Monthly Archives: October 2008

God knows why — I’ve been to dozens and dozens of games over the years — but the very first thing I think of, when I hear the words "Yankee Stadium", is Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. I couldn’t first remember some nice come-from-behind affair against the Sox, or one of those sharp Andy Pettitte LDS wins over the Twins, or my first game with my dad as a kid, or learning to keep score? No, I go back to a frigid and drizzly night, in the far reaches of the upper deck, sitting by myself because by the time I’d managed to log onto Ticketmaster, they only had single tickets left.

And somehow, it’s actually a nice memory. I was wearing just about every item of clothing I owned in a futile attempt to layer for warmth, topped off with my ancient and oversized Paul O’Neill t-shirt, and using a garbage bag I’d brought from home as a poncho. This was my first Championship Series game ever — I’d seen a few Division Series games, but that was it, I’d never been there for any ALCS or World Series moments in person. And so I was absolutely determined to enjoy myself, no matter what — alone, freezing, damp, broke, watching the Yankees engage in one of the greatest chokes in sports history against that loudmouth Schilling… whatever. I wasn’t about to let anything get me down. (Plus, I was so sure they were going to pull it out the next night. Way too sure).

There was an earnest, attractive young Japanese tourist couple on my left, wearing full-on plush Godzilla-head hats. They didn’t speak much English, but the man did turn to me a few innings in and manage to ask why the crowd was booing Schilling for repeatedly throwing over to hold the runner on first. "That’s his job, yes?" he wanted to know, perfectly reasonably. While I was trying to figure out the best way to phrase my reply, the man to my right, who turned out to be named Joey, leaned over and beat me to it.

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It’s painful to see the Red Sox playing so well, but in a way, it is a tribute to the Yankees’ success in the late ’90s, a run that forced the Red Sox to build a bigger, smarter team.  It’s as if they are the villans in the superhero movie who create a supermonster to defeat the superhero (Though you’d be hard-pressed to find a Sox fan who considers the Yankees the heroes).

As much as I hate to see Boston winning, I do appreciate that they are defending their title so well–at least thus far.

So while we wait for the hot stove to warm up, we are left with our memories–and what a stockpile we’ve got to choose from! I’ve been digging around in the Esquire archives lately, and now offer up Charles Pierce’s 2001 profile on our man, Mariano Rivera:

He is modest and mild. He is neat and quiet. Closers are not. They snarl and spit. They rage and howl. They are wild and unkempt, hooligan cowboys, living and dying with every pitch. One of them still hangs around the Yankees, helping the relief pitchers. The hair’s thin now, and gray. The mustache still droops, and it’s gray, too. He’s the old rancher with a rifle above the door that nobody asks about. Be they as precise as Mariano Rivera or as fierce as this old gentleman, closers make their own special marks, always, as long as they sign in blood.

…His power seems like some sort of physical trompe l’oeil, its source a mystery locked inside the elegant movement of his pitching motion. The power is in there somewhere, coiled and mysterious and remorselessly reliable. Otherwise, he looks as if he’s tossing a tennis ball against the side of his garage. If he has an identity as a closer, it is that he throws the same pitch at the same speed with the same fluid motion every time, impeccable and contained and neat, like his handwriting, like his career.

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Sox give Halos that Peaceful, Easy Feeling.  Actually, I’m sure there was nothing peaceful or easy about it.  The Sox win games like the 90s Yankee teams did, huh?

Let’s Go Rays!

I don’t think the Angels are going to get past Jon Lester tonight, but I sure would like to see one of these two series come down to a decisive Game 5. Think the White Sox can pull another one out at the Cell? My previews are up on SI.com

By Bob Klapisch

Everyone’s got a farewell memory of Yankee Stadium, maybe a personal shrine. I’m no different: as I left the great ballpark for the last time on September 21, I said goodbye to an abstract soft spot in my heart that won’t make it across the street.

I consider it a shrine without shape or form; it’s just a place. Actually, it’s just air-space, the spot right outside the Yankee clubhouse where David Wells was waiting to launch the most bizarre showdown of my career.

I’ve had my share of shoot-outs (see: Bobby Bonilla, 1993), but none that could’ve been reviewed by journalism ethics class. Ok, a little background. In the summer of 1997, when I was still a beat reporter for the Bergen Record and one of the few writers who actually liked Boomer – I always considered him slightly larger than life, if not larger than his uniform – I caught wind of a explosive confrontation between the lefthander and George Steinbrenner.

It occurred in the ninth inning of a game the Yankees were losing to the lowly-Expos, during which Wells had been knocked out. Steinbrenner, embarrassed that the defending world champs were getting punished by one of the National League’s worst teams, was pacing the clubhouse. He was in a terrible mood.

Wells wasn’t happy, either. He started a conversation with the Boss that would soon make headlines.

“Hey, George, you need to get some security out there in right field. Build a wall or something,” Wells said.

He was referring to a fan who’d leaned over the railing and prevented Paul O’Neill from catching Darrin Fletcher’s second inning fly ball. The fan caught the ball and it was ruled a home run.

That was all The Boss Steinbrenner needed to hear. The engine of his rage was now fully ignited.

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When you talk to fans who grew up in the Sixties, many of them chose between Sport magazine and Sports Illustrated in the same way that Rock N Roll fans picked either the Beatles or the Stones.  Sport was a monthly, SI a weekly.  There was no pretense about Sport–the writing was lunch pale, no frills and featured writers from around the country. The photography was wonderful too.  When Andres LaGuerre took over SI, it became literate, the New Yorker of sport magazines.  No matter which you prefer, together, they helped define a golden age of sports magazine writing. 

The launching of the SI Vault earlier this year was a terrific occasion for all of us who love sports writing, although navigating the site is still a painful and frustrating experience.  Sport hasn’t been around in years, but they do have a website and recently, a handful of articles have been posted, including this 1953 profile on Mickey Mantle by Milton Gross:

There have been few more exciting rookies than Mantle was in 1951. Yet Mickey could have become one of the greatest busts simply because he had had so much ballyhoo. Until the end of last season there were many who viewed Mantle with misgivings, be­cause he was a kid who was asked to walk before he could crawl and run before he could walk in baseball. There was question of his maturity for a role so large as the one in which he was being cast and it is entirely possible that what veered Robinson so firmly in his praise of Mantle was not what Mickey did over the entire Series, but his reactions on just one play.

It happened in the third game of the Series, a game the Dodgers were to win to take a two‑games‑to‑one edge, but it is entirely possible that the Series was decided right there in the Yankees’ favor as Mantle met and passed his most severe test. In the eighth inning, Robinson slashed a single to center. As Robinson made a sharp swerve around first base, Mickey fielded the ball on one hop and then was faced with a choice that every National League outfielder has had to make. He could throw to second, forcing Robinson to retreat to first base, or hold his throw until Jackie had committed himself irrevocably when it would be Mantle’s arm against Jackie’s speed, daring and know‑how on the bases. When it is you against Robinson, it is no simple decision to make.

Mantle elected to hold his throw. Whether it was a deliberate or in­stinctive decision, none can say, but Mantle watched Robinson and Jackie, watching the fielder, came as much as 25 feet toward second. He slowed down, pretending to go back and Mickey, meanwhile, came in several steps with the ball before cocking his arm as if to throw to first base.

With that motion Jackie went into high gear for second, yet Mantle still held his throw. Suddenly, it seemed Jackie sensed he could not make the base. The Dodger stopped, stumbled, got to his feet again and then scrambled back to first.

It was a war of nerves on the bases, Robinson drawing on his years of ex­perience and Mantle drawing from some inexplicable well of wisdom that seems to be his despite his youth, and it was a war Robinson lost.

Among the 66,698 spectators at the Yankee Stadium that day were some who sensed the importance of the play as it related to the Series, but at least one among them, Branch Rickey, interpreted Mantle’s reaction to Robinson’s maneuvering in a much broader sense. Rickey brought Robinson to the majors and many times saw how Robinson’s running could kill the con­fidence of one man and, through him, his team. As the play unfolded Rickey turned to his companion and said: "Maturity is something that cannot be measured in years. That young man’s arms and legs and eyes and wind are young, but his head is old. To me it is the final proof of the boy. Mantle has the chance to make us forget every ballplayer we ever saw."

For more on Sport, check out Mark Armour’s 2007 tribute over at The Baseball Analysts.

The Angels got it together and finally beat the Red Sox.  Go Figure that.

Took 12 innings.  The series is still alive with Lackey and Lester going tonight.  Now, that’s worth the price of admission.

All three Division Series could wrap up today, but I think the White Sox will survive the weekend, and am hoping the Brewers will as well so that we can see CC and Cole Hamels face off in Game 5. My preview of today’s action is up over at SI.com.

By Jon Weisman

Mostly, I remember white.

To celebrate my graduation from college in 1989, I went on a mini-ballpark tour with some members of my family. I flew from California to New York to meet my sister, who was living there at the time. A few days later, the two of us would meet up in Boston with my brother and father, and we’d go on to see games at Fenway Park, Skydome and Wrigley Field. But first, it would be New York, New York: Shea and Yankee Stadiums.

At least, that’s what I recalled when I started to write this. But after looking back at Baseball-Reference.com, I realized that I must not have seen the Mets on this trip. It must have been another day in another year that I took the subway out for a hot, sticky day game at Shea and had a lousy hot dog but a good time.

My memory, in some respects, has become just awful. When it comes to my first visits to Yankee and Shea Stadiums, I remember next to nothing about what happened during the games themselves. (By comparison, I distinctly remember that in my first trip to Fenway Park, in 1982, the one-and-only Derek Botelho flirted with a no-hitter in his first major-league game.)

But for my only trip to Yankee Stadium, I couldn’t even tell you who played or who won, without the aid of the Internet. I would have guessed the Yankees won, based on some good vibes I recall feeling among the crowd as we were leaving. I also recall that the game was on the afternoon of Independence Day, and that there was a postgame concert by the Beach Boys that we didn’t end up sticking around for. But I’m not sure you can trust me on any of that.

What I can testify to, two decades later, is the experience of the visit.

We sat high, high behind home plate – it almost felt like a blimp’s-eye view of the action – but I enjoyed the vantage point. I sort of marveled at how much I enjoyed it.

And most of all, I remember white, the dominant color in my mind when picturing Yankee Stadium. Inside the royal blue of the seats stuck out but the outer shell was all white. I had never seen a ballpark that looked like this, and it struck me as so fittingly majestic. I’m a Dodger fan, but I knew I was in hallowed ground. Yankee Stadium had an immediate feel, and that feel was more important to me than anything that was happening on the field. I could be wrong, but I have to think that feel will color the memories of many people as the years go by.

Jon Weisman blogs about the Dodgers over at Dodger Thoughts.

When the Cubs lost the first two games at home against the Dodgers I wasn’t especially surprised. For all of the talk about a new vibe at Wrigley this year, these were still the Cubs after all. They’d need to win at least one round before I started to truly believe.

I called my oldest friend in the world, Lizzie Plummer, whose father, rest his soul, was a long-suffering Cubbie fan. I had been thinking about him for weeks, knowing he would have been reserved about all the good cheer.

"You know what he would say?" Liz told me over the phone. "They’ve come further only to fall farther."

He would not have batted an eye at a first round sweep.  Still, my heart does go out to Cub Nation or whatever they are called.  This one is for you.

At the same time, I’m thrilled for Dodger fans. Yowza La-La Land, pinch yourself–youse one series away from the World Serious.

The Brewers and Cubs try to stay alive tonight. As I write in my SI.com preview, I’m not optimistic about their chances. Here’s how the last 54 best-of-five series to start 2-0 have ended:

By Will Weiss

Part Two of Two: The Personalities

I’m lucky to have my own batch of special memories from my five years covering the team. But the thing I’ll miss most is interacting with the many people who gave the stadium life.

There were a few regular occurrences: the mad rush for positioning in the dugout when Joe Torre would prepare for his pre-game conference with the media; Jim Kaat making a beeline through Brian Cashman’s office to get coffee right before the seventh inning stretch; Bob Sheppard’s sprint to the elevator right after the game (you wouldn’t believe how spry he was) and the way he’d disappear when the elevator reached the lobby. There was also the inimitable way in which official scorer Bill Shannon announced a scoring decision. The first time I heard, “Single, runner takes second on the throw,” or, “E-Five. Error on the third baseman,” I thought it was the ghost of Harry Caray, or at the very least, Will Ferrell’s impersonation of the late broadcaster.

I learned a lot about the press culture and how to act – mainly to shut up and stay out of the way – from Phil Pepe. He covered the team from the early 1960s through the early ’80s, and observed the many internal changes that took place. We would frequently eat dinner together in the press dining room before games, particularly in 2003 and ’04, when he rotated with Bill Shannon, Howie Karpin, and Jordan Sprechman as official scorers.

The press dining room was an interesting place to mingle, network, and get information from “sources close to the situation.” It was routine to see writers chatting up advance scouts from teams both the Yankees and their opponents would be playing within the next week to 10 days. I had some good conversations with members of the A’s staff prior to an Aaron Small start back in 2005, as well as chats with the Twins in 2004 before the playoffs.
It was also a great place to observe the cliquey nature of the New York baseball writers. I found it amazing how they could socialize and be cordial to one another in one setting, but would gouge each other’s eyes out if it came to getting a scoop. You always knew where John Sterling was, based on the level of harrumphing.

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Red Sox play Daddy Dearest once again.  The great K Rod gets pasted. 

The Angels are toast don’t ya know.

Jason Bay hits a three-run bomb as the Sox score four runs in the first inning out in California.

The nightmare continues for the Halos.

My previews for today’s ALDS Games 2 are up on SI.com. Two lefty starters give the Rays-Chisox series a different look, while Daisuke Matsuzaka’s stellar record belies his unimpressive pitching.

By Cecilia Tan

I have so many memories of Yankee Stadium that it is hard to narrow it down to just one to write about today. My earliest memory of the Stadium is of a Bobby Murcer grand slam, which thanks to Retrosheet I now know was August 2, 1974, when I was five years old. I learned to keep a scorecard there. I learned what the word “sucks” refers to there. My 13th birthday party was at the Stadium. I was there for Dave Righetti’s no-hitter in 1983. I’ve been there for half a dozen opening days, about as many Old Timers Days, and for a pile of playoff games (though still no World Series). I’ve been there on the forgettable “Liza” days and for walk-off wins. I was there for the Home Run Derby and All-Star game this past season.

Pick one, he says. Pick one.

Then there are all the times I’ve been there professionally. A photoshoot in Monument Park. Sitting in the press box for my first game. My first time in Joe Torre’s office. Sitting in the dugout during batting practice. Listening to Mike Mussina tell a story during team stretch about getting his wisdom teeth out.

Pick just one to write about?

I can’t. I’m going to remember so many things about the Stadium that are only going to mean something to me. Like how my little brother Julian and I were somehow convinced that Eddie Layton, the organist, had a booth out beyond center field to watch the game from. We used to take binoculars and try to locate him. I have no idea why we thought the organ was behind the black batters eye. Maybe because the lone sound tower at the Stadium was out there? I wasn’t really convinced otherwise until I was in my 30s and took a tour of the Stadium that included the press box and scoreboard operations.

There’s that gap between the bleachers and the grandstand in right field, where you can see the train go by. The elevated track is at just the right height and in the 1970s, we used to see the cars go past festooned with graffiti. When the games got boring (which they did sometimes), Julian and I would play a game where if the next train went right to left I would win, and if it went left to right, he would win. And we’d stare at that grand white limestone edifice, the courthouse, which always looked like a long home run might be able to hit it.

I’ll never forget the thrill of coming out of the dank, dark concrete tunnel into the upper deck, into the wide open brightly lit field of green and blue, and having my breath taken away.

The ladies rooms in Yankee Stadium are pink. The layers of latex paint are so thick that the walls practically feel like rubber. And the way the ones in the upper deck are shaped, there are always two stalls to the right of the door that a lot of people don’t see are there. That’s always where I headed. The ladies rooms have attendants, too, like they do in Broadway theaters. Will we have them in the new Stadium, I wonder?

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I caught this bit from Mike Mussina’s brother via Jim Baumbach over at Newsday.  Maybe Moose won’t retire after all.  As a fan, I sure would like to see him make a run at 300.  Even if he doesn’t get there, I would love rooting for him for another couple of two, three years.  I’ve been a fan since his days in Baltimore.

The current-day Yankees, a former pinstriped shortstop, and a baseball movie at the Hall of Fame have all created interest for your Cooperstown correspondent. Here are the latest musings from upstate New York:

Now that the disappointment of a lost 2008 season has given way to reluctant acceptance, I’m fully ready to embrace an off-season that I hope is filled with activity for the Yankees. The winter plan should begin right now, with the Yankees giving strong consideration to the futures of free agents Jason Giambi, Bobby Abreu, Mike Mussina, and Andy Pettitte.

Of the four, Abreu is the most interesting case, and perhaps the most debatable. At the age of 34, he’s nowhere near the player he was during his peak years in Philadelphia, but he’s still a viable batter who can contribute mightily to a pennant-winning team. He’s a .300 hitter who still reaches base 37 per cent of the time, retains enough speed to make him a factor on the base paths, and still has the kind of 20-home run power that makes him a legitimate middle-of-the-order threat. Given those offensive strengths, I think the Yankees should attempt to re-sign Abreu—but only after two major conditions have been met. First off, Abreu has to accept a maximum of a two-year contract. Absolutely no three-year deals, not for a player who will turn 35 in March, and not even two years with one of those ridiculous player-slanted options, where the team has to buy out his contract for some ungodly amount. If Abreu insists on anything beyond two years, it’s time to cut him loose and count the draft picks. The Yankees simply have to stop over-committing to aging players with long-term deals.

Second, the Yankees have to make it clear to Abreu that, if he is to return to the Bronx in 2009, he will have to do so as a DH, or perhaps even as a first baseman. Simply put, his days as an everyday right fielder have come to an end; the Yankees cannot afford his Luis Polonia/Danny Tartabull butcher-boy routine in the outfield anymore. In recent years, the Yankees have been far too reluctant to move players off their original defensive positions once they have surpassed their expiration dates. They dawdled far too long with Bernie Williams, resisting a switch to first base or left field a full three years after he had become a major liability in center field. They’ve been similarly reluctant with Giambi, who should have been made a fulltime DH years ago. Instead, they simply “wished” that Giambi would improve at first base, as if he could somehow magically counteract the effects of age and a lack of natural athleticism. It’s time for the Yankees to change that approach, starting with Abreu. The man can still help offensively. He just shouldn’t be allowed to touch an outfielder’s glove until there’s a ten-run differential on the scoreboard…

Former Yankee shortstop Eddie Brinkman passed away this week at the age of 66, the cause of death unannounced. If you don’t remember Brinkman as a Yankee, that’s certainly understandable. He played only part of one season in New York, as a 1975 mid-season pickup purchased for a small fee from the Texas Rangers. Though well past his prime, the Yankees were hoping that Brinkman could help them at the time that preceded the arrival of Bucky Dent. (The Yankees’ shortstop situation was so bad in the mid-1970s that Jim Mason ranked No. 1 on the depth chart. Ugh.) Brinkman had enjoyed some of his best seasons in Detroit, where he emerged as a key contributor to the Tigers’ 1972 American League East title. Playing in 156 games that summer, he committed only seven errors, setting a major league record for fewest miscues by a fulltime shortstop. He also put together a streak of 72 straight games without an error, particularly impressive given the lack of artificial turf in the American League at the time. Brinkman played so well defensively that he actually finished ninth in the league’s MVP balloting, despite hitting .203 with a .279 slugging percentage.

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Over at ESPN.com, Bill Simmons has a long, rambling, often entertaining and insightful piece on Manny Ramirez.  You have to wade through a lot of words to get the nuggets of gold, but they are there.  I like how Simmons writes from the perspective of a fan, and I admire that he’s not afraid to criticize ESPN personalities like Peter Gammons.  He is a conversational writer, not lean or succint.  But part of the fun in reading him are the tangents, to see how he ties it all together.  He’s like a late-night underground FM DJ from another era–he riffs:

How much does Manny understand in general? He’s dumb enough to leave uncashed paychecks sitting around and smart enough to earn those checks in the first place. Dumb enough to get seduced by Boras, smart enough to heed his advice. Dumb enough to burn bridges in Boston, smart enough to get what he wanted in the end. Dumb enough to betray his old team, smart enough to embrace his new one. He’s unredeeming in every way until you add up every little moment that made you like him in the first place. Then he’s not so bad. (I swear, this makes sense if you’re me.) And so I refuse to blame him for what happened.³⁹ The one thing I learned from 2001 to 2008 was that Manny judged life by simple things: hits, home runs, salaries, fancy cars, even the efficient way someone set up a pitching machine. When he’s unhappy, he can’t hide it. When he’s happy, he can’t hide it. He could never fathom spending $20 million a year, but he knows it’s the number he should make. He didn’t take it personally that the Red Sox never picked up his 2009 option, just that they didn’t care whether he stayed or left. He moved from a one-bedroom condo to a presidential suite at the fanciest hotel in town, liked living in both places … and if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, then I give up.

So, how will this play out? I see Manny leading the Dodgers to the 2008 World Series, breaking their hearts and donning pinstripes next season. He won’t feel bad, because he’s Manny. The L.A. fans will feel bad. I will feel worse. It will be the single most painful sports transaction of my lifetime. It will make me question why I follow sports at all, why we spend so much time caring about people who don’t care about us. I don’t want to hear Manny booed at Fenway. I don’t want to root against him. I don’t want to hold a grudge. I don’t want to hear the "Mah-knee! Mah-knee!" chant echoing through the new Stadium. I am not ready for any of it. You love sports most when you’re 16, then you love it a little bit less every year. And it happens because of things like this. Like Manny breaking the hearts of everyone in Boston because his agent wanted to get paid, then Manny landing in New York because the Yanks offered the most money.

And when it happens, his new teammates will spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure him out. They will like him. They will make fun of him. They will ride his hot streaks for weeks at a time. Within a few months, they might even swipe his credit card for a night on the town, planning to charge drinks to their idiot teammate all night. Someone else will get stuck with the bill. Manny will drink for free. Everyone will have a good laugh, and they will never underestimate Manny Ramirez again.

And while we are talking baseball legends, let’s go back to Scott Raab, writing about Don Zimmer in Esquire circa 2001:

Zimmer managed Tom Yawkey’s Red Sox from 1976 to 1980. Between parties, the Boston media and fans roasted him without mercy.

"Every day," Zim says. "I left the ballpark one night, and sittin’ right by the dugout is my wife and my daughter–she lives up in New Hampshire, but it’s only, like, forty-five minutes north, and I’m drivin’ her up to her house. My wife’s sittin’ in the front, and my daughter’s in the back and she’s cryin’. I turned around and said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ She said, ‘Daddy, I’m so tired of people booin’ you in this town, and I’m worried that yer gonna get fired.’

"I said, ‘Don’t go to the game no more. Stay home. If it’s gonna bother ya, stay home.’

"Don’t tell me it didn’t hurt–day after day, hour after hour, the same shit. It’s gotta bother ya. But it’s baseball. If you don’t like it, get out. Get a job. That’s the way I looked at it. And that’s the way it was."

There is old school as a slogan of self-advertisement and then there is old school as the baseball way of life Zimmer still loves too much to leave behind.

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My previews of today’s playoff games are up over at SI.com. The short version: the Rays have a significant home-field advantage, the Brewers must win today behind CC Sabathia, and the Cubs are in big trouble.