Monthly Archives: April 2010

Joel Sherman has a good column today about the development of Robinson Cano, who approached Alex Rodriguez for some advice after practice last month:

On a back diamond at George M. Steinbrenner Field, it was just Cano, A-Rod and batting practice pitcher Danillo Valiente. For 40 minutes, Rodriguez would create RBI scenarios such as second and third, one out. Cano would take 15 swings and then A-Rod would break down not just the mechanics, but — just as vital — the mindset.

Rodriguez felt–and Cano concurred–that the talented second baseman was too fixated on making contact, not impact. Stop feathering the ball to left-center, A-Rod lectured.

…”A-Rod kept telling me, ‘Stop trying to just put it in play,’ ” Cano said. “He saw that my swing got lazy in these situations. But it was more than the swing. He got me to realize I am going to come up three, four, five times a game with men on base, and have to be ready to do something.”

Maybe it’s just too early in the season to get too worked-up but aside from my visceral dislike of the usual suspects–Youk, Dusty, Beckett, and Paplebon–I’ve found the opening series against Boston, not dull, but tepid. The first two games were close, and long of course, but I wasn’t especially stirred. Tonight saw a nice pitcher’s duel between John Lackey and Andy Pettitte but the relative lack of melodrama was evident when Kevin Youkilis and then Derek Jeter were hit by pitches. First, Pettitte tapped Youkilis in the helmet with a pitch that wouldn’t even give the slugger a headache and then Lackey plunked Jeter in the side. As Jeter approached first base, Youkilis grinned and Jeter gave him a playful shove.

Yanks-Sox–free and easy, go figure that.

The game moved along briskly. The Sox scored a run in the third on an RBI single by David Ortiz (who otherwise had a rough night at the plate), and the Yankees–who repeatedly hit the ball hard all game long–tied the score in the seventh on an RBI base hit by Nick Swisher (and an adventurous bit of base running by Jorge Posada). Daniel Bard was impressive in the eighth inning for Boston, particularly the fastball-change-up-curveball strike out of Nick Johnson, and Chan Ho Park was even better over two scoreless innings for the visitors.

So I was mildly surprised to see Park back out there in the ninth after Paplebon retired the Yanks in order in the top of the inning. Adrian Beltre flew out to deep right, JD Drew followed with a clean single up the middle, Mike Cameron skied out to deep left (Brett Gardner caught the ball a few feet away from the Monster), and Marco Scutaro lined out to left. Sox hit the ball hard to no avail.

Welp, they made it through nine innings in less than three hours. Disoriented and confused, they just had to go to extras.

That set the stage for the new guy, Curtis Granderson, who led off the tenth with a long solo homer to right. Hot dog. Paplebon recorded an out but then walked Brett Gardner, who stole second after many throws to first, and walked Jeter too. That was it for him and Paplebon was replaced by Scott Atchison who walked Nick Johnson same as he did last night. Mark Teixeira followed with a soft ground ball to short, driving home an insurance run which was more than enough for Mariano Rivera who gave Yankee fans that peaceful easy feeling we know and love so well, setting down the Sox in order and giving the Yanks the series win.

Final score: Yanks 3, Sox 1.

And we is heppy kets.

[Photo courtesy of ESPN]

Andy Pettitte and John Lackey are guys you could easily call “Meat” or “Hoss.” The two big fellas square off tonight at Fenway Park in the final game of the opening series of the season between the Yanks and Sox. The Yankees’ bullpen botched the first game and an error by Marco Scutaro helped blow the second game for the Sox. Think we’ll see more of the pens tonight or will one of these starting pitchers put up a commanding performance?

It’s Big John Red Sox debut. I suppose we should gear-up for another long one.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Baseball illustration by E. W. Kemble

Okay, so while we’re talking battle rhymes why not take a moment to acknowledge perhaps the greatest battle MC of ’em all, KRS-ONE. Dig this freestyle from Tony Touch’s classic Power Cypha mix tape 50.

1-09 KRS-One

I rocked the 917 when it was 718…

The Library of America is set to release a nifty new edition of John Updike’s classic piece on Ted Williams’ final game. The book comes out at the end of the month and it is sure to be a great gift idea for any baseball fan, not just those who root for the Red Sox.

There’s a fun piece in the Times today about food bloggers who like to take pictures of what they eat:

Dig ‘um (smack).

[photo credit: Edith Zimmerman]

I met Pete Dexter last fall when he was in New York promoting his seventh novel, Spooner. Dexter was a wonderful newspaper columnist and is now one of our greatest novelists. First thing I noticed about him was that he was wearing a pink Yankees cap. So when I had a chance to interview him the Yankees were the first thing we talked about.

Here is our chat, which covers a lot more than the Bombers.

Enjoy.

Bronx Banter: I had no idea you were a Yankees fan.

Pete Dexter: No, it’s true. I’m a big Yankee fan. It started out as a way to irritate Mrs. Dexter who is a Yankee fan from way back. And so when they’d win I’d get into it just because it irritated her so damn bad, but then I started to look at them and–

BB: When was this, during the ’90s?

PD: Yeah. So when I found out that it irritated Mrs. Dexter I did it more and more. There have been a lot of teams in my life that I’ve rooted against, but I have never rooted for a team in my life before I rooted for the Yankees, including teams I played on.

BB: And the Yankees of all teams.

PD: Yeah, strangely enough. I didn’t even like baseball until the mid-’90s. And I enjoy it more every year. We get all the games on the cable. It’s the only thing that’s worth all the money I spend on cable.

BB: So can you deal with Michael Kay?

PD: Is he the “See Ya” guy?

BB: Yup.

PD: He’s okay, it’s the other two guys from ESPN that drive me crazy.

BB: Joe Morgan and Jon Miller.

PD: Jesus, the go on for hours and hours. Morgan was one of the most exciting players I ever saw and just absolutely the most boring human being on the face of the earth.

BB: Just goes to show there’s no correlation.

PD: Yeah, none at all.

BB: So, did you want to be a writer when you were growing up?

PD: No, never. I took two writing classes at the University of South Dakota but it was just because I found out that I didn’t want to be a mathematician. I started looking through the student book there and saw Creative Writing and figured if I can’t bullshit my way through that then I don’t deserve to graduate, even from the University of South Dakota. But I never took it even semi-seriously. I mean I didn’t read anything until…it’s a true story than when I wrote Deadwood [Dexter’s second novel], my brother Tom called me up and said, “You’ve now written a book longer than any book you’ve ever read.” And that was absolutely true. I stumbled into a newspaper office in Fort Lauderdale. I was 26 or 27 years old and in those days you could actually stumble into a newspaper office and get hired as a reporter. But I don’t have to tell you what it’s like now.

BB: Did you take to reporting pretty quickly or was it just another job?

PD: I hated it. They had me doing–I thought it was a joke actually at first–they came over the first day and gave me a list of seven or eight things and said, “These are your beats.” And I thought it was some kind of initiation rite. You know, juvenile court, the hospital district, poverty programs and tomatoes. There was agricultural products—tomatoes was a separate category. But there were literally seven or eight of them, none of which interested me even remotely. Hell, they gave me a county health thing and there was a doctor who ran the county health department. He was a nice guy and I’d call him up every Sunday night when I came in and ask him if he could stretch something into an epidemic. And he’d say, “Well, we’ve got four cases of measles…you could call that an epidemic.” So every Monday I’d have a story in the paper about a new epidemic. The bigger paper down there was the Fort Lauderdale News. It got the big guy there fired because I kept coming up with new epidemics and he couldn’t come up with any.

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For all the interest in how A.J. Burnett was going to handle his return to Fenway or how the Yankees were going to handle Jon Lester, the starting pitchers ultimately proved to be irrelevent in Tuesday night’s game as both lasted just five innings and left a 4-4 tie in their wake. Burnett struck out five Red Sox against just one walk, but also gave up seven hits including a two-run homer and an RBI double, both by Victor Martinez. Those runs added to the one manufactured by Jacoby Ellsbury and a Jorge Posada throwing error in the first.

Lester looked dominant at times, but was lucky to escape the second with only one run scoring. After Nick Swisher doubled in Robinson Cano, Lester walked Marcus Thames (who drew the start in left field against the left-handed Lester), but struck out Curtis Granderson, who was batting ninth against the lefty, on a weak check swing and got Derek Jeter to ground out to end the threat. Granderson and Jeter got their revenge in the fifth when they started the inning with singles off Lester, who then drilled Nick Johnson in the ribs to load the bases. Granderson scored on a Mark Teixeira fielder’s choice that erased Johnson. Jeter scored on an Alex Rodriguez double to left, and Teixeira scored on a sac fly by Robinson Cano. That gave the Yankees their first lead of the game, but Martinez’s double in the bottom of the fifth tied it up and handed the game to the bullpens.

The Yankees immediatly mounted a threat against Manny Delcarmen when Nick Swisher led off with a double and moved to third on a Brett Gardner pinch-hit groundout. Granderson followed by creaming a ball to the right side but almost directly at Kevin Youkilis, who caught the sinking liner to hold Swisher. Jeter then grounded out to end the threat. Alfredo Aceves answered that goose egg as well as one from Daniel Bard in the seventh, passing the tie on to Hideki Okajima in the top of the eighth.

Okajima is legitimately one of the better set-up men in the league, but he has struggled against the Yankees in his brief major league career. In 23 1/3 career innings against the Bombers prior to last night, Okajima had allowed 14 runs (not counting inherited runners who have scored), good for a 5.40 ERA. Curiously, though he’s blown saves against the Yankees, he’d never taken a loss against them prior to last night, a night when he didn’t actually pitch all that poorly.

Okajima started the eighth by getting ahead of Jorge Posada 0-1 and 1-2, but Posada battled back and yanked a ground rule double into the seats behind the Pesky Pole in right. Nick Swisher followed by fouling off a bunt attempt and taking strike two only to hunker down and engage Okajima in an 11-pitch battle that the Red Sox lefty ultimate won via a groundout to short that kept Posada at second with two outs. Okajima then got ahead of Brett Gardner 0-2, but Gardner, too, battled back to 2-2 before fighting off a single into shallow left field beyond Marco Scutaro’s outstretched glove. Because he wasn’t sure if Scutaro had a play, Posada held yet again. Okajima then threw a first-pitch strike to Jeter and got him to ground to shortstop, but Scutaro pulled his throw and Youkilis was unable to come up with it, loading the bases and giving the Yankees another chance. With that Okajima imploded, walking Nick Johnson, who never took his bat off his shoulder, on five pitches to walk in the go-ahead run. Scott Atchison, who spent the last two years pitching in Japan, then came on and got Mark Teixeira to fly out to deep right to end the threat.

Joe Girardi played matchups in the bottom of the eighth. David Robertson was brought in to face righty-swinging Kevin Youkilis, but gave up a single that put the tying run on base. Girardi then brought in Damaso Marte to face David Ortiz, who was still looking for his first hit of the season, but after throwing ball one, Marte threw a limp-wristed changeup to first base to check Youkilis. If you’ve ever tried to play catch with a four-year-old you know exactly how Mark Teixeira felt as Marte’s weak throw dove, bounced, and ultimately skipped by him allowing Youkilis to get to second base. Marte recovered to get Ortiz to fly out just shallow enough in center to hold Youkilis (Curtis Granderson has shown a half-way decent arm; I’m guessing Youkilis would have move up had Johnny Damon or Bernie Williams caught Ortiz’s fly). Girardi then called on Joba Chamberlain to pitch to the right-handed hitting Adrian Beltre.

Per the scouting report I linked to regarding Sunday’s game, Beltre is a first-ball, fast-ball hitter, and Chamberlain and Posada started him off with a curve that dropped into the zone for strike one. Chamberlain then just missed low and inside with a 95 mile-per-hour heater and came back with another curveball that Beltre fouled off for strike two. Chamberlain came back with the fastball, but put it low and away, well outside Beltre’s weak hack for strike three. That pitch hit 96 on the YES gun. Chamberlain stuck with the fastball against J.D. Drew, burrying one low for ball one, then beating Drew in the zone on a 95 mph pitch down the middle that Drew fouled off well down the left-field line.  After a 96 mph heater well outside seemed to get away from him, Chamberlain whipped out the slider, breaking off a good one, an 87 mile-per-hour pitch that dove as soon as it reached the plate. Drew, protecting against the fastball, was unable to check his swing in time, giving Yankee fans flashbacks of how foolish hitters looked against Chamberlian in 2007. A second, identical slider struck out Drew swinging and stranded Youkilis, handing the game to Mariano Rivera, but not before Robinson Cano crushed a Scott Atchison pitch into the right field seats to inflate the Yankee lead by a run.

Rivera gave up a one-out double to left to old nemesis Marco Scutaro, but against the other three batters he faced he threw just seven pitches, all strikes, resulting in one strikeout and two fly outs. With that, the 2010 Yankees recorded their first win, beating the Red Sox 6-4 to set-up a rubber game in the series finale Wednesday night. What do you think the chances are that one’s decided by the bullpens as well?

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The Yankees haven’t won an April series against the Red Sox since 2005 and haven’t won an April series in Fenway park since 2001. In the last three years (the two teams didn’t meet in April in 2006), the Yankees are 3-13 against the Red Sox in April. Over that same span, the Yankees are leading the overall series 28-26. The Yankees haven’t lost a season series to Boston since 2004, though the last two years the two teams split the series, going a combined 18-18.

My point is that I half expect the Yankees to split the remaining two games at Fenway (I won’t bother telling you what the other half of me expects with Jon Lester and John Lackey starting those two games for Boston), and while these three games count as much as three in September, I’m just not terribly upset about it.

A.J. Burnett goes for the Yankees tonight. One of of the selling points that got Burnett his big contract with the Yankees was the fact that he had survived for three years in the AL East and posted a 2.60 ERA in four starts against Boston in 2008. So, of course, in his first year as a Yankee, Burnett posted an 8.85 ERA in another four starts against the Red Sox. Burnett did have that one brilliant outing when he dueled with Josh Beckett and held the Sox to one hit over 7 2/3 shutout innings, but that came in the Bronx. His three starts at Fenway last year were all disasters as he allowed 22 runs in just 12 2/3 innings while walking as many as he struck out (ten). So Burnett comes into tonight’s start with something to prove, and I have to say, as is typically my reaction to A.J. Burnett, I’m not optimistic.

Opposing Burnett will be lefty Jon Lester, who frankly should have drawn the Opening Day start as he’s Boston’s best starter. Lester actually got beat up by the Yankees at Fenway the last time he faced them on September 25 of last year, but the other six starts he made against the Yankees in 2008 and 2009 were all quality starts, some of them downright dominating performances.

In more encouraging news, Phil Hughes was sharp in his simulated game in extended spring training yesterday and will join the team today in Boston. He’ll pitch another extended spring training game while the team is in Tampa playing the Rays this weekend. I’m looking forward to his return to the rotation a week from Thursday.

Tonight’s lineup against the lefty Lester finds Marcus Thames in left field and Curtis Granderson batting ninth behind Nick Swisher and Thames. As I’m sure Ken Singleton will say on tonight’s broadcast, there’s only one spot after ninth, and that’s “bench.” Just ask Brett Gardner, who also had a good showing on Sunday night and has a much better track record against left-handed pitching than Granderson.

Joe D, By Jason Kasper

Since we’re in battle mode and all, I figured I’d drop this classic diss record on you. From Sun Dullah, formerly King Sun, produced by Doo Wop, this record took aim at Tupac Shakur during the height of the East Coast-West Coast nonsense in the mid-’90s. Three verses, one better than the next, and a bumpin’ beat. I first remember hearing this on late night college radio–Stretch and Bob–and it still holds up as a banger:

I think Alex Witchel is a terrific writer. I’m not overly familiar with her work but Witchel’s profiles for the Times magazine are generally wonderful. Last fall, I was struck by a piece she did on the Irish novelist Colm Toibin, and this past weekend she wrote a lovely article on Norris Church Mailer.

Dig the lead:

It is 1975, and you are a 26-year-old high-school art teacher, the divorced mother of a 3-year-old boy, living in Russellville, Ark. You hear that a world-famous novelist is in town for one night, so you wangle an invitation to the party in his honor, hoping he’ll autograph your book. You find yourself smitten with this 52-year-old man — as he is with you — and at the end of the evening you go home together. After he leaves, you pour out your heart in a love poem and mail it to him. He mails it back — copy-edited, in red pencil. Do you:

a) Hop a plane to New York and strangle him with your bare hands?

b) Quit your job, move to New York with your son and become the guy’s sixth wife?

Reader, she married him. Not only that, she became stepmother to the seven children he fathered with his five other wives and had another son with him. Still with me? That makes nine children and Norman Mailer for a husband. As she has said herself: “Well, I bought a ticket to the circus. I don’t know why I was surprised to see elephants.”

It is not a long profile but it is written with compassion and an eye for the telling detail. Norris Church Mailer is a pretty nifty lady too.

Check, check it out.

Before I left New Mexico, I watched my sister-in-law make a simple red chili sauce. She put a selection of chiles in boiling water, covered them, turned off the heat and let them sit for close to an hour to reconstitute. Then, she removed the chiles from the water, cut-off the stems, and got rid of any seeds. She put the chiles in a blender, along with a little bit of onion and garlic–enough for flavor but not enough to overpower the chiles. Then salt, and a small amount of the water to help blend. Finally, she strained it, and man, it was lovely.

The first day back in New York is never easy. Things move too fast, the space is too tight, people’s attitudes too sharp. I was struggling to adjust this morning when I crossed Broadway in midtown and saw a small woman with a black felt riding helmet, large sunglasses, and a gold coat riding in a motorized scooter, a pole with a red flag at the top, mounted on the back. She was in the street and stopped at a traffic light. I told her that I liked her style.

“Morning,” she sang out.

That helped. Ah, now I’m back.

My mind is still stuck somewhere between here and New Mexico, though. Here’s the wife soaking in the sun. Man, love that wife o mine.

So the Red Sox went ahead and signed Josh Beckett to a four-year extension.

Meanwhile, the New York papers all cover the relationship between AJ Burnett and Jorge Posada this morning. Here’s Ben Shpigel’s take in the Times:

“For me, I think it took on a bigger picture because we’re in New York,” Girardi said of the bumpy ride Burnett and Posada experienced as battery mates. “It was an emotional time, and we’re fighting for the division and we’re nearing the playoffs. It seemed to take on — it became a big story. As far as them having a problem, I wasn’t concerned about that.”

Every chance they could, Posada and Burnett worked together this spring. After his March 11 start was rained out, Burnett was particularly grateful that Posada stayed late, past 9:30 p.m., to catch his simulated game. Burnett is polishing a changeup, and Posada guided him through his March 27 start against Detroit when he did not have a good curveball.

“I noticed he’s been a lot more confident and comfortable back there,” Burnett said of Posada. “Obviously, that makes me confident.”

Burnett goes against the formidable Jon Lester tonight in Boston.

Problems of Being Left-Handed, By John Robertson (acrylic on unstretched canvas)

It sure was nice to be in New Mexico for a minute. Big sky, cool, crisp air, hot sun.

Got home in time to see the kid Jason Heyward hit a dinger in his first major league at bat for the Braves. And it was a blast.

Welcome. And Happy Baseball.

Got to give it to this kid. He knows how to spread the mustard on the ol’ Hammond:

Happy Opening Day!

Ballpark favorites…