"New York, New York"

  Sure, the New York Yankees have come back from the dead, at least for now. After a dreadful loss on Friday night to division-leading Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium, panic had set in for Yankees fans. After all, the team couldn’t hit worth a lick and the bullpen appeared to be in tatters. The loss left the Yankees 5.5 games behind the Rays and slipping downward fast. 

Then it rained on Saturday. The game was rescheduled for late September, when the Rays return to Yankee Stadium, as part of a separate admission doubleheader. 

During that time, the Yankees must have realized their plight. Things looked dire. Almost everyone was in a slump if not injured. Nothing seemed to be going right. 

Leave it to the only person on the team who could carry the team on his very tall and broad shoulders. That would be the team captain, Aaron Judge. 

Judge’s bat had become silent. His average dropped to un-Judgean numbers. He hadn’t homered in 11 games prior to the Sunday finale of the series. 

While Judge wasn’t the only one at fault, he is the one that everybody looks at as a barometer of the team’s fortunes. After all, he crushes the ball when hitting well. He holds the American League record for home runs in a season. And, by the way, he has accumulated 3 AL M.V.P. awards, including last season. 

The game itself was typical of the team’s hitting woes. New York managed only 6 hits in eight innings, while the Rays had seven. Both starting pitchers—Drew Rasmussen for Tampa and Ryan Weathers for New York were magnificent. The NYY bullpen kept the game scoreless, as did Kevin Kelly for the Rays. 

Tampa Bay Manager Kevin Cash elected to go with Kelly in the ninth. Trent Grisham drew a base on balls. 

Up came Judge. He went right after the first pitch, a sinker, and drove it hard to right-centerfield. It cleared the wall. Delirium reigned in the Bronx. 

The monkey was off the team’s back. New York finally had a win this season over its AL East foe after 4 losses. 

The hope was that this would be the start of something good, beginning in Kansas City on Monday night. New York seemingly dominates the Royals, wherever they play. 

An upbeat New York team went after KC’s Michael Wacha, swinging at his first offering for the first two innings. At the end of two innings, NYY led, 2-1. Will Warren had pitched well enough in six innings, as did Wacha in seven innings. 

Reliever Jake Bird, who supposedly has great stuff but who can be erratic, surrendered a go ahead home run to KC’s Bobby Witt, Jr. Suddenly, all the euphoria from Sunday’s win was in jeopardy. 

Until an unlikely hero emerged. Anthony Volpe. 

The kid from the New York area and Delbarton Prep, who came in as the next great Yankees shortstop, only to see his hitting and fielding suffer and then have to undergo shoulder surgery, delaying his start for this season. 

When Jose Caballero began the season red hot, Volpe’s status as the starting shortstop was in doubt. Yankees brass decided to leave Volpe at Triple A Scranton-Wilkes Barre to work more on his game. In essence, his injury placed Volpe in baseball limbo. 

It took an injury to Jasson Dominguez to reverse management on Volpe. He was called up and started hitting and getting on base sufficiently that it became a chore for Manager Aaron Boone to find space to play both Volpe and Caballero. 

Boone obviously did right that night, as Volpe’s 2 run single capped a New York rally. David Bednar picked up the save and suddenly NYY was on a two game winning streak.

Tuesday night star rookie Cam Schlittler took the mound. Schlittler pitched six strong innings, allowing only a home run by Witt in lowering his E.R.A. to 1.50 for the season and securing his seventh win. Schlittler is getting early mention as a possible Cy Young Award candidate as the best pitcher in the American League. He’s been that good. 

He didn’t need to go more, as the Yankees bats did the talking. To the tune of a 15-1 rout, with the Bombers mashing six home runs. 

In this game, the Yankees accomplished something no other Yankees team had ever done. Each starter picked up at least two hits. The team had 24 hits for the game. 10 were for extra bases.

The onslaught didn’t stop on Wednesday. The final score was 7-0. On only eight hits and one home run from Ryan Mc Mahon, the gifted-fielding third baseman who has one pop in his bat when he makes solid contact—just not often enough. 

Returning ace Gerrit Cole, making his second start since ending his arduous rehab from Tommy John surgery, kept his E.R.A. at 0.00 by blanking the Royals over 6.2 innings. With help from Judge’s very strong and accurate arm, cutting down a KC runner at the plate in the first inning. 

The four wins, coupled with Tampa Bay losing four in a row, brought New York to 1.5 games of the AL East lead. The wins over KC—now a 15 game winning streak for NYY—will keep the juggernaut going this weekend when the team faces the A’s in Sacramento. The former Oakland franchise is currently on a three game losing streak, courtesy of division rival Seattle which has pushed the Mariners ahead of the A’s into first place in the AL West with a 28-29 record. 

The season is long, having just passed Memorial Day and MLB teams still have over 100 games to play. NYY still needs to solidify its bullpen, keep the bats going and rely on the strong suit of superb starting pitching. Plus injured players like Dominguez, Giancarlo Stanton and Max Fried have to continue their recovery from tough luck injuries. 

I guess the very impatient New York fans will just have to wait and see. For the moment, Kansas City was the right tonic to allow them to feel good. Momentarily. 

While the Yankees’ fans are a devoted bunch (so too are Mets fans, who are suffering not very silently over their team’s 22-33 start, which includes a 3-7 mark in the team’s last 10 games), they are nothing compared to the civic awakening to the New York Knicks in the NBA Playoffs. 

This is a very strange team. Strange due to the fact that the Knicks have blown away the competition except for two one point losses to Atlanta in the opening round and the seismic comeback to stun Cleveland in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Championships. 

The point disparity in the 11 game winning streak that they carry into the NBA Finals is mind boggling and record-breaking for any 11 game stretch in NBA history—regular season or in the playoffs. Even when the shots don’t fall or turnovers happen, they do not detour the Knicks from their quest—to win the title. 

What has separated the Knicks from the Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76’ers and Cleveland Cavaliers—the Knicks swept the latter two—has been the intensity. The defense has been suffocating and the rebounding edge in the Knicks’ favor has been significant.

This doesn’t mean that NYK will win it all. Oklahoma City and/or San Antonio should have plenty to say about that. That series heads to a deciding Game 7 after San Antonio, at home, blew out OKC. It was always expected that these two behemoths would go the full distance to decide who is the Western Conference champion.  

Maybe the opposing teams haven’t been as imposing as in the West.  Additionally, now reserve center Mitchell Robinson has a broken right pinky finger, which could potentially sideline him. Robinson has been a key player off the bench, spelling Karl-Anthony Towns and contributing rim-stopping defense—even if his free throw shooting is atrocious. NYK hasn’t faced much in the way of adversity or injury so far—they survived a hamstring injury to starter OG Anunoby earlier in the playoffs; Anunoby has been stellar since he returned to the lineup. 

No, New Yorkers (and New Jerseyans and some from Connecticut) are in tizzy over this Knicks team. The Knicks Alumni like Frazier, Ewing, Alan Houston and John Starks travel with the team to lend support. 

And the venerable Mike Breen, the lead announcer for ABC/ESPN and also for the Knicks games on the MSG Network, has to find a way to become as dispassionate as possible when doing the telecasts. He has said that it is understandably difficult given his life-long attachment to the Knicks. 

I know, like almost all Knicks fans, I will be riveted to my TV set beginning on June 3rd. We all hope we won’t be disappointed like the last time they made the playoffs in 1999, when San Antonio defeated the Knicks 4-1. 

I just want to comment on a couple of collegiate events. The NCAA lacrosse season ended this past weekend. In Division I, Princeton won the men’s title while Northwestern reversed last year’s loss to North Carolina to win its ninth women’s championship. 

In Division III, the two-time defending champion Tufts Jumbos won a third straight championship, defeating RIT. This is the fifth title overall for Tufts, placing them third-most in D III history. Hobart and Salisbury have won 13 each. 

Middlebury captured the women’s DIII Championship. For the women from Vermont, this is their fifth straight championship and 12th overall.

NESCAC lacrosse seems to be the place for lacrosse and now they have two dynasties. Kudos to both schools. 

The Division I baseball tournament begins this weekend. UCLA is seeded #1 and Georgia Tech is #2. It is rare that I had seen the #1 team play at Rutgers and interacted with the Tech players at our hotel in Boston earlier this month. I feel a small attachment here. 

I will be intently following the results. The SEC sent 12 teams to the tournament followed by 9 from the ACC. Tarleton State will be making its first appearance in its second year of eligibility. Florida has the longest active streak of getting in at 18; other long streaks include Oklahoma State (13); Southern Mississippi (10); Arkansas (9); and East Carolina, North Carolina and Oregon State (8). 

The selectors sadistically placed fierce rivals Oregon and Oregon State in the same region in Eugene. Another edition of the Civil War? The road to Omaha is never easy anyway. 

Finally, the DIII baseball tournament is in its final eight. Denison is still undefeated in its last 43 games, but not crushing the opposition. Rowan, Salisbury, Johns Hopkins, Baldwin-Wallace, Endicott, Adrian and East Texas Baptist round out the field. Can the Big 

Red of Denison pull it off?

With all this going on, my focus will still be on two teams. For I am thinking lyrically about “New York, New York.”