Daily Archives: March 6, 2007

The Yankees coughed up a 4-2 lead in the seventh and lost for the first time this spring when a ninth-inning rally came up a run short.

Lineup:

L – Johnny Damon (DH)
R – Derek Jeter (SS)
L – Hideki Matsui (LF)
R – Alex Rodriguez (3B)
S – Melky Cabrera (CF)
R – Josh Phelps (1B)
R – Miguel Cairo (2B)
L – Kevin Reese (RF)
R – Wil Nieves (C)

Pitchers: Chien-Ming Wang, Phil Hughes, Ross Ohlendorf, Kyle Farnsworth

Subs: Eric Duncan (1B), Andy Cannizaro (2B), Angel Chavez (SS), Alberto Gonzalez (3B), Raul Chavez (C), Kevin Thompson (CF), Jose Tabata (PR/LF), Bronson Sardinha (DH)

Opposition: Something like two-thirds of the Indians starters, including Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, and Victor Martinez.

Big Hits: Two-run homers by Kevin Reese (3 for 4) and Josh Phelps (1 for 3).

Who Pitched Well: Phil Hughes recovered nicely from his shaky first outing with two scoreless innings, striking out one and getting the rest of his outs on the ground. He allowed a hit and a walk, but only faced the minimum six batters because he picked Dave Dellucci (the walk) off first base in the fourth and followed Hector Luna’s fifth-inning single by getting Mike Rouse to ground into a double play.

Who Didn’t: Chien-Ming Wang was greeted with a homer by Grady Sizemore on his third pitch. In the third, Mike Rouse tripled off Wang and was plated by a Sizemore sac fly. In his three innings of work, Wang allowed a total of five hits, though he still got two-thirds of his outs on the ground (no Ks). In two innings of work, Ross Ohlendorf struck out three and induced a double play, but also walked one and allowed four hits. Of those four hits, Luis Rivas’s double and Michael Aubrey’s single followed an Alberto Gonzalez error in the seventh to plate three unearned runs as the Indians tied the game. Kyle Farnsworth allowed a run on two hits in the eighth, which prevented the Yankees’ ninth-inning run from tying the game.

Oopsies: Alberto Gonzalez, who committed the Yankees only other position-player error this spring by booting a ball at second, booted a ball at third in the seventh to kick start that three-run Indians rally.

Battles: Josh Phelps’s homer was his first extra-base hit of the spring. He’s now 4 for 8 with two walks and just one strikeout. Wil Nieves went 1 for 2. Raul Chavez went 0 for 1 with a sac fly to drive in the final Yankee run. If you doc Chavez an at-bat for the sac fly, both he and Nieves would be 2 for 7 with no extra base hits or walks and one strikeout in three games each. Ben Davis and the injured Todd Pratt are a combined 0 for 5.

Book Excerpt

The award-winning sportswriter Joe Posnanski has just published a book about Buck O’Neil called The Soul of Baseball. Pos followed Buck around for a year. This book is about their time together. It is a wonderful reminder of what a special man Buck was. Here’s an excerpt to give you a taste. I’ll have a Q&A with Pos up shortly. In the meantime, head on over to your favorite bookshop and grab a copy for yourself.

Enjoy!

from The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski

Summertime

Buck kept coming back to the old woman. Every city Buck had visited that summer seemed hotter than the city before, but this was the heat crescendo— Washington roasted. Gnats and flies attacked in the humidity. Buck kept talking about the old woman. She had walked across the street in front of the car, and Buck watched her. She was seventy or so, gray hair, small, she wore a long dress and a silver jacket. She carried two small plastic bags of groceries. She walked slowly, like she was considering whether to turn back.

The woman came upon a puddle in front of the curb, a puddle big enough to have condominiums built around it. Buck said: “Puddles in Washington must be bigger than anywhere else in America. The sewers must be backed up or something.” The driver made a crack about sewers and politicians. The woman stood by the puddle a few seconds. She studied it, measured it perhaps. She then seemed to bend her knees and lean forward, as if she intended to jump across. Buck held his breath. Then she shivered, as if a cool breeze had passed through her, and she stood up straight, took one longing glance at the puddle, and made the long trek around.

“Hold on for a second,” Buck said to the driver. Buck stepped out of the car and walked up to the woman. He offered to carry her groceries, but she said she could manage fi ne. He said to her, “I saw you standing there by that puddle.”

She smiled. “Yeah?”

“I thought you were going to jump over it for a minute there.”

“You did, huh? I thought about it. There was a time, you know.”

“I know,” Buck said. “There was a time.”

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