Beloved Former-Yankees pitcher receives fans’ brains racing with New York sports cameo

admin | December 31, 2023 | Other Clubs | No Comments

The Brooklyn Nets are technically a “New York” sports team.

Yes, Brooklyn is in New York, but the Barclays Center still feels like it’s renting a New Jersey basketball team in between Drake performances.

But, hey, the YES Network broadcasts both the Nets and the Yankees, so it’s logical to wonder if some old Yankee ties led (drumroll please) Masahiro Tanaka and his lovely wife to town to watch the Nets play… well, we’re not sure.

The post was published on Thursday, and the Nets played the Bucks on Wednesday (and sort of, sort of tanked the game). Tanaka could have been in town this week. Could this be an old photograph from about the time of the Yoshinobu Yamamoto meeting? Is Tanaka in town to meet with anyone else? Perhaps selling a different Japanese pitcher on the team’s culture in the midst of Brian Cashman’s pitching search?

“NY was fun again this year,” he captioned, with a Statue of Liberty emoji. Could it be… entertaining for the entire year?

What was former Yankees star Masahiro Tanaka doing at Barclays Center?

Tanaka, who is still sporting a Yankees jacket in his Instagram profile photo, was not dumped by the club on his way out (as many of our opposition fans believe). He left New York at the age of 32, rather than escaping to another MLB city, he returned to Japan to pitch for the Rakuten Golden Eagles once more. He was a victim of the Yankees’ luxury tax maneuvers, and they chose Corey Kluber, a decision that seems horrible in retrospect, but there doesn’t appear to have been any animosity involved.

Despite suffering a partial UCL tear nearly immediately after landing in the United States, he went on to become a reliable No. 2/3 starter and playoff stalwart for the modern Yankees. Last winter, he took a big wage reduction on a one-year contract with Rakuten, modestly valuing himself in the aftermath of a bad season. He went 13-21 from 2021 to 2022 (despite a great ERA and control metrics), and his future appears to be in jeopardy once more.

Is there any chance he’ll pay another visit to the Coles while in New York this winter? He’d be perfect for a one-way plane ticket. Just a thought.