Daily Archives: September 23, 2008

With one out in the bottom of the third inning of last night’s game against the Blue Jays, Toronto’s rookie left fielder Travis Snider hit a comebacker that ricocheted off Mike Mussina’s pitching elbow and shot into foul territory, allowing Snider to reach base with an infield single. The ball hit Mussina flush on the head of his radius, and when trainer Gene Monahan and manager Joe Girardi ran out to attend to their veteran ace, the conclusion to Mussina’s terrific comeback season was clearly hanging in the balance. The Yankees had a 1-0 lead at the time, but Mussina needed to finish the third and pitch two more innings without giving it up in order to qualify for his nineteenth win and keep his hopes for his first twenty-win season alive.

Mussina asked the assembled group to let him throw a few pitches, and after tossing a fastball and a sharp curveball, he declared himself fit to pitch. He was right. Despite a large red welt on the outside of his elbow the size of a golf ball, Mussina allowed just one more hit before being pulled after going the minimum five innings required for the win. By then his lead had doubled to 2-0 thanks to Jason Giambi’s 32nd home run of the season.

The Yankees added a third run in the seventh when Robinson Cano doubled off Blue Jays starter Jesse Litsch, moved to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a passed ball. Never mind that Cano was actually out at home as the ball bounced right back to catcher Gregg Zaun, who tossed to Litsch, who made a great play sliding across the opposite side of the plate and tagging the sole of Cano’s foot as it came down to touch home. Home plate ump Larry Vanover blew the call and spent the rest of the game calling strikes in a manner that found the middle ground between a sea lion and the Swedish Chef (strike one: “BORK!” strike two: “BORK!” strike three: “ARF! ARF!”).

The Jays got that run back in the bottom of the seventh when lefties Adam Lind and Lyle Overbay singled and walked against Damaso Marte and Scott Rolen greeted Joba Chamberlain with a single that scored Lind. With two out and none on in the eighth, the Jays loaded the bases against Chamberlain thanks to some sloppy defense by Cody Ransom, who replaced Derek Jeter and his sore left hand at shortstop just before game time (Jeter said after the game that he couldn’t swing), and an intentional walk, but Chamberlain won a seven-pitch battle with Lyle Overbay on a slider breaking down and away for a called strike three (ARF! ARF!). Otherwise Phil Coke, Brian Bruney, and Mariano Rivera were perfect in relief, nailing down the 3-1 win and giving Mussina his nineteenth win.

Hard Times Befallen The Soul Survivors

Unfortunately, the Red Sox also won, putting up a five-spot against likely Cy Young award winner Cliff Lee at Fenway to squeek out a 5-4 win behind Tim Wakefield and a quintet of relievers. The decisive run was scored by Dustin Pedroia on a two-out single by Jason Bay in the fifth (“sweet things from Boston, so young and willing”). With that, the Yankees have been eliminated from the postseason for the first time since 1993, the last year before the Wild Card was introduced.

That year it was Toronto that won the AL East, though the Yankees avoided being eliminated head-to-head by beating Todd Stottlemyre and the Jays behind Jim Abbott in their final game at SkyDome that season. The Yankees won again the next day, beating Rick Sutcliffe and the Orioles 9-1 behind Scott Kamieniecki (playing right field in place of an injured Paul O’Neill, Jim Leyritz homered in both games), but the Jays clinched anyway by beating the Brewers 2-0 behind Pat Hentgen and a trio of relievers that included Mike Timlin. The Jays would go on to win their second consecutive World Championship that October with Joe Carter delivering the Series-ending home run off Phillies closer Mitch Williams.

Please take me along when you slide on down.

Though the Yankees are still alive with just six games left to play, a single loss or a single Red Sox win will eliminate them from the postseason for the first time since 1993. Elimination is all the more likely because the Yankees will be facing both A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay yet again in this series, having already gone 2-7 in games started by those two this season. Of the Yankees’ 18 games against Toronto this season, 11 will have been started by Halladay or Burnett. The Yanks are 5-1 against Toronto this year in games started by other Blue Jay pitchers.

Fortunately, Mike Mussina has drawn Jesse Litsch tonight as he goes for this 19th win of the season. Mussina, who will start the final game of the season in Boston, has won 19 games in a season twice in his career, but never for the Yankees. The Yankees are 21-11 in Mussina’s starts this year, the fourth time in his eight years with the Bombers that the team has won 20 or more of the games he has started.

(more…)

I really enjoyed the fact that the Yankees brought out the U.S. Army Field Band to kick off Sunday’s pre-game ceremonies by playing a pair of Sousa marches thereby echoing the band John Philip Sousa himself led on Opening Day in 1923.

This ain’t that:

(more…)

Over at Baseball Prospectus, Jay Jaffe has a scathing piece about how the Yankee Stadium experience has changed in recent years. Check it out.

By Maury Allen

This was in 1972 in the old Yankee Stadium, the one where Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle had played, long before the 1974-75 refurbishing and a dream location across from The House That Steinbrenner is building for 2009.

I walked on that green grass again as I had for a dozen years or so as a sportswriter, looked out at those monuments, examined that façade above the third deck and waited for my pitching pal.

Fritz Peterson, the left-handed anchor of the bad Yankee pitching staff of the late 1960s and early 1970s, was on the field now, a smile on his face as always, his baseball cap tipped back, his eyes wide with glee and amusement.

“I got another Tugboat post card,” he said, with that wry smile. “I put it in his locker.”

Peterson had a habit of collecting post cards of big boats or even bigger women and dropping them off in the locker of Thurman Munson, the best Bronx Bomber catcher since Yogi. It irritated the surly Munson no end.

Sparky Lyle, another laughing teammate, had once described Munson as not really moody.

“Moody is when you can smile some of the time,” Lyle once said of his unfortunate batterymate, later to lose his life in a 1979 plane crash.

We chatted a while about Peterson’s next start in another strong season (17-15 in 1972 after 20 wins in 1970) and then I asked him if he was available on the next Yankees off day for a barbecue at my suburban home.

“Sure,” he said. “Can I bring Kekich?”

He had become pals with another Yankee lefty, Mike Kekich and the two couples, Fritz and Marilyn Peterson, Mike and Suzanne Kekich had spent a lot of time together.

The four of them arrived at my home on a beautiful summer night. My wife Janet had gone all out with her best cooking, our best dishes and a beer-filled refrigerator. A good time was had by all.

Soon, the information was out. Peterson and Kekich had arranged that night to swap wives, kids, cars, dogs, houses and hearts.

Marilyn and Mike never lasted as a couple. Fritz and Suzanne are going on some 35 years together.

Some people will always remember the giant home runs at the Stadium hit by Mickey Mantle or the clutch World Series shots by Yogi Berra or the brilliance of Whitey Ford on the mound and Elston Howard behind the plate.

Me? I just remember standing on that famous green grass and simply asking Fritz Peterson to join us for a barbecue. Who knew what evil lurked behind that question.

Maury Allen, a veteran newspaperman and author, writes for The Columnists.com.