I bring this to you from NoMaas with a heavy heart, NoMaas says goodbye.
OG – Original Gangsta.
NoMaas was born in May 2005 to celebrate and critique the Yankees organization in a way that no other outlet dared to venture. While we did our best over the years to make people laugh, we also aimed to provide commentary that could not be found anywhere else. In a sea of uniformity and mainstream media cheerleading, we desired to be a bastion of alternative thought.
Fast forward ten seasons, and our impact was bigger than we ever envisioned. While we may not have been the biggest site, we were influential in shaping conversation and never pulled any punches. And although we’d like to keep NoMaas going into internet infinity, we are sadly announcing that our time has come to an end.
It’s an emotional decision to do this, one that we’ve wrestled with for a few months now. It’s very difficult to walk away after a decade of existence. NoMaas was a founding father of Yankee blogs, and we know there will disappointment among our longtime fans. It pains us to know there isn’t another venue that challenges conventional viewpoints and groupthink. So, part of us feels like we’re letting people down.
Unfortunately, life is starting to get in the way. Contrary to popular belief, we don’t live in our mother’s basements; we’re not virgins; and we don’t eat Hot Pockets. NoMaas was always a hobby, and adult responsibilities are making it difficult to devote the necessary time to analyzing daily Yankee happenings. If we can’t be at our peak abilities, we know it’s time to walk away. We won’t continue to demand we hit at the top of the batting order (cough Derek cough).
We must also be honest and tell you that the Hal Steinbrenner Regime has significantly dampened our enthusiasm and passion for this storied club, making it harder to put our heart into the site. From turning Yankee Stadium into a Ritz-Carlton that caters to the wealthy like a Federal Reserve governor; putting revenues into his pocket as opposed to the team (Yankees spend much less per % of revenue than many other teams); propagandizing to the fanbase by saying his team is “championship-caliber” when it clearly isn’t; allowing the same decision-makers to plunge the team further into mediocrity (it’s a good ol’ boy network); and commercializing EVERYTHING.
And speaking of Hal, that brings us to Brian Cashman. He has been a longtime friend of the site and we have lauded him for his embrace of quantitative analysis, his commitment to more efficient spending, his public rebuke of abominable contracts, and stressing the importance of youth development. For years, he seemed to be the sole voice of sanity in a zoo of a front office. And who could forget
the interview he did with us?
However, his demeanor has changed over the last few seasons. Some of the philosophies he once advocated for have been minimized, particularly when it comes to youth development and sabermetric analysis. He has become a company man and an apologist for ownership’s atrocious baseball decisions. He has repeatedly refused to take advantage of the few tradable assets the team has had, hitting a nadir with the Robinson Cano fiasco. He has also failed to hold accountable the people who have turned out more busted prospects than a wholesale pimp.
We don’t know exactly why he’s changed in recent years, but we still consider him a friend and it’s why he gets our first ‘Thank You’. While we haven’t agreed with many decisions lately, we would like to thank Ca$hmoney for his friendship, for the access, for being his guest several times at the Stadium, asking our opinion on trades, for the texts, for the phone calls, for visiting the site….everything. He even told us that players would take our photoshops and put them up in the weight room. Please know, Cash — any time we critiqued you it was just business, not personal. We love this team as you do…we’ve just disagreed with the recent direction. We hope that we can continue to be friends, even with our site headed to the internet graveyard.
There are obviously many others to thank, and we’ll begin with everyone who has visited the site since 2005. As we said in the outset, it’s humbling that we’ve been able to exist for so long — to see people wear our T-shirts, to shout us out on Twitter, to see our photoshops linked on other sites, for the rap contests, etc. We will truly miss our fans (and those who hated on us, but still visited the site). You will never find a more wretched hive of scum & villainy.
We also want to thank everyone who has contributed to NoMaas over the years. Thank you to those on that little secret message board that gave birth to the idea. Thanks to my boy Lane Meyer who helped out for years, ran the draft site, and was there from the jump. Props to Vizzini, Louis Winthorpe III, and Wade Garrett for their friendship and contributions. Thank you to the ‘King of All Media’ Mike Silva for having us so many times on his radio show and consistently promoting us. Thank you to family and friends who tolerated the very late hours of photoshopping and writing. And although we’ve railed against the MSM, there are some good guys we’ve developed relationships with over the years, including Ken Davidoff, Mark Feinsand, and Tyler Kepner (and you too, “Interested Reader”).
We have done our best over the years to entertain and educate. We hope that you’ve enjoyed following along as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it for you. We will still be creeping around and watching, and will stay on Twitter so feel free to hit us up there. However, NoMaas.org will be taken offline soon into the New Year. It is with considerable sadness that the dojo is closing, but we have no regrets. We did it our way.
Thank you for ten seasons. Much love.
Sweep the leg,
Sensei John Kreese
