Gerrit Cole Fails to Cover First Base on a Play that Changed History

Posted on October 31, 2024 by Aaron Yorke

As much fun as it would have been to watch the Yankees fans who took the ball away from Mookie Betts become more and more famous, I have to say that I am happy about the New York Yankees being eliminated last night. With Steve Cohen at the helm, the Mets have a chance to battle for New York baseball supremacy, and that battle would be going downhill if it started with a Yankees World Series championship. Now we’ll see if Cohen will bid against the Yankees for one of their superstars. He was absent when it was Aaron Judge in free agency, but now is another great opportunity to get Juan Soto to Queens with the Mets coming off a successful season and searching for sustainability. No matter what the optimistic Mets fans tell you, there’s no guarantee that the future is bright or that the Mets return to the Postseason in 2025. Too much has to go right, especially with the makeshift pitching rotation. Bringing in Soto to pair with Lindor at the top of the order would solidify the Mets’ foundation, at least on offense.

Soto has only raised his free agency stock with a dominant October. He hit .327/.469/.633 after coming off an incredible regular season in which he set a career high in home runs and WAR. On Wednesday night, he walked three times to set the table for Aaron Judge, who finally came through with a home run in the first inning and made it look like the Yankees were on their way back to Los Angeles. Heading into the fifth inning, Gerrit Cole was rolling, Judge was back, and Yankees fans were thinking that a shocking comeback was close to reality.

Then the Yankees got sloppy with Judge inexplicably dropping a soft liner hit right to him and Anthony Volpe bouncing a throw to third base on a ball hit to his right. The back-to-back (and belly-to-belly) errors loaded the bases for Los Angeles, but Cole appeared to right the ship with strikeouts of Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani. Yankee Stadium was ready to erupt when Mookie Betts followed with a routine ground ball to first base, but Cole for no reason at all refused to cover the base, allowing Betts to reach on a “single” by beating Anthony Rizzo in a foot race.

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Yankees Try to Continue Comeback While Knicks Must Beat Heat

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Aaron Yorke

It has been a rough week for New York sports. At least Yankees fans got to see their team bounce back and show some life in an 11-4 spanking of the Dodgers. Now those Yankees fans get to pretend that they had their team’s back the whole way when in reality they were all saying that the World Series was over after Game 3. Don’t they know what happens to the Dodgers in a bullpen game? Dave Roberts should know, but he keeps using the dumb strategy anyway.

I was rooting for the Yankees to get embarrassed, so I am stuck with trying to get joy out of the Knicks and Rangers. That shouldn’t be too hard given that the Rangers are a wagon and the Knicks are expected to compete for the top spot in the Eastern Conference, but the Knicks are off to a 1-2 start and the Rangers just lost to the Capitals in a game that saw seven goals scored in the first 25 minutes of play. I turned the game on midway through the second period with the Caps leading 4-3.  I figured that the Blueshirts were due for a comeback since they score around five goals per game, but instead neither team put the puck in the net until Washington got an empty-net goal in the final minute.

https://twitter.com/Capitals/status/1851427062604849464

Many fans don’t even want the Rangers to win during the regular season because of the “curse” on the Presidents’ Trophy, but I am greedy and want the Rangers to be the team to break the curse. Gotta beat the Caps to do that, and you can’t beat the Caps when you’re beating outshot 46-19. Rangers need to rebound against Ottawa at home on Friday.

As for the Knicks, they looked like they were in control for much of the night against Cleveland, but then Darius Garland decided to stop missing field goals. He scored 15 of the his 34 points in the fourth quarter, and Cleveland outscored New York by 10 in the period to win 110-104.

https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1851079661788574109

The Knicks seem to have all the tools to make a run at the NBA Finals following the trade for Karl-Anthony Towns. Him and Jalen Brunson should form an inside-outside combo that is impossible to guard while Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby lock down the perimeter on defense. That is the theory, but it is not playing out on the court so far because KAT is so passive and loves settling for 25-foot jumpers. He scored just 13 points in 32 minutes in Monday night’s loss while Brunson shot 8-for-24. The Knicks need more from those guys when Garland is shooting lights out. New York hits the road tonight with a game in Miami, and it is as must-win as it gets in October.

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Mets break my heart plus WrestleMania and Final Four preview

Posted on April 1, 2023 by Aaron Yorke

I am so pissed that I have to go to a friends Passover dinner tonight. It isn’t even Passover for real yet. Ha Shem would not put Passover on WrestleMania weekend. That is a stone cold fact. This is the best sports weekend of the year and I will probably have to watch most of it on tape. We have WrestleMania on both Saturday and Sunday night, the Final Four on Saturday night, and yes, the women’s basketball title game on Sunday afternoon. Caitlin Clark and Iowa getting 11 points against the South Carolina juggernaut was the easiest bet I made in my life, and now Clark goes against LSU for all the marbles. This is the most excited I’ve ever been to watch girls play basketball.

And all of it will serve as a distraction from the Mets starting their 2023 campaign, which so far has been torture as usual. It has only been two games and they are just getting the April slate underway, but the Mets have already broken my heart with a 2-1 defeat on Friday night. David Peterson, who has no business starting the second game of anyone’s season, somehow pitched around trouble and only allowed one run in five innings. This despite him giving up eight hits and the Mets playing awful defense behind him.

Still, the Mets could not do much on offense against Miami starter Jesus Luzardo, but in the sixth inning they chased him from the game and loaded the bases for Pete Alonso. The Polar Bear hit a line drive to center field that looked like it was ticketed for the gap, but it landed in the glove of Jazz Chisholm. Two innings later, Starling Marte smoked a line drive to right field that would have tied the game with Tim Locastro running from second base, but Jorge Soler made a great diving catch to end the inning.

Of course, by the time the Mets finally got on the board with an Alonso home run in the ninth, the Marlins had already increased their lead thanks to a Jazz Chisolm solo shot off of John Curtiss. The entire game was a tease, and now the Mets are already looking up at the Braves, who open in Washington against the hapless Nationals and will for sure start the year 3-0.

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Why the Monday night Barstool baseball stream cannot be missed

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Aaron Yorke

Tonight is going to be a great sports night. Not only do we get to win money on the Broncos while watching them fail in spectacular fashion again, but the Yankees are playing in ALDS Game 5 against the Guardians and every Yankees fan in the world is on edge.

Let me explain that first part. The world knows that the Broncos are frauds and that Nathaniel Hackett is in way over his head. I believe the world will be riding with the favored Chargers even though the Broncos, because of their brilliant defense, always find a way to hang around games and make them ugly. Getting four points with Denver when we know they will hang around and lose by a field goal in the end feels like a very good bet.

Anyway, back to the Yankees. They looked like they were returning to glory all season, led by a legendary campaign by Aaron Judge. Everything was going according to plan in the ALDS until they blew a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth of Game 3. Within minutes, a likely 2-1 series lead turned into 2-1 deficit and the Bronx Bombers were pushed to the brink of elimination by the dink and dunk Guardians.

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Production Portfolio Update September 2022

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Aaron Yorke

Here’s some of the best stuff I’ve created lately.

During a gambling stream, Steven Cheah made some awkward comments to the blackjack dealer, and the resulting conversation was hilarious. This did pretty well on Twitter after Hank tweeted the video.

Amazing turnaround shot by MRags. Good example of using zoom and slow motion to enhance a video clip.

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Pokémon surprises fans with two giant new games on Pokémon Day

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Aaron Yorke

Sunday’s Pokémon Presents live presentation didn’t promise much in the way of major news. It was only 14 minutes long and the hype was smaller than previous Pokémon Day presentations in which we knew we were overdue for a major video game release. There was no indication that Game Freak was set to blow the lid off a new giant mainline Pokémon adventure. However, after a slew of update announcements for other Pokémon games, the screen faded to black and we got our first look at Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet.

Unbelievable. The trailer is two minutes long once you get past the long build-up with the security guard exploring the office building. Once the game footage starts, we see what Game Freak has been building towards with the Wild Area in Sword and Shield as well as the giant open landscapes in Legends: Arceus.

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Production Portfolio

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Aaron Yorke

Here’s some of the videos I’ve produced for myself and Barstool Sports.

https://twitter.com/AaronPYorke/status/1369335098580103175
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The Knicks are slumping but I’m not giving up on New York sports

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Aaron Yorke

I need some sort of hope to grasp onto in the sports world. You can argue that the hope of your team winning a championship is more valuable to a sports fan than the actual championships of the past. What good is bragging about the Knicks winning in 1970 and 1973 if they haven’t come close to competing for the NBA title in 20 years. The 1990s didn’t bear the sweet fruit of a championship, but the hope of a title throughout the decade kept the Knicks relevant and Madison Square Garden rocking.

MSG was once again the place to be on Wednesday night, but it was only because Steph Curry was about to break the record for most career three-point field goals. I joked that it was another great Knicks moment, but really I’m getting sick of big MSG moments rarely being about the Knicks. Sure there was Linsanity and Carmelo Anthony scoring 62 points, but there hasn’t been enough team success.

The hope for the Knicks appeared to make a return last season with Julius Randle and Tom Thibodeau taking a team that was expected to do nothing and leading it all the way to the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. Even after the Knicks lost to Trae Young and the Hawks in the first round of the playoffs, it looked like the foundation was set for a string of playoff runs.

Maybe not. Even though most of the major players have returned, the magic, and more importantly the defensive intensity have not been the same. The Knicks have lost seven of their last eight and now find themselves in 12th place. After Curry made history on Wednesday, the Knicks hung with the Warriors for most of the night, only to let the game slip away in the fourth quarter. A win over one of the best teams in the NBA would have been a nice morale-booster to get out of a rough stretch, but instead we got another defeat.

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Posted in Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League, National Hockey League, New York Giants, New York Knicks, New York Mets, New York Rangers | Leave a comment

The Mets’ free agent moves are fun, but they still need more pitching to avoid another pitfall

Posted on December 1, 2021 by Aaron Yorke

The Mets are going for it in 2022. That’s the theme of the offseason so far that has delighted fans with virtual suitcases of cash being handed out to Eduardo Escobar, Mark Canha, Starling Marte, and one of the best pitchers of the last decade Max Scherzer. Mets owner Steve Cohen came to the franchise with the promise that he would spend money to keep New York in the running for the postseason year after year, and these recent moves show that he means business.

However, we still don’t know if the Mets’ big moves will be enough to lift last year’s 77-win team back into the hunt for October. The 2021 Mets also had stars at the top of the roster, but injuries to Jacob deGrom and poor hitting throughout the lineup led a squad that was supposed to win over 90 games falling out of the pennant race in the middle of September.

The sad part was that the Mets fell apart despite the hot hitting of midseason acquisition Javier Baez, who won’t be back in 2022 because he just signed a huge contract with the Detroit Tigers. The middle infielder the Mets did get, Escobar, probably won’t hit as well as Baez, but he’s also likely to cause less drama in the clubhouse. Baez’s choice to direct a thumbs-down gesture to the fans and then explain to the media that he thought paying customers were being too negative caused me and other fans to blow a gasket.

So I’m happy Baez is gone, even though his production might be missed. Besides, his constant swinging and missing in the shortened 2020 season and the first half of 2021 was a bad indication of how Baez might turn out in a long-term deal.

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It’s such a shame that either the Astros or the Braves have to lose the World Series

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Aaron Yorke

Both the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves have made it through the gauntlet of Major League Baseball’s postseason and are set to begin the World Series at Minute Maid Park tonight. Many fans have a pretty strong rooting interest in this year’s Fall Classic because of the despicable cheating committed by the Astros during the 2017 season that resulted in them winning the title. Everyone wants to see Houston fail now that the playing field is supposedly even, but since the massive scandal came to light following the 2019 campaign, the Astros have kept on winning. They fell in the ALCS during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but they’re back in the main event this time around.

I’ve been doing nothing but rooting for more Astros success. Not only would another world championship legitimize the 2017 team as a group that could have reached the pinnacle of baseball without stealing signs, but it would tell all the holier-than-though critics to shove it. That’s right, no one should like cheating, but a lot of the fans who turned into Houston haters overnight seem to be under the assumption that no one else has tried to steal a sign via camera or other shady method.

Based on the career paths of the ringleaders of the trash can scheme, Alex Cora and Carlos Beltran, I’m convinced that at least two other teams were trying out similar systems in their own clubhouses. After winning the World Series with the Astros in 2017, Cora left to manage the Boston Red Sox for the next two seasons before the scandal was still under wraps. Not only were his Red Sox investigated for a similar sign-stealing system, but Cora implied that the Yankees were also up to no good during the 2019 London Series.

Beltran was working as a special advisor for the Yankees at the time in his first baseball role following his playing career, which ended after the 2017 season. It sure seems like the the two big American League East powers were implementing similar sign-stealing systems to the one that brought Cora and Beltran success on the 2017 Astros. And why wouldn’t they? They won in Houston and now found themselves in high-pressure organizations where winning is even more important.

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