Blog Archives

Considering the fact that there are so few good baseball movies, it’s inexcusable that Long Gone, a made-for-HBO baseball movie from the mid eighties (1987 to be exact, the year before Bull Durham was released) is not available on DVD. It isn’t a great movie, but it is a very good one, one that offers numerous satisfactions, particularly the performances by William Peterson (Stud Cantrell), Virginia Madsen (Dixie Lee Boxx) and Durmot Mulroney (Jamie Donn Weeks), who have rarely, if ever, been as good. In a wonderful bit of casting, William Gibson and Teller play the father and son ownership team of a low-minor league team in the 1950s (these two alone make the movie worth watching.)

The script is based on the short, but lively baseball novel by the veteran journalist and Hank Williams biographer, Paul Hemphill. The screenplay isn’t as sharp as the book. Subplots involving a black player posing as a Latino, and a young player knocking up a local girl, as well as the standard big-game finish, are weak points, but the movie retains the inherent charms of the book all the same. The locker-room scenes here are looser and more vulgar than the ones in Bull Durham (though they aren’t as lewd as the ones in Slap Shot).

Jack Nicholson was reportedly interested in playing Stud Cantrell for years. It’s too bad he didn’t make the movie because it would have been great to see Nicholson play a ballplayer when he could still get away with it. (Something tells me he’d be far more belevable than DeNiro was in Bang the Drum Slowly.) That said, Peterson is more than credible, and he’s got that same, over-the-hill spark that made Paul Newman so winning in Slap Shot. Moreover, the role of Cantrell was a welcome departure from the heavy roles Peterson played in To Live and Die in L.A. and Manhunter.

Unfortunately, HBO has not aired the movie in years and, again, it is not available on DVD. The only way to see it is on an old VHS tape. Perhaps one day, HBO will decide to re-run it. I don’t know why they wouldn’t. It’s a little gem. Not the great baseball movie that we know can (and will) be made one day, but still, a very appealing one.

(more…)

Andy Pettitte spoke to the media yesterday in Tampa. He was flanked by Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi. Teammates, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera sat nearby in the audience. Here is Pettitte’s prepared statement:

I just wanted to say, well, I’m happy to be back here and again looking forward to giving the Yankees every ounce of energy I have this season. I want to thank the New York Yankees for giving me a few extra days with my family. I think they realize this has taken a toll on my family, and other than my relationship with God, my family is the No. 1 priority in my life.

I want to apologize to the New York Yankees and to the Houston Astros organizations and to their fans and to all my teammates and to all of baseball fans for the embarrassment I have caused them. I also want to tell anyone that is an Andy Pettitte fan I am sorry, especially any kids that might look up to me. Since graduating from high school, I have spent my life working with young kids at my church and in my community. I never want a young person to do what I did.

Anyone that has followed my career knows that I have battled elbow problems the entire time. Again, like I said before, I never took this to get an edge on anyone. I did this to try to get off the DL and to do my job. And again, for that, I am sorry for the mistakes I’ve made.

I have been put in a situation that I think no one should ever be put. Being put in the middle of a situation between two men I have known for a long time has been a very difficult time for me over the last couple of months. I have never tried to take sides in Roger [Clemens] and [Brian McNamee’s] situation, but I’ve only been honest.

Roger has been one my closest friends in baseball over the last nine years. He has taught me more about pitching than I ever could have imagined. Mac has pushed me in my workouts harder than anyone I’ve ever worked with. I have been friends with Roger and Mac for a long time and, hopefully, will continue to be friends after this.

As far as the situation with my dad, I am sorry for not telling the whole truth in my original statement after the Mitchell Report was released. I am human, just like anyone else, and people make mistakes. I never wanted to bring my dad into a situation like this. This was between me and him, and no one else. I testified about my dad in part because I felt in my heart I had to, but mainly because he urged me to tell the truth, even if it hurt him. Most of you know that my dad has had numerous health problems, especially with his heart, and he was just trying to do anything to help himself feel better. He is a private individual, not a professional athlete like myself, and his privacy should be respected.

I hope with the help from y’all that I can put all this behind me and continue to do what I’ve always tried to do — that is to help bring the New York Yankees another world championship.

Most of the columnists I read this morning suggest that the drama is far from over for Pettitte.

Meanwhile, Rob Neyer had a post about Posada yesterday at ESPN. He writes, in part:

Is Posada the best “old” catcher ever? No. That title clearly belongs to Fisk. Best mid-30s catcher? I don’t think I’m prepared to say that; it’s a great battle between him and Howard. Which is appropriate because those two have a great deal in common. Both were Yankees. Both weren’t worked particularly hard in their 20s; Posada because of Joe Girardi, Howard because of Yogi Berra.

How good was Elston Howard? In his Age 34 season (above) he was the American League’s MVP; in his Age 35 season (ditto) he finished third in the voting. If he hadn’t gotten that late start he might be in the Hall of Fame.

But you know what happened to Howard after he turned 36? He stopped hitting. Howard’s OPS+’s from ages 32-35: 153, 113, 140, 128. Over those four seasons, his 133 OPS+ is No. 1 all time for catchers in that age range (minimum 500 games). And No. 2? Posada (130 OPS+), followed by Hall of Famers Hartnett (127), Berra (118) and Fisk (117).

Howard’s OPS+’s from 36-39: 77, 98, 42, 92. That last number, while constituting an impressive rebound, 1) came in only 71 games, and 2) came in Howard’s last season.

Will the same fate befall Posada? Almost certainly not. Howard’s a sample size of exactly one, and certainly doesn’t predict Posada’s future. On the other hand, Fisk is essentially the only catcher who’s remained a truly productive hitter into his late 30s. Who is Posada more likely to resemble, Fisk, or the many other good-hitting catchers in the game’s long history?

The answer seems obvious.

More obviousness: Posada was incredibly lucky in 2007. Perhaps it goes without saying that when any player puts up numbers that are both historic and out of character with the rest of his career, he had a bit of luck on his side. It was more than a bit, though; when Posada put the ball into play he batted around .390, far higher than his career norms. This year he’ll be back to normal, and should post numbers something like his outstanding performance from 2004 through 2006. But can he keep it going for more than another year or two? Historically speaking, it’s terribly unlikely. And as great as he’s been, one wonders if he’ll really be worth $13 million per season from today through October of 2011.

I expected Posada and Alex Rodriguez to come back down to earth some this year. But they will still likely be All-Stars (though it’ll be interesting to see how the third base voting goes now with Cabrera in the league), even if their numbers understandably fall off.

It wasn’t so long ago when you really had to hunt around to find good Yankee blogs. That just isn’t the case anymore. In fact, there are so many interesting Yankee-based blogs that I have tough time keeping up with them all. We don’t even have a full listing of ’em all on our blog roll, but there is still more than plenty to keep you busy: Replacement Level Yankees, Yanksfan v. Soxfan, River Ave. Blues, Yankees Chick, Canyon of Heroes (welcome back, dude), Was Watching, and No Maas, just to name a few (and no disrespect meant to the other fine blogs that I didn’t mention). Kat O’Brien, who did an excellent job on the beat last season, is blogging On the Yankee Beat, Jack Curry and Tyler Kepner do a nice job at Bats, and of course, there is Pete Abraham, whose tireless efforts have established The Lo-Hud Yankees Blog as the premiere one-stop shop for all the behind-the-scenes Yankees action. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that Pete has raised the bar for all the professional writers who are now being asked to blog in addition to carrying out their usual assignments. This is a perfect, little example of why his site is so good–nice composition Scorsese, you done good.

I tried to represent as many different sports as possible when I put together The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan. Funny thing is, while there may be more great writing about boxing than any other sport, including baseball, no boxing stories made the cut, though Pat’s done some decent ones, like this one about Amir Khan, the Great British-Pakistani-Muslim Hope:

At 10 p.m., Amir Khan walked into the arena amid the flash of cameras and TV lights and the Asian girls aiming their cellphone cameras at him. He was wearing his trademark silver trunks, but with a slight alteration: tartan trim had been sewn in. Steve Gethin stood in his corner, his blue eyes wide.

The bell rang for Round 1. Khan loped into the center of the ring and began to stalk Gethin. He moved gracefully, bent over at the waist, bobbing and weaving left and right, his hands dangling low to the canvas. Khan did not look so young now, nor so slight. He looked huge next to Gethin and dangerous in a primitive way. Suddenly he attacked Gethin, hitting him with three quick punches before Gethin could react. Khan did resemble Muhammad Ali in the ring. It’s almost sinuous, the way he moves. He’s a trained fighter, but an instinctive one too.

Khan pursued Gethin, who backpedaled, Khan weaving hypnotically, and then he sprang again, pummeling Gethin with so many quick punches it seemed as if they were all one long, continuous punch. Gethin wrapped his arms around Khan and waited for the referee to separate them.

The fight didn’t last very long. The referee stopped it in the third round, after Khan again battered Gethin’s head with so many quick blows in succession that Gethin could only cover his face with his gloves and forsake any thought of throwing a counterpunch.

Khan raised his arms in victory. Some cheered; others were upset the fight had been stopped early. The members of “Khan’s Barmy Army” poured out of their seats. They began to leave the arena, waving their Union Jack-Pakistani flag at the seated fans. The Scottish fans began to throw things at them. Bottles. Sharpened coins. Cups of beer. “Khan’s Barmy Army” covered their heads. Security appeared from the runways, surrounded Khan’s “army” and hustled them out of the arena. In the ring, Amir Khan, oblivious, was being interviewed on ITV with his father.

Pat did a handful of hockey pieces for Sports Illustraed in the ’70s including a good one on Derek Sanderson. We included a hockey story in our collection, one of his earliest pieces for Sport magazine, about the Bruins at the old Boston Garden. Here is a good little profile Jordan did on Mike Keenan for The Sporting News in 1994, just after coach Keenan left the Rangers for St. Louis.

Italian waiters at Gian-Peppe’s Restaurant in “The Hill” section of St. Louis are wearing tuxedos with frilly shirts. They hover around Keenan at his table as if he were the Mafia Don out of “A Bronx Tale.”

“I used to hang around with seven Italian brothers when I was a kid,” he says. “I was the only Irish kid. If they got a beating from their mother, I got a beating from her, too.” He laughs, and drains his beer. Keenan asks a waiter to bring him a phone. He has to call his daughter, who will visit him tomorrow, and he’s worried that she might not have gotten the airplane ticket he sent her.

“It causes me great pain to be away from her,” he says, as the waiter returns with the phone. “I’m proud of my accomplishments, but maybe my ambition was selfish. You pay a personal price. Loneliness. It’s the only thing that scares me.” He makes the call, but his daughter is not home. The other waiter returns with a beer. For a tough-guy hockey coach, Keenan talks a lot about pain and lone-liness and even fear. He had a fear of failure when he took over at Philadelphia.

“I was confident,” he says. “I felt ready. But there’s always that fear in hockey if you’re not successful you’ll never coach again. I felt I had to be firm with my players and then I’d back off after a while, you know, the way a teacher does. But the players didn’t think I let up as much as I should have. I like to think my relationship with players has improved. I’ve improved. After the separation, I learned to reflect on life. To be introspective, tolerant and understanding. It was an awakening.” He picks up the phone and dials his daughter again.

I’m not a hockey fan and I never have been. I don’t follow boxing but I liked it as a kid. Hagler, Hearns, Sugar Ray. The tail end of Ali. The Rocky movies (seeing Rocky III in the balcony of Loews 83rd street–a theater no longer with us–with the place literally shaking during the big fight at the end, was one of the more memorable movie experiences of my childhood). Larry Holmes v. Tim Witherspoon, vs. R. Tex Cobb, all the way through Iron Mike’s early days.

I want to read more boxing writing at some point–there’s so much good stuff out there. I’d at least like to give it a shot. It’s such an appealing sport for writers because, as Len Shapiro of the Washington Post says, “It’s the greatest sport in the world until they get in the ring.”

Lot of good boxing movies too, come to think of it: Body and Soul, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Fat City, Rocky, Raging Bull, When We Were Kings. And Slap Shot is arguably the greatest sports movie of them all.

Following in the tradition of his old man, Hank Steinbrenner says he hopes he won’t regret not making a deal for Johan Santana. Maybe Hank will start coming through the clubhouse and give the troops the ol’ Knute Rockne before long.

Item:

“Joba is competing for a spot in the starting rotation right now,” Joe Girardi said. “We’re preparing him to be a starter. We’re going to look at the pitching staff as a whole and decide where people best fit.”
(N.Y. Daily News)

So, maybe Chamberlain won’t be in the pen this year. Starter, reliever, which one of these? Speaking of Joba, last year, a friend of mine pointed me to this good, 2005 profile from Omaha World-Herald.

Item:

Chien-Ming Wang lost his arbitration case.

Item:

Over at Replacement Level Yankees, SG has a nifty two-part series on the best seasons ever by Yankee pitchers: starters and relievers. Check it out.

The spring baseball books will start coming out soon. I’d like to try to have more book reviews this year, and not necessarily long ones either. Have you ever read James Agee’s movie reviews for Time magazine (collected in the essential Agee on Film)–he’d write these killer little wrap-ups in three or four sentences that are as appealing, in their own way, as a five-page Pauline Kael bender.

I’ve run book reviews by Chris DeRosa for several years now and he recently sent me a file of his complete book reviews from the past eight years. There are a couple of longer, Yankee-related critiques that I’ll post shortly, but for now, check out a DeRosa sampler (again, I found myself drawn to the short reviews).

On the Shelf

by Chris DeRosa.

Roger Angell, Game Time: A Baseball Companion (2003)

Essays from the 60s to now. As Richard Ford says in the introduction, Angell is not a baseball romanticist, and it’s true he’s too light on his feet to be labeled a sentimentalist, but he does write with great affection for the game, in an adult voice that never takes itself too seriously. This collection features many examples of his strengths: the eye for the telling detail, the felicitous turns of phrase, and the sweet wrap-ups. I read him to remember, rather than to learn, but I learned some things too. Check out this description, from the 1980 essay “Distances.”

Gibson’s pitch flashed through the strike zone with a unique, upward-moving, right-to-left sail that snatched it away from a right –handed batter or caused it to jump up and in at a left-handed swinger—a natural break of six to eight inches—and hitters who didn’t miss the ball altogether usually fouled it off or nudged it harmlessly into the air. The pitch, which was delivered with a driving, downward flick of Gibson’s long forefinger and middle finger (what pitchers call “cutting the ball”), very much resembled an inhumanly fast slider, and was often taken as such by batters unfamiliar with his stuff.

Bob Gibson had Mariano’s cutter?

Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract

You know that great baseball conversation you wish you could have with Bill James? This is it. Nine-hundred player comments provide James a forum for a free-wheeling and fascinating discussion in which he proves himself not only the game’s greatest analyst, but its ablest historian and keenest practical observer. Some people assume James knows abstract numbers but they know actual baseball. In fact, James runs rings around his critics as a student of “actual” baseball. No one watches the game like he does, or at least no one watches it like he does and can also connect what he sees to the game’s larger contexts. The guy is a genius. Perhaps the best baseball book ever published.

Charles Einstein, Willie’s Time: Baseball’s Golden Age (1979)

Rob Neyer wrote a glowing review of this book when it was reprinted in 2004. I wanted to check it out, but it was shrink-wrapped and I thought I maybe had read it at the Closter Public Library about (geez) 18 years ago. Finally I saw an unwrapped copy and flipped through. I quickly understood what Neyer and other people thought was so great about it. There’s a lot in there about Lyndon Johnson and the war and such. It’s not about Willie so much as the times, see? Nah! I mean who would turn to a Willie Mays bio for a history of the Sixties?

Glenn Stout, Yankees Century: 100 Years of New York Yankees Baseball (Houghton-Mifflin, 2002)

The best history of the Yankees ever written, though not necessarily definitive. Stout’s writing can be strangely informal, but at times lively. The analysis of the baseball on the field is strictly conventional and not as probing as it should be, but no other book has tried to synthesize the history team in as much detail and on as many levels. Stout is at his best on the politics of the early American League, but he’s also interesting when trashing Ralph Houk, profiling Steinbrenner, and enthusing about Torre’s Yankees. Good photos, with celebrity pinch-writers contributing essays, including the obligatory Molly O’Neill piece. David Halberstam’s essay on George Weiss reiterates the legitimate criticisms, but makes no attempt whatsoever to explain why he was a great GM, nor does Ira Berkow’s effort shed much light on Stengel.

Richard J. Tofel, A Legend in the Making: The New York Yankees in 1939 (2002)

The 1939 Yankees get their book. It’s too bad they waited so long to make their move on the 1927 Yankees. They might have been top dog for a while if they’d jelled before 1998, before DiMaggio died. Tofel isn’t the only one to do this, but he repeats without comment the quotes saying that Lou didn’t forgive Babe and didn’t hug him back on Lou Gehrig Day in 1939. However, Gehrig’s fingers are clearly visible on Ruth’s shoulder in the accompanying photograph. Maybe he didn’t forgive him anyway.

The analysis of the team is pretty conventional and not deep. But it does provide the definitive account of the demise of Lou Gehrig. Tofel cites medical journal articles that plausibly claim that Gehrig was feeling physical effects of his disease in 1938, even though his stats don’t show a tell-tale ski-slope across the season. The portrait of Gehrig, fleshed out by personal correspondence, is the richest part of the book, but it offers other interesting tidbits such as: Art Fletcher led the team in a singing of “Roll Out the Barrel,” after every win. The players treated the All Star Game with the utmost seriousness, on par with the World Series. In the summer of 1940, Gehrig sued the Daily News for suggesting that the Yankees’ struggles were due to a team-wide ALS infection. He won a settlement.

Mel Stottlemyre, The Pride and the Pinstripes: The Yankees, The Mets, and Surviving Life’s Challenges (2007)

The real story of Mel Stottlemyre’s career as a pitching coach revolves around his misguided effort to teach Dwight Gooden the cut fastball, and Mariano Rivera’s later development of the very same pitch. Of the former, Stottelmyre has nothing to say, and on the latter, he writes: “From the first time I saw him he was throwing his legendary cutter.” Most people date the cutter to the 1997 season, as opposed to 1996, Stottlemyre and Rivera’s first year together. Either Stottlemyre has it totally wrong, or maybe Rivera was mixing in the cutter more than we thought in 1996. I do have that tape of game 2 of the 1995 ALDS where he throws what the broadcasters describe as a “real good cut fastball.”

Don Zimmer, Zim

Don Zimmer, features Gerbil in his Yankee helmet, but the photo I clipped for the baseball annual is a lot more spontaneous. Some might think that Zimmer, part of the Boys of Summer, the ’62 Mets, the tragic Red Sox, a Wrigley miracle, and Torre’s Yanks, would have a lot of good stories for a book like this. But Don Zimmer isn’t an observer type. He’s a funny character in other people’s stories. A standing-in-the-bookstore review reveals nothing amusing in this one.

Roger Angell, A Pitcher’s Story

Roger Angell has written a book about David Cone’s 2000 season. Cone is known as a guy who isn’t a rube, but he’s never been that interesting either. The excerpt in the New Yorker was a bore, with Cone and Angell fretting about his injuries and woes in mundane fashion. A whole book like this would be about as fun as Cone’s 4-14 season.

Jonathan Eig, The Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (2005)

Standing in the bookstore, I see that he doesn’t cover Gehrig’s demise in as much detail as Tofel did. Plus you have the Ray Robinson bio. If you ask me, Lou Gehrig is borderline biography material to begin with.

Mickey Rivers, Ain’t No Sense Worryin’

An important contribution to the 1977-78 New York Yankees’ drive to be the first “25 players, 25 books” team in baseball history.

Frank Graham, The New York Yankees: An Informal History

I guess he was a good writer, but all the stories in here are hokey and inaccurate.

Stephen Jay Gould, Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville

I picked up Gould’s posthumous baseball collection, flipped it open randomly, landed on an idiotic apology for Joe Jackson, and immediately shut it replaced it on the shelf.

David Maraniss, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero (2006)

I don’t expect a lot of agreement here, but I submit that the more enraptured you are by Roberto Clemente, the less you actually know and care about baseball.

James Sturm, The Golem’s Mighty Swing

Stark graphic novel about a House of David team in a bad scrape.

Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy (2002)

I was less impressed than most reviewers. Informative but a little wrapped up in the poetry of it all.

John Gall and Gary Engel, Sayonara Home Run! The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card (2006)

Katie saw this in the art section of a great bookstore in Miami, but I thought it was too expensive. Later I bought it remaindered, and liked it so much I almost feel guilty about not paying the original price. The cards look great and this has to be one of the most beautifully designed baseball books ever published.

Last Tuesday, Cliff and I met in Manhattan for dinner. We walked a few miles north, up Manhattan’s west side, and caught up on our lives. When we got to the 72nd street subway station we saw Hillary Clinton supporters and Cliff spotted Rob Reiner, boosting for Mrs. Clinton. Cliff and I enjoyed dinner and then I came home and came down with the worst stomach virus I’ve ever had. I still haven’t fully recovered but it knocked the hell out of me something fierce for a few days there, which is why I haven’t posted anything of late.

Catching up, however, here are some links for you:

Over at Tiger Tales, Lee Panas conducted an interesting study on baserunning. Using the Retrosheet play-by-play databases, he determined the success rates for base runners in taking extra bases on hits and advancing on ground outs, air outs, stolen bases and other plays. Then, Panas combined everything into a single base running performance measure called Bases Gained Above Average(BGAA). According to his findings, Johnny Damon was the third best base runner in the American League in 2007.

Sam Borden, previously with the Daily News, is now a columnist for the Lo-Hud. Here is Jack Curry profiles Joe Girardi.

In the News, Don Mattingly tells Bill Madden that it is just as well he wasn’t hired as the Yankee manager, given the recent turn of events in his private life.

Yanksfan vs. Soxfan tackles the PECOTA predictions for the 2008 Bronx Bombers.

Also, I know this story is dated, but did you guys see this about Mike Lupica v. Lisa Olson? Yikes.

It is unseasonably warm but overcast this morning in New York. I saw a gang of Manhattan college kids wearing Eli Manning jerseys trooping to the subway this morning, on their way down to the parade. When I got off the train in midtown, more Giants fans–a father taking his young son over to Rockefeller Center, a group of high schoolers cutting school. Everybody likes a parade, right?

Not for nothing, but I’m not a fan of the Yankeeography series–I find the shows slick at best and maudlin at worst–but the box set is worth checking out for the bonus dvds, which feature player highlights. The best part of these highlights is that most of them are not cut-up like the ones we generally see on TV. In many cases, they’ll show an entire at-bat sequence, pitch-by-pitch, in real time. The bonus clips are not thorough, and concentrate on home runs (I would have loved to see a fielding compilation for Willie Randolph), but still, it is refreshing to see baseball clips that don’t rush by you like a slam dunk. I wish there was more of that. Plus, I’d love it if they did a spin-off Yankeeography show, one where they would honor guys like Roy White and Joe Gordon.

Finally, Roger Clemens visits Washington today. Pete Abraham summed up my feelings about this nonsense last week in a rant over on his blog.

For all of the hype about the kind of character it takes to win championships, it also takes a certain amount of luck. Takes both, not always in equal measure. When Eli and Plax could not hook up on that play with the Giants leading 10-7, I thought it’d be the moment they’d most regret should they have lost the game. But then, how about that improbable David Tyree catch? Are you kidding me? That was the Bucky Dent moment of the game. How did Manning not get sacked? How did Tyree manage to come down with that ball? Talk about the All-Schoolyard Play of the season! Then Eli made a few more key passes, including the game-winner. Good for him.

Of course, much of the credit for the win goes to New York’s defense.

Have to say, their coach aside (who manages to be terse and dour in victory as well as defeat), the Pats were gracious in defeat. Reminded me a little bit of when the Yanks lost the D-Backs in ’01. Tom Brady is a class act.

It is snowing in Manhattan this morning. Andy Pettitte visits Washington today. But right now, the city is alive with the Giants’ stunning Super Bowl win. Congrats G-Men, you done made the city proud.

Take that Beantown.

Holy cow.

Big game out west tonight, Giants/Pats. Stupit Bowl. Tom Petty at the half. Em and I will be watching. Made ribs in the oven this afternoon. I’m not a Giants fan but I’ll have no trouble rooting for them tonight. I like Eli. Tom Brady and Randy Moss are great players, and I’ve never hated the Patriots they way I hate the Red Sox (never hated the Celtics either). Their coach is overbeaing but what can you say? Can’t have it all. I’m not wild about the Giants coach either. Hopefully, it’s a game mid-way through the fourth quarter. Would be a major upset if the Gints pull out the win. I suspect a decisive victory for New England, but one never knows…

In getting to know Ray Negron, nothing surprised me more than his portrait of Billy Martin as a loyal, big-hearted friend. As much as I admire Martin’s talents as a manager, I’ve generally subscribed to John Schulian’s classic description of Martin as a rat studying to be a mouse. Schulian has been a newspaper man in Chicago and Baltimore and Washington D.C., a magazine writer for S.I. and GQ, a script writer for “L.A. Law,” and is the creator of “Xena: Warrior Princess,” the pop Lesbian icon. Recently, I came across his review of Peter Golenbock’s second Martin book (Golenbock ghosted Martin’s best-selling autobiography, “Number 1”), “Wild, High and Tight.” He doesn’t mince words:

One reads of the mess Billy Martin called his life and wonders how he ever found time for baseball. He was a relentless boozer, a sucker puncher and a chippy chaser, and the sum of his personal ugliness overwhelmed whatever good he did for the New York Yankees.

Even after Martin died in a drunken-driving accident on Christmas Day, 1989, his evil could still be felt. He had anticipated his demise, it seems, by plotting against a sister who had somehow offended him. If she dared to show up at his funeral, he wanted his daughter to spit in her face.

He reveled in his public image as a stand-up guy who backed down to no man. But that was all part of the testosterone-fueled myth that consumed the feral creature who was born Alfred Manuel Martin Jr. If you make it through Peter Golenbock’s Wild, High and Tight, you will find a decidedly different Martin, one who lacked the strength to prevent his own emasculation at the hands of a tyrannical boss and a scheming wife.

His boss was George Steinbrenner, who got nailed for making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign and reigns as the most hated man in New York sports for his boorish ownership of the Yankees. Steinbrenner hired and fired Martin five times as the Yanks’ manager, all the while maintaining that he was trying to help poor Billy and succeeding only in establishing a certain sickness in both of them.

Martin changed wives as if they were socks until he got to his fourth, a photographer and equestrian who beguiled him with her sexual prowess and turned what Steinbrenner had left of his mind to pudding.

Martin deserved her. He deserved Steinbrenner, too. He even deserved Wild, High and Tight, and that may be the cruelest thing anyone can say of the man.

For this is an unpleasant, artless piece of business, bloated in the extreme at 544 pages and devoid of literary or journalistic merit except for the case Golenbock makes that Martin was driving the day he died, not the buddy who lived to take the fall for him. The rest of the time, Golenbock proves just what he has in each of his 14 previous books: He is a writer only because he has a tape recorder that works.

Ouch.

Which brings me to my favorite Martin story from “Number One,” about how his mother threw his father out of the house when she was pregnant because she found out that he was fooling around with a 15-year old girl.

“To this day, and she’s older than eighty, she hasn’t forgiven him. She told me, ‘I’m going to outlive that son of a bitch, and when they bury him, I’m going to the funeral, and in front of all his friends and relatives, I’m going to pull up my dress and piss on his grave.”

That’s no lady…that’s me muddah.

A few years ago, I was part of a three-man panel at the Y on the upper west side. The topic was blogging and the sports world. Matt Cerrone, whose Metsblog was picked up by SNY last year, and Will Leitch, the founder of Deadspin, and I spoke in front of a modest crowd. Allen Barra was the moderator. Will was charismatic, funny and exceedingly bright, and while I’m only an occasional reader of Deadspin, I’ll not soon forget the impression he made on him that evening. (Here I was thinking that I was going to be the charismatic, charming one!) Mostly what I remember about Will is his stance regarding the traditional media. Essentially, Will said that in the modern age of the Internet and satalitte TV, the role of the traditional beat writer has become marginalized to the extent that fans don’t really care what those reporters provide. While I wasn’t completely sold on Will’s theory, I sure found him convincing.

Leitch expands on his thinking in his new book, God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports. There is a serious-minded political agenda in this breezy volume which takes the mickey out of just about everyone, particularly the folks at the Worldwide Leader, ESPN. But the writing is not pedantic or boring because Leitch is too busy being funny–another tough trick to pull off for a couple of hundred pages. Somehow, he manages to find just the right tone, and the book is a gas. I found myself laughing out loud often–something that rarely happens to me–and was left with a similiar feeling than the one I had when I met Will at the Y–that of being duly impressed.

Worth checking out.

From what I’ve read, critics believe that the Mets made a terrific deal in nabbing Johan Santana, offering a less attractive package than the ones the Yankees and Red Sox had reportedly offered.

ESPN analyst Keith Law loves the deal from a Mets perspective:

The Mets get Johan Santana without giving up Fernando Martinez, their best prospect, or Mike Pelfrey, their best young pitcher. They also immediately make themselves the favorites to win their division and have a good argument that they’re the best team in the National League. It’s hard to see this deal as anything other than a win for New York, and given how many people claimed (erroneously) that the Mets didn’t have the prospects to get Santana, it must be doubly sweet for Omar Minaya right now.

For the Twins, or at least for their fans, this has to feel like a huge letdown after a winter that saw names like Jacoby Ellsbury and Phil Hughes bandied about by the media, although whether those players were actually available in trade talks is another matter entirely. The Twins deal their best asset and the best pitcher in franchise history — not to mention the greatest Rule 5 pick in the history of that draft — for quantity, but not the type of quality you expect a pitcher of his caliber to fetch in return.

Aaron Gleeman, a Twins fan-turned analyst, championed Santana from the start. He writes:

In a perfect world Santana would christen the new ballpark with an Opening Day start in 2010 and wear a Twins cap on his Hall of Fame plaque, but for whatever reason his remaining in Minnesota never seemed to be a legitimate option once the trade rumors began swirling. Swapping him for packages led by Hughes or Ellsbury would have put the Twins in a better position for both short- and long-term success, so if either of those deals were passed on then Smith made a major mistake.

With that said, getting Gomez, Guerra, Mulvey, and Humber from the Mets likely beats keeping Santana for one more season and taking a pair of draft picks when he departs as a free agent. A toolsy center fielder who hasn’t shown much offensively, a very raw 18-year-old pitcher, and a pair of MLB-ready middle-of-the-rotation starters is no one’s idea of a great haul for Santana, but it’s not a horrible one and Smith may have backed himself into a corner by not jumping on better offers immediately.

The end result of a bad situation handled poorly is a mediocre package of players that has no one excited, but even acquiring Hughes or Ellsbury wouldn’t have made losing Santana easy to live with. Trading away one of the best players in franchise history while he’s still at the top of his game is a horrible thing and doing so without getting the best possible return for him is extremely disappointing, but the Santana trade still has a chance to work out in the Twins’ favor. It just could have been better.

(more…)

Our boys cross town have put an end to the Johan Santana saga. Mr. Santana won’t be pitching for the Yanks or the Red Sox (thank goodness) but for the Mets. Here is the breaking story.

The Pat Jordan pick of the week is a profile he did on the ol’ red-headed Deadhead for the New York Times Magazine back in 2001. Here’s Bill Walton’s Inside Game:

Back at the house, Walton goes to practice his piano while his sons go outside to play one of their fierce two-on-two basketball games. Nate and Bruk Vandeweghe, who has lived with the family for 20 years, team up against Chris and a friend. Luke, limping from an ankle sprain he suffered in one of the boys’ recent games, sits in a chair and mimics his father broadcasting the game that is filled with rough play and profanity.

Nate fakes under the basket and tosses in a hook shot. “Nice utilization of the body,” Luke intones. Chris immediately hits a long jumper. “But Chris will not go away,” Luke says.

Chris drives toward the basket and tosses a pass behind his back that goes out of bounds. “A good look,” Luke says, “but a little too fancy.”

Nate and Chris dive for a loose ball and bang heads. Chris screams a profanity at Nate, and Nate curses back. As play resumes, Walton hobbles out on his crutches to watch. “What are you doing here?” Nate says. The boys’ game is deflated. They continue to play, but without their previous fury; no more curses, just a lot of uncontested jump shots until the game expires.

After the game, Vandeweghe sits by the pool and talks about his life with the Waltons. He acts as their unofficial manservant, serving drinks, giving the boys massages on the living-room table and running errands. “This house is in a time warp,” he says. “Like a monastery. Still, there’s a lot going on here you don’t know.” He smiles. “Bill wants everyone to have a good time. At his parties, there are three girls to every guy. Bill lets you do anything with girls as long as you don’t talk about it in front of Lori. She’s subservient, like a geisha. She serves her purpose for Bill. She’s thrilled to be with a star.” He says that the Waltons’ divorce was hard on Susie. “She was like my second mom. She can’t lie. Bill can’t talk about her because he knows she’s right.”

At that moment, Nate, furious, comes out of the house toward Vandeweghe. “Same old garbage!” he snaps. “I told Bill I was gonna see Mom, and he says he wants to talk to me for five minutes, and it goes on and on, nowhere.”

Not everybody loved Jordan’s story. Here is a letter the Times published on November 25, 2001:

In the 20 years since I wrote about the Portland Trail Blazers in an earlier book, Bill Walton and I have become good friends, and I have spent a good deal of time with him and with his sons (Pat Jordan, Oct. 28). The relationship between father and sons has always struck me as loving, supportive and mutually generous; I think it is not unimportant that in a home where the father let all of his sons follow their own stars, all four wanted to play basketball. More important, what Pat Jordan missed was the story right in front of him: the rarest kind of courage and exuberance on the part of an athlete, once gifted, whose ability to maximize the uses of his body is so critical to his psyche but is now so seriously jeopardized by the cruelest kind of injuries to both feet.

David Halberstam
New York

Clearly, Pat never read How to Wins Friends and Influence People.

[Photo Credit: L.A. Times]

My apologies for the radio silence. I was away for a few days. Be back in the swing of things shortly. Meanwhile, I’m behind on all the news….

Hey, looks like Robbie Cano will be in pinstripes for some time to come, huh? That’s cool. It also appears as if David Cone is set to join the YES broadcast booth. I thought Coney would have jumped directly from his uniform to the booth but it’s taken a few years (the Boss wasn’t too wild about Cone playing for the Mets again either). Be interesting to see how he does.

I think that the Patriots will wipe the floor with the Giants in the Super Bowl in spite of the fact that New York has a shot to make it a real contest. But it would sure be something if the Giants ended the Patriots’ epic season, wouldn’t it? And I’m not a Giants fan, just a New Yorker. I mean, dag, even the Celtics are more than just a fluke.

Truth is, I never disliked the Pats or Celtics as a kid, even though I’ve always loathed the Red Sox. (Same fans pretty much, just different time of year. Makes a lot of sense, huh?) Morgan, Grogan,James, Tippett (the “other” 56)–all favorites. The 80s Celtics too. Liked ’em better than Showtime. Nate Archibald was my first favorite player (mostly because I was short and his name was Tiny). Bird, McHale, the Big Chief. And now, I find it difficult to hate Tom Brady or Kevin Garnett, who has always been terrific, one of the very best things about the NBA.

Speaking of the Celts, have you ever read Bill Russell’s memoir “Second Wind: Memoirs of an Opinonated Man,” written with the historian Taylor Branch? Russell grew up in West Oakland, and I came across this book when I was writing Stepping Up, a biography of Curt Flood–who, incidentally, would have turned 70 last week. Rusell was four years older than Flood but played high school basketball with Frank Robinson. Anyhow, it is a good read, emotionally direct and tender–worth snatching up if you ever find it in a used bookshop.

One of my favorite stories is about Russell’s grandfather and his mule, Kate. Russell’s family was from Monroe, Louisiana and he actually lived down there until he was about ten. 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.

Will Carroll pinch-hits over at Lo-Hud. Check it out.

While the saga of Roger ‘n’ Andy continues, there is football to be had today. It’s b-r-i-c-k in New York and gunna be even colder in Green Bay and New England. I’m not much of a football fan these days, but I’m looking forward to the second game, which looks like a good match-up. The first game isn’t as appealing because I just don’t see how the Chargers can even hang with the Pats. To be honest, I figure everyone is playing for second place anyhow, with how dominant New England is. Still, it’d be cool to see Brett Favre back in the big game, and it’d even be nice to see Eli Manning make it.

Here’s to staying warm, enjoying some good food, and hopefully, a couple of good games today.