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BLP? Odd but maybe delicious.

My friend Pat Jordan has an essay on growing old in the latest issue of Men’s Journal:

You get old, you lose your anger. It takes too much energy to be angry when you’re old. You have more important things to do with your waning energy, so you hoard it like a dwindling resource.

You get old, it’s not always about you. You no longer wait for an opening in a conversation to talk about yourself, your dreams, your accomplishments. It becomes second nature to draw other people into talking about their lives. You’re no longer the life of the party, making people laugh. You no longer have that neurotic compulsion to be known. Why should you? You get old, you know yourself.

The photo above comes from John Loomis’ blog.

I was walking around the Bronx last Sunday afternoon when I stopped to catch some of the action at Kingsbridge Little League. I stood on the street, pressed against the fence, behind the bleachers. In front of me, a gaunt man in a bright orange and yellow shirt sat quietly watching the game.

The kids must have been about ten. It was brutally hot and I felt for the fielders especially after the pitcher walked the lead-off hitter. Then, he walked the next man and the one after that to load the bases. He was aiming the ball now. The pitcher heard a few scattered words of encouragement–I heard a woman say, “Settle down, Mikey, throw strikes.” But the worse he got, the more silent it became.

No place to hide. The boy hung his head. He kicked the dirt at his feet and held his palms out in exasperation after the umpire called a ball. His catcher had trouble getting the ball back to him–it either bounced in front of the mound or sailed over his head. Typical Little League comedy of errors.

A fat kid who looked like Lou Costello, two batting gloves carefully hanging out of the back pockets of his tight-fitting pants, came to the plate. He looked at two pitches in the dirt, took two strikes, and then looked at two more balls and earned himself an RBI. He trotted to first with his head in the air, pleased. He never intended to swing. I restrained myself from booing.

I looked at the scoreboard for the first time and was surprised that the score was just 6-4. The pitcher slumped his shoulders. The coaches were mum, his cheering section in the stands, silent. Finally, the catcher stumbled out to the mound and said a few words. As he was leaving, the third baseman and the shortstop approached. The pitcher covered his mouth with his glove and the third baseman laughed and went back to his position.

The next batter popped out to third and the one after that lined into double play. The agony was over and the pitcher slowly walked off the field. The opposing team was in no hurry to replace them. Finally, they shuffled to their positions as the tough-luck pitcher sat next to the man in the orange shirt in front of me. The man spoke in a clipped, terse voice. I couldn’t make out what he was saying but heard his tone–critical, angry. “I told you a thousand times…”

I walked away. It’s never too early to have the fun get beaten out of the game.

Where’s a Four-Hour Slugfest When You Need One?
by Hank Waddles

To be honest, I felt like a kid in a candy store. Brett Tomko and I were called up to the big leagues to spot start on the same day, Tomko to pitch for the struggling A’s, and me to write the game recap, allowing the usual Bronx Banter scribes to get to bed at a decent time. When I saw that I’d be doing Tomko’s game, I was sure it would be cake. I’d run down the list of Yankee offensive heroes, make a clever comment about Tomko and a woodshed, and wrap it all up by mentioning Jorgé Posada’s birthday. Really, it was a column that would write itself. Not a bad way to get my feet wet.

And then the game started. Do you remember Brett Tomko? All he did last night was shut down the best team in baseball after struggling to put down Triple-A hitters for the past couple weeks. How stunning is this? I’ll let you be the judge. This was Tomko’s longest outing of the year, topping the three innings he threw against Texas on June 3rd. In his stint with the Yankees he retired the opposing team without allowing a run in only eleven separate innings; he strung together five zeroes against his former team on Monday night. Finally, he hadn’t pitched this deep and this successfully since throwing seven scoreless innings for the Royals against the Angels on May 5, 2008.

But as good as the box score might look, Tomko wasn’t exactly Bob Gibson. Yankee hitters, particularly Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon, seemed to be pounding the ball all night, and when Ramiro Peña and Jeter each singled to open the third, it seemed like Tomko would certainly melt. He survived a blast to right from Damon that might have scraped over the wall in the Bronx, but then walked Teixeira to load the bases for Alex Rodríguez.

If for some reason you only had time to watch one at bat of this game, I hope this was the one you chose. Before popping out in the first, A-Rod had faced Tomko nine times, and the results were impressive: two doubles, two homeruns, and a walk. As Tomko stared in to get the sign, the rest of the game played out in my mind’s eye: Alex would work the count before lacing a double to right center; Posada or Canó would take advantage of a rattled Tomko and drive in a couple more; Melky might even get a hit. Eventually A’s skipper Bob Geren would have to lift Tomko and cobble together five or six innings with his bullpen, leaving a weakened staff for the rest of the series.

But it didn’t happen that way. A-Rod jumped on Tomko’s first pitch and tapped a roller back to the mound for an inning-ending 1-2-3 double play. Tomko hopped off the mound with a Joba-like fist pump, and the Yankee bats didn’t make much noise for the rest of the night.

On the other side of things, A.J. Burnett presented a microcosm of his career in 99 pitches. He was absolutely dominant for much of the night, shutting out the A’s over seven innings, allowing just two hits and a walk while striking out four. During those seven innings, he looked like the $82.5 million man, maybe the best #2 starter in the league. The problem, though, was the fourth inning. I’ve got no issue with the double by Rajai Davis, and I can even forgive his subsequent steal of third without a throw. But after that steal, A.J. the Headcase showed up. His next pitch was returned back through the middle to drive in Davis, and his next pitch after that resulted in another base hit.

Two batters later the A’s had runners on second and third and things got really crazy. Working from the stretch, Burnett rocked and prepared to fire… but then decided to hold on to the ball for a balk, allowing a run to score. Watching live, it seemed like he must’ve gotten a cleat caught in the dirt, but subsequent replays showed nothing. After the game Burnett admitted there had been confusion between him and Posada, but that doesn’t fly. Let’s say Burnett was thinking fastball, but then noticed in mid-windup that Posada had slid to the outside edge of the plate in anticipation of a breaking pitch. Burnett couldn’t have thrown the fastball anyway? If he were worried about hitting Posada in the face or having his pitch sail to the backstop, couldn’t he have lobbed a pitchout? Instead he risked injury and ushered in Oakland’s second run by aborting his delivery and holding the ball. Inexcusable.

Burnett recovered nicely, facing one batter over the minimum over the final four innings, but the damage was done. A’s 3, Yanks 0. No worries, though. CC goes tonight, and he should be pretty amped to pitch in front of friends and family. Plus, if I had told you two months ago that the Yanks would have the best record in baseball and a seven game lead on the Red Sox when you woke up on August 18th, wouldn’t you have taken it? Sure, you would’ve.

The biggest flaw I’ve got running this site is updating the links. There have been so many new Yankee blogs in the past few seasons and we are still woefully behind the times in terms of providing a full listing. I will make sure to change this and apologize to the quality blogs out there that aren’t listed on the blogroll. It’s me, not you.

Anyhow, I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but River Avenue Blues, continues to do a great job. The first quality a good blog needs is reliability. Was Watching, YFSF, No Maas. They are all different but they keep showing up.

I dug this recent River Ave. piece on Johnny Damon:

Damon is currently enjoying the best season of his career at age 35. He’s two shy of tying his career high of 24 homers, which he set in his first year in pinstripes. His .532 SLG and .240 IsoP are far and away career highs, ditto his .894 OPS and 11.1% walk rate. Oh sure, Damon’s getting a ton of help from the New Yankee Stadium this year (.979 OPS at homer vs .803 on the road), but HitTracker says that every one of his homers would have been gone out in at least one other park, and 15 of his 22 homers would have left the yard in at least 20 big league ballparks. Even if you want to discount the 57 home games he’s played this year from his career production, it’s like taking a cup of water from the ocean.

When I first heard about Judd Apatow’s latest movie, Funny People, I cringed. The movie poster didn’t help any.  This one is billed as his “serious” movie, the one with ambition, Annie Hall as told by James L. Brooks. But I figured that I enjoyed the 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up–not to mention the terrific, short-lived TV show Freaks and Geeks–enough to give it a shot.

Apatow’s third movie has more in common with Brooks than Allen but in the best possible way because Apatow likes people and isn’t afraid to show it. He has great affection for his characters and his movies are unashamedly earnest. (He’s anti-snark.) This is Apatow’s defining quality as a filmmaker. His movies are filled with small surprises, the interplay between the actors (he loves his actors). Funny People is too long but I didn’t mind the meandering pace. It lags in spots. Some of the story is hard to believe. The women don’t have great parts. Apatow has the tendency to simplify complicated relationships and the characters often come across as thin. There is something facile about his world view at times–things work out in his movies in a way that feels too neat.

But still, there is an emotional directness in Funny People, a movie that seems more autobiographical and personal than Apatow’s first two movies, that is winning. Leslie Mann, the director’s wife in real-life, has an under-written role, but does the most with it, with great comic timing.

I think Seth Rogan is miscast in the role of Adam Sandler’s protoge–he is limited as an actor–but far from terrible because he has such a warm presence. And I don’t think that Sandler has the depth to hit the emotional high-notes–he tightens-up, and is flat when he’s asked to bare his soul to Mann–but he too is far from terrible. Often, especially when he’s with Rogan, he nails the character, which is loosely based on his own life.

But this movie is about Apatow, not Sandler, and Sandler doesn’t have the winking self-satire chops of Jack Nicholson in his prime–it doesn’t feel as if he’s revealing anything of himself through this character.  (His character is a stand-in for Apatow and in many ways, the movie feels like a loving apology to his wife and kids for being a filmmaker–aka a selfish bastard.)

But Sandler is watchable. The whole movie is. It is flawed and has its limitations but it is like good comfort food: designed to make you feel good (especially if you like dick jokes). It is the best-looking Apatow movie; the editing is crisp. There are a few too many self-aware music sequences but that’s easy to forgive. Oh, yeah, and it’s funny. The most effective stuff in the movie may be the side-plot with Rogan and his self-involved roommates, played by Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman. And Eric Bana is terrific in a small role.

Apatow’s movies are about how American men don’t want to grow up. He is not edgy; he believes in happy endings. He’s a sap really, but too knowing to be sappy. He is a moralist and his characters are trying to do the right thing. If they treat each other badly they usually feel cruddy about it and apologize. Are happy comedians fun to watch? Not for everyone and I can see why this movie has drawn such strong reactions, pro and con. But is it the worst thing in the world to watch to see people want to treat each other well and live happily ever after?

Not if they are still funny.

Well, the Yankees finally took one on the chin. Joba Chamberlain wasn’t great and the bullpen was worse as the Mariners rolled over the Yanks 10-3. See ya next week, Joba.

Derek Jeter had three hits. He passed Luis Aparicio for the most hits ever by a shortstop. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

Yanks don’t lose any ground as the Red Sox lost in Texas again. Hideki Matsui is listed as day-to-day. He might have to have his knee drained of fluid.

That’s what it is in New York City today.

It’s the kind of day where going across the street to get the papers (get the papers) is enough to make you want to take a nap.

But we’ll keep cool as the Yanks go for the sweep this afternoon. Joba’s on the hill.

Bring it, boyo.

I didn’t realize the Mariners were this bad. Careless fielding the past two nights have cost them dearly and the Yankees aren’t currently in the mood to let mistakes pass unnoticed. So when Franklyn Gutierrez and Ichiro Suzuki let a fly ball drop in the second inning, the Yanks pounced. The play led to Nick Swisher’s three run jack to left field which put the Yanks up 4-1. From there, they cruised. Derek Jeter added a solo homer in the ninth and the Bombers got a decent start from Serge Mitre who allowed one earned run in 5.1 innings. David Robertson, Phil Coke and Mariano Rivera did not allow a run (though Rivera walked another batter–what is this world coming to?).

Final Score: Yanks 5, Mariners 2.

The win puts the Yankees 7.5 games ahead of the Red Sox who lost in Texas last night. New York has won 12 of its last 13. Mmmm, mmmm, good.

My wife says I am absolutely not allowed to shout and moan about the game today. And I’m not allowed to write that she doesn’t get it. I nodded my head as she spoke and she said, “You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?” I did and won’t bitch today but why let her know that?

Selective hearing, you know. Another key to a beautiful marriage.

The Yanks are rolling like De La Soul roller skatin’ Saturdays.

They’ll keep us up late again tonight, another 10 pm start. Serge Mitre looks to make good and tame the weak Seattle line-up. Here’s hoping he does just that.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

Yanks look to keep on rolling tonight in Seattle. Andy Pettitte, who has been hot, goes for the Yanks. Let’s hope he’s got some more for us.

Dig in. And Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

Bronson Arroyo talks turkey.

It is a grey day in the Bronx. Thunderstorms are expected. Then again, they have been all week. But since this is a travel day, Murphy’s Law says there will be a rain delay.

AJ goes vs Ricky Romero. Should be a good one.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

My wife doesn’t like yelling or screaming. It makes her uneasy. So you can imagine the scene during a ball game. She can put up with me only so long. I’m far less volatile than I once was, honest. But the truth is, my wife just doesn’t get it.

The Yankees had a 3-0 lead in the second inning when Alex Rodriguez came to the plate with the bases loaded and two out. Johnny Damon hit his second double of the game two batters earlier–it bounced over the center field fence, keeping Derek Jeter, who singled for his second time in as many at bats, at third, a bad break for the Yankees. Mark Teixeira walked and then Rodriguez popped out.

So I yelled. My wife got annoyed and said, “What’s your problem? They’re winning.”

Like I said, she doesn’t get it. Ah, if only her name was Mae.

Joba Chamberlain had a tight breaking ball working in the first couple of innings but he labored in the third as he lost command of his fastball and sure enough coughed-up the lead. Scott Richmond, on the other hand, got his act together. He featured a hard, sharp slider and a wicked 12-6 curve ball and struck out eight. After getting Rodriguez out, Richmond pitched four scoreless innings. Each starter went six.

I watched the game with a puss on my face. I stopped yelling, opting to stew instead. At least my cat, Moe Green (pictured below), understands. I resisted the temptation to tell my wife a thing or three about baseball and how the game works. It was not easy to hold my tongue, believe me. But why be a schmuck? 

Jesse Carlson, the left-hander who struck Jorge Posada out in a twelve-pitch at bat on Monday night, came in to pitch the eighth. Godzilla Matsui hit a 2-2 pitch deep to right but foul. Next pitch, different result, as Matsui hit a bomb into the right centerfield seats, tying the game. Posada was next and he skied a back-door breaking ball deep to right. Joe Inglett, his back to the wall, jumped and missed the ball. A fat man wearing a beige Yankee cap and an off-white Mickey Mantle t-shirt stood in the first row and placed his black mitt on top of the wall. The ball fell into the pocket, another cheapie Yankee Stadium dinger, and the Yanks had the lead. The home run was reviewed but it stood–nice job by the fan.

Melky Cabrera, celebrating his 25th birthday, added an RBI single (his second RBI of the game) against Josh Roenicke and Damon drove the birthday boy home with an RBI base hit of his own–his third hit of the day (he was also robbed of a double). Jeter had three hits as well.

With one out the ninth, Mariano Rivera left a cutter over the heart of the plate and Edwin Encarnacion crushed it over the center field fence for a home run. Rivera grimaced–hey, that’s how I’ve been feeling all night!, I said (…to myself). A base hit to Rod Barajas brought the tying run to the plate. But Rivera caught Inglett looking at an outside fastball, and got Marco Scutaro to chase a cutter to end the game.

Final Score: Yanks 7, Blue Jays 5.

Fist pumps and cheers. Relief.

My wife resisted the urge to tell me a thing or three about the Yankees. She did not call me a schmuck–even if that is what she was thinking–and we went to bed happy.

Last night I was standing on a subway platform when a train whooshed into the station. I noticed that my car was almost empty before stepping inside. An empty car in the middle of the summer can mean one of two things: the AC is broken or someone smelly is inside (worse case scenerio brings both). Turns out the AC was busted. But I got in anyhow and enjoyed the space. The Russian Baths on the IRT, why not?

I’ve run into several mentally ill people on the trains lately. Last Friday night, on the Brooklyn-bound B train, a man walked through the car and said, “My man, my man, m-m-m-m-my man.” He held a cup in his hand and kept repeating these words in an insistent, almost pleading voice. I thought about the stuttering character in “Do The Right Thing.” The doors opened and closed but the dude didn’t get off the car. He just kept chanting. It was upsetting. A man sitting next to me looked up from his newspaper and muttered something derogatory about the guy. He’s a sick man, I thought.

Then on Saturday I saw a black woman standing on Broadway and 231st street. She was wearing powder blue shorts and a purple shirt. She had white facial hair under her nose and on her chin. She spoke with an English accent. “Would you kindly spare some change?”

I crossed the street and walked north. Sitting at the bottom of a flight of stairs was a wino I recognized from around the neighborhood. He looked like he could be fishing buddies with Thurman Munson and Dirt Tidrow.

“Hey, can you spare like $1,500?” he asked me.

I smiled and kept walking.

Joba on the hill tonight, weather permitting. Time to start another winning streak, don’t ya think?

In his preview, Cliff mentioned that the Yanks are ripe for a letdown but he didn’t think it would happen. Then during the game, Yankee announcer Michael Kay, and his cohorts Al Leiter and Paul O’Neill, discussed at length why the Yankees would not have a letdown (sometimes I really think these guys get paid by the word).

So what happened? The Yanks went out and lost to the Jays 5-4, their winning streak halted at seven.

Sergio Mitre was not impressive, allowing five runs–though just three earned thanks to an error by Robinson Cano–in five innings. He did give up a long home run to Lyle Overbay and that was the difference. I wonder if he’ll get another chance to start a game for the Yankees.

The Yanks did not score after the fourth inning though they had several chances, collecting 11 hits in all but going 0-5 with runners in scoring position. In the top of the eighth, O’Neill said, “As good as the Yankees are playimg, something’s about to happen; the fans feel it, the opposing team feels it.” Jorge Posada fouled off fastballs and sliders from left-handed reliever Jesse Carlson. O’Neill said the pitcher didn’t have the stuff to get him out. Posada whiffed on the twelfth pitch of the at-bat (good slider, down and in). Carlson then got Cano and pinch-hitter Johnny Damon to ground out. The crowd was sitting on their hands and O’Neill was silent.

It’s not that one loss is a big deal, but I got the sense that, riding the weekend high, the announcers assumed the Yanks would come back and win simply because they are the better team and should win. Well, the Toronto bullpen was excellent. And winning is hard. O’Neill of all people knows this But he’s not a fan.

Hey, sometimes it’s easier to be frustrated with the dopey announcers than it is with the team.

Oh, and the Red Sox won and shaved a game off the Yankees’ lead. Bummer.

Carl Crawford is having a terrific season but over at SI.com, Jonah Keri suggests that it would not be a shock if the Rays trade him come this off-season.