If Shea Stadium had featured a doghouse in 1975, surely Larry Gura would have occupied a prominent place within its walls. Such was life with the Yankees at that time, given the way that the temperamental Billy Martin liked to run his clubhouse.

Gura didn’t actually begin his career with the Yankees, but eventually found his way to Queens in 1974 and ’75 after beginning his major league days in the National League. Originally taken by the Chicago Cubs in the second round of the 1969 draft, Gura arrived in the Windy City one year later. Pitching sporadically over his first four seasons, Gura failed to impress and never gained the trust of Leo Durocher, who preferred veteran pitchers. With his major league resume spotty, the Cubs traded Gura to the Texas Rangers as the player to be named later for veteran lefty Mike Paul. (Gura has always maintained that he was part of the deal that sent Ferguson Jenkins from the Cubs to the Rangers, but that blockbuster was actually made after Gura had already been traded, so it’s a little hard to figure.) Gura never actually appeared in a game for the Rangers, who traded him in May of 1974, sending him to the Yankees for washed up catcher Duke Sims. Much like the Cubs, the Rangers lacked patience with Gura, giving up on him quickly in part because of his lack of velocity and the absence of a dominating out-pitch.

In the midst of the 1974 season, the Yankees called Gura up from the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League. The Yankees gave Gura eight starts. He rewarded them with an ERA of 2.41, a record of 5-1, four complete games, and a mere 12 walks in 56 innings. With manager Bill Virdon and pitching coach Whitey Ford in his corner, no one seemed to mind that Gura struck out only 17 batters in those appearances.

Convinced that his 1974 performance was no fluke, the Yankees penciled in Gura as their first starter in 1975, behind a quartet of Jim "Catfish" Hunter, George "Doc" Medich, Rudy May, and Pat Dobson. Gura responded by pitching reasonably well, certainly better than the standard by which most No. 5 starters are judged. All of that began to change in August, when the Yankees fired Virdon and replaced him with Martin, who had just become available after being ousted by the Rangers. Martin was already somewhat familiar with Gura, having watched him pitch in one game during spring training of 1974, when both were still with the Rangers. Based on one inning of work, Martin had determined that Gura was not ready, saying that he lacked good control, and demoted him to the minor leagues. With those first impressions solidly entrenched, apparently based on the smallest of sample sizes, Martin had little interest in watching Gura pitch meaningful regular season games. Adopting a four-man rotation, Martin removed Gura from the starting staff and dumped him in the bullpen.

So why did Martin seemingly detest Gura? First, the manager didn’t believe that Gura had enough "stuff" to succeed in the major leagues. Martin regarded him as a junkballer who lacked the smarts or experience to overcome the absence of a dominating fastball or a powerhouse slider. In some ways, Martin’s assessment sounded reasonable. After all, the Cubs had given up on Gura for virtually the same rationale. But Martin’s secondary criticism of Gura bordered on the bizarre. For some reason, Martin didn’t like Gura’s fascination with physical fitness. Gura, who observed a strict diet and workout regimen and eventually became a green belt in tae kwon do, believed strongly in his personal conditioning program. Martin just found it weird, an unorthodox fad that had nothing to do with real preparation for playing baseball. And then there’s the infamous "tennis whites" story. Martin supposedly saw Gura wearing a white tennis outfit one day and didn’t like it—not at all. (Billy sure did have some strange pet peeves, didn’t he?)

Gura actually started the 1976 season on the Yankees’ 25-man roster, but that didn’t mean that Martin had to use him. In fact, he didn’t—not even once in the five weeks that marked the start of the season. Finally, the Yankee front office ended Martin’s siege by trading Gura. On May 16, the Yankees sent Gura to the Kansas City Royals in a giveaway that brought backup catcher Fran Healy to New York. Other than Reggie Jackson, who came to trust Healy as his sole ally on the Yankee teams of the late seventies, not a single person connected to the franchise would dare call this trade a victory for the pinstripes.

After first establishing himself as an able-bodied reliever, Gura would later emerge as the top left-hander in the Royals’ rotation. Leading with his curve ball and slider, Gura learned to mix his pitches, master the strike zone, and overcome his pedestrian fastball. From 1978 to 1983, he logged at least 200 innings a season. A two-time 18-game winner, Gura posted ERAs of less than 3.00 on four occasions. Now let’s project what his performance might have meant to the Yankees. In 1980, Gura might have helped the Yankees fare better in the postseason, when they lost three straight games to, you guessed it, the Royals. One of those Yankee losses involved a complete-game effort by Gura. Take Gura away from the Royals and put him on the Yankees, and things might have turned out differently. Gura also could have helped in the 1981 World Series, which saw the Yankees lose four straight games after claiming the first two games against Los Angeles. Additionally, Gura tormented the Yankees in regular season play throughout his career, winning 11 of 17 decisions against the Bombers.

Billy Martin knew a lot of things about baseball. He knew about strategy, about the running game, about staying three steps ahead of the opposing manager. He knew how to motivate players, including guys like Rickey Henderson. But he didn’t always know about evaluating talent. And he certainly didn’t know about Larry Gura.

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

By Dave Kaplan

My warmest memory of Yankee Stadium is of a rainy and chilly day. This was April 9, 1999, the day Yogi Berra finally came home.

It was a day so many waited for and feared might never happen. For 14 years, Yogi, a man always at peace with himself, never buckled under constant pressures to return to the place where he’d become such a beloved legend. I learned a lot about Yogi in my new job as director of the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center. Mostly I learned that beyond his warm and fuzzy public image, he’s deeply principled and a man of honor.

And being dishonored by George Steinbrenner two weeks into the 1985 season, when he was fired as manager without the courtesy of a face-to-face meeting or personal phone call, rubbed him badly. Yogi’s subsequent self-imposed exile – he quietly vowed never to return as long as The Boss was in charge – was admired by legions. He was the Yankee who couldn’t be bought.

Fast forward 14 years when George flew up from Tampa in the dead of winter to our Museum in New Jersey. He came seeking forgiveness, in person, for one of “the worst mistakes I ever made.” Yogi graciously accepted his apology in a private meeting, and slyly hinted he would return to Yankee Stadium.

So he did on Opening Day. Yogi and his wife Carmen were encircled by TV crews and photographers right outside the Stadium entrance. I was nervously excited for him as he was ushered into the employee entrance. What was he feeling? Did he ever believe this day would come? Wearing an overcoat and blue blazer and a baseball tie, he ambled his way down the steps into the Stadium’s underbelly, through the twisting corridors to the Yankee clubhouse. As I walked alongside him, he almost seemed a little lost, not familiar with the surroundings. Later he admitted to a case of Opening Day nerves as if he’d never been away.

Yogi made his rounds in the clubhouse, warmly greeted by players who’d never met him. Old friends like Joe Torre, Don Zimmer and Mel Stottlemyre eagerly embraced this gnome of a man whose remarkable life and history were so intertwined with Yankee Stadium.

Finally, as the Yankees gathered in the dugout for the pregame ceremonies, which included the raising of the 1998 championship banner, there Yogi sat on the bench. Players walked by patting him on the leg for good luck. Then Bob Sheppard, in his inimitable style, created a hush in the crowd when he said, “Now let’s welcome back a special guest…”

He listed Yogi’s incredible accomplishments, including his record 10 world championships, and called him “a source of inspiration to his teammates … a man of conviction…Let’s welcome back,” said Sheppard, his voice rising, “Yogi Berra, No. 8.” The Stadium erupted with a deafening roar. I was allowed to watch from the corner of the dugout as Yogi walked to the mound in a driving rain where David Cone applauded with his glove. He shook Cone’s hand and tossed the first pitch to Joe Girardi, who rushed toward him with the ball, excitedly. “Thanks Yogi, this is a real thrill,” he said. Then as Yogi walked off, he gave a half-wave to the crowd which was still standing, cheering and chanting, “Yogi…Yogi…Yogi.” For the man famous for saying it ain’t over til it’s over, it was over. Yogi Berra was back in Yankee Stadium.

Dave Kaplan is the Director of the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center.

According to Mike Puma, writing in the New York Post, Bernie Williams will return to Yankee Stadium for the closing ceremonies on September 21st:

“It will bring me back to my first time in 1991, when I played my first game,” Williams said. “It will be amazing. The fans are going to be great. I’m obviously very sad to the Stadium go – you have a lot of great memories – but you move on.”

…”[October] will be kind of strange,” Williams said. “But that goes to show how hard it is to make it. It’s never a given, and this year it didn’t happen for them.”

It’s never a given. How true. The weather has turned in New York over the past few days, the fall chill is in the air. For a long time now, I’ve come to associate the change in the weather with playoff baseball in the Bronx. Now that the Yankees won’t be playing in October, I’m not upset, but grateful that the Yanks had such a great run of consecutive playoff appearences. Hopefully, they’ll make it back next season. Or the year after that. The comforting part of being a Yankee fan is the belief that they will win again, and sometime soon. Who knows, it could be fifteen years or even forty years before they win another championship. But it could also be three years or next season.

Anyhow, it’ll be nice to see Bernie again. Along with Mariano Rivera, he’s one of my very favorite Yankees of them all.

Juan Gonzalez has the latest the politics of the new Yankee Stadium.

Hitting coach Kevin Long has promised to follow Robinson Cano home to the Dominican this winter and rebuild his swing. He has the technology:

The work there will be extensive and represents a complete overhaul of the infielder’s swing.

The promise is of a completely revamped player in advance of Spring Training. Long outlined pieces of his blueprint for Cano by eliminating excess action, while putting him in a better position to hit, squaring up more with the pitcher. Addressing Cano’s strike-zone discipline is also high on the to-do list.

“You’re going to see a huge difference visually,” Long said. “You’ll see less movement, an explosive, compact swing, and you’ll probably see more home runs. I think his average will go way up and I think his walks will go way up.”

MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch as the story.

This is pretty good. Via Pete Abe:

“I’m going to be reviewing the entire organization,” Hank Steinbrenner told the AP in Tampa today. “We’re going to do everything we can to win next year. We’re not going to wait. Do everything we can that makes sense. We’re going to fix what we have to fix. We’re going to have to look at what has been done wrong over the last five years, which I’ve had one year to try and figure out. Clearly, a lot of mistakes were made.”

At least he didn’t apologize to the city of New York.

Equal parts Frank Thomas, Dick Allen and Babe Herman, Manny Ramirez is profiled today by Jay Jaffe over at Baseball Prospectus.

By Ed Randall

Though I grew up only three-and-a-half miles away, I was never a Yankee fan. Still, I anticipate a profound sadness that the stadium I grew up in is soon to exist never more.

Yet, I might have more of a connection, a predisposition, to the franchise than I ever care to admit. My father’s birthday was September 10th, the same as Roger Maris’; mine is October 20th, the same as Mickey Mantle’s.

The stadium cast a long and continuing shadow on my life.

I went to grammar and high school for 12 years in the same building at All Hallows just three blocks away and took the subway behind the center field fence. I threw snowballs from the platform near pedestrians below while waiting for the northbound train (in making that stark admission, I trust the statute of limitations has expired).

I saw my first game there and have very vague memories of being fascinated by the TV cameras in the outdoor photo box.

Perhaps another sign foreshadowing my career calling.

I recall standing near a ramp leading to the box seats as a child when a door swung open and there stood Johnny Blanchard in all his Yankee pinstriped splendor and his shiny black spikes that clicked when he took a step. It was breathtaking. Today, ironically, Johnny Blanchard, fellow prostate cancer survivor, sits on the Advisory Board of my charity, Ed Randall’s Bat for the Cure.

Back then, patrons in the lower level–which we could rarely afford–exited the park by walking on the field! Imagine slowly making your way along the warning track up the left field line, turning right past the visiting bullpen and auxiliary scoreboard and then, the best part, past the monuments. More than once did I walk out onto River Avenue through the Yankee bullpen where countless home runs came to rest and where everyone from Joe Page onward warmed up. Somehow, even then I knew the importance of what I was experiencing.

That ritual made me want to do one thing: genuflect.

(more…)

Over at WFAN’s website, the intrepid Sweeny Murti gives us his list of the 25 top Yankee Stadium Moments.  Excellent job by Murti here, as he combines research and reporting to provide a lively and entertaining list.  Part of the fun is seeing if you agree with his take.  Personally, I would have the Louis-Schmeling fight in the top Five, if not top Three.  What do you think?  This is oodles of fun from Murti.  Check it out:

25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6, 5-1. 

During the Seventies and Eighties parts of the Upper West Side were tough.  My grandparents lived between Columbus and Central Park West and you had to know which blocks were cool when walking from their place over to Broadway.  Columbus avenue became gentrified first, then, slowly Amsterdam avenue followed.  My old man worked at a hardware store on Amsterdam avenue for a bunch of years in the Eighties (you can see it in a shot from the Pacino movie Sea of Love).  More than anything, I remember hearing music on Amsterdam avenue.  There was always something playing.  Something like this maybe:

Speaking of Willie Bobo, remember this from Pete Nice (I really dug the re-mix):

Serch gets kicked in the grill.

Yesterday afternooon, for the third game in a row, the Yankees got out to a quick start and emerged with little to show for it. Sure they wound up blowing out the Angels on Tuesday night, but only after Alfredo Aceves had made a 1-0 score hold up for five innings. Yesterday, the Yankees got two runs in the top of the first on a pair of walks, a Jason Giambi RBI single and a balk by Angels spot-starter Dustin Moseley, but Andy Pettitte gave one back in the bottom of the inning on a Garret Anderson double, a wild pitch, and an RBI groundout by Juan Rivera.

Johnny Damon led off the third with a walk, but got picked off ahead of a single by Derek Jeter, who was subsequently stranded at first base. A one-out single by Xavier Nady in the fourth was erased by a 3-6-3 double play off Hideki Matsui’s bat. Then in the fifth, Pettitte fell apart. Singles by Gary Matthews Jr., Anderson, and Guerrero loaded the bases with none out. Pettitte then rallied to strike out Rivera and Kendry Morales, and got ahead of Robb Quinlan 1-2, but Quinlan battled back to a full count before delivering a two-RBI single that gave the Angels the lead which was inflated to 4-2 when Guerrero scored on Nady’s subsequent throwing error.

And that was that. Pettite walked the next batter and got the hook. Jose Veras, Phil Coke, and Joba Chamberlain stopped the scoring there, but so did Moseley and relievers Jose Arredondo and Scot Shields, passing the game to Francisco Rodriguez. Down to their last out, The Yankees mounted a threat with a walk by Giambi and a single by Xavier Nady that put pinch runners on the corners, but Rodriguez got Hideki Matsui looking to earn his 56th save of the year and move into second place on the single-season saves list. He’ll pass Bobby Thigpen soon enough.

At that point attention turned to the Rangers-Mariners game, which was broadcast for the remaining fans on the Angel Stadium scoreboard. The M’s had an early 4-0 lead, but the Rangers tied it up with a pair of two-run homers off M’s starter Jared Wells in the fifth. Seattle got back out ahead with two runs off Kevin Millwood in the fifth, but another two-run homer tied the game back up at 6-6 in the sixth. The M’s took the lead again with a run in the bottom of the sixth and added another in the bottom of the seventh. That was enough to survive a Chris Davis solo homer off Miguel Batista in the eighth and when J.J. Putz struck out Michael Young to wrap up Seattle’s 8-7 win, the Angels clinched the AL West for the fourth time in five years.

As things stand now, the Angels will face the Wild Card team in the ALDS. As of this writing, the Rays had a 1.5 game lead on the Red Sox and the two teams were tied 1-1 in the 12th inning at Fenway. The Angels have faced the Red Sox in the postseason three times, but have lost all three series. In recent years, they’ve been swept twice in the ALDS by Boston and haven’t won a postseason game against the Sox since they held a 3-1 in the 1986 ALCS. The fifth game of that series was the game in which Dave Henderson homered off Donnie Moore in the ninth inning to prevent the Angels from reaching their first World Series. So, you think the Halos are hoping they wind up facing the Rays?

The Angels entered this series with a chance to clinch the AL West and have closer Francisco Rodriguez tie or even break Bobby Thigpen’s single-season saves record, but they exchanged blowouts with the Yankees in the first two games, forcing Rodriguez, stuck at 55 saves to Thigpen’s 57, to wait to make history against some other team. Meanwhile the second-place Rangers failed to help the Angels out last night, and it’s only with a Rangers loss that the Angels could clinch with a win today. The Rangers’ game in Seattle starts more than an hour after today’s afternoon tilt in Anaheim, so even if the Angels do clinch today, they’ll likely be back in their clubhouse when it happens, sparing the Yankees the indignity of watching another team celebrate.

Andy Pettitte, who is now officially in line to start the final game at Yankee Stadium two turns from now, takes the hill for the Bombers. Pete Abe has a story on Pettitte today that blames Andy’s recent struggles on the disruption of his usual off-season conditioning caused by his inclusion in the Mitchell Report:

The workout regime that he believes has been the base of his success was not abandoned. But Pettitte did not put in the amount of time he usually does.

“There were times I didn’t want to leave the house, much less go work out and focus on baseball,” he said last night before the Yankees played the Angels.

Pettitte tried to catch up in spring training, scheduling early-morning workouts and pestering teammates to join him and provide a push. For a while, it appeared to work. Pettitte was 12-7 with a 3.76 ERA through his first 22 starts. Pettitte’s history suggested that he would only improve as he season went on.

He has struggled instead. He is 1-5 with a 6.57 ERA over his last eight starts, putting 82 runners on base via hit or walk over 49 1/3 innings. Opponents have hit .325 against him.

“I was very happy with the first half I put together, then I won my first two starts after the break and I thought, ‘Here we go.’ Personally, it’s been frustrating,” he said.

Though he doesn’t come right out and say it, Pettitte strongly suggested to Abraham that he wants to return to the Yankees next year both to pitch in the new Stadium, and because he believes he can recover his form of a year ago by avoiding any other interruptions to his offseason program. If he does, he stands a very good chance of moving past Lefty Gomez into third place on the franchise’s all-time wins list. Gomez isn’t quite Babe Ruth, but I’d be all for bringing Andy back next year given the struggles of the team’s pitching prospects this season.

In other news, Ivan Rodriguez and Torii Hunter will both serve two-game suspensions starting this afternoon as punishment for their dust-up on Monday night.

Should the Yanks be concerned about Robinson Cano?  That’s the question I fielded today on New York Baseball Today:

Don’t look now, but Alfredo Aceves has passed Ian Kennedy on the Yankees’ prospect list. The two pitchers are very similar. Both are right-handers of unexceptional stature with similar repertoires (91 mile per hour fastball, changeup, curve). Both went from high-A to the major league rotation in their first year of pro ball, and both have impressed in their September call-ups.

The difference between the two is that Aceves did last night all of the things the Yankees have been trying and failing to get Kennedy to do all season. He threw strikes, worked quickly, and mixed in all of his pitches. That last is the most significant. In his various unsuccessful stints in the major leagues this year, Kennedy has been a two-pitch pitcher, throwing straight fastballs to spots (and often missing) and trying to get his outs with his changeup. Last night, Aceves varied speeds and breaks on all three of his pitches (really four as his best pitch is a cut fastball with some impressive movement) giving him an assortment several times more varied than Kennedy’s.

Of course, Aceves maturity on the mound comes from his maturity off it. Aceves may be in his first year of “pro ball,” but he has six years of professional experience in the Mexican League behind him while Kennedy was pitching in college in 2006. Despite that, Aceves is just two years older than Kennedy. It’s possible that Kennedy could learn what Aceves knows in the next two years, but even if he does, he’s unlikely to be much better than Aceves is now. The real question is exactly how good is Aceves now? He’ll certainly be in the mix for next year’s rotation, but is he just a younger, wilier Darrell Rasner, the sort of pitcher who can fill a vacant rotation spot and slide back into a long relief role when the rest of the starters get healthy, or does he have the potential to be a mid-rotation guy like many hoped and even assumed Kennedy would be as early as this year?

Whatever he is, it’s worth recognizing that in one short season he’s passed fellow 25-year-old Alan Horne, Jeff Marquez, and even Kennedy on the Yankees’ list of starting pitching prospects, which may tell you as much about Horne, Marquez, and Kennedy as it does about Aceves.

By Steve Lombardi

In terms of having a lasting memory of “this” Yankee Stadium, it’s difficult for me to single out one particular “in-person” game experience and say “That’s the one.” In truth, I’ve been very fortunate when it comes to being at the Stadium for some special games.

I have been there for many Opening Days. In fact, I’ve been to so many of those that I’ve lost count. If I had to guess, I would say that I’ve been to at least a dozen of them. This includes the one in 2003 where Hideki Matsui hit a grand slam against the Twins (in his first home game as a Yankee). That was one of the coldest days I ever spent at the Stadium.

I’ve also had the privilege to attend many post-season games at the Stadium. My first was Game Two of the 1977 ALCS – where Hal McRae tried to kill Willie Randolph on a take-out slide during a double-play attempt in the 6th inning. In addition to that one, I was there for Game One of the 1977 World Series, Game Two of the 1981 World Series, Game Six (Get ya’ tokens ready!) of the 2000 ALCS, and Game Five of the 2001 ALCS. All of those were good memories.

Of course, I was also there for some post-season clunkers as well. These include Game Two of the 1997 ALDS, Game One of the 2001 ALDS, Game Three of the 2001 ALCS, and (yikes!) Game Six of the 2004 ALCS.

However, the absolute best post-season experience was witnessing, in-person, Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS. I will never forget being there to see that incredible event. Still, it’s hard for me to say that the Boone-Homer game is my “lasting memory” of Yankee Stadium.

Why? Well, I’ll never forget being there for that game – for sure. But, I’ll also always remember being there on August 22, 1976 – when the Yankees scored 8 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning to tie a game where they were losing, 8-0. And, I’ll never forget being there during the second game of a double-header on September 9, 1981 when Dave LaRoche used “La Lob” to whiff Milwaukee’s Gorman Thomas. And, I’ll never forget being there on July 1, 2004 when Derek Jeter dove into the stands after catching a pop-up.

Heck, I’ll always remember being there for Sam Militello’s first game on August 9, 1992 – because my buddies took me there as part of my bachelor party and Militello pitched so well. And, there are several other “fun” times at Yankee Stadium that I will remember forever – in addition to that ALCS winner against the Red Sox in 2003.

This is why it’s impossible for me to pick “one game” – even a game as legendary as Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS – as my “lasting memory” of Yankee Stadium.

So, then, what is my “lasting memory” of this Yankee Stadium? Well, in the end, I believe that my lasting memory of “the Stadium” will be that “this one” was “my Stadium.”

I did see my first Yankees game on August 8, 1973 at the “old” Stadium. But, that was the only time I was at the “first” Stadium. And, I did see a handful of games at Shea Stadium – when the Yankees played there in 1974 and 1975 (including Billy Martin’s first game as Yankees manager). But, without question, I’ve seen the most of my “in person” Yankees games at this current Yankees Stadium. I have no idea how many, but, to be conservative, I would estimate that it’s been over 150 games (since 1976).

When I start to ponder my current age and life expectancy, the increasing family demands of my time, and the estimated prices for tickets to the “new” Yankee Stadium, I figure that there’s no way that I will ever attend as many games in the “new” Yankee Stadium as I have attended at this “current” Yankee Stadium.

Therefore, “this” Yankee Stadium – the one that opened in 1976 – will forever be “my” Yankee Stadium. And, that’s my lasting memory of “the Stadium.” For the rest of my life, I will always remember the “collective experience” of being at this Stadium.

Hey, if you’re going to have a lasting memory, why not make it a big one?

Steve Lombardi blogs about the Yankees at Was Watching.com

Last night’s game started off a lot like Monday night’s 12-1 humiliation. Bobby Abreu erased a Derek Jeter single* with an inning-ending double play in the first. In the second, the first three hitters reached on a single, a hit-by-pitch, and a double resulting in a run and putting men on second and third with none out, but Ervin Santana struck out Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano before getting Chad Moeller to line out to end the threat. In the third, Abreu delivered a two-out single, but was promptly thrown out stealing second with Alex Rodriguez, who had singled to lead off the previous inning, at the plate. The Yankees stranded another two-out single in the fourth and went down in order in the fifth.

What was different was Alfredo Aceves. Making his first big league start in front of 31 friends and family members and 43,011 strangers, Aceves worked quickly, mixed his pitches, threw strikes, and made quick work of the Angels. Pitching to contact, Aceves got into just two three-ball counts all night, both of them full counts, one of which ended in a strikeout of rookie Brandon Wood, and didn’t walk a batter. He consistently got ahead early, throwing first-pitch strikes to 20 of the 26 batters he faced, and after three of his first four outs traveled a fair distance in the air, he got ten of his last 17 outs on the ground and two more by strikeout.

To be sure, the defense behind Aceves’ helped out. The first out Aceves recorded came when Robinson Cano made a great sliding stop to his right, then spun to his feet to throw out the speedy Reggie Willits. Alex Rodriguez made several nice plays at third base including eating up a hard hopper in the second and making a nice backhanded play on a shot down the line in the third.

Robinson Cano made another nice play in the fourth with a diving stop to his left that he tried to turn into a 4-6-3 double play, but Derek Jeter let Cano’s throw clank off his glove as both runners reached safely. That came after the runner on first had reached by lining a ball off the right wrist of a diving Jason Giambi. Though both plays would have been exceptional, they should have been made. Undeterred, Aceves took matters into his own hands by reaching across his body to stab a comebacker and start an inning-ending 1-6-3 DP. Aceves has a face of stone on the mound, but after escaping that jam he pumped his fist and shouted a few words in Spanish.

With the score still 1-0 entering the sixth, the Yankees finally gave Aceves some insurance. Derek Jeter led off with a deep fly into the gap in right center. Gary Matthews, who had just been put into the game in place of Torii Hunter, whose back was acting up, got to the ball, but had it clank off his glove for what was initially ruled a triple (later changed to a three-base error). Bobby Abreu followed with a five-pitch walk, and Alex Rodriguez cashed it all in with a three-run jack that made it 4-0.

Those runs came just in time as Aceves appeared to be fatiguing a bit in the bottom of the sixth. Though he had thrown just 60 pitches through the first five frames, allowing just a trio of scattered singles, his pace slowed in the sixth. Reggie Willits took five pitches to ground out to Cano. Garret Anderson then worked a nine-pitch at-bat (just the second three-ball at-bat of Aceves’s night), eventually winning the battle with a groundball single in the gap past Cano. Mark Teixeira followed by lacing a high fastball into right center for a double, pushing old man Anderson to third. Aceves then got Guerrero and Matthews to groundout, but Anderson scored in the process.

Given two more insurance runs in the seventh thanks to a Chad Moeller single and a Johnny Damon dinger that drove Santana from the game, Joe Girardi sent Aceves out for the seventh. Six pitches later, Aceves was back in the dugout getting congratulated on seven strong innings of one-run baseball against the team with the best record in the majors.

Aceves didn’t blow anyone away last night, and he didn’t show any particularly overwhelming pitches, but, as advertised, he mixed his pitches to a dizzying degree. Aceves throws a fastball, a cutter, a changeup, and a curve, but seems to have a variety of breaks and speeds on each one. His fastball topped out at 93 miles per hour and tended to sit around 91, but he threw some 92 mile per hour pitches that dove like sinkers and some 88 mile per hour pitches that almost looked like splitters, as well as cutters in that same range that stayed level but moved side to side. His changeup sat in the mid-80s, but seemed to have a curve-like hop to it. Later in the game, he threw back-to-back straight changeups at 81 and 78 mph to get the final out of the sixth. His curve tended to be in the high 70s and have a moderate break, but in pursuit of the final out of the fifth, he threw Sean Rodriguez a 76 mph back-door yakker that was a called strike (a generous strike zone from home plate ump Ed Rapuano also worked in his favor), then got Rodriguez to groundout on a less-severe 78 mph curve.

All totalled he gave up one run on five hits (four of them singles) and no walks in seven innings while striking out two and throwing just 89 pitches, 71 percent of them strikes. Save for the lack of strikeouts, that’s a near repeat of his line from his two relief appearances. Dig:

RP: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K
SP: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 2 K

As for the rest of the game, Damon added a solo homer off Justin Speier in the ninth and Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte slammed the door without incident. So the day after taking a 12-1 whooping, the Yankees dropped a 7-1 score on the Halos, who came no closer to clinching as the Rangers beat up on Felix Hernandez to beat the M’s 7-3.

In the other notable out-of-town game, the Rays, leading Boston by just a half game, took a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the eighth at Fenway only to have Dan Wheeler give up a two-run homer to Jason Bay and hand Jonathan Papelbon a 4-3 lead in the top of the ninth. Joe Maddon sent Dan Johnson, who had just been called up before the game, in to pinch hit, and Johnson greeted Papelbon with a game-tying homer over the Red Sox’s bullpen in right center. After a Willy Aybar lineout, rookie Fernando Perez, who had pinch-hit in the seventh, doubled to left and then Dioner Navarro doubled him home to make it 5-4. Troy Percival then walked the leadoff man in the bottom of the ninth, but struck out Jason Varitek, and got David Ortiz to fly out. With two outs, pinch-runner Jacoby Ellsbury stole second and went to third on Navarro’s throwing error only to have Coco Crisp pop out two pitches later to end the game and inflate the Rays’ lead to 1.5 games.

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The Angels can clinch the AL West tonight if they beat the Yankees and Mariners beat the Rangers, but from the Yankees’ perspective, the big story is Alfredo Aceves, who will make his first major league start. A 25-year-old Mexican League product, Aceves is in his seventh year of pro ball, but his first in the U.S. He started the year with high-A Tampa, where he posted a 2.11 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, and 4.63 K/BB in eight starts before being promoted to double-A Trenton, where he posted a 1.88 ERA, a 0.86 WHIP, and a 5.83 K/BB in seven starts.

Aceves was promoted again at the end of June, this time to triple-A Sranton, but a groin injury delayed his first triple-A start. After four abbreviated rehab appearances for Scranton, Aceves returned to his normal starting role, but with less success than he’d had at the lower levels. Aceves’ first four post-rehab starts saw him allow 16 runs in 20 2/3 innings, but he seemed to make the necessary adjustments from there, posting this combined line in his last two triple-A starts before being called up to the majors: 12 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 5 BB, 16 K. In two major league relief appearances thus far, Aceves has been similarly effective: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K.

Here’s a note from Chad Jennings following those final two starts for Scranton:

After his last start . . . Aceves was talking about using his body more to generate a little more velocity on his fastball. There was in fact a little more velocity last time and this time, but Aceves said he has looked at tape of his last start and no longer thinks he’s doing anything mechanically different. It just felt that way. The key for him is working faster, getting himself in a groove and not thinking about things too much. He picks the pitch he wants to throw, and he throws it. The game moves faster and he works a lot better.

Earlier in the year, less enthusiastic scouts dismissed Aceves as a strike-throwing junkballer who lacks an out-pitch and tops out as a number-five starter in the majors, but I was at his major league debut, and the Yankee Stadium scoreboard was registering his fastball at 94 to 95 mph. That’s likely an inflated number, but there was definitely some zip on his heater, and he complimented it well with his secondary pitches.

Here’s a scouting report from his double-A catcher P.J. Pilittere, courtesy of Thunder Thoughts’ Mike Ashmore:

He’s a guy that’s going to have no patterns when he pitches. He’s got four pitches that he commands real well, and he can throw them at any time in the count. That’s a definite talent to have. He kind of makes my job a little easier because he’s got a really good gameplan, and he really knows himself well. He does a good job on his own of trying to set up hitters, so it’s different and kind of refreshing, almost, to work with someone like that who’s thinking about the game along the same lines I am.

He’s got a really good cutter. What makes it so successful, is it’s not a lot different in speed off of his fastball. It’s pretty similar in miles per hour to his four-seam fastball. His cutter’s a good pitch, and when you have command of a pitch like that and you can throw it when you’re behind in the count, it can really bail you out of some stuff. Him being able to throw it on both sides of the plate is a definite plus for him.

Because he came on so fast and seemingly out of nowhere, it’s hard to say what the Yankees have in Aceves, but with a few good starts in these dog days of September, he could throw his hat in the ring for next year’s rotation.

Ben Kabak has the latest in Yankee News Inc. 

Blah.

By Dayn Perry

I’m a to-the-grave Cardinals fan. I’m not a Yankees fan. Never was. I don’t dislike them–in fact, I appreciate what they’ve meant to the sprawling history of this game. Mostly, I’m indifferent to them as a team. What I am not indifferent to, however, is New York City and the Yankees’ indelible place in it.

I grew up in a small town in South Mississippi, which, other than the human elements native to all of us, had little in common with New York. When I was in second grade, however, I read a story about young girl named Frieda who lived in New York. The story told me about her walks to school, her rides on the subway, and her interactions with kinds and colors of people I’d never imagined. Frieda’s life seemed impossibly different from mine, and this place she called home, well, I needed to know more about.

When I got home from school that day, I dragged down the “N” volume of our World Book Encyclopedias and looked up Frieda’s home town. The foldout map of New York was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was sinewed with roads, train lines, expressways, side streets, and all the rest. It was just a map, but you could almost sense the clots of humanity that made the map a real place. And the names in and around New York were just as fascinating–fascinating in their hard sounds and the hard places they evoked. Hoboken. Brooklyn. Bayonne. Canarsie. Nyack. Red Hook. Hell’s Kitchen. Pelham Bay Park. Bensonhurst. Scarsdale. And my favorite name of all: The Bronx. It was the toughest, most perfect word I’d ever heard. It sounded like a punch in the gut. It grabbed you by the collars. Bronx. And what kind of place had “the” in front of it? Whatever it was, there could only be one. After all, it was “A Bronx.”

I don’t remember how old I was when I found out that the Yankees toiled in the Bronx–that place with the unforgettable name–but I do remember that my estimation of them increased dramatically. I was 19 years old when I finally made it to New York City, and I greeted it with wide, mystified eyes. I was 30 when I finally made it to Yankee Stadium (via the 4 Train, of course), and I’ve never paid less attention to a baseball game in all my life. I was too busy taking in the architecture, the perfect weather, the cold beer, and, from my seats in the distant reaches of the upper deck, the view of that perfect word: Bronx.

In the years between the time I first read about Frieda’s New York and first set foot in Yankee Stadium, my fascination with the American urban experience consumed me. As it was for so many people drawn to the stew of the city, New York was it. It was everything, including those guttural names on the map. I’ll always remember Yankee Stadium for bringing together two of my abiding passions, baseball and the city of cities, like no other venue–no other thing–could have. It’s an urban game to me, baseball, despite its apocryphal origins in the countryside. It’s always been about cities and energy and crowds and fathers and sons and those without fathers and without sons. Hell, the ballpark, in some regards is itself a city–people thrown together, haphazardly and at times uncomfortably, to feel and live. Some arrive late; some leave early; and some stay for the full nine innings, never thinking of going anywhere else.

On that day in Yankee Stadium, I didn’t pay much heed to what was a damned fine game. But I stayed all nine innings, and I never thought of going anywhere else.

Dayn Perry writes about baseball for Fox.