I was a little nervous about heading to the new Stadium for the first time, especially after checking out Citi Field recently and finding it, while very nice, just unsettlingly different and odd and un-Mets-like. But I’ve got to say that while my bitterness at the new Stadium’s prices and medieval caste system (the good seats actually have a moat around them) and Hard Rock-ness and, really, its very existence remains undiminished… well, I liked it  better than I thought I would. Much more on that below.

Of course tonight’s taut, well-paced game helped a lot, as the Yankees beat the Angels 7-4 . The Angels struck first, the Yankees answered, the Angels took the lead again, the Yankees took it back, the Angels tied it up… A.J. Burnett looks like he’s been reading his How to Have an Off Night Without F*#^ing Imploding textbook. It took him a long time to find any kind of groove, but he “grinded it out” (to use Joe Girardi’s favorite vague post-game term), kept the game under control, and made it through seven innings.

The Yankees broke through in the eighth, off of Justin Speier, starting with a single that brought Robinson Cano’s hitting streak up to 17 games. Posada moved him over to third, and newly minted fan favorite Nick Swisher was intentionally walked – an understandable strategy that backfired when Melky Cabrera singled in the go-ahead run. Then Ramiro Pena of all people doubled, and it was 7-4 Yankees. Phil Coke and Mariano Rivera tied up the lose ends.

Many people have noticed that the crowds at the new place were too quiet, and I’ve sensed that from watching on TV too – but it got properly loud tonight, much to my relief. Not Red Sox loud, or playoff loud, but pretty damn loud, and when Jeter got a two-out single in the 4th to give the Yankees a lead, it was the same kind of thick, tangible wave of decibels I remember from so many games across the street. There were still plenty of empty $2500 $1250 seats, and it still hurts to see views like that going to waste, but it didn’t seem to make much of a dent in the cumulative enthusiasm.

(Side note: we’re now entering the stage of Derek Jeter’s career where he passes someone on one all-time franchise list or another basically every time he scratches his balls. Tonight he moved into #9 on the Yankee’s all-time RBI lists, and a few days ago, his 8,103rd at-bat moved him past Micky Mantle for a Yankee record. From now on, I think we can expect milestones of varying degrees of obscurity roughly once a week.)

Getting back to the Stadium: there are certainly flaws, and if you’re reading this you probably don’t need me to tell you what they are; I can’t put it much better than Alex did, when he compared it to being inside a pinball machine. Lots of random noises and flashing lights. The Mohegan Sun restaurant between the bleachers reminds me of the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Great Hall is too much, Vegas overkill, and that name sounds like something from Tolkein (one of the scenes you skipped because it was like 12 solid pages of someone singing in Elvish). The whole place is so big, and so heavily branded, that it feels a bit like a theme park – welcome to YankeeWorld™!

As others have noted, the screen in center field is a little overwhelming – talk about larger than life:

Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never ever possibly destroy us... Mr. Stay Puft!

The player’s faces loom like those Easter Island heads.

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While we’re on the subject, imagine the stones it took to perform a stunt like this:

Buster. Now, there was a tough guy.

It was inevitable. The day has finally arrived. The first day of the rest of Moe Green’s life. Just about everyone in my house–wife, the older cat, Tashi–is relieved because Moseph has been a terror of late. Me? I’m sympathizing with the poor kid.

It was fun while it lasted, papi. This one is for you.

Last week, Steven Goldman was set to board a plane to St. Louis.  At the last minute, he could not bring himself to get on the flight.

I have boarded many planes, though it has never been something I enjoy doing. I used to be afraid of crashing, but except for a brief moment or two of involuntary alarm during takeoff, I no longer worry about that, and once the plane is in the air I always feel fine. My problem is that I have an anxiety disorder centered around claustrophobia. I get into any small space, like a small airplane, and my limbic system goes haywire. My heart rate shoots up. My chest tightens. The ironically named flight response is incredible.

The plane to St. Louis was quite small, not quite a puddle-jumper, but the next step up. The low ceiling scraped my head. My overly large frame barely fit in the seat. The way the aisle was blocked by incoming passengers made me feel as if there was no exit. I imagined what I would feel like when they closed the door. The thought was terrible. I did not panic… but realized I probably would if I stayed, and that even if I was able to tough out the three-hour ride to St. Louis, I might never be able to convince myself to board the plane back home. I had taken two Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication, an hour before boarding, because I have been dealing with this stupid, frustrating, annoying thing for eight years now, and I knew it was possible that I might feel this way. The pills did not help. I felt helpless.

…The frustrating thing is that I still feel like myself. I don’t feel afraid inside. Even when I was in the grips of the worst of the attacks, the rational me was still in here, trying to manage the situation. On the plane to St. Louis I was, at least mentally, completely calm. The physiological reaction was like an overlay, a computer virus that was attacking the mainframe. I wasn’t thinking, “Aaagh! Let me out of here!” I was thinking, “Okay, how do I deal with this? How do I overcome this feeling?” It was a measured weighing of pros and cons that led me, in this instance, to get off of the plane. It was the right decision, but I still felt immensely disappointed that I had not been able to push it away, to rise above.

Goldman sat at the gate and watched the plane roll away, “excoriating myself, filled with self-disgust.”

The self-disgust is what jumped off the screen at me as I read this honest and uncompromising account of what is like to have a clinical anxiety disorder.  (On a slightly related note, Joe Pos has the SI cover story this week on Zack Greinke, who has managed to come to grips with his social anxiety disorder.)  Frustration, anger, which Goldman felt too, that’s understandable, but self-disgust? That’s crazy talk. That’s being in love with your own masochism.

I should know.  I do it all of the time.  And curse myself for doing it!  Most of us, even those who do not suffer from a crippling chemical imbalance, not knowing what to do with frustration, turn our anger inward.  Of course these things are easier to see in others than in ourselves necessarily.  It’s easier for me to say, Steve, why are you beating yourself up?, instead of changing my own behavior.

But self-disgust seems entirely inappropriate here. Goldman was actually taking care of himself, he protected himself and so, no matter how upset or disappointed he may have been (and legitimately so), he deserved to give himself some credit for his actions. Even if he still yearns to overcome his illness, which is admirable.

And if he isn’t willing to give himself that credit, I will.

We say it numerous times every year–“I’ve never seen that before.”  It is one of the constant pleasures of following the game.  Well, last night offered one of those moments when, with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning, fans at Comerica Park stood up and calmly started leaving the park.  The equally calm Yankee announcer, Ken Singleton, explained what was happening.  None of the players left the field and soon we learned that a fire alarm had been pulled.  The fans returned to their seats and almost had something to show for it as the Tigers scored five runs in the ninth inning, including Curtis Granderson’s three-run home run against Mariano Rivera.

But it wasn’t enough and the Yankees won, 8-6.

Joba Chamberlain pitched his best game of the young season, working out of trouble in the third inning when he walked three batters, gave up a single and a sac fly while allowing just a single run.  Miguel Cabrera, the best hitter in the league, came up with the bases loaded and two out and he took some good swings.  The count went full and Chamberlain struck Cabrera out on a sharp-breaking curve ball, the first curve of the sequence.

Nick Swisher hit home runs from both sides of the plate, Hideki Matsui smacked a three-run double, Johnny Damon had a couple of hits, and Robinson Cano extended his hitting streak to 16. 

Until the ninth inning, when Jonathan Albaladejo struggled so badly that Rivera was called in, it was a breezy game.  Singleton and David Cone, teamed together for the entire series in the YES broadcast booth, were a pleasure–informative, jocular, funny and intelligent.  Cone’s improvement this year has been noticable, don’t you agree?

The Yankees got a manly effort from Phil Hughes last night.  Let’s see what young Mr. Chamberlain has got this evening.

The future is now.

Lookin’ for a thorough review of the food at Yankee Stadium?  Then dig this cool Boogie Down blog, How Fresh Eats.  Dude has the skinny–soup to nuts.

Part One and Part Two.

What about the beer at the two new parks?  Eric Asimov takes a look in today’s New York Times.

And just cause we’re talking about food, why not take a look at a Shake Shack burger?

With Mother’s Day fast approaching, I thought this would be an ideal time to remind anyone looking for a gift to consider my wife Emily’s photo note cards. 

Check out her site. 

Spring is a good thing.

The talented Mr. Hughes is back and will take the hill for the Yanks tonight against the Tigers.

Rah Rah Ree, Kick ‘Em in the Kneee/
Rah Rah Ras, Kick ‘Em in the Other Knee

Maybe this will satisfy Allen Barra. And maybe you can snap your fingers to this:

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This week’s “Card Corner” has no connection to the Yankees. In fact, this man may be the most obscure player ever profiled in this feature. But he was important to us as kids in 1974, if only because he had such a weird name. And he has become a record-breaker among major league players.

As young fans growing up in Westchester County, we found it both foolishly fun and humorously cruel to repeat the quirky names of certain ballplayers over and over. One of those players was Paul Schaal (pronounced PAWL SHAWL), one of the few big leaguers whose last name rhymed with his first. Along with Lu Blue, Mark Clark, Don Hahn and Greg Legg, Schaal must have taken his share of verbal abuse about that as a child.

A couple of other intriguing facts come to mind when thinking about Paul Schaal. He was the Kansas City Royals’ last regular third baseman before a fellow named George Brett burst onto the major league scene. A certified Hall of Famer and the owner of the most attractive batting swing of the late 20th century—I’ll put him just ahead of Ken Griffey, Jr. in that regard—Brett made most Royals fans forget all about Schaal. Still, Schaal was not a bad ballplayer. Schaal was certainly a better player than most of the third sackers the Yankees were trotting out at the time, an illustrious group that included Bobby Cox and Jerry Kenney. While with the LA and California Angels in the mid-1960s, Schaal established a reputation as one of the game’s finest fielding third baseman. One member of the Angels even called Schaal the equal of Brooks Robinson, generally regarded as baseball’s most divine defensive third baseman of all-time.

Offensively, Schaal showed promise as a youngster, until he was hit in the head by a pitched ball during the 1968 season. The injury left the Angels understandably worried about his future, so they left him exposed in the expansion draft that winter. As one of four new teams entering the major leagues, the Royals snapped up Schaal, hoping that he would recover fully from the beanball incident.

After initially clashing with Royals skipper Charlie Metro, Schaal settled in nicely as KC’s cornerman. In 1971, he used remarkable patience at the plate, walking 103 times to formulate a .387 on-base percentage, while playing in every Royals game that season. He slumped to a .228 average in 1972 before rebounding to hit .288 with eight home runs the following season. Unfortunately, Schaal’s game fall off badly in 1974, prompting a trade back to California, where he finished out his career with the Halos. In the meantime, Mr. Brett staked permanent claim to Kansas City’s “hot corner.”

While Schaal never achieved much more than temporary stardom with the Royals, he has managed to become one of the most successful of ex-ballplayers in his post-playing days. After owning a chain of pizza shops, Schaal went into the unrelated field of chiropractics. (From pizza to ‘practics.) Schaal became Dr. Schaal, which sounds an awful lot like Dr. Scholl, the foot doctor. But it’s Dr. Schaal, practicing back specialist. The good doctor now runs the Schaal Health & Wellness Center in Overland Park, Kansas, and is considered an expert in network spinal analysis. As the doctor’s website points out, “At Schaal Health Center, we use Young Living Essential Oils daily to diffuse the air with their therapeutic aromas.” As a child of the seventies, that sounds pretty good to me.

Here’s something else that you might find interesting about Paul Schaal. He has been married nine times. (That’s got to be a record for a major leaguer. Nine times!) It would be most appropriate for Paul Schaal to be interviewed on CNN by Larry King. How great would that be?

CC Sabathia threw a strong game against the Tigers on Monday night. He allowed four runs–one in the first, and three in the sixth–but pitched better than that. In fact, he only made a couple of mistakes all game long, including a hanging change-up that Magglio Ordonez barely punched over the right field wall. He struck out seven and didn’t walk a batter. Problem was, Justin Verlander was even better and the ninth inning rolled around by 9:15, a virutally unheard occurance for the Yankees.

It was a tidy, efficient, and brisk pitcher’s duel. Verlander allowed back-to-back hits to start the eighth but the Yankees could not score against Bobby Seay. Robinson Cano led off the ninth against Fernando Rodney, lacing the first the pitch to the left center field gap for a double. He scored on a single by Nick Swisher, who advanced to third on a base hit by Melky Cabrera.

With runners on the corners, Jorge Posada came up as the pinch-hitter. He got tied up with an inside pitch and hit a weak grounder to the left side. Brandon Inge fielded it, tossed it to second, and the relay throw miraculously got Posada in time for the double play. That’s an exaggeration on my part, a slow-footed catcher pushing forty shouldn’t be expected to have the legs to beat out even a slow ground ball, but good gosh, Jorge!–it looksed as if he had seventy pounds of cement in his drawers.

A run scored but the rally was squarshed. Ramiro Pena flew out and the game was over before 9:30.

Final Score: Tigers 4, Yankees 2.

No two ways about it, right now, the Yankees are…lacking.  Still, it was an encouraging start for Sabathia.  No cause for panic, but if you are so inclined, why not do it right?

Over at SI.com, I’ve got a write-up of the two new New York ballparks.

Citi Field is state-of-the-art nostalgia (which brings to mind George Carlin’s old routine about “jumbo shrimp”), an amalgam of similar urban ballparks like Camden Yards, the Ballpark at Arlington and Progressive Field, though its spiritual predecessor is Ebbets Field. The results are appealing but also generic. The creative decisions seem arbitrary, like the nooks and crannies in the outfield wall, which don’t serve any other purpose than to add an eccentricity to the playing field. The older ballparks, like Fenway, had such features because they were conforming to a limited urban footprint, not because they deemed them a source of amusement. It is designed like an urban ballpark even though it is sitting in the middle of a wide-open parking lot (talk to the people in Arlington about that incongruity).

The main entrance takes fans through the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, a grand civic gesture to one of the game’s true pioneers. It is an airy room, with staircases and escalators on each side. The tribute to Robinson is earnest, handsome and impressive. “It feels like social studies homework,” one fan, an intelligent, liberal New Yorker told me. A giant blue number 42 sits in the middle of the room, the ideal photo op. The blue — which the Mets appropriated from the Brooklyn Dodgers, just as they took their orange from the New York Giants — is the only Mets-related aspect of the room.

And there’s the rub. As tremendous as the Robinson Rotunda is, it seems out of place, even indulgent, because of the lack of corresponding Mets tributes. This is not to suggest that the Mets build a similar monument for Tom Seaver. Yet the lack of balance has left many Mets fans grumbling. The Mets have a history worth celebrating, but its invisibility at Citi Field underscores the organization’s inferiority complex. Perhaps it is a great Freudian slip, Fred Wilpon saying that his team is just a poor stand-in for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the team he’d really want to own.

One of the hottest stories this year has been the continuing decline of the newspaper industry. I’ve written about it in this space, and with the shuttering of the Rocky Mountain News, the Seattle P-I going to a completely online format, and more papers reducing coverage of their hometown teams, the current trend is not likely to change any time soon.

What does this mean for baseball coverage? Russell Adams and Tim Marchman presented a telling look at the industry in an April 7 Wall Street Journal article. Being a baseball reporter for a newspaper used to be a job people would kill for. Now it’s likely a job that will be killed.

With that in mind, I’ve begun asking numerous questions of veteran baseball writers and columnists to get their respective takes on the industry. This series of Q&As will run periodically throughout the season and beyond, as trends develop. The first is with Newsday’s Kat O’Brien, a Yankees beat writer since 2007. Prior to moving to New York, O’Brien covered the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from 2003-06.

In her short time on the beat, O’Brien has witnessed the sweeping changes and cutbacks in the industry firsthand, and has decided to leave the beat to go to graduate school. The following exchange was conducted over a series of e-mails last week.

Will Weiss: What made you want to be a sportswriter? Even more specifically, what made you want to be on a beat?

Kat O’Brien: I never really set out to be a sportswriter. I was interested in writing and journalism, and sort of wound up in sports. I went to Notre Dame, and initially worked on both sports and news on the daily (Mon-Fri) student newspaper. That was too time-consuming, so I focused on sports, as it was a lot more fun and more-read among the students. For a long time, I thought I would switch back to newswriting, but I kept having great opportunities on the sports side and I enjoyed it. Doing a beat was kind of the natural progression. Baseball made sense as it was one of my favorite sports, and I also speak Spanish, which is useful in covering baseball.

WW: When and how did you use your Spanish? I’m curious, because I speak the language also and have written several anecdotes through the years about my adventures in the Dominican Republic, and with various Latino players in the Yankee clubhouse.

KOB: I double majored in Spanish in college after studying abroad. I’ve gone to the Dominican Republic a few times to do some baseball stories. I use it more on a day-to-day basis, both in interviewing players whose English skills are minimal (i.e. Melky Cabrera) and in talking to players who are comfortable in both languages (i.e. Mariano Rivera and Bobby Abreu). Even with the latter, I often find it helps build a rapport with players when they know you speak their language. It was huge with Alfonso Soriano when he got traded over to the Rangers, who I was covering at the time.

WW: Did anything specific happen to make you thinking about changing your career path?

KOB: It wasn’t any one thing but a combination of things. The writing jobs I had aspired to long-term, like writing takeout features and so on, barely exist anymore. I feel that there are other jobs I would enjoy doing and would be good at, and that this would be a good time to move in that direction. I’ll miss a lot about writing and covering baseball, particularly the relationships you form on the job. But this is the best move for me long-term.

WW: What changes in the industry have you witnessed in your time on the beat?

KOB: Wow, so many, and that is in just a few years. The Internet was not even a shadow of what it is now when I began. Now the Internet is priority No. 1, and it should be. The blogs have become extremely important, and most of those did not even exist when I started.

I also think there is a tendency towards more negativity and sensationalism, not necessarily on the beat, but in the media in general. This may be at least in part due to trying to compete with Internet sites, some of which are more gossip than news, but it’s not a good change in my opinion.

WW: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said recently that newspapers should give up trying to compete (with Internet sites). In your opinion, are newspapers dead? If not, what would you do to try to revive them?

KOB: I really hope that newspapers are not dead or on life support. That said, things don’t look good for most papers at the moment. One thing that is crucial is finding a way to get revenue from the internet. One idea I like is that of getting as many papers as possible to join a consortium. Then a person could pay a subscription fee — say $10-20 per month — and get access to all those papers. Because it’s not realistic to think people are going to pay to read every paper they ever look at online, but papers need revenue.

But papers have to stop cutting costs so much that their best and brightest are either forced out or leave because they don’t think the quality of the product is worth sticking around and being a part of.

WW: You told me offline that given the current state of affairs, leaving the beat is the best decision for you and your future. Why?

KOB: Unfortunately, I am not at all confident about the future of newspapers. I’m sure there will always be some sort of journalism by which people get their news and information. But it’s been devastating to watch newspapers get torn apart in the last couple years, due partly to the failure of the industry to get on-board with the internet early and adapt, and partly to economic conditions.

I see so many colleagues who have been forced from their jobs, or who want to try something else but are constricted due to family considerations, children and mortgages. I am young enough that I can go back to school, so I am doing that while I can.

WW: While it may not be the case with the major New York papers, numerous papers around the country have cut costs by not sending writers to road games, etc., and in some cases local teams receive no hometown coverage at all. Is this a disservice?

KOB: It is a disservice, but unfortunately an unavoidable one right now. Many papers are barely surviving — slashing jobs and costs wherever they can. Local team coverage is one of those costs being cut.

WW: Is the philosophical divide between print and online generational?

KOB: I think there is somewhat of a generational divide between print and online. I see a bigger generational divide over blogging, though. That seems by and large to be more accepted among younger people.

WW: I remember that some of the beat writers who are staunch traditionalists resisted to the blog movement; not only that they were being required to post to blogs, but to the group of writers that has made a name through the blogosphere. What was your reaction to this, and what’s your opinion of baseball writing on the web? Who do you read now and how do you see baseball reporting growing?

KOB: I think there is a place for all sorts of baseball coverage, both traditional and of the blog variety. I think the web permits a much broader amount of coverage. There’s a long list of blogs that I follow. But an example of the different types of writing would be in three of the Yankees blogs I read most often: RiverAveBlues, BronxBanter and WasWatching. All three do a great job of keeping up with Yankees stuff, but each has a different slant/angle. Each site has its favorites and its least favorites on the team, and each provides a different writing style.

Still, there can be a danger in losing sight of the fact that the blogs don’t necessarily provide the same information as the traditional newspapers/sites since many are giving opinion or compiling information instead of doing reporting themselves. I am not saying this in any “anti-blog” fashion, just that I think both are necessary.

WW: Thanks for the compliments and for following us here at BB. What, if anything, could both the blog sites and the newspapers do better to coexist?

KOB: Probably give each other a little more credit where credit is due. Not in all cases, but there are definitely some snarky comments from one side to the other, and vice versa.

WW: What will you miss most about the beat? The least?

KOB: Most: A number of things. Being there to get the story firsthand, the story that people are talking about and reading about and you are giving it to them. Writing for a large and passionate audience. And I’ll especially miss the people — the other writers and the people I am writing about such as players, coaches, managers, GMs, and behind-the-scenes folks.

Least: Witnessing and worrying about the constant decline in the newspaper industry. And it might be nice to have a somewhat more normal schedule, with less travel and more nights and weekends off.

WW: What’s next for you? Do you see yourself eventually getting back into sport media, or editorial?

KOB: I’m going back to school. I start a dual degree program at the University of Pennsylvania next month, getting a Wharton MBA and a Masters of Arts in International Studies from the Lauder Institute. I don’t envision myself getting back into sports media or editorial on a full-time basis. I would love to keep my hand in by doing free-lance writing. After I graduate I might get involved in the business side of sports, but that’s yet to be determined. I’ll miss sportswriting and all my friends in the biz, though.

A few scenes from the Yankees’ weekend in Boston:

Yeah, that coulda gone better.

With the obligatory disclaimer that it is only April, etc. etc., the Yanks had another tough loss to the Sox tonight, going down 4-1 to complete Boston’s sweep.

The game was tied at one when, in the fifth, things got a bit away from Andy Pettitte. It wasn’t a meltdown, as he was able to limit the damage, and the bullpen for a change didn’t give up a run — but the Sox’s three-run lead turned out to be plenty. New York’s only run came when Hideki Matsui scored on Bret Gardner’s sacrifice fly; the offense had several promising opportunities, but couldn’t get a big blow against the Sox pitchers, and ended up stranding eight runners. Twenty-four-year-old Justin Masterson was solid for Boston (though he did have some help from Angel “.167/.167/.167” Berroa), and so was hot prospect Michael Bowden, who pitched two perfect innings. Takashi Saito closed it out.

It was in that fateful fifth inning that Jacoby Ellsbury stole home, which I have to admit was pretty freaking awesome. Some blame goes to Posada for apparently not paying close enough attention – with a left-hander in the batter’s box, he should have had a clear view of third base – but credit where credit’s due, that’s a gutsy move. I know some people aren’t going to like that Ellsbury took a curtain call, but I say you go for it there: the crowd was insistent and besides, while people hit big home runs all the time, how often do you get to steal home? It was the first time a Red Sox player has done it in 10 years.

Mark Melancon, who we’ve been hearing about for quite a while now, relieved Pettitte in his Yankees debut, and started off pretty well with a scoreless 7th. One inning later, he seemed to have utterly lost the strike zone– a single, a walk, a hit batter – but much to my surprise he wriggled out of the bases-loaded, nobody-out jam, with a strikeout sandwiched between two ground balls.

Momentum-shifter?… well, no. Still, at least this was a decently crisp and fairly close loss, and not another hot mess like yesterday. Yes, I am struggling to find positives here.

Other good things I noticed from last night’s game:

-Nobody was injured.
-It didn’t rain.
-Mark Melancon doesn’t seem to rattle easy.
-Unlike during Saturday’s game, my dog did not puke up an entire sock.
– Every season, Kevin Youkilis looks more and more like the kind of disreputable extra that late-career John Wayne would punch out in a frontier bar brawl.

The Yankees head to Motown tomorrow… which I guess is as good a place as any to do a little soul-searching.

The Yanks turn to Andy Pettitte to stop the bleeding tonight in Boston.

Let’s see if the Bombers can sneak away with a “w” or if they’ll be swept away. Got to figure it’ll be a long night.

Nothing has gone right for the Yankees this weekend but still, it’s gorgeous in New York. Why let the Yanks spoil the day? After all, the suffering won’t begin until after 8 tonight. In the meantime, it’s hot like the summer and it’s Sunday.

That counts for something.

And so does this:

Today felt like having duct tape slowly peeled off your arm for more than four hours. A tough-luck loss on Friday night was just the start of what is turning out to be a long, ugly weekend for the Yankees in Boston. About the only way to be feel any pleasure is to admire the Yankees’ fortitude–they showed a lot of fight–and just laugh at the WWF-ridiculousness of these games against Boston.

Yanks-Sox turns baesball into something else, the back-and-forth suggests a heavyweight boxing match even more than it does wrestling. But even in defeat, there is something satisfying about watching your team give it a balls-out effort. Nevermind the horsesh** pitching.

The Bombers put an early beating on Josh Beckett jumping out to a 6-0 lead. But Jason Variteck’s grand slam in the fourth brought the Sox back and by the time Beckett and AJ Burnett were done the score was 8-8. So much for the hype, the two big starters were doo doo. In the end, the Red Sox bullpen was better than the Yankee bullpen and that was that.

Oh, it was typical Yankee-Sox, a regular opera: lead-changes by the handful, big homers by Mike Lowell and Johnny Damon, two long balls by Robbie Cano, a suprising error by Dustin Pedroia, a missed call by the second base ump, Damon crashing into the left field wall. Rock-em-sock-’em-robots stuff. Took forever.

“Did this start yesterday?” said Tim McCarver in the 8th inning.

You know, the usual. 16-11 was the final in favor of the Sox.

So not awesome, man. 

Well, so long as its gunna be loud, why not put a beat behind it that we can dance to?

The late great Joe Cuba.

It’s that time again as this weekend gives the first meeting of the young season between the Yanks and Sox. Saturday afternoon on Fox, Sunday Night on ESPN.  There will be lots of noise on-line, in the papers, and on TV. The usual hype n hyperbole.*

You know the drill.  Right, Chuck?

* Though Beckett vs. Burnett has the potential to worth the hype.

This looks like it might be worth checking out. 

From the wildman who brought us Fingers, one of the grubbiest New York City movies of the late Seventies.

Here’s A.O. Scott’s review of James Toback’s new documentary:

A lot of people, even passionate boxing fans, might prefer to forget about Mr. Tyson rather than spend 90 minutes in his company. But “Tyson” is worth seeing even if you have no particular interest in the sport or the man.

It may lack the detachment and the balance that Barbara Kopple brought to “Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson,” the 1993 documentary she made for NBC, but Mr. Toback’s film, partly because it restricts itself to Mr. Tyson’s point of view, offers a rare and vivid study in the complexity of a single suffering, raging soul. It is not an entirely trustworthy movie, but it does feel profoundly honest.