It was surprising when the Yankees signed Rafael Soriano… mostly because Brian Cashman had been saying, pretty clearly, that he did not intend to. He explained that he didn’t want to give up a first-round draft pick for anybody besides Cliff Lee (and especially not a pick that would then go to the Rays), and that made good sense, especially since decent relievers can generally be uncovered from within the organization. Today, at the press conference officially announcing Soriano’s signing, Cashman admitted – or perhaps “confirmed” is the better word – that as many suspected (and several, including Buster Olney, previously reported) it was not ultimately his call. Per Joe LeMaire, on Twitter:

Yankees GM Brian Cashman acknowledges he did not recommend signing of Soriano. Says final call was Hal Steinbrenner’s.

Cashman: “I just didn’t think it was an efficient way to allocate our remaining resources.”

Huh.

That’s not surprising, as the Soriano contract is very much not Cashman’s style – not, as he says, an efficient allocation of resources. But I was under the impression that Cashman had successfully wrested control of the Yankees’ baseball decision, except perhaps in the case of a blockbuster like Alex Rodriguez’s most recent signing. And while of course Hal Steinbrenner owns the team and has a right to have input on how his money is spent, I find it puzzling that he would choose to interfere here, in the case of a middle reliever. Signing Soriano is not likely to have a huge impact on the team either way – they’re overpaying for him, but not by a crippling amount, and it’s unlikely to prevent the Yankees from making whatever other moves they feel they need to. Still, it seems like a weird thing for Hal to overrule his GM on. It’s a George kind of move.

Meanwhile, in further disturbing news: we also learned that Cashman not only considered Carl Pavano as a plug for the Yanks’ starting pitcher gap, but (per LoHud) had several discussions with The American Idle’s agent. Yipes! I choose to see this as just a sad, transparent attempt to make Andy Pettitte come rushing back into the Yankees’ arms…

UPDATE: Oh gosh – per WFAN (via Hardball Talk) the Yanks actually made an offer! One year, $10 million, supposedly.  “Carl, how would you like to hear 50,000 people screaming contemptuous insults at you every fifth day…”

If you are a fan of the sports infographic representations of Flip Flop Fly Ball, then you might also enjoy a site called “MLB Trade Trees“.

From the site’s home page: “Find out how MLB trades evolved from a historian/baseball nerd in Iowa.”

The site isn’t splashy, but its quietly interesting, and the owner promises improvements.

Russell Martin, who may be doing quite a bit of catching for the Yanks this year, is skirting the subject, in fairly vague terms, of his disappointing last few seasons. From Canada’s National Post:

Russell Martin says he knows why he has skidded from stardom to mediocrity in the prime of his career.

But beyond vague allusions to “frustrations” and “distractions,” he politely declines to explain.

“There’s some things that you keep for yourself,” Martin said. “Those distractions, they’re personal — personal issues in my life that not everybody needs to know about.” …

…His performance faded during the past two seasons. By his standards, he says, he got lazy.

“I had some distractions that maybe led me not to have that same drive that I’ve had in the past,” he said. “Really, that’s all it is, honestly. I didn’t train quite as–I trained hard, but before, nobody trained as hard as I did.”

Martin made similar comments in the beginning of the 2009 season – though that’s not quite what he told the LA Times last month; it’s more or less common knowledge that Martin liked the LA nightlife quite a bit, possibly to the detriment of his on-field performance. On the one hand, it’s refreshing to see him (sort of) acknowledge it, and if Martin has actually figured out how to focus now, than that’s encouraging – better to think he has some issues he may be able to correct than that he’s simply not a very good ballplayer anymore. On the other hand, he said similar things in 2009 and doesn’t seem to have made much progress since then — and New York is not known for its lack of distractions. Like many of you I hesitate to evaluate a player based on things like this that can’t really be measured, but the Yankees would’ve been naive not to at least take this into consideration. Presumably they’re not too concerned.

Martin’s had an interesting life, or at least an unusual one by baseball player standards; he grew up in Quebec, where his mother was an actress and singer, and his father played the saxophone in subway stations to earn money for Martin’s baseball gear and training. He was poised for superstardom when he first came up, which is why so many more people have heard of him than his stat line would suggest, and few people in that time span have disappointed Dodgers fans more.

New York has a long tradition of great players who can stay out boozing and courting all night and still kick ass the next day – Babe Ruth, of course; Mickey Mantle, for many years; most recently, David Wells threw a perfect game while still tipsy from the previous evening. I love players like that, who do everything wrong and then perform anyway. But of course that kind of thing will catch up with most people sooner or later — and apparently caught up with Martin on the “sooner” side.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez certainly seem like they’ve enjoyed the entertainment options New York offers, so to speak, but I’ve never gotten the sense that either of them is a big drinker and certainly they both take care of themselves and come ready to play. Martin will be surrounded by stars and veterans in the New York clubhouse and perhaps a few of them can take him under their wing; I imagine that at the very least, if  Jorge Posada feels Martin is not playing his best, he will club him unconscious with his own bat.

A few years back I was shocked to learn that the Yankees had once had a ill-conceived and misbegotten mascot, Dandy, which appears to some kind of upsetting bird-type creature although it is honestly quite hard to be sure. Since everyone involved is eager to deny involvement and sweep poor Dandy under the rug, conflicting information abounds. I first read about Dandy in a book about Yankee history, when I researching a chapter in my own book, and in that post I quote a New York Times article, but it turns out accounts vary as to just when and for how long Dandy stuck around, and what he did or didn’t achieve in his short and blighted existence.

Now the great Flip Flop Fly Ball has discovered this fantastic/terrible photographic evidence of Dandy in his unnatural habitat, “on some guy’s Picasa photo album”:

Ladies and gentlemen, the 1980s.

I frequently turn to the minors for these Names of the Week because while there are plenty of awesomely named big-leaguers, often they’re well known enough so that most of you guys will have already heard of them, and in some cases gotten so used to the name that you’ve become inured to its wonders (e.g. Coco Crisp, “Randy Johnson, The Big Unit,” Prince Fielder, etc). The other good bet is to turn to the past, when men were men and ballplayers had f****** awesome names. Today’s pick was born in Eddy, Texas, in 1904, which is likely why he was known as:

Tex Nugent.

Well, I thought it was funny.

Nugent’s given name is Granville, which is pretty good in its own right. He was a career minor leaguer, playing from 1926 to 1941 for the Terre Haute Tots (!) (alongside Uke Clanton and Watty Clark), the Little Rock Travelers, the Midland Cowboys, and the El Dorado Lions, among other teams. No date of death is listed on baseball-reference, which makes a late-in-life career switch to rock star a possibility, though still perhaps unlikely.

Meantime, bonus points are awarded to the Mets for acquiring Taylor Tankersley; as Greg at Faith and Fear in Flushing points out, with plausible poesy,  the Amazin’s have taken on an alliterative trio this winter: the aforementioned T. Tankersley, Chris Capuano and, of course, previous Name of the Week honoree Boof Bonser. I take this as a clear sign that the Mets are once again moving in the right direction.

Congratulations are in order for the Tampa Bay Rays, who are on the verge of acquiring one Kyle Farnsworth for the low, low price of, per Buster Olney, 3.25 million dollars plus an option.

Oh, where do we start. How about with evil maniacal laughter?

Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, I think this is both good and bad news for the Yankees. Good news because it is entirely possible that the Rays will call in Farnsworth to try to protect close leads, which is likely to mean a lot of heartbreaking late Rays losses on towering home runs. Bad news because now it would be a really, really bad idea for New York to start any kind of scuffle with Tampa. Yankee batters better be nice and respectful and not crowd the plate.

In fact, Farnworth has pitched very well against the Yanks on multiple occasions, and had some very good years along with his bad, and supposedly has a new approach these days that involves throwing fewer  sliders that don’t slide directly down the middle of the plate… and so he may not end up being a terrible pickup for the Rays. Conceivably.

Nevertheless, [rubbing hands together sinisterly] MWA HA HA HA HA HA!

The Yankees have signed Luis Sojo to be their fifth starter Single-A Tampa manager.

Are you happy now, Heyman?!

Photo of Sojo at Old Timer's Day looking pretty much exactly like he did in his playing days via The Daily News

photo from laobserved.com

Last week Dodgers owner Frank McCourt met with MLB executives, per the LA Times — though not with Bud Selig personally, who presumably was too busy writing Petrarchan sonnets about Abner Doubleday – and discussed his plans to keep the Dodgers, after a judge tossed out the post-nuptial agreement between him and his ex-wife Jamie that would have given him full control over the team. The LA Times article points out that Selig has the power to veto any kind of TV deal, financing plan from MLB, or partenership agreement that McCourt might come up with — and the Dodgers owner will likely need one of those things to hang onto his team and pay off his former wife.

Which brings up once again the MLB Commissioner’s baffling power when it comes to deciding exactly who gets into baseball’s 100% male, 96.67% white, 100% non-Mark Cuban ownership club. In how many other industries do a group of competitors get together and decide who else gets to compete against them? Let me rephrase that – in how many other industries do they do that legally? As much as I love baseball I can’t think of any rational justification for why they still have an anti-trust exemption. Not the NFL, not the NBA – but baseball, see, is not a “commercial enterprise”. Right.

Not that I can blame Selig for being irate at McCourt, a man who, with his ex-wife, spent millions on the Rasputin-esque Russian  “mystic”/”physicist” Vladimir Shpunt (and if you somehow haven’t read about Shpunt before, please, do yourself a favor and dig in – it warms these cold winter days), among many other less amusing screw-ups. It might in fact be in the Dodgers’ best interest if Selig forced McCourt out, but how is that right or fair? I’m particularly skeptical since it was Selig and the owners who decided to let McCourt buy the team in the first place. Don’t you just hate it when you screen someone carefully to make sure they belong in your exclusive country club, and then they go and have a messy public divorce! The nerve! And after all you did for them…

It’s safe to say that the country has bigger problems at the moment, and baseball has gotten along all right — more or less — for this long with its rigged ownership system in place. But something so blatantly unfair can hardly be good for the sport long term. Every once in a while you get a iconoclast like Bill Veeck who manages to get into the club and shakes things up from the inside – you could even say Steinbrenner did that, in his own way and for better or worse – but those guys are few and far between and getting fewer, as the amount of money needed to buy a team gets staggeringly high. Baseball deserves better than to be entrusted to a closed-off group of  crusty old multimillionaires who vote like sheep on who gets to join their ranks. I am not advocating Vladimir Shpunt for Dodgers owner — although actually that would be completely awesome, but… right, no. But this is a system that’s about 100 years out of date and ripe for some modernization.

Win or suck tonight for the Jets. What’ll it be?

[Picture by Bags]

I freely admit I am so starved for baseball happenings that I actually did a news search just now for “baseball” –as if I wouldn’t have read about it already, on a blog or Twitter, if anything big went down. Aside from the Matt Garza trade (good news for the Yanks this season, probably, but nothing I can get too excited about) there ain’t nothing going on today. Except Brian Cashman is talking more and more like some kinda internet zealot. Adam LaRoche is finalizing his deal with the Nationals. Okay.

Unfortunately what I did turn up, like some gross bug under a rock, is the story over at Radar Online that a new reality show about baseball groupies is being developed. Baseball Annies are now being cast, with the idea of filming in Arizona during spring training. I’m not much of a reality TV fan — I’m too easily embarrassed on behalf of other people — and doubt I will watch this, unless I have to write about it. Anyone with half a brain realized many, many years ago that the vast majority of baseball players sleep around, and I really couldn’t care less since I am not married to, nor dating, a baseball player; that’s between them and their significant others and as long as everyone’s a consenting adult, hey, not my concern. The entire subculture has always seemed deeply depressing, though, and this newest cringe-inducing exploitation-fest is doing nothing to change that impression:

“The girls will go to any lengths to go to games and practices with the goal of sleeping with and getting material things from athletes as a notch under their belt,” the source told RadarOnline.com exclusively.

Ooh, an EXCLUSIVE about soul-suckingly shallow groupies! Great job, RadarOnline.com. Also:

The show will focus on the women and their ‘cleat-chasing’ lifestyle more than the players and their participation, added the source.

Well, of course. Why deal with the legal and societal repercussions of showcasing popular men behaving badly when you can just vilify the less wealthy and famous women who, inexplicably, are volunteering for this? Not that they won’t deserve vilifying, most likely, and no one can go on a show like “Cleat Chasers” and not expect to come out looking horrible.

I’m not someone who bemoans the decline of humanity, because I think humanity has always been pretty messed up, and even a show as tasteless as this is still better than say burning a bunch of people at the stake every time you get freaked out by an eclipse, but still.

AP Photo

In this confusing, turbulent world of unceasing change, it is always reassuring to know that a few precious things will always stay the same. Among these rocks in the surf  is Gary Sheffield, who as you may recall is 42 years old now and did not play last year, but met with Joe Madden at the Winter Meetings to explore the idea of making a comeback with the Rays. Apparently the Rays never followed up on this, with the result that Sheff is “99.9%” sure he’ll retire, and also, of course, is feeling “a little disrespected.”

As you’ll probably recall, Gary Sheffield feels disrespected when the wind blows, or when a bunny looks at him the wrong way. Not to get all Psych 101 on you but I always figured that was how he kept himself motivated. And I imagine he could be a real headache to manage, but I always loved watching the man hit. He had the perfect at-bat music the last year or two of his Yankee career (Ludacris’s “Move, Bitch,” a song I often wish I could blast while trying to push through the thick swarms of slow tourists outside my office building), and it would pump up the crowd while hapless third-base coaches and players cowered as far from the likely path of his scalded liners as they respectably could.

If this is the end for Sheff I wish him all the best, and I hope he finds a good post-playing outlet for all that competitiveness and bad-ass energy.

In a story that received a good bit of attention in the blogosphere, ESPNEWS anchor Will Selva was suspended indefinitely on Dec. 30 for plagiarism. He had introduced a story on the air about the Los Angeles Lakers, using the words of Orange County Register columnist Kevin Ding as his own, without attributing the source.

Ding called Selva out, an investigation followed, and the Worldwide Leader took swift and decisive action.

Selva apologized in a statement:

“I made a horrible mistake and I’m deeply sorry. I did not live up to my high standards or ESPN’s. I sincerely apologize for my sloppiness, especially to Kevin Ding, viewers and colleagues. In my 15 years in broadcast journalism, nothing like this has ever happened and I will make every effort to ensure it won’t happen again.”

Sounds sincere and contrite. But do you believe Selva? Suspended after it was proved he was a fraud, how can we believe “nothing like this has ever happened” before? Why should we? Because Selva’s statement is written, are we simply jumping to conclusions? Are we interpreting his tone correctly? If he was an anchor with more name recognition, would we be more inclined to believe him? Whatever the case, Selva is going to have a hard time recovering from this incident. An incident that could have been avoided if he simply said, “Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register said it best in his Sunday column…”.

Look no further than Mike Barnicle, Jayson Blair, and Judith Miller to see how the combination of plagiarism and fabricating stories has affected writers’ careers. Barnicle continued to work, and four years ago signed on as a columnist at the Boston Herald. Blair got a book deal soon after his flap at the New York Times. Miller, whose reporting on weapons of mass destruction was found to be inaccurate and worse, false, and later served jail time for her refusing to testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case, has recently landed at the Conservative magazine and website Newsmax as a columnist.

Those scribes got second chances. Does Selva’s situation merit one?

The journalist in me says no. There isn’t any circumstance that should result in his reinstatement. Selva violated the most basic principle of the craft and he should be fired, not suspended. The empathic side of me, however, says yes, but that second chance isn’t deserved. It has to be earned, like a series of trials it takes to regain trust in a friend, lover or spouse who breached trust in some way.

Plagiarism is dangerous territory. I know from personal experience. I wrote a column in this space during the 2009 season where I analyzed how different beat writers were covering the same game. My goal was to show how different writers from different papers see the game through different prisms to ultimately craft similar stories. Now, I know from being in press boxes that while the writers sit in close quarters, no one is looking over anyone’s shoulder with that look that says, “Hey, what did you put down for Number 3?” Every writer is in his or her own zone, headphones in to check accuracy of quotes on the recorder, scrambling like hell to make deadline. The chorus of clickety-clacking on laptop keyboards tells you as much. Invariably, by pure coincidence, angles will be similar, certain quotes or sections of quotes will be similar, and in some cases, even certain phrases and word choices describing the action will be either similar or exact. Again, this is pure coincidence. And it’s rare that it happens.

It just so happened that in my analysis, I noticed an exact phrase appearing in different game stories from two writers representing two different papers. In jest, I wrote that one of the writers “copied off (the other writer’s) paper.” It was a regrettable choice of words on my part, and I wish like hell I could take it back. But if there’s one thing I learned in my Intro to Communication Theory class during my freshman year of college, it’s that communication of any kind is irreversible. I went for the laugh with the “copied off his paper” line; maybe I got it, maybe I didn’t. What I got was an e-mail in my personal inbox the next morning from one of the writers. I did not anticipate the content of the note, and I was stunned.

Point blank, the writer asked me if I was accusing him of plagiarism, and if I was, I’d better be ready to prove it.

(more…)

Over at Pinstriped Bible, our man Cliff takes a look at the Yankees starting rotation:

Of the pitchers who have yet to reach the majors, there are two basic groups, a quartet of middling arms that have reached Triple-A and the three Killer Bs, the team’s top pitching prospects, none of whom has spent a full season at Double-A. The former group consists of David Phelps, D.J. Mitchell, Hector Noesi, and Steve Garrison, all of whom will be 24 this season. Noesi and Garrison are on the 40-man roster. Phelps and Mitchell are not. Garrison is the lone lefty. Noesi is the only fly-ball pitcher among the bunch. Phelps is the most ready having posted a 3.17 ERA in 11 Triple-A starts last year with an outstanding 4.73 K/BB. Per a recent conversation with Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein, Garrison is the weakest of the bunch, and none of them have stuff as good as Nova’s.

The other three arms, of course, are Dellin Betances, Manny Banuelos, and Andrew Brackman. I don’t expect the Yankees to jump any of the three of them to the majors given that they have combined to make just 20 Double-A starts, but if the Yankees get desperate enough during the season, and one of the above is simply dominating in Trenton, they may have no other choice, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, which we very well might given the fact that the Yankees would have difficulty fleshing out a four-man playoff rotation right now, never mind a five-man unit that will allow them to keep up with the Red Sox over a 162-game season.

[Photo Credit: Zimbo]

I went to pick up chicken soup in my neighborhood last night and when I went to pay I wished the cashier a happy new year.

“Got any resolutions?” she said?

“Yeah, to be kinder to myself.”

“Oh,” she said, and looked at me. “That’s really cool.”

I surprised myself with that answer. Sometimes, you are honest when you don’t mean to be.

I walked outside and the street was clogged with cars. One guy, four cars behind the putz who stopped in the middle of the street, started leaning on the horn. “That’s not going to help,” I said to nobody.

I walked across the street and saw a man in a wheelchair yell, “That’s not going to help!”

I smiled as I walked past him and shrugged, “Sometimes, people can’t help themselves I guess.”

The man glared at the traffic. “Moron.”

“Yeah, you know it’s just so tempting, though. You are irritated, stuck in traffic, it’s the end of the day, and you’ve got that horn right there. How can you not press it?”

“Well, I’m tempted to throw a brick through a window but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

“Point taken.”

New York is a funny town.

[Picture by Bags]

Exciting news, sports fans: the Yankees have claimed RH reliever Brian Schlitter from the Cubs. I can’t remember who Chicago was playing at the time – maybe the Mets, possibly the Dodgers – but I remember taking note of Schlitter during a game last season and thinking that the announcer, whoever he was, ought to be going very, very carefully.

I would like to start brainstorming now in preparation for the coming season. On Twitter, SNY’s own @OGTedBerg has already offered up “It’s a Schlitt Storm!” and “This game has gone down the Schlitter.” @d_limonene suggested the phrase “Schlitt the bed.” To which I would also like to add:

HorseSchlitt.

Anyway, one day — maybe in April, maybe July, possibly September — John Sterling is going to slip up on this, and it is going to be beautiful. Yes, apparently I’m 12 tonight.

Your new Hall of Famers:

Roberto Alomar — and (at long last, love) Bert Blyleven.

Barry Larkin’s totals were third-highest, with 62.1% of the vote (short of the 75% needed, but in good shape to get in a few years down the road); Jack Morris managed 53.5%, Lee Smith 45.3% (…seriously?), and Jeff Bagwell 41.7%, so get ready to have that fun discussion all over again next year. You can see the full results over at the BBWAA’s high-tech website of the future.

According to Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system and series of articles over at Baseball Prospectus, there were eight deserving candidates on the ballot this year: Roberto Alomar, Jeff Bagwell, Bert Blyleven, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Mark McGwire, Tim Raines, and Alan Trammell. I wasn’t so sure about Raines and Trammell initially, but I’ve completely come around on Rock over the last year and I’m edging towards being convinced on Trammell. It’d help if the guy had a better nickname, which I believe is not a factor JAWS takes into consideration, but it really ought to be. That’s something I’ll have to bring up with Jay, and I won’t have to wait long because he’s chatting live over at BP this very moment.

For those of you who are sick of reading and debating about the Hall of Fame, exhale. For those who aren’t, have at it in the comments. What would your ballot look like?

(Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

I have to admit that when I first saw the headlines that Orioles reliever Alfredo Simon had a warrant out on him in connection with a fatal shooting on New Year’s Eve, my first reaction was to make a crack along the lines of, well now nobody could say he wasn’t an intimidating presence on the mound. But I’m glad I refrained because now Simon has turned himself in and the more I read about the case, which is still fairly muddled at this point, the sadder it all seems. The shooting was first reported as taking place after a dispute but is now apparently being viewed as an accident, according to authorities, and exactly how it happened is fairly unclear – Simon himself says that it occurred while he was trying to break up a fight between two other people, but his lawyer told The Baltimore Sun that because Simon was firing into the air, he couldn’t have shot the victim in the chest, and that the bullet must have come from another gun. I, of course, have no idea what happened, except that  it wasn’t good.

The touching aspect of the article – at least, touching if we’re assuming that if Simon is guilty of anything,  the shooting was indeed an accident, however stupid – is that Simon’s teammates are stepping up to help. Miguel Tejada found Simon’s lawyer and is footing the bill, with some possible assistance from former teammate Julio Lugo.

Olivares’ representation of Simon is being bankrolled by former Orioles star Miguel Tejada, a compatriot who befriended Simon before being traded to the San Diego Padres in July. Tejada said by telephone Monday morning that he spoke with friends in the Dominican Republic to help him choose a firm that could best help Simon. Tejada said he expects to pick up the bill, although former Orioles infielder Julio Lugo also has taken an active role, he said, and may help with the expenses. Lugo accompanied Simon to the police station Monday.

“Alfredo is a kid I really love a lot,” Tejada said. “He is in trouble right now, and that’s what we do, we stick together. We wanted some big company attorneys, there are some good ones here in the Dominican and this is a special case.”

Tejada said he spoke with Simon on Sunday and that the pitcher is doing well, given the circumstances. “He is fine,” Tejada said. “He told me he doesn’t have anything to do with it, he is not the one to do it, and I believe him. I tell him I am with him and if there’s anything he needs, I am here.”

Lugo said he advised Simon to surrender after he had fled from the scene. “He is scared because he recognizes that he fired shots, although they went into the air,” Lugo said…

I was thinking that this was an impressive display of team loyalty, players putting their money where their mouths are and having each other’s backs when the chips are down. And then I remembered that Miguel Tejada is a grump who’s been tied to steroids and convicted of lying to congress, and Julio Lugo has been on my scumbag list since he was arrested for domestic violence back in 2003 (he was acquitted after his wife changed her story and testified on his behalf, but I’ll let you decide for yourself whether to believe that she hit her own head on a truck).

The moral of the story is, people are complicated.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, John Perrotto discusses his Hall of Fame Ballot.  Here is his comment on Barry Larkin:

Barry Larkin—Put it this way: If Derek Jeter had range, he’d be Barry Larkin. That’s not a knock on Jeter, just how little Larkin was appreciated because he played away from the spotlight with the Reds during his entire 19-year career. He won nine Silver Sluggers, three Gold Gloves, and had a .371 OBP.

We are all keenly aware of the myopic view of Jeter . . . the “winner” . . . the “heart and soul” of the Yanks recent run of excellence . . . the “nice guy”.  We are also aware of Jeter’s warts . . . the DP machine at the plate . . . the lack of range.

So, let’s play a little “what if” game . . . you are the GM of an expansion club, and you can have either Larkin or Jeter‘s entire career exactly as it has played out.  Which one do you take?

(image: Baseball Almanac)

One of my coworkers was cleaning out her old — apparently very old, as you’ll see – papers over the weekend, and she found this and brought it in for me:

As you can see, in 1987  a full, 81-game plan would set you back $750 per seat for the season, and all the plans come out to $10 per game or less for lower box seats. For that you would’ve gotten to see Lou Piniella manage the bombers to an 89-73 record, nine games behind Detroit; that was the year Mattingly set a record by hitting home runs in eight consecutive games, and also six grand slams in the season. I was too young to be paying attention back then, but I’ve heard about it enough that I feel like I was.

Put it on my Diner’s Club…

I like hot chocolate as much as the next person but don’t ever go out of my way for it. Yesterday, a friend brought me to a snooty chocolatier called Jacques Torres and got me a hot coco.

I had no idea hot chocolate could be so good. It was like drinking from Willy Wonka’s chocolate river, off-the-chain sinful, and a treat that is worth the trip.

[Photo Credit: The Gothamist]