Perspectives – Sunday, May 3, 2020
It’s been a long time since I wrote a perspectives post, but then again, there hasn’t been much to have perspectives about.
Would you believe we are now in our seventh month without Yankees baseball? The off-season is always long, but this one, at times, has been interminably long. It is the never-ending off-season.
I am confident that baseball will be back by July.
Of course, before baseball comes back, we have to be sure that the plan that is implemented is one that puts the health and safety of the players, the team personnel, and every person affiliated with the games absolutely first.
I am a traditionalist who never likes it when the sport changes radically, but I’m not minding the plan to have three regional divisions in order to get the game payed this year. If that’s what it takes, I’m good with it. I think the “East League” would be a lot of fun. Part of me almost wishes they would make this change permanently. It could end inter-league play (which I do not enjoy – especially when the Yankees have to have their pitchers hit and run the bases). It would also eliminate 10:00 p.m. game times when the Yankees play on the west coast. I never see those games.
I often wonder what I would do if the games were opened to fans this year. Would I actually go to a game this year? I don’t know. I’d like to think I would, but I just don’t know.
The pandemic has also postponed the start of all our local baseball and softball leagues. Last year I returned to pitch in a 35+ league as a 51 year old guy who hadn’t played a game of competitive baseball since he was 16. I actually think I did well. I didn’t win any games, but I think as the season went on that I got better and learned how to “pitch,” not just throw strikes (which I think I’ll always be able to do).. My proudest moment last year was pitching a complete nine inning game. I did this while suffering with a torn Achilles (which I eventually had surgery for in January 2020). I’m now healed and even running again. I’ve been throwing with my son Ethan every nice day for months. When the season eventually comes, I’ll be ready to pitch again. I’ll also share my story once again on these pages with the feature One Last Shot. Hopefully I get a win this year. It would be nice to win a game. I will say this, I’m so fired up to play that if we have a double header to open the season, I’m ready to go the distance in both games. 18 innings? Piece of cake.
I know I’ve written this before, but I’m just not sure Aaron Judge will ever be truly healthy and as a result I think we’ll look back on his career more as a “he could have been great” rather than “he was great.” I wish I didn’t feel this way and I hope, desperately, that I’m wrong.
If the Yankees are playing in a division/league with the Red Sox, Nationals, Rays, Phillies, and even the Mets, those games will be tough. The Yankees’ pitchers better be ready. We could see an offensive explosion in every game in that league.
One feature here at Start Spreading The News that I have been having a whole lot of fun with is the Beatles break. I am surprising myself that I keep finding ways to relate Beatles songs to baseball, mostly the Yankees. I thought I might get a week or two out of this feature but it’s been going strong, and I haven’t even (really) dipped into their solo stuff. I hope our readers are enjoying this. We are doing everything we can to keep our readers entertained as we wait for baseball.
In order to prepare for the 1977 Card-by-Card feature, specifically the Rawly Eastwick card, I re-read Sparky Lyle’s The Bronx Zoo. I enjoy re-living the memories of those teams, though when I read about that 1978 team as an adult (and not a kid), I often have to wonder about the dysfunction that was at the root of the team’s structure. I am amazed they won any games, let alone the World Series. In the end, it was their great talent that did it. No doubt. Their great talent and a 25-3 season from Ron Guidry (who absolutely should have been the MVP).
Which always makes me ask the question, if Jim Rice didn’t win the 1978 MVP, would he be a Hall-of-Famer?
I also read a great book on Game 1 of the 1968 World Series titled Pitch By Pitch by Bob Gibson. There were a few stories that related to the Yankees, but mostly this was a book about how Gibson pitched that game against the Detroit Tigers. Gibson tells the tale with honest and candor. I enjoyed that book a great deal.
Who will have the most home runs on the 2020 Yankees – Giancarlo Stanton or Aaron Judge? The answer – Glevber Torres!
Let’s Go Yankees!
And, just as a reminder, the following was posted the other day, but I will share it all again for our readers because we will be making some small site changes late tonight to be ready for tomorrow:
Beginning on Monday, May 4, we are going to have a few changes going into effect. We believe these will enhance the experience for all our readers, even if, at the start, one such change will be a little inconvenient.
1) COMMENTS – It seems that DISQUS, the company we use for the comments has doubled their use of ads. There are now ads before and after the comments. It seems like overkill. We also do not receive any compensation for any of those ads and never have. The only way to get free DISQUS (which we understand and appreciate) is to allow them to run the ads, otherwise we would have to pay for ad-free DISQUS (which just isn’t an option at this time).
Squarespace, which is our web site builder, has a comment program embedded into their product. We have tested that comment feature and it seems to work well. It’s also ad free. That’s a great thing.
The inconvenience is that readers who would like to submit comments, or be part of our live game threads (when the games return), will have to set-up an account with Squarespace in order to comment.
Please, know, as always, that our commenting rules remain the same.
2) GOOGLE ADS – Also beginning Monday, we are going to partner with Google Ads to help defray all of the costs for maintaining the site. We have been bringing daily content to our readers free for over 30 months. This is a labor of love, but it takes a lot of time, effort, and energy to deliver numerous articles each and every day all year long. We’re going to try out the Google Ads to help us keep this site running, and free, for our readers. Most of our “competitors” are affiliated with big time sports networks, and yet they still have ads all over the place. We don’t plan to do that, but we do need to ad some small ads onto the site.
Over the years, we have noted in previous articles that many (many) blogs and sites have gone behind paywalls (of various forms). Many of our favorite writers are no longer accessible for free. This includes Rob Neyer, Joe Posnanski, Jayson Stark, Mike Axisa, and so many more. Many sites (like the New York Times) that we used to link to in posts and our weekly Saturday Links feature no longer give free access to articles. More and more we are shut out of content. This is just the reality of the Internet. We are not going anywhere, but ads are part of what happens online. Save for a few banners on the side, and any commercials in the video player, we’ve brought our readers ad free content for more than two and a half years. We’re proud of that. Still, we also need to accept the reality that things cannot stay free forever.
3) THANK YOU – Thank you for being loyal readers. We hope these changes are not too inconvenient and that they do not detract, in any way, from your enjoyment of our site.
We appreciate all of you. Thank you for visiting us as often as you do!
