Daily Archives: November 8, 2008

It’s about time.

While scoping the coverage of this week’s GM meetings and perusing the papers, blogs, TV, etc., a shift occurred in the news flow, particularly with the timing of how and when stories broke. Understanding the sensitivity here between sports and politics, it should be noted that the major professional sporting leagues and the media coverage of them are one of the last true bastions of traditional conservatism.

(For an example of this, check out this link recapping Thursday night’s Broncos-Browns game, and Brandon Marshall’s thwarted touchdown celebration. Dave Zirin’s analysis at The Nation can be found here. Mike Shanahan’s sound bite is especially telling.)

It’s big businesses assessing a big business; rarely in the mainstream will you find writers like Zirin or Will Leitch of Deadspin openly challenging the establishment. Nor would you look to the supposed leaders in coverage — the mainstream newspapers — aiming to break new ground in reporting, scooping, or information presentation to their reader base.

This week, there was a noticeable change, and it occurred for a number of reasons:

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I’m going to be one of the guests on the Baseball Digest Daily Live podcast today at noon, which you can listen to live. I’ll be talking Yankee hot stove, of course, and will be preceded by BDD’s Rob McQuown, who will be talking Jake Peavy, and followed by Baseball Prospectus’s Christina Kahrl, who will discuss the Mike Jacobs trade. Check it out.

Update: The online player here doesn’t seem to work for me, but if you go here you can download an MP3 of today’s show. I come in at the 21:21 mark, and do stay tuned for Christina, who follows, as she’s always interesting.

Peace to James for sending me a link to this mp3 medley of “Impeach the President” tunes.

Dizzy Gillespie played a Sax?

BEFORE YOU READ THIS POST: Some will probably be wondering why I’m still writing about the election. It’s a fair question so I’ll give you the numbers up front: Barack Obama received 88.2 percent of the presidential vote in the Bronx. Derek Jeter would have received 100 percent if he was on the ballot. You can finish the math after the story.

A young girl leaned comfortably against her mother on the 2 train this morning. They shared a newspaper and kept smiling at each other.

“It’s good news,” the mother said. “All the news is going to be good from now on.”

Fingers were crossed behind her back because the mother knows that the news is never all good. But nothing was going to ruin this – the first Saturday morning after Barack Obama won the country and inspired world – for her daughter.

“She’s always been more into Derek Jeter,” the mother said. “She watches all the games with her father, but she started following the presidential race with me after the baseball season ended.”

“I love Derek the most,” the little girl said, “but I like Obama a lot.”

The mother beamed.

“She even helped me vote. We pulled the lever together didn’t we, honey?”

“Yeah,” the little girl answered. “We did it together because I’m too young to vote.”

She’ll still be too young in four years, but the quality of the rest of her life depends on Obama’s ability to deliver.

“He’s going to make everything better for all of us,” the little girl said. “It’s like when Derek comes up and you just know he’s going to get a big hit.”

That kind of hope can lead to just about anything.

The GM meetings are over …. so let’s kick back and catch up on the news:

• Newsday reports that the City Comptroller William Thompson found that the Yanks had underpaid the city by $11 million over a three-year period. The team is supposed to pay the city a percentage of all revenue from tickets, parking and cable television.  The team is in the midst of paying it back.
• In the “we’ll pay you to take this off our hands” department, Peter Abraham reports that no one has contacted Brian Cashman regarding the readily-available Kei Igawa.
• The Times Jim Dwyer takes Mayor Bloomberg to task for assisting the Yankees in the funding for the new Stadium, while slashing the City budget.
• Abraham also has some fun facts gleaned from his attendance at the Joe Torre Safe at Home charity event Friday night:

1. Girardi revealed that Mussina told him after the season that he planned to retire. He has not heard from Moose since.
2. Pettitte, contrary to some reports, wants only a one-year deal and only to play for the Yankees.
3. Posada and Rivera said their respective shoulder rehabs are going well and both expect to be ready for spring training.  Posada said he is a catcher and has no interest in playing first base.
4. Don Mattingly said he wants to manage.

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