Christian Yelich announced yesterday that he needs to undergo back surgery and that he’s going to miss the rest of the season. It’s a terrible blow for the Brewers, and it stinks for Yelich. We wish the guy the best in his recovery. Having back issues that severe at 32 sounds miserable. We wouldn’t wish it on anybody, which is why when we ask if Christian Yelich quit on his team, we aren’t referencing Yelich’s medical decision at all.
We’re talking about how Christian Yelich seems to have never used steroids.
Christian Yelich’s relationship with cheating in baseball is well-documented. Prior to the revelation of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, back when such things went unnoticed, Yelich was a .301 hitter with an .893 OPS. In the years since, he’s been a .262 hitter with a .788 OPS. We don’t know if Yelich stole signs or not, but once Major League Baseball cracked down on the practice, Yelich’s numbers fell off. When Yu Darvish shared a clip of Yelich looking suspiciously towards left-center field during an at-bat, Yelich responded, and he didn’t deny the implication.
If Yelich is so ok with cheating, why wouldn’t he sacrifice his body to help his team?
The history of the Milwaukee Brewers has been one of abject misery punctuated by moments of elation, with those moments themselves punctuated by a giant cartoon of a man descending his two-story yellow slide. Within that sadness, there have been three instances of glory:
The first came in 2008, when CC Sabathia made a now-incomprehensible three straight starts on short rest to get the Crew into the playoffs, throwing a complete game in the final outing to cement the legend. CC Sabathia may not have cheated, but he put his body on the line.
The second came in 2011, when behind NL MVP Ryan Braun, the Brewers won their second postseason series in franchise history (Bud Selig was a very good owner in some ways and a very bad owner when it came to figuring out how to win). How did Ryan Braun win that MVP? Through PED’s, of course. PED’s, which are bad for you. He cheated, and he put his body on the line.
The third came in 2018, and it was the third postseason series victory. The Brewers ran down the Cubs, winning the division in a one-game tiebreaker the day after the season’s close. In the NLDS, the Brewers pummeled the Rockies, allowing only two runs the entire series before taking the Dodgers to seven games, narrowly missing their second ever pennant.
The NL MVP in that third season? Christian Yelich, who has implied he was stealing signs. He cheated. But he wouldn’t use PED’s?? Faced with the same decision as his teammate, the greatest Brewer of all time, Yelich decided against making the same sacrifice. Christian Yelich protected his body. Christian Yelich let the Brewers down.
Ironic, then, that Yelich’s body didn’t pay him back. Especially the week the Brewers were visited by the trophy most emblematic of physical sacrifice.
Etc.
- The New York Times reported today that Connor Stalions has landed a volunteer coaching job with Mumford High School, a roughly 900-student school in the northwest part of Detroit. I’d love to see the scene at Detroit Public School League headquarters as they learned Stalions entered the conference. How many new rules will there be this year in Detroit high school football?
- I don’t want to go to the trouble of removing my headphones from my backpack, untangling them, and plugging them into my computer, so I don’t know what’s being said in this video. That said, a 29-year-old Phillies rookie named Weston Wilson hit for the cycle last night in a blowout win, and we have to ask: Should the Phillies TV crew broadcast every game from the stands? Is that the key to this team winning? It would be very Philadelphia. It would be very John Kruk.
- The Clippers’ new arena is ready, and thank you to the reader and friend who called two things to our attention: First, evidently fans can earn discounts on concessions by being loud. At last, someone is using real decibel meters rather than those misleading jumbotron graphics. Accountability! Second, there’s a high-altitude t-shirt cannon, which I assume is just a really strong t-shirt cannon? Again, this is a major step forward in the fan experience. Will this end with a mascot decapitating itself trying to extricate a jammed XXL from Hanes? We can only hope. (No real decapitations, please. I want to make that clear. Blood and brains get me squeamish. Knocking a mascot’s head off is hilarious. When you knock the human head off inside of the mascot head, I get nauseous.)
- When you think of people who care a lot about privacy, who do you think of first? If you guessed the police…you’re correct? Las Vegas’s police union is fighting back against the NFL’s facial recognition technology, expressing concerns the NFL could share officers’ personal information with vendors. A fair concern! Now let’s talk Fourth Amendment.
- Rich Hill signed with the Red Sox, returning for his fourth stint with the club. 44 years old, Hill has 90 career wins. He’ll head to Worcester this weekend to prove himself with the Triple-A club.
- The European NIT delivered yesterday, as it always does. In the second leg of the third qualifying round, Ajax and Panathinaikos set a UEFA record with a 17-round penalty kick shootout. Ajax moved on in the end and will now face Jagiellonia Białystok in the two-legged play-off round, from which the winner emerges at last into the league stage of the competition. But you knew all this already. Just as you already knew Jagiellonia Białystok is the reigning champion of Poland’s Ekstraklasa.
- Lastly, Dick Vitale released his list of five mid-majors to watch this coming college basketball season, and much like your mother telling you to call your grandma on her birthday, I am telling you to go read it. Thank you. You won’t have Dickie V forever, you know. You’ll be glad you took advantage of these moments.
