Sitting close to the action on Saturday night at Citifield (“I’m Still Calling it Shea,” read a t-shit), Emily and I were surrounded by Mets fans. We didn’t wear any colors. “We’re undercover,” my wife said to me. And so we were. I kept score (a scorecard costs five bucks; they go for twice as much in the Bronx) but had a mitt on my left hand in case a line drive came our way. No such luck.
The Yanks held a 1-0 lead into the sixth. The wife excused herself and went to the ladies’ room. (She was in the bathroom when Aaron Boone hit that dinger in ’03 and ever since I send her in when absolutely necessary.) Mark Teixeira doubled on Tim Redding’s 99th pitch of the night, and his next three pitches were hit as well: single (Alex Rodriguez), double (Robinson Cano), and home run (Jorge Posada).
AJ Burnett, meanwhile, allowed just one hit and three walks while striking out ten in seven innings of work. He mowed ’em down, as you’d expected against the Mets’ depleted line-up.
There was no blood orange sky but it was cool, pleasant night. Most of the Mets fans in our section had cleared out by the eighth inning. Em and I could have danced all night as the song goes. So we soaked it all in and went home heppy kets.
I’m taking Emily to her first ball game of the season. Maybe we’ll get wet. Maybe not. Either way, we’re going to have a good time. AJ’s been better lately. Still waiting to see him put a string of good starts together before I get too excited. He should be commanding tonight. Let’s see if he’s up to it.
So…Let’s Go Yan-Kees already. Keep it movin’ boys!
It’s been raining in New York for at least a month. Weeks and weeks of rain. Last night we had a sunset to show for it. It was gnarled and fantastic, dramatic and beautiful. It was also a hex on the Mets as they made three errors in one inning.
It’s funny how things work. A couple of years ago I had a brief correspondence with Sadat X, one of my favorite all-time emcees, who was serving a stint in Rikers on a gun possession charge. I sent him my Curt Flood book, The Courting of Marcus Dupree and dozens of magazine articles. We exchanged a half-dozen letters. Though we didn’t keep in touch when he got out it was a cool connection.
This week a writing assignment came up and I had a need to get in touch with Sadat. I asked a friend who owns a record shop who knows Lord Finesse (a regular customer) who is good friends with X. Finesse came in to buy records today, gave my man Sadat’s number which was then e-mailed to me.
I got home this evening and called X. “Yo man, of course I remember you,” he said. “You just caught me bugging out over here, it’s all over the news and the Internet: Michael Jackson is dead.”
And that’s how I heard the news, just hours after the sad report that Farrah Fawcett died. I wasn’t jolted but not shocked. Michael Jackson was the biggest pop idol of my youth; he did not live life like he wanted to grow old. It’s almost as if he committed a long, public suicide for years. It was painful and absurd. He was seminal, an icon, a wonderful entertainer who was so deeply disturbed that he became a freak show. I felt even worse for Fawcett who has been sick for a long time. Still, they are both out of pain, and that has to count for something.
Sadat was great with me and pleased to help. When we finished talking, I called a bunch of people to talk about Michael and then went walked down to Broadway and 233, across the street from the I-HOP, to the Uptown Sports Complex, which is owned by a high school pal of one of Bronx Banter’s own–Dimelo. Small World, man. I hung out around the cages and took-in the place, the clanking sound of bats hitting balls echoing around me. The Yankee game was on the flat screen TV. I missed Alex Rodriguez’s first inning jack, but caught his RBI base hit in the third, and saw the Yanks jump out to a big lead. I also stayed long enough to see Andy Pettitte cough most of it away.
When I left, I popped up the block, across the Major Deegan and checked out a Kingsbridge Little League under the lights. Then, on my way home, I followed the game on my blackberry. I refreshed the gameday page every 15 seconds, and passed by a bar on 238th street when Rodriguez drove in two more runs with a bases loaded single. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough was playing on the stereo. It was hot and muggy but a shiver ran down my spine.
The Yanks held on and won a barn-burner, 11-7, taking the series and returning to New York on a high note. A nice win on a mournful summer night.
Every day, we see familiar poses and gestures on a baseball field–a batter’s ticks (the way he leans on his bat in the on-deck circle), a pitcher’s wind-up, the way a runner leads off first base. I especially enjoy watching the loose physical comradery and affection players display on the bench, like when Derek Jeter absent-mindedly drapped his arm around Tony Pena last night.
Recently, I’ve been paying attention to the gestures that are less obvious but still common. As a kid, for instance, I loved the way Graig Nettles extended his right leg and swept the dirt in front of him, almost like a dancer, before each pitch was delivered.
The pose that has captured my imagination of late is when Francisco Cervelli stands up and fires the ball to third base after a strike out. He stands from his crouch and leans back on his right leg, left leg bent and raised in the air, arm cocked back. He pauses for a split second, exaggerating the move which looks almost like the Heisman pose. But it is not defensive in nature, just the opposite–it is a celebratory act of aggresion.
It only lasts a brief moment and it is a non-play–the entire around-the-horn routine is a terrific non-play really. But Cervelli performs it with great relish. A few weeks ago, I caught Joe Girardi tell Michael Kay that Cervelli has actually burned Alex Rodriguez’s hand several times throwing the ball so hard down to third after a strike out.
What are some of your favorite routine poses or gestures?
My wife has no heart, she doesn’t care. I roll my eyes and make guttural sounds of disappointment, slap my arm against the couch. I curse and curse some more. They’re killin’ me, I say.
“I’m sorry, honey.”
The Nationals!?!
Straight, with no emotion, like Alice Kramden, she says, “Every year the Yankees lose a series to the worst team, every year it’s the same. It happens. They have hot streaks and slumps.”
But you don’t understand. The Nationals! Two games they should have won against Marlins. Shut out by the damn Braves.
“Well, it’s better than losing to the Red Sox.”
“No it isn’t! At least the Red Sox are good. And they’ve done nothing but lose to them either.”
She shrugs, looks at me, knowing I’m hopeless, and refuses to join in. She has no pity for me or the Yankees. She doesn’t care.
The Yankees played another lifeless game tonight. They had just four hits yet had their chances, leaving the bases loaded twice and stranding eleven in all. In other words, they didn’t do jack-boil-scratch as they lost 4-0 to the Braves in Atlanta. Rookie starter? On cue, the Yankees’ achilles’ heel. I know Tommy Hanson is a stud, but c’mon already.
Chien-Ming Wang wasn’t bad–he gave up three runs on three hits in the third (all three runs scored with two out), and Phil Hughes was terrific again in relief. But that didn’t matter much. Alex Rodriguez went 0-4, Jorge Posada struck out four times and Derek Jeter hit into his third double play in two games as Yankee fans were left with nothing but hard, angry feelings.
Yanks hit skid row, now five behind the Sox. My how it am ugly.
Every so often, when the mood strikes, my wife Emily likes me to feed her baseball trivia questions. We had a session on Sunday after the Yanks lost to the Marlins. My first question was, “What is ERA?” She got it right but did not agree with the number being divided by nine innings.
“What if it is the first game of the year and a pitcher only goes six innings, how can it go into nine?”
I calmly explained.
“What-ever.”
We moved on. And she got a good many of them right–or at least partially right. Her thinking made sense. Who is known as Junior? “Cal Ripken.”
What is a fielder’s choice? “That’s when the fielder gets to make the choice. See? I told you I was right.”
The infield fly-rule? “That’s when the infielder’s call off the outfielders and make the catch.”
And my favorite. What is a Baltimore Chop?
“That’s a kind of meat cut special in Baltimore.”
No, dear.
“That’s when they have everyone at Camden Yards come on the field during the seventh inning stretch and practice karate.”
According to ESPN, Don Fehr will step down as the head of the MLBPA. Fehr’s long, productive, and largely successful run has been marred by the union’s handling of the recent performance-enhancing drugs scandals.
A fabulously bright man, Fehr was in charge during the union’s fattest days. He played a large roll in the baseball player’s union becoming the strongest in all of professional sports. The man has a lot of wins under his belt. In the end, however, the steroids issue must have swallowed him up. Fehr and company failed their consituency in not destroying those pesky tests from ’03, proving once again that arrogance trumps smarts every time. I don’t mean to be flip. Fehr deserves, and will surely receive, a more thorough evaluation in the coming days. He was a pivotal figure.
Bud Selig should jern Fehr out the front door, don’t you think?
Variety reports that Sony Pictures has pulled the plug on Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation of Moneyball (thanks to Rob Neyer for the link).
Even in the climate of heightened studio caution, the turnaround news on “Moneyball” is surprising given that the project had reached the equivalent of third base. It was just 96 hours before the participants were ready to take the field, following three months of prep and with camera tests completed and cast and budget in place.
…Aside from actors like Pitt and Demetri Martin, Soderbergh is using real ballplayers — such as former A’s Scott Hatteberg and David Justice — as actors, and he also has shot interviews with such ballplayers as Beane’s former Mets teammates Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson and Darryl Strawberry. Those vignettes would be interspersed in the film.While Soderbergh is confident his take will work visually, Columbia brass had doubts on a film that costs north of $50 million. That is reasonable for a studio-funded pic that includes the discounted salary of a global star like Pitt, but baseball films traditionally don’t fare well on the global playing field.
This is a shame but not a surprise. Back in the summer of 2003, I interviewed Michael Lewis and we talked about how difficult it would be to make Moneyball into a movie:
Bronx Banter: Have you sold the movie rights to “Moneyball” yet?
Michael Lewis: I didn’t have much hope that anyone would buy them. Because I can’t really see how you could make it into a movie—a good movie, anyway. What happens is, if somebody bought it for the movies, you’d have to create some sort of female role. They would just have to. You just have to twist so much. Having seen “Liar’s Poker” get bought for a lot of money, and then completely mangled in the creation of the script, and eventually never getting made. If they can’t make that, I can’t imagine how they can make this. There have been, oddly enough, some feelers from people who say they want to buy the rights. A lot of things sell, that shouldn’t sell, accidentally. That might happen, but I’d be really surprised if it ever became a movie.
That did not go at all according to planned. Matter of fact, it was lousy as the Yanks continue their routine as the Castor Earl Kids.
The rain continued in New York this weekend–it’s been raining for weeks and is supposed to continue to rain this coming week too–but it was hot and sunny in Miami. CC Sabathia left the game in the second inning with tightness in his left bicep and although the Yanks held a 3-1 lead their two-week funk continued as the Marlins rallied to win 6-5.
The on-line Merriam Webster dictionary defines “mediocre” as “of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance : ordinary, so-so.” That just about sums up Brett Tomko who coughed up the lead by allowing home runs to Hanley Ramirez and Cody Ross.
I watched the Tomko outing unfold and cursed Joe Girardi for letting Tomko pitch. Jorge Cantu added a key RBI base hit in the seventh–a throwing error by Melky Cabrera allowed another run to score. Matt Linstrom struck out Rodriguez to start the ninth and got Robinson Cano to roll out to second. Then Jorge Posada and Cabrera singled. Brett Gardner followed with a line drive in the right center field gap, good for a triple. Two runs scored and the Yanks were just down by a run. Johnny Damon pinch hit and drew a walk but Derek Jeter grounded the first pitch he saw to Hanley Ramirez for the final out.
If not for a lucky bad play by Luis Castillo, this would have been the fourth consecutive series that the Yankees have dropped. As it stands, they still have two more series in National League parks, and they’ve just lost four of six to the Nats and Marlins.
This is a team slump. Oh, and up here in New York it’s still raining.
We never had supper growing up. We ate dinner. I always thought supper was earlier. All the Catholic kids I knew ate supper, at 4:00 in the afternoon. We didn’t eat until 8:00.
Anyhow, strange start time this afternoon, 5:00 p.m. That’s still tea time as far as I’m concerned. But it works out well for me, as I’m out this afternoon at a dance recital. Going to watch little kids dance to John Lennon songs. Doubt I’ll see the second grade interpretive variation of “Mother” (pity), but it should be fun all the same. Beauty part is I get home in time to catch the game.
Tough loss last night. I’m with Cliff–the Yanks should have won that game. Down a run and two shots at Florida’s bullpen…that’s a game the Yanks need to win.
CC brings the funk for the Yanks today. Have to imagine they’ll swing the bats and he’ll take care of the rest.
