Monthly Archives: September 2012

When Rafael Soriano got the final out of today’s ball game he untucked his jersey. This is his signature move but he didn’t do it with any vigor after his 3-1 pitch was grounded to Robinson Cano to end the game. He untucked it as if he’d just dragged his ass home at six in the morning–six in the morning–after a long night out.

It was a long, uneasy inning for him as the Jays loaded the bases and brought the tying run to the plate with nobody out. Two ground balls later, it was over and the Yanks completed a much-needed come-from-behind win to keep pace with the Orioles who beat the Red Sox again.

Things didn’t look good a few hours earlier. Phil Hughes and his peach-fuzz mustachio got chased from the game in the fifth, the score Jays 5, Yanks 1. The mood for Yankee fans was as glum as it’s been all year, fury giving way to resignation. Though since it’s football Sunday, prime time for the blood to be angried-up, I’m sure many fans were plenty pissed off too.

How were the run-challenged Yankees going to win this one? Well, they got a run in the sixth and then Eduardo Nunez hit a line drive single to start the seventh. He went to third when Derek Jeter dunked a ground rule double to right and scored on a sac fly by Ichiro. Alex Rodriguez had a good pass at a fastball and then waved at a slider and was in the hole. He worked the count full though and didn’t whiff. He walked.

A pitching change brought in a lefty and Robbie Cano also fell behind. But he wouldn’t go down and finally got a pitch to drive. He hit a liner to right and two runs scored. 5-4. Nick Swisher was next and a passed ball brought home Rodriguez to tie the game. Then Swisher hit one on the screws. Yunel Escobar, playing in, made a diving catch and Cano drifted too far off third and was doubled off to end the inning.

In the eighth, Curtis Granderson walked and Raul Ibanez singled. They were sacrificed over by Russell Martin and Granderson scored on a sac fly by Nunez. Then our man Jeter got busted inside with a fastball but muscled it passed the second baseman to an RBI hit. An inning later, Granderson doubled home a pair, and the four run lead was useful when Soriano looked far from stellar in the bottom of the ninth.

So, to recap. Most of the afternoon was spent being angry. Then hopeful, then happy, then tense again, and finally: relieved.

This was one enormous win. Yanks 9, Jays 6. Good for the boys.

“Good for the Wife!” says The Wife.

A split in Toronto was lousy but all considering it could have been worse. Three games left. It’s all tied up.

Yanks-Sox; O’s-Rays. Made to Order.

[Photo Credit: Libbre]

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

Chad Jennings reports that Jayson Nix is out but Mark Teixeira is due back tomorrow. As for today, it’s Phil Hughes and his biggest start of the season.

Never mind yesterday, pay no attention to tomorrow: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via: Novemberwrists]

“Dear Doctor”–The Rolling Stones

[Photo Credit: youngandwhatever]

The Orioles beat the Red Sox tonight and Baltimore is now tied with the Yankees for first place with four games left in the regular season.

Maybe the Yankees won’t play like chokers tomorrow. Maybe they will still win the division, after all. It won’t be easy–they’ve been killing us softly for six weeks now–but they are our boys and we’ll be rooting for them, agita or not.

[Photo Credit: Pug King]

I had a root canal this afternoon and can safely say it was a more pleasant experience than today’s Yankee game. The Bombers scored twice in the first and then left 632 men on base, got guys picked off and thrown out trying to steal on the way to a 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays that is their worst defeat of the season. And there have been plenty of tough ones. But in a game they needed to have their season-long problem of hitting with runners in scoring position bit them the in the ass, knuts, and face. Did I mention it bit them in the balls? Right. How do you think it felt for us watching at home?

You got any silver linings, feel free to chime in.

They’ll be tied for first after the Orioles spank the Red Sox tonight. And you can take that to the bank.

It’s Andy and another haveta, gotta win.

Derek Jeter DH
Ichiro Suzuki LF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Andruw Jones RF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Chris Stewart C

Never mind nuthin’: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[The Real Me-A Mod]

“I Forgot To Be Your Lover” William Bell

[Photo Credit: Garden of Weeds]

The Yanks scored a couple of two out runs in the first inning on a double by Nick Swisher. Might have been more but Curtis Granderson’s line drive was snagged by the pitcher Chad Jenkins. Actually, the ball hit his mitt and the glove popped straight up in the air. He caught the mitt with the ball stuck in the webbing, good for one of those I’ve-never-seen-that-before moments.

Down in Baltimore the Red Sox scored a run in the first inning, too. In the second, the Yankees loaded the bases and managed just a single run. Meanwhile, the Orioles scored six in the bottom of the first.

The Blue Jays were sloppy, got a runner nailed off second base in the first inning, another picked off third an inning later. They hung around and closed the score to 3-1. In the sixth, the Yanks put the first two men on base then Curtis Granderson and Raul Ibanez whiffed. Looked like another wasted opportunity. But Russell Martin worked the count full and then yanked a 3-2 slider over the wall in left for a homer.

Bombers didn’t look back. Martin, Cano, Swisher, and Ichiro each had a couple of hits. Eric Chavez hit a homer. Rafael Soriano came in to get the final out on the count of he hadn’t pitched in a week. Brett Gardner played left field in the ninth inning. Hiroki gets his 15th win of the season.

Final Score: Yanks 11, Jays 4.

O’s cruised too so nothing’s changed. Yanks still ahead by one.

[Photo Credit: food addict]

The Yankees have a one-game lead over the Orioles with six games left. Tonight gives Hiroki.

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

Never mind the closed-door meetings: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via: Zeroing]

David Kamp on The Birth of Bond.

Head on over to Garden and Gun for Pat Jordan’s latest–this one is on Mike Veeck:

“I know a little bit about anger,” Mike Veeck tells me. “I have a passing acquaintance with anger, too,” I reply. We discuss how anger can be an energy source. Some use it in destructive ways. Beat the wife, the kids, the dog; blow planes out of the sky. Some put it to better use. Throw the money changers out of the temple, demand justice for the weak, write a book, pitch a no-hitter, make people laugh. That last one is Mike Veeck’s cause. He’s demented about making people laugh.

Veeck (as in wreck, as the title of his father’s autobiography puts it) is sixty-one, getting round, with eyes like a ferret, a goatee, and dark hair I know he dyes. He has a limp. Once on the fourteenth fairway, a guy in a golf cart reached for a lighter for his cigar and ran over him. Veeck wrote a column about it for the Lowcountry Sun, a monthly paper distributed around Charleston, South Carolina. He published the guy’s name and phone number so people could berate him for breaking Veeck’s leg. Funny, angry, or both?

We’re sitting under a hot noonday sun in the exposed left-field bleachers of Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park, home of the minor-league Charleston RiverDogs, the single-A affiliate of the New York Yankees of which Veeck is part-owner and president. A groundskeeper manicures the field below. A few kids are tidying up the stadium for a 5:05 p.m. game against the Delmarva Shorebirds. Veeck and I are catching up. We’ve known each other fifteen years but don’t see each other much. He travels a lot, to conventions and conferences, where he makes people laugh.

[Photo Credit: Sully Sullivan]

Another piece from the Jock archives. Here’s Stan Isaacs on Mike Burke.

“Hey Mike Burke…”

Head on over the SB Nation’s Longform page and read Leander Schaerlaecken’s terrific story, “Out of Bounds”, which details the experience of professional soccer player David Testo, who came out of the closet last year and now finds himself unemployed by the game:

In Vancouver a funny thing happened in the locker room. As David got comfortable with himself his teammates became comfortable with him. The less he hid – without ever being openly gay – the more the bubble grew and the easier life got. They stopped asking and he stopped having to pretend.

Midway through 2007, he was traded to the Montreal Impact – still a USL club at the time – in a lop-sided deal for an old favorite of the Whitecaps’ coach. Suddenly finding himself living in a city with the largest gay neighborhood on the continent, he partied like never before and played well when he wasn’t injured. After a few years, his sexuality was an open secret. Everybody on the club knew. Nobody seemed to mind. For the first time, he became close to his teammates. He could talk to them about his boyfriend and find a sympathetic ear. The locker room, to his surprise, became an easier place to be. Rather than pop, the bubbles joined to form a bigger one.

Opponents knew, too, and at first called him every gay slur imaginable. David was furious, but eventually started deflecting their comments, comfortable as he finally was with himself. He’d realized he could fight homophobia on the field by showing himself to be just as much of a man and soccer player as anyone else. He would help his antagonists off the ground after he tackled them. “I saw certain players change their whole perspective,” he says.

This one is a keeper.

[Photo Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images]

Photograph by Bama Wester.

Put the needle to the groove.

[Photo Credit: 1950s Unlimited]

Happiness is…this.

[Photo Via: Nothing Less]

On a rainy day like today, best move is to stick close to the buildings and stay away from the outer part of the sidewalk. You can find some shelter close to the building, although you have to be mindful of the water pouring off of the awnings. Also, the further away from the street, the safer you are from a car splashing you.

Especially when you don’t wear your galoshes, right?

[Photo Credit: Chrisozer via This Isn’t Happiness]

Swell oral history on “Cheers” by Brian Raftery over at GQ. Anyone who ever loved that show, well, you’re in for a treat.

Photo: AP

The Yankees took a break from the chaotic American League playoff race with a leisurely 5-0 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. In a game played with as much intensity and crowd interest as you’d expect in the early Spring, the Yankees frittered away an opportunity to take a two game lead in the A.L. East.

Considering the lopsided pitching matchup, the Yankees seemed to be playing from behind before the first pitch. Unfortunately, Ivan Nova did little to dispel that impression. The right hander allowed a two-run homer in the third and two-run double in fifth, which not only put his team behind 4-0, but also set a new franchise record for most extra bases hits allowed in a season. The 87 extra base hits allowed by Nova surpassed Andy Hawkins’ previous record of 86, which was set in 1989. Needless to say, that’s not the kind of anchor the Yankees were hoping Nova would become.

To be fair, it probably wouldn’t have mattered whom the Yankees pitched because Brandon Morrow continued his string of dominance over the Bronx Bombers in Toronto by throwing seven shutout innings. In five career starts against the Yankees at Rogers Centre, the hard throwing righty is now 3-0 with a 1.04 ERA in 34 2/3 innings. Maybe by throwing Nova to the wolf, there was a method to Girardi’s madness after all?

Although Morrow was efficient, he wasn’t overpowering. In fact, the Yankees had a base runner in every inning but the second, but could never break through against the right hander. For the most part, Morrow seemed to bear down with runners on base, but in the fourth inning, he needed a great running catch by left fielder Anthony Gose to escape unscathed.  Otherwise, it was lackluster performance by the Yankee bats, who were shutout for the sixth time this season.

With a one game lead and six remaining, the conclusion to this season promises to be memorable. Unfortunately, a very forgettable game got in the way. Then again, if the Yankees lose the division by that game, it could be the one that haunts them.

It’s Ivan Nova vs. a tough customer in Brandon Morrow. I always get bad vibes when the Yanks play in Toronto and with so much riding on this series that hasn’t changed. Sure as hell hope I’m wrong.

Derek Jeter SS
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Russell Martin C
Raul Ibanez LF
Jayson Nix 3B

Another day, another important game. The Orioles are off. Yanks win, they go up by two games; lose, it’s down to one with six left.

Never mind the fretting: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: APOD]