Picture by Jason Levesque. 

From a 2005 Paris Review Interview with Charles Simic:

INTERVIEWER: You’ve often said New York is your favorite city: Was it love at first sight?

SIMIC: It was. It was an astonishing sight in 1954. Europe was so gray and New York was so bright; there were so many colors, the advertisements, the yellow taxicabs. America was only five days away by ship, but it felt as distant as China does today. European cities are like operatic stage sets. New York looked like painted sets in a sideshow at a carnival where the bearded lady, sword- swallowers, snake charmers, and magicians make their appearances.

[Photo Credit: Andre Robe]

Via Kottke, here’s the 50 greatest summer movies according to the Dissolve. 

Sweet Cherry Pie. Yes, please.

The Yanks scored 5 runs off Justin Masterson in the first couple of innings last night then held things together for a 5-3 win. Dellin Betances pitched the final 2 innings in a steady rain to get the save but the story of the night was the nice start by Shane Greene. Making his big league debut, Greene featured a 95-mph fastball, sharp slider, as well as a change-up. He handled the Indians for the first few innings and worked out of a jam in the 6th. David Huff was pressed into duty to pitch the 7th as manager Joe Girardi wanted to rest the likes of Adam Warren, Shawn Kelley, and Matt Thornton.

Brett Gardner, Brian McCann and Ichiro! each had 3 hits. And Derek Jeter’s bit of misdirection helped turn a double play.

[Photo Credit: Nate Bittinger]

Shane Greene is tonight’s starter for the Yanks as they play the first of 4 games against the Indians in Cleveland.

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Brian McCann DH
Brian Roberts 2B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Kelly Johnson 3B
Francisco Cervelli C

Never mind nuthin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Patrick Joust]

Kline.

Indeed.

Caravaggio. 

Apparently there was an early Score Truck sighting (a rare breed this season) as the team decided to do a few things done early today; of import to the game was scoring nine runs off of surprisingly happless starter Ricky Nolasco and his understudy in the first four innings with contributions from just about everyone in the lineup (except Beltran, who might want to reconsider surgery to remove those bone chips in his elbow at this point).  Of note, the Captain got hit number 3,400 for his career with a single in the ninth; the eighth player in baseball history to do so. That’s rather significant when you stop to take that in.  Hiroki Kuroda pitched into the sixth and gave up four runs; he was fairly cruising in the early innings when the Yanks were scoring, but he started getting pretty iffy near the end. The tired bullpen (which has been a source of mostly inspiration for the Yanks this season) gave up a few more runs to turn a laugher into a near picklement, but managed to hold off a disastrous wave of bad karma (that seems to be the notion of the weekend), with Tha Hamma saving it once again for a 9-7 win. If this continues, the Yanks might convince themselves they can make a run at the playoffs (uh-oh…) and make some moves to help them in their endeavor. Let’s not hold our breaths on that just yet, though clearing some current roster flotsam might be in order.

Among the other things the Yanks did early was trading a sort-of young lefty starter in Vidal Nuño (who’s pitching had grown old a whole lot quicker) for righthander Brandon McCarthy from the Arizona Diamondbacks. If the name strikes a bell, he’s the same pitcher who was on the almost tragic end of a line drive through the mound a few years ago with the Oakland A’s and has since bounced around a couple of places and was having as much luck with the Diamondbacks as Nuño was with the Yanks. What the Yanks hope McCarthy brings, besides a veteran presence (he’ll be 31 on Monday, helluva birthday present) is a consistent ability to miss bats, a low walk ratio and a high propensity for ground balls; something the 26-year old Nuño was sorely lacking in a hitter-friendly park (and will likely continue to haunt him in a new hitter-friendly park). Both pitchers were having a rough time to the tune of plus-5 ERAs, though with McCarthy it seemed more a product of a porous defense. He still has to deal with the same issue of pitching in a hitters park, but the defense will be somewhat more of a help (more often than not, you hope). McCarthy will take Chase Whitley’s spot in the rotation, with Whitley moving to the bullpen and Shane Greene for now taking Nuño’s spot.

The other early move, which had become as much of an unfortunate necessity as sending down Port Jervis a few days ago was, was to DFA Alphonso Soriano. Sori had become a virtual black hole in the lineup, and this was coming like a Pinto stuck on a train track with a diesel engine bearing down on it, but it’s sad considering the trade for him brought about some positivity in a frustrating season last year when he made an immediate impact with several key homers and extra base hits (he finished with 17 HR for the Yanks, 34 for the season with 101 RBI in total with nearly identical numbers in each league) and nearly helped push the team over the hump and into the playoffs. Also, as thelarmis noted, Sori needed 11 stolen bases in order to join the exclusive 300-300 club (300 HR/300 SB). Sori is said to be considering retirement at this point, so it’s likely he’ll never reach the door for that club. And all nostalgia aside, it was the right thing for the Yanks to do as they were getting practically nothing from him in any part of the lineup and looking very bad in the process.  For all the complaining and such we’ve done about Jeter’s visible decline this season, the decline and fall of Soriano, who was also a perennial All-Star at one point in his career, has been far more pronounced from last season to this.

I think in the balance he will be fondly remembered mainly for his early career when he was a young phenom international free agent signing who played in Japan and spoke Japanese as fluently as he spoke his native Spanish, wore his socks up to his knees and swung the bat like he was trying to smack the opposing team clear out of the old Yankee Stadium in one fell swoop. One can only think of what may have happened if Cashman had not answered the phone that February ten years ago…

Boy you said a mouthful, RI.

I’ll skip all the gory details and just note that when Francisco Cervelli, filling in for Brian McCann who had a sore foot before the game, tossed the salad in the bottom of the eleventh with the bases loaded and the score tied at one, soccer suddenly became a really interesting sport. All things considered, the Yanks would probably do well to switch to MLS at this point, wouldn’t you agree?

If you still care to know (and I can’t possibly imagine why you wouldn’t), Yanks lost 2-1.

[photo credit: AP/Peter Dejong]

Today gives Phelpsie.

I’m hoping we see Sori hit a dinger or two.

Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Derek Jeter SS
Brian McCann C
Mark Teixeira 1B
Carlos Beltran DH
Brian Roberts 2B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Alfonso Soriano LF
Zelous Wheeler 3B

Never mind the lovemakin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Bags]

How do you spell relief?

The Yankees’ bullpen saved the day again after the offense plated 6 runs (Brian Roberts, 4 hits; Frankie Cervelli, 3 hits).

It was enough for a 6-5 win, their second in a row.

Hope everyone had a great holiday.

[Photo Via: This Isn’t Happiness]

Happy 4th you guys.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s retirement speech.

Over at the Daily Beast, check out this excerpt from Ray Robinson’s fine Gehrig biography, The Iron Horse.

Game this afternoon.

Let’s hope our boys make it 2-in-a-row.

Never mind the diet:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Peter Patau]

Last night, Masahiro Tanaka gave up 4 runs for the first time this season and what happens? The Yanks win, anyway.

Carlos Beltran’s 3-run home run started it as the Bombers tagged their old pal Phil Hughes for 7 runs, enough to give them a 7-4 win.

The best part of the night was that Zelous Wheeler, called up in place of the struggling Port Jervis Solarte (Zelous for Yanjervis, that alone makes it memorable), got 2 hits in his first MLB game. The first hit–a homer. Wheeler is a squat guy–since the Yanks were in Minnie, a Kirby Puckett analogy came up–had reason to smile, and his teammates did too. Sometimes, a team will mess with a rookie when they get their first hit or home run, ignoring them for a moment when the kid returns to the dugout. The Yankees didn’t do that. They greeted Zelous’ grin with big smiles of their own as if to say, “We needed that.”

And they did.

[Photo Credit: Jim Mone]

Don’t write when you’re angry, don’t write when you’re angry, Rays 6, Yanks 3, awwwww, five-game losing streak, don’t write when you’re angry, don’t write when you’re angry.

A Game Thread. Gardner with a first inning dinger… Let’s Go Yank-ees! [Picture by Bags]

Rest in Peace, Paul Mazursky. 

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Harry and Tonto, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Moscow on the Hudson, Down and Out in Beverly Hills. The man made some choice movies.

Dear Yankee Hitters,

Go screw. 

Let us know when you plan to show up for work.

Love,

Yankee fans

Should be a mess o strike outs tonight as things don’t get any easier for the Yankee offense as they face David Price. At least our man Hiroki’s on the hill.

Gardner LF

Jeter SS

Ellsbury CF

Teixeira 1B

Beltran DH

Soriano RF

Roberts 2B

Cervelli C

Solarte 3B

Never mind the heat:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Painting by Heather Horton]