Boy, I like Aceves. Not only did he just pitch great, but it's good to know when he pitches the tenth that he could also take you through the eleventh, the twelfth...

Also: if Brett hadn't come home, I think Mauer nails Cervelli at first, so trying to score isn't a dumb base running move (standing on third with two out isn't so valuable). I guess the question is whether he could have come fifteen feet down the line, where he'd be able to score on a throw to first but get back in case Mauer turns back to third...

Face pie tastes pretty good.

I disagree about Cervelli. I didn't see that anybody on the Twins yelled at Mauer. He decided to pump fake and not throw before he looked back at Gardner. He was going to eat that ball.

Mmmm face pie.

@ #1:

I think Gardy's best play there is to take the outside tack toward the plate, as he did, then go inside and feign the dive. He could have jumped right over the diving Mauer and been safe.

Obviously, that's just speculation. Just throwing it out there. I agree that it wasn't the bad play it appeared at first, because Cervelli probably *would* have been out at first, even though he's pretty fast for a catcher (give him a few more years behind the plate).

I think Mauer caught Brett out of the corner of his eye, peripheral vision, whatever. I admit you can't tell from the replay. But surely Mauer does get Cervelli if he simply throws to first, so if Gardner's thinking about staying put at third, he's thinking about a two-out scenario.

RI, good point actually ... if Chauncey stays put it is 2 outs at 3rd, not one. We can't be sure, but if general feeling is Mauer gets Cervelli, Gardner's making a good play gunning flat-out as he scores easily to win it.

Let's give Mauer props for this one, I agree with Alex, though I am NOT sure he was faking Gardner home. I think he just went by outstanding instincts there.

RI, I'm not at all hung up on the 'character' thing! I was the one wondering what it MEANS when O'Neill brought it up on YES and others picked up on it. I was teasing in the earlier posts.

I know, Hoss, I was just giving you a hard time on the 'character' thing.

And yeah, major props to Mauer, however it went down.

Teixeira and Mauer both made incredible defensive plays.

I think Gardner made a mistake because similar to how an INFer has to know the speed of the runner when a groundball is hit to him in order to know how much time he has to make a play, a baserunner needs to know the athleticism of the catcher on a play like that.

Loving Johnny's contract year.

Mauer is not throwing Cervelli out at first there. That's why he didn't try.

I agree with whoever said before that it's preferable the Yanks make an error of aggression, but it still was a mistake.

I get the feeling that even if Cervelli's ball gets by the pitcher, the second baseman is going to get it, and Gardner would have been truckin' for home anyway. Pure conjecture on my part. Who cares? The Yankes provided another entertaining win. And as Stan Gable famously said, "That's my pi." : )

yeah, i'm with the folks who think Cervix was going to be safe at first and Mauer knew it.

And, I don't think Mauer pump faked to try and draw Gardner to home, I think he realized he wasn't going to get him and then instinctively turned to look at 3rd, in case the runner had gotten too far from the bag when rounding it.

With a win in the bag, it's much easier to appreciate the quality of the play.

[13] Aint that the truth.

I think the play of the game from a Yankee perspective is obviously the Teixeira play. But it was more than that to me. It struck me as a definitive moment (hopefully). That's the character I'd like this team to have, right there.

I was going to title the post, “Speed Kills.”

Alex - you had clever title posts for both yesterday and today, but i'm sure glad you didn't get to use them! : )

oh, and i DON'T like pie. really, i don't.

Just when you think you've seen it all....

Sonnanstine delivers RBI double, win for Rays after lineup error forces him to hit

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Andy Sonnanstine thought the last time he batted third was in Little League, maybe.

Sonnanstine delivered after a pregame mistake forced the pitcher to bat Sunday, hitting an RBI double in the Tampa Bay Rays' 7-5 victory over the Cleveland Indians.

[16] Wow..

GREAT game this morning (local time)! Johnny D is the man, and A-Rod is starting to get his swing together..Sox lose to the awful M's..it's a sunny 27Celcius here, life is getting better every day with this team..

Joe Mauer; great player, beware of the heavy contract. If he isn't catching then how valuable will his bat be??

Usually I just lurk, but I feel compelled to point out how refreshing it's been not to read about what an idiot Girardi is. Funny, isn't it how a little pitching will make a manager a genius. Like he was a moronic "bullpen manager" when his starters were giving him 4 innings a night. Or how he just wasn't the right guy for this job when his team was hitting .170 with RISP. .170 can be enough when your pitchers give up 2 runs.

The other thing is, how about some props for Pena? The guy can play a little.

[18] No, Girardi finally realized Aceves is better than Veras, which was obvious to many of us for weeks. That doesn't make him a genius.

He has made a lot of mistakes. It would be absurd not to point them out.

[15] Oh c'mon, Nostralarmis! No Blueberry Pie, Apple Pie, Blackberry Pie, Cherry Pie, Pecan Pie, Banana Cream Pie, Chocolate Cream Pie, Key Lime Pie, Strawberry Pie, Lemon Meringue Pie, Coconut Custard Pie, Boston Cream Pie, which is really a cake, Sweet Potato Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Rhubarb Pie, Shoofly Pie, Shepherds' Pie, Chicken Pot Pie, Meat Pie, Pizza Pie, Hamburger Pie, Macaroni Pie (Mac and Cheese with a Crust), Scotch Pie, or Quiche?

That's downright shocking, especially from someone living in Atlanta!

Like my Grammar School Geometry teacher always said eons ago, "Pi are not round! Pi r²!"

Oh well... leaves more for me! Can't say I didn't try!

: )

[19] Aceves hasn't been there till recently. Point is, when the pen gets overworked, they all underperform, and Casey friggin Stengel wouldn't make a difference. It's so easy to second guess but what is he supposed to do when they are all failing? When you only need 6-8 outs from them a night they are more likely to pitch the way they can/should, and your choices have a much better chance of being right. Even Veras has been looking better, wouldn't you say?

[20] awesome! well, let's see - i DO like chicken pot pie & pizza pie! and shoofly pie (& apple pan dowdy), is a cool old jazz standard, that's not very well known. oh, and i think the Warrant song "cherry pie" is kinda funny! : )

but as far as traditional pies and cakes go, would you believe that i've NEVER even tasted one before??? it's true!!! weird, i know, but it's true. i've never had pie, or a donut, brownie, cake or an apple or pear. hell, i've never even tasted coffee or iced tea in my life! : o

[20] oh, and i love numbers (drummer, baseball fanatic), so i'm down with Pi !!! : )

"Even Veras has been looking better, wouldn’t you say?"

NO.

[21] So what? You can see that Aceves has superior command to Veras in a couple of outings.

If Girardi is so concerned about the effects of overworking relievers, why weren't Robertson and Melancon given the opportunity to overcome their failures? He has repeatedly afforded Veras, Ramirez, and Alby, that chance despite their failures, and they don't have anywhere near the talent that Robertson and Melancon have.

I have never second guessed a manager in my life. I base my criticisms on the decisions that I think should be made before the manager makes a move.

For example, I have never criticized him for bringing in Coke or Aceves, or for not using Mariano for more than one inning.

Any manager can look good when he has a ton of talent (see Torre, Joe in the '90s). the challenge is to get the most out of a team when the talent is injured or when young guys need developing.

Girardi showed signs of being able to do that last season. He has regressed this season. That's why he has deserved the criticism. But when he makes the right move, as he did today with Aceves, then he will give him credit.

[24] I missed that sentence. I agree with you.

Veras is what he is. He has great stuff, but he doesn't do high leverage situations.

whoa, Journal News is forcing Pete Abe to take a week off. no worries about the blog though - it'll be up and running with fill-ins. full post at LoHud...

[26] i, too, would like to see Robertson and Melancon on the staff and given more of a chance to succeed. (as opposed to, say, SUCKceed!)

[22] thelarmis, you grew up in New York city and NEVER ate Entenmanns? Never even had a cup of coffee?? Live in Atlanta and never drank iced tea??? This fact, combined your combined jazz/metal/Yankees love makes you a true man of mystery!

Wish I had something that could match you here..maybe, I've never in my life taken a bite of a fried/scrambled or boiled egg?

[30] yes, definitely mysterious, haha!

well, i HAVE had entenmanns soft chocolate chip cookies. i LOVE those things! i used to love passing the place - where was it - before the 57th St. Bridge, or something like that...

but, yeah man, no donuts, no coffee. i know, sweet tea is a BIG deal here in atlanta, but i've never had it. hell, i'm a professional musician and i've NEVER been stoned in my life! i have NO desire for any of that stuff.

i can join you on the fried & boiled eggs, but i certainly eat scrambled eggs!

yes - jazz/metal/baseball/beer = nostralarmis! ; )

time for bed...

[27] It's not the Journal News. It's their parent company, Gannett. Gannett is requiring all their employees, nation-wide, to take a week off without pay in the first and in the second quarters of this year. They're trying to avoid layoffs.

I believe the reporters had some say in when they took their week. I have a feeling a lot of them wanted to take this week off, since it's the week before a holiday weekend.

Hall of Famer Hal McCoy, Reds beat reporter for the Dayton Daily News, says he's grateful to have a job.

...When other baseball writers ask me, “How you doing?” I say, “Great. I have a job.”

A lot of my pals don’t any more, a lot of talented people victimized by the economy and newspaper cutbacks. One of the best is Tony Jackson, who covered the Cincinnati Reds for the now-defunct Cincinnati Post. He was covering the Dodgers for the Los Angeles Daily News until a week ago. He was laid off. So long, farewell, thanks for coming.

Hall of Fame writer Tracy Ringolsby and Jack Etkin, two of the best beat writers in the country, were without jobs when the Rocky Mountain News in Denver published its last edition this year.

Another good friend, Jack Magruder, was covering the Arizona Diamondbacks for the East Valley Tribune — until the EVT decided to no longer print a newspaper and Jack was swept out the door. Saw him today and he is hanging in there by doing freelance work.

And how heartless was this? A backup beat writer and a columnist with the Baltimore Sun were in the press box at Camden Yards. They received phone calls. In the press box as they worked. Their services were no longer needed and please leave your laptop computers before you walk out the door. Don’t forget the power units, too.

More sad news today, which is what prompted this. Tom Krasovic has covered the San Diego Padres for at least 10 years, maybe longer, for the San Diego Union-Tribune. He is from Dayton, a Carroll High School graduate, and worked as a copy boy at the old Dayton Journal Herald. He was part of 150 jobs eliminated by the Union-Tribune this week and has a job only until July 31.

I see that the Celtics lost. Combine that with the Sox losing last night and I feel good.

Yes, my hatred of Boston is so deep that it bleeds over into other sports I don't even care about, like basketball. Suck it, Beantown! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

And yet Angel Berroa taunts me from the highlights.

@31

Not for nothing, but wouldn't any of us do Pete's "job" for half whatever he gets paid?

Watch the game? Check.
Eat free food? Check.
Clubhouse access? Check.
Make friends with some players? Check.
Ask "tough" questions of other players? Check.
Follow the story the rest of the herd is following? Check.
Transcribe a few responses and write a story? Check.

What am I missing? I bet from Banter contributors alone we could have every ballpark covered. How is that content unique (or valuable)?

[34] PeteAbe, for his occasional flubs at analysis, is a very good writer. That's not easy to do - and that's the first thing most of us would fail at. Do you know what beat writers actually do? Its not all free food and friendship and take three banal quotes and BAM! instant story. The good ones work hard, and the content they produce is unique. Read an excellent beat writer like Pete Abe, or Tyler Kepner, or (to go outside the NYC market), Sam Mellinger at the KC Star. Then go read some of the other folks that are out there, and tell me there's no such thing as good writers with unique content and bad writers with crappy content.

Now, maybe you're a "roomful of 35 monkeys at typewriters could have written Shakespeare" kind of guy, in which case, we'll have to agree to disagree, and end it there.

[0] et al. 34 comments and not one mention of tomato pie? You folks are missing out.

[35] Agreed. Not only can he write, he can write every day, on deadline. That gets old fast, IME.

I love baseball, but I have a feeling I'd get tired of it quickly if I had to be at every game, keeping score and writing a story after the game in time to appear in the morning paper. Not to mention the travel. I hate flying these days. (Honestly, I think that's one reason the AAA teams are moving closer to the major league clubs. It's become too much of a headache to fly these days.)

Pete Abe is not only a decent beat writer - he's mastered the art of blogging. Yeah, he drives me nuts sometimes, but he manages to walk the line between boring and offensive. Not all beat writers have succeeded. A lot are pretty boring. A few have crossed the line and gotten angry phone calls from the boss. It's a difficult balance.

@ 35, 36

I don't agree, probably because I could do the job high and every day. But 80-90% of the content isn't unique (lineups, game story, on-going stories, minors, injuries, manager report). The other 10-20% requires asking questions, transcribing some answers, and tell a formulaic story.

Abraham may work hard, but the job isn't worth what they're paying if someone would do the same work for half the cost. In the context of newspapers, this is exactly the question they should be asking. Does a paper like Lohud really need it's own beat reporter when Gannett can have someone for the *company* cover the Yankees.

[11] Thanks, 'twas me.

I also don't think there was any deking going on. Mauer realized he wasn't going to throw out Cervelli and thus looked around, saw Brett speeding around and so went home. IMO, it was a mistake for Brett because Joe was so close to home. But hey, there are always going to be mistakes, and I'd rather a mistake of trying to score a run, make something happen, rather than a mistake of waiting for someone else to do something.

As for movie pie scenes, I like the scene in the original NERDs, where the jock finds his girlfriend's picture at the bottom of the pie. "Hey, that's my pie"

Being a beat writer sounds like fun at first glance but if you really think about it it is brutal.

I feel like the glamour of being a beat writer would wear off sometime around that first 4 hour delay for a Seattle to Detroit flight on a Monday morning

[37] woah, the job isn't worth what they are paying? How the frack would you know? How many days per week do you work right now? How often are you away from home? 10 days at a time much? Bloggers couldn't do what Pete Abe does at all, unless we quit our jobs. Have you ever built sources within an organization to get information on injuries. Just learning your way around different ballparks, press boxes, locker rooms would be a lot of work. I don't think you can fathom what goes into his job.

I realize the tone is going to be overly dramatic when the industry is covering its own demise, but sometimes you get the impression that those in the media think their jobs are more valuable than everyone else’s. It’s always a shame when anyone loses their job, but it’s almost as if the journalism community believes it should be exempt from the realities of the economy.

As for the Gardner play, I think [13] nailed it. Cervelli would definitely had beat it out, so Mauer probably just instinctively turned toward Gardner. I had no problem with Gardner’s aggressiveness because if Mauer did anything differently, he would have scored.

[18] Three walk off wins are great, but that doesn’t now erase some of the decisions that Girardi has made in the first two months, including the past three games. As others have pointed out, his continued reliance on Veras is a perfect example.

[35] I think PeteAbe is a competent writer, but I am not sure if I’d say he is good. His strength is compiling information and presenting it coherently. I don’t think his style or perspective are very evocative though. That’s not really a knock though…beat writers are not exactly expected to be fountains of creativity.

[39] If you love baseball, I can’t see how covering it as a beat writer would be “brutal”. It might not be as glamorous as many think, but brutal conjures up images of coal mining…not getting quotes from baseball players.

@ 42

Wow, if it wasn't for the ignorant Girardi slap (what manager doesn't rely on relievers long past they should?), I could have agreed with everything you said.

Never had pie??? That's like saying you never had sex, if you're over 20... >;)

BUT... I do sympathize. I never really considered pizza a pie simply because I think of pies in terms of dessert. I don't like a lot of dessert pies myself, and it took me years to even try some. But I always did like ice cream pies (as long as they were chocolate or vanilla), pudding pies (same thing) and only my Mom's lemon merange(sic). Perhaps this was because I found cake and brownies to be far superior to pie in all ways. As an adult, I did find apple pie to be nice, as well as an occasional cheesecake from Junior's (and their cakes are mmm-mmm-mmmph!), but other pies I say nay to, especially when brownies are afoot. Now there are good brownies and bad brownies like anything else (of, I forgot to mention cookies, especially Toll House!) , but you have to be a supreme jerk to mess up brownies, and being in NYC that does happen a lot.

But back to my point. They are not evil; when you come back to NYC, try a sampling at Junior's (they have two at Grand Central Station so you don't have to trek all the way to Brooklyn if you don't want to) and once you get a handle of that, I'm sure Fearless Leader won't mind pointing out the good spots in Little Italy in the Bronx or various other hotspots in Manhattan...

As for Pete's job, I would be happy to have a job, but not happy to have that job... yeah, there are perks and all that people would be envious of, but if they knew what work went into doing a job like that, they'd return to the office, cubicle, classroom, assembly line or what have you with a renewed sense of purpose. As Shaun points out, it's not easy to write well in the first place. Add consistency and deadlines to that. Then add competition for a subject's attention, and translating the answer to something palpable and coherant without bias (I think many writers suffer because they cannot overcome their personal bias). Then add travel (especially if you have family), expense vouchers, missed connections, changed objectives, and biggest of all: re-writes, re-edits and rejection of your hard work. This while you are thinking about the next round of layoffs and what you can fall-back on if it happens.

As a freelance production assistant in the entertainment industry, I can relate to the grind (early calls, grunt work for at least twelve hours and minimal pay with no benefits and absolutely no security or promise of future work after assignments). Being what it is, I wouldn't mind doing a job similar to Pete's, but by no means would I find it easy. If anything, I'd find the pay is better, but the pressure much worse.

[44] Obviously, if you can't write, you wouldn't want any job requiring that skill. Having said that, there are so many more jobs that require writing skills with more pressure, deadlines and responsibility than journalism, not to mention sports journalism. Again, if you enjoy sports and CAN write, I don't think being a beat writer is particularly grueling...at least not anymore than most jobs.

[42] "His strength is compiling information and presenting it coherently."

I agree, but do not mistake his strength as something that anyone could do! Some people have a terrible time presenting basic information coherently, much less complicated matters. For example, take the document I've been reviewing here at work this morning. Sadly, it is not coherent, yet the person who wrote it, like Pete Abe, writes for a living. To write coherently is a skill, requiring time and practice. Not just anyone can do it, and few can do it right off the bat.

I guess I should be more precise, and say that, from a technical standpoint, I think Pete Abe is a good writer. Whether you like his style or not is a matter of personal opinion . . . I do like it, so from that perspective, I think Pete is a good, sometimes a very good, writer.

I take good ole Pete for what he is to me... an absolute fountain of Yankees information, who like the rest of us, is most assuredly entitled to his opinions.

For the record, living out of a suitcase from week to week "suckdidlyucks Flanders," even for players!

As Carlin pernted out pretty soon, "You've got 'stuff' all over the world! Supply lines are getting harder and harder to maintain!"

: )

Along with a silly fastball and plentiful body ink, A.J. Burnett has brought a good clubhouse tradition with him to the Yankees: pies. Game-winning hits are now rewarded with whipped-cream pies-in-the-face and even the unflappable Mariano Rivera has embraced the concept. He encouraged Burnett to get his pie ready before Johnny Damon’s dramatic homer on Sunday. “Don’t mess with karma,” Rivera said

Face Pie, now Mo approved ...