![]() Ads all over the uniforms, brand-new, cookie cutter stadiums replacing all the beloved old fields. We kept the field as rocky and bare as possible, so that the other team, bleeding and lame, usually just gave up sometime in the second half.Īnd hey, I had fun watching Pele when he came to play for the Cosmos, and drove Dick Young mad.īut international soccer today.aside from some of the World Cup, it just seems like a great big bore, devoid of character. The basic idea was to make a long throw-in to the general vicinity of the goal mouth, where our guys would try to subtly trip, kick, and push enough of their guys over until the ball ended up in the net. It was one of the few things we usually won at, in a league full of enormous, regional high schools.Īll of it was pretty primitive back then, of course. When I was a kid, I went to a public school so small, we couldn't even field an American football team. 'Ski-jumping! Wow! How do they get the cajones to do that? And crew! Boy, that's 90 seconds of solid entertainment!' Much as I like seeing so many of those Olympic sports.once every 4 years. NOW.Ī confession: I actually like soccer. If we're actually looking at Darvish - or anybody, really - it means moving Ellsbury's contract first. We don't need to beat Houston in the regular season - just in a seven-game series next October, a long long time from now in a galaxy far far away. They forgot that, without Boston in the mix, we don't give a shit what the Astros do. The Yankees lost out on Geritt Cole because the Pirates, in the end, wanted to stuff it to NYC in a bidding war. If he can't be traded, we must wait until spring training is underway, and by then, the big names will surely be gone. ![]() Last week was spent crunching arbitration numbers. If there is any chance for Darvish, or any big free agent, this is the week Cashman must find a place for Ellsbury. Darvish probably wants to sign before Feb. In four weeks, pitchers and catchers report. So here's the dilemma: Cashman must find a buyer - who satisfies Ellsbury's no-trade clause - before Darvish calls the cards. That would give Cashman about $27 million to spend on the season, making Darvish a possibility. Then he'll offer Ellsbury at half-price, with the Yankees picking up $10 million of his $21 million contract. Unable to move Ellsbury at the winter meetings, Cashman now seems to be waiting for some 2018 contending team to lose an outfielder to a tweaked gonad or the #MeToo movement. ![]() When you get a chance to screw the Yankees, go for it!Īny real chance to sign Darvish depends on timing - and, frankly, time is not on our side. And if we sign Darvish before moving Ellsbury's dead-cat contract, I guarantee you that every GM in captivity will suddenly stop returning calls about The Chief, because one Iron Law remains intact among small market franchises: (Though I bet I could identify Yogi's.) Still, I know human beings, having been one for more than 60 years. Hell, I can't tell Mussina's knuckle curve from Dice-K's gyro ball, or pick out Brett Gardner's bare feet from a police lineup. I say this claiming no insider baseball knowledge. I don't know where Harper buys his underwear - are there 5-star Saudi Arabian hotel gift shops in Jersey? - because when bidding on ace pitchers, nothing is ever described as "reasonable." (See Price, David.) As a general rule, I'm all for Hal Steinbrenner spending his hard earned inherited money on whatever he wants - (I hear the Instant Pot is a "must" for happy kitcheners) - but if 2018 is truly be the year when Food Stamps Hal shrinks his Yankee payroll below the $197 luxury tax threshold, signing Darvish cannot be an option until Jacoby Ellsbury is wearing another team's insignia. Over this frozen weekend, the Daily News' John Harper - aka "the Whippany Whip"- opined that Team Cashman might be able to sign Yu Darvish at "a reasonable price," that is, somewhere around five years at $16 million per season.
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