Eephus Pitch

Blog Truck Day

2010-03-18T21:24:00.005-05:00

So, I've packed up and moved Eephus Pitch over to emmaspan.com. It will be much improved! If by much improved you mean "actually updated."

Come on over, and if you use an RSS reader, please update accordingly. I promise to keep the book promotion at a manageable and hopefully non-irritating level, and the funny-player-name obsession at the heights you've come to expect.

...Not Even A Centaur

2009-12-24T12:20:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, a few of my friends had people over to their apartment to help make and hang decorations for their tree. I think it came out pretty well:

...Say, what's that at the top of the tree? A star, an angel?

I can almost make it out...

Ah yes. (You can thank/curse @jasoncfry for the image). Happy Holidays from our centaur to yours!

Ranking the Yankees By Best Dog Name

2009-11-18T07:57:00.001-05:00

... That would be the title (and purpose) of my new post at Bugs & Cranks. "Melky" is #1, of course, while "Chad" came in dead last. Terrible name for a dog, Chad.

If you only read one analysis of the 2009 Yankees, don't make it this one. But if you read dozens of them, you might consider it.

This train of thought was sparked by Brian at Random House, whose own dog, Goose - as in Gossage - was once personally petted and complimented by Derek Jeter on the Upper East Side. My dog came with the name Pearl, and it suits her; but left to my own devices I might have come up with something a bit different, and quite possibly baseball-related. So it's likely for the best that I didn't get to make my own pick, or I might spend my mornings in Prospect Park calling for Bris Lord ("Human Eyeball, come! Come here, girl!").

If something exciting doesn't happen soon this offseason, I'll do the Mets next.

Almost the Only Orderly Thing in a Very Unorderly World

2009-11-05T07:30:00.005-05:00

And then there were a series of tableaux, some familiar – Jeter’s raised arms and yell, Rivera’s grin, Posada’s near-skip towards the mound – and some new: Mark Teixeira’s fiercely goofy expression as he jumped up and down, Nick Swisher tearing wide-eyed and open-mouthed towards the infield, Francisco Cervelli hopping around like a caffeinated bunny, Joe Girardi’s gaunt face an open book of anticipation and then, for just a moment, pure, unguarded happiness.

That's from my Bronx Banter writeup of last night's Yankees World Series win. I hope I did it justice - not the game, which was pleasant but not a classic, but the outcome. The last time the Yankees won the Series, I was a college sophomore - I watched the games with my Mets fan friend Dan, on my common room coach - and it had never even crossed my mind to write about baseball. Of course I understand that nine years isn't a long time, not even close, between sports championships; but in an individual life it is a pretty major chunk of time. And "time" is my theme for the day, since the Yankees clinched about 10 minutes before my birthday.

Anyway, I'll just cling to the Series for another day or two, because it's going to be a long, cold, baseball-free winter. But I'm going to keep the blog going throughout - Mets and Yankees and general baseball news, plus maybe some movie and book reviews to pass the time - and while I haven't figured out the details yet, I'm even planning to move off Blogger and onto a real site at some point in the next couple of months.

For now, though (look away, Mets fans):

One More for the Money; Also Facial Hair

2009-11-02T07:52:00.002-05:00

My writeup of last night's game is up at the Banter.

In other vitally important news (via Rob Neyer), I am quite pleased to see that Diamondbacks reliever Clay Zaveda - who also has a fine baseball name - has won the American Mustache Institute's coveted "Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year." It is well deserved. The Phillies and, especially, the Cardinals, among other teams, could learn a lot from this guy about proper facial hair technique. (Last night a friend of mine expressed the opinion, unprompted by me, that Jayson Werth "looks like a human rattail").

To summarize:

This is how it's done.

No.

No.

Absolutely not.

A THOUSAND TIMES NO.

Baseball Player Names of the Week

2009-10-30T19:40:00.005-05:00

Today's names come courtesy of valued commenter Unmoderated:

Mutz and Jewel Ens, brothers out of St. Louis, MO.

Mutz made it to the White Sox for all of 5 days in 1912, where he had zero hits and no walks in 6 plate appearances, giving him a lifetime OPS+ of -100. He also made two errors at first base, just for good measure.

His brother Jewel, younger by two years, played with Pittsburgh for parts of four seasons - 47 games in 1922, but only 3 by 1925. His batting average was .290, but his OBP was just .323, and he hit one home run in his career. The internet doesn't tell us much more than that about the Ens brothers, except that Mutz's real name was Anton, and that Jewel's middle name was... (drumroll):

Winklemeyer.

At Least It's a More Creative Chant Than "Phillies Suck"

2009-10-30T08:01:00.000-05:00

My writeup of last night's game, which perhaps predictably half-turned into an essay on Pedro Martinez, is up at the Banter.

This seems like too short of a post to put up all by itself, so: bonus dog photo.

Hopefully I'll get a Name of the Week post up later.

The Cliff Lee Affair

2009-10-29T07:25:00.000-05:00

There's not much point in urging fans to relax, to not freak out so much about one bad game... after all, isn't irrationally investing our emotions sort of the point of baseball fandom? There's nothing logical about the enterprise to begin with.

Still, it's always a little startling how quickly one game can flip the general fan mood (as measured, highly unscientifically, by talking to a few friends, reading a bunch of blog comments, and checking in with the huge Yankees fan who works the late shift at the deli on the corner). Cliff Lee's performance last night - which was not only great, but also just so Steve McQueen cool - seems to have flipped the consensus from "Yankees in 6" to "Phillies in 4 and I just hope a Yankee hits the ball out of the infield again, some day."

If Pedro, of all people, wins tonight's Game 2, it ain't gonna be pretty.

Sad Dogs and Englishmen

2009-10-22T23:01:00.006-05:00

I'm too tired even to take a cute picture of my dog, so here's a random photo of a sad dog from the internet reacting to last night's game:

Meanwhile my post on last night's roller coaster is up at the Banter; I found kinda the perfect quote for that game:

It was the best of games, it was the worst of games, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way…

As I wrote in my Banter post, now that they've rescheduled Saturday's Game 6 for the evening, I may have to miss at least a chunk of it - I'm going to a dinner party that night. Aaargh! But it's at the apartment of a good friend who has known me a long time... so I'm assuming she'll forgive me for checking the score during the meal.

Banter, Bugs, and Further Animal Exploitation

2009-10-21T07:47:00.002-05:00

So I wrote up last night's Yankee win at the Banter, and posted a little something about the umpiring shenanigans at Bugs & Cranks.

Meanwhile, following yesterday's successful debut of Pearl as the official Eephus Pitch mascot, I give you my dog's reaction to the blown fifth-inning call at third:

Yes, Pearl wants instant replay in the playoffs. Instant replay, and maybe a peanut butter treat.

New Crush

2009-10-20T13:42:00.000-05:00

If he keeps calmly and sensibly taking apart Chip Caray, as he has been throughout this postseason, I'm going to develope a serious crush on Richard Sandomir.

Call me Richard. We'll spend cozy evenings in, ordering Thai and methodically trashing inept sports broadcasting.

Now on Sale at the Stadium Store, Pitchforks and Torches

2009-10-20T08:03:00.003-05:00

You know how some sports blogs try to attract traffic with photos of hot chicks in bikinis? Well, I'm going to try a slightly different, but related, approach: the cute animal photo. Herewith, the expression on my dog's face when Joe Girardi took Dave Robertson out of the game in the 11th inning, with two outs and nobody on, and brought in Alfredo Aceves:

Pearl, official Eephus Pitch mascot

I hope to make this a regular feature.

Anyway, this is one of those days I'm just glad I'm not a manager, especially not a New York manager. I like Joe Girardi, and I think he's done a very good this year on the whole, but... yeah... it may be time for him to take it down a notch.

I'll be writing up tonight's game over at the Banter. Make Pearl happy, CC.

The Final Word on My Jeopardy! Appearance:

2009-10-19T10:03:00.001-05:00

As usual, Weird Al says it best. (Yes: from T.S. Eliot to Weird Al in less than 24 hours. Liberal arts education, ladies and gentlemen. "Let us go then, you and I,/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherised upon a table; We been spending most our lives living in an Amish paradise.")

Bonus Weird Al video:

Onwards to the Stony Rubbish

2009-10-15T01:25:00.000-05:00

I've got a new post up on Bugs & Cranks about last night's epic Angels-Yankees error-off, and the upcoming three-game jaunt into the Wastelands of Anaheim. (I have never been to Anaheim, but I do generally imagine it as A heap of broken images, where the sun beats/ And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief/ And the dry stone no sound of water.)

Meanwhile the Yankees doing something fan-friendly for once and opening up the Stadium for anyone who wants to watch Game 3 in Anaheim. That sounds pretty neat, and though I'm sure they'll still make a tidy profit on concessions, in a refreshing departure from their usual squeeze-out-every-penny approach they will not be charging admission. If I have time maybe I'll head up there.

What is "One of the More Surreal Experiences of My Life, Alex?"

2009-10-12T12:37:00.007-05:00

So in the end, my anxiety about the ALDS was largely unfounded - except for Carl Pavano's ace performance; did I call that or what? My recap of last night's Yankees win went up on the Banter this morning.

And since it worked so well last time, now I'm off to write about all the many ways the ALCS could turn into a total disaster for New York.

Meanwhile, weirdly enough, I'm supposed to be on "Jeopardy!" tonight - I went out to LA for the taping back in August and it was a fun though deeply weird experience. I'm Tivo-ing the show, but as I hate even hearing my own voice on a tape recorder let alone watching myself on TV, I will probably go with the Phils-Rockies game tonight instead.

And I'm not allowed to say how I did before it airs, but I can't let it go without just one preemptive note: I knew the Mickey Mantle question! I just couldn't buzz in in time, I swear!

Bugs and Cranks and Stuff

2009-10-08T07:31:00.001-05:00

So, I'll be doing a little blogging over at Bugs & Cranks, and my first post went up yesterday. I outlined all the various things that might go wrong for the Yankees this postseason, including the possibility that cockroaches will swarm Mark Teixeira and carry him off to the sewers. (These things happen).

Of course I'll also be continuing to post over at the Banter, and in fact have a writeup of last night's Yanks-Twins game there. Feel free to chime in with suggestions for my upcoming TBS/Chip Caray Drinking Game. E.g.: take a drink every time someone uses the phrase "plays the game the right way"; if Craig Sagar's suit is attacked by frightened birds, finish your beer; etc.

Finally, for those of you who enjoy having your information input and output arbitrarily limited to 140 characters, feel free to follow me on Twitter.

I think that about covers it. Except I'm so happy to have playoff baseball back in New York that I actually did a little dance at the first pitch. No one saw except my dog, and she, luckily, will never tell.

Baseball Player NICKname of the Week

2009-10-05T11:44:00.004-05:00

According to Baseball-Reference.com, there have been 10 different Major League Baseball players nicknamed "Wild Bill," from Bill Hutchinson in 1884 to Bill Connolly in 1953.

But there is only one Ed Heusser, "The Wild Elk of the Wasatch."

Heusser pitched for five different teams in the 1930s and 40s, though why he reminded anyone of a wild elk is not clear. (It seems safe to assume "Wasatch" refers to the mountain range in Utah, where Heusser was born). He ended up with 300 walks (compared to 299 Ks), but didn't hit an especially large number of batters or throw that many wild pitches.

I just hope this unsolved nickname doesn't come to haunt me the way that Bristol Robotham Lord's "The Human Eyeball" still does.

NB: Heusser is not to be confused with Pepper Martin, "The Wild Horse of the Osage."

"Afraid to Win": The Story of the 2009 Mets

2009-10-03T08:00:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, when Derek Jeter was about to pass Lou Gehrig on the Yankees' hit list, I almost posted the following paragraph:

"While needless to say I love watching Jeter play, and I have nothing but warm feelings towards Joe Torre, when I see a quote from the ex-skipper about the Captain like: "Just the tenacity, the determination. He's not afraid to win," I do have a strong urge to bury my head in my hands and weep for the English language. No one in sports is as good as Torre at stringing a selection of pre-approved words into convincing but meaningless sentences. He's "not afraid to win"? How many professional ballplayers are afraid to win? Except Chuck Knoblauch, maybe? Is that really what prevents the average player from being Derek Jeter, their victory phobias? Gah."

I decided not to put it up, because it seemed too grouchy - bitching about one of Torre's well-meaning platitudes in the middle of a nice celebratory moment. But I remembered it the other day while I was watching the Mets lose, again, to the Washington Nationals... Maybe I was too hard on Joe Torre, I thought. Maybe this is what "afraid to win" looks like.

I'm not serious, of course - all the psychoanalysis in the world wouldn't make that shredded lineup a pennant winner. But this year's Mets will make you entertain a lot of strange thoughts. They've overcome all kinds of obstacles, and repeatedly defied the odds, to lose in a series of remarkable ways.

(SIDE NOTE: I also thought of my abandoned blog post when Knoblauch was arrested for domestic assault the other day. Afraid to win, perhaps, but not to - allegedly! - hit his wife. Lovely.)

Anyway, I think every Mets fan I know wants Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel fired, though few have any hope that it'll actually happen. Given the staggering array of injuries, I'm not sure it's really fair to call for their heads... on the other hand, I don't think I can argue with it, either. There's a lot to answer for, and I don't know how else the team would be able to start spring training without this year's toxins hanging over them.

Then again, as an alternative, maybe they could try teaching their players how to run the bases and field grounders. Sure, winning is frightening - but just using both hands to catch popups, that's not so scary, is it?

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2009-09-23T23:13:00.005-05:00

In honor of the Yankees' recent hard-earned series win in Anaheim, I scoured the roster of the Angels' AAA team, the Salt Lake Bees, to bring you this week's Name:

Catcher Flint Wipke.

I know you'll all join me in my earnest hopes that this young man eventually makes it to the majors. On a side note, has there ever been a less appealing Minor League team name than the "Salt Lake Bees"? I mean, two things in this world that I really don't care for: dry laws and stinging insects.

Anyway, my Yanks-Angels recap is up at the Banter for those who are interested; I'm still working on a Mets post but it feels increasingly futile. What is there to say?

Tim McCarver's Baadasssss Song

2009-09-19T01:10:00.011-05:00

Before I talk about the Mets, I could not let this pass without comment.

"Tim McCarver Sings Selections From The Great American Songbook."

I am physically overwhelmed by the sheer number of possible jokes here. But first of all, this reminds me of nothing so much as this:

Although to be fair it should be said that, while I do not particularly care for McCarver's announcing, it is WAY better than John Ashcroft's Attorney General-ing.

But that's not really the point, of course. Do you know how many great versions of "One for my Baby (And One More For The Road)" there have been? Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Etta James, Sammy Davis Jr, Rosemary Clooney... I was hoping instead that McCarver would record some original songs, written just for him and tailored to his style. Here, inspired in large part by the McCarver archives of the dearly departed FireJoeMorgan.com, are some suggestions for an alternate, more McCarver-esque tracklist:

1. That Goes Against Conventional Thinking
2. I Don't Want To (Throw A Lot Of Numbers At You)
3. There Used To Be A Shea Park
4. Gee David Eckstein, Ain't I Good To You?
5. A Mark Wohlberg Fastball
6. Clogging Up The Bases on a Saturday Night
7. Embrace Me, My Sweet Intangible You
8. I Don't Want No On-Base Percentage (If You Can't Run)

Ohhhh, Fight

2009-09-18T23:37:00.000-05:00

In theory, I do not approve of multimillionaire professional adults punching and shoving each other over some macho bullshit.

However I have to admit that whenever it actually happens, I'm all "Ohhhh, fight!!!"

Actually I missed seeing Tuesday's Yankees-Jays brawl live because I was watching the Mets lose to the Braves, which was not so remarkable (thought I admit it took me quite a few minutes to place Mets starter Patrick Misch), but I was doing it at "Amazin' Tuesday" on the LES, which was a lot of fun.

The first thing I thought when I saw clips of the fight was, of course the first real Yankees brawl in years happens AFTER they finally got rid of Kyle Farnsworth. Because that is basically the only good reason to have Farnsworth on one's team, as has been repeatedly proven in independent studies.

Anyway, I had no idea Joe Girardi could move that fast - he got to the scene quicker than anyone else from either dugout. I guess nothing motivates a guy quite like seeing hundreds of millions of dollars (and thousands of pounds) worth of stars heading for a hostile dogpile. There was a whole lot of VORP shoving around in that mess.

I'm dwelling on a game from four days ago because (A) I cannot ever pass up the opportunity for a Kyle Farnsworth joke, and (B) tonight's game ended with a sin against nature in the form of a walk-off home run off of Mariano Rivera. I don't like to dwell on such games because, quite frankly, the universe already seems frightening, random, and meaningless enough as it is.

Next blog post: time to talk about the Mets. But god, where do I start?

Three Things About "Rookie of the Year"

2009-09-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I caught the end of "Rookie of the Year" on TV, for the first time in a good 15 years. To refresh your memory, that's the one where a kid breaks his arm and it heals weird so he can suddenly throw 102 miles and hour, and the Cubs sign him, and he ends up playing in the Division Series against the Mets. (A rare baseball movie where the evil team is not the Yankees but still, please note, from New York).

I realized several things while watching this - well, the last 20 minutes or so, which is all I caught. The first was "holy shit, that's that kid from American Pie" - not Jason Biggs, one of the other ones, the guy who was dating Tara Reid. Never realized it at the time.

The second was "holy shit, at one time Gary Busey used to be considered a viable love interest."

Then the third thing. In the Big Game at the end of the movie, the kid, Henry, is pitching in the ninth with the Cubs up by a run (of course). And all of a sudden his arm stops working weirdly - he doesn't throw 102 anymore; just like that, he's back to normal 12-year-old-kid velocity. And it's not like he has an amazing curve or anything to fall back on. Once he realizes what's happened, he gets one out using the hidden ball trick; the second out by repeatedly calling the runner on first base a chicken and goading him into trying to steal and then basically tagging him out with a really weird variation on the hidden ball trick; and the third out by throwing a Folly Floater-type eephus pitch to the Mets' huge and ludicrously villainous slugger (who when he steps to the plate actually says, "Mwa ha ha ha ha!").

Of course I love the hidden ball trick, and you know I love the eephus. (I'm slightly less enthusiastic about a pitcher actually clucking and directing a chicken dance at a base runner... maybe not the classiest way to back into the World Series, plus I'm surprised the ump didn't warn him there). But this is where I thought: can you imagine the online fan reaction to the manager, Sal Martinella, during that ninth inning? Oh my god, TAKE HIM OUT OF THE GAME! The kid's got nothing! His velocity just dropped 30 miles an hour between pitches, you don't want to maybe get the trainer out there to take a look at him? Do the Cubs not have one single other pitcher left on the roster? Or even just a position player who pitched in college? Jesus. Sports radio talk show switchboards would melt under the weight of furious callers - the events of "Rookie of the Year" make Grady Little's choices in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS look like Earl Weaver at his best. Even if they do go on to win the world series Martinella would probably lose his job and frankly, he would deserve to.

It's possible I may be slightly too old for this movie now.

Nobody Knows Anybody, Not That Well.

2009-09-08T13:44:00.010-05:00

So, first, just to be veeeeery clear about this: I don't think Derek Jeter ever used steroids. No clue or circumstantial evidence or even the vaguest rumor has ever indicated otherwise. I think only Mariano Rivera would be a bigger surprise to me, if he turned up on that list.

That said, with everything baseball has been through this decade, wouldn't it probably be a good idea to stop writing articles like this one? Newsday's Wallace Matthews discusses Jeter's upcoming Yankee hits record, in a piece titled "Fair Ball: Just Clean Hits For Jeter":

...It also will serve to remind us how pathetic were the excuses of this era's steroids cheats and their many media apologists, to wit: "Everybody else was doing it, and I was just trying to keep up.''
Jeter's career exposes that for what it is: a lie, a lame excuse, a sign of weakness and absolute proof that all the talent in the world can't compensate for a lack of character.

Because (until proven otherwise), Derek Jeter, all 195 non-spectacular pounds of him, never needed that kind of help. ...

...You can call that moralizing if you like. I call it celebrating a man who did things the right way rather than excusing or, worse, glorifying boys who took the easy way out.

I don't know that I'd call it moralizing, but I would call it a bit of an assumption (as Matthews knows, of course, hence the "until proven otherwise" parenthetical). Again, I don't think Jeter took steroids - but until about seven months ago, sports sections were full of stories on how A-Rod was going to be the clean-living hero who breaks Barry Bonds' home run record. And yeah, it's DEREK JETER, so I'll cheerfully give him the benefit of the doubt, and when I watch him play steroids are the last thing on my mind. I'm not saying we should run around suspecting and accusing everyone who sets foot on a diamond. I'm just saying: you never really know until you know, you know?

Back in Black

2009-08-15T08:23:00.001-05:00

Okay, okay, time to get this baby going again. I've been posting on the Banter all season, once or twice a week, but I fiiiiiinally finished my book (out March 16!), and I guess I ought to have my own online space again. The Banter's great for all things Yankee-related, but god knows there's enough to talk about with this year's Mets, and elsewhere in baseball too, and the occasional movie or TV review and yes, eventually, some book promotion (but I will certainly try to keep that to a minimum, or at least be as un-annoying as possible about it).

Anyway, I have a post on the Banter on last night's Yankees win. They're 30 games over .500 and, for the moment anyway, almost on cruise control. Being a pessimist I realize this does not preclude them from losing in the first round of the playoffs again, but even I'm not so glass-half-empty as to think they won't at least get to the playoffs.

I'll be in England next week visiting a friend, so I suppose it'll be August 26th before I can really get back to a regular posting schedule here, but I figured I might as well get started over the next few days.

Brother Can You Spare $1,250?

2009-04-29T08:52:00.010-05:00

Forget whatever the technical definition of an economic depression might be -- the New York Yankees have lowered ticket prices. I'm pretty sure we're in one.

Of course even after this sudden 50% off sale, the team would have to lower the cost of "Legends Suite" seats by another 90% or so before I could even daydream about affording one, but never mind. This is, I believe, the first time in my entire life that the Yankees have lowered the cost of anything by so much as a cent. Make a note of April 28!

Other things that happened on April 28th, courtesy of Wikipedia:

1788 – Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1796 – The Armistice of Cherasco is signed.
1920 – Azerbaijan is added to the Soviet Union.
1932 – A vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans.
1945 – Benito Mussolini is executed by a firing squad.
2001 – Millionaire Dennis Tito becomes the world's first space tourist.
Births of James Monroe (1758), Kurt Gödel (1906), Saddam Hussein (1937), and Barry Larkin (1965).

I'm off to scope out Citi Field today - upper deck, natch, or as I see we're now calling it, "Promenade Level". Sounds so picturesque when you put it like that!

Baseball Player Name of the Last Sixth Months

2009-04-27T07:46:00.001-05:00

Yefri Carvajal.

Yeah. You know I'm coming out of retirement for that one.

Yefri is a Padres prospect, currently playing for the high-A Lake Elsinore Storm. And I had no idea there was a town in America called Lake Elsinore -- which is awesome, though now that I think about it that's actually kind of an unsettling name to pick, given what went down at Elsinore.

I hope the Padres won't bury a name as great as Yefri Carvajal in A-ball for too long. But of course there is no baseball player name either good or bad, but thinking makes it so...

Meanwhile, I have a recap of last night's Yanks-Sox unpleasantness up at the Banter.

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-10-31T20:08:00.002-05:00

Via RAB, The Yankees have just added to their 40-man roster...

Eric Hacker.

Good thing he's a pitcher. If he ever makes it to the majors, though, I hope he gets to bat in a few interleague games in NL parks.

"When the Legend Becomes Fact, Pitch the Legend"

2008-08-23T23:32:00.004-05:00

Well, the Yankees' season is likely over... but that didn't keep me from writing a recap for the Banter about Saturday's supposedly Carl Pavano-started game. That's one of my better post titles, too, if I do say so myself.

And if we could somehow get "The Last Unicorn" to stick as a nickname for Pavano, I won't have wasted my time on this planet.

The Mets are in much, much better shape, the loss tonight not withstanding. I can't help feeling a little sorry for Willie Randolph. He got a huge standing ovation at Old Timer's Day at Yankee Stadium, and seemed to really appreciate it, but I think it was only really about about half "we love you, Willie!" and half "fuck the Mets." And I don't want to deny Jerry Manuel credit, because obviously he's done an excellent job, but surely the Mets' turnaround can't be attributed entirely to the managerial change, can it?

But anyway, more on the Mets later, as I now have to fall asleep while watching the US basketball team win a gold medal. Well... knock on wood, but come on.

One Pint of Blood is a Small Price to Pay

2008-07-30T21:31:00.008-05:00

So I was at Shea today to donate blood in exchange for Mets tickets. And, okay, doing this two years in a row makes it harder and harder to successfully sell the idea that I'm in it for the interesting material, as opposed to because I'm so cheap and broke I'll literally sell my own blood for baseball tickets. Plus, afterwards I stood up too fast and got kind of dizzy, so I had to stay at a table in the Diamond Club for seemingly an eternity drinking apple juice like a complete wuss before I could stagger back onto the 7 train. But it was all worth it, because:

!

On the way in, I passed Fred Wilpon, though he was already past me before I could gather my wits to ask him a hard-hitting question about the trade deadline. Or even a soft-hitting question about the Burger Shack opening at CitiField next year. Anyway, the New York Blood Center organizers asked him if he wasn't donating -- and by the way, those guys are fucking relentless, with endless streams of emails and letters and calls; never, ever owe money to an NYBC employee -- and Wilpon told them he had to keep his head clear for the big meeting he was heading to. Which sort of piqued my interest... but, ultimately, not nearly as much as seeing Mr. Met did. So, sorry guys: I have no scoop for you, because I was distracted by a huge felt anthropomorphic baseball, and by apple juice.

--
Couple of recent Bronx Banter posts you may have missed, by the way, here and here; the first is a Walter O'Malley rant and the second talks about the Yankees' Farnsworth-Pudge Rodriguez trade, for those of you who might be interested.

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-07-30T15:55:00.003-05:00

Courtesy of astute reader Perpetual Memory Loss, I give you:

Phillies pitching prospect Antonio Bastardo.

You might laugh, but it actually sounds pretty badass. I'd imagine that last name would have to make you tough, in a Boy Named Sue kind of way.

Spanning the Spans

2008-07-22T00:56:00.008-05:00

I've got a soft spot for the Twins, and have for years; they're probably my favorite non-NY team. For one thing, the immortal Bat-Girl made them seem incredibly endearing. Besides that, as I've mentioned many times, I like Ron Gardenhire (a wise and twinkly-eyed baseball gnome), I loved watching Torii Hunter and Johan Santana, and Pat Neshak, and now I like Boof Bonser -- yes, just for the name, but what a name -- and Joe Mauer and, even though he is currently one of the worst-hitting starting outfielders in Major League Baseball, speedy bat-sniffing Carlos Gomez*. But right now I'm especially loving them, because they've got:

1. Longtime Eephus Pitch favorite Denard "No Relation" Span, who with every fleet-footed triple increases the odds that significant numbers of people will one day be walking around in "Span" t-shirts and Jerseys, and improves the reputation of a surname I've spent much of my life sullying. He's kicking ass right now if I do say so myself, albeit in a very non-power-y kind of way.

2. Craig Breslow, who was one year ahead of me at college, and by all accounts as well as my own very brief experience with him, is one very nice biochem major. His appearance against the Yankees tonight was... ah... well, hey, he did set a record. Let's just leave it at that. But he's having a really good year overall and hopefully I'll get to see him pitch again this series.

Anyway, the Yankees are back in the playoff race with a vengeance, but I'm still skeptical. Don't get me wrong -- this is a bit of a rebuilding year and if they can just keep things interesting into September, I won't complain. (Much). But it's hard to imagine that after playing mediocre baseball for nearly half the season, the Yankees will play significantly better after losing Chien-Ming Wang and Jorge Posada for the season. I mean, it's not as if they have top-notch studs on the bench, like Fernando Tatis and Argenis Reyes, ready to step into the void.

Wait... what?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present your first place New York Mets (and their Reyeses, or Reyesi). If I were Willie Randolph I would probably just unplug the TV, cancel my newspaper subscription, and take up either Zen meditation or heavy drinking.

---

Last but not least, congratulations to my friend Dan, one of the best Mets fans I know -- not because of first place, but because he got married yesterday, in an incredibly beautiful ceremony in Connecticut. (And I say that as someone who doesn't generally go sappy during weddings... seriously, it was beautiful).

And? He didn't check the score even once.

Baseball Player Name of the Week (Bonus Edition)

2008-07-11T16:57:00.004-05:00

Via Rob Neyer's ESPN blog, I give you:

Independant League manager Kash Beauchamp.

Yes. But wait, it gets better... because Kash Beauchamp manages a team called the Wichita Wingnuts.

He also appears to be something of a wingnut himself, but that's neither here nor there.

Previous Names of the Week

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-07-09T22:16:00.005-05:00

Having just watched the Yanks-Rays series, I have no choice but to select:

Reid Brignac.

(Runner up: Gary Glover. It's an aptonym!)

"Reid Brignac" sounds like a fine liqueur but is, instead, a rookie shortstop from St. Amant, Louisiana. He really and truly looks 14 years old, but the Rays are claiming he's 22.

Crosstown Traffic

2008-06-30T23:48:00.015-05:00

Okay... I leave town for a few days and all hell breaks loose. A-Rod and Madonna?

(Actually, that OK! story sounds like total bullshit, and I hate myself a little for even linking to it. But a couple of years ago, when the A-Rod hysteria was at its height, I swore I wouldn't write about him again unless he met some extremely unlikely criteria, one of which was having an affair with someone totally insane and unexpected... and while Madonna isn't my Grandpa Murray or anything, I do think this qualifies. Or, you know, would, if it were true).

Anyway. I'm in upstate New York for a few weeks, visiting my dad, who has recently purchased a hi-def TV that pretty much left me drooling with envy. I only got here in time for the last couple innings of tonight's Yanks game (because the traffic leaving the city today was un-fucking-real -- I mean I literally could have driven from New Haven to Providence and stopped for dinner in the time it took me to get from Flatbush Avenue to the Thruway), but man, baseball looks gorgeous on that screen. It's not so much the sharpness, but the depth perception; you can really see movement on the individual pitches in a way that I generally can't on my own elderly TV. I suppose it helped me be a bit more understanding of the fact that, for the third day in a row, the Yankees couldn't actually hit any of those pitches.

From what I could make out through the deafening static -- my dad's place is really too far for me to get the games on the radio, but this never stops me from leaving the station on so that once in a while when the car crests a hill I can make out something like "...six straight balls thrown by John Maine!" -- the Mets lost, too. If the Phillies and Red Sox (... fine, and Rays) had gone on major runs earlier in the year, this could've been one hell of a depressing baseball season in New York. And of course it still might be, but so far? Mostly it's just bewildering.

Anyway, it's late and I'm still recovering from road rage, so I better call it a night and stop A) wondering why the Yankees can't do any damage against one of the worst pitching staffs in the league, and B) remembering how much I dislike the Cardinals.

Oh -- and I had a couple of posts on the Banter last week which I forgot to link to here.

Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown?

2008-06-23T15:13:00.008-05:00

As an aside, good luck to Curt Schilling, who's undergoing what may be career-ending surgery. While I've taken my shots at the guy here and elsewhere for being, shall we say, a bit of a blowhard, he's certainly a hell of a pitcher, and never less than an eminently entertaining character. In the end I'd much rather have someone shoot their mouth off from time to time than become a dull sound-bite drone in public, as a lot of athletes feel compelled to.

I was at Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS, as a fan, and I won't be forgetting Schilling's performance that night anytime soon -- though of course, sitting in the far reaches of the upper deck, I had no clue there was bloodied hosiery involved at the time. (I also couldn't see the A-Rod slap play from up there, and so I'm afraid I may have had some harsh words for the first base umpire, specifically regarding his parentage and mental acuity, which in retrospect may have been a bit unjust). Schilling was a great focal point for the Boston/New York rivalry, stirring up a dozen mini-controversies over the years -- deliberately or not, he definitely had a knack for getting a rise out of people. If this is the end for him in Boston, which sounds likely, Sox-Yanks games won't quite be the same.

Of course, every time I start to work up some real fondness for the guy, I remember this:

Sigh.

(Yeah, I usually try to stay away from politics on here, and for good reason, but fuck it -- I have my limits).

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-06-19T07:41:00.000-05:00

... and I use the word "week" loosely here, but:

Marv "Rotty" Rotblatt.

I was reading up on the history of the sadly extinct bullpen car the other other day, and it turns out Mr. Rotblatt, a Chicago White Sox reliever, made Comiskey Park history (well, sort of) in 1951 when he became the first Sox pitcher ever driven from the bullpen out to the mound. Ah, to live in an era when nobody had ever heard of the phrase "carbon footprint."

The Yankees' bullpen car was retired after 1972 when rats ate through its engine cables. Seriously.

No, Wait...

2008-06-18T17:08:00.007-05:00

... I spoke too soon. THIS is really the kind of thing you should try to announce at 3:15 AM:

Yep. Via RAB, the Yanks have signed... gah... Sir Sidney Ponson to a minor league deal. That sound you hear is the entire Scranton-Wilkes Barre Police Department whipping out their breathalyzers.

Ponson, famous for his multiple DUIs, inexplicable knighthood (wtf, Netherlands?), and occasional Aruban judge-punching, was released by Texas a few weeks ago -- and while you might assume he's learned his lesson and the Rangers just dropped him because he's not a good pitcher, you'd be wrong:

Ponson was reportedly put on notice after creating a serious disturbance at the hotel bar in St. Petersburg, Fla. during the team's recent road trip and told that further problems would not be tolerated.
He also reacted furiously after being taken out of a June 4 game against the Indians and with being pushed back from the start that was to follow that outing, prompting Rangers general manager Jon Daniels to say, "We don't feel Sidney deserves to be here or wants to be here."

Of course I doubt Ponson will start for the Yankees more than a few times, if at all (light a candle for Dan Giese), so this probably won't end up being very significant. But as much as everyone's been getting on the Mets the last two days, and rightfully so, let's be careful about bemoaning their lack of class as compared to the Yankees*, a team which within the span of a few hours has deliberately allied itself with both Sidney Ponson and the Hard Rock Cafe.

*I've heard a lot of this, even from Mets fans, who I can only assume are so aggravated right now that they're suffering from selective memory loss. Never mind that smarmy crypto-offer the Yankees made to Joe Torre just last fall -- I mean, Billy Martin would have killed to be fired as tactfully as Willie Randolph was.

Now THIS is the Kind of Thing You Should Try to Announce at 3:15 AM

2008-06-18T13:42:00.004-05:00

Kill me now.

You know, there are so many possibilities with a new Stadium -- it's a fresh slate, and a huge opportunity. So why would you squander that on a boring, overpriced, characterless and omnipresent chain like the Hard Rock Cafe?

“Adding popular and premier dining options such as the Hard Rock Cafe and NYY Steak was done with our fans in mind,” said Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost.

I'm so sure. Do you ever get the feeling that when Lonn Trost pictures "fans" in his mind, it's as thousands of little walking dollar bills with arms and legs? (Wearing officially licensed Yankees gear, natch).

You know, the more I find out about the new Stadium, the grouchier I get...

This Better Be Another Ambien Hallucination

2008-06-17T02:19:00.007-05:00

So, sometimes there are advantages to being an insomniac. It's 3:18 AM, and the following press release from the Mets just showed up in my inbox:

METS NAME JERRY MANUEL INTERIM MANAGER

OBERKFELL, WARTHEN, AGUAYO JOIN COACHING STAFF

ANAHEIM, Calif., June 17, 2008 – The New York Mets today named Jerry Manuel interim manager, replacing Willie Randolph. Manuel, in his fourth season with the Mets, had been bench coach since 2006. The Mets also named Ken Oberkfell, Luis Aguayo and Dan Warthen to the coaching staff. Rick Peterson and Tom Nieto have been relieved of their coaching duties.

Mets General Manager Omar Minaya will hold a briefing with the media Tuesday, June 17 at 2:00 P.M. PT (5:00 P.M. ET) in the media room at Angel Stadium. Mets Manager Jerry Manuel will meet with the media immediately thereafter.

Because nothing says "I'm proud of the decision I just made" like announcing it at 3:18 in the morning!

Okay... I have a number of questions here, all of which fall under the broader umbrella of "What the fuck are the Mets doing?"

First of all, why would you send this out literally in the middle of the night? Because everyone sane and normal is asleep, there is no mention of this story on mets.com, espn.com, the NYTimes, MetsBlog, or anyplace else I've seen so far, leading me to wonder if I am perhaps just losing my mind. This may be the first time in my entire life I actually break a news story (well, if you can consider publishing the contents of a press release to be "breaking a news story") not related to funny names, at-bat songs, or facial hair.

But honestly, late hour aside, I find the timing of this completely bewildering. Why would you fire Willie Randolph NOW, after a win, at a time when the Mets have won four of their last six games, and when by most accounts Randolph was handling the intense pressure very well? If Omar Minaya and/or the Wilpons weren't actually waiting to see how the team performed before making a decision, what the hell were they waiting for? Why not fire him weeks ago, or indeed at the end of last season? At the very least, why make Randolph and his coaches fly to California first, if nothing he did there was going to make a difference? Why put him and the team and the fans and the beat writers through weeks and weeks of this if, as now seems clear, they were going to fire him no matter what?

Yeesh. What a mess.

Maybe something happened in the last day or two that I'm not aware of. Otherwise, this has to be one of the most incompetently handled personnel decisions since the days of George Steinbrenner vs. Billy Martin.

...Ah, there we go. The story is up on Mets.com. They managed to get it up before 4 AM, too -- classy!

No Offense, Joe

2008-06-15T14:17:00.004-05:00

Back in high school, I used to do my homework in front of the TV, usually while watching the Yankees game with my dad. Starting in 1997 or so, whenever we started arguing over something or other -- I was 15, and not all that thrilled with the world -- I would stare wistfully at the TV and sigh, "I wish Joe Torre was my father."

"I wish he was, too," was his usual grouchy reply.

"Look at him, so calm and wise..." I was kidding, of course, but it never failed to get a rise out of my dad, and it became a running joke, repeated to this day.

But, of course, I wouldn't trade my dad for anyone.

For one thing, his bullpen management is WAY better than Torre's...

Happy Father's Day, pop.

LOL Mets

2008-06-11T13:12:00.007-05:00

Well I'm back from a weird but largely fun reunion weekend, and you know, I never thought I would say this -- my college self would recoil in horror if she could hear me now -- but there might actually be such a thing as too much open bar. Like, say, nine hours a day for two days in ninety degree heat. (I'm getting old, apparently, but not so old that I can just turn down free booze). It was really great to see people again, though... at least from what I can remember.

Anyway, I've got a recap of last night's Yankee game up at the Banter. As for the Mets, well, they were thoughtful enough to clear up any misconceptions their fans might have had last week that the team was turning things around, instead embarking on a listless five-game losing streak.

But don't worry, Shea faithful: inspirational pieces of paper ARE being handed out! From the Daily News:

Tuesday, before facing the Diamondbacks, the Mets players emerged from a brief players-only, closed-door meeting, each carrying a piece of paper with a blueprint for a future that includes the postseason.

No part of it included blowing a four-run lead and falling, 9-5, at Shea…

…One player allowed the Daily News a quick glance at the sheet, which looked a lot like a flow chart with a series of arrows. At the top was the team's record entering Tuesday night's game, 30-32. Near the bottom was a circled final regular-season record of 92-70.

Below that was an arrow pointing to a single word: "Playoffs."

The sheet also had several phrases and motivational messages. One said "We B4 I." Another read "team above self." A third message was "we have time."

“We B4 I”? Seriously, that’s going to be your big inspirational team slogan? That's gonna get you back above .500? And is spelling out "before" somehow uninspiring? Guys… UR DOIN IT WRONG.

Pedro the Lion

2008-06-04T08:08:00.002-05:00

I had a post on the Banter yesterday, about the Yankees' little-remembered early 80s disaster of a mascot, Dandy.

Sorry for my recent absence -- I've been in major crash mode, working on my book. I have been watching, though. Three quick thoughts:

-No one these days wants to let themselves get too excited about Pedro Martinez's possible impact on the Mets' season, because we all understand that he's likely to tear some major muscle in half every time he bends over to tie his laces. But after watching him pitch last night, even if it was just against the Giants, it's hard not to indulge myself and wonder... suppose Pedro stays healthy? The simple act of my writing these words, from 3,000 miles away, may very well be enough to snap his fibia. But just suppose. That by itself would make the team, but my highly scientific calculations, 15% better and 47% more fun.

-I'm glad Willie Randolph didn't get fired. Sometimes you need to make a change for change's sake, and I can understand that -- but given that he's working with a flawed roster courtesy of Omar Minaya, and that there's no compelling candidate I'm aware of available to replace him mid-season (Wally Backman?), it would have felt like scapegoating to me.

This is also the second time in eight months that the Wilpons have made it crystal clear that they're thinking about firing Randolph, without actually doing so. I don't understand the strategy here. If you don't have confidence in the guy, fire him; if you do, give him a little public support. (And if you want to fire him but can't, suck it up and fake the support). Otherwise you just piss of your manager and your fans simultaneously, which is a neat trick but not really productive.

-Wondering what Hideki Irabu is up to these days? Of course you were! The Times has the answer. You know, it's really unfortunate that when I hear the words "Hideki Irabu," I think not of a trailblazer who pitched intermittently well for the Yankees during their late 90s run of success, but of the phrase "fat pussy toad." Such is the power of the soundbite, I guess. But it sounds like Irabu is enjoying a happy and quiet retirement in California, and I'm glad.

It's a good article, and well worth the read - but damn Billy Witz for drawing parallels, however indirectly, between Irabu and Joba Chamberlain. Noooooooooo!

--

This weekend I'll be out of town, and likely without TV, as I drown in nostalgia-laced booze at my 5-year college reunion. But I should be back on track and writing here regularly after that.

Pizzle Rot in the Bronx

2008-05-19T17:04:00.007-05:00

Hey, Mets fans -- never say the Yankees never did anything for you!

It's going to take many more than two games for the Mets to prove they've turned a corner, but this weekend certainly started things off in the right direction. Whether it was actually mental -- a team meeting, clearing the air, finally playing with the much-vaunted "sense of urgency" -- or just the expected offensive improvement finally arriving, the Mets looked better than they have in many many months.

They also made a good argument for some form of instant replay. Can someone please explain the reasoning against this? How do you justify having the truth readily available to hundreds of thousands of schmoes watching on TV, but denying it to the handful of professionals actually getting paid to determine the correct call? Of course, this kind of thing happens all the time... but now that it took place during a game roughly half our nation's sports writers were covering, maybe we can finally get something moving here.

Meanwhile, back on the farm:

So my dad lives upstate and has a bunch of sheep, and apparently some of his flock have become infected with something called "Pizzle Rot." Now, I do not know what exactly Pizzle Rot is, nor do I care to find out*, but this is still my new favorite term. It sounds like something you'd get from unprotected sex with Snoop Dogg. Extremely vivid, and so even if you've never heard it before, you probably have a good enough sense of its meaning to use it in a sentence.

As in, "this Yankees team plays like they've got Pizzle Rot."

As noted in this space earlier, May is too early, in my opinion, for panic, or even intense worry. This is the time for stewing. The odds of the Yankees pulling off a phoenix-like resurrection two years running are slim; I don't know that they'll win their division this year, or even claw their way to the Wild Card. But that said, the odds of the Yankees ultimately playing better than this? Pretty damn good.

-
*I only got as far as "The infected ulcers can spread through the opening to the mucosa of the preputial cavity." Okay! I refuse to Google "preputial cavity"**; some things can never be unlearned. You know, when I was little, I wanted to be a vet...

**Fine -- curiosity got the better of me, and I looked it up. Not recommended. Associated key words: "cesspool," "wetness," "protozoa," "bladder," "circumcision," "scrotal skin," "smegma or bacteria."

Eephus Pitch: your go-to source for commentary on New York baseball and obscure ovine scrotal diseases!

Subway Series '08: Resistable Force Meets Movable Object

2008-05-16T11:12:00.002-05:00

So! Fresh from acquitting a man of second degree murder (I was totally like Henry Fonda! Except if all the other jurors had agreed with him from the start and didn't actually have to be convinced of anything), it's time to get back to the really important things in life.

Things like previewing the Subway Series.

#7: "You a Yankee fan?"
#5: "No, Baltimore."
#7: "Baltimore? That's like being hit in the head with a crowbar once a day."

It's hard to say at this point which under-performing New York team is more desperate for wins. Yesterday I had a Yankees fan friend try to tell me that the Mets were in much worse shape right now, because while the Yanks just lost three of four to the Devil Rays, who are now a legitimately good team, the Mets had lost three of four to the "softball girls" of the Washington Nationals. (Side note: I was genuinely sorry to see the great story that is Nelson Figueroa designated for assignment, but that line is a parting gift that will, I expect, keep on giving). My friend was sort of kidding... I think... but the point is that when you're getting into discussions about which New York team just lost three of four to the less lousy opponent, it's a good indication that we're not exactly in a Golden Age right now.

I think the Mets are having a slightly rougher time, though, not because their current situation is any worse (actually it's better, as they're just 2.5 games out of first, while the Yankees are flailing about in last place), but because of last year's lingering bad taste. In a reversal of the normal New York baseball order, Willie Randolph's job is in more immediate jeopardy than Joe Girardi's, the fans at Shea seem less forgiving than those at the Stadium, and there are signs of clubhouse trouble in Queens regarding, as Billy Wagner put it, "accountability." They're under an enormous amount of pressure.

Now normally, as regular readers will be aware, I don't make predictions. Better to let other people go out on a limb, then mock them for it later if they're wrong, that's my feeling. But what the hell: it's the Subway Series, and I haven't gotten any good angry emails in a while, so let's make an exception.

FRIDAY: Johan Santana vs. Darrell Rasner.

...Um.

Sure, sure, I know, anything can happen in baseball -- sometimes Sir Sidney Ponson throws a gem, sometimes Jake Peavy has a lousy outing, anyone can win on any given day. But "lopsided" is an extremely kind way of describing this matchup. Santana and Rasner have both pitched well this season, but the difference is that Santana is still below his career norms, whereas Rasner is miles above his; gotta figure that'll correct itself at some point.

Prediction: Mets, natch. Nothing's a must-win in May, but a loss tonight would be awfully tough for them. Besides, given the way the Yankees have been hitting lately, I'm not sure Santana could give up more than two or three runs to them even if he was actively trying.

SATURDAY: Oliver Perez vs. Andy Pettitte.

This is a tough one to call, because Perez is so... charmingly unpredictable; he has much better stuff than Pettitte these days, but a significantly less developed sense of how to use it. If you could stick Pettitte's brain in Perez's body you'd have a Cy Young winner, but sadly science isn't quite there yet. Besides, I'm not sure how that trade would work... "Today the Mets acquired Andy Pettitte's brain from the Yankees, and in return sent Carlos Delgado's ability to bunt against the shift at least just once in a fucking while to Jason Giambi in the Bronx."...

Prediction: Yankees, I suppose, though I'm already second-guessing myself, because without A-Rod and Posada, the Yankees haven't hit lefthanders at all -- not even a little. But I'll say Pettitte rises to the occasion with one of his tough six-inning, three-run aversions of disaster, while Perez is eventually done in by a few too many walks. And/or his bullpen.

SUNDAY: John Maine vs. Chien-Ming Wang.

Well, eventually someone's going to have to score a run, right? This should be a fun one.

Prediction: Yankees. Great matchup, but I've got to give the edge to Wang, just barely, because I can see the Yankee lefties doing some damage against Maine; in two starts against the Yanks, he has a 16.50 ERA in 6 innings pitched. While, on the other hand, Wang pitched one of his best games ever against the Mets at the Stadium last June.

However, by Monday, you should understand exactly why I don't make predictions.

A few other notes:

-Kyle Farnsworth, who, I was under the impression, generally walks around the Yankees clubhouse wearing camo undershirts and reading hunting magazines -- when not body-slamming opposing players -- apparently bakes excellent peanut butter cookies. Well, either that, or this is the longest typo in Daily News history.

-Every sports blogger on the planet already mentioned this, but Hank Steinbrenner's quote from a few days ago bears even further mocking:

"This is going to get turned around," Steinbrenner said. "If it's not turned around this year, then it will be turned around next year, by force if we have to."

All together now: "by force"?! He does understand that this is a baseball team, and not a hostage situation or a hostile foreign nation, right? You can't just like invade Robinson Cano and make him start hitting better. Classic.

Kei Igawa III: Updated

2008-05-12T02:38:00.003-05:00

With many, many thanks to "unmoderated", clearly the best commenter in the world:

So, I was right! Well, not about Kei Igawa deserving another chance, but about how I'd regret/deny ever having said that he deserved another chance.

The Yankees continue to treat .500 like a soft, warm bed on a cold morning. They're four games back of Boston, which is nothing to stress over in May, but they're also still two and half behind Tampa Bay, which I find disturbing. (I know at some point -- one day soon -- I will have to accept the Devil Rays as a legitimately good contending baseball team, but I'm not there yet). And if Sunday's game hadn't been rained out, Derek Jeter was going to bat 4th. I know batting order doesn't actually have much effect on the outcome of games, statistically speaking... but, with all due respect to Captain Intangibles, I really, really miss Alex Rodriguez.

Across town, the Mets are doing a little better, and they're tied with the Phillies for what I choose to think of as "real first place". (I'm ignoring the Marlins, because they will resume sucking by July at the latest). The Mets have a few positive signs recently -- yeah, what else is new, but still -- and I have to add my voice to the chorus apologizing for having underestimated Ryan Church. He's been one of the Mets' best hitters, he plays very good defense, and he hasn't even had to apologize for any "remarks about Jews" yet; excellent signing all around.

Anyway, I've been on jury duty for the last week and am heading back there bright and early tomorrow, but should be back on schedule when this trial is over. (It's actually a murder case... and I'm not allowed to talk about it yet, but when it's done, I'm totally going to try and find some awkward and unlikely way to tie it into baseball, so I can write about it).

Kei Igawa III: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

2008-05-06T01:20:00.005-05:00

Just when you thought the danger was over... that the past was finally buried forever... yes, it looks like Kei Igawa is coming back from Scranton.

If I were any good at Photoshop, that would read: "SOME SIGNINGS WILL HAUNT YOU FOREVER."

No word yet on whether Igawa has replaced his pitching hand with a razor-sharp hook.

To be fair, last season was only Igawa's first in the majors, and I honestly do think he deserves another shot, given his track record both in Japan and in the minors. But by this time next week I will probably deny ever having written that last sentence.

Heads Up, Taliban

2008-04-30T16:34:00.007-05:00

I read a ton of sports blogs every day, probably too many -- and so sometimes I go into auto-mode, skimming through most of them. But often, when that happens, I'll eventually get to a sentence so unexpected that it snaps me right out of my trance. Such as (via Buster Olney's ESPN blog a few days ago):

Former reliever Jeff Nelson is headed to Afghanistan.

Huh. That's not how I figured that sentence was going to end.

Turns out Nelson is part of a goodwill tour, along with a few other ex-MLBers -- and in all seriousness, good for him. But for a moment there, I thought maybe the government was sending him over to let him deal with the insurgents like he did the Fenway Park grounds crew.

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-04-30T08:52:00.002-05:00

Pittsburgh Pirate John Wesley Van Benschoten, who, thanks to the Mets, is currently sporting an ERA of 27.00... and who sounds like he could actually have been a literal pirate. Didn't I once read about some fabled sea battle between him and Sir Francis Drake?

Also, here's an extremely promising NotW prospect, via a blog called We Got A Guy There: Oklahoma State's Rebel Ridling.

God, I'd give anything to get him on the same team as Cody Ransom one day.

Let's See Pedro Fix a Hard Drive

2008-04-29T01:25:00.004-05:00

So, the Mets are looking a bit better these days... though it seems every time I say that, they go on a losing streak. Whatever else happens, it's awesome that seventh starter Nelson Figueroa has been more than just a feel-good story. Furthermore (and I don't know how I missed this earlier), according to a 2002 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, he's also an electronics whiz:

"He's incredible," Brewers manager Jerry Royster said. "When we were in Cincinnati, my computer went down. My hard drive was totally shot. He maneuvered around and somehow came up with a system that would allow me to do all my work.

"Normally, I would have to call Hewlett-Packard to get that kind of work done. Are you kidding me? This guy is just amazing."
...
Not long ago, Brewers clubhouse manager Tony Migliaccio was so frustrated with the slow response of his laptop that he was ready to grab one of the autographed bats that decorates his office and smash the computer to bits.

Enter Figueroa.

"I was in here yelling and he came in and asked if he could take a look at it," Migliaccio said. "I was a little nervous about that at first, but I let him. My machine was going through all these setups that I didn't need and it was slowing things down. He went in and changed a few things and said, 'Let me go on the Internet and find you a memory chip.' ... it works great now.

"Nelson is fixing things for guys all the time. He's been invaluable to this organization for all the time and money he's saved by repairing things."

Now that's what I call a small-market team! Anyway, it's a fun article, though clearly not written by a New Yorker:

"Figueroa grew up in a tough Coney Island neighborhood on the 14th floor of an apartment building just across the river from the World Trade Center."

"Just across the river"?! Brooklyn Heights is just across the river; Coney Island is an hour away by subway. You can't get too much farther from Manhattan without -- well, leaving the city. And who'd ever want to do that?

Finally, do you buy that Carlos Delgado doesn't believe in taking curtain calls after relatively insignificant home runs, out of "respect for the game"? Or do you think he's just pissed at the fans for mercilessly booing him all season? Either way, he may have a point. But I personally feel that any time you do your job so well that 50,000-odd people applaud, chant your name, and beg you to take a bow, you should pretty much just go with it, you know? How often do you get the chance?

Of course, I speak as someone who, if I'm extremely successful in my field, MIGHT hope to one day get 20 people in folding chairs -- half of them homeless -- to quietly clap for me in a Barnes & Noble basement...

Today the Backstop, Tomorrow the World

2008-04-27T00:56:00.001-05:00

Watching the Mets-Braves game Saturday, I discovered, to my dawning horror, that there is now yet another catching Molina in the majors. Supposedly this Gustavo, called up from the Mets AAA team during Brian Schneider's absence, is not related to preexisting catching Molina brothers Bengie, Yadier, and Jose... but I'll believe that when I see an impartial DNA test. Is any team safe from Molinas? Sure, Jose has done an excellent job for the Yankees, and yeah, he appears to be a good teammate and a hard worker. But over the years Molinas have absolutely destroyed New York teams -- I know Mets fans will vividly recall a certain Yadier home run; in the 2005 ALDS Bengie hit .444 and slugged .944(!) against the Yanks -- and I don't trust them one bit. Suddenly Brian Schneider's mysterious "thumb infection*" looks a lot more sinister.

The next Tigers catcher.

What do the Molinas want from us, I wondered Saturday, and what will they stop at to get it? Well, I guess that last question has now been answered: nothing. Resistance is futile, and both New York teams have fallen. One day soon fans in Boston and Detroit will wake up to find that Jason Varitek and Pudge Rodriguez have been turned into Molinas. The next domino, though, will probably be Minnesota, where Felix Molina is lurking in the minors. Skeptics, heads in the sand, may point out here that Felix Molina is, primarily, a second baseman. Sure... for now. Watch your back, Mauer.

In all seriousness, losing Posada is a big blow to the Yankees, who are hovering around .500 as it is. It's not a season-killer or anything, but there's really no way to replace his production. Jose Molina has been impressive so far, but keep in mind that making nefarious plans for world domination can be quite stressful. I only hope it won't become a distraction for the whole team.

*... How exactly does someone get a thumb infection so bad it requires an overnight hospital stay? The Mets say there was no cut or other obvious cause. I don't think I want to know.

Commence Fretting

2008-04-23T07:41:00.005-05:00

I've got a recap of last night's Yankees game up at the Banter.

As for the Mets, I started a post Saturday about how they were really hitting their stride, but I never got around to putting it up... and now, of course, they're in a slump. Everything is just magnified this early in the season, but as I've said before, you have to pace yourself -- which is why I have made myself this handy summer schedule of appropriate baseball emotions:

Fret: April 16th.
Stew: May 3rd.
Worry: May 28th.
Freak Out: July 10th.
Panic: July 30th.Despair: September 4th.
Throw Self into Gowanus Canal*: September 20th

I may need to iron this out a little more -- only three weeks for freaking out, but well over a month for worrying? -- But this is the rough draft. Input welcome. Anyway, I'll write more later, after some mild fretting.

*Never -- NEVER -- actually do this.

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-04-18T01:41:00.001-05:00

Coot Veal.

Okay, so his real name wasn't Coot... but it was Orville, which is very nearly as good/bad.

Think Classy, You'll Be Classy

2008-04-17T08:40:00.005-05:00

I noticed, during a postgame interview last night, that LaTroy Hawkins -- now wearing #22 -- has a big yellow "RETIRE 21" sticker right above his locker nameplate.

I assumed that was a joke on this whole controversy, at first, and was suitably impressed... because aside from good breaking stuff, a sense of humor is probably one of the more crucial traits in a New York relief pitcher. But no -- per this AP article on the whole fracas, it's actually from retire21.org, a group trying to get Roberto Clemente's number retired throughout baseball ("Ya es tiempo!"). Oh, the irony.

There's even a t-shirt:

On the plus side, Hawkins pitched very well last night at a pivotal moment, as the Yankees slowly and clumsily clubbed the Red Sox to death, 15-9. Not the most graceful game the old Stadium has ever seen.

Meanwhile, there's good news from Shea, on a rare night when both teams were playing (and winning) at home. Jose Reyes seems to have his groove back, after a nudge from Carlos Beltran -- who apparently took three entire seasons to adjust to New York before he could feel comfortable opening up a bit to reporters, bless his mild-mannered soul. Anyway, David Lennon writes:

Carlos Beltran gave us a great story after the game. He revealed that he went to Jose Reyes Tuesday afternoon and pleaded with him to go back to his old ways: the dancing, the handshakes, the smiling, the laughing. No more Mr. Serious.

Since then Reyes has gone 6-for-9 with a double, triple and home run.

“I’m going to be the old Jose Reyes," he said. "I’m going to enjoy my game. I’m going to dance during the game. I’m going to do the handshakes with everybody. I’m going to keep everybody going with smiles in the dugout.”

Here's Beltran: "I didn’t think he was happy. I told him, ‘I want you to be the Jose Reyes you’ve always been. Forget about what people say. Forget what they write about you. Forget about what other teams think. Just be you.’”

Nice! I'll take Carlos Beltran over Dr. Phil any day of the week. The Times has more.

Personally, I'm thrilled -- I really hate the line of thought that says baseball players shouldn't be demonstrative, should try not to show too much emotion on the field. A certain segment of columnists, radio personalities, and fans throughout the years has always wanted athletes to essentially feign indifference at all times; this is supposedly "classy." I think it's just dull.

Granted, you don't want to be obnoxious about these things. But baseball is, after all, a form of entertainment, and it's always more fun when you can tell that the players care (speaking of Paul O'Neill), or when they reveal a little personality. I like Joba Chamberlain's scary-intense fist-pump -- hell, I like Jonathan Papelbon's fist pump. The Mets' handshake routines seem deeply good-natured to me, and if other teams really feel compelled to take offense, well, then that should lead to some good and intense games. You don't want Jose Reyes to dance? Pitch better.

Linkfest

2008-04-16T13:40:00.003-05:00

So, I've got an article on the Mets' and Yanks' respective Opening Days and new stadiums in this week's NY Press. Click here to check it out.

And! Because too much is never enough, I've also got a post on last night's Yankees game up at the Banter.

In the meantime, I only got a chance to quickly skim through the Mets' win, but it was another stong Mike Pelfrey outing. I'm thrilled that The Legend of Go Big Pelf is spreading.

Hello Offense My Old Friend

2008-04-15T03:35:00.002-05:00

...I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping*,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Of the bullpen blowing a goddamn 5-run lead.

So apparently nothing is going to be easy for the Yankees this season. (Not that it's ever really supposed to be in baseball, but man, one little 1998 can really warp your perspective if you let it). The Yankees were quickly up 7-2, then just as quickly tied at 7-7; but Robinson Cano hit a game-winning pinch-hit home run, and I suppose in this case, it's the destination that matters, not the journey.

On a serious note, that's genuinely sad news about Joba Chamberlain's father Harlan, who's been a great story and an immensely likable presence at games. Here's hoping for his quick and complete recovery, and in all honesty, that's not just because Joba's absence means more Kyle Farnsworth.

Meanwhile, in lighter news, Wednesday's first pitch at Yankee Stadium will be thrown from outer space. Quoth the lucky astronaut,

"From Earth's orbit, but still deep inside the Yankees Universe, let me say, Go Yanks!"

I love the implied dare here: Top that, Red Sox! Let's just hope we don't have another Cold War-style space race on our hands. I can easily see this escalating until eventually Jerry Remy finds himself broadcasting from a rocket hurtling towards Mars.

*Just noticed for the first time how icky this lyric is. Ew.

Curses, Foiled Again

2008-04-14T08:15:00.005-05:00

I have a lot of friends who insist that baseball is boring, and naturally, I'll argue this point vehemently and tirelessly. But I really hope none of those friends were watching last night's Yankees-Red Sox game. These match-ups do manage to live up to the hype a remarkable percentage of the time -- remarkable given the truly staggering nature of that hype -- but not yesterday; that was long, slow, limp, and dispiriting. The fact that Jon Miller and Joe Morgan were our narrators certainly didn't help any. Sometime around the 7th, feeling an increasingly violent urge to start chewing through my own ankle, I muted the game, put on some music, and looked over periodically to make sure the Yankees weren't mounting a dramatic comeback.

They weren't.

Meanwhile, I certainly hope the organization isn't going to press charges against the construction worker who buried a Red Sox shirt in concrete under the new Stadium, hoping to cause a new "curse." The Post broke this vitally important news story a few days ago, and at first the Yankees dismissed it, but when photographic evidence turned up, they spent a few hours jackhammering and dug it up. Seems silly to waste manpower on that, though when you're hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget, I suppose it's just a drop in the bucket.

Yankees president Randy Levine called this a "bad, dastardly act," and I would assume that was tongue-in-cheek... because no sane human could seriously look at the world and then call this little joke "dastardly," right? In fact, no one who isn't a character in a 1930s B-movie would use the word "dastardly," period. But then I saw that COO Lonn Trost claimed "the Yankees were speaking with the Bronx district attorney’s office about whether there was any criminality involved in the act, and that the team was considering filing charges against the construction worker, identified by The Associated Press as Gino Castignoli, a Bronx resident."

Give me a break. It's all in good fun, isn't it? Besides, Mr. Castignoli was misguided, because that's not how curses work. (Not that they actually work at all, or indeed exist, but you know what I mean). There's always an element of perceived offense or justice in a good, long-lasting curse -- the team has to DO something, to somehow tempt karma or fate. The Red Sox traded away Babe Ruth, the best player in history, for cash; the White Sox, until a few years ago, hadn't won since they threw the World Series. Even the Cubs, who have by far the least dignified of these "curses," supposedly brought it on themselves by kicking a fan and his goat out of Wrigley Field. (And why wouldn't they? I like goats fine, but who wants them at a ballpark? As an organization, you can't let people threaten you with curses every time they feel like bringing farm animals to the game. This story is just plain stupid, even by curse standards).

Point is, you can't just go around burying innocuous items and expect to start a curse. As pure fan mischief, though, this was pretty classic; and if the Yankees were to actually pursue charges against this doofus -- who would have absolutely gotten away with his prank, had he just kept quiet -- well, then you might have curse material.

Billy Traber: Quasi Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer?

2008-04-13T01:39:00.010-05:00

In one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books -- yes, I'm a geek -- there's a minor character, a truck driver, who's constantly bitter and complaining because although neither he nor anyone else has figured it out yet, he's actually a rain god:

All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be be near him, to cherish him, and to water him.

I bring this up because I'm beginning to suspect the Yankees have something similar going on this season. It rained out Opening Day in the Bronx, it rained in Kansas City, it's raining in Boston, and today the weather caused some unfortunate fans to get stuck watching NASCAR, of all things, instead of the end of the game. I figure if an unwitting rain god is causing this, it must be someone new to the team, and so my money is on Billy Traber, who always seems vaguely unhappy:

Rain god or no rain god, the Yanks lost to the Sox today, but the good news is that Mike Mussina pitched pretty well in the losing effort. I expect that, when/if the Yankee offense eventually decides to join the rest of the team, the resulting massive change in his routine will unnerve Moose, causing his ERA to skyrocket.

Meanwhile the Mets lost to the Brewers, 5-3, in Johan Santana's Shea debut. Fans are taking an understandable but incorrect message from this -- I've heard a lot of people say things along the lines of, "Hey, Santana's only human." Nope, wrong. He just wants you to think he's only human. All part of his strategy. You'll see.

Finally, the Mets are currently having what honestly has to be one of the best promotions in baseball, at least in theory:

"New York Mets and Gilman Ciocia Offering Fans Free Tax Prep at Shea Stadium

...For the third year in a row, the New York Mets will partner with the personal tax team of Gilman Ciocia, Inc. to offer free tax preparation and filing to Mets fans attending games on April 12, 13 and 15 at Shea Stadium.

Professional accountants from Gilman Ciocia will be at the Mets Team Store located behind home plate on the Field Level throughout the game to lend this complimentary tax preparation service for last-minute filers. The service that includes filing extensions is free to all Mets fans that have purchased tickets to any of the following games..."

Now, I'm not sure what caliber of tax prep these people will be able to offer -- to potentially thousands of people, for free. But since TurboTax's advice to me at this point is, basically, "Shoot yourself in the head," I suppose it could hardly hurt to try.

Pagan Idolatry

2008-04-11T09:07:00.004-05:00

Nice wins last night, as both New York teams pulled themselves back up to .500 -- 1.5 games out of first place in their respective divisions -- and quieted a few early anxiety pangs.

The Mets had the more dramatic victory, a tense 12-inning grudge match against the Phillies, further building up a rivalry that still has that new-car smell. I imagine I wasn't alone in doubting the Mets would pull this one off, after Aaron Heilman coughed up the lead. But eventually Angel Pagan (owner of the best name in current New York baseball, even if Pagan isn't pronounced the way you want it to be) singled and Jose Reyes, who'd been at second, beat the catcher's tag by a fraction of a second to score the winning run. Or maybe not; it was too close for me to call, frankly. Either way, while noting that everything is amplified this early in the year, it felt like a big win.

However, I don't think I'll really feel like this season is seriously underway until the Marlins and Orioles are out of first place in their divisions. I know it ought to be a fun story, a couple of disrespected underdogs getting their moment in the sun... but instead I just find it unnerving. And the Tigers are five games back from the Royals? Up is down, black is white, Jason Kendall has the highest batting average in the majors.

Back in the AL, the Yankees looked pretty good, as they tend to do when they manage to score more than three runs. Andy Pettitte had one of those games, increasingly common with him over the last few years, where he gets excellent results despite not actually appearing to be pitching all that well. Makes it all the more impressive, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, tonight is the first Yanks-Sox game of the season, and also the first Mets start for Nelson Figueroa, who is awesome. In general, if maybe not at pitching. He's a multi-lingual graphic artist from Coney Island who's thrown in six different U.S. organizations, Mexico, and Taiwan (where he was the 2007 Taiwan Series MVP); when asked this spring what he'd do if he didn't make the Mets, he said:

"I'll play until nobody in the world wants me."

So you've got to root for this guy, clearly. And who knows? Maybe he can be this year's terrifically unlikely Aaron Small-type success story. Unless Angel Pagan's already got that covered.

Finally, via Deadspin, it seems the Rockies are close to trademarking the word (or "word") "Rocktober." I hope they succeed, if only to prevent any organization I actually like from ever using that term.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to rush off and secure the rights to "Emovember."

Kid, This Ain't Your Night

2008-04-10T09:15:00.003-05:00

I'm supposed to write about Tuesday's Shea Stadium opener for the NY Press, so I won't get into it in detail here. But there was no getting past the fact that the fans were immensely pissed off. While the Mets' play was hardly encouraging, I still think people may have been overreacting a bit to only one week of poor play... or anyway, only one week of poor play this season.

Granted, if anyone has the right to overreact these days, it's Mets fans. I try not to freak out about anything in April, though -- it's a long season, and you have to pace yourself. Otherwise you won't have anything left in the tank for those crucial August freak outs.

The Mets won a big one last night, even if the Phillies looked as though they were doing their best to throw the game while gangsters back in Pennsylvania threatened their loved ones at gunpoint. Kyle Kendrick allowed six walks in two innings to start things off, and the miracle is that the Mets only scored one run while he did it. You could almost see him thinking, "Come on! They'll shoot my wife if we win tonight! WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO?!?"

Fortunately Eric Bruntlett, who did not so much replace the injured Jimmy Rollins as disgrace his memory, helped Kendrick out by blowing several easy plays in the third, and the Mets won 8-2. Hey, it's a start.

Meanwhile, over in Kansas City, Joe Girardi tried to out-think nature. He was not successful.

Baseball Player Name(s) of the Week

2008-04-08T09:26:00.004-05:00

Well, I'm certainly not going to top David Pinto's discovery of the new Marlins call-up:

Burke Heinrich Badenhop.

Meanwhile, in excellent, long-awaited NotW news, Eephus Pitch favorite Denard Span -- who lost out on the starting center field job to once and former Met Carlos Gomez -- has been called up to the majors. It took a little longer than I thought it would last spring, but, with the weight of representing Spans everywhere on his light-hitting shoulders, he's making the most of it so far.
Of course, it may not last. When the CF job was decided at the end of spring training, Rob Neyer wrote:

"...Carlos Gomez is going to be their center fielder, taking the prize as the best of a bad lot. Well, not bad. Each of three candidates -- Gomez, plus Jason Pridie and Denard Span -- had something to offer. Well, not Span."

Ah, if I only had a nickel for every time I’d heard words to that effect. But I'm sticking with my guy; I think Denard's going to do fine. I might even pick him up for my fantasy team... hell, I'm in last place as it is.

Anyway, I'm off to Shea for the Mets' home opener. If you see a blonde girl in a Throneberry t-shirt, come say hi.

Devil Rays on a Plane

2008-04-05T14:48:00.005-05:00

I think I may have seriously underestimated Ken Singleton. When the Yankees loaded the bases in the eighth inning with nobody out, he noted:

“For a pitcher, this is sort of the worst situation you can have. It’s like Snakes on a Plane.”

That may be the first time I've heard Singleton -- generally perfectly pleasant but unmemorable in the booth -- make a post-1987 pop cultural reference, but he pulled it off in style.

It was the highlight of an otherwise fairly dismal Yankees game. The Yanks are 2 for 5 now, and the Mets are at .500... but it is, of course, far too soon to worry, so I won't. I imagine things will be looking up tomorrow, with Johan Santana and Chien-Ming Wang on the mound.

Meanwhile, over/under on when the Yankee Stadium crowd breaks LaTroy Hawkins' spirit: June 5. I'm taking the under. You'll know when it happens by the hollow, despairing look in his eyes when he's viciously booed off the mound one time too many.

Now, Hawkins so far has been -- by all accounts, and contrary to my pre-season concerns -- pleasant with the media, and a good teammate to boot. (He has not been a good pitcher, but it's way too early to come to any conclusions on that yet). But New York is especially tough on middle relievers, and taking Paul O'Neill's #21 was a mistake, in terms of both karma and public relations. Morgan Ensberg recognized this immediately and ditched the number like it was on fire.

There is, of course, nothing logically or rationally wrong with Hawkins wearing 21; in fact, honoring Roberto Clemente is nothing but a classy and admirable gesture. I'm not even sure Paul O'Neill really rates a retired number, much as it pains me to admit it. He was a very good player, not an all-time great one, but like a lot of fans I love O'Neill out of all proportion -- he came to New York when I was 12, and was actually instrumental in converting me from a fairly casual fan into the baseball-obsessed nutcase you know today. I would never argue that he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame... but, if I got a ballot, I'd vote for him anyway. (I'd vote for Endy Chavez too. And players with funny names. It's a very, very good thing that I'll never be allowed in the BWAA).

So yes, it's silly and counterproductive to boo Hawkins over this, and I'd never do so myself. But I do understand the impulse.

Blue Balls

2008-03-31T16:03:00.001-05:00

Just got back from Yankee Stadium, where they mysteriously decided to cancel the game just as it completely stopped raining. Shut up, radar! They'll try it again tomorrow -- but at night, much to the relief of the majority of fans, who'd had to take off from work or school.

I knew the new Stadium had come a long way since September, but it was still a shock to see it there, all... well, Stadium-like. I've gotta say, it looks great. I don't think they needed a new building, I hate what's going to happen to prices, and I hate losing all that history on the field... but there's no doubt the new Stadium's exterior is a vast improvement and, having just spent two hours huddled in a cold, wet, jam-packed and filthy bleacher concourse, the idea of a clean and roomy and better-designed structure does hold a certain appeal. I don't even want to think about what was dripping on me all afternoon.

I know by the end of the year -- probably by June -- I'll be sick of the "Last Ever X, Y, or Z in the Old Stadium" fanfare; there's only so long I can keep up that level of nostalgia and sentimentality before it starts to get cloying. ("Sniff, this will be my last time paying $9 for a beer before the New Stadium opens and it goes up to $11!"). Tomorrow night, though, I'm just going to wallow.

Anyway, at least they called the game in time for me to get home and watch Johan Santana's Mets debut, so life's still looking pretty good. Happy Opening Day, everybody.

Nothing Ever Changes, Part LXXXVII

2008-03-25T23:56:00.001-05:00

The Yankees have announced that they will celebrate the final year of Yankee Stadium by putting a "special patch" on their uniforms.

Once again, I quote the one and only Bill Veeck: "It happened that 1951 was the Fiftieth Anniversary of the American League, an event the league was celebrating with its usual burst of inspiration by sewing special emblems on the uniforms of all the players."

This clearly remains baseball's go-to promotional tactic. I'm not suggesting the Yankees should actually emulate Veeck by sending a little person to the plate... but surely there's some middle ground here.

Meanwhile, real baseball has finally started, and I've got a post about it up at the Banter.

Yeah... It Was Probably Time

2008-03-24T14:30:00.002-05:00

From Baseball Prospectus' "Week in Quotes":

"The American League spoils you a little. Not that managing in the American League is easy, but this is certainly different. I'll have to have somebody poke me in the rear end when I have a pitcher that's going to hit."

--Joe Torre, Dodgers manager, on life in the National League. (John Shea, San Francisco Chronicle)

Final Fantasy

2008-03-18T07:50:00.005-05:00

I've got a post up at the Banter today. It's about at-bat music, so head on over and check it out.

And apparently I'm not the only one getting bored with spring training, as -- per the Star Ledger -- Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy are now having slap contests in the clubhouse. Are we there yet?

***

Meanwhile, Sunday night was YanksBlog's Yankees bloggers fantasy league draft. I promise not to bore you with the details all season, but I think it went pretty well, at least by my own extremely low standards. Last year, as you may recall, I was in a salary cap league, and wanted Johan Santana so desperately that I impulsively blew a full third of my budget on him -- eventually ending up with just $600,000 for my last slot, which meant the best designated hitter I could afford was Bubba Crosby. Needless to say, this did not prove to be a winning strategy.

So I'm primed for a comeback, led by Miguel Cabrera and Brandon Webb. Of course, "comeback" is a relative term here. My ultimate goal for the season is to finish at least 10th out of 14, then make fun of whoever finishes below me for losing to a girl.

Reach for the stars, I always say...

The House That Rich Douchebags Built

2008-03-17T00:53:00.006-05:00

Via Sliding Into Home, MLB.com has posted renderings of the New Yankee Stadium. Check out the eye candy:

Well, that sure looks lovely, but... uh, say... where'd the Bronx go?

Yes, the new Stadium appears to be floating magically in the sky. No tenements here, only fluffy white clouds!

I bring this up because the site these photos come from is an add for "Yankees Premium" suites at the new Stadium, and I'm afraid that if you have a soul, it will make you want to throw something breakable at a wall:

"An Exclusive Experience... For Those With Discerning Tastes... Who Seek The Very Best... Life Has To Offer."

... "An Exclusive Experience"? Excuse me? It's a baseball stadium, you assholes! I want a decent view of the game and beer that costs less than $10, how's that for "Discerning"? Gah. Sometimes I think the Yankees must be actively trying to make everybody hate them.

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-03-16T22:38:00.005-05:00

An incredibly easy choice this time, thanks to today's Mets-Tigers spring training game:

Outfielder Deik Scram.

Sounds (though does not look) a bit like a lost Sex Pistol.

UPDATE: Whoops! Metphistopheles beat me to it. The moral here is, when one sees a name like Deik Scram, one must act immediately.

Armando Benitez Has NO Natural Cow Sense

2008-03-12T14:41:00.008-05:00

Spring training ~~news and~~ notes:

*The Mets have the right idea. They're occupied with trying to surreptitiously balance things on Luis Castillo's head -- bubble gum, plastic cups -- while the Yankees are getting into shoving matches with the Devil Rays to defend the honor of Francisco Cervelli. Or something.

*Logically, I realize it must somehow seem like a good idea to sign Armando Benitez... because teams keep doing it. But I'm damned if I can understand why. The Blue Jays must not have watched many Giants games last season.

*Young Yankees pitcher Ross Ohlendorf has "a lot of natural cow sense." That's good to hear. After all, how many promising pitching prospects have we gotten excited about over the years, only to see them fall short at the Major League level due to a tragic lack of cow sense? Never again!

*The Red Sox traveled by plane to a spring training game recently. The Twins, naturally, did not, and wise and sparkly-eyed little baseball elf Ron Gardenhire shared some old bus ride stories:

"... the bus catches on fire and Big Fella [clubhouse legend Wayne Hattaway] tells Tom Kelly, 'I'm not leaving, T.K. I'm going down with the ship.'

Wayne Hattaway is a great character, by the way, and still going.

The Dude abides

*Joel Sherman of the Post has a good story about Shelley Duncan, who sparked yesterday's silly "benches-clearing incident" by spiking the Devil Rays' second baseman:

Shelley Duncan Shelley Duncan once had a minor-league incident, in the Florida State League, when all heck broke loose on the field around him. He had slid into second base and the shortstop on Detroit’s Single-A team had thrown from an unnaturally low angle, at least in Duncan’s opinion, and nearly hit the sliding Duncan in the head. He chased around the shortstop all over the field as the benches and dugouts emptied. But he never did catch the shortstop. The identity of the shortstop: Current Mets New York Mets farmhand Anderson Hernandez Anderson Hernandez . And Duncan says the two became friends after the incident.

What's great about this is that Hernandez didn't even consider any of the usual macho posturing, but just turned and ran like the wind. Quite right, too, since he's about half Duncan's size.

Idle Hands Are the Devil Rays' Playground

2008-03-09T23:42:00.001-05:00

You can only strand dozens of reporters in Florida with no real news to cover for so long before they will, out of sheer desperation, latch onto the first vaguely controversial thing they can find; it took a while this year, but the Yankees finally have their first good and meaningless spring training kerfluffle. (Unless you count Kyle Farnsworth mouthing off about Joe Torre, but I refuse to dignify that with the term "kerfluffle", because seriously: until you get your ERA down from 4.8, nobody wants to hear it).

So: Tampa Bay Devil (yeah, you heard me) Rays minor leaguer Elliot Johnson ran over Yankees minor league catcher Francisco Cervelli in a play at the plate, and Cervelli ended up with a fractured arm. Joe Girardi was upset that Johnson played so aggressively, risking injury, during a meaningless spring training game; then Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon got defensive. Now everyone's favorite gerbil, Tampa adviser Don Zimmer, who does not take kindly to this soft, newfangled, try-not-to-maim-your-opponent style of wussy-ball, has criticized Girardi. And the Yankees are muttering vaguely about payback. Betrayal! Violence! Revenge!

Well, if by "betrayal" you mean "Zim being a little grouchy," and by "revenge" you mean "drilling some no-name Devil Rays prospect in the ass with a fastball in a ST game". So you probably don't need to buy the movie rights just yet. Though I actually wouldn't mind a Yankees-Devil Rays rivalry, since if you have to watch Tampa play 18 times a year, those games might as well have a little added spark -- yes, this is the year everybody's picking Tampa to not suck, and I understand the logic, but I'll believe it when I see it.

That said, this particular mini-controversy is completely silly. The Rays player, Johnson, wasn't trying to hurt anybody; he only had a fraction of a second to decide what to do, he's trying to impress his coaches, he went for it. I think it was dumb, because you really should go out of your way not to injure anyone in March, but I can see how it'd happen. (The Twins' Ron Gardenhire, official Manager I'd Most Like To Have a Beer With, agrees with me, or rather I agree with him, because Ron Gardenhire is a wise and sparkly-eyed little baseball elf).

See?

There was no malicious intent on Johnson's part, so far as we know, and there's no need to "retaliate" -- this isn't Clemens-Piazza here, no one threw at anyone's head. These things happen, and frankly, while this may sound callous, the Yanks should just be counting their lucky stars it wasn't Jorge Posada.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking a lot about El Duque's proposed new delivery -- he's trying to lower his iconic leg kick in an effort to keep pressure off his bunion. Yes, I just admitted to thinking a lot about a middle-aged man's bunion; leave me alone.

While there are many, many people involved in this process -- El Duque himself, Willie Randolph, Rick Peterson, etc -- who know vastly more about changing deliveries than I do, it still strikes me as something of a harebrained scheme. And it's a little poignant, because the sky-high leg kick has become such a part of Hernandez's legend; I used to* try and imitate it when I threw the ball for my dog. It's hard to imagine him being the same pitcher without it.

But the more I think about it, the more this attempt by El Duque actually fits. After all, he didn't start drawing his knee up to his ear because it looked cool; he did it because it confused the hell out of batters. Hernandez is constantly switching speeds and arm angles just to gain a slight deceptive edge, and vanity is not one of his concerns, hence the eephus pitch. So it makes sense that when things aren't working, he's willing to experiment -- to try anything, really, however odd or unlikely.

If he's not already using a little dab of Vaseline on the ball from time to time, maybe it's time to start... after all the steroid scandals, that sounds downright wholesome.

*last week.

Get to Know Your New New York Players, Part 5: Matt Wise

2008-03-05T08:54:00.006-05:00

When the Mets signed Matt "Skeletor" Wise to a one-year deal, I didn't know much about him, and didn't expect enough from him to bother with a post. His numbers are largely uninspiring. But thanks to a stream of positive spring training coverage, I now feel compelled to root for the guy.

First of all, he's repeatedly injured himself in ridiculous ways, which is something I can relate to on a personal level. Since recovering from 2003 Tommy John surgery, Wise has strained his shoulder on a "slick railing"(?), sliced his hand open on salad tongs (I still have a scar from the time three years ago I decided to open a bag of granola with a steak knife), and somehow managed to concuss himself on the dugout roof while walking off the field. Damn and blast MLB for pulling that footage off YouTube.

Now, these mishaps don't reach the bizarre heights of, say, Clint Barmes' broken shoulder by deer meat, or Glenallen Hill's spider-nightmare sleepwalking incident, but that's still a pretty impressive litany of bad luck.

And in today's Journal News, Wise talks about how much he struggled last season after hitting a batter in the face; he was too worried that he might hurt somebody to pitch effectively inside. That sensitivity may not be ideal in pitchers -- guys like Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan, for instance, seemed to regard an occasional maimed batter as par for the course -- but it's admirable in general.

Needless to say, this warm Port St. Lucie lovefest will not continue through the season should Wise fail to improve on his career-average ERA of 4.18.

***

In the course of writing this post, I came across some truly spectacular baseball injury stories of which I'd somehow been previously unaware. Perhaps my favorite is the fact that Vince Coleman, then of the Cardinals, "missed the 1985 World Series after he was run over by the automatic tarp machine." I've never even heard of an automatic tarp machine, and perhaps this is why.

Coleman is of course best known to Mets fans for being frequently injured, fighting with coaches, and tossing a lit firecracker at small children in the Dodgers Stadium parking lot. I was aware of all that -- but I never realized before that Coleman must simply have been dealing, the best way he knew how, with the suppressed trauma of a vicious tarp attack. The media can be SO unfair sometimes.

Smokey, My Friend, You Are Entering a World of Pain

2008-03-04T09:33:00.002-05:00

Let me take you back to December 2006, when ESPN did a long investigative piece into athletes' infatuation with their guns -- weapons, not biceps, though probably either one could apply. Luke Scott, in particular, stood out for his... ah, enthusiasm:

"An athlete gets paid a lot of money," he said. "And someone who is after that, a thief, a mugger or someone who steals from people, they are taking a chance with the law that if they get caught, they are going to jail or face some other problem."

With a broad smile, he added, "In my case, you are going to get shot."

There's a whole lot more in that vein, if you read the full article (including a rather questionable story about about Scott flashing his Glock, tucked into the front of his jeans, at a supposedly "up to no good" Katrina refugee who approached him at a Texas gas station). I bring it up now because Scott was recently traded to the Orioles, and as the Baltimore Sun reports (hat tip to Buster Olney), manager Dave Trembley asked him about "the gun situation." Scott is standing firm:

"Certain things, if I'm asked about them, I'm very outspoken," said Scott, who hit .255 with 18 home runs and 64 RBIs for the Astros last season. "I'm outspoken about my faith. I'm outspoken about my beliefs. I'm outspoken about what I believe this country is about. And I don't back down when it comes to core beliefs."...

…[Scott] said he has been "challenged" in the clubhouse in the past about his faith in God, but no one has spoken out against his thoughts on firearms and gun legislation.”

No, of course they haven’t, because you don’t speak out against the thoughts of someone who is both angry and armed to the teeth.

I should add here, before you email me, that it's not the gun owning I'm questioning so much as Scott's chillingly gung-ho attitude towards his concealed weapon (... as it were). My dad lives in rural upstate New York, and like everyone up there, he's got a rifle; most of the gun owners I've met there are kind, normal, nonviolent people. However, I'm pretty sure that, unlike Luke Scott, none of them walks around with a Glock tucked into his or her jeans. Baltimore residents: when approaching Scott for an autograph, do not make any sudden movements.

In other news:

-Have I ever mentioned that ESPN's Rob Neyer is incredibly talented? And also strikingly handsome?

-The Mets are courting disaster a little early this year. (Marlon Anderson's sternum: 1, Ryan Church's head: 0). The only really significant injuries here are Delgado's hip -- supposedly not serious, but then he was bad enough last season even when healthy -- and El Duque's general ancientness, which I think everyone saw coming. Still, this is getting a bit disconcerting.

The good news is that Johan Santana will be starting another spring training game soon. The man is like human Lexapro.

-Which Major League player recently said, when asked about a six-figure contract he perceives as disappointing:

"We're heading into a recession and people are struggling out there. They don't need to hear me complaining about my big salary not being big enough. Thanks for asking, but it's between me, my agent and the club."

Trick question! None of them, of course. That was just King Kaufman of Salon.com's suggested response; he has a good column on young players' annual complaints about the hundreds of thousands of dollars they'll make this season. Semi-understandable in context, but still insanely irritating.

(Incidentally, King Kaufman would totally win "Sports Writer Name of the Week" if I had such a feature. Followed by La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.)

-Finally, a few of the Red Sox held a charity dance-off. Only Mike Lowell escaped with his dignity.

The Ghost of Ineffective Middle Relief Past

2008-03-02T03:02:00.001-05:00

Let me preface this by saying that I like Joe Torre. It was probably time for the Yankees to make a change, but the team had a ton of success on Torre's watch, he seems like an eminently decent human being, and I wish him all the best. That said, I am not looking forward to reading what's sure to be a plethora of articles that begin just like this one:

“VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Joe Torre might have looked out of place wearing Los Angeles Dodgers blue. He was right at home as a winner.”

This is referring, by the way, to the first game of spring training. Gag me.

Incidentally, the Dodgers' win came against the Braves, whose pitchers included Matt DeSalvo and Colter Bean*. Given that (as of last week, anyway) Torre has Tanyon Sturtze, Esteban Loaiza, and Mike Myers in camp, I'm forced to conclude that the man is suffering some sort of karmic payback for his bullpen mismanagement over the years. You can move to the other side of the country, but you can't escape your past...

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread."

*Based solely on this fact, I hereby predict that the Braves have no chance in hell at the NL East title.

The Best of "Oedipus Bronx"

2008-02-29T08:59:00.004-05:00

The New York Times' Play Magazine has a highly entertaining article on what I like to think of as Steinbrenners: The New Class. It's by Jonathan Mahler, who wrote the excellent Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning (don't let the clunky ESPN miniseries put you off). If you're at all interested in the topic it's well worth reading the entire thing, but here are a few quotes that caught my eye:

*On Jessica Steinbrenner's ex:

"Before Lopez, Jessica, who is in her mid-40s, was married to Joseph Molloy, who served briefly as the team’s general partner when Steinbrenner was banned from baseball in the early 1990s. (Molloy is now a physical-education teacher at a middle school in Tampa; Jessica keeps an office at Legends Field but devotes most of her time to the family’s horses.)"

From general partner of the Yankees to middle school gym teacher. That guy's head must still be spinning.

*Jennifer Swindal Steinbrenner on the openings left by the DUI arrest and subsequent divorce of her ex-husband Steve Swindal:

"... Jennifer avoided discussing the change in management caused by her ex-husband’s departure. Instead, she dismissed her tabloid divorce, and the resulting upheaval within the Yankees, with peppy spin. “It couldn’t have been scripted any better,” she told me."

Really? Not any better?

*On the new Stadium's field:

"...the rain tarp will be moved from the first-base side of the field to the third-base side so that Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, the Yankees’ two most valuable assets, will have something soft to land on when they dive after foul balls..."

This is great. Sorry, Shelley Duncan! Pay real close attention to those fielding lessons with Tino, and try not to break anything when you and your very affordable contract crash into cold , hard metal!

*The money quote, Hank on the Red Sox:

“Red Sox Nation?” Hank says. “What a bunch of [expletive] that is. That was a creation of the Red Sox and ESPN, which is filled with Red Sox fans. Go anywhere in America and you won’t see Red Sox hats and jackets, you’ll see Yankee hats and jackets. This is a Yankee country. We’re going to put the Yankees back on top and restore the universe to order.”

I'm still trying to figure out whether to cringe or laugh over this one; I suppose since everyone already thinks of the Yankees as arrogant, you may as well embrace that identity and make it your own. And really -- if he'd said something diplomatic about what a great organization Boston has, you'd have been bored to tears, right? Just give in.

Release your anger... with our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy...

*A surprisingly honest assessment of the team from everyone's favorite alleged Joe Torre backstabber Randy Levine:

“The Yankees today are an entertainment company with a baseball team at its core,” Randy Levine, the team’s president, told me recently, ticking off some of the club’s less visible businesses, including its memorabilia company, Yankees-Steiner Collectibles, which sells players’ game-used uniforms and gear, and its partnership with the Japanese media company Yomiuri Shimbun, the owner of the Yomiuri Giants.

Personally I think sports are entertainment in and of themselves, but that's not the point here; Levine is acknowledging that the actual Yankees are now almost incidental to the massive corporation they're part of. The team is always central to the fans, of course, but not so much to the owners:

Last summer, when Goldman Sachs was shopping around its approximately 40 percent stake in YES, the network was valued at around $3 billion. According to Forbes magazine, the team itself isn’t worth half that.

That's the reality of modern big market sports. But it makes me nervous, because it's shades of Cablevision -- which is such a vast empire that no matter what a disgrace the Knicks mutate into, their owners, the Dolans, feel virtually no ill effects financially. Obviously the Yankees, as big as they are, aren't a monster like Cablevision, but I'm traumatized from years of Isiah Thomas basketball and I do worry. The timeline at the end of the Play story reminded me, much to my horror, that Cablevision actually tried to buy a big share of the Yankees back in 1998, and came extremely close to an agreement; the deal collapsed because Steinbrenner wouldn't give up control.

Whatever George Steinbrenner's faults -- and they were many -- let us never forget that his stubbornness spared New York baseball from the staggering horrorshow that is Jim Dolan. In my book, that that makes up for quite a few illegal Nixon campaign contributions.

Bored at Work?

2008-02-28T12:23:00.004-05:00

I've got a column on Slate today, for those of you who are interested - "Why Red Sox and Yankee fans are happy they won't be rooting for the best pitcher in baseball."

If You Build It, They Will Lock in a Competitive 2.25% APY With a Six-Month CD

2008-02-25T12:32:00.009-05:00

The Mets unveiled the new CitiField logo today, with much fanfare... and it's... well, pretty weak, frankly. Isn't this just the Citibank logo, with orange and blue squares? At an angle?

That $20 million/year Citibank is giving the Mets will pay for much of Johan Santana, and that's probably worth it. But this image, to me, says nothing about the crack of the bat, the buzz of the crowd, the elegance of a well-turned double play, or the majesty of a towering home run -- let alone Queens, or New York, or the character of the Mets. This says "refinance your mortgage".

Bring your kiddies, bring your wife, earn 4.00% APY when you make two online bill payments each calendar month

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-02-25T11:22:00.001-05:00

Cleveland Indians minor leaguer Cirilo Cumberbatch.

It's reminiscent of ex-Oneonta Yankee Abdiel Cumberbatch -- WasWatching first noticed that gem -- which is what I plan on naming my first child one day, regardless of gender.

Meanwhile, previous NotW winner Cody Ransom continues to compete for an exceedingly unlikely spot on the Yankees' roster. And my guy Denard Span, of the Twins, is facing stiff competition for Minnesota's center field spot since the arrival of equally fast and similarly light-hitting former Met Carlos Gomez. But he's not going down without a fight, and clearly I have no choice but to root for him, because I totally want to buy an official "Span" t-shirt.

Please Go a Little Bit Gentler Into That Good Night?

2008-02-22T13:31:00.006-05:00

Whatever the YES network pays its analysts... it's not enough.

I was flipping through the channels last night and came across Al Leiter, of all people, on Spike TV's Pros vs. Joes. Now, granted, all I know about this show is what I've read on Deadspin... but seriously, Al Leiter is no John Rocker. In fact, last I heard he was considering running for Congress! What happened?

Not that Leiter embarassed himself -- the "Joes" only got a couple hard-hit balls in many attempts off him, and the Spike TV radar gun clocked him at 91 and 92 miles per hour, once even 93. (Since I can't recall him ever hitting that as a Yankee in his last season, I'm a bit skeptical, but I'm willing to let it pass). Weirdly, the guy who won - by hitting 1 triple in 10 swings, and later getting down a nice bunt - was named David Ortiz.

(UPDATE: Per this SI.com interview Leiter gave on the topic:

This was his opportunity to get back at every beer guzzling, hot dog chomping, chain-smoking blowhard that taunted him during his 18-year career. Although Leiter does wish this chance would have come a few years ago while he was in the visiting bullpen in Philadelphia.
"This is as close as you're going to get to getting back at them on the field," says Leiter, who is the first pitcher to have defeated all 30 MLB teams. "You couldn't get an active athlete to come out here while under contract and really get after it. That would be the best. Having a guy that yells at you at Veteran Stadium, 'Leiter you suck!' and then say, "Come on down." That would be the best reality show ever, but this is pretty close."

So... he's not looking for money, but revenge? I guess I can get behind that.)

Getting a little off-topic, I found it odd that the "Pros" -- in this case, also including Nick Van Exel and Warren Moon -- all root for each other. I mean, as far as I know they weren't friends before this; why not root for the regular dude to win some prize money? Do they feel the reputations of all aging ex-athletes hang in the balance? Or do they just support other rich and famous people on general principles?

Anyway, speaking of retiring pitchers who played for both the Mets and Yankees...Newsday's Dave Lennon reports that El Duque's offseason foot surgery was not for his bunion, as previously thought:

The bunion on his right foot is still there and its causing him problems this spring.
El Duque had surgery to fix a dislocated second toe, which is now actually shorter, affecting his balance. Because of that, Hernandez is lagging behind the other pitchers as he tries to adjust. At the moment, he's planning to face hitters on Saturday.

Duque also talked about retirement for the first time saying its 50-50 after this season. He jokingly slid out his nameplate and said, "Someone else next year."

Jeremy Cothran of the Ledger has further disgusting details. Last year it was arthritis, then bunions... shingles and gout can only be next.

I absolutely love seeing El Duque pitch, and as the only current major leaguer to regularly throw the eephus, for both the Yankees and Mets, he's sort of the patron saint of this blog. After ten years of watching him, and a few group interviews, I still have basically no feel for his personality -- he doesn't much enjoy speaking to reporters and is hilariously shameless about pretending not to speak English, often mere seconds after speaking it perfectly well -- but Hernandez is incredibly inventive on the mound. These days he usually gets hitters out with nothing but rubber bands, thumbtacks and chewing gum, as his fastball is now practically the same speed Joba Chamberlain's changeup, but if anything it's made him even more interesting to watch.

But the guy's a lot older than he claims, and it looks like he's finally reaching the end of the line. There are few players I'll miss more... but I never want to see him on Spike TV.

Pedro, on the other hand, will need his own show.

We Are All Interested In The Future, For That Is Where You And I Are Going To Spend The Rest Of Our Lives

2008-02-21T13:48:00.009-05:00

The Amazing A-Rod predicts!:... that Derek Jeter will win an MVP this season. I don't know how, exactly, but people will find a way to get mad at him for this.

Speaking of predictions, Jimmy Rollins replied to Carlos Beltran's, and then the Mets responded to that, and then Ryan told Jose that he heard from Brett that... yeah, there's not much real baseball news just yet. Select anonymous Phillies have apparently mentioned brawls, which reminds me that neither the Mets or the Yanks had even one actual fight last year -- just a scuffle each, with some shouting and your basic "hold me back!" posturing.

While few things in sports are sillier than a baseball fight, I have to admit part of me wants the Yankees to have one this season; it's the last year of Kyle Farnsworth's contract, and that's pretty much the only thing he excells at. (Seriously, if you haven't watched this clip of Farnsworth vs. Jeremy Affeldt during a Tigers-Royals brawl, you are depriving yourself of hours of enjoyment). Seems like a waste if the Yankees don't get even one jaw-dropping tackle for their money.

However, as for the Mets, I say let the Phillies run their mouths: I don't want to see an opposing player come within 10 feet of Johan Santana's left arm at any time, for any reason.

One more prediction for the road (via RAB): Kevin Millar says the Orioles are gonna win it all, baby! He's kidding, of course - and aiming some jokey trash talk at the Cubs' Ryan Dempster, another prediction-happy player. Still: it's probably not a good sign when a team's veteran players are openly joking about how ludicrous it would be for them to win a championship, you know?

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-02-18T08:58:00.002-05:00

Brooks Badeaux.

Well he looks full of joie de vivre, doesn't he? Perhaps it's because his Durham Bulls are a Tampa Bay Devil Rays* affiliate. Anyway, in addition to sounding like a suave B-movie villain, or perhaps a minor Walker Percy character, Badeaux seems to have played every position except catcher. He's been to spring training with Tampa three times over the years but only received a grand total of four at-bats there, which must be a bit frustrating.

*Yes, I know, it's the "Tampa Bay Rays" now. But I find the entire name change so inane, I refuse to go along with it. In fact, every time I even type "Tampa Bay" from now on, just so you know, I will be making a devil sign.

No Matter How Long The Winter...

2008-02-16T14:06:00.008-05:00

Ah, spring training! Pitchers and catchers are in camp and my RSS reader is blowing up. News and notes:

-Mike Mussina had minor leaguer Billy Traber's locker switched so that Phil Hughes could be in the corner, next to Mussina and Ian Kennedy. The Moose comes off as such a grouchy old man sometimes that I thought Traber must have been playing his music too loud or something, but that's not it:

Ian Kennedy was given the locker on one side of Mussina and non-roster lefty Billy Traber the other. Phil Hughes, meanwhile, was five lockers away, between Carl Pavano and Andy Pettitte.
So Mussina talked to Rob Cucuzza, who is the actual clubhouse manager, and asked Hughes and Traber to be swapped. Mussina wanted Hughes we well as Kennedy to be part of any impromptu pitching discussions.

My question is, whose idea was it to place Hughes next to Carl Pavano? That guy shouldn't be allowed within 15 feet of a pitching prospect. Just the thought brings out all my protective instincts.

Anyway, this is a classy move by Mussina. I wonder what kind of wisdom he'll be imparting?...

“So kids, remember all that stuff Rocket told you last season about ‘B12 shots'? DISREGARD.”

-MetsBlog has a quote from Ryan Church, who's all excited to join the Mets -- to be expected, as this kid comes from a place where Dmitri Young qualifies as a superstar. Just wait until the lifetime Expo/National finds himself on a team with a winning percentage over .500, his head might explode.

-Paul Lo Duca apologizes, vaguely, for "mistakes in judgment" and his memorable supporting role in the Mitchell report. That took two months?

-While I find all this "team to beat" stuff pretty silly, it's nice to see Carlos Beltran showing a little life. Beltran, when he's healthy, is a joy to watch, but you always wish he would have a bit more fun out there.

-Excellent news: the Mets signed Olmedo Saenz, owner of one of the better nicknames in the game, to a minor league deal. "The Killer Tomato" is not only an accomplished pinch-hitter, but also offers the kind of zaftig presence that's sorely lacking in New York this season.

-In the "La Plus Ca Change" division: pitchers throwing for Joe Torre in the Dodgers' camp the other day included Tanyon Sturtze, Esteban Loaiza, and Mike Myers.

You can run, but you can't hide.

Fear and Loathing in the Congressional Oversight Committee

2008-02-13T17:49:00.000-05:00

There's been saturation coverage of the hearings all day, so I'll just summarize my reaction here real quick:

1. I believe Roger Clemens took steroids.

2. That said, good luck convicting him of perjury if your main witness for the prosecution is Brian McNamee.

3. By forcing the issue this far, Clemens put Andy Pettitte in a really terrible position. Which, to be honest, lowers my opinion of Clemens more than any amount of steroid use.

But hey, at least he's not a vegan.

4. Our elected representative are asses. Why on earth did even this spectacle have to split down party lines? We have a thrilling three-way bipartisan tie for the most staggeringly stupid thing said by a member of Congress today:

*Representative Clay, Democrat of Maryland, asking on behalf of a friend what hat Clemens would wear into the Hall of Fame. Points for ballsiness! Negative points for wild inappropriateness.

*Rep. David (R, VA) comparing the attacks on Clemens to "a lynching." No. No, no, no.

*Rep. Souder (R, IN) comparing the players' widespread silence on the steroid issue to the anti-snitching culture in Baltimore that got one family's house fatally firebombed recently. Again: no.

Nobody has died, people! Although I'm starting to consider it. I'm sick, it's raining, I'm stressed out, and I just watched the U.S. Government discuss abscesses and buttocks for a solid hour. Not even kitlers can cheer me up today.

I'll leave you with this quote, though, from the autobiography of the great Bill Veeck:

“Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that baseball is not a great game. It has to be a great game to have survived what we have done to it.”

Amen.

Madness!

2008-02-12T19:58:00.000-05:00

I like Joe Girardi. I think he's smart about the game, and intensely hard-working, and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of job he does this year.

That said, he would probably not be at the top of the list of "Managers I'd Like to Have a Beer With"*.

From Jack Curry's in-depth interview with Girardi:

G- “I think one of the jobs of a manager is make sure it’s an enjoyable place to work every day, even during the bad times. You have to find a way to make it enjoyable. Sometimes, you got to do things a little different. Sometimes, you got to be a little off the wall, as off the wall as I can be.”

C- What would be off the wall for you?

G- “I would do things with the players to spice it up. I might run with them one day. I might pull them off the field a little early during batting practice if it’s hot. You’ve got to have the pulse of your players at all times.”

Wow. I mean, hey, I'm all for having a little fun on the job, but slightly shortened batting practice on hot days? I had no idea Girardi was such a loose cannon.

*Number one on that list: Ron Gardenhire.
Last place: Tony La Russa.

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-02-12T01:20:00.000-05:00

Cody Ransom.

Well, that’s just flat-out awesome. Cody Ransom. Ransom will be the Yanks’ third baseman at Scranton this year, and I only hope they let him play while wearing a cowboy hat and a six-shooter as God so obviously intended. In fact, is there some way he can play third base on horseback?

Cody Ransom was born in Mesa, Arizona and actually went to Grand Canyon University. Honest. I'm not even going to look up photos of this guy because it can only be disappointing.

Get To Know Your New New York Players, Part 4: Ryan Church

2008-02-10T14:30:00.000-05:00

After looking at Brian Schneider and LaTroy Hawkins, plus some Venezuelan lefty whose name escapes me at the moment, it's time to see what we can't find out about new Mets outfielder Ryan Church. I put this off because I kept thinking Minaya was going to turn around and trade the guy, but apparently not; Willie Randolph told WFAN the other day that he (Church, not Randolph, though that would be fun) will get the chance to win the starting right field job.

Checking out Church's stats, I see that even the guy who sponsors his Baseball-Reference.com page writes, "It was a fun ride, but you're no Lastings Milledge." Ouch. Still, when Church has been healthy, he's put up solid numbers, unspectacular but useful.

Off the field, he found himself in the middle of a mini-scandal a few years back, thanks to conversations with the Nationals' overzealous team chaplain. The unfortunate Washington Post headline was "Nats' Church Apologizes For Remarks About Jews":

An article in Sunday's paper about Baseball Chapel quoted Church as saying that he had turned to Moeller for advice about his former girlfriend, who was Jewish. "I said, like, Jewish people, they don't believe in Jesus. Does that mean they're doomed? Jon nodded, like, that's what it meant. My ex-girlfriend! I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions don't know any better. It's up to us to spread the word," Church said.

Whoops. I'm sure the Mets' PR staff will be having a little chat with Church about trying not to alienate one third of his new team's fan base. (Particularly not the third that controls the media! Har.) Anyway, Church apologized immediately-- "I am not the type of person who would call into question the religious beliefs of others" -- and the whole mess seems to reflect more on Moeller, the chaplain, than Church, who comes off mainly as excessively impressionable. Still... the Mets ditched Shawn Green for this guy? Insult to injury.

Fun fact: Church once roomed and played with the Yanks' own Darrell Rasner at the University of Nevada. There's really no reason anyone should care about that, and yet, having learned it, I felt oddly compelled to share.

Karma's Payment Plan

2008-02-08T13:19:00.001-05:00

Careful, Yankee fans, this is a dangerous time.

I understand that Curt Schilling's shoulder injury, and its timing, provide a golden opportunity for schadenfreude. I really do. But remember: it is terrible baseball karma to wish for, or celebrate, injuries. By all means hope for Curt Schilling to be absolutely horrendous in 2008 -- but not because of significant surgical procedures, or pain. It's unseemly, but more to the point, it'll make the baseball gods just that much more inclined to give potential Sox starter Jon Lester a spectacular season for the ages... or to reach down and loosen one of Phil Hughes' ligaments.

So get well soon, Curt. Get well soon, and then suck.

UPDATE: That said... this is pretty funny.

Actually, I Can Only Dream About Having That Kind Of Storage Space

2008-02-07T13:16:00.000-05:00

I'm a little confused by everyone's reaction to the news that Brian McNamee claims to have kept used syringes and bloody gauze as evidence of Roger Clemens' steroid use. So... people are saying it's not normal to keep boxes of your friends' and clients' bloody medical waste for eight years? Here I thought I was just being conscientious!

Seriously, though: Ew. I think Clemens probably did use steroids, but the more I learn about McNamee, the more the ex-trainer appears to be a slimy, untrustworthy scumbag.

In other news:

-Johan Sanata was introduced to New York yesterday in all his glory. Santana was relaxed and friendly and stayed on-message -- he's not a born showman type, like Pedro Martinez or Johnny Damon, but he handled himself well. Maybe a bit stiff and scripted in the main press conference, but looser and more charming in the subsequent one-on-one interviews. Still, he was nearly Jeterian in his determination to say nothing controversial. Which is probably for the best when you consider...

-...last night's revelation that Pedro Martinez is apparently a cockfighter. You know, I'm surprisingly unsurprised by this.

-My ancient Tino Martinez #24 t-shirt is current once more! Well, sort of. Tino is in Tampa working with Shelley Duncan, a meeting of remarkably affable and good-natured first basemen. Expect much enthusiastic high-fiving.

-Paul at Yanksfan vs Soxfan has some fun projections, based on BP's PECOTA numbers, for the Yankees and Red Sox in 2008. I've weathered the offseason pretty well this year, but looking at those posts, particularly the segment on the Yankees' starting pitching, I suddenly experienced a yearning for actual baseball games so acute it almost physically hurt.

Name of the Week, Revisited

2008-02-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

I got a great comment this morning on the last Baseball Player Name of the Week post, regarding Ferd Eunick. This is one of those things that just makes you love the internet. Writes Kimberly Eunick Hay:

"Well, I can tell you what I know about my grandfather, Fernandas Bowen Eunick. He died in 1959, 8 years before I was born in Baltimore, MD. Played high school ball against Hall of Famer George Herman (Babe) Ruth. Worked his way through the minor leagues, played in Montreal, among other places til he got his shot at the show in 1917. Played in one game at the end of the season. Cleveland wanted him to come back the next year, but his future father-in-law made him decide - baseball or my grandmother. And he chose to walk away from his dream for her. He never really forgot the game - played semi-pro ball as long as he could and died - literally - at an Old Timers event at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium on December 9, 1959. He was inducted in the Maryland Professional Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956 - I have the trophy and pics of him receiving it at home.

And for the record - NO ONE called him Fred - no idea where they got that from.

When people ask that question about any person, dead or alive you'd want to have lunch with - my answer would always be him. Very proud to know my grandad pursued his dreams."

Well, that explains the two career at-bats; playing high school ball against Babe Ruth, then passing away at an Old Timers Day -- it's hard to top that as bookends to a baseball life. Thanks to Ms. Hay for taking the time to write.

One "S" Short of a Marketing Sensation

2008-02-04T20:34:00.000-05:00

I've never been much of a football fan, but last night's game might just make me into one.

I refer of course to Puppy Bowl IV.

Kidding! I'll probably go right back to ignoring football next year, but this Super Bowl was amazing, a ton of fun to watch. I didn't think the Giants had a prayer, but I was glad to be wrong, and Brooklyn was in a very happy place last night (and a very hungover place this morning). I walked the dog when I got home, and we couldn't go 50 feet without an exuberant Giants fan stopping to pet her and, oddly, congratulate her on the win. "18-1!" was ringing out late into the night, or, more often, "18-1, MOTHERFUCKERS!" You gotta admit, Boston had it coming. I still believe to this day that I personally jinxed the Yankees out of their 2004 American League Championship, so I know whereof I speak.

In baseball news... well, now we know why Don Mattingly had to reduce his role on the Dodgers' coaching staff. If you'd had to guess which player might find himself in that situation, wouldn't the eternally buttoned-up Mattingly have been just about your last choice? Anyway, this is one of those stories that I really don't want to follow too closely -- it's hard to see how it's any of my business.

Finally, via RAB I see that the Yanks have "expressed interest" in Kevin Mench. Yes! Finally! I've been saying for years (literally) that anyone named Mench, spelling aside, belongs in New York. It's taken them long enough.

And If You Don't Know, Now You Know

2008-02-02T13:13:00.001-05:00

I've got a post about Chuck Knoblauch up at the Banter, for those of you who're interested.

Meanwhile Johan Santana and the Mets made it official last night, of course, and there was much rejoicing. MetsBlog must have set some sort of page view record yesterday; I did little but click "refresh" for three hours straight, and I was not alone. Anyway, I was going to do a Get To Know post on him, but really, I pretty much covered Santana back in December. As I said then:

I think one reason I'm fascinated by Santana is that I know so little about him, which is what happens when relatively quiet people play for teams in the middle of the country. I don't get to see a lot of interviews or quotes from the guy, which means it's easy to make him into something of an ideal figure. (Plus I used to read a lot of Bat Girl; she referred to him simply as El Presidente).

The only off-field Santana antic I can remember made me like him even more -- it happened this past summer, when the Twins came to Shea. Minnesota broadcaster Bert Blyleven bet Santana he couldn't throw a complete game shutout (note to Blyleven: this works much better with Sidney Ponson); it turned out Santana could, and indeed did, so Blyleven had to let him shave his head:

I think the best part of all this is that while pitching his complete game shutout, Johan Santana was apparently thinking about how he would get to shave Bert Blyleven's head.

I say trade every minor leaguer that isn't nailed down.

Rewatching that video, I'll add that Santana also sounds a little bit like a muppet. But in a good way! Also, check out this additional Johan video, from a fan in the stands; anyone who messes with Sidney Ponson during his downtime is, clearly, a man after my own heart.

Johan, Johan Johan Johan, Jo-han, Jooo-haaan...

2008-01-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

Oh thank Christ.

It's not definite yet, and most Mets fans are desperately trying to restrain their jubilation until it is, but summer in Queens is looking a whole lot brighter. I was really starting to think we were going to be watching Livan Hernandez pitch every five days. This... this is better.

And in the National League! In a pitcher's park! When the season starts I'll buy some fine wine, crank up the music, and just watch that beautiful, beautiful, changeup. Then I'll rewind the Tivo and watch it again. (I mean, assuming he doesn't blow his elbow out in spring training... now please excuse me while I go knock on every piece of wood within a five block radius).

My best guess for happiest human on the planet tonight: Willie Randolph.

I do feel for Twins fans, though, who in my experience are a pretty excellent bunch, and deserve better. The best pitcher in baseball for four promising but wholly unproven prospects? All is forgiven, Omar. Guillermo who? Looks like that trip to the Holy Land paid off right quick.

UPDATE: Just heard on SNY's SportsNite that Santana refers to his change as "the butterfly." Hold me.

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-01-29T12:43:00.000-05:00

We have a tie!: Ferd Eunick and William Adolph Wambsganss, both of the 1917 Cleveland Indians.

Not much information is available online about Fernandas Bowen Eunick, but I imagine his was not an easy life. According to Baseball Reference, he's "also known as Fred." Ferd was born in Baltimore in 1892, died there 67 years later, and on August 29, 1917, made his first and last appearance in the majors. He lasted all of two at-bats, getting a hit in neither of them.

Bill Wambsganss, by contrast, had a long and successful career, but he's remembered almost exclusively for making the only unassisted triple play in World Series history, in 1920, against the Brooklyn Robins. "You'd think I was born on the day before and died on the day after," he said decades later.

Gotta love the body language, in the photo above, of the runner getting tagged for the third out.

Of course, I'm just the latest in a long line of observers to fixate on Wambsganss' name. Soon after he arrived in Cleveland, Ring Lardner wrote a limerick:

The Naps bought a shortstop named Wambsganss,Who is slated to fill Ray Chapman's pants.
But when he saw Ray,
And the way he could play,
He muttered "I haven't a clam's chance!"

Anyway, they don't name 'em like they used to. Also on that 1917 Cleveland team: "Pop-Boy" Smith, Red Torkelson, and Braggo "The Globetrotter" Roth.

Get To Know Your New New York Players, Part 2: LaTroy Hawkins

2008-01-27T22:09:00.000-05:00

Last time, in Part 1, we vainly looked for dirt on Brian Schneider, the Mets' apparently ludicrously wholesome replacement for Paul Lo Duca (dislikes: junk food and steroids; likes: puppies and signing autographs for kids). Now it's time to look at the Yankees' only major newbie of the offseason to date, 35-year-old reliever LaTroy "Well He Can Hardly Be Worse Than Farnsworth" Hawkins of Gary, Indiana. Personally I'd prefer Ronnie "The Hawk" Hawkins, but what are you going to do? This guy may be the only thing standing between Joba Chamberlain and the 8th-inning role, so read on for information regarding tarps, 'roids, media boycotts, and sign-stealing.

I confess I had completely forgotten this, but Hawkins was the losing pitcher when David Wells threw his perfect game in 1998. I'm predisposed to like him, because remember that crazy rainstorm last summer in Colorado, when the Phillies endearingly ran out to help the grounds crew with the tarp? Well, the Rockies didn't exactly distinguish themselves there, as just one single home team player offered assistance -- and that was, of course, LaTroy Hawkins.

More recently he went on the radio and, with sentiments I suspect an increasing number of fans can relate to these days, announced that he doesn't care about steroids:

LaTroy Hawkins: “It’s not any of my business. First of all the thing is I don’t care. Only person cared about that was [Commissioner Bud] Selig. I don’t care about it. That’s just my own personal opinion.”
Page: “You don’t care if hitters are juicing up?”

Hawkins: “No, I don’t. That’s just my personal opinion. Still got to hit the ball, brother.”

Indeed, though unfortunately, too many hitters have had an easy time doing that against Hawkins recently. He had a good 2007 (oddly pitching much better at home at Coors Field), but rough sailing for a few years before that; Cubs fans certainly weren't too fond of him, and the feeling may have been mutual. Also, it seems Hawkins has, or had, a bit of a running feud with umpire Tim Tschida. In 2004, he had to be restrained while arguing calls and was suspended three games...

...an animosity which apparently stems from an incident in 2002, when Hawkins was with the Twins, and Tschida asked him to move his bullpen chair -- because the Red Sox were accusing him of stealing signs. Excellent! Anyone prepared to steal signs from the Sox, or at least make the Sox think their signs are being stolen, can't be completely useless... although: I can't help but notice Hawkins' career ERA against Boston seems to be 5.79.

On top of that, I'd say there could be some potential media trouble on the horizon, based on this Hawkins interview on Sportznutz dating back to his unhappy time in Chicago:

TH: What was your rational or thinking at the time you were named the closer when you decided not to speak to the media?

LH: Because I didn’t want them to start a soap opera. It was plain and simple.

TH: Did you do it because you didn’t want the media to approach you perhaps if you had a bad game?

LH: No. That was my intention in the first place and all that other bullshit, that wasn’t my intention. You know how they are – the media here. Always looking for something. Write (about) what’s on the field.

TH: You previously played in Minnesota, a lot smaller market than Chicago. How would you compare the media in Minnesota to Chicago?

LH: It’s not even comparable. Minneapolis and Chicago – there’s a big difference.

TH: Did you have a better relationship with the media in Minneapolis than you do in Chicago?

LH: Nope. I had one guy in Minnesota, Souhan, with the Star Tribune. Only guy I talked to...

...TH: Do you plan on keeping up with the media boycott as long as you are here?

LH: It’s not actually a boycott. Actually, I speak when I feel like speaking. Plain and simple. When I feel like speaking, I’ll speak. And when I don’t feel like speaking, I’m not going to speak.

Right then. What could possibly go wrong in New York? Say, LaTroy, there's someone I'd like to introduce you to. Have you met Mike Lupica?

...LaTroy? Where are you going?

Get To Know Your New New York Players, Part 1: Brian Schneider

2008-01-25T09:08:00.000-05:00

With spring training just around the corner, it's time to take a closer look at some of the new ~~lambs to the slaughter~~ players we'll be watching all season (or at least until they tear their hamstrings). Most New York fans probably know new Mets catcher Brian Schneider better by his nickname, "They Traded Lastings Milledge For WHO?" Schneider. But let's not rush to judgment until all the facts are in, particularly the silly and irrelevant ones.

Paul Lo Duca left big shoes to fill -- not so much because of his actual play, but what you might term the local color he provided.

He came to the plate to "Stayin' Alive" and "No Sleep Till Brooklyn." Will this Schneider fellow be photographed with nubile teens on his lap, get busted for sending friendly thank-you notes to steroid dealers, take part in a messy public divorce, love the horses, toss all his catching gear onto the field (YouTube!) after questionable calls, or make his eyeballs do this when angered?:

Early signs suggest... probably not:

We seem to be looking at a level of wholesomeness here that rivals David Wright's. (By contrast, and before I move on, let me just recommend a quick Google Image Search of "paul lo duca umpire." Whee!). An extensive search on Brian Schneider reveals very few juicy details. He's from Pennsylvania, he apparently attended Nationals fan events as fast as the team could dream them up, and - trivia alert! - he was behind the plate when Barry Bonds hit #756. Schneider also agreed to an interview with Nationals blog Nats320 after being traded, which is pretty cool of the guy.

He's boldly anti-junk food; his idea of a clubhouse prank involves baby powder. (I'm guessing Paul Lo Duca's clubhouse pranks involve Jager and razor blades). Finally, he has two dogs named Dinger and Ribbie. Cute, Schneider, cute. But let's see you rip an umpire's chest protector apart with your teeth.

Anyway, Schneider has spent his entire career with the Expos/Nationals, so it'll be interesting to see how he might react to, say, being on a team that's over .500. Or playing in front of crowds. Welcome, Brian, and remember: we only viciously insult your abilities and parentage because we care.

(As an aside: in the course of researching this post (and obviously I use the term "researching" loosely), I discovered that the Montreal Expos had a theme song, "Les Expos Sont Là," which basically translates as "The Expos Are There." Now, probably the actual lyrics are positive enough, but I've only got the title to go on, and I love that this is apparently the most enthusiastic sentiment the songwriter could muster. Not so much "Meet the Expos" or "Let's Go Expos," but more along the lines of, "Huh, There Seems To Be A Baseball Team Over Here.")

One more for the road -- though in Lo Duca's defense, Lima Time had this effect on many of us:

Baseball Player Name of the Week

2008-01-23T14:44:00.000-05:00

Jack Warhop.

It works particularly well if you imagine Bob Sheppard saying Warhop.

Mr. Warhop pitched for the Yankees from 1908-1915 and holds their all-time record for most hit batsmen, with 114 -- though this is only 56th on the MLB all-time list. In fact, the top three batter-hitters all have pretty excellent names:

1. Gus Weyhing (277)

2. Chick Fraser (219)

3. Pink Hawley (210)

Gus Weyhing, in particular, has a nice ring to it. Is there a correlation between coolness of name and career number of batters hit? I may have to email the Baseball Prospectus crew for a definitive mathematical answer to this.

Related: Randy Johnson (182) is #7, and Roger Clemens is #13 (159), just barely edging out Nolan Ryan (158). You probably have to be a bit of a dick to be that high on the list, since pitchers with mere lousy control probably won't end up with enough career innings to make a dent -- that is, if you're given the opportunity to pitch long enough to hit 150 batters, they probably aren't all accidents.

Unless of course you're Tim Wakefield (#18).

Somewhat to my surprise, Bob "Intimidating" Gibson is only 75th (102), tied with Chief Bender. Who probably would have won Name of the Week honors, if only "Chief" weren't a vaguely racist nickname given to seemingly every Native American player in baseball's early days. Ah well.

Political Grandstanding: Much Less Fun Than Actual Grandstanding

2008-01-19T16:41:00.000-05:00

As you may have heard by now, the owners have extended Bud Seligs's contract through 2012. Of course. Now, some of my reasons for intensely disliking Selig are fair (collusion) and some are not (less charisma than a piece of sushi), but I think this is my problem in a nutshell: if the rich people who control everything love you this much, there's just no way you're actually doing a good job.

Speaking of Selig, I was going to blog about the congressional steroid hearings, but they proved too frustrating to watch intently for more than half an hour (not that I didn't love Rep. Shayes asking Mitchell about Rafael "Palmerry" and whether or not he'd tested positive before his "300th hit". I'm sure our health care system will be fixed any week now). So I'm all Mitchell Report-ed out, and then I realized: maybe that was MLB's plan all along -- to make their fans so incredibly sick of hearing about PEDs that they eventually just completely stop caring? I think it's working. Maybe I've underestimated Selig after all.

In other non-news, the Mets continue to get everyone's hopes up by hanging in the Johan Santana sweepstakes, and while Omar Minaya did not acquire any bullpen help, he did travel to Israel. Good call, and if he's really not going to acquire another solid starting pitcher, I'd also recommend stopping by Mecca and Rome.

If I had a nickel for every time I confused CPR with non-consensual sex!

2008-01-14T08:31:00.000-05:00

I already suspected there was no God when I woke up a few days ago with a slight hangover and was greeted by news stories suggesting a bleeding abscess on Roger Clemens' ass. (Have you ever unexpectedly seen the results for a Google Image Search on "abscess"? No? NOT RECOMMENDED). And now there's t his. Noooo!

A world with abscessed-Clemens-ass imagery and a hobbled Endy Chavez is not a world I want to live in.

Meanwhile, while I now have no idea what the truth is in this whole Clemens fiasco -- inclined to think he used steroids, but trying to keep an open mind -- and am increasingly unable to give a fuck, I lost any shred of respect or empathy I might have had for Brian McNamee when I read this AP article (via River Ave Blues last week). It seems that at the end of the 2001 season, in Florida, a bunch of Yankees had a party at their hotel, which McNamee attended, and:

"Detectives believed the former New York Yankees trainer who says he injected Roger Clemens with steroids lied to them during the 2001 investigation of a possible rape, according to documents released Tuesday by police."

I don't even remember hearing about this story at the time -- it was just a few weeks after 9/11, and I suppose that's at least partly why it didn't get more attention. But it isn't being discussed much now, either; even the Post, which you'd think would be all over it (the Post loves rape), didn't even run the entire AP article. And so I'm going to rant a little bit now, because dammit, somebody ought to.

The article goes on to describe the embodiment of all the nightmare-jock-party stories you heard in high school and college:

"The records released Tuesday by the St. Petersburg police show McNamee was suspected of raping a woman he had met at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort in October 2001. ...

McNamee was having sex with the woman in the resort's pool and didn't stop when confronted by security, the documents say. Police were notified. When they arrived, they found McNamee had helped the woman out of the pool and get dressed, according to the documents. Groggy and incoherent, she was taken to the hospital, where the documents said she was found to have GHB, the "date-rape drug," in her system.

The woman told detectives she could not remember details of the encounter in the pool. She said she did not give McNamee permission to have sex with her, and witnesses told detectives they had heard her saying "no" during the encounter, according to the documents. Detectives later recovered some of her jewelry, an empty beer can and a water bottle containing GHB at the side of the pool.

Police interviewed McNamee hours later, according to the documents, and he denied having sex with the woman or knowing Yankees batting practice pitcher, Charles Wonsowicz, who was also in the pool. McNamee refused to submit a saliva sample for DNA analysis, the documents said."

Now, McNamee was never charged, let alone convicted, so I get that these are just allegations, not proven facts. These records are only coming to light now because of Clemens' lawsuit, and of course making McNamee look bad is the whole point. Still -- the story is drawing from police files, not just innuendo, and it's more than enough to make me question McNamee's character and credibility. To put it mildly.

Of course, it raises another question, too, which Roger Clemens' lawyers seem to hope we'll gloss over: if you're Clemens, and you know about this incident, why do you then hire this slime, and stay friends with him for years afterwards? After all, it was apparently reason enough for the Yankees to fire him (which: I am pleasantly surprised they had the backbone). But:

"Clemens then hired McNamee as his personal trainer. According to the pitcher's lawsuit, McNamee told him that his actions were "actually a life-saving attempt.""

Right. A life-saving attempt, who wouldn't buy that? You know what, I'm done here -- these two guys can sue each other into oblivion for all I care.

All in all, it's certainly been a glamorous few weeks for the national pastime. Rape and abscesses! HGH and GHB! Christ on a pogo stick, I just want to watch a damn game already.

For Auld Lang-Rod

2008-01-02T17:16:00.000-05:00

11:57 PM, December 31st, 2007. I'm at my friends' party on Degraw St, in the apartment I lived in for several years when I first moved to New York. As everyone hurries to get a glass of champagne poured and ready before the ball drops, someone turns on the TV, flipping around til he finds a broadcast from Times Square. It was Carson Daly, and all of a sudden there, standing next to him, in a Yankees cap:

Me: Oh hey! Is that A-Rod? It's A-Rod! Turn up the volume!
Everyone else: (laughing, talking, pouring champagne)
Me: This must be part of his whole No-really-I-love-New-York image rehab thing! What's he saying?
Everyone else: Ten!... Nine!... Eight!...

So I have no idea what was said (shot in the dark: "it's great to be here in New York!"), because my friends are normal healthy people who do not care about baseball player soundbites when they're celebrating the New Year; but A-Rod's mug was just about the last thing I saw in 2007. Seems fitting somehow.

Anyway, here's to 2008 and just the littlest bit of a fresh start. If one 2007 moment really encapsulated my entire year, it would have to be the sudden swarm of gnats that descended on Joba Chamberlain during Game 2 of the Division Series, resulting in two wild pitches and a blown lead. (Only because the Mets' implosion wasn't really a "moment" so much as lifestyle). At the aforementioned party I tried to describe that eighth inning to a non-baseball-fan friend, but he refused to believe that I was talking about non-metaphoric gnats.

So Happy New Year, everybody. Thanks for reading, and I plan to be optimistic about this upcoming year for at least five or six days yet.

Take Mike Pelfrey -- Please!

2007-12-27T21:16:00.000-05:00

So there's no real news on the Johan Santana front. But I just wanted to go on record as saying that if I were running either New York team, I'd give the Twins what they reportedly want these days. I would also give away front-row seats, send a little person up to bat, hire players based on their names, and be fired within days, but that's neither here nor there.

From the Yankees, that would mean Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera, Jeff Marquez, and some other unnamed guy who isn't Ian Kennedy. I'm not down on Phil Hughes at all, I think he's eventually going to be excellent... but as good as Johan Santana? Almost no one is. Most of the sharper Yankee fans I know want the team to keep Hughes, and I can see the logic (it's certainly vastly more cost-effective), and I'll enjoy watching him pitch if they do. But it's Johan Sanata!

Of course, as you know if you've read this blog for even a few weeks, I have an only semi-rational fixation on the guy, so I may well be wrong here. I just thought I should get these thoughts in writing, so that years from now, either:

A) When Phil Hughes blows out his elbow while resisting arrest on charges of dogfighting and perjury, I can link back to this post and crow about how right I was; or

B) When Johan Santana blows out his elbow while resisting arrest on charges of dogfighting and perjury, you can link back to this post and crow about what a moron I am. Fair's fair.

The truth is, though, I would much rather see Santana land with the Mets. They need him more right now, and watching him in his prime against the bottom of the National League batting orders would be simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. Also, nothing would get the taste of the last few weeks of the Mets' season out of everyone's mouths faster. Yes, they may have to "rip up their farm system" to get the guy... but I mean, their farm system's not that great these days anyway.

I think one reason I'm fascinated by Santana is that I know so little about him, which is what happens when relatively quiet people play for teams in the middle of the country. I don't get to see a lot of interviews or quotes from the guy, which means it's easy to make him into something of an ideal figure. (Plus I used to read a lot of Bat Girl; she referred to him simply as El Presidente).

The only off-field Santana antic I can remember made me like him even more -- it happened this past summer, when the Twins came to Shea. Minnesota broadcaster Bert Blyleven bet Santana he couldn't throw a complete game shutout (note to Blyleven: this works much better with Sidney Ponson); it turned out Santana could, and indeed did, so Blyleven had to let him shave his head:

I think the best part of all this is that while pitching his complete game shutout, Johan Santana was apparently thinking about how he would get to shave Bert Blyleven's head.

I say trade every minor leaguer that isn't nailed down.

Eephus Pitch Would Like To Wish...

2007-12-24T23:49:00.000-05:00

... a Merry Christmas to you and yours, from 1978 Mets manager Joe Torre!:

(Awesome/vaguely disturbing photo from the Daily News archives, by Anthony Casale).

Tomorrow I look forward to Chinese food, not one but two movies, and absolutely no discussion whatsoever of the Mitchell Report.

Let's See Him Break The HR Record From INSIDE 2,000 GALLONS OF WATER!

2007-12-19T01:43:00.001-05:00

Only A-Rod would hire, to "help him have more control of his image and brand”, the guy who represents Madonna and David Blaine.

Sigh.