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Alexandra gives Blueberry Cobbler.  Diggum, smack.

Picture by Rosalyn Drexler via This Isn’t Happiness. 

If you happen to be in Paris this summer this sure looks like a lovely show.

Big Mike, what’s doing on, Dude?

The Yanks pitching was horseshit for the most part last night and got their tits lit by the lowly Phillies.

The hitters put in work, scored 8 runs but it wasn’t enough.

Final Score: Phillies 11,  Yanks 8. 

Phooey.

[Photo Credit: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images]

Nova’s coming back this week. Tonight gives Big Mike.

Brett Gardner CF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Garrett Jones 1B

Didi Gregorius SS

Chris Young LF

Stephen Drew 2B

Never mind playing down to the competition:

Picture by Bags

R.I.P. Jack Rollins: showbiz legend.

[Photo Via: Bob Weide]

File Sunday’s game under the Every-beating-deserves-another file.

Masahiro Tanaka had an off-day, J.D. Martinez hit three home runs, and the Tigers pounded the Yanks, 12-4.

Peter Richmond is a good man, loyal friend, and a gifted writer. Here he is at his best, writing about his father for GQ in December of 1993. The article was the genesis of Richmond’s beautiful memoir, My Father’s War: A Son’s Journey.

To celebrate Father’s Day—and much respect and love to all the dad’s out there—I can think of no finer piece to share with you. Head on over to the Beast and check out–“My Father’s War”:

He survived Guadalcanal, and then New Britain, and then Peleliu, and came home in 1944 to take over the family business, manufacturing paper bags in a gray factory next to the railroad tracks in Long Island City. He married the woman who would become my mother and moved to Westchester County, and died in 1960, at the age of 44, when I was 7, so I never had much of a chance to ask him about his war.

But it was always there. I could hold it to my face. My father’s war was tucked into the trunk that sat in the darkest corner of the cellar: a Japanese flag, stained with Rorschach blotches of blood, the red circle still bright, the field of white crowded with the Japanese characters that identified the man whose blood graced it.

As a child, I spent a lot of time with the flag, running it through my hands, marveling at the liquid feel of the silk, at how different it was from the rest of my father’s memorabilia: the .30-caliber Japanese machine gun, the Japanese hand grenade, the rifles–all of them so inconceivably heavy and redolent of good grease and iron that I knew they carried the real weight of war.

Picture by Bags

The Yankees enjoyed Old Timer’s Day yesterday–has Willie finished his speech yet?–and then went ahead and pounded the crap out of the Tigers to the tune of 14-3. Big night for a lot of guys–notably Carlos Beltran, Brett Gardner, Nathan Eovaldi, Alex Rodriguez, Didi Gregorious, and Chris Young.

Picture by Bags; Frank Franklin II/AP

He’ll be at the Stadium today for Old Timer’s Day. Tonight gives Yanks, Tigers.

Enjoy, everyone:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Why wait? Alex Rodriguez swung at the first pitch he saw from Justin Verlander last night–a fastball on the outside part of the plate–and popped it over the wall in right field. Hit number 3,000 was a home run.

It was a sweet moment and Rodriguez seemed to soak it in. Got big hugs from C. C. Sabathia and Brian McCann and Joe Girardi, pats, slaps, and daps from the rest of his team. Pointed and blew kisses to his daughters, Natasha and Elia, sitting in the stands behind the Yankee dugout.

A quick look at the articles around the web this morning and I see most of them hone-in on what this moment could have been–should have been–if only Rodriguez hadn’t botched it all up. Stain, shame, tarnished, asterisk, you’ve heard it all before.

John Flaherty was less than sanguine on the YES broadcast last night, noting that none of the Tigers applauded as Rodriguez rounded the bases. It was a fair observation but incomplete as the replays didn’t show if any of the Tigers clapped or saluted while Rodriguez was hugged by his teammates and cheered by the crowd. When Sabathia hugged Rodriguez, they turned, smiled and pointed to someone on the other side of the field, presumably in the Tigers dugout. Perhaps the Tigers didn’t cheer–this was no lovefest like the one Jeter got the day he hit 3,000–but it was misleading of Flaherty and YES to suggest the Tigers apathy and not give a full account of their actions–Miguel Cabrera, for one, gave Rodriguez a hug after the game.

Rodriguez told reporters after the game, “The thing that I’ll take away from a day like today is, after the last out is made, Miguel Cabrera comes over and gives me a hug,” Rodriguez said. “Twenty years from now, that’s really what I’ll take away — the fans’ reaction, sharing it with my teammates and seeing their reaction.

“Everything about this year has been a surprise. I’ve never enjoyed the game as much as I have this year.”

This gray area is of Rodriguez’s making and some of us don’t like to have the innocence of the prize-in-the-crackerjack moment sullied by anything as sticky as reality. But Rodriguez has always been a challenge, even before 2009, hasn’t he?’

Leave it to Ken Davidoff to make sense:

You don’t view this as a redemption tale? Good. Me neither. A-Rod had nothing from which to redeem himself; he served his year’s suspension in 2014 and returned as a player with the same rights as all of the others. For me, it’s a tale of perseverance — the guy just won’t go away, even with two surgically repaired hips and his extensive rap sheet — and of comeuppance for the blinders-wearing moralists who thought, just with the force of their consternation, they could will A-Rod into oblivion.

You’re expending energy trying to determine whether A-Rod is using something right now? Ay yi yi.

You’re searching for a level of truth that is virtually unobtainable — if not necessarily about A-Rod, than it is about the player population in general. What a shame to lose sleep wondering who uses illegal PEDs and who doesn’t. The drug tests, to repeat a line, are IQ tests. The same goes for baseball’s investigative department, which capitalized on the stupidity of A-Rod and his fellow Biogenesis guys to rely on the unreliable Anthony Bosch for their stuff.

A-Rod is great for the game because he gets people to care, one way or the other. The game needs its villains just as badly as its protagonists, and in this age of social media, can we really hope to find a worthy successor to this guy?

Anyhow, never mind the angst–or the professional putz who caught the ball and won’t fork it over–it was a lovely moment. Even better, was Adam Warren, who pitched 8 innings (the longest outing of his career), held the Tigers to a couple of runs, and got home runs from Didi Gregorious and Brett Gardner as the Yanks beat the Tigers, 7-2.

[Photo Credit: Bill Kostroun; Frank Franklin II/AP]

Brett Gardner LF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Carlos Beltran RF

Didi Gregorius SS

Stephen Drew 2B

John Ryan Murphy C

Mason Williams CF

It’s the Warren Report, and, of course, all eyes on Alex as he looks to get hit #3,000.

Never mind the flashbulbs:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Manara. 

Alex Rodriguez got a couple of base hits last night and was sitting on career hit 2,999. He got two final at bats. Lined out to right in the first one, and then, in the bottom of the 8th–when the Yanks broke open what had been a tight game–he walked on four pitches. The reliever, Sam Dyson, had already walked Chase Headley and didn’t have much control. Neither did the crowd, who leveled the reliever with boos. And they didn’t let up. (They were irked because they knew their chance at seeing Rodriguez get hit number 3,000 was lost.) It was poor form, I’d say, but also amusing. Nice to hear that the old obnoxious Bronx Cheer loud and clear.

Anyhow, it was Brett Gardner and Carlos Beltran with the big hits–each hitting a two-run homer. Gardner was fired up like a wrestler when he returned to the dugout after hitting his dinger. Don’t recall ever seeing him so animated. And Beltran took a 3-1 pitch for a called strike, didn’t like the call, stepped back in the box, and then hit his home run.

C.C. pitched pretty well–Mike Stanton hit a low line drive home run that brought back memories of Dave Winfield–and the Yanks won, 9-4.

[Photo Credit: Kathy Willens/AP]

It’s the Big Fella on the hill on a gray, chilly evening in the BX. The Old Fella, the Relic, the Good Fella.

C’mon, C.C., we love ya, dude.

Brett Gardner LF

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Didi Gregorius SS

Stephen Drew 2B

Mason Williams CF

Never mind Giancarlo:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags

Thiebaud. 

Now, that’s more like it.

Yeah, Michael Pineda had a no-hitter going into the 7th inning and that was cool. Then he gave up his first hit, a solo home run. No big deal, right? ‘Cept the Yanks only had 2 runs of their own and with Pineda’s pitch-count nearing the magic number (100), he didn’t make it through the inning.

Then in the 8th, trouble: first and third, one out. Enter, Mr. Betances. A ground ball to first, Garrett Jones–who’d been robbed of a run-scoring hit to end the 7th–fields, hesitates, throws high to the plate, runner called safe, tie game. The Yanks have the umps review it, call’s overturned, the lead safe. Betances handles the rest and preserves the 2-1 lead for a much-needed win.

Alex Rodriguez got a couple of hits and is now just three away from Mr. 3,000; Carlos Beltran also had two hits.

Picture by Bags

Back at home, Big Mike looks to rebound from an ass-kicking.

Brett Gardner LF

Chase Headley 3B

Brian McCann C

Alex Rodriguez DH

Garrett Jones 1B

Carlos Beltran RF

Didi Gregorius SS

Stephen Drew 2B

Mason Williams CF

Never mind this losing:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Just listen, don’t do it, pay attention…

Picture by Bags

“Gloucester Beach, Bass Rocks” By Edward Hopper (1924)