It’s Dontrelle Willis v. Jav Vazquez tonight in Arizona as the Yanks look to leave the desert with a series win.

The Score Truck made a late-inning pit-stop last night; here’s hoping it arrives early tonight.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

[Picture by Bags]

Walt Simonson

Just a tremendous match–the longest of all-time–going down at Wimbledon. It was called yesterday because of darkness tied at two. Today, they played the fifth set, and it was called again, 59-59 in the tie-breaker. Hol-ee Cow.

A Giant American vs a French Elf.

From Smitten Kitchen…

I don’t feel tardy…

If it pleases you, discuss the World Cup matches here. And keep us blisslessly ignorant desk jockeys informed of what’s going on. It will be a wild morning with probabilties of advancement swinging drastically with each goal scored in either game.

The Desert Foxes of Algeria still have a slim hope to advance. The, whatever the US is called, have a somewhat better chance, but nothing is for certain.

Scenarios for Group C are as follows:

USA Advances With: 1) A win. 2) A draw and an England loss. 3) A draw and an English draw while maintaining a total goals advatage over England. (currently US is up 3 goals to 1)

ALGERIA Advances With: 1) A win and an England tie. 2) A win and an England win and Algeria makes up goal deficit to Slovenia.

England Advances With: 1) A win. 2) A draw and a US loss. 3) A draw and a US draw,but England ends up with more total goals than the US.

Slovenia Advances With: 1) A win. 2) A draw. 3) A loss and a US draw.

Solely  in terms of US advancement, we are rooting for low scoring draw (0-0 or 1-1)  between England and Slovenia. Under that scenario, the US wins the group with a victory over Algeria and advances in second position with any kind of draw. If England wins their match, America has to win to get in.

Back in 2001, I wondered whether or not Andy Pettitte lost Jesus somewhere between New York and Arizona. He lost his ability to execute pitches–in fact, he was tipping pitches, which led to a Game 6 beat-down by the D-Backs. Painful memory.

None of those old Diamonbacks are around anymore, at least not in Arizona, but the current version showed last night that they too can crush the ball. Time for a vintage performance from Pettitte.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

[Picture by Bags]

Detail of a New York City Splat Shot by Bags

Howard Chaykin

It’s been almost nine years since he blew Game 7 of the Whirled Serious out in Arizona…It’s astonishing to consider how great Rivera has been since that loss.

He’s 40 now, and yeah, Mariano’s still pretty damn good.

Why not?

From Orangette…

Here’s a childhood favorite…

My brother loved this one…

Another week of comic book dudes…first up, George Perez.

I’ll take one to go.

From the wonderful food blog, Food52.

Welcome to Stanley Kubrick Week on Million Dollar Movie.

Claire Quilty: I get the impression that you want to leave but you don’t like to because you think I think it looks suspicious, me being a policeman and all. You don’t have to think that because I haven’t got a suspicious mind at all. A lot of people think I’m suspicious, especially when I stand on street corners. One of our boys picked me up once. He thought that I was a little too suspicious standing on the street corner. Tell me, I couldn’t help noticing when you checked in tonight–It’s part of my job, I notice human individuals–and I noticed your face. I said to myself when I saw you, there’s a guy with the most normal-looking face I ever saw in my life. It’s great to see a normal face, ’cause I’m a normal guy. Be great for two normal guys to get together and talk about world events, in a normal way.

Peter Sellers is best remembered as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies, but his artistic masterpiece is generally considered to be Dr. Strangelove. Sellers plays three characters in Stanley Kubrick’s dark, political satire. His performance is all that and them some and deserves all the praise it gets, but I believe Sellers’ accomplishment in Kubrick’s previous film, the 1962 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s notorious book, Lolita, is just as fine—a comic actor at the height of his powers.

Sellers plays Claire Quilty, a pompous hipster playwright, the alter ego and nemesis to James Mason’s lustful professor, Humbert Humbert. “Are you with someone,” Humbert asks Quilty at one point. “I’m not with someone,” Quilty replies, “I’m with you.”

(more…)

Pass me my oxygen mask, would you dear?

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

It’s June, so we can stop worrying about CC Sabathia.  The Yankees were 2-4 when he took the mound in May, but they’ve won all four of his June starts as CC has posted a fairly imposing line: 29 IP, 21 H, 8 R, 7 BB, 22 K, 2.48 ERA, 0.97 WHIP.  A week after beating Roy Halladay (who pitches as if having returned to Krypton when he faces the American League), Sabathia faced and defeated another ace, the Mets’ Johan Santana.  During his eight scoreless innings, Sabathia allowed six base runners, only four of whom made it to second base.  It might not make sense to say that he wasn’t dominant, but he was pretty close.

The Yankee offense was able to do just enough against Santana to secure Sabathia’s eighth win.  Scanning the box score, you might notice a third-inning explosion, but here’s what really happened.  Brett Gardner led off by slicing a single to left (and really, it’s only a matter of time before Michael Kay begins describing hits like this as “Gardnerian”), and Jeter followed with a dribbler to the left side that David Wright was unable to handle cleanly.  Nick Swisher then dropped a beautiful push bunt towards second and was able to reach safely, loading the bases for Mark Teixeira.

Normally, this is a great situation.  Bases loaded, nobody out, the three and four hitters due up.  The problem, though, is that right now I have absolutely no confidence in either Teixeira or Alex Rodríguez, and I braced myself for the worst.  Watching live as Teixeira took a ball and then a strike, I figured he would probably just strike out.  My next thought, though, was this: “He’s probably gonna hit a grand slam just to piss me off.”  And then he deposited the next pitch into the left field stands.  I can’t explain why it pissed me off, it just did.

But that was all the Yanks needed, as the 4-0 lead held up. First place feels good.

Hey, y’all. Sorry for the delay in posting yesterday’s recap. It’ll be up jiffy. Then, we’re back to our regular schedule. Hold tight…

[Picture by Bags]

Gray haze, that’s how it be in the Bronx today.

Hot all over the asphalt jungle of New York as Sabathia and Santana square off at Yankee Stadium.

Sabathia had plenty of nothing last time he faced the Mets; here’s hoping he brings the rukus and the score truck.

Let’s go Yan-Kees!

[picture by Bags]

Big shout–much love, respected and admiration–to all the Old Men out there on Father’s Day.