Daily Archives: February 4, 2004

I’ve been thinking a whole bunch about Ellis Burks returning to the Red Sox today. When I got home this evening, I broke out Howard Bryant’s book, “Shut Out,” and revisited Burks’ formative years in Boston:

[Jim] Rice never spoke out, but he gave Ellis Burks a telling peice of advice that provided important insight into Rice’s feelings about Boston and his years with the Red Sox. They were words Burks would never forget. “Get your six years in, “Rice told Burks, “and then get the hell out of Boston.”

Sure enough, Burks had a difficult time with the Sox. For a black player, that was nothing new. When Rice was let go, Burks felt isolated, and frustrated. Like many a young black center fielder who possessed both speed and power, Burks was expected to be the next Willie Mays. (Bryant explores this phenomenon in further detail.) But he was just Ellis Burks. To make matters worse, his manager Joe Morgan questioned his conditioning and effort. Bryant continues:

Burks could never find comfort with the city’s polarized structure. Some teammates had warned Burks about the city’s social climate. It was Boyd who first told Burks about avoiding South Boston, the busing hot zone. “Oil Can told me to stay out of there, if I valued my life. I didn’t believe it, that you would drive through there and have various names hurled at you and rocks thrown at your car. It never happened to me, because I didn’t go there.” He knew the team had suffered from a poor rapport with black fans and resolved to make inroads with the city’s black community…

He went to Foggie’s Barber Shop on Tremont Street, the epicenter of the Boston black community. Burks recalls frequently appearing on WILD, the city’s lone black radio station, appealing for fan support. He was shrewd in his requests. Instead of creating a possible racial firestorm by asking balck fans directly over the air to come support the team, he knew WILD’s consituency was predominately black. “I used to say, ‘let’s have some WILD listeners come on out to the ballpark.’ I was too mart to say it the other way. But hell, there was no response. I learned that early in my time in Boston. Black people don’t go to Red Sox games. No matter what we did. We tried giving those tickets away. Couldn’t do it.”

The pace and the character of the city at time unnerved Burks. Peter Gammons would drive to Fenway with Burks. One day when the two stopped at a red light, people yelled at each other during the forty-five seconds between light changes. Bostonians gunned their engines as fast as they could in between stop lights.

“You know how in New York people hit the horn the second the light turns green?” Gammons told Burks. “Well, in Boston, they hit the horn while it’s still red.”

I wonder if the current Red Sox ownership is trying to kill two birds with one stone in bringing Burks back to Boston. First, they get a viable right-handed bat off the bench. Next, they prove that the new Red Sox are different from Boston regimes of the past. And they get to prove it by bringing back a clubhouse guy who had it rough as a young player in Boston. The circle is complete. It should be interesting to see what Burks’ impressions of the city and the team will be all these years later.

Managers and general managers have come and gone with regularity during the Steinbrenner Era in New York. But Brian Cashman and Joe Torre are special. If Torre gets fired this season–or if he chooses to leave at the end of the year–there will be much written about what a huge loss it will be for the Yankees. (There will be fantastic wailing for weeks.) And to a large extent, I think it will be a big loss. But instead of moaning about how George could have let it happen, how he could let his ego get in the way of a great thing, we should take that time to stand back in amazement that Torre lasted as long as he has in the first place. (I understand that George didn’t have much of a cherce, what with Torre winning four World Championships, but still, this is Steinbrenner we are talking about.)

Brian Cashman hasn’t been sainted by Yankee fans and the New York media in the same way that Torre has, but he’s been a marvel in his own right. (When he finally does leave New York, he won’t have a tough time finding work.) Cashman was at a Hot Stove event in New York last night and had some candid things to say about where the Yankees stand going into the 2004 season. Tom Singer of mlb.com was there and filed this report.

When asked about the Red Sox being the favorites to win the East, Cashman replied:

“That’s fine with me. That means we have something to prove,” the Yankees’ general manager said, showing a square jaw to his audience. “We plan on selling our players on the fact they’re not getting any respect.

“We’ve tripped and skinned out knees, and now are supposed to fall apart. ‘It’s up to you to show that’s wrong.’ We’re going for the jugular.”

What about the notion that the Yankees can spend money ’til the cows come home?

“Having money to spend can make things more difficult,” he said. “It can be more difficult to handle high expectations. I’ve been in a position of telling George, ‘We don’t need to spend this, it’s too much extra, we’re fine where we are.’

“I’m probably the only general manager that’s ever had that conversation with an owner. But I run more risks. Someone else maybe can’t afford a $3 million mistake, but I’m after bigger game. I can’t afford a $10 million mistake.”

As a self-incriminating case in point, Cashman volunteered Jeff Weaver, who went 12-12 in a season-and-a-half in the Bronx before being dealt on to Los Angeles. Weaver was acquired in the first year of a four-year, $22 million contract he’d signed with the Tigers.

“I thought he had the right mentality to handle pitching in New York, but I was wrong on that one,” Cashman said. “That turned out to be a $10 million mistake.”

From New York, straight talk. Peace to Repoz for the link.

Ellis Burks started his career with the Red Sox, and was another in a long-line of black players who ran into difficulties in Boston. But now Burks is returning to the Sox as a bench-player and clubhouse guy. According to Edward Cossette, this is a sign of how far ownership has come in Boston; at least the current group is conscientious.

The Yankees are collecting decent-hitting third basemen who aren’t any great shakes with the leather like they are going out of style. They have already invited Tyler Houston to spring training and according to the AP, now have a deal in place to land Mike Lamb from the Rangers for minor league pitcher Jose Garcia. Hey, maybe Mattingly can get in a couple of games at the hot corner too.

I’ve heard it through the grapevine that the Yankees have also invited Joe Girardi to camp too. Evidently, if the 39-year old offensively-challenged catcher doesn’t make the team—which is highly likely—he has a job waiting for him the YES Network broadcast booth. I’ve heard this story from several people (including Rob in the comments section of yesterday’s post), but I didn’t find any mention of it in the papers this morning. (If anyone comes across a link, let me know.)

Either way, it’ll be great to have Joe G back. Built like a hockey puck, Girardi is hardly effete, but he seemed to have an almost maternal presence when he was the starting catcher for the Yankees. (I’ll always remember how he protectively pulled David Cone down before the pile-on crashed over them after the final out of Cone’s perfect game.) Girardi looks like a distant cousin of Yogi Berra’s, but for some reason he reminds me of Chico Marx. Attsa fine.

Meanwhile, in the latest chapter of The Pinstriped Bible, Steven Goldman addresses Curt Schilling’s recent critique of Rob Neyer. Schilling is not alone in thinking that performance analysts like Neyer–who are removed from the daily grind of the clubhouse beat–aren’t exactly astute judges of just how good players really are. Goldman thinks this line of thinking is false:

In truth, being a clubhouse scribe does not automatically confer any great wisdom; like any other occupation, the members are a mixed bag. On any trip to the Yankee Stadium locker room, one can observe many writers, some of them quite notable, hustling for interviews, trying to build a rapport with the players, cajoling their reluctant interviewees into giving them something worth passing on to their readers. There is a second, larger group of writers, whose approach to the job seems to be to mill about in the center of the clubhouse hoping that Derek Jeter punches out Alfonso Soriano. Similarly, there are members of the analytical school who have something valuable to say and some who don’t.

Schilling complains that Neyer “talks about the numbers as they pertain to future performance almost as if it’s an absolute