Let’s get some opinions out there:

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and the most important one . . .

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The Yankees roster is set.

AJ Burnett isn’t all bad, after all. Dig this from Chad Jennings:

“It would be silly for Hughesy not to start,” said Burnett.

…“Joe’s the best manager I ever played for…He’s done more for me this year probably than any manager has ever done. He cares about me as a person and as a player. I’ll be down in that pen and be ready to get one out or two outs or whatever I’ve got to do for him.”

Cliff breaks down the line ups for the ALDS like only he can.

Jay roasts it up at BP.

And Steve Goldman’s always droppin’ science:

Andy Pettitte starts Game 2: This isn’t necessarily a bad decision, because if healthy, Pettitte is a terrific, experienced pitcher who any team would like to have on the mound in a tight spot. That said, foregoing the opportunity to let Phil Hughes pitch before Target Field’s wall of wind (“The Air Monster?”) seems like an error.

…Greg Golson makes the postseason roster: This is not a bad call as Golson can play defense, pinch-run, and swing at a southpaw in an emergency. Hopefully, Joe Girardi can remember not to make moves with Golson that he wouldn’t have made during the regular season. Otherwise, Golson will pinch-run for Nick Swisher in the fourth inning of some game and then end up getting three at-bats.

[Picture by Chris Giarrusso]

Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories is now in bookstores.

To celebrated its publication, dig this piece about Todd Drew from one of his dearest friends:

By Peter Zanardi

We never talked but then Todd Drew didn’t reveal a bit of himself. We never parted without making some kind of future plan. I’m totally convinced that would have continued if he lived to be 100.

The last time we met, Todd talked mostly about his own blog, Yankees For Justice, and his contributions to Bronx Banter. He also expressed his admiration for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. An unabashed liberal, Todd called Sanders “my favorite Senator.” Because I have Vermont connections, and because Sanders (who is actually Brooklyn born) is so approachable, I made a mental note to see about getting a personalized item for Todd.

My wife Jane and I would give it to him when we returned to New York for a weekend that would definitely include Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Todd’s mind had many, many rooms, and I’ll be forever thankful that I got to visit a few of them. There was, of course, baseball in general and the Yankees in particular. In the last years of his all-too-short stay, that was the warmest, coziest, most comforting of the rooms. He kept the cleanest scorebook I’ve ever seen, and I’m guessing the room was equally tidy.There were also spaces for ballet, jazz, history, politics, and especially the written word. The love between Todd and his wife Marsha was in every room. You couldn’t escape it.

I often marveled at what this son of a Syracuse bartender had become. He was a damn good writer, as evidenced by his Yankees For Justice and Bronx Banter contributions. I loved his style of driving home points with short, jab-like sentences.

Writing this, I now marvel at what I became just knowing him.

Considering the company, Todd’s joy in being one of the contributors to this effort would have been immeasurable. He was more than aware of all the others. His bookshelves rivaled some small town libraries. He loved to discuss particular books, stories, and opinions.

He read. He read a lot because he was convinced that was the route to becoming a better writer. The passion was always there—a divine gift perhaps. His sense of right and wrong, received from his parents Richard and Linda, was evident very early. He recalled, with pride, walking a picket line at age five or six with his Dad, then a Carrier employee in Syracuse.

The writing skills were not so easy to come by.

Auto racing brought us together. He was working for NASCAR handling media for a northern series. He had gone south to work for Dale Earnhardt. Among the things he brought back north was Marsha. I was involved in racetrack publicity at the time and delighted in listening to Marsha’s drawl.

Soon we wound up at the same auto racing weekly outside of Boston. I was sort of a “Dutch Uncle” at first—not more talented but a generation older. I watched Todd labor over columns. He’d spend an hour finding the right three-or-four word phrase. He’d ask so many questions.

He read living writers and dead writers, and he would experiment. “Where did you get that?” I’d ask. “Furman Bisher, Red Smith, Joe Falls,” he would answer. He’d write in the first person, in the second, in the third. He’d play with quotes, change paragraphs around. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn’t, but he battled on.

He moved to a magazine. He started winning some acclaim including an honorable mention in a Best American Sports Stories collection. Bones Bourcier, the award-winning auto-racing writer, and I would kind of talk behind his back about how badly he wanted to be a great writer.

Bones and I were both in Oklahoma when we heard of Todd’s passing. We talked of his desire again, wishing, praying even, that this time he heard us.

The auto-racing run ended. Todd took Marsha back to Syracuse where his folks ran Poor Richard’s Pub. Times were not always good, the truth is he struggled, but the love he had for his native city showed through. He loved its baseball team, its fairgrounds, its place in New York State history, and its people. He wrote for some small newspapers.

I recall sitting in a diner in Baldwinsville outside of Syracuse talking about the Erie Canal. We drove to Rochester to see a ball game because Syracuse was away. The next day we were at the famed Oswego Speedway.

Then I heard Todd and Marsha were moving to New York City. He was taking that passion and that sense of right and wrong to the American Civil Liberties Union. “How perfect is that?” my wife, Jane, asked.

Soon they were living on the Upper West Side, going to Yankee games, to the New York City Ballet, to Birdland and Lincoln Center. He was an active member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

When we visited we took good shoes because we were going to walk. That, he said, was the way to appreciate his new home. He and Marsha would walk up to Harlem to jazz joints. When the subway workers went out, he walked the many blocks to work. He got to the Stadium as early as he could. He often left as late as possible.

Todd loved showing off his new home to his old friend. He taught Jane and me not to be afraid of the city, to enjoy its multitude of possibilities. His writing reflected the same love of New York’s people.

My wife was born in Brooklyn. She still had memories of the house her grandfather, an immigrant from Sweden, had built there. Her maternal grandfather, an English immigrant, was one of the founders of a church a few blocks away. Todd, Marsha, and I decided we would take Jane to those places that are in an area of Brooklyn now largely populated by minorities.

After a long subway ride, we walked many blocks before stopping in front of the house where Jane’s father was brought up. Then we walked on to the church. We couldn’t get in at first. A church elder, an immigrant himself, happened along and, hearing the story, invited us in.

Jane asked about the baptismal font that was dedicated in her grandfather’s memory some 50 years earlier. Sure enough, it was there, still being used. The plaque memorializing her grandfather was intact.

My wife’s eyes filled up. I’m almost sure Todd’s eyes did as well. He appreciated grandfathers and heritage. It was an incredible, very human moment. The fact that Todd Drew, who refused to dwell on differences—be they religion, color, income, education, whatever—was there made it more special.

I’ve was blessed to traveled a lot of miles with Todd Drew. I watched many races with him, went to Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium with him. We talked and argued, always gently, about many things including the designated hitter (I dislike it) and modern versus traditional ballet. I truly not only loved Todd Drew, I loved being with him.

My lasting memory of Todd is that moment in that church in Brooklyn.

Todd and I went to the Stadium that night, Marsha graciously giving up her ticket. The next day, she took it back, and Jane and I enjoyed New York by ourselves.

“I believe in baseball and an equally free, open, just society for everyone,” Todd wrote. He hit that right on the nose.

According to reports, Andy Pettitte will pitch Game 2 and Phil Hughes will start Game 3.

Yesterday afternoon I got the chance to go to a blogger roundtable conversation with Bernie Williams. (Many thanks to Amanda Rykoff, aka the OCD Chick, for putting me in touch with the organizers). He’s in town to promote a new MasterCard program, and if you care about new MasterCard programs you can check that out here, but we got that out of the way in the first few minutes and then just talked baseball. We got a solid 50 minutes with Williams, with six of us asking questions. He’s spending most of his time on music these days, promoting his last album (rather directly titled “Moving Forward”) and planning the next one, and had just gotten back from a few weeks on tour.

As I’ve written before, Bernie Williams was my favorite player growing up – mostly because when he arrived in New York, he seemed shy and had big dorky glasses, like me (though of course unlike me, he also had incredible grace and athletic ability and went on to become a wealthy icon beloved by millions). I was at Yankee Stadium with a press pass on his last day as a player in the regular season, October 1st 2006, when he served as manager – a Joe Torre tradition when the division was already well in hand. He put himself in as a pinch hitter and lined a solid double, though the Yankees lost to Toronto 7-5; afterwards, in his press conference in Torre’s office, he joked that he was expecting Steinbrenner to call and fire him.

Williams has always been articulate, and throughout the conversation yesterday he was engaged and thoughtful, with lots of eye contact. He was also more forthcoming than I expected, especially about retirement, on which more later. I’ve talked to my share of players in locker rooms, and based on the admittedly small sample size, talking to former players in bars is a lot more constructive. Here are some of the highlights.

He said that as impressive as the new Stadium is (“They did a magnificent job”), “I’m always going to be partial to the old stadium, because it’s where I played my whole career.” Then someone asked him if he would’ve wanted to play at the new Stadium:

“Would I? Yeah! I mean the first year, first couple of months, all they talked about was that jet stream thing — everything that was hit to right-center was going out. So yeah, I would have loved to play there.”

I asked him how much baseball he watches these days, Yankees and otherwise:

“I rarely watch any other teams. If I see a game on TV, I scan through it, I look for players who played with me, and I try to follow what they do… but for the most part, mostly I see Yankee games, because I have such strong ties to the organization. I like to see my guys do well, the guys I grew up playing with. Even if I don’t watch the games I’ll try to see what they did, if they won, they lost, who’s hurt, who’s struggling, who’s having a good year. So I try to keep up.”

He was asked about the Yankees’ chances in the playoffs this year:

“…To me it’s gonna come down to the pitching – they have three, hopefully three solid starters in C.C., and the fact that Andy may be even more rested now, coming back from his injury, may be a little benefit; I think having the opportunity to have Hughes establish himself as a big-time pitcher, that’s a great opportunity for him.

After that, then you have… you know… guys who have to pitch. Hopefully they have it in mind, this mentality like they have something to prove in the postseason, because their season has been somewhat disappointing. So, you know, if they’re gonna go down they’re gonna go down swinging. I know that they’ll be able to hit, I think it’s going to come down to their pitching.

Williams talked about how he was part of the shift in the Yankees’ strategy in the early 90s, when the team started holding onto its young players instead of trading them. He talked about the role of home-grown players in the Yankees’ success, and then went on a bit of a tangent, mostly unprompted:

“By the way, I think they’ve come into a situation where it kind of backfires on young players coming up these days, because they can’t afford the luxury of struggling the first two years. Guys like Ricky Ledee, Melky Cabrera, people that have come into the organization at a time that expectations are so high… they have become very impatient with young players. So I think in a way it has backfired… I think in a way it’s kind of ironic, the one thing that has made us successful is working against young players nowadays.”

That, he added, is why he’s been so impressed by what Robinson Cano has been able to do:

“He’s just taken off, taken second base by storm, and I think in the next couple years he’s going to be definitely considered one of the best players in the game… So when you’re good, you’re good.”

“Being part of the Yankees for six years, with no options – not having the free will to decide my own destiny – I think I sort of owed it to myself to explore the possibilities. Maybe just see what’s out there, not necessarily that I wanted to make a change, but just to see what was out there. And when the Red Sox came with their offer – it was the Red Sox, Arizona, I think it was Detroit also – I was like wow, man, this is kinda cool, going into the free market now. But at the end of the day, it came down to the fact that I had been with the Yankees for such a long time – that I was so used to the city, the system, my teammates – so, deep down inside, I know that I just want to remain a Yankee.

–

So you’re trying to work with the agents, the people who are negotiating the deal, to try to accommodate that desire for you. But I thought it was a little bit too late, because I thought – you know, at the time, Joe was sort of wining and dining Albert Belle [laughs]. And I was like, well, maybe this is not gonna happen.

And actually it took, I called George from my house in Puerto Rico – this is a true story – I called George from my house in Puerto Rico. And I said to him, ‘George, Scott and Brian have been talking, and you know, I don’t think they’re getting it done the way that I want to get it done. And I just want you to hear it from me that I want to become a Yankee, I want to remain a Yankee, I want us to work this out.’ And he said, ‘What do you want?” And I said – at the time, Piazza was the guy that was getting kind of a comparable contract – I told him, ‘Well George, I think I want to get a contract similar to the one Mike Piazza has with the Mets.’ And he said, ‘Okay. I’m gonna discuss it with my people here, give me some time, and I’ll give you a call.’ I think it must have been a couple hours, maybe two or three hours, and he said ‘Okay, here’s the deal’.

…And that’s how it happened, it was between me and George, we were just negotiating – after all this, you know, great contract negotiation with agents and general managers, it came down to two people.”

The second phone call came one year when the Yankees unexpectedly canceled their annual Family Day, a time when players could bring their kids onto the field to play before a game, which Williams’ young children loved and looked forward to.

I called him. Well actually, I talked to Joe Torre, I said ‘Joe, what happened? Why don’t we have Family Day this year?’ He said ‘Well, it’s coming from up top, it’s been suspended, I don’t know.’ And I said, ‘Well, we can’t have this. My kids are looking forward to this, I’m in a tough situation.’ And he said, ‘Well, you wanna call George? Give him a call.’ And I said, ‘Okay, I will.’ And I gave him a call- it’s a funny story cause I called, and I don’t think he was expecting a call from me, I mean, obviously. And I said, ‘Hey George, how’re you doing-‘ — well, no, actually I said ‘Mr. Steinbrenner, how’re you doing?’ And he said, ‘Good, what can I do for you?’ I said ‘Well, I heard we’re not having Family Day this year, and I was wondering why we’re not having it, cause I know my kids are looking forward to it, and I’ve been one player who, I really don’t ask for much, but I really would like you to reconsider this decision, because it’s really important for me and my family,’ and this and that. He said ‘Okay, I’ll get back to you on this.’

And I think – I think it was because the Yankees, we won that day. So he said ‘Okay, we’re going to have Family Day tomorrow.’

Finally, I asked: “So, as far as I know you’ve never actually, technically, officially made a retirement announcement. Is there any particular reason for that? Do you have any plans to ever do that?”:

“Yeah, I do have plans – you know, at the time – I think it’s been four years now? Like the first year or two, I was going through somewhat of an… existential crisis, I guess. So to speak. Because you know it takes, it takes you some time to adjust – and you have this possibility of maybe playing for another team, and so many options running in your head. And, you know, you just start missing the game, and going through the World Baseball Classic didn’t help – cause I was like “Oh man, I can do this again!”. But I knew deep down inside, you know, it was a situation in which I would have to move on and do other stuff, like my music, that I have a lot of passion for. But I sorta kept it open, I think maybe just trying to fool myself into thinking that maybe one day I could come back, but every year that passes obviously it’s just harder and harder and harder to get back into it. And I think, you know, if it’s not this year, then probably next year I’ll just make it official. But it’s been unofficial for quite some time now.”

That’s not a surprising answer, really – it’s probably what most of us assumed. But I didn’t expect him to be quite so up front about it; when he was in his prime, I never thought of Williams as a tear-the-uniform-off-me kind of guy. And if it was this difficult for Williams, an intelligent guy with a second career in music that he seems to love, you can only imagine how hard retirement must be for someone less well equipped for post-baseball life. 

In fact, the conversation ended on a rather wistful note. Williams was asked if the Yankees had approached him about possibly retiring his number, and about what it meant to him to be considered one of the Yankee greats:

“I have no expectations, as far as that goes, that’s their decision… What I can take with me, which is something that nobody can take away from me, is my experience, the years that I played with them, the World Series rings, the batting title, the Gold Gloves, all the relationships that I have within the organization. Even though I left on not the best terms, I’m still able to feel that I’m part of this great organization, and that’s something that nobody can take away from me. In my head, that I have this great experience – and I’m, I don’t want to say great career – but this great experience that I have, being part of the Yankees for such a long time.

…At the end of the day, you know, it’s just about the memories. It’s about the time that you spent that you’ll never be able to forget – the ticker tape parades, the goofing around in the clubhouse, spring training, running around the field – it’s just the little things, to me, it’s what made the difference. Now that I’m moving into this other period of my life, with the music, it has become even more prevalent – to be able to remember those little details.

And I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever.”

I don’t think most Yankees fans have too many, either.

Odds and ends:

-Asked about playing guitar while Paul O’Neill played drums: “We jammed all the time,” he said, before and after games, during rain delays. O’Neill used Ron Guidry’s old drum set, which was kept in the bowels of the old stadium in “the Paint Room” (which in fact was full of paint).

-In talking about how the team developed into the late 90s dynasty, it was clear 1995 still stings: “The first round of the playoffs, still – I still remember those games… they were HORRIBLE. Losing three straight…” He trailed off.

-On how important home field advantage is in the playoffs: “I think it helps a lot; I don’t think it’s critical.”

-Williams’ manager said that Williams was probably the only man with a World Series ring and a Grammy award… but Amanda pointed out that Jay-Z does, in fact, have a World Series ring. Still: not a lot of dudes.

-This October 23rd, Williams will play a concert in Suffern, NY; part of the proceeds will go to support the Vincent Crotty Foundation and The Christopher Konkowski Memorial Scholarship Fund, charities set up in the memory of two local high school baseball players who were killed in a car accident last year.

There were lots of questions I wanted to ask, but didn’t get the chance to: Who’s the toughest pitcher you ever faced, and why; What was it like playing guitar with Bruce Springsteen; What do you miss most about playing, and what do you miss least; Do you even like the song “Disco Inferno”?

What would you have asked?

Dig this interview with me over at Gelf. I’ll be part of the next Varsity Letters Reading Series, this Thursday at 7:30 in Brooklyn.

Why the Twins Will Beat the Yankees…

My college roommate hailed from Edina, Minnesota. Eric was a catcher with an arm-shaped cannon (he’s unavailable to suit up for the Yankees Wednesday night) and remains a die-hard Twins fan. When we played stickball in the park in the sweltering June heat, he wore a turtleneck. When he went out to retrieve the Washington Post from a snow pile in February, he wore shorts and sandals. These Minnesotans are built differently than us New Yorkers. We save our shorts for the summer and bundle up in righteous indignation when it snows.

When the Yankees fell into their September funk, I began envisioning a brief, chilly, miserable series in Minnesota, with their ecstatic fans stomping their flip-flops and Robinson Cano inappropriately smirking from within the latest Gore-Tex innovation in hood-masks as he went oh-fer eight. Weather reports from Minnesota predict sun and warmth, so the Yankees will luck out in the first two games of the ALDS weather-wise. Hopefully it’s the first of many breaks that will go their way, because if they don’t catch some futher good fortune, this is the year the Twins get over the hump and beat the Yankees in the ALDS.

Minnesota set the tone for their 2010 season on March 21st. That’s the day they signed their franchise-player and reigning American League MVP to an eight-year, $184 million contract. The contract was almost Yankee-like in terms of length and amount. It was a commitment to the player, sure, but it was also a commitment to the team and the fan base. In concert with opening a new stadium, the organization was assuring any doubters that the Twins intended to compete with the big spenders.

It was only a few years ago that the Twins desperately peddled Johan Santana to the Yankees and Red Sox. After realizing they were being used as the target in an organizational pissing contest, they turned, dazed and confused, and accepted whatever crappy deal was still left on the table from the Mets. Santana has been good for the Mets, but the Twins are probably thrilled that they’re not the ones paying him right now, with or without shoulder surgery. But I can’t believe that either the fans, players or the management was happy about being the shuttlecock in a game of badminton between Brian Cashman and Theo Epstein.

Now the Twins have a new outlook, beginning with their new ballpark and continuing with a payroll that added 50% from 2009. The payroll still doesn’t come within half of the Yankees’, but for the players and fans in Minnesota, it must feel liberating. It must feel like they have finally joined the big time. And I think this optimism and confidence will fuel the upcoming ALDS. It’s their house; it’s their time. (more…)

It’s cool in New York this morning. I can only imagine it will be nippy in Twinkieland come tomorrow night. Playoffs in the air…never gets old.

[Drawing by Larry Roibal]

Here are some of the notable Yankee numbers from the season that just ended:

TEAM

• 859: runs scored, 56 fewer than 2009.
• .267: batting average, 16 points lower than 2009, and lowest since .268 in 2004
• 662: walks, 1 fewer than 2009.
• 201: homers, the 12th time in franchise history with 200 or more roundtrippers, and 43 fewer than 2009.
• 5: players with 100 or more strikeouts (Brett Gardner / Curtis Granderson / Derek Jeter / Nick Swisher / Mark Teixeira), tied for most in team history (2002).  Jorge Posada ended with 99 strikeouts and Alex Rodriguez had 98.
• .989: fielding percentage, a franchise record (.986, 3 times).
• 32: triples, 11 more than 2009.
• 4.06: ERA, lowest since 2003, but seventh in AL.
• 42: unearned runs allowed, fewest since 1998 (37).
• 7.09: K/9, highest since franchise-record 7.26 in 2002.

(more…)

“The Silent Season of a Hero,” a collection of Gay Talese’s sportswriting, got a rave review in the Times over the weekend. Gordon Marino writes:

Early on, Talese studied fiction with the strange intention of writing nonfiction, of elevating real life to literary life. Taking note of his way of setting up scenes, his oddly angled story lines and realistic dialogue, Tom Wolfe credited Talese with stirring a revolution in reporting that Wolfe christened the “new journalism.” This pronouncement was neither fiction nor hyperbole. Gay Talese’s outré method of framing and developing his “factual short stories” (as Rosenwald describes them) was as groundbreaking as it is still arresting. As this marvel of an anthology makes manifest, Talese transformed sportswriting into literature that is both serious and delightful.

Talese wasn’t the first writer to apply novelist techniques to non-fiction–WC Heinz and John Lardner had been doing it for years. In a recent interview for the Paris Review, Talese explained:

My first job was on the sports desk, but I didn’t want to write about sporting events. I wanted to write about people. I wrote about a losing boxer, a horse trainer, and the guy in the boxing ring who rang the bell between rounds. I was interested in fiction. I wanted to write like Fitzgerald. I collected his work—his short stories and journals. “Winter Dreams” is my favorite story of all time. The good nonfiction writers were writing about famous people, or topical people, or public people. No one was writing about unknown people. I knew I did not want to be on the front page. On the front page you’re stuck with the news. The news dominates you. I wanted to dominate the story. I wanted to pick subjects that were not the ordinary assignment editor’s idea of a story. My idea was to use some of the techniques of a fiction writer: scene setting, dialogue, and even interior monologue, if you knew your people well enough. I was writing short stories, and there were not many people on the Times who were doing that. Once, at an NYU baseball game, I overheard a conversation between a young couple who were having a lovers’ quarrel. I wrote the dialogue and I told the story of the game through what they were watching and what they were saying. At the St. Patrick’s Day parade, I wrote about the last person in the procession, a little guy who was carrying a tuba, and behind him came the sanitation trucks. I followed the parade from the vantage point of this tuba player.

…I could not contain myself within the twelve-hundred-word limit of daily journalism. Wherever I was, I thought that there were stories that other people weren’t telling. When I was going into professional athletes’ locker rooms, for instance, I would just listen to the chatter and look at the bodies of these men who had been in locker rooms with other men since they were little boys. There’d be other sports writers there, and they’d be asking the athletes questions about their performance in that night’s game, but I thought, No, there’s a different story here. These men are fascinating not as performers but in the way in which they mingle together. They’re freer with each other than homosexual men in a bathhouse. These other reporters didn’t even see the story, they just saw their job. Yet because it was a daily newspaper I was always being pulled away from these stories. I couldn’t do them at any real depth. That was really why I couldn’t do the job anymore.

At the same time, in the mid-sixties, Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin were having fun at the Herald Tribune. They were able to write what they wanted to write and I wished I had that kind of freedom. I was getting a lot of freedom by the standards of the Times, but not compared to them. I wanted more room and I wanted to go anywhere I wanted.

Talese wrote memorably about Floyd Patterson and his Esquire feature on Joe DiMaggio remains a classic.

Right on, Mr. Jeter.

Its time to hear from you regarding the AL awards for 2010.

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Over at PB, Steven Goldman writes:

Phil Hughes has got to start on the road. Batters hit a home run once every 20 at-bats at home, but only once every 53 at-bats on the road. Target Field, with its hard-to-reach fences, seems to have been built for him. Andy Pettitte has the Yankees great gravitas that would normally make him an easy choice for the spot, but given how their rotation after the top three is… imaginary, the Yankees can’t overlook this chance to minimize Hughes’ weaknesses and put him in position to win.

The Yanks got pasted this afternoon in Boston, 8-4, as the Rays win the AL East. The Yanks are the wildcard and will play the Twins. New York has owned the Minnie in the playoffs, which is why I have a bad feeling about this. That said, it’s October, and the Yanks are the defending champs. We’ll have plenty to keep us busy as we wait for first pitch on Wednesday night.

95 wins for your 2010 Yanks and a return trip to the post-season.

We’ll take it.

Or anything more, for that matter?

The Yanks and Rays have battled for first place all season long so it is entirely fitting that the Division Crown comes down to the final day of the regular season. If both teams win (or lose), the Rays take it.

Time to put a halt to the forgettable baseball that has been played around these parts for the past month. Starting this week, either at home against the Rangers or on the road against the Twins, the Yanks will defend their title. Either way, we’ll be root-root-rooting our hearts out.

Starting…now:

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

[Picture by Bags]

Have you had enough Yankees-Red Sox today? Don’t worry, the next game starts in 12 hours. The Yanks pulled out a win in ten innings in Part I of tonight’s baseball extravaganza, but couldn’t do it again, losing to Boston 7-6 in ten.

A.J. Burnett was not good, teetering on the edge of disaster all night, but hey, teetering on the edge is better than where Burnett has usually been of late, careening over the edge and into a ravine. He ended up getting through six innings and giving up four runs, leaving with the game tied. Of course, he also made a Chuck Knoblauch-style bonehead play in the fourth inning (I wanted to just call that “pulling a Knoblauch,” but that would probably imply a crazy Steve Blass-style errant throw, rather than the ol’ arguing-with-an-umpire-while-the-run-scores ploy. It’s never a good sign when “pulling a [Your Name Here]” could refer to any one of a number of fuck-ups): he argued a close call at first base in the fourth inning, while Daniel Nava scored from third. Sigh. I do not look forward to seeing Burnett try and tightrope-walk his way through a playoff start.

Anyway, a Francisco Cervelli single and a Hideki Okajima wild pitch gave the Yanks a 6-4 lead in the seventh, but Ivan Nova gave it right back in the eighth by, of all things, walking Kevin Cash with the bases loaded. That’s… not good. He did get out of it, and pitched a slightly too-eventful but scoreless ninth inning — before giving up the game-winning hit in the tenth, to somebody named “Eric Patterson”. Not a great night for Nova, but would you rather see Burnett or Vazquez in there in a playoff game? I’m not sure anymore.

Fun Fact: As of the end of their half of the ninth, the Yankees were FOUR FOR THIRTY-FOUR with runners in scoring position over the course of the double header. By the end of the 10th I believe it was four for thirty-six. Oy.

Discussion question: what percentage of double-headers are split, do you think? Taking a stab in the dark without doing any research, I’d guess something like 80%, does that sound about right? If so, I wonder how much higher that percentage is than for regular two-day, two-game series.

Additional discussion question: If the Wild Card did not exist, how many strokes would I have had tonight, and of what severity?

Structurally, this was one of those classic, endless Yanks-Red Sox seesaw games – except that since only Wild Card-vs.-AL East is at stake now, it was significantly less tense than those usually are; I can’t recall ever being quite so calm when the Sox were down by two and had the bases loaded against New York. It took 10 innings, and 14 pitchers altogether, but in the end the Yanks beat the Red Sox 6-5 in game one of tonight’s doubleheader.

Andy Pettitte was not great, but he was just about good enough to stave off panic about his fitness for postseason play. He only went four innings, giving up nine hits (!), walking two and striking out eight (! again), and allowing three runs. He did look healthy, though, and as witnessed by all those strikeouts there wasn’t much wrong with his stuff, so here’s hoping he was just shaking off some rust. Mike Lowell (on Thank You Mike Lowell Day, natch) drove in Boston’s first two runs with a double in the first inning; Daniel Nava added an RBI single later. It wasn’t a disaster, although allowing that many baserunners in general is not going to lead anyplace good.

The Yankee offense was perhaps more concerning, as the team engaged in one of those left-on-base smorgasbords they seem to have become so fond of recently. They had many, many, many opportunities, and capitalized on disconcertingly few of them. In the third inning, a Curtis Granderson triple, A-Rod ground out, and Robinson Cano homer gave them a 3-2 lead; an inning later it was a tie game. They took the lead again with doubes from Teixeria and Cano in the fifth, making it 5-3; Boston chipped away with a run in the seventh, off Boone Logan, and then tied it in the eighth, off the usually impeccable Kerry Wood. To be fair, the ump was calling a strange and small strike zone all night – and while that went for both teams equally, it seemed to hamper Wood more than most. Tonight also witnessed the temporary return of Phil Hughes to the bullpen; he came on in the bottom of the ninth and pitched beautifully, making me wish once again that we could clone him and use him in both the rotation and the pen. (You know Brian Cashman is already working on this).

Finally the Yankees took a 6-5 lead in the 10th inning, when Brett Gardner walked (bad idea, Papelbon), was bunted to second, and scored when Bill Hall couldn’t make a bare-hand play on Derek Jeter’s (super-clutch!) dribbling little infield hit. I’ll take it. Much to my relief, Rivera came in and took care of the bottom of the 10th inning without breaking a sweat: Mo’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.

I guess I better keep this recap concise, because we’ve got another one of these babies starting right now. So: that was fun; let’s do it again!

First of two is on Fox.

Go git ’em boys.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

Game got rained out tonight and the Rays lost.

They’ll play two tomorrow. Second game could go deep into the night.

Yanks-Sox and the last weekend on the regular season. There is something at stake here, of course, the best record in the American League. Looks like the Sox have something to play for after all.