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…And into the stretch for home, it’s Ridiculous opening a 10-length lead!
Tuesday afternoon, with the Yankees down 2-0 in the ALCS, a WFAN update included a sound bite of Robinson Cano trying to explain it all.
“What can you do?” he said, “You just keep playing hard.”
Playing hard or hardly playing? If Cano thought he was playing hard, imagine if he took it easy!
The better question for Cano would have been: “Why do you even bother wearing spikes?”
And the better answer would have been, “I’m saving my energy for the World Series. Been saving it since April.”
Is he sure he is named after Jackie, and not the great actor, Edward G. Robinson? By Wednesday, if TBS paid attention to the baseball it pays billions to televise, it could present an eight-game “un-reel” of Cano doing the least he could when the moments called for more, anything better.
VOTE: WHICH YANKS SHOULD STAY OR GO?
On YES’s postgame show, it was mentioned Cano is being knocked on Twitter for his disinclination to run to first …
Wait a second. It took observations made on Twitter for experts on the Yankees to note what had been impossible to miss since April?
The long-range problem is that Ridiculous is not a gelding. There’s plenty more where he came from!
ESPN is so silly it hurts
Relief is not easily found. Leave it to ESPN’s “SportsCenter” to apply its typical foolishness to the Yankees’ loss of Derek Jeter, comparing it — statistically, no less — to the Ravens’ loss of Ray Lewis. It couldn’t let both injuries speak for themselves.
Nope, a network that rarely considered essential context, applied asinine context, as if we needed comparative statistical analysis — pure silliness — to understand that the loss of Jeter hurts the Yankees, and the loss of Lewis hurts the Ravens.
* Have another slice of nut loaf:
This week, Mike Francesa — apparently the last to realize that new Yankee Stadium, regardless of the game, is rich in empty seats, and a fellow who often reminds us that he is too rich to consider money as ticket-buying deterrent for the peons he daily lectures — tried to figure out the problem. And couldn’t.
Though obscene ticket-pricing — not to mention $45 just to park — didn’t make his “perhaps” list, Francesa, modestly omitted the only other conceivable reason: Why would anyone buy tickets to games after Fran-say-so authoritatively provides the results before they’re played?
And it’s not that he’s always wrong, it’s how he’s always wrong — rudely, intolerant of dissenting opinions, arrogantly, loudly, colossally wrong.
He mocked those who felt Raul Ibanez would be a more productive batter than Alex Rodriguez. How did he do on that one?
Then, before Game 3 of the ALCS, he was indignant that the Yankees would start Eduardo Nunez at short. At least he should have been consulted!
That night, Nunez made a sensational play to kill a threat, then hit a ninth-inning home run in the Yankees’ 2-1 loss.
Thanks for the truth, Darling
Ron Darling was just OK during the first two games of Yankees-Tigers. Unlike Cal Ripken, Darling had a calming influence on John Smoltz, steering him wide of forensic examinations of every pitch.
Yet, Darling had nothing to say about Delmon Young’s first appearance in Yankee Stadium since his arrest for a drunken attack on an innocent And, perhaps cognizant of claims of a perceived pro-Mets/anti-Yankees bias, he ignored Robinson Cano’s serial base-path lethargy.
But Wednesday, Darling stepped in to rescue logic from taking a further beating.
TBS roving “reporter” Craig Sager, whose gimmick isn’t solid reporting but wearing sharp outfits — sharp, as in Sharpie The Clown — presented an watered-down version of the Alex Rodriguez dugout flirt, broken in the Post.
Sager, as if above such tales, dismissively framed it as typical of New York tabloid concoctions. He said Rodriguez merely was observed “flirting with some fans,” then apologetically adding “I’m afraid we’re going to hear more about this.”
But it wasn’t a flirtation that was reported; it was a solicitation made from the dugout after being yanked, and with the Yanks down late. That’s when he focused on procuring the phone numbers of two women.
Without noting Rodriguez had lied before (see: PED usage), Sager added Rodriguez found the story “laughable” while general manager Brian Cashman issued a “no comment.”
Sager obviously didn’t think the story credible, or figured Rodriguez was participating in TBS’s “Social Dugout” promotion.
Back to the booth, where Ernie Johnson said Yankees manager Joe Girardi had a “no comment on the situation,” as well. But then Darling, perhaps nauseated by Sager’s spin, let it be known that he suspected the story to be legit:
“Brian Cashman, a no comment on the situation. Usually their comment would be as Alex’s was — ‘That’s laughable, and I don’t put any merit in it’. But ‘no comment’ spoke volumes to me.”
* Even aside from the comically unfathomable — the spelling of Willie Mays as “Mayes” — TBS’ graphics were absurd. Yesterday, one noted that CC Sabathia allowed a first-inning run for the “first time in the postseason since the 2011 ALDS vs. Tigers.” Wow, that was all the way back to … four starts ago!
* Hey, if you’re watching ABC tomorrow, the team wearing black against Nebraska is Northwestern — school colors purple and white, but only since 1892. Boise State, orange and blue, also, for the first time, will wear black — helmets included — against UNLV. Well, it’s Homecoming.