Monthly Archives: November 2009

Hi folks . . . back from SF (pics up later this week) and good to be back.  I’ll be here on Mondays and Thursdays from here through the opening of Spring Training.

Today’s update is powered by . . . Mr. Tony Bennett

• What’s left in the Yankee Stadium clubhouse?
• A-Rod is now just “one of the guys“.
• The Captain reflects on a return to glory.
• Girardi’s next payday?:

Though the Yankees’ policy is not to address contracts until they expire, things might get interesting this winter. Girardi will also likely ask for an extension since his three-year, $7.5 million deal runs out at the end of next season. If the Yankees don’t extend Girardi, then he will be a rare manager who comes off a World Series victory yet faces lame-duck status. Quoth Cashman, “We have to evaluate everything when we have our organizational meetings—players, coaches, and manager.”

• Some Hot Stove scuttlebutt from Baseball Prospectus:

World Series MVP Hideki Matusi will sign with another major league team if he does not re-sign with the Yankees as a free agent, instead of returning to his native Japan. … Yankees closer Mariano Rivera was serious when he said during the World Series trophy presentation that he wants to play five more seasons. Rivera feels so good after having shoulder surgery last winter that he believes he can pitch until he is 45. …

• Happy 45th birthday to Kevin Mmahat.
• Dion James turns 47 today.

The New York Giants Nostalgia Society was scheduled to meet last Thursday in the Bronx but the meeting was post-poned on the count of the World Serious. Bill Kent, the Grand Pooh Bah of the club, sent out the following:

Howdy, folks!

Due to circumstances beyond our control (the Yankees losing yesterday) we are changing the date of the meeting. I discussed it with the speaker, Allen Barra, and he will not be available in case of a prolonging of the series. Likewise some of the members.

So, we managed to switch the date to the following Thursday, Nov. 12th. Barra has agreed with this, likewise the church.

Sorry for this. Now we have another reason to hate the Yankees.

Couple few more things…

According to a blog post in the Times, Jack Curry reports that Mariano Rivera pitched with a ribcage injury this post-season.

And I neglected to mention this item about Joe Girardi, who, it turns out, is a good man.

“I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.” –Jay Z.

Well, not really, but nice try, Jigga. It’s not a bad line.

A few days ago, Emma wrote:

Empire State of Mind, as I said a few weeks ago, has a nice catchy hook but isn’t a great song, and far from Jay-Z’s best. Still, it’s neat that this postseason had such an obvious anthem – if only because now I’ll think of the 2009 Yankees every time I hear it, probably for the rest of my life. And I mean, say what you want about the tune, but the song that makes me think of the 2000 Yankees is “Who Let the Dogs Out,” so count your damn blessings.

I don’t listen to much new music these days so I missed this tune when it first came out. Then I caught a performance of it on TV right before the playoffs began. Can’t say that it moved me much, but I am a sucker for New York City love songs. Pop songs, or whatever. And I like Jay’s rhymes so it wasn’t offensive or anything.

Since then, of course, the song has literally become the anthem for the 2009 Yankees. Like it or not. Jocks and musicians have always loved hanging around each other, so it makes sense that Jay-Z would latch on to these Yankees. It’s all about branding, son, and Jay didn’t just fall off a turnip truck.

Jay loves the Yankees, he raps for the Yankees, he rides in their parade. And the Yanks love Jay in return.

So, for better or worse, we’ll never be able to listen to this song without thinking of the Yankees.

I’m in the new Sinatra, and since I made it here, I can make it anywhere.

Hearing that lyric while watching images of Alex Rodriguez’s heroics this off-season, and yeah, the song fits, man. The fact that it is a pop song makes it ideally suited for this kind of thing.

Emma was right, it’s an upgrade from “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

A few reasons to feel uncontrollably happy:

The Alex Rodriguez-is-a-choke-artist-storyline is dead. Smell you later, forever.

The headlock the Red Sox have had the Yankees in since 2004 is gone. The Sox had their best decade since WWI and still place second to the Yanks.

The Yanks won in their first season at the new Stadium. Nice segue. Not even a chance to dream up those “Curse of the New Stadium” stories. Fergit it. Next.

Pettitte, Posada, Rivera and Jeter: five times dope.

Mariano–one of the best. Ever.

The George Era is over, the Torre Era is over: congrats to Joe G, Cash Money, and the Steinbrenner Boys. I always said you wouldn’t want to be the guy to replace Torre–you’d want to be the guy to replace the guy who replaced Torre. But now Joe Girardi has a ring of his very own.

No, no, they can’t take that away from me.

Here’s a few clips from the SNY Parade coverage. Dude, I went to make up. Never done that before. A woman airbrushed my face and told me to relax my eyes. That was pretty funny, I liked that. The rest was fun as well. It was a good time.

On Alex Rodriguez:

On the Boss:

Can you think of a better way to end a season?

I’m going to be on SNY’s broadcast of the Parade. Not exactly sure how it will all go down, but some time between 11-1 I’ll be on TV, suit, tie, the whole schmeer. Check it out, if you can. Oh, and if anyone can Tivo it and burn me a copy, get at me, cause I don’t have a DVR dingus, if you can believe it.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

At times, the 2009 Yankees could be infuriating. As a team and as individuals, they displayed a few disturbing tendencies. Let’s consider just some of the following:

In what has become an annual ritual in the 21st century, the Yankees stumbled out of the gate in April, looking all too much like the 2008 team that finished well short of the postseason…

In an early-season game against the Indians, Yankee pitchers were torched so badly that they appeared to be auditioning for spots on the staff of the Washington Nationals…

The catcher, Jorge Posada, sometimes ran the bases as if he were Rich Gedman on acid…

No-hit backup catcher Kevin Cash actually took up space on the roster…

The bullpen, spearheaded by the erratic tossings of Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, and Jonathan Albaladejo, imploded over the first two months of the season…

The top left-handed reliever, Damaso Marte, pitched so badly in the spring that the Yankees couldn’t figure out if he was hurt or just plain awful…

The first baseman, Mark Teixeira, started and finished the season by hitting with all of the dynamism of Miguel Cairo…

Angel Berroa, a no-hit, no-field infielder, actually occupied a place on the 25-man roster…

In losing their first eight head-to-head matchups with the archrival Red Sox, the Yankees looked like the “Little Rascals” playing a pickup game on a sandlot…

After sailing through the first four innings, A.J. Burnett coughed up a five-run lead against the Red Sox on the way to a nationally televised defeat at Fenway Park…

Brett Tomko, already deemed not good enough for teams like the Padres and Royals, actually took up space on the Yankees’ bloated pitching staff…

The left fielder, Johnny Damon, sometimes played his position as if the monuments were still in place on the field at Yankee Stadium…

Hideki Matsui, ravaged by two painful knees, ran so slowly that critics claimed he was headed toward retirement at season’s end…

In their last series before the All-Star break, the Yankees endured a discouraging three-game sweep to their pesky West Coast nemeses, the Angels…

Joba Chamberlain, once hailed as the premier pitching prospect in the organization, lost several miles from his fastball and failed to silence the critics who claimed he belonged in the bullpen…

And yet, in spite of it all, the 2009 Yankees emerged as the best team in baseball, first in the regular season and then in the postseason derby.

The above list of infractions isn’t intended as a means of nitpicking. Rather, it points out that how we, as diehard fans of a team like the Yankees, notice the flaws that emerge during the course of a long, seven-month season. The closer we examine a team, the more we see the warts, the bumps, the crevices.

All teams, no matter how talented, endure slumps, encounter problems, and suffer through embarrassing errors. The best of teams find ways to overcome their difficulties, to make up for their shortcomings. The Yankees were just such a team in 2009, winding their way through a maze of missteps to become the game’s world champions.

Hardly perfect, the Yankees rarely made it easy for themselves in 2009. As a result, they rarely made it easy for us, the fans and followers of the team. The Yankees often coasted through the first six innings of games before suddenly taking control from the seventh inning on. Ultimately, they did what needed to be done to pull out a championship: they played better than their opponents—from the Twins to the Angels to the Phillies, each progressively better than the last team.

For doing just that, the Yankees are, and deservedly so, the world champions…

(more…)

Derek Jeter might be the biggest Yankee since Mickey Mantle if you take everything into consideration, but Mariano Rivera is on his own level, he’s from his own special place. He’s the Silver Surfer of baseball players–Intergalactically blessed. Able to stare down trouble and stay cool as a cucumber. It’s not just the results, of course, it’s the style. He is the most elegant baseball player I’ve ever seen.

Over at ESPN, Rob Neyer weighs in what makes Mo great:

Rivera’s career ERA in the regular season is 2.25, which of course is brilliant. But his postseason ERA — and we’re talking about 133 innings — is 0.74. And that’s not just an ERA fluke. While Rivera always does everything well, he does almost everything better in the postseason. Rivera’s strikeout rate actually is lower in the postseason, but he more than makes up for that with a lower walk rate.

But it’s the home runs that really tell the tale. In his regular-season career, Rivera has given up 0.5 home runs per nine innings, which, depending on where you set the innings cutoff, might be viewed as the all-time record. In the postseason, though? Rivera has allowed 0.14 home runs per nine innings — two home runs in 133 innings. There’s some luck there, of course. On the other hand, Rivera has done all of that against good (or great) teams, the vast majority of them with good (or great) lineups.

I don’t usually have lists of my top five favorite movies or books. But if I had to pick a favorite actor, it would probably be Gene Hackman. And if I had to pick a favorite athlete, it could easily be Mo.

A Rod’s career regular season line: .305/.390/.576/.965

A Rod’s career playoff line: .302/.409/.568/.977

‘Nuff said.

Sent in by our pal Dimelo.

More from Larry Roibal.

The MVP:

The Squad: 

So sweet.

This one is for Todd. Of course, the Yankees won it for themselves. We’re just fortunate to be along for the ride. But for us here at the Banter, this is for one of our own, Todd Drew, who was as rabid a Yankees fan as you are ever likely to meet. Todd passed away earlier this year, left this world far too soon. But he touched many lives and it was hard not to think of him as the season unfolded.

It is bittersweet that he’s not here in the flesh, but he sure is here in spirit. He’s part of the celebration.

The beauty part is that I’d be writing the same thing had the Yankees lost to the Phillies because for Todd, it was about the game. It was about showing up and rooting and staying until the final pitch, no matter the score, no matter the weather.

Todd was a true fan. He loved his team beyond the boxscore. He admired the craft of hitting, fielding, pitching, and managing. He was drawn to the personal stories in the locker room. He loved the numbers too. Beyond that, he relished how sport can connect a community, a city. That’s what he was about, and that’s what we’re about at Bronx Banter.

This morning, I received an e-mail from longtime reader Scott Smith, who is a Red Sox fan. He wrote about not knowing what to do with himself after the Red Sox won the Serious:

I was waiting for the other shoe that never dropped…How do you celebrate that? But then later I realized that I was carrying around this tiny warm ember that I could take out and wrap my hands around whenever I wanted. And that’s a nice thing to have, especially in a NYC winter…

For many of us here at the Banter, Todd is the warm ember that we can wrap our hands around whenever we want. Forever.

Champagne, high fives and hugs.

This one is for you, my brother!

*Emmis is Yiddish for “the truth.”

Photos from ESPN/Getty Images

Andy Pettitte clinched the AL East, the Division Series, and the ALCS for the Yankees this year, so it only makes sense that he’d be on the mound for the the last game of the 2009 World Series. He looked bone-tired tonight, more than 220 innings and seven months into his age-37 season, muttering darkly into his glove; but as you probably should have expected by now, he figured out a way to pitch just as well as he needed to. Hideki Matsui, your Series MVP, provided all the necessary offense, and the Yankees earned their 27th Championship with a 7-3 win over the Phillies.

Tonight, for a change, was not about Pedro Martinez – who, even more than Pettitte, seemed to be pitching on fumes and experience. He worked slowly and painstakingly, never hit his stride, and when he made mistakes he did not get away with them. It’s funny – I thought Matsui had hit Pedro well throughout his career, but that turns out not to be the case. It’s just that the hits he does have were big ones, from his part in the Yankees’ rally in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS through Game 2 of this World Series and tonight’s show of strength.

Matsui put the Yankees on the board in the second with a big two-run home run. The Phillies got one back right away on a triple and sac fly, but the Yankees padded their lead in the bottom of the third: Jeter singled, Damon walked, Teixeira was hit by a pitch (definitely an accident this time), and after A-Rod struck out, Matsui came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. He promptly unloaded them with a single to center, plating Jeter and Damon (who, unfortunately, injured his calf running home and had to be replaced by Jerry Hairston Jr; be thankful there was not a Game 7). Pedro got out of the inning, but that was the end of his night, and a patchwork of five Phillies relievers finished the game.

In the bottom of the fifth, after Jeter doubled and scored on Teixeira’s single, Matsui did it again, doubling in Teixeira and Rodriguez to make it 7-1 Yanks. He ended up with three hits and six RBIs, and one triple short of the cycle, though with the state of his knees, you’re more likely to see Alex Rodriguez actually turn into a centaur. He’s also the first DH ever to win the Series MVP.

Meanwhile, Pettitte was in full Battle Cat mode. After the top of the 4th, feeling (with some reason) that he was being squeezed, he started yelling at home plate ump Joe West and had to be pulled away by Joe Girardi. This is not a fight you want to pick in Game 6 of the World Series. But Pettitte persevered into the sixth inning, at which point he gave up a two-run homer to Ryan Howard – hi, Ryan! – but talked Girardi into letting him stay in. He got Jayson Werth out, gave up a double to Ibanez, and finally running out of what little gas he’d had to start the night, was removed to a long, loud ovation. Pettitte hasn’t said anything about retirement this year… and I don’t see why the Yankees wouldn’t want him back… but it is possible that this was his last start for New York. If so, he certainly went out on a high note.

Joba Chamberlain took over, and he looked pretty good, picking up where he left off a few games ago. He got three outs before running into a little trouble – and so with two out in the seventh and two on, the Yankees still up 7-3, Girardi brought in Damaso Marte to deal with Chase Utley, who could have pulled the Phillies to within one. It was probably the tensest moment of the game. I’ve groaned every time Marte came in this postseason, more out of habit than anything else, but he has been terrific, and he continued in that vein tonight, getting Utley to half-chase a slider for strike three.

Mariano Rivera took over with one out in the eighth – it was not a save situation, but no way Girardi was going to mess around here – and though it was not one of his seemingly effortless performances, he was never in real danger. When he completed the ninth he’d tossed 16 postseason innings while allowing one run, to the surprise of no one. Give Shane Victorino credit, though, he did not go gentle into that good night – his last at-bat, and the Phillies’, took took 10 pitches, but finally it ended the way most at-bats against Mariano do: a groundout.

And then there were a series of tableaux, some familiar – Jeter’s raised arms and yell, Rivera’s grin, Posada’s near-skip towards the mound – and some new: Mark Teixeira’s fiercely goofy expression as he jumped up and down, Nick Swisher tearing wide-eyed and open-mouthed towards the infield, Francisco Cervelli hopping around like a caffeinated bunny, Joe Girardi’s gaunt face an open book of anticipation and then, for just a moment, pure, unguarded happiness.

I think almost all of us realize that nine years, in the scheme of franchise championship droughts, is not a long time at all, sometimes just a drop in the bucket. But it’s still a significant chunk of life, and most of us have probably gone through considerable changes since the 2000 Fall Classic – gained and lost loved ones, maybe started a family, changed careers, changed cities, grown up. And who knows where we’ll be the next time the Yankees win? All of which is, I guess, a long-winded way of saying: enjoy the moment.

Other thoughts/notes:

-“Empire State of Mind,” as I said a few weeks ago, has a nice catchy hook but isn’t a great song, and far from Jay-Z’s best. Still, it’s neat that this postseason had such an obvious anthem – if only because now I’ll think of the 2009 Yankees every time I hear it, probably for the rest of my life. And I mean, say what you want about the tune, but the song that makes me think of the 2000 Yankees is “Who Let the Dogs Out,” so count your damn blessings.

-The Canyon of Heroes parade is set for Friday at 11 AM. I think I have to go.

-I hope George Steinbrenner is at least lucid enough to know what happened tonight. Of course we already knew he was unwell, but the fact that he wasn’t at tonight’s game at all is still a little startling.

-I’m a little sorry Mike Mussina couldn’t have been part of this one; he did right by the Yankees, and retired with flair at the top of his game – but he arrived the year after a World Series and left just before another, Mattingly-style.

-I’m much sorrier that Todd Drew couldn’t be here for this one. But, as Alex and many other people mentioned tonight, this one’s for him.

The Yanks win their 27th championship.

Say WORD!

Todd Drew, we love you!

Not much else to say about this one except to say this is what it is all about.

Game Six. In the Bronx. Andy Pettitte and the Bombers go for Championship number 27. The Phils looks to live another day and win back-to-back titles.

‘Nuff said.

Oh, except this:

Bring it all home Boys!

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Still nervous, but let’s get hype.

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb – born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground
Head in the sky
It’s ok I know nothing’s wrong . . nothing

—The Talking Heads

I just had to share this e-mail from longtime Banterite, Jon DeRosa:

On the night the Yankees lost the 2001 World Series, I was watching alone in my apartment on 90th St and 1st Ave, in a building that housed a “Checks Cashed” franchise in the ground floor. I couldn’t eat, though I made myself some Kraft Velveeta and Shells and poked at it. To this day, I can’t even think about Kraft Velveeta and Shells without tasting bile. For about an hour or two after the loss, I sat in stunned silence and absorbed the pain. My girlfriend (and now wife) is a pediatric oncology nurse and was working the night shift at the time so I was free to kick and scream a little bit – which I usually did anyway regardless of her whereabouts.

A comedian and former classmate Mike Birbiglia has a great joke about his tiny Manhattan apartment: he sees a mouse one night and asks, with pragmatic concern, “Where are you going to sleep?” This apartment was designed on those same specs, so even if I could summon the impetus, there was no place to move around and dispense the huge ocean of emotion that had collected in my guts. I went to the computer and began hammering out an email to all the Yankee fans in my distribution list. I don’t remember if I sat down with a theme in mind or if it just formed as I wrote, but what I came up with was not negative, was not bitter, was not even that sad.

I felt proud of a team running on fumes, pushing things to the brink. I felt loyalty to everyone, especially Mariano, whom we needed to be perfect, and for once, wasn’t. And I expressed my desire to see the same team back again next year, supremely confident they could become champions again. I wrote something like, “this won’t be the end or a period, merely a comma in a long line of championships.”

I never, ever, even once that night or in the following few years, considered they would not get that close again. I never thought about Mariano Rivera retiring or Derek Jeter declining. Inconceivable to me as I wrote, but since that night, Andy Pettitte went to the World Series – with ANOTHER team. I was so sure they would be back that the worst case scenario never occurred to me (and the worst case scenario always occurs to me, it’s in my genes): these young, core Yankees would never win a World Series together again. Cone was gone, O’Neill and Brosious were set to retire. Nobody even knew how old El Duque was. Tino was clearly going to be replaced by a big hitter – Giambi would have been signed right after the ALDS if it was allowed! But Bernie had time. Jeter, Mariano, Posada and Pettitte were young and had the majority of their careers left. They were the best; they were battle tested. They would be back and they would erase this awful feeling – it was not a matter of if, or even when, but how quickly? Mussina and Giambi and Soriano were not only superior players to the ones they had employed during the title years, but they were hungry and focused on winning their first ring – an infusion of new blood without disturbing the experienced spine of the team seemed like just the right approach.

Well, obviously, there is no need to re-hash the intervening years and catalogue the disappointments. On 2 or 3 separate occasions, the Yanks took the undisputed best team in baseball to the postseason and failed to return with a championship. In only one of those years did they advance as far as the World Series, and the ensuing 6 game defeat felt perhaps more like the end than that night in Arizona. They lost to such an inferior team in such an ordinary way. They would quickly (hastily?) allow Andy Pettitte to leave for Houston, and then before even a blink of an eye, Bernie diminished and retired and there were 3 left and they were fading too. Not in terms of talent and performance, but in terms of their position as THE stars at the center of the baseball universe.

After 2003, each year felt like opportunity lost and an approaching reaper edged ever closer. The worst case scenario that didn’t even take shape in my brain in 2001 was now hardening into reality. When they shut down Yankee Stadium last year, there wasn’t a parade. There wasn’t even one inning of baseball in October. How could that be anything but the definite and absolute end?

Yet, tonight, after 7 years of constant assault from the finally fully operational Boston Red Sox organization, half a roster of all stars and possible Hall of Famers come and gone, and the departing of the manager perhaps partially responsible and definitely present for the dynasty years, the Yankees have returned almost to where they were in 2001. They are not yet 3 outs away (and may not ever be, the pessimist gnawing on my brain stem reminds me), but they are 1 win away. They may be in a brand new home, but pitching tonight’s game is Andy Pettitte. He’ll be throwing the first pitch to Jorge Posada. Derek Jeter will be the first Yankee to bat, and I am hoping with every fiber of my being, Mariano Rivera will throw the last pitch.

I am not a fatalist. I don’t think the above circumstances give the Yankees any special advantage tonight or that they are destined to win in this fashion, and though likely, it’s possible that none of these 4 guys will even factor heavily in the outcome. But the fact that they could win this way, that they have improbably, at these advanced baseball ages of 35, 37, 38 and 39, formed the heart of yet another championship quality effort, is staggering me as I await tonight’s game.

I am going to watch tonight in my apartment, probably alone, though my wife might make it through 2 innings or so. My 2 sons will be asleep (or at least in bed) by the time the first pitch thrown. Like the Yankees, I live in a new place, a different part of town now, in a slightly bigger living room, with more roaming space and more things to break in frustration and anger – though I’ve acquired enough discipline to only attack the soft, silent couch cushions. But tonight I will be at peace (nervous, anxious, impossible for my wife to deal with, possibly immeasurably disappointed or elated, but at peace).

The Yankees have returned to the place I needed them to be. They have given themselves the chance to be world champions. I thought these 4 players would never be in this position again, and tonight, it’s largely up to them to determine their own fate. I aged along with the team. Thanks to my wife and sons, I have experienced higher highs than world series titles and thanks to life being what it is, I’ve experienced lower lows than blown game 7s or 3-0 leads, but with age comes the feeling that career paths, friendships, and relationships that were lost are never coming back. And that once that decay sets in, it forms an irreversible death spiral. But that doesn’t have to be true does it? Because here they are again – and it’s up to them.

I want it for them. I want it for me. I want it for them for me, if that makes any sense. But most of all, I want it for us as one collective thing, the group of players and fans that have been together from these guys’ debuts and who will be there to see their numbers retired. If we get beat, we get beat together, and that’s the only way to get beat. If we win, we win together, and that’s pretty frigging amazing.

Let’s Go, Yank-ees.

The talk over the past four days of the World Series has been starting pitching, or rather, the managers’ decisions on who to take the hill. For Game 4, Charlie Manuel was excoriated for selecting Joe Blanton over Cliff Lee on short rest. When the Yankees took the 3-1 lead, the Philly media all but blamed Manuel, seemingly forgetting that Blanton pitched well enough to win, and save for a Brad Lidge meltdown, the series might have been tied at that point.

At the same time, the choice of Joe Girardi to start AJ Burnett was being put under the microscope, run through a centrifuge, and measured by any other number of scientific devices. “Why start Burnett on short rest?” The experts on MLB Network claimed. “With the lineup shaking out, Melky Cabrera being out, Jose Molina catching, this favors the Phillies,” to paraphrase Harold Reynolds. “Chad Gaudin can give five innings and then make it a bullpen game,” said Mitch Williams.

Tim McCarver, pleasantly old school, lauded Girardi’s choice to stick with three starters.

The most sane MLBN analysis came from Dan Plesac, who noted that the Yankees didn’t have a fourth starter as an option due to the way they (mis)handled Joba Chamberlain during the second half of the regular season. Thus, Girardi’s options were limited.

(more…)

We started this year talking about the new Yankee Stadium. How fitting then that the season ends in the new jernt. And what a way it’d be to break it in–with a championship. Two possible games left, Yanks need just one…more…win.

The anticipation is palpable.

I wish Todd Drew was here, but in some ways, he’s really never left. I think about him almost every game. And he’ll be front and center in my thoughts tonight as the Bombers go for it all.