FRIDAYS ARE FOR FRANK: “Sweet Caroline”

(ABOVE: Frank “The Voice” Sinatra with Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto)

Man, does this one hurt… wicked bad.

The 2018 New York Yankees won 100 regular season games—and still ended up 8 games back of the Boston Red Sox in the AL East. That’s mindboggling.

The Division became a two-horse race as early as May, when it was clear these teams were gearing up for a long battle. In the end, the Red Sox won the war.

And as much as we $*@%!^& hate the $*@%!^& Boston Red Sox, we can’t help but tip the cap.

Hoboken – Birthplace of Baseball

The Yankees played well. They’ve had their pitching struggles, but so did the Red Sox. If anything, clutch hitting would be an area where they could improve. With a lineup like theirs, they can and should be scoring more runs when we need them. Easier said than done, of course.

As for the Red Menace, this year’s team didn’t have that arch-nemesis feel to it. There was no Pedro, or Manny, or Papi, no brawls… there was no bad blood—just good players.

Hell, even their fans had skills:

Giancarlo Stanton took one out over the monster to extend the Yankees lead, but then a fan threw the ball back and hit Stanton rounding 2nd. pic.twitter.com/8I9MuYaa7R

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) September 29, 2018

When the Yankees lost to the Red Sox in the ALDS, instead of anger it felt more like accepting the inevitable. The Red Sox were good, and there wasn’t much we could do about it.

It felt really, really… weird.

Thankfully, Red Sox Manager Alex Cora did his best to put things back on track during their Championship parade, saying, “We scored 16 at Yankee Stadium, suck on it!”

That’s his contribution to off-season bulletin board material. This is ours—a masochistic tip of the cap, from the Birthplace of Baseball.

As for Sinatra, he was a bit of a baseball chameleon. He grew up as a NY Giants fan, became a Yankee fan when the Giants skipped town for San Fran, and eventually became a Dodgers fan while living in L.A.

The Boston Red Sox defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the 2018 World Series. So we begrudgingly share this version of the Red Sox adopted anthem, “Sweet Caroline”—of course made famous by Neil Diamond, covered here by Frank on his 1974 album Some Nice Things I’ve Missed.

We’re not happy about this. While it’s a lovely song, we never want to $*@%!^& hear it again.

Next year at this time, we’ll be playing “New York, New York”.

Make it happen, Yanks.