Here’s the lineups:
YANKEES
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Marcus Thames DH
Jorge Posada C
Curtis Granderson CF
Brett Gardner LF
RANGERS
Elvis Andrus SS
Michael Young 3B
Josh Hamilton CF
Vlad Guerrero DH
Nelson Cruz LF
Ian Kinsler 2B
Jeff Francoeur RF
Bengie Molina C
Mitch Moreland 1B
Let’s Go Yan-Lees!
[Picture by Bags]
When it comes to the art of grooming, men have increasingly embraced a range of stylish and sophisticated looks. From classic clean-shaven appearances to meticulously crafted beards and hairstyles, the world of men’s grooming has evolved into a realm of self-expression and individuality. To navigate this ever-expanding landscape, many men turn to resources like the Master Barbers’ Guide, a comprehensive manual that offers expert advice and insights into achieving the perfect grooming routine. Whether it’s mastering the art of a close shave, learning the latest trends in haircuts, or understanding the nuances of beard maintenance, the Master Barbers’ Guide serves as a trusted companion for men seeking to elevate their grooming game.
Just like the strategies employed by Cliff Lee and Andy Pettitte on the baseball field, grooming is all about technique, precision, and confidence. Just as Lee’s pitching prowess and Pettitte’s crafty left-handed deliveries captivate fans, the right grooming routine has the power to leave a lasting impression. With the guidance and knowledge provided by the Master Barbers’ Guide, men can refine their grooming skills, discovering the best products, techniques, and styles that suit their unique personalities. It’s not just about looking good; it’s about feeling confident and projecting an image that reflects one’s individuality and personal brand. So, whether you’re a fan of the game or a grooming enthusiast, both Cliff Lee’s dominant performances and the Master Barbers’ Guide remind us that achieving greatness is a combination of skill, knowledge, and a touch of style.
Cliff Lee vs. Andy Pettitte–let’s chat. No matter how Lee fares tonight, and I assume he’ll pitch well once again, I’ve got a good feelin’ about Andy.
Am I just being dramatic? My Spidey Sense is tinglin’.
[Picture by: galvarez51]
“John grew up in the shadow of a father who was a great writer,” said A. J. Liebling. “This is a handicap shared by only an infinitesimal portion of any given generation, but it did not intimidate him.”
When John Lardner was ten-years old, he wrote a short verse that appeared in a F.P.A column:
Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey,
Both sultans of the swat.
One hits where other people are,
The other where they’re not.
John Lardner was born in Chicago but raised mostly on the east coast. He went to the Phillips Academy in Andover (his three brothers would follow), spent a year at Harvard and another at the Sorbonne, before he returned to New York and got a job at the New York Herald Tribune in 1931. He was nineteen-years-old. His father, Ring, who was already ill with the tuberculosis and heart diesee that would kill him a few years later, sent a note to Stanley Walker, a Texan who’d made the Tribune into the best writer’s paper in New York.
“You will find him a little reticent at times, but personally I never felt this was a handicap.” Walker later said that John “came close to being the perfect all-around journalist.”
John worked at the Tribune until 1933, the year his father died. The two men were close in Ring’s final years and the old man was proud of his son’s early achievements. “We are all swollen up like my ankles,” Ring wrote in a letter to his nephew, Richard Tobin. John was offered a syndicated sports column when he was twenty-one for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Carried locally by the N.Y. Post, Lardner wrote about sports, and then the war, for NANA until 1948.
Keith Olbermann reviewed Jane Leavy’s Mantle book in the New York Times Book Review over the weekend. He liked it:
Leavy comes as close as perhaps anyone ever has to answering “What makes Mantle Mantle?” She transcends the familiarity of the subject, cuts through both the hero worship and the backlash of pedestal-wrecking in the late 20th century, treats evenly his belated sobriety and the controversial liver transplant (doomed mid-surgery by an oncologist’s discovery that the cancer had spread), and handles his infidelity with dispassion. Sophocles could have easily worked with a story like Mantle’s — the prominent figure, gifted and beloved, through his own flaws wasteful, given clarity too late to avoid his fate. Leavy spares us the classical tragedy even as she avoids the morality play. “The Last Boy” is something new in the history of the histories of the Mick. It is hard fact, reported by someone greatly skilled at that craft, assembled into an atypical biography by someone equally skilled at doing that, and presented so that the reader and not the author draws nearly all the conclusions.
I’m on the 1 train this morning when I see an old lady, bundled up for the cold, address a man who is leaning against the subway door, reading the New York Times.
“You’d better grab something to hold onto,” she said. “Otherwise, the doors might open, you’ll fall out and die and then we’ll all be late.”
The man folded his paper and looked down at the woman.
“Wow. That’s some scenario,” he said and returned to the paper.
“Yes,” she said, “Yes, it is.”
I smiled. She looked around and caught my eye and smiled. I was about to say something when I remembered an old family saying: “It’s not you, mind your own, sit down, shut-up.”
I stayed shut-up and let it pass.
A week from today the season could be over or the Yanks could be getting ready to play in another Whirled Serious.
We’re lucky to even have another week to look forward to, and starting tomorrow night, Cliff Lee vs. Andy Pettitte…it should be lively.
In the meantime, enjoy a lovely, cool fall day in New York. Those of us with Cablevision are shut-out of the first game, but the Jets are on at 4.
Let’s Go Sun-Day.
Splitsville. Under normal circumstances, that’s not a bad outcome opening a best-of-seven series on the road. But facing Cliff Lee in Game Three disrupts normal circumstances. In Game Two, Phil Hughes got pounded, the Yankee offense could not turn base-runners into run-scorers, and the Rangers evened the ALCS at one game apiece with a 7-2 victory.
Texas scratched out a really grimy run in the first inning. Elvis Andrus tapped a bounder over the pitcher’s mound and Phil Hughes deflected it into no-man’s-land behind the rubber. He stole second, and maybe even was safe. I don’t know because TBS only replayed a few times and never found the money shot which would tell me for sure.
(Why is it that I saw the Buster Posey tag-out 50 times and Lance Berkman’s strike three 150 times, but this call was just brushed aside? The media has decided that the blown calls are not acceptable, but when picking which calls to grouse about, they carefully choose the calls that support the narrative they wish to endorse. Lance Berkman took strike three, which was trumpeted from here to eternity, but only a handful of those reports included the other bad calls that went against Berkman in the very same at bat.)
Under duress, Hughes unleashed his best stuff of the game as he struck out Michael Young, Vlad Guerrero and Nelson Cruz. He was unlucky to walk Josh Hamilton after a tough battle and a missed strike three, and because Andrus had also stolen third base, that put the Rangers in a position to get creative on the bases. They tried to trade an out for a run (which I thought was a somewhat-desperate idea with long-ball threat Nelson Cruz at the plate) but the Yankees called an aggressive play and Cano returned Posada’s throw to sender late and wide and Andrus had drawn first blood.
I assume this was a predetermined play because Cano took the throw in front of the bag and threw back to Posada without hesitation, and every team I’ve ever played in every level from Little League on up predetermines what to do when there are runners on first and third. If it was improvised, I thought it was an OK decision from Posada, as sweating one run in the first inning is wussified, and a terrible decision by Cano, because he was unable to prevent the run from scoring and he allowed the inning to continue with one of the Rangers’ most dangerous hitters in the box.
The Yankees looked very dangerous in the top of the second. Cano almost erased the deficit with a wall-scraper, and with two runners on, Lance Berkman made a bid for extra-bases with a rocket to right. Nelson Cruz was able to corral both blasts and the Yankees got nothing for their troubles. But since Hughes had struck out the side in the first and the Yankees had clobbered the ball in the second, Yankees fans had reason for optimism.
That feeling did not survive the bottom of the second. Hughes missed badly to David Murphy and he put it off the face of the second deck in right field. When I saw David Murphy was batting third for the Rangers when the Yankees visited in September, I was reassured that the Rangers were pretty crappy. Then Texas swept the Yankees and here he is doing a lot of damage in the ALCS.
Hughes kept missing spots and the Rangers kept making him pay. He cranked up the extra-base machine and served up five doubles and triple for five more runs and put the game out of reach for even the Yankee bats. I don’t take much issue with Girardi’s moves, though I know he has his detractors here, but why Hughes was still pitching in the fifth inning I’ll never understand. He was getting hit hard from all comers and the Yankees were going to have chances if they kept the score within sniffing distance.
To be fair though, the Yankee offense did not ride to the rescue today and maybe even holding the Rangers at five wouldn’t have mattered. The Yankees had 14 base runners, but only two of them crossed the plate. The Yankees lacked the requisite big hit and fortunate timing. For instance, Cano crushed the ball four times for a double and homer (and two warning-track outs), but he stranded four runners in crunch time.
For most of the game, The Yankees had the donut offense working for them – a big hole in the middle. Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira couldn’t extend or finish the rallies. If those guys were contributing, I think it would have been another fun night. Hopefully they’re saving it for Cliff Lee.
Keeping the Yankee rallies in check for the first five-plus innings was Colby Lewis. He was pitching in Japan last year. This is what at least Hiroshima Carp fan thought of him:
Methinks steroids are not yet en vogue in Hiroshima, because schlubby Colby Lewis should not evoke this kind of nightmarish imagery. Nor should the Yankees be worried about facing him again in the series. If the Yankees return to Texas for Game 6, they will knock him around. They were on him today, and hopefully they’ll turn the scoreboard crooked if they face him again. The Yankees also threatened against the bullpen, but without the breakthrough heroics of Game One.
The only worrisome aspect of this loss was Phil Hughes and his total lack of command. He let up seven hits with two strikes. He’s got to polish those guys off. Why was he crisp and unhittable against Minnesota and throwing batting practice today? I think it’s just a different quality opponent mixed with the inconsistencies of a young, possibly fatigued pitcher. I think it’s possible he’s got a good game in him if needed in Game 6, but I would not be surprised to see him struggle again.
The Yankees now head back to the Bronx and prepare for Cliff Lee. They’re sending Andy Pettitte up against him, so by no means should we paint them as lambs to the slaughter. I’m excited for the game and for some ridiculous reason have a good feeling about it. I don’t think the Yankees will really hurt Lee, but I like their chances to come out of the game with a win. If the Yanks lose that one, I’ll change my stripes for the rest of the series, but until then, bring it on, Cliff.
Yanks look to return home, up 2-0. Simple as this: Rangers win, it’s a series, Cliff Lee going in Game Three.
Yanks win, the Rangers are in the soup.
Gravy time for the Scoretruck, don’t you think? That’s why it’s all about Mr. Hughes. Go git ’em, kid and…
Let’s Go Yan-Kees!
First things first…
The day begins on a sweet note. Yanks lose tonight and we won’t stay chipper but for now, we’ve still got a few moments to soak-in last night’s win.
It was a good ‘un.
My new screen saver, courtesy @KRADeC
On paper, you have to like the Yankees odds in a C.C. Sabathia – C.J. Wilson matchup. Off paper, well, it didn’t go quite the way you might have expected… but it came out all right in the end.
Sabathia was off tonight, because of the long layoff or who knows why; he got off to an inauspicious start in the first, with a walk, a single, and a prompt three-run home run to Josh Hamilton before I’d even had time to crack a beer. He got out of this inning with a diving play at the plate – and watching C.C. Sabathia dive is a thing to behold – and kept it together after that, more or less, but was never close to his dominant self; as he said after the game, he couldn’t execute a game plan because he couldn’t get the ball over the plate consistently. In the fourth inning he gave up two more – singles to Matt Treanor and Elvis Andrus, and a double to Michael Young. It was 5-0, the Yankees had barely touched C.J. Wilson, Sabathia was out of the game, and it didn’t look good for the Bombers.
Joba Chamberlain took over and threw a solid inning, with just a walk and no further drama. He was was followed by Dustin Moseley, who much to my surprise became one of the night’s heroes: he went two innings, struck out four, and allowed exactly no baserunners. (He was also adorably thrilled after the game, eyes bright and wide and talking about how tonight was a dream come true). New York didn’t get on the scoreboard until the seventh inning, when Robinson Cano hit an arcing home run that landed just on the good side of the right field foul pole. At the time, it seemed like a moral victory – hey, at least they won’t be shut out.
Then came the eighth inning.
Ahhh… the eighth inning.
The Rangers went through five pitchers in the eighth before they recorded a single out — and bafflingly, none of them were Neftali Feliz. A gassed C.J. Wilson started it off, Brett Gardner singled, and the old-school version of Derek Jeter doubled him all the way home (Brett Gardner, incidentally, will henceforth be known as “Zippy” in my household). Ron Washington turned to his bullpen, and came up with Darren Oliver – who although I’ve seen him pitch many times this season, my initial reaction is always “wow, he’s still playing?!” He is, and he proved it by walking the only two batters he faced, Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira. Next up was Darren O’Day, who came into the unenviable situation of bases loaded, zero outs, A-Rod at the plate. The result was a sharp single and two Yankee runs that made it 5-4… and another pitching change. Clay Rapada, come on down! (The Rangers bullpen is just Chock Full O’Lefties, not that it helped them tonight). His luck, or stuff, was no better, and Robinson Cano’s single tied the game. The Yankees had come all the way back, and were rewarded with yet another reliever: Derek Holland, who promptly allowed a single to Marcus Thames. A-Rod scored, clapped and pumped a fist, and the Yankees took the lead, 6-5.
Holland settled in and stopped the arterial bleeding after that, but it was too late – and where was Neftali Feliz? (As The Joker would say: “he’s at home, washing his tights!”) Joe Girardi is a fairly by-the-book guy, but he’s shown time and again that when things get tight in the eighth, he’ll go to Mariano Rivera, at home or on the road. Ron Washington has yet to reach similar conclusions, apparently.
Mariano Rivera came in for the ninth, of course, and outside of a Mitch Moreland single he was just fine. Fittingly, given the way the game started, it was Josh Hamilton who made the final out. It would’ve been a tough loss for the Yankees, but it turned into a tougher on for the Rangers – and it was only the fifth time in all of postseason history that a team came back from a deficit of four or more runs in the eight inning or later. Since it was only Game 1, I don’t know that this ranks at the top of great Yankees October comebacks, but it was still a hell of a win and a great start to the ALCS. Tune in tomorrow for the Phil Hughes Show.
Raining in New York. Big night in Texas.
Let’s Go Yan-Kees!
[Picture by Bags]
Dig this most classic National Lampoon bit from the ’70s featuring Bill Murray and Christopher Guest.
01 I went out of my nut. I fell on my bum.
ss
Here are some fearless ALCS predictions from the crew at Bronx Banter.
First of all, I predict that I’ll have worked myself up into a state of near fury/exhaustion before the first pitch is thrown tonight. I’ve got nothing against Texas. I’ve never been there, other than a stop at the Dallas airport, but mostly, I admire Texas. But I predict that I’ll be cursing it up-and-down for the duration of the series. The sight of former president Bush will be fodder enough to get me going I figure.
I also predict that my wife will have had it up to hear with me by Saturday night.
As much as it bothers me to say, I think the Yanks will win the series. At least they should. The thought of them losing…no, there’s no way to make that palatable. Ron Washington is cool, sure, and I’ve got nothing against Michael Young. I’ve always loved Vlady. But collectively, the Rangers come across as a college team, youthful spirit, antler-horns, hollering, rah-rah. And why shouldn’t they next to the business-like Bombers? Still, that doesn’t mean I have to find it “refreshing.”
I figure Mo is going to blow one game and the Yanks will beat Lee. Oh, and if A.J. Burnett gets a start, he’ll do okay.
The Rangers will steal at will against Posada.
I don’t have a feeling about Alex Rodriguez but he’s due to catch fire and be a monster. He was terrific down the stretch. I’d be as geeked as the next guy if he goes on a tear.
Also, I fear Nelson Cruz.
Matt Blankman:
Yankees in 5. Superstition makes me nervous calling for a Yankee victory in fewer than 6 games, but really, if my thoughts and actions have such little impact on my own life, they can’t possibly affect a major league baseball game. The Yankees will drop one in Texas, find a way to win Cliff Lee’s start, and win the pennant in the Bronx. While I’m reading tea leaves, I see another effective start for Hughes, at least one Yankee bullpen implosion and some big hits from Mr. Cano. Also, look for some creative Bronx cheers for Cliff Lee – it’s not often you have to boo a guy you’re simultaneously wooing for next season.
Jon DeRosa:
I predict that the most annoying Ranger batter will be Michael Young, most annoying pitcher will be a tie between the twoDdarrens, and all three of them will be eclipsed by Nolan Ryan, who will be on camera so often that he’ll be the number-two most-annoying sports figure this fall (Nobody’s touching Favre. execpt Favre, obviously).
Dig this most awesome new book by photographer Lyle Owerko.
While we’re at it, how about a word from Uncle L:
The Yankees and the Rangers faced off three times in the postseason during the 1990s, with the pinstripes winning each of the Division Series matchups. Yet, a good argument can be made that the Yankees avoided having to face the best team in Rangers’ franchise history. That would have been the 1977 Rangers, who won 94 games but finished a distant second in the American League West. Instead of facing the Rangers, the Yankees squared off against a very fine Royals team managed by Whitey Herzog. We know the Yankees ended up winning that Championship Series in five games, but it’s interesting to consider what might have been against a very good group of ‘77 Rangers, who were recently profiled by longtime Star Telegram baseball writer Jim Reeves.
First and foremost, the Rangers had a dominant defensive team in 1977. Their catcher, the strong-armed Jim Sundberg, ranks as one of the greatest fielding receivers of all-time. The Texas infield, spearheaded by Mike Hargrove at first base and veteran Bert Campaneris at shortstop, provided reliable, sure handed fielding and adequate range. In the outfield, center fielder Juan Beniquez won the Gold Glove, while flanked capably by the speedy Claudell Washington in left field.
The Rangers’ defensive scheme supported a very good pitching staff, which stood behind only the Yankees and the Royals in the league rankings. Unlike their teams in the 1990s, the ‘77 Rangers had excellent starting pitching. They had a Hall of Fame ace in Gaylord Perry, a future Hall of Famer in Bert Blyleven (yes, he will make Cooperstown in January), a very capable junkballer in Doyle Alexander, and an efficient Dock Ellis, who pitched to the tune of a 2.90 ERA after joining the team in a mid-season trade with the A‘s. In a short best-of-five series (the format for the LCS in the 1970s), the Rangers’ front four would have been difficult to handle, though their lack of a left-handed starter might have been a concern against a lefty-laden Yankee team.
The Rangers, however, did not have nearly the same level of strength in the bullpen. Mike Marshall would have been their relief ace under normal circumstances, but injuries limited him to 12 appearances. Left-hander Paul Lindblad, normally a fine reliever, struggled through one of his worst campaigns. So the Rangers turned to journeyman right-hander Adrian Devine, who won 11 games and saved 15 others, but was hardly a dominant fireman, striking out a mere 67 batters in 105 innings. In front of Devine, the Rangers featured two competent left-handers in Darold Knowles and Rogelio “Roger” Moret, and a 21-year-old Len Barker, who had not yet established himself as a starting pitcher. All in all, a fairly mediocre bullpen.
The New Yorker’s recent compilation, The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from the New Yorker, is a fine and handsome collection but it is does not contain a single piece by John Lardner, which begs the question: Is Lardner the most neglected great sports writer of all-time?
Sure, Jimmy Cannon is overlooked these days and he was a legend during his time; Joe H. Palmer was on his way to a PHD in English Literature when he became a full-time chronicler of horse racing–which he did as well as anyone ever has–but he died young and his name is lost; and Lenny Shecter was a funny, irascible talent, the patron saint of cynicism and snarki, and he’s sadly known as just the “co-writer” of “Ball Four.” Shecter also died young.
Over at SI.com, I’ve got an appreciation of a new collection of Lardner’s best sportswriting:
John Lardner was painting a prose portrait of a legendary con man when he wrote: “On a small scale, Titanic Thompson is an American legend. I say on a small scale, because an overpowering majority of the public has never heard of him. That is the way Titanic likes it. He is a professional gambler. He has sometimes been called the gambler’s gambler.”
Lardner might well have been writing about himself, although calling him a writer’s writer is too limiting, not to mention entirely inadequate. In a career that spanned three decades, the ’30s through the ’50s, he wrote for The New Yorker about everything from movies and TV, to the invasions of Normandy and Iwo Jima. But it was as a sports columnist for Newsweek that Lardner left his deepest footprint, and he underscored it with long, brilliant pieces for magazines like True and Sport. His trademark, as Stan Isaacs, the former Newsday sports columnist recently pointed out, was a “droll touch — precise, detached.”
“Time has a way of dimming the memory and achievements of writers who wrote, essentially, for the moment, as writers writing for journals must do,” Ira Berkow, the longtime columnist of the New York Times, told me recently. “But the best shouldn’t be lost in the haze of history and John Lardner was a brilliant writer — which means, in my view, that he was insightful, irreverent, wry and a master of English prose.”
Al Silverman, who ran Sport magazine in the Sixties, edited Lardner’s once-a-month sports column in True for a year-and-a-half in the early ’50s. “We never did meet but talked over the phone about his piece every month,” said Silverman. “I don’t remember ever saying, ‘You made a little grammatical error here, John.’ Always it was me saying, ‘Another great one, John.’ And they all were wonderful.”
In the epilogue to a posthumous collection “The World of John Lardner” (1961), his friend Roger Kahn wrote, “Although most perceptive sports writers accepted him as matchless, sports writing was not the craft of John Lardner. Nor was it profile writing, nor column writing. After the painstaking business of reportage, his craft was purely writing: writing the English sentence, fusing sound and meaning, matching the precision of the word with the rhythm of the phrase. It is a pursuit which is unfailing demanding, and Lardner met it with unfailing mastery.”
Do yourself a favor and pick up the new Lardner collection. You won’t be sorry.
[Drawings by Walt Kelly]
On the one hand, I love the playoffs. After living and dying through 162 games, your reward as a fan is to watch your team as one of eight — and now four — still in contention for the world championship. On the other hand, I hate the playoffs. My TiVo is suddenly not good enough, so I have to plan my world around a baseball game being played three thousand miles away. Heaven forbid I should miss a single pitch. How bad is it? A couple days ago my wife suggested that we schedule a date night for next Thursday. The good husband answered quickly, “Sure, sounds good.” But the bad husband inside was secretly calculating: Friday, Saturday, off-day Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, off-day Thursday… No problem! Look away. I am hideous.
A.J. Burnett is also hideous, but rumor has it he’ll be pitching in this series, a fact that by itself gives the Texas Rangers a pretty good shot at advancing to the World Series. The more I think about that, the more I think about belt-high fastballs and looping curve balls and line drives back through the box, the more worried I get. If I were in charge, I’d pitch Burnett against Cliff Lee in Game 3, essentially conceding that game to the Rangers. As the rotations stand now, it almost looks like Girardi is conceding both Games 3 and 4, meaning that Sabathia had better win the opener and Phil Hughes had better win Game 2.
What if they don’t? What if Josh Hamilton comes to Yankee Stadium and remembers that Home Run Derby in the old Stadium? What if Elvis Andrus gets on base seven or eight times and steals fourteen or sixteen bases? What if Ian Kinsler plays like Ian Kinsler again? What if Cliff Lee gets to pitch twice?
If you want to know what I really think, the Yankees will win this series, but it won’t take a miracle for the Rangers to win. I just hope that when I’m sitting in the movie theater on Thursday night, I’m still looking forward to the World Series.
