Yanks shootin’ for their eighth straight tonight against the A’s.

Get down with the Git down.

I’m getting more sensitive. Oh, I’m not as touchy as I used to be. I don’t take offense so easily, I don’t take things as personally as I once did. On the other hand, I can’t stomach violence. I don’t play Grand Theft Auto, or watch boxing, forget about UFC. I recoil when I see parents berate their kids in public.

Last month I was between 8th and 9th avenue when I looked up and saw a father walking down the block, his son, maybe 7 or 8, walking closley next to him. As I looked at them I heard the father say, “You are so f***-ing stupid, how can you be so goddman dumb?” It felt like a punch in the gut.

Last night, I read an article in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books about the Congo by the historian Adam Hochschild. I should have known that it would be a tough read but there was a story on the first page (fourth paragraph) of such unspeakable horror that I couldn’t finish the article. I skimmed the rest of it, not wanting to read anything so terrible again.

I was on the subway coming home. And I was rattled. I put the article down and tried to distract myself. I couldn’t. So I put on my headphones and scanned the i-pod for something soothing. Couldn’t find a thing. Then I happened on Some Girls, one of my favorite albums by the Rolling Stones. Listening to “Beast of Burden,” I was able to forget the savage imagery of the article for a few minutes.

I grew up on Some Girls–still one of my favorite Stones records–Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You. They may not be the Stones’ best work–Let it Bleed, Beggar’s Banquet, and Sticky Fingers are the Stones at their peak, though there have always been hardcore Stones fans who swear by Exile on Main Street (with Black and Blue as the sleeper pick of cherce)–but in some ways they are the ones that I hold most dear. The Stones were my first favorite band. As a kid, I thought Mick Jagger was a bad ass and a clown.

I remember a British friend of my mother’s laughing in those years when she heard “Emotional Rescue.”

“The Stones are making disco records now.”

Maybe the Stones were already a parody of themselves by the late Seventies, but they lived in New York City, and their records sounded good. Even if they were corny at times. “She’s so Cold,” that was my joint. I never especially loved “Beast of Burden,” but listening to it last night–and thinking about “Waiting on a Friend” at the same time–I felt reassured and calm.

Nice to know we’ve got distractions–a way to escape–from the incredible terrors, large and small, that exist in the world.

Aside from the obvious reasons, long rain delays bug me because they put too much pressure on the game when it finally comes. If it’s an ugly one it’s hard to not think, “I waited around that whole time for this?” For a few innings it looked like tonight was going to be One of Those Games, but instead it turned into a more or less textbook win: seven innings from CC Sabathia, a few big hits from Mark Teixeira and Jorge Posada, and a save(!) from Phil Hughes led to a 6-3 Yankees win.

Sabathia wasn’t looking sharp in the first few innings — after hours of Nintendo during the rain delay — and Oakland A’s starter Vin Mazzaro was, leading to a 3-zip Oakland lead. But Sabathia recovered after relatively little carnage, and once the Yankee hitters had gotten a decent look at Mazzaro, they started to do some damage.

In the fourth, Mark Teixeira took a rare swing on a 3-0 count and hit a no-nonsense home run into the second deck. A few batters later Posada doubled home Alex Rodriguez, who’s looking downright spry on the basepaths these days, and then scored himself on an Eric Hinske single. The next inning was a variation on the theme, as Teixeira got himself a double and another RBI, and Johnny Damon scored on a Posada single to make it 6-3.

Craig Breslow relieved Mazzaro and, with apologies to my fellow Yankee fans, I was very psyched to see him pitch 1.2 scoreless innings (he was a year ahead of me at college). I didn’t have to feel conflicted about rooting for him, either, as the Yankees already had all the runs they’d need: Sabathia had found his rhythm by then, and he turned the lead straight over to Phil Hughes, who continues to pitch first and ask questions later.

A couple of stray thoughts:

-Could Mark Teixeira’s transition to New York have gone any smoother? He did have an awful first month, but he got going before people really lost patience; even in New York there’s a bit of a grace period. Ever since then he’s been somewhere between solid and excellent, and wowed the Giambi-battered crowd with his defense. And there hasn’t been so much as a whiff of a mini-controversy, not even something small and silly that, taken out of context, makes for a good misleading headline. I complain about the guy being a dull interview, and he usually is – by design, I’m sure, like Jeter – but he’s really handled everything remarkably well. It already feels like he’s been here forever.

-Finally, I kind of love that Nomar Garciaparra got booed. Sure, it’s silly – he hasn’t played for the Sox in five years, and has been too injury-riddled for most of that time to make a big impact anyway. But this wasn’t vicious, angry booing, it was more ritualistic. Of course you boo Nomar Garciaparra. It’s tradition! Heck, his feelings would probably be hurt if no one bothered.

Because on any given day something great can happen.

Like this.

What does it all mean?

Fiorello LaGuardia reads Dick Tracy:

Many years later, Double D and Steinski sample LaGuardia on their Lesson records:

Then, Prince Paul nabbed the bit on the first De La Soul record (dig the weird video mix):

Mark Lamster, a longtime friend of Bronx Banter, has a long piece on the two new NYC ballparks over at Metropolis magazine:

For a certain kind of baseball enthusiast, the ultimate measure of these two parks rests on how they actually play. The new Yankee Stadium is a simulacra of the old, with dimensions that are roughly the same but different enough that it performs quite differently. (For the spectator, this lends it either an eerie cast or a pleasant familiarity.) In practice, shorter and closer outfield fences, a reduction of foul territory, and concourses open to the wind make Yankee Stadium one of the most hitter-friendly parks in baseball. Though the old yard always favored powerful lefties like Ruth, it now seems to favor anyone who shows up with a bat: its home-run rate is by far the highest in baseball. This has made it something of a laughingstock among seamheads, but what real detriment the hitter-friendly contours might pose, beyond making games longer, is a matter for debate. Some experts believe that hitters’ parks place undue stress on team pitching staffs, thereby reducing their chances at postseason success. Attendance, however, traditionally supports the validity of the league’s nineties-era marketing slogan: “Chicks dig the long ball.”

Regardless of gender, fans who want to see home runs would do well to avoid Citi Field, which seems as hostile to dingers as Yankee Stadium is friendly to them. Despite the Mets’ potent bats, their new home, with its prairie-scaled expanses, suppresses offense like no other in baseball. “The distances in the outfield and the power alleys, that’s where you can have some fun in establishing dimensions,” Barnert says. “You can create some unique areas where the ball can rattle around a bit.” It is that creativity, however, that many purists find aggravating. “It’s just so contrived,” says Jay Jaffe, a writer for Baseball Prospectus. “It drives me crazy.” The dimensions of the classic ballparks on which the Populous stadiums are modeled (such as Ebbets Field) were the product of their constrained urban lots. But Citi Field was built in the middle of a parking lot. And therein lies the strange paradox of the Populous stadiums: though they are painstakingly manufactured to appear idiosyncratic, the willfulness of their design is inescapable; and now that there are nearly 20 of them around the league, their heterogeneity has come to seem altogether homogenous.

When I first started attending games on my own, some 20 years ago, a ticket to the Yankee bleachers cost $1.50, pocket change even for a kid on a tight allowance. That same ticket now costs $14: not an unreasonable sum, but more than a movie and enough to keep a student on a limited budget from making it too much of a habit. The new stadium, for that matter, doesn’t beg that kind of relationship. It’s a special-occasion place, somewhere to visit a couple of times a season. Why empty your wallet for an entertainment event that might not be entertaining? (Even the best teams lose roughly 40 percent of their games.) When you’re stuck in the nosebleed seats, and a beer, a dog, and a bag of peanuts cost upward of 20 bucks, thoughts of exploitation inevitably percolate through the mind. It is in those moments that the fan-team compact seems hopelessly broken, and one begins to wonder about the difference between being a fan and being a chump. Sometimes it seems like there’s no difference at all.

Lamster’s second book, Master of Shadows, The Secret Diplomatic Career of the Painter Peter Paul Rubens is due out this fall. Dude, talk about well-rounded. Lamster is one of the best and brightest and I’m proud to call him a pal.

AJ Burnett likes to mash pies in his teammates’ grill. Let’s hope he gives them reason to return the favor this afternoon.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

I missed Sergio Mitre’s Yankee debut last night. By the time I got home, Alfredo Aceves was pitching. But Mitre kept his team in the game and left with the Yanks ahead 6-4. Aceves, Phil Coke, and Mariano Rivera did not allow a run and that was how the score stood as the Yanks moved into sole possession of first place (the Rangers beat the Red Sox 4-2 in Texas).

“We don’t get caught up in who’s in first place, who’s in second place,” Derek Jeter said. “Yeah, it’s great that nobody’s in front of us. But it doesn’t mean anything at this point.”
(Kepner, N.Y.Times)

The Bombers didn’t hit much but they took advantage of eight walks issued by Baltimore’s pitching staff. Alex Rodriguez had a productive night. In the second, he led off with a walk, stole second, advanced to third on a fly ball and then scored on a sac fly. The following inning, with two out, Rodriguez drove in two runs with a single, putting the Yanks ahead for good.

That’s five straight for the Bombers who play an afternoon game today. Looking at the standings, it sure seems as if we’re going to have some excitement on our hands this summer. The Rays, Sox, Yanks, Angels and Rangers are all having fine seasons–only three will make the playoffs. Ya gotta love it.

It’s better to be lucky than good. It’s an old saying. The first time I heard it was from Tommy Lasorda in 1988 when the Dodgers beat the heavily favored Mets and then the A’s to become World Champs.

I’ll go one further–it’s better to be lucky and good. The Yankees have won three straight games by the score of 2-1. Andy Pettitte, not wanting to be the odd man out, picked up where Joba Chamberlain and CC Sabathia left off, and threw a fine game last night.

Sure, there has been some luck–how did Jose Molina manage to keep that snow-coned ball in his mitt last night?–and if they’d been losing games 3-2 we’d be moaning about the lack of hitting. But they’ve been winning and so we are heppy kets for the moment.

Win it all, or else. That’s the philosophy in the Bronx. Championship or mud. Sometimes it is difficult to appreciate what you’ve got when you live by this motto. Sure, the World Serious is the thing. It has to be. But the Yankees give us more pleasure than disappointment, no matter how much more pleasure we demand from them. (At these prices, they had better win.)  

They are tied for first place now. There is still a long way to go.  We haven’t hit the dog days yet. The latest set-back for Chien-Ming Wang presents a problem. But they are playing well and right now, the breaks are going there way. Time to stop, take it in, and appreciate what we’ve got. There is no guarantee that it’s gunna last.

But after seeing Godzilla hit a game-winning homer last night I bet there are a lot of fans around the country cursing, Damn Yankees.

Maybe I should be wondering where the usually stellar Yankee offense has been the last few days, but I think instead I’ll just enjoy the relief that comes whenever the new Stadium hosts tight, low-scoring games. The Yankees beat the Orioles 2-1 tonight, thanks to an old-school performance from Andy Pettitte and some pretty defense and, okay, yes, two home runs to right.

It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write that Andy Pettitte pitched really well – not “didn’t have his best stuff but kept them in the game” or “made a few big mistakes but was able to limit the damage,” but was just plain good. He was tonight, though, pitching into the eighth inning with six strikeouts and two walks; he allowed six hits but also induced two double plays. Run-wise he allowed a first-inning home run to Nick Markakis and that was all.

Meanwhile Orioles rookie David Hernandez, after a tiring and rocky beginning, soon got into a groove of his own. The Yankees scored in the second on an Eric “All or Nothing” Hinske solo shot that tied the game (Hinske’s fourth of the season for New York, out of five total hits), but he was the last Yank to cross home plate for quite a while.

So it was a good thing that the Yankees helped themselves on defense tonight, making a few really excellent/lucky plays. Robinson Cano apparently deked out poor Cesar Izturis not once but twice, and also saved the day when a grounder bounced off the heel of Mark Teixeira’s glove, snatching it out of midair and tossing to Pettitte just ahead of the runner (“the old 3-4-1…”).

The most impressive fielding came in the eighth, though, after Pettitte left the game in Phil Coke’s hands with two runners on and one out. First Nick Markakis hit a shrill liner to Teixeira, who fired it back to Molina, who managed to tag out the runner at the plate – a lightning-fast play all around. I wasn’t expecting it and I doubt the runner, poor Cesar Izturis, was either (it was just not his game). Then Brian Roberts tried to score on a wild pitch, but Molina, moving faster than a Molina is built to move, got the ball back to Phil Coke in time for him to awkwardly lunge and tag out Brian Roberts, who missed the plate – saving the run and ending the inning.

With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Hideki Matsui, who has been largely overshadowed this season, apparently decided he wanted a little more attention and whacked a 2-2 Jim Johnson fastball into the right field bleachers. This was no New Stadium cheapie either, but a big no-doubt blast. Cue the helmet-tossing and the jumping around and the grinning and the whipped-cream pie.

The Red Sox lost tonight, and so the Yankees are now clutching their very own piece of first place. Tomorrow Sergio Mitre will try to defend it… and I was going to make a couple cracks about that because, well, you know. But Cliff seems to think that he might not actually be so bad, and Cliff is usually right, so I’ll hold off on the Mitre-mocking.

—

When Worlds Collide: the most recent headline on my FiveThirtyEight.com RSS feed reads: “Teixeira Says Culture Wars Ending, GOP Needs New Playbook.” I don’t know what initially confused me more, the idea that Mark Teixeiria of all people would suddenly start talking political strategy, or that FiveThirtyEight would quote him as an authority. Of course it turns out the post is actually referring to a demographics expert named Ruy Teixeira, but that was sure a baffling ten seconds.

Later this week, the roll call of Yankees in the Hall of Fame will grow by two. While most of the mass media will treat Sunday’s induction of the late (but deserving) Joe Gordon as an afterthought, there’s little doubt that the other former Yankee will grab the center of attention. We all know that Rickey Henderson is the game’s greateast leadoff batter and most prolific basestealer; he was also a legitimate four-tool talent whose throwing arm was his only attribute to elude greatness.

Henderson was also that rare breed of superstar who happened to be a colorful and clownish character. Through his unusual habits and sayings, Henderson became one of baseball’s leading eccentrics of the late 20th century. In my mind, that’s the aspect of his career that is just as worthwhile as exploring as his on-base percentage and his “Man of Steal” persona on the basepaths.

Even the beginning of Henderson’s life involved an uncommon occurrence; he was born in the backseat of an Oldsmobile on Christmas Day in downtown Chicago. He simply couldn’t wait for the car to reach the hospital, where a more conventional birth would have taken place.

As a ballplayer, Henderson brought some unorthodox qualities to the field. He batted right-handed and threw left-handed, an unusual combination for most non-pitching ballplayers. (Of all major league players with 4,000 or more at-bats in their careers, only two others—Hal Chase and Cleon Jones—batted right and threw left.) At the plate, Henderson batted out of a severely exaggerated crouch, which looked uncomfortable but created the illusion of a particularly small strike zone.

During the course of his major league journeys, Henderson gained notoriety for several peculiar tendencies, along with a few incidents best described as strange. Let’s consider the following from the Henderson files:

*Known for his deep voice and habit of slurring his words, Henderson enjoyed speaking in the third person. Rarely using the word “I,” he often referred to himself as Rickey. While most athletes who spoke in such a fashion received criticism for being arrogant and overbearing, the mumbling Henderson came across comically, giving himself an appealing, almost innocent quality.

*In the early 1980s, Henderson signed a contract with the Oakland A’s that included a $1 million bonus. Later that same year, Oakland accountants found an unexpected balance of $1 million in their ledgers. They soon discovered that Henderson had never cashed the sizeable check, instead putting it in a frame and hanging it on a wall in his home.

*After breaking Lou Brock’s all-time stolen base record in a 1991 game against the Yankees, Henderson addressed his home fans at Oakland’s Alameda County Coliseum. “Today, I am the greatest of all time,” said Henderson, doing an unintended imitation of Muhammad Ali. Although Henderson later said that his words came out the wrong way, he drew severe criticism for sounding less than humble on the national stage.

*According to many of his teammates, Henderson spent part of his time in the clubhouse before each game looking at himself in a full-length mirror—all while completely naked. As he soulfully admired his muscular physique, Henderson softly and repeatedly mouthed the words, “Rickey’s the best.”

*In a much-disputed incident (most observers consider the story to be false, but a few “eyewitnesses” claim otherwise), Henderson heard Seattle Mariners teammate John Olerud discussing his problems with a brain aneurism suffered in college, a medical condition that necessitated he wear a helmet at all times, even while playing first base. As Henderson listened to the explanation, he allegedly exclaimed that he had previously played with another player who also wore a helmet in the field—an amazing coincidence! Remarkably, Henderson didn’t remember that it was the same man—Olerud—who had played with him only one season earlier with the Mets. The two men had also been teammates with the 1993 world champion Blue Jays.

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Somehow, I missed this when it was originally posted. Maybe D linked to it already. If not, check out these personal letters, written by Lou Gehrig, that are up at ESPN.com.

I took a round of live bp at the Uptown Sports Complext hitting cages in the Bronx on Saturday afternoon. It was a humbling experience–my mind remembered how to hit but the body wasn’t so willing (I lunged all over the place). I came away with blisters on my left hand, having worked up a good sweat swinging the bat for half-an-hour. It was a reminder of just how hard baseball is to play, something I thought of again watching Old Timers’ Day this afternoon.

Baseball is not meant to be played by old men. (The same cannot be said about Golf, as Tom Watson nearly became the oldest man to ever win the British Open; a great story, Watson fell short, proving that no age is too old to experience the agony of defeat). Sure, some former players can still swing–Jesse Barfield had a couple of good hacks, Lee Maz knocked a Ron Guidry pitch deep but foul before Gator came back and stuck him out on a slider–and a couple can even move–Jeff Nelson shagging a fly in left, Mickey Rivers turning it on and legging out a double, but mostly, old players just look old trying to play.

Mariano Rivera, yeah, he’s old, but he’s still got the Midas Touch. Rivera saved a game for the third consecutive day as the Yankees completed the sweep of the Tigers, winning 2-1. Joba Chamberlain threw a nice game–hitting the upper 90s on the radar gun–going 6 2/3 strong innings. He worked out of a trouble in the fifth; five or his last six outs came on strikeouts (he had eight in all). Phil Coke threw one pitch to get out of the seventh and Phil Hughes mowed ’em down in the eighth setting the stage for Rivera, who worked around a two out walk (only his fourth base on balls of the year), to earn his 26th save of the year. Rivera lowered his ERA to 2.25.

Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira hit solo home runs and that was the difference. Roy Halladay and the Jays beat the Red Sox and the Yanks are now just one game behind Boston.

In all, a swell start to the second half, wouldn’t you say?

The Yankees have been off since Sunday, and tonight was A.J. Burnett’s first start since July 8th. Perhaps as a result it was a little reminiscent of the Tin Man’s first scene in The Wizard of Oz (“He said ‘oil can’!”)*. Given that his stuff was a bit on the fuzzy side, and that he allowed six hits and five walks while striking out just one batter, it’s some combination of impressive and lucky that he got through six innings and kept the Yankees right in the game. New York started off the second half of the season with another comeback win and beat the Tigers 5-3.

Lucas French tossed a nice five innings for Detroit and held the Yankees to just one earned run – Hideki Matsui’s RBI single in the first, which tied the game at 1-1. But the Tigers kept chipping away at Burnett. New York added another run in the fifth, when Johnny Damon scored after a Mark Teixeira single and an error by left fielder Josh Anderson, but they still trailed 3-2.

It wasn’t until the seventh inning that the Bombers broke through, off of Joel Zumaya (a player whose career I’ve followed with interest, not only because he’s fun to watch but because he suffered one of the oddest injuries in baseball history… I mean, injuries are not generally funny, of course, but come on). As rain started to come down hard, Jeter singled with one of those classic inside-out swings of his, and Damon doubled. Then Teixeira, with his third big hit of the night, took a remarkably graceful swing at a 99 mph 3-1 fastball and knocked it into the second deck in right field.

That gave the Yankees a 5-3 lead, and that’s how things would stay, as Phil Hughes was decidedly un–rusty. He pitched two full innings, and though he allowed three hits he also struck out six Tigers – and reached 97 mph (on the YES radar gun, anyway) for the first time anyone can remember.

Mariano Rivera came in to pitch the ninth and it went pretty much like you’d expect.

Boston won, too, so the Yankees remain three games out of first, but they’ve also got a 3.5-game lead over Texas and Tampa Bay for the Wild Card. More importantly, regular baseball is back. Whose idea was it to schedule an off-day right after the All-Star break, anyway? The person or persons responsible should be led to a basement room and forced to listen to a loop of Chris Berman’s Home Run Derby calls until they’re prepared to offer a heartfelt apology.

—

*Please note that I am in no way trying to imply that the tinsmith forgot to give Burnett a heart.

It’s starting to get hot. You know what that means. Tempers get short.

I’m out and about today, so posting will be slow.

In the meanwhile, chew on this and have a smile:

Over the last ten months I’ve mentioned in this space numerous statistics on job losses and general cutbacks in the newspaper industry. As sites like Newspaper Death Watch continue to gain traction, and papers nationwide continue to scale back their sports operations and travel budgets, it’s important to get a feel for where the industry is for the people in the trenches, past and present.

I interviewed former Newsday Yankees beat writer Kat O’Brien on this topic three months ago and she revealed that one of the reasons she left was because she didn’t believe the medium was viable anymore.

Former longtime Yankees beat man and YESNetwork.com colleague Phil Pepe agreed, but limited his answer more specifically to baseball coverage.

“This is a problem that has been ongoing for a few years and seemed to have escalated during the current economic crisis,” he said. “Sad to admit it, but today because of the blanket coverage from radio, television and the Internet, newspapers are not as vital to the game’s well-being as they once were.”

With all that in mind, I still couldn’t help thinking that additional opinions needed to be sought. So I took the the e-mails and queried New York Times Yankees beat reporter Tyler Kepner, Gertrude Ederle biographer and editor of the Greatest American Sports Writing Series, Glenn Stout, Kansas City Star columnist and uber-blogger Joe Posnanski, Pepe and another of my ex-YES men, Al Iannazzone, who covers the New Jersey Nets for The Bergen Record.

As you’ll see, I asked each writer the same basic set of questions, including one standout from Banterer YankeeMama. The e-mails were exchanged over the course of several days in late April, hence the reason some of the material in the answers may seem dated.

I was impressed with everyone’s candor and genuine love for the craft of writing, and newspapers’ place — even now — as an outlet for that voice. Each recognized how technology has influenced the industry, and how a happy medium must be forged for bloggers, beat writers, newspapers and e-media to coexist. Money matters, however, skew the discussion.

On the topic of travel, Iannazzone said, “It’s mostly West Coast games because you’re not going to get them in the paper anyway. So it’s a way to save money wisely, I guess.” There were certain elements of the conversation that due to the sensitivity of the issue, Iannazzone would not divulge, but he did offer this nugget: “I know I traveled less this year than in my five years on the Nets.”

The individual Q&A’s are highlighted below:

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