Teddy Ted and E Nus of Pitchers n Poets had me on their podcast yesterday.

Check it out.

[Photo Credit: Wreckingballblog]

Hard as it is to fathom, a full half-century has passed since the Yankees put together their storied season of 1961. Throughout 2011, I’ll pay tribute to the ‘61 Yankees by spotlighting some of their best and most interesting players on “Card Corner.” Today, we’ll begin at first base.

For me, Bill “Moose” Skowron has always been about mistaken assumptions. Perhaps that’s because I never saw Skowron play. I first learned about him while watching him make appearances at Old-Timers games during the 1970s. For some reason, I had always assumed that he was a left-handed hitter, if only because Yankee Stadium has always favored left-handed sluggers. So if Skowron was a slugger, then he must have been a lefty. (It’s funny how the mind of a seven-year-old works.) Not so, Skowron was right-handed all the way.

I also assumed that Skowron’s nickname had something to do with his power, his size, and his physical strength. The name Moose makes sense in that way, right? Little did I realize that the nickname was actually a shortening of the name “Mussolini.” When Skowron was a boy, his grandfather gave him an impromptu haircut, which made the youngster look too much like the Italian dictator. Skowron’s friends called him Mussolini; rather than take offense, the family responded by shortening the name to Moose. The new nickname would stick with Skowron throughout his career, even though Topps would refer to him as Bill on his baseball cards.

Impressing scouts with his power, Skowron signed with the Yankees in 1950. Originally an outfielder and third baseman, he then began a slow but fruitful climb up the organizational ladder, landing in the Bronx in 1954. By now a first baseman, he initially platooned with veteran Joe Collins, before becoming an everyday player by the late 1950s. Fitting in somewhere between Chris Chambliss and Lou Gehrig on the totem pole of Yankee first basemen, the free-swinging Skowron became a model of solid steadiness.

Skowron made five consecutive All-Star teams from 1957 to 1961, while averaging 20 home runs a year. He twice slugged better than .500, and twice earned American League MVP votes. With much of his power running from right to right-center field, he found the opposite-field power alley to his liking at Yankee Stadium. He didn’t walk much, but he gave the lefty-leaning Yankees some balance to their batting order. If there was a caveat in his game, it was his inability to avoid nagging and repeated injuries. Skowron had a physique wrapped in muscles, which he tended to pull and strain with annoying regularity. That’s why he usually played 120 to 130 games, instead of the requisite 140 to 150.

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Well, well, well. Bartolo Colon, huh?

Coming into the season, Colon was the subject of many of my jokes about the Yankees, not just because I’m spiritually twelve years old and enjoy making colon puns, but because as As Diane noted in her recap of last night’s game, the Yankees biggest reclamation project kicked some ass last night. He had already been surprisingly solid, almost dominant, in relief, but this was his first major league start since 2009. I wasn’t surprised to see him being smart with his off-speed stuff, but a 93-94 mph fastball? I wasn’t predicting that. Neither was Colon, apparently.

When I think of pleasantly surprising Yankees, the first to come to mind are probably the Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon duo of late 2005. Small, especially, was a journeyman struggling to hang on in the majors when he inexplicably (well – explicably, but still surprisingly) went 10-0 for the Yanks down the stretch and, along with some solid work from Chacon, helped them make the playoffs despite numerous injuries. Small only ever started three games in the majors after that, but as witnessed by how clearly I remember it six years later, he made an impression.

Colon, having been a great pitcher in the past, is a horse of a different color – it’s surprising that he still has something, but he’s no journeyman. I remember disliking him intensely when he was on the Angels (at a time when I generally disliked anybody on the Angels) and I have particularly fond memories of Alex Rodriguez taking him deep three times in one game – also in 2005, as it happens. Still, given the expectations I had coming into the season, even if he flames out next month he’s given them more than I’d hoped.

Anyway, like most people I can’t help loving an underdog, and the Yankees have fewer of those than most teams, so while my expectations are still not what you’d call sky-high, I’ll be rooting for Colon. Although I make no promises about cutting down on the colon jokes. For a nickname, might I suggest “The Yankees’ Large Intestine”?And can some fans start showing up on days he starts with signs that just say “:”?

Who do you remember as the most pleasantly surprising Yankees?

Next Thursday, the National Geographic Channel will air, “Break it Down: Yankee Stadium,” an exclusive look at the demolition of the Stadium.

Looks like a must-watch for us.

Dag…

Jon Weisman on the sad–okay, infuriating–turn of events for the Dodgers:

I haven’t been at Dodger Stadium in the past week, and I’m also familiar with no-shows dotting Dodger Stadium in the best of times, but there have been too many reports to ignore from longtime Dodger watchers that things had really changed. I’ve been a passionate skeptic of fan boycotts, but even I have to concede that there was a statement being made here. More and more people just didn’t want any part of this.

The thing is, it hasn’t been an organized boycott, not on any widespread level. It’s been people on their own coming to the conclusion that life was too short to waste on a franchise in this condition.

This includes people like my father, who chose during the offseason not to renew my family’s season tickets for a 30th season. It also includes the people who typically would improvise their ticket purchases after the season was underway.

That’s not to say Dodger Stadium was or would be empty. Some still show up because they love the team through thick and decidedly thin. The game’s pull remains strong. I myself have been trying to figure out when to get my kids to their first game of 2011.

But things haven’t been this low at Dodger Stadium before, have they? I think back to 1992, the worst team in Los Angeles Dodger history playing against the backdrop of a city torn by riots, and there was not such bitterness over the state of ownership.

I wasn’t going to write about this Colby Lewis paternity leave debate, because it seems like such a cut-and-dry issue to me. Basically: Lewis missed a start last week to be there for the birth of his child; a Dallas Observer writer thought that was “ludicrous”; many people begged to differ. But I remember from our discussion here of Mark Teixeira’s missing games for his child’s birth last year that many people have a different take, so maybe it’s worth bringing up again. For one thing, Rob Neyer, a generally eminently reasonable guy, played devil’s advocate and thought the Obvserver writer had a point.

I guess there’s an argument to be made for a player staying with the team rather than taking paternity leave (which has a three-day maximum limit, by the way), although I would certainly not make it myself. But what rubbed me and, I think, many other people so much the wrong way about Richie Whitt’s blog post was its obnoxiously scornful tone:

But a pitcher missing one of maybe 30 starts? And it’s all kosher because of Major League Baseball’s new paternity leave rule?

Follow me this way to some confusion.

Imagine if Jason Witten missed a game to attend the birth of a child. It’s just, I dunno, weird. Wrong even…

…Baseball players are paid millions to play baseball. If that means “scheduling” births so they occur in the off-season, then so be it. Of the 365 days in a year, starting pitchers “work” maybe 40 of them, counting spring training and playoffs.If it was a first child, maybe. But a second child causing a player to miss a game? Ludicrous.

See, you can disagree with a player taking paternity leave… but “ludicrous”? Of course it’s not ludicrous. That’s a massively entitled attitude for any fan or writer to take. A team, the player’s employer, might have a right to ask a player to stay with the club – ask, not tell – but what right do the rest of us have to make that kind of demand? Anyway, there were about 80 comments on the piece last time I checked, most of them calling Whitt a jerk. Rob Neyer, however, is not a jerk, and here’s some of what he had to say:

What if we’re talking about your favorite NFL team’s quarterback? Do you want him skipping Sunday’s big game to attend the birth of his third child? Yeah? What if it’s the Super Bowl?

The answer’s not so obvious now, huh?

I’m going to be honest here, as I have been since the first time this came up, some years ago (official paternity leave is new, but players taking a game off to attend childbirth is not) … As a human being, I think this is fantastic. As a baseball fan, though? If my team’s in the playoff hunt, I’m sorry, but I don’t want one of my starting pitchers taking the night off. We’re not talking about some guy who works on the assembly line for the Integrated Widget Corporation. We’re talking about one of the most talented pitchers on the planet, not easily replaceable. What if your team finishes one game short of the playoffs? Was it really worth it?

Neyer’s much more reasonable than Whitt, as you might expect, but I don’t find his argument remotely convincing here. There are dozens of moments and events that cause a team to miss the playoffs by one game; to blame that on a player missing a start makes no more sense than blaming it entirely on one pitch, one play, one middling relief pitcher. I’d also add that players miss games all the time – for the flu, for a sore back, for a stiff neck – for reasons that, while they may be physical and therefore a different beast, are also vastly less important than a birth. Most players miss a few games here and there during a season, and every team expects it. Beyond that, in the U.S., the only jobs I can think of for which employees are expected to miss childbirth are military positions – and even then, when it’s possible the army will arrange a soldier’s leave so that he can be there for childbirth. As much as I love baseball, Colby Lewis’s presence in any given game is hardly a life-or-death issue or a matter of national security.

What if it’s a playoff game, a World Series game even? Well, that’s a harder decision, but one that the player and his family should be allowed to make for themselves. I wouldn’t judge someone on that either way. And I know if I ever have a baby, I would absolutely not be okay with the father missing it for his job, unless we needed that particular paycheck to survive or unless he was literally saving lives. Neither is the case for a pro athlete, though, however much a World Series win might mean for fans.

I know that not all of the Banter’s regular commenters agree with me on this, though, so marshall your arguments below…

I was All-Schoolyard, tell her, Max.

“Sports to me is like music…It’s completely, aesthetically satisfying. There were times I would sit at a game with the old Knicks and think to myself in the fourth quarter, This is everything the theatre should be an isn’t. There’s an outcome that’s unpredictable. The audience is not ahead of the dramatist. The drama is ahead of the audience, and you don’t know exatly where it’s going. You’re personally involved with the players–they had herioc demensions, some of those players. It’s a pleasurable experience, though not intellectual–much like music. It enters you through a diferent opening, sort of…

You see, life consists of giving yourself these problems that can be dealt with, so you don’t have to face the problems that can’t be dealt with. It’s very meaningful to me, for instance, to see if the Knicks are going to get over some problem or another. These are matters you can get involved with, safely, and pleasurably, and the outcome doesn’t hurt you.”

Woody Allen to David Remnick, 1994

Well said, though I’m sure some fans would argue about not being hurt. Last night’s loss was a tough one, doesn’t matter that the Celtics should have mopped the floor with them. Carmelo Anthony was brilliant but Jared Jeffries will be the memory that doesn’t go away from this one. And that hurts, man.

Richard Sandomir talks to Clyde about…style.

The 2011 season marks the 10th season of baseball on the YES Network, and YESNetwork.com. I was there for the first five and remember the trials, tribulations, sweat, tears, conniptions and aneurysms that went into putting forth a top-flight product on a daily basis. Looking at where the overall coverage is now compared to 2002, the difference is like listening to a song in Mono and then flipping to Stereo.

Technology made my job easier, just as it has made the jobs of beat writers and columnists more efficient. Hardware, software and fiberoptic advances made it easier for scribes to file stories on deadline, fact-check, and ensure accuracy of quotes. Laptop computers, digital/tape recording devices, headphones, WiFi access to the Internet, and the Internet itself have helped reduce the latency that previously existed for the written word to reach fans. These products and services were available in 2002, but have become consistently better over time.

Due to the immediacy of the publication and distribution of information of all kinds, sports teams and leagues reacted accordingly. I don’t know what the current Social Media policies are for MLB, or the Press Box protocol for it. When I was covering games regularly, Social Media as we currently know it didn’t exist. If the Yankees had information to be released, they made it clear to both Mark Feinsand — who at the time was the Yankees.com beat man — and I that we could not publish the info to either Yankees.com or YESNetwork.com before the team OK’d it.

It was made clear that we were not allowed to break certain stories. (This most commonly occurred when players were named to the All-Star ballot or All-Star team, and other similar stories.) So, we would load the items into the system and wait for the go-ahead from Yankees’ PR staff. Twitter, Facebook, and other microblogging services must be a nightmare for team PR staffs looking to maintain a certain level of control over the flow of information.

In addition to the publication advances, informational sites like Baseball Almanac, Baseball Reference, Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs, and tools like those available at Inside Edge, ESPN.com’s Gamecast and MLB.com’s GameDay do the heavy lifting, to where the writer can provide the originally intended core function: storytelling.

Even storytelling has gotten a facelift. Perhaps no single entity has affected the craft like Twitter. Many of the writers’ handles are affiliated with their employers, so they are easily identifiable. Follow them during games, you can time the tweets of key plays and events to when they appear in GameDay or Gamecast. In a way, it’s replaced the “running” game story that was once a staple of the beat writer’s portfolio.

Some beat reporters use Twitter in a unique and innovative way. For example, Marc Carig of the Newark Star-Ledger makes it part of his modus operandi to Tweet quotes from certain players as they’re drafting their recaps. Maybe those quotes will appear in their stories, maybe they won’t. But the preview gives you the reader a definite reason to check. I’m amazed at the level of multitasking these men and women can endure.

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Anthony McCarron has a piece in the News today about the Yankees’ offense. Here’s a quote from general manager, Brian Cashman:

“Jeter is not hitting up to his ability, (Curtis) Granderson is not hitting for average and Gardner is struggling mightily. Those guys are our foot soldiers and since they are not firing, it makes us look one-dimensional. No biggie. We’re capable of running you down, hitting, hitting the ball over the fence.

“We have full capabilities. We just haven’t shown it yet.”

An innocuous quote. But what strikes  me is the term “foot soldiers.” We hear this kind of thing all the time in sports–so I don’t mean to pick on Cashman–where professional jocks are described as “warriors” who “do battle,” ready to “go to war.” Guys who play sports for a living, often guys who are paid handsomely and are in fact celebrities. These statements are made in an unthinking, self-absorbed manner and should not be taken literally. But still, they are words and words have power and at a time when our country is at war these military metaphors are gross and foolish.

Diane makes the big time.

Mazelprops.

Today gives the NBA playoffs. Knicks-Celtics tonight. Yanks and Rangers play at 8.

Let’s go sports!

Well well, Freddy Garcia. I was pleasantly surprised, that’s for sure. Garcia has absolutely nothing going for him in the way of velocity, and I think he threw as many changeups as fastballs, but that made his control and planning all the more impressive. Oney Guillen, apparently still a supporter from Garcia’s White Sox days, put things a bit more bluntly. Given that the Yankees put off allowing either Garcia or his catcher today, Gustavo Molina, to appear in a game for as long as they possibly could, things went rather well today and the Yankees won 5-2.

While Garcia kept the Rangers off the board through six, allowing just two hits and a walk in a fairly badass performance, the Yankees started off their scoring in the first inning with a two-run Mark Teixeira home run.Teixeira tacked on with a sac fly in the third, and it remained a 3-0 game until the 8th inning, at which point I noted that if the current score held, the Yankees would notch their first win of the season in which they scored less than 4 runs. At that point, Rafael Soriano labored through an awkward inning that ended with the score 3-2; and shortly thereafter  Robinson Cano jacked a two-run homer. So it wasn’t meant to be, not that the Yankees are complaining, I’m sure.

Mariano came in for the ninth so I don’t feel it’s necessary to elaborate on what happened there. How many of these Garcia-Nova-Colon games can the Yanks expect to win? i don’t know, but so far things have gone better than I’d expected.

Fans like to call Ivan Nova “SuperNova” when things are going well. But keep in mind that, in fact, a nova is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion that triggers runaway nuclear fusion. To be fair, Nova’s start wasn’t all that bad, but I was reminded of that definition in the fifth inning tonight.

Given Phil Hughes’ trip to the DL, a solid start from Ivan Nova would have been nice and reassuring tonight. As it was, he did keep the Yankees more or less in the game, but it wasn’t pretty and it ended unfortunately. Nova pitched into the fifth inning and was charged with 5 runs on 4 hits and, more disconcerting, 5 walks (a career high). That’s no way to live, and the Yankees lost 5-3.

Nova’s trouble started in the second, with a double, a single, and a run-scoring groundout, and continued in the third, with an RBI Michael Young double. But despite the walks and general air of impending runs, the real trouble didn’t come until the fifth. It was a sad story, and it went like this:

• Mitch Moreland walks.

• Julio Borbon hit by pitch. Mitch Moreland to 2nd.

• Coaching visit to mound.

• With Ian Kinsler batting, wild pitch by Ivan Nova, Mitch Moreland to 3rd. Julio Borbon to 2nd.

• Ian Kinsler grounds out softly, shortstop Derek Jeter to first baseman Mark Teixeira. Mitch Moreland scores.

• Elvis Andrus walks.

• Michael Young singles on a ground ball to left fielder Andruw Jones. Julio Borbon scores. Elvis Andrus to 2nd.

That was, as you might imagine, that. Joe Girardi trotted out, retrieved Nova and beckoned David Robertson. If there was a silver lining to tonight’s game for the Yankees, it was that the bullpen was strong again, freezing the Rangers at 5 runs. David Robertson, Boone Logan (obligatory beard link), and then three quite impressive perfect innings from newest Yankee Lance Pendleton in his major league debut. That’s how you make a good first impression.

Rangers starter Matt Harrison doesn’t have a spectacular track record — it was one of those “this guy? You can’t hit this guy?” nights — but he’s off to a fine start this season, now 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA in 14 innings. He did give the Yankees a few fat pitches, but not too many, and displayed an irritating tendency to wipe out base runners with double plays (New York hit into six tonight).

As for New York’s scoring, it started in the third, when Nick Swisher, Thursday night’s hero, singled home Curtis Granderson. Granderson, who is looking good these days, came through again in the 8th inning with a solo homer (off a lefty in case you were wondering), and in the ninth, Alex Rodriguez doubled and came home on an Eric Chavez pinch-hit single. Not a terrible night by any means, and not in fact a cataclysmic runaway nuclear explosion, just one of those games.

The Yankees could really use some length tomorrow from Freddy Garcia. In related news, I could really use a free trip to Barbados.

One very nice thing: MLB may not do all that it could on Jackie Robinson Day (as Jay Jaffe notes at BP today and has noted before), but many of the players spoke on the subject today with real feeling and eloquence, not just canned PR lines. It’s moving to see how much Robinson still means to the guys who play the game, and how much very real respect they have for him.

I’m not ready to become all jelly-legged about Phil Hughes, not based on a trio of starts. Hughes’ drop in velocity is not as unusual as some make it out to be. I remember just last year the articles that were written in the Bay Area expressing dismay over Madison Bumgarner’s springtime loss of velocity. By the end of the regular season, Bumgarner was not only a significant part of the Giants’ rotation, but he was the No. 4 starter in the postseason, pitching for a world championship team. During the regular season, Bumgarner pitched to the tune of a 3.00 ERA. And then he pitched even more effectively in the postseason, culminating in a scoreless eight-inning start against the Rangers in the World Series.

Assuming that Hughes is not hurt, I think his velocity will return. (It was a bit better on Thursday night against Baltimore.) A 24-year-old pitcher doesn’t usually lose his fastball unless there is something wrong with his elbow or his shoulder. But Hughes could be serving as a test case for what is a flawed organizational pitching philosophy. The Yankees are so overly protective of their minor league pitchers, employing the strictest of pitch counts and innings limits, that it makes me wonder if they are hindering their development.

It’s one thing to avoid giving young pitchers 220-inning workloads in the minor leagues; it’s quite another to bend to the other extreme and do damage in another way. If pitchers don’t throw enough, they can’t develop arm strength, and if they can’t develop arm strength, they won’t be able to throw as hard as they are capable. If pitchers can’t even give you 175 innings in the minor leagues (Hughes never went higher than 146 in a season), how can they be expected to give you anywhere close to 200 innings in the majors, where the competition is stiffer and the pressure is greater?

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Oscar Gamble lives on in Oakland.

Coco, you are sooo fine.

[Photo Credit: AP]

I’ve got a piece in the Scorecard section of Sports Illustrated this week on “21,” the fantastic new graphic biography of Roberto Clemente.

Deadspin has a cool excerpt…

This one is a keeper and the ideal companion to David Maraniss’ definitive biography, “Clemente.”

Last night, Jon DeRosa and I went to a book party at the New York Athletic Club for “At the Fights.” It was well attended–contributors like Robert Lipsyte, Thomas Hauser, Larry Merchant and Gay Talese were there. Joe Flaherty’s wife showed up, and so did W.C. Heinz’s daughter. Art Donovan, the football legend whose old man was a great boxing ref, was there too. George Kimball and John Schulian, pictured above, gave lovely speeches.

George talked about the relationship between boxing and writing, about how they are both difficult, solitary experiences. He said, “Writing is hard but editing this book was a complete pleasure.” Sure, the editors had to make agonizing choices–some fine stories like Jack Murphy’s “The Mongoose,” Frank Deford’s “The Boxer and the Blonde,” and J.R. Moehringer’s “Resurrecting the Champ,” didn’t make the final cut–but still, selecting from a wealth of fantastic writing must easier than writing itself.

If you care about good writing, doesn’t matter if you are a boxing fan or not, this is a book to have.

So there seems to be a formula to the Yankees’ wins in this young season: a whole big juicy bunch of runs. Yes, yes, April, I know – but thus far the Yankees have only won when they’ve scored 4 or more runs, and it’s usually more. Not that there’s anything wrong with scoring lots of runs, of course. And on the plus side, tonight those runs were paired with a nice, solid, hope-giving start by A.J. Burnett, as New York won 7-4.

It didn’t look so hot at the beginning, as the first two innings took more than an hour; and although A.J. Burnett didn’t allow a run in that span, he did burn through about 50 pitches and labored in and out of trouble. In the meantime, though, the Yankees went to town on Baltimore’s struggling starter Chris Tillman. The most damage came from Alex Rodriguez, who hit a three-run homer in the first, apparently being over his head cold, and then Robinson Cano in the second, with a two-run double. Jeter picked up a couple of infield singles, which if not exactly awe-inspiring at least got him on base and nudged his average towards respectability. And later, Jorge Posada broke an 0-for-19 streak with a booming solo homer.

Better yet, Burnett settled down after those first innings and came back to pitch a strong, encouraging game right into the 7th inning – which in retrospect may have been a bridge too far, as he promptly gave up two two-run homers. But as the Yankees had seven runs on the board by that time, there was no real harm done, and the trio of Robertson, Soriano, and of course Rivera ushered the team safely to a win. Which, weirdly, means that A.J. Burnett now has more wins by himself than the Red Sox. That’ll last a day or two max, but might as well enjoy these early season flukes where you can.

A much as I’ve been mistrustful of the Yankee rotation, a solid Burnett makes it merely short as opposed to horrendously short. Well – depending on what you think is going on with Phil Hughes.

The other night the Red Sox, who still haven’t won a game against anyone besides the Yankees, got blown out by the Rays (who have now amassed three entire wins), mainly because of a dreadful start by Daisuke Matsuzaka. Being in a contemplative mood at the time, I thought back to his signing – lots of exciting, tense negotiations and lots of freaking out by the Yankee fan base. I thought Matsuzaka was going to be an ace, or if not, at least a very good player. Why not? His career in Japan was fantastic. I can’t find it at the moment, but I remember writing something to the effect of, it’s going to be really tough for the Yankees to compete against that rotation now.

Mostly I loved the rumors about his mythical “gyroball.” So far as I know Matsuzaka didn’t start the rumors, but cannily, he didn’t deny them either, deciding that if batters wanted to psych themselves out waiting for the ball to do something crazy he wasn’t going to stop them. I spent a few weeks covering spring training in 2007, Matsuzaka’s first season in the U.S., and several batters who faced him in Grapefruit League games swore up and down that they’d seen the gyroball. In turned out that all they’d seen was a good slider, but the gyroball hype was a lot of fun, even though it didn’t last into the season. I wish more players would pretend to have imaginary pitches.

Anyway, Matsuzaka hasn’t exactly been a flop – not like, say, Kei Igawa, who the Yankees signed more or less in response, in a fantastic example of How Not To Make Baseball Decisions. Dice-K had an okay 2007 and a very a good (if lucky) 2008, got injured in 2009, and last year was mediocre but not useless. And of course his fate this year is hardly sealed; I don’t expect him to return to his 2008 form, but I also don’t expect him to keep being as bad as he was the other night, although I suppose it’s possible. In any event he hasn’t been the game-changer that it seemed like he could be, and while that’s good news for the Yankees it’s also somewhat sad. I don’t have much of a sense of Matsuzaka’s personality, largely because of the language barrier, but his body language and baby-face have always been expressive and he seems affable enough. It’s just yet another reminder, if we needed one, that when it comes to scouting players – especially pitchers – we still don’t know all that much.