Daily Archives: October 27, 2008

The below is an “Outside the Lines” report explaining the emerging scandal over the new Yankee Stadium tax swindle, with a cameo from Friend of the Banter Neil deMause. It may seem petty for the federal government to be concerned with this given the state of our economy, but the Yankees are trying to swindle the government, and thus the tax payers, out of hundreds of millions of dollars. If any other corporation tried a stunt like that, I’d want the feds to investigate, so I’m glad they’re doing so here.

Man, Randy Levine is the ultimate sleaze, ain’t he?

The Tampa Bay Rays have been the story of the 2008 baseball season, but they’re about to get pushed off the front (and back) page. The Rays’ worst-to-first journey has been exciting, but the team has only been around since 1998, and Tampa Bay has already won a Super Bowl and a Stanley Cup this decade. Philadelphia, on the other hand, hasn’t won a professional team sports championship since the USFL’s Philadelphia Stars won that league’s title in 1984, and hasn’t won in one of the four major leagues (the NLF, NHL, NBA, or MLB) since the 76ers’ 1983 NBA championship. The Phillies themselves have won just once in their 125-year history, that coming more than a quarter century ago when Tug McGraw (pictured above), Mike Schmidt, and Steve Carlton led the Phils to their first-ever title in 1980. With Cole Hamels on the mound tonight, all of that is about to change. My Game 5 preview is up on SI.com.

With the help of the various scorecards and ticket stubs I’ve saved over the years, I’ve been able to list roughly 127 games that I’ve attended at Yankee Stadium over the last 20 years. From among all those games, no single memory stands out any more than any single memory stands out from the house I grew up in, or the schools I’ve attended. Yankee Stadium was not so much a landmark that I visited, but a setting for a part of my life. It’s where I grew up as a baseball fan. It’s where I learned to keep score. Where my fandom was forged, challenged, and rewarded. My memory of the Stadium is thus assembled from a large collection of moments. Moments which made up my life as a baseball fan over the last 20 years. What follows is an associative trip through those moments.

The first baseball game I ever went to wasn’t at Yankee Stadium, but at Philadelphia’s old multi-purpose concrete donut, Veteran’s Stadium. Though I knew the Yankees were my team, one I inherited from my grandfathers on both sides of my family, men who remembered Babe Ruth and everything since, I was only getting my feet wet as a baseball fan in the summer of 1986 in the wake of my parents’ separation. Prior to that, my fandom was devoted primarily to music and countless hours of MTV. The Chicago Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” became something of a gateway drug to professional sports for me in late 1985, and Super Bowl XX was the first sporting event I watched from start to finish. That summer, the Mets were the hip young team that captured the attention of the tri-state area, and my dad took me on a bus trip organized by his office to see the Mets play the Phillies at the Vet. Despite the artificial turf and the fact that the Mets, who could have clinched the NL East that night, lost, I was hooked. Dad took me on another work trip to see the Mets at the Vet the following summer. By then I had sunk my teeth into the sport, collecting baseball cards, pouring over the statistics, and redirecting my attention to the team I had rightly inherited, the Yankees.

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Howdy! Here is what’s going on in Yankeeland today.

River Avenue Blues takes a crack at the off-season plans for the Yankees, and sees an inevitable push to sign Teixeira.

Over at the Daily News, George King writes that A.J. Burnett may be interested in signing with the Yanks if he opts out of the remainder of his deal with the Blue Jays.

MLB.COM’s Lisa Winston reports that the Trenton Thunder have been awarded the 2008 Minor League Baseball Yearly Award as the top Double-A organization.

Chien-ming Wang was honored as one of the ten most outstanding young men and women in Taiwan for 2008, reports the Taiwan News.

U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner suggests that the City sell off its luxury boxes at the Mets and Yankees new Stadiums as part of the plan to balance the budget, mentions the Daily News.

That’s all for now.

The guys who gather around Juan Carlos’s coffee cart every morning are committed to the game and their team and getting the last word. Javier – the unofficial leader of this group – is respected for his baseball knowledge and the fact that as a boy in Puerto Rico he once shook hands with Roberto Clemente.

He also got the last word on the neighborhood and maybe the whole world when he showed around his Last Will and Testament that was signed by the lawyer J.C. Klein. The only stipulation listed was that his gravestone – payments having already been made to a place on East Tremont Avenue – carries the line:

“It Was The Walks That Killed Him.”

“That sounds like something Casey Stengel would have done,” one of the guys said.

“Nope,” Javier shot. “Lots of people have talked about it, but I really did it. And that’s the last word.”

Javier smiled and said:

“Man, I love winning.”

Everyone in this neighborhood loves winning almost as much as they hate losing.

The kids that climb the fence and play ball in the parking lot across from the old Yankee Stadium will risk anything for victory. Just the other day a ball was hammered into the left-centerfield gap. It was fielded perfectly off the wall and the play at second was going to be close so the runner slid on the asphalt to the cardboard base. Getting into scoring position is always worth the price.

The old men who play dominos in Joyce Kilmer Park know the price of victory, too. And that price goes up when they are certain there are no cops around.

Jose, who delivers pizzas during the winter and sells baseball tickets in the summer, hates to lose.

There was a game this past April when he was stuck on River Avenue with nine tickets at the end of the first inning. He gave eight Main Box seats to his friends and lost himself in the Tier with a bottle.

The Yankees won and that made everything better, but Jose is worried about his ticket business for next year.

There are a lot of people worried about their jobs around here.

Jon, who lives over in High Bridge, had his hours cut at the warehouse and is driving a buddy’s cab on nights and weekends. Things like paying for rent and groceries and buying baseball tickets will be getting a lot more complicated for him.

“But I’m not worried about the economy,” Jon explained. “I need my team to get healthy. How’s Mariano doing? Is Jorge’s shoulder coming along? And is Wang’s foot feeling okay?

“I’m also looking for big things from the kids next year,” he continued. “Joba will be Joba and Hughes is ready to break out and I think Cano is gonna come back strong.

“That’s all anyone around here really cares about,” Jon went on. “Give us the Yankees and we’re ready to take on the world.”

Things can get pretty complicated around here. But what’s not to love?

[Photo Credit: Arthur Tress]

This is what we want from sports, most of us, a remembrance of happy times and experience shared, warmth and kidding laughter, a marvelous sense of the importance of the unimportant.

Leonard Shecter

Bronx Banter is just a few weeks away from completing its sixth full season yet it feels as if we’re just getting warmed-up.  I am proud to bring the site to the SNY network of blogs.  Along with Steve Lombardi’s Was Watching, our inimitable take on all things Yankees, helps give SNY great Bronx Bomber coverage, soup to nuts. 

Much thanks to Steve Raab, Fred Harner, Matt Cerrone, John Keegan, and Ken Arneson for helping make this a smooth transition.  And the move should be seamless for you guys as well. 

You’ll notice the banner ads for SNY but otherwise, things are remarkably similiar to how they were at Toaster.  Just so you know, as part of our deal, I retain complete editorial control, so the content will not change because we’re affliated with SNY.  You will have to register for the comments section from scratch, an inconvenience I trust won’t be too much of a hassle.  The new Loggin button can be found on the top left-hand portion of the page.  I’ll keep reminding y’all as the week goes on.  (In the conversion from Toaster, we’ve lost the comments for all posts that took placed during the last week, however the older posts still contain comments).

When I stared this site back in November of 2002, I didn’t choose the title Bronx Banter randomly.  Sure, it had a nice ring to it, but if I had lived in Brooklyn at the time, I never would have used “Bronx” even if it was a Yankee blog. 

Banter is what this blog has always been about.  I’ve never thought that my opinion is the end all.  I’m no expert.  I’m an enthusiast.  I love initiating convesation, banter.  That’s what gets me going.  I learn as much from you guys in the comments section as I do from anywhere else. 

So, in addition to the usual Bronx Banter crew–Cliff Corcoran, Bruce Markusen, Will Weiss and Emma Span–Todd Drew, who writes the brilliant man-on-the-street blog, Yankees for Justice, is joining the team and will be posting on a regular basis.  Diane Firstman will also be on board, providing a daily one-stop-shop of Yankee links around the ‘Net.  I’m thrilled to have both of them jern the club, and honored to have such a strong group of writers working with me to bring you our own unique brand of Yankee coverage. 

The look of the site is in Beta form, and we’ll be tweaking things as we get our bearings during the winter months.  Bear with us as we get the hang of the new technology.  As always, I encourage you to give me your take on what you like and what you don’t like about the site.  The hope here is to make Bronx Banter bigger and better while remaining true to the spirit of intelligence, humor, empathy and curiosity that has marked our first six seasons.

And that’s word to Big Bird.

In November of ’02, I started Bronx Banter on Blogspot.  The next year I took it to All-Baseball.com, and for the past four seasons, I’ve been with the crew at Baseball Toaster. It’s been a great run and a true honor to blog alongside the talent here.  Now, Bronx Banter is moving again, this time to the SNY network of blogs. 

The new address is www.bronxbanterblog.com. 

The Banter writing crew, Cliff Corcoran, Bruce Markusen, Emma Span and Will Weiss, are all coming along, I retain complete editorial control, and the new spot will be poppin.  Please jern us.  Once again, I want to say what a great time we’ve had here at Toaster.  Special thanks to Ken Arnesen for making the transition a smooth one.

Thanks, and as Kane says: