In the early Sixties, Newsday’s sports section was arguably the best in New York. This was when Jack Mann was the editor and George Vecsey, Steve Jacobson, and Bob Waters were some of his star writers. Stan Isaacs was there too. The next wave of talent included Joe Gergen and Joe Donnelly. Tony Kornheiser started there, and the great Bill Nack joined the sports department from the city desk. Later still, Tom Verducci came out of the Newsday sports department.

There is a new tradition at Newsday, which is only available on-line via subscription, as James Dolan puts his stamp on how things are run.

Dig this piece of investigative reporting from The New York Observer:

Newsday has a new policy for its sports page. The paper’s editors have told their writers there has to be a new, softer tone. They don’t want loaded words. They don’t want name-calling. They don’t want stories to be unnecessarily harsh.

In interviews with several staffers at the newspaper, the policy was explained to Newsday’s sports reporters and columnists around the beginning of the year. Here are the early results: Stories have been killed because they didn’t adhere to the new policy. One columnist left the paper in response. Reporters, both within the sports department and in the Newsday newsroom, are suspicious of the motives behind it. Depending on whom you talk to, the edict has either created a more informed and balanced paper, or it has left the faint air of censorship hanging inside the paper’s Melville headquarters. “Anyone reading our sports coverage this year will see that it has been tough and fair, thorough and award-winning,” emailed Newsday editor Debby Krenek in a written statement sent by a spokeswoman.

“It’s rank censorship,” said a current Newsday sports reporter. “You can’t tell journalists that there are things to avoid and call it anything but censorship.”

Jack Mann is rolling over in his grave.

I remember watching Phil Hughes’ great, painfully cut-short start against Texas three years ago*, and thinking it was the most depressing 10-1 Yankees win I’d ever seen. Last night’s game was not nearly such a bummer: Hughes pitched the best game of his career, took his no-hitter into the eighth and was finally derailed by a comebacker bouncing off his glove, not by a key muscle making an unhappy popping noise. The Yankees won 3-1, and the Phenom/Phranchise nicknames would seem to be back in business.

Hughes walked Daric Barton on four pitches in the first inning, but put away the next 20 A’s he faced, 10 by strikeout, a career high. He got himself all the way into the eight inning with no hits and barely any drama – none of those dazzling close plays that Sabathia got in his no-hit innings of a few weeks ago. Everything was moving in exactly the way you’d want it to move, and while I don’t think his fastball topped 92 or 93 mph, that’s evidently plenty fast enough.

The Yankees scraped a pair of runs together in the fourth, when Alex Rodriguez tripled, and made it look like such a good idea that Robinson Cano decided to do the same immediately afterwards, later scoring on Posada’s groundout. Meanwhile, Hughes was being ostentatiously ignored in the dugout until the eighth, where with his pitch count still quite low and mostly made of strikes, he promptly allowed a hit to Eric Chavez. Well, kind of – the ball hit off Hughes’ arm and glove, and while he wasn’t hurt (PHEW… hey, can that be Hughes’ new nickname?), he also couldn’t find the ball for a few very long seconds. He regained his composure but as he reached 100 pitches with several runners on base, Girardi brought in Joba Chamberlain; one run scored before the Yanks could turn the game over to Mariano, who made things slightly more interesting that was strictly necessary in the ninth but, as usual, remained in control.

Pre-Mo, the Yankees got an ultimately unneeded but reassuring insurance run when Brett Gardner dunked a single into left to score Curtis Granderson (who, in case you were wondering, has been adjusting just fine to NYC off the field, too). Ken Singleton had just been saying, as Gardner faced a 3-1 count, “one more ball out of the zone and Jeter will come to the plate,” and I was thinking, hey, there is a chance Gardner will actually get a hit, you know. (I watched the Mets-Cubs game earlier in the evening and let me tell you, there is nothing like it to make you appreciate the Yankees’ lineup. The Cubs happened to win tonight with plenty of offense, but then they were facing Oliver Perez, and Lou Piniella still spent most of the game looking like he was watching someone strangle a koala… or, perhaps, like he would like to strangle a koala himself).

Anyway, as much as we all wanted to see a little history, it seems ridiculous to call this game disappointing. Hughes’ no-hitter interruptus didn’t bother me much, because it was just beautiful to see him pitch so well… and then to be available again in five days.

Now excuse while I go knock on all the wood within a mile radius.

—

*Holy crap, was that really three years ago?

Standing Couple, By David Park (1958)

Rhubarb-Strawberry Jam via Saveur.

Yes, please.

Some disturbing news via Glenn Stout’s blog, Verbal Plow:

Red Sox history is being sent in exile. The city wants to close the Microtext Department at the BPL which cares for, services and houses newspapers and other collections on microfilm, the department that literally provides access to the history of not only the Red Sox, but the Bruins, the Patriots, the Boston Marathon, the Boston Garden, Fenway Park, the old Boston Arena, the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Harvard Stadium, Boston College,…you get the idea. The city wants to close the department, move some of the film to West Roxbury, disperse the rest to other BPL departments, can the staff, squander decades of institutional knowledge, and use the space they recently spent gazillions renovating for the department, for, oh, I don’t know, weddings or cocktail parties. Once they do that the ability to do the kind of research it takes to write a serious book about Red Sox history becomes almost impossible – having the resources you need in one place, at one time, is invaluable and irreplaceable.

I know this not just from my own experience, but because when I was at the BPL I helped local sports writers like Steve Buckley and national guys like Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford use these resources. I remember one guy in particular I helped – named Halberstam. Won a Pulitzer Prize that helped stop the Vietnam War and wrote a really great book about the Red Sox–Summer of ’49. Ever heard of him?

He could not have written that book without the BPL, and neither could Dan Shaughnessy have written The Curse of the Bambino, Howard Bryant Shut Out, Richard Johnson and I Red Sox Century, Ed Linn Hitter, Leigh Montville The Big Bam or any other author, like Buckley or Bill Nowlin or Bill Reynolds, who have written anything worthwhile about Red Sox history. None of these books – none – could have been done without the newspapers on microfilm at the Boston Public Library. Fenway 1912, which I just finished and comes out next year, would have been impossible.

And here’s the really, really awful part. This is supposed to save the city money. But this department, like much the Library, actually earns back every dime a hundred times over. I am just one of thousands of writers who use or have used the Library, who make special trips to Boston just to use the library and end up spending money on a lot of other things, or have lived in Boston, in part, because the Library was one of the places that make Boston a place worth living. Every book written by any writer on any subject who has used the Library – we’re talking thousands of books that have sold millions and millions of copies, here – pours money right back into city coffers every day of every week.

But if they get rid of the Microtext department and exile and disperse Red Sox history, this won’t happen. All those books still waiting to be written about the Red Sox just won’t get written. The neighborhood of baseball – and the City of Boston – will be poorer for it.

To complain, email, write or call Amy Ryan, President of the Boston Public Library aeryan@bpl.org, or Jamie McGlone, Clerk to the Board of Trustees jmcglone@bpl.org, 700 Boylston St., Boston MA 02116 617-536-5400, Mayor Thomas Menino,mayor@cityofboston.gov, 1 City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201-2013 , 617.635.4500, or attend the BPL’s Annual Meeting on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, 8:30am, at the Copley Square Library.

Our man Chyll Will wrote an excellent appreciation of Guru over at Serious Consideration:

And here’s one of my favorites, in less than two-and-a-half-minutes to boot:

Dig this NPR interview with Reggie Jackson and Bob Gibson.

It’s not exactly Christmas morning as a kid, starting the day by finding out your team won while you were sleeping is a small, rewarding pleasure. Especially when one one of your favorite players had a great night. Alex Rodriguez’s three-run home run in the fifth gave the Yanks a 6-0 lead, and although Javy Vazquez wasn’t great, the bullpen was as the Yanks cruised, 7-3 over the A’s.

Here are more details on the game from Jonathan Abrams in the Times; Mark Feinsand in the News; George King in the Post; Mike Axisa at River Ave Blues; and Jay at Fack Youk.

[Photo Credit: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images]

Woman with Dark Blue Sky, By Elmer Bischoff (1959)

Salute.

(more…)

Okay, got a mouth-watering food blog for you guys to check out: Last Night’s Dinner.

This girl’s got it going on.

Peace to Dimelo for hipping me to this: Say word.

In the spirit of spring and Mother’s Day–which is just around the corner–the wife is having a sale (15% off ) on her photography note cards now through 5/9/10.

She’s added a number of new sets including orchids and cherry blossoms.

(more…)

Number, numbers, and more numbers.

In New York Magazine, Will Leitch examines fielding metrics; in the Boston Globe, Charles Pierce tells your statistics to shut up.

Horrible news from the world of Hip Hop. Guru passed away yesterday at 43. Cancer. This one hits close to home:

In the Boston Globe, Nick Cafardo writes about a disappointing start for the Red Sox:

“Of course I’m concerned,’’ wrote Sox owner John Henry in an e-mail. “We can’t dig ourselves too deep a hole. The Yankees and Tampa Bay are so strong.’’

…There are no such things as major shakeups in baseball because there are guaranteed contracts and it’s hard to sit a player making $12 million. Injuries certainly take their toll on any team, and the Sox have been without their leadoff hitter/igniter Jacoby Ellsbury. The Sox are 1-6 since Ellsbury exited the lineup after a collision with teammate Adrian Beltre last Sunday in Kansas City. They lost two out of three to the Twins, then were swept in four games by the Rays.

Henry wouldn’t comment on whether he believes there needs to be a shake-up, indicating that was more general manager Theo Epstein’s responsibility.

One of my favorite places at the Met:

The Mets called up Ike Davis this afternoon. This may be the first time a New York baseball player has shared the same name with a Woody Allen character.

Rounding out the starting nine of the A.S. Konigsberg All Stars: 

c:  Boris Grushenko

2b:  Virgil Starkwell

ss:  Allan Felix

3b: Sandy Bates

lf : Alvy Singer

cf: Miles Monroe

rf: Mickey Sachs

bench: Leonard Zelig

p:  Fielding Mellish

rp: Howard Prince

manager: Broadway Danny Rose

A real head-nodder…

I had dinner with a friend last week and asked him, “What’s your favorite vegetable?

“Asparagus,” he said without flinching.

“Really? You don’t mind that it makes your pee smell funny?”

“No, I love that, man.”

Go figure.

For the longest, I didn’t dare try asparagus and funny-smelling pee was the least of it. But I’ve learned to like asparagus in spite of that peculiar side effect. So I was eager to try a slow-cooking method that I saw in the Times last week.

I made it last night and it was tasty. Props to Melissa Clark for the article.

[Photo credit: Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times]