Back in October of 2006, I wrote about being disgusted with the Yankees and MLB for sanctioning a t-shirt that had a photo of a tombstone on it. (See below.) Mind you, this came out a month after Jon Lester announced he was diagnosed with cancer. Regardless of whether or not folks agreed with me that it was highly offensive ESPECIALLY in light of Jon’s struggle at the time, I stood by my opinion that it was, at the very LEAST, in poor taste and MLB should NOT have been selling them. What the folks who sell the bootlegged items do is one thing. For MLB and the Yankees to approve selling this shirt officially did then and still now disgusts me.
Now I taste sweet irony. See, for those of you with short attention spans, the Boston Red Sox were decimated with injuries in 2006. Jon Lester’s trials were the worst of the lot, of course, but we had a laundry list of players who were hurt for the better part of the season. Yet, interestingly enough, no one ever blamed that on the poor showing (3rd place in the East) that year (certainly not in August!).
This year, the Yankees are struggling. Sure they’ve been hit with injuries, but they’ve also gotten great production out of the likes of Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, ARod and even one of their newest pick-ups, Xavier Nady (Jason Bay says “hi!”). Jeter and Damon are doing their part too. With the payroll that ISN’T on the dl, this team should be competing and they aren’t.
So how are the Yankees getting treated? Shout out to the Red Sox Hen for bringing this to my attention. From Yahoo Sports:
Being a much better person than I, this bothers the Red Sox Hen. Me? I get a small feeling of vindication that the Yankees are being treated so poorly in even the national media (not just the local or Boston media). It’s August 19th. I don’t believe for a minute that the Yankees’ season is over just yet. But I will absolutely own to having the schadenfreude going full blast when I see something like this.
To top it off, Jon Lester is having a career-season. A no-hitter, a 12-4 record, 114 strikeouts, AL Pitcher of the Month for July…oh and there was winning that game four of the World Series last year too. He’s also been “the stopper” for the team this year, pretty damn consistently. How are the young Yankees pitchers doing? Ian Kennedy? Phil Hughes? Joba Chamberlain? Bueller?
Who knows what will happen over the next month and a half? I have faith that the Sox will kick it up a notch and make a run for the division. And I have hope that they and the Rays leave the Yankees far behind in their wake. I’m not proud. I’m looking forward to it.
I wonder if MLB will sanction an RIP 2008 t-shirt for the Yankees in the final year of Yankee Stadium?
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