I was enjoying my Memorial Day the same as 40,000 other people at Yankee Stadium, well until Manny Machado came to bat. For years, people assumed Machado was going to sign with the Yankees when he became a free agent; as we now know, he did not and chose to sign with the Padres. When Machado began his walk to the batters box, the stadium erupted with “BOOs.” Fellow End of the Bench writer, Tyler Cassidy, and I looked at each other and our mutual friend Stevie, and said “why?” The simple answer on MDW is drunk idiots with heat exhaustion. The complex answer is those fans don’t trust Cashman, the Yankees, and just want a superstar at every position. What I say to that is, if Cashman says we did not need Machado, then we do not need him. Oh, and the record speaks for itself.
I stood there the rest of the at bat wondering if the fans knew the Yankees did not give him a contract offer. Maybe they hate Andujar. Maybe they never heard of DJ Lemahieu before the season started. Maybe they are the same people who do the wave at baseball games. What did those fans want Machado to do? Turn down $300 million to live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world while playing a sport for a nonexistent contract from your favorite team, of course. Once the at bat ended, the fans were cheering again because he looked silly against Chad Green.
In general, I’m not the fan who boos other players. I will just quietly hate them or make fun of them, maybe that’s worse but I don’t boo. Maybe that’s why I don’t understand why Yankee fans would boo Machado now. I went to a great deal of Yankee-Oriole games when Machado was in Baltimore, seemingly killing us every chance he got, and I never heard fans boo him to the extent I did on Monday. That is nonsense!
In Machado’s second at bat, fans changed their mind and did not boo. They chanted “OVERRATED” instead. That time, I laughed.
