Daily Archives: August 14, 2007

For those of us who grew up listening to Phil Rizzuto during the lean years (be it the days of Horace Clarke or Stump Merrill) it seemed oddly fitting that the Yankees got their clocks cleaned last night, allowing Michael Kay and Ken Singleton to reminisce about Scooter uninhibited by compelling game action. In the seventh inning, with the Yankees already trailing by the eventual final of 12-0, Kay shared the fact that the Yankee booth had received a memorial box of cannolis from one of Scooter’s favorites, Artuso Pastry in the Bronx. That set Kay and Singleton off on remembrances of Scooter during which they talked straight through a pitching change with hardly a mention of the on-field action until Kay caught himself as the reliever warmed up:

“. . . he was such a student of Yankee history and he knew exactly what was going on . . . and, by the way, this, I feel like Phil, the Orioles just changed pitchers, they brought in Paul Shuey . . . but, he was such a student of Yankee history . . .”

And so forth. In general, YES did a great job honoring Rizzuto, compiling several clip packages, including a hilarious collection of his famous on-air antics supplemented by additional clips scattered throughout the broadcast. They even replaced the commercial break in the middle of the first inning with an excellent montage of Rizzuto’s playing career. It’s one thing to pay lip service, but by skipping that break and the break that would have come during Shuey’s warmup pitches, YES showed that they were willing to put Rizzuto’s memory in front of the bottom line for a night, which, in this day and age, may be the classiest move of all.

As for the game, spot-starter Jeff Karstens got rocked and bounced after throwing 74 pitches and allowing five runs in just three innings, four of them scoring on a third-inning grand slam by Aubrey Huff. Jim Brower was just as bad in his two-plus innings of work. He let two runs in on his own, then left the bases loaded with no outs for Ron Villone, who finished the job by allowing all three of Browers’ bequeathed runners to score and adding a solo homer by Kevin Millar in the following frame. With the pen otherwise empty, Kyle Farnsworth and Luis Vizcaino turned in 1-2-3 frames to finish things off. The Yankee offense, which had scored seven or more runs in ten straight home games prior to last night, one short of the franchise record, managed just two hits off Daniel Cabrera and none off of his two relievers, Shuey and Rob Bell, but walked nine times only to strand all 11 runners without so much as a double play or caught stealing. Only one Yankee got as far as third base all night. If ever there was a night to leave early to beat the traffic.

It sounds like a curse word, or a sneeze. It’s tonight’s starting pitcher. This is what Rod’s “Ha!” hath wrought. The O’s counter with the untamable fastball of Daniel Cabrera. Three of the last four Oriole games have ended in the victor’s last at-bat, all to the Yankees’ favor. Could more late-inning heroics be in the works? That might be the only way the Yanks get out of this one with a win.

There’s a certain irony to the fact that the last game the Yankees played during Phil Rizzuto’s lifetime ended with a situation taylor-made for a Scooter squeeze bunt only to see the team decline the opporunity to put on the play. It’s also fitting that that game was won in that situation on a dink hit by the Yankee shortstop, a player who won the Rookie of the Year award in Rizzuto’s final season as a Yankee broadcaster much to the enduring delight of the Scooter himself, and a player who has come to replace Rizzuto as the greatest Yankee shortstop of all time.

Rizzuto was a tremendously important figure in my life given the importance that baseball and Yankee baseball specifically has taken in it. Rizzuto was the voice first, but more than that the spirit and the passion and the humor that lured me back to the game day after day during the lean years of the 1980s when my fandom coalesced. I put a few words together about Scooter over on SI.com. As you’ve done in the last thread, please continue to post your memories, anecdotes, and feelings about Scooter below. And feel free to repost things here that you’ve said elsewhere, it would be great to have all of them in one place.

“We’ve been on the balls of our feet lately,” Torre said. “We’re not waiting for something to happen.” Joe Torre
(Hartford Courant)

For most of the first half of the season it felt like the Yankees were always losing by three runs, even when the score was tied. Just one of those seasons, man. But now, as they are playing their best ball of the season, the Yankees are finding ways to win games, even when their ace pitcher does give up three runs in the first inning. And so it went last night in the Bronx as the Yanks won a nail-biter in the bottom of the ninth inning, 7-6. Mariano Rivera blew his first save since April 20th, but Derek Jeter’s infield single drove home the winning run as the Yanks remain tied with the Mariners for the wildcard and just four games behind the Red Sox in the AL East.

I expect the Yankees to win these days, but I’m not that brave. I kept thinking they were going to find a way to lose last night, especially since Chien-Ming Wang was far from sharp for a second straight outing. They tacked-on runs after taking a 4-3 lead on Wilson Betemit’s two-run homer in the second inning, but left runners on second and third twice with two out. They just could not seem to pull away, and the Orioles have been more than pesky against New York this year.

A two-out wild pitch with a runner on third and two men out by Ron Villone in the seventh inning shaved the Yankee lead to 6-5. Then came Joba Chamberlain in his Yankee Stadium debut. He fell behind Miguel Tejada 3-1 but came back to strike the slugger out on a wicked slider. Joba got ahead of Kevin Millar who grounded out sharply to Alex Rodriguez. Joba ended the inning by striking out Aubrey Huff with another nasty slider. Joba was pumped, the Stadium was rockin.

Onto the ninth, and here is where I really started to squirm, knowing that Rivera was not sharp on Sunday in Cleveland. Mo generally has a bad spell right around this time of year, so it’s not as if I’m alarmed. Still, there was a ballgame to win. Melvin Mora singled and moved to second when Ramon Hernandez grounded out weakly in front of the plate. With all three outfielders playing in, Tike Redman–what a name!—blooped a single to center. Melky Cabrera charged the ball and fired a strike home where Mora was nailed for the second out of the inning.

“They were playing very shallow and I think it was a really poor decision by me,” [O’s third base coach, Juan] Samuel said. “That was my decision that cost us the ballgame. Yes, we tied, but you can’t predict what’s going to happen next. You have to make your decision on that particular play, and that was a bad one by me.”
(The Baltimore Sun)

Redman moved to second on the throw, and Jorge Posada overthrew the bag trying to get him. Fortunately, Melky was there to back the play up. Unfortunately, that little gnat of a Yankee-Killer, Brian Roberts was up next. Right on cue, he fisted a little fly ball into shallow right. Abreu fielded the ball on a hop and fired home. The throw was in plenty of time but it was high. Posada had to jump to catch it and Redman slide in safely with the tying run.

But with one out in the ninth, Chad Bradford hit Melky in the back. Jason Giambi pinch-hit for Shelley Duncan (who had pinch-hit for Johnny Damon in the sixth) and singled between first and second. Cabrera took third, Jeter at the plate. Would the Yankees try a squeeze? Perhaps if Jeter could push a bunt towards second. Well, that is essentially what happened. Jeter swung and tapped a dinky ground ball past Bradford. Roberts charged and fielded the ball, but it was too late. Cabrera, who doubled earlier in the game to extend his career-high hitting streak to 18 games, crossed the plate and the Yankees had themselves another win.

We’ll take it.