At Least There Is Soccer

  Last Sunday was both euphoric and depressing. An emphatic ending at Wimbledon and the self-destruction of the New York Yankees in Colorado. 

The nearly five hour men’s final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic was epic. Young, hungry tiger with lethal shots versus the great master, perhaps the G.O.A.T., who played at as high a level as he could.

The duo traded points on Centre Court in a spell-binding manner. One game in the third set lasted 27 minutes. What looked like a walk over for Djokovic in the first set proved to be just window dressing for a marathon match. One which will be etched in the annals of Wimbledon lore.

In the end, the younger man took control of the deciding fifth set to win his first All-England Championship. His smashing forehands and acrobatic, athletic movements were too much for his opponent. 

At times, I found myself rooting for the energetic Spaniard. Other times, I wanted the Serb, not my favorite human being, to rebound, which he did in the fourth set to extend the match.

It was exciting, captivating tennis. A great way to begin a Sunday morning that stretched into early afternoon on the East Coast of the United States. 

Then there was the sad saga of the Yankees. The team began the restart of the season after the All Star Game with a thud. 

With the team’s offensive woes and the bullpen showing signs of wear from overuse, it seemed to be an ideal landing spot for New York when they arrived in Denver to play the last place Rockies. Except that the team hasn’t really awoken from its slumber.

On Friday, the somewhat toothless Yankees lost to Colorado 7-2. On Saturday, the team turned things around and looked fairly good with a 6-2 victory. 

Then came Sunday. Ace Gerrit Cole, fresh off of his nice start in the ASG, went to the mound. And he pitched like an ace would. In six innings, Cole surrendered two hits, was tagged for one earned run and struck out 11 Colorado batters.

Yet the Yankees were equally inept, only pulling ahead 3-1 in the top of the seventh inning. The team had a chance to leave Colorado and head to California with a series win. 

Except that the roof caved in. Not once but repeatedly. In the bottom of the eighth inning, normally reliable receivers Tommy Kahnle and Clay Holmes surrendered four runs to put the Rockies on top. 

Somehow in the top of the ninth inning, the Yankees eked out two runs to forge a tie. Colorado helped with some sloppy fielding. But in what would be an omen for the afternoon  Harrison Bader hit into a sacrifice fly to tie the score, which bad base running made into a rally-killing double play.

Head to the eleventh inning. New York plated two runs to take control again. Unfortunately, this is a bad New York Yankees team.

Relievers Nick Ramirez—I don’t like him in high leverage situations—gave up the tying run via a home run. Then more reliable Ron Marinaccio, the New Jersey native with the usually lethal changeup, allowed another homer. Game over. 

What could have been a significant win, buoyed by a magnificent performance by Cole, turned into a disaster. Instead of having some swagger, the team limped into Anaheim to face the Angels, a team sliding since Mike Trout injured his hand, requiring surgery.

New York wasted a superb performance by Luis Severino on Monday night. Severino had not been pitching well and he provided six solid innings, holding the Halos to one run.

Michael King, one of the better Yankees’ relievers, showed that his slumping pitching was continuing, as he gave up a no doubt home run to the inevitable M.V.P., Shohei Ohtani to tie the score.

Then in the tenth inning, manager Aaron Boone opted for Ramirez to pitch. Bad choice. He allowed a hard hit single to left field which score the winning run. Final Score: LAA 4 NYY 3. 

Domingo German, he of the perfect game against Oakland, didn’t have his pitching rhythm, which was sorely needed, because the Yankees only managed two hits—scoring the lone run in a 5-1 defeat via a Gleyber Torres home run.  

Carlos Rondon, the pitcher GM Brian Cashman signed to be the second hurler behind Cole, had his second straight abysmal start after starting the year on the IL. When he was booed off the field by the throng of Yankees supporters in the stands, he blew kisses to them. A fitting end to  disastrous sweep by the Angels, the first over New York since 2009.

No matter that Manager Aaron Boone implored Cashman to bring in Sean Casey, his good buddy from their Cincinnati days, to recharge the hitting. While Casey had an over .300 lifetime batting average and sports a mustache in honor of former Yankees great Don Mattingly, his favorite childhood player, the former MLB analyst has a monumental task ahead. 

Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo have been in prolonged slumps. Rizzo’s power outage has been of concern—it is the longest of his fine career. From two-time batting winner D.J. LeMahieu has been hovering in the nether regions of .220 for the bulk of the season. Rookie Anthony Volpe has had droughts, then spurts; his game-ending throw to third base on Friday night was a savvy veteran move. 

Look at the lineup. Guys on the field include Billy Mc Kinney, Franchy Cordero, Oswaldo Cabrera and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Not names which create much fear among opposing pitchers. These guys are role players at best. Torres is the top hitter, sporting a .264 average in the midst of a nice twelve game hitting streak. 

Moreover, Jose Trevino, an All Star catcher and a superb pitch framer, is gone for the season with a wrist injury which has persisted since the spring. Kyle Higashioka will share the catching duties with Ben Rortveldt. Not awe-inspiring. 

Plus starting CF Harrison Bader is injured again, having been plunked in the ribs earlier in the week. His status is day-to-day. He personifies the lack of a solid core reliable lineup.

Pitcher Clarke Schmidt has become more relaxed and is not as much a liability. But outside of Cole, the starters and bullpen is not that formidable. Coupled with hitting which is subpar, this is a desultory season thus far—one which has landed New York in the unaccustomed position of last place in the AL East, even sporting a 53-47 record after three wins over moribund Kansas City at Yankee Stadium.  

The Yankees are only two games out of the last AL Wild Card slot. Aaron Judge has been ramping up his rehab, even with the damaged toe still hurting him. He took batting practice early on Sunday against rehabbing reliever Jonathan Loaisiga on Sunday in a first step (ignore the pun) towards a badly-needed return to action. 

This team needs a jolt. Judge might provide some, but I suspect he will not be the M.V.P. caliber player he was before his injury. Will Cashman find the right players—without going after a Josh Donaldson type who is on the IL, gone for the season and was a bust? Is Torres trade bait, even if he is currently the team’s best hitter? 

Heading into the trade deadline, the Yankees are home to Kansas City, then meet the equally dreadful Mets at Yankee Stadium for two games, before heading to Baltimore to face the first place Orioles (they have been holding their own against the Dodgers and the slumping Rays). How these games play out and what is available in the market will likely dictate how Cashman proceeds. 

Of course, he could go for a rental like Ohtani—yeah, sure, like that’s going to happen; the Angels would be foolish to part with the slugger-pitcher who is en route to an all-time season for anyone.  But, stranger things have happened before. 

Tennis was sublime. Baseball is bordering on horrible. 

Thankfully, Lionel Messi dramatically scored the game winner for Inter Miami on his debut on Friday night. Manchester United and Arsenal sold-out Met Life Stadium for a “friendly” on Saturday evening. And the American women are trying for a three-peat with a revamped squad in the Women’s World Cup.

At least there is soccer. Even if it is winter Down Under. 

One Can Only Hope

  I naively thought Big Ten universities ran a tight ship at its respective member schools. They were not to be confused with some SEC or Big 12 schools which routinely seem to be under an NCAA cloud. 

Look at the University of Tennessee. Over 200 violations and more than $8 million dollars in fines levied against the Volunteers. Shameful.

Or perhaps the the University of Georgia where the school is still feeling the reverberations of the fatal car accident right after the National Championship win in football. Tragic. 

Rutgers has had its incidents. Former basketball coach Mike Rice lost his job for the bullying and intimidation of players. The years with Kyle Flood as head football coach led to self-reportable violations. 

Look no further than Penn State and the notorious situation with the legendary Joe Paterno and the sexual abuse within his football program. His denials of knowledge and his inaction cost him his job and jail time for administrators. 

Taint within athletic programs is too common. The  price for winning as opposed to losing is great. The emphasis on maintaining a culture which promotes success is difficult—even at the winningest schools. Or for that matter, at the more academic schools.

Which brings me to the fiasco at Northwestern University. Along with the University of Michigan, Northwestern is considered to be at the top of the conference academically. 

Yet the football and baseball programs are now reeling after disclosures from student-athletes that hazing and racial bias was evidently permitted without caring about the consequences. This has led to the dismissal of both head coaches.

At first, Northwestern University President Micheal Schill suspended former Wildcats star linebacker and head coach Pat Fitzgerald for two weeks after an investigation by an independent law firm disclosed an abusive situation. That came with Fitzgerald’s denial of any knowledge of what was going on inside of the locker room or at pre-season camp. 

Only because investigative reporting from the student-run newspaper, The Daily Northwestern disclosed a far more serious pattern of physical hazing and abuse did President Schill reverse his course and fire the very popular Fitzgerald, and on the heels of additional allegations in the baseball program, that coach was axed. 

I firmly believe that any head football coach is a CEO of his program. He may delegate many tasks to effectuate smooth operation of that program, but he is solely responsible for what happens within the confines of his leadership. 

Denial of knowing what goes on inside of the locker room is unbelievable. These coaches micromanage every aspect of practice and the day for their players and coaches. 

Football is a rough sport. The culture within the locker room is one which supports violence and at the same time seeks team unity. 

Traditions rooted in high school and college about how the players interact is more commonplace than one would want to hear. Hazing at the high school level is many times ignored. 

Thus it is no surprise that such outlandish behavior is integrated into the fabric of a college football team. For years it was not acceptable to do anything else but allow the unwarranted punishment to promote a unified locker room. Complainers were ostracized. 

When Pat Fitzgerald acted like he had not idea what was going on within his team, I found that to be incredible. I really doubt very much that someone like Nick Saban, perhaps the G.O.A.T. of college football coaches, didn’t have the pulse of his Alabama football teams, including the machinations inside and outside of the locker room. 

Fitzgerald was Northwestern’s head man for 18 seasons. He actually brought the Wildcats to levels of respectability within the Big Ten, although the 2022 season was a disaster, with the team winning only one game. 

No one was looking to fire Fitzgerald. He was so beloved that he only received that initial two week suspension. Concurrently, recommendations were to be implemented that would clear up the problems.

Instead, the confusion about what really transpired has led to chaos in the athletic department and a big shiner for the school. A school revered for its academics and beloved by its alumni for its membership in the Big Ten looked as two bit as any less prestigious football program. 

It is going to take years for the Northwestern football and baseball programs to emerge from this cloud of disrepute. With the money invested already into the program to make it competitive with the likes of the big boys in the Big Ten and the future renovations of the ancient Ryan Field to the tune of $800 million, this is a disastrous turn of the university which is fully engaged in big time athletics. 

Recruits are going to shy away from Northwestern until it is shown that the program is going to rebound. A new head coach needs to be selected and a host of safeguards be integrated into the life of the football and baseball programs as well as across the entirety of Northwestern athletics. 

Fitzgerald will possibly sue the school for his abrupt firing. This will likely result in a settlement. He will probably resurface as a coach in the NFL—his name had repeatedly been linked to the Chicago Bears as their head coach. He will walk away okay from this tragedy even with a stain on his reputation.

What Fitzgerald will have to think about are the lives of those players he was entrusted to lead and how traumatic their lives will be for years to come. That is the greatest toll in this catastrophe. Fitzgerald and the athletic administration failed them.

Will this stop other schools from having bad cultures evolve within their programs? Perhaps temporarily. Could it lead to more schools becoming more vigilant about how the players lead by exam? Maybe.

The cheating and malfeasance at the Division I-A level will continue as long as there remains the pressure to win coupled with the absurd costs offset by the equally ridiculous amount of TV income generated. Given the fact that the football schools would really like to police themselves, will there ever be an end to coaches committing infractions or turning their heads to keep the best available players enrolled and on the field? 

It hasn’t been stopped before and it won’t be stopped now, even with the hideous behavior at Northwestern. But if that vaunted institution can get its act together and insure that instances like this never occur again, then maybe there will be a learning experience which will results in victories being produced in the right manner for the correct reasons.

One can only hope. 

Oye

  In a week where my son and daughter and a group of friends actually stood in the queue and then on the solemn grounds of Wimbledon (where they got sunburned through the unforgiving English clouds, I ended up watching Opening Day action, hoping for a glimpse of my children and their entourage. No such luck but I did see Coco Gauff lose to Sofia Kenin, a former Grand Slam champion and Venus Williams playing but really having no chance against a younger Elina Svitolina. Hang it up after the U.S. Open, Venus. Please. 

With the heat of July combined with unusually high humidity, exercising has been more difficult if done after 10:00 a.m. Even the relative comfort of my indoor gym has left me sweatier than I have been in a long, long time. Water—and plenty of it—has been my constant companion. 

I know that when I was younger, I could absorb the heat better. I have played tennis and softball in 100 degree heat. Sure, I was thirsty, but my recovery was much quicker. Even my one year of freshman football in the pre-Labor Day sun, while it left me parched and caused me to drink lots of milk with lunch when we had twice daily practices, was doable—even if aided by salt pills (now frowned upon for retention of liquid).

Watching baseball in many locales, both in person and on television, made me think how much the present day baseball player differs from players from 50 or 60 years ago. At Franklin and Marshall, we wore wool uniforms for my first three years before switching to double knit uniforms which were popularized by the St. Louis Cardinals and other teams. 

The wool was heavy—great for cold days but bulky and heavy when the warmer days came about in April and beyond. Plus the wool stirrups we had were itchy and created problems inside of the spikes. 

So if we suffered, imagine what the old times in baseball must have dealt with on a hot day or night in July and August in the big cities with stadiums which didn’t allow for much air to filter in. I went to a Cleveland-Washington Senators game on a Sunday afternoon at the old R.F.K. Stadium in Northeast D.C. This multi-purpose facility had moveable stands for both football and baseball. They shook heavily when fans stomped on them, but the closed stadium with the retained heat on the metal created a sweltering environment in a city already known to be almost unbearable in the summertime. 

Imagine a heat index of over 100 degrees in wool jerseys in the blazing sun and no advanced drinks like Gatorade or even more modern concoctions. Sitting in the stadium was intolerable. Running and being secreted in a dugout must have been worse. With only water and maybe a run into an air conditioned clubhouse to save the athlete from heat prostration—which might have been the rare before air conditioning became more advanced and commonplace, those athletes, not making close to what the lowest-salaried MLB players earn, suffered greatly. 

Fast forward to today’s ballplayer. Their hydration is highly monitored and it is the rare to see a pitcher, catcher or even umpire cramp on the field or in the dugout and have to be replaced. There are fans or cooling units inside of dugouts. The uniforms are nowhere near what their ancestors wore. And fans come in lots of heat-beating attire, in more open-air stadiums (or even domed ones to avoid the heat and humidity in Florida, Texas, Arizona or yes, Wisconsin) and no longer wear ties and jackets with straw hats.

It must be almost bearable to play in California, unless the Santa Ana winds wreak havoc with the temperatures. Plus there are few rainouts up and down the coast. But in Las Vegas it will be imperative to build a dome—look at the daily heat records just this week in the Southwest. 

What made me think about all of the present weather conditions relative to baseball in the Northeast is how the Yankees have been playing. During a seven game homestead against a good Baltimore club and a so-so Chicago Cubs team, the floundering Bronx Bombers have been really good or simply atrocious. 

I would like to pin this team’s unevenness on the weather. It hasn’t been the greatest and in the team’s last road stop in St. Louis, they looked frightful, losing to the Cardinals former Yankees lefty Jordan Montgomery. I wanted to blame the lousy performances on the heat—the Yankees had flown in from cooler Oakland for the three game set and played two of the contests like they were in the deep freeze of March and April. 

Yet in the mugginess of the South Bronx, the team awoke for two games against the Orioles and looked like the dominating force fans expected. Only to succumb to the second place team in the last two games of the four game set, including a dismal 14-1 setback.

In came the Cubbies, playing better lately, including a couple of wins in Milwaukee. Chicago Manager David Ross, a former catcher and then ESPN analyst, took issue with the Brewers closing the roof at American Family Field to create different shadows and an advantage for the home team. Chicago lost that game and came to New York in an ugly mood.

My take on this is simpler and more personal—it can be unbearably hot in the direct sun—my wife and I did that for three hours and were roasted. Thus I wished that the roof had been closed on June 21st when it was a reasonably comfortable 82 degrees. 

Jameson Taillon, the former Yankee pitcher allowed to walk away in free agency, came to town sporting a beard and one of the worst E.R.A. for National League starters. What does he do to the Yankees lineup—he holds the Yanks to one hit over eight dominant innings, out dueling Carlos Rondon in his first outing in pinstripes. 

On Saturday, the bats awoke enough to support ace Gerrit Cole. Giancarlo Stanton hit a mammoth blast then a pole scraper for his first two HR game since May of 2022. The good Yankees were back. Would it be a visit of one or more days?

Sunday’s game proved promising. Back-to-back home runs by Anthony Volpe and Kyle Higashioka staked Domingo German, he of the perfect game in Oakland to a 4-1 lead; German allowed one hit in six strong innings.

However, as soon as German allowed a seventh inning walk, Manager Aaron Boone removed German after 74 pitches. The roof then caved in, first with an error by second baseman Gleyber Torres, then with shoddy pitching. The final score was 7-4 Chicago. 

I went beserk, shutting the TV off, cursing with my frustration. I wanted to blame all this on the weather. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t the heat and humidity. It was the coaching.

During the week, I watched the best team in baseball, the Atlanta Braves. The starting lineup sported no batting average less than .254 and they have aces like Spencer Strider on the pitching staff. Everything looked calm inside of the team’s dugout. Players actually had smiles on their faces. 

The Mets even started off the month of July with a six game winning streak before tumbling to an equally-underperforming Padres team in San Diego. I actually watched them for awhile. The Mets are better than the Yankees currently are. 

Cincinnati, behind phenom Elly De La Cruz, who slugged a long homer after Washington Manager asked the umpires to check his bat and then consecutively swiped second, third and home, looks so much better than the Yankees. Last I looked, it was quite hot in D.C., just like when I was there. 

I had enough when the Yanks folded on Sunday. I went to Netflix’s The Diplomat and enjoyed myself much more. Until I groused again once the episode was over. 

GM Brian Cashman, who never fires a coach in season, did so with the hitting coach. He should have been gone long ago. When rookie phenom Anthony Volpe self-corrected flaws in his swing while watching video over chicken parm at his home in Watchung, I said the hitting coach was no good. 

Harrison Bader letting hittable fastballs go by and repeatedly striking out or hitting weak grounders on pitches outside of the strike zone is the result of a coaching philosophy. One which has messed up the swings of nearly every Yankees hitter in some way. 

The coaching staff failed the players. I wanted to blame it on the weather but I couldn’t. It bothers me more. 

Is the season salvageable? I don’t know. I don’t like the feeling of being let down by a team which should be producing. Too many high-priced veterans for this team not to be in the playoffs.

In the sage words of incoming AFC Richmond manager Roy Kent, who wouldn’t blame the weather, this describes the current plight of the New York Yankees: oye.