We’ll never see the likes of Randy Johnson again. The image of this enormous man, who resembled a pre-historic serpant on the mound, hair flying, limbs flailing, as if backed by the wailing guitars of Satan’s house band, will be impossible to erase from our collective memory. He was one of the greatest starting pitchers I’ve ever seen in his prime–along with Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, and Greg Maddux–as well as one of the most viscerally intimidating. He was downright frightening, almost to the point of being comic. But he wasn’t a fool, and  it was hard to laugh too tough when he was stuffing up the Yankees’ asses, first with Seattle and then Arizona. That he was able to harness all of his moving parts, his wildness–both physical and emotional–and become an all-time great pitcher is one of the great feats of the past twenty-five years.

One of a kind, as they say. With an all-time moniker: The Big Unit.  I don’t know if  many fans will exactly miss him, but nobody is sure to  forget him.

[Painting by Viasta Volcano]

Check out this wonderful first-person essay by Pat Jordan from Men’s Journal. Jordan writes how he learned about money from his father, a professional grifter:

In many ways, I am my father’s son. once, in my 60s, I told my father, in his 90s, that I was not much like him. “How so?” he asked. I said, “I never gamble.” He laughed, a dismissive laugh, and said, “You? A freelance writer for 40 years?” He was right. He had taught me how to con people early in my life. I used that knowledge in my late 20s to hustle pool like him. I wore construction clothes at lunchtime. I conned my marks into spotting me the eight and nine in nine ball, and if I lost I always went to the men’s room, climbed out a window, and left without paying. A lesson from the old man. “Always check the men’s-room window before you play,” he said. “Because even if you lose, you’re not gonna pay.” Years later, when I became a writer, I conned editors into giving me assignments. “You got to find out what they want,” he said, “then give it to them. Tell them anything they want to hear to get the assignment, then write it the way you want.”

He taught me so many things that became a part of my life, that determined how I lived my life. He taught me that only a fool believes in perfect justice. “There’s no such thing as an accident,” he said. “You’re supposed to know the other guy always runs the stop sign.” He taught me that a man never quits no matter how defeated he feels, that a man always has to have the courage of his suffering. And most important, he taught me that “there are only three vices in this world, kid: broads, booze, and gambling, and if you’re gonna do it right, pick one and stick to it.” I was in my 20s, with a wife and three kids, and there wasn’t much room in my life for vice. Years later, however, I had more than a passing acquaintance with one of those, and it wasn’t booze or gambling.

But in the one way that really mattered, to me anyway, I was not much like Dad at all. I never had his purity of understanding of the true nature of money. That has always shamed me. I have been burdened, conflicted, cursed, you might say, by my own fearful need to hoard money to forestall that looming disaster always around the bend, the foreclosed house from my youth.

I remember the first time the Yankees played the Angels in New York in 2004. Early in the game, Benjie Molina was up and hit a soft grounder to third. Alex Rodriguez fielded the ball but couldn’t get it out of his glove. He double-then tripled-clutched. By the time he got rid of it, he was behind the pitchers mound. He still got Molina by plenty. He could have practically run to first and beat him.

It looked unintentional on Rodriguez’s part but the effect was comic. Only Molina was not laughing and he gave Rodriguez a piece of his mind when the Yankees’ third baseman came to bat.

I couldn’t help but think back on this scene after reading Ted Berg’s piece, Mets, Molina continue slowest-ever game of Chicken.

Here’s a gut-bucket Indie Rap classic from the mid-90s.

…the Super like in your building…

Rob Neyer on the Beltre deal:

Is Beltre worth $9 million? Yeah. If you believe in most of the fielding metrics, anyway. Beltre was worth more than $9 million last season when he was hurt and spent five weeks on the disabled list. Usually — when he’s not hurt and not spending weeks on the DL — Beltre is worth far more than $9 million.

You’re going to see this deal referred to as a steal in some quarters. Unless you’re a doctor with an intimate knowledge of Beltre’s current physiology, you really can’t know that. But the Red Sox had half-a-hole at third base, and now they don’t have any holes at all. It must be a good feeling, to know in early January that you’re essentially ready for a 95-win season.

Fack Youk asks the question: Is Javier Vazquez unclutch?

To say that he can’t handle New York not only gives too much weight to a small sample size but requires a jump that conflates the pressure of in-game situations to be analogous to the demands of pitching for one franchise or another.

…Even if you grant that Vazquez gets worse under pressure and will pitch worse just by virtue of being a Yankee, he’s still likely to be better than league average and throw more than 200 innings. It would be extremely difficult to do that and not add significant value to a team regardless of how his performance is distributed by leverage.

And of course, there’s a big difference between “hasn’t” and “can’t”. I’m willing to say that Vazquez certainly hasn’t pitched well under pressure in his career, but not that he can’t. He clearly had a great year in Atlanta and some of that has been attributed to an improved change up, giving him a second pitch to miss bats with in addition to his curveball. FanGraphs shows that his curveball was what stood out last year, but his change up looked to be improved as well.

Finally, over at Lo-Hud, Chad Jennings, profiles the Yankees’ bullpen. “Jonathan Albaladejo could show up in spring training throwing 122 mph fastballs for strikes, and Rivera would still be the closer.”

Nice.

No, not this one…

This one.

The Red Sox sign Beltre to a one-year deal.

Beltre is a slick fielder with some pop in his bat. This move has been talked about for the better part of a month.

Geoff Dyer wrote an interesting piece about Americans over the weekend in the Book Review:

The archetypal American abroad is perceived as loud and crass even though actually existing American tourists are distinguished by the way they address bus drivers and bartenders as “sir” and are effusive in their thanks when any small service is rendered. We look on with some confusion at these encounters because, on the one hand, the Americans seem a bit country-bumpkinish, and, on the other, good manners are a form of sophistication.

Granted, these visiting Americans often seem to have loud voices, but on closer examination, it’s a little subtler than that. Americans have no fear of being overheard. Civic life in Britain is predicated on the idea that everyone just about conceals his loathing of everyone else. To open your mouth is to risk offending someone. So we mutter and mumble as if surrounded by informers or, more exactly, as if they are living in our heads. In America the right to free speech is exercised freely and cordially. The basic assumption is that nothing you say will offend anyone else because, deep down, everyone is agreed on the premise that America is better than anyplace else.

…Like many Europeans, I always feel good about myself in America; I feel appreciated, liked. It took a while to realize that this had nothing to do with me. It was about the people who made me feel this way: it was about charm. Yes, this is the bright secret of life in the United States: Americans are not just friendly and polite — they are also charming. And the most charming thing of all is that it rarely looks like charm.

Terrific stuff. Oh, and Dyer once wrote a wonderful collection of fictional essays about Jazz, But Beautiful. If you are a Jazz fan, this book belongs in your collection.

The Red Sox getting new ownership (via some shady Bud Selig-orchestrated machinations), hiring Bill James and a 28-year-old Yale-educated general manager, and ending their 86-year drought with two championships might have been the better story, but objectively speaking, the Yankees were, once again, the team of the decade. The Yankees won more games (965, 45 more than the Red Sox and an average of 96.5 per year), more pennants (four), more division titles (eight), and made more postseasons (nine) than any other team in the just-completed ’00s and were tied with only the Red Sox with two World Series wins. Here then is an objective look back at the Yankees of the ’00s.

The Teams

By Regular-Season Record:

1. 2002: 103-58 (.640), lost ALDS
2. 2009: 103-59 (.636), won WS
3. 2003: 101-61 (.623), lost WS
4. 2004: 101-61 (.623), lost ALCS
5. 2006: 97-65 (.599), lost ALDS
6. 2001: 95-65 (.594), lost WS
7. 2005: 95-67 (.586), lost ALDS
8. 2007: 94-68 (.580), Wild Card, lost ALDS
9. 2008: 89-73 (.549)
10. 2000: 87-74 (.540), won WS

By Postseason Wins:

1. 2009: 11-4 (.733), won WS
2. 2000: 11-5 (.688), won WS
3. 2001: 10-7 (.588), lost WS
4. 2003: 9-8 (.529), lost WS
5. 2004: 6-5 (.545), lost ALCS
6. 2005: 2-3 (.400), lost ALDS
7. 2002, 2006, 2007: 1-3 (.250), lost ALDS

Managers

Joe Torre: 773-519 (.598), 1 championship, 3 pennants, 4 ALCS, 7 division titles, 1 Wild Card

Joe Girardi: 192-132 (.593), 1 championship, 1 pennant, 1 ALCS, 1 division title (all 2009)

Players

Most Games Started by Position:

1B – Jason Giambi (493), Tino Martinez (373)
2B – Robinson Cano (714), Alfonso Soriano (461)
SS – Derek Jeter (1,480)
3B – Alex Rodriguez (862), Scott Brosius (253), Robin Ventura (206)
C – Jorge Posada (1,135)
RF – Bobby Abreu (352), Gary Sheffield (286), Paul O’Neill (266)
CF – Bernie Williams (755), Melky Cabrera (330), Johnny Damon (207)
LF – Hideki Matsui (547), Johnny Damon (234)
DH – Jason Giambi (372), Hideki Matsui (250)

Top 5 Pitchers by Games Started:

Mike Mussina (248)
Andy Pettitte (217)
Roger Clemens (144)
Chien-Ming Wang (104)
Orlando Hernandez (82)

Closer: Mariano Rivera (589 games finished)

Top 5 Relievers by Appearances:

Mike Stanton (252)
Scott Proctor (190)
Kyle Farnsworth (181)
Tom Gordon (159)
Brian Bruney (153)

Top Batting Seasons by Position (per VORP):

1B – Jason Giambi, 2002: 79.4
2B – Alfonso Soriano, 2002: 68.5
SS – Derek Jeter, 2006: 78.9
3B – Alex Rodriguez, 2007: 93.7
C – Jorge Posada, 2007: 71.2
RF – Gary Sheffield, 2004: 52.7
CF – Bernie Williams, 2002: 66.3
LF – Hideki Matsui, 2004: 46.0
DH – Jason Giambi, 2006: 46.1

Top 10 Batting Seasons by VORP:

1. Alex Rodriguez, 2007: 93.7
2. Alex Rodriguez, 2005: 91.4
3. Jason Giambi, 2002: 79.4
4. Derek Jeter, 2006: 78.9
5. Derek Jeter, 2000: 76.7
6. Derek Jeter, 2009: 72.8
7. Jorge Posada, 2007: 71.2
8. Alfonso Soriano, 2002: 68.5
9. Bernie Williams, 2002: 66.3
10. Derek Jeter, 2001: 65.0

(more…)

Happy New Year everyone!  Today’s update is brought to you by a classic later edition “Hollywood Squares” moment:

• MLB.com offers 10 questions for the Yankees in 2010, including:

7. What will Johnson add, and can he stay healthy?

The first part of that question is easier to answer than the second. Johnson gives the Yankees a lineup cog powered by on-base percentage, and that’s really the appeal, since he’s obviously not going to start at first base over Teixeira. If he gets on board and becomes RBIs in the stats columns for guys like Teixeira and A-Rod, he’s doing his job.

The problem is that “DL” is almost as attached to Johnson as “OBP.” It’s not like the Yankees didn’t have to treat Matsui carefully as their designated hitter in ’09, but the point is that Johnson will be no help if he’s on the shelf.

8. Is Vazquez going to be able to cut it in New York?

Yankees fans don’t exactly have the greatest memories of Vazquez’s 2004 season, particularly the grand slam he served up to Damon in Game 7 of that year’s American League Championship Series, so it’s easy to understand some hesitation. But he was also pitching with a lingering shoulder problem that he hid from the trainers a little too long, and the makeup of this staff is a lot different than it was in ’04. If you stack Vazquez against the other fourth starters around the AL, he compares very nicely. No one is looking to Vazquez to drive the bus — that’s Sabathia’s job. All he has to do is stay on turn and come along for the ride.

9. What does the year hold for Chamberlain and Hughes?

The Vazquez trade helped create a domino effect in that, on paper, now only one of the two touted righties would have to be in the rotation for Opening Day — and perhaps neither. Chamberlain and Hughes would conceivably fight for the fifth spot in the rotation, and whoever loses that competition either goes to the bullpen or goes to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. It’s worth noting that Chamberlain has no innings restrictions, and Hughes still does. Don’t forget, Alfredo Aceves, Chad Gaudin and Sergio Mitre have to be considered in that mix too, along with Zach McAllister and Ivan Nova.

• (more…)

And so, on a snowy Sunday evening in New York, the Jets are playing for a playoff spot. It is the last regular-season game at Giants Stadium–the Giants were crushed in their finale last week and they are getting spanked again today in Minnesota. Now, stranger things have happened, so why shouldn’t the Jets win tonight? Still, this being the Jets–childhood memories of AJ Duhe, of Mark Gastinau and his 4th and 15 roughing the passer penalty, come back in a rush of disappointment–the smart money is on them finding a way to blow it.

I hope I’m wrong. I’m glad I don’t bet. And I’m even happier that I save all my angst for the Yankees, so no matter what happens, I won’t lose any sleep over the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets.

And that’s word to Jermone Barkum.

Ever read No Place in the Shade, Mark Kram’s 1973 SI profile of Cool Papa Bell?

It’s a keeper.

In the language of jazz, the word “gig” is an evening of work; sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, take the gig as it comes, for who knows when the next will be. It means bread and butter first, but a whole lot of things have always seemed to ride with the word: drifting blue light, the bouquet from leftover drinks, spells of odd dialogue, and most of all a sense of pain and limbo. For more than anything the word means black, down-and-out black, leavin’-home black, what-ya-gonna-do-when-ya-git-there black, tired-of-choppin’-cotton-gonna-find-me-a-place-in-de-shade black.

Big shade fell coolly only on a few. It never got to James Thomas Bell, or Cool Papa Bell as he was known in Negro baseball, that lost caravan that followed the sun. Other blacks, some of them musicians who worked jazz up from the South, would feel the touch of fame, or once in a while have the thought that their names meant something to people outside their own. But if you were black and played baseball, well, look for your name only in the lineup before each game, or else you might not even see it there if you kept on leanin’ and dreamin’.

Black baseball was a stone-hard gig. Unlike jazz, it had no white intellectuals to hymn it, no slumming aristocracy to taste it. It was three games a day, sometimes in three different towns miles apart. It was the heat and fumes and bounces from buses that moved your stomach up to your throat and it was greasy meals at fly-papered diners at three a.m. and uniforms that were seldom off your back. “We slept with ’em on sometimes,” says Papa, “but there never was ‘nough sleep. We got so we could sleep standin’ up or catch a nod in the dugout.”

Hope everyone is safe and warm.

Eat Well and be Merry.

Happy New Year to you and yours from all of us here at the Banter.

Stay Safe. And don’t forget to laugh.

The sun sets on 2009, a mighty good year.

This picture was taken up in Vermont by loyal Banter reader Lorin Duckman.

So, what’s the plan for tonight? It is snowing in Manhattan and midtown is gearing up for the usual madness tonight. I’ve always been a homebody on New Year’s Eve. Even when I was younger and more inclined, and I was never big on jumping around town like a mo mo. Nah, chilling at home with the Mrs and our kitties, a good meal, some old movies, and I’m straight.

I’m a cheap date, what can I tell you?

I was one of the morons who thought the Ken Phelps deal was a good idea.

That’s because I loved Ken Phelps. Having read Bill James’ annual Baseball Abstracts religiously in the late 1980s, I had become a devotee of “Digger” and his game. As a left-handed hitter with power who drew buckets of walks, Phelps looked like a perfect addition to the Yankees, vintage 1988. He could DH against right-handers, allowing the Yankees to alternate days off for aging right-handed hitters like Jack Clark (32) and Dave Winfield (36).

To make the trade even more appetizing, I had my doubts about outfield prospect Jay Buhner, the primary ingredient the Yankees sent to the Mariners for Phelps. “Bone” had several holes in his exaggerated uppercut swing, struck out at an alarming rate, and appeared ill-suited for Death Valley at Yankee Stadium, a frustrating venue for young, right-handed power hitters. So on all fronts, trading Buhner for Phelps made me a happy Yankee fan. But something less than a great evaluator of talent.

Well, the plan didn’t turn out so well. Yankee manager Lou Piniella couldn’t figure out how to get Phelps into the lineup more regularly, limiting him to 45 games and 127 plate appearances over the second half. (Maybe Billy Martin or the late Dick Howser would have been a bit more creative.) Phelps hit pretty well in those games, pounding out ten home runs to the tune of a .551 slugging percentage, better than any Yankee regular. Still, it was too little, too late for a Yankee team that finished third in the American League East.

The following year, Phelps’ performance flatlined; he suddenly became an old 34, struggling to catch up to above-average fastballs. He also struggled with the dimensions of the old Stadium. With his power gravitating toward left-center and right-center field, Phelps didn’t have the kind of pull swing to take advantage of the Stadium’s short porch. By the end of August, the Yankees traded Phelps to the A’s for a minor league prospect named Scott Holcomb, who would never play a single game in pinstripes (or any other team for that matter).

In the meantime, Buhner developed into a near-star in Seattle, becoming a productive power hitter with a cannon arm that played well in the old Kingdome. He would remain an effective right fielder through the 2000 season, before injuries finally caught up with him in 2001, forcing his retirement. If the Yankees had kept Buhner, they never would have felt the urge to trade for a past-his-prime Jesse Barfield, who came at the high cost of a young left-hander named Al Leiter

I feel bad that Yankee fans never really saw the real Ken Phelps. As a Mariner from 1984 to 1988, Phelps slugged at least .521 or better each year, with the exception of an injury-riddled 1985 season. He didn’t strike out as often as most power hitters, and for one three-year stretch, drew more walks than K’s—the sure sign of a smart hitter. As an added bonus, he was an old-schooler who wore the uniform the right way, with his socks up high, the way that ballplayers used to do in the fifties and sixties. Throw in the Popeye forearms and the lampblack under the eyes, and you had the look of an old-time ballplayer.

Although Phelps did little of prolonged consequence with the Yankees, he is far from forgotten. Every once in awhile, I’ll receive a little reminder while watching a rerun of Seinfeld, the character of Frank Costanza will yell at George Steinbrenner (voiced by Larry David), questioning how he could have made the Phelps-for-Buhner exchange. Frantically and in rapid-fire delivery, the Boss will respond, “Well, Buhner was a good prospect, no question about it. But my baseball people loved Ken Phelps’ bat. They kept saying Ken Phelps, Ken Phelps!”

I guess I was thinking along the same lines as those “baseball people.”

The Yanks have gotten younger. No Maas is on pernt with the details.

Here is an NPR interview with Wil Haygood, author of the new Sugar Ray Robinson biography, Sweet Thunder.

And here is Pete Hamill’s review of the book, which appeared in the New York Times Book Review a few weeks back.

Yes, it has come to this: the Eggheads take on the Dude and The Big Lebowski.

Speaking of Bridges, check out this L.A. Times piece about the music for his new movie, Crazy Heart.

And dig this: the Film Society at Lincoln Center is hosting an evening with Jeff Bridges on Saturday, January 9th. An interview with the actor will be followed by a screening of The Last Picture Show.

Boss!

Can the Yankees win with Brett Gardner as their starting left fielder? Why certainly.

Dave Cameron weighs in:

we should not be so surprised that New York is bargain shopping in left field, avoiding the likes of Matt Holliday and Jason Bay. They are at the other end of the win curve, and it doesn’t make much sense to spend a lot of money there either. The marginal value of the 101st, 102nd, and 103rd win in terms of playoff odds is really quite small. And that’s approximately the upgrade that Holliday would represent over the current production that Gardner offers in left field.

The Yankees have entered the prime area of significant diminishing marginal utility. They are so good that adding another high quality player doesn’t help them that much in 2010, and because of the long term contract that is required, they’d be risking future flexibility to add wins that may actually matter for an upgrade that just isn’t necessary.

It’s a rational decision made by smart people who understand just how good their roster currently is. In the past, New York has pursued every big ticket free agent on the market because they represented a real, tangible improvement in their quest to bring home another championship. Given how well Brian Cashman has put together this roster, though, a big ticket left fielder is superfluous. He’s right to keep his money locked up. They just don’t need another good player.

David Levine, the brilliant caricaturist, and one of my heroes, died yesterday. He was 83 and will be missed.

In case you missed it, here is a fine, if upsetting Vanity Fair profile of Levine by David Margolick.