Daily Archives: June 25, 2010

I’m pretty jazzed up for this weekend’s interleague set between the Yankees and Dodgers. Not just because of the familiar faces in the opposing dugout (yes, Joe Torre, but also Don Mattingly, who has also never been part of the Yankees’ opposition before tonight and who never wore another team’s uniform before following Torre to L.A. for the 2008 season, and former undesirables Manny Ramirez and Jeff Weaver, whose presence helps stir the emotional pot), but because it’s Yankees-Dodgers. This matchup was the greatest World Series rivalry in baseball history. From 1947 to 1956, the Yankees and Dodgers met in the World Series six times in ten years, and from 1977 to 1981 they met three more times in a five-year span. Altogether, the Yankees and Dodgers have played 11 World Series against one another, the most of any paring in major league history, with the Yankees holding a 8-3 advantage in those Series.

Given that history, it’s shocking to me that this is just the second interleague meeting between the two teams and that they have yet to play an interleague game in the Bronx (which means the the final dozen years of Yankee Stadium’s existence passed without such a matchup). Since the Dodgers come-from-behind victory in the 1981 World Series, the Yankees and Dodgers have played just one series, a three-game set in Chavez Ravine in mid-June of 2004 that the Dodgers took two games to one. The winning pitchers in that series were Brad Halsey for the Yankees in the middle game and Weaver (who, in his first Dodgers stint immediately following the Kevin Brown trade, beat Javy Vazquez in his first  stint with the Yankees) and the late Jose Lima for the Dodgers.

This year, Weaver is in the bullpen and Vazquez won’t pitch until the Yankees return home next week, but the matchup is even more compelling. Beyond that history and the familiar faces, this series pits the defending world champions against the team that lost the last two National League Championship Series. Say what you want about Joe Torre, but he has kept his postseason streak alive since leaving the Bronx.

I figured the Dodgers would make it 15 straight seasons for Torre before this season started, and though they got off to a slow start (13-17 and six games out of first place on May 8), they turned things around in a hurry with a nine-game winning streak, the start of a 23-7 run from May 9 to June 9 that put them a game ahead of the inexplicable Padres. They’ve only won three of their last 12 since then, however, and have fallen back to third place, three games behind San Diego. Included in that swoon has been a 1-5 performance against their local rivals in Anaheim and a three-game sweep at the hands of the surging Red Sox in Boston, where the return of Ramirez and old rival Torre added a similar charge of emotion.

The bad news for Yankee fans is that despite the Dodgers slide, Manny has been red-hot, hitting .421/.463/.711 with three homers in his last ten games (nine starts) and enters this game with a six-game hitting streak. The Dodgers are finally seeing some signs of life from Andre Ethier as well. Ethier was having an out-of-his-mind season before breaking a finger in batting practice in mid-May. He didn’t hit a lick upon returning on May 31, but has gone 5-for-13 with a pair of doubles in his last three games. The same goes for Matt Kemp, who slumped badly for most of June but went 4-for-13 with a double and a homer in those three games. The Dodgers also just got Rafael Furcal back in the lineup after he missed close to a week on bereavement leave.

The most favorable pitching matchup in this weekend’s series for the Yankees is tonight’s as CC Sabathia takes on Vicente Padilla. CC has been sharp in June, going 4-0 with a 2.48 ERA 28 strikeouts in 29 innings, a 3.11 K/BB and just two home runs allowed, both in his first start of the month. Padilla, meanwhile, has made just one start since April 22 due to a nerve irritation in his right forearm that shelved him for nearly two months. Padilla gave up four runs in 5 1/3 innings at Fenway his last time out. In his last start against the Yankees, on June 2 of last year while he was still a Texas Ranger, he gave up seven runs in 3 2/3 innings.

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Eh, I just wanted an excuse to show this old movie poster. Not a terrible movie from what I can remember. I’ve always liked William Petersen though I don’t know him from his recent success on TV.

Bill Sienkiewicz

Over at SI.com, Cliff takes a look at ten signature moments from Joe Torre’s years in the Bronx. Check it out.

And as far as the weekend series goes, make sure to pop by the indispensable Dodger Thoughts, our old Baseball Toaster pals.

Or…Mongo!

Here’s a good way to stay cool…

[Photo Credit: Soda Head]

Armed with that memorable Fu Manchu mustache, Luis Tiant pitched only two years for the Yankees, but it seemed like a much longer stretch of seasons, four or five at least. Curiously, he will forever be embedded in my memory as a Yankee, more so than any other team, perhaps because of those horrendously humorous hot dog commercials he used to make. I’ll also remember those newspaper images of a shirtless Tiant smoking a cigar while soaking himself in a hot tub. (According to eyewitnesses, Tiant also used to take cigars into the shower with him. I wonder how he kept those cigars from being doused.) Tiant always seemed to have something in his hand, whether it was a hot dog, a cigar, or a baseball.

When Tiant made his major league debut for the Cleveland Indians in 1964, he fulfilled a dream of playing in the big leagues, a goal that inspired him more than most; he felt particularly motivated after his equally talented father was denied major league entry because of the darkened color of his skin. Luis Tiant, Sr. was a respected left-hander who forged a representative career in the old Negro Leagues during the summers and the Cuban League during the winters. Fiercely competitive and armed with a torturous herky jerky delivery, the elder Tiant deserved a bigger stage, but the shameful wall of segregation kept him from ever achieving his own major league dream.

As a rookie in 1964, the junior Tiant proved that he belonged in the big leagues. Pumping fastballs with his potent right arm, Tiant won 10 of 14 decisions and posted a 2.83 ERA. The following year, he hurled three shutouts and became a fulltime member of the Cleveland rotation. Tiant remained a solid No. 2 starter for the Indians until 1968, when he vaulted himself into the elite class of American League pitchers. Achieving one of his first tastes of national stardom, Tiant was featured on the cover of The Sporting News, the renowned “Bible of Baseball.” Although the summer of ’68 became known as the “Year of the Pitcher,” Tiant’s numbers transcended the context of the era. Tiant spun a league-leading ERA of 1.60 and held opposing hitters to a .168 batting average, while allowing just under 5.3 hits per game. Even in the dead ball era, which was not all that different from the season of 1968, those numbers would have remained impressive.

Not coincidentally, the ‘68 season also marked the unveiling of El Tiante’s unique set of deliveries. Debuting the new motion against the California Angels, he first began to use his trademark pirouette windup, replete with exaggerated hesitations, body spins, and bobblehead movements. Tiant began to incorporate the strange delivery more and more often, making it a regular part of his already diverse pitching repertoire. On days when his fastball and various breaking balls lacked their usual snap, an innovative Tiant found himself turning to an even wider array of his unusual wind-ups and deliveries, fully replete with spinning torso, head-turning bobs, and assorted other machinations.

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Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, much like the racetrack heist is portrays, is a finely tuned machine – an intricate meshing of myriad moving parts, some big, some small, and all of them integral to its success.  Although not Kubrick’s first film, The Killing was his true arrival on the scene as a cinematic force to be reckoned with.

The Killing is the story of ex-con Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden), who assembles a make-shift crew of would-be crooks to rob the Bay Meadows racetrack of $2 million dollars during a big money stakes race. In addition to the Hayden, who starred in another classic film noir caper, John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, Kubrick assembles a fantastic group of underutilized character actors to round out the gang.

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Tyler Kepner on the one and only, Vin Scully.

[Picture by Bags]