Monthly Archives: June 2014

Warning: watch the highlights of this one at your own risk (and with soft gloves on). Bad Phelps showed up to get smacked by former Yankee farmhand Dioner Navarro (remember when he was the next coming of Jorge?) and then TheOldMan@short.com added a bedeviling touch when a ground ball was hit to him and… and… ah, forget it. The Captain can still do things mere mortals can’t, like make up for his apparent mental lapse by leading off the very next inning by pounding the ball over the wall in left.  I have no idea what his expression was like after that; if he was sheepish in his turn of luck, if he was professional and drew a straight line across his face (as would be his default) or if he punched the air like he was beating a heavy bag over his head and screaming F@#$ Yeah! kinda like Kirk Gibson did that one time. I was stuck listening to the game on the radio as Ma & Pa and their latest sportswriter guest were carving up the turkey about the Yankees’ problems as a whole.  And it’s not as though some of us (me-me-me!) weren’t having a heaping plate of WTF ourselves, but you Just. Get. Tired of hearing it over and over again, just as you get equally tired of watching the team fail with runners on or just play kick-the-can at the most inopportune moments.  Bad luck only goes so far with a team with this much “experience” on the field.

At any rate, the Jays did try to pull a fast one on the Yanks by giving the game back to them when Dustin McGowan, relieving the main attraction Mark (High Wire) Buehrle in the seventh, put on an act of his own with music (borrowing a suggestion from our own Weeping for Brunnhilde) and frills and spills and hey how about that, tie game.  Had me going for a minute, you naughty Jaybirds; you brought in a hard thrower who swooped in like a masked fire inspector and shut down the carnival.  Then to top it off, because of the ringing in our ears from how loud that out was in the top of the ninth when the Yanks once again failed to score when the opportunity was there, and the fact that Dellin The Dancing Bear was already gone with two innings of work to hold you Jaybirds off for a while, Joe had to bring in Adam Warren to try and keep it going in the ninth.  Only Jose Reyes said no, I’m getting on base and winning this sumbeach, smacking a double to right.  Then guess who comes up to do due diligence and move him nicely to third but mu(beeeeeeeep!) Melky Cabrera with a sacrifice bunt to third, which Good Ol’ Charlie Brown Solarte picks up and–

**** Due to the graphic and sensitive nature of this commentary, this post has been truncated for the betterment of society as a whole.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled morning letdown. ****

Yanks get another crack at the Jays tonight in Toronto. Nice match-up of soft-throwing control pitchers. If Phelps is off even a little bit they’ll cream him. Buehrle will get tagged if he’s off but he’s been good this year. And the Yankee hitters have not, as a whole, been productive, especially lately.

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alfonso Soriano RF
Carlos Beltran DH
Brian McCann C
Brian Roberts 2B
Yangervis Solarte 3B

Never mind the meat:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Steve Perille via MPD]

Alexandra gives a Lemon-Ricotta Cheesecake. I know I’ve posted this before but what the hell, I’m hungry.

More from the Queen…

[Photo Credit: Oli Sansom via MPD]

My father’s best friend Marty died yesterday. I found out this morning from his daughter who sent me a message on Facebook.

I thought of Marty on my way to work, and the unabiding loyalty he shard with Dad for more than 50 years.

A melancholy song by Guy Clark played on my iPhone:

At a 145th Street, a young man walked onto the train holding a cardboard box. I removed one earbud after he started to talk. His voice was bright and clear. I thought he was selling candy. Instead, he said that he was Pete Seeger’s grandson. He moved through the car and handed out pamphlets for something called Seegerfest. I took a pamphlet and told him that I admired his grandfather. He said that both of his grandparents died in the past year and that he missed them very much.

At the next stop he left the car and went to the next one. His grandparents would be proud.

Port Jervis Solarte was 0-for-hislast-28 when he stepped to the plate in the 9th inning last night in Toronto. He’d hit the ball hard at times over the weekend but had nothing to show for it. On Sunday, there was a pained look on his face after every out. But last night he swung at the first pitch and hit a line drive to center field to drive in a run.

It was a nice moment. Reason I mention it is that it was practically the only nice moment in an 8-3 beat down.

[Photo Credit: TOM SZCZERBOWSKI/USA TODAY]

After a weak showing by the offense this weekend I’ve got a bad feeling about this series in Toronto.

Sure do hope I’m wrong.

Brett Gardner LF
Carlos Beltran DH
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Brian McCann C
Kelly Johnson 3B
Brian Roberts 2B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Brendan Ryan SS

Never mind the blue boids;

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Edward Hopper]

John Huston: Master.

Save me Monday.

[Photo Credit: Damien Di Toro]

Drawing by Giorgio Morandi.

Pork Belly Carnitas? Absolutely.

From Clancy Martin’s review of Geoff Dyer’s new book:

This is what I love about Geoff Dyer’s work: His feet are never on the ground. But where his younger narrators fight the feeling that they don’t belong, the grown-up Dyer embraces it. He makes his home in the unstable elements of air and water. When at the end of “Another Great Day at Sea” he finds himself in the desert of Bahrain, he tries to find some romance in it — but even the beer he’s been desperately desiring, all the time he was on board, is dull: “I looked at it, all golden and cold and sweating before I tasted it. It tasted like . . . well, like beer. It was O.K. It wasn’t the beer of my dreams, the ‘Ice Cold in Alex’beer I’d been longing for.” And his thoughts turn to the sailors on the aircraft carrier he’s just left. When he arrived he couldn’t bear the thought of the two weeks to come; by the time he departed he “had become thoroughly habituated to life on the boat,” recognizing that his time on board was simply more stimulating, more interesting than the life to which he was returning. Being “at sea” — being awkward, off-balance, confused, trying once more to fit in when you know you can never fit in — is where Geoff Dyer is most . . . well, if not most comfortable, most himself, most alive.

For more on Dyer, check out his interview with the Paris Review. 

[Photo Via: R2-D2]

This picture of Goose Gossage–taken at an Old Timer’s Day a few years back–is about the nicest thing I can say about yesterday at the Stadium. Goose was honored with a plaque in Monument Park, the old guys–and some not-so old guys–trotted around for awhile and then the Yanks got smoked by the Orioles to the tune of 8-0. Masahiro Tanaka wasn’t great or terrible, allowing 3 runs over 7 innings. The offense was terrible, just as it’s been all weekend with the exception of the 9th inning on Friday night.

Today gives the old guys.

Enjoy, y’all and:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

That’s what a trio of meatballs served up by Vial Nuno looked like to Nellie Cruz, J.J. Hardy, and former Yankee, Steve Pearce. Three batting practice pitches, 3 home runs, more than enough to down the Yanks on a beautiful day in New York.

Final Score: O’s 6, Yanks 1.

Ah, fuck it Dude, let’s go eat.

[Photo Credit: Santiago Sepulveda via MPD]

Nuno gets another crack at it this afternoon. He faces a tough Baltimore line up.

Here’s our guys:

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Carlos Beltran DH
Kelly Johnson 3B
Brian Roberts 2B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Francisco Cervelli C

It’s about as lovely as you can ever expect the weather to be in the summer–sunny but cool, low humidity. Perfect day to be at the Stadium.

This weekend gives Yankee Schmaltz with a Schmear, plaques, Old Timer’s and standing ovations.

Enjoy the festivities and:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Portuguese Girl Cooks]

My mom was in town this week and one night we got to talking about taking the Amtrak train from New York to Vermont. Emily recounted a story about me getting stuck on the D.C. to Montreal line one winter during a snowstorm. What normally would have been a 5 hour trip turned into an 11 hour ordeal. I was alone on that trip but don’t remember too much about it other than it happened. Emily filled me in on the details and I was like, “Oh, yeah…”

Point is, I’ve got a decent ability to forget a certain kind of tedious misfortune. There was no good story to be culled from that trip, it was just something to survive. So holding on to the details seems like a form of whining. Sure, it sucked at the time, but then it was over, and that was that.

Last night’s game was like that trip–a trying regular season game that will fade from our memory in a few weeks and months. Watching it live, however, was no fun. The Yankees had a 1-0 lead with the bases loaded in the second inning, one man out. When Brett Gardner got ahead of Ubaldo Jimenez, 2-0, it looked as if the Yanks were going to break the game open. But he hit a fly ball to shallow center for the second out and Adam Jones completed the double play by throwing out Carlos Beltran at home.

The Yanks loaded the bases two more times yet didn’t score. Meanwhile, Hiroki Kuroda labored through the first five innings but didn’t allow a hit. Some of his pitches were tight, and he also got away with some mistakes–mostly spinning sliders up in the strike zone. The O’s broke the no-hitter in the 6th. Two well-struck balls and a pair of bloop hits gave them a 2-1 lead. They scored an insurance run in the top of the 9th and that looked to be that.

Gardner led off the bottom of the 9th with a base hit but then Zach Britton, a left hander who throws in the mid-90s, struck out Derek Jeter looking and got Jacoby Ellsbury to fly out to center field. Down to their last out, the Yanks staged a rally. First, Mark Teixeira, batting from the right side, drew a walk, and Brian McCann followed by muscling a fastball into center for a single. It was one of those tough at bats we used to see from Paul O’Neill, or, later on, from Bobby Abreu. Gardner scored and now the Yanks were down, 3-2.

Beltran was next. He got ahead 2-1 and took a fastball up in the zone for ball 3. The take, and call, were significant, not just because it put Beltran in a good count, but because the home plate umpire, Eric Cooper, had been calling the high strike all night. Which is not to say the 2-1 pitch was a strike, it was high, but it was close.

Britton decided to double down and Beltran was waiting. His next pitch might have been called a strike but it too was probably out of the zone. Didn’t matter. Beltran hit it well over the left centerfield wall for a game-ending 3-run home run.

A game that could have been a blowout for the Yanks, turned into a night of frustration, then ended memorably.

Maybe it won’t fade away so quickly after all.

Final Score: Yanks 5, O’s 3.

It’s our man Hiroki as the Yanks and O’s begin a weekend series in the BX.

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Brian McCann C
Carlos Beltran DH
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Brian Roberts 2B
Yangervis Solarte 3B

Never mind the distractions:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Bags]

I know you got soul.

[Photo Via: Kultus]

Chuck.