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TORRE TALKS

Yankee fans, rest assured: the cool, calm and collected Joe Torre is still in charge of his team. Though reporters from the Daily News and the New York Post sensed tension in the subtleties, Torre addressed a host of issues with his usual poise and patience:

Torre disputed the idea that the pitchers – the biggest reason for the defeat – weren’t ready. “To put that in the category of not wanting it enough, you can’t,” he said. “It was just a bad week. I hate to simplify it.

“Am I going to say they were hungrier? I hope not; let’s put it that way. It was never a question of focus. I would’ve been the first one to address that. I would’ve taken the hit. If we had been lackadaisical, I would’ve told you (reporters).”

Torre seemed disappointed when the subject of Steinbrenner’s shots at Jeter came up.

“He’s a young man,” Torre said. “Baseball nowadays, by the time you leave the park, it’s midnight. Everywhere he goes, someone recognizes him and calls someone or tells a writer.

“His performance is very consistent. We wouldn’t be sitting here with the four rings without him.

“He never will match up with the other shortstops (Alex Rodriquez, Nomar Garciaparra, Miguel Tejada) offensively. But what he brings to the team other than that are more important for us.”

…”Who hit a ball harder in the postseason than he did?” Torre asked of Jeter, who hit .500 (8-for-16) with three RBIs in the four-game ALDS loss to the Angels. “The play of the whole division series was Garret Anderson catching that ball down the left-field line, and to this day I don’t know how that happened.”

With the score tied, 1-1, in the fifth inning of Game 4, the Yankees had runners on second and third with no outs against tiring Jarrod Washburn. Jeter pulled a fly ball down the left-field line that Anderson caught on the run a step away from the fence. It scored Juan Rivera from third for a 2-1 lead, but it kept the Yankees from a big inning as Washburn retired Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams to strand Alfonso Soriano at second. The Angels scored eight runs off David Wells in the home fifth on their way to a 9-5 victory that ended the Yankees’ season.

“As many balls as [Jeter] hits to right field, Garret Anderson got a great jump, but that game is out of hand if that ball goes by him,” Torre said. “To me that was the play of [the series]. But [Jeter] hit bullets every time up.

“Derek doesn’t have to prove anything to me. As long as I make the lineup card out, that’s all I care about.”

…Torre has occasionally kidded his players in team meetings, mock-urging them to play well to “keep The Boss off my back.”

Now, Steinbrenner may have climbed aboard – one of the few times he’s challenged Torre like this publicly. But Torre is trying to remain focused.

“I don’t feel any different,” he said. “Within myself, I’m sure that I know what I’m doing. I’m satisfied with what I’ve accomplished, but it’s not enough. I still like this, I still want to do it.”

My cousin Gabe, the Met fan, sent me an e-mail yesterday, and told me that he enjoyed the Ken Burns interview, with one exception:

The last part, the part about it being impossible not to like Jeter or Bernie Williams or to not respect for Joe Torre…well, that’s just hooey, of course.

I like Torre for his demeanor quite a bit, and think he does a great job as a clubhouse manager–a kind of publicist and managing director for the team. As a
field manager…well, managing in the AL is sort of a silly business, in my opinion. It’s like being good at backgammon or checkers. There are only so many
permutations. If you negatively impact the outcome of the game, it’s due to sloppiness; if you positively affect it, you’re just doing what you should.

Would you say that a manager’s most important in-game decisions almost always concern when to take pitchers out and when to leave them in?

I would say Torre’s most important in-game decisions is which side of Zimmer to sit on. But for a more sophisticated response, let me turn to Earl Weaver, who was profiled by Thomas Boswell in an article titled, “The Best Manager There Is.” (From “How Life Imitates the World Series.”)

“I can sum up managing in one sentence. Everybody knows all the strategies. Nothing’s changed in a hundred years. A manager’s job,” Eaver defined, “is to select the best players for what he wants done.”

Weaver beams, knowing the complexity hidden in that thought.

“A manager wins games in December. He tries not to lose them in July. You win pennants in the off-season when you build your team with trades and free agents.

“Smart managing is dumb,” says Weaver. “The three-run homers your trade for in the winter will always beat brains.

“The guys who says, ‘I love the challenge of managing,’ is one step from being out of job. I don’t welcome any challenge. I’d rather have nine guys named Robinson.” [Is that Frank or Brooks?]

…”People say I’ver never had to manage a bad team…Well, that’s the point. If you dig hard enough year-round, you should always be able to find players who can do what you want done. They’re not all great players; but they can all do something.

…”The man’s a genius at finding situations where an average player–like me–can look like a star because a lot of subtle factors are working in your favor,” says John Lowenstein. “He has a passion for finding the perfect player for the perfect spot.”

…”Earl gets coaches who are teachers, then he doesn’t get in their way,” says pitching coach Ray Miller. “He doesn’t tell me, ‘Why don’t you teach Sammy Stewart the window-shade-release slip pitche?’ He says, ‘Jesus Christ, I’m sick of looking at that horseshit changeup. Get him a new one.'” With his absolute faith in his own baseball eye, and his coaches ability to polish skills, Weaver manages as though victory were an inevitability.

“Patience…patience,” he often says. “You must remember that anyone under thirty—especially a ballplayer—is an adolescent. I never got close to being an adult until I was thirty-two. Even though I was married and had a son at twenty, I was a kid at thirty-two, living at home with my parents. Sure, I was a manager then. That doesn’t mean you’re drown up.

ZIM CHUCKLES

Popeye Zimmer, who is old friends with George Steinbrenner, took the Boss’s off-season lashing in stride:

“He is The Boss and he can say what he wants. I am a 72-year-old guy and I can say what I want,” Zimmer said yesterday on the way out of Legends Field. “He said it and I laughed at it. Joe called me from Hawaii to feel me out, and I said to Joe, ‘I am going to spring training feeling good.’ “

WEAVER IN GOOD SPIRITS

String-bean pitcher Jeff Weaver reported to camp yesterday and said all the right things:

“I don’t feel like I am fighting for anything. This is a great spot to be in,” Weaver said yesterday when he reported to Legends Field. “Whatever I am told to do I will do, but there is no doubt in my mind I am best suited to being a starter for this team.”

“No doubt, starting is where I feel I’m best. Starting is what I’m gearing up for. I think it’s understood and everybody realizes where I should be in the future, whenever the future is.

“I can’t go crazy or I’ll lose juice at the end of the year. I’m not going to change anything because of the competition.”

AFTERMAN PROMOTED

Jean Afterman, the Yankees assistant general manager, who was credited by her boss as being a major player in the Godzilla Matsui deal, was promoted to vice president yesterday.

“We have and continue to rely upon Jean’s experience and guidance as we move forward with our international initiative,” Yankees chief operating officer Lonn Trost said. “The globalization of the New York Yankees is, in part, evidenced by her expertise and work ethic which has proven to be an invaluable resource to our baseball operations department.”

Looks like Yankee announcer Suzan Waldman Georgie’s only girl after all.

JETER ON THE HOT SEAT

Mike Lupica has a column today on Derek Jeter. To some, he’s the most-overrated player in baseball, and to others, he’s the heart and soul of the Yankees. Lupica doesn’t shed any new light on DJ’s situation, but reiterates the popular notion that #2 needs to play better than he did last year:

The Yankees have benefited tremendously from his presence at shortstop and at the top of the order, his ability to seize the moment, to raise his game in the postseason especially. But at the same time, he has benefited tremendously from being a Yankee, the glow that can give you, as much as any Yankee of modern times, and that includes Don Mattingly. Benefited with that contract, for sure. So he is both lucky and good.

…But Jeter’s batting average has dropped three straight years. His lifetime average is still .317, and that is a beauty for a shortstop, but last year his average was .297. Jeter still scored his runs, scored 124 of them, but he hit just 18 home runs and produced just 75 RBI.

Give him all the props for those intangibles, the way you have to see him every day to appreciate what he brings to his team, and the way he moves runners and hits in the clutch. Those were not the numbers of a superstar last season or even close. It is now ridiculous to compare him to A-Rod.

I don’t believe the slip has anything to do with any of the things Steinbrenner talked about. Jeter still has to do better, and that includes in the field.

… Pitchers and catchers report to Legends Field in Tampa this week. Jeter is already down there, working out, working harder than anybody around. No one thought he would be this kind of star, even when he was moving up through the system. Plays hard, plays hurt, plays big in the biggest games. Gets the big money, too. He needs to pick it up this season. If he does, Steinbrenner won’t care if he stays out later than Mantle did

I would like to see Jeter put up stupid numbers this year too, but if he merely duplicates his 2002 stats, I won’t complain either. One thing that is lost in all of the Jeter talk is that he may simply be closer to a .290 hitter than a .320 hitter. There is no crime in that. It just may take some of his most ardent fans a minute to check themselves accordingly. He had a career year in 1999, and his numbers have declined since. He still scores 100+ runs per year, and is still the emotional leader of the team. Is he a great fielder? Recent studies suggest he isn’t even a good one.

Considering the size of Jeter’s contract, it’s likely that he will continue to recieve more criticism over the next couple of years. So long as he keeps playing winning baseball, I don’t care how much flack he gets. He may be the Yankees most important player, he’s just not their best player.

MARKETING MATSUI

Jeter isn’t the only Yankee who has been working hard. Hideki Matsui arrived in Florida yesterday, and hadn’t been in the state for more than two hours before he was working out at Yankee camp.

“He’s definitely a Clemens type who likes to work out,” [Yankee general manager, Brian] Cashman said. “It’s obviously important to him, and that’s great to see. His work ethic is strong. He has a deep desire to play the game of baseball and play it right.”

Tyler Kepner profiles the Japanese superstar today in the Times, while Roger Rubin examines the marketing impact Godzilla is likely to have for the Yanks.

YES, NO, YES, NO…

Richard Sandomir has an update on the Yes/Cablevision stand-off. Shoot me now.

CLEMENTE’S SPORTS COMPLEX IN TROUBLE

There was a heartbreaking article on Roberto Clemente’s decaying sports complex in P.R. last weekend in the Boston Globe. A lack of funding has led to hard times for 304-acre Roberto Clemente Sports City. Local government has failed to offer any financial support. Not suprisingly:

There has been little help from the Latin American players that now make up 20 percent of the major leagues and nothing from team owners who profit by showcasing Latin American players. [Roberto’s son] Luis Clemente shrugs. ”We haven’t asked,” he said.

There was a speech that Roberto Clemente made in Pittsburgh in January 1972 after the Pirates won the World Series the previous fall that would have answered those vandals armed with rocks [local kids trashed a school bus that was owned by the Clemente sports center]: ”We hear a great deal about kids today, how bad some are and that our American youth is rapidly deteriorating . . . There is nothing wrong with our homes, our country, that a little more care, a little more concern, a little more love won’t cure. We need to show love and to love not only our kids and our families as a whole but our neighbors. We are all brothers and sisters. We must give each other a helping hand when needed.”

Amen.

Oh, I wanted to send a belated Happy Birthday shout to Jose “Don” Tuma, aka Fat-Ass Al. Let’s hope he can stick with his Mets for a full season this time around.

Peace.

SPRING TRAINING SPECIAL: TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME

An Interview with Ken Burns

The first job I had when I left college in the winter of 1993-94 was working as a post-production assistant on Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary. I was with the film for the final six months of production, while they mixed the sound in New York. Needless to say, it was a stroke of good luck to break into the film business working on an 18 1/2 hour movie on the history of baseball. Good God. I should have been paying me them to sit around in a state-of-the-art sound studio watching them put the finishing touches on the series.

Nine years later, I’m through with the movies but still head-over-heels for baseball.

I’ve kept in touch with Ken over the years, and had him on the brain this winter. Maybe it’s the historical biographies I’ve been reading, or maybe it’s all of the changes the Red Sox have made, but I thought it would be a good time to check in with Mr. B and have a chat.

I caught up with him last week, as he graciously took a couple of minutes out of his busy schedule to talk a little baseball.

Burns sounded exhausted, and preoccupied. He told me he’s traveling 300 days out of the year. Everybody wants a piece of him. Sensing that time is of the essence, we got right down to business.

Part One

BB: Did you read the Jane Leavy book on Koufax?

KB: I plan to when I retire…sometime when I’m 93.

BB: Leavy sets the drama of his career around the political and cultural events of the period in a succinct and direct way that reminds me of the style you use in your movies.

KB: Well we certainly didn’t invent it, but I think it’s knowing in the Blakian sense, that you can find a world in a grain of sand. And in this baseball world, I think we have an American universe.

BB: It’s been almost 10 years since “Baseball” was released…

KB: Yeah, I can’t believe that.

BB: When was the last time you saw any of it?

KB: I see bits and pieces of it, but I’m sorry to say it’s the familiar bits and pieces that are used in promotion. Like the thing on Satchial Paige from episode 5; “The Child of God,” about early Curt Flood from episode 7; the opening of the film…you know, things like that. My girlfriend right now is actually not a baseball fan, but in some labor of love is sitting there, and on the nights that I’m not there [sic], is looking through the whole series. And so she’ll call me up and say, “What’s with Three-Finger Brown?” and “What was Shoeless Joe Jackson thinking?” Really great stuff like that, which reminds me that I got to dive back into it again.

BB: I remember you once said something like the ideal audience for the series was an Eastern European woman who doesn’t know anything about baseball.

KB: Yes. That’s exactly right. Because I think that what we were making was a film that wasn’t just about baseball. That is to say, not just about games won and lost, careers rising and falling. But we saw it as this startlingly revealing mirror of our country. So that it was not just about the arc of baseball, it was the story of immigration and assimilation and about how different waves of immigrant groups felt the pride of citizenship–much more than a piece of paper from the State Department. It’s about the exclusion of women, it’s about the tensions between labor and management, that is to say, who owns the ball, and the ball field, and who plays the game. It’s the story about the growth and decay of cities; it’s the story about the World Wars and the devastating Depression. It’s the story of heroes and villains and fools, and popular culture, and advertising. Most of all it’s the story of race, and the exclusion of a group of people who turned out to be among the best, if not the best, who ever played the game.

BB: Why baseball? How did you come up with it in the first place?

KB: I remember sitting in a bar in Georgetown, Washington D.C. as we were embarking on the “Civil War”…So, that would have been 1985. I was with Mike Hill [coordinating producer]. He had been working on the “Huey Long” film with me and we were sort of looking ahead, beyond the “Civil War”, which I think was incredibly brave, cause if any of us had really thought about it, we thought we’d DIE trying to make the “Civil War”. We had this nice, pleasant, short thing that would be after the “Civil War” on baseball. A celebration of the history of baseball. And it wasn’t until we got into it that we suddenly realized, we aren’t doing a short history of baseball, we’re doing the sequel to the “Civil War”. Because in many ways we got distracted by the idea that our history is merely wars and presidents. And for many people that’s all that is: the Signposts of American History. When in fact, all of the themes that I just mentioned that baseball gathers up, are much closer to our day-to-day life than wars and generals and presidents. I began to see, how particularly when you realize that Jackie Robinson was the first real progress in Civil Rights since the Civil War, that “Baseball” was the sequel to that series. During the production of “Baseball,” we interviewed Gerald Early who said that when they study our American civilization 2000 years from now the only thing that we’ll be known for is The Constitution, Baseball and Jazz. Those are the three most beautiful things that Americans have ever produced. We then realized half way through “Baseball” that we were actually involved in a trilogy that would require us to spend the six and a half years after “Baseball” to complete it by making the history of Jazz.

BB: How long did “Baseball” take to make?

KB: “Baseball” was essentially begun in 1990 in terms of early thinking in design, and it was broadcast in the fall of 1994.

BB: When did you realize it was going to be significantly longer than “Civil War”?

KB: When we talked about it originally we assumed it would be a ‘couple of hours’ thing. I think by the time we finished “Civil War” we knew it was going to be 9, 1-hour segments. You know, keeping to the idea that each episode would be an inning. Then as we developed the information of those innings, we found that we were telling a much fuller story, and that it was possible to expand it. And then, as in the case with all the films, we let the material itself truly dictate what we were about, and that’s where we ended up with the 18 1/2 hours.

BB: How daunted were you at the prospect of making something that expansive? Were you worried about how to keep a pace, a rhythm throughout the movie that would tie it all together?

KB: Well, I think that’s always the case. In fact I think a legitimate criticism could be made of the series, and has been of the series, that it is takes itself too seriously at times, that there is a kind of ponderousness that was appropriate to the “Civil War” but not appropriate to the game of baseball. And I think that’s a valid criticism, but at the same time I think that because we were dealing with all of these themes outside of the game, it did take on a kind of seriousness. But offsetting that seriousness are plenty of moments of great humor and joy, and sort of speed , and whatever.

BB: How did the making of this series affect the way you appreciate baseball as a baseball fan?

KB: Well, I think it deepened it in many ways. Because here you connected, in more than a superficial way, to these names. I mean Walter Johnson is a name that I had known since childhood. Now I know more about him. And with Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, John McGraw, Honus Wagner: these people now mean something to me. They’re almost members of my family; they’re distant cousins. And I think having those ancestors in my family has helped me appreciate the game more than anything else. In fact, I find myself even more positive about the game, particularly to the naysayers, now. I know that the game being played now is better than it ever has been. And we know that from experiencing all the decades of baseball, through our study of it. It’s not to take away from any of those previous things, or to be some kind of anti-nostalgia [sic], but it’s really important for people who get sucked into the nostalgia of the old game to realize that, you know Barry Bonds might have hit 80 home runs back in 1927.

BB: What do you attribute that to? The fact the game has just gotten better.

KB: I think it has to do with the way people have trained. I think it’s the focus. I think that money has provided incentive for performance, in a funny sort of way. I mean I know that’s counter-productive to the Myth of Baseball, but it’s always been a business. One of the reasons why it’s better is that throughout history the quality of pitching has gotten better. If the quality of pitching is better then you have to evaluate the quality of the hitting. And the hitting is so much better.

BB: What kind of fan are you? Are you a casual fan? Do you read the box scores in the paper?

KB: Well, I’m not sure that’s a casual fan. If that’s a casual fan, then I’m a casual fan. Yeah, I read the box scores every day. If I can I will watch every single Red Sox game. If I have the opportunity. That means if I’m not traveling, I’m home, I’m on the treadmill, whatever it is: I will watch every single game. Or listen to it on the radio if I’m in range. I keep a little thing in the car that tells me the Red Sox stations across New England, and other places. I’m sure in the course of a season, I listen to, or watch 120 games, at least.

BB: Was this true before you made the movie?

KB: Yeah. I mean I love the game; I love it…probably a little bit more now. Getting to watch games just tends to depend on cycles of work. If I’m doing a lot of travel, I don’t see as many games. But if I’m home editing, I’ll get home from a tough day and the game is starting at 7:30. And you turn it on, and you eat your dinner and you talk to friends and miss a few innings…or you go out to dinner and come home for the last two. I’d say I touch base with a good number of games.

BB: How long have you been a Red Sox fan?

KB: Well, you know I grew up in Delaware, and my father’s family was from Baltimore, so I was sort of an Orioles fan. But since I had been born in Brooklyn—never spent any time there—I had this identification with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Then they had the great success [as the Los Angeles Dodgers] in the early 60s, which corresponded with my explosion of love of the game. So I was really a National League guy, and knew more about the National League than anything else. Loved Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, of course. Then we moved to Michigan in 1963 and I sort of became a Tigers fan. In 68 I really became a Tigers fan because they gave me the only local World Series victory I’ve ever experienced in my life. By that time the war in Vietnam and all the counter-cultural upheaval of the 60s began to take it’s toll on my love of baseball. Baseball seemed a representation of the establishment and I moved away. So the Mets victory, which I participated in and celebrated tremendously in 69, was more of a news event, not a sport event. It was the Under Dog Winning. Definitely. And it was a season I hadn’t paid any attention to. I really lost 70, 71, 72, 73 while I was in college, and very much rebelling against the establishment. I went to college in Amherst, Massachusetts, and I befriended a professor whose husband was a big baseball fan. He would stay at home and watch the Red Sox games, and he seemed unapologetic about it. To me, baseball was a guilty pleasure. And you didn’t let anyone know, cause it wasn’t cool to be a baseball fan. And eventually I remember sitting and enjoying a game and it was like rediscovering an old friend. And falling in love, and it turned out to be a great time to do that because it was the magical period of Carlton Fisk coming up, and Jim Rice and Fred Lynn…

BB: The ’75 Series against the Big Red Machine.

KB: The 75 Series. I mean, 1974 was when I really got back into the game; 75 brought me right in there, and had the greatest moment of all the World Series, with Fisk’s home run in the 6th game of the series. And then you had the epic, titanic struggles with the Yankees, particularly in 78 with the loss of the thing, and Bucky Dent’s home run. The loss of the lead. The one-game playoff and Bucky Dent’s home run. I firmly believe that you should root for your local team. You can have other favorites, but if you live in a place as I have now, what, I’ve been in New England sine 1971, you should pull for the home team. And since 1974, the Red Sox have been my team.

BB: You cover the Red Sox a lot in the last two episodes. I remember you once saying something about the distinction between history and journalism. Essentially meaning that the book is still out on the material from 1960 to the present.

KB: I wouldn’t say 1960. It’s really more around the mid-70s where I get nervous. I think history involves some distance and perspective from the present. I think you need about 25 years. So it wasn’t until somewhere like 1970 that we were getting nervous. In many ways we didn’t really un-tether our narrative, that is to say, get more abstract, until the 79 Series. We covered things pretty tightly; as well as we had in the other episodes. But we still lacked a certain amount of perspective and since memory is so fresh, you seem to be making more drastic judgments. You know, you can go, “Where is George Brett, for crying out loud?” A favorite of mine, and somebody for whom we had a scene. But in the scheme of things, towards the end, you just have to wait until the 10th inning, when we get a chance to update the series.

BB: Well, would you venture to guess what’s happened since “Baseball” first aired in 1994 that might make the cut for extra innings?

KB: We had a scene that I was deliciously in love with. A line in the narration, with regard to Steinbrenner and his attempt throughout the 80s to manipulate everyone, and his firings of Billy Martin, concluded with, “…And he’s never won another.” Well, that’s no longer true. The Yankees have been the dominant team in baseball since the mid-1990’s.

BB: In spite of George.

KB: No, I have to give him credit. He’s doggedly pursued his vision of a winning team, and in the great Yankee tradition, he’s done it. You know even a die-hard Red Sox fan who hates the Yankees as a concept, has to take their hat off to what the Yankees have done, all the way through. So I think the principal focus of the film, if we had to do another episode–and we’re always talking about that—would be to focus on the great dominance of the Yankees, just as we focused on it in the 60s, and of course the 50s, the 40s, the 30s and the 20s.

BB: Joe Torre and Bernie Williams are hard not to like, or at least respect. These Yankees are a far cry from the som’bitches of the Bronx Zoo days.

KB: Well, the kind of sneering and arrogance you got from a Goose Gossage or Reggie Jackson or even Mickey Rivers, made it easier to dislike them, despite the presence of the Willie Randolphs and the Craig Nettles. What you have today is a Yankee team that is more professional. So yeah, it’s impossible not to like Jeter or Bernie Williams or to not have the utmost respect for Joe Torre.

BB: True.

(Part 2 will be posted early next week…)

EVIL EMPIRE STRIKES AGAIN

The Yankees won the right to negotiate with a young Dominican pitcher, Ramon Ramirez, who played for the Hiroshima Carp in Japan last year. The Yanks bid of $350,000 beat out 13 other teams; they now have 30 days to sign Ramirez to a contract.

I don’t know much about the kid other than the fact that he’s young and throws gas. The fact that the Yankees beat out the competition for the rights to negotiate with the kid should only serve to add fuel to the already raging, anti-Yankees fire.

MEANWHILE, IN RED SOX NATION…

Gordon Edes, who I think is one of the best beat writers in the country, has an excellent article on Theo Epstein in today’s Boston Globe.

In his Sunday column , Edes talked with starting pitcher Derek Lowe, who, like Pedro Martinez before him, expressed skepticism about the Red Sox closer-by-committee plan. Lowe was, however, happy to have our old friend Ramiro “El Bruho” Mendoza on his side.

”I think Mendoza is the biggest pickup of all we made this winter. I can’t tell you how many times, facing him over the years, we’d have guys at first and second, one out, he’d come in and get someone to hit into a double play.

”He’s a guy who can come into the game in the third inning and throw six shutout innings. I think he could be a fantastic starter; he has the pitches. Mendoza is basically the same as me. When I see him pitch, I see me.

”He throws a lot of strikes, he’s 87 to 90 [m.p.h.], he has a good changeup, he throws a breaking ball for strikes, he lives and dies with his sinker. You can’t put the guy in a situation that he hasn’t already been in. He’s pitched in Yankee Stadium, he’s pitched in the World Series. Any situation you put him in, he’s confident.”

Edes also added some choice information regarding the Kevin Millar situation in his “Notes” section:

This observation on the Kevin Millar situation from reader Kae Lee of Newton: ”I am an avid baseball fan who comes from Japan, and have followed your articles on Kevin Millar with a great interest. One thing I want to point out is the feudalistic way players are treated by Japanese owners, which is best illustrated in the Japanese word, kai-goroshi [keep to kill]. Kai-goroshi is just to retain the player’s contract for the purpose of not letting him play for any teams, including his own. The kai-goroshi tactics are very commonly employed by Japanese owners to ruin the baseball careers of players who are not loyal to them, or who may damage their teams if they are allowed to play for other teams. The president of the Chunichi Dragons has expressed repeatedly to the Japanese media his intention to do kai-goroshi on Millar if he does not play for Chunichi. Chunichi does not gain anything by doing kai-goroshi, but the goal is to punish Millar for insulting them by not honoring the contract. The way they treat players in Japan is worse than the way American players were treated before Curt Flood.”

… Another e-mailer, Phil Sinrich, writes: ”I have been puzzled by the enormity of space spent on Kevin Millar. I’ve never heard of him, and by July he’ll either be gone from the Sox or deep on the bench. It’s not exactly like we’re talking about Barry Bonds coming to the Red Sox.” He is by no means the only reader – or reporter – who has tired of the Millar saga. But it matters on a number of levels: 1) the Sox believe he will be a vital, complementary piece; 2) it is a case apparently without precedent in the annals of US-Japanese baseball relations; 3) it could have a lasting impact on those relations; 4) it could impact on any future business the Red Sox wish to conduct. But you can trust no one’s head is spinning more over this than Millar. He’s a villain in Japan without ever having set foot there, and he’s created a much bigger fuss in Boston than he ever would have wanted …

NO JOY IN YANKEEVILLE

Mike Lupica joined the chorus of columnists (Peter Gammons and most recently Joel Sherman) who are convinced that there will be no joy in Yankeeville this season. In one of his better columns, Lupica chides Boss Steinbrenner for taking all the fun out of covering the Bronx Bombers:

Nobody wants to talk too much about this, the Yankees being the company in a company town, too many media people too often acting like a part of the company. But as the Yankees keep getting bigger, the way their payroll does, the whole culture of the Yankees becomes this: They are losers if they don’t win the World Series. Which means their fans sometimes sound exactly like the owner of the team.

When they win, it is Steinbrenner and his wallet and his love for the fans and his passion to produce a winner that did it.

When they lose, it’s somebody else’s fault.

This is for all those who actually believe Steinbrenner has changed because the Yankees won four World Series in five years.

…There is even more pressure than the usual suffocating pressure on the Yankees to win it all this year, since the Yankees are the only team in all of sports who are supposed to win every single year, or else. You can see what an atmosphere of great joy this brings to the whole long season that begins any minute with pitchers and catchers.

It is imposible to believe Torre will manage the Yankees in 2004 if he doesn’t win in ’03; that he can survive going three straight years without a title even with four in the books already.

… All this money spent. All these starting pitchers. More pressure to win than ever. Torre and the rest of them always say they know what the deal is when they come here. Then they go a couple of years without winning it all. Not allowed. What a joy to be rich and a Yankee.

While I sympathize with Lupica’s perspective, reading his column made me thankful that I’m a fan. Sure, the Yankees have created a culture where winning is the only thing that matters. That’s Steinbrenner’s M.O. And of course, there are many so-called Yankee fans that will look at anything less than a World Championship as an unmitigated failure. If that’s the way they want to live life, it’s a free country.

They’re missing out, but I won’t let them spoil my fun.

I know that I will find a lot of joy in watching the Yankees this year, because while I hope they put themselves in a position to win another title, my experience won’t be ruined if they fail to win it all. Baseball is too screwy to guarantee, no matter how insistent Steinbrenner is. After all, part of being a Yankee fan is being able to block out Steinbrenner and concentrate on Joe Torre and his team between the lines. In fact, part of the Yankees annual struggle is not only against the rest of the league, but against the monster upstairs in the front office too.

I understand why George’s bulldozer approach would sap all the fun out of the team for some reporters and even the fans too. In Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary, the veteran baseball writer Roger Angell commented that when he used to visit Yankee Stadium [in the 1980s] he was troubled because he wanted to see the Yankees, and he felt like all he could see was George Steinbrenner. The Boss had somehow, irrevocably, come between the fan and the players.

In that sense, things haven’t changed all that much for some observers. But I think Joe Torre’s team has handled the Boss better than any of it’s predecessors. But as Lupica suggests, that may all change if they don’t capture another World Serious Ring before 2003 is all said and done.

John Harper added a Yankee Preview for the News yesterday as well. Here is an example of how far the Bronx Zoo has come:

There were several clubhouse issues last season, from Posada’s fight with Orlando Hernandez to Derek Jeter’s purloined glove. Then, while packing up his locker last October, Posada complained that some of his teammates weren’t taking the loss to the Angels hard enough, which had some team executives bristling behind the scenes, saying Posada was showing off for Jeter.

You really have to reach to come up with some good dirt these days. Posada’s fight with Duque? Please. Anyone who has followed the Yanks know that those two red-asses were in each other’s business every time Hernandez pitched. This “incident” falls in the Boys-will-be-Boys category and was utter harmless. Rube Rivera, who vicked Jeter’s glove, was sent packing before the tabliods hit the newsstand. And Posada popping off at the end of the playoffs? A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Haper asked Yankee general manager Brian Cashman about the percieved loss of leadership in the Yankee clubhouse:

“I don’t want to belittle leadership, but it goes hand-in-hand with performance. When performance deteriorates, it’s like leadership gets the same haircut that Samson did.

“David Cone was a great leader in our clubhouse, but when his performance dropped (in 2000), he didn’t carry as big a stick in our clubhouse, mainly because he had to worry about getting himself straightened out.”

… “Leadership comes from a lot of places – the manager, the coaches, the players. We still have a lot of leaders. It’s hard to replace guys like O’Neill; the leadership he can provide is rare. But we’ve had leaders come and go – (John) Wetteland, Chili Davis, Tim Raines, Luis Sojo, O’Neill.

“We won championships because we outperformed teams that year. Prior to ’98, we had some of the same players. Were they less leaders in 1997 because we lost? Or 2001? No, we just lost to better teams.

“All the stuff on the topic of new guys [not being able to lead] is a bunch of bull.”

Cashman was also asked about how the team would handle the massive press coverage Godzilla Matsui will recieve:

“That’s life,” Cashman said. “Do I think it’ll distract? It shouldn’t. Our guys are used to being the Beatles when they’re on the road, any city we go to. Opposing team’s media directors cringe when we come in. Our players are used to it.

“This is a big-stage town and if you’re not prepared for the fish bowl, this is the wrong environment. What about when Jeter was dating Mariah Carey? You think there’s going to be more requests for Matsui?

“Hey, we made the World Series when there was a media swarm on Hideki Irabu. And we made it with David Wells, where his off-the-field commitment was less than the other players. “It’s all a bunch of hooey.”

SORI GETS NAILED

If there is one Yankee that manages to convey a sense of joy while playing it’s Alfonzo Soriano. But not everyone loves lil Sori after all. In the funniest story that I’ve read in a minute, former Met Lenny ‘Nails’ Dykstra had some pretty harsh words for the Yankee second-baseman in a recent Esquire magazine article:

“Everybody’s blinded by this guy’s offense. But watch him play. He’s a hacksaw!”

Dykstra was watching on television when Soriano swung at the first pitch with the Yankees trailing late in Game 4 of the American League Division Series against the Angels. That was an intolerable sin to Dykstra, who was at Edison Field for Game 3. “When you’re down, you don’t swing on the first [bleeping] pitch, bro!” Dykstra continued. “You don’t take that 30-percent chance of getting a hit or whatever it is and go with it. I can’t take watching these guys [bleep] it up. I can’t take it.”

Contacted by The Post, Dykstra didn’t back down from those comments. “Guy taking swings when the count’s 2-0 and they’re down by two runs with nobody on, that kills me,” he said. “I can’t believe people don’t say anything about it.”

As for Soriano, “He’s a hacker,” Dykstra said. “The thing about it is a lot of his hacks have good results. But he’s a hacker.”

Never mind that Soriano’s wild hacks were more productive than Dykstra’s hard-earned, base-on-balls, Lenny plays the bitter, ex-jock well, thank you very much. Is Soriano a hacker? Of course he is. Does he have a lot to learn about the game? He sure does. But he’s also got the kind of innate talent that would make a scrapper like Nails blind with envy.

Anyhow, knowing that anything Soriano does right will burn a small hole in Dykstra’s gut, will help me enjoy Sori’s season all the more.

Nails also had a parting shot for Mike Mussina of all people:

“I know all about guys like him. College boys. Think they’re better than everyone else.” But he told The Post he really doesn’t know much about Mussina other than, “I know he can pitch.”

Dykstra is starting to sound like Dennis Quaid’s “Mean ol’ man Mike,” from “Breaking Away.”

Good shit.

5 QUESTIONS…

The Sunday Post ran brief previews for both the Mets and Yanks. Check em out.

ONE LAST THING…

My boy Joey La Pep, a die-hard Met fan, sent me the following e-mail this afternoon:

From yesterday’s New York City desktop calender:

1921, Feb. 6
“The New York Yankees announce the purchase of 10 acres of land in the west Bronx to build a new stadium. The land, across the Harlem River from the Yankees’ current playing field, the Polo Grounds, is purchased from the estate of William Waldorf Astor for $675,000. The Yankees have been sharing the Polo Grounds with the National League’s Giants, who own the stadium, but after 8 years this is no longer an option because Yankees attendance in 1920 surpasses that of the Giants, who ask the Yankees to find a new field. Contruction of the new stadium commences May 5, 1922, and is completed by opening day the following year, April 18, 1923.”

That’s the fact, Jack.

YANKEE HOT STOVE HEATER

The 2003 Yankee Scouting Report is featured on ESPN today. If you’ve been following the Yankees this off-season, it won’t tell you much you don’t already know. I was somewhat suprised by John Sickel’s Minor League Report though. Apparently, the Yankees depleted farm system isn’t as bad off as I thought it was. Considering how old the Yankees pitching staff is, it’s nice to see that there are some decent pitching prospects in the minors.

WILL HELP SOON:

Danny Borrell, LHP: Posted 9-4 record, 2.31 ERA at Double-A Norwich. Fastball is average, but has very good changeup and curveball. Likely to start the year in Triple-A, but should see the Show at some point.

Julio DePaula, RHP: Like Borrell, ticketed to Columbus, but will get promoted if the Yanks need a pitcher. 90-94 mph fastball, with decent slider and very good changeup. Went 14-6 with 3.45 ERA at Norwich.

KEY SLEEPER:

Brandon Claussen, LHP: Listed here because people have forgotten about him. Made 15 starts for Columbus before blowing out his elbow and having Tommy John surgery. His recovery is going well, and he should be pitching again by July. Power lefty with a great curve

Bob Klapisch contributes an article on Jose Contreras as well.

Have a great weekend, and see you for pitchers and catchers next week.

SPRING TRAINING: HOW SWEET IT IS

The Boston Globe offers an excerpt from columnist Dan Shaughnessy’s new coffee table book, “Spring Training: Baseball’s Early Season.”

No other professional sport has anything like it. Football, basketball, and hockey have exhibition seasons, tuneups that they insist on calling “preseasons.” In truth, these are merely conditioning/attrition boot camps, usually held very near the city where the team plays during the regular season.

…Contrast that with baseball spring training. Hardball’s early season is a six-week, laid-back warm-up followed by legions of retirees and vacationers, many of whom wait to inspect Grapefruit and Cactus schedules before they plan their February-March trips. My favorite moment comes after the first full-team meeting, which is usually followed by one lap around the warning track before the ballplayers commence with stretching and drills. That’s right – one grueling lap, an appropriate juxtaposition when measured against the preseason drills that go with football, basketball, and hockey.

Legitimate year-round conditioning by most modern baseball players has rendered much of spring training obsolete, of course, but few people are calling for the early season to be shortened. In fact, the baseball boom of the last 20 years (too often interrupted by those nasty work stoppages) has transformed spring training into a cottage industry for franchise owners. In 2002 The Wall Street Journal reported that spring training generated an economic impact of $600 million. Preseason ticket sales were running 20 percent higher than in 2001.

But the surge in spring training popularity is not an entirely positive development. The average spring crowd is only 6,000 fans and the entire spring season draws a little more than 2.5 million fans, but it’s become difficult to score tickets in too many spring sites. In places like Tampa (Yankees), Fort Myers (Red Sox), Kissimmee (Braves), and Peoria, Arizona (Mariners and Padres), this loss of the spontaneous ticket purchase has sucked some of the charm from the early season.

Still, spring provides relief from a winter of hardball news focused on labor, arbitration, ballplayer relocation, trade speculation and other forms of player transaction. The hot stove season keeps the fires burning, but too much of it is muddied by money and litigation.

STUCK: THE 9 LIVES OF STICK MICHAEL

There is a humorous account of Gene “Stick” Michael’s history with George Steinbrenner and the Yankees in Bill Madden and Moss Klein’s book, “Damned Yankees.” (1991) Michael first came to Steinbrenner’s attention in a dubious manner. In 1973, shortly after Steinbrenner had purchased the Yanks, the new owner attended a game in Texas. As he watched infield practice before the game, Steinbrenner was horrified to see one of the players playfully throw his mitt in the air. A hot dog flew out of his mitt into the air as well.

Steinbrenner had no idea who the player was, but he made a note of the uniform number and told manager Ralph Houk he wanted the player severly discilponed, benched, or evern traded for this blatant act of frivolity. Once he realized the Boss was serious, Houk called Michael, the guilty player, into his office and told him, between laughs, that he was deep onto Steinbrenner’s shit list.

Michael was often the victim of pranks such as the hot dog caper because he had a phobia about small crawly, creepy creatures…The hot dog had been placed in Michael’s glove by Hal Lanier, who, years later, wound up managing the Houston Astros.

…From that day on, the owner closely monitored the tall, slim shortstop. As times passed, though, Steinbrenner no longer viewed Michael as a hot dog man. Instead, he saw a shrewd, intelligent baseball man with a sharp personality. “A bright, young executive type,” is the way Steinbrenner described him.

Thus, when Michael’s career ended, Steinbrenner brought him back to the Yankees, first as a “walkie-talkie” scout in the press box in 1976, then as a coach, a minor league manager, and in 1980, as general manager. As general manager, Michael played a vital role. He was the middleman between Steinbrenner and manager Dick Howser. Michael and Howser were close friends, and Michael succeeded in bearing the brunt of Steinbrenner’s verbal assaults on his manager before relaying the owner’s often illogical suggestions to Howser. But when Steinbrenner decided to fire Howser after the Yankees were swept in in the 1980 playoffs at the hands of the Royals, he turned to Michael, his all-purpose man.

As soon as he became manager, Michael learned the painful lesson: in Steinbrenner’s mind, the least-knowledgeable person in the entire organization is the manager. And who’s to say say he’s not right since so many of them have taken the job, knowing they would have no support from the owner and inevitably be fired.

As Michael once said to Moss Klein, sitting in a bar during one of those stormy periods in 1981, “In every other jjobs I’ve had with him, he seemed to respect my opinion to some degree. But when you become his manager, it’s like your IQ drops by 50 percent. All of a sudden, you don’t know anything.”

Stick Michael didn’t last long as manager during the strike-shortened 1981 season. After winning the first half of the year, he was replaced by Bob Lemon in early September. A few days before he was axed, Michael had some reporters up to his hotel room.

“You know what my ultimate fantasy is?” he said. “Someday I’d like to buy a ball club and hire him as my manager. I think that would be fun.”

A week after Michael was fired, he was invited back to the Stadium to meet with Stienbrenner.

The owner, feeling remorse as he always does when he fires a manager, told Michael he still regarded him, “like a son.” Accordingly, he asked Michael to take a front office job. But Michael, still smarting over being fired as manager after guiding the Yankees to a strong enough early showing to earn a spot in the postseason playoffs, said he still felt he had been a good manager.

“Sure you are,” said Steinbrenner. “But why would you want to stay manager and be second-guessed by me when you can come up into the front office and be one of the second-guessers?”

That is as prescient a comment as Steinbrenner is ever likely to make.

Michael was back the next season however, after Bob Lemon was canned 14 games into the season.

Stick was the manager that late April night when Reggie Jackson first returned to the Stadium as a member of the California Angels. I distinctly remember watching that game on our old 13′ sony TV. Reggie hit a bomb in his 3rd at-bat against Ron Guidry (he had previously singled and popped out) and Yankee Stadium erupted in a spontanious chant: “Steinbrenner sucks, Steinbrenner sucks.” I gleefully jumped around my apartment, shook my fist, and joined in the chant.

Again, Michael didn’t last the season, going 44-42 before he was fired on August 4th (he was replaced by Clyde King).

Ironically, after Steinbrenner had fired Michael the first time, in September of ’81, he announced the following December at the winter baseball meetings in Hollywood, Florida, that Michael would return as manager for the ’83, ’84, and ’85 seasons, with Lemon staying on for 1982. That afternoon, Michael, Dick Howser, and Billy Martin were all sitting around the bar at the Diplomat Hotel joking about the Yankee revolving manager’s chair.

“You’re coming back for ’83, ’84, and ’85?” Howser said to Michael. “Well, then I’ve got ’86, ’87, and ’88.”

“Okay,” chimed in Martin, “and I’ve got ’89, ’90, and ’91!”

“The crazy thing about it all,” said Michael, “is that I never got to 1983 because I got hired and fired again in ’82!”

EL TITAN DE BRONZE

The Yankees held a press conference at Yankee Stadium yesterday introducing Jose Contreras to the press.

George King reports that Contreras won’t riff if he’s not initially in the starting rotation:

“I am ready to do whatever is necessary,” said the 6-foot-4, 230-pound right-hander with enormous hands, introduced at a Stadium press conference yesterday when he filled out a No. 56 jersey. [The Daily News said that Contreras wore #52…let’s split the difference and assume he’s #54.] “I have always been a starter and I prefer to be a starter but I am ready to do anything the Yankees ask me. I am the last one to arrive so I understand that.”

TORRE SHOULDERS BLAME

Manager Joe Torre was in town for the big day, and he addressed several issues, which included defending his coaches.

“My coaching staff works very hard,” Torre said after the press conference to introduce pitcher Jose Contreras. “You want to drop blame on someone, here I am. I get paid a lot of money to do what I do. We don’t win, start here.

“It’s tough to say they don’t work when we win 103 games. If we were taking something for granted, we would’ve slacked off after winning the division and we didn’t.”

…Torre was asked if he felt any more pressure this season, as he prepares to leave New York for Tampa.

Torre smiled. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said. “I expect a lot out of myself and the players. I judge players and teams a little different. I don’t look at the bottom line, I look at the effort.

“To see how close we’ve come, in a couple of the years we won the World Series, to being knocked out, you realize how lucky you are to do it.”

Has Torre’s relationship with Steinbrenner changed, either because of the early loss or the Boss’ cracks?

“No, I don’t think so,” Torre said. “He’s pretty vocal. He knows what he wants. He needs to be on top, which is good for me because I get what I need to win.

“Moods change, like all of us, but nothing’s different between us.”

Torre also reiterated his plans to give Jeff Weaver a spot in the starting rotation:

“It’s going to be difficult,” he added. “We’ll wait and see. It’s going to be tough, but the quality is there.”

Torre said “I meant it and I still mean it” when asked about his comments regarding Weaver. “I still feel like Jeff Weaver is going to be an elite starter in this league,” Torre added. “At the time I told him (he’d be a starter), I felt it. I still feel going into spring training that he’s one of our starters.

“My obligation is to the team first. Second, it’s my job to try to make the people who are not in the rotation understand it. Not like it, understand it.”

BIG BAD BOMBERS

Not everything came up roses and daffodils in the Bronx yesterday however. Joel Sherman ripped the Yankees, and their bulldozer approach to success in the Post this morning:

When the talent is overt (Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Contreras, Matsui), they buy it. When the talent is not so obvious and they cannot restrain themselves anyway (Sterling Hitchcock, Steve Karsay, Raul Mondesi, Rondell White), they buy it at prices others would not consider paying.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman was offended by this assertion. I can understand his annoyance, since he still oversees an extremely hard-working, bright staff he insists is merely doing what this organization always has done.

“If you are asking me if the Yankees have an advantage because of money, yes,” he said. “But I don’t think that is any different than in the past, and I’ve been here since 1986.”

However, I see a difference. It is the difference between using money to augment rather than overwhelm.

… Yes, the Yanks are playing by the rules, they will pay heavily in luxury tax/revenue sharing, and they are plying dollars seen from turnstiles/cable TV back into the product.

It used to be much easier to defend this organization against simply trying to buy titles when they were making more artful moves than simply applying the scouting skill of any Tom, Dick or Rotisserie player with $120 million to sign Giambi, or investing $32 million in a Cuban defector who may not even make their rotation.

Peter Gammons blasted the Yankees along similiar lines earlier this winter. Both writers have a point. It’s inherently difficult to root for the rich bully. But sincerely, who cares if it was easier for Sherman to defend the Yankees several years ago? Looks like it will be harder for him to appreciate any success the Yankees enjoy this year—what did you expect, they bought it—but you can bet he’ll be first in line to knock them if they sputter. Hey, everyone needs an angle. The Post has got to sell papers after all.

YES ON THE ATTACK

It’s snowing in New York this morning. I usually read the Post and the News on the subway on the way to work, then I look at the Times during lunch. Kobe Bryant deservedly made the backpages after torching the Knicks for 46 at the Garden last night (including a frightening reverse dunk at the end of the first half that is on tip of every basketball fan’s tongue this morning), but I couldn’t help but be impressed with the full page ad the YES network took in the local papers. According to a report in the Daily News:

The Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network said it will submit to a ruling by an “independent arbitrator, mediator, judge or panel” to settle its dispute with Cablevision.

“And we challenge Cablevision to join us at that table,” said YES boss Leo Hindery.

Hindery made the challenge in a letter to fans, which appeared today in advertisements running in a variety of local newspapers.

In the past, Cablevision brass has said it will not even address the subject of an independent arbitrator until YES drops its anti-trust lawsuit against their company.

NICK HAPPY TO BE HERE: SORI NOT SERIOUS

The News has a puff piece on Nick Johnson, who is happy to still be in pinstripes. (For what it’s worth, I’m happy he’s still around too.) Alfonso Soriano has pulled out of a Home Run Contest in Las Vegas due to a sore shouler. Apparently, it is not anything serious.

MILLAR CASE: JUST A MATTER OF TIME

I’m running out of headlines for this storyline. When is Steinbrenner going to jump out of the weeds and attempt to cockblock the Sox again? (Gosh, I hope he can manage to contain himself.) Here is the latest on Kevin Millar, from today’s Boston Globe:

”Clearly, Major League Baseball has an interest in how this works out,” [executive vice president of baseball opertations for MLB, Sandy] Alderson said. ”I’m not sure Major League Baseball ever looked into the issue [of whether the contract was valid]. But it appears the operating assumption for the Florida Marlins, Chunichi Dragons and Millar himself, as evidenced by his rejection [of Boston’s unconditional roster claim], is that there was a binding agreement, at least for a good part of the time.” The Sox claim on a player despite being notified of Florida’s intention of selling that player to Chunichi was unprecedented in Alderson’s memory. Asked if Chunichi officials had complained of the Red Sox’ involvement in the matter, Alderson said, ”Their focus at the time I had conversations with them was their desire to convince Kevin Millar he should play in Japan.”

MILLAR: HELL NO, I WON’T GO

The Boston Globe reports that chances of Kevin Millar playing in Japan this season are becoming less and less likely. Tony Massarotti (Boston Herald) adds:

Major League Baseball vice president of baseball operations Sandy Alderson categorized the Millar matter as “still unresolved” early yesterday, though he might not have known about the reports from Japan. In any case, Alderson hoped for a resolution that would appease all parties.

“We’d like to see a situation that results in the best interests of the player, the best interests of the Chunichi Dragons and the best interests of the rules,” he said.

The former general manager of the Oakland A’s, Alderson acknowledged that he rarely has seen a case as peculiar as the one involving Millar, who was claimed off waivers by the Red Sox last month.

Alderson said “the uniqueness of the situation really stems from the claim made by the Red Sox,” but was careful not to direct blame at Sox officials by stressing that it was within the club’s rights to claim Millar.

Major league teams typically have refrained from claiming players bound for Japan as a matter of etiquette, but there is nothing in league rules that prohibits teams from complicating the process.

“Had (the Red Sox) not made the claim, the circumstances would be different,” Alderson said. “(But) it’s their right to do under the rules. I’m not being critical.”

LONELY AVENUE

The Times ran a terrific profile on Jose Contreras yesterday. Like Godzilla Matsui, Contreras has a sense of humility that should make him right at home with the likes of Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams.

“This guy can pitch,” said the Cleveland Indians’ international scouting director, Rene Gayo, who signed the last prominent Cuban free agent, pitcher Danys Baez, in 1999. “In my opinion, he’s a lot like John Smoltz or Curt Schilling. He’s got a forkball that’s just nasty.”

Pat Gillick, the Seattle general manager, thought enough of Contreras to override the Mariners’ philosophy against giving contracts of longer than three years. In Nicaragua, Gillick offered $24 million for four years. “This guy’s special,” Gillick said.

…”I think he’s a really good person, excellent, in fact,” Gillick said. “It’s just the way he handles himself. He’s a very humble guy, very sincere, and there’s a level of genuineness there. What you see is what you get. I don’t think there’s any hidden agenda.”

…”He had already put a lot of time into learning specific big league hitters, how he would attack them,” [Boston GM, Theo] Epstein said. “He had a game plan for how to pitch Barry Bonds, how to pitch Ichiro Suzuki. He knew more about some big league hitters than some major league pitchers I’ve come across. He was clearly a thoughtful guy.”

Like El Duque before him, one of the most interesting aspects of Contreras’ initial season in the United States will be how he handles the loneliness of being a stranger in a strange land (his family is still in Cuba). Of course, he’ll be paid handsomely. In fact, his staggering salary may only complicate his sense of isolation. After all, this is a man who previously made $50 a month in Cuba.

I ran across a passage from John Updike’s famous tribute to Ted Williams (“Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu”) that addressed the concept of baseball’s inherent lonliness:

…For me, Williams is the classic ballplayer of the game on a hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill. Baseball is a game of the long season, of relentless and gradual averaging-out. Irrelevance—since the reference point of most individual games is remote and statistical—always threatens its interest, which can be maintained not by the occasional heroics that sportswriters feed upond but by players who always care; who care, that is to say, about themselves and their art. Insofar as the clutch hitter is not a sportswriter’s myth, he is a vulgarity, like a writer who writes only for money. [Consider that Updike wrote this before the days of the designated hitter.] It may be that, compared to managers’ dreams, such as Joe DiMaggio and the always helpful Stan Musial, Williams is an icy star. But of all team sports, baseball, with its graceful intermittences of action, its immense and tranquil field sparsely settled with poised men in white, its dispassionate mathematics, seems to me best suited to accommodate, and be ornamented by, a loner. It is essentially a lonely game. No other player visible to my generation has concentrated within himself so much of the sport’s poignance, has so assiduously refined his natural skills, has so constantly brought to the plate that intensity of competence that crowds the throat with joy.

PETE’S PICKS

Check out Peter Gammons’ American League preview over at ESPN.

What does he make of the Yankees’ chances?

The fact is that only age, injuries and owner hysteria can keep the Yankees from being really good.

All three of those factors could easily rear their ugly heads this year, but if they don’t, it’s hard not to agree with Gammons’ take.

SHOOT ME NOW

Regardless of how the Yankees do, it looks as if us dopes who are stuck with Cablevision will be screwed once again. I haven’t spent much time writing about the depressing state of affairs, because what else is there to say? I try not to think about it, or the fury that is building in the pit of my stomach. And while I’m not holding my breath for a deal to get done before opening day, I must hold out hope, foolish as it may seem.

Another season of Sterling and Steiner is too much to bear.

According to Newsday:

Cablevision subscribers who were shut out of watching 130 Yankees games last year should brace for another dark season. Six days before the Yankees’ spring-training camp opens, the 16-month dispute between the YES Network and Cablevision shows no sign of being resolved. In recent weeks, prospects for a settlement have dimmed, and yesterday, the rhetoric between the principals increased.

EATIN’ RAUL

Yankee right-fielder Raul Mondesi commented on the possibility of being traded by the Yankees yesterday.

“If they trade me to another big league team, there’s no problem,” Mondesi said Wednesday. “It would be difficult if they traded me to a football or basketball team because I don’t know how to play that.”

What about Roller Derby, Fat Guy?

BOBBY BITES BACK

It didn’t take long for Bobby V to get his licks in. I thought he might wait until the 14th, which would make for splashy headlines, but according to Ira Berkow in the New York Times, and Joel Sherman in the Post, Valentine was reserved and clipped in his comments two nights ago at the the Thurman Munson Awards Dinner. Valentine isn’t the sort to ignore the kind of attacks directed at him by members of the New York Mets, but he also didn’t seem particularly interested in starting a tabliod war.

There is an unflattering photograph of Valentine that accompanies the Berkow piece in the Times. Though Bobby V looks fit and dapper, the photo also suggests he’s wound tight enough to be the proud owner of a cleft asshole.

“We had a lousy year last year and I did a bad job. That is the easy statement and a truism.”

…”I find it almost rather criminal that after putting almost 10 years of my life, 24 hours a day, into an organization and a community that a couple of people who have never worn Met uniforms and one who wore it for one year and did not do much [Vaughn] can say things,” Valentine said.

…”I don’t know if it was orchestrated or not, but it’s all nonsense.”

…In regard to Glavine in particular, Valentine said: “His remarks are unfounded. I think I met him once in my life, and we shook hands. Glavine is a union leader and appears to be a very intelligent fellow. You would think he would base his opinions on experience and personal knowledge.”

As for the theory that his departure fostered the ability to recruit more alluring players, Valentine said, “I’m not going to comment on that. I don’t think it is worthy of comment. I’d like to find a person who really didn’t come here because of me. There are 29 other teams out there. Go find that person who was a free agent whom the club wanted that didn’t come because I was there, or else I say it is nonsensical to comment on that.”

Bob Raissman reports in today’s Daily News that Valentine will get his chance to speak his mind this season for ESPN after all. Perhaps Bobby will lie in the weeds and exact measures of revenge against his former team as the season unfolds.

The outspoken former manager will replace Buck Showalter in ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” studio and work a limited number of games for the all-sports cable network.

Two weeks ago, it appeared that talks between Valentine and ESPN had reached an impasse. As part of its three-year contract offer, ESPN had insisted that if Valentine bolted the TV gig for a manager’s job, he would have to pay a penalty to the network.

Sources said Valentine initially rejected that stipulation. He obviously changed his mind.

“It’s like any negotiation,” a source familiar with the situation said. “You go through different phases. That was just one of them.”

MOVIE MINUTE: DON’T SLEEP ON GARFIELD FESTIVAL

Bernard Weinraub wrote an interesting article in the New York Times last week on one of Hollywood’s most-neglected stars, New Yorker, John Garfield, whose career is being celebrated throughout the month of February on Turner Movie Classics.

Before James Dean and Marlon Brando, before Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, there was John Garfield.

A tough kid who grew up in the 1920’s on the streets of the Lower East Side, Brownsville and the Bronx, Garfield (whose original name was Julius Garfinkle) was one of the first dark-haired, working-class ethnic outsiders to turn into a Hollywood star, following the path of actors like James Cagney.

…Garfield’s chip-on-the-shoulder style and his rugged looks often cast him as a social outsider on the screen: a boxer, a gangster, a soldier. The persona affected actors from the 1950’s onward.

His relatively brief but dazzling career was cut short by a heart condition and the Hollywood blacklist. He was never a Communist, but he refused to name those, including his wife, Roberta, who had been. He died of a heart attack in 1952 at 39, and 10,000 fans gathered outside Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan. At the time it was the largest turnout for a celebrity funeral in New York since Rudolph Valentino’s.

My grandfather, who for years worked for the Anti-Defamation League, helped Garfield during the Blacklist Era, though to what extent I’m not sure. I do know that Garfield was one of my father’s idols. Pop’s adoration was intensified I’m sure, by the fact that he actually met Garfield, who visited my grandfather’s apartment on several occasions.

“He’s a forgotten star,” said David Heeley, one of the producers of “The John Garfield Story,” a documentary that will have its premiere on Turner Classic Movies, the cable channel, on Monday, followed by a festival of 25 Garfield films, to be shown on Mondays through February. “He never lived long enough to become an icon like Humphrey Bogart.”

His daughter, Julie Garfield, an acting teacher in New York, put it another way. “He was horribly neglected, forgotten, pushed aside,” she said. “It was almost as if Hollywood was so ashamed of what was done to him that they almost made him disappear.”

…Garfield is most remembered for his role opposite Lana Turner, in Tay Garnett’s sexy drama “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946), based on James M. Cain’s novel. His other films included “Humoresque” (1947), with Joan Crawford; Robert Rossen’s classic “Body and Soul” (1947), in which he works his way up from poverty to become a champion boxer at great personal cost; and Abraham Polonsky’s “Force of Evil” (1948), in which Garfield was acclaimed for his role as a greedy lawyer for racketeers. He also played the Jewish friend of Gregory Peck’s character in Elia Kazan’s “Gentlemen’s Agreement” (1947), about anti-Semitism. Garfield was nominated twice for Oscars, as a supporting actor for his first film, “Four Daughters” (1938), and as best actor for “Body and Soul.”

“He didn’t know what happened to him in the end,” Mr. Heeley said. “He didn’t understand why they were hounding him. In the end he was scared.”

Ms. Garfield, 57, was 6 when her father died. In an interview she spoke about him in a cracked voice: “It killed him, it really killed him. He was under unbelievable stress. Phones were being tapped. He was being followed by the F.B.I. He hadn’t worked in 18 months. He was finally supposed to do `Golden Boy’ on CBS with Kim Stanley. They did one scene. And then CBS canceled it. He died a day or two later.”

Peep Garfield’s complete credits, and while you’re killing time waiting for the Grapefruit League to get started, check out some of Garfield’s impressive film work over at Turner Movie Classics. “Body and Soul,” one of my favorites, will give you a knew appreciation of the work Scorsese did years later, in “Raging Bull.”

THE YANKEES’ $64,000 QUESTION

Although there hasn’t been much ink spilled on the subject this winter, I think the $64,000 question for the 2003 Yankees is simple: How will Mariano Rivera perform?

Mo was on the DL three times last season, and at 33 has likely peaked as a stud reliever. I don’t mean to suggest that the Yankees can’t win without a dominant Rivera, or even a very good Rivera, but if he manages to return to the form he showed from 1997-2000, the Yankees may just be as good as they appear on paper.

Joel Sherman addressed the Rivera issue today in the Post:

Rivera raised a slight red flag by saying, unlike in previous years, he has yet to throw off a mound. But he added that he stayed in the New York area this offseason to work with Yankee trainer Gene Monahan, is currently long-tossing and vowed not to be behind anyone when camp opens.

“I’m ready,” Rivera said. “I haven’t thrown [off a mound] because I didn’t want to. I’m throwing like nothing happened because, well, nothing [structurally] happened.”

Here is what Mo said about the Jeter hub-bub:

“Jeter is my friend,” Rivera said last night at the Thurman Munson Awards Dinner in Manhattan. “When he goes to the plate, he’s there [mentally]. What he does at night is his business.”

So credit Rivera with his first save of the season, coming on to defend a teammate. The Yankees hope there are 40 actual saves to follow

Amen, brother.

METS FIND RELIGION

The Mets have hired Brett Butler, senior member of the born-again God Squad, as a minor league outfield coach. His primary purpose with the Mets will be to help Roger Cedeno become a competent center fielder. Let me be frank is wishing him, good fuggin luck. Apparently coach Gary Petitis–a terrific center fielder in his day—alone won’t enough to help cure Cedeno’s woeful approach to the position, so perhaps Butler’s presence will bring some divine intervention.

The Post reports:

Butler has a connection with Cedeno, who was his Dodger teammate in 1996-97, the same period Butler went through a well-publicized battle against throat cancer.

In fact, with Butler limited to 81 starts in center field during the 1996 and ’97 seasons, Cedeno was one of his primary fill-ins, playing 102 games in center with 72 starts. That was before Cedeno galvanized a reputation as a poor outfielder, a distinction he only enhanced last season with the Mets when he played strictly left field.

It’s going to take a whole lot more than the Lord to give Cedeno a clue out there, but then again, a little Jesus never hurt anybody.

WATERMELON MAN

Cuban conga legend Mongo Santamaria passed away last Saturday at the age of 85. For those who are unfamiliar with Mongo, he was a formidable presence in both the Latin and Jazz scenes from the 1950s through the 1970s. Early in his career he played with Latino legends like Perez Prado and Tito Puente, but Santamaria carved out his niche in the Latin Jazz idom with men like vibraphonist, Cal Tjader, and Mr. Willie Bobo, who played the timbales. Mongo also played with Chick Corea, Ray Vega, and Hubert Laws, but he’s perhaps most famous for gigging with Herbie Hancock.

According to Ben Ratliff’s obit in the New York Times:

…In late 1962 he wandered back toward New York and the jazz side of the fence, convening a band led by a trumpet and two saxophones.

One night when Herbie Hancock substituted for his regular pianist at a Bronx nightclub, the group worked out a Latin groove underneath Mr. Hancock’s new composition “Watermelon Man”; Mr. Santamaria quickly took it to the studio, and the song became the only time that Riverside, the distinguished jazz label, had a song on the top-10 pop charts.

That marked the beginning of the Latin-soul sound, popular through the 1960’s. Mr. Santamaria signed with Columbia and made 10 records in a similar vein, Latinizing jazz tunes or R & B vocal numbers; when he was signed to Atlantic in 1971, he was so inured to the process that he left the decisions about the songs entirely to his musical director, Marty Sheller.

Here is a decent web site for those of you who are interested in checking out Mongo’s music..

“Watermelon Man” (Fantasy) is a great place to start. “Soy Yo” (Concord) is a terrific record too, and “Sabroso” (Fantasy) is probably my favorite. The compositions on “Sabroso” feature the interesting additions of a fiddle and a flute. How anyone can make a flute sound masculine is beyond me, but the Latino’s rock it lovely, indeed.

HEY MISTER DJ PLAY THAT SONG

Derek Jeter, who was criticized this off-season by Yankee owner George Steinbrenner for paying too much attention to his extra ciricular activities, at the expense of his baseball responsibilities, has surfaced with a rebuttal. According to a report in today’s Daily News:

As [Jeter] left the Yankees minor league complex wearing a black sweatsuit and driving a black SUV yesterday, Jeter was asked if he’s going to change anything about his lifestyle.

“I’m not going to change,” Jeter said. “Not at all.”

…Yesterday, Jeter admitted he was surprised to find himself in The Boss’ crosshairs, but shook his head when asked if the words hurt.

“One thing you realize is that The Boss is The Boss,” he said. “Everyone who works has a boss they have to deal with. Bosses are entitled to their own opinion.”

The two met recently to discuss the issue as well as Steinbrenner’s public comments criticizing the All-Star for his defensive play in 2002 and his lack of focus.

…”We met and we talked about it,” Jeter said. “It’s pretty much over.”

Jeter lives in the Tampa area and has been working out regularly for more than a week. Yesterday he took batting practice and fielded 75-100 ground balls. He was joined for his workout by catcher Jorge Posada and infielder Drew Henson. Pitcher David Wells was also at the complex working out.

Jeter is excited about starting a new season and putting last year’s playoff loss to the Angels behind him. He is also happy to have cleared the air with The Boss. Still, it is clear he doesn’t agree with all his employer has said.

“Bosses can say what they want to say,” Jeter said. “Right or wrong, he gets to say what he wants to say.”

Jeter’s comments are characteristically measured and tame; don’t let the inflammatory headlines fool you. It’s interesting to note that Jeter actually met with Steinbrenner before he made any public statements. Jeter clearly isn’t interested in taking George on in the tabliods. As irked as the future Yankee captain may be over the Boss’ comments, one thing is for sure: we’ve come a long way since the Bronx Zoo, baby.

ONLY THE LONELY

Isolation and lonliness are major components of baseball culture. They are obviously magnified for foreign players coming to the States for the first time. Both Hideki Matsui and Jose Contreras will face the difficulties of lonliness this season, though they will be handsomely paid for their struggles:

“It is a bit lonely leaving my country,” the 28-year-old [Matsuir] said [yesterday] before getting on the New York-bound flight from Tokyo’s Narita Airport. “There will be a lot for me to learn.”

The sense of isolation is irrevocably more complex for Contreras, who unlike Matsui, won’t be returning home any time soon:

Al Avila, assistant general manager of the Detroit Tigers, says two reasons many Cuban pitchers fail after their escape are the new, higher level of competition and the homesickness they confront.

The Cuban national team travels the baseball world. Excluding exhibitions like the one with Baltimore three years ago, in which Contreras starred, they are rarely challenged.

“Homesickness might be the biggest obstacle,” says Avila, whose father, Ralph, took his family from Castro’s Cuba to the USA and became a scout and executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Many players, Avila says, must leave a family behind, with no guarantees it will be reunited.

The cultural changes also present hardships. The players, Avila says, are dazzled by the money after leaving an island where giving a can of shaving cream, a hair bush, jeans, CDs or other consumer items makes one a friend for life.

“To get away from a dictatorship and then to have everything, it can be a dangerous transition,” Avila says

BRUSHING UP ON THE BOSOX

Sean McAdam pens the 2003 Scouting Report for the Red Sox over at ESPN today, accompanied by John Sickels Minor League Report as well. The Sox, who are seeking to squeeze every last nickel out of Fenway Park this season by adding seats above the Green Monster, have introduced new batting practice uniforms, and caps, which should keep the “gear-revenue” flowing nicely, thank you very much.

Meanwhile, Kevin Millar is still in the Twilight Zone. According to the Boston Globe:

Major League Baseball will not mediate the dispute between Red Sox aspirant Kevin Millar and the Chunichi Dragons, reiterating its position that Millar has a signed contract with the Japanese team and must honor it.

…MLB is not accepting Millar’s contention, Courtney said, that his case parallels that of Japanese third baseman Norihiro Nakamura, who had come to terms on a two-year deal with the Mets but changed his mind, electing to sign with a Japanese team instead. The difference, Courtney said, is that Nakamura never signed a contract, while Millar signed with Chunichi. Millar agreed to a two-year, $6.2 million contract with an option for a third year.

Millar also signed a letter agreement with the Florida Marlins, the team that sold him to Chunichi for $1.2 million, saying that he would reject any waiver claim made by another major league club. The Sox claimed him and Millar rejected that claim, but then Millar attempted to sign a deal with the Sox, claiming he was a free agent, while the Sox proposed to compensate Chunichi both with cash and a player.

The plot thickens…

CHASS: COLLUSION REDUX

Murray Chass continued to cover the possibilites of owner collusion yesterday in his Sunday column. Who should he bring up, but Jack Morris, whose unsuccessful attempt to become a Yankee in the winter of 1986-87, was a sure sign that all was not Kosher in Denmark:

Morris had won 21 games for the Detroit Tigers the previous season, making him a 20-game winner for the second time in four seasons. (He missed a third by one victory.) The Mets had won the World Series less than two months earlier.

The Yankees had finished in second place behind Boston, but Dennis Rasmussen, with 18 victories, was their only pitcher with double-digit victories. Morris, a 31-year-old free agent, was exactly what the baseball doctor ordered. This is what free agency was all about.

…Yet Morris walked out of Room 600 of the Bay Harbor Inn without a Yankee deal. He was a victim of the second year of the owners’ conspiracy against free agents. Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ principal owner, was not a victim, but he surely was an unwilling participant, given his penchant for lavishing free agents with money.

The owners’ collusive activity of the 80’s serves as a backdrop for current events in baseball because the clubs have once again raised suspicion with some of their activities involving free agents…

Mike Lupica detailed the Jack Morris story in his book, “Wait Til Next Year:”

Boss Steinbrenner kept making headlines, but more and more they were mean-spirited. Colorful as a winner, as a loser, he was a whiner. And the Yankees were losers in Steinbrenner’s mind, much as he defended his record. He still tried to done out on the return to glory his ownership had brought to Yankee Stadium, and a lot of the fans still gave him that. But they were begining to look at Steinbrenner as a big-time phony.

…If Steinbrenner could go through life thinking second place was garbage, so could they.

Only now that was going to change. George Steinbrenner was going to sign Jack Morris, the most succesful baseball pitcher of the 1980s, the same 1980s during which Steinbrenner’s Yankees hadn’te been able to win the World Series.

…Jack Morris wanted a new team. Steinbrenner needed pitching. A meeting was set up for Decenmber 19, at the Bay Harbor Inn in Tampa, Florida, which Steinbrenner owns. Stienbrenner, fittingly enough, would represent Steinbrenner’s Yankees. The other two men would be [Jack] Morris and his agent, Richard Moss.

There was obvious collusion going on between the owners othe major league baseball teams in the the winter of 1986. They were ignoring free agents such as Morris, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Lance Parrish, and RIch Gedman, trying to force them back to their original team, drive down players’ salaries (an arbitrator, Thomas Roberts, would rule during 1987 that the owners had already been guilty of collusion the year before, during the winter of 1985-86).

But those were the other owners. This was Boss Steinbrenner. The Mets had stolen New York from him in 1986, drawn nearly three million fans, won the World Series, become the sexy team in town. Stienbrenner couls still make news by talking. The Mets made news by wining…Now, Steinbrenner couldn’t ignore the Mets anymore. The thing he feared most–other than being ignored in the newspapers–had happened: The monster, freaking Mets were champions of the freaking world.

Stienbrenner had to sign Jack Morris.

This is what Richard Moss told Steinbrenner:

“George, we also have a proposal that we didn’t make in Minnesota,” he said. “It’s a one-year deal, and it’s really predicated on a simple fact: We think that if Jack Morris is added to the Yankees, the Yankees can win this season. Then if you don’t want to pay Jack after that, no hard feelings, we’ll go someplace else. I honestly believe this is an offer you can’t turn down.”

The deal was simple. Morris would become a Yankee, and the two sides would let an arbitrator decide Morris’s value. Steinbrenner would come in with one sum, Moss/Morris another, the arbitrator would decide. Morris would pitch for the Yankees for one seasonl, then be eleigble to become a free agent again at the end of 1987.

…It was the first-ever Jack Morris Sale.

…Steinbrenner: “This is very unusual. Interesting. I’m definitely going to have to think about this one.” Then he reminded Moss that two of the Yankees’ longtime stars, Ron Guidry and Willie Randolph, were also eligible for free agency, and Steinbrenner was presently negotiating with both of them, and Steinbrenner said he just didn’t know for sure if he could afford Guidry and Randolph and Morris.

Moss thought that was funny, collusively speaking. If Jack Morris couldn’t find a new team, how could Guidry and Randolph?

And: When had there been a time, at least befoe collusion, when George Steinbrenner couldn’t afford somebody he really wanted?

Moss smiled, repeated the offer one last time: “One year, George. Arbitration.”

George thanked Moss and Morris and told them that he’d sleep on it.

The next day he turned them down.

“It wouldn’t be fair to Guidry and Randolph,” Steinbrenner said to Moss.

“George,” Moss said, “this doesn’t have anything to do with Guidry and Randolph, and you know it.”

Steinbrenner stuck to his cover, that he had to settle with Guidry and Randolph before he could even think about signing any free agents.

The Yankees resigned Willie and Louisiana Lighting while Morris resigned with the Tigers, took them to arbitration, and walked away with a one-year deal worth $1.85 million.

NOT SO FAST

While George played ball with his fellow owners in the mid-80’s, nothing has stopped him from spending freely this winter. The Daily News reports today that the Yankees once again have the largest payroll in the major leagues, at $164 million. Along with the Mets (who are second at $119 million), the Yanks are the only team that is due to pay a luxury tax.

According to the collective bargaining agreement, any team with a 2003 payroll number exceeding $117 million (this year’s “threshold”) would pay 17.5% on the excess. A team’s luxury tax is based on the average annual value of all the players’ contracts, not on its payroll. As of now, the Mets would have to pay about $350,000. For the Bombers, the penalty would be $8 million to $9 million.

“What we see with the Yankees is that there has been no change in priorities,” a baseball official said. “Certainly they talked about cutting payroll and … there’s no disputing they made an effort to. It was probably always their plan.

“But they still believe the best way to make money is to put fans in the seats with a winner on the field. There are things in place that would deter most teams from spending, but these guys won’t let it compromise their first priority.”

STICK THAT STIRS THE DRINK

Bill Madden wrote a fitting tribute to Gene “Stick” Michael in his column yesterday.

Gene Michael, the Yankees’ VP of major league scouting, and their acknowledged principal talent evaluator, will be honored tonight when the New York baseball writers hold their 80th annual dinner.

“The Stick” is being given the William J. Slocum Award for long and meritorious service to baseball. In many ways, it’s the baseball writers’ most prestigious award, as evidenced by some of its previous winners – Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, Judge Landis, John McGraw, Casey Stengel, Branch Rickey and Bill Veeck. And while Michael can be expected to say that all of the Yankees’ recent successes were a team effort, make no mistake about this: Other than George Steinbrenner, no one has had more to do with this latest string of Yankee championships and division titles than Michael.

It’s nice to see Michael honored after all his years of service to the Yankee organization. He was one of George’s most famous whipping boys during the Bronx Zoo years, but he survived the abuse, and ironically helped resurrect the Boss’ career.

As a side note, the William J Slocum award is named after my friend Paul’s great grandfather. Paul also had an uncle who worked in baseball, Frank Slocum, whose named I recently stumbled upon in an old coffe-table book. I wrote to Paul, who I played baseball with in high school (he was a starting pitcher and played short; I played second), and asked him about his baseball bloodlines.

He replied:

Alex,

So you found a baseball book with an article written by my Uncle Frank? They’re not easy to find as many of those books went out of print long ago.

My Uncle’s involvement in Major League Baseball (MLB) was largely due to my Great Granfather – Bill Slocum – who was a well known sportswriter in NYC circa 1920. Among other things he was Babe Ruth’s ghost writer. In fact Ruth once quipped that, “Bill Slocum writes more like me than anyone else I know.” To this date, that remains the biggest insult ever levied against the Slocum family name.

My Uncle’s first job in MLB was as an assistant to Ford Frick in the Commissioner’s Office. I believe his primary responsibility was overseeing the men in blue (settling player/ump disputes, that kind of thing). Later, he worked in the front office for the Brooklyn Dodgers – during the time that Jackie Robinson broke the color-line. After that, the bulk of his involvement with baseball was miscellaneous writing assignments – Game of the Week, Baseball World of Joe Garigiola and dozens of speeches – most
famously Yogi Berra’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech.

During my lifetime, I think my Uncle Frank (who is my Great Uncle) had pretty much segued his way out of baseball and made his living writing television shows for NBC. Towards the end of his life, Fay Vincent sought out my Uncle as kind of a general advisor for his new job. I think my Uncle said to Vincent, “Congratulations, you just got a job saying no to millionaires.” Later, Vincent named my Uncle as the Executive Director of the Baseball Assistance Team (BATS). This program, initiated by Vincent, was set-up as a releif fund for ex-ballplayers who had fallen on hard times. Most of the ex-players drawing off this fund had some kind of dependence induced malady – drugs, booze, debt. Some of these men spoke at my Uncle’s funeral.

Actually, I was watching Jim Abbott’s no-no on ESPN Classic a few months ago. Tony Kubek was calling the game and he gave my Uncle a nice tribute during the game. About 90 seconds of air-time. So if you ever see a re-run of that game, prick-up your ears around the 6th inning – with Manny Ramirez at the plate. It tells you all you need to know.

Incidentally, it was none other than Sandy Koufax who made headlines at the award dinner. Koufax, who presented Randy Johnson with his 5th Cy Young, recieved a long standing-ovation. What did Koufax say? As usual, he was wry and succint:

“Two things absolutely jump off the page,” Koufax said about Johnson. “One, he’s very tall. Two, he’s very good.”

LETS GO METS

ESPN has been running a series called “Hot Stove Heaters” this winter, previewing each and every team. Today, Bob Klapisch pens the 2003 scouting report for your New York Mets. He also adds a column about Ty Wigginton; so too, for that matter, does The New York Times.

Perhaps the best news for Mets fans is their promising farm system, which was analyzed by minor-league guru, John Sickels:

Although the acquisitions of Tom Glavine, Cliff Floyd, and Mike Stanton get the headlines, it is the farm system that gives the best hope for the future. The Mets farm system is in better condition than it has been in for some time, and several youngsters are ready or nearly ready to help.

This comes as good news indeed, especially after the Mets lost the one, long-standing player who came up through their system, Edgardo Alfonzo, to free agency this winter.

AIN’T A DAMN THING CHANGED

Rob Neyer has an article on the AL East today that taught me something new. Did you know that since the D-Rays entered the league in 1998, the standings in the AL East have remained the same each year? Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles, Devil Rays: it’s the same ol’ song. Curious. Not suprising, but what are the chances?

Here is Neyer’s take on the Yanks-Sox fighting it out for first place:
http://msn.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1501929.html

We could spend a week analyzing the Yankees and Red Sox, but today is Friday so let’s just spend a paragraph or two.

The Sox finished 10.5 games behind the Yanks last season, but the teams’ run differentials were essentially equivalent, so that 10.5 means something closer to 0.5 if you’re looking ahead rather than behind.

The Red Sox have improved themselves at DH, at first base, at second base, and probably third base. The Yankees have improved themselves in right field, and at one slot in their pitching rotation. I think first place might boil down to which starters decline more: Boston’s one-year wonders (Lowe and Wakefield), or New York’s ancient armsmen (Clemens and Wells)? The difference is that if something happens to Clemens or Wells, manager Joe Torre can turn to Jeff Weaver, a No. 6 starter who’d be the No. 1 starter for most teams in the majors. If the Red Sox run into trouble, manager Grady Little can turn to Frank Castillo, a No. 6 starter who’d be a No. 4 starter for most teams.

IS THAT COLLUSION I SMELL?

Murray Chass has a long article concerning the collusion in today’s New York Times.

Mike Carminati weighed in with his take earlier in the week.

NYC BASEBALL MOMENT

Last night, I was on the uptown side of the 50th street station on the 7th avenue line during rush hour. As I moved to my usual spot on the platform, I heard a street musician across the tracks on the downtown platform, strumming an accoustic guitar, singing the Simon and Garfunkel classic, “Mrs. Robinson.” Dude had a pleasent, high-pitched voice, and since there were no trains rumbling through the station, I could hear him fairly well.

I sung along with him until something strange happened. When he got to the “Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?” part, he didn’t say Joe Dimaggio. I had reached my usual waiting place at the platform, and bent my ear to hear better. Sure enough, he replaced Joe Dimaggio with “Jackie Robinson.”

“He just said, Jackie Robinson,” I said out loud to no one in particular. A woman who was leaning against the wall, turned her head to me and smiled. When he sung Jackie’s name again, we both reflexively looked at each other. That was the extent of our exchange before the uptown local rushed into the station.

MILLAR SAYS HE WON’T GO

This is the story that just won’t end. The Boston Globe has the latest on the Kevin Millar charade:

Kevin Millar, breaking his silence regarding his stalemate with a Japanese team that may require the intercession of Major League Baseball to end, confirmed last night that he will not report to the Chunichi Dragons and has told the team he will not play in Japan. The first baseman/outfielder also reiterated his hope that a resolution can be reached that will allow him to play for the Red Sox

Millar wants to have his cake and eat it too, and it looks as if the Sox may get their man yet. But haven’t I said that before?

THE BENOVOLENCE OF KING GEORGE

Hal Bodley caught George Steinbrenner in one of his more benevolent moods in this article for Baseball Weekly:

On Joe Torre:

“Joe has done a great job, but he and his staff will have their hands full this year because they have a lot of important decisions to make,” says Steinbrenner.

…”We want Joe to have a good team, and he will,” says Steinbrenner. “He’s a good manager – the best I’ve ever had.”

On the Yanks:

“You’ve got to pay – we’re not the only ones, but we’re the No. 1 guy,” says Steinbrenner of the new tax. “It’s aimed at the Yankees; it always has been – since the 1920s. I read the other night an article about Clark Griffith, the original owner of the Washington Senators. He said then ‘we’ve got to do something about the Yankees winning every year.’ He led a movement, and it wasn’t successful then.

“If we do our work properly … New York is a great place to play, and your fans support you. This team belongs to the people. They support it with their hard-earned money, and I mean that truly. They pay to see them play and deserve to have their team be a good one.” Steinbrenner refuses to take credit for the recasting, although he had to approve the expenditures. He says it was a team effort, a culmination of hours of work by his baseball advisers. “I’m very proud of my people; it wasn’t just one guy’s effort.”

…”It’s going to be fun watching some of these fellows, how they fit in. It’s not like going to the card game with the same deck of cards you had the last couple of years. We’re going to have a lot of people in new roles. I can’t guarantee we’re going to be a better team, but I think we’ve done a pretty good job. Just getting to the finals, getting to the World Series is something. It’s so difficult.”

MEET THE METS: PUFF, PUFF PASS

Here are a couple of puff pieces from today’s Daily News. One on Michael Piazza, who is refreshed after spending time in Europe this winter, and another on Maurice Vaughn, who is ready to rock and roll after gearing up with the Ohio State Football team.

ON THE LOW

Rob Neyer has a good article about how Sandy Alderson has surreptitiously taken control of the All-Star Game:

Neyer on Sandy Alderson

Is having Alderson serve as a sort of “All-Star Czar” the perfect solution? No, it’s probably not. But the fact is that whoever’s in charge is going to be criticized, and if anybody can take the heat without flinching, it’s Sandy Alderson. It’s also worth noting that the Commissioner’s Office or the American and National League offices have always technically had jurisdiction over the rosters. It’s just that they’ve generally preferred to pass the buck.

Alderson might not be the new Harry Truman. But you’re not likely to catch him passing a buck.

Hmmm. We are sure to hear more about this as the season unfolds.

NICE NAME, KID

While perusing Aaron Gleeman’s Top 50 Prospects (Mets 3, Yanks 0) article at Baseball Primer, I was laid out when I read that Boof Bonser, a right-handed pitcher in the San Francisco organization, made the list. Not that I’d ever heard of Boof Bonser before, but I know that I’m likely to forget him anytime soon.

What a great baseball name. Cecil Fielder’s son, Prince Fielder, a young home-run-hitting hunk-of-love, has a pretty good name too, but Boof Bonser is my cherce for the prospect with the coolest sounding name..

Incidentally, here is some of Gleeman’s analysis of Bonser:

Besides having a really strange name, Bonser is a massive human being that throws very hard, striking out a lot of guys and walking his fair share too.

The Giants decided to start Bonser at Double-A last year and it turned out to be a mistake. He struggled with his control and gave up 3 homers in 24 innings before he and his 5.55 ERA were demoted back to Single-A. Once back in Single-A, he did very well, striking out nearly 10 batters a game and limiting opponents to a sub-.200 batting average. There was some cause for concern even though he was pitching very well, because his velocity was down slightly from past years. His fastball was still clocking in above 90, but not at the usual 94+ that he was capable of in the past.

Bonser did a lot of good work with his curveball and change up last season, possibly because he was less able to just blow people away with his fastball. The loss in velocity is still a concern, as is the drop in his K rate.

After striking out 11.2/9 in 2000 and 12.0/9 in 2001, Bonser’s K rate dropped quite a bit in 2002, as he struck out 9.8/9 in Single-A and 8.6/9 in Double-A. Drops in K rate as a player progresses through the minors is often to be expected and Bonser is still striking out a ton of batters. He did not improve his control in 2002 and he walks too many batters right now.

Bonser has a ton of potential, but the Giants have lots of good arms in the system and he’ll have to cut down on the free passes at some point and work on finding that extra zip on his fastball again.

The braintrust over at Baseball Prospectus also has an informative piece on this year’s crop of prospects that is worth checking out.

Speaking of names, earlier this week I was dicking around the Baseball Encyclopedia and found the baseball name this side of Orval Overall. None other than Creepy Crespi. You could look it up.

PERFECT?

Jerome Holtzman has a piece on former major-league hurler, John Curtis, who once carried a perfect game into the 8th inning, and is currently working on a book about perfect games, along with another former pitcher, Mark Grant, who is now an announcer for the San Diego Padres.

Holtzman writes:

According to James Buckley, Jr. of Santa Barbara, Calif., perfect games occur once every seven to eight seasons. Buckley’s “PERFECT,” published by Triumph Books last year, is an analysis of the 16 perfectos and also includes perfect games broken up with two outs in the ninth.

Buckley estimates that since the birth of the National League in 1876 there have been about 180,000 games. A perfecto surfaces once in approximately 22,000 games, or .00005 percent.

Here are a few notable reactions Curtis and Grant have recieved for their project:

Greg Maddux: “My definition of a perfect game would be throwing every pitch where you want to throw it. And, you know what? So what if you give up a hit or a run or two.”

Mike Krukow: “When I first came up, Rick Reuschel was sitting in the clubhouse with me and he said, ‘One game I want to throw before I quit, is a 14-hit shutout where I get lit up, and I just figure a way to get out of it. And here’s the rest of the scenario. You have nothing that day. Nothing. Not only that but the umpire’s strike zone is miniscule.’

“That’s the way it was in 1987 in the fourth game of the playoffs against the Cardinals. We were down two games to one and we had to absolutely win this game. Every inning was a puzzle. My only mistake was an 0-2 pitch to pitcher Danny Cox. We won 4-2. And because of the pressure in that game, what it meant to our organization, what it meant to me as a player, and how I got through nine innings with nothing, that was my idea of a perfect game. It wasn’t a 14-hit shutout but it was getting it done with nothing.”

And finally from Roger Craig, former big league pitcher, pitching coach and manager:

“I’ve gone into a game with the bases loaded, thrown a bad pitch, and the batter hits into a double play. And you come into the dugout and everybody pats you and says ‘Nice going! Great pitching!’ But it was a bad pitch. I knew it. The catcher knew it and the umpire knew it.”

ED LINN, ANYONE?

I mentioned earlier in the week, that I’m reading one of Ed Linn’s books on the Bronx Bombers, “Steinbrenner’s Yankees.” For all the Yankee and Red Sox fans out there, Don Malcolm has an article about Linn’s book “The Great Rivalry” at Baseball Primer. I snooped around Big Bad Baseball.com and found several more articles on Linn by Mr. Malcolm, including a nice obituary, and excerpts from “Steinbrenner’s Yankees,” “Hitter,” (with Ted Williams) and “The Hustler’s Handbook,” (with Bill Veeck). Click away and enjoy.

THROWBACKS

Last but not least, there are two good articles by Alan Schwarz that are worth a peek at. The first profiles Dodger manager Jim Tracy, and compares him with the low-key legend, Walter Alston.

The second, which was published yesterday, covers a true baseball lifer, Tony Siegle, who has worked for 22 general managers in a 38-year career in the front offices of the major leagues.

[Siegle] has negotiated the waiver jungle as one of the best rules men in the business. Recent years have brought a new revenue-sharing luxury-tax lexicon that he knows as well as English, which it does not resemble. Siegle never has been a general manager, probably never will, but he sure has some stories to tell, having worked in the trenches for 22 of them over the years.

I would have liked to know why exactly Siegle will never become a gm, but he certainly has worked for some interesting people, including: Paul Richards, Frank Lane, Harry Dalton, Al Rosen (twice), Jack McKeon, Brian Sabean, Ed Wade, and Omar Minaya

Here is portion of Siegle’s expertise in rating the men he’s worked for:

Most Innovative: Omar Minaya (Expos)

“Look at what he’s had to do with this team, whether it’s building the organization or budgets or the Puerto Rico thing. He’s handled it all really well in a very tough position. People have no idea what goes on around here.”

Least Waiver Knowledge: Al Rosen (Astros and Giants)

“Al was worse than Omar — just kidding. (Laughs.)

Worst Waiver Snafu: Frank Lane (Brewers)

“I just get the paperwork from Frank Lane after he trades someone for Bobby Pfeil. Now Lane’s a living legend, I’m just starting out. I go to Shirley, the secretary, and say, ‘We can’t make this deal. We don’t have waivers.’ She says, ‘You better go tell Mr. Lane.’ Yeah — easy for her to say.

“I tell Lane that this is an interleague trade and we don’t have waivers. He says, ‘Young man, you have just saved this organization a lot of embarrassment. Shirley, call Philadelphia, tell them we can’t make the deal — and tell them who told us we couldn’t.’

“I had just come over from the Phillies. It was one of my proudest moments in the game. Ever since, I’ve been known as a rules guy.”

Nuff’ said.

DRAMA QUEENS

No matter what Bobby V eventually says, it will pale in comparison with the histrionics that characterized the Yankee teams of the late 1970’s. The Bronx Zoo Yankees would make for a great movie. It may be redundant to make a fictionalize version of a team that was so theatrical in it’s own right, but that’s okay. If they can make full-length features out of Scooby Doo and Josie and the Pussycats, they can make one on the 70’s Yankees too.

I doubt it would ever happen in George’s lifetime, but it’s a cinch for a comedy classic. Too bad that 70’s Retro is now passZ. I picture the Bronx Zoo movie to be a cross between “Slap Shot” and “Boogie Nights”; “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Turning Point.”

The costumes and soundtrack alone would be worth the price of admission. Get a group of terrific spaz method actors, and you’re set.

Ed Linn’s book “Steinbrenner’s Yankees” details the Billy, George, Reggie years expertly, and provides excellent fodder for a script. Here is an example that caught my funny bone the other day.

It is spring training, 1977. Reggie has just brought his star with him to Yankee camp, after the Big Red Machine had swept the Yankees the year before. Already, the camp was fraught with tension. But Reggie doesn’t appear in this scene…

Cast of Characters:

George: Michael Gambon? No, Mark Holton who played Francis in “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” is more like it.

Gabe Paul: Think William Holden in “Network”

Billy Martin: Harry Dean Stanton

Yogi: Himself

Ed Linn sets the scene:

Billy Martin was fired for the first time a week before the end of spring training, after the Mets had shut out the Yankees 6-0 in St. Petersburg, in a game that was telecast back to New York.

…George had been screaming all along that the team wasn’t prepared to open the season. And not without reason. Billy had always run a loose training camp, but this camp had been, [in the words of the immortal Mick the Quick] well-uh, rid-i-cu-lous. And for a great deal of laxness, George had only himself to blame.

Billy Martin’s marriage had broken up, and he was living a bachelor life several miles away in Boca Raton with his buddy Mickey Mantle. So he would drive to the practice field every morning, not always on time and not always without a lady companion. Gabe Paul had told him at the beginning that the team couldn’t stand that kind of thing, had in fact instructed him to move back into Fort Lauderdale and stay with the team and ride on the team bus. Whereupon Billy went over Gabe’s head to Steinbrenner, and George, being the great guy that he is, told Billy that it was perfectly okay, boys will be boys, enjoy.

With the team going so rotten, George was no longer in a mood to be so indulgent…Most of all, George wanted Billy on the practice field on time, and he wanted him on the team bus with the players.

Well, it was no great issue. The team was living in Tampa now, and Billy was living with them. But, still, he liked to drive back and forth from the ballpark with his coaches, so he could talk things over whiles the coaches made notes.

When George came striding toward the clubhouse after the Mets game, he was ripping mad. The Yankees had not only lost, they had been shut out. Instead of starting Reggie, as Billy had promised to, he had sent him in late in the game as a pinch hitter. Instead of playing the starting lineup all the way, as George had instructed him to, he had finished with a team of substitutes.

But if you want to know what George was really furious about, it was that he had discovered during the game that Billy had driven to the ballpark in a rental car.

Let’s imagine the following confrontation as a scene from The Bronx Zoo movie.

PARKING LOT EXT. BALL PARK. FLORIDA

The Yankee players slowly make their way to the team bus. About half of the team has dragged ass out to the parking lot.

INT. STADIUM HALLWAY

The hallway is empty, but we hear oncoming footsteps.

George (off-screen): I don’t give a fuck. This shit has got to stop right now. Do you hear me, Gabe? I’ve got to stop it right now!

INT. LOCKER ROOM DOORS

George bursts in, followed by Gabe Paul. There are a few players still lingering, the clubhouse man and a few reporters remain as well. Billy is standing in the doorway of the manager’s office.

George: I want to talk to you right now. You lied to me!

Billy: I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear that shit anymore.

George: You heard what I said! That thing is going to stop right now!

Billy: You fat bastard, I don’t give a shit what you say. I’m going to do it my way.

George: You lied to me! You told me you were going to ride on the bus.

Billy: F
uck you, I’m not riding on any fucking buses. Get the fuck out of here.

Gabe: Hey…hey, watch yourself Billy.

Gabe steps toward Billy. George stands ten feet away, incredulous with fury.

Don’t…Billy, don’t…

George: (softly, to himself) What did you say? What did you say?

Gabe: Billy, don’t talk to him like that.

Billy: Then YOU can tell that fat bastard to go fuck himself. Hear me? He can go fuck himself!

George: (Moving in) You don’t talk to me like that, goddammit! You don’t ever talk to me like that.

Billy: I’ll talk to anybody like that.

Billy turns and strides into the trainer’s room. George steams after him, Gabe by his side. We wait a beat and several players in towels, along with a couple of trainers, exit the trainer’s room. But they do not go far; the remaining men in the locker room sit still and enjoy the fireworks.

George: (os) You lied to me, and not only about the bus. You promised to play the starting team all the way today, and you fucking lied about that too.

INTERIOR: TRAINER’S ROOM

George and Billy stand at opposite sides of the trainer’s table in the middle of the room. Paul is behind George.

Billy: Don’t tell me how to manage my ball team, you lying sonofabitch. I’m the manager, and I’ll manage how I want to manage. It was an EXHIBITION game! An ex-hib-i-tion game. This is not a game where you leave your blood and guts on the field to win…There are things I gotta find out now!

George: Well, you should have already figured them out. That is what I’ve been telling you all along! The season begins in a week and you don’t have this goddamn team ready.

Billy: For christsakes George, you don’t prepare for a 162-game season the way you prepare for a 10-game football season.

Billy slams his fist in a bucket of ice water. The ice cubes splash up, and George gets soaked.

George: I ought to fire you! I should fire your ass right now.

George wipes his face and frantically digs ice cubes out of his jacket pockets.

Billy: You want to fire me, fire me! But leave me the fuck alone.

INT: LOCKER ROOM

Gabe Paul exits the trainer’s room and motions to one of the coaches.

INT. TRAINER’S ROOM

Billy and George are standing at opposite sides of the room. Billy is coiled; George fumes. Gabe walks in with Yogi.

George: (to Yogi) You’re the manager.

Yogi: Now take it easy, George.

George: You want to be the manager? You’re the manager.

Yogi: Billy’s a good manager. You don’t want to go doing anything because you’re mad now.

George: The job is yours!

CUT TO:

The Next morning.

INT. HOTEL HALLWAY.

We see George; brisk and manicured, walking down the empty hallway. He checks is watch, and knocks on Gabe Paul’s door.

CUT TO:

Gabe lets George in, and Steinbrenner barrels straight passed him.

INT. HOTEL HALLWAY

Billy Martin, pale and disheveled, walks down the same hallway. When he knocks on Gabe’s door, Billy looks around nervously.

CUT TO:

CLOSE UP: Gabe putting the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.

CUT TO:

INTERIOR: YANKEE TEAM BUS

Billy Martin sits in the front seat of the crowded team bus. Art Fowler and Yogi Berra sit behind him.

According to Linn:

From then on, Billy rode the bus. And he never yelled at George in public again. But whenever Billy expected to be fired during the season, he would tell the writers that from the moment those ice cubes hit George’s face, he knew that his days as the manager of the New York Yankees were numbered.

Be that as it may, it was Gabe Paul who wanted to fire him the next time around and George Steinbrenner who saved him.

Cue: Organ Music.

Tune in again next time for more of the Bronx Zoo Chronicles.