Blog Archives

Low Budget Laffs:

A Good Combination:

The Man…

In Walked Bud

 The Finer Things in Life

[Picture by Bags]

Serious Eats is a great food site.

Love their feature, A Sandwich a Day.

Dig:

[Photo Credit: Blondie and Brownie]

The new bible study group: Steven Goldman, Cliff Corcoran and Jay Jaffe.

The Pinstriped Bible: New and Improved.

Don’t sleep.

I missed this when it was first posted  but it’s still worth noting–Roger Angell on Bob Sheppard:

Up in the pressbox, every night ends the same way. Herb Steier, a retired Times sports copy editor, comes to every game and sits motionless in the third row, his hands in front of him on the long table. He doesn’t keep score but watches the action intently, with bright, dark eyes. When the ninth inning comes, he gets up and stands by the railing behind the last row of writers, near the exit, and after the potential final batter of the game has been announced, Bob Sheppard, the ancient and elegant Hall of Fame announcer, comes out of his booth and stands next to him, with a book under his arm. (He reads novels or works of history between announcements.) Eddie Layton, the Stadium organist, is there, too, wearing a little skipper’s cap. Eddie has a private yacht—well, it’s a mini-tug, called Impulse—that he keeps on the Hudson, up near Tarrytown. He gets a limo ride to the Stadium most days from his apartment in Queens—it’s in his contract—and a nice lift home with Bob Sheppard and Herb Steier at night. Eddie and Bob Sheppard make a bet on every single Yankee game—the time of the game, the total number of base runners, number of pitches by bullpen pitchers, whatever—but won’t tell you which one of them is ahead. The stakes are steady: a penny a game.

Steier is Sheppard’s neighbor, out in Baldwin, Long Island, and he drives him to work every day and home again at its end; they’re old friends. Sheppard, a stylish fellow, is wearing an Argyle sweater and espadrilles tonight. This is his fiftieth year on the job at Yankee Stadium, and once in a while I ask him to enunciate a player’s name for me, just for the thrill of it. “ ‘Shi-ge-to-shi Ha-se-ga-wa,’ ” he’ll respond, ringing the vowels. It sounds like an airport.

The instant the last batter strikes out or pops up or grounds out Sheppard and Steier and Layton do an about-face and depart at a slow sprint. Out the door they go and turn right in the level corridor, still running. A few kids out there are already rocketing down the tilted runways. “Start spreadin’ the noooss…” comes blaring out from everywhere (the Yanks have won again), but Bob and Herb and Eddie have turned right again, into the quiet elevator lobby, where the nearer car awaits them, its door open. Down they go and out at street level, still at a careful run. Herb’s car, a beige 1995 Maxima, is in its regular slot in the team parking lot, just across the alley—the second car on the right. They’re in, they’re out, a left turn up the street, where they grab a right, jumping onto the Deegan, heading home. The cops there have the eastbound traffic stopped dead, waiting for Bob Sheppard: no one else in New York is allowed to make this turn. Two minutes, maybe two-twenty, after the game has ended and they’re gone, home free, the first of fifty thousand out of the building, every night.

I sat in the lobby of Yankee Stadium on the night of the final game back in September of 2008. Next to me was Herb Steier. I’d seen him before. He was always easy with a smile and a story. Sat through a game a year earlier talking to him, Richard Ben Cramer and Angell. When Rodriguez hit two home runs that day, Cramer was smiling and Steier had a twinkle in his eye (Cramer is writing a book about Alex Rodriguez).

Now, those eyes were sad. He was hunched over slightly as he told me how the Yankees were giving him a hard time about sitting in the pressbox now that Sheppard wasn’t working regularly anymore. I don’t know what he’s up to these days but Steier is good people. I hope he is well.

Yanks haven’t played their best ball lately. They’ve got Cliff Lee to deal with tonight.

Hang tough, fellas. Go git ’em.

Jon Weisman has a good piece on Joe Torre’s future (and legacy) in Los Angeles:

Nearly three seasons into his post-Yankees tenure on the West Coast, Torre remains more a baseball manager than a Dodgers manager, more an ambassador and icon than an integral part of the City of Angels.

This is reflective of two things, neither of them particularly damning toward Torre. In certain respects, Torre has been a welcome relief in Los Angeles, steering the Dodgers to the most success since the Tommy Lasorda days, leading with a combination of class, calm and clarity not witnessed since Walter Alston. More than two decades since the team’s last World Series title, more than one decade since the organization was last thought of as noble, these are not qualities to be taken for granted.

But presuming the Dodgers don’t rally from third place in the National League West today into the World Series two months from now, the aftershocks of a Torre departure will be felt in Los Angeles far more modestly than in the baseball community at large.

Man, the Joe Torre Era in the Bronx seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?

[Photo Credit: UK Guardian]

Stay Blue…

I went to the movies for the first time this summer a few days ago. Saw Dinner for Schmucks. I didn’t expect much and wasn’t disappointed. I smiled  a lot and thought this limp, bland movie was a fine diversion. I wouldn’t see it again, though on second thought I’ll probably sit through pieces of it many times once it reaches heavy-rotation on cable.

I didn’t get a good belly laugh out of it and when the end credits rolled I didn’t remember a thing that had just happened. 

I think that most of the recent comedies by the Will Ferrell-Judd Apatow Mafia are lacking but there also usually have that one crack-up scene that makes it worth it.

Like this foul-mouthed gem from The 40-Year-Old-Virgin (warning–if you offend easily, skip this):

Dig this fun piece from the L.A. Times Magazine on 50 different kinds of Soda Pop. 

RC was Boss, right Cappy?

I Love this Town…

[Picture by Bags]

Wallace Mathews on Jorge Posada’s latest injury:

…Girardi dropped the bomb after the game.

“He told me the throw he made [Monday] irritated his shoulder a little bit,” the manager said. “I don’t think it’s anything serious, but I gotta be careful. When Jorgie tells you something’s irritated, it’s usually irritated.”

Jorgie told the media nothing, because he bolted for the first team bus out of Rangers Ballpark before any reporters got into the locker room.

So until about 4:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, we’ll have to make do with Girardi’s assessment of Posada’s fitness. “I could have used him in an emergency,” said Girardi, a description for which the eighth-inning situation presumably did not qualify.

But considering how injury-riddled Posada’s 2010 season has been so far, the real emergency may be going on in his shoulder. Already, he has spent time on the DL with a broken foot, had hamstring problems and missed several games with recurring soreness caused by a cyst behind his left knee.

Plus, he missed nearly the entire 2008 season after having surgery on the very same shoulder. So when Girardi says Posada’s shoulder is “a little cranky,” you naturally start to wonder exactly how cranky, and for how many games.

Will the Yankees hold it together? Can they stay healthy enough to defend their title come October?

The Yankees are wary of Cliff Lee reports George King:

“He uses all four quadrants of the strike zone and puts the ball wherever he wants it,” said Jorge Posada, a .292 (7-for-24) hitter versus Lee. “He is like (Tom) Glavine but with more speed.”

That was a tough loss last night, what with the Rays and Sox both winning.

Lee tonight makes for a chore. Hey, nobody said it was gunna be easy like Sunday Morning, right?

[Photo Credit: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images]

Over at ESPN, dig this on AJ Burnett:

He has eight starts this year where he has given the Yankees less than a 10 percent chance to win, and eight starts where he has given his team at least an 80 percent chance for victory. Amazingly, in every single one of his starts, he has given the Yankees at least a 69 percent chance of winning OR less than a 34 percent chance. Not one start in between.

Blue Note week continues.

This one is a favorite…

It wasn’t too long after Cliff started writing at the Banter that we realized our constrasting styles worked well together.

“You guys are like peanut butter and jelly,” said Steve Goldman. When I told this to Cliff he corrected the analogy, “More like peanut butter and chocolate.”

Say word.

Dig this nice letter by a Michael Ebner in the Metropolitan Diary today:

As we were threading our way through crowded streets, I realized that we had approached the site of the former Polo Grounds, longtime home of the New York Giants. I regaled the cabby with recollections of attending ball games there — with my grandfather, father, and brother — some 50 years ago.

Suddenly he veered off topic, asking me how much time I had before my flight. Learning that I had more than three hours, he shut off the meter and parked the cab (in a no-parking zone). Together we walked around the housing complex in the vicinity of center field known as Polo Grounds Towers.

He particularly wanted me to see the commemorative sign, on a patch of lawn, noting that this housing complex once was the home of the Giants. Reflecting later on this spontaneous experience, it occurred to me that this was the only time in my 68 years that I had actually stood on the field of play in a major-league ballpark.

Over at SI.com, Tim Marchman asks if the Tampa Bay Rays are unusually prone to being no-hit?

Tampa Bay’s hitters are good, but they have a flaw: They are, essentially, a take-and-rake lineup. The team rates fifth in the American League in on-base percentage, but fourth from the bottom in batting average. They lead the league in both walks and strikeouts as a percentage of plate appearances, and are fourth-worst in both groundball-to-flyball ratio and line drive percentage. Basically they draw walks, hit for extra bases and otherwise beat the ball into he ground, which is essentially what you would be looking for in a team especially liable to being dominated on a given afternoon.

Additionally, their home park is possibly the worst in baseball for the base hit. Tropicana Field has reduced base hits by about 11 percent compared to an average park this year; the Rays and their opponents have hit .256 away from Tampa Bay this year, but just .238 at the Trop. The only worse park for the base hit in the majors has been the Oakland Coliseum.