By Pat Jordan

I was 12 the first time I visited Yankee Stadium in 1953. I had been invited to appear on Mel Allen’s pre-game TV show because, as a Little League pitcher in Connecticut, I had pitched four consecutive no-hitters and struck out every batter I faced except two. I arrived in a tan suit, and tie, with my glove in a paper bag. I expected the Yankees to ask me to throw a few, and then sign me to a contract. But they didn’t. Mel Allen just talked to my parents, then asked me a question. I mumbled and answer and sulked. That’s all I remember about the Stadium on my first trip.

The next time I went to the stadium was in 1959, when I was 17, and trying to get the Yankees to give me a bonus. That trip, I remember clearly. The Yankee p.r. person ushered me and my older brother down to the team’s press room which, I was amazed to discover, had wood-paneling painted white with blue pinstripes.

Mel Allen was there, again, at a table. He mistook me for Rocky Colavitao, the Cleveland Indians slugging outfielder. Why not? We were both Italian. But he didn’t remember me from six years before. Then I was led to the Yankees’ clubhouse, where all my heroes were in various states of dress. I gawked at my idol, Whitey Ford, with his freckled red skin and blue eyes, and Yogi Berra, squat and homely, and Mickey Mantle, sitting in a whirlpool. I thought Mantle was ten feet tall as a kid but when he got out of the whirlpool I, at 6’1″, towered over him.

I dressed into a Yankee uniform, then went out to show my stuff to the Yankee scouts. When I stepped out of the dugout the vastness of the Stadium loomed up all around me. It was the biggest place I’d ever been in. Now that I was no longer a boy, I wasn’t interested in such things. The scouts sat behind the home plate screen while I warmed up on a mound behind home plate. Johnny Blanchard was catching me. When I finally cut loose with my first fastball Blanchard turned towards the scouts, said something, and tried to slip a sponge into his mitt, without me noticing it. But I did. After that, each succeeding fastball exploded in his mitt and around the Stadium like a canon’s roar. I will never forget it.

After I finished throwing, I went into the general manager’s office where the g.m and my brother bargained over my bonus, while I sat there silent at a big conference table. The Yankees offered me a $36,000 bonus and I was crushed. The Braves had offered me $50,000, but I desperately wanted to pitch for the Yankees in their Stadium which I had come to see, over the years, as my rightful baseball home.

But, alas, it was not to be.

Pat Jordan, the author of A False Spring and A Nice Tuesday, is a freelance writer.

I miss firejoemorgan.com. I think they could maybe be harsh at times, but they were seldom wrong, and that site is still the first thing I think of when I come across a really awful piece of sports writing; its recent silence has left a void. Yesterday I came across an ESPN the Magazine (quit looking at me like that — I get it free!) “Page 2” piece that really demands the FJM treatment.

I’m certainly no Ken Tremendous, but I’ll give it my best shot. And so without further ado I give you Mike and Mike – whose show I’ve never actually heard, and now I know why – on the Yankees’ offseason. It doesn’t seem to be available online, so I’ll just have to type out the highlights for you. Here we go:

The Big Question

THE YANKS NEEDED PITCHING, A FIRST BASEMAN, AND SOME PATIENCE. THE MIKES SAY TWO OUT OF THREE AIN’T GOOD.

Wait up. “Needed”? Did they sign Sabathia while I wasn’t looking?

GREENY:… after the success of the Rays and other small-market teams, is New York being smart by throwing money around instead of developing its farm system?

But… they haven’t spent any money yet!

Granted, they’ve offered Sabathia a pretty huge contract (though I don’t see how that prevents them from simultaneously developing their farm system). Moving on, then, I love the idea that since the Rays were successful last year, the best strategy for the New York Yankees would be to have a small budget – as if the Rays won because of that and not in spite of it.

Tampa doesn’t have a choice here; they’re not passing on Mark Texiera just because they prefer the young players in their system. If a one-legged man wins a race using a prosthesis, it’s inspirational, but that doesn’t mean you should train for your next 5K by cutting off one of your legs.

GOLIC: Unfortunately, what you don’t find with the Yankees is patience. They feel like they have to win right now.

Probably a fair criticism.

Last year, the team tried to go with young arms, but some of them got hurt, and it didn’t work. So while that may be the right thing to do, don’t expect them to do it… What I wanted to see is just how aggressive they’d get in bidding for the top players.

There’s that past tense again. Are they writing from the future? Tell me, Mikes, how was the Inauguration? Did Springsteen play?

GREENY: This strategy

The one they haven’t actually implemented yet?

is indicative of the biggest problem the  Yankees have: they lack a vision. Take the Steelers.

They play football.

… They have a blueprint for success and stick to it. The same goes for the Jazz.

There’s really not a baseball team you’d like to bring up here? Red Sox, maybe? A’s? No?

They’ve had the same coach for 20 years and the second-best record in the NBA in that time.

Is he seriously suggesting that the Yankees should try to be more like the Utah Jazz?  Nothing against the Jazz, who are a model of competence and class when compared to the Knicks (though to be fair, so was Lehman Brothers), but would anyone actually like to swap the Yanks’ last 20 years for the Jazz’s? Would New York be better off right now if they’d made it to the World Series only twice and lost both times?

If the Yankees really decided to build from within, it would be shortsighted to leave those plans behind just because of one bad year and some injury problems.

That’s true – it would be. Hey, has anyone told Brian Cashman about this?

GOLIC: You know if they’ll be able to help themselves.

What?

I don’t know if he maybe meant “You don’t know if they’ll be able to help themselves,” or perhaps “You know they won’t be able to help themselves,” but I also don’t care. This whole piece is like a PSA for what happens when magazines lay off too many members of the editorial staff in one go.

When the Hall of Fame Game died an unceremonious death on a rain-drenched Monday in June, Hall officials could have taken the easy route in opting for a low-maintenance minor league game between two Triple-A teams. Instead, they took a path that will require more work and preparation—but it’s a path that will benefit both the Hall of Fame and the Cooperstown community.

The recent announcement regarding the inaugural Hall of Fame Classic Weekend, which will replace the Hall of Fame Game and will be capped off by an old-timers’ game on June 21, should be received favorably by all fans who live within driving distance of Cooperstown. Given the state of the economy, it’s encouraging to hear that a major weekend of activity will coincide both with Father’s Day weekend and the official start of summer.

Frankly, this is something that the Hall of Fame should have done years ago. After all, what better place to celebrate nostalgia than a place where nostalgia is nurtured 362 days a year? The cancellation of the Hall of Fame Game gave Hall officials the vital push they needed to make an annual old-timers game a reality here in central New York. Let’s also not downplay the role that new Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson (the former PR director for the Yankees) played in the final decision. Former Hall leader Dale Petroskey had major reservations about the old-timers game concept; he once told me that the sight of older Hall of Famers struggling on the field of play could prove embarrassing. The Hall has addressed that shortcoming by attempting to draw from a pool of younger, recently retired stars.

(more…)

I lost my rhythm sometime last week. The days and nights had become an uneven mix. They were nothing close to a good jazz riff. There were no wins, no losses, no games up and no games back.

Baseball’s grip had slipped and it seemed like nothing short of pitchers and catchers reporting could get it back.

But I slept with my glove last night and dreamed a baseball beat.

Derek Jeter opened with a perfect saxophone solo and A-Rod swung a big bass. Jorge Posada blasted a tune on the trumpet and Joba was pumping on the old trombone. Robbie Cano picked on the guitar and Chien-Ming Wang made the piano dance. Johnny Damon belted out the words and Mariano finished with a flourish on the drums.

Then the whole team met in the middle of the club and the beat kept right on going.

Pitchers and catchers play the first real set in 75 days.

My rhythm is coming back already.

Is it December already?  Here’s the news:

• Mark Feinsand of the News talks to Phil Hughes about his AFL performance and his expectations for 2009.

Last winter, Phil Hughes was one of the hottest commodities in baseball, the centerpiece of a proposed trade between the Yankees and Twins that would have landed Johan Santana in pinstripes.

Now, as the Yankees pursue free agent pitchers CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe, the 22-year-old Hughes is uncertain whether he’ll even be in the majors when the 2009 season starts.

“It’s just one of those wait-and-see things,” Hughes said from his family’s Southern California home. “We’ll sign whoever we sign this winter, and I’ll go to spring training with the same attitude that I always do. I don’t worry about the things I can’t control.”

Hughes went 2-0 with a 3.00ERA in seven AFL starts, but if you take out his disastrous outing on Oct. 18 in which he allowed seven runs in 2-2/3 innings, Hughes posted a 0.99 ERA in his other six games. He struck out 38batters in 30 innings, routinely hitting 94-95 mph with his fastball – something he didn’t do during his time with the Yankees last season.

“I was there for the innings, but at the same time, I didn’t want to go out and get walloped every time I took the mound,” Hughes said. “I worked on some things, got my innings in and was pretty successful at the same time.”

and …

While Hughes bulked up his innings total, he also used the time to work on his cutter, a pitch he started to develop late in the season after he decided to scrap his slider altogether.

“My slider wasn’t working at all,” Hughes said. “I worked a lot this fall on my cutter and my changeup, and both have come a long way.”

• Pete Abe of LoHud hit us with three good pieces over the weekend:

1. An appreciation of Mariano Rivera, on his 39th birthday
2. An update on the Puerto Rican league performance of Ian Kennedy.
3. His opinions on why the Hot Stove has been so cold thus far.

(more…)

Let’s gush over him just a little bit more, shall we?

Everyone pegged them for visitors when they piled on the 2 train at 72nd Street. There was a mother and a father and a son and a daughter. They seemed excited and were talking while everyone else stared blankly at a Sunday morning.

They might have been ignored if they hadn’t been wearing local colors. The father and son had Yankees hats, the mother had a Yankees scarf and the daughter was carrying a pink Yankees backpack.

“Where are you from?” someone asked.

“Michigan,” the father said. “We live in Ypsilanti. It’s near Ann Arbor and not too far from Detroit.”

“And you’re Yankees fans?” someone else asked.

“Yeah,” the father said. “I guess you can call it the Derek Jeter effect. We started following him because he grew up in Kalamazoo and now we watch every game.

“We always go when the Yankees are in Detroit,” he continued, “but we haven’t seen them in the Bronx, yet. This is our first time in New York City and yesterday we went and looked around the old Stadium and the new Stadium. We’re going to try and see a game next year.”

“So where are you headed today?” someone asked.

“To the Stature of Liberty,” the mother said. “And we also want the kids to see Ellis Island.”

The visitors wanted to switch to the 1 train at Chambers Street because that’s what their guide book said to do. But weekend service changes aren’t covered in books and everyone on the 2 train was looking out for them now.

“There are no trains going to South Ferry,” someone said. “And don’t bother with the shuttle bus because that’s usually like trying to get on the last helicopter out of Saigon in ‘75.

“Stay on this train to Wall Street,” they continued. “Then you’ll have a short walk to Battery Park and the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands.”

“I’ve got a friend named Freddy who sells Yankees hats and T-shirts in the park,” someone else said. “Tell him that Clarence from Mott Haven sent you and he’ll give you a good deal.”

“Thanks,” the father said. “If you’re ever in our neighborhood we’ll return the favor.”

“Just make some noise in Detroit next year,” someone said. “And help the Yankees get some wins.”

“Will do.”

Sean Penn cracks me up.  He makes me laugh nervously when I watch his anguished performances.  He’s a fine actor but such an…actor.  So when I saw the previews for Milk and saw Penn as the Gay activist address a crowd with a bullhorn…”I know you’re angry…I’M ANGRY!” that was enough to get me giggling.  

This is gunna be good.

Gus Van Zant directed the bio-pic which gave me hope that this movie would be a riveting experience.  False hope, as it turns out.  The movie, like so many of its kind, is an earnest civics lesson.  It is well-crafted and informative and dramatically dull.  Penn gives a deliberate performance and he’s game–he throws himself into the role.  But it also feels self-aware.  So does the entire movie. 

I guess I’ve always expected the comic in Penn to re-emerge.  His small role in Fast Times has turned out to be an anomoly, though I thought he walked away with Carlito’s Way too. 

I don’t mean to suggest that the role of Harvey Milk is a funny one, necessarily, but the character does have a quick-witted sense of humor and it offered Penn a new challenge.  He gets credit for trying, but in the end, it is a studied performance.  He is restrained when you feel he should be manic.  And the blame falls squarely on a static script that doesn’t allow the characters to develop in complicated or interesting ways.    

Penn and Van Zant and James Franco and the rest of the filmmakers have good intentions, but that alone is not enough to make a memorable movie.

Sunday Newsy Sunday …

• Suite City Blue Eyes: The Daily News has a report on demands made by the City for perks (like a free suite) at the new Stadium, in return for free parking spaces.

The Yankees got the city to write a letter to the IRS so they could obtain $942 million in tax-free bonds. The team plans to request $366 million more, saving them a total of $247 million in lower borrowing costs. In return, Bloomberg’s team wanted a free luxury suite and the right to buy at cost 180 of the best seats to all home games, including post-season, the e-mails show.

• The Times has their own rundown of the City suite deal, including the City’s justification:

David Lombino, a spokesman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation, cautioned against reading too much into the e-mail messages.

“Securing the option to use a box at the stadium was one part of a much larger, comprehensive negotiation where we sought the best deal possible for the city,” he said. “Our goal was to make sure that New York had the same advantages as other cities, including the option to use a box, be it for staff outings, for public employees or for visiting dignitaries. The mayor’s office has indicated that no decision has been made as to whether or not it will exercise the option, but it exists for this and future administrations.”

• Ken Davidoff of Newsday has some non-player off-season changes for the Yanks:

The Yankees have informed the ultra-popular Frank “Hondo” Howard that his services won’t be retained. Howard worked this past season as a professional scout. And former Yankees outfielder Hector Lopez, who spent the last 15 seasons as a coach for the rookie-level Gulf Coast Yankees, won’t return, either.   The Yankees also let go special pitching instructor Rich Monteleone, batting-practice pitcher Mitch Seone and massage therapist Scott Yelin.

• Craig Wilson, who struck out 34 times and walked only 4 times in 109 PAs for the Yanks in 2006, turns 32.  Matt Lawton, who batted .125 in 48 ABs for the Bombers in 2005, turns 37.  Bob Tewksbury, one of the quintessiential finesse pitchers of the 90s (mostly for teams OTHER than the Yanks), turns 48.  Steve Shields, who allowed 126 baserunners in 82.3 innings for the Yanks in 1988, hits the big 5-0.  Barry Evans (who?) turns 52.
• On a local TV program on this date in 1952, Jackie Robinson charges that the New York Yankee management is racist for its failure to bring up a black player. George Weiss of the Yanks denies the allegations.
• On this date in 1967, the Yankees purchase Gene Michael from the LA Dodgers.
• On this date in 1981, Dave Righetti (8-4, 2.06 ERA) wins the AL Rookie of the Year Award.
• On this date in 2000, the Bombers sign free agent P Mike Mussina to a 6-year contract worth $88.5 million.  Mussina says a deciding factor was a call from Joe Torre.

Remember when Mickey Rourke was going to be the next big thing? 

He had nice turns in Body Heat:

and Diner:

Some people swear by The Pope of Greenwich Village (I am not one of them): 

But as soon as Rourke became a star, he became less interesting, predictable, a flat-joke, and then he wasn’t a star long, unless you account for his runaway fame in France (and there’s no accounting for that, is there?).  He left Hollywood and became a boxer and then returned to the movies, mostly B-level action movies made for DVD.

Now Rourke is back in the mix. The critics liked him in Sin City. And you can just smell an Oscar nomination for him in The Wrestler, his new feature, which looks to be a downbeat, arty riff on Rocky.

Pat Jordan profiles Rourke (His Fists Are Up and His Guard is Down) in today’s New York Times Magazine:

You meet Mickey, you can’t help liking him. He rescues abused dogs! He cries a lot: over his stepfather’s supposed abuse; the loss of his brother to cancer and his dogs to old age; the failure of his marriage to the actress Carré Otis. He admits he destroyed his own career, because, as he puts it: “I was arrogant. . . . I wasn’t smart enough or educated enough” to deal with stardom. He is candid about the people he has crossed paths with: Nicole Kidman is “an ice cube”; Michael Cimino, the director of “Heaven’s Gate,” “is crazy” and “nuts”; and the producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. is “a liar.”

So what if he cries at the same moment in the same story in every interview? So what if his candor sometimes sounds like the bad dialogue from one of his many bad movies (“I have no one to go to to fix the broken pieces in myself”) or that his self-deprecation seems culled from the stock stories of so many fading actors (“I was in 7-Eleven, and this guy says, ‘Didn’t you used to be a movie star?’ ”)? So what if he seems disingenuous, at best, when he says he can’t remember that critics nominated him one of the world’s worst actors in 1991 (“I probably would have voted with them”) or even making a terrible movie that went straight to video, “Exit in Red,” in 1996 — despite the fact that the love interest in that movie was then his wife?

Mickey Rourke is, after all, an actor. The roles he has played and the life he has lived have so blurred one into another in his mind’s eye that even he doesn’t seem to know when he’s acting or when he’s being real. He has spent his entire adult life playing not fictional characters but an idealized delusional fantasy of himself.

I love me some Good Times.

James Reynolds Jr. has been called a lot of names. He was Jimmy to his grandmother and Junior to the rest of the family. In school the other kids tagged him Bern, which was short for Bernie Williams his favorite Yankee.

Most people in the Bronx just call him J.R. these days, but in Manhattan he’s known as Mr. Quick.

Some say he sells more designer handbags than anyone else in New York City.

“I just know the flow of the crowds around here,” Mr. Quick explained. “The key is being fast on the setup and the getaway. That’s how I earned my name.”

Mr. Quick moves everything on a small cart. When he locates a good spot the handbags are scooped up and arranged over old bed sheets on the sidewalk.

“People flock like pigeons to popcorn if you hit it right,” Mr. Quick said. “But you don’t want to draw too much attention. That brings the cops and then you’re out of business.”

So Mr. Quick has rules if you want to buy his French-designed handbags that are made in New York.

“The small bags are $20 and the big bags are $40,” he explained to a group outside the Winter Garden Theatre last night. “I don’t make change and don’t even think of asking for a receipt. Take it or leave it.”

Most of them took it.

Mr. Quick pocketed the cash and packed the leftovers. He was headed up Broadway when a woman shouted:

“Stop. Please wait.”

Mr. Quick kept walking, but the woman caught him near 54th Street.

“I just want to buy a bag,” she said. “But our tour bus is leaving so I need to make it quick.”

“That’s my name,” he said.

Sometimes a baseball card encompasses more than just the main player featured within the borders of its photograph. That actuality has influenced one of the habits of the hobby that I particularly enjoy—“sleuthing,” or trying to figure out the identities of the other players on the card, whether they are in the background or off to the side of the card.

In some cases, trying to identify background players is difficult, because of the fuzziness of the photograph or the awkward angle provided by the camera. In other situations, it’s much easier, and on rare occasions, a collector might come to the realization that the “other” player is actually much more famous than the featured player. That is certainly the case with this 1972 “In Action” card of John Ellis (No. 48 in the set), a traveling-man catcher and first baseman who was probably best known for serving as Thurman Munson’s backup in the early 1970s. This card could just as easily have been chosen as the action card for Harmon Killebrew, who happens to be the “other guy” in the photograph—the Twins’ first baseman who is holding Ellis on during an afternoon game at the old Yankee Stadium, sometime in 1971. A member of the 500-home run club and one of the game’s quietly nice guys, “Killer” earned baseball immortality when he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984.

Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Killebrew was already featured on another one of the 1972 “In Action” cards, so there was no need to create another action photo for the Twins’ slugger. Still, it’s interesting that Topps cropped the photograph in the way that it did, making “Killer” just as prominent as Ellis on the facing of the card. Did Topps do this intentionally, because of Killebrew’s status as a star, or was it merely an accident? I honestly have no idea, but I do know that this 1972 Johnny Ellis carries no extra value because of the incidental presence of one of the greatest sluggers in the game’s history. This card is worth about the same amount of money as most common cards of 1972’s lower-numbered series, no more and no less. Still, it’s a fun card to have, especially when you can procure a picture of a Hall of Famer at the far more reasonable price of a journeyman.

Ellis might have settled for journeyman status, but he started his career as a popular player in the tri-state area who was once ticketed for stardom at a time when the Yankees badly needed such a quality. As a late 1960s contemporary of Munson, Ellis was actually regarded as an equal prospect by some scouts. In fact, some targeted Ellis, and not Munson, as the heir apparent to the long line of great Yankee catchers that had recently halted after the decline and trade of Elston Howard.

(more…)

Back from my day off, and armed with this news:

• Anthony McCarron of the News warns of the landmines inherent in signing a pitcher to a $100+ million contract, and reminds us of the travails of the pitchers who have received them: Johan Santana, Kevin Brown, Mike Hampton and Barry Zito.
• Pete Abraham of LoHud offers us his ranking of the 20 most important people in the Yankee organization today.  His top 3? ….. Joba Chamberlain, Hal Steinbrenner and A-Rod, in that order.
• The rumblings about Pettitte ending up in La-La Land are getting slightly louder, as the Post’s George King details:

“Some,” Colletti wrote in an e-mail about the level of the Dodgers’ interest in Pettitte, who said often at the end of the season that he didn’t want to work for any team other than the Yankees in 2009.

Pettitte apparently has changed his mind after not getting a deal done quickly with the Yankees.

With Monday’s deadline for offering salary arbitration to their free agents looming, the Yankees are faced with a dilemma now that Pettitte has expanded his choices beyond retirement or the Yankees.

If the Yankees offer Pettitte arbitration and he accepts (Dec. 7 is the deadline), he is a signed player and his one-year salary would be determined through the arbitration process.

Considering that is based on the past two seasons, Pettitte would receive an increase from the $16 million he made last year. The Yankees have balked at signing Pettitte, whom they view as a back-end starter, because he doesn’t want to take a pay cut.

Should the Yankees not offer Pettitte arbitration they wouldn’t receive two draft picks as compensation – a first-round pick from the team that he signs with and a sandwich pick.

Pettitte’s dance with the Dodgers could be a ploy to get the Yankees to give him the $16 million he wants.

(more…)

These guys were very good together in this movie.

Maybe DeNiro’s funniest comic performance. And the last time Grodin was great.

The answer to “what went wrong?” is surprisingly quick and easy: Jorge Posada got hurt, and the team couldn’t compensate for that loss because they were too busy compensating for other problems.

That was the conclusion of my postmortem on the Yankees 2008 season. Note that I’m not blaming Posada’s bum shoulder for the Yankees’ failure to make the postseason for the first time since 1993, but rather the combination of Posada’s injury and the team’s other failures, most significantly Robinson Cano’s collapse. Had Cano been productive, the Yankees very well may have survived the loss of Posada, but the combination of the two simply took too many runs off the board.

Heading into 2009, we’re hearing very encouraging reports about Cano’s off-season training regime in the Dominican Republic and his continued work with hitting coach Kevin Long, but little about Posada. With Jason Giambi and Bobby Abreu departing as free agents and the team focusing on improving their pitching rather than replacing those runs on offense, the Yankees will need more than a comeback season from Cano to return to the postseason, they’ll need a full contribution from Posada as well, and if Posada’s shoulder hasn’t recovered enough to allow him to catch his usual slate of 140 or so games, they’ll have to find a much more productive replacement for him than Jose Molina, who is a fine defensive catcher, but a miserable hitter.

Here are the men who started behind the plate for the Yankees in 2008:

OPS+ adjusted for position except for *

Entering the season, Chad Moeller’s career line (.224/.284/.346) was not significantly better than Molina’s (.243/.279/.345), both men were the same age, and Molina had hit well for the Yankees down the stretch in 2007 and had a hot streak for them in April of this year, so it’s really only in hindsight that the choice of Molina over Moeller seems like an obvious mistake given Moeller’s 60-points advantage in on-base percentage. Still, as the season progressed and Molina’s bat failed to restart following his late-April hamstring injury, it became increasingly obvious that the Yankees needed to try someone else behind the dish. The late-July trade for Ivan Rodriguez, who was hitting .295/.338/.417 for the Tigers, seemed like a brilliant solution to that problem. The Yankees didn’t miss Kyle Farnsworth given the strength of their bullpen and the 6.75 ERA he posted with Detroit, but Rodriguez was never given more than three starts in a row, didn’t hit when he did played, and was largely abandoned down the stretch, starting just five of the Yankees’ final 18 games.

Moeller and the now 37-year-old Rodriguez are both free agents this offseason, but looking at the catchers remaining in the Yankees’ system, the organization is surprisingly strong and deep at the position over the long-term, thanks largely to its efforts of the past couple of years:

*on May 1, 2009

(more…)

The streets are in a rage today. Everyone is going somewhere to buy something or sell something or steal something.

Traffic is snarled and parking tickets are being written in bunches: One car in a crosswalk, two up on a sidewalk and three in a bus stop.

“These people don’t care,” a parking cop says. “Double parked, tripled parked and some of them block the whole street. We try to keep emergency lanes open and people move the barriers to park.”

It almost makes you feel sorry for the parking cops.

“We need a way to show these people who is really in charge,” the parking cop says.

Yeah, almost.

Even though most New Yorkers can’t work up a holiday-shopping rage it is interesting to watch. It’s like seeing an enemy fan being hauled out of Yankee Stadium by a dozen cops. It may not be right, but you quickly come to terms with the fact that justice can take many forms.

The parking cop gets on the radio and calls a tow truck to Broadway and 56th Street.

Another car in a bus stop. A BMW with Massachusetts plates. Perfect.

Justice is served.

Hub Fans Bids Kid Adieu, John Updike’s fan-in-the-stands piece about Ted Williams’ final ball game is one of the most anthologized and famous stories in all of sports.  It first appeared in The New Yorker and it is now re-printed on-line at Baseball Almanac.  

I admire Updike’s elegant writing and observations but actually I prefer Ed Linn’s behind-the-scenes account of the same afternoon that was featured in Sport magazine.  But the ultimate Williams profile has to be Richard Ben Cramer’s Esquire article, What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now? (1986):

Ted Williams can hush a room just by entering. There is a force that boils up from him and commands attention. This he has come to accept as his destiny and his due, just as he came to accept the maddening, if respectful, way that opponents pitched around him (he always seemed to be leading the league in bases on balls), or the way every fan in the ball park seemed always to watch (and comment upon) T. Williams’s every move. It was often said Ted would rather play ball in a lab, where fans couldn’t see. But he never blamed fans for watching him. His hate was for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t feel with him, his effort, his exultation, pride, rage, or sorrow. If they wouldn’t share those, then there was his scorn, and he’d make them feel that, by God. These days, there are no crowds, but Ted is watched, and why not? What other match could draw a kibitzer’s eye when Ted, on the near court, pounds toward the net, slashing the air with his big racket, laughing in triumphant derision as he scores with a killer drop shot, or smacking the ball twenty feet long and roaring, “SYPHILITIC SON OF A BITCH!” as he hurls his racket to the clay at his feet?

And who could say Ted does not mean to be seen when he stops in front of the kibitzers as he and his opponent change sides? “YOU OKAY?” Ted wheezes as he yells at his foe. “HOW D’YA FEEL?…HOW OLD ARE YOU?…JUST WORRIED ABOUT YOUR HEART HA HA HAW.” Ted turns and winks, mops his face. A kibitzer says mildly: “How are you, Ted?” And Ted drops the towel, swells with Florida air, grins gloriously, and booms back:

“WELL, HOW DO I LOOK?…HUH?…WHAT DO YOU THINK OF TED WILLIAMS NOW?”

If and when you have the time do yourself a favor and check out both of these classic pieces.

Winkler rules in this movie. Keaton’s great too.

It’s always nice to watch guys at the game of their game, as Pollack and Hoffman are here. Here’s some Thanksgiving laffs on the house.

Tootsie not only holds up. It’s a classic.

From Pauline Kael’s review:

…When Hoffman delivers the kind of performance he gives here, the talk in the media about his being overpaid seems beside the point. The movie is inconcievable without him. Once Hoffman was committed to the project, the scriptwriters began to shape the central character to fit him, and then they went further. In its final form, Tootsie is based on Dustin Hoffman, the perfectionist; he’s both the hero and the target of this satirical farce about actors.

…Sydney Pollack, who was an actor in his earlier years, originally went to Hollywood (in 1961) as a dialogue coach for John Frankenheimer; essentially he’s still a dialogue coach, and this works better for him here than it ever has before. Having dealt with stars most of his life, he knows how impossible they can be, and he has been able to make Tootsie something practically unheard of: a believable farce. The picture has more energy than anything else he has done; it’s almost alarmingly well cast, and the lines of dialogue collide with a click and go spinning off. Pollack himself gives some jabbing, fast readings; he plays a major role–that of Michael’s agent–with zest.

December, 1982

They might of hated each other while they were filming it, but they sure were funny.