Daily Archives: May 21, 2008

The Yankees didn’t just break a four-game losing streak last night, they stomped the Orioles, cruising to a lopsided win for the first time since they beat the Mariners 8-2 on May 4, more than two weeks ago. Darrell Rasner and Joba Chamberlain combined to recorded just the third Yankee shutout of the season and first since April 27, while five Yankees had multi hit games (led by Alex Rodriguez, who went 3 for 4 with two doubles and a solo homer) as the Bombers scored eight runs for just the fifth time all season and first time since that May 4 game against Seattle.

Rasner, who is now 3-0 in as many starts, was nails, retiring the first eight Orioles in order, striking out a career-best six men, and allowing only that many to reach base while using up only 95 pitches in his seven scoreless innings. Rasner has walked two men in his three big-league starts this season, has a 1.89 ERA, 0.84 WHIP, and is averaging 6 1/3 innings per start. What makes that all the more impressive is that he was even better in his five triple-A starts before being called up, going 4-0 with a 0.87 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, and averaging 6 2/3 IP/GS. Darrell Rasner isn’t this good, but I’ve long believed he’s a legitimate back-of-the-rotation starter. At this moment, he’s the Yankees best starter. Not bad for a pitcher who was claimed off waivers while still in double-A two years ago and then slipped through waivers this past offseason and wasn’t even on the 40-man roster until he was called up in early May. Heck, Rasner was skipped the last time through the rotation (I’m still trying to figure that one out).

That’s the great thing about Rasner. He’s so dull, you barely even notice him. He doesn’t have any eye-popping pitches. He dominated the Orioles last night, but never looked dominating. He just mixes his four pitches, throws strikes, and works fast. Before you notice he’s pitching, he’s back in the dugout. Even his post-game interviews are impossible to pay attention to. All of that makes the nickname Shelley Duncan used for him while introducing the Yankee lineup on FOX a couple of Saturday’s ago perfectly inappropriate: “Razzmatazz” it is. Razzle Dazzle ’em, Mister Cellophane.

By the way, that game for which Rasner was called up in early May was that May 4 game against the Mariners. Though he’s needed just seven runs total to win his three starts, Rasner has received an average of seven runs of support per game, making him just about the best thing to happen to the Yankees this year. Last night, the offense in support of Rasner drew five walks and bounced left-handed Baltimore starter Gregg Garrett Olson in the third inning after plating six men and making Olson throw 79 pitches. Queens native Dennis Sarfate, part of the Miguel Tejada booty from Houston, shut things down for a couple of frames after that, but the Yanks pounced on subsequent reliever Lance Cormier for two more tallies in the sixth.

Both of those sixth-inning runs should have come on Alex Rodriguez’s second home run of the game (his third in his two games since returning from the DL), but, in an echo of the botched Carlos Delgado home run call on Sunday, the umpires erroneously ruled Rodriguez’s hit, which bounced off the yellow stairs in front of the right field bleachers, a double. Rodriguez seemed a bit too concerned about the extra two bases with one out in the sixth inning of a 7-0 game, but a passed ball and an RBI groundout from Shelley Duncan got Alex home with the final run of the Yankees 8-0 victory.

So the Yankees got what they’d been desperate for, not just a win, but a clean, crisp victory with errorless play on the bases and in the field and dominating performances on both sides of the ball. What could possibly overshadow a win like that?

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Mr. Rasner is on the hill for the Bombers tonight who are in desperate need of a win, of something, anything to feel good about.  The Yanks are wearing us out early once again, our legendary calm and patience being put to the test.  But that’s cool, we ain’t going nowhere.  So, nevermind the bollocks…

Let’s Go Yankees!

During and immediately after the War there was precious little work to be found in Belgium, so my mother’s father, a man’s man in the Ted Williams mold (although far more reserved), who had a considerable amount of wanderlust, moved his young family to the Congo, where my ma lived from the time she was three (1947) until she was a teenager.  I learned about my father’s family, from Russia and Poland respectively, mostly through the oral tradition, endless stories, and even some writings.  But I learned about my mother’s family chiefly through photographs and 8 mm home movies, a) because of the language barrier (they speak broken English, I speak broken French), and b) because they took an extraordinary amount of pictures.  You can imagine how exotic it was to me as a kid to see photographs of my mom in Africa.  "You grew up there and you wound up in the suburbs?" I used to kid her when I was a wise-ass teenager.  

As it turns out, my mom and dad met in Addis Ababa, of all places.  1966.  My father was there working as a production manager on a National Geographic Special on Africa.  My mother was there with a group of friends, making a short documentary for graduate school about their trip from Northern Africa down to Ethipia. 

Dig this.  Which one you think is Ma Dooke?

And here’s the old man, in full Elliott Gould mode:

So, where did your folks meet?

Earlier this spring, my wife Emily and I visited her sister in Albuturkey, New Mexico.  Even though the climate was dry and cool I have never experienced such oppresive heat from the sun, which was the hottest in the late afternoon.  The sun was omni-present.  Even when it was slightly overcast you could feel it.  One day, we were at a used bookstore and the guy who ran the place told us that when native New Mexicans leave the state they go into shock because of the lack of sun. 

In New York, you learn to savor the sun because it comes to us as fractured light, in bits and pieces.  Native New Yorkers know where the sun will be, at what time of day, during each time of year.  The sun is more precious here which makes you appreciate it all the more.  But it’s not only the sun.  Being in New York, all you need to do is look up and pay attention and you will see the most stunning sights.  For instance, a few weeks ago, I met Richard Lederer and his son Joe outside of their hotel on 42nd street and 3rd avenue.  As I waited, I happen to look up and saw, through a crack in the awning, a gorgeous view of the Chrysler Building.  Of course, I’d never seen it from that perspective before, and it is likely that I’ll never see it from there again.

I feel the same way going to games at the Stadium.  Although I have sat in the same seats more than once and I’ve been to many sections in the park over the years, I certainly haven’t been to all of them.  Not nearly.  Each seat offers you a distinct perspective that makes the game fresh and new.  Last night, I was at the game, and enjoyed the view from some very cushy seats, about twenty rows deep behind first base.  When hard ground balls skipped foul up the first base line you could hear them woosh along the grass; when Kevin Millar caught a line drive, we heard a loud WHAP, and when Derek Jeter was hit in the hand, a resounding crack. 

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