Movie Star hubba hubba:

Audrey Hepburn and Paul Newman

Speaking of the Seventies…how about the Cobra?

Here’s Roy Blount, writing in Sports Illustrated about Parker back in the spring of 1979:

“He’s like the 10th man in Softball out there,” says First Baseman Stargell. “On a ground ball he’s backing up first before I’m there to take the throw. We were both after a foul ball one time with our arms outstretched, and we came together face to face like two big pairs of scissors. It was the only time I ever kissed him. We hit and flew apart by yards and yards.” Parker covers second on infield pop-ups, he gets involved in rundowns between second and third, he is everywhere. Pete Rose may be Charlie Hustle, but Parker hustles just as hard and considerably faster.

On the bases, too, he takes all he can get. Says Parker, “The highlight of the game to me is scoring from first on a double in such a way that people look at me in amazement, as if they’re saying, ‘My, how fast that big man can move.’ ”

Big he is—6’5″, 230 pounds. His legs terminate, after a lengthy run, in an upper body that looks like two Doberman pinschers bound tightly together. In addition to his speed afoot, he has general quickness—hence his nickname, Cobra—and a rifle arm. “He’s one of those rare individuals who come along every 15 or 20 years,” says Stargell. “Rare, and unique, and strong.”

Photo Credit: Frank Franklin II/AP Photo

I’m forty-one years old, and if you’re close to my age, it doesn’t matter how bad the Kansas City Royals get because the Royals in your head will always be those from the late 70s and early 80s, a lineup that comes to mind as easily as any team in your memory — Dennis Leonard, Paul Splittorff, or Lary Gura on the mound throwing to Darrell Porter; Willie Mays Aikens, Frank White, U.L. Washington and his toothpick, and George Brett in the infield; Hal McRae, Willie Wilson, and Amos Otis patrolling the outfield; and Dan Quisenberry waiting out in the bullpen.

More than just pine tar, the Yankees-Royals rivalry has seen historic moments. Chris Chambliss hit a walk-off home run in Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS, sending the Yanks to their first World Series in twelve years, and in the following year’s Game 5 Graig Nettles and George Brett would slug it out at third base in a game the Yankees would eventually win with three runs in the 9th inning. In fact, the Yankees and Royals squared off in the ALCS four out of five years, and when Kansas City finally beat them in 1980 after losing three straight series in ’76, ’77, and ’78, Brett said, “In 1980, finally winning, for us it was like winning the World Series.”

Recently, though, things have been different. The Yankees have been the best team in baseball over the past fifteen years while the Royals have been circling the drain as the poster children for small market ineptitude. All of that is about to change, at least according the good folks at Baseball Prospectus, who list ten Royals in their top 101 prospects of 2011, including five in the top twenty-one.

Number 12 on that list, Eric Hosmer, had a game to remember on Wednesday night. Still enjoying his first week in the major leagues, Hosmer came to the plate in the fourth inning with his team trailing, his family watching, and A.J. Burnett straight dealing. Hosmer quickly found himself sitting pretty at 3-0, took the obligatory fastball down the middle, swung and missed to bring the count full, then deposited the next pitch into the second deck for Kansas City’s first hit and run of the game. If not for the fact that it sliced the Yankee lead in half, it would’ve been a nice moment. Kim Jones had already interviewed the Hosmer clan up in the stands a few innings earlier, and now the cameras recorded their response to their boy’s blast: mom out of her seat immediately, eyes wide; dad doing his best to hold on to his video camera while pumping his fist in the air; brother shaking his head in absolute disbelief. A nice family moment.

And for a while it seemed like that’s all it would be. Burnett recovered nicely to fashion something of a masterpiece. Sure, he walked five batters and hit another, but there was only that one hit over seven innings along with six strikeouts, and when he left the game he seemed ticketed for a win.

But David Robertson (not Joba Chamberlain) opened the eighth by walking our old friend Melky Cabrera and, two batters later, Billy Butler. He made quick work of Jeff Francoeur, striking him out on three pitches, and when he worked Wilson Betemit into a 1 and 2 hole, it looked like Houdini would wriggle free of yet another jam. But Betemit lined a single to right, plating Melky and snatching a win from Burnett.

Aside from an RBI single from Jorge Posada in the second inning and a Curtis Granderson home run in the third, the Yankee offense was fairly inept, missing opportunities all night long. Posada and Russell Martin led off the sixth with consecutive singles but were stranded. The bases were left loaded in the seventh. In the eighth, minutes after losing the lead in the top half, Brett Gardner led off with a single, and things looked good. Even though Gardner had been caught stealing earlier in the game, I found myself yelling at him to go on the first pitch. Instead, Jeter popped up a bunt attempt for the first out and Granderson followed by rapping into a double play. Inning over.

Mariano Rivera needed fourteen pitches to blitz through three Kansas City hitters in the ninth, the Yankees left two more runners on base in the bottom half, and Buddy Carlyle (not Joba Chamberlain) came in for the top of the tenth. What happened next came as no surprise. Well, except for this part: the fearsome Melky Cabrera opened the inning by drawing his second of three walks in the game. If you’re thinking of scouring the internet to find the last time Melky walked three times in a game, let me save you the trouble — it’s never happened. (In fact, check this out. Back in July, August, and September of 2008, Melky walked a TOTAL of two times in 131 at bats.)

But back to Buddy Carlyle. Hosmer was due next and erased Melky on a fielder’s choice, but Hosmer quickly reached second base on a wild pitch, the first of two Carlyle would throw in the inning. He’d come home a few pitches later on a Francoeur double, giving the Royals their first lead of the night.

With Joakim “The Mexicutioner” Soria coming in, it seemed the Yankees were dead, but they were able to scratch out a run after Martin walked, Gardner bunted him to second, Jeter pushed him to third with a ground out, and Granderson drove him in with a single to right. Sure, the game would’ve been over if they had only been able to execute like that once or twice during the first nine innings, but better late than never, right?

(A quick word about Granderson. It never makes sense to project May 11th numbers over a full season, but let’s do it anyway just so we can appreciate how good he’s been through 34 games. Grandy, who just happens to be leading baseball in home runs, is on pace to hit 57 homers and drive in 119. Not bad.)

This game ended the way it had to, though. Not satisfied with the mess he made of the tenth, Carlyle (not Joba Chamberlain) started the eleventh by walking Chris Getz on four pitches, which was finally enough for Joe Girardi to hook him. There was a bunt, an infield single, a stolen base, an intentional walk (Melky!), and the kid (or The Hos, as he’s called) cashed it in with a sacrifice fly. The Yanks went down like lambs, and it was over. Royals 4, Yankees 3.

And somewhere Freddie Patek is smiling.

Gene Monahan will retire after this season…Rafael Soriano doesn’t appear to be seriously hurt…A.J. Burnett is on the mound tonight…

Score Truck anyone?

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Stella Simon]

Nice piece on David Robertson by Bob Klapisch today:

How he destroys hitters is a secret that baseball technology is only beginning to understand, but Robertson was at his blow-away best against Kansas City. After getting Aviles to fly to center, Alcides Escobar and Chris Getz whiffed.

How? Because neither Royals hitter had a chance against Robertson’s 82-mph curveball.

Why? Because both hitters had been battered by the ferocity of Robertson’s fastball, which, although clocked at 93 to 94 mph, has the signature of a 97-mph heater.

That’s made possible by Robertson’s enormous push-off from the mound – a full 7 feet from the rubber, the most behind Tim Lincecum. Last month, Sports Illustrated profiled a Dutch company, Trackman, which extrapolates virtual speed from actual velocity and distance from the plate. Robertson can add as much as 4 mph to his fastball because he’s closer to the hitter than other pitchers. The average major league stride is 5 feet, 10 inches.

…That’s the beauty of his gift: Robertson doesn’t have to repeat any internal monologue to get his legs into gear. Instead, in times of stress, he thinks about the machinery of strikes-throwing, watching as hitters struggle to catch up to his heat, deciding when it’s time to unleash the killer curveball.

[Photo Credit: Post 34 Baseball]

John Schulian is one of our most gifted storytellers and a wordsmith who has been compared to Red Smith and A.J. Liebling. He came of age as a newspaper reporter and sports columnist in the 1970s, part of a generation of young turks that featured the likes of David Israel, Leigh Montville, Mike Lupica, Jane Leavy, Tony Kornheiser and Tom Boswell. Then he left sports behind and went to Hollywood where he wrote for “L.A. Law,” “Miami Vice,” “Wiseguy,” “JAG,” and numerous other series–including “Slap Maxwell,” the short-lived Dabney Coleman show about a sportswriting hack. He was also the co-creator of “Xena: Warrior Princess.” Before, during and after his foray into show business, Schulian wrote long-form articles for Sports Illustrated and GQ. His work has been collected in “Writers’ Fighters and Other Sweet Scientists,” “Twilight of the Long-ball Gods,” and the forthcoming “Sometimes They Even Shook Your Hand.” Schulian has been featured in “The Best American Sports Writing,” and, on ten occasions, the old “Best Sports Stories” series. He also edited “The John Lardner Reader” and co-edited (with George Kimball) “At the Fights: American Writers of Boxing.”

Last fall I sat down with John to talk about his career and what came out was more than just an interview but an oral history of the newspaper business, of the sporting scene and of Hollywood.  So I am proud to present John’s story, in his own words, “From Ali to Xena,” which will be posted in column-like segments twice a week.

You are in for a treat.

–Alex Belth

From Ali to Xena

By John Schulian

PREAMBLE

Good things have happened to me all my life, whether I deserved them or not, and “At The Fights”is the latest of them. When George Kimball and I started working together, we had nothing more in mind than a modest book of stories by writers who had won awards from the Boxing Writers Association of America. The way we looked at it, no sport has inspired more wonderful prose than the Sweet Science. But for every great piece we found, there was another one that even a generous critic would have had a difficult time calling mediocre. I won’t say we were ready to give up, but the bloom definitely was off the rose.

Then, out of nowhere, George’s literary agent, Farley Chase, called and said the Library of America was interested in having us edit an anthology of great boxing writing. “The same Library of America that does Twain and Poe and Raymond Chandler?” we said. “That’s the one,” Farley said. So we wrote a proposal and talked to LOA’s big cheeses and lobbied like a couple of Tammany Hall politicians. And we got the gig.

It turned out to be an incredible amount of work that was definitely pleasurable. You don’t have to ask me twice to read Heywood Broun, W.C. Heinz, and Carlo Rotella, and I know George feels the same. But there was also more than a little pain in the process because we didn’t have room to include all the pieces we love and all the writers we admire. The book we wound up with, though, is one we believe in wholeheartedly. “At the Fights” reflects both our personal tastes and the importance of boxing in American nonfiction. Just think of the big names whose work we’ve showcased: Mailer, London, Baldwin, Schulberg, Plimpton. Maybe George expected to be to sit in judgment of them at some point in his career, but it’s a complete surprise to me.

Honestly, I never expected any of what has happened to me over the last four decades. Not the big-city sports column or the magazine work or the books, not Hollywood and the modest success I had in TV, not the fascinating projects that still fall in my lap as I enter my golden years. Sure, I dreamed about it when I was a kid, but dreaming is far different than expecting. There were guys I met on newspapers who fairly radiated their expectation of success and became wet-behind-the-ears sensations. I, on the other hand, moved at a far slower pace, forever unsure of what lay in store for me.

I don’t mean to be disingenuous. That’s just a natural fact. I knew I wanted to be a newspaper reporter and columnist, but I thought I might just as easily wind up as a copy editor. (I can hear the copy editors I worked with saying, “You never could have cut it.”) If I saw myself doing anything, it was bouncing around to a lot of different newspapers — but not papers in glamorous cities and not papers with glowing national reputations. I was thinking more along the lines of Toledo for a couple of years, then maybe see what was available in Portland or Albuquerque. The only thing I was sure of was that I had a shot at an interesting life.

(more…)

Will the Heat finish off the Celtics tonight? I’d like to see it but I think the Celtics will win.

Can the Thunder beat the Grizzles tonight in Oklahoma City to go up, 3-2. Sure, they can, but I’m picking the Grizzles. Hope I’m wrong but I’ll believe the Grizzles (and Celtics) are done when I see it.

[Picture by Patrick Joust]

Hubba hubba Part II.

Grace Kelly: Eternal Style.

Click here for a photo gallery of the one and only Gordon Parks.

Say goodnight, Gracie…

Mariano Rivera didn’t look to have his best stuff last night. But with one out and a runner on first, he snagged a hard ground ball and quickly pivoted his body around to second base. In that instant I thought of the 2001 World Series, 9th inning, Game 7. That was when Rivera didn’t turn a double play. It wasn’t the worst performance of his career but it may have been the most painful as the Diamondbacks scored twice to win the Serious. I couldn’t sleep that night. I replayed the inning over and over. I wondered if a loss like that would break Rivera. It didn’t, of course. The Sandy Alomar home run in the 1997 ALDS didn’t, and neither did Game 4 and 5 of the 2004 ALCS against the Red Sox.

Now, it’s almost ten full years after the loss to the Diamonbacks and only a handful of players who appeared in the Serious are still active. None of them are performing on Rivera’s level. He’s embodiment of excellence, still graceful, a later day Fred Astaire as we like to think of him around these parts, and one of the most beautiful athletes in pro sports.

Rivera was quick enough to field the hard ground ball last night and he made a difficult throw to second base look easy. It was right on target. Cano caught it and threw to first in one smooth motion,  in time for a game-ending double play. Close play. Yanks got the call.

The Yankee players smiled as they gathered to shake hands. Smiled at an old man who still has a few moments left. He was smiling too.

And so were we.

Bill Gallo, the longtime cartoonist for the New York Daily News died yesterday. He was 88.

Filip Bondy has a loving tribute today in the News. And here is Lupica, delivering the goods:

This newspaper, the Daily News newspaper, was born in 1919, and Gallo was born in 1922 and first walked through the doors as a copy boy and into the rest of his life in 1941. He was more the Daily News than anybody who ever lived. He would keep drawing his pictures. He would keep telling his stories through those pictures to the end. We hear all the time about how the newspaper business is supposed to be dying. Nobody ever told Bill Gallo, even as he was.

“The News is the only life I ever really knew once I got back from the war,” he told me one time, not so long after I first walked through the doors of the old offices on 42nd St., between 2nd and 3rd, that famous globe in the lobby. “And it’s the only life I ever wanted.”

…He was a friend to anybody who ever opened this newspaper and cared about it. And so today, one last time, you open the paper and there is Bill Gallo. There is Bertha and old Steingrabber, and Yuchie and Thurman Munson the day after he died. There is the work of those pens and pencils and brushes. The right hand reaches out one last time, across all the years, and the business is alive and so is he.

Here is a gallery of Gallo’s work.

The News, and New York Sports, will not be the same without him.

In the top of the seventh inning, David Robertson walked Matt Treanor to load the bases with only one out. The score was 3-1 Yanks, but Robertson did not seem to have good command of his fastball and the game was on the line. That’s when Larry Rothschild sprint-trotted to the mound (check the grass for scorch marks) and saved the game. With the aid of slow-motion replay and the lip-reading techniques listed on Wikipedia, I captured his motivational speech verbatim.

“Young Robertson,” he began “what afflicts thee?”

Roberston could be seen lowering his head. He didn’t have a ready answer.

“Ho, man, return my gaze and steel thyself,” he continued. “From yonder perch I observed this right arm lagging through the delivery and sailing offerings high into the ether, but now that I have ventured forth I see it is not an arm at all, but a thunderbolt! Who among these hapless mortals with their paltry wooden clubs can meet a thunderbolt and send it back with equal force? None, I vouch, except maybe Butler, but he’s not due up until the eighth.”

Robertson lifted his chin at this point and you can see Martin give him a “WTF is he talking about” kind of look if you pause it just at the right moment. But Robertson didn’t notice.

“That is not all,” Rothschild confided as he glanced sideways at the upcoming batter. “Once you have established the thunderbolt and you feel the fear in their hearts, rotate your hand thusly, cock thy wrist and turn this crude ball into a twisting mirage. It will appear to him at first in the middle, but when he strikes, it will disappear completely from his sight. I entrust you with the magics of my people, young Robertson. Now go forth and conquer.”

Then he spit on the ground to consecrate the pitching area. To complete the ritual, we’ll assume Francisco Cervelli sacrificed his kitten in the clubhouse. The YES cameras really dropped the ball on that one.

Sufficiently roused by the visit, Robertson proceeded to strike out Escobar on one of the most beautiful curve balls you’ll ever see. And then for good measure, he struck out the next guy too on another wicked deuce. I didn’t think Getz went around, but he certainly deserved to be out by that point. He was just taking emergency hacks trying to stay alive. But between the thunderbolt and the mirage, he didn’t have a chance.

That was basically that, as Rivera and Chamberlain faced only six more batters and the Royals never threatened again. Yankees 3 – Royals 1. Mariano allowed a hit and went to three balls on the two other hitters he faced. But he whiffed Hosmer and then started a spectacular game-ending double play.

Jeter continues to get some non-infield hits. Alex Rodriguez emerged briefly from his funk to guide the game-winning hit up the middle in the fifth. Swisher made a run-saving catch in the top of that inning and Freddy Garcia continues to get the job done. I’m glad they won this one because every time they lose a good game from Garcia or Colon, I feel like they’re burning found money. And hey, Melky hit a home run. Got that out of the way, now he can go 0 for the rest of the series.

The Royales with Cheese are in town for a three game series and they are an improved team.

Cliff has the series preview.

We kick back and cheer:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Over at PB, Jay Jaffe looks at Brett Gardner’s turnaround:

Gardner has reached base in 10 out of his last 11 starts. As hitting coach Kevin Long said last week, “He’s turned it around. He’s had several good games as of late, and he seems like the Brett Gardner we saw last year. Getting on base, causing havoc, playing great defense.” More specifically, Long noted that Gardner had shifted in the batter’s box: “Basically he moved up closer to the plate. In a nutshell they were pitching him away, and he was coming out of his swing and not able to stay tight and compact on the outside pitch. So he’s moved up on the plate, and that’s helped him a great deal.”

Tellingly, Gardner’s strikeout-to-walk ratio in those two small samples has improved, from 14/4 in the first to 10/10 in the second, and so has his rate of pitches per plate appearance, from 4.13 during his cold spell to 4.46 in his hot one. Overall, he ranks eighth in the league in P/PA at 4.30, down from last year’s league-leading 4.61, though that figure had more than a little something to do with his midseason wrist injury. Interestingly enough, the remade Curtis Granderson currently ranks a surprising second in the AL at 4.48 P/PA.

[Picture by Joseph Holmes]

For all the hand-wringing regarding Derek “4-3ter” Jeter, the Yanks are getting even less out of their DH, mainly in the form of Jorge Posada.

Posada’s current .152/.257/.354 line in 113 plate appearances is ugly enough.  Of the 173 players who have amassed at least that many plate appearances this season, Posada ranks dead last in batting average (Kelly Johnson is next in line, at a comparatively gaudy .175), tenth-lowest in OBP (though still higher than the $142 million man Carl Crawford’s .250), and 118th-best in slugging (between Michael Cuddyer and the recently-exiled Milton Bradley).

If we consider only DHs, Posada fares no better. Of the DHs with 75 or more plate appearances, Posada is last (out of 13) in BA, next-to-last in OBP (ahead of only Magglio Ordonez) and fifth-worst in slugging.  And its not like its all about age, as 4 other DHs are 37 years old.

We all know that offense is down again in 2011, and DHs are not immune to this, as they’ve hit a composite .257/.339/.394 so far.  But the question remains, could someone (anyone) provide more offense for a role that is ONLY about offense?

We know the Jeter slippery slope towards (and below) mediocrity still has a while to play out.   The Yanks have no better internal option in the near-term.  But what about Posada?  The Yanks owe him nothing after this season, and swallowing the remainder of his 2011 salary (roughly another $11 million) would certainly sting a bit, even for the Steinbrenners.  But the Yanks do have a viable DH option down in Triple A, and we all know Jesus Montero’s value is heavily tilted towards his bat.

Looking forward towards the July 31 trade deadline, promoting Montero to full-time DH now would allow for roughly 70 games/280 at-bats to showcase what he can do at the major league level.  Assuming the Yanks will throw enough money at Russell Martin to bring him back for 2012 (when he’ll still be only 29), Montero can be safely dealt for whatever needs the Yanks may have at that time (starting pitching most likely, and middle infield help better than Pena and Nunez).

Or . . . the Yanks could hold onto Montero through the end of the year (presuming he’s putting up a 800+ OPS), and then value the free agent market before involving him in a deal.

Rob Neyer wonders the same wonder as I do, and comes down on the status quo side:

. . . nearly all of Montero’s value as a hitter this season is due to his batting average … and batting average is highly subject to luck. Which isn’t to say Montero’s not a high-average hitter; he’s got a .315 career batting average in the minors. But he might not really be a .337 hitter in Class AAA, and he might not be a .300 hitter in the American League. And given the paucity of walks and power, if he’s not hitting .300 he’s not creating many runs. Not yet, anyway.

That said, I do not think the timing is a real issue. Since when do the Yankees care about someone’s “Super 2” status? Plus, the rules regarding such things might well be different after this season, since they’re a part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that expires soon. What the Yankees probably do care about is Montero’s development. Do they want a 21-year-old catcher serving as their primary DH? Alternatively, do they want their primary catcher learning on the job, while Russell Martin or someone else is DHing?

No, probably not.

Opinions?

Sweet SI cover this week…

Couple of days of hubba hubba.

[Picture by Jean-Francois Jonvelle]