The news of our impending retirement took many by surprise, and after spending a few days returning phone calls to world leaders and other concerned parties, it was time to dust off the old satellite video phone and call good friend of the blog, and official relationship guru, Brian Cashman. The following is a transcript of our conversation.
BC: Hello?
RJG: If it isn't the Bronstrosity from down under! And by 'down under' I mean southern Connecticut. How the hell are you?!
BC: I'm okay. Your retirement announcement came as a bit of a shock.
RJG: That's nice of you to say, I didn't think you'd be particularly aware of/affected by it.
BC: A shock it didn't happen sooner. BOOM!!!
RJG: Oh man, you got me good with that one! Almost as good as you got all those Yankee ticket holders with this wonderfully uninteresting team you've put together. Let me ask you, when you set out to cure insomnia, did you expect it to be this easy?
BC: Even as you ride into the sunset you can't help but provoke me, can you?
RJG: Oh, I'm not trying to provoke you Cashtrastophe. I'm just calling to have a pleasant conversation about how much you suck at your job. A job you're paid millions to do. That's all.
BC: You bloggers and Yankee fans are all the same. You have no idea what it is to put together a team. To give it life. Have it grow inside of you. Birth it. Watch the placenta be mopped up by an orderly.
RJG: Is that how you describe looking at a list of All-Stars from a decade ago and signing them to long term contracts? When is Vlad Guerrero coming out of retirement?
BC: Ha. Ha. It's so funny I forgot to laugh.
RJG: You just laughed. Twice. For a supposedly data savvy GM you're surprisingly bad at counting. Is that the problem, that you can't count? Or count on players signed by you?
BC: Surprisingly, our data actually does indicate it's the latter.
RJG: Whaddaya mean?
BC: We brought in Nate Silver to do some number crunching for us, and he's noticed that a player's on-field effectiveness has an inverse relationship to the amount of time that player's agent has spent negotiating with me. It's called the Cashman Effect, named after Hans Cashman, the scientist who discovered it.
RJG: I thought Nate Silver discovered it.
BC: No, if that was the case then it would be named after me, suggesting I'm ineffective at my job.
RJG: That is exactly what I'm suggesting.
BC: I could see how you could make that mistake, but you're forgetting that I had a very public affair with a crazy woman that cost me my marriage.
RJG: No I haven't! That's the second most interesting thing about you. The first is that anybody would agree to marry someone as clearly bad at their job as you are.
BC: You'll pay for that.
RJG: Why don't you go pay your divorce lawyer and alimony fees first. BOOM SHAKA LAKA!
BC: Why don't you go post infrequently with ever declining comment numbers from an increasingly absent readership?
RJG: [Muffled sobs]
BC: I'm sorry, I went too far.
RJG: Oh no, I wasn't crying about what you just said. ESPN just played some clips from last night's game and watching your on-field product generally induces an overwhelming sense of grief and despair.
BC: You must think you're so clever. But have you taken into account that Ron Washington did cocaine?
RJG: No, actually I didn't. You're right. I was wrong to criticize you.
BC: I'm glad we cleared this up.
RJG: It's not all about you, Bronny.
[Click]
Well there you have it folks: Brian Cashman fully expects this team to contend in 2014.
