For the second consecutive night, the Yankees looked old, flat, and old. Mike Mussina allowed six runs off eight hits and three walks over four innings as the Bombers fell to the Orioles, 6-4. The game lasted three hours and fifteen minutes, brief considering this was New York vs. Baltimore, but it seemed longer. The Yanks seemed out-of-it mentally. In the fourth inning, Melvin Mora stole second and neither Robinson Cano or Derek Jeter, who limped for most of the game after fouling a ball off his right foot in his first at-bat, covered the bag. When was the last time you remember Jeter making a mental mistake like that? The Yankee shortstop was removed in the ninth inning. Again, something you don’t normally see.

Sean Henn pitched well in relief, but the Yankees sorely need a strong outing from a starter:

“Every team in the league counts on its rotation, but we count on our rotation a lot,” said Mussina, who gave up six runs in four innings. “It’s going to make or break our season, and we didn’t do very well the first handful of starts here. It’s disappointing. We’ve got to improve.”
(Kepner, N.Y. Times)

Mussina nibbled all night and couldn’t hit his spots. In light of that, I’m not overwhelmed with confidence in Kei Igawa this afternoon. This might be one of those days were the bats have to carry the team.

Meanwhile, in Dunder Mifflin Land, Phillip Hughes pitched well in his Triple A debut.

I’ll be honest, the Orioles bore me to tears. Now nursing a nine-year run of losing records, the Orioles continue to rearrange the furniture, but without a meaningful youth movement, they’ll forever be the AL East’s fourth-place team (until the Devil Rays get enough pitching to pass them, that is). Nick Markakis might be the real deal in right field, but there’s no one behind him in the high minors and now that Melvin Mora’s fallen back to earth he’s less of a production addition than a production replacement. Erik Bedard, whom the Yankees will face on Sunday, is actually about a week older than Johan Santana. Chris Ray is nice and all, but he’s a band-aid on a severed limb. That just leaves the ongoing mystery that is Daniel Cabrera–who acquitted himself well over his last ten starts last year and his first outing of 2007, but still hasn’t shown the dominant form that’s long been predicted for him–and tonight’s starter Adam Loewen. As a rookie in 2006, Loewen faced the Yankees more than any other team, excelling in those four starts (2.62 ERA, 23 K in 24 IP), and Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein likes him more than either Cabrera or Ray. Tonight marks his first start of 2007, and it will be interesting to see what he can do against the Yankees’ lefty-heavy lineup after so much exposure to same last year.

As for the O’s as a group, the were swept by the Twins in their opening series by a combined score of 17-8, with half of those runs coming off Johan Santana himself, and are punting the catcher position while trying to decide what to do about Ramon Hernandez’s strained oblique muscle. The Hernandez situation brings to mind the Yankees’ deliberations over Johnny Damon’s sexy calves, but with inferior stand-ins. Actually, Peter Abraham reports that Damon’s feeling better and could play tomorrow. Hernandez, however, is likely DL-bound.

The Orioles are ripe for the picking, but the Yankees have to help themselves first. After making six errors in their first two games, three of them coming from the Captain, who’s never looked worse in the field, their ability to pick anything in doubt.

(more…)

Sports Illustrated.com has started a new baseball blog on their site called Fungoes, which will rotate through seven writers and all six divisions over the course of each week of the 2007 baseball season. Among those seven writers are our founder Alex Belth, who will cover the AL East, fellow Toaster Jon Weiseman, who will cover the NL West, and myself as the seventh man tackling a random baseball topic of my choosing every Friday under the “Wild Card” header.

Alex’s posts will appear every Monday. Check out his first post from this past Monday, in which Alex muses about Opening Day from an AL East perspective. My first post is up today and takes a look at the historical significance of the Arizona Diamondback’s new uniforms (with apologies to Paul Lukas). Mr. Weisman’s first effort, meanwhile, focused on the underrated Colorado Rockies (with apologies to Mark T.R. Donohue, I’m sure).

I hope you’ll all join us over there in addition to your regularly scheduled programming here on Baseball Toaster. And don’t be shy about dropping some comments over at SI, either.

By Bruce Markusen

Two Games In The Books

At this writing, the Yankees have played a grand total of two games, which makes it difficult to detect any meaningful trends and patterns. Still, every game provides us with at least one storyline. As is usually the case in Yankeeland, there is no shortage of plots and themes as we evaluate the first series of the season.

*Sometimes Opening Day makes you feel very good about a pre-season prediction. I picked the Yankees to win the American League East, in large part because of their bullpen, which has far superior depth to the pen in Beantown. So what did the Yankee relievers do on Opening Day after Carl Pavano dropped the ball in the fifth inning? The five-man tag team of Brian Bruney, Sean Henn, Luis Vizcaino, Kyle Farnsworth, and Mariano Rivera combined for four and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief. That sort of pattern could become a trend in 2007. Given the depth at Joe Torre’s disposal, this might be the Yankees’ best bullpen since the dynasty days of Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton.

(And just when I had finished patting my back after the opener, the Yankee bullpen allowed three runs in game two, including the game-winning run in the top of the eighth. Ah, so much for predictions.)

The improvement of Farnsworth could be the key to just how good the bullpen can be. Farnsworth has dipped into his pre-2006 arsenal and brought back a sinking fastball that provides a nice contrast to his rising 98 mile-per-hour four-seamer. If Farnsworth is willing to throw the sinker—and more importantly, is able to throw strikes with his sinker—he could be the eighth-inning force the Yankees thought they had acquired in 2006.

*For the first time since the first half of 1996, the Yankees appear to have enough versatility in their lineup to play “small ball”—or “Billy Ball,” in homage to a former Yankee skipper who had some fun with the A’s in the early eighties. The Yankees stole three bases and laid down two sacrifice bunts in the opener, giving them an extra dimension to a lineup that is already packed with power. With Alex Rodriguez having lost 12 pounds over the winter, he could resume being a significant basestealing threat. The Yankees now have four regulars capable of stealing 20 or more bases—the others are Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, and Bobby Abreu—which should erase the team’s image as being slow and plodding. When’s the last time the Yankee lineup could boast that many basestealers? You might have to go back to the failed speed experiment of 1982, when the Yankees brought in Dave Collins and Ken Griffey and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to become the “Go-Go” Bombers.

*The Yankees’ defensive play has been atrocious through the first two games. I don’t care what their zone rating or range factor might be; six errors, a passed ball, and a near passed ball in 18 innings is horrifically bad. I’m willing to excuse some of the poor play because of the cold, but certainly not all of it. Derek Jeter has made several poor throws and has displayed less range than usual to his left, Josh Phelps looked like he’d been taking lessons from Jason Giambi with his Opening Day throw to second base, and even supposed glove wizard Doug Mientkiewicz has made an error. (By the way, if Mientkiewicz doesn’t play an absolutely brilliant first base this month, I want him out of the lineup by May 1.) What can the Yankees do about their defensive woes? Well, they’re going to have to live with Jeter and Alex Rodriguez on the left side of the infield, but they need to get Melky Cabrera as many innings as possible in the outfield. He is their best outfielder, both in terms of range and throwing arm—and it’s not even close.

*The nicest development of the first week involved an off-the-field concern, specifically someone who hasn’t played for the Yankees in more than two decades. The much-loved Bobby Murcer returned to Yankee Stadium for Opening Day, spending a couple of innings in the YES Network broadcast booth, after a winter filled with cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy treatments. I have to admit it was a bit odd to see the cancer-stricken Murcer sporting a bald look—he’s always had a full shock of hair, even in recent years—but he sounded very good during his stint in the booth. His voice came across as strong, as did his usual sense of humor. Murcer says he hopes to completely fulfill his broadcast schedule this year. I think it’s safe to say that every Yankee fan has the same wish for 2007.

Bruce Markusen is the author of A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s and the writer of Cooperstown Confidential, a blog at MLB.com. Bruce, his wife Sue, and daughter Madeline reside in Cooperstown, NY.

The fans who stuck around for the entire game last night are bonafide die-hards, man, cause it was brick cold in the Bronx. Unfortunately, they didn’t go home happy as the Yankees lost an ugly game to the Devil Rays, 7-6. Andy Pettitte was far from sharp and the bullpen wasn’t much better. The Yankees made three errors, including two by Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada had perhaps one of the worst defensive games of his career. Still, they had two men on with just one out in the bottom of the eighth. Jeter tapped a ground ball back to the pitcher, who inexplicably tried for the force at third. The throw was late, and bases were loaded. But Bobby Abreu was jammed, and grounded out to the pitcher before Alex Rodriguez missed a fat pitch and popped out to end the inning. Rodriguez threw his bat down in frustration, the cheers turned to boos, and the tabloids had their cover story.

All of this with wild snow flurries falling at different points throughout the game. In the seventh, the snow looked like a swarm of locusts, or, as YES announcer Michael Kay noted, a snowglobe turned upside down. Elijah Dukes, looking thuggish in a black mask–which many of the Devil Rays wore to keep warm–hit a line drive home run to left field which brought back memories of Winfield and Rice. Josh Paul was as good behind the plate for the Rays as Posada was terrible for the Yanks.

It’s too soon to get upset, right? That may be true, but my blood was angried-up well enough during the last few innings as the Yanks let one slip away. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, eh?

There were snow flurries in Manhattan as I left work this evening. It’s April 5, the baseball season is well under way, the sun is shining, and here comes a cool cluster of snow crystals, curling down on the brisk breeze to perch on my proboscis.

Much as “sun flurries” (if such a thing truly exists and I wasn’t just dreaming) strike me as a siren-like omen of an impending natural apocalypse, it’s appropriate weather for tonight’s ballgame. A half a score and one more years ago, Andy Pettitte took the hill for the Yankees home opener amid a flock of snow flurries and beat the Kansas City Royals, setting the Yankees on their way to their first World Championship in 18 years and launching the most recent Yankee dynasty. Tonight, thanks to the rain-out yesterday (and I think we can all thank Gore and the Easter Bunny that it was rain and not snow that poured fourth from the heavens), Andy Pettitte will make the first start of his second stint as a Yankee tonight amid the flakes (that is, unless Johnny Damon’s calf strain keeps him out of the lineup).

But seriously, folks, it’s about freaking time. It seems like it’s been a week since the Yankees beat the D-Rays on Opening Day. I’ve had an empty seat at my table for Elijah Dukes for far too long.

Jae Seo starts for the Devil Rays, wondering where went his Weong. It remains to be seen what the Rays will reap from Seo, who seemed to hold so much promise when he signed with the Dodgers last year only to end the season as Mark Hendrickson’s replacement in Tampa. Those of you parsing that last clause for a pun can scratch those plans as there ain’t one.

As for Andy, in case you forgot, he’s sixth on the Yankees’ all-time list in games started, fifth all-time in strikeouts, and ninth all-time in wins as a Yankee. If he wins 15 games this year he’ll tie his former pitching coach, Mel Sottlemyre, for sixth on the all-time Yankee win list. None of those rankings will have any real effect on how he’ll perform tonight (other than the fact that they betray the mileage on his arm), but they’ll have a great deal of effect on how he’s received, and I don’t mean by Jorge Posada.

By Jon Kay

“The next stop is 161st Steet, Yankee Stadium.”

It won’t be long before many of us get to hear those sweet, automated words as the 4 train rumbles to The House that Ruth Built.

There is a longstanding link between professional baseball in New York City and its transit system. Ballparks past and present have all been built next to subway lines.

April 14th, 1906 was the date of Yankee opening day in Hilltop Park on 168th street and Broadway. A sellout crowd of 15,000 watched the Yankees defeat the Boston Americans 2-1 in 12 innings.

This date was also opening day for the 168th street subway station which is now served by the 1 train. The New York Times estimated 10,000 fans passed through the brand new station on their way to the ballpark. The subway crowd was too much for the station’s elevators which took riders from the platform, 125 feet underground, to the surface. Hundreds of fans had to make their way up to the street on foot via the stairs.

These hearty fans were rewarded with a pitchers’ duel between Happy Jack Chesbro for the Yankees and Cy Young for Boston. An unearned run in the 12th sealed the win for New York. Set up men, loogys and closers were not required as each starter pitched a complete game.

The Times reported the bleacher creatures gave Young a good pre-game razzing and Chesbro’s spitball was in peak form. It is safe to say the post-game walk down to the subway was a much more enjoyable one than the pre-game hike up 12 flights.

When the Yankees moved to the Polo Grounds in 1913, the 9th Avenue El became the train of choice for Yankee fans. The 9th Avenue line was one of the city’s original train lines dating back to 1867. In 1880, the line was extended to 155th street, the future site of the Polo Grounds. In 1918, the 9th Avenue line was connected to the Woodlawn line in the Bronx via an existing railroad bridge operated by the Putnam branch of the New York Central. This extension was the precursor for what would become the Polo Grounds Shuttle and passed near the future site of Yankee Stadium.

The most popular song in baseball history, Take Me Out to the Ballgame was inspired by a ride on the 9th Avenue El. In 1908, Jack Norworth was riding the el past the Polo Grounds. He saw a sign, “Baseball Today – Polo Grounds”, which prompted him to write the famous lyrics. It may have been the most productive ride in mass transit history.

In 1921, Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert had to look no further than the 4 train when scouting potential locations for a new ballpark. It was The House that Ruth Built but it was the IRT that decided where The House would be.

Over the years, Yankee fans have been well served by the 4 train as well as the B and D IND lines which were added in 1933. These three trains are given proper respect at every Yankee home game via the great subway race. I usually root for the 4 train, but being a Bronx native, I have to confess to occasionally rooting for the Bx1 bus.

The new Yankee Stadium, currently under construction, is already steeped in transit lore.

The new Stadium will sit along the route of the old Polo Grounds shuttle. In 1940, the 9th Avenue El was shut down. Construction of the underground IND line had made the 9th Avenue El obsolete. Shuttle service was maintained between the Polo Grounds on 155th street and the 4 train stop on 167th street. After the Giants left town in 1958, the shuttle was closed for good.

If you walk to River Ave and 162nd street, you can still see a small piece of the shuttle’s structure. My good buddy, and Bronx historian, Dave Levy pointed out the remnant of the shuttle to me a few years back. It was a Bronx boy’s version of an archeological dig.

Parking facilities for the new Stadium are being built on the site of Macomb’s Dam Park. Anyone who presently takes the ferry to the Stadium sails by the former location of Robert Macomb’s dam. Back in 1813, Macomb was allowed to build a dam in the Harlem River and collect tolls. The dam caused flooding uptown and shippers refused to pay the toll. In 1838, a judge deemed it a public nuisance and ordered it removed. In spite of all of this, a park and a bridge were named after him.

I was pleased to hear the new Yankee Stadium would make transit history with a Metro North station. This is a great idea which should have been done 30 years ago. Unfortunately, recent news about the station is not good. We can only hope that Metro North will be included in the subway race for many years to come.

Jon grew up in the Bronx and is a lifelong Yankee fan. He can often be spotted on the 4 train on his way to upper reserved seats at the Stadium.

While there’s no make-up date scheduled for yesterday’s game just yet, there were a few drips of news yesterday. Well, three to be exact. Johnny Damon, who left Monday’s game with cramps in his calves now appears to have something closer to a strain, which puts his availability in doubt for the time being. Melky Cabrera was going to start in center field in yesterday’s game until it got rained out. Ron Villone, who was officially released at the end of spring training, signed a minor league deal with the Yankees yesterday and will report to triple-A Scranton. He can opt out of the deal if he’s not on the 25-man roster by May 1. Finally, Chein-Ming Wang’s rehab continues to move swiftly. He’s been throwing in the bullpen and might throw a simulated game this weekend.

By Bryan Smith

Read Alex Belth long enough, and you start to pick up the guy’s biases. I’m not talking his love for rap, Ken Burns or Central Park, but the Yankees that command most of his ink: Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. Notice the trend.

I’m not bashing my friend Alex here, as I think any team diehard (myself included) does the same thing. As baseball fans, or really, as sports fans, we are drawn to the players we can only imagine in one uniform. Bernie, Rivera, Derek Jeter, these guys are Yankees. Being homegrown is to be one step closer to being a fan favorite. As loved as Paul O’Neil was, he was half a Red. As dominant as Roger Clemens was, he had shoved it for years with the Beaneaters.

If the Major League Baseball draft was different, and trading up in the draft allowed, Derek Jeter would not be New York’s captain. Heck, he probably wouldn’t be their shortstop. Because if trading were allowed, George Steinbrenner would have moved up in the 1993 draft after reading his staff’s reports on a young stud in Miami. Despite taking Jeter the previous year, the Yankees would have bought the top pick from Seattle and drafted Alex Rodriguez.

After suffering through 1994 with Mike Gallego, the Yankees would have never signed Tony Fernandez. Rather, they would have opened 1995 with A-Rod at short, and New York would have fallen in love with him over the next 464 home runs. Jeter would be one helluva leadoff hitter, still loved in New York, but always second fiddle to the Bronx shortstop.

That’s what is funny to be about baseball: although we don’t realize it, fan allegiances to players are as determined by player development as they are effort and media friendliness.

Alex has asked me to write about the Yankees farm system once a month this season because I think he senses a new era with this organization. Starved to end this World Series drought, the Yankees are returning to what defined their ’90s dynasty: scouting. The Yankees demanded their farm system provide them with a foundation – and it did in spades, with all the aforementioned homegrown talents – and then leaned on Brian Cashman (and Steinbrenner’s wallet) to decorate the interior.

(more…)

It’s cold and it is raining in New York. Instead of making thousands of fans–not to mention the players–suffer through the conditions, today’s game has been postponed.

By Bruce Markusen

The baseball world absorbed several significant losses during the month of March. A former commissioner, an All-Star catcher, a World Series stalwart, and two baseball lifers have all passed away in recent weeks. Here are tributes to their lives in the game.

Ed Bailey (Died on March 23 in Knoxville, Tennessee; age 75; throat cancer):

A five-time All-Star, the left-handed hitting Bailey was regarded as one of the National League’s premier catchers of the late 1950s and early 1960s. His prime seasons came with the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants, before he bounced to Milwaukee in 1964, came back to San Francisco in 1965, and then finished out his career with the Chicago Cubs and California Angels in ’65 and ’66. Bailey enjoyed his finest season in 1956, when he hit .300 with a career-high 28 home runs for the Reds. Over the course of a 14-year career, Bailey hit 155 home runs and collected 540 RBIs. He participated in one World Series, hitting a home run for the Giants during their 1963 Series loss to the New York Yankees.

Bowie Kuhn (Died on March 15 in Jacksonville, Florida; age 80; complications from pneumonia):

The second longest tenured commissioner in major league history behind Hall of Famer Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Kuhn served in baseball’s highest office from 1969 to 1984. His tenure coincided with one of the most tumultuous eras in the history of the major leagues. During Kuhn’s watch, player salaries escalated through arbitration and free agency as the Players Association assumed a far more powerful voice within the game’s infrastructure. Kuhn frequently battled union chief Marvin Miller, both at the negotiating table and through the press, with Miller gaining major strides for the players through both collective bargaining and the decisions of independent arbitrators. Known for his law-and-order approach to running the game, Kuhn frequently attempted to discipline players and owners. He attempted to censure Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, suspended Denny McLain for his ties to gambling and organized crime, disallowed the player sales of Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, and Joe Rudi by Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley, and suspended three members of the Kansas City Royals (Willie Mays Aikens, Jerry Martin, and Willie Wilson) after they were arrested for buying cocaine.

COMMENTARY: After first learning of the death of Bowie Kuhn, I read and heard several accounts that described the former commissioner as a pompous stuffed shirt who often seemed stiff and uncomfortable. Well, that was never my experience with Kuhn. I talked to him several times during my years at the Hall of Fame, including an interview that I conducted in front of an appreciative crowd in the Hall’s Bullpen Theater. The former commissioner struck me as thoughtful and well spoken, even charming at times. He took an interest in my work at the Hall of Fame, which is not always the case with guest speakers who come to Cooperstown. I once gave him a ride from the Otesaga Hotel to the Hall of Fame; he was gracious and open during our conversation, and grateful for having saved him from a long walk.
After talking to Kuhn for awhile, it became obvious that he was both a fan of the game and a believer in old-school values. Those are two characteristics that rank highly with me. He was also knowledgeable about the Negro Leagues, having attended games at old Griffith Stadium in Washington. He had a real interest in preserving baseball history, which motivated him to donate his collection of papers from his days in baseball’s front office. He wasn’t just a suit who held the office of commissioner while waiting for something better to come around. This was a man who had a genuine love for the game, and took pride in trying to defend some of its values.

Still, as a commissioner, Kuhn was far from perfect. He made his share of mistakes, which the media of the seventies and eighties usually portrayed in earnest. His legacy was mixed, with some obvious failures, some more subtle successes, and a nearly endless supply of controversy and conflict. But I think it’s safe to say that he was a very important and significant commissioner, a man who presided over the game at a time when it faced major upheaval because of labor issues, drug problems, expansion, the growth of television, and the presence of strong personalities in both ownership and the union. Rather than skirt these issues, he usually faced them, sometimes for good and other times for bad. In writing a complete history of baseball, I think that an author would have to devote at least one chapter to the reign of Bowie Kuhn.

(more…)

By Will Weiss
Bronx Banter Correspondent

Since watching the Yankees is no longer my job, I, like many of you, resorted to DVRing the game and watching a three-hour telecast in 12 minutes. However, I did watch all the Geico caveman commercials. They kill me. (Non sequitur alert: I read where ABC is planning a pilot based on the Geico Cavemen. Can cavemen hurdle sharks?)

Back to the point of this bonus entry…What do we make of the Opening Day coverage? As of this writing, the papers hadn’t updated their Web sites to reflect postgame coverage, save for the AP recaps, and Opening Day blogs from Newsday and the Star-Ledger.

My commentary here is a brief scan of the highlights and lowlights of the Opening Day TV, and cyberspace.

TV
* YES’ telecast started well enough, until the question “How do you follow the Yankees from Iraq” was asked to some soldiers in attendance. As for the Cory Lidle factor, it would have been easy to overplay the emotions of the first-pitch ceremony, with Lidle’s wife, Melanie, and son Christopher, throwing out the first pitch. The subtle route was the way to go. The look on Jason Giambi’s face conveyed everything.

* I don’t have the broadcaster lineup taped above my desk anymore, but I’d guess the trio of Kay, Singleton and Girardi will be a common and formidable one throughout the season. Bobby Murcer’s third-inning appearance was a welcome sight. And he sounds as healthy as ever.

* Expect more gems from Joe Girardi like this postgame nugget: “Pavano needs to make adjustments the third time through the order, because the Devil Ray hitters adjusted to him.”

* New feature: Text messaging for the player of the game.

* Oops: YES misspelled Carl Crawford’s last name as he strode to the plate for his at-bat in the top of the seventh. It’s Opening Day for everyone. The Yankees got away with three errors, right?

* I’d have more on ESPN, but I couldn’t stay up for the 1 a.m. Baseball Tonight. Florida’s win dominated Sportscenter for the last hour.

(more…)

By Emma Span

It’s a long subway ride from my apartment in Brooklyn to Yankee Stadium, but I usually enjoy the trip uptown. By the time you pass Grand Central, the train is packed, and almost everyone is wearing Yankee gear and talking baseball. I remember being on the 4 train a few years ago, when a young businessman casually turned to his friend and asked, “So, how many innings do you think Kevin Brown will go tonight?” At which point literally half the subway car turned around – young and old, black and white and hispanic, Christian and Jew — and offered opinions ranging from one to four. Yesterday, I sat next to two college-age girls who rode through most of Manhattan lamenting the fact that Carl Pavano, who should be so hot, has sucked too much to crush on. (But, they agreed, it’s going to be okay: Andy Pettitte is back).

In that same vein, while the view could be better, you absolutely cannot beat the Yankee Stadium bleachers for color commentary. They’re a testament to the diversity of this city’s residents – and, also, to their remarkable and ceaseless innovation in the field of smuggling booze past stringent security. The bleacher experience is only as good as your neighbors, though, so I lucked out yesterday when, deep in the left field side, I found myself sitting in front of Statler and Waldorf.

(more…)

(more…)

The 2007 season couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start for Alex Rodriguez. With Carl Crawford on third and two outs in the top of the first, Ty Wigginton hit a foul pop up to the left side. Battling a grey sky and some swirling winds, Rodriguez had to loop around Crawford and come nearly two thirds of the way toward home plate to catch the ball. Meanwhile, Jorge Posada and Carl Pavano stood in place despite the fact that Rodriguez, though in hot pursuit, was not calling for the ball (after the game, Joe Torre said it was the catcher’s ball to catch). Rodriguez, for all of the misconceptions about his performance, is indeed awful at catching pop ups. While broadcasting the west coast tilt between the Angels and Rangers on ESPN, Orel Hershiser, who was the Rangers’ pitching coach while Rodriguez was in Texas, said pop ups are kryptonite to Rodriguez’s Superman. At the last second, the ball swirled back behind Rodriguez, who at that point had clearly overrun it and could only make a pathetic backwards stab at it as it fell untouched on the opening day logo painted outside the third base foul line. Rodriguez’s momentum carried him past Posada, who gave him an encouraging pat on the backside, and Pavano retired Wigginton two pitches later on a comebacker, but Rodriguez was nonetheless charged with an error.

(more…)

The Arizona Diamonbacks and Milwaukee Brewers, two teams that had losing records in 2006, are considered contenders entering the 2007 season. There’s reason to believe that the Colorado Rockies, who finished 2006 with the exact same record as the Diamondbacks, could surprise some people as well. Over in the American League, the two teams that lost 100 or more games last year, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Kansas City Royals, are two of the teams that intrigue me most entering the 2007 season. Not because I think they’ll contend like that NL trio, none of which lost 90 games last year, not even because I think they’ll be particularly good, but because I think they’ll be better, and better for rather compelling reasons.

(more…)

By Will Weiss
Bronx Banter Correspondent

“Rupert Murdoch should cut me a check for all the papers I’ve helped him sell.”
— Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestley, in The Devil Wears Prada

Sure, the above quote can be applied to Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or Brangelina. But since the lead-in to the only display of humanness Meryl Streep shows in the film refers to “another divorce splashed across Page Six,” let’s figure that someone named Steinbrenner was muttering something similar this past week.

The marriage of Steve Swindal and Jennifer (Steinbrenner) Swindal is over, and as a result, Swindal is out as a general partner of the Yankees. The ascent of the top son-in-law is no more. It has ceased to be. Let the race for the New Boss begin.

Just about every angle of this story was examined: reporters and columnists from all the local papers raised the question Swindal’s replacement. Every beat reporter I read rightly mentioned the effect of Swindal’s ouster on Brian Cashman and Joe Torre – it was Swindal who twice convinced Joe Torre to come back, and helped negotiate Cashman’s return and increased the GM’s decision-making power. In his solid Thursday report, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times intuited that Steinbrenner’s other son-in-law, Felix Lopez, could jump to the forefront. Daily News columnist Bill Madden carried this further in his Friday column, writing that Lopez has become more of a fixture on the operations side “to the dismay of the other three siblings.” The Times’ Richard Sandomir wondered which of Steinbrenner’s two sons, Hal or Hank, would take over should the Patriarch look in their direction. Sandomir’s colleague Harvey Araton called for a shift in philosophy and wondered why neither of Steinbrenner’s daughters would be considered to run the team instead of the sons. In addition, Swindal’s DUI arrest and questions of what would become of his shares of the team as a result of the divorce were smartly asked; and notes and quotes from Swindal’s other business associates at Excelsior Racing regarding his group’s bid to buy the thoroughbred franchise completed the coverage.

The Swindal situation provided fodder for the talkies, of course. To be expected, there was a hint of melodrama in their reactions and in their projections regarding the future of the Yankees’ front-office hierarchy. Overall, the mainstreamers did pretty well in keeping things on the level and not going overboard with the tabloid potential of the story.

Reading so many versions of the same story – particularly one like this – is fascinating. Not only is it fun to see the range of sources the writers interview from a competitive standpoint, from a straight writing perspective, it was amazing to see how many different ways the question, “Who will benefit from nepotism as it relates to the Yankees, and when will a decision be made,” was presented.

Per your requests from last week, I turn to the blogosphere for info and insight the mainstream didn’t provide. Derek Jacques, the esteemed proprietor of The Weblog That Derek Built, put it best:

“As someone who was until recently in the marital strife industry, I’m sensitive toward what Steve Swindal and Jennifer Steinbrenner must be going through. The end of a marriage is a real human tragedy, also something truly private and really not the business of anyone outside of the couple and perhaps their immediate family, friends, and business partners.

“But as a Yankee fan, I just gotta look at Swindal and say ‘You jerk! We were counting on you! You had it all in the palm of your hand and you blew it, just completely and totally blew it!'”

(more…)

I made another appearance on Yankee Fan Club Radio last night. At the 20:23 mark here you can hear me weigh in on Josh Phelps, Carl Pavano, the bullpen, Steve Swindal, Alex Rodriguez’s opt-out clause, and make some very off-the-cuff predictions (or rather dodge doing so). My segment lasts roughly twenty minutes.

That’s the Yankees’ final spring record after going 0-1-1 against the Tigers in their final two exhibition games. Since the 25-man roster was set in advance of those games (posted again below the fold for those who missed it), I won’t bother with my usual game wrap, instead, here are some items of interest from the final two days of Yankee camp:

• Kei Igawa allowed three runs on six hits and no walks (though he did hit a batter) while striking out three and needing just 72 pitches to get through six innings in his final start of the spring yesterday.
• Andy Pettitte threw 66 pitches over four innings against the Blue Jays’ double-A team on Friday allowing four runs on seven hits and a walk while striking out three. Pettitte said he was “good and gassed” at the end of the outing, his first game action in two weeks. Pettitte hasn’t had any continuing back pain, but team trainers have told him not to run between starts just yet, which, in addition to a simple lack of work, is partially to blame for his lack of stamina. He’ll likely pitch no more than five innings on Wednesday, though with Tuesday’s off-day, he’ll yield to a fully-rested bullpen.
• Mike Mussina needed just 71 pitches to hold the Blue Jays’ triple-A squad scoreless over seven innings on Friday. He allowed just four hits and struck out five.
• Kyle Farnsworth, Scott Proctor, Luis Vizcaino, and Mariano Rivera each threw a scoreless inning. Farnsworth allowed the only hit, Rivera the only walk, each struck out one save for Rivera who struck out two.
• After finding out he had made the team, Brian Bruney went out and gave up three runs on three hits in his lone inning of work on Friday (though he didn’t walk anyone either).
• In yesterday’s game, Johnny Damon went 2 for 2 with a triple, Josh Phelps hit his fourth home run of the spring, and Wil Nieves went 2 for 2 with a pair of singles.
• Andy Phillips has cleared waivers and will open the season with triple-A Scranton. He played all of Friday’s game at second base going 1 for 4 with a run scored.
• No decision yet from Ron Villone regarding accepting a minor league assignment from the Yankees. If he does accept, he’ll have another opportunity to opt out of his contract if he is not called up by the end of April.
• Humberto Sanchez and Jose Veras have both been placed on the major league 15-day disabled list. Sanchez will stay in extended spring training to continue his rehab from the elbow soreness that kept him out of action all spring. Veras is recovering from surgery to have a bone spur removed from his pitching elbow and is expected to miss two to three months.

(more…)

Tom Verducci has a wonderful piece in the current issue of SI about his experience working as an umpire during a spring training game between the Red Sox and Orioles last week.  The good folks at SI.com saw fit to posting it on the web.  Verducci also has a follow-up column, filled with insights, also at SI.com.  The best part of Verducci’s experiment is that is illustrates just how difficult umpiring is, and how seriously the men in blue take their profession.  It also drives home just how good major league players are.  

From the magazine article:

The baseball we hold dear is a benign, leisurely sport, a "noncontact" pursuit in which we cherish its sweetly proportioned empty spaces. The interlude between pitches. The flanks in the alignment of fielders. The 90 feet between bases. The flight of a thrown or batted baseball offers elegant interruption to the spatial symmetry.

Working from the interior of the infield, however, reveals the power and speed of the game. It’s the difference between observing a funnel cloud from a safe distance on the ground and flying a research plane into the vortex of a tornado. "I tell all the young umpires that come up from the minors, ‘Expect a close play every time,’" says Tim Tschida, 46, my crew chief who is working home plate this game. "[The play’s] only routine here after it’s over. That ball three steps to the right of the shortstop? They don’t get to that ball in the minors and here they might throw the guy out. Middle infielders get to more balls up the middle that minor leaguers would never get to — and not only get to them, but turn them into double plays. I tell the young guys, ‘Don’t give up on anything.’"

From the on-line column:

Star players don’t get their own strike zone.

Said umpire Sam Holbrook, "When I was a rookie umpire in ’98 in the National League, we had interleague play down in Florida. Wade Boggs comes to bat, and the pitcher throws it 92 miles an hour right down the gut. I call it a strike.

"Wade steps back and starts to turn around. I’m thinking, What’s he possibly going to bitch about? He says, ‘Sam, do me a favor. Can you check that ball. I think it’s got a little smudge mark.’

"’Sure,’ I say. The guy throws it in. I look at it and there’s this tiny dot about that big [a quarter-inch] that he saw on a baseball going 92 miles an hour. I said, ‘Holy smokes.’ It just shows you how good the really good ones are."

Said Culbreth, "It’s a myth, this idea that, ‘Do you give Wade Boggs pitches? Because it looks like you do.’ No. Wade Boggs takes pitches because he knows what they are.

"It’s like Greg Maddux. It’s not that we’re giving him that outside pitch. It’s that he never stops throwing out there. If a guy throws a hundred pitches out there and another guy throws 10, it’s always going to appear that this guy is getting the outside."

My father used to ask me what the hardest position in baseball was.  I would say, "Catcher?"  He shook his head.  "Shortstop?"  No.  "The umpire."  I always thought that was funny coming from my dad, who loved to defy authority.  On the other hand, he also had an appreciation for order and rules (maybe he only liked to buck the rules he didn’t like).  The film director Bernardo Bertolucci used to say he’d never work with a film editor if the editor ever won an award for cutting one of his films.  Good editing means that you don’t notice it.  Same as umpiring: you only notice when they screw up. 

Now, I love to curse at umps as much as the next guy, especially the arrogant ones, but after reading Verducci’s story, I will remember not only how hard their jobs are, but how well they perform them.