CASE IN POINT
Young Yanks tweak staid franchise with post-hit celebrations
TORONTO — I started with the old guys, and in retrospect, that was a mistake. “I guess so, man,” Brett Gardner replied, without much enthusiasm, when I asked him whether the Yankees’ “Point to the dugout after getting a hit” routine exemplifies the team’s togetherness. “It’s just something that they have fun with. They’ve been doing it, it seems like, for a while now. Every time you get a big hit or get on base, you see guys in the dugout letting the guy on the field know that they appreciate him.
“But like I said, the other guys might be able to give you a better answer than me.”
Have you noticed this? It’s not as egregious as other, similar shticks that have traveled throughout baseball.
With these Yankees, who lost 4-2 Tuesday night, while it’s a relatively reserved double-armed salute, it’s still notable given the franchise’s staid tradition. Some players make it look as though they’re casting a spell on their teammates.
Determined to find out the pinstriped creator of this, I followed Gardner’s counsel and went younger, over to Didi Gregorius’ locker. I showed the Yankees’ energetic, 27-year-old shortstop a photo of him looking particularly animated as he pointed to the rest of the team.
“That’s against the Orioles. That’s when I tied the game,” he said immediately, referring to the April 30 game at Yankee Stadium (an eventual 7-4 Baltimore victory in 11 innings) when Gregorius tied the game with a two-out, two-run, ninth-inning single off O’s left-hander Donnie Hart. “I remember that picture.”
However, Gregorius said, he couldn’t have come up with the innovation. He had an alibi. “I wasn’t there in the beginning of the season,” he said, referring to the World Baseball Classic injury (right shoulder strain) he suf- fered that put him on the disabled list on Opening Day.
“I think he started it, [Aaron] Judge,” Gregorius said. “… When you get a hit, you’ve got to point to the dugout. ‘Come on, let’s get it going!’ It’s a good thing.”
It is a good thing, Judge agreed. But he didn’t introduce it, either.
“I didn’t start it,” Judge said. “Gary Sanchez started it.”
How about that? It’s good timing to learn of another side of Sanchez, after he has taken such a beating internally and externally these past few days for his poor defensive play.
“Gary, he always did that,” Judge said. “He’d always point at us [after a big hit].”
The guys in the dugout pointed back, Judge said, indicating, “It wasn’t us, it was you. It was just kind of a team thing. Everyone bought into it.”
Sanchez, sadly, wasn’t available for comment Tuesday.
The Baby Bombers have made their presence felt every which way. If this youth-generated tradition might not be universally adored in the Yankees’ clubhouse, the veterans get it and play along. After all, if such gestures are unusual for a Yankees team, so is the reality that the guys over 30 here are outnumbered.