Monthly Archives: June 2008

“We’re putting a great arm in the rotation that we believe is going to win games,” [Joe Girardi] argued in response to the veteran outfielder’s comments in yesterday’s Daily News. “I want to know the games that we’ve sacrificed by doing what we did. Everyone is assuming that we would have won that game in Baltimore if we had Joba in the bullpen that night. You’re pretty smart if you know that. Everyone is assuming we would have won the game in Minnesota if we had Joba in the bullpen that night. It doesn’t always work that way.

“I think people make the assumption that if he’s in the bullpen, you’re going to win every game. That’s not the case.”
(N.Y. Daily News)

More than a few panicky Yankee fans are not pleased about Joba Chamberlain becoming a starter. I’ve encountered several over the past few days. I am not one of them. I think it’s great that Chamberlain is returning to his original pitching position. Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus agrees:

I have to give the Yankees full credit here. I insisted that once they started the year with Chamberlain in the bullpen, they wouldn’t move him midseason. Given the dropoff from Chamberlain to the next-best reliever in that pen (Kyle Farnsworth or Edwar Ramirez or LaTroy Hawkins), I expected that the team wouldn’t deny Joe Girardi his eighth-inning security blanket in the middle of a pennant race. I remain surprised by the decision. It’s driven by the failures of Hughes and Kennedy (as well as Kei Igawa in a cameo role) to provide quality pitching at the back end of the rotation as much as it is by the desire to maximize the long-term value of Chamberlain. Nevertheless, the right decision for the wrong reasons has its appeal.

The move will work out for both parties. Chamberlain has the build and the repertoire to be a good starter, especially now that he’ll be more than a fastball/slider pitcher. The Yankees have been extremely conservative with his arm and his workload—I actually wonder if some day we’ll look back at the handling of Joba Chamberlain as some kind of peak in the handling of young pitchers, where the industry eventually backed away a bit from being quite so cautious with them. Chamberlain has thrown fewer than 800 pitches since being called to the majors last August, and he had a pitch count in last night’s game of around 60 tosses. There’s a wide, wide gulf between that and what Chamberlain can safely manage, and the Yankees have to start closing that gap to maximize both his potential and their chance of getting back into the AL East race.

Chamberlain will make his second start on Sunday against the Royals. It is supposed to be in the mid-90s in New York this weekend.

In addition to this afternoon’s thrilling comeback victory, the Yankees have been doing more good work in the draft, particularly with their first pick. There’s a ton of coverage and analysis being posted all over the net, so I’ll make some attempt to gather things in this post as I find them. Check back for updates. Also, follow this link for three-minute MLB scouting videos on the players below.

First Round (28th pick):

RHP Gerrit Cole, Orange Lutheran High School, California

Kevin Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus: This is a great pick on a talent/slot level. Most talented high school pitcher in the draft, and the Yankees can pay him. As bad as the Brackman pick was last year . . . that’s how good this one is. I’m not a big fan of low arm slot guys, but at 28, this is a fantastic pick for the Bombers.

Keith Law, ESPN: This is a great pick; he fell to the Yankees for financial reasons. Cole has the best arm among the prep pitchers in the draft. He has a loose, quick arm. He has the best fastball of the high school pitchers; it tops out 97 mph. He needs more consistency on the breaking ball. And he needs to just throw his changeup instead of guiding it. He’s a high-ceiling arm that could be a No. 1 starter. If that doesn’t work, he could be a dominant reliever.

Baseball America: Cole is the best righthander out of Southern California since Phil Hughes starred at Santa Ana’s Foothills High in 2004.

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Hell of a game in the Bronx today. The Yanks jumped out to a 2-0 lead on Dustin McGowan in the first, but Chien-Ming Wang gave those runs back in the fourth on a two-run pop-fly home run off the top of the right field wall by Matt Stairs.

Once again, Wang wasn’t sharp. Of his 90 pitches, just 12 were sliders and only one was a changeup. Wang got strike three of his four Ks with those secondary pitches, but every other pitch he threw was a sinker, and too many of them were either up or out of the zone. Wang started the fifth inning by walking Joe Inglett, the fourth free pass he issued on the afternoon. After a groundout, pesky David Eckstein reached on an infield single. Alex Rios then hit a soft fly ball to center field, but Inglett, apparently thinking there were two outs, took off like a rocket from second base. It was a terribly play by Inglett, but it appeared to distract Melky Cabrera as the ball ticked off the pinky of his glove and fell for a run-scoring error. With that, Wang folded. He hit Scott Rolen with a pitch, gave up a booming double in the left-center-field gap to Stairs, and another down the right field line to Lyle Overbay. Joe Girardi pulled his starter at that point, but the damage was done. The Yankees were down 7-2.

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After posting a 2.90 ERA through his first nine starts, Chien-Ming Wang has a 7.91 ERA over his last three. What’s gone wrong and can he pull out of it? Here are some of Wang’s rates from his first nine starts vs. his last three:

Wang’s been bad across the board over his last three starts with one surprising exception, his ground ball rate has actually been higher of late. Now compare those two sets of rates to Wang’s career rates entering the year:

Save for the walk and caught stealing rates, his peripherals from his last three games wouldn’t have seemed out of place coming from the Chien-Ming Wang of the last three years. That was the sinkerballer with the alarmingly low strikeout rates who seemed to be defying the odds. Over his first nine starts of this year, Wang was a different pitcher, mixing his pitches more and thus spiking his strikeout rate at the cost of a few groundballs, some of which would have gone for hits. The result was real dominance, but it seems Wang has gotten away from that and reverted not only back to the one-trick pitcher he was, but beyond it to a pitcher suffering from his inability to miss bats.

There’s more to it than that, certainly, but just when Wang looked to be making the leap from the Yankee ace to one of the best pitchers in baseball, he’s taken a mighty stumble. Remarkably, the Yankees have won two of his last three starts (by scored of 6-5 and 7-6) and are still 9-3 in Wang’s starts on the year.

Today, Wang and the Yanks take on Dustin McGowan, who has the fastest average fastball among all major league starters according to FanGraphs, looking to take the series from Toronto and get the Yanks back to .500.

Wilson Betemit remains at first base as Jason Giambi is still nursing his bruised foot, but Jorge Posada is behind the plate for the first time since April 26.

In addition to Posada’s return, the amateur draft kicks off at 2pm today. Two years ago the Yankees’ first two picks were Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain with the 21st and 41st overall picks, both of which were received as compensation when Tom Gordon signed with the Phillies. The Yankee farm system is packed with exciting prospects (most of them pitchers) from the last three drafts. Today, the Yankees and scouting director Damon Oppenheimer (the man who has been making the picks since 2005) will add to that crop starting with the 28th overall pick and the 44th overall pick, the latter of which they received as compensation when Luis Vizcaino signed with the Rockies.

Were the expectations of Joba Chamberlain’s debut as a starter a media creation, as Big Stein the Younger said? Did the spoiled sector of the Yankee fan base add to the unrealistic bar that was set? Did the Yankees bring this on themselves by messing with a good thing in the short term for a potential benefit in the long term? It depends on what you read and what you choose to believe.

True: Chamberlain started most of last year in Triple-A until he was tabbed as the Next Big Thing in the bullpen (not a media creation; an organizational decision).

True: Chamberlain teased us with a phenomenal Shane Spencerish, lightning-in-a-bottle performance in late-summer, solidifying a bullpen that was nowhere outside of Mariano Rivera. In fact, his performance was on par with 1995-96 level Rivera, and 2002 Francisco Rodriguez, the Playoff Edition.

True: Injuries to fellow young guns Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, who started the year in the rotation but have gone winless, likely forced the Yankees’ hand.

True: The Yankees had Chamberlain on a tight pitch count. But what was it? 65? 70? Different reports had different numbers? Unless they went to different sources in the organization, there should have been a consistent number. And the editors should have picked up on it. I can hear the voices of two of my formative journalism professors now: "Be careful with numbers. First, make sure you get them right, and don’t overuse them. They should only enhance the story, not be the story." Bottom line, get the number right, guys.

True: The Yankees’ middle relief … well, you and I have a better chance of getting outs than Edwar (leave off the last D for disappointing outing) Ramirez, Jose Veras and "What is" Kyle Farnsworth, thanks to this move. In short, the bullpen could be bull$&!#@ real fast.

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Mike Mussina cruised into the sixth inning last night, holding the Blue Jays scoreless while striking out a season-high six men. With two out and Alex Rios on first via Mussina’s only walk of the game in the sixth, he appeared to strike out Alex Rios Scott Rolen, but home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor didn’t deliver the punch out. Rios walked and scored on a Scott Rolen doubled Rios home, but that was all the Blue Jays would get all night as Ross Ohlendorf, Kyle Farnsworth, and Mariano Rivera each turned in a scoreless inning to nail down a 5-1 Yankee win and deliver Mussina’s ninth win of the year.

The Yankee scoring started in the third inning when Jose Molina and Johnny Damon singled off Toronto starter Jesse Litsch and Derek Jeter plated Molina with a single that pushed the captain past Mickey Mantle on the all-time hit list. The Yanks got two more in the fourth on a Wilson Betemit homer, a Robinson Cano double, and a Melky Cabrera homer single, all of which came with two outs. After Litch left the game, the Yanks added a run in the sixth (which was charged to Litsch) and one more in the seventh to set the final score.

It was a nice easy win that saw the four Yankee pitchers combine to strike out nine Jays and allow just one run on six hits and a walk. It was particularly encouraging to see Ohlendorf pitch well in short relief and pick up a hold, as that’s the role he was intended to fill back in spring training and a role in which he’s now very much needed.

As for the offense, consider the fact that Roy Halladay and Jesse Litsch had allowed a total of two runs in their last two starts combined totaling 33 innings, but the Yankees scored six runs off them in 11 1/3 combined innings over the last two nights and get Jorge Posada back today. The Yankees also pulled a half game ahead of the Orioles and can get back to .500 and win this series with a victory this afternoon.

In his final year in pinstripes, Jeff Nelson compiled a 6-0 record out of the bullpen by May 9, putting him on pace for 31 relief wins. He won two more games all year, finishing with an 8-4 record. In his seventh start of this season, Chien-Ming Wang ran his record to 6-0, putting him on a 30-win pace. Since then he’s gone 0-2 in five starts. Mike Mussina enters tonight’s game with eight wins, putting him in a five-way tie for third place in the majors behind Brandon Webb (10-2) and the surprising Joe Saunders (9-2). I’d still be surprised if he wins more than 15 on the year.

Moose has eight wins because he’s had 5.28 runs of support per game thus far and has earned the decision in every one of his 12 starts. Despite his eight wins, Mussina has just five quality starts (four if you use the stringent < 3 R rule rather than the looser < 3 ER standard). In his last three outings he's allowed 15 runs in 11 2/3 innings, but eight of those runs were unearned (all scoring after Mussina failed to pick up his defense following a first-inning error) and he's gone 2-1 in those games. Mussina has exceeded expectations beyond his 8-4 record, but that is largely due to how low the expectations were for him entering the season.

Twenty-three-year-old Jesse Litsch is 7-1 on the season and didn’t allow a run in either of his last two starts, totaling 16 innings. Over his last six starts he’s posted a 1.67 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, averaged over seven innings per start, and walked just two men in 43 innings.

The Yankees need to snap their sudden three-game losing streak, but unless Mussina’s luck keeps up (I though it had ended three starts ago when he failed to get out of the first inning, but I was clearly wrong), tonight might not be their night.

Jorge Posada has been activated with Dan Giese getting farmed out to make room (so much for repeating the Joba-Giese tandem on Sunday), but he’s not in the lineup. Moose will pitch to Jose Molina with Wilson Betemit at first base subbing for Jason Giambi who’s getting a day of rest after fouling a pitch off his foot late in last night’s game. Both Giambi and Posada are expected to start tomorrow afternoon’s series finale.

As expected, Joba Chamberlain, was effective, but innefficient in his first major league start. So much so that his “start” actually worked out to be something of an early relief appearance setting up the game’s actual non-starting starting pitcher, Dan Geise.

Beginning his outing with nothing but fastballs, Chamberlain got ahead of Toronto’s leadoff hitter Shannon Stewart 1-2, then pinpointed a 99-mile-per-hour fastball up the upper outside corner. Stewart was nearly beat by the pitch, but managed to tip it into catcher Jose Molina’s glove, knocking off his batting helmet in his follow through. The pitch hit the webbing of Molina’s glove with such force that it sprung out, extending the at-bat. Chamberlain then switched to his slider for ball two and another foul, then missed high twice with 96-mile-per-hour heaters, walking Stewart on eight pitches in an at-bat that would set the tone for his brief outing.

It took Chamberlain six pitches (four of them fastballs) to strike out Marco Scutaro on a slider. Then, with Alex Rios at the plate, Chamberlain threw to first and was called for a balk that sent Stewart to second.

Joba got ahead of Rios 1-2, starting the at-bat off with a nice 76-mile-per-hour curve that dropped into the zone for a called strike, but the second strike, a 93-mile-per-hour heater tailing down and in that Rios swung through, squirted by Molina and sent Stewart to third. With Stewart on second, Molina didn’t give a clear target for the pitch, so it’s unclear where he was expecting it. John Flaherty has said in YES broadcasts this year that catchers should anticipate having to block breaking pitches, but you can’t expect them to anticipate a fastball in the dirt. The thing is, this pitch wasn’t in the dirt. It hit Molina’s glove just below knee-high, but Molina didn’t move his body an inch to attempt a block, instead he rather sleepily snatched at it only to have it tip off his glove and roll to the backstop.

Chamberlain again pinpointed a 98-mile-per-hour heater on the upper outside corner and got Rios to ground out to second, but what should have been an inning-ending double play ball was instead an RBI groundout due to the balk and the passed ball.

At this point, Chamberlain had thrown 18 pitches, right around his inning average this season. He then got ahead of Scott Rolen 1-2 on a pair of fastballs and a slider that Rolen missed by about three feet. His next pitch was another fastball on the outside corner and it produced another groundball to the right side, but this one was perfectly placed between Robinson Cano and Jason Giambi and scooted through the infield for the only hit Chamberlain would allow on the night.

Now at 22 pitches, Chamberlain was in danger of blowing a huge chunk of his allotted 65 pitches. In retrospect, the pitch count came back to haunt Chamberlain, not just because his inefficiency was exacerbated by bad luck, but because the Blue Jays clearly came into the game with the strategy of taking pitches and forcing Chamberlain out of the game early, a strategy which worked perfectly.

With two out and one on, Matt Stairs took four borderline fastballs to get to 3-1, fouled off a fifth, then took his base when Chamberlain’s second curve of the night missed high. Lyle Overbay followed by watching six pitches go by– the first four fastballs, the last two sliders–to walk and load the bases. At that point Chamberlain was up to 34 pitches and the Blue Jays had only swung at one of his last 12 offerings.

With the bases juiced, Rod Barajas took two more pitches, but both were sliders for strikes. Barajas then fouled off a slider away and swung through a 98-mile-per-hour fastball that Molina managed to hang on to for the third out.

One inning. Three walks. Two strikeouts. Thirty-eight pitches, 58 percent of his allotted total for the night.

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The Yankees week didn’t start off the way they wanted it to last night in Minnesota, but regardless of their record on the field this week, things are looking up as Jorge Posada is set to return to the lineup on Thursday and Joba Chamberlain joins the starting rotation tonight (you mighta heard about that).

It was less than two weeks ago that Joe Girardi told Kim Jones “the process has started,” and Chamberlain still hasn’t thrown more than two innings in a major league game, but with some post-game work in the Camden Yards bullpen after his last appearance, Chamberlain got up to 55 pitches in his last outing and will thus be allowed to get up to 70 tosses tonight.

The big question isn’t really how well Chamberlain will pitch, but how deep into tonight’s game those 70 pitches will allow him to go. In terms of results, Joba’s brief track record (47 2/3 major league innings and 15 minor league starts) speaks for itself. In the majors he has posted a 1.32 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 12.08 K/9, 3.21 BB/9 and held opponents to a .168/.249/.251 line. In the minors (including his three minor league relief outings) he’s posted a 2.45 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 13.75 K/9, 2.75 BB/9.

If there’s one flaw in his game at this early stage of his career, its his pitch-efficiency. The Yankees didn’t get Chamberlain over two innings prior to tonight in part because he used up all 35 of his allotted pitches in the first two innings of his first multi-inning stint and threw 40 of his allotted 45 in the first two innings of his next appearance. On the season, he’s averaging 17 pitches per inning, which would only get him through four frames tonight. In his three “extended” relief appearances in preparation for tonight’s start, Chamberlain threw 103 pitches in just 5 1/3 innings. At that rate (19.3 P/IP) he’d only get through 3 2/3 IP tonight.

That’s why Dan Giese is in the house tonight (he takes Scott “The Stranger” Patterson’s place on the roster). For all the excitement about Joba Chamberlain’s first major league start, this could be an even bigger night for Giese, as there’s a chance he might actually pitch more of tonight’s game than Joba will.

All of that said, Joba is where he should be. His performance tonight will be analyzed to death by everyone watching (myself included), but at least for tonight, the results are less important than the journey he’s making toward becoming the pitcher he should be. Don’t be misled. Tonight’s start is just another step on that journey. He won’t have reached the destination until the reigns come off and the artificially low pitch and innings limits are discarded. Despite the surprising speed with which Chamberlain’s gotten to this point, he still has a long way to go.

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Have the Yankees ever had a mascot?

Yesterday, I would have answered this question with a quick and confident “no.” But I would have been wrong.

In the early 80s, the Yankees hired the creators of the popular Phillie Phanatic. They were rewarded with “Dandy,” a fuzzy debacle that is apparently supposed to resemble some sort of bird — though looking at the little photographic evidence available, I can’t confirm that with any certainty. Dandy was an elongated white blob adorned with pinstripes, a Yankees cap, a flesh-colored ball for a nose, and a swath of bright material that is either meant to represent a big red mustache or, perhaps, wattle.

Fans reacted to this misbegotten Frankenstein the way you’d expect: with a potent mixture of fear and hostility. In the end the Yankees never let Dandy onto the field, into the dugout, or even out of the Stadium; instead he was limited to roaming the upper deck, where he was routinely heckled, harassed, and threatened.

How on earth did I not know about this? All the games I’ve watched, books I’ve read, fans I’ve talked to, and I never heard a word about it? I suppose it makes sense, really – I was too young to pay attention at the time, and nobody writes books or articles on the New York Yankees of 1982-1985. Those games never end up on YES as “Yankee Classics”. Besides, a little research reveals that most fans who lived through the Dandy era seem to have tried their best to forget. My father’s reaction was typical:

“Mascot? The Yankees never had a… ohhhhh, yeah, that’s right! God, people hated that thing.”

I felt a little better about my ignorance when I discovered that, back in 1998, not even Lonn Trost or George Steinbrenner remembered Dandy. The New York Times had the scoop:

Lonn Trost, the Yankees’ general counsel, said there are official Yankee hamburgers, hot dogs and popcorn. But a mascot? No, he didn’t think the team ever had one.

From 1982 to 1985, though, the Yankees had Dandy, a pinstriped character designed by Ms. Erickson.

Dandy was a failure. Mr. Harrison said that was because he wasn’t allowed out of the nosebleed area in the stands. Nor did he do any outside appearances. According to Mr. Harrison, George Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ principal owner, was less than enthusiastic about the mascot after Lou Pinella, the Yankee outfielder, got so angry at the San Diego Chicken’s clowning that he threw his glove at the bird (not a Harrison/ Erickson creation). Mr. Steinbrenner, through his spokesman Howard Rubenstein, said he had no recollection of the pinstriped mascot.

One of my neighbors, a fan since the 1960s, told me that in his recollection, Dandy lasted only a few weeks before he was beaten up by a group of angry or, perhaps, simply terrified nosebleed seat natives, after which the traumatized man in the suit resigned and was never replaced. I feel a little bad for finding this story hilarious, but in any case he seems to have exaggerated it a bit over the decades — by the Times’ account, Dandy hung in there for years, and I haven’t been able to track down any hard evidence that he was ever actually physically assaulted. Even if it isn’t strictly true, I like this outsized distillation of events, which seems to capture the popular imagination’s image of the lawless Yankee Stadium of the 80s.

In this summer of endless nostalgia, everyone goes on and on about how the Yankees will be tearing down the field where Ruth and Gehrig played, the site of 26 World Championships, blah blah blah… but do they ever mention that after this year, the home of Dandy will be gone, too? They do not. I say that poor bird(???) deserves better.

Anybody have any memories of Dandy that you’d like to share?

The Yankee offense gave Andy Pettite three leads last night and Pettitte blew every one of them, the last on Joe Mauer’s first home run of the season on a pitch that a irritated Pettitte later called “as ignorant a pitch as I could throw.” Brought into a 5-5 game in the eighth inning, Kyle Farnsworth gave the Twins their first lead of the game by surrendering doubles to two of the first three hitters he faced. Joe Nathan came on in the ninth to protect that last-minute lead and handed the Yankees a 6-5 loss.

Fooey.

If there was any good news to come out of the game it was that Farnsworth’s fateful inning was the only one pitched by the bullpen as Pettitte pitched efficiently, needing just 94 pitches to complete seven frames. That sets things up well for Joba Chamberlain’s 70-pitch start tonight. Still, the Yankees are coming home a game under .500 and just a half game out of last place in the East having gone 3-4 on their trip through Baltimore and Minnesota.

With the Yankees bobbing around in last place in the AL East, I haven’t spent much time looking at the standings thus far this year, but checking things out this morning, I see that a four-game losing streak has dropped the Orioles 2 1/2 games behind the Bombers, who are back at .500 and 6 1/2 games out of first place. They’re only 1 1/2 games behind the Blue Jays, however, and Toronto comes to the Bronx tomorrow for a three game series. That means a good week could bounce the Yankees up to third place with only the Rays and Red Sox, the teams with the two best records in the American League, and two of the three best records in baseball, ahead of them.

The Yankees can kick this week off right with a get-away win in Minneapolis tonight. Beating the Twins tonight would give the Yankees a series win (rather than the four-game split that would result from a loss), push them over .500, and give them the same record as the Twins, who are only a game out of first place in the Central entering tonight’s game.

Andy Pettitte will look to pitch the Yankees to that victory. Pettitte is coming off three straight quality starts in which he’s allowed a total of one home run and walked just three men while striking out 19 in 18 2/3 innings. He’ll face Livan Hernandez, who has a 6.08 ERA in four career starts against the Yankees. Of course, three of those starts came between 1997 and 2002, which is ancient history by now, but the most recent was last June and saw the Yankees tag Hernandez for seven runs in four innings including home runs by Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui, and Jorge Posada.

Hernandez has an 8.74 ERA in his last two starts, and was most recently slapped around by the lowly Kansas City Royals. Despite giving up all those runs, he’s not allowed a home run in his last 23 2/3 innings, but then he’s only struck out three men over the same span (while walking only two). Hernandez’s single-game high for strikeouts this year is four, and it took him seven innings to do that, and he’s only walked three men in a game once all year. So one things for sure, the Yankees will be putting the ball in play tonight.

My cousin Jonah is an avid Met fan. He and his wife live in Brooklyn and they are great movie-lovers too. But they do not have cable TV, so Jonah listens to virtually every game on a small, old-fashioned transistor radio. When he’s out and about, he has a small, white earphone plugged into one ear to keep up on the action. When I’ve asked why he doesn’t just get cable like every other “normal” person he says that he doesn’t like the idea of being held captive in front of the television. The thought of it is oppresive to him, even in the age of Tivo.

He can do as he pleases and take the radio with him. I admire him for this quality. I can’t imagine doing such a thing, not with Lord Sterling as the Yankee play-by-play announcer–that would be too much to bear. Still, baseball on the radio can be a wonderful experience for the listener and many of my favorite childhood baseball memories are made up of evenings secretly listening to the Yankee broadcast while I was supposed to be asleep.

I got to thinking about all of this when I read a short essay, “Recalling the Joy of Watching Baseball on the Radio,” which is featured in the collection Diamond: The Baseball Writings of Mark Harris. Most famous for his Henry Wiggens trilogy, Harris doesn’t argue that radio is superior to television, just that they each offer distinct pleasures:

Radio left things to the brain, to the imagination, and to fantasy. On radio we saw the whole baseball field because we saw it in our minds through wide-agnled fantasy. We knew no limits upon our vision. We were our own camera. Pictures arose in our imaginations from the merest hints of things. Our minds were tubes that seldom blew.

This is not to say that radio was better than television, or that one age of mankind was better than another. But that radio was significantly different from televsion, and not always less efficient, cannot be denied. Radio was awe. The awe produced by remoteness…Television reduces awe.

The last bit reminded me of Nicholas Dawidoff’s new memoir, The Crowd Sounds Happy. In it, Dawidoff describes following the Red Sox of his childhood on the radio. Just yesterday, Dawidoff had a compelling piece in the latest edition of Play:

Recently I turned 45, which I think of as a mortal age for a baseball fan; by now, with the rarest exceptions, you are older than every major leaguer. What I notice at midlife is that the passion doesn’t abate; it simply changes. Thinking of the Red Sox as heroes was an innocent fantasy and, for that reason, a seductive one, but adulthood meant finally coming to terms with ballplayers as real people. That wasn’t so difficult in our time of heightened public scrutiny. We wanted to know them, and now we know them too well. Much of it is the money, the millions they earn while most of us are struggling with the rent. Our pastime is a big, mercenary business, and we’ve learned that players will deform themselves with steroids, cheating mortality and their opponents in an effort to stay forever young and powerful. Those of us who are offended by steroids may feel that what’s most unpleasant is that we can’t look at a juiced physique and still think, That could be me.

Athletes are often amazingly unformed as people, and much as I retain the naïve, nostalgic longing for them to be good in all ways, when they aren’t it helps to exercise a little circumspection. I can do that, because the older I get, the more I see that the fun of it is not the results but the process. What’s magical now about baseball is the continuity of having these splendid performers there for me month after month, year after year. I didn’t savor the Red Sox’ long-awaited World Series victory as much as I enjoyed the growing possibility that they could win. These days, I try not to know too much about the players. I want to care — and by being more distanced, I find I still feel close to them.

I recall having a conversation a few years ago with a couple of Baseball Prospectus writers. They wanted to know as little as possible about big leaguers, at least about their personal lives, because they didn’t want that to get in the way of what they were watching on the field. I can appreciate that. Having worked in the movie business, and to a lesser degree, in the world of sports, I understand what it is like to be meet a favorite actor or director only to find that they are lacking (or worse). I think it is critical to separate the artist (or the athlete) from their art. At the same time, I have a curiosity bordering on desire to not only want to know more about my favorite jocks and artists but also a childlike need to like them, to know that they are good people. As if their personality has anything to do with their gift.

Darrell Rasner had his worst start of the season (though he still lasted 5 1/3 innings and only allowed four runs), and the Yankee offense failed to pick their starter up as the Yanks dropped their first game to the Twins this season by a 5-1 score.

Three of the four runs Rasner had allowed in his four May starts for the Yankees were scored in the first inning, and yesterday he got into a jam right away as the Twins put men on second and third with one out in the first. Rasner got Justin Morneau to hit a comebacker that froze the runners for the second out, but Michael Cuddyer plating them both with a two-out single. Rasner got into another jam in the fourth when Jason Kubel worked a walk to load the bases with no outs. Rasner got two strikeouts and a fly out to get out of the inning, but the fly out came between the two Ks and plated the third Twins run. In the sixth, Morneau led off against Rasner with a booming shot into the right field gap. Melky Cabrera ran over to gather the ball, but in doing slipped on the warning track and fell on his tuchus. With Morneau speeding around the bases, Cabrera attempted to flip the ball to Bobby Abreu so that Abreu could throw it in, but Melky’s overhand flip sailed over Abreu’s head and rolled toward first base, allowing Morneau to come all the way around and score on what was ruled a triple and an E8. After getting Cuddyer to ground out for the first out, Rasner walked Kubel again and gave up a single to Delmon Young, but Scott Patterson, making his long-awaited major league debut, came in and stranded both runners, striking out Carlos Gomez to end the inning.

Morneau’s trip around the bases and Patterson’s debut at age 28 after a long career spent largely in the independent leagues were two of the incidents in this game that overshadowed the game itself, which was otherwise a rather dull loss for the Yankees. The only real threat the Yankees mounted came in the third when Johnny Damon doubled with one out and Derek Jeter and Abreu drew walks to load the bases for Alex Rodriguez, but Twins starter Nick Blackburn struck out Alex Rodriguez and got Hideki Matsui to ground out to escape the jam. The only Yankee run came on a Derek Jeter solo homer in the fifth that made the score 3-1. When Rasner left it was 4-1 Twins, and in the seventh Patterson gave up a run of his own on a walk and a Michael Cuddyer triple to set the final score.

In total, Patterson used 40 pitches, only 21 of which were strikes, to get four outs. Part of that is because of the seven batters he faced, four failed to put a ball in play (two walks, two strikeouts). Chris Britton followed Patterson and retired all four men he faced on 14 pitches, nine of which were strikes, on three groundouts and a flyout.

The big story of the game, however, was the fifth-inning comebacker off Bobby Abreu’s bat that hit Blackburn in the face. Abreu was swinging on a 3-1 count and the ball hit Blackburn on the right side of his face as he completed his follow-through, making an awful sound like someone tearing open a head of lettuce. Abreu grabbed his head as he ran to first, shaking his hands and appeared on the verge of tears as Blackburn did a backflop onto the mound, arms and legs akimbo with his feet facing up hill toward the rubber. It seems, however, that Blackburn’s dramatic fall was somewhat out of relief as he immediately popped up, spit out some blood and walked off the field with a trainer holding a towel under his bloodied nose. X-rays revealed no broken bones or lost teeth, meaning that bloody nose and a fat lip was the sum total of the damage done to Blackburn, who should make his next start. Abreu met with Blackburn after the game and both men are no doubt very pleased by the fact that Blackburn didn’t suffer any major injuries. It turns out that nasty lettuce sound was caused in part by the fact that the ball hit Blackburn’s glove before it hit his face.

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If someone told me in March that a matchup of the Yankees’ and Twins’ best starters on June 1 would pit Darrell Rasner against Nick Blackburn, I’d have thought they were crazy, but that’s exactly the case this afternoon as 26-year-old rookie Blackburn (4-3, 3.39 ERA) faces off against 27-year-old Rasner (3-1, 1.80 ERA).

Blackburn will be making his first career start against the Yankees. Rasner, who was the Yankees best pitcher in May, will be looking to keep things going in June. Rasner has given the Yankees a minimum of six innings in each of his first six starts, and after last night’s extra-inning win, the Yankees will want him to go deep again today, though Mark Feinsand reports that Scott Patterson has been called up off his own strong May to add a fresh arm to the Yankee bullpen. Morgan Ensberg, who was hitting .164/.239/.164 since April 15, was designated for assignment to make room for Patterson.

Rasner has allowed just one run in his last 13 innings, though that one was enough to get him the loss in his last start, which the Yankees lost to the Orioles by an eventual final of 3-1. Today his support features Wilson Betemit at first base with Jason Giambi getting the day off and, as has been the standard pairing, Chad Moeller behind the plate.

Em and I are down in Fort Lolipop, Florida visiting with Pat and Susie Jordan for a few days. We arrived yesterday and I think my wife, who doesn’t do well in the heat, has already melted. It’s middle-of-July hot down here, which is what we get for coming in the off-season. On the other hand, our flight was half-full, and our hotel isn’t packed either. In all, it’s a fine way to celebrate my 37th birthday which happens to be today. And it is all started with a smile when I checked Sportscenter this morning and saw that the Yanks actually pulled out that extra-inning game last night against the Twins. Hot dog.

Final Score: Yanks 7, Twins 6.

“A few days ago, we don’t win this type of game,” Manager Joe Girardi said.

Bobby Abreu knocked in the game-winner, Ross Olendorf was huge in relief, and Mr. Rivera earned the save by getting the final three outs on ten pitches. The Bombers are now one-game over .500.

Cool.