The Red Sox beat the Yanks in another wild one at the Fens. I thought Randy Johnson looked decent, in spite of giving up three dingers (Payton, Renteria, and Varitek). But it was not one of his best performances. Bronson Arroyo wasn’t as sharp and the Yankees squandered more than their fair share of scoring opportunities. In the ninth inning, representing the tying run, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi both fouled back two pitches that they just missed. So close and yet…bubkus. Rodriguez had a bloop RBI single, but otherwise had a poor night at the plate. What Johnson and Arroyo (and both teams) had in common were their feelings about home plate umpire Greg Gibson’s strike zone. Gibson had an erratic night calling balls and strikes, but he was equally bad for both teams. Johnson glared in at him on several occasions while Ron Jackson and Terry Francona both got tossed arguing with Gibson.

With the game tied at five, Tom Gordon gave up the lead in the eighth inning. The Sox scored three times and survived a shaky ninth-inning performance from Keith Foulke to secure the victory. But the most talked-about play of the game came in the bottom of the eighth when Jason Varitek’s triple skipped along the right field warning track. Gary Sheffield went to field the ball and was inadvertantly slapped in the face by a fan. It appeared as if the fan was going for the ball, although he didn’t bend down nearly low enough to grab it. It certainly didn’t look as if the fan was intentionally trying to hit Sheffield. He only grazed the Yankee right fielder, but, caught by surprise, Sheffield immediately extended his glove hand into the fan’s face, throwing a punch with his right hand into his mitt. He held himself back after that. Sheffield didn’t jump into the stands. Later on, he said that he immediately thought about the infamous Pacers-Pistons brawl, and that’s exactly what came to my mind as well. As a matter of fact, when that basketball fight went down last fall, all I could think about was that this kind of thing is so ripe to happen at a Yankee-Sox game.

Fortunately, it didn’t escalate. I don’t blame Sheffield for reacting, though he will most likely be fined for lunging at the fan. I can understand that too. (For what it’s worth, the Red Sox thought Sheffield showed restraint.) Again, I don’t think the fan was trying to hit Sheffield. However, he was in the field of play, interrupting a play, and there is no question in my mind that the fan was in the wrong. The incident will overshadow the rest of the game, which is too bad.

I think the Yankees and Red Sox have brought out the best in each other on the field (with a few notable exceptions) during the past two seasons. However, the rivalry has also brought out the worst in Red Sox and Yankee fans. After watching highlights of the soccer match in Italy last week, I just hope that something tragic doesn’t happen one of these days.

Was Bernie Williams was of the most unlikely clean up hitters in Yankee history? He sure didn’t seem born for the part even though he was the Bomber’s best hitter from 1996-01. Now, that he’s well past his prime, is he one of the most over-qualified ninth-place hitters in team history? Maybe. But he handled batting last in stride on Wednesday night, going 3-4. He didn’t give his manager any trouble about the “demotion” either. According to the Times:

“Bernie is unlike any player I have ever met,” Torre said after the Yankees’ 5-2 victory Wednesday night. “He never changes. I’ve been here 10 years now and he’s the same person, personality-wise and respect-wise. It’s refreshing. You hurt for him because you know he’s struggling and he has his pride and is taking a beating. But he keeps coming back and that’s what makes him special.”

…”I’m not making this up – it doesn’t really matter to me,” Williams said before the game. “You have to wait a little longer. But it’s kind of an advantage, because you see the guy pitch to everyone. Other than that, it doesn’t matter.”

Some guys would take the high road just to save face. But I take Bernie at his word. Regardless of how this year pans out for him, Torre’s quote reminded me why Bernie is one of my all-time favorites.

Last night, the Yankees won a gem of a ballgame in Fenway that pressed all the right buttons for a Yankee team that seemed to be on the verge of a slump.

With Curt Schilling coming off the disabled list, Jaret Wright coming off a disaster start against Baltimore, and the Red Sox coming off an 8-1 win over the Yankees in their celebratory home opener on Monday, everything seemed to be leaning the Red Sox way.

In the early going it stayed that way. Schilling looked dominant, while Wright appeared to be hanging on by his teeth. Schilling struck out four while allowing just two hits in the first three innings. Then Wright–who stranded runners at the corners in the first, and pitched around a lead-off single in the second–got himself into an awful mess in the bottom of the third.

He went to a full count on the first two batters, getting Ramon Vazquez (starting at second for Mark Bellhorn) to groundout before yielding a double to Johnny Damon. He then walked Trot Nixon and Manny Ramirez on five pitches each to load the bases. That brought David Ortiz to the plate with one out. Wright promptly fell behind Ortiz 3-1, who was 5 for 10 lifetime against him coming into the game. Miraculously, Wright got Ortiz to lift a mere sac fly to left. He then walked Kevin Millar to re-load the bases and fell behind Edgar Renteria 2-0 only to get him to ground to short on the 2-1 pitch to end the inning.

Despite struggling through the heart of the Red Sox order, walking three men and allowing a double to another, Wright escaped down just 1-0. He then settled down in the fourth, pitching around another lead-off single by racking up his only two strikeouts of the game.

In the fifth, the Yankees finally got to Schilling. After Jason Giambi reached on an infield single into the shift, Tino Martinez followed with a booming ground rule double that bounded into the Boston bullpen, pushing Giambi to third. After a Bernie fly out to shallow left, Tony Womack drew his third walk of the season (more on this later)–after falling behind Schilling 0-2, no less. That loaded the bases. Jeter then singled Giambi home, keeping the bags juiced, and Gary Sheffield followed with a sac fly to center that put the Yankees ahead 2-1.

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Like most Yankee fans, I have a special feeling for the Joe Torre teams of 96-01. But I’m not one to constantly compare every subsequent Yankee team to those squads. It just doesn’t interest me. However, I was reminded of how winning they were when I wandered across Roger Angell’s 1996 piece, “One for the Good Guys,” last night:

The burden of [the] relentless and irrelevant P.R. during the Yankees’ long struggles to regain their October form can at last be thrown aside–what a load it was!–and we are free to celebrate the new champions not for what they represented but for what they were: a competent though far from overpowering amalgam of engaging young stars and gritty hired guns who absolutely enjoyed themselves and each other during a succession of hairbreadth escapes in the late going, and were almost as entranced as the rest of us when they won. The Yankees–who’d have thought it–had become lovable.

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“They won…For the respect of baseball and for the respect of the Red Sox organization, you’ve got to be there. After 86 years, I think they deserved to win one. And why not celebrate it as (much) as they could? That’s okay. I have no problem with that.” Mariano Rivera (N.Y.Daily News)

As good as Opening Day in the Bronx felt for Yankee fans, yesterday’s home opener at Fenway Park was even sweeter for Red Sox Nation. The Sox received their World Serious rings before the game and then proceeded to knock the stuffing out of the Yanks. Mike Mussina was not sharp, Alex Rodriguez made a key error, and Tim Wakefield baffled New York once again.

For their part, the Yankees watched the pre-game ceremonies from their dugout, applauding at times. The gesture didn’t go unnoticed by the Red Sox. The Bombers clapped when Johnny Pesky was given a ring. According to Mike Lupica:

The Yankees were all class yesterday, led by their classy manager, right there on the top step for every minute of the ring ceremony yesterday, and the raising of the flag. When Terry Francona came out first to get his ring, he stood near first base and the first thing he did was point across the field at the Yankees. “We were curious,” Torre said. And maybe, just maybe, for this one day, everybody on the field, both sides of it, both uniforms, knew what Pesky has known his baseball life, long before the sides were even, about why this rivalry has always mattered the way it has.

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Today is the Red Sox home opener. Yankee-killer Tim Wakefield goes against Mike Mussina. Red Sox Nation will be loud and proud this afternoon (Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi should get the worst of it). They deserve to feel good about themselves. While there is nothing the Yankees can do to ruin the ring ceremony, hopefully they can spoil the rest of the day and pull out a win.

It was a gorgeous spring weekend here in New York, and my girlfriend Emily and I watched portions of all three Yankee games. She is very happy that baseball is back in our lives. As the season moves along, I will occasionally quote my sweetheart, who couldn’t have cared less about the game before we started going out three years ago. Now, all on her own, and without any coercion on my part, she’s a bonafide fan. What I enjoy about following the game with her is watching what she reacts to, what is important to her. Often, the final score doesn’t bother her one way or the other. The worst part of a Yankee loss is how it will bother me. She doesn’t get emotionally involved when they don’t win. So long as are trying the best that they can, she’s satisfied. Her biggest pet peeve right now is when fans stick their hands out and attempt to snatch a double down the right or left field line. “They should be thrown out for ruining the play,” she opines.

Em’s favorite part of the game are the first couple of innings. She gets upset in the late innings because it means the game is almost over. I’ve never really understood this, because I’m generally impatient during the early innings. But she explained herself to me on Saturday afternoon. “The first four innings are great. They are like the feeling you get on Friday night. The week is over and you’ve got the entire weekend ahead of you. Then, like the fifth and sixth innings are like Saturday, and so that’s still pretty good. But when the eigth inning comes around, it’s like Sunday night, and it gets tense, cause you are thinking about the week coming up.”

“What about when the game goes into extra innings?”

“That’s like Sunday night when you’ve got a test the next day…one that you didn’t study for.”

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Key moment’s from Sunday’s 7-2 Yankee loss to the Orioles:

• Torre’s lineup: Joe Torre impresses by giving Bubba Crosby the start in center field. Bubba goes 1 for 3 with seven putouts, catching everything hit near him and firing off an impressive throw to home on a failed attempt to nail Palmeiro scoring in the second. Joe Torre also confounds by not only starting Ruben Seirra over Tino Martinez, thus forcing Giambi into the field where his defense is exploited by the Orioles, but batting Sierra fifth with Jorge Posada hitting seventh. Posada goes 2 for 4 with an RBI single and a should-have-been double. Sierra goes 0 for 3 with a ninth inning walk and a run scored.
• Top 2nd: Following a one-out single, Rafael Palmeiro, who has 11 stolen bases in the last six years, steals second on Carl Pavano. He’s later driven in by a two-out single by Jay Gibbons.
• Top 3rd: Jason Giambi made a great play on a Brian Roberts liner in the top of the first, and now Roberts makes him pay by bunting to him for a base hit. Melvin Mora then hits a foul pop back by the tarp that Giambi loses in the sun. On the next pitch, Mora lines a shot off Pavano’s right temple for a base hit, putting runners at the corners and sending Pavano to the hospital with a mild concussion.
• Top 5th: With Paul Quantrill on in relief of Tanyon Sturtze, who had gone nine regular season appearances without giving up a run before allowing three on this day, the Orioles have the bases loaded and one out. Jay Gibbons lifts a fly out to Gary Sheffield in medium right field and Miguel Tejada decides to tag and come home. Sheffield fires a strike to home plate in plenty of time to catch Tejada but, as is his wont, Posada catches the ball on the first-base side of home instead of on top of it and misses Tejada, who comes in with a nice evasive head-first slide, when lunging back for the tag. Here’s hoping Joe Girardi had a few words with Posada about this play.

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The Yankees got back at the Orioles today, winning 8-5, but it wasn’t Randy Johnson that allowed the Yanks and their fans to forget about last night’s drubbing. Rather it was a five-run seventh inning at the expense of the Oriole bullpen that saved Johnson from what would have been his first loss as a Yankee.

Johnson pitched well, throwing 66 of 100 pitches for strikes, but couldn’t get the job done in the fourth inning. With the score even at 1-1, Javy Lopez lead off the fourth with a double deep in the gap in left that fell in front of the 399 foot sign, a shot that likely would have been a homer in Camden Yards. B.J. Surhoff–the lone lefty in an Oriole lineup that included Lopez at DH, Geronimo Gil behind the plate, and Chris Gomez at first–followed with a single to put runners at the corners. Frustrated, Johnson then started Luis Matos off with a wicked slider that broke under the strike zone and hit the Baltimore centerfielder in the left foot. Matos crumbled to his knees in pain. For a second I thought his foot had been broken, but he turned out to be fine and trotted to first to load the bases. Johnson then fell behind Gomez 3-0 on a couple of borderline pitches on the outside corner (his second pitch looked like a clear strike to me) before walking him on five pitches, forcing Lopez home. 2-1 O’s. Gil followed with a single to plate Surhoff and keep the bases loaded. 3-1 O’s still no outs.

Then Randy got serious. He struckout Brian Roberts, who fouled off three pitches before going down. Then he struckout Melvin Mora on three pitches. All that stood between him and escape was Miguel Tejada, but Tejada, in a great piece of hitting, cracked Johnson’s first pitch the other way for a clean single to right, driving home Matos and Gomez. Finally Sammy Sosa flew out to Sheffield to end the inning. 5-1 Orioles.

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The Yanks got tooled by the O’s last night. Just generally manhandled. Jaret Wright, by his own admission, had nothing. An off night that resulted in 6 runs on 8 hits in four innings (though his 4/1 K/BB ratio and 62 percent strikes were solid).

The bullpen didn’t fare much better with Steve Karsay bombing in his first appearance of the season. Karsay actually did a decent job coming in, striking out Sammy Sosa with runners on second and third and no outs and allowing just a sac fly before escaping the inning. In the next frame, however, he gave up three straight hits, including a Luis Matos triple, and was yanked before recording an out. Paul Quantrill then made his 2005 debut, allowing a run (plus a runner inherited from Karsay to score) on three hits (all singles) and a balk in two innings of work. Felix Rodriguez uncorked his second wild pitch in as many outings this season (this one ruled a passed ball on John Flaherty) and also hit Sammy Sosa in the process of giving up a run on two hits in 2/3 innings. Mike Stanton cleaned up Felix II’s mess with one pitch in the eighth, but then gave up a run of his own on two hits in the ninth, one of them a triple by the en fuego Brian Roberts.

The offense only did moderately better. Derek Jeter is officially on fire, going 3 for 3 with two walks he’s 7 for 14 with a .650 OBP in the Yankee’s four games. Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui both crushed deeep homers, Sheffield a two-run jobby into Monument Park. Matsui’s, coming in the ninth inning, was an absolute bomb, way back into the centerfield part right field bleachers. Tino and Jason Giambi both went 1 for 3 with a walk each.

John Flaherty got the start at catcher last night to save Posada from the day game after night game thang, allowing Jorge to catch Randy today. Flaherty went 1 for 3 with a walk. In the ninth inning, Joe Torre emptied his bench, giving Rey Sanchez another inning in the field and Ruben Sierra pinch-hit at-bat (he struckout). He also got Andy Phillips his first game action, putting Our Hero in for Tino at first. In addition, Bubba Crosby got his first at-bat . . . against left-handed Orioles closer B.J. Ryan . . . against whom lefties have hit .156/.255/.248 (.177 GPA) in 302 at-bats over the past three seasons. Poor Bubba looked utterly bewildered at the plate missing badly on three straight pitches after a first-pitch ball. That was the last out of the game. Andy Phillips was on-deck.

Today Randy Johnson helps us forget last night. Lefty journyman Bruce Chen takes the mound for the O’s. Think Joe might start Andy Phillips in place of Tino, Jason or Tony Womack? Yeah, me neither.

Carlos Lugo interviewed the great Juan Marichal earlier this week over at Baseball Prospectus. Here’s one bit that may be of some interest to Yankee fans:

If you’re a starter, try to study or learn about the opposing hitters and follow your preparation routines between starts almost religiously. The same thing for the relief pitchers, although they must be prepared to do this on an everyday basis. If you have a good fastball, try to learn and develop a second effective pitch. It is almost impossible to be successful in the big leagues with just one pitch. Maybe a Mariano Rivera or a guy like him. I’ll tell you something, one of the most effective pitches in baseball is the change-up, and the changeup is one of the easiest pitches to learn. You don’t need to have a Pedro Martinez or Eric Gagne changeup to be effective. Sometimes an average change, combined with a good fastball and other average pitch, could mean a big difference in a pitcher’s performance. Also, dedicate your time to learning the art of pitching. When you can throw ninety-six or ninety-eight miles per hour, but are not able to make outs consistently, what’s the velocity good for? You need to have common sense and say to yourself, I’m going to learn to pitch.

I’m going to tell you a story. A few years ago I was in San Francisco and Orlando Cepeda and I were talking with Felix Rodriguez. I remember that Orlando told him, “Felix, when you return to the Dominican, look for Juan and he’s going to help you to learn another pitch. You’ll see that with your fastball you’re going to be one of the better closers in baseball.” Well, even though he promised to call me, I never heard from Felix or saw him again during the winter. That young man, with another good pitch, would be a phenomenon as a closer. But sometimes I guess they don’t have enough time to learn a little bit, or are not proud enough.

Or perhaps too proud. Or maybe just too stubborn.

Speaking of stubborn, ex-Yankee Hideki “Boo-Boo” Irabu is calling it a career. Irabu always cracked me up. He seemed so out-of-place on those Yankee teams. He was a genuine screw-up, but I always liked him.

It’s not surprising that everyone and his uncle has a theory about Mariano Rivera and his struggles against the Red Sox, is it? After all, sportswriters get paid for thier opinions, and sports editors must have a story. Tyler Kepner asked Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers what he makes of Boston’s success vs. Rivera:

“Every ballplayer has a certain ballpark or a certain team they have a problem with,” said Fingers, the first pitcher to save 300 games. “Mine was the Minnesota Twins and Metropolitan Stadium. When I pitched in Boston against the Red Sox, I had good luck against them. Same with the Yankees. That’s just the way baseball is sometimes.”

…”He gave up five runs [on Wednesday], but four of them were unearned,” Fingers said. “If they make the play at third base, he’s in the clubhouse with a save. I don’t think anybody should have any reason to worry about Mariano Rivera. He’s 35 years old – he’s in his prime. Just because a guy has a couple of blown games, you can’t discount the other 300 or so he’s saved.”

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Baltimore Orioles

2004 Record: 78-84 (.481)
2004 Pythagorean Record: 82-80 (.506)

Manager: Lee Mazzilli
General Manager: Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan

Ballpark (2004 park factors): Oriole Park at Camden Yards (104/103)

Who’s replacing whom?

Sammy Sosa replaces Jerry Hairston and a chunk of David Newhan
Bruce Chen takes over the starts of Eric Dubose and Matt Riley
Steve Kline replaces Buddy Groom
Steve Reed replaces Jason Grimsley and Mike DeJean
Chris Gomez replaces a long list of spare parts
Geronimo Gil replaces Robert Machado and himself

Current Roster:

1B – Jay Gibbons
2B – Brian Roberts
SS – Miguel Tejada
3B – Melvin Mora
C – Javy Lopez
RF – Sammy Sosa
CF – Luis Matos
LF – Larry Bigbie
DH – Rafael Palmeiro

Bench:

L – B.J. Surhoff (OF)
L – David Newhan (UT)
R – Chris Gomez (IF)
R – Geronimo Gil (C)

Rotation:

R – Rodrigo Lopez
R – Daniel Cabrera
L – Erik Bedard
R – Sidney Ponson
L – Bruce Chen

Bullpen:

L – B.J. Ryan
L – Steve Kline
R – Steve Reed
L – John Parrish
R – Todd Williams
R – Jorge Julio
R – Rick Bauer

DL:

R – Jason Grimsley
R – Kurt Ainsworth
L – Val Majewski (OF)

Typical Line-up

S – Brian Roberts (2B)
R – Melvin Mora (3B)
R – Miguel Tejada (SS)
R – Sammy Sosa (RF)
L – Rafael Palmeiro (DH)
R – Javy Lopez (C)
L – Jay Gibbons (1B)
R – Luis Matos (CF)
L – Larry Bigbie (LF)

There was a lot of talk going into the season that the Orioles had an outside chance to slip into second place in the east if one of the Big Two fell on particularly hard times. Most of the motivation for this comes from those infatuated with the Oriole offense. The thing is, the only change the O’s have made to their line-up since last year is the addition of Sammy Sosa, and while that would seem to be a huge upgrade, the numbers just don’t support it. Sosa replaces Jerry Hairston and takes away a significant chunk of David Newhan’s playing time. Hairston was good for 2.2 WARP (Wins Above Replacement) in 2004 and Newhan was good for 2.4. Assuming Sosa takes just half of Newhan’s 373 at-bats (which combined with Hairston’s 287 would give Sammy 473 in 2005, just five fewer than in 2004), Sosa would have to replace 3.4 wins.

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Yes, Mariano Rivera did hear the boo birds as he walked off the mound yesterday in the ninth inning. But as Cliff already noted, TV cameras showed many fans standing and clapping too (and no, they weren’t all from Boston).

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It was a beautiful day in the Bronx yesterday, or at least it was for eight innings.

Bathed in golden sunlight on a still, 67 degree day, the Yankees and Red Sox played a nice taut 3-2 game through eight. Tim Wakefield’s knuckler was dancing as he allowed just five baserunners in his 6 2/3 innings of work, facing the minimum through 3 1/3 thanks to Doug Mirabelli nabbing Derek Jeter, who had singled, as he tried to swipe third with one out in the first.

Jeter probably spent more time on base than any other Yankee during the first seven innings. In the fourth, Alex Rodriguez lifted a lazy Wakefield curve into the lower part of the black section in center for the Yankees first run. An inning later, Tino Martinez creamed a knuckler that stayed up around his shoulders into the right field seats for what remains his only hit of the season. Bernie Williams followed Tino with a five-pitch walk. Bernie remains hitless this season, but has a .308 on-base percentage thanks to four walks and a sac fly. Jason Giambi was the fifth man to reach against Wakefield, drawing a full-count walk in the seventh. Giambi has just one hit this year, but a .455 OBP thanks to one walk and three hit-by-pitches and a single.

Speaking of hit batsmen, Derek Jeter, who has now been plunked twice, was hit in the left shoulder by a Mike Timlin pitch in the eighth. The pitch actually glanced off Jeter’s shoulder and hit the bill of his batting helmet, sending Jeter to the ground in a loud and scary moment. Jeter got up and ran the bases–avenging his first-inning caught stealing by making it to third, though no further–but he was replaced in the top of the ninth by Rey Sanchez (wearing 26, despite being listed as #14 on the Yankees official site). After the game, Jeter was taken to the hospital because of a ringing in his ears. A CAT scan came back negative. There are no cats in Derek Jeter’s head.

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It’s another beautiful day in New York, even warmer than yesterday. Some kind of day to be at the ballpark. Mike Mussina will pitch for the Yankees, and Tim Wakefield goes for the Sox. Mussina has a history of pitching well against Boston (especially when Pedro was involved), and Wakefield has vexed the Bombers for years. I’m not going to be able to catch the game. Anyone watching, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

After an Opening Day blowout, today offered something more like what we’re used to seeing from the Yankees and Red Sox: a close game, decided in the final at-bat. Yankee-killer David Ortiz hit a home run (for a change), as did Red Sox-killer, Godzilla Matsui–who had three more hits today. Mariano Rivera blew a save opportunity in the ninth inning when Boston’s captain Jason Variteck slapped a line-drive homer off of a cutter that just didn’t cut (Rivera wasn’t terrible, but the Red Sox hitters are extremley comfortable in the box against him; Jim Kaat suggested a little intentional wildness could go a long way…the pitch Varitek hit was straight-as-a-string). Derek Jeter, the Yankee captain, led off the bottom of the inning and returned the favor, belting a full-count fastball over the right center field fence to win it for the New Yorkers.

Matt Clement didn’t pitch particularly well for Boston, but man, he’s got a live arm. His pitches move a lot. In addition, the ball kind of whips out of his hand at the last moment, which must be brutal for right-handed hitters to pick up. He doesn’t look like he’s fun to bat against at all. As Joe Sheehan noted over at Baseball Prospectus, Clement has the same kind of sinking fastball that has made Kevin Brown a lot of money over the years. But his control was suspect and he never quite looked comfortable. The Yankees didn’t help themselves by leaving a bunch of men on base; not surprisingly, Bernie Williams’ timing is all out-of-whack.

Clement looks very much like one of those great line drawings by David Levine. He’s got a pointy chin and a wide jaw, and has a certain birdlike quality to him. He reminds me of one of those kids that were a pain in the ass to play pick-up football with as a kid. It’s not so much that was hard to tackle because of his speed or weight, but because he’s all knees and elbow. Clement also looks very much like a boy, somewhere in the developmental ages between 8-14. He’s sporting a goatee, but I get the sense that he doesn’t know what his true style is yet. I was talking to Alex Ciepley this evening, and he said that Clement is one of the most uncomfortable players he’s ever seen.

Pavano, on the other hand, is a complete load. I keep forgetting how big the guy is. With blunt, dark features, he has a deliberate move to the plate, and a long, bulky motion. I know Bobby Valentine nicknamed him “The Italian Stallion” over the winter, but the only name I can think of when I see Pavano, is “Meat.”

Anyhow, it was a warm and sunny day in New York, the best day of the spring thus far. The final score made it even nicer.

Today marks the American League debut’s of both Carl Pavano and Matt Clement, as the Yanks and Sox play this afternoon at the stadium. It is hazy but bright and sunny this morning and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day here in New York.

Both Cliff and I felt the Yankees made an error in not signing Clement. He may be gargoyle-ugly, but he’s got “nasty stuff” as they like to say. He could very well be the key to the Red Sox season. Numbers aside, I don’t know so much from Pavano. He’s seems appealing enough, but I don’t know how effective a pitcher he is going to be for the Yanks.

Which pitcher would you rather have?

Baseball is back in the Bronx, and boy does it feel good.

Becky and I headed up to the stadium early last night. The idea was to beat the traffic, nab a choice parking spot, and hightail it to Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too in Harlem for some down home cooking before the game started. Best laid plans, you know.

We hit the road about 4:30 and didn’t have too much traffic to deal with across the GW, but our preferred parking lot was full by the time we drove by around 5:40. We eventually settled on a lot in front of a strip mall further up 161st and caught the 4 and the 2 down to Miss Mamie’s, arriving at about 6:15. After inhaling their complimentary cornbread (served too hot to touch) and devouring some fried (for me) and roasted (for Becky) chicken, mac n’ cheese, collard greens and cornbread stuffing, washing it all down with a couple of Stewart’s rootbeers and some of Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Punch, we dropped our green on the table and split for the Stadium at about 7:10.

We then waited for the 2 train for 25 minutes. You see there was some sort of watermain break in midtown and the northbound trains just weren’t running with any sort of regularity. After a 3 train finally showed up at 7:35 (we needed a 2), we bolted for the B & D two blocks across town, only to find out that we’d have to go downtown one stop to go uptown at all, and those trains weren’t exactly running on a rush hour schedule either.

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Open Thread

So Cliff and his girlfriend are sitting out there in the bleachers. It’s raining lightly here in the Bronx, but you know they are going to get this game in. Emily and I are making homemade pizza, chillin in the crib, amped for another season to commence.

For those of you who are surfing around tonight, feel free to leave your thoughts and observations in the comments section below. As Aaron Gleeman likes to say, “Happy Baseball.”

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.