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After winning eight straight, the Yankees can’t seem to get out of their own way.  They lost again to the Orioles, this time 7-6.  This one was a heartbreaker.  Not because it was such a well-played game.  But because the Yankees came back and had their chances to win but couldn’t get over the hump.  This game was a hump.  And so was Aubrey Huff. 

Darrell Rasner wasn’t that bad.  He gave up two runs through the first six innings.  But Brian Roberts led off the seventh with a base hit and then Rasner plunked Adam Jones.  Damaso Marte came in and Rasner was last seen cursing at himself in the dugout.  Nick Markakis fought off a fastball for a cheap hit. Bases juiced.

Then Aubrey Huff wacked the first pitch deep to right, but it hooked foul.  He swung through the next pitch, a fastball, then crushed the next pitch, another fastball that caught too much of the plate, into the gap in left center field, clearing the bases.  Melvin Mora doubled Huff home off the first base bag to put the Yankees down 6-1.

Daniel Cabrera pitched well…again.  But in the bottom of the seventh, he plunked Alex Rodriguez–who homered in his previous at-bat–and was thrown out of the game.  (There was no further incident).  Couple of batters later, Robinson Cano singled with the bases loaded and nobody out, scoring two and the Yanks were in business, down 6-3.  But Wilson Betemit whiffed, then Melky Cabrera lined out to center (the ball almost took off on Jones, who did a late little leap to snag it), before Xavier Nady struck out looking at a nasty breaking ball to end the inning.

In the top of the ninth, the YES cameras showed a red lady bug on the right side of Mariano Rivera’s hat as he warmed up. Then freakin Aubrey Huff blasted the first pitch he saw from Rivera deep into the upper deck.  It went foul but it was closer to a homer than his shot against Marte.  Two pitches later, Huff cranked another lousy fastball over the wall in right for a dinger.  Got-to-be-kidding-meSomehow, Huff should be credited with more than just one homer, don’t you think?   

It prooved to be the difference.

George Sherrill, Baltimore’s All Star lefty, gave up a single to Johnny Damon to start the bottom of the ninth. He got ahead of Jeter 0-2, but walked him.  Bobby Abreu laced the first pitch he saw into left scoring Damon and putting runners at second and third with no out.  Rodriguez got a good hack on a breaking pitch but hooked it foul and struck out on a fastball in his kitchen.

Giambi fell behind 0-2 and then lined a 1-2 pitch up the middle.  It bounced off the mound, right past Sherrill, into left field.  Two runs in, Yanks down by one.  The “Yanks are showing some guts showing some grit,” Michael Kay said on on TV.  

Justin Christian replaced Giambi and stole second on the first pitch, a strike, to Cano.  “See that, see Michael,” Paul O’Neill said, as if he was showing Kay the goose bumps on his arm, “That just gives me a thrill.”  Then he talked about guts as Cano struck out on three pitches.  Leaving it all up to Betemit.  Ah, Betemit.  Right-handed, no less.  What happened?

Betemit struck out and so did the Yanks.

A tough loss. Sox fell too, almost got no-hit. But the Rays won.

Joba needs to stop the bleeding tomorrow afternoon.

No, not Dalkowski, the patron saint of erratic flame throwers, but Daniel Cabrera, tonight’s starting pitcher for the Orioles.  Cabrera sneers and looks sinister–unlike Dalkowski.  Drives me nuts when the Yanks are done in by the likes of this chucker.  So time for Rasner to have a good outing, and time for the Yankee offense to make mince meat out of that big goon Cabrera.

Kick em in the grill, boys.

Let’s go Yan-kees!

I’m friendly with Rob, the token booth clerk at 238th street on the 1 line. He’s in his early fifties, but you’d never tell by looking at him–he looks at least ten years younger. Rob is a big Yankee fan and is a charming, gregarious man. He’s been at 238 for three years and knows at least sixty percent of the customers that pass through the station. When I have the time, as I did last Friday afternoon, I stop and chat.

So there we were, talking about the Yankees. Rob was saying how impressed he’s been with Mussina. I told him that I hoped Moose comes close to winning twenty games this year. Then I said, “I hope Alex hits forty homers too.”

Just then, a squat, disheveled man walked into the station–which is three flights above ground level (the 1 train is elevated in the Bronx).

“Did you say you are going to hit forty homers” he said, slurring his words.

“No,” I said, now smelling the stench coming off the guy, a mixture of dried sweat and alcohol, “I said I hope A Rod hits forty.”

“Why not make it sixty?” He roared and slapped me on the shoulder, then staggered away. Rob tilted his head to the side and raised an eyebrow.

The man stood in front of the turnstiles for a few minutes. Rob and I continued our conversation, with one eye on Ned the Wino. Then we heard the sound of an approaching train. Several people, out of breath, came into the station and went through the turnstiles.

The drunk man looked ahead and said, “If only I was younger.”

He took a step back from the turnstile as the train rushed into the station, put his right hand into the back of his jeans (he was not wearing underwear) and pulled out an unopened can of Fosters. With the beer in his right hand, he lifted his left leg, as if he was going to hop the turnstiles.

Rob did not raise his voice but said, “Uh…No-no.”

The man remained frozen in the pose for a minute, as if he was a fat, washed- up wrestler about the climb into the ring. Then, defeated, he lowered his leg and placed the beer back in the crack of his ass. Then he turned around.

“I guess I’ll be walking to Staten Island,” he said as he wobbled past Rob and me out of the station.

“That’s some long walk,” said Rob.

Rob and I looked at each other and we both raised our eyebrows. Just then, a sleek young Spanish woman walked in and the foul smell was replaced by the warm scent of vanilla and feminity. Rob chatted with her, she batted her eyes, and I smiled, gazing at her narrow waist, amazed at how quickly the smell in the place changed. I was also amazed at the drunk. Why climb three flights of stairs if you aren’t going to bust out and jump the turnstiles? I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a benign, completely harmless wino like that.

Anyhow, made my day.

In the introduction to his short book, “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?” (based on an Esquire magazine profile written more than twenty years ago), Richard Ben Cramer writes:

Reputation dies hard in the baseball nation, and in the larger industry of American iconography. Even at the close of the century, forty years after he’d left the field, there still attached to Ted a lingering whiff of bile from the days when he spat toward booing Fenway fans. And there were heartbroken hundreds who’d freshen that scent with their stories: how hew as rude to them when they tried ti interrupt him for an autography or a grip-and-grin photo. (The thousands who got their signatures or snapshots found that unremarkable.)

In the northeast corner of the nation, there were still thousands who blamed Ted for neverl hauling the Red Sox to World Series triumph. (Someone must bear the blame for decades of disappointment when their own rooting love was so piquant and pure.)…Around New York more thousands still resented Ted–and had to reduce him–for contesting with Joe DiMaggio for the title of the Greatest of the Golden Age. They insisted that Ted never won anything (and reviled him, in short for never being a Yankee).

Reading this, it struck me that it’s no surprise that Cramer’s next biography is about Alex Rodriguez. What do you expect to get from this forthcoming biography on Rodriguez? Even better, what do you hope to find in the book?

Check out this very cool piece by Alex Eisenberg over at Baseball-Intellect.

Congrats, Big Fella.

I don’t drink so I don’t go to bars. But I like the idea of the local bar, where you can go watch the game and yes, where everybody knows your name. In many ways, blogs like Bronx Banter are on-line bars, community meeting spots, where a host of like-minded people can get together to follow, in this case, the Yankees. We get all kinds here, and I know that I often learn more from the comments section than I would from reading a newspaper. Sure, every so often the conversation will digress, but more often than not, I’d say Banter commenters are funny, enlightening and a good group to hang with.

I mention this because it was one year ago exactly when one of our regulars, the irrepressible, and often infuriating, Jim Dean passed away. Jim literally died in the middle of a Yankee game, sitting on the couch, with his laptop open to Bronx Banter. He was with us when he went, something that I take as a great honor.

Chyll Will, another longtime regular, had a terrific post on Jim the other day, which I’m taking the liberty of posting in full:

Jim Dean was a friend of mine, and I say that knowing that I never met him in person and that the only contact we’ve ever had was through Banter. There was something about his abrasiveness, his bellicosity and sarcasm that added interesting colors to his research and commenting. If there was anyone who created a picture of himself and everything he said through his words, he was certainly one.

I liked teasing him. He often would blast away at us with fiery, if sometimes off-the-mark blather about this player’s statistics, that player’s effort, the bumbling of the Yankees front office or, seeming to feel particularly jaunting, he would debate one or many of us. Well, debate is not strong enough… battle.

JD battled long and hard on a point he believed in, whether it was right or wrong. Sometimes it seemed like he battled just for the principle of it. But among other things, it was his passion for the Yankees and his quick response with sabermetric research that won the admiration of even his detractors. I am not nearly as good with numbers as he was, but if anything he was among the few that inspired a notion for me to learn.

I don’t know in what regard he held me; perhaps he saw me as a trifle, or maybe he respected my sense of humor. I do know that we once engaged in a surprisingly straightforward “conversation” that led me us to understand more about each other, and perhaps more respect for each other. We didn’t agree a lot of times, but we did (eventually) respect each other.

My point is, it’s odd that one can develop a friendship with someone in an internet community, but as I’ve always said, Bronx Banter is like family. And JD was like a brother. A bad brother, sometimes, but family nonetheless.

Rest In Peace, Jim Dean.

Amen. Jim Dean is still with us in spirit. Wonder what he thinks of the Nady deal?

Em and I went to the ABC outlet in the South Bronx today to get a carpet.  Em has been wanting to get a new rug for more than a minute.  So off we went.  Should have been a twenty-minute ride but it turned into an hour plus Bruckner Avenue, Robert Moses-Thanks-For-Nothing Organized Konfusion nightmare–bumber to bumber traffic jams, wrong turns, lunatic drivers, getting cockamamie directions on the cell phone, and a rash left turn that almost lead to an accident, followed by shock, anguish, tears.  One thing was for sure.  We weren’t leaving ABC without a carpet.

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According to Pete Abe, Dan McCutchen and Jeff Karstens, not Phil Coke and George Kontos, are going to the Pirates in the Nady-Marte deal.

Manny being Manny is cute until it’s not. It’s charming and refreshing when Boston’s future Hall of Fame left fielder is putting up Hall of Fame number. Doesn’t matter that he’s a pain in the ass for the Red Sox to deal with. When he’s hitting, high-fiving a fan, taking a leak inside the Green Monster, Manny is being colorful, fun. Ramirez has angered management, his teammates and even the fans at different points during his stay in Boston by not running out ground balls, coming up lame with dubious injuries, and acting like a spoiled child. He has also been the anchor–or co-anchor along with Ortiz–of their two World Championship teams. And when he’s doing his thing, he’s just a flake, irrepressible, lovable.

Ramirez has pushed the Sox to the brink in the past–they once placed him on waivers–but now, as Dan Shaughnessy suggests in the Boston Globe, the Sox may have finally had it with Manny being Manny:

Ramírez sealed his fate with the club yesterday afternoon. After longtime enabler Terry Francona filled out a lineup card with Manny batting fourth, the Sox made an announcement that Manny could not play in the biggest game of the season. Seems there were problems with his right knee. Manny was a late scratch.

It was extraordinary. In the past, management and the manager would do handstands to excuse Manny’s strange acts. No more. This time, the manager – apparently confident there’s nothing wrong with the slugger – put Manny’s name in the lineup, then sat and waited for Manny to pull himself out of the lineup. Manny complied. Never concerned with wins or losses, Manny told Brad Mills he was unable to play and took himself out of the batting order for the (thus far) biggest game of the season.

It was predictable. It was ridiculous. It was the last straw.

Former state treasurer Bob Crane happened by the EMC Club, pregame, and spoke for many fans when he said, “Manny’s got to go. Enough’s enough. Fans are finally sick of this guy.”

The possibility exists that Manny truly has a sore right knee. No one can get inside the head of an athlete and evaluate game-readiness. If Manny’s knee is killing him, there is no way for us to know, and we are wildly unfair to question his condition. I’m willing to take that chance. I don’t believe him.

Could this really be the end of Manny in Boston? Cue: organ cliff hanger music.

One thing for is for sure, this is one soap opera that has nothing to do with the Yankees. I figure Manny will return this weekend and get some big hits. Then again, he might not. I won’t be surprised either way. Which is what Manny Being Manny is all about. Anything goes.

I remember dancing a lot during my senior prom. As it was getting late, and everyone was either too tired or too drunk to continue, the band, dropped their pants, revealing Batman boxer shorts and started playing the theme to the old "Batman" TV show. My dorky friends and I were the only ones left dancing. We stayed up all night and then went to see the first matinee showing of Tim Burton’s Batman movie in the morning, its opening day. The movie, and Jack Nicholson’s performance in particular, was enough to satisfy us–it wasn’t a complete bomb–but it was still lacking. It didn’t fully deliver on the promise of the comic book, it wasn’t harsh enough, sinister enough, scary enough.

Well, the movie I wished for back then has now been made and it has been made well. The latest version is not only the ultimate Batman movie–pushing the violence and nihilism to the edge–it aims to be the ultimate comic book movie. The only thing is, I don’t know if it’s what I really want to see anymore. Leaving the new Batman movie, which is operatic, sweeping in its ambitions and length (at two-and-a-half hours, it is longer than any super hero movie should reasonably be, and yet it moves briskly), I was satisfied that a true Batman movie had finally been made. But I also felt a little bit dirty about it.

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I’m going to see what all the fuss is about this afternoon.

Smiling Jack down at Dunder Mifflin pitched a very nice game last night. Chad Jennings, who has been doing a terrific job all season long, has the particulars.  And Ben K over at River Ave Blues gives his take as well.

He’s Back.

Ray Negron’s second book for children, The Greatest Story Never Told, was released a few days ago.  It’s an ideal gift if you’ve got a young Yankee fan in your life, especially one that has an interest in the history of the game. 

Negron was profiled in four-parts here at Bronx Banter earlier this year: One, Two, Three and Four. 

Jeez, twenty-five years ago?  Dag, I’m feeling old, man.

I remember my father once asking me, “Do you know what the most difficult job on a baseball field is?” I went through all of the positions and he shook his head “no” at all of my suggestions. “The umpires, sweetie, have the toughest job.” I always thought that was funny coming from the old man, who had more than a slight problem with authority.

I think that one of the hardest gigs in baseball must be that of the third base coach. After all, nobody ever riffs about a first base coach or the bullpen coach. The bench coach never gets called out. But third base coaches are open game. Steve Goldman had a nice little piece about these brave souls a few days ago at BP. Check it out.

At New York Magazine, Will Leitch adds his two cents about the ailing Jorge Posada.

You think this is bad? Wait until it happens to the team’s other nineties icons. Rivera is defying time with another peerless season, but Derek Jeter is in the seventh year of the ten-year contract that makes him the second-highest paid player in baseball (behind A-Rod, of course.) But forget the oft-debated (but still plainly obvious) defensive liability; the “Face of Baseball” is having the worst offensive season of his career. (As much as Posada has struggled, he has still hit better than Jeter by almost any metric.) As long as the Yankees are still making the playoffs, Jeter might be able to slide by unnoticed, but if they fall short…well, are you ready for chants of “Bench Jeter”?

It’s hard to imagine Jeter aging gracefully isn’t it? And jeez, if Rodriguez starts to break-down, like Chipper Jones has for instance, it will get downright fugly.