Yankees Need An Alarm

I don't know who told the Yankees that it was okay to snooze through series with the Nationals and the Marlins.

Because they have, they're now four out of first and once again in third place.

It's as though something happened when they got swept in Boston. Everything had been going swimmingly well, and then, boom, not any more.

The weather hasn't helped, but they are losing now on the road as well as at home. It can't be the excuse for everything.

The hitters right now aren't hitting, and look suspiciously like those of the 2008 team. It's not just that Alex Rodriguez is mired in an awful, awful slump, or that Canó's fallen off to the point that Paul O'Neill's noticed, or that Jorge Posada hasn't been doing much with the bat, either...it's that all of these things are happening at the same time.

The starting pitching has been the best it's been in a while, which would be even better if the offense could do something. Losing CC Sabathia today is especially worrisome given his tough-as-nails reputation.

There's no question that the blame for this game lies on the bullpen's shoulders, but it should have never gotten to that point, if the offense could have done its job properly.

Now, it's only June, but of the past six games, going 3-3 would have seemend a disappointment. 2-4 borders on an unmitigated disaster.

Next the Yankees go to Atlanta, and Atlanta has some great young starters--the kryptonite for this Yankees' team.

It might be a long road yet.

The Decline of Newspapers has a price even in the insulated sports world

It has been known for a while now that the newspaper industry is in dire straits--already too many have gone defunct or web-only, and now the Boston Globe is in serious trouble as well.

When newspapers are in trouble they tend to cut non-critical sections, but who would have thought that baseball writers, so long some of the most stalwart in the newspaper community, would be paying the price?.

The above linked article is startling because of its immediacy, and because it points to an issue we probably don't notice here in New York.

The Yankees will never suffer from lack of (media) coverage. They are undeniably the biggest, most marketable brand in Major League Baseball and they do play in the media capital of the world.

Even so, the Yankees' writers have not been unscathed-writers at the Star Ledger, for example, have had a tough time. The casual fan who gets all of his or her news from Sportscenter may not have noticed it, but it's still true.

If it can affect the Yankees, then you know it will affect smaller and lest successful franchises, and as the article points out, Pittsburgh is down to a nine member press core. While I'm sure there's something to be said for the intimacy of working in a small core, its still hard to swallow.

Newspaper writers have been a part of baseball so long that they are as much a part of the game as peanuts and crackerjacks.

Of course, newspapers in the 1950s did not have to compete with fan blogs and ESPN.com-like 24 sports news coverage, and those avenues are certainly a healthy and growing facet of media coverage.

It seems such a paradox, that the new forms of media should lead directly to the old one that gave it its shot, but I guess, maybe, that's the price of progress.