Daily Archives: January 8, 2009

“Rickey Henderson’s strike zone is smaller than Hitler’s heart.”  Jim Murray

“If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.”   Bill James

I know the Baseball Hall of Fame is sometimes hard to take seriously.  Forget some of the less-than-deserving players in there, that’s bound to happen in any museum, but Tom Yawkey has a plaque.  When I was last there, it was placed directly above Bob Gibson’s plaque, an unintentional joke that reminded me of In the Heat of the Night.  At the same time, talking about the Baseball Hall of Fame is a lot of fun, even something to take seriously. 

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On Jan. 1, the much-ballyhooed launch of the MLB Network took place, with Don Larsen’s perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series as its flagship program. The game, which had never before been seen anywhere, was a kinescope film of the telecast, with Hall of Famers Mel Allen and Vin Scully on the mike, and more Gillette commercials than anyone has seen, anywhere. This was, for me, a chance to watch history — as the game took place long before I was born — as well as an opportunity to do a three-hour cultural study (male fans in attendance wearing suits and hats, for example), and review how far we’ve come in terms of broadcasting baseball on television.

The program interweaved Bob Costas’s hosting of a Q&A with Yogi Berra and Don Larsen in front of a live audience in MLB Network’s Studio 42 and the game itself. When Costas wasn’t ignoring spoiler alerts and telling us what to watch for in the program (as if we couldn’t figure it out for ourselves), he was playing to his greatest strength — allowing his interview subject to tell the story. The highlight, in my opinion, was the discussion session that followed the final out. Larsen admitted that he knew he pitched a no-hitter but didn’t know it was a perfect game; he didn’t even know what a perfect game was. (I was instantly reminded how when the Astros no-hit the Yankees with six pitchers in 2003, that Jeff Kent didn’t know why his team was celebrating so vigorously until he looked at the scoreboard.) Perhaps Larsen’s most prescient comment, though, came in that same segment. Costas mentioned that 15 Hall of Famers played in that game, and that for Babe Pinelli, the home plate umpire, Game 5 was the last game for which he called balls and strikes. Following that, Larsen said he thinks about the perfect game every day, the Hall of Famers, and that so many of them — especially on the Brooklyn side — are not around now for him to thank them for being part of it also.

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Powered by WKRP’s  “Turkeys Away“, containing perhaps the funniest single scene in sitcoms in the last 30 years, here’s the news:

• Chad Finn of the Boston Globe recaps a Peter Gammon radio interview which contained some interesting nuggets on the BoSox, Boras and Teixeira, including this:

On why Teixeira chose the Yankees over the Red Sox when the conventional wisdom was that he would sign with Boston:

Gammons: As we saw over the time line, once Cashman went to his house — first Terry Francona and Theo {Epstein] went there — five or six days later Cashman went, and that was decided that the Red Sox were the stalking horse and the Red Sox would go to a number and then the Yankees will sign him. And the Yankees did a very good job of saying, ‘We’re not in it, we’re not in it’ . . . all along, that’s where he was going. Not because his father was a [high school] teammate of Bucky Dent, but he made it very clear watching it yesterday [and wading] through the baloney . . . Teixeira is Scott Boras’s ultimate client, and he’s very well-programmed . . . The Red Sox didn’t know it, and in the end there was nothing they could do about it. He wanted to go to the Yankees, his wife doesn’t like Boston — apparently she doesn’t like the stores on Newbury Street or something — and in the end that’s the way it goes.

On whether — or when — John Henry realized Teixeira was ticketed for New York:

Gammons: They didn’t know it. They were waiting on the day that he signed . . . they thought that they were going to get him. They tried to close the deal on Monday night [Dec. 21], and Scott [Boras] said, ‘Well, the Teixeiras are flying, and they haven’t quite done this, and they haven’t quite done that,” and he kept putting it off an all along it was to just finish the language with the Yankees. That’s the way it goes. The Yankees cut their $180 million and they got an extraordinary player. It’s going to be interesting. As you probably remember, there was a lot of testiness between Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira when they played in Texas together . . . and I don’t think Alex really cares about communicating with other players, we know [that] from Derek Jeter. Also, we haven’t really seen Teixeira in a situation where the expectations are really that high, and he’s going to have to deal with them in New York. It will be very interesting to see how it goes with the Yankees.

• Kevin Kernan of Fox Sports (via the Post) gives a glowing portrait of Teixeira:

The look is pure pinstripes. As Mark Teixeira stood on the field of the new Yankee Stadium with the glistening facade in the background, a smile flashed across his face. He seemed like a player from another era, a throwback.

Quite simply, Teixeira was born to be a Yankee.

“He’s got that All-American look,” Brian Cashman said at yesterday’s press conference, introducing Teixeira to New York. “He’s Paul Bunyan, he’s well educated, he’s the All-American high performer and he’s not a loud personality. He’s very disciplined, structured, a hard worker that’s got exceptional ability. It kind of fits our clubhouse.”

When suggested Teixeira carries himself a lot like Derek Jeter, in that Captain kind of way, Cashman agreed, adding, “He kind of has those qualities.”

• At Newsday, Wallace Matthews draws comparisons between the signing of Teixeira and the Yanks’ last FA first baseman, Jason Giambi:

Giambi came to symbolize everything that was wrong about the post-millennium Yankees — overpaid, overrated, overpumped and underachieving. Never did he duplicate the kind of numbers that won him the 2000 MVP in Oakland and never during his tenure did the Yankees come close to fulfilling the burgeoning expectations that went along with the club’s ballooning payroll.

Now comes Mark Teixeira, as squeaky clean as Giambi was sweaty, as likably sincere as Giambi was ingratiatingly smarmy, and every bit as eye-popping, on paper and in person, as Giambi was on that December day in 2001. …

His transition to the Bronx should be smoother than Giambi’s for the simple fact that he is not replacing a Yankees legend but a legendary Yankees disappointment. Even if he gets off to one of his typical slow starts — Teixeira’s career average in April, .256, is nearly 40 points lower than his overall average — the fans at the new Yankee Stadium are not likely to indoctrinate him with that uniquely New York rite of passage, the rude welcome, that they gave to Giambi at the 2002 home opener when he had the nerve to take the collar in a 4-0 win over the Devil Rays.

Besides, at the new Stadium, the fans will have to be nearly as wealthy as the players. Less class resentment breeds more genteel behavior. …

… Since the Giambi signing kicked off the Drunken Sailor period of Yankees history, their free-agent contracts have been a worse investment than subprime mortgages. In fact, not since Reggie Jackson has a big-ticket free agent paid off for the Yankees.

[My take: Matthews is a bit harsh on Giambi, whose offensive production, while not at his 2000 season level, was still quite good for the first three years of the contract.  As for Reggie being the last big-ticket free agent to pay off for the Bombers, I offer up Mike Mussina.  Is it Moose’s fault the Yanks didn’t win a Series while he was in pinstripes?]

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Our great friend and Bronx Banter colleague Todd Drew is still in the hospital recovering from surgery.  He’s a trooper, a strong man, but still has a way to go before he can return home. 

If anyone cares to send Todd a message, please send it to:  shadowgames@earthlink.net and his wife will be sure to read it to Todd once he’s alert.

Thanks, y’all.