Daily Archives: July 26, 2003

GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT

The Yankees and the Sox rivalry is great because there is so much history, and so much emotion to invest if you happen to be a fan of either team (although I do know some Yankee fans who sincerely don’t have any special feeling for or against the Sox; I don’t know any Sox fans who don’t hate the Yankees). It’s the ultimate story of the Have’s vs. the Have Not’s. Every game adds to the story.

Since the mid to late 90s (the Mo Vaughn era), the Sox have been competitive with the Yanks. Of course, they have come up short every year, but it’s not for lack of trying. They haven’t finished fourth. They’ve finished second. They have pushed and run with the Yankees, but they haven’t pushed them over yet.

What is different now is that you don’t sense any personal feelings of antagonism between the pplayers. Manny, Sori, Pedro, Bernie these guys all know each other. With the exception of Clemens, and maybe Boomer, I don’t think there is any bad blood between these guys personally.

A good friend of mine was recently lamenting the lack of juice in the rivalry, because he thought that these Red Sox aren’t as good as the Boston teams of the late mid to late 70s, I don’t know. I think what he missed was the feeling of personalized competitiveness that used to exist between the players; everything is so darn amiable in the current game. You don’t get that same edge. Everything is so exposed, and manicured these days, he was saying, and as a result, dull. Boring.

He has a point. You don’t have Fisk vs. Munson anymore (unless you count Pedro vs. George), but what you do have is terrifically competitive ball. With lots of humorous and compelling personalities. Just not as man Red Asses. Most of the guys today are pusscats. A good Red Ass is hard to find. Sure, it might be funnier if they didn’t like each other, but that’s just the way it is these days. Why fight it?

The truth is I don’t know how many one-run games the Yankees and Sox have played in over the last six years, but I can guess it’d be a lot. They are usually tense from the first pitch, and they play a back and forth emotional slugfest throughout. You rarely feel cheated. Even an ass beating either way can be absorbing, but it depends on how into S&M you are.

Even though the Yankees always come out in front, Boston fans do have a collection of nice memories to go along with the loses over the past six, seven years. The Hillenbrand dinger against Mo early last year comes to mind first, and there are others.

You can add another photo to the album tonight. The Yankees came back from four runs down to tie the score at four. Ruben Ruben had a 2 RBI pinch-hit single in the 7th. Karim Garcia later drove Nicky Johnson home to tie the game.

Mussina pitched into the eighth and then old man Jesse strug wack-ass Gabe Kapler out on a check swing to end the inning. Boo boo Benitez blew the game in the ninth—David Ortiz hit the game winner off the green monster in left. Well, what did you expect? There is no shame in that. Let him get it out of his system. No seriously, what did you expect? The guy is going to give up runs, blow some situations. Fine. Bring him back tomorrow in the same situation and expect that he’ll get it done. That’s the only way to play it. What are you going to do? You play with the guys you have, right?

I was at work this afternoon, and I followed the game on and off through the fifth. When I left, I trooped up Broadway, from 50th street to 86th street. It’s my old man’s birthday tomorrow and I needed to get him a gift, so I hit Barnes and Noble. I already burned the old man a cd mix of comedy bits from Lenny Bruce and Nichols and May, which he’ll love, because it’s hilarious. I was looking through the baseball books when I realized I had an extra copy of the Sandy Koufax biography at my house, just waiting to be given as a gift. Bingo.

I willfully avoided the game. The 7th or 8th inning took place during my walk to the subway; I saw the Sierra hit on the computer at work. I had a Walkman with me, but I listened to an old mix tape instead.

Now the 1 and 9 local IRT trains have an issue this weekend. “A definite type of situation,” as Broadway Danny Rose would say. Between 168th street and Dykman (200th street), the train will not be running. All customers must transfer at 168th street to a shuttle bus, running up to Dykman and back. Then you get back on the train and continue your journey.

It’s a pain in the ass. It doesn’t happen often, because the 1 and 9 line is the Broadway local, which is well kept by the MTA. It is local train so is stops often, but it’s a very reliable train. If you live uptown, you have to deal with more of a headache or two, but then again, welcome to reality, man. It maybe happens twice a year, sometimes more. Weekends only.

What’s amusing about the whole deal is getting off the train and getting on a bus with everybody. It’s like a field trip with all the people in your neighborhood. I live in a predominantly Dominican neighborhood. But you also get your Irish, your Jewish, your Asian, yer Middle Eastern, a little Slavic. Mostly Spanish and Irish. I live in the land where Manny and Pedro are kings. The Red Sox hats rival the Yankee hats no problem. (They used to rock Tribe caps.)

Manhattan is very hilly between Dykman, through the heart of Washington Heights, to Columbia Pres on 168. It’s the highest land on the island. Though there is a sharp decent from 188ish and Dykman. The bus moves slowly. It trudges. People editorialize. A fat ass couple buffaloed their way onto the crowded bus I was on this morning, just as the doors were closing (never mind there was another bus right behind us). They came in through the rear door, and the driver couldn’t close the door cause the guy was in the well. He finally got his act together, and you should seen this these two. Out to lunch.
The woman was bitching about this and bitching about that. When the bus started it’s way down the hill, these two are trying to balance themselves, as the bus picks up speed.

The woman spoke in a loud, clear voice. “Hey, I know you going to be easy on the breaks cause you got passengers attempting to maintain our balance back here.” She turns to her husband, shaking her head. “I think this bitch is trying to kill us.”
On my return trip this afternoon, every cockarovich with a license was out on Broadway in Washington Heights with his car in the way of the bus. Stoopid ass traffic.

When I got out of the train at 168 I put on Sterling and Steiner and caught the post game show. It took several tense minutes before I learned who had won. I tried to figure it out through Steiner’s presentation, but they were still busy playing the Yankees comeback. I looked around at the other passengers, listening intently. When the word came down that the Yanks lost, I was bummed, but not distraught. When I heard it was Benitez, I was like ‘OK, that’s fine.’ Good for the Sox. They have to win that game. Fine.

Then the ride took forever and a day, but I thought about how my friend Johnny Red Sox actually bought a couple of tickets for the game and was there. He brought his girl, a Yankee fan up there for the day. So for what it’s worth, my level of friendship with John superseded my personal disappointment for a while. His trip was worth it. And he’ll get laid tonight and the weekend will have turned out great, and so I’m happy for his stinkin ass.

It looked like the Sox were going to lose again, but they showed true grit and banged out the win. When I got off the shuttle train at 231rst Street, I felt all right. You want to know why? Because the level of competition between the Yanks and Sox is consistently high. And if they are so many great games, well, hey, the Sox have to win some too, right?

Today was another great game, decided in the late innings. The games are almost always close. What they lack in personal venom they make up for in theater, tension, and good old fashion hardball. Both parks are great, they look great in the day and they look great at night. Both teams have great uniforms (most of the time). I think the Yankees, Sox rivalry is alive and well, even if the Yankees do hold the overall advantage, because the Sox are a good team who aren’t afraid to play with the Yankees. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Anyway, I figured Weaver would be involved in some melodrama tomorrow on Sunday Night Baseball. Unless it’s just me. But tomorrow it’s all on the line for my man. It’s actually a good match up for him, because Lowe is the pitcher that Weaver should aspire to be. Weaver is capable of being good, as he showed against the Jays before the break, but his ass is on the line here. Got to keep the ball down, meat. Leave the duce at home, bro. This is the Sox. The Red Sox do not fear Jeff Weaver. Do you?

Oh yeah, here is an e-mail I recieved this evening from my friend Shawn Clap:

Does Joe Torre not watch Met games? Does he not read the papers?

What would convince him and Mel that Armando could get 5 lefties out in one inning?

I still hate Nick Johnson, but a little less than before.

-Shawn

Hey, tough crowd, babe.

MUSHED

True to form, the Sox have rebounded from last night’s loss, and are holding the Yanks down through five this afternoon at the Fens. Both Nomar and Manny have homered. Boston leads, 4-0. Old man Burkett is out-pitching Mike Mussina. How is that for dumb luck? Glad I’m not watching.

Of course the Yanks still have plenty of time to come back, but my spidey-sense is telling me that the Sox will cruise today. What? You thought that Jeff Weaver was going to have a pressure-free outing on national television tomorrow night? Fat chance.

The question is: will it be his last with the Bombers?

THE MORNING AFTER

There was no mention of Manny’s base running in the Boston papers this morning, while the New York press went with the “same as it ever was” angle on the game.

Not only was Enrique fine, but Bernie had three hits off Pedro, and enjoyed his best game since returning from the dl, in spite of misplaying Manny’s fly ball into a double. I was thinking about how Manny missed first on that play, and I first assumed it was because he thought he had hit it out. But maybe he missed it cause he thought Bernie was going to make the catch. No excuse, either way.

Jesse Orosco was onions whiffing Damon with the bases-loaded in the sixth, and Armando pitched well in a pressure-packed situation to boot. Kudos to Boomer Wells, who walked five, and hung tough on a night when his back was bothering him, and he didn’t have his best stuff. Ditto to Pedro, who is as good as it gets, even when he takes an “L.”

I don’t know if any other pitcher could get away with the smack he was talking to Dana Demuth late in the game.

Loyal Bronx Banter readers, Jamie and Gioia Bakum—Yankee fans living in the heart of Beantown, were at the game. This morning, Jamie sent me his impressions of the game:

Wow – my heart is still just getting settled down. Gioia and I had (fairly crummy) right field seats for this one through one of the 4-game packs we’d ordered back in February. At the bottom of the first, we wandered over to visit a couple who’d come up from Long Island for a family function, pulled in a favor, and gotten field box seats along the first base line. We were both in the bathroom when Jorge homered, which is, of course, the only reason he did. Our friends had four seats for themselves and their two boys and accomodated us (more or less happily, I hope) through 4 innings with the kids alternately on their laps or running around to find cotton candy. They packed up in the bottom of the 6th, and Gioia and I stretched out in our 4-seat row and enjoyed a fantastic view of an incredible game.
Your blow-by-blow was exciting and thorough, so I just wanted to add some random observations:
In an interesting bit of non-foreshadowing, Giambi (the Yankee one) hit several towering home-runs before the game, some of the deepest I’ve seen there during BP.
I had a pre-game mini-stroke upon seeing Weaver throwing in the bullpen, but it must’ve been a tune-up (or a precaution given Well’s back? Yikes, what may have been…).
Red Sox Nation seemed rather subdued, more so than I’ve encountered at Yanks/Sox in a while. Around the watercooler they’ve been as cocky as ever, so I was surprised that I didn’t pick up a really sustained “Yankees Suck” chant until the 4th inning – maybe they were too busy watching the game. I almost fell out of my chair when I heard a couple of Sox fans behind me decrying the proliferation of “Yankees Suck” t-shirts. “What are we telling the children?” one asked to the other. I almost got up and bought them beers.
We were sitting a few rows from Stephen King, though I didn’t see Norman Mailer, DK Goodwin, Roger Angell, or the guy who played Jay Peterman on Seinfeld.
Bottom of the 5th – I think Manny actually got back to first in time on that play, given the poor throw, but was (properly) called out on principle.
Pedro’s breaking stuff was truly wicked. From our vantage point, you could see how far off the righties were. Mondesi swung at one that looked a full 12 inches under his bat. And then he seemed to pick up more velocity toward the end of stint. Amazing.
Meanwhile, Wells looked uncomfortable from the start (we hadn’t heard about the back acting up, of course) and had that David Cone-ish looking post-pitch double shoulder shrug with grimace going most of the night. One of the biggest crowd reactions pre-game was a montage of David’s last start against the Sox in the Bronx, set to “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” and concluding with the glove thrown into the crowd. I was not, as can be imagined, hopeful at that point.
There were ooohs and aaaahs from the crowd on Benitez’s velocity, but it was clear if you were patient he wasn’t hitting the plate consistently. 97mph and waaay outside is really only half impressive.
I’ll cut him some slack for non-familarity, but the most pianful at-bat of the night (even more so than Giambi’s whiffs) was Matsui against Sauerbeck. I don’t think Hideki knew what hit him.
A revised scoreboard for this year shows (along with a pitch indentifier, speed, count and strike/ball breakdown) a hitter’s average against the guy on the mound. My questions on Enrique’s start over a finally-warming-up Ventura were answered as he walked toward the plate for his first at-bat. .400 against Pedro – a hah!
And frankly, I don’t really have any recollections from the 8th or 9th innings. With all my blood rushing around, I was seeing spots and hearing a strange rushing sound. When that weak liner settled into Soriano’s glove Gioia and I skipped our usual post-victory low-key high-five and lept into each other’s arms. Amazing.
And watch Burkett throw a no-no or something today….
Jamie

Tell me about it. I’m happy that I’m stuck working today, because I don’t want to watch the game either. As lame as Burkett as been against the Yanks and as good as Moose has been against the Sox, Boston has a propensity for shrugging off big losses this year. I get superstitious about Yankee-Sox games on Fox too, don’t ask me why. I wouldn’t put any money down on this one. I say the Sox win in a high-scoring affair.