Brass Cannolis

By John Schulian 

Every time I landed on a new show, my reputation preceded me. I was the ex-sports writer who had covered so much boxing that people must have thought I typed wearing eight-ounce gloves. Who better to write an episode about the fight racket? It happened that way on “Miami Vice” and when I freelanced an episode of Steven Bochco’s dramedy “Hooperman,” and I suppose I only called more attention to my past by setting a pilot and two screenplays in the world of boxing. The pilot was never shot and the screenplays never sold, but that was beside the point. I was still the guy to whom Muhammad Ali once said, “Pay attention, white boy.”

There was no escaping even at “Midnight Caller,” where I was reunited with my old amigo David Israel, who had covered more than enough fights to qualify for a boxing script. But I got the call. I dreamed up a Mexican boxer who had entered the country illegally and wound up in the clutches of a crooked boxing promoter. As soon as I concocted the promoter’s name – Ralston J. Cashdollar – I started hearing his voice in every line of dialogue I wrote for him. The voice belonged to Hoyt Axton, a rowdy, good-natured country singer who defined the expression barrel-chested. Whether he was doing a duet with Linda Ronstadt or breaking hearts solo with “Evangelina” or just getting silly with “Boney Fingers,” his music made me want to shake his hand. He’d done some acting, too, on TV in “WKRP in Cincinnati” and in movies like “Gremlins” and “The Black Stallion.” I pointed this out to anybody who would listen, and the next thing I knew, Hoyt was playing the promoter. It turned out to be a mixed blessing.

He was nothing if not great fun when he was offering people caramel-covered cashews he’d gotten from a woman in Ardmore, Oklahoma, or dipping into the leaf bag full of pot that he apparently never left home without. But when the time came for him to emote, it was a different story. He couldn’t remember his lines, couldn’t even come close. And every day the episode’s director, Jim Quinn, would call me from San Francisco, where we shot the show, and say, “Guess what the Hoytster did today.” It was funny if you were sitting in “Midnight Caller’s” offices in L.A., as I was. It was life shortening if you a director trying to get a serviceable performance out of Hoyt while the clock ate up the budget.

And yet his mangled dialogue contributed a grace note to his mind-bending time with us. He was supposed to tell our hero he had “some brass cojones.” Not the greatest line in the world, admittedly, but the scene called for it. And then Hoyt unconsciously improved on it – was he ever truly conscious? – by saying our hero had “some brass cannolis.” It stayed in the show, of course. I wish I could claim it as my own.

All in all, there was nothing I didn’t like about “Midnight Caller” except a balky, antiquated computer that I put out of its misery with a baseball bat. (True story. I wrote it for GQ and got fan mail from fellow Luddites everywhere.) After competing as sports columnists, Israel and I meshed perfectly, much to the surprise of Reggie Theus, the ex-Chicago Bulls star, who did a double-take when he saw us hanging out instead of bickering or posturing or whatever it was we’d done in the day. We knew we had a good thing going, and a major reason for that was “Midnight Caller’s” thoroughly professional star, Gary Cole, who has gone on to play, among other roles, Mr. Brady in the Brady Bunch movies and a whacked-out agent on “Entourage.” For us, Gary played an ex-San Francisco cop who had accidentally killed his partner and got a second chance by doing talk radio from midnight to 3 a.m. The kinds of stories we did were as varied as the people who called him, and the characters we came up with enticed a parade of wonderful guest stars to step off our wish list. In episodes that I wrote, the comedian Robert Klein played a burned-out 1960s disc jockey and Levon Helm, the drummer in the Band, played an ex-convict who wanted to go back to prison because it was the only place he knew how to exist.

No TV series is a love fest – too many egos and agendas for that – but “Midnight Caller” came as close to being one as anything I experienced. The writing staff was composed primarily of red-meat eaters, and the crew in San Francisco put together a hard rockin’ band, and our executive producer, Bob Singer, took undisguised pleasure in being in the middle of it all. He was a man of consummate good taste in hiring people whether they were actors, writers, gaffers, or go-fers. And when a certain writer turned in a script that showed he had no feel for the show, Bob zapped him with a line for the ages.

The writer provided the straight line when, in a last-gasp defense, he told Bob, “You know in your heart this is a great script.”

And Bob said, “Carlton, I don’t have a heart.”

It hurts when I mention “Midnight Caller” today and get a blank look in return. It was on NBC for three seasons and I wrote for it for the last two, but the people I find myself surrounded with apparently never noticed because they were watching the mewling yuppies on “thirtyomething.” The yuppies were our competition on Tuesday nights when I got to “Midnight Caller,” and we beat them in the ratings more times than you might think. But their demographics beat our demographics, so the network moved us to Friday nights, when our audience was out cashing paychecks, drinking in neighborhood saloons, or watching high school football. Our audience never came back, and ultimately neither did the show.

It was a dark day when “Midnight Caller” wasn’t picked up for a fourth season, but I had no idea just how dark until I went to work on the show that replaced it on NBC’s schedule, “Reasonable Doubts.” Going in, it looked like a potential hit, with Mark Harmon, a genuine TV star and a first-class guy, as a cop and Marlee Matlin, the deaf actress who won an Oscar for “Children of a Lesser God,” as a prosecutor. On top of that, Bob Singer, who created the show, was running things, surrounded by lots of familiar faces from “Midnight Caller.” Israel had moved on and I had signed on as co-executive producer after Bob told me he wanted “Reasonable Doubts” to be “dark and sexy.” I could do that, I thought, and I hired two terrific writers, Steven Phillip Smith and Kathy McCormick, who thought they could, too. They were perfect for the show. I couldn’t have been more wrong for it.

The worm turned when I handed in my first script. I assume it was dark and sexy, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was about. It has been banished to the depths of my subconscious, along with the pain I felt when Bob and I met with NBC and an executive with a reptilian smile ordered my script thrown out and the show reconfigured. The best I could understand, it was now supposed to be a weekly love letter to Marlee’s character. I didn’t do love letters. The only good memory I have from rest of that season is a two-parter about a rape that Bob and I co-wrote, a serious and honest piece of work by anyone’s standards. Other than that, I sat in my office with the door closed, unable to wrap my head around what the show had become, hating the fact that I was letting Bob down, and, most of all, counting the days until the season ended. The great run I’d had in my first six years in Hollywood was deader than the flowers on Marilyn Monroe’s grave.

Click here for the full “From Ali to Xena” archives.

If you want to know the truth, these recaps usually write themselves. Either you’ve got a ho-hum game that only needs a generic rehashing, or there’s a singular moment that leaps out as the obvious focal point of the story. This isn’t rocket science.

And then there’s a game like this one. Do you start with A.J. Burnett’s shockingly successful start? The eighth inning Score Truck delivery? The positive contributions of Alex Rodríguez, Nick Swisher, and Mark Teixeira?

Maybe we should start in the first inning. After folding quickly in the top of the first against Tiger starter Rick Porcello, the Yankees took the field in the bottom half behind A.J. Burnett. There’s no need to rehash the trials and tribulations of Mr. Burnett, so I’ll just sum it up like this: somehow it felt like the Yankees were behind before Burnett even threw his first pitch.

And then he went about the business of building a small fire. He walked lead off man Austin Jackson, but when Ramon Santiago popped up a bunt and Delmon Young grounded out to third, it looked like maybe our fears were unfounded. Maybe everything would be okay.

Nine pitches later, though, Burnett had walked the bases loaded. Don Kelly was at the plate, Cory Wade was warming in the bullpen, and the Fat Lady was warming in the wings.

Kelly took a ball, then laced a line drive directly at Curtis Granderson in center. Granderson took three or four quick steps in and to his left before realizing the ball would be over his head. He sprinted back towards straight away center, but the ball was just a bit faster. He leapt into the air, fully extended his left arm, and caught the ball just before crashing back to earth.

The inning was over, but it wasn’t hard to imagine what might’ve happened if Granderson hadn’t made that catch. With all three runners moving at the crack of the bat, the Tigers would’ve scored at least three runs on the play, and probably four. Girardi would’ve had to lift his starting pitcher two outs into an elimination game, and Yankee fans would’ve died a long, slow death over the ensuing eight innings. Thankfully, it didn’t happen that way.

The Yankees again went down meekly in the second, but a strange thing happened when Burnett took the mound again in the bottom of the inning. He was good. He needed only eleven pitches to retire the side in order on a grounder to third, another back to the box, and a swinging strikeout. He gave up a two-out walk in the third, but a harmless grounder to short by Miguel Cabrera ended the inning. The old A.J. made a brief appearance in the fourth and yielded a lead off homer to Victor Martínez and then a one-out double to Jhonny Peralta, but he recovered to strike out Alex Avila and Wilson Betemit.

By that point he was working with a lead. The resurgent Jorge Posada was hit by the first pitch of the third inning, and Russell Martin followed that with a single up the middle. If you were scripting a rally, you probably wouldn’t start out by putting a catcher on first and a old catcher on second, but two batters later Posada was jogging home and Martin was racing up his back to score on a Derek Jeter double. Posada scored standing up, but Martin needed a nifty slide to get around Avila’s tag and the Yankees were up 2-0.

Martin started another Yankee rally with another single up the middle to lead off the fifth. Brett Gardner slapped a single to left, and they looked to be in business. When Jeter followed with one of the worst bunt attempts you’ll ever see, allowing Porcello to nail Martin at third, it looked like it might be a lost opportunity for the Yankees.

Porcello had been cruising since his troubles in the first, but he had been helped tremendously by a generous strike zone. When Sabathia was on the mound last night, it was frustrating to see the blue TBS strike zone box riddled with pitches on the corners and edges of the zone that were called balls; it was equally frustrating to see so many of Porcello’s pitches land outside of the blue only to be called strikes. It was clear, though, that his lack of control would eventually do him in, especially since so many of his pitches were leaking up to the top of the zone.

He lost a pitch up to Granderson, and Curtis pounced on it, rifling it to the wall in right field, scoring Gardner and pushing Jeter to third. Tiger manager Jim Leyland made the obvious call and walked Robinson Canó to load the bases for Rodríguez. (Let’s think about that for a moment — he chose to load the bases for a man who’s hit more grand slams than any in the history of the game not named Lou Gehrig. Even so, it was the right decision.)

A-Rod was down 0-2 in the blink of an eye, but Porcello let another pitch drift up in the zone, and Rodríguez was able to get enough of it come up with a sacrifice fly for a 4-1 lead. Teixeira, whose postseason average with the Yankees continues to plummet, struck out looking to end the inning.

Burnett faced only three batters in the fifth, then retired Cabrera, albeit on a blistering liner to Jeter, and Martínez to open the sixth. When Kelly singled and Girardi came out to the mound, I was actually hoping he’d leave him in, perhaps the strangest thought I had all night long. But Girardi knew that Rafael Soriano, David Robertson, and Mariano Rivera were easily fresh enough to get the final ten outs, so he made the move.

Peralta was due up next, and he lifted Soriano’s first pitch towards left center field. This play wasn’t nearly as important as the one in the first inning, but it was spectacular. Granderson had been shading Peralta just to the right of second base, but he got an excellent jump on the ball. He was at full speed almost immediately and closed the gap with fifteen strides before going horizontal and making an incredible grab for the final out of the inning.

Granderson lay on the turf for a minute or two with the wind knocked out of him, but jogged off the field and returned to a hero’s welcome and an embrace from Burnett in the dugout.

Soriano blitzed through the Tigers in the seventh on eight pitches and the game seemed to be in hand. After the top of the eighth, it was out of hand. The Yankees sent eleven men to the plate and scored six runs — one on a balk, another on a wild pitch, and four others on singles by Jesus Montero, Gardner, and Canó. Yankees 10, Tigers 1.

And so the series comes back to the Bronx and everything is rosy again. The bullpen will be fresh, thanks to that eighth-inning outburst and Wednesday’s off day. The offense will be deeper and more potent, thanks to the resurgence of A-Rod. The Stadium will be louder than it’s been all year, thanks to the gravity of the moment. Most importantly, Ivan Nova will be on the mound.

So enjoy your day of rest today, but do so knowing that you’ll enjoy Game 5 even more.

[Photo Credits: Andrew Weber/US Presswire; Leon Halip/Getty Images; Duane Burleson/Associated Press]

Down to this.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF

Never mind the praying:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Comic Book Artwork]

Playoff Baseball Open Thread

[Photo Credit: It’s a Long Season]

Bill Pennington profiled John Sterling in the Times the other day:

Sterling came to the Yankees’ radio booth in 1989 and did every game, although his 100 percent work attendance streak began in 1981 in Atlanta.

“I have not missed a game I was supposed to work,” he said. “I am blessed with a good immune system.”

Michael Kay, the Yankees television announcer and Sterling’s radio partner from 1992 to 2001, said: “I do 125 games a season, and that feels like a lot. I don’t know how he has done 162 games a year for 23 years.”

In his time with the Yankees, Sterling has had five broadcasting partners. He has worked with Suzyn Waldman since 2005.

A typical day for Sterling starts late because he stays up late. Besides having an affection for TV soap operas, he is a voracious reader of mystery novels and celebrity biographies. He tries to swim every day for at least a half-hour. On the road, it is a familiar sight at the Ritz-Carltons and other fashionable hotels where the Yankees stay to see a soggy Sterling striding through the ornate lobby in a terry-cloth robe, goggles perched on his head on his way back from the hotel pool.

The piece is well-worth your time.

[Photo Credit: Beatrice de Gea for the New York Times]

Many of you will remember that our old pal Todd Drew was a true believer. He was a Yankee season ticket holder. Never left his seat once the game began. He clapped until his palms were red, didn’t matter if the Yanks were getting blown out. When the game was over he went downstairs and waited by the players gate. He’d cheer on the rookies and offer words of encouragement to the losing pitcher.

Todd didn’t live long enough to see the new Yankee Stadium, never saw A.J. Burnett pitch for his team, but he was alive when they signed Burnett and was excited about it. He liked Burnett’s arm, in spite of his erratic career. More than anything, Todd believed in Burnett’s potential. In 2009, Burnett did reasonably well for the Yanks. The past two years, he has been lousy. He starts tonight and it is easy to think that the Yankees’ season will be over before long.

But hope is the thing with feathers, not without. Todd isn’t around to watch the game. But he’s with us in spirit and he’d be clapping and rooting until the final out. So should we.

Never mind that glass looking half-full:  Let’s Go Yan-kees.

Derek Jeter banged the first pitch of the night back up the box for a lead off single. Justin Verlander threw a high fastball, several notches below his best velocity. Jeter was ready. Curtis Granderson saw a few more of the third-tier heaters, and then lashed at a high one out over the plate. It’s rare you see a hitter manage to hit a ball with such authority on a pitch so fast and so elevated in the zone, but Granderson beamed it over Austin Jackson’s head just left of center for a run-scoring triple.

Verlander decided that was enough of the mid-90s junk and loaded the gun for maximum cheese. The look on his face said that Granderson was not scoring. And the look was almost right. He struck out Robinson Cano on fastballs of 98 and 100 mph. Cano was blown away. Arod looked for the same treatment, but saw filthy curves instead. And just when he got used to the bend, Verlander flashed 100 again. Alex fouled the first one back. He snapped the bat on the second, but the dribbler to short scored Granderson and the Yankees led 2-0. Verlander struck out Teixeira to end the first and must have been thinking, “Damn, if I threw my best fastball to Curtis, could he have gotten on top of it like he did?”

CC Sabathia staked to two runs should give Yankee fans a warm and fuzzy feeling. But Sabathia was off from the first batter. The umpire gave nothing on the left-handed batter’s box side of home plate, and Sabathia set up camp there all game. When he was out there, he walked guys. When he came over the plate, the Tigers did a little damage. Sabathia walked the lead off man, Austin Jackson, on a pitch that looked to be strike three. He got a double play on the next batter. He walked the next two hitters, but got out of the inning with the 2-0 lead intact.

Deep breath for everybody. It was just a bumpy start. He’ll settle down. He’ll figure out the umpire. He’ll be good. Before an out was recorded in the third, we had our answer. No, he wouldn’t be good. Unable to throw precise strikes on the ump’s corners, and unable to coax the Tigers to chase his off speed stuff down below the strike zone, Sabathia combined a mix of high and out side balls and hittable fastballs at the belt and over the plate.  The Tigers took their walks when given and took their rips when appropriate.

Brandon Inge, the first batter of the bottom of the third, doubled into the left center gap. CC went up 1-2 on Austin Jackson as he tried to bunt Inge to third, but then CC lost the zone completely and Jackson walked again. CC went up 0-2 on Ramon Santiago, as he too tried to bunt, but could not put him away. Santiago ripped a single into left and Inge scored the Tigers first run. Sabathia got lucky when Miguel Cabrera got out in front of a relatively benign breaking ball and rolled into the third double play in the first three innings. That tied the game, but allowed the Yankees to escape the big inning.

If not for the twin killings, Sabathia might have already been out of the game.

The Yankees chipped at Verlander, but never bothered him. Posada singled in the second but was erased on Martin’s double play. Brett Gardner accidentally had a great bunt to lead off the third, but was erased on Jeter’s double play. Gardner and Jeter tried to work a hit and run, but Jeter was forced to swing at a ball and fouled it off. It was not a bad call. On a 2-1 pitch, Girardi expected a fastball for a strike and didn’t get one. The straight steal might have put Gardner in scoring position and had Jeter sitting on a 3-1 count. But it worked the other way, left the double play in order and Jeter couldn’t resist. Jeter singled to lead off the sixth, but Verlander ate the heart of the order for dinner. Strike out, pop out to left, strike out.

I left out the fifth, in which Verlander struck out the side on 10 pitches. No contact. Just one ball away from an immaculate inning. The score was 2 to 2, but the Tigers must have felt that they were in firm control as long as the two starting pitchers remained in the game. Fans on both sides were just wondering in which inning Sabathia would crack. The big guy had little to nothing and little was late for a bus.

But give the big guy credit. He never did crack. He got hit. He let up runs, but he averted catastrophe each time. And when his gas tank was officially empty, Rafeal Soriano averted it for him. In the fifth, Inge looped a single and scored on a deep double by Ramon Santiago. But that was it for the fifth. Defensive replacement Don Kelly dragged a bunt to lead off the sixth. Jhonny Peralta took his turn with a deep double and made the score 4-2. After a sac bunt, Rafeal Soriano relieved CC and coaxed a pop out and a whiff. The game had no business being close, but there it was.

Let me rephrase, it was close in the sense that two runs is usually considered “close.” But the way Verlander was dealing, two runs did not feel close. He started the seventh with two quick outs and just as he was about to settle Jorge Posada for his tenth strikeout of the game, Cy Young became Cy Twombly. He walked Posada on four straight balls. He plunked Martin. With a full count on Brett Gardner, he got beat. Gardner saw six straight heaters and finally had the timing. He served Verlander’s 96th pitch, a 100 MPH fastball, into left center for a game-tying double.

The game had a fresh anything-can-happen vibe for a few moments, but then Delmon Young dinked one over the right field wall. The Tigers should play in Yankee Stadium. They are the masters of the oppo dink homer in this series. It’s hard to complain about that, considering how many dink homers the Yankees have hit over the years. Also, Miguel Cabrera hit the next one 419 feet and had nada to show for it. Still, it sucks to have the series turn on the dink homer.

The Yankees still had Verlander to contend with in the eighth. Granderson took aim at the right field wall and came up a few feet short. Robbie got jobbed on a high strike for the second out. A-Rod worked a 3-0 count and let loose when Verlander pumped a get-me-over fastball down the middle. The get-me-over fastball with two outs in the eighth? 100 mph. A-Rod took his best swing of the series, but only could foul it off. He did stick around to work a walk, but the human pop out machine follows him in the lineup, so all hope was lost for the inning as soon as Alex dropped the bat.

David Robertson hammered through the eighth without any trouble, so the Yankees were facing a tired closer who couldn’t throw strikes needing one run to tie the game. It just so happened that the closer was the same guy who guaranteed that Detroit was winning games three and four. Jose Valverde threw a lot of leaky fastballs (drifting towards the right handed batters), most of them for balls, and looked ripe for the plucking.

The Yankees didn’t pluck. Nick Swisher saw stars in his eyes and popped up a honey of an 2-0 pitch, right down the pipe. Jorge Posada walked to get the tying run on a base. Russell Martin made a bid for the shorter wall in right and came up a foot short of where Granderson came up short. Brett Gardner walked on four pitches setting the stage for Derek Jeter. Valverde woke up. He reined in his leaking fastball just enough to nail the inside corner a few times. Jeter got a break on a close 1-2 splitter (the first I saw of the inning) but swung through a well placed fastball up and in to end the game.

Tigers 5, Yankees 4. The Tigers lead the best of five ALDS 2-1 and can wrap it up tomorrow night.

Justin Verlander was excellent, throwing eight innings and striking out 11. But the Yankees got to him for four runs and acquitted themselves pretty well against the best pitcher in the league. CC Sabathia was bad and coughed up an early lead. He managed to keep the game close, but his performance was disappointing, and a massive letdown for all the people expecting to see the two best pitchers in the league show their stuff. Losing this game was not destined, but the way CC pitched, it was certainly deserved.

Where do the Yankees go from here? AJ Burnett. That’s as bad as it sounds. But facing elimination, the Yankees have no choice but win. So we have no choice but to root them on. Our best did not measure up to their best, didn’t come close, and that’s a kick in the gut with a steel tipped boot. But the series is not coming down to those guys. It’s coming down to everyone else. And the Yankees have a great everyone else. Get Mariano in a game that matters and show this Valverde clown something about pitching and about class.

C’mon Yankees, winning two in a row is simple as rip, boom, bash, hammer, snap. Get to it.

 C.C. vs. Verlander. Top Billin’.

Score Truck, please. Pretty please?

YANKEES

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF

TIGERS

Austin Jackson CF
Ramon Santiago 2B
Delmon Young LF
Miguel Cabrera 1B
Victor Martinez DH
Magglio Ordonez RF
Jhonny Peralta SS
Alex Avila C
Brandon Inge 3B

Never mind tomorrow: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Joe Ism]

David Price goes against the Rangers this evening. Game thread.

[Photo Credit: City Life]

Good new Director’s Cut over at Grantland. Rafe Bartholomew interviews Don Delillo about “Pafko at the Wall.” And then, they offer up an excerpt.

Check it out.

Alex Rodriguez had a bad game at the plate yesterday but he is not panicking. Neither is hitting coach, Kevin Long. Josh Thompson has more.  Over at Hardball Talk, Matthew Pouliot thinks it is time for the Yankees to drop Rodriguez down in the order. I don’t see it happening, at least not yet, but you never know…

[Photo Credit: Farther Off the Wall]

Here is Pauline Kael’s 1966 essay on Brando for The Atlantic:

Brando represented a reaction against the post-war mania for security. As a protagonist, the Brando of the early fifties had no code, only his instincts. He was a development from the gangster leader and the outlaw. He was antisocial because he knew society was crap; he was a hero to youth because he was strong enough not to take the crap. (In England it was thought that The Wild One would incite adolescents to violence.)

There was a sense of excitement, of danger in his presence, but perhaps his special appeal was in a kind of simple conceit, the conceit of tough kids. There was humor in it–swagger and arrogance that were vain and childish, and somehow seemed very American. He was explosively dangerous without being “serious” in the sense of having ideas. There was no theory, no cant in his leadership. He didn’t care about social position or a job or respectability, and because he didn’t care he was a big man; for what is less attractive, what makes a man smaller, than his worrying about his status? Brando represented a contemporary version of the free American.

Because he had no code, except an aesthetic one–a commitment to a style of life–he was easily betrayed by those he trusted. There he was, the new primitive, a Byronic Dead-End Kid, with his quality of vulnerability. His acting was so physical–so exploratory, tentative, wary–that we could sense with him, feel him pull back at the slightest hint of rebuff. We in the audience felt protective: we knew how lonely he must be in his assertiveness. Who even in hell wants to be an outsider? And he was no intellectual who could rationalize it, learn somehow to accept it, to live with it. He could only feel it, act it out, be “The Wild One”–and God knows how many kids felt, “That’s the story of my life.”

A few years after this essay was published, Kael praised Brando’s “comeback” in movies like “The Godfather” and, especially, “The Last Tango in Paris.”

War Stories

By John Schulian

In the space of two and a half years, I got fired from the Chicago Sun-Times and divorced, moved from Chicago to Philadelphia, changed careers, lived through the death of my father, moved from Philadelphia to L.A., tried to get my feet under me in show business, and wound up spending two weeks in the hospital with the back problems that afflict me to this day. I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but my diagnosis is that my cumulative stress had to go somewhere, so it went to my back. Of course the problem is more complicated than that, but I truly was wrung out from the roller coaster ride I’d been on. The ride wasn’t over, though. I was simply changing roller coasters.

When I got out of the hospital, I turned down a chance to return to “Miami Vice” because there was a new dramedy on ABC called “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story” that sounded like it wound be fun to write. Slap was a sports columnist, which made me right for the show, and he was played by Dabney Coleman, who specialized in self-centered misanthropes who made audiences laugh. ABC had to beg Dabney to do the show, though, and he didn’t say yes until a prickly comedy genius named Jay Tarses agreed to write the pilot and produce the series. Conveniently overlooked was the fact that they hated each other.

They had worked together several years earlier on “Buffalo Bill,” a wonderfully twisted comedy that went off the tracks when it addressed a subject that remains tetchy to this day. Dabney’s character, an oblivious Buffalo, New York talk show host, got his girl friend pregnant – “So, who’s the lucky father?” he asked – and she had an abortion. Ratings went in the toilet, Dabney went through the roof, and that was it for the Tarses-Coleman connection, or so everyone thought.

“Slap” was supposed to be the corrective for all that, but the era of good feeling lasted until the second or third day of shooting, when Dabney announced for one and all to hear that he wouldn’t say a line because it was “sitcom bullshit.” Jay, who had written the line and everything else in the marvelously quirky script, got up from his director’s chair – he was the director, after all – and stomped off the set. The battle lines were drawn.

Nobody bothered to mention that to me when I showed up for my interview with Jay. He was an easy guy to get along with unless you were a troublesome thespian or a network or studio executive. No artifice, no overweening ego. He even liked sports, which wasn’t always the case with the people I met in Hollywood. The business may amount to nothing so much as a boys’ club, but the boys don’t always care about who won last night. Jay cared. But even so, I was caught off guard when he asked me, “Why do you want to do this? You had the best job in the world.”

The way he emphasized “this,” leaning on it almost contemptuously, should have been a warning. But I was still in my fantasyland stage and wouldn’t come out of it until my first official day on the job as one of the show’s story editors. (Story editor is a synonym for writer, just as executive story editor, co-producer, producer, supervising producer, co-executive producer, and executive producer can be.) Jay invited me to sit down with him and one of the show’s writer-producers as they punched up a script that was about to shoot. Encouraged to sound off with any lines I thought might work, I spoke up and Jay put both of my suggestions in the script. Just like that, I felt like I was part of the team. Then Dabney walked into the outer office, talking in a voice that would have cut through granite. Jay scarcely looked up from the changes he was making before he uttered the words that snapped everything into focus for me: “Oh, the asshole is here.”

“The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story” was cancelled after one season.

When I moved on to my next TV job, as executive story editor on “Wiseguy,” our star, Ken Wahl presented a different problem: self-destructiveness. He had risen beyond his talent and developed all the bad habits typical of too many half-bright actors. What’s more, his tendency to put on weight had the writing staff joking that the name of the show should be changed to “Wideguy.” But blubber and bad behavior, and so-so ratings aside – can’t forget the ratings – “Wiseguy” was much loved by critics and viewers in search of a crime drama that welcomed their intelligence instead of insulting it.

Because “Wiseguy” was a Stephen Cannell production, Cannell is hailed as the mastermind behind it. Not so. He created a classic in “The Rockford Files,” a monstrous hit in “The A-Team,” and such exceedingly cool failures as “City of Angels” and “Tenspeed and Brownshoe,” but “Wiseguy” was his and co-creator Frank Lupo’s in name only. The brains of the operation was David Burke, who came out of TV news, was the son of a New York radio talk show host, and possessed an ego that was even bigger than his talent. Burke put his stamp on “Wiseguy” with a writerly verve inspired by his hero, Paddy Chayefsky, and stories that ran in arcs of four or five episodes, sometimes even more. He created beguiling, multidimensional villains like Sonny Steelgrave and Mel Profit and made them part of the pop culture dialogue in the early 90s. To watch him in action was to see a man possessed by both his work and the fame and wealth he was getting closer to by the day.

Twenty years later, however, you never hear Burke mentioned in the same sentence with David Kelley or Dick Wolfe or the cable grit-masters who work the territory he might have, David Simon and David Chase. I’d feel bad for him if I hadn’t walked into his office at “Wiseguy” office one morning just in time to hear him tell a producer, “I’m a genius and I’ve got the clippings to prove it.” That would be press clippings, of course, and I’m surprised that Burke, as smart as he was, never learned that they weren’t to be believed.

But let me not leave “Wiseguy” on a sour note. Better I should tell you about the show’s garment district arc, which, to my mind, was the crowning achievement for Burke and his mordant, ferociously hard-working right-hand man, Steve Kronish. They found something special inside themselves as they conjured up a tale about fathers and sons and risks that come with rewards that have a trap door beneath them. They didn’t do it alone, though. In fact, they were off trying to launch a Cannell series about serial killers – think body parts in a refrigerator every Thursday night — when Ken Wahl was injured during filming of the first garment district episode. It was Al Ruggiero, our square-shouldered, motorcycle-riding co-producer, and I who had to create an undercover agent to replace the one Wahl played and re-write the script in a weekend. Anthony Dennison got the part when he was still hot after doing “Crime Story,” and the first thing he said to us was, “This is better than any of the feature scripts I’ve read lately.” Burke and Kronish never bothered to thank us.

We were left to find our satisfaction in the performances of the movie-quality cast that brought our script to life. From the get-go, “Wiseguy” had been a magnet for emerging stars like Kevin Spacey and reclamation projects like the doomed Ray Sharkey. I still remember how impressed I was when Paul Winfield showed up at our office in a sport coat and tie and told us he’d just flown in from New York after reading Langston Hughes at the 92nd Street Y the night before. And it got even better when we shined our light on the garment district. Consider this cast: Stanley Tucci, Ron Silver, Joan Chen, and – I mention him last only for effect – Jerry Lewis. We wanted Lewis because we’d seen his bravura performance as the talk shot host in Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy.” What we failed to consider was that movie making is done at a glacial pace and while TV shows are made at warp speed. The mercurial Mr. Lewis had trouble adapting to the lavish speeches we’d written for him. He could probably remember every joke he’d ever told, but dialogue was something that brought him to his knees until we promised to trim the excess from all of his speeches.

For Christmas he gave everybody connected with the show Jerry Lewis watches with his likeness on them. On the last day he worked, he told everybody that doing the show had been the greatest experience of his career. All right, so maybe he was exaggerating. That morning, in fact, when a producer had gone to him with dialogue changes, he had not been the ray of sunshine he was when he exited stage left. “You heard of Jerry Lewis’ reputation, pal?” he said. “I’ll show you Jerry Lewis’ reputation.” Better the dialogue changes should wind up in a wastebasket. And they did.

Click here for the full “From Ali to Xena” archives.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that you’ve seen all this before. It wasn’t too long ago that the Yankees were facing the Detroit Tigers in the Divisional Series, and you’re noticing some similarities. You remember the Derek Jeter Love Fest from Game 1 of that series, and you can’t help but compare it Robinson Canó’s big performance in Game 1 of this series. You remember that Alex Rodríguez struggled terribly in that series and was famously — and ridiculously — dropped to eighth in the batting order for Game 4, and you’ve noticed that he’s 0 for 8 through the first two games of this series amidst calls for a similar lineup demotion.

You’ve seen this movie before, and you didn’t like how it ended the first time, but I’m here to tell you to relax. This was one game. A magnified game with magnified importance, but still just one game.

Freddy García was on the mound for the Bombers, and the most disappointing aspect of this game for me was that García pitched well enough to win, if that makes any sense. Certainly I’d have been depressed and despondent if he had been lit up early, but I’m not sure I’d have been surprised.

He gave up a two-run home run in the first inning on a pretty good pitch that Miguel Cabrera reached for and poked into the right field stands to give the Tigers an early 2-0 lead. After that, however, García put it on cruise control. He retired the side in order in the second inning, gave up a two-out single in the third, and set down six straight over the fourth and fifth innings.

The problem, of course, was that Detroit’s Max Scherzer was even better. It was only a few years ago that Scherzer was one of the top pitching prospects in baseball, but the Diamondbacks gave up on him and shipped him to Detroit in that three-way deal that netted Curtis Granderson for the Yankees and sent Ian Kennedy to Arizona. (Speaking of IPK — 21-4/2.88/1.09? Seriously?)

Scherzer’s been great for Detroit over the past two years, so while it certainly wasn’t expected that he’d be as good as he was on Sunday, it wasn’t terribly shocking either. He labored a bit in the first inning, walking Canó on four pitches and A-Rod on five before falling into a 3-0 hole to Mark Teixeira, but he recovered by getting Teixeira to pop out to second. It was an opportunity lost, but at the time it certainly seemed like it would be the first of many. It wouldn’t be.

Scherzer went on to retire the next ten hitters in order before yielding a one-out walk to Jorge Posada in the fifth. He then hit Russell Martin to give the Yankees an illusion of a rally, but that rally died quickly when Brett Gardner lined out to third and Jeter grounded into a fielder’s choice. Not only were the Yankees still scoreless, they were hitless as well.

Austin Jackson — another player from the previously mentioned ménage à trois — led off the sixth with a grounder to short. Jeter had to range a bit to his left, but he made the play and rushed his throw a bit in an attempt to get the speedy Jackson at first. His throw bounced in the dirt several feet in front of the bag, and Teixeira wasn’t able to corral it. Magglio Ordóñez laced a hit-and-run single to right, pushing Jackson all the way to third, and suddenly things looked dangerous.

García had already given the Yankees all they realistically could’ve expected — five quality innings — but the Yankee hitters had been absolutely silent. If the Tigers were to score a run here, or even two, Game 2 might be out of reach. From there the mind raced ahead. Justin Verlander was lined up for the Tigers in Game 3, and A.J. Burnett was scheduled for Game 4. If I were a Tiger fan, I wouldn’t have to think too long or too hard about laying some scratch on that exacta.

Joe Girardi, of course, was likely thinking about all of that, but I don’t think he had anywhere to go. I suppose he could’ve gotten David Robertson ready to pitch to Cabrera, who was two batters away, but there would probably have been more questions about a move like that in the sixth inning than are now about the move he chose — which was to keep García in there. Fearless Freddy responded by striking out Delmon Young, and again the mind leapt ahead. What if Cabrera grounds into a double play? What if the Stadium crowd erupts? What if that eruption breaths some life into the listless offense? What if the big bats due in the bottom half (Granderson, Canó, A-Rod, Teixeira) channel that emotion into production?

It took just a few pitches for Cabrera to erase that line of thinking. He lined a single to center, scoring Jackson, and two pitches later Victor Martínez repeated the feat, scoring Don Kelly, who had come in to run for Ordóñez. It was 4-0, but at the time it felt like 40-0. Boone Logan came in for García and almost instantly made things worse by balking the runners to second and third, but he rebounded to strike out both Alex Avila and Jhonny Peralta. The damage had been done.

The Yankees’ first hit finally came in the bottom of the sixth, a Canó blooper to left that Young probably should’ve caught, and their first run came in the bottom of the eighth on a long Granderson home run to right. If there was hope of a Yankee comeback, it was dashed when the Tigers stretched their lead back to four with a manufactured run (HBP, sacrifice bunt, single) in the top of ninth.

And there was hope again. Nick Swisher homered on the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth from Tiger closer José Valverde, and Posada followed with a legitimate triple to the wall in center. (Incidentally, Posada became only the second forty-year-old to triple in the post season.) After Russell Martin worked an eight-pitch walk, the tying run was suddenly at the plate in the form of Andruw Jones, and it didn’t take a lot to imagine a home run.

To Jones’s credit, he didn’t allow himself to get caught up in the moment like the rest of us did. He took what Valverde gave him and lashed a line drive towards right field. For one brief, beautiful moment I was sure it would find the grass, scoring another run and pushing Martin around to third, but it didn’t happen that way. The ball hung in the air long enough for Kelly to grab it, but Posada was able to score to cut the lead to 5-3.

Here’s where things got crazy. The weather had been fine throughout the game, but suddenly the heavens opened up and it was raining as hard as it had been at any point on Friday night. Jeter was at the plate, but both he and Valverde struggled throughout the at bat, both trying to deal with the downpour. Jeter was constantly wiping the brim of his helmet in a futile attempt to keep the rain from dripping into his face, and Valverde kept his throwing hand tucked first under his arm and then comically between his legs in an equally futile attempt to keep his hand dry. As much as we expect Captain Clutch to come through in these situations, it wasn’t a surprise when he struck out.

And then things got crazier. Granderson came to the plate and the MVP chants began pouring down as thick as the rain. He worked the count to 2-0, but then he skied a popup towards the Tigers’ third base dugout. Avila tossed away his mask and quickly headed towards the spot where the ball would land and the game would end. The ball wasn’t in the air for very long, but it was long enough for every Yankee fan to contemplate what had happened that afternoon and sort through their fears about the two games to come in Detroit.

Avila shuffled, shuffled, shuffled… then slipped on the rain-slicked on-deck circle and fell on his ass. A second later the ball fell harmlessly next to him. When Tiger manager Jim Leyland was later asked how he felt as all that transpired, he calmly said, “Well, it wasn’t my finest moment.”

I’m not sure how I feel about Leyland, by the way. He’s a bit too comfortable for my taste, as if nothing really matters to him. I know it’s just a game he’s playing with the media, and that everything he says is not-so-secretly directed at his players, but I miss the old Jim Leyland who seemed to be dancing on the edge of a razor as he managed the Pittsburgh Pirates back in the 1990s, fighting back the stress by chain smoking in the dugout during the late innings. But I suppose if you’ve been managing in the big leagues for twenty years you’ve probably seen enough to help you through anything, even a play like Avila’s pratfall.

As Granderson returned to the plate with his new life, it seemed like something was happening, something divine. Surely that ball wouldn’t have dropped if it weren’t supposed to have dropped. Surely Granderson would extend the rally. Surely he’d give Canó the chance to stand at the plate as the winning run.

He would.

Granderson took another strike, but then two more balls for a walk, and Canó came up to win the game — or at least that’s what I was thinking. Valverde didn’t mess around, pumping four straight fastballs, the last three of which Canó fouled off. I’d seen this before. I was sure that Canó would continue spoiling pitches until he found one that he liked. I imagined his beautiful swing, his momentary pause at the plate, the deafening roar from the stands, and the thrill of a walk-off postseason victory. But it wasn’t to be. Valverde came in with a splitter, Canó bounced it out to second base, and the game was over. Tigers 5, Yankees 3.

In 2006 the Yankees never got a look at either game in Detroit, losing 6-0 in Game 3 and trailing 8-0 in Game 4 before tacking on a few cosmetic runs in that elimination game. It’s conceivable that things could go that way again, but I don’t think so. Verlander has had a long season and has never pitched on short rest, so he’s far from a sure thing. CC Sabathia, meanwhile, is about as close to a sure thing as the Yankees have. In Game 4, spontaneous combustion is just as likely for Tiger starter Rick Porcello as it is for Burnett, so that game could be just as competitive as Game 3.

So step off the ledge. There’s a game to watch tonight.

[Photo Credit: Kathy Kmonicek/Associated Press]

Remember the Yanks had a 1-0 lead on the Tigers back in 2006. And that didn’t turn out so hot, did it?

Big game today. Maybe the pivotal game of the series. Gunna need another miracle out of Freddy. Plus, how about a Sunday delivery from the Score Truck?

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF

Never mind the sunshine (the what?!?!):

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Stay Gold]

Photo: AP

When the Yankees played the Tigers in the 2006 ALDS, Jim Leyland referred to the power-laden Bronx Bombers as Murders’ Row and Robbie Cano. In game one of the 2011 ALDS, Cano demonstrated what many have known for some time. The Yankees’ second baseman is no longer a supporting member of the lineup. He has become the heart and soul.

Joe Girardi’s decision to elevate Cano to the three-hole came just before the start of the playoffs, but it only took one game for the move to pay immediate dividends. In his third at bat of the game (and second of the evening), the Yankees’ second baseman broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth by driving a Doug Fister fastball off the very top of the wall for an RBI double. The play, which was reviewed but upheld, was reminiscent of Todd Zeile’s two-base hit in game one of the 2000 World Series, but unlike Timo Perez, Curtis Granderson never stopped running.  Of course, if Jeffrey Maier had been in the stands, Cano would have been circling the bases too.

One inning later, after Brett Gardner singled home two runs, Cano struck again, this time belting a grand slam deep into the right field second deck off reliever Al Alburquerque. The bases clearing homer was Cano’s sixth of the year, but only the eleventh in Yankees’ postseason history. The second baseman further added his name to the record book by driving in another run with a double in the eighth inning, giving him a franchise high six RBIs in one postseason game.

Most RBIs by a Yankee in One Postseason Game

Source: Baseball-reference.com

The reason Cano had a chance to break the game open was because Ivan Nova kept the Tigers off the scoreboard until the ninth inning. Although he was technically making a relief appearance, Nova became the defacto third Yankees’ rookie to start a postseason series opener and showed little signs of being overwhelmed by the experience. The Yankees have seen a sharper Nova, but he still limited the Tigers to only two hits until taking a hard hit grounder off his backside in the ninth. Detroit wound up scoring two runs in the final frame, but it did little to detract from Nova’s strong outing.

Before the Yankees broke out with the bats, Nova also got some help from his defense. With runners on first and second in the top of the fifth, Jhonny Peralta lined a single to center, but Alex Avila was gunned down by a great relay from Jeter, who, as often seems to be the case during the postseason, found himself in the perfect position to handle Curtis Granderson’s throw from centerfield. Jeter’s toss to Russell Martin allowed the Yankees’ catcher to apply a swipe tag and turned aside the one real threat the Tigers had during the game.

Youngest Yankees’ Pitchers to Start a Post Season Opener

Note: Underline indicates rookie.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

After all the rain, and all the runs, the Yankees still needed Mariano Rivera to slam the door on the Tigers’ rally in the ninth. Summoning the great closer might have been overkill, but it was also an appropriate way to end another Yankees’ postseason victory. With three dynamite cutters, Rivera struck out Betemit and sent the crowd home happy one day after they departed the Stadium soaking wet. I guess good things do come to those who wait. It also doesn’t hurt to have Robinson Cano.

Game One continues…

Never mind the forecast:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Hellanne]

Open Game Thread for today’s Division Series games.

[Photo Credit: It’s a Long Season]

Swing.

[Photo Credit: The Kitchn]

The way I see it, the playoffs are a payoff for eleven months of devotion, and I sat down on Friday night ready for my reward. Alison grabbed her scorebook, we talked about why Joe Girardi had recently swapped Robinson Canó and Mark Teixeira in the lineup, and she got her first look at Justin Verlander.

On the way to school Friday morning I had explained that even though the Tigers probably weren’t as good as the Yankees, they were dangerous with Verlander was on the hill, since he was the best pitcher in baseball. (She countered by reminding me that Mariano Rivera was actually the best pitcher in baseball, and I conceded the point.)

We had recorded the game, so I pushed play once we had the lineups filled in, and we were off. The atmosphere was electric from CC Sabathia’s first pitch. Austin Jackson quickly went down on strikes, as did Magglio Ordóñez, and the Stadium was buzzing. New addition Delmon Young then stepped up and lifted a lazy fly into the right field stands for a home run and a 1-0 lead.

It’s never good to give up a home run in the first inning, especially not in the playoffs, and especially not when Justin Verlander is looming, but Sabathia recovered get a ground ball out from Miguel Cabrera to end the inning.

Derek Jeter led off the bottom half of the inning. He swung at a wicked slider in the dirt for strike three, but was able to reach base safely when the pitch skipped away from rookie catcher Alex Avila. More effort from Avila would’ve resulted in an out, but he didn’t hustle. Jeter always hustles, so he beat the throw by an eyelash. Granderson then worked a walk, bringing up the team’s best hitter. Canó beat a ball to the right of first baseman Cabrera. The ball had pulled Cabrera towards second base and a certain 3-6-1 double play, but he seemed to hesitate as he crossed the baseline, reluctant to risk a throw across Granderson. He stopped abruptly and flipped the ball back towards Verlander at first for the first out of the inning.

Alison glanced at her scorebook and told me that Alex Rodríguez was due up next. “He could hit a home run, Daddy.”

I explained that we didn’t need a home run. All he really had to do was hit the ball, almost anywhere, and Jeter would score. But then he hit the ball directly to third baseman Brandon Inge, probably the only player on the infield who could come home for the out. Inge was handcuffed by the ball, seemed to have a bit of trouble getting a handle on it, and was forced to throw across the diamond for the out as Jeter scored to tie the game.

Verlander would walk Teixeira before finally getting Nick Swisher on a ground ball to end the inning, but he didn’t look sharp. When Sabathia came back out in the top of the second and blitzed through Victor Martínez, Alex Avila,and Ryan Raburn on twelve pitches, things were looking good. If the Yankee hitters could scratch out another run or two against a subpar Verlander, and if Sabathia could continue pounding the strike zone through seven or eight innings, the Yankees would take a 1-0 series lead. Everything looked great. The only thing I was worried about, really, was the rain.

When the game came back for the bottom of the second inning, the tarp was on the field. Ninety minutes later the game was officially postponed.

This game will be picked up tomorrow — weather permitting — at 5:37. Had this been a regular season game, it would simply be washed out as if it had never happened, but since this is the playoffs they’ll start at 1-1 in the bottom of the second inning, but the batons will be passed to the scheduled Game 2 starters, Doug Fister and Ivan Nova.

Even though the Yankees might have lost an opportunity on Friday night, the Tigers may have lost a lot more than that. In the long term, they’ll only be able to pitch Verlander once in this series now. In the short term, they’ll have the wrong lineup against Nova on Saturday. Manager Jim Leyland had stacked his lineup with righties against Sabathia, but he certainly won’t be able to pinch hit for them in the third inning against the right-handed Nova.

The series is now scheduled to run Saturday through Wednesday (if necessary) without any off days, and with more rain due tomorrow, there’s even an outside possibility that there could be a double header somewhere along the way. Given the way this season has played out, that seems about right.

[Photo Credit: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images]