Gerrit knows his labor history, thanks

Gerrit Cole had a lot of people to thank Wednesday after putting on the pinstripes for the first time, but he made sure to give thanks to two of the men that led to this day. Cole took the unusual move of thanking Marvin Miller, the first president of the MLB Players Association, and Curt Flood, who fought the league for the right to free agency.

Cole said that former Mets catcher John Buck, who was dealt to the Pirates in the right-hander’s rookie year, made sure he knew that history of the game.

“One of his favorite things was he would call you up to the front of the bus after a few pops, and he would get in your face he would ask you, ‘Who’s

Curt Flood? Tell me about Curt Flood! Why is he so important?’ I hope that goes on every bus. I want everybody to know, because challenging the reserve clause was one of the first stepping stones to ultimately the system we have today, which I believe brings out the most competitive, you know, genuine competitiveness, that we have in baseball,” Cole said.

“There’s many different stories to be told by every baseball season. And the best stories are always told because there’s competitiveness and Curt was instrumental in getting the ball rolling. And, you know, it’s so fitting that the free agency season that has started this year already coincides with Marvin getting into the Hall of Fame,” Cole said. “I just think it’s so important that players know the other sacrifices that players made in order to keep the integrity of the game where it is. I hope everyone has that conversation about Curt Flood on the bus. “As John Buck would say, excuse my language, get your f—king book reports ready, kids. I want to hear about Curt Flood.”

FINE WINE

The Yankees brass tried to blow Gerrit and Amy Cole away. In the end, the Bombers made the biggest, longest offer quickly in the process — which took about four hours of negotiations to hammer out — to land Cole.

But they got off on the right foot thanks to visiting clubhouse manager Lou Cucuzza. Besides an informational box about the organization and area, the Yankees brought a couple bottles of special Masseto wine to their meet-andgreet with the couple in California.

It blew the ace away. He could not figure out how Yankees manager Aaron Boone knew not only his favorite wine, but the vintage of his wedding anniversary.

“Aaron brought a couple bottles of it and actually one of the vintages that they brought was the exact same vintage from the anniversary dinner that my wife and I had in Florence. And so I was a little bit on my heels,” Cole said Wednesday after the press conference introducing Cole as the Bombers’ new ace.

“And I remember trying to, you know, trying to stay focused through the meeting, obviously, and not think about booze the entire time. I still couldn’t figure it out. And when I came home, I was trying to grind it. I was telling Amy, ‘How the f—- did they pull that off?’ There are not very many people in the world that know that that’s my favorite wine, and now there are so feel free if you have an allocation to send it my way. But I swear to God I laid my head down at like 11:30 at night to try to go to sleep. I didn’t sleep much after that night, but I