Blog Archives

Erik Wolf has started a website in the name of saving Yankee Stadium:

This irreplaceable stadium can be put to good and profitable public use. Minor league baseball, affordable for the masses can be played here (with admission prices for even the best seats a lot cheaper than the 00 the top priced seat will go for in the new Stadium. And more to the point, just as Mayor Bloomberg has recently announced that a branch of the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame will be moving to New York, what about a branch of the Baseball Hall of Fame in the House That Ruth Built?

We cannot stand silent and let this great edifice be destroyed. Save Yankee Stadium. For yourself, for your children, you grandchildren, and all generations to come.

You didn’t think the House that Ruth Built was going to go out without someone saying something about it, did you? Head on over to the site and sign the petition to save the Stadium if you are so moved.

There has been a lot of talk lately that none of this slumping would have ever happened to Robinson Cano had Larry Bowa still been around. I don’t know that I disagree but man, that really doesn’t say a whole heck of a lot about Cano, does it? He’s not a college athlete after all, he shouldn’t need a coach to keep him in line. But as Jack Curry points out in a post over at Bats, Bowa really did have an impact on Cano.

What with all my attention focused on the final year of Yankee Stadium, I haven’t paid as much notice to what’s happening out in Queens. It is the last season at Shea too, and the Mets have more than a decent chance to play baseball in October.

Tom Seaver, the greatest player in Met history, isn’t sad to see Shea go (Peace to Repoz for the link):

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not a big fan of the stadium,” Seaver said before last night’s game against the Braves. “It’s strictly an architectural observation.

“I said this before, and got my rear end in a little bit of hot water. It’s just a physical presence to me. Now the physical is just going to move across the street.”

…”I get sentimental about the people, not the physical structure here,” Seaver said. “When I’m here, I see the spot where Gil Hodges used to sit, Rube Walker. I look to see where Tug McGraw used to sit. That’s what I see. It’s the people who occupied those spaces that are important to me.”
(Barbara Barker, Newsday)

Seaver is right on here. In some ways, the same can be said about Yankee Stadium. The rennovated Stadium may not be as grand as the original version, but for a generation of Yankee fans, it is home. And it is the relationships we’ve had with our family and friends at the park, our relationships with the players, from Steve Balboni to Bernie Williams, that makes the place special.

The town is dead and I love it.  There’s nothing better than New York City when it’s practically empty.  Everyone will be back from vacation soon, back to work, back to school, and the subways will be crowded again in the morning.  But for the next ten days, we’ve still got the town to ourselves.  And I just love a farmer’s market in late August–peaches, corn, and all of those amazing tomatoes. 

Good and good for ya.

Hard as it may seem to believe, it’s true: Carl Pavano will start for the Yankees tomorrow against the Orioles. Tyler Kepner has more…There will be no shortage of wise cracks from the peanut gallery over the next couple of days, that’s for sure.

Sir Sidney had nothing and was torched by the Blue Jays’ hitters tonight and they weren’t done. They had 21 hits in all and the score was 14-3 when the fireworks was over.

Yanks face Doc Halladay tonight in Toronto. A formidable task for sure. But who knows? Stranger things have happened. Maybe they get him on an “off” night. Maybe Sir Sidney Ponson has another good outing. Maybe pigs will fly.

Either way, Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

The Red Sox are clearly the third most popular team in New York these days. Ten years ago you’d rarely see someone wearing a Red Sox hat, and when you did, it was hard not to have some grudging admiration for the brave soul. Now that the Red Sox are a success the bandwagon is full and Sox fans can rock their gear without shame. They are a dime a dozen. This trend will eventually pass but not anytime soon.

And so long as the New York Times owns a piece so the Red Sox we’ll continue to see features in the sports page like Jack Curry’s piece on Jed Lowrie. Curry has been with the Sox in Baltimore the past couple of days.

Why would the Times assign their lead baseball feature writer to follow Boston? They aren’t playing the Yankees until next week. Because at the Times, the Sox matter almost as much as the Yankees or the Mets.

It’s a sorry state of affairs but that’s the way it is.

Meanwhile, in more regional affairs, Tyler Kepner has a nice post over at Bats, and asks the question: Should the Yankees re-sign Bobby Abreu?

Steven Goldman, writing in the New York Sun, thinks 2009 might be more of the same, or worse, for the Yanks. His suggestion? Bust ’em up, baby:

With next year’s pitching staff likely to be at least as unsettled as the current edition, the Yankees are in a difficult spot. If baseball teams don’t decide when to rebuild, the gods of baseball tend to decide for them. There’s a penalty to holding on too long, to having the issue forced: Your team might turn into the Baltimore Orioles (in the Yankees’ case, Jeter standing in for the aging Cal Ripken). Hence, the Yankees should be broken up now, by Brian Cashman, with the veterans sent out of town by August 31 for the best offers available.

That’d be a bold move. Doubt it’ll happen though.

Over at Baseball Intellect, Alex Eisenberg takes a look at Joba Chamberlain’s mechanics. 

Fun, thought-provoking stuff.  Excellent job by Eisenberg.

I was downtown last night near Washington Square Park, crossing Fifth avenue, when I saw a black kid on a skateboard gliding up the street.  He was listening to music and singing loudly.  I smiled and thought, man, I really don’t get around downtown much anymore.  You just don’t see people uptown expressing themselves with such theatricality–here I am, hear me, love me or screw off, I don’t care. 

I couldn’t make out what he was singing until I heard, "I live by the river."

Ah-ha. That made me smile even more.  Wouldn’t have pegged him for a Clash fan.

I got caught up working late last night and didn’t catch a single pitch of the Yankee game. By the time I got home, shortly before ten, it was over.  I turned on Baseball Tonight and waited for the score to appear on the crawl.  Wouldn’t you know it, the Yankee-Toronto game was the last of the AL scores to appear.  While I waited I felt sure that the Yankees had won and for a few moments I thought about sure things.  Mariano Rivera is as sure as you get, though he’s not perfect of course.  The Yankees themselves have been a sure thing for a long time too.  That isn’t the case this year, sure-things don’t last forever, but the fact that you can have them, even for a little while, is something to savor.  

Still, the longer it took to get to the score the more I started thinking, maybe they lost again.

But they didn’t.  Andy Pettitte pitched a nice ball game and Derek Jeter had three hits, including a two-run dinger as the Yanks beat the Jays, 5-1.  His batting average is up to .298.  The Yankee captain is also two hits shy of 2,500 for his career.  Even though he’s shown signs of decline this year, unless Jeter gets hurt or starts to deteriorate rapidly, he’s virtually a sure thing to reach 3,000.  If all goes well he could reach the milestone in three more seasons. 

Pretty cool, huh?

…The Yanks will serve the Jays up like Stove Top Stuffin’ tonight.  And if they don’t, if we see Bad Andy, if the Yanks get rocked, well, then I just don’t know what.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

Diane Firstman offers this video look at the Yankees playoff drive:

I realize these are truly the dog days for Yankee fans.  With each passing day it appears increasingly unlikely that the team will qualify for the playoffs.  Not only that, but they are just a tough team to watch in so many ways.  This morning I saw two Yankee fans at work and the first thing they did was hide their face as if they were Dracula meeting the morning light.  They hung their heads.  One of them told me he’s not watching anymore.  And he’s not the first one I’ve heard that from over the past few weeks.

These are tough times, relatively speaking, and if you’ve got better things to do with your time than watching a lousy team, that is understandable.  But this idea of forgetting your team or giving up on them when they don’t live up to our collective expectations really seperates the true fans from the causal rooter. 

We’ll be here at Bronx Banter win or lose, and that’s that.  Even if they play like a bunch of bums, we’ll be here.  We were here when they were winning and we’ll be here when they stink.  That’s a promise.

The hot mess that keeps giving…

As Bob T mentioned…20 mugs?  Dude, that’s a lotta beers.

Ponson, Pavano and, would you believe, Zambrano. Yup, Joel Sherman mentions Victor Zambrano today in the latest edition of his Hardball blog.

Remixed…

This book looks amazing…

The Return of Godzilla…