Monthly Archives: July 2012

Rest in Peace, Ernest Borgnine.

It’s Andy Murray vs. Roger Federer in the Wimbledon Final. Enjoy.

[Photo Credit: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images]

Mark Teixeira hit a three-run home run in the first inning against Felix Doubront and it looked like the Yankees were going to simply pick up where they’d left off earlier this afternoon. But the Yankees played a flat, careless game, committing four errors, running the bases poorly and letting a band of Red Sox scrubeenies (plus a couple of stars) put it on them.

Skinny, dark-skinned fella named Pedro Ciriaco, wearing an offensive lineman’s number (77), played a beautiful shortstop, got three hits, including the go-ahead knock against Phil Hughes, and later stole a base and trotted home on a throwing error by Russell Martin. From where I sat it was hard not to be pleased for the guy.

After the dinger to Teixeira, Doubront pitched well while Hughes slowly unraveled. He wasn’t terrible but the bases loaded double by Ciriaco in the sixth chased Hughes, who allowed five runs. A solo home run by Andruw Jones narrowed the lead to 5-4 but then Corey Wade, called up from the minors for the weekend, tried putting out the fire with gasoline and by the time Joe Girardi mercifully pulled him from the game, the Sox were well ahead, a 9-4. Every batter hit the ball hard against Wade, even Nick Punto.

And so a game that was there for the taking turned into a laughter for the home nine. Course, since the Sox came into the game a .500 team and their team has suffered through critical injuries this season, and since their luck has been doo doo for more than a minute now, things had to get sweaty.

The Yanks loaded the bases with one man out in the eighth and Vincente Padilla, that cartoon Bad Guy came in to face Andruw Jones. Threw him one pitch: a fat, juicy meatball. And Jones, three homers on the day, missed it, because baseball is cruel n shit. Popped it up in foul ground for an easy out. Then Padilla got pinch-hitter Raul Ibanez to pop one up a few feet away from where Jones’ ball went.

Some times the bad guy wins.

Final Score: Red Sox 9, Yanks 5.

It was a lousy way to end a long day. The Yanks will take the split, however. And they’ll look to Ivan Nova to give them a good performance tomorrow night. Losing the final game before the break would be a drag. Still, it wouldn’t be a catastrophe and the Yanks have played a damn good first half of ball, never mind the injuries, the high ERAs or the low batting averages. Who cares how it looks? The standings is what counts and they’re doing all right.

[Photo Credit: deification and Jim Rogash/Getty Images]

Phil Hughes in Game 2.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher 1B
Andruw Jones LF
Jayson Nix 3B
Russell Martin C
Darnell McDonald RF

Never mind letting up now: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Bill Hensen]

The wife needed to run an errand today in Manhattan and taking the subway was out of the question. Just too damn hot. She had to go to Soho, to be exact. Pearl River. So we dvr’d the afternoon game between the Yankees and Red Sox, got in the car, headed downtown, and tuned in to listen to John and Suzyn call the game. Didn’t take long for me to grow annoyed with Sterling–top of the first inning to be exact. I turned off the radio and missed him call Nick Swisher’s three-run home run as well as Andruw Jones’ solo shot.

We arrived in Soho to find street fairs–the bane of my father’s existence–all over the place. Gridlock. Douchefuck. I dropped my Bride a few blocks away from Pearl River and then spent the next half hour making one trip around the block, slowly losing my patience. I’d put the game on, listen to a few pitches then turn it off. By the time she was finished and met me a few blocks away from the store I was plenty sore and also I had to take a leak. But the Yanks were up 6-1, so there was that.

I could have stayed pissed but it was like getting over the flu. You can bitch about having been sick or be happy that at least you’re not sick anymore.

Course we hit traffic on our way back to the West Side Highway and my bladder took a beating with every pot hole we ran over. The wife was scared to say anything. Relief was had once we got to Fairway on 125, where we shopped and and then enjoyed listening to Chad Qualls close it out in the ninth on our way back to the Bronx as the Yanks cruised to a 6-1 win. Jones hit another homer, Jason Nix hit a bomb, and Freddy Garcia, yeah, that Freddy Garcia, put heads to bed, as he pitched into the seventh. No Pedrioa, no Middlebrooks and the Yanks took advantage.

Final Score: Yanks 6, Sox 1.

A most satisfying win. Worth dealing with with the hassle of lower Manhattan on a hot summer Saturday.

[Photo Credit: Eric L. Bowers]

Yanks and Sox. First of two…(the second game is tonight).

Derek Jeter DH
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones LF
Jayson Nix SS
Darnell McDonald CF
Chris Stewart C

Fab Five Freddy and the ball should be flyin’.

Never mind last night: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Gretchen Ertl/AP]

You Gots to Chill…

[Photo Credit: soceity6]

The Yankees outlasted the Red Sox 10-8 on Friday night in the kind of slugfest that we’ve come to expect from these two teams. There was a plate at the plate, nice plays in the field, big strikeouts, and key hits. And I missed the entire thing. Well, almost, anyway.

I was at Citifield watching the Mets and Cubs play. Shake Shack double burger, thank you very much.

Mostly, though, I looked at the out-of-town scoreboard. Yanks score five runs in the first–against Beckett–yee haw. Hiroki gives it all back in the bottom of the inning–I can see this is going to be a long fucking night, convict. And so it went, with only half my attention on the game before me, which was one-sided until the end. That’s when the Mets rallied in the 9th inning and made this poor Cubs fan experience the gamut of emotions form A-Z.

We had fun with him and he had a good sense of humor, which is required if you root for the Cubs. His team almost–almost–blew it, but won in the end. At the same time, I was sweating out the Sox with two men on in the bottom of the eighth.

“I do this 162 games a year, man,” said Mr. Cubbie.

I can relate. I checked the score on my phone on the subway ride back into Manhattan but we went underground and I lost reception so I didn’t learn that the Yanks had won until we reached 125th Street.

Any Yankee win, no matter how grueling or exasperating is a good thing. Am I right, or am I right?

(Here’s the recap from Pete Abe and notes from Chad Jenning.)

Yanks, Sox. ‘Nuff said.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Raul Ibanez LF
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C

Fuck what you heard: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Die Neue Jugend]

Roger Federer is back in the Wimbledon Finals. It’s the eighth time he’s made it this far–he’s won six of ’em. On Sunday, he’ll face Andy Murray, who just became the first Brit since 1938 to reach the Wimbledon Finals.

I’ll be pulling for Feds but should he lose it’ll be a cool story for Murray, who has never won a Major, and for Great Britain.

[Photo Credit: AP]

The Yankees had planned a huge doubleheader on July 4th and were set to honor the recently deceased Lou Gehrig by unveiling a monument in center field on the two-year anniversary of Lou Gehrig Day, but rain had pushed the celebration to the sixth. With more than 60,000 on hand to pay their respects to the fallen Yankee captain, DiMaggio and the Yanks rose to the occasion. The Yankees beat the A’s 8-4 in the opener before closing out the twin bill with a 3-1 victory in the night cap for their ninth win a row; they now led the league by a comfortable three and a half games. DiMaggio, meanwhile, had a big day. He had three singles and a double in the first game and added another double and a triple in the second game. His 6 for 9 day pushed his average to a robust .357 for the season, but he still trailed Ted Williams (.405) by a considerable margin.

Man, is it ever hot out there. Hope you are doing whatever you need to do in order to stay cool.

Blogging will be light today. Course, tonight gives the start of a four-game series in Boston. Dustin Pedroia will miss it.

Hiroki goes against Beckett in Game One. Good piece on Kuroda by David Waldstein today in the New York Times.

[Photo Credit: Bernice Abbott]

Now that DiMaggio had eclipsed all existing records, his streak began to be viewed differently. Instead of debating whether or not he could catch Sisler or Keeler, baseball fans were now watching him intently, wondering how long the streak would last. It would last at least another day. The Philadelphia A’s were in New York for the start of a three-game series, and the Yankees took the opener easily by a 10-5 score. DiMaggio homered in the first inning (one of five Yankee home runs on the day) to extend his streak, but it would be his only hit of the afternoon. Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em.

The Yankees finally found a cure for TB. After losing nine straight games at Tropicana Field in Tampa (OK fine, St. Petersburg), the Bronx Bombers finally broke the schneid on Robinson Cano’s game winning two-run single with the bases loaded. If not for Cano’s timely hit (and Kyle Farnsworth’s four consecutive walks), the Yankees, who have seemingly saved their worst baseball for the unfriendly confines of the dome, would have recorded their seventh double-digit losing streak at a road stadium.

Yankees’ Longest Losing Streaks at a Road Stadium, Since 1918
 

Source: Baseball-reference.com

Even though the Yankees probably weren’t heart broken about the three game sweep in Tampa that occurred at the end of last season, the nine game skid was still the longest in any one road ballpark since the Bronx Bombers went winless in 15 straight games at Arlington Stadium from 1989 to 1991. Unfortunately, the Texas heat wasn’t the only thing that caused the Yankees to wilt during that span. Over the same period, the Yankees dropped 10 consecutive games to the Athletics at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Of course, during that period, the Yankees didn’t have much luck beating the Bash Brothers, or anyone for that matter. From 1989 to 1991, the team’s .437 winning percentage was the fifth lowest of any three-year span in franchise history and the worst since 1913-1915.

Yankees’ 15 Game Losing Streak at Arlington Stadium, 1989 to 1991

Source: Baseball-reference.com

As you’d expect from a team with the highest road winning percentage in baseball, the Yankees have had more double-digit road ballpark winning streaks than losing skids.  The all-time high run of 13 straight victories dates back to 1939-1940 against the hapless St. Louis Browns at Sportsman’s Park, but the most recent double-digit streak was also deep in the heart of Texas, as the Yankees reeled off 10 straight victories versus the Rangers from 2005 to 2007. That mark, as well as the all-time franchise record for most wins in a single road ballpark, could be in jeopardy later this month when the Yankees visit Oakland. The last time the Bronx Bombers lost at the Athletics’ home field was on April 22, 2010, the same day that Alex Rodriguez violated the sanctity of Dallas Braden’s mound. Since then, the Yankees have won nine straight victories in “the 209”, and could tie the current longest streak of 13 road ballpark wins with a four game sweep in the teams’ final series in two weeks.

Yankees’ Longest Winning Streaks at a Road Stadium, Since 1918

Source: Baseball-reference.com

Over at Esquire, our pal Scott Raab interviews Sarah Silverman:

SR: Out of all the different performing arts, stand-up to me is by far the most fascinating — the idea of one human being standing up and the audience saying, “Okay, kill me.” And you have lived that life for years.

SS: I can’t believe how much time has passed. The first time I did stand-up I was 17, and I was really a stand-up once I was 19 in New York, and now I’m 41, and I still feel like I haven’t found myself onstage. Earlier in my career, I was really tight, really together, and knew who I was and I was confident. I kind of feel in between now.

SR: Is that because you’re taking on other jobs and not doing as much stand-up?

SS: I’m doing a lot of stand-up, but not like when you’re living in New York and you can do three sets a night and it’s your life, and you sleep all day and you wake up and you eat with a bunch of other comics and then get ready for the night. I’m doing it a couple times a week at least, but I’m still just finding myself, you know? I don’t think I’ll ever feel done. I’ve realized that being beholden to some sort of character you found success in just makes you a caricature of yourself. I feel bad naming names because it’s not their fault, but there are great, famous ’80s comedians — Dice comes to mind — who found wild success and now still go on the road, and they want to kill and they want to give the audience what they want because that’s inherently a comedian’s desire. So he puts on the jacket, you know? To not grow and change and be so different from 20 years ago, to still be in that place because you’re afraid? It gives the audience what they want, what they’re expecting, but it’s not current. I wish those comics would take the chance to be who they are now onstage. You have to be willing to disappoint the audience for a while.

Ted Conover had a piece in the Times Magazine last week about a snitch. It was the latest impressive piece of work from Conover who has produced good articles for a long time.

A bunch of those stories can be found at Conover’s website, including this one: an appreciation of Dance With the Devil: The Rolling Stones & Their Times, by Stanley Booth:

He is strongest when writing about the music — the history of it, the business of it, and the experience of it. Booth’s believer’s passion results in all sorts of luminous insights into the enterprise: “The Stones’s show was not a concert but a ritual; their songs . . . were acts of violence, brief and incandescent.” And later, “Making love and death into songs was exactly the Stones’s business.” Booth tells a story in which “Each night we went someplace new and strange and yet similar to the place before, to hear the same men play the same songs to kids who all looked the same, and yet each night it was different, each night told us more.” He suggests that “In the sixties we believed in a myth — that music had the power to change people’s lives. Today people believe in a myth — that music is just entertainment.” He writes about what it was like backstage and what it was like in the audience, what it felt like when things really clicked and what it was like when they did not.

The backstage view is, of course, the main draw to a book like this, and Booth offers anecdotes intriguing, disgusting, and amusing. He writes about a comely woman in the studio audience during the taping of the The Ed Sullivan Show who does not succeed in getting taken advantage of: a minion picks a “big blond in buckskin” to visit the boys backstage instead. Booth writes of leaving the studio with a friend, “the pretty little girl in the brown outfit ahead of us, smiling, lucky to be left with her dreams.” He reports on how, a couple of days after a recording session, the Stones “made more money than they had ever made in one day by recording a television commercial for Rice Krispies . . . .” In one particularly delightful scene, Booth describes Jagger on his hotel bed after a concert, exhausted, eating Chinese food, and taking flack from others for his smelly socks:

Mick drew his feet up under him . . . and began talking to me about the future, where to live, what to do . . . . “I’ve got to find a place to live, got to think about the future, because obviously I can’t do this forever.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean, we’re so old —we’ve been going on for eight years and we can’t go on for another eight. I mean, if you can you will do, but I just can’t, I mean we’re so old — Bill’s thirty-three.”

In the summer, in the city, in the summer, in the city…

[Picture by Leonard Freed via Adam Marelli Photo]

Over at Food and Wine, Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert break it down…like this:

Fancy Chefs Making Burgers

AB: I understand this trend. It’s dismaying, but I completely understand the impulse. What chef wants to die broke? And let’s face it: Burgers are good. But it is definitely a little dismaying, any time you see really great chefs cooking below their abilities by putting out a burger.

ER: A burger is part of the menu at our Westend Bistro in Washington, DC. Our burger was actually inspired by McDonald’s—except for the quality of the meat, of course. A McDonald’s bun is perfect. You put it in your hands; it’s not too big, it’s not too tall. The ratios, the slice of tomato—for some reason, it’s all perfect. The pickles are perfect. The shredded salad, it’s not too much, not too little. When we did our burger, for us, it was a very interesting research project. We looked at companies like McDonald’s and Burger King and thought, What is great in their approach? And how can we make it great with the meat that we have, which is, obviously, of different quality?

[Photo Via:  Gourmet]

Nice review in the Times today of “Central Park: An Anthology,” a collection of essays about our cherished park (edited by Andrew Blauner).

It’s a book worth having.

Here’s Buzz Bissinger’s piece, reprinted over at Slate.

[Photo Credit: Nataliemarie]

A new DVD set of “The Gold Rush” has just been released. It includes a 1942 sound cut of the movie. Cool.

[Photo Credit: Sid Avery]