Monthly Archives: May 2010

All he wanted was for his wife to live long enough to see their daughter’s sixteenth birthday. The girl’s birthday was early last month and the wife, whose body had been ravaged by ALS, was alive to see it. They are our downstairs neighbors; the girl sits for our cats when we are away. You’d be hard-pressed to find a sweeter family.

My wife Emily spent hours with them helping navigate insurance claims. On occasion, I made them food. The girl and her mother watched The Oscars with us a few months ago. By that point the mother wasn’t really able to communicate–she made noises but even using a keypad had become too much.

About three weeks ago I saw the husband and he said the end was near. I didn’t tell that to Emily. In fact, I avoided bringing them up entirely. But last week, I mentioned what he’d said and Emily said that he had said as much other times before. “We would have heard something from them…” she said.

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Last night I was in bed reading a 1985 GQ profile on the great columnist Mike Royko written by my pal John Schulian. It was an entertaining look at the world of the big-city columnist that no longer exists. Royko was a son-of-a-bitch of the first order. (“I don’t know who the best is—maybe some guy in Peoria,” Royko said. “But day in, day out, you gotta chase me; I ain’t gonna chase anyone.”) But the end of the piece reveals a tenderness in the man, whose wife died in 1979 at the age of 44:

“I couldnt live with my grief,” Royko says. “I thought I might drink myself to death.”

When he lost his taste for that, he tried to end it all with work. Once again his days stretched to twelve and fourteen hours, lonely seances in the out-of-the-way place where the Sun-Times editorial writers dwelled, a place where reporters he never trusted couldn’t watch him suffer.

Five years have passed since then. To the outside world, it seems the tragedy has been put to rest, for there are still Royko columns condemning San Diego as a nest of John Birchers, and there are still stories coming out of Billy Goat’s about the female bottoms he has patted. But Royko knows the truth, and it has nothing to do with appearances.

“You lose a wife, you never really come out of it,” he says. “What happens is, you become different.”

He lights a cigarette and takes a puff.

“I don’t think my life has had a hell of a lot of meaning since Carol’s death. Since she died, I’ve never been sure what the hell I’m about. I could accept dying tomorrow because I don’t think I fill any great importance to anybody. My life has lost its structure.”

The cigarette is forgotten now, left to burn untended.

“I still know who I am. I’ve been who I am for so frigging long. I’m Royko the columnist. When Carol was alive, I was so much more.”

Maybe that’s smoke getting in his eyes.

I placed the article on my night table and reached over  to turn my BlackBerry off for the night when I saw that I had an e-mail. It was from the husband downstairs. His wife died earlier in the day. She was 51.  

Emily was in the bathroom washing up. I debated whether or not to tell her but in the end I told her. Like me, Emily was broken up.I gave her tissues to dry her tears. We remembered the wife over the past few years and finally we turned out the lights. But we could not close our eyes. The sound of rain pattered off the air conditioner and we lied there in the dark, eyes wide open for what seemed like a long time.

[Photo Credit: Emily Shapiro]

My five-year-old nephew made it through half the game on Sunday, ate a hot dog, ice cream and cotton candy before he over-heated and crashed. When he got home he got to drawing. My brother sent me these two pictures last night with the following note:

“These were rendered after a great deal of crying. I told him that comics are always drawn in pencil first, so they can erase their mistakes. That seems to have made an impression.”

From my nephew: “The first is just Ny yankees. A fan cheering.” 

Here is a picture of Derek Jeter: “I tride to dro yankees. I could not dro it but then aftr a litul while. I could draw it if you ceep pprac tising you will get beter.”

I have to admit, in June of 2004, I was not paying attention to the Amateur Draft. Nor was I terribly familiar with the Yankee farm system beyond whatever floated to the surface to fill in for the big club when necessary. But when the Yankees stopped appearing in the World Series, when the Red Sox completed their 86 year design to capture a title, and then improved that design by 83 years to win a second, I began to look to the Minor Leagues for hope. And hope quickly became personified in Phil Hughes.

As the Yanks kept slipping further and further away from another championship, the future of Phil Hughes became more and more important to the future of the Yankees. Thus, it was doubly frustrating when his prospects started to fade the closer he approached the Major Leagues. Injuries and mixed results, promotions and demotions, trade rumors and the emergence of other young Yanks all combined to lessen expectations significantly.

But I think a good many Yankee fans (and a high percentage of the Banteratti) never gave up on Phil. The connection I established with him in the Minors, when he provided a glimpse of a possible successful future for the Yankees at a time when the varsity team kept concocting disappointments, was strong enough to withstand the false starts and setbacks. So now that he has twirled his fourth solid game and second absolute gem of the 2010 season, his early performance is my favorite story line of the young season.

Hughes dominated the White Sox today and the Yankee offense had its best game of the year and they cruised to an easy 12-3 victory. On a day that was hot-as-heck, the Yanks wisely won this one without breaking a sweat.

Phil followed a very similar pattern to his near-no-no in which he established an excellent 94 mph fastball early in the game, and then worked his 89 mph cutter in liberally before turning to the slow curve ball (which looked to me like his best curve ball of the season) later in the game. In stark contrast to the nibbling, insecure and drawn out style he had exhibited in starts in 2008 and 2009, Hughes has been a pleasure to watch this year.

On offense, Brett Gardner crushed one. Really leveled it and sent it several rows back in right center field. From the vantage point we’re afforded on TV, it was a no-doubter. Mark Teixeira had four hits. That’s six hits in two May games, 11 hits in 22 April games. How many strong Aprils would Teix have to submit before he could alter the narrative he’s now established as a slow-starter? The fact that he began hitting the day the calendar changed set this thing is stone for New Yorkers, I think.

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Man, I was supposed to go to the game today an everything. In Todd Drew’s seats too. But my head weighs 250 lbs and I’m down for the count with a head cold so I’ll have to catch the festivities from the couch. But I was able to give the two tickets to my brother who is taking his son. It’s the first time either of them have been to the new Yankee Stadium. It’s only my nephews second trip to a big league game ever–he went to Citifield last year. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to give them the seats.

They came by my place in the mini-van to pick up the tickets and my nephew, five years old, is wearing a Yankee cap and a Yankee t-shirt. The Mariano Rivera t-shirt that I bought for him when he was born. I wanted it to be the first shirt or jersey that he ever had but had no idea what size to buy  so I got him one that only fits him now. And he looks good in it too. The Great Mariano. We joked around and I told him to yell loud enough so I can hear him on TV and then we started calling each other names. Reminded my bro, rockin’ the well-worn, well-fitting Yankee cap, to point out the roll call schtick.

First game for the kid today. Todd’s seats. Legacy. Good show, boys, good show.

It’s soupy in the Bronx with thundershowers on the way this afternoon. No reason to think why they won’t get the game in but it could be a long afternoon. Dag, I feel for Javy Vazquez, ditto for Curtis Granderson but for different reasons. Poor rich kids…

Welp, time for Mr. Teixeira Alex Rodriguez (who has the day off) to get hot. Lil’ something from ol’ Nick Johnson wouldn’t hoit either.

Stay cool and let’s Go Yan-Kees.

There are hot summer days when a ballgame is a familiar companion, an occasion for a cool drink, a light snack, and an excuse to get off your feet and out of the heat for a while and do a whole lot of nothing. There are other days when the game slowly turns into a blackhole, adding to the oppressiveness of the temperature, ticking by minutes like hours, and leaving you exhausted and bitter about having failed to pull yourself away and done something constructive or even enjoyable with your day.

Saturday’s afternoon tilt between the White Sox and Yankees was the latter. On one of the first genuinely hot days of the year, the Yanks and Sox milled about on the field for nearly four hours, working the opposition for a total of 374 pitches, drawing 11 walks, stranding 15 runners on base, and ultimately leaving the home crowd deeply unsatisfied by the entire experience.

Javy Vazquez was again ineffective. The damage was slight early on. In the second, the Sox loaded the bases with no outs on an infield single and a pair of walks, but Vazquez escaped with just one run scoring thanks in part to being able to face Juan Pierre (who popped out on the first pitch) and Omar Vizquel (who plated the one run via a sac fly) and in part to A.J. Pierzynski getting caught off second when Mark Teixeira cut Curtis Granderson’s throw home on Vizquel’s sac fly. The White Sox also scored a lone run in the first and third innings, both times on a solo homer by Andruw Jones, who owns Vazquez (.392/.446/.824 with five homers in 56 plate appearances entering the game). The Yanks scratched out a run against Jon Danks in the third following a leadoff single by Brett Gardner to close the gap to 3-1, but Vazquez failed to get an out in the fourth.

After an infield single by A.J. Pierzynski, Vazquez gave up a long home run to Mark Kotsay, of all people, then walked the scuffling and typically impatient Pierre on four pitches before giving up a single on an 0-2 count to Vizquel. That single, with none out in the fourth, came on Vazquez’s 83rd pitch. Just 55 percent of those pitches were strikes, the walk to Pierre was the fourth he had issued, and the homer by Kotsay was the third he had allowed. YES didn’t put up it’s radar gun readings until the third inning, and then recorded Vazquez striking out Gordon Beckham on a 91 mile-per-hour fastball, but most of Vazquez’s fastballs were in the high 80s, and there was no bite on his breaking stuff. In other words, he was no better and probably a bit worse than he had been in his first four starts.

If Vazquez’s struggles weren’t mental to begin with, they likely are now. Despite his poor performance, the entire infield came to the mound to reassure him when Joe Girardi came to take him out of the game with two runs in, two men on, and none out in the fourth. Girardi seemed like he was trying to say something positive to Vazquez as well when he got to the mound, but Javy just handed him the ball and pushed past him (though he didn’t display any obvious anger and did stay in the dugout to watch Sergio Mitre strand both inherited runners).

Attempting to make lemonade out of the lemons Vazquez handed them, the Yankees scratched out another run against Danks in the fifth, albeit barely as Alex Rodriguez beat out a would-be double play with one out and bases loaded by mere inches, thanks in part to a hard, clean slide by Mark Teixeira at second. Though they didn’t cash in a big inning there, the Yankees did work Danks over thoroughly, sending him to the showers after that inning having thrown 118 pitches. They then jumped all over righty reliever Scott Linebrink in the sixth with one-out singles by Marcus Thames, Granderson, and Gardner, and RBI groundout by Derek Jeter, and a two-run home run by Nick Swisher, who seemed elated to get a big hit in his home park.

Swisher’s hit gave the Yankees a 6-5 lead, erasing Vazquez’s poor start, but even amid that rally there were more lemons, as Curtis Granderson pulled up lame rounding second on Gardner’s single and left the game with a Grade 2 strain of his left groin that has since landed him on the 15-day disabled list. Damaso Marte then came in and knocked over the glass of lemonade, relieving David Robertson to face the lefty Pierzynski with two out and men on first and second. Pierzynski launched Marte’s 1-0 offering deep into the left field gap, scoring both runners and giving the Sox a 7-6 lead that Linebrink, lefty Randy Williams, J.J. Putz, and Bobby Jenks cashed in for the win.

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Javier Vazquez has made just one start in the Bronx since being reacquired by the Yankees, and it ended with a bunch of blockheads booing what was actually a fairly solid start that just happened to come opposite a fantastic performance by the Angels’ Joel Piñeiro. What they were booing wasn’t really Vazquez’s performance that day, but his disaster start in Tampa Bay the turn before and the back-breaking grand slam he allowed to Johnny Damon in Game Seven of the 2004 ALCS, Vazquez’s last appearance in Yankee pinstripes. Never mind the absurdity of blaming Vazquez for the Yankees’ collapse in 2004 (or even for the four runs allowed on the Damon slam given that Vazquez was exactly the worst pitcher for Joe Torre to have brought in after Kevin Brown had loaded the bases). We all know there’s a thriving contingent of mouth-breathing jackasses in every ballpark, particularly those in the northeast. What worries me is that this afternoon’s game looks primed to dump more blood into the water as Vazquez is going up against one of the game’s hottest pitchers in White Sox lefty Jon Danks.

Vazquez, as we all know all too well by this point, has been struggling with his mechanics in the early going this year, rushing his delivery and thus causing his arm to drag, his slider to flatten out, and robbing his fastball of both location and velocity. Though he did pick up a win against the punchless A’s in Oakland, he has yet to turn in a quality start, and in three of his four outings he has missed both the innings and runs qualifications for that statistic. I still have faith that Vazquez will get on track, but more abuse from the home fans will only make the allegations of Eddie Whitson syndrome a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As for Danks, he’s the real deal. All of his four starts this season have been quality, and he’s averaging nearly 7 1/3 innings and barely more than one earned run per game. He leads the American League in WHIP (0.86), and boasts a 1.55 ERA and 4.33 K/BB. Like CC Sabathia, Danks has been hit-lucky in the early going (.224 opponent’s average on balls in play), but also like CC, he has the stuff to survive a correction. I’m willing to believe the 25-year-old is making the leap this year.

Danks faced the Yankees just once last year, allowing four runs in six innings but picking up a win. The Yankee who has faced him most is former Tiger Curtis Granderson, who has gone 1-for-19 with no walks against the lefty. Granderson is hitting .172/.200/.242 against lefties this year, but Nick Johnson is the man taking a seat to make room for Marcus Thames in the lineup. I understand not wanting Thames in the outfield behind a flyballer like Vazquez, but if Randy Winn doesn’t start this game, he shouldn’t be on this team.

Nick Swisher hits second. Jorge Posada is back behind the plate.

Javier Vazquez’s second turn in New York is going about as well as the last portion of his first. In other words, like the Brazilian soccer star, Kaká.

The 1-3 record and 9.00 ERA would be remotely permissible if Vazquez showed a certain level of aggression on the mound. He was booed in his first start at Yankee Stadium. We remember Game 7 in 2004 and much of the second half. We remember “Home Run Javy” and that 18 of the 33 home runs he allowed that year came with two strikes. And contrary to popular belief, there are many of us who remember that he completed at least six innings in all but three of his starts prior to July 1 of that year, and that he made the All-Star team.

But the lasting memory is that Johnny Damon grand slam in Game 7 that sealed the 3-0 ALCS choke. Following another debacle in Anaheim that saw him cough up a 3-0 lead and use his fastball sparingly over 3 2/3 innings, Vazquez was this week’s piñata. Craig Carton defended Yankee fans’ right to boo him when some got on the soap box and decried fan behavior (Hell, I booed him from my living room on Sunday). Mike Francesa said that Vazquez is “caught in a situation where he has to convince Yankee fans to believe in him, that he has the guts to succeed here, and that’s not a place you want to be in New York.” He also mentioned that Vazquez “expected to be booed” on Saturday.

The Onion, in its merciless way, included Vazquez in its lampoon of the “True Yankees” myth:

“To have Javier Vazquez don the same pinstripes as Mariano Rivera or Jorge Posada is…well, it’s unthinkable,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said as Curtis Granderson modeled the sterile, black-and-white uniform with a large, boxy, non-interlocking “NY” stitched across the front of the chest. “The untrue Yankees will wear a blank, unfitted ball cap until they have their big Yankee moment. They’ll wear their last names on the backs of their lesser uniforms as a badge of shame.”

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