[jg2977]

MIKE:
Alright, let’s start where everybody in this town is bleeding from the eyes — the New York Yankees. Seventy-two and ninety. Dead last. Not “oh, they missed a Wild Card,” not “step back year.” Dead. Last. In a division that wasn’t exactly Murderers’ Row behind Tampa.
They were supposed to build. Supposed to creep up. Instead they fell off a cliff like Thelma and Louise. You tell me how that happens.
MAD DOG:
Mike, it’s EMBARRASSING. EMBARRASSING! This is not a rebuilding team, this is not an expansion team, this is the NEW YORK YANKEES finishing 36 games out! That’s not a gap, that’s a different ZIP CODE!
You can’t sell hope anymore. You can’t say “next year.” They’ve been saying next year since Hoover was president!
MIKE:
And the worst part? There’s no mystery. No bad luck story. They just weren’t good. They didn’t hit. They didn’t pitch. They didn’t defend. That’s organizational failure, Dog.
MAD DOG:
Now let’s talk about Boston, because they don’t escape either. Eighty-seven wins, Mike. Eighty-seven! And you’re sitting at home because Texas beats you by ONE GAME.
That’s a killer. That’s a “you remember this season forever” kind of miss.
MIKE:
Yeah, but here’s the difference — Boston’s pain is respectable pain. They’re right there. Yankees’ pain is existential. Boston lost a couple games in April, a bullpen blowup here or there — boom, season over.
New York? New York never even got on the runway.

MIKE:
Now let’s get to the top, because this is where the league separates from the noise.
Anaheim: 116–46.
Cleveland: 115–47.
Tampa Bay: 108–54.
That’s not coincidence. That’s not cyclical luck. That’s power structure.
MAD DOG:
Mike, these are the same three teams over and over and over again! Anaheim just won the World Series two years ago, Cleveland lives at 110 wins, Tampa’s basically a machine!
You don’t “upset” these teams. You survive them. Maybe.
MIKE:
Anaheim at 116 wins and the top seed — no drama, no wobble, in position to perhaps win another World Series. That tells you everything. Cleveland right behind them, like a shark that smells blood after what happened in that Game 7 collapse.
And Tampa? Tampa’s the quiet killer. 1933 World Series champions. They win the East by twenty games and nobody even notices.

MAD DOG:
Now I LOVE this Wild Card slate, Mike.
Baltimore in Houston — first time since 1924! That’s a STORY. That’s fresh blood! Baltimore fans don’t even know what round this is!
MIKE:
Yeah but they’re walking into Houston, and Houston’s been here before. That’s not an easy welcome back to relevance.
MAD DOG:
And then Texas at Tampa — that’s brutal. Texas wins 88 games, feels good about itself, and boom: “Congratulations, here’s Tampa Bay.” That’s like winning a raffle and the prize is dental surgery.

MIKE:
Before we wrap, I gotta say this: Minnesota and Detroit. Forty-eight wins. Forty-seven wins.
Dog, I know relegation doesn’t exist — but if it did?
MAD DOG:
SEND ‘EM DOWN! SEND ‘EM DOWN! Mike, these teams are historically bad. They’re not rebuilding, they’re not retooling — they’re LOST.
You can’t have teams losing 115 games in a league with this much money and this much structure. It drags the whole thing down.
MIKE:
They’re not even speed bumps. They’re sinkholes.

MIKE (closing):
So here’s the American League in 1936, plain and simple:
The elite stayed elite
The middle got squeezed
The Yankees hit rock bottom
And the postseason? It runs straight through Anaheim, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay — in that order.