The Wall Street Journal, not a surprise even as it desperately attempts to skew its demographic younger, is thin on sports, and as I’ve noted before my preference is Jason Gay—well-rounded and funny—over baseball columnist Jared Diamond, but the latter wrote a dandy on July 23rd. Nothing to do with the August 3rd MLB trade deadline, but a mini-profile of Jose Caballero, a decent utility player for the New York Yankees. As anyone who watches the Yanks—pro or con, and I’m in the latter category—play, Caballero drives pitchers, umpires, fans and opposing managers nuts with his obstreperous tinkering with pitch clock rules to upset the pitcher.
Caballero, as Diamond writes, “will keep his head down until the last possible moment, forcing his opponent to stand out and wait in the hopes of disrupting the pitcher’s timing. If he happens to cause a violation and the pitcher throws a hissy fit in the process, even better… ‘The whole league should know who I am, what I do in the box, and they should be aware of it,’ Caballero said.”
I can’t stand the Yankees, but do like the game’s characters, and he’s one of them. The Yanks also field Jazz Chisholm—right now, the best name in baseball—and he’s a delightfully narcissistic dude, popping off on social media as if he’s the next Rickey Henderson (the most exhilarating player in the 1980s and 90s), and though he doesn’t sniff the late Rickey’s cleats in raw talent, he’s a good player. At least when he pays attention to the game: aside from hitting homers when least expected (to me) and stealing bases, Jazz can be lackadaisical at second base and is a terrible baserunner. But I’d take the quirks in a minute in the impossible scenario where he’s traded to the Red Sox.
Since the addition of wild cards in MLB’s playoffs, and the near-absence of reputable sportswriters at threadbare media outlets, those left (like the insufferable Ken Rosenthal, Bob Nightengale and Buster Olney) are in a frenzy days before the trade deadline, acting like it’s, as Dan Rather used to say, a tight-as-a-tick national election. Rumors of what player is leaving for this team or that abound every day, and though 95 percent of them won’t bear fruit, there’s no culpability. Rosenthal or Olney will have amnesia, and analyze the results of Deadline Day as if they had it all figured out before anyone else. I’m tired of reading what team will nab the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal, if Detroit decides to trade the upcoming free agent. Ditto for the Padres’ closer Mason Miller, the Rockies’ catcher Hunter Goodman and the hapless Angels’ Zach Neto.
In fact, because it’s a seller’s market, I’m assuming not much happens on August 3rd and the two days preceding it; it’s all anticipation (which I fall for, too) and almost no payoff. Especially if you’re a Red Sox fan, since that maybe/maybe not wild card team, usually strikes out. The very unpopular Sox GM Craig Breslow did surprise everyone by trading the young and promising left-hander Connelley Early (currently on the IL) to the Nats for infielder Curtis Mead. My son Booker thinks the Sox got fleeced—Mead, 25, has only broken out with power numbers this season, and left Monday’s game after getting plunked on the wrist—but I’ll wait and see. After Breslow petulantly traded superstar Rafael Devers last year—they didn’t get along—it’s hard to decipher the “Powered By Statcast” former MLB pitcher’s thinking.
Anyway, the chatter is mostly nonsenses. (Sportswriters will continue on this path until the deadline’s over, and in between predicting who’ll win the playoffs, will natter on endlessly, with no facts, about the possibility of a 2027 lockout.) The New York Times, as older fans know, once had the best sports section in the country. No more: its paywalled “Athletic” is piss-poor. An example from July 27th, from Jim Bowden and Chris Kirschner about the Yankees deadline plans: “The New York Yankees, unquestionably, will be buyers at this year’s trade deadline.”
I had no idea!
And then a quote as superfluous as in-game manager interviews during a nationally-televised game. “’I know we want to try and improve our club,’ Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Sunday, before an 11-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. ‘I know the front office is grinding away at that, so I know we’re going to try. You never know what’s going to be out there. It always takes a couple teams to tango.’”
Sportswriters with a sense of decency wouldn’t include an innocuous quote like Boone’s—especially in the lead paragraph—because it’s embarrassing. Robert Lipsyte or Roger Angell never would’ve stooped so low.
On the other hand, I was watching a Rays/Blue Jays game on July 21st, tuned into the Tampa Bay feed with the mildly acerbic Dewayne Staats and Brian Anderson, and since it was a dull contest the broadcasters spoke at length during one inning about the $1 “Loonie Dog” special at Toronto’s Rogers Centre. Naturally, one of them repeated the cliché that dogs “always taste better in a ballpark,” which isn’t at all true, but then the entire Rays crew started loading up on hot dogs, six at a time, and it cracked me up.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023