9.30.2004
i am so ecstatic it was bernie that won this game, got them to 100 wins, broke that franchise record, clinched the pennant... you can't even begin to know.
LICK IT UP, SELENA ROBERTS. LICK. IT. UP.
LICK IT UP, SELENA ROBERTS. LICK. IT. UP.
dear arod -
look, i know your blase postgame-posturing is just a front and inside you're just so giddy you could wet your jock, but for the love of god, GO EASY ON THE JETER!
love,
lupe
one.
i just realized it's almost over. yes yes, the excitement is really just beginning, BUT.
All of these fine young men still play for the Yankees, but I speak about them in the past tense as a way to distance myself from them during these last few days of the season. They have wives and girlfriends and children to attend to and I, like other New York baseball gals, have learned to repress my desires on cue, at least until the next season rolls around and the guys -- conditioned, well-fed and well-rested -- are back in town. The winter will be lonely for us. There will be barren, cold nights characterized by too many glasses of wine for too much money when, just months earlier, we shrugged off the same drink dates and after-work parties in order to be home in front of the TV with our boys. It will be -- as it always is -- a difficult winter without them.
... I'm losing my friends soon. It's the beginning of the end of the season for the Yankees and I'll be watching each player closely, soaking in their faces and their bodies; all those details will be memorized and memorialized in an effort to keep me company during the long winter months ahead, when life will be characterized by cold nights, too many carbohydrates and dysfunctional family get-togethers. During those times when a date goes horribly wrong, when the nightly news reports that another war has broken out in the Middle East or when the 300-thread count of my sheets is not enough to compensate for the lack of another warm body in my bed, I will think of Tino and Derek, of Chuck and Paul, of Bernie and Clay, and dream of spring training. [harriet archer]
i am going to go hyperventilate now.
9.29.2004
...the way the four-team playoff system works, they may see the Yankees again next week as well.
But that's all right with Gardenhire because the Yankees are "vulnerable."
"They are. Aren't they? I mean that's what everyone's saying. They're vulnerable this year," Gardenhire said sarcastically. "And what do they have, 9,000 wins? The Yankees have weaknesses now, too. Right? Right! But the people who say that don't have to play them. They get to watch them, they get to watch their weaknesses.
"I just get tickled when I hear that stuff."[newsday]
what the fuck is this bullshit?
Yankees, Red Sox disciplined
Pitchers Pedro Astacio of the Boston Red Sox and Brad Halsey of the New York Yankees have each been disciplined for their actions during the Yankees-Red Sox game in Boston, Massachusetts on September 26, 2004. Bob Watson, Vice President of On-Field Operations for Major League Baseball, made the announcement.
Astacio has been suspended for three games and fined an undisclosed amount for intentionally throwing a pitch at New York's Kenny Lofton during the top of the eighth inning.
Halsey has been suspended for three games and fined an undisclosed amount for intentionally throwing a pitch at Boston's Dave Roberts during the bottom of the eighth inning.
Both Astacio and Halsey have filed appeals. Therefore, the suspensions will be held in abeyance until the processes are complete.
speaking of rookies with cojones:
BRAD HALSEY FOR LOOGY!
feed heredia to the fishes!
ain't no sunshine
dear scotty kazmir,
i admire the rookie cojones muchly, but i'd have much preferred revenge served up in the form of continuing to mow those clowns down. then, in the 9th, drill the guy of your choice in the neck. alright, alright, the ass. i'm a little bloodthirsty this time of year.
love,
lupe
connect the dots, la la la la
9.27.2004
2003 Pitcher Abuse Points by starting pitcher
mhm. thanks, montreal.
i was going to be mad... but realistically, with Belleh going against Hissyfit, i wasn't expecting much. the more irritating loss was yesterday's.
i shouldn't be complaining, really: i shall glean a lifetime of joy from petey's postgame comments friday. :D
dear kevin brown,
i hope you punch yourself in the face.
i hate you you bastard,
lupe
i confess
the real reason torre hasn't been using karsay is because i have everybody's favorite dreamboat reliever tied up in my basement. i couldn't help myself. it's that funny little nose of his.
please forgive me.
if the glove fits
9.25.2004
color me surprised:
Brown to start Sunday against Red Sox
By The Associated Press
September 25 2004
BOSTON (AP) -- Kevin Brown will return to the New York Yankees' rotation Sunday to start the series finale against the Boston Red Sox.
Brown has been out since breaking his non-pitching hand when he punched a clubhouse wall in frustration on Sept. 3. The right-hander threw in the bullpen Friday, wearing a glove but letting someone else catch the return throws. Yankees manager Joe Torre said Brown will pitch wearing a glove with extra padding.
Torre said he hadn't decided whether Brown will be in the playoff rotation. The Yankees entered Saturday night's game with a 5 1/2 -game lead over Boston in the AL East. They have already clinched at least a wild-card spot.
Brown had surgery two days after punching the wall during a 3-1 loss to Baltimore that left the Yankees only 2 1/2 games ahead of the Red Sox. He had the pins removed from his hand on Thursday.
Acquired last offseason in a trade with Los Angeles, Brown is 10-4 with a 3.99 ERA
which, i guess, says a lot about the management's lack of faith in javy getting his shit together tonight coupled with the yankee lineups historically bewildered reaction to the flutterby knuckleball, no matter that wakefield's september has been about as woeful as vazquez's.
in other news
- and then there's some business about brown and a padded glove and pitching again, but i'm not holding my breath.
- in the Of Course Dan Shaughnessy WOULD Know That department: "It was the 1918th regular-season game between these teams..."
- bye bye bobblehead?:
Enrique Wilson does not want to return to the Yankees next season. Wilson, a reserve infielder for the Yankees the last four years, did not start against Pedro Martínez, whom he hits well, for the second time this week. He has started one game this month, during a doubleheader on Sept. 9.
"I'm going to wait until the season's over and move on," said Wilson, who will be a free agent. "It's my choice to come back or not. I know there are a lot of teams out there that need a guy that can play every position."
snort. don't let the door hit you in the ass yadda yadda yadda.
The Yankees have had more success against Martinez, the compelling pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, than any other team has since he came to the American League six years ago. The Yankees typically torment Martinez softly by making him throw more pitches, by making him work until he is weary and then by subduing him.
"Make him get really frustrated, actually," Jorge Posada said.
Seeing a frustrated Martinez is a wonderful vision to the Yankees because it means they have inevitably stifled the Red Sox, too. The Yankees waited and waited and finally frustrated Martinez, the Red Sox and most of New England in a 6-4 victory at Fenway Park on Friday night. [ny times]
on our way home from dinner, my mother turned the game on the car radio in time to hear the trot nixon homer. immediately i started to fidget, and a little later when steinling (i STILL can't tell them apart most of the time) pointed out olerud playing behind the runner, saying IF I WERE OLERUD, WHAT I WOULD DO IS i snapped off the radio and started railing about how no one cares what some fat fuck who never played ball a day in his life would do, signifying that i was in unpleasantly fine game watching form.
when i got home i paced around in front of the tv, watching most of the drama out of the corners of my eyes. like my impatient feet, the score went back and forth back and forth for most of the night. some things i paused to marvel at: arod's slowmotion barehand grab, the throw to first a ridiculous blur; hideki matsui playing off the monstah and showing off that quick release to get millar at second and speaking of: groundzilla smash! ; mo's cool, catlike athleticism; pedro's zombified postgame face:
I can't find a way to beat them at this point," a somber Martinez said long after the Yankees' 6-4 victory was in the books. "They beat me. They didn't beat my team. They beat me. They're that good right now. They're that hot right now -- at least against me.
"I'd wish they'd disappear and never come back," he continued, spicing his sentence with a well-chosen expletive. "What can I say?
"All I can do is tip my cap and call the Yankees my daddy." [newark star ledger]
that's so hilariously sad and befuddling i can't even respond to it.
send the word
9.24.2004
from lisa olson in this morning's daily news:
Mention Keith Foulke, the Red Sox reliever who apparently has contracted Armando Benitez disease (which was mostly cured upon leaving the Mets), and expect to be repelled with shrugs. Ask Mike Mussina how he feels about starting tonight in a game loaded with great expectations, and try not to wither from the stare.
The Yankees are masters of many things, including suppressed emotions. Derek Jeter insisted he was unaware the Yankees had earned a playoff berth following yesterday's 7-3 win over Tampa Bay until a reporter informed him of what should have been a joyous occasion. The captain of this ship of coolness struggled to stifle a yawn.
"That's what people expect when they come here," said Jeter.
Jeter wouldn't know what to do with himself if October came and he couldn't lift a bat. He's been a professional for 10 years, all with the Yankees, and in that span, the club has never missed the playoffs. It doesn't take much to connect the dots. Up in Boston, the Red Sox have already admitted the wild card would be plenty sweet. It's a thought process that Jeter - and by osmosis, his teammates - fail to comprehend.
"I don't know what their mentality is over there," Jeter said of the team that in the Yankees' clubhouse has no name. "We're not playing to get in the playoffs. We're trying to win our division."
did somebody say "over there?" can i make it more obvious i spend most of my day with demented old people? GEORGE M. COHAN RULES!
Labels: yanquis
Mussina is averaging a strikeout an inning this month, and it's not just Mussina's fastball that's grown muscles. He's now featuring a late-breaking, hard-to-detect cutter that's replaced his splitter and has even supplanted his deadly knuckle curve - a weapon so completely reinvented that pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre says, "It's Mike's new pitch."
"I like to kid Mike about it. I ask him, 'How's your new cutter?' That's how much different and better it is now," Stottlemyre said. "The thing is, there isn't one thing that Mike is doing differently now than before."
Better mechanics, maybe. Crisper follow-through. Better attitude, too. Errors and borderline calls that went against him used to drive Mussina even deeper into his normal black mood. But lately, Stottlemyre says, "Mike is learning to live and let live."
Of course, no one will ever confuse Mussina with the flamboyant El Duque. And if you were waiting for Mussina to declare war on the Red Sox this weekend, vowing to crush Pedro in front of his hometown fans, that's a fantasy, too. [bergen record]
and the star ledger made a funny: "The Devil Rays dispensed with in short order, the Yankees hopped a plane last night to Boston. You know, for the real games."
Labels: yanquis
i'll lay my kicks to rest when i'm impressed
9.23.2004
After clinching another postseason trip, there were no high-fives or celebratory handshakes in the New York Yankees' clubhouse. It was business as usual -- except for all the rookies dressed in Elvis outfits.
... ``We don't come in here saying, `Let's get to the postseason,''' Jeter said. ``We've made the postseason before. We want to win the division.'' [ap]
hola, fanaticos de los yankees
we are your 2004 new york yankees, and we enjoy losing games we had in our back pocket.
insert derisive huff here.
9.21.2004
dear reggie,lick it up, baby. lick it up:
"Jackson stood next to the locker belonging to Alex Rodriguez, who hit a two-run homer off a much different Pedro - Astacio - in the eighth, and said, 'Does he hit homers that aren't pile-ons?'"
A closer examination reveals otherwise. It shows, among other things, that 17 of Rodriguez's homers have either tied a game or put the Yankees ahead - one more than Gary Sheffield. Sheffield, universally regarded as an MVP candidate, has hit 10 home runs in the seventh inning or later this season. A-Rod, the defending AL MVP who has hardly been mentioned in connection with the award this year, has hit nine. [daily news]
love
lupe
i did not know that.
per gloomypants shaughnessy:
"How bad was it? It was alarmingly close to a three-game sweep. Proud Jason Varitek, hailed as the man who kick-started Boston's second-half surge with his glove to the face of Alex Rodriguez, went 0 for 10 in the series with eight strikeouts. The flat-topped catcher finished his regular season at Yankee Stadium with zero hits in 34 at-bats, including 19 strikeouts."
quote of the year
"The YES Network wants me to die," Martinez said with a laugh.
runner up
"As Martínez stood in front of a table in the clubhouse, his long, black curls still wet, he added, "I never felt the ball right in my hands."
so how bad was ol' petey, asks murray [ever ready to make a dig at the nation] chass?
¶It was only the third time in 319 career major league starts that he had given up that many (eight) earned runs.
¶The loss was his second in a row, the first time since June 2002 that he has lost consecutive starts.
¶It was the first time since June 2002 that he had given up three home runs in the same game (hit by Gary Sheffield, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada).
This was also the sixth game that Mussina and Martínez have faced each other. For the most part, the previous five were close, low-scoring engagements. Each pitcher had a 2-2 record and a low earned run average, Mussina 1.32, Martínez 1.96. Now Mussina has a 1.31 E.R.A. in their half-dozen confrontations, Martínez 3.46.
newsday with this interesting bit of trivia: "Martinez had been 7-3 with a 2.41 ERA lifetime at Yankee Stadium. Since joining the Red Sox in 1998, he's 10-9 against the Yankees and 107-26 against everyone else."
when mike lupica does a relatively swooning piece on captain intangibles, you KNOW he's going good:
In the parking lot after the game, Yankee general manager Brian Cashman said, "Maybe Derek's an MVP candidate, too."
Jeter won't have the numbers. Won't have Sheffield's numbers. Won't have Alex Rodriguez's numbers. Sometimes, a lot of times, we make too much of things that can't be measured when trying to measure Jeter's value to the Yankees. This time, though, we have not had to rhapsodize about Jeter's intangibles, not since the end of May. The tangibles have been there for all to see. He is a better player at shortstop this season than he has been in a while, and as good a hitter as he's ever been.
He seemed to be pressing in April and May. It was fair to wonder, even with Jeter's resume, if it had something to do with A-Rod being over there to his right, just because that was only human nature. And because he had never looked this bad at the plate. The Yankees had been his team for a long time. Now they had brought in the most overwhelming numbers this side of Barry Bonds.
How did Jeter respond to all of that? By playing brilliantly.
lol
9.18.2004
from a dan "livin off the fat of the babe" shaughnessy article that i'm not going to bother linking to, because this is the only readable part:
"Given that the Yankees are still in first place and have finished first to the Red Sox' second in each of the last six seasons, the Sox seem to have an odd aura of invincibility about them. The Yankees sense this, and last night you could feel it throughout the stadium.
'They're supposed to think that way,' reasoned Yankee leader Derek Jeter before the game. 'They probably felt that way last year, too.'"
cap'n zingtastic in the house.
we'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when
this is it, right guys? the sky is falling?
but really - what a wacky game. props to tanyon sturtze, whose surprisingly great relief of el duque will go forgotten in the wake of a loss. clusters and clusters of empty seats. hunter wendelstedt with the crappy rain delay version of a strike zone. the manny home run foul-ruled-fair-ruled-foul-again dramatics, and then he webgemmed poor clueless miguel cairo out of another, prompting kitty kaat to blurt the line of the night: "he actually looked like a good fielder on that one!" varitek with the golden sombrero (and would someone kindly explain the etymology of that one to me, because all it does is give me this vague mental image of some mexican aleister crowley followers, or something) jeter going oh-fer, and john olerud of all people with a home run into the right field bleachers. mo with an uncharacteristic blip at a bad time. that's baseball, that's why we watch. like bernie said, it's about seeing how it all turns out.
mind over matter
9.17.2004
wading through all the shrill sox-yankees hype this morning, i found a nice bit on our ebullient el duque in the new york times:
Hernández seemed to be glowing, a bundle of positive energy. He looked nothing like the moody pitcher who had a clubhouse shoving match with Posada in his final month with the Yankees in 2002. "He seems more at peace," Cashman said.
Told of that observation, Hernández was bemused. He is always at peace, he said, because he understands himself - even when others do not.
"When I don't respond the way people would like for me to respond, I can read it in their faces," he said. "It's not just here, it's in life. My mother sometimes doesn't understand me, too. It's from birth."
Hernández enjoys cultivating an air of mystery. He is enthusiastically contrary. Presented with Posada's theory - that since the surgery, Hernández treats every start as if it were his last - Hernández again resists.
"Why would I think that?" he said. "My last one will be at 105 years old. That's how long I'm going to live."
and 'course satchel paige flashed through my mind like a leggy ageless neon sign. google gave me this, written in 1998:
Here is the reincarnation of the spirit of Satchel Paige, with a record of twelve and four.
Toiling in the media obscurity of Castroland, El Duque became the best pitcher on the island, the kingpin of the powerful national team. If he's twenty-nine years old now, as he claims, then he was on the national team at age fourteen. "I want a shot at redemption," sang Paul Simon on the Graceland album. "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" asked the ageless Paige way back when. With a high leg kick which he learned from watching Dwight Gooden on television, El Duque mixes it up, throwing a wide assortment of pitches, at a wide range of speeds, utilizing a number of different deliveries, keeping the batters off balance, making them "understand too late," as the poet Robert Francis said. "He's making it up as he goes along," observes Barbara Shinn, the Hall's executive director of retail marketing. The fact that what she says is plausible is just another weapon in El Duque's repertoire. Part Paige, part Tiant, part Gooden, and part Hernandez, he makes the batters resemble blind men describing an elephant. This is pitching.
weekend preview
9.16.2004
during sox-yankees series, i think i spend more time stalking nervously around the house than i do watching the actual game. when i do watch, it's mostly through my fingertips.
i love this time of year.
sounds like he's readying himself for The Jeter Show come october:
The ball caromed off a sign for an investment company beyond one of the waterfalls at Kauffman Stadium, bounced once and nearly hit Derek Jeter in the face - at least in his photo on the video screen.
... Jeter's homer was estimated at 432 feet, though that might have been a little low. Flaherty told Jeter it ought to be worth "one-and-a-half" homers in the box score.
"Wait'll Reggie (Jackson) hears about this one," Torre said. "He always talks about going in the water here but over the water is pretty special."
Jeter laughed when someone brought up Jackson's name. "You're going to get Reggie started, huh?" he said. [daily news]
9.15.2004
i walked past a television on my way out of work this afternoon and saw that javy had a shutout in the 7th inning and yelled, NOW WHY COULDN'T HE DO THAT LAST FRIDAY?
my coworkers are saints.
moose?
9.14.2004
is that you?
i would also like to extend a warm welcome back to one jason gilbert giambi.
now if you will excuse me, i am going to steal a bulldozer and knock down some
Labels: yanquis
oh snap!
BB: How much influence does Mel Stottlemyre have on his pitching staff? As much of a Yankee icon as Stottlemyre is, he’s been criticized for not getting the most out of his pitchers.
Jordan: There, my diagnosis. I could do a better job than Stottlemeyre. If he’s such a great pitching coach why do the Yankees send their troubled pitchers to Tampa to work with Billy Connors? The only reason Bill Connors is not the Yanks pitching coach is because he’s too fat, not the proper Yankee image. I’ve forgotten more about pitching that Stottlemeyre will ever know. I was the one who wanted to raise Weaver’s arm motion about 30 degrees so his fastball would sink more to lefties. The Dodgers did it and he’s having a good year. Why didn’t the Yankees do it? Cause they’re lazy. They buy guys and let them play. They have no concept of teaching or refining talent. They’re stagnating. Torre could let the Paul O’Neill guys just play because they were smart and corrected their flaws themselves. These guys are clueless, and need help. But again, what the fuck do I know?
please go read the pat jordan musings in their entirety.
grumble
NY Yankees 8 Runs 16 Hits
Kansas City 17 Runs 18 Hits
"It's like our whole pitching staff is Victor Zambrano." - Kim, on last night's debacle.
"It's embarrassing -- that's all it was, embarrassing." - Tanyon Sturtze
expanding slightly on what i've already said elsewhere, it was like watching a highlight reel of everything that's aggravating about this season:
- the soft underbelly of the middle relief left exposed
- doing that irritating thing where they play down to the level of a sub .500 team and somehow veer completely beyond that, into little league territory
- the mysterious overuse of paul quantrill.
more things-that-are-annoying-about-baseball-in-general-but:
- screwy umpiring
- killing the ball, but straight at somebody
there is also the mysterious choice to use every scrub available rather than steve karsay, who only appears after everything's already shot to hell, which i'm sure does wonders for his confidence. give the guy a little work so's he can step in when quantrill's arm finally snaps from the thread its hanging on (anecdote: when i spotted him he was gingerly carrying two paper cups of coffee and i hissed at my brother, "should he even be holding those?").
people shoving the blame on halsey are full of shit - the 2 runs he initially let up were a byproduct of having the shadow of bernie williams patrol centerfield, and the offense had ample opportunity to score for him early. this should have been an opportunity to work out the kinks, not to dominate the mighty kansas city royals. not like he's on the postseason roster, anyway. unless it's to replace felix heredia, though even i could pretend to be left-handed and fucking replace that pile of suck.
i guess it WAS nice to see the bench guys step up, though, when everyone else looked zombiefied.
i am enjoying seeing arod continue to recover from his risp-phobia. i mean. there's not much else to enjoy, is there?
9.13.2004
"Long, weird," Derek Jeter said, after 3 hours 55 minutes of madness at Camden Yards. "I walked three times. That should explain it right there, right?"
poor maz
"Fourteen walks," Mazzilli said. "That's not good."
Funny. That echoed a similar quote from Mazzilli, issued on June 22 of this season, after the Yankees had beaten his team, 10-4, at this very same pit of bad baseball. That night, Mazzilli said, "Thirteen walks ... that's not good."
on gary sheffield. oops!:
"Javy looked at me and I said, 'Yeah, pitch to him,'" Mazzilli said. "He thought I said, 'Walk him.'"
9.12.2004
So how have they been winning?
Sheffield.
He's been Roy Hobbs after the Chicago trip in "The Natural." Remember when George overruled Team Cashman and gave Vlad's money to Sheff? That turned out to be the best move of the winter -- even when that old bastard screws up, it works out for him. Sheffield's stats (.297, 33 HRs, 98 RBI, .969 OPS) don't capture the 28 homers he has belted since June 1 -- most of them enormous -- or the incalculable number of clutch hits, or the feeling of dread watching your team pitch to him in late innings. I'm not kidding about this -- in my lifetime, the Yankees have NEVER had a more terrifying hitter, even with that wispy mustache that makes him look like a sax player from the 1940s. Gary Sheffield puts the fear of God into me.[bill simmons]
charm city
- our hotel was really lovely, on the inner harbor. baltimore's not my favorite city ever, but we were in a pretty, touristcentric area. and we had perfect baseball weather.
- camden yards is very nice, but of course, atmosphere-wise, i prefer the stadium. camden yards does have YS beat in the refreshment department: hot dogs are twice the size of the stadium's at the same price, and they don't make you wrestle with a dinky mustard packet; instead, they put it on for you. it's the little things, you know? oh, there's also guinness, harp, smithwick's, and a variety of microbrews on tap to drown your sorrows in.
- yankee fans EVERYWHERE. the place was crawling with them. us. disturbingly, i heard more than one wee o's fan yelling YANKEES SUCK.
- the bunt single that never rolled foul, jeter pulling his foot back like he wanted to punt it over the line.
- the javy meltdown. ("is this still the third inning? this can't still be the third inning.") something has to be seriously mechanically wrong with this kid, or perhaps the clydesdale horse has turned into a shetland pony? he was drowning out there. no outing by a yankee pitcher has made me feel so handwringingly miserable since contreras got the boot. not even loaiza: estebomb doesn't get my hopes up in the first place. my brother, as torre took the long walk to the mound: "put me in! i can throw strikes!"
- what followed the javy implosion was like a brutal rollcall of pitchers i didn't want to ever see: nitkowski, loaiza, heredia. by the time steve karsay came out, i was too disappointed to care. the offense made a valiant (though they aren't entirely absolved, having left 9 men on base. 9!) effort to crawl out of the hole created by the horrific pitching, but to no avail.
- guinness salesguy: "how you guys doing?"
my father: "we'd be better if your team was losing."
guinness guy, aghast: "they're not my team! i just work here!"
me, smelling a rat: "no? who is your team?"
guy, avoiding my eyes: "you uh. you probably hate them more than you hate the orioles."
me: "i don't hate the orioles... wait. [wrinkling my nose in distaste] red sox?"
guy: "hey, i'm from boston!"
me, opting for the magnanimity only sweet inebriation can bring: "honey, we don't hate anybody." why offend the beer guy, albeit a boston apologist?
- my brothers shaking tom gordon's hand in the hotel bar after the game, these normally blase guys coming back grinning like little starstruck kids.
- sitting out in front of the hotel, watching the groupies go by:
my brother, flexing his throwing arm: "OH MAN IS MY ARM TIRED!"
groupies: "teehee! nice try!"
my brother: "what! i'm in triple a!"
alternately
"HEY! THERE'S CHUCK KNOBLAUCH!"
- on our way out to breakfast, my mom spotted roy white hanging out in the lobby:
my mom to some guy in a rivera jersey: "roy white's in the lobby!"
guy: "who?"
mom: "roy white!!!!!"
guy, to my dad: "who?"
dad: "first base coach."
guy, smiling politely: "oh. roy white."
mom, to us: "ROY WHITE!"
me: "not everyone was glued to their couch in 1978."
mom: "shut up!"
- at the risk of sounding crude, god bless my dad's you-could-set-your-watch-by-it need to use the men's facilities. we were milling around the lobby waiting for him, and who goes into the men's room but ruben sierra. paul quantrill walks by drinking coffee. derek too-cool-for-school jeter strolling out of the elevator. yawn!
- we were going to leave after that, but the yankee bus was talking up most of the alley in front of our parking garage, so what's a hooligan family to do except mill around with all the other fame vultures? esteban loaiza signing for everyone who wanted:
my mom: "who's that?"
me: "esteban loaiza, we saw him pitch last night."
my jackass brother: "IT'S ALRIGHT ESTEBAN, YOU'LL GET IT TOGETHER SOON!"
ma: "do you want his autograph? he's signing for everybody!"
me: "i don't want it. he's awful." sorry esteban.
- another derek i'm-a-rockstar jeter sighting. no, i didn't take the picture, i was busy making myself inconspicuous behind a pillar. this girl near me was shrieking: OMG JETER TOUCHED MY PEN OMG. i wanted to turn around and say OMG I'M GOING TO BITCHSLAP YOU OMG.
9.11.2004
dear jesus,sometimes i really think you hate me.
sincerely,
lupe
9.10.2004
dear baby jesus:baltimore tonight! i have a couple requests:
- no rain!
- that the lopez not named javy reverts back to he of the craptastic earned run average, and the javy not named lopez magically recalls how to keep the ball in the yard. not that he's done so bad overall of late, jesus, but you know how i fret!
your buddy,
lupe
ps - i'm wearing white after labor day. please don't smite me.
stop making sense
[the yankees] understand there was a hurricane. They understand that created issues for a lot of people. They understand why the Devil Rays didn't want to leave until the storm had headed elsewhere.
"We're not objecting to any of that," said the Yankees' president. "What we're objecting to is: That's not what (MLB) told us. ... If (the Rays) couldn't get there -- or baseball was telling them they didn't have to get there -- why didn't (MLB) just tell us that? If they'd come to us Friday, Saturday or Sunday and said, 'This is not going to happen,' why would we have opened the gates?"
Uh, good question. And one that could have been easily answered, too, had anyone from the commissioner's office just taken a good look at the Doppler, considered all the human issues involved and thought this through.
There should have been a simple announcement from Selig or DuPuy on Sunday, if not earlier: "The health and safety of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and their families is more important to us than any Labor Day doubleheader. Therefore, we're postponing both games and we're telling the Devil Rays to wait out this storm. We'll stay in constant communication with all sides. And when it's safe for them to leave for New York, we'll have a further announcement on rescheduling these games." [jayson stark, espn.com]
"We've played one out of five, so we have four left, right?" [brian cashman] asked reporters. "Three left? Thanks; I've lost track. It's been an interesting week."
9.08.2004
so. so far this year i've been able to witness three kinds of games: the bad kind of blowout, a nailbiter, and the good kind of blowout.
- no sooner do we park and get through the gates do we hear sterling call rocco baldelli's 2 run home run:
me: "bad lieber today?"
my eternally optimistic brother: "there is only one lieber. and the good one was about three years ago with the cubs."
thankfully, my brother was very wrong.
- jeter fangirl squeals are quite possibly the worst aspect of yankee fandom:
me: i can't listen to this. the boyfriend has to explain the scoreboard to her! she's squealing. SQUEALING.
my brother: OH MY GOD! IT'S DEREK! I CAN SEE HIS BULGE FROM HERE!
and lo, you could very nearly hear them straining to see if that was true.
- arod coming alive? maybe. i've hoped it so much already, so many times, and i don't want to be crushed. speaking of crushed, har har har: my man broke for home ("WHY IS HE GOING ON BALDELLI! WHY?!") , went barrelling into brook fordyce, and laid him out cold:
me: "am i watching football?"
my brother [and even he, a fairly big guy, was cringing]: "that's like me running full speed into you."
- i got up to call june, who was also in the hizzouse, during the 7th inning stretch and wound up missing half the crazy run fest. i'm starting to think it's because i'm not watching that this stuff happens.
me, hearing all the racket in the background: "WHAT'S GOING ON WHAT AM I MISSING!"
june: "THE MERRY GO ROUND STARTED!"
- i made everyone stay put, hoping to see steve karsay pitch. and pitch he did: a perfect ninth, an inning made even fuller of warm fuzzies by geting to witness the major league debut of one dioner "tradebait" navarro.
innarestin'
old bit on the innocuous corporate blandness of mlb generated team sites:
...the MLB.com junta that took each team's individual website out of its own marketing hands and placed it under the bloated umbrella company MLB.com has made a hash of baseball's online presence.
Instead of having unique sites for each team, fans get the same boilerplate PR and corporate toadyism across the board. Teams have lost a vital slice of their own identity just so the Board of Ed style organization that is MLB can overhire a dot-com division and keep them in a dolled up office in the Chelsea Market. Dozens of major media outlets have panned MLB.com's performance in a realm that demands constant access to piles of stats. Forget the stats, though, check out something like the "local area information" on the Yankees official website. Restaurants listed include Peter Lugar Steak house and Filli Pinte in the West Village. Someone should call the owners of these establishments and ask if they serve typo salads. Nitpick? Yes. But don't you think if George Steinbrenner was allowed to make his own business decision regarding his team's website that he'd have an Adidas-sponsored team of German software engineers firing up a kick ass website with Rammstein-style flaming graphics and an exploding Mariano Rivera Day of the Dead skull icon? Hell yeah!
don't ask me how i find this stuff because i don't know.
quelle surprise!
9.07.2004
found this, bored-out-of-my-mind perusing the YES forums:
Hands down, the funniest - albeit subtle - moment of yesterday's day at the Stadium was late afternoon, when the organist played "I will Wait For You," (from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964) with the line, "If it takes forever, I will wait for you."
while it delights me, it seems like an odd choice, considering the venue. who took over for eddie layton, some tisch film nerd?
One of the security guards outside the Yankees' clubhouse reported to work yesterday, as directed, at 7 a.m. and found himself virtually alone. He pointed to photos of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle on the wall outside the clubhouse door. "For about two hours," he said, "it was just me and the ghosts." [newsday]
jody gerut, smartypants?
a bit of the poet in him, too: "The first month after the season is good for only one thing: dreaming."
ATTN JODY: update your blog, plz.
but really. what a thoughtful, articulate, pleasant (if belated) discovery.
long day's journey into night
- free hot dogs and soda for all, which must have pained the yankee brass greatly, considering hot dogs're what, five bucks normally? and a girl can't even get some goddamn sauerkraut. but i digress.
- jason giambi took BP, and to hear kitty kaat tell it during the broadcast last night, put on quite a show.
- mister "tired-happy"'s line: 7.0IP 4H 2R 2ER 1BB 5K 1HR 2.62ERA. words cannot express how awfully i would love to see him pitch, just once.
- no forfeit, which is ultimately a-ok by me: if it comes down to getting the division by one game, i don't want to hear the whining. this, however, is not:
It is the Yankees contention that the Devil Rays were given a directive by Major League Baseball to leave Tampa as soon as possible following Friday night's loss to the Tigers at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg to get to New York and simply did not do it.
"I wouldn't call it a directive," Dupuy said.
no, bob? what would you call it, a suggestion? stop with the semantics and grow a pair. what are you people for, anyway, if not issuing and enforcing directives?
- arod in the 2 spot. the ny media singing joe's praises but took him long enough, says i (according to newsday - three weeks! THREE #$@&%# WEEKS?!):
The idea, Torre said, was to use Sheffield's prowess to help force opposing pitchers to throw A-Rod not only more strikes, but more hittable strikes. "In this league," Torre said, "it's more important who you hit in front of than where you hit."
... "It's a comfortable spot to hit," Rodriguez said, "between Jeter and Sheff. I hit second for five years [with the Mariners] in front of [Ken] Griffey. It's like that. I had a plan tonight ... to be more aggressive, and I followed through on it and it worked."
- paul quantrill's arm is going to fall off. no surprise there!
9.06.2004
i caught the 1-5-6-4 dp from yesterdays game during the encore and all i can say is goddamn. pretty as it ended up, when vazquez barehanded it i thought i could hear entire stadium hold its breath as if in expectation of another downed pitcher.
killing time
The Yankees had a noon report time, so most players were inside the clubhouse mulling around trying to pass time. Some players lounged on couches trying to remember being a part of a forfeit on any level. "Not that I can think of," Derek Jeter said. On one side of the clubhouse, Steve Karsay and Enrique Wilson were playing a video game on a television in Esteban Loaiza's locker. On the other side, the team's players union rep Mike Mussina joked about how they should pass the time. "Let's get a grill and cook hot dogs and hamburgers on the field," Mussina said. "Or we can play an inter-squad Wiffle ball game." [newsday]
sadly:
- fond as i am of mr personality himself, surely he'd be singing a more cantankerous tune had it been his day to pitch
- i would probably pay to see them play intersquad wiffleball
Labels: yanquis
OH NO! NOT TEH W WORD!
- jeter being jeter. yawn!
"Playing in the other league, you don't really know what kind of player he is until you get here," said Vazquez, who would not allow another run before exiting after the seventh. "When it's a must win, he's always there. He does it when we need it the most. The catch in that Boston game. The all-around game he had today. He's a winner."
- kevin brown with the baseball equivalent of "take me back, i was drunk!," claiming that
"I've pitched in more pain than I'm in right now," said Brown, who declined to put any time frame on his return. "As fast as possible, as fast as they let me -- I'll do everything possible."
in a freaktastic sideshow kinda way, i'm curious to see him pitch with whatever adaptive equipment they can rig up.
- devil rays still stuck in florida. pulling for a forfeit makes me feel dirty.
my grandma is the best
9.05.2004
i missed the game on account of work, but grams kindly filled me in on the yankee goings-on of the day:
grams: oh my god! you wouldn't believe it! it was a tie game going into the ninth, they intentionally loaded the bases. to set up the double play, you know? and THEN, the STUPID pitcher walks--
me: whose pitcher? who'd he walk to load the bases?
grams: orioles. walked, uhh...
gramps: alex rodriguez.
me: WHY?
gramps: that's what i said.
grams: AND THEN, the STUPID pitcher walks the winning run in! you should have seen it!
i didn't even know the woman watched baseball, much less figured she knew enough to feel she had to explain setting up the DP to me. anyway. a win is a win is a win.
Labels: quote of
what a nightmare
9.04.2004
dear brian cashman,i think somebody snuck zombi powder into the clubhouse spread. i have a bottle of whiskey, a leatherman, and a yankee lighter. hows about you and i go ash williams on their undead asses? groovy, yes?
aw, fuck it. let's just drink the whiskey. you look like you could use it.
sincerely,
lupe
p.s.
dear daily news,
you suck. yeah, perhaps because i've had HIPAA regs beaten into every fiber of my being i'm hyperconscious of the patient's right to privacy. yeah, i realize the beauty of breaking a story first. yeah, i'm as rabidly curious as the next person about the situation. and yeah, i have my own speculative ideas about the way things might have been handled. but can't a guy have his overt wishes respected and recover in peace? show a little humanity, a little restraint. i guess that's crazy talk. enjoy being unethical. dirtbags.
sincerely,
lupe
june: well, at least it wasn't an electric fan
comic relief:
june: seriously, is there any visible solution for the yankees
june: for the yankees pitching disaster?
lupe: not that i can come up with
june: george must be killing someone or something right now
lupe: unless it's cloning el duque
june: :-(
lupe: or go to a four man right now
june: what 's REALLY scary is that there was a time, not very long ago at all, when DUQUE was the starter who scared me the most
lupe: dont even bother with loaiza
june: UGH
lupe: all i can do is shake my head
lupe: maybe they can teach arod to pitch. he's got a cannon, and seems to adapt well to new situations. and sheff was a pitcher in little league, i think. maybe give him the call. and olerud pitched to hatte in college. haaaaa.
june: who's hatte?
june: oh, scott?
june: i didn't know that!
lupe: hattie typo
june: hey, seriously, olerud... not a bad idea
lupe: i think thats how it went. at washington state.
june: there would be no scouting report on him
lupe: :D
june: and turtle can play third and arod could spot start
lupe: i like it!
june: seriously
june: arod could probably go what 3-4 innings with not much problem
lupe: it cant get any worse
june: and bounce back and play 3rd the next day
june: no kidding
we oughta go on the road!
Labels: quote of
needs must when the devil drives
jorge posada: he broke his left hand. that's a question for him to answer, eh? ask me about the game.
sweeney murti: his not being available could effect this team for a long time, is that --
jorge posada: ask me about the game.
Brown vowed that he would make his next start against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on Wednesday at the Stadium. He will wear a protective device under the glove on his left hand and will continue to try to put a shine on a season that has annoyed him. [ ny times]
against tampa bay, huh? heaven forfend you miss a start against the only team you've been able to consistently shut down. jackass. anyway. they've come this far largely without him, and they'll move ahead without him if they have to.
as torre said, there is more to this game than just one person. my mom sagely reminded me that as fans we've been really spoiled (not just with the winning, which actually hasn't spoiled SOME of us, which we also had a nice conversation about, but that's another entry) with the professional quality of people that have come through the yankee clubhouse in recent years: "i remember when david justice came i had doubts about how he'd do here. he seemed like such a jerk with the braves. but he changed. most of them do. kevin brown didn't change. we're not used to that."
kevin brown, you are a douchebag
9.03.2004
YOU HEARD ME.
better get on the phone with jim abbott and schedule some Unidexterous Pitching 101 quick.
sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or cry
i only caught the last few innings vs the orioles, but the little i did see made me want to put my fist through the wall.
i did not miss felix the human white flag one bit.
arod swinging like a blind man feeling for something.
glimpses of groundzilla.
k-lo NOT bunting? jeter and sheffield hacking at the first pitch.
paul quantrill the only bright spot, and even then.. even then: agita.
i kinda think you get ideas, too
lieber and his twirly-whirly glove action evincing an unflappable stability any mother would love, sheffield ever so typically beating the hell out of the ball + reaching the 100 rbi mark in the process, and, to my great delight, even bernie cranked out a hit.
arod lofted a prettily soaring shot to left, a no-doubter which prompted me to bounce up off the couch and bust my "A HIT A HIT HE GOT A HIT! WITH RISP!" move... still, some of his swings lately are so eerily reminiscent of sori's desperate lunges and hacks it gives me the the willies. were he anyone but arod, no one would be yapping about his troubles, myself included. the hating on him is so tiresome i wish he'd just miraculously snap out of it.
the indians were scoreless til stevie. who all in all was just fine, better than fine, after that home run:
"Not really the way I envisioned starting out after two years," Karsay said. "I wanted to throw a first-pitch fastball and get a strike, but I guess he didn't get the memo that I hadn't pitched in two years and he should take a pitch to see what I've got."[ny daily news]
a home run i called, by the way. as i watched karsay ready himself, i said to my cat, "cat," i says, "first pitch fastball and martinez is gonna jump all over it." cat: "yawn."
i am going to vomit now
you have to be fucking kidding me. rally towels? does he think the rally towels at pro player are the reason the marlins won last year? rally towels? are we in fucking anaheim? rally towels, for a team that's first in its division with the best record in the american league?
the halfwits that do the wave are mortifying enough. DO YOU WANT TO PUT RALLY TOWELS INTO THEIR A.D.D. ADDLED HANDS?
Pumped and smug with girlie-man confidence, Steinbrenner actually thinks his juvenile hijinks inspired the boys. He filled the scoreboards with cliches, piped in corny music and made sure every player knew that shadow over the Stadium wasn't a blimp, but a dude who didn't take kindly to being embarrassed. Now his handlers say he has ordered some 50,000 rally towels, personally designed by The Boss himself, just in case the Yankees and their fans need some props to get them through these next few weeks. [ny daily news]
nevermind that that's just asking for people to be strangled. which might not be an entirely terrible thing.
so many expletives, so little time
9.02.2004
cc sabathia, on the chicken soup for the apparently geriatric baseball soul tibits scattered around the stadium last night: "I guess they have to do something to get those guys motivated... I don't think you need to get us motivated. We're young guys, but maybe they need something like that."
now this, this is funny
a light moment from the buster olney interview at bronx banter:
I love that story that Jeter told me about Tino’s mad face. It was after Robin Ventura came over and they were like, “Yeah, Tino gets this look on his face and it gets you all fired up right before a game.” And Ventura said, “Oh, you mean his mad face.”
i don't know which mental picture is making me smile most:
- having a pretty good idea of jeter's rep for needling people i can only imagine the glee with which he related the story
- cuddly fan favorite tino getting his mad face on? twitter
- robin ventura and his typically droll cool delivery, mouth curled in a half-smirk, "oh, you mean his mad face."
Labels: quote of
cough
the boss was on hand, of course, hovering like a turtlenecked mother hen in aviator glasses: "It was like having the principal watch the class," [alex rodriguez] said. "It was pretty funny."
yeah, haw haw haw. but lest we lose perspective amidst all the rollicking good times:
The Yankees finished last night with a seven-game cushion over Anaheim in the American League playoff race, the only race that is truly meaningful in a sport whose last two champions did not win their measly four- and five-team divisions. Sometimes it is difficult to remember this around George Steinbrenner's Yankees, who often seem psychologically trapped in a universe of two.
In the South Bronx, you can almost imagine Steinbrenner on his horse, galloping down the Grand Concourse, shouting, "The Red Sox are coming!" Like a summer romance, much of a 10½-game lead over Boston in the A.L. East has melted away, but here's the twist: While the Red Sox were hammering the Angels again last night, they were looking more and more like a playoff team but easing the postseason pressure on the Yankees as well. [ny times]
he's a comedian too
9.01.2004
[duque] knows how to enjoy himself in big games, too, as was evident by the play he made to retire Coco Crisp for the first out of the third inning.
Crisp hit a ground ball to the right side that Hernandez grabbed near the first-base line. He then stepped in front of Crisp to try and tag him for the out. Crisp backed up and evaded the Hernandez swipe, then tried a head fake in an attempt to get past El Duque. But Hernandez didn't bite, and stood squarely in Crisp's path, blocking him from any chance of reaching the bag. With nowhere to go, Crisp turned around and simply jogged back to the Indians' dugout, while El Duque stood, legs wide apart, arms crossed across his chest.
"There was only one way to first base and I got there first," Hernandez said of the play. "He tried to deke me twice. I wasn't going to move. And there's no other way to first base.
"He was a gentleman," El Duque said of Crisp. "He gave up." [newark star ledger]
rickeeeey!
i remember being little and at a yankee game and this girl next to us was screaming "RICKEEEEEEEY! RICKEEEEEEEEY!" the entire time, bless her crazed heart.
bless his crazed heart too:
He tripped on a loosened third base bag and half-limped, half-crawled home with the winning run Tuesday night, in obvious pain.
The next morning, Rickey Henderson was feeling much better. But it's already September, when major league rosters expand to 40, and still no one has come looking for the services of a 45-year-old outfielder, even if he is baseball's career leader in stolen bases and runs.
Spending nearly an entire season in the baseball purgatory of the independent minor league Newark Bears, Henderson might be nearing the end of a Hall of Fame career that has spanned a quarter-century. [ap]
nasty
1. 7.0 IP 3H 1R 1ER 2BB 7K. george ought to do something really useful with his cash, like, oh... INVEST IN CLONING EL DUQUE.
2.tom gordon gave up a couple in the 8th, but i've been prepping myself for the sight of his arm flying off and bloodying up the expensive people seats, so i'll take what i can get.
3. jorge on base posada walking the walk, i see, with a nice day behind and at the plate.
i caved
and looked at the times, lo and behold: "Tanyon Sturtze relieved Vazquez and gave up seven runs in three innings. " guess i have to take back that apology letter. ;)
"There's a certain element of embarrassment, no question," Yankees Manager Joe Torre said. "If you have a lot of pride in what you do and somebody has their way with you, you have to take your lumps. There's no question. You can't just turn the lights off and go home. You have to stay there and endure what you have to endure. If you accept winning, you have to endure losing. Something like this is hard to handle. It's something you have to bounce back from. It counts as one loss."
But every loss seems compounded because the Red Sox are soaring, having won 13 of their last 14 games, while the Yankees have stumbled, going 6-8.
"You can't worry about the Red Sox," catcher Jorge Posada said. "We've got to worry about us. We've got to worry about what we can do here. We've got to remember that we're still ahead. I think everybody's got to look at this game. You've got to look in the mirror and ask some questions.
"How good are we? We've got to look inside. We are a good team. We are still in first place. We've just got to do it. We've got to come out here and play good ball and just turn it around."[ny times]
then you best begin to walk the walk, chickadees.
ha ha ha
found at nyyfans amidst a bunch of bridgejumping:
Boss: Joe, Mel is out, your new interrim Pitching Coach is Billy Connors
Joe: George, if you fire Mel, I'll quit.
Boss: Willie, Mel is out, your new interrim Pitching Coach is Billy Connors
joel said not to worry about cleveland but
looks like i picked a good night to not watch a game!
because i don't have the traumatic events burned on the backs of my eyelids, it's easier for me to say that in the end, it's just another check in the L column. the nagging thing is that those L's are piling up. maybe it'll have an effect like the astros no hitter last summer. time to roll? well. we'll see.
so - amusingly, esteban loaiza appears to be as big a pile of suck coming out of the pen as he does a starter. WHO KNEW! edit: no, really. how is it someone can be so consistently gut-wrenchingly cringeworthy at their job? i'm serious. is he protesting or something? what's the line - "Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day." someone tore the hands clean off this clock.
