“Enter Sandman,” drawn special for Bronx Banter by Ben DeRosa. Bow Down.

Hello, I Must Be Going

By John Schulian

My life began to change for the better as soon as I caught a glimpse of Hollywood in my future. I believe that’s known as the magic of show business. Of course, the Philadelphia 76ers, being mostly very tall, as professional basketball teams inevitably are, did what they could to obscure my view by playing a game they appeared to be as uninterested in as I was. But we all had to be someplace that January night in 1985, so there we were. Afterward, out of desperation more than anything else, I tried, unsuccessfully, to coax a sentence or two out of Moses Malone. All Moses seemed to have in him was a few grunts, and a few grunts do not a column make.

It was snowing when I headed back to the Daily News wondering how I was going to tap dance my way through this one. Sometime between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m., I remembered the “Red on Roundball” feature that Red Auerbach used to do on the NBA’s TV games. One of his guests had been Moses, and when Auerbach asked him what the secret of rebounding was, Moses said, “I take it to the rack.” Though hardly as memorable as “Give me liberty or give me death” or “I can’t get no satisfaction,” those words became my inspiration for an ode to Moses, who, after all, would end up in the hall of fame as a player, not an orator.

Afterward, while driving home through the snow, I realized that (1) I had turned 40 while I was in the process of immortalizing that big sphinx, and (2) I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing this. In truth, I didn’t want to spend another day doing it. But I needed the dough, and besides, in just a few hours, I had an appointment to see Steve Sabol at NFL Films about his search for someone to replace the late John Facenda as the voice that would stir the soul as the game’s behemoths shook the earth. For what it’s worth, I wrote a column nominating Tina Turner. She didn’t get the job.

Not that I cared. I was too busy thinking about Hollywood. At first it was an abstraction, the way it had been when I was a kid so fascinated by movies–-never TV, always movies–that I drew crude versions of them on sheets of paper. If you want to be generous, I guess you could call what I did storyboards. The movies I chose to give my special touch were primarily Westerns, and not great ones, either. We’re talking about the bottom half of a double bill. I didn’t start thinking bigger until I picked up “The Craft of Screenwriting,” a book of interviews with heavy hitters like William Goldman and Robert Towne that my wife had given me for Christmas in 1981. In her inscription, she had said she expected me to be writing in Hollywood in five years. She was my ex-wife by this point, of course, but I realized that if I hustled, I still had a chance to make her deadline.

I’d been in Philly for less than three months, and I already knew it wasn’t for me. The only time I liked the city was when I was looking down at it from a plane bound for Los Angeles. Mike Rathet, the Daily News sports editor, was incredibly generous about giving me assignments on the West Coast. I must have made eight or 10 trips there in 18 months. In each of the two holiday seasons that I worked for the News, I spent three weeks in L.A., ensconced in an out-of-the-way hotel where somebody interesting was always in the lobby–Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, James Earl Jones. I heard that Elvis Costello stayed there, too. Lots of rock-and-rollers did. God bless them, because the women they attracted made the rooftop swimming pool the eighth wonder of the world. But I was equally fond of the clerk who greeted me on one of my visits by saying, “Oh, Mr. Schulian, welcome back. Are you filming?” Only in my dreams.

The spoiler was always my return trip to Philadelphia and the low-grade depression that set in the moment my flight touched down. Once again, I would be trapped in a world where the good guys were becoming harder to find. They were still there, of course–the ones with the stories and the one-liners and the moments of insight and reflection–but there were more and more athletes, coaches and executives who were the writers’ enemy and reveled in it.

And so there came a night when John Thompson, the Georgetown basketball coach, decreed that there would be no speaking to his two star players after they had mumbled a couple of forgettable clichés in a post-game press conference. This was in Madison Square Garden after the Hoyas had just beaten Chris Mullin and St. John’s. I marched down the hallway to Georgetown’s locker room, determined to either talk to the kids or get thrown out trying. And then I hit the brakes. Screw it, I told myself. There would be no confrontation with Thompson or that horrible crone he had watching over the team. There would be no more groveling.

I’d spent enough time choking on the cynicism in the press box at wretched Veterans Stadium, too. There wasn’t any place in the country that was its equal for toxicity. While the artificial turf curled like discount-store shag and the paying customers howled for blood, some immensely talented knights of the keyboard entertained themselves by, among other things, mocking a ballplayer with a speech impediment.

What I was sickest of, however, was my own writing. I’d read years before that someone–-I think it was Russell Baker, the New York Times’ op-ed page wit–said you spend your first year as a columnist discovering your voice and the rest of your career trying to get over it. In Philadelphia, where I was new to readers, everything felt old to me -– the anecdotes, the turns of phrase, the choices of column subjects, the striving to establish myself. I’d done it all in Chicago, and the prospect of doing it again felt like a death sentence.

Faulkner in Hollywood

Writing in Hollywood promised to be as different as fiction is from fact. There was a chance it might even be my salvation. That may seem a curious choice of words when you consider the fate of writers far better than I who have washed up on the rocky shoals of the movie and TV business. F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote the most beautiful prose America has ever seen, was baffled by screenwriting no matter how hard he worked at it. William Faulkner, weary of executives who thought he was loafing if his typewriter wasn’t clickety-clacking, simply went home to Mississippi and soothed his soul with bourbon. But I couldn’t be scared off by Fitzgerald’s fate, nor could I drink as much as Faulkner. This was about me and no one else. I had to close my eyes and jump.

Click here for the full “From Ali to Xena” archives.

Don’t Stop…

Summer is over but it’s not too late for this story by Allison Glock on the wonders of sweet tea (from the terrific Garden and Gun Magazine):

When you drink sweet tea, your body starts to pump out insulin like water from a fire hose. Then, you have the caffeine. Which stimulates your adrenaline. Which confuses your metabolism. And keeps you from feeling sated, as one normally would after swallowing that much sweetness. Only a select few can eat seven pieces of cheesecake at a sitting, for example. But nearly everyone I know nods and says, “Just one more” when the lunch lady comes around toting the clear pitcher with the rubber band snapped around the handle. Say what you will, but sweet tea is the real hillbilly heroin.

To say Southerners drink sweet tea like water is both true and not. True because the beverage is served at every meal, and all times and venues in between—at church and at strip clubs, at preschool and in nursing homes. Not true because unlike water or wine or even Coca-Cola, sweet tea means something. It is a tell, a tradition. Sweet tea isn’t a drink, really. It’s culture in a glass. Like Guinness in Ireland. Or ouzo in Greece.

(When I was stuck in New York for a stint, a bout of homesickness led me to get the words sweet tea tattooed on my left arm. I could think of nothing else that so perfectly encapsulated the South of my pining. Now that I have moved home, it serves less as a touchstone and more as a drink order.)

Theories abound: Southerners prefer sweet tea because back in the day we used sugar as a preservative and our palates grew to crave the taste. Southerners like sweet tea because it is served ice cold and it is hot as biscuits down here. Southerners like sweet tea because we are largely descended from Celts and Brits, making a yearning for tea a genetic imperative. Southerners like sweet tea because Southerners are poor and tea is cheap. (Cheaper than beer anyway.) Southerners like sweet tea because it is nonalcoholic but it still gives you a hearty, if somewhat diabolical, buzz.

[Photo Credit: WelchOK.com]

Freddy Garcia got lit up but good this afternoon. He gave up seven runs, didn’t make it out of the third, and yet the Yanks were still leading when he went to the showers. That’s cause they put up six runs in the second inning, highlighted by a grand slam from Robinson Cano. It came off the second Orioles pitcher of the day, Chris Jakubauskas, who threw Cano nothing but fastballs. I couldn’t figure it at the time and sure enough, Cano ripped the seventh pitch he saw into the right field bleachers.

The Orioles kept at it–they scored a run off our old pal, Scott Proctor (and yes, the comments section here was alive with mordant humor)–but the Yanks stayed in front thanks to two home runs by Jesus Montero, a solo homer and a two-run shot, both to right field. Couple of curtain calls, the full Monty.

Sometimes they don’t come easily and even Mariano Rivera struggled.

He allowed a run in the ninth and there were runners on second and third when he struck out J.J. Hardy to end the game.

Hey, perfection is overrated. Bottom line, Mo got the save, Yanks got the win.

Exhale, lay back, smile.

Final Score: Yanks 11, O’s 10.

Freddy G. Do it.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Andruw Jones RF
Russell Martin C
Jesus Montero DH
Brett Gardner LF

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

C.C. Sabathia, another fine performance. He left the game with one out in the eighth and the best player in the American League did this to Rafael Soriano. (Never mind that he’s 0-18 against Sabathia.)

But then the Yanks scored a mess-o-runs in the bottom of the inning and sailed to a 9-3 win. Mariano Rivera was warming up in the Yankee bullpen when Nick Swisher hit a two-run home run to make it 7-3. Before the ball landed, Rivera stopped throwing, and headed back into the bullpen clubhouse. Not a wasted movement with that man.

Derek Jeter hit a three-run homer and had 5 RBI in all. Alex Rodriguez added a solo shot–he got jammed and was frustrated with the swing but the ball carried over the right field fence all the same–and Jesus Montero had a couple of hits.

The Red Sox lost. Sabathia has win #19. We are happy.

Meanwhile, after the game, Joe Girardi announced that the Yanks are sticking with a six-man rotation for now.

[Photo Credit: Icekingg]

Hotter, steamier today. Guess summer doesn’t want to end just yet.

And that’s okay with us, because we don’t want this winning streak to end, either.

Fire up the grill and:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

I went to the game today with the wife. Her favorite Yankee is Francisco Cervelli though she didn’t care for his hand-clapping schtick the other night in Boston. When he hit a long line drive in the second inning, I knew off the bat it was headed over the fence. I jumped up and started pushing and grabbing at her. She knew something good was happening though she wished I’d stop shoving her.

Cervelli hit the ball hard four times today and had two hits to show for it. Bartolo Colon was decent, struck out seven, though he wasn’t his usual efficient self. Ricky Romero, on the other hand, kept the Yankees off-balance, but he left the game on a sour note, hitting Curtis Granderson and walking Alex Rodriguez with two men out in the seventh. His day was over but both runs came round to score on a double into the right field gap by Robinson Cano. That put the Yanks ahead for good. Nick Swisher followed with an RBI single, and David Robertson pitched the final two innings for the save. Oh, and Jesus Montero singled passed the shortstop, good for his first big league hit.

There were some Jays fans sitting about ten rows behind us. Two couples, late forties. The two women clapped loudly anytime the Jays did something good. Don’t know why, but they irked the hell out of me and I glared at them a few times. Wouldn’t you know it, with one out and the tying run on second in the ninth inning, they left. Talk about a bunch of Herbs.

Yankee fan, starching-up this afternoon

It was a good day. My favorite moment came in the top of the eighth just as warm-ups ended. When Cervelli threw down to second, Cano fielded the throw and then made like the was shooting a jump shot, and plopped the ball a few feet to his right, over to Eduardo Nunez. Silly moment but I liked it.

Yanks 6, Jays 4.

Time to cool out.

The heat is back. It’s humid and hazy in the Bronx. Thunderstorms this afternoon.

Never mind the sunblock:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Bags]

First Place Yan-Kees

Clap, Clap, clapclapclap

First Place Yan-Kees

Clap, Clap, clapclapclap

FIRST PLACE YAN-KEES

CLAP, CLAP, clapclapclap

Ivan Nova, stud. Seven strong against a team that can hit. One friggin’ hit after the first inning. ROY? Let’s discuss.

Brett Gardner, come on back to the sunny side of par, baby. We’ve missed you. Two-run bomb to tie it. And the usual sick defense that never takes a day off.

Robinson Cano, DH, game-winning RBI, not bad for your day off. Dude is making the turn around second base on a heckuva career. HOF? Let’s discuss.

Mariano Rivera, the GOAT makes mince meat of MVPs.

Jose Bautista, siddown, sucka.

If that AB didn’t pump blood through your system, you’re following the wrong sport.

It’s September. The Yankees just took two of three up in Fenway. They’re in first place thanks to a brisk 3-2 victory over Toronto. And they control their own destiny from here on in. The weather in New York City was piped in straight from Heaven (or San Diego, depending on your definition of Heaven). The season can go anywhere from here, but man, summer’s ending in a perfect convergence of elements. Step back, drink deep, and smile. The Yankees are back on top. Even if it’s just for one night, it’s my kind of night.

Yanks back home to face the Jays.

Cliff’s got the preview.

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Robinson Cano DH
Nick Swisher 1B
Eric Chavez 3B
Andruw Jones RF
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez 2B

We root:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

The Yankees finally did the right thing: they called up their best hitting prospect, a future star named Jesus Montero.

Of course, it took the expansion of the roster from 25 to 40 men to create a space, but at least Montero is here now, with a chance to contribute over the final month of the season. Already one anonymous Yankee executive has predicted that by the time the postseason rolls around, Montero will be their best DH option. I tend to agree. Jorge Posada has very little left to offer, while Andruw Jones and Eric Chavez are best used sparingly, as bench players and not as regular DH’s.

Montero’s final numbers at Scranton/Wilkes Barre were not eye-popping (a .348 on-base percentage and a .467 slugging percentage), but they were much better over the second half of the season, so they reflect a hot hitter on an upward trend. It’s also easy to forget that Montero is still only 21. Not too many 21 year olds put up the kind of numbers that he has over the last two years at Scranton. He deserves a chance to contribute to the Yankees in the race for the top spot in the AL East.

The next question is this: how much will Montero play during the stretch run? Given the way that he has walloped left-handed pitching at Triple-A (to the tune of a 1.039 OPS), I’d expect that Joe Girardi will find a way to play him every time there is a southpaw on the mound, and at least some of the time against right-handers. If Montero hits well from the get-go, he could be the everyday DH long before the postseason becomes a reality. And I have a feeling that Montero will hit, not only because of his talent but because he feels like he has something to prove after laying in wait all summer at Scranton.

The promotion of Montero is a good move by the Yankees. In the end, the flexibility of the 40-man roster finally won out over sentimentality. And that is a good thing when you‘re trying to win a division…

***

Bernie Williams may have a tough time gaining induction to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but on Thursday, he won election to the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame, as part of its third ever induction class. A native of Puerto Rico, Williams was elected from the post-1959 ballot, a group that also includes Yankee bench coach Tony Pena and former Yankee third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez.

Hall of Fames such as these generally have lower induction standards than Cooperstown, but Williams is still joining good company in the Latino Hall, which is based in the Dominican Republic. Other Latino members include Roberto Alomar, Luis Aparicio, Rod Carew, Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Clemente, and Juan Marichal–all of whom are duly enshrined in Cooperstown. While Williams was not as good as most of those players (with the exception of Aparicio), I’d put him on a tier just below them. His hitting, his power, his patience, and his early-career play in center field made him an excellent player, an outstanding all-round performer, and a major contributor to numerous championship teams, and none of that should be treated as an afterthought.

Additionally, one other ex-Yankee was elected to the Latino Hall this week, and that was through the Veterans Committee. Yankee fans of a certain age (particularly over 50) will remember Luis Arroyo, the Puerto Rican left-hander who was one of the first standout Yankee relief aces, beginning a long trend that would continue with Lindy McDaniel in the late sixties, Sparky Lyle and Goose Gossage in the 1970s, Dave Righetti in the eighties, and the current Baron of the Bullpen, Mariano Rivera.

Like a lot of relievers, particularly southpaws, Arroyo was a late bloomer. He did not make his major league debut until he was 28. At five-feet, eight inches tall and 180 pounds, Arroyo could charitably be described as “stocky,” though some scouts might have preferred calling him chunky, or even pudgy. Clearly, he did not have the body of an Adonis. Nor did he throw particularly hard, which coupled with a streak of wildness, explained his early career struggles with the Cardinals, Pirates and Reds before he landed in the Bronx. The Yankees acquired him from Cincinnati in the midst of the 1960 season, in a straight-up cash deal.

Arroyo turned his career around that mid-summer, as he refined the screwball, which would become a devastating out-pitch for him in the late innings. He pitched well during the second half of 1960, before blossoming in ‘61, a season that saw him lead the league in games (65) and saves (29), while winning 15 games (all in relief) and posting a 2.19 ERA in 119 innings pitched. All in all, he had a hand in 44 of the Yankees’ 109 wins. The American League’s top reliever that summer, Arroyo did this all at the tender age of 34.

As with many great relievers, especially those who depend on the demands of the screwball, Arroyo’s brilliance did not last. He injured his arm during spring training in 1962, struggled after returning to action, and was never the same. Arroyo retired after making only six appearances in 1963.

Younger Yankee fans might not have heard of him, but Luis Arroyo, now 84 years of age, can enjoy a prestigious honor, one that he shares with Bernie Williams.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

David Lebovitz does pizza.

Found on-line: Joan Didion’s famous 1966 piece for the Saturday Evening Post, “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.”

This is a story about love and death in the golden land, and begins with the country. The San Bernardino Valley lies only an houreast of Los Angeles by way of the San Bernardino Freeway but is in certain ways an alien place: not the coastal the California of subtropical twilights and the soft westerlies off the Pacific but a harsher California, haunted by the Mohave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through the passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the Eucalypts windbreaks and works on the nerves. October is the bad month for the wind, the month when breathing is difficult and the hills blaze up spontaneously. There has been no rain since April. Every voice seems a scream. It is the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows.

The Mormons settled this ominous country, and then they abandoned it but by the time they left the first orange tree had been planted and for the next hundred years the San Bernardino Valley would draw a kind of people who imagined they might live among the talismanic fruit and prosper in die dry air, people who brought with them Mid-western ways of building and cooking and praying and who tried to graft those ways upon the land. The graft took incurious ways. This is the California where it is possible to live and die without ever eating an artichoke, without ever meeting a Catholic or a Jew. This is the California where it is easy to Dial-A-Devotion, but hard to buy a book. This is the country in which a belief in the literal interpretation of Genesis has slipped imperceptibly into a belief in the literal interpretation of Double Indemnity, the country of the teased hair and the Capris and the girls for whom all life’s promise comes down to a waltz-length white wedding dress and the birth of a Kimberly or a Sherry or a Debbi and a Tijuana divorce and return to hairdressers’ school. “We were just crazy kids” they say without regret, and look to the future. The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past. Here is where the hot wind blows and the old ways do not seem relevant, where the divorce rate is double the national average and where one person in every thirty-eight lives in a trailer.

Here is the last stop for all those who come from somewhere else, for all those who drifted away from the cold and the past and the old ways. Here is where they are trying to find a new life style, trying to find it in the only places they know to look: the movies and the newspapers. The case of Lucille Marie Maxwell Miller is a tabloid monument to that new life style.

Rest in Peace:

Kase 2.

The King of What? King of Style.

Tribute to Kase 2 by Dame

Over at the Paris Review, dig this interview with the late Budd Schulberg. Here he is talking about his debut novel, “What Makes Sammy Run?”:

INTERVIEWER: I didn’t grow up in Hollywood. I grew up in Indianapolis. But when you wrote this book, I said, “This guy’s got to be crazy. Putting himself in such terrible danger.” Didn’t you realize it was a dangerous thing to do?

SCHULBERG: Well, yes I did. Of course, with the warnings that my father gave me, I realized it was dangerous, but I couldn’t help it. I wrote it, and I wanted to write it. I was doing what Sidney had told me to do—to write what you feel, what you want, what you know. I had to do it. I should also add that before I saw Goldwyn, just after I got back, I went into Chasen’s Restaurant, which was the place, the in place, where all the big shots hung out. I knew so many of them, so many familiar faces, and they literally turned away from me. They turned away so they wouldn’t have to look at me and say hello.

I heard that at a meeting of the producers’ association presided over by Louis B. Mayer and the head of MGM, Mayer had looked down the long table at my father and said, “B.P., I blame you for this. Why didn’t you stop him? You should have stopped him!” My father said, “Well, as a matter of fact, Louie, I did write to him—” Mayer said, “Well, you know what I think we should do with him? I think we should deport him.” He really meant it. In Mayer’s mind he was the king of a country. Hollywood was like Liechtenstein or Luxembourg. The district attorney was on the studio payroll; you could and did commit murder, and it wouldn’t be in the paper. That was the kind of power that he wielded. My father—who was much more intelligent than Louie, but not nearly as street smart or studio smart, whatever—said, “Louie, he’s one of ours, for God’s sake. He may be the only novelist who came from Hollywood instead of to Hollywood!” Then he said, “Well, where do you think his St. Helena should be? Maybe Catalina Island?” My father reported that rather proudly because he was sort of proud of the joke. He was proud of the jokes that often got him in a lot of trouble.

That’s the kind of thing that he got on their shit list for. Because Mayer wasn’t kidding. Anyway, it was at that point I quit. I didn’t want to stay there any longer and, of course, if I had wanted to, I couldn’t, and that was it.

Schulberg led a fascinating life. Hollywood, boxing, novels. This is a solid interview, I only wish it were longer. This bit is good, though:

Scott Fitzgerald often wished that after Gatsby he had never done anything but just stuck to his last. Sometimes at night I feel that way. I have a little bit of that feeling, that I probably would be more respected as a novelist if I had just stayed on that track. Instead, I have this sort of fatal problem of versatility. Because I was raised in such a writing atmosphere, it got so I could write anything. I could write a movie; I could write a novel; I could write a play, I could even write lyrics, which I did for A Face in the Crowd. Always there were these different strings, so many different ones. I was sort of cursed with versatility. My problem is that I’m just not going to live long enough to do all the different things I want to do.

It’s hard to imagine a vital September clash between the Yanks and Sox being overshadowed by a rookie’s debut, but Jesus Montero’s arrival has done just that. You all know the 21-year-old. Here are some other 21-year-olds (and a couple of 22-year-old geezers) you know from Yankee history. Bobby Murcer. Roy White. Thurman Munson. Don Mattingly. Bernie Williams. Derek Jeter. Robinson Cano. They came through the Yankee system and made their debuts around this age or younger (Murcer was 19).  And not one of them hit as well, as young in the high minors as Jesus Montero. You have to go back to Mickey Mantle to find better teenage minor league stats for the Yankees. (Nick Johnson would have been on this list, but he blew out his wrist at 21 prior to his first AAA season.)

When the trade deadline passed and Jesus was still a Yankee, I was relieved. It meant that the Yankees lost their last chance to trade him before they had to bring him up. There was no way to avoid a September call-up given the Scranton season is all but over and the Yanks are in a divisional title race. The questions raised by not calling him up would have further reduced his trade value which has taken consistent hits from poor defensive scouting reports and an cranky attitude which has surfaced more than once.

In the best case scenario, he hits a ton in September, and plays a few harmless innings behind the plate without costing the Yankees their right to operate a Major League franchise, the Yanks will be in position to do whatever they want with him in the off-season (hopefully that will be grooming him to be their future star attraction). In the worst case scenario, he doesn’t hit and he doesn’t look like a catcher when he gets back there, in which case the Yanks will pretty much be in the exact same position they are right now: sitting on a great hitting prospect who other teams profess to perceive as a non-catcher. He can’t hurt his trade value by playing poorly down the stretch – but he can enhance it by catching without killing an umpire.

Evidence indicates that the Yankees have not come to this call-up entirely voluntarily. They definitely tried to trade Montero for Cliff Lee and it’s possible he was dangled for Roy Halladay, though those rumors flowed both ways. It seems that Cashman’s first choice was to trade Montero at his highest value before displaying his catching skills on the Major League level, and taking the risk that he’d prove he couldn’t hack it. It’s not a knock on a prospect to be traded for the very best pitchers in baseball, and either trade would have been a smart move by Cashman.

But when those top-tier pitchers did not become Yankees, Jesus Montero stayed put. And that’s got to mean the Yanks will try him as a catcher. If the Yankees truly thought Montero couldn’t catch, surely they would have traded him for Dan Haren or Ubaldo Jimenez? Better to get a legit number two starter, and CC opt-out insurance, than to wet-nurse a 21-year-old DH? Russell Martin’s competence gives them the perfect scenario to break Jesus in over the rest of 2011 and 2012 as a secondary catcher and primary DH.

So enjoy this month of Jesus Montero Yankee fans. It’s a wonderful reminder that their are plenty of rewards for rooting for a Major League Ballclub apart from the attention-hogging quests for World Championships.

Oh yeah, the game…

Jon Lester is one reason the Red Sox will likely to be favored to beat the Yankees in the Postseason. He’s Boston’s second excellent pitcher, and though the Yankees have handled him for the most part in 2011, he’s 8-2 lifetime against New York with an ERA close his career average. The Red Sox can throw up a Cy Young candidate where the Yanks are stuck with retreads, unreliable youngsters and a mega-bust. They’ll need someone to step up and keep stride with Lester.

Tonight, it was the mega-bust. The Yanks looked to A.J. Burnett for the rubber game of the series, and then figured to quickly look past him to his younger, more effective teammate in the bullpen. But Burnett was actually quite good. He made relatively short work of the exacting Boston lineup. A.J. Burnett, for all his faults, has an out pitch. And when he’s ahead on hitters, and when his curve ball is sharp – two caveats not to be taken for granted by any means – he can put hitters away with the bender.

He wasn’t ahead of Dustin Pedroia in the fourth however. Holding a fragile 1-0 lead, he was down 3-0 to Dusty with Adrian Gonzalez standing on second after a ground rule double. He threw a get-me-over fastball for strike one. Pedroia measured it and must have been happy to see the same thing coming on the next pitch. He jumped it like a bandit in a blind alley. The ball soared to center and fell just over the wall. Given what we have seen of the Red Sox this year, it was hardly an unforgivable sin, but nevertheless, it put Boston in their natural position, ahead of the Yankees.

Robinson Cano continued his career-long assault on Fenway Park with two ringing doubles. His second shot was a 415-foot screamer over Ellsbury’s head. He stood as the tying run on second base with Nick Swisher at the plate. There was one out. Nick Swisher bunted routinely to Lester for the second out. There can be no mistake, this was not a drag bunt or a good-idea, bad-execution surprise kind of play. He had already shown bunt on the first pitch of the at bat. This was a straight sacrifice.

It would have been an idiotic bunt if there had been no outs. What’s the point of playing for the tie in the fifth in Fenway Park against on of the elite lineups in the game? How did he know Boston was done scoring? Has he not been paying attention for the last 14 games? But there was already an out in the inning, which means that Swisher did not know how many outs there were (a horrible mistake) and thought the no out bunt was the smart move (a just slightly less horrible mistake). Trying to catch this Boston team is hard enough, with plays like that, they might as well run up the white flag and save us all the trouble.

The rest of the Yankees gave better efforts. They pushed Lester beyond the limit in only five innings. Jesus Montero batted with two outs and runners on three times and stranded all six, but at least he didn’t bunt. Robinson Cano was sublime. He had a chance with bases loaded and two outs in the sixth and came through with a bullet – but it was right at the third baseman.

Burnett pitched well into the sixth and battled with David Ortiz with one out and Pedroia on second. A.J. threw one of his best pitches of the night with a full count to Papi, but the ump couldn’t see it as a strike. Perhaps A.J. Burnett doesn’t deserve the call when a gorgeous curve ball hovers over the edge of the outside edge and drops right to the top of the knee, but he certainly needed it. Burnett left the game after five and third with 96 pitches. Be prepared to puke: Along with five decent innings by Freddy Garcia earlier in August and six credible innings by Bartolo Colon in May (both Yankee losses), it was arguably the best performance a Yankee starting pitcher has had against Boston this season.

Boone Logan was good on Tuesday, bad on Wednesday and good again on Thursday. In true Loogy fashion, he whiffed Carl Crawford and left for Cory Wade. Jed Lowrie served a soft sinking liner into center. Curtis Granderson came charging low and hard and dove head first with glove extended. It was at least two runs if it dropped and more if bounced past him. He snagged it and sprawled to the ground. It looked like his right wrist or shoulder might be smarting as he rolled over, but he was OK.

No matter who the Red Sox put on the hill, the Yankees continued to mount pressure. Jesus Montero reached base for the first time in his career when Al Aceves grazed his jersey with a brush-back pitch.

(Forgive a slight digression on the many, many times the Red Sox have beaned the Yankees. Most will say that it was not an intentional HBP, and by all logic of the scoreboard, it would seem it wasn’t. But it sure looked like Aceves was trying to move Montero off the plate to set him up for a slider kill pitch. If the pitcher cannot control his pitches precisely when they throw towards the hitter, a resulting HBP is on the pitcher same as if he wanted to hit him. Roger Clemens did not intend to hit Mike Piazza in the head, but he certainly wanted to bother Piazza up and in. He had complete disregard for Piazza’s safety and knocked him cold. This is what the Red Sox do as an organizational philosophy. They throw inside all the time and don’t worry if they hit anybody in any given situation. It’s why they lead the league in hit batsmen every year and why nearly every single time they drill somebody some witless announcer will prattle on about how it was clearly unintentional given the scoreboard, the time of day, and the unwritten blah blahs. It’s a crock. They’ve beaten the system with their bullshit and the Yankees have every right to treat every single beaning as an act of aggression.)

Terry Francona summoned Daniel Bard to get the last two outs of the seventh, which he did, but not exactly in the order Francona envisioned. Two nasty sliders had Martin in the hole but he battled back full. Girardi decided to put the runners – a pair of rookies – in motion on the full count and Russell made the strategy pay off with a blue dart off a high hard one into right center. The ball found the wall and Jesus Montero chugged all the way from first to score. The young man be many things in his career, but fast is not going to be one of them. Still what a thrill it must have been to work up that head of steam and drive it towards home plate with the go-ahead run. Eric Chavez pinch hit for Eduardo Nunez and singled in an insurance run.

The Yankees needed nine outs from there and had their top three relievers rested and ready. Rafael Soriano got through the seventh on the strength of two strikeouts. David Robertson walked Adrian Gonzalez to lead off the eighth, but appeared to erase the mistake when Dustin Pedroia sent a double play grounder to second.  Jeter’s turn was just a touch slow and though he was out at first, Pedroia got the hometown call on a very close play. Robertson rebounded to strike out Ortiz on filth. Should have been the end of the inning, but thanks to the missed call, Crawford had another chance. David Roberstson has a hammer though. And the hammer doesn’t care what inning it is, who’s on base, how many blown calls the umps make or how many foul balls Carl Crawford hits. The hammer just pounds. Crawford flew out to left.

That left three outs and Mariano Rivera. Most days he has it. Some days he doesn’t. Some days he has to face Marco Scutaro. And on some of those days, he even gets beat and we weep until dawn. This day he had to work for it. Three different left handed batters looked at possible third strikes close to the outer edge and the umpire sent two of them to first base. Marco Scutaro got his obligatory cheap hit. But Mariano saved his best pitches for Adrian Gonzalez and after wearing him out on cutters in, he finally got a call on the outside corner to end it and delivered one of the sweetest victories of the year 4-2. A.J. Burnett was reborn, even if it was just for a night. Jesus Montero arrived. But even with Jesus on the team, it’s Mariano who saves.

Walking down the street today I saw a big woman having an intense conversation. She didn’t look pleased.  But we made eye contact as I passed by and without thinking, I smiled. I was by her when she cut off what she was saying.

“Hi, Love,” she said to me.

“Morning,” I said.

Who says New Yorkers aren’t friendly?

[Photo Credit: Joel Zimmer]