Blog Archives

Dude, it is hot in New York. Dog Day Afternoon/Do The Right Thing Hot. Hey, anyone stay up and watch The Bronx is Burning? The Home Run Derby put me to sleep. I did wake up to catch a few minutes of the mini-series and thought it was a mess. But I only saw a few minutes. Was it any good?

Meanwhile, links: Pete Abraham on Phillip Hughes; Jack Curry on Alex Rodriguez; SG on the Bombers’ offense at the break; John Helyar on George Steinbrenner, and, finally, Steven Goldman caught up with Dr. Bobby Brown and Rick Cerrone last weekend at Old Timer’s Day. Check it out. The bit with Cerrone is especially good.

Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez each hit three-run homers on Sunday as the Yanks bounced back from a tough loss on Saturday by pounding the Angels 12-0. Chien-Ming Wang earned his 9th win of the season while Rodriguez added 4 RBI, giving him 86, with 30 homers and 79 runs scored. Yup, he leads the majors in all three categories. His home run yesterday moved Rodriguez passed Lou Gehrig on the all-time list. The Bombers finish the first half of the season one game under .500.

Bunch of links for you. Dig:

Tim Marchman doesn’t think the Yanks will have a fire sale this summer; Tyler Kepner takes a look at some of the Yankees’ pitching prospects; Richard Sandomir reviews The Bronx is Burning; Reggie Jackson is none too thrilled about ESPN’s mini-series; Joe Posnanski weighs in on Derek Jeter’s fielding, and SG examines how the pitching staff did in the first half of the season.

The Yanks played well enough to lose on the 4th of July. When Johan Santana is the opposing pitcher, you know it is going to be a tough day, regardless. But the Yanks let the game get away from them late and fell to the Twins, 6-2. Still, the Bombers have a chance to win the series with a victory this afternoon and I’ve got a hunch that Kei Igawa will pitch well. Alex Rodriguez, who is 0-for-his-last-19, is not in the starting line-up.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Roger Clemens pitched a strong, efficient game against the Twins on Monday night, good enough for win #350 in his storied career, as the Yanks rolled 5-1. Clemens needed only 97 pitches to complete eight innings. He was helped out by an aggresive Twins offense; normally, Clemens uses up close to 100 pitches to get through five or six innings. But his splitter was working and the Twins were duly impressed.

It was a much-needed win the Yanks, but then again, aren’t all their wins much-needed these days? Bobby Abreu absolutely plastered a ball high into the upper deck in right field and had three hits all told.

However, it wasn’t a free-and-easy night as Alex Rodriguez came up lame with a strained hamstring after colliding with Justin Morneau at first base. He was able to walk off the field on his own. Still, the thought of Rodriguez missing a significant chunk of time is disheartening to say the least. He’ll be checked out by a doctor today. Hopefully, he’ll just miss a few games. Even if they have to shut him down until after the break, so be it, so long as he’s not gone for a month or more. Pete Abraham is cautiously optimistic at best.

Drag.

Believing?

Well, um, would you believe that rain spoiled and then perhaps saved the Yankees tonight? We don’t know the outcome of Thursday night’s game between the Yankees and the Orioles because it was suspended with two out in the top of the eighth and won’t be continued until the Yankees are in town again, which is at the end of July. The game was delayed just after the O’s took a two run lead in the seventh. Then, it was called for a second time immediately after Derek Jeter singled home two runs off Chris Ray in the eighth, giving the Yankees an 8-6 lead. Melvin Mora berated the umpires for not stopping the game sooner. According to the AP:

Before Jeter stepped to the plate, Mora pleaded with third base umpire Tim Tschida to stop the game.

“I just asked him, ‘You don’t think it’s too wet?’ He started yelling at me and cursed,” Mora said. “I said, ‘This is worse than when you stopped the game when we was winning. Why you don’t stop it now? I can’t even see the ball.’

“He just tried to make Jeter hit so they can score one run so they can get out of here. That’s what I think,” said Mora, who was ejected from the game.

So the Yankees end one of the worst road trips in recent memory with an incomplete (just for the night, not for the trip). They didn’t actually win a game, but they at least they were leading when it ended.

Chien Ming Wang didn’t have dominant stuff but he pitched efficiently for the first six innings. Alex Rodriguez made a fine, one-handed play on a bunt attempt by Melvin Mora early in the game. Several innings later, Brian Roberts robbed Derek Jeter of a hit by backhanding a ball hit up the middle and then turning and making a great throw as his body was falling away to left field.

The Yankees couldn’t come up with a big hit, but they were driving in runs with outs and working deep counts on Daniel Cabrera, who was characteristically wild. Rodriguez had a chance to break the game open in the sixth. He came up with the bases loaded and one out and was sitting on a 3-1 count but grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

Wang then quickly gave up a 4-2 lead as Baltimore scored four runs in bottom of the seventh. I couldn’t believe the Yankes were going to blow another game. You have got to be kidding me. And it all came apart on Wang so suddenly. But I give the team credit for how they came back in the eighth. Jeter’s two-out hit is something he’s done so often over the course of his career, it’s almost easy to take for granted. But even though it didn’t secure a win tonight, I’m sure Jeter and the rest of the Yankees are appreciating it plenty.

This has turned out to be a strange season hasn’t it?

Joe Torre’s decision not to bring Mariano Rivera into Tuesday night’s game was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Jay Jaffe, who says the 2007 Yanks are toast:

…I’m officially now Beyond Caring. No more objects thrown at the TV, no more Tivoing their games so I can cling to a shred of hope. This season is done for the Yankees. Throw them on the pile of expensive toys that broke all too quickly. Go spend some time with your loved ones rather than tuning in for the daily rust and rot. You’ve got better things to do than to cheer on this trainwreck.

I like Joe Torre and have stuck up for him over the years despite his flaws, but I think Steven Goldman is on-point when he writes:

The Torre we’re seeing this year increasingly looks like a refugee from a parallel universe, one in which the mediocre manager of the Mets, Braves, and Cardinals never gave way to the Hall of Famer of 1996–2001…From George Washington to Ronald Reagan, all great leaders decline as they age. This is no insult to Torre, but simply a fact of life. He has carved his place in history, and now he should be history. He knew what to do in 1996, but in an ironical twist, is now clueless in 2007. It’s time for a change.

Cliff said it all. This is a Dead Team Walking. (Now, watch them go out and actually play well against the A’s, Twins and Angels, just to tease us.)

Hey, speaking of Jay, check out the latest installment of our series about the 1977 World Series box set. At the very least it’ll take your mind off the present-day Yanks.

The Yankees nine game road trip against the Rockies, Giants and Orioles is not going well at all, as the Bombers have lost four of the first five games. Yesterday was most painful as Chien-Ming Wang and the Yankee pen could not hold a 4-1 lead. Alex Rodriguez, who has eight hits the first two games in San Francisco (and has reached base 10 times in 12 times up), absolutely blasted a shot to center field in the ninth inning to tie the game. But the Yankees could not nail down a victory. In the eleventh, relief pitcher Steve Kline worked around a double to Rodriguez, and got out of a bases loaded, one out jam, by striking out Hideki Matsui and then getting Robinson Cano to ground out. A bloop single against Scott Proctor in the thirteenth did the Bombers in, as the Giants won, 6-5.

Derek Jeter left the game early with a strained left hip flexor and is day-to-day.

For a third straight day, the Yankees did not hit in Colorado as they lost 4-3 to the Rockies. They didn’t run much better either and Roger Clemens left a few too many pitches up in the strike zone. The Yankees are back to .500 and trail the Red Sox by 10.5 games.

“The good feeling has gone away, there’s no question,” Manager Joe Torre said. “The reality of what kind of team we are and what it takes to win, you certainly have to recapture that.”
(N.Y. Times)

The rollercoaster continues. Speaking of which, Jason Giambi is now officially set to speak to the Mitchell investigation.

The Yanks look to bounce back in Colorado tonight. They’ll need to be on point against the Rockies best pitcher, especially seeing as how the Red Sox are beating up on the Braves in Atlanta. As we wait for the first pitch, check out our man Cliff talking about the state of the team in a podcast interview by Joe Aiello, which also features Padres news from Geoff Young, one of the best, and probably the longest-running baseball blogger on the net.

Then kicked back, relax and get ready to root like hell for our boys.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

In his first installment of our series about the box set of the 1977 World Series, Jay Jaffe mentioned how much his father admired Reggie Jackson:

Reggie made a big impression on my father, himself a second-generation Dodger fan who had no truck with the pinstripes. Via him, Reggie gained larger-than-life status in my eyes. When we played catch, occasionally Dad would toss me one that would sting my hand or glance off my glove. If I complained, he’d shout, “Don’t hit ’em so hard, Reggie!” In other words, don’t bellyache, and don’t expect your opponent to cut you any slack.
 

Longtime readers of Bronx Banter know that not only was Reggie my favorite player as a kid but he was one of the few Yankees my Dad also enjoyed too. Shortly before my father died earlier this year, I wrote a memoir piece about him and Reggie Jackson. I was thinking a lot about the old man two days ago on Father’s Day, and thought now would be a good time to share this story with you.

“Dad, Reggie, and Me” was originally published in Bombers Broadside 2007: An Annual Guide to New York Yankees Baseball (March, Maple Street Press). (c) 2007 Maple Street Press LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Dad, Reggie and Me

There is nothing like the first time. Nothing is as intense, as memorable as your first love, your first break-up or, in this case, your first hero. Mine was Reggie Jackson, who signed as a free agent with the Yankees 30 years ago. I was six years old during Jackson’s first year in pinstripes, a time when I was as interested in action heroes and comic books as I was in baseball. Reggie was more a superhero—a “superduperstar” as Time magazine once dubbed him—than a ball player. Bruce Jenner may have been on a box of Wheaties but Reggie had his own candy bar. (Catfish Hunter once said “I unwrapped it and it told me how good it was.”) Reggie arrived in New York at a time when I desperately needed a fantasy hero; his five volatile years in pinstripes coincided with the disintegration of my parents’ marriage.

The truth is the Yankees never wanted Jackson in the first place. In 1976, they won the pennant with an effective left-handed DH in Oscar Gamble. But after they were swept in the World Series by the Reds, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was bent on adding a big name. The first free agent re-entry draft was held that fall and the Yankees drafted the negotiating rights for nine players. Reggie was their sixth choice. Steinbrenner and his general manager, Gabe Paul, coveted second baseman Bobby Grich; manager Billy Martin pined for outfielder Joe Rudi. Then, over the course of a few days in mid-November, seven of the nine players the Yankees were interested in signed elsewhere, and suddenly Steinbrenner had no choice but to court Reggie. Paul was against it, but Steinbrenner courted Reggie anyway, wining and dining the superstar around New York. In the end, Jackson couldn’t resist the Yankees anymore than Steinbrenner could keep himself from wooing the slugger. He turned down bigger offers from the Expos and the Padres and signed. “I didn’t come to New York to be a star,” he said. “I brought my star with me.”

I remember my father in those years sitting in his leather-bound chair, reading The New York Times, a glass of vodka constantly by his side. In 1976, we moved from Manhattan to Westchester and my father had a heart attack at the age of 39. He was unemployed for a year, horribly depressed. My mother got a job and chopped wood to keep our gratuitously spacious house warm. We moved to a nearby town, Yorktown Heights, in 1977 before my father began to work again.

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Some Yankee fans think that Goose Gossage, Bernie Williams and even Mike Mussina should be in the Hall of Fame. Others will argue that Thurman Munson belongs in Cooperstown. I think that’s a stretch, but what about Jorge Posada? (I think you can make a case that next to Berra and Dickey, Posada is the third best catcher in Yankee history.) I haven’t ever really considered the possiblity until now thanks to Jay Jaffe. Check it out.

The Yankees recovered nicely after dropping the first game of the weekend series, taking a sloppy affair on Saturday afternoon, and then dominating the Mets on Sunday night to the tune of 8-2. Chien-Ming Wang was impressive for the third straight outing. He came within just one out of a complete game and struck out a career-high ten batters. Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada both hit home runs and the Yankees kept pace with the Red Sox who swept the hapless Giants at Fenway Park.

Jose Reyes was a terror on the bases against the Yankees–he stole five bases in the first two games before being gunned-down by Posada last night–but Derek Jeter had a terrific weekend as well. Take your pick as far as who the best shortstop in New York is, at least you’ve got an argument. They have different styles but both Jeter and Reyes look like they are having an awful lot of fun out there.

On an unseasonably cool June evning in the Bronx, the stage was set for Mike Mussina to have a productive night. Home plate umpire Tim Welke was calling strikes–though he still managed to irk the Yankees’ starting pitcher–and the opposing team was hacking. Mussina came through, pitching into the eighth inning, striking out a season-high seven batters. Although his fastball didn’t break 90 mph, Mussina painted the corners, had good control and a sharp breaking ball.

“His stuff seemed real similar to what I’ve seen in the past,” said Eric Byrnes, who was 1 for 4. “People talk about how his stuff’s declined, but obviously it didn’t look like that tonight. He comes right at you and throws strikes. He made us get ourselves out, and we continued to do that all night.”
(N.Y. Times)

“It’s all about keeping us off balance, and that’s exactly what he did,” [Chad] Tracy said. “He took something off his fastball at times, put something on his fastball, in and out, up and down. He did his job.”
(Arizona Republic)

Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Godziller Matsui all homered as the Yankees cruised to a 7-2 win, their eighth straight victory. Combined with a Red Sox loss, the Yanks now trail Boston by 8.5 games.

Rodriguez’s home run hit off the facing of the upper deck in left field. “You never had to look twice,” said Joe Torre. “He killed that ball.” Rodriguez now has 25 dingers–a number he didn’t reach until the middle of August last year–and 66 RBI. Mmm, Mmm Good.

Entertaining pitching match-up tonight: Wang vs. Webb. If both pitchers are on, there is a chance the game could be a quicky. Cliff will have more on all things Diamondbacks later today.

There’s nothing of much interest in the local papers this morning. Oh, there are some This Could Be Another ’78 articles, but it is probably best to avoid them. Alan Schwarz does have a good piece on Pat Venditte, an ambidextrous pitcher the Yankees just drafted; Steven Goldman has some cherce words for the Yankee fans who bashed Alex Rodriguez last year; Ben Kabak has the latest on the new Yankee Stadium; and over at BP, Marc Normandin takes a look at Robinson Cano:

One of the more interesting things I’ve noticed about Cano this year is that he has lost his power to the opposite field almost entirely. He lacks an extra-base hit going the other way at Yankee Stadium, according to MLB.com hit charts, whereas in 2006 he hit bunches of doubles and singles down the lines and to the warning track. This is one for the readers, since I don’t get to see Cano all that often, and we don’t have enough Enhanced Gameday info to make a definitive statement: are pitchers going inside on Cano more often than in years past, taking away the opposite field and contributing to the increase in his strikeout rate? He is popping up less often, but the increase in strikeouts coupled with the lack of power to the opposite field, a once successful weapon of Cano at the plate, makes me think pitchers are keeping balls inside on him. I’d like to hear from readers on this matter; his strikeout rate has dropped 2% from when I first looked at this a little over a week ago, which makes me think he could be adjusting in bits as the season goes on, but any information you provide would be appreciated.

Regardless of adjustment, I’m of the mind that Cano is a .290/.320/.475 type hitter as he currently stands. He may develop further and improve his game–he’s still just 24 years old–but as previously stated, it will be improvements from his 2005 line, and not the anomaly of 2006.

Even GQ fashion plate Jose Reyes walks more than Robbie. I’ve never been sold on Cano becoming a great player. Actually, I’ve got no sense of what kind of player he’ll be in three or four years. What do you all think?

Roger Clemens gave the Yankees pretty much what anyone could have expected from him yesterday: six innings, three runs, couple of walks and seven strikeouts. His fastball is not up to snuff yet and he worked too many deep counts, but his split-fingered fastball was excellent and he looked just fine fielding his position. The Yankee offense did the rest, with a generous hand from some Bad News Bears fielding by the Pirates; Melkawitz made a fine catch in center field and the Yanks cruised, 9-3.

That makes it five straight for the Bombers who go for the sweep this afternoon against our old pal, Shawn Chacon. It is great that the Yanks have won another series but it will be a real buzz-kill if they don’t sweep the Pirates. So on that note…

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

In case you hadn’t heard, Roger Clemens is pitching for the Yankees today. I’m not convinced that he’s going to stay healthy this summer. My hunch is that he’ll post a record close to .500–maybe 8-6, maybe 7-9–with an ERA under 4.50. Regardless, the Yankees look to extend their season best winning streak this afternoon on a hazy day in the Bronx.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

I went to the movies last night with my cousins instead of watching the game. We had a bite to eat after we saw Knocked Up, a surprisingly good movie, and I called Em at home to get a score. The game was tied, 4-4. By the time I reached the Bronx, I ran into some fans coming home from the game and got the highlights of the Yankees’ rousing, extra-inning, come-from-behind, 5-4 win. That makes it four straight for the Bombers with Roger Clemens on the hill this afternoon–a muggy, overcast day in New York.

* * * * *

The great film director John Huston once said that great screen acting is more a matter of quality than talent. What he meant was that the camera just takes to some people, who have a quality on film that they wouldn’t necessarily have on the stage. Sometimes the same can be said about directors. Judd Apatow, the writer and director of Knocked Up, does not have a real visual style, but he’s got true affection for his characters, and that is a winning quality that will take him far. (Jonathan Demme had more of a funky style in his early movies, but some of the same feeling.)

Apatow, who prodcued The Ben Stiller Show in the early nineties and later was a writer for The Larry Sanders Show, was the creative force behind the short-lived cult TV show, Freaks and Geeks. What impressed me most about Freaks and Geeks was how much the filmmakers genuinely liked the characters they created. The show wasn’t just flip, or ironic and clever; there was some emotional truthfulness to it as well.

I didn’t think Apatow was able to bring the same feeling to his first movie, The 40-Year Old Virgin, a broad, often disappointing comedy. (The funny thing about it though is that while I didn’t like the movie too much the first time I saw it, I later found myself unable to turn away from it when it was on cable–it grew on me.) But he does manage to bring a real warmth to his second movie, Knocked Up. It’s as if his all of his talents have finally jelled. The movie is all of a piece and it is very appealing.

Apatow doesn’t judge his characters, and though the story is relatively formulaic, he resits some easy cliches. For instance, there is a scene with the leading ladies’ mother, and you can just see this mother turning into a cartoon heavy, but she doesn’t factor into the narrative at all. Then there is a great scene where Paul Rudd and his wife have an fight in a driveway. What makes it so compelling is that you can see where each character is coming from and why they are not understanding each other–in that sense it reminded me of the fight that Daniel Stern and Ellen Barkin have about records in Diner.

Knocked Up penetrates the surface of the light comedy genere, but it is not perfect. Not all of the jokes work–though most of them do–and there are a host of things that you can pick at as far as credibility goes; the New York Times critic, A.O. Scott called it “improbably persuasive.” But it is an exceedingly likable movie, and I wasn’t bothered by what it wasn’t–it exceeded my expectations throughout. If anything, I found myself picking out the flaws only because of a desire to want something that is very good be truly great.

I laughed a lot, and so did the rest of the audience (I was smiling before the title credits when I heard the opening bars to “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”). In fact, there were three or four times when the crowd was laughing so much that I missed hearing dialogue. The acting was very good–the two kids in the movie, Apatow’s real-life daughers, have small parts but are terrific, and completely unaffected. Who knew that Seth Rogan would be able to carry off a leading role? And give Apatow credit for understanding women and writing good female roles.

I missed out on the reviews for this one when it came out, but apparently it has gotten good notices. I like what Scott wrote in the Times:

It may be a bit, um, premature to say so, but Judd Apatow’s “Knocked Up” strikes me as an instant classic, a comedy that captures the sexual confusion and moral ambivalence of our moment without straining, pandering or preaching. Like “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Mr. Apatow’s earlier film, it attaches dirty humor to a basically upright premise. While this movie’s barrage of gynecology-inspired jokes would have driven the prudes at the old Hays Office mad, its story, about a young man trying to do what used to be the very definition of the Right Thing, might equally have brought a smile of approval to the lips of the starchiest old-Hollywood censor.

The wonder of “Knocked Up” is that it never scolds or sneers. It is sharp but not mean, sweet but not soft, and for all its rowdy obscenity it rarely feels coarse or crude. What it does feel is honest: about love, about sex, and above all about the built-in discrepancies between what men and women expect from each other and what they are likely to get. Starting, as he did in “Virgin,” from a default position of anti-romantic cynicism, Mr. Apatow finds an unlikely route back into romance, a road that passes through failure and humiliation on its meandering way toward comic bliss.

I think it is worth forking over ten bucks to see. It sure made me feel good.

The following is the first part of a series that Jay Jaffe and I are writing about a terrific new box set of the 1977 World Series. Jay kicked things off earlier in the week, as we address the first disk, Game 5 of the ALCS between the Yankees and the Royals. Here is my response:

Yo Jay,

Dude, one of the main reasons why I loved football so much as an early teenager is because that was also the time I first really started getting into movies, and NFL Films had an enormous impact on me. The way they visually presented the game, the melding of movies and sport, defined the sport for me. It had a reverence for the sport and mocking sense of humor too. We didn’t have to just read about Jim Brown or Gayle Sayers, we could see. But we can’t see Sandy Koufax or Willie Mays in the same way because Major League Baseball has never had anything close to NFL Films. Part of this is understandable because baseball has such a long season with so many games. You’d go broke if you filmed all of it waiting for a great moment to go down. I understand why it hasn’t happened, but that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t of have, to some extent. The other part is that baseball has simply never been blessed with a creative partner like the Sabols.

And that’s a real shame because you’d think baseball games from the ’70s at least should still be around somewhere. I want to see the 1977 NLCS and I want to see the 1980 NLCS. That’s why I’m lovin’ this box set series that A&E is putting out. At first, I thought they were just putting out old MLB Films half-hour/hour-long wrap-up shows. They do have those, but on top of that, they are also have team sets—the Yankee Dynasty Years set, 96-01, a Cubs set, a big Red Sox set from 2004, the Cards from last year. But the best thing they’ve got are box sets of entire series—they’ve got the complete World Series from 1975, 1979, 1986, 1987, and now, of course, ’77.

(more…)

One of the classic comic book images–stolen from the movies, of course–is the close-up of a character’s eyes as they watch some unspeakable act of horror. I thought of that last night in the seventh inning when Rob Mackowiak crushed a Scott Proctor fastball to the deepest part of the ball park. Proctor remained in a crouch, peered back over his left shoulder, with only the whites of his eyes showing. Like most Yankee fans, his heart must have been racing, bracing for the worst.

Proctor, who relieved Mike Myers, after the lefty relieved Mike Mussina, who was brilliant, stubbornly fed Mackowiak fastball after fastball. On the YES broadcast, Joe Girardi warned that Mackowiak had been putting good swings on fastballs all night, and sure enough he put a charge into this one. The intense winds–foreshadowing a storm that never came, at least not while the game was still being played–played with the flight of the ball, but Melky Cabrera hauled it in about a stride-and-a-half away from the center field wall.

That was the second out of the inning. Proctor got a ground out to end the inning, and the Yankees escaped with the score tied 1-1. Which was good news for Joe Torre, who pulled Mussina after only 79 pitches. I know many Yankee fans must have been pulling their hair out when Torre yanked his starter; Mussina wasn’t thrilled about the move either. Acccording to the New York Times:

“Why am I upset?” Mussina said after the game. “Because I threw 80 pitches and I think I could have thrown 110. It was the first mess I had. I just felt like I could have kept going.”

…”I understand his thinking, but seventh inning with 79 pitches?” Mussina said. “I know I haven’t been pitching that well, but oh well. Gotta earn it back, I guess. Gotta earn it back.”

What had been a fast-moving pitcher’s duel between Moose and Jose Contreras, suddenly turned into a laborious bullpen affair. Bobby Abreu, who has been looking very impressive of late, had a big, two-run double in the eighth, and Alex Rodriguez hit a grand slam in the ninth, as the Yankees broke the game open and won it by the final score of 10-3.

It was a milestone win for Joe Torre, the 2,000th of his career. When the game was over and the Yankees were slapping each other five, Torre finally reached Mariano Rivera–who entered the game with one out in the eighth on the count of Cooter Farmadooke stinkin’ up the jernt. Rivera placed the game ball in Torre’s hand and Torre cupped Mo’s cheek with his palm and gave him a quick pinch on the cheeck–Love, straight out of Brooklyn.

It was a very good win for the Yankees who return home to play the Pirates and then the tough young Diamondbacks. Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada were given the night off, but both found their way into the game anyway. Jeter led off the eighth with a pinch-hit walk and came around to score the go-ahead run. Wouldn’t ya know?

Curt Schilling went out and pitched a money game for the Red Sox today, ending Boston’s modest losing streak at four. The Red Sox narrowly won, 1-0 and Schilling had a no-hitter through 8.2 innings. The Yankees need a big money game from Mike Mussina tonight to build on their very modest two-game winning streak. No excuses boys, this is one you have to win if you want us to start taking you seriously again.

Let’s Go Yan-kees!