Our good friend George Kimball died yesterday after a lengthy battle with cancer. He lived longer than anyone expected and there is much to celebrate about his life. But right now I just feel sad.  He will be dearly missed. George was a real Man.

Albert Brooks: Patriot.

I am a New Yorker and as such I prefer to walk wherever I’m going. You know, if it’s possible. I had a dinner last night on 48th St and 2nd Ave. I had to run an errand at Columbus Circle first. I hoofed it. No other method of transportation occurred to me, though I’m sure there were smart ways to use crosstown buses to make it a little easier and a little cooler. I enjoy walking.

I understand that Los Angeles and the surrounding beaches and sprawl is not built for walking. Still, when I went to the Dodger game on June 26th, my older brother Chris and I figured we’d put that notion to the test. We drove to the game very early, parked the car and walked out of the stadium towards Phillippe the Original.

It seemed very straightforward, the only tricky part was crossing the 110. The walking map / GPS on my phone had it pegged as a 25 minute walk. The phone is lucky it was not smashed on the sidewalk.

Maybe if you were one of the Elves from Lord of The Rings, it would have been a 25 minute walk. But my family moves at Dwarf or Hobbit-speed, especially in the heat.

Did I forget to mention my wife was pushing a double stroller? Disaster. You can imagine that an area not expecting pedestrians would skimp on sidewalks. There’s maybe 50 feet of sidewalk around Dodger Stadium that can accomodate the girth of the doublewide stroller. The road ahead was so treacherous that we had to send a scout 100 yards in advance in order to map where we could walk.

The sandwich at Phillippes is good, and probably deserves a Tasters Cherce, but the lines go on and on and noboby eles has planned to walk back – ever. So as we ate, the spectre of the return journey hung  above us.

But as with any disaster, it’s all about the people you’re with and how they react. We couldn’t stop laughing at ourselves, for thinking like New Yorkers and getting ourselves in this mess. My wife put a gob of their mustard on her sandwich before realizing how hot it was. We cracked up again. We missed the first pitch, and the first inning, but we caught the other eight and didn’t leave early.

Good thing, because the Dodgers won in a walkoff. We even hung around so the kids could run the bases. As we were leaving, my older son said, “When I grow up, I’m going to play baseball like those guys.” I think we were the last non-employees to leave Dodger Stadium. Great day and a walk I’ll probably never forget.

Map Courtesy of Bob Timmermann @ The Baseball Toaster

The Magic Number

[Picture by Lenoirrr…or just Marion]

Memory Lane…

Let me apologize right up front, because I know this recap is going to irritate some people. On the sixth of July, still four games shy of the All-Star break, I believe that two things happened during Wednesday night’s game that were more important than the final result.

First, there was Phil Hughes. I’m not sure how it happened, but I completely lost sight of how long it had been since we’ve seen Hughes on a mound. I had a vague feeling that he had been awful, so maybe that’s why I had completely washed most of the details from my mind. His best outing was his last, a 4.1 inning performance on April 14th during which he gave up seven hits and five runs and saw his ERA climb to a sparkling 13.94. Soon after he was jettisoned to the 60-day disabled list, mainly because no one seemed to know what the hell was wrong with him.

His return on Wednesday night wasn’t triumphant, but it was significant. As I watched the first inning, though, I wondered if maybe there was something unfixable going on with Hughes. His velocity seemed alright, as his fastball was consistently around 93, occasionally 94, and he appeared to have gotten over his reluctance to go to his other pitches. (He’d mix in curves, sliders, and change-ups throughout the night.) The problem was he wasn’t fooling anyone.

He walked the first batter, but that could’ve been nerves. Asdrubal Cabrera and Travis Hafner followed with singles (both firmly struck) to produce the first run, and Cabrera scored a bit later after a wild pitch and a throwing error by Russell Martin. Even the outs Hughes earned felt like rockets, and it took him thirty-two pitches to escape the inning. Another short outing seemed likely.

But he recovered. Even though he gave up singles in each of the second, third, and fourth innings, he looked much better. Far from dominant, but far from how he looked in April. The fifth inning might’ve been his most important. His control completely deserted him, as he hit A. Cabrera to open things, walked Carlos Santana on four pitches with one out, and hit Orlando Cabrera to load the bases with two outs. Facing what would be his final batter of the night one way or the other, Hughes managed to get Lonnie Chisenhall to fly out to left.

If we chalk up the shaky first inning to nerves, this was definitely a positive outing for Hughes. I’m not sure what we’ll see his next time out or what we might expect to see from him down the stretch, but I think he’s definitely headed in the right direction.

Also headed in the right direction is Derek Jeter. He pounded a double off the wall in right-center field in the eighth inning for his 2,997th career hit, meaning he only needs to come up with three hits during the next four games to get to the milestone at home. Here’s hoping.

The true star of the game, though, was Justin Masterson. He had come into the game with a pedestrian 6-6 record, but he’s secretly been one of the better pitches in the league this season, and he showed it on Wednesday night, as he was almost unhittable all evening. Joe Girardi and a few of the hitters talked after the game about how devastating his stuff had been, and his line bears this out: 8.0/3/0/0/2/6.

The Yankees finally strung together a few hits in the ninth after Masterson had left the game, but because Girardi had foolishly allowed Sergio Mitre to enter a close name and increase the deficit to five runs, that last ditch rally didn’t really matter. Brett Gardner worked a long at bat with two outs and #2998 on deck, but he ended up watching strike three, and the game was over. Indians 5, Yankees 3.

Not to worry. History and the Tampa Bay Rays await this weekend, and the Stadium will surely be as loud as it’s ever been.

Let’s Go Yankees! Let’s Go Jeter!

[Photo Credit: Tony Dejak/AP]

Four more for DJ, oh, and the return of Phil Hughes.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF

Never mind getting sentimental:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Bags]

Over at Chicago Magazine Jonathan Eig has a piece on Minnie Minoso. Minnie was the first black man to play for either Chicago team in the majors. He is one of the best players not in the Hall of Fame and he’s some kind of treasure. Dig it.

There are several obstacles cluttering unfettered enjoyment of Derek Jeter’s quest for his 3000th hit. The only legitimate one is Derek’s poor statistical season thus far. But that’s easily cancelled out by the Yankees’ overall excellence. The rest are manufactured by either a burgeoning wave of critics feeling the need to diminish the player, question his contract and place in the batting order, or by a thundering chorus of fanboys and girls drooling over every dribbler. Count me with the latter I suppose, if I have to choose sides.

But screw all of that. Just because there is a lot of noise and nonsense surrounding the hit doesn’t mean we can’t find a way to relish the moment on our own terms. For me that means several hours on baseball-reference.com sifting through the leader boards. One of the things you hear about Jeter’s milestone is that it’s surprising that no other Yankee has ever accomplished the feat. And the first few times I heard that, I mindlessly agreed, “Yeah, where’s the Yanks’ 3000 hit guy?”

But upon further review, it’s not that common, or easy, for a franchise to be able to “claim” a 3000th hit. There are 27 players with 3000 hits. Only 14 of them have acquired hits one through 3000 for their original team. And if you want to ease the requirements on the claim to getting your 3000th hit on the same team for which you accumulated the most hits, we can add another five. In all, only 15 franchises can claim a 300oth hit for their ledgers in this way. And that includes franchises like the Giants and the Braves that moved around during their players’ quests (Mays and Aaron).

Four franchises are lucky enough to have two. The Cards (Musial and Brock), the Tigers (Kaline and Cobb), the Pirates (Wagner and Clemente) and Cleveland (Speaker and Lajoie). Only Detroit has two pure claims as both Cobb and Kaline went wire to wire in the Motor City. The Yankees of course did have three players eventually get 3000 hits, but none of Winfield, Henderson nor Boggs achieved the milestone while Yankees. At least Winfield got more hits in a New York uniform than in any others, but that’s not enough to stake any kind of claim.

And obviously, it’s not just that Yankee fans are whining about not getting a fair distribution of the 3000 club. We’re surprised they’ve had such great players, among the best ever, and even still don’t have a clear 3000th hit. But among those titans of the game, they’ve never had the right mixture of health, peace, and free-swinging needed to amass such a huge total.

When Jeter gets number 3000, he’ll be only the 15th player to get his first 3000 hits with the same club. The Yankees are used to draping themselves in banners and tripping over trophies, and yes this has eluded their clutches thus far, but it’s not as surprising as it might seem. It’s really special, and I didn’t appreciate it fully until now.

We can’t ignore the fact Jeter is in the middle of a down year, but does anybody else remember so much scrutiny over other recent fading stars and their victory laps? Craig Biggio hung around until he was 40 and had the worst year of his career. But he came up short, so he returned at 41, had an even more dreadful year before ringing the bell. Winfield was crumbling in the worst season of his career (up to that point) at 41 when he got the big hit. Cal Ripken enjoyed an outlier renaissance the year before his 3000th, but he was crap during and all around the milestone.

All I remember from any of these marches towards history was celebration and adulation. Jeter deserves the same – especially playing for a first place team.

So in that spirit, I tried to come up with a memory of one specific hit. With the help of baseball-reference, this could have been a week-long tumble into the inter-hole. But he’s at 2996 now, so time’s a-wasting.

I was away at college when Jeter became a Yankee. I had come back to the team in earnest in 1993 when they retired Reggie’s number. But I had left New York the following year, so when the Yankees approached the 1996 division crown, I was watching from afar. I knew Derek Jeter was a promising rookie and had hopes, like everybody else, that he’d stick around for a long time and prove to be a good player. But I had no sense of him yet.

College was down in Baltimore’s television market, and I tuned in when the Yanks squared off against the second-place Orioles on September 18th. The Orioles were three games back and this was the last chance they had to catch the Yankees for the division crown. The Orioles led 2-1 in the late innings. Derek Jeter led off the bottom of the eighth and I thought, I really want him to get a hit here, and he lined one to right. The Yanks did not score though.

Bernie tied it in the ninth. Mariano held the O’s scoreless and Derek Jeter led off again in the tenth. I thought, I really want him to get a hit here, but that’s not fair to this rookie. He already came through in the eighth and this is a lot of pressure and all. But Jeter got the hit and scored the run. The Yanks won the game, the division and the series. As the ball squirted between short and third and into left field, I remember it occurring to me, “Maybe the Yanks have found something special here. Maybe this is a guy who is going to come up big when they need it most.”

He didn’t always come through, of course, but he did often enough to make it feel safe to hope for it. Derek Jeter has never been my favorite player. But between Jeter and Mariano, they make the Yankees seem like one epic roster that has stretched from 1995 to today. They are the Yankees of my young adulthood. They bridged the end of my schoolboy playing career to start of my family.

Three thousand is a lot of hits. I am glad I saw so many of them.

[Photo Credit: USA Today]

Rest in Peace, Cy Twombly:

What do you get at the ice cream truck? I like the strawberry shortcake jammy. Or a vanilla cone with sprinkles. Or, if I’m really knuts, a bomb pop like we did way back when.

Man, it’s hot today. The kind of day you want to escape from New York and find a place to swim. Or just hit an air conditioned movie theater and hang out all day.

It was already steamy early this morning on the way to work.  When I got off the subway I held the door open for a family running to get on. They were tourists. The husband was the last one on and he thanked me. I think he was Spanish which made me think of my uncle in Belgium who has been in Spain on his vacation for the past few weeks.

Dude sent me this picture.

Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ bout.

Lasting Derek Jeter Memories: Hit #2,722

(VOICEOVER)

“When he enters a room, there is always a recording of Bob Sheppard announcing his presence …”

“The Oxford English Dictionary apologized to him for neglecting to include the word ‘Jeterian'”

“He has brought such honor to his uniform number, when little kids have to go to the bathroom, their mothers say ‘do you have to do a number 3?'”

“He is . . . the most interesting shortstop the Yankees have had since Tony Fernandez.”

(CUT TO SHOT OF JETER SEATED AT TABLE SURROUNDED BY MINKA KELLY AND HER EQUALLY-ATTRACTIVE GAL PALS)

“I don’t often drink . . . but when I do, I never drive my new 2011 Ford Edge with the cool Panoramic Vista roof immediately afterwards.”

* * *

Once upon a time, in the days before free agency, “franchise players” were plentiful.  Most of the upper echelon teams had at least one such player.  Even some of the sad sack teams had their icon.

Here’s a list of the “2,000 or more games in career, all for one team” retired players club

Nowadays, the Braves’ Chipper Jones and the Yankees captain are two of the few active “iconic” players in baseball, easily identified by their career-long associations with their respective teams.

With career-long associations with one franchise comes the inevitable march up the team leaderboard for many counting stats, and hits is probably the “showcase” number.  Here are the current franchise leaders for each team (excusing the Yankees for a moment):

Given the Yankees history, its surprising to note that the Bombers have never had a 3,000 hit man.  Though Joltin’ Joe, The Mick and the Iron Horse all eclipsed 2,000 hits in a Yankee uni, Joe DiMaggio lost three prime years to the service and Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig saw their productivity diminished due to injury and illness respectively.

So when Derek Sanderson Jeter came upon the scene in 1995, no one could have foreseen that this polite, photogenic and disciplined shortstop would stand upon the precipice of Yankee history on the night of September 11, 2009.  Jeter’s inside-out, line drive to right-center machine of a swing had pumped out 2,721 hits to that point, knotting him with Gehrig.

Despite it being the eighth anniversary of the Taliban attacks that killed nearly 3,000 New Yorkers, and despite a rainshower that delayed the start of the game by nearly 90 minutes, there was electricity and anticipation in the new Stadium that night. A near-capacity crowd of 46,771 braved the elements to cheer on The Captain.

The Yanks faced Chris Tillman of the Orioles.  Tillman was making only his ninth career start in the Majors.  Leading off the bottom of the first, Jeter struck out swinging on a 1-2 pitch, but Alex Rodriguez hit a three-run homer later in the inning, and the Yanks still led 3-1 when Jeter stepped to the plate leading off the third.

He took the first two pitches for balls, then in truly “Jeterian” form, rapped a single between Orioles’ first baseman Luke Scott and the foul line, with Nick Markakis tracking the ball down as it made its way towards the right field corner. Jeter rounded first, clapped his hands and returned to the base.  He shook first base coach Mick Kelleher’s hand, handed him his shin guard, and then, the Yankees filed out of the dugout amidst a thunderous two-minute standing ovation and chants of “Jeter! Jeter!” from the crowd. Jeter’s father could be seen high-fiving anyone and everyone he could up in one of the Yankee suites. In the opposing dugout, the Orioles clapped in appreciation of the achievement.

It was an odd sight, as the Yanks (and Orioles) were all wearing red caps for the memory of “9/11”, but the night belonged to Yankee navy blue and white. Jeter would end up two for four on the night, leaving the game after a second rain delay. The Yanks would end up losing the game 10-4, but with a nine game lead in the division heading into play and only 20 games remaining, the loss was rendered especially insignificant. Derek Jeter had broken the 72-year-old hits record of Lou Gehrig, and the “new” Yankee Stadium had its first truly memorable moment.

Man, it’s hot out there.

I was in Los Angeles last week. Stayed in Hermosa Beach near the PCH. Driving everywhere was hard to get used to, but satisfying in a way. On one of those drives past a strip of indistinguishable donut and taco jernts, I spied CC Donuts. The kids were asleep in the back and otherwise unable to operate cameras, the wife was busy with something or another and I had a choice: whip out the phone and snap a pic while doing 45 in slightly dense traffic or let it go and deprive the Banter readers of the perfect picture for a CC shutdown start. I got that phone in my hands and started to look down away from the road, but then I thought better of it. I put the phone back down and watched the sign trickle past my peripheral vision. Meant to go back but never did.

So of course CC would be balls-out awesome in Cleveland tonight as he blitzed the Indians for seven shutout innings. His fastball was hard and always found uncomfortable locations. And his breaking stuff was filthy. David Cone mentioned in the booth that his sliders that were strikes started out looking like balls and the balls started out looking like strikes. It was a great observation, and it was all set up by the fear of the fastball. It made the hitters twitch early to protect against the heat and left them vulnerable for the slop. How vulnerable? Eleven whiffs, ten swinging. The Indians managed to get two runners on base three times, so CC responded by striking out the side in all three of those innings. That’s not shutting the door; that’s slamming it and breaking all their fingers.

The lineup went nuts tonight, making up for a two-game brown-out. Derek Jeter got two hits in his first two times at bat – a dribbler and a booming double. I became very excited because I am going to the game on Thursday and a big night tonight would make that game very interesting. Jeter got four more shots at making Thursday THE day, but came up empty. I figure he needs at least two more hits tomorrow to give me a chance in Hell.

Curtis Granderson continues his assault on my senses as he lined one homer and launched another and was pretty much running around the bases every time I looked up. He scored three times, the other Yankees scored six other times and strolled into the bottom of the ninth up 9-0. The Indians got a pair of garbage-time goals to make the final score 9-2.

CC Sabathia isn’t on the All Star team, and I guess I don’t really care and I know he wouldn’t pitch anyway. But if he’s not an All Star, what’s the point of the thing? Sure, maybe six other pitchers might have had slightly better starts to 2011, but ask the NL hitters if they’re happy or sad they don’t have to face him. I’d take Verlander, Beckett, Weaver, and CC and be pretty sure I got the best pitchers in the league. Oh well, maybe the Yankees can use his absence from the 2011 All Star team in their negotiations with him when he opts out of his contract. Maybe they can knock five bucks off the billions they’re going to pay him.

Yo, C.C., time to dead this two-game skid with the quickness. Bring the Thunder.

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

Never mind Thomas Wolfe:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

“Naduah” Digital Painting By Charlie Terrell

Our man RI Yank spotted this street art while on vacation in Rome.

Ted Berg talks turkey with Peter Gammons:

The countdown to 3,000 hits resumed Monday night in Cleveland, and Derek Jeter went 0-for-4. What’s being branded as “DJ3K” is occurring now in greater earnest than it did before Jeter pulled up lame with a strained calf and landed on the disabled list on June 13. He’ll be the first Yankee to reach the milestone, and of all the great moments in his career, this may be the singular event that speaks to his consistency and longevity. He certainly didn’t “hang on” in an attempt to achieve this personal benchmark.

And he has handled the march to inevitability in a way that has stayed true to his professional mantra: as vanilla as possible.

The interesting thing about Jeter’s career is that as integral as he has been to the team’s success, in games when he’s reached personal milestones, the team lost. And in games where “Jeter was being Jeter,” giving maximum effort and playing his customary brand of instinctive baseball, and getting hurt in the process, they won.

I covered the game on May 26, 2006, against the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium when he got his 2,000th hit. He reached first base on an infield nubber that was misplayed. According to multiple newspaper reports, even Jeter’s mother thought it was an error. The decision can’t be called into question now. The Yankees lost the game. Afterward, he gave his typical “It’s a nice accomplishment, we lost, I don’t care about stats” speech. Ho-hum.

The Yankees also lost the game against the Baltimore Orioles when he broke Lou Gehrig’s team record for hits. At least No. 2,722 was a no-doubter. Same speech. Yawn.

The two moments I immediately think of when I’m asked about Derek Jeter occurred in games the Yankees won.

1) Opening Day 2003, in Toronto. The Ken Huckaby collision. It wasn’t a dirty play, it was incidental contact. With one out and the Blue Jays employing an extreme shift with Jason Giambi at the plate, Jeter, always a great base runner, tried to catch the Jays napping. The description of the play, from eNotes:

Giambi hit a soft grounder to the pitcher, Roy Halladay, who threw to first baseman Carlos Delgado for an out. Jeter, seeing Toronto out of position, rounded second and ran to third. Huckaby ran up the line to cover third and fielded Delgado’s throw. Jeter dived headfirst into the bag, while Huckaby attempted to catch the baseball and block Jeter from reaching third. In do so, Huckaby fell onto Jeter; his shin guard driving into his shoulder.

The Yankees won the game and proceeded to start 20-5. In all, they went 26-11 without him, and went 3-11 in their first 14 games upon his return.

2) July 1, 2004, at Yankee Stadium, against the Red Sox. Depending on your perspective, it’s the “game where Jeter broke his face” after going head over heels into the stands to catch a Trot Nixon pop-up in the top of the 12th inning. The Yankees won that game also. The image of Jeter walking off the field, clutching his lip and his face swollen, is one that endures. I covered that game, too. It’s the greatest regular season game I’ve ever seen. We’re not allowed to root in the press box, and in particular, the YES booth, where I was situated. Those of us in the booth may not have been rooting, but we did not suppress our emotions and baseball fandom in that moment.

So where does that leave us now? The Yankees went 14-4 without him and won seven of eight prior to Jeter’s return. They’ve built a lead over the Red Sox and are in the hunt for the best record in baseball with the Phillies. They’ve adjusted to life without Jeter and the distraction of the four-digit elephant in the dugout. Is the current leg of the pursuit and his place in the lineup more of a distraction than an asset? If so, it’ll be consistent with the way these moments have gone throughout Derek Jeter’s career.

[Photo Credit: N.Y. Daily News]