I don’t live in luxury.  I don’t reside in one of those pre-war Park Avenue buildings with those heavy glass and wrought-iron doors and the subdued dark wood paneling on the walls. Nor do I live in one of those gleaming apartment “towers” that dot the skyline.

I live in a simple, non-descript seven-story brick building erected in 1965 in Queens. But, our building (a co-op in which I am renting) does have one of those items seen in the “classier” buildings . . . a doorman.

Having lived in walk-up brownstones, residing in a doorman building is a treat. You have an added sense of safety when you arrive home. They hold packages for you, rather than you having to trudge to the post office or asking a neighbor to take in an expected parcel for you. They usually know what’s going on in the building before any of your neighbors.

Our building provides doorman coverage from 10AM-11:30PM weekdays, and 2-10PM on the weekends. Our doormen aren’t dressed in matching grey suits and hats like the ones you find “on the avenue”, but they’re always wearing nice shirts, ties and jackets.

I’ve only been in the building for a little over three years, but I understand that our weekday doorman has been in that position for many years. We haven’t been quite as fortunate in terms of night doormen.

The first one I met was a then-recent immigrant in his late 30s/early 40s, who was in the midst of studying for Medical School. He’d have one eye on the front door, and one on his books. It isn’t a bad gig for someone looking to have some quiet time while making a little dough. Sure enough, when he got his notice of acceptance into Med School, he gave up the doorman job.

His replacement was a nice-enough fellow, probably late-40s, wife, two small children. I came home one night to find him polishing the brass handrails. He held the bottle of polish up and asked me somewhat hesitantly “do you think this is safe to use on these rails?” I took a look at the bottle, and assured him it was OK. Another time, I came home at 11:30PM, to find his family waiting in the lobby for him to pack up and go home. Whatever his story was, it was short . . . he was gone within one month.

Next came Silvio, a Hispanic fellow in his early-to-mid 20s with a quiet demeanor and a well-kept ponytail and goatee. Silvio didn’t have any textbooks with him at the desk. Sometimes there would be a laptop, sometimes he’d be chatting on a celphone headset. I often wondered why someone his age would be subjecting himself to sitting behind a desk and collecting the recycling in an apartment building every weeknight. Was he saving his dollars for something? Was he between “real jobs”?

One night a few weeks ago, I came home to find that Silvio had ditched the ponytail. I thought, “hmmm . . . job interview coming up?”  Maybe I was right, as Silvio was gone a week later. His replacement hasn’t been hired yet, but I’m sure he’ll have his own story.

Picking up on her Varsity Letters presentation, here’s Emma’s debut article for Baseball Prospectus:

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the maxim that if you can imagine it, there’s porn about it on the Internet. That’s no joke. It was only a few years ago that I first learned of fan fiction, when a friend explained that one of his coworkers not only contributed to, but ran, an extensive website entirely dedicated to fan-written stories about the characters from the animated series Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers. The stories that turned sexual—yes, stories about cartoon chipmunks that turn sexual—were called slash fiction, named for the typographic symbol in the “Kirk/Spock” liaisons that launched the genre in the 1970s.

Naturally, this prompted my friends and I to go online and see if there was any kind of subject, anything at all, and that did not have something pornographic written about it and posted on the Internet. The answer: not really, no. We couldn’t find anything pairing Jay Leno with bandleader Kevin Eubanks, but that was about it.

What we did discover was a trove of imagined romance and sex between baseball players, on multiple websites. I thought that over the years I’d seen most of the dark corners of sports fandom, but as it turns out, I still was not fully prepared for baseball fan fiction. If you’ve thought about it at all, you might expect to find quite a few tales of Jeter and A-Rod, and those are certainly there. But I was less braced for just how prominently players like, for example, Doug Mirabelli feature. You just do not ever expect to encounter the phrase, to quote one story, “Doug Mirabelli’s huge, unlubed…”

Well—Doug Mirabelli’s huge, unlubed anything, really. Let’s leave it at that.

Hey, Now…

I know many of you are, to say the least, wary of Twitter. I don’t blame you at all. I avoided it for a long time, only signed up under pressure from my publisher to promote my book last year, and approached it with a lot of eye-rolling and sighing about how the 140-character limit would be an oppressive bind on my beautiful, beautiful words. I know Alex (or @AlexBelth, if you will) has some doubts about it. And it’s far from perfect – it can be silly, shallow, repetitive, a self-promoting extravaganza. But it can also be funny and useful and downright supportive. It did end up being useful for book promotion and networking and what have you, but I’ve also made actual, flesh-and-blood friends through Twitter; for me, anyway, it helped me connect with people I might not have otherwise. So I know it’s not for everyone and understand the reasons for avoidance, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Well, mostly.

Anyway, via Hardball Talk, here’s a list of more than 200 MLB players with verified Twitter accounts, from Bobby Abreu (mostly in Spanish) to Ben Zobrist (yawn). Most of these guys, in my experience, aren’t a fascinating read – most are too PR-savvy and/or not great with words. I still follow my guy Denard Span, but only because I’m still hoping to find out whether he has any short, poorly coordinated Jewish relatives. And sometimes players slip the PR leash, for better or worse: the Rays’ Logan Morrison is usuallyentertaining, as is Dirk Hayhurst, author of The Bullpen Gospels. Nick Swisher does a lot of charity work on there. So does Curtis Granderson, who has also been pondering his at-bat music for this season; Ozzie Guillen is just as hilariously semi-comprehensible as you might’ve hoped. And the other night the Orioles’ Adam Jones tweeted a photo of turtles having sex.

Have fun out there, kids.

Okay, so I don’t entirely mean that headline. As usual, I’ve been looking forward to spring training since late November. In fact, I always have to stop myself from needlessly capitalizing it — Spring Training — because it seems like it ought to be some kind of official holiday, like Christmas or Independence Day.

So it’s not that I’m not happy that, starting this weekend, we’ll get something vaguely resembling real baseball news. It’s just that I don’t actually want spring training — I want real baseball. Spring training is a plate of carrot sticks and celery when you’re craving a huge hamburger and fries. It’s fine at first, but hardly a long-term substitute.

Sure, the first few days are blissful. Photos of Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada loosening up, stretching hamstrings and that sort of thing. Noting that someone got skinny and someone else fully enjoyed the holidays. Seeing all those shiny pitching prospects practically glowing with promise, before the real world tarnishes them. Seeing that, somewhere, skies are blue and the sun is shining, and the whole world isn’t like New York, covered in filthy gray slush. Yes, there is hope… yes, baseball is coming.

But: still not for six weeks. That’s the thing. Once you’ve looked at the sunny photos for a few days, and then a few weeks later once you’ve watched a few games, which are a pale imitation of real games in that no one really gives a hoot about them and the teams play accordingly, spring training is pretty much a six-week dry hump. If a player does well in spring training, it doesn’t mean he’ll do well in the regular season, so you can’t fully enjoy it. If he plays badly, you worry anyway even though, again, it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s good to see prospects you don’t normally get to see on television, but it’s no substitute for genuine baseball where the score is important, or at least as important as a baseball score ever is.

Of course, the good news there is that six weeks isn’t really such a long time. And I guess that’s why I still look forward to spring training… we’re not out of the dark yet, but it’s the light at the end of the tunnel.

Here’s some Yankeeness for you fiends out there:

Over at River Avenue Blues, Joe P links to a Wallace Mathews piece on Kevin Long.

And at IATMS, here’s a note via Buster Olney that C.C. Sabathia has lost 30 lbs.

Joba Chamberlain, on the other hand, has reportedly put on some weight. Check out this great Yankee weigh-in by Steve Goldman. And while you are there, dig the Aceves Challenge by Jay Jaffe.

[Picture by Bags]

Best Worst Movie

As I’ve probably mentioned at some point, for the last year and half or so, I’ve been meeting up with a few friends every Tuesday for Bad Movie Night. We have a few beers, order pizza, and sit around and laugh/cringe/stare in disbelief at a lousy or confusing or misguided movie: Highlander II: The Quickening; Howard the Duck; Bionic Ninja; Gladiator Cop; Body Rock… we’ve been doing this for a while now and the list is extensive. But one of our all-time favorites (“favorite” being a relative term here) is a real classic of the genre, Troll 2. It’s hilariously inept, with laughable costumes, some of the worst acting ever put to film, and a ludicrous plot that not only has nothing whatsoever to do with Troll 1 but is actually about goblins. It’s about a family that makes the mistake of vacationing in a town called Nilbog… which is, of course, “goblin spelled backwards!”

Troll 2 is so much fun in its way that it’s developed quite a cult following, with midnight screenings and gatherings around the country. Best Worst Movie, directed by Michael Stephenson (the now-grown child actor who played the son in the movie) and focusing on the small-town dentist who played his father, is a fascinating look at the bad-movie-loving subculture, and at how the people involved in a film react to having it become famous – or infamous – for all the wrong reasons. It’s alternately very funny and, at times, touching, sad, and uncomfortable. And it’s well worth a watch.

In case you were wondering, tonight’s Bad Movie selection will be Robot Jox.

Has the regular season lost all significance to us as fans?

In the 2010 stretch drive, we watched the Yankees rest their players for the looming Postseason tournament. While there were voices on both sides of the debate, all parties had to agree their was a heirarchy of achievement in which the World Series placed at the top. This reduced the substance of the argument for those of us gunning for the division crown to purely nominal terms.

And the Yankees don’t even hang a little felt pennant unless they win the Series.

But we marginalize the regular season at our own peril. Sooner or later, and possibly even this year, it’s all we’ll have. In those years, I don’t intend to stop being a fan, so I think it’s a good idea to try to realign priorities in order to make that fandom possible. After all, what value is the regular season if losing out on the World Series invalidates everything that preceded it?

Baseball viewed through the prism of the postseason ignores the fact the foundations of championships extend all the way back into April, and even into surrounding seasons. It’s an iceberg viewed from an airplane – most of the mass is underwater.

But no more! We have exhumed the “Lost Classics” of regular seasons past. Games that deserve our attention. Games that defined players and teams, that set-up championships, that were epic poems in and of themselves. Without these games, there are no Hall of Fame inductions, no retired numbers, and no parades. And after all, isn’t baseball a summer game?

THE BIRTH OF COOL (AND CONFIDENT) – July 4th, 1995

Our first extract from the vault of “Lost Classics” hails from the pre-natal days of the most recent dynasty. It was Independence Day, 1995 and the Yankees were visiting Chicago. We need not describe their opponent any further, because way back in 1995, there was no interleague play. Both teams, division leaders at the time of the 1994 strike, were struggling since the return to play and found themselves on the frowny side of .500.

The Yankees had problems in the rotation (I guess as almost every team does almost every year) and were searching for answers.  Even back in 1995, Jack Curry had the goods:

Without Jimmy Key for at least the rest of the season and probably without Melido Perez and Scott Kamieniecki until the second half of the season, the Yankees have desperately searched for starters. They have talked on the phone about trades and searched on the farm for the right prospect.

Rookie Mariano Rivera had debuted earlier in the season and spilled his first cup of coffee with the Yankees right down the front of his brand new uniform. He got the ball four times and was awful three times. In 15 innings, he allowed 18 runs, and even more striking, walked as many men as he struck out – eight. He got battered back to Columbus dragging a 10.20 ERA behind him. But in Columbus, something clicked.

Rivera had not allowed a run in his last 20 2/3 innings in the minors, so when the right-hander returned on Monday for his second stint of the season with the Yankees, he carried a scoreless streak with him. … In his last start, Rivera won a five-inning no-hitter for Columbus against Rochester. … With a microscopic 1.17 earned run average in five starts at Columbus and a 1-2 record and 10.20 e.r.a. with the Yankees before today, Rivera had a goal: to prove he could win in the majors.

Rivera earned another shot in the bigs. He faced the Chicago White Sox who were an above average offensive team – they could hit for average and scored the fifth most runs in the American League. It wasn’t a powerhouse, but it wasn’t a bad representation of the division-winning White Sox lineups from 1993 and 1994. And they couldn’t sniff Mo’s stuff.

He struck out 11 batters, and nine of those were swinging whiffs. When they put the bat on it, they could only manage weak contact as the Sox grounded 12 outs to the infield while getting only four balls to the outfielders. Dave Martinez (later corroborated by John Kruk on Baseball Tonight) offers Curry a likely explanation: “The scouting report we had said that he throws about 85 or 86,” White Sox outfielder Dave Martinez said. “He was throwing a lot harder than that.”

Frank Thomas got him for two singles and a fly out, but in those days, that was not a bad line versus the Big Hurt at his most bone-crushingest. None of the rest of the team had any chance, though the veterans were annoyingly patient and worked all four walks (Kruk twice, Dave Martinez and Ozzie Guillen). Robin Ventura made two loud outs (around a swinging strike out), so I guess he was able to square it up a little bit, too.

Not only was Mariano dominant, he was only in one mini-jam the whole game. It was the type of jam that you’d expect from a rookie, but one that seems totally uncharacteristic given what we know of the pitcher today. After Paul O’Neill staked him a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth with a solo jack, Mariano committed the cardinal sin of walking the lead off man Dave Martinez in front of Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura. He got Thomas to fly out, but then balked Martinez over to second – that’s one of three balks in his 16-year career.

With the runner in scoring position (the only one he would allow all game), he bore down and struck out Ventura to culminate an eight-pitch at bat. He lost John Kruk on a full count, but rebounded to strike out Warren Newsome to end the threat.

Already cruising, after the fourth he found a higher gear. He allowed only one more single and one more walk, and struck out six to wrap up his night. He left after 129 pitches and eight superb innings and his final line tallied 11 strikeouts, four walks, two hits, and zero runs. The Yankees iced the game with a couple of sac flies and a Bernie Williams triple. John Wetteland wobbled in the 9th and gave up a run but never had to face the tying run as the Yanks won 4-1. I assume there was much rejoicing.

(more…)

Over at PB, Jay Jaffe takes a look at what BP’s PECOTA means for the back of the Yankee rotation.

And while you are there, check out Cliff’s take on Eric Chavez, and Steve Goldman on Jose “Can You See” Cruz.

There’s a movement to make the Monday after the Super Bowl a national holiday; I don’t know about that, but today I’d be all for it because it’s also PECOTA Day, when Baseball Prospectus unveils its yearly projections regardless of what that silly groundhog might’ve said last week. Always fun to look at, and today, the site is free to all, subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

I’ll try to check in later with some thoughts once I’ve had a chance to take a good look.

Happy end-of-NFL-season, everybody. Yankee catchers and pitchers, such as they are, report to Tampa one week from today.

Meantime, it got a bit lost in the Andy Pettitte shuffle from last week, but I’ve been meaning to mention another Yankee news item from Friday: Robinson Cano ditched his previous agent and signed with Scott Boras. It’s no substitute for the actual baseball we’ll get in a few short weeks, but I still found it interesting. Cano is in the last year of his contract, but the Yanks have two option years coming up; in the 2014 season, with Boras on board, do not expect Cano to offer the Yankees any kind of hometown discount. (Not that he should – they have plenty of money, and he’s turned into a genuine star; there’s no reason he shouldn’t get paid accordingly). Second basemen that hit like Cano aren’t easy to find, and I’m sure Boras will get him a massive payday. But I wonder why Cano chose to do this now, with the next two years pretty much taken care of already.

Also intriguing in that, from what I understand, Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano are reasonably close — and Rodriguez famously parted ways with Boras after the PR debacle (though financial success) of his last opt-out. Hmm. Speaking of A-Rod, the FOX cameras caught him and Cameron Diaz together early in the game, and of course she was hand-feeding him at the time:

Only A-Rod. As my friend said tonight, he should probably just stop appearing in public.

[Screencap from the gentlemen at River Avenue Blues.]

Andy Pettitte has retired. That is very sad. We will miss him. Cliff Lee signed with the Phillies. That is very… something else. I guess it depends on the fan.

But these two events, hardly unlikely, and, in retrospect, perhaps foreseeable, are now the crux of a major problem for the New York Yankees. The Yankees, as they stand today, do not have the starting pitching to mount a serious challenge for the AL East crown nor ensure themselves the consolation of the Wild Card.

Since the Yankees made their first spirited run at Cliff Lee in July, there have been 44 trades or signings of credible Major League pitchers (ie, pitchers better than Mitre).

We can whittle that list down quite a bit by eliminating players the Yankees had no chance to acquire – like Javy Vazquez and Matt Garza – and players that were trade chips for bigger pieces – like Daniel Hudson and Joe Saunders. And no need to include the “injury fliers” since the Yanks require immediate help – like Erik Bedard and Brandon Webb. And might as well forget about the dregs, the guys whose marginal improvement over Sergio Mitre isn’t worth the paperwork to execute the contract – like Bruce Chen.

Still, we’re left with over a dozen solid pitchers that changed teams at the exact same time the Yanks were looking. Half of those guys were acquired via trade, the other half by free agency. The better pitchers were all acquired through trade (Oswalt, Haren, Grienke, Marcum, Lilly, Westbrook, Jackson). The free agents, as we have been picking over recently, were not as good (Kuroda, Westbrook, De La Rosa, Francis, Garland, Harang).

But regardless of their relative worth amongst themselves, they are all big-time improvements over the Yanks’ current options. Why aren’t any of them Yankees? I think the Yankees passed on all of those guys because they were saving seats on the 2011 bus. Gotta have a seat open for Cliff Lee. Gotta have a seat open for Andy Pettitte. Never mind that Cliff Lee signing with the Yankees was at best a 50/50 proposition. Never mind that Andy Pettitte was only able to start 21 games in 2010 and would be contemplating retirement for, what, the fourth time?

The Yankees failure to act has now impacted two seasons as their starting rotation was too weak to dispatch the Rangers in the 2010 ALCS.  But I have no idea why. When the Yankees run out of seats on the bus, they should just buy a bigger bus. Yankee money is best used to allow them to deal with excess. In this case, the “excess” would have been having six starting pitchers.

If everything went perfectly, they could have had Dan Haren or Roy Oswalt for the 2010 stretch run. Then signed Cliff Lee and had Andy Pettitte knocking at the door looking for one more go around. CC, Lee, RoyDan, Pettitte, Hughes, Burnett. That was the worst case scenario – having an excess of good starting pitching.

In order to avoid this terrible outcome, the Yankees maneuvered themselves into having a rotation with one good pitcher (I have hopes for Hughes, too). How on earth is this 2011 rotation, which was a very foreseeable outcome from opening day 2010, a better scenario than paying for a possibly superfluous pitcher?

The sound strategy from July 2010 through today was for Brian Cashman to go balls out filling two rotation spots. That strategy gives them the best chance to win the 2010 World Series, and sets up their immediate future in the best possible shape.

The Yanks should be primed for a three-peat and a dynasty. Instead, placing themselves at the mercy of these two decisions, they’ll be scrapping for a place at the table.

Lots of mustache news today, which is my favorite kind of news.

Not only can you order nifty ‘stache-silhouette t-shirts — if you fit into men’s sizes; women, of course, would never be interested in clothing that’s not pink and/or sparkly! Not that I’m bitter or anything — but now Tim Lincecum is growing a lip-warmer of his very own.

Well… sort of. Keep at it, Timmy.

Photo via @ChronLiveCSN.

1. Bernie Williams walking in late, and Pettitte calling him on it.

2. Jon Heyman’s sweater (screencap via @jaydestro):

Pettitte said “never say never” about pitching again at some point in the future, but that he does not expect to and definitely won’t this year. So that’s probably that. As usual, he was aw-shucks and earnest during the conference; he said he feels good physically, but his heart’s just not in gearing up to play. Vaya con dios, Andy.

It’s been a relatively busy week in Yankeeland. Aside from the Andy Pettitte retirement, which has been covered well by other writers here, the Yankees signed a free agent pitcher and made a trade for a minor league outfielder. Thirty-five-year old Freddy” The Chief” Garcia, a onetime legitimate No. 2 starter, signed a minor league contract, while Justin Maxwell, a 27-year-old former prospect with the Nationals, landed on the 40-man roster.

Let’s begin with Garcia. If he pitches reasonably well this spring, he’ll take his place as either the fourth or fifth starter. He pitched surprisingly well for the White Sox last year, logging 157 innings to the tune of a 4.63 ERA. If nothing else, he pitched far better than the enigmatic Javier Vazquez and the puzzling A.J. Burnett. If Garcia duplicates his ChiSox numbers this year, the Yankees will be more than satisfied; he’ll also be able to top the 12 wins he accrued now that he’s pitching behind a very capable Yankee offense. All in all, a good move for the Yankees, who protected themselves by signing Garcia to a minor league deal that allows them to cut bait if he has a poor spring.

Maxwell joins the Yankees at the minimal cost of minor league right-hander Adam Olbrychowski, a 24-year-old reliever of the non-prospect variety. Maxwell is a lesser known quantity than Garcia, but at first glance, he appears likely to battle Greg Golson for the fifth outfield spot. At 27, Maxwell can no longer be considered a real prospect; he hasn’t put up impressive minor league numbers since 2007, when he hit 27 home runs and slugged .533 for a couple of Class-A teams. On the plus side, Maxwell is athletic at six-feet, five inches and 225 pounds, with enough speed to play center field and enough arm to play right. On the whole, he might be considered a less speedy version of Golson, but with more patience at the plate and more power. Maxwell will have to outplay Golson this spring in order to make the 25-man roster; otherwise, he’ll be heading to Scranton/Wilkes Barre to start the season.

As with the Garcia signing, there’s little to lose here–with the potential upside of adding a complementary piece to the 25-man roster…

***

Like the rest of the Northeast, I can’t wait for the arrival of spring. In addition to warmer weather and baseball, here’s another reason to look forward to springtime: the release of Bill White’s autobiography. The former Yankee broadcaster has written his memoirs, entitled Uppity: My Untold Story About the Games People Play. Based on the previews I’ve read, the 320-page book, published by Grand Central, promises to be a hard-hitting, brutally honest tome, which isn’t too surprising considering White’s broadcasting style.

For those Yankee fans too young to remember the days before the YES and MSG networks, Bill White was one of the three broadcasting staples of Yankee games on WPIX, not to mention the radio coverage on WMCA, WINS, and WABC. Along with Phil Rizzuto and Frank Messer, White became synonymous with Yankee broadcasts throughout the 1970s and much of the eighties. He was also a pioneer; when he signed on to do Yankee broadcasts in 1971, he became the first African American to do play-by-play for a major league team.

At one time a star with the St. Louis Cardinals, Bill White became one of my broadcasting heroes. He was the man who brought reason and stability to Yankee broadcasts, counterbalancing Rizzuto’s hijinks and Messer’s occasionally overoptimistic outlook. When the Yankees played well, White praised them. When they didn’t, he called them out, tough but fair. He even criticized the front office at times, a habit that was not shared by many other Yankee broadcasters

White was also a versatile talent in the broadcast booth. Unlike most former players, White could handle any role on radio or TV. He was equally adept at doing color or play-by-play, which made it easy for him to work with either Rizzuto or Messer. In addition, he smoothly handled pre- and postgame interviews, so much so that ABC hired him to work some playoff clubhouses in the mid-1970s.

I haven’t heard much about White since he vacated the presidency of the National League in 1994. But I suspect we’ll be hearing more about him this spring, as his tell-all book begins to gain traction. I have a feeling that William De Kova White will be naming names for about 320 pages.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

Well, I’m not taking this very well.

I’ve written a lot about Andy Pettitte this winter, and of course by now, with spring training less than two weeks away, it’s not exactly a shock that he’s retiring. It’s bad news for the Yankees, whose rotation is not exactly AL East-ready, but I’m more bummed that I just won’t get to see Pettitte pitch anymore. More than any other current player he appeals to the lizard-brain part of my fandom, formed when I was still more or less a kid, and went to the Stadium for the first time, and had my mind blown. Andy Pettitte was on the mound when I fell in love with baseball, and I don’t think I can really be objective about him, even after all these years.

The is-he-a-Hall-of-Famer discussion has already broken out, and I think the answer to that is probably no. But he was certainly a pleasure to watch. Even more so in his later years, when he relied less on stuff and more on control and, for lack of a better phrase, know-how. The stat-head in me hates using wishy washy phrases like that — he had grit! he was gutty! — but like I said, when it comes to Pettitte I really can’t help myself. As I’ve written in this space so many times over the last few years, Pettitte just knew what the hell he was doing out there.

It’s interesting how little his admitted PED use seems to have affected his reputation. I’m not someone who gets particularly exercised about steroids in general, but even so, it’s usually a factor I take into account when looking at someone’s career. And I’m as cynical about athletes as the next person. Yet, when Pettitte says he only used it two times when he was injured once and then stopped, I do find myself believing him. I don’t know why and it’s probably not intellectually justifiable. I got to talk to Pettitte only a couple of times back in 2006 and 2007 when I was writing for the Village Voice, and yes, he was remarkably nice and seemingly sincere, though perhaps not the world’s deepest thinker. He didn’t seem annoyed to have to answer questions, he looked you in the eye and thought about his answers. That may not sound like much but for a star player, it kind of is.

But anybody can play nice in the clubhouse for a few minutes. I think more than that, what endeared Pettitte to fans is how we all saw him react to games: he was harder on himself than anybody else ever was. Paul O’Neill-style, but without the rage. When he pitched poorly he excoriated himself afterwards; when he pitched well, he always focused on his lucky breaks or the things he could have done better; and when he pitched excellently he praised his catcher. Every time. No wonder that, per Jon Heyman, “Pettiite is telling people he is feeling good but he just couldn’t get up for the grind of the season.”

Anyway, forgive me for the uncharacteristically sentimental post, but Andy Pettitte just has that effect on me. Maybe that’s why I’ll miss him so much, and why I regret that the fans won’t have a chance to say a proper goodbye, embarrassing the heck out of him on the mound.

I must admit that I never warmed up to Dave Winfield as a Yankee. Initially, I was excited when the Yankees signed him as a free agent during the winter of 1980-81. With an aging core of position players, the Yankees desperately needed a relatively young and athletic outfielder like Winfield. They also lacked thump from the right side of the plate; with Winfield now available to complement Reggie Jackson in the middle of the batting order, the Yankees appeared to have a thunderous righty-lefty combination.

Almost immediately, the New York media tried to sour the fan base on Winfield. I remember Mike Lupica, a poison pen if there ever was one, lamenting that the Yankees had spent millions of dollars on a “singles hitter” like Winfield. Admittedly, Winfield hit only 13 home runs in his first summer as a Yankee, the strike-shortened campaign of 1981. At times, Winfield looked more like a line-driver hitter than a pure power hitter. I think Winfield would have hit more home runs if not for the fact that he hit the ball so hard, with such incredible overspin. When Winfield connected with a pitch firmly, he hit searing line drives that tended to reach the outfield and then dip. For some reason, his swing lacked the lift of a classic power hitter.

Still, Lupica’s assessment of “singles hitter” was borderline ludicrous. Winfield had just come off a 20-homer season in San Diego. In 1982, his second season in the Bronx, Winfield would hit 37 home runs. By the time his career ended in 1995, he would compile 465 home runs and a lifetime slugging percentage of .475. Singles hitter, my eye. Perhaps Mr. Lupica would like to revise that description.

I’m not sure why I paid so much attention to Lupica, and all the other naysayers in the New York media who tried to belittle Winfield’s ability. Of course, I was all of 16 years old at the time, an impressionable teenager who took the words of older baseball experts too closely to heart. Still, their words seemed to carry more resonance in the fall of 1981, after Winfield endured a brutal World Series, gathering one hit in a disappointing six-game loss to the Dodgers. George Steinbrenner certainly bought into the perception, dubbing Winfield “Mr. May.”

With the seeds of postseason futility sown, I began to view Winfield as something of a disappointment as a hitter, and a failure in the clutch. First off, I was frustrated by Winfield’s log-cutting approach to hitting. Starting with a discernible hitch, he took a ridiculously large swing, unfurling his long arms toward the ball in such an exaggerated way, almost like a cartoon character in an old Bugs Bunny clip. (One frame of that gargantuan swing can be seen on his 1985 Topps card, which is probably the best of all the Winfield cards.) Too many times, his bat ended up hurtling down the third base line, threatening the livelihood of the poor third base coach, or the fans watching from the box seats near the dugout. The bat-throwing underscored the criticism of his hitting in the clutch. Unlike Jackson, Winfield rarely seemed to deliver that late-inning, game-turning blow that could transform a Yankee loss into an unlikely win. To this day, I have trouble remembering any landmark home runs, or even extra-base hits, that Winfield delivered for the Yankees.

Just for fun, I decided to take a look at the “clutch” statistics for Winfield’s career. With two outs and runners in scoring position, he batted a mediocre .255 with a pedestrian .431 slugging percentage. In late and close situations, he hit a bit better, .266 with a slugging percentage of .444. In tie games, his numbers improved to .271 and .455. All in all, the numbers show Winfield to be a mediocre player in the clutch, not as good as his usual performance, a little better than what I might have thought, and hardly Herculean.

Beyond his playing ability, Winfield could raise eyebrows through his demeanor. Trying too hard to sound cool and hip, he came across as arrogant in interviews. Cocky and confident, he walked with an exaggerated strut that looked like a Hollywood caricature. When a Yankee beat writer asked him to attend a charity event, Winfield agreed, but only after coming up with enough demands to make a diva proud. If anything, Winfield was out of touch with the common man.

None of this means that Winfield damaged the Yankees. On balance, he helped the franchise, albeit during the frustrating decade of the 1980s. He was durable, almost always playing 140 or more games a season. He was consistent, four times slugging .500 or better in pinstripes, and six times reaching the 100-RBI mark. Clutch or not, the man always played hard, running out every ground ball with a World Series passion, taking out middle infielders on double play balls, and chasing full bore after every fly ball that he could reach in left and right field.

When Winfield came up for Hall of Fame election, I did not hesitate to offer my own imaginary vote. I would have immediately put a check next to his name on the ballot. The man put up Hall of Fame numbers, and did so for a long time, his big league career lasting 22 seasons. He was a gifted and hard-working five-tool athlete who hit with power, stole bases, and played a wonderful right field.

He might have been a little hard to root for on a personal level, but if Winfield were in his prime today, I’d gladly add him to the Yankees’ starting lineup. David Mark Winfield could play right field for a winning team any day of the week.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

The will-he-or-won’t-he Andy Pettitte stories turned into self-parody weeks if not months ago, but yet here we still are (Newsday):

The Yankees aren’t the only ones waiting on Andy Pettitte.

Pettitte recently postponed a private autograph signing scheduled for Wednesday with a memorabilia dealer that would have brought him to the New York area.

The date was advertised on Steiner Sports’ website for Wednesday, but it has been changed on the site to Feb. 15.

Remember Schrödinger’s Cat? Pettitte is Schrödinger’s Pitcher. I don’t mean in the sense that he is trapped in a box with poison and is simultaneously alive AND dead according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics… well, let’s hope not, anyway; that would make Sergio Mitre pretty inevitable. No, I mean he’s in this weird stage of not being a Yankee but at the same time still being a Yankeee, simultaneously retired and unretired. Let’s hope we open up the box soon and find out his current state one way or the other, before some poor New York Post reporter is forced to dress up as a priest and ambush Pettitte in his church’s confessional.

The other day I mused offhandedly about how cool it would be to own a baseball team, and also how completely impossible. And that made me think of minor-league or independent-league team ownership, which is still kind of a possibility for mere mortals – and which, these days, has a lot more room for quirk. Given the choice between two clubs, as a general rule of thumb, you’re probably better off joining the one that doesn’t require Bud Selig’s approval.

Back in the fall I read Neal Karlen’s Slouching Towards Fargo, which is an affectionate portrait of the St. Paul Saints circa 1996 and 1997, an independent Northern League team owned in part by Bill Veeck’s son Mike (decades after his Disco Demolition Night debacle) that boasts a pig delivering baseballs to the mound, a nun in the stands  offering massages, appearances by part-owner Bill Murray, sumo-wrestling contests for opposing managers between innings, and much more. “Fun Is Good,” is the Saints’ motto, and it’s refreshing to watch a team that doesn’t take itself too seriously. (Bless the Yankees, but you know it would do them good to lighten up once in a while). Daryl Strawberry, who redeemed himself with the Saints shortly before joining the Yankees and salvaging his career, serves as something of a focal point in the book, representing the Saints’ function as a haven of second- and third-chances for baseball types and locals; there are also draft holdouts, washups, career minor leaguers and female pitcher Ila Borders. The Saints have room for just about everyone.

Author Neal Karlen also tries to tell the story of his own sort of redemption, as he was initially sent to Saint Paul by Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner to dig up mud and write a story eviscerating Bill Murray and Strawberry. But there’s little suspense or originality in the story of how he ultimately grows a conscience once away from the big city. This part of the book was less successful, for me – partly because Karlen’s writing (and, to be fair, editing – the book is very unevenly paced) is not up to the standards of his material, and partly because his view of cynical and immoral New York City media types vs. big-hearted Midwesterners struck me as overly pat. He frequently brings up petty grudges against other writers or media-world denizens, and he’s too on-the-nose when writing about how baseball and the Saints will heal us all; it’s a theme that would have benefited from subtlety. Still, Karlen does a good job of chronicling the fascinating collection of individuals who cluster around the Saints, a haven for nonconformists, and whatever his flaws as a writer, they don’t prevent the charm of the team itself from coming through loud and clear.

What? The Pro Bowl ain’t good enough for you? The SAG awards isn’t doin’ the trick? How about chillin’ with some pals?

[Picture by Bags]

Remember when there were all those rumors swirling about how much money the Mets had invested with Bernie Madoff, and how that could impact their ability to run the team? And the Wilpons kept saying, nope, it would have no effect at all? Well, today they issued a statement:

As Sterling Equities announced in December, we are engaged in discussions to settle a lawsuit brought against us and other Sterling partners and members ofour families by the Trustee in the Madoff bankruptcy. We are not permitted to comment on these confidential negotiations while they are ongoing.

However, to address the air of uncertainty created by this lawsuit, and to provide additional assurance that the New York Mets will continue to have the necessary resources to fully compete and win, we are looking at a number ofpotential options including the addition of one or more strategic partners. To explore this, we have retained Steve Greenberg, a Managing Director at Allen & Company, as our advisor.

Regardless of the outcome of this exploration, Sterling will remain the principal ownership group of the Mets and continue to control and manage the team’s operations. The Mets have been a major part of our families for more than 30 years and that is not going to change.

As Craig at Hardball Talk notes, this is pretty similar to what Tom Hicks said about his Rangers back in the day – and things didn’t quite work out the way he’d planned. Can the Mets find someone who’ll be willing to invest significant amounts of money without gaining any control? If not, would they consider selling the team outright, if they got the right offer?

Depending, of course, on who they might theoretically sell the team to, it could actually end up being a good thing for the Mets – the team has had certain issues over the years, with organization and finance and general PR, that have persisted regardless of who the GM or manager was. But in the short term, it’s not good news – it’s very hard for an organization to make bold moves, or to spend much money, when ownership is uncertain.

Start saving your money, gang! If we all put in $100…

Actually, I’ve had a longstanding fantasy about what I would do if I owned a baseball team. Note that even if I were to win the lottery, I STILL wouldn’t be able to afford to do that, but we’re just daydreaming here. I’d move a team to Brooklyn, where the Nets’ new eyesore of a Stadium is going (as long as we’re fantasizing), and keep ticket prices low, and have weird funny Bill Veeck-like promotions and giveaways, and sell lots of women’s team gear that wasn’t pink or sparkly, and hire as many knuckleballers and players with amusing names as possible, and…

Sorry, I got distracted. Point is, things will likely be pretty challenging in Flushing for the next few years.

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Photo via Real Clear Sports