“Seated Woman,” Lithograph by Richard Diebenkorn (1965)

Fast Company

By John Schulian

I never wrote as a fan. To civilians, especially every Cubs fan who ever told me to go back to the South Side because I’d written a column on the White Sox, that may seem a startling confession, but there’s no getting away from the truth. I wrote sports because I yearned to be a writer and the sports page provided a laboratory where I could conduct my experiments with words. When I was breaking into the newspaper racket, there was a freedom of style in sports that couldn’t be found anywhere else. Contrary to what I see too often now, when most every columnist seems to be shouting ceaselessly, I could do a character sketch, attempt whimsy, review a book, and rant and rave about whatever was vexing me all in the same week. The idea was to entertain my readers, but the truth is, I was trying to entertain myself, too.

On the days I succeeded, it was often because I had written about a boxer with a hard past or a ballplayer who had more stories than base hits. I was never a funny writer, the way Jim Murray, Leigh Montville, and Mike Downey were, but I embraced characters who could make me and my readers laugh. And yet there was a melancholy streak in my work, too–the athletes who died young, the broken-down gyms where fighters chased their dreams, the hardscrabble playgrounds where basketball looked like the only alternative to drugs and gangs. Those were the pieces that put sports in perspective, though people never seemed to react to them the way they did when I was cutting someone up in print. When I die, if anybody bothers to write my obituary, I fully expect to be identified as the columnist who called Billy Martin “a mouse studying to be a rat.”

The important thing, if you cared about your craft, was that you had to be good a lot more often than you were bad or the competition would bury you. I’m talking about the years between, say, 1960, when sportswriting’s Chipmunks started nibbling away at sacred cows, and the mid-90s, when the sports page was finally overwhelmed by the screeching talk-radio mentality that continues to assault us.

In the beginning, Red Smith and Jimmy Cannon were still around to remind the new wave of what true greatness was. As good as we were – and I think we represented the golden era of sportswriting–none of us ever reached the heights they did. And there were plenty of other writers, younger than Red and Jimmy but older than we were, whose very presence gave us a sense of perspective: Murray in L.A., Edwin Pope in Miami, Furman Bisher in Atlanta, and Blackie Sherrod, who, before he conquered Dallas, made Fort Worth the launching pad for Dan Jenkins, Bud Shrake, and Gary Cartwright. Then there was Ray Fitzgerald, Montville’s stable mate in Boston, and Wells Twombly, a world-class columnist wherever he traveled, and he traveled a lot before landing in San Francsico. And a pox on my house if I neglect to mention Vic Ziegel, Ira Berkow, Sandy Grady, Stan Hochman, and Larry Merchant, whose wry, cerebral column influenced more young writers than anyone will ever know.

They cleared the beach for the wave of columnists I rode in with: Montville, Dave Kindred, Mike Lupica, David Israel, Bill Nack at Newsday, Joe Soucheray in Minneapolis, Scott Ostler in L.A., Skip Bayless in Dallas, Ray Didinger in Philadelphia, and, begging his forgiveness for putting him last in this sentence, Tony Kornheiser. I always thought that Tony’s true genius lay in long newspaper features and magazine work–his profile of tragedy-stricken Bob Lemon will tear your heart out–but he tripped the light fantastic as a columnist, too. While Tony worked in New York and Washington, D.C., on papers where the spotlight was automatically his, Tom Archdeacon was lost in the shadows. You had to go out of your way to track down his evocative prose in the tattered Miami News, but it was always worth the trouble. Likewise, you had to keep an eye on Detroit, where Mike Downey’s star shined brightly and Shelby Strother and Mitch Albom found their way to town by the light it gave off. The auto industry was going to hell, but Detroit could claim a procession of wonderful sports columnists. And Elmore Leonard, too.

I read them all every chance I got. When I was at the Washington Post, still dreaming of becoming a columnist, there was a wall in a corner of the newsroom stacked with out-of-town papers, and I used to plow through it seeking out the bylines of old heroes and new competition. I still remember how good Lupica was when the New York Post let him have a two-week summer fling at writing a column. I’d just met him at the 1976 NBA finals, this baby-faced kid who looked like he’d fit in your pocket, and here he was writing with verve and moxie that left me wilted with envy.

There was a lesson there, just as when I started reading Kindred regularly and realized that he had studied the cadences of Red Smith’s sentences as religiously as I had. If I was going to be anything better than ordinary as a columnist, I would have to work my ass off, and it wouldn’t hurt if I wrote about things that appealed to my writerly instincts as often as I could. There were days when I couldn’t ignore the news–the big trade, big firing, big game–but when I was left to my own devices, I went where my heart took me.

For me, the best sports to write about were baseball and boxing. I felt as though I understood baseball in a way I never would football or basketball or, God help me, hockey. Baseball was still producing characters then, and better still, I was well versed in its history. But the truth of the matter was that the game still fell short of boxing when came to material that made for memorable writing. There were characters and shenanigans and life and death. I mean death literally. I saw it happen in Montreal, where a fighter named Cleveland Denny was fatally injured on the undercard of Leonard-Duran I. In the very next fight, Big John Tate, an Olympic heavyweight who was supposed to have a solid gold future, got knocked out and one of his legs started twitching uncontrollably. All I could think was, Jesus Christ, two in two fights? Tate lived, though. Cleveland Denny didn’t.

I can gin up a defense of boxing if I’m cornered, but I’d rather just tell you that I realize what a dreadful sport it can be and I love it just the same. I love the stink of the old gyms, and the fighters with their dreams that are almost sure to go bust, and the crotchety ancients who untangle their fighters’ feet and tend to their wounds and offer up wisdom written in the blood of those who didn’t heed them. Sometimes I even stop hating promoters and managers, though never long enough to think of them as anything except potential thieves. But it is the fighters I always come back to, the guys who step into the ring knowing they may die in it.

In a sport filled with liars–charming, quotable liars, but liars just the same–there is an open-book honesty about the fighters that could disarm the most resolute cynic. Want to know why a fighter ended up in jail? Want to know how it feels to fight with broken ribs? Want to know how desperately he craves a woman after going without during training? They would tell it all to you, and then invite you to a party after the fight, the way a Baltimore brawler named Wild Bill Hardney did one night. “Party at Loretta’s,” he said, which sounded great until Wild Bill’s wife read about it in the next day’s paper and asked him ever so sweetly just who the hell Loretta was.

Click here for the full “From Ali to Xena” archives.

Here’s Pauline Kael:

In 1928 Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur wrote The Front Page, the greatest newspaper comedy of them all; Howard Hawks directed this version of it — a spastic explosion of dialogue, adapted by Charles Lederer, and starring Cary Grant as the domineering editor Walter Burns and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson, the unscrupulous crime reporter with printer’s ink in her veins. (In the play Hildy Johnson is a man.) Overlapping dialogue carries the movie along at breakneck speed; word gags take the place of the sight gags of silent comedy, as this race of brittle, cynical, childish people rush around on corrupt errands. Russell is at her comedy peak here — she wears a striped suit, uses her long-legged body for ungainly, unladylike effects, and rasps out her lines. And, as Walter Burns, Grant raises mugging to a joyful art. Burns’ callousness and unscrupulousness are expressed in some of the best farce lines ever written in this country, and Grant hits those lines with a smack. He uses the same stiff-neck cocked-head stance that he did in Gunga Din: it’s his position for all-out, unstuble farce. He snorts and whoops. His Burns is a strong-arm performance, defiantly self-centered and funny. The reporters — a fine crew — are Ernest Truex, Cliff Edwards, Porter Hall, Roscoe Karns, Frank Jenks, Regis Toomey; also with Gene Lockhart as the sheriff, Billy Gilbert as the messenger, John Qualen, Helen Mack, and Ralph Bellamy as chief stooge — a respectable businessman — and Alma Kruger as his mother.

The Front Page was made into a movie in 1931 and then remade as His Girl Friday. It’s about as good as American movie comedy gets. It’ll leave you dizzy.

When you visit my mom–who now lives in Vermont–this is what you get.

Because that’s how she rolls.

My wife is sweet and polite, she is proper and feminine.

She is also a good shot.

Last week in Vermont, I shot a handgun for the first time in my life. Guns scare me but my father-in-law is an expert teacher, calm, cautious, and encouraging.

I kept thinking of Lorraine Bracco in “Good Fellas” when she said, “I gotta admit the truth. It turned me on.”

That’s the sound the rain made against my window in the Bronx last night.

I could be wrong but it doesn’t look like the Yankees and Rays will play today.

Update: Today’s game has been rained out.

Meanwhile, cool out to this:

[Photo Credit: Wolf Suschitzky, 1937]

He might not have much left but Jorge Posada made the most of his first start in a week today. In the second inning he hit a two-run single and in the fifth he hit a long grand slam home run as the Yanks beat-up on the Rays, 9-2. Phil Hughes pitched well, giving up a couple of runs on four hits over six innings, but it was Posada who gave the fans the big thrills. His buddy Derek Jeter was honored before the game–more 3,000 hit love–so it was lovely to see ol’ Jorge rip shit up.

One for the money, two for the show…a fun day in the Bronx.

Elsewhere, according to Brian Heyman:

Freddy Garcia cut a finger on his pitching hand four or five days ago in a kitchen accident, according to Joe Girardi, so he has been scratched from tomorrow’s start and the decision about who to cut from the rotation will now be delayed. A.J. Burnett will take the start tomorrow, weather permitting, because the forecast sounds bad.

[Photo Credit: Christopher Pasatieri/Getty Images]

Another big start for Phil Hughes today.

1. Gardner LF
2. Jeter SS
3. Granderson CF
4. Teixeira 1B
5. Cano 2B
6. Swisher RF
7. Chavez 3B
8. Posada DH
9. Martin C

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Frank Oscar]

Mornin’.

[Photo Credit: Nowpublic.com]

And now it’s C.C. Sabathia’s turn to take his lumps. The Yankee ace struck out seven and didn’t walk a batter against the Rays on Friday night but he also gave up five solo home runs as the Rays won easily, 5-1. David Price, aided by some slick fielding, pitched a nice game.

Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez started his rehab assignment with a bang, and Yankee GM Brian Cashman defended the struggling A.J. Burnett to reporters:

“No, he’s not pitching like a No. 2 starter. He’s pitching like a quality starting pitcher in the American League, period,” Cashman said. “And if you factor in health and you take his money out of the equation people would try to trade for him for the stretch drive and feel good about it.”

This is a far cry from how Steinbrenner would have handled a similar situation. The Boss would have ripped Burnett again and again to the writers. Cashman is trying to build his pitcher up. Let’s hope it works.

Tonight gives C.C. Sabathia and David Price. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Alex Rodriguez begins a rehab assignment today and the Yanks look, once again, to gain ground on the Sox, and put some space between themselves and the Rays.

Cliff has the preview:

The Rays enter this weekend’s three-game series in the Bronx 8 1/2 games behind the Yankees in the Wild Card race and a half-game behind the Angels, who just left the Bronx having dropped two of three to the Bombers. I don’t really see either of those two seems as a significant threat to the Yankees’ chances of making the postseason. However, the Yankees and Rays do have nine games remaining against each other, so, at the moment, it is possible for the Rays to sweep their way into the Wild Card spot. A single win in this series, however, puts the Yankees in charge of the Rays’ destiny as the Yankees’ lead over the Rays would then exceed the number of games they have remaining against each other.

Thus far this season, these two teams have been pretty closely matched. The Yankees hold a slight 5-4 game advantage in the season series and have outscored the Rays by just four runs, but the Rays took four of their seven head-to-head contests in July and have since upgraded their roster by finally calling up top prospect Desmond Jennings and installing him in left field in place of the overextended Sam Fuld.

Fuld caused a sensation in April with a hot bat and circus catches, but has hit just .202/.267/.310 dating back to April 28. Jennings, long tabbed as Carl Crawford’s replacement, has hit .333/.422/.597 with eight stolen bases in 19 games since being called up in late July, a promotion that was delayed slightly by a broken finger. That’s a significant and overdue upgrade, though one that might prove to have come too late to salvage the Rays’ postseason hopes.

1. Jeter SS
2. Granderson CF
3. Teixeira 1B
4. Cano 2B
5. Swisher DH
6. Jones RF
7. Martin C
8. Nunez 3B
9. Gardner LF

Never mind the analysis:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Sure, why the hell not?

Because Smitten Kitchen’s got it going on.

Rod Serling by Al Hirschfeld

Over at Grantland, Peter Richmond asks: Why can’t Americans build arenas anymore?

Here’s his take on the new Yankee Stadium:

As a guy who spent considerable time in George Steinbrenner’s presence back when both he and I were cogent and unreasonable men (me the barbed newspaper scribe, he the pompous asshole who once called Hideki Irabu a “fat, pus-y toad”), I never expected the Yankees to look anywhere but backward with the new park. After all, this is a family that, in lockstep to George’s scarily tin-eared, tone-deaf take on himself, now runs its corporation by the family’s uncurious, unimaginative philosophy of “I haven’t a clue about vision … but can I buy the guy who everyone else thinks is good?”

So I wasn’t surprised that the new stadium, with its faux-gold façade lettering, emerged with a distinctly Gilded Age/decline-of-the-Roman Empire vibe. The first (and only) time I sat in those thousand-dollar seats behind home plate, and a comely woman who looked like a young Cameron Diaz kept sidling up to ask if I needed anything, I was wise enough to ask for nothing more exotic than shrimp cocktail.

I’ll grant you that the new one’s not a bad place to watch baseball (although annual attendance is a half-million lower than the last year in the old one). But the real problem with wrapping the new place in a retro-traditional-revivalist costume is that once you’re inside there’s not even the slightest pretense about trying to duplicate the original sensorial experience of watching a game in the old stadium, when the borough of the Bronx was part of the fabric of the team’s success. This was when you could reach out from the upper deck and touch the Buy DiNoto’s Bread sign, two stories high, painted in red, green, and white on the back of the six-story, yellow-brick apartment house on 845 Gerard Avenue; when the Ayn-Randian blue-steel screech of the no. 4 train coming to a halt at the 161st Street station wafted the sweet, industrial fragrance of railroad brake linings through the upper rows of the right-center-field bleachers.

But who can complain when the new place is packed with such sophisticated lures as a private dining room where toqued chefs serve crab roll sushi, strip loin, locavore haricots vert, and chocolate mousse?

Brian Kenny of ESPN Radio is one of the best sports talk show hosts when it comes to talking baseball. He knows the history of the game, but he also knows how to apply Sabermetric concepts in a meaningful and understandable way. So I was honored to have the opportunity to do a guest spot on the Wednesday night edition of his show. Right off the bat, Brian asked me about Jorge Posada and whether I felt he was worthy of election to the Hall of Fame. In trying to assess his case objectively, I looked at Posada’s career year by year and determined that he has put up about eight Hall of Fame seasons, based on OPS and fulltime playing status. That puts him roughly two to three seasons short of the call to Cooperstown. For those who prefer Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Posada has accumulated 44.7 of WAR for his career. That’s a respectable total, but well short of another contemporary catcher, Pudge Rodriguez, who stands at 67.2 for his career.

During the radio show, I compared Posada to Ted Simmons, another switch-hitting catcher, albeit from the decades of the 1970s and eighties. Simmons posted about ten Hall of Fame seasons, and did so in an era in which conditions were far less favorable for hitters. Simmons also had the advantage in WAR for his career, at 50.4. All things considered, Simmons’ ledger is probably sufficient to deserve entry to the Hall of Fame.

Right from the start, Simmons had a major advantage over Posada in that he arrived in the major leagues at a much earlier age. Simmons was 18 when he made his debut; Posada had to wait until he was 23. More importantly, Simmons established himself as a regular catcher by the age of 21, while Posada did not become the Yankees’ fulltime catcher until he was 27. That’s a six-year difference. So practically from Day One, Posada has had to play catch-up with his career. He did a terrific job right through last year, when he turned 39, before falling off a cliff in 2011. Barring some kind of late hitting surge this summer, Posada will likely be forced into retirement at season’s end, thereby preventing him from building up any further Hall of Fame value.

While I think that Posada is at least close to Cooperstown requirements (I mean, it wouldn’t be like putting Ron Hassey in the Hall of Fame), I suspect that the mainstream media will treat him less kindly in the Hall of Fame elections. Simmons received only three per cent of the vote in his first season on the ballot; in falling below the five per cent threshold, he fell off the ballot immediately, as the Hall of Fame rules dictate. And he hasn’t received much support from the new Veterans Committee either.

So if Simmons received such a small level of backing, Posada will likely struggle when his turn comes up for the first time in 2017. Yes, he’ll receive a boost from playing in New York and being such an important part of four world championship teams. But I don’t see him coming anywhere near the 75 per cent minimum needed for Hall of Fame selection. He’s more likely to fall somewhere in the 20 to 25 per cent range. That’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it won’t allow him to stand on the Hall of Fame stage next to Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.

Of course, none of this is pertinent to the Yankees in 2011. Posada is having his worst season, and has been so thoroughly unproductive that he has been demoted from his job as the primary DH. I believe that Joe Girardi is completely justified in making the move; if anything, Girardi gave him more games and at-bats than he deserved because of his status as one of the Yankee icons.

The demotion leaves Posada as a glorified pinch-hitter and backup first baseman, a pair of roles that will translate into little playing time. Given such insignificance, some have argued that the Yankees should just release Posada and replace him with a more versatile and useful player. Ordinarily, I would agree with such sentiment, but releasing Posada is one of those rare cases where the affect of team morale is potentially more damaging than any gain that comes from replacing him with a better bench player. In spite of his paltry power and inability to hit for average, Posada remains one of the team’s respected veterans. He is regarded highly enough by the majority of his teammates that his mere presence in the dugout and clubhouse can be justified–at least for the remainder of the regular season. Simply put, the Yankees don’t need the disruption that would occur with the unconditional release of their catcher-turned-DH.

I’m not usually one for sentimentality when it comes to the cold, hard facts of constructing the 25-man roster, but for the moment, the Yankees are playing it right with Jorge Posada…

***

Am I concerned about the recent struggles of Mariano Rivera, another of the Yankee icons? Not in the least. Yes, he had a bad week, but it has only comprised three games. The start of the slump coincided with an appearance against the Red Sox, who have historically had their way with the great closer. Rivera’s velocity remains very good; it’s just the movement of the cutter that has been subpar.

It seems to me that Rivera ran into a similar slump last year, but it ended quickly and was not a factor in the postseason. So let’s give Rivera a few more days before we decide that time has finally caught up with the Baron of the Bullpen.

I still don’t understand why Girardi did not give Rivera an extra inning on Sunday night against the Red Sox. Though he had coughed up a one-run lead, he needed only nine pitches to get through the inning. He could have easily started the tenth. Even a subpar Rivera is a better bet than Phil Hughes making his first relief appearance of the season, pitching in the frying pan of Fenway Park, and having to do so with no margin for error.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

Friday Funski.

Alex Belth’s post yesterday, which highlighted Jack Curry’s stance on A.J. Burnett, ended with the word, Amen. It was an emphatic agreement of a report detailing what many Yankees fans feel at the moment. In my own post about Jorge Posada’s demise, I wondered if Joe Girardi would have the guts to pull Burnett from the rotation and give him what we might as well start calling “The Posada Treatment.”

Girardi’s dilemma is not a matter of “will he or won’t he,” it’s more “should he or shouldn’t he.” Jon DeRosa, in his recap of Wednesday night’s loss, made an interesting and salient point:

… Nova was better tonight than Burnett was last night. Burnett ran into trouble in the sixth. Nova made it to the seventh and that’s an important distinction. But the difference was not nearly as great as will be felt tomorrow.

Ivan Nova has pitched seven innings or more and let up two or fewer runs five times this year. Same as Burnett. Nova’s been better and I’d rather see him on the hill than Burnett, but it’s not as simple as Jack Curry made out … A.J. Burnett is going to be on the team for another two years after this season. The Yankees are able to marginalize Posada because his career is over in a month and a half.

No doubt, Nova has pitched better than Burnett. He’s been more consistent, more aggressive, and gotten better results. Burnett’s outings have consistently looked like the last 99 holes of competitive golf Tiger Woods has played. Talk radio hosts and fans alike are calling for his head like he’s Piggy from “Lord of the Flies”.

My question is: Is this thought process too drastic?

Consider that in the last 10 years, the Yankees have employed luminaries like Jeff Weaver, Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez, Esteban Loaiza, Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, and Jaret Wright. Now put Burnett in that context. When Joe Torre summoned Weaver to pitch in the extra innings of Game 4 of the 2003 World Series, did you trust him? Esteban Loaiza in the extra innings of Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS? How about Brown and the mutant glove he wore to protect the broken knuckle on his left hand in Game 7 of that series and Jay-vee Vazquez afterward? Or Wright in what would be a decisive Game 4 in Detroit in ’06, looking like a shell of the phenom who nearly delivered a championship to Cleveland in 1997? Joe Torre didn’t have many more, or better, options. But Burnett, even in his current, scrambled state, would be an upgrade from those other misfits.

Through all his struggles, and 2 1/2 winless Augusts, Burnett has not shied away from reporters. His willingness to be held accountable breeds respect. You won’t hear Burnett sell out his teammates and say, “They play behind me like they hate me,” like Weaver infamously did. He did pull a Kevin Brown last year, cutting his hand while hitting the plastic casing on the lineup card on the clubhouse door; so we know he’s capable of fits of idiocy that don’t involve him throwing a 57-foot curveball.

The thing is, we know Burnett is capable of succeeding in big spots. The Yankees don’t win in 2009 without his October contributions. His performance in Game 2 against the Phillies may have been the most important game of that entire season. Two other games he pitched that postseason, against the Twins and Angels — both of which resulted in Yankees losses — were not his fault. (Coincidentally, Phil Hughes, the other side of this rotation / bullpen coin, was the losing pitcher of record in those games.) Part of why it’s so infuriating to watch Burnett is because as a fan, you want to root for him, but you have a hankering feeling he’s going to disappoint you at any moment.

Buried at the bottom of Curry’s column is the following nugget:

If the Yankees took Posada’s job away from him, they should be able to take Burnett’s job away from him, too. Even if it’s a temporary move, the Yankees could tell Burnett that he’s being bypassed in the rotation for one turn to work with pitching coach Larry Rothschild to improve. The Yankees can tell Burnett that he’s important to their success, so they want to get him better now, not later.

… how Burnett fits in to the rotation isn’t a question for the future. It’s a question for the present.”

So what’s the answer? Should the Yankees keep Burnett in the rotation because the glass slippers may fall off of Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia much like they did for Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small in 2005?

I’d like to see the Yankees take Curry’s suggestion and pull him for a few starts, see if he gets his head right, and then get him going for the stretch run and the playoffs. I say this because I’m still not sold on Hughes, either. A.J. Burnett has major league stuff, and it’s still in there somewhere. Burnett and Rothschild just need to work together to figure out where it is.

[Photo Credit: Fickle Feline]

I returned to the city yesterday after five days in Vermont. Took a cab home from the airport and had an engaging conversation with the cabbie who is from the Ivory Coast. He has been in the States for fifteen years, lives in Harlem, and is married to an American. He told me that some of his wife’s family looks down on him. One cousin called him “a stupid African.”

“This is someone who lives on public assistance,” the cabbie told me. “If you come from a poor country you never think to take the government’s money because it doesn’t exist for you. I have lived on three continents, I speak three languages, but I am a stupid African?”

I asked him how he dealt with the cousin.

“My father used to tell a story. If you are a taking a shower and a man steals your clothes, you do not chase that man because then you will look even more foolish than him.”

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Yeah.

[Photo Credit: Brian Hillegas]