Monthly Archives: June 2011

Over at IIATMS, check out this piece by Josh Weinstock:  “What Makes a Groundball?”

“Lithograph of Water Made of Thick and Thin Lines and a Light Blue Wash and a Dark Blue Wash,” By David Hockey (1978-80)

Food 52 offers up some no-cook recipes for the summer.

I like this one for a light lunch.

These look mad tasty, too:

Over at ESPN, Howard Bryant has a strong piece on Dirk Nowitzki and being a star player in the age of social media:

The truth, given time to breathe and be analyzed, is this: Nowitzki will go down as one of the greatest players in the history of the game, the greatest player of his franchise, the best (NBA) player Germany has ever produced. He has proved it this year — especially during these playoffs, when the Mavericks have transformed themselves from a team not tough enough to win into a formidable out — and in previous years that he can carry a team early or late. The outcome of the 2011 NBA Finals will do nothing to change that.

The concept of the “instant legacy” has permeated sport and lowered the level of intelligent discussion regarding how the game is played and the players who play it. TV commentators assess a player’s entire career based on two minutes at the end of each game. Meanwhile, the second-by-second instant analysis on social media doesn’t stop when the buzzer sounds. James has been in the playoffs for seven years, carrying a nondescript Cleveland team that without him is once again invisible after six straight postseasons — and his critics are legion. Peyton Manning was once a weak playoff performer, but that changed when he won the Super Bowl against Chicago. Then he lost to the Saints and was somehow relegated back to being subpar in the clutch. Before last year’s seventh and deciding game between the Lakers and Celtics, the ESPN pregame roundtable asked aloud if Kobe Bryant — already the greatest player of his generation — needed to win that night to “cement his legacy.”

Newspapers and magazines have always engaged in the same type of hero construction and deconstruction. The difference now is the speed of the technology and its volume.

I still think Miami will win the series, and I assume that LeBron James will have a great game tonight but man, I’d like to see Dirk match him and have Dallas win their final home game of the season.

[Photographs by Scott Mlyn]

Copyright @ 2011 Scott Mlyn All Rights Reserved.

I remember being fascinated by this movie poster when I was a kid. It was cool and sinister. Wasn’t until years later that I saw the movie, which remains overlooked, but is now available on Blue Ray DVD. Dig this Q&A with Peter O’Toole in the New York Times:

Q: How is it that “The Stunt Man” was as well-reviewed and widely nominated as it was, and yet played in so few theaters?

A.Don’t forget this is a long time ago, and I wasn’t very au fait with everything that was going on in any way. But apparently the guy who put up the bread, the money, I think he was a supermarket builder or something. [Melvin Simon, the producer, was a shopping mall developer.] He had bought the script and the entire idea on the fact that it was an art film, and it made sense on his balance books to lose money. I think eventually it crept into 11 cinemas, which is a bit shameful. [After a successful test run for “The Stunt Man” in Seattle, 20th Century Fox picked up distribution rights for the film but ordered only about 300 prints.]

Q.Was it disappointing to have put in so much effort into something that was not seen by a large number of viewers, or is that just the way it goes sometimes?

A.It’s almost the nature of my line of work. [chuckles] I began in the theater, don’t forget. I was with the Classical Repertory Company, the Bristol Old Vic, and we did 12 plays a year. Over a period of four years you can imagine the number of times one had the highest hopes [laughs] and you find you’re playing to – as the old actors used to say – Mr. and Mrs. Wood. Which meant nobody was in the audience but the seats. I’m used to it, but it was a disappointment.

For more on O’Toole check out Gay Talese’s 1963 Esquire profile, “Peter O’Toole on the Ould Sod.”

With the 2011 MLB Rule IV draft finally concluded, hundreds of amateur baseball players will now embark on their professional careers. For many, however, the promise of draft day will soon give way to the harsh reality of the minor leagues, and most will likely never see the light of day in the majors. That’s why it’s almost impossible to accurately assess the quality of a team’s draft until well into the future. So, while we wait to pass judgment on the likes of Dante Bichette Jr., Sam Stafford and Jordan Cote, let’s instead take a look at how well (or, in some cases, not so well) the Yankees have drafted in the past.

Yankees’ Draft History, Cumulative WAR by Year

Note: Reflects players drafted, but not necessarily signed, by the Yankees.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

Not unexpectedly, the Yankees have had a very uneven draft history. Over the first 10 years of the draft, the team netted at least 10 WAR in all but two years (1966 and 1974), and selected such future all stars such as Steve Rogers, Thurman Munson, Fred Lynn, Ron Guidry, Scott McGregor and LaMarr Hoyt. In addition, the Yankees also drafted such useful contributors as Stan Bahnsen, Doc Medich, Mike Heath, Willie Upshaw and Jim Beattie. However, in the one year the Yankees had the first selection, they opted for Ron Bloomberg and bypassed on the likes of Ted Simmons, John Mayberry and Bobby Grich.

With the advent of free agency in 1976, the team’s focus shifted away from developing amateur players to signing established veterans. As a result, the Yankees’ drafts were relatively barren over the next five years. During that span, however, the Yankees did unearth a 19th round gem in Don Mattingly, but otherwise the only other notable selections were Howard Johnson and Greg Gagne.

Yankees Top Draft Selections by WAR, 1965-1979

Source: Baseball-reference.com

In 1981, the Yankees had one of their strongest drafts ever. In addition to selecting perennial All Star Fred McGriff, the team also picked up Bob Tewksbury, Eric Plunk and Mike Pagliarulo, a trio of players who would all contribute to the team during the decade. That year, the Yankees also selected a player who made it to the Hall of Fame despite never playing a single game in the majors. In the second round, the team opted for a two-way athlete named John Elway, but after a brief stint in the minors, the outfielder decided instead to play quarterback in the NFL.

The Yankees also had an impressive draft class in 1982, but most of the players selected, like B.J. Surhoff, Jim Deshaies and Bo Jackson, found success on other teams. Only Dan Pasqua spent some time in pinstripes, but he was eventually traded to the White Sox for Rich Dotson. Over the rest of the decade, the Yankees’ drafts were relatively poor, not the least of which was because the team had a first round draft pick in only two years (1984 and 1985). Despite the handicap, the Yankees often managed to find one nugget in the later rounds, but that player was usually traded before they could reap the rewards.

From 1983 to 1989, Todd Stottlemyre, Al Leiter, Hal Morris, Brad Ausmus, Fernando Vina and J.T. Snow were the only players drafted by the Yankees who posted a double-digit WAR, but none from that group made a meaningful contribution in pinstripes. With an aging major league roster and a farm system devoid of prospects, it’s no wonder that soon thereafter the team plunged into one of the worst four-year periods in franchise history.

Yankees Top Draft Selections by WAR, 1980-1989

Source: Baseball-reference.com

The Yankees were terrible on the field in 1990 and 1991, seasons that concluded with the fourth and fifth lowest winning percentages in franchise history. However, in the front office, the suspension of George Steinbrenner brought about a return to normalcy. So, under the watchful eye of Gene Michael, the Yankees slowly began to rebuild their farm system via the draft.

In 1990, the Yankees had their most successful draft in terms of total WAR. Although first round selection Carl Everett would have a successful career away from the Bronx after being selected by the Florida Marlins in the expansion draft, the Yankees really hit the mother lode in the middle rounds. With the 22nd and 24th picks, respectively, the Yankees selected a left handed pitcher named Andy Pettitte and short stop named Jorge Posada. By the middle of the decade, those two players would become key components of a brand new Yankees’ dynasty.

For the first time since 1967, the Yankees had the overall first round pick in 1991. When they selected Brien Taylor, a high school left hander who reportedly could throw over 100 mph, most observers predicted that the Yankees had acquired their ace of the future. Unfortunately, less than two years into his development, the young fire-baller dislocated his left shoulder in a bar room fight. Taylor was never able recover from the injury, and his once promising career was over before it started.

The Yankees rebounded from the disastrous 1991 draft class, which produced only player with a positive WAR (Lyle Mouton at 1.5), by adding the crown jewel to their burgeoning dynasty with the selection of Derek Jeter in 1992. This time, the team’s can’t miss prospect didn’t.

Yankees Top Draft Selections by WAR, 1990-1999

Source: Baseball-reference.com

Jeter, Posada and Pettitte, along with international free agents Bernie Williams and Mariano Rivera, wound up forming a homegrown core that by 1996 had already won a championship. While the Yankees were having historic success on the field, however, the team’s drafts weren’t as accomplished. From 1993 to 2004, the Yankees drafted only seven players who contributed a WAR of at least 4.5, and three of those players (Casey Blake, Mark Prior and Daniel Bard) didn’t sign with the team. In several years during that span, the Yankees failed to produce even one player who made a positive contribution in the majors. However, thanks to combination of savvy trades, opportunistic free agent signings and an increased focus on the international market, the Yankees were able to sustain their regular season success.

In 2005, the Yankees extended the contract of General Manager Brian Cashman, and in the process gave him more control over baseball operations. At the same time, the team promoted Damon Oppenheimer to scouting director. Since then, the Yankees have drafted several players who have made an early impact in the majors, including Brett Gardner, Austin Jackson, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, Dave Robertson and Drew Storen. The team also added several players now considered to be promising prospects, such as Dellin Betances, Austin Romine, Slade Heathcott and even Gerrit Cole, who, after spurning the Yankees in 2008, was selected first overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates in this year’s draft.

Yankees Top Draft Selections by WAR, 2000-Present

Source: Baseball-reference.com

Who knows, maybe somewhere within one of the team’s recent drafts is the core of a new dynasty? Only time will tell, but like the players selected this week, it doesn’t hurt to dream.

Can I get an Amen?

My father was a schvitzer. Schvitz is a Yiddish word for sweat. His mother was a schvitzer too (but only on one side of her face, it was the strangest thing). I remember calling the old man during the summer months. “How you doin’, Pop?”

“Wet,” he’ say, or “Damp,” or “Moist.”  Sometimes he’d just say, in his best Zero Mostel:  “HOT.”

I thought of the great family schvitzer last night watching Alfredo Aceves on TV. I have never seen a baseball player sweat like that. The bill of his cap was water-logged after a few batters, thick drops of perspiration falling in his face. Aceves was in trouble in the sixth inning, but then Brett Gardner froze at third on a passed ball, Derek Jeter to hit into a double play. Aceves didn’t stop sweating but he saved the rest of the bullpen and finished the game.

Hey Aceves, this schvitz’s for you.

[Photo Credit: Weegee]

On Tuesday night David Ortiz hit a massive home run and honored it with a party at home plate. He had so much fun, he did it again in his first at bat on Wednesday night, smashing a two-run, two-out drive deep into right field. This time he held the dinger a private affair in the dugout, but nevertheless set the tone for a route for the Red Sox. There was some pre-game blather about beaning Ortiz, but I guess Burnett didn’t read the back pages this morning. And anyway, I doubt he could have hit him even if he wanted to.

The Red Sox stomped on the Yankees, Burnett and Francisco Cervelli’s private parts until the score was 7-0. Then the Yankees finally solved the knuckle ball and began chipping away in the fourth. They knocked out Tim Wakefield and the score was 8-5 when they loaded the bases in the sixth for Derek Jeter. But he couldn’t keep the heat on former Yankee Alfredo Aceves and tapped into a rally-killing double play.

The double play was still in order because Brett Gardner couldn’t find the errant ball on a wild pitch and none of the runners advanced. For shame. In past years, Gardner scored over 45 per cent of the time he reached base. This year, he’s down to 39 per cent, and I have to think he’s spooked on the bases.

In a year where rousing, come-from-behind victories are the rarest breed, the Yanks’ fate was likely sealed with the double play. But Red Sox added three more with two outs in the ninth to put it beyond reach. The final, embarrassing scoreline was 11-6. Hello second place.

Even after getting rocked tonight, the Yankees have the best run differential in baseball by a hefty margin. They have had several heartbreaking blown leads and only a few miracle comebacks, so their actual record is less impressive than their statistics would suggest. The Red Sox have a more ordinary track record, but without the bad luck, they’ve got an actual record that matches their output. The result is a virtual tie atop the American League East, and one would think, two fairly even teams.

The results on the field have been anything but even. The Red Sox have dominated the Yankees this year with seven wins and only one loss. It’s annoying, disgusting and depressing but it’s not definitive. We know it’s not definitive because in 2009, the Yankees lost the first eight games against the Red Sox yet clawed back and ended the season with nine wins apiece. And then won the World Series.

Whether the 2011 Yankees may be able to pull off a similar turnaround remains to be seen, but either way, the season doesn’t end tonight. They send out their best pitcher tomorrow night against one of their biggest villains. I’d like to see them pull themselves off the mat and hand CC an early lead. Then I’d like to see CC hand Mariano a late lead. And then I’d like Mariano wrap up a win and reclaim a share of first place. It won’t seem so impossible once they do it.

Tonight gives the case of two unpredictable pitchers, A.J. Burnett and Tim Wakefield. They could be super, they could be garbage. I can’t call it, can you? I feel like the Yanks should win the game and the series but nothing’s shocking around these parts.

In the meantime, Mark Teixeira is in the line-up but Russell Martin (back) is out. Also, the Yanks placed Joba Chamberlain on the D.L. with a strained flexor muscle.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Brett Gardner LF
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Francisco Cervelli C

Never mind the blood lust, how about a win?

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Itt was  difficult to concentrate on the game last night after Mark Teixeira got hit. What happens if he was seriously hurt? Almost immediately, we started talking about it in the game thread. Today, over at PB, Jay Jaffe offers “The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook”:

First Base: While losing Teixeira would have been a major blow to the offense given his current productivity, the Yankees would have no shortage of internal options to cover the position. The most obvious solution would be to move Nick Swisher to first, where he has 256 games (192 starts) of big league experience, and to sally forth with a Chris Dickerson/Andruw Jones platoon in right field, more on which momentarily. Additionally, Jorge Posada, who has 30 games and 16 starts at first, could figure into the picture against righties if his bat continues to show some life. After going 3-for-3 off the bench last night in Teixeira’s stead—including his first two hits of the season against lefties—he’s hitting .260/.374/.351 since May 1, which is certainly slappy but not entirely useless. Eric Chavez, who’s nearing a return to baseball-related activities, could eventually take at-bats against righties as well, and at some point, the Yankees would probably take a look at righty-swinging Jorge Vazquez, who has already mashed 19 homers at Triple-A Scranton while batting a lopsided .280/.326/.564.

…Third Base: The path of least resistance would call for plenty of Nunez and Pena until Chavez is ready. If Joe Girardi smoked what Joe Torre was smoking, the team could spot Russell Martin at the hot corner (his pre-conversion position), which could create some space for Jesus Montero (still hitting a relatively uninspiring .294/.336/.416 at Scranton) to assume some of the catcher duties. Not likely, but not impossible. Another relatively improbable option would involve Brandon Laird, Scranton’s regular third baseman and an object of wintertime fascination around these parts; he’s hitting a disappointing .275/.306/.392 with three homers this year after bopping 25 homers between Trenton and Scranton last year.

William Eggleston

Shaved Ice or Icy? Which one of these?

. . . But You Can’t Hide

By John Schulian

I worked as a copy editor at the Salt Lake Tribune while I waited for Uncle Sam to come calling. I think I was the only guy on the desk who wasn’t in AA. That was a great crew. Lots of laughs even if one of them kept trying to talk me into joining the Marines. (Like hell. I’d seen “The Sand of Iwo Jima.” Even John Wayne couldn’t survive in the Marines.) My last night at the paper, these old drunks took me out for a farewell toot-–steak and lobster and booze at one of Salt Lake’s bottle clubs where we found ourselves with a lovely red-haired waitress we promptly named Peaches. Ah, yes, Peaches.

I went into the Army in August 1968, with a master’s degree in journalism in hand and the news of the Tet Offensive echoing in my ears. My dad dropped me off at the Salt Lake induction center on his way to work. I don’t recall what we said to each other-–it certainly wasn’t much-–but he told me years later it was the worst day of his life. I thought about him and my mother a lot in my first days in the Army, and how if I got killed in what I was now certain was an utterly useless war, it might kill them, too.

The funny thing is, I never thought about running to Canada or hunting up a doctor who could concoct an excuse that would keep me out of the Army’s clutches. Hell, I have one friend who told me he got out of the draft when a doctor wrote that my friend’s mother would have a nervous breakdown if anything happened to him. That still bothers me. What made him and his mother so special? My mother would have had a nervous breakdown too. A lot of other mothers did have nervous breakdowns because their sons came home in a box. My two years in the Army were a waste of my time and the taxpayers’ money, but at least I didn’t hide behind mommy to avoid them. I just took my chances and lived to tell the story.

Basic training was at Ford Ord, California, up by Carmel and Monterrey, beautiful country. My company was a curious mixture of returned Mormon missionaries from Utah and surfers and street kids from L.A. Our senior drill instructor had one basic message: “You’re all going to Vietnam and you’re all going to die–unless you listen up!” In the middle of the night, he’d come back to the barracks drunk and wake us up to tell us about his two tours as a door gunner in Vietnam. That was creepy enough by itself. But other nights I could hear advanced infantry training units coming back from maneuvers. These were the guys whose next stop really was Vietnam. They’d be marching through the fog, singing “Wide river, river of Saigon” or–to the tune of the Coasters’ “Charlie Brown”–“In the night time when you’re sleeping, Charlie Cong comes a-creeping, all around-round-round-round.”

Lots of nutty things happened in basic: Guys at the beachfront rifle range deciding they’d rather shoot at luxury boats than Army-approved targets. A drill instructor listening to a drooling loony from airborne and then telling us, “Boys, there’s only two things that come out of the sky and that’s bird shit and fools.” The guy I was supposed to partner with on bivouac trying to kill himself when he learned that his next stop was advanced infantry training, which was likely his ticket to Vietnam. The long faces when we figured out that of our 165 men, 105 received orders that involved what was called “combat arms.” They knew where they were going.

The nuttiest thing of all, though, was that the Army, in its infinite wisdom, decided that I should be a computer programmer. “Get the fuck out of my sight,” my senior DI said when he handed me my orders. He only wanted men who were going to kill Commies for Christ.

My next stop was also my last stop: Fort Sheridan, Illinois. It was Fifth Army headquarters and had a huge data processing center, hence the need for computer programmers. It was also, as fate would have it, on the North Shore of Chicago, between Highland Park and Lake Forest, two very pricey suburbs, not far from Northwestern and, better yet, Wrigley Field. The guys I ran into at Fort Sheridan were mostly smart and funny and a hell of a lot better company than anybody I’d met in grad school. They’d been plucked from jobs at places like IBM, Texas Instruments and NASA, and they really knew what they were doing when it came to computers. I, on the other hand, had never even seen a computer.

Amazingly, nobody made a big deal over it. I ran errands for my civilian boss, an older guy named John Munn–everyone who worked for him was called a Munnster-–and I tried to read every book I hadn’t been able to in college. Six months later, just as I was about to lose my mind, I learned that the post newspaper was looking for an enlisted man to help its civilian editor run it. The editor was Joe Neptune. I’m telling you, that fort was loaded with great names. Joe Neptune, AKA the King of the Sea, signed me up immediately. A couple of other really talented enlisted men showed up not long afterward, and just like that, I was home free. The toughest thing I had to do for the rest of my tour of duty was put the paper to bed by 11 a.m. Thursday so I could jump on a commuter train and then the L and make it to Wrigley Field’s bleachers by the bottom of the first inning. War is hell.

It’s easy to joke about it now, but there was no joking when you saw the guys coming back from the ’Nam. I remember senior NCOs screwing over a black guy with a purple heart and a bad limp. It wasn’t enough that they’d gotten their pound of flesh from the poor bastard; they had to bust him back to private, too. I played basketball with a returnee who won a Silver Star in Vietnam–he’d crawled out in the middle of a firefight to rescue a couple wounded buddies. The one I remember best, though, was a solider who had been badly wounded in combat and whose hair was completely gray at the age of 22. When we were on KP, he fell asleep between breakfast and lunch and a cook tried to be funny by dropping a stack of trays on the table where he had laid his head. It must have taken us 10 minutes to pry his hands off the cook’s throat. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the violence. The potential for it was always there. I knew that for a fact when there was a shakedown inspection in the barracks next to mine and they found .45 automatics and machetes right next to the drugs and hypodermic needles.

I still thank God I never saw combat. Who knows if I would have lived, or if I had, what kind of a mess I would have come back as. On one of my last days in the Army, I was having an obligatory out-processing chat with my company commander, who was looking at my background for the first time. “Why, you have a master’s degree,” he said. “You could have been an officer.”  I didn’t bother telling him what the life expectancy of a second lieutenant was in combat. I just said I’d rather be a civilian. Free at last, free at last, great God almighty, I was free at last.

I left the Army as quietly as I had gone into it. I didn’t get drunk or get laid. I’m not sure anybody even shook my hand. I just caught a plane to Salt Lake for a brief visit before I started a job as a reporter at the Baltimore Evening Sun. In my bedroom, among the letters I’d written home, I found an obituary that my mother had clipped from the Tribune. It was of a guy I’d been in basic training with, a returned Mormon missionary who’d been killed in combat in Vietnam. He was a year younger than me, but we had the same birthday: January 31.

Click here for the full “From Ali to Xena” archives.

I appeared on The Sports-Casters’ podcast last night (Season 1, Episode 24).

Dig it.

Grantland, Bill Simmons’ on-line magazine, is open for business today.

Our pal Chris Jones has a piece on the Blue Jays and the Red Sox in the American League Beast:

Without ithout looking it up, I can tell you the night the Toronto Blue Jays won their first World Series — October 27, 1992 — because that was also the night I lost my virginity. I’m not nearly so sure of the night they won their second World Series. I was in college, watching the game in my dorm’s common room, on a TV that was suspended from the ceiling. When Joe Carter hit that home run off Mitch Williams to beat the Philadelphia Phillies, I jumped up and cracked my head on the TV, opening a dime-size hole in my scalp. It turns out that holes in your head bleed a lot. Somewhere, there is a picture of me still celebrating, late that night, drunk, mostly naked, and covered in dried blood. I’ll be forever glad that we did not yet live in the digital age.

That’s how important baseball was to me back then. I still have the Ken Burns Baseball catalogue on VHS; I once spent an entire summer making a paper model of Fenway Park, complete with a ball-marked Pesky’s Pole. But then a couple of fate-changing events took place. First, there was that whole no-longer-a-virgin thing. Before sex, something like Dave Stieb’s wobbly retirement — ignoring his brief resurrection six years later — would have qualified as a significant life event of my own. Now, it barely registered as a brief. And then baseball went on strike. I was sitting on a couch in a Mexican hotel room when everything stopped — those 14 words are how all stories of loss should begin — and I took it very much to heart. The girl who claimed my virginity later cheated on me, and baseball’s cold shoulder gave me the same feeling: I should have left you before you left me.

Last month, Jones wrote a blog post that relates to this piece. It is worth checking out.

Gainin’ on ya…

It’s so hot…

Fat men can dance. In honor of David Ortiz, who busted a move last night after hitting a home run, here is the great Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (featuring our man Buster):