Daily Archives: November 21, 2005

According to the Associated Press, right-handed relief pitcher Jose Veras says that he has signed a one-year deal with the Yankees.

Steve Lombardi takes a closer look at the bullpen over at Was Watching.

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Hardly a peep about the Yanks to start the holiday week. The Mets are busy entertaining Billy Wagner and it appears that the Marlins are set to have another tag sale, but all is quiet in the Bronx. So I thought this might be a good opportunity to dig in the archives and pull out something in honor of giving thanks. Thanks for the relative sanity the organization has presented to the fans over the past decade, and thanks for the memories for the wild old days.

The Bronx Zoo Yankees would make for a great movie. It may be redundant to make a fictionalize version of a team that was so theatrical in it’s own right, but that’s okay. If they can make full-length features out of Scooby Doo and Fat Albert, they can make one on the 70’s Yankees too.

I doubt it would ever happen in George’s lifetime, but it’s a cinch for a comedy classic. Too bad that 70’s Retro is now passe. I picture the Bronx Zoo movie to be a cross between “Slap Shot” and “Boogie Nights”; “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Turning Point”; “The Bad News Bears” and “The Poseidan Adventure.” And maybe a dash of “Car Wash” to top it off. It would definitely have to have a “R” rating.

The costumes and soundtrack alone would be worth the price of admission. Get a group of terrific spaz method actors, and you’re set.

Ed Linn’s book “Steinbrenner’s Yankees” details the Billy, George, Reggie years expertly, and provides excellent fodder for a script. Bill Madden and Moss Klein’s “Damned Yankees” is also essential Bronx Zoo reading. (Both books can be had for peanuts on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles used section on-line.)

Here is an example that caught my funny bone: It is spring training, 1977. Reggie Jackson had just brought his star with him to Yankee camp after the Big Red Machine swept the Yankees the year before. Already, the camp was fraught with tension. But Reggie doesn’t appear in this scene…

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