I’m going to ruin the peaceful, easy feeling we’ve enjoyed recently from the lack of Alex Rodriguez news or headlines.  After all, the mishegoss machine will crank up next week–if not sooner–when Selena Roberts’ anticipated Rodriguez biography is released.

But I enjoyed Bill Simmons’ recent piece on Rodriguez:

Of all the ways A-Rod has been described over the years, nobody has ever used “bad person.” We hear he’s awkward, needy, annoying, easily rattled, humorless, obsessed with his image, unsure of himself and unable to fit into a group dynamic. Jason Gay, who profiled him recently for Details magazine, claimed that, out to dinner, A-Rod made his order based on how he wanted Gay to perceive it, not by what he wanted. He’s simply a strange guy, not someone you’d want to drive cross-country with, for sure. But he’s not a bad guy.

Comparing him with Barry Bonds, it’s no contest. Bonds hogged three lockers, disparaged teammates, antagonized media members and allegedly cheated to get an edge. He sounded like an unequivocal nightmare, a perfect storm of rudeness. Other notorious cancers (Carl Everett, Albert Belle, Jeff Kent, Ugueth Urbina) earned their reputations by being hotheaded or fighting teammates or barking at team employees. In the end, even Manny went to the dark side, becoming such a distraction that Boston paid the Dodgers to take him.

…I will even go this far: There are undeniable positives to having one antisocial wild card in any close-knit environment. You know that one grating guy in your dorm hall or in your office? Don’t you like bitching about him? You lob grenades at him as soon as he leaves the room. He’s your running joke, an easy target. But he’s also a galvanizing force, one of the few things that bring everyone else together: a mutual contempt for one human being that won’t go away. You’re stuck with him, so you make the best of it — by belittling him.

It’s a common bond of sorts. Even as you believe he’s tearing your group apart, he’s bringing it closer and distracting anyone from turning on someone else. He’s your mean decoy, your Paula Abdul, your Newman. He’s your necessary evil.

*

I wanted to know more about Ramiro Pena, the Yankees’ utility infielder de jour, and Will Weiss hipped me to a piece that Aaron Moore wrote about Pena and Eric Duncan for the YES Network back in June of 2005.

Dig:

While Duncan holds the title of the Yankees’ top prospect, the distinction of most intriguing minor leaguer belongs to the 19-year-old Pena. At 19, he is the youngest player on any Eastern League roster.

The master plan was to keep Pena in Class-A for the season, but he has done more than hold his own as Trenton’s everyday shortstop. The Yankees signed the Monterrey, Mexico, native last February as an international free agent.

The organization was forced to move Pena up from Tampa after
Columbus needed Trenton’s Andy Cannizaro to fill its void at shortstop. During Pena’s short stint in Tampa, he hit only .247 with an on-base percentage of .321.

Since joining the Thunder, those numbers have increased nicely as he continues to show no signs of being overmatched by Eastern League pitchers. Through his first 14 games in Double-A, Pena has an impressive .327 average with three RBIs and no home runs.
He will never play the role of the modern shortstop like Miguel Tejada, who puts up gaudy power numbers. Pena is more in the mold of an Ozzie Guillen. A shortstop who fields his position brilliantly, hits around .270, but more importantly, moves runners over while hitting toward the bottom of the lineup.

Regardless of what he hits in the minors, Pena’s glove will eventually get him a trip to the majors. And that’s what Thunder manager Bill Masse told Pena on his inaugural day in New Jersey — to focus on defense. In his short time with the Thunder, Pena has already provided a number of highlight-reel plays.

With his fantastic lateral speed, Pena ranges well into the hole on ground balls and does not shy away from contact while covering second base. His spin-move throw to first base is all ready major league worthy. In a recent series against Reading, Pena took away two hits by fielding ground balls on the right-field of second base and making quick accurate throws to beat the runners.

Even though he is still a teenager, Pena has a silent confidence about him that speaks well for his chances of succeeding in New York.
At this point, Pena’s main deficiency is his size. Walking around the clubhouse in a tee-shirt and shorts, he is hardly bigger than a batboy.

That should change as he physically matures and improves his workout routine.

Pena’s arm is not Jeteresque. However, his exceptional range and quick feet hide his lack of a cannon arm.

And he already has a big fan in the player who lines up on his left.

“He is so good, so smooth, carries so much range,” Duncan said. “It’s not like I am playing with a 19-year-old, it’s like I’m playing with someone who has been there a while.”

For some, being away from home and playing with teammates much older and seasoned could be a problem. This is not the case for Pena.

“It’s not been that big of a change for me,” said Pena, with the help of teammate Omir Santos’ translation. “I’ve always played with guys older than me. No big deal for me. If I was still in Mexico I would be playing with guys in a league that is like Double-A here.”
Both Duncan and Pena are aware that their chances of playing together in the Bronx are unlikely anytime soon, with Jeter and Rodriguez locked up to long term deals. Even though they have made rapid movements up the organizational ladder, neither focuses on the players above them.

“I don’t really think about it,” Pena said.

“All I can do is go out every day and work as hard as I can,” Duncan said. “If it’s with the Yankees, that’s great. If not, it will have to be for another team. It’s just the way it is.”

I have a cousin who wants to be Jewish in the worst way. She is funny and bright and beautiful (her father, born Irish Catholic, married my aunt) and she calls herself Jew “ish.” Heavy on the “ish.” Sometimes I feel more “ish” than a bonafide Jew. My mother was raised Catholic, went to school with the nuns, and reluctantly “converted” to Judiasm under relentless pressure from my father’s parents. Mom all but renounced her conversion, if not technically, then at least in spirit, so I have never for a moment considered her a Jew in any way, shape or form. Her conversion said more about my father’s unwillingness to stand up to his parents than it did about his own religious convictions.

My father, of course, considered himself Jewish even though he didn’t believe in God, even if he only attended Synagogue twice a year, on the high holidays, to pay respects to his parents. He also considered his children Jewish though we had no formal religious training. The thought that we would consider ourselves only half-Jewish was something he laughed at. “Half-Jewish means Jewish,” he once told me. I didn’t have a barmitzvah, neither did my sister or my brother. I am not religious at all, and the extent of my participation in Judiasm is going to a Chanukah party and one sedsr every year. They have significance as family gatherings more than anything else. I have memorized the songs from Passover, they are hard-wired into my consciousness, in the same way I remember nursey rhymes. I don’t know what the words mean, I just know the melodies and what words sound appealing and funny.  The songs are soulful and fill me with warmth and sadness.

The seders weren’t always unpleasent, though negotiating the Afikomen payment with my uncle Georgie was nothing short of terrifying. “So what makes you think you deserve money for this little piece of Afikomen?”

Dag, I don’t know, dude, can I just sit down before I wet myself, please?

Since I’ve been an adult, the seders have always been increasingly informal, with the non-Jews in the family starting to out-number the Jews. They are loud and lively.  I like the chaotic commotion and I love the fresh horseradish, which I pile onto pieces of matzoh until my nose is running and my eyes are red.

And what’s not to like about supressed laughter? That’s the best kind, isn’t it?  Trying to remain serious as my father read through the Haggadah was always fun, and now his absence is almost palpable.

Still, the story, of the Jews flight from Eygpt, is one that can be applied to the current state of the world, but I have never found a strong connection to it. I don’t feel comfortable wearing a yarmulke or talking about God. I can’t read the four questions in Hebrew.

I asked my brother the other day if he feels Jewish. And he said, “Depends on the company.” Around Jews, it is hard to feel Jewish because there is so much about the rituals that we never experienced. But around Goyim, yeah, sometimes it is easy to feel Jewish.

More than anything I feel like a New Yorker. I can identify with the New York Jewish life. I am an American–and never felt so strongly about that as I did on my recent trip to Belgium–but my nationality is New Yorker. And after all, Lenny Bruce said if you are a New Yorker, you are a Jew. I would add, Dominican, Irish, Italian, Black, Mexican, Cuban, you name it, under that umbrella. The beauty of being a New Yorker is that you can be a little bit of everything and altogether yourself.

I just heard that Jack Curry, one of the most respected baseball writers in country, was in an accident on Sunday down in Philadelphia where he was covering Opening Day.  He suffered bruised ribs, according to an e-mail I received from a friend but is doing okay. 

Here’s wishing Jack a quick and full recovery.

Dude, this platter is for you:

As a young baseball fan growing up in the 1970s, I liked and admired Willie Stargell so much that I was once motivated to do something very foolish: at the age of nine, I stole his elusive 1974 baseball card from my next door neighbor’s house. (I’m not sure why I became so infatuated with the 1974 card; I actually liked the 1973 card a lot more, since it was an action shot, showing a massive Stargell stretching to receive a throw at first base ahead of the arrival of Philadelphia’s Del Unser. I also preferred the 1973 card of Bobby Bonds, which features an unexpected appearance by Stargell, who is attempting to retire Bonds in a rundown play. Two stars on one card, yes!)

Fortunately, my neighbor Hank Taylor—the older brother of one of my best friends, Alec—knew about my infatuation with the Pittsburgh Pirates’ slugger and quickly confronted me about the pilfered card. Feeling humiliated at being caught and guilty over what I had done, I returned the stolen item. As I look back at that incident today, I’m tempted to make the following conclusion: in a strange and indirect way, Willie Stargell taught me a simple but important lesson about how it was wrong to take things that didn’t belong to me.

(more…)

Russell Adams and Tim Marchman have an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about the grim future of the newspaper beat writer:

Beginning this season, the Washington Post will rely on the Baltimore Sun to cover the Orioles, while the Sun will leave its Nationals coverage to the Post, part of a broader content-sharing deal being replicated at papers around the country. The Hartford Courant quit sending a reporter on the road with the Red Sox, and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette has cut its Red Sox road presence to between 35-40 games from 70 last year. And the New York Times now sends only one person on certain road trips that in the past would have called for two, Mr. Jolly said.

Still, some major dailies are not about to take reporters off the baseball beat. The cash-strapped Boston Herald has cut its city desk by more than half in the past five years, but tinkering with Red Sox coverage “was never really an option,” said Tony Massarotti, who covered the team for the Herald for nearly 15 years before moving to the rival Globe last fall. “It would be suicide, quite honestly.”

Some teams and organizations say the decrease in newspaper coverage may hamper their ability to promote themselves. Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, wrote recently on his blog that to let newspapers die is a “recipe for disaster” for professional sports leagues because newspapers, however weakened, remain the leagues’ best and only link to a mass audience. He said he has spoken to other sports executives about creating a league-backed “beat writer cooperative” to guarantee a minimum number of daily stories on each local team.

Today, Oscar Madison would be a blogger. Think his roommate would leave comments signed F.U.?

“90 percent of life is just showing up.”  

Woody Allen

I’m happy to have you along for Bronx Banter’s seventh Opening Day.  Whether you’ve been with us for a while or this is your first spring here, welcome. 

A lot has changed since I started this blog in November of 2002.  At that time, baseball blogging was a small world and it wasn’t long before I felt comfortable carving out my own little niche.  Now, there are literally hundreds of blogs devoted to baseball.  I wish I could keep up with half of them.  Some people blog as a hobby while others have more professional aspirations. 

I’ve made a ton of friends since ’02–with journalists, authors, editors, and readers–and am pleased when I see how far some of us Internet-based writers have come.  Emma Span is writing a book; Josh Wilker just signed a deal to write one, and Greg Prince just released a book of his own.  So has Jon Weisman, the tour de force behind Dodger Thoughts, the great team blog that was recently picked-up by the L.A. Times.  Jay Jaffe and the BP crew are appearing at ESPN; Cliff Corcoran and Tim Marchman are featured at SI.com.  Phil Bencomo just launched a terrific-looking new site, and Nate Silver practically runs the world.  Steve Lombardi is at SNY now, and so are we, while River Ave Blues was wisely scooped-up by the good people over at YES. It has been a time of change and I’m proud to be a small part of it, honored to know so many talented people–and I haven’t even mention half of them.

This is Cliff’s fifth Opening Day with me and his continued excellence and dedication helps make the Banter flow.  He provides rock-solid analysis and sharp, passionate observation.  Diane Firstman joined us this off-season and she is nothing short of a pro; her daily posts are insightful, informative and funny.  Bruce Markusen has been a key contributor for years, lending a historical perspective to all things Yankee and otherwise, as well as his deft take on the current state of the team.  And Will Weiss keeps a keen eye on the media and how the coverage of the Yankees has evolved.  Emma Span is our wild card, an irrepressible wit and avid fan, and now that her book is almost complete we hope to see more of her round these parts.

Altogether, I think we provide just the kind of banter I had in mind when I started the site.  I have never aspired to being the end-all-be-all voice, just a thoughtful one in a chorus of lively talk.  I’m no expert.  I am a fan, and I try to capture the experience of what it is like being a Yankee fan living in New York City.  It’s own experience, no better or worse than anyone else’s, but authentically mine.  I’ve been blogging and writing for six-and-a-half years now, and feel as if I am just getting started, just learning how to do it.  I have a small clue about writing.  I certainly have an appreciation of how hard it is to do.

I love people–and I’m still as curious as I was when I begun the site.  I also love good writing, great storytelling, and the game of baseball.  So did Todd Drew, a Bronx Banter contributor who passed away in January.  Todd wanted to be a good writer in the worst way.  His spirit, his engagement in life, in people, in writing, and in the Yankees, is our spirit.  Todd is very much alive, and will be very much with us as we sit back and get ready for the man behind the plate to yell, “Play Ball!”

Yup, Opening Day…Todd would be geeked, no doubt about that.

The last time a sense of newness and expectation this powerful converged with the New York Yankees was 2002. The YES Network had been clear for takeoff — it launched on March 19 on Time Warner Cable and RCN in New York (Cablevision would be left out until March 31 the following year). The major signing was a power-hitting first baseman brought to New York from an American League West stalwart.

This year, a massive new stadium — in size and cost — sets the backdrop for a Yankee team that has brought in another powerful first baseman from the AL West, but two stud pitchers to solidify the starting rotation.

The Yankees opened the 2002 season on a Monday afternoon in April, in Baltimore. The same scenario comes to the fore today. Seven years ago, Roger Clemens took the hill and was tattooed in a 10-3 loss. Clemens injured his pitching hand trying to snare a hard-bouncing ground ball with his bare hand.

What will the outcome be today? Will history repeat itself? Will C.C. Sabathia, the highest-paid pitcher ever, try to barehand a line drive and damage the investment the Yankees have placed in him? Will Mark Teixeira, the topic of much discussion over the weekend, particularly after Saturday’s two-home-run performance, do what Jason Giambi couldn’t: get off to a great start in New York and convince the fans that he can hang in New York?

The greatest differences: the 2002 team, while starkly different than its predecessor, was coming off a Game 7 loss in the World Series and a potential four-peat. This Yankee team, at least in the makeup of its core players, is not that different than last year’s, and is coming off its first playoff absence since 1993.

How about the season? Will history repeat itself there also? The opening-day loss didn’t faze the 2002 group, which went on to finish 103-58 and coasted to a fifth straight AL East title only to get complacent and lose to the Angels in the first round. A 103-58 record is possible, but the intradivision competition is tougher. The Angels lurk again.

From everything I’ve read, seen and heard, I sense the air of purpose from this team is as strong as the Joe Torre championship teams. I’m as curious as the rest of you to see how it all plays out, and I can’t wait.

The talented writer Tommy Craggs has a long profile on the talented second baseman Dustin Pedroia today in Boston Magazine:

Let’s linger for a moment on this word, “scrappy.” It’s a linguistic spitball, this word, scuffed up and coated in foreign substances, and it has bucked and dived across nearly the whole of professional baseball’s history, entering the lexicon at the tag end of the 19th century with one meaning and leaving the next century with quite another.

The first player so labeled was probably John Carroll. He stood 5-foot-7 and played the outfield for the most part, ending his career with Cleveland in 1887. “Scrappy” was his nickname, for reasons now lost to history, though it’s likely it referred to a pugnacious disposition, i.e., he was prone to scraps. It’s difficult to know, though, because the christening of Scrappy Carroll went on behind the back of the Oxford English Dictionary, which locates the first use of “scrappy,” in this sense, in 1895, nearly a decade after Carroll had left the game. According to Jonathan Lighter, editor of The Historical Dictionary of American Slang, this usage of “scrappy” was at least popularized, if not coined, on our baseball diamonds.

“‘Scrappy,’ in those days, meant that you would fight at the drop of a hat,” says John Thorn, editor of Total Baseball.

…”Scrappy” approached the new century, then, as “the consolation prize of baseball adjectives—like saying a girl has a nice sense of humor,” Thorn says. The model was established by the relentlessly overpraised 5-foot-7 shortstop David Eckstein, who had the good fortune of being a slow, limp-armed, dink-and-dunking mediocrity who was not so bad at the plate as to prevent two of his teams from winning the World Series, and who not incidentally is as white as the fresh-fallen snow. Eckstein remains the sort of guy who makes Fox announcers sound like the front row of a Jonas Brothers show. He even won a World Series MVP with the Cardinals in 2006, mostly on the strength of a few doubles, of which at least one would’ve been caught had the Tigers not penciled in the moai of Easter Island in left field. (Poor Craig Monroe is probably still trying to get a read on that line drive.)

And now, in the twilight of Eckstein’s career and at the dawn of the Post-Steroid Era, the mantle has been passed to Pedroia. Today, “scrappy” serves as an implicit rebuke to the super-sized stars of the so-called Steroid Era, in much the same way it once carved out a fatuous distinction between white ballplayers and black and Latino ballplayers—the old spitball dancing once more on baseball’s ill winds. Pedroia has had to endure a lot of facile comparisons to Eckstein, whose game bears as much resemblance to Pedroia’s as it does to Manute Bol’s. Last year, with his big whip of a swing, Pedroia hit a robust .326 and rapped 73 extra-base hits, the 10th-best total all-time for any player 5-foot-9 or shorter. In addition, Pedroia’s 54 doubles came against 52 strikeouts, and he whiffed on only 8 percent of the pitches he swung at. “You used to see those kinds of numbers,” Theo Epstein says. “Like, Joe DiMaggio hit 30 homers and struck out 18 times or something. You don’t see that anymore. …I think [‘scrappy’] is just a convenient label for him. But it doesn’t really define who he is.”

Scrappy or not, Dustin Pedroia can flat-out hit. At least so far he can.

Who will throw out the first pitch in the new Stadium?

Here’s my pick.

Speaking of the sweet science, Sports Illustrated once featured a two-part piece by the great one, A.J. Liebling.  From December, 1955.

The University of Eighth Avenue, part one

The Unviversity of Eighth Avenue, part two

In a terrific write up in the Sunday Times, Joe Sexton writes that the true sport fan’s most exquisite sensation is “not joy, but relief.”  I remember when the Yankees were winning championships in the late ’90s–especially when they beat the Mets–relief is exactly what I felt when it was all over, not joy. 

Anyhow, Sexton’s piece is about a new documentary about the third fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.  The Thrilla in Manilla fight, most famously captured by the late Mark Kram for Sports Illustrated.   Sexton says the movie is most effective when dealing with the action inside the ring:

Watching again the two at war did not evoke 18th-century painting so much as, well, the Toronto Blue Jays’ 15-14 defeat of the Phillies in Game 4 of the 1993 World Series — a glorious, near-endless horror from which you could not avert your eyes.

Neither fighter was much good at defending himself anymore. Ali was 33, freshly triumphant from his defeat of George Foreman in Zaire but lazily out of shape. Frazier, 31, had absorbed a hurricane of hurt when destroyed by Foreman, had a bit of a gut, and his head, as Liebling wrote of the former heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano, retained its “unlimited absorptive capacity for percussion.”

But in watching glimpses of the fight in “Thrilla” I love again the quality of Ali’s chin. I wonder anew at Frazier’s forever forward-moving sense of purpose. I am touched by Futch’s brave decency. Simple enough pleasures, and durable enough truths, that held up pretty well to re-examination.

Mark Teixeira hit two home runs today as the Yanks rolled over the Cubbies to end the pre-season.   And as such things go, it was a succesful spring for the Bombers.

It was overcast, windy and brisk in the Bronx this afternoon but that aside it was a fine time for those who stuck around, getting their first look at the new stadium.  What’s not to enjoy about an old fashioned beat down?  The Bleacher Creatures picked up their first inning roll call right where they left off last season, and from behind home plate, they sound louder than ever (and, they capped off the call with the de riguer “Box Seats Suck” chant proving that some things remain the same).  In all, it was a small taste of what’s to come at the stadium. 

Opening Day in a few weeks should be a carnival of excitement.  Big BIG BIG.  It will be the first time I’ve ever been to season opener and despite my initial reservations about the brightness and busyness of the new stadium experience, there’s no other place that I’d rather be.

It stopped raining by the middle of the afternoon on Friday. I walked through Central Park to reach the subway at Columbus Circle. It was damp and warm and the early spring evening light was almost pale white. I paused to take in the massive Time Warner towers and thought how much the landscape has changed over the years.  The future is now.  Then I went into the hole in the ground and when I emerged in the Bronx, the first thing I saw was the old Yankee Stadium, which of course is still standing.

The new Yankee Stadium is across the street and last night it opened for business in the form of an exhibition against the Cubs. The Hard Rock Café is built into the corner of the place, right on River Avenue, but across the street, is just one bar, a 99 cents Odd Lot, a non-descript Dentist Office, and a few souvenir store fronts. The new place looks grand from the outside but as I walked west, away from River avenue, I couldn’t help but look to my left at the old Stadium. At one point, there is a clear view into the right field upper deck.

The sun was still high enough in the sky though it was past six. It splashed across the empty upper deck seats. A few fans turned and noticed. But not too many. Most everyone was too absorbed with what was right in front of them—the new new thing. The old Stadium will be taken apart slowly over a sixteen month period of time. Standing in front of the new place looking across the street, the old Stadium still looks imposing, formidable, and it will feel odd watching it go piece by piece.  A Death Star in reverse.  It seems as if it will feel very empty when it is gone–even with the knowledge that it is to be replaced by public parks.

(more…)

The Yanks and Cubs are due to play the first of two exhibition games tonight. We’ll see if they get it in. Cliff will be there, as will I. I’m eager to get my first taste of the new place. And it’ll be on TV so everyone will get to check it out.

As A. Gleeman says, Happy Baseball, y’all.

There are those who believe that spring training performance is too misleading to be useful in determining who should win spots on an Opening Day roster. I would tend to agree with that theory, at least in the case of established veteran players, but the Grapefruit and Cactus League seasons can be helpful in sorting out the best and worst among younger players.

The 2009 Yankees provide a classic case in point. Last Sunday, Joe Girardi announced that Brett Gardner had won the center field battle, with Melky Cabrera relegated to backup duties. Gardner hit a leadoff home run in the Yankees’ first Grapefruit League game—and continued to hit all spring, even showing surprising power. Cabrera, after a slow start, rebounded to lift his average near the .350 range, which is terrific, but still short of Gardner’s exhibition season level.

In my mind, Girardi has made a perfectly reasonable and rational decision in choosing Gardner. Both players have their strengths, Gardner his speed and range, and Cabrera his throwing arm, but neither has a huge edge in talent over the other. Both are younger players still trying to establish their levels of value in the major leaguers. Neither player hit well in 2008, leaving question marks about their staying power as regular center fielders. If Girardi can’t use spring training as a major factor in this decision, then what else can he rely on? A call to Joe Torre? Tarot cards?

Amidst the uncertainties of player performance, relying on tarot cards might seem unconventional, yet the mystical guidance of the cards could be the unexpected touchstone in this decision-making process. Perhaps Girardi can shuffle the deck and contemplate the significance of the eight of pentacles reversed – a card that signifies a reevaluation of one’s efforts and a shift in focus. Just as the players are honing their skills, Girardi can seek guidance from the cards to discern the nuanced strengths that elude straightforward statistics.

Ultimately, the baseball field becomes a metaphorical realm where decisions are made not only based on tangible statistics but also on the instincts, adding a touch of mysticism to the manager’s decision-making process.

I believe that the pressure of spring training performance can also tell us something about a player. If a player knows he has to hit well in the spring in order to win a job, and then he goes out and does exactly that, it may be an indication that he can handle the pressure that comes with the major leagues. Similarly, I believe that competition should bring out the best in good players. And based on the way that both Gardner and Cabrera have responded to this spring’s competition (and the way that Austin Jackson, slated for Triple-A, also hit in Grapefruit League play), the Yankees may find center field to be in far more capable hands than they originally planned…

No one seems to know for sure whether Bob Sheppard is fully retired, or might make a cameo appearance at the new Yankee Stadium this year, but what I do know is this: This incredible man has introduced Yankee players for nearly 60 years, dating back to the 1951 season. So we thought we’d compile an “all-Bob Sheppard team,” consisting of some of the best and most unusual Yankee names in history. (The more syllables, the better.) Some of the monikers are lyrical, others are clunky, but all have been delivered with a grace and precision unlike any other public address announcer in baseball history.

Catcher: Thurman Munson (the only big leaguer with the given name of Thurman)
First Base: Duke Carmel (true identity: Leon James Carmel)
Second Base: Robinson Cano (the only current Yankee to make the squad)
Shortstop: Paul Zuvella (Rizzuto loved this name)
Third Base: Celerino Sanchez (makes me think of celery stalks)
Outfield: Ross Moschitto (hit like a mosquito, too)
Outfield: Roger Repoz (if only he had played so lyrically)
Outfield: Claudell Washington (the first and only Claudell, and a personal favorite)
Pinch-Hitter: Oscar Azocar (not much of a hitter, but what a name!)
SP: Ed Figueroa (Mr. Sheppard would never call him “Figgy”)
SP: John Montefusco (did Bob ever call him “The Count?”)
SP: Eli Grba (still not sure what happened to all of the vowels)
SP: Hideki Irabu (never referred to as “The Toad”)
RP: Hipolito Pena (an obscure left-hander, but a memorable moniker)
RP: Cecilio Guante (translates to “Cecilio Glove”)
RP: Ron Klimkowski (went from pitching to selling Cadillacs)
RP: Dooley Womack (one of the stars of Ball Four)
Opponent: Jose Valdivielso (Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins)…

One of the most underrated managers in the history of the expansion era died this week. Herman Franks, the major leagues’ oldest living ex-manager, passed away on Monday at the age of 95. At first glance, Franks’ managerial record with the Giants and the Cubs might look pedestrian. In seven seasons, he failed to take any of his teams to the postseason. Without a measure of postseason glory, his record pales in comparison with that of contemporaries like Walter Alston, Dick Williams, Gil Hodges, and even Ralph Houk. That’s the cursory look, and as usual, it tells us little about the man’s true accomplishments. So let’s look deeper. In those seven seasons, Franks’ teams never finished worse than four games below .500. And his teams always contended, never concluding a season worse than five games behind the division or league leader.

In the late 1960s, Franks guided the Giants to three second-place finishes. Unfortunately, the National League was stacked at the time, with powerhouse clubs in place in Los Angeles and St. Louis, and the Pirates posing a threat as intermittent contenders. If only the league had been split into two divisions prior to 1969, Franks likely would have pushed one or more of his Giants teams into postseason play.

Franks, however, did his most impressive work a decade later with the Cubs, where he lacked the talent of the Mays-McCovey-Marichal Giants. In 1977, Franks led Chicago to a record of 81-81, remarkable for a club that featured four of five starting pitchers with ERAs of over 4.00. The Cubs’ lineup also had its share of holes, with Jose Cardenal missing a ton of games in the outfield, and mediocrities like George Mitterwald and the “original” Steve Ontiveros claiming regular playing time at catcher and third base, respectively. Two years later, Franks did similar wonders with a band of misfits, coaxing a career year out of Dave Kingman and using an innovative approach with fireman Bruce Sutter. Realizing that the Hall of Famer’s right arm had come up lame the previous two summers, Franks began to use Sutter almost exclusively in games in which the Cubs held the lead. It’s a practice that has become the norm in today’s game (to the point of being overdone), but Franks was the first to realize the benefit of reserving his relief ace for late-game leads.

For his troubles, the Cubs unfairly fired Franks with seven games remaining in the season. The following season, the Cubs finished 64-98, nearly 30 games out of first place. They should have kept Franks.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for MLB.com.

The weather is starting to perk up.  Rain tomorrow the weather man says, but right now, the sun is out and people are feeling fine.

Take it away, Biz:

It was a wet and foggy morning in the Bronx today.  But the rain is supposed to hold off this afternoon–the sun is already out–which will come as good news for the fans headed up to the new stadium.  The Yankees broke camp yesterday and are scheduled to have a work out in their new home today.  Our man Cliff Corcoran will be there and I’m sure he’ll give us his impressions later this evening.

No matter what our reservations about it are, I’m sure that most Yankee fans are eager to see the place.  I think it will feel strange, especially since the old Stadium is still standing, now vacant, across the street.  At least in Queens, Shea is torn down, which lends a different ghostly feeling to the surroundings.

What do you guys think?  Is there anyone who is not at least curious to go to the new park?

Bob Sheppard

According to this Jack Curry article in today’s Times, the man behind the mic at Yankee Stadium for nearly 60 years is retiring.

The new Yankee Stadium will sound much different than the old one. Bob Sheppard, the public-address announcer for the Yankees since 1951, has retired.

Paul Doherty, a friend and agent who has represented Sheppard, said Sheppard’s son, Paul, told him about Sheppard’s plans on Wednesday morning.

“I think Bob just wants to take it easy and no longer have the pressure of, ‘Can he? Will he? Or won’t he?’” Doherty said in an e-mail message. “And, at 98, who can blame him?”

Doherty added that Sheppard remained active.

“I’m happy to say that Bob is still doing well enough to drive a car,” Doherty said. “He picked his son up at the train this past weekend.”

It is truly a shame that Mr. Sheppard won’t be able to provide his dulcet tones towards the line-ups at the opening of the new Stadium on the 16th.  But he was a constant for over 57 years with the Yankees . . . rarely missing a game . . . with an instantly-identifiable voice and timbre.

How many of us have mimicked Mr. Sheppard’s intonations over the years when we stepped to the plate in our softball/baseball games?  How many of us still take joy in hearing “Number 2 . . . Derek Jeter . . . Number 2 . . . ” when the Captain comes to bat?

We wish you well Mr. Sheppard, and thank you for adding so much to our experiences at the Stadium.

UPDATE as of 4:18PM : The Yankees have officially refuted the story.

The Yankees denied the report, stating that Sheppard continues to be their official public-address announcer.

“We have spoken to Paul Sheppard, and he was very clear to us that the report made is categorically untrue,” said Yankees director of public relations Jason Zillo. “Paul Sheppard has not said anything remotely like that.”