Blog Archives

Hey all you mudda’s out there…Heppy Mudda’s Day! We love ya, each and every one of you.

Never mind the napkins…

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Justin Verlander lost a bid for a perfect game when he walked a batter–in a 12-pitch battle–in the eighth. But a double play got him out of the inning and then he retired the side in order in the 9th, good for the second no-hitter of his career.

Mazel Props.

Big sports Saturday. The Kentucky Derby is in a few hours. If you’ve never read Hunter Thompson’s “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” here’s your chance.

Later tonight, Manny Pacquiao fights “Sugar” Shane Mosley, though Gary Andrew Poole wonders when Pacman will fight the Right American (aka Floyd Mayweather, Jr.).

For you hoop heads, the Celtics look to avoid going down 3-0 like the Lakers. Good news for them is that they are at home. I figure they’ll win tonight but don’t think they can stop the Heat in the series.

On the baseball diamond, Andre Ethier looks to tie a Dodger team record by extending his hitting streak to 31 out at Citifield. And down in Texas the Yanks would love to see Bartolo Colon to keep things rolling. Bunch o runs wouldn’t hoit, now would it boys?

Get the clicker ready, good people, grab some eats, and settle in for a night of high fat bastardness.

[Photo Credit: Christian Science Monitor]

Conrad Roset.

…in action…

Conrad’s drawing from conrad roset on Vimeo.

Jorge Posada is swinging the bat better from the left-hand side of the plate this week (although he is hitless from the right side this season). He thanked manager Joe Girardi for sticking with him. The Post has the story. Posada has already been relieved of his position as catcher and I could see him unceremoniously benched in favor of Jesus Montero come the middle of the summer if he doesn’t start hitting.

Derek Jeter is another case entirely. I just got back from the vet with one of my cats and the vet, a die-hard Yankees fan, spent most of the appointment talking about not giving up on Jeter even if he’s no longer a great player.

He told me how all he hears on talk radio is shouting about how the Yankees should trade for Jose Reyes. I haven’t listened to that noise but it doesn’t come as a surprise. Part of it is our insatiable urge to tear people down. Jeter is lordly and cool–so controlled–and has enjoyed such great fortune over the course of his Hall of Fame career that is must be delightful to some–they can have at him now that’s he’s vulnerable. As is the case with most great players things will likely not end well for Jeter.

There is no place to move him. So, like Cal Ripken, Jr, Jeter will be called selfish as his skills decline if he’s not prepared to be a part-time player. The rub is that the same characteristics that made Jeter great–the skill, drive, ego, the competitiveness–can turn on him, make him out-of-touch, or worse, a detriment to the team’s success.

It must be the hardest thing for a player to admit he’s losing it, that he’ll never be what he was, and also the easiest things for fans to see. You can’t blame him for not being ready to call it a day yet, and I don’t think you can blame management for giving him some leeway here. We’re not dealing with absolutes and in Jeter’s case there is more to the story than simply what is best for the team on the field. You may disagree, but that’s just the cold, hard truth of it.

If the Captain doesn’t improve offensively I can see Girardi moving him down in the line up this season but I don’t see him being replaced as the regular shortstop. If he has a lousy season, that will be addressed this winter. In the meantime, the Yankees are going to play with an average shortstop. Okay, you may argue he’s below average, but he’s the also most famous Yankee since Mickey Mantle and that’s part of the equation. I’m rooting for him, and will not be surprised if he has a couple of big moments left. If he doesn’t, so be it. Then it’s up to the rest of the team to pick him up.

Saturday Morning Beat to get you bouncin’…

Yanks return to the scene of the crime. At least they are out of Detroit. Let’s hope for a mess o runs, piled high and deep. Yeah, and another good start from Ivan Nova would be swell too. Here’s Cliff with the preview.

Don’t burn the brisket and Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photograph by Steve Perille]

Here’s Jerry Crasnick on the hot-hitting former Yank, Lance Berkman:

Teammates, opponents, managers, fans, media members and scouts regard Berkman as an uncommonly nice person and the classic case of an athlete who has his act together. He’s quotable, approachable and brimming with perspective, and he’s that rare star player who’s able to dissect his game through a self-deprecating lens. But the game isn’t always fun when the bat and ball can feel like a ball and chain.

“Most of my career, I’ve almost had to let that cloud hang over me, because it’s part of what keeps you sharp mentally,” Berkman said by phone earlier this week. “I know the fickle nature of hitting. You can be as hot as a pistol one day, and the next thing you know you can’t figure out where to put your feet. It’s such a difficult thing to do, you’re always just trying to survive.

“I have a tendency to take things to extremes and take a doomsday approach when things aren’t going well. I’ll think, ‘This is not good,’ or, ‘The next slump is just around the corner.’ I’m always leery of hot streaks, because I know the game can turn on you in a heartbeat.”

Good dude, that Lance (even if his name is Lance). I’m glad he’s doing well.

I always have been partial to collar bones myself. That and an elegant neck line. Oh, and hands, feet, eyes, lips. Hell, there ain’t much on a lady that I don’t admire.

Drink it in. Loveliness is, well, lovely.

Scott Weaver’s Rolling through the Bay from Learning Studio on Vimeo.

This is crazy impressive. And just crazy. And impressive.

Homemade coffee ice cream?

Yes, please.

La Kocinera does it up right.

Every painter has got to make a picture of a sink. It’s a humble assignment but one that often yields strong, vigorous results.

I dig this one.

[Painting by Chelsea Bentley James]

More Chet.

[Photograph by William Claxton]

Don’t cry. There’s more baseball tomorrow.

Lo Hud’s got the post game notes.

No showing from the Score Truck, a bad throw by Derek Jeter’s sub, and the Yanks wasted another decent start by A.J. Burnett as they lost to the Tigers, 6-3. Eric Chavez was hurt and there are hard feelings all around as the Bombers limp out of Detroit. I missed the game and got nuthin’ fuh ya, man.

Tomorrow is a new day…deep in the heart of Texas.

Time for a big start from A.J. and some big hits from the Yankee hitters.

It’s an afternoon affair at Comerica and we’ll be cheerin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Image via Tropical Toxic]

Here is a wonderful essay by Pat Jordan which originally appeared in The Southern Review…

The Haircut

By Pat Jordan

Susie said I was starting to look like a French diplomat. She meant my hair. Long over my ears and swooping back on the sides like wings into a DA in back. I’d let it grow out of indifference ever since we left Fort Lauderdale three months ago to take up residence in Abbeville in the up-country of South Carolina. Abbeville was a small town of fewer than five thousand, a little bit old, a little bit worn, and a little bit out of the way. It was a “very Southern town,” code words of the locals which meant more than a few of its citizens had not yet reconciled themselves to the defeat of the Confederate States of America in the War between the States. They referred to those not born and raised in one of the original Confederate states as “Yankees,” but tried not to do it to their faces. When they slipped up, they quickly apologized, “I’m sorry I called you a Yankee.” I told them I was a “Yankee,” a Connecticut Yankee, actually, and that only people from New England were truly Yankees. People from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, et cetera, were just northerners. They smiled, but did not accept that distinction.

There was a monument on the town square, a mini version of the Washington Monument, in Washington, D.C., but this one was devoted to the memory of soldiers who had given their lives for the CSA. On special weekends there were reenact- ments on the square. Men with beards, dressed in butternut and gray uniforms, rode tired-looking horses around the brick streets of the square to the strains of “Dixie.” The men carried flags, the Stars and Bars, which they waved at the townspeople, who waved back with mini flags. Last year, two black Abbevillians had donned Confederate uniforms and marched. Shelley, the owner of the Rough House, a local bar, told me Yankees didn’t realize that a lot of slaves fought and died for the Stars and Bars. I asked, “Why?” He looked at me and said, “Because it’s part of their heritage, just like ours.”

Shelley is very Southern. Over his bar he has a yellowed proclamation heralding Senator Strom Thurmond Appreciation Day, Abbeville, 1984. Shelley’s mother owns an antiques store and one of the items she had for sale was a painting of Abraham Lincoln. When Shelley saw it, he waited until his mother was busy, then took the painting and disposed of it. Shelley is a professional actor—stage, screen, TV. I told him he’d be perfect as Jeb Stuart for one of the reenactments.

Then I said, “I could play Grant.” He gave me a pained smile. And then he gave me some books to educate me about the War between the States. The books claimed the war was not about slavery, that was a pernicious Yankee lie, but was really about States’ Rights. He directed me around the corner to a bookstore that would further my education about the South’s insurrection. I stood in front of the bookstore window above which was a sign, All Things Confederate. It was closed. I saw a big Stars and Bars flag on a wall inside. On the front window was an ink drawing of General William Tecumseh Sherman over which was printed: Wanted For War Crimes.

The genteel ladies of the town who live in big, colonial houses on North Main hosted reenactment parties at which “Period dress is optional.” In Abbeville there is only one period of note, 1860 to 1865. Abbeville calls itself “The Birthplace and the Deathbed of the Confederacy.” When Jefferson Davis fled the Yankee army in 1865, he stopped long enough in Abbeville to sign papers dissolving the CSA. Five years earlier he had hosted a conference of South Carolina statesmen in Abbeville, where they signed the first articles of secession of any of the Southern states. That conference was held on a hill where our 1884 Victorian house sits. It’s called “Secession Hill.” Two concrete pillars stand sentinel on either side of Secession Hill, with plaques embedded in them that urge Abbevillians never to forget that once “no nation rose so white and fair” as the CSA. Our house is on top of that hill, on Magazine Street, named not for the magazines I work for, but a munitions factory that manufactured gunpowder as far back as the Revolutionary War. There’s a big old oak tree at the top of the hill. Rumor has it that during the great unpleasantness of 1860 to 1865, Yankee spies were hanged from that tree.

(more…)

A downstairs neighbor of ours smokes and we can smell it coming through the radiator vent. It’s noticeable, maybe because we’re so sensitive to cigarette smoke now. Both Em and I used to smoke and when we were growing up it seems as if all the grown-ups we knew smoked. If you are of a certain age, I dare you to find childhood pictures without an ashtray on the living room coffee table. You could smoke in movie theaters, at the game, on the train, and certainly in your own home.

That’s not the case these days and I don’t miss it though it’s still hard to believe that you are getting a bargain if you can cop a pack of smokes for $10.

[Photograph Joseph Holmes]