#Yosted: An Epitath

Sometimes one needs to be reminded that Charlie is a national treasure:

So, on Tuesday, we had a sprawling mess of a German opera that nonetheless turned into a classic game between the Royals and the Athletics. Once, Bill Lee memorably said of his manager in Boston, Darrell Johnson, that Johnson spent the season falling out of trees and landing on his feet. Well, on Wednesday, Kansas City’s Ned Yost fell out of a tree and, on the way down, Yost hit every branch, was mauled by a passing turkey buzzard, was nibbled upon by squirrels, was briefly impaled on thorns, performed a double backflip and then a two-and-a-half in the pike position, and still landed on his feet. Yost’s unique managerial style was what people talked about the next day. The game got terrific ratings. And then, on Wednesday, in Pittsburgh, there was a quiet masterpiece, and that’s more than all right, too.

Somewhere, Grady Little must have been wistfully staring at the screen, pondering the contingent impact of ghastly managing. Little’s performance in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS was absolutely a firable offense — any idiot could see that Pedro was completely gassed even in the seventh. And yet, he absolutely could have gotten away with it — Nixon could have caught the Jeter single double, and the tying Posada double wasn’t exactly crushed. Sometimes bad game managers get what they deserve, and sometimes teams win in spite of them.