Monthly Archives: April 2014

I found this cool documentary linked over at Laughing Squid.

Worth a look.

[Image Via: NPR]

Dig this.

[Image via: The Cotton Ball Conspiracy]

AERIAL NYC – RANDY SCOTT SLAVIN – DJI PHANTOM from director. randy scott slavin on Vimeo.

Up in the sky.

[Featured Image via: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg]

The Wife and I spent the last week in New Mexico visiting family so we didn’t watch any Yankee baseball. I was able to post some here at the Banter, and we checked the score on our phones and on my computer, read Jon’s recaps here at the Banter, but didn’t see a single pitch.

The trip back can sometimes be a drag. No direct flight, you either stop over in Chicago or Dallas. Yesterday it was Dallas and well, the entire trip went smoothly. Right down to the cab ride home. We sailed passed the Stadium while the game was in the 5th inning and so we were able to watch the last part of it at home.

Got a little tricky for the Yankee bullpen after another solid performance from Michael Pineda but they didn’t allow a run as the Yanks completed a rare day-night shutout and won the second game, 2-0. Pat Jordan recently wrote a story for SB Nation where he said that with the game on the line he wanted Derek Jeter at shortstop. At least Jeter in his prime. And last night, with they tying run on second, the ball was hit to Jeter. He made the play and the game was over.

Speaking of Jeter, we’ve often talked about how much fun he has on the field, and how underreported that is. That was the case last night–when he looked like a high school kid–when the Cubs’ pitching coach was kicked out of the game.

Dig the GIF via Deadspin’s Sean Newell.

I should credit my friend Scott for the headline as he mentioned it as a possible name for his fantasy squad, but he ultimately rejected the handle because he’s a godforsaken Red Sox fan and couldn’t stand the idea of giving such an honor to a Yankee. So screw him.

When the Yankees signed Tanaka, we all breathed a huge sigh of relief as they had put the team before the tax and filled the hole in the rotation with the best available pitcher. But we didn’t exhale completely because we really didn’t know what we were getting. After today’s 3-0 win, my exhale is complete.

Sure he did it against a Cubs team that would make Ernie Banks say, “Let’s play none.” But we’re talking two lousy bunt hits away from a no-hitter. This is straight filth. What I have thoroughly enjoyed about his pitching is that his late innings are just as damn unhittable as his early ones. Moreso thus far.

Carlos Beltran and Jacoby Ellsbury continue to hit, though there wasn’t a lot in the pot for the offense today. No matter. Tanaka was so strong, Girardi traded a free base for an out just to be damn sure he plated the third run.

When Ellsbury nicked Baker’s glove and the ball dribbled into play in the fifth, he could have advanced to first, setting up first and third for the clean up hitter with one out. Instead, he took the out and the extra run, which must have seemed like ten more to the Cubs.

It’s so damn cold, Girardi would be well within his rights to rest some regulars tonight and the probabilty of a sweep isn’t going to be as high as I’d like. Still, I can’t see these Cubs running around the bases unless it’s a mascot race or something.   

Use this as your game thread for the nightcap. I will try to get you lineups when I see them.

There’s ice on the windshield this morning. God damned ice on the windshield. Girardi’s got a bunch of old guys with tweaks and playing in 35 degree weather ain’t what the doctor ordered. Here’s the lineup, Jeter’s not in it.

Brett Gardner LF
Carlos Beltran RF
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Alfonso Soriano DH
Brian McCann C
Yangervis Solarte 2B
Kelly Johnson 1B
Dean Anna SS
Scott Sizemore 3B

Today’s the day all of Tanaka’s cold-weather preparation pays off.

I’m not convinced the kid will stay healthy but if he does the future is bright for Michael Pineda.

Dig this from Tony Blengino over at Fangraphs. 

[Photo Credit: Andrew Theodorakis/N.Y. Daily News]

Yankee notes. Chad Jennings has the latest.

Man, oh, man, I feel lousy for Frankie C. 

[Photo Credit: David McNew/Getty Images]

Never quit.

Yes. 

This is worth reading. Ben Smith on Tom Lehrer:

If you get hooked on Tom Lehrer as a kid, it’s not because you think he might be a sweet old man. It’s because beneath the cheerful tunes is an edge, a sheer nastiness and even sadism, that kids have always loved. It’s the same edge that makes Roald Dahl so appealing to children and disturbing to their parents.

Lehrer saw this Peter Pan in himself, joking about it before one of his last performances, in Copenhagen in 1967. “All of these songs were part of a huge scientific project to which I have devoted my entire life,” Lehrer said. “Namely, the attempt to prolong adolescence beyond all previous limits.”

But when Lehrer is the nostalgic music of your childhood, you want to like him. He always replies politely to his fans, no less when they are journalists seeking to profile him. Earlier this year, he put up with a brief telephone conversation with a BuzzFeed reporter, whom he referred to “Mr. Google” for further research. Told that search results concerning him are full of gaps and contradictions, he just laughed. “It doesn’t matter if the answer is correct — who cares?” he said. “And I lie a lot too.”

He then replied to our letter full of nostalgia and curiosity with a genial dismissal. “You seem to have devoted so much thought to the questions you ask that you should perhaps just write what you think is the truth, even if it’s just speculation, which — judging by today’s commentators on TV — is the easiest and therefore the most common form of punditry. I neither support nor encourage your efforts, but I shall not try to thwart them,” he wrote. And he was true to his word. He didn’t respond to a second letter, nor to a fact-checking email sent to his AOL email address; his email handle includes a phrase along the line of “living legend.” When we stopped by his Sparks Street house on a cold night in February, a light was on and a Prius was in the driveway, but nobody answered the door and Lehrer wrote that he had left town for California.

The Cubbies brought along their perpetual gloom when they arrived in the Bronx. The Yanks are rained out tonight and the two teams will have separate tilts tomorrow at 1 and 7 pm.   

Rumor has it that the Cubs have all sorts of talent close to the Majors and might be good soon. But not by tomorrow, so let’s see a sweep please.

Five common word usage mistakes from the late David Foster Wallace. 

[Image Via: Fifty Foot Shadows]

Heads or Tails by Chris Ware.

“Well, I don’t have to tell you that we weren’t trying to write a screenplay that was perfectly-structured. We were just trying to make it make sense. I remember, even without Roman, the first structural question, which may seem absurd now after the fact, was the question of which revelation comes first, the incest or the water scandal? And of course, it was the water scandal. When I realized that, I realized how foolish it was even to have asked the question. But the water scandal was the plot, essentially, and the subplot was the incest. That was the underbelly, and the two were intimately connected, literally and metaphorically: raping the future and raping the land. So it was a really good plot/subplot with a really strong connection. In the first draft, as I recall, it was pretty much a single point-of-view. And in the second draft I tried changing that for purposes of clarification and I think in the end, that’s what made the second draft weaker than the first draft. It’s one of the very, very few detective movies, including ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ which has a singular point-of-view.”–Robert Towne.

Cinephilia and Beyond on Chinatown.

“Rhododendrons” by Piet Mondrian (1910)

Doug Glanville on Robbie’s fresh start in Seattle:

His number one protégé is Justin Smoak — a young player who gives you the sense that he has played forever, but just short of his potential. Critics wonder when he will put it all together. He has power, he switch-hits, he can field, he has a good sense of the strike zone. Cano won him over from the start, and he made it clear to Smoak that he would be demanding more from him.

Cano broke out the Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long’s book on pregame ritual. He shares the same drills with his new teammates, making everyone accountable and providing access to tips that helped him year in and year out. And he is continuing his reputation of playing every single day, just as he did in New York, acknowledging that “ironmen” can teach lessons by showing it, not just talking it.

As Smoak described it, “I always knew what I needed to do, but with Cano here, I see it getting done.” Cano has actualized possibility. He personifies the hopes and goals of a team that has been counted out, and he’s made it real for players who have had the talent, but just needed to make it tangible.

In many ways, that may be another way to honor a legacy: to pass it on and prove that it can work in another environment. It is a way to celebrate it on a larger scale, to show that the lessons are applicable in other clubhouses, in new cultures. I would imagine Kevin Long or any hitting coach would be happy to know his drills help all players because they embody a universal truth. The ultimate compliment to a teacher.

[Photo Credit: Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images]

Over at the ever-fuggin’-fabulous Retronaut, dig this beautiful, gritty gallery of Frank Horvat’s photography.

Love. Seriously.

Mary Mary Mary Jane.

[Picture by Christophe Blain]