Cody Bellinger is a pretty good player. Should he be one of the highest paid in history?

They say the deeper that physicists delve into quantum particle theory, the less sense anything makes. 

So it goes with baseball. 

According to Cot's Baseball contracts, here are the 15 richest players in history.

According to the Internet, the Yankees have offered Cody Bellinger a five-year, $150 million deal, which his agent - Scott Boras - won't even use to wipe his perfumed butt with. 

Unless some other team beats the offer, Bellinger will slot in somewhere around 77th on the all-time Decadent Wealth list. (See below.)

For most of my life, in contract disputes, I always favored players over owners. It's a low ethical bar. Players battle on every pitch, every play from scrimmage, every face-off. No owner ever got carted off with a broken jaw or revived at midfield with a defibrillator, while teammates prayed.

But lately, it's getting hard to make sense of the money in sports. The idea of millionaire quarterbacks pretending to attend college classes, bestriding campuses like Olympian gods... something's gone really wrong. And the money long ago became obscene. 

Soon, Bellinger will land in the all-time rich list. He'll rightfully fall below Hall of Famers like Miguel Cabrera ($152 million) and Derek Jeter ($189 million), but beat Mike Trout ($144 million) and Max Scherzer ($130 million.) And he'll be far behind Wander Franco ($182 million, though I suspect those payments are in limbo.)

Let's disregard quantum physics. It makes no sense, probably never will. 

As John would say, "That's baseball, Suzyn." 

Next year, around now, baseball will be approaching a huge labor lockout. There will probably be no spring training, no opening day - and maybe, no season. 

Right now, it's like a civilization-killing asteroid, visible in the night sky, which we're being told to ignore. 

Sorry. I can't. Don't mean to hang this on Bellinger. It's not his fault. But as the billionaires become trillionaires - (see Musk, Elon) - they are destroying sports in America, (which, by the way, is also to destroy America.)

Mickey Mantle is the center of attraction before undergoing a tonsillectomy at Lenox Hill Hospital on January 17, 1956. The nurses, from left to right, are: Eleanor Hoffman, Catherine Craig, Maureen Kade, Kim Crocker, Ann Koch, and Anita Edwards.

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— Dr Pop Culture USA (@drpopcultureusa.bsky.social) January 17, 2026 at 5:44 PM

C Ø N fidence

With no end in sight, the bleakest winter continues.

Grab the bullhorn. Climb onto the car. Say their names...

Ryan Weathers! 

Amed Rosario! 

Ryan Yarbrough! 

Paul Blackburn! 

Can ya feel it? That's felony grade, uncut, Yankee sarcasm. In six weeks, that's what we'll be spewing along One Steinbrenner Drive in Tampa - our de facto Canyon of Heroes. It's gonna be a long winter, maybe the last regular, regular season in our lifetimes. 

Next October, after the Dodgers win the World Series, Trump can accept the Commissioner's Trophy, to stand beside his Oscar, his Grammy and his Heisman Trophy, all joyfully donated by previous owners, facing DOJ probes. 

It looks rather dense, the long term future? For now, here's where the short term stands.

Let's be honest. The Dodgers have wrapped up the 2026 NL West. Denver better beat the Bills this weekend, because the Colorado Rockies this season will be toast. LA just signed Kyle Tucker for an ungodly amount, not including luxury taxes that pay the Rockies and Diamondbacks to lose. 

We cannot condemn the Dodgers for buying pennants. Owners can only buy pennants because other owners sell them. Let's just lament that it's supposed to be the Yankees doing it. We cannot pretend to be a small market team. As Yank fans, everybody still hates us. What's worse is how they chuckle. I'm seriously fearing that this could be one of those Boston years, when they swoop in and win the division - our worst case scenario.   

Once and for all, the Mets own New York City. They signed Bo Bichette, despite having no position for him (I guess he'll play 3B, even though Brett Baty had finally started to hit. They'll trade him for pitching.) The move is a sucker-punch to Toronto, still spoiling over Trump's derisive talk about Canada being the 52nd state, after Greenland. 

Don't be surprised if, out of spite, Rogers Communications makes Cody Bellinger the offer he can't refuse.

Ah, Cody - an above-average outfielder coming off his best season since 2019 - is now demanding seven years of Aaron Judge money. 

Listen: Yank fans like Bellinger. Firm handshake. Flushes the toilet. But he's not Judge. He's not even Kyle Tucker. If he stays, we've got last year's also-ran team, reconstituted, maybe with our two best prospects leaving in trades, which - like all of Cashman's moves - inspire little hope.

In recent years, as a fan of the New York Football Giants, I've been so disgusted by the product on the field that I've actively rooted for my team to lose. After a certain point, you decide the only way to break out of the malaise is a complete meltdown, a collapse of nuclear proportions, a Cat-5.

This winter, I am starting to feel that vibe with the Yankees. 

The storm is coming. It's gonna bring pain. Let's just hope it washes us clean. 

Mets bestow $42 million a year on Bo Bichette

Sorry, man. THESE prices are insane.

 

It's time to invoke the Yankee Fans Insurrection Act

Yesterday, snow squalls near Syracuse offered us a rare photographic rendering of MLB's current free agent market. 

As seen on the right, the top tractor-trailer is Kyle Tucker, who announced he will become the newest Dodger because - of course - he wants a ring. The second truck is Cody Bellinger, surrounded by suitors - the Mets, Phillies, Jays and several mystery teams - all of whom will likely outbid the Yankees, who are off screen in a ditch.

Onto our fire of hopelessness, toss another log. 

This is the most depressing January since 2005, when Cooperstown Cashman was touting the chops of Richard "Bubba" Crosby in centerfield. While the AL East bulks up, via free agents and trades, the Yankees are struggling to maintain last year's aging, also-ran lineup - now a year older and spackled with injuries. 

Tucker's signing - and, by the way, hats off to the inscrutable Dodgers, who sat for three months like a cobra before striking - suddenly explains why Scott Boras has pursued an outlandish seven-year deal for Bellinger. The three wildest bidders - the Mets, Phillies and Jays - must now chase two remaining major free agents: Bellinger and Bo Bichette. It doesn't matter that Food Stamps Hal has lost his taste for spending. There is plenty of money out there. So, how 'bout that Bubba! 

I say it's time to invoke the Yankee Fan Insurrection Act, which means forgetting the holes at LF, SS, 3B, the rotation and bullpen, and starting to say aloud the most frightening word in the team dictionary: 

Rebuild.

Ouch. What a word. In many ways, it's time to think about 2028, or 2030, or some distant future time line, when a crazy, vulgar trillionaire has taken over the team. By then, if we're still cogent, our brains will be wired into the new singularity, running traffic lights and smart refrigerators.  

As a great yogi once said, It's getting late early. I hate to go Chicken Little on the upcoming season. But let's face it: The Dodgers will win the 2026 world championship, and the Yankees will be lucky to reach the second week of October. 

They're not the Yankees, anymore. The Dodgers are. It's time for an insurrection. It's time for fans to remind the Yankees of who they are. (Or were.)

60 fucking million a year. Judge should have got 100.

No, it is insane.

 

Your Moment of Bøøne . . . . at Noon (ish)

 THIS GUY IS GUNNA NEED A HUG - REALLY, REALLY SOON

Boo-Hoo Boone

Nicest Guy in

Da Room

He's like our own

Looney Tune

and

Ready to Groom

Players Fresh from

Da Womb

In a dark, dark winter, the Yankees are not inspiring hope

First, let's recognize that it's merely mid-January - four weeks to Super Sunday and six until pitchers and catchers - and we must not live and die on relentless trade rumors that herald the Yankees' growing insignificance. 

In this desolate outpost, in the names of Babe & Mickey, of Thurm & Yogi, and of John & Suzyn, we remember what was once the world's greatest sports dynasty - hands down. 

Now, though, halfway through the gloomiest winter in memory, the Yankees look like just another baseball team.

Somewhere within this burgeoning matrix of disappointment, there must be a plan - a strategy, a set of moves that will eventually make sense, like in the final acts of those Knives Out movies, where everything gets explained. 

Somewhere in here, the Yankees must have a plan to lead us from this darkness.

It sure hasn't happened yet. While Boston adds pitchers, and the Mets shovel money on Kyle Tucker, the Yankees are struggling to reconstitute - gulp - last year's team.

Yesterday, they celebrated a farm-system-draining deal for a pitcher who hasn't thrown 100 innings in the last two years, while they continued to romance Cody Bellinger, a free agent outfielder who, frankly, hasn't strung together two solid seasons since 2019.

Somewhere, there must be a plan, right? Because from here, the Yankees are acting as if a) they won the 2025 World Series, b) Trent Grisham is a sure thing, and c) Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt will all return to former glories. Meanwhile, we're supposed to believe Iran will capitulate, Greenland will happily come aboard, and the city of Minneapolis will magically achieve peace with a brutal, occupying army. 

This winter is starting to give a vibe of 2013, the year of Vernon Wells, Lyle Overbay and Pronk. 

Darkest winter in memory.  

I wonder if baseball is gonna save us. Do the Yankees have a plan?

The Yankees just traded for David Weathers' kid. Ten sorta fun facts about him.

David Weathers' ERA
matched his chins 

Following the lead of Cody Bellinger, son of Clay, the Yankees yesterday traded four prospects to the MAGA State Marlins for LH starter Ryan Weathers, son of Tubby - um, I mean - David, bullpen lug nut for the 1996 world champs. 

FWIW, two of the traded prospects had been listed among the Yankees' Top 20, so let's figure the farm system is tapped out and will be hard pressed to deliver a Freddy Peralta -(though Spencer Jones remains on the table.) 

As for Ryan Weathers, here are 10 sorta fun facts.

1. He's a former 1st round pick. (WTF is it with Cooperstown Cashman and former 1st rounders?) He was selected 7th, by San Diego, in the 2018 draft. (His dad was a 3rd rounder, by Toronto, in 1988.)

2. He turned 26 last month, and he's under contract until 2029. (Another major attraction for Cashman.)

3. His portly dad, David, was listed as 6'3" and 205 (a hallucinatory number.) Ryan is 6'1" and 230. A chunk. 

4. As a high school senior, Ryan was named 2017 Gatorade National Player of the Year. He must have gotten laid all the time. He committed to Vanderbilt. 

5. After being drafted, Ryan signed for $5.2 million and went to Fort Wayne, where he pitched decently (ERA 3.84) in the Midwest dirt league.

6. In 2020, with the Padres, Ryan became the 2nd pitcher in MLB history to make his debut in the fucking postseason, pitching 1.1 innings, walking two. Seriously, he debuted in the playoffs!

7. He made the 2021 Padres roster out of spring training, looked like a future thing, and then pretty much sucked over 30 games that year. (ERA 5.32.)

8. At the 2023 trade deadline, San Diego dealt him to Miami for Garret Cooper and Sean Reynolds. Again, he pretty much sucked. (ERA 7.62.)

9. Weathers started to blossom in 2024, throwing 71 innings (ERA 3.63), but he missed several months with a strained index finger.

10. In 2025, he showed more promise, (ERA 3.99) but missed big chunks of the season with strains of his forearm and lat. 

Good stuff. Can't stay healthy. Ours for three years. Not sure what we gave up, or what this signifies - if anything - for Bellinger and the outfield. But you have to really believe in miracles, if you think the Yankees have solved their pitching issues.   

Dear Mr. Steinbrenner: How're ya doing? I'm okay. And while I have you, PLEASE DON'T TRADE THE MARTIAN!

Dear Madam or Sir, 

Having watched the Yankees for 70 seasons - no lie, 70, give or take the Wonder Years - I know what's coming... 

After all the squawking, the Yankees will re-sign Cody Bellinger. 

Dunno the price. Don't care. I just think everyone - including the rest of the AL East - is fine with the Yankees dropping $40 million or so on a human yo-yo of up-and-down seasons. None of your owner buddies will whine if you maintain last year's runner-up roster. The world loves to watch the Yankees tread water. Thus, Bellinger will return, leaving you in desperate need of pitching, and with two commodities to trade for it.

1. Either Will Warren (age 26) or Luis Gil (27) - youngish 4th starters who could break out and anchor a rotation.  

2, Either Jasson Dominguez (22) or Spencer Jones (24), corner OFs with interesting upsides, both of whom would become expendable with the return of Bellinger.

Trade one of each and add some Single A fodder, you could acquire Freddy Peralta in his walk year, and open camp with an arguably improved roster. 

Thus, a key to 2026 - and beyond - comes down to one massive choice: Who goes? The Martian or Mr. Jones?

I humbly suggest it be Jones. 

I get it that The Martian is a horrible fielder, an atrocity of the warning tracks. Meanwhile, the Yanks have hyped Jones as a potential CF. (Let's believe that when we see it.) Both are fast as hell. Jones, last year in the minors, stole 29 bases (caught 6 times.) Dominguez, with the Mother Ship, stole 23 (5 times caught). 

But it's all about the Three True Outcomes - the Holy Trinity of stats: BBs, Ks and HRs. 

Last year, in 544 minor league at bats, Jones walked 58 times, hit 39 HRs and fanned 179 times. Altogether, 51 percent of the time, he failed to put a ball into play. He either jogged the bases or marched back to the dugout. Fifty one percent of the time.

Dominguez, with 429 MLB at bats, rendered 41 walks, 115 Ks, and 10 HRs - a 39 percent wake-me-when-he's-done rate. 

In another city, in another reality, Jones could become a huge star. He looks like a young Joey Gallo, and though I can hear your catcalls, that's something Yank fans never got to see in pinstripes. Gallo had some all-star years in Texas; they were smart enough to trade him when Cashman called. Meanwhile, if The Martian doesn't learn to play LF, he will become the Plutonian. 

Still, I like it that Dominguez last year never hit a couple HRs and got slugger-drunk. The Yankees entered October with the most HRs in baseball, and they exited it like all HR-dependent teams do: Walking dejectedly back to the dugout. 

We don't need another Three True Outcomes swinger. We need batted balls in play. 

Sir, if and when it comes to a trade, hold the line. 

Think: Mars.

Will the return of Trent Grisham be the last defining Yankee event of 2026 - and beyond?

According to my A.I. "co-pilot" - who is brilliant, sexy, and never wrong - the Yankees are backing away from Cody Bellinger, as if he just tested positive for scurvy. How do we know this? 

Ironclad circumstantial evidence, which flows through the Internet like grease through a goose. I hereby submit that...

1. They've now made two (2) offers to Bellinger. In other words, they made their pitch. Twice. It didn't fly. 

2. If they were gonna re-sign Bellinger, they'd have done it by now.

3. Others are signing. See BOSTON: ALEX DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANY MORE. 

Keep in mind, this is content crapola, the sorriest slop of winter. Aside from Bellinger, super-demon Scott Boras and Cooperstown Cashman, nobody knows WTF is really happening. It's possible that they don't, either.

Still, who among you can dispel that infectious - and rising - suspicion that the Yankees - 2009 world champions! - will wind up with nothing to show this winter but Trent Grisham, whose breakout 2025 - he hit .235! - was a mirage? 

Whatever happens with Bellinger, the Death Barge has yet to address the 899-pound gorilla in the sandwich board that says, "WHO'S GONNA PITCH?"  

Every news story, every speculative trade rumor, it just reminds us that the Yankees are no longer the apex predators of winter, the AL East, or even their home town. There's a new reality in baseball. It goes this way: 

The owners are all multi-billionaires, unable to even fathom how much money they have. To keep from overspending, they need payroll caps. The war over financing will explode baseball in 2027, and we can already see the asteroid approaching in the distant night sky. 

So, cherish your A.I. companion, your manic, pixie dream girl. Isn't she sweet?Isn't she hot? We're about to invade Greenland. She'll keep us warm, eh?

Boone is a nice guy, still an idiot. Or is that nice idiot, still a guy?

 On KTZZ, channel 22 in Seattle, you'll find a collection of truly vintage vintage TV. The Kate Smith Show just wrapped up, sponsored by Norge. Now another tale from The Whistler is just beginning.

True, there are 2025 commercials between the shows, all of them low-rent and crappy, for products available through an 800 number (though the URL does appear, it's always in smaller type).

Yeseterday, I was in a great mood, heightened by four consecutive episodes of Superman on the Heroes & Icons channel. All black and white, and the first even featured the original TV Lois Lane, Phyllis Coates. Flintier and not as cuddly as her successor, but pretty darned good. Those oldest black and white shows are actually serious, as opposed to the more kiddie-friendly fare later on. I still love the cruelty Supie showed when confronting the Mole Men. That trait got taken out pretty damn fast in subsequent scripts.

When these shows were popular on network TV, the Yankees were indisputably the greatest team in baseball. Yogi, the Scooter, Whitey, Mickey, Moose...rarely did they miss a shot at a ring, and when they got one, they rarely missed bringing a ring home.

Casey was a comedian, a sage, a purveyor of some truly strange platoon and defensive lineup moves, a tough competitor who had Rizzuto pushed off the team to make room for Enos Slaughter when the Yanks had a raft of outfielders on the injured list. (Stengel famously told the Scooter to get a shoeshine box and change careers when Phil tried out for Casey's Dodgers in the 1930s.)

I'm an old guy who should lose 30 pounds, find a good hair growth supplement and stop thinking I can carry multiple heavy bags of groceries a mile and a half to our apartment. Yesterday, I smoked too many cigarettes and liked it, but today woke up with a slight smoker's cough and that wheezy chest feeling when I was hacking. I haven't had a drink since last Sunday because my iron is kind of high and booze suppresses the liver enzyme that keeps it under control. I've been getting a lot of headaches, mostly in and around the eyes, thanks to the constantly damp, gloomy weather in this corner of the current Reich (the Third having resurrected in the USA).

But even if I wasn't born yet and then not old enough to appreciate the 1950s Yanks, I wish some of their ashes would drift down onto today's sadly mediocre team, from the front office to the dugout to the broadcast booth.

Obviously, that ain't happening. However, the $64,000 Question just started, sponsored by Revlon, in a Christmassy-decorated episode. Sure, that show became the most prominent of crooked quiz shows, eventually. Scooter also got pushed out of short into the broadcast booth. But before those events, we had some team.

The contestent is in the Isolation Booth and can win a 1956 Caddy. I gotta go.

The Redsocks whiff on Bregman. Is the logjam about to break?

Yesterday, the Conniving Cubs abruptly signed Alex Bregman to a five-year deal, bombing the current MLB chess board, and infuriating Boston fans, who now must turn to the legendary Marcelo Mayer. 

The signing leaves three major positional free agents - Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette and Cody Bellinger - still sashaying on the catwalk before 10 potential suitors. The salivating teams are: 

1. The Dodgers, always hot for another star. Maybe sign all three?

2. The Mets, still seated on their blue balls, cramped by unspent money.

3. The Blue Jays, ready to stick it to Trump, if some honky USA team poaches Bichette.

4. The Phillies, always one star away from the brass ring.

5. The Angels. Wait. Are they still a team? (Which is why they must do something.)

6. The Redsocks, who - in theory, anyway - still have that Bregman money.

7. The Mariners, who are way too quiet, considering how close they came.

8. The Padres, San Diego's last pro sports hope, (unless you follow the Wave, Seals, Strike Force and Legion. Ten quatlooms to anyone who can identify what sports those teams represent.)

9. The Rangers, classic lurkers with Texas oil money, soon to be bolstered by free Venezuela tankers. Never turn your back. 

10. And, well, us... the Bombers, the Death Barge, the 2009 World Champions! - who have spent this winter recreating last year's second-place team.

In past winters, the Yankee 40-man roster always looked tight. The franchise usually lost a player or two in the Rule 5 draft, due to the overflow of young arms. 

Today, the roster holds Kervin Castro, Chase Hampton, Brent Headrick, Kaleb Ort, Jayvien Sandridge and Cade Winquest - their first Rule 5 pick in 14 years. Of this group, only Hampton was born in this millennium; he's coming off surgery. 

Without a significant injection of pitching, 2026 looks like a suicide run. Considering Hal Steinbrenner's increased frugality, it's rational to think signing Bellinger would be the Yankees' only splurge. From then on, they'll be trading young players.  

That sure doesn't inspire hope, eh?