SEAT LICENSE RENEWALS It's almost spring
when a young man's thoughts turn to... those expensive
seat licenses. An online cash advance can help relieve the anxiety.
Back from my west coast swing (no to be confused with my western swing). I had a great time visiting friends in Seattle, catching up with family and watching killer whales on San Juan Island, and packing my stay in Los Angeles with trips to museums -- the Getty, MOCA, LACMA, the Norton Simon. Our trip was extended by a day when our Sunday morning flight was canceled due to bad weather in the New York area, but like most extra-inning affairs, the bonus portion wore me down a bit and threw off my entire schedule.
Hence the lack of a blog entry here in quite some time. The Yankees in particular have been busy beavers, bashing their way back to relevance and upgrading their team by acquiring Xavier Nady, Damaso Marte, and Ivan Rodriguez while jettisoning three-fifths of their Triple-A rotation, disappointing prospect/suspect Jose Tabata, and big-money relievers Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins. Typical Brian Cashman deadline no-brainer slam dunks. Why is it the Red Sox make so much damn noise with their non-moves while the Stealth Bomber just gets deals done with so little prior warning? Sermon for another day, but let's just say nobody in New York plays the houseorgan the way some of those famous Boston writers do.
I'll be weighing in on the Yankees' deals and those of everybody else several times over the next two days at Baseball Prospectus, via the upcoming Hit List, a group roundtable at 2 PM Eastern (similar to the fabulous All-Star Game roundtable), and my own post-deadline wrap-up chat on Friday at 2 PM Eastern. I'll also be appearing on the Rotowire Fantasy Sports Hour with Chris Liss, today at 2 PM Eastern on XM 144.
Anyway I had plenty of baseball for the trip while in L.A., attending last Saturday's Dodgers-Nationals game and visiting a pair of public libraries for a pair of baseball exhibits. For the Dodger game, a friend who works A&R for a record company scored the company's tickets, plush box seats at the edge of the infield on the first base side. With those prime ducats we also had access to the all-you-can-eat Stadium Club, and had barely stuffed our faces with Dodger Dogs and other meat products before Matt Kemp's two-run homer and Nomar Garciaparra's sacrifice fly put the home team up 3-0 in the first inning at former Dodger Odalis Perez's expense. Nomar added a homer, new kid Casey Blake (acquired that morning from the Indians in a deal I'll have harsh words for elsewhere) got two hits including a double, and Derek Lowe cracked two hits himself, one more than he allowed in eight sterling innings.
Did I mention the beer cups with the ridiculous flashing lights on the bottom? So giddy were we at our seats that we sprung for those to amplify the already-festive atmosphere. Compared to this opulent spread in such a beautiful, spacious ballpark, attending a ballgame at Yankee Stadium these days is like being beaten in the kidneys with a truncheon. I'll show you the Bronx indeed. (That said, Score Bard Ken Arneson's take on the House That Ruth Built is well worth your time.)
As for the exhibits, first up was "Play Ball! Images of Dodger Blue, 1958-1988" at the Los Angeles Central Public Library. Spread over two rooms, it's a collection of a few dozen photos, mainly from the archives of the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner, retracing all of the high notes (and a few low ones) in L.A. Dodger history. I found it impossible not to crack a shit-eating grin upon seeing famous shots of Fernando Valenzuela, Kirk Gibson and the Longest-Running Infield, but I also had a few groans for the sight of Chavez Ravine residents fighting eviction and Dodger infielders haplessly looking on while Willie Davis misplayed a ball in the 1966 World Series. The press release roll call of those pictured: "[T]he team's arrival in 1957, Wally Moon and baseball at the L.A. Coliseum, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Walter O'Malley and the battle over Chavez Ravine, Roy Campanella, Vin Scully, Jaime Jarrin, Maury Wills, James Roark's Pulitzer Prize-nominated photograph of Rick Monday's rescue of the American Flag, Tommy John surgery, Andy Messersmith and the advent of free agency, Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey, Dusty Baker and the first 'high five,' Fernando Mania, Al Campanis, Orel Hershiser, Kirk Gibson, and more." Can't beat that if you're a Dodger fan.
With two nights flopping in Pasadena, I also finally found time to pay a visit to The Baseball Reliquary to see their greatest hits exhibition, "The Tenth Inning". The Reliquary is a celebration of baseball's oddballs and outcasts and a confrontation with the game's sometimes unseemly history, particularly its racism. Its Shrine of the Eternals honors the likes of Jim Abbott, Dick Allen, Moe Berg, Yogi Berra, Ila Borders, Jim Bouton, Jim Brosnan, Roberto Clemente, Rod Dedeaux, Dock Ellis, Mark Fidrych, Curt Flood, Josh Gibson, “Dummy” Hoy, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Bill James, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Marvin Miller, Minnie Minoso, Satchel Paige, Jimmy Piersall, Pam Postema, Jackie Robinson, Lester Rodney, Valenzuela, Bill Veeck Jr., and Kenichi Zenimura.
I missed this year's induction ceremony of Bill Buckner and the late Buck O'Neill and Emmett Ashford (good writeup here), but over the course of three rooms spread out on the library's ground floor admired The Tenth Inning's mini-exhibits devoted to Robinson, Berg, Fernando (including one of those exquisite orange crate paintings by Ben Sakoguchi, several of which were elsewhere in the exhibit. Somebody's absolutely got to do a coffee-table book of these), Postema, Veeck (including one of his wooden legs), Louis Sockalexis (including a cool Hatch Show Print poster, one of five by the famous Nashville letterpress that the Reliquary has commissioned) and a whole lot more. Fine stuff, and well worth the trip if you're anywhere in the area, though I should warn you that the current exhibit closes today. Don't sleep.
Speaking of which, miles to go and all that. I'm sure we'll have plenty more to discuss before the next two days are done, so check in with me over at BP if you want to talk some baseball.
When the rain started pouring at Yankee Stadium during the top of the sixth inning of Sunday's Yanks-Reds tilt, I felt like I'd already gotten my money's worth. In addition to surviving what the late Hunter S. Thompson would have termed a king-hell hangover (wrought by my wife's birthday party the night before) and some early questioning by a garrulous out-of-towner from Deer Park, Texas named Digger who was sitting next to me (and working on the next day's king-hell hangover), I had been congratulating myself for the foresight to pick this game out on the calendar six months ago to fill out my flex plan schedule. The taut 1-0 pitcher's duel to that point had featured plenty of drama involving the players I'd hoped to see amid this otherwise random Sunday interleague contest.
See, I had spent a good portion of the offseason reading, writing and talking about the Reds' fine crop of young prospects. Center fielder Jay Bruce was the consensus pick as the top prospect in all of baseball via Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and John Sickels. First baseman Joey Votto had already demonstrated his combination of power and plate discipline during a late-season cup of coffee last September. Right-handed starter Edinson Volquez, though technically not a rookie, had been the focus of one of the more interesting swaps of the winter, being traded from Texas for 2007 rookie sensation Josh Hamilton.
But the one who really fascinated me, almost to an irrational extent, was Johnny Cueto, an undersized 22-year-old Dominican righty who had climbed all the way from High-A to Triple-A last year. All winter and spring, prospect cognoscenti suggested he was already a better pitcher than the team's overhyped Nuke LaLoosh prototype, Homer Bailey. Mid-90s fastball, plus slider and changeup, clean mechanics, impeccable makeup (something Bailey clearly lacks) -- sign me up. "Cueto is the ace of that staff. Right now," said one major league scout during spring training, and when the kid struck out 10 and walked none in seven innings of one-hit ball in his major-league debut, it seemed he might be onto something. Since then the usual young-pitcher growing pains have set in, as he struggled with his release point and his control, with his ERA skirting 6.00 before a run of mostly quality starts.
By the time Sunday's game rolled around, the Reds' young arms had already demonstrated their considerable firepower in this series. Volquez, the NL leader in ERA, strikeouts, and fewest hits per nine, pitched seven strong innings on Friday night and earned his 10th win of the year. He held the Yankees to two runs while striking out five, the most impressive of which was a second-inning battle with Jason Giambi in which he'd fallen behind 3-0 and then busted three straight pitches inside, a changeup sandwiched around two fastballs that the eagle-eyed Giambi could only look at before wandering back to the dugout. On Saturday the Yanks were shut out, principally by one Darryl Thompson, an unsung 22-year-old who worked in and out of trouble to spin five scoreless frames in his major league debut in front of 54,509 fans at Yankee Stadium.
Given young talent like that, it's tough to believe the Reds came into the series 33-41 on the year, but as Yankee fans well know, young pitchers can break your heart, particularly when the contingency plans you've got behind them are journeymen of ill repute. Not that the Yanks haven't been getting decent showings out of Darrell Rasner (whom I watched scratch and claw his way through five innings on Wednesday night at the Stadium) and Dan Giese (who had impressed in his first major-league start on Saturday), but that's a rough way for a ballclub to survive, let alone thrive.
The Yanks came into Sunday desperate to prevent a sweep, and luckily they had Andy Pettitte -- with a career record of 74-37 after Yankee losses -- going for them. Already riding a 13-inning scoreless streak, Pettitte retired nine of the first ten Cincy hitters, yielding only a two-out single to Votto in the second inning. He found trouble in the fourth courtesy of Robinson Cano, who with one out flubbed a sure inning-ending double-play grounder hit by Brandon Phillips; miraculously, it wasn't scored an error. After loading the bases by walking weak-hitting shortstop Paul Janish -- stuck in the fifth spot as he'd entered in the third inning for third baseman Edwin Encarnacion, forced to depart after an impressive leaping grab of a Cano liner aggravated his lower back -- Pettitte was able to buckle down and strike out both Votto and Bruce, the latter on a tense eight-pitch at-bat that had the crowd on its feet for several minutes.
Cueto was similarly stingy against the Yankee lineup, striking out six hitters in the first four innings while yielding just two hits. Things began to unravel for the kid in the fifth, when Giambi singled sharply to center and then Jorge Posada doubled into the right field corner. Cano atoned for his fielding miscue by pounding a pitch deep to the warning track in right-center, plating the run on the sac fly. That set off an extra cheer; the game was now official, an important consideration as black clouds swirled ominously beyond the not-too-distant horizon of the Yankee Stadium roof.
Soon enough, the rain began to fall, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and darkness only partially illuminated by the stadium lights. Luckily my intrepid co-conspirator Nick had thought to bring a pair of plastic ponchos in his bag; in fact, he'd been holding one in each hand for the better part of an inning, as if ready to pounce on the opportunity to stay dry. Poised as we were, we fumbled with the ponchos amid gusts of high wind which apparently gave Pettitte trouble on the mound as well.
The top of the sixth inning felt like some surreal Weather Channel footage. Amid the downpour and the thunder, camera flashes accompanying Ken Griffey Jr.'s at-bat made it seem as though the stadium had been overtaken by an electrical storm. Fans headed for the concourses in droves, but with our ponchos and an umbrella, we waited out the frame, which was helped along by Janish popping up a bunt to Posada. As soon as Votto struck out to end the inning, the grounds crew took over, covering the plate and the mound, and finally the entire infield. Nick and I didn't have far to go from our seats -- last row, aisle of Section 629 -- but the bottleneck created by the crowd slowed our efforts to take refuge on the crowded upper concourse.
The narrow concourse was jam-packed, but we found a pocket near an elevator, away from the throngs pushing their way towards the concessions stand and the bathrooms. Soon enough, I noticed three 40-ish men standing about five feet away, two of whom looked strikingly familiar. I watched them converse with each other, caught a snippet of conversation that included the phrase "Fenway Park," and noted that two of them were carrying hefty, industrial-strength scorebooks. I had little doubt that I was making any mistakes in identity when I called out a name. "Rob?"
Sure enough, it was Rob Neyer, the ESPN columnist whose work back in the late '90s did a lot to rekindle my interest in the stathead side of baseball, to say nothing of the thousands of folks to whom he introduced such concepts I don't know Rob all that well, but we've corresponded several times (as recently as a couple weeks ago over his linking my Eliot Asinof piece), and I had the honor of hanging out with him a couple times back in 2006, once in New York when he was here to promote his Big Book of Baseball Blunders, and then a few months later at the SABR convention in Seattle. Accompanying him were Mark Armour, editor of that year's convention-related publication Rain Check, co-author of the award-winning Paths to Glory: How Great Baseball Teams Got That Way and good-natured sparring partner, and Baseball Prospectus alum Jeff Bower, the only one of the trio I'd never met.
So Nick and I spent the better part of the rain delay talking baseball with these three Northwesterners, who were in the midst of an enviable road trip that included ballgames at Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium, a trip to Cooperstown and finally a haul from upstate New York to Cleveland for this year's SABR convention. Writing projects, scorebooks, recent news, ballpark comparisons, BP alumni, travel itineraries... our conversation wasn't exactly wide-ranging or deeply philosophical, but as ways to pass a rain delay, you could do a hell of a lot worse.
Just as we were reduced to standing around ribbing Rob for eating a hideous CinnaPretzel, the rain subsided and the sun poked out. Game on. I suggested to our ad hoc posse that the families in our section were likely to have hightailed back to suburbia and that they should come join us, since our seats were a few sections closer. Soon enough we were joined by my BP colleague and fellow blogger Derek Jacques, who had been marooned in the infamous Section 36 in high left field for most of the game. Can't leave a guy stranded out there while better seats and good company could be had inland.
Play resumed with both starting pitchers having departed, and the Yankees soon gained the upper hand against Gary Majewski, who sandwiched a pair of outs between singles to Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui. Former Kansas City lefty Jeremy Affeldt came on in relief, eliciting a groan from Rob, a long-suffering Royals fan who no doubt had less-than-fond memories of the pitcher's days as the franchise's Next Big Thing. Affeldt quickly yielded a long drive to deep left field off the bat of the notoriously pull-happy Giambi, scoring both runs, and Giambi himself came home on a double to deep right center by Jorge Posada, running the score to 4-0. Affeldt escaped the frame but got into trouble again in the seventh before departed with two on and one out. His voice dripping with a combination of sarcasm and comtempt, Rob called out, "Nice outing, Jeremy."
Between half-innings we watch the grounds crew perform their familiar "Y-M-C-A" routine, old hat to us Yankee Stadium vets, but something of a mild curiosity to the out-of-towners, who nonetheless appreciated the irony of a paean to anonymous gay sex being piped to 4+ million people per year at Yankee Stadium (Pete Abraham recently passed along a great Spin Magazine article about the history of the song).
It was my turn to groan in the next half-inning. Edwar Ramirez had tossed a 1-2-3 seventh for the Yanks, but he gave way to Kyle Farnsworth, nobody's favorite Yankee reliever. Though Farnsworth -- Marmaduke, as Alex Belth calls him -- got two relatively quick out, he yielded a home run to Ken Griffey, Jr., the 601st of Griffey's career and the 10th of Farnsworth's 34-inning season. The solo shot just cleared the wall in right field, and it drew a warm ovation from the remaining crowd. After all, it's not every day somebody gets to witness first-hand a home run that ranks so high up on the all-time list. My personal personal "high score" was seeing Barry Bonds' 720th homer on July 7, 2006 at Dodger Stadium (c'mon A-Rod, hurry the hell up!). Bonds' name came into the discussion among our group and Nick pointed to the right field area where he'd seen Bonds reach on a towering home run on June 8, 2002, the 588th of his career.
Two pitches later, Phillips hit a sharp comebacker that Farnsworth instinctively tried to barehand. After deflecting it to Alex Rodriguez, who was too late to make the play, Farnsworth was tended to by the Yankee trainers; he departed and reportedly needed three stitches in the webbing of his fingers. Ah, go pet your gopher, Kyle. Given that the home run he surrendered had created a save situation, Automatic Joe Girardi pressed the button and called upon Mariano Rivera to get a rare four-out save. Rivera quickly got pinch-hitter Javier Valentin to ground out to end the eighth.
Between innings, the bane of my existence, "Cotton-Eyed Joe," reared its ugly head. "This is the worst part of Yankee Stadium," I explained to our guests apologetically, prompting Rob to ask if there was any part of the stadium that was nice. I started into my spiel about the spartan stadium, and pointed out a few of my favorite features, such as the black batter's eye and rare homers that had reached it, and the way one could see the history of Yankee Stadium by looking out at the three left field wall boundaries -- the back, encompassing the flagpole within the playing field's original dimensions, the middle one where the retired numbers are, representing the post-renovation dimensions from the seventies and eighties, and finally the current fences. That drew a grudging nod.
Our eyes remained on Valentin in the bottom of the inning as the 32-year-old backup catcher made his major-league debut at third base. Jeff Keppinger, who had been activated from the disabled list only that day, had started at shortstop, shifted to third when Encarnacion exited, and then back to short because Valentin had pinch-hit for Janish. That alone made for an entertaining curiosity for the three of us who were keeping score, and it became all the more relevant when Valentin found himself positioned in the vicinity of shortstop when with two outs the infield put on its familiar shift for Giambi. While we hoped the suddenly spray-hitting G-man would test Valentin's infielding skills, Giambi instead pulled one over the head of Votto for a single, his third hit of a very well-rounded day that also included a hit-by-pitch and a steal as well as two runs and two RBI. Giambi's departure for pinch-runner Wilson Betemit drew a conversation on scorebook conventions for noting pinch-runners (seriously, we're great at cocktail parties). Personally, I circle the dot at the end of my single slash, a method I probably improvised the first time I set eyes on Homer Bush. Rob makes notes in the corners of each box. Jeff has a space where the inning each player entered the game can be noted. Your mileage may vary, as they say.
Posada struck out to end the eighth, and Jeff set the line at a 12-pitch inning for Rivera. That estimate appeared quite low once Votto and Bruce both singled, the former on Mo's first pitch, the latter after a seven-pitch at-bat. "You'll see. Corey Patterson's going to hit into a triple play," said Jeff. Patterson at least appeared poised to ground into the obligatory double play, but Jeter was late in getting the ball out of his glove and settled for the force.
That brought up Adam Dunn as a pinch-hitter. Mired in a 6-for-54 slump, Dunn had gotten the day off from Dusty Baker, the end to a tumultuous week in which he been in the headlines for no good reason, as Toronto GM and official Hit List whipping boy J.P. Ricciardi made some bizarre, disparaging comments about Dunn on a radio show, saying that the slugger, who's bashed 40 or more homers for four straight years, "doesn't really like baseball that much" and "doesn't have a passion to play the game," among other bright things. This just in: even batting .219, Dunn's 875 OPS (.384 OBP, .491 SLG) is 39 points higher than the top Blue Jay, and despite being "a lifetime .230-.240 hitter" (.247, actually) has a career OPS of 898, 22nd among active players. Such astute talent evaluation explains why Ricciardi's Blue Jays are in the seventh year of leading the league in Going Fuck-All Nowhere, and why Ricciardi, after canning manager John Gibbons last week, will likely be looking for work come October. Schmuck.
That said, Rivera struck Dunn out looking, which prompted merciless leatherlung Nick to shout out, "If you loved baseball, you'd have swung at that pitch!" Yeah, we'll show you the Bronx! The game ended when Rivera retired Norris Hopper on a groundout, jogging the ball over to first base himself, which earned the approval of our out-of-town guests. As "New York, New York" rained down, we debated whether it was in fact a melancholy song; the Liza Minelli version, sure, but I've never thought that about the Sinatra version, certainly not after getting to sing it with 55,000 of my new best friends when I was present for the 1999 World Series clincher. Anyway, at least it's not creepy, the way "Sweet Caroline," -- played at Fenway Park and originally inspired by seven-year-old Caroline Kennedy -- is, as someone pointed out.
On that note, our full, rich day at the ballpark ended. A win, some great plays on both sides, and an extra side of serendipity that allowed me to share a bit of a game and a ballpark with friends old and new. Can't beat that with a fungo bat.
Alas, the game was something of a dud despite a heavy concentration of brand new "Joba Rules" t-shirts and pinstriped number 62 jerseys in the stands. Chamberlain, who came in scheduled for a very limited 65-70 pitch range, jacked it up to 101 MPH on the stadium's hot radar gun (98 according to YES, I think) but struggled with his control and blew more than half his pitch allotment in the first inning. He walked Shannon Stewart, left fielder on the All-"You're Still Here?" team, to open the game, and Stewart came around to score without benefit of a hit thanks to a balk, a passed ball, and an infield grounder. That was bad enough, but he then proceeded to load the bases via a Scott Rolen single and two more walks to Lyle Overbay and Matt Stairs. He whiffed Rod Barajas to end the inning but he'd used 38 bullets when it was all said and done.
The Yanks touched up Doc Halladay for two in the bottom of the inning. Johnny Damon smoked a leadoff triple to right-center, and while the failures of Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu to bring him home had Yankee fans tearing their hair out, Alex Rodriguez took one for the team and then Hideki Matsui followed with a sharp single. A-Rod scampered home when Jason Giambi followed with a single to left center, exactly through where shortstop David Eckstin's neighborhood had the Little Gerbil not shifted to the other side of the bag.
Chamberlain was somewhat more efficient in the second, as he retired the Jays 1-2-3, but he still needed 16 pitches to do so. His night came to an early end after he walked Alex Rios on four pitches with one out in the third. He totaled 62 pitches and struck out three to compensate for the four walks, but the book on him wasn't closed yet. Dan Giese, who'd been recalled from Scranton to make his Yankees debut, came on in relief and could only watch as Jose Molina made a horrible throw into right-center on Rios' attempted steal, sending him to third. Giese then gave up a groundball that tied the score, the run charged to Joba's room.
The Jays added another run in the fourth via a Barajas double, a Brad Wilkerson single, and an Eckstein sac fly, and while Giese kept things close, the remainder of the Yankee bullpen blew the game open in the seventh when Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, and LaTroy Hawkins conspired to surrender six runs on four hits, four walks and a sac fly, running the score to 9-2. It was ugly, my friends; the only solution to getting through it was a considerable cash outlay for more beer in celebration of the end of the Democratic primary season. Even so, we departed the moment our cups were empty in the eighth inning. Meh.
• • •
In this week's Prospectus Hit and Run, I've got a rather contrarian take on the early-season scoring drop that has some of my colleagues atwitter. Joe Sheehan went on a big but inconclusive dig through the April numbers a few weeks back, and while AL scoring levels have continued to plummet -- they're down half a run from last year overall, from 4.90 per game to 4.40 -- there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason. His look was at least data driven, which is more than I can say for the mainstream pundits who suggest that increased drug testing is the reason for the drop:
Changes in the drug policy are perhaps the most frequently invoked, and in fact, the two-month dip we've seen in the AL would make for the most dramatic drop in the drug-testing era if it held out over the full season. But baseball's drug policy has evolved gradually without exhibiting a consistent effect on scoring. Consider:
Year NL AL Key Policy Changes 2000 5.00 5.30 2001 4.70 4.86 2002 4.45 4.81 2003 4.61 4.86 Survey testing 2004 4.64 5.01 Treatment for first offense 2005 4.45 4.76 10-day suspension for first offense, precursors banned 2006 4.76 4.97 50-game suspension for first offense 2007 4.71 4.90 Amphetamines banned 2008 4.60 4.41 More frequent in-season and offseason testing
Where's the pattern? Regarding the current year, one can't even invoke the effects of the new policy, which basically doubled the number of in-season and off-season tests. It wasn't ratified until less than two weeks ago. Some may say that expectations of enhanced testing in the wake of the Mitchell Report are what's driving the drop, but that's pure speculation.
Having studied the matter for the past few years, I'm not a big believer in PED-based explanations; I tend to favor the ball-doctoring theory to explain the scoring and power fluctuations throughout the entire post-1993 era. The magnetic resonance images (MRIs) from Universal Medical Systems show a synthetic rubber ring that's unaccounted for in MLB's ball specifications, not to mention other anomalies that suggest wider disparities in the balls used than MLB should be allowing. Furthermore, MLB's own studies confirm such disparities--the use of out-of-tolerance balls--as well as finding that the flight distances of balls at the extreme ends of official tolerances could differ by as much as 49 feet despite being struck under the same conditions.
While Joe Sheehan used fly ball rates to dismiss the possibility that ball changes might be factoring into what we've seen this year, the decrease in total bases per hit--what Eric Walker calls Power Factor--from recent historical levels of about 1.60 to 1.56 last year and 1.53 this year suggests this explanation may still be in play. However convenient it may be, until we have more data under our belts, not to mention new scans of 2008 balls that can be compared to last year's models, it's premature to haul the ball-doctoring explanation out to explain this year's results. (In a brief conversation with UMS president David Zavagno, I was told that such scans are forthcoming; I'm planning a lengthier discussion with him in the near future.)
...Having basically lobbed more spitballs than Gaylord Perry on Old-Timer's Day in this article, I'm not going to send you away with any firm conclusions, because I don't think there are any to be drawn. Scoring has fluctuated considerably during Bud Selig's reign, a time of nearly constant change in the game. The crush of coverage that's developed during that time via electronic media, 24-hour news cycles and the blogosphere can lead to a rush of attempts to explain the game's current trends and anomalies, often -- particularly when it comes to those high-profile talking heads -- twisted to fit a preconceived narrative rather than backed by hard data. By October, the larger sample sizes will likely steer us back to scoring levels more in line with recent history. While it may not be a catchy answer to say, "Let's see where the data is at the end of the year," before we firm up our theories about this scoring drop, it's the right one.
I'm looking forward to interviewing Zavagno sometime in the not-too-distant future. We'd spoken before prior to yesterday, and while I don't buy everything he says, he has produced some compelling visual evidence while raising very good points about MLB's testing of baseballs. Ours should make for a fun conversation.
A dismal week for the Yankees ends on a high note with the return of Alex Rodriguez (4-for-11 with two doubles and two homers after a 17-game absence) and strong performances from Darrell Rasner and Ian Kennedy. The former puts together his third straight quality start, lowering his ERA to 1.89, while the latter finally gets his ERA down to Boeing territory (7.27) with just his second quality start out of seven. More help is on the way for the Yanks, who begin Joba Chamberlain's conversion to the rotation; while the move will be second-guessed by some wags, the Yanks simply need him there; their rotation is 10th in SNLVAR and last in innings pitched per start, while the bullpen is seventh in WXRL.
The Yankees kept the good times rolling after that was published on Friday, rolling up 13 runs against the hapless Mariners, and the line kept moving on Saturday, when I took my in-laws to Yankee Stadium for the first time and watched the Yankees continue to treat the Mariners like a punching bag as they won 12-6, their fourth victory in a row. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and in the high 60s, and for a Saturday it wasn't so crowded as to be claustrophobic, thanks to the opponent and the holiday weekend. A great day for baseball.
Nonetheless, the day wasn't without its disappointments even from the get-go. Upon arriving at the park at 11:45 AM, we were shut out of a chance to see Monument Park; according to the math of the security thug's claim, the line had closed ten minutes after the stadium opened, ha ha ha. Despite having bought tickets via an Internet pre-sale for ticket-package holders back in February, the best I had done for four seats while still having enough money left over to make the mortgage payment was in Section 36 in far left field, over 400 feet from home plate and just a few seats from the edge of the stadium -- further than a man with eyesight as bad as mine (not to mention the occasional touch of vertigo) should sit if he wants to pay attention.
Still, my in-laws, who hail from Milwaukee and are well-versed with the quaint amenities of Miller Park, were in awe of the old ballpark. We practically circled the stadium twice, once at field level -- I got them as close to the monuments as I could, and they saw the dying embers of batting practice as well -- and then once at the upper level, where they got a great view of the new park under construction.
Our final location did afford us a pretty good view of the long fly balls the Yankees walloped all afternoon, including Jason Giambi's three-run homer to left-center field, part of a four-run second inning at the expense of Mariner starter Carlos Silva. Giambi had three hits on the day, two to the left side, and he looks locked in; his low batting average (he started the day at .217) disguises the fact that he's hitting .386/.509/.773 over his last 14 games. Bobby Abreu cracked a homer and drove in four runs, Robinson Cano went 4-for-4 (he's hitting .375/.412/.578 since May 4), and every batter in the lineup except Derek Jeter got a hit.
From our perch, which overlooked both bullpens, we also got to see and hear Joba Chamberlain warm up, which required me to give my in-laws a patient explanation both of the pitcher's phenomenal ascent and the controversy surrounding his usage. Mike Mussina had quickly squandered the 4-0 lead, giving up a three-run homer to slumping Jose Vidro in the third and then a solo shot to Adrian Beltre two batters later, but the Yanks rallied for a run in the bottom of the inning and the Moose slogged through five innings before departing with a 5-4 lead. Chamberlain, scheduled to pitch as the Yankees continue the process of stretching him out for the rotation, began warming up in the fifth, creating a resounding pop every time he hit the catcher's mitt with his fastball. He came in and struck out two hitters in the sixth, then pitched into and out of trouble in the seventh. In all, he threw 40 pitches, five short of his target for the day, but he looked pretty good.
While there was plenty to cheer about, the day's biggest downer came from a trio of 40-something jackasses sitting in front of us and virtually ignoring the five-year-old son of one of the men. The little boy, wearing a yellow tee-ball t-shirt, was seated on the end of the row, right next to the railing and isolated from the attention of his father and the rest of the group. That was probably just as well, given that the topics of their conversation -- spoken loudly enough that anyone within 15 feet was well-apprised of their thoughts on anything, and sprinkled with more than enough "shits" and "fucks" than anyone, let alone a five-year-old needed to hear -- included choosing strip clubs, going to strip clubs, being at strip clubs, the efficacy of the old "hair of the dog" hangover treatment, pounding beer, pounding more beer, getting a drivers licence reinstated after a DUI, tattoos (one guy had a giant scorpion wrapped from his lower back over his shoulder and to his chest), spoiled kids, the ineptitude of the Devil Rays (this said by the one of the group who was visiting from Tampa, clearly not paying much attention these days), and this country's propensity for military action. "Name me one fucking year since 1960 that this country hasn't been at war," challenged the history professor from Tampa, who apparently had promised to serve as the designated driver, having curbed his drinking maybe an inning before last call. Yeesh.
Not even those assclowns could ruin our day, not with the weather, the company and the results all working in our favor. The in-laws enjoyed the various rituals of Yankee Stadium, including the groundskeepers' "Y-M-C-A" motions after the sixth, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in the seventh, and "New York, New York" after the final out. That moment was curiously delayed when the home plate ump, apparently trying to make a quick getaway, called Beltre out on strikes at just strike two, triggering the Sinatra song. Confusion reigned on the field, as puzzled Yankees began congratulating each other before order was restored. With the crowd seeemingly all standing in the aisles or on the concourses in anticipation of the game's official end, Beltre lasted five more Mariano Rivera pitches before grounding out to Cano. Finally, they were playing our song.
Sat through another chilly night at Yankee Stadium last night, watching the Yankees fall to the Tigers 6-4 in a game they should have won. Even with Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada on the sidelines, they had more than their share of opportunities against a team that has thus far fallen every bit as short of expectations as the Yankees have. Not that the Tigers haven't been playing decent ball recently; since starting the season 2-10, their offense had put up 6.9 runs per game as they won nine of 14. But their pitching remains a problem; of their five starters, three have more walks than strikeouts, with ace Justin Verlander not far off that unhealthy balance as well. Kenny Rogers came into the game sporting a 7.66 ERA and the burden of having not earned a regular-season win against the pinstripes since 1993.
Yankee starter Philip Hughes -- who wasn't even born when Rogers was drafted -- offered no sure thing either, and unfortunately for the makeshift lineup, provided little support. Hughes put the Yankees in a 2-0 hole right off the bat, walking Curtis Granderson on seven pitches, yielding a single to Placido Polanco, advancing both runners on a wild pitch, and surrendering a two-run single to Magglio Ordonez. That last hit was a frustrating one; Johnny Damon was playing center field, and lacking the speed and throwing arm of Melky Cabrera could neither get to the ball in time nor make a credible cutoff throw to limit the damage.
The Yanks tied up the game in the bottom of the second on a two-run homer by Robinson Cano, just one pitch after I noted that the kid hadn't gone yard while in the lineup, only as a pinch-hitter. Hughes couldn't keep the account square; he surrendered a solo homer to Granderson to lead off the inning and a two-run shot to Gary Sheffield following a Polanco double and another wild pitch. Catcher Chris Stewart, the fourth backstop to whom Hughes has thrown this year, was brutal behind the plate, and no Chad Moeller with the stick either; if the Yanks are going to be without Posada for awhile, they at least need defensively sound work back there. Half a dozen guys at the bus station could have done a better job than he did in his Yankee debut. Today's New York Times writeup notes that he and Hughes weren't on the same page:
If Hughes ever doubted that, he does not now. Hughes explained how he had no command of his fastball, so he resorted to throwing breaking balls. He also said that he and catcher Chris Stewart, who made his debut as a Yankee, had communication problems. Hughes called that “inexcusable,” a word that could define his entire outing.
When they make you pine for the halcyon days of the Moleman...
Granderson figured in the coup de grâce for Hughes the next inning, lashing a two-out double to deep left center field -- a ball Damon might have flagged down but Hideki Matsui could not -- and then scored on a Polanco single. That chased Hughes, whose ugly line for the night tallied 3.1 innings, 8 hits, 6 runs, 3 walks, 2 K's, his third disaster start out of four. Suddenly, he's in jeopardy of losing his rotation spot, and rightly so; he looks as through he needs a stint in Scranton to iron things out. Anyway, he departed to a smattering of boos -- yes, the wormy Yankee crowd has already turned on him -- in favor of another rookie, Ross Ohlendorf. We had little optimism upon seeing the Dorf, who had yielded eight runs n his last four appearances, but he held the Tigers to one hit and one walk while striking out five over 3.1 innings.
Not that the Yanks could do much about it. Though Rogers struggled with the strike zone, walking the bases loaded with two outs in the third, the Yankees just couldn't come up with the big hit when they need to. Reliever Denny Bautista walked the bases loaded as well in the eighth, then plunked Derek Jeter to force in a run, but sidearmer Clay Rapada needed only two pitches to get Bobby Abreu to bounce into an inning-ending force play.
The Yankees had their chances in the ninth as well. Facing Todd Jones, whose best days are behind him, they netted a quick run on a Matsui walk, a wild pitch, and a Jason Giambi single, bringing the tying run to the plate with no outs as the sparse remainder of the crowd came alive. Alas, perhaps determined to round off the night's Left On Base total at an unlucky 13, the Yanks went gently into that not-so-good night, making the final three outs in a five-pitch span. Shelley Duncan, who'd doubled and drawn three walks in what was otherwise a good demonstration of his lefty-mashing skillz, hit into a fielder's choice on Jones' first pitch, and Morgan Ensberg, who figures to be the regular at third base while A-Rod is on the DL, grounded out on the first pitch as well. Cano went down 1-2-3 like he had a plane to catch, and that was that. Yuck.
Update: Could it be that Hughes can't stand the glare of the spotlight? According to a New York Post article, Hughes has difficulty seeing at night:
Joe Girardi revealed after the Tigers' 6-4 victory over the Yankees that Hughes has some difficulty seeing at night, especially at Yankee Stadium. Hughes and GM Brian Cashman both confirmed the problem, but no one was quick with a remedy.
"At night things get blurry," Hughes said.
..."His night vision isn't great," Girardi said. "It is something we will have to talk about."
Hughes said he has been checked several times and that he has "perfect vision." He said his troubles come from the glare of particularly strong lights at night, which he finds problematic at Yankee Stadium. He said there has been some talk in the past of outfitting him with neon glasses to counteract the glare.
I'm not buying this rather poorly-timed excuse. Hughes' ERA at night for his limited big-league career is 4.94 in 71 innings, whereas in the day it's 7.23 in 23.2 innings. Night vision problems didn't seem to bother him when he made that no-hit bid against Texas last year, nor in his first outing of the year against the Blue Jays, his best start of this young season. Hell, it was still daylight when he got the tar wailed out of him by Granderrson and Sheffield.
I hate to sound like a hardass, but for this to suddenly be the explanation for Hughes' problems doesn't ring true, and even if it is true, it reflects poorly on the pitcher and the team for going even this long without taking the appropriate steps without this becoming a spectacle. Lame, lame, lame.
Update 2: the Moleman Returneth! Laments Peter Abraham, "A team with a $209 million payroll praying that nobody claims Chad Moeller. Amazing."
This week's Hit List was composed amid a hangover of sorts brought on by Wednesday night's Yankees-Red Sox match, an interminable 15-9 win for the Yanks that lasted four hours and eight minute. Four-hour affairs aren't really my bag any more -- I routinely avoid Yankees-Orioles games like telemarketers phoning at dinner time -- and it's not like a Yanks-Sox matchup needs anything to ratchet up the tension any further. Normally, one consumes beer at a ballgame to enhance the enjoyment, but this one required drinks just to tolerate.
The Yanks jumped out to an early 3-1 lead, as Bobby Abreu hit a two-run homer to right field and Alex Rodriguez immediately followed with a towering solo shot to left, his 522nd of his career, passing Ted Williams and Willie McCovey to move into 15th place on the all-time list. Both shots came at the expense of Clay Buchholz, a highly-touted rookie who threw a no-hitter last September and who wound up battling Joba Chamberlain for the top pitching spot on prospect lists.
Buchholz didn't have it on Wednesday, but neither did Chien-Ming Wang, who had two-hit the Sox the previous Friday night. Having already surrendered a first-inning run courtesy of a Manny Ramirez double, Wang couldn't hold the lead, as the Sox added runs in the second and fourth innings to tie the score at three apiece.
It was then that things got crazy. The Yankees broke the tie in the bottom of the fourth via a double by third-string catcher Chad Moeller, recalled from Dunder Mifflin a couple days prior after backup backstop Jose Molina tweaked his hamstring. A nine-year vet with a career line of .224/.284/.346, Moeller is the kind of generic backup catcher you can pick up at the service station just off the interstate. His hit was hard won, the result of an impressive eight-pitch at-bat against Buchholz, and it opened the floodgates. "The Moleman" -- my friend Nick's instant Simpsons-themed nickname for the new catcher -- would go on to collect two more hits and a walk on the night. Meanwhile, the Yankees scored three more runs before the inning was out, two on a Derek Jeter single which chased the rookie hurler and a third on a wild pitch by reliever Julian Tavarez.
Wang could do nothing to hold the lead. He fell behind 3-0 on leadoff hitter Dustin Pedroia before allowing a double, and then surrendered four straight singles which cut the score to 7-6 and spelled his early exit. Ross Ohlendorf, a rookie reliever obtained in the Randy Johnson trade last year, came on in relief and made an instant impression by striking out Jason Varitek, but he yielded an RBI single to Sean Casey, the last of seven runs charged to Wang's room. Ohlendorf found further trouble by walking Jacoby Ellsbury after another strikeout, then surrendering a two-run single to Pedroia -- his second hit of the inning -- to run the score to 9-7 Boston.
Undeterred, the Bronx Bombers roared back with four more runs in the bottom of the fifth, the first on a Jorge Posada double, the second on a Robinson Cano single, and the last two on a broken play. With the bases loaded, Melky Cabrera grounded to Pedroia at second. He flipped to Julio Lugo for the force, but Lugo's throw got away from Casey at first, and two runs scored. The outburst completed a stretch where 14 runs scored in the span of eight outs, as the game blew past the two-hour mark and threatened to reach three before the seventh-inning stretch. According to the wire service summaries, the bottom of the fourth lasted 23 minutes, the top of the fifth another 31. Had the Yankees not taken the lead in the bottom of that fram, I might have chewed a limb off to get out of the ballpark.
The Yankees' LaTroy Hawkins and the Red Sox's David Aardsma -- the nitwit who displaced Hank Aaron atop the game's all-time alphabetical register -- brought some semblance of order to the game, as the next three half-innings went by without even the threat of a run. Billy Traber, who got Ortiz to pop out on his only pitch of the game, and a much slimmer, shaggier Brian Bruney than I remember, pieced together the top of the eighth inning. The Yanks more or less put the game out of reach in the bottom of the inning, beating up Mike Timlin, now 42 and with his best days blessedly behind him, for four more runs. Three doubles by A-Rod, Posada, and Jason Giambi provided the scaffolding for the rally.
It also served as enough of a cushion to give Mariano Rivera the night off. Bruney made things a bit interesting by allowing two of the first three hitters to reach base, but he dispatched the Sox before Ortiz and Ramirez could get one last lick.
• • •
Starting pitching has been the Yankees' weakest link thus far; as I noted in the Hit List, the team's Fair Run Average (their runs allowed per nine innings, adjusted to divide the responsibility for inherited runners between starters and relievers based on the base-out situation) ranked just 11th in the league, and youngsters Philip Hughes and Ian Kennedy had combined for an 8.87 ERA. Since then, the two pitchers have both fumbled another start against the O's (and no, I couldn't really bear to watch), and the Yankee rotation's FRA has fallen to 13th out of 14 AL teams. Hughes and Kennedy aren't even averaging four innings per start combined (27.1 innings in seven starts), and as a team the Yanks have now fallen below 5.0 innings per start (94.1 innings in 19 starts). The bullpen has been one of the game's best; they rank second in the AL in Reliever Expected Wins Added (WXRL) but their combined 70.1 innings leads the majors. Ohlendorf (14.1 innings) actually has thrown more innings than Kennedy. If that pace continues, it will make Yankee fans pine for the days when Joe Torre tried to pitch Scott Proctor's arm off.
The flip side to my aforementioned aversion to Opening Day at Yankee Stadium is my willingness to brave the elements for an early season game, particularly if the company is good. Last year, Jonah Keri and I endured a snow-filled sufferfest amid a horde of Bleacher Creatures, so it was virtually automatic that I'd accept an invite from Alex Belth for field level seats to Thursday night's tilt between the Blue Jays and the Yanks, particularly with Philip Hughes on the mound for his first start of the year.
After I endured the dauntingly lengthy ride to the stadium from my new outpost in Brooklyn (1 hour, Q from DeKalb Avenue, changing to the 4 at Union Square), I found Alex at our designated meeting spot, a shuttered deli at the corner of 161st Street and River Avenue. It took me a moment to place him; Alex was bundled up, wearing a parka and a winter cap, with his industrial-strength headphones worn over the outside. I hadn't gone quite so hardcore, opting for my usual overcoat and a Yankees cap -- it is wool, after all.
Before we went in, the two of us walked down the avenue to take full measure of the still-under-construction new park, Yankee Stadium III. I invoked Derek Jacques' Death Star metaphor as we crossed under the subway platfrom and the whole thing seemed even more apt as the new park came into full view. With its exterior shell substantially finished, right down to the gold lettering announcing its intention to keep its maiden name, so to speak, the new stadium looms imposingly over the current one, promising the latter's demise in a not-too-distant future. Alex compared it to a hospice situation, with the old park on its deathwatch. For all of the hype surrounding the Opening Day articles, there's no mistaking it once you arrive on the grounds: this is the beginning of the end for The House that Ruth Built.
As we wandered outside the stadium, my thoughts focused less on the new park and more on the current one, and I mused to Alex about the familiar anxieties as they came back to me. How much more oppressive will the Yankee Stadium ballpark experience be this year? My view of the current model was unshakably altered by a Saturday game last year which found the ballpark security closing off exits while hot and bothered Yankee and Red Sox fans taunted each other after a tense game to the point where I had to try hard not to think of soccer riot fatalities. From that moment, my nostalgia for the current park and my own personal stake in it -- the hundred-something I've attended there over the last 13 years, including the 1999 World Series Clincher and the thousands I've watched take place in its yard -- was trumped by the desire for a better fan experience. Not that I have faith that the new ballpark will provide it, not with my upper-deck seats some 30 feet further back from the action and my wallet bracing for the kind of abuse that makes prison showers seem church socials by comparison.
Once inside, spared the hefty hike up the familiar ramps to the upper deck in favor of a ground-level entry to our seats, the current ballpark's familiar pleasures overtook me. Yankee Stadium II contains the famous reminders of its old history -- Monument Park, the white frieze, the flagpole in what used to be the center field patrolled by DiMaggio and Mantle, with the park's original dimensions preserved by the wall behind it, the black batter's eye where only the chosen few have reached with their towering blasts -- and the portents of its own obsolescence, the narrow concourses, spartan amenities, and fatal lack of luxury boxes. As limiting as that latter set is, it's also been part of the park's charm, at least to me. If you go to Yankee Stadium, you're there to see a ballgame, nothing more and nothing less. No fountains, waterfalls, kiddie pools, mascots, slides, or other diversions. Compared to the modern mallparks, the centerfield PA system is much less intrusive, even when the hated "Cotton-Eyed Joe" blares.
Our seats were as good as any I've had in over a decade (I was four rows behind home plate for this one back in '97), just to the first base side of the netting behind home plate. With my current scorebook buried in some unmarked box from my recent move, and Alex empty-handed in that department, I shelled out $7 for a program so we could keep score. Mind you, doing so in the itty-bitty squares of the flimsy Yankees Magazine scorecard is like trying to get romantic in the back of an old Volkswagen Beetle. There was little room to make the usual notes I keep on a game -- the location of each hit, notations on complicated plays or memorable moments in the stands -- and, given the gift of gab between two friends who hadn't seen each other all winter and who generally talk like sugared-up six-year-olds when we do get together, I found myself battling to stay in synch with the game.
Which, in the 42 degree weather, was thankfully brisk. Hughes mowed down the Blue Jays, striking out Matt Stairs and Alexis Rios looking in the first inning -- the Toronto hitters never did seem to figure out home plate ump Bill Miller's strike zone, as five of their seven Ks were backwards on my scorecard -- and retiring all nine hitters the first time through the order. Hughes found trouble in the fourth, via a David Eckstein double and a Rios single, but the damage could have been much worse. Rios got all the way to third with one out after a Robinson Cano error in fielding a throw from Jose Molina compounded a successful steal, but the kid came back to whiff Vernon Wells and Frank Thomas. The Big Hurt thought he'd just received ball four and jogged to first base excitedly, but when told it wasn't so, he raised such a ruckus that he was bounced to the delight of the rather sparse crowd (47,785 officially, maybe 30,000 in reality). The Jays added another run in the fifth, via a two-out walk to Marco Scutaro, a double by Greg Zaun, and an infield single by "The Little Gerbil," (Eckstein, in my friend Nick's words).
The Yanks, meanwhile, could do little against Toronto's Dustin McGowan until the bottom of the sixth, when Johnny Damon drove a ball to the base of the wall in deep right field for a double. McGowan then loaded the bases by hitting Derek Jeter with a pitch and then walking Bobby Abreu. The crowd, at least at field level, rose to its feet with Alex Rodriguez coming up and nowhere to put him. The fourth pitch of the at-bat, a ball low and away from A-Rod, skidded away from Zaun towards our general vicinity as Damon scampered home, but Rodriguez followed by striking out. Jason Giambi lofted a fly ball that brought Jeter home, but Abreu made an ill-advised bolt to third base -- perhaps as an attempt to protect Jeter by drawing the throw -- and was meat.
Against this backdrop, Alex and I buzzed about books we have and haven't been reading lately. Pat Jordan was a frequent topic of discussion, as I'd just gotten a copy of his Belth-edited book and had devoured the infamous, withering profile of Steve and Cyndy Garvey which had resulted in an $11.2 million lawsuit. As the innings passed, we chewed on Red Smith, Ring Lardner and Ed Linn, author of Nice Guys Finish Last and Veeck as in Wreck, the latter Alex's second answer to a question he'd posed about classic baseball books we hadn't read. Boys of Summer was his first answer, and for a moment I wished I had the time to do nothing but read those two old favorites. I offered up Jim Brosnan's The Long Season, an in-season diary precursor to Jim Bouton's Ball Four, and Robert Creamer bios of Babe Ruth and Casey Stengel. The conversation shifted to the genre of boxing writing, as Alex told me about Mark Kram chronicling Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, the Thrilla in Manila. A trip to the Strand was an inevitability in the wake of such chatter.
After six innings, the two young starters departed, with the impressive Hughes giving way to a resurrected Billy Traber, a much slimmer and shaggier version of Brian Bruney than we'd known, and then an electrifying Joba Chamberlain; the latter struck Zaun out looking, and worked around a two-out single with little problem. Brian Wolfe came on for McGowan, who'd weighed in with an impressive six-inning effort of his own. Wolfe completed a 1-2-3 seventh, but yielded a leadoff single to Melky Cabrera in the eighth. Lefty Scott Downs came on, and Damon dropped down a bunt, an intended sacrifice which Downs bobbled, with all hands safe. Jeter then bunted as well -- I hate it when he does that -- this time pushing the runners over, and then Abreu came dunked a blooper into center for what proved to be the deciding run. Mariano Rivera backed it with his usual finesse, surrendering a leadoff single to Wells before mowing down the next three Jays on just eight pitches, freezing Aaron Hill with two strikes to end the ballgame in a tidy 2:45.
As we shuffled out, Alex hit me with a frightening question: what would you do if your last game at the current Yankee Stadium ended to the defeat-laden strains of Liza Minelli's version of "New York, New York" instead of Sinatra's? That's a horror I don't even want to think about.
For Alex's take on the game, see his entry at Bronx Banter.
• On Monday (Labor Day), I worked from home and watched most of Pedro Martinez's comeback outing, which I then discussed with Joel Blumberg on WGBB SportsBreak, which aired later that afternoon. As I said during the discussion, I was quite impressed to see Pedro grit his way through five innings; even with less stuff than he had before, his mastery of the mental side of pitching will serve him well and will certainly help the Mets down the stretch.
• Tuesday morning, I headed down to Washington, DC, for an evening bookstore appearance to promote It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over. Around 30 people came out to Politics and Prose bookstore to hear what Clay Davenport and I had to say about the book, not a bad showing given how little advance publicity we were able to give it at BP. Several readers old enough to remember the races I wrote about had nice things to say about my chapters, particularly the 1967 one, which meant a lot to me; it's always good to know not only that you've brought something memorable back to life but that you've provided some new insights along the way. I'm not sure I could ask for a higher compliment than that when it comes to my work.
• Tuesday also saw publication of my latest Hit and Run piece at BP. This one took a close look at quality starts and at BP's Support Neutral metrics to evaluate the work of starting pitchers. Both individually and on a team level, there's a great deal of overlap when comparing what the two types of stats are telling us:
As defined by [Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John] Lowe, a quality start is one in which a pitcher goes at least six innings and allows no more than three earned runs. It's a simple and elegant stat that suggests a pitcher did a reasonable job of keeping his team in the ballgame. And while it's possible for a pitcher to earn a quality start with a game ERA of 4.50, such instances are rare. In the aforementioned ESPN column, [Rob] Neyer found that in 2005, the average quality start featured a game ERA of 2.04, a non-quality start 7.70 -- that's not a misprint, it's Boeing's next jet -- and the 6 inning/3 earned run/4.50 case constituted just 9.2 percent of all quality starts.
Based on this year's numbers, a team getting a quality start wins 68.0 percent of the time, on par with the 67.4 percent Neyer reported based on 1985 and 2005 data...
...As a metric, SNLVAR [Support Neutral Lineup Adjusted Value Above Replacement] certainly has its advantages over quality starts. It adjusts for ballpark and opposition strength, strips out things a pitcher can't control like run support and bullpen support, and expresses the result in wins above replacement level. For my money, it's the best metric in the BP toolbox with which to measure starting pitchers, and as such, I use it every week in the Hit List, along with its bullpen sibling, WXRL. However, you can't eyeball SNLVAR over a cup of coffee and a page full of box scores, nor can you impress mixed company with such an unwieldy acronym, one which brings to mind that old Serak the Preparer line: "To pronounce it correctly, I would have to pull out your tongue." The humble quality start is perfect for just such occasions.
Then again, the quality start metric does lack the zazz we at BP like to apply to things, so it's worth passing along a little tidbit from Keith Woolner: our Support Neutral family can provide a sophisticated approximation of quality start rate if we untether ourselves from replacement level and turn towards league average via the per-game stat SNLVA_R (Support Neutral Lineup-adjusted Value Added Rate). Simply put, a pitcher's SNLVA_R + 0.5 is the percentage of the time his team would win a game given average offense and bullpen support. So for Jake Peavy, who's got an SNLVA of 5.3 in 28 starts and thus an SNLVA_R of .189, his team can be expected to win at a .689 clip. That's tops among pitchers with 100 or more innings this season.
The piece was accompanied by an Unfiltered entry which clarified my decision to use a definition of quality starts that excluded unearned runs, which generally isn't how we roll at BP.
• Back from DC on Wednesday, I attended that evening's Yankees-Mariners game with an old college friend named Ben (readers may remember him from my wife's fabulous 2003 Game Seven story). After leaving his law practice, Ben has spent the last two years traveling around the world. "Since I last saw you, I've been through 25 countries," he told me. With the desire to catch up and the stresses of the week -- which included arrangements to close on my apartment at the end of the month -- weighing on me, I didn't even bother taking my scorebook to the game. Ben and I simply kicked back in our seats in Section 601 of the upper deck, right behind home plate, and concentrated on baseball and beer, hootin' and hollerin' and just having a good time.
We watched Philip Hughes, who'd been torched for 15 runs in 16.2 innings over his last three starts, overcome some early trouble to give the Yankees six solid innings with six strikeouts. After yielding two walks and an HBP in the first two innings, he surrendered a two-run homer to Raul Ibañez in the third inning -- it could have been a three-run job had the umps not blown a call at second base, when Ichiro Suzuki was out stealing after a single -- and when he yielded a leadoff double to Ben Broussard to start the fourth, it looked like he might be in for another quick exit.
But from that point on, Hughes faced the minimum number of hitters to get through six. Broussard was moved over to third on an infield grounder, but Hughes struck out Jose Lopez and got Yuniesky Betancourt to pop out to end the threat. The only other baserunner he allowed was Ibañez, who was nailed stretching a single into a double to lead off the sixth, though apparently the umps had also victimized Ichiro in the top of the fifth when they called him out on a bang-bang play at first base. Still, it was a good outing from the kid. In light of the injury concerns regarding Roger Clemens (my nickel, based on his comments, says he's got a bone spur) and the ineffectiveness of Mike Mussina, they'll need more where that came from if they want to play into October.
The Yanks could do almost nothing against Seattle starter Jarrod Washburn. In the bottom of the third they got their first hit, a solo homer by #9 hitter Jose Molina. His next turn at bat, he collected the Yanks' second hit, leading off the sixth with a single and boldly -- or foolishly, given how slowly he runs -- taking second as Lopez dropped the relay throw. Seriously, you could time the guy with a sun dial.
That hit went for naught, and following an 11-pitch, 1-2-3 inning from Joba Chamberlain (first time I'd seen him in person), the M's were still ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh, when Alex Rodriguez, who'd been doubtful before the game after banging up his ankle in a collision with Adrian Beltre the previous night, bashed a solo homer to leftfield, his 47th of the year. When Robinson Cano reached on another error by Lopez, Washburn's night was done even though he'd allowed just three hits.
In came George Sherrill to face Shelley Duncan, a hacktastic over-age rookie whose swing is all-or-nothing. We watched in amazement as Duncan squared around to bunt. Ben was sure he was going to get one down; I was in total denial. "Attempting to bunt and getting one down are two different stories, and this guy doesn't have it in him to complete the job." One pitch later he'd done just that, sending Cano to second.
At this point, Sherrill lost the plate, walking Jason Giambi and Wilson Betemit, who was playing third base while A-Rod DHed. With Molina looming on deck as Betemit worked the count in his favor, I saw Jorge Posada don a helmet and move to the edge of the dugout. "Watch," I told Ben, "if Betemit gets on to load the bases, Posada's going to pinch-hit for Molina."
"But he's got two hits!"
"Yeah, and he also just got his bell rung." Molina had taken a foul ball off the mask in the top of the inning. "Posada's going to pinch hit because Torre knows he's good at working the bases-loaded walk."
Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. Posada took four balls in a row after fouling off the first pitch, and we exchanged high-fives as Ben laughed, "That's why they pay you the big bucks!"
Mariners manager John McLaren, who'd already endeared himself to the crowd by arguing over both Ichiro calls, came out for the second time of the inning. This time he summoned Eric O'Flaherty, who yielded one run when Johnny Damon legged out an infield grounder to prevent a double play, and another when Melky Cabrera singled to rightfield. Brandon Morrow came on and instantly yielded a two-run double to Derek Jeter, bringing up A-Rod again.
"Come on, A-Rod. Two in one inning!" howled Ben. Boom! Another shot to left centerfield for Rodriguez's second home run of the frame and his 48th of the year, tying his own Yankee record for righthanded batters. It was the first time I'd ever seen a player hit two in one inning, and the first time a Yankee had done so since Cliff Johnson in 1977. Amazing!
By the time the dust settled, McLaren had made four pitching changes as the Yanks scored eight run on four hits, four walks and an error to make the score 9-2. Just like the night before, the Yanks had broken open a close game in the seventh. They would add one more run and win going away. Good stuff.
• Thursday found me back on the Amtrak, headed to Philadelphia to make a TV appearance on Comcast SportsNet's "Daily News Live" show with host Neil Hartman and panelists Rich Hofmann and Mark Kram from the Philadelphia Daily News. On a 90-minute show that alternated between baseball and football in a 30-30-15-15 format, I had the final segment, but at virtually every commercial break, the host plugged the book and my appearance, showing the cover and mentioning my name.
Finally, after some time in the makeup room to keep me from looking as sweaty and disheveled as the week had made me feel, I was on. I did somewhere between eight and 10 minutes, answering Hartman's questions about the methodology which determined the races that made the book, explaining their relevance to the current races (the Phils, after blowing a six-run lead the night before in gut-wrenching fashion, were down to about a 25 percent shot at the playoffs according to BP's Playoff Odds report), kicking around the Phils' 1964 collapse and discussing my 1959 chapter. It was difficult to provide too much detail in such a short time, but I think I used what I had pretty well, and made the most of my brief moment in the spotlight. I'm hoping to get a clip to put up on the site soon.
• Finally, having gone to Philly and back on the same day, I returned home to finish this week's Hit List, one that featured a no-hitter, a near-perfect game, an imperfect game, Network, Old School, C. Montgomery Burns, a poorly-timed look at Troy Glaus' turnaround, and a whole lot of season-ending injuries. I always like the Hit List to feel like a wrap-up of a full, rich week, but this one only scratched the surface of my adventures. Still, given the chaotic circumstances under which it was produced, I'm proud that it went up more or less on time. Aside from the season-ending list, it's the last one I'll be writing given an upcoming trip to Europe. I'm ready for that vacation.
For all of the ranting and raving within -- and about -- my last twoposts regarding the 2007 Yankees, I still find myself holding a handful of tickets to their ballgames. Between that fact and the obligation I have to stay on top of the team for my various BP and radio duties, I can't shake this debacle in progress so easily. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
My problem, I realized as I was heading up to Monday night's game, is that my disappointment with the current edition's predicament is dwarfed by my disappointment with the quality of the Yankee Stadium experience, which has been in freefall over the past few year. heavy-handed "security" thugs have made entering and exiting the stadium increasingly difficult. The backpack/briefcase ban is completely unnecessary; if you were going to smuggle, say, a tactical nuclear weapon into a New York area venue, Shea Stadium, which allows backpacks and briefcases, is much closer to an international airport and therefore a more desirable option. The concessions continue to rise in cost; premium beer prices on Becks, Heineken and Fosters appear to have risen in-season. And beyond the modest upgrade provided by Nathan's hot dogs the last few years, the ballpark continues to offer third-rate food -- go to Camden or Miller Park or Safeco Field and you can get a much more appetizing set of options, barbecue, bratwurst, what have you.
It's all come to the point that I plan to reduce considerably my annual expenditure on all things Yankee, new stadium be damned. I can't envision buying a walk-up ticket again, and beyond my ticket plan, I'm not about to submit to the online rape via Ticketmaster; I just don't care for the experience enough to submit to additional gouging. The Yankees won't miss me so long as they continue to draw upwards of four million fans, but that only points to the steps they've taken to alienate a significant portion of their customer base to appease a more casually interested crowd.
So as I headed to Monday's game, the combination of these feelings and those about the 2-9 slide which had the local media reaching the same conclusion I reached last week gave me an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I didn't even pack a scorebook, something I've done for every Yankees game since 2001. That's alienation.
Mitigating all of that was the fact that I'd be attending the game with my friend Nick, seeing him for the first time since his return from his honeymoon. What could be better than catching up with a good friend over a few beers at the ballpark on a beautiful night? Nothing, really, though since Nick actually left his ticket at home and required some creative, um, acquisition to enter the ballpark, the cameraderie was delayed until the second inning or so, by which point the Yankees had squandered the first-inning lead they netted when Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera started things off with a pair of singles.
Nonetheless, once Roger Clemens got through the second, he was absolutely stifling. I've seen almost none of the Rocket's work since he signed, and with a 5.32 ERA coming into the game, I was hardly thrilled to do so; memories of booing him for most of 1999 -- at least until he sealed the deal by clinching the World Championship in my presence -- added to the aforementioned stew of unhappiness on my trip to the park. But after allowing Michael Cuddyer's second-inning single, Clemens would only surrender one more hit for the night, pitching eight solid innings to short-circuit a shaky and poorly managed bullpen.
After netting their first-inning run, the Yanks threatened several times against Twins' starter Boof Bonser. Not until the fifth inning, when he struck out Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Jorge Posada in succession did Bonser keep the bases spotless, and from that high-water mark it was all downhill. Andy Phillips sparked a sixth-inning rally with a one-out double, followed by a single from Robinson Cano. That chased Bonser in favor of Juan Rincon, who walked both Damon and Cabrera, forcing in a run. Jeter broke the game open with a two-run single through the left side, and suddenly the stadium crowd of 53,036 roared with a zeal that recalled happier times at the stadium. That mood was quickly replaced by concern when A-Rod tumbled after colliding with Justin Morneau at first base, having legged out a fielder's choice and avoided the double play, summoning trainer Stevie Donahue. When Posada walked, Rodriguez again called for help, and he was removed for pinch-runner Miguel Cairo. Hamstring was the upper deck diagnosis, and though Rodriguez would wind up back in the lineup the following night, this was a scary moment.
Scarier still was watching Nick's consumption of Yankee Stadium concessions. Earlier he had confessed that he was just emerging from an end-of-honeymoon bout of food poisoning, suffered at the hands of some unscrupulous Morrocan kebab tyrant. You'd never have known; in procuring his new ticket, Nick had downed a foot-long hot dog (even while admitting to a Ned Flandersesque unease about the thing), and he chased this with a bag of Cracker Jacks, a regular-sized hot dog, and a beer. Reminded me that on the day of my wedding two years ago I watched him down a Wisconsin triple threat of nachos, fried cheese curds and frozen custard within a 90-minute span; when asked how he was doing in the wake of this binge, he'd recounted the menu while moaning, "Of course I'm not OK."
In any event, though Brian Bruney warmed up for the Yanks in the seventh, Joe Torre was content to let Clemens cruise, and he did so by throwing just 97 pitches through eight. He only struck out four hitters, but his ability to throw strikes and generate ground balls (13, versus seven flies) kept him well out of danger against the contact-happy Twins. Mariano Rivera came on in the ninth and though he allowed a pair of one-out singles, a nifty double play by Cairo, who got the force at third and then fired to first, wrapped things up. It was Clemens' 350th win, a level not seen since Waren Spahn reached that milestone on September 29, 1963 in a game caught by some Brooklyn kid named Torre.
Victory and all, in the face of those sobering numbers, the Yanks face a dreadfully uphill climb just to win the Wild Card; for me, believing they'll make it is like believing Little Timmy the Orphan's whooping cough is going to go away without medication. But for one night, everything seemed right at Yankee Stadium, a delightful midsummer night spent among friends, downing beers and cheering victory. Here's hoping they can keep the good times rolling.
Yankees-Red Sox games in the Bronx are always tense affairs, but Saturday's contest ratcheted the tension through the roof. For starters, the Yanks came in riding a seven-game losing streak, their longest since the end of the 2000 season (their 0-fer on the Hit List stuck out like a sore thumb). They'd lost four straight to the Sox, including Friday night's 11-4 debacle, a game which stopper Andy Pettitte (13-5 against the Sox in his career, and 64-27 after a Yankee loss) failed to get the job done. Worse, Mariano Rivera, who'd blown his only two save opportunities of the year in spectacular fashion, was torched for four runs in 1/3 of an inning of mop-up duty and had to be unceremoniously removed mid-inning. The tabloid paper tiger, George Steinbrenner was supposedly threatening to roar (if you believe Howard Rubenstein), canning Joe Torre for the egregious sin of not being ten deep in healthy major league starting pitchers. Not that anyone should put any stock in this; it's most likely the black throat of the anti-Cashman forces -- Mark Newman, raise your hand -- stirring up trouble.
Against this backdrop, I headed to Yankee Stadium for my second game of the year, and the fun started early, when the Police Academy reject at the entrance hassled me over the little leather attache in which I keep my scorebook, sunglasses, and subway-ready reading material -- a modest upgrade over the previous faux-leather item I'd recently replaced. Since 9/11, security at the Stadium has gotten increasingly unpleasant and irrational. I could have a Tek-9 in my pants and grenades wired to my body, but so long as my cell phone turns on and there are no assault rifles hidden under my cap, the Rent-A-Cops will wave me through. Try to bring in a leather attache, and it's curtains. Stick the stupid thing in a clear plastic bag at the request of the Rent-A-Cop's supervisor, and everything is back to hunky dory, "just this once."
Our seats were in the infield, but they were also in the back row of the Tier Box section, directly in front of the Section 10/12 tunnel. Thus, we were vulnerable every half-wit drunk sloshing multiple beers onto us, while a steady breeze of peanut shells wafting up from the rows below dusted our entire section. All of this excitement cost me only $56. Several rows down, a man in a red #7 football jersey with "Grumpy" on the back, stood out among the Jeter, Cabrera, Rodriguez and Mantle t-shirts and jerseys dotting the crowd. It was a Snow White reference, but the non sequitur summed up the vibe in the park: the Yanks' seven losses in a row had all of us in a less-than-chipper mood, hardly they type of vibe than a beautiful Saturday afternoon with a ballgame ought to bring.
Against that wonderful tableau, the game got off to a miserable start for the Yanks. On the first pitch, Sox shortstop Julio Lugo lined a pitch back to the box, and it drilled pitcher Jeff Karstens on the leg. Karstens went down as though he'd been shot, and was writhing in agony as Torre, trainer Gene Monahan and the infielders encircled him. After a few minutes of catching his breath, standing up, and squatting on his haunches -- making us believe he'd actually taken the shot in the groin -- Karstens threw a warm-up pitch and drew applause and the green light from the trainer. But after giving up another single, he departed; it turns out the liner had cracked his fibula, further depleting an already decimated rotation.
With the staff already in disarray, Torre summoned his lone option, Kei Igawa. Carrying a 7.84 ERA through four starts, the Japanese lefty has been nothing short of erratic thus far; with Karstens' return from some spring elbow tenderness, the Yanks had banished Igawa to the bullpen until he got his shit together. Nick and I put the over/under for runs allowed by the Yanks at 12 and slunk into our seats. I summoned my Clancy Wiggum voice: "This is gonna get worse before it gets better."
Miraculously, Igawa began by inducing a room-service 4-6-3 double-play off the bat of David Ortiz. As the big slugger lumbered back to the dugout, the man in the seat directly in front of me shouted, "Get off the field, fat ass! And that's coming from a 50-year-old, 295-pound man!" The fellow fat ass soon revealed himself to be Tom from Texas, and he kept us entertained throughout the afternoon with a lively stream of patter, though I could have done without the combination of peanut detritus and dandruff flaking from his midnight blue shirt into my soda cup. Suddenly, I wasn't so thirsty.
Though Manny Ramirez came into the game batting just .193, he still posed a threat, particularly with Lugo at third. After falling behind 0-2, he battled Igawa through 10 pitches, finally working a walk. But Igawa came back to strike out J.D. Drew, earning a healthy ovation from the portion of the 55,026 fans who weren't carpetbagging around in Red Sox paraphernalia.
The Yanks mounted a threat in the bottom of the first against Tim Wakefield. With one out, Derek Jeter reached on an error by third baseman Mike Lowell, his seventh of the year after making just six all of last year. Jeter stole second a few pitches before slumping Bobby Abreu -- in the midst of what would become an 0-for-19 slump, one that would see him attempting to bunt in his next at-bat -- worked a walk, bringing up Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod had cooled off a bit from his scorching pace of 14 homers and 34 RBI in 18 games. A-Rod worked the count full, but struck out, while Jeter lit for third base and was gunned down for an inning-ending double play. Blech.
The Yanks threatened again in the second. Hideki Matsui stroked a one-out single, and stole second one pitch before Jorge Posada walked. Both runners moved up when a Wakefield pitch knuckled off Doug Mirabelli's big glove. Since Mirabelli's sole reason for breathing rests on his ability to catch Wakefield's knuckler -- a problem that San Diego GM Kevin Towers exploited beautifully when the Sox needed to hurriedly reacquire Mirabelli last summer -- I shouted something colorfully unprintable, even by this blog's lax standards. Yeah, love to hate that Mirabelli, I do. Thus my curse words were adequately warmed up when Melky Cabrera lined out to rightfield to end the inning.
The Yanks finally broke through in the fourth, when after a one-out walk by Matsui, Posada went upper deck with a Wakefield knuckler, spilling some poor fan's beer or soda all over the facade of the rightfield tier, 2-0 Yanks. Still, the crowd was tense, unwilling to believe Igawa's stifling performance. Working exclusively from the stretch, "Ugly Uh-gawa" (who's no matinee idol, if you've seen pics) kept the Sox offense at bay by getting ahead of hitters. Through five innings, he'd gotten a first-pitch strike on 11 out of 16 and surrendered just one hit, a two-out double by Lowell in the fourth. He even got Ortiz to ground into yet another double play, though this time, his sundial-timed loaf back to the dugout brought no comment from Tom from Texas.
Ugly Igawa gave Ortiz fits all day. With one out in the sixth, he got the slugger to pop up into foul territory on the first base side. Jason Giambi, playing first because Joe Torre had finally benched Doug Mientkiewicz and his .140 batting average, surprised everyone by leaning over the railing to snare the popup. When Igawa walked Ramirez on four pitches immediately afterwards, it looked as though the jig was up, but Drew slapped an easy grounder right to Giambi to end the threat.
The Yanks extended their lead to 3-0 in the bottom of the inning. Posada worked a walk off Wakefield, and advanced to second on a grounder. Cabrera, who'd hit the ball hard all day to no avail, dunked a blooper down the leftfield line, and the ball obliged by bouncing into the stands for a ground-rule double and an RBI. That was it for the knuckleballer, who'd thrown 118 pitches for the day. In came Brendan Donnelly, who loaded the bases by yielding an infield single to Jeter -- who would go 3-for-5 with two infield singles and two reach-on-errors, as Lowell had booted another one in the fifth -- and walking Abreu before getting A-Rod to pop up to short.
Lowell reached on an A-Rod error to start the seventh, and Coco Crisp singled, ending Igawa's day. Six-plus shutout innings, two hits, four walks, six strikeouts, against the Red Sox no less -- it all added up to a well-earned standing ovation as he departed in favor of Brian Bruney. The chunky, heat-throwing reliever struck out Mirabelli and extricated the Yanks from the jam having thrown just nine pitches.
It would have been nice if he'd come back for an encore, particularly because he hadn't worked the night before, but Torre quixotically summoned Kyle "Marmaduke" Farnsworth -- christened as such by Alex Belth in a conversation earlier in the week (congrats to Alex and Emily on their beautiful nuptials down in the Bahamas, by the way). With the skill of a suicidal arsonist, Farnsworth doused himself in gasoline by surrendering a single to Kevin Youkilis and walking Ortiz, reaching for the matches by bringing up Ramirez with two on and no outs. But Manny looked at two quick strikes, and after a ball, was punched out watching strike three, as disbelieving as the other 55 thousand of us. He got Drew on a fielder's choice, but surrendered an RBI single to Lowell, 3-1 Yanks. Up came Crisp, who looked at two quick strikes just as Ramirez had. He worked the count to 2-2, but looked at strike three, and was so angry at home plate ump Bruce Froemming's call that he slammed his bat and helmet down and was tossed.
As all of this was going down, the tension, the alcohol, and a very bipartisan capacity crowd induced the usual slew of fights up in Tier Reserved. Tom from Texas proved himself a fantastic spotter, directing our eyes to the latest fray -- none of which got very violent, from what I saw -- long before the cops arrived. Best was the ejected Sox fan who turned around in the tunnel entranceway so as to give the finger to the Bronx denizens above. For his trouble, he got a well-deserved beer shower. As Chris Rock would say, "I don't condone it, but I understand it." Or perhaps my Coup de Torchon mantra is more suitable here: "It's a dirty job, and I deserve all the dirty pleasure I get out of it.
The Yankees carried their lead into the ninth, which meant a call for Rivera. Still lacking a save for the year, and lugging a 12.15 ERA into the game, he nonetheless arrived to a hearty ovation and the familiar strains of Metallica's "Enter Sandman." He quickly yielded a single to Jason Varitek, pinch-hitting for Mirabelli -- uh, oh, here we go -- but erased him on a fielder's choice for the first out. Lugo quickly fell behind 0-2, bringing the buzzing crowd to its feet, then hit a dribbler near the mound which Rodriguez barehanded on the charge, flinging a perfect peg to first, a beautiful play. With trouble looming on deck in the form or Ortiz, Mo calmly got Youkilis to pop up to second for the game-ender, as the crowd erupted and Sinatra's "New York, New York" rang from the P.A.
I wish I could say it was all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows from there, but exiting the Stadium turned ugly. With the concourses thick with throngs of fans who'd stayed through the final out, Nick and I attempted to make our way all the way to the stairwell at the end of the leftfield side, but some psychotic security guards insisted on closing off the exit. I got irate, as did several other fans, but the Rent-A-Cops would give us no explanation.
I'm no claustrophobe, but the idea of sealing off exits under such combustible circumstances strikes me as the height of brazen stupidity. Yankee Stadium has been gradually edging towards police-state status since 9/11, but this was a new level entirely. It took 40(!) minutes to crawl from the upper deck to the subway platform, erasing what good vibes could be salvaged from the victory, and even writing this 48 hours later, my blood is still boiling.
Guess how far up their asses the Yanks can stick the next dollar they try to pry from my wallet.
Prior to stepping out on Wednesday night, I touched base with Alex Belth, and we mutually derided anyone insane enough to sit through the cold weather of early-season contests. "I'm happy to tough it out in October..." declared Alex. Agreeing, I completed his thought: "But now? Fuck it."
I was quickly forced to contemplate eating my words when Jonah Keri offered me a bleacher ticket to Thursday night's Yankees-Devil Rays tilt. Not knowing that temperatures would graze the freezing point and that snow (!) would be swirling throughout the stadium in a sloppy, disheartening affair that saw the Yankees blow two leads and squander a valiant comeback in Andy Pettitte's abbreviated first appearance in pinstripes since 2003, I readily agreed. After all, attending a ballgame with a friend from out of town, particularly a witty and perceptive fellow writer like Jonah, is a rare treat. So what the hell, right?
Bundled up with a winter jacket (with broken zipper, alas) scarf, gloves, and counterfeit Yankees logo ski hat, I randomly wound up in the same 4-train car as Jonah at 59th Street, and we talked career moves, book proposals and Scoresheet drafts on our way up to the Stadium. Funny thing about that is that last year, on the way out to the Yogi Berra Museum for Baseball Prospectus' big panel appearance, our BP posse missed our New Jersey Transit stop because of a lengthy conversation centered around Jonah's various drafts, and I've been mock-badmouthing him ever since, my motto -- "nobody wants to hear about your fantasy team" -- amended to "nobody wants to hear about your fantasy draft." Be that as it may, Jonah is the one who invited me to fill his slot in this league (NL Neifi), which was organized by Salon's King Kaufman. More of my own words to eat.
The line to enter the bleachers more or less stretching back to the 149th Street/Grand Concourse subway stop, we missed the anthem, the lineups, the ovation for Pettitte and the entire top of the first, but arrived in time to see the Yanks put the first run on the board. Robinson Cano, batting leadoff in the absence of Johnny Damon, reached on an infield single off Jae Seo and then scored on a two-out double off the rightfield wall by Alex Rodriguez. The Rays tied the score in the second when Akinori Iwamura, Tampa Bay's Japanese-imported third baseman, worked a two-out walk off of a very labored Pettitte, advanced to second on an infield single by B.J. Upton (Cano bobble the ball, but it was ruled a hit), and scored on a single by Josh Paul. The Rays nearly got a second run when Upton took third on a wild pitch (the first of what felt like seventeen on the night but was officially tallied at four plus a passed ball), Carl Crawford walked, and then Upton was thrown out at home when another pitch bounced away from Posada, who threw to Pettitte at the plate in time.
The Rays took a 2-1 lead in the third when Ben Zobrist reached on a Derek Jeter error, advanced to second on Posada's passed ball (you getting the idea yet?), stole third, and scored on a single by Delmon Young. The Yanks delivered a body blow to Seo in the fourth. They'd been swinging at first pitches and getting burned into making meager contact thus far, but here they got a break. Hideki Matsui hit a sharp grounder that required first baseman Ty Wigginton to make a diving stop; Wiggy's throw trailed Seo and produced a collision that found Matsui safe. At least I think that's how it happened; sitting in the unfamiliar territory of the bleachers, where the action is so far away, I always feel half a second behind whatever is going on.
Posada followed with a sharp single to left, and Doug Mientkiewicz, of all people, dunked an RBI single into shallow center as Jonah and I made light of his offensive contributions (including my sushi bet with Steven Goldman). A Melky Cabrera groundout put two runners into scoring position; Cano picked Posada up on another dunked single to center, and then Stinky Minky crossed the plate when Derek Jeter beat out a potential 5-4-3 double-play grounder. Jeter was promptly caught stealing to end the threat.
Pettitte had recorded his first and only 1-2-3 inning in the fourth, but the Rays juggernaut stormed back in the fifth. Crawford beat out an infield hit to first, and took second on a bunt single by Zobrist, with a throwing error Minky tacking on a base for the speedy Crawford. That ended Pettitte's inefficient evening after just 83 pitches (I later learned that he was on a pitch count of 90 given the cold and his recent back spasms). Scott Proctor came on, and after the Yanks conceded a swipe of second base to Zobrist so as to hold Crawford at third, a Wigginton sacrifice fly brought the speedster home. He was followed in short order by Zobrist when Proctor uncorked a wild pitch, and after Young reached on a throwing error by Jeter, he was nabbed stealing second on a questionable call. Tied at four, with all of the runs charged to Mr. Pettitte's room.
Elijah Dukes, who homered in his first major-league at-bat on Opening Day, hit another one out to open the top of the sixth, this one a frozen rope -- and I do mean frozen -- that barely cleared the fence. Singles by Iwamura and Paul chased Proctor in favor of Mike Myers, who yielded a single to Crawford to give the Rays a 6-4 lead.
The falling temperature thinned out the bleacher crowd. Struggling to keep warm, Jonah and I compared notes on numbed extremities (literally; from Jonah's writeup for ESPN Page 2):
Second inning: Really, really cold Fourth inning: Teeth chattering, knees knocking Sixth inning: Lost all feeling in toes
With obstructing the views of fans behind us no longer an issue, we at least were able to stand up, thereby removing our frozen asses from the metal benches, but the departures also removed the bodies who buffered the worst of the wind. Though we threatened to leave after every half-inning thereafter, the potential for column fodder continued to grow; we shifted into martyrdom mode as stray snowflakes began fluttering.
Snow. At the Stadium. In April. On the out-of-town scoreboard, noting that the Tigers-Blue Jays game in Detroit had been called off earlier in the day due to cold weather, we questioned the fortitude of the defending AL champions. "Pussies," we agreed.
The Yanks tied the score in the seventh on a pair of one-out singles by Jeter and Bobby Abreu (the first of which chased Seo in favor of Ruddy Lugo), a two-out walk to Jason Giambi (who yielded to pinch-runner Miguel Cairo), and then a two-run single by Matsui. Frigid despite the excitement, I wondered aloud as to the propriety of setting a trash fire in the sparsely-populated bleachers. With the wind howling, it seemed like a bad idea.
Luis Vizcaino came on in the eighth and promptly stank up the joint. A double by Iwamura, a single by Upton, and then ANOTHER DAMN WILD PITCH put the Rays up 7-6. As Vizcaino escaped without furthering the damage, snow began swirling, blanketing the stadium in an eerie, surreal atmosphere. I snapped a few pictures with my cellphone's Crappicam(TM), but they don't do it justice:
Meahnwhile, the Yanks looked as though they were doing the voodoo that they do so well. Stinky walked but was erased on a bad bunt by Melky, but Cano followed with a single. Jeter grounded back to reliever Brian Stokes, who inexplicably threw -- wide -- to third, loading the bases with just one out and the heart of the order coming up. Lunchtime, right?
But no. Abreu grounded meekly into a fielder's choice that forced Cabrera at home, and then A-Rod popped out meekly to second. The remaining Bleacher Creatures, who'd cheered Rodriguez's RBI double in the first, turned into boo birds, predictably speculating about the third baseman's recent sexual congresses and future in pinstripes. The crowd thinned.
Eighth inning: Horizontal blowing snow! Ninth inning: My friend Jay died from exposure. I ate him for warmth.
Reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated; it was the Yankee offense that perished in the cold. Former Yank Al Reyes, who missed nearly all of last season while recovering from Tommy John surgery but improbably nabbed the Rays' vacant closer role, set Josh Phelps, Matsui and Posada down in order in the ninth inning. Just the type of game the Bronx Bombers almost invariably steal from the Rays, but on this night, the blue plate special was a cold dish of revenge.
All in all, a brutal SufferFest of a night for baseball that only a masochist could endure. Even the rightfielders drectly in front of us, Abreu and Young, were visibly struggling, wth the latter keeping his right hand in his back pocket whenever possible (a source of much colorful discourse from the bleacher crowd). And I have to admit that with the exception of watching a ton of bad baseball and losing the circulation in my toes, I had a blast. Joe Sheehan, replying to my quick summary on BP's internal mailing list, summed up my evening in less than 20 words:
"Sitting in the Yankee Stadium bleachers watching the Devil Rays in the snow" is basically the gold standard for "baseball fan."
