Blog Archives

Big Fan, the new movie staring Patton Oswalt, hits theaters today.

Cliff hipped me to this interview with Oswalt. Dig it.

Interesting piece on “walk-off” stats by Larry Granillo over at the Baseball Analysts.

Walk on by, keep it movin’.

Bronx Banter Book Excerpt

The Greatest Pitcher of All-Time? Satchel Paige is in the discussion, and is also the subject a new biography by Larry Tye:  Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend. Dig the prologue below and then check out the entire book.

Peep don’t sleep.

By Larry Tye

It was a fastball wrapped in a riddle that first drew me to Satchel Paige. I was an adolescent baseball fanatic and had grown up hearing that Satchel was the most overpowering and artful pitcher who ever lived. The stories were enchanting but they were not backed up by the won-lost records, earned-run averages, and other vital statistics that students of the game like me needed to decide for ourselves. I wanted to know more.

It was that same blend of icon and enigma that drew me back to Satchel thirty-five years later. I was writing a book on the Pullman porters called Rising from the Rails, and the venerable African-American railroad men I interviewed reignited my memories and my interest. They had watched Satchel play in his heyday in the 1930s, had talked to him when he rode the train, and told riveting tales of his feats on the diamond and off. Yet the more I probed, the clearer it became how thin their knowledge was of this towering talent. Everyone knew about him but no one really knew him.

That is understandable. Satchel Paige was a black man playing in an obscure universe. Few records were kept or stories written of his games in the strictly-segregated Negro Leagues, fewer still of his barnstorming through America’s sandlots and small towns. Did he really win three games in a single day and 2,000 over a career? Was he confident enough in his strikeout pitch to actually order his outfielders to abandon their posts? Could he really have been better than Walter Johnson, Cy Young, and the other all-time marvels of the mound? In a game where box scores and play-by-play accounts encourage such comparisons, the hard data on him was elusive. That helps explain why, while fourteen full-fledged biographies have been published of Babe Ruth and eleven of Mickey Mantle, there is only one on Satchel, who was at least as important to baseball and America.

To fill in that picture I tracked down more than two hundred veteran Negro Leaguers and Major Leaguers who played with and against Satchel. His teammate and friend Buck O’Neil told me about the Satchel he knew – a pitcher who threw so hard that catchers tried to soften the sting by cushioning their gloves with beefsteaks, with control so precise that he used a hardball to knock lit cigarettes out of the mouths of obliging teammates. Hank Aaron had his own Satchel stories, as did Bob Feller, Orlando Cepeda, Whitey Herzog, and Silas Simmons, a patriarch of black baseball whom I spoke with the day he turned 111. I talked to Leon Paige and other aging relatives in Mobile. In Kansas City, I heard Robert Paige and his siblings publicly share for the first time their recollections of their father. I retraced Satchel’s footsteps from the South to the Midwest to the Caribbean, visiting stadiums where he had pitched, rooming houses where he stayed, and restaurants where he ate in an era when a black man was lucky to find any that would serve him. I watched him in the movies and read everything written about him in books, magazines, and newspapers, thousands of articles in all. Researchers helped me recheck statistics and refute or confirm his claims on everything from how many games he won (probably as many as he said) to how many times he struck out the mighty Josh Gibson (not quite as many as he boasted).

Along the way I untangled riddles like the one about how old Satchel was. It was the most-argued statistic in sports. The answer depended on who was asking and when. In 1934 the Colored Baseball & Sports Monthly reported that Satchel was born in 1907. In 1948 he was born in 1901 (Associated Press), 1903 (Time), 1908 (Washington Post, New York Times, and Sporting News), and 1904 (his mother). The Cleveland Indians hedged their bets after signing him in 1948, writing in their yearbook that Satchel was born “on either July 17, Sept. 11, Sept. 18 or Sept. 22, somewhere between 1900 and 1908.” Newsweek columnist John Lardner took him back further, saying that Satchel “saved the day at Waterloo, when the dangerous pull-hitter, Bonaparte, came to bat with the bases full.”

The mystery over Satchel’s age mattered because age matters in baseball. It is a way to compare players, and to measure a player’s current season against his past performance. No ballplayer gave fans as much to debate about, for as long, as Satchel Paige. At first he was Peter Pan – forever young, confoundingly fast, treacherously wild. Over time his durability proved even more alluring. After a full career in the Negro Leagues he broke through to the Majors in 1948, helping propel the Cleveland Indians to the World Series at the over-the-hill age of forty-two. He still holds the record as the game’s oldest player, an honor earned during one last go-round at an inconceivable fifty-nine. He started pitching professionally when Babe Ruth was on the eve of his sixty-home-run season in 1926; he still was playing when Yankee Stadium, the “House that Ruth Built,” was entering its fifth decade in 1965. Over that span Satchel Paige pitched more baseballs, for more fans, in more ballparks, for more teams, than any player in history.

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There is an interesting piece about Torii Hunter by Lee Hawkins in today’s Wall Street Journal.

The Yanks scored four runs with two men out in the top of the first inning against Kevin Millwood and it looked like it was going to be an enjoyable evening.

But Joba Chamberlain was not impressive. He could not locate his fastball and gave back two runs in the second as the Rangers staged a two out rally of their own. Millwood righted himself and worked a four pitch third. Chamberlain responded and got the first two men out in the fourth on seven pitches. Then he went to a full count on Pudge Rodriguez and walked him on a fastball off the outside corner. It was the kind of pitch that drives me crazy about Chamberlain. It’s as if he’s trying to be Mike Mussina, too fine. With Pudge up, why mince around–just go after him, baby. This is Pudge Rodriguez after all, a man who is allergic to the base on balls.

That was the start of the ending for Chamberlain as the Rangers hit five singles and took a three-run lead. Most of the hits were bloopers and bleeders–some bad luck for Chamberlain, but still, his propensity for two giving up two strike, two out hits continues. Chad Gaudin relieved Chamberlain, worked out of one bases loaded jam, but gave up two dingers, as the Rangers built a 10-5 lead.

The Yanks did make it interesting in the ninth, loading the bases and then scoring four runs to draw the score to 10-9 win nobody out. Crowd going nuts and smelling a comeback win. First and second, and Nick Swisher was asked to bunt. My wife didn’t think it was a smart move and said as much before Swisher popped out to Michael Young at third. Then Melky Cabrera lined into a double play and the Yanks lost. 

Heart racing, blood-pumping—a blow-out turned into a heart-breaker. The game designed to bust your hump.

The lead is now six, as the Red Sox beat the White Sox again in Boston.

The Mets traded Billy Wagner to the Red Sox this afternoon.

What is the best book about being a sports fanatic? Frederick Exley’s “A Fan’s Notes” is at the top of the list. I thought of Exley’s cult classic today when I read about a new movie starring the gifted stand-up comedian, Patton Oswalt.

Our man Jay Jaffe has a guest spot at New York magazine this week and looks to see if the 2009 Yanks have a shot at success in the playoffs. 

It’s all about the secret sauce, don’t ya know.

Don’t miss this wonderful New York Times article by David Gonzalez about capturing the Bronx on film.

Slide-show? Slammin’.

When Josh Beckett allowed seven runs in his last start I thought, Drag: he got the egg out of his system. Beckett pitched eight innings against the Yankees on Sunday night, usually a sign that things are going right for the Red Sox. But he also allowed eight runs. The Yanks scored in the first five innings and smacked five home runs off Boston’s ace (Jeter, Matsui, Cano, Rodriguez, Matsui), the most Beckett has ever allowed in a game. 

Derek Jeter swung at the first pitch he saw in the top of the first and deposited it into the bleachers in right-centerfield. It was the 2,700th hit of Jeter’s career (and, as Tom Boorstein noted, things are going well for the Yankee captain these days). Jeter should break Lou Gehrig’s mark for the most hits in Yankee history before the end of the season. If he remains healthy, he should reach 3,000 in 2011.

CC Sabathia wasn’t dominating but he delivered what is commonly known around these parts as a “gritty, gutty” performance. He gave up eight hits but only three earned runs (Robinson Cano made two errors), pitching until two men were out in the seventh inning. He also whiffed eight without walking a batter (Beckett didn’t issue a base on balls either). Phil Hughes relieved Sabathia, got out of the seventh, and worked around a lead-off single by Victor Martinez to toss a scoreless eighth.

Mariano Rivera, making his first appearance of the series, came on in the ninth and walked pinch-hitter JD Drew on four pitches. Catcher Jose Molina went to the mound. Drew took second on the first pitch–a called strike–to Jason Varitek. The next pitch was a cutter inside for a ball and Molina went to speak with his pitcher again. Rivera located a strike and then got a generous call on a back-door cutter for the strike out. Varitek waved his hand in disgust at Sam Holbrook, the home plate umpire and returned to the dugout (Holbrook had a wide strike zone). Casey Kotchman was next, also pinch-hitting, and after fouling off four pitches, he grounded out to Mark Teixeira. Rivera carved-up Jacoby Ellsbury on three pitches and the Yanks had the series, as well as a 7.5 game game lead over Boston.

Final Score: Yanks 8, Red Sox 4.

Let’s all applaud again, let’s all applaud again.

Sabathia v Beckett.  

Should be a good one.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

My mother and step-father were over for a cup of tea late yesteray afternoon. When they left, I checked the score (okay, I checked the score before they left too), turned the TV off and took my wife into Manhattan. So I missed the whole damned mess. AJ Burnett got bombed by the Red Sox for the third time this season and this was the worst beatin’ yet as Boston rolled, 14-1.

According to Tyler Kepner in the New York Times:

“I didn’t have a lot of conviction behind some pitches today,” Burnett said. “I threw a lot of balls that I didn’t want to throw.”

Burnett stressed that he did not blame Posada, holding himself responsible for choosing each pitch. That is the job of the pitcher, he said.

“We throw what we want to throw; he’s there to aid,” Burnett said. “It’s definitely not him. I had a good hook today and I feel like I should have used it more.”

Burnett added: “He calls it fine back there. It’s just a matter of me throwing what I want to throw. You don’t throw a pitch unless you’re 100 percent behind it.”

Posada said the hitters seemed ready for Burnett’s curveball early, so he called different pitches to keep them off it. His signals are suggestions, Posada said, and it is up to Burnett to accept them or not.

“He was shaking me,” Posada said. “I tried to get on the same page. It seems like at times we were, and then we weren’t at times. It’s frustrating because obviously he wants to throw a certain pitch and I want to throw another one. When they hit them like that, it’s tough to get on the same page.”

So the Yanks and Sox have split the first two games with tonight hopefully giving us a real pitcher’s match-up. Andy Pettitte and AJ Burnett were awful this weekend. Time for CC to make like an Ace, wouldn’t ya say?

There is a wonderful article about the Grand Concourse by Constance Rosenblum in the Times today:

You have to exercise your imagination to conjure the past; this part of the Bronx is in many respects a diamond in the rough. Many of the lustrous structures that defined life in these precincts have been irrevocably transformed, and even those that haven’t are Potemkin villages, their fine facades masking troubled lives: the Bronx, after all, is still a borough in which one of every three families lives below the poverty line.

But a trip down this particular memory lane has much to recommend it beyond pure nostalgia. As the boulevard nears its centennial in November, a journey offers a vision of its past, present and future — a chewy slice of urban history festooned with murals, mosaics and other Art Deco touches.

While you are at it, dig the nifty multi-media tour too.

The Yanks have the pitching match-ups in their favor this weekend, so why do I keep thinking that thick-necked Brad Penny will throw a good game tomorrow night? Maybe I’ve just got sore feelings left over from the 2003 World Serious. Or maybe I just like to worry. Man, so long as the Yankees don’t get swept, I’ll be straight. 

As Tyler Kepner notes, the Yankees still have something to prove in Boston.

Something Wild is not only one of my favorite ’80s movies but one of my favorites, period.  It’s Jonathan Demme at his peak, and the stars–Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels and Ray Liotta–have rarely been better.

Here’s Pauline Kael’s blurb from The New Yorker:

Jonathan Demme’s romantic screwball comedy isn’t just about a carefree kook (Melanie Griffith) and a pompous man from Wall Street (Jeff Daniels). The script–a first by E. Max Frye–is like the working out of a young man’s fantasy of the pleasures and punishments of shucking off middle-class behavior patterns. The movie is about getting high on anarchic, larcenous behavior and then being confronted with ruthless, sadistic criminality. This rough-edged comedy turns into a scary slapstick thriller. Demme weaves the stylization of rock videos into the fabric of the movie.

Starting with David Byrne and Celia Cruz singing Byrne’s “Loco De Amor” during the opening credits, and ending with a reprise of Chip Taylor’s “Wild Thing” by the reggae singer Sister Carol East, who appears on half of the screen while the final credits roll on the other half, there are almost 50 songs (or parts of songs), several of them performed onscreen by The Feelies. The score–it was put together by John Cale and Laurie Anderson–has a life of its own that gives the movie a buzzing vitality. This is a party movie with both a dark and a light side. With Ray Liotta as the dangerous, menacing Ray; Dana Preu as the kook’s gloriously bland mother; and Margaret Colin as bitchy Irene. Also with Jack Gilpin, Su Tissue, and Demme’s co-producer Kenneth Utt, and, tucked among the many performers, John Waters and John Sayles. Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto.

I love watching Derek Jeter play baseball but reading about him has become a chore. It’s exhausting: He’s the best hitting shortstop ever, he’s the worst fielding shortstop ever. He’s overrated. Nah, nah, says Joe Pos, this season Jeter might be underrated (as Diane noted earlier).

Jeter is many things to many people. Remember that bumper crop of shortstops he came up with the mid-late ’90s? Jeter is still at it, still productive. One thing is for sure: he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer. And he’s ours.

I’m just trying to find the bridge. Has anybody seen the bridge?*

by Hank Waddles

Chad Gaudin made his debut start for the Yanks on Wednesday night and held the Athletics to no runs and a hit over four and a third innings, which sounds a lot better than it was. The problem was that he also walked five batters and hit another, which led to a series of uncomfortable innings and eventually cost him a shot at his first Yankee win. Gaudin’s stuff was good enough, as evidenced by his five strikeouts, but his demise came in the fifth inning when he followed a dubious Robby Canó error with his fifth walk, loading the bases and bringing Girardi out to ask for the ball. Gaudin left with a three nothing lead but two outs shy of the necessary five innings. Alfredo Aceves came in and induced Kurt Suzuki to bounce back to the mound for a snappy 1-2-3 double play, and the threat was over.

All three Yankee runs came courtesy of Mark Teixeira. He brought Jeter in with a ground ball to third in the first and then hit a monstrous two-run blast to left off A’s rookie Brett Anderson in the fourth. But as Cliff has been telling us, the Yankees’ true MVP candidate is Jeter. He picked up two more singles on the night, and has been raking at an insane .550 clip (22 for 40) over the past ten games. An interesting thing to watch in the Boston series will be whether or not he’ll pick up any free passes. The Captain hasn’t seen ball four since July 28th, a span of close to a hundred at bats.

But back to Aceves. After putting out Gaudin’s fire in the fourth, Ace struggled for the second straight outing. He gave up one run in the sixth on a Jake Cust homerun that floated over the wall in left center, then gave up three straight singles in the seventh for another as the A’s narrowed the margin to 3-2. From there it was about finding the bridge to Mariano, as Bob Lorenz is so fond of telling us. Phil Coke got the last out in the seventh, Phil Hughes took care of the eighth, and Rivera locked down his career-best 32nd straight save with just seven pitches in the ninth. Ball game.

With that the Yankees took the series, their ninth series win of ten since the all-star break, which isn’t bad. And if we go all the way back to that fateful night in Atlanta when Girardi got tossed and Cashman paid them a visit, the Bombers have won 38 of their last 51 games, good for a .745 winning percentage. Again, not bad.

Now all they need to do is keep the motor running as they head into Boston. Even though the objects in the mirror are larger than they appear, this is a team that’s picking up speed at just the right time.

* Eh, I’m not wild about that tuneski. How ’bout this instead?

Chad Gaudin goes for the Bombers as they try to win this series against the A’s before flying across the country to Boston for the big weekend serious against the Red Sox. A whole mess-o-runs would really hit the spot.

Especially with Roy Halladay having an off-night against the Sox.