Francisco Cervelli, who was struggling to maintain sea level against Double-A pitching, has looked competent as a major league hitter, but it is his catching skills that draw the majority of my praise. After watching Cervelli catch two games against the Orioles last weekend, I came away thoroughly convinced that he’s a keeper. From a defensive standpoint, Cervelli does everything you want a catcher to do. He squarely sets his target, and as he receives the pitch, he frames the ball skillfully, holding his glove in place in order to give the home plate umpire a longer look. (In contrast, some Yankee fans might remember the way that Matt Nokes jerked his glove back toward home plate, which is just about the worst way to frame pitches.) Cervelli moves smoothly and quickly behind the plate, allowing him to backhand wide pitches and block those thrown in the dirt. On stolen base attempts, Cervelli comes out of his squat quickly and follows through with strong and accurate throws to second base.

On the offensive side, Cervelli will probably never hit with much power, but he is patient at the plate and willing to take pitches to the opposite field. If Cervelli can mature enough offensively to become a .consistent 270 hitter who continues to draws walks, he will become a very good backup catcher. That might sound like an example of damning with faint praise, but solid No. 2 receivers have become like gold in today’s game. There are only a handful of standout backup catchers in either league: Chris Coste in Philadelphia, Henry Blanco in San Diego, Kelly Shoppach in Cleveland, and Mike Redmond in Minnesota. Cervelli has a chance to become the Yankees’ best backup catcher since a fellow named Joe Girardi, who last played a game in pinstripes in 1999. Yes, it’s been that long…

As uneven as the Yankees’ play has been through six weeks, they haven’t experienced the same kind of schizophrenia displayed by their Triple-A affiliate, the Scranton Yankees. The Scrantonians began the International League season by winning 23 of first 28 games, and they did so by clubbing the opposition with a powerhouse offense. Then came Scranton’s recent four-game stretch. Through Wednesday night, Scranton’s offense had failed to score a run in 44 consecutive innings—a simply remarkable run of futility. The Triple-A Yankees have suffered four consecutive shutouts, in addition to six scoreless innings left over during a previous loss last Saturday. Suddenly, Scranton’s record is a more earthly 23-10.

So what happened? As with the major league Yankees, injuries have hit Dave Miley’s team hard. Second baseman Kevin Russo and outfielders Shelley “Slam” Duncan and John Rodriguez, representing a third of Scranton’s starting nine, are all hurt. And the healthy players are slumping, none worse than third baseman and former No. 1 pick Eric Duncan. Duncan was wallowing in an oh-for-33 hammerlock before finally breaking out with a double on Wednesday. The slump, which dropped Duncan’s average from .309 to .206, probably cost Duncan what little chance he had of a promotion to the Bronx.

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 “I’m sorry, guys,” Oritz said. “I don’t feel like talking right now. Just put down, ‘Papi stinks.’ ”
(Boston Globe)

Mark Teixeira has not hit well so far this season.  After one week, Alex Rodriguez is not there yet.  The Yanks are a .500 team.  The Red Sox, however, are playing relatively well while getting nothing from David Ortiz.  It has gotten to the point where you have to wonder if Ortiz, a proud bear of a man, will ever be half-the player he was in his prime.  Yesterday, he reached a new low, stranding twelve runners on base.  Mo Vaughn, your life is calling.

Couple of big dudes on the mound on Thursday night in Toronto. You know from CC, baseball’s answer to Andre the Giant. But Brian Tallet, is just as tall and he looks even taller because he’s not as wide as Sabathia. Sporting a scrubby mustache, Tallet looks like he stepped out of a time machine from 1987. He could be Frankie Viola’s cousin, or an extra from the movie Copland.

Either way, both men pitched well, each allowing just a couple of runs. But Sabathia was just that much better as the Yanks earned a satisfying 3-2 win over the Jays. There wasn’t much hitting. Alex Rodriguez’s timing is not back fully–he hit a couple of deep fly balls and put some good swings on a few other pitches that he just fouled off and was robbed of a double by Scott Rolen. But Brett Gardner made a nice throw from center field and scored the game-tying run in the seventh (he was driven in on a classic bloop single to right by Derek Jeter).

Hideki Matsui’s solo home run was the difference and our man Mariano Rivera worked a perfect ninth, striking Rod Barajas out swinging to end it.

The Yankees improve their record to 17-17 and finish the six-game road trip 4-2.

Baby steps, but it’s a start.

We’re all waiting for the Yanks to go on a run. That would entail winning a mess-o-games in a row. They’d have to start with tonight. Tonight would be nice.

Roy Halladay dominated the Yanks two nights ago. Time for CC Sabathia to return the favor. His last start was stellar. He’s expected to be on par tonight.

C’mon, big fella. You’re the Rock.

I take a closer look at the AL-leading Blue Jays over at SI.com today:

Thus far the Jays have split their first two games against the struggling Yankees. Their one win came behind Halladay, but their loss on Wednesday night saw Richmond and Murphy get their BABIP comeuppance, Hill leave the game after fouling a ball of his shin and the offense manage just two runs despite receiving four free passes from Andy Pettitte. They’ll face CC Sabathia on Thursday night, with Sabathia coming off a complete-game shutout at Baltimore.

The Jays play two-thirds of their games against the AL East in the second half, but they have six games against the second-place Red Sox over the remainder of May, three games against the defending NL champion Phillies in June and a run of 13 games against the Phillies, Rays, Yankees and Rays again leading up to the All-Star break. We’ll have a much better idea of how good Toronto is by the end of that stretch . . .

Meanwhile, here are Ted Berg and MetsBlog’s Matt Cerrone on tonight’s pitching matchup:

I still love this scene.

Another old friend of Bronx Banter, poet, historian, and editor, Glenn Stout, has just started a blog. Glenn’s new book, Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World, the story of the first woman to swim the English Channel, is due out this summer. I’m in the middle of reading it. Did you know that women were not allowed to swim during the Victorian Age? Thinking about it now, it makes sense, but man, I never knew that. Terrific book, by the way, and not just for young women. I’ll get together with Glenn to talk about it as the release date approaches.

For now, bookmark Glenn’s blog, Verb Plow. He’s sure to fill it with thought-provoking goodies.

Jeff Pearlman, author of one of two new books about Roger Clemens, wasn’t impressed with the Rocket’s performance earlier this week on ESPN radio.  No suprise there, but I have to admit, I like the defiance that Clemens is displaying.  It may be pathetic, delusional, or both, but it is keeping in line with his personality, and for that reason, I think it’s amusing as hell.  Clemens has turned into Slim Pickens riding the bomb.

Hey, don’t mess with Texas, right?

In his previous start, Blue Jays’ starter Scott Richmond gave up five runs in the second inning in Oakland, but stayed in the game and pitched six subsequent scoreless innings. Wednesday night, Richmond gave up five runs in the second inning again, but didn’t survive that inning.

The Jays got an early unearned run against Andy Pettitte in the first inning of last night’s game, but that lead didn’t last long. The first three Yankee batters in the second—Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner, and Ramiro Peña, the last two starting in place of Hideki Matsui (hamstring) and Derek Jeter (oblique)—doubled, homered, and tripled. After a Francisco Cervelli groundout, Johnny Damon tripled, driving in Peña. After a Nick Swisher groundout later, Mark Teixeira doubled, driving in Damon. Richmond then walked Alex Rodriguez on five pitches and battled Robinson Cano for ten more before Cano singled in Teixeira with the fifth run and drove Richmond from the game. The Yankees batted around in the inning, connected for five extra-base hits worth a total of 14 bases, and spent a half an hour at the plate.

That was all the Yankees needed, though they tacked on a run in the fourth (Damon double, Swisher groundout, Teixeira sac fly) off reliever Brian Wolfe and two in the fifth off lefty Bill Murphy (Cano double, Gardner triple, Cervelli RBI infield single). Altogether the fifth-through-eighth men in the Yankee order (Cano, Cabrera, Gardner, and Peña) went 6-for-17 with a walk, five runs scored, four RBIs, and 15 total bases (two doubles, two triples, and a homer). The home run was Brett Gardner’s first in the major leagues, a 330-foot wall scraper that tucked just inside the right-field foul pole. With that homer, a triple, and a walk, Gardner was the hitting star of the game, going 2-for-3 with three RBIs, two runs scored, and seven total bases.

Pettitte gave up a second run in the fourth on two singles, one of which didn’t leave the infield, and a walk. Pettitte wasn’t especially sharp; he walked four men and used up 106 pitches in six innings, but he didn’t need to be and kept the Jays’ league-best offense at bay. Alfredo Aceves pitched around a Vernon Wells double for two innings of scoreless relief, and Jonathan Albaladejo pitched into and out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to secure the 8-2 win, smacking himself upside the head after inducing a game-ending double play for walking two men with a six-run lead.

Tomorrow night, the Yankees send CC Sabathia to the mound looking for the series win against the Jays and their second straight series win of their current road trip.

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Of course you want to win every game, but realistically, a baseball team enters a three-game series, particularly one against the team with the best record in the league, hoping to take two of three. Looking at this week’s series in Toronto, the Yankees had to assume last night’s game against Roy Halladay would be the loss, so really everything’s going according to plan, right?

Tonight, Andy Pettitte looks to keep the Yankees on track against Scott Richmond. Richmond is a 29-year-old rookie who went undrafted after graduating from Oklahoma State. He then posted a 14-19 record with a 4.37 ERA over three seasons with the Edmonton Cracker-Cats of the independent Northern League, during which the Vancouver native also pitched for Canada in the inagural World Baseball Classic, though again without particularly encouraging results. The Blue Jays signed Richmond after he made the move to the Cracker-Cats’ rotation in 2007. He split most of 2008 between Double- and Triple-A, going 6-11 witha  4.45 ERA, but also made five spot starts for the major league club. The first four of those starts were nearly identical (between five and 5 2/3 innings, three runs, no more than one walk and either four or five strikeouts in each), but left him 0-3. His last saw him shutout the Orioles in a rain-shortened six-inning ballgame on September 26.

Richmond didn’t get into a game before Canada was eliminated from this year’s WBC, but opened the season as the Blue Jay’s fifth starter and has thus far gone 4-1 with a 3.29 ERA. In the middle four of his six starts, Richmond went 4-0 with a 2.o5 ERA, turning in a quality start each time out with an average of nearly 6 2/3 innings pitched.  That streak was snapped his last time out, when he took his first loss after giving up five runs in the second inning against the A’s in Oakland. Still, Richmond recovered from that rocky frame to shut out the A’s the rest of the way, needing just 96 pitches to complete eight innings.

Richmond has been hit-lucky thus far as his opponents’ average on balls in play is just .245, and he’s always had good, but not spectacular control. The result has been a solid 1.2 WHIP. A fly-ball pitcher, he’s given up five home runs, a rate of 1.2 every nine innings, but three have been solo shots and the other two came with just one man on base. Richmond is also death on right-handed hitters (.155/.183/.182 in his young major league career), but can struggle against lefties.

Unfortunately, Hideki Matsui is out today after tweaking his hamstring in last night’s game. Derek Jeter (oblique) is also out for the second-straight day. Pete Abe reports that Jeter hasn’t swung a bat since Sunday, but “hopes to play tomorrow,” which is what he said yesterday. Ramiro Peña and Brett Gardner once again benefit from these aches and pains per this lineup:

L – Johnny Damon (DH)
S – Nick Swisher (RF)
S – Mark Teixeira (1B)
R – Alex Rodriguez (3B)
L – Robinson Cano (2B)
S – Melky Cabrera (LF)
L – Brett Gardner (CF)
S – Ramiro Peña (SS)
S – Francisco Cervelli (C)

If there’s any upside there it’s that only Alex Rodriguez will hit right-handed against Richmond.

As for Pettitte, his last two starts have been shaky. Against the Angels on May 1, he walked four and gave up five runs in 5 2/3 innings, though the Yankees rallied to win that game 10-9. In his last start, last Thursday against the Rays, he gave up five runs in six innings courtesy of four Tampa homers. The Yankees also rallied to tie that game, but lost on two more home runs off Mariano Rivera. On the season as a whole, however, Pettitte looks like Pettitte: 4.38 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 6 1/2 innings per start.

I caught this goodness over at Baseball Think Factory.

Check it out.

No, this man will not be the next catcher signed by the Yankees. As much as the Yankees’ catching corps has been overwhelmed by injuries, they’re not that desperate. Close, but not quite.

Contrary to appearances, Larry Haney was not a left-handed throwing catcher. It only looks that way in this 1969 Topps card. In contrast to the way that Hank Aaron and Dale Murphy achieved baseball card glory by being featured in reversed negative photographs, Haney earned only a momentary glimpse of trading card fame. In 1957, Topps released an Aaron card that showed the eventual home run king in a left-handed batting pose. And then in 1989, Upper Deck issued its Murphy card with a similarly wrong-handed pose, again the result of the photo negative being accidentally reversed.

Haney never received as much attention as either of these more celebrated cases, in large part because of his mediocre status as a good-field, no-hit backup catcher. There might have been another factor at play here, as well. Some collectors might have thought that Haney was trying to gain some notoriety by intentionally wearing a left-handed catcher’s mitt and pretending to play the position with the wrong hand. Yet, a conversation with former Topps president Sy Berger, who visited the Hall of Fame several years ago, revealed otherwise. Topps simply made a mistake in its photo processing; Mr. Haney had nothing to do with the “error.” In fact, the 1969 card features the same photo that was used by Topps in the 1968 set. Only that time Topps had the image right.

In many ways, Haney was the Jose Molina of his era. A lifetime .215 hitter with no power, Haney excelled at the defensive side of the game. For his career, he threw out 39 per cent of opposing basestealers. The Oakland A’s thought so much of Haney’s catching skills that they acquired him three different times, including twice during their world championship run from 1972 to 1974.

Originally signed by the Orioles in 1961, Haney played sparingly in three seasons for the Birds. After being taken in the 32nd round of the 1968 expansion draft by the Pilots, Haney appeared in only 22 games for Seattle, but did stake two claims to fame in the Great Northwest. He hit a game-winning home run in his first major league game. Later on, he set a Pilots team record for catchers by committing two errors in one game. Such uncharacteristic defensive pratfalls probably played little influence in the Pilots’ decision to trade him on June 14, 1969 (just before the old trading deadline), as they shipped the veteran receiver to the A’s for second baseman John Donaldson. From there, Haney went to the Padres’ organization (but never actually donned the lovely brown and yellow of the Pods), then came back to the A’s, spent a brief time with the Cardinals, came back to the A’s yet again, and finished his career with the Brewers in 1977 and ’78. Long since retired as a player, Haney worked for years as a scout for the Brewers—who used to be the Pilots, the same team featured on that 1969 Topps card.

Coincidentally, Haney was involved in another card error, albeit of a different kind. His 1975 Topps card displays an in-action photograph of an Oakland catcher awaiting a throw at home plate, but it’s not Haney in the picture. It’s actually former A’s catcher Dave Duncan, who had long since been traded away to the Indians as part of the George Hendrick-Ray Fosse swap.

So for a guy who had a mostly unremarkable career as a backup catcher, that’s two significant error cards. At least the card collectors will never forget Mr. Haney.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for MLB.com. He can be reached via e-mail at bmarkusen@stny.rr.com.

Bronx Banter Interview

Our old pal Allen Barra sat down with me recently to talk about his new book, Yogi: Eternal Yankee.

Bronx Banter: You make the argument that Yogi was a better catcher than Johnny Bench. How close was Roy Campanella to Yogi during the Fifties? Was there any catcher even close to these two at the time?

Allen Barra: In Rio Bravo, Walter Brennan asks John Wayne if Ricky Nelson is faster than Dean Martin. “I’d hate to have to live on the difference,” says Duke. The real truth is that if you take Campanella at this peak, there’s probably very little difference between Berra, Bench and Campy. The only thing I might add to that is that it’s possible that, if given the same material to work with, Johnny and Roy could have gotten as much out of as many mediocre pitchers as well as Yogi did. But Yogi did do it, and that has to give him the edge.

BB: Did Yogi really deserve the 1954 and ‘55 MVP awards? In ‘54 the Indians won and Bobby Avila had a big year, also playing a key defensive position, and Mickey Mantle had a monstrous year. And in ’55 Mantle again had another ridiculous year.

AB: That’s a tough question. I don’t know if anyone’s done a “Value over Replacement Factor” kind of analysis for those years, but it’s arguable that Yogi might have had the highest value over anyone who could have replaced him at that position. In 1954 my guess is that the difference between Mantle and Berra wasn’t that great. Avila played a key defensive position, but not more key than Yogi’s. It probably should have been Mantle in ’55, but then I think there’s an equally good case that it probably should have been Yogi in 1950 instead of Phil Rizzuto. What’s interesting is that so many people thought that it should have been Yogi those years. I think that tells us something very important about him.

BB. Was there any year that Yogi should have won an MVP when he didn’t?

AB: Well, as I just mentioned, there was 1950. And you could turn the ’54 argument on its head and ask why Al Rosen, an Indian, wins the MVP [in 1953] when Yogi’s team won the pennant. I’m not saying Rosen didn’t deserve it, I’m just saying that if Yogi had won it, nobody would have gone to the barricades to say he didn’t deserve it, and I’d argue that he was also one of the top five players in the league in 1952. It’s more difficult to figure the value of a top-flight catcher. He did so many things to hold his pitching staffs together back then, I just don’t know if you can figure his worth compared to payers at other positions.

BB: It ‘s well known that Yogi helped Elston Howard when he joined the team but did Yogi ever question or go on the record about the Yankees’ institutional racism?

AB: No, I’m not aware that anyone in that period did. For one thing, when you talked to the players of that era, they all say, “Well, every year we heard that they were brining black players up through the minor league system, and we thought each year would be the next year.” I think there’s something to that – Gil McDougald told me something to that effect. I mean, the Yankee players were ready for it. They had no objections at all to integrating the team. It was only after a few seasons of George Weiss signing a black player for the minor league system and then trading him that they began to catch on. I’d have to say, though, that while the Yankees front office was as racist in its policies as the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees themselves got good marks from Elston and Arlene Howard and Larry Doby for their overall attitudes. Both the Howards and Doby put Yogi at the top of their list of good guys. Arlene Howard told me that Yogi and Elston “hit it off right away.”

BB. I know that walk rates were up in the Fifties and comparatively Yogi didn’t walk that much. But he was contact hitter and it’s hard to point this out as a major flaw. That said, were there any noticeable holes in his game, either offensively or in the field?

AB: No, none, and it ought to be mentioned that though Yogi didn’t walk that much, his on-base average was actually six points better than Johnny Bench’s in about the same number of games, and that’s what’s important. No, Yogi had no flaws. We all know he wasn’t much of a catcher until Bill Dickey learned him all of his experience, but by 1949 he was a very good catcher, and by 1950 the Yankee staff was pretty much relying on him to call their pitches. Or rather, he knew them well enough to call their pitches for them – did I just make some kind of Yogiism? Anyway, all that crap in David Halberstam’s The Summer of ’49 about Allie [Reynolds] and Yogi not getting along is fiction. All the Yankees told me so.

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The Yankees have no shame about promoting the exclusivity of their new park. Kids cannot watch batting practice from the sweet seats in the outfield.

Check this out:

The complaints about batting practice did not draw much sympathy on Tuesday from Lonn Trost, the club’s chief operating officer, who spoke after a news conference announcing the sale of mementos from the old stadium.

Referring to the high-priced Legends Suite tickets clustered around home plate and the infield, Trost said that it was an area that fans without suite tickets would not be allowed to enter.

“If you purchase a suite, do you want somebody in your suite?” Trost said in remarks reported by The Associated Press. “If you purchase a home, do you want somebody in your home?”

Yikes. Nobody is likely to apply the term “friendly confines” to the mallpark in the Bronx.

Is they?

It didn’t really matter what A.J. Burnett did last night given how well Roy Halladay pitched. Halladay faced the minimum through 6 1/3 thanks to a questionable call by second-base umpire Chuck Meriwether who called Johnny Damon out trying to stretch a single into a double in the first inning. Fittingly, it was a Damon double that broke Halladay’s streak with one out in the seventh. After Mark Teixeira struck out, Alex Rodriguez delivered a two-out RBI single to plate Damon, but that was all the Yankees would get. Halladay erased a Melky Cabrera single in the eighth with a double play and stranded a lead-off Ramiro Peña double in the ninth. He threw 72 of 103 pitches for strikes, got 17 of his 27 outs on the ground, five more by strikeout, and two more on pop-ups, and picked up his first complete game of the year, pushing his record to 7-1. The game took just two hours and 22 minutes to play.

Fun stat: Since 2003, Halladay leads all major league pitchers in shutouts with 36. CC Sabathia is second with 26. Since 2006, however, Sabathia leads Halladay 22 to 21.

As for Burnett, he gave up three runs in the fourth after loading the bases on an Alex Rios double and two walks. Scott Rolen doubled down the left field line to plate two, and after Lyle Overbay struck out, Rod Barajas brought the third run home with a sac fly. Still, it seemed we were getting the pitching duel we had hoped for when Burnett held the Jays there and took the mound in the bottom of the eight trailing Halladay 3-1. Then Aaron Hill homered to make it 4-1 and Rios and Rolen teamed up again to plate a fifth run (via a walk, groundout, and RBI Rolen single) to bounce Burnett from the game and set the final score at 5-1.

A.J. was booed lustily throughout the game by the betrayed Blue Jays fans. Chants of “A.J. Sucks” echoed throughout the Rogers Centre (as did “Steroids” chants during Alex Rodriguez’s at-bats). One fan held up a sign that said “Roy > A.J.” Well, yeah. I think even he’d admit that.

(more…)

Toronto Blue Jays

2009 Record: 22-12 (.647)
2009 Pythagorean Record: 21-13 (.618)

2008 Record: 86-76 (.531)
2008 Pythagorean Record: 93-69 (.574)

Manager: Cito Gaston
General Manager: J.P. Ricciardi

Home Ballpark (multi-year Park Factors): Rogers Centre (99/98)

Who’s Replaced Whom:

• Aaron Hill (DL) reclaims his playing time from Joe Inglett (minors)
• Travis Snider replaces Shannon Stewart and Brad Wilkerson
• Adam Lind replaces Kevin Mench and Frank Thomas
• Kevin Millar replaces Matt Stairs
• Jose Bautista replaces David Eckstein
• Raul Chavez is filling in for Michael Barrett (DL), who replaces Gregg Zaun
• Brian Tallet is filling in for Ricky Romero (DL), who replaces A.J. Burnett
• Brett Cecil replaces David Purcey (minors) and Dustin McGowan (DL)
• Scott Richmond replaces Shaun Marcum (DL)
• Robert Ray is filling in for Jesse Litsch (DL)
• Bill Murphy replaces John Parrish
• Scott Downs is closing in place of B.J. Ryan (DL)

25-man Roster:

1B – Lyle Overbay (L)
2B – Aaron Hill (R)
SS – Marco Scutaro (R)
3B – Scott Rolen (R)
C – Rod Barajas (R)
RF – Alex Rios (R)
CF – Vernon Wells (R)
LF – Travis Snider (L)
DH – Adam Lind (L)

Bench:

R – Kevin Millar (1B)
R – John McDonald (IF)
R – Jose Bautista (UT)
R – Raul Chavez (C)

Rotation:

R – Roy Halladay
R – Scott Richmond
L – Brian Tallet
L – Brett Cecil
R – Robert Ray

Bullpen:

L – Scott Downs
R – Jason Frasor
L – Jesse Carlson
R – Shawn Camp
R – Brandon League
L – Bill Murphy
R – Brian Wolfe

15-day DL:

RHP – Dustin McGowan (labrum)
RHP – Shaun Marcum (TJ surgery)
RHP – Jesse Litsch (forearm tightness)
LHP – Ricky Romero (oblique)
LHP – B.J. Ryan (trapezius)
C – Michael Barrett (right shoulder tear)

Typical Lineup:

R – Marco Scutaro (SS)
R – Aaron Hill (2B)
R – Alex Rios (RF)
R – Vernon Wells (CF)
L – Adam Lind (DH)
R – Scott Rolen (3B)
L – Lyle Overbay (1B)
R – Rod Barajas (C)
L – Travis Snider (LF)

(more…)

My first job right out of college was as a production assistant on Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary.  The gig lasted about five months and when it was over I couldn’t find another paying job in the movie business so I spent most of the summer in central park watching softball. I pretended to look for work but really I hid out in the park instead.  I was a regular goldbricker, but was not alone.  I discovered a group of regulars who would hang around the great lawn and watch games all afternoon.  Fat guys with red bellies who would rotate around the fields to stay in the sun.  A skinny black dude, Smokey, used to sell Snapple, water, soda and beer.  I’d follow an animated umpire named Butch and watch all of his games.

My favorite league was the Press League (This may be the same league that our man Cliff later played in when he was with Viking).  The games just had more juice than the Broadway League.  The New York Times had a wonderful second baseman at the time, an older woman who wore braces on both knees.  She was a fluid fielder, the kind of person you just wanted to talk baseball with.  The kind of person you’d be honored to have a catch with.

I thought about her a few days ago when I read this piece about the Press League in the City Section of the Sunday Times:

Each spring for at least three decades, starting in late April or early May, media softball with all its pranks and rivalries returns to the diamonds of Central Park. The undertaking involves dozens of players, largely in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

And this season, coming as it does on the heels of possibly the worst year in memory for the publishing industry, the idea of repairing from the office to the green of the park seems especially appealing.

Over the past year, caught between an ailing economy and the struggle of print publications in an increasingly digital age, one after another title has trimmed its sails, migrated to the Web or closed up shop entirely. The shock has been felt especially in New York, home to so many publications and to so many who read them or work for them. And the body count continues to rise, with the attendant impact on the softball season.

February brought the folding of Trader Monthly, a magazine for the financial community, whose team planned to play this year. On April 30, Condé Nast announced the closing of Portfolio, its glossy business monthly, laying off more than 80 people. It had planned to play the New Yorker on June 16.

The past 10 days have seen an immense range of stories leapfrog to the forefront of New York sports fans’ collective consciousness. In no particular order, with some analysis and commentary mixed in…

• The Yankees slashed prices for the primo seats, an altruistic move that still leaves many of us thinking, “You know, you have your own network, and it’s on my cable system. I’ll contribute to your bottom line that way and I won’t feel like I got stabbed in the wallet.”

• Alex Rodriguez did everything necessary in extended spring training and returned to the lineup Friday. He punctuated the return with a home run on the first pitch he saw, thus fulfilling his job as the media-anointed savior of the team’s season. He proceeded to go 1-for-10 with two strikeouts in the remainder of the series, and perhaps fearing aggravating the hip injury, didn’t hustle down the line to run out a ground ball, thus reclaiming his role as the team’s most prominent punching bag.

• The Yankees lost two straight to the Red Sox at home and have lost the first five meetings of the season. (Sound the alarms! Head for the hills! There’s no way the Yankees can win the division without beating the Red Sox! Except that they can, and they have. In 2004, the Yankees went 1-6 in their first seven games against the BoSox, ended up losing the season series 8-11 and still finished 101-61 to win the American League East by three games.)

• Joba Chamberlain 1: His mother was arrested for allegedly selling crystal meth to an undercover officer. Following Chamberlain’s own brushes with the law during the offseason, it stood to reason that the tabloids attacked this story like starving coyotes. It’s remarkable that he was able to pitch at all given the negative attention he received.

• Joba Chamberlain 2: Flash back to Aug. 13, 2007. Chamberlain struck out Orioles first baseman Aubrey Huff in a crucial late-inning at-bat to end the inning and in the heat of the moment pumped his fist in exultation. Yesterday, following a three-run home run in the first inning that gave the O’s a 3-1 lead, Huff mocked Chamberlain’s emotional outburst with his own fist pump, first while rounding first base, and again when crossing home plate. Apparently, Mr. Huff holds grudges. Thanks to the New York Daily News’s headline, “MOCKING BIRD” with a photo of the home-plate celebration, this story will have wings when Baltimore comes to the Bronx next week. Even better, as it currently stands, Chamberlain is due to start in the series finale on Thursday the 21st. Get ready for a rash of redux stories leading up to that game.

• Mariano Rivera surrendered back-to-back home runs for the first time in his career last Wednesday night, a clear signal that something is wrong. Maybe.

• The team as a whole. The Yankees are 15-16 through 31 games, and some rabid fans (the “Spoiled Set,” as Michael Kay likes to call them; the group of fans between ages 18-30 that only knows first-place finishes for the Yankees) are calling for Joe Girardi’s head. As in the above note on the Red Sox, some context is required. The Yankees’ records through 31 games this decade:

2000: 22-9 (finished 87-74, won AL East)
2001: 18-13 (finished 95-65, won AL East)
2002: 18-13 (finished 103-58, won AL East)
2003: 23-8 (finished 101-61, won AL East)
2004: 18-13 (finished 101-61, won AL East)
2005: 12-19 (finished 95-67, won AL East)
2006: 19-12 (finished 97-65, won AL East)
2007: 15-16 (finished 94-68, won AL Wild Card)
2008: 15-16 (finished 89-73, missed playoffs)
2009: 15-16 (finish TBD)

No one is going to make excuses for the team with the billion dollar stadium and the highest payroll, least of all your trusted scribes here at the Banter. Looking at the last three years — including 2009 — it should be noted that similar issues of injury, age, and woes throughout the pitching staff have befallen the Yankees.

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I’m a day late with this, but here’s a terrific Happy Mother’s Day clip:
 

Peace to Matt B for the link.