Monthly Archives: August 2013

What you need to know is that Ivan Nova pitched another good game and Rick Porcello wasn’t bad either. You should know that Alex Rodriguez was cheered and booed in his return to The Stadium, the boos becoming more piercing as the night wore on and he whiffed in three of his four at bats. You need to know that the Yankees had a two-run lead in the ninth and Austin Jackson on second with one out when Tori Hunter came to the plate.

Hunter’s one of those guys who has never had much luck against Mariano. So, what happens? He blisters a cutter back up-the-middle. It’s headed directly for Mo’s nuts, on one clean hop. But Rivera fields the ball, hops in the air, turns to second to freeze Jackson and then throws the ball to first for the second out.

Okay, now for one more for the money.

Miguel Cabrera, 0-4 in his career against Mo, popped the first pitch up in foul territory. Lyle Overbay edged his way near the camera well, reached over, extended his glove, the ball just out of his reach. If only he…damn.

Still, Mo got ahead 1-2 and then Cabrera fouled a pitch off his left knee. He called time, and hobbled around for a few minutes. Play resumed, he got back in the box, Rivera threw practically the same pitch and Cabrera fouled this one a few inches lower, same leg. He didn’t swing at the next pitch, a cutter outside but was ready when Mo made a mistake. Cause this next one may have been down  but it right over the plate. And Cabrera being the stud that he is, did not miss it. In fact, he murdalized it, and the fucking thing sailed well over the fence in center field. The game was tied.

Mo’s second straight blown save, some hurt feelings all around, and a bummer of the first magnitude. Yet it was hard not to be impressed. Cabrera is a beast, and hey, at least Mo didn’t get beaten by a chump.

Prince Fielder followed with a double and after an intentional walk Mo got out of it. His boys didn’t do dick in the bottom of the inning and the Tigers left two men stranded on base in the tenth.

Jayson Nix, who replaced Rodriguez in the ninth cause he’s a better glove, walked to start the bottom of the inning against Al Alburquerque. Curtis Granderson, not bunting, singled to right, Nix to second.

So I sat on my couch and asked Overbay not to hit into a double play (using my late night, inside voice, my pleading voice). He got ahead 2-1, swung through a tight, darting slider, fouled another pitch off, and then swung through a splitter, to strike out. The pitch was in the dirt, so low that got passed the catcher allowing the runners to advance. Nunez was walked intentionally for…Chris Stewart.

And I wondered if maybe a squeeze wasn’t in order. Stewart hit into a double player earlier in the game, you know.

Here’s out it went: Fastball, inside, ball one. Fastball at the knees for a strike, 1-1.Slider, inside, swung on and missed, 1-2. Outfield shallow, infield tight. Fastball, outside corner and he just stares at it for strike three.

Grimace, teeth grind, walk of shame.

Gritty Gritner took a strike and then slapped a little ground ball between third and short, an innocent little grounder, but one that found the hole and got into the outfield, which permitted the game-winning run to score.

Yanks 4, Tigers 3.

Exhale, y’all.

The Yanks limp home to the Bronx. Alex Rodriguez’s return is the only thing breathing life into a weekend series against a formidable Tigers team.

1.  Gardner CF

2.  Suzuki RF

3. Cano 2B

4. Soriano DH

5. Rodriguez 3B

6. Granderson LF

7. Overbay 1B

8. Nunez SS

9. Stewart C

It’s Nova…

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

Saveur gives apricot tarts with pistachios.

[Photo Credit: Penny De Los Santo]

Woody, in the current issue of Esquire:

What people who don’t write don’t understand is that they think you make up the line consciously — but you don’t. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it’s the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don’t think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I’ve said. And I laugh at it, because I’m hearing it for the first time myself.

I never see a frame of anything I’ve done after I’ve done it. I don’t even remember what’s in the films. And if I’m on the treadmill and I’m surfing the channels and suddenly Manhattan or some other picture comes on, I go right past it. If I saw Manhattan again, I would only see the worst. I would say: “Oh, God, this is so embarrassing. I could have done this. I should have done that.” So I spare myself.

In the shower, with the hot water coming down, you’ve left the real world behind, and very frequently things open up for you. It’s the change of venue, the unblocking the attempt to force the ideas that’s crippling you when you’re trying to write.

Leigh Montville on John Henry buying the Globe:

The news last week that The Boston Globe was sold was not a great surprise. The New York Times had been shopping the newspaper for a couple of years and various bidders had been mentioned in a number of stories. The news that John Henry, principal owner of the Red Sox, was the winning bidder also was not a great surprise. He has become part of the fabric of the city, a 63-year-old rich man about town, a close-lipped maker and shaker, lives in a mansion, is married (again) to a younger local woman. This was another addition to an interesting business portfolio.

The price that he paid for this addition was the great surprise.

“I can’t believe he bought our newspaper for $70 million,” I, a one-time sportswriter at The Globe, said to another one-time sportswriter at The Globe. “He gets all that real estate. He gets all of those trucks. He gets the rights to all of the stories, all of the pictures, the 22 Pulitzers, all of the past, plus the computer present and future of the pre-eminent voice in all of New England. The Times paid $1.1 billion for The Globe 20 years ago. He gets it for $70 million? The stories say that’s about four percent of whatThe Times paid.”

“He just gave Dustin Pedroia a $110 million contract extension for eight years,” the other one-time sportswriter said. “So he’s paying $50 million more for the starting Red Sox second baseman than he is for the pre-eminent voice in New England…”

This fact made the two of us feel very old.

Picture via Magnificent Ruin. 

I remember walking into The Sound Library, a boutique record shop in the east village in the late Nineties and hearing something special. It was a short cut off a white label Lord Finesse promo. Rare. Finesse chopped-up and looped a famous Marvin Gaye record on an SP-1200. Man, it was cool. I eventually got a copy of the beat and when I passed it along to my pal Alan, he dumped it in Pro Tools and cleaned it up.

Years later, I got married and made a mix for The Wife. Little Miss Sunshine was and is one of her favorite movies so Alan and I cut up dialogue by Alan Arkin and fit it over the Finesse-Marvin Gaye beat.

Enjoy.

And smile: it won’t mess up your hair.

Oh, man, real good stuff on Robert Towne over at Cinephilia and Beyond. And even more at Screenplay How To.

Here’s a place worth visiting: Stranger in Town. Like for George Jones and Elvis Costello; Leonard Cohen and Pete Seeger; Lee J Cobb in Death of Salesman; Rodney on Johnny; Dick Gregory and even Mort Sahl.

[Photo Via: Tokyomo]

Twenty-five years ago today…

Food 52 gets elegant. 

The last Jewish waiter.

“Value Restored” by Michael Cumming (2010) via Like a Field Mouse.

The Wife’s favorite comment this season is, “Who?!?!” Cause she can’t keep track of all these dudes. Over at SI.com, Joe Lemire on trading places nature of the 2013 Yankees:

Every so often, Yankees traveling secretary Ben Tuliebitz will pick up the P.R. department’s game notes, scan the list of all the players who have participated for the club this season and stumble across a name he hadn’t considered for a while. Cody Eppley? Ben Francisco? It’s easy to forget those players were 2013 Yankees, but both were on the Opening Day roster, an ancient document of little present-day use.

“This has been the craziest year for me,” said Tuliebitz, who is in his seventh season as traveling secretary. “I have a checklist of all the things I need to do, and it seems like every time I start crossing something off my list, I have to add something because we’re going to call this guy up and send this guy down.”

…It’s Cashman’s job to choose the players and Tuliebitz’s job to get them there, no matter the logistics. Veteran first baseman Travis Ishikawa, for instance, was home with his family in the Bay Area when the Yankees plucked him off the waiver wire, so Tuliebitz said he arranged for Ishikawa, the player’s wife and their two young children to fly cross-country. Ishikawa arrived a day earlier than his family in order to play on July 8. His family made the game, but they weren’t around much longer — Ishikawa played just the one game before being designated for assignment on July 11.

Adams arrived at the ballpark at first pitch on Monday night after his flight landed two hours before the 7:10 p.m. CDT start and rush hour traffic impeded his progress from there. That’s still better than his return to Triple A two weeks ago. The team was playing in Louisville, but all New York-area flights there were canceled because of storms, so Adams instead was booked on a flight to Cincinnati. The bad weather delayed that flight five hours, so he was bunkered down in Newark airport until 1 a.m., landing in Cincinnati at 3 and then taking a car service the last hour and a half to Louisville.

Grand Groove.

[Collage by Katrien De Blauwer via Kateopolis]

Man, is this ever good.

Things fall apart. It looked there for the taking. Alfonso Soriano hit a two-run home run in the first, the Yanks built up a 4-0 lead and it didn’t matter that they left a ton of men on base (and in scoring position, no less) because C.C. Sabathia was dealing. Until the 7th, that is, when the first two men reached and then Paul Konerko hit a double to score a run. But C.C. got out of the inning, thanks in part to an alert play by Robinson Cano, with the lead. And that lead held until two outs in the 9th. Mariano retired the first two batters then gave up a double and with two strikes to Adam Dunn, a single to left field which scored the tying run.

Blown save. Oy. Mo did pitch a scoreless 10th inning, though. And Robinson Cano looked to bail him out when he hit a solo home run in the top of the 12th but Adam Warren botched the save in the bottom of the inning–couple of base hits and a game-winning triple did him, and the Yankees, in.

Final Score: White Sox 6, Yankees 5.

A tough loss on a rough trip. That’s 1-5 against the sad-ass Padres and White Sox. Which makes the Yankees, what? Sad asses. Plenty of bruised feelings to go around.

[Photo Credit: David Banks/USA Today]

It’s C.C.

Brett Gardner CF
Alfonso Soriano LF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells DH
Curtis Granderson RF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Lyle Overbay 1B
Austin Romine C

Never mind the speeches:

Let’s Go Big Fella!

[Image Via: Belles d’amour]

Rockadoolie.

[Photo Credit: Sanford Roth via MPD]

Howard Bryant on the changing nature of the MLBPA:

After the release of the Mitchell Report in December 2007, players were still resistant to the reality that they themselves were the biggest victims of their members’ transgressions. But now, the steroid discussion no longer seems to be a philosophical conversation but a personal one. Players now consider PEDs a violation of their personal baseball code, no different from standing in the batter’s box too long after a home run or repeating what was said in the clubhouse. In the past, they had framed the drug conversation as an imposition of public relations pressure placed by grandstanding outsiders — the public, the media, the front office or Congress.

Now, players are demanding an accountability from one another that didn’t exist in previous years. For the first time, players no longer view steroids as a victimless crime. Users aren’t cheating the public as much as they are other players.

“So, let me get this straight,” an American League player said. “Guy uses steroids. He then puts up better numbers than I do. He goes to free agency and gets the years and the money, takes a job I don’t get and now I have to scramble during the winter to find another slot. Then, he gets busted for steroids and we use my union dues for his lawyers, his defense and his appeal? And that makes sense to you? That bulls— is fair?”

[Photo Credit: AP]