Anthony Rizzo postgame TV interview is depressing reminder of 2024 Yankees

On Tuesday night, the New York Yankees both enthralled fans expecting potential disaster in Houston, and tantalized them with reminders of what could've been last year.

Trent Grisham's grand slam — his third in a month and a half — busted down the doors of what eventually became a 7-1 victory, transforming a nail-biter into a FramberBiter (Framber Valdez might've bitten his catcher after the game ended). Grisham, of course, was on last year's World Series roster, too, but never got into a rhythm, receiving sparse plate appearances (to say the least — he recorded 28 plate appearances in March/April and 20 in May, recording zero hits in that month). We all thought Alex Verdugo was blocking Jasson Dominguez's development, but ignoring Grisham might've been the bigger sin; Verdugo, after a short stint in Atlanta, is out of baseball.

Anthony Rizzo, too, was a World Series starter who is no longer in active competition, though he's still involved in the game. Rizzo had a spot on TBS' baseball pre- and postgame coverage for the Yankees' latest glorious victory, and he was behind the desk watching on Tuesday. Rizzo, freshly 36 years old, was still supposed to be in the tail end of his leadership prime last year. Unfortunately, he was never quite the same after a Fernando Tatis Jr. collision that rocked him in 2023 (and a concussion that both he and the Yankees agreed he'd play through).

Before the Tatis hit, he'd posted OPS marks of .845 and .916 in the season's first two months. After? .538 and .457 before his season ended swiftly in August.

Rizzo returned to play last season and lasted through October, but still was unable to reach the level he should've had access to, through no fault of his own. It remains depressing that the Yankees never again got to see the Rizzo who seemed fated to lead them through the World Series matchup we'd all been waiting for; dulled by broken fingers and the previous year's crash, he hit just .125 in the Fall Classic, had his option dissolved, and was all but forced out of baseball prior to the 2025 season.

Which explains how he ended up at the desk Tuesday, trying to get a word into his old brethren before they cut the feed on him. Rizzo, before Jazz Chisholm Jr. was able to sign off from his postgame interview, left the Yankees slugger with a simple message for the locker room he used to belong to (and still sort of does, in perpetuity?): "Do me a favor? Send the boys my love, tell them I miss them."

Chisholm was happy to oblige.

Anthony Rizzo watched Yankees' win over Astros from TBS studios, sent love to the locker room postgame

An October run with the real Rizzo and a clutcher-than-seemed-possible Grisham playing key roles? Last year could've been so much different. It could've ended with so much love.

Instead, we were left cold, and Rizzo's attempts to tap into the locker room he once led on Tuesday were just another reminder of what we were all robbed of.