The Kids Are All Right

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Every single day since August 14 one of my kids has reminded me that the Lions were beat at the Jeff Fazzolari Memorial Softball Tourney.

 We were beat 6-3 by the team that my boys threw together.

 (Chris Miller - Pumba - was the clean-up hitter on that team - but other than that they were all under 25).

Now to be fair - most of the original Lions didn't even play in that game - but whatever:

"Remember when we beat you," is their rallying cry.

And this year was the very first time when I actually considered that we were cooked.

At the trade deadline this year the 27-Time World Champion Greatest Franchise in the History of Organized Sports was cooked too.

The Yankees traded Beltran, Miller (no relation to Pumba), Chapman and begged A-Rod to get the hell out while also announcing that Tex was hanging them up.

Youth Movement!

 And a funny thing happened on the way to obscurity!

 Cessa and Green started pitching in the rotation.

Torreyes, Judge, Austin and Gary Freaking Sanchez started hitting!

And the Yankees were fun to watch.

Running after and getting balls that are hit in the gap...

...throwing to the infield without the ball hopping in.

Castro and Didi - both about 25 were suddenly the veterans.

"You still watching them?" A bunch of longtime Yankees fans started asking me out on the sites.

"They're still in it!" I answered.

Now that's not to say that I'm not sad, but when I was a kid I once asked my Dad to picture Mantle in his mind:

"Big, strong, runs like a deer." Dad said.

At that time Mantle was a broken-down middle-aged man who was suffering from years and years of hammering the bottle.

But Dad still pictured him as young.

I do the same with Jeter, Bernie and Paul O'Neill.

But...

...our replacements are here.

We have kids to serve as our replacements.

"Remember when you lost?" Jake asked as he passed me in the hall the other day.

Yeah.

I remember when we won too.


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