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I know this routine from Albert’s first comedy album, Comedy Minus One.

Here is a version he did on TV:

Special Delivery…

When Andy Pettitte gave up a two-run homer to Jose Bautista in the first inning it was hard to fight off the “here we go again” feeling. But the Score Truck arrived in a rather royal way in the third inning. Brett Gardner led off with a single against Rickey Romero and chased Toronto’s starter later in the inning when he launched his fist big league grand slam into the right field bleachers. That made the score 8-2. Four batters later, Alex Rodriguez popped a high fly ball to left. His old “ha!” buddy John McDonald lost it in the sun and three more runs crossed the plate.

That was the only scoring the Yanks did today but it was more than enough as Andy Pettitte cruised to his 10th win.

Final Score: Yanks 11, Jays 3.

[Photo Credit: Bags and Hive]

I watched the entire game yesterday. Bob Dylan’s voice kept repeating in my head, “It’s a hard, it’s a hard...” Just about everything was hard yesterday, for both teams, but especially for the Yanks who scored just one run (in the first inning). I’m a just try and fergit it and hope for better things today.

The heat has returned. Gunna be a scorcher today and tomorrow.

Keep cool and Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

[Picture by Bags]

The Young Perfessor Steve Goldman examines the Yankees’ offense:

Can we call what the Yankees are going through right now, with the Yankees pushing past four runs just once in the last seven games a slump? Sure we can, because it has gone on a lot longer than that. After hitting .286/.367/.452 in April and May and scoring an average of 5.7 runs per game, they dropped off to .245/.333/.401 and 4.8 runs per game in June. It wasn’t just the Mariners or the six games played without the designated hitter in NL parks. The Yankees didn’t hit much in the first half of the month, then slid off as the days went on.

You can pick a half-dozen culprits. Brett Gardner (.383/.472/.533) and Robinson Cano (.333/.398/.510) had good months. Mark Teixeira was about average for an AL first baseman, which isn’t saying much this year. Everyone else was different flavors of slumpy. Curtis Granderson and Alex Rodriguez hit some home runs but had on-base percentages around .300. Derek Jeter hit .243/.339/.379, which isn’t terrible only because the average MLB shortstop is hitting only .264/.321/.371. The worst slumps took place in the DH/catching axis. Francisco Cervelli’s good luck on balls in play ran out and he hit .180/.275/.246 on the month. Jorge Posada was better because he was willing to walk but hit only .203/.337/.351.

The question here is, who can you expect to get better? Teixeira should continue to heat up. A-Rod was great in May (.330/.408/.534) and seems to be waking up again. Curtis Granderson might find some consistency if the Yankees would just stop asking him to do things he’s incapable of doing, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards right now, so don’t expect much more. Jeter has been roughly consistent at his current level since the end of April, and at 36 he might not find his way back to the light. Posada is 38; the same thing goes for him. Nick Swisher has changed his style, so while we can note that so far he’s had one major hot streak bookended by two very mediocre months, we can’t know where the ride is going to stop. Cano might maintain something like consistency; Gardner is going to get worse.

I lived in Los Angeles for a little over four months when I was working for the Coen brothers on The Big Lebowski. An old college pal was good enough to let me crash on his couch in Santa Monica. We spent many weekends down at another college friend’s crib in Venice, hanging out on the balcony, checking out the scene on the boardwalk by the beach.

A record by a group named Sublime was on heavy-rotation at the time. It wasn’t the kind of record I usually go for, or even have the opportunity to hear for that matter, but there was something catchy about their pop, surfer sound, and it seemed entirely fitting to that time and place. So the record is forever linked to my memories of L.A. and the beach. I never did buy it–though later found out that my wife (who has some of the most finicky musical tastes of anyone I’ve ever met) loves it.

Here’s one of the tunes that brings me back to the beach with a smile:

Man, has it ever been gorgeous in the Big Apple the past few days. It is bright and sunny again this morning. Gunna get back to real summer over the weekend but for now, it’s just a delight.

Light morning here at the Banter, and another 1 pm start for the men in pinstripes today.

Here’s hoping everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

[Picture by Bags]

Milo Manara

No shame in getting shut down by the likes of Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez. Now, it’s time for CC Sabathia to make like Obelix and return the favor.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Okay, you want something healthy? Dig this tasty-looking tomato, mozzarella and farro salad from food52. Food goddess Jennifer Hess (who writes the devastatingly delicious site, Last Night’s Dinner) gave it a try and liked it muchly.

R.I.P. Rammellzee

Over at New York Magazine, a guy named Harry Hanrahan put together a list of the 100 greatest movie insults of all time. He would have been wiser to just call it 100 great movie insults because his choice of movies shows an extremely limited range (only one Groucho line and no W.C. Fields or Mae West).

Still, it’s a smile, with lots of cherce cursing.

Enjoy:

Andre Franquin

Ever been livid watching a movie? I’m such a prig there is no shortage of movies that have gotten my red ass going, especially during my high school and college years (When Harry Met Sally, Thelma and Louise, Born on the 4th of July, and The Crying Game come to mind). But the first time I was angry watching a movie came much earlier, when I was ten-years old an my mom took me to see Chariots of Fire. God, that theme song, which was played on the radio for the longest, never failed to angry up the blood:

So: movie fury. Whadda ya hear, whadda say?

Time for some “happy rap.”

This song never fails to put a spring in my step, as it did this morning on my way to work. Who cares if Greg Nice doesn’t know what instrument Dizzy played.

Over at the New York Times, Harold Mcgee writes that the secret to ribs is already in the kitchen: the oven. Peep, don’t sleep. And here are some more ideas for the grill…

[Photo Credit: A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen]

There is an exhaustive, though ultimately not especially rewarding profile of Mariano Rivera by James Traub in the New York Times Magazine. Perhaps we’re the wrong audience for this story. Closer to the point, I don’t think Mariano is an interesting subject for a magazine piece. He’s dull, in fact, too guarded to reveal anything about his personal life.  How does a savant articulate his gift? Shrugs his shoulders and says he’s doing the Lord’s work.

Writers are left to wax poetic over Mo’s on-the-field accomplishments, his style, his calm, his greatness, his influence around the clubhouse. A writer can talk to players around the league, add some quotes about just how good Mariano is, but otherwise, what is there to say?

So this story is thorough but it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about Rivera, and some of Traub’s characterizations are off-base: Kevin Youkilis is a described as a “batting genius” while Jonathan Paplebon is called “the closer who has become Rivera’s great rival.” Youkilis is a great hitter, but a genius? And if Rivera and Paplebon have a rivalry that’s news to me (they just happen to play for rival  teams).

It’s worth checking out, and I rarely tire of reading about Mo, but considering the author and the publication, I was disappointed.

However, the Times does have a cool video piece on Mo that is well-worth looking at.

[Photo Credit: National Geographic]

Here’s Pat Jordan at his best. A first-person essay on his relationship with his brother:

My brother doesn’t know where I live. He doesn’t know who my friends are. He doesn’t know I have two new puppies. He doesn’t know I am talking again to my daughter after 20 years. He doesn’t know if Susan is still well and free from cancer. He doesn’t know if I am well or sick, working or not, vigorous or an old man. I know nothing about him either. I have not talked to him in three years. I have not seen him in five. I have seen him only three times in the last 12 years, at my house in Florida in 2000, at our mother’s funeral in 2002, and at my father’s funeral in 2005. He doesn’t know what I look like now, at 69, whether I have gained or lost weight, whether I have lost my hair like Dad, or still have it like him. But I know what he looks like because he has never aged. He looked old when he was young, but when he got old he looked the same. He’s 83 now. With short hair like Brillo, a long horsey face, and small eyes (his friends called him “Moose”). A tall, sturdily built man with a vise-like handshake that made me wince, his reminder that he would always be stronger than me, like a solid oak unbending in the wind, while I would always be a sapling whipped by the wind until uprooted.

At my mother’s funeral in 2002, my father, my brother, and I greeted mourners in the back of the church in our hometown of Fairfield, Conn. My brother, 6’4″, wore his Ivy League suit from J. Press Clothiers in New Haven, and his wing-tipped cordovan shoes, as sturdy as Dutch clogs. My father, 5’6″, at 92, wore his navy blazer with brass buttons and his regimentally striped tie. I, 6’1″, wore my black leather sport jacket, jeans, and work boots. I had long gray hair and a white beard. My father looked at me and said, “You look like a bum.” My brother said, “Leave the kid alone, Dad. He came all this way.” My brother always defended me to my father. That’s why he always called me “the kid.” It was a sign of affection. To him, I would always be “the kid”; it was his way of excusing my behavior among adults. And whether my brother realized it or not, it was a way to diminish me. Which was the problem, one of them anyway, which is also why, at 69, I have reconciled myself to the possibility that I will never see my brother again.

Karma bites, don’t she?

Deadspin’s got the clip.

Hugo Pratt

Tango…

What makes the Hottentot so hot? …Courage, y’all, courage…

As Bugs Bunny would say…”Gasp.”