Does anyone know where we report to surrender?
Recall a Yankees reliever named Dooley Womack? Well, the following comes from his cousin, Duly Noted.
Aaron Judge drove in the go-ahead run for the Yankees on Saturday with a line-drive double into the left-center gap. Wham! He nailed it. On YES, David Cone, who was serious, saw it this way:
“Judge almost hit it too squarely. A couple of degrees of launch angle from being up into the bleachers.” Darn, maybe next time.
Nurse!
But this was a big week for such overviews. The cause of the widespread, record-breaking home run or strikeout epidemic, especially among teams that do and don’t emphasize “analytics” (accent on “anal”) was eliminated with the firing of Mets hitting coach Chili Davis.
Yep, like a lab tech in Wuhan, Davis concocted the evil brew, then spread it. Now he’s out. Simple as that, baseball’s cured. All those .178 hitters cured! As reader Mark Morley writes, “It’s not rocket surgery.”
Then there are the unjustly persecuted and prosecuted. Phillies reliever Jose Alvarado, for his inflammatory, taunting, self-afflicted actions on the mound after he struck out the Mets’ Dom Smith, which inspired two-team, on-field war parties, was suspended for three games. He appealed and had the ban reduced to two games.
Appealed? He should have sued: MLB in general, Rob Manfred, specifically! Alvarado was adhering exactly to what Manfred and his minions at MLB Network have been pitching for the last three seasons as a come-on to kids:
Check-me-out conspicuously immodest and obnoxious in-game demonstrations — bat-flipping, plate-posing, all manner of unsportsmanlike preening — are naturally seen and acted upon by opponents as taunts.
Yep, this is how the no-upside pandering Commissioner of The Game wants kids to play. His suspension notice to Alvarado instead should’ve been a box of chocolates with a thank you card for furthering MLB’s campaign for “fun.”
Is Manfred unaware that Little Leagues throughout the country are having difficulty keeping and finding credible umpires because they will no longer indulge the rotten behavior of TV-taught kids and the menacing adults who brought them?
But perhaps Manfred’s busy trying to rationalize his new seven-inning no-hitters, attaching asterisks to them as “Undocumented No-Hitters.” Why not? John Sterling has called countless undocumented home runs.
With the Astros in town came the renewal of the notion that the sentencing to a one-season dismissal of their former manager from their garbage can express messaging service, A.J. Hinch, was too light.
On the extreme contrary, Hinch’s punishment has been cruel and unusual, as he now managers the Tigers, the team that preceded the Astros into New York. The Tigers entered after striking out a combined 22 times in two seven-inning games, then 43 times — an average of 14.3 times per — in three losses to the Yankees.
But that was before Chili Davis was identified and eliminated as the cause.
And now, as a reliable, candid sound of local baseball, we’ve lately been losing Gary Cohen. On SNY, as if we can’t see or know better, he has applied hollering, exaggerated greatness to any above-average defensive play made by a Met, including almosts.
Monday, Michael Conforto made an in-stride catch of a high pop to right. Nice, but not special. Yet Cohen was moved to emote that we’d just witnessed “an excellent catch!” — even if Conforto otherwise might have been charged with an error.
But we should’ve known all along. Duly Noted, it was all Chili Davis’s fault. And he was just a couple of launch-angle degrees away.
Carton’s ‘hot’ take was mild for him
Craig Carton took heat for being what he was hired to be. He asked the Jets’ 21-year-old No. 1 draft pick, QB Zach Wilson, about his “really hot mom” last week. By his standards, tame.
Heck, Carton once “interviewed” tennis star Jennifer Capriati, asking if she’d like to be in a sexual threesome with him and another woman.
WFAN was so ashamed it broke out that question to Capriati as the lead come-on item on its website, lest anyone miss this charming, classy chat.
NCAA Student-Athlete of the Week:
The Lions selected Washington defensive lineman Levi Onwuzurike, who explained his prowess to the Athletic:
“I like f—ing people up. I like to get off the line and put my helmet or hands on an offensive lineman and “f–k” up an offensive scheme.
“I like pushing ‘em back, two, three yards and just making them feel like “s–t.”
Yet, as the NFL grows more uncivilized and an insult to the right-headed (anyone see my 9-millimeter?), Roger Goodell’s selective silence signals his approval.
NBC’s Kentucky Derby coverage was another telecast that carried the stench of suckering viewers. At 6:20 p.m., NBC tried to create the visual and verbal impression that the field was headed for the starting gate, when the race, as scheduled, went off at 6:57.
But since big-events, good-faith host Bob Costas has been replaced by compliant company man Mike Tirico, NBC has subjugated pertinent facts.
And NBC’s Weekend Sports Report inserts continue as transparently dishonest, ignoring more popular events to promote and recap NBC goods, especially and increasingly the Olympics.
Ducking Dolan’s ire new MSG Net routine
Based on what was heard throughout the season from Sam Rosen and Joe Micheletti on MSG Network, the Rangers fired president John Davidson and GM Jeff Gorton despite the fact the Rangers led the NHL in “good jobs” and “good efforts.”
Before Jimmy Dolan inherited the Garden, MSG was known as a viewers’ network, with honest, good-faith content for one’s money. Now it’s known as an avoid-the-wrath-of-Dolan network. And Garden employees don’t work to thrive, but to survive.
Our readers remain a superior personal inspiration, and a good excuse to do as little work as possible. Proof below:
Satire-resistant stats graphic of the week was sent by Richard T. Monahan, a screen shot from a Mariners’ telecast of a game from Baltimore:
It read that the Mariners’ J.P. Crawford is now the seventh major leaguer with “17-Plus Hits And 13-Plus RBIs In His First 11 Career Games Vs. Baltimore, Since 1954” (when the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore). If you find significance in that info, you’re an idiot — no offense, of course.
Steve Arendash asks if we know why and when NFL-drafted defensive ends became “edge players.” He adds that Francisco Lindor is “hitting below the (Gary) Sanchez Line.”
Bill Fariello was watching the PGA tournament Sunday on CBS when he heard that a putt left short “didn’t have enough enthusiasm” and that a shot that settled in the rough was “lie-dependent.” Fariello: “Sounded like a bad marriage.”