Monthly Archives: June 2010

Guest Writer: John Schulian

It is a sign of the times that our movie heroes no longer go traipsing off to Mexico to scratch their itch for unlikely nobility, filthy lucre, or good old-fashioned trouble. The show-me-your-papers crowd in Arizona would have us believe there are so many illegals heading north that even celluloid mercenaries looking south of the border better stay home lest they be trampled. Myself, I’d suggest that the abundance of lead being slung in Mexico’s drug wars makes telling stories about brave yanquis, especially the contemporary variety, about as plausible as having Madonna sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Once, however, the land of Villa welcomed Humphrey Bogart so he could die a greed head’s death in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and Robert Mitchum, fresh out of a very real jail, as he tracked down a missing Army payroll in “The Big Steal.” You should know about “The Magnificent Seven,” of course, just as you should “The Wild Bunch”: two classic Westerns that sprang from the idea of American bad men finding something good inside them under Mexican skies, the former ending with a triumphant ride out of town, the latter with a fireball of dark glory. And then there is a hugely entertaining Western that is too often forgotten, “The Professionals,” which is about early 20th Century mercenaries who are crazy brave but not stupid. Four of them, to be exact: Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, and Woody Strode, each possessing more testosterone by himself than there is in all of Hollywood today.

Lancaster was a former circus acrobat who did his own stunts and, legend has it, could handle himself in a street fight. Marvin fought his way through World War II as a marine in the Pacific, and, with a mug like his, he must have put up his dukes a few times as a civilian, too. Ryan boxed in college (and was nothing less than splendid in the fight racket noir “The Set-Up”). Strode played football at UCLA, broke the NFL’s color line (alongside college teammate Kenny Washington), wrestled professionally, died a righteous death in “Spartacus,” and, though he was 52 when “The Professionals” was released in 1966, looked like he was made of steel cable.

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Over at River Ave Blues, Mike Axisa takes a look at Cito Culver, the Yankees first-round pick:

I’m not a big fan of the pick; it’s definitely a reach. For what it’s worth, Oppenheimer called it an “easy decision.” Whenever a guy’s best tool is his throwing arm … well it’s always a cause for concern because you’d like the other skills to be refined. It’s not an indefensible pick though; there’s nothing wrong with selecting a premium up-the-middle athlete that will stay there for the next decade-plus.

I’ve seen some people quick to dub this another C.J. Henry pick, but the only similarities between the two are that they’re African American shortstops taken out of high school. Henry was more of a hacker who projected to hit for power but not average, and wasn’t guaranteed to stay at short. Culver’s basically the opposite.

There were definitely better players on the board, and so it’s not the best pick they could have made. No need to declare this one a bust yet. The last thing prospects provide is instant gratification. Frankie Piliere noted that Culver got huge grades late in the year, so he peaked at the right time.

Over at Was Watching, Steve Lombardi isn’t impressed either:

…Today, with their first pick in the 2010 draft, the 32nd overall pick, the Yankees selected Cito Culver – probably two or three (or maybe four?) rounds earlier than he should have been selected – passing on talent like Anthony Ranaudo, Bryce Brentz, Ryan LaMarre and Seth Blair (just to name a few).

Considering all this, and then factoring in that the Yankees had screwed up their first three picks in the draft just about every year from 1998 through 2008, I have to wonder about what’s going on in the Yankees front office with respect to handling the draft? (“What about 2009?” some may say? Well, the jury is still out on that one.)

At some point, Damon Oppenheimer – and his bosses, Mark Newman and Brian Cashman – have to be held accountable for the way they’ve been wasting the Yankees “prime” picks, draft after draft, no?

Hey, yo. Forgive a day of light posting. My Internet connection was on the fritz.

Emma’s Burt Lancaster piece is the first of five we’ll have on Million Dollar Movie this week celebrating the great American star.

More food, music, art and yeah, Yankee Baseball tomorrow…

[Photo Credit: efn.org]

Because “Bitter Smell of Vicious, Cynical Self-Loathing” Would’ve Been a Hard Sell at the Box Office

“I love this dirty town.” That’s the only line from Sweet Smell of Success that I quote on a regular basis, but only because I don’t quite have the presence to pull off “You’re dead, son. Get yourself buried.” For that, you need Burt Lancaster.

Sweet Smell of Success is one of the most brutal movies I’ve ever seen that includes almost no physical violence at all; it’s just funny enough to keep you from slitting your wrists afterwards, but with humor so cold and sharp you could use it for a razor blade. Anyone who thinks of the 1950s as a Norman Rockwell era of innocence should be sat down in front of this paean to cutthroat cynicism and soul-destroying ambition, then given a nice mug of warm milk and a hug.

Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, two good-looking actors with charisma to burn, have never been less attractive. It was a brave choice by both of them (and the studio was opposed to Curtis taking the role of smoothly sniveling Sidney Falco, a press agent who’s had all the empathy, dignity, and morality burnt out of him by a lifetime of humiliations), but I think especially by Lancaster. Sidney Falco is at least occasionally pitiable, but Lancaster’s Walter Winchell-esque monster J.J. Hunsecker is one of the least redeemable characters ever committed to film. (See his inclusion on the AFI’s list of all-time movie villains, although that is, now I look at it, one terrible list — if you think Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were the “villains” of Bonnie and Clyde, you missed the whole damn point. And “Man” in Bambi as an all-time villain? Please. But that’s a whole separate post).

I first remember seeing Lancaster in Atlantic City, a favorite VHS rental of my dad’s (mostly for the line “You should’ve seen the Atlantic Ocean back then… it was really something.”). Later I saw him in From Here to Eternity and the cheesy fun western Vera Cruz, with his magnetic appeal on full display, and in the film noir classics Criss Cross and The Killers, where he was a dark, flawed, but handsome and charismatic figure. He is still my definitive Wyatt Earp in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – which came out in 1957, the same year as Sweet Smell of Success, but takes place in a staggeringly different America. Lancaster was a gorgeous young man, and still quite an eyeful in his forties, but J.J. Hunsucker is too despicable to have even a shred of sex appeal.

Words are the weapons in Sweet Smell of Success (written by Ernest Lehman and blacklisted lefty Clifford Odets, and directed by Alexander Mackendrick), and J.J. Hunsecker is its serial killer; Freddy Kreuger and Mike Myers earn more viewer sympathy. This is all by design, of course, and the merciless screenplay doesn’t pull a single verbal punch:

It’s a dirty job, but I pay clean money for it.

The cat’s in a bag and the bag’s in a river.

Like yourself, he’s got the scruples of a guinea pig and the morals of a gangster.

Son, I don’t relish shooting a mosquito with an elephant gun, so why don’t you just shuffle along?

My right hand hasn’t seen my left hand in thirty years.

Match me, Sidney.

Those last three are Lancaster’s, and only a handful of the movie’s best. (For full effect, of course, the last one needs to be quoted while holding an unlit cigarette). According to rumor the script was brilliantly rewritten by Odets months past deadline, while he was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, and then rushed scene by scene directly from his typewriter to the set.

The movie was shot on location in New York, and I’m not sure you could say it has any affection for the city — really, I’m not sure you could say this movie has any affection for much of anything — but it certainly gets a jolt of jittery energy from its setting. The story could be transplanted to Los Angeles easily enough, I expect, but it wouldn’t be same without the rushing crowds its characters struggle past, or the packed bars and restaurants where glamor and power and desperation and slimy cunning are jostled together.

If Sweet Smell of Success has a flaw, it’s that the female lead, J.J.’s sister Susan, around whom the whole plot turns, is never really developed as a character, at least not compared to the devastatingly etched male leads. But on reflection I believe this is not really a gender issue – not because she’s a woman, but rather because she’s moral and kind. These are not the human facets that Sweet Smell of Success is interested in, and god bless it for that. Nice people are almost never any fun to quote.

Get to work.

Photo by Abelimages/Getty Images

I have to admit that for much of this weekend’s series in Toronto, I wasn’t at all convinced that the series was even happening.  Sure, Michael Kay never crosses the border, but with Bob Lorenz in the booth, I was starting to imagine Capricorn One conspiracy theories.  Were these games scripted by YES?  Was I just watching a collage of highlight footage spackled together to look like an actual game?  Did Bud Selig know what was going on?  And the biggest question of all — if they really were scripting the action, why couldn’t they have at least written in a few hits for Mark Teixeira?

Ah, but I kid.  Now to the game.  For much of Sunday afternoon, the hitters were mere bystanders as Brandon Morrow and Javier Vazquez took turns making them look foolish.  There was no scoring on either side for the first five innings, and the Blue Jays didn’t get their first base hit until Vernon Wells ended the drama (dramatically) with a no-doubt two-run home run to left, putting the Jays up 2-0.

As good as Vazquez was in the early going, Morrow was even better.  He gave up only four hits and a walk, and at no point during the first seven innings did it ever look like the Yankees had a shot, mainly because of an unhittable fastball that was clocking between 95 and 97 all day long.  I hate to bring this up, but Brandon Morrow is what Joba Chamberlain was supposed to be when he grew up.  Projected as top of the rotation starters, both pitchers arrived in the majors in 2007 (Morrow was in Seattle back then) and brought their high octane stuff to the bullpen.  Morrow had an extra year of experience, but he wasn’t nearly as effective as Joba.  Since arriving in Toronto this year Morrow has worked exclusively as a starter, and if what we saw today is any indication, he’s in the right spot.

In the eighth inning, though, he was in the wrong spot.  Even though he had thrown 104 pitches through those dominant seven innings, Morrow came out to start the eighth and plunked lead-off hitter Francisco Cervelli.  Toronto manager Cito Gaston immediately replaced Morrow with Scott Downs, who then drilled Brett Gardner to put the tying runners on base with nobody out and the top of the order due up.  As you might expect, this is when things got interesting.

With Derek Jeter facing a 1-1 count, Downs through a pitch which may or may not have tailed off the outside edge of the plate.  Home plate umpire Bruce Dreckman called the pitch a strike, but Jeter disagreed as vigorously as he ever will.  The field mikes at Rogers Centre were fairly sensitive all game long, so you could easily hear his disgust: “That was not a strike!”  After pursuing the issue a while and repeating his opinion about the pitch, Jeter shook his head, stepped back into the box, and lined a double down the right field line, cutting the deficit in half.

Nick Swisher came up next and quickly found himself down in the count, 1-2.  Desperately needing a strikeout, new pitcher Jason Frasor went for the kill on the next pitch, bouncing a splitter that Swisher couldn’t resist.  Swisher started his swing, and replays clearly showed that the checked it, but Dreckman punched him out, ruling that he had swung at the pitch.  (Somewhere in Cincinnati, Paul O’Neill put his shoe through the television screen.)  For his part, Swisher was incredulous, immediately pointing down at third base to ask for an appeal that would never come.  Joe Girardi had seen enough — enough of Dreckman, enough of the Blue Jays, maybe even enough of Canada — so he came out with the clear intention of getting kicked out.  He even left his hat behind in the dugout, something I don’t remember ever seeing.  What followed was the fastest ejection in history.  Girardi pushed Swisher out of the way, asked Dreckman, “Are you shitting me?” and that was that.  Showers.

So with one out and the tying and go-ahead runs on second and third and Alex Rodríguez in the on-deck circle, Cito Gaston, of course, decided to walk Mark Teixeira and his .211 batting average.  (And by the way, isn’t it time to start thinking about dropping Teixeira in the order?  I wouldn’t mind seeing Canó in the three hole with Teixeira hitting sixth.  But I digress…)  Gardner brought home the tying run on a wild pitch, and A-Rod struck out, failing for the first time in that situation, bringing Robinson Canó up with two on and two out and the score tied.  Canó took one pitch then lined the next into left, scoring two for a 4-2 lead.

Joba Chamberlain came in to start the eighth inning, and even though the box score says he gave up two hits and a run, that’s a bit deceptive.  José Molina led off with a double off Curtis Granderson’s glove, a drive that Gardner would’ve caught easily, and Fred Lewis’s RBI single was just a high-hopper that bounded through the middle of the infield.  Joba recovered nicely enough to get Aaron Hill to ground into a double play, and his day was done.  I’m doing my best to think positively about him.

There was a little drama as Mariano Rivera came in mistakenly (and was sent back) after that double play even though acting manager Tony Peña had asked for Damaso Marte, but he came back again in the ninth and used only five pitches to close out the 4-3 Yankee win.  Oh, and in case you’re wondering about A-Rod, who was lifted for Ramiro Peña in ninth, he’s okay.

Next stop: Baltimore.

Alright, enough is enough. Three runs in twenty-three innings? Roll, Score Truck, roll!

Let’s go, Yan-Kees!

Perk up with this:

In his series preview, Cliff pointed out the peculiarity that is the 2010 Blue Jays, a team that abhors smallball, and lives and dies by the homer.  Coming into today’s game, the Jays were leading the majors in homers . . . by a whopping 17 over the Red Sox (94 to 77).  Their gaudy, majors-leading  .476 slugging percentage was tempered by a 23rd-best .248 team batting average.   Their resulting ISO (isolated slugging; the difference between batting average and slugging percentage) of .228 would be the highest season total in at least 20 years.  They are also dead last in GB/FB ratio, at .63.  The edict in Toronto seems to be “we are Jays . . . everything we do must involve flying”.

Furthermore, they’ve executed exactly two sacrifice bunts and attempted only 29 stolen bases all year.  Smallball is apparently not spoken in Canada anymore.

Andy Pettitte looked to stem the Gashouse Gorillas conga line of homers today as he faced off against Ricky Romero.   Pettitte worked both corners well throughout the game, striking out a season-high ten, all of them swinging.

Meanwhile, Romero, when he wasn’t toying with Mark Teixeira like Teix was a frenzied kitten,  was inducing many groundballs with a solid changeup.  The Yankees best early threat came in the top of the second, as Alex Rodriguez singled, and two outs later, Francisco Cervelli and Brett Gardner each walked.  On his already-40th pitch of the game, Romero got Kevin Russo to ground out to short.

Leading off the bottom of the second, Vernon Wells took a Pettitte fastball up in the zone out beyond the RF fence. Two outs later, Lyle Overbay hit a one-hop double to the RF wall.  But Andy got John Buck to foul out to Francisco Cervelli to end the inning.

After a couple more well-struck pitches in the third, including a ground-rule double leading off the inning, Pettitte really settled down, as there were no more pitches left up in the zone.   From that double through the end of the sixth, he allowed but two walks and one single.  In a one-run game seemingly dominated by the pitchers, for each of those three baserunner opportunities, Jays manager Cito Gaston eschewed trying to build a run through a sacrifice, hit-and-run or stolen base attempt.

Meanwhile Gardner led off the Yankee 5th with a double down the RF line, and then Derek Jeter capitalized on a rare Romero mistake, a changeup left up and outside, to collect his 6th homer of the season, giving the Bombers a 2-1 lead.

The Yanks had a rare, but golden opportunity to extend the lead in the 7th.   Cervelli led off with a hard-hit grounder to Edwin Encanarcion which knocked him down, allowing Cervelli to beat the throw to first.  Gardner walked again, and then Russo complied with General Joe Girardi’s smallball order, executing a nice 1-3 sac bunt to put runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out.

With the infield a few steps in all around, Jeter then lined a ball right at second baseman Aaron Hill.  Hill caught it, then dropped it on the transfer to his throwing hand.  Cervelli made the mistake of not watching the ball to see if it got out of the infield, and took off for home on contact.  Hill easily doubled Cervelli off third, as Jeter wondered what had happened.  Your not-so-basic 4-5 double play.

Meanwhile, the top three hitters in the Jays lineup had gone 0-10 against Pettitte as he took the mound in the bottom of the 7th.  Unfortunately the cosmic laws inherent in the Yanks missing a scoring opportunity bit Pettitte, as #6 hitter Alex Gonzalez led off with a homer on an 0-1 pitch, knotting the game at two.

Soon after, the game turned into a battle of the bullpens.  Girardi had relieved Pettitte after 107 pitches with 2 outs in the eighth, while Romero had completed eight innings, finishing by inducing a double play grounder from Alex Rodriguez.

Joba Chamberlain relieved Pettitte and promptly gave up a single to Wells.  But once again, Gaston didn’t put any wheels in motion, and Jose Bautista struck out looking on a nasty curve.

Chamberlain was still pitching in the ninth when he yielded a one-out single to Lyle Overbay.  Surely this would be the time for a pinch-runner for the sluggish Overbay? Nope.  Instead John Buck popped up to Cano and Encanarcion struck out.

The Yanks mounted a 2-out rally in the 10th against Kevin Gregg on a Jeter single and an eight-pitch walk by Swisher, but Teixeira struck out swinging for the fourth consecutive time, on his way to his own hellish version of a 5K.

Against David Robertson, Bautista led off the bottom of the 11th with a full-count walk, and again . . . the Jays did not play for one run . . . in a tie game in extra innings.  Gonzalez promptly banged into a 6-4-3 DP.  Even after Overbay immediately singled, there was no pinch-runner, and Buck flew out to deep left.

The Yanks did try to make something happen with their limited opportunities in extras.  Gardner singled with one out in the 12th, and one out later, stole his 20th base of the season.  But Jeter ended the threat grounding out to third.

In the bottom of the 12th, Chan Ho Park came on and walked the sub-.200 hitting Hill with two outs, but Gaston sat on his hands as Lind K’ed.  Park was still pitching in the 13th when Gonzalez placed a two-out single down the LF corner and Overbay walked.  But Buck buckled under the pressure, grounding to short.

In the top of the 14th, the Yanks tried to show Gaston about this smallball thing one more time, as Posada laced a long one-out single, and pinch-runner Ramiro Pena came on.  Pena couldn’t get a good lead on new pitcher Casey Janssen and somewhat curiously, Cervelli wasn’t asked to bunt.  Cervelli eventually struck out.  Pena did manage to steal second with Gardner up, but was left stranded when Gardner flied to Bautista.

Finally, in the bottom of the 14th, Gaston finally seemed to have the smallball impetus, and the absolute best players to employ it.  It also helped that they were now facing Chad Gaudin.  Encanarcion walked on four pitches leading off, and then Lewis executed a nice little 5-3 sacrifice.  Girardi elected to have Gaudin pitch to Hill, rather than setting up the force/DP by walking him and facing the lefty Lind.  Hill promptly ripped a hanging slider to plate the winning run in an excruciating 3-2 game.

(photo credit:  RoyalsReview.com)

Let’s try that again, shall we?

The Jays beat up on the Yanks last night. Here’s hoping the Yanks have a little something for that ass this afternoon. Go git ’em, boys.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

[Picture by Bags]

We Like Ike..

Photo by Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated

When I started coaching middle school basketball nineteen years ago, my knowledge for the game didn’t extend much beyond what I had learned from playing pick-up ball in college — which means that I knew almost nothing.  I haunted the practices of the best local coaches, spent most Friday nights in sweaty high school gyms, and attended coaching clinics whenever and wherever I could find them.  One of the best was at UCLA during the Steve Lavin era.  Lavin spoke for a while, as did Pete Newell and Purdue’s Gene Keady.  The biggest draw, though, was John Wooden.

Keady and Lavin worked from prepared speeches as they paced back in forth in front of elaborate diagrams to illustrate their points, but in a concession to their advanced ages — both men were in their eighties at the time — Wooden and Newell took their turns seated side-by-side in folding chairs, prepared to take questions from the audience.  What’s the best simple drill to help post players?  Which fast break strategy works best for a small team? The two coaches took turns answering the questions that appealed to one’s strength or the other’s, Newell speaking into a microphone clipped neatly to his lapel, but Wooden holding his stubbornly in his hand after a UCLA staffer had twice failed to attach it properly.

Finally, someone asked a question that truly sparked the Wizard of Westwood’s interest.  How do you teach your players to defend the pick and roll properly? Wooden hopped out of his chair and the cadence of his voice quickened as he begin to explain.  Realizing that  his words weren’t enough, he stepped out onto the court and began pantomiming the defensive steps.  The problem, of course, was the microphone.  He still held it in his hand, so when he thought about it and held it close enough to his mouth, we could hear his lecture.  But when he extended his arms and dropped into a stance, suddenly losing at least three decades from his true age as he slid around or dropped below an imaginary screen, he became almost impossible to hear.

There were several hundred coaches sitting in the stands, but we were absolutely silent.  We heard only half of what he was saying, but those words were still golden.  This wasn’t just a coach.  Somehow, it was more than just a coach who had won ten national championships.  This was Moses coming down from the mountain.  Every coach in that arena, ranging from me to Gene Keady, had quoted John Wooden to young players who couldn’t possibly know who he was.  We had all studied his Pyramid of Success.  I even admonish my own children, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”  And so when Coach Wooden finished answering the pick and roll question, he sat down to an appreciative round of applause.  We had heard only about half of what he had said, but it didn’t really matter.  We had been in the presence of greatness, and that was enough.

John Wooden passed away on Friday evening, leaving behind hundreds of loyal former players, thousands of devoted coaching protégés, and millions of adoring fans.  This is a national story, certainly, as Wooden’s death will likely dominate the headlines of every sports page outside of Chicago and Philadelphia on Saturday morning, but nowhere has the news hit harder than here in Southern California.  Baseball announcers will likely discuss Wooden throughout their Saturday telecasts, and you can bet that every coach and manager will be asked about John Wooden’s influence.  You’ll hear about how he taught his players the right way to roll their socks and tie their shoes, how he wouldn’t allow Bill Walton to grow a beard, and, inevitably, how he strung together 88 consecutive wins.

I hope they also tell the most important stories, about how he came to UCLA instead of the University of Minnesota because he had made a promise — not signed a contract.  About how he never complained while earning only $32,000 a year while many of his peers were paid six-figure salaries.  Or, most importantly, about how for the past twenty-five years he marked the passing of his wife Nellie by sitting down each month to write her a love letter.

We’ll miss you, Coach, but Nellie is waiting.  Be quick, but don’t hurry.

My TV is busted. Been without the glow and hum since May 20th, and really, it’s not that bad. But it makes writing a game recap a little more difficult. There’s always the radio though, and I planned on listening to the game and relaying that experience to you. It wasn’t the best laid plan, but damn if it didn’t go astray anyway.

Photo by Greg Stone

What happened is the new public art project in New York called “Key to the City” and it’s unexpected popularity at 5:45pm on Friday night. The project is designed to recreate the experience of receiving a key to the city, but one that actually opens things – 24 locations scattered around the five boroughs. I work right next door to the kiosk where they are handing out the keys, and figured I would surprise my wife and bestow a key upon her, and make it home in plenty of time for the first pitch, natch.

Two hours later, the Yanks were already knee deep in Cecil-induced frustrations and I was finally getting that key. Starving, we headed to Bon Chon on 38th for some fabulously fried chicken wings and plopped down right in front of AJ Burnett and Jose Bautista facing off in the bottom of the second.

We stayed through the bottom of the fourth. As we left, I had a strong suspicion (and trail of garlic-soy) I had seen the five pitches that would be worth writing about. Here they are chronologically:

1) Bottom 2nd, none out, none on, 3-2 count on Jose Bautista. Blammo. A string-straight fastball, crushed appropriately. As he circled the bases, a YES graphic informed me it was his 17th of the year. What the shit?

2) Top 3rd, man on 2nd, 2 out, no count on Derek Jeter. Derek swung at the first pitch and was badly beaten on a change-up. He grounded out weakly to 3rd. I think a large part of why Cecil was so effective was his use of the change-up versus aggressive hitters in big spots. Jeter got totally abused there, as did Cano in the fourth when he struck out on five straight balls, none of them close.

3) Top 4th, man on 1st and 2nd, 0 out, 0-1 count to Arod. Ball in the dirt, scooted through Buck’s legs and he jumped up with no clue where the ball was. Swisher was not ready to take third. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It immediately occurred to me as important, but that is not because of any prescience, it’s just because I’m a buzzkill.

4)  Top 4th, man on 1st and 2nd, 0 out, 1-1 count to Arod. Somewhat well struck one hop liner turned into a DP with a high degree of difficulty for both the shortstop and the second baseman. The former had to stick with the hard hit ball to his left and the latter had to barehand an errant shovel pass. Not only was this double play made possible by Swisher’s failure to run the bases aggressively, I think it was a base hit if Gonzalez is not playing at double play depth.

5) Bottom 4th, man on 1st, 1 out, 2-0 on Bautista. Hard to believe, but this pitch was even more hittable than the last one, and number 18 went even further than number 17 (or seemed to anyway, I don’t have the distances). To make matters worse, there was a guy on first via one of the cheapest hits you’ll ever see.

And then a nice subway ride home and a check on the score did nothing to inspire me to catch Sterling’s call of the final few futile innings of the 6-1 loss. Not a good game, and the Rays are only down 3 runs in the seventh right now, so that’s probably an 80-20 shot at another victory for them. Glad I waited on line for that key.

Now that the Red Sox, Braves, Dodgers, and Reds (all teams I picked to make the playoffs this year) are ascendant, there are just two teams whose performances escape my understanding. One is the San Diego Padres, who continue to have the best record in the National League thanks to a wildly overperforming starting rotation and despite almost no contribution from their offense. The other is the Toronto Blue Jays, who are tied with the Red Sox with the fourth-best record in the American League thanks to a homer-happy offense that leads the majors in dingers having tagged 20 percent more taters than the second-place Bosox. The Blue Jays also lead the majors in slugging with a remarkable .474 team mark, but are fourth-worst in on-base percentage, second only to the Diamondbacks in strikeouts, and their pitching has been merely average.

If that’s not confusing enough, here are the Jays’ top home run hitters this year:

16 – Jose Bautista
13 – Vernon Wells
11 – Alex Gonzalez

Huh? Bautista’s 16 homers lead the majors; they also tie his previous career high set in 2006. Wells averaged just 17 taters the last three years, and Alex Gonzalez averaged just 13 in his six full seasons from 2003 to 2009 (he missed 2008 due to a knee injury). Wells has hit 30 homers twice before, but while Bautista and Gonzalez are both known to have some pop, they’ve both far exceeded their previous propensity for power.

I might have understood if the Jays were winning with starting pitching. Shaun Marcum is back from a season and a half lost to Tommy John surgery and pitching like a front-of-the-rotation horse. Ricky Romero, who faces Andy Pettitte on Saturday afternoon, is building on his strong rookie performance from a year ago, and Brandon Morrow, the former Mariners prospect acquired in an offseason swap for Brandon League and right-field prospect Johermyn Chavez and who faces Javy Vazquez on Sunday, has tremendous stuff, as the Yankees saw first hand when he pitched 7 2/3 no-hit innings against them in late 2008. Yet, Morrow has been erratic, and after Marcum and Romero, the pitching staff has been largely mediocre.

I suppose the good news for the Jays is that while Bautista and Gonzalez have been going yard, their young offensive core of Adam Lind, Aaron Hill, and Travis Snider have been scuffling and/or injured. That suggests that once the early-season flukes fade (which seems to already be happening), the Jays will still have the bats to keep the offense afloat. Still, even with those that young core producing, the Jays weren’t really supposed to be good this year (as I thought I made clear in my essay on the team in Baseball Prospectus 2010).

The Jays have gotten fat on the Orioles and Indians (9-0), but then so have the Yankees (11-2). Perhaps it’s more telling that Toronto is 3-9 against the Rays and Red Sox and have yet to face the Yankees. That ends this weekend as the Yanks arrive in Toronto for a three-game set. Things kick off tonight with A.J. Burnett facing sophomore lefty Brett Cecil. Burnett had two quality starts against his old team in the Bronx last year, but lost his one start in Toronto. In his career, he’s 22-9 with a 3.83 ERA with 290 strikeouts in 270 innings pitched at the Rogers Centre, most of them with the Jays behind him rather than in front of him.

Cecil was the Jays’ top pitching prospect heading into last year, but in that organization that’s not a huge compliment. He was erratic as a rookie last year and started this year in the minors, joining the rotation at the end of April. Toss out his one big stinker against the Rangers on May 14 and he’s been solid thus far, going 5-2 with a 2.45 ERA in his other seven starts. In his last three, he has averaged roughly 7 1/3 innings while posting a 1.66 ERA and a 0.74 WHIP, winning all three games.

Marcus Thames starts in left against the lefty Cecil, giving Brett Gardner a day off. Chad Moeller catches Burnett, giving Francisco Cervelli a breather. Jorge Posada is the DH again.

(more…)

…If I stay here I’ll go knuts…

Miles and ‘Trane. ‘Nuff said.

It might be way too early in the season for the good, fresh corn, but it’s never too early to think about Mexican corn on the cob.

Saveur has the recipe.

[Photo Credit: Bionic Bites]

Ken Griffey Jr. was the best baseball player I ever saw.

Sure, I can look at the numbers now and understand why everyone kept telling me that Barry Bonds was better, but I never really saw Bonds in his mid-90s prime. I was an American League fan who got all of his baseball through Yankee broadcasts when Griffey burst on the scene in 1989, and while I always loved numbers, I didn’t really dig much past what was available on the back of baseball cards or in the MacMillan encyclopedia until after Griffey was traded to Cincinnati.

Ken Griffey Jr. was the best baseball player I ever saw.

I wasn’t much moved by the big goofy grin, though I appreciated it. I always thought the backward cap schtick was corny (though not disrespectful as Buck Showalter and Willie Randolph tried to convince Griffey it was before Griffey got the final word in the 1995 playoffs). I never called him “Junior.” I just watched what he did on the field.

I still can’t see photos of the center field fence in the renovated Yankee Stadium without checking for the holes made by Griffey’s spikes on his wall-climbing theft of a Jesse Barfield home run (off Randy Johnson no less) in April 1990. That was just one of many spectacular catches Griffey made upon entering the league.

Then he started hitting: .300-22-80 in 1990; .327-22-100 in 1991; .308-27-103 in 1992. Then 45 homers in 1994, and a record home-run pace in 1994 before the strike stopped him at 40 in 111 games. In 1995, one of those spectacular catches broke his wrist and robbed him of half of the season, but he returned in August to help the Mariners execute the greatest comeback in regular season history, eliminating the Angels in a one-game playoff after trailing by 12.5 games on August 20 and six games on September 12.

The Yankees took the first two games from Griffey’s Mariners in that year’s inaugural Division Series, but Griffey homered three times in those two games, one of them coming off John Wetteland with two outs in the 12th inning of Game Two to give his team a brief 5-4 lead. Griffey homered in four of the five games of that series, hitting .391 with five of his nine hits leaving the yard. His ninth hit was a single off Jack McDowell that put the go-ahead run on base with his team trailing 5-4 in the 11th inning of Game 5. Moments later, he’d be racing around the bases to beat Gerald Williams’ throw home and score the winning run of the series, drastically altering the futures of both franchises.

Over the next four seasons, Griffey averaged 52 home runs and 142 RBIs (oh, and 19 stolen bases) for the Mariners while winning the 1997 AL MVP, his sixth-through-tenth Gold Gloves, and settling for second billing to the steroid-fueled home run barrage going on in the National League.

Griffey was voted to the All-Century team in 1999, along with Mark McGwire but ahead of the pre-enhanced Bonds (who ranked 18th among outfielders in the voting), but the day after the ceremonies to introduce the team prior to Game 2 of the World Series, Griffey’s neighbor, golfer Payne Stewart, was killed in a plane crash. Stewart’s death awakened a desire in Griffey to move close to his family in Cincinnati, and he asked for and received a trade to the Reds that February.

I remember hearing the news of the trade. It was shocking. Griffey was the best player in the game (to my mind and those of many others). He was an icon, the Babe Ruth who built Safeco Field with his bat and pulled the Mariners out of the second division. I had just been out to Seattle late in the 1999 season and saw Griffey make a great sliding catch in a 1-0 game at the new ballpark, which the Mariners had just moved into in July. They couldn’t possibly trade him.

But they did. The trade seemed laughable at the time. The Mariners got a quartet of players, none of whom could even reflect Griffey’s star, let alone rehang it. Mike Cameron turned out to be the best of the bunch by a long shot, living up to Griffey’s defensive reputation in center but proving a vastly inferior hitter despite a bit of pop and a willingness to take a walk. Brett Tomko was a dud. Antonio Perez became a minor league throw-in in the trade that sent manager Lou Piniella to Tampa Bay for Randy Winn. Right-handed reliever Jake Meyer never made it to the major leagues. Griffey, wearing the number 30 that his father wore with the Big Red Machine, hit 40 home runs and drove in 118 in his first year with the Reds.

Then the unthinkable happened. Griffey got hurt. Then he got hurt again. And again. And again. After hitting 249 home runs in a five year span from 1996 to 2000, he hit almost exactly half that over the next six seasons due to a laundry list of injuries, most of them to his legs including a hamstring injury that required the muscle be reattached to the bone with screws. Meanwhile, the Mariners, who had been forced to trade Randy Johnson in anticipation of his free agency a year before Griffey’s departure, then lost Alex Rodriguez to the Rangers via a record-setting contract the winter after Griffey’s departure, won a record 116 games in 2001.

It didn’t make sense. Without Griffey, the Mariners were thriving. With Griffey, the Reds were struggling. In Cincinnati, Griffey quickly became a drain on the roster and the payroll as the Reds struggled to break in outfield prospects Adam Dunn, Austin Kearns, and Wily Mo Peña while keeping a pasture open for Griffey’s brief stretches of availability. As early as 2003, the Reds were actively shopping Griffey, but it wasn’t until 2008, after Griffey had finally shifted to right field and enjoyed a largely healthy season in 2007 (30 homers, 93 RBIs), that they finally unloaded him, trading him to the White Sox for spare parts.

Griffey’s two months in Chicago gave him a last hurrah in center field and just his third trip to the postseason, thanks in part to his throwing out a runner at home in the Chisox’s 1-0 AL Central playoff victory over the Twins. After that, he returned to Seattle as a free agent, where he entertained his old fans and their kids with 19 home runs, but contributed little else as a designated hitter batting .214. He re-signed there this past winter, but never hit another home run, retiring on Wednesday with 630 in his career.

I take a look at what might have been during Griffey’s time in Cincinnati in my latest for SI.com, providing a quick-and-dirty tally of Griffey’s alternate-universe hit and homer totals, but I’ll always remember Ken Griffey Jr. as a Seattle Mariner, a human lightning bolt, streaking across center field to rob another hitter, racing around the bases, and unleashing thunder at the plate.

Ken Griffey Jr. wasn’t the greatest player of his era, but he was close. He was the greatest modern-era major leaguer never to play in a World Series, and back when seeing was believing, he was absolutely the best baseball player I ever saw.

The Yankees weren’t playing their best baseball coming into their just-completed seven-game homestand, but the prospect of facing two of the three worst teams in the majors, the Indians and Orioles, as well as getting Curtis Granderson and Jorge Posada back from the disabled list promised better results. The Yankees got them by taking three of four from the Tribe, then sweeping the lowly O’s, wrapping up a 6-1 homestand with a 6-3 win over Baltimore on Thursday afternoon.

Despite the relatively close score, there wasn’t much drama in this one. The Yankees put up two runs again Baltimore starter Kevin Millwood in the bottom of the first, the first scoring on a balk when Millwood’s spikes caught on the mound in the middle of his slide-step, the second scoring on a Robinson Cano double that extended the Yankee second baseman’s hit-streak to 17 games. CC Sabathia gave up a solo homer to Adam Jones in the top of the third on what looked like another sinker up in the zone, but the Yankees answered right back with three runs in the bottom of the frame, two scoring on a home run by newly-minted active career homer leader Alex Rodriguez that hitting coach Kevin Long predicted was coming before the game, the third manufactured from Millwood’s ensuing walk to Cano.

Brett Gardner led off the sixth with a home run to right, his third of the year, all three coming at home and going to right field. That set the Yankee tally at six, making room for the two-run jack by Luke Scott that Sabathia allowed in the top of the seventh. Sabathia cruised through most of the game. In the first six innings, he allowed only Jones to reach base (on his home run and a comebacker that Sabathia swatted down with his big bare paw only to pull Mark Teixeira off the bag with his throw, ruled an error). He seemed to wilt in the heat a bit in the seventh when his pitch count approached 90, allowing a single to Ty Wigginton before Scott’s homer, a booming shot into the second deck in right, then walking the struggling Garrett Atkins, but CC rallied to strike out Jones (his seventh K of the game) and get a fielder’s choice to wrap up his seven innings with 94 pitches. Sabathia allowed just three hits in the game, two of them were home runs.

Joba Chamberlain followed Sabathia with a perfect eighth. Mariano Rivera then made things slightly interesting by starting out the ninth by walking Nick Markakis and hitting Wigginton to bring the tying run to the plate, only to reach back and strike out Scott on a sharp 94 mile-per-hour cutter, then hit 95 twice while getting the final two outs, one of those pitches being a fastball riding in that the righty Jones swung through for the final out.

Credit Rivera’s velocity, Sabathia’s homers and “early” exit, and perhaps Gardner’s shot as well, to the heat. It was hot Thursday afternoon, and so are the Yankees, which is exactly what they needed to be in this soft spot in their schedule. The Yanks are just two games behind the Rays, and, if they can survive their three game set in Toronto against the surprising Blue Jays this weekend, they should stay hot next week when they rematch against the Orioles (who seem likely to have a new manager by then) in Baltimore then return home to face the National League’s worst team, the Astros.