Mid-90s sinker and a sharp-breaking curveball, that’s what Ivan Nova featured tonight. He was damn good, striking out 11 and throwing a complete game, the first of his career. He gave up a couple of runs in the 2nd inning when he hit a batter and then Matt Weiters hit an opposite field home run that bounced off the top of the wall.

But it looked as if Nova’s best would not be good enough. The Yankees left a pair of runners on base in the 4th and then had the bases loaded with 1 out in the 5th but Travis Hafner popped out to shallow center (after being ahead 3-0 and 3-1), and Vernon Wells popped out to Chris Davis at first base.

They trailed 2-1 and the bottom of the 9th went like this…

Jim Johnson to David Adams: Fastball, low for a ball. Fastball, high, fouled off, 1-1. Another fastball, middle middle, and Adams punches it to right field for a base hit.

Brett Gardner (double and then three strike outs for the game): Bunt, and a poor one. Got it in the air, toward second. Johnson got there in plenty of time, with time to go to second. But he muffs it and everybody is safe.

Ichiro: Bunts, right in front of the plate. Weiters fields it with his bare hand and throws to first for the out. Runners advance.

Robbie Cano: Intentionally walked.

Travis Hafner: (With a repeat of the 5th inning when Cano was walked to face Pronk.) Sinker, low in the dirt, nice block by Weiters, 1-0. Sinker low and outside, 2-0. Fastball high and outside, 3-0. And we’ve been here before. Fastball high, ball four. And the game is tied.

Vernon Wells (outfield comes in, infield comes in): Fastball inside, 1-0. Fastball tails inside, 2-0. Sinker, for a strike, 2-1. Johnson set, Wells calls time out. Breaking ball, the first one he’s thrown all inning and Wells fouls it off. Fastball, sharp ground ball, Manny Machado dives but it’s through the left side. Gardner scores, doesn’t slow down and sprints to first to congratulate Wells.

Final Score: Yanks 3, Orioles 2.

[Photo Credit: Frank Franklin II/Associated Press]

It’s Nova as the Yanks host the O’s back in the Bronx.

1. Gardner CF
2. Suzuki RF
3. Cano 2B
4. Hafner DH
5. Wells LF
6. Overbay 1B
7. Cruz SS
8. Stewart C
9. Adams 3B

Never mind the heat index:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Kenscud]

Over at the USA Today, Bob Nightengale talks to Alex Rodriguez:

“I know people think I’m nuts,” he tells USA TODAY Sports, in his first extensive interview since last season. “I know most people wouldn’t want the confrontation. Most people would say, ‘Get me out of here. Trade me. Do anything.’

“But I’m the (expletive) crazy man who goes, ‘I want to compete. I want to stay in New York. I refuse to quit.’

“Maybe it’s stupidity, I don’t know, but I’m wired to compete and give my best. I have a responsibility to be ready to play as soon as I can.”

[Photo Credit: Chris O’Meara/Associated Press]

Takin’ the day off. Wish I could take the Plunge.

Be back tonightski for the game.

[Image by Josep Moncada vis Alexandra 1]

“I like to act in films, I like to shoot ’em, I like to direct ’em, I like to be around ’em. I like the feel of it and it’s something I respect. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s a crappy film or a good film. Anyone who can make a film, I already love. But I feel sorry if they don’t put any thought in it because then they missed the boat.”

-John Cassavetes

So far, summer 2013 seems like a dud of a movie-going season. Luckily, BAM is coming to the rescue with a retrospective of the films of iconoclastic filmmaker and actor John Cassavetes. It’s often said that Cassavetes’ films are not for everyone, which is true, but it should be taken as a compliment. The series, which runs through July 31^st, mixes Cassavetes’ work as a writer and director with some of his more memorable roles acting for other directors, like Robert Aldrich’s THE DIRTY DOZEN (which won him an Oscar nomination), Don Siegel’s THE KILLERS, Elaine May’s MIKEY AND NICKEY (co-starring Falk) and Roman Polanski’s ROSEMARY’S BABY.

Cassavetes’ self-financed 1968 film FACES (screening on July 17) was nominated for three Academy Awards, and had a major impact on the industry itself and also on filmmakers like his friend and protégé Martin Scorsese, and contemporaries like Woody Allen, Robert Altman and Peter Bogdanovich. In addition to paving the way for the independent film movement in the United States, Cassavetes’ movies present human emotion and behavior in stark, jarring, occasionally hilarious and sometimes harrowing ways. Simply put – there’s nothing else quite like them. Cassavetes created a stock company of fantastic and idiosyncratic performers, including Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, Seymour Cassel and perhaps most famously and importantly, his wife and muse, the great Gena Rowlands. Rowlands’ performance in Cassavetes’ A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE was widely lauded, Oscar-nominated and has become justly legendary, but her work her husband’s other films, like the criminally under-seen OPENING NIGHT, which kicks off the series on Saturday, is equally stunning.    It’s enough to cure you of superhero movies.

Schedule and Details

Happy 4th of July!

[Photo Via: This Isn’t Happiness]

Well, so I’ve been waiting to use this photograph the entire series figuring the Yanks would lose and lose again to the Twins. But they didn’t, they didn’t blow the game yesterday and they didn’t waste a 9-1 lead today, although it got a little sweaty in the 8th inning before Shawn Kelly got them out of trouble.

So it turns out the Yankees are Sy Ableman after all. Okay, works for me.

Final Score: Yanks 9, Twins 5.

Time for cake:

David Phelps looks to recover from his Baltimore Beatdown last Saturday as the Yanks go for the sweep this afternoon in Minnesota.

Ichiro Suzuki CF
Zoilo Almonte LF
Robinson Cano 2B
Travis Hafner DH
Vernon Wells RF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Luis Cruz SS
Alberto Gonzalez 3B
Austin Romine C

Never mind the barbecue:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Hope everyone has a safe, satiating and satisfying time of it today.

[Photo Credit: Andrew Snyder]

It looked like another hard-luck outing for C.C. tonight. The Yanks trailed 2-0 but in the 6th, Brett Gardner led off with a walk, moved to third on a double by Ichiro and they both came home on a double by Robbie Cano, who has caught fire in the Heartland. Cano came round to score the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly by Lyle Overbay.

C.C. threw 120 pitches, the last of which was dribbled slowly toward first base by Justin Morneau in the 7th with a runner in scoring position. C.C. fielded it and underhanded the ball to Overbay for the third out, protecting the lead.

David Robertson retired the Twins in order in the 8th and Mariano worked around a 1-out broken-bat bloop single in the 9th, retiring Joe Mauer on a pop-up to short to end the game. We have a few months left to savor Mo. And most of us around these parts do just that every time he takes the mound.

Final Score: Yanks 3, Twins 2.

A series win for the Yanks and a stirring performance by Sabathia. It’s one he’ll be extra proud of because tonight he earned the 200th win of his career.

The Yanks have won the first two games against the Twins with two left. A series win is in order. If they leave town with a split it’ll be a bummer.

The good news is that C.C. is on the hill.

Brett Gardner CF
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Travis Hafner DH
Zoilo Almonte LF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Chris Stewart C
Luis Cruz SS
David Adams 3B

Luis Cruz is the new face.

Never mind the fireworks:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Yasiel Puig is the reason we have the All-Star Game writes our old chum Ted Berg.

[Photo Credit: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press / June 3, 2013]

Phil Hughes pitched well, people, and the Yankee offense is still eating meat, scrapping together a few runs–thank you Alberto “3 RBI” Gonzalez–before Robbie Cano pelted a three-run home run to put the game away.

Sure, Mariano Rivera had to come in to get a cheap-one out save in the 9th, but otherwise, not much to complain about.

Final Score: Yanks 7, Twins 3.

Hiroki Kuroda returned to New York for an MRI on his hip flexor but appears to be okay. Phew.

It’s Phil Hughes and say your prayers.

Brett Gardner CF
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Travis Hafner DH
Zoilo Almonte LF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Chris Stewart C
David Adams 3B
Alberto Gonzalez SS

Never mind the pessimism:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Charlie Pierce on NBA free agency:

Is there any good reason for anyone to believe anything Dwight Howard says at this point?

He’s on the market again. On Monday, as the bell announcing the opening of the free-agency market was still pealing, he was being romanced by Houston and it was said that the Rockets were attractive to him at least in part because Texas has no state income tax. (This is a nice perk if you’re Dwight Howard the ballplayer, who will be making a gazillion dollars and can afford your own private police force. It’s a bit of a drag if you’re Dwight Howard from the Third Ward who’s trying to get him some public services.) Yao Ming Skyped in to pitch the team, and Howard’s also met with Hall of Famers Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, as well as with James Harden, who likely will not be joining them in Springfield. He’s going to take the grand tour. Howard will be meeting with Golden State and Dallas, too, before deciding whether he wants to pick up the great burden of being a celebrity athlete in L.A. again.

Is there a bigger fake in this league? Seriously, the guy came into the NBA with a smile on his face and Bible verses on his shoes, and there hasn’t been a player in my memory who’s dived for every nickel with the enthusiasm this guy has demonstrated. (Dwight? Rich man. Camel. Needle’s eye. Google these terms along with “New Testament” and get back to me.) He can’t help being injured. He can help being miserable, though, and this guy is simply never happy. He wasn’t happy in Orlando. He wasn’t happy in L.A., and he’s not going to be happy wherever he ends up next. This would be tolerable if he brought championship ball with him. (Shaquille O’Neal wasn’t always a field of buttercups, either.) But the guy doesn’t necessarily help you win. He looks great — not good. Great — in the uniform. At the baggage carousel, there’s nobody more formidable. On the court? Not so much. He couldn’t really mesh with Kobe Bryant and he never really got along with Mike D’Antoni, and now he’s back running the grift again. Please, Houston, sign this guy. Moses Malone will come back from retirement just to kick his ass.

Then there’s Chris Paul, who has condescended to return to Los Angeles now that the Clippers gave him 107 million good reasons to be coached by Doc Rivers. This is another guy with a costume-jewelry résumé whom the league nonetheless slobbers over. You have your analytics and I have mine, but if you’re a big-money point guard, the basic metric is whether you can get your team to win anything and, right now, Paul’s got one division title with L.A. He, however, has fewer rings than Rajon Rondo or Mario Chalmers. But he gets to hold up the Clippers to the point where they raid another team for its coach, throw the league into an uproar, launch a brawl between my favorite person in the NBA and my, uh, boss, and all so that Paul won’t take his stylish, couldn’t-beat-the-Grizzlies-with-a-hand-grenade hindquarters somewhere else in the league. The barstools are full of point guards who guided their teams to a loss in a six-game playoff series.

[Picture by Greg Guillemin]

A treat: Lawrence Block on Charles Willeford:

Charles Willeford took writing very seriously, and applied himself to it wholeheartedly for some 40 years. He started out as a poet; his first book, Proletarian Laughter, was a collection of poems. He began publishing paperback fiction while serving his second hitch in the military, and kept at it, and worked hard at it.

With the Hoke Moseley novels, he got a taste of the commercial success that had for so long eluded him. When I learned of his death, I was struck by the irony of it; he was just beginning to get somewhere, and the Fates took him out of the game.

Found over at Kottke, Bert Haanstra’s Academy Award-winning 1959 documentary short.

Andy Pettitte passed Whitey Ford last night and now has more strikeouts than any other Yankee pitcher.

Yeah, the Yanks were down by a run in the 8th inning and yeah all seemed lost but then came an unexpected shipment of protein power from the rarely-seen Score Truck.

Double take. Spit take. And we’ll take it, thank you very much.

10-4, good buddy.

The gluten-free Yanks limp in to Minnesota to play four against the Twins.

Alex Rodriguez will begin a rehab assignment tomorrow. Tonight, Andy Pettitte tries to halt the Yankees’ losing streak at five.

Brett Gardner CF
Jayson Nix SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells RF
Travis Hafner DH
Zoilo Almonte LF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Chris Stewart C
David Adams 3B

Never mind the Dybbuk:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!