The Yanks won a close one last night. They are 5-3 on this west coast swing. A win today sure would make for a pleasant flight back home, wouldn’t it?

It’s Colon vs. Joel Pineiro.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Brett Gardner LF
Francisco Cervelli C

Happy Sunday and…

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Jason Varitek and Jonathan Papelbon were kicked out of the game this afternoon in Boston. The Sox blew a 7-3 lead but eventually won in extra innings. Meanwhile, out west, Dan Haren was scratched and Ervin Santana will start in his place for the Angels. He’ll face this line-up:

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Russell Martin C
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Brett Gardner LF

Good ol’ C.C. goes for the Yanks. Never mind the preamble:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

The Yanks take on the Angels tonight. The rivalry isn’t the same as it was a few years back when the Angels were, you know, good. (That said, my buddy Rich Lederer will be talking big trash if the Yanks lose the series.)

Hopefully, the Bombers continue their string of good fortune against good pitching as Jered Weaver gets the start. It’ll be interesting to see what Ivan Nova’s got to offer. All eyes in the Bronx are pulling for him to have a good outing cause he has struggled of late.

Cliff has the preview. We do the rootin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Pictures by Kevin Roche]

Here is a compelling essay Pete Hamill wrote in 1996 for Esquire—“Blood on Their Hands: The Corrupt and Brutal World of Professional Boxing”:

On the night of the Tyson-Bruno fight, I went to a place called the Official All Star Cafe in Times Square. There was a huge private party to honor the twentieth anniversary of the first Rocky movie, and crowds packed the sidewalks for a glimpse of Sylvester Stallone and the celebrities he might draw. One of those celebrities was Muhammad Ali.

Ali was already there when I arrived, dressed in a dark-red long-sleeved shirt, seated at a table with his wife and young son. To his right was a movie-size screen on which the preliminary fights were being broadcast from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The room was crowded with citizens of the fight racket: Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis, Ray Leonard and Willie Pep, managers and promoters, wives and girlfriends. Everybody tried to avoid looking at Muhammad Ali.

His head was bowed and he was trying to eat. But his right hand was shaking so hard that he could not get the piece of chicken to move two inches to his mouth. His wife, Lonnie, put her hand over his to quell the shaking and gently guided the chicken to its destination. Ali chewed diligently but did not raise his head.

Across the evening, people came over to the table to lean down and speak to the ruined fifty-four-year-old man. Sometimes he smiled. Sometimes he whispered a reply. Sometimes he rose to pose for pictures. But then he would be back in the chair, the once lithe and powerful body sagging, the eyes wide and wary, a plastic strew clenched in his mouth, all of him shaking with the Parkinson’s disease, with the damage caused by the fierce trade he once honored.

The disease, caused in Ali’s case by repeated blows to the head, is insidious, degenerative, humiliating, a thief of will and memory. I know: My mother, who was hit in the head by a mugger in 1979, is now eighty-five and trapped in its silent prison. I’ve fed her, as Lonnie feeds Ali.

Only when the fight started and Mike Tyson came down the aisle in Las Vegas did Ali’s eyes focus intensely. We’ll never know what now moves through his mind. But he had made that same walk so many times, with entire arenas and stadiums roaring the chant Ah-lee, Ah-lee, Ah-lee, Ah-lee…. When young, he had been among great throngs where half the audience hated him, and had stayed long enough to convert them all. For Ah-lee, Ah-lee wasn’t about celebrity or even success; it was about excellence and heart. And it was about personal defiance: of odds, of skeptics, of racists, of the American government, and of pain. Along the way, Ali became myth; most myths, alas, are also tragedies.

Our pals, the Three Amigos, are doing some fine work over at PB.

Here’s Cliff on Derek Jeter

Goldie on Eduardo Nunez and Jesus Montero and

Jay on Fab Five Freddy and the  incredible Curtis Granderson.

Class is in session.

Before the 2009 post season, Alex Rodriguez was frequently vilified for his alleged inability to get a hit when it really mattered. Following a historic clutch performance that October, which included three game tying homeruns in the seventh inning or later, many of the skeptics were quieted. Since then, however, some of the doubters have gradually started to re-emerge, with many emboldened by Arod’s extended slump earlier this season.

The debate over Arod’s “clutchability” has involved a countless number of hours over the last eight years, so perhaps it’s time to settle the issue once and for all? Off the bat, let’s circle back to Win Probability Added (WPA), and see what that metric says about Arod’s context-based contribution to victory.

Note: Data as of May 31, 2011.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

Since Arod joined the team in 2004, he has easily been the Yankees’ most productive player in terms of WPA. In fact, his total of 25.6 wins added is not only greater than the next two closest Yankees combined, but also fifth best among all major leaguers. So, if Arod really has been a failure in the clutch, his production in low leverage situations would have to be off the charts.

Because there isn’t one statistic* that can help us settle the debate, we have no choice but to take a closer look at every HR and RBI Arod has accumulated as a Yankee.

*There is a WPA-based stat called “clutch”, but it is a relative metric that essentially penalizes a player for performing well in lower leverage situations. Therefore, it isn’t useful for our purposes (click here for a more detailed explanation of “clutch”).

Arod’s HR and RBI Breakdown, 2004-2011

Note: Data as of May 31, 2011. Outer circle displays RBIs; inner circle displays HRs. Colors get lighter as score differential increases.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

The donut chart above helps to dispel that myth that Arod does most of his damage “when the team has a 10-run lead” (he only has six home runs when the Yankees have been ahead or behind by 10 runs).  In fact, almost 50% of his HRs and RBIs have come with the score either tied or within one run, rates that are not only above the team average during Arod’s tenure, but either in line with or better than a selection of comps from the recent dynasty era.

Note: Data as of May 31, 2011.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

A tie game in the first inning isn’t quite the same as a knotted score in the ninth, so another way we can break down Arod’s performance is by leverage. Based on this comparison, Rodriguez once again compares favorably to both the team average during his time in pinstripes as well as our select group of Yankees’ standouts.

Leverage-Based Performance, Team and Select Players, 2004-2011

Note: Data as of May 31, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

Leverage can be an abstract concept, so perhaps the misconception about Arod stems from a lack of high profile moments? Once again, however, that theory fails when confronted by facts. Since 2004, the Yankees’ have hit 58 homeruns in the ninth inning or later that either tied the game or gave the team a lead/walk off. Of that total, Arod has accounted for 15, or over one-quarter. Not only is that twice as many as Jason Giambi’s seven over the same span, but it’s also the fourth highest amount in franchise history since 1950. What’s more, the Yankees have hit 20 such home runs in their post season history and Arod has two of them (both occurring in 2009).

Clutch HRs/Hits in the Ninth Inning or Later, Since 1950

Note: Data as of May 31, 2011. Includes all HRs/hits that either tied the game or gave the Yankees a lead/walkoff.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

Over the last eight years, so many great Yankee moments have been punctuated by Alex Rodriguez. However, because of the expectations inspired by both his immense talent and enormous contract, the myth about Arod’s inability to hit in clutch will likely persist. Although the debate can be grating, it really doesn’t matter anyway. Those with a firmer grasp of reality know full well just how potent Rodriguez has been in pinstripes. Everyone else is just clutching at straws.

I love Gene Hackman as much as I’ve ever loved any actor.

Dig this short Q&A with Hackman from the latest issue of GQ:

GQ: You worked with Coppola on The Conversation. He’s a director who has a “reputation.” Tell me about that movie.

Hackman: He wanted Brando for that part. But it’s not too bad to be second to Brando. [laughs] We rehearsed—normally you don’t get a lot of rehearsal in films. We took advantage of Francis having some juice, because he’d just finished The Godfather. It was a good experience, because he’s such a confident filmmaker. It was great because it was about something. It was about paranoia, the whole idea of eavesdropping. He’s a very hands-on director, but after rehearsal he left me alone. But you knew what was required of you. Most directors, if sensitive at all and think an actor knows what he’s doing in a film, have the good sense to leave him alone, and he did that.

GQ: If someone were to portray you, what would be the key to “getting” you?

Hackman: That’s a tough one. Almost anything one would say would sound egotistical. [pauses] I’d like to think that if an actor was playing me, that he would do me in an honest fashion. I always try to approach the work in that way, regardless of how good or bad the script. When I say “honest,” I say to portray what is on the page, instead of what maybe people might think of me or what I would like them to think of me in terms of personality or charisma. But just be what is asked of me on the page.

[Drawing by Jerry Vaughan]

After 19 seasons, Shaq is calling it a career. Next stop: Hall of Fame.

The Yanks scored early again today. In the first, Alex Rodriguez doubled home Derek Jeter, and in the fourth, Nick Swisher hit a three-run home run into the left field bleachers. That after he attempted to bunt on the first two pitches.

After the game, Swisher told reporters, “I thought I was told to lay one down. So finally after it got to 2-0 and the pitching coach came out I went over to (Pena) and said, ‘Hey man, what do you want me to do right here?’ He said, ‘I want you to let it loose.’ So I did.”

It proved to be enough as the Bombers leave Oakland with a three-game-sweep of the A’s. A.J. Burnett allowed a first inning home run, a two-run shot to Josh Willingham, but didn’t have any trouble with the A’s after that. Joba Chamberlain put two men on in the eighth, but then speared a line drive off the bat of Conor Jackson and turned a double play to end the inning.

Final Score: Yanks 4, A’s 2.

No complaints here as the Red Sox lost again to the White Sox in Boston.

Smiles all round, especially from Swisher, who had this to say to Kim Jones:

“I feel great. I feel like myself again. My personality is back. You know, I’m out of that dark place. So, either way my teammates have been amazing for me, my family and everybody. It’s been a wonderful trip so far. You learn a lot about yourself when you’re in those times. So for myself, I just wanna keep going out there, keep battling, and keep picking up those wins because everyone loves winning.”

Amen to that.

[Photo Credit: Ben Margot/AP and roly]

UNDER THE SPELL OF THE BIG SCREEN

By John Schulian

We didn’t have a TV in our house until 1954, when I was nine. Maybe it was for economic reasons, maybe my parents just didn’t think it was important. They seemed perfectly content with listening to the radio, my mother in particular. I listened along with her. The first thing I remember hearing was the news that Babe Ruth had died. Honest. I was three years old and I had not the slightest idea who the Babe was, but there was something about the way the man on the radio talked about him that made it possible for even a child like me to grasp the importance of his death. Just remembering that moment makes me feel older than dirt. It’s the same when I remember listening to Tom Mix’s radio show-–his doctor was my mother’s doctor, by the way-–and Fibber McGee and Molly, Lum and Abner, Arthur Godfrey, and Art Likletter’s House Party. Linkletter’s band leader had one of the great names ever: Muzzy Marcellino. Muzzy, for crying out loud.

Something else we listened to was Lux Radio Theater, where Hollywood stars of a certain wattage acted in half-hour recreations of movies that were then in the theaters. In my house, we ate up movies, all three of us in the beginning, then just my father and me as time went on. There wasn’t any reason for this movie love. My parents weren’t star-struck, nor were they given to long, thoughtful discussions of performances, directing choices, or cinematography, good or bad. It was just something that was in the air in L.A. along with the aroma of the orange groves and the stench of the burning tires that warmed them on winter nights. If you listened to the radio, you could even hear broadcasts of the premieres of big movies and breathless interviews with stars like Cary Grant and Lana Turner.

The movie house we went to most often was the Academy, an art deco palace near the intersection of Manchester and Crenshaw boulevards. (It’s now a church.) If I went to see Burt Lancaster in “The Crimson Pirate” with my parents on Saturday night, I’d be back at 1 p.m. Wednesday for the kiddie matinee, two movies for a quarter. Might be two Abbott and Costello comedies, or two war movies (“Halls of Montezuma” with Richard Widmark and “Operation Pacific” with John Wayne), or an Audie Murphy Western paired with one starring Jeff Chandler, or-–hang onto your hat–“King Kong” and “Mighty Joe Young.”

Come summer we’d head for the Centinela Drive-In, where we saw “Shane,” “Strategic Air Command” and the truly awful circus movie “The Greatest Show on Earth.” (There’s a scene in “Heat” that was shot at an abandoned drive-in. I’d swear it was the Centinela, which sits in what is now regarded as hard-core gang territory.)

When 3-D movies were all the rage-–”Hondo,” “Charge at Feather River,” “House of Wax”–we went to see them at the big movie houses on Hollywood Boulevard, which was still glamorous and exciting then. (The first movie I remember seeing was “Pinocchio,” at the Pantages.) Afterward, we’d eat at Café de Paris, a little French restaurant around the corner from Charlie Chaplin’s studio. My father’s French buddies hung out there. My parents ate escargot and I drank Shirley Temples.

And then it was just my father and me going to the movies. It had to be by design. My parents were ancient by the standards of the day: when they married, my father was 41 and my mother 39. My guess is she was going through menopause and desperately needed some time away from her rambunctious son.

It was a blessing in disguise for my father and me. We didn’t get to spend much time together, mainly because he worked such long hours and spent a lot of time sleeping in his easy chair when he was home. I don’t want you to think he was distant or cold, though. He was, rather, the nicest man I have ever known. He was charming and funny and gracious, and he had a Danish accent that gave him, I don’t know, a continental air, I guess you’d call it. No wonder he oversaw all the big weddings in Salt Lake when he became catering manager of the Hotel Utah, the No. 1 hotel in the city. He took care of not just Mormons but Greeks and Jews and Italians and anybody else who wanted to be treated right. He loved them all, but he loved the good tippers best. To me, however, he was the dad who took me to see the Hollywood Stars in the old Coast League. And who played catch with me in the backyard, and, when we lived in Inglewood, took me to sprawling Centinela Park to pitch me batting practice and hit me fly balls. And remember, he’d never played an inning of baseball. He was a Danish immigrant who didn’t see a game until he worked in Chicago at a hotel where the big league teams stayed. He told me about players who took out their tobacco chaws only to eat, and of how forlorn the Pirates-–well, I think it was the Pirates–were when the Cubs’ Gabby Hartnett beat them with his Homer in the Gloamin’.

Truth be told, though, he was probably more comfortable going to the movies with me. His choice of theaters was an odd one, not any of the first-run houses, the Academy or the 5th Avenue or the United Artists, but a second-run house called the Inglewood Theater. And it was there that my education in movies, such as it is, began. We saw the John Ford-John Wayne cavalry trilogy, and “The Big Sleep” and Red Skelton comedies and Robert Mitchum in “Blood on the Moon.” Sometimes the old movies bored me witless-–”Saratoga Trunk” with Gary Cooper, in particular-–but more often they fed my imagination and my dreams.

The fact is, I loved movies before I loved baseball. For all I know, I read the movie ads in the newspaper before anything else. And I read Louella Parsons’ column, too, checking it for movie-star names in boldface. Then I would cut out the movie ads and paste them in a scrapbook, which wasn’t as pointless an exercise as it might seem, because I would then use the title of a movie that had captured my imagination and create my version of it. The movie I remember was “Kansas Pacific,” a Republic Pictures Western starring Sterling Hayden that I didn’t get around to watching until a couple of years ago. It was dreadful.) I drew the story in cartoon blocks on pieces of paper about the size of a postcard and I taped or glued the pieces together. Then I took a piece of cardboard, drew a screen with curtains around it, and cut slits on both sides of the screen. Then I would pull the strip of paper on which my movie was laid out through the slits while I provided the dialogue and narration. nd my parents would watch. But only after they had paid a nickel or a dime for the privilege. Even then, at the age of 9 or 10, I realized that movies were for making money.

There was something at work besides the profit motive, though. It was the ability to imagine, to let a couple of words in a newspaper inspire me to create the most primitive kind of art. I suppose the same forces were at work when I listened to the Mutual Game of the Day on the radio and envisioned what the Green Monster in Fenway Park looked like and how the ivy on the walls at Wrigley Field was coming in. I could even read about a minor league slugger in the back pages of the Sporting News-–Frosty Kennedy or John Moskus or Chuck Weatherspoon-–and spend my paper route imagining how they looked as they smacked another home run. It was as though I imagined life with a score by Dimitri Tiomkin or Max Steiner and a big, booming orchestra to back them up. If I listen closely, I can still hear the music.

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

Is there anything more civilized than taking a walk in Manhattan after a meal? That’s just what I did with the wife last Saturday night. We strolled through through the west village when we heard a trumpet playing “Blue Bossa.” I love that tune no end and I looked ahead to see where the street musician was. I couldn’t see anyone when I looked up and high in the sky saw a figure sitting in a window playing his horn.

I know I’ve played this tune before but it makes me so damned happy here it is again:

Here’s Jeff MacGregor on W.C. Heinz:

Too often on American sports pages, we use the long-bomb language of war to talk about games. And too often on the editorial page, we use the slam dunk language of sports to obscure the realities of war. By doing so, we corrupt our honest understanding of both. The symbols and mythologies, the lessons and the metaphors might seem interchangeable — devotion, honor, fortitude — but one is a harmless funhouse reflection of the other. Sports are a kind of necessary human nonsense. War is the abject failure of everything that makes us human.

…Before he became a sports writer, Bill Heinz was a war correspondent. He spent months in the North Atlantic; landed at Normandy; chased Patton across France. He drank with Liebling and with Hemingway and watched American boys felled like trees in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. That’s what I think made him great. Not just the writing or the craft or the work ethic. But in knowing exactly how much — and how very little — is at stake in sports.

Because every word Bill Heinz ever wrote about sports was informed by what he carried out of that war. By the things he could never forget.

Salute.

Sally Mann

Welp, nobody could have predicted the performance Bartolo Colon has given the Yankees so far this season. But as much as the team’s success seems to ride on Alex Rodriguez, I’ve felt all along that this is Mark Teixeira’s time to shine. Robinson Cano had a great season last year but this should be Teixeira’s team. He started off with a bang in April, then cooled some, although his OBP remained high. Now, he’s hot again, and hit another long home run today as the Yanks jumped to a 3-0 first inning lead which proved to be more than enough against Oakland’s hapless offense.

Colon threw a shut out–dig it, a shut out–the game moved quickly, and Yankee fans were happy.

Final Score: Yanks 5, A’s 0.

And here’s the dinner I had on my cousin’s roof this evening:

It’s raining in the Bronx this morning. Dark sky. Let’s hope it clears up for everyone who is planning a picnic or barbecue. Meanwhile, here’s something refreshing to start your day:

Paintings by Sarah Harvey

Nick Swisher hit a solo home run in the second inning to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead over the Mariners this afternoon in Seattle. The following inning, the Yanks put the first two runners on but Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez both grounded out and another potential rally looked to be dead. But Robbie Cano singled home a run and a few batters later, Andruw Jones hit a double with the bases loaded. Exhale. With the big fella C.C. Sabathia on the hill the Yanks never looked back and cruised to a 6-1 win.

It was a stress-free afternoon for Yankee fans after the Jones double, a welcome tonic after the previous two nights. Eduardo Nunez provided the comic relief when he belly flopped into third, a crash landing if you’ve ever seen one, on his first triple of the year, and David “Fangraphs” Cone was again a pleasure to listen to along with Ken Singleton.

Yup, it was a tasty game all round.

Speaking of just desserts, the wife and I went to L’Artusi, a terrific Italian place in the west village last night. Here are the flix.

crisp potatoes

sweet peas in little pockets

The spread

Snap Peas with Chilies

Orecchiette with sausage and tomatoes

A Happy Wife

Here's that dessert again, olive oil cake with raisin marmellata, vin santo, creme fraiche mousse

Mmm, Mmm, good.

Nah, he’s still the King right this minute, ain’t he?

The Yanks send Ivan Nova up against Felix Hernandez tonight in Seattle. Meanwhile, Verlander goes against Beckett up in Boston.

Should be good…

We’ll be rooting: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Ant Skelton]

Dig 19 recipes for Barbecue side dishes over at Saveur.

And check out these Jalapeno-Chipotle Sliders at Serious Eats.

Gil Scott Heron is dead at 62. He was an influential musician, especially in the Hip Hop world. He was also a junkie. Alec Wilkinson did a long piece on Heron in the New Yorker last year.

On a night where the Yanks had a 3-0 lead against a hot young pitcher, A.J. Burnett could not give the team any length. Burnett gave up two runs but went only five innings. The Mariners scored two more in the sixth against Luis Ayala and that was enough. Eduardo Nunez was picked off of second base in the eighth inning, the Yankees’ best chance to tie the game.

A dispiriting late night loss, 4-3. What’s worse is that Felix Hernandez goes for the Mariner’s tonight.

Drag.

[Photo Credit: Ted S Warren/AP, drawing by Rich Lee]