Culture

The 3 biggest highlights from Juan Soto’s gutsy performance in huge win over A’s

Published

1 year ago

September 22, 2024

The 3 biggest highlights from Juan Soto’s gutsy performance in huge win over A’s

OAKLAND — Juan Soto didn’t feel great.

When he woke up Friday morning, his left knee was stiff, swollen and achy. The night prior, he slammed it into the wall making a sliding catch at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, and with just nine games left in the season and a month until his hotly anticipated free agency, he was worried something might be very wrong.

Turned out, he wasn’t just OK. He was en route to delivering another signature moment in his first and — avert your eyes, New York Yankees fans — perhaps only season in pinstripes.

Soto battled through soreness in his knee to deliver 10th-inning, pinch-hitting heroics in a crucial 4-2 win over the Oakland A’s at the Coliseum.

“Showman-like,” said Gerrit Cole, the night’s other hero who allowed just one run over nine innings and 99 pitches.

Let’s run through the most standout parts of Soto’s brief, but impactful performance.

Soto. Clutch. pic.twitter.com/w8Xf28blfL
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) September 21, 2024

Playing through pain

Soto wasn’t totally ready. Though manager Aaron Boone’s initial lineup had the 25-year-old batting second and playing right field, Soto’s pregame work told the team to yank him out just hours before first pitch.

Earlier in the day, Soto received the best news of all: X-rays of his kneecap didn’t reveal structural damage.

“It was really a relief,” he said.

A bigger relief? Getting the job done when Boone called upon him with the game on the line.

In the 10th with the score tied 1-1, after Anthony Rizzo led off with a single to right field and moved automatic runner Jasson Domínguez to third base, Boone figured it was the right time. So, Soto pinch hit for center fielder Trent Grisham.

With the count 1-1, Oakland reliever T.J. McFarland whipped an 88-mph sinker that went all the way to the backstop for a wild pitch. Domínguez slid feet-first under the pitcher’s tag. The Yankees had taken the lead.

Then, on the next pitch, Soto roped a slider to the right-field corner. The ball (exit velocity: 110 mph) zipped over the left fielder’s head, scoring pinch-runner Oswaldo Cabrera from second base.

Soto cruised into second base and then came out for pinch runner Jon Berti.

“What a big-time at-bat,” Boone said.

“That was awesome,” catcher Austin Wells said. “I mean, he couldn’t play the whole game? He came in at the end? Just a piece-o’-cake double. No, I’m glad he’s healthy, and he did a great job coming off the bench.”

It brought to mind Soto’s performance from nine days prior when he fouled a ball off his foot, went down in pain and then continued the at-bat only to crush a long two-run homer off Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Cole Ragans. The Yankees won the game 4-3.

Willingness to put his body on the line

On Friday afternoon, Soto spent time hitting in the cage with assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler and doing squats in the weight room. But he wasn’t ready. Soto and the Yankees decided to give him more time to rest. So, Aaron Judge shifted to right field and Grisham started in center.

Yet, by the time the middle of the game came around, Boone said that Soto approached him to tell him that he could hit if the game was on the line.

Soto didn’t have to do that. He could have taken the rest of the day to protect his knee — and his availability for the postseason. The Yankees clinched a playoff berth Wednesday and maintained their four-game lead in the American League East with eight games remaining.

But Soto wanted to play.

“I know we clinched and this and that,” he said. “But at the end of the day, the goal is to win the division, and we are really close. I didn’t think about any day off or anything. But we’re trying to be smart too and think about October and not think about right now. So, yeah, all the options came through my mind.”

Cole had a simple explanation.

“He loves the moment, man,” Cole said. “He loves it.”

Juan Soto discusses status of his knee, pinch-hitting, playoff anticipation and more. pic.twitter.com/WnpFPVpna2
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) September 21, 2024

A nod to his teammates and training staff

The Yankees’ dugout exploded after Soto’s double. It was clear how much Soto adores his teammates as he danced and sprayed champagne with them during Wednesday’s celebration of the Yankees nailing down a playoff spot.

But he put it into words Friday.

“These guys are unbelievable,” he said. “These guys are great. I love every single guy that is in here. We’ve been together since Day 1, and we’ve been showing love day in and day out, and it’s just a great feeling.”

Soto also credited the Yankees’ medical and strength staffers for their work on his knee.

“The trainers did a pretty good job to help me get the swelling down and it felt very good,” he said.

He added, “(The knee) reacted pretty well. So throughout the game, I was feeling good. It wasn’t sore or anything after all the work we put in, and that’s when I knew I had a good chance to be an option.”

(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)

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Culture

Video: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

Published

4 days ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

Video: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

new video loaded: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

To capture Jane Austen’s brief life and enormous impact, editors at The New York Times Book Review assembled a sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness she has brought to our lives.

By Jennifer Harlan, Sadie Stein, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Edward Vega

December 18, 2025

Culture

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

Published

6 days ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.

Culture

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

Published

7 days ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.

Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”

With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”

How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.

By ‘A Lady’

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)

Where the Magic Happened

Janice Chung for The New York Times

Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.

An Iconic Accessory

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.

Austen Onscreen

Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.

Jane Goes X-Rated

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.

A Lady Unmasked

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”

Wearable Tributes

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.

The Austen Literary Universe

Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)

A Botanical Homage

Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.

Aunt Jane

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.

Cultural Currency

Steve Parsons/Associated Press

In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.

In the Trenches

During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”

Baby Janes

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.

The Austen Industrial Complex

Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.

Around the Globe

Goucher College Special Collections & Archives, Alberta H. and Henry G. Burke Collection; via The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.

Playable Persuasions

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.

#SoJaneAusten

The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.

Bonnets Fit for a Bennett

Peter Flude for The New York Times

For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.

Most Ardently, Jane

The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

Stage and Sensibility

Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.

Austen 101

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”