New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone waits for the team’s baseball game against the Atlanta Braves to begin, Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
The franchise of Ruth and Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle, Jeter and Rivera is a pinstriped mess.
The only recognizable thing about this storied club is the “New York” stitched across its uniforms.
These are the Damned Yankees.
“We’re not showing up,” Aaron Judge conceded. “No one’s happy about it.”
Speak for yourself, Mr. Judge.
Much of the baseball world is gloating about the misfortune of America’s most famous sports team, the one that always receives out-of-proportion media coverage and excessive slots in the national television lineup, the one that has hoarded 27 World Series titles — more than twice as many as any other team.
But, here’s the thing: It’s much more fun to pile on the haughty Yankees when they’re piling up pennants.
This group is hardly worthy of the jealous vitriol.
New York sits last in the AL East, 17 games in arrears to the up-and-coming Baltimore Orioles. While there is still irrational banter about making a playoff run, it seems downright laughable at this point. A more feasible target is avoiding the team’s first losing season since 1992.
How rare is it to find the Yankees under .500 as the calendar speeds toward September?
You must go all the way back to 1995 — Sept. 5, to be exact — to find the last time the Yankees were saddled with a losing mark (60-61) at least 120 games into the season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Their amazing run of 30 straight winning seasons, the third-longest in the history of the four major U.S. sports leagues, is in serious jeopardy.
Only the Ruthian-inspired Yankees, who ripped off 39 consecutive winning seasons from 1926-64, and the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens, with a string of 32 in a row from 1952-83, have longer streaks than this New York team.
Yet here we are, New York hobbling along…
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