Beautiful thing about Charlie Pierce is the man doesn’t mince words. Here is his take on a recent piece about Bernie Carbo:

Seriously, illegal amphetamines were being handed out by untrained team staff, without the faintest notion of informed consent, to rookies on behalf of the clubs themselves. Major-league baseball was pushing speed, and lying to the people to whom it was pushing it. This is precisely the way the dealers in the early years got the crack epidemic up and running. No wonder Carbo got hooked.

(And don’t even start with the argument about what “performance-enhancing” really means. Giving you speed while telling you that it was vitamin pills, and doing so clearly in the hope of making you play better, means that the trainer — and through him, the club — is trying to enhance your performance. Period. Unless words mean nothing at all, the debate is all useless semantics, except that I suspect more of the guys who juiced in the 1990’s benefitted from better medical advice than did the guys in the 1970’s who were gobbling speed like it was Jujubes.)

What do we do now? Take these guys out of the Hall of Fame? Obliterate them from the record books? Show up at Old Timer’s Days and boo them? (“AND WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN???????????”) Treat, say, Mike Schmidt like Barry Bonds? These guys all took illegal drugs and did so to play better. Unless you define your morality by what sounds best during your spot on Around The Horn, there is no moral difference in the two cases worthy of discussion.

Mornin’ Sunshine.

Julie Christie. Yeah, she had it going on, didn’t she? Talent to burn and not bad to look at neither.

The Yankees beat the Blue Jays 5-2 thanks to the healthy return of Mark Teixeira, who took a pitch off his left elbow Monday night, but they have some concerns about the health of their catchers, particularly their backups.

Lineup:

L – Curtis Granderson (CF)
L – Nick Johnson (DH)
S – Mark Teixeira (1B)
R – P.J. Pilittere (C)
L – Robinson Cano (2B)
S – Nick Swisher (RF)
R – Marcus Thames (LF)
S – Ramiro Peña (SS)
S – Marcos Vechionacci (3B)

Subs: Juan Miranda (1B), Kevin Russo (2B), Walter Ibarra (SS), Jose Gil (C), Daniel Brewer (RF), Brett Gardner (CF), Randy Winn (LF), Mitch Abeita (DH)

Pitchers (IP): A.J. Burnett (4 2/3), Royce Ring (1/3), Chan Ho Park (1), David Robertson (1), Joba Chamberlain (1), Lance Pendleton (1)

Big Hits: Doubles by Curtis Granderson (2-for-3), Mark Teixeira (2-for-4, and again quietly raking in camp to a .341/.408/.591 tune leading the remaining campers in slugging), and Ramiro Peña (1-for-3). Robinson Cano had two singles and a sac fly in three trips. Nick Swisher singled twice in three at-bats.

Who Pitched Well: All of the relievers. Royce Ring struck out the only man he faced, lefty slugger Adam Lind, swinging. Minor league call-up Lance Pendleton struck out two in a perfect ninth. Chan Ho Park struck out one in a perfect sixth and now has eight strikeouts against no hits, no walks and just four hits in seven spring innings. Joba Chamberlain worked around a walk, striking out two in a hitless eighth. David Robertson worked around a single for a scoreless seventh, though he struck out no one and uncorked a wild pitch.

Who Didn’t: A.J. Burnett scattered two runs, but allowed seven baserunners (two walks, two singles, two doubles, and a Jose Bautista solo homer) in just 4 2/3 innings while striking out only two. Then again, Joe Girardi said Burnett looked better than he had all spring. Given his 5.12 spring ERA, that’s entirely possible. He did have his curve working and mixed in his changeup, neither of which were the case in his previous start.

Ouchies: Obviously Mark Teixeira (eblow) is fine. Francisco Cervelli and Mike Rivera both have sore hamstrings. Cervelli had an MRI and was diagnosed with a Grade 1 strain that will keep him out of action for the remainder of camp. The Yankees still hope Cervelli can open the season with the team, but if he can’t, the Yankees may have to reach further down the depth chart for a catcher, though Rivera is expected to test out his leg in Friday’s game. Adding to the backstop angst, Jorge Posada was scratched from Thursday’s game due to a sore neck (thus Pilittere batting clean-up). It seems Posada just slept in a bad position. The Yankees expect him to play on Friday. Alfredo Aceves (back) is scheduled to pitch on Friday and is also hoping to avoid extended spring training or a DL stay.

Other: Joe Girardi made it official, Curtis Granderson will be the starting center fielder, playing even against lefties, at least until/unless he continues to struggle against them. Brett Gardner will be the starting left fielder but, like last year, will have to produce to keep his job. I think the Yankees’ best arrangement would have been to put Gardner in center because I believe he is the superior fielder, but I understand Girardi’s thinking that he doesn’t want Granderson to have to change positions if Gardner loses his job. I can’t decide if I agree with it, but I understand it. In a way it seems as if he’s expecting Gardner to fail, but by that same token, why not expect the best from your big new acquisition (that he can be a superlative defender in center and hit lefties). Let Granderson show he can’t cut it before you limit his value by moving him to left and platooning him. I just hope Girardi’s willing to make those moves should it become clear that they’re necessary. I’m sure I’ll be revisiting this in a few months no matter which way things fall.

Ocean Park #122 By Richard Diebenkorn, 1980; painting; oil and charcoal on canvas, 100 in. x 80 5/8 in. (254 cm x 204.79 cm)

So I’m out here in Albetoikey, New Mexico for a few days visiting family with the wife. It’s like being on the light side of the moon, man. I hope to have a couple of good meals, and although the famous Hatch Green Chiles are out-of-season, my sister-in-law has plenty on hand–she freezes them every fall–and I’m all about trying them because heads from New Mexico are crackheads for their Green Chiles, B.

There’s a fun new book for Yankee fans of a certain age called Yankees By the Numbers: A Complete Team History of the Bronx Bombers by Uniform Number, by Bill Gutman. Most of the player essays are accompanied by a picture of their baseball card. Plenty of memory lane names there–Dirt Tidrow, Bobby Meacham, Claudell Washington, Oscar Gamble–to go with the usual Legends, Ruth, Gehrig, Joe D, the Mick, Reggie, Jeter.

Reggie’s 1978 Topps card. My favorite card ever.

Dig it.

Dig this long, thoughtful piece on John Cheever by Edmond White in April 8 edition of the New York Review of Books:

Howard Moss, the poetry editor of The New Yorker, once said that fiction should be a combination of fairy tale and newspaper report. Cheever is sometimes discussed as a sociologist of the suburbs, but in fact a gold dust of fantasy touches everything he writes. In one of his best stories, “The Country Husband” (the story that made Hemingway wake up his wife in the middle of the night so that he could read it out loud to her), a man named Francis Weed survives a plane crash and hurries overland to his Dutch colonial house in Shady Hill. His children are squabbling, his wife preoccupied, and no one seems capable of registering his near brush with death. Francis falls in love with the baby-sitter; his wife threatens to leave him not because of his adulterous yearnings (which she doesn’t know about) but because he’s inconsiderate and has jeopardized their social standing by insulting the doyenne of Shady Hill. Francis sees a psychiatrist—and the whole suburban pastoral ends with the mysterious, irrelevant, but transfiguring lines: “Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains.”

…Cheever, who was immensely likable, met and befriended many of the leading writers and artists of the day, became quite close to E.E. Cummings, and even had a guilt-ridden affair with the usually heterosexual photographer Walker Evans. Yaddo became his favorite retreat, an important refuge during the Depression, and the director, Elizabeth Ames, invited him back many times. In 1941 Cheever married Mary Winternitz, whose father had been the dean of Yale Medical School and whose grandfather, Thomas A. Watson, had been a coinventor of the telephone. Cheever, working hard to support a wife, began to publish in the “slicks” such as Harper’s Bazaar, Collier’s, and Mademoiselle. In 1942 he enlisted in the army and tested low-normal on the government IQ test. In 1942 he published his first short-story collection, The Way Some People Live, which wasn’t very good but may have saved his life since it impressed a major in the army who was also an MGM executive. He withdrew Cheever from his unit, which suffered terrible casualties in Europe in the last months of the war. Cheever was transferred as a writer to the former Paramount studios in Astoria, Queens.

After the war he began his twenty-year struggle to produce his first novel, which would finally take shape as The Wapshot Chronicle. In the meanwhile he supported his growing family by writing many, many stories for The New Yorker. Although people today revere The New Yorker, in the past it was something of a liability; I can remember in the 1950s how dismissive it was to call something a “typical New Yorker story,” by which people meant something slight, stylish, and vapid.

Our own Emma Span is part of Gelf Magazine’s Varsity Letters series tonight. If you are around, troop over to Dumbo and check, check her out. As you know, we think the world of her because she’s one-of-a-kind. And funny…In the meantime, dig the interview she did for Gelf:

Gelf Magazine: Many of us have our own generalizations about Yankees fans and Mets fans. You mention that your father accused you at a young age of having an inner Mets fan inside you, even though you grew up a Yankees fan. What are these most predominant generalizations, and how true do you find them to be? Are there a lot of Mets fans trapped in Yankees fans’ bodies, and vice versa?

Emma Span: For the most part, those generalizations are a myth. With millions of Yankees fans and millions of Mets fans, they obviously aren’t all the same. That said, I think people do take on certain influences. It’s easier for Yankees fans to be a little arrogant because they’ve had so much success. The team itself also has a kind of pompous arrogance about its history: the greatest sports franchise ever, blah, blah, blah. I think the generalizations, though, are mostly bullshit. I do ask in the book, however, that if you grow up as a kid watching Mariano Rivera as your closer, if that has a slightly different effect on your personality and your outlook on life than if you grew up watching Armando Benitez. I think somehow it might.

Gelf Magazine: I think an interesting litmus test, at least for the nature of the Mets fan, was, who they would choose to cheer for in the Yankees-Phillies World Series last year? What does it say? Who are the Mets fans cheering for the Phillies and who are the Mets fans cheering for the Yankees?

Emma Span: There was a serious debate about it. Mets fans actually got pissed because they couldn’t believe that certain people would support the Phillies or that certain people would support the Yankees. Obviously they weren’t really supporting either team, but when you watch the World Series, it’s always more fun to have one team you’re rooting for. I think a slight majority—and this is based just on personal observation—but I saw a slight majority pulling for the Phillies. You know, because Mets fans live amongst Yankees fans and deal with them constantly, and the depth of anger against the Yankees is really pretty serious—obviously with the understanding that it’s just a game and most Mets fans have at least one Yankees fan in the family, but still there’s a serious anger there.

You’ve already seen the three Bronx Banter Breakdowns Alex and I shot with River Avenue Blues’ Ben Kabak, and I’ll have more to say about the Yankees and Red Sox in my preview of the season opening series this weekend, but if you want even more, here are a few other places that I’ve offered my take on what the coming season holds for the Yankees and the rest of the league:

• Patrick Sullivan interviewed me for Baseball Analysts’ Yankees “Stakeholders” preview.
• I also participated in the New York Times‘ Bats blog’s Yankee preview roundtable with Kabak and former SNY.tv cohort Steve Lombardi of Was Watching. Part one ran yesterday, part two is up today.
• Finally, my picks for the six divisions, wild cards, pennants, MVPs, Cy Youngs, and Rookies of the Year are up on SI.com along with those of the other SI.com “experts.”

Yankee fans upset with my pick for the AL East should be sure to check my picks for the AL pennant and World Series. Meanwhile, I stick my neck out in the NL Central due to a belief that the Cardinals don’t have the depth to survive the regression likely to be experienced by their two aces.

This update is powered by Dick Enberg, who is leaving the NCAA Final Four coverage for good, but joining the Padres broadcast team:

• Our own Cliff Corcoran is part of trio of bloggers asked by the Times to assess the 2010 Yankees

(more…)

Solo homers by Alex Rodriguez and Juan Miranda weren’t enough for the Yankees to beat the Twins as they fell 4-2. After the game, the Yankees announced their plans for how Phil Hughes will open the season. More below.

Lineup:

R – Derek Jeter (SS)
R – Marcus Thames (DH)
S – Jorge Posada (C)
R – Alex Rodriguez (3B)
S – Nick Swisher (RF)
L – Curtis Granderson (CF)
L – Brett Gardner (LF)
S – Ramiro Peña (2B)
L – Juan Miranda (1B)

Subs: Jose Pirela (SS), Brandon Laird (3B), P.J. Pilittere (C), Edwar Gonzalez (RF), Reid Gorecki (CF), Randy Winn (DH), Reegie Corona (PR)

Pitchers (IP): Phil Hughes (4 2/3), Boone Logan (1/3), David Robertson (1), Joba Chamberlain (1), Chan Ho Park (1), Royce Ring (1)

Big Hits: A solo homer and a double by Juan Miranda, who batted ninth and got a hit in all three of his at-bats accounting for half of the team’s safeties in the game. Among the other three was a solo homer by Alex Rodriguez (1-for-3). Those two solo homers were the total of the Yankees’ scoring in this game.

Who Pitched Well: Chan Ho Park struck out two in a perfect eighth inning. Joba Chamberlain worked a perfect seventh, though he struck out no one. Boone Logan struck out lefty Jason Kubel, the only man he faced. Royce Ring worked around a walk for a scoreless ninth.

Who Didn’t: Phil Hughes struck out five against one walk in 4 2/3 innings, but he also briefly lost the feel for his curve ball and gave up three runs on six hits including a double and a triple. David Robertson gave up two hits in his inning of work, including a solo homer by Brock Peterson.

Nice Plays: Minor league camper Edwar Gonzalez threw out at Peterson third from right field.

Oopsies: A-baller Jose Pirela made a throwing error.

Ouchies: Francisco Cervelli felt some tightness in his left hamstring and had an MRI, but the Yankees don’t think it’s anything serious and are only worried about his running, not his hitting or catching. Mark Teixeira swung a bat on Wednesday and is expected to play in Thursday’s game wearing protection on his bruised elbow. Alfredo Aceves threw off a mound on Wednesday and is expected to pitch in Friday’s game.

Other: The Yankees have decided that Phil Hughes will be on the Opening Day roster, but will stay behind to make two starts in extended spring training before making his regular season debut on April 15 (the Yankees don’t actually need a fifth starter until April 17). The Yankees play a three-game series in Tampa during Hughes’ time in extended spring training, and he will be available as an emergency reliever or spot-starter (in the event of a rain-out) during that series. He will then travel north with the team for the home opening series against the Angels, which will conclude with his first start, so he’ll really only be away from the team only for the season-opening series in Boston. That means there won’t be an extra bullpen slot available on the Opening Day roster unless Aceves’s back forces him to open the season on the disabled list. More importantly, Hughes’ two extended spring training starts won’t count toward his regular season innings limit because they’ll be low-stress innings in a controlled environment, though in reality he’ll only be skipping one regular season start, so he’ll only be saving about six innings off that total, believed to be around 170 innings.

One-upping Chuck Knoblauch, Denard Span fouled a ball into the stands in the first inning and hit his own mother, who was wearing his jersey, in the chest. He immediately ran into the stands to check on her. Fortunately, she was fine.

Untitled (Albuquerque), By Richard Diebenkorn, 1952. Oil on canvas, 68 x 60 inches (174.6 x 152.4 cm).

It’s no secret that I’m a big P. Kael fan. Imagine how stoaked I was when I found one of her most famous pieces, on-line–an appreciation of Cary Grant, The Man From Dream City:

“You can be had,” Mae Wet said to Cary Grant in “She Done Him Wrong,” which opened in January, 1933, and that was what the women stars of most of his greatest hits were saying to him for thirty years, as he backed away – but not too far. One after another, the great ladies courted him – Irene Dunne in “The Awful Truth” and “My Favorite Wife,” Katherine Hepburn in “Bringing Up Baby” and “Holiday,” Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth in “Only Angels Have Wings,” Ingrid Bergman in “Notorious,” Grace Kelly in “To Catch a Thief,” Eva Marie Saint in “North by Northwest,” Audrey Hepburn in “Charade.” Willing but not forward, Cary Grant must be the most publicly seduced male the world has known, yet he has never become a public joke – not even when Tony Curtis parodied him in “Some Like It Hot,” encouraging Marilyn Monroe to rape. The little bit of shyness and reserve in Grant is pure box-office gold, and being the pursued doesn’t make him seem weak or passively soft. It makes him glamorous – and, since he is not as available as other men, far more desirable.

Cary Grant is the male love object. Men want to be as lucky and enviable as he is – they want to be like him. And women imagine landing him. Like Robert Redford, he’s sexiest in pictures in which the woman is the aggressor and all the film’s erotic energy is concentrated on him, as it was in “Notorious”: Ingrid Bergman practically ravished him while he was trying to conduct a phone conversation.

…Everyone likes the idea of Cary Grant. Everyone thinks of him affectionately, because he embodies what seems a happier time – a time when we had a simpler relationship to a performer. We could admire him for his timing and nonchalance; we didn’t expect emotional revelations from Cary Grant. We were used to his keeping his distance – which, if we cared to, we could close in idle fantasy. He appeared before us in radiantly shallow perfection, and that was all we wanted of him. He was the dufy of acting – shallow, but in a good way, shallow without trying to be deep. We didn’t want depth from him; we asked only that he be handsome and silky and make us laugh.

Cary Grant’s bravado – his wonderful sense of pleasure in performance, which we respond to and share in – is a pride in craft. His confident timing is linked to a sense of movies as a popular entertainment: he wants to please the public. He became a “polished,” “finished” performer in a tradition that has long since atrophied.

He was the illest.

Some words (and recipes) from the master, Jacques Pepin, in a long interview at Powells.com:

We had to go to school at that time until age fourteen to finish primary school. Certificate étude. I was doing fine in school. I’m saying that only in that I didn’t have to leave school. My brother didn’t, and he became an engineer. But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to go into the kitchen and cook.

I liked the hustle, bustle, excitement, the sweating and yelling of the kitchen. I liked it very much; my brother didn’t. The other choice I would have had maybe was to become a cabinetmaker because my father was a cabinetmaker, doing fancy furniture, which we call ébéniste in France. And I still like to work wood. I was in Claudine’s house yesterday, looking at a table I did a few years ago. Pretty rough, but it’s still there.

I like to work with my hands, and I feel that anyone involved in food has to become a craftsman first. A technician. That doesn’t mean you have talent. It just means that you are able to move very fast and do things properly in an orderly manner, in a miserly manner. Certainly if you’re a jeweler or a carpenter or a surgeon, you first and foremost have to become a technician, to have the manual dexterity to dominate that trade. If you happen to have talent, now you have the know-how in your hand; you have the means to express this and bring it to a higher level.

If you look at the reverse: I know young chefs who have a lot of talent, but they’re technically very bad. The food doesn’t come out the way it should. I can do an analogy with my painting. I’ve been painting for thirty years. I do illustrations in my books. But I have never spent, like a professional painter, five hours every day in a studio, working, working, working, so I don’t really have much technique. I start a painting and sometimes it comes out halfway good, and I’m the first one astonished. Often I get disgusted because whatever I have in my head, my hand is not able to express it the way I want. I’m not good enough technically.

The third and final installment of our Bronx Banter Breakdown season previews:

The Yankees split their final split-squad action of the spring, losing CC Sabathia’s road start against the Braves and winning Sergio Mitre’s home start against the Blue Jays. Also, two more non-roster outfielders were cut, leaving Marcus Thames as the last man standing for the final bench spot.

Braves 9, Yankees 6

Lineup:

L – Brett Gardner (LF)
S – Nick Swisher (RF)
S – Jorge Posada (C)
L – Robinson Cano (2B)
L – Curtis Granderson (CF)
L – Juan Miranda (1B)
R – Kevin Russo (SS)
R – Brandon Laird (3B)
L – CC Sabathia (P)

Subs: Walter Ibarra (2B), P.J. Pilittere (C), David Winfree (RF), Austin Krum (CF), Ray Kruml (LF)

Pitchers (IP): CC Sabathia (4 2/3), Pat Venditte (1 1/3), Zach Segovia (2)

Big Hits: Home runs by Jorge Posada (2-for-3, BB), who hit a two-run shot off former battery-mate Scott Proctor with two out in the seventh, and Nick Swisher (1-for-4 with a solo shot). Doubles by Robinson Cano (2-for-4) and Juan Miranda (1-for-4).

Who Pitched Well: No one.

Who Didn’t: CC Sabathia gave up five runs on a walk, a wild pitch, and eight hits including a two-run homer by Clint Sammons in the Braves’ three-run fourth inning and four doubles (two by Troy Glaus, one of which hit the top of the outfield wall and was initially ruled a home run, and one each by Chipper Jones and old buddy Melky Cabrera). Zach Segovia, who has been clinging to major league camp like Bernie Williams to the possibility of a comeback, gave up three runs in the eighth allowing three hits and a walk while striking out just one in two total innings of work. Switch-pitcher Pat Venditte, brought on this road trip at Joe Girardi’s request, gave up a run in the sixth on two singles and a walk in his first taste of the competition above High-A, where he was dominant last year.

For those fascinated by Venditte, here’s how his outing went:

Pitching righty: retired Yunel Escobar for the last out of the fifth, then gave up a single to Matt Diaz to start the sixth. Switch to lefty: Nate McLouth bunted Dias to second. Switch to righty: Walked Clint Sammons. Switch to lefty: gave up a single to Erik Hinske to load the bases and a sac fly to Matt Young that scored Diaz. With switch-hitter Brooks Conrad coming up, had to declare which hand he’d throw with (right) before Conrad got in the opposite box. Conrad grounded out to end the sixth.

Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3

Lineup:

R – Derek Jeter (SS)
L – Nick Johnson (1B)
R – Marcus Thames (LF)
R – Alex Rodriguez (3B)
S – Randy Winn (RF)
S – Ramiro Peña (2B)
L – Jon Weber (DH)
R – Francisco Cervelli (C)
R – Greg Golson (CF)

Subs: Jorge Vazquez (1B), Reegie Corona (2B), Eduardo Nuñez (SS), Ramiro Peña (3B), Austin Romine (C), Colin Curtis (LF)

Pitchers (IP): Sergio Mitre (6), Damaso Marte (1), Mariano Rivera (1), Boone Logan (1)

Big Hits: A triple by Derek Jeter (2-for-3, BB). Doubles by Ramiro Peña, Marcus Thames (both 1-for-4), and Francisco Cervelli (1-for-3). Alex Rodriguez went 2-for-3 with a walk.

Who Pitched Well: Sergio Mitre retired the first nine men he faced before giving up a groundball single to the left of second base, a home run to Aaron Hill, and a double to Adam Lind. Those three hits were the only baserunners Mitre allowed as he walked no one against five strikeouts in six innings. Mariano Rivera struck out one in a perfect eighth. Boone Logan worked around a walk for a scoreless ninth.

Who Didn’t: Relatively speaking, Damaso Marte, who gave up an unearned run in the seventh on an error, a single, a walk, and a sac fly. Also, the first out he recorded traveled about 405 feet to straight-away center, but was tracked down by Greg Golson.

Nice Plays: Golson.

Oopsies: Alex Rodriguez cut Derek Jeter off  on a Vernon Wells bounder then dropped the ball when transferring it to his throwing hand to allow Wells to reach with what would ultimately become the Jays’ third run.

Ouchies: Mark Teixeira‘s elbow was sore on Tuesday, but he had no swelling. Alfredo Aceves (back) could play catch on Wednesday. Blue Jays catcher Kyle Phillips hit Ramiro Peña in the helmet with his return throw to the pitcher in the eighth. Peña was more surprised and amused than hurt.

Cuts: Marcus Thames has hit .152 this spring. Jon Weber has hit .483, but it was Weber who got send to minor league camp on Tuesday. The reasons are plentiful. Chief among them, the Yankees want a right-handed outfield bat on their bench and Weber hits lefty. Also the 33-year-old Thames has a .491 career slugging percentage in 1,709 career plate appearances, while the 32-year-old Weber has a .473 career slugging percentage in the minors and has never appeared in a major league game. Weber also failed to walk or homer this spring, while Thames has two of each, though it’s easy and not inappropriate to argue that Weber was too busy getting hits to worry about taking ball four and his four extra-base hits (all doubles) were one more than Thames’ total of three.

Weber has earned a starting job in Scranton and put himself on the short list for outfield call-ups, though he remains hindered by being a non-roster player. That means the Yankees could find themselves with a 32-year-old rookie on the bench at some point this season. It would be a great story if it happened, but one the local media will beat to death and a bad sign for the team.

The actual right-handed batter competing with Thames, David Winfree, was also farmed out on Tuesday. He hit .269 with one walk and one homer (his only extra-base hit) in camp. Winfree, Greg Golson, and Weber will be the starting outfiend in Scranton. Golson is the only one of the three on the 40-man roster.

Still Life (Natural Morta), By Giorgio Morandi, 1953