Here’s another vintage bonus piece by our man Pete Dexter. This one appeared in the October 31, 1981 edition of Inside Sports.

If This is Wednesday, It Must Be Toozday

By Pete Dexter

At three in the morning, coming east across the Bay Bridge in a limousine the size of a cattle truck, a quiet falls over the back seat. It is the last day before John Matuszak goes to Santa Rosa for training camp. More to the point, it is Wednesday. There are three of us in the back—John and me and Donna, the girl he cares for above all others—and suddenly, as if by unspoken agreement, it is time for some quiet thinking and assessment.

We have run out of flaming arrows—matches, Southern Comfort, shot glasses. “Jeez, that’s too bad,” the driver says. He doesn’t sound like it’s too bad.

I’m not the first person to wonder what John Matuszak was thinking. Since he came into the National Football League as the first draft pick of 1973—ahead of people like Bert Jones and John Hannah—that question has been on a lot of minds at one time or another.

Matuszak went to Houston in that draft, then to the World Football League, where he played one series of downs before he was handed an injunction returning him to the NFL, then to Kansas City. He was traded from there to Washington where George Allen, whose idea of temptation is a quart of ice cream, cut him in two weeks. Matuszak was on the way to the Canadian Football League when Al Davis flew out from Oakland and offered him a chance to play for the Raiders in 1976.

He has been there since. “It’s the only place I could play,” he said once. “I know my reputation around the league.” The reputation, briefly, is that he still belongs in the straitjacket they used on him when he overdosed on depressants and alcohol in Kansas City. The truth, though, unless you happen to look at it from a very tight-ass point of view, say, that of most of the coaches in the National Football League, is that while Matuszak has had his share of scrapes, most of them can be put down to growing pains. That and things found hidden in his automobiles. A machete, a .44 magnum, a little dope.

Anyway, all that was before he mellowed….

Milwaukee

Sometimes you go in and it’s like you’re Edward R. Murrow. You let go of the doorbell and hear the footsteps. You feel it coming and there’s no place to hide.

The kids are going to be lined up on the couch, youngest to oldest. The little girls will have ribbons in their hair, Skipper the mongrel will be there on the floor and mom will be sitting at the end with an arm around Dale Jr. Trophies over the fireplace and dad is out in the shop, finishing up some woodwork. Why don’t we go see how he’s doing?

You wait at the door, dead certain that unless a sociable way to pass a quart of 151 up and down that couch presents itself, you’re doomed.

But the door opens and it’s Audrey Matuszak, still in the skirt she’d worn to work, talking on the phone. Somebody she has never heard of in New York wants to know if she’s big.

She holds the door while I come in. “Big?” she says. “Why, I never thought of it. I’m 6-5 and 265…no, that’s about average in the family….” Some days you’re doomed, some days you’re not.

She says the sweetest goodbye you ever heard and cradles the phone against her ear a minute longer. “I shouldn’t have done that, I suppose,” she says, “but sometimes you wonder about New York, don’t you?”

“Yes ma’am, you do.” She smiles and gets me a beer out of the refrigerator. There is an autographed picture of her son on the door. BEST WISHES TO MOM AND DAD, YOU’RE THE GREATEST. JOHN. It is the only evidence on the main floor of the house that he is different from the other children. The trophies, the movie posters are upstairs in the bedrooms.

“I think you’re going to enjoy John,” she says. “He’s just so much fun to be with. He’s out in back if you want to see what’s he’s doing.”

Picture old Ed now, sitting back in a cloud of Lucky Strike smoke, watching the camera roll through the doorway to the backyard where John Matuszak, massive and naked except for bikini swimwear, is sitting on an old blanket, tearing the big toenail off his right foot.

He holds it up to the sun, checking both sides.

He looks at the nail, then at the toe. “Toes are tender,” he says.

I take a look at the toenail, then give it back. “That looks like it was a real nice one.”

He nods. “It’s been getting on my nerves, though.”

Matuszak puts the nail next to him on the blanket and leans back to find a new station on the portable radio. “I’ve been on a hot streak,” he says. “It’s hard to explain. I was driving into town Wednesday and suddenly I said ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ and half a minute later that’s what they played. The same thing happened with ‘Déjà Vu.’ Yeah, that’s a song. You know what I mean, when you’re just tuned with things?”

I think that over. “I always know it just before a dog bites me.”

At the work “dog,” he looks around to make sure his mother is gone. He lowers his voice and points to a pile of freshly turned dirt over by the garden. “They just buried Skipper,” he says. “It really broke them up, they’d had him for years.”

I swear. Skipper. A hot streak of my own. The radio cracks and suddenly Brenda Lee is singing “All Alone Am I.” Matuszak closes his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. “Look at me,” he says, pointing to his arm and shoulder. “Goose bumps. Brenda Lee, 1962. That’s what music does to me. I couldn’t live without music.”

He sings along with Brenda. He tests the toe. He reasons with it. “Well, there’s always a hump out there you’ve got to get over, right?”

The hump is an asphalt hill on the other side of the two-lane highway that runs in front of his parents’ house. The hill angles like a swan’s beak about a quarter of a mile down, then flattens into a dirt road and disappears into a railroad tunnel. The radio has just said it is three o’clock and 105° at Gen. Billy Mitchell airport. The heat off the asphalt makes the tunnel seem to float.

The Tooz is wearing sweat pants now, two plastic jackets, a towel around his neck and a wool stocking cap with the insignia of the Oakland Raiders pulled down over his ears.

“Just sit over there on the fence, stud, and I’ll be right back.” He jogs down the hill, getting smaller and smaller, his body waving in the heat until, at the bottom, he could almost be of this earth. He comes back up, spitting and pounding, growing like a bad dream.

At the top he walks it off, blowing his nose.

He will run the hill three more times before he quits, each time coming up harder than the time before. He is big, even for a pro football player—6-8, 300 pounds and none of it is fat—but you don’t really feel it until you see him tired, and he can feel it, too. Walking back to the house he says, “Well, I kicked the hill’s ass today.”

(more…)

Yesterday morning on the A Train, I gave up my seat for a Sox fan on crutches. I got to work early to cancel all my credit cards and order a new driver’s license for my new wallet. It was annoying but over in twenty minutes.

Quitting time was fast approaching, but I still had piles of vacation work to catch up on. I had made my peace with the Yankees, Rivera, the Red Sox and their nation as I worked. I got a call from home. They found the wallet. Almost everything in it is now useless, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. I hate to be careless, though I know I am prone to lapses too often.

I jumped down to the 1 Train to go Uptown, put on my music and opened my book in something resembling a good mood. I got bumped from behind as I waited for the train. It was a strong shove, enough to move my feet but not enough to knock me off balance. I looked up. It was the same Sox fan on crutches. So hard to navigate those platforms on crutches.

He apologized needlessly and started to move down the platform but then recognized me from the morning and stopped as I pulled out my earphones. I had an idea to tell him he had starred in a New York Minute, but decided that the minor thrill wouldn’t be worth the voluminous exposition.

We boarded a rush-hour 1 Train and some other guy saw his crutches and hopped up for him. We looked at each other and he laughed out loud.

P.S. The wallet was in the oven.

Jorge Posada was benched in Boston Sunday night. The motion led to speculation about Posada’s future; Monday it was confirmed. The benching wasn’t a one-off. It’s indefinite.

Jorge Posada, NYY, 1995-2011?

The media are treating the news as if it’s Posada’s baseball obituary. It very well may be. Joel Sherman wrote that if he were not Jorge Posada “he would be treated like Jack Cust and Lyle Overbay.” Wally Matthews echoed that sentiment, writing that “the Yankees stuck with him far longer than they probably would have had his name been something other than Jorge Posada, simply out of respect for his legacy with the team.” In that same article, Matthews noted how the incident in May affected his relationship with his teammates. Girardi, if you remember, slotted the struggling Posada ninth in the order — also, coincidentally, in a series against the Red Sox — and Posada later pulled himself from the game with a bruised ego. At the Pinstriped Bible, friend to the Banter Steven Goldman writes that if the Yankees are strong in their conviction that he can’t help them win, then they should just let him move on.

Dave Rothenberg, filling in for Stephen A. Smith on 1050, said he still believes Posada has something left. Maybe he does, but the Yankees gave him four months to work it out, to adjust to being a designated hitter. They weren’t going to do what the Red Sox are doing with Jason Varitek — giving him one or two days behind the plate per week and figuring whatever offense he contributes is gravy. The Yankees knew they couldn’t sustain the defensive liability having him catch even one game would bring. The next best option: DH. In that, the Yankees sought the same — or at least similar — level of production he provided last year or in 2009. But it wasn’t there. I discussed the toll not being an everyday catcher has taken on Posada’s pride in May:

Posada has looked lost. A player suffering through an identity crisis. Having had to make an abrupt switch from catching 130 games a year to being the team’s full-time designated hitter, Posada has not adjusted well.

And he never did adjust. At least, not fully. Posada was able to get his average up to .230 before Girardi called him into his office to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he’s done. Give Girardi credit: he didn’t continue to dangle Posada out there out of loyalty in the way that Joe Torre used to with Bernie Williams when his defense was declining as early as 2002. And they’re not ignoring Posada the way they did Williams in the 2006-2007 offseason. Girardi was not afraid to have the tough conversation. That’s the sign of a good manager. His job is to win game; if he doesn’t believe Posada gives him a good enough chance to win, then he shouldn’t be in the lineup. (Random aside: let’s see if Girardi does this with AJ Burnett in six weeks. Just sayin’ …) With all the undertones of their relationship as teammates when Girardi was the aging veteran and Posada the up-and-comer, of course this situation was bound to be a soap opera at some point.

Posada was the last person to realize that his skills were diminished. He wasn’t lucky enough to enjoy a renaissance in the way that his best friend, Derek Jeter, has in the past month. The anger and — depending on your perception, petulance — of Posada’s tone in May has turned to resignation.

Posada was a good soldier for a long time. Now, being a good soldier means being a disgruntled cheerleader. That is, until, or unless, the Yankees let him work his way back into the lineup.

[Photo Credit: N.J.com]

Gone to Grandma’s. That’s what they used to hang on the logo of the legendary Blackie Sherrod’s column while he was on vacation. Our esteemed pal Mr. Schulian is on vacation this week. Have no fear, though, “From Ali to Xena” will be back next week. In the meantime, dig the archives.

I stayed up late and watched that game last night. I woke up early and searched the street outside my apartment for my lost wallet. No luck on either end of the candle.

First day of work after vacation sucks, but not as bad apparently as the first day of daycare after vacation. My younger son was a wreck and I was a triple grump when I slouched into my subway seat.

After a few stops a tall, young Black man boarded the train on crutches. He had a large cast on his left foot and a weathered Boston Red Sox smashed down over his head.

I was listening to music but I made eye contact with him when he settled up against the opposite door. I pointed at him and then I pointed at my seat. He nodded and I got up and moved to the side for him to sit. He nodded again in thanks and we exchanged small but genuine smiles.

I reached to my head to adjust my Yankee hat. When my hand touched my forehead, I remembered that I hadn’t worn it today. I wish I had.

David Levine on the mess that Mark Rothko’s death made. Fascinating read.

David Lebovitz takes Manhattan.

Over at ESPN the Magazine, Jon Mooallem has a piece on the history and mystery of the high five:

When I first phoned Lamont Sleets this spring, I knew only the following: He is a middle-aged man living in the small town of Eminence, Ky.; he played college basketball for Murray State University between 1979 and 1984; and he reportedly created one of the most contagious, transcendently ecstatic gestures in sports — and maybe, for that matter, American life.

I was calling Sleets because I wanted to talk to the man who invented the high five. I’d first read about him in 2007 in a press release from National High Five Day, a group that was trying to establish a holiday for convivial palm-slapping on the third Thursday in April. Apparently, Sleets had been reluctantly put in touch with the holiday’s founders, and he explained that his father, Lamont Sleets Sr., served in Vietnam in the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry — a unit nicknamed The Five. The men of The Five often gathered at the Sleets home when Lamont Jr. was a toddler. They’d blow through the front door doing their signature greeting: arm straight up, five fingers spread, grunting “Five.” Lamont Jr. loved to jump up and slap his tiny palms against their larger ones. “Hi, Five!” he’d yell, unable to keep all their names straight. Years later, Sleets started high-fiving his Murray State teammates, and when the Racers played away games, other teams followed. In short, Lamont Sleets was both the inventor of the high five and its Johnny Appleseed.

The low five had been a fixture of African-American culture since at least World War II. It might seem impossible to pinpoint when the low five ratcheted itself upright and evolved into the high five, but there are countless creation myths in circulation. Magic Johnson once suggested that he invented the high five at Michigan State. Others trace it to the women’s volleyball circuit in the 1960s. But the Sleets story quickly shot around the Internet and into local newspapers, displacing, or at least undermining, all other claims. Sleets was budging his way atop the high-five hierarchy.

I love the low five. Still slap people five all the time. It is so satisfying, especially when your palms cup just right and it makes that good popping sound. It’s like hitting a ball on the sweet spot.

The end, well, it usually ain’t pretty.

From Joel Sherman:

Girardi met with Posada to tell him he was “going with his best lineups,” which after all of these years meant ones without Posada.

…For now, the Yankees are holding off on summoning Jesus Montero. He is hot at Triple-A (.333 with seven extra-base hits in his past 13 games). However, there remains infighting among Yankees decision-makers if it is the wrong message to promote Montero when he has not dominated Triple-A and at times projects indifference about being there. Nevertheless, if the new DH structure does not work, Montero will be called up; yet another sign the Yankees are in a DH phase of anyone but Posada.

“I’m not happy about it,” Posada said. “But right now I can’t do anything about it.”

In reality, if he were not Jorge Posada he would be treated like Jack Cust and Lyle Overbay, two veterans with somewhat similar numbers to Posada who were released recently by the Mariners and Pirates, respectively. Instead, the Yankees will keep Posada on the 25-man roster in a nebulous role that could include pinch-hitting or an occasional DH start or maybe a game at first.

Bummer for Posada. Truth hurts.

[Photo Credit: Nisa Yeh]

George…

With first place on the line at Fenway Park, the Yankees and Red Sox played a taut, tense four-hour-plus doozy. Each team had reason to expect victory, and several chances to seize it, but the Yankees handed Mariano Rivera a lead, however slim, and that usually tips the scales. Mariano didn’t hold the lead and the Yankees lost 3-2.

Sometimes your team stumbles into a late lead in a huge game in such a way that you don’t feel the edge is deserved nor secure. Game Seven in 2001 was one of those games. This was one of those games. So when Mariano took the ball and the 2-1 lead into the ninth, I felt nothing but black dread. As is often the case, he didn’t pitch poorly, but he picked the wrong ballpark to let up a deepish fly ball to left. In every other stadium in the league, Marco Scutaro’s lead off double is an out. This fly ball plunked off the Monster before it could fall into Gardner’s glove, and the Red Sox swiftly executed two sacrifices to tie the game.

On Ellsbury’s sacrifice bunt, which set up Pedroia’s sac fly, Mariano plucked the ball off one hop and spun to look at third. Eduardo Nuñez broke in on the bunt and Derek Jeter did not cover the bag. Mariano is an aggressive fielder and we’ve seen him go for the out at third, but with no one there, he had to turn and go to first. I wonder if someone was supposed to be there? Or if Boston’s bunt caught New York off-guard?

With the game tied, the Yankees were out of their “A” relievers, but Boston had Daniel Bard in reserve. He flamed a scoreless tenth and the Joe Girardi turned to Phil Hughes. Phil Hughes has an ERA around 7.00. Mariano Rivera had thrown nine pitches in the ninth. The Red Sox scored quickly off Hughes and won the game.

The epic journey that has been and will be Phil Hughes need not end tonight. But, as I’ve mentioned, I’d sooner change his name, shave his head, and place him in a safe-house in Wyoming before giving him the ball in extra-innings in Fenway Park. Girardi disagrees.

And I lost my wallet today, so I guess that means my vacation is officially over. If you’re not already burying your head in your coffee, there’s four other hours of baseball to peruse below.

The Red Sox sketched out a run in the second. García lost Youkilis for a walk. The Yankees employed their half-assed shift in which Jeter stood right up the middle and Canó played an extra-deep second base. Nuñez stayed somewhat close to third. Ortiz pulled the ball to exactly where Canó would be playing in a full shift and notched the safety. Carl Crawford followed with a 70-foot Baltimore Chop that bounced in all the wrong places and the Sox were set up with loaded bases and no outs. Freddy almost got out of the jam, but Scutaro squirted a grounder between Teix and Canó to push the lead-off walk across the plate.

Unlike other Beckett starts this season, that Yankees had base runners and made bids to tie the score. With Russell Martin on third in the third, Jeter’s two-out liner looked like a hit, but Pedroia didn’t have to move too far to snag it. With Granderson on third in the fourth, Swisher’s two-out smash looked like extra bases, but Ellsbury ran it down with a few feet to spare in that godforsaken triangle.

The Yankees finally found some two-out magic in the fifth. Eduardo Nunez sent a 1-0 cutter high into the sky and just deep enough to dink it off the light tower over the Monster. That was all they would get off Beckett, who made a several big pitches for strike outs with men on base, but at least they made him work for his dinner. He was done after six innings.

Garcia didn’t make it as long. Like Bartolo Colón in the first game of the series, he might have had a few more pitches in his arm when Girardi gave him the hook. But I thought both were about to run into trouble. Boone Logan started the sixth and brought trouble with him. Cory Wade was next in line. He found himself with bases loaded and a 3-0 count on the super-hot Ellsbury. He sucked it up and threw four strikes and got Ellsbury to pop to left to end the inning.

Matt Albers replaced Josh Beckett and got two quick outs. He looked so effective that the Boston faithful struck up a rousing chorus of “Yankees Suck” during Brett Gardner’s at bat. Like Henry V’s St. Crispen’s Day speech, “Yankees Suck” strikes a deep emotional chord in all who hear it. Perhaps Matt Albers was moved to tears and his vision blurred as he delivered a floating meatball that Gardner launched into the Red Sox bullpen. Possibly Albers was still teary when he beaned Jeter. Ah well, wait ’til the tenth, noble souls.

The Yankees had a chance to extend the lead later in that inning with newcomer Franklin Morales walking the bases loaded on nine pitches. He threw a few strikes to Canó and got him to ground out. The bullpens were fully fired up at this point. The Yankees called on Soriano for a 1-2-3 seventh. Dan Wheeler went one better in the eighth and struck out the side.

David Robertson let up a one-out single to Carl Crawford. He struck out Josh Reddick next, but the nasty deuce eluded Martin and Crawford advanced to scoring position. With two strikes on Varitek, another big breaker bounced off Martin and Crawford was 90 feet away from tying the game. I was worried that Robertson would go after Varitek with another unhittable/uncatchable curve and the Red Sox would tie it up on a strike-out-passed-ball. But Martin wisely called for heaters. Overpowered, Varitek popped out.

Papelbon stranded Gardner at second in the ninth and the Yankees asked Mariano to bundle this crude 2-1 scoreline into a victory. You know the rest.

The Yankees are 2-10 against the Red Sox this year, but this was the only game that meant anything at all to me. I still think the Red Sox will win the division and will be big favorites if they meet in the Postseason. Jon Lester is that much better than anyone the Yanks have to go at him. Winning this game wouldn’t have changed any of that, and it wouldn’t have found my wallet. But I’d be smiling just the same.

Artwork by Ando Keskküla

Yanks-Sox: Beckett vs. Fab Five Freddy.

No preamble, just cheerin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Cool out.

[Picture by Nicholas Seider]

Well, that sucked. C.C. Sabathia got mushed by the Red Sox again, the bats didn’t do dick and there was no joy in the Boogie Down. 10-4 Sox.

The beauty part for me is that I was stuck at a family party and didn’t see a pitch of it. Still, lousy as this was, it’ll feel better if the Yanks return to the favor tomorrow night against that sombitch from Texas.

As Jesse Jackson once said, “Keep Hope Alive.” No time to get un-Dude.

Oh, and C.C. will have his revenge against the Sox. And you can take that to the bank.

The Big Fellas goes today against Large John Lackey. Greed is good, ya hoid?

Here’s the line-up:

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Eric Chavez 3B
Jorge Posada DH
Francisco Cervelli C

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Featured image by Joseph Holmes]

Oh, baby.

While the Yankees ponder their sudden abundance of starting pitchers, they continue to look at left-handed relief pitching options. Boone Logan has been a season-long adventure (at least prior to his clutch bases-loaded strikeout of Adrian Gonzalez on Friday night) prompting the Yankees to sign J.C. Romero to a minor league contract. Romero has pitched reasonably well at Scranton, but not well enough to earn a promotion–at least not yet.

So now there’s talk that the Yankees may look at 41-year-old Arthur Lee Rhodes, who was recently designated for assignment by the Rangers. After three spectacular seasons in the National League, the ageless Rhodes (who seems to have been around since the hula hoop), has struggled in a set-up role in Texas. But his numbers against left-handed hitters are good; he has held lefties to a .216 batting average in 2011.

Then again, the Yankees might stay in-house and turn to one of their cherished minor league prospects. Manny Banuelos, who struck out eight in his Triple-A debut this week, could be called upon to take Logan’s place as the lefty specialist. Banuelos is clearly not ready to start in the major leagues, but pitching as a spot reliever is a far simpler task. Banuelos would also have the advantage of working against major league hitters who have not seen him face-to-face, except for a possible spring training appearance.

Right now, I’d be willing to look at either Banuelos, Rhodes, or Romero, either as the lone lefty specialist or as a supplement to Logan. Unlike Logan, they have the kinds of deliveries that are deceptive for left-handed hitters to pick up. Rhodes and Romero also have much longer track records of success than Logan. It’s something to think about…

***

It didn’t receive much attention amidst all of the Ubaldo Jimenez and Wandy Rodriguez rumors, but the Yankees actually came close to making a lesser deal that would have changed the configuration of the 25-man roster. According to a New York Post report, the Yankees almost traded backup catcher Francisco Cervelli to the Pirates for minor league pitcher Brad Lincoln. (Lincoln, 26, pitched well in his lone start for the Pirates, but was sent back to Triple-A Indianapolis because of the dreaded numbers game.) The Yankees would then have called up Jesus Montero from Scranton/Wilkes Barre to serve as the No. 2 receiver.

That the Yankees even discussed trading Cervelli shows that management is not blind to his general incompetence. There are clearly those in the organization who want him gone and simultaneously want Montero in the major leagues. Given such sentiment, I would not be surprised if Cervelli is traded or waived before the end of August, clearing the way for the Yankees to have a backup catcher who can actually do something.

The status of the No. 2 catcher, whoever it turns out to be, should have little impact on the playing time of the first-string receiver, Russell Martin. Though Martin’s hitting has cooled off since May, he has been a revelation behind the plate. He blocks everything in sight, throws out runners with regularity, and has good working relationships with all of the pitchers, whether it’s a veteran like CC Sabathia or a novice like Ivan Nova. He’s the best defensive catcher the Yankees have had since the late 1980s, when Joel Skinner wore the pinstripes. For those who never saw him play, Skinner was a brilliant defensive catcher who had it all: agility, arm strength, and the smarts required of a catcher. Unfortunately, he couldn’t hit for either average or power, and spent most of his career as a part-time player.

In contrast to Skinner, Martin has some power, draws walks, and can steal a base. He’s not a strong offensive player, but he is a helper, and a man whose playing time is more than justified by his defensive skills. The more that Martin plays down the stretch, the better off the Yankees will be…

***

On Thursday, Martin caught Nova’s gem at Cellular Field: a stint of seven and two-thirds innings, one run allowed, and ten strikeouts. Not only was it Nova’s best start of the season, but it continues a stretch that has seen him post a 2.92 ERA over his last eight starts. The Yankees would be INSANE–in a “Crazy Eddie” kind of way–to send the young right-hander back to Triple-A. At the very least, Nova has earned the right to pitch in relief; at the most, he should be kept in the rotation while A.J. Burnett is put in temporary hiding in the bullpen.

Plain and simple, Nova deserves to be on the major league pitching staff. With his sinking fastball, overhand curve, and improving control, Nova has all the requisites to be a very good No. 3 starter. He is clearly one of the 12 best pitchers the Yankees have right now, if not one of the six best pitchers. By keeping Nova right where he is, the Yankees would be sending a positive message to all players in their system: that performance, and not contract status or reputation, will ultimately determine who stays and who goes. That is the way that good organizations run things.

With Nova joining Sabathia, Bartolo Colon, Phil Hughes, and Freddy Garcia, the Yankees have a capable starting rotation that offers a nice mix of youth and age. By putting Burnett in the bullpen, the Yankees finally send him the message that his performance needs to get better. They also maintain a fallback in case Hughes reverts back to his early season lack of form.

Ultimately, I don’t think it will happen, largely because Joe Girardi doesn’t like to offend his veteran players. But putting Burnett in the bullpen and keeping Nova in the rotation would be the correct thing to do.

The Yankees entered the weekend series at Fenway Park hoping to finally earn a win against the Red Sox, but when Joe Girardi made a slow stroll to the mound in the fifth, it seemed like another loss to Boston was inevitable. With the bases loaded and Adrian Gonzalez coming to the plate, Girardi decided to lift Bartolo Colon and bring in the much maligned Boone Logan. The entire Yankees’ Universe held its breath, but three pitches later, it was time to exhale. After getting ahead with a fastball, Logan induced the MVP front runner into swinging through two sliders. The crisis was averted and the Yankees lived to fight another inning.

Perhaps inspired byLogan’s heroics, the Yankees immediately went on the attack against Jon Lester, who entered the sixth inning having allowed only two walks and two hits. Four batters into the inning, however, the Yankees not only had a run, but a bases loaded threat of their own. With the game in the balance, Lester and Robinson Cano engaged in a classic confrontation, and on the ninth pitch, the Red Sox lefty got the double play he needed. Despite tying the game, Cano’s twin killing was a big let down, but before the disappointment could sink in, Nick Swisher lined an RBI double down the left field line that put the Yankees on top 3-2

Over the final four innings of the game, five Yankees’ relievers combined to shutdown the Boston lineup on only two hits. Included in the effort was a clean frame from Rafael Soriano, the third 1-2-3 inning recorded by the enigmatic reliever since returning from the disabled list. How significant was Soriano’s seventh inning performance? Before retiring the Red Sox in order, the right hander had only registered one clean frame in a game in which the Yankees didn’t have a 10-run lead…and it came on Opening Day.

Although the bullpen’s well rounded contribution was certainly a positive, the Yankees were probably hoping they wouldn’t have to use so much of it. Having C.C. Sabathia on the mound tomorrow mitigates some of the concern about a having a depleted relief corps, but the bigger disappointment revolves around Colon. Come October, the Yankees will need the rejuvenated right hander to pull his weight, but after tonight’s abbreviated start against Boston, the lingering questions about his playoff viability will likely persist.

Because both teams enjoy a comfortable lead over the other American League wild card contenders, the focus of this weekend series has been more about determining if the Yankees can beat the Red Sox than who will win the division. By drawing first blood, the Yankees made progress toward both ends, but messages aren’t sent in one game. That’s what the next eight are for.

Yanks vs the Sox. August. First place on the line. What more can I say?

Cliff’s got the preview:

The Yankees enter this series as the underdog, because they’re the road team, because it had been nearly a month since they had been in first place, and because they have gone just 1-8 against Boston thus far this series. However, the Yankees also enter this series hot, having won their last seven games against the Orioles and White Sox. Not that the Red Sox could be considered cold, though they’ve split their first four games in August, they went an astonishing 20-6 (.769) in July.

Leading the Boston charge of late has been Dustin Pedroia, who since the calendar flipped to June has arguably been the best player in baseball, hitting .377/.454/.623 with 11 home runs and 10 stolen bases in 12 attempts over that span in addition to his typically outstanding play in the field. Pedroia’s closest rival over that period has been the man who plays to his left, Adrian Gonzalez, who has hit .384/.457/.593 over that span. Indeed, the Boston lineup is just crushing it right now. Rookie Josh Reddick seems to have solved right field by hitting .333/.382/.581 since being recalled in late June. Their catchers are hitting, with Jarrod Saltalamacchia leading the way with a .290/.358/.574 line with ten home runs dating back to a series between these two teams in mid-April. That leaves Carl Crawford and Marco Scutaro as the only Red Sox regulars who aren’t crushing the ball right now. Indeed, that red-hot July was stoked by the Boston Bats, which pushed across a staggering 6.58 runs per game on the month.

On the season, the Sox lead the majors with 5.47 runs scored per game. The Yankees are second at 5.40. To put that productivity in proper context, third place is 5.02, fourth place is 4.81, and fifth place is 4.68, and the American League average is 4.36 runs per game.

The Sox have beaten the Yanks about the face and neck so far this year. Be nice to see that change starting tonight.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones LF
Russell Martin C
Jorge Posada DH
Eduardo Nunez 3B

Go git ’em, boys. We’ll be cheerin’ you on:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Painting by Ray Ellis]