The original plan was for me to go to this game. Friday night was too busy, Sunday is the wife’s birthday, so Saturday’s game — conveniently scheduled for an early evening start — was the one. But it didn’t work. I ended up watching on TV with the rest of you, and here’s what happened.

In a game that clocked in at a brisk 2:35, both pitchers looked good. Even though the numbers don’t bare this out, it always seems like the Angels’ Ervin Santana pitches well against the Yanks, and Saturday night was no different. He cruised through the first three innings and gave up a run in the fourth only because Torii Hunter’s leap into the stands over the short fence in the right field corner wasn’t enough to snare Robinson Canó’s 12th homer of the season.

That 1-0 lead looked like it might be all that Yankee starter CC Sabathia would need. But the scrappy Angels bounced right back in the bottom of inning as Alberto Callaspo doubled deep to center field, then advanced to third on a grounder (which Derek Jeter booted for an error). An out later Callaspo came home on a Jeff Mathis sacrifice fly. The run was unearned, but the game was tied.

The game stayed tied until the sixth when Curtis Granderson led off and worked a walk. Two batters later Alex Rodríguez put a crush on a ball and sent it towards the rocks in left center field and the Yankees were up, 3-1. There was never a doubt that those extra two runs would be enough for Sabathia.

As predicted yesterday, Sabathia was ready, and he took no prisoners, dominating the Angels all night. It wasn’t too long ago that conversations about Sabathia were lined with at least a hint of disappointment, but when you look at his season now, it’s hard to remember why. He has been the very definition of an ace. Saturday’s victory was his seventh of the year (tied with five others for tops in the league), and he’s won his past four starts, pitching at least eight innings in each of them. In a rotation where each of the other four pitchers takes the mound with some type of looming question (Will Burnett finally self-destruct? Will Nova make it through five innings? Will Colón’s deal with the devil run out? Will García turn back into a pumpkin?), the certainty of Sabathia has been a gift.

In recent years eight innings had become the equivalent of a complete game for the Yankee staff, but Sabathia came out for the ninth in an attempt to finish what he started. After he got two ground outs to third and stood waiting for someone named Peter Bourjos to walk to the plate, it looked like the bullpen would have the night off. But after Gorgeous Bourjos singled, was allowed to take second, and came home on a Macier Izturis single, manager Joe Girardi hopped out of the dugout and called on Mariano Rivera. As it turned out, it took Rivera longer to get to the mound than get off it; he needed only one pitch to retire Erick Aybar for the final out. Yankees 3, Angels 2.

[Photo Credit: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images]

Jason Varitek and Jonathan Papelbon were kicked out of the game this afternoon in Boston. The Sox blew a 7-3 lead but eventually won in extra innings. Meanwhile, out west, Dan Haren was scratched and Ervin Santana will start in his place for the Angels. He’ll face this line-up:

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Russell Martin C
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Brett Gardner LF

Good ol’ C.C. goes for the Yanks. Never mind the preamble:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Painting by Benjamin Anderson]

It’s no secret that I hate the Angels. Hate ’em like the chicken pox, and it’s not just because they’ve had so much success against the Yankees over the past fifteen years. I hate everything about them — the halo, the stadium, the rally monkey, the waterfall in centerfield, even the name. Any team named the Angels should be playing Bobby Sox softball in a league with the Ponies, the Unicorns, and the Magic Rainbows.

So after all that ranting, this next part will seem kind of snarky, but I don’t mean it to be. I kind of feel sorry for the Angels. They already have to wear those ridiculous uniforms, and then when they go with the throwbacks, they just look even more ridiculous, no matter which uni they choose. Poor Angels.

The team is celebrating its 50th anniversary, so on Friday night they trotted out the 1960s uniforms, complete with the cute little hats with the with the cute little halos on top. Lucky for them they had Jered Weaver on the mound, who could probably pitch with a flower pot on his head, but the kid who looked a look for the Cy Young on April 30 (6-0, 0.99 ERA in his first six starts) came down from the clouds in May (0-4, 5.25 in his next four).

The Yankees appeared intent on making him work, and Derek Jeter started off with a fifteen-pitch at bat to lead off the game. He ended up popping out to center, and even though Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira also went down, the three had made Weaver work as he expended 27 pitches to get through a 1-2-3 inning.

After the long top half, the Angels came up in the bottom half and notched a couple runs off Ivan Nova. Erick Aybar singled, moved to second on a wild pitch, and was quickly cashed in on a double from our old friend Bobby Abreu. Abreu would take third minutes later on a passed ball, and then score from there on a ground out to open a 2-0 lead.

The Yanks would split that margin in half in the second with an Alex Rodríguez double and a Russell Martin single, then tie the score at two in the fourth when Jorge Posada followed a couple of walks with a ground rule double.

The Angels, of course, would answer right back in their half of the fourth to reclaim the lead at 3-2, and after that, a strange thing happened. In an unorthodox move, the Yankee equipment manager ordered that all the bats be put away. Every once in a while someone managed to sneak a stick up to the plate, but they were obviously under strict orders not to swing. The Yankees didn’t manage a single hit after the fourth inning (they only had three total on the night), and struck out eleven times, with four of those Ks being backwards. A pathetic performance. Angels 3, Yankees 2.

Ivan Nova, though, wasn’t bad. He worked himself into a few jams, but I think we’d all be happy with six innings and three runs every time out from him. But don’t worry, everybody. CC’s driving the Score Truck tomorrow night. Expect the Yanks to win big. Big, I said. And I heard a rumor the Yanks will be wearing their throwback jerseys, the ones the team wore from 1936 to 2010. You won’t want to miss that.

[Photo Credit: Mark J. Terrill/AP Photo]

The Yanks take on the Angels tonight. The rivalry isn’t the same as it was a few years back when the Angels were, you know, good. (That said, my buddy Rich Lederer will be talking big trash if the Yanks lose the series.)

Hopefully, the Bombers continue their string of good fortune against good pitching as Jered Weaver gets the start. It’ll be interesting to see what Ivan Nova’s got to offer. All eyes in the Bronx are pulling for him to have a good outing cause he has struggled of late.

Cliff has the preview. We do the rootin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Pictures by Kevin Roche]

Roger Federer, that great champion, that old man, beat Novak Djokovic, who was previously unbeaten this year, today at the French Open to advance to the Final.

Word to God.

Federer will play his nemesis Rafa Nadal on Sunday for all the marbles. Here’s hoping he’s got one more great match in him. To beat Nadal at the French would be something.

And now we take a moment from last night’s thrilling Game 2 win by the Mavericks to address the Knicks:

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

That is all.

[Picture by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images]

Yanks are in Anaheim this weekend to play a three game series against their old nemesis, the Angels. But even though the Halos will be trotting out Jered Weaver and Dan Haren, they have fallen on tough tough times as evidenced by this letter by Rich Lederer.

From the New Yorker…

Mindrelic – Manhattan in motion from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

Saveur takes a look at the best dried pepper flakes.

Here is a compelling essay Pete Hamill wrote in 1996 for Esquire—“Blood on Their Hands: The Corrupt and Brutal World of Professional Boxing”:

On the night of the Tyson-Bruno fight, I went to a place called the Official All Star Cafe in Times Square. There was a huge private party to honor the twentieth anniversary of the first Rocky movie, and crowds packed the sidewalks for a glimpse of Sylvester Stallone and the celebrities he might draw. One of those celebrities was Muhammad Ali.

Ali was already there when I arrived, dressed in a dark-red long-sleeved shirt, seated at a table with his wife and young son. To his right was a movie-size screen on which the preliminary fights were being broadcast from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The room was crowded with citizens of the fight racket: Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis, Ray Leonard and Willie Pep, managers and promoters, wives and girlfriends. Everybody tried to avoid looking at Muhammad Ali.

His head was bowed and he was trying to eat. But his right hand was shaking so hard that he could not get the piece of chicken to move two inches to his mouth. His wife, Lonnie, put her hand over his to quell the shaking and gently guided the chicken to its destination. Ali chewed diligently but did not raise his head.

Across the evening, people came over to the table to lean down and speak to the ruined fifty-four-year-old man. Sometimes he smiled. Sometimes he whispered a reply. Sometimes he rose to pose for pictures. But then he would be back in the chair, the once lithe and powerful body sagging, the eyes wide and wary, a plastic strew clenched in his mouth, all of him shaking with the Parkinson’s disease, with the damage caused by the fierce trade he once honored.

The disease, caused in Ali’s case by repeated blows to the head, is insidious, degenerative, humiliating, a thief of will and memory. I know: My mother, who was hit in the head by a mugger in 1979, is now eighty-five and trapped in its silent prison. I’ve fed her, as Lonnie feeds Ali.

Only when the fight started and Mike Tyson came down the aisle in Las Vegas did Ali’s eyes focus intensely. We’ll never know what now moves through his mind. But he had made that same walk so many times, with entire arenas and stadiums roaring the chant Ah-lee, Ah-lee, Ah-lee, Ah-lee…. When young, he had been among great throngs where half the audience hated him, and had stayed long enough to convert them all. For Ah-lee, Ah-lee wasn’t about celebrity or even success; it was about excellence and heart. And it was about personal defiance: of odds, of skeptics, of racists, of the American government, and of pain. Along the way, Ali became myth; most myths, alas, are also tragedies.

Happy Birthday a day late…

Where the subway goes to die…

The New York Times has a slide show.

There’s something about the water that scares me. I’m not afraid to go in the ocean and I like to swim. But when I see something sinking, man, it hits me right in the gut and brings on a kind of panic. It’s primal fear.

Man, it’s cool and beautiful in New York. Breezy. Wonderful. Happy Friday.

[Picture by Ondun]

Here’s an appreciation of John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman by Ralph Gardner Jr. in the Wall Street Journal:

I’m a Mets fan, yet my favorite announcers are the Yankees’ John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman.

I can already hear the groans from baseball aficionados, so let’s clear the air before we get started. Yes, Mr. Sterling’s silken delivery owes more to the golden age of radio, or perhaps Ted Baxter of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” than it does gladiatorial ESPN. He’s been known to call home runs—”It is high, it is far, it is gone!”—only to have to take it back when the balls turn out to be playable. And Ms. Waldman might have momentarily lost perspective when she swooned in 2007 upon spotting Roger Clemens in George Steinbrenner’s box at Yankee Stadium, signifying his lordship’s return to the Yankee roster for one year at $28 million, and said: “Oh my goodness gracious. Of all the dramatic things I’ve ever seen…”

My reaction to the armchair critics is: Lighten up. Get a life. Then again, I may not be the best judge. I started a co-ed softball team in college, with myself the only male player because I wanted nurturing and encouragement rather than vilification when I dropped a pop fly, as I occasionally did.

But for sheer radio listening pleasure for the casual fan, I don’t think anybody beats the Sterling-Waldman duo. Their style is conversational rather than testosterone-crazed; it’s almost overheard, as if you were eavesdropping on their tête-à-tête from the next table at Sardi’s. And they know their stuff—Mr. Sterling because he’s been the Yankees announcer for every single game since 1989, Ms. Waldman because she works her tail off—as I discovered when I visited them at the stadium for last Tuesday night’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays.

[Photo Credit: The Yankee Analysts]

Our pals, the Three Amigos, are doing some fine work over at PB.

Here’s Cliff on Derek Jeter

Goldie on Eduardo Nunez and Jesus Montero and

Jay on Fab Five Freddy and the  incredible Curtis Granderson.

Class is in session.

There’s a good Varsity Letters tonight featuring Robert Lipsyte. Also on the venue is Robert Weintraub author of “The House that Ruth Built.” Dig the interview with Weintraub, here.

And if you are around tonight, check, check it out.