After Game One of the ALDS, I was riding home on the subway when I ran into a charming couple. They were both wearing Chien-Ming Wang shirts and in no time we got to chatting. They are originally for Tawain but met at Syracuse University. They now live in California and were on the East Coast for a week. First, to see Wang pitch, then to return to Syracuse to get married. Just the two of them (they will have a ceremony for their families back home at a later date). Anyhow, Jason and Ann were absolutely delightful, friendly and warm, and when I told them that I had recently gotten engaged myself, they just lit up and insisted I take a picture with them. I agreed only if they promised to send me a photo of their wedding. Dig it (and forgive the bounciness of the subway):

Now for the real scoop:

Jason and Ann, who is cooler than you? Here’s wishing you a long and happy life together. (And yo, if you catch this, e-mail me again, I lost your address.)

Rick Cerrone, the Yankees head of media relations (not the former Yankee catcher), will not be back next season. Jason Giambi had surgery yesterday, with Andy Phillips and Randy Johnson up next.

Holy Smokes, that was a great game. Well, the sun will come out tomorrow, as they say. But it’s gray and raining in New York this morning. My condolences to the many fine Met fans around town, and my congrats to Cardinal fans everywhere.

Game 7 tonight at Shea. Let’s hope it’s a good one.

It’s a beautiful thing. Writers from both sides of tonight’s Game 7 match-up have typed words today that baseball fans of all stripes (pin and otherwise) would do well to take to heart.

From CardNilly:

The beautiful and the terrible thing about baseball is that good teams will lose a third of the time, and bad teams will win a third of the time. The only thing the players can really control is the amount and intensity of effort they pour into the game. So long as the effort is genuine, we Cardinal fans (and I think most fans everywhere) are willing to accept the result for what it is. Someone has to win, someone has to lose — all we as fans can reasonably ask for is that everyone competes as hard as he can. (Thanks to Viva El Birdos for the link)

From Deadspin‘s Will Leitch in a New York Times Op-Ed:

The frustrating beauty of baseball is that you can never trust what you’re watching. Any hitter can have a 4-for-4 day if everything breaks right; you have to build a team that ignores the daily randomness and simply compiles the raw numbers that lead to bulk wins over the course of the season. General manager Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s, innovator of the famously subversive “moneyball” method of building a roster, lamented that his approach “doesn’t work in the playoffs.” He was right, but not in the way most people understood him. It’s not that his approach in particular didn’t work; it’s that nobody’s does. It’s almost entirely luck.

Much is written by statistical analysts about “sample size” in baseball, and the playoffs are the most extreme example. If the Royals, one of the worst teams in baseball, played the American League champion Detroit Tigers in a 10-game postseason series, they’d win at least 3–probably more. A bad team beating a good team is not particularly difficult, or unusual. Yankees fans can take some solace in this. The Yankees were an outstanding team this year. In the playoffs, though, they ran into three Tigers pitchers who pitched dominant games those particular days. The Yankees didn’t lose because A-Rod wasn’t “clutch” or because Joe Torre forgot how to manage a baseball team or because the Tigers had more “heart.” They lost because the Tigers happened to win three games in a row.

It happens all the time during the regular season. We just don’t notice. Sportswriters say the Tigers “got hot at the right time,” but they weren’t saying that one week earlier, when they lost three at home to the Royals to end the season. Did the Royals just have more heart?

And finally from Alex Nelson at Mets Geek:

I know better now. One game is impossible to predict. Trends are just trends, streaks can be broken, and the mighty humbled. It’s going to come down to a coin toss.

And because of that, in my own twisted mind, it’s going to come down to everything. The umpiring. The winds at Shea. What I eat for breakfast. It may come down to the number of comments we get during the game. It could come down to Eric Simon’s Endy shirt. Or my lucky Mets cap that I started wearing on September 28th in an effort to change the team’s mojo and have worn ever since, despite ripping it off my head after Game 2 and stomping all over it.

It could come down to karma. Last week, I was sure it would, and I don’t even believe in the stuff. Heck, I don’t even really know what it is or how it works. There’s nothing like an uncontrollable situation to turn a rational being into a superstitious mess.

And here we are at Game 7. Another coin flip. Or maybe one last series of coin flips. I’m hoping for lots of “heads.”

The Cardinals broke serve in the NLCS on Tuesday night by defeating Mets ace Tom Glavine. Last night, the Mets broke back with a 4-2 win over defending NL Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter.

John Maine was inefficient, but effective, escaping a bases loaded jam in the first and stranding men on the corners in the third. Though he walked four, one was an intentional pass to Albert Pujols (2 for 3 with the walk, but neither a run scored nor driven in). Meanwhile, he struck out five in 5 1/3 innings and allowed just two first-inning hits.

On the other side of the ledger, Jose Reyes set the tone by following Maine’s first-inning Houdini act with a home run on Carpenter’s third pitch of the night. Reyes would go 3 for 4 with that homer, a pair of steals and a second run scored later in the game. Singles by Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Shawn Green increased the Mets’ lead to 2-0 in the fourth after which I, sitting high up in the stands over first base, felt the Shea Stadium upper deck sway for the first time.

I’d feel that sway again in the seventh after Paul Lo Duca followed two-out singles and stolen bases by pinch-hitter Michael Tucker and Reyes with a two-RBI single off former Met closer Braden Looper. Those two insurance runs proved to be the difference as Billy Wagner–following 2 1/3 scoreless innings from Chad Bradford, Guillermo Mota and Aaron Heilman–coughed up the only two St. Louis runs of the night in the ninth on a Juan Encarnacion single, a Scott Rolen double, and a two-out, two-RBI pinch-hit double by So Taguchi before finally getting David Eckstein to ground out to send the series to a decisive seventh game to be played in Flushing tonight.

After the Mets tied the series at 2-2, I posted a comment stating that I expected the series to go seven games, but that it looked to me like the Cardinals would ultimately prevail. My reasoning was the Mets’ lack of a viable Game 7 starter. I’m more optimistic now that the seventh game is a reality. Not having to use Darren Oliver since he threw six scoreless innings in relief of soon-to-be ex-Met Steve Trachsel in Game 3 will allow Willie Randolph to have an extra-quick hook with announced Game 7 starter Oliver Perez. Perez didn’t actually pitch all that well in Game 4, but kept the game close long enough for the Mets offense to start raking for what remains the only time this series. Should Perez start to falter tonight, Randolph should have no qualms about going to Oliver early, after which, it will be all-in. Only Wagner threw more than 14 pitches last night, only Bradford and Mota threw in each of the last two games, and of those two Bradford has thrown most combined pitches with a mere 21.

Of course that optimism is all dependent on the Mets breaking through against Jeff Suppan, who held them scoreless on three hits over eight innings in Game 3. But this is Jeff Suppan after all. The Mets had no problem with him back in May, the only other time they faced him this year.

A couple of other notes on attending the game last night:

Maybe I’m just bitter, but there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much negativity among Mets fans as there are among their cross-town counterparts. Even when Billy Wagner pulled his John Wetteland act in the ninth, the stadium got quiet, but no one was ranting or raving about how terrible he was or predicting the imminent demise of their team’s season. Maybe its the difference between the upper deck crowd and the bleacher creacher crowd I’m used to in the Bronx, but I can’t get through a regular season game without hearing countless predictions of failure from the Yankee “faithful” (“their gonna strand these runners” “he’s gonna hit into a double play” “why’d Torre bring him in, he’s gonna blow the lead” “here we go . . .”). Meanwhile, in the Mets first NLCS appearance in six years, down a game and facing elimination, I didn’t hear a single fan get down on the home team. You gotta believe indeed.

That said, when the Mets increased their lead to 4-0 in the bottom of the seventh, a good number of fans headed for the exits. These people should be banned from Shea for life. How can you leave Game 6 of the LCS (never mind that its the first one your team has been in in six years) after seven innings with a mere four-run lead and the top of the opposition’s line-up due up in the top of the eighth? That’s mind boggling to me. Another exodus started after Heilman cleared the one-through-four hitters in the Cardinal order in the top of the eighth. I’m sorry, if you’re at Game 6 of the LCS with your team fighting for it’s postseason life, you don’t leave until the last out, never mind the score, but especially when a grand slam could still alter the outcome.

Finally, I’m convinced that the Mets are benefiting from positive sartorial mojo. They’ve worn their alternate black uniform tops just once this postseason, that being in their ugly Game 3 loss in which Trachsel failed to get out of the second inning and the offense was shut out by Suppan and Josh Kinney. Otherwise they’ve stuck to their proper home whites and road greys. Down two games to three with their backs against the wall, what did they wear for Game 6? Pinstripes and all-blue caps, just like it oughta be. They even ditched their two-tone batting helmets for solid blue, and though it was hard to find proof, stuck with blue for their undershirts and socks as well. Kudos to the Metropolitans for that one. Now if only they’d ditch the black drop shadow and those nasty two-tone helmets and alternate unis altogether for 2007. Meanwhile, I’m hoping for those pretty blue caps and pinstripes again tonight, as well as a ballgame that lives up to the tight, well-played contests of the last two nights, regardless of the outcome.

You Gotta Believe.

There was no game last night, but plenty of action in the St. Louis press.

The first Alex Rodriguez trade rumor has sprouted up, what with Sweet Lou taking over for Dusty Baker in Chicago. Rich Lederer asks some initial questions. Also, while you are there, check out Jeff Albert’s examination of Derek Jeter’s swing.

Right on time, the Mets busted out in a rather royal way last night against the Cardinals, knotting the series at two. Nervous National League-rooting New Yorkers were finally able to get some sleep last night. In the end, I say the Metropolitans take it in seven.

Looks like Sweet Lou is about to land a new gig.

Many sympathetic observers feel that the Yankees need to trade Alex Rodriguez this off-season. But Benjamin Hoffman offers evidence that Rodriguez should stay in pinstripes.

I may be in the minority here, but for sheer entertainment value, I really miss this guy.

The Mets lost 5-0 last night and I’m sure panic has started to set in for some Met fans, what with the prospects of Oliver Perez pitching for their team tonight in what will be the biggest game of the season to date. But it’s not like the Cards are throwing Bob Gibson out there either, and my feeling is that the Mets romp in Game 4 (with Perez throwing a gem) and find a way to even this series. Meanwhile, yes, I did sleep better knowing that the Yankees weren’t the only team to get stomped by the Tigers.

The Mets lost a tough, but exciting game last night to the Cards while Kenny “The Animal” Rogers continues his improbable run as October playoff stud, bringing the Tigers within a game of the World Serious. More baseball this afternoon and tonight. Mm, mm good.

Nice trick, Smiling Jack. But can The Gambler do it twice? Game 3 of the ALCS kicks off later this afternoon in a very chilly Motor City.

I enjoy going to Artie’s Deli on the Upper West Side because the food is decent. Artie’s is a neo-old-sytle Jewish Deli (it’s only been around about a half-a-dozen years) without the neighborhood prices. I grew up on the Upper West Side, and Broadway is now littered with big chain stores–Staples, Circut City, Victoria’s Secret, Godiva. Artie’s stands out–not because the food is so terrific–but because it’s not outrageously over-priced. There is something synthetic about it, but if it doesn’t have the history of other classic Jewish deli’s like Katz’s or Ratner’s or the Carniege, it does have its heart in the right place, and it does provide some of the atmosphere you like to see in such an establishment.

I arrived early for a dinner date with a friend last night and saw that my favorite waitress was on duty. When the plump, black hostess greeted me, I pointed to the waitress, an squat, older woman who has the gruff disposition (not to mention charm) of a William Demarest character, and said, “I’m meeting a friend and want to sit in her section.” The hostess grabbed two menus and as she led me to a table said, “Are you sure you know what you are doing?” “Yeah, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

(more…)

I don’t have much of vested interest in the ALCS playoffs but am rooting for the A’s. Man, Frank Thomas just missed hitting a game-winning grand slam in the ninth inning last night. Instead he popped-out to end the game. It reminded me that when I played baseball in high school, missing a fat pitch and popping it up felt much worse than striking out. Yo, did you guys see Rodney in the eighth inning? Christmas. His change-up/fastball combo was simply devastating. And though I’ll continue to pull for Oakland, I don’t really dislike the Tigers. Heck, I predicted that The Gambler wouldn’t win another game in the post-season, but up 2-0, at home, he’s got zero pressure on him. So let me revise that: Kenny Rogers will not win any kind of pressure game this October.

Here’s a thought: how much of a boost does Pudge Rodriguez’s reputation get should the Tigers win? Yeah, he’s already a Hall of Famer, but I mean, he was just killed a few years ago when he bolted Florida for the pathetic Tigers. While there has been more than a fare share of snickering when it comes to Pudge’s svelt figure over the past two years (he was one of the lucky ones who didn’t get caught, the thinking goes), he continues to be a dangerous defensive catcher and still has some life in his bat. He’s had a ton of talented pitchers to work with in Florida and now, in Detroit, but he certainly hasn’t screwed them up. How you like me now, indeed.

As for the NLCS, I’ll be honest, deep-down, I just don’t have it in me to actively root for the Mets. I’ve tried to do it, cause they are from New York and all, but I suppose it just goes against my nature. That said, I wouldn’t be upset if they won it all as they are an exceedingly likable bunch. Not only that, but I’ve got some very dear friends that are die-hard Met fans and I would just be thrilled for them should the boys from Queens pull it out. I interviewed “the voice of the Mets” Gary Cohen the other day for SI.com. Check it out. My hunch is that we’re going to see the Mets and Tigers in the Serious. As far as match-ups go, we could certainly do worse.

ESPN is currently filming an 8-part TV movie version of Jonathan Mahler’s hugely entertaining book, “The Bronx is Burning.” Since ESPN has yet to make a credible movie, count me skeptical that this will be any different, even though gifted actors like John Turturro and Oliver Platt are featured in this one (imagine, Turturro playing both Billy Martin and Howard Cosell during his career, that’s some kind of feat). Roger Catlin, TV critic for the Hartford Courant, dropped by the film set a few days ago. Check out his write-up. The biggest sign of trouble?

The screenplay was vetted with Major League Baseball to avoid the kind of confrontation that led ESPN’s critically lauded series “Playmakers” to be canceled over objections by the NFL.

“One thing we were cognizant of was our relationship with our very valued partners,” Semiao says. But there’s nothing in “The Bronx Is Burning” that is injurious to baseball, all agreed.

Who wants to see a sanitized version of the Bronx Zoo? That’s like watching “Good Fellas” on broadcast TV. But we are talking about a Disney movie, after all. Who knows, maybe we’ll be surprised.

When the Yankees lost the 2001 World Series to the Diamondbacks there was a silver-lining to the defeat–it saved the life of utility infielder, Enrique Wilson. Had the Yankees won the Serious, Wilson would have been on the flight headed for the Dominican Republic that tragically crashed in Queens. From Buster Olney’s ‘The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty’ on the Belle Harbor crash:

The victory parade that would have taken the Yankees up New York City’s Canyon of Heroes for the fifth time in six years was canceled, so Enrique Wilson, the team’s utility infielder, decided to change his flight home. He was supposed to return to the Dominican Republic on Nov. 12, eight days after the end of the World Series, but moved up his departure a few days. He was at home when he heard that American Airlines Flight 587 – the plane he was supposed to be on – had crashed in Belle Harbor, a neighborhood in Queens. Two hundred and sixty-five people were killed in an accident that shook a city still reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

When Wilson saw Mariano Rivera in spring training the next year, the reliever expressed great relief that Wilson was still alive. If Rivera had held the lead against Arizona, Wilson would likely have been on Flight 587. “I am glad we lost the World Series,” Rivera told Wilson, “because it means that I still have a friend.” For Rivera, this was further confirmation that they were all subject to God’s will.”
(thanks to joejoejoe for providing the excerpt)

Had the Yankees managed to beat the Tigers last weekend in the ALDS, Corey Lidle would still be alive. These are just some of the thoughts that ran through my mind tonight during an intermidable commute home from Manhattan to the Bronx. I could not concentrate on reading, I did not not want to listen to music. I wished I had someone I could talk to, and I looked around for anyone wearing a Yankee cap but found nobody. I was left to my thoughts and felt very alone. When I got off the subway on 231st street, I ran for the BX 7 bus in a driving rain and just missed the damn thing. I did not have an umbrella and so I waited for more than twenty minutes in the rain, the hollow pit in my stomach now climbing up to my chest, which became tighter by the moment. A crowd of people formed but hardly anybody spoke.

It’s so interesting to see how death affects people. Before I left work this evening, there was already a good dose of gallow’s humor floating around. “I bet A Rod is to blame for this,” said one co-worker, obviously joking. Another walked past my desk and said something about how Steinbrenner always manages to steal the Mets’ thunder. I shot him a dirty look and said, “Wow, that’s messed up.” He registered my reaction and said defensively, “If you can’t laugh at life, what have you got?” Rage shot through me. What kind of insensitive jerk, I thought. Then I remembered something callous a family member said to me about the Twin Towers on the afternoon of 9.11 and was reminded that in a time of death or existential crisis there is no “right” or “proper” way to act. Some people will instinctively use humor to avoid the pain of the situation. They may say things that strike others are completely inappropriate. Really, it’s unfair to judge anyone’s reactions in these moments.

As I stared into space on the subway, I wondered why I was feeling so empty, so sad. I’ve never had any special affection for Lidle, a mouthy pitcher who seemed to have burned his fair share of bridges in different clubhouses across the big leagues. Nevertheless, he was a familiar face. Though I didn’t know him personally, we all watched him on TV, lending the illusion of intimacy. This summer, I saw Lidle in the Yankee clubhouse on several occasions, walked up the runway to the dugout right behind him on one occasion, in fact.

I was sitting in the middle of the Yankee dugout, staking out a prime seat for Joe Torre’s pre-game press conference, one late Sunday morning in August when Lidle walked past me, down to the far end of the bench, to conduct a TV interview. A middle-aged woman interviewed him, and a young camera operator with a baseball cap turned backwards, stood next to her. Lidle, an altogether average-looking man, wore a Yankee cap and a warm-up suit and held a bottle of water in his right hand as he sat on the bench and looked into the camera. The smell of freshly-cut grass permeated the air, and though the Yankees would not take batting practice on this morning (it had rained the night before), the grounds grew were busy attending to the field as the organist played a medley of pop tunes–first “Sonny,” then “I’ve got you Under My Skin,” and then “I Feel Fine.” I overheard the woman asking Lidle about being a Yankee and him saying, “One month exact.” Had he seen any Broadway shows since he’d been in town? No, he had not. “I understand you are a big poker guy,” she said, hoping to engage him. Lidle had a blank look on his face and answered her questions in a bland manner, as if he was on automatic pilot. He told her about a Texas Hold ‘Em celebrity event he hosted in the off-season. Eric Chavez, Scott Erickson, and David Wells were just some of his friends who had shown up.

The interview did not last long. After Lidle walked away, the interviewer looked disappointed. She asked her cameraman, “Did he sound O.K.? He wasn’t very talkative.”

“He could just be tired like the rest of us,” he said.

The cameraman began packing up his equipment as the organist transitioned into “I Can See Cleary.”

The first time I remember seeing my father cry when I was a boy was the day after Thurman Munson died. When they had a ceremony for Munson at Yankee Stadium, my father sat in his chair in the living room and sobbed. I was nine at the time and just couldn’t understand why he was so upset. After all, he didn’t even like the Yankees. He explained to me that sometimes it is sad when a person dies, no matter who they are, even if they did play for the Yankees. When I got older, I understood what he was telling me. But it wasn’t until my trip home on a chilly, wet, October night, that I really felt what he meant.

A small plane crashed into a high rise building on 72nd street on the east side on Manhattan this afternoon. According to reports, the plane not only belonged to Yankee pitcher Corey Lidle, but he was apparently on board and killed as well. Lidle’s passport has been recovered. There may have been another Yankee on the plane too but this is not official. (My first thought is that Lidle played high school ball with Jason Giambi.) Intial reaction here in my office brought back memories of 9.11. For Yankee fans, this tragedy also brings back thoughts of Thurman Munson who was killed in a plane crash in the summer of 1979. It is foggy, almost a bluish gray, in mid-town Manhattan and it is raining as night falls. This is absolutely stunning, terrible news.

Update

5:30 p.m. The Mayor is giving a press conference. He has not released any names. Bloomberg said that the two people on the plane were the instructor and a student with about 75 hours of flying experience. According to the Mayor, the plane was small and flimsy and that it pretty much burned-up. The crash does not seem to have caused major damage to the building. Apparently the plane took off from Teterborough airport in New Jersey, circled around the Statue of Liberty a few times and then headed up the East River. Radar lost contact with it around the 59th Street Bridge. They still do not know why it turned toward Manhattan Island at 72nd street.

Last month, Tyler Kepner wrote an article about Lidle’s interest in flying for the New York Times:

He earned his pilot’s license last off-season and bought a four-seat airplane for $187,000. It is a Cirrus SR20, built in 2002, with fewer than 400 hours in the air.

A player-pilot is still a sensitive topic for the Yankees, whose captain, Thurman Munson, was killed in the crash of a plane he was flying in 1979. Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, said his plane was safe.

“The whole plane has a parachute on it,” Lidle said. “Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you’re up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the whole plane goes down slowly.”

Tyler Stanger, Lidle’s flight instructor told Kepner:

“He was probably my best student,” Stanger said in a telephone interview. “He learned very, very quickly, and a lot of it is desire. He had huge desire.

“Really, anyone can learn how to fly. If you can drive a bus, you can fly an airplane. But to learn quickly takes money and time. Of course, Cory had plenty of money, and it was the off-season, so he had the time.”

…”On the mound, he has to hold in all the emotions and keep completely focused. It’s the same thing flying: If you’re in an emergency, you can’t waste any time worrying. You have to take command of the situation. A lot of people I fly with don’t have that mentality. Cory does.”

Chilling.

“You never complain about pressure because you understand it goes with what you do,” Torre said yesterday at a news conference at Yankee Stadium. “With the danger of failing is the elation of winning. You can’t get elated unless there’s a danger.”

Joe Torre was sharply dressed yesterday as he addressed the media at Yankee Stadium. His wife, Ali, was with him. After talking to several people about the situation, and then reading the papers this morning, it occurs to me that Torre needs the job as Yankee manager as much as they need him. Perhaps even more so. With two ex-wives, four kids, and more than a few houses to maintain, Torre was simply not going to walk away from $7 million. But it is more than that, of course. Torre will be paid handsomely (if not quite as handsomely) as a TV analyst and a regular on the lecture circut when he finally hangs up the spikes, but he’ll never have the prestige and glamour that he currently enjoys as the manager of the Yankees.

That is a lot to give up and Torre is obviously willing to allow himself to be left hung-out-to-dry for several days by the owner as the local media speculated wildly about his future. In the past he has put-up with being second-guessed by his owner, and allowed Steinbrenner to trash his coaches, stuff Buck Showalter would not put up with (you can see Lou Piniella telling George to take-this-job-and-shove-it if he had been in the same situation as Torre was this week). Of course, the Boss at 76 is different from the man who ran the team by fear and intimidation in the 70s and 80s, and Torre has achieved far more success than any manager George had before him. Still, I can’t help but feel how much the job matters to Torre, and am struck by how much he’ll deal with in order to keep the position.

The other thing that struck me was the following passage from Tyler Kepner’s coverage today in the Times:

“The interesting part is, when you say it’s been six years, if I’m not mistaken, it was 18 years when I got here,” Torre said. “And then in ’98, it was: ‘Hey, it’s been two years since you won. What happened?’ There’s a lot of luck involved.

“I don’t want you to think I’m backing off any accountability. I’m in charge here, it’s my responsibility to make sure we get the job done, and we didn’t get the job done. But there’s a lot of luck.”

For all the talk of the character and guts and will that the ’96-’01 Yankees had when compared with the ’02-’06 teams, some observers believe that the critical difference between the two is nothing more than pure luck. And here is Torre saying as much himself. He should know. Torre’s monumentally bad luck for most of his career as a player and as a manager has been well-documented. Then he enjoyed one of the most improbable runs of luck, good fortune, whatever you want to call it, that any manager in baseball has ever been blessed with (certainly in the free agent era). Now, he returns to the hot seat once again, hoping to roll a lucky seven one more time before the ride is finally over.

Eastward Ho, boys.