I have to confess to you all. I lied to you in my last column, and I deeply apologize for my actions.
Let me explain.
Last week, I told you I was a pessimistic person, and I knew the New York Yankees would lose the World Series. At the time, the Yankees were down three games to none against the Los Angeles Dodgers, so I’m sure you believed me. After all, that’s not a deficit any team has ever overcome in the World Series.
But the truth is, there was a small part of me that truly thought the Yankees would win. It’s the same part of me that simply could not imagine a world so unfair to me that it included a Yankees World Series loss. It’s the part of me that didn’t think the Yankees would dare collapse in the most embarrassing fashion — so embarrassing, in fact, that I literally fell out of my chair.
Yep, you heard me. When I saw the stupid Gamecast notification that read “End 9th, 3 Outs” — because it had not yet updated to “Final” — I legitimately slid right out of my chair and onto the floor. The Yankees’ loss hurt more than falling butt-first onto hardwood did, if you were wondering.
Because it wasn’t just that they lost. It was that they lost in the most embarrassingly incompetent manner I’ve ever seen. After dropping the first three games of the series, they won their next one. At that point, winning was doable. They’d have to win one game, then one more and just one more after that.
The first would be a manageable Dodgers’ bullpen game. The second would have ace Gerrit Cole on the mound. After that, if it got to Game 7, anything could happen.
See? Doable. This was my path to hope after Game 3 — my internal justification to not have a miserable week.
But the Yankees didn’t actually cure my sports-induced misery. They just delayed it. And the fact that I had a glimmer of hope meant it was all the more painful when the Yankees’ middling offense and fourth-grader-quality defense extinguished it.
Sorry, that was insulting to fourth graders.
Let me tell you what happened in Game 5. Buckle up, it’s not pretty. The Yankees were winning 5-0 until the 5th inning. Their best pitcher, Gerrit Cole, was on the mound and cruising. I was already mentally preparing for a Game 6. Life was stressful, but life was good.
Then, the 5th inning happened. The first rule of 2024 World Series Game 5’s 5th inning is that you don’t talk about 2024 World Series Game 5’s 5th inning, so keep this between us.
Outfielder Kiké Hernández hit a single — the Dodgers’ first hit of the game. Fine, Cole can pitch around a runner on first. Then, infielder Tommy Edman blooped what looked to be an easy fly out into center field. There’s your first out.
Right?
No, of course not. Why would you assume that Yankees’ best player and two-time Gold Glove Award finalist Aaron Judge would catch a routine fly ball in the most important game of his career? Sheesh. You expect too much out of Judge. It’s not like he’s paid forty million dollars per year to be good at baseball, or anything.
So Judge dropped the ball, leaving runners on first and second. Two more boneheaded defensive miscues and a couple of legitimate Dodgers’ hits later, the game was tied at five. I’ll spare you the details; we lost.
Maybe we would have won if I hadn’t written such a pessimistic column the other week. Maybe we lost because the Yankees rudely neglected to respond to my request for a press pass to cover the World Series at Yankee Stadium. Maybe it’s actually your fault — did you jinx them somehow?
But we didn’t win, and now I have a sore tailbone from falling out of a chair. Thanks, squad.
Today I opened Twitter — sorry, Elon, I refuse to call it X — only to find out that the Yankees won the American League (AL) Offensive Team of the Year Silver Slugger Award.
That’s f—
Fantastic. That’s what I mean to say.
It’s fantastic that the Yankees are winning awards for their regular season performance. I am deeply proud that they won the team Silver Slugger Award, that Judge and Juan Soto won individual Silver Slugger Awards, that Judge and Soto made up two-thirds of the AL Most Valuable Player nominations and that Austin Wells and Luis Gil did the same for AL Rookie of the Year nominations.
Taken together, all those accolades amount to a World Series trophy.
I lied again, guys.
Nothing will ever take the sting out of losing the 2024 World Series. The only remedy that could come close? A 2025 World Series victory.
And on that note, I will see you all in January. Any guesses for my New Year’s wish?