It’s Phil Hughes and hold your breath:

Brett Gardner CF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells LF
Ben Francisco DH
Lyle Overbay 1B
Chris Stewart C
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Jayson Nix 3B

Never mind the Terrordome:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

We’ve got a special week of Dexter for you–four columns he wrote about his friend Randall “Tex” Cobb when Cobb fought against Larry Holmes for the heavyweight championship. Each day for the rest of the week we’ll feature a column and next Monday there’ll be a long Q&A with Pete to celebrate the paperback edition of his non-fiction collection, Paper Trails.

Originally published in The Philadelphia Daily News this piece appears here with the author’s permission.

Enjoy.

“Cobb Refuses to be the Retiring Kind”

By Pete Dexter

Tuesday, November 23, 1982

The first time I ever brought up the subject of retirement, Randall Cobb had just stopped Earnie Shavers in the eighth round of a fight that ruined appetites all over Detroit. He’d broken Shavers’s jaw with a short left uppercut, but before that happened he and Earnie had stood in the middle of the ring 7 1/2 rounds throwing punches. There could have been six or seven that missed, but I didn’t see them.

We were sitting in the dressing room; Randall was sucking down Coca-Colas. His face looked exactly the way a face is supposed to look after Earnie Shavers has been beating on it half the night, and the sound of the inevitable throwing up afterward still hung in the air.

The dressing rooms in Detroit have the best acoustics in the world.

He looked over at me with that one eye he could still look out of and said, “You feeling better now?” And, while I’m admitting here that it wasn’t Randall who threw up, I would also like to point out that it wasn’t Randall who had to watch the fight.

His body was rope-burned and turning black and blue, and the end of his nose was red like he was four days into a bad cold. I said, “I wish you wouldn’t fight Earnie Shavers anymore.”

“I absolutely promise,” he said.

But I meant more than Earnie Shavers, and later that night, back at the hotel, he tried to relieve me of my obligations. He said, ” I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but if you can’t watch it, then don’t.”

I took that the wrong way, of course. I’d only known Randall a year then, but it could have just as soon been my own brother in there, as far as not watching went. He said he understood that. “I know it isn’t easy watching somebody you love fight Earnie Shavers,” he said.

I said, “It’d be a damn sight easier if somebody would keep his hands up.”

And that’s as much talking we did then about retiring. Randall had made $75,000 or $80,000 for that fight, and he was on the way up. He’d taken Shavers on short notice after Gerry Cooney had backed out of the fight – if Cooney hadn’t backed out, by the way, he never would have ended up in the ring with Larry Holmes earlier this year for $10 million. A lot of people saw Randall that night, and liked what they saw.

And a lot of people didn’t.

In the bars, they told me Randall couldn’t fight at all. Guys still bragging about five amateur fights 20 years ago went out of their way to tell me all the things Randall couldn’t do. They said any decent South Philly street fighter would kill him, they said he better get a job driving a truck while he still could.

I never said much back. When they talked about him getting hurt, I thought about it. The difference was, they didn’t care.

The first fight he lost was against Ken Norton, a split decision in San Antonio, Texas. He walked into the hardest single punch I’ve ever seen that night, a straight right hand that Norton threw from the bottom of his heart.

I can close my eyes and still see Randall’s face in the half-second after it landed. For that little time, he was lost. He was coming forward when it hit him, and for half a second he stopped.

Then he went back to work, and in the dressing room afterward I heard Norton tell him, “You beat the bleep out of me, man.” Norton had fought his best fight since the night he lost his title to Larry Holmes. He’d been braver and stronger than he’d been in four years.

It had been that way with Shavers, too, and later it would be that way against Bernardo Mercardo. I have seen Mercardo quit in his corner when he was winning, but against Randall he stayed there 10 rounds, taking one of the worst body beatings I’ve ever seen.

We talked about that after every one of them. After Mercardo I said, “You know, you’re giving them something out there. You spend the whole round proving they can’t hurt you, you throw 150 punches to their 25, and then at the end of the round, just when they’re sure you’re not human, you pat them on the ass and give them something to come out with in the next round. You’re taking away their fear. ”

“It’s a bad habit, all right,” he said. And in his next fight, at the bell ending the fourth round against Jeff Shelburg earlier this year – a round in which he landed at least 100 punches – I heard him say this: ” Hang in there, Jeff. After this is over we’re going to go out and get drunk. ”

Between Mercardo and Shelburg, of course, there was supposed to be a fight with WBA heavyweight champion Mike Weaver. That fell through in December, when a kid with a tire iron broke his arm. He was standing over my body at the time, fighting off a lot of kids with tire irons and baseball bats.

I was already unconscious – hit five or six times square in the head – and it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what would have happened if he’d left me. And it doesn’t matter how good you are in a fight, if you see 25 or 30 people coming at you with bats and crowbars and reinforced iron, you’ve got to think about leaving.

When I woke up he was shouting, “If he’s dead, every one of you is dead, too.” And it must have scared them off – it scared me – because the next thing I knew he was picking me up.

He said, “Pete?”

I said, “Any time you’re ready to leave . . .” They’d broken one of my hips and the leg attached to it wouldn’t move. I said, “Randall, this leg won’t move.”

He said, “We don’t have time for that leg not to move.” And somehow he got me in the truck and drove me to the hospital. He never said anything about his arm.

On the way, we talked things over. There was blood and swelling everywhere. It was a lot like a dressing room. I said, “You know, we could of planned this better.”

He said that Gen. George Pickett had planned it better at Gettysburg.

There is one other thing he said that night that stays in my mind. It was when the place was filling up with baseball bats and tire irons, and all of a sudden you could see how many of them there were, and what they meant to do, and how bad the night was going to turn out.

He leaned over to me and said, “I hope that’s the softball team.”

He lost his first chance with Weaver over that, and his second chance when Weaver hurt his back, and his third chance when he got cut in training a few days before the fight.

And I was sure he would beat Weaver, but the fight scared me. I was in Knoxville the night Weaver took the title from John Tate, and 10 minutes after Weaver had knocked him out, they brought Tate out of the ring, hidden in the middle of 10 or 15 of his people.

Tate’s eyes were open, he seemed to be talking, but then I looked down and saw the toes of his shoes dragging along the floor. John Tate was never the same after that fight, and I wasn’t interested in seeing Randall prove he could take the same shots and beat Weaver anyway. And that’s what he would have done.

And that’s what he’ll do against Holmes. He’ll take the jabs and the right hands, and then he’ll throw jabs and right hands back, mostly to the body. Two and three punches to one. And in the eighth or ninth round, I think Larry Holmes will lose his title.

And Randall probably will be cut, and I’ll be throwing up in the dressing room, and the guys still bragging about five amateur fights from 20 years ago will turn away from the television set at the bar and tell each other he still can’t fight.

I guess it doesn’t need to be pointed out here that the damage a punch does comes partly when it lands and partly later, when it accumulates with the other punches. The accumulation goes on as long as you keep getting hit, and sometimes it catches up with you and sometimes it doesn’t.

I don’t want to be there if it ever catches up with Randall Cobb. I remember that fractured moment when he was lost after Norton hit him with the right hand, and the only thing that saves me from that moment is remembering that half a second later he was all right.

I don’t want to be there to see him lost again, but I will be if it happens. As long as he wants to fight, I’ll be there. Not because he didn’t leave me one night last December, not because he needs me there – he doesn’t.

I’ll be there because it can’t be as bad watching him fight as it would be, being too afraid to watch.

[Photo Via: The Minimalisto]

Now streaming for free on PBS.com.

Muhammed Ali – America the Beautiful

From our friend, George Carlin.

C.C. Sabathia virtually repeated his previous performance last night, except he was a little worse. Instead of giving up two runs in the first, he gave up four, and instead of pitching eight innings, he pitched seven. And on a night when Matt Moore was dealing–the Yankees only had two hits–welp, that was all she wrote.

Final Score: Rays 5, Yanks 2.

C.C. vs the talent Mr. Moore.

Brett Gardner CF
Ben Francisco DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Kevin Youkilis 1B
Vernon Wells LF
Francisco Cervelli C
Brennan Boesch RF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Jayson Nix 3B

Never mind that pesky roof: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via: Viage]

Pictures by Marco Guerra at Everyday I Show.

Klap on Ivan Nova:

Ever since the second half of 2012, Nova says, “I’m just not repeating my delivery,” and now, according to PitchFx, he’s throwing 20 percent fewer strikes than in 2011.

Members of the organization say Nova has unconsciously dropped his arm slot to near three-quarters level. Other believe Nova’s front (left) shoulder is sabotaging his delivery, flying open too quickly, not unlike the flaw that ruined A.J. Burnett’s career in the Bronx.
Pick your theory, but the effect is the same. Chris Stewart said, “[Nova] was missing everywhere. I don’t think he had a feel for any of his pitches.”

Nova took no offense to such a harsh assessment. He’s the first to admit Stewart was right, and that sooner or later, the long, slow descent has to end.

[Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski/USA Today Sports]

Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, David Wolpe reviews Greg Bellow’s memoir, Saul Bellow’s Heart:

After James Atlas’s 2002 biography, widely panned, with its portrayal of an altogether unappealing philanderer, is there balm in Gilead?

“Our father was always easily angered, prone to argument, acutely sensitive, and palpably vulnerable to criticism.” Reading this sentence in Greg Bellow’s new memoir, Saul Bellow’s Heart, one remembers the saying attributed to a French King, “I would rather be killed by my enemies than by my children.” Maybe we should have stuck with Atlas.

But Greg (permit me the first name, to distinguish from his father) has done something complicated and remarkable. He has spared none of the unsavory parts of his father’s character and still enabled us to understand why this man could generate, throughout his life, so much love. Greg expresses anger along the way — this book does not pull punches with the characters who moved through Bellow’s life — without the rancorous bitterness that suggests still unsettled reflections. Greg has opened his own heart. If there is any truth to the old adage that you judge a parent by the child, Greg is a testimonial.

[Photo Credit: Ann Street Studio]

Nah, you don’t need to know too much about this one (Chad Jennings has the notes, as always, if you’re interested).

Like the third game against the Diamondbacks this was one the Yanks had control of but then let it slip away.

Final Score: Blue Jays 8, Yanks 4.

Yanks face the formidable Josh Johnson in Toronto this afternoon:

Brett Gardner CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells LF
Travis Hafner DH
Lyle Overbay 1B
Eduardo Nunez SS
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Jayson Nix 3B
Chris Stewart C

Never mind the bacon:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Albert Law]

“Express Yourself”–Leroy Sibbles

[Photo Credit:Jakub Karwowski via Zero]

The Yanks were on their merry way to another tidy victory this afternoon when things suddenly went bad. They were ahead 3-0 and Hiroki Kuroda had quieted the Jays all afternoon. Never mind that the Yanks blew a bases loaded chance with one man out in the middle of the game, they had a three-run lead with one out in the eighth inning. That’s when Lyle Overbay made an error and David Robertson replaced Kuroda. And before you knew it the Jays tied the game–sombitch Melky Cabrera had the big hit.

I figured that was it for our boys but the Jays made a critical error themselves which led to a couple of runs in the top of the 11th and Mariano Rivera worked around a lead-off double by Jose Bautista and a loud out by Edwin Encarnacion to earn the save. Struck the last two men out to end it.

Hot Damn.

Yanks 5, Jays 3.

Chad Jennings has the notes.

What’s more–the Knicks put the clamps on the Celtics in the second half at the Garden and took the first game, 85-78.

And the Nuggets-Warriors game was a hell of a lot of funski, too.

[Photo Via: Lomography]

Before the Knicks and Celts this afternoon gives Hiroki vs. Buehrle.

Brett Gardner CF
Ben Francisco DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Kevin Youkilis 1B
Vernon Wells LF
Francisco Cervelli C
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Jayson Nix 3B

Never mind nuthin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Heather Champ]

“My Son Calls Another Man Daddy” (Single Version)–Hank

[Photo Credit: Eric Ogden]

The Yanks beat the stuffin’ out of the Jays tonight as Andy Pettitte had another solid outing.

Smile.

Final Score: Yankees 9, Blue Jays 4.

[Photo Credit: Joel Zimmer]

Don’t like these Blue Jays. Not one bit. Haven’t for a few years but now that they’ve got some talent and some hype, forget it. I dislike them so much I found myself rooting for the Red Sox when they played the Jays a few weeks ago.

The Red Sox.

Andy is back tonight as the Yanks are in Toronto for the weekend.

Brett Gardner CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Kevin Youkilis 3B
Travis Hafner DH
Vernon Wells LF
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Lyle Overbay 1B
Francisco Cervelli C

Never mind the Upstarts:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Darren Calabrese/National Post]

Tonight Matt “I got a friend Shirley bigger than you” Harvey faces the Nats and Stephen Strasburg.

I’ll have the clicker in hand.

[Photo Credit: AP]

Dwight Garner profiles John Le Carre in the Times:

Yet John le Carré’s greatest invention is easily John le Carré himself. Born in 1931 in Poole, a sprawling coastal town in Dorset, he is a product of a childhood both unusual and enviable — if you happen to be a writer. It made him suspicious of charm of any sort and gave him a limitless fascination with humans and their secrets.

Le Carré, as most of his fans know, is a son of a great, debonair English con man. His father, Ronnie Cornwell, born into mundane middle-class life, remade himself into a funny, gracious man who found that he could talk anyone out of anything, and did so. He was friendly with the Kray twins, the notorious and photogenic London gangsters. He was jailed for insurance fraud. He always, le Carré said, had a scam or two in the works.

“In his high days, he had a racehorse at Maisons-Lafitte outside Paris, and dancing girls, and he’d go whizzing off to Monte Carlo with the former lord mayor of London to stay in grand style at the Hotel de Paris,” le Carré said. “His social rise was extraordinary.” When things went badly, le Carré recalls, “not only were the police looking for him, but the boys were. We had to put the cars behind the house, keep the lights out and so on.”

Le Carré likes to cite a passage from the autobiography of Colin Clark, the son of the art collector Lord Clark, who wrote about what it was like to be taken in by le Carré’s father: “He was your favorite uncle, your family doctor, Bob Boothby and Father Christmas rolled into one.” He could, Clark wrote, “fix anything” and did. “Ronnie invited me to Royal Ascot and gave me a few good dinners. Then he showed me a piece of derelict property, which he did not own, promised to double my money in three months and took the lot.”

[Featured Image Via: Third Eye Photography]