Fritz Peterson once won twenty games for the Yankees but he’s best remembered for being a wife-swapper. He is more than both, of course. Peterson has just written a book and will be at the Yogi Museum in Jersey tomorrow night to talk about it.

According to a press release from the museum:

Former Yankee pitcher Fritz Peterson will be at the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center on Thursday, Sept. 17 from 7 p.m.-8:30 p.m. for a discussion and signing of his new book, “Mickey Mantle Is Going To Heaven.”

The book covers Peterson’s rather interesting life on and off the field including what Sports Illustrated called “The Trade of the Century” when he and teammate Mike Kekich swapped wives after the 1972 season. He also discusses the quirks and foibles of his time, and interactions with the likes of Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Bobby Murcer, Thurman Munson and Jim Bouton.

Peterson, who joined the Yankees in 1966, one of the team’s worst seasons, would become an All-Star and 20-game winner. He also started for the Yankees in the last game ever played at the original Yankee Stadium, which was renovated after the final game of the 1973 season. And Peterson had the all-time lowest ERA (2.52) at Yankee Stadium with the legendary Whitey Ford second at 2.55.

The storm of publicity from Peterson’s wife-swapping, which he is most remembered for, ultimately damaged his career. Yet today he is active in charity work and is a prostate cancer survivor, and continues to seek salvation through his faith.

To orders personalized copies of Peterson’s book or for more info, call (973) 655-2378.

I know from swingers, Mr. Peterson, and you are no Gay Talese.

If you are Jersey, be sure to check this out. Should be fun.

Today’s news is powered by Levon Helm:

• Ticket prices for 2010:

. . . prices for more than 80 percent of the stadium will remain the same.

Some of the highest price seats will see reductions of up to 40 percent, including those in the Legends area and the Delta Sky 360 Suite. The first level of non-premium suites, which are one level up behind home plate, will be reduced from $325 to $250 or $235 per game per seat, depending on the location. . . .

The only increase will be seen by those who own tickets in a group of 1,700 seats that surround the Delta suite, which currently sell for $100 per game. Those prices will increase to $125 per game next year.

The much publicized $2,500 per game suite tickets, which were not part of the seats whose price was cut in half in April, will cost $1,500 in 2010.

[My take: I guess we should say . . . umm . . . “thanks”?]

• Joel Sherman is confused with by the hubbub over “The Joba Rules”.
• The preliminary schedule for 2010 has been released.  Here’s a review of what they have to look forward to.
• Andy Pettitte will skip his next start to rest a tired shoulder.
• Kevin Goldstein highlights the best Yankee minor league performances this season:

. . . Even though he began the year as the top prospect in the system, catcher Jesus Montero went from best prospect in the Yankee system to one of the best in all of baseball by batting .337/.389/.562 across two levels, and having no problems handling Double-A pitching as a teenager.

A 10^th-round pick last year who signed for nearly half a million, righty D.J. Mitchell cruised through the Sally League, posted a 2.87 ERA at High-A Tampa, and compiled a ground-ball ratio of nearly 3-to-1.

(more…)

The Yankees threw Sergio Mitre against Roy Halladay last night and the lost 10-4. No real shock there. The Yanks did well to take an early 2-0 lead on Halladay, touch him up for 11 hits, and bounce him after 112 pitches in six innings, his earliest exit in five starts against the Yankees this year, but it was of little use. Mitre gave up two home runs in both the third and fourth innings, including a pair of monster shots to rookie slugger Travis Snider, giving the Jays a 5-2 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

The real news came came in the eighth inning. With two outs, the bases empty, and the Jays up 8-2, Mark Melacon hit Aaron Hill in the lower back with the first pitch he threw to him. Hill was 0-for-4 prior to that plate appearance and was 0-for-2 against Melcanon entering the game. It seems unlikely that Melancon, who has been wild in the majors, walking 5.4 per 9 innings and hitting three other batters in his first 15 innings, intended to hit Hill. Still, Hill is an important hitter in the Jays lineup, so when Jorge Posada came to bat in the bottom of the inning, Jesse Carlson threw behind him.

Carlson’s pitch went what seemed like ten feet behind Posada, but Jorge was unwilling to shrug it off. Instead he backed out of the batter’s box, took a few steps toward the mound and told Carlson, “Don’t do that again.” The benches cleared to calm Posada down, and Posada ultimately worked a walk and came around to score on a Brett Gardner double (Gardner, by the way, went 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI hits).

Carlson was drifting toward home plate to back it up as Posada crossed the dish and Jorge gave Jesse a solid brush with is left shoulder as he went by. Carlson spun around and fired some invective at Posada, who then returned to home plate and touched off a real benches-clearing brawl.

Posada, Carlson, Jays’ catcher Rod Barajas, home plate umpire Jim Joyce, and in-the-hole hitter Johnny Damon were in the initial scrum and soon joined by Joe Girardi, who failed to pull his 38-year-old catcher out of the fray and instead got sucked into the middle of the pack and emerged with a bit of a shiner on his left eye. As one might have expected, Shelley Duncan tore into the heart of the fracas like Michael Phelps going after olympic gold and ultimately had to be pulled off Barajas like Jeff Van Gundy on Alonzo Mourning’s leg as the melee petered out.

Carlson emerged with a nasty welt on his forehead, but he and Posada were the only ejections, and Carlson remained in the dugout, hiding behind his teammates and apparently continuing to plead his innocence. Meanwhile, third base umpire Derryl Cousins was hit in the knee by a full bottle of soda thrown by a fan in the stands determined to make the players look like dignified and civilized adults. Cousins wound up being the only “participant” to suffer an injury (as far as we know).

For proving unable to let his walk and run do the talking (or shoving) for him, Posada will surely incur a suspension. Otherwise it seems the Yankees got away lucky. To his immense credit, Joe Girardi held a closed-door meeting with his team afterwords, admonishing them for doing such a foolish and risky thing this close to a postseason berth.

The Yankees had hundreds of millions of dollars of players in the middle of that fight (Mark Teixeira tried to break things up but was quickly pulled out of the ruckus, on-deck-hitter Derek Jeter was right in the middle of things, and CC Sabathia was the man who finally pulled Posada out of the pack) just three weeks shy of the playoffs. The entire season could have gone the way of Bill Lee’s shoulder Tuesday night. The Yankees are damn lucky it didn’t.

The Yankees have gone 24-10 (.706) against the two non-contenders in their division, the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays, but with this brief, two-game, mid-week series against the Jays in the Bronx, that gravy train is finally pulling into the station.

The Jays and Yankees split a four-game set in Toronto, two weekends ago. Given that Sergio Mitre is taking on Roy Halladay in tonight’s game, the Yankees would probably be happy with a split here as well. Though they beat him in their previous meeting, Halladay dominated the Yankees the last time he faced them, throwing a one-hit shutout against them while striking out nine. In his four starts against the Bombers on the season, Halladay has three complete games and lasted seven full in the exception. In those 34 innings he has compiled a 2.65 ERA and 0.91 WHIP.

Mitre’s last start, also against Toronto, was a disaster. He gave up 11 runs in 4 1/3 innings, though he wasn’t helped by his defense in what was one of the sloppiest games the Yankees have played all year. The Yankees run out their standard lineup behind Mitre tonight save for Brett Gardner starting in center over Melky Cabrera.

The Yankees will start Chad Gaudin against Brian Tallet in Wednesday’s finale, skipping Andy Pettitte until Monday due to a bit of late-season shoulder fatigue. Pettitte said he threw a light bullpen Monday night and “felt great,” so it seems the team is just being cautious in anticipation of the playoffs. Still, there will be some lingering concern given that it was a shoulder problem that undermined Pettitte’s performance in the second half last year.

(more…)

Joe Posnanski’s new book, The Machine,  is about the 1975 Reds. It is compulsively readable and learns even smart dudes like Rob Neyer new things about that team. Neyer chats with Pos over at ESPN today.

Oh, and the book hits the shelves today as well.

Diggum.

Sitting in the row in front of Emily and me last night at Yankee Stadium was a young woman–mid-twenties–wearing a Derek Jeter t-shirt and jeans. Hippie-chick. Ponytail, flip flops. She was there with her father. She leaned forward to watch the action, giving the wife and me a clear, almost unavoidable, look at the crack in her ass. Now generally speaking, this is nothing that I would complain about, and it is not that she had an unattractive rump, but I was turned off. I joked about it to the wife but it wasn’t funny for long.

Then the wife ate a hot dog, her second in the last two weeks. This is notable because the wife hasn’t eaten a hot dog since the first Bush administration. She had it with ketchup and I resisted the urge to rag on her for that bit of goyishness. So I called a friend to tell her the news. And in the course of our conversation I mentioned the unsightly ass crack.

Only I mentioned it loudly enough for the young woman to adjust in her seat and tuck her shirt in. And then I felt like that biggest jerk in the world. I thought of apologizing but then that might have only made matters worse. I didn’t mean to blow up her spot like that.

It took me two full innings to get over it and concentrate back on the game.

I was sitting in Todd’s seat. I thought about him and felt worse. Acting like a mo mo in his seat. But then I remembered how forgiving Todd was and I calmed down some. Then the game got exciting–Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira combined for a slick play to end an inning, Brett Gardner gave the Angels a taste of their own medicine, and Mariano Rivera finished it off.

The wife was happy, so proud of her hot dog experience. She enjoyed the Stadium–liked it even more than the previous one–and we went home happy. Though I’m still not proud of embarrassing that girl.

Today’s news is powered by vintage Peter Frampton:

• Hal Bodley touts Jeter for MVP:

The MVP Award should go to the player whose leadership and value has contributed to his team’s success more than any other individual. Jeter has been that player for the Yankees as they storm to another AL East title.

There may be teammates who have higher batting averages, hit more homers, driven in more runs, but no one has been more valuable to the Yankees this season.

• Don Zimmer appreciates Jeter:

“He might go down, when it’s all over, as the all-time Yankee,” Zimmer said by phone Sunday of Jeter, who got the lion’s share of his hits after rubbing the crusty old coach’s head and tummy for luck. “He’s right up there with ’em now and anyone who said he was slowing down or losing range or whatever don’t know what kind of man he is. It’s no surprise he’s gotten where he is with the hits. The guy plays. He’s played hurt more days than people will ever know – the kind of hurt other players would be thrilled to take the day off.”

Watching Jeter basking in the adulation of the Yankee Stadium crowds, Zimmer could not help thinking back to that first spring training with Torre in 1996. At the time, there was some debate among the Yankee hierarchy as to whether Jeter was ready to take over as the shortstop. As a hedge, the Yankees had kept their ’95 shortstop, veteran Tony Fernandez, around and were working him in at second base while they evaluated Jeter.

“I remember Clyde King (George Steinbrenner’s longtime special scout) coming into camp and saying Jeter’s not ready to be the shortstop after watching him for just two days,” Zimmer said. “Joe and I just smiled. By then we’d seen plenty to convince us that this kid was gonna be special. He had great hands, a good arm and was a hit machine the way he could ‘inside-out’ the ball. More than that, though, it was the way he carried himself. He was a baby then, but he acted like a seasoned veteran. Nothing fazed him.

• The team makes some personnel moves:

The Yankees can tell from looking at Freddy Guzman’s career statistics that he knows how to run. With an eye toward October, they’d like the chance to see it up close.

New York on Monday promoted the 28-year-old speedster from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, signing him to a big league contract and adding him to the active roster.

“Freddy is another option to pinch-run for us, play outfield defense, play an outfield spot for us,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He’s got great speed and, in some late situations, there’s a chance that you’re going to see him in there.”

In a corresponding move, right-hander Anthony Claggett was designated for assignment to create room for Guzman on the 40-man roster.

(more…)

Due to a relatively small number of tough big losses and the vagaries of human perception, the Angels have become a larger-than-life antagonist in my mind – I always expect the worst when they play the Yankees, and I have a fatalistic, forget-it-Jake-it’s-Anaheim view of facing them in the postseason, home field advantage or no. It’s not really justified, but when Howie freaking Kendrick is hitting .465 against New York you can hardly blame me.

Things didn’t go too badly for the Yankees tonight, though, and while it was touch and go at times they won 5-3. First of all, and most importantly, Joba Chamberlain was looking better tonight – not great, but much improved. He gave up one run on a solo shot by Vlad Guerrero, but that’s just going to happen sometimes; he left with four innings pitched, 67 pitches of which 41 were strikes, 2 Ks and mercifully no walks.

It was a nail-biter all the way through: the Yankees tied it at one in the third on Nick Swisher’s home run (looks like those lopsided home/away power splits are correcting themselves); the Angels regained a one-run lead with a double, bunt and ground out against Alfredo Aceves in the fifth; in the bottom of that inning, the Yankees went ahead 3-2 when Mark Teixeira tripled home Swisher and Johnny Damon. In the eighth, though, the Angels loaded the bases against Phil Hughes with nobody out, and while he wiggled out of it with only one run scoring, the game was tied at three. (Hughes later was awarded the win because, again, wins are stupid).

New York forced a little luck in the bottom of the eighth: Mark Teixeira doubled and Girardi put Brett Gardner in to pinch run for him, an unusually aggressive move for this year’s Yanks. I’m not really sure how I feel about this – I do not like watching Teixeira walk off the field early – but it paid off when Gardner stole third, and Angels catcher Mike Napoli’s throw got away from Chone Figgins, trickling into the outfield and giving the Yanks the go-ahead run. Then Alex Rodriguez, who had walked and stole third when Gardner came home, scored on Robinson Cano’s single – and for all the talk of Cano’s lousy numbers with runners in scoring position, he’s come through a number of times in the last few weeks. Anyway, after that Mariano Rivera came in and successfully navigated the ninth inning for his 40th save of the season. It was a heavily managed game on both sides, and therefore a little playoff-ish, although for my part if I never see the Angels in October again it will be too soon.

Finally, I was going to go into a whole rant about Derek Jeter’s bunting, in situations where he is much too good a hitter to be bunting – he’s been on a real tear recently and he did it again tonight. But I feel like on this blog, there’s really no need. I imagine most Banter readers have already expressed similar feelings directly to their televisions and with more pungent language than I like to use here.

Tomorrow: the Blue Jays come to town, and ace Roy Hallady takes on… ah yes… Sergio Mitre. I see.

I hate to break it to you, but the American League races are pretty much over. With roughly 20 games left (less for the Yankees and Twins), the closest race remains the Wild Card, where the Red Sox hold a four-game lead over the Rangers. The Yankees lead the Angels by five games for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Tigers lead the Twins by 5.5 in the Central. The Angels lead the Rangers by six in the West, and the Yankees’ lead over Boston in the East is a comfortable seven games.

Unless something wild happens (and I’m not saying it won’t), the Yankees will host the Tigers in the ALDS, and the Angels will host the Red Sox. If the Yankees advance, they’ll then have homefield advantage over their ALCS opponent, which given the recent playoff history between the two teams (the Angels have won just one game in three ALDS series against Boston since 2004), is more likely to be the Red Sox than the Angels. It’s thus very possible that tonight’s make-up game, and the three games the Yankees will play in Anaheim next week, are in fact a preview of nothing, and could have no significance for the postseason at all as the Yankees would automatically have home field advantage against the Wild Card Red Sox.

Still, an ALCS matchup with the Angels remains a distinct possibility, and the Angels team that arrives in the Bronx tonight is a much better one than the one that swept the Yankees in the final series before the All-Star break. In that last series, Vlad Guerrero and Torii Hunter were on the DL and Scott Kazmir was a Tampa Bay Ray. All three of those players are on the Angels active roster now, and while the Yankees will face Jered Weaver, not Kazmir tonight, they make the Angels a far more dangerous team. The Angels have been winning at a .661 clip since the break, just four-games behind the Yankees’ remarkable pace.

The Yankees would do well to remember that they took two of three from the Angels in the Bronx in May, and that they’ve had some modest success against Weaver this year, scoring eight runs against him in 12 innings and connecting for three home runs (by Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez, and Eric Hinske).

Joba Chamberlain takes the hill for the Yankees tonight. After a rough beginning to his last outing, Chamberlain settled down and retired the last eight men he faced in order. He’ll move up to four innings tonight, hoping to build off that performance.

Yankees added journeyman minor league utility man Freddy Guzman to the 40-man roster. Guzman is on his fourth organization this year and will serve as a pinch-runner, defensive replacement, then vanish back into the ether from whence he came. Standard lineup tonight against the Halos.

(more…)

A few days ago, the New York Times ran an article that claimed the Yankees bypassed several golden opportunities to sign a young Willie Mays in the months before he officially became a member of the New York Giants’ organization. Like the Red Sox and numerous other franchises that populated the Jim Crow landscape in 1950, the Yankees gave Mays less than lukewarm attention because they felt little motivation to fully integrate their organization. On their way to a 98-win season and a World Series sweep over the Phillies, the Yankees were content to leave Mays in the Negro Leagues—or let him sign with some other major league team, one that was needier and perhaps even a bit desperate.

So let’s speculate a bit how much Yankee history would have changed if they had taken a more aggressive approach with regard to the young Mays. Even without Mays, the Yankees did their fair share of winning throughout the 1950s and the early years of the 1960s. But could they have won more? Though never particularly outstanding in postseason play, Mays could have made a difference in the outcomes of the 1955, ’57, ’60, and ’64 World Series, when the Yankees fell short to the Brooklyn Dodgers, Milwaukee Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, and St. Louis Cardinals, respectively. The Yankees lost all four of those Series in the maximum seven games; perhaps Mays’ presence would have been sufficient to turn World Series defeat into the alternate reality of a world championship. Who knows?

Putting aside the harsh realities of the bottom line of world championships, I am certain that Mays would have made a huge difference in terms of baseball aesthetics. With Mays on board patrolling the monuments at the original Yankee Stadium, the Bombers, at least by 1960, would have been capable of boasting the greatest outfield in the history of the game. Let’s imagine the wonders of an outfield featuring Mays in center, flanked by the phenomenal Mickey Mantle in left field and the meteoric Roger Maris in right field, with all three men in the prime of their mid-to-late twenties. I mean, what more could you have wanted from three major league outfielders? High on base percentages, check. Gold Glove defensive ability, double check. Speed, check. And upper deck power, triple check.

The addition of Mays to the Yankee stable would have provided another lasting benefit to fans of the franchise, especially those who regularly attended games at the old Stadium. For fans of baseball in the 1960s, in particular, one of the most lasting images involved the sight of Mays rounding the bases. We can make all sorts of arguments about Mays being the greatest all-around player of all-time—I’m tempted to make that call, but know it will be met with rounds of debate and skepticism—but there should be little doubt that Mays was the most memorable baserunner of the television era. (And he just might have been the greatest baserunner of any era, with apologies to Ty Cobb.)

By the time this author began following baseball in the early 1970s, Mays was no longer in his overall prime, but remained a vibrant and dangerous baserunner. When Topps decided to include a series of “action” cards in its massive 1972 set, the company wisely chose to include a card depicting Mays in the act of completing one of his memorably dynamic and frantic runs around the bases. Specifically, his 1972 Topps card shows the “Say Hey Kid” sliding into home plate, his right arm extended, piling a cloud of dust onto the helpless catcher with his unseen but nonetheless powerful legs. And then there’s the Mays trademark on the basepaths—the cap. By the early 1970s, most major league baserunners wore helmets on the bases, but not Mays. He had always run the bases while wearing only his cap on his head, and he saw no reason to change in an era when player safety became more prevalent. There was just something right about Mays wearing that cap, which often flew out from underneath him because of the sheer force and torque with which he ran the basepaths. By the time that Mays reached home, his lonely cap was often sitting between third and home, or resting between second and third, waiting to be retrieved by a diligent coach or a batboy. I can see that picture on my old black-and-white Sony as if it were the day before yesterday.

As much as baseball statistics shed light on the quality of its players, they do little to convey the aesthetic landscape of the game, including the simple beauty of a runner making his way from first base to home plate. Thankfully, with its 1972 action card, Topps captured a small sample of what it was like to watch the artistic and comforting image of Willie Mays running the bases. And for those who love the visual dynamics of the game, there was nothing quite like it.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

This is more than nifty:

Today’s news is powered by men of constant sorrow (no, not fans of the Pirates):

• Monday’s make-up game with the Angels looms large:

With 18 games to play, the Yankees own a five-game edge over the Angels for the top seed in the AL — a title that comes with more than merely bragging rights. If New York captures it, the club will not only own home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, but it will be able to choose whether or not it wants to proceed with an extra off-day in the AL Division Series — a scenario that would allow erratic righty Joba Chamberlain to be skipped from the first-round rotation.

“We understand what’s at stake here,” Girardi said on Sunday. “That’s an important game tomorrow.”

• Mike Vaccaro has an appreciation of Derek Jeter.
• Here’s some helpful info regarding gameday weather updates.
• Jerry Coleman turns 85 today.  Coleman was a member of four championship teams between ’49 and ’57.  He is currently the well-liked, long-time radio man for the San Diego Padres.
• On this date in 1974, Graig Nettles homers for the Yankees in the first inning, and brother Jim Nettles homers for the Tigers in the 2nd. This is the 2nd time that the two brothers have homered in the same game for different teams, having done it on June 11, 1972, when Graig was on Cleveland and Jim was with Minnesota. Graig’s team wins 10 – 7.
• On this date in 1999, the Yankees rally with a pair of grand slams, just the 3rd time in club history, to beat the Blue Jays, 10 – 6. Bernie Williams ties the game with a slam in the 8th inning, and Paul O’Neill wins it in the 9th with another slam.

I generally try not to make assumptions about a team’s mental state, because who knows what players are actually thinking during any given game? But I couldn’t help wondering this weekend, with a playoff spot all but sewn up and the Jeter hype finally over, if the Yankees hadn’t lost focus a bit. It would certainly be understandable.

The fourth inning of today’s game, when Johnny Damon forgot how many outs there were and nearly threw a live ball into the stands, allowing a run to score, did nothing to undermine this theory. But after that little wake-up call – and after Alex Rodriguez and Joe Girardi were both ejected for arguing balls and strikes – the Yankees got their act together, and they went on to win 13-3.  Correlation is not causation but hey, the human mind loves to impose a narrative.

CC Sabathia started off a little shaky this afternoon, and he couldn’t hold the 1-0 lead provided by Alex Rodriguez’s first inning double. But after allowing three runs in the first four innings, he settled in and kept the O’s off the board through seven. In the bottom of the fourth, Melky Cabrera’s two-run single (he whacked a slider into center with a neat little piece of 0-2 hitting) tied the game at three. The promising inning ended when Alex Rodriguez struck out looking on a pitch that, while close, was pretty clearly a bit outside on the replay. And once A-Rod got the chance to duck into the video room and confirm his suspicions, just before the bottom of the fifth, he started hectoring home plate ump Marty Foster about it from the dugout. So Foster tossed him. And then Joe Girardi hulked out.

At first I thought Girardi was just trying to get tossed to “fire up” the team, which we’ve seen him do before; sometimes it seems like he’s just going through the argumentative motions, waiting to get run. But today he looked genuinely furious – he was yelling just inches from Foster’s face, and I think it’s pretty hard to fake that scary bulging-vein thing. He was thrown out, of course, so Tony Pena and Eric Hinske took over in the dugout and at third, respectively.

The Yankees loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth, took the lead when Jeter and Damon scored on a Hideki Matsui single, and that was it for O’s starter Jeremy Guthrie. Ex-Yank Sean Henn – who per Tyler Kepner’s nice Bats post, has no idea how he even ended up on the Orioles – got Baltimore out of the inning, but subsequent relievers did not fare as well. After Phil Hughes did his thing in the eighth, the Yankee offense unloaded: Damon walked, Teixeira singled, Matsui homered – nice day for him – and things went on in that vein until New York led 13-3. This was not enough of a lead for Brian Bruney to refrain from walking two batters in the ninth, but it was enough for that not to matter.

After the game both Joe Girardi and Alex Rodriguez explained their outbursts by talking about how important this game was, which… it wasn’t, really. But there are still two weeks of baseball left to be played, and a 2007-Mets-style death spiral is not yet technically impossible, so I guess you would have to keep telling yourself that.

No one expected the Orioles to blow into the Bronx and take the first two games of this weekend’s three-game set, handing the Yankees just their third series loss of the second half. The O’s have done not just that, but won those two games by a combined score of 17-7. It seems the Yankee bats are in a bit of a mini-slump, with the team averaging just 3.5 runs per game over it’s last four contests, and unlike the final two games of the Rays’ series, the Yankees haven’t gotten the pitching performances they needed to make those paltry seven runs stand up.

Nonetheless, the Yanks are still 12-5 (.706) on the season against the Orioles, and 40-15 (.727) in the second half, and they have CC Sabathia going in today’s finale looking to help avoid an embarrassing sweep at the hands of Jeremy Guthrie. CC is seven starts into a dominant late-season run (5-0, 1.75 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 11.05 K/9, 5.73 K/BB, 7 1/3 IP/GS, all Yankee wins).

Guthrie has had a nice little run of his own over his last five starts (3-1, 1.33 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 3.75 K/BB, 6 2/3+ IP/GS), his one loss in that stretch coming against Andy Pettitte and the Yankees in Baltimore on the final day of August.

Rain delayed the start of Friday night’s Yankees-Orioles schedule-filler by an hour and 27 minutes. Then during a pitching change with two outs in the seventh, the umpires called the tarp back out, leading to another hour-plus delay.

Things started off well for the Yankees during those first seven innings. Alex Rodriguez crushed a three-run homer into the second deck in left field in the first. Derek Jeter got his team-record 2,722nd hit, a single to right, leading off the third. His next time up he extended his new team record with another single to right, this one driving home Robinson Cano with a two-out run that pushed the Yankees’ lead to 4-1 after four.

Then the pitching fell apart. Andy Pettitte wasn’t sharp, needing 103 pitches to get through five innings. After giving up a second run with one out in the fifth, he loaded the bases, then made a great play on a chopper to the third base side for the second out. The ball tipped off Pettitte’s glove and headed toward the foul line, but Andy scrambled after it, picked it up with his bare hand and made a spinning, falling throw around the runner for the force at home. Unfortunately, Pettitte then hit Melvin Mora in the right elbow to force in the third Baltimore run.

Damaso Marte replaced Pettitte in the sixth and coughed up three more runs and the lead, plus a fourth which scored on a sac fly off Jonathan Albaladejo. In the seventh, Edwar Ramirez gave up three more, all with two outs, at which point the mid-game rain delay struck.

When the tarp came back off around 12:45 am, there were just a few hundred fans left. Ronan Tynan, out to sing “God Bless America” for 9/11, sang it to almost no one on 9/12. Down by six runs, Joe Girardi wisely put his bench in the game to protect his starters for the playoffs, leaving only Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner, and DH Hideki Matsui in the lineup.

Jeter’s hit was a nice moment. The stadium was packed in anticipation of it, and he delivered, bringing about a huge ovation. His teammates came out of the dugout to congratulate him, and he tipped his helmet to the crowd and signaled to his family in their suite. Unfortunately, it was buried in a miserable morass of a rain-soaked 10-4 loss to a bad team. If nothing else, it worked well as a metaphor for all of the hype the hit was buried in. I’m genuinely pleased and impressed by Jeter’s accomplishment, but the Yankee hype machine nearly killed those emotions. The Yankees are an easy team to root for, but they can be a hard organization to like.

The Yankees are 12-3 against the Orioles this year and 12-1 against them since the third day of the season. Last week, the Yanks swept the O’s in a three-game series in Baltimore, outscoring them 24-9. The Yankees now welcome the Orioles to the Bronx having just swept the third-place Rays in four games amid one of the most dominant second-half runs in major league history. The O’s are 12-25 (.324) since the trading deadline and have won just two of their last eight stretching back through that last series against the Yankees.

What makes this series different, other than its location, is that the Yankees get their first look at the O’s two young starting prospects, Chris Tillman and Brian Matusz, who start tonight and tomorrow. Tillman is a tall, skinny, 21-year-old righty who came over in the Erik Bedard trade. Matusz is an equally tall (though not as skinny), 22-year-old lefty who was drafted out of college with the fourth overall pick last year. Neither has had much success in the majors thus far, but they, along with catcher Matt Wieters and outfielders Nick Markakis, Adam Jones (currently on the DL with a bad back), and to a lesser degree Nolan Riemold, should be thorns in the Yankees’ side for years to come. Thus far, Matusz, the polished college product has had more success, though per my man Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus, Tillman remains the better prospect and a potential ace.

Taking on Tillman tonight (weather permitting, and it don’t look good) is Andy Pettitte, who has been ace-like himself in the second half, going 5-1 with a 2.88 ERA while the Yankees have won his last seven starts. Johnny Damon sits out the bad weather with a stiff back. Melky’s in left with Gardner in center, those two hits 8th and 9th. Swisher hits 2nd.

(more…)

I. PROLOGUE

Derek Jeter’s Yankeeography was among the first of the series to air on YES after the network launched in 2002. It seems like the crew at MLB Productions has to scrap something and update it every year for future re-broadcasts. The next addition: he will stand alone as the Yankees’ all-time hits leader and the video to support the feat will be logged and included.

It is an honor that deserves all the respect we as Yankee fans and baseball fans can provide, especially considering the man he’s passing: Henry Louis Gehrig. A question needs to be asked regarding the coverage and the build-up, though: Did someone think to pull the plug on this, or at least trickle the information piecemeal? The fact that there was little else to discuss because the Yankees have practically locked up the AL East is no excuse.

Did anyone else think it was too much? Were you offended or insulted by the fact that there wasn’t anything new to add to the subject, that there was little we didn’t already know just continuously being regurgitated? It was like being force-fed the same meal every day at the same time, with no other alternative food choices.

To wit: Did the same video footage and nearly the same commentary — verbatim — need to be replayed and repeated night after night, day after day, from the beginning of the Toronto series last Friday? By the time Sunday’s finale came around, it was absurd.

The video from May 30, 1995, his first hit, a groundball through the left side of the infield at the Kingdome, off Tim Belcher, was shown countless times, with Michael Kay’s commentary, “and Derek Jeter standing on first base next to his future teammate and good friend, Tino Martinez.” We got it after the fourth viewing. At that point, I was mouthing Kay’s description of the clip. Then there was the praise for his upbringing with the cutaways to his parents and how anyone associated with the Yankees who scouted him or saw him play in high school “was not surprised at what he’s accomplished.” That fed the discussion of his legend, starting with the first game in Cleveland in 1996 when he homered and made a great over-the-shoulder catch in shallow left field, a play that along with the jump throw from deep in the hole became “Jeterian” (by the way, this is a B.S. adjective that sounds incorrect compared to “Jeteresque.” Can we get a decision on that?), continuing to the Jeffrey Maier home run, the flip play, the Mr. November home run, the dive into the stands against the Red Sox five years ago, and the list goes on.

I know I sound like the guy on the front porch yelling at kids to get off my lawn, which could lead you to the conclusion that I’m a Jeter hater. While I’m not averse to reprimanding people for encroaching my property, nothing could be further from the truth on the Jeter hating. I gained a great appreciation for him while covering him from 2002-06. You have to see how he handles himself amid all the potential distractions on a daily basis to understand how difficult it is to do what he does. He’s a great player, but there was just nothing there beyond his being a baseball player — at least not that he displayed to the people holding pens, pads, recorders and cameras. Jeter was trained well. He doesn’t give too much away, speaks the company line and controls his emotions. Would we as beat writers and reporters try to bait him to give more and show some personality? Sure, but he would never comply. He was too smart. At least he was not phony about it.

The biggest question, based on the personality test above, was, “Would he enjoy the moment?” There was legitimate concern over this in the local media. The best answer came from Jeter himself. He tipped his helmet to the fans, but knew the Yankees were trailing 2-0 and he didn’t want to “disrespect Tampa,” as he told Kim Jones. Only when the Rays all moved to the top step of their bench clapped for Jeter’s achievement did he take a little extra time to bask in the moment. Class act all the way. He does not act bigger than the game, either on the micro or the macro level.

That’s the essence of Derek Jeter. If he doesn’t enjoy the moment himself, we’ll certainly enjoy it for him.

(more…)

No video to start the post today.  Just think good thoughts for the widows and orphans of those lost on this day eight years ago.

• We wonder where Wang will wander in 2010:

Chien-Ming Wang, who had shoulder surgery in July, hopes to travel with the Yankees during the postseason even through he cannot play.

 “This is a great team. We can win the World Series,” he said. “I want to see that.”

In his first public comments since the surgery, Wang said he hopes to start playing catch again in January and believes he will pitch in the major leagues at some point in 2010. But he realizes that may not be with the Yankees.

Wang had a $5 million contract this season and is eligible for arbitration. There is virtually no chance the Yankees will offer him arbitration before the December deadline. That would leave Wang a free agent.

“I would like to stay in New York,” he said. “But I don’t know what will happen.”

One possibility is that the Yankees could offer Wang a minor-league contract. Or another team could sign him to a major-league deal and hope that he returns to form.

• Adulation from around the majors for Jeter’s accomplishments:

Rangers third baseman Michael Young, who has represented the American League in six All-Star Games, said he was in awe of Jeter’s career.

“That’s an incredible accomplishment, considering how many great players have played for that organization,” said Young. “Their best players are guys that played their whole careers there.

“It’s an amazing accomplishment. I’ve gotten to know Derek over the years, and as much as he won’t admit it, I think this means a lot to him.”

Veteran reliever Brendan Donnelly, who spent seven seasons in the American League before joining the Marlins this season, was also impressed by Jeter’s work ethic and role as the face of baseball.

“Jeter has been one of the best role models in Major League Baseball in recent history,” said Donnelly before Wednesday’s game. “He’s done it the right way, from start to finish, at the highest level and probably the hardest place to play. He’s been the face of Major League Baseball for years. You just don’t hear guys staying in one spot that long. For him to do everything he’s done, I think he’s earned every bit of his fame.

“To me, it’s not surprising that he’s about to become the Yankees’ all-time hit leader. He’s always healthy. He’s just done it the right way. I think more players in baseball should follow his way.”

(more…)

According to Tyler Kepner, David Robertson went for his second M.R.I. today and he won’t be pitching for ten days to two weeks. Perhaps he will be ready for the playoffs but I’m not so sure we should count on it.