Just when we thought this whole “Jacoby Ellsbury to the Yankees” thing couldn’t get any more disturbing, the press conference to make his signing official rose to bold new levels of awkwardness.
After Hal Steinbrenner introduced The Ells as “a grinder,” Brian Cashman presented Ellsbury’s wife with a bouquet of roses (freshly-cut, we can assume, by Reggie Jackson). Fearing things might not be getting silly enough, Joe Girardi then dropped this magic on the proceedings:
“Jacoby, you are going to make my job a lot easier. You no longer are a thorn in my side; you are a flower in our clubhouse and I’m happy to have you.”
Then, just when we thought Nathan Lane would drop in via parachute, Jacoby himself delivered the punchline: “A lot of players don’t even get to the postseason, let alone a World Series. To win it twice, I feel very fortunate. I’m excited to hopefully do it in New York. That would be really special.”
Yup, it certainly would. Good luck with that, Flower.
