Blog Archives

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Do you remember what it was like to be ten years old, to grip a bat in your hand and mimic your favorite player’s batting stance as you stared out at the pitcher?  Everything stopped for that moment as you used the bat to gently stir the air behind your head and the pitcher stared in at the target, contemplating his next pitch.  The beautiful thing about baseball is that most of us can relate to that moment.

More importantly, you can relate to the dream.  You can imagine how it would feel to pull on a major league jersey for the first time, to step up to the plate against a major league pitcher and simply do what you’ve done hundreds of thousands of times — put the bat on the ball and run to first base.  When the ball finds the grass you take a professional turn around first and then do your best to look calm and nonchalant as you head back to the bag and casually bump fists with the first base coach, all the while watching out of the corner of your eye to be sure that the ball finds its way into your dugout.  And then if you’re lucky, you look up into the stands and you see your mother and father in the crowd.  They’re easy to spot, because they’re the ones who are jumping and cheering with tears in their eyes, no doubt thinking of all the skinned knees, all the games of catch, all the Little League games, and all the trips to the batting cages that led to this one base hit.  In that moment, it doesn’t matter if any of it happens again, only that it happened once.

There are a lot of reasons why I love baseball, but moments like these are high on the list.  Basketball players don’t care much about their first basket, and I’m guessing that even quarterbacks forget their first touchdowns, but there seems to be something magical about a player’s first hit.  Every once in a while, like Tuesday night in Arizona, we get to share in that moment.

(more…)

Nathan Denette/Associated Press

So if you’re just waking up and wondering how things went with the Yankees while you were sleeping, I don’t have a lot of good news to report.  It all started out okay, as A.J. Burnett retired the first two Arizona hitters relatively quickly, prompting Michael Kay to wonder aloud if Burnett would be able to have a 1-2-3 first inning, which would be his first in nine starts.  Justin Upton ended the suspense almost immediately by rocketing a 430-foot home run to straight-away center field.  But that was only the beginning.  Following Upton’s blast, five more hitters paraded to the plate with these results: single, single, home run, home run, double.  Thankfully the game was being played under National League rules, so Burnett was able to stop the damage by striking out pitcher Rodrigo López, but it was already 5-0.

Burnett started the second inning the same as he had the first, by retiring Kelly Johnson and Stephen Drew, but with two outs and the bases empty, the Diamondbacks had him right where they wanted him.  Upton singled and promptly came home on a long double by Miguel Montero, bumping the lead to six.

The third inning was uneventful, but Burnett returned to his pattern in the fourth, retiring Johnson and Drew just as he had in the first and second innings.  Upton drew a walk, stole second, then came home on a Montero single to put Arizona up by a touchdown.  Burnett would retire the next hitter to escape without further damage, but it would still be the end of his night.  Four innings pitched, nine hits, seven runs, three home runs — and all of that came after two were out in the inning.

Rodrígo López, meanwhile, was making like Greg Maddux.  He kept the Yankee hitters off balance all night long by changing speeds (sound familiar?) and throwing strikes.  He was so efficient, in fact, that 12 of the first 15 Yankee hitters started out with strike one, and ten of those twelve were called strikes.  Brett Gardner managed four base hits (a slap to left, a drag bunt, and two other infield singles), but everyone else seemed to be just missing all night long.  Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, and Alex Rodríguez seemed to end each at bat by tossing their bats away in frustration.

Even so, they were able to scratch out three runs to cut the lead to 7-3 while Chad Gaudin held down the fort with two scoreless innings of relief.  Chan Ho Park follwed up with a scoreless seventh, and there were two moments when a big hit could’ve cut the lead down to something more manageable, but it never quite happened.  CHP ran into some trouble in the eighth, putting two men on with two outs.  (Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before.)  Facing Upton, Park jumped out to an 0-2 advantage, but then quickly worked himself into a full count.  Apparently worried about walking Upton, Park instead called timeout and ran into the dugout.  He returned with a batter’s tee, set it down on home plate, placed the ball on the tee, and got out of the way.  Upton deposited the ball 408 feet away in the left field stands, and the game was over.  Diamondbacks 10, Yankees 4.

In other news, the Yankees decided that Phil Hughes will be skipped when his turn comes up this Friday. It’s probably a good thing, since the off-days allow them to move everyone else up without having to pitch on short rest, and it will help keep Hughes’s innings down.  But coming when it did, while the team’s worst starter continued to spiral downward, it was troubling to learn that its best starter wouldn’t be back on the mound for more than a week.

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

It’s June, so we can stop worrying about CC Sabathia.  The Yankees were 2-4 when he took the mound in May, but they’ve won all four of his June starts as CC has posted a fairly imposing line: 29 IP, 21 H, 8 R, 7 BB, 22 K, 2.48 ERA, 0.97 WHIP.  A week after beating Roy Halladay (who pitches as if having returned to Krypton when he faces the American League), Sabathia faced and defeated another ace, the Mets’ Johan Santana.  During his eight scoreless innings, Sabathia allowed six base runners, only four of whom made it to second base.  It might not make sense to say that he wasn’t dominant, but he was pretty close.

The Yankee offense was able to do just enough against Santana to secure Sabathia’s eighth win.  Scanning the box score, you might notice a third-inning explosion, but here’s what really happened.  Brett Gardner led off by slicing a single to left (and really, it’s only a matter of time before Michael Kay begins describing hits like this as “Gardnerian”), and Jeter followed with a dribbler to the left side that David Wright was unable to handle cleanly.  Nick Swisher then dropped a beautiful push bunt towards second and was able to reach safely, loading the bases for Mark Teixeira.

Normally, this is a great situation.  Bases loaded, nobody out, the three and four hitters due up.  The problem, though, is that right now I have absolutely no confidence in either Teixeira or Alex Rodríguez, and I braced myself for the worst.  Watching live as Teixeira took a ball and then a strike, I figured he would probably just strike out.  My next thought, though, was this: “He’s probably gonna hit a grand slam just to piss me off.”  And then he deposited the next pitch into the left field stands.  I can’t explain why it pissed me off, it just did.

But that was all the Yanks needed, as the 4-0 lead held up. First place feels good.

Mike Stobe/Getty Images

Let’s do this backwards.  The Yankees beat the Astros 9-3 on Saturday afternoon.  Saturday was a busy day, what with my daughter’s volleyball game in the morning and a museum trip in the afternoon, so I had to TiVo the game for later, as I often do.  I always try to avoid the score, which isn’t usually difficult considering that I’m in California, not New York City, but it didn’t work today.

Someone put the TV on when we got back from volleyball, and even though I was in the kitchen, I still heard Michael Kay talking about a 6-2 Yankee lead.  And when we stopped for lunch after the museum, our table was facing a giant television tuned to ESPNews, which cycled through the highlights of the win twice during our meal.  No biggie.

As it turns out, it’s incredibly relaxing to sit down and watch a game when you know good things are going to happen.  So while you were all worrying about Javier Vazquez, I sat down at about 10:oo PM California time with supreme confidence in him, and he didn’t disappoint.  Sure, he gave up 852 feet of home runs (to Hunter Pence in the 2nd and Carlos Lee in the 6th), but aside from that Vazquez was good enough — and has been good enough — that A.J. Burnett is starting to look an awful lot like a long reliever come October.

Let’s look at some numbers.  Since being skipped in the rotation back in early May, Vazquez has started six times and produced this stat line: 39.2 IP, 25 H, 13 R, 37 K, 12 BB, 2.95 ERA, 0.93 WHIP.  (This doesn’t include his relief appearance against Boston.)  I know what you’re thinking — he’s been doing this against patsies, and his one bad outing came against the best team he faced last month, the Minnesota Twins.  You’re free to think that.  All I know is that I trust him an awful lot more than Burnett at this point.

But back to the game.  Derek Jeter led off the game with a big home run to left (his 24th lead-off home run, tying Rickey Henderson atop the Yankee list), and after the Astros took the lead back with single runs in the second and third, the Bombers answered back with five runs in the third, highlighted by Jorge Posada’s opposite field grand slam into the bleachers in right.  Much has been made of Posada’s dislike of his current DH role, and some have cited it as a possible reason for his recent struggles, but he looked comfortable enough on Saturday.

Posada’s home run was a milestone of sorts, the 250th of his career, which prompted the obligatory graphic listing the top totals in Yankee history.  Posada sits tied with Graig Nettles at #7, soon to be passed by Alex Rodríguez, who’s four behind in the ninth spot.  What’s surprizing about the list, though, is that Jeter is in tenth place.  He hit his second home run of the game in the sixth, a three-run shot to right, bringing his career total to a respectable 232.  Also of note, Jeter now has 3,001 career base hits — but only if you count the 175 he’s gotten in the postseason.  With 2,826 hits, the Captain is bearing down on hallowed ground.

Finally, a quick look at the team in general.  When I wrote my recap of the pork chop game back in late May, I pointed out that the Yankees were about to start a sixteen-game stretch against a group of mediocre teams.  In my head (but not in print), I was hoping for twelve wins out of those sixteen.  As it stands now, with only Sunday’s game remaining from those sixteen, the Yanks have won eleven of fifteen and sliced their deficit in the East from 4.5 games to only one.  Wouldn’t it be cool if they got that extra win on Sunday and pulled into a tie for the lead?  We can only hope…

Photo by Abelimages/Getty Images

I have to admit that for much of this weekend’s series in Toronto, I wasn’t at all convinced that the series was even happening.  Sure, Michael Kay never crosses the border, but with Bob Lorenz in the booth, I was starting to imagine Capricorn One conspiracy theories.  Were these games scripted by YES?  Was I just watching a collage of highlight footage spackled together to look like an actual game?  Did Bud Selig know what was going on?  And the biggest question of all — if they really were scripting the action, why couldn’t they have at least written in a few hits for Mark Teixeira?

Ah, but I kid.  Now to the game.  For much of Sunday afternoon, the hitters were mere bystanders as Brandon Morrow and Javier Vazquez took turns making them look foolish.  There was no scoring on either side for the first five innings, and the Blue Jays didn’t get their first base hit until Vernon Wells ended the drama (dramatically) with a no-doubt two-run home run to left, putting the Jays up 2-0.

As good as Vazquez was in the early going, Morrow was even better.  He gave up only four hits and a walk, and at no point during the first seven innings did it ever look like the Yankees had a shot, mainly because of an unhittable fastball that was clocking between 95 and 97 all day long.  I hate to bring this up, but Brandon Morrow is what Joba Chamberlain was supposed to be when he grew up.  Projected as top of the rotation starters, both pitchers arrived in the majors in 2007 (Morrow was in Seattle back then) and brought their high octane stuff to the bullpen.  Morrow had an extra year of experience, but he wasn’t nearly as effective as Joba.  Since arriving in Toronto this year Morrow has worked exclusively as a starter, and if what we saw today is any indication, he’s in the right spot.

In the eighth inning, though, he was in the wrong spot.  Even though he had thrown 104 pitches through those dominant seven innings, Morrow came out to start the eighth and plunked lead-off hitter Francisco Cervelli.  Toronto manager Cito Gaston immediately replaced Morrow with Scott Downs, who then drilled Brett Gardner to put the tying runners on base with nobody out and the top of the order due up.  As you might expect, this is when things got interesting.

With Derek Jeter facing a 1-1 count, Downs through a pitch which may or may not have tailed off the outside edge of the plate.  Home plate umpire Bruce Dreckman called the pitch a strike, but Jeter disagreed as vigorously as he ever will.  The field mikes at Rogers Centre were fairly sensitive all game long, so you could easily hear his disgust: “That was not a strike!”  After pursuing the issue a while and repeating his opinion about the pitch, Jeter shook his head, stepped back into the box, and lined a double down the right field line, cutting the deficit in half.

Nick Swisher came up next and quickly found himself down in the count, 1-2.  Desperately needing a strikeout, new pitcher Jason Frasor went for the kill on the next pitch, bouncing a splitter that Swisher couldn’t resist.  Swisher started his swing, and replays clearly showed that the checked it, but Dreckman punched him out, ruling that he had swung at the pitch.  (Somewhere in Cincinnati, Paul O’Neill put his shoe through the television screen.)  For his part, Swisher was incredulous, immediately pointing down at third base to ask for an appeal that would never come.  Joe Girardi had seen enough — enough of Dreckman, enough of the Blue Jays, maybe even enough of Canada — so he came out with the clear intention of getting kicked out.  He even left his hat behind in the dugout, something I don’t remember ever seeing.  What followed was the fastest ejection in history.  Girardi pushed Swisher out of the way, asked Dreckman, “Are you shitting me?” and that was that.  Showers.

So with one out and the tying and go-ahead runs on second and third and Alex Rodríguez in the on-deck circle, Cito Gaston, of course, decided to walk Mark Teixeira and his .211 batting average.  (And by the way, isn’t it time to start thinking about dropping Teixeira in the order?  I wouldn’t mind seeing Canó in the three hole with Teixeira hitting sixth.  But I digress…)  Gardner brought home the tying run on a wild pitch, and A-Rod struck out, failing for the first time in that situation, bringing Robinson Canó up with two on and two out and the score tied.  Canó took one pitch then lined the next into left, scoring two for a 4-2 lead.

Joba Chamberlain came in to start the eighth inning, and even though the box score says he gave up two hits and a run, that’s a bit deceptive.  José Molina led off with a double off Curtis Granderson’s glove, a drive that Gardner would’ve caught easily, and Fred Lewis’s RBI single was just a high-hopper that bounded through the middle of the infield.  Joba recovered nicely enough to get Aaron Hill to ground into a double play, and his day was done.  I’m doing my best to think positively about him.

There was a little drama as Mariano Rivera came in mistakenly (and was sent back) after that double play even though acting manager Tony Peña had asked for Damaso Marte, but he came back again in the ninth and used only five pitches to close out the 4-3 Yankee win.  Oh, and in case you’re wondering about A-Rod, who was lifted for Ramiro Peña in ninth, he’s okay.

Next stop: Baltimore.

Alright, enough is enough. Three runs in twenty-three innings? Roll, Score Truck, roll!

Let’s go, Yan-Kees!

Photo by Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated

When I started coaching middle school basketball nineteen years ago, my knowledge for the game didn’t extend much beyond what I had learned from playing pick-up ball in college — which means that I knew almost nothing.  I haunted the practices of the best local coaches, spent most Friday nights in sweaty high school gyms, and attended coaching clinics whenever and wherever I could find them.  One of the best was at UCLA during the Steve Lavin era.  Lavin spoke for a while, as did Pete Newell and Purdue’s Gene Keady.  The biggest draw, though, was John Wooden.

Keady and Lavin worked from prepared speeches as they paced back in forth in front of elaborate diagrams to illustrate their points, but in a concession to their advanced ages — both men were in their eighties at the time — Wooden and Newell took their turns seated side-by-side in folding chairs, prepared to take questions from the audience.  What’s the best simple drill to help post players?  Which fast break strategy works best for a small team? The two coaches took turns answering the questions that appealed to one’s strength or the other’s, Newell speaking into a microphone clipped neatly to his lapel, but Wooden holding his stubbornly in his hand after a UCLA staffer had twice failed to attach it properly.

Finally, someone asked a question that truly sparked the Wizard of Westwood’s interest.  How do you teach your players to defend the pick and roll properly? Wooden hopped out of his chair and the cadence of his voice quickened as he begin to explain.  Realizing that  his words weren’t enough, he stepped out onto the court and began pantomiming the defensive steps.  The problem, of course, was the microphone.  He still held it in his hand, so when he thought about it and held it close enough to his mouth, we could hear his lecture.  But when he extended his arms and dropped into a stance, suddenly losing at least three decades from his true age as he slid around or dropped below an imaginary screen, he became almost impossible to hear.

There were several hundred coaches sitting in the stands, but we were absolutely silent.  We heard only half of what he was saying, but those words were still golden.  This wasn’t just a coach.  Somehow, it was more than just a coach who had won ten national championships.  This was Moses coming down from the mountain.  Every coach in that arena, ranging from me to Gene Keady, had quoted John Wooden to young players who couldn’t possibly know who he was.  We had all studied his Pyramid of Success.  I even admonish my own children, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”  And so when Coach Wooden finished answering the pick and roll question, he sat down to an appreciative round of applause.  We had heard only about half of what he had said, but it didn’t really matter.  We had been in the presence of greatness, and that was enough.

John Wooden passed away on Friday evening, leaving behind hundreds of loyal former players, thousands of devoted coaching protégés, and millions of adoring fans.  This is a national story, certainly, as Wooden’s death will likely dominate the headlines of every sports page outside of Chicago and Philadelphia on Saturday morning, but nowhere has the news hit harder than here in Southern California.  Baseball announcers will likely discuss Wooden throughout their Saturday telecasts, and you can bet that every coach and manager will be asked about John Wooden’s influence.  You’ll hear about how he taught his players the right way to roll their socks and tie their shoes, how he wouldn’t allow Bill Walton to grow a beard, and, inevitably, how he strung together 88 consecutive wins.

I hope they also tell the most important stories, about how he came to UCLA instead of the University of Minnesota because he had made a promise — not signed a contract.  About how he never complained while earning only $32,000 a year while many of his peers were paid six-figure salaries.  Or, most importantly, about how for the past twenty-five years he marked the passing of his wife Nellie by sitting down each month to write her a love letter.

We’ll miss you, Coach, but Nellie is waiting.  Be quick, but don’t hurry.

Okay, let’s start with the good news.  At 28-19, the Yankees have the second-best record in all of baseball, tied with the San Diego Padres, if you can believe it.

Now for the bad news, which will take a bit more than one sentence to describe.  On Wednesday the Yankees made like bullies, calmly taking the Twins’ lunch money yet again as they swept a makeshift double header.  Just a day later, though, things don’t look quite as good.

Problem number one is that this team suddenly can’t score any runs.  Derek Jeter led off the game with a single, then dashed to third on Mark Teixeira’s single two batters later.  You could make the argument that even though we were only ten minutes into the action, this was the biggest moment of the game.  With Javier Vazquez on the mound, a pitcher who has been, shall we say, less than dominant this year, it was probably important to get off to a quick start.  It didn’t even need to be a big inning; just a 1-0 lead would have done wonders.  And with Alex Rodríguez coming up with runners at first and third and only one out, even a lazy sac fly would do.  Instead, A-Rod tapped weakly to short and produced a 6-3 double play to end the inning.

When presented with the exact same scenario in the bottom half of the inning — first and third and one out — Justin Morneau did his job and lofted a fly ball to centerfield, easily scoring Orlando Hudson to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.

The game was essentially over right then and there, but since they played eight more innings, I’ll give you the highlights — or lowlights, as the case may be.  The first thing you need to know is that Javy Vazquez was awful, as you might guess from this line: 5.2 IP, 8H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 2K.  The second thing you need to know is that he was actually worse than that.  Included in those eight hits were four doubles, a triple, and a home run, and there wasn’t a cheapie in the bunch.  It seemed like every ball the Twins hit off Vazquez was a rocket, even the outs.  As shaky as his confidence already seemed to be, it will be interesting to see how he bounces back from this.

Jason Kubel, who had already driven in a run with a second-inning double, led off the sixth inning with a monstrous home run to right, stretching the Minnesota lead to 5-2.  Vazquez lasted another two batters, but he was a dead man walking at that point.  Joe Girardi brought in Chan Ho Park with two outs, and was just as effective as you might think, giving up a harmless single before closing out the sixth but then starting the seventh by walking Joe Mauer and giving up a single to Morneau before Girardi lifted him for Damaso Marte.  Marte got his man (Jim Thome), and Girardi brought in our old friend Chad Gaudin with two on and one out, hoping to keep the game close.

It didn’t work.  After Michael Cuddyer struck out, That Man Kubel came up and rocked a home run into the Land of Pork Chops on Sticks.  8-2, Twins.

So now that it’s all said and done, I’m left with three burning questions, and I’d appreciate some answers.

1. Why is that when I watch televised games from Target Field, it still looks like the games are being played indoors?

2. When will the Yankees start scoring runs again?

3. Exactly how many beers does it take to convince someone that it would be a good idea to sneak up and take a bite out of a pork chop in Kim Jones’s hand while she is using it as a prop during a live shot?

As we wrap this up, let’s end with something positive.  Take a look at the next sixteen games:

4 games vs. Cleveland (17-28)
3 games vs. Baltimore (15-33)
3 games @ Toronto (27-22)
3 games @ Baltimore (15-33)
3 games vs. Houston (16-31)

I see you out there on the ledge.  You watched Thursday night’s game with the Rays right up to the bitter end, then unfolded your life insurance policy, placed it neatly on the kitchen table, and calmly opened the window and took a seat next to the pigeons.  Or maybe I’m wrong; maybe I’m the only one on that ledge.

I put the TV on about five minutes after Andy Pettitte’s first pitch, and the screen came to life just in time to show me Carl Crawford and Ben Zobrist returning to the Tampa dugout, celebrating Zobrist’s home run and the Rays’ early 3-0 lead.  Pettitte followed that with a walk to Evan Longoria, but bounced back by getting a double-play ball and a strikeout to end the frame.  He made it through the second and third without event, but then gave up another home run to B.J. Upton in the fourth.  He clearly wasn’t sharp.

The Yankee hitters did their best to keep up through the early innings, but even when the score was close it was only a mirage.  Juan Miranda cut the lead to 3-2 with a second-deck two-run blast in the second inning, but the next couple runs were gift-wrapped, one unearned and the other undeserved.  In the third, Derek Jeter followed a Randy Winn single by dropping a sacrifice bunt that rolled untouched between the mound and third base.  Brett Gardner followed that with another bunt (natch), but this one produced a run when James Shields fired it over Peña’s head and down the right field line.  With none out, runners on second and third, and Teixeira, A-Rod, and Canó on the way, it really did look like the game was about to change.  As it turned out, Shields could’ve pulled a Satchel Paige and called his fielders in.  He snagged a tapper back to the mound from Teixeira, struck out A-Rod on a change-up that bounced in front of the plate, and fanned Canó on three pitches.  Move along.

If you were following the game on-line, you probably raised your eyebrows in the fourth inning when you read something like, “J Miranda tripled to deep center.”  The truth of the matter was that Miranda lifted a gentle fly ball that center fielder Upton never saw.  Upton immediately stood with both arms outstretched, asking for help that could never get there in time, as Miranda sprinted around second and slid into third.  Two batters later Randy Winn cashed in Upton’s gift with a sacrifice fly, tying the game at four apiece.

The tie score didn’t last long as a couple Tampa hits and a walk led to two more runs in the fifth, and Carlos Peña finally sent Pettitte to the showers when he led off the sixth with a home run.  If you’re looking for a silver lining in all this, it comes to you in the person of David Robertson, who relieved Pettitte and retired all six batters he faced in the sixth and seventh, striking out four of them.  The bad news, though, is that Chan Ho Park followed Robertson and allowed an eighth Tampa run, making the Yankees’ nightly ninth inning comeback attempt just a bit more difficult.  They could only manage two runs, settling for an 8-6 loss.

So the Rays leave town, surely pleased with themselves, and the Yanks are left with questions.  But it’s not as bad as it looks.  The Mets are up next, and they could be just what the doctor ordered.

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

I’ve long ago made peace with the fact that I cannot simply brush off Yankee losses, even in April or May. I am invested, so each defeat carries a sting. The good news, though, is that there’s always another game waiting around the corner and the team is usually at or near the top of the standings. I mourn, I recover, I move on.

But every once in a while a game comes along that cuts a bit deeper; Sunday was one of those games. It started out fine, of course, as the Yankees led 3-1 after six. Worked well for me, since my parents were in town and the kids were eagerly showing off their bike-riding skills outside. I could join the fun in the front yard, comfortable knowing that the bullpen would somehow stumble through the seventh before handing off to Joba in the eighth and Mo in the ninth.

But of course, it didn’t work that way. I managed to sneak in just in time to catch Joba walking off the mound after loading the bases, but I was only mildly concerned. Rivera was on the way, and everything would be fine. Soon enough, it wasn’t.

The thing about baseball, is that we get used to failure. Derek Jeter is my favorite player, a player who has come through in big situations an awful lot in his career, but when he came up as the tying run in the ninth inning, I can’t honestly say that I expected victory. I hoped, but I did not assume.

It’s different with Mariano. He might not be favorite player, but he is the one I expect to succeed every single time. Game 4 in Cleveland, Game 7 in Arizona, and Games 4 and 5 in Boston are all burned into my psyche, but even when taken together, those four games can never outweigh all of the other evidence telling me that Rivera is invincible.

So when Rivera is touched for a loss the way he was on Sunday, it amounts to much more than just a loss in the standings. It shakes me to my core, calling into question all that I believe in. The game itself becomes secondary as I struggle to make sense of what I’ve just seen: Mariano has failed.

Greater writers than I have tried to explain the wonders of Mariano Rivera; rather than attempting to improve upon them, I’ll use the words of the greatest writer of all time. Mariano “is an ever-fixed mark that looks upon tempests and is never shaken; [he] is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.” Sure, Shakespeare was talking about true love, but when it comes right down to it, is there any greater love than Mo?

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

If you’ve been married for any length of time, you know you have to choose your battles.  You rent the romantic comedy instead of the Tarantino flick, you hang the picture in the hallway during halftime of the football game, and you smile when she asks to share your dessert.  You have to draw the line somewhere, though, and it seems like most of us take our stand with the comfort items.  It could be a beat up chair, a worn pair of jeans, or an old pair of shoes.

Andy Pettitte is an old pair of shoes.  He’s been doing this so long that it’s expected and surprising all at the same time.  Sure, the stubble on the jaw is a gun-metal grey now, and his three-year business trip to Houston kind of puts an asterisk on Michael Kay’s constant references to the Core Four, but this is still Andy Pettitte.  So when he rattled off eight effective innings on Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, Pettitte looked just like the guy we saw back in 2009 or 2003 or 1996.

He allowed two runs in the third inning on a single, a sacrifice, a double, and another single, but he was coldly effective the rest of the way.  He walked Ryan Garko with one out in the fourth, then settled in to retire the next twelve Texas hitters, highlighted by the sixth and seventh innings when he needed only fifteen pitches total to record the six outs.

On the other side of the efficiency coin was Texas starter Rich Harden.  Harden’s been on my fantasy team for the past couple seasons, so I’ve seen this game about a thousand times.  His stuff is great, far better than Pettitte’s, so he was able to strike out five hitters in only three and two-thirds innings, but the the problem was that he also gave up six walks and five base hits.  The strikeouts and walks would naturally lead to a high pitch count, but here’s a hidden stat that doomed Harden: Yankee hitters fouled off 22 of his pitches; Ranger batters managed only three foul balls during Pettitte’s eight innings.

Meanwhile, the Yankees cobbled together five runs with a sacrifice fly here, a bloop single there, and a couple of home runs, only one of which is interesting enough to talk about here.  The struggling Mark Teixeira hit his first home run of the season, and as he rounded the bases in his usual high-stepping trot, looking like a man running through three feet of snow, I wondered if he might finally be coming around.  I know we all know that Teixeira starts slowly, but just as a reminder, I looked it up.  Take a look at where he was on the morning of April 19th in each the past several years.  (And to make you feel better, I’ve included his finishing slash stats as well.)

2003: .149/.216/.298 — .259/.331/.480
2004: Injured in April — .281/.370/.560
2005: .224/.308/.397 — .301/.379/.575
2006: .321/.410/.528 — .282/.371/.514
2007: .204/.339/.224 — .306/.400/.563
2008: .203/.282/.375 — .308/.410/.552
2009: .194/.333/.548 — .292/.383/.565
2010: .114/.291/.205 — ????/????/????

The numbers don’t lie.  Sooner or later, he’ll be fine.  The hitters say that sometimes one swing is all it takes to find what’s been missing; here’s hoping that Big Tex has found it.  But back to our game…

Everything ended when another pair of comfortable shoes, Mariano Rivera, trotted in from the dugout and closed things out with a spotless ninth inning. Yankees 5, Rangers 2.  As noted everywhere, the Yanks have won their first four series, the first time that’s happened since 1926, and all is happy in the Bronx.

AP Photo/Mike Carlson

You know how they always tell us that cycles are just as rare as no-hitters and should be appreciated as such?  Nonsense.  Cycles are nice, but they’re really just gimmicks.  A no-hitter, though, is history, and CC Sabathia was chasing history on Saturday afternoon against the Tampa Bay Rays.

I’m an optimist in all things, especially when it comes to no-hitters, so after CC set down his twelfth straight batter, striking out Ben Zobrist to close out the fourth inning, I started thinking seriously about it and ignoring everything else in my life in favor of the outs piling up in Tampa.  One of those things was my wife, who made the mistake of asking me a question in the bottom of the sixth inning just as Jason Bartlett smoked a line drive that looked ticketed for right field.  Our conversation went like this:

Wife: Do you think we have time to stop at the camera store?

Me: Look at Big Tex!!!

What I probably should’ve said was, “Sure, we can definitely swing by the camera shop, but did you happen to notice the play that Mark Teixeira just made there?  That ball surely looked to be a base hit, but he really showed his Gold Glove form as he laid out to snare that liner.  Jason Giambi, by the way, wouldn’t even have been able to turn his head fast enough to follow the flight of the ball.”  But that’s not what I said.

Only an inning later, we had a similar conversation:

Wife: I’m worried about Alison’s fever.  Do you think we should take her to urgent care?

Me (standing and pumping fist): A-Rod!!!!

The smarter thing would’ve been for me to take my daughter’s temperature, discuss possible treatment options, and then explain that A-Rod’s play was the type of play that every no-hitter seems to have.  B.J. Upton had smashed a one-hop liner that looked to be headed to the left field corner, but A-Rod had dived to his right, hopped nimbly to his feet, and fired across the diamond to nab the speedy Upton by a step and a half.  With only six outs to go and Sabathia looking as strong as the defense behind him, the no-hitter looked extremely possible.

The best part of all this was that the game wasn’t really in doubt, because the Yankee hitters had arrived at the park with the urgency of an innocent man accused.  Robinson Canó can’t hit with runners on base?  He came up with two outs and Teixeira on first and answered that question by launching a home run to deep right, putting the Bombers up 2-0.  Teixeira can’t hit in April?  Tex rapped out his first three hits of the season, including an RBI double in the fourth that stretched the lead to 4-0.  Brett Gardner is an offensive liability?  He faced a team-high 27 pitches, reached base all five times, drove in two, scored twice, and stole a base.  (Some might disagree, but I’d love it if Girardi would send him out there every day for a few weeks, just to see what happens.)

So by the time the Rays came up in the 8th they were already down 8-0, and the only drama revolved around Sabathia and the final six outs.  Willy Aybar led off with a grounder that ricocheted off CC’s pitching hand (gasp!) to Canó who fired to Teixeira for the first out.  Pat Burrell then lofted a fly ball to Curtis Granderson in center, and Sabathia was four outs away; alas, that was as close as he’d get.

His former Cleveland teammate Kelly Shoppach roped a clean single to left, and that was that.  Joe Girardi sprinted out of the dugout immediately, and I imagined that he must’ve spent the entire half-inning crouched in starting blocks, poised to pull Sabathia as soon as possible.  (More on that later.)  The Yankees tacked on a couple more runs in the top of the ninth and David Robertson struck out two while nailing down the final four outs to close out what was almost an historic afternoon.  Yankees 10, Rays 0.

That Shoppach single was about as disappointing as a meaningless April base hit can be.  Even before the ball had been returned to the infield, I found myself wondering about what might’ve been.  I imagined Sabathia setting down Carl Crawford with a letter-high fastball and the celebration that would ensue.  Francisco Cervelli would leap Yogi-style into Sabathia’s arms, the rest of the team would mob them, and A-Rod and Teixeira would struggle to hoist CC’s 290 pounds onto their shoulders.

Post-game interviews, however, would reveal that if Shoppach hadn’t spoiled the no-no, Girardi would have.  As dominant as the big horse had been, umpire Wally Bell’s postage stamp strike zone had helped drive Sabathia’s pitch count up to 109 heading into the Shoppach at bat.  “Watching that pitch count go up and up and up, that was what was on my mind the most.  Shoppach was his last hitter no matter what.”

Sabathia jokingly responded that Girardi would’ve had a fight on his hands had he tried to prevent him from going back out to work the ninth, and if I had been in Tampa, I would have been fighting right alongside him.

People talk about the electricity of a heavyweight title bout, the spectacle of the Super Bowl, or the madness of the NCAA basketball tournament, but for my money there is no greater championship than baseball’s World Series. In those years when we’re lucky enough to see the game’s two best teams engaged in a closely fought series, we witness a battle which stretches out over more than a week as the Series lives and breathes with context and texture unmatched by any other sport’s championship. Because of this, the greatest of these Series live etched in our memory, and even those which were merely good become the subjects of books.

We all remember the ecstasy and the agony (not to mention the Mystique and Aura) of the 2001 World Series; we know the significance of Burt Hooton, Elias Sosa, and Charlie Hough; we’ve mimicked Carlton Fisk’s frantic waving from 1975; and we’ve seen the grainy newsreel footage of Mazeroski’s clinching home run in 1960. Because we are fans of the Game, we feel like we know all there is to know – or at least all we’re supposed to know.

But what if we don’t? Enter Mike Vaccaro and his latest book, The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, the Giants and the Cast of Players, Pugs and Politicos Who Re-Invented the World Series in 1912, an engaging look at a World Series you’ve never heard of. As he describes the Hall of Fame players and personalities on both sides, as well as politicians and gamblers lurking on the sidelines, Vaccaro argues that this was the series that gave the World Series its place in our national psyche. He was kind enough to talk with me about it for a bit recently. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. (Note: As I opened the book, I had no idea of how the Series eventually turned out, and I enjoyed this added suspense. In order to preserve this for any readers who might like a similar experience, the author and I did not discuss the outcome. Where indicated, some of the links will give the result.)

Bronx Banter:  Have you always been a baseball fan? Did you play as a kid?

Mike Vaccaro:  Yeah, absolutely. Baseball was always a pretty important part of my childhood, and now it’s an important part of my adulthood. I played through high school and was never terrible, but never terribly good. Always just enjoyed it. I like to stay close to the game.

BB:  So what teams and players did you follow as a kid?

MV:  I was a Mets fan growing up. Most of my childhood they were awful and then later on they kinda gave us a nice shining moment in ’86, so that was my team growing up, for sure. I was a big Tom Seaver fan, as I’m sure almost all kids of my age were.

BB:  I suppose for a lot of your life you were probably hoping for a career playing baseball. At what point did you decide on a career in journalism?

MV:  When I realized that I not only couldn’t hit the curveball, I couldn’t throw the curveball, I could barely identify a curveball. If I was gonna do anything at all in terms of professional experience, it would have to be from the sidelines in some regard. Writing was something that I enjoyed, so it was a natural marriage.

BB:  Here’s a question that I always look forward to asking journalists: are you still a fan? Can you be a fan – not just of the game, but of the Mets, for example – and a journalist at the same time?

MV:  I’m a fan of the Mets in the sense that when they play well it’s a lot more interesting story to cover, I think. I do think that the occasional train wreck is also an enjoyable story for people to read, but let’s face it – Mets fans would prefer to read stories that have to do with the Mets doing well, just as Yankees fans do also. So I do think that it’s probably fair that when you’re working the press box you root for good stories first before you root for teams or anybody, but I do think they go hand in hand. And I do try to look a little bit through the prism of a sports fan, even though that’s hard to do. You do obviously have access fans don’t have, and so therefore you have to take advantage of that telling your own stories, but I like to think I understand what sports fans bring to the game. I try and have that color my writing. I don’t believe in the complete detachment of emotion when it comes to writing. I know a lot of people like to say, “I hate the games, I don’t like the games, I don’t care about the games,” but I think if you do that, that really informs your writing and I think it really lessens it as well.

BB:  I think I’d agree with that. So with this book, what was your research process like? Where did you get your information, how long were you researching, and when did you sit down to write?

MV:  It was actually a fairly swift process. I suppose one of the good things about writing a book in which all the characters are dead, is that you’re kind of on your own schedule, not anybody else’s schedule. (Laughing.) So it was just a matter of getting my butt to the library, to the archives, to the Hall of Fame, and all these places where you could find the information that I wanted to find. It’s interesting. In a lot of ways it was easier to write a book about that era than it even would be about the 50s or certainly today, because there were so many newspapers, there were so many stories written, there were so many of these players that were first-person reporters in their own right for all these newspapers. It was almost… I won’t say there was too much information, but there was certainly enough there to be able to weave a tale out of it. From the first moment I arrived in the library with a blank notebook trying to start taking notes, to turning in the final manuscript was probably about nine months, start to finish. And the funny part about book publishing is that it actually was longer between turning in the final manuscript and publication than the actual book itself. That’s partly because instead of having a release date earlier in the year they decided on one to coincide with the playoffs, which was a smart marketing decision, I think.

(more…)

Forty-Two
by Hank Waddles

All eyes are drawn to the hero’s routine
The moment he stands and steps into the night.
He pauses so slightly, surveying the scene,
Then readies to rescue his team from its plight.

It starts all at once with a simple steel ball
Whose weight gently pulls on the golden right arm.
The stakes might be high when the manager calls,
But the Great One reveals not a trace of alarm.

He enters the field as the gate opens wide
And runs with head down towards his stage on the mound.
The crowd claps along, watches each graceful stride,
Lets loose a crescendo of glorious sound.

Each pitch he precedes with a bow to third base,
Then lowers his glove and the ball to his belt.
The batter awaits with fear etched on his face,
The outcome assured though the ball’s not been dealt.

They tell us he throws just one pitch, but they lie.
His fastball can cut, disappear, or explode.
Three pitches in one means as hard as they try,
The batters aren’t hitters, they’re outs to unload.

The first goes down quickly, taps back to the mound,
The next is called out by a pitch on the black.
The third out’s foretold by the hideous sound
Of splintering wood as he makes the bat crack.

It’s five hundred times he’s done this before,
Reacting the same at the end of each game.
A nod towards his catcher, beneath the crowd’s roar,
He steps off the mound towards what’s next: Hall of Fame.

Here’s a little something in case you can’t make it out to Brooklyn tonight to hear Larry Tye talk about his new book, Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend. Larry was good enough to spend part of his morning last week talking to me about Satchel Paige and Negro League baseball. Enjoy…

BronxBanter:  Your previous four books dealt with public relations, the Jewish diaspora, Pullman porters, and shock therapy. How did you get from there to Satchel Paige?

Larry Tye:  When I was writing the Pullman porter book, the porters told that of all the extraordinary characters that they had carried on the trains, from Joe Louis to Louie Armstrong to Paul Robeson, their favorite was Satchel Paige. And I had grown up hearing wonderful stories about Satchel as being the guy that every pitcher was compared to, and yet nobody really knew much about Satchel. So the porters really reignited my childhood interest in Satchel, and it seemed like a great time to do it.

BB:  Were you a baseball fan growing up?

LT:  I was. I was a huge Red Sox fan growing up, and every time I would go to a ballgame, my dad, any time there was a great pitcher, would always compare him to Satchel. But when I would ask, “What about Satchel Paige?” nobody really seemed to know much because he had played so much of his career in a shadow world.

BB:  Right, he seems almost like a legend as opposed to a real man with real statistics and real information behind him.

LT:  He did, and sort of every journalist or author out there sort of trying to understand how much of every legend is real, and Satchel seemed a wonderful way to do that.

BB:  I wonder if you could walk me through your process a bit. What kind of research was involved, and at one point did you sit down and start wrting?

LT:  I spent more than a year reading everything that had ever been written about Satchel, which meant looking at references to him or entire books. Probably a hundred books about Satchel or the Negro Leagues or some mention. Tens of thousands of articles from African-American and mainstream newspapers, loads of magazine pieces done over the years, and most importantly interviewing. I interviewed more than two hundred old major leagues and Negro leaguers. So it was partly trying to see what was there in terms of the written evidence, and partly trying to fill in the blanks with first-hand recollections of people who had been there with him, playing with him or against him. It was only after that work was well along, after about a year, that I started writing.

(more…)

For Part One of this Interview, click here:

Bronx Banter:  A Day in the Bleachers. I just read this book for the first time, I want to say about six months ago. I think one of my favorite things about it – obviously I knew about the game, and I knew about The Catch and the other things that come to mind – but I think one of my favorite things was your description of the atmosphere of the game. Looking back fifty years ago, what was it like seeing a game in the Polo Grounds in the ’40s or ’50s?

Arnold Hano:  Well, what it was like seeing a game in the bleachers was the camaraderie. [Showing the covers of three different editions of the book.] When the book first came out, it was a book for fans, about fans. And then the next edition, it’s Willie Mays and fans. And then the next edition it’s just The Catch. But the cover of the first one is truer. This is truly what the book is about.

BB:  Right, right, definitely. It almost seemed like the book was about the fans, and, by the way, Willie Mays made a nice catch.

AH:  That catch, which I spent a lot of time on, took up nine pages in a hundred and sixty page book. And I don’t know if you know about the $700 edition of the book…

BB:  Yes, I read something about that. There was a limited print, and you had signed them all.

AH:  Four hundred copies.

BB:  The other thing, too, about this book is that now, that device that you used, using the game kind of as a prism through which to illuminate either a season or an era or a career, that’s a fairly common device now. But then, I don’t think so, is that right?

AH:  You’re telling me about devices. I wrote a book. I wrote a book about a day, and this is the day.

BB:  What I love about this book is that you’re writing the book and you’re telling what’s happening on the field, and Vic Wertz comes up to bat, and then suddenly you have a two-page segue on Vic Wertz.

AH:  Or on home runs hit by other people for long distances.

BB:  Exactly, exactly.

AH:  Well, I had to fill some space!

BB:  I think that now that’s pretty common. A lot of people use that.

AH:  Part of what E.L. Doctorow said yesterday on television is that writers don’t really realize what it is they’ve written. Critics tell them what they’ve written, but he said, “The result is I never read critics. They tell me things about the book…”

BB:  That perhaps aren’t there, or aren’t intended to be there.

AH:  So when you ask me about a device, I don’t know from the device in this case. I wrote a book about a day, and I filled it in with background stuff. I had to establish myself as writing a book with some reason, so I established myself as somebody who’d seen all these other things. And to that degree, I was an historian of this… thing. But that’s getting beyond where I wanted to go with it. I think of this as a nice little book. Other people think it was something else, but I think it was a nice little book.

BB:  Well, like I said, I don’t know if this was your intention as you wrote it – and it doesn’t sound like you had big intentions – but what I got from it is, I know about that catch, and I knew about that before I picked up the book. But your description of the fans in the bleachers, of what it was like on the field, in the stadium, that’s what I got out of it.

AH:  When I used to go to ballgames, of course, you don’t do this anymore, I used to go very early so I could watch fielding practice. And until a few years ago, I did not know they had suspended fielding practice. I bet the players’ union has done that because they don’t want somebody to break a finger.

BB:  Sometimes you hear people complain about that. You’ll be watching a game and someone will throw to the wrong base and someone will say, “Oh, well, they don’t have fielding practice anymore, and the only time they do that is in spring training…”

AH:  Although when you see a guy like Omar Vizquel pull a backdoor double play. Do you know about that at all? Kenny Lofton was at bat when he was with the Dodgers. Men on first and second and I think there was nobody out. They sent the runners and Lofton hit a one-bouncer to second base. Well, Lofton is about as fast going down from the plate to first base as almost anybody. So when Ray Durham fed Vizquel for the force play, Vizquel had Lofton in his sights, and he knew that he was not gonna throw out Lofton. So he whirled and he threw to third. The guy who had been on second base was playing his first game in the major leagues. He rounded third and goes two or three steps and there’s Pedro Felíz with the ball. The most embarrassed baserunner in the history of baseball – who was sent back to the minors that night! A backdoor double play! It was a 4-6-5 double play. I had never seen it before, and apparently he’s done it more than once. And apparently before that play, a few days before, he had reminded Felíz that this was something he might do. Television followed Vizquel off the field at the end of the half inning, and as he reached the first baseline he broke into laughter. He was so pleased and charmed with what he had just done. It was just a great moment. Now there’s somebody who didn’t need fielding practice.

(more…)

Today’s game recap is brought to you in bits and pieces by the number one.

The number of hits given up by CC Sabathia… So this is what $161 million looks like.  Actually, we’ve been seeing this kind of dominance since the all-star break, but Saturday was special for CC.  Yes, the division is all but clinched, and the overall best record seems in the bag, but when you send your stud to the mound in the last week of September against your biggest rival and potential ALCS opponent and he shuts them down, you have to feel pretty good.  Sabathia set down the first eleven hitters he faced and didn’t allow a hit until the fifth.  He was so flat-out dominant (one hit, two walks, eight Ks) that even though the game was scoreless until the bottom of the sixth, it never once looked like the Yankees might lose this game.

The number of times Boston pitchers retired the Yankees in order… While Sabathia was slicing and dicing his way through the Red Sox, Daisuke Matsuzaka was walking a tightrope all afternoon.  The Yankees put runners in scoring position in each of the first four innings, but they failed to plate any of them.  So when they loaded the bases with no one out in the fifth and Rodríguez, Matsui, and Swisher due up, the dam looked ready to burst.  But then A-Rod dribbled a ball about six feet in front of the plate, Matsui popped one up about six feet behind it, Swish fouled out down the line in left, and the inning was over.  No need to fret, though.  Robby Canó led off the sixth by lining a ball that skipped off the top of the left field wall, giving Sabathia a 1-0 lead.  It was all CC would need.

The number of innings pitched by Phil Hughes… Can I tell you how much I love Phil Hughes?  He relieved Sabathia in the eighth, and after Mark Teixeira helped him out with a phenomenal play, diving to the line to rob J.D. Drew of sure double leading off the inning, Hughes did what he does, striking out Casey Kotchman and Josh Reddick to deliver the game to Mo.

The number of base hits the Yankees had with runners in scoring position… When Billy Wagner — yes, Billy Wagner — struck out Derek Jeter with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the eighth, the Yankees were 0-13 with RISP, and it looked like they might let another golden opportunity slip through their fingers.  But Johnny Damon worked the count full, then blooped a single into right, just over Pedroia and just in front of Drew, good enough for two runs and a 3-0 lead.

The number of wild pitches thrown by Mariano Rivera… Mo started off the ninth by inducing Jacoby Ellsbury to tap back to the mound and fanning Pedroia on three pitches, but then things got a bit interesting.  Victor Martinez singled to right, took second on defensive indifference, and then third on Rivera’s wild pitch.  (I note this because I couldn’t remember this happening very often.  Turns out it hasn’t.  It was only the twelfth of his career, and he actually had a four-year stretch (2003-2006) without a WP.)  Rivera plunked Kevin Youkilis a couple pitches later, but recovered to strike out Lowell to end the game.

Notes:

The number of hits Robinson Canó needs to get to 200… Canó’s homer was his 199th hit of the season.

The number of regular season games left with the Red Sox… The series stands at 9-8 Sox.  A win on Sunday would earn the Yankees a split of the season series, something which looked impossible at the all-star break.

The magic number…

And finally, because you knew it was coming, a little love from the islands.

Part One

You don’t know Arnold Hano. How could you? You live in a world of bullet points and exclamation points, a place where sports writers aspire either to the pomposity of ESPN’s Sports Reporters or to the cacophony of Around the Horn. Where once a journalist would worry about supporting an argument with keen observations or weighty statistics, all that seems necessary now is a good set of lungs to shout down dissenting opinions.

Arnold Hano is more than this. If you do know him, you’ve probably read A Day In The Bleachers, Hano’s account of the first game of the 1954 World Series, or you might’ve read some of the pieces he wrote for Sport Magazine or Sports Illustrated over the ensuing thirty years. If you’re a television watcher, you might have come across some of his profiles in TV Guide, and if you’re a fan of pulp fiction, you’ve undoubtedly read one of his dime store novels.

I knew all this about Mr. Hano before I met him this past February. In some ways, he was exactly what you would expect from an eighty-six year-old man. He was direct, and to the point, and didn’t bother with unnecessary chitchat. We spoke on the phone twice, and when I asked if he’d consent to an interview, he started out by interviewing me. He asked about my interest and questioned my intentions. He wasn’t suspicious, he was just wondering why I wanted to talk to him and if I would be worth his time. Even when we finally agreed on a date, he offered to give me thirty minutes or so, with an option for more “depending upon my ability.” We ended up talking for close to two hours, the greatest compliment he could’ve given me.

Mr. Hano and his wife live in the tiny town of Laguna Beach, a city best known for its art scene and a television series on MTV. I walked up the steps to the house on a crisp Sunday morning and was greeted by Mrs. Hano, who led me into a small study, one wall of which was packed with books from floor to ceiling. In the corner sat a small, thirteen-inch television set. Mr. Hano pointed towards it, saying, “You can see that we read a lot more than we watch television.” And with that, we were off.

BronxBanter:  I want to start at the beginning. Tell me about where you grew up. New York City, right?

Arnold Hano:  New York City. Mainly I tell people I grew up in the Bronx, and sometimes I tell people I grew up in the Polo Grounds, which is across the river in Manhattan, but I was born in Washington Heights, which is at the top of Manhattan. And then when I was about four years old we moved across the Harlem River and into the Bronx. I grew up in the Bronx and went to DeWitt Clinton High School, which is the high school at the north end of the Bronx, and we were there until I was maybe fourteen or fifteen when we moved into Manhattan. The formative years were those years between maybe four and fifteen.

BB:  You talk about those formative years. How important were sports, either playing sports or following sports, in your daily life?

AH:  Both, both, both, both. I played everything, and I read everything, and I followed everything. My father brought home two newspapers everyday. He brought home the Herald Tribune and the New York Sun. I said, “How come you read the Tribune and not the Times?” And he said the Tribune was better written. So I was reading sports pages in the Tribune and I started reading Bill Heinz in the Sun when Heinz was just breaking in. Do you know Heinz at all? Great writer. I played all the ancillary games. I played punch ball, I played stick ball, I played stoop ball… There was a game in the playground called box ball, that was a very good game that we played. And then I started playing baseball in sandlot games and Police Athletic League teams and stuff like that. I was a walk-on in my senior year of college as a pitcher. I know looking at me you don’t believe all this, but I was once actually tall. I’ve lost five inches of height to issues with my spine.

BB:  And what school was that?

AH:  That was Long Island University out in Brooklyn. I’ll tell you about the walk-on later. But I played basketball, I played football, all the sports. I ran, I did everything. I was very involved in sports. I remember when I was a kid we had a stickball league behind our house. There was a length of houses, lots of room. I hit fifty-three homeruns in one season, I remember that! [Laughing.]

BB:  That’s so funny, because I remember when I was a kid we had a field, a grass field – it wasn’t stick ball in the alley – but I remember keeping track of things like that, how many home runs we had hit in this make believe season that we played whenever we wanted.

AH:  That’s right… So I was very involved.

BB:  So did young boys in the 20s and 30s, did they dream of growing up to be sports heroes as much as they do today?

AH:  I did. I can’t tell you their dreams, but I dreamed of standing on the mound at Yankee Stadium and striking out Lou Gehrig. That was a dream of mine, to throw my screwball past Lou Gehrig. Carl Hubbell had been one of my heroes, so I learned how to throw a screwball. I could control a screwball better than I could control a fastball. When my brother and I – my brother was three and a half years older, he was my mentor, he was the greatest big brother anybody ever had. He and I would go to ballgames, and in those days at the end of the ballgame you could run out on the field. We would slide into the bases before the bases were uprooted, and we would stand in centerfield and see whether we could see home plate, because of the mound, and we were little kids. He could and I couldn’t, and that sort of stuff. It was just a wonderful growing up experience to have, especially to have the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium across the river from each other within spitting distance. My grandfather was a cop in the New York City Police Department, and he had year passes to the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium, and he left them to me, so I got in to see as many games as I could see every summer. I was a Giant fan more than a Yankee fan, but I was a Babe Ruth fan, so I would do both.

BB:  What was that like, growing up like that? You can’t really relate to that now. Even the Mets and Yankees are far apart, and the Dodgers and Angels here aren’t even in the same city. What was it like with those teams so close together?

AH:  I’ll tell you even how closer it was. We lived in an apartment building in Washington Heights – this was from the time I was born until I was four – where Bob Meusel and Irish Meusel lived. Bob Meusel played left field for the Yankees, Irish Meusel played left field for the Giants. One would be using the apartment while the other was on the road, so they shared that apartment. They lived one story above us. You can’t get any closer to baseball than to have as your neighbor Bob Meusel and Irish Meusel. I used to ask my father, “Who’s better, Bob Meusel or Irish Meusel?” And my father was very, very diligent about questions like that. He’d say, “Bob Meusel has a better arm, he’s a better fielding left fielder. Emil…” He never called him Irish. “Emil Meusel has more power.” I’d say, “Well who’s better?” And he’d say, “You have to decide that.” So having the two teams there, my brother was a Giant fan and I was a Yankee fan up to 1926 when Tony Lazzeri struck out against Glover Cleveland Alexander and the Yankees lost that ballgame by one run and the Series. My brother said, “See, I told you how lousy they were.” So I shifted in 1926 to the Giants, and 1927 began the Yankee dynasty that may have been one of the greatest teams ever. But I didn’t really care because I still remained a Babe Ruth fan. I loved watching him hit homeruns.

BB:  Now tell me about Babe Ruth, please. I know…

AH:  You know the fat guy.

(more…)