You’ve probably heard that Anthony Rizzo hasn’t been able to hit the baseball much farther than he can piss lately. Mostly because whatever the New York Yankees’ problems are becomes everyone else’s problem, given that most baseball media still think we give a shit what goes on in the Boogie Down. Why do I even know it’s called the Boogie Down? Because I’ve been inundated with Yankees shit since I was 12.
Anyway, no we know why Rizzo was taking a pool noodle to the plate with him. In fact, he might have honestly done that:
Rizzo finally went on the IL yesterday when he bothered to tell someone he couldn’t see clearly for weeks. Of course, there was Jon Heyman to lionize him for behavior that first off put himself in danger, and very much secondly didn’t help the Yankees at all:
This sounded and felt like the day after the Stanley Cup Final when everyone’s injuries become public and you find out that half of one team’s blue line was playing with four functioning limbs combined and the second-line left winger’s heart fell into his ankle. And you can’t help but think back to all those shifts where those players couldn’t, and didn’t, do anything. Somehow this is considered noble behavior, even if they provide nothing.
What Rizzo should be asking himself is what would have happened if a bad bounce at first caused him to take a ball to the face. Or one wayward fastball? Or a runner stumbling at first and knocking him to the ground. He’d be in real trouble now.
And he certainly wasn’t doing anything for the Yankees. What were they looking out for? Didn’t they notice the way his production just fell off a cliff? Apparently, Aaron Boone didn’t:
There’s a manager who’s really looking out for his players.
This is a light shard of the macho culture that takes sports to much worse places. Rizzo didn’t want to tell anyone he was hurt because what, he thought his teammates would think he was weak? The Yankees didn’t look out for him because he wanted to be in the lineup every day and that was their biggest concern. And no one got anything out of it.
Tight ship like this, no wonder the Yankees season has been such an inspiration.
NFL announcers are back on their bullshit when it comes to Deshaun Watson
As a rule you should avoid preseason football, not only because it’s a trash product, but because the on-field action is generally pointless and uninteresting to most it leaves broadcasters even more time for funky-smelling green shit to spill out of their maws. Sounds like last night’s Hall of Fame game was a prime example:
With the networks in bed with the NFL, there’s obviously no way that any of the broadcasters could say, “Watson missed nearly two seasons because he’s been accused of two dozen acts of sexual assault.” (Watson has denied the allegations.) We have to put that on him after the fact. It would be better if these broadcasters just didn’t mention it at all instead of diminishing all the women who have accused Watson of violating them as just “stuff that happened.” There’s no good way to go about this if the actual truth can’t be stated, but this ain’t it.
Follow Sam on Twitter @Felsgate and on Bluesky @felsgate.bsky.social
