From Dr. Emrick of Urgent Care: Take two Stanley Cup games and call me in the morning.
Not to be an ingrate, but I wish the Stanley Cup Final had lasted seven instead of six games. Chicken soup on ice, good for what ails us.
On June 17, in Toronto, of all places, the Yankees were playing the Blue Jays when Alejandro Kirk hit a home run then was met by teammates in the dugout who insisted on — and assisted in — his wearing a “Home Run Jacket.”
There was one problem with this scene: The Jays were having their collective professional butts kicked. Kirk’s solo homer cut the Yanks’ lead to 10-2 in an eventual 12-3 loss.
That manager Charlie Montoyo, his team expected to win the AL East but then 12 games behind the Yanks, would indulge this was a poor reflection on his leadership and the state of MLB.
If this scene, the equivalent of NFL players performing me-dances down big, late in games, were not totally unexpected it would have still been nauseating. Down, 10-2, the Jays threw a party in full view of paying customers!
Yet, it fell in line with pandering and detached Rob Manfred’s stated goal to attract younger fans with acts of “fun,” as if kids need more desensitization, as if, neglected by MLB for the past 40 years in exchange for TV money, kids need this kind of indoctrination.
But this is what sports insist on doing to sports and to us, their once-devoted fan base that must suffer greater and more expensive indignities and absurdities to continue.
That’s where the Stanley Cup Final, and not a moment too soon, skated to our rescue.
The last three games of Colorado-Tampa Bay were of the “Wow!” species. Fantastic action at all-the-time top speed. No one jogged to first base, made a muscle-man pose or danced around like a self-smitten jerk after body checking an opponent. The intensity of all three one-goal games was both astonishing and anticipated, as these were Stanley Cup games.
And neither team risked the loss of speed to include a regular season goon to be-on-the-lookout penalties.
The final period of Sunday night’s Cup winner — despite stoppages for equipment repairs, a replay review, injuries and TV commercials, et al. — ran just 31 minutes. It again starred both teams in sustained back-and-forth, desperate, high-speed action — like an old Celtics-Lakers playoff game.
Given that modern marketing strategies have not yet afflicted the NHL or have been rejected by coaches and players, no scored goals were followed by look-at-me demonstrations toward the nearest TV camera, a mime of a dog urinating on the boards (or opposing goalie) or the scorer grabbing his crotch (to soon be rewarded with Subway sandwich commercial endorsements).
Instead, the scorer immediately found the nearest teammate or the one who made the pass to express and share joy and thanks.
In fact, throughout the Cup, ESPN and Turner were stuck: No slow-mo (or any “mo”) replays of players in self-aggrandizing, chest-pounding mode to show en route to commercials, as per the mindless NFL TV norm.
Sunday’s second period included that commercial for Mass Mutual Insurance, the one with snippets of interviews with NHL players, all of them reflexively referencing themselves as part of a team. The close of the ad reminds us, “It’s never I. It’s we.”
Such a cornball ad would be laughed out of other sports’ marketing strategy meetings. Worse, the Avalanche-Lightning series had no vulgar Twitter challenges and name-calling to fuel the sell.
Still, many of the fans in Tampa’s arena stuck around to applaud the Avalanche and Lightning, the latter the winners of the previous two Cups, as they exchanged postgame handshakes, a noble tradition that modern marketing wisdom would have wiped off the idea board.
And fans of both teams stuck around to applaud the Avs as they skated with the Cup. From where I watched, not a piece of garbage was thrown at the visiting victors.
The best came after Avs defenseman Cale Makar, just 23, was summoned to receive the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Stanley Cup MVP.
He skated to it, posed for a quick photo, then handed it to a fellow standing off ice. He wanted to return to cherish the moments with his team. No matter how deserving, Makar didn’t want or need to wear that Home Run Jacket.
Lack of adjustment by Gallo isn’t just ‘bad luck’
Before SNY’s Gary Cohen succumbed to the one-size-fits-all “Walk-Off Syndrome,” he spoke clear, plain baseball English. Now he’s heard to parrot all sorts of silly things, thus “scored three runs in the fifth” becomes “put up a three-spot in the fifth.”
While we’re at it, as the YES crew continues to tell us that Joey Gallo continues to hit into “bad luck,” readers continue to note that Gallo continues to try to hit directly into the shift. In eight seasons he has a .203 lifetime BA, thus it’s likely too late to have him hit toward where there are no fielders rather than five.
Reader Rich LePetri: “That’s not bad luck, that’s bad baseball.”
How’s Dr. Manfred’s DH-For-All Miracle Batting Cure doing?
In Guardians-Twins, Cleveland’s Franmil Reyes struck out four times in five at-bats, while Minnesota’s Gary Sanchez struck out three times in four.
In Mariner-A’s, Seattle’s Eugenio Suarez struck out four times in four at-bats, Oakland’s, Sean Murphy struck out twice in three.
Two-game DH totals: 16 ABs, 13 Ks.
If ESPN owned exclusive rights to Orville Wright’s first flight, the Wright Brothers would still be recalled — or forgotten — as the makers of bicycles in Dayton, Ohio.
Sunday night, 6:35 left in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, Colorado up, 2-1, live, frantic play in progress: No matter, up came a large, designed-to-distract (be read) graphic giving Nikita Kucherov’s game stats.
Sherman an Amazon Prime’a donna
Hard to imagine there are many more disliked and undeserving freshly retired NFL players than Richard Sherman.
But in spite of — or because of — that, he has been chosen to be a regular on Amazon Prime’s Thursday night NFL pregame show.
Not that he’s likely to be seen by many as: 1) Viewers have been conditioned to avoid pregame shows as wastes of time, and 2) It’ll be streamed, thus less accessible and not worth the time, effort and money.
Welcome to another Rob Manfred Friday Night Out of Sight. The Mets and Yankees can be seen only on streaming sites, no DVR available from either.
YES pulled more than 700,000 viewers per game during Astros-Yanks, but Friday, again, viewership of both NY “small market” teams will be significantly diminished due to short-term greed, foresight-barren, shameless, baseball-as-paywall-bait greed.
Yanks reserve Marwin Gonzalez needs some schooling in Aaron Boone Baseball. Tuesday he hit a long home run, put his head down, then ran to first — and all the way home — like a pro.
Kevin Durant wants out from the Nets? Let him take it up with “co-manager” and world-is-flat topographer Kyrie Irving. The NBA season doesn’t begin until Oct. 18, and already former fans couldn’t care less.
A question I’ve asked for decades was asked on YES by Michael Kay on Wednesday: Why do just four out of five dentists recommend a certain toothpaste? What does the fifth recommend, and why?