Monthly Archives: September 2008

Going, going…

Gelf’s Varsity Letters reading series is back in action tomorrow night downtown at the Happy End Lounge (302 Broome street, between Forsyth and Eldridge).  Harvey Frommer, who wrote the text for a gorgeous new over-sized book about Yankee Stadium, Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of "The House that Ruth Built", will be there as a featured speaker as will Buster Olney, who wrote The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, and David Zirin, author of A People’s History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play.  If you are around, pop on over and check, check it out. 

Thanks to the tireless word machine better known as Joe Pos, I caught up with Nick Dawidoff’s recent feature on Johnny Mac for the New York Times Magazine.   

Mac is still a pill, after all these years. 

I caught some of Midnight Run on TV recently and was struck by how many cigarettes were smoked in that movie.  It didn’t faze me at the time, of course, but now…Man, it’s hard to imagine that the Smoking-is-Foo! Universe is still so relatively new, isn’t it?  In childhood photographs of anyone my age and older, you’ll see all forms of grown ups smoking, ashtrays on the coffee tables.  Smoking was replete.

I gave up smoking more than ten years ago.  But every once in awhile I’ll see an old movie that still makes smoking look, if not glamourous, then at least desirable.  What are some of your favorite smoking flicks? 

Alex Rodriguez is now tied for 12th on the all-time home run list with some dude named Michael Jack Schmidt.  Rodriguez has 1,588 RBI in his career.  He’s scored 1,591 runs.  He may in fact be the most frustrating great player we’ve ever watched but there is no denying that he’s great. 

Mazel props, dude.

Xavier Nady hit a ball to the moon in the fourth inning of last night’s game. Well, it would have gone to the moon, but the catwalk suspended from the Tropicana Dome roof got in the way. That bomb gave the Yankees a 3-1 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Bombers added two in the fifth, one in the sixth, and capped it off with Alex Rodriguez’s 30th homer of the year leading off the eighth. Meanwhile, Mike Mussina scattered ten hits, allowing just two runs over six-plus innings, struck out ten and picked up his 17th win of the season, leaving him with five chances to get the three more wins he needs to set a career-high in that category.

Joba Chamberlain and Dan Giese both made strong returns from shoulder tendonitis. Chamberlain needed one pitch to kill a Rays rally in the seventh and working around a walk and a single for a scoreless eighth. Giese worked a 1-2-3 ninth, striking out Carlos Peña to seal the 7-2 Yankee win. Chamberlian’s velocity was a bit down, but he said after the game that his mechanics were a bit out of whack from the time off and that he expected everything to fall into place in his subsequent outings. Most importantly, his shoulder felt just fine.

B.J. Upton made the play of the game on a drive by Rodriguez in the top of the second. Running full speed toward the wall in center, Upton snow-coned Rodriguez’s line drive in the webbing of his glove before taking one step up the wall to slow his momentum. In the bottom of the inning, Eric Hinske made the boner of the game (in a game that had its share) when he raced around the bases for a triple while watching Nady and Johnny Damon chase after the ball in left center. Hinske slid safely into third base head first. Only then did he discover that Willy Aybar, who had singled before him, had been held up at third. Forced to vacate the base, Aybar was throw out easily at home. Hinske then failed to score on a subsequent groundout by Jason Bartlett, leaving the game scoreless entering the third inning.

Rodriguez’s homer tied him with Mike Schmidt for 12th in major league history. Barring injury, he’ll be chasing 600 this time next year.

Congratulations to the Rays on their first winning season, playoff berth, and division championship: You’ve come a long way, baby.

The Yankees are 7-5 against the Rays this year, which is a solid showing against a team that leads them by 12 games in the standings. Sadly, it’s done them little good. The Yankees could sweep their remaining six games against Tampa Bay, match their record against third-part opponents, and still finish six games out in the AL East.

We’re in an odd stage of the Yankees’ season. Best I can tell, just about all of the fanbase and most of the media have come to grips with the reality that the Yankees will miss the postseason for the first time since 1993, but because they’re still “just” seven games out of the Wild Card with 26 left to play, the team itself, as well at its broadcasters, need to at least pretend they’re still in it. It’s true that it ain’t over ’til it’s over, but the Yankees have to gain one game on the Red Sox over the course of each remaining series to arrive in Boston on September 26 in position to pass Boston with a series win, and even that doesn’t account for the second-place team in the AL Central, whom the Yankees also trail in the Wild Card race. It’s just not going to happen.

What’s left now is saying farewell to Yankee Stadium, preparing for next year–be it by giving Alfredo Aceves a start or two in place of Pavano or Ponson, letting Brett Gardner start in center field, or hoping Hideki Matsui gets on a hot streak to increase his trade value–and Mike Mussina’s pursuit of 20 wins, which continues tonight in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Mussina enters tonight’s game with 16 wins and will have five starts left afterwards (against the Mariners, Rays, White Sox, Orioles, Blue Jays, and Red Sox). The Yankees have won Mussina’s last six starts, but Moose earned the win in just three of them due to late-breaking run support. Still, Mussina’s been excellent over that stretch, posting 2.93 ERA and averaging 6 2/3 innings. In fact, over his last 17 starts, Mussina has a 2.92 ERA and has averaged nearly 6 2/3 innings per start. Only once over that stretch has he failed to complete six innings and only once has he allowed more than four runs (both coming in the same game against the Orioles). Still, he has just 9 wins in those 17 starts, due in part to losing scores such as 4-2 (twice), 3-2, and 2-1. That makes four wins in six starts a tall order, and four wins in five starts should he lose tonight extremely unlikely.

Moose’s mount opponent tonight is Matt Garza, who has displayed a Verlander-like inconsistency. Over his last nine starts, Garza has held the opposition scoreless four times, including two shutouts. In the other five games, he has allowed 24 runs in 27 1/3 innings. The trend: three of those four scoreless outings came against Toronto. The exception: one of the shutouts was a two-hit, nine-K performance against the Rangers in Arlington. Garza has faced the Yankees once this year, shutting them out over seven innings back on May 12. In his next start, he gave up seven runs in 4 1/3 innings. Such is Garza.

No Excuses

Both Garza and ace Scott Kazmir (who faces Darrell Rasner on Thursday) spent time on the DL early in the season. Carl Crawford and rookie sensation Evan Longoria are on the DL now, with Crawford likely out for the year. Rocco Baldelli missed most of the season, though he’s recently returned as Cliff Floyd’s platoon partner at DH. Floyd also spent time on the DL earlier in the season, as did Longoria’s predecessor/replacement Willy Aybar, All-Star catcher Dioner Navarro, infielder Ben Zobrist (who is currently platooning with Eric Hinske in left field), last year’s breakout star Carlos Peña, shortstop Jason Bartlett, and a handful of relievers, among them closer Troy Percival, who is due to return from his third DL stint tonight, and last year’s closer Al Reyes, who pitched himself off the team after returning from his DL stint. Beyond that, Crawford was below average when healthy, Bartlett’s been a huge disappointment on both sides of the ball, and B.J. Upton is slugging a mere .397 with just 8 homers after slugging .508 with 24 jacks in fewer plate appearances last year.

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“Alex Rodriguez homered Sunday off Roy Halladay, as did Jason Giambi, but it was too little, too late for the Yankees.”
— Hannah Storm, on Monday morning’s SportsCenter

“Don’t expect the Red Sox to shed any tears over playing their last regular-season game at Yankee Stadium. But if the champs sweep the Yankees — and throw some dirt on New York’s playoffs dreams — pinstripe fans might be crying all winter. Call it karma for years of suffering.”
— Outlook for final game of last week’s Yankees-Red Sox series, as it appeared on the “Hunt for Soxtober” on NESN.com

“Bottom line, they sucked.”
— Hank Steinbrenner, following Wednesday’s 11-3 blowout loss to the Red Sox

The first two quotes represent one part truth and one part anti-Yankee sentiment. Hank Steinbrenner’s quote was all truth, and media outlets from New York, Boston, and the national scene took that quote and ran with it like Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl.

Doomsday coverage – the words “final nail in season” were used in numerous articles — pulled a matador move late Thursday and into Friday as Jason Giambi saved the team’s playoff hopes for a little while. Story headers reading “Maybe the Yankees aren’t done yet” fed the Optimism Machine. Friday’s gutsy victory over possible future Yankee A.J. Burnett — a win in which I thought Joe Girardi should have been taken to task for removing Carl Pavano after six innings and 72 pitches — prompted more “Maybe…” talk. And like many, I was pumping my fist when Hideki Matsui ripped a bases-loaded double to give the Yankees a 6-2 lead over Toronto. I was thinking “sweep.” I was happy to see the Yankees score all six of their runs with two out. I was even happier to see the Yankees do to the Jays what had been done to them so many times this season: pound the starting pitcher and get into the bullpen by the fifth inning. But what happened over the final four innings was a microcosm of the entire season. The Jays’ last four relievers — Jason Frasor, Brandon League, Scott Downs and B.J. Ryan — threw first-pitch strikes to 10 of the 14 batters they faced, immediately putting the Yankees’ offense on the defensive. Ryan was the only member of the quartet to fall behind two hitters in a row and throw more balls (10) than strikes (9) in his appearance. Conversely, the Yankee relievers’ inability to throw Strike 1, particularly on the part of Damaso Marte and Jose Veras, contributed to their demise.

The papers focused on Cano’s error and A-Rod’s double play, the obvious turning point and climax of the game, but did not delve deeper into the causes for the effect. That was disappointing.

There was contradictory coverage last week as it pertained to Girardi. Newsday’s Ken Davidoff mused how Girardi should lighten up a little. Meanwhile, today, the Daily News’s John Harper; railed the Yankee manager for making excuses for Cano, who a la David Wells, avoided reporters after Saturday’s loss. Maybe it is time to send a message. Maybe it would have been another sign of a desperate team trying to inject itself with vital signs.

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“I don’t care how it looks,” Derek Jeter said. “I’ll take an ugly win over playing well and losing.”
(Kepner, New York Times)

The Yankees scored eleven runs in the first three innings yesterday, knocking Justin Verlander out the box with the quickness, but the Tigers came back and scored six in the fourth and by the end of five it was 11-9, New York. So much for a laugher. But such is life for the 2008 Yankees, who scored two more in the top of the sixth on a big RBI single by Derek Jeter as the Yanks survived to beat the Tigers, 13-9.

Sidney Ponson and Edwar Ramirez were not effective but Brian Bruney, Phil Coke (making his big league debut), Damaso Marte and Chris Britton were able to throw up zeros. Coke, a left-hander with a weak chin, and a delivery that reminded me a little bit of both David Wells and Al Leiter (except Coke slings the ball in a more exaggerated manner than either of them), had a nice inning and looked poised. Six of the Yankee starting nine had multiple hits; Alex Rodriguez had four RBI.

Yanks slide down to Tampa tonight for the start of three against the world-beating, Rays. Mike Mussina goes for win #17. According to the Daily News, Joba Chamberlain will be activated before the game and will be used in the bullpen for the rest of the season. In the long run, I like Chamberlain as a starter, and so do the Yankees. Seems like it would make sense to use him anyway they can right now. What’s your take on him being used out of the pen for the month of September?

Back on May 11, the conclusion of the Yankees’ lone series in Detroit this season got rained out, so the Yanks are stopping off in the Motor City for a Labor Day matinée on their way down to face the first-place Rays. The Yanks are 1-4 against the Tigers thus far this season, the one win coming in Detroit in the last game the two teams played. That was Darrell Rasner’s second start of the year, in case you weren’t sure just how long ago that was.

Back then, the Tigers were a disappointing team that was hitting a bunch, but not enough to overcome the awful performance of their starting pitchers. Though the Tiger hitting has cooled off a bit and their pitching has improved, the team is still a disappointment, lingering below .500 in a season in which they were expected to crush their division.

Justin Verlander starts for the Bengals this afternoon. He’s been wildly inconsistent. In eight second-half starts, he’s allowed one run or fewer three times and five runs or more the other five with nothing in between. He’ll face Sidney Ponson, who has allowed 11 runs in his last 6 2/3 innings over two starts. Neither pitcher has faced the opposing team this season.

Today is September 1, which means major league teams are allowed to expand their rosters beyond 25 men. With their top two minor league affiliates in the postseason (a good sign for the future of the major league club), the Yankees have started slowly by bringing back Chad Moeller and calling up lefty reliever Phil Coke. That’s a pretty wild turnaround for Coke. Barely more than a month ago he was a double-A starter who thought he had been traded to the Pirates in the Xavier Nady deal. Now he’s a major league relief pitcher with the Yankees. Not bad.

Coke, who is 26, combines with 25-year-old Alfredo Aceves to give the Yankees a pair of potential long-men in the pen down the stretch, though Aceves’ performance yesterday suggests he could emerge as a high-leverage guy with a quickness. Coke posted a 2.51 ERA in 20 starts and three relief outings for double-A Trenton this year, then moved up to triple-A and spent most of his time there pitching out of the pen with superior peripherals (22 K, 5 BB, 0 HR in 17 1/3 IP), but worse results (4.67 ERA). On closer inspection, that ERA is inflated by his adjustment to his new level and his new role, as his ERA over his last ten outings was 2.70.

Word is the bullpen will receive further reinforcement tomorrow when Joba Chamberlain is activated, though if Ponson has a third-straight bad outing today, Joba, Aceves, or even Coke could wind up taking Sir Sidney’s next turn in the rotation.

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Space is generally the most precious, sacred thing in the world for a New Yorker. You often don’t get much of it, but even a couple of feet can feel generous when you are on a crowded subway car. Stand on any busy avenue and wait for the light to change. The traffic shoots by and then suddenly, for a break of fifteen to twenty seconds, the avenue is clear, almost deserted and you’ve got space to breath, space to move.

All of which goes to explain why Labor Day is one of my favorite holidays in the city. The town is dead (and, as Emma mentioned yesterday, it makes you pine for a car just so you can park it). But it’s only dead for another day, for a handful of hours. It’s the calm before the storm because starting tomorrow morning the city will be buzzing again–families back from vacation, kids back to school. It will be congested again and summer will be over.

In the early nineties, I remember going to the Museum of Broadcasting with a friend to watch Dennis Potter’s final TV interview. He was dying and was drinking liquid morphine to numb the pain; there was no telling if he’d be able to remain lucid for the entire interview. But he did and he was brilliant:

We all, we’re the one animal that knows that we’re going to die, and yet we carry on paying our mortgages, doing our jobs, moving about, behaving as though there’s eternity in a sense. And we forget or tend to forget that life can only be defined in the present tense; it is is, and it is now only. I mean, as much as we would like to call back yesterday and indeed yearn to, and ache to sometimes, we can’t. It’s in us, but we can’t actually; it’s not there in front of us. However predictable tomorrow is, and unfortunately for most people, most of the time, it’s too predictable, they’re locked into whatever situation they’re locked into … Even so, no matter how predictable it is, there’s the element of the unpredictable, of the you don’t know. The only thing you know for sure is the present tense, and that nowness becomes so vivid that, almost in a perverse sort of way, I’m almost serene. You know, I can celebrate life.

Below my window in Ross, when I’m working in Ross, for example, there at this season, the blossom is out in full now, there in the west early. It’s a plum tree, it looks like apple blossom but it’s white, and looking at it, instead of saying “Oh that’s nice blossom” … last week looking at it through the window when I’m writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn’t seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There’s no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance … not that I’m interested in reassuring people – bugger that. The fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.

Sometimes it takes an existential crisis to stop us in our tracks and notice the world around us. The friend I saw the interview with died several years later of cancer.

Last week, Emily upgraded our phone service. We now both have blackberries. I’ve noticed people walking around the streets these days with their heads buried in their palms, looking into their phones or their i-pods. I’ve caught myself doing the same thing. (Mel Brooks once said, “We make fun, ‘look at the old guy bent over and spitting,’ pretty soon we’re bent over and spitting.'” Few weeks ago I called a friend on my cell phone and said, “You know those Herbs that talk on their phone as they are walking down the street? Well, now I’m that Herb too.”) Another thing to keep us plugged in and tuned out. It is the rare occasion when I am at home with nothing turned on–usually, I’ve got the TV and the computer going.

It’s more of a struggle than ever to keep our minds clear. But a day like today always drives home the little things for me. Soaking up the final lonely hours of summer before the bustle of autumn returns.