The O’s could hit a little, but not pitch. The Yankees swept them. The A’s, who have a nearly identical record, can pitch a little, but not hit. The Yankees welcome them to the Bronx tonight for a four-game set that has the Bomber faithful salivating at the thought of their team extending their perfect 6-0 second-half record and building on their two-game lead over the Red Sox in the AL East and game-and-a-half lead over the red-hot Angles for the best record in the league.

The A’s arrive with the third weakest offense in the American League, and one which just lost ex-Yank Jason Giambi to the disabled list via a strained hamstring. Not that Giambi was hitting (.193/.332/.364 on the season), but he was tied for second on the team in homers with 11 and would have had fun trying to lift balls into that jet stream to right field (you just know J-Bombs is miserable over missing these games). Matt Holliday is doing what everyone expected he’d do, hit like his career road split, which is still good enough to make him the A’s best bat. His closest rival is replacement third baseman Adam Kennedy, who was released by the Cardinals in February, dumped on the A’s by the Rays after spring training, and spent April in the minors.

As for the A’s pitching, it’s typically park influenced. The A’s staff has a 3.83 ERA at home, but a 4.75 mark on the road. Accordingly, the A’s are a .391 team outside of Oakland. The A’s rotation currently consists of three lefties and four rookies, but the most effective left-handed rookie starter they’ve had this season, stirrup socked fashion plate Josh Outman, has been lost to Tommy John surgery.

The Yankees will face Brett Anderson, the most heralded of the rookie lefties, tomorrow. Anderson gave up five runs in 5 1/3 innings in the Yankees 16-inning win over the A’s in April, but has turned it on of late and enters tomorrow’s contest with an active streak of 21 scoreless innings and a 0.34 ERA and 0.68 WHIP over his last four starts. Saturday brings rookie lefty Gio Gonzalez, part of Oakland’s return for Nick Swisher. Gonzalez is Outman’s replacment and his four major league starts this season have been evenly split between decent and disaster, his last seeing him cough up 11 runs on on ten hits, including four homers, in just 2 2/3 innings against the Twins. Sunday brings non-rookie lefty Dallas Braden, who is the ripe-old age of 25. Braden has been the A’s most consistent pitcher having delivered quality starts in 14 of his 20 starts and maintaining his 3.40 ERA both at home and on the road. He’ll face Sergio Mitre.

Tonight, the Yankees will face one of the A’s two rookie right-handers in 22-year-old Vin Mazzaro, a Hackensack, New Jersey native and graduate of Rutherford High School who relies on a hard, heavy, mid-90s sinker. Mazzaro joined the rotation in June and got off to a fine start with four quality starts, but things have gone downhill from there, bottoming out with the eight runs he allowed in three innnings against the Angels his last time out. The A’s have lost Mazzaro’s last seven starts, with Vinnie taking the loss in six of them. In fact, the A’s haven’t won a game in which Mazzaro has given up a run all year (Mazzaro’s first two starts, both wins, saw him pitch 13 2/3 scoreless innings).

Maz has his work cut out for him tonight as he’s facing not just the major league’s best offense in a hitting-friendly environment, but CC Sabathia coming off seven shutout innings against the AL Central-leading Tigers his last time out. CC wasn’t as good as his numbers in that last start, however, as he walked three, hit a batter, threw 51 pitches in the first two innings, and had just two 1-2-3 innings. CC who started against Anderson in that 16-inning monster back in April and had one of his worst starts of the year, allowing seven runs in 6 2/3 innings while walking five. He’s come a long way since those early struggles, however, and will be looking to build some second-half momentum tonight.

Tonight’s lineup includes Hinske in right, Gardner in center, and Matsui at DH.

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Today’s news is powered by . . . “You’re a Good Man, Carl Pavano AJ Burnett Charlie Brown”

• Joe Posnanski offers up the top 100 players you’d want if you had to win THIS year.  A-Rod still finds himself in the top ten:

6. Alex Rodriguez, 3B, Yankees
Disastrous first half splattered with injuries, rumors and a low batting average … and the guy STILL has a 145 OPS+, good for seventh in the AL.

• John Perrotto details a slightly-worried Joe Girardi:

The Yankees called up right-hander Sergio Mitre from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to start Tuesday night, and he beat the Orioles despite allowing four runs in 5 2/3 innings. However, Girardi worries what might happen if the Yankees lose another starter, particularly since right-handers Phil Hughes and Alfredo Aceves have been converted to relievers this season to strengthen a shaky bullpen. “If we have another injury, where do we go?” Girardi said.

• Christina Kahrl has some rotation concerns:

The problem is that the rotation in general hasn’t done very well. Consider Support-Neutral performances of the rotation (expected winning pct. assuming league-average run support):  only CC Sabathia‘s delivering anything like what you’d expect or pay his price for, providing a .560 Support-Neutral Winning Percentage and a dozen quality starts (through six innnings) in 20. A.J. Burnett‘s .527 SNWP is good enough to rate second on this team, but it might also understate his value down the stretch, since he’s given the club 13 quality starts in 19, including in eight of his last nine. But then things get less happy; Andy Pettitte (.476) is pitching in a way that suggests his next elaborate off-season mulling of retirement won’t involve anyone waiting on his doorstep, while Joba Chamberlain‘s upside might obscure that his work this season (.474) is the stuff fourth starters are made off.

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The Yankees  scored four runs in the first inning against Baltimore starter Jason Berken Wednesday afternoon, A.J. Burnett held the O’s scoreless through the first six innings, and that was about that. Jorge Posada added a solo home run in the third and an RBI double in the eighth. The O’s scratched out a pair of runs against Burnett in the top of the seventh and got two more on back-to back homers by Adam Jones and Nick Markakis off Brian Bruney with two outs in the top of the ninth. Mariano Rivera came in to get the last out and nail down the 6-4 win, and with that the Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the Orioles and ran their second-half record to 6-0.

For Burnett, it was his seventh-straight quality start and his ninth out of his last ten starts. The Yankees are 8-2 in those ten games, the two loses coming against the Red Sox and the Marlins’ Josh Johnson, the later by a score of 2-1. As for Bruney, he struck out Robert Andino and Brian Roberts before giving up the two homers and both he and Joe Girardi said they though he was throwing the ball particularly well. Said Bruney, “two outs in the the ninth, four-run lead, of course I’m gonna throw a heater.” To his credit, the homers were hit by the Orioles two best hitters. Baseball men always say it’s better to challenge a hitter in that situation than to walk him and Bruney didn’t allow the first homer to force him to start nibbling to Jones. Still, I’m a long way from convinced that Bruney’s back to being a viable late-inning reliever.

Given the fact that the Yankees salted the game early, the highlight of the game came in the top of the third. Brian Roberts led off by lifting a fly to deep right. Nick Swisher trotted over, lifted his glove, and just flat missed the ball, putting Roberts on second. It was a flat gaffe, and a humiliating one at that. Adam Jones followed with a single, pushing Roberts to third, but Burnett got Markakis to foul out to shallow left and struck out Aubrey Huff to put him on the verge of getting out of the Swisher-created jam. Ty Wigginton then worked the count full and laced a pitch to Swisher’s left in deep right. It looked like an easy two-RBI double that would cut the Yankee lead in half, but Swisher raced over and made a fine, inning-ending leaping catch, allowing his momentum to carry him up the right-field wall in celebration. A.J. dropped this one on him in response:

I wonder if A.J. realized how well he and Swisher fit those roles.

I had some fun over at SI.com yesterday taking a look at the 2008 Gold Glove winners through the lense of UZR and The Fielding Bible. Along the way I name the best and worst defender at every position on the diamond according to those metrics and point out some surprises. Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Jose Molina, and Mike Mussina all make appearances. Derek Jeter comes up too, but only in passing.

Let’s get right to it:

• Hello Mitre, Goodbye Tomko:

Needing to clear roster space for Tuesday’s starting pitcher, Sergio Mitre, the Yankees designated Tomko for assignment, likely ending his time with the club. Tomko, a 13-year veteran of eight big league teams, posted a 5.23 ERA for the Yankees, pitching just 20 2/3 innings — many of them in lopsided games — over the span of 2 1/2 months.

“A lot of it was circumstance,” manager Joe Girardi said. “We played in a lot of tight games, and we went with the guys that we were using in those innings. He didn’t pitch a lot. There were times when he had a lot of days off, and it can be hard to stay sharp that way.”

Tomko hadn’t pitched since July 11, giving up runs in five of his final eight appearances with the team. After earning a callup thanks to a strong Spring Training showing and some sparkling Triple-A numbers — namely a 0.64 ERA in 10 games — Tomko began to crumble with irregular use around mid-May.

• No Halladay in the Yanks future, it appears:

A Blue Jays official involved in the Roy Halladay discussions told The Post that both New York teams are not serious pursuers of the ace right-hander.

The official confirmed what several Yankee executives already had told the Post: That since an initial phone conversation about two weeks ago between Brian Cashman and his Blue Jays counterpart J.P. Ricciardi to let the Yankees know that Halladay is available there have been no further discussions. Yankees executives have told the Post that the finances in adding Halladay don’t work, especially if it means giving up the best of their farm system, also, which is what keeping Halladay in the AL East would necessitate.

• Loosey-goosey Matsui?:

Out of the corner of his eye, Hideki Matsui caught the sight of several teammates frantically using their arms to make a tossing motion. The gestures seemed foreign at first. But as Matsui jogged toward the plate, moments after slamming a walk-off homer in the Yankees’ 2-1 victory against the Orioles on Monday, it all started to make sense.

“I was just going to step on home plate, normally,” said the typically reserved Matsui through his translator. “But they told me to throw my helmet so I threw my helmet. I’ve never done it before, so in that sense, it felt a little uncomfortable. But I like to follow whatever the team rules are.”

So, Matsui fired his helmet into the air the way a newlywed bride would toss a bouquet. And Melky Cabrera, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada — the three giddy teammates who waved frantically at Matsui — all leaped after it like a group bachelors at a wedding reception diving after the garter belt.

• Will Carroll on CMW:

Between the foot, the hips, and now the shoulder, Wang has undergone a full-system breakdown in just a year. That’s very unusual, and points strongly to some sort of mechanical issue. With all the money the Yankees spend on things, you’d figure they’d be at the front of everything, including biomechanics, but they’re not. They used to have a real edge in how they managed rehabilitation, especially with Tommy John recoveries, but while they’re still very good, the rest of the league has caught up. . . Wang seems to be done for the season, with the question being whether this is a permanent or temporary stop.

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There’s been a lot of eye rolling and hand wringing about the fact that Sergio Mitre has been chosen to take the injured Chien-Ming Wang’s start against the Orioles tonight. I’ve seen Sidney Ponson’s name tossed about as a comparison, a short-cut for the sort of proven major league failure the Yankees  should no longer need to resort to given the depth of pitching in their system and the presence of two quality starting pitchers in their bullpen in Phil Hughes and Alfredo Aceves. I would, of course, much prefer to see the Yankees stretch Hughes back out should Wang’s current DL stay project to be a long one, but with regards to Ponson, I’m here to say that Mitre is not that.

Sidney Ponson had posted a below average ERA in 235 major league starts before joining the Yankees for the first time in 2006 and arrived in the Bronx in July 2006 having just posted a 5.24 ERA in 13 starts for the Cardinals during the first half of the season. Mitre, by comparison, has made just 52 major league starts and just once made more than nine in a single season. He has not thrown a major league pitch since 2007 due to Tommy John surgery and was just 26 in that, his only full season as a major league starter. Mitre’s career line in the majors is certainly unimpressive (5.36 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, 5.4 K/9), but he was rushed to the majors in just his third professional season at age 22, jerked between the majors, minors, rotation, and bullpen in each of his three seasons with the Cubs, and came down with shoulder problems in May of his first season with the Marlins in 2006. Given all of that, I’m tempted to just toss out those first four partial major league seasons in which Mitre went 5-15 with a 6.01 ERA in 25 starts and 26 relief appearances.

Instead, I look at what Mitre did with a healthy arm and a rotation spot in the first half of the 2007 season under manager Joe Girardi. In 16 starts (not counting one aborted start in which he tore a blister during the first inning), Mitre posted a 2.82 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and a 3.1 K/9. Ten of those outings were quality starts and two others were scoreless but cut short by a tight hamstring. Mitre’s season fell apart in late July due to the elbow problems that led to his Tommy John surgery and wiped out his 2008 season.

As you can see, Mitre’s problems have had far more to do with health than effectiveness. That’s a red flag when a team throws $80-million, five-year contracts at a pitcher, but when the pitcher in question comes in on a make-good minor league deal, health concerns don’t concern me as there’s nothing there but upside. Mitre will make a pro-rated portion of a $1.25 million salary while in the majors this year, well worth the gamble that he can recapture the effectiveness he had in the first half of 2007.

Like the pitcher he replaces, Mitre is a groundballer, which makes him well-suited to the Yankees’ homer-happy new ballpark. In his minor league rehab work this year, Mitre has induced roughly three groundouts for every fly out, a rate comparable to Wang’s at his peak. Mitre has also shown tremendous control, walking just seven men in nine starts or 1.16 per nine innings, a rate that recalls another ex-Cub Tommy John rehab project that worked out well for the Yankees, Jon Lieber. In those first 16 starts in 2007, Mitre’s walk rate was 1.76, compared to 3.7 in his first four partial major league seasons, another indication that the Mitre we see tonight is more likely to be the early 2007 model. Six of Mitre’s seven starts for Triple-A Scranton have been quality starts, and his work for Scranton has yielded a 2.40 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, and 7.00 K/BB.

It’s entirely possible that Mitre will pull a Kei Igawa upon returning to the major leagues, but given that Triple-A performance and his decided lack of a meaningfully poor major league history, I think he deserves at least this one chance to prove he won’t. Unlike with Ponson, the Yankees won’t know what they have in Mitre unless they give him a chance to show them.

That said, if the pain Wang felt in his shoulder during his throwing session yesterday does indeed indicate a longer-than-anticipated DL stay and Mitre is anything less than excellent tonight, the Yankees should immediately begin stretching Hughes back out as a long-term solution to the hole in their rotation.

Mitre’s opposition tonight will be another ex-Cub, lefty Rich Hill. Hill had an excellent season in the Cubs’ rotation in 2007, but lost the strikezone last year, pitching his way off the team and out of the organization. Picked up by the Orioles in February, Hill has been wildly erratic for Baltimore this season, swinging from seven shutout innings with seven strikeouts against the Mariners on June 1 to three runs on a hit, four walks, and a hit batter and a first-inning hook his next time out. Anything within that range is possible tonight.

Today’s news is powered by Grand Funk Railroad, circa 1971:

• Hal Steinbrenner . . . foresees greatness:

“I think we’ve got a championship-caliber team,” he said. “I absolutely believe that we have the team that can win the championship.”

Making his first extensive public comments about the New York Yankees since Opening Day, the new controlling owner praised his players, manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman. And, already, he’s looking ahead to Aug. 6-9, when the Boston Red Sox come to Yankee Stadium.

“That four-game series is going to be a big one,” he said. “But the guys believe they can beat anybody, and that has not changed, and that’s an important thing.”

. . . “We expect to win every year. We’ve said that. We always say that,” he said. “Our job is to field a championship-caliber team every year, and that’s what we strive to do. So, Joe knows who he’s working for.”

“I’m seeing some looseness this year in the players, I’m seeing some, you know, some emotion, and that’s a great thing,” Steinbrenner said. “We’ve managed to limit the injuries — we’re doing a little bit better than last year in that area. And I just think there’s a lot of motivation. I think these guys are pumped, and I think they’re showing it. We’re firing on all cylinders at times and struggling a little bit at other times in certain areas. But overall, pretty happy.”

• Mike Mussina is staying retired.
• Wang banged up again:

(Chien Ming) Wang’s biceps felt tender when he played catch before Monday night’s game against Baltimore and won’t attempt to throw again until Friday.

“It’s not exactly the news that I wanted,” Joe Girardi said. “It’s not what you want to hear because we were hoping that two weeks’ rest is enough for him to get on a throwing program.”

. . . “We’re going to give him a few more days and some more strengthening before he goes back out,” Girardi said. “I think anything you’re dealing with cuff issues or shoulder tendinitis or whatever you want to describe it as, I mean, there’s concern. And whatever he’s able to do, we would love to have. But I think any time someone is injured and you’re not sure when they’re exactly going to be back, you can’t really count on them in a sense.”

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Maybe I should be wondering where the usually stellar Yankee offense has been the last few days, but I think instead I’ll just enjoy the relief that comes whenever the new Stadium hosts tight, low-scoring games. The Yankees beat the Orioles 2-1 tonight, thanks to an old-school performance from Andy Pettitte and some pretty defense and, okay, yes, two home runs to right.

It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write that Andy Pettitte pitched really well – not “didn’t have his best stuff but kept them in the game” or “made a few big mistakes but was able to limit the damage,” but was just plain good. He was tonight, though, pitching into the eighth inning with six strikeouts and two walks; he allowed six hits but also induced two double plays. Run-wise he allowed a first-inning home run to Nick Markakis and that was all.

Meanwhile Orioles rookie David Hernandez, after a tiring and rocky beginning, soon got into a groove of his own. The Yankees scored in the second on an Eric “All or Nothing” Hinske solo shot that tied the game (Hinske’s fourth of the season for New York, out of five total hits), but he was the last Yank to cross home plate for quite a while.

So it was a good thing that the Yankees helped themselves on defense tonight, making a few really excellent/lucky plays. Robinson Cano apparently deked out poor Cesar Izturis not once but twice, and also saved the day when a grounder bounced off the heel of Mark Teixeira’s glove, snatching it out of midair and tossing to Pettitte just ahead of the runner (“the old 3-4-1…”).

The most impressive fielding came in the eighth, though, after Pettitte left the game in Phil Coke’s hands with two runners on and one out. First Nick Markakis hit a shrill liner to Teixeira, who fired it back to Molina, who managed to tag out the runner at the plate – a lightning-fast play all around. I wasn’t expecting it and I doubt the runner, poor Cesar Izturis, was either (it was just not his game). Then Brian Roberts tried to score on a wild pitch, but Molina, moving faster than a Molina is built to move, got the ball back to Phil Coke in time for him to awkwardly lunge and tag out Brian Roberts, who missed the plate – saving the run and ending the inning.

With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Hideki Matsui, who has been largely overshadowed this season, apparently decided he wanted a little more attention and whacked a 2-2 Jim Johnson fastball into the right field bleachers. This was no New Stadium cheapie either, but a big no-doubt blast. Cue the helmet-tossing and the jumping around and the grinning and the whipped-cream pie.

The Red Sox lost tonight, and so the Yankees are now clutching their very own piece of first place. Tomorrow Sergio Mitre will try to defend it… and I was going to make a couple cracks about that because, well, you know. But Cliff seems to think that he might not actually be so bad, and Cliff is usually right, so I’ll hold off on the Mitre-mocking.

—

When Worlds Collide: the most recent headline on my FiveThirtyEight.com RSS feed reads: “Teixeira Says Culture Wars Ending, GOP Needs New Playbook.” I don’t know what initially confused me more, the idea that Mark Teixeiria of all people would suddenly start talking political strategy, or that FiveThirtyEight would quote him as an authority. Of course it turns out the post is actually referring to a demographics expert named Ruy Teixeira, but that was sure a baffling ten seconds.

Play a patsy.

To be fair, the Baltimore Orioles aren’t a complete pushover. There seven teams in the major leagues with worse records and the free-falling Mets are just two games better. In fact, for the first time perhaps since I started blogging, I’m actually looking forward to the Yankees matchups with the Orioles. That’s because of the exciting young talent the Orioles have in their lineup.

Nick Markakis is in his fourth season as the O’s right fielder, but he’s still just 25, and though his production has dipped down to his rookie-year level, he’s been a strong second-half performer in his young career, hitting .316/.388/.529 after the All-Star break. Adam Jones, who had the game-winning RBI in the All-Star Game, is having a big breakout season at age 23, though he’s slumped since the beginning of June, hitting .253/.307/.333. Those two have been joined by 25-year-old Nolan Reimold in left field. Reimold was called up in mid-May and made an immediate impact, hitting .296/.375/.533 with nine homers through the end of June. He’s scuffled thus far in July (.191/.269/.234, no homers), so it will be interesting to see if he can make the necessary adjustments to stay in the league.

Perhaps overshadowing those three is rookie backstop Matt Wieters, not because of his performance, but because of his blue-chip status. Wieters was supposed to be this year’s Evan Longoria, but with the Orioles out of contention they were able to wait a bit longer to bring Wieters up, thereby protecting his arbitration status. The fifth-overall pick in the 2007 draft, the 6-foot-5 Wieters hit .343/.438/.576 while burning through the Orioles’ minor league system in a little more than a year. Called up in late May, soon after his 23rd birthday, Wieters has yet to really settle in as a major leaguer. Even tossing out his rough first week in the bigs, he’s hit just .270/.330/.416 since June 9. Still, the potential is there for a huge breakout, and Wieters has the potential to develop into one of the best hitters in the league at any position.

Add to those four Brian Roberts, having a slightly down year at age 31, but still leading the majors in doubles, and a strong showing from fellow-31-year-old Luke Scott (.298/.380/.579 and hitting lefties even better than righties), and the Orioles have an offense worth watching.

What makes them a patsy is their pitching staff. The names have changed from when I wrote something very similar prior to the Yankees’ season-opening series in Baltimore. Adam Eaton has been released, Koji Uehara and Alfredo Simon are on the DL, and Mark Hendrickson has been banished to the bullpen, but the Orioles rotation is still awful. Would-be ace Jeremy Guthrie, whom the Yankees will miss, has a 5.12 ERA. The rest of their rotation made a combined five starts above double-A in 2008, all of them by Cubs castoff Rich Hill. Hill, who starts against Sergio Mitre tomorrow, has a 7.22 ERA thus far this year. Rookie Jason Berken, who will face A.J. Burnett on Wednesday night, is 1-7 with a 6.44 ERA.

The Orioles have had more encouraging results from 23-year-old rookie groundballer Brad Bergesen, though he won’t pitch in this series either. Bergesen has been solid (6-4, 3.51 ERA and a 2.41 ERA over his last ten starts), but his low strikeout rate remains a concern. The fifth spot in the rotation is being filled tonight by 24-year-old rookie David Hernandez. Hernandez. Hernandez has struck out 10.4 men per nine innings in his five-year minor league career, but save for his lone major league relief outing (2 2/3 IP, 0 R, 4 K), has yet to find the same success in the majors after five starts. Despite his middling major league strikeout rate, Hernandez turned in quality starts against the Mariners and Angels his last two times out and fell just one out shy of a quality start in two of his other three outings. The catch is that he’s a fly-ball pitcher coming to the new Yankee Stadium with a reputation for grooving pitches when behind in the count.

Facing Hernandez will be Andy Pettitte. Pettitte had always been a strong second-half performer prior to his second-half collapse last year. Even with last year factored in, he sports a second-half ERA of 3.64 and winning percentage of .687 compared to 4.17 and .578 in the first half. In 2007, Pettitte helped pitch the Yankees into the playoffs, coming out of the All-Star break to go 8-1 witha 2.61 ERA in his first nine starts of the second half. Pettitte claimed his poor second half last year was due to poor off-season conditioning, which he blamed on his desire to keep a low profile after his name surfaced in the Mitchell Report. Assuming Andy got back to his normal routine this past winter, it’s time for it to start paying off, particularly given his disappointing first-half performance.

Eric Hinske starts over Nick Swisher in right tonight against the righty Hernandez. Melky Cabrera starts in center. That’s four post-break starts for Melky to one by Brett Gardner. I don’t like that trend. Melky had a six-game hitting streak going, but it was snapped yesterday. He’s hitting .256/.319/.372 in July and was 2-for-10 with no walks or extra base hits against the Tigers over the weekend. Then again, Gardner is hitting .219/.265/.281 with just two walks and one extra-base hit on the month. Both players have taken advantage of slumps by the other this season. There’s no telling who will step up now, but Gardner needs to play to have a chance.

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Later this week, the roll call of Yankees in the Hall of Fame will grow by two. While most of the mass media will treat Sunday’s induction of the late (but deserving) Joe Gordon as an afterthought, there’s little doubt that the other former Yankee will grab the center of attention. We all know that Rickey Henderson is the game’s greateast leadoff batter and most prolific basestealer; he was also a legitimate four-tool talent whose throwing arm was his only attribute to elude greatness.

Henderson was also that rare breed of superstar who happened to be a colorful and clownish character. Through his unusual habits and sayings, Henderson became one of baseball’s leading eccentrics of the late 20th century. In my mind, that’s the aspect of his career that is just as worthwhile as exploring as his on-base percentage and his “Man of Steal” persona on the basepaths.

Even the beginning of Henderson’s life involved an uncommon occurrence; he was born in the backseat of an Oldsmobile on Christmas Day in downtown Chicago. He simply couldn’t wait for the car to reach the hospital, where a more conventional birth would have taken place.

As a ballplayer, Henderson brought some unorthodox qualities to the field. He batted right-handed and threw left-handed, an unusual combination for most non-pitching ballplayers. (Of all major league players with 4,000 or more at-bats in their careers, only two others—Hal Chase and Cleon Jones—batted right and threw left.) At the plate, Henderson batted out of a severely exaggerated crouch, which looked uncomfortable but created the illusion of a particularly small strike zone.

During the course of his major league journeys, Henderson gained notoriety for several peculiar tendencies, along with a few incidents best described as strange. Let’s consider the following from the Henderson files:

*Known for his deep voice and habit of slurring his words, Henderson enjoyed speaking in the third person. Rarely using the word “I,” he often referred to himself as Rickey. While most athletes who spoke in such a fashion received criticism for being arrogant and overbearing, the mumbling Henderson came across comically, giving himself an appealing, almost innocent quality.

*In the early 1980s, Henderson signed a contract with the Oakland A’s that included a $1 million bonus. Later that same year, Oakland accountants found an unexpected balance of $1 million in their ledgers. They soon discovered that Henderson had never cashed the sizeable check, instead putting it in a frame and hanging it on a wall in his home.

*After breaking Lou Brock’s all-time stolen base record in a 1991 game against the Yankees, Henderson addressed his home fans at Oakland’s Alameda County Coliseum. “Today, I am the greatest of all time,” said Henderson, doing an unintended imitation of Muhammad Ali. Although Henderson later said that his words came out the wrong way, he drew severe criticism for sounding less than humble on the national stage.

*According to many of his teammates, Henderson spent part of his time in the clubhouse before each game looking at himself in a full-length mirror—all while completely naked. As he soulfully admired his muscular physique, Henderson softly and repeatedly mouthed the words, “Rickey’s the best.”

*In a much-disputed incident (most observers consider the story to be false, but a few “eyewitnesses” claim otherwise), Henderson heard Seattle Mariners teammate John Olerud discussing his problems with a brain aneurism suffered in college, a medical condition that necessitated he wear a helmet at all times, even while playing first base. As Henderson listened to the explanation, he allegedly exclaimed that he had previously played with another player who also wore a helmet in the field—an amazing coincidence! Remarkably, Henderson didn’t remember that it was the same man—Olerud—who had played with him only one season earlier with the Mets. The two men had also been teammates with the 1993 world champion Blue Jays.

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Today’s news is powered by the one and only Frank McCourt, who passed away yesterday at 78.  I had him for three different classes during my years at Stuy (of course, before he became the best-selling author):

• Don’t expect a trade for a starting pitcher anytime soon:

Yankees GM Brian Cashman admits that the team’s starting rotation “as a whole did not perform well at the end of the first half” and acknowledges that a part of the team that was supposed to be a strength “didn’t play out that way” as the Bombers haven’t had any starter perform at a consistent level.

But, Cashman says, pursuing an outside option for starting help is “unlikely right now … I don’t feel we need a guy. We’re going internal and we’ll wait and see how that works out.” In fact, Cashman said, it would probably be easier to make a deal for a reliever, which would allow the Yankees to free up either Phil Hughes or Alfredo Aceves to go back into the rotation, if they decide they need more help than new No.5 starter Sergio Mitre, slated to start Tuesday against Baltimore.

Of course, with the July 31 trade deadline approaching and Toronto ace Roy Halladay available, Cashman could be playing coy. And, Cashman acknowledged his opinion could change if “our circumstances changed.”

But Cashman stressed that the Yankees are sticking to the don’t-pay-twice philosophy that he says they applied to Johan Santana’s availability before Santana became a Met. The Yanks, Cashman says, don’t want to both give up prospects and pay a megabucks contract extension.

• Old-Timers Day brought back Mike Mussina . . . and Don Zimmer:

. . . Zimmer, the 78-year-old baseball lifer who was permitting pinstripes to drape his body for the first time since the 2003 World Series.

Greeted with a kiss on the cheek from Andy Pettitte and a bear hug from Tony Pena, Zimmer had vowed never to return to Yankee Stadium after a spat with principal owner George M. Steinbrenner. Time has healed those wounds. He spent time around the batting cage chatting with Tigers manager Jim Leyland, one of his best friends in the game.

“I thought it’d be a good time to come back and see the guys, the Old-Timers,” Zimmer said. “I didn’t hesitate when they asked me. I didn’t even know the young kids who asked me. I just said, ‘Yes.'”

Now an advisor with the Rays, Zimmer said that he moved on immediately after that night in autumn 2003, but said that he feels badly about Steinbrenner’s declining health and said he had no words to say to him at this time. Yet Zimmer remains richly appreciative of his time serving as Joe Torre’s trusted bench lieutenant.

“Nobody will ever know how special it was,” Zimmer said, his eyes welling with tears.

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Saturday was a great day for a baseball game. It was a gorgeous, sunny, breezy, summer day and the Yankees and Tigers each had their ace on the hill. CC Sabathia and Justin Verlander delivered on the matchup’s promise, each holding their opponent scoreless for six innings.

Verlander actually out-pitched Sabathia for those first six frames, but CC continually fought his way out of jams. He needed 51 pitches to get through the first two innings, but stranded a pair of runners in each, then got inning-ending double plays in the third and fourth before finally working a 1-2-3 fifth inning. The Tigers got two men in scoring position in the sixth when Marcus Thames beat out an infield single to the shortstop hole and Magglio Ordoñez doubled him to third, but Sabathia got Ryan Rayburn to fly out to shallow left, holding Thames, and got Brandon Inge to pop out to strand both runners. He then worked a 1-2-3 seventh, finishing his day after 114 pitches.

The Yankees managed just two singles and walk off Verlander over the first five innings. In the sixth, Johnny Damon doubled off the base of the right-field wall with two outs, but was stranded when Verlander got a favorable high strike call on a fastball to get Mark Teixeira looking for his sixth strikeout of the game. Alex Rodriguez led off the bottom of the seventh, took ball one, fouled off strike one, then lifted Verlander’s 92nd pitch to the first row in right field for a stalemate-breaking homer that gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead. With two outs in the inning, Robinson Cano singled up the middle, moved to second on a Nick Swisher double to left, and scored when Melky Cabrera beat out a grounder to deep short.

That extra run proved crucial when Thames connected for a two-out homer off Alfredo Aceves in the eighth. In to protect the slim 2-1 lead, Mariano Rivera worked a perfect ninth to give the Yankees the game, series, and season series over the Tigers. It was a crisp, two-hour 39-minute game on a crisp, beautiful afternoon. Nice.

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Friday night’s win was a thoroughly rewarding one for the Yankees. Mark Teixeira came through with a big three-run homer to cap a comeback. Phil Hughes helped nail it down by striking out the side in two scoreless innings of relief. Mariano Rivera got the save, and everyone in the Bronx went home happy.

The win also clinched a tie in the season series with leaders of the AL Central, and most importantly, gave the Yankees the game they needed to have with the Tigers two All-Stars, Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson, scheduled to pitch the final two games of the series. Verlander goes today in a rematch with CC Sabathia. Those two last faced off in Detroit on April 27, the first game of the season series. Entering that game, Verlander was 0-2 with a 9.00 ERA. That night, he shut the Yankees out for seven innings, striking out nine and walking none as the Tigers prevailed 4-2. Dating back to that start, Verlander has gone 10-2 with a 2.22 ERA, 124 strikeouts in 101 1/3 innings, a 0.99 WHIP, and a 4.26 K/BB. He’s been a bit more human of late, however, posting a 4.25 ERA over his last six starts with a 1.42 WHIP.

CC Sabathia pitched well in that April game as well, striking out seven in eight innings, but a three-run sixth inning, keyed by a two run home run by Magglio Ordoñez, cost him and the Yankees the game. After a mediocre April, CC was great in May, but has been a bit erratic since then, going 3-3 with a 4.47 ERA. In his last start, he coughed up five runs in 6 2/3 innings in Anaheim and two starts before that he allowed six runs in 5 2/3 against the weak-hitting Mariners. Like the Yankees other big-ticket free agent, Mark Teixeira, CC has a history of strong second-halves. Tex got off on the right foot last night. It’s CC turn today.

Since their sweep at the hands of the Angels to close the first half, a lot has been made of the Yankees’ struggles this year against potential playoff teams (0-8 vs. Boston, 2-4 vs. Angels, 1-2 vs. Phillies). The exception to that trend is the Detroit Tigers, who dropped two of three to the Yankees in Detroit back in late April. The Tigers have been atop the AL Central since May 10, but, tellingly, can be stung by the same criticism given their 2-7 record against the Red Sox, Yankees, and NL Central leading Cardinals.

The Tigers are a good team, but they’re not a great one. Their offense has been average, their bullpen unexceptional, and their rotation top heavy. That last is the primary reason they’ve lorded over the Central thus far this season. Despite a rough start, 26-year-old Justin Verlander is having his finest major league season having gone 10-2 with a 2.22 ERA dating back to his confrontation with the Yankees and CC Sabathia in late April. Behind him, 25-year-old Edwin Jackson is finally delivering on his prospect promise in his seventh (!) major league season, dropping his walk rate to 2.6 BB/9 and going 8-4 with a 2.26 ERA and 11 quality starts in 12 turns since May 9. Twenty-year-old rookie and Morristown, New Jersey native Rick Porcello has been solid behind those two, but Venezuelan sophomore Armando Galarraga has been inconsistent, and the fifth spot remains unclaimed.

Coming out of the break, the Yankees have the ill fortune to catch both Verlander, who will rematch with CC Sabathia tomorrow, and Jackson, who will face Joba Chamberlain on Sunday. That makes tonight’s game against 23-year-old rookie lefty Lucas French, who is making just his third big-league start, the key to the series for the Yankees. An eighth-round draft pick out of high school in 2004, French seemed to make a leap upon reaching Triple-A this year, posting his best ERA, strikeout, and walk rates since rookie ball. French made two scoreless relief appearances for the big club in mid-May and was recalled at the beginning of July to take over the fifth spot in the rotation. After a short, but solid start against the Twins, he beat Zack Greinke and the Royals his last time out by limiting Kansas City a solo homer and five other harmless hits in six innings. That was impressive, but facing the Yankees in the new Yankee Stadium will be a much better test.

The offense behind French has a slightly different look than it had when the Yankees were in Detroit in April. Most notably, a .260/.330/.343 performance has cost 2007 batting champion Magglio Ordoñez the bulk of his playing time. He’s now the short side of a right-field platoon with 25-year-old sophomore Clete Thomas (.265/.339/.500 against major league righties this year). Similarly, Josh Anderson’s glove has proven unable to sustain his bat in left field, resulting in increased playing time for backup Ryan Raburn (.269/.346/.496 on the season). The eternally fragile Carlos Guillen is back on the DL and has yielded his DH spot to power-hitting ex-Yankee Marcus Thames, who hit .344 with four homers in his last eight games before the break. Meanwhile, three pillars of the offense this year have been Miguel Cabrera (of course), Curtis Granderson (still struggling against lefties at .194/.282/.291, but plenty dangerous against righties), and, much to my amazement, Brandon Inge, who has never posted an OPS over .780 before but is having a career year at age 32, hitting .268/.360/.515 with 21 homers and 58 RBIs (against career highs of 27 and 83, both from 2006).

A.J. Burnett will reopen the second half against the dangerous version of Granderson tonight hoping to keep his pre-break hot streak alive. A.J. has posted a 1.34 ERA over his last five starts, all of which lasted at least 19 outs. The Yankee offense behind him has Hideki Matsui batting fifth followed by Jorge Posada, Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher, and center fielder Melky Cabrera.

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Today’s news is powered by a little “Squeeze” play:

• MLB.com offers up their own mid-season report card on the Yanks, and has this prediction:

The 2009 Yankees are a playoff team. The AL East would love to make that a false statement for a second successive season, but there’s little reason to think the division or the Wild Card are not within New York’s grasp. The Yankees don’t match up well with the Red Sox, but they’ll will find a way to be playing in October. They might even beat the Sox at least once in their remaining 10 games.

[My take: OK folks . . . who wants to do the research on whether a team has made the playoffs despite going 1-17 or worse against another team?]

• Baseball Prospectus’ Steven Goldman has some ideas for the second half of the Bombers’ campaign:

The current AL Wild Card leaders have endured great disappointment from their starting rotation. Their quality start percentage of 43% ranks 12^th in the league, just ahead of Cleveland’s. Only robust hitting and an improving bullpen has allowed them to win with consistency, but not against good teams like the Red Sox (0-8), Rays (4-4), and Angels (2-4). One obvious solution, putting Phil Hughes into the rotation is complicated by the fact that Hughes has been the team’s most effective late-inning option in front of Mariano Rivera (opposing hitters are batting .115/.182/.197 when he relieves). They would be best advised to move him to starting and trade for another bullpen arm, which would probably be less costly than getting into the Roy Halladay gold rush.

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In grading the Yankees first-half performances this morning, I was struck by the fact that every question mark the Yankees had on offense coming into the season has been answered positively. Robinson Cano, Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui, Nick Swisher, and Melky Cabrera have all returned to their pre-2008 levels of production. Posada’s shoulder, Matsui’s knees, and Alex Rodriguez’s hip have all held up to regular play. Age hasn’t been much of an issue for the 35-year-old Captain, and has been only a minor hindrance to Posada, Matsui, and Johnny Damon. Brett Gardner has translated his minor league production to the majors, and Mark Teixeira has hit like Mark Teixeira.

Lest we take any of that for granted, consider how things have turned the opposite way for the Chicago Cubs. I take a look at the Cubs disappointing first half and offensive collapse over at SI.com. It looks a lot like what the Yankees went through last year with injuries and poor performance combining to sabatoge a would-be playoff team. The key question now is whether the respective good and bad luck of these two teams continue in the second half. Only time will tell.

I left two grades out of my post from this morning. Here they are:

Joe Girardi, Manager

Girardi has impressed me in a number of ways this season. Starting with instantly rewarding Nick Swisher’s hot start with more playing time, Girardi has done an excellent job of rewarding performance with playing time throughout his roster. When Brett Gardner stumbled and Melky Cabrera got hot, Girardi didn’t hesitate to invert the roles of his two center fielders. Angel Berroa may have been on the roster for far too long, but Girardi barely used him, quickly recognizing Ramiro Peña’s superior skill set and rewarding the rookie with opportunities commensurate to his performance. Similarly, when catchers Kevin Cash and Francisco Cervelli were called up within three days of each other following injuries to Jorge Posada and Jose Molina, Girardi didn’t simply default to Cash as the starter because of his major league experience (which includes a .186/.248/.287 career batting line). Rather, he again favored talent over experience, making Cervelli the starter, and was rewarded for it. Girardi excelled at this in his bullpen usage last year, and has done it again this year, letting Phil Coke, Alfredo Aceves, and now Phil Hughes pitch their way to high-leverage duty while casting aside more experienced arms in Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez.

Of course, managers manage people and not just teams, so there have been a couple of cases in which Girardi has persisted with a player in a role beyond the point at which the media and fans thought was appropriate. Specifically, Girardi put Brian Bruney right back into his eighth-inning role after Bruney was activated from the DL for the second time and stuck with Robinson Cano batting fifth behind Alex Rodriguez through a considerable slump with runners in scoring position. In both cases, Girardi was showing some necessary faith in those players, but not so much that he didn’t eventually move Bruney into the middle innings and Cano down in the order.

Girardi also deserves credit for lightening up this season after receiving poor marks for his militaristic approach to last year’s team. Starting with a spring training team field trip to a pool hall conceived by the skipper, this year’s Yankees team has been one of the loosest and most colorful in recent memory, from Nick Swisher’s iPod, to A.J. Burnett’s cream pies, to the post-game championship belt (donated by Jerry Lawler), to the Mariano Rivera-judged kangaroo court.

Still, Girardi continues to have a blind spot when it comes to the fragility of his players. Though he seems to have discontinued his practice of lying to the media about his players’ health, he initially failed to follow the doctor’s orders to give Alex Rodriguez proper rest following the third baseman’s return from hip surgery, and has too often overextended CC Sabathia beyond the big man’s effectiveness. Fortunately, CC’s pitch counts haven’t been dangerous (he has reached 120 pitches just twice, tellingly both times in Yankee losses), and Rodriguez has responded incredibly to having some regular rest of late. Still, taking those kind of chances with the team’s top assets early in the season is more than just obstinate, it’s potentially disastrous for the organization. Given Girardi’s injury blind spot, I wonder to what degree his approach is to blame for the fact that both Cody Ransom and Brian Bruney tried to cover up injuries to the detriment of the team.

B+

Yankee Stadium 2.0

Prior to Opening Day, my objections to the new Yankee Stadium were sentimental, political, financial, historical, and aesthetic. Then the thing opened and turned out to be a giant Homermobile. Worse, it had a significant, detrimental effect on the game being played on the field. Though it feels cavernous to fans, it plays like a bandbox and has been host to many game-changing pop-fly home runs. Just look at the pitching staff’s splits:

Home: 4.80 ERA, 1.45 HR/9, 3.86 BB/9
Road: 4.32 ERA, 1.11 HR/9, 3.57 BB/9

Compare that to last year’s splits:

Home: 4.11 ERA, 0.83 HR/9, 3.10 BB/9
Road: 4.46 ERA, 0.96 HR/9, 3.01 BB/9

That is by far the most significant aspect of the new park, but beyond the way it plays, all of my preseason objections still hold. The best seats in the house have been half empty or worse because of their exorbitant price. The massive new scoreboards are poorly organized, making it unnecessarily difficult to catch any pertinent information with a quick glance away from the action. It’s gaudy, cacophonous, somehow looks cheap despite its billion-dollar price tag, caters primarily to luxury clients, has compromised the quality of the games being played on its field, and was utterly unnecessary in the first place.

D-

Over the last ten months I’ve mentioned in this space numerous statistics on job losses and general cutbacks in the newspaper industry. As sites like Newspaper Death Watch continue to gain traction, and papers nationwide continue to scale back their sports operations and travel budgets, it’s important to get a feel for where the industry is for the people in the trenches, past and present.

I interviewed former Newsday Yankees beat writer Kat O’Brien on this topic three months ago and she revealed that one of the reasons she left was because she didn’t believe the medium was viable anymore.

Former longtime Yankees beat man and YESNetwork.com colleague Phil Pepe agreed, but limited his answer more specifically to baseball coverage.

“This is a problem that has been ongoing for a few years and seemed to have escalated during the current economic crisis,” he said. “Sad to admit it, but today because of the blanket coverage from radio, television and the Internet, newspapers are not as vital to the game’s well-being as they once were.”

With all that in mind, I still couldn’t help thinking that additional opinions needed to be sought. So I took the the e-mails and queried New York Times Yankees beat reporter Tyler Kepner, Gertrude Ederle biographer and editor of the Greatest American Sports Writing Series, Glenn Stout, Kansas City Star columnist and uber-blogger Joe Posnanski, Pepe and another of my ex-YES men, Al Iannazzone, who covers the New Jersey Nets for The Bergen Record.

As you’ll see, I asked each writer the same basic set of questions, including one standout from Banterer YankeeMama. The e-mails were exchanged over the course of several days in late April, hence the reason some of the material in the answers may seem dated.

I was impressed with everyone’s candor and genuine love for the craft of writing, and newspapers’ place — even now — as an outlet for that voice. Each recognized how technology has influenced the industry, and how a happy medium must be forged for bloggers, beat writers, newspapers and e-media to coexist. Money matters, however, skew the discussion.

On the topic of travel, Iannazzone said, “It’s mostly West Coast games because you’re not going to get them in the paper anyway. So it’s a way to save money wisely, I guess.” There were certain elements of the conversation that due to the sensitivity of the issue, Iannazzone would not divulge, but he did offer this nugget: “I know I traveled less this year than in my five years on the Nets.”

The individual Q&A’s are highlighted below:

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With the Yankees getting the extra off-day today, I thought I’d take a quick spin through the roster and assign some haphazard and utterly meaningless grades for the first-half. I’m sure the commenters will have a ball with this one . . .

Mark Teixeira, 1B
.275/.378/.535, 21 HR, 63 RBI; -1.8 UZR

Tex is a career .288/.378/.540 hitter, so that line is right on target, and he’s a career .303/.390/.574 hitter in the second half, so he’s actually ahead of his usual pace. I’m suspicious of that poor UZR rating; Tex had a 10.4 UZR last year. I expect his fielding stats will even out in the second half.
A

Robinson Cano, 2B
.308/.341/.490, 24 2B, 13 HR, 17 BB; 0.1 UZR

How has Cano’s comeback season gone? In 2007 he hit .306/.353/.488 with a career-high 41 doubles, and 19 homers. He’s right on target to match or surpass those figures this year. His defense hasn’t rebounded all the way to his +11.3 performance in ’07, but it’s come up to average after dropping to -8.0 last year. As devastating as Cano’s collapse was to last year’s club, his rebound has been that important to this year’s Yankees.
A

Derek Jeter, SS
.321/.396/.461, 56 R, 10 HR, 17 SB (85%); 0.5 UZR

Age appeared to be sapping the Captain’s power and speed in 2008, but his performance in the first half this year has made his ’08 season seem more like a fluke than a trend. His 17 steals are already his most since 2006. His ten homers put him on pace for his highest total since 2005. Of course, the new stadium is largely responsible for the latter (Jeter’s hit just two taters and slugged .415 on the road), but the rest of his game has been as good on the road as at home, if not better. At age 35, he’s third among major league shortstops in VORP, behind only 25-year-old superstar Hanley Ramirez and Jason Bartlett’s fluky first half.
A

Alex Rodriguez, 3B
.256/.411/.548, 17 HR, 50 RBI; -4.3 UZR

Rodriguez missed the first month of the season due to hip surgery. Then his manager failed to obey his doctor’s orders and give him the requisite days off, prompting a wicked slump (.159/.312/.286 over 19 games). And still Rodriguez’s numbers are right back where they belong. Ignore that average, it’s coming up, and look at the on-base percentage, which is a whopping 155 points higher and consider that Alex has walked ten more times than he’s struck out thus far this season after having never walked more than he’s struckout before in his major league career. Rodriguez’s hip has hindered his speed (just three steals, though in only three attempts), but his defense is coming around. All things considered, it’s been another strong season.
B+

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In many ways, Lindy McDaniel is one of the most overlooked Yankee of the last 40 years. On the few occasions that his name is remembered, it’s usually in reference to the fact that he was the player the Yankees traded to the Royals for Sweet Lou Piniella. McDaniel is one of the forgotten Yankee closers (or firemen, as they used to be called), along with Jack “The Chief” Aker, Steve “The Burglar” Farr, and John Wetteland.

This Saturday, McDaniel will be attending his first Old-Timers’ Day, albeit at the new Yankee Stadium. I’m not sure if it’s a case of McDaniel never being invited to the old-timers’ conclave, or that he has simply rejected prior invites, but it’s rather remarkable that he has never returned to the Yankees in any official way since last donning the pinstripes in 1973. For whatever the reason, the drought will end this Saturday. And for a quality and class Yankee, it’s about time.

Acquired for another old favorite in Bill Monbouquette, McDaniel served the Yankees superbly as a durable and effective reliever from 1968 to 1973. Except for his performance in 1971, when his ERA ballooned to 5.04 (the second-worst mark of his career), he consistently turned back opposition hitters in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings. The long, lean right-hander became a familiar site at the old Stadium, with his old-fashioned, baggy-uniformed look and an easy-going, over-the-top delivery. McDaniel did not overpower hitters, not in the manner of Sparky Lyle with his backbiting slider, Goose Gossage with his chest-high powerball, or Mariano Rivera with his chainsaw cutter. Employing a softer and more subtle forkball as his out-pitch, McDaniel complemented that offering with a pedestrian fastball, an effective slider, and pinpoint control.

Where McDaniel lacked power and dominance, he made up for those shortcomings with endurance and longevity. In 1970, he pitched 111 innings to the tune of a 2.01 ERA and a career-high 29 saves. In 1973, He once pitched 13 innings of relief in a marathon Yankee victory. (You can file that in the category of milestones that today’s relief pitchers will never achieve.) In his final season with the Yankees, McDaniel logged 160 innings at the not-so-tender age of 37. By the time that he retired after two encore seasons with the Royals, McDaniel had amassed 21 years in the major leagues—a rather remarkable total for a nearly fulltime relief pitcher who regularly pitched more than 100 innings a summer.

So why has McDaniel remained so underrated, both as a Yankee and otherwise? From the Yankee perspective, he conceded the fireman role to Lyle in 1972 and ’73, McDaniel’s final two seasons in New York. Then there is the issue of the postseason. Though he played for some competitive Cardinals and Giants teams, the two-time All-Star never sniffed the World Series in either the fifties or the sixties. With the Yankees, he was stuck with some mediocre-to-decent teams that never quite had enough to keep pace with Earl Weaver’s world class Orioles. So there were no Championship Series appearances for McDaniel, either.

Beyond the lack of team support, McDaniel never did much, on an individual level, to promote his own accomplishments. A gentlemanly and reserved man, McDaniel instead preferred promoting the word of God. As an ordained minister for the Church of Christ, McDaniel spent much of his off-the-field time teaching and interpreting the Bible. McDaniel did not preach within the clubhouse or the bullpen, but instead mailed each active major leaguer (at his own cost) a copy of his monthly religious newsletter, entitled “Pitching for the Master.” In looking through McDaniel’s file at the Hall of Fame Library, I could not find any examples of resentment from other players who did not appreciate the religious message. Given the recent backlash against Baseball Chapel, I wonder how Murray Chass would have reacted to McDaniel’s practice in today’s climate.

Nearly 35 years after he last threw a pitch, McDaniel continues to preach his religious beliefs. As with his pitching style, he does it without fanfare or fire-and-brimstone. Now 73, McDaniel-the-minister will wear the pinstripes for the first time in several decades come this Saturday. Though he never had the flare of Mo or Sparky, I hope at least a few Yankee fans remember just how good Lindy was during those five-and-a-half lean years in the Bronx.

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