If you haven’t seen it yet, I suggest you swing by Red box or
On Demand it. It is Trouble With the Curve and the reason I say watch it is because it’s insightful. An aging scout, with a keen knowledge and
love of the game, knows good and bad baseball when he hears it. If you know baseball, you see it, you hear
it, smell it, taste it- FEEL IT! You all
know what I am saying; as Branch Rickey once said “Baseball is a game of inches”; and unfortunately this season, for the Yankees, perhaps a game of
miles. As the Yankees sit seven back
from the Red Sox in second to last place, you have to ask yourself, why? I say, they have trouble with the curve. And I don’t mean the curve ball necessarily,
I mean the curve that leads back to the way baseball was meant to be played-
raw, risky, and real.
Raw- that’s the gritty side of baseball, no frills, no extra
attention needed- no shoes required to coin country music star Kenny
Chesney. Get out there and play. After watching my son’s teams play this year,
dropping down to the ballpark in Trenton once or twice a month and seeing the
rookies and long time “homeless” players come up to the majors and make things
happen, it’s exciting. 
I feel like maybe
there is a chance that baseball could be simple again, but then a dose a
reality from ARod tweeting drama-filled nonsensical garbage to frustrated
players throwing helmets as we saw with Brett Gardner on a strike three call,
slaps you right in the face. Is it
honest and real in the minors? Not
always, there is drama there, there is BS, but there is simplicity and more
humbition than we see in our major leaguers.
I wish baseball could be simple again.
The real raw deal- they play because it’s fun not because they are
trying to be the league’s MVP. And maybe
if the pressure wasn’t so great, maybe, just maybe, there would never have been
a PEDs problem.
“A great ballplayer is a player who will take a chance,”
another poignant phrase made by Rickey.
I love it when I see a guy go for the extra base. It is so electrifying to see a ballplayer
hustle. We have some of those moments
with Gardner, when he’s not letting the pressure get to him, we have some of
those with Nunez and Jeter is certainly one to give the extra mile on every
play- almost to a point where he took it too far. 
I worry about him as I remember back to
Jeter’s relentless pleading to play even when injured- a haunted reminder of
when pressures get to be too much, chances have a high price tag. Yet, on the field, in the thick of it, when
players fear taking a risk because they don’t want to get hurt, or over exert
or even follow a hunch, that’s worrisome.
If you fear going the extra mile, than there is deep-seeded
problem. For the Yankees, unfortunately,
with age come stubbornness and the swell of entitlement. Not for all veterans, but for many. Guys get set in their ways and this changes
the way they view taking risks. So, the
farm system can give us some pop, theoretically, but there is very little
mentoring going on right now in the big leagues. And this is where veteran clubs are falling
short. Younger teams are beating them
out and younger managers seem to know how to manage through these issues,
upping the expectations of their players.
Lastly, the reality of baseball- when did baseball stop
being real? If you read the columnists
like MLB’s Richard Justice, there is no mention of the Yankees. The next 10-weeks of the season don’t seem to
include them. They have written them
off, and have inked in a World Series between the Rays and the Dodgers- ironic
that I have been quoting Rickey and his legacy, the Dodgers may be headed to
the Series.
With young guys like Yasiel
Puig, I can see why. “Yasiel Puig’s
electrifying debut month is among the top moments for the Dodgers at the
mid season mark,” croaks Justice (HERE) in his column on July 18th. When Puig plays, the energy is upped a notch.
He plays passionately and he plays for real.
Just like 21-year-old Manny Machado of the Orioles whose web gem play at
third blew me away.
He fielded a
scalding hot grounder and threw that ball a mile to nab the runner at
first. Our young guys haven’t had that
chance to shine because they have to be the veteran, because they are just
“filling in” for the ailing team on the DL.
It is a mindset and a reality that when you are not regular player, the
pressure is all on you to fill that players’ shoes not to play your game. Young Yankee players have been called up to
solve the complications of the game, not to necessarily compete for a spot in
the lineup.
Young players, when utilized to their potential, when
supported and developed as professional capital, can make a solid difference in
a club. But players that are just used
as fill-ins, may not provide the pop a ball club like the Yankees is looking
for as they face the second half of the season.
We have become a team that forgot the raw, risky, reality of baseball
and therefore we are having trouble with the curve- the hump of the season and
perhaps even the bend that leads us back to the way baseball is supposed to be
played- for the thrill of it!
--Suzie Pinstripe, BYB Opinion Columnist
Twitter: @suzieprof
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