RANT: Hey NESN … So What if Aaron Judge Strikes Out A Lot?

So the New York Yankees and New York Mets executives and front office personnel keep firing pot shots back and forth at each other which reminds me of the good ole days of the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry. With the Yankees making the trip to Boston this weekend for their second consecutive weekend series head-to-head I wanted to take this opportunity on this beautiful Friday morning to take a cheap shot of my own, not at the Boston Red Sox themselves but at NESN.com. NESN released an article, and if you don’t know who NESN is they are basically the Red Sox equivalent of the YES Network here in the Bronx, stating that Aaron Judge set an “embarrassing” Major League record on Wednesday night against the New York Mets when he struck out in a 33^rd straight game. My question is, so what? And while we are on the subject, don’t worry I have plenty of embarrassments to talk about this morning.

First of all it seems like the crew over at NESN never watched or paid much attention to the whole sabermetrics and Moneyball craze. Does NESN and their writer Joshua Schrock not understand that striking out counts just the same in the sabermetrics world as a 400 foot fly out or a ball hit on the screws right at a positional player? Sure, if you want to get more in-depth with it you can bring up sacrifice flies, moving runners over etc.  but in the grand scheme of things one thing is certain in Major League Baseball… A great player is going to make an out seven times out of ten and even the best player will make an out six times out of every ten at-bats. Baseball is failure. What in the hell does it matter if he’s striking out, grounding out, flying out, popping out or whatever? The team is going to make 27 outs on any given night regardless.

Those of us who pay attention to baseball and specifically to Yankees prospects know that Aaron Judge always battled the strikeout and always will. Some reporters, who needs views and clicks I’d assume, are talking about Judge’s strikeout problems like this is new news, or news at all. Judge was never the .300 - .400 hitter he portrayed himself to be in a small sample size in the first half and he never will be. That’s not his game. His game is giving it all in the field and hitting mammoth home runs. Judge can’t and won’t be something that he’s not and he shouldn’t be embarrassed for being the player that the Yankees drafted, developed and called up to lead the youth movement and the potential charge into the 2017 postseason.

Does NESN want to know what is embarrassing though? What is embarrassing is having Jerry Remy rip a Japanese-born player, Masahiro Tanaka, for needing a translator. What is embarrassing is having a blatant racist on your payroll that will be celebrated in a pregame ceremony this season if he hasn’t been already. I don’t know because (insert four letter word) the Red Sox. Especially when it was okay, or nothing was said by Remy anyway, when Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima (to name a few) had translators of their own. Be consistent or stfu. 

Will Curt Schilling Please Shut Up

As my very good friend and fellow owner of the site Bryan Van Dusen would say, Curt Schilling you’re a tool! Racism is still a thing here in the year 2017 and honestly it probably always will be. We can all hope for equality and try to do our part to grow towards it but there is always that one apple in the bunch that’s just going to ruin it for everyone. On top of that there’s always going to be that one that defends the rotten apple like an absolute freaking moron and that moron is named Curt Schilling.  

A few weeks back Adam Jones told reporters how he was heckled by a fan inside Boston’s Fenway Park with racial slurs and taunts prompting Boston to tighten security on the issue. Schilling, who is just an asshole in my opinion, has come out not once but now twice calling Jones a liar on the subject…. Like he has any reason to lie about this. 

Schilling was quoted as saying in an interview with the USA Today’s Bob Nightengale that “everybody is starving and hungry to sit in front of a camera and talk and be a social justice warrior.” Jones, in an interview with Yahoo Sports, pretty much said the same about Schilling’s need for attention saying “Schilling is over there with his ranks. He just wants an outlet. Somebody will take his call, take his rants. He can keep them for himself because he’s never experienced anything like I have.” Schilling responded to this and I am not even going to attempt to paraphrase or quote it in pieces. Here is the whole bit and frankly I hope it pisses you off as much as it pisses me off. 

“If he wants to maintain the lie he made here, that’s fine. No one denies racism exists, but when people like him lie about an incident and others just take him at his word, it perpetuates a mythical level of racism. And for some reason, it appears blacks believe only blacks can talk about racism and only whites can be racists. I promise you if some scumbag yelled the N-word at Adam Jones in Fenway, it would have been on Twitter, Facebook and every other social media site ASAP, like every other ‘incident.’ Not to mention the liberal Boston media would have broken its neck to identify the racist. But just taking him at his word means there are a bunch of white cowards and racists living here, because no one stood up to the guy. Adam has an agenda and one needs to only look at his past commentary on race and racism to see it. But see, when you question fake hate crimes in this day and age it somehow makes you a racist. If you use this use every word or none at all.” 

Curt Schilling…. Please shut up. You’re an ignorant asshole who just needs attention. What does Jones stand to gain by lying about this? He’s already one of the best and most recognizable faces in the sport. He doesn’t need friends, he doesn’t need attention and he damn sure doesn’t need the money. You do though and that’s why you’re going there. If people can’t see through that then all I have to say is shame on you both. And that’s my rant for the day. Enjoy the rest of your Friday. 

Stay Classy Boston. Dammit.

The Boston Red Sox organization as a whole, especially lately and ever since the whole “Evil Empire” salt fest, is one of the better and one of the more classier organizations in all of Major League Baseball. Their fans, on the other hand, not so much at least in my opinion. Call it bias, which I fully admit to, call it some friendly jabbing, because I do respect a lot of people that follow the Red Sox including our friends over at Section 36, or call it a few bad apples ruining the bunch but class was nowhere to be found this week inside Fenway Park. The Baltimore Orioles were in town Monday night when, according to Jones, he was taunted racially by the Fenway faithful.

Jones stated that someone in the crowd threw a bag of peanuts at him on Monday and was reportedly called “the N-word a handful of times.” Jones, a black player, has said he has been heckled before for his race throughout his 12-season tenure with the Orioles but never like he had been on Monday. The Boston Red Sox officials stated that they confirmed the bag of peanuts was thrown at Jones and the fan was immediately ejected from the stadium.

Obviously I wasn’t there and many of us will never truly know what was said but I truly don’t feel like Jones is simply making this up, especially with the bag of peanuts being thrown at him. It’s not like Jones needs the attention or the notoriety and these two teams have become rivals of sorts in the past few weeks resulting in pitches being thrown at player’s heads and slides into second base that resulted in injuries to Dustin Pedroia. I truly believe something was said and it had to be said loud and repeated for Jones to hear and that upsets me.

Here we are in the year 2017 just days after ground broke for the Jackie Robinson Museum in New York and we are still, allegedly and reportedly, dealing with blatant and widespread racism here in our own game? This sickens me, and it would sicken me if it were in New York, Boston, Philadelphia or some small town in North Georgia. It is 2017 people, wake up and stay classy. Rant over. 

The Yankees When They Were The Face Of Racism

Remember when the Yankees first basemen Ben Chapman was the face of racism in Major League Baseball? Thanks goodness we have come this far with acceptance and diversity because it sickens me that on this day in 1934 Chapman made the news not for his game but his antics on the field. Chapman, who will lead the protest against Jackie Robinson in 1947, harasses a Jewish fan during a Yankees game in Yankee Stadium. Chapman shouted disparaging epithets and taunts the team's supporters with Nazi salutes. Disgusting.