Monthly Archives: April 2007

It’s cold and it is raining in New York. Instead of making thousands of fans–not to mention the players–suffer through the conditions, today’s game has been postponed.

By Bruce Markusen

The baseball world absorbed several significant losses during the month of March. A former commissioner, an All-Star catcher, a World Series stalwart, and two baseball lifers have all passed away in recent weeks. Here are tributes to their lives in the game.

Ed Bailey (Died on March 23 in Knoxville, Tennessee; age 75; throat cancer):

A five-time All-Star, the left-handed hitting Bailey was regarded as one of the National League’s premier catchers of the late 1950s and early 1960s. His prime seasons came with the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants, before he bounced to Milwaukee in 1964, came back to San Francisco in 1965, and then finished out his career with the Chicago Cubs and California Angels in ’65 and ’66. Bailey enjoyed his finest season in 1956, when he hit .300 with a career-high 28 home runs for the Reds. Over the course of a 14-year career, Bailey hit 155 home runs and collected 540 RBIs. He participated in one World Series, hitting a home run for the Giants during their 1963 Series loss to the New York Yankees.

Bowie Kuhn (Died on March 15 in Jacksonville, Florida; age 80; complications from pneumonia):

The second longest tenured commissioner in major league history behind Hall of Famer Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Kuhn served in baseball’s highest office from 1969 to 1984. His tenure coincided with one of the most tumultuous eras in the history of the major leagues. During Kuhn’s watch, player salaries escalated through arbitration and free agency as the Players Association assumed a far more powerful voice within the game’s infrastructure. Kuhn frequently battled union chief Marvin Miller, both at the negotiating table and through the press, with Miller gaining major strides for the players through both collective bargaining and the decisions of independent arbitrators. Known for his law-and-order approach to running the game, Kuhn frequently attempted to discipline players and owners. He attempted to censure Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, suspended Denny McLain for his ties to gambling and organized crime, disallowed the player sales of Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, and Joe Rudi by Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley, and suspended three members of the Kansas City Royals (Willie Mays Aikens, Jerry Martin, and Willie Wilson) after they were arrested for buying cocaine.

COMMENTARY: After first learning of the death of Bowie Kuhn, I read and heard several accounts that described the former commissioner as a pompous stuffed shirt who often seemed stiff and uncomfortable. Well, that was never my experience with Kuhn. I talked to him several times during my years at the Hall of Fame, including an interview that I conducted in front of an appreciative crowd in the Hall’s Bullpen Theater. The former commissioner struck me as thoughtful and well spoken, even charming at times. He took an interest in my work at the Hall of Fame, which is not always the case with guest speakers who come to Cooperstown. I once gave him a ride from the Otesaga Hotel to the Hall of Fame; he was gracious and open during our conversation, and grateful for having saved him from a long walk.
After talking to Kuhn for awhile, it became obvious that he was both a fan of the game and a believer in old-school values. Those are two characteristics that rank highly with me. He was also knowledgeable about the Negro Leagues, having attended games at old Griffith Stadium in Washington. He had a real interest in preserving baseball history, which motivated him to donate his collection of papers from his days in baseball’s front office. He wasn’t just a suit who held the office of commissioner while waiting for something better to come around. This was a man who had a genuine love for the game, and took pride in trying to defend some of its values.

Still, as a commissioner, Kuhn was far from perfect. He made his share of mistakes, which the media of the seventies and eighties usually portrayed in earnest. His legacy was mixed, with some obvious failures, some more subtle successes, and a nearly endless supply of controversy and conflict. But I think it’s safe to say that he was a very important and significant commissioner, a man who presided over the game at a time when it faced major upheaval because of labor issues, drug problems, expansion, the growth of television, and the presence of strong personalities in both ownership and the union. Rather than skirt these issues, he usually faced them, sometimes for good and other times for bad. In writing a complete history of baseball, I think that an author would have to devote at least one chapter to the reign of Bowie Kuhn.

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By Will Weiss
Bronx Banter Correspondent

Since watching the Yankees is no longer my job, I, like many of you, resorted to DVRing the game and watching a three-hour telecast in 12 minutes. However, I did watch all the Geico caveman commercials. They kill me. (Non sequitur alert: I read where ABC is planning a pilot based on the Geico Cavemen. Can cavemen hurdle sharks?)

Back to the point of this bonus entry…What do we make of the Opening Day coverage? As of this writing, the papers hadn’t updated their Web sites to reflect postgame coverage, save for the AP recaps, and Opening Day blogs from Newsday and the Star-Ledger.

My commentary here is a brief scan of the highlights and lowlights of the Opening Day TV, and cyberspace.

TV
* YES’ telecast started well enough, until the question “How do you follow the Yankees from Iraq” was asked to some soldiers in attendance. As for the Cory Lidle factor, it would have been easy to overplay the emotions of the first-pitch ceremony, with Lidle’s wife, Melanie, and son Christopher, throwing out the first pitch. The subtle route was the way to go. The look on Jason Giambi’s face conveyed everything.

* I don’t have the broadcaster lineup taped above my desk anymore, but I’d guess the trio of Kay, Singleton and Girardi will be a common and formidable one throughout the season. Bobby Murcer’s third-inning appearance was a welcome sight. And he sounds as healthy as ever.

* Expect more gems from Joe Girardi like this postgame nugget: “Pavano needs to make adjustments the third time through the order, because the Devil Ray hitters adjusted to him.”

* New feature: Text messaging for the player of the game.

* Oops: YES misspelled Carl Crawford’s last name as he strode to the plate for his at-bat in the top of the seventh. It’s Opening Day for everyone. The Yankees got away with three errors, right?

* I’d have more on ESPN, but I couldn’t stay up for the 1 a.m. Baseball Tonight. Florida’s win dominated Sportscenter for the last hour.

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By Emma Span

It’s a long subway ride from my apartment in Brooklyn to Yankee Stadium, but I usually enjoy the trip uptown. By the time you pass Grand Central, the train is packed, and almost everyone is wearing Yankee gear and talking baseball. I remember being on the 4 train a few years ago, when a young businessman casually turned to his friend and asked, “So, how many innings do you think Kevin Brown will go tonight?” At which point literally half the subway car turned around – young and old, black and white and hispanic, Christian and Jew — and offered opinions ranging from one to four. Yesterday, I sat next to two college-age girls who rode through most of Manhattan lamenting the fact that Carl Pavano, who should be so hot, has sucked too much to crush on. (But, they agreed, it’s going to be okay: Andy Pettitte is back).

In that same vein, while the view could be better, you absolutely cannot beat the Yankee Stadium bleachers for color commentary. They’re a testament to the diversity of this city’s residents – and, also, to their remarkable and ceaseless innovation in the field of smuggling booze past stringent security. The bleacher experience is only as good as your neighbors, though, so I lucked out yesterday when, deep in the left field side, I found myself sitting in front of Statler and Waldorf.

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The 2007 season couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start for Alex Rodriguez. With Carl Crawford on third and two outs in the top of the first, Ty Wigginton hit a foul pop up to the left side. Battling a grey sky and some swirling winds, Rodriguez had to loop around Crawford and come nearly two thirds of the way toward home plate to catch the ball. Meanwhile, Jorge Posada and Carl Pavano stood in place despite the fact that Rodriguez, though in hot pursuit, was not calling for the ball (after the game, Joe Torre said it was the catcher’s ball to catch). Rodriguez, for all of the misconceptions about his performance, is indeed awful at catching pop ups. While broadcasting the west coast tilt between the Angels and Rangers on ESPN, Orel Hershiser, who was the Rangers’ pitching coach while Rodriguez was in Texas, said pop ups are kryptonite to Rodriguez’s Superman. At the last second, the ball swirled back behind Rodriguez, who at that point had clearly overrun it and could only make a pathetic backwards stab at it as it fell untouched on the opening day logo painted outside the third base foul line. Rodriguez’s momentum carried him past Posada, who gave him an encouraging pat on the backside, and Pavano retired Wigginton two pitches later on a comebacker, but Rodriguez was nonetheless charged with an error.

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The Arizona Diamonbacks and Milwaukee Brewers, two teams that had losing records in 2006, are considered contenders entering the 2007 season. There’s reason to believe that the Colorado Rockies, who finished 2006 with the exact same record as the Diamondbacks, could surprise some people as well. Over in the American League, the two teams that lost 100 or more games last year, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Kansas City Royals, are two of the teams that intrigue me most entering the 2007 season. Not because I think they’ll contend like that NL trio, none of which lost 90 games last year, not even because I think they’ll be particularly good, but because I think they’ll be better, and better for rather compelling reasons.

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By Will Weiss
Bronx Banter Correspondent

“Rupert Murdoch should cut me a check for all the papers I’ve helped him sell.”
— Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestley, in The Devil Wears Prada

Sure, the above quote can be applied to Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or Brangelina. But since the lead-in to the only display of humanness Meryl Streep shows in the film refers to “another divorce splashed across Page Six,” let’s figure that someone named Steinbrenner was muttering something similar this past week.

The marriage of Steve Swindal and Jennifer (Steinbrenner) Swindal is over, and as a result, Swindal is out as a general partner of the Yankees. The ascent of the top son-in-law is no more. It has ceased to be. Let the race for the New Boss begin.

Just about every angle of this story was examined: reporters and columnists from all the local papers raised the question Swindal’s replacement. Every beat reporter I read rightly mentioned the effect of Swindal’s ouster on Brian Cashman and Joe Torre – it was Swindal who twice convinced Joe Torre to come back, and helped negotiate Cashman’s return and increased the GM’s decision-making power. In his solid Thursday report, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times intuited that Steinbrenner’s other son-in-law, Felix Lopez, could jump to the forefront. Daily News columnist Bill Madden carried this further in his Friday column, writing that Lopez has become more of a fixture on the operations side “to the dismay of the other three siblings.” The Times’ Richard Sandomir wondered which of Steinbrenner’s two sons, Hal or Hank, would take over should the Patriarch look in their direction. Sandomir’s colleague Harvey Araton called for a shift in philosophy and wondered why neither of Steinbrenner’s daughters would be considered to run the team instead of the sons. In addition, Swindal’s DUI arrest and questions of what would become of his shares of the team as a result of the divorce were smartly asked; and notes and quotes from Swindal’s other business associates at Excelsior Racing regarding his group’s bid to buy the thoroughbred franchise completed the coverage.

The Swindal situation provided fodder for the talkies, of course. To be expected, there was a hint of melodrama in their reactions and in their projections regarding the future of the Yankees’ front-office hierarchy. Overall, the mainstreamers did pretty well in keeping things on the level and not going overboard with the tabloid potential of the story.

Reading so many versions of the same story – particularly one like this – is fascinating. Not only is it fun to see the range of sources the writers interview from a competitive standpoint, from a straight writing perspective, it was amazing to see how many different ways the question, “Who will benefit from nepotism as it relates to the Yankees, and when will a decision be made,” was presented.

Per your requests from last week, I turn to the blogosphere for info and insight the mainstream didn’t provide. Derek Jacques, the esteemed proprietor of The Weblog That Derek Built, put it best:

“As someone who was until recently in the marital strife industry, I’m sensitive toward what Steve Swindal and Jennifer Steinbrenner must be going through. The end of a marriage is a real human tragedy, also something truly private and really not the business of anyone outside of the couple and perhaps their immediate family, friends, and business partners.

“But as a Yankee fan, I just gotta look at Swindal and say ‘You jerk! We were counting on you! You had it all in the palm of your hand and you blew it, just completely and totally blew it!'”

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I made another appearance on Yankee Fan Club Radio last night. At the 20:23 mark here you can hear me weigh in on Josh Phelps, Carl Pavano, the bullpen, Steve Swindal, Alex Rodriguez’s opt-out clause, and make some very off-the-cuff predictions (or rather dodge doing so). My segment lasts roughly twenty minutes.