"Run It Back Yanks" Complete the Full Run Back in Humiliating Fashion

The disgusting saga known as the 2026 Yankees season has mercifully come to an end. A long labor stoppage might be the only thing that can break the Yankees run of embarrassing exits and humiliating play.

If you were in the stands for the season ending loss to the Rays on Wednesday night, the disgust from the fans was palpable. Half empty seats 20 minutes before first pitch. Boos showering players like Trent Grisham and Jazz Chisholm echoed through the park during player introductions. A relatively clean game, for a change, combined with a few tough breaks, and the fans were treated to their fourth straight year of watching an opposing team celebrating on the Yankee Stadium infield. All you could do was shake your head, head for the exits, and sit in two hours of traffic trying to get away from the disaster zone.

This season was probably over the moment GM Brian Cashman extended a qualifying offer to Trent Grisham - a bone headed miscalculation in an attempt to snag a draft pick were Grisham decline. Most 10 year-old Yankee fans immediately knew Grisham would likely accept that offer - a $23 million payday for the journeyman outfielder - and the rest is history. No money left to add useful pieces around the infield or in the bullpen. A clogged outfield that would block younger prospects Jasson Dominguez and Spencer Jones. And another season of watching Grisham loaf around the outfield not getting to catchable balls and giving opposing hitters extra bases with his lazy approach to the game. It has become well known that the scouting report on Grisham is that if you hit a routine single to centerfield you should bust it out of the box because Grisham is likely to jog to the ball, opening the possibility of turning these sure singles into doubles. The Red Sox took advantage of this in the first round of the playoffs this year.

This casual approach to the game has become the identity of the Yankees. The bizarro version of the late 90's team that never beat itself and applied constant pressure on opponents. This 2020's version is known for all-or-nothing at bats, no two strike approach of any kind, lazy and misguided baserunning, and lazy and terrible defense, often at the worst times. Lacking any real leadership from Aaron Boone, or anywhere in the clubhouse, this sort of behavior is left unchecked, and permeates everywhere through the roster. A disgusting brand of baseball not worthy of the pinstripes they wear.

The conversation in the national news media in the day after the Yankees exit has been about the "arrogance" of the Yankee fan base, seemingly characterized as an "expectation" that the team might win the World Series every year. This is an odd claim considering the Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2009, so it is unclear who exactly is still expecting to win every year. Nevertheless, sports writers who don't watch this team every day are perhaps confused at why the team, and specific players, might be getting booed on their home field.

The answer to that question is obvious to any and all die hard fans. It isn't because we can't stomach losing. We have had plenty of that. The source of the fan anger isn't because we lost. It is because we have watched this team and this organization, for years now, develop a culture that would be "losing" in any industry or any walk of life. You simply cannot be undisciplined. You cannot be unfocused. You cannot give anything short of maximum effort and expect a positive outcome. New Yorkers know this better than most.

Fans are left to wonder the following: what does it mean when a player KNOWS that the scouting report he has earned is that he is lazy, and that opponents should take advantage of his laziness by taking extra bases on routine singles, yet he continues to behave the exact same way? It isn't difficult to "try hard". Why does he continue to loaf after balls? Does he not care? There are plenty of reasons to care. Does he care about winning and losing? Does he care about the vast financial incentives that exist to excel on the field? And even if those are not enough for him, doesn't he look around the clubhouse and see 20 other guys who do care and think "I am going to give effort today for these guys"? Apparently not. But for Yankee fans what is infinitely more difficult to fathom than why certain players don't give effort, is what exactly does it mean that the rest of the team, and the rest of the organization, permit this behavior to continue? How does NOBODY on the team pull these players aside and insist they step it up? How are these players not benched, traded or cut from the team? It is a truly damning indictment of every person in the organization that this behavior exists, is permitted to continue, and routinely costs us games, and now seasons. It is cultural rot, clear, obvious and unambiguous, right out in the open for all to see. And it is disgusting.

For all of the sports writers out there, this is why the fans are angry. In New York we love the Yankees. It is a proud tradition that has spanned generations, and is engrained in the fabric of many of our families and our lives. To see it soiled like this is infuriating. That's why we boo. For most of us, a group of scrappy John Starks-types who leave it all on the field and get bounced in early September is preferable to this humiliating display.

Mercifully this edition of the Yankees is over. The fanbase hopes, yet again, that this humiliation will be enough for ownership to change course, instill some leadership, and fix what is so obviously broken. We all said this a year ago, and Cashman preferred to "run it back". And so they did. And here we are. Again.