THE YANKEES & THE HOME RUN. IS IT A PROBLEM?

One of my favorite things to do while watching a baseball game is conversing with my 6 year old. He really gets baseball. He understands the jargon so well,  that I am able to mute my television and rely solely on his surprisingly accurate commentary. It's great.

Last Wednesday, while watching the baseball game, he threw me for a little bit of a loop. The conversation was as follows:

My 6 year old: "The Yankees can’t win unless they hit a home run."

Me: "You can’t say that. Home runs don’t always win games and games aren’t always won by home runs."

My 6 year old: "Okay. So why can’t the Yankees win without hitting home runs?"

So, how do I answer that? It’s something that has been discussed time and again this season. In fact, there are only two games in which the Yankees won without the long ball:

• June 16th against the Nationals
• July 6th against the Red Sox.

First, to be fair, there aren’t very many games, win or lose, that the Yankees haven’t hit homers in. They lead the league with 166 homers collectively. Secondly, this team is built for the long ball. I’m almost more surprised when we don’t get a homer at this point.

I feel like the Yankees are losing my favorite part of the game, small ball. We wrote about it here at BYB when we sarcastically wrote: YANKEE BASEBALL: THE BASICS OF HITTING. They need to get a guy on base; bring him home with a double. You know, like the Yankees did in the 90’s? I feel like we haven’t had any of that kind of play since we lost Gardy. He can’t be the only one capable of playing like that. Look, I’m not going to be mad when they do hit a homer. But when my 6 year old starts calling you out on it, something’s up. And have you ever tried explaining to a 6 year old that when he's playing little league, he doesn’t always have to hit home runs when his favorite players do just that every game?  No easy task.

Look, I’m not saying NOT to hit home runs... Heck, when Cano hit that Grand slam on Wednesday, I jumped up and celebrated with the rest of Yankeeland. It was pretty darn sweet. But, can we get back to the basics? Please?

--Erica Morales, BYB Writer



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