My cat Moe Green was sitting on the window sill in my office this afternoon when a gust of wind knocked his ass down. I heard him land and looked up to see him on the floor looking back over his shoulder at the window, slunk down low. I sat up to see if a bird had gotten to close to the window but this was no bird. Just the wind.

A few hours later, I walked up to Johnson Avenue where I saw parts of two big trees on the sidewalk–a huge branch was hanging on the telephone line above. Police barrier outside of the Hunan Balcony. I walked home with my groceries and heard a rumbling like the wheels on a skateboard. But it was a cluster of trees just behind me, thrashing.

It was some serious wind, man. And Moms Nature was ‘spressin her own bad ass self from Philadelphia to Boston this afternoon. The Mets won in extra innings again today against the Giants at Citifield and the sharp late afternoon light and shadows covered the field. In Philly, the shadows were just as daunting a short while later. I know about the Phillies because Fox cut to their game when the Yanks and Sox were delayed with two outs in fourth inning, Yanks up 6-3. CC Sabathia was on the mound pitching to his old catcher Victor Martinez. CC was in his rhythm, not rushing, and  didn’t anticipate how quickly the storm was going to hit. But it went from no rain to downpour within thirty seconds.

Cut to the Braves-Phils, and start grinding your teeth.

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The banged-up Yanks are even more banged-up today after a painful win on Friday night in Boston. Cano is out today; Nick Johnson is headed to the DL. But CC Sabathia is on the hill. He’ll go against Clay Buchholz, who has been Boston’s best starter this year.

Never mind the payback, just win, baby.

[photo credit: Yohei Yamashita]

It’s cool, gray and rainy in the Bronx this morning.

Reminds me of Belgium.

[photo credit: thepetitfour and Last Night’s Dinner]

I just like the lines.

Long time Banterite Bags took this picture. Gunna be showing a lot more of his pictures from now on. So, lucky us ya hoid?

;

Sripraphai could be my favorite restaurant in New York these days (they’ve just opened a second location). I’ve been about a dozen times over the past three or four years and still have yet to try so much on their extensive menu.

If you like Thai food, what are you waiting for already?

[Photo Credit: Kelly Bone and ext212]

In filling the Glenallen Hill role for the 2010 Yankee, Marcus Thames has been terrorizing left-handed pitchers to the tune of obscene on-base and slugging percentages. If he could continue this pace for the balance of the season, he would boast one of those monstrous Strat-O-Matic cards that would have you tempted to play him every day. But, then again, you’d probably want to restrict him to DH duty because of his dreadful defensive play in the outfield. Thames would likely grade out as a ‘4’ on the Strat card. For those not familiar with Strat-O-Matic, that’s the absolutely worst fielding grade you can achieve.

How badly has Thames played in the outfield for the Yankees? Every time the ball is hit in his direction, diehard Yankee fans begin to clutch their chests. Thames gets bad breaks on the ball, struggles in trying to track the ball, and then, even if he reaches the ball, has trouble holding on to it. That, friends, is the Triple Crown of fielding incompetence.

Thames’ play in left field has been so historically bad that it has me thinking of the worst defensive outfielders I’ve ever seen. I’ve been watching baseball since the early 1970s, giving me a chance to observe about 40 years of horrific outfield play. All of the following players could hit, but they each managed to play the outfield with such a lack of skill that the results bordered on the comical.

(Left Field) Kevin Reimer: Remarkably, Reimer averaged an error for every ten games he played in the outfield. He was particularly bad on those rare occasions when his teams dared to put him in right field, where he posted an .875 fielding percentage. This former Rangers and Brewers outfielder tried real hard, but he had no instincts, couldn’t run, couldn’t catch, and couldn’t throw. When it comes to awful fielders, Reimer had it all.

(Left Field) Greg “The Bull” Luzinski: The Bull played like the proverbial “bull in a china shop,” in left field, combining incredibly slow feet with a weak arm and a general awkwardness. Having to play on the artificial turf of the old Veterans Stadium only underscored Luzinski’s lack of speed and coordination. It remains a mystery why the Phillies ever moved him from his original position at first base.

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The Sox come into the weekend series on the upswing, having just swept four from the Angels. But, as Tyler Kepner notes, so far in 2010, it’s not the same old Red Sox:

“You have to have enough time to get into the season, usually a couple of months, before you can draw any conclusions,” General Manager Theo Epstein said. “I don’t think anyone here was drawing any conclusions; we were just acknowledging that we weren’t playing sound baseball. We were beating ourselves. We were making a handful of mistakes a game, basically not doing the little things the right way that collectively put us in a tough position to win ballgames.”

The Red Sox focused last winter on preventing runs, tightening their defense at several positions and spending $82.5 million on a five-year contract for starter John Lackey. But results have been hard to quantify.

Through Wednesday, Boston’s 4.63 earned run average was about a half-run higher than the A.L. average, and their fielders had committed 20 errors, the most in their division. Statistically, errors can be misleading; range is more important. But the first inning Thursday showed why the Red Sox tried to emphasize defense in the first place.

Oh, yeah, and then there’s this: the Rays, who were 32-49 on the road last year, as 12-1 away from home to start the season.

From A.O. Scott’s review of Iron Man 2:

“Iron Man 2,” the first superhero sequel of the summer, fulfills the basic requirements of the genre, which can be summed up as more of the same, with emphasis on more. Having introduced its physically and intellectually gifted, emotionally tormented protagonist in both his regular and alter egos, a comic book franchise will typically set out, in the second installment, in search of new villains, bigger suits, brighter gadgets and tendrils of plot that can blossom in subsequent sequels.

But sometimes — for instance in the recent Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman cycles — the second time is a charm, as filmmakers and actors use the reasonable certainty of financial success to take chances and explore odd corners of their archetypal, juvenile stories. “Iron Man 2,” directed by Jon Favreau from a screenplay by Justin Theroux, doesn’t achieve the emotional complexity of “Spider-Man 2” or the operatic grandeur of “The Dark Knight,” but it does try something a little bit new and perhaps, given the solemnity that has overtaken so much comic-book-based filmed entertainment, a little bit risky. It’s funny.

Not funny. Anything but that. Nooooooooooooo.

I’m sitting on the train this morning, listening to my iPod, bopping my head, when I notice a six or seven-year old boy standing in the middle of the car. I recognize him, he’s a regular. He’s wearing a red shirt, shorts, standing next to a pole, leaning back and catching the pole just as it looks like he’s going to fall. Just entertaining himself, not showing off.

We make eye-contact and he half-waves to me with his right hand. I see that he recognizes me too and I try to remember if we’ve ever had any exchange other than a head-nod. I can’t remember but I tilt my head up and give him the Dude’s “what’s up” and then I look away. But when I look back I see the smile on his face. Couple of stops later we do it again. This time he’s more sure of his wave. Big eyes, nice smile.

Feels good to make a kid feel cool. Go figure that, old man.

[Photo Credit: BBC]

Costas and Smoltz are calling the Red Sox-Angels game. Angels got four in the first, Kazmir’s given half of it back.

It’s much cooler in the Bronx tonight. Ideal, really. Only a handful of nights this lovely every year in the city.

The picture was taken by Bags.

Early Sunday Morning, By Edward Hopper (1930)

There is a big Hopper exhibition in Rome right now. Last weekend, there was an interesting piece in the Times by Michael Kimmelman about the the show:

I quizzed some Italians and also a few New Yorkers at the exhibition, and it wasn’t that the Italians didn’t “get” Hopper, or didn’t like him. He’s world famous by now, beloved, and the Italians easily brought up the links to film noir and Antonioni. But New Yorkers, naturally, spoke quite differently about him.

…It’s about projection, in other words, which all good art provokes, whether by Sargent, Zille, Moore or Hopper, whose laconic and merciless drawings can, seen by a New Yorker passing through Rome, have a kind of Proustian eloquence. I stared at the ones he did of summer in the city and the sun splashing across Lower Manhattan before carrying my tracings of two of them to a favorite Sicilian bakery a few blocks away from the Piazza Colonna. It was unconscious, deciding to go there, but I realized it was because the cannoli reminded me of ones I fetched as a boy from a cafe on MacDougal Street, where the owner used to pack them in little white cardboard boxes tied with striped red string. I carried the pastries home to my family, past the Hopper-like brownstones, through the concrete park that faced our house, and across Sixth Avenue to our apartment, under what in my memory was forever a dusky Hopper sky.

Since the Yanks are headed up to Boston for the weekend and all…

Tasty new spot on the Upper West Side. Corner of 81 and Amsterdam Ave. Twenty-five years ago there was an ice cream shop called American Pie in the same space. Used to serve pies from Umanoff and Parson–the strawberry rhubarb was slammin. The place didn’t last long but my brother, sister and I spent many hours there with our old man, who worked down the block in a hardware store.

The neighbhorhood is much different now, but the Tangeled Vine is worth the trip, especially the Pork Montaditos (Berkshire pork belly sliders, pickled radish,garlic dijonaise) and the Grilled Hanger Steak (duck fat smashed potatoes, watercress, red wine escargot butter).

I also loved the Charcuterie but I’m a sucker for that stuff on any day.

Dig this column the late Ron Fimrite once wrote about his old man for Sports Illustrated. A friend e-mailed me about it, said he was 14 when he read it and it made such an impression he tore it out of the magazine and kept it in his wallet:

Then, inevitably, we drifted apart. No, that’s not it; our split was a lot more like atomic fission. The shrinks say this is perfectly normal, that the son must metaphorically slay the father in order to live his own life. But as close as we had been, our breakup was pretty painful for both of us. Suddenly, Trux and I couldn’t agree on anything. His politics seemed to me to have moved overnight from New Deal liberalism to somewhere to the right of Calvin Coolidge. The very man who had put food in my mouth during the Great Depression now looked to me like some sort of Babbitt. For his part, I was headed straight for hell in a handbasket. I didn’t know the meaning of a dollar, and I insisted upon living in San Francisco, a city that, he felt, made Sodom and Gomorrah look like Peoria and Waukegan. The bay that separates Oakland and San Francisco might as well have been an ocean. We had even lost our shared interest in sports. He was an Athletics fan; I was for the Giants. He loved Al Davis’s Oakland Raiders; I was a 49ers man. We didn’t like the same movies. He wouldn’t read the books I sent him, most of which cruelly portrayed the American businessman as either misguided or pathetic. I turned down his suggestions that I “grow up” and buy a house in the suburbs. It was not a good time for Trux and me.

Hilarious profile of Buzz Bissinger by Sandy Hingston at Philadelphia Magazine. I knew the guy had the red ass but dag, he comes across like the lead in an Oliver Stone movie:

The funny thing is, Buzz’s Inquirer writing verges on the sort of Internet screed he says he despises. He utilizes a blogger’s ramped-up emotional outrage. And while the columns draw on his reservoir of knowledge of the city, they don’t break new ground. “That’s become the norm in the blogosphere and increasingly in print — strong opinion without a lot of new reporting,” Stalberg says. All that sound and fury runs the risk of signifying nothing. Buzz has gone after his old hero Rendell harder than he has anyone, but when Cohen’s asked what Ed thinks of Buzz’s handiwork, “I don’t think I’ve ever discussed the column with the Governor,” he says.

Still, Buzz is proud to be bucking the trend. “Steve Lopez told me, ‘You’re the only person in America who’s gone back into newspapers,’” he says, like it’s a badge of honor. He views his column as a reaffirmation of the power of the press, and to those of a certain age, it is. “Your average newspaper columnist still has considerable influence today,” Stalberg says, “because it’s print, and it stays there.” Well, no. Print gets recycled. Words only live on forever on Buzz’s bête-noire Internet. (“By the way,” Stalberg says, “is he still wearing those leather pants?”)

Speaking of Lopez, when you repeat Buzz’s “eradicate the memory” quote to him, he retorts: “He’s going to eradicate my memory? How, with eight columns a year? Tell the little sissy to write three a week and get back to me.” Then adds, “I love the bastard like a brother.” Buzz has devoted friends, and they cut him the slack they feel he deserves. “Nobody I know is more miserable in success,” Lopez says of his old buddy. Asked if writing his column makes Buzz happy, Ceisler says, “Buzz is not the type of person who strives for happiness.”

I don’t know if there is anything particularly noble about Bissinger returning to the newspaper business. He’s one of the few writers who can afford to make that move. Still, he might have the right amount of ego and outrage to blow up the spot.

Nick Johnson is still coming to bat to the Miley Cyrus earworm “Party in the USA” (a song so insidious that even our own Cliff Corcoran, normally a pillar of taste and decency, could not stop humming it at Monday night’s Yankees game, until I threatened to stab him with a pencil). But I will not make fun of Johnson for that today, because he got on base all five times he came to bat, with a home run, a double, and three walks. The Yankees ended up needing every run they could scrape together, as seven innings of fairly stress-free cruising turned into a nail-biter thanks to Andy Pettitte’s early exit (with elbow stiffness) and the twitchiness of the Mariano- and Joba-less bullpen; New York held on by their fingernails for a 7-5 win and a sweep of the Orioles.

The Yanks are increasingly banged up, and today it was Battlecat Pettitte’s turn to leave the game early with stiffness. This came shortly after the fourth inning, in which he loaded the bases with one out, got Matt Wieters to strike out, walked in a run, and then wriggled out of further trouble with a Craig Tatum groundout – the quintessential bend-don’t-break Pettitte of recent years. Early reports are that his subsequent MRI indicated mild inflammation, which doesn’t sound too bad… but then, who knows – multiple members of the 2009 Mets left games with a mild inflammation and were never seen again.

The New York hitters never exactly bludgeoned O’s starter David Hernandez, but they knocked him around for a few innings, much like my friend’s cat behaves when it has a spider cornered. He wasn’t helped by a number of sloppy plays and lackadaisical baserunning on the part of his teammates, and neither, I’d wager, was Dave Trembley’s blood pressure. Nick Johnson hit a booming home run in the first; Nick Swisher homered in the second; Alex Rodriguez singled Jeter home in the third. In the fourth the Yankees put together a messy rally through walks, singles, a bunt and a fielder’s choice, knocking Hernandez out of the game and putting the score at a then-comfortable 6-1.

Sergio Mitre kept things under control for several innings after Andy Pettitte’s departure – and maybe earned himself a spot start if Pettitte needs to miss a game – before giving up a two-run homer to Ty Wigginton (ASIDE: I only just realized I have been incorrectly writing “Wiggington” for many, many years). Damaso Marte got New York out of the eighth, but Joe Girardi’s Reliever Roulette luck ran out in the ninth: Dave Robertson was awful, giving up two homers and swelling his ERA to 14.21, and Boone Logan could not staunch the bleeding, getting one out but walking two Orioles, and leaving the game with the go-ahead run at the plate. Finally, Alfredo Aceves came to the rescue and induced a fly ball from Wigginton. No harm, no foul, but nothing shakes up a baseball fan’s soul like a terrifyingly unpredictable bullpen — and for Yankees fans, pretty much any bullpen that does not have Mariano Rivera available qualifies as terrifyingly unpredictable.

***

Meanwhile, it seems Dallas Braden has still not recovered from the emotional scars he received when his pitching mound was stepped on several weeks ago. He also actually said the words “We don’t do a lot of talking in the 209,” with “the 209” apparently referring to Stockton, California. This is now officially the most inane, ridiculous baseball story we’ve had in quite some time, and I have to say I’m enjoying it immensely.

It’s hookey-gorgeous in the Bronx this afternoon as the Yanks look to sweep the Orioles. Been a good series so far. Andy Pettitte is on the hill for the Bombers.

Go git ’em boys.

[Photo Credit: Lassie, Get Help]

Good long piece by Hillel Italie in the Huffington Post on Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and cooperative biogrpahies:

“Before I got to Aaron, the best advice I got was from David Halberstam, who wrote a book on Michael Jordan without getting Jordan and a book about Bill Clinton without getting Clinton,” [Howard] Bryant said of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist.

“He said to me, `The strategy was very simple – for every day they didn’t talk to me, make three phone calls to other people.’ You have to work around obstacles. It was the best piece of advice anyone’s given me.”

After Bonds overtook Aaron, in 2007, Aaron opened up to Bryant.

“When Henry and I finally spoke, he was tremendous, he was unbelievably gracious,” Bryant said. “He was even somewhat embarrassed someone was taking an interest. He didn’t ask for any money. He didn’t ask for any review copy of the book. He could have made the one phone call that every author dreads – which is to call all of his people and say, `Hey, this guy is writing a book about me. Don’t talk to him.'”

Earlier this week, Allen Barra gave his take on Bryant’s book:

Just when it seemed as if all the great baseball subjects had been done, Howard Bryant checks in with this biography of Henry Aaron, which, amazingly, Mr. Aaron had to wait 34 years to get.

Mr. Bryant, author of “Shutout,” the definitive study of race in baseball, and “Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball,” is a great writer for a great subject. Mr. Aaron’s story is the epic baseball tale of the second half of the 20th century, in many ways the equal to Jackie Robinson’s.

And in the Village Voice, Barra praises Bryant’s frank handling of the relationship between Aaron and Mays:

Bryant argues that “so much of the relationship between Mays and Aaron was perceived, often rightly, as tense if not acrimonious, stemmed from their personalities — the self-centered Mays and the diplomatic Aaron.”

There’s no doubt, says Bryant, that “Mays exemplified the rare combination of physical, athletic genius, and a showman’s gift for timing. What went less reported and, as the years passed, became an uncomfortable, common lament was just how cruel and self-absorbed Mays could be.”

…Bryant cites a first-hand account from 1957, a United Press/Movietone News reporter named Reese Schoenfeld, that Mays ragged on Aaron from the sidelines while Henry was being interviewed in front of a TV camera: “How much they paying you, Hank? They ain’t payin’ you at all, Hank? Don’t you know we all get paid for this? You ruin it for the rest of us, Hank! You just fall off the turnip truck?”

While Aaron became more and more agitated, Mays laid it on thick: “You showin’ ’em how you swing? We get paid three to four hundred dollars for this. You one dumb nigger!”

According to Bryant, “Henry’s reaction for the next fifty years — to diffuse, while not forgetting, the original offense — would be consistent with the shrewd but stern way Henry Aaron dealt with uncomfortable issues. The world did not need to know Henry’s feelings towards Mays, but Henry was not fooled by his adversary. Mays committed one of the great offenses against a person as proud as Henry: he insulted him, embarrassed him in front of other people, and did not treat him with respect.”

Say Hey: fight, fight!

One last thing about the Aaron book that’s interesting to me is that it was written by a black man. So many sports biographies of black and Latin players, from David Maraniss and Larry Tye, to James Hirsch and Brad Snyder, are written by white guys. That’s not a knock just a fact. And it’s not to say that race is enough to judge the merit of the final product. Reporting and writing is what makes a great book no matter if the author is white or black, man or woman. Bryant wasn’t magically granted access to Aaron’s inner circle because he’s black, he did so because he’s an ace reporter who has paid his dues.

Still, I can’t help but wonder what kind of sensitivity and empathy he brings to the subject that a white writer might not. For instance, when I was writing about Curt Flood, I had to imagine what it was like to be a black kid playing ball in the deep south in the mid-1950s. I was earnest, no doubt, but it was largely an intellectual excercise, one where, through reporting and research, I attempted to intuite something beyond my experience. That’s a distance Bryant doesn’t have to cover. It doesn’t necessarily mean his writing will be better, but it’s sure to be palpably different.

Moreover, I think great biographies often tell the story of the subject and in some way, even if it is largely subconscious, the story of the author as well. My Flood book was no great biography, it was a first book, but when I look back on it, I see that I was drawn to it for several personal reasons too. The first was to learn more about Flood (and to learn how to write a book) and share his story with a YA audience.  But I think my attraction to him had everything to do with my relationship with my father. Flood was talented and troubled, alcoholic. My need to find out more about him, to appreciate his accomplishments, and forgive his failings, was directly related to how I felt about my Old Man.

[The Tortoise and the Hare picture by Esoule]