The Mets called up Ike Davis this afternoon. This may be the first time a New York baseball player has shared the same name with a Woody Allen character.
Rounding out the starting nine of the A.S. Konigsberg All Stars:
c: Boris Grushenko
2b: Virgil Starkwell
ss: Allan Felix
3b: Sandy Bates
lf : Alvy Singer
cf: Miles Monroe
rf: Mickey Sachs
bench: Leonard Zelig
p: Fielding Mellish
rp: Howard Prince
manager: Broadway Danny Rose
A real head-nodder…
I had dinner with a friend last week and asked him, “What’s your favorite vegetable?
“Asparagus,” he said without flinching.
“Really? You don’t mind that it makes your pee smell funny?”
“No, I love that, man.”
Go figure.
For the longest, I didn’t dare try asparagus and funny-smelling pee was the least of it. But I’ve learned to like asparagus in spite of that peculiar side effect. So I was eager to try a slow-cooking method that I saw in the Times last week.
I made it last night and it was tasty. Props to Melissa Clark for the article.
[Photo credit: Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times]
I haven’t seen the big Henri-Cartier Bresson show at the Modern yet but I did catch this review in The New Yorker:
Cartier-Bresson has the weakness of his strength: an Apollonian elevation that subjugates life to an order of things already known, if never so well seen. He said that the essence of his art was “the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event, as well as the precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.” Too often, the “significance” feels platitudinous, even as its expression dazzles. Robert Frank, whose book “The Americans” (1958) treated subjects akin to many in the older photographer’s work, put it harshly but justly: “He traveled all over the goddamned world, and you never felt that he was moved by something that was happening other than the beauty of it, or just the composition.” The problem of Cartier-Bresson’s art is the conjunction of aesthetic classicism and journalistic protocol: timeless truth and breaking news. He rendered a world that, set forth at MOMA by the museum’s chief curator of photography, Peter Galassi, richly satisfies the eye and the mind, while numbing the heart.
…The hallmark of Cartier-Bresson’s genius is less in what he photographed than in where he placed himself to photograph it, incorporating peculiarly eloquent backgrounds and surroundings.
I’m looking forward to seeing this one…
Nice piece by Sam Dolnick in the Times yesterday about a paltry tribute to Thurman Munson:
Thurman Munson’s widow, Diana, has never been to Thurman Munson Way, but she said that her husband would have appreciated the street’s low profile.
“He wasn’t about the big superhighway and mainstream streets,” she said. “It fits his personality so much more that it would be an out-of-the-way street and be something that not a lot of people would embrace.”
“After 30 years,” she said, “he would just be pleased that they’re still talking about him.”
It remains unclear exactly why this street was chosen to honor Munson. Henry J. Stern, who was a member of the City Council’s parks committee when the honor was bestowed in 1979, could not recall the exact circumstances. But he said it was probably chosen because it was reasonably close to Yankee Stadium.
Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press
If you’ve been married for any length of time, you know you have to choose your battles. You rent the romantic comedy instead of the Tarantino flick, you hang the picture in the hallway during halftime of the football game, and you smile when she asks to share your dessert. You have to draw the line somewhere, though, and it seems like most of us take our stand with the comfort items. It could be a beat up chair, a worn pair of jeans, or an old pair of shoes.
Andy Pettitte is an old pair of shoes. He’s been doing this so long that it’s expected and surprising all at the same time. Sure, the stubble on the jaw is a gun-metal grey now, and his three-year business trip to Houston kind of puts an asterisk on Michael Kay’s constant references to the Core Four, but this is still Andy Pettitte. So when he rattled off eight effective innings on Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, Pettitte looked just like the guy we saw back in 2009 or 2003 or 1996.
He allowed two runs in the third inning on a single, a sacrifice, a double, and another single, but he was coldly effective the rest of the way. He walked Ryan Garko with one out in the fourth, then settled in to retire the next twelve Texas hitters, highlighted by the sixth and seventh innings when he needed only fifteen pitches total to record the six outs.
On the other side of the efficiency coin was Texas starter Rich Harden. Harden’s been on my fantasy team for the past couple seasons, so I’ve seen this game about a thousand times. His stuff is great, far better than Pettitte’s, so he was able to strike out five hitters in only three and two-thirds innings, but the the problem was that he also gave up six walks and five base hits. The strikeouts and walks would naturally lead to a high pitch count, but here’s a hidden stat that doomed Harden: Yankee hitters fouled off 22 of his pitches; Ranger batters managed only three foul balls during Pettitte’s eight innings.
Meanwhile, the Yankees cobbled together five runs with a sacrifice fly here, a bloop single there, and a couple of home runs, only one of which is interesting enough to talk about here. The struggling Mark Teixeira hit his first home run of the season, and as he rounded the bases in his usual high-stepping trot, looking like a man running through three feet of snow, I wondered if he might finally be coming around. I know we all know that Teixeira starts slowly, but just as a reminder, I looked it up. Take a look at where he was on the morning of April 19th in each the past several years. (And to make you feel better, I’ve included his finishing slash stats as well.)
2003: .149/.216/.298 — .259/.331/.480
2004: Injured in April — .281/.370/.560
2005: .224/.308/.397 — .301/.379/.575
2006: .321/.410/.528 — .282/.371/.514
2007: .204/.339/.224 — .306/.400/.563
2008: .203/.282/.375 — .308/.410/.552
2009: .194/.333/.548 — .292/.383/.565
2010: .114/.291/.205 — ????/????/????
The numbers don’t lie. Sooner or later, he’ll be fine. The hitters say that sometimes one swing is all it takes to find what’s been missing; here’s hoping that Big Tex has found it. But back to our game…
Everything ended when another pair of comfortable shoes, Mariano Rivera, trotted in from the dugout and closed things out with a spotless ninth inning. Yankees 5, Rangers 2. As noted everywhere, the Yanks have won their first four series, the first time that’s happened since 1926, and all is happy in the Bronx.
The Yanks have won the first four series of the season; today, they aims ta sweep the Rangers. The dangerous Rich Harden is on the hill for Texas. He’ll face Andy Pettitte. Derek Jeter is out with a head-cold.
Enjoy the day, dudes and dudettes, and let’s go Yan-Kees!
It’s a lovely spring morning in the Bronx. Today gives NBA playoffs and baseball, lots more baseball.
Yanks go for the sweep against the Rangers. Here’s hoping for a good day. In the meantime, some Sunday soul.
By the end of his two-inning stint in the Bronx, Scott Feldman must have felt like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. The Texas Rangers’ ace received first-hand evidence of the Yankees’ ability to grind through opposition starting pitchers like no other ballclub. Feldman, a sinkerballing right-hander who usually has a knack for throwing strikes, needed 61 pitches to work through the first two innings of a matinee at Yankee Stadium. Feldman escaped the first inning unscathed, but allowed two runs in the second, as the Yankees launched a 7-3 win over the Rangers.
The Yankees did not exactly crush the ball during the rally–they mixed in two infield hits with a walk–but their ability to foul off pitches and prolong at-bats clearly frustrated Feldman. Feldman also hurt himself by failing to throw out Brett “The Jet” Gardner on a softly tapped grounder down the first base line. With two outs and the bases loaded, Nick “The Stick” Johnson waited out Feldman, drawing a walk on a 3-and-2 count to score the first run of the game. The slumping Mark Teixeira followed up by hitting a ground ball into the second base hole. Joaquin Arias made a diving stop on the outfield grass, but was unable to complete the play with a throw to first. Tex’s relatively soft infield single gave the Yankees an early 2-0 cushion.
The Yankees used another infield single to add to their lead in the third inning. After Curtis Granderson’s opposite-field double knocked Feldman from the game and pushed Jorge Posada to third, Gardner slapped a ball to the left side of the infield and easily beat Elvis Andrus’ throw to first base. (Fast as a flash bulb, Gardner would finish the game with three infield hits.) The Yankees then pulled a page out of the “Billy Ball” playbook by having Gardner attempt to steal second with the idea of drawing a throw from Rangers catcher Taylor Teagarden. Opting to throw through, Teagarden badly short-hopped Joaquin Arias, as Gardner stopped midway between the bases before continuing to second base. With the ball trickling into the outfield, Granderson scored easily from third, giving the Yankees a 4-0 lead.
It’s gray but not raining. Yanks and Rangers.
Let’s Go Yanks.
CC you later, Texas. After nine games against very good, and very disciplined offenses, it was friggin’ beautiful to see the Texas Rangers swing at everything. And they missed almost everything, so that made it even better. The rain shortened the affair to a 5-1 Yankee victory in only six innings, but the only consequence of the premature end was to cap the number of whiffs for CC at nine. Had the weather been dry (and had Jeter made a very makable play in the first inning) we’d be looking at a second consecutive deep dominant game and quite possibly a nifty little 16 or 17 inning April scoreless streak.
CC had all his pitches working tonight. Check out how he worked over the Rangers for the nine whiffs. It was a classic case of a brilliant starting pitcher turning the lineup over like a flapjack. As he got into the fifth, he had tempted three lefties to chase the slider. And three righties went fishing for the change-up (he also froze Cruz on a fastball in the first). Then a string bean named Arias (a previous changeup fisherman) held back long enough on another well placed two strike changeup to guide it into centerfield for a base hit.
If you have access to the game, watch CC’s reaction as the ball floats up the middle and past Jeter. He was pissed. He had this guy dead to rights, and then he’s standing on first base. He knew at that moment, he had gone with plan A long enough. But with all his pitches working, plan B was dynamite, and if he needed it, he could have come close to completing the alphabet. The next time a righty got two strikes, CC suspected Teagarden was sitting on the change-up, so he dropped in an impeccable slider for the backwards K. Then when he got two strikes on a lefty, he encouraged Hamilton to expect the slider away, and promptly buried him on the inside corner with the heater.
As long as I can remember, the line on the Rangers was always that they’d be dangerous if they could ever find some pitching. Scoring runs in the Texas heat was no major challenge (though scoring runs on the road often was), it was preventing them that was the trick. Well, last year the Rangers were the fourth stingiest team in the junior circut, but it wasn’t so much that they found some pitchers (though they have several talented young arms in development) but that they found some fielders.
The Rangers were dead last in the majors in defensive efficiency in 2008, but climbed all the way to third in the AL (seventh overall) in 2009 thanks in large part to the arrival of defense-first shortstop prospect Elvis Andrus and late-blooming all-around right-field talent Nelson Cruz, and massive improvement in the field by star second baseman Ian Kinsler (who currently on the DL with a sprained ankle). This year, they’re mixing in speedy center fielder Julio Borbon, which has the added advantage of pushing Josh Hamilton to left field, thus giving the Rangers an above-average defender in all three pastures. Chris Davis, a repurposed third baseman, is also capable of athletic play at first base and could soon be pushed by top prospect Justin Smoak, who is considered even better afield, and though Michael Young has long been a liability in the field (his 2008 Gold Glove was completely undeserved), his having a year of experience at third base under his belt can only help his play at the hot corner. They’ve done it quietly, but the Rangers have added their names to the rapidly expanding list of American League teams that have greatly improved themselves by using the rising tide of their defense to lift their pitching boats.
That’s good, because for all of the pitching talent the Rangers have in their system, they’re still a season or two away from reaping their fruits. Top prospects Derek Holland and Neftali Feliz reached the majors last year, but lefty Holland has opened 2010 back in Triple-A, and fireballing Feliz, a starting prospect, is still biding his time in the bullpen (though two early blown saves by Frank Francisco have already moved him into the closer’s job). The next arm on the list, Venezuelan lefty Martin Perez, is a 19-year-old trying to find his feet in Double-A.
In the meantime, with Holland back in the minors, Feliz in the pen, and middling home grown arms such as Tommy Hunter and Eric Hurley on the disabled list, the major league rotation continues to be patchwork. Scott Feldman and Matt Harrision (the latter of whom came over from the Braves in the Mark Teixeira trade along with Feliz, Andrus, and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who is also on the DL) are in their proper spots, but the Rangers had to turn to free agency, Japan, and their own bullpen to fill the other three.
Eh, what’s one more just for the hell of it?
Staying with the theme of big and bad, dig this picture by Frank Frazetta:
Not a lot of laughs in ol’ Frank’s work, but it sure am Bad.
Sh*t-kicker Friday:
In a strange way, the defensive foibles of Jorge Posada have made me more bullish on Jesus Montero’s future as a catcher. At one time, I thought that Montero would serve strictly as a first baseman-DH, but now I believe that he may be able to catch–at least for the first three or four seasons of his major league career. Posada’s catching has degraded so badly over the last five years, but that hasn’t stopped the Yankees from winning a world championship along the way. As bad as Posada has become in blocking balls in the dirt, or even catching routine balls and strikes, could Montero be any worse?
I haven’t seen Montero catch at the minor league level, but most of the scouting reports indicate that he has improved from an initial grade of “poor” to merely “below average,” while developing better mechanics to augment a naturally strong throwing arm. That kind of assessment indicates to me that is actually a little bit better than Posada right now. Other than his knowledge of the Yankee pitching staff and American League hitters, Posada really has no defensive strengths. He doesn’t move well, doesn’t have soft hands, and doesn’t block the plate well (he has never done that well). Even his once powerful throwing arm has weakened considerably since shoulder surgery in 2008. If Montero can hit at least as well as Posada–and some assessments of him indicate that he is one of the top five hitting prospects in the game–then the Yankees could live with him as their No. 1 catcher for a few seasons. In the long term, the king-sized Montero may have to move somewhere else simply because he may outgrow the catching position, but that transition may be able to wait until he reaches his mid-twenties.
So what about the immediate future? The Yankees would like to keep Montero at Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre for the entire season, and then bring him to the Bronx for a cameo in September. That schedule would put Montero on track to arrive in New York fulltime in 2011. I could see the Yankees using a three-headed catching monster next season–featuring Posada, Montero, and Francisco Cervelli–before turning over the No. 1 job to Montero in 2012. By that time, Posada’s four-year contract will have expired, making the timing ideal to start the clock on his five-year waiting period for Hall of Fame eligibility. The Yankees could then move prospect Austin Romine into Posada’s roster slot, giving the Bombers three talented and youthful catchers to take them through to the next decade…
It cooled down in New York tonight after an almost muggy afternoon. Rained some and the wind kicked-up but Phil Hughes was effective and cool, kind like so:
Well, maybe not that cool, but he pitched well and the bullpen was excellent. Robbie Cano made like so…
and hit a couple of dingers, while Curtis Granderson was more like yay:
with a pair of triples. Derek Jeter hit a home run but also made a two-out error in the ninth which allowed Mariano Rivera to earn a cheap save.
And that’s word to Jackie Rob:
Final Score: Yankees 6, Angels 2.
Phil Hughes makes his first start of the season tonight. But first, dig one of the most stunning opening sequences in movie history:
Next: Let’s Go Yan-Kees!
A Smoke Backstage, By William Harnett (1877)
