00:00On one hand, I admire Judge because he wants to play and he almost wants to block out reality, which
00:07is how long the healing process is for an injury like this.
00:12I think he was trying to say this the other day, Ryan, when he talked, I was there when he
00:16talked to reporters and I don't know that he articulated it well.
00:20And I'm going to try to talk for him because I think I know what he was trying to say,
00:24which is I'm 35.
00:25How many more of these do you think I have?
00:27So I'm going to do everything possible to get in there.
00:31He's a very smart guy.
00:33He knows what's missing from the great Yankee legacy.
00:37He's a great Yankee without a championship.
00:39He's a great Yankee without a sustained total postseason run.
00:43And that's all that's missing.
00:45He's going to the Hall of Fame if he never plays another game.
00:48He's a three-time MVP.
00:49He's one of probably the 25 greatest hitters ever.
00:52He's aware of what's missing.
00:54Conversely, this is an injury, which is like the mildest of mild calf strains is a three-week injury.
01:02And it did not sound mild.
01:04And it did not sound like the place on the calf that heals quite that quickly, even if you're doing
01:10round-the-clock stuff.
01:11And the risk of going out there to kind of like hurt the team, but more specifically, potentially hurt yourself
01:18more.
01:19I was the guy, if you saw the group, I was the one who did ask him, like, are you
01:22somewhat concerned that if you do this, you can re-injure, you can make bad worse.
01:28And then it literally bleeds into next year also.
01:31And once more, I do want to admire the warrior who wants to figure out how to get on the
01:38battlefield.
01:39There's a little bit of delusion to it, if not a lot of delusion.
01:42And then the other problem is it just creates the eggshells that the leadership on the team has to walk
01:48on around its most important player, who in a way is an undeputized, at least, assistant general manager, who's making
01:57a lot of decisions for that.
01:59Having said that, Ryan, I will never say never because who knows, but I would be very surprised if he's
02:06on this roster.
