Daily Archives: April 4, 2008

One of the most exciting events of the spring has been the recent launching of the SI Vault. Talk about an embarassment of riches. Dag. To my dismay, the site does not offer anything close to a complete author index, making finding stuff a frustrating experience at best. I can only hope that this is a temporary problem, because it would be a real shame for something as rich and varied as the SI archives to be needlessly difficult to navigate.

Still, here are a couple of gems for you as we wait for today’s game. No telling if the rain will mess with things this afternoon. It’s warm and foggy this morning and the sun is even shinning here and there in the Bronx. I’m gunna throw up this game thread now cause I won’t be around for the start of the game. If they get it in, Andy Pettitte will make his first start of the year. If there is a delay, grab another bowl of soup, and consider the following bag o treats from the SI vault.

Come Down Selector:

A Diamond in the Ashes: Robert Lipsyte’s highly critical take on the rennovated Yankee Stadium (April, 1976).

This Old House: William Nack’s essay on the Stadium (June, 1999), and The Colossus, his piece on the Babe (August, 1998).

The Play that Beat the Bums: Ron Fimrite’s look back at the Mickey Owens game and the 1941 season (October, 1997).

Mickey Mantle: Richard Hoffer’s piece on the legacy of the last great player on the last great team (August, 1995).

A Real Rap Session: Peter Gammons talks hitting with Ted Williams, Don Mattingly and Wade Boggs from the Baseball Preivew issue (April, 1986).

Yogi: Roy Blount’s takeout piece on the Yankee legend (April, 1984).

Once He Was an Angel (March, 1972) and Tom Terrific and His Mystic Talent (July, ’72), two classic portraits (Bo Belinsky and Tom Seaver) by Pat Jordan.

No Place in the Shade: Mark Kram considered this portrait of Cool Papa Bell to be his finest work for SI (August, 1973). And while we’re on Kram, check out A Wink at a Homely Girl, his wonderful piece about his hometown Baltimore that appeared on the eve of the ’66 World Serious (October, 1966).

Laughing on the Outside: John Schulian’s fine appreciation of the great Josh Gibson (June, 2000).

And finally, He Does it By the Numbers: Dan Okrent’s landmark essay, you know, the one that “discovered” Bill James (March, 1981).

There, that should keep you busy for more than a minute.

The rain held out on Friday night but Joe Girardi missed the fourth game of the season anyhow with the flu. On the YES broadcast, Michael Kay reported that Girardi was at the Stadium, suffering in his office. Then Ian Kennedy went out and pitched something like the way his manager must be feeling. It sure wasn’t pretty. Kennedy had no grasp of the strike zone, threw seventy pitches, and allowed six runs off four hits and four walks in two-and-one-thirds innings.

His counterpart, Andy Sonnanstine, retired six of the first seven batters he faced before running into trouble in the third–everything he threw was up–when the Yankees bashed six hits, kicked off by a cheap-o right field homer by Godzilla, and followed by three shots off the outfield wall (Molina, Jeter, Giambi). When Alex Rodriguez scored from first base on Giambi’s double, he had a wide, guileless grin on his face as he crossed the plate. It was a small, isolated moment, one that made Rodriguez look like a little boy. (It was easy to take pleasure in his enjoyment, something that is not always the case with Rodriguez.)

The Bombers scored four runs in the rally and then Sonnanstine went back to the junkyard, pitching six innings in all and retiring the last ten batters he faced. The Yanks got some handy work from the pen in the young law firm of Albaladejo, Ohlendorf and Traber, keeping the game close, at 6-4. Then LaTroy Hawkins was beat about the neck and face by Cliff Floyd and his pals. Pass the Robitussin, son. The crowd booed Hawkins and chanted “Paul O’Neill,” chiding the poor guy for having the nerve to wear O’Neill’s former number (Hawkins, who according to Pete Abraham, is an all-around swell guy in the locker room, is wearing 21 as a tribute to Roberto Clemente). When Hawkins was mercifully removed, Cooter Farnswacker replaced him and quickly served up a three-run moon shot to Carlos Pena.

13-4 was the final. Nothing a warm bowl of Jewish Penicillin and a good of sleep can’t fix.

Tampa Bay Rays

2007 Record: 66-96 (.407)
2007 Pythagorean Record: 66-96 (.407)

Manager: Joe Maddon
General Manager: Andrew Friedman

Home Ballpark (multi-year Park Factors): Tropicana Field (98/100)

Who’s Replacing Whom:

Jason Bartlett replaces Brendan Harris
Willy Aybar replaces Ty Wigginton
Elliot Johnson replaces Josh Wilson
Erik Hinske replaces Delmon Young
Nathan Haynes replaces Elijah Dukes and Rocco Baldelli (DL)
Shawn Riggans replaces Josh Paul and Raul Casanova
Matt Garza replaces Jae Weong Seo, and the starts of Casey Fossum and J.P. Howell
Trever Miller replaces Fossum’s relief innings
Howell replaces Brian Stokes in the bullpen
Troy Percival replaces Al Reyes as closer
Dan Wheeler and Scott Dohmann take over relief innings pitched by Shawn Camp, Juan Salas (minors), Jae Kuk Ryu (minors), and Grant Balfour

25-man Roster:

1B – Carlos Peña (L)
2B – Akinori Iwamura (L)
SS – Jason Bartlett (R)
3B – Willy Aybar (S)
C – Dioner Navarro (S)
RF – Eric Hinske (L)
CF – B.J. Upton (R)
LF – Carl Crawford (L)
DH – Cliff Floyd (L)

Bench:

R – Jonny Gomes (OF)
L – Nathan Haynes (OF)
S – Elliot Johnson (IF)
R – Shawn Riggans (C)

Rotation:

R – James Shields
R – Matt Garza
R – Andy Sonnanstine
R – Edwin Jackson
R – Jason Hammel

Bullpen:

R – Troy Percival
R – Al Reyes
R – Dan Wheeler
R – Gary Glover
L – Trever Miller
R – Scott Dohmann
L – J. P. Howell

15-day DL: L – Scott Kazmir, L – Kurt Birkins, R – Chad Orvella, S – Ben Zobrist (IF)
60-day DL: R – Rocco Baldelli (OF)

Lineup:

L – Akinori Iwamura (2B)
L – Carl Crawford (LF)
L – Carlos Peña (1B)
R – B.J. Upton (CF)
L – Cliff Floyd (DH)
S – Willy Aybar (3B)
L – Erik Hinske (RF)
S – Dioner Navarro (C)
R – Jason Bartlett (SS)

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The last Opening Day game at Yankee Stadium has already been treated with several heaping measures of media coverage. We can expect that level of coverage to be ramped up even higher—applied full throttle both locally and nationally—to the final regular season game scheduled for the Stadium later this year.

In contrast, the final game at the old Yankee Stadium was treated with relatively little fanfare. Only 32,238 fans showed up for the 1973 finale; barring a tornado, there will be a full house for the final game of 2008, scheduled for September 21 against the Orioles. Of course, there were several factors at play back in 1973. ESPN, Fox Sports, and the World Wide Web had not yet come into existence. (I’m not sure if Alex Belth, Cliff Corcoran, Emma Span or Will Weiss had even been born yet!) The Yankees were mired in the middle of their mediocrity phase, nine seasons removed from their last postseason appearance and still three years away from their first American League East title—and the start of a late 1970s mini-dynasty. And then there is the "reconstructionist" belief that the old Stadium and the new one are really one in the same, that the current incarnation was simply a renovation and nothing more. I don’t really buy the latter argument, not when you consider how drastically the renovation changed the look of the old Stadium, taking away the majestic old façade and those awful view-blocking pillars. (The pillars were necessary, though, in keeping the old Stadium from toppling to the Bronx floor.) The Stadium that we have enjoyed for the last 35 years, while still beautiful to these eyes, looks far different than the one that was originally created at the outset of the Babe Ruth Era in 1923.

Frankly, the final game in the old Yankee Stadium deserved a better sendoff. Although 35 years late in its delivery, here is a tribute to the final game at the original House That Ruth Built.

On the afternoon of Sunday, September 30, 1973, the Yankees and Tigers closed out their respective seasons with one final soiree before the massive two and a half year reconstruction of Yankee Stadium would take place. Although well out of contention for the American League East, the Yankees did have something to play for that afternoon. They needed a win to finish the season at .500, which would have given Ralph Houk’s final season in pinstripes some respectability.

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I have always been nervous about peeing at a urinal in a crowded public restroom. It is a leftover anxiety from childhood that I can trace directly back to my experiences at the men’s rooms in Yankee Stadium. Not that I can recall any one traumatic incident, but the overall mood of the place–loud, profane, rushed, pressurized–still makes me uneasy, the place filled with cigarette smoke and the smell of urine and beer. So I wait for a stall just like I did when I was a boy.

Last night, I went to my historic first game of the final year of Yankee Stadium. It is the earliest in the season I’ve ever been to a game. Some cherce seats landed in my lap the day before, and so here I was, in the “rattle your jewelry” section down on the field level, standing in a narrow, grey stall, trying to concentrate on peeing as I listened to a young boy crying hysterically in the stall next to me as his father, impatient and frustrated, tried to get him to stop. The walls felt as if they were closing in on me like the trash compactor scene in Star Wars, and it occurred to me that one of the benefits of the new stadium will be more spacious restrooms.

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