Original Face

Never thought it would happen

    I'm bored of the Yankees.  I have been a Yankee fan all of my life.  Unlike most Yankee fans who have only known good (and great) teams, I grew up with the likes of Horace Clark and Jake Gibbs.  I cried, bled and screamed for the Yankees.  When they won I cheered..sometimes mightily.  When in 2004 they lost, I mourned.  But regardless, I always, always cared.
    Now instead of checking the box score as soon as I get up, I sometimes go hours and even days without knowing how they did.  If they win, I go "huh" and if they lose, I go "huh."  It doesn't much matter.
    I still love watching and playing sports and it isn't that I am finally after more than two decades in Boston changing my pinstripes for red sox, but I find this team right now to be mediocre and uninspiring.   I just don't care.
    I hope I get the passion back, but if not, then, I'll have to content myself with hoops and football.  And in those sports I have always rooted for the Ol' Towne Teams.

The sun will come up, tomorrow

    Because tomorrow, February 14th, the pitchers and catchers report to spring training.  This, not the vernal equinox, is the real beginning of Spring.  Although it is still cold and slush covers the ground on a nasty New England day, hope becomes present as a new baseball season beckons. 
    Will the Sox repeat?  Will Joba throw out of the 'pen or be moved to the rotation?  Can Santana become the balm that moves the Mets from pretenders to contenders? 
    To hell with politics, economics and international relations!  Real issues can now occupy our thoughts and water cooler conversations.
    Deo Gratia!

A-Rod gets Boras slapped

The rumor mill is buzzing that A-Rod will be back with the Yankees for less money than the team has offered him originally AND without Scott Boras being part of the negotiations.  It is clear that Boras has seriously misplayed his hand for Rodriguez.  He had no other offers due to his price tag (not just the bucks but all of the perks Boras was demanding) as well as the narcissistic manner (Can't you just tell that I am a candidate in psychoanalysis training?) of his announcement of his rejection of the Yankee extension during the final game of the World Series.  This extraordinary display of selfishness made even the toadies who occupy the owners' suites of major league clubs blanch.

If God is being really, really, nice, this will portend the beginning of the end of Boras as a baseball power broker.  His ability to manipulate the weak owners has hurt the game enormously.  The creation of a new balance of power between agents and the teams is something "desirously to be wished," as the Book of Common Prayer puts it.

Stoke up that ol' hot stove

Winter arrived this morning.  Not because the first morning frost came to Chestnut Hill, which it did, but because the World Series ended.  For all of Boston, this win was in many ways more welcome than the 2004 victory.  It cemented the Red Sox as a seriously good (not great, they have too many holes for that) baseball club.  And while there are enough story lines to keep New Englanders happy for months (What will WEEI's "whiner line" do?), time will stand still until the pitchers and catchers return to Florida in February.

That being said, today's news came from the city about 250 miles to the south.  Alex Rodriguez's amazingly selfish timing of his rejection of the option of the last three years of his Yankee contract during the sixth inning of last night's final ballgame should be proof positive to any general manager who may be foolish enough to even consider parting with $30 million a year for this man's services.  While his talents on the ball field (during the regular season) are perhaps the greatest of his generation, in the end A-Rod has chosen the wrong profession.  He should have been a tennis player where his" all about me" demeanor would have been more appropriate.  None-the-less, watch for a number of teams, including the Sox to go hard after him.  It wouldn't surprise me to see A-Rod in Boston and Mike Lowell in the Bronx come opening day.

Hooray for Joe Girardi's selection as the new skipper of the Pinstripes.  If this means the end of Rivera's career, so be it.  The only free agent that has to be re-signed is Jose Posada.  As a former catcher, Girardi knows this.  Watch for Jose's contract to be announced soon.   While the owners have the desire to make a starter out of Joba Chamberlain, Girardi's comments while a YES broadcaster show that he has the sense to understand that Rivera's replacement is already on the squad.

As for Donny Baseball, please go and learn the craft of managing rather than following Joe out to LA.  I know that the lifestyle of a AAA club manager isn't great, but if you want to run a club in The Show, it is the price you will have to pay.

Now let's talk about the Pats and Celtics!

George, you can insult me if you want...

Joe Torre told the media yesterday that the Yankees' offer of a base of $5,000,000 a year with $1,000,000 bonuses for each of the post season milestones was an insult.  Really?  Mr. Steinbrenner, I want to go on the record to note that I am willing to be insulted for less than half that money.  Just contact me through this weblog and my people will speak with your people.

Wait until next year!

So went the autumnal cry of Brooklyn Dodger fans as Da Bums were perpetual bridesmaids for World Series glory in the 1950s.  Yankees fans of the new millennium could revive the saying, as once again, the Bombers get knocked out after the first round of post-season play.

There just wasn't enough pitching.  Wang continued to be horrible on the road (What is it?  Hotel beds?  He misses his wife?  Whatever, it is up to the Yankee traveling secretary to fix it.) and couldn't deliver on three days rest either.  Roger's amazing, but ultimately mortal, body finally wore out.  Mussina has to be shown the door too.  Other than Joba, there is no one in the bullpen, including Rivera, who should consider his job secure for next year.

Cashman has a great deal of work to do.  Torre is gone, and while I have admired his work, that is probably a good thing.  Give the job to Joe Giradri rather than Guidry or another of Torre's coaches to make it clear that there is a new sheriff in town.  Get A-rod signed (OK, he didn't have the best October but he did go yard in the last game and was a damn sight better than Jeter).  Look for a fourth and fifth starter.  Make Joba the new closer and find him set-up pitchers who can hold a lead.  Johnny Damon should be back (So what if his arm and wheels are sub-par, he has more heart than the rest of the outfield combined.).  First base needs someone who can field and hit.

See you in mid February, when pitchers and catcher report for Spring Training.  As usual, I have a good feeling...

As Mo goes, so go the Yankees

Mo Rivera blew the save.  Giving up the walk off run in the bottom of the ninth against Baltimore, the Yankees lost more than a game.  They lost any slim chance that they could pull out the regular season divisional title away from the Red Sox.

It has been that sort of season for both Rivera and the Yankees.  They, together, have had large swings from being God awful to brilliant.  Now that it is nearly October and the post season is starting Yankee fans have reason to wonder which Rivera and 2007 Yankee team will show up. 

What is clear, however, is that the fortune of the this Yankee team and their present closer is one and the same.

We wanna a pitcher not a glass of water

Baseball is a deceptively simple game.  Not full of the complexities of football with 4 inch thick play books that require a master's degree to comprehend yet alone implement (anyone who thinks NFL football players are stupid just has a snobby understanding of the idea of intelligence), the game of baseball is made up of three simple ideas: throw the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball.  George Will can wax poetic about the sublime beauty of the game, and I have no argument with him, but it is just: throw the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball.

Unfortunately for the NY Yankees, those three points are in order of importance and the Yankee relief crew is not "throwing the ball" with any authority.  The bullpen, which was plain lousy at the beginning of the season, seemed to get its game together after the All Star break.  But it appears that that was only a short lived phenomenon.  Once again Yankee relief pitchers not only can't hold tight leads, they lose what should be secure victories.

Even the future Hall of Fame closer, Mariano Rivera, has had age catch up with him and his near 6.00 ERA cannot exist on a team that is headed to the post season.  Yankee management is wisely refusing to push Joba Chamberlain's or Phil Hughes' arms and damage their extraordinary potential in what is shaping up to be a busted season. 

As I wrote in an earlier column, the baseball season is long and teams go on sine-waves of success, but I fear that for the 2007 Yankees the depth of their drop below the x-axis is sufficiently large that there isn't enough time to recover.  Terrific offensive performances from A-Rod and King Kong Matsui just can't make up for poor performances on the mound.

One baseball saying is borne out yet again: you can never have enough pitching.

I love this game

There is nothing like a baseball season.  At 162 games, a fan has to get used to the ups and downs that invariably come along.  However, even I thought, when the Yankees were 14 1/2 games behind the Red Sox, that the Division title, as well as any other playoff hope, was dashed.

Well, dash it all.  I broke Rule #1: Never forget that come August and September, the Red Sox collapse like a $3 suitcase (2004 notwithstanding).  Rule # 2 is that everyone (both the Sox's and the Yankees' fans) never forgets Rule #1.

It is now mid August and the Yankees are only 4 games behind the Sox--and the two teams have 3 games to play in the next two weeks.  You can just smell it in the air: It is going to be like 1978 all over again.  Already WEEI-AM callers are talking about jumping from the Tobin Bridge and that the "Sox are ruinin' my summa." 

The addition of three young rookies, Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Scott Proctor has infused the 2007 Yankee team with an excitement that they haven't had since the 2001.  The Stadium crowd as well as the players have embraced them.  Even  Kyle Farnsworth, who had been left for bullpen roadkill, is seeming to become a better pitcher with these guys around.

Regardless as to whether the Sox hang on, or the Yankees take the Division title, 2007 has become a season to savor.  It is great to see Joe Torre's and Brian Cashman's hard work work out.  Sometimes, as a GM ,the best deals are the ones that are not made and Cashman's patience has paid off, big time.  Hey, George, give them both huge contract extensions.

BTW-- for those readers who have been wondering why I am writing more about baseball than politics over the past week or so--it is August, baseball is more important.  Lighten up, will ya?!

I heard the news today, oh boy....

A large part of my childhood died today.  As long as I can remember, and before, Phil Rizzuto's voice has been part of my growing up. 

While my dad remembers him as the bantam weight shortstop for the incredible Yankee teams of the 1950s, he was, for me, always the voice of the Bombers on radio and television.  Through good years and a whole lot of bad (the Jake Gibbs/Horace Clark era), Phil's tenor voice, verbal gaffs and always amazing love for baseball and the Yankees, kept me company on summer afternoons and nights. 

He was like Johnny Most and the Celtics, an out and out "homer," with Rizzuto having the added advantage of having played the game as well.  His miscues, shameless plugging of Italian restaurants and leaving to go home to his wife Cora after the 7th inning made him human and beloved for decades by New Yorkers.  He never understood the script Meatloaf gave him to read in what has become the iconic song "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights."  It wasn't until his daughters told him what the song was about did he finally get it.  Then instead of getting mad, he said that he merely turned red and called Meatloaf his favorite endearing term: a "Huckleberry." 

Even his signature call wasn't his own idea. "Holy Cow!" was something he ripped off the great Cubs and Cardinals announcer Harry Caray.  When asked if he felt guilty about the "theft" he laughed and said that it was to get Chicago back for the years he had to play against the White Sox's, Eddie Stankey, the only person Rizzuto truly disliked.

But none of that mattered or matters.  He was (and to the Yankee family will remain) the Scooter.

God keep you, Scooter.  And thank you.