NEVER. GIVE. UP.

It's hump day everyone, which means we are half way through the week and almost to the unofficial kick off of Summer 2016.  As I review the last couple of months of baseball, I can't help but keep these immortal words of Babe Ruth in my mind:

If we are going to be in it until the end, we have to stay focused on the prize.  To do this, we can never give up.  It is us who make it happen.  We feel the burn.  We put in the work.  We stay positive. We win.  We don't give up.

"After a horrendous start they (the Yankees) find themselves slowly climbing back into the thick of things in the AL East -- they are 5 1/2 games back of the Boston Red Sox and the Orioles, who are tied for the division lead, and 12 of their next 13 games are against AL East teams. As bad as things looked two weeks ago, it is possible that the entire deck could be reshuffled two weeks from now," reported ESPN on Sunday.  I like the sound of that reshuffling.  52 card pick up anyone?

Brian McCann said it best when he stated, "It's a long season." "That's the beauty of baseball. It's every day and six months.''  There is certainly a ton of baseball to be played over this period and remaining focused, positive, and healthy are the keys to staying in it until the last pitch, the last fly ball and the last out.  We certainly aren't where we want to eventually be by September but it sure feels good to be on the upswing of what felt like hell in late April.  

To say we are back in the saddle again may be a bit too premature, but maybe we are out of the funk of being mediocre.  "It takes time. It takes courage, it takes discipline. We were able to put all of those things together. Day by day we felt like we were getting better," said Carlos Beltran of his team. Beltran himself has played well this season, batting .274 with 9 home runs over this first couple of months of baseball.  

So what are our next steps?  We need to stay in it and believe we can forge ahead despite the challenges facing us on any given night.  Babe Ruth had it right.  It is hard to beat someone who never gives up.  And our Yankees are right where we need them to be at this point- right in the thick of things in the AL East.  Happy Hump Day!

--Suzie Pinstripe, BYB Senior Staff Writer
BYB Hot Stove Columnist
Twitter: @suzieprof





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