Yankee4Life

9 out of 10, 64 seconds. No complaints with the score because the one I missed I deserved to.

10 out of 10, 33 seconds. I had a mouse issue that cost precious time.

4 out of 10, 88 seconds. These questions were brutal today.

Ok KC I get the Dominguez part. But what I really want to find out is the part you said about Lupica.

10 out of 10, 26 seconds. All this time I could not get under thirty seconds and I was lucky enough to do it again. Then again when you get a question that asks what position Goose Gossage played you can not help but get it right.

Excellent and well thought out post. First I want to start off with what you said right here. What do you think exactly is Lupica addressing and just as important why can't he or other New York sports media say it out loud? THIS RIGHT HERE out of everything you wrote got me really upset because where you wrote that "every October feels the same" I said out loud "hell yeah!" Because you know why KC and everyone else reading this? Because it's true!!! Last year falling apart in the World Series, 2022 folding up against Houston, 2021 losing to Boston 1 - 0 in the Wild card game, 2020 they lose to the Rays in five games and in game two they had Deivi Garcia pitch one inning and then they yanked him. That still bugs me. Anyway it is the same movie but with different actors. Profitable but elite mediocrity. What a way to put it. To put it in other words there is no rush or desire to improve on what they currently are throwing out each year because they know the team will somehow make the playoffs and they will continue to throw the team's glorious history in the fan's faces because that somehow distracts them. This here is on the fans 100%. I love reading about Yankee history and will talk about it with anyone but I refuse to use anything that I read or know as a distraction that the team did to what is going on here and now. During the season for me what is going on now is more important than anything that I have been reading about in the past. That's true. They have mistaken consistency for greatness but they are overlooking the fact that consistency is a lot better when it works with greatness and not as a substitute for greatness. Let me explain. The 90's Yankees? Consistent and great at the same time. A perfect mixture. All successful teams have had this. The 70's Athletics and Reds. The late 70's Yankees. And many people can think of others too. In other words these teams were tough to beat. There is no way on God's green earth you can say this about Boone's teams when it really mattered because they always ended up falling apart when it counted the most. Yes, I can promise we will be reading about that beginning next month. I fully agree this is not a one player problem. You can change the cast of characters but the ending is always the same. And before I go, just a few things. 1. NO, Juan Soto would not have changed the outcome of these playoffs if he was here. 2. Jasson Dominguez is the last can't miss Yankee who seems to have in my view, missed. Before he got here they built him up to be the greatest thing to come along in years and when he is finally here they won't let him put a glove on or even let him attempt to play his natural position in center field. Naturally analytics can explain it. And I hate that word. 3. This won't happen but someone needs to sit Volpe down and tell him that he is not Aaron Judge. He's just his teammate. And no, I won't miss him if he is gone. I've had it with him.

Yankees remain champions of being good, but not good enough By Mike Lupica, New York Daily News Aaron Judge did everything he could to carry the Yankees, but ultimately Bombers fall to a better team in the Blue Jays in the ALDS. The lasting October image for another Brian Cashman/Aaron Boone Yankee team was Aaron Judge stranded on the bases as Cody Bellinger became the Blue Jays’ 10th strikeout victim in Game 4. Judge is one of the great Yankees of all time and the best hitter of his time. But this was another October about to end the way all the others have for him, with him stranded short of the Canyon of Heroes, about to watch another team celebrate on the field at Yankee Stadium that he honors so mightily. That is the real rite of fall now at the Stadium, where winning the Series once was. Just not since 2009. It makes this the second longest championship drought in the team’s history, the grand history that began with Babe Ruth, the Judge of his time in baseball. But then this has become a time when Yankee fans are told they should feel truly blessed because their team has had three decades of winning seasons. Maybe they should start raising banners above Monument Park for those. “I want to go back out there right now,” a somber Judge said Wednesday night after his team had only managed six hits against eight Blue Jays relievers, an “opener” night for them that closed out another lost October for the Yankees. We always hear, after the Yankees have all been stopped short of the Canyon of Heroes how random postseason baseball is. How much of a crapshoot it is. Even the classy Boone wasn’t buying that as a defense Wednesday night. “That’s the beauty of it,” he said. But even he can’t be surprised at how this ended, because these endings, these celebrations for the other team, have become as inevitable as the tide for the Yankees. We just don’t know in what round of the playoffs they’ll occur. It was Bill Parcells, famously, who said you are what your record says you are in sports. So here is the October record for the Brian/Boone Yankees: They have now played 12 postseason series over the eight seasons since Cashman got rid of Joe Girardi after the Yankees lost Games 6 and 7 to the Astros in the American League Championship Series of 2017. Their record in those series is 6-6. Their won-loss record in those games is 25-27. They have played two one-game Wild Card series, and split those. They have absolutely put together an historic streak of winning seasons, and no one suggested that’s nothing. But not once in the Brian/Boone era have they been the best team in series that finished them. In three of the past four seasons — they missed the playoffs in 2023 when they nearly did throw in a losing season — they have played 13 games in series that ended their season: Once against the Astros in the ALCS, once against the Dodgers in the World Series, now in a division series against the Jays. Their record in those series is 2-11. “Crapshoot” is, by definition, is a risky and uncertain matter. The October numbers for these Yankees say otherwise, and you know how much they love their numbers. Have they gotten back up in October after getting knocked down in the Brian/Boone era? They have. They at least fought their way out of a sweep against the Dodgers last year. They came back from losing the first game of their Wild Card series against the Red Sox just last week. And the whole world saw them come back from 1-6 down in Game 3 on Tuesday night, Judge carrying them again with a home run off the foul pole that made you feel as if you were watching Robert Redford — as Roy Hobbs — hit one off the light tower in “The Natural. But once again the Yankees were about to lose another playoff series as a lower seed, even if they were a lower seed just barely to the Jays, both of them ending with 94 regular-season wins. Other than the postseason of 2020 — the October games played on neutral fields during the pandemic — they have never won series like that in the Brian/Boone era. And in those three season-ending series over the past four years, the Yankees have never won a single road game. Their record in those is 0-6. And so they have now watched the Blue Jays celebrate on their field the way the Dodgers did a year ago, and the Astros did in 2022, and the Red Sox back in 2018. If the kid, Cam Schlittler, didn’t pitch the game of his young life against the Red Sox last week, who knows, the Sox might have done it to the Yankees again. When it was all on the line against the Jays, they were once again a baseball team called Judge, as All Rise rose once again. He hit .600 against the Blue Jays, had nine hits, six RBI, scored five runs, produced that unforgettable Game 3 home run to tie things at 6-all. Everybody else hit around .200. Even in the bottom of the season Wednesday, Judge plated one last run as he refused to make the last out. The only time Judge let them down in this division series was when he struck out with bases loaded, nobody out in Game 1, when that was still a game. After that the Yankees were lucky the roof at Rogers Centre was closed, because it would have come crashing down on them in the late innings that day. The bottom line here is that the Blue Jays were better against the Yankees same as they were in the regular season; the way other teams with winning records were (the Yankees were 31-36 against them this year). Did the Yankees fight? They did. But who they were against the Blue Jays this week is who they inevitably are at this time of year. Another Yankee team with a really good record wasn’t good enough. They remain the champions of that.

9 out of 10, 62 seconds. The "general" questions today had no soccer questions and that helped me dodge a bullet.

9 out of 10, 70 seconds. I got the first nine right and messed up question ten.

4 out of 10, 96 seconds. Nothing to see here. Honestly, nothing to see! 😄

Have you met any famous athletes?

9 out of 10, 78 seconds. Not a bad one at all today. There sure was Jim. Me: 26 seconds. Sabugo: 28 seconds You: 29 seconds Laroquece: 34 seconds. It was not that long ago that 34 seconds would have been the top time of the day.

10 out of 10, 26 seconds. This breaks my personal record of 28 set just two days ago. Wow.

What an informative thread!

7 out of 10, 48 seconds. I missed the first three in a row and then made a Yankee comeback. 🙂

Couldn't he just pick up a cheap keyboard on Amazon? Problem solved.

Hahaha!!! You are funny Jim. 😄

The first question I would like to know is what questions or areas should we avoid asking you because of those information security policies?

10 out of 10, 28 seconds. I broke my own personal record of 29 seconds that I got last week. I am more surprised than anyone. Don't feel bad. When you try to go fast that stuff happens. I had a question that asked me something like who was the first black baseball player to be on a postage stamp and the answer was between Jackie Robinson and three white guys. I picked one of the white guys.

5 out of 10, 48 seconds. Thursday, typical Thursday. I mean look at this question I got. What is the yell known as? I naturally got it wrong and the answer is Kiai, whatever the hell that means. Yell is defined as this: Yelling is done to put force on the blow. It also produces air from the lungs and tightens the stomach muscles. Sometimes a yell startles an opponent before the attacker strikes. I have NO idea what sport is associated with this.

8 out of 10, 88 seconds. These were brain teasers and I thank all of the baseball history books I read in the past for getting this many right. Here are the final results for September. It was close. Having Ritchie come back is like having a drunk uncle come to a family party that he wasn't told about.

7 out of 10, 67 seconds. I had two soccer questions (missed them both) but the others were surprisingly easy. Thank you everyone for the congratulations on the win. These are not easy to do especially with all of us in striking distance of each other.

5 out of 10, 82 seconds. I wish I could tell you what happened but I don't know myself.

10 out of 10, 30 seconds. I thought I did ok but then I saw what Laroquece did and all I have to do was tip my hat. Wonderful job man!

9 out of 10, 93 seconds. My God these were tricky today.