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Gary Sheffield spoke with reporters yesterday and made it crystal clear that he would make life exceedingly hard for any team the Yankees traded him to. According to Jack Curry in the New York Times:

“I would never sit out,” Sheffield said. “I would go play for them. It doesn’t mean I’m going to be happy playing there. And if I’m unhappy, you don’t want me on your team. It’s just that simple. I’ll make that known to anyone.”

…”If I’m not happy, you don’t want me on your team, period,” Sheffield said. “That’s just the way it goes. That’s life. I have to deal with what they dish out, they got to deal with what I dish out, period. That’s just the way it’s going to be.”

Joe Torre later told Sheffield that the Yanks have no desire to persue a deal with the Mets. “The Yankees would never just give up Gary Sheffield,” is how one American League executive phrased it to Curry. To hear a full audio clip of Sheff’s rant, head on over to Matt Cerrone’s outstanding Metsblog.com and peep the mp3. Personally, I think his spiel was amusing. I’ve enjoyed Sheffiled a lot since he’s been in the Bronx. He’s been a terrific player, and don’t blame him for not wanting to leave. Mike Vaccaro put it well in the Post today:

Sheffield is arrogant, he’s moody, he’s tempermental–but he’s smart as hell. You bet he wanted to kill this deal as quickly as he could.

You could also add that he’s a great player and a future Hall of Famer to boot. And in case you missed it, be sure and check out Jay Jaffe’s excellent three-part history of Sheff (one, two and three) over at The Futility Infielder.

Kicked to the Curb

The Post reports that the Yankees have released relievers Paul Quantrill and Mike Stanton. Both seemed like good guys, but neither was especially effective this year.

If Yankees general manager Brian Cashman can’t find takers for the two pitchers by tomorrow, he’ll have to designate them for assignment. Stanton has a no-trade clause, so he can dictate his destination. To have any chance of dealing either pitcher, the Yankees will likely have to pay what’s left of their salaries. Stanton, who makes $4 million this season, has a 1-2 record and 7.07 ERA, and Quantrill, who makes $3 million, is 1-0 with a 6.75 ERA.
(Newsday)

This move does not come as a surpise.

Nothing dramatic went down in Tampa Bay yesterday, but change could be right around the corner. When, is anyone’s guess. Never one to miss an opportunity, the New York Post glossed over last night’s discouraging 5-4 loss on the back page today in favor of some juicy gossip. According to Joel Sherman, the Yankees and Mets may consider swapping Gary Sheffield for Mike Cameron. Sherman’s two sources, an AL and NL club executive, say the deal is in its infancy:

[The Yankees] have talked to a couple of GMs and said they would move [Sheffield] for a similar type of player to shake things up a little, get younger or to fill a couple of their needs, specifically center field or starting pitching,” the NL executive said.

Sheffield, Flash Gordon, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada do not have no-trade clauses in their contracts. However, Sheffield told the New York Times:

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Sheffield, who is signed through 2006. “If I have to go somewhere, I won’t go. If they said, ‘Wouldn’t you want to get paid?’ I’d say, ‘I’ve got plenty of money.’ I’m not playing nowhere else. I can promise you that.”

If Sheff’s name hangs around the rumor mill, things could get ugly.

There was no brawl in Baltimore last night, but the signs for one were there. Carl Pavano initiated the bad feelings when he plunked Brian Roberts in the back following Larry Bigbie’s solo home run. Several innings later, Daniel Cabrera retaliated by throwing behind Alex Rodriguez. Both teams were issued a warning by home plate umpire Marty Foster and that was that. But Orioles’ reliever Steve Kline–who looks like Mike Stanton’s disheveled kid brother–provided some theatrics in the seventh inning when he was called for a balk. With the game tied at four and Jorge Posada on first base, Jason Giambi was at the plate with the count 3-0 in his favor. On the YES broadcast you could hear someone shout “Balk!” The announcers later speculated that the Orioles believed that the Yankee bench had convinced the ump to make the call. Either way, Kline absolutely lost it, and was quickly run from the game.

He later told reporters:

“I just think they favor the Yankees all the time,” he said. “I’m getting [upset] at that. They suck up to them. They’re the cream of the crop.”

…”I didn’t do anything to deceive the runner. It was a bull … call,” Kline said. “I’ve played nine years and only had like one balk call my whole life. Now I have three [this season]. Once you get hit once, they look at you real hard.”

…”I just asked [Foster] what I did and he tossed me right away,” Kline said. “I used a couple of bad words, but you have to understand we’re in the middle of a game. I said, ‘Hell, if I’m going to be gone, I might as well get my money’s worth.’ I was debating if I wanted to put him in the cobra clutch.”
(Baltimore Sun)

(more…)

If there was ever a time when two teams were primed for a brawl, tonight could be the night in Baltimore. Not that the Yanks and O’s have any heated rivalry going yet, but both teams have struggled of late, and the Bombers are playing like a team that could use a bench-clearing incident to get the led out of their systems (it would be funny if Torre joined the O’s in the fight, just to kick some of his own players in the ass). Plus, the volatile Daniel Cabrera is pitching for the Birds. That could help. Word to the wise: Don’t plunk Sheff, dude, unless you are prepared to throw bolos.

I believe that George Steinbrenner is not the same man he was back in the seventies and eighties, but at some point you figure he’s going to do something. Someone has to get canned, right? So long as the Yanks continue to play as poorly as they have, it just seems inevitable. So who will be the first one to get it? Brian Cashman or Mel Stottlemyre? My guess is that it will be Mel.

You are supposed to feel good when your team wins, right? Well, after the display of terrible fielding the Yanks put on during the seventh inning last night, I felt more relieved than anything else when they finally pulled it out in the ninth. I also felt a lot of other things, and none of them were too kind or uplifting. But hey, a win is a win, no matter how ugly. Jason Giambi’s bases loaded single in the bottom of the ninth gave the Bombers a 5-4 victory, as they avoided being swept at home by the Mets. Randy Johnson pitched a good game, Alex Rodriguez had four hits (two in “the clutch” for those who care to notice these things), and Mariano Rivera pitched a one-two-three ninth to earn the win. Rivera is now 4-2 on the season, with sixteen saves, and two blown saves. His earned run average is down to 0.94.

The Yanks head down to Baltimore today for a three game series against the slumping Orioles. It will be interesting to see which team continues to slide here. Carl Pavano is in a big spot for New York once again. Let’s see how he responds…

It’s probably a good thing that I missed yesterday’s game, another in a series of flat performances by the Yanks. I did catch the last couple of innings on the radio, and man, it wasn’t even close, as the Mets cruised 10-3. Later, I saw the highlights, which featured Cliff Floyd’s two monstrous dingers, and a montage of unfortunate fielding plays by Bernie Williams (who made an awful error on Friday night as well).

The clip that was most arresting showed Williams knocking over the water cooler in the dugout, as if the ghost of Paul O’Neill had gotten a hold of him. I don’t ever recall Bernie lashing on in anger like that, do you? According to the New York Times:

“I think we’re asking him to do more than we expected from him all year,” [manager Joe] Torre said…”In spring training, I thought about having Bernie out there and giving him a couple of days off. We just haven’t been able to do that. We don’t have the depth in center field to do that. We’re going to look and see how we can get him a day off.”

…Torre said: “It’s hard, because I know how proud he is and how badly he wants to be there for everybody. He came here long before I was here. The one thing about Bernie, numbers never change your opinion of him, because you start with the man.”

Steve Lombardi has an interesting post on Williams that hints that Bernie isn’t so well-loved by one of his longtime teammates (my guess is that person is Derek Jeter).

Both teams are now 37-37. I don’t think the Yanks will lose tonight, not with Johnson on the mound, but hey, I wouldn’t exactly be shocked if they did either.

I went out and saw the new Batman movie last night. I thought it was well worth ten bucks and easily the most impressive Batman movie to date. Meanwhile, Pedro and the Mets beat the Yanks 6-4 on a steamy night in the Bronx.

I’m gunna miss today’s game as well. Instead, I’m heading down to Philly with some Red Sox friends of mine to see Boston play the Phils. I’ve never been to the new stadium down there–heck, I never went to the old one either–so it should be a good time.

Go Yanks.

Yo, there aren’t many good things to say about last night’s 9-4 Yankee loss to the Devil Rays, so I’m a keep this brief. At some point, resignation just has to set in for Yankee fans. What else can you do? Hang on to 1978 forever. Sure, they are still only five games out, but losing three of four to the D Rays twice? C’maaaan, man, ya killin me.

Bernie had a good night with the stick (though he fell asleep and let Julio Lugo turn a single into a double for no good reason too), with a homer, a double, and a hard, line drive out to short. Um, Jason Giambi hit the ball well too. He singled to left, and later bunted for a base hit in the ninth (he also lined out hard to left, and Carl Crawford did his best Sandy Amoros impression to rob the big man of a double). Yup, just what everyone has been begging for: Giambi bunted for a hit. Didn’t do the team much good in the long run, but at least he had his head in the right place.

The Mets visit the Bronx this weekend in a battle of which local team is more mediocre. Any thoughts about that one? Come on, inspire me with some conversation will ya, because I’m fresh out of ideas.

John Harper thinks that yesterday’s 5-3 loss to the Devil Rays is one of the Yankees’ worst of the season:

In a season of stunning losses, you can make a case that this was the most alarming one of all. In the manager’s office afterward, you could see it in Joe Torre’s face. You could hear it in his tone of voice more than his words.

…”This was a tough loss,” Torre said afterward in a rather grave tone. “After what we did (Tuesday) night…and today we had a couple of leads, and we couldn’t hold onto it. It’s a setback, no question.”

From what he’s seen of the Yankees in the past week, Harper opines:

It’s more of a sign than ever that they’re destined to be an inconsistent club all season, talented enough to put together occasional hot streaks, but not complete enough to sustain the type of high-level performance that has marked the Torre era.

Kazmir v. Pavano this afternoon at the stadium. Watch both teams combine for five runs.

Rookie Sean Henn walked seven batters in less than five innings of work last night. By the time he was relieved by Paul Quantrill, the Devil Rays had a 3-0 lead. A bloop single made it 4-0, and Tampa Bay added another run in the following inning. All of which seemed more than enough for Casey Fossum who cruised through the Yankee lineup for the first six innings (the first hit for the Bombers–a double by Hideki Matsui–didn’t come until the fifth). Alex Rodriguez doubled to lead off the seventh, narrowly missing a home run (run dummy!), then Matsui walked. But the Yanks couldn’t do anything else as Posada flew out to left, Giambi whiffed, and Williams grounded out to third.

In the eighth, however, Cano singled, chasing Fossum from the game. Lance Carter replaced him and promptly allowed a single to Jeter. After retiring Womack–who got an earful from the boo birds–Sheffield chopped a base hit to left scoring Cano. Rodriguez went fishing after a breaking ball and popped out to second, but then Matsui hooked a change up over the right field fence and the Yankees were suddenly down by just one run.

That was as close as they would get. Posada walked and Giambi whiffed again (he still can’t catch up with those good heaters). Mariano Rivera pitched a scoreless ninth, uncharacteristically walking two men. But the Bombers went down in order against Danys Baez in the bottom of the ninth, as the Devil Rays pulled out a 5-4 win.

“We’ve got to come out and play with our hair on fire, and I don’t think we did that today,” said Alex Rodriguez…”Today we were a little lazy.”

…”Just a disappointing performance by us tonight. We have to do better than that.”
(N.Y.Times)

Tonight gives Johnson vs. Nomo. Bank on the Yankees doing better.

For great baseball gossip, there are no two guys better than Peter Gammons and Ken Rosenthal. Today, Rosenthal writes that the Mets might not move centerfielder Mike Cameron after all, while Gammons checks in on the Yanks:

The Yankees are trying to get Oakland’s Mark Kotsay, who can be a free agent at the end of the year. But whether or not Brian Cashman will give up the prospects needed to get one of the game’s premier center fielders, like right-hander Philip Hughes and perhaps third baseman Eric Duncan, remains to be seen. Cashman has talked to a number of general managers, but isn’t offering to break up the team as some have suggested. Getting Kotsay would completely change their outfield defense and give them a solid leadoff hitter as they try to move Tony Womack.

Hmmm.

“The Yankees are the best team we’ve seen all season…I don’t know why they’re a couple games over .500.” Dusty Baker
(N.Y.Times)

Well, we’ve got ourselves an answer, Mr. Ciepley. The Cubs suck more…for now, at least. The Yanks beat Chicago 6-3 yesterday, sweeping the weekend series. It was New York’s sixth consecutive win. (In a losing cause, Derek Lee went 6-12 in the three games.) Tyler Kepner has a good write up of the game in the New York Times this morning. The Devil Rays are in town for a four-game set starting tonight and then the Mets come in over the weekend, after which, we can finally put inter-league play to rest for the season.

I’ve written on numerous occasions over the past few seasons about what will happen to the Yanks After George. The $64,000 question is not “What will happen to the Bronx Bombers when Torre is gone?” but “What will happen when George is gone?” For anyone under 35 (I just turned 34), we simply don’t know what a Yankee Universe is like without George. We’re accustomed to his ways, for better or for worse. And though we’ve heard in the media that behind closed doors Steinbrenner is still as incorrigible as ever, publicly, he’s a far cry from the Bronx Zoo Boss of the 1970s and ’80s.

What? He called Hideki Irabu a slob in 1999, he traded for Mondesi a few years later, busted Don Zimmer’s chops to no end, and took turns giving Derek Jeter and Joe Torre some grief too. This is all mild stuff coming out of Steinbrenner.

Yet when the Yanks struggle, there is great anticipation about “What George will do next?” I think the guy is a far cry from what he once was, and I’m guilty of expecting an explosion every now and again. You’d think this would be the year he’d let loose. Fire the pitching coach or the general manager: something, already.

But it’s becoming increasingly clear that there will be no fireworks. Not in the same way we used to see. I was thinking about this last week, when I noticed that Tom Verducci hit on how George has changed in his recent mailbag column. In talking about Brian Cashman, Verducci wrote:

He works for a very different Steinbrenner than the stereotype people keep writing about (he’s extremely sensitive now and hasn’t fired anybody in years).

Picking up on this theme, Mike Lupica has an outstanding piece on Steinbrenner today in the Daily News. I grew up reading Lupica, and though I’ve never admired him as a stylist, I respect the fact that he’s been covered Steinbrenner and the Yankees for close to thirty years. When he’s good, Lupica still can hit the nail right on the head. He doesn’t often write long articles anymore, but this one is choice:

Anybody who watched his recent interview on YES with Michael Kay or watched this staged media event the other day, has to know that the Boss Steinbrenner that is still written about and discussed on television and the radio does not exist. He can still blow his top. He can still make a headline. But he is as real now as the young Mike Tyson is real.

…The truth is, Steinbrenner says hardly anything of interest anymore.

The Boss that the media and the Yankees still want, the Reggie-Billy-Bronx Zoo boss, no longer exists.

Lupica speculates who might take control once George steps down, and how it will impact the organization. He doesn’t think it looks promising, and I have to agree. There has been a lot to dislike about Steinbrenner over the years, but he also has tried to put a winning team on the field, no matter the cost. Some Yankee fans might grow to really miss him once he’s gone. (Last year, Allen Barra wrote an appreciation of Steinbrenner for the Village Voice, and suggested that we should be thankful for what Boss George has given us now…six world championships and ten World Series appearances in just over thirty years.) Lupica believes that those days are close to being over. Then, in his own, inimitable way, he calls it like it is:

It is obvious by now that love Steinbrenner or hate him, there will never be another owner, in any city in any sport, like him.

That’s the fact, Jack.

Well, it finally happened. After 155 career plate appearances with the bases loaded, Derek Jeter hit his first Major League grand slam this afternoon as the Yanks bombed Chicago, 8-1 at the stadium. Emily and I were listening to the game in the car and I called the homer. It’s not like this is the first time I–or any number of Yankee fans, for that matter–have called Jeter’s first grand slam, but it was the first time I was right. The way I figured it, Alex Ciepley was still at the game. I know he was going to leave early so that he could get home in time to get ready for his party tonight, but it was the bottom of the sixth and the game was still close (Yanks 3, Cubs 1). Alex can’t sand Jeter, so I figured it would make perfect sense that Jeter would do something memorable. (For good measure, Jeter added a solo shot in the eighth.)

The crowd went wild and I’m sure the entire scene drove Ciepley out of the Bronx with the quickness. Chien-Ming Wang pitched a beautifully efficient game and the Yanks won their fifth straight.

Well, so far, the Yankees suck less. Or the Cubs suck more. However you want to put it. I was at the game last night with Alex Ciepley and my brother Ben. We sat in the front row of the upper deck, about twenty seats to the right of the right field foul pole. I had never been anywhere near that spot before so it the view was interesting. The sun was in our face for the first couple of innings, and after that, we saw some striking cloud formations in the distance. It was supposed to rain, but it never did. It was cool and breezy, really a perfect spring night at the ballpark.

There were lots of Cub fans at the Stadium and they made lots of noise during the middle innings. They didn’t antagonize the home crowd, they were just happy to cheer and get loud for their guys. We saw only a few fights, including what looked like something nasty about ten rows behind home plate in the seventh inning, but otherwise, everyone seemed to be on their best behavior. There was a couple sitting behind us who came all the way from Illinois. The woman went to high school with Joe Girardi, even typed his senior thesis. Girardi’s parents actually introduced the couple, who left, without saying goodbye in the eighth inning.

That’s when Ciepley told me that it’s a myth that folks from the midwest are friendly. He said mostly they are anti-social and weird.

There was a pretty funny heckler sitting to our left. The kind of guy who shouted random insults at the Yankees at random times. He loved giving Sheffield the business for no apparent reason. He told us, with great delight, about how when he sat downstairs, they used to give Mondesi all sorts of abuse. (Speaking of Sheff, my brother noted that he looks like he’s dogging it some lately. His name is popping up in phatom rumors. What gives? Anyone noticed anything off about him? And why would the Yanks want to trade him of all people?)

Carlos Zambrano wasn’t on his A-game, though Carl Pavano did everything he could to let him off the hook. (Zambrano is a gorilla. He reminds me of a combination of Rich Garces and Juaquin Andujar. You can see he’s often dominant.) Eventually, Hideki Matsui came through with two huge hits off of Chicago’s bullpen, as the Yankees came-from-behind to take the first game of the series, 9-6. Derek Lee had his usual two hits. Bernie Williams added two of his own, and Alex Rodriguez had three.

Ciepley will be at the game again the afternoon (then he’s got a birthday bash tonight downtown with some of his pals). As for me, Emily and I are headed up to the country to do some strawberry pickin. Who knows, maybe we’ll–I’ll–get ambitious and make some jaw when it is all said and done. Anyhow, should prove to be a fruity day, no matter how you slice it.

Go Yanks!

The Big Unit made short work of the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight at the Stadium as the Yankees cruised to a 6-1 win through the raindrops in the Bronx. Johnson allowed five hits, including a solo home run by Michael Restovich, but the Pirates were never really in the game. Johnson began the game by striking out the first two batters on six pitches. He ended the game by mowing down Daryl Ward for his eleventh K of the night. The Big Unit’s slider has far more bite to it than it did earlier in the year–Jose Castillo swung through one that actually hit him on the right thigh in third inning. Johnson was in a foul, competitive mood all evening, growling over pitches that weren’t called strikes, cursing at himself when the Pirates hit the ball hard. He was dominant: 86 of the 110 pitches he threw were strikes.

His counterpart Oliver Perez wasn’t nearly as sharp. I’ve read about Perez’s involved delivery, and he seems to have body parts moving every which way. (His motion is almost as complicated and intricate as his facial hair.) During the early innings he was too hyper, bouncing off the mound after several pitches as if he had a hot foot. Perez is dynamic and he’s clearly got very good stuff, but his location was off, and the Yankees scored all six runs in the first four innings. Hideki Matsui cranked a two-run bomb halfway up the right-center field bleachers in the first, Jason Giambi and Robinson Cano had RBI hits in the second, and Gary Sheffield had an excuse-me, bases loaded double in the fourth. That was all the Yankees would need, as Johnson polished off the Pirates in two hours and nineteen minutes.

Done and done.

It had all the makings of another frustrating game for the Yankees. They couldn’t come up with a timely hit and the Pirates kept tacking on runs. Not only that, but when the Yankees did hit the ball hard it tended to be directly at a Pittsburgh defender. The Pirates boast a slick defensive infield, and they strutted their stuff all evening long. But with a little bit of luck (in the form of a missed call that would have ended the game in the ninth, as well as a ball that hit Russ Johnson in the tenth), the Yankees finally earned a come-from-behind victory, as Jason Giambi’s moonshot off of Jose Mesa sent Yankee fans to bed with a smile on their face. The final was 7-5, and the Bombers didn’t lose ground to the Orioles and the Red Sox, who both won as well.

Giambi couldn’t catch up to southpaw Mike Gonzalez’s gas in the eighth inning, but Mesa couldn’t sneak the heater past him in the tenth. I called Cliff a few minutes after the game ended and he said something to the effect that Jose Mesa is good for what ails ya. Amen to that, brother. The Yanks pounded out fifteen hits in all. Kevin Brown had to leave the game due to back spasms, and Tanyon Sturtze was roughed up again, but Mariano Rivera dominated the Pirates for two innings, lowering his season earned run average to 1.09 in the process. After a one-two-three ninth, Rivera clapped his hands and encouraged his team in the dugout.

With Gary Sheffield on first and two out, Alex Rodriguez came to the plate. The Yanks trailed by one run. Rodriguez missed a room service fastball with the count 1-1, and I thought that might be the game right there. Man, was it ever a fat pitch. As much as I think the notion of Rodriguez as a choker is nuts, I admit that in a tight situation I don’t have the same confidence in him that I do with, say Sheffield. Nevertheless, Rodriguez was patient, and eventually muscled a good fastball that was bearing in on his hands into center for a single. Jorge Posada followed and laced a line drive into right, which tied the game.

After Tino Martinez walked to lead off the bottom of the tenth, Russ Johnson came into the game as a pinch-runner. Increasingly disgruntled left fielder Tony Womack, who replaced Ruben Sierra in left an inning earlier, was set to sacrifice him to second. After several pitches the Pirates called a pitch-out. Johnson was running. Hung up, he retreated to first. But the throw hit him and he made it back safely. At that point I turned to Emily and said, “There is just too much going right for them tonight to lose this one.” Fortunately, I was right, and I couldn’t be happier for Giambi, who absolutely crushed the ball into the upper deck, momentarily turning the jeers to cheers. After he was mobbed at home plate, Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez all took the time to not only hug Giambi, but give him some words of encouragment too. Good for the Big Lug. And kudos to the whole team.

Especially since tonight’s match-up could be special.

(more…)

“Sure we’re concerned,” [George] Steinbrenner said. “Until we’re in first place, we’re concerned. But we’re doing all right.”
(Star- Ledger)

On an unbearably hot night in the Bronx, Mike Mussina tossed a complete-game shutout and the Yankees crushed the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-0:

“We came out and scored, kept putting pressure on them and we played good defense,” Mussina said. “It was just a night I was glad to be pitching. I got some breaks, got some runs scored for us.”
(ESPN)

With Boss George in the house, it was the kind of laugher that the Yankees sorely need. It won’t mean much if they can’t string together a series of wins, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.

Considering how poorly they’ve played, it’s notable that nobody has publicly gone nutzo, from George on down. Lots of meetings, yeah, but no tirades yet. This team might be a lot of things, but the Bronx Zoo they ain’t. (Hey, the New Age Bronx Zoo is alive and well in the City of Angels.) While neither Bernie Williams and Tony Womack aren’t thrilled about how their seasons are going, neither has pitched a fit. Steven Goldman, president of the T. Womack Fan Club observed recently:

If I were him, I wouldn’t be disgruntled, I’d be embarrassed. The New York Times reports that Mr. Torre is thinking of trying Womack in center field. Unless this is a clever ruse to increase Womack’s trade value, it is, charitably, insane. There is nowhere on the playing field that you can hide a Womack, and he won’t help the defense any.

I figure Womack will be traded before the summer is out.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press and New York Times report that the Yanks will announce their plans for a new stadium later today.