Fifty years ago, Roger Maris chased Babe Ruth’s home run record. Of course, he eventually broke it. When he did, this is what the great Leonard Shecter wrote in the New York Post:

Great events of history are over swiftly. A ball, even if it’s the first in the long and noble history of baseball to be hit for a 61st home run, takes only a few heartbeats of time to be propelled from home plate to the outfield seats.

For those who were at Yankee Stadium yestrday, some 24,000 people, it was over all too quickly. It would have been better if the ball leaped in exaltation, turned int he air and wrote a saucy message (like WHEEE!) against the blue sky, dipped nobly and shed a tear over the monument to Babe Ruth in center field.

…Maris swung his most vicious swing and the ball rose in a great arc toward right center field. In years to come millions will swear they were at the Stadium the day Maris hit the home run heard round the world but none among them will be able to say it was less than a perfect home run.

The ball was outlined sharply, whitely, against the sky as it came to the outfield. There were puffs of white clouds in the sky but it was as though they parted to let the ball fly by. It landed perhaps six rows back, about seven seats and a narrow aisle to the right of the bullpen, well to the left of the 344 foot marker. A home run in Babe Ruth’s day, too.

“I was up there wheeling,” Maris said after he had paid his homage to the commercial gods of television. He was calm, in control, the way the President is probably, when he strides into a huge room to face 800 reporters.

This wasn’t the same Maris who jiggled nervously for weeks waiting for the ax to fall on the 154th game. It wasn’t the same Maris who lost sleep, even tufts of his hair in the unbearable pressure cooker of the publicity as he made the run at the 154th game home run record.

It was a Maris who seemed a foot taller now that a terrible load had been taken off him, now that he had the 61 home runs, now that the season was over.

…The people got to their feet and clapped their hands as Maris ran. It wasn’t so much a cheer as it was applause, the kind you get from an audience which has been moved by a great performance.

…The applause and his teammates brought him back out of the dugout, cap off, his hair looking, in the bright day, blonder than it is. He waved his cap once, twice, tried to retreat, was pushed back by the players.

“I thought they wanted me to stay out there all day,” Maris said.

Perhaps they, who have had to get the base hits, understand best the magnitude of Maris’ accomplishment. Put it this way. It’s difficult to hit 61 home run the way it was difficult to run the four minute mile before anybody else had done. Others may now hit 61 but you have to put Roger Maris up there with Roger Bannister. It’s been a great century for Roger.

Miles and Trane.

How about some runs for C.C. tonight?

Yo Mighty Score Truck (seen here on 30th street off 6th Ave two days ago)–bring it on home.

Jorgie gets the start at first…

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

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Over at SI.com, our man Cliff takes a look at the Yankees’ aging roster:

The Yankees’ success over the last two decades was largely built around a core of home grown stars in Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, but it’s clear that the end is nigh for each of them. Williams and Pettitte are retired, Posada is 39 and batting just .179 in the last year of his contract, Jeter is hitting a career-worst .255 as he approaches his 37th birthday and Rivera, though still pitching brilliantly, is 41 years old.

The decline of those players has brought attention to the advancing age and cost of the Yankees roster, which currently boasts five players who are at least 34 and earning eight-digit salaries and two other players earning annual salaries north of $20 million signed through or beyond their 34th birthdays. Setting aside Posada, who will turn 40 in August and is in the final year of his four-year, $52.4 million deal, here is a look at the six players the Yankees have signed through their age-34 season or beyond.

[Photo Credit: Ralph Gibson via This Isn’t Happiness]

Reggie Jackson turned 65 yesterday. He was my baseball hero as a kid. He was also Jon DeRosa’s idol. To mark the occasion of Reggie becoming a senior citizen,  figured this is as  good a time as any to share Jon’s Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory (which appeared in the book but not on-line until now).

Dig…

“The Return”

By Jon DeRosa

On January 22, 1982 Reggie Jackson signed with the California Angels. It was the latest in a series of difficult lessons for me—a six-year-old who otherwise had it pretty good. In rapid succession, Darth Vader revealed he was Luke Skywalker’s father, the Yankees crashed out of the only two baseball seasons I had ever followed, and my Grandmother passed days after my little brother was born on my 6th birthday. I was looking for a fight and George Steinbrenner and his Yankees were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I assigned Steinbrenner and Vader to the same category of evil: each had reached into my life and changed things forever. I actively rooted for the Yankees’ decline the way I rooted for the fall of the Empire. I removed my Yankee baseball cards from the binder, secured them with merciless rubber bands and tossed them in with obscure Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians and other total strangers. From that point on, I rooted for the Angels.

In 1982, for a kid in New York, that was difficult. You had to write a letter to the team, addressed to the stadium itself, requesting them to mail you an order form so that you might have the opportunity to buy something with a halo on it. My mother wrote such a letter and, by the grace of Gene Autry, was allowed to purchase a cap, a helmet, a jersey, and for some reason, Angels wristbands. I wore the whole ensemble to Yankee Stadium on Tuesday April 27th, 1982 for Reggie’s first game back in New York. My father and older brother were with me but I was scared stiff. What if he struck out? What if they booed? What if the Yankees were right?

We watched batting practice from right field in a light rain as a buzzing crowd filed in around us. Our seats were in the upper deck between first base and right field, where we munched on hot dogs. I felt grown-up whenever I was allowed to get two, but that night, my nervous stomach wasn’t accommodating. The rain made the bun on the second hot dog a little soggy.

When Reggie came to bat in the second inning, Bob Sheppard announced his name with such elegance that I imagined it was a personal statement, “I should be announcing this name every night.” This was the moment I dreaded. Would they boo? The crowd stood and chanted: REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE. Buoyed by the warmth of the welcome, I got to my feet, but my jaw was frozen shut and I couldn’t move my lips. My dad put his arm around me as Ron Guidry poured in a heater. Reggie took his massive cut, but he got jammed and popped out. I was back in my seat the instant I saw Reggie’s reaction.

The game rolled along at a pace more akin to a 100-meter dash than a modern American League baseball game—they got through seven innings in 1 hour and 51 minutes before the game was called due to rain. When Reggie batted in the fifth, the crowd rose for him again. REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE. He yanked a single to right field and was rewarded with brief applause. I was silent throughout this at bat, too, but the base hit calmed my nerves temporarily. The crowd asked; Reggie delivered. Contract complete, customers satisfied, right? Even a child should have known better. Yankee fans didn’t ask—they demanded. And they didn’t want a single; they wanted a home run.

When they greeted Reggie with his chant for the third time in the seventh, my stomach knotted, and I wished they would stop chanting. It wasn’t fanatical devotion; it was the begging of spoiled children. REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE might as well be MORE, MORE, MORE. I knew it was not fair to ask for so much. In this world I was learning about, teams lose, people die; things just don’t usually work out…

I saw Reggie’s black bat whip through the hitting zone; the ball accelerated at an improbable speed and angle at impact and assumed a trajectory that could have sent it across the street if not for the upper deck façade. As the ball sped past my face it erased all my doubts and fears and I felt a lightness rise from my gut to my head. Pure relief. I couldn’t hear anything because my mind had not yet validated this moment as reality. Then the noise just materialized in my ears: REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE, louder than the other three times combined. My brother and father jostled me from side to side as they chanted along.

I stayed quiet. How did this happen? Did I use the Force to will that ball out of the park? I couldn’t even comprehend that I just got exactly what I wanted. What were the ramifications of getting what you pray for? I should have been screaming my head off, but I just stared out at Reggie rounding the bases, making sure he touched every one and hoping he was as happy as I was.

The chanting didn’t end when Reggie reached the dugout. When he came out for his curtain call, as if they had rehearsed it prior to the game, the crowd turned toward Steinbrenner’s box and let him have it. Steinbrenner SUCKS, Steinbrenner SUCKS, Steinbrenner SUCKS! All of the emotion that had built up in my little body flowed through the crowd into the damp Stadium air. My brother and father were gleefully singing the song, rousing me to participate. But I felt bad for George and I kept silent.

Hullo, Sugar.

Nothing tests a team like a one run game. The slim lead is in danger on every pitch. The fielders have to be primed on every play and there’s no tolerance for error. I happen to think that even that heightened intensity is kicked up a notch when it’s a 1-0 game. There’s just something so fine about that score. Blink and it’s gone.

Last night, Bartolo Colon authored such a game for eight innings. But even though Colon was throwing gas in the eighth and had only 87 pitches under his belt, Girardi called on Mariano Rivera to close it out and he failed. Two hard-hit, one-out singles in the ninth set up Vlad Guererro to tie the game with a fly ball.

Should Colon have gone out for the ninth? No. The pitcher who was out of baseball last year should not have been chosen to throw his ninth inning and 90th pitch in favor of the greatest relief pitcher in history. Girardi made the right decision and it blew up on him. Reminds me of 2008.

What I remember about 2008 was bad starting pitching, an offense not living up to expectations, and Rivera having great stats but really lousy timing. He only blew one save that year, but he had his worst outings in tie games and lost five of them. It seemed like whenever the team was about to start something, he’d lose one and they couldn’t gain any traction to climb out of the hole they had dug. Not that he should have been perfect, just that in 2008, they needed him to be perfect.

After Colon struck out Weiters on three pitches to start the eighth, Ken Singleton said, “He couldn’t have walked it up there any better and dropped it right into Cervelli’s glove.” His pitches were as precise as you’ll see from a starting pitcher. He threw 61 of his 87 pitches for strikes. And the 16 that missed didn’t miss by much.

For eight innings Colon mixed two types of fastballs on the edges of the zone. The four-seamer was hard and dead straight, reaching 97 mph in his last inning. He also lowered his arm angle and added side-spin to a version of the fastball which dragged it back over the outside corner to righties. They gave up on it early, and then watched helplessly as it drifted back to the black. Cervelli was at his devious best framing pitches and Colon’s absurd accuracy earned him the close calls late in the game.

The Yankee offense didn’t show and the same lame relief pitchers who gave it up to Boston a few nights ago mowed down the Yankees like grass. It would be nice if they picked up Rivera and saved the game for him like has so many times for them. But as soon as the run scored off Rivera, I felt the game would end whenever Baltimore scored next. It could go on another ten innings, the Yanks looked broken. They’re not in a place right now where they pick each other up, I thought, They’re too focused on figuring it out individually to play like a team.

Just look at the top of the thirteenth. With first and third and nobody out, Alex Rodriguez could have given the Yankees the lead back with almost any kind of contact. Instead, he’s too concerned with whatever mechanical bullshit he thinks is screwing up his swing. His lower half or whatever. Hit the ball, win the game. He overswung at a hittable pitch to start the at bat, fouling back the potential game winner, and let another hittable pitch sail past for strike three. Was it low? Maybe, but it was certainly close and I’d seen other pitches like that called all night strikes all night long. He wasn’t beat on the pitch; he just thought it was a little low, so he didn’t swing. The point is that if he dropped the bat on it, the Yankees probably would have won it right there.

They didn’t. Then again, the O’s didn’t score against Hector Noesi (making his major league debut) either. Felix Pie sent one to the wall in the bottom of the fourteenth, a scare, but it was not to be.

And so…

Cut to the fifteenth inning when the Yanks proved me wrong. Mark Teixeira led off with a single and Rodriguez fell behind 0-2 but was quick enough to turn an inside fastball into a base hit up the middle. Mike Gonzalez, the last remaining pitcher in the O’s pen, came in to face Robinson Cano and served up a fastball–straight as a string–right down the middle. Cano lined it into the right center field gap, good for a two-run triple. Gonzalez then plunked Chris Dickerson–who replaced Nick Swisher earlier–in the bill of the helmet and was immediately thrown out of the game. It didn’t seem like Gonzalez was trying to hit him, why would he? Still, it was a scary moment.

So Gonzalez was finished and Girardi lifted Dickerson, replacing him with a pinch-runner–A.J. Burnett. Jeremy Guthrie, a starter, came in for the O’s and got Brett Gardner on a line drive to right, but it was deep enough to score Cano. He retired the next two hitters but the Yanks had a three-run lead.

Jeter, the DH, came in to play short and Eduardo Nunez moved to right. Just as Michael Kay was set to wrap a bow on a Yankee victory, Nick Markakis singled, Brandon Snyder walked and Noesi looked gassed. Larry Rothschild came out to talk to the rookie while David Robertson got ready in a hurry out in the Yankee bullpen. Luke Scott slashed a line drive to left but it was right at Brett Gardner. One out. Then, a little bit of luck, as Matt Wieters hit a ground ball between first and second. It seemed destined for the outfield but took a funny hop and hit Snyder in the ankle. Two out. J.J. Hardy, the tying run, popped out to Nunez in right and the Yanks had the unlikely win.

Noesi was the hero, coming up with four big innings in relief, especially when he worked out of a bases loaded jam in the 12th.

What looked like a sour defeat turned into a sweet win.

Final Score: Yanks 4, Orioles 1.

Well, this is just too cool to pass up.

Diary of a Ladybird via This Isn’t Happiness.

Jack Curry has a piece about how Kevin Long is trying to help Alex Rodriguez:

Long determined the cause of Rodriguez’s struggles, detecting that the third baseman hadn’t been using the lower half of his body to ignite his swing. Rodriguez called it a “disconnect” between his lower and upper body. But what has been especially vexing for Rodriguez, who normally makes rapid adjustments, is that he has labored to make these changes. He knew what to do, but he didn’t do it.

“We’ve diagnosed the problem,” Long said. “It’s vivid. We know what it is. But Alex said there’s been some hesitation. He knows he has to use his legs and he’s telling himself to use his legs. But when it comes time to do it, he hesitates. It’s all about fixing mechanics.”

Rodriguez was so locked-in at the start of the season I have to assume he’s not been entirely healthy since his oblique injury. Man, it’s a beautiful, elegant swing. Just shows how hard baseball is even for the greats. He’s just that much off, and that much is the difference between great and average.

Rodriguez has six years left on his contract after this year. I just don’t see his body holding up that long, do you? And if he can’t swing like he’s accustomed to is he the sort of player who can change his game and still find some success?

By John Schulian

THE GAME THAT DEFINED ME

I loved playing baseball beyond reason and certainly beyond my talent level. I was never a natural athlete and I was never the best player on any team I was on, but I was a dogged son of a bitch. I got my teeth on that bone and I wouldn’t let go until I was able to do it on my terms. To be honest, if we had stayed in L.A., I’m not sure I would have been able to play as long as I did. Most likely I would have been bowled over by the competition and either been a benchwarmer or just some dreamer sitting in the stands. But Salt Lake was a different story. There were some wonderful ballplayers there, guys who played pro ball and even one from my era-–the Mets’ George Theodore-–who played in the majors, but there weren’t so many of them that I couldn’t compete.

The question was finding a position to play. All through Little League and Cops League, I’d been a third baseman and an outfielder and, just once, a shortstop who almost killed his amigo the second baseman when we were turning a double play in infield practice. (Did I tell you I had a hell of a throwing arm? If you don’t believe me, ask my amigo about the time I almost threw a ball through him.) When it was time to try out for Babe Ruth League, however, there were lots of third basemen and outfielders who were just as good as I was. Our coach was the first truly hard man I ever met, an ex-minor league catcher who could be irascible, profane, quick to throw a punch even if it cost him a job. But when he sensed how desperately I needed baseball and the identity it gavee me, his better self emerged. He asked if I wanted to try my hand at catching. I said yes, and he proceeded to give me the kind of education at the position that kids today take for granted and kids of my generation almost never got. He taught me how to shift behind the plate, how to block low pitches, how to throw properly, how to flash signs to the pitcher without having them stolen, how to catch pop-ups-–and it was a rare kid catcher in those days who could catch one. He spun me round in circles as he hit me pop-ups that first day and I dropped a bunch of the. After that, I never dropped another.

The coach’s name was Pete Radulovich. He was the first of many people who would give me a break that somehow changed my life for the better. I put him right there with Pat Ryan, who gave me my first assignment at Sports Illustrated, and Steven Bochco, who gave me a shot at Hollywood even though I’d never written a script. Pete’s eldest son, Steve, was the second baseman I almost decapitated in Cops League. We played ball together from the time we were 14 until we were 22, and we still stay in touch. I had dinner with him in Las Vegas, where he lives, a year or so ago, and he said that when his dad was in his final years and they were talking about baseball, his dad said that one of the things that made him proudest was that I’d become such a good catcher. I’ve lived a long time and I’ve had a decent share of success, but that really made me proud. Pete didn’t throw around a lot of compliments.

I did better than all right in high school and American Legion ball and got a baseball scholarship to the University of Utah. The biggest thrill I had was in the state Legion tournament in 1962. We were the Cinderella team and we were playing the juggernaut that had won the high school championship. It was a bad night to run out of pitching, but we did, and we got clobbered. But I had a couple of hits, threw out a couple of runners, and picked another off second base. Afterwards, this guy with a big cigar comes out of the stands and says, “I’m John McGurk of the Boston Red Sox. You caught a big league game tonight. I’m going to keep my eye on you.” Swear to god, this really happened. I didn’t need a ride home after that. I could have floated.

Pete Radulovich

Click here for Part I and here for Part II.

[Painting by Roger Patrick]

Since Deb Perelman’s Smitten Kitchen is all that and then some why don’t we stick around.

Check this one out–pickled sugar snap peas…

“…make you weak in the knees ’til you can hardly speak…”

[Photo Credit: Matteo Nazzari]

I am enjoying this bit of graf that is on display all over town. I caught this one on 28th street over the weekend.

I remember once seeing a liquor ad on the uptown platform of the 79th street IRT subway station. There was a woman in a bikini lying in a giant martini glass. Someone wrote on it, “What does this woman have to do with this ad?” I pictured an angry young feminist not being able to contain herself.

The next day,written in chicken scrawl next to this question came a reply. “Hot pussy.”

That about covered it.

Can it be any good? There have been Tintin movies before but this one is from Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg.

Here’s hoping…

Over at SI.com I’ve got a 30-minute podcast interview George Vecsey about his new Stan Musial biography.

Dig it…(There is no direct hyperlink to the interview, just go to May, 2011 and you’ll find it there.)

Alex Rodriguez fouled off a 2-0 fastball right over the plate in his second at bat against James Shields tonight, didn’t even put a good swing on it. When Rodriguez is hitting well, he crushes that pitch. Shields didn’t mince around and came at Rodriguez with nothing but fastballs, but with the count 3-2 he tried to get fancy and sneak a change up past Rodriguez. “He did him a favor,” said Al Leiter on the YES broadcast after Rodriguez hit a long home run into the left field seats. Rodriguez hit another homer, this one to straight away center, in his next at bat, a sight for sore eyes indeed. Jorge Posada added a couple of hits, Brett Gardner had three, and both Derek Jeter and Chris Dickerson had RBI singles.

Ivan Nova allowed one run. When he got into trouble David Robertson came to the rescue and when Robertson got in trouble, Joba Chamberlain rescued him. By the time the 9th rolled around the Yanks had a five-run lead and so Mariano Rivera, who had been warming up, sat down and Amauri Sanit came in. Sanit got a couple of outs but then walked a man and allowed a run-scoring double. So Mo saved him, though not the game, got Johnny Damon to ground out to first, and that, as they say, was that.

Final Score: Yanks 6, Rays 2.

And we’z heppy kets.

James Shields tonight. Soriano to the DL. Chris Dickerson called up.

Yanks in need of a “W.” Doesn’t matter how they get it, does it?

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

We’re discouraged but we’re still here.

Never mind the apathy:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit By Raumskaya]

[Photo Credit: Gintare Dainelyte]

[Photo Credit: Harry Callahan: Chicago, 1948]

A sad day for Twins fans and the baseball community, as legendary slugger Harmon Killebrew passed away this morning at 74, from esophageal cancer.

Personally, Killebrew was on the down side of his career by the time I got into baseball, but I still vividly remember the Yankees yearbooks of the early 70s featuring pictures of the Twins masher as part of their “Visiting Stars”.

For what it was worth, Killebrew compiled a line of .239/.333/.455 with 22 homers in 121 career games at Yankee Stadium.

May he rest in peace.

(Over at SI.com, Steve Rushin has a nice obit.)