasionally run into one and bash it out of the park...your solution to that is...adding Joey Gallo? Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this the LAST player in all of baseball that you would need?" Or how they basically paid the Twins to sign Correa (eating up $50 million of Donaldson's contract) instead of signing him themselves. It just feels like a bunch of aimless thrasing around.
But the fans are doing themselves no favors. They want you to feel sorry for them when an Astro hits a cheap shot over the right field wall...but then tell you to get over it and stop being a crybaby when Judge or Stanton pad their totals with such. Or this hot start that Joe mentions here - I was telling my Yankee loving friends, "okay, but 4 out of your 5 starting pitchers have NEVER pitched at this high of a level before. Do you seriously think they are ALL going to keep this up the entire season?" Or out of nowhere relievers (Holmes, etc) looking unhittable for a couple months. To that of course they are pretty much screaming that they have 27 rings, and how many does your team have, and so therefore shut up because you don't know what you're talking about. Or everyone on down to Brian freaking Cashman whining still as of this year that the Astros "stole" a ring from them...even though it's a proven fact that the Yankees were also stealing signs during that same era.
They refer to themselves as the "best fans in baseball" based mostly upon the fact that...they have the amazingly difficult task of backing a frontrunner every year, and boo their own players after a bad game or two. During the ALDS, they even booed the bat boy for bringing an oven mitt out to a baserunner. Presumably because he was holding up the game?
This doesn't make you the best fans in the game. It makes you the worst. Here's a simple mental exercise to demonstrate what I mean: when you boo your own players, does this make the Astros or Red Sox (or Guardians, etc) happy, Y/N? Okay, that alone is reason enough not to do it.
More than anything else, though, I think their collapse demonstrates some flaws with even this deep of a playoff field: you can get as far as the LCS with nothing more than a hot start and just barely squeaking by Cleveland. That doesn't exactly make you a juggernaut. Based on their early exit and what happened in the NL, I wouldn't be surprised to see the 5 game series tweaked to 3 at home for the top seed followed by 2 on the road for the bottom seed.
This article fills me with joy. Such a guilty pleasure to despise teams like the Dodgers and Yankees.
I think what has happened is that the advantage of not having to deal with revenue sharing is turning against them. With escalating salaries, the declining value of their RSN, and no salary cap, even the Yankees have to manage against a budget if they want to act like a viable business. Their fans don't get this and demand they go after every free agent. Case in point, fans are bashing the team for not signing Bryce Harper three years ago. Now, they have to compete against the Mets and their Bobby Axelrod-inspired owner with the resources of a Saudi sheik. They haven't been able to win since 2009 because it isn't 2009 anymore.
Teams like the Astros and Braves focus on player development, make shrewd moves, and have the freedom to go against their own fans and make unpopular decisions that likely are in the best interest of the team. Teams like the Blue Jays, Phillies, and Padres are making the big signings that the Yankees used to make. The Dodgers are still the Dodgers, but have adapted to what these other teams are doing better than the Yankees have. Why would a free agent like Judge want to sign with the Yankees when they can go somewhere else and get paid, win, and not have to worry about the fans turning on you when you have one bad week after a historic season?
Yes, it's a good time to be a Yankee hater.
Yankees fans booing Judge was like the ultimate sin. Sorry to go Philly-centric on you again, but can this please mark the end of my city's reputation as cruelest fanbase to its own stars/Santa Claus?
Never!
No.
I wonder when the Yankees will remember what made them great in the late 90s. Solid professionals throughout the lineup, a great starting pitching staff, the best closer in history (admittedly hard to find) and other excellent relievers. I think that is still the formula. I put this in another comment, but if I were the Yankees I would buy the best pitching staff I could, expense be damned.
George Steinbrenner didn’t give a darn what the other owners thought, so he spent freely. Now, I think the Yankee ownership are more “team players” with the other owners, so they don’t buy as many players. Or, they have done some kind of cost benefit analysis and realized that when they paid all that free agent money, they were usually paying for past production.
If I were a Yankees fan I would be pissed. But it helps teams like the Rays compete, so fine with me.
I dunno if it was 60 years ago. The late 90's Yankees had a run as good as any that happened 60 years ago. They went to 5 World Series in 6 years (96-01) winning 3 straight at one point with a record setting win total in one of those years. It felt inevitable that the Yankees were going to win the Series every year during that run and if not for a most improbably blown Rivera save they would have won 4 straight.
In what universe is having Anthony rizzo opt out of the 16m he’s owed a problem rather than a solution?
I understand the ridiculous privilege of being a Yankees fan: the 30-year stretch of winning records, being constantly in the hunt to win it all (which doesn't make the annual playoff losses any less disappointing...)
But I just want to mention that the Yankees haven't been the all-caps YANKEES in SIXTY YEARS. It's been that long (if ever) that they have had a stretch like what the Dodgers are currently having (of course, the playoffs have robbed Dodger fans of full enjoyment of their stretch, but that's a different topic)
But the Yankees have been just another (very good) team for a long, long time. The Yankees history of dominance that everyone hates them for is different from the actual lived experience of most Yankees fans today
Speaking as a long-time Red Sox fan (since 1975, age 8), the events of 2004 and the subsequent three additional World Series championships (including seeing game 6 of 2013 in person) have rendered the Yankees as almost an afterthought on my sports psyche. I always enjoy watching them lose, but they've been relegated to a benign place where they just aren't successful enough to generate inside me the energy for full-on Yankee hating. They've won one World Series in the 21st century (as pedantics all know, 2000 was actually the last year of the 20th century). Steinbrenner is long dead. The ghosts have been exorcised. They're like Henry Hill at the end of Goodfellas: no longer badass gangsters, just a bunch of shnooks eating egg noodles and ketchup. Long may they shnook.
"(as pedantics all know, 2000 was actually the last year of the 20th century). " Which is why pedants shouldn't be in charge of deciding when centuries and millenniums begin and end. Let me suggest an easy solution to them. The first century after Christ was only 99 years long, instead of 100. Guess what, that changes absolutely nothing at all about our understanding of that century AND it allows us to put all years that begin with 19 in the 20th century and all years that begin with 20 in the 21st century.
The plural noun you’re looking for is pedants.
well. that was well put. cashman has won one championship when he was the decision maker. he always constructs awkward rosters.
I did a spit take on "Long may they shnook." Made my day!
As someone whose Yankee hatred does not involve them celebrating against a team I’ve rooted for, I may not be the most qualified to speak to this, but I will anyway. I can’t stand the Yankees because to me they are the epitome of being born on third base and acting like they hit a triple. Blame the system or MLB owners as a group for the cause, but the level of arrogance spewing from a team that has such a huge advantage to start is too much for me.
With that in mind, I am looking for maximum humiliation. A hundred loss season - why just one? Why not 0-162 indefinitely? Hopefully accompanied by the most bloated payroll in the majors. At least until the decades of arrogance are balanced out.
Understanding we live in the real world, I do think a slightly better ALCS scenario would’ve been Judge hitting .400 with 5 solo homers in the series, still being swept. Jack up his price even more.
I'm not sure I understand what "huge advantage to start" the Yankees have, other than history/pedigree/27 World Series titles. Do you mean money? The Mets and Dodgers obviously have deeper pockets and bigger payrolls, yet they flamed out even earlier than did the Yankees this postseason. There's nothing that prevents any owner (all of them quite wealthy) from spending as much as the Yankees are (in)famous for spending. To further your analogy, are the Mets leading well off third, with the Dodgers trying to lap them?
Yes, I mean the money. I understand what you’re saying about the Dodgers and Mets (and you can throw the Red Sox and others in there if you want) living in the same world financially. And I’m sure there are lots of cheap owners who could spend and choose not to - I don’t defend them. I’m talking strictly from a fan’s perspective, as someone who has no control over who owns the team or how much money they put into it, that it’s not a level playing field in terms of spending.
A lot of why the Yankees and not others is the legacy of the George Steinbrenner era, when they were pretty much the only ones doing that - at least consistently. When they have the kind of revenue they do and can outspend so many other teams - and their own stupid deals that would hamstring lower revenue teams - they should win. Acting like they’re special when they do - whether that’s from the media, players, front office, owner - as if this is all just proof about how much better/smarter they are at building a team is ridiculous. And for me that became the Yankee brand, whether they’re still the only ones playing that game or not.
I’m with you Joe, but I think the Red Sox coming back from 3 down to eliminate the Yankees was the best ever !
This cheered me up ... just wish it was not the Astros that beat them