My brother and I went to our last game at Yankee Stadium together last night. It was a fitting way to go out, being there with my bro, who is simply one of the best men I know. We sat way up in the right field upper deck, just above the top of the right field foul pole. There was a big turnout, of course, but it seemed like many of the fans were there for the event of being there more than for the game itself. And who can blame them? Sometime during the middle innings I turned to my brother and said, “Jeez, when was the last time we saw a truly meaningless game here?” And not meaningless because they had already made the playoffs, meaningless because they were completely out of the running.

We saw tourists of all shapes and sizes, American, European, Asian, there for their last look. Which has been the case all season long. In a sense, every game at the Stadium has been The Final Game of Yankee Stadium for a good portion of the crowd. The crowd sat on their hands for the most part as the Yanks didn’t give us much to yell about.

Still, there were some highlights, as minor as they may seem. The cracker jack and peanut vendors in our section overthrew their targets on three occasions, good for a laugh. After the White Sox finished taking BP, the only sounds over the P.A. from 6:30 to 6:40 came from the organist who played the following medley–“Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “All My Loving,” “Isn’t She Lovely?” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy,”–as the grounds crew removed the batting cage and the various protective screens, dragging them across the long field, and then began to rake the infield dirt.

“I love watching them rake the dirt,” my brother said and it occured to me that the image of the crew making a field beautiful is a hypnotic and soothing one that should be captured on film.

The singular event of the night came in the bottom of the first inning when Derek Jeter singled to set the all-time Yankee Stadium hit record. As the crowd cheered for several minutes, little white flashes blipped around the park, and the sun set behind the Stadium. From where we sat, you could see the almost surreal sunset, something out of a movie. The sun setting on Yankee Stadium, Jeter getting a final rousing cheer. It was too corny to be true but there it was.

My favorite part of the game came several innings later. With the bases loaded and two out, Jason Giambi faced a full count and the crowd started to roar. Our view of third base was blocked so it was difficult to see Jeter, who was on second, or Johnny Damon on third, but we had a great angle of Alex Rodriguez taking a lead off of first and then sprinting to second as Gavin Floyd delivered the ball home. What we noticed was how fast Rodriguez is, what a powerful, fluid runner. Floyd was so deliberate in his delivery, Rodriguez was just a few strides away from second by the time the pitch left Floyd’s hand. Giambi fouled off one pitch, then another, and another. I wondered if Giambi walked would Rodriguez be picked off at second for rounding the base too far? Another foul. Each time, Rodriguez and Jeter stopped their sprint and returned to their respective base. Each time, they looked slower. This went on until Giambi finally struck out on the sixth offering with a full count. With the inning over, Rodriguez stood with his hands on his hips around the shortstop area as if he had just run a marathon. All that anticipation and athletic effort, all that running, for nothing.

It summed up the entire season. Sometimes, things just don’t work out. By the seventh inning, the fans began to leave. The game slowed down in the final two frames as the Yankee pen did not work quickly. Nobody much paid attention to the game. Even though the place was half-full, it sounded quiet. But it wasn’t a depressing feeling. It was nostalgic. It brought us back to our childhood, all those years in the Eighties where we attended games like this with the Yanks out of contention, playing out the string. Of course, there were even fewer fans back then. But it didn’t matter that the game was lousy. It just mattered that we were there, at the Stadium, for one last time, enjoying each other’s company, taking pleasure in the small details, feeling fortunate to watch a game in the place we’ve watched more games than any other stadium.

By Allen Barra

My father took me to Yankee Stadium for the first time in 1961. It was a game scarcely anyone remembers – I do remember Arnold Hano mentioning it in, I think, the Willie Mays book he wrote in the Sport magazine series, or perhaps it was the special Mickey Mantle-Willie Mays issue that Sport magazine did in the spring of 1962.It was a charity game played between the Yankees and the San Francisco Giants, and it was Willie Mays’s return to New York after three seasons.

I’ll never forget my first look at Yankee Stadium: it seemed like the inside of New York City. And I’ll never forget the crescendo that built up when Mays stepped out of the dugout and into the on-deck circle. Mantle, batting left-handed, hit a home run that day. (I could follow the arc of the ball perfectly as we were seated in a box seat on the third base line.) But Mays won the game with a single that drove in two runs.

One of the most vivid memories of my life was the afternoon of Monday, September 30, 1963, when my father came home from work – we were living in Old Bridge, New jersey, and my father and al our neighbors commuted effortlessly to Manhattan – and held up two tickets for the opening game of the 1963 World Series. I never though to ask how he got them, though I think he said something years later about it being a business friend he met at Toots Shor’s saloon.

1963 was one of the few years I didn’t root for the Yankees; I was so excited about Sandy Koufax that I was ready to begin studying the Kabbalah. If you don’t remember what the World Series was like back then in the days before prime time then it’s hard to describe. It seemed to be on everywhere you went – TVs blaring out open windows, car radios at full blast, people walking the street and riding buses listening to transistor radios. I was told by my friend Jane Levy that the Koufax Series — 1963, 1965 and 1966 – were the highest rated ever. I’m not surprised.

Our view was perfect, a box seat along the first base line. In the first inning, Whitey Ford struck to the first two Dodgers and took a tapper back to the mound for the third out. I recall my father saying “Well, Koufax is going to have to go some to top that.” He did, of course, striking out the first five Yankees on route to a 5-2 victory.

I have on other strong recollection of Yankee history in the early sixties. My father knew a Westchester cop who was later indicted for taking huge amounts of money in the “Prince of the City” scandal. On New Year’s Eve eve, he asked us if we wanted to join him and his son, a Fordham student, at the 1962 NFL Championship game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants. All I can recall is that it was the coldest day I could have imagined, and bundled up inside a hooded parka, I had my first shot of brandy from the cop’s silver flask.

No, actually, as I write this a few other things come back to me: the way Green Bay’s fullback Jim Taylor and Giants linebacker Sam Huff kicked bit and gouged each other and had to be separated after each play, and the way some of the punts would hit a wall of wind and flutter down to the concrete-like turf. The Packers’ punter, Mac McGee, I think it was, had one blocked for the Giants only touchdown.

Oddly, I did not feel that I was in the same stadium I had been in just two months earlier watching the Yankees and Giants play in the World Series. (My only memory of that game was how hyped everyone was about Mantle and Mays playing against each other.) I do not now recollect if I actually heard this or read about it afterwards: someone yelled out when Mantle came out to bay, “Hey Mickey, we came to se who is the best, you or Willie. Now we’re wondering who’s the worst.” Mantle popped up. As he walked back to the dugout, the man yelled, “Hey, Mantle, you win.”

Bob Costas told me that he was also at the game and saw the same play from the same angle; we must have been seated right near each other.

For the life of me, I can’t now recall whether you could see the Polo Grounds from the bleachers at Yankee Stadium or Yankee Stadium from the bleachers at the Polo Grounds.

In 1996, when the Yankees beat the Braves in the World Series, Allen St. John and I were out on the field. How this came about, I do not now recall — perhaps credentialed writers were allowed out on the field after games then. Someone in the dugout popped the first bottle of champagne, and the cork landed near us; Allen scooped it up and handed it to me. It now resides in a glass trophy case in my house.

Allen Barra writes about sports and culture for the Wall Street Journal and the Village Voice. His latest book, “Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee” will be published by W.W. Norton next spring.

Last night, Andy Pettitte had one bad inning, the bullpen couldn’t hold the line, the offense couldn’t break through, and the Yankees lost 6-2. Sing me a new song.

Over the last 14 years, Jeter has helped fill those empty seats behind him.

As early as tomorrow this game will be remembered for just one reason. In the bottom of the first inning, Derek Jeter hit a hard grounder to third base on the first pitch he saw from White Sox starter Gavin Floyd. Sox third baseman Juan Uribe was playing in and dropped to one knee in an attempt to backhand the ball. Instead it shot through his legs. Jeter was awarded a hit, which pushed him past Lou Gehrig as the man with the most hits in the history of Yankee Stadium. It looked like an error to me, but Jeter made that irrelevant with a single in the fifth.

I mocked the attention lavished on Jeter for passing Babe Ruth for second on the Yankees’ all-time hit list, and YES’s coverage of last night’s hit and the hits leading up to it–particularly Michael Kay’s call of the hit (“Hit or error? Error or history?”)–was every bit as over-the-top if not moreso, but I actually think this record is pretty nifty. For one thing, it’s an actual record. For another, as Kay histrionically pointed out on the broadcast, it’s a record that can’t be broken. Sure, Gehrig had far fewer at-bats at the old Yankee Stadium than Jeter has had in the remodeled one, but there’s a purity and an absoluteness to “the most ever” that even applies to Barry Bonds.

Best of all, this is a record that honors not just the man who broke it, but the Stadium in which it was achieved. Yankee Stadium will go dark for good six days from now, but though there will never again be a meaningful game played in the old yard, and the Yankees as an organization have completely punted the opportunity to do something special for the final season of baseball’s most significant ballpark, Jeter was able to give us one last piece of history, and a private kind of history at that. For all of the great performances, accomplishments, and players who have graced the field on the southwest corner of 161st and River Ave over the past 86 years, the player who got more hits on that piece of real estate than anyone else ever has or ever will is Derek Jeter. I think that’s pretty cool.

There are six games left at Yankee Stadium including tonight’s. Last night Alfredo Aceves was the story. Tomorrow night it will be Phil Hughes, but tonight, with Andy Pettitte pitching what amounts to a warm-up for the Stadium’s finale on Sunday, there is nothing else. Yes the White Sox are in a tight race for the AL Central. Yes, Robinson Cano is back in the lineup after his disciplinary benching. Yes, Brett Gardner is finally getting another look in center field and making his fourth-straight start there tonight, but with the Yankees on the brink of elimination (nine games out with 12 left to play), I think we’re finally at the point tonight at which the Stadium will become the primary focus.

The Yankees have a record of 4,128-2,429 at Yankee stadium. That’s a .630 winning percentage. They have to win four of these last six games to avoid dropping below .630. That’s utterly meaningless, but maybe it’s something for them to play for. For a variety of reasons, I’m going to find these last six games very hard to watch, and the six season-concluding road games that follow them will be even harder.

By Scott Raab

I was born and bred in Cleveland, Ohio, and I’ve loathed the New York Yankees and everything they stand for — arrogance, entitlement, and money-worship — for as long as I can recall. Even past the point where I realized that I myself was a smug, spoiled, money-grubbing New York-area-dwelling media hack, I hated the hulking, brutish Yankees.

Yankee Stadium? I’d rather pass a gallstone than put a single penny in any Steinbrenner’s pocket. Sure, I’d been there a few times, those memories frosted over by decades of heavy self-medication. My highlight House-That-Blah-Blah-Built memory was watching on TV when last year’s Tribe clinched the LDS at Yankee Stadium. In that storied house. With Bayonne Joe Borowski, no less, on the hill. Sweet almost beyond words, and I cried like a baby to see the dogpile at the end, then went upstairs to wake up my nine-year old son and start spreading the news.

He hates the Yankees, too. But like me, he loves baseball, so last Sunday we went to see a ballgame, and to pay homage. Because you can love baseball and hate the Yankees, but you can’t walk into Yankee Stadium with a hard heart — not if you’re a baseball fan. We weren’t paying homage to the pinstripes or our bile; we were there to honor 85 years of history, eat some hot dogs, and unwind at a beautiful, battered ballyard.

Who knows what a kid remembers? Hell, I seem to remember admiring Mickey Mantle once upon a time. My boy loved every minute. And so did I. It was hot, brutally hot, so we had to suck it up and buy a couple of Yankees caps — $50 that will surely help sign Grady Sizemore one sorry day — and the upper-deck concession stands ran out of ice by the sixth inning, and yeah, the Yankees won. No problem. A-Rod belted a grand slam, Cano got yanked for dogging it, and Jeter tied Lou Gehrig’s record for hits at Yankee Stadium: great ballgame. Great game.

We gave away the caps on the subway home, but I’ll hold on to the day for a long time — and to old, doomed Yankee Stadium. I don’t know about redemption, and like Woody Allen, old Clevelanders don’t mellow — we ripen and rot. I had an epiphany once: In real life, there ain’t no epiphanies. I don’t want miracles, much less expect ’em. I took my son to see the Yankees play at Yankee Stadium. That’s close enough for me.

Scott Raab is a writer for Esquire magazine.

Joe Pos has a good one: Derek Jeter v Pete Rose. This is Pos at his finest.

And thanks to Pete Abe, here’s a link to a story on Joba Chamberlain’s mother.

[Editor’s Note: I love reading long interviews and during the first few years here at Bronx Banter was able to conduct a series of them myself. For a number of reasons I wasn’t able to keep doing them. So I’m happy to present the following, a Q&A with veteran baseball author Harvey Frommer, that was done by Hank Waddles, who is no stranger to indepth interviews.]

Bronx Banter Interview

By Hank Waddles

From the moment the Yankees broke ground on the new Stadium across the street from the current park, an entire industry has been growing around the public’s need to remember the House that Ruth Built. Already you can buy vials of dirt, limited edition lithographs, and pictures with facsimile autographs. I’m certain that in the months to come we’ll be offered bricks, rivets, and splinters from the bleachers, assuming we’re willing to take out a second mortgage in order to pay for it all. One of the finest products out there, though, is a visually stunning book by Harvey Frommer, Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of "The House That Ruth Built". Filled with beautiful photographs that span the Stadium’s history, the book tells the story of the past eighty-five years one decade at a time, relying heavily on the voices of the players, writers, and fans who took the field, reported from the press box, and walked through the turnstiles each afternoon from April to October. Last week the author was kind enough to chat with me about the book. Enjoy…

Bronx Banter: There has been a flood of products over the past year relating to the closure of Yankee Stadium. Why was this project important to you personally?

Harvey Frommer: I think mine is the definitive book. I’m positioned by experience, by temperament, and by track record to do this, which I think blows away all the others. I’m not the only one to say this. The reviews I’ve gotten plus the people who’ve seen it really agree with me. Some of the other products were very quick commercial attempts to capitalize on the closure of Yankee Stadium and the creation of the new one. The bulk of them, in fact all of them, came out in the spring. Mine just came out September 1, 2008, so in a way it’s like the last shall be the first. I’m very happy with what I’ve done. I’ve written eight other Yankee-oriented books, I’ve done hundreds of article on the Yankees, and I wrote for Yankees Magazine for eighteen years. It seems like an immodest answer to your question, but I didn’t intend it to be.

BB: That’s okay, that’s what I was looking for.

HF: I don’t like to trash the opposition. They’re all good people, but I’m proud of what I do.

BB: Good. It’s certainly a beautiful book, and I’ve enjoyed it since I received it. I went to my first game at the Stadium when I was seven years old in 1977. When was your first game? Do you remember much from it?

HF: Believe it or not, people ask me what are some of my favorite Yankee Stadium memories and what was my first game there, but I would have not been a very good interview for the book. But I found some great people to interview. Mine basically blurs through the various decades. My great thought or feel about Yankee Stadium is having the honor of Bob Shepperd doing the introduction to the book. The voice of Bob Shepperd has always stayed with me when I’ve been at the Stadium and when I haven’t been at the Stadium. So if you want to single out a theme or a moment, I guess it’s not the traditional response to that question, but it would be hearing him announce different Yankee players through the generations. I guess I probably started going to the Stadium in the 50s, and he began in 1951. I don’t think I began that early, but maybe I did. But his voice ringing down through the decades — and now he’s 97 and he’s not that well – I think that typifies my experience and, I guess, millions of others in terms of Yankee Stadium. Reggie Jackson allegedly calls him "the voice of God," but I call him the Voice of the Yankees. I’m giving you odd answers to good questions…

BB: That’s okay. Whenever I talk to authors I think I most look forward to asking about their research and writing process, and that’s especially true with your book. When did you start this project?

HF: I think the project was started a decade ago. I’ve always had a certain thing for Yankee Stadium. The physical job of doing it was when I got a contract that was about two years in the working. I teach oral history and also sports journalism at Dartmouth College, and some of those skills that I try to put into my students were definitely used in this particular book. I’d like to put it on the record that the New York Yankees did not cooperate with me at all. In fact, they locked me out from any access at the ballpark, to their clips, to their photographs, and to the players they could control because they were doing the official book, and mine was the unofficial book. They did me a favor, because I had really more of a challenge on my hands. The challenge resulted in my getting all kinds of interesting personalities into the book. I got a guy who was a hundred years old named Bill Werber, who was with the Yankees for about a month in 1927. I got Bob Shepperd to write the introduction. I got people who have been long time fans who had great, great stories to tell. I got a guy like [Duke] Sims, who the other books would not have thought of interviewing, who hit the last home run at the old Yankee Stadium back in ’73 just before the refurbishment began. He didn’t even realize he had hit the last home run. So the process really was made more difficult but made more challenging, and anybody who knows me knows I like a challenge.

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Alfredo Aceves matched Mark Buehrle for six innings last night. Xavier Nady put the Yankees on top with a two run jack to dead center in the second. Aceves uncharacteristically started the fourth by walking leadoff hitter Orlando Cabrera, his only walk of the night, then was made to pay for it when Dewayne Wise turned on an inside cutter and kept it fair into the left field box seats to tie the game. Otherwise, both pitchers kept the game moving (official time: 2:39) and the opposition at bay.

Aceves was inexplicably pulled after just 87 pitches (69 percent strikes and just two three-pitch counts), but Phil Coke worked a 1-2-3 seventh to set up the Yankees breakthrough after the stretch. With Buehrle out after 101 pitches, Xavier Nady led of the bottom of the seventh by coming back from 0-2 to work a walk off sidearming righty Erin Wasserman. Cody Ransom, starting at second base for the still-benched Robinson Cano, then bunted Nady to second, and Joe Girardi sent Wilson Betemit in to pinch-hit for Chad Moeller. Ozzie Guillen called on Horatio Ramirez to turn Betemit around to the right side. Betemit took ball one from Ramirez, fouled a fastball straight back, swung through another, fouled an outside pitch down the right field line, took ball two, then laced ground-rule double over the wall in the left-center field gap to plate Nady with the go-ahead run. Brett Gardner followed with deep fly that moved Betemit to third, and Johnny Damon drove Wilson in with a single through the right side.

Girardi handed that 4-2 lead to Joba Chamberlain, who pitched around an infield single in the eighth striking out two, and Mariano Rivera, who passed Lee Smith for second on the all-time saves list with a 1-2-3 ninth. Rivera’s reaction to passing Smith: “S’arright.” Pete Abe says, “The closer is furious the team isn’t going to the playoffs. Furious.”

As with Aceves’ first start, it was a nice, quick, clean Yankee win. It also moved the Yankees into a tie for third place with the Blue Jays, for what it matters. Elsewhere, the Red Sox pulled into a technical tie for first place by stomping the Rays 13-5, though Tampa Bay still holds a one-game lead in the loss column.

The Yankees haven’t seen the White Sox since late April, when the Yankees took two of three from the Pale Hose in Chicago. Surprisingly little has changed for the Sox since then. The White Sox had a slim 2.5 game lead in the AL Central when the Yankees left the Windy City on April 24, and arrive in the Bronx tonight holding an even smaller 1.5 lead over the Minnesota Twins. The Sox briefly slipped down to third place in early May (though they were never more than 2.5 games out of first), but otherwise have been battling the Twins for the division lead all season long. The two teams haven’t been more than three games apart since June 19, when the Sox had a four-game lead, and the White Sox haven’t been more than a game behind since May 15.

A year ago, the White Sox stumbled to a surprising fourth-place finish with a mere 72 wins due largely to the impotence of their offense, which fell from third-best in the AL in 2006 (5.36 runs per game) to dead last in the league (4.28 R/G). It should come as no surprise, then, that the Sox’s resurgence this year has been led by their resurgent offense, which has scored 5.05 runs per game, the fifth-best rate in the league.

Leading that charge, and thus throwing his had into the ring for league MVP, has been Carlos Quentin, who was acquired in the offseason from the Diamondbacks in exchange for minor league first-baseman Chris Carter, who was subsequently flipped to Oakland in the Dan Haren deal. Slotted in as the D’backs’ starting right fielder last year, Quentin suffered through an injury-plagued season and struggled mightily in his major league stints, but crushed the ball when rehabbing in the minors. A career .313/.413/.527 hitter in the minor leagues, the 25-year-old Stanford product won the Chisox left field job out of camp this year and proceeded to set the junior circuit on fire with .288/.394/.571 rates and the league lead in home runs.

Unfortunately, the fragile Quentin broke his right wrist when punching his bat during an at-bat on September 1 and is out for the season. Similarly, first baseman Paul Konerko is out indefinitely after spraining a ligament in his right knee during a run-down on September 9. Konerko suffered a decline last year that was part of the offense’s problem and has continued that decline this year. Still, his injury moves Nick Swisher to first base, creating a hole in the lineup filled by minor league veteran Dewayne Wise. The 30-year-old Wise has hit well for the Sox this year, but he’s a career .220/.256/.389 hitter in the major leagues even with his solid 91 plate appearances as a White Sock mixed in. Quentin’s injury makes room for deadline acquisition Ken Griffey Jr. to play full time despite his having hit just .245/.330/.347 since returning to the AL.

That all leaves the Chicago offense in the hands of the resurgent Jermaine Dye. Dye was the World Series MVP when the Sox won in 2005 and an MVP candidate in 2006 (.315/.385/.622), but last year he was one of the main reasons that the offense collapsed as he was barely above league average, and was far worse for most of the season prior to a hot August. This year he’s back to bashing (.295/.348/.555), but with Quentin out, the only other man in the lineup who’s meaningfully above average is 37-year-old Jim Thome, who has been healthier this year than last, but less productive on a game-to-game basis.

The Sox’s postseason hopes are further imperiled by the season-ending Achilles’ tendon rupture suffered by Jose Contreras, which has handed the fifth-starter’s job to rookie Clayton Richard, who has a 7.09 ERA in seven major league starts.

Still, this year the Central has been one of those divisions that no one seems to want to win. The Indians came within a game of the World Series last year, but never got off the mat this year and cashed out early by flipping C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers three weeks before the deadline. The Tigers were the preseason favorites, but have traced a parabolic path this season, starting out poorly, looking unbeatable in June, and since falling back below even the Indians. The Twins have been in the fight all season but took an inexplicably long time to bring Francisco Liriano back up from the minors (he’s gone 5-0 with a 1.57 ERA since returning). In fact, that could have been the difference in the division had Quentin not gotten hurt. Now things are back in flux, and the White Sox will arrive tonight desperate to keep their noses out in front.

They send reliable lefty Mark Buehrle to the mound tonight. Buehrle has made 30 starts in each of his eight full seasons in the major leagues and could pass 200 innings for the eighth-straight season with a strong outing tonight. Buehrle had a rough August (5.86 ERA), but has allowed just one run in 13 1/3 innings in September. He’ll face off against Alfredo Aceves, who aced the Angels in his first major league start his last time out and will make his first start in the Bronx tonight.

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Translated for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. This is good for a quick chuckle.

By Repoz

Michael Burke: “That Irish Son of a Bitch” *

Alistair Mundy’s ascot, that’s what it was…Alistair Mundy’s dandy ascot. After all these years I’ve finally been able to pinpoint former Yankee president/owner Michael Burke’s rediculi éclat de mode sense. (Then again it might have been that unfashionable Old Spice/turtlewreck sweater connection of his, so who knows!)

Now, while this discovery might not be as nootropic-poppin’ as finding out that multi-flasking Clu Gulager was in the 60’s kookifried outré folk group Miriam or that Ron Asheton of the Stooges was seriously tight with origi-Stooge, Larry Fine, and traded zany hair-pulling sound effects at the Elisha Cooked Actor’s Home in L.A. with him (Asheton, I believe, was moonlighting at the time for the prestigious National Eye-Goink Monthly)…but it’ll do.

Years before beers started pouring like spit in a schoolyard, before a gangplank of stringy flesh had been constructed between Jonah Hex’s crevisious lips, before the sweet ravages of gutter-twang swept me off my cleats…there was Michael Burke. Punk hero.

Imagine, a Yankee team president hanging with us lowcon lowlifes. His dappy loafers sticking to the same gum globs, that were probably expungiated by a lifetime of Terrence Aloysius Mahoney vs Glimpy McClusky (unknowingly the model for the spiffy George Sherrill Flat Brim Society line of baseball caps yet to come!) chaw wars, as ours. Johnny Ramone was supposedly part of our roving Stadium gang of roar. Isn’t it odd, some sorta mystical pissmit, that with the 1974 closing of Yankee Stadium and their grubby unrestrooms, Johnny’s trained whiffology led him to the aroma shocktherapy of the CBGB’s bathroom by that September? (Hey, let’s just be happy he didn’t end up spoog-a-loo trough riffing at the notorious Zipper Lips Au-Go-Go Lounge in Jersey!).

But Mr. Burke, quite possibly (I haven’t finished researching Paul Krassner’s Realist site or Taylor Meade’s unreal sight, for that matter, yet) was the only former OSS intelligence officer, CIA agent, Hollywood cutting floor movie star, head of Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, and CBS executive to speak out against the Vietnam War…which he did, when he read the names of war dead from the pulpit at NYC’s Trinity Church. For someone of Burke’s stature to take such a radical stand at the time, happened about as often as a fire in the Everglades, a moonlanding on the sun, or Charlie Chocks and Zestabs having a subhuman tug-o-war over the magical abra-cadaver pitchman services of Ray Oyler.

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The Yankees beat the Rays 8-4 yesterday at the Stadium and won the season series against Tamps, 11-7. Carl Pavano left the game early with a hip injury and Robinson Cano was yanked in the middle of the game for not hustling after a ball. The Red Sox were in the unlikely position to be rooting for the Yanks this weekend, and both teams helped each other out: the Sox trail the Rays by just one game and the Yankees edge closer to the Blue Jays, who are currently in third place.

Mariano Rivera faced one batter, struck him out, and tied Lee Smith for second-place on the all-times save list with 478.

Alex Rodriguez hit a first-inning grand slam, the 17th of his career. He also had a bloop double in the eighth, his 33rd of the season, his best mark in pinstripes. Rodriguez scored his 101st run and knocked in his 100th RBI. He’s scored 100 or more runs for 13 straight years and has driven in 100 or more runs in 11 consecutive seasons. How about this for consistency: Rodriguez has 1602 runs scored in his career, 1603 RBI.

Jason Giambi hit his 30th homer of the year. In five of his seven years as a Yankee, Giambi has hit 30 or more dingers.

As you may have heard, Derek Jeter passed Lou Gehrig’s mark for hits at Yankee Stadium. Jeter had a wondeful weekend, smacking three hits in each game. He saved the best for yesterday, adding a home run to the bleachers in right-center field. With the season fading away, it’s no surprise that the announcing crew on YES made a big deal about Jeter catching the Iron Horse. That’s understanable and I can appreciate it, even if it was much at times. However, one thing they didn’t provide us is context. I would like to know, for instance, how many games and at bats it took Gehrig to reach the mark and compare that with Jeter’s figures. Moreover, I’d like to see how many home runs and doubles figure into the mix as well. It’s no knock on Jeter if he’s not nearly the hitter Gehrig was, Jeter is a great player and a future Hall of Famer. Still, I would have liked to see more context.

Let’s face it, the Yankee announcers, some newspapermen, and a lot of fans are not rational when it comes to all things Jeter. Again, I find it annoying at times, but I get it. And I do love Jeter too. But he doesn’t need to be puffed up constantly. When Jeter hit into a sharp 5-4-3 double play in his final at bat yesterday, Paul O’Neill mentioned that Jeter never hits into double plays. Well, actually, that was the 23rd double play Jeter hit into this season, a career-high (beating his previous career high of 21, set last year).

Oh, and one last number. The Yanks “tragic” number. It’s down to 5.

It is a muggy day here in the Bronx. The sun is trying to come out and when it does the sky turns a lighter shade of grey. Not exactly autumn weather. The Yanks send Carl Pavano out there today to serve it up to the first-place Rays. Me, I’m going to the movies, gunna check out the Joel and Ethan Coen’s new comedy, another caper about a bunch of bumbling idiots. Sounds about perfect. Hitting an 11:00 a.m. show and will be back to catch most of the game.

Thread away, if you dare.

Hey, even if these are sad times, at least there is baseball today. It’ll be really sad in a couple of months when football, hockey and hoops are all we’ve got on our plate.

So as Aaron Gleeman says, Happy Baseball.

For better or worse, Leonard Schecter helped change the course of sports journalism, and this was before he helped Jim Bouton write Ball Four. Alan Schwarz has a great column on Schecter today in the Times. This is so cool because I was just talking about Schecter with a friend this week as we rated the great Sport magazine writers of the Sixties. He’s really a slept-on figure. Props to Schwarz for giving Schecter some burn.

By Ken Rosenthal

My favorite memory is the Jeffrey Maier game in the 1996 ALCS. I was a columnist for the Baltimore Sun at the time, but I grew up in New York. My father originally is from the Bronx, and when we would play one-on-one basketball or compete in something else, he would always invoke "Bronx Rules." Which is to say, no rules! So, after that game, I explained to the good people of Baltimore the concept of "Bronx Rules." And I wrote that the only way to fight them would be for the Orioles’ crowd to play by "Bronx Rules" when the ALCS returned to Baltimore. In short, I was trying to incite a riot, basically. But of course, nothing changed.

After coming home to Baltimore, I remember sitting at breakfast with my son Sammy, who was five years old at that time. I asked him if he had heard about what happened to the Orioles in New York, about the kid who interfered with the ball. He looked at me and said, "I hate that kid." And I thought, "Awright!"

Ken Rosenthal covers baseball for Fox.

Mannish Boy.

Barry Zito is the focus of Pat Jordan’s latest profile for the New York Times Magazine. Another stellar job by Jordan. I always figured Zito was a superficial guy, a pretty boy phony, but he comes off as an interesting dude:

Zito told me his pitching problems were caused by the fact that he hadn’t been himself the last few years.

"I wanted to be more ‘professional,’ " he said. "This new guy. Because of the Contract, I wanted people to know I was serious about pitching, not this flaky guy. I allowed the seriousness of things to creep into my mind. The city. The Contract. The fans. My new teammates. I wasn’t a blue-collar Oakland guy anymore."

…He was particularly stunned by the vehemence with which the media and fans greeted news of the Contract. And then he was stunned by the fans’ booing his failed pitching. "Actually, I think the San Francisco fans have been pretty good to him," Righetti said. "If he was in New York, the fans would be off the chart." But Zito wasn’t used to being booed and criticized. His flaky persona had deflected such criticism for years, as if people felt it was unfair to be too harsh on such an innocent sprite. But he’s not a sprite anymore, and his critics are no longer so forgiving. Which is why he has assumed a new persona: the abused guy who can no longer be himself with people. "But it requires so much energy to be inauthentic," Zito said. Which is the point. Zito was never truly "authentic." The free-spirited kid was always something of a construct. Now that he’s a man, it’s time for "serious things," like the apparently premature demise of a once-brilliant career. This is what Zito is struggling with. But how to rewrite the narrative of his life?

"I never thought I was invincible at everything, just baseball," Zito said. "At 30, I became aware of why things happened." He now saw his parents’ psychobabble — "Don’t expect to struggle" — as something that could lead not only to awareness but confusion. "Zen is a double-edged sword," he said. "It guarantees nothing. When I went 11-1, it worked. Next year it won’t. Zen helps you solve some problems, but it’s better at creating problems. Thinking too much is good for life, but not functional for baseball." He’s searching for that mind-set all great, intelligent pitchers have. Compartmentalize. Complexity for real life, simplicity for baseball.

Can an athlete be too smart for his own good? I think so. Being bright might make a jock a more well-rounded person, but also less of a performer. Reminds me of Billy Beane in Moneyball, realizing that he would never be a great player after rooming with Lenny Dykstra who was "dumb" in all the right ways.

The wife and I have been painting the apartment.  We’ve spent the past two weekends painting.  We.  That’s code for me.  Whenever Em says "we," I crack up thinking about The Big Lebowski, you know, the editorial "we," because I know she’s talking about me. 

Okay, I’m not the only one doing work, it hasn’t been all me, she’s been helping plenty.  Which doesn’t mean I’ve been behaving myself.  I’ve been dutiful but sullen.  In fact, I’ve been jerk about the whole thing. I’ve been doing the job, but painting is just one of those things that I can’t excited about.  I don’t even feel accomplished when I’ve finished, just relieved. 

Today, the bedroom and my little office were on the painting schedule and I was determined to be, if not cheerful, then at least pleasant.  My mom and step-father came down to help out.  When we cracked open the light green paint for the bedroom it was clear that we had made a mistake.  It was too yellow.  After throwing some up on one wall, an executive decision was made and Em headed back to the paint store.

I painted my office and listened to Mike Mussina and the Yanks stink up the jernt against the Rays.  7-1 was the final.  Em returned with a better shade of green and hours later when we called it quits for the night, the Yanks had a 1-0 lead on the Rays in the nightcap.  Then Sidney Ponson gave up a grand slam and Emily started getting the shakes because after all of our hard work, the new green wasn’t working for her either.  In fact, it was making her nauseous, sick because not only didn’t she like the color but she was guilt-ridden at the prospect of having to do it again, and wasting my time, my parents time, and our money.

"How could this happen?"  she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

I was not a jerk.  When it comes down to it, it takes so much energy to be angry and resentful, isn’t it easier and more satisfying to be a good guy?  I soothed her and told her everything was going to be fine.  Yeah, I hate painting but it’s just paint.  It’s just a weekend afternoon.  It’s not that big a deal.  

The Yanks scrapped back.  Derek Jeter had three hits in both games, a fine day that was treated like Reggie Jackson’s three-dinger World Serious game by Michael Kay on the YES broadcast (Kay called Jeter’s three single, one walk performance in the night game "a tour de force").  Wilson Betemit homered and Xavier Nady singled home the go-ahead run.  The fans were lively once the Yanks got on the board, saving their boos for Alex Rodriguez who made outs in his final two at-bats with runners on base.  

Mariano Rivera, jeez, remember him, allowed a run in the ninth but earned the save and the Yanks came away with a split.  6-5 was the final.

A nice way to end a long day.  Still, looks like I’ve got more painting to do.          

It rained all night.  I stopped by a couple of record stores downtown after work and picked up a selection of custom-made cds from some friends.  Then I met my old pal Anthony Pick in front of Katz’s on Houston street.  But I didn’t feel like chicken soup so we walked south into the heart of of the hippish lower east side.  After we crossed Delancy, a bearded man in a suit asked us, "Are either or you Jewish?"  He was looking for recruits I guess. 

Anthony set him up and said, "My father’s Jewish." 

"Mine too," I said.

The man replied, "What about your mother?" 

"Sicilian," said Anthony. 

"Sicilian?" the man said.

"My mom’s Belgian Catholic."

And with that, he lost interest, and Anthony and I laughed as we walked on.

Today gives two games, the first in the afternoon, and then the make-up for last night’s game will be tonight.

It’s supposed to rain on-and-off all weekend, but right now, it is sunny in the Bronx.

And you know what they say about the sun:

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

By David Pinto

My fondest memories from Yankee Stadium both happened during a double header on July 2, 1978. Detroit was in town at a time when teams still scheduled twin bills on holidays. In game one, the Tigers shutout the Yankees for six innings, leading 2-0. Ron Guidry held a 12-0 record at that point, and it looked like his winning streak might end. In the bottom of the seventh, however, Gary Thomasson was on base with two out and Fred Stanley due up. We were sitting in the grandstand behind first base when suddenly a huge cheer went up from the third base stands. We wondered what happened, and then Mickey Rivers’s head popped out of the dugout. Mick the quick came off the disable list that day, having not played since June 16th. He walked gingerly (as he always did) to the plate, and ripped a line drive to right field. Mickey Stanley leaped but didn’t make the catch. While the ball was bounding away, Stanley went over to argue with the ump (I assume about fan interference). Rivers, with his blazing speed, circles the bases to tie the game! The crowd goes wild and the Yankees go on to win the game 3-2, extending Guidry’s win streak to 13.

In the night cap, Graig Nettles batted third, coming up with two men on in the third. Jim Slaton came in high and tight with a brushback throw, and Graig fell to the ground avoiding a hit by pitch.

My immediate thought was that Slaton made a huge mistake. I had seen Nettles knocked down before, and he tended to respond very constructively to brushbacks, getting a hit. Sure enough, Nettles launched a three-run homer for the first score of the game. That’s the way to deal with a knock down, and the Yankees went on to a 5-3 win and a sweep of the double header.

David Pinto blogs about baseball at BaseballMusings.com.

The Rays enter their final series against the Yankees in a virtual dead-heat with the Angels and Cubs for the best record in the majors. Everyone saw the Angels and Cubs coming, but even the bold prediction made by Nate Silver’s PECOTA only had the Rays winning 88 games, a total they can achieve with a victory over the Yanks tonight. So what happened? How did a franchise that had never won more than 70 games in a single season and had finished in last place in the AL East in all but one of it’s previous ten seasons suddenly find themselves atop not just the most competitive division on baseball, but challenging for the best record in the game?

The short answer is pitching and defense and just enough offense to make the first two count. A year ago, the Rays went 66-96 while enduring by far the worst defense in the majors according to defensive efficiency. This year they have the majors’ best defensive efficiency. A year ago they turned just 65 percent of all balls put in play against them into outs. This year, they’re turning 70.9 percent of those balls into outs. That’s no small matter. The Rays had roughly 4,500 balls put in play against them last year (not counting home runs, which are typically not playable by the defense). The difference between a 65 percent and 70.9 percent defensive efficiency on 4,500 balls in play is about 265 outs, or the equivalent of nearly ten shutouts. Taken another way, the improvement in the Rays defense has shortened their opponents scoring opportunities by an average of 1.6 outs per game over the entire season. There’s a lot of rounding going on in those numbers, but the impact is clear and impressive, and quite reminiscent of how the Rockies got to the World Series last year.

This improvement was no accident. It is exactly what the Rays had in mind when they asked that shortstop Jason Bartlett be included in the deal that sent Delmon Young and others to the Twins for Matt Garza and another pitching prospect. Bartlett has disappointed in the field, but the team’s decision to move Akinori Iwamura to second base and (eventually) install Evan Longoria at third base has had a lot to do with their improved defense, and the overall effect of an infield of Longoria, Bartlett, Iwamura, and Carlos Peña has done wonders for the Rays’ pitching staff, as has having B.J. Upton in center field for a full season to complement Carl Crawford in left.

One might suspect that superior pitching deserves some of the credit for this statistical improvement on defense, but research has shown that good pitchers to not consistently post above-average numbers on balls in play. Rather, I offer that it’s the defense that has helped the pitching improve. If a pitcher knows that his defenders are more likely to catch up with his mistakes, he’s more likely to pitch with the confidence necessary to challenge hitters, which is a key to success in the major leagues. (Don’t take my word for it, click the Rockies link above and see what Brian Fuentes had to say about the Rockies’ defense last year).

Consider the improvement made by former Dodger prospect Edwin Jackson. Last year he walked 4.92 men per nine innings and posted a 5.76 ERA. This year his walks are down by more than one per nine innings and his ERA is down to a league-average 4.06. Consider also sophomore Andy Sonnanstine, a pitcher who walks almost no one to begin with. Sonnanstine has seen his strikeout rate dip by more than a K per nine innings this year and has been handsomely rewarded for his increased reliance on his defense as his ERA had dropped from 5.85 to 4.47.

Opposing batters are having roughly league average success on balls in play against Jackson and Sonnanstine this year, which is a huge improvement over what happened last year when Sonnanstine’s BABIP was .333 and Jackson’s was .349. Put those two behind lefty ace Scott Kazmir, James Shields, who emerged as a solid number two last year, and Garza, and the Rays have one of the best rotations in baseball. In fact, the Blue Jays, led by Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett, are the only American League team with a lower starters’ ERA than Tampa this season. A year ago, the Rays had the third-worst starters’ ERA in baseball.

The Rays have experienced a similar turnaround in their bullpen, which was baseball’s worst last year with a staggering 6.16 ERA but has shaved more than 2.5 runs off that mark this year to post the third-best pen ERA in the AL. One big reason for that has been the emergence of 25-year-old lefty J.P. Howell, a failed starter victimized by a .381 BABIP a year ago. Coming into this season, Howell hadn’t pitched in relief since rookie ball, but with that improved defense behind him, he’s thriving in his new role. With veteran Trever Miller around as a match-up lefty (southpaws are hitting .207/.313/.280 against him this year), Joe Maddon has used Howell for longer stints. Howell has responded with a 2.44 ERA and more than a strikeout per inning while leading the Rays’ pen in innings pitched.

Veteran Dan Wheeler, acquired at last year’s trading deadline for utility man Ty Wigginton, has been another boon to the pen, filling in ably when rejuvenated closer Troy Percival has gone down with injuries. An even lower-profile acquisition from last year’s deadline, Grant Balfour, picked up from Milwaukee for Seth McClung, didn’t hit the major league roster until the end of May, but he’s been a revelation ever since, posting a 1.63 ERA and striking out 12.87 men per nine innings. After missing most of 2005 and 2006 due to both elbow and shoulder surgery, former Twins prospect Balfour was similarly dominant in the minors last year and could prove to be a real find, provided he doesn’t get hurt again.

Combine those drastic and related improvements in pitching and defense, and the end result is a tremendous decrease in the number of runs the Rays have allowed. Last year, the then-Devil Rays allowed 944 runs. This year, with just 18 games left to play, they’ve allowed a mere 582. That’s an average of nearly two runs less per game (1.79 to be exact). With their opponents scoring just 4.04 runs per game, the Rays offense has had a much easier row to hoe, which is good, because the offense is the one thing that’s gone backwards this year, though that was the bargain the team intended to strike when it traded Young.

That’s why the Rays have gone from worst to first, but now that they’ve done that, they seem to have a momentum of their own. They’ve won six games more than their run differential would suggest, and early August injuries to stars Longoria and Crawford haven’t slowed them down a lick. In fact, August was their best month of the season as they went 21-7 (.750). You can credit manager Joe Maddon with some of that. As the Yankees saw in spring training, this Rays team has fight. Indeed, after opening September with a 1-6 skid against intradivision opponents (including dropping two of three to the Yankees at home), the Rays staged a pair of late-game rallies to fend off the charging Red Sox at Fenway. On Tuesday they staged a ninth-inning comeback against Jonathan Papelbon to keep the Red Sox from passing them in the standings, and Wednesday night they matched the Sox zero-for-zero for 13 innings before dropping a three-spot in the top of the 14th to push the Sox back another game.

The Rays haven’t changed much since we last saw them. Longoria has been activated, but has yet to return to action (though he could do so this weekend). Former A’s first baseman Dan Johnson has been added to the Rays stock of September call-ups and made an immediate impact with the game-tying home run off Papelbon on Tuesday night in his first at-bat in the majors since April 2. The Rays have also called up former Yankee farmhand-turned-minor league journeyman Michel Hernandez. Hernandez has been with five organizations in five years since making his major league debut as a Yankee in 2003, and has yet to see major league action for any of them. This is his second stint in the Rays’ organization in that span.