Blog Archives

I’m a little late on this, but here’s Rich Lederer on the recent Jered Weaver contract extension.

All Eric Nusbaum wanted was to buy a Dodgers hat.

Here’s a couple of pieces over at Grantland to check out.

First, Louisa Thomas on Venus Williams:

She has always seemed to have an ambivalent relationship to tennis. She is the most recognizable exponent of the game (even more than Serena, perhaps, because she came first) and also a vanishing act, an ambassador and outsider at once. She wanted to be the best, but it wasn’t always clear that she wanted to play at all. Richard Williams said he wanted his daughters to be extraordinary, to stand apart. They do. But that doesn’t quite capture Venus. Nothing does. She is elusive.

The challenge, Venus made clear early on, was to change the game without letting it change her. She has always held something back. Her story isn’t one about a rise and fall, glory and fade. She has become a kind of ghost.

This isn’t because she has other interests outside of tennis, which is often the knock. The spookiest thing about her is that she is one of the greatest competitors in the women’s game, but also one of the most indifferent. She’s a winner who somehow doesn’t need to win. So — and this is the question that has always bugged me, and the question I’ll be thinking about as I watch her in this tournament, and write about it here — why does she continue to play?

Next, Jane Leavy remembers Mike Flanagan:

Unlike my colleagues who have written in recent days of having covered him over the past 30 years as a pitcher, pitching coach, general manager, and broadcaster for the Orioles, Flanagan was in and out of my life as quickly as I tried to get in and out of the locker room. But he stayed with me in ways I didn’t realize until I heard about his death. What struck me about the conversation that day in the locker room was his interest in me. Most athlete-cum-celebs are too busy bemoaning the obligations of public personhood, too consumed by the ego-distorting attentions of doting reporters hanging breathlessly on every not-so-well-chosen word, to think about anyone other than themselves. But Flanagan really wanted to know about me, and because his interest was palpably authentic I told him things I never expected to reveal in a major league clubhouse, where revelation was supposed to be the other way around. I told him the naked truth.

…Flanagan’s suicide and that of former Yankee pitcher Hideki Irabu after the spotlight passed them by, that of Denver Bronco’s receiver Kenny McKinley and LPGA golfer Erica Blasberg after suffering debilitating injuries, and that of former Pro Bowl safety Dave Duerson, who shot himself in the chest so his brain could be studied for evidence of trauma-induced disease — which was found to be ample — cry out for the availability of on-going psychological services for professional athletes and for a reexamination of the fallacious assumptions we make as a result of their sturdy professional lives.

[Photo Credit: moonchild1111]

Just off Riverside Drive.

Hey, if the price is right.

This is the first thing I saw when I walked out of the subway onto the street today.

Goooooood mornin’. Toon Town, NYC Style.

Freddy G is back. Here’s hoping the Yanks win tonight to earn a split with the O’s and head off to Boston in a good mood.

No Jeter, no Rodriguez.

Brett Gardner LF
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez SS

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: One of my favorites, Joel Zimmer]

Exactly who you callin’ a witch?

What’s your favorite frozen food? These were always big in the special treat department when I was a kid.

[Photo Credit: bitchassbidness]

The Road to Philly

By John Schulian 

I know how I ended up in Philadelphia: I drove.

What I don’t know is why I ended up in Philadelphia.

The Daily News, home of one of the truly great sports sections of the last half of the Twentieth Century, already had three stellar columnists, Ray Didinger, Stan Hochman, and Mark Whicker. Bill Conlin was covering baseball with idiosyncratic fervor, conducting a running feud with the Phillies, delivering history lessons in his game stories, and flirting with scatology every chance he got. Long before I hit town, he set the standard for blue wordplay by quoting Dusty Baker, who had dropped a fly ball, as saying, “I had the motor faker right in my glove.” The quote only lasted one edition, but Conlin was the one guy in all of sportswriting capable of getting away with even that much.

None of the other beat writers came close to him in terms of sheer outrageousness, but each was an intrepid digger: Phil Jasner on the 76ers, Jay Greenberg on the Flyers, Paul Domowitch and the young Rich Hoffman (not long out of Penn) on pro football, Elmer Smith on boxing, and the inimitable Dick (Hoops) Weiss on college basketball. These guys were passionate about what they did. And smart. And aggressive. And competitive. I realize that the Boston Globe was regarded as the gold standard for sports sections back then-–and I know what a joy it was for me to read the Globe–but I still think the Daily News gave it a run for its money.

The Daily News certainly didn’t need me to do that. Even with a hole in its lineup after Tom Cushman, who was so solid on boxing, college sports, and track and field, left for San Diego, the paper still had all the talent–and all the egos–it needed. The Daily News hired me anyway.

No matter how good a sports columnist I was, I was hardly a marketable commodity after my inelegant departure from the Sun-Times. It was pretty much what I expected. There are more than a few newspaper editors who love to have a reason to think they have the upper hand on the talent. In my case, they could go tsk-tsk and say I was a troublemaker or that I was out of control. On the other hand, there was the reaction my blow-up got from Pete Dexter, who was a city columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News and whom I had yet to meet. Pete told our mutual friend Rob Fleder, a world-class magazine editor, “I don’t know Schulian and I don’t know exactly what happened, but I know he was right.” Which, of course, earned Pete a place in my personal hall of fame.

But guys like Pete don’t run newspapers. Guys unlike him do. And the hell of it was, I couldn’t argue with them, even though I’d been provoked and maybe set up. I was wrung out. Getting fired and divorced in a four-month span was all I could handle. I didn’t write a word for the first two months after I left the Sun-Times. I just rode my bike and ate pizza and watched the Cubs on TV. As if to spite me, they almost had a great season, but their muscle memory finally kicked in and they fell apart in the playoffs.

I didn’t put words on paper again until Eliot Kaplan, GQ’s managing editor, called because Vic Ziegel, may he rest in peace, told him I was massively available. Eliot was looking for someone to profile Mike Royko and I convinced him that I was his man. In the course of conversation, Eliot told me he’d read me when he was a kid. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping to hear, but the truth was, he really was a kid. He couldn’t have been more than 26 or 27 when he became Art Cooper’s right-hand man at GQ. As for Royko, he couldn’t have been a more cooperative subject, right down to musing forlornly about the death of his first wife and dancing with the woman who would become his second wife on the sidewalk outside the Billy Goat Tavern.

Just like that, I was a made man at GQ, which was becoming a home for first-rate writing and reportage instead of pretty boys in clothes guaranteed to get their asses kicked. I wrote for the magazine whenever I could for the next 20 years, until Art got forced out. He died not long afterward, while having lunch at the Four Seasons. The man had style.

Looking back, I wonder if I should have lobbied for a three-story deal with GQ that would have allowed me to stay in Chicago. John Walsh, when he was running Inside Sports, told me he thought I was a natural magazine writer, and he may have been right. Magazine work certainly was a better fit for the way I approached writing than a four-times-a-week column was. The column chewed me up, and yet, when the Daily News called, I threw myself back in the meat grinder. It was partly because I was afraid let go of the identity a column gave me and partly because I was infatuated with the history of the sports section that Larry Merchant had built for glory 20 years earlier.

I saw myself joining a parade in which George Kiseda, Sandy Grady, and Jack McKinney had marched. Merchant had made them the Daily News’ pioneers in trenchant reporting, salty prose, and raucous laughter. Stan Hochman, who was there at the beginning with them, once told me about the old warehouse the paper had called home when it was known as the “Dirty News” for its emphasis on crime and cheesecake. The building wasn’t air conditioned, and one sweltering summer day, with huge floor fans shoving hot air around the newsroom, some genius got it in his head to open the windows. The fans proceeded to blow every piece of paper that wasn’t weighted down out the windows and to hell and gone.

I should have been smart enough to realize there was no recapturing those days or the spirit that infused the Merchant era. Instead, I acted according to Faulkner’s theory that the past is never really past. Faulkner didn’t play in Philly, though, and soon enough I was a man out of time, out of place.

Click here for the full “From Ali to Xena” archives.

“Large still life with coffee pot,” By Giorgio Morandi (1933)

Here’s a nice little essay by Geoff Dyer:

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner living in an overcrowded city on a tiny island where courts are in short supply, but I love seeing tennis courts: from a plane as it descends (there never seem to be any on the way up) or from speeding trains and cars. This is a purely aesthetic — i.e., pointless — pleasure, but if I am out walking or cycling, this fondness for court-spotting has obvious practical advantages. Over time, in London, I have discovered every public court within a playable distance of home.

…It is in America that you encounter true abundance, both public and private. Descending in a plane over California — or North Carolina or Texas — it seems that tennis courts are more potent than swimming pools as symbols of freedom from the realm of necessity. Which raises the question: What profiteth a man if he gains a world of free courts yet lacks a partner? For life is not just a search for tennis courts; it is also a search for someone to play with.

[Photo Credit: Roosevelt Islander]

This is one of my favorite weeks in New York, the last week of summer. The town is quiet, but this morning it was especially still. It was also cool too, a distinct hint of autumn in the air. It was a relief to hear the chugging sounds of the subway. Back in business.

[Photo Credit: Herve Bertrand]

Ivan Nova stumbled around during the first couple of innings on Sunday night. The O’s led 2-0 when Curtis Granderson hit a three-run homer but Nova gave it right back. Then he righted himself and got stronger as the game progressed. The game was tied at three in the sixth inning when the Yanks hit back-to-back-to-back home runs–Cano, Swisher, Jones. Grandy hit another homer in the seventh and now leads the American league in both home runs and RBI. Not bad for a skinny kid.

The O’s had a beating coming to them. Nice to see the Yanks deliver it with a flourish. Yeah, there were some nervous moments in the eighth when the O’s loaded the bases with nobody out, but then David Robertson struck out the side, dropping the hammer for the third strike on Vlad, Mark Reynolds and Ryan Adams. And Shazam, Yankee fans went to bed heppy kets.

Final Score: Yanks 8, O’s 3.

The Yanks turn to Nova to stop their two-game skid.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones DH
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Brett Gardner LF

No excuses, win a “w,” please.

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

It was all lined-up. The Yanks drove Zach Britton’s pitch count up while Bartolo Colon kept his down. Britton threw 120 pitches over seven innings but he had the Yankee hitters off-balance with soft stuff away and a cut fastball inside. They didn’t get a runner past second base. Colon blinked first, giving up a double and a single in the seventh inning, and the Orioles had a 1-0 lead.

The game moved along briskly. In the bottom of the eighth, a couple of bloop hits put runners on the corners with nobody out for the Orioles. The game in the balance. A ground ball back to Colon, who checked the runner at third, then threw to second for the force. Then a strikeout, three pitches, caught-looking. But J.J. Hardy lined a single through the left side–fastball up–and Colon’s day was over.

In the 9th, the Yanks sent up Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez against Kevin Gregg. Granderson struck out on a full count fastball. Teixeira hit an 0-2 pitch off the first base bag, good for a single. The fans chanted, “Let’s Go O’s.” Rodriguez hit into a 6-4-3 double play and—thud.

O’s 2, Yanks Zip. First place, slipping away.

It was a long night in New York. The storm wasn’t as bad as predicted, at least not here on the high ground of the Bronx, but the constant news coverage and the anticipation was exhausting. It was a relief to watch baseball, to see the Yankees play, but the results were less than satisfying, despite Colon’s performance. The Yanks have now lost four of their last five, against the A’s and O’s.

Summertimes Blues, indeed.

[Picture by Cloni]

The Yanks and O’s will play two today. Here’s the lineup for Game One:

Derek Jeter DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones LF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Francisco Cervelli C

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Joel Zimmer]

It’s All Right.

[Photo Credit: Koolaidfr0zenpizza]

There will be no cooking tonight. Therefore…

The rain has begun in the Bronx.

No games today. Just storm watch. We got batteries, life jackets, water, an ark. We should be good to go.

Hope everyone stays safe.

[Photo Credit: Craig Robinson]

The Yanks start a series in Baltimore tonight. They are scheduled to play five games in the next four days. I say they get a couple in, maybe three.

Cliff’s go the preview.

Here’s the line-up:

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF

We’ll be around this weekend. Who knows what this weather will bring. The subways will stop running tomorrow afternoon as the city prepares for the worst. If you don’t see any updates it’s because we’ve lost power temporarily. Hopefully, it won’t come to that, although the wife did buy an ark today at Costco just in case.

Never mind Mother Nature:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Lewis W. Hine]