Ladies and gentlemen, and children of all ages! (With apologies to Claude Kirchener):
It sometimes felt like it would never get here but 2019 has arrived, and most of the hot stove questions that lour’d upon our rooting interests are hanging there still. Machado. Harper. Grandal. And best of all, Realmuto remains lumbered with those exorbitant demands the Feesh have hung around his neck like the Ancient Mariner’s albatross. MLB’s pretty much stuck in the same place it was when the darkness dropped on 2018.
Here in Macondo, baseball news comes in drips and drops of spun filament, and we’re supposed to get excited by disclosures that (a) Tommy has been moved outside Macondo Banana Massacre Field to the 14th Avenue Plaza, replaced by a two-tiered “SRO” area resembling stacked litterboxes appended to the back of the Clevelander bar. We’re supposed to take this seriously – that a franchise which can’t fill a quarter of its seats on a good day is providing SRO space, especially after trading away anybody who could reach it with a bomb, and (B) the Feesh have instituted cheap discount meals, which will surely make the concessionaires happy. I modestly suggested they hold occasional ten cent beer nights since the crowds are likely to be small enough that riots could be easily controlled, and (C) they unveiled a new set of boring logos and uniforms I won’t reproduce here out of lack of interest. Finally, if not terminally, (D) MLB.com a few days ago ran a piece on the teams who most improved their farm systems in 2018. Can you guess who wasn’t on it?
So that’s what we live with, and now the Dolfeens look to be heading to the rebuilding program mill as well. The heat are in Dwayne Wade valedictory mode, which won’t sell any hot dogs until the last maybe three home games of the season. There’s a hockey team out there going nowhere too, but I forget the name for it.
I’ll be back sometime in the near future with a disquisition about why Derek Jeter is boring.
Fan Interference 
Be of good cheer.
The Twins signed Nelson Cruz.
The Twins were on the list of most improved farm systems.
Both of which we totally deserve because it’s 5 degrees here right now
The Shutdown Sally Stupidcide continues a pace and its perpetuator’s approval / disapproval rating has already cracked negative 12% – up (down actually) several points from its pre Stupidcide level.
LikeLike
That gives the twins some power mid-lineup. They could add one or two more impact bats and give the Injuns a run for their money.
LikeLike
At least The U still has Mark Ric……..er, never mind.
To paraphrase Mr. Townsend: Meet the new year, same as the old year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well no, not exactly. The “U” just inaugurated the Manny Diaz era, which perhaps unveils a new competition between the “U” and the Feesh to see who can stock up on the most Cubans to attract that mythical Latino “base.”
The Feesh really kicked this bagatelle into high gear by signing the Mesa brothers, probably not realizing that their daddy’s coziness with the late Jefe himself, Raul and the rest of the Party hierarchy would make their signing go over like a cross between the proverbial lead balloon and the Hindenburgh. You had to be a Macondoan reading the letters to the editor and the discussion threads on the local sports blogs to believe the vitriol that signing unleashed. To be any more clueless than Jeter and his brainstem trust about this latest fiasco, you needed to have had brain surgery as a fetus performed by Ben Carson.
Since having ditched Scrooge McLoria’s gonorrhea-discharge colored “M” I can no longer refer to them as the Rainbow Warriors (which really deep sixes a whole containership load of great metaphorical linkages), maybe I can just refer to this melange of soft pink EYPs as “Jeter’s Kids” until their testicles drop.
LikeLike
What the Feeeeesh really need is a new “face of the franchise,” someone perhaps a bit like Trent Tyler. I mean, short of actually winning games or something silly like that.
LikeLike
Strange that “a cross between the proverbial lead balloon and the Hindenburgh” indicates abject failure, but Led Zeppelin actually was quite successful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, unless you went to one of their live shows where they inflicted hearing damage on you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, but Rolling Stone never bought in. They always heaped derision on LZ, and as one of their former minions I used to join in.
We were wrong in the long run, weren’t we?
LikeLike
Yep. The revolution is over, Lebowski. The bums lost.
LikeLike
Could someone just start signing someone already? I’m booooooored!
LikeLiked by 5 people
Relax, Iggy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yeah, just light yourself up a stogie….or is that spelled Stoogie?
LikeLike