Mornin.

So what if the Yanks don’t land Sabathia or Lowe or even AJ Burnett?

Cliff Corcoran and Jay Jaffe look at some options. 

Dig.

The Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory series will return next week as we come to the finish line. In the meantime, several readers have sent me their own lasting Stadium memories. I thought I’d share a few of them with you…

By Dina Colarossi

So here’s my Yankee Stadium memory. My apologies if this turns out a little overlong. A little bit of back story is required so that you can understand why this is my awesomest memory of the Stadium. Context is important!

I moved to Dallas in August 2003, based on my uncle’s promise that there were plenty of jobs and no winters. He was wrong on both counts. After a couple of months of being unemployed, I started bartending as a way to make some money. Like most newbies in a bar, I got stuck with the crappy weekend day shifts, serving beer to a bunch of old men in cowboy hats who weren’t so sure about this damn Yankee girl with a college degree and no babies. (I wish I were kidding about that.)

I had absolutely nothing in common with these guys (and a few ladies) who talked about nothing but guns, motorcycles, and the Cowboys. Good lord did they spend a lot of time talking about the Cowboys. Now, I hate football. I actively avoid football, and even more so the Cowboys. Hard to do in Texas. But, I did know an awful lot about this kid the Cowboys just signed who used to play baseball . It was a win-win situation. I got to babble on about Drew Henson and hype and blah, blah, blah, and the old men got the comfort in knowing that their bartender might be a Yankee, but at least she knew something about sports.

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Quilty gives Humpy a hard time…

For what it’s worth I think Peter Sellers’ performance in Lolita is every bit as good as his turn in Dr. Strangeglove.

I’ve been thinking about great magazine profiles recently, about the golden age of sports writing.  I love long-form magazine work, bonus pieces, take-out pieces, whatever you want to call them. 

Here is one of the finest, Gay Talese’s Esquire article on Joe DiMaggio, The Silent Season of a Hero (July, 1966):

Joe DiMaggio lives with his widowed sister, Marie, in a tan stone house on a quiet residential street not far from Fisherman’s Wharf. He bought the house almost 30 years ago for his parents, and after their deaths he lived there with Marilyn Monroe. Now it is cared for by Marie, a slim and handsome dark-eyed woman who has an apartment on the second floor, Joe on the third. There are some baseball trophies and plaques in the small room off DiMaggio’s bedroom, and on his dresser are photographs of Marilyn Monroe, and in the living room downstairs is a small painting of her that DiMaggio likes very much; it reveals only her face and shoulders and she is wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat, and there is a soft, sweet smile on her lips, an innocent curiosity about her that is the way he saw her and the way he wanted her to be seen by others – a simple girl, “a warm, big-hearted girl,” he once described her, “that everybody took advantage of.”

The publicity photographs emphasizing her sex appeal often offend him, and a memorable moment for Billy Wilder, who directed her in The Seven-Year Itch, occurred when he spotted DiMaggio in a large crowd of people gathered on Lexington Avenue in New York to watch a scene in which Marilyn, standing over a subway grating to cool herself, had her skirts blown high by a sudden wind blow. “What the hell is going on here?” DiMaggio was overheard to have said in the crowd, and Wilder recalled, “I shall never forget the look of death on Joe’s face.”

He was then 39, she was 27. They had been married in January of that year, 1954, despite disharmony in temperament and time; he was tired of publicity, she was thriving on it; he was intolerant of tardiness, she was always late. During their honeymoon in Tokyo an American general had introduced himself and asked if, as a patriotic gesture, she would visit the troops in Korea. She looked at Joe. “It’s your honeymoon,” he said, shrugging, “go ahead if you want to.”

She appeared on 10 occasions before 100,000 servicemen, and when she returned, she said, “It was so wonderful, Joe. You never heard such cheering.”

“Yes, I have,” he said.

It’s brick cold here in New York this weekend. Curl up with this one if you’ve never read it before. It’s terrific.

Over at SNY, Tom Boorstein takes a look at Robbie Cano:

Cano has always relied on a high batting average. Let his 2008 serve as a reminder to those who scoff at the value of walks. Batting averages fluctuate much more from season to season than on-base percentages. Some people — Joe DiMaggio and Ichiro Suzuki for instance — rely on a consistently unusually high batting average to provide upper-tier offense. (Of course, Ichiro isn’t half the player DiMaggio was. Just look at the power, but that’s a story for another day.) Others — Garret Anderson for example — get way too much praise for their ability to hit for a high average. Those players do so at the expense of their patience. And when the hits don’t fall, those players lose almost all their value.

This is why hitting streaks are overrated. Yes, it takes skill to get base hits. But patient hitters don’t usually end up with long streaks. That’s because their walks cut down on their chances to get hits.

What does that have to do with Cano and 2009? He needs to make sure his on-base percentage is more than 50 points higher than his average. Everyone worries about changing a hitter’s approach. “He’s aggressive,” coaches and announcers will say. “We like that.” What teams should like is “productive.” Aggressive is just a euphemism for impatient.

Cano’s average should return to a more respectable level next season. But unless it soars well over .300, he’s not going to be much more than an average hitter. At second base, that’s still worth something, but the Yankees’ aging lineup needs the few youngsters like Cano to step it up.

Back with more McCarron and Lamster. Today’s topic: AJ Burnett or Derek Lowe?

I’ve never been keen on Burnett. Last week, I was talking to my good friend Rich Lederer who accused me of being overly critical of players like Burnett, guys who have tremendous “stuff.” Guilty as charged. I got an e-mail from Rich last night, highlighting the many good things about Burnett’s 2008 season:

A.J. was 7th in FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching ERA) among American League pitchers last year. FIP is based on the three variables a pitcher can control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs. The six pitchers ahead of him were Lee, Halladay, Beckett, E. Santana, Mussina, and Danks. He was one of only 16 starters whose FIP was lower than his ERA and FIP is a better indicator of pitching prowess than ERA. As such, Burnett’s ERA of 4.07 doesn’t accurately portray just how good he pitched last year.

A.J. was first in K/9 and, in fact, was the only starter in the AL who struck out more than one batter per inning. His closest competitor (Beckett) was more than a half of a batter per nine behind Burnett.

A.J. was ninth in HR/9. The eight pitchers head of him were Lee, Eveland (not so good), Lester, Matsuzaka, Halladay, Danks, Hernandez, and Mussina.

Not to be dismissed, A.J. had the fourth highest batting average on balls in play (BABIP) at .328 (vs. about .300 for league average), suggesting that he may have been unlucky. No other Blue Jays starter had a BABIP over .293.

A.J. had the 8th highest groundball rate and GB/FB ratio. Burnett is a rarity in that he can miss bats and keep the ball on the ground, which is exactly what you want in a pitcher.

Not for nothing, A.J. tied for the third hardest average fastball at 94.3 mph. Only Hernandez (94.6) and Santana (94.4) threw harder. Burnett also has one of the best curve balls in the game, a hard, hump-backed curve (second in velocity only to Felix) that is one of the best out pitches in the game.

Oh, and A.J. did all this in the AL East, facing the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees multiple times.

I’m not making a call on the length and size of the contract or his injury history. Instead, I’m just vouching for the quality of the pitcher.

Given a cherce, which guy would you take?

This is one of Edward Hopper’s last paintings.  He said it was “about me.”  Space, light, composition, isolation.  You never see Hopper’s people smile much.  And smiles were hard to come by with Mike Mussina too, although he’s got a dry wit and could be cutting and sly with reporters. 

Something about Moose always reminds me of Hopper’s world–private, self-contained.

My brother liked him first.  Back when Moose was pitching for Baltimore.  Then again my brother has always been drawn to pitchers, particularly guys as cerebral, fastidious and determined as Moose.  Reports tonight have it that Mussina is going to retire.  An official announcement will likely be made by the end of the week. 

This comes as no surprise.  Still, it’s rare to see an athlete walk away from the game on his own terms and there is something deeply satisfying about Moose splitting with 270 wins.  It’s neat and controlled like Mussina himself. 

Moose finally won twenty games this past year, an achievement that had eluded him during his fine career.  It wasn’t his best overall season (though it was probably in the top five) but it was impressive.  He pitched beautifully and had just the right amount of good fortune.  In fact, it was all the more admirable because he pitched so well at an advanced age after it appeared that he was all but warshed up.

270 wins.  No Cy Young awards.  No World Serious hardware, but a great winning percentage and some fine playoff performances.  Durable, reliable, stubborn.  A winner.

Is he a Hall of Famer?  (Tyler Kepner addressed the matter a few days ago in the Times.) I’d say yes.  Joe Posnanski had two posts about Moose’s Hall of Fame candidacy earlier this week:  one and two.  Check em out.

Thanks for the great memories Moose.  We’ll miss ya, but are proud to see you calling one last shot.

Over at SNY, Tom Boorstein’s got it on lock: Bring Back Bro!

You were expecting maybe these two dudes?

I’m hosting a Yankee hot stove series over at SNY and was fortunate to have Mark Lamster and Anthony McCarron kick things off. Dig…

[poll id=”2″]

Maybe I’ve been burned too often in the past. Or maybe I’m just in a generally grumpy mood right now. But for whatever reason, I’m feeling decidedly pessimistic about this year’s free agents.

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait for next season to start (…any day now!). And I’m not trying to claim that C.C. Sabathia isn’t an awesome pitcher, or that Texiera’s not one of the  best first basemen in the game. Yet even if the Yankees get one or both of them – Sabathia seeming more likely at the moment, I suppose – I just can’t muster up much hope or faith for those signings working out. I keep imagining the moment when Sabathia turns to high-five his agent, as the ink dries on his record-breaking contract… and his rotator cuff dissolves into Jell-O. After the way the Brewers used him last season, and given his, erm, conditioning, isn’t an early injury all too easy to imagine? And yeah, Texiera’s great; so was Giambi in 2001. I know, I know, they’re very different players, there’s no direct correlation. It’s just that it seems like with the Yankees over the last few years – as it is for most teams, most of the time, really, but wasn’t for New York from 1996 to 2001 – it’s always something.

Besides, after Sabathia and Texiera, what’s the big prize? Has New York’s great baseball rivalry really been reduced to fighting over Derek Lowe? Nothing against Lowe, really who does at least have a lot going for him simply by virtue of not being Sidney Ponson; but no one’s going to buy advance tickets this spring for a mid-summer game thinking, “gee, I hope I get to see Lowe pitch that day!”

Speaking of huge free agent signings, I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years defending Alex Rodriguez to all comers, and I suppose I’ll have to continue doing so; he’s earned it on the field. (Mostly). But I’m thoroughly annoyed with him at the moment, thanks to his apparent determination to stay under as much media scrutiny and mockery as possible at all times. You don’t want your privacy invaded and personal life scrutinized? DON’T DATE MADONNA! My god, how hard is it?

Anyway, I wonder if I’ve bought too much into the recent Yankee dream – expressed by Brian Cashman, wildly embraced by much of the internet – of a generation of homegrown star players. We all wanted Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy to blossom this year; but of course young players, even when cheap, are huge risks in their own right. Am I investing too much in that ideal at the risk of failing to appreciate the beauty of a bombshell free agent signing? Is anyone else having trouble getting excited about C.C.? Should I be excited about Nick Swisher, even a little? Help me out, Yankee fans. How much pessimism is healthy realism, and how much is too much?

Lenny Shecter is perhaps best remembered as the man behind Jim Bouton’s classic Ball Four. But for a generation of sports fans and writers who followed Shecter’s columns in the New York Post in the late Fifties and the early Sixties, he stands as one of the great sports writers of them all. John Schulian, Vic Ziegel (who was a pup covering high school sports for the Post in the early Sixties when Shecter and the other Lenny, Leonard Koppett were covering baseball there), and Roger Kahn all point to him as a major figure.

Perhaps because he was a newspaper writer first and foremost, Shecter is largely forgotten today. He had a quick-witted but thoughtful style and did write a handful of books, including The Jocks, a scatching a cynical collection of essays about the world of sports that was released the year before Ball Four. Shecter’s take on the famed Yankee teams of Mantle-Berra-and-Ford was much tougher in The Jocks than in Bouton’s book.

Shecter’s name did resurface this past September when Alan Schwarz wrote about piece about him in The Times. The following week, Stan Issac’s wrote a follow-up piece on Shecter. Both are worth taking a look at.

So leave it up to me, old Dorkasaurus Rex, to hit the microfilm room at the main branch of the New York Public Library, in search for old Shecter columns. Here is just a small sampling of some of his ledes that caught my attention:

April 7, 1961

The Yankee spring training camp had to be the strangest in ten years. It was run as though it was a St. Petersburg subdivision of General Motors and while there has long been an air of cold efficiency which hovers about the Yankees like the odor around the beach at low tide, an important softening ingredient was missing. Casey Stengel.

October 2, 1961

Great events of history are over swiftly. A ball, even if it’s the first in the long and noble history of baseball to be hit for a 61st home run, takes only a few heartbeats of time to be propelled from home plate to the outfield seats.

For those who were at Yankee Stadium yesterday, some 24,000 people, it was over all too quickly. It would have been better if the ball leaped in exaltation, turned in the air and wrote a saucy message (like WHEEE!) against the blue sky, dipped nobly and shed a tear over the monument to Babe Ruth in center field.

But the way it was the count was two balls and no strikes. Roger Maris hitched up his trousers, pumped the bat once toward the pitcher, Tracy Stallard, young Boston righthander, then waited.

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My great aunt Anita passed away in the middle of the night. She was 95. I was at her apartment yesterday evening with cousins, aunts and uncles. Her family was with her and I can only assume that was a great comfort to her as the family matriarch.

Two of my cousins are due to give birth momentarily. So as we say goodbye to the end of an era in our family, we are ready welcome in a new one. That’s how it’s supposed to go, right?

The painting above is by one of my favorites–Richard Diebenkorn.

That’s the James Bond from Ian Fleming’s novels.  

A few years ago, Allen Barra wrote a terrific overview of the Bonds books for Salon:

The Bond of the books was physically smaller than [Sean] Connery by about 2 inches and 20 pounds, and not quite so “cruelly handsome” (as many early reviewers described Connery). I had forgotten that James Bond wasn’t really a spy at all but a cross between the commandos Fleming had known during World War II and a highly trained assassin — obviously, or else why would he be licensed by his government to kill? The literary Bond chafed at the paperwork he was obliged to do plenty of, and unlike his movie counterpart — whose budget for sports cars, rocket-powered backpacks and speedboats, to say nothing of tuxedos, seemed to exceed the entire GNP of Great Britain — was always mildly resentful about his lack of funding.

In “You Only Live Twice,” he apologizes to Tiger Tanaka, the head of the Japanese secret service, for his meager expense account: “Under ten million pounds a year doesn’t go far when there is the whole world to cover.” In “From Russia With Love,” he ruefully compares his own arsenal with that of his Soviet rivals. “If only,” he laments, “his cigarette had been a trick one — magnesium flare, or something he could throw in the man’s face! If only his Service went in for those explosive toys!” And in “Thunderball” he envies the “CIA the excellence of their equipment, and he had no false pride about borrowing from them.”

Readers often come to, well, bond with Bond precisely because of his ordinariness. Unlike the Bond of the movies, the Bond on the pages doesn’t seem radically different from most of us. With the right background and training — and, of course, a willingness to kill in the line of duty — it’s easy to feel we could be the hero of those adventures. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is somebody you’d like to have a drink with. Bond doesn’t interest us in that way; he’s more like someone you’d want to be if you had another life. Which seems to be precisely why Fleming wrote the books, to create a fantastic yet believable alternative existence.

The new Bond movie was released yesterday and Mr. Barra again looks at the differences Bond on the page and Bond on the screen (Wall Street Journal).

This is a test post to see if the audio player appears…

find

By Mike Vaccaro

What I’ll always remember most are the eyes: eyes belonging to professional baseball players, who aren’t supposed to be impressed by much and are surprised by even less. Eyes filling a clubhouse containing men who had already won three consecutive World Series and 11 consecutive playoff series and were already being listed among the greatest dynasties of all time.

And yet late on the night of Nov. 1, 2001, and early in the morning of Nov. 2, those eyes were all rheumy and moist and wide with wonder. Even the Yankees couldn’t believe what they’d just seen, and done. Even the Yankees couldn’t quite fathom that, a night after Tino Martinez had rescued them with a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 4, Scott Brosius had done the same exact thing, taken Byung-Hyun Kim deep and sent Yankee Stadium into the kind of frothy frenzy that you can still summon in your ears, and your memory, all these years later.

I remember it especially well because it is the only time in 20 years as a newspaperman that I’ve ever blown an edition. I was working for the Newark Star-Ledger at the time, and had written a “running” column which described how valiantly the Yankees had fought in losing and going down three games to two in the Series, and I’d done so without composing a backup “early” column in case it didn’t work out that way.

But it was clear: lightning had struck once the night before.

Couldn’t happen again.

And then it did.

I had already left the press box to stand outside the Yankees clubhouse, to avoid the rush and the crush of postgame. There was a TV monitor set up there, which was on a four-or-five second delay. Which helped add to the surreal nature of the moment, because Kim was still in the stretch position on TV when suddenly there emerged from the tunnel leading to the home dugout a roar that defied explanation. And could mean only one thing.

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The Source:

DJ Premier chopped this tune up twice. The first, is Gang Starr’s classic, “Ex Girl to the Next Girl”:

And here’s “Speak Ya Clout” (skip to the last part of this three-segment jam):

Yanks sign Marte.

Cliff’s analysis is forthcoming. In the meantime, swing, papi, swing: