Here’s some classic TV theme songs from the Seventies for you:

Sanford and Son:

Barney Miller:

The Jeffersons:

Fat Albert:

And my favorite, Taxi:

The Classic Routine.

We now know that Mark Teixeira will play first base and bat third (or possibly fourth) in the Yankees’ revamped lineup, but what effect will his addition have on the rest of the lineup’s configuration? The Yankees need to find a new role for Nick “Son of Steve” Swisher, who was originally targeted to play first after being acquired for Wilson Betemit. They also need to figure out roles for Xavier Nady and Hideki Matsui, while deciding who will play center field on a regular basis.

In the aftermath of the Teixeira signing, I’ve heard a number of observers suggest that the Yankees will put Swisher in center field, sandwiched between Johnny Damon in left and Nady in right. That alignment would maximize the Yankees’ offensive potential, but would also leave them with a below-average defensive center fielder, continuing an unsavory tradition that first began with Bernie Williams’ declining years.

Another potential solution would be to trade one of the following: Swisher, Nady, or Matsui, thereby alleviating the logjam in right field and DH. I’m not necessarily against that possibility, but only if the Yankees can acquire something of value for one of those players, specifically a center fielder or a backup catcher, or a useful pitcher. There should be no giveaways here; if the offers for Nady, Swisher, and Godzilla are subpar, keep them all. There’s nothing wrong with having one of these veterans on the bench each day. The Yankees have operated without a competent bench for far too long.

Here’s the alignment I’d prefer, one that would make defense and flexibility higher priorities. I’d put Swisher in right field, where he would platoon with Nady. I’d tell Nady to bring his infielder’s glove to spring training and be ready to put in work as a backup at both the hot corner and first base. Matsui would remain in the DH role, where he would give way to Jorge Posada on days in which the Yankees faced left-handers. And then I’d hand the center field reins over to Brett Gardner, who gives the Yankees the most range and speed of any of their outfielders. If Gardner, batting ninth, ends up a failure against major league pitching, then the Yankees can always try Melky Cabrera or Swisher later in the season.

Defense, flexibility, and the bench. Those should be the Yankees’ points of emphasis. Either directly or indirectly, Teixeira will help all three areas…

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I was at the final game at Yankee Stadium and wrote a bonus piece for SI.com on what the night was like for Ray Negron:

It was just before one o’clock in the morning on Sept. 22, but the scoreboard clock was frozen at 12:21. The last game at Yankee Stadium was over, Sinatra had finally stopped singing New York, New York, and organist Ed Alstrom was playing Goodnight, Sweetheart. The home team had won 7-3 in a game that meant nothing in the standings but everything in a deeper, gut-felt way. The Yankees would not be going to the postseason for the first time since 1993, yet they had drawn 4.3 million fans, including another capacity-plus 54,640 on this night. And now, as the last of them drifted out of the ballpark, it felt like closing night for a hit Broadway show.

Now it was just the clean-up crew swinging into action and a select group of others clinging to the night — players and their families, reporters, radio and TV personalities, cameramen, front office workers, the grounds crew and cops, lots of cops. People hugged and slapped hands and talked and laughed. Players scooped up dirt and grass and put them in paper cups and Ziploc bags. Grown men had their pictures taken at home plate, on the mound and sliding into second. It was like Never-Never Land — everyone was a child. Why would anyone want to go home, knowing they were the last precious few to soak in the Stadium? They stayed, stuck between history and the wrecking ball, until the head of security announced that it was time to leave.

Ray Negron was out on the field, right where he belonged, with the players and sportswriters. Ray had seen them all — from DiMaggio and Mantle to Reggie and A-Rod. He was there when they came to play at the Stadium and he was still there when they left.

I received an e-mail from Todd Drew’s wife yesterday afternoon. She said that Todd made it through surgery just fine. Talk about a Christmas present. For those who might have missed it, Todd, part of the Banter writing team, has a rare kind of stomach cancer. He’s going to be laid up in the hospital over the holidays but he appears to be doing well. I’m a head on over there later today and drop off a care package of books and articles (and today’s papers!) for when he’s ready to read again.

I know I can speak for Cliff, but I’ll be bold and speak for the entire Bronx Banter crew, in sending love and the best holiday cheer to Todd and his wife and their entire family. This is great news. I will keep you posted. Any thoughts you have, leave ’em in the comments section below and I’ll make sure to print them out and give them to Todd.

It is cold and now dark in New York but there is plenty of heat being generated by the afternoon news that Mark Teixeira has agreed to an eight-year deal with the Yankees.  My friend Rich Lederer, an Angels fan, called me from the golf course in California.  He was not happy.  He practically yelled on the phone he was so irritated.

How can you root for a team that has such an uneven financial advantage?  How is that fun?  Where’s the competition in that? 

“I hope they lose every single game,” Pat Jordan said to me when I called with the news a few hours later.  Both men, incidentally, are Republican, but they are also both rebellious, outsiders, self-made men.  They aren’t the kind that get off rooting for US Steel.

Yet here I am, a New York Liberal, and yet US Steel, that’s my team.  I used to have guilt about it, for years it worried me.  Then I grew up.  What’s the use feeling guilty?  You have accept what is.  Professional baseball isn’t a game.  The Yankees are out to win, every year, forever.  Isn’t that why Ban Johnson created the Highlanders in the first place?  They will spend whatever it they have to spend.  They pay a big luxury tax in return.  They might offend everything you stand for.  So be it.  I get it.

I like being a Yankee fan.  If Yankee fans are cursed by anthing, it is the teams’ ruthless ambition and unyielding arrogance.  The curse for a rational-minded Yankee fan is that you are rooting for the front-runner, the bullies. And if you are overly neurotic you will question what that says about your moral fiber.  So, we listen to other fans ridicule our team as something less-than-wholesome, something corrupt. 

As far as curses go, it’s not so bad.   After all, being a Yankee fan also means knowing, feeling in your bones, that you’ll see your team win again, and probably some time soon.  Which is not to say that it will happen, but Yankee fans feel as if it should, and, inevitably, that it will happen.  Being a Yankee fan also means wishing for, and often getting, big, fat, expensive Christmas presents like a CC or a Teixeira.  Sometimes, the toy doesn’t make it out the box before it breaks–Don Gullet, Jose Contreras, Carl Pavano.    

But you can’t predict the future and for the moment, all you can say is that you feel pretty warm in a cold, hard world.

All I want for Christmas is…

EVERYTHING.

According to Buster Olney at ESPN, Mark Teixeira is going to be a Yankee.

The world of baseball lost one of its most colorfully eccentric characters on Friday, when former Yankee Dock Ellis died from liver failure. A mere 63 years of age, Ellis managed to pack more “living” (both good and bad) into those years than most of us could have done in a hundred and 63 years.

The following are excerpts from my original manuscript on the 1971 Pirates, a team that featured Ellis as one of its most central figures. We’ll miss you, Dock.

The veteran right-hander certainly possessed the repertoire of a winning pitcher: a fastball that ran away from right-handed hitters, a sinking fastball, an effective but sparingly used breaking ball and a tenacious mindset. In one of his 1970 regular season starts, Ellis had demonstrated all of his talents at their peaks. On June 12, he had forged a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres, overcoming eight walks, a hit batsman, and several bases-loaded situations. His lone post-season start also showcased his occasional brilliance. In a playoff game against the Reds, Ellis concluded his season with nine innings of shutout pitching, before falling to fatigue and giving up three runs in the 10th to lose the game—and the series.

While Ellis possessed many talents, his resume also carried several red flags. The owner of a fragile right arm, Ellis [in 1970] had missed six weeks in August and September with elbow soreness, which cast some doubt on his health heading into the new season. Ellis had also proven to be a source of controversy. He had criticized the Pirate coaching staff for a failure to detect an unnatural change in his pitching motion and had feuded off and on with Pittsburgh-area writers. More significantly, Ellis possessed a dark side that had not been fully revealed to the public; the 26-year-old pitcher was using a variety of drugs. As he would disclose many years later, he had pitched his no-hitter against the Padres under the severe influence of LSD. Ellis had also taken prescription drugs Benzedrine and Dexamyl within two hours of his masterpiece at San Diego Stadium.

***

Just a few weeks earlier, Ellis had made headlines by predicting that he would not be selected to start the All-Star Game. Ellis had reasoned that with American League manager Earl Weaver likely to select the sizzling Vida Blue as his starter, baseball’s powers-that-be would want at least one white pitcher starting the midsummer classic in Detroit. “They wouldn’t pitch two brothers against each other,” Ellis told a reporter from the New York Times. Ellis also offered a secondary reason for a possible snub. “Sparky Anderson [the National League manager] doesn’t like me.”

Much to the pitcher’s surprise, Anderson announced that Ellis would start and would indeed face Blue in Detroit. Anderson denied that Ellis’ comments had, in any way, swayed his decision. “His 14-3 record and the fact that he hasn’t pitched since last Tuesday is what forced me to choose him,” Sparky told the New York Times, while defending Ellis’ outburst against him. “I think everybody has a right to say what he wants.”

In response to his outburst, Ellis received a number of angry letters from fans, who criticized him for being so presumptuous about Anderson. Ellis also received at least one positive letter—which came from the major leagues’ first African-American player of the 20th century. “I don’t mind those [negative] letters,” Ellis told The Sporting News, “but there was one letter I was particularly pleased with. Jackie Robinson wrote me a letter of encouragement. I met him last April in New York, and then I received this letter from him.”

On Tuesday, July 13, just hours before the start of the All-Star Game, Ellis offered no apologies for his recent remarks doubting the possibility of African-American pitchers starting the national pastime’s showcase game. “When it comes to black players, baseball is backwards, everyone knows it,” Ellis told a reporter from the New York Times. “I’m sort of surprised that I am starting, but I don’t feel my statements had anything to do with it.” Ellis also seized the opportunity to complain about the lack of endorsements for black athletes, compared to the commercial opportunities given to white players. A reporter asked Ellis if he had received any endorsement offers in light of his brilliant pitching in the first half of the season. “Aw, man, c’mon,” Ellis said incredulously. “Come to me for endorsements?”

Later in the season, Ellis would complain that black players received less attention from the media and less promotion from the front office than white athletes of similar ability. Ellis brought up several examples from the Pirates’ own roster. “Bob Moose and I are the tightest,” Ellis told Phil Musick of Sport magazine, “but when he came up, he was a phenom. Richie Hebner, he was Mr. Pie Traynor. Why don’t they publicize black players like that?”

Throughout his life, Ellis had bristled at racist treatment. During his first spring training in 1964, Ellis said he had argued or fought with seven different teammates who had used ethnic slurs in conversing with him. Seven years later, such instances of face-to-face racism still bothered Ellis, but he had learned to use restraint. During the 1971 season, Ellis and a black friend visited a high school that had been affected by racial divisions. On the way to the school, a police officer called out to the two men, referring to them as “boys.” “That’s where I’ve changed,” Ellis told Sport Magazine. “Three years ago, I would’ve jumped on the cop’s chest. But all I did was to correct him.”

Ellis, who would eventually be featured on the cover of the August 21st issue of The Sporting News, had emerged as one of the National League’s most dominant pitchers—and one of its most intriguing personalities. While some black players shied away from public discourse of their own Afrocentric world views, Ellis reveled in such discussions. In an article in Sports Illustrated, Ellis explained the significance of his daughter’s Swahili name, Shangaleza Talwanga. Ellis, one of three black pitchers on the Pirates at the time, explained that it meant “everything black is beautiful.” In the Pirates’ clubhouse, Ellis enjoyed listening to loud music that he labeled “funky.” On the field, when preparing to take his at-bats during games he pitched, Ellis donned a fuzzy batting helmet, which he referred to as “velvetized.”

At times, though, Ellis’ behavior bordered on the bizarre. Two years later, in perhaps his most celebrated incident, Ellis would walk out onto the field before a game against the Cubs wearing a head full of hair curlers. “I think the big thing with him when he come out on Wrigley Field with the hair curlers,” recalls Richie Hebner, “is that when he did that, other than surprising a lot of people at Wrigley Field, it surprised a lot of guys on the Pirate team. When I saw it, I said, ‘What the hell is this?’ ” Commissioner Bowie Kuhn reportedly conveyed his unhappiness over the hair curler episode to Bill Virdon, who by now had succeeded Danny Murtaugh as the Pirates’ manager. Virdon, relaying the commissioner’s message, told Ellis to cease his practice of wearing the curlers on the field. “Look, Dock,” Virdon said, “I don’t care what you wear, but the front office doesn’t like it, the umpires don’t like it, and if you’re not careful, you’re going to get fined.”

Bob Robertson recalls his own involvement in the hair curler episode. “[The manager] comes to me and says, ‘Go out and ask Dock why he’s got those curlers in his hair?’ So I did. And I think, if I can remember correctly, Dock said, ‘That’s me. Those are my curls.’ And that was about it. So I went back and told [Virdon] and that was the end of that stuff.” Much to Virdon’s delight, Ellis would not wear the hair curlers on the field again.

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Blogs are poor excuses for street corners.

I’m always being reminded of that in my neighborhood.

“Baseball blogging doesn’t take any courage,” my friend Javier was telling the guys gathered outside the bodega near the corner of Gerard Avenue and East 157th Street. “Ballplayers have the courage to put it on the line every day in front of a million people. If you don’t have the guts to toss your opinions around on the street and risk getting a fist in the face then you shouldn’t write them on a blog.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“I wasn’t asking some sissy blogger,” Javier snapped.

Nobody ever asks me, but…

I love grown men who spit sunflower seeds, chew bubblegum and answer to: Jete, Mo, A-Rod, Josey, Domo, Mattie, Melk, CC, A.J., Swish, Brew, X-Man and The Wanger.

If Joba Chamberlain was a banker, they would call him Justin Chamberlain instead of Joba the Hutt.

I know most people doubt Orlando Hernandez these days. He is old and hasn’t been healthy enough to pitch in a long time. But I still believe El Duque can do anything.

The best part of the World Baseball Classic is getting to see the Cubans play.

It seems like there are more Americans backing out of the World Baseball Classic every day. The players’ concerns need to be addressed if this tournament is ever going to be what it should be.

Jason Whitlock of The Kansas City Star is one of the best sports columnists in the country. I just wish he covered more baseball.

Joe Posnanski covers a lot of baseball for The Kansas City Star. He also does fine work for Sports Illustrated and on his blog.

The Kansas City Star deserves the best writers since that’s where Ernest Hemingway got his start.

There used to be a great sportswriter in New York named Mike Lupica. Whatever happened to that guy?

Josh Hamilton made year-end lists in GQ and Esquire. He also has a new book out called “Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back.” He had a fabulous season and deserves everything that comes his way.

Milton Bradley had a pretty good season, too.

According to some baseball writers, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro may be locked out of the Hall of Fame just like Mark McGwire.

Will there be any reason to still call it the Hall of Fame if all that talent joins Pete Rose on the outside looking in?

I say the Yankees are the team to beat.

The Crown Diner on East 161st Street has the best chocolate donuts in the world.

Two of my favorite places to watch baseball are Falcon Park in Auburn and Dunn Field in Elmira. And I will always love the long-gone MacArthur Stadium in Syracuse and the soon-to-be-gone Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. But the best place to see a ballgame is wherever you’re watching one that day.

I think Mark Teixeira is a great talent, but Manny Ramirez has ripped my heart out so many times that I wouldn’t mind having him on my side for a change. Part of it is that he grew up just across the Harlem River in Washington Heights and the rest of it is the big bat he swings. I’ll carry any baggage as long as he carries that lumber.

Tony Pena will bring a lot more to this team as the bench coach. And I’m not just saying that because I like the Tony Pena codfish-salad special at El Nuevo Caridad in Washington Heights.

My best friend Michael Allen recently gave me a copy of “Nobody Asked Me, But… The World of Jimmy Cannon.” I’ve never owned the book, but have checked it out of the library about a million times. That gift will save me a pile of money in late fees.

Blogs will always be poor excuses for street corners, but I told Javier that it would be warmer in front of my computer than on the corner of Gerard Avenue and East 157th Street.

“You online guys are real sissies,” Javier said. “But since no one punched your lights out I guess it’s okay to blog it.”

Snow and then rain has covered New York since Friday morning and I’ve been home sick since Thursday. Yesterday, Em and I went off to get our new kitten, Mo Green. Into the country snow. The senior cat in our crib, the Divine Mrs. Tashi, is none too thrilled, as you can imagine. And Mo is just as cute as he is wild.

Still not feeling too well, I slept on the couch, next to a little box we’d set up for Mo, last night. From 3-5 am he was a wild man. Ah, the joys of parenthood. I’ll have a picture of the little bugger up in the coming days.

I did catch the CC, AJ press conference the other day and came away amped about next season for the first time. I think CC has an easy personality, he’s got some charm. What’s not to like? Then, the fan in me, tore loose as I realized that the Yankees’ best starting pitcher is a six-foot-seven brother. I mean, his size alone is unique, but how many good black starting pitchers have the Yankees ever had? Al Downing, Rudy May, Doc Gooden. It’s not that many. Which isn’t to say that race is a reason to like or dislike a guy. I’m just noting the facts. I wonder how many city kids that normally don’t care about baseball will be wearing 52 jerseys next year.

CC is a new-age pitching version of Darryl Dawkins “Chocolate Thunder.”

I thought it was fascinating to hear Brian Cashman disclose that last winter the Yankees were either going to deal Hughes, et al to the Twins for Johan Santana, or they were going to wait and hope to nab Sabathia this winter in the free-agent market. They rolled the dice, got the situation they wanted, and then signed their man. That is satisfying.

I was almost even more impressed by Burnett. Now, he’s a guy that I’ve loved rooting against for years. The charge against him–he’s all talent, no polish, a million dollar arm with a ten cent head–was something I could never see past, even when he shut the Yankees down time and time again. But in the press conference, and then later to reporters, Burnett attributed much of his injury history to arrogance. He loved his “stuff” so much, he said, that he’d try and throw every pitch 98 miles an hour. If you got it, flaunt it, was his motto. He didn’t know how to prepare, physcially or mentally, for a long season. But he remembers making the playoffs in ’03 and not being able to pitch.

Burnett gave Roy Halladay a lot of credit with turning him into a pitcher not just a chucker. He sounded like a guy who has finally figured it out for himself. Now whether or not he’ll continue to harness his gift (and if he does, he has the best pure stuff of anyone on the staff), or will he be hurt all the time and continue to be uneven? Time will only tell. But for me, it’s going to be easy to pull for him, at least at the outset, than I had imagined.

Burnett was almost deferential to Joe Girardi, the Yankee manager, who told reporters that CC and AJ were his Chirstmas presents this year. “No, I’m sure I’ll get a few gifts,” he added so as not to offend his wife. He went on to say that he is aware that the Yankees’ playoff run came to an end on his watch and he was eager to start a new streak. You could see how geeked he was with the new talent he’s got to work with and who can blame him?

When it’s all said and done, provided everyone is healthy, the Yankees 2009 starting pitching staff is going to look like a red, hot, shiny muscle car. Will it run like a GTO or an Edsel, that’s the question.

To a good pitcher, a great character, a true survivor, and a strong, caring man.

Rest in Peace, Doc Ellis.

I’ve run this before, but here is my favorite Doc Ellis story. From Doc Ellis in the Country of Baseball by Donald Hall.

In spring training 1974, Dock Ellis, felt that his Pirates had begun to loss some aggressiveness.

“You are scared of Cincinnati. That’s what I told my teammates. Every time we play Cincinnati, the hitters are on their ass.”

In 1970, ’71, and ’72, he says, the rest of the league was afraid of the Pirates. “They say, ‘Here come the big bad Pirates. They’re going to kick our ass!’ Like they give up. That’s what our team was starting to do. Cincinatti will bullshit with us and kick our ass and laugh at us. They’re the only team that talk about us like a dog. Whenever we play that team, everybody socializes with them.” In the past the roles had been revered. “When they ran over to us, we knew they were afraid of us. When I saw our team doing it, right then I say, ‘We gunna get down. We gonna do the do. I’m going to hit these motherfuckers.'”

Sure enough, on May 1st, the Reds came to Pittsburgh and Dock Ellis was pitching.

He told catcher Manny Sanguillen in the pre-game meeting, “Don’t even give me no signal. Just try and catch the ball. If you can’t catch it, forget it.”

Taking his usual warm-up pitches, Dock noticed Pete Rose standing at one side of the batter’s box, leaning on his bat, studying his delivery. On his next-to-last warm-up, Dock let fly at Rose and almost hit him.

A distant early warning.

In fact, he had considered not hitting Pete Rose at all. He and Rose are friends, but of course friendship, as the commissioner of baseball would insist, must never prevent even-handed treatment. No, Dock had considered not hitting Pete Rose because Rose would take it so well. “He’s going to charge first base, and make it look like nothing.” Having weighed the whole matter, Dock decided to hit him anyway.

“The first pitch to Pete Rose was directly toward his head,” as Dock expresses it, “not actually to hit him, ” but as “the message, to let him know that he was going to get hit. More or less to press his lips. I knew if I could get close to the head that I could get them in the body. Because they’re looking to protect their head, they’ll give me the body.” The next pitch was behind him. “the next one, I hit him in the side.”

Pete Rose’s response was even more devastating than Dock had anticipated. He smiled. Then he picked the ball up, where it had falled beside him, and gently, underhanded, tossed it back to Dock. Then he lit for first as if trying out fro the Olympics.

As Dock says, with huge approval, “You have to be good, to be a hot dog.”

As Rose bent down to pick up the ball, he had exchanged a word with Joe Morgan who was batting next. Morgan taunted Rose, “He doesn’t like you anyway. You’re a white guy.”

Dock hit Morgan in the kidneys with his first pitch.

By this time, both benches were agog. It was Mayday on May Day. The Pirates realized that Dock was doing what he said he would do. The Reds were watching him do it. “I looked over on the bench, they were all with their eyes wide and their mouths wide open, like, ‘I don’t believe it!’

“The next batter was [Dan] Driessen. I threw a ball to him. High and inside. The next one, I hit him in the back.”

Bases loaded, no outs. Tony Perez, Cincinnati first baseman, came to bat. He did not dig in. “There was no way I could hit him. He was running. The first one I threw behind him, over his head, up against the screen, but it came back off the glass, and they didn’t advance. I threw behind him because he was backing up, but then he stepped in front of the ball. The next three pitches, he was running. I walked him.” A run came in. “The next hitter was Johnny Bench. I tried to deck him twice. I threw at his jaw, and he moved. I threw at the back of his head, and he moved.”

With two balls and no strikes on Johnny Bench—eleven pitches gone: three hit batsmen, one walk, one run, and now two balls—[manager, Danny] Murtaugh approached the mound. “He came out as if to say, ‘What’s wrong? Can’t find the plate?'” Dock was suspicious that his manager really knew what he was doing. “No,” said Dock, “I must have Blass-itis.” (It was genuine wildness not throwing at batters—that had destroyed Steve Blass the year before.)

“He looked at me hard,” Dock remembers. “He said, ‘I’m going to bring another guy in.’ So I just walked off the mound.”

My favorite Doc moment as a Yankee came shortly before he was traded in 1977. He left the clubhouse when George Steinbrenner came down to address the troops one day. “I’m not going to listen to that High School Charley shit.”

Nope, they don’t make ’em like that anymore.

Following baseball for nearly 40 years has taught me at least one principle: no deal is ever done until both sides have announced it. The failed Mike Cameron trade reinforces that notion. Just a week ago, some media sources were proclaiming it a done deal. A week later, it has been declared dead, apparently over the Yankees’ unwillingness to pick up all of Kei Igawa’s exorbitant salary. So for now, Igawa and Melky Cabrera remain Yankee property—for good, bad, or indifferent.

I have to admit I was lukewarm on the rumored acquisition of Cameron. Yes, he would have been an immediate upgrade over Cabrera and company, and would have come with the bonus of allowing the Yankees to be rid of Igawa, who seems to have no clue about pitching in the major leagues. Yet, the 36-year-old Cameron would have represented only a short-term solution, probably two years at the maximum. He also would have affected the offense’s continuity, with his rather alarming windmill propensity at the plate. Cameron piles up strikeouts the way that Bobby Bonds once did, but without the levels of power and patience that Bonds once displayed during an all-star career.

With Cameron apparently off the board, I’d like to see Brian Cashman resurrect talks for one of three younger center fielders available in trades: the Dodgers’ Matt Kemp, the Cardinals’ Rick Ankiel, and Kansas City’s David DeJesus. Of the three, Ankiel might be the most realistic. He’s available, mostly because he’s a Scott Boras client who is one year removed from free agency. The Cardinals don’t think they can sign him by next fall, at which time Boras will likely send Ankiel spiraling full throttle into free agency.

Cashman talked to the Cardinals about the 29-year-old Ankiel during the recent winter meetings (which once again proved to be a disappointing flop and an unmitigated bore, but that’s another story). The Cards expressed interest in Ian Kennedy, whom they really like as a rotation option for 2009. If the Yankees could package Kennedy with Cabrera and perhaps a fringe minor league prospect (someone like Chase Wright or Steven Jackson), maybe a deal could get done.

If the Yankees could sign Ankiel past 2009, he would provide several long-term benefits. He has real power (he hit 25 home runs in 2008, a remarkable achievement considering that he has been an everyday player for only four seasons). He also has a Clementian throwing arm that could play well in either center field or right. The Yankees could use Ankiel in center while Austin Jackson develops at Triple-A and then shift him over to right once “Ajax” is ready for prime time delivery.

Because of his late start as an outfielder, Ankiel might not hit his prime until he’s in his early thirties. By then, he may have improved his patience at the plate and his fundamentals in the outfield. Even if he doesn’t, he looks a lot better than what the Yankees currently have in center field…

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The Bombers introduce their Winter Meetings booty this afternoon at a 1 p.m. news conference.  We welcome your comments on the proceedings during and afterwards.

Joe Posnanski has an entertaining re-cap of the winter meetings in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated:

The king of this year’s baseball winter meetings in Las Vegas is an 81-year-old scout for the Kansas City Royals named Art Stewart. He is barely 5’7″, and he never played at a level higher than semipro in Chicago, but he’s the Sinatra of the baseball bat pack, the chairman of the hoard, the guy behind the guy behind the guy. He has been coming to the winter meetings for 45 years, going back to his scouting days with the New York Yankees, back when he signed the outfielder Norm Siebern by throwing in a working stove for Norm’s mother. Art knows everybody, and everybody knows Art, and he will admit that the game has changed, the money has changed, even the baseball people have changed. But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, one rule that never changes, and it is this: The secret to the winter meetings is to stand on your own piece of carpet.

“Don’t stand on the bare floor,” he says. “You have to protect your feet.”

You laugh? Don’t laugh. See, it’s midnight at the Bellagio, and what’s happening? All those people who did not find their place on the carpet, all of those eager baseball men who have spent the last five or six hours downing drinks and recalling ballplayers who haven’t played in 20 years and proposing deals and standing on the marble floors, well, now their feet hurt. Look at them shifting back and forth. “They’re dropping like flies,” is how Art puts it, and he adds that over his many years, he’s seen countless good guys make bad baseball trades simply because their feet hurt.

“There are tricks to the trade,” Art says. “You bet. Tricks to the trade.”

Man, it must feel good to feel needed, huh? Take Mark Teixeira. I think he’s an excellent player and he’s going to get a ridiculous contract before all is said and done this off-season. I don’t know if he is a great player, but he certainly is good.  And boy, is he ever wanted.

Over at SI.com, Lee Jenkins writes about why the Angels need to sign Teixeira while at Fox, Ken Rosenthal writes that if the Yankees really want to stick it to Boston, they’ll sign Teixeria, dollars and years be damned.

One thing for sure, if the Red Sox do sign him, I think the Yankees will bring Manny Ramirez, baggage, bat and all to the BX.

Bert Campaneris--1983 Topps Traded

In the second game of the 1972 American League Championship Series, Oakland A’s shortstop Bert “Campy” Campaneris stepped into the batter’s box against Detroit Tigers reliever Lerrin LaGrow. Campaneris, a thorn in the Tigers’ flesh throughout the early portion of the series, had done considerable damage in his first three at-bats, with three hits, two runs scored, and a pair of stolen bases. At the direction of their manager, Tiger pitchers had thrown fastballs in the general direction of Campy’s legs, in an attempt to brush him back off the plate, or perhaps even injure the Oakland catalyst. Predictably, LaGrow threw his first pitch—a fastball—down and in on Campaneris, hitting the Cuban shortstop in the ankle.

Most of the Oakland players knew that one of the A’s’ batters, given the Tiger struggles in the early part of the series, would eventually become the victim of a deliberate brushback pitch. “I was in the on-deck circle,” said A’s left fielder Joe Rudi, “and I feel the Detroit pitcher threw at him. Campy had run the Tigers ragged in the first two games, and when [Billy] Martin gets his ears pinned down, he’s going to do something about it.”

Other members of the A’s agreed with Rudi’s analysis, including Oakland first baseman Mike Hegan, who observed the fateful pitch from the Oakland dugout. “There’s no question in anybody’s mind,” says Hegan, “and I think if the truth be known, I think we saw something was gonna happen, but didn’t know exactly what it was gonna be. Those orders to Lerrin LaGrow came right from Billy Martin—to start something, to do something. We had won the first game, and I think Billy Martin wanted to light a fire under his ballclub, and Campy was the guy that they were going after because he was the guy that set the table for us. There’s no question that Billy Martin instructed Lerrin LaGrow to throw at Campaneris.”

When LaGrow’s fastball struck the bone of Campaneris’ ankle, the A’s’ shortstop staggered for a moment, glared at the Tiger pitcher, and then, in an unusually violent reaction, flung the bat toward LaGrow. Spiraling about six feet off the ground, the bat helicoptered toward the pitching mound. The six-foot, five-inch LaGrow ducked down, barely avoiding contact with the bat, which ended up a few feet behind the mound.

Almost on cue, Billy Martin led the charge of Tiger players and coaches from the dugout. Martin ran directly toward home plate, but three of the umpires managed to hold back the Tiger manager, preventing him from completing his assault on Campaneris. Nestor Chylak, the home-plate umpire and crew chief, ejected both Campaneris and LaGrow, while attempting to calm an infuriated Martin. “There’s no place for that kind of gutless stuff in baseball,” seethed Martin. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in all my years of baseball… I would respect him if he went out to throw a punch but what he did was the most gutless [thing] of any man to put on a uniform. It was a disgrace to baseball.”

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My wife is a photographer. 

Recently, she started her own website: bluepearprints.com, featuring a lovely selection of originally composed and designed photo note cards.

And now, she’s got a holiday sale cookin.

Peep, don’t sleep.

Looking for that ideal last-minute holiday gift for the sports fan in your life?  Look no further than The Best American Sportswriting of 2008, edited by Bill Nack, who is one of the finest sports writers we have.  

Nack is a first-rate reporter, a dedicated craftsman, and a true storyteller.  He came up with Newsday in the late Sixties and wrote about horse racing.  His experience in the field culminated in the seminal book, Secretariat: The Making of a Champion.  In 1979, Nack joined Sports Illustrated where he excelled at the bonus, or take-out piece, writing beautifully about Willie Shoemaker, Keith Hernandez, Rick Pitino, Bobby Fischer, Rocky Marciano, and, of course, Secretariat, to name just a few. (Nack’s best work is compiled in the stellar collection, My Turf.)  

Nack now works for ESPN.com.  Roger Ebert, who has been friends with Nack since they went to college together, wrote a wonderful essay about his friend last week.  If you love words, and care about language, you must check this out.  It could be the highlight of your week. 

I recently caught up with Bill recently to chat about The Best American Sports Writing 2008.

Bronx Banter: As a writer, how do you approach a project like this?

Bill Nack: I just look for the stuff that I liked the most. The stuff that I thought was the best written and best told stories. I read 70-80 stories that Glenn Stout sent me. I got it down to 35-40 and then it became really tough to pair it down. The last ten were very difficult.

BB: Did you work with Glenn or alone?

BN:  I did it on my own. There were a couple of pieces that I had questions about but not many. He left it up to me totally. I trusted him to give me what he thought were the 70 best and after that I felt it was up to me to find the ones that I thought were the best. And occasionally, I’d call him up and say, “What do you think of this one?” Some to me were slam dunks, in fact most of them were. Jeanne Marie Laskas, SL Price. The only problem that I had was in trying to get a mix–of traditional sports with obscure sports. And I was very conscious of the mix.

BB: Did you also want to mix-up bonus pieces and newspaper stuff?

BN: Yeah I did actually. I wanted to make sure there was an adequate representation of newspaper columns which are a dying species. And when I read Rick Telander’s piece on Doug Atkins that was a no-brainer. Same thing on Rick Reilly’s piece. The piece on Bo Jackson, by Joe Posnanski, that was kind of a column, that to me was an easy one. That raised a problem because I wondered if we should have two Bo Jackson stories in one book. And I really liked the ESPN.com piece by Michael Weinreb. I loved both of them. And what I liked about them together is that they were completely different takes on the same guy. I think I did consult with Glenn on that one. I said, “Do you mind if we have two Bo Jackson stories?” And he said, “No, no, they are both very different.”

BB:  I actually like having them back-to-back for just that reason.

BN:  The one thing that I noticed in the first batch of stories that Glenn sent me was that there was no humor. It was very serious. The poor woman who was lost in the wilderness and saved by her dog, the Terry Fox run across Canada, the world’s tallest tree, Scott Price’s piece on the poor coach who died from a foul ball.  And I looked at it and thought, “God, some of this stuff is really gloomy.” I happened to be a subscriber to Golf Digest and Dan Jenkins is a regular contributor. I started looking through my old issues and ran across Dan’s piece about trying to play golf as you grow old. I started laughing as I read it, because he’s one of the funniest writers that’s ever written about sports. I finished it and thought this has got to go in there. So that’s the one humorous piece that I found. I also liked it because I’m 67 and play golf. And there are a lot of older men who still play, so I thought it had a wider appeal. It was not just funny, which I needed, but it was something that a lot of guys could relate to. You don’t have to be 67, all you have to do is be 50.

BB: Was there a sense with the Tom Boswell column on Clemens and the Hank Aaron story that you wanted to get in pieces that were timely?

BN: Oh, definitely. I did think of that. I thought people would like Tom Boswell’s piece because it is a comment on Clemens.

BB: I thought the Aaron piece was phenomenal.

BN: I showed some of the pieces around before I made my final choices. Some people loved the Tommy Craggs thing and other people said, “You can’t put this in there. Who is this guy?” I just laughed. But they were bent out-of-shape because Craggs is criticizing the press in his piece. Who is this guy to criticize the press? I said, “I have no idea and I don’t care who he is.” I thought he had a very interesting, sharp take. And when I read it I thought, you know there is a lot of truth in this. I might not agree with everything, but I thought there was a lot of truth in it. I had friends in the piece that he criticized but I ran it anyway.

BB: The collection has some good young talent, like Wright Thompson, who has made the series several times now.

BN: I thought that was a terrific piece he did on Beijing. Really well done. Almost personal in a way. He didn’t just write a piece. He got you into it with vivid imagery. I’ve never met Wright Thompson, I’ve only read a little bit by him but I thought, this is really good. I didn’t know anything about him, but like Tommy, I liked his work and was happy to put it in this book. If you want to know the bottom line, I didn’t consider personalities, I didn’t consider names, I just put in people who contributed to making this the best possible anthology I could put together.

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Enough is never enough.

According to George King in today’s New York Post:

According to several baseball officials, the YankeesNew York Yankees remain in the Mark Teixeira hunt. But the same connected voices insist if the Yankees don’t land the switch-hitting first baseman, they will turn their money toward controversial slugger Manny Ramirez.

“If they can’t get Teixeira, they are right there on Manny,” an official with knowledge of the Yankees’ plan said yesterday.

…Only fools count out the Yankees when it comes to free agents.