Head on over to SB Nation and check out the debut of Longform, their site devoted to long form writing.

First up is R. D. Rosen’s story on Al Rosen. Nicely done.

From the Jock magazine archives here’s a good interview:

Odd Couple: Bill Bradley and Calvin HIll

Enjoy.

Over at Grantland, Charlie Pierce lights into the NFL:

ere’s what I think should happen. At the end of this farcical exercise in corporate avarice, and whenever he has determined that his ego has been sufficiently fluffed and his power sufficiently recognized throughout the land, commissioner Roger Goodell should take his entire 2012 salary and split every dime of it up among the players in the National Football League, because they are the ones he’s putting at risk and they are the only ones keeping the NFL from descending into a form of opéra bouffe that would embarrass roller derby. Sunday night, the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens played a preposterously good football game, which the Ravens won, 31-30, on a walk-off field goal by rookie Justin Tucker, in a preposterous context that ended with New England coach Bill Belichick trying to grab the arm of an official as the ref ran off the field.

“I’m not going to comment on that,” Belichick said afterward. “You saw the game. What did we get, 30 penalties called in that game?”

Oh, yeah, the play that ended last night’s game was even worse.

During his post game interview following his second start back from the disabled list in Minnesota on Monday night, Andy Pettitte shook his head and laughed. “I’m definitely a work in progress,” he admitted. If you missed the game and just caught that self-deprecating response, you might’ve assumed Pettitte had struggled, something like four runs in five innings and maybe a loss. Not quite.

Pettitte threw 88 pitches over six strong innings, allowing just seven hits and a walk while striking out three. He didn’t allow a run.

Looking at those numbers on the morning after, Pettitte looks brilliant, but he struggled in the first inning. He gave up consecutive singles to open the game, walked Josh Willingham to load the bases with one out, and momentarily fell behind the dangerous Justin Morneau. But he did what we’re used to seeing from Andy Pettitte, what we saw as far back as Game 5 of the 1996 World Series. He battled. He eventually retired Morneau with a 91-MPH fastball dotted on the outside corner, then induced a ground ball from Ryan Doumit to end the inning. It had taken 22 pitches, but he had escaped.

That first inning had been tenuous, but Pettitte had actually been working with a 3-0 lead. Derek Jeter had opened the top of the first with a walk, then raced around to third on a double from the blistering hot Ichiro. Robinson Canó brought one run home with a ground out to short, but then Nick Swisher crushed a ball off the facing of the upper deck in right center field for a muscle-flexing homer and a three-run Yankee cushion. As it turned out, that would be all that Pettitte would need.

Even so, Curtis Granderson gave him another run in the fourth as he rocketed his fortieth homer high into the right field stands. Granderson has become a disturbingly one-dimensional hitter this season, but as frustrating as his all-or-nothing approach can be, it’s hard to criticize a guy who’s hit forty home runs in consecutive seasons, a feat accomplished by only four other players in the long and homer-filled history of the Bronx Bombers. There was Jason Giambi in ’02-’03, and then the three usual suspects: Mickey Mantle (’60-’61), Lou Gehrig (’30-’31), and a guy named Babe Ruth (’20-’21, ’23-’24, ’26-’32). Is it just me, or is it kind of shocking that Alex Rodríguez isn’t on that list?

Pettitte, meanwhile, was straight dealing. After that shaky start, he set down the side in order in the second, used a double play ball to to escape a two-hit inning in the third, watched as Granderson and Russell Martin combined for a phenomenal play to throw out Doumit at the plate to end the fourth, yielded a harmless single in the fifth, then set down three straight in the sixth to finish his scoreless evening. Pettitte just might be the best September call-up in Yankee history, and he definitely looks ready to assume his usual spot starting Game 3 in the playoffs.

Raúl Ibañez and Eric Chávez added solo home runs in the frame after Pettitte’s departure, giving the Yanks a 6-0 lead in the seventh inning and enough of a cushion that the rest of the game seemed unnecessary. There were really just two things of note: things got a bit messy for the bullpen as they yielded three runs in the final two innings, and Derek Jeter singled with one out in the ninth to keep his hitting streak alive at 18 straight games.

At this point in the season, any win makes for a good day, but this 6-3 win meant more than just a half game in the standings. Pettitte has thrown eleven shutout innings since his return from the disabled list, and suddenly the Yankee rotation of Sabathia, Kuroda, Pettitte, and Hughes looks ready to carry the team through these final nine games and into the playoffs. The Yankees won’t clinch the American League East until the weekend, but I think we’ll look back on this game and realize this was the night it was won.

[Photo Credit: Jim Mone/AP Photo]

Yeah, the Twins aren’t all that but they’re enough to have swept a double-header from the Tigers yesterday. No sleeping allowed.

It’s old man Andy in his second start since returning from the disabled list.

Never mind the standings: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: TS Flynn via It’s a Long Season]

Head on over to Deadspin and check out Alan Siegel’s funny story about Sparky Lyle and the birth of  entrance music for closers:

“The organization probably wasn’t ready for a rock song,” [Marty] Appel said. One of his friends was the son of David Carey, a studio musician who’d toured with Frank Sinatra. Appel described a typical Lyle entrance to the elder Carey and asked for advice. Carey recommended Sir Edgar Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.”

The graduation march—known to ’80s and ’90s WWF fans as dearly departed “Macho Man” Randy Savage’s theme—was the kind of triumphant accompaniment Appel was looking for. And so, 40 years ago, the era of entrance music began.

When Yankees manager Ralph Houk signaled to the bullpen late in games, Appel would use binoculars to determine who was getting into the Datsun. Then, from the press box, he’d call organist Toby Wright’s direct phone line. If Appel said, “It’s Lyle,” Wright would slowly begin playing “Pomp and Circumstance.”

“As soon as the car pulled through the gate, the place started to get it,” Appel said. “It worked almost from day one.”

Over at SB Nation, Jim Baker offers up this alternative guide to baseball movies.

David Carr had a good feature on Neil Young yesterday in the New York Times Magazine.

“Writing is very convenient, has a low expense and is a great way to pass the time,” he says in “Waging Heavy Peace.” “I highly recommend it to any old rocker who is out of cash and doesn’t know what to do next.”

He decided to do it sober after talking with his doctor about a brain that had endured many youthful pharmaceutical adventures, in addition to epilepsy and an aneurysm. For someone who smoked pot the way others smoke cigarettes, the change has not been without its challenges, as he explains in his book: “The straighter I am, the more alert I am, the less I know myself and the harder it is to recognize myself. I need a little grounding in something and I am looking for it everywhere.”

Sitting at Alice’s Restaurant on Skyline Boulevard near the end of the day, he elaborated: “I did it for 40 years,” he said. “Now I want to see what it’s like to not do it. It’s just a different perspective.”

Drunk or sober, he can be a hippie with a mean streak. He broke off a tour with Stephen Stills without warning and sent him a telegram — “Funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach, Neil.”

For more, click here.

Head on over to Sports on Earth and check out my Q&A with Mickey Herskowitz about Jock, his short-lived but wonderful magazine.

Here’s Mickey talking about Woody Allen and Paul Simon:

Q: I like the non-sports-writing celebrities you featured in the magazine, like William F. Buckley and Woody Allen.

A: I called Woody Allen’s agent, [Jack] Rollins and [Charles] Joffe. I don’t know whether I talked to Rollins or Joffe. I told him I was running a magazine called Jock and wanted to know if Woody would be available to write a piece about what it was like growing up playing stickball in New York. He said, “I doubt it, but I promise you I’ll mention it to him.” An hour later I got a call from Rollins or Joffe, and he said, “Yeah, Woody would love to do it. He’s doing a play, ‘Play it Again, Sam,’ and does two shows on Sunday. Come between the matinee and the evening performance, bring a photographer and you can get your story and your pictures.”

Q: So it was ghostwritten by you?

A: No. I went there and Woody dictated it to me, it wasn’t ghostwritten. And he said, “What are you doing to do for photographs?” I told him I thought we’d just take a couple of shots of him there in his dressing room. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, “not if you’re doing a story on stickball. I know a perfect brownstone about four or five blocks away, let’s go down there.” So about six of us walked down past Eighth Avenue to this brownstone. I had two of my kids with me, they were like 10 and 11, and two of their friends, and they were the rest of the teams. Woody had a stick and a ball, and one of the kids pitched to him and the others played in the field. And that’s where we got the pictures.

Q: All-schoolyard.

A: Now, we did this shoot before the Mets had won the pennant, and after they won I get a call from one of Woody’s managers. He said, “Woody wanted to know if he could ask you a big favor?” I said, “Sure.” “Can you get him four tickets to the World Series?” Honest to God I had to bite my tongue. Are you kidding me? You don’t think that Woody Allen would mean more to the Mets than Mickey Herskowitz from Houston, Texas? For some reason that didn’t occur to him. So I called the Mets PR guy and got him tickets to every home game. Next week I got a handwritten “thank you” note from Woody.

Q: You also had an encounter with Paul Simon, right?

A: I sure did. I was thinking of stories, and it dawned on me that Rollins and Joffe also managed Paul Simon. “The Graduate” had come out, and the song “Mrs. Robinson” was everywhere. So I called up and asked if they thought Paul would be willing to do a story for me on what it was like growing up as a Yankee fan. And Rollins or Joffe said, “Well, I don’t know. I didn’t think Woody would do a story and he did. We’ll ask Paul.” The next day I’m sitting in my office … the secretary put a call through and the voice said, “Mickey?” I said, “Yeah.”

“This is Paul.”

“Paul, who?”

“Paul Simon.”

I was stunned that Paul Simon called. I said: “Paul, jeez, terrific of you to call, and call back so quickly. And to call back yourself. Everybody usually goes through three or four layers of gatekeepers, I’m really impressed.” He said, “Well don’t be. It’s an everyday courtesy.” He talked about what I had pitched and said, “I think it’s a groovy idea and I’d love to do it.” And so I explained what I wanted but also said I’d love it if he could talk about the Joe DiMaggio line, which everyone was so touched by. It took everybody back to nostalgia in their lives.

Q: What did he say about it?

A: He said the line just came to him. He hadn’t had DiMaggio in mind, but his name came to him; he had to have a long enough name to fit the melody. It was funny because he told me that a month or so after the song hit big he was on a TV show with Mickey Mantle and Mantle said, “How come you used DiMaggio’s name in your song and not mine?” Simon said he had to explain to him that it had to do with the melody and not the name.

Q: That’s funny that Mantle asked him. Because he was also a player of Simon’s generation more than DiMaggio.

A: That’s right. Anyhow, we didn’t talk long, maybe about 10 minutes. I was out of things to say. But I was so flattered and grateful for the call, I felt like I had to say something. So I told him that “Mrs. Robinson” was my favorite song. I made it up; it was such a dumb, bulls— thing to say, but I felt I had to say something complimentary to him for calling. There was a pause on the other line. And the next thing he said was: “You didn’t like ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’?” You talk about the insecurity of an artist?

Q: He was straight, he wasn’t joking?

A: I said, “Oh, no, no, no. ‘Mrs. Robinson’ was my favorite sports song. I love ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters.’” And the truth is, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I had been hearing it for weeks but didn’t know the name of it.

Here’s more on how Jock came to be.

Bronx Banter: Before we get to Jock magazine, let’s talk about your early career in Houston.

Mickey Herskowitz: I don’t need to exaggerate what a sports-nuts state Texas is. In fact, the most famous line I ever wrote was when one of the Super Bowl’s came here, I tried to explain Houston and one of my stories started, “We never knew how important Religion was in Texas until people started comparing it to high school football.”
And so way back, I was with the Houston Post.

BB: This was before Wells Twombly, right?

MH: Well before Wells, about ten years before he came along and then he was at the Houston Chronicle. The funny thing is I hired Wells to write for Jock and then had to renege when we started running out of money. He was really hurt. I couldn’t tell him that we were going broke at the time so I had to make up some sleazy excuse. Years later, he asked me about it and I told him the truth. So anyway, I was at the Houston Post and a couple of guys came to me and wanted to have a magazine about sports in Texas. This was the year Elvin Hayes was leading the University of Houston to prominence in college basketball. So a couple of advertising guys came to me and they had a little bit of money.

BB: You were a columnist at this time for the Post, right?

MH: I was in my twenties but a columnist.

BB: You’re younger than Dan Jenkins then.

MH: I was the next generation. Blackie [Sherrod], Dan, a wonderful writer in Fort-Worth named Jim Trinkle, Orville Henry in Fayetteville and Dave Campbell in Waco, Dan Cook in San Antonio, a named Jack Gallagher in Houston, those were the top-rated writers in the state as far as sports went. Bud Shrake came a little later. Gary Cartwright came after that. I don’t know if I was their mascot but they all looked after me.

BB: And you grew up in Houston?

MH: I was born there in the late 1930s. I remember Blackie never missing a chance to pay me a compliment. And years later when Dan was at Sports Illustrated he actually referred to me in print as the best baseball writer in America. Dan told me that on Mondays or Tuesdays when the out of state newspapers came into the office there’d be a scramble to get the Houston Post to see what my ledes were on the Astros ballgames. He really told me that. They brought me up there and offered me a job and I reluctantly turned it down because I was doing a TV show and a radio show in Houston along with the column and the money couldn’t match the three jobs I had back home. The three jobs in Houston were probably easier to handle than one in New York because of the cost of living.

BB: This was before Jock?

MH: Yes, and getting back to Jock, I had these advertising guys come to me about doing a magazine about sports in Texas and if it made sense to do something about sports anywhere that’s where you would start. It was called Sport Folio. I didn’t have any literary figures but I had all the top sports writers in Houston and Dallas, Austin. It was a monthly.

BB: Did you model it after Sport magazine?

MH: No. I stayed at the Post, this was a part-time job. Truth is, I modeled it after Esquire, which is what I did with Jock, as well. Sport Folio lasted about a year. Par for the course, ran out of money the second year. Then about a year after that I got a call from Chris Schenkel. Some money people out of Dallas were going to put out a magazine out called Chris Schenkel’s Sport Scene. Chris was the Bob Costas of his day, the go-to-anchor of his time. Did the Olympics forever, a lot of golf, was a terrific football play-by-play announcer, basketball too. SI did a great cover story on him. At one time he was the biggest name in sports broadcasting. He was the anti-Cosell. Totally factual, understated, non-dramatic. And a golden voice. So Chris called and asked if I would commute to Dallas an edit the magazine. And I did. I had Blackie and Jenkins and Steve Perkins who was a fine writer from Dallas and been in New Orleans.

BB: SI would let Jenkins moonlight for you?

MH: I say I had Jenkins, he maybe did one story for me on TCU but he did it under the radar. He wasn’t freelancing for anyone else.

BB: Did you have Gary Cartwright?

MH: No. I want to put this the right way so it doesn’t seem like a criticism but at that time Gary was still young and he was fourth or fifth in line behind Dan, Blackie and Bud Shrake. Thing about Gary is that he just got better and better and he’s still around of course. But we only had four or five big stories per issue so I didn’t have a big line up. Sports Scene was in mind a success because it was really classy. The people who owned it put a lot of money into it. It was glossy. We could go anywhere and write about anything. I covered the Olympics for that magazine in ’68. And what happened was an advertising guy in New York saw Sports Scene. Keep in mind New York magazine had just made a big splash and was a big success. There may have been city magazines at the time but they were small. In Houston, you had one that strong-armed ads for dentists and doctors and lawyers. Had little fashion stories, luncheons.

BB: They were provincial.

MH: Right. They were not for reading. They were beautiful and glossy but no content. New York was the first real city magazine unless I’m overlooking something in Boston of Philadelphia. So this advertising guy saw Sport Scene and compared it to New York, which was showing a profit after three years, which if you know magazines, is rare. You are lucky to show a profit after three years, hell, you are lucky to still be in business after three years. The stock market had had a real go-go run from about ’66-’68 and he thought he could take the model of Sport Folio and Sport Scene and get a Wall Street company to back it. And that’s exactly what we did.

BB: Did you move to New York?

MH: I did. Had an apartment in the same building with the mayor though he didn’t live there. John Lindsay played tennis with Hank Greenburg outside my window on Sundays. I was at Sutton Place. Cost me about $295 a month to park my car and a luxury apartment in Houston at the time cost about $350.

BB: Did the deal happen quickly?

MH: I flew to New York and met with their key sales people. It was like Alice in Wonderland. I’m almost embarrassed. It was so easy because so many people love sports. The only people they invited to the business meeting were the ones that were nuts about sports. Why wouldn’t they want to take this company public? I called coach Paul Bear Bryant, Jimmy Demerit, AJ Foyt, Cosell, Curt Gowdy, that was my role.

BB: You wanted them to invest in the magazine?

MH: No, no, they agreed to be on the board of directors and each got 10,000 shares. They did it as a favor, nobody asked for anything. But it was a marquee lineup. We went public in June of 1969, just as the recession began. In July, the Mets were 9 games out of first place. I came up with the idea for the first cover. It would be 4 or 5 Met players raising the flag on Iwo Jima except it was on the pitcher’s mound. That was on the inaugural issue, must be worth a pretty penny today. Cleon Jones, Tom Seaver, Ed Kranepool and those guys.

BB: This was after the Jets had already won the Super Bowl.

MH: The same year. And the Knicks had lost to the Bullets in the playoffs but they won the championship the following season, in June of 1970.

BB: New York hasn’t seen a banner year like that since.

Stayed tuned. All week,  we’ll be featuring a different article from Jock.

How about some laffs. Here’s a couple from George Carlin and one of Lenny Bruce’s most famous routines.

Enjoy.

“White Harlem”–George Carlin

“New York Voices”–George Carlin

“How To Relax Your Colored Friends”–Lenny Bruce

The A’s played another sloppy game in the field today but Hiroki Kuroda had a bad outing and while the Yankee bullpen picked him up, the bats did not. Boy, Kuroda was disappointing but a familiar theme did the Yanks in as they just couldn’t get hits with men on base. In the ninth, Alex Rodriguez missed a game-tying home run by two feet and Robinson Cano fouled off a hanging slider that had second deck written all over it.

In the end, the A’s survived and won 5-4. A blown opportunity for the Yanks (and an enormous win for the A’s) as the Orioles finally lost in Boston, 2-1. But in a way, the outcome was fitting with the way things have gone with the Orioles. It’d be unfair if either team took more than a one game lead.

This thing is going to try our nerves until the final days of the season.

Eh, forget about it, folks. It’s still a beautiful day. Go out, stretch those legs, have something good to eat. This was a good weekend, as aggravating as today’s game was.

Come back in the morning. We’ll be here.

[Photo Credit: Elevatedencouragement ]

Another good pitching match-up at the Stadium on a sunny but crisp day in New York. Our man Hiroki’s on the hill.

(And from ESPN, here’s an update on Mark Teixeira.)

1. Jeter SS
2. Suzuki LF
3. A-Rod 3B
4. Cano 2B
5. Swisher 1B
6. Granderson CF
7. Martin C
8. Ibanez RF
9. Nunez SS

Never mind the team in the rear view mirror: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via: The Absolute Best Photography Posts]

You know, it’d be easy for us to curse those Baltimore Orioles who have won six-in-a-row and who seem to have forgotten how to lose in extra innings. However, I wonder how the Orioles–and their fans–felt last night, after having won, after seeing that the A’s went ahead by four runs in extras against the Yanks only to have the Yanks pull it out.

With more than a little bit of luck.

Reading this description by Zach Schonbrun in the Times makes me wish I’d been there:

When the game seemed over, Ichiro Suzuki led off the bottom of the 13th inning with an infield single. A misty rain had begun to fall, like the soft spray in a carwash. The low sun through the clouds covered the stadium in a strange orange glow.

The game had started just after 1 p.m., before the long September shadows had started their slow march across the infield, but by the 13th, the stadium lights were on, and the scoreboard shined, and the game took on a surreal feel.

What a wild game it was. Did I mention Steve Pearce’s diving catch? And Raul Ibanez, not only with the two homers but a hustle double that brought Paul O’Neill to mind and a tough collision at home plate to boot.

Course the O’s could win again today, Yanks could lose and we’d end the weekend on a down note. But let’s face it, this is some good shit.

“I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” Louis Armstrong

[Photo Via: Pug King]

The Orioles won their 16th straight game in extra innings this afternoon in Boston.

The Yanks and A’s went to extra innings again. Cut to the end of the game when Raul Ibanez was gunned down at the plate trying to score on a ground ball to second base with one out in the 12th. Derek Jeter popped out to right to end the inning, leaving the bases loaded. The Yanks had gotten through three innings of Freddy Garcia killing ’em softly (Steve Pearce made a beautiful diving catch to rescue Garcia out of one jam) but gilded the lily bringing him back for a fourth. Jonny Gomes hit a two run jack, Yoenis Cespedes hit a bomb and even after Freddy left Chris Carter crushed one too.

The Yanks had used 16 position player and eight pitchers as they went to the bottom of the 13th. Ichiro singled against Pedro Figueroa and Alex Rodriguez followed suit with a base hit of his own. Robbie Cano got ahead in the count, 3-0, took a strike and another (the second one right down Broadway), then lined a single to left to load the bases.

Pat Neshek, a side-arming righty came in for Figueroa to face Eduardo Nunez. The first ball sailed wide, about a three feet outside as rain started to fall. Nunez waved at it but it got away from the catcher and Ichiro scored. He took a ball inside and then a strike and hit one to deep center. Cespedes made the catch and threw a bullet to third keeping Cano at second while Rodriguez scored.

Ibanez got ahead 2-0, then 3-1. Ibanez walloped the next pitch into the second deck in right field and the game was tied again.

Goodness.

Russell Martin grounded out and then Curtis Granderson launched the 0-1 pitch foul. It had the distance but he got out too far ahead of it. He fouled off three more pitches on a the way to a full count before grounding out. But the game was tied.

Now, the question was: who would pitch the 14th?

The man I suspected we wouldn’t see again this year. Cory Wade. Would you believe he got two weak ground outs and a fly ball to the warning track in center to work a scoreless inning?

A giant gasoline-throwing kid named Tyson Ross, wearing number 66, came on in relief for the A’s. The ninth pitcher of the day for Oakland. Eric Chavez fouled off a number of pitches, worked the count even and singled through the right side. Melky Mesa, making his major league debut, replaced Chavez at first. Hey, no pressure, kid.

Jeter bunted the first pitch in the air but it dropped in front of Ross and the sacrifice worked. The A’s had no intention of pitching to Ichiro–who had another three hits today–which put runners on first and second for Rodriguez.

First pitch, a change up or a slider, taken for strike one. Next pitch, he lines into center. And that’s the game.! Right? Wrong. Because Mesa missed the bag at third. He put on the brakes and went back. Bases loaded.

You.

Have.

Got. To. Be.

Shitting.

Me.

Course Cano took some weak hacks, before he grounded a ball to Ross who got the force at home.

A loud Yankee Stadium was suddenly quiet.

Nunez hit a ball off the end of his bat to first. Brandon Moss reached for it and it kicked off his glove. Ichiro scored and the Yanks had their most improbable win of the year.

Excuse my French but: Fuck Yes. Grueling? Sure. But this one ended in pure elation.

Final Score: Yanks 10, A’s 9.

Boys: “Happy” The Rolling Stones

[Photo Credit: Kateopolis]

Yanks have won six straight. Do I hear seven?

1. Jeter SS
2. Suzuki CF
3. A-Rod DH
4. Cano 2B
5. Swisher RF
6. McGehee 1B
7. Nix 3B
8. Jones LF
9. Stewart C

Never mind those battlin’ A’s: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Klaus Leidorf via Zeroing]

“I Don’t Know”–The Beastie Boys

[Photo Via: The Indifference]

CC Sabathia was as good–no, he was better–than expected. He was an Ace. Going into the eighth inning he’d given up just one hit. The A’s did make solid contact a few times: Eduardo Nunez made a nice snag on a line drive, Robinson Cano fielded a sharp ground ball, Curtis Granderson caught another line drive, otherwise, this was the CC of old.

Jarrod Parker, his counterpart, was just as good, almost. Granderson waved at a pitch in the dirt in the fourth inning and lifted it into left field, good for a sacrifice fly.

Alex Rodriguez had a couple of hits and Ichiro also got two more hits, including one we’re not likely to see again, a ground ball back to Parker that the pitcher fumbled down his jersey. Ichiro ran safely to first with the ball trapped inside Parker’s shirt.

The score remained 1-0 until the eighth. With a man on first and two out came an infield single before CC hit Johnny Gomes. But he got JJ Reddick to fly out to left on one pitch to escape trouble.

Rafael Soriano was not as fortunate. He got the first out in the ninth and got pinch-hitter Brandon Moss, a lefty, to foul off a slider. Paul O’Neill, on the YES broadcast, said that was a dangerous pitch to throw to a lefty but Soriano doubled-down and the next one wasn’t low enough and Moss cranked a moon shot into the right field seats. Forget the shutout, forget a “w” for CC.

Soriano got out of the inning thanks in large part to a wonderful catch by Russell Martin next to the Oakland dugout. David Robertson pitched well in the tenth which set up one of the great moments of the season.

Russell Martin got a fastball up and over the plate and he launched the 1-0 pitch into the left field seats for a home run.

Mr. Coltrane, indeed.

Final Score: Yanks 2, A’s 1.

[Photo Credit: NewY-rk; Kathy Kmonicek/AP Photo]

CC’s on the hill tonight against a tough team. He hasn’t been great recently but he’s still the Ace and I believe in him.

1. Jeter DH
2. Swisher RF
3. Cano 2B
4. A-Rod 3B
5. Granderson CF
6. Martin C
7. Chavez 1B
8. Ichiro LF
9. Nunez SS

Never mind those upstart A’s: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: eccarlson]

Over at SI.com, Chris Ballard has a short piece on Jason Giambi. Check it out.

[Photo Credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP]