Sportscaster Mike Francesa has heard plenty of shots fired at the New York Yankees in the 17 seasons since their last championship. He recently discussed Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy’s take on the New York Yankees on his podcast, saying the remark landed “right on target.”
On his podcast, the former WFAN host said that Pat Murphy’s on-field remark to Jake Bauers, caught by television cameras while the team celebrated its first World Series title, will be harder for the Yankees to wave off than the criticism that came before it. He said,
“This shot from Murphy, I think sticks. I think it’s the first shot that hits broadside and will impact the Yankees…team that only plays for itself, which is right on target, and it has to hurt because it was in the celebration after they won.”
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“… They just dominated the sport, finished off the Dodgers, finished off Tampa, which the Yankees couldn’t touch. And now he makes that comment.”
Francesa, speaking on his BetRivers podcast, per Elite Sports NY, did not stop there. He called the remark “a shot of shots,” pointed to the live setting as the reason it would carry, and compared Pat Murphy to a managerial great.
“None of these shots that have been leveled, from anybody, none of them have stuck,” he said. “They haven’t cared one bit about the criticism they’ve gotten. They’ve brushed it off.”
However, Francesa believes this time it’ll be harder for the Yankees to simply brush it off, since it was “right on television, in the celebration, and everybody saw it and reacted to it immediately.” Mike Francesa said, “That had to sting.”
Pat Murphy Takes a Shot at Yankees’ Clubhouse Culture During Brewers’ World Series Celebration
The exchange happened seconds after Jake Bauers caught the final out of Milwaukee Brewers‘ 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5 at Tropicana Field on Wednesday night, closing out a 4-1 series. Bauers handed the ball to his manager, and Pat Murphy pulled him in close.
“You’re going to be a rich f*****. Just remember when you were on that horse s**t Yankees team and you guys were all playing for yourself? Just remember, say, ‘This is the way we used to do it.’”
The team Murphy described was the 2023 Yankees, who went 82-80 and missed the playoffs. Murphy’s point, delivered to a pending free agent who had just helped win a ring, was that the payday coming this winter would not buy what Milwaukee had built.
Bauers laughed and answered, “You ain’t getting rid of me that easy,” according to ESPN. Neither he nor Pat Murphy was asked about the conversation by reporters afterward. The contrast Francesa described is what gives the line its edge.
Milwaukee won a franchise-record 103 regular-season games, swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS to end their three-peat bid, then closed out the Rays in five. The Yankees won 93 games, swept the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card Series, and were then swept by those same Rays in the ALDS, losing Game 3, 4-3, at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 7. It was their second straight Division Series exit.
Murphy, the National League manager of the year in 2024 and 2025, was holding the final-out ball and standing on the field with a trophy nearby when he said it. That is the part Francesa keeps returning to: not the content of the criticism, which Yankees people have heard for years, but the venue, the timing and the man delivering it.
Edited by Kaushani Chatterjee
