Daily Archives: October 30, 2008

I visited my mother’s family in Belgium the summer I turned twelve and went to the seaside with my uncle, his girl and a bunch of their friends, all in their early twenties.  We were sitting on the boardwalk one grey, typically overcast afternoon and heard somebody playing the saxophone.  My uncle’s best friend, Beniot, a Germanic-looking guy with short, blond hair and round glasses that made him look like Thomas Dolby, began to cry.  He told me that the saxophone, the jazz saxophone, always made him cry.

Tonight I heard a guy playing the trumpet on the uptown platform of the 7th Avenue and thought about Beniot.  Dude was playing In a Sentimental Mood, slowly and beautifully, when I passed him by.  The sound of his horn made me want to cry.  But it wasn’t just that.  It was what he was playing.  That song, a standard that is almost unbearably melancholy when played right.  For close to a minute the sound drifted down the platform uniterrupted before being drowned-out by a passing downtown express train. 

Then my train arrived and I couldn’t hear the trumpet anymore.  But I could in my mind’s eye and I still felt like crying as I got on the train to come home.

This is my favorite version.  The Duke with John Coltrane.

My World Series coverage comes to an end today with one final piece for SI.com, in which I list five things I took away from the 2008 fall classic.

Humility & Hubris

By Greg W. Prince

“I still don’t know why they asked me to do this commercial.”
—Marv Throneberry for Miller Lite

Alex Belth, apparently dizzy from inhaling Impetuous paint fumes, asked me to contribute a “classic-hater” perspective to this marvelous series of Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories. Nevertheless, despite my assigned role as the skunk that wanders into the wake — even an Irish wake — I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead. I, like many of you, know what it’s like to have the plug pulled on my ballpark against the wishes of its survivors.

I did, in fact, experience a very happy day at Yankee Stadium, my first game of five at Yankee Stadium. It was the only one the Yankees lost.

On Memorial Day 1986, I got a call from my friend Larry who used to be a Yankees fan before withdrawing from baseball altogether; he wasn’t really much of a sports fan in the first place, but the trade of Sparky Lyle to Texas drove him away for good. Anyway, he had been talking to another friend of ours, Adam, a genuine Yankees fan. There was nothing going on for either of them that day and they thought it might be fun to drive up to the Bronx from where we all lived on Long Island and see a game. They wanted to know if I wanted to go.

What a strange idea, I thought. I’d always held to a principled stand of never setting foot inside Yankee Stadium or anywhere the Yankees were playing. I refused to go on a day camp field trip in 1975 to Shea Stadium because it was for a Yankees game. At twelve years old, I was highly principled.

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‘Member this mid-Nineties Underground Posse cut?

Sadat, Large Pro, Puba, Finesse. ‘Nuff Said.

I was reading a baseball story on the 2 train last night.

It was something I’d printed out from SI.com. Jon Heyman had plenty of good information on: CC Sabathia, Matt Holliday, Brian Cashman and Ken Griffey Jr. But I stalled halfway through a sentence somewhere around 14th Street.

“Writers have marveled at the language of…”

I had to get to a dictionary and look up: erudite.

er●u●dite ‘er-ə-dīt, ‘er-yə- adj. – Characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly: an erudite professor; an erudite commentary.

I restarted from the beginning of Heyman’s sentence:

“Writers have marveled at the language of erudite Rays manager Joe Maddon, noting how he has used several multi-syllable college words correctly. His language does provide a nice contrast with Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, who hasn’t used many words correctly.”

I didn’t go to college. I guess that’s why I had to look up a multi-syllable word to understand that Heyman was taking a shot at me and a lot of other people, too.

He was clearly trying to embarrass Charlie Manuel, who is the manager of the World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Heyman can look that up today.

I don’t like being talked down to. I’m guessing that Manuel doesn’t like it either because I don’t know anyone who does.

But FOX baseball broadcasters keep doing it and so do some baseball writers.

“You don’t need a college degree to love this game.”

That’s written on a wall in the Bronx. You can look it up.

Warming up the Hot Stove to deal with the chilly weather …

• The Post’s George King reports that Mike Mussina’s decision on retirement will probably come shortly, as his agent will be meeting with him at the end of this week.
• King also reports that Arn Tellem, the agent for both Mussina and Jason Giambi, has mentioned that Giambi would like to be a Yankee in ’09, if the club wants him back.
• Newsday’s Ken Davidoff opines that the Yankees are more concerned with landing a top-flight pitcher than securing Mark Teixeira. Davidoff also reports on some AFL reviews of Yankee prospects.
• SI.COM has a pretty light-hearted interview with Derek Jeter. A few questions on how it feels to be out of the playoffs and other baseball issues. A lot of questions regarding his love life, his political affiliation and his preference in video games.
• NY Post blogger Tim Bontemps gives us an update on how some of our guys are doing in the Arizona Fall League. Juan Miranda is tied for second in doubles (six), tied for third in triples (two), is seventh in slugging percentage (.643) and is seventh in OPS (1.071).
• BP.COM has heard that the Brewers are leaning towards Ken Macha as their new manager, and that Willie Randolph will probably be heading to Colorado as a bench coach.
• Happy 26th birthday to reliever Jonathan Albaladejo. A happy 46th birthday to Danny Tartabull and a happy 67th birthday to Jim Ray Hart.
• On this date in 2001, President Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Game Three of the World Series. He was wearing a New York Fire Department windbreaker in honor of the heroes of the September 11th attacks.