Yanks and Rays at the Stadium.
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Raul Ibanez LF
Nick Swisher RF
Eric Chavez DH
Russell Martin C
Never mind the shift: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Joe Martz]
Jonathan Abrams profiles Stephen Jackson over at Grantland:
Jackson is a person whose past influences his present and will probably shape his future. Is he a good person who occasionally mixes in the bad? Or a bad person sometimes inclined to do good? The answer, with most like Jackson, is not as black and white as the familiar jersey he wears again.
“A lot of people mistake my passion for the game with being a thug or a gangster,” he said. “I’m far from that. I’m just a guy who come up in the hood and came from nothing and made something and hasn’t changed. I’m still going to be in Port Arthur all summer walking around with no shoes on, eating crawfish, barbecue, going fishing. I’m going to be the same guy, and I take pride in saying that because a lot of NBA players are not touchable. They’re not real. But I take pride in being a regular guy that people can walk up to and I’m not Hollywood. I want people to understand that that’s the person I am and I’m not changing for nothing.”
Over at SI.com, our pal Jay Jaffe says the Mets’ moment in the sun may not last.
[Photo Credit: Michael G. Baron]
Oh, man. The question is–how to find a good baguette in New York?
“Cigar Box Pitcher and New York York Herald,” By William Harnett (1880)
Perhaps caught in a malaise in the aftermath of Lou Gehrig’s death and funeral, the Yankees dropped their third straight game, falling to Hal Newhouser and the Tigers, 5-4. DiMaggio tripled into the left field corner in the sixth, but that was it for him. His one for five day at the plate saw his average dip to .326, but during the streak he was hitting a bit better, .354 (29 for 82). Ted Williams, meanwhile, was keeping pace. He had now hit in twenty-two straight, and was hitting an even .500 (40 for 80!) during his streak, pushing his season number to a laughable .434.
Head on over to River Ave. Blues for all the latest on tonight’s draft.
[Photo Via: Smiles and Pretenses]
Hell Yeah.
Just a quick reminder that I’ll be talking Yankees tonight in Tarrytown with Rob Fleder.
[Photo Via: Dead Serious]
Here’s Charles Simic in the New York Review of Books on “Why I Still Write Poetry”:
When my mother was very old and in a nursing home, she surprised me one day toward the end of her life by asking me if I still wrote poetry. When I blurted out that I still do, she stared at me with incomprehension. I had to repeat what I said, till she sighed and shook her head, probably thinking to herself this son of mine has always been a little nuts. Now that I’m in my seventies, I’m asked that question now and then by people who don’t know me well. Many of them, I suspect, hope to hear me say that I’ve come my senses and given up that foolish passion of my youth and are visibly surprised to hear me confess that I haven’t yet. They seem to think there is something downright unwholesome and even shocking about it, as if I were dating a high school girl, at my age, and going with her roller-skating that night.
…The mystery to me is that I continued writing poetry long after there was any need for that. My early poems were embarrassingly bad, and the ones that came right after, not much better. I have known in my life a number of young poets with immense talent who gave up poetry even after being told they were geniuses. No one ever made that mistake with me, and yet I kept going. I now regret destroying my early poems, because I no longer remember whom they were modeled after. At the time I wrote them, I was reading mostly fiction and had little knowledge of contemporary poetry and modernist poets. The only extensive exposure I had to poetry was in the year I attended school in Paris before coming to the United States. They not only had us read Lamartine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Verlaine, but they made us memorize certain poems of theirs and recite them in front of the class. This was such a nightmare for me as a rudimentary speaker of French—and guaranteed fun for my classmates, who cracked up at the way I mispronounced some of the most beautiful and justly famous lines of poetry in French literature—that for years afterwards I couldn’t bring myself to take stock of what I learned in that class. Today, it’s clear to me that my love of poetry comes from those readings and those recitations, which left a deeper impact on me than I realized when I was young.
[Photo Credit: Fernanda Chemale]
“Drugstore Cowboy” came out shortly after “Sex, Lies and Videotape” in the summer of 1989. It was a strong year for movies. Scorsese’s short, “Life Lessons” was released that spring. Later came “Do the Right Thing,” and “Casualties of War,” “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” “Sea of Love,” “Glory,” and “Enemies: A Love Story” to name just a few.
“Drugstore Cowboy” was the first movie I saw at the newly-opened Angelica movie house on Houston Street. I saw it again uptown and the movie gripped me. I saw it again on TV last year. It holds up.
I think it’s Matt Dillon’s finest performance. Kelly Lynch is fantastic as well.
Here’s P. Kael’s blurb for the New Yorker:
Nihilistic humor rarely bubbles up in a movie as freely as it does here. Set in Portland, Oregon, in 1971, the story is about two couples who live together and travel around the Pacific Northwest robbing hospitals and pharmacies, grabbing fistfuls of pills and capsules. They’re like a junkie version of Clyde Barrow’s gang. The director, Gus Van Sant, takes us inside a lot of underground attitudes: the druggies are monomaniacal about leading an aimless existence-they see themselves as romantic figures. They’re comic, but they’re not put down for being comic. The picture keeps you laughing because it’s so nonjudgmental. Van Sant is half in and half out of the desire of adolescents to remain kids forever. As the gang’s 26-year-old leader, Matt Dillon brings the role a light self-mockery that helps set the tone of the film, and Kelly Lynch is strikingly effective as his wife.
Magic Hour in New York City. Picture by Bags.
You can still find a good egg cream in New York. It was a drink from my father’s childhood and not one that I had with any regularity as a kid. Still, it’s a delicious treat. My cousin, who knows from these things, says there is only one chocolate syrup to use–it’s not just that it is the best, it is the only one to consider: Fox’s u-bet.
Man, I’m thirsty all of a sudden.
[Photo Credit: Seltzer Sisters]
Derek Jeter led off the game with a home run to right field, a few innings later Alex Rodriguez turned around a 95 mph fastball from Justin Verlander and hit a grown-up homer to left (eat your heart out Miguel Cabrera).
But I buried the lede–Phil Hughes was terrific. His fastball was in the mid-90s, the curve ball was crisp, and he out-pitched the Tigers’ ace as the Yanks sailed to a 5-1 win. Hughes went the distance (four hits, three walks, eight strikeouts), a remarkable comeback after his lousy outing in California. A solo homer to Prince Fielder was the one blemish on one of the finest performances of his career–he even struck the great Cabrera out twice.
I didn’t see this one coming. But after last night’s tense game, this one was a cool breeze.
Yanks have the day-off tomorrow and then will host the Rays followed by the Mets. Should be a fun week.
The Yankees’ inability to come through with a rally last night cost them the game, particularly in the ninth when Jose Valverde was wild–effectively wild, I suppose. Derek Jeter says the Yanks probably won’t score again this year.
Still, the loss was a drag because Justin Verlander pitches this afternoon. Verlander wasn’t great earlier this year against the Yankees in the Bronx and he was roughed-up earlier this week by the Red Sox. Smart money has him throwing a gem today.
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Raul Ibanez LF
Nick Swisher RF
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C
I was so pissed last night I told the wife I’d pay her $100 if the Yanks win today and she has to pay me $10 if the Tigers win. She said she’ll buy me five dogs if the Yanks win, I get her five dogs if the Tigers win.
Never mind the odds: Let’s Go Yank-ees!
[Photo Credit: Oyl Miller via It’s a Long Season]
