MILE HIGH CITY, CO – What happens when you hire a young gun to replace an old grizzled lifer to be the skipper of a talented baseball team? This is the question that both New York franchises face this season. I am here as the ghost of summers future to tell you what is going to happen to the Bombers and the Metropolitans. You aren’t going to like it.
There will comments protesting on behalf of Aaron Boone and Pretty Mickey but please believe me… I come from the future and I am telling you that you that you won’t like the results. As a Cardinals fan I am an expert on the subject. Let me explain.
Back in 2011 Tony LaRussa went out on top winning it all. Who did the brass choose to replace him? Mike [mother-frogging] Matheny. What was the rhetoric? He is a coach whom the players love and he has the right blend of baseball IQ in conjunction with a progressive stance towards money ball type decisions coming from the front office. Does this message sound familiar to you all? Cashman and Alderson are selling you a bill of goods. I quote Sandy Alderson verbatim from yesterday’s NY Times article about Mickey, “In our case, we’re looking for an opportunity to influence the decision-making. Not to direct it, but to provide whatever we can to support the manager.”
In the playoffs, would you rather have an old man who makes decisions of his own volition, ones that he believes will win the game? Or a manager whose decisions and balls are on the line for violating season long rhetoric pumped from the suits upstairs? I wouldn’t trust Alderson or Cashman to bring me back change on a grocery store run. Matheny played this out all the way to the 2013 World Series before being systematically dismantled by a disgruntled older man in Terry Francona, whom had more experience at making critical decisions at critical moments without regard for the strings of his employment.
Aside from the big brother in game management failures you have to look at the individual and say… Are you smart enough to date my sister? Some of us have dumb sisters and thus really don’t care who dates your sister. Some of us are over protective of our sisters and no one is good enough. This phenomenon is as close to fandom as I can describe as it means something different to everyone. In my case as a Cardinals fan, all I remember that says I would never let him near any relative of mine. He missed a month as a player because he sliced his hand open with a hunting knife he got as a gift. Dude doesn’t realize that knives are sharp? During the season? Aaron Boone looks like a genius next to Matheny when I think about that. However, Aaron Boone quotes are about as titillating as local news, “I don’t know why we play better on the road. I really don’t. Chalk it up to coincidence, I guess. I don’t think we care where we play, which is a good thing. But you’d like to see our home record be a little better than it is.” Ladies and Gentleman, the wordsmith that is Aaron Boone. Again, I cite yesterday’s NY Times for a quote from Mickey,” You’re really not going to get a manager that is a ton better than another because everybody is getting the same information and it’s so accessible.” The guy undermined his entire profession to the biggest newspaper in our country. Dude can’t date my sister. Period.
Yankees and Mets are doomed due to skippers that can’t skip. Fast forward 6 years and all you will be able to say about these fools is, “At least my manager isn’t Dusty Baker.”
Come back tomorrow for a guy that could manage to mismanage as Manager and still beat the aforementioned in a series, Junoir Blaber.
