Ned Yost has something in common with Peter ‘Spider-Man’ Parker.
And no, he’s not about to start wearing a mask.
But both Petey and Ned know that with great power comes great responsibility. Parker learned it from the death of his good ol’ Uncle Ben. Yost is learning from the death of his Q rating.
He’s booed for his pitching changes. He’s lambasted on talk radio. And he shouldn’t even think about surfing the Internet. Type in “Ned Yost” on Google, and the fifth result listed is FireNedYost.com.
His ESPN.com profile doesn’t show up ’til No. 7.
Yikes.
Never before has Ned’s unpopularity been so popular, and it’s not hard to figure out why. The reason so many people are calling for Ned Yost’s job is because his job matters more than ever.
When you’re in rebuilding mode and finishing 20 games out of first, nobody questions those late-season bullpen calls. Because by then they’re not paying attention. They’re too busy questioning calls in a Packers preseason game or worrying about the Badgers’ backup long-snapper.
August and September were once the Brew Crew’s annual foray into the Witness Protection Program. It was their traditional time to fade from the forefront of the local sports landscape and settle into a comfortable spot on the back burner. Mediocrity has its privileges.
But this year, spurred by a bevy of blooming young talent, August and September are finally months of hope. So Brewers fans are loathe to suffer anyone perceived to cost them that hope. They have loved and lost for so many years, and they don’t care to lose again.
Steve Torino started FireNedYost.com with a friend back in April as a way to vent frustration with the manager’s decisions. But the site’s popularity didn’t really take off until the Brewers blew their big divisional lead and found themselves in a pennant race.
“We’ve only recently started to get a lot of comments on there,” explains Torino. “Most of our traffic seems to come from Google. People get really mad either during or after a game and they Google ‘fire Ned Yost’ and find our site.”
Apparently, Torino and his buddy aren’t the only ones who need to vent.
See, the 2007 Brewers aren’t just competing against the Cubs. They’re also competing against the past, both recent and distant. The recent: This club was once 14 games above .500, but too many come-from-ahead losses put an end to that. The distant: Fans have watched the memories of the 1982 World Series club paraded before them all season long. It’s only natural that the ghosts of that season would drive Brewer nation’s passion about this one.
Fans reverently remember the ’82 club as Harvey’s Wallbangers. They don’t want to remember the ’07 club as Ned’s Blewers.
Of course, Yost isn’t too crazy about that prospect either, and there’s no doubt that he can sense the heat. Yost admitted to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Michael Hunt that he’s practically become baseball’s version of J.D. Sallinger – a self-made recluse. The man won’t even frequent his favorite coffee shop anymore, which is a shame. Nobody should be denied their daily latte.
(Yost did say, after an early-September victory, that he might venture outside the next day, which was a rare day off. But just for a trip to Cabela’s and to go shoot his bow, so at least he was taking a weapon.).
Brewers owner Mark Attanasio recently defended Yost, not with a bow, but a vote of confidence. “There seems to be more day-to-day, inning-to-inning commentary on Ned’s managing than any team in the major leagues,” Attanasio said. “I mean, I get all the New York and Los Angeles papers, they don’t do daily commentary on how the manager’s managing”
No doubt the New York media is offended, as are the owners of the several “Fire Joe Torre” Web sites crafted with loving disdain. At least Yost only has one.
But he’ll get his chance to quiet that one down. All it takes is a September run to the playoffs, and he’ll have something else in common with Spider-Man.
They’ll both be superheroes.
