Hands up to everyone who can't wait for 2024 to depart. Now, hands up to everyone who thinks 2024 was just the most wonderful year of the decade. My, but that's a barren sea of hands over that second suggestion.
Much like its home country, baseball's 2024 was . . . well, why don't we let some of the signature moments, doings, and undoings of baseball's year speak for themselves. The new flimsy uniforms sucked. The All-Star Game uniforms didn't suck that badly, but still. Meanwhile, I'm thankful to folks such as Jayson Stark and a few other intrepid sleuths of BBW — Baseball Bizarro World, you perverts — who either unearthed or reminded us about . . .
Take the Fifth — Please Dept. — "Come an' see my amazin' Mets," their manager Casey (I Lost With This Team What I Used to Win with the Yankees Stengel liked to say of his maiden squad. "I been in this game a hundred years, but I see new ways to lose I never knew were invented yet."
That was the Ol' Perfesser gazing down from the Elysian Fields, watching the team with whom he won ten pennants and seven World Series perform the single most splendid imitation of the 1962 Mets since . . . the 2024 White Sox finished their sad, sad, sad regular season.
Pace George F. Will, look to your non-laurels, White Sox — the Bronx Bumblers captured 21st Century baseball's booby prize. You White Sox only out-lost the 1962 Mets this season. You probably never did in one regular season game what only began in a World Series game . . . with a Yankee center fielder who does a credible impersonation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa approaching the plate and Frank Howard at the plate committing his first error playing center field after 538 fly balls hit his way in his entire career to date became outs.
Then...
* A Gold Glove-finalist shortstop threw for a force play at third base and saw the ball ricochet off the base instead of reach his third baseman's glove.
* The arguable best pitcher in the American League got thatclose to escaping a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam when he suffered the brain fart heard 'round the Bronx and the world: he forgot to cover first when Mookie Betts hit a screw-driving ball toward Anthony Rizzo. Oops.
* The Yankee anti-party included a balk and catcher's interference.
* The Dodgers became the only team in baseball history to score five runs in a World Series game after they were in the hole 5-0.
* The Yankees became the only team in baseball history to serve up five unearned runs in a World Series game since they started counting earned and unearned runs as official statistics. (When did they start? In the same year during which premiered Ford's moving assembly line, the first newspaper crossword puzzle (in the New York World), and Louis Armstrong's first cornet. In the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs.)
* And the fifth-inning party actually started with everyone from the television announcers to the fans and back pondering whether Gerrit Cole might, maybe, consummate a no-hitter to keep the Yankees alive.
Your Reality Check Bounced Dept. — Too many Yankee fans continue infesting social media with proclamations that the Yankees still have the dynastic history of dynastic histories. And too many baseball fans steeped in reality and not fantasy keep reminding them, Your damn dynasty is just soooooo 20th Century!
Juan Not-So-Small Step for Met World — That's $765 million the Mets will pay Juan Soto over the next 15 years. This may or may not mean the end of Pete Alonso's days as a Met, which may or may not mean . . .
Out with a Bang Dept. . . . that Polar Bear Pete's final act as a bona-fide Met was the biggest blow on their behalf this century: the 3-run homer he blasted in the ninth inning that proved the game, set, and National League division series winner against the Brewers. Which was also the only home run hit by any Met in the set.
Did I Do That Dept. — Alonso's division series-winning blast came off Devin Williams . . . who'd never allowed a ninth-inning lead-changing bomb in his major leaguer life until then. Then, after some time passed, the Brewers let the Yankees talk them out of keeping Williams, sending them pitcher Nestor Cortes, infielder Caleb Durbin, and cash to take Williams. We still don't know if the deal was Milwaukee payback for surrendering Alonso's game-changing/game-swiping bomb.
Out with a Bigger Bang Dept. — That would be Walker Buehler, pitcher. One minute, locking down the Dodgers' World Series win with a spotless Game Five ninth including two swinging strikeouts. The next, practically (well, give or take a few hours): Signing for one year and $21 million with the Red Sox. Anyone remember the Dodgers making Buehler a qualifying offer for that money and Buehler turning it down? He's rolling serious dice on himself with this deal.
Shohei-hei Rock and Roll Dept. — You might think anyone can become a member of the 50 home run/50 stolen base club. But you won't be able to predict who might do it the same way Shohei Ohtani did in September against the Marlins: 6-for-6 at the plate; 3 home runs; 5 extra base hits; 2 stolen bases; 10 runs bated in. His own planet? Try realizing Ohtani exists in his own quadrant.
A Cut Below Dept. — Pete Fairbanks, Rays reliever. He missed a game in 2024 because of a finger cut. He cut the finger opening a bottle of spring water. Considering his bizarre 2023 injury (incurring a black eye while trying to dunk against his toddler son through a water basketball net), it seems as though Fairbanks just couldn't cut it anymore.
On Your Knee Dept. — Presented for your consideration: Miguel Sanó, Angel. Already on the injured list with an inflamed knee. Put a heating pad over it. Forgot about it just enough to burn the knee and place himself for another month on the IL. Miguel Sanó, who proved he certainly could stand the heat in . . . the Angels' Twilight Zone.
The King of Pop Dept. — Mookie Betts performs amazing feats at the plate and on the field. At the plate, they usually involve baseballs shot on lines into the outfield, or driven like ballistic missiles over fences. They didn't involve him popping out for the cycle . . . until September 25, when, in order, he popped out to: second baseman, third baseman, first baseman, and shortstop.
Don't do it. Don't Google "MLB players who've popped out for the cycle." It won't even call up the Mookie Monster, yet, never mind anyone else who might have had that kind of a day, whether a Hall of Famer, a Hall of Famer in the making, or a guy who's destined to be forgotten outside such a single singular feat.
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