Over at Fairfeld Writer’s Blog, Alex McNab does a nice job of curating some cherce quotes from Richard Price:

“Part of the jam that I was in as a novelist [after his fourth novel, The Breaks], was that I kept going back to my autobiography for material. . . .Life is hard enough without it having to be perpetual material, too. I felt like a cannibal eating his own foot. Once I became a hired pen out there [in Hollywood], for the first time in my life I was forced to leave my own autobiography to research my characters’ lives, and I learned, with great gratification, that talent travels. If you have enough imagination and empathy, you can write about anybody. That was probably the only good thing, tangible good thing, that came to my writing through screenwriting; knowing that I could go anywhere and learn and bring it back home and turn it into art.”

Can you be angry at a team when you’ve got no expectations? The Yanks lost again last night. Had a 3-1 lead, and Eovaldi pitched pretty well but not long enough, and the bullpen blew it. The offense rallied but came up short.

Final Score: Orioles 7, Yanks 5.

I wish I could feel outrage, despair, something other than resignation. But there it is.

It was nice to see Alex Rodriguez’s home run. Man, that was a bomb. I don’t imagine he’ll stay healthy this year but pretty wild to watch a guy well past his prime do something like that.

Picture by Bags. 

My great uncle Georgie once came in the bathroom when my cousin Donny was taking a bath. George pointed at Donny and said, “You’re all wet!” He said in an accusing tone that made Donny cry. Donny was too young to realize it was meant as a joke.

What this has to do with tonight’s game I don’t know. Maybe I just like that story. Or maybe I just like this picture of Steve Martin from The Jerk.

Regardless, it’s Eovaldi, Take Deuce in Baltimore.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Chase Headley 3B

Carlos Beltran RF

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Alex Rodriguez DH

Stephen Drew 2B

Chris Young LF

Didi Gregorius SS

Never mind the suds:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Head on over to Wax Poetics and dig Matt Rogers’ interview with the great Al Green:

[Photo Credit: Neal Square]

Ah, man, but I just couldn’t resist.

Here’s the truth of it: I spent more time watching the festive and screwy Mets-Phillies last night because the atmosphere at Citi Field was bumpin’ like it was October. I saw enough of the Yankee game to know how uninspired it was in comparison. They got close, Sabathia wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t enough as they lost, 4-3.

Picture by Bags.

It’s C.C. Take Two.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Chase Headley 3B

Carlos Beltran RF

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Garrett Jones DH

Chris Young LF

Stephen Drew 2B

Didi Gregorius SS

Never mind nuthin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: McNair Evans]

Langdon Hammer, the chairman of the English Department at Yale, is the author of a new biography on the poet James Merrill. It looks like a formidable book and in the Times, Dwight Garner calls it “nearly flawless.”

I’m sure the book is an achievement and I’m not interested in minimizing that but I really like what Garner says here:

Mr. Hammer’s book is something close to brilliant, but it would have benefitted from committed liposuction. Its “Shoah”-like length will repel many casual readers, and likely even noncasual ones. While this book is not stuffed with sawdust, 800 pages is a lot of James Merrill, and its girth is admission of a certain kind of failure. Knowing what to omit is as important as knowing what to add.

Picture by Giorgio Morandi.

Last weekend’s reprint at the Daily Beast gave true crime. Dig this fine Albert Borowitz piece on The Medea of Kew Gardens Hills:

On the morning of 14 July 1965, Eddie Crimmins received a telephone call from his estranged wife Alice, accusing him of having taken the children. When she had opened their bedroom door, which she kept locked by a hook-and-eye on the outside, she had seen that the beds had been slept in but Eddie Jr, aged five, and his four-year-old sister Alice (nicknamed Missy) were gone. The casement window was PM cranked open about 75 degrees; Alice remembered having closed it the night before because there was a hole in the screen and she wanted to keep the bugs out. The screen was later found outside, leaning against the wall beneath the window, and nearby was a “porter’s stroller”—a converted baby-carriage with a box on it.

Alice’s husband, an airplane mechanic who worked nights, protested that he knew nothing of the children’s whereabouts and, alarmed by the message, said he would come right over to see her. Alice and the children lived in a dispiriting redbrick apartment complex flatteringly named Regal Gardens, located near the campus of Queens College in the Kew Gardens Hills section of the New York City borough of Queens. Shortly after joining his wife, Eddie called the police, and the first contingent of patrolmen were on the scene in a matter of minutes. By 11 a.m. precinct cars were parked all around the grassy mall adjoining Alice’s apartment building at 150— 22 72nd Drive.

Jerry Piering, who was the first detective to arrive, quickly made the case his own. Hoping for a promotion to second grade on the Queens’ detective command, he immediately sensed that he had stepped into an important investigation. It took only one glance at Alice for him to decide that she did not look the picture of the anxious mother, this striking redhead in her twenties, with thick make-up, hip-hugging toreador slacks, flowered blouse and white high-heeled shoes. Patrolman Michael Clifford had already filled Piering in on the background—the Crimminses were separated and in the middle of a custody fight, but the role that the vanished children might have played in their skirmishing was still obscure.

The first fruits of Piering’s look around the premises confirmed the unfavorable impression Alice had made. In the garbage cans there were about a dozen empty liquor bottles that Alice later attributed to good housekeeping rather than over-indulgence, explaining that she had been cleaning the apartment in anticipation of an inspection visit from a city agency in connection with the custody suit. Still more revealing to Piering was a proverbial “little black book” that Alice had dropped outside; the men listed outnumbered women four to one.

While Piering was making his rounds, Detective George Martin found trophies of Alice’s active social life in a pastel-colored overnight bag stowed under her bed. The greetings and dinner programs that filled the bag documented her relationship with Anthony (Tony) Grace, a fifty-two-year-old highway contractor with ties to important Democratic politicians. Alice’s souvenirs showed that Tony Grace had introduced her to such party stalwarts as Mayor Robert Wagner and Senator Robert Kennedy; messages from Grace and important city officials addressed her as “Rusty.”

[Photo Credit: Tom Gallagher N.Y. Daily News]

The correct answer is D) Zero.

Oh, right, the question. Yeah, the question was: What are the chances that Stephen Drew does anything productive here?

This would be in the top of the 7th inning last night when Drew pinch-hit for Brett Gardner. I mean, when could that ever be a good thing? This was after Jacoby Ellsbury reached on an infield single to load the bases (had Chris Davis made a better play at first the inning would have been over). The Yanks were down a couple of runs and with Drew up I told The Wife there was no way Drew would do anything good. Not a chance. When the count went to 3-1 I told her he was under orders from the Universe to take a strike and try to work a walk. But what does the Universe care about me and what do I know about the Bigger Questions?

Because Drew swung at the 3-1 pitch and hit a grand slam.

That was enough to survive a shaky appearance by Dellin Betances as the Yanks won, 6-5. Andrew Miller got the last five outs.

[Photo Credit: Jill Freedman via Time]

It’s Pineda tonight as the Yanks start a thee-game series in Baltimore.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Brett Gardner LF

Carlos Beltran DH

Mark Teixeira 1B

Alex Rodriguez 3B

Chris Young RF

John Ryan Murphy C

Didi Gregorius SS

Gregorio Petit 2B

Never mind dem boids”

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: The Retrologist]

From Whitney Balliett’s book American Musicians: Fifty-Six Portraits in Jazz:

The Cape Cod pianist Marie Marcus came to New York from Boston to do a radio show in 1932, when she was eighteen. Her experience had been limited to Boston radio shows and to playing for a week at a Chinese restaurant called the Mahjong. “Tillie’s Kitchen, in Harlem, was a fried-chicken place,” she has said, “and Bob Howard, who sounded just like Fats Waller, was on piano. We went up there quite often, and one night Fats himself came in. I remember the whole room lighted up. He played, and then listened, and when I’d finished, he pointed to his heart, and said, ‘For a white gal, you sure got it there.’ We got to talking, and I told him that I would like to further my education in jazz, and did he know a good teacher? He looked at me and said, ‘How about me?’ I thought he was putting me on, but he wasn’t. He had a small office, with two pianos, in the Brill Building, at 1619 Broadway, and during the next year or so, when he wasn’t on the road or making records, he’d call me up and say, ‘Come on down and let’s play some paino.’ You couldn’t exactly call them lessons. We’d play duets, and then he’d play, and have me listen carefully to the things he did. He was very serious when we were working together, and I was grateful for every minute. He’d tell me, ‘When you’re playing jazz, remember the rhythm, remember the rhythm. Make the number of notes count. Tell a story, and get that feeling across to the people. Please the people by making it come from here.”

[Photo Credit: Time Life Pictures/Getty]

Oh, yeah, the sun is out and the spring is coming into focus.

Photograph by Virginia Mak via MPD.

And here we thought the Yankees would never score any runs.

Feast your eyes on this.

They plump when you cook ’em (oh, yeah).

Sunday Night baseball. Let’s see what Masahiro’s got.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF

Brett Gardner LF

Carlos Beltran RF

Mark Teixeira 1B

Brian McCann C

Chase Headley 3B

Alex Rodriguez DH

Stephen Drew 2B

Didi Gregorius SS

Never mind the standings:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

It’s early but the thud you hear is your 2015 New York Yankees. Yesterday’s version was scored an 8-4 loss.

Picture by Bags.

There’s plenty of it today here in the Bronx. It’s nice in the sun, supposed to get up to the mid-50s later on, but there’s still a little wind and it’s cool in the shade. It’s that white spring light–almost like there’s too much treble–sun high in the sky.

Yanks and Sox were up late last night but they’ll be at it again for us early this afternoon.

Never mind the hangover:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Richard Estes via the Marlborough Gallery]

Ah, 1,2, Ah 1,2.

[Photo Via: Bull Days]

The Yankees rallied 3 times against the Red Sox last night, starting in the 9th inning, but they couldn’t do it a fourth time and so in just under 7 hours, they lost 6-5 in 19 innings. It was the kind of a game that is every beat writer’s nightmare. You wondered if it’d ever end. There was good pitching, sloppy fielding, nice fielding, poor hitting, and clutch hitting. There was boredom and excitement and by the end, a lot of sleepy fans.

There was a 15 minute delay in the bottom of the 12th inning when a few of the lights went out. The organist was pressed into emergency service. I suppose the JumboTron was out of scheduled routines. The announcers didn’t know at first how long the delay would last and so as they talked it over the organist vamped–was that “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” he was playing? What an unexpected pleasure, the sounds of the organ pumping out a medley of pop tunes.

Anyhow, for the Yanks it was a drag of a game to lose.

The pace of play is supposed to be faster this season, and perhaps it will be, but the Yankees vs. Red Sox, well, they’ve got their own rules to abide, don’t they? And the two teams are back at it in a few hours this afternoon.

Take two and pass.

[Photo Credit: Mikko Lagerstedt]

Those guys again. This year–no pitching, fearsome hitting.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Brett Gardner LF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Mark Teixeira 1B
Brian McCann C
Chase Headley 3B
Chris Young RF
Stephen Drew SS
Gregorio Petit 2B

And our first look at Eovaldi.

Never mind the Cavity Creeps:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Neither was that game last night. One lousy inning was enough to sink C.C.’s first start of the year. Rodriguez and Teixeira homered but otherwise the Yankees couldn’t make good on their scoring chances and they lost, 6-3.