Mike Celizic, the Right Honorable Supreme Royal Commandant in Charge of Mentioning the Yankees As Much As Possible Without Getting Fired, has ostensibly written an article about Jim Leyland and the Tigers. But don't worry. In like the third paragraph, we find this little nugget (emphasis mine):
When they’re fired, as all coaches and managers ultimately are, even the blame is tepid, the critics admitting that a manager can’t win with a lousy team even as they flog him out the door for managing a lousy team. Then, when he shows up elsewhere and starts to win — as Joe Torre did in New York after lackluster stints with the Mets, Cards and Braves — he’s suddenly a hero and remains so just as long as his players remain better than everybody else’s.
And then a bit later we get...
And yet for all that, it is recognized that some managers are better than others. There aren’t many of them, but they’re the guys who always seem to make teams better. Billy Martin used to be able to do that before the asylum that was the Bronx Zoo and the mad shipbuilder Yankee owner drove him so far into the bottle he never climbed out.
And then, amazingly, we get this...
They’re not winning by playing things safe. The New York Yankees, known for their patience at the plate, had 166 walks and 198 strikeouts as of the close of business Sunday; the Tigers just 92 walks and a whopping 257 Ks, bit they also had 56 home runs — eight more than the powerful Yankees.
Dude, you're not fooling anyone. Just write about the Yankees. Get a tall glass of scotch, don the fedora, sit down at your old-timey 1950's typewriter, and whip off 50,000 words about Robby Cano.
You know you want to.
Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees
