Here’s a great cookbook from Fuchsia Dunlop.

Peep the review from Tigers and Strawberries.

Over at ESPN, Mark Simon looks at the MVPS of the recent Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. The results may surprise you.

[Photo Credit: Cafe Press]

An American Master…

Interesting piece on Duke Ellington’s music and race in America by Claudia Roth Pierpont in The New Yorker:

What did he feel about—what did he contribute to—the mire of American race relations during the last century? Harvey G. Cohen’s “Duke Ellington’s America” (Chicago; $40) attempts to get under the skin of this apparently most imperturbable of men, and the results, if hardly conclusive, are fascinating. One of Ellington’s few confidantes, his sister, Ruth, believed that he concealed himself under “veil upon veil upon veil,” and Cohen is not the first Ellingtonian to treasure the smallest telltale sign of his subject’s human susceptibilities. There is, for example, an uncharacteristically angry letter to a white business associate with whom Ellington wished to break (which is nevertheless signed “with great respect,” and turns out not to have been sent). Cohen’s extremely intelligent and formidably documented book—a welcome change from much that has been published about Ellington—is not a standard biography; Ellington’s personal life and sexual mores are officially beyond its scope. Nor is it a critical work, since it contains no musical analysis and not a great deal of musical description. Cohen’s long hours in the Smithsonian’s huge trove of Ellington papers were devoted to the business records and the scrapbooks, and, as his title suggests, he has broad social issues on his mind. Even Ellington’s professional life is examined in circumscribed areas, almost all of which touch at some point upon race. The question is whether, sooner or later, everything did.

Early in the book, Cohen quotes Ellington’s longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn objecting to a movie project about Ellington that Strayhorn was told would have a racial theme. “I don’t think it should be racial because I don’t think he’s racial,” Strayhorn protested. “He is an individual.” But Strayhorn concluded, in a line of thinking that seems emblematic of the era and of the personalities involved, “You don’t have to say the darn thing.” Cohen keeps Ellington’s individuality firmly in sight, while detailing such targeted subjects as his relationship with Mills, the white man who has been lauded for launching Ellington’s career and—both before and after they split, in 1939—accused of exploitation; Ellington’s travels with his band in the harshly segregated South of the nineteen-thirties and forties; the overt, if often forgotten, racial programs of much of his music; and his sometimes contentious relationship with the civil-rights movement of the nineteen-fifties and sixties.

A different set of subjects—Ellington’s musical development, his band members, even his women—might have yielded something closer to the post-racial portrait for which Strayhorn argued, a portrait more in accord with the high personal horizon on which Ellington’s sights were set. But “the darn thing” will not go away, and race remains unsurprisingly essential to the story of America’s first widely recognized black artist, and of what he had to say.

You can order “Duke Ellington’s America“, here.

Early beat today, from the more bounce to ounce department:

Sébastien Tellier – Look from Record Makers on Vimeo.

Look lively and Happy Monday.

Drag of a loss yesterday as the Yanks gear-up for two, two-game series against the Rays and Red Sox this week. Still, it’s not nearly as bad as it is in Flushing. The Mets were swept by the Marlins over the weekend and are now in last place. In the Post, Mike Vaccaro writes: The Manager Must Go:

You know whom Manuel sounds like when he constantly praises his team for not quitting? He sounds like Rich Kotite. Absent anything resembling a representative Jets team back in the day, Kotite made playing hard sound like a sacrament rather than a job requirement. It is of little consequence that the Mets play hard more often than not; they also lose more often than not.

It has taken them exactly 16 days to go from a game ahead in first place to six behind, in last place, and as depressing as that may be to Mets fans it is also indicative of just how quickly a baseball season can turn. The season is still salvageable, the wild card winner in the National League still projects to somewhere in the high 80s or low 90s in wins. But at some point you have to prove that an eight-game winning streak in April isn’t the best you’ve got.

Rich Kotite? That’s cold, man.

Chalk this one up to the Go Figure Department. Serge Mitre pitches well, David Robertson does the job even if he still can’t throw strikes consistently. The Twins hit the ball hard but have little to show for it. Meanwhile, Randy Winn drives in two with a triple and the Yanks hold a 3-1 lead in the eighth. But Joba can’t get out of the inning, and loads the bases. With two out, Mariano comes in and falls behind 3-0 to Jim Thome (the second pitch was close, a pitch Mo usually gets, but was off the plate). Throws a strike, Thome fouls off two pitches and then takes ball four to force home a run.

Jason Kubel is next and he slaps Mo’s second pitch into the seats in right for a grand slam.

Silence. Kick a hole in the speaker, pull the plug, then…jet.

Improbable, maybe. Bound to happen? Yeah. Just a reminder that winning games is hard even for the best of ’em. First two runs Mo have given up all year.

So in the bottom of the ninth, Winn singles up the middle and then Ramiro Pena pokes a base hit to right against Minnesota’s closer, Jon Rauch. Derek Jeter’s next and takes two huge cuts and the crowd is into it again. Tying man at the plate. Couple more foul balls and Rauch screws him into the ground on a curve ball in the dirt. Jeter can’t hold up, one out. Next, Gardner whiffs on three pitches. Finally, Mark Teixeira takes two strikes, looks at a couple of balls, swings late and barely manages to foul a pitch down the first base line, and then looks at strike three–a tailing fastball that hits the inside corner–as the Twins salvage the last game of the series, 6-3.

Only real drag is that the Rays won again so the Yanks drop another game out of first.

Can’t win ’em all.

[Photo Credit: Bags and Al Bello/Getty Images]

You got to figure the Twins are going to beat the Yankees one of these days. Just the law of nature, right? So why not today when the Yanks send Serge Mitre to the mound? We’ll see if they can do it. In the meantime we’ll be root-root-rootin’ for the Yanks to complete the sweep. Lovely spring day for it.

Go git ’em Serge and…

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

[Picture by Bags]

Tasty Cherce: Homemade Pop Tarts.

Yes, please.

Picture and recipe from the Smitten Kitchen (via Saveur).

And then there’s this guy…

The Yankees simply could not have asked for more from Andy Pettitte on Saturday afternoon. Pitching for the first time since missing a start because of minor elbow inflammation, the ageless left-hander threw six and a third scoreless innings against a Twins team that must feel like it’s in “Stepford” doing battle against The Wives. Powered by Pettitte and some late-inning long ball, the Yankees defeated the Twins for the 12th consecutive time, winning 7-1 at Yankee Stadium. In beating Twins ace Francisco Liriano, Pettitte improves to 5-0 on the season.

The Yankee offense supported Pettitte early, scoring single runs in each of the first two innings. In the first, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, and Alex Rodriguez strung together singles to put the Yanks up, 1-0. In the second, the bottom of the order started another rally. After being hit by a pitch, Marcus Thames moved up to second on a Francisco Cervelli sacrifice (is there anything he cannot do?), and scored on Jeter’s second straight single.

Though he was not overpowering (giving up three walks while striking out two), Pettitte was highly effectual as he pitched for the first time in ten days. He encountered his biggest threat in the sixth inning, when he mysteriously threw 11 straight balls out of the strike zone and issued two-out walks to Denard “Not Emma” Span and Orlando Hudson, bringing the great Joe Mauer to the plate as the potential tying run. The game hanging in the balance, the reigning American League MVP catapulted a Pettitte pitch deep to left-center field, but Brett “The Jet” Gardner caught the dangerous drive in the middle of the warning track. Inning over.

Thrilled to watch Pettitte strike out Justin Morneau to start the seventh inning, Joe Girardi turned the game over to the enigmatic David Robertson in the seventh. Robertson recorded one out but allowed the next two runners to reach base, prompting Ron Gardenhire to summon Jim Thome as a pinch-hitter carrying the potential tying run. Limited to under 100 at-bats, Thome had hit five home runs to the tune of a .535 slugging percentage, making him a special threat on a warm day at the Stadium. Girardi, continuing to show faith in Damaso Marte despite his Friday night failures against messers Mauer and Morneau, again called on his veteran left-hander. This time Marte did as he is paid to do, striking out Thome to finish off the two-out threat.

With the Yankees holding a 3-0 lead, but the Twins still within striking distance, the Bombers went to work against the Minnesota bullpen in the seventh. Teixeira inflated the cushion by hitting a mammoth two-run home run to right field. The ball landed in the second deck, in the rare air of the luxury suites, territory that has rarely been penetrated during the one year-plus of the new Stadium’s existence. The resurgent Rodriguez tried to match Teixeira by driving a ball deep into right-center field. At first the ball seemed to have long ball distance, but it banged off the very top of the fence, forcing A-Rod to settle for a double.

Two batters later, Posada did not settle for anything, instead launching a bomb to nearly straightaway center field, the ball caroming off the bullpen wall into the center-field bleachers. With that two-run blast making it 7-0, the romp was on, allowing Girardi to call on his second-tier pitching (translated: Boone Logan) in the eighth and ninth innings and rest Chamberlain and Rivera for another day.

Yankee Doodles: Playing as the DH, Posada led the Yankee attack with three hits. Jeter, Teixeira, and Rodriguez each chipped in with a pair… Joe Mauer broke up a shutout bid with an RBI single against Logan in the eighth inning…The Twins continue to be hexed against the Yankees, and especially so in the Bronx. Since Gardenhire has become Minnesota manager, the Twins have gone 3-25 at the old and new Bronx ballparks… After dropping their weekday series with the Tigers, the Yankees’ win on Saturday guarantees another series victory. The Yankees will gun for the sweep on Sunday, albeit with the suspect Sergio Mitre starting against Nick Blackburn… The Yankees plan to activate Chan Ho Park from the disabled prior to Sunday’s game. To make room for Park, the Yankees will likely send right-hander Ivan Nova back to Scranton/Wilkes Barre. Finally, there is news on Nick Johnson and it isn’t encouraging, though that is hardly a surprise.

[Photo Credit: Frank Franklin II/AP]

Good thing the Score Truck showed up last night what with a revitalized Francisco Liriano going for the Twins this afternoon.

Andy Pettitte returns for the Yanks. Looks like a beautiful day for it. The wife and I will be in the house.

[Photo Credit: Bags]

For Mr. Barra:

By Allen Barra

It’s a shame that Robin Evan Roberts couldn’t have picked a more fortunate day to die. His passing on May 6 Thursday was lost in the media swirl surrounding the arrest of former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor on rape charges and the speculation over whether Lebron James would be playing next season in Cleveland or New York. Before his memory fades entirely, a few things about his life and career should be remarked on.

Roberts pitched in relative obscurity for most of his 19 big league seasons, and his death at age 83 was relegated to the status of second-tier news. Now, after some reflection, we can put his career in perspective: he was baseball’s greatest pitcher since World War II and one of the most important men in baseball history.

He was also scandalously unappreciated. In 1960 the Associated Press conducted a survey of “164 Top-Flight Sportswriters” and “76 Nationally-Known Public Figures” to determine “The All-Star Team of the Past Decade.” Roberts didn’t make the team. He finished second to the Yankees’ Allie Reynolds. Allie had a fine career, but he was only great after coming to the Yankees in 1947. He won 131 games over the next eight seasons, and that was pitching for the New York Yankees, who won six World Series over that span.

Pitching in seven seasons from 1948-1954, Robin Roberts won 137 games, and that was while pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies, who won one National League pennant in that time. For most of those season, the Phillies were the worst team in their league, or at least would have been if it hadn’t been for Robin Roberts. From 1952-1954, Roberts won 74 games and lead his league in victories each year. (He also lead the league in 1955.)

Three decades after the AP’s poll, I talked to Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who had voted for Reynolds over Roberts, and asked him why. He told me that he had voted for Reynolds mainly because he had beat Roberts in Game Two of the 1950 World Series (2-1 in 10 innings on a Joe DiMaggio home run.)

In 1976 Roberts was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his fourth year of eligibility. Whitey Ford, practically his exact contemporary, retired a year after Roberts and was elected in 1974 in his second year of eligibility. Mr. Ford, an undeniably great pitcher, won 236 games in his career, 50 fewer than Roberts. Needless to say, Mr. Ford pitched for the Yankees.

Rich Ashburn, the only other Phillies player of note during the 1950s and later a popular sportscaster in Philadelphia, once asked me rhetorically, “With all due respect to Whitey, if he had pitched for the Phillies and Robin had pitched for the Yankees, who do you think would have made it to the Hall of Fame first?”

The Yankees, always the Yankees. After Roberts was passed over in the 1974 HOF voting, novelist James Michener wrote in the New York Times, “If he [Roberts] had pitched for the Yankees, he would have won 350 games.” I wrote pretty much the same thing in my 2004 book, Brushbacks and Knockdowns, except I projected 340, which would have made Roberts one of the seven winningest pitchers in baseball since 1901 and one of the four winningest since 1945.

But James Michener and I were both wrong. If Roberts had pitched for the Yankees, he would never have won that many games. For the best team in baseball, the Casey Stengel era Yankees had very few 20 game winners; Stengel seldom went with a regular rotation and often held his best pitchers out for important games. (There was also a rumor that the Yankees front office liked to limit the win totals of their starters so they could hold their salaries down.)

If, however, Roberts had pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers of his era, that would have been a different matter. “Robin Roberts on the mound,” says Roger Kahn, author of the definitive book on the Brooklyn Dodgers, The Boys of Summer, “Forget it. Backed by Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges? Put Robin Roberts on those Dodgers teams and they’d have been the New York Yankees.”

Not that Roberts had anything to be embarassed about. He won more than 20 games six times, including going 28-7 in 1952 for a Phillies team that played under .500 ball when he wasn’t on the mound. He lead the National League for five consecutive seasons in innings pitched and complete games. And, amazingly, he is only in the record book now for allowing the most home runs (505) of any pitcher and for having the lowest batting average (.167) of anyone with more than 1500 at-bats.

His greatest contribution to baseball, though, came off the field in 1966 when he helped recruit a former economist for the steelworkers union named Marvin Miller as executive director of the players union. “I don’t think any former ballplayer,” says Mr. Miller, “with the possible exception of Jackie Robinson, had the respect and gratitude of more players.”

In the end, Roberts had no regrets. He once told me, “I had a tremendous career, and I pitched for a whole decade in front of some great fans.” Surely he is the only player in baseball history to accuse the Phillies fans of the era of being great. “Let me tell you,” Mr. Ashburn said. “The Phillies fans in that time were the booingest bunch in the major leagues. But they never booed Robin Roberts.”

Allen Barra’s latest book, Rickwood Field: A Century in America’s Oldest Ballpark (Norton), will be published  in June.

Ted Berg chats with Kid Gleeman:

In case you haven’t heard, salt is bad. Harumph. Still, Heinz is changing their ketchup recipe to include less salt. 

Will that mean less flavor? We’ll find out this summer.

[Photo Credit: Bright Lights Dim Beauty of Chicago]

LeBron James had a poor series against the Celtics and a disappointing game last night as he turned the ball over nine times. The Cavs lost, their season is over. Think Alex Rodriguez is over-analyzed? What’s-Wrong-With-LeBron just bumped you out of the top spot, Papi.

James did record a triple double. Guy I know called it “hollow” this morning. How 19 rebounds are hollow I don’t know but James didn’t shoot the ball well and played tight (and he could well be injured).

Anyhow, the loss puts the LeBron-to-the-Knicks-Hype Machine at center stage round these parts. It might be a longshot, but it sure would be great to have a star like James playing in the Garden every night, wouldn’t it?

I have to admit that I was completely stumped as to what I should write about in this week’s edition of “Card Corner.” Having already exhausted the futility and frustration of the 1990 Yankees, I found myself searching for a new theme. Yet, nothing came to mind.

Then came a barrage of Reggie Jackson-related material in Tuesday’s editions of The Banter. Well, Reggie is always ripe for interesting discussion. I then remembered that I needed to correct an item from a “Card Corner” that appeared in this space back in December of 2007. I had written that Jackson, when he showed up to work for Oakland in the spring in 1972, had become the first major leaguer to sport a mustache since Wally Schang of the old Philadelphia Athletics in 1914.

Wrong. Dead wrong. It’s just not true that Jackson was the first man since Schang to go the mustachioed route. As friend and researcher Maxwell Kates has pointed out, Richie Allen (as he was called back then) actually wore a mustache with the St. Louis Cardinals during the 1970 season. (Felipe Alou might have also worn a mustache with the A’s in 1970, but that is less certain. Another possibility is Richie Scheinblum, who might have grown a mustache with the Cleveland Indians in 1969.) In fact, Allen’s 1971 Topps card, which was photographed after he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, shows a mustache in clear view. So Jackson did not set a new trend. He merely continued what Allen had done over the previous two seasons.

With that cleared up, Jackson is good fodder for conversation, especially when a new in-depth biography about his life has just hit the Internet bookshelves. I have not yet read Dayn Perry’s book, but I’m sure that he has touched upon the following subjects in far greater depth. In particular, the start of Jackson’s professional career, along with his overlooked years in Oakland, have always fascinated me. So let’s take a closer look.

By all rights, Jackson should have started his career in New York, but with the Mets, not the Yankees. In 1966, the Mets owned the No. 1 pick in the June amateur draft. They faced a choice of drafting Jackson, a young African-American outfielder out of Arizona State, or a left-handed, power-hitting catcher named Steve Chilcott. With Jackson destined to make the major leagues within two seasons, the Mets would have formulated one of the game’s best and most athletic outfields: smooth-swinging Cleon Jones, who would bat .340 during the miracle season of 1969; Gold Glover and power-hitting Tommie Agee in center; and the rifle-armed Jackson in right field. I can’t think of any outfield in that era that would have combined such speed, defensive range, and power, with the possible exception of the early 1970s Giants outfield that featured Willie Mays in center flanked by a young Ken Henderson (look up his early numbers) in left field and a budding Bobby Bonds in right field.

As we all know, the dream outfield of Jones-Agee-Jackson never materialized at Shea Stadium. Instead of taking Jackson, the Mets chose Chilcott, who would play seven minor league seasons but never play a single game in the major leagues. Rumors have always swirled that the Mets opted not to take Jackson because he liked to date white women. I tend to believe the rumors, especially given the presence of George Weiss as Mets general manager. Weiss was the same man who had decided to integrate the Yankees at a snail’s pace during the 1950s.

The perception of Jackson’s talent has also been a source of controversy, though for less incendiary reasons. I’ve long contended that the portrayal of Jackson as a one-dimensional slugger is overly simplistic–along with being just plain wrong. As a member of the A’s, Reggie was a well-rounded four-tool talent. In addition to the established power, Reggie could steal bases, range far in right field, and heave cannon shots toward the infield. With the A’s, Jackson had enough athleticism to make more than token appearances in center field. From 1967 to 1974, Jackson played 172 games in center field for the A‘s, including 92 appearances for the 1972 world champions. He wasn’t a particularly good center fielder–he was probably a bit below average, let‘s call it a ‘3‘ on a Strat-O-Matic card–but he was often the best available candidate for managers Dick Williams and Alvin Dark.

By the time that Reggie joined the Yankees in 1977, the idea of playing him in center field was unthinkable; I suspect that in addition to becoming too muscle bound, he had problems with his vision and depth perception that made outfielding a major chore. But for the first seven to eight seasons of his career, Jackson was a true triple threat as a power hitter, capable defender, and proficient base stealer.

And he was pretty good at growing a mustache, thought not exactly the trendsetter that I had originally portrayed him to be. Somehow, I think Reggie will get over it.

Bruce Markusen will present a program on baseball cards at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture June 2-4.

Every so often, you run into a kindred spirit, a guy you aren’t envious of, just proud to know. Todd Drew was like that, and so is Josh Wilker (pictured above on the left with his brother Ian). When I first read Josh’s work at Cardboard Gods, I was thrilled. He had a strong voice, wonderful sensitivity, an unassuming sense of humor, and the courage to dig deep, way below the surface. I’d want to belong to the kind of club that would have a misfit like that as a member. And I’m not alone. Josh’s long-awaited memoir, The Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards, has generated some great buzz and strong reviews. Josh hits the Big Apple tonight–he’ll be at the Nike Store in Soho from 7:30 to 9:30. He’s here through early next week and we’re happy to have him.

I got a chance to chat with Josh recently and here is our conversation. Enjoy.

Bronx Banter: Dude, first thing, what were your favorite kinds of packs to get when you were a kid? The single pack? Remember those triple packs that would be clear packaging with three little sets side-by-side?

Josh Wilker: I’m a single wax pack guy. The clear packaging ruined some essential part of the fun for me, since you could see the top and the bottom card in the stack. It was better that it was a total mystery.

BB: Bro, how deep does your nerdiness run? Do you carry a card around with you in your wallet?

JW: I don’t, but I usually have a card that I’m working up an essay on in the pocket of the nap sack that I lug to and from work. And a couple summers ago when I came to New York to–among other things–go to Shea Stadium for the last time, I made a point of carrying an Ed Kranepool in my pocket every day of the trip.

BB: Nice. Do you ever feel any attraction to modern baseball cards?

JW: I just wrote a piece for GQ.com, of all places, considering my unstudliness, on the 2010 Topps cards. I bought a couple packs for the piece, and got a charge out of it, and though the cards mostly left me cold for being too slick, I admired the high quality of them. The photos and the back of the card text is light years advanced beyond the rudimentary nature of the 1970s cards, which may be why the new cards leave me cold. There’s no homely humanity in them.

BB: Can you at all relate to the generation of kids who bought cards for what they might be worth one day, instead of being important for more personal reasons, or just cause they were the things to have, trade and flip?

JW: I can relate, I guess. I mean, when I was a kid, I fantasized that one day my Butch Hobson and Frank Tanana cards would be worth millions, so it’s not like the idea of the cards being “investments” was completely foreign to me. I was just too lazy to actually pursue that angle. I did feel like things were taking a wrong turn when I noticed, in the late 1980s, that the cards my younger cousin was collecting were going immediately into protective plastic. You have to be able to touch the cards, otherwise what’s the point?

BB: When you started the Cardboard Gods blog did you have it in your mind to write a book? Or did that develop later?

JW: My first intention was to play around and to keep writing and to maybe connect with some readers. I’d been working on a novel for several years previous to starting the blog, and I wasn’t able to sell it, and I was wary of signing on for another several years of solitary toil only to have the end product of the work end up at the bottom of a drawer. But I also thought it could be a book, too, from very early on. It was not unlike the first time I saw my future wife: a feeling like, “Hm, I think there might be something here.” I held off for quite awhile on trying to start shaping the material into a book, a tendency that has in the past had a way of crushing the life out things before they have a chance to grow. Instead I just tried to keep having fun and churning out material. After a while, I knew I had enough stuff for a book, if I could ever pull it all together into something coherent.

(more…)

There was time to kill between doubleheader games yesterday, and half the Tigers’ roster – including the entire bullpen – killed it by giving themselves mohawks. A bored baseball clubhouse is a dangerous, dangerous place. We have only a small sample size to go on but, so far, advanced scientific analysis suggests the move may have backfired; in the nightcap, Phil “Phew” Hughes edged out Jeremy Bonderman in a tight duel, and a ninth-inning Yankee offensive renaissance gave New York a pleasant 8-0 win.

Hughes is probably due for a bad start one of these days – or at least a mediocre one – and for a little while I thought this might be it; he was getting good results, but laboring a bit, running up a high pitch count in the first few innings. Instead he got better as the game went on and ended up with another gem: 7 innings, 5 hits, no runs, 8 strikeouts, 1 measly little walk; he threw 71 of his 101 pitches for strikes. Phil Hughes is not messing around. Going by almost any statistical measurement (as well as by your lyin’ eyes) he’s been one of the best starters in either league this season – though of course he doesn’t have as many wins as MLB leader Tyler Clippard of the Nationals. You just can’t predict… oh, never mind.

Anyway, the Yankee hitters seemed to be nursing a hangover from their punchless day-game loss, but they did manage to eke out a couple of runs early on, which would have been enough by themselves – in the first inning, Alex Rodriguez singled in Brett Gardner, who was hitting second tonight (and ended up making that seem like a wise move with three hits, two runs scored, and RBI and the obligatory stolen base). And in the third, Bonderman walked Derek Jeter and lived to regret it when Jeter stole second and scored on a Mark Teixeira double.

But it wasn’t until the ninth that the Yankee batters really woke up, when old buddy Phil Coke stumbled and Alfredo Figaro couldn’t get the last two outs without considerable bloodshed. More than half an hour later, after a flurry of singles and walks, the game arrived at its misleading final destination of 8-0. It stayed that way in the bottom of the ninth, of course, because Mariano Rivera is back; and seeing him on the mound again (albeit in a very non-save situation) is deeply comforting in a primal sort of way. Mo’s in his bullpen, all’s right with the world, as the man said.

Notes:

-Jay-Z and Eminem’s visit to the booth in the 4th inning (to promote their planned stadium concerts in Detroit and New York this fall) was one of the most gloriously awkward only-in-America culture clashes I’ve seen in some time. I hope one day we get to watch Dallas Braden chat with Yo-Yo Ma. Or perhaps we can arrange a coffee klatch between Carl Everett and Philip Glass.

-Years ago an Eephus Pitch commenter pointed out that Jeremy Bonderman bears a distinct resemblance to Alice the Goon from Popeye. One day I may be able to watch him pitch without thinking about that, but today is not that day.

-It wouldn’t be an official game unless a Yankee strained something, so Nick Swisher is now day-to-day with sore biceps.

The Bronx Bomber Score Truck caught a flat somewhere between Saturday and Detroit. Yanks look to Phil Hughes to keep rolling this evening. Expect the bats to wake up too.

Welp, the Yanks got a good performance out of Javier Vazquez who gave up two runs on five hits and a couple of walks over seven innings. Only trouble, Rick Porcello was even better, throwing a good sinker, and shutting the Yanks out over seven. The Yanks had four hits for the game. 

It was scoreless until the sixth, when the Tigers collected four singles (Jackson, Damon, Cabrera, Boesch) good enough for all the scoring they’d need.

The game moved briskly (two hours and fifteen minutes, wait, this was a Yankees game?) and the Yanks had a couple of chances early–Ramino Pena stranded runners to end the second and fourth; Alex Rodriguez was robbed of an RBI extra base hit in the third. But pitching was the thing, zip, zip.

At least Vazquez was good. One bad inning that’s all, and it was far from a disaster. Still, hard to pick-up a win when your team gets blanked. The Yanks have now dropped three-straight.

Game One, Final Score: Tigers 2, Yanks 0.

[Photo Credit: Leon Halip/Getty Images]