Blog Archives

It’s a start, right? Johnny Damon debuted at home, and, unfortunately, Bob Sheppard, the veteran Stadium P.A. announcer missed his first home opener since 1951 (he’s due back for the next home stand, however). On a beautiful day in New York, the Yankees started out well, then muddled through a good portion of the game, the fans sitting on their hands. It wasn’t until the eighth inning, when the offense scored five runs–capped by Derek Jeter’s impressive three-run swat–that the Stadium came alive again. The Bombers came away with a 9-7 victory, their ninth consecutive win on Opening Day in New York.

Bernie Williams had a key hit in the frame, which helped make up for his base-running error earlier in the game. Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth for the save. It wasn’t a pretty game, but the Yanks will take it, and it because of the outcome, it is destined to become a “YES Yankee Classic.” Heck, even Mike Lupica is waxing poetic about the Yanks this morning. Go figure that.

Boss George was in the house, but didn’t have much to say, especially to his old pal Murray Chass. And Bill Madden notes that while the end result was positive, there was a lot of be concerned about during the middle innings.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox won their Home Opener as well. Josh Beckett, who is sure to become public enemy number 1 in the Bronx this year, was fired-up and pitched well. Beckett is an arrogant so-and-so and when he’s on, he’s exceedingly tough, as we well remember from the 2003 World Serious. He’s an easy guy to hate, but for Sox fans, a terrific guy to have on your team. The kid Papelbon sure looks poised as well.

Doesn’t feel like snow, does it? No, it’s a beautiful, crisp spring morning in New York and looks like it’ll be gorgeous up in the Bronx for the Bombers’ home opener. I know the Royals aren’t the Red Sox, but anyone excited?

One week is in the books and in many ways I feel as if the season hasn’t started yet. That’s what you get when the Bombers open up on the west coast. To be honest, between my job and promoting “Stepping Up”, I’ve simply been too preoccupied to focus on the Yanks. I’ve caught a few odd innings here and there, and, fortunately, I know where to come for all the latest recaps and analysis.

My trip to St. Louis was brief but a success and I really enjoyed the place, its history and all the baseball fans I met. The longest interview I did was the first–for the local NPR station (which you can listen to here). I’ve got just enough “ums” and “you knows” in there to make my old man roll his eyes–and I was trying my best to be on point with that stuff. (I must have said “essentially” or “the interesting thing” about a dozen times each too.) Just goes to show you what a learned skill talking in public is. Hey, I’m getting there. Tonight, I’ll be on Sports Bloggers Live between 7-8 on AOL, and I’m also hosting a chat over at Baseball Prospectus. I’d appreciate it if y’all could stop by and throw in a question–about Flood, the Yanks, or anything else you’ve got on your mind.

Thanks, and I hope to be back to the Yankee beat sometime in the near future.

In the top of the first inning last night, Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter reached base and then Gary Sheffield took a characteristically healthy cut at the first pitch he saw and fouled it back. He was right on the pitch and just missed it–Rich Harden eventually struck him out on a 3-2 splitter. Alex Rodriguez was next and he put a great swing on a 2-1 fastball that he just missed, fouling it straight back. Rodriguez whiffed as well and so did Jason Giambi to end the inning. That was just the start of a frustrating evening for the Bombers out in Oakland, but I missed the rest of the game.

I’m gearing up for a two-day visit to St. Louis tomorrow and Friday to promote my book on Curt Flood. I’ll be at Left Bank books on Thursday night and on various local radio and TV shows during my stay. Cliff will hold things down–as he’s been doing for weeks now–and continue to provide crack analysis on the Bombers. Alexbelth.com will hopefully launch tomorrow–with many kinks to be ironed out over the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you are interested in Curt Flood, here is an excerpt from the book, plus an interview with me that appears today on Viva El Birdos.

Take it ease, and go Yankees.

Nothing to do but wait around all day until the Yanks open their season in Oakland tonight. Happy Opening Day to you all–this is the fourth Opening Day here at Bronx Banter, the second in a row with Cliff. Looking forward to another entertaining season with you guys.

On a personal note, my Curt Flood book recently hit the shelves and it will be officially released on April 12th. I’m in the process of putting the final touches on a new site (Alexbelth.com) which should be up and running later this week. In the meantime, “Stepping Up” was mentioned in the L.A. Times and the Boston Globe yesterday, The Black Athlete Sports Network, and The New York Sun this morning.

Allen Barra penned the piece for the Sun (Disclosure: Barra is a friend):

Flood, one of the most important players in the game’s history in terms of moral leadership, has remained until now a man without a biography. Alex Belth’s stirring and hugely readable “Stepping Up” (Persea Books, 240 pages, $22.95) plugs a significant gap in the history of baseball’s turbulent 1960s and early ’70s.

Flood, the man who told Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, “After 12 years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold,” was the true torchbearer of Jackie Robinson’s legacy, and Mr. Belth gives him his due. “His life,” Mr. Belth writes, “took a course that never in his wildest dreams he could have imagined as a scrawny kid making trick catches on the ballfields of Oakland. He took a simple stand against baseball,based on simple principles of truth and justice – principles he held on to when it would have been so much easier to let them go.”

It was Flood, Mr. Belth writes, who “made the world stand up and take notice of baseball’s exploitative structure.” But like Robinson before him, he paid the price in terms of stress. He fell into deep depressions during and after the lawsuit, and his heavy drinking and smoking left his body weakened and susceptible to throat cancer. He died in 1997 at age 60.

In “Juiced,” Jose Canseco talks about his willingness to lead players across the picket line in the 1994 strike – does anyone know how we can send him a copy of this book?

I’ve got a new piece up at SI.Com celebrating Flood, and yo, I’m going to be at Left Bank Books in St. Louis this coming Thursday. I know it’s a hike, but just thought I’d throw it out there in case you know anybody in the vicinity.

In the meantime, Cliff “the Night Owl” Corcoran will be holding the fort down here, as the Yanks kick off the 2006 season on the West Coast.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Murray Kempton was a famous New York newspaperman for more than fifty years. I’ve tried to read his stuff on occasion and there is something about his language that I can’t get past–I’ve always had a difficult time appreciating and understanding his work. At the same time, I’ve also felt that I should get him, that I’m missing something.

Oh, well. I did love him as a New York character, however–he was legendary for riding his bicycle all around town. In 1994, I was working as a waiter at a modest neighbhorhood restaurant on the Upper West Side and had the pleasure to serve Mr. Kempton lunch one afternoon. He had clamps around his ankles so that his pants would not get caught on the chain of his bike. We chatted some and he was every bit the gentleman.

Anyhow, I bring Kempton up because I ran across an article he wrote for “Sport” magazine back in 1962 about the Mets called “Back at the Polo Grounds.” Since we were talking about New York fans a couple of days ago, I thought you guys might enjoy this:

The New York of the Giants, Dodgers, and Yankes was an annual re-evocation of the War between the States. The Yankees were the North, if you could concieve a North grinding along with wealth and weight and without the excuse of Lincoln. The Giants and Dodgers were the Confederacy, often undermanned and underequipped and running then because it could not hit. You went to Yankee Stadium if you were the kind of man who enjoyed yelling for Grant at Richmond; you went to the National League parks to see Pickett’s cahrge…

The old Dodger fans werer the kind of people who picket. The old Giant fans would be embarrassed to do anything so conspicuous, but they were the kind of people who refuse to cross picket lines. Yankee fans are the kind of people who think they own the company the picket line is thrown around. It is impossible for anyone who does not live in New York to know what it truly is to hate the Yankees. As writer Leonard Koppett has said: ‘The residents of other cities who hate the Yankees really only hate New York.’…But, if you live in New York and you’re not a Yankee fan, you hate them the way you hate Consolidated Edison or your friendly bank.

Kempton’s essay can be in found in the fine collection, “Baseball: A Literary Anthology.”

“Anybody who thinks you can go through the season normally and your body can just respond normally, after what we go through, is unreasonable,” said Eric Chavez, the third baseman for the Oakland Athletics. “I’m not saying taking away greenies isn’t a good thing, but guys are definitely going to look for something as a replacement.”

…”Guys will always find something,” [Al] Leiter said. “Even if they have to go to the local truck stop to get some No-Doz, they’ll find something to get them through.”

Over the past couple of months there have been a bunch of stories about how the new ban on greenies will impact baseball this year. I can’t recall any of them being more concise or thorough than Jack Curry’s piece this morning in the Times. I think this is one of the most interesting stories of the coming season and Curry does a fine job of spelling out the a-b-c’s of the matter. Check it out.

Does New York have some of the greatest fans in the world, or is this a city of fair weather bandwagon-riding chumps? From my experience, I’d have to say a little bit of both. (Hey, we’re the city that has everything after all, right?) For a town that often crows about what tough, loyal fans we have, it’s amazing how many native New Yorkers are quick to dump on the local teams in favor of, well, whatever team is currently winning. So weather it was the Bulls and then the Lakers or the Red Sox, there is always a visible portion of the New York population that gravitates to the National team of the moment. However, there are true-blue die-hards here just like there are in Philly and Boston and wherever else you want to mention. (There are Yankee fans who actually rooted for the team prior to 1995–many of whom frequent this blog–and will continue pulling for them when the team isn’t winning division titles year after year.) Witness this article today in The New York Times about the Knick fans that have stuck it out through one of the organization’s most dreadful seasons to date. These cats pay top dollar for their season tickets, but it will take more than losing and general mishegoss to keep them away.

Late last week, Buster Olney wrote what we’re likely to see at the Yankee-Sox cirucs this year:

There are so many new players — new relievers, in particular — on the two teams, and they will tend to be overaggressive in reacting to somebody’s getting hit by a pitch in this rivalry. It will be as if Kyle Farnsworth and Julian Tavarez and the others joined a fraternity fight, they know all their new house brothers are watching and they feel a need to demonstrate their toughness. There’s almost no doubt that they will have incidents this year, and you almost can assume that Farnsworth or Tavarez or [Taynon] Sturtze will be in the middle of something.

Farnsworth and Sturtze come across like bouncers jacked-up on Red Bull, and Tavarez has the looks of an old-timey bad guy. All that is missing is a mustache for him to twirl as he ties the girl to the train tracks. Even our old pal Beth, a Red Sox fan so devoted that she is generally willing to make apologies for the most boorish BoSox behavior, is having a hard time finding a place in her heart for Mr. Tavarez, who was involved in an incident yesterday with Joey Gathwright of the Tampa Bay Rays.

For all of the hysteria and hype that accompanies the New York-Boston rivalry, both teams have entertained us with a riveting and dramatic brand of baseball for the past four years. Sure, there have been ugly moments, but let’s hope things don’t get uglier just because they can. Sox and Yankee fans tend to bring out the worst in each other, but lets hope that the two teams continue to bring out the best in each other and remind us how thrilling the rivalry and the game can be.

From “The Last Nine Innings”

by Charles Euchner

Chapter Four: Inside the Diamond

Whenever I’m teaching younger players, what I ask is, ‘Can you dance?'” Matt Williams, the Diamondbacks’ veteran third baseman who came to the big leagues as a shortstop in 1987, is ruminating about the art of defensive play in the four infield positions. Williams has become a philosopher of the game as he struggles to cool down his intensity and combine his God-given athleticism with his growing knowledge of the game.

Dancing—an activity that brings together focus and relaxation, grace and quickness, initiative and cooperation—provides Williams with the concept he needs to play his position. Dancing helps him understand when and how to stay loose but also when to move quickly. Keep light on the feet like a dancer, then you can attack and parry, as the play requires.

“That’s all it is—you’re just dancing through the ball. When your feet stop, when your feet get lead[en], your hand gets hard, when you don’t adjust to a bounce, that’s when you make mistakes.”

• • •

Leading off for the Diamondbacks in the home half of the second inning, Steve Finley hits a 1–0 fastball up the middle. Shortstop Derek Jeter hesitates briefly before playing the ball to his side. Jeter fields the ball, a hard one-hopper, cleanly. Reaching down with his six-foot-three body, Jeter flips it hard to first in one motion.

“You play short there’s going to be a lot of plays that you’re off-balance,” Jeter says. “You just work at it, practice it, get better with time. Some may be kind of difficult because of how tall I am as opposed to a shorter guy. But that just comes with experience.”

• • •

Derek Jeter’s fielding poses a dilemma. Depending on whom you debate, Jeter is either one of the best fielding shortstops in the game—or he is absolutely, positively the worst. The question is whether to believe your eyes when watching him.

Part of the difficulty in judging Jeter is that he is the winningest shortstop in an era of great shortstops. Players like Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Omar Vizquel, Orlando Cabrera, and Edgar Renteria do not have the luxury of playing for consistently great teams. They seem to do more at their positions than Jeter. But Jeter is a winner. He has been on four World Series champions in five years, and now he’s playing for a fifth title. He must be doing something right.

When baseball people gather to watch Jeter, they smile. They watch him charge balls in the middle of the diamond, range to the outfield and right-field line to gather pop flies, communicate with pitchers and infielders. They love his hustle, his willingness to risk his body to make a play; whether it’s diving three rows into the stands or facing down a base runner barreling into second base. They watch the way he captains not only the infield but the outfield, too. They like the messages he gives other players. Years before, as a youngster, he confronted the Rubenesque pitcher David Wells when Wells had a hissy fit on the mound after an error. Jeter barked back on behalf of his teammates and they appreciated it.

Broadcaster Tim McCarver acknowledges that Jeter sometimes has a hard time picking up sharp hops. “I’m sure there are five or six shortstops who read a ground ball, a hop, better,” says McCarver, a Jeter fan. “It’s not one of his strong suits. He comes over and up on the ball. Sometimes he charges when he should stay back and stays back when he should charge.”

McCarver pauses, looking for context: “But it’s almost crazy to talk about that, he does so many things well.”

(more…)

There aren’t many games I’d like to read about less than Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. Already the framework for Buster Olney’s book about the Yankees’ most recent championship run, the game itself is probably one of the single most painful moments of my Yankee life. I’m not asking anyone to cry for me–in the middle of the night after the Diamondbacks won, restless from a lack of sleep, I was able to get some much-need perspective when I realized that the team had in fact just won the three previous titles. Brother, I thought, it could be a lot worse. Still, three outs away? With Marinao on the mound? Man, you’d have to take that everytime, right? After the eighth inning an old friend of mine–a Mets/Red Sox fan–called up and said, “Well, that’s about that, huh?” I nearly broke the phone slamming it down. You never make that call, bro. Especially, after those Murphy’s Law-defying games at the Stadium.

The 2001 Serious was far more difficult for me to stomach than the 2004 playoff collapse to the Red Sox. Yet the way in which they lost to Arizona was somehow fitting. Here were the Yankees getting spanked around all Series long and if it weren’t for two nights of Miracles, there would never have even been a Game 7. But there was, and in the end the Yankees simply got out-Yankeed.

I know my emotions were heightened in the aftermath of 9.11, and there were a lot of people out there pulling for the Yankees (not everyone, cause you’d have been hard-pressed to find a Red Sox or Met fan not cheering for joy once the D-Backs won). In all, they played spirited ball during those playoffs, knocking off superior teams from Oakland and spoiling what could have been a truly historic season in Seattle. What’s the old cliche? You can have anything you want, you just can’t have everything. Well, the Yankees gave its fans and baseball fans in general an amazing run in ’01–exactly what we needed. But they just couldn’t do everything, they couldn’t get the final three outs.

Charles Euchner’s new book, “The Last Nine Innings,” tells the story of baseball through the prism of Game Seven. He explores fielding (infield and, in an illuminating chapter on Steve Finley, outfield), baserunning, hitting, pitching, relief pitching, training, and managing. There are good interviews with Matt Williams and Mark Grace, Curt Schilling and surprisingly, Shane Spencer. What distinguishes Euchner’s book is that it has an “insider’s” feel written from an “outsider’s” persepctive. While “The Last Nine Innings” refers to the events surrounding that post-season, the author sticks mainly to the nuts-and-bolts aspect of the game, both in the training room and on the field.

The results are satisfying and surprising, and the book is accesible for the novice fan while absorbing for the die-hard nut too. I had a few minor quibbles–in characterizing Bernie Williams as a guy who is over-looked, I think Euchner himself over-looks him–but I was most taken with Euchner’s even-handed writing style. The prose isn’t fancy, but clear and to the point. Euchner’s book is balanced, fair and informative. It’s well worth checking out, even for those Yankee fans who may still be licking their wounds.

(more…)

Book Excerpt

Dayn Perry is one of the more genuine and easy-going guys you are ever likely to meet. The fact that he’s also a gifted writer and analyst makes his personal charm even more appealing. I’ve met Dayn on several occasions and while he’s exceeingly bright, he isn’t a show-off or interested in making you look dumb. In addition to his work for Fox and Baseball Prospectus, Dayn’s first book, “Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It’s Not the Way You Think)” has just hit the shelves. Perry looks at all of the playoff teams between 1980 and 2003 and examines what makes for success and failure. Combining traditional storytelling–there are absorbing stories about Pedro Guerrero and Cesar Cedeno, for instance–with statistical analysis, Perry’s book is a page-turner.

I found a good, Yankee-related excerpt in the chapter:

The Deadline Game (or, Why It’s Hard to Win a Pennant in Two Months)

Each year, Major League Baseball circumscribes—or perhaps hurries along—its clubs with a pair of trade deadlines. The first, which occurs on the afternoon of July 31, marks the end of the period in which teams can trade players without first passing them through revocable waivers. The second, on August 31, marks the deadline for teams to acquire players and still be able to place them on postseason rosters. In that block of calendar from July 1 to August 31, some of the most memorable (or forgettable, depending upon your partisanships) trades have unfolded. It’s a frenzied time for fans, execs, and league organ grinders alike. Rumors scamper about like astonished cockroaches, and saturation-level media coverage causes deep-vein thrombosis in many a fan.

If it’s not a tacit requirement that a playoff team make an acquisition at the trade deadlines, then it’s certainly de rigueur; of the 124 teams I’ve looked at, 108 (87.1 percent) made a trade at or around those annual deadlines for a player or players who saw action for the team at the major league level that same season. However, for all the deadline activity we’ve witnessed over the years, these deals, by and large, aren’t all that important in terms of winning ball games during the regular season in question.

However, of course, there are exceptions, as the Yankees discovered back in 1995:

From “Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It’s Not the Way You Think)”

By Dayn Perry

Coming into the 1995 season, the Yankees hadn’t made the postseason in 14 years—the longest such drought for baseball’s most dynastic franchise since Babe Ruth was acquired. What made it all the more rankling for Yankee fans is that, in the unfinished 1994 season, they had a comfortable 61/2-game lead in the AL East at the time of the players’ strike and were on pace for 100 wins. Needless to say, the run-up to the 1995 campaign brought with it the usual Yankee mishmash of haughty optimism tempered by trickle-down urgency with the organization. It was time for the Yankees to get back to being the Yankees.

In 1994, staff ace Jimmy Key had gone 17–4 with a 3.27 ERA and paced the AL in wins and starts. Obviously, he was critical to Yankee fortunes in ’95. However, Key, barely a month into the ’95 season, went on the DL with tendonitis after making two straight painful starts. That case of tendonitis turned out to be a torn rotator cuff, and by the All-Star break he had undergone season-ending shoulder surgery. It also didn’t help that Scott Kamieniecki, the Yanks’ highly capable fifth man from the year before, regressed badly in 1995. A trade that December with the White Sox brought Jack McDowell into the fold, and he was effective, if not of ace quality. (Of course, McDowell’s contributions were not without some standard-issue Yankee Sturm und Drang. Following a particularly rough home outing in July that season, “Blackjack” responded to the booing throngs by extending his middle finger to the already profoundly displeased Yankee Stadium crowd. Not to mention the unblinking eyes of the camera. The following winter, McDowell, a free agent, would opt for the more staid shores of Cleveland.)

At the close of play on July 28, the Yankees were 41–42, in third place in the AL East, and 51/2 games behind the division-leading Red Sox. Most assuredly, it was time for action. (In recent seasons, participants in the “Sons of Sam Horn” online Red Sox forum have taken to lampooning the Yankees’ countless afterthought personnel additions and manifest weakness for conspicuous consumption by calling those players, as a group, “Raul Whitecock,” a derisive amalgam of Raul Mondesi, Rondell White, and Sterling Hitchcock, three notable and largely fruitless recent acquisitions by the Yanks.)

On that same day, GM Gene Michael pulled the trigger on a pair of deals. First, he sent a troika of utter forgettables (Marty Janzen, Jason Jarvis, and Mike Gordon, who would combine for 27 games in the majors—all courtesy of Janzen) to the Blue Jays for David Cone. Toronto GM Gord Ash originally angled for a deal that would have sent Cone to the Yanks for Bob Wickman, Matt Drews, and a promising minor league hurler named Mariano Rivera. Michael passed and wound up getting Cone for an infinitely lower cost. As Don Mattingly said of the Cone deal, “We got him for nothing. I don’t even know the other three guys.”

A native of Kansas City, Cone came up with his hometown Royals alongside other talented young hurlers such as Mark Gubicza and Danny Jackson. Rather than let the pitching bottleneck sort itself out (a blissful quandary if ever there were one), the club made what owner Ewing Kauffman would later call “the worst trade in Royals’ history.” Certainly it was also the worst trade in then-Royals GM John Schuerholz’s personal history. That trade in the spring of 1987 sent the 24year-old Cone and outfielder Chris Jelic to the Mets for catcher Ed Hearn, who would go on to play 13 games for Kansas City; righthander Rick Anderson, who would go on to post a 4.75 ERA in 96 2/3 career innings; and reliever Mauro Gozzo, who would never appear in a game for the Royals.

Cone, meanwhile, blossomed into an ace in New York. In 1988 he went 20–3 with a 2.22 ERA and finished third in the NL Cy Young balloting. He also became only the fifth pitcher in Mets history to win 20 in a single season, and he tied Preacher Roe’s 1951 NL record for fewest losses by a 20-game winner. Cone had worked assiduously to develop command of six pitches and was famous for varying his arm angles and release points as situations warranted. To opposing batters, no matter how many times they’d seen him, it seemed as though Cone pitched with the randomness of lightning. Beginning in 1990, he led the majors in strikeouts for three straight seasons—the first pitcher since Nolan Ryan (1972–1974) to do so—and in ’91 even fanned 19 Phillies in a single game (which tied the NL record until Kerry Wood whiffed 20 Astros in 1998).

Over the years, Cone fashioned a reputation as a bit of an eccentric. He would leave game tickets for Wheel of Fortune geisha Vanna White (never to be used) and Elvis Presley (also never to be used). He once held the ball and argued with the home plate umpire over a call while a pair of opposing base runners rounded the diamond and scored. However, as the Mets’ fortunes began to decline in the early ’90s, Cone’s reputation took a harrowing turn. Cone faced two rape allegations within five months. The first involved a woman (whose claims were later dismissed by police) allegedly assaulted by Cone the night before his record-tying performance against the Phillies in 1991. The second linked his name to a teamwide scandal involving Darryl Boston, Vince Coleman, and Dwight Gooden. Cone was not charged in either case, but he also endured a sexual harassment lawsuit from three women who claimed he exposed himself to them from the Shea Stadium bullpen in 1989. The suit was eventually dismissed.

Between 1992 and 1995 Cone would pitch for four different teams. In late August of ’92 the Mets dispatched him to Toronto for Ryan Thompson and second baseman Jeff Kent. Cone was thrown into the midst of a heated pennant race. Since the Jays acquired him well after the first trade deadline, he had time to compile only 53 innings. However, he made the most of those innings, posting a 2.55 ERA after the deal. Cone went on to throw a gem in the decisive game six of the World Series against the Braves, allowing only one run in six innings of work.

His combined numbers between New York and Toronto in 1992 (249 2/3 innings, 2.81 ERA, 17 wins) made him one of the winter’s most hotly sought-after free agents. Cone wound up signing with his hometown Royals. He would pitch well in ’93, but lackluster run support cost him win upon win. In strike-blighted 1994, however, great pitching intersected with good fortune, and Cone wound up winning the AL Cy Young. With Cone’s value, perceived and otherwise, at its highest, the Royals that off-season traded him for a second time, in this instance back to Toronto for infielder Chris Stynes and two minor leaguers—David Sinnes and Tony Medrano—who would forever remain two minor leaguers.

Although he pitched well during his second Canadian tour of duty, Cone didn’t last even four months before he was traded again, this time to the Yankees. As mentioned, the 1995 season was shortened to 144 games. Even so, as a Yankee, Cone that season put up a VORP of 27.9, which ranks as the third-best post deadline VORP for any pitcher I’ve studied. Prorate his VORP to a full season, and it comes to 31.0, which is still good for third among pitchers, but, lumping hitters and hurlers together, makes Cone the fourth-most-valuable deadline acquisition since 1980. In 99 innings as a Yankee in ’95, Cone posted a 3.82 ERA, but what endeared him to New York fans and media alike is that he went 9–2 down the stretch (partially a function of good run support) in an AL wild-card race that turned out to be decided by a single game. Without Cone, the Yankees very likely would have failed in their bid to fend off the Angels and thus claim the final AL playoff berth.

You can buy Dayn’s book here and here.

“Outstanding,” manager Joe Torre said Wednesday after watching Pavano throw a third time off the mound. “Even though he’s a little behind [the other pitchers], I think we’re way ahead of where we were last year.”

Carl Pavano is making progress while Al Leiter is one step closer to the end of his career. Leiter and Dontrelle Willis were pounded yesterday as the USA fell to Canada. The Americans are now just one loss away from making the Boss sleep just a wee bit better at night.

I was upset to hear the news about Kirby Puckett yesterday. Man, 45 is just too young. I was 13-years old when he broke in with the Twins and remember him vividly as an energetic and enthusiastic player. In recent years, a darker, more disturbing side of Puckett was revealed, which underscores not only how human athletes are, but how different they can be from their public persona, and how difficult it is for many of them to adjust to life after the game. Puckett’s post-baseball life was evidentally a struggle filled with pain. It got me to thinking, “What if a guy like Derek Jeter ended up in a similar fashion?” It’s almost impossible to believe right now–and I say almost, because, really, there isn’t much left to shock us these days–but anything can happen right?

Ultimately, I think that Puckett will be best remembered for what he did on the field. I hope the same can be said for the Yankee Captain, who was the subject of a puff piece by Don Amore this morning, but you never know:

“You’re talking to a huge Jeter fan,” said J.P. Ricciardi, GM of the Blue Jays. “If you throw out the numbers of everything he’s done, he plays the game the right way. We tell our young players, `Watch the way Jeter plays and try to be like him.’ He doesn’t talk a lot of crap. He’s the kind of guy, if he were playing in Yankee Stadium and there was nobody in the ballpark, he would still play hard.”

Joe Dimaggio never understoood or appreciated the reference Simon and Garfunkel made to him in “Mrs. Robinson.” It’s okay that he didn’t get it, because so many other people did recognize that Dimaggio stood for something, a sensibility, a period of time. Jeter is someone who could wind up in a song like that one day too, don’t you think?

Pete Abraham, the Yankee beat writer for the Journal News recently launched a Yankee-blog of his own. It’s quickly become a daily stop for me, as Abraham offers some insider tidbits and observations that most of us bloggers just aren’t privy to. If you haven’t already, consider making The LoHud Yankees Blog part of your regular Yankee rotation–and feel free to drop Abraham a line and let him know what you’d like to see from his blog as the season unfolds.

Sam Borden delivers the annual Mariano Rivera piece for the News today. Standard stuff, fine enough, but here’s what I liked:

“If I have nothing left, I won’t be here,” he says flatly. “I’ll go home. I won’t (hang on). If I can’t get anybody out, it’s time to go home. And I will do that.”

…”He’s going to go out on his own terms,” [Jorge Posada] said. “He’s just going to say it one day. You’re going to be surprised. He’s just going to be walking out the door and we’ll say, ‘What?’ and that will be how it ends.”

That’s perfect. I can totally see Mariano just dropping the bomb on us one day and that’s that, he’s out. Another spring with Mariano is certainly something to be thankful for as a Yankee fan. And that’s word to Big Bird.

I love unexpected fat asses, especially in sports. I love watching enormous athletes who have a lot of power but take a long time to gain a head of steam, guys you expect to be faster than they are–Dave Winfield, Keyshwawn Johnson, Bernard King come to mind. And of course I love just straight up fat asses like Dave Kingman, Rob Deer, Pete Incaviglia or Adam Dunn too. Hey, Alfonso Soriano is a fat ass in a skinny body. Being a fat ass is a state of mind more than anything else.

Klap’s got an article today on our boy Robbie Cano. The Yankees’ second year second baseman has smooth moves and a cocksure disposition. But evidentally, Cano’s gotten mad, uh, puffy in the off-season (think Shelley Duvall singing, “And he’s Large,” in Robert Altman’s very weird “Popeye” movie):

There’s no mistaking how much bulkier he looks, especially in the trunk area. One scout who’s been watching the Yankees recently said: “I wouldn’t call Cano fat, but he’s going to be slower than last year, and he was slow to begin with.

“If he’s going in this direction at his age, what’s he going to look like at 28?”

I laughed out loud when I read this thinking, yup, Cano’s definitely in the all-time fat ass club, and he’s just a second year player. But the Yankees aren’t blind to it becoming an issue–they’ve got Captain Jeter, MVP Alex Rodriguez, and Sgt Red Ass on the case:

Third base coach Larry Bowa, appointed as Cano’s personal tutor, made a point of watching videos of his pupil. Bowa noted how many of Cano’s errors were the result of poor concentration, particularly dropped throws from Jeter while standing on second base.

“What Robbie needs to learn is to concentrate every single pitch, every single inning. That will come in time,” Bowa said. “He’s a good kid and he wants to learn, that’s encouraging. He is definitely not lazy. That’s one word I heard used about him when I came here — lazy — but I haven’t seen it.”

…Little by little, the Yankees hope to turn Cano into a miniature version of Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, two of the team’s hardest workers. A-Rod’s fitness lifestyle borders on obsession, while Jeter takes more ground balls during batting practice than any other Yankee.

…The kid can go either way,” said [a Yankee] executive. “It’s totally up to him.”

I’ll be rooting for Cadillac Cano. Be interesting to see if he embraces the Jeter/Rodriguez work ethic, or if he’s content to eat ice cream, hit dingers, and whiff alot like our boy ‘lil Soriano, or that chucklehead Mondesi.

On a more personal note, I remember my favorite part of playing baseball in high school was staying late after practice, in April through mid May, until it got too dark to see the ball anymore, taking ground balls. I played second base and it seemed that so long as I wanted to stay out there the coach would be there to hit them. It was something I could do with a lot more confidence than hitting. So I was particularly amped when I read the ending of the Klapisch piece:

“I’m going to teach Robbie that when he’s done taking 25 grounders, we’re not done. There’s 25 more,” Bowa said. “There’s always going to be 25 more.”

That’s dope. Got a lot of Fast Eddie Felson circa “The Color of Money” to it. It’s so cheesy, but so great. Got to love what Bowa’s bringing to the team so far, right?

I’ve begun to see that the pleasure men take in being with each other — playing cards together, being in a bar together — isn’t actively anti-female. It isn’t against women; it just has nothing to do with them. It seems to come from some point in their lives before they were aware that there were women. They have so much fun together. I really have become much more sympathetic to men because of my job.

Jane Gross, on her experiences as woman sportswriter, to Roger Angell, 1979

I just love this quote–I’ve used it several times now–because it keeps me in touch what I find so appealing about watching baseball: the companionship, the intimacy, the natural displays of affection that ballplayers share. These days we are reminded at every turn of the distance between us and big league athletes, but we can still observe how these guys pal around, in an unaffected, generous way. Manny Ramirez’s infectious warmth spread to the entire Red Sox club a few years ago as teammates would openly hug after they hit a home run. But I remember watching Kevin Brown massage Jon Lieber’s shoulder in the dugout as they watched a game–and Brown was supposed to be the biggest ogre going.

Just this morning the Daily News ran a photo of Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter, the two greatest Yankee everyday players of the Joe Torre years. Jeter is seated in the dugout leaning over, blowing some dirt off of his glove. Williams stands above Jeter, his left hand cupped in the middle of the Captain’s head. In his right hand is a cup of water which is about to pour over Jeter. His left hand is placed so as to prevent any water from running down the front of Jeter’s face, and Williams has a look of concentration on his face. It is a common enough sight, but noteable because of Jeter’s casual, almost unaware posture, and the great care Williams seems to be taking; they are completely comfortable with each other. Love that kind of stuff.

Mike Mussina pitched against Phillip Hughes yesterday. Moose likes what he sees so far from the Yankees’ right-handed prospect. According to the New York Times:

“He looked good,” Mussina said, after showering and pulling on his bright red Captain America T-shirt. “The ball comes out of his hand real nice. The one day I played catch with him, the ball was coming out of his hand easy and smooth. I hope he stays healthy.”

Joe Torre added:

“He’s pretty impressive, there’s no question, but a lot of things can happen on the way,” Torre said. “He just seems pretty grounded for a kid his age and with the stuff he possesses. We’ll see. He’ll be around for a little bit. As long as we can continue to get him work, he’ll be here.”

John Harper sat down with Al Leiter who has become close with Alex Rodriguez. Here’s Senator Al’s take on the man people love to hate:

“In his own way he has learned to be guarded,” Leiter said. “I think a lot of it has to do with being labeled when he was a junior in high school as someone so talented that he could someday be the greatest player in the history of the game.

“That’s some pretty heavy stuff to carry around for years. And because he is who he is, people want to know what he does, how he looks, what brand of sweat pants he’s wearing. He’s learned to be careful, but at his core he’s this jovial guy with an almost-childlike sense of fun who likes to be a little goofy and likes to have a good time, so he tries to be protective of saying the wrong thing, and as a result, it may seem like he’s insincere but it’s more not saying just the right thing.”

Leiter goes on to say how much Rodriguez enjoys talking about the nuts and bolts of the game–which reminded me of the last game of the regular season in Boston last year, with the Yanks well behind in the game, there was Rodriguez on the bench in an animated discussion with Chien-Ming Wang for several innings. Leiter continues:

A-Rod “gets the mental thing, too,” according to Leiter. Conquering postseason pressure is another matter.

“He recognizes what he means to the team in those situations,” said Leiter, “and when you try to carry the load, when you think outside of that little box you want to be in, you can’t perform at your best.

“Alex is too acutely aware of his surroundings sometimes. At those moments you need that laser-beam focus on the pitcher and what you’re doing at the plate. You can’t be thinking, ‘God, I need a hit here.’ For me, when I’m locked in, I don’t hear the crowd or think about the situation. Every single pitch is very, very clear to me. It’s elevating the process of visualization one step further.”

If only Rodriguez had a sense of humor like Barry Bonds…

Quickly cruising around the local papers this morning, we’ve got Sam Borden’s interview with Steve Swindal, Jim Baumbach on the budding relationship between Robinson Cano and Larry Bowa, Don Amore catches up with Andy Phillips, Mark Feinsand details Eric Duncan’s fine spring thus far, an amusing piece on Jason Giambi’s new workout partner, Bob Klap on Lee Maz, and finally, Tyler Kepner catches up with our boy Bernie:

“It’s all in the way you look at it,” Williams said Monday after lifting weights long after most of his teammates had left. “You can look at it and say, ‘Oh, they’re messing with me, they don’t respect me, this and that.’ But you’ve got to make your choice.

“I think if I look at it in a negative way, it would just put a bad taste in my mouth that I shouldn’t have, because there’s been so much positive and so much greatness that I’ve witnessed in the last 15 years. You want to remember the positives. At this point in my life, this is gravy, man. This is a great time of my life.”

Bernie has always reminded me of the children’s story Ferdinand the Bull. Nice to see that he continues to stop and smell the flowers.