Farewell, Mr. Zinsser. 

Nathan Eovaldi pitched his best game of the year but a rocky finish earned him his first loss of the season as the Rays beat the Yanks, 4-2.

Hang this one of the Yankees’ offense who scored two runs in the first and had the bases loaded with nobody out. They didn’t score again for the rest of the game.

These things happen, don’t they?

Picture by Bags

The big question mark, Nathan Eovaldi goes tonight.

My Spidey Sense is tingling–I think he’s due to get walloped.

Let’s hope I’m wrong.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Brett Gardner LF

Alex Rodriguez DH

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Chase Headley 3B

Stephen Drew 2B

Garrett Jones 1B

Didi Gregorius SS

Never mind the indoors:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags

I like this man (plus, he makes me laugh):

What advice would you give the younger you?

I’d probably say just calm down. Don’t worry so much, the way you tend to in your twenties. When young actors ask for advice, I tell them to treat it like a business. You lower the awning of the fruit stand at the beginning of the day and you do the best that you can, and at the end of the day you reel it back up and go to dinner. Somehow if you understand it’s a long-term business, it eases you into not beating yourself up. That’s a tendency of a lot of younger people — they’re pretty hard on themselves.

…You lost a brother and your parents at a young age. Later, your wife of 30 years died. How does a man handle loss?

You have to respect the fact that no solution is realized in a day. I remember the first Thanksgiving after my wife died: I’m with my three kids and we’re at the table and trying to do the same Thanksgiving thing, and we kind of look at each other and I said, “OK, let’s say what it is. Thanksgiving this year isn’t going to be what it was, but it will be, eventually.” The mark of the man is to figure out how to regain strength and move on the way the person you lost would want you to.

[Photo Credit: Dreamworks Animation]

The Yankees belted the ball around last night, scored 11 runs and gave C.C. Sabathia the kind of cushion ever pitcher dreams of. He pitched a decent game, too as the Yanks cruised to an 11-5 win in Tampa. First win for C.C. since Christ was a cowboy.

Smile.

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

Here’s to C.C. getting his first win of the season.

Brett Gardner LF

Carlos Beltran RF

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Chase Headley 3B

Chris Young CF

Stephen Drew 2B

Didi Gregorius SS

Never mind the indoors:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags

Here’s Dwight Garner on Sally Mann’s memoir:

There aren’t many important memoirs by American photographers. I wish especially that, along with Robert Frank and Diane Arbus, Walker Evans had left one behind. How good was Evans’s prose? He once described James Agee’s sartorial style as “knowingly comical inverted dandyism.” He added: “wind, rain, work and mockery were his tailors.”

I held Evans’s writing in mind while reading “Hold Still,” the photographer Sally Mann’s weird, intense and uncommonly beautiful new memoir. Ms. Mann has got Evans’s gift for fine and offbeat declaration. She’s also led a big Southern-bohemian life, rich with incident. Or maybe it only seems rich with incident because of an old maxim that still holds: Stories happen only to people who can tell them.

…Her writing about “Immediate Family” is only one of many reasons to read this memoir. “Hold Still” is a cerebral and discursive book about the South and about family and about making art that has some of the probity of Flannery O’Connor’s nonfiction collection “Mystery and Manners” yet is spiked with the wildness and plain talk of Mary Karr’s best work. Like the young Ms. Karr, Ms. Mann was a scrappy, troublemaking tomboy, one who grew into a scrappy, troublemaking, impossible-to-ignore young woman and artist.

The details in “Hold Still” nail Ms. Mann’s sentences to the wall. She describes being dropped off after a date, for example, emerging from some boy’s El Camino and walking into the house to confront her parents. “My hair, trailing bobby pins, would be matted and tendriled against my hickey-spotted neck, and the skirt of my dress would be wrinkled, the taupe toes of pantyhose peeking out from my purse,” she writes. “My swollen lips were now a natural, chapped red, and my cheeks blushed with beard burn.” Taupe toes of pantyhose. It’s been a while since I’ve read a phrase that good, even in poetry.

I’m sold.

“In the first inning, I threw the first slider, I said oh, everything is working good today,” Pineda said after today’s game, according to Chad Jennings. “… I don’t know how to explain to you how happy I am right now. But I’m very happy now.”

Stud. That’s what Michael Pineda is. He’s the Yankees’ best pitcher and the only that can temper our feelings about him now is a nagging concern that he won’t stay healthy. Otherwise, he’s been tremendous. Today, he mastered the Orioles for 7 innings. Gave up a run, didn’t walk a batter and struck out sixteen. Can you remember a big dominant Moose like Pineda–with this kind of control and stuff–pitch for the Yanks in the past 30 years?

Carlos Beltran hit a line drive off the right field wall in his first at bat, a foot or two away from being a homer. Later, he did hit a home run, his first of the year. McCann hit a dinger, and Didi Gregorius drove in a pair as the Yanks won, 6-2.

[Photo Credit: Jim McIsaac/Newsday]

The Yanks lost a dud of a game yesterday, 6-2. This afternoon their best pitcher, Michael Pineda will pitch. Love to see him pitch well again, go deep into the game, and help give the Yanks a series win.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Brett Gardner LF

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Chase Headley 3B

Stephen Drew 2B

Didi Gregorius SS

Happy Mother’s Day and:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags

Afternoon game at the Stadium.

Ellsbury CF
Gardner LF
Young RF
Teixeira 1B
Beltran DH
Pirela 2B
Headley 3B
Drew SS
Murphy C

Never mind the fog:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

This is how I spark it…

[Photo Credit: Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times via This Isn’t Happiness]

This is becoming a routine, huh? Yanks get an early lead but their starting pitcher can’t do deep into the game so the bullpen takes over and preserve the lead and the Yanks win. Brian McCann (2-run homer on a 3-0 pitch) and Carlos Beltran (2-run double on a 3-2 pitch) had big hits as Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner continued to set the table, Adam Warren couldn’t make it out of the fifth, and four relievers followed him, Betances and Miller dominant again at the end.

Seems like a dangerous game to be playing. As deft as Joe Girardi is at handling the bullpen it’s not hard to be concerned about them being overused if this keeps up.

Still, another win, and that’s always reason to smile. Final Score: Yanks 5, O’s 4.

It’s the Warren Report tonight at the Stadium.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Brett Gardner LF

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Chase Headley 3B

Jose Pirela 2B

Didi Gregorius SS

Never mind the warm weather:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags.

I’m not a Hitchcock fan but I’ve probably seen close to  half of his movies. Never saw Rear Window, though, just bits and pieces on TV. Until last week when I was in L.A. and went to see a screening of Rear Window at a revival theater in Santa Monica.

I had a good time; it was fun watching the movie with an audience.

I didn’t realize how erotic it is. I especially like this scene with Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart.

Alex Rodriguez was robbed of a 3-run home run in the first inning but he hit a line drive over the wall in center field a couple of innings later, just dropped the bat and extended his arms. Good enough for career home run 661. He got a nice cheer from the crowd, came out for an ovation, which died down almost immediately after he quickly returned to the dugout. No fanfare. Ah, if only all milestones were like this!

Next up for Rodriguez, who got another base hit later in the game, is 3,000 hits. He’s only 38 away.

The Yankees got a decent performance from Nathan Eovaldi and more stellar work from their bullpen. Good for a 4-3 win over the Orioles.

Picture by Bags

When we look back on the 2015 season we’ll be able to recognize tonight’s game as one of the loveliest in terms of the weather. It’s a beautiful spring night, a little cool, you’ll need a sweatshirt or a jacket at the ball park, but it’s crisp and clear, just a great night to be at the Stadium. Maybe a little cool later, but not prohibitively cold.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Brett Gardner LF

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Chase Headley 3B

Stephen Drew 2B

Didi Gregorius SS

The latest Big Question Mark is on the hill for the Yanks. Weaver, Black Jack McDowell, Pavano, Burnett, you know the line. I don’t have a read on the guy yet. He reminds me of Pavano physically but with more stuff. I can’t figure out if he’s a mope like Pavano yet. I don’t want to think so. It’d be really cool to see him get better unlike, says, A.J. who just sort of was what he was.

Never mind those birds a’chirpin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Picture by Bags

Alas, poor C.C. 

Yanks lose, 5-1. 

Picture by Bags

One last game in Toronto for The Scrubby Mustache Gang.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Chris Young LF

Alex Rodriguez DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Carlos Beltran RF

Chase Headley 3B

Stephen Drew SS

Jose Pirela 2B

C.C. vs. ol’ Mark B.

Never mind nuthin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

I was in L.A. visiting friends for a few days. I brought an old 35 mm camera with me and took pictures. When I get the film developed I’ll post some. Such a weird, interesting city. So vast. And sadly, now, so hot and dry.

Big thanks to Jon for holding it down round here. I really enjoyed reading his game threads and recaps. Hey, how bout them Yankees still playing well? The Scrubby-Mustache Gang Rides Again.

So nice to be home.

Or science(s), if you prefer.

Jacoby Ellsbury, quiet, balanced and deadly quick, is a joy to watch at the plate. He’s in the middle of a tear right now and you can count on three line blistered drives a night, but even when he’s not scorching, the swing is still a thing of beauty.

It’s a stark constrast to his partner in the outfield and atop the lineup. When Brett Gardner came up I had never seen a worse swing from a Major League player. He’d often lose his bat into the stands, flinging it further than the balls he hit. But Gardner’s swing evolved as he slowly added pull-power to an already useful profile.

Look into their numbers and you’ll be there all day (I mean, if you go for that sort of thing and you have some free time, I’m endorsing frivolous procrastination or anything) as you compare and contrast all their different methods to skin the same cat. The cursory glance reveals Ellsbury to have more power, but that’s purely a shadow of the Green Monster.

Ellsbury makes more contact than Gardner, for good and for bad. Fewer whiffs but fewer walks as well. Despite a higher batting average for Ellsbury, Gardner actually gets on base just as often. Neither needs a platoon partner and of course, they have the wheels. But by appearance, you’d never mistake one for the other. Especially the follow-thru. Gardner’s one-handed, full-extenstion epee flick versus Ellsbury’s balanced, two-handed broad-sword sweep.

Their swings may be “beauty and the blech” but the results are damn similar (a good lesson to observers who like me, tend make a quick judgment on who can and cannot hit by the shape of their swing). And when they click like this, they’re an especially annoying echo chamber for the opposition. And Yankees are going to win a lot of games.

Like last night. Ellsbury and Gardner reached base five times between them and scored three runs. That alone should have been enough for the Yankees, but in between a strong 8-inning outing from Michael Pineda and a final out from Andrew Miller, David Carpenter got smeared for three runs. No matter though, as the Yankees had three more in their pocket and won 6-3.

***

And now I return you to your regularly scheduled host, Alex Belth. Thanks to Alex and all of you for letting me fill up the space this week. I will head back to twin forges of Little League and Pee Wee Soccer coaching and emerge at the end of June hoping to see the Yankees doing what they’re doing. Playing solid, winning baseball. The only difference is that I won’t be so surprised anymore.

Ellsbury Photo by Brad Penner via USA Today and NJ.com

Gardner Photo by AP via Newsday.com