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At one point, Louie grabs his grandson’s bottle of Gatorade and takes a drink.  The boy says, "Aw, Grandpa, it’s too hot to be sharing drinks."

Louie chuckles and says, "That’s okay, cause in a little while it’s gunna be too hot to be paying for any drinks." 

(more…)

Fireworks in the Boogie Down.

The Yankees won a wild one on a scorching hot afternoon in the Bronx. Down 5-1 early, they rallied to tie the game, chasing Brian Bannister in the process. They took the lead in the fifth on a long solo home run, an upper deck job, by Jason Giambi. But Andy Pettitte couldn’t hold it. He was Bad Andy early and Bad Andy late today. The Royals tied the game at six in the seventh inning and then Jose Guillen ripped a high fastball off Pettitte for a grand slam.

The Yanks were not done. Alex Rodriguez absolutely crushed a two-run dinger in the bottom of the inning–the ball short-hopped the retaining wall of the left field bleachers, and then Johnny Damon singled home two runs in the eighth to tie the game again, this time at ten. The Yanks still had a chance to go ahead. With two men on, Bobby Abreu hit a long line drive to left center field for the second out before Rodriguez grounded out to end the inning.

So what happens next? David DeJesus smacks the first pitch he sees from Mariano Rivera, a flat cutter that got too much of the plate, for a home run into the right center field bleachers and the air goes out of the Stadium. Silence. It reminded me of when I was at the Garden and Reggie Miller scored seven points in the last twenty seconds against the Knicks. It wasn’t that upsetting but it was that quiet. And it was hotter today too.

An unshaven Rivera turned to watch the ball and flexed his right hand open several times. It was the first homer Rivera has allowed since last August, a span of 45 innings. He shook and then bowed his head, came back and retired the next three batters in order.

Joakim Soria got Jason Giambi to line out to start the ninth and then Jorge Posada slammed the first pitch he saw into the right field seats and the game was even one more time. Posada’s shot was a liner, only question was if it was going to stay fair.

“Whoever loses this game, that’s about as hard a loss to take right there.” said David Cone on the YES broadcast.

Soira retired Robbie Cano, walked Wilson Betemit, and then gave up a full-swing, cheap-o, infield single to Melky Cabrera. Damon worked the count in his favor and then lined the 3-1 pitch on a hop to the right field wall, good for the game winner. Oh, it was Damon’s sixth hit of the game, giving him a nifty 6-6, 4 RBI line. It was also the first “walk off” hit in Damon’s career as a Yank.

That was exhausting, but the final score is sweet:

Yanks 12, Royals 11.

The Yanks need a bounce-back win this afternoon against one of Joe Posnanski’s favorites, Brian Bannister.  It is hotter n July hot in the Bronx today–hot, hazy, dumb hot.  Andy Pettitte goes for the Yanks.  The ball should be a-jumping, boy. 

Keep cool, y’all and…

Let’s go Yan-Kees!

“We think our team should get over that .500 mark,” said Damon, who went 0 for 5 to end his 14-game hitting streak. “We had a great game yesterday, and today our offense puttered. That shouldn’t happen to our offense. We’re supposed to be better than this.”
(Kepner, N.Y. Times)

Darrell Rasner pitched eight effective innings on Friday night, throwing 118 pitches in all, the most for a Yankee pitcher this season. He left trailing 2-1 and lost the game 2-1. What a drag. In the bottom of the eighth, with two out and runners on first and second, Jason Giambi was called out on a full-count, check-swing. It was a bogus call, but sold experptly by the Kansas City catcher, and it effectively ended the Yankees’ night.

“I took a good at-bat, can’t do anything more than that,” Giambi said after cooling off for almost an hour after the game ended. “I really love and respect (home plate umpire) Ed Montague and I’d never say anything bad against him. There’s not much else I can do about it now.”
(Peter Botte, N.Y. Daily News)

It says something about Montague’s reputation that Giambi didn’t rip him even thought he was unhappy with the call. But one call did not do them in; the Yankee bats were silenced by Kyle Davies. The men in pinstripes also got a look at Joakim Soria, Kansas City’s impressive young closer. He did not disappoint, overpowering the Yanks in the 9th.

While the big boys fizzled, Tyler Kepner brings word of a wild night in the minors. Chad Jennings adds that Jeff Kartsens is close to returning.

In other news, the Yanks are talking to Brian Cashman about extending the GM’s contract. According to Peter Botte in the Daily News:

The organization’s co-chairman said the sides are “a ways away” from announcing a contract extension, adding “there’s a good chance” such an agreement will not be done until after the 2008 season.

“I told him we want him back and he wants to come back, but he’ll take some time to talk it over with his family,” Steinbrenner said Friday. “I feel comfortable with leaving the baseball end of it in his hands. But I also told him he has to make up his mind on what he wants to do. Obviously, nobody’s irreplaceable.

“But we want him to stay. I want to make that clear.”

I have been assuming that Cashman would finally bolt after this year, but perhaps he’ll stay after all. I’m no expert on his track record but I’ve always admired the way Cashman conducts his business and would be pleased to see him stay with the Yanks.

Last week on ESPN, I overheard an announcer ribbing Yankee fans for labeling anyone who gets more than a few hits against the Bronx Bombers as "Yankee killers."  Alex Rios has a twenty-someodd game hitting streak vs. New York, but there has to be a difference between someone who fares well and someone who is a killer, no?  George Brett certainly stands out in my mind as someone who gave the Yanks a hard time (.307/.365/.504 in 203 games).  Who else are some of the legitimate Yankee Killers of all-time?   

“Listen, I loved the way our guys reacted,” [Ray’s manager, Joe] Maddon said. “I thought it was tremendous. The unity that was displayed, it’s part of us growing as a group. Unfortunately, we did not win the game, but I do like the fact that our guys did defend one another. I think that’s great and speaks well for us. I’m very pleased with every one of them.”
(Tampa Bay Online)

I caught the end of the Sox-Rays game the other night just in time to see Coco Crisp’s hard slide into second base and the ensuing reaction from the Rays. Last night, I saw the full highlights from the Shields-Crisp/Rays vs. Crisp fight. It wasn’t really all that as far as fights go. Shields plunked Crisp, Crisp charged the mound, Shields threw a haymaker and missed, Crisp landed a soft jab, and then Crisp was tackled. The Rays played dogpile on the rabbit but it didn’t look as if anyone got any real shots in (Gomes looked as if he was, but that wasn’t really the case), just a lot of poking and scratching like you see in football. After the game, a defiant Crisp talked about how the Rays fight like “girls.”

Later, Manny and Youk got into it a little something in the Sox dugout. Oh, and the bottom line: the Red Sox pounded the Rays. Swept them out of first place. I think Crisp comes off looking like a punk. Then again, if I was waiting for a full day for someone to plunk me, perhaps I’d charge the mound as well. The Manny-Youk thing is really a non-story. I’m sure this kind of thing happens all the time, just not in the dugout. Hell, the great Yankee teams of the late 70s were built on that kind of creative tension. I sure don’t see it impacting Youk or Manny on the field.

The Rays are a work in progress. The Sox are World Champs. ‘Nuff said.

There hasn’t been as much fighting in recent years. Remember, the 98 Yanks had a few, including that famous one against the Orioles. The 86 Mets had more than a few. Oh, and one last thing on the punch Shields threw at Crisp. It reminded me of the roundhouse that Dave Winfield once threw, and landed, on Nolan Ryan. Remember that one?

Props to the guys at River Avenue Blues and No Maas’ specially created Draft Day Blog (by Lane Meyer) for their extensive coverage of yesterday’s draft. Just terrific work.

“We’re putting a great arm in the rotation that we believe is going to win games,” [Joe Girardi] argued in response to the veteran outfielder’s comments in yesterday’s Daily News. “I want to know the games that we’ve sacrificed by doing what we did. Everyone is assuming that we would have won that game in Baltimore if we had Joba in the bullpen that night. You’re pretty smart if you know that. Everyone is assuming we would have won the game in Minnesota if we had Joba in the bullpen that night. It doesn’t always work that way.

“I think people make the assumption that if he’s in the bullpen, you’re going to win every game. That’s not the case.”
(N.Y. Daily News)

More than a few panicky Yankee fans are not pleased about Joba Chamberlain becoming a starter. I’ve encountered several over the past few days. I am not one of them. I think it’s great that Chamberlain is returning to his original pitching position. Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus agrees:

I have to give the Yankees full credit here. I insisted that once they started the year with Chamberlain in the bullpen, they wouldn’t move him midseason. Given the dropoff from Chamberlain to the next-best reliever in that pen (Kyle Farnsworth or Edwar Ramirez or LaTroy Hawkins), I expected that the team wouldn’t deny Joe Girardi his eighth-inning security blanket in the middle of a pennant race. I remain surprised by the decision. It’s driven by the failures of Hughes and Kennedy (as well as Kei Igawa in a cameo role) to provide quality pitching at the back end of the rotation as much as it is by the desire to maximize the long-term value of Chamberlain. Nevertheless, the right decision for the wrong reasons has its appeal.

The move will work out for both parties. Chamberlain has the build and the repertoire to be a good starter, especially now that he’ll be more than a fastball/slider pitcher. The Yankees have been extremely conservative with his arm and his workload—I actually wonder if some day we’ll look back at the handling of Joba Chamberlain as some kind of peak in the handling of young pitchers, where the industry eventually backed away a bit from being quite so cautious with them. Chamberlain has thrown fewer than 800 pitches since being called to the majors last August, and he had a pitch count in last night’s game of around 60 tosses. There’s a wide, wide gulf between that and what Chamberlain can safely manage, and the Yankees have to start closing that gap to maximize both his potential and their chance of getting back into the AL East race.

Chamberlain will make his second start on Sunday against the Royals. It is supposed to be in the mid-90s in New York this weekend.

My cousin Jonah is an avid Met fan. He and his wife live in Brooklyn and they are great movie-lovers too. But they do not have cable TV, so Jonah listens to virtually every game on a small, old-fashioned transistor radio. When he’s out and about, he has a small, white earphone plugged into one ear to keep up on the action. When I’ve asked why he doesn’t just get cable like every other “normal” person he says that he doesn’t like the idea of being held captive in front of the television. The thought of it is oppresive to him, even in the age of Tivo.

He can do as he pleases and take the radio with him. I admire him for this quality. I can’t imagine doing such a thing, not with Lord Sterling as the Yankee play-by-play announcer–that would be too much to bear. Still, baseball on the radio can be a wonderful experience for the listener and many of my favorite childhood baseball memories are made up of evenings secretly listening to the Yankee broadcast while I was supposed to be asleep.

I got to thinking about all of this when I read a short essay, “Recalling the Joy of Watching Baseball on the Radio,” which is featured in the collection Diamond: The Baseball Writings of Mark Harris. Most famous for his Henry Wiggens trilogy, Harris doesn’t argue that radio is superior to television, just that they each offer distinct pleasures:

Radio left things to the brain, to the imagination, and to fantasy. On radio we saw the whole baseball field because we saw it in our minds through wide-agnled fantasy. We knew no limits upon our vision. We were our own camera. Pictures arose in our imaginations from the merest hints of things. Our minds were tubes that seldom blew.

This is not to say that radio was better than television, or that one age of mankind was better than another. But that radio was significantly different from televsion, and not always less efficient, cannot be denied. Radio was awe. The awe produced by remoteness…Television reduces awe.

The last bit reminded me of Nicholas Dawidoff’s new memoir, The Crowd Sounds Happy. In it, Dawidoff describes following the Red Sox of his childhood on the radio. Just yesterday, Dawidoff had a compelling piece in the latest edition of Play:

Recently I turned 45, which I think of as a mortal age for a baseball fan; by now, with the rarest exceptions, you are older than every major leaguer. What I notice at midlife is that the passion doesn’t abate; it simply changes. Thinking of the Red Sox as heroes was an innocent fantasy and, for that reason, a seductive one, but adulthood meant finally coming to terms with ballplayers as real people. That wasn’t so difficult in our time of heightened public scrutiny. We wanted to know them, and now we know them too well. Much of it is the money, the millions they earn while most of us are struggling with the rent. Our pastime is a big, mercenary business, and we’ve learned that players will deform themselves with steroids, cheating mortality and their opponents in an effort to stay forever young and powerful. Those of us who are offended by steroids may feel that what’s most unpleasant is that we can’t look at a juiced physique and still think, That could be me.

Athletes are often amazingly unformed as people, and much as I retain the naïve, nostalgic longing for them to be good in all ways, when they aren’t it helps to exercise a little circumspection. I can do that, because the older I get, the more I see that the fun of it is not the results but the process. What’s magical now about baseball is the continuity of having these splendid performers there for me month after month, year after year. I didn’t savor the Red Sox’ long-awaited World Series victory as much as I enjoyed the growing possibility that they could win. These days, I try not to know too much about the players. I want to care — and by being more distanced, I find I still feel close to them.

I recall having a conversation a few years ago with a couple of Baseball Prospectus writers. They wanted to know as little as possible about big leaguers, at least about their personal lives, because they didn’t want that to get in the way of what they were watching on the field. I can appreciate that. Having worked in the movie business, and to a lesser degree, in the world of sports, I understand what it is like to be meet a favorite actor or director only to find that they are lacking (or worse). I think it is critical to separate the artist (or the athlete) from their art. At the same time, I have a curiosity bordering on desire to not only want to know more about my favorite jocks and artists but also a childlike need to like them, to know that they are good people. As if their personality has anything to do with their gift.

Em and I are down in Fort Lolipop, Florida visiting with Pat and Susie Jordan for a few days. We arrived yesterday and I think my wife, who doesn’t do well in the heat, has already melted. It’s middle-of-July hot down here, which is what we get for coming in the off-season. On the other hand, our flight was half-full, and our hotel isn’t packed either. In all, it’s a fine way to celebrate my 37th birthday which happens to be today. And it is all started with a smile when I checked Sportscenter this morning and saw that the Yanks actually pulled out that extra-inning game last night against the Twins. Hot dog.

Final Score: Yanks 7, Twins 6.

“A few days ago, we don’t win this type of game,” Manager Joe Girardi said.

Bobby Abreu knocked in the game-winner, Ross Olendorf was huge in relief, and Mr. Rivera earned the save by getting the final three outs on ten pitches. The Bombers are now one-game over .500.

Cool.

Dear Chien-Ming,

I have really enjoyed watching you pitch over the past few years. I know that you have run into a little bit of trouble recently and I just wanted to let you know that we’re still behind you and that we’ll be rooting for you tonight. Who cares that ground balls tend to zip through the infield out there in Minnie. Do your thing, Strech.

Sending all my best,

Alex

p.s. Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Yesterday I quoted a passage from Roger Angell about Reggie Jackson. Angell wrote that no matter what Reggie Jackson did at the plate–make a weak out, get a single or hit a home run–it was “full value.” I feel the same way about Alex Rodriguez in a way that I haven’t for any player since probably Reggie himself. At the very least, I don’t know that I’ve craved full value from a player more than anyone since Reggie. It’s an infantile reaction yet one that is also based on an adult’s appreciation of greatness.

At some point in my twenties I really started appreciating great players simply for being great. Players that I might have found a reason to despise as a kid–because I didn’t like their name or the way they looked–I became resigned to appreciating. It’s as if there was an invisible line in my mind and after a guy surpassed it and reached a certain level of excellence it was my responsibility to admire them first and foremost. Everything else was about my petty hang-ups. Unless of course I thought he was a mook because of something I knew about him off-the-field, like he beat his wife or something like that.

It’s not that Rodriguez necessarily provides full value in all of his at-bats, it’s that we demand it from him and when he fails it has a weight that seperates him from other players, even other great players. It’s the money, the looks and the talent. I’ve seen Rodriguez in the locker room and he has the self-possessed narcissicm of an elite model. He knows you want to stare at him. He looks like Superman and he’s pretty too. He almost glows. But most of all, it is the blinding talent. The pursuit of something perfect. I love the drama of that. That a strikeout or a failure to drive in a runner from second seems bigger, deeper with Rodriguez.

I derive full value from his at bats because of the expectations I place on them. For me, each of his at-bats holds the promise of getting to watch one of the great all time players do something great. It’s like sheer sensation. Rodriguez’s swing was mentioned as one of the finest thing in sports in a terrific thread over at YankeefanvsSox fan on Friday that was sparked by Mark Lamster’s appreciation of Mariano Rivera.

Just standing in the box, he looks like the ulitimate hitter. He’s greater than Reggie Jackson and yet lacks the thing that made Jackson great, separated him from the other great players, the thing that has made Jeter great. But there is value in watching Rodriguez fail because he is playing for immortality.

On Friday night against Glen Perkins, the Twins’ young left-hander, Rodriguez provided full value in each of his first three at-bats. Early during his first time up Rodriguez ripped a ball foul down the left field line. His swing was so quick, he hit it so hard that he smiled as he got back in the box. (According to Michael Kay, Rodriguez had put on a show during bp.) He worked the count and then smashed a line drive right at the shortstop, knocking him two steps back. Rodriguez’s swing was perfect and when he bounced out of his follow-through, he stood erect as if to punctuate just how hard he had just struck the ball. It was the move of a Roman emperor, regal, arrogant, justified. Even in making an out, Rodriguez had won.

In his next at bat, Rodriguez worked the count and then drilled a liner to left for an RBI single. He stood up again after his follow through. At first I was a little taken aback, thinking he might have had a chance at a double if he had been running instead of admiring. But after seeing the replay, his display, while no less cocky, was understandable because he knew that he had hit the ball too hard get a double. The next time up, Rodriguez crushed a line drive over the centerfielder’s head for an RBI double and drove Perkins from the game. But the at bat was such a pleasure to watch–Rodriguez locked in, laying off the weak stuff, getting good hacks at the rest, even the few that he swung through–that the outcome seemed secondary.

He was grazed by the second pitch the next time up and hit a high pop fly that dropped in front of a diving Carlos Gomez for a hustle double in the ninth.

In addition to Rodriguez, Abreu had three hits including two triples. Melky had three hits, and Hideki Matsui continued to deliver. He’s on such a hot streak that it seems as if his every blooper and bleeder drives in a run. The Yanks had 16 hits in all. Mike Mussina was hurt by Shelley Duncan’s error in the first which led to four runs, but he didn’t completely lose it, went six, and improved his record to 8-4. Farmadooke gave up an eighth inning solo shot to Justin Morneau which closed a Yankee lead to 6-5, before Mariano Rivera closed the door in the ninth.

Mike Lamb swung at the first pitch Rivera threw him, cracked his bat, and softly lined the ball at Rivera’s feet. The sound of the ball coming off the bat was piteful. Brendan Harris got in two good hacks, worked the count full and then took a cutter, low on the inside corner for ball four. A pitch Rivera usually gets. Gomez fouled off the second pitch from Rivera and broke his bat. He lunged and fouled off a cutter, outside, and then waved at another one, further outside, for strike three.

“School is in session,” said Ken Singleton on the YES broadcast.

Pinch-hitter Craig Monroe took a called strike on the outside corner then laid off a fastball, high. He swung late and through another cutter and ended the game looking down as a pee at the knees crossed the outside corner. Precision. Artistry. Something close to perfection.

Yanks 6, Twins 5.

Excellent post by Tyler Kepner over at Bats today. I’m tempted to excerpt it but I like the whole damn thing and can’t make up my mind what to choose without lifting it all. So, just go over and check it out.

And speaking of dropping science, well, I just can’t resist.

YES is broadcasting Game 6 of the 1978 World Serious tonight. I tuned in just in time to catch Reggie’s bomb of Bob Welch, a first pitch shot that served as revenge for Welch’s dramatic K of Jackson earlier in the series. Jackson admired the blast, though his posturing is tame by today’s standards, and then tipped his hat to the Dodger faithful after he crossed home plate. In a short, 1994 New Yorker tribute to Jackson called “Swingtime,” Roger Angell noted this home run as one of Jackson’s career highlights. Here’s more from the piece:

Coming up out of the dugout before his next at-bat in a big game, Reggie Jackson was always accompanied by an invisible entourage: he was the heavyweight champion headed down the aisle for another title defense. The batter’s box was his prize ring, and once he’d dug in there–with those gauntleted arms, the squashed-down helmet, the shades and the shoulders–all hearts beat faster. It really didn’t matter what came next–a pop-up or a ground ball, a single or a dinger, or one of those tunneling-to-Peru strikeouts that ended with his helmet askew, his massive legs twisted into taffy ropes, and the man lurching and staggering as he fought for balance down there in the center of our shouting–because what he gave us, game after game, throughout a twenty-one-year career, was full value.

…From first to last, he was excessive; he excelled at excess…His ego, like his swing, took your breath away, but the dazzled, infuriated beat writers and columnists had to concede that it probably arose from the same deeply hidden, unforgiving self-doubt that whipped him to such baseball hieghts, mostly in the hard late going.

I think Angell gets to the heart of Jackson’s gift–no matter what he did when he was at-bat, he always gave us full value. There aren’t many athletes you can say that about.

I know the NBA home office will be thrilled and delighted if the Celtics and Lakers reach the Finals, something that is a very real possibility (the Lakers can knock the Spurs out tonight, the Celts can finish the Pistons tomorrow). If that happens, we’ll see plenty of highlights from the 80s, when both teams brought out the best (and occasionally the worst) in each other and generally elevated the game to spirited heights of competiveness. And we’ll also hear from the old cast of characters, including Bill Russell.

Here is a classic story from "Second Wind: Memoirs of an Opinonated Man," by Russell with the historian Taylor Branch (1979, Random House; currently out-of-print). It’s about Russell’s grandfather and his mule, Kate. Russell’s family was from Monroe, Louisiana and he lived down there until he was about ten (his family later moved to the Bay Area where Russell played junior high hoops with Frank Robinson, who in turn played baseball with Curt Flood and Vada Pinson). He called his father’s father, The Old Man. When Russell was four or five (1938-9), he followed his grandfather and Kate around one day:

I could tell that Kate and the Old Man understood each other. One day I was walking along with them when Kate decided to go off and stand in a ditch. Being an honest mule, she had a stubborn, mulish personality, and she stood there with this determined look on her face. It was as if Kate were saying, Okay, I got you now. We’re going to do this my way." The Old Man did everything he could to get Kate back up on the road. I watched him talk to her, and push, pull, shove and kick—a tough job, because there must have been nine hundred pounds of mule there. The Old Man would get Kate’s front up on the raod and be cooing into her ear, but when he walked around to pull up her taile end, the front would sidle back into the ditch again—so he’d take a deep breath and start over. I was taking all this in, and I couldn’t believe that the Old Man didn’t lose his temper.

After a long ordeal, Kate finally wound up back on the road. The Old Man looked exhausted, and the mule must have taken some satisfaction from all the effort she’d cost him. She looked fresh and relaxed, standing there as warm and lazy as the country air. The Old Man leaned on Kate and rested there for a minute or two; then out of nowhere he hauled off and punched her with his bare fist. Wack, just once, right on the side of the neck. The thud was so loud that I must have jumped a foot. The mule gently swayed back and forth groggily; then her front legs buckled and she collapsed to her knees. Then the hindquarters slowly buckled and settled down too. Kate looked all bent and contorted, like a squatting camel, as she sat there with a vacant stare in her eyes. I was dumbstruck. Right in front of my eyes the Old Man had knocked out a MULE with one punch.

He never said a word to me or to the mule. He just let Kate sit there for a minute, and then he grabbed her by the head and picked her up. "Okay, let’s go," he said quietly, and we started off again as if nothing had happened.

That sight stuck in my mind so vividly that I learned a practical lesson from it. I got into very few fights when I played for the Celtics, but every single one of them was in the last quarter, after the game was decided. You have to choose when to fight, and that is the time. The Old Man knew he’d have been in big trouble if he’d knocked that mule down in the ditch, so he waited until it didn’t cost him anything. Then he relieved his frustration and gave Kate something to think about.

Eat your heart out Mongo.

Thanks to Pete Abraham, I caught Mike Hayes’ interview with Bob Sheppard over at a place called Busted Halo:

BH: What a lot of people don’t know about you is that you’ve been a speech teacher for most of your life at the high school and college level. Do you consider yourself a speech teacher first and the Yankee announcer second?

BS: I’m a teacher first and a Yankee announcer second or maybe third or fourth. Primarily, my whole training has been to be a speech teacher. That’s what I decided to do when I was early in college at St. John’s (University in New York). For many years I was teaching high school speech during the day, St. John’s in the late afternoons and evenings and some of the summer times, and in the meantime, I was still at Yankee Stadium doing the night games and the weekend games.

We will hopefully see Mr. Sheppard later this summer. The old place just ain’t the same without him.

For the past couple of seasons, Jay Jaffe’s blogging has slowed considerably as his writing for BP, the New York Sun, etc. has increased. However, Jay’s been back at it this spring at The Futility Infielder, which is good news for us. Check out this recent post on Doc Ellis and this fine one on his grandfather, Bernie.

Today gives Jay’s excellent piece on Marvin Miller. Peep, don’t sleep.

Funny thing happened on my way home last night. As I was walking across 6th avenue my ankle gave in. It’s the same foot I broke years ago and it remains prone to twisting. I got a cab home and then Emily took me to the emergency room. Fortunately, nothing’s broken–there might be a minor fracture, otherwise just some torn ligaments, a bad sprain. I got suited up with crutches and returned home to watch Mariano’s two innings. Then I went to bed. I didn’t even hear about Derek Jeter’s tough night until this morning. Pete Abraham called it one of Jeter’s worst games as a Yankee. In the most recent edition of The Pinstriped Bible, Steven Goldman writes:

Back in December, writing the Jeter comment for this year’s Baseball Prospectus annual, I said, “For years, Jeter’s offense has made him a net positive at shortstop despite his defense. The second half of 2007, taken together with his age, suggests that the day of reckoning may finally have arrived.” Emphasis on “may” added-if you have the book, you will note that the qualifier isn’t there. Cliff Corcoran, who reviewed the text in his sagacious way, and an experienced follower of the Yankees in his own right, argued that we should strike it, making the statement more definitive: “The day of reckoning has finally arrived.”

“Argue” is probably too strong a word for what Cliff did, as I didn’t argue with him. I noted the change and mentally shrugged, saying, “He’s right. By all available evidence, the time has come.” Yet, in the back of my mind, I was still hedging. “This is Derek Jeter! He’s got an edge, baby!” (Of course he does; he’s the only one who can afford the gas.) As time has gone by, I’ve become more convinced that that change was the right one, and become grateful for it, as Jeter’s performance has borne out the more emphatic prediction.

Tough times for Jeter and the Yanks right about now.

It doesn’t take long to go from top of the world to the end of the line, does it?  As Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodrgiuez continue to move past their prime years, I often wonder how long they will last. Which one will be injured the most?  Will one of them just fall off the table seemingly overnight?   

Trot Nixon was the heart of the Red Sox "Dirt Dog" teams just a minute ago.  Now, he’s close to finished.  Here’s an interesting AP story. 

No matter how it plays out, I think the transition to life after baseball might be particularly tough for Jeter. Here is Dennis Eckersley, always a straight-shooter, talking to Mike Bryan in spring training 1988, from the book "Baseball Lives:"

People say baseball players should go out and have fun. No way. To me, baseball is pressure. I always feel it. This is work. The fun is afterwards, when you shake hands.

When I was a rookie I’d tear stuff up. Now I keep it in. What good is smashing a light on the way up the tunnel? But I still can’t sleep at night if I stink. I’ve always tried to change that and act like a normal guy when I got home. "Hi, honey, what’s happening?" I can’t. It’s there. It doesn’t go away. But maybe that’s why I’ve been successful in my career, because I care. I don’t have fun. I pitch scared. That’s what makes me go. Nothing wrong with being scared if you can channel it.

I issued to hide behind my cockiness. Don’t let the other team know you’re scared. I got crazy on the mound. Strike a guy out, throw my fist around—"Yeah!" Not real classy, but I was a raw kid. I didn’t care. It wasn’t fake. It was me. This wasn’t taken very kindly by a lot of people. They couldn’t wait to light me up. That’s the price you pay.

I wish I was a little happier in this game. What is so great about this shit? You get the money, and then you’re used to the money. You start making half a million a year, next thing you know you need half a million a year. And the heat is on!

Used to be neat to just be a big-league ballplayer, but that wore off. I’m still proud, but I don’t want people to bother me about it. I wish my personality with people was better. I find myself becoming short with people. Going to the store. Getting gas.

If you’re not happy with when you’re doing lousy, then not happy when you’re doing well, when the hell are you going to be happy? This game will humble you in a heartbeat. Soon as you starting getting happy, Boom! For the fans—and this is just a guess—they think the money takes out the feeling. I may be wrong but I think they think, "What the hell is he worrying about? He’s still getting’ paid." There may be a few players who don’t give 100 percent, but I always thought if you were good enough to make that kind of money, you’d have enough pride to play like that, wouldn’t you think? You don’t just turn it on or off.

Go ahead and check out Joe Posnanski’s post on Derek Jeter.