*The judges will also accept “MAGA-lomaniac” and “Great White Dope”
Nearly 1,000 Americans a day die from Covid-19-related complications, but Donald Trump is too busy fluffing his ego with the support of dumb or vile (or both) white Americans at rallies to pretend to care. So last night he went on the offensive against Bumble Bee Tuna, a company whose CEO had publicly chafed about Trump tariffs, stating that Bumble Bee cans made the most dangerous projectiles.
“They go out and buy tuna fish and soup…they throw it,” Trump said. “It’s the perfect weight, tuna fish, they can really rip it…And that hits you…Bumble Bee brand tuna…and [the cops] are not allowed to fight back.
Man, would I love to try to see if that were true. Just put me within 100 feet of the president and I’d give it the old college try. If I cannot brain him, then I’d just love if that can grabbed him by the pu**y.
And It Was All Yellow
Monday night marked the 50th anniversary of Monday Night Football. For the game, the first-ever NFL regular-season game in Las Vegas, which pitted the New Orleans Saints against the Las Vegas Raiders (“YEH RAIDAS!”), ESPN’s MNF crew of Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Brian Griese donned the canary-yellow MNF blazers that Howard, the Giffer and Dandy Don had made famous in the 1970s.
That first Monday Night Football game, on Sept. 21, 1970, pitted the New York Jets at the Cleveland Browns. The home team won, 31-21. Worth noting that because the Browns failed to sell out their stadium, Cleveland fans were unable to see the game on TV. There were no fans in Vegas on Monday evening, due to Covid, but the game was televised locally.
Also, my very close friend and future pallbearer—I’d say “Best Man” but whom are we kidding?— Smo notes that Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on the 50th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s death.
The lesson in all of this: life goes on.
California, There They Go
(The gates are no longer golden, and yes, we know that’s not the same bridge)
It’s mostly anecdotal evidence right now, and the occasional think piece, but California, once America’s Canaan, has lost its golden shine. Perennial forest fires, high taxes, overpopulation, mudslides, smoky air, and out-of-control real-estate prices have the Joad families of this generation making a U-turn.
And we didn’t even mention earthquakes.
Led Zeppelin once sang “Goin’ To California.” Phantom Planet once rhapsodized about the state. Hollywood was the place where dreams come true. Now Californians are making a mass exodus. To Arizona. Idaho. Oregon. Montana. Some are even considering, and we’ve heard this more than once, Portugal. If you hadn’t heard, Portugal is the “IT” destination for disaffected Yanks with the cash to afford becoming Euro expats.
Touch And Go
(Irish, Bulls, social intimacy)
Despite socially distancing during the post-game “Notre Dame, Our Mother” sing-along last Saturday, the Fighting Irish had at least seven players test positive for the coronavirus earlier this week. Now Saturday’s game at Wake Forest has been postponed.
The good news for Irish fans? Both Notre Dame and Wake Forest have a bye on October 3rd so perhaps they’ll both just play next Saturday. The bad news, or our own forecast: this Saturday the weather in the Carolinas will probably be sublime and next week it’ll probably be like a hurricane, a la Clemson in 2015 and a la North Carolina State in 2016.
South Florida, which lost to the Irish 52-0 on Saturday, is now “pausing all football activities.” One wonders if they hadn’t paused all football activities earlier.
We’ve passed 200,000 dead via Covid-10 since the start of March and Clay Travis is still mocking folks for being “coronabros.” Note: I returned to Twitter a week ago, decided to follow Clay to see what he was saying, and then unfollowed him six days later. Honestly, I think he watches A Face In The Crowd (a severely under-viewed but highly prescient 1957 film starring Andy Griffith as a megalomaniacal southern demagogue rabble-rouser) at least once a week, simply for pointers.
Anyway, let’s concede to this: Americans who remember AIDS do not take Covid-19 as seriously, in general. Now, there are some key differences. What makes Covid-19 more scary is that your lifestyle, or a blood transfusion, is not the entry way to contracting it. So, on average, any person can get Covid-19 whereas with AIDS the majority of us had nothing to fear.
On the other hand, AIDS was a death sentence in the 1980s. And actually, the healthier you were (if you were gay), chances are you had an even better shot of getting it. Healthier—> more physically fit —-> more sexually attractive —-> more sexually active —-> higher risk.
AIDS took the healthiest (gay) men, and some women, and struck them down in their primes. It also had symptoms that any observer could plainly see: lesions on the skin, severe weight loss.
(Freddie Mercury, his final days)
Covid-19 is the opposite. It is mostly a herd thinner, proving fatal mostly to those who were not so healthy to begin with. I don’t doubt for a second that there are conservatives who don’t even mind the disease (considering its victims), they only mind it being an inconvenience to the economy. And sports.
If everyone who contracted Covid-19 had the same chance of perishing, or even a higher chance, then our leaders (and Clay Travis) might be taking it more seriously. But it doesn’t work that way. And so mostly they don’t care.
Gilda
(Was she decent? Uh, yeah)
We’d seen Gilda a time or two before—you may know it from one scene in The Shawshank Redemption—but never as we had last Saturday night. TCM’s “Czar of Noir,” Eddie Muller, featured it on Noir Alley, the channel’s weekly tribute to film noir.
As part of the outro to the film, Muller explained that as a teen he’d first seen the 1946 film and, like most boys, fallen hard for Rita Hayworth (how could you not? There’s never been a sexier woman in any film, and she even gets the movie’s best line: “If I was a ranch, they’d call me ‘Bar Nothing’.”). But then, Muller explained, he saw the film again in his late twenties “and I got it.”
What Muller “got,” and as he shared this he conceded that he’d be losing “a swath of TCM viewers,” was that Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) and Ballin Mundson (George McReady) were also an item. Just as Gilda (Hayworth) had married Ballin for the money, Johnny was shackin’ up with him as a kept man.
Muller then went on to show many of the sexual innuendo moments in the film while pointing out that Mundson’s cane is the most shamefully obvious phallic symbol in film history. Our favorite moment: When Farrell proves his toughness to Mundson early by knocking out his henchman, Mundson’s cane, which he is holding gingerly in his hands, goes from having its tip on the ground to rising up 90 degrees. As Wayne and Garth might have said, “Schwwwwinnnng!”
So was the film’s villain really keeping both Gilda and Johnny, ex-lovers themselves, as his carnal pets? Muller has too much class to add this note, but I don’t: Dude’s name was Ballin! You figure it out.
Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, only the second female to serve in the highest court in the land, passes of complications due to pancreatic cancer. She was 87. I’m no expert on the Notorious RBG—most of what I know about her comes from Kate McKinnon’s impersonations on SNL— so you can read a glowing tribute on the 5’0″, 100-pound heavyweight here and here.
Of course, there is something ironic about a woman who fought her entire career to abolish double standards now, in death, creating a moment for Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to impose the most ridiculous double standard in the history of Supreme Court nominations.
It was McConnell, four-plus years ago, who refused to even consider an S.C. nominee, Merrick Garland, to even have preliminary hearings before the Senate, even though the vacancy had opened more than 400 days before the presidential election (the Constitution does not specify a time limit). McConnell went further, changing the rules so that a Senate confirmation vote would no longer need 60 votes, but instead a simple majority.
Now RBG has passed and President Trump and McConnell are going to attempt to ram a Senate confirmation through in less than 50 days. Not unlike the impeachment process—and the Brett Kavanagh confirmation—from earlier in this administration, I don’t have much faith that we’ll find three to four Republican senators of integrity. Do you?
It’s not about left and right. It’s about double standards. Apply the same standard in every similar situation, as opposed to constantly moving the goalposts, as McConnell does. As the person who received more votes than Donald Trump did in 2016 said on TV the other night, “Mitch McConnell is only about one thing: Power. It’s the only thing that has ever meant anything to him.”
Mitch McConnell is only about power. And Donald Trump is only about himself. Together, they make a formidable partnership that may in fact lead to the downfall of the United States.
Iron Mike Gilligan
In the past week I’ve thought a lot about my outstanding junior high math teacher, “Iron” Mike Gilligan. Born on Sept. 11, 1920, Gilligan was an alumnus of the United States Military Academy and even when he taught me, in his late 50s, carried himself with precise military bearing.
Iron Mike had actually been part of the honor guard at FDR’s funeral, standing just a few feet away from Winston Churchill. He served THREE tours of duty in Vietnam, or nearly one for every one that Donald Trump avoided.
Here are three things I remember about Iron Mike: 1) He reminded us that it only takes one horrible action, or moment of disrepute, to wipe out a lifetime of good character (in short, you’re only as good as your worst act), 2) He brought a portable black-and-white TV to school on the day of the Yankees-Red Sox one-game playoff at Fenway Park in 1978 so that we could watch it and 3) He constantly reminded us that, no matter how bad things may seem in the world, that the planet is filled with more good people than bad people.
I still believe that the majority of people in the world are good, but I believe that Iron Mike should have added an Electoral College Postulate of Virtue to No. 3. That is, it really doesn’t matter if more good people than bad people exist if the bad people can hold sway over the good people. I imagine there are more good people than bad in China. Does it matter? Nope. Same in Russia. Does it matter? Nope.
And here in the U.S.A.? The president is dirty, his administration is dirty (except for those who have resigned and signed book deals), the Secretary of State is dirty and the Attorney General is dirty. So even if Joe Biden wins by, say, 25 electoral votes on November 3rd, do you think for a moment that Trump will concede? And then what happens?
America’s Most Toxic Affliction
By the time you read this, the U.S.A. will probably have surpassed 200,000 Covid-19 related deaths (in fewer than seven months). And yet, as I look around the landscape (here in the desert), I don’t believe that the coronavirus is the disease that should most worry Americans. There’s another pandemic, let’s call it a skin disease, that is far more devastating.
I call this illness “White Rash.”
What is “White Rash?” There are common symptoms. “White Rash” sufferers walk around in T-shirts that read “American By Birth” (as if they had anything to do with it) or “Only You Can Prevent Socialism” (while screaming that the government better not “take away my Medicare”). “White Rash” sufferers indulge in their ignorance, in their faux courage, in their obesity.
To suffer from “White Rash” is to believe that your skin color provides you herd immunity (or as their leader refers to it, “herd mentality”) from paying your dues, whether those dues be military service or taxes or simply “whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me,” which is a very Christian ideal. Most “White Rash” sufferers proclaim themselves to be Christian while failing to realize that Christianity extends beyond other white Americans.
“White Rash” sufferers like claiming “We’re No. 1!” while also bemoaning that they’d like to “Make America Great Again,” which is odd, because the only thing in America that’s really changed in the past 20 years (besides a greater disparity between the wealthy and those who are not) is that non-white and non-hetero groups have fought more vociferously for their inclusion. So what does “Make America Great Again” really mean? You’ll need to ask someone who’s “White Rash.”
If you feel yourself coming down with White Rash, do not be alarmed. The very act of self-awareness is proof that you do not suffer from White Rash. You may go on with your day.
We, Too, Love Maria Taylor. But We Also Agree With Jason Whitlock Here.
(Someone even gave Taylor heat on-air for wearing this outfit on MNF. Stop being so sexy, girl!)
The Twitter cause celebre of the weekend—I opted not to weigh in—revolved around the fact that ESPN’s Maria Taylor who, let’s face it, is being spread way too thin by Disney, has an All-NBA ballot and failed to list Laker center Anthony Davis on her ballot (not first-, second- or third-team). It was simply an oversight, an unfortunate one, by someone who is incredibly overworked and—also, it should be noted—human.
Taylor copped to it immediately but then radio host Doug Gottlieb had to ask around why she even had a vote (Taylor played hoops and volleyball at Georgia and , unlike Gottlieb, was never expelled for theft). And as much as he might want to claim that it’s about her being a studio host as opposed to an analyst or scribe, it’s difficult not to see this as at least implying misogyny or racism. Why couldn’t Gottlieb have simply asked how come she excluded Davis and have left it at that?
Then Jason Whitlock, who now writes for Outclick The Coverage, weighed in. For me, I try to look not at what uniform someone ostensibly wears but rather to the points they are making. Here, I agree with Whitlock, even though I generally disagree with most of the ideas on Outclick. Whitlock’s point is that Taylor shouldn’t go the route of the victimized female sports journalist who has to validate her credentials (i.e., Michelle Beadle).
I disagree with Whitlock when he says that Gottlieb was holding Taylor to the same standard that he would have held any man. That he in fact was being the opposite of sexist. Why didn’t he just ask why she left off Davis?
One might ask how come Doug Gottlieb got the chance to have a scholarship at a second school after committing felony theft. No?
But I do agree with Whitlock’s larger point. Stop fighting culture wars on Twitter if you’re a damn ESPN talking head earning (or soon to be earning) a 7-figure salary. You made a mistake. Everyone does. Handle it with a sense of humor and, if you want to jab at your accuser in a funny and good-natured way, go do it. “You’re a card, Doug, and I give you credit.”
A Good Weekend To Be Roger Staubach
Legendary passer and MH boyhood idol Roger Staubach won a Heisman Trophy as Navy’s quarterback and later led the Dallas Cowboys to four Super Bowls, winning all of the ones that the Cowboys did not face the Pittsburgh Steelers.
If Roger was watching football this weekend, he probably enjoyed himself. First, his Middies found themselves trailing 24-0 at Tulane at halftime but rallied back to win, the institution’s greatest ever comeback (even better than the Pacific theater in the early 1940s). Then on Sunday the Cowboys trailed by 15 at home with fewer than five minutes left, 39-24, but rallied with the help of an onside kick to beat the Falcons, 40-39.
According to Wikipedia, the term “political football” is “a topic or issue that is seized on by opposing political parties or factions and made a more political issue than it might initially seem to be.”
And in this hellscape year where every day brings another “what the fck?” head shaker, football has become political. In particular, the issue is college football and the Big Ten Conference. The Big Ten, which thanks to expansion has 14 schools and stretches from Nebraska to New Jersey, thinks of itself as the thought leader in college athletics. Jim Delany, its recently retired commissioner, was perhaps the best to ever do the job. So, when most sports decided to soldier on through a pandemic, the Big Ten opted for safety. In mid-August, its presidents decided to punt the fall season. So did the Pac-12, also citing the health and safety issues. The other three Power Five leagues – the Big 12, Atlantic Coast and Southeastern – decided that King Football (and its desperately needed money from TV contracts) would continue to rule. That courageous (?) choice made the Big Ten presidents look like … suckers and losers. On Sept. 1, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren accepted a phone call from President Donald Trump (or, as I like to call him, Agolf Shtler). The call was apparently set up by Clay Travis, a FOX radio host. He’s a Rush Limbaugh wannabe who has consistently followed and repeated the propaganda pumped by FAUX News downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19. (This writer has been blocked on Twitter by Travis, a proud accomplishment for moi.) Tuesday, bowing to pressure and claiming that COVID testing improvements have changed the opinions of their medical advisers, the Big Ten’s leaders reversed course and decided to play an abbreviated schedule starting in late October. The Pac-12, which had announced suspending all sports until Jan. 1, also is gearing up to play a shortened football schedule this fall. USA Today reported a senior White House official claimed during a background interview Wednesday, “That call was probably the most pivotal call in Big Ten football this year.” (We eagerly await a Jim Harbaugh play call that backfires in a key moment of another loss to Ohio State.) The thought that Trump seized on an opportunity to play hero ball to appeal to voters in key Midwestern swing states forced Your Veteran Scribe to pause, take a long hot shower, toss back a stiff (really stiff) drink and then take another shower. Our country is fresh out of nightmare scenarios but if the presidential election is decided on the narrow vote margins from a few states in Big Ten Country where the citizens voted for Trump because he gave them back their football … #%&@!
“President Trump had nothing to do with our decision and did not impact thedeliberations,” the president of one Big Ten university told NBC News. “In fact, when his name came up, it was a negative because no one wanted this to be political.”
In a sane world, that would make sense. But after four years of gaslighting, it’s too dark to determine if any comment is made honestly or is some sort of political spin dictated by operatives who whisper directions/threats on the third floor of a deserted parking garage at 3 a.m.
Regardless of nefarious political power broking, the Big Ten’s 180 came after weeks of caterwauling and complaining about the initial decision. The divisive debate included the peanut gallery throwing digital haymakers at excellent college football reporters who were simply doing their jobs. Stories written explaining the Big Ten’s cautious decision, were digitally decried as “anti-football” – and never mind that those reporters’ paychecks depend on the sport, well, uh, sporting.
My last offering on this site https://mediumhappy.com/?p=8807 came in late July before the Big Ten pulled the plug. I wrote and ranted that I was sick of sports and the desperate drum beat for college football. When the sport returned to my television screen, I was hypocritically happy to watch. Retired from my profession, I still enjoy my 12- to 14-hour Saturdays yelling at instant replay reviews and wittily countering comments by analysts.
Seeing Big 12 and ACC games Saturday with the SEC ready to return the weekend of Sept. 26 left the Big Ten facing more fan criticism. “Why the hell are they playing and not us?” Ohio State’s Bucknuts were especially livid, considering the Buckeyes have a team capable of winning a national championship (asterisk not included) and a quarterback (Justin Fields) who could win the Heisman Trophy (ceremony not yet scheduled but possibly to be held the day after Christmas.)
College football 2020 is already haphazard, slap dash and half ass. The return of the games has provided a sense of normalcy at a time when normal is a COVID-19 scoreboard where the Grim Reaper has 200,000-plus deaths and is averaging 1,000 victims per day.
As we deal with a New Normal that is ever changing, some thoughts: In late August, Abbott Laboratories announced it had developed a COVID-19 test that could deliver results in 15 minutes at the cost of $5 per test. This improvement and development of rapid testing was a major factor in the Big Ten’s decision to play. The conference’s testing costs will be shared equally by the schools.
The NFL, which opened its season last weekend, announced it would spend $175 million on testing this season. BioReference Laboratories is charging the NFL a flat fee covering up to 120 tests per team per day, with extra tests available at $125 each. The Big Ten hasn’t announced how much its daily testing will cost. Back of the envelope calculations, based on a $5 test and 150 daily tests per school would cost the Big Ten nearly $75,000 a week.
If you find it implausible and incongruous that sports leagues and their athletes are pushed to the front of the testing lines, you’re not wrong. Employees in meatpacking plants – many located in Big Ten states – have been declared essential workers by the federal government. Those essential workers have difficulty getting tested or getting quick results when they are tested. Personal anecdote: A friend was worried about having COVID and went to a rapid test location. She tested negative and her peace of mind cost $500 out of pocket (out of network).
The Big Ten will open play Oct. 23-24. Teams will play eight games – six against division foes and two from teams in the opposite division. The conference championship game is scheduled for Dec. 19 and on that date the 12 teams that don’t make the title game will be play matched based on how they finished in the division standings. The other conferences have built-in openings in the calendar to accommodate games postponed by potential COVID outbreaks. The Big Ten has not margin for error.
And never mind players will play nine games in nine weeks and that they haven’t had spring practice or summer workouts to build strength and stamina that typically prepares them for a three-month season. No Big Ten team played more than seven consecutive weeks last season.
Already there have been over a dozen football games postponed/rescheduled. Arkansas State won at Kansas State last Saturday but this Saturday’s game against Central Arkansas was scratched when Arkansas State’s offensive line was quarantined. Army, jonesing for an opponent after Saturday’s foe BYU hadto back out because of the virus, asked – on Tuesday – if Central Arkansas could fill in. Nope. Too much, too soon and too far. (Yeah, sounds like “amateur sports.”)
One reason the NCAA Manual (rule book) is a 500-page monster is because member schools are like thieves dividing a haul – they don’t trust each other. Arcane rules have been layered in a foolish effort to establish a level playing field, to make Notre Dame equal to Rice. This season, teams are practicing differently, testing differently, disclosing results differently, teams will have significantly different depth charts depending on quaratines. There is no equal like there’s no normal.
The College Football Playoff’s selection committee will face a monumental challenge. The Big Ten is playing eight regular-season games; the Big 12 and SEC are each playing 10. The ACC is playing 11. While the winners of those four leagues’ championship games figure to be likely choices for the four-team playoff, a 9-0 Ohio State team earning a bid over a 10-1 or 11-1 team from those other leagues will cause a special kind of controversy. College football’s post- season has always been about chaos, but the possibilities exist for a kind of chaos only associated with a Thanos finger snap.
LSU coach Ed Orgeron, whose team won the national championship last season, said this week he thought most of his players had contracted COVID-19 and recovered. Scott Woodward, his athletic director, said Orgeron “was a bit too transparent.” Athletic departments have long mis-applied HIPPA and FERPA (student privacy protections) to keep information from the public. Nearly two dozen schools aren’t disclosing the number – just the number, not the names –of players who test positive.
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley, a voice of reason during the off-season, has decided to keep secret the number of Sooners who test positive for “competitive reasons.” Bool. Sheet. On Sept. 9, 20-year-old Jamain Stephens died. He was a junior defensive lineman at California University of Pennsylvania. The school had suspended sports for the fall, but Stephens returned to campus to work out with his teammates. His family said he died of a blood clot to the heart after testing positive for COVID-19. He was at a Division II school so his pandemic-related death didn’t get the attention it would have if he was at Cal-Berkeley or Penn State.
The coronavirus can be as mysterious as it can be deadly. If it doesn’t kill you, it doesn’t necessarily make you stronger. It can make you susceptible to heart, brain, lung and blood clot issues. Rolling the dice on the infection to play college football is something only I’m-gonna-live-forever college students would bet on. We can only fervently hope that over the next three months college football will successfully tap dance through the mine field.
College football is ambitiously whistling past the (literal) graveyard. No vaccine is imminent. We haven’t “turned the corner” in terms of controlling the spread. Maybe the Big Ten was wrong in August and is right in September. Ultimately, we won’t know who’s wrong and who’s right until November. Positive news at 10 a.m. can be countered by negative news by noon.
Oh, that was the only cliff hanger awaiting us in the 11th month.
How many people who literally worked with and for President Trump in the White House have to tell you what a scumbag he is before you begin to listen? With some folks, I doubt they’d listen if Trump himself said so (though, in not so many words, he does so every day).
The latest Trump Truther is Olivia Troye, who was vice president Mike Pence’s top aide on the coronavirus task force before resigning in late July. On Thursday Troye released a video statement in which…well, let her tell you herself:
Excerpts: “The truth is that he doesn’t actually care about anyone else but himself (things we already knew).”…
…and “Maybe this Covid thing is a good thing. I don’t like shaking hands with people. I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people.” I mean, I pretty much agree with Trump here, but then again, these people are not my base.
Remember when Hillary uttered “Deplorable” and they all used it as their badge of honor? Maybe they should upgrade to calling themselves “DDs,” or “Disgusting Deplorables.”
It’s one thing to hear Don Lemon and Rachel Maddow and Joe and Mika rant and rave about how unbelievably unfit Trump is to hold office/be married/touch his toes. But when you get a chorus of ex-staffers, many of whom were not shown the door but instead left of their own accord (or were arrested), well, is everyone else lying? Or is Donald?
I think we all know the answer to that one.
Alrighty Then!
Saturday Night Live has wrangled one of our faves, Jim Carrey, to play Joe Biden this season. If you’re scoring at home that’s Jason Sudekis, Woody Harrelson and even once John Mulaney who have played Biden. We loved Sudekis’ Biden the best but can’t wait to see what Carrey does with it. Carrey’s probably the most talented SNL-type performer who was not a cast member (he or Robin Williams). In his twenties Carrey was on In Living Color, which was Fox’s Sunday night version of SNL. The talent jumped off the screen back then.
Lowering The Barr (Yet Again)
You’d thought Attorney General William Barr had already hit bottom, but then he says what he did Wednesday and fracks down even lower. Speaking at Hillsdale College in Michigan, Barr said, “Putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, it’s the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.”
Wow. Most people who make Holocaust, Hitler or slavery comparisons with anything they are currently enduring, in public, put their jobs in peril. And perhaps, unless they’re comedians, they should (be in peril). But here’s the nation’s top law enforcement official comparing 100s of years of slavery to a few months of please-wear-a-mask-and-oh-yeah-LA-Fitness-is-closed-for-the-time-being.
If this is the American Apocalyptic Olympics, Trump has already wrapped up the gold, of course. But William Barr and Mike Pompeo are running neck-and-neck for the silver. Fat, rich, angry, powerful, late-middle-aged white men, all three. How did this country not only produce such figures, but worse, give them access to power? Shame on you who voted for Trump.
Bronx Bomb Shelter
(Bashing but not bashful: Voit hit his baseball-best 20th home run last night)
The New York Yankees have had some pretty decent home-run hitters over the years. Mickey Mantle. Roger Maris. Alex Rodriguez. Aaron Judge. Messrs. Gehrig and Ruth.
But in the past three nights these Pinstripers did two somethings that no Major League franchise had ever done while also separately setting a new franchise mark. In a three-game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays, the Yankees set an MLB record for most home runs in a series of any length with 19. They also became the first team to hit six home runs in three consecutive games.
On Thursday evening the Yanks set a new team mark with five home runs in one inning. Luke Voit was among the five to hit a home run in that inning, bashing his 20th of the season in the Yanks’ 50th game. Only two other players in Yankee history have hit 20 home runs in the first 50 games of a season. Their names? Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle.
A little over one week ago the Yanks had fallen to 21-21 and were actually in danger of not being one of the eight A.L. teams that will make the playoffs. They’ve since won eight straight, all without Aaron Judge, to move to 29-21.
