When I was in sixth grade my mother went to visit her family in Belgium for a week which brought my father north from Manhattan to stay with us in our small two-bedroom apartment in Westchester. Though he was recently sober, any prolonged period of time with my father was uncomfortable. I remember him sending me to the deli with a note–written in his careful script–giving me permission to buy him a pack of smokes. 

Fortunately, the week was brightened considerably by the presence of one of his old film business pals, Mike Fox, a British camera operator. We knew about Fox because he shot the flying sequences in the first two Superman movies; he was also on the National Geographic documentary about Africa with my old man in 1966, the trip where my parents met.

Fox was short and round (that’s him shielding his eyes next to the camera). He wore thick glasses that made his eyes look huge. He told us jokes, did an array of accents–Indian to Uh-merican–bought us junk food, and sang songs. The one chorus he sang over and again was “Ape call, a-doubliaba, Ape Call, doubliaba.” 

We thought it was hysterical. He remembered the song from the Fifties but couldn’t recall who’d sung it. I wasn’t sure it actually existed, but that didn’t matter. It was still funny. When I think back on that visit from Fox, I always hear Ape Call. For years, it stuck in the back of my head as something to seek out.

Cut to 1997 when I met Alan, a huge record head, who lived in Midwood, Brooklyn. One day, he invited me to his house to show me his collection and to make a mix tape–that’s right, a tape, as in cassette (it was the only one we’d ever make, by the second session we were burning cds). I figured I wouldn’t waste any time so I mentioned the longshot, some song about an Ape call. Without batting an eye, he goes, “Sure, that was a novelty record by Nervous Norvus, who had a hit record with a song called Transfusion.” 

He had Transfusion on 45 but not Ape Call. But it turns out he had Ape Call on a twenty-five year-old cassette recording of the Dr. Demento show. Dude found it in about three minutes…and a friendship was born.

Fox wasn’t making it up after all, though I liked the way he sung it better.

As expected… 

Looks like it’s Jason Bay to the Mets. Big Mike Francesa gets the scoop. Gritty, Gutty day for the king of New York sports talk radio.

I like Bay, he’s vanilla as Richie Cunningham but appealing enough. Nice player, too. Not exactly Olerud-level great, but who knows? I haven’t seen him play that much. This could work out great or it could be a disaster–Bay is a lousy fielder now playing in a huge ballpark that depresses home runs. You never know with the Mets. George Foster/Keith Hernandez? Which one of these? Either way, the Mets are  better for having him–I hope it works out.

There’s an old saying: All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The more I’ve learned, the less I believe it. Power doesn’t always corrupt. What power always does is reveal. When a guy gets into a position where he doesn’t have to worry anymore, then you see what he wanted to do all along.

Robert Caro, Esquire

I grew up in a family where you were expected to know certain things–about literature, movies, politics. Being literate was required. I wasn’t a big reader as a kid, but by the time I reached high school, I tried to catch-up, all over the place, reading SJ Perelman, John O’Hara, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, and Samuel Beckett along with healthy doses of Salinger and Vonnegut. Still, I felt like a know-nothing nobody because I hadn’t read Dickens or Moby Dick or The Bible. So I faked it. I read criticism. When somebody asked me about a movie that I hadn’t seen or a book I hadn’t read, I lied.

I’m past that mishegoss now. I don’t feel the slighest bit ashamed by what I haven’t read or seen. If there is an exception, though, it is Robert Caro’s seminal biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker. I feel that it is my civic duty as a New Yorker to read this massive book, cover-to-cover. I’ve picked it up at least a half-dozen times and found the prospect of reading more than 1,000 pages too daunting to handle. It’s not that the language is difficult–Caro’s prose is engaging and easy to read–but the amount of information is overwhelming.

Perhaps, for those of us who don’t have the staying power to read it all the way through, it is a book best read in spurts. Regardless, I will read it all one day. In the meantime, I don’t curse myself, and I think Caro is a fascinating guy, and a classic New Yorker, one of the handful of writers I’d most like to meet.

Dig this piece he wrote for the New Yorker in 1998 about writing The Power Broker.

And this TV interview:

Mark DeRosa, that plucky, “gritty-gutty” delight with pop in his bat, has reportedly agreed to a two-year deal with the San Francisco Giants.  The Yankees are still looking for a left fielder, or a part-time left fielder. According to Anthony McCarron in the Daily News:

“There’s plenty of time,” the official said. “There’s no hurry. And there are a ton of outfielders out there. We are just tweaking at this point. We’ll sign an outfielder between now and spring training.”

Two team officials said the Yankees have no interest in Jermaine Dye, whom they have been linked to in reports. Last week, Cashman said that even Xavier Nady, who is coming off elbow surgery, likely would be too expensive for them.

Yesterday, Joseph Pawlikowski, of the indefatigable River Ave Blues crew, took a look at Jermaine Dye:

In 2009 Dye posted his worst offensive season since an injury riddled 2003. His power faded, as his .203 ISO was his lowest since 2004, and a .044 drop-off from 2008. His BABIP fell to .269, his lowest in a decade, apparently driven by an alarmingly low line drive percentage, 16.9, again his lowest since 2003. Defense has never been a strength, and over the past four seasons he’s posted a lower than -21 UZR/150.

There are some indicators, however, that Dye could bounce back from his poor season. While he hit fewer line drives, they turned almost exclusively into ground balls. His 43.6 fly ball percentage nearly matched his 2008 mark. Also nearly equal was his HR/FB ratio, at 15.6 percent, just a tick down from his 16 percent mark in 2008. Most of his power loss came in the gaps, as he hit just 19 doubles in 2009. Despite the down year he still hit 27 home runs. He also greatly increased his walk percentage, to 11.3 percent. Because of that he posted a .340 OBP, impressive considering his .250 batting average.

Considering the risks attached to Dye, combined with his poor defense, I wonder if the Yankees would also consider Eric Hinske. A much cheaper option, Hinske could probably post numbers similar to Dye in 2010, on offense and defense. UZR likes Hinske a lot more than Dye rating him positive at all but one position, third base, throughout his career. That doesn’t quite pass the eye test — Hinske seemed a butcher in the outfield last season, but I think it’s a safe bet he’s better than Dye.

The Yankees have played possum before, claiming to be finished only to swoop down at the last moment to nab a big ticket free agent. I don’t see that happening this winter, though, not with left field. They are already loaded and the free agent class of 2010 is ripe with talented options. I see them going with a guy like Reed Johnson or even Eric Hinske. If there weren’t willing to go two years, $12 million for Mark DeRosa, then Damon, Bay and Holliday are jut not in the picture.

Nu?

And while we’re at it, here’s a link to Gay Talese’s famous 1966 profile of Joe D, The Silent Season of a Hero.

Today’s update is powered by one of my favorite Lennon solo tunes:

• MLB.com offers a month-by-month recap of the Yanks’ 2009 season.
• Tyler Kepner has a brief review of the decade in baseball.
• Similarly, Ben Shpigel reviews Alex Rodriguez’s decade.
• Maury Brown analyzes the gap between the Yankees and the lowest-payroll teams over the past decade.
• Jesus Montero is the #5 prospect for 2010, as per Baseball America.

Poll time!

[poll id=”45″]

I’m off till next Monday.  Have a safe and happy New Year!

Former professional baseball player Doug (Droppin’ Science Like Galileo Dropped an Orange) Glanville has been contributing columns to the Times for some time now. Today, he tackles infidelity in the world of professional sports (thanks to Think Factory for the link):

In an athlete’s environment, money can be its own pollutant; you can become desensitized to the significance of what it can buy. Typically, if a person spends hundreds of dollars on arrangements to pass time with someone, that someone would be important in his life. But when you have extensive financial resources, it’s easy to send similar signals to people who are meaningful only for a moment. Even worse, you might only concern yourself with what it means to you. As the money flows in, so do the toys — cars, clothes, bling — and once in the stratosphere, a la Tiger, it is amazing how easy it is, if you are not careful and grounded, to start seeing women as another accessory in your life.

The pro athlete’s world is self-centered at best. Schedule is fixed, practice a must, travel a given. Anyone choosing to share that has to get on board and fit in. It can get to a point where the relationship is strictly one-way (the athlete’s way), and the other party becomes insignificant, more a prop than a true relationship partner.

If the player dares to take the next step — marriage — there will likely be a legal team at his disposal (via his agent) that can set up a prenuptial agreement. This negotiation is often dragged out for months as a way of seeing whether the future spouse shows an ugly side during the process. But it’s a red flag for your relationship if you have to resort to such tactics to force the worst in someone, and the prenup becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, set up not just to distribute assets but to deal with an inevitable break-up or philandering. In fact, it might as well be seen as a pre-meditated agreement (I may do all of this dirt, so when I do and you want to leave, I still win because instead of half you only get a check for X dollars and one house).

Nice job by Glanville.

In honor of The Third Man–one of my favorite movies of all time–which is playing at the Film Forum through Tuesday. Here’s the theme re-imagined by that stereophonic maestro, Juan Garcia Esquivel:

Aw, hell, let’s cut to the chase. Here’s the star cameo for the ages (If you haven’t seen the movie, skip this…trust me, it’ll be worth it):

There is a new biography out on Herge, the creator of Tintin, Belgium’s most famous cultural creation. Herge’s legacy has come under attack in recent years because of the anti-semetic and racist elements of his early work. And while those criticisms are legitimate and a part of his story that cannot be easily dismissed, they aren’t the entire story.

In an otherwise skeptical and often snotty essay in the New York Times Book Review, Bruce Handy nails Herge’s lasting gift:

I think Hergé’s greatest achievements are formal: his precise yet witty line, like mechanical drawing with the giggles; and especially his gifts for timing, pacing and action, clearly movie-inspired. His best work from the 1950s and early ’60s (when he took on collaborators of an artistic kind) has a wit and sophistication that equals or surpasses anything I’m aware of in the comics of venerated American contemporaries like Harvey Kurtzman (the original Mad) and Will Eisner (“The Spirit”). In some cases, Tintin’s scrapes have more cinematic imagination than most of the era’s actual movies, with bits of funny business that hark back to the great silent comedies and chase scenes that in their “editing” foreshadow Steven Spielberg’s atomized yet fluid style.

Charles McGrath, also writing in the Times, notes, “Hergé here is frequently reminiscent of the Charles Schulz depicted in David Michaelis’s recent biography: an artist far happier and more interesting in his work than he ever was in life.”

Which brings to mind the old dilemma when it comes to artists, writers and athletes–is it better to concentrate on the work or the creator? This question is also raised by the novelist Rick Moody, in his review of a new Led Zeppelin biography:

What you may not get enough of is the astonishment of the music. Because, no matter how horrible they were as people — and, frankly, they do seem as if they were rather unlikable people who wasted immense talent in a spendthrift fashion — the music is still remarkable, even when borrowed.

…Robert Plant muses aloud at one point, despairing of the true story ever getting out: “We thought it was time that people heard something about us other than that we were eating women and throwing the bones out the window.” Indeed! Wall is conflicted enough about the facts that he allows this mythologizing title to be appended to his work: “When Giants Walked the Earth.” But these were no giants, these were just young people, like you, who for a time happened to have more power and influence than was good for them. In the midst of it all, they made extraordinary music.

A Christmas card from my uncle Herve in Belgium…

Yes, indeed. Happy anything and everything. And for those who aren’t celebrating Saint Nick, pass the Moo Shu, bubbie.

I love the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow, especially at night. You can feel the quiet around you, a heightened intimacy. Reminds me of this Al Green song. A music nyerd friend of mine once told me that producer Willie Mitchell achieved the vibe on the record by turning up the volume on all the microphones in the studio. Then Green sang softly and the band played softly, to great effect. They are all up in your ear hole…crunchy.

Dig it:

Christmas in the City

May Your Days Be Bright

Merry Christmas, y’all. (Pictures and words from Walt Kelly.)

There were the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots and these dudes, the Golden Gate Quartet.

Niz, Briz.

Today’s update is powered by a unique version of the “Hallelujah Chorus”

• The Times Ken Belson details the signing of Nick Johnson.
• Was Javier Vazquez totally healthy for the Yanks in ’04?:

On his conference call with reporters, Vazquez acknowledged – for the first time, I think – that his problems for the Yankees in the second half of 2004 were related to shoulder fatigue. I had always been told that the Yankees suspected shoulder problems but ultimately concluded it was poor mechanics.

“My arm didn’t feel as good in the second half as it did in the first half,” Vazquez said, referring to a season that included an All-Star first half but a second-half implosion that included the fateful Game 7 against the Red Sox.

“It’s really the only time in my career that I felt a little bit that my arm wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I started getting treatment a little later than I should have. I never said anything, and I went out there every five days. I hate not being out there.”

• John Perrotto on the 2010 budget:

While Cashman hasn’t been quite The Cash Man this time, the Yankees did take on the three years and $25.75 million remaining on Granderson’s contract and will pay Vazquez $11.5 million in 2010. That leads to the age-old question of whether the Yankees have an unlimited budget. “I do have a number I’m working under,” Cashman said. “We will be under that number.”

The Yankees seem determined to stay under $200 million, as even the sport’s most well-heeled franchise is sensitive to claims it bought the franchise’s 27^th World Series title with last winter’s spending spree. Yet there are many people around baseball who believe owner Hal Steinbrenner will give Cashman the OK to go over the $200 million threshold to sign a premier free agent such as Matt Holliday or Jason Bay to fill the hole in left field created when they decided not to re-sign Damon last week.

(more…)

Did you ever order a Coke and get a Diet Coke by accident? I have a sensitive palette and can’t abide diet soda. It tastes all wrong to me. That’s how I felt from the opening credits of Up in the Air, the new George Clooney vehicle. I just didn’t care for the taste. And I wanted to like it.

The movie looks good and features solid acting (Vera Farmiga is especially alluring) and there are a few winning light comedic scenes but I didn’t believe a minute of it, the rhythm, the dialogue, anything. The tone was off–not off-beat, just off. I thought it was cynical, self-satified, and phony. Not clever or funny but sour, a lemon. I know a lot of people have enjoyed it (it really spoke to Joe Pos, for instance). But for me, it simply didn’t taste right.

This one comes from the Mrs…

Hey Yo Tip What’s Wrong With Snails?

Following baseball these days–following anything in pop culture, really–can be dizzying. There is so much analysis and commentary from so many places that it is difficult to keep up with it all. I don’t Tweet which puts me behind the curve. But I read as much as I can, as quickly as I can point and click, so that opinions and facts are coming out of my ears. It is tough to tell the experts from the amateurs and vice versa.

Where do you turn?  Who is reliable? This probably depends on your bent. And while the volume can be overwhelming, the sheer amount of information that is available is impressive and often rewarding. It just requires time and the ability to filter the nuggets from the rubbish, which is easier said than done.

l find that Tyler Kepner is doing a great job of covering the Yankees for the New York Times. He mixes reporting (the quality that is most often missing from the blogosphere) and analysis especially well at the Bats blog. He isn’t the only one thriving these days, but his efforts stand-out. We’re lucky to have him on the beat but his talents have become broader than just a guy who covers the Yankees.

Chalk one up for the good guys.

I always thought Javier Vazquez got a raw deal in his one season as a Yankee. When he was traded, I wrote on my old blog that “the Yankees were giving up on a 29-year-old pitcher who had pitched like an ace for four and a half seasons because of a mere three months of poor pitching.” That his results with the Diamondbacks and the White Sox the next two seasons were underwhelming soothed my ire, but I still viewed him as a missed opportunity right up until the Yankees reacquired him from the Braves yesterday.

To be fair, Vazquez isn’t an ace, which was part of the problem in 2004. In his final four season with the Expos, Vazquez posted a 3.65 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 8.2 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, and 3.91 K/BB, numbers that, coming from a 26-year-old pitcher, looked like the early work of a developing ace, which is exactly what Vazquez was acquired to be, arriving in the Bronx in the wake of the departures of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and David Wells. In the first half of the 2004 season, Vazquez came close, going 10-5 with a 3.56 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 7.2 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, and 2.97 K/BB, enough for him to make his first All-Star Team.

Then Vazquez’s shoulder began to ache (though he wouldn’t admit it until years later), and his season went off the rails. In the second half, he posted a 6.92 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, and lost another strikeout per nine off his K rate while giving up 14 home runs in as many starts, or 1.6 HR/9, enough to earn him the derogatory nickname “Home Run Javy.” Things didn’t get better in his ALDS start against the Twins as he put the Yankees in a 5-1 hole that they nonetheless climbed out of thanks to Ruben Sierra’s game-tying homer in the eighth and Alex Rodriguez’s self-made run in the 11th inning. At that point, Joe Torre, who had put Vazquez on the All-Star team just three months earlier, pulled him from the ALCS rotation. Vazquez pitched in relief of Kevin Brown twice in that series, both times without much success. In the latter instance, he was brought into Game Seven with the bases loaded and gave up a first-pitch grand slam to Johnny Damon that drove the final nail in the 2004 Yankees’ coffin.

Leading up the trading deadline that season, the big rumor was that the Yankees were going to trade for Randy Johnson, but the Diamondbacks wanted Vazquez and the Yankees refused. After that brutal second half, the Yankees softened on their stance. In what might have been the last big player transaction motivated by George Steinbrenner, Vazquez was traded to Arizona with lefty Brad Halsey and catching prospect Dioner Navarro for Johnson.

The irony was that, over the next two seasons, Johnson and Vazquez were nearly identical in terms of results. Dig:

Johnson: 100 ERA+, 8.0 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 1.3 HR/9, 430 2/3 IP
Vazquez: 99 ERA+, 8.1 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 1.2 HR/9, 418 1/3 IP

Neither was an ace. Both maintained their good stuff, but a showed propensity to give up the long ball and a frustrating inconsistency. Vazquez spent the second of those two seasons as a member of the White Sox, having been obtained by the defending World Champions for past and future Yankee pitchers Orlando Hernandez and Luis Vizcaino (whom the Yankees acquired when they dealt Johnson back to the desert), and center field prospect Chris Young.

Vazquez shaved a run off his ERA in his second season in Chicago without a meaningful change in his overall performance, then gave most of that back in his third and final season on the South Side, after which he was dealt to the Braves with LOOGY Boone Logan for a quartet of prospects led by slugging catcher Tyler Flowers. The return to the weaker, non-DH league worked expected wonders for Vazquez as he posted career bests in ERA, WHIP, and his strikeout, homer, walk, and hit rates, garnering his first-ever Cy Young votes (he finished fourth).

Despite the variations in his results, Vazquez has actually proven to be one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball over the last decade. Aside from his lone Yankee season, when his struggles led to early exits leaving him at just 198 innings pitched for the year, Vazquez has thrown more than 200 innings every other year this decade and started 32 or more games in each of the last ten seasons, a streak unmatched in the majors. In those ten seasons, he has only twice had a K/9 below 8.0 (2004 again being one of the two exceptions) and has never walked as many as three men per nine innings over the course of a full season. Over those ten seasons, he has posted a 3.98 ERA (113 ERA+) with a 1.22 WHIP, 8.3 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 3.79 K/BB, and a fairly pedestrian 1.1 HR/9. Brought back to the Bronx not as a potential ace, but as an overqualified mid-rotation innings eater, he has a much greater chance of success, both because of the lowered expectations, and because of his additional five years of experience, maturity, and conditioning.

In essence, Vazquez is A.J. Burnett without the injury history or the excessive contract (Javy’s actually entering the final year of an extension he signed with the White Sox that pays him $11.5 million for 2010). Burnett trumps Vazquez in that he’s spent several years in the AL East and is more of a groundball pitcher, but again, Vazquez isn’t being asked to replace Burnett as the number-two. He’s merely being asked to give the Yankees quality starts from the third or fourth spot in the rotation, a task of which he should be perfectly capable.

Now the question is, did the Yankees give up too much for one year of an above-average innings eater with a fly-ball tendency that could be exposed in the new Yankee Stadium? Maybe, but probably not. The players being sent to Atlanta for Vazquez are Melky Cabrera, lefty reliever Mike Dunn, and teenage pitching prospect Arodys Vizcaino.

Dunn was a fungible bullpen arm, ostensibly replaced by Boone Logan, who was again acquired with Vazquez. Not that Logan is any good. He’s basically a left-handed Kyle Farnsworth, but minus the effective slider and all those pesky strikeouts. Logan has a mid-90s fastball that’s straight and thus very hittable, a curve he rarely uses, and an unimpressive slider. The less we see of Logan in 2010 and beyond the better this trade will look. Fortunately, Logan still has an option remaining and can be stashed at Scranton. As for Dunn, he was nothing special. Besides, when was the last time the Yankees were burned by trading a theoretically promising relief pitcher, particularly one in his mid-20s with alarming minor league walk rates?

The key to the trade will be the future path of Vizcaino, who was just rated as the Yankees’ top pitching prospect by my man Kevin Goldstein over at Baseball Prospectus. Here’s Goldstein’s scouting report:

Vizcaino’s combination of stuff and refinement is rarely found in a teenager. His clean arm action leads to effortless 92-94 mph fastballs that get up to 97 when he reaches back for a bit more, while his smooth mechanics allow him to harness his pitches and pound the strike zone. His power curveball already grades out as big-league average with the projection of becoming a true wipeout offering. . . . Vizcaino’s ceiling tops that of any pitcher in the system, by a significant margin. It will take time, but the skills are there for him to become an All-Star starter.

The trick is that Vizcaino won’t turn 20 until next November and has yet to pitch in a full-season league. I’m not saying he’s not going to fulfill his potential, but he’s so far away that he’s more of a dream than a reality right now. The odds seem just as good that the Yankees traded him at the peak of his value than that he will turn into the pitcher he’s projected to be. Still, there’s a legitimate risk that the Yankees just gave up a young home grown ace for a year of Javy Vazquez.

(more…)

One year ago today, Todd Drew wrote his final post for Bronx Banter (and for all I know it was the last thing he ever wrote, period). The next day he went into the hospital. He never made it out. We miss him terribly at the Banter though his spirit lives on. I’m sure he’d relish all the Hot Stove activity, all the kibbitzing, all the passion.

So here’s raising a toast in his honor. Spill a little on the ground, and enjoy a moment of silence to remember out dear friend.

Here is his final post, which is grace under pressure if I’ve ever seen it:

SHADOW GAMES: Baseball and Me

By Todd Drew

I went to a baseball game after my father’s funeral. I also went to one after finding out about my mother’s brain cancer.

It was selfish and heartless. I felt guilty before and embarrassed after, but for nine innings I felt only the game. That’s the way it’s always been between baseball and me.

It was my friend when I didn’t have any others. And it has always been there to talk or listen or simply to watch.

Baseball helps me forget and it makes me remember. That’s why it was exactly what I needed on the worst days of my life.

But there were no games when a doctor told me that I had cancer. The neighborhood was out of baseball on that cold November day. No one was playing at Franz Sigel Park or John Mullaly Park. And there wasn’t even a game of catch in Joyce Kilmer Park. The last game at the old Yankee Stadium was long gone and Opening Day at the new Yankee Stadium was long off.

So I went home and wished for one of those summer days when I was a kid and my mother would send me to the ballpark with a paper sack stuffed with her famous tuna-fish sandwiches. That was back when you could slip through a delivery gate with the beer kegs and watch batting practice. And it was always okay to come home late with a beat-up scorecard and popcorn stuck between your teeth.

The doctor told me that tomorrow’s surgery and chemotherapy treatment might keep me in the hospital for 10 days.

“At least it’s December,” I said. “There aren’t any ballgames to miss.”

And I will be ready to slip through a delivery gate with the beer kegs when the new Yankee Stadium opens. I’ll watch batting practice with one of my mother’s famous tuna-fish sandwiches and come home late with a beat-up scorecard and popcorn stuck between my teeth.

Cancer can’t change the way it will always be between baseball and me.