Through three innings, David Price was so dominant that it looked to me like he was a real threat for a no-hitter. He painted the corners with 97 mph fastballs and induced swings so late that you could hear the thud of the catcher’s mitt before you saw the barrel of the bat cross the plate.

(AP PHOTO/MIKE CARLSON)

He eventually lost a few mph on the heater as the game progressed. Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher got good wood on a couple of fastballs over the middle of the plate in the third and staked the Yankees a very, very brief 2-0 lead. Price quickly regrouped. He mixed in some of his other pitches and cruised into the eighth before losing the script. The Rays bullpen got the production back on track for an easy 9-3 victory.

For the first three innings, Javier Vazquez kept up his end of a potential pitching duel. He complimented an ordinary, but well-placed 89 mph fastball with impressive breaking balls and a really good looking change-up. While he clearly didn’t have the stuff of his counterpart, he looked like he would be effective for several innings. He wasn’t.

With a freshly minted lead, Vazquez walked Ben Zobrist on four pitches to lead off the bottom of the fourth. With one out and the count even at 1-1, Javy went to the gopher ball, 89 mph, perfectly located up and out over the plate… for Carlos Pena to poop on. Vazquez didn’t have much else to offer that inning, and with Marcus Thames playing left field like he was handling nuclear waste, the Rays made Javy’s assortment of previously impressive pitches look like just so much slop. Hit after hit after hit made it 5-2.

Javy’s night wasn’t done there. Somehow he was still in there in the sixth to ensure Willy Aybar’s first start of the 2010 season be a memorable one. All in all Vazquez allowed eight earned runs in five and 2/3 innings. He allowed 11 baserunners in the process of recording 17 outs. It was worse than any start in the entire 2009 season with the Braves.

When Vazquez came aboard in the winter, I anticipated a divide within the fan base. Those who put great value in advanced metrics loved the move and harbored little to no grudge for 2004. Others would just not accept the guy who etched in stone the most embarrassing choke in team sport history. I tried to come down with the smarties, but tonight, as Vazquez evaporated in the 4th, I just found myself unable to do it. I really expect nothing from this guy this year.

Anyway, as much fun as it would be to pile on Javy’s dud, the real story was Price. Cliff was all over it in the pre-game post; Wright is the key to the Rays’ season. He looks like he is ready to take a huge step forward this year. He may have dropped some weight – it was especially evident in his face. His large, sad eyes, peer out from sunken sockets under the shadow of the bill of his cap. His milk saucer ears, and long, gaunt, face with big rubber-ish features reminded me of Brad Daugherty from his UNC days.

He had his best stuff for three innings, and his b-grade issue was excellent until the eighth. He looks to be a scary opponent for a long time.

Zorah on the Terrace, By Henri Matisse (1912)

Since we’s in Morocco and all…

Amanda Hesser explores some recipes for a spicy organge salad, Moroccan style. Mmmm.

Malcolm McLaren, most famous for bringing us the Sex Pistols, died yesterday. He was 64.

McLaren also was the brains behind a seminial Hip Hop record in the early ’80s.

Dig the classic, Buffalo Gals:

Tonight brings the return of Javy Vazquez. Tyler Kepner has a feature on the Yankee pitcher today in the Times. I always liked rooting for Vazquez and don’t see why that should stop anytime soon.

Meanwhile, in case you hadn’t heard, umpire Joe West took some pointed shots at the Yankees and Red Sox and the operatic length of their games. Joe Girardi and Brian “Forensic Science” Cashman were mum on the topic, but Mariano Rivera was not:

“It’s incredible,” Rivera told The Post. “If he has places to go, let him do something else. What does he want us to do, swing at balls?”

…”He has a job to do. He should do his job,” Rivera said. “We don’t want to play four-hour games, but that’s what it takes. We respect and love the fans and do what we have to do, and that’s play our game.”

Three Musicians, By Pablo Picasso (1921)

The Yanks have the night off. But feel free to chat about art, baseball or the weather. Whatever’s clever, y’all.

No game today so no battle rhymes. How about happy times, like this classic remix by Pete Rock from the days when everything Pete touched turned to butta:

These are words that occur to me while watching Brett Gardner swing the bat: flick, flip, flail, fling, wisp,  slice,  slash,  stab,  slap, poke, yank, jerk, and (perhaps a case of wishful thinking) drag and bunt. Doesn’t this unique hack deserve a nickname?

I have a batting tee set up in the living room for my two young sons (one and two-and-a-half) and occasionally they paddle over and take a swipe at the ball without provocation and sans instruction. The bat we’ve got is a little too hefty for the one year old to manage on his own, so he turns it around, holds the barrel, and addresses the ball with the handle. He doesn’t blast the ball off the windows, but he makes contact. 

Brett Gardner has never gone up holding the wrong end of the bat (though in his debut season, he had considerable difficulty holding onto the right end – I personally saw him chuck the bat on a swing and miss three times in two games), but he has taken a similar approach to hitting. He has developed a convoluted swing that allows him to make consistent contact against Major League quality pitching. This is no small feat, but the result is not pleasing to watch. In his brief time in the Majors, I have developed a strong negative opinion of him as a player because of this swing and the often meager results. I’ve never looked forward to watching his at bats.

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From the vaults, dig this classic 2006 Harper’s magazine article by Frederick Kaufman, Debbie Does Salad: The Food Network at the Frontiers of Pornography.

Couple of good pieces on the nature of fame this week in Sports Illustrated. First, from Charles Pierce’s profile of Phoniex Suns point guard, Steve Nash (and what a pleasure it is to see Pierce back in the pages of SI):

His globalized upbringing and the cosmopolitan view of the world that it developed in him have given Nash a firm sense of who he is and, with it, the freedom to explore all the aspects of who he is. It armored him against the way that celebrity can be isolating. It gave him ways out of the bubble. He was a globalized man before the NBA became a globalized product, and that has made all the difference. It made him free to run around in his bachelor days with Dirk Nowitzki, when they were both young and Mavs together, just as he is free today to bring his family to New York City for the summer, and to play in his soccer games and drink beer with his teammates afterward. It has enabled him to avoid being “authentic” by remaining genuine.

“Sometimes,” he says, “it takes a lot of dusting off to say, ‘Where am I? What am I doing?’ because it’s such an all-encompassing pursuit. It’s such a marathon, whether it’s a season or a career, that you can easily lose track of what’s taking place. A little bit of you, I think, disappears every day. You’re city to city, and you’re in such a routine and it takes so much to get through it that you just kind of get numb to it and, in the process, you lose a certain amount of consciousness of what you’re actually experiencing, every day. You don’t see anything anymore.”

Also, be sure and check out S.L. Price’s excellent profile of Tiger Woods:

“One thing Tiger’s not is vulnerable,” says John Daly. “It could be worse for us, I think. I think he’s going to come out and just kick everybody’s ass.”

Woods knows that only winning can begin to dilute the sewage surrounding his name. Playing, though, will be the easy part. Tiger has never shown much ability to laugh at himself, and he is now a global joke. It’s unclear how, aura dissolved, he’ll react to the thousands of faces staring, to the once-ignored crowd that now knows him, in a twisted way, better than his wife ever did.

After 15 years in the cultural firmament Woods has become three-dimensional at last: The crash and the stint in therapy, his February statement of remorse and his self-immolating critiques revealed a champion at war with himself. To have him detonate the biggest public-relations bomb in the history of sports feels almost tragic, until you recall that his marriage and career still draw breath. Nothing died but an image.

The Masters starts today.

There are few filmmakers that have enjoyed the kind of run that Preston Sturges had during World War II when he made seven stellar movies in four years, including The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Mogran’s Creek, and Sullivan’s Travels. He was never the same after that, and maybe it’s greedy of us to expect much more from one man. In the current issue of Vanity Fair, Douglas McGrath examines Sturges’ brilliant streak:

Whatever combination of alchemy, talent, and luck had existed to make those years so fruitful, the next 16 would be a series of humiliating setbacks. His public fell off and the critics found valleys where once they’d seen only peaks. His confidence was shaken. And a style like his cannot survive self-doubt: the success of the work is tied to his ability to sustain a tone, so much trickier than merely sustaining a plot.

And sustaining a tone was difficult for him even at the top of his game. It must be said that even the seven wonders of the Sturges canon have their problems, and the problems can always be traced to an instability of tone. Not one of these movies is a perfect picture, the way The Shop Around the Corner is perfect, or The Wizard of Oz or Zelig or The Godfather is perfect. Each of those films clears its throat and sings its song, and there is never a moment when you tilt your head and wonder, What was that?

But there is always that moment in a Sturges movie. It comes when the champagne of his dialogue is flattened by the pneumonia of his slapstick.

Sometimes his slapstick doesn’t work because of poor execution or a lack of convincing motivation (Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake and then the butlers falling into the pool in Sullivan’s Travels). Sometimes the heavy-handed way he frames and shoots these sequences, often at odds with his otherwise flowing and graceful photography, kills the fun. Other times, our laughter dies from a sense that the slapstick isn’t true: there are times when someone falls too fast, as if the film is sped up (Henry Fonda going over the couch in The Lady Eve). His slapstick lacks the loopy inevitability of Lucy’s getting drunk on Vitameatavegamin or the hypnotizingly hilarious boxing match in City Lights.

A fact worth repeating: he made seven films in four years. Perhaps the race to get them done explains the sometimes jarring tonal shifts. One wonders, had he spent a little more time on each film, if they might have achieved a more balanced and integrated tone. And yet, who knows if it wasn’t the speed with which the films were made that infused them with their appealing pep and lack of pretension? God knows, I’d rather see The Lady Eve twice than Vincente Minnelli’s labored The Pirate once.

Joel Sherman has a good column today about the development of Robinson Cano, who approached Alex Rodriguez for some advice after practice last month:

On a back diamond at George M. Steinbrenner Field, it was just Cano, A-Rod and batting practice pitcher Danillo Valiente. For 40 minutes, Rodriguez would create RBI scenarios such as second and third, one out. Cano would take 15 swings and then A-Rod would break down not just the mechanics, but — just as vital — the mindset.

Rodriguez felt–and Cano concurred–that the talented second baseman was too fixated on making contact, not impact. Stop feathering the ball to left-center, A-Rod lectured.

…”A-Rod kept telling me, ‘Stop trying to just put it in play,’ ” Cano said. “He saw that my swing got lazy in these situations. But it was more than the swing. He got me to realize I am going to come up three, four, five times a game with men on base, and have to be ready to do something.”

Maybe it’s just too early in the season to get too worked-up but aside from my visceral dislike of the usual suspects–Youk, Dusty, Beckett, and Paplebon–I’ve found the opening series against Boston, not dull, but tepid. The first two games were close, and long of course, but I wasn’t especially stirred. Tonight saw a nice pitcher’s duel between John Lackey and Andy Pettitte but the relative lack of melodrama was evident when Kevin Youkilis and then Derek Jeter were hit by pitches. First, Pettitte tapped Youkilis in the helmet with a pitch that wouldn’t even give the slugger a headache and then Lackey plunked Jeter in the side. As Jeter approached first base, Youkilis grinned and Jeter gave him a playful shove.

Yanks-Sox–free and easy, go figure that.

The game moved along briskly. The Sox scored a run in the third on an RBI single by David Ortiz (who otherwise had a rough night at the plate), and the Yankees–who repeatedly hit the ball hard all game long–tied the score in the seventh on an RBI base hit by Nick Swisher (and an adventurous bit of base running by Jorge Posada). Daniel Bard was impressive in the eighth inning for Boston, particularly the fastball-change-up-curveball strike out of Nick Johnson, and Chan Ho Park was even better over two scoreless innings for the visitors.

So I was mildly surprised to see Park back out there in the ninth after Paplebon retired the Yanks in order in the top of the inning. Adrian Beltre flew out to deep right, JD Drew followed with a clean single up the middle, Mike Cameron skied out to deep left (Brett Gardner caught the ball a few feet away from the Monster), and Marco Scutaro lined out to left. Sox hit the ball hard to no avail.

Welp, they made it through nine innings in less than three hours. Disoriented and confused, they just had to go to extras.

That set the stage for the new guy, Curtis Granderson, who led off the tenth with a long solo homer to right. Hot dog. Paplebon recorded an out but then walked Brett Gardner, who stole second after many throws to first, and walked Jeter too. That was it for him and Paplebon was replaced by Scott Atchison who walked Nick Johnson same as he did last night. Mark Teixeira followed with a soft ground ball to short, driving home an insurance run which was more than enough for Mariano Rivera who gave Yankee fans that peaceful easy feeling we know and love so well, setting down the Sox in order and giving the Yanks the series win.

Final score: Yanks 3, Sox 1.

And we is heppy kets.

[Photo courtesy of ESPN]

Andy Pettitte and John Lackey are guys you could easily call “Meat” or “Hoss.” The two big fellas square off tonight at Fenway Park in the final game of the opening series of the season between the Yanks and Sox. The Yankees’ bullpen botched the first game and an error by Marco Scutaro helped blow the second game for the Sox. Think we’ll see more of the pens tonight or will one of these starting pitchers put up a commanding performance?

It’s Big John Red Sox debut. I suppose we should gear-up for another long one.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Baseball illustration by E. W. Kemble

Okay, so while we’re talking battle rhymes why not take a moment to acknowledge perhaps the greatest battle MC of ’em all, KRS-ONE. Dig this freestyle from Tony Touch’s classic Power Cypha mix tape 50.

1-09 KRS-One

I rocked the 917 when it was 718…

The Library of America is set to release a nifty new edition of John Updike’s classic piece on Ted Williams’ final game. The book comes out at the end of the month and it is sure to be a great gift idea for any baseball fan, not just those who root for the Red Sox.

There’s a fun piece in the Times today about food bloggers who like to take pictures of what they eat:

Dig ‘um (smack).

[photo credit: Edith Zimmerman]

I met Pete Dexter last fall when he was in New York promoting his seventh novel, Spooner. Dexter was a wonderful newspaper columnist and is now one of our greatest novelists. First thing I noticed about him was that he was wearing a pink Yankees cap. So when I had a chance to interview him the Yankees were the first thing we talked about.

Here is our chat, which covers a lot more than the Bombers.

Enjoy.

Bronx Banter: I had no idea you were a Yankees fan.

Pete Dexter: No, it’s true. I’m a big Yankee fan. It started out as a way to irritate Mrs. Dexter who is a Yankee fan from way back. And so when they’d win I’d get into it just because it irritated her so damn bad, but then I started to look at them and–

BB: When was this, during the ’90s?

PD: Yeah. So when I found out that it irritated Mrs. Dexter I did it more and more. There have been a lot of teams in my life that I’ve rooted against, but I have never rooted for a team in my life before I rooted for the Yankees, including teams I played on.

BB: And the Yankees of all teams.

PD: Yeah, strangely enough. I didn’t even like baseball until the mid-’90s. And I enjoy it more every year. We get all the games on the cable. It’s the only thing that’s worth all the money I spend on cable.

BB: So can you deal with Michael Kay?

PD: Is he the “See Ya” guy?

BB: Yup.

PD: He’s okay, it’s the other two guys from ESPN that drive me crazy.

BB: Joe Morgan and Jon Miller.

PD: Jesus, the go on for hours and hours. Morgan was one of the most exciting players I ever saw and just absolutely the most boring human being on the face of the earth.

BB: Just goes to show there’s no correlation.

PD: Yeah, none at all.

BB: So, did you want to be a writer when you were growing up?

PD: No, never. I took two writing classes at the University of South Dakota but it was just because I found out that I didn’t want to be a mathematician. I started looking through the student book there and saw Creative Writing and figured if I can’t bullshit my way through that then I don’t deserve to graduate, even from the University of South Dakota. But I never took it even semi-seriously. I mean I didn’t read anything until…it’s a true story than when I wrote Deadwood [Dexter’s second novel], my brother Tom called me up and said, “You’ve now written a book longer than any book you’ve ever read.” And that was absolutely true. I stumbled into a newspaper office in Fort Lauderdale. I was 26 or 27 years old and in those days you could actually stumble into a newspaper office and get hired as a reporter. But I don’t have to tell you what it’s like now.

BB: Did you take to reporting pretty quickly or was it just another job?

PD: I hated it. They had me doing–I thought it was a joke actually at first–they came over the first day and gave me a list of seven or eight things and said, “These are your beats.” And I thought it was some kind of initiation rite. You know, juvenile court, the hospital district, poverty programs and tomatoes. There was agricultural products—tomatoes was a separate category. But there were literally seven or eight of them, none of which interested me even remotely. Hell, they gave me a county health thing and there was a doctor who ran the county health department. He was a nice guy and I’d call him up every Sunday night when I came in and ask him if he could stretch something into an epidemic. And he’d say, “Well, we’ve got four cases of measles…you could call that an epidemic.” So every Monday I’d have a story in the paper about a new epidemic. The bigger paper down there was the Fort Lauderdale News. It got the big guy there fired because I kept coming up with new epidemics and he couldn’t come up with any.

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Joe D, By Jason Kasper