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Chien-Ming Wang and Brian Bruney both pitched in Triple A on Sunday.  Chad Jennings reports:

Wang looked good on Sunday. His velocity was slightly lower than Tuesday — maxed out at 92 mph instead of 93 — but the movement on his sinker was better, and Wang said he was happier with his ability to get ahead in the count and locate his fastball down and in. He faced rehabbing Travis Hafner three times and got two routine groundouts before a bloop, broken-bat single.

“Performance-wise he was terrific,” Cashman said. “This was a much better hitting club. Columbus is a much better offensive club than the team he was facing last time, but his stuff was better last time, to be honest, although he performed great in both outings. He didn’t have the slider that he had last time. His changeup was better today than last time. His fastball velocity was a little bit lower this time than it was last time. At the same time, he handled the lineup and got a lot of groundballs. Facing guys like Hafner kind of tells you a little something you want to know. I think he had some groundouts and that broken-bat single to center. I know Hafner is on a rehab assignment and he’s a guy who can really do some damage if you’re making mistakes, not making some pitches, and (Wang) made his pitches. That tells you a lot.”

Jennings also has updates on Bruney, Ian Kennedy and Steven Jackson. Man, Jennings is good, isn’t he?

And so it goes for the Yanks who won another close game against the Twins on Sunday (man, the Twins just don’t win in New York). Johnny Damon hit a solo home run with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Bombers a 3-2 win. 

Photo via SI.com.

It was a tense game, with AJ Burnett and Kevin Slowey tossing up zeros through the first six.  Burnett had some good stuff,  but he also walked six batters.  Slowey was outstanding –efficient and effective.  The Yankee hitters made him look like an ace.  AJ ran out of steam in the seventh and the Twins took a 2-0 lead.  The Yanks tied it in the bottom of the inning, one run coming on a solo shot by Alex Rodriguez. 

Some nail biting in the eighth, as the Twins left the bases juiced without scoring a run–Mark Teixeira made an outstanding grab and throw to the plate for the second out.  And some more in the bottom of the frame as the Yanks finally chased Slowey.  Hideki Matsui came to the plate with the bases full and two out.  He faced the lefty Jose Mijares, a chubby, funny-looking guy.  Mirajes fell behind 3-0 and then threw a strike.  Then Matsui offered at two pitches out of the strike zone and whiffed to end the inning.  A poor at-bat. 

Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth and gave up a lead-off single to Joe Mauer.  He spotted a fastball outside for strike one–the same spot he struck Mauer out looking on Saturday–and then got him to foul off a good inside cutter.  Don’t go back outside, I yelled from home.  Mauer isn’t that dumb.  But outside Rivera went.  Unfortunately, he didn’t go outside far enough and Mauer, expert hitter that he is, went with the pitch and lined a single to left.  But he was stranded at first as Rivera retired the next three batters. 

It never gets old watching Rivera apply his trade.

Then things got dramatic in the bottom of the ninth.  Nick Swisher walked and was replaced on the bases by Brett Gardner, who was sacrificed to second.  Then, in one of the more remarkable plays in recent memory, Franciso Cervelli lined a ball hard up the middle.  It first looked as if it would go into center field for a game-winning single.  But Mirajes slapped the ball with his glove, behind the back, as he was falling toward third base.  The ball was knocked straight back to Mauer who had moved in front of the plate.  Cervelli sped up the line, Mauer faked a throw to first and then peaked over his left shoulder where he saw Gardner racing down the line.  Mauer put on the brakes and double-backed to the plate. 

A foot race.  Mauer, who is an enormous man for a catcher (and a tremendous athlete to boot), took five giant steps, dove and nailed Gardner in plenty of time.

It was a risky play by Gardner, but I have to imagine that he would have been safe against anyone else other than Mauer.  That was some kind of play, a bona fide web gem. Mauer is a great player.  Had the Yankees lost, I was going to title the post, “Speed Kills.”  Happily, I shelved that idea when Damon launched a line drive homer off Jesse Crain into the second deck in right field in tenth.   Alfredo Aceves got the win.

That’s five straight. Let’s hope it is the start of what will prove to be a winning season. I’m piggish. I want to see them get the sweep. But even if they don’t, we’re all entitled to some pie tonight.

And who doesn’t like pie?

It’s even cooler today than it was yesterday–actually, it warmed up nicely by the end of the game on Saturday. 

AJ Burnett is in an ideal situation.  He hasn’t pitched great, needs a strong outing, and hey, the Yanks have a modest four-game winning streak that needs tending.

Let’s hope he comes out aces and not…like this famous knucklehead.

This is how winning streaks are built–by winning the close ones. The Yanks snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on Friday and they survived a shaky outing from their set-up relievers, and got big time contributions from the Boras Boys, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, to beat the Twins in extra innings on Saturday afternoon, 6-4.

The M&M boys from Minnie did their thing too–Joe Mauer homered for the second straight day and Justin Morneau hit his third dinger of the series (and his second against Phil Coke), but the Yankees’ demolition duo got the last laugh.

During the broadcast, Paul O’Neill said that the team hasn’t defined itself yet and I couldn’t agree more. It’s hard to figure who they are yet. For all of their top-shelf talent, they are not a crisp team fundamentally; Melky Cabrera made a crucial mistake, over-throwing the cut-off man, in the eighth, which allowed the go-ahead run to score. I also get the feeling that too many of the hitters are tantalized by dreams of the home run highlight in big spots (Nick Swisher, I’m looking in your direction). Nevermind the mess in the bullpen–had the Yanks lost the game, I was going to title the post “Where’s that confounded bridge?”

Still, they’ve won plenty of games in the late innings this year, haven’t they? That’s got to count for something.

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Watching Friday night’s game I was struck by just how difficult it is to play the game and remain healthy. First, there was the play at first base where Carlos Gomez almost took Mark Teixeira’s hand off. “That’s twice,” shouted an angry Teixeira to Gomez (I didn’t catch the first incident). Teixeira does not strike me as a red ass, which made his outburst more compelling. He knew how close he was to being seriously hurt (I looked away from the TV when they showed the replay of Bubba Crosby running through Brian Roberts’ left arm several years back). Then in the ninth, Brett Gardner slipped on first base and wiped out, his legs getting tangled like a young Colt. Nothing twisted or turned, Gadner recovered and still managed to reach third.

None of this shows up in the box scores, of course. But they were both hold-your-breath moments. Fortunately, nobody came up lame.

This afternoon, Joba Chamberlain, who, according to the New York Times, is trying a new pre-game routine, hopes to lead the Yankees to their fourth-straight win.

It is cool, foggy, and wet in the Bronx today, with rain in the forecast. 

Perfect day some of this…Break it down, Biba:

Finally Friday.  I’m goin to the record shop.

Dig this Demo:

Then I’m off to Brooklyn for barbeque and the Yankee game with Johnny Red Sox. Be nice to see A Rod crack one tonight. And it’d be cool if Phil Hughes can throw a good game too.

Am I right or what?

 “I’m sorry, guys,” Oritz said. “I don’t feel like talking right now. Just put down, ‘Papi stinks.’ ”
(Boston Globe)

Mark Teixeira has not hit well so far this season.  After one week, Alex Rodriguez is not there yet.  The Yanks are a .500 team.  The Red Sox, however, are playing relatively well while getting nothing from David Ortiz.  It has gotten to the point where you have to wonder if Ortiz, a proud bear of a man, will ever be half-the player he was in his prime.  Yesterday, he reached a new low, stranding twelve runners on base.  Mo Vaughn, your life is calling.

Couple of big dudes on the mound on Thursday night in Toronto. You know from CC, baseball’s answer to Andre the Giant. But Brian Tallet, is just as tall and he looks even taller because he’s not as wide as Sabathia. Sporting a scrubby mustache, Tallet looks like he stepped out of a time machine from 1987. He could be Frankie Viola’s cousin, or an extra from the movie Copland.

Either way, both men pitched well, each allowing just a couple of runs. But Sabathia was just that much better as the Yanks earned a satisfying 3-2 win over the Jays. There wasn’t much hitting. Alex Rodriguez’s timing is not back fully–he hit a couple of deep fly balls and put some good swings on a few other pitches that he just fouled off and was robbed of a double by Scott Rolen. But Brett Gardner made a nice throw from center field and scored the game-tying run in the seventh (he was driven in on a classic bloop single to right by Derek Jeter).

Hideki Matsui’s solo home run was the difference and our man Mariano Rivera worked a perfect ninth, striking Rod Barajas out swinging to end it.

The Yankees improve their record to 17-17 and finish the six-game road trip 4-2.

Baby steps, but it’s a start.

We’re all waiting for the Yanks to go on a run. That would entail winning a mess-o-games in a row. They’d have to start with tonight. Tonight would be nice.

Roy Halladay dominated the Yanks two nights ago. Time for CC Sabathia to return the favor. His last start was stellar. He’s expected to be on par tonight.

C’mon, big fella. You’re the Rock.

I still love this scene.

Another old friend of Bronx Banter, poet, historian, and editor, Glenn Stout, has just started a blog. Glenn’s new book, Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World, the story of the first woman to swim the English Channel, is due out this summer. I’m in the middle of reading it. Did you know that women were not allowed to swim during the Victorian Age? Thinking about it now, it makes sense, but man, I never knew that. Terrific book, by the way, and not just for young women. I’ll get together with Glenn to talk about it as the release date approaches.

For now, bookmark Glenn’s blog, Verb Plow. He’s sure to fill it with thought-provoking goodies.

Jeff Pearlman, author of one of two new books about Roger Clemens, wasn’t impressed with the Rocket’s performance earlier this week on ESPN radio.  No suprise there, but I have to admit, I like the defiance that Clemens is displaying.  It may be pathetic, delusional, or both, but it is keeping in line with his personality, and for that reason, I think it’s amusing as hell.  Clemens has turned into Slim Pickens riding the bomb.

Hey, don’t mess with Texas, right?

I caught this goodness over at Baseball Think Factory.

Check it out.

Bronx Banter Interview

Our old pal Allen Barra sat down with me recently to talk about his new book, Yogi: Eternal Yankee.

Bronx Banter: You make the argument that Yogi was a better catcher than Johnny Bench. How close was Roy Campanella to Yogi during the Fifties? Was there any catcher even close to these two at the time?

Allen Barra: In Rio Bravo, Walter Brennan asks John Wayne if Ricky Nelson is faster than Dean Martin. “I’d hate to have to live on the difference,” says Duke. The real truth is that if you take Campanella at this peak, there’s probably very little difference between Berra, Bench and Campy. The only thing I might add to that is that it’s possible that, if given the same material to work with, Johnny and Roy could have gotten as much out of as many mediocre pitchers as well as Yogi did. But Yogi did do it, and that has to give him the edge.

BB: Did Yogi really deserve the 1954 and ‘55 MVP awards? In ‘54 the Indians won and Bobby Avila had a big year, also playing a key defensive position, and Mickey Mantle had a monstrous year. And in ’55 Mantle again had another ridiculous year.

AB: That’s a tough question. I don’t know if anyone’s done a “Value over Replacement Factor” kind of analysis for those years, but it’s arguable that Yogi might have had the highest value over anyone who could have replaced him at that position. In 1954 my guess is that the difference between Mantle and Berra wasn’t that great. Avila played a key defensive position, but not more key than Yogi’s. It probably should have been Mantle in ’55, but then I think there’s an equally good case that it probably should have been Yogi in 1950 instead of Phil Rizzuto. What’s interesting is that so many people thought that it should have been Yogi those years. I think that tells us something very important about him.

BB. Was there any year that Yogi should have won an MVP when he didn’t?

AB: Well, as I just mentioned, there was 1950. And you could turn the ’54 argument on its head and ask why Al Rosen, an Indian, wins the MVP [in 1953] when Yogi’s team won the pennant. I’m not saying Rosen didn’t deserve it, I’m just saying that if Yogi had won it, nobody would have gone to the barricades to say he didn’t deserve it, and I’d argue that he was also one of the top five players in the league in 1952. It’s more difficult to figure the value of a top-flight catcher. He did so many things to hold his pitching staffs together back then, I just don’t know if you can figure his worth compared to payers at other positions.

BB: It ‘s well known that Yogi helped Elston Howard when he joined the team but did Yogi ever question or go on the record about the Yankees’ institutional racism?

AB: No, I’m not aware that anyone in that period did. For one thing, when you talked to the players of that era, they all say, “Well, every year we heard that they were brining black players up through the minor league system, and we thought each year would be the next year.” I think there’s something to that – Gil McDougald told me something to that effect. I mean, the Yankee players were ready for it. They had no objections at all to integrating the team. It was only after a few seasons of George Weiss signing a black player for the minor league system and then trading him that they began to catch on. I’d have to say, though, that while the Yankees front office was as racist in its policies as the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees themselves got good marks from Elston and Arlene Howard and Larry Doby for their overall attitudes. Both the Howards and Doby put Yogi at the top of their list of good guys. Arlene Howard told me that Yogi and Elston “hit it off right away.”

BB. I know that walk rates were up in the Fifties and comparatively Yogi didn’t walk that much. But he was contact hitter and it’s hard to point this out as a major flaw. That said, were there any noticeable holes in his game, either offensively or in the field?

AB: No, none, and it ought to be mentioned that though Yogi didn’t walk that much, his on-base average was actually six points better than Johnny Bench’s in about the same number of games, and that’s what’s important. No, Yogi had no flaws. We all know he wasn’t much of a catcher until Bill Dickey learned him all of his experience, but by 1949 he was a very good catcher, and by 1950 the Yankee staff was pretty much relying on him to call their pitches. Or rather, he knew them well enough to call their pitches for them – did I just make some kind of Yogiism? Anyway, all that crap in David Halberstam’s The Summer of ’49 about Allie [Reynolds] and Yogi not getting along is fiction. All the Yankees told me so.

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The Yankees have no shame about promoting the exclusivity of their new park. Kids cannot watch batting practice from the sweet seats in the outfield.

Check this out:

The complaints about batting practice did not draw much sympathy on Tuesday from Lonn Trost, the club’s chief operating officer, who spoke after a news conference announcing the sale of mementos from the old stadium.

Referring to the high-priced Legends Suite tickets clustered around home plate and the infield, Trost said that it was an area that fans without suite tickets would not be allowed to enter.

“If you purchase a suite, do you want somebody in your suite?” Trost said in remarks reported by The Associated Press. “If you purchase a home, do you want somebody in your home?”

Yikes. Nobody is likely to apply the term “friendly confines” to the mallpark in the Bronx.

Is they?

My first job right out of college was as a production assistant on Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary.  The gig lasted about five months and when it was over I couldn’t find another paying job in the movie business so I spent most of the summer in central park watching softball. I pretended to look for work but really I hid out in the park instead.  I was a regular goldbricker, but was not alone.  I discovered a group of regulars who would hang around the great lawn and watch games all afternoon.  Fat guys with red bellies who would rotate around the fields to stay in the sun.  A skinny black dude, Smokey, used to sell Snapple, water, soda and beer.  I’d follow an animated umpire named Butch and watch all of his games.

My favorite league was the Press League (This may be the same league that our man Cliff later played in when he was with Viking).  The games just had more juice than the Broadway League.  The New York Times had a wonderful second baseman at the time, an older woman who wore braces on both knees.  She was a fluid fielder, the kind of person you just wanted to talk baseball with.  The kind of person you’d be honored to have a catch with.

I thought about her a few days ago when I read this piece about the Press League in the City Section of the Sunday Times:

Each spring for at least three decades, starting in late April or early May, media softball with all its pranks and rivalries returns to the diamonds of Central Park. The undertaking involves dozens of players, largely in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

And this season, coming as it does on the heels of possibly the worst year in memory for the publishing industry, the idea of repairing from the office to the green of the park seems especially appealing.

Over the past year, caught between an ailing economy and the struggle of print publications in an increasingly digital age, one after another title has trimmed its sails, migrated to the Web or closed up shop entirely. The shock has been felt especially in New York, home to so many publications and to so many who read them or work for them. And the body count continues to rise, with the attendant impact on the softball season.

February brought the folding of Trader Monthly, a magazine for the financial community, whose team planned to play this year. On April 30, Condé Nast announced the closing of Portfolio, its glossy business monthly, laying off more than 80 people. It had planned to play the New Yorker on June 16.

I’m a day late with this, but here’s a terrific Happy Mother’s Day clip:
 

Peace to Matt B for the link.

Dig this piece of angst from Bronx Banter contributor, Hank Waddles:

A Long Week’s Journey Into Night

By Hank Waddles

I am thirty-nine years old. I have a wife and three children. I teach 8th grade English. I am a good person. But as much as I hate to admit it, my daily mood still changes based on the fortunes of the New York Yankees.

Things have been good for quite a while now, obviously. If you were to put my feelings about the Yanks on a bar graph, the past thirteen years would look a lot like the Himalayas – a few dips here and there, but mostly peaks, the tallest peaks in the world.

Sure, there were dark moments along the way – Luis González in ’01, the Boston Meltdown in ’04, every single time Kyle Farnsworth took the mound – but nothing compared to the darkness that descended on my world the night of May 7, 2009. Tampa Bay 8, New York 6.

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Clown Town.

Whadda bunch of mooks. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the Yanks on Saturday night as they got torched 12-5 in Baltimore. Phil Hughes gave up eight runs and didn’t make it out of the second inning. Homers by Damon, Teixeira, and Swisher made it somewhat more respectable, but the Yanks were never in this one. 

Frustrating…

Well, you might as well look at this for some comic relief.

Beautiful stuff from CC Sabathia last night. Alex Rodriguez’s first inning homer was tremendous and it was oh what a feeling fun to see the Yankees win a game.

Phil Hughes makes his third start tonight.  Be nice to see the Yanks go on a run here.

Ya heard?