Moose Skowron looked like a character out of “Moon Mullins.” Or in a more contemporary sense, he had the appearance of a secondary character in “The Simpsons.” With his lantern jaw, thick jowls, and military crew cut, he possessed the look of a man who could put his fist through your chest and pull your heart out.

Appearances are often deceiving, and they were exactly that with Skowron, who died at 81 on Friday after a battle with lung cancer. Oh, he could be gruff and curt on the outside, but once you opened a conversation with him, you discovered a down-to-earth guy who enjoyed telling stories from his days with the Yankees. And when you’ve played with characters like Mickey Mantle, Hank Bauer, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford, or managed for one-of-a-kind legends like Casey Stengel, you’ve got good material to work with.

There were other deceptions with Skowron. Like many fans, I always assumed that Skowron’s nickname came from his size, his power, and his brute physical strength. He was six feet, two inches, 200 pounds, with much of frame wrapped in muscle. Well, the true origins of his nickname had nothing to do with his physical dimensions. When Skowron was a boy, his grandfather gave him an impromptu haircut, which made the youngster look like the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. Skowron’s friends called him “Mussolini,” and the family adapted by changing the nickname to “Moose.” By the time he was playing major league ball, everyone was calling him Moose. One of the few exceptions was the Topps Card Company, which always listed him as “Bill Skowron” on his cards.

After signing with the Yankees in 1950, the organization tried him as an outfielder and third baseman, before realizing he lacked the athletic agility needed of those positions. He moved to first base, where he was blocked by players like Johnny Mize and Joe Collins. He finally landed in the Bronx in 1954, when he platooned with Collins, before becoming an everyday player by the late 1950s.

How good was Skowron in his prime? Well, he was very good. From 1957 to 1961, he averaged 20 home runs a season while qualifying for five consecutive American League All-Star teams. During that stretch, he twice slugged better than .500; he also received some support for American League MVP on two occasions.

As a right-handed power hitter, the old Yankee Stadium was hardly made to order for Skowron. But he adapted, developing a power stroke that targeted right-center and right fields, where the dimensions were far more favorable for hitting the long ball. Skowron’s right-handed hitting presence was importance, given that most of their power hitters hit from the left side (including Roger Maris, Berra and the switch-hitting Mantle.) If opposing teams loaded up on left-handed pitching, Skowron could make them pay.

Skowron really had only two flaws in his game. A classic free swinger and bad ball hitter, Skowron could sometimes hit pitches up his eyes, but he could also flail away at other pitches outside of the strike zone. Since he didn’t walk much, his on-base percentage suffered. Skowron’s other weakness involved his health; he simply could not avoid injuries. One time, he hurt his back while lifting an air conditioner. On another occasion, he tore a muscle in his thigh. There were broken bones, too, including a fractured arm that resulted from an on-field collision. With such injuries forcing him to miss chunks of games at a time, he often played 120 to 130 games a season, instead of the 150 to 160 that he would have preferred.

The 1961 season provided contrasts and quandaries for Skowron. On the down side, his slugging percentage and his on-base percentage fell. More favorably, he hit a personal-best 28 home runs while playing in a career-high 150 games. Batting out of the sixth and seventh hole, Skowron provided protection for the middle-of-the-order thumpers, a group that included Maris, Mantle, and Berra.

As he often did, Skowron elevated his play in the World Series. In the 1961 Classic against the Reds, Yet, it was in the 1961 World Series. In five games against the upstart Reds, Skowron slugged .529 with one home run and five RBIs, reached base 45 per cent of the time, and hit a robust .353. Then again, Moose was almost always good in the Series. In 133 at-bats stretched over eight World Series appearances, Skowron hit eight home runs and slugged .519. In Game Seven situations alone, the Moose hit three home runs. If you believe in the existence of clutch, and I do, then Skowron belongs near the top of that list.

Skowron put up another good season in 1962, but his age and the presence of a young player in the system changed his status within the organization. Believing that Joe Pepitone was headed toward superstardom, the Yankees decided to trade Skowron that winter. They sent him to the Dodgers in exchange for Stan Williams, an intimidating veteran reliever who liked to throw pitches up and in as part of his quest for strikeouts.

In some ways, Skowron could not have been traded to a less ideal situation. Newly built Dodger Stadium, which had replaced the Los Angeles Coliseum as the Dodgers’ home, had a ridiculously high mound and outfield measurements that did not favor sluggers like Skowron. He also had to face a new set of pitchers in the National League; outside of World Series competition, Moose had little familiarity with senior circuit pitching. To make matters worse, Skowron did not play first base every day, instead platooning with Ron Fairly. Moose hit a miserable .203 and ripped only three home runs in well under 300 plate appearances.

To the surprise of many, Skowron still had something left for the World Series. Playing against his former Yankee mates, he swatted a home run and batted .385 to help the Dodgers to a four-game Series sweep.

World Series heroics aside, the Dodgers questioned whether Skowron had much left. So they sold him to the Washington Senators. He hit well during a half-season in the Capital City, but when the team fell out of contention, he was sent packing to the White Sox in a mid-season trade. Skowron hit well over the next season and a half, but slumped badly in 1966 before closing out his career in ’67.

Yet, there was much more to Skowron than on-the-field highlights and accomplishments. He made news off the field, sometimes in frivolous ways and sometimes through embarrassing situations. Let’s consider a couple of episodes from the 1960s:

*During the 1963 season, Skowron and several other Dodgers made a guest appearance on the TV show, “Mr. Ed.” Skowron, catcher John Roseboro, center fielder Willie Davis, and Hall of Fame left-hander Sandy Koufax played themselves. In the main plotline of “Leo Durocher meets Mr. Ed,” the talking horse gives batting tips to Durocher, who was billed as the Dodgers’ manager even though he was actually a coach under Walter Alston. Durocher is supposed to relay the tips to a slumping Skowron. Moose and the other Dodgers then watch in amazement as Mr. Ed completes an inside-the-park home run against Koufax. (In a complete aside, Durocher also appeared on an episode of “The Munsters,” and was once again mentioned as the Dodgers’ skipper. Either Alston wanted nothing to do with Hollywood, or someone was trying to send him the message that Durocher was the real Dodgers manager.)

*While training with the Dodgers in Vero Beach, Florida, he decided to make a surprise trip to see his wife at their home in Hilldale, New Jersey. When he arrived at the house, Skowron found his wife in bed with another man. Infuriated by the surprise discovery, Skowron proceeded to pummel his unwanted guest. Shortly thereafter, Skowron was charged with assault, though many were sympathetic to his situation.

Skowron had better long-term success with other relationships, particularly his fellow Yankees. Beloved in the Yankee clubhouse, Moose became especially close friends with Hank Bauer, a rough-and tumble character in his own right. They often made public appearances together, including numerous visits to Cooperstown for Hall of Fame Weekend signings. I remember meeting Skowron and Bauer back in the late 1980s, while I was still working in sports talk radio. They were signing at a table outside one of the many card shops on Main Street. I wanted to interview the two of them, but I was intimidated by Bauer’s raspy voice and Skowron’s rugged appearance. Feeling like a rookie cub reporter, I settled for making a few innocuous remarks to the two ex-Bombers.

It remains one of my regrets. I never did have another chance to interview either Skowron or Bauer. That was a real mistake on my part, losing out on the opportunity to have a real chat with Skowron, one of the game’s great storytellers.

If there is any consolation, some of Skowron’s stories can be found on You Tube, and in the many books that serve as oral histories of the Yankee franchise. This was a guy who was good friends with Mantle and Berra, a guy who knew Whitey Ford, a man who played with Maris, a guy who dealt with the idiosyncrasies of Casey Stengel. Skowron was a man worth listening to, a link to an era that was long ago, but an era that we always want to re-visit.

Moose was a man that we’ll miss.

Bruce Markusen is co-author of the newly revised edition of the book, Yankee World Series memories.

(Photo Credit: Washington Post; Alex Belth.)

[Editor’s Note: Bruce will be on leave for the foreseeable future while he works on a book. We’ll miss his weekly posts and he will drop in occasionally with a Card Corner piece. Meanwhile, we wish him good luck with his project and thank him for being the man.]

Okay so it wasn’t perfect. The Yankees left 634 men on base and made the game closer than it felt. It felt as if the Yanks were comfortably ahead all afternoon long though they were not. The crowd was subdued, drinking in a sunny and crisp day in the Bronx. But hey, perfection is overrated.

The Yanks scored three runs against Matt Scherzer who had more than a couple of reasons to beef with the home plate umpire Rob Drake on the count of a strike zone the size of a tick’s tuchas. On several occasions not only was Scherzer and his catcher fooled by a called third strike, the Yankee hitter looked caught out there too.

Still, the Yanks scored enough to win on two of the weakest RBI’s you’ll ever see from Alex Rodriguez (if an RBI can ever be weak), a sacrifice fly from Robinson Cano and solo homers from Curtis Granderson and Andruw Jones.

Granderson’s ball was almost caught by Austin Jackson who made a terrific effort.

C.C. Sabathia pitched a fine game, going eight innings. David Robertson pitched a scoreless ninth.

Final Score: Yanks 6, Tigers 2.

The only drag, other than all the runners that the Yanks left on base, came when Nick Swisher left the game with a hamstring injury. It was diagnosed as a low grade strain. After the game, Joe Girardi said Swisher will miss a few days but not go on the disabled list. A relief, for sure.

C’mon fellas. Make us happy.

Derek Jeter SS

Curtis Granderson CF

Alex Rodriguez 3B

Robinson Cano 2B

Mark Teixeira 1B

Nick Swisher RF

Raul Ibanez LF

Eric Chavez DH

Chris Stewart C

A call-up and Freddy to the pen. Notes from the one and only Chad Jennings.

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via: Food Addict]

Freddy Garcia almost made it through two whole innings today and gave up six runs in the process. His ship, it be a-sinkin’. The Yanks never recovered. It was a mostly listless day for the home team. They couldn’t do anything against the rookie Drew Smyly who pitched damn well.

The good news? Well, Dave Phelps was solid in three innings of relief, Nick Swisher hit two solo homers (one from either side of the plate), and Curtis Granderson hit a solo shot himself. But even three runs against that pant load Valverde wasn’t enough. Eric Chavez, pinch-hitting, represented the tying run with Raul Ibanez on second, two outs in the ninth. Got under an 0-2 pitch, a flat slider, a pitch to hit. It went as far as the warning track for the third out.

Sombitch.

Something will be done about Garcia who is currently putting out the fire with gasoline. In the meantime, chalk this one up to a No Shit Henry loss.

Final Score: Tigers 7, Yanks 5.

Nothing to see here.

Go away. Come back tomorrow. We’ll be here.

[Images via Tom Mannion; Anais the Mermaid;

Today gives the first round of the NBA playoffs, including your New York Knicks at the Miami Heat.

Later this afternoon we’ve got Yanks and Tigers at the Stadium.

Derek Jeter DH
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Andruw Jones LF
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez SS

Hoping to get something, anything, out of Fab Five Freddy.

Have at it.

Let’s Go Yank-ees! (and Knicks and Rangers.)

[Photo Credit: Thealanka]

In last year’s ALDS the Yankees touched up Justin Verlander but lost the game anyway when CC Sabathia blew the lead and Rafael Soriano gave up the winning homer. Tonight’s game spun out in unpleasantly familiar fashion as the Yankees got to Verlander for five extra-base hits and five runs in six innings but Ivan Nova couldn’t make it stand up. Nova was the one starting pitcher that had not submitted a stinker yet this season, but that’s history now.

After five pedestrian innings, Russell Martin presented Nova a surprise lead with a two-run homer off Verlander headed into the sixth. Nova proceeded to back up pedestrian with pus. The Tigers teed off on everything he threw, and the lead was gone in three batters – the big blow a booming double by Austin Jackson. Boone Logan came in and lost a battle to Prince Fielder and the inning ended with Detroit up two, 6-4.

The Yankees bounced back, scratching a run in the seventh and clawing another in the eighth. In between, Joe Girardi got run out of the game for arguing balls and strikes. The umpiring was another unpleasant reminder of the 2011 ALDS.

The stellar Yankee bullpen stepped up to hold the line, the highlight being Mariano’s vintage ninth inning. He broke three bats and struck out a guy looking while touching 93 mph on multiple pitches. In his first few outings, Mariano’s cutter wasn’t moving that much. Now it’s biting like a January wind.

In the ninth inning, the Tigers sent out a flame thrower named Brayan Villareal. He threw the ball so hard and with so much movement that one suspected he’d have trouble throwing three strikes before he threw four balls. He ran the count full to Russell Martin but coaxed a grounder to second. Derek Jeter worked a walk (and ended his fifteen game hitting streak in the process) and when ball four to Curtis Granderson skipped off Mike Avila’s shin guard, he was in motion and made it all the way to third. That brought up Alex Rodriguez, who locked in today with three hits, one of them a homer off Verlander, and his only out three feet short of the center-field wall.

Alex looked very dangerous up there and I was sure he was going to drive in the winning run as he tracked Villareal’s offerings into Avila’s glove. After two balls, Villareal’s third pitch sailed away from Avila. The catcher desperately stabbed his glove at the pitch but he couldn’t snag it. The ball rolled away towards the Yankee dugout. I started celebrating, but when the camera cut to Jeter straining down the line, he was not nearly as close to home plate as he should have been. It looked like he was running in mud and Jeter slid just as the ball arrived. Villareal dropped the ball, but Jeter was safe anyway. The Yankees made a winner of Mariano, 7-6.

Turns out Jeter got a poor read on the passed ball and if it wasn’t for Alex Rodriguez urging him to run, he wouldn’t have made it. Great game for Alex all the way around. And a great win for the Yankees after a few days full of bad news. This is exactly the kind of game the Yanks did not win in last year’s ALDS. Hopefully they’ll have one or two in the bag next time they get there.

I’ve been stewing about Pineda’s injury and Montero’s absence since I heard the news yesterday. Since the trade can’t be undone, it’s wasted energy on my part to continue to be upset about this. But before I let go completely, I want to write now what I was unable to articulate when the trade was made.

It was a dumb trade because the Yankees gave up cost controlled talent with ‘x’ risk attached to acquire cost controlled with ‘y’ risk attached, where ‘y’ was clearly greater than ‘x.’ This is an equation that a desperate team might follow, but not a perennial contender with deep pockets. The Yankees were better served keeping their own cost controlled offensive talent and using their financial might to acquire pitching, which is inherently more risky.

The Yankees chose to ignore all of CJ Wilson, Yu Darvish and Edwin Jackson when they were available. Those guys would have all been risky and expensive acquisitions but if they sucked or got injured, ala Igawa or Pavano, they could go get somebody else. They can spend money over and over again. They can only trade Jesus Montero once. I know that Pineda was more attractive than the expensive free agents because of his age and restricted salary, but that’s not a concern the Yankees should have had at the forefront of their decision making. They walked a tightrope when they could have paid to pave a road.

Let’s not forget the Yankees have to buy offense in the very near future. All the savings they were going to get from Pineda’s presence in the rotation were going to be spent filling second base, two outfield spots, catcher, and third base / DH. Why not just keep Montero and save that money? Why is money saved in the rotation any better than money saved in the lineup? Now of course, there will be no savings from Pineda as the Yankees will have to buy pitching to replace him as well.

It’s a classic case of being too cute for no reason. Even if you liked Pineda better than Montero, surely you liked Darvish and Montero better than Pineda and Ibanez. This is a roster equivalent of Girardi’s first inning intentional walk. If everything worked out, he looks like a smart guy. But he brought catastrophic outcomes into play that did not exist before the walk. By trading away the less risky Montero and acquiring the inherently risky Pineda, the Yankees brought into play a scenario where they get neither Pineda nor Montero and have to pay a shit load of money to replace them both.

I feel bad for the dude. Hope he rehabs and pitches well for the Yankees some day. And I’ll just leave it at that.

Photos by Mila Zinkova and AP/Bill Kostroun

The Tigers are in town. Justin, Fielder and Miggy:  Oh My.

Tonight gives Verlander. Ivan Nova counters for the Yanks.

I know it’s the MVP/Cy Young Award winner tonight, still how about a Score Truck sighting, boys?

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Raul Ibanez LF
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C

Never mind the side show (Dear Delmon, thank you for playing, Love, Hymie Town): Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Branco and Beautifully Insane]

I loved to watch Moose Skowron at Old Timer’s Day. I attended three of them at Yankee Stadium and always looked out for him. Tough-looking guy but not really, bent slightly, his uniform baggy. He’d bark at reporters that he didn’t want to fucking talk and then twenty minutes later he’d be holding court in the dugout surrounded by men holding tape recorders and writing on notepads. He played the grouch but it was an act.

Ol’ Moose died this afternoon. He will be missed.

Over at ESPN, Andrew Marchand talks to Curt Schilling about Michael Pineda’s injury.

[Photo Via: XM MLB Chat]

Steven Goldman on Michael Pineda’s season-ending injury. I hope the kid is okay when he returns next year. I was looking forward to watching him pitch. The few times I saw him last year was enough to get me excited. This injury is especially tough because the Yanks gave up such a promising young stud like The Jesus to get Pineda.

This is a bummer, man.

[Image via: Faust Arp]

An early hook has become a regular part of Phil Hughes' starts (Source: AP).

You can never have enough starting pitching. During the offseason, that was Brian Cashman’s mantra as he built a rotation that went seven men deep. Tonight, it was a lesson the Yankees learned the hard way.

After announcing that Michael Pineda would miss the rest of the season with a torn labrum, the Yankees were looking for Phil Hughes to put his stamp on the rotation. However, those hopes were quickly dashed as the enigmatic right hander couldn’t even pitch his way through the third inning. Even more disconcerting than the four runs he allowed in his brief appearance was the continued lack of command that has dogged him since the second half of 2010. On several occasions, Hughes missed Russell Martin’s target by a wide margin, and almost without fail, the Rangers made him pay.

The Yankees scratched their way back into the game with two runs in the top of the fourth inning, but David Phelps, who may have been auditioning for a role in the rotation, didn’t provide much relief. In 2 1/3 innings, the young right hander allowed three runs, including two long balls, which effectively put the game out of reach. In the process, Phelps’ hiccup probably also quieted any outcry to have him take Hughes spot in the rotation.

With Hughes continuing to struggle and Pineda on the shelf, Andy Pettitte’s outing in Trenton took on even greater importance. In five-plus innings covering 81 pitches, the veteran lefty allowed seven hits and four runs, but was still pleased with his outing. However, he did admit that he wasn’t quite ready to return to the big leagues, which means the Yankees will have to hold their breath with Hughes and Freddy Garcia for at least a few more weeks.

Over the first 18 games, the Yankees have only recorded five quality starts, which, over a similar span, is the second lowest total in franchise history.  It probably wasn’t what he had in mind at the time, but, so far at least, Brian Cashman’s pre-season assessment appears to be right on the money. The Yankees most certainly do not have enough starting pitching.

[Featured Image via The Tropical Variation]

Phil Hughes is on the mound tonight. The rubber game down in Texas.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Raul Ibanez LF
Eric Chavez DH
Russell Martin C

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Dina C]

Jack Curry is known to Yankee fans as one of the faces of the YES Network’s Yankees reporting team, but he wasn’t always a “TV guy.” Prior to joining YES in 2010, Jack enjoyed a decorated career as a sportswriter, most notably at the New York Times. He forged his path without having to go to smaller markets and work his way back east, a rarity for those who work in media, particularly in New York. His full bio can be found here. You can follow him on Twitter @JackCurryYES.

Jack was a staple on the Yankees beat when I covered the Yankees from 2002 through 2006 for yesnetwork.com. At that point of his career, he was one of the Times’s National Baseball Reporters and I was a punk trying to figure out how to become a better reporter and writer, assignment editor, and do all of it without getting in anyone’s way. I recall that Jack was a pillar of professionalism; someone not only I, but also every other writer respected and liked. He’s the same person on camera as he is off camera.

Over a series of conversations and e-mails, Jack and I discussed a number of topics, ranging from what inspired his career choice to the move from print to TV and Internet, and more.

Bronx Banter: At what point did you “know” that you wanted to become a sportswriter? Was there a “eureka” moment while you were at Fordham?

Jack Curry: When I was in the seventh grade, I started a newspaper at my elementary school. It was only two or four pages. But I remember the jolt I felt when everyone at the school was commenting on my articles. It was the first time I had a byline and I loved how that felt. Writers like to know what people think of their writing so I grew to love the idea of being a sportswriter. I hung on to the dream of being a major league player through high school, but that faded. I played high school baseball, but I was a much better writer. I went to one baseball practice at Fordham under coach Paul Blair. It lasted four and a half hours and I missed dinner that night. Even if I had made the team, I would’ve been a backup. So that one practice told me it was time to stop playing baseball and start covering baseball (and other sports). I funneled all of my energy into journalism and broadcasting after that.

BB: Who were the writers that you admired growing up, and how did they influence your reporting / storytelling style?

JC: I grew up in Jersey City, NJ, and the Jersey Journal was the first newspaper I remember reading. They syndicated Jim Murray’s column so it always had a prominent spot in the sports section. But, since I didn’t know anything about syndication as a kid, I just thought Jim Murray was some guy from Jersey City who had the greatest job in the world. He covered all of the biggest sporting events and, man, he could write. I wanted that job. When I finally realize who Jim Murray really was, it didn’t change my thoughts. I still wanted that job. I got the chance to meet Jim Murray at a college football game, which was an absolute thrill. My regret is I didn’t tell him my “connection” to him. I’m guessing he would’ve thought it was pretty cool.

BB: How did you get from the Jersey Journal to the New York Times?

JC: I worked for the Jersey Journal for three summers while I was in college. I’m going to bet that I covered more Little League baseball in those summers than anyone in the state of New Jersey. But I loved it. I loved going to the games and watching which kids cared and which kids were coached well and which kids were so much better or, unfortunately, so much worse than the other players on the field. Trying to get decent quotes out of 11- and 12-year-olds can be more challenging than trying to get decent quotes out of some major leaguers.

After I graduated from Fordham, I worked at the Star Ledger of Newark for about a year. I covered high school sports there, but I wanted to do more than that. I applied for a position in the New York Times’s Writing Program. Basically, the Times hired you to be a clerk for 35 hours a week and then you could use your days off or your hours off to pitch story ideas and to volunteer to cover events, etc. When I was hired as a “writing clerk,” I wrote a lot of stories that appeared without bylines. The Times had some arcane rules about not giving the clerks a byline, which I always thought was nonsensical. When you were hired as a writing clerk, you were told that there was no guarantee you’d ever be a reporter at the Times.

Anyway, once I got my foot in the door, I was on a mission to do anything and everything to stay there. I wanted to do enough so that they had to keep me. I needed to prove to them that I could be a sports reporter there. It took about three years, but I was finally hired as a reporter.

BB: So many sportswriters jump from sport to sport now. I can think of a number of current beat writers from several of the area papers who have shuttled back and forth. What drew you specifically to covering baseball and keeping yourself on that beat?

JC: I covered college basketball and football and the New Jersey Nets at the Times before I started covering baseball in 1990. I wanted to cover baseball. To me, there was no other sport to cover. I was fortunate that the Times recognized that and trusted me with covering a baseball beat. I took over the Yankees beat at the All-Star break of 1991 and have essentially only covered baseball since then. I like basketball and I’ll watch some football, but I would have never been as happy covering those sports as I was in covering baseball.

BB: When I started at YES and began setting the editorial direction of the website, we were trying to do something completely different in our coverage of the Yankees. Our goal wasn’t to compete with the papers, but to be considered legitimate. How did you view YESNetwork.com’s presence on-site in those first few years?

JC: In the early years, I viewed YESNetwork.com’s presence as another entity that was immersed in covering the Yankees. When I first started as a beat writer, you were concerned about the other beat writers and what they were doing. But, with each year, more and more outlets began to cover the team and you had to pay attention to them, too, and see what they were producing.

BB: What struck you about the way YESNetwork.com covered the team, and the games? How, if at all, has that changed since you became a YES Network employee and contributor to the dot.com?

I think YESNetwork.com has tried to be different than the traditional newspaper sports website, as it should be. The Yankees are the brand and there’s obviously an attempt provide as much Yankee content as possible. I think there’s more interaction with the fans, which is another positive. What I’ve tried to do is use the 20-plus years of experience that I have covering this team to offer analysis on players and trends, develop feature stories and, obviously, push to break news.

BB: Describe the events that led YES to call you and offer you the YES job, and what drew you to make the jump to TV on a full-time basis.

JC: After 22 years at the Times, I decided to take the buyout and pursue other opportunities. The timing was good for me. I felt confident about making a career switch in my 40s. I’m not sure if a person can do that in his 50s. I had always had a good relationship with John Filippelli of YES because I had been a guest on “Yankees Hot Stove” since 2005.

Before I even took the buyout, YES was the place where I hoped I would land. Shortly after my departure from the Times became official, I heard from YES. There was mutual interest and I was excited about the chance to transition from print to broadcast. My colleagues at YES, people like Flip, Michael Kay, Bob Lorenz, Ken Singleton, Jared Boshnack, Bill Boland, Mike Cooney, John Flaherty and so many others, all welcomed me and helped make that transition a smooth one for me. I work with a lot of very cool and very talented people.

It’s rewarding to work for and with people you admire and respect and people that you consider your friends.

BB: Peter Gammons and Jayson Stark were among the first two prominent baseball writers who became “multimedia” guys. Later, your former colleague Buster Olney, Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci followed. Did it just make sense for you to do the same?

JC: You forgot to mention Michael Kay. Michael had worked for the Post and the News and did clubhouse reporting for MSG. Obviously, he also was a radio announcer before moving to YES. He was the one person who implored me to give TV a try. I will admit that I was resistant. I liked being a baseball writer. There were times where I thought I would end my career as a newspaperman. But I’m very happy to have made the switch. I love what I’m doing at YES. They have given me terrific opportunities in the studio with Bob Lorenz, who is as selfless as any co-worker I’ve ever had. Flip has also trusted me with chances to do work in the booth during games, which have been great experiences.

BB: In the last 10 years — heck, the last five even — so much has changed in how sports are covered on a daily basis. Responsibilities include blogging and tweeting, in some cases web-exclusive video reporting. The beat writer/columnist’s audience is broader than ever. Has that caused you to change your journalistic approach?

JC: My journalistic approach hasn’t changed. I’m trying to find insightful and interesting stories and tell them as adeptly as I can. I’m trying to dig up timely and pertinent information and deliver it as quickly and as accurately as I can. That’s the way I did the job at the Times. That’s the way I do the job at YES. But I am moving faster in telling those stories and chasing that information. Because of Twitter and blogging, we’re all doing that. When I was a beat writer in the early 1990’s, my world revolved around deadlines: 7 PM, 11 PM, 1 AM, etc. I’m on TV now, but, when I write for the website or I tweet, it’s usually about getting it done as quickly as I can, not about getting it done by 7 PM.

BB: Speaking of journalism, you broke the story of Andy Pettitte returning to the Yankees. What was the internal reaction to your scoop?

JC: My bosses at YES were elated that we broke the Pettitte story. I first tweeted about it and wrote a news story that was up on our website five minutes later. About 25 minutes after that, we led our spring training broadcast with the news about Pettitte’s return. Since that story came out of left field, they were thrilled that we led the way.

BB: What was the reaction to the Twitter war that ensued due to ESPN claiming credit for the story?

JC: It doesn’t behoove me to revisit what happened on Twitter after the Pettitte story broke. From a journalistic perspective, that was a very good day for YES. That’s what’s most important.

BB: Is the rapport with former players you used to cover, like Paul O’Neill, John Flaherty, David Cone, and Al Leiter, any different now that you’re on TV, considered an “analyst” like them?

JC: What’s interesting about all of those guys is that I had a great relationship with all of them when they were players, so those relationships have simply carried over. I liked talking baseball with all of those guys when I was a writer. I like talking baseball with all of them now that we’re colleagues.

BB: Which part of your career was, or has been, the most challenging?

JC: The most challenging part of my career were the earliest days at the Times, but, to be honest, those were also some of the most enjoyable days. Like I said, when I first started there, I wasn’t guaranteed anything other than a future of answering phones. I had to show a lot of different editors that I could write and report.

At first, I was going to answer this by saying the most challenging time was being a new beat writer on the Yankees. But, by that point in my career, at least I had become a reporter at the Times. I knew I had made the staff. In the early days, I didn’t know if that would ever happen. I’m glad it did.

[Photo Credits: YESNetwork.com, New York Times, Twitter]

Hiroki Kuroda and Yu Darvish came to the Major Leagues from Osaka by different routes. Darvish has talent and ambition that the Nippon League could not contain. It cost the Rangers over one hundred million dollars to bring him to Texas. Over his long career, Kuroda quietly moved from one challenge to the next, only considering the Major Leagues, and eventually Yankees, when his previous teams didn’t want to pay him anymore.

Their journeys to America, however different the paths, share a common starting point. In 1934, Eiji Sawamura left his high school team and renounced his amatuer status for a chance to prove himself against the best players in the world. He joined the newly formed All Nippon club to face Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the other American All-Stars during the Bambino’s famous tour of Japan and to become a member of Japan’s first professional baseball league, which would start play in 1936.

The Big Leaguers put on a hitting show all over Japan. They won all the games and hit bushels of homers to the delight of many Japanese fans. Every contest was lopsided save one, pitched by seventeen-year-old Eiji Sawamura. The game is recounted in detail in Robert K. Fitts’s new book, Banzai Babe Ruth. Almost equaling the famouns feat of Carl Hubbell in the 1934 All Star Game, Sawamura struck out Charlie Gehringer, Ruth, Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx in succession while pitching nine brilliant innings.

The Japanese hitters would not score against the Americans, a theme that repeated itself throughout the tour, so Sawamura would have to be equally stingy. Sawamura took the mound with a bright, mid-day sun beind him and the American hitters had trouble distinguishing his adequate fastball from his hellacious curve. After several innings of futility, Babe Ruth advised his lineup to forget the fastball and sit on the curve.

In the  seventh inning Lou Gehrig did just that. The game was played in Shizuoka Kusanagi stadium, which is very small, even by Japanese standards. Gehrig picked out a curveball and his blast found the cozy right field stands. It was the only run of the game.

Connie Mack was the elder statesman on the trip, but did not attend the game. After Ruth recounted the young pitcher’s exploits, Mack rushed to meet Sawamura that evening. He asked Sawamura to return to America and become a Major Leaguer – sixty years before Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu, Sawamura had a chance to become the first Japanese import. Fitts has Sawamura’s answer:

Despite his competitive spirit and drive to beat the Major Leaguers, Sawamura would remain in Japan and honor his decision to play in the new league. “I’m interested, but also afraid to go” was the young pitcher’s official response. Mack smiled and did not press for a more definitive answer.

Japan celebrated Sawamura’s performance without regard for the final score. A Japanese pitcher proved his skill and heart against the best in the world. It not only made Sawamura a national hero, but laid an important brick in the foundation of Japanese professional baseball. Sawamura went on to have an excellent career, but it was cut short by World War II. He enlisted in the Imperial Army in 1943 and was killed when his ship was torpedoed near the end of the war. The Japanese created the Sawamura Award to recognize excellence in pitching, much like the American Cy Young Award.

Yu Darvish won the Sawamura Award in 2007 and was in the running each of the last four years. He showed why in eight and a third innings tonight. In only the seventh matchup of Japanese starting pitchers in the Majors, Darvish beat the Yankees and Hiroki Kuroda 2-0. Darvish struck out ten and got another twelve outs on the ground. He put on a show with a variety of effective pitches, most impressive to me was the difference between his mid-nineties four seamer and his low-nineties running fastball.

Hiroki Kuroda wasn’t quite up to that standard, but held a hard-hitting lineup in check into the seventh. He allowed a homer to Ian Kinsler in the first and made the mistake of walking Elvis Andrus in front of the hottest hitter in the American League. After a steal, Josh Hamilton drove in Andrus with a single. Other than that Kuroda kept the Rangers off balance with his off speed stuff. There are a lot of ways to get Major League hitters out and between these two creative pitchers, we saw most of them tonight.

The Yankees did have a chance to get to Darvish in the third. Granderson batted with the with bases loaded and nobody out. Darvish mixed sliders and fastballs and Curtis ran the count to 2-2 by fouling off the nastier ones. On the seventh pitch, he dropped a slow, wrinkly curve low and away and got a very generous call to get the strikeout. Alex Rodriguez could not get around on a 94 mph heater in on his hands and tapped into a double play to end the threat.

Of course Yu Darvish looks like a great investment tonight. He was excellent. I don’t doubt there will be bumps on the road, but he seems well equipped with strong command and deployment of an electric arsenal. Watching both pitchers tonight, I was happy to have Hiroki Kuroda on the squad, he’s a capable guy. But Darvish was good enough to make me wonder why the Yankees weren’t interested in him at all. It’s only one game though and if the Yankees see them again, I hope they remember revenge is Darvish best served cold.

(OK, that’s not a good pun, but neither are any of the other ones I’ve been hearing. Let’s at least try to push the envelope here.)

Photos via fromdeeprightfield.com and ESPN.com

It’s Kuroda vs. Darvish tonight in Texas.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Raul Ibanez LF
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Painting by Robert Motherwell]

You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t believe in the Texas Rangers. I know they’re good, and not just because they represented the American League in the World Series in each of the past two seasons. So far this year they’ve been the clear class of the league, winning thirteen of their first sixteen games, and they’ve been led by several players off to phenomenal starts. Ian Kinsler was leading the league in runs scored, Michael Young was hitting .403, Mike Napoli had an OPS of 1.041, and then there was Josh Hamilton. The Hammer finished his first sixteen games with league-bests in each of these categories: seven home runs, .776 slugging percentage, and an otherworldly OPS of 1.214.

So yes, the Rangers are good, but there’s still a huge part of my consciousness that refuses to believe it, that only remembers them as the appetizers that were served up year after year as the Yankees were winning championships in the late 90s. And as if to solidify that image in my mind, the Rangers trotted out the retiring Iván Rodríguez to throw out the first pitch (and the first throw down to second base). It seemed like 1998 all over again.

That theme continued as soon as the game got underway and Derek Jeter singled on an infield grounder that Kinsler couldn’t quite corral. After Robinson Canó singled and Alex Rodríguez walked to load the bases, Curtis Granderson blooped a single into short center field to score two runs and give the Yankees and C.C. Sabathia a 2-0 lead.

In the home half of the inning, though, the Rangers looked poised to do more than just answer back. Kinsler opened with a single, then Elvis Andrus pushed him around to third with a single of his own, bringing Hamilton to bat with no one out. So far this year Sabathia hasn’t been as dominant as we’ve gotten used to seeing him, and one of his biggest problems has been an inability to make the pitch in a game’s crucial moment. Even though he held a two-run lead and his teammates had twenty-four more outs to score him some more runs, this felt like a moment.

Sabathia looped a lazy slider (or was it a curve?) clocking at just 78 MPH towards Hamilton, up above the belt but in enough that Hamilton couldn’t get any good wood on the pitch. He rolled the ball out to Canó at second who started an unorthodox 4-3-6 double play. Kinsler scored from third, but it was a win for Sabathia. He had made his pitch.

Building on that momentum, Sabathia cruised the next four innings, yielding just two hits while striking out seven, including all three hitters in the fifth.

Meanwhile, the Yankee hitters were padding their lead. Back-up catcher Chris Stewart started the fifth inning with a walk, moved to second on an error, to third on Jeter’s third hit of the game, and finally home on a Nick Swisher sacrifice fly. Two batters later with two men on, Rodríguez picked an opportune time to notch his first hit off a left-hander all season long as he launched a bomb over the fence in straight away center field for a three-run homer and a 6-1 Yankee lead. (Interestingly enough, it also more than doubled the previous RBI output for Yankee cleanup hitters.)

In the top of the sixth Mr. Jeter struck again, this time with a rocketed double off the wall in right center field to score Stewart with the team’s seventh run. A quick word about Jeter. The man who was essentially left for dead last June is currently leading all of baseball with 30 hits and slashing .411/.436/.644. Suddenly the talk is less about retirement and more about Pete Rose. While it still might be a stretch to imagine Jeter playing shortstop for the seven years it would take for him to get to forty-two-fifty-six, it’s clear he’s got a lot of hits left in him. He currently sits eighteenth all-time with 3,118 hits, but by the end of next season he will probably have edged past Carl Yastrzemski and vaulted all the way into sixth place.

Sabathia ran into a bit of trouble as the game progressed, yielding a majestic solo home run to Hamilton in the sixth and then a two-run double to Craig Gentry in the seventh, but he recovered to work a five-pitch eighth inning before handing the ball over to the Great One for the ninth. Just like that, the game was over.

Yankees 7, Rangers 4.

[Photo Credit: LM Otero/AP Photo]

Good match up tonight. C.C. vs. Holland down in Texas.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Andruw Jones LF
Eduardo Nunez DH
Chris Stewart C

Never mind the Heat: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photography by Cy Twombly]

It’s tempting to say that Phil Rizzuto, Bill White and Frank Messer were the only broadcasters for the Yankees during the 1970s. It seemed that way, if only because those three men were fixtures on television and radio. But there were a few others who announced for the team that decade, including Fran Healy,  a good guy who made the immediate transition from backup catcher to broadcaster, and Bob Gamere, who is now in a federal prison for possessing and transporting child pornography.

There was also a guy named Dom Valentino.

Valentino died last week at the age of 83. If you don’t remember him as a Yankee broadcaster, you’re easily forgiven. I have only vague recollections of Valentino, and I was a diehard Yankee fan for most of that decade. Valentino announced Yankee games for just one season, in 1975, which turned out to be an also-ran campaign for the Yankees, just one year before their celebrated return to the World Series.

But I do remember Valentino, at least a little bit. Further research reveals that he was all of five feet and four inches, but had a large, booming voice that belied his stature. A colorful personality who wore shirts with wide collars that could have fit aircraft carriers, Valentino had an excitability on the air that made him distinctive. He sometimes embellished details on the field, trying to make circumstances more dramatic than they were, but hey, baseball is entertainment and not precision brain surgery.

The 1975 season was hardly a hallmark campaign for the Yankees, but it was noteworthy for the debuts of both Jim “Catfish” Hunter and Bobby Bonds in Yankee pinstripes. And it was absolutely tumultuous for Valentino, perhaps the most dramatic year in his life. Not only did Valentino do Yankee radio broadcasts that summer, but he also performed play-by-play for the New York Nets, who still had Julius Erving and were still in the ABA, and the NHL’s New York Islanders. It was a hectic time for Valentino, especially in the spring, when the Yankees, Nets and Islanders were all playing simultaneously. Given such a breakneck schedule, it became understandable why Valentino endured a heart attack in July. Then, during his time in the hospital, Valentino suffered a second heart attack. Two heart attacks meant an end to his one season of broadcasting in the Bronx.

Valentino’s life had almost ended a month earlier, and through circumstances under which he had no control. After a Yankee home game on June 13–Friday the 13^th as a matter of fact–Valentino was driving home when he was hit head-on by a drunk driver. The collision thrust Valentino partly through his windshield. Miraculously, he survived the terrifying accident, only to endure the two heart attacks later in the summer. No one should have to go through that kind of a year.

After a 15-month layoff, Valentino returned to broadcasting, but not at the major league level. Determined to announce games once again, He took a job announcing New Orleans Pelicans minor league games. By 1980, he was back in the big leagues, doing play-by-play for the Oakland A’s. Valentino’s friendship with Billy Martin, who was guiding the “Billy Ball” A’s at the time, helped him land the job. Finally, a good break had come Valentino’s way, after all those near tragedies of 1975.

That Valentino somehow made it through 1975, and then fought his way back to a major league broadcast booth, is remarkable. He managed to live until his early eighties, when a pair of strokes and prostrate cancer finally took his life. That’s fighting. And that’s surviving. Dom Valentino, God bless you…

***

Saturday afternoon’s miraculous comeback from a 9-0 deficit will likely become a Yankee classic, and for good reason (it happened against their hated rivals and occurred on national TV), but it’s not the first time that the Bombers have come back from such a margin against the Beantowners. On June 26, 1987, the Yankees played the Red Sox in a Friday night game at the Stadium. They fell behind the defending American League champions, 9-0, after the first two innings.

In the bottom of the third, the Yankees then went to work against a young Roger Clemens By the end of the inning, the Yankees had knocked “The Rocket” from the game, banged out nine hits against a trio of Red Sox pitchers, taken advantage of an error and a passed ball, and scored a bushel of 11 runs. The big blows came from Dave Winfield (a three-run homer), Gary Ward (a bases-loaded single), and of all people, Wayne Tolleson (another bases-loaded single).

But the Yankees could not maintain their sudden prosperity. Rich Bordi, called on to pitch long relief after a failed start by Tommy John, immediately gave up two runs in the top of the fourth, as the Sox tied the game. The two teams would not score again until the bottom of the 10^th, when Mike Pagliarulo drew a leadoff walk against Calvin Schiraldi, moved to second on Rick Cerone’s sacrifice bunt, and came home with the game-winning run on Tolleson’s RBI single.

Not surprisingly, Don Mattingly put himself right in the middle of the offensive heroics. He went 4-for-6, scored two runs, and drove in another. Willie Randolph added three hits and a walk, while Winfield chipped in with his three-run shot, the Yankees’ only home run of the night.

The offensive outburst overshadowed the good work of the Yankee bullpen. After Bordi coughed up the lead, Cecilio Guante gave Lou Piniella three and a third innings of scoreless relief, lefty Pat Clements pitched shutout ball for two and two-thirds, and Tim “Big Foot” Stoddard picked up the win by notching the final out in the top of the 10^th. For those three pitchers, the game might have represented the highlight of their brief Yankee careers.

And just to give you a little flavor of the era, some of the other Yankees who played that day included a veteran Claudell Washington, platoon specialist Mike Easler, and the good-hit, no-field catcher, Mark Salas.

Yes, that was 25 years ago. A different time and an era. But the same result–an incredible come-from-behind win against the Sox.

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

It’s raining again in New York this morning and that’s a good thing–boy, do we ever need the rain. The Yanks are in Texas for three games to start the week. The Rangers are the best team in baseball.

Check out this piece by Marc Carig for the Star-Ledger;  this one by Tyler Kepner on the Rangers’ general managerJon Daniels, while over at River Ave Mike Axisa looks at the Yankees rotation for the series.

[Photo Credit: Elevated Encouragement]

About the best thing that could have happened to the Red Sox tonight was a rainout. They got it and avoid facing C.C. Sabathia. Too bad.

Yanks have a challenging week ahead in Texas and then back in the Bronx against the Tiger.s

[Photo Credit: Arthur Brower via the Lively Morgue]