Wednesday, November 4, 2009
All Is Right With The World Again
Nine years is not that long a time to wait, and I'm not looking for any sympathy from anyone, but I'm so glad the wait is over. The New York Yankees are world champions, and I, living in Boston, am going to enjoy this one so damn much!
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Genius of Gruden
I have a question: Why is it so hard on NFL.com to find the records for "Most Explosive Plays in the First Six or Seven Weeks of a Season"?
I ask because John Gruden just declared that Philadelphia's DeSean Jackson "has more explosive plays in the first six or seven weeks of the season than any guy in NFL history," and I just thought I'd do some research to see whose record Jackson broke in this category.
I haven't watched a 'Monday Night Football' game since the first one of the preseason, which ended in more Gruden stupidity, specifically the coach "analyzing" a rather amazing finish to an otherwise meaningless game by saying, "Wow! Monday Night Football on my birthday!"
I just finished watching a tremendous "30 in 30" documentary about the USFL on an ESPN network, and then I turn to another and hear this nonsense. I can't believe it's the same network.
Update: Jackson just muffed the Redskins' punt. I think that's explosive. Therefore he has just put a little more distance between himself and his pursuers for the record.
I ask because John Gruden just declared that Philadelphia's DeSean Jackson "has more explosive plays in the first six or seven weeks of the season than any guy in NFL history," and I just thought I'd do some research to see whose record Jackson broke in this category.
I haven't watched a 'Monday Night Football' game since the first one of the preseason, which ended in more Gruden stupidity, specifically the coach "analyzing" a rather amazing finish to an otherwise meaningless game by saying, "Wow! Monday Night Football on my birthday!"
I just finished watching a tremendous "30 in 30" documentary about the USFL on an ESPN network, and then I turn to another and hear this nonsense. I can't believe it's the same network.
Update: Jackson just muffed the Redskins' punt. I think that's explosive. Therefore he has just put a little more distance between himself and his pursuers for the record.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The Embassy Celebrates
My good friend Dave the Tall Jew spent about three years living on the West Coast in the years shortly after college, and I really would not have been surprised to see him stay there. He's such a laid-back guy, he would seem to fit in nicely in California.
Except for one thing: the guy's a die-hard Yankee fan. And when he moved back, one of the things he told me was how hard it was on him to be so far away from his Yankee-fan friends as the Bombers won three straight titles from 1998 to 2000.
I now know how he feels. I lived my entire life in the Greater New York area until last September. I had never been away from a place where the basic cable package included the Yankees' primary TV carrier. And I watched a TON of games. From 1985, when I was 12 years old, until 2007, I probably averaged about 120 games a year and never saw fewer than 100 (excluding the strike year of 1994).
Moving to Boston this year was not a test of loyalty. Watching the 1989-1992 Yankees was a test of loyalty -- passed with flying colors. This year was just a unique experience for this Yankee fan, but a common one for baseball fans of most any era. My Yankee-fan experience this year has been a mixture of post-modern, merely modern and positively ancient. A hundred years ago, fans who could not get to games followed their teams through the newspapers. I did that this year, though I read said papers online.
In the first decade of the 20th century, not only did newspapers post game stories and box scores, but some, during the World Series, would post giant displays on the sides of their buildings that showed the scores, the balls, strikes, outs and positioning of baserunners. If that sounds a little like MLB GameCast to you, you're 100% right. I followed plenty of games that way. I caught grainy broadcasts on AM radio, and those got a little easier to hear as the darkness came earlier and earlier as the season got later and later.
I made two long trips from Boston to New York to go to games at the new Yankee Stadium because I could not bear the thought of not going there this year. And yes, I even saw the Yankees play at the wondrous Fenway Park -- and let me tell you this: I don't like Red Sox fans, and I don't think they're the great fans that, well, THEY think they are. But the experience of being a sports fan in Boston is absolutely fascinating. It's just very hard for a Yankee fan to enjoy it because clearly we are not welcome -- though I did find a neighborhood bar around the corner from the Embassy that would let me watch the games there in relative peace.
But tonight's pennant-clinching win was a unique experience for me. I was always surrounded by other Yankee fans -- in 1998, by about 57,000 of them at Yankee Stadium. Tonight, I was in an apartment, alone, and not even in the same place in time as other Yankee fans, because I had to work and started watching the game on the DVR at about 9:45 or so.
So when I saw Mariano Rivera strike out Gary Matthews, it was an hour after it had happened and I was in the same empty apartment in a city full of sleeping Red Sox fans.
It also was an entirely different experience than any Yankee title I've been old enough to see -- which is to say, the ones that have come from 1996 on, as I barely remember the 1981 World Series and knew nothing prior to that other than Reggie and the Yankees were champions twice in my toddling years. I spent the 15 years leading up to 1996 not only wondering if I'd ever see the Yankees win a title but pretty well convinced I would not. So when they did, indeed, win that '96 championship, it was more satisfying than anything I could imagine. And when they won four more pennants and three more titles in the five years after that, it remained so sweet, because the taste of the years of not just failure but near incompetence remained fresh.
The last nine years have brought so much frustration, compounded by the newfound success of our chief rivals, that it has made the 1996-2003 glory seem so long ago, as the Yankees ceased to conjure fear, maybe even respect. And the Yankees spent and traded and rebuilt and reloaded and came up empty year after year.
But you knew something was different this year. You just felt like they had the right guys. Guys like the old Kevin Brown and the old Randy Johnson and the one-season teases Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright and the enticing but untested Jeff Weaver and Javier Vazquez -- you always knew these guys were the type that would be good pitchers on other teams but not aces on a Yankee staff that needed one. You knew that Jason Giambi would put up big numbers but come up short as a championship piece.
Enter C.C. Sabathia, who everybody in baseball knew was an ace; and A.J. Burnett, who is frustrating but does not have to be a No. 1 guy in New York; and Mark Teixeira, whose best years will not rival Giambi's but has made more great plays with his glove this month than Giambi has in his whole career.
And enter Nick Swisher, the posterboy for Moneyball. His batting average is not good, yet he's always on base and he hits home runs. I watched Sox fans berate him during batting practice before the first Yankees-Red Sox game this year at Fenway and scratched my head, knowing this is exactly the type of player Boston keeps digging up and plugging in, to great effect (Kevin Millar, anyone?).
And re-enter Melky Cabrera who struggled through an absolutely pathetic offensive season last year, finally suffering the indignity of a demotion to the minors three years into his major-league career. What a difference a dose of humility can make. Swisher, Cabrera and Brett Gardner are a great reminder of the importance of role players to a championship team. They are the guys who find a way to come through because nobody necessarily expects them to. They are not chokers when they fail, so they don't.
So yes, so much was different this year, both for me and for the Yankees. But the core of a New York pennant, now as a decade ago, is the same, minus O'Neill and Bernie. It's Andy Pettitte taking to the mound and showing you in the first inning that he's not getting beaten tonight. It's Jorge Posada's fiery leadership keeping everyone "grinding it." It's Mariano Rivera being completely dominant -- and in the rare instance that he fails, getting right back at it the next day and dominating again.
And it's Derek Jeter playing like a Hall-of-Famer again. So much was made this year about the fact that Jeter will make the Hall, but mostly because of his great "longevity" and "intangibles." No. That's not why. He has longevity and intangibles because he is a great player. Check out the numbers. The guy has a career batting average of .317 and an OPS of .847. His OPS in the postseason rises to .858. Is there anyone else in baseball you'd want up in a big spot? Me neither.
That leaves Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez's failure to come through for the Yankees has been documented well. Neither Rodriguez nor any Yankee fan -- or Yankee hater, for that matter -- needs to be reminded that Rodriguez's first year in New York coincided with the exact season in which the Yankees' 80-plus-year dominance of the Red Sox came to a pronounced interruption if not an end. No one has to be told of his collossal failures in the postseason leading to his being dropped to eighth in the batting order in the Yankees' last game of the 2006 Division Series against Detroit.
Rodriguez had failed in the clutch over and over, during the regular season as well. So when he put up a monster season in 2007, including what seemed like nightly big hits in big spots, it still was not enough to make you think he'd come through in the postseason, and he didn't.
But something was different this year. It started disastrously enough, with the public discovery of his steroid use, followed by hip surgery that kept him out until May and clearly hobbled him all year. But it became obvious that the steroid revelation made him want to keep his mouth shut and let his bat do the talking. It also appeared quite clear that being without some of his incredible physical ability made him realize that he'd be better off just blending in with his team, because he was not going to carry them on his own.
And then something funny happened: he did carry them. Mystique and Aura, thy names had never been Rodriguez -- until this month. Rodriguez's late-game heroics against the Twins and Angels might have stood out against the backdrop of his putrid post-season tableau from Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS right up through 2007, but they were right on par with his 2009 season, except for one thing -- through 2009, he was clutch, but his average said he was a lesser player. This month, he has been clutch, and he has been a superior player to everyone out there.
Yet he has blended in. The Fox cameras showed cutaway shots of almost everyone during the ninth inning of Game Six, as it was obvious, with a 5-2 lead and Rivera on the mound, that we were watching the countdown to a championship. It would have been understandable for Fox to keep flashing over to Rodriguez, inferring that Rodriguez's finally getting to the World Series was the story. They never did. Only after it was over did they show a tight replay of Alex's reaction to the final out -- mixed in with the same shot of Jorge Posada, Joe Girardi, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Mariano Rivera and Robinson Cano.
I think it's fitting that C.C. Sabathia won the series MVP award over the equally deserving Rodriguez. It might not have mattered, but maybe "ALCS MVP" is not a label Rodriguez needs. Maybe "Yankee third baseman" is best. That would make him the one thing that so many people have said, over the last six years, he is not.
A Yankee.
Except for one thing: the guy's a die-hard Yankee fan. And when he moved back, one of the things he told me was how hard it was on him to be so far away from his Yankee-fan friends as the Bombers won three straight titles from 1998 to 2000.
I now know how he feels. I lived my entire life in the Greater New York area until last September. I had never been away from a place where the basic cable package included the Yankees' primary TV carrier. And I watched a TON of games. From 1985, when I was 12 years old, until 2007, I probably averaged about 120 games a year and never saw fewer than 100 (excluding the strike year of 1994).
Moving to Boston this year was not a test of loyalty. Watching the 1989-1992 Yankees was a test of loyalty -- passed with flying colors. This year was just a unique experience for this Yankee fan, but a common one for baseball fans of most any era. My Yankee-fan experience this year has been a mixture of post-modern, merely modern and positively ancient. A hundred years ago, fans who could not get to games followed their teams through the newspapers. I did that this year, though I read said papers online.
In the first decade of the 20th century, not only did newspapers post game stories and box scores, but some, during the World Series, would post giant displays on the sides of their buildings that showed the scores, the balls, strikes, outs and positioning of baserunners. If that sounds a little like MLB GameCast to you, you're 100% right. I followed plenty of games that way. I caught grainy broadcasts on AM radio, and those got a little easier to hear as the darkness came earlier and earlier as the season got later and later.
I made two long trips from Boston to New York to go to games at the new Yankee Stadium because I could not bear the thought of not going there this year. And yes, I even saw the Yankees play at the wondrous Fenway Park -- and let me tell you this: I don't like Red Sox fans, and I don't think they're the great fans that, well, THEY think they are. But the experience of being a sports fan in Boston is absolutely fascinating. It's just very hard for a Yankee fan to enjoy it because clearly we are not welcome -- though I did find a neighborhood bar around the corner from the Embassy that would let me watch the games there in relative peace.
But tonight's pennant-clinching win was a unique experience for me. I was always surrounded by other Yankee fans -- in 1998, by about 57,000 of them at Yankee Stadium. Tonight, I was in an apartment, alone, and not even in the same place in time as other Yankee fans, because I had to work and started watching the game on the DVR at about 9:45 or so.
So when I saw Mariano Rivera strike out Gary Matthews, it was an hour after it had happened and I was in the same empty apartment in a city full of sleeping Red Sox fans.
It also was an entirely different experience than any Yankee title I've been old enough to see -- which is to say, the ones that have come from 1996 on, as I barely remember the 1981 World Series and knew nothing prior to that other than Reggie and the Yankees were champions twice in my toddling years. I spent the 15 years leading up to 1996 not only wondering if I'd ever see the Yankees win a title but pretty well convinced I would not. So when they did, indeed, win that '96 championship, it was more satisfying than anything I could imagine. And when they won four more pennants and three more titles in the five years after that, it remained so sweet, because the taste of the years of not just failure but near incompetence remained fresh.
The last nine years have brought so much frustration, compounded by the newfound success of our chief rivals, that it has made the 1996-2003 glory seem so long ago, as the Yankees ceased to conjure fear, maybe even respect. And the Yankees spent and traded and rebuilt and reloaded and came up empty year after year.
But you knew something was different this year. You just felt like they had the right guys. Guys like the old Kevin Brown and the old Randy Johnson and the one-season teases Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright and the enticing but untested Jeff Weaver and Javier Vazquez -- you always knew these guys were the type that would be good pitchers on other teams but not aces on a Yankee staff that needed one. You knew that Jason Giambi would put up big numbers but come up short as a championship piece.
Enter C.C. Sabathia, who everybody in baseball knew was an ace; and A.J. Burnett, who is frustrating but does not have to be a No. 1 guy in New York; and Mark Teixeira, whose best years will not rival Giambi's but has made more great plays with his glove this month than Giambi has in his whole career.
And enter Nick Swisher, the posterboy for Moneyball. His batting average is not good, yet he's always on base and he hits home runs. I watched Sox fans berate him during batting practice before the first Yankees-Red Sox game this year at Fenway and scratched my head, knowing this is exactly the type of player Boston keeps digging up and plugging in, to great effect (Kevin Millar, anyone?).
And re-enter Melky Cabrera who struggled through an absolutely pathetic offensive season last year, finally suffering the indignity of a demotion to the minors three years into his major-league career. What a difference a dose of humility can make. Swisher, Cabrera and Brett Gardner are a great reminder of the importance of role players to a championship team. They are the guys who find a way to come through because nobody necessarily expects them to. They are not chokers when they fail, so they don't.
So yes, so much was different this year, both for me and for the Yankees. But the core of a New York pennant, now as a decade ago, is the same, minus O'Neill and Bernie. It's Andy Pettitte taking to the mound and showing you in the first inning that he's not getting beaten tonight. It's Jorge Posada's fiery leadership keeping everyone "grinding it." It's Mariano Rivera being completely dominant -- and in the rare instance that he fails, getting right back at it the next day and dominating again.
And it's Derek Jeter playing like a Hall-of-Famer again. So much was made this year about the fact that Jeter will make the Hall, but mostly because of his great "longevity" and "intangibles." No. That's not why. He has longevity and intangibles because he is a great player. Check out the numbers. The guy has a career batting average of .317 and an OPS of .847. His OPS in the postseason rises to .858. Is there anyone else in baseball you'd want up in a big spot? Me neither.
That leaves Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez's failure to come through for the Yankees has been documented well. Neither Rodriguez nor any Yankee fan -- or Yankee hater, for that matter -- needs to be reminded that Rodriguez's first year in New York coincided with the exact season in which the Yankees' 80-plus-year dominance of the Red Sox came to a pronounced interruption if not an end. No one has to be told of his collossal failures in the postseason leading to his being dropped to eighth in the batting order in the Yankees' last game of the 2006 Division Series against Detroit.
Rodriguez had failed in the clutch over and over, during the regular season as well. So when he put up a monster season in 2007, including what seemed like nightly big hits in big spots, it still was not enough to make you think he'd come through in the postseason, and he didn't.
But something was different this year. It started disastrously enough, with the public discovery of his steroid use, followed by hip surgery that kept him out until May and clearly hobbled him all year. But it became obvious that the steroid revelation made him want to keep his mouth shut and let his bat do the talking. It also appeared quite clear that being without some of his incredible physical ability made him realize that he'd be better off just blending in with his team, because he was not going to carry them on his own.
And then something funny happened: he did carry them. Mystique and Aura, thy names had never been Rodriguez -- until this month. Rodriguez's late-game heroics against the Twins and Angels might have stood out against the backdrop of his putrid post-season tableau from Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS right up through 2007, but they were right on par with his 2009 season, except for one thing -- through 2009, he was clutch, but his average said he was a lesser player. This month, he has been clutch, and he has been a superior player to everyone out there.
Yet he has blended in. The Fox cameras showed cutaway shots of almost everyone during the ninth inning of Game Six, as it was obvious, with a 5-2 lead and Rivera on the mound, that we were watching the countdown to a championship. It would have been understandable for Fox to keep flashing over to Rodriguez, inferring that Rodriguez's finally getting to the World Series was the story. They never did. Only after it was over did they show a tight replay of Alex's reaction to the final out -- mixed in with the same shot of Jorge Posada, Joe Girardi, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Mariano Rivera and Robinson Cano.
I think it's fitting that C.C. Sabathia won the series MVP award over the equally deserving Rodriguez. It might not have mattered, but maybe "ALCS MVP" is not a label Rodriguez needs. Maybe "Yankee third baseman" is best. That would make him the one thing that so many people have said, over the last six years, he is not.
A Yankee.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Swisher was out. Then he was safe!
If ever a make-up call actually made up for a blown call, it was in the top of the fourth tonight, as Nick Swisher was clearly out at second base on a pick-off throw but was called safe, and then was clearly safe tagging up at third on a would-be sac fly but was called out. So, no harm done. Obviously umpires don't try to miss calls, so there's not much to argue about these. It happened.
But here's something worth thinking about: perhaps MLB should expand video replay review to include tag-up plays. I'm never a fan of too much replay, but this is an instance where it would be welcome because: A) it's not going to happen that often; B) when it does happen, it often will be directly related to a run scoring or not scoring; and C) as we just saw, there really is no way an umpire can see this clearly. You just can't keep one eye on the outfielder making the catch and one on the foot of the baserunner making the tag. The umpire surely can't rely on sound the way he does when making a safe/out call at first base.
Admittedly, these plays aren't as important as home run calls, the only calls for which replay is used, but at least on those calls the umpire can focus right on the spot he needs to watch -- where the ball lands. He can see it or not see it, but at least he doens't have to pretend he saw two things happening at once as Tim McClelland did moments ago.
Meanwhile, C.C. may be pitching the best game of his Yankee career, and Alex Rodriguez just made Joe Buck look like a genius. Please, keep it going, boys!
But here's something worth thinking about: perhaps MLB should expand video replay review to include tag-up plays. I'm never a fan of too much replay, but this is an instance where it would be welcome because: A) it's not going to happen that often; B) when it does happen, it often will be directly related to a run scoring or not scoring; and C) as we just saw, there really is no way an umpire can see this clearly. You just can't keep one eye on the outfielder making the catch and one on the foot of the baserunner making the tag. The umpire surely can't rely on sound the way he does when making a safe/out call at first base.
Admittedly, these plays aren't as important as home run calls, the only calls for which replay is used, but at least on those calls the umpire can focus right on the spot he needs to watch -- where the ball lands. He can see it or not see it, but at least he doens't have to pretend he saw two things happening at once as Tim McClelland did moments ago.
Meanwhile, C.C. may be pitching the best game of his Yankee career, and Alex Rodriguez just made Joe Buck look like a genius. Please, keep it going, boys!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Final word on the "neighborhood play."
It amazes me how someone as intelligent and insightful about baseball as Tim McCarver is can completely whiff on an explanation the way he did Saturday night when Melky Cabrera was called safe at second as the umpire declined to invoke the "neighborhood" play.
McCarver and Joe Buck were incredulous that Cabrera could be called safe on the front end of what would have been a double play as Erick Aybar failed to touch second. Their logic was that Aybar was in the "neighborhood" of second base, and that umpires give the out to the defensive team on such plays, even if it appears the second baseman or shortstop might not have touched the base.
The problem with this argument is that the neighborhood play is invoked usually as the player is gliding across the bag, and it's not just for the protection of the fielder. It's because it's almost impossible for an umpire to determine if a foot gliding across a bag touches that bag or not.
Erick Aybar was not gliding across the bag. He was straddling the bag in a way that almost seemed intended to demonstrate to the umpire: "I refuse to touch this silly bag." Aybar obviously was not trying to avoid the bag, but he gave the umpire no choice.
McCarver and Joe Buck were incredulous that Cabrera could be called safe on the front end of what would have been a double play as Erick Aybar failed to touch second. Their logic was that Aybar was in the "neighborhood" of second base, and that umpires give the out to the defensive team on such plays, even if it appears the second baseman or shortstop might not have touched the base.
The problem with this argument is that the neighborhood play is invoked usually as the player is gliding across the bag, and it's not just for the protection of the fielder. It's because it's almost impossible for an umpire to determine if a foot gliding across a bag touches that bag or not.
Erick Aybar was not gliding across the bag. He was straddling the bag in a way that almost seemed intended to demonstrate to the umpire: "I refuse to touch this silly bag." Aybar obviously was not trying to avoid the bag, but he gave the umpire no choice.
Game Three underway
And that was a nice, loud cheer as Jeter crushed the third pitch of the game for a leadoff home run. Funny, I thought only Red S*x fans ever went on the road.
Fox has a mike on home-plate umpire Bill Miller and eavesdropped on a conversation in which Miller seemed eager to tell Jorge Posada how late his flight arrived and how little sleep he got. I wonder if Fox left out the part of the conversation in which Miller told Posada "I feel like an idiot for calling you out on strike two, but it was because I was so tired."
Fox has a mike on home-plate umpire Bill Miller and eavesdropped on a conversation in which Miller seemed eager to tell Jorge Posada how late his flight arrived and how little sleep he got. I wonder if Fox left out the part of the conversation in which Miller told Posada "I feel like an idiot for calling you out on strike two, but it was because I was so tired."
Friday, October 2, 2009
Giants Fan Returns to the Road
Football and barbecue. Only in America.
For the last five years I have traveled, usually with my old college friend Dave, in search of the best of both. Dave and I are Giants fans from opposite ends of the New York megalopolis, he from central New Jersey, me from southwestern Connecticut. He’s one of my best friends, but significantly, he’s my Giants buddy and BBQ compatriot.
We had Giants season tickets for the 1999 and 2000 seasons, which gave us a chance to see some amazing Giants games – remember Big Blue’s 41-0 slaughter of the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game? We also used those times to perfect the art of tailgating. There is very little that has walked or swum that did not find its way to our grill. Bison burgers. Shark steaks. Turtle soup. Scallops and bacon (which makes for a spectacular grease fire, for all my fellow pyros out there!). Even mulled cider spiked with Captain Morgan.
There is nothing, however, like perfectly slow-cooked barbecue. I’m talking about ribs and chicken thighs cooked in the vicinity of low-temperature wood smoke for hours until that nice pink ring develops just below the surface – and the meat’s flesh breaks down to a wonderful, buttery texture. That’s barbecue.
I first fell in love with this most uniquely American style of cooking in college, when I spent what little disposable income I had at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a Syracuse rib joint with snarky attitude and food so good that upon being told that the waiting time for a table was 2 hours and 45 minutes, I would instantly respond, “Cool. I’ll be at the bar.” It wouldn’t even occur to me to leave.
Barbecue, of course, is not indigenous to the Northeast. Great “Q” is tough to find in the New York metro area and nearly impossible to find in Boston. The best of it is located in America’s heartland.
Just like real football tradition.
Dave and I had two memorable seasons of attending all of the Giants’ home games. They were also two very tiring seasons. Getting up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday, often after the type of Saturday night a single guy in his 20s typically spends, to prep food and pack a cooler and a grill and various layers of clothes and chairs and a table and a football and driving 75 minutes to the Meadowlands for a few hours of cooking and drinking and sweating while chasing down a football, followed by the game, followed by possibly a few more hours of tailgating or a few hours of gridlock or BOTH! Then getting home at 8 and unpacking everything. Then doing it again a week or two later, eight times in four months. It’s absurdly fun, but more than a little exhausting.
I know I speak for Dave when I say that I would do it again in a heartbeat – for face value. But in 2001, with the economy in a downturn and both of us trying to rein in our spending, we decided two years was enough for us of paying a premium – albeit a fair one – for tickets. Since then we have gone to a game here and a game there when tickets have become available at face value.
We also started developing an appreciation for Giants road trips. Through connections of friends, we ventured to Philadelphia, Baltimore and New England for Giants games – all losses.
But in 2004, Dave had a more ambitious idea. He’d been dying to see Green Bay’s legendary Lambeau Field. The Giants played there that year. I needed no convincing.
And, I’m glad to say, Dave needed no convincing when I suggested that a good way to spend the Saturday before the Giants-Packers game would be to go to a big-time college game. A Big Ten game. Wisconsin-Illinois at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.
If you’ve never been to a major college football game, you need to do so. Immediately. The atmosphere surrounding one of these games blows the NFL experience away. Don’t believe me? Try it. Go to one of each in a single weekend. For me, the only reason I could even get excited about Sunday’s game after the electricity of Saturday’s is because the Giants were playing.
This was confirmed each of the next three years. We headed to Texas in 2005, and saw an exciting Giants-Cowboys game featuring an Eli Manning fourth-quarter comeback to force overtime. Yet my primary memories of that weekend involve Bevo, “Texas Fight” and Vince Young leading the soon-to-be national champion Longhorns to a rout of Colorado in Austin – after a stop in some little Texas town for some roadside barbecue, of course.
Likewise the following years. Giants victories in the sterile, corporate environs of the Georgia Dome and Ford Field are happy memories, yet they leave less of an impression than the giddy, raucous Alabama and Ole Miss fans among whom we sat at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, or the Ohio State and Michigan marching bands, who showed us at the Big House that those schools’ famous rivalry is steeped not just in hatred of one another as in respect by playing the other school’s fight song.
This year, however, there will be no college game for us – but there will be no post-modern NFL stadium, either. Instead, we’ll be at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, and I anticipate this may be the last place left outside Green Bay where the aura of the game, and the tailgate, will rival that of a college clash.
And it will bring us back to our barbecue roots. Kansas City is the mecca of barbecue, and home of this weekend’s American Royal Barbecue contest. I’ve wanted to go to one of these for years, and it’s about to happen. I already have contacted a BBQ contest entrant known as “Mr. Bones” and asked to be included on their VIP list for the big “Friday Night Party.” Beer will flow and football will be discussed – I think – as the crew practices "smoking" in advance of Saturday night's main event, to be judged late Sunday morning.
By Sunday, we’ll know more about ribs and brisket than we ever thought possible, and maybe we’ll put some of that knowledge to work at the Arrowhead tailgate.
In short, it will be a weekend-long tribute to meat and football. Tell me that isn’t every man’s dream.
For the last five years I have traveled, usually with my old college friend Dave, in search of the best of both. Dave and I are Giants fans from opposite ends of the New York megalopolis, he from central New Jersey, me from southwestern Connecticut. He’s one of my best friends, but significantly, he’s my Giants buddy and BBQ compatriot.
We had Giants season tickets for the 1999 and 2000 seasons, which gave us a chance to see some amazing Giants games – remember Big Blue’s 41-0 slaughter of the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game? We also used those times to perfect the art of tailgating. There is very little that has walked or swum that did not find its way to our grill. Bison burgers. Shark steaks. Turtle soup. Scallops and bacon (which makes for a spectacular grease fire, for all my fellow pyros out there!). Even mulled cider spiked with Captain Morgan.
There is nothing, however, like perfectly slow-cooked barbecue. I’m talking about ribs and chicken thighs cooked in the vicinity of low-temperature wood smoke for hours until that nice pink ring develops just below the surface – and the meat’s flesh breaks down to a wonderful, buttery texture. That’s barbecue.
I first fell in love with this most uniquely American style of cooking in college, when I spent what little disposable income I had at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a Syracuse rib joint with snarky attitude and food so good that upon being told that the waiting time for a table was 2 hours and 45 minutes, I would instantly respond, “Cool. I’ll be at the bar.” It wouldn’t even occur to me to leave.
Barbecue, of course, is not indigenous to the Northeast. Great “Q” is tough to find in the New York metro area and nearly impossible to find in Boston. The best of it is located in America’s heartland.
Just like real football tradition.
Dave and I had two memorable seasons of attending all of the Giants’ home games. They were also two very tiring seasons. Getting up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday, often after the type of Saturday night a single guy in his 20s typically spends, to prep food and pack a cooler and a grill and various layers of clothes and chairs and a table and a football and driving 75 minutes to the Meadowlands for a few hours of cooking and drinking and sweating while chasing down a football, followed by the game, followed by possibly a few more hours of tailgating or a few hours of gridlock or BOTH! Then getting home at 8 and unpacking everything. Then doing it again a week or two later, eight times in four months. It’s absurdly fun, but more than a little exhausting.
I know I speak for Dave when I say that I would do it again in a heartbeat – for face value. But in 2001, with the economy in a downturn and both of us trying to rein in our spending, we decided two years was enough for us of paying a premium – albeit a fair one – for tickets. Since then we have gone to a game here and a game there when tickets have become available at face value.
We also started developing an appreciation for Giants road trips. Through connections of friends, we ventured to Philadelphia, Baltimore and New England for Giants games – all losses.
But in 2004, Dave had a more ambitious idea. He’d been dying to see Green Bay’s legendary Lambeau Field. The Giants played there that year. I needed no convincing.
And, I’m glad to say, Dave needed no convincing when I suggested that a good way to spend the Saturday before the Giants-Packers game would be to go to a big-time college game. A Big Ten game. Wisconsin-Illinois at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.
If you’ve never been to a major college football game, you need to do so. Immediately. The atmosphere surrounding one of these games blows the NFL experience away. Don’t believe me? Try it. Go to one of each in a single weekend. For me, the only reason I could even get excited about Sunday’s game after the electricity of Saturday’s is because the Giants were playing.
This was confirmed each of the next three years. We headed to Texas in 2005, and saw an exciting Giants-Cowboys game featuring an Eli Manning fourth-quarter comeback to force overtime. Yet my primary memories of that weekend involve Bevo, “Texas Fight” and Vince Young leading the soon-to-be national champion Longhorns to a rout of Colorado in Austin – after a stop in some little Texas town for some roadside barbecue, of course.
Likewise the following years. Giants victories in the sterile, corporate environs of the Georgia Dome and Ford Field are happy memories, yet they leave less of an impression than the giddy, raucous Alabama and Ole Miss fans among whom we sat at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, or the Ohio State and Michigan marching bands, who showed us at the Big House that those schools’ famous rivalry is steeped not just in hatred of one another as in respect by playing the other school’s fight song.
This year, however, there will be no college game for us – but there will be no post-modern NFL stadium, either. Instead, we’ll be at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, and I anticipate this may be the last place left outside Green Bay where the aura of the game, and the tailgate, will rival that of a college clash.
And it will bring us back to our barbecue roots. Kansas City is the mecca of barbecue, and home of this weekend’s American Royal Barbecue contest. I’ve wanted to go to one of these for years, and it’s about to happen. I already have contacted a BBQ contest entrant known as “Mr. Bones” and asked to be included on their VIP list for the big “Friday Night Party.” Beer will flow and football will be discussed – I think – as the crew practices "smoking" in advance of Saturday night's main event, to be judged late Sunday morning.
By Sunday, we’ll know more about ribs and brisket than we ever thought possible, and maybe we’ll put some of that knowledge to work at the Arrowhead tailgate.
In short, it will be a weekend-long tribute to meat and football. Tell me that isn’t every man’s dream.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Rest
It gets dark so damn early now. Not like winter, when the short days and standard time combine to give you that depressing pitch-darkness at 5 p.m. That's just depressing. We're not nearly there yet.
But I brought a football to my friend Justin's place last Sunday, figuring we could chuck it around after the 4 o'clock games ended. I hadn't yet noticed that it is now too dark to throw a football outdoors at 7:15 p.m. That's a bummer.
So is trying to cook in the dark. I live to grill, but we don't have lights in our yard, so dinner gets cooked in the dark. My wife's flashlight appears not to have been used in a while. I changed the batteries, but that sucker is weak. But it all worked out. They're turkey burgers, anyway. Left over from Monday night's tailgate at the U2 concert in Foxborough. Nittany Wife doesn't eat red meat, so I've gotten used to subbing turkey for beef. It's not so bad. Actually, was craving fried chicken tonight, but the only thing worse than wasting money is wasting food, so out of the freezer the turkey burgers came. And there was bacon in there, too. Turkey burgers cooked on a charcoal fire and covered with cheddar and bacon are actually pretty damned good.
And here's the bright side (literally) of grilling in the dark: the charcoal fire looks positively bad-ass in the dark, especially as flames pour out of a chimney starter and the metal sides of that baby glow red.
Speaking of U2: Monday night's show was my first U2 show. I bought the tickets for the wife, who likes U2 a lot more than I do (I think they're really good, but really overrated, too), but also calls Snow Patrol, which opened up, her favorite band. Those Irish lads acquitted themselves quite well Monday night -- their last night on the tour. Of all the people I know who went to one of the two Foxborough shows, none really knew Snow Patrol, but all were impressed. I don't love them. I'm a fan by marriage. But I was happy for them. They're talented and very good.
And speaking of grilling, I think I'll be in tailgate heaven next weekend. I'll be heading with some friends to Kansas City for the Giants-Chiefs game. Arrowhead Stadium is reputed to be the pinnacle of the tailgate. I don't see how it could be better than Giants Stadium, but I'm keeping an open mind.
Anyway, it won't be about the gameday tailgate. It's all about the American Royal Barbecue competition. I'm hoping my new status as an official NFL blogger gets me and the boys in the trenches with one of the barbecue teams. I WILL cover this with the respect it deserves.
And, by the way -- the word is spelled "B-A-R-B-E-C-U-E." Just becauses "BBQ" is an acceptable abbreviation does not make "barbeque" an acceptable spelling. It's not. It's barbecue. My position on this matter shall be considered inflexible.
As for the Giants, tomorrow will be the first time I will have to travel to a sports bar to see them -- and hope that said sports bar will show the game with the stupid Patriots playing at the same time. I'm supposed to cover the game for the blog, and I won't be able to see it at home because I don't have Sunday Ticket. It's going to be an annoying enterprise. Thank goodness the Giants have three crappy opponents coming up, because they are awfully banged-up, especially on defense.
CRAPPY COMMERCIALS
Nothing could be worse than those "money you could be saving by switching to Geico commercials," but these Dennis Leary Ford truck commercials are pretty close -- not because of Dennis Leary. Dennis Leary is great. Because all they are are Dennis Leary talking about trucks -- and not saying anything interesting -- while all his words appear on the screen around pictures of Ford trucks. One of the most annoying things in the world is having someone read to you. You know, as an adult. If you're still 5 years old, it's kind of nice having your mom or dad read you a story. If you're 36, you don't need Dennis Leary reading you a script about Ford trucks that you can read yourself.
SYRACUSE FOOTBALL REVISITED -- WITH GRAMMAR LESSON
I decided tonight that Twitter is not for me, but I did follow the Syracuse-Maine game on Twitter, and the Orange is now ahead 41-17. So we don't have to spend the week shaking our heads that we can't even get an easy win against a Division I-AA team. But clearly we have a long way to go. Well, we know that. But it's even longer.
"The Orange is ahead? Hey Phil, don't you mean the Orange are ahead? They're a team. That's plural, right?"
Could be. The English use plural pronouns and verb forms in all instance when referring to teams, bands and other organizations. "Chelsea have a match with Arsenal this weekend." "Cream are reuniting for a tour." They're consistent.
Americans are not. They outsmart themselves. They'll say things like, "The Orange have to play better." But they would never say, "Syracuse have to play better." They'd use "has." This makes no sense. Both of those nouns are singular, and both refer to the exact same thing -- a football team. That could be seen as singular -- it's a team, a thing -- or plural -- it's 80 players. But it appears we're not smart enough to decide which, because you'll hear grammatical disasters during sports reports: "Notre Dame loses their first game of the year." So Notre Dame is both singular ("loses") and plural ("their") in the same sentence.
Sports Illustrated for years has applied a policy of treating teams with collectively singular nicknames (Orange, Cardinal, Heat, etc.) as singular. The Syracuse newspapers have done the same since Chancellor Nancy Cantor pissed on the heads of SU alumni by deciding that our beloved Orangemen were now "The Orange." Both, however, are a little lax in their enforcement of this policy. SI, in particular, does a good job of editing its feature stories but is loaded with errors in its "departments." Maybe I'm just anal, but it's a little disappointing.
NIGHT COLLEGE SCORES
Syracuse gives up a late touchdown -- would like to see the Maine necks stepped on a little harder -- but wins 41-24. I'll take it but would have preferred it not be so nerve-wracking for so long. Just a reminder that we're not that far removed yet from being the team that's been one of the worst in the nation the last four years. Are we headed in the right direction? Absolutely. But it's going to take a lot of time. More than one season.
Ditto for St. Anselm. They're not going to get pushed around by anyone but the best teams in the league anymore, but I hoped we'd see them at least slow down Merrimack today. Didn't happen. Couldn't stop the run at all, and couldn't match the offensive output. Nothing much more to say.
Meanwhile I think I'd better hide anything in the house that's black and yellow, lest the wife light it on fire. Penn State is spitting the bit against the Hawkeyes for the second straight year, this time at home. I've got my own problems, and this isn't one of them. Were I a Penn State fan, however, I'd be eating broken glass right now. They're giving this game away.
That's enough for tonight.
But I brought a football to my friend Justin's place last Sunday, figuring we could chuck it around after the 4 o'clock games ended. I hadn't yet noticed that it is now too dark to throw a football outdoors at 7:15 p.m. That's a bummer.
So is trying to cook in the dark. I live to grill, but we don't have lights in our yard, so dinner gets cooked in the dark. My wife's flashlight appears not to have been used in a while. I changed the batteries, but that sucker is weak. But it all worked out. They're turkey burgers, anyway. Left over from Monday night's tailgate at the U2 concert in Foxborough. Nittany Wife doesn't eat red meat, so I've gotten used to subbing turkey for beef. It's not so bad. Actually, was craving fried chicken tonight, but the only thing worse than wasting money is wasting food, so out of the freezer the turkey burgers came. And there was bacon in there, too. Turkey burgers cooked on a charcoal fire and covered with cheddar and bacon are actually pretty damned good.
And here's the bright side (literally) of grilling in the dark: the charcoal fire looks positively bad-ass in the dark, especially as flames pour out of a chimney starter and the metal sides of that baby glow red.
Speaking of U2: Monday night's show was my first U2 show. I bought the tickets for the wife, who likes U2 a lot more than I do (I think they're really good, but really overrated, too), but also calls Snow Patrol, which opened up, her favorite band. Those Irish lads acquitted themselves quite well Monday night -- their last night on the tour. Of all the people I know who went to one of the two Foxborough shows, none really knew Snow Patrol, but all were impressed. I don't love them. I'm a fan by marriage. But I was happy for them. They're talented and very good.
And speaking of grilling, I think I'll be in tailgate heaven next weekend. I'll be heading with some friends to Kansas City for the Giants-Chiefs game. Arrowhead Stadium is reputed to be the pinnacle of the tailgate. I don't see how it could be better than Giants Stadium, but I'm keeping an open mind.
Anyway, it won't be about the gameday tailgate. It's all about the American Royal Barbecue competition. I'm hoping my new status as an official NFL blogger gets me and the boys in the trenches with one of the barbecue teams. I WILL cover this with the respect it deserves.
And, by the way -- the word is spelled "B-A-R-B-E-C-U-E." Just becauses "BBQ" is an acceptable abbreviation does not make "barbeque" an acceptable spelling. It's not. It's barbecue. My position on this matter shall be considered inflexible.
As for the Giants, tomorrow will be the first time I will have to travel to a sports bar to see them -- and hope that said sports bar will show the game with the stupid Patriots playing at the same time. I'm supposed to cover the game for the blog, and I won't be able to see it at home because I don't have Sunday Ticket. It's going to be an annoying enterprise. Thank goodness the Giants have three crappy opponents coming up, because they are awfully banged-up, especially on defense.
CRAPPY COMMERCIALS
Nothing could be worse than those "money you could be saving by switching to Geico commercials," but these Dennis Leary Ford truck commercials are pretty close -- not because of Dennis Leary. Dennis Leary is great. Because all they are are Dennis Leary talking about trucks -- and not saying anything interesting -- while all his words appear on the screen around pictures of Ford trucks. One of the most annoying things in the world is having someone read to you. You know, as an adult. If you're still 5 years old, it's kind of nice having your mom or dad read you a story. If you're 36, you don't need Dennis Leary reading you a script about Ford trucks that you can read yourself.
SYRACUSE FOOTBALL REVISITED -- WITH GRAMMAR LESSON
I decided tonight that Twitter is not for me, but I did follow the Syracuse-Maine game on Twitter, and the Orange is now ahead 41-17. So we don't have to spend the week shaking our heads that we can't even get an easy win against a Division I-AA team. But clearly we have a long way to go. Well, we know that. But it's even longer.
"The Orange is ahead? Hey Phil, don't you mean the Orange are ahead? They're a team. That's plural, right?"
Could be. The English use plural pronouns and verb forms in all instance when referring to teams, bands and other organizations. "Chelsea have a match with Arsenal this weekend." "Cream are reuniting for a tour." They're consistent.
Americans are not. They outsmart themselves. They'll say things like, "The Orange have to play better." But they would never say, "Syracuse have to play better." They'd use "has." This makes no sense. Both of those nouns are singular, and both refer to the exact same thing -- a football team. That could be seen as singular -- it's a team, a thing -- or plural -- it's 80 players. But it appears we're not smart enough to decide which, because you'll hear grammatical disasters during sports reports: "Notre Dame loses their first game of the year." So Notre Dame is both singular ("loses") and plural ("their") in the same sentence.
Sports Illustrated for years has applied a policy of treating teams with collectively singular nicknames (Orange, Cardinal, Heat, etc.) as singular. The Syracuse newspapers have done the same since Chancellor Nancy Cantor pissed on the heads of SU alumni by deciding that our beloved Orangemen were now "The Orange." Both, however, are a little lax in their enforcement of this policy. SI, in particular, does a good job of editing its feature stories but is loaded with errors in its "departments." Maybe I'm just anal, but it's a little disappointing.
NIGHT COLLEGE SCORES
Syracuse gives up a late touchdown -- would like to see the Maine necks stepped on a little harder -- but wins 41-24. I'll take it but would have preferred it not be so nerve-wracking for so long. Just a reminder that we're not that far removed yet from being the team that's been one of the worst in the nation the last four years. Are we headed in the right direction? Absolutely. But it's going to take a lot of time. More than one season.
Ditto for St. Anselm. They're not going to get pushed around by anyone but the best teams in the league anymore, but I hoped we'd see them at least slow down Merrimack today. Didn't happen. Couldn't stop the run at all, and couldn't match the offensive output. Nothing much more to say.
Meanwhile I think I'd better hide anything in the house that's black and yellow, lest the wife light it on fire. Penn State is spitting the bit against the Hawkeyes for the second straight year, this time at home. I've got my own problems, and this isn't one of them. Were I a Penn State fan, however, I'd be eating broken glass right now. They're giving this game away.
That's enough for tonight.
Yankees and Red S*x in the Home Stretch
Admit it. The season series means a little to you. The Red S*x won the first eight games they played against the Yankees this year, and all you could hope for was that the Yankees would stop the bleeding and find a way to contend for a wild card.
One ridiculous post-All Star run by the Bronx Bombers, however, changed all that, and our goals changed: we hoped the Yankees, once on the outside looking in, could maintain their firm grip on first place and that, most of all, they were not a bully team. Meaning: as good as they looked against everyone else, we hoped they wouldn't get punched in the mouth and go back into their shell when the Red S*x came calling.
Our fears were assuaged and then some. The Yankees won six out of seven over two series in August, with Alex Rodriguez delivering key home runs in the 15-inning classic at Yankee Stadium and the tight affair 48 hours later. We knew then that we were in first place to stay, and, almost as delicious, that we had sent the Red S*x reeling. We knew -- we know -- that true redemption for all that has gone wrong the last eight years can only be earned in October, but for the time, things couldn't be much better.
Then something happened: the Red Sox turned themselves around and became the hottest team in baseball, with the starting pitching that was so shaky in those seven games straightening itself out and the team dominating at home even more than before. Meanwhile, the Yankees' kept winning, but at a slower pace, and with the starting pitching outside of CC Sabathia looking as shaky as ever. A.J. Burnett never came close to matching his performance that Friday night against the Red S*x, Andy Pettitte's shoulder got sore, and Joba Chamberlain went from being unreliable to being effectively the biggest threat to the Yankees' prosperity.
So we entered this weekend with this: it's probably too late for the Red S*x to catch us for the division title, and even if they do, we're in the playoffs, but a poor performance against the Red Sox this weekend would have left us with serious doubts about the Yankees' prospects of getting through the American League's postseason gantlet.
So, after two wins in two games at the Stadium this weekend, is everything okey dokey? Not exactly. Sabathia was wonderful today, but he was awesome last year and the year before in the regular season for Milwaukee and Cleveland, respectively. His postseasons, however, have left something to desire. Like Alex Rodriguez, he is going to have to shine in October. And surely last night's performance, as good as it was, does not erase all doubts about Chamberlain. He is not yet an effective starting pitcher. He has the talent to be one, and I'm willing to wait. He's only 23. But I don't know that he's going to help us turn a 2-1 series lead into a 3-1 lead in a playoff series. And Burnett with his inconsistency and Pettitte with his shoulder will remain question marks at least until they pitch well against the AL Central champ in the ALDS.
So what does this weekend mean? It's for bragging rights, and little else. Red S*x fans got to whoop it up as much as ever when they were 8-0 against the Yankees. That massive lead has all but evaporated. If the Yankees finish off another sweep tomorrow night, they will have tied the season series, 9-9. It will be meaningless comepared to anything that happens in October, but it will assure that those eight losses will never be a source of humiliation for us again. The games may count the same, but I'll take them during the pennant race over the early season any day.
One ridiculous post-All Star run by the Bronx Bombers, however, changed all that, and our goals changed: we hoped the Yankees, once on the outside looking in, could maintain their firm grip on first place and that, most of all, they were not a bully team. Meaning: as good as they looked against everyone else, we hoped they wouldn't get punched in the mouth and go back into their shell when the Red S*x came calling.
Our fears were assuaged and then some. The Yankees won six out of seven over two series in August, with Alex Rodriguez delivering key home runs in the 15-inning classic at Yankee Stadium and the tight affair 48 hours later. We knew then that we were in first place to stay, and, almost as delicious, that we had sent the Red S*x reeling. We knew -- we know -- that true redemption for all that has gone wrong the last eight years can only be earned in October, but for the time, things couldn't be much better.
Then something happened: the Red Sox turned themselves around and became the hottest team in baseball, with the starting pitching that was so shaky in those seven games straightening itself out and the team dominating at home even more than before. Meanwhile, the Yankees' kept winning, but at a slower pace, and with the starting pitching outside of CC Sabathia looking as shaky as ever. A.J. Burnett never came close to matching his performance that Friday night against the Red S*x, Andy Pettitte's shoulder got sore, and Joba Chamberlain went from being unreliable to being effectively the biggest threat to the Yankees' prosperity.
So we entered this weekend with this: it's probably too late for the Red S*x to catch us for the division title, and even if they do, we're in the playoffs, but a poor performance against the Red Sox this weekend would have left us with serious doubts about the Yankees' prospects of getting through the American League's postseason gantlet.
So, after two wins in two games at the Stadium this weekend, is everything okey dokey? Not exactly. Sabathia was wonderful today, but he was awesome last year and the year before in the regular season for Milwaukee and Cleveland, respectively. His postseasons, however, have left something to desire. Like Alex Rodriguez, he is going to have to shine in October. And surely last night's performance, as good as it was, does not erase all doubts about Chamberlain. He is not yet an effective starting pitcher. He has the talent to be one, and I'm willing to wait. He's only 23. But I don't know that he's going to help us turn a 2-1 series lead into a 3-1 lead in a playoff series. And Burnett with his inconsistency and Pettitte with his shoulder will remain question marks at least until they pitch well against the AL Central champ in the ALDS.
So what does this weekend mean? It's for bragging rights, and little else. Red S*x fans got to whoop it up as much as ever when they were 8-0 against the Yankees. That massive lead has all but evaporated. If the Yankees finish off another sweep tomorrow night, they will have tied the season series, 9-9. It will be meaningless comepared to anything that happens in October, but it will assure that those eight losses will never be a source of humiliation for us again. The games may count the same, but I'll take them during the pennant race over the early season any day.
A Football-And-Beer Saturday (Redundant)
I'm not sure about this Twitter crap. I've been doing it for less than 30 minutes and already think I dislike it. My attention span may be shorter than Milton Bradley's temper, but I still don't think 140 characters is going to hold my thoughts on anything. If there's a way that I can use Twitter to promote both this blog and my OFFICIAL NFL.COM GIANTS BLOG (and I'll get you all the URL as soon as I'm permitted to do so), I will. But I'm not writing 140-character columns. I'm not contributing to the dumbing-down of our nation.
So here's everything that's on my mind right now, and I'll cover each as succinctly as possible: Syracuse football, The Yankees' and Red Sox' playoff prospects (and, to some extent, their current series), the Giants, their injuries, my blogging about them and my impending trip to see them in Kansas City, St. Anselm football's disappointing loss today, U2, grilling in the fall and Entourage. That's enough of a list.
SYRACUSE FOOTBALL
This is freaking me out. I didn't care a whit about the Penn State game. I knew we weren't winning that, and, frankly, was pretty happy not to get annihilated. A 28-7 loss is nothing to be proud of, but at least the Nittany Wife doesn't have an "Oh, you poor thing" look on her face when I come home after 28-7.
But the fact that we are not only sweating out a game against Maine but TRAILING in the third quarter is infuriating. Overtime loss at home against Minnesota? Hey, plenty of reason for optimism. Lose to Penn State? Lot of very good teams will lose to Penn State by 21 points this year. Three-point win after near-collapse vs. Northwestern? We can't be upset about any win against a BCS-conference team. Not after the last four years.
But we're now in danger of losing at home against a Division I-AA team. I don't think I'm betraying any greed when I say that I think we have a right to expect better than that. A loss against South Florida next week may be inevitable, but it will be forgiven if the honeymoon is still going on. If Doug Marrone and Greg Paulus want it to continue, they'd better win this game tonight. In regulation. By at least a touchdown.
So here's everything that's on my mind right now, and I'll cover each as succinctly as possible: Syracuse football, The Yankees' and Red Sox' playoff prospects (and, to some extent, their current series), the Giants, their injuries, my blogging about them and my impending trip to see them in Kansas City, St. Anselm football's disappointing loss today, U2, grilling in the fall and Entourage. That's enough of a list.
SYRACUSE FOOTBALL
This is freaking me out. I didn't care a whit about the Penn State game. I knew we weren't winning that, and, frankly, was pretty happy not to get annihilated. A 28-7 loss is nothing to be proud of, but at least the Nittany Wife doesn't have an "Oh, you poor thing" look on her face when I come home after 28-7.
But the fact that we are not only sweating out a game against Maine but TRAILING in the third quarter is infuriating. Overtime loss at home against Minnesota? Hey, plenty of reason for optimism. Lose to Penn State? Lot of very good teams will lose to Penn State by 21 points this year. Three-point win after near-collapse vs. Northwestern? We can't be upset about any win against a BCS-conference team. Not after the last four years.
But we're now in danger of losing at home against a Division I-AA team. I don't think I'm betraying any greed when I say that I think we have a right to expect better than that. A loss against South Florida next week may be inevitable, but it will be forgiven if the honeymoon is still going on. If Doug Marrone and Greg Paulus want it to continue, they'd better win this game tonight. In regulation. By at least a touchdown.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
I was just about to roast Chris Berman on this site for mistaking the term "LP." I thought I heard Berman say, in relation to LP Field, "I got about 400 LPs -- pounds." Of course, that would be LBs. But, upon further review, the ruling is that Berman actually said he has 400 LPs -- albums."
Right on.
But if you're looking for an ESPN talker to say something stupid, just wait. Not a minute later, he followed Marisol Castro's weather forcast by saying that hey, if there's that much rain in the forecast, he could just nickname the weathergirl "Parasol."
Nice job, Chris. A parasol is used to block sun, not rain. Hence the name "parasol," meaning, literally, "for the sun." You'd think an Ivy Leaguer would know this.
In more important news, my career as an official NFL blogger of Giants football begins today. I'll have the URL for you as soon as I know it for sure. Preview should be up (very personal in nature, but I actually do talk football in it) today, and I'll be back after the game with three key observations on Big Blue.
LET'S GO GIANTS!
Right on.
But if you're looking for an ESPN talker to say something stupid, just wait. Not a minute later, he followed Marisol Castro's weather forcast by saying that hey, if there's that much rain in the forecast, he could just nickname the weathergirl "Parasol."
Nice job, Chris. A parasol is used to block sun, not rain. Hence the name "parasol," meaning, literally, "for the sun." You'd think an Ivy Leaguer would know this.
In more important news, my career as an official NFL blogger of Giants football begins today. I'll have the URL for you as soon as I know it for sure. Preview should be up (very personal in nature, but I actually do talk football in it) today, and I'll be back after the game with three key observations on Big Blue.
LET'S GO GIANTS!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Ted Kennedy, St. A, etc.
About an hour ago I was on my way home from New Hampshire and listening to the Dan Shaughnessy Show on the new "SportsHub" 91.5 FM. Dan and his co-host, whoever it was, were talking about the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, "now on his way to Arlington Cemetery." I'm telling you this: he was not on his way there. That may have been his ultimate destination -- pardon the gallows humor -- but he must have been stopping off somewhere north of Boston first.
I know this because I was on the phone with my wife a few minutes earlier when I saw unbelievable phalanx of rubberneckers. They were on my side of the highway, the other side, and literally on the sides of the road. Like, the shoulders. Pulled over. People out of their cars. People congregating on the overpass in whatever town that was, just a few miles north of Waltham. I thought, "This doesn't look like an ordinary accident. This is either the most heinous crash in history (or, as they would call that in Massachusetts, a fender bender), or maybe a suicide by someone who realized that a swan dive from an overpass to I-95 is a very effective method of killing oneself.
I was all tongue-tied. "Um, baby, um, hold on; oh, wow. This must have been something ...
... hey, wait ... this is Ted Kennedy's funeral procession."
Flags were waved. Signs were held up. ON THE INTERSTATE.
I'm not from here, so I don't feel the same feelings for this man that even his staunchest political opponents at home might feel, let alone those who voted for him over and over -- who voted for his brothers way back when. But I was glad I could witness a scene such as this. You don't see something like that every day. And it wasn't a setup. It wasn't a made-for-TV ceremony. It was a bunch of people going out on their own to say goodbye. On the Interstate.
SHOCKING TRADE
I'm not going to waste my time at this moment to look up the scouting reports or histories of the prospects the Angels traded to Tampa Bay to acquire Scott Kazmir. You can do that on your own, and I'll do it later. But those prospects had better be can't-miss future All-Stars. I don't mean solid prospects. I mean can't-miss future All-Stars. I don't care what Kazmir's numbers are this year. And I'm not saying he's the second coming of Sandy Koufax. That the reigning AL Champions, however, would trade a man who is entering his prime and has already been a reliable staff ace, a two-time All-Star, for prospects, while they are in the thick of the wild-card race, which they absolutely are, is downright disappointing.
Shaughnessy, by the way, said as much on his show, but his angle had more to do with why the Red Sox didn't try to get him, especially in light of his ending up with their probable first-round playoff opponent. Dan. Buddy. Are you serious? I don't like that the Rays traded him. But at least they're not stupid enough to trade him to one of their two most important division rivals. That was never going to happen.
I just can't believe the Rays would give up a guy who, current stats aside, could be such a boon to their playoff fortunes THIS YEAR. Kazmir was part of a shocking trade once before, but at least it made sense for the Mets to trade him to Tampa. The only part of that deal that didn't make sense was that the Mets accepted a bum in return. But trading a prospect for a Major League player was fine for the Mets. Trading him now, for the Rays, a team with plenty of young up-and-coming players, by all accounts, makes no sense at all.
HAWKS TAKE FLIGHT
Just got home from my first St. Anselm football game of the season. Man, am I excited about the second game of the year. The Hawks have brought in an enormous freshman class in this, coach Pat Murphy's second year at the helm. Will they propel St. A to a winning record this season? It seems unlikely that a team that went 2-8 a year ago and now starts so many freshmen can expect to break the .500 barrier.
Clearly, however, this is going to be a much more fun season to be a St. Anselm fan. The Hawks pushed Kutztown, a team that demolished St. A 35-0 a year ago, right to the brink today, finally succumbing 17-13 after a sack of freshman QB Michael Pierce turned second-and-1 to third-and-14 as the Hawks were driving for the winning touchdown. This came moments after the Hawk defense got the ball back after the Hawks' freshman running back Austin Wakinakoa fumbled at the Kutztown 1-yard line.
St. A killed itself with those two plays, plus a costly personal foul on a St. A lineman. A year ago, St. A never got the chance to kill itself because its opponents were killing the Hawks just fine. This is a different team. Plymouth State visits next Saturday. Can a St. A victory over the D-III foe be the catalyst for a winning season? Who's to say no!?!
I know this because I was on the phone with my wife a few minutes earlier when I saw unbelievable phalanx of rubberneckers. They were on my side of the highway, the other side, and literally on the sides of the road. Like, the shoulders. Pulled over. People out of their cars. People congregating on the overpass in whatever town that was, just a few miles north of Waltham. I thought, "This doesn't look like an ordinary accident. This is either the most heinous crash in history (or, as they would call that in Massachusetts, a fender bender), or maybe a suicide by someone who realized that a swan dive from an overpass to I-95 is a very effective method of killing oneself.
I was all tongue-tied. "Um, baby, um, hold on; oh, wow. This must have been something ...
... hey, wait ... this is Ted Kennedy's funeral procession."
Flags were waved. Signs were held up. ON THE INTERSTATE.
I'm not from here, so I don't feel the same feelings for this man that even his staunchest political opponents at home might feel, let alone those who voted for him over and over -- who voted for his brothers way back when. But I was glad I could witness a scene such as this. You don't see something like that every day. And it wasn't a setup. It wasn't a made-for-TV ceremony. It was a bunch of people going out on their own to say goodbye. On the Interstate.
SHOCKING TRADE
I'm not going to waste my time at this moment to look up the scouting reports or histories of the prospects the Angels traded to Tampa Bay to acquire Scott Kazmir. You can do that on your own, and I'll do it later. But those prospects had better be can't-miss future All-Stars. I don't mean solid prospects. I mean can't-miss future All-Stars. I don't care what Kazmir's numbers are this year. And I'm not saying he's the second coming of Sandy Koufax. That the reigning AL Champions, however, would trade a man who is entering his prime and has already been a reliable staff ace, a two-time All-Star, for prospects, while they are in the thick of the wild-card race, which they absolutely are, is downright disappointing.
Shaughnessy, by the way, said as much on his show, but his angle had more to do with why the Red Sox didn't try to get him, especially in light of his ending up with their probable first-round playoff opponent. Dan. Buddy. Are you serious? I don't like that the Rays traded him. But at least they're not stupid enough to trade him to one of their two most important division rivals. That was never going to happen.
I just can't believe the Rays would give up a guy who, current stats aside, could be such a boon to their playoff fortunes THIS YEAR. Kazmir was part of a shocking trade once before, but at least it made sense for the Mets to trade him to Tampa. The only part of that deal that didn't make sense was that the Mets accepted a bum in return. But trading a prospect for a Major League player was fine for the Mets. Trading him now, for the Rays, a team with plenty of young up-and-coming players, by all accounts, makes no sense at all.
HAWKS TAKE FLIGHT
Just got home from my first St. Anselm football game of the season. Man, am I excited about the second game of the year. The Hawks have brought in an enormous freshman class in this, coach Pat Murphy's second year at the helm. Will they propel St. A to a winning record this season? It seems unlikely that a team that went 2-8 a year ago and now starts so many freshmen can expect to break the .500 barrier.
Clearly, however, this is going to be a much more fun season to be a St. Anselm fan. The Hawks pushed Kutztown, a team that demolished St. A 35-0 a year ago, right to the brink today, finally succumbing 17-13 after a sack of freshman QB Michael Pierce turned second-and-1 to third-and-14 as the Hawks were driving for the winning touchdown. This came moments after the Hawk defense got the ball back after the Hawks' freshman running back Austin Wakinakoa fumbled at the Kutztown 1-yard line.
St. A killed itself with those two plays, plus a costly personal foul on a St. A lineman. A year ago, St. A never got the chance to kill itself because its opponents were killing the Hawks just fine. This is a different team. Plymouth State visits next Saturday. Can a St. A victory over the D-III foe be the catalyst for a winning season? Who's to say no!?!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Congratulations, losers
I've been pretty busy this week, so I'm still watching last Friday's Yankees-Red Sox game, about an inning and a half at a time. So I just saw this, but ...
A couple got married last Friday night at Fenway. Not engaged. Married. They showed this on NESN coming back from a break. I'm guessing YES did not show this.
But yes. Two Sox fans, wearing jerseys and, in her case, a ballcap with a veil hanging out the back, said their I dos. That's fine. Actually, it's not. It's pathetic. But Sox fans never tire of telling the world what great fans they are. So I guess it's typical. "We love the Red Sox so much, we got married in the stands at Fenway during a game."
"Wow! That's quite a story. How'd the Sox do?"
"The Yankees beat them 20-11."
A couple got married last Friday night at Fenway. Not engaged. Married. They showed this on NESN coming back from a break. I'm guessing YES did not show this.
But yes. Two Sox fans, wearing jerseys and, in her case, a ballcap with a veil hanging out the back, said their I dos. That's fine. Actually, it's not. It's pathetic. But Sox fans never tire of telling the world what great fans they are. So I guess it's typical. "We love the Red Sox so much, we got married in the stands at Fenway during a game."
"Wow! That's quite a story. How'd the Sox do?"
"The Yankees beat them 20-11."
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Bad Broadcasting
You'd think I'd be on here to talk about tonight's rubber match at Fenway. Obviously there is a lot I could say about a Sunday-night, nationally televised pitchers' duel in Boston between the Yankees and Red Sox. All I will say for now is that, after missing the first two games due to work Friday and a wedding yesterday, I am very excited for tonight's game and hope it doesn't disappoint. I'd be shocked if it did.
Instead, I have to point out two pieces of crappy commentary from the past week; both on national telecasts. My good friend Space tells me broadcast critique could be my calling on this blog. So here goes:
Monday night was ESPN's first "Monday Night Football" game of 2009, a preseason tilt between the Giants and Panthers. First of all, I don't believe Monday Night Football even exists anymore. I know ESPN has been showing the games all along, because ESPN has had control of ABC's sports programming for some time. But once the show left network TV it was over.
I watched Monday only because I watch all Giants games. So I saw the debut of John Gruden, who I hope will be getting another coaching job soon. First, Gruden misinterpreted the concept of "down by contact" so badly on a Panther's fumble that it would make one wonder if he was qualified to coach Pop Warner. On a super slo-mo replay, it was clearly shown -- super slo-mo was not needed -- that the ball popped out of the ballcarrier's hand when the back of his hand hit the ground. "DOWN BY CONTACT" Gruden shouted. As any slightly-more-than-casual football fan knows, a ballcarrier is "down" when any part of his body touches the ground other than a hand or foot. Gruden should know this like the back of his hand. Pun intended. Needless to say, a fumble was ruled on replay and the Giants were awarded possession.
A silly discussion ensued about at what point the hand becomes the arm. Wrist? Forear? WHO CARES?!?! None of those things touched the ground. The hand did.
Gruden's worst offense, however, came at the end of the game. The only reason I, my father-in-law, or anyone else might have been watching were that we didn't feel like getting up and shutting off the TV. But we were. And, as most folks now know, the game ended when the Giants' Clint Sintim knocked a ball out of the hand of the Carolina quarterback Hunter Cantwell. It was caught in the air by the Giants' Tommie Hill, a guy trying to make the team, as are almost all the players in a preseason game with 10 seconds left. Hill returned the fumble or interception for a touchdown.
As Hill entered the end zone, Gruden's commentary consisted of goofy laughter, followed by the words, "What a finish! Monday Night Football on my birthday!"
I knew ESPN was unmatched in its ability to congratulate itself and make itself the news, but I didn't realize this skill now extended to individuals. I was going to write "individual broadcasters," but Gruden is not a broadcaster, and he never will be, even if he has a headset surgically attached to his head, if this is the kind of performance he is going to give. I know this was a fun moment at the least meaningful moment of the least meaningful game ESPN will televise this year. But for a member of the crew to mention his own birthday during the live call of a game-winning play at the final gun of an NFL game is unconscionable. Let's hope Gruden was told this and that things will not be this way for a whole season.
Just a few minutes ago, Chip Caray, whom I like, just committed what some print journalists refer to as an EYF. The practice refers to the concocting of a ridiculous synonym as a way of avoiding repetitive use of a word, even if that word happens to be a prominent part of the story. For instance, in a story about winter weather, you'll often hear TV weather people refer to snow as "the white stuff," lest they find themselves using the word "snow" 100 times. There is nothing wrong with using the word "snow" 100 times if it's appropriate 100 times, which, in a story about winter weather, it usually is. When I hear "the white stuff," I always think to myself, "cocaine?"
Perhaps Chip Caray does not wish to keep referring to players' batting averages "with runners in scoring position."After all, he's a professional baseball play-by-play man. He must use that phrase a thousand times a year. But that does not make it a good idea to do what he just did, referring to Jason Bartlett as "the man who has been the Rays' best hitter this year with runners at second third base."
What the hell is second third base? Does he mean "second and third base"? I'm sure they have a stat for that, but it's probably not that meaningful. Does he mean "second or third base"? If so, does exclude situations with runners at both of those bases?
Chip, I know what you mean, but that doesn't mean I'm going to forgive your murder of the English language. Just say "with runners in scoring position." And don't give me a bunch of nonsense about how you said what you said for the casual fan who might not know what "scoring position" means. You tried to get cute. It's not necessary.
And in case anyone wonders what EYF stands for, it was, according to legend, "elongated yellow fruit." Apparently somebody got tired of writing "banana" in a story in which a banana figured prominently. And what a story that must have been.
Instead, I have to point out two pieces of crappy commentary from the past week; both on national telecasts. My good friend Space tells me broadcast critique could be my calling on this blog. So here goes:
Monday night was ESPN's first "Monday Night Football" game of 2009, a preseason tilt between the Giants and Panthers. First of all, I don't believe Monday Night Football even exists anymore. I know ESPN has been showing the games all along, because ESPN has had control of ABC's sports programming for some time. But once the show left network TV it was over.
I watched Monday only because I watch all Giants games. So I saw the debut of John Gruden, who I hope will be getting another coaching job soon. First, Gruden misinterpreted the concept of "down by contact" so badly on a Panther's fumble that it would make one wonder if he was qualified to coach Pop Warner. On a super slo-mo replay, it was clearly shown -- super slo-mo was not needed -- that the ball popped out of the ballcarrier's hand when the back of his hand hit the ground. "DOWN BY CONTACT" Gruden shouted. As any slightly-more-than-casual football fan knows, a ballcarrier is "down" when any part of his body touches the ground other than a hand or foot. Gruden should know this like the back of his hand. Pun intended. Needless to say, a fumble was ruled on replay and the Giants were awarded possession.
A silly discussion ensued about at what point the hand becomes the arm. Wrist? Forear? WHO CARES?!?! None of those things touched the ground. The hand did.
Gruden's worst offense, however, came at the end of the game. The only reason I, my father-in-law, or anyone else might have been watching were that we didn't feel like getting up and shutting off the TV. But we were. And, as most folks now know, the game ended when the Giants' Clint Sintim knocked a ball out of the hand of the Carolina quarterback Hunter Cantwell. It was caught in the air by the Giants' Tommie Hill, a guy trying to make the team, as are almost all the players in a preseason game with 10 seconds left. Hill returned the fumble or interception for a touchdown.
As Hill entered the end zone, Gruden's commentary consisted of goofy laughter, followed by the words, "What a finish! Monday Night Football on my birthday!"
I knew ESPN was unmatched in its ability to congratulate itself and make itself the news, but I didn't realize this skill now extended to individuals. I was going to write "individual broadcasters," but Gruden is not a broadcaster, and he never will be, even if he has a headset surgically attached to his head, if this is the kind of performance he is going to give. I know this was a fun moment at the least meaningful moment of the least meaningful game ESPN will televise this year. But for a member of the crew to mention his own birthday during the live call of a game-winning play at the final gun of an NFL game is unconscionable. Let's hope Gruden was told this and that things will not be this way for a whole season.
Just a few minutes ago, Chip Caray, whom I like, just committed what some print journalists refer to as an EYF. The practice refers to the concocting of a ridiculous synonym as a way of avoiding repetitive use of a word, even if that word happens to be a prominent part of the story. For instance, in a story about winter weather, you'll often hear TV weather people refer to snow as "the white stuff," lest they find themselves using the word "snow" 100 times. There is nothing wrong with using the word "snow" 100 times if it's appropriate 100 times, which, in a story about winter weather, it usually is. When I hear "the white stuff," I always think to myself, "cocaine?"
Perhaps Chip Caray does not wish to keep referring to players' batting averages "with runners in scoring position."After all, he's a professional baseball play-by-play man. He must use that phrase a thousand times a year. But that does not make it a good idea to do what he just did, referring to Jason Bartlett as "the man who has been the Rays' best hitter this year with runners at second third base."
What the hell is second third base? Does he mean "second and third base"? I'm sure they have a stat for that, but it's probably not that meaningful. Does he mean "second or third base"? If so, does exclude situations with runners at both of those bases?
Chip, I know what you mean, but that doesn't mean I'm going to forgive your murder of the English language. Just say "with runners in scoring position." And don't give me a bunch of nonsense about how you said what you said for the casual fan who might not know what "scoring position" means. You tried to get cute. It's not necessary.
And in case anyone wonders what EYF stands for, it was, according to legend, "elongated yellow fruit." Apparently somebody got tired of writing "banana" in a story in which a banana figured prominently. And what a story that must have been.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Make that the bottom of the 15th!
Jeter, Damon and Teixeira against Tazawa. I think we're about to win.
We go to the bottom of the ninth...
... and no matter what happens from here on out, this has been a tremendous ballgame. This is the way baseball is supposed to be played.
I was at a party a few weeks ago with a group of Sox fans who were talking about Manny -- this was before the Ortiz revelations -- and declaring, "I don't care about steroids. They make the game more interesting."
I'm sorry, but home run derby is only interesting when it's, you know, in the Home Run Derby. I like this form of baseball. I would advocate raising the mound back to 1968 levels, moving the fences back so that every park plays like Citi Field, and even contracting the number of teams to reverse the watering down of the pitching. I don't mind seeing 19 runs scored in a game, such as what happened last night, but I'd like to see the teams earn their 19 runs. That doesn't happen with Pedroia, Damon and Kotchman hitting cheap home runs. I love this new stadium in so many ways, but this is one thing I absolutely hate about it.
By the way -- couldn't Phil Hughes have pitched the top of the ninth? Isn't it a waste that we have two absolute weapons in the bullpen, and we're probably going to need both of them, and one gets to get one stinkin' out? Suppose Okajima gets through this inning unscathed. Now we go to the 10th with maybe one more inning of Rivera, and the Red Sox can probably get four innings if they need them out of their two weapons, Bard and Papelbon.
OK, Francona is shooting my theory full of holes, bringing in Bard with one out. Hopefully the rookie wilts under the pressure of the Stadium, with all its history and overzealous fans. Oh, wait. The Stadium with the history is rotting across the street, and the overzealous fans have been priced out.
OK, let's watch the rest of this baby.
I was at a party a few weeks ago with a group of Sox fans who were talking about Manny -- this was before the Ortiz revelations -- and declaring, "I don't care about steroids. They make the game more interesting."
I'm sorry, but home run derby is only interesting when it's, you know, in the Home Run Derby. I like this form of baseball. I would advocate raising the mound back to 1968 levels, moving the fences back so that every park plays like Citi Field, and even contracting the number of teams to reverse the watering down of the pitching. I don't mind seeing 19 runs scored in a game, such as what happened last night, but I'd like to see the teams earn their 19 runs. That doesn't happen with Pedroia, Damon and Kotchman hitting cheap home runs. I love this new stadium in so many ways, but this is one thing I absolutely hate about it.
By the way -- couldn't Phil Hughes have pitched the top of the ninth? Isn't it a waste that we have two absolute weapons in the bullpen, and we're probably going to need both of them, and one gets to get one stinkin' out? Suppose Okajima gets through this inning unscathed. Now we go to the 10th with maybe one more inning of Rivera, and the Red Sox can probably get four innings if they need them out of their two weapons, Bard and Papelbon.
OK, Francona is shooting my theory full of holes, bringing in Bard with one out. Hopefully the rookie wilts under the pressure of the Stadium, with all its history and overzealous fans. Oh, wait. The Stadium with the history is rotting across the street, and the overzealous fans have been priced out.
OK, let's watch the rest of this baby.
Watney on Smoltz
Heidi Watney just reported that the Red Sox made the "tough decision" to release John Smoltz. If that's a tough decision, what would constitute an easy decision? "Guys, Mr. Epstein has decided to remove the arsenic-infused caesar salad from the postgame spread. Hope nobody has a problem with this decision."
Beckett is on. But he is not cute. That's the official scoring decision from the Ambassador's wife.
Nice throw, Jorge. Keep it up.
I'm still on beer No. 1. Probably why I'm not that into this blog thing yet. Then again, I'm not really into this beer thing tonight. But I'll follow last night's formula. Porter, Lager, Black & Tan, Light.
Cano leads off the third against Beckett. Always used to hear his swing compared to Rod Carew's. I hadn't heard that for a while, but Orsillo just brought it up. Is it really that uncanny? I was only 12 when Carew retired, but I did see him play many times, including at least once in person. I really don't see it. Mattingly reminded me more of Carew, but I think I just broke the Cardinal Rule of Sports Comparisons, which states that one cannot liken a white athlete to a black athlete and vice versa.
Beckett is on. But he is not cute. That's the official scoring decision from the Ambassador's wife.
Nice throw, Jorge. Keep it up.
I'm still on beer No. 1. Probably why I'm not that into this blog thing yet. Then again, I'm not really into this beer thing tonight. But I'll follow last night's formula. Porter, Lager, Black & Tan, Light.
Cano leads off the third against Beckett. Always used to hear his swing compared to Rod Carew's. I hadn't heard that for a while, but Orsillo just brought it up. Is it really that uncanny? I was only 12 when Carew retired, but I did see him play many times, including at least once in person. I really don't see it. Mattingly reminded me more of Carew, but I think I just broke the Cardinal Rule of Sports Comparisons, which states that one cannot liken a white athlete to a black athlete and vice versa.
This will be low-scoring ...
... at least, it will if Burnett finds his control, because Beckett appears to be on. Again. It amazes me that this guy ever goes through stretches where he is not so great. The guy's stuff is so good.
Underway
Only took half an inning to catch up to the live action tonight. I hope A.J. Burnett only needed half an inning to catch up as well. Ten of his first 13 pitches were balls. Didn't we see enough of that from Joba last night?
Let's make it 2-8
Yanks go for their second win of this key four-game series. It will NOT be as easy as their first. I'd personally like to thank the Red S*x for waiting a day too long to designate John Smoltz for assignment. Ironic he got shelled like that -- perhaps for the final time -- in front of Muhammad Ali. This fight was like Ali-Holmes '80, except that Smoltz will not be left punch-drunk.
But someone might. Let's see if any bad blood remains from last night's plunking of Dustin Gaedel Pedroia by Mark Melancon. This did not appear to be a big topic of discussion in the blogosphere today, and it was not given prominent ink in the papers I read. Doesn't mean it's not a big deal. We'll find out. Damn, it'll be fun.
As for me -- MUCH better pre-game warmup routine. Went for a nice long run along the Charles, then came back, had some water with a splash of cran and lime wedges -- used to be my favorite non-alcoholic drink when I was bartending, and got back on the grill. The coals lighted on the second try instead of the third, and tonight's turkey burgers have a nice golden crust on them. Last night's were charred like David Koresh.
Anyway, first pitch in about five minutes. Time to click on NESN and hit "pause."
But someone might. Let's see if any bad blood remains from last night's plunking of Dustin Gaedel Pedroia by Mark Melancon. This did not appear to be a big topic of discussion in the blogosphere today, and it was not given prominent ink in the papers I read. Doesn't mean it's not a big deal. We'll find out. Damn, it'll be fun.
As for me -- MUCH better pre-game warmup routine. Went for a nice long run along the Charles, then came back, had some water with a splash of cran and lime wedges -- used to be my favorite non-alcoholic drink when I was bartending, and got back on the grill. The coals lighted on the second try instead of the third, and tonight's turkey burgers have a nice golden crust on them. Last night's were charred like David Koresh.
Anyway, first pitch in about five minutes. Time to click on NESN and hit "pause."
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wrapping it up
Thoughts: It's only one win. And no, it doesn't "break the seal" or prove to the Yankees that, "Yes, we can beat Boston," because if you think they entered this game thinking "We can't beat the Red Sox," you're crazy. But it's certainly better to win than lose.
But I'm not impressed. I'm not disgusted, but it was a tough performance to watch for Joba Chamberlain. As far as the offense, they hit the hell out of a John Smoltz who in the best-case scenario is still recovering from off-season arm surgery, or, in the more likely scenario, is a completely shot pitcher; then they poured it on against Billy Traber, who will not pitch in any meaningful innings for the Red Sox. Light up Josh Beckett tomorrow and I'll be impressed. By "light up," I mean "score four runs."
A Yankee will get plunked hard by a pitch before this weekend is over. That's fine. But I don't have any sympathy for the Red Sox. Pedro Martinez and co. used Derek Jeter as their personal pinatas for years. The Yankees have to handle this situation like men. You will remember, Varitek's mashing of A-Rod's face with his mitt, however sissified it was by the presence of his mask, was clearly the turning point of the Red Sox 2004 season -- and, by extension, Red Sox history. It is also easy to remember that the Yankees' gangsta response to Armando Benitez's plunking of Tino Martinez in 1998 was the moment that galvanized that team as the greatest of its generation.
Something is about to happen between these two teams. I can feel it. How they handle it could go a long way toward determining how ready each one is heading toward the home stretch of this pennant race.
LET'S GO YANKEES!
But I'm not impressed. I'm not disgusted, but it was a tough performance to watch for Joba Chamberlain. As far as the offense, they hit the hell out of a John Smoltz who in the best-case scenario is still recovering from off-season arm surgery, or, in the more likely scenario, is a completely shot pitcher; then they poured it on against Billy Traber, who will not pitch in any meaningful innings for the Red Sox. Light up Josh Beckett tomorrow and I'll be impressed. By "light up," I mean "score four runs."
A Yankee will get plunked hard by a pitch before this weekend is over. That's fine. But I don't have any sympathy for the Red Sox. Pedro Martinez and co. used Derek Jeter as their personal pinatas for years. The Yankees have to handle this situation like men. You will remember, Varitek's mashing of A-Rod's face with his mitt, however sissified it was by the presence of his mask, was clearly the turning point of the Red Sox 2004 season -- and, by extension, Red Sox history. It is also easy to remember that the Yankees' gangsta response to Armando Benitez's plunking of Tino Martinez in 1998 was the moment that galvanized that team as the greatest of its generation.
Something is about to happen between these two teams. I can feel it. How they handle it could go a long way toward determining how ready each one is heading toward the home stretch of this pennant race.
LET'S GO YANKEES!
Oh, the beer thing!
So, beer in Ireland. Can anyone tell me why the NFL-draft-signee-type slotting system for beers in Irish pubs?
Also, when did Coors become "The Banquet Beer?" I've been to many banquets. Never seen Coors. Coors Lite, maybe, but not that gold-can crap (as opposed to the light crap).
Also, when did Coors become "The Banquet Beer?" I've been to many banquets. Never seen Coors. Coors Lite, maybe, but not that gold-can crap (as opposed to the light crap).
Beer and beanballs
Beer update: Wifey and I have just a Cecil Fielder-load of booze left over from the wedding -- and yes, you're all invited to come drink anytime (Sox fans must wait until after the game Sunday; you're not allowed in The Embassy during the War).
We got married in Pennsylvania, where the very fine offerings of Yuengling are as inexpensive as crappo beer like Bud Lite and Coors Lite. And people seem to LOVE the stuff. So that's the only beer we got for the wedding.
So tonight it was Yuengling Porter in pregame, followed by Lager, then Black & Tan, and now I'm on a Light Lager. If that's the lucky formula, I guess I'll be sticking with it tomorrow. Heading to a party after tomorrow's game. Hope the wife can drive.
Two more beer notes: the pubs in Ireland all have pretty much the same beers. Not all Irish beers, but they all have some combo of Guinness (obviously) and Smithwick's (obviously). Then they also all have Budweiser and Coors Light, but never Bud Lite or anything Miller. They ALL have Heineken, but not Amstel.
Got some fireworks on the field now, as Melancon hits the mouthy little weiner Pedroia. Does this guy ever shut up? There is absolutely no reason why Melancon would hit him, yet he's yapping like the little Shih Tzu that he is.
Been about two minutes and he's still flapping his gums.
Give Pedroia credit for going into second hard at Jeter. That's fine. Jeter smart to realize it's coming. I can't stand Pedroia, but the little bastard can play the game. A Yankee is going down in the bottom of the eighth. Sox obviously think Melancon's pitch was intentional. Oh, crap. Warnings were issued. Guess it'll happen early tomorrow, because Francona's not going to let one of his players get him suspended for a game.
We got married in Pennsylvania, where the very fine offerings of Yuengling are as inexpensive as crappo beer like Bud Lite and Coors Lite. And people seem to LOVE the stuff. So that's the only beer we got for the wedding.
So tonight it was Yuengling Porter in pregame, followed by Lager, then Black & Tan, and now I'm on a Light Lager. If that's the lucky formula, I guess I'll be sticking with it tomorrow. Heading to a party after tomorrow's game. Hope the wife can drive.
Two more beer notes: the pubs in Ireland all have pretty much the same beers. Not all Irish beers, but they all have some combo of Guinness (obviously) and Smithwick's (obviously). Then they also all have Budweiser and Coors Light, but never Bud Lite or anything Miller. They ALL have Heineken, but not Amstel.
Got some fireworks on the field now, as Melancon hits the mouthy little weiner Pedroia. Does this guy ever shut up? There is absolutely no reason why Melancon would hit him, yet he's yapping like the little Shih Tzu that he is.
Been about two minutes and he's still flapping his gums.
Give Pedroia credit for going into second hard at Jeter. That's fine. Jeter smart to realize it's coming. I can't stand Pedroia, but the little bastard can play the game. A Yankee is going down in the bottom of the eighth. Sox obviously think Melancon's pitch was intentional. Oh, crap. Warnings were issued. Guess it'll happen early tomorrow, because Francona's not going to let one of his players get him suspended for a game.
Heidi Hotney
I'm too nice. My wife has referred to two Yankee pitchers as "cute" tonight, one of them being Joba Chamberlain.
Yet I stifle my instincts to point out how absurdly hot Heidi Watney is. Something's not right here.
Yet I stifle my instincts to point out how absurdly hot Heidi Watney is. Something's not right here.
For the first time, I'm watching tonight's game live. Which means I'll also be seeing commercials for the first time, so I hope NESN has a funny one in the queue.
Dave Robertson in to pitch. Two Yankee pitchers, two "Ooh, he's cute" declarations from the Embassy wife. She'll be in trouble for this one. Not by me. I don't care. But by a friend of a friend of hers, who is actually married to him. You know how catty women can be.
Dave Robertson in to pitch. Two Yankee pitchers, two "Ooh, he's cute" declarations from the Embassy wife. She'll be in trouble for this one. Not by me. I don't care. But by a friend of a friend of hers, who is actually married to him. You know how catty women can be.
I called 5.1 innings and 110 pitches for Joba. He threw 108 and has gone 5. I assume his night is over. I hope it is. Though I'd bet he could put it all together for one good sixth, I don't see the point. They're supposed to be managing his innings, but it's really his pitches they should be worried about, and if they let him go out and warm up after 108 pitches, then throw another 15 or 20, it would be hard to take even their revised Joba Rules very seriously.
I think pitchers are way overprotected, but Joba has really labored tonight. The bullpen should not be too taxed. Anyway, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Let's get this win in the books. We haven't beaten these bastards all year, and one win guarantees we wake up Monday in first place. And we won't drop the next three, anyway.
My wife is currently breezing through another thick Harry Potter tome. She's read them all multiple times. The only person I've ever seen read faster than her is Will Hunting. Meanwhile I'm the slowest reader in the world. Maybe if I didn't waste my brain cells surfing the Internet for Red Sox columns to rip apart.
Matsui just rewarded me for my earlier Valentine to him with a two-run double. This year doesn't seem to be wearing him down. Maybe by next spring he's at full health for one or two more years of Matsui-level play. This guy was some player in his prime.
I think pitchers are way overprotected, but Joba has really labored tonight. The bullpen should not be too taxed. Anyway, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Let's get this win in the books. We haven't beaten these bastards all year, and one win guarantees we wake up Monday in first place. And we won't drop the next three, anyway.
My wife is currently breezing through another thick Harry Potter tome. She's read them all multiple times. The only person I've ever seen read faster than her is Will Hunting. Meanwhile I'm the slowest reader in the world. Maybe if I didn't waste my brain cells surfing the Internet for Red Sox columns to rip apart.
Matsui just rewarded me for my earlier Valentine to him with a two-run double. This year doesn't seem to be wearing him down. Maybe by next spring he's at full health for one or two more years of Matsui-level play. This guy was some player in his prime.
There's the Greatest of All Time, Muhammed Ali, getting his ear talked off by Reggie Jackson. I'm guessing the conversation goes something like this:
Jackson: "Champ, you're probably the only person in this world who can relate to the magnitude of me."
Ali: "Who the hell are you?"
Joba opens the fifth with six straight balls. OK, I guess 39 minutes is a long layoff. Now seven straight. And eight. And that's 89 pitches. Looks like my prediction is going to be right on.
Sarcastic cheer for Joba for strike one on Big Syringe. Hockey fans are so much better at the sarcastic cheer than baseball fans.
Apropos of nothing, but if you're a Yankee fan and you've never heard Don Orsillo do a game on NESN, tomorrow might not be a bad night to head to a friend's house in New Haven to watch the game on NESN. He's really good. The YES crew is fine, but you won't miss them for one night. Call my friends Ray and Sean. I'm sure they'll have you over. Sean makes a mean chicken marsala.
Jackson: "Champ, you're probably the only person in this world who can relate to the magnitude of me."
Ali: "Who the hell are you?"
Joba opens the fifth with six straight balls. OK, I guess 39 minutes is a long layoff. Now seven straight. And eight. And that's 89 pitches. Looks like my prediction is going to be right on.
Sarcastic cheer for Joba for strike one on Big Syringe. Hockey fans are so much better at the sarcastic cheer than baseball fans.
Apropos of nothing, but if you're a Yankee fan and you've never heard Don Orsillo do a game on NESN, tomorrow might not be a bad night to head to a friend's house in New Haven to watch the game on NESN. He's really good. The YES crew is fine, but you won't miss them for one night. Call my friends Ray and Sean. I'm sure they'll have you over. Sean makes a mean chicken marsala.
That's all for Smoltz. Glad my worst fears were not realized.
And as Billy Traber warms up to pitch to Hideki Matsui, I'd like to take a moment to rocognize Matsui as a worthy teammate to the Big Four (Jeter, Pettitte, Rivera and Posada), and a worthy recipient of the O'Neill-Brosius-Tino torch. This guy hit a grand slam in his first game as a Yankee, then absolutely ripped the Red Sox in the 2003 ALCS. I'll never forget the image of him sliding across the plate with the tying run in the eighth against Pedro, then popping up and going into a mad celebration. I'm really sorry to see the way he's broken down these last three years.
Obviously I'd want the Yankees to win the World Series if they had 25 Alex Rodriguezes, but if there's one guy I really want to see win one, it's Matsui.
And there he is, as if on cue, hustling his ass off to beat the throw from second by the tiniest of steps to get the Yankees their sixth run.
And now, by extension, their seventh, eighth and ninth, because the inning stayed alive and Jorge just crushed one. 9-3 Yanks. Joba, you'd better come out throwing strikes. I don't want to hear any crap about how the long layoff stiffens you up.
And as Billy Traber warms up to pitch to Hideki Matsui, I'd like to take a moment to rocognize Matsui as a worthy teammate to the Big Four (Jeter, Pettitte, Rivera and Posada), and a worthy recipient of the O'Neill-Brosius-Tino torch. This guy hit a grand slam in his first game as a Yankee, then absolutely ripped the Red Sox in the 2003 ALCS. I'll never forget the image of him sliding across the plate with the tying run in the eighth against Pedro, then popping up and going into a mad celebration. I'm really sorry to see the way he's broken down these last three years.
Obviously I'd want the Yankees to win the World Series if they had 25 Alex Rodriguezes, but if there's one guy I really want to see win one, it's Matsui.
And there he is, as if on cue, hustling his ass off to beat the throw from second by the tiniest of steps to get the Yankees their sixth run.
And now, by extension, their seventh, eighth and ninth, because the inning stayed alive and Jorge just crushed one. 9-3 Yanks. Joba, you'd better come out throwing strikes. I don't want to hear any crap about how the long layoff stiffens you up.
81 pitches for Joba through four. My prediction is looking pretty good.
Posada rips a double. Still pissed at him, but the guy can hit.
Six minutes behind live play as we start the bottom of the fourth, and the Yankees are hitting Smoltz pretty hard. Incidentally, the dual that Smoltz lost 1-0 to Andy Pettitte in Game Five of the 1996 World Series was easily one of the three or four best ballgames I've ever seen. I have that on tape and should watch it sometime soon. My wife wonders why I keep videotapes like this. I don't get women.
Posada rips a double. Still pissed at him, but the guy can hit.
Six minutes behind live play as we start the bottom of the fourth, and the Yankees are hitting Smoltz pretty hard. Incidentally, the dual that Smoltz lost 1-0 to Andy Pettitte in Game Five of the 1996 World Series was easily one of the three or four best ballgames I've ever seen. I have that on tape and should watch it sometime soon. My wife wonders why I keep videotapes like this. I don't get women.
The inevitable talk about how neither of these home runs -- Pedroia's or Damon's -- would have been out of Yankee Stadium last year. Never mind that. I saw a photo today of Dave Righetti's final pitch in his no-hitter against Boston. You could see the left-center field power alley over his shoulder. 430 feet. 4 effing 30. Then Woody Woodward became GM in 1985 and moved the fences in. That was the year I started reading Yankees Magazine, and I'd bet I still have that article.
I miss the old days when you could land a plane in the Stadium outfield. And I wasn't even around for the old days of 457 to right center and 461 to left center. Dammit, hitting a home run used to be hard. It meant something. Isn't that the way it should be? It's baseball, not home run derby.
I miss the old days when you could land a plane in the Stadium outfield. And I wasn't even around for the old days of 457 to right center and 461 to left center. Dammit, hitting a home run used to be hard. It meant something. Isn't that the way it should be? It's baseball, not home run derby.
Remeber what I said about Joba and throwing 110 pitches to get through 5.1 IP?
Oh, never mind. One pitch, one 4-6-3 DP for Big Juicer. Would have been a triple play if not for steroids.
Except that Ortiz would have been out of baseball years ago without steroids.
Lazy fly ball to end the third. DVR update: I go to the bottom of the third 10 minutes behind the live action.
Nice catch by Ellsbury. Red Sox Nation declares it the greatest catch of all time.
Oh, never mind. One pitch, one 4-6-3 DP for Big Juicer. Would have been a triple play if not for steroids.
Except that Ortiz would have been out of baseball years ago without steroids.
Lazy fly ball to end the third. DVR update: I go to the bottom of the third 10 minutes behind the live action.
Nice catch by Ellsbury. Red Sox Nation declares it the greatest catch of all time.
Just finished eating. Paused the game on DVR while cooking, so I'm 14 minutes behind. Therefore my posts will be behind until I catch up.
In a related story, it took me three tries to get the charcoal lit with the chimney starter. Finally got it going good. Actually, too good. Burnt the crap out of all four burgers. I don't think it's anything physical, but I may have to go to Scranton to work on my mechanics.
Meanwhile, Posada just cost the Yankees a run by not running hard from third to home on Swisher's would-be RBI single, and by basically copping a feel on Victor Martinez coming to the plate, rather than sliding or running him over. Looked like a big sissy. This, combined with that pathetic effort Friday night in Chicago in which he tried to rush a double play instead of making a sure out at home, tagging a runner with his glove while the ball was in his throwing hand. Needless to say, I'm not very happy with our catcher right now.
But at least he doesn't start fights while wearing his catcher's mask, unlike Boston's cowardly catcher. Excuse me -- backup catcher.
That's a huge run -- at least one run -- that the Yankees just gave away. Looks even more huge now that Dustin Gaedel has hit a Yankee Stadium cheapie. I'd advocate Joba drilling Pedroia, but the target is so small he might take 50 pitches to do it.
In a related story, it took me three tries to get the charcoal lit with the chimney starter. Finally got it going good. Actually, too good. Burnt the crap out of all four burgers. I don't think it's anything physical, but I may have to go to Scranton to work on my mechanics.
Meanwhile, Posada just cost the Yankees a run by not running hard from third to home on Swisher's would-be RBI single, and by basically copping a feel on Victor Martinez coming to the plate, rather than sliding or running him over. Looked like a big sissy. This, combined with that pathetic effort Friday night in Chicago in which he tried to rush a double play instead of making a sure out at home, tagging a runner with his glove while the ball was in his throwing hand. Needless to say, I'm not very happy with our catcher right now.
But at least he doesn't start fights while wearing his catcher's mask, unlike Boston's cowardly catcher. Excuse me -- backup catcher.
That's a huge run -- at least one run -- that the Yankees just gave away. Looks even more huge now that Dustin Gaedel has hit a Yankee Stadium cheapie. I'd advocate Joba drilling Pedroia, but the target is so small he might take 50 pitches to do it.
Here we go again
The Yankees got off to a nice start this year and the Red Sox struggled. Then Jason Bay crushed the hardest-hit home run ball I've ever seen anyone get against Mariano Rivera on the night of April 24 at Fenway Park, and the Red Sox were off and running -- off to an 8-0 record against the Yankees, and off to a long stretch of time in first place. The Yankees actually held a slim lead heading into the teams' three-game set in June, but that was quickly flopped.
After that, I hoped the Yankees would simply keep themselves within striking distance of the Red Sox. There was no reason to believe they would play so much better ball than Boston as to give themselves a lead of 2 1/2 games heading into this weekend's series. But here we are.
Who is the better team? Anyone watching baseball the last two months would have a hard time picking the Red Sox, but I saw one comment on ESPN, from a fan, that was dead-on: "You don't go 8-0 against a team that's better than you."
So what does it all mean? Were the Red Sox really that much better than the Yankees from late April through early June? They clearly were. And if things really haven't changed much since then, then I guess the Sox are going to win this series this weekend, too. So how much have things changed?
Let's start with the matchups. Chamberlain vs. Smoltz tonight. Clearly, the edge goes to Joba. But can't you just smell one of those can't-explain-it anomalies coming? You know, the one where Joba is erratic and needs 110 pitches to go 5.1 innings, while Smoltz, who has been smacked around by everyone but the Stratford Brakettes, puts it all together for one night?
I don't see why this would happen, and it's only one game, but suppose it does and the Red Sox win it. Now they're 9-0 heading into Friday's Beckett-Burnett showdown. You know you have to go with Beckett in that one. Burnett has stunk it up against Boston -- though he's been lights-out since -- while Beckett is at the top of his game right now. If that aforementioned scenario plays out, you can easily see the Yankees dropping the first two of this series.
Saturday should be a lock, with Sabathia against shaky Clay Buchholz. Sunday is a little closer, with Pettitte, who's been hot, against Lester, whose ERA is better but has not been overwhelming this year.
You can see this series being a split, but a win tonight should give the Yankees the inside track on taking 3 of 4 and increasing their lead to 4 1/2 games.
My original question: how much is different? What's different is pitching. How confident would you feel, Yankee fans, if a healthy Daisuke Matsuzaka were opposing Chamberlain tonight and a healthy Wakefield were going Saturday against CC? Still confident, but less confident, I would guess.
But that's not the case. And the Yankee bullpen is fortified for the series while the Sox pen is shaky -- though we have no Hughes tonight.
And anyway, how important is this series, anyway? Obviously the first eight games were important, but they weren't the be-all and end-all. If they were, the Yankees wouldn't be in first place. Say Boston sweeps this weekend. Now we're all sure the Yankees can't beat them -- until they get hot again against all the weaker sister and go back into first place, and then win the next series with Boston.
Yet, you get the feeling the Yankees are ready to win games like this. They are certainly due. Three of four puts them pretty comfortably in front, and the Red Sox more likely have to deal with Tampa and Texas just to get the wild card. That's my prediction.
Not that I won't take a sweep!
Some random thoughts: WEEI reported that David Ortiz would hold a press conference from Yankee Stadium at 3:30 today. Never happened, though WEEI.com now says it's scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Could it be that the information for which Ortiz was waiting turned out to be, "Hey Papi -- you really were busted for steroids"? Or could it be that he really has a good alibi and just wants to let Yankee fans rip him for two nights, then make asses of them Saturday? My guess is he's as guilty as anyone whose been caught, and he'll say the exact same things they did: Nothing. Well, nothing of value, anyway.
Watching the MLB Network pregame show now. The Embassy does not subscribe to the MLB Package and thus does not get games on the YES Network. Thus we here get to watch games on national TV, or when they play the Red Sox. Problem is I'm pretty sure the game will be blacked out here on MLBN, and I'll be stuck with the NESN broadcast, so hearing Jim Kaat's voice during the MLBN pregame show is nothing but a tease. I guess, right now, I wish he had gone to work full-time with NESN instead of just a temp role.
By the way, does Kaat have a roided-up son who can take the place of Jerry Remy's roided-up son? Bill Simmons, in a conversation with his Yankee-fan buddy Jack-O on the BS Report, seemed to think this story is going to become a real problem for the "Olde Towne Team." I don't know about that, but it sure would be fun. Incidentally, that podcast on Monday was the first one I ever downloaded to my iPod. Apparently Jack-O has a big following on Twitter. I may break my Twitter cherry with his tweets. Imagine Sports Guy humor, without the insufferable Red Sox propaganda.
Gotta get going to cook some pre-game burgers with the wife here at The Embassy, which has shut its doors to outsiders. Had my two best Boston friends here to watch the Sox last Friday. None of that this weekend. I want this to be all about rooting for the Yankees. Not interested in a fan rivalry, so the Embassy is in lockdown. All Sox fans who try to get in will be hit in the face with a cat.
Upcoming topics: the wedding and Ireland honeymoon, the AC/DC show, the start of Giants camp and some more fun with the Typical Boston Fan, a Boston blogger on whom I have missile lock.
Check for updates during the game. LET'S GO YANKEES!
After that, I hoped the Yankees would simply keep themselves within striking distance of the Red Sox. There was no reason to believe they would play so much better ball than Boston as to give themselves a lead of 2 1/2 games heading into this weekend's series. But here we are.
Who is the better team? Anyone watching baseball the last two months would have a hard time picking the Red Sox, but I saw one comment on ESPN, from a fan, that was dead-on: "You don't go 8-0 against a team that's better than you."
So what does it all mean? Were the Red Sox really that much better than the Yankees from late April through early June? They clearly were. And if things really haven't changed much since then, then I guess the Sox are going to win this series this weekend, too. So how much have things changed?
Let's start with the matchups. Chamberlain vs. Smoltz tonight. Clearly, the edge goes to Joba. But can't you just smell one of those can't-explain-it anomalies coming? You know, the one where Joba is erratic and needs 110 pitches to go 5.1 innings, while Smoltz, who has been smacked around by everyone but the Stratford Brakettes, puts it all together for one night?
I don't see why this would happen, and it's only one game, but suppose it does and the Red Sox win it. Now they're 9-0 heading into Friday's Beckett-Burnett showdown. You know you have to go with Beckett in that one. Burnett has stunk it up against Boston -- though he's been lights-out since -- while Beckett is at the top of his game right now. If that aforementioned scenario plays out, you can easily see the Yankees dropping the first two of this series.
Saturday should be a lock, with Sabathia against shaky Clay Buchholz. Sunday is a little closer, with Pettitte, who's been hot, against Lester, whose ERA is better but has not been overwhelming this year.
You can see this series being a split, but a win tonight should give the Yankees the inside track on taking 3 of 4 and increasing their lead to 4 1/2 games.
My original question: how much is different? What's different is pitching. How confident would you feel, Yankee fans, if a healthy Daisuke Matsuzaka were opposing Chamberlain tonight and a healthy Wakefield were going Saturday against CC? Still confident, but less confident, I would guess.
But that's not the case. And the Yankee bullpen is fortified for the series while the Sox pen is shaky -- though we have no Hughes tonight.
And anyway, how important is this series, anyway? Obviously the first eight games were important, but they weren't the be-all and end-all. If they were, the Yankees wouldn't be in first place. Say Boston sweeps this weekend. Now we're all sure the Yankees can't beat them -- until they get hot again against all the weaker sister and go back into first place, and then win the next series with Boston.
Yet, you get the feeling the Yankees are ready to win games like this. They are certainly due. Three of four puts them pretty comfortably in front, and the Red Sox more likely have to deal with Tampa and Texas just to get the wild card. That's my prediction.
Not that I won't take a sweep!
Some random thoughts: WEEI reported that David Ortiz would hold a press conference from Yankee Stadium at 3:30 today. Never happened, though WEEI.com now says it's scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Could it be that the information for which Ortiz was waiting turned out to be, "Hey Papi -- you really were busted for steroids"? Or could it be that he really has a good alibi and just wants to let Yankee fans rip him for two nights, then make asses of them Saturday? My guess is he's as guilty as anyone whose been caught, and he'll say the exact same things they did: Nothing. Well, nothing of value, anyway.
Watching the MLB Network pregame show now. The Embassy does not subscribe to the MLB Package and thus does not get games on the YES Network. Thus we here get to watch games on national TV, or when they play the Red Sox. Problem is I'm pretty sure the game will be blacked out here on MLBN, and I'll be stuck with the NESN broadcast, so hearing Jim Kaat's voice during the MLBN pregame show is nothing but a tease. I guess, right now, I wish he had gone to work full-time with NESN instead of just a temp role.
By the way, does Kaat have a roided-up son who can take the place of Jerry Remy's roided-up son? Bill Simmons, in a conversation with his Yankee-fan buddy Jack-O on the BS Report, seemed to think this story is going to become a real problem for the "Olde Towne Team." I don't know about that, but it sure would be fun. Incidentally, that podcast on Monday was the first one I ever downloaded to my iPod. Apparently Jack-O has a big following on Twitter. I may break my Twitter cherry with his tweets. Imagine Sports Guy humor, without the insufferable Red Sox propaganda.
Gotta get going to cook some pre-game burgers with the wife here at The Embassy, which has shut its doors to outsiders. Had my two best Boston friends here to watch the Sox last Friday. None of that this weekend. I want this to be all about rooting for the Yankees. Not interested in a fan rivalry, so the Embassy is in lockdown. All Sox fans who try to get in will be hit in the face with a cat.
Upcoming topics: the wedding and Ireland honeymoon, the AC/DC show, the start of Giants camp and some more fun with the Typical Boston Fan, a Boston blogger on whom I have missile lock.
Check for updates during the game. LET'S GO YANKEES!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Dammit. Another cheater.
I just get finished railing on Red Sox Nation -- which deserves to get railed on for its sanctimonious upbraiding of the Yankees as a team of "juicers" -- and then the Yankees go out and acquire another player who was fingered in the Mitchell Report.
I know we all need to move on from this steroid crap, but how are we going to do that? One way might be for a team to say, publicly, that while almost everyone currently lives under a cloud of suspicion, and we know we cannot guarantee our team is completely clean, we will do our best not to condone any use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
Therefore, a player who has been named in the Mitchell Report is not a player we want on our team.
I would love for the Yankees to take that kind of stand. Instead, they go and acquire Jerry Hairston.
I know we all need to move on from this steroid crap, but how are we going to do that? One way might be for a team to say, publicly, that while almost everyone currently lives under a cloud of suspicion, and we know we cannot guarantee our team is completely clean, we will do our best not to condone any use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
Therefore, a player who has been named in the Mitchell Report is not a player we want on our team.
I would love for the Yankees to take that kind of stand. Instead, they go and acquire Jerry Hairston.
Hypocrite Nation
I stopped in Newbury Comics last week to buy some used CDs. Had never been there before. The place is not what I expected. It’s almost like a mini-Target. They’ve got everything in there. Well, not everything, but it’s a pop-culture heaven.
In Boston, of course, pop culture includes Sox-loving – or Yankee-hating. The two are one and the same. So there, among a selection of T-shirts, was one with what appeared to be the Yankees’ baseball-and-top-hat logo. Only instead of the script “Yankees,” the word on the logo was “Juicers.”
I’ve seen this shirt on Sox fans around town, and others like it. I’ve also listened to Sox fans call the Yankees’ championships a fraud, heard them chant “STEROIDS” during Alex Rodriguez’s at bats at Fenway, and read screeds from a blogger calling himself “Typical Boston Fan” about T-shirts that proclaim the new Yankee Stadium as the “House that Juice Built.”
I snickered at the unbelievable naivety and hypocrisy of the Red S*x fans. Let’s be honest here. Anyone who thinks that their teams were clean just because their stars’ names didn’t appear in the Mitchell Report, which was compiled by a member of the RED SOX BOARD OF DIRECTORS and mainly based on two sources – both in New York – was kidding themselves.
Granted, Sox fans never let inconvenient things such as facts or common sense interfere with their irrational hatred of the Yankees. (Irrational hatred? Aren’t Sox fans allowed to hate their rival? Sure, but they go way too far. More on that later.) But there was nothing a Yankee fan, especially one like me, living in Boston, could do or say about it. There was no proof.
Then in May, Manny Ramirez was reported to have tested positive for a banned substance, one that is used to mask steroid use. The veneer started to come off the Red Sox and their lovable, “wonderful-for-baseball” storybook championship of 2004 and their follow-up of 2007.
Still, the chants at Fenway continued, as Peter Abraham noted in his excellent Yankee blog (that thing has been invaluable to me in a year when I can only watch the Yankees a few times a month). “It must be ‘Oblivious Hypocrites Night’ here at Fenway,” he wrote.
Now, we know just how right Abraham was in his description of Red Sox Nation. As of yesterday, the other half of the greatest 3-4 hitting combo I have seen in my lifetime – maybe the best one since Mantle and Maris – has been shown to be nothing but a steroid creation. David Ortiz is a steroid cheat.
That’s right. Lovable Big Papi. And I’m not condescending by calling him that. I always liked him. He was pleasant and classy. I thought. But something was always not right. How a guy went from a pedestrian first baseman to one of the most feared clutch sluggers in the game in a span of a few months of the 2003 season smelled awfully fishy. To anyone.
Anyone with common sense, that is.
Now it can be said. 2004 WAS A FRAUD. 2007 WAS A FRAUD. The Red Sox were not the saviors you thought they were, Red Sox Nation.
But you acted as if the Red Sox were the only clean angels in a sea of dirty devils, and you, with your irrational hatred of New York held the dirty tests of A-Rod, Clemens and Sheffield high over your heads in a show of unwarranted bravado.
Now, you get what you deserve.
This is not a day to celebrate. As a Yankee fan, the proving of Boston’s titles as tainted does not erase the taint on the ones the Yankees won in the previous decade – though our 1996 title looks pretty clean! Only a loser builds himself up by tearing down others. I experienced joy beyond my wildest dreams from 1996 right on up through Aaron Boone’s home run, easily the happiest moment of my sports-fan life. And it makes me sad that these moments were not as pure as I thought they were.
But Red Sox fans, not content just to enjoy their new-found success – or everything else that is great about being a sports fan in this city, and there’s a lot – decided instead to tear away at the Yankees’ dynasty, ignoring the likelihood that their own was just as fraudulent.
How tasty it is, then, that the Red Sox and “Big Steroid” get to play at Yankee Stadium starting next Thursday.
I want to hear it loud and clear, Yankee fans. “STER-OIDS. STER-OIDS. STER-OIDS.” I want to hear it every time Ortiz comes to the plate. Not because I’m angry at him. Not because the Yankees are clean. They’re not. Not as long as Rodriguez is on the team.
But because it’s time for Sox fans to be reminded, over and over, in loud voices, what oblivious hypocrites they are. And Peter Abraham and others will yell that the Yankee fans are showing themselves to be "no better than anyone else" or are hypocrites. Fine. Let Ortiz -- and by extension Red Sox Nation -- have it.
Or maybe, just whip out an old chant. One that is a perfectly valid reminder of the last time the Boston Red Sox legitimately won a World Series. 1918.
In Boston, of course, pop culture includes Sox-loving – or Yankee-hating. The two are one and the same. So there, among a selection of T-shirts, was one with what appeared to be the Yankees’ baseball-and-top-hat logo. Only instead of the script “Yankees,” the word on the logo was “Juicers.”
I’ve seen this shirt on Sox fans around town, and others like it. I’ve also listened to Sox fans call the Yankees’ championships a fraud, heard them chant “STEROIDS” during Alex Rodriguez’s at bats at Fenway, and read screeds from a blogger calling himself “Typical Boston Fan” about T-shirts that proclaim the new Yankee Stadium as the “House that Juice Built.”
I snickered at the unbelievable naivety and hypocrisy of the Red S*x fans. Let’s be honest here. Anyone who thinks that their teams were clean just because their stars’ names didn’t appear in the Mitchell Report, which was compiled by a member of the RED SOX BOARD OF DIRECTORS and mainly based on two sources – both in New York – was kidding themselves.
Granted, Sox fans never let inconvenient things such as facts or common sense interfere with their irrational hatred of the Yankees. (Irrational hatred? Aren’t Sox fans allowed to hate their rival? Sure, but they go way too far. More on that later.) But there was nothing a Yankee fan, especially one like me, living in Boston, could do or say about it. There was no proof.
Then in May, Manny Ramirez was reported to have tested positive for a banned substance, one that is used to mask steroid use. The veneer started to come off the Red Sox and their lovable, “wonderful-for-baseball” storybook championship of 2004 and their follow-up of 2007.
Still, the chants at Fenway continued, as Peter Abraham noted in his excellent Yankee blog (that thing has been invaluable to me in a year when I can only watch the Yankees a few times a month). “It must be ‘Oblivious Hypocrites Night’ here at Fenway,” he wrote.
Now, we know just how right Abraham was in his description of Red Sox Nation. As of yesterday, the other half of the greatest 3-4 hitting combo I have seen in my lifetime – maybe the best one since Mantle and Maris – has been shown to be nothing but a steroid creation. David Ortiz is a steroid cheat.
That’s right. Lovable Big Papi. And I’m not condescending by calling him that. I always liked him. He was pleasant and classy. I thought. But something was always not right. How a guy went from a pedestrian first baseman to one of the most feared clutch sluggers in the game in a span of a few months of the 2003 season smelled awfully fishy. To anyone.
Anyone with common sense, that is.
Now it can be said. 2004 WAS A FRAUD. 2007 WAS A FRAUD. The Red Sox were not the saviors you thought they were, Red Sox Nation.
But you acted as if the Red Sox were the only clean angels in a sea of dirty devils, and you, with your irrational hatred of New York held the dirty tests of A-Rod, Clemens and Sheffield high over your heads in a show of unwarranted bravado.
Now, you get what you deserve.
This is not a day to celebrate. As a Yankee fan, the proving of Boston’s titles as tainted does not erase the taint on the ones the Yankees won in the previous decade – though our 1996 title looks pretty clean! Only a loser builds himself up by tearing down others. I experienced joy beyond my wildest dreams from 1996 right on up through Aaron Boone’s home run, easily the happiest moment of my sports-fan life. And it makes me sad that these moments were not as pure as I thought they were.
But Red Sox fans, not content just to enjoy their new-found success – or everything else that is great about being a sports fan in this city, and there’s a lot – decided instead to tear away at the Yankees’ dynasty, ignoring the likelihood that their own was just as fraudulent.
How tasty it is, then, that the Red Sox and “Big Steroid” get to play at Yankee Stadium starting next Thursday.
I want to hear it loud and clear, Yankee fans. “STER-OIDS. STER-OIDS. STER-OIDS.” I want to hear it every time Ortiz comes to the plate. Not because I’m angry at him. Not because the Yankees are clean. They’re not. Not as long as Rodriguez is on the team.
But because it’s time for Sox fans to be reminded, over and over, in loud voices, what oblivious hypocrites they are. And Peter Abraham and others will yell that the Yankee fans are showing themselves to be "no better than anyone else" or are hypocrites. Fine. Let Ortiz -- and by extension Red Sox Nation -- have it.
Or maybe, just whip out an old chant. One that is a perfectly valid reminder of the last time the Boston Red Sox legitimately won a World Series. 1918.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Whither Halladay
Are you like me? Do you get seriously irritated that you can't enjoy a Yankee victory, or even a 2 1/2 game lead, without some annoying Red S*x fan (redundant) throwing out that tired mantra: "Yeah, well, for $200 million, you oughtta win a couple."? It's annoying because to some degree it's true. It's more annoying because the Red S*x use their financial might almost as much as the Yankees do, yet S*x fans seem to ignore this, but whatever.
The fact remains: it would be sweeter to watch the Yankees win with what they have now, or maybe make a tweak or two to the roster, rather than have them go out and bring in another ace. Yes, the Yankees can go out right now and get Roy Halladay from the Blue Jays. They obviously can afford his contract, and to resign him to a bigger one later, something Toronto cannot. They also have the prospects the Blue Jays would require to pry loose arguably the best pitcher in franchise history (No offense to David Cone, Dave Stieb or Jimmy Key).
Would getting Halladay guarantee the Yankees a world championship? There are no guarantees in sports, but this would come pretty damned close to it. But is that really what we want? Do we need a sure thing today that mortgages tomorrow? Besides -- what happens if the Yankees fail in October with Halladay and then watch those prospects that they were counting on to help the team contend in the future blossom elsewhere? Just go sign more free agents? We've seen how well that's worked out. And we've learned that in October, nothing is guaranteed.
Before we pooh-pooh a Halladay deal, however, there is this to consider: The Red S*x are in virtually the same position. They have the money and the chips to bring this guy into their fold. Now, they operate on a similar mindset. The Yankees have held onto their young players fiercely the last few years (and it's paying off awfully well with Cano, Hughes, and even a currently underwhelming Joba). The Red S*x have never trucked out their best young players for veteran stars -- the Josh Beckett trade being the lone notable exception.
But the S*x are now 2 1/2 games out of first, and Beantowners are a reactionary lot just like New Yorkers. They are feeling the pressure, and they are making sure Theo Epstein feels it, too. They could swing a Halladay deal. That would give them this rotation for the playoffs: Beckett-Halladay-Lester-insert name here (could be Penny, Wakefield if healthy, Matsuzaka if healthy -- it's just a fourth starter).
How comfortable are you with that, Yankee fans? I'm not very comfortable with that, Yankee fans. Nor am I thrilled with the possibility of the Rays getting him. They have the prospects to deal, as well. It's only a matter of their deciding they can afford his contract. With their window of opportunity clearly being open right now, they just might make that bold decision.
Personally, I'd like to see the Phillies swoop in and grab Halladay right now and put my mind at ease (at least until the World Series). Until then, the Yankees must ask themselves: Can we win the pennant if Roy Halladay goes to Boston or Tampa, and are we willing to bet that he doesn't?
The fact remains: it would be sweeter to watch the Yankees win with what they have now, or maybe make a tweak or two to the roster, rather than have them go out and bring in another ace. Yes, the Yankees can go out right now and get Roy Halladay from the Blue Jays. They obviously can afford his contract, and to resign him to a bigger one later, something Toronto cannot. They also have the prospects the Blue Jays would require to pry loose arguably the best pitcher in franchise history (No offense to David Cone, Dave Stieb or Jimmy Key).
Would getting Halladay guarantee the Yankees a world championship? There are no guarantees in sports, but this would come pretty damned close to it. But is that really what we want? Do we need a sure thing today that mortgages tomorrow? Besides -- what happens if the Yankees fail in October with Halladay and then watch those prospects that they were counting on to help the team contend in the future blossom elsewhere? Just go sign more free agents? We've seen how well that's worked out. And we've learned that in October, nothing is guaranteed.
Before we pooh-pooh a Halladay deal, however, there is this to consider: The Red S*x are in virtually the same position. They have the money and the chips to bring this guy into their fold. Now, they operate on a similar mindset. The Yankees have held onto their young players fiercely the last few years (and it's paying off awfully well with Cano, Hughes, and even a currently underwhelming Joba). The Red S*x have never trucked out their best young players for veteran stars -- the Josh Beckett trade being the lone notable exception.
But the S*x are now 2 1/2 games out of first, and Beantowners are a reactionary lot just like New Yorkers. They are feeling the pressure, and they are making sure Theo Epstein feels it, too. They could swing a Halladay deal. That would give them this rotation for the playoffs: Beckett-Halladay-Lester-insert name here (could be Penny, Wakefield if healthy, Matsuzaka if healthy -- it's just a fourth starter).
How comfortable are you with that, Yankee fans? I'm not very comfortable with that, Yankee fans. Nor am I thrilled with the possibility of the Rays getting him. They have the prospects to deal, as well. It's only a matter of their deciding they can afford his contract. With their window of opportunity clearly being open right now, they just might make that bold decision.
Personally, I'd like to see the Phillies swoop in and grab Halladay right now and put my mind at ease (at least until the World Series). Until then, the Yankees must ask themselves: Can we win the pennant if Roy Halladay goes to Boston or Tampa, and are we willing to bet that he doesn't?
Thursday, July 23, 2009
No, Kitty. Bad Kitty.
I, like any sensible Yankee fan, was awfully sorry to see Jim Kaat retire from the Yankees' broadcast booth after 22 seasons of straight talk. I don't have a big problem with anyone in the Bombers' TV booth right now (we'll leave the radio people aside -- that's a story for another day), but Kaat had a different presence. I don't want to say it was "regal." That's getting a little carried away. But Kaat was just above the pandering and the gimmickery that are nearly ubiquitous in the 21st-century TV booth. He never insulted anyone's intelligence. And for as intelligent as Yankee fans are as a fan base, I believe that the fact that John Sterling remains our radio play-by-play guy has to be seen as at least a slight indictment of us. Either that, or it's proof positive that most fans will listen to their team's games on the radio when they can't see them on TV -- in the car, at the beach, or wherever makes sense -- regardless of how bad the play-by-play guy is.
So it was sad to see Kaat leave. Imagine my horror, then, we I turned on a Sox game on NESN Friday night -- unbeknownst to me, DirecTV was offering a week-long free preview of the MLB Extra Innings package, and I could have watched the Yankees -- and heard what I distinctly recognized right away as the voice of Jim Kaat. I couldn't stand that thought that Kaat had "retired" in 2006 only because he wanted to get away from New York, only to grab not just another job, but the same job with the godforsaken Red S*x.
Fortunately, Kaat was only filling in for Jerry Remy. The man Red S*x fans affectionately call RemDawg is on sabbatical after undergoing cancer surgery. He is a local treasure. He is nothing like Kaat. He is an unabashed homer and he is edgy, but he's very good and extremely genuine, as far as I can tell from my limited time spent in from of the enemy's games on TV. Kaat continues to blog for the YES Network Web site and is under contract to Major League Baseball. He is not a fulltime color guy for the Red S*x or NESN. I'm glad.
Kaat is 70 years old. I doubt he'll be working regularly in a booth again. But if he does, I sure hope it's the Yankees' booth.
So it was sad to see Kaat leave. Imagine my horror, then, we I turned on a Sox game on NESN Friday night -- unbeknownst to me, DirecTV was offering a week-long free preview of the MLB Extra Innings package, and I could have watched the Yankees -- and heard what I distinctly recognized right away as the voice of Jim Kaat. I couldn't stand that thought that Kaat had "retired" in 2006 only because he wanted to get away from New York, only to grab not just another job, but the same job with the godforsaken Red S*x.
Fortunately, Kaat was only filling in for Jerry Remy. The man Red S*x fans affectionately call RemDawg is on sabbatical after undergoing cancer surgery. He is a local treasure. He is nothing like Kaat. He is an unabashed homer and he is edgy, but he's very good and extremely genuine, as far as I can tell from my limited time spent in from of the enemy's games on TV. Kaat continues to blog for the YES Network Web site and is under contract to Major League Baseball. He is not a fulltime color guy for the Red S*x or NESN. I'm glad.
Kaat is 70 years old. I doubt he'll be working regularly in a booth again. But if he does, I sure hope it's the Yankees' booth.
A time to get married, and a time to blog.
Getting married is a lot of work. That probably means that five months before your wedding is not the best time to launch a blog. Certainly not one that you hope to get significant readership and end up as a link on Peter Abraham's blog. But I did it, and I've been grateful for the feedback I've gotten from a lot of you. It has encouraged me to believe that this is something I should continue to pursue.
My sports teams are my lifelong passion -- the Yankees especially -- and writing has been my avocation for a long time now. I have always been a stickler for the rules of grammar and style in my 12 years as an editor and writer in the world of journalism. I'm anal like that, and, I don't mind saying, I'm a pretty good arbiter of those things.
But sometimes, you just want to let some of those things go (by starting a sentence with the word "but," for instance) and just write the way you would talk with a friend over a beer (something I spent hours and hours doing in Ireland on my honeymoon. I don't know if you've heard, but beer is kinda big over there). Hence, the blog. As with most technical advances, I rejected it for years, as I'm currently doing with Twitter. This was stupid. I have a lot to say, and the Yankees are making for some compelling content right now. The blog is my natural ally.
Therefore I am making my pledge to post much more frequently from here on out. The wedding and honeymoon are over. My wife and I have a lot of big projects and decisions to handle in the next few months (no, a baby is not one of them, though a puppy certainly might be!), but there is no reason I can't take a few moments each day to offer my take on what's going on in the greatest rivalry in sports.
I make this pledge in public because now I have to hold myself to it. And I want all of YOU to hold me to it.
Let's get blogging, and LET'S GO YANKEES!
My sports teams are my lifelong passion -- the Yankees especially -- and writing has been my avocation for a long time now. I have always been a stickler for the rules of grammar and style in my 12 years as an editor and writer in the world of journalism. I'm anal like that, and, I don't mind saying, I'm a pretty good arbiter of those things.
But sometimes, you just want to let some of those things go (by starting a sentence with the word "but," for instance) and just write the way you would talk with a friend over a beer (something I spent hours and hours doing in Ireland on my honeymoon. I don't know if you've heard, but beer is kinda big over there). Hence, the blog. As with most technical advances, I rejected it for years, as I'm currently doing with Twitter. This was stupid. I have a lot to say, and the Yankees are making for some compelling content right now. The blog is my natural ally.
Therefore I am making my pledge to post much more frequently from here on out. The wedding and honeymoon are over. My wife and I have a lot of big projects and decisions to handle in the next few months (no, a baby is not one of them, though a puppy certainly might be!), but there is no reason I can't take a few moments each day to offer my take on what's going on in the greatest rivalry in sports.
I make this pledge in public because now I have to hold myself to it. And I want all of YOU to hold me to it.
Let's get blogging, and LET'S GO YANKEES!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Magic Stadium
So I got married last weekend, right? And now I'm in Ireland on my honeymoon, and I want this to be the best vacation of all time. And I'm pretty easy. If my wife is happy, I'm happy. She has a few things she absolutely must see and do while we're here. Sleep in castle -- check. Get massage -- check. Drink Guinness -- check (obv).
I have the same requirement for this trip as I have for most: I must attend some sort of sporting event. If I'm out and around the States, I have to go to a baseball or football game. If it's abroad, it's usually soccer, as it was in England (Arsenal) or Germany (Bayern Munich). In some countries you can be a little more exotic and unfamliar -- such as the bullfight I attended Easter Sunday in Madrid in 1998. Pretty hideous sport, bullfighting, by the way. I'm glad I went, but I'm not going again. It's morally indefensible.
Ireland, of course, has soccer, but it's not the season, and their play doesn't quite compare to England's or Germany's. Not that I couldn't enjoy it, but, as I said, it's not the season.
But Ireland is known not for what most other countries call football, and certainly not for what Americans call football. They have their own football. Gaelic football. It's similar to rugby, but much, much faster. It's not that easy to watch on TV, but I was hoping to catch a match live, which is the only way to really experience any sport.
This time of year brings some healthy competition. There is the All-Ireland tournament going on right now, and the teams that did not advance to the provincial finals -- Ireland has four provinces, and each has it's own football championship -- are playing single-elimination matches right now to try to move on. A bunch of those matches were played yesterday, and my wife and I thought that we'd attend. We'd have loved to see Donegal. They played yesterday in the town of Ballybofey (one of my favorite Irish town names). Donegal was our first stop in Ireland, and we are completely in love with this place. But we left there Friday, so there was no way we were going all the way back to see them play. I was pleased to check the paper and see they won, though it was obvious that whoever wrote the 100-word blurb on the match was hardly impressed.
Our other option for yesterday was to venture from Galway (where we stayed after Donegal) to Mullingar, in County Westmeath, for a 7 p.m. match. Westmeath haven't beaten Meath in championship play. Ever. 0-19-2. I decided that was the one to see. I could get behind an underdog like that, and if Westmeath were to win, I would have made sure to let the locals know later in the pubs that I was at my first Gaelic game and had clearly brought their team luck, and they would have bought me pints all night.
But that was a long drive into an unfamiliar place, and it would have left us driving back across the country late at night. If we're going to drive somewhere for a match, it should be somewhere we can just stay a while. Like, say, Dublin! The Dubs were hosting the Leinster championship today at 2 p.m. at Croke Park Stadium, an 85,000-seat beast. The NFL should absolutely hold one of it's international showcases here. It's right in a local Dublin neighborhood -- as a stadium should be.
So we left this morning, made the drive from West Coast to East (Ireland is a great place to drive, by the way) and got checked into our hotel just in time to get to the match a few minutes early. Problem: we had no tickets. Nobody seemed to be able to tell us how to get any. We figured we could try at the stadium box office -- if there even is such a thing.
We got out of a taxi about a mile from the stadium and followed the crowd of blue-clad Dubs supporters eager to see a fifth straight Leinster crown for their team (which kind of made me root for Kildare, even though they go by the sad nickname of the Lilywhites). We got to within two blocks of the stadium and found that there was a gate, guarded by uniformed officers who seemed to be making walkers show their tickets to get past. I asked if he knew anything about whether tickets might be available at the stadium. We seemed to have a communication breakdown, but he said something like "ask the guard" and let us through.
When we got to the last block before the stadium, it was shoulder-to-shoulder, with another uniformed officer ushering people past the corner and onto the narrow street on which the entrance to Croke Park stadium stood. I asked him if he knew if they had tickets. "Where do you want to go?" he asked. "Wherever."
He pulled out a wad from his pocket that contained both paper money and a bunch of bent-up tickets. "Don't know if I have two together." Somehow, without my asking, a cop had become, apparently, a ticket scalper.
Finally, he pulls out a pair that were attached. Clearly, two seats together. Section 307. Lower level. Side. Great. He must want at least 100 euro for them.
"How much?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Are you serious?"
"Have fun."
I have no idea why this happened. My guess is that he, as a cop or stadium security officer, had confiscated the tickets from scalpers and was just happy to give them to a couple who clearly were just going to attend the game. Whatever.
The seats were great, and the game was tremendous. It's a very easy sport to follow, even if you can't figure out all of the rules. Dublin jumped out to a big early lead, but Kildare came back and actually led three times by a point, including 12-11 at halftime, before falling 21-18. (The scoring actually is a little more complicated than that, but 21-18 tells you all you really need to know.)
So, we got to the stadium with no idea how or if we'd get tickets, got great seats for FREE, and fell in love with a new sport, one that I could easily see myself following. My wife dubbed Croke Park "The Magic Stadium."
Indeed.
I have the same requirement for this trip as I have for most: I must attend some sort of sporting event. If I'm out and around the States, I have to go to a baseball or football game. If it's abroad, it's usually soccer, as it was in England (Arsenal) or Germany (Bayern Munich). In some countries you can be a little more exotic and unfamliar -- such as the bullfight I attended Easter Sunday in Madrid in 1998. Pretty hideous sport, bullfighting, by the way. I'm glad I went, but I'm not going again. It's morally indefensible.
Ireland, of course, has soccer, but it's not the season, and their play doesn't quite compare to England's or Germany's. Not that I couldn't enjoy it, but, as I said, it's not the season.
But Ireland is known not for what most other countries call football, and certainly not for what Americans call football. They have their own football. Gaelic football. It's similar to rugby, but much, much faster. It's not that easy to watch on TV, but I was hoping to catch a match live, which is the only way to really experience any sport.
This time of year brings some healthy competition. There is the All-Ireland tournament going on right now, and the teams that did not advance to the provincial finals -- Ireland has four provinces, and each has it's own football championship -- are playing single-elimination matches right now to try to move on. A bunch of those matches were played yesterday, and my wife and I thought that we'd attend. We'd have loved to see Donegal. They played yesterday in the town of Ballybofey (one of my favorite Irish town names). Donegal was our first stop in Ireland, and we are completely in love with this place. But we left there Friday, so there was no way we were going all the way back to see them play. I was pleased to check the paper and see they won, though it was obvious that whoever wrote the 100-word blurb on the match was hardly impressed.
Our other option for yesterday was to venture from Galway (where we stayed after Donegal) to Mullingar, in County Westmeath, for a 7 p.m. match. Westmeath haven't beaten Meath in championship play. Ever. 0-19-2. I decided that was the one to see. I could get behind an underdog like that, and if Westmeath were to win, I would have made sure to let the locals know later in the pubs that I was at my first Gaelic game and had clearly brought their team luck, and they would have bought me pints all night.
But that was a long drive into an unfamiliar place, and it would have left us driving back across the country late at night. If we're going to drive somewhere for a match, it should be somewhere we can just stay a while. Like, say, Dublin! The Dubs were hosting the Leinster championship today at 2 p.m. at Croke Park Stadium, an 85,000-seat beast. The NFL should absolutely hold one of it's international showcases here. It's right in a local Dublin neighborhood -- as a stadium should be.
So we left this morning, made the drive from West Coast to East (Ireland is a great place to drive, by the way) and got checked into our hotel just in time to get to the match a few minutes early. Problem: we had no tickets. Nobody seemed to be able to tell us how to get any. We figured we could try at the stadium box office -- if there even is such a thing.
We got out of a taxi about a mile from the stadium and followed the crowd of blue-clad Dubs supporters eager to see a fifth straight Leinster crown for their team (which kind of made me root for Kildare, even though they go by the sad nickname of the Lilywhites). We got to within two blocks of the stadium and found that there was a gate, guarded by uniformed officers who seemed to be making walkers show their tickets to get past. I asked if he knew anything about whether tickets might be available at the stadium. We seemed to have a communication breakdown, but he said something like "ask the guard" and let us through.
When we got to the last block before the stadium, it was shoulder-to-shoulder, with another uniformed officer ushering people past the corner and onto the narrow street on which the entrance to Croke Park stadium stood. I asked him if he knew if they had tickets. "Where do you want to go?" he asked. "Wherever."
He pulled out a wad from his pocket that contained both paper money and a bunch of bent-up tickets. "Don't know if I have two together." Somehow, without my asking, a cop had become, apparently, a ticket scalper.
Finally, he pulls out a pair that were attached. Clearly, two seats together. Section 307. Lower level. Side. Great. He must want at least 100 euro for them.
"How much?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Are you serious?"
"Have fun."
I have no idea why this happened. My guess is that he, as a cop or stadium security officer, had confiscated the tickets from scalpers and was just happy to give them to a couple who clearly were just going to attend the game. Whatever.
The seats were great, and the game was tremendous. It's a very easy sport to follow, even if you can't figure out all of the rules. Dublin jumped out to a big early lead, but Kildare came back and actually led three times by a point, including 12-11 at halftime, before falling 21-18. (The scoring actually is a little more complicated than that, but 21-18 tells you all you really need to know.)
So, we got to the stadium with no idea how or if we'd get tickets, got great seats for FREE, and fell in love with a new sport, one that I could easily see myself following. My wife dubbed Croke Park "The Magic Stadium."
Indeed.
Friday, July 3, 2009
BOYCOTT SELECTION SHOWS!
That's right, I said it. I am calling on you, my loyal readers, to strike a blow against the commoditization of sports information by refusing to watch these made-for-TV-money dog-and-pony shows we call "selection shows."
You would expect a column like this might appear in March, when the most famous of these shows airs. I'll get back to that one in a minute.
I got e-mail reminders yesterday that it was the last day to vote for baseball's all-stars. Seeing that Kevin Youkilis held a slim lead over Mark Teixeira for the starting spot at first base, I rushed online and voted the maximum number of times -- 25 -- for Teixeira.
Voting ended at midnight last night, so I went online this morning and looked to find out the results. Instead, all I found out is that the results will be announced on a TBS selection show, airing Sunday night.
Well, screw that. I shouldn't have to wait until Sunday night to find out the results. Does the Electoral College hold on to the results of a presidential election so Fox News can hold a selection show on Thursday night? Hell, no. The public gets the information when it's available, disseminated through any legitimate news source.
Why can't MLB just announced the results of the all-star voting? Well, it can. But it won't. Not as long as it knows it can package the results in a made-for-profit venture with a business partner.
But guess what. If nobody watched this crap, they wouldn't do it. So the question is: can you hold off a few hours and get the news somewhere else?
I know I can. I came a little late to the March Madness game. I never watched college hoops until I got to college, so it never occurred to me I was supposed to be watching these selection shows. I found out the next day in the newspaper. And just like the rest of you, I ooed and ahhed a little at some of the matchups, at the surprise snubs and last teams in, and, of course, at the matchups for my favorite (Syracuse) and least favorite (UConn) schools. I just did my ooing and ahhing about 12 hours later.
A few years ago I finally watched a selection show for the first time. You know what? I hadn't really been missing anything. Those cameras on the bubble teams as they got in the dance? It is a little nice to see the reaction, but not very insightful. A team that was worried about its chances gets in and is excited. REALLY? NO KIDDING!
The show is a waste of time, and nothing but a money-maker for CBS. But at least that one gives you the results right on time.
This TBS show on Sunday is delaying by two-and-a-half days the release of information that should come out right now. Please. I beg you. Do not condone this by watching the show. Visit one of God-knows-how-many Web sites later and find out who will be starting the All-Star Game.
You would expect a column like this might appear in March, when the most famous of these shows airs. I'll get back to that one in a minute.
I got e-mail reminders yesterday that it was the last day to vote for baseball's all-stars. Seeing that Kevin Youkilis held a slim lead over Mark Teixeira for the starting spot at first base, I rushed online and voted the maximum number of times -- 25 -- for Teixeira.
Voting ended at midnight last night, so I went online this morning and looked to find out the results. Instead, all I found out is that the results will be announced on a TBS selection show, airing Sunday night.
Well, screw that. I shouldn't have to wait until Sunday night to find out the results. Does the Electoral College hold on to the results of a presidential election so Fox News can hold a selection show on Thursday night? Hell, no. The public gets the information when it's available, disseminated through any legitimate news source.
Why can't MLB just announced the results of the all-star voting? Well, it can. But it won't. Not as long as it knows it can package the results in a made-for-profit venture with a business partner.
But guess what. If nobody watched this crap, they wouldn't do it. So the question is: can you hold off a few hours and get the news somewhere else?
I know I can. I came a little late to the March Madness game. I never watched college hoops until I got to college, so it never occurred to me I was supposed to be watching these selection shows. I found out the next day in the newspaper. And just like the rest of you, I ooed and ahhed a little at some of the matchups, at the surprise snubs and last teams in, and, of course, at the matchups for my favorite (Syracuse) and least favorite (UConn) schools. I just did my ooing and ahhing about 12 hours later.
A few years ago I finally watched a selection show for the first time. You know what? I hadn't really been missing anything. Those cameras on the bubble teams as they got in the dance? It is a little nice to see the reaction, but not very insightful. A team that was worried about its chances gets in and is excited. REALLY? NO KIDDING!
The show is a waste of time, and nothing but a money-maker for CBS. But at least that one gives you the results right on time.
This TBS show on Sunday is delaying by two-and-a-half days the release of information that should come out right now. Please. I beg you. Do not condone this by watching the show. Visit one of God-knows-how-many Web sites later and find out who will be starting the All-Star Game.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Just run, dammit.
Baseball broadcasters are at their righteous best when berating players for not running out grounders and pop-ups, and while they are 100-percent right, rarely do we get to see major consequences of not running -- or of running.
But the last two days have given us two examples. The first one will be forgotten easily. David Ortiz was lollygagging when Johnny Damon dropped his routine fly ball in left field Thursday at Fenway Park. Ortiz ended up with a single when he should have been at least at second base, no matter how slow he may be. The inning ended one batter later, so Ortiz's poor baserunning, like Damon's embarrassing error, was rendered meaningless.
Much more meaningful was Luis Castillo's drop of Alex Rodriguez's routine pop-up behind second base, which should have sealed an 8-7 win for the Mets. The tying run, Derek Jeter, could have walked home -- and Jeter almost never turns off his hustle. Mark Teixeira, however, needed to be motoring to score from first base. Most players would have been taking it easy, expecting, understandably, the ball to be caught. Teixeira, however, was doing what he should have been doing -- running as if he wanted to score the winning run in the event the ball was dropped. It was, and he did. The Yankees caught the type of break you can hope for about once every 15 years.
The major lesson to be learned, however, should not be that it pays to run in case a ball is dropped. It should be this: Major League ballplayers are able-bodied men. There is absolutely no reason not to be running hard on every grounder, or on every fly ball or pop-up with two outs.
I know. "Keep dreaming, Phil." Sad.
But the last two days have given us two examples. The first one will be forgotten easily. David Ortiz was lollygagging when Johnny Damon dropped his routine fly ball in left field Thursday at Fenway Park. Ortiz ended up with a single when he should have been at least at second base, no matter how slow he may be. The inning ended one batter later, so Ortiz's poor baserunning, like Damon's embarrassing error, was rendered meaningless.
Much more meaningful was Luis Castillo's drop of Alex Rodriguez's routine pop-up behind second base, which should have sealed an 8-7 win for the Mets. The tying run, Derek Jeter, could have walked home -- and Jeter almost never turns off his hustle. Mark Teixeira, however, needed to be motoring to score from first base. Most players would have been taking it easy, expecting, understandably, the ball to be caught. Teixeira, however, was doing what he should have been doing -- running as if he wanted to score the winning run in the event the ball was dropped. It was, and he did. The Yankees caught the type of break you can hope for about once every 15 years.
The major lesson to be learned, however, should not be that it pays to run in case a ball is dropped. It should be this: Major League ballplayers are able-bodied men. There is absolutely no reason not to be running hard on every grounder, or on every fly ball or pop-up with two outs.
I know. "Keep dreaming, Phil." Sad.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
OK, enough of Boomer Wells
Having David Wells in the TBS booth today on the anniversary of his perfect game against the Twins sure brings back some happy memories. It also brings reminders of how dumb this guy is. He just said "Gi-normous" twice -- without irony -- in the course of his "analysis." Time to pull the plug.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Enough of Avery
Whoever defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result," -- and I've seen it attributed most often to Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin -- would have to conclude the following: sending Sean Avery back onto the ice Friday in Washington would be insane. The Rangers keep sending him out there, and they keep getting the same result: one stupid and OBVIOUS penalty after another. The Rangers survived thanks to Henrik Lundqvist.
Indeed, we all know the Rangers will go only as far as the King will take them, but even he needed luck tonight, as an Alex Ovechkin slapper rang off the iron during Avery's first stupid penalty of the third period. The Rangers are in their locker room right now, breathing a sigh of relief and smiling, deservedly, about their 3-games-to-1 lead over the higher-seeded Capitals.
But Sean Avery has done his damnedest to screw this up for his teammates. You can't tell me that no Ranger is looking at him across the locker room right now and seething, even wishing he weren't there right now.
I'm not saying Avery should be cut or released or traded or suspended. He helps this team. He always has. But he's running wild right now and needs to be reined in. John Tortorella should sit him in Game Five to send a message: your antics are killing us, we are winning in spite of you rather than because of you, and your teammates don't appreciate it.
Indeed, we all know the Rangers will go only as far as the King will take them, but even he needed luck tonight, as an Alex Ovechkin slapper rang off the iron during Avery's first stupid penalty of the third period. The Rangers are in their locker room right now, breathing a sigh of relief and smiling, deservedly, about their 3-games-to-1 lead over the higher-seeded Capitals.
But Sean Avery has done his damnedest to screw this up for his teammates. You can't tell me that no Ranger is looking at him across the locker room right now and seething, even wishing he weren't there right now.
I'm not saying Avery should be cut or released or traded or suspended. He helps this team. He always has. But he's running wild right now and needs to be reined in. John Tortorella should sit him in Game Five to send a message: your antics are killing us, we are winning in spite of you rather than because of you, and your teammates don't appreciate it.
DirecTV
Effing DirecTV. They won't let me watch this game on MSG. I paid $160 for the NHL package so I could watch Rangers games this year. (Actually, my parents and sister bought it for me as a gift, but still.) I should be able to watch the game on any network that's showing it. Why am I stuck watching it on Versus with crappy Versus announcers? The announcers might be great, for all I know, but I want to hear Sam Rosen, my broadcasting idol.
I know the answer, of course: Versus has a national-TV deal and gets certain rights. If that's the case, why is MSG even allowed to show the game in New York? BECAUSE NEW YORKERS WANT THEIR OWN BROADCAST, THAT'S WHY! That goes for Washington fans, too. If I were a Caps fan, I'd want my hometown crew, not the Versus crew. Dammit. Glad I went through the top of the hour and actually saw the game get blacked out before I hit "pause" on the DVR to go finish cooking dinner. That's right, I'm cooking a steak over charcoal tonight. So I'll be watching on a delay for a little while. That's live enough for me, after three straight games of watching in the wee hours.
Beer, steak and playoff hockey. Right now I'm richer than Bill Gates.
I know the answer, of course: Versus has a national-TV deal and gets certain rights. If that's the case, why is MSG even allowed to show the game in New York? BECAUSE NEW YORKERS WANT THEIR OWN BROADCAST, THAT'S WHY! That goes for Washington fans, too. If I were a Caps fan, I'd want my hometown crew, not the Versus crew. Dammit. Glad I went through the top of the hour and actually saw the game get blacked out before I hit "pause" on the DVR to go finish cooking dinner. That's right, I'm cooking a steak over charcoal tonight. So I'll be watching on a delay for a little while. That's live enough for me, after three straight games of watching in the wee hours.
Beer, steak and playoff hockey. Right now I'm richer than Bill Gates.
The New Druce?
About a year ago I met a younger Ranger fan, about 20 or 21 years old. He was a die-hard fan, but, obviously, he doesn't remember 1990 for the same reason I can't remember 1975: we were 2 years old. He shared his stories of Ranger-inflicted pain. I asked if he knew who John Druce is. He didn't. "Ask your father," I said. "He knows."
All Ranger fans who were old enough to know what was going on remember John Druce. Druce was the undecorated, pedestrian Washington Capital who exploded for nine goals in five games, including a hat trick in Game Two, as the Patrick Division champion Rangers -- division champs for the first time in 48 years -- fell in five shocking games to an inferior (record-wise) team.
The Capitals entered this series as the clear, if not prohibitive, favorite to beat the seventh-seeded Rangers, so that part of the equation is not in play. Still, the Rangers became the favorite when they stole Game One. Since then, an undecorated, pedestrian Capital, goaltender Simeon Varlamov, has been the story. The Russian goalie has allowed one goal in two games. That one goal was enough to lose Game Two for his team, but that performance clearly marked him as worthy of another start over the once-impenetrable but now-shaky Jose Theodore. That second start came Monday at Madison Square Garden, where he and his suddenly improved defensive teammates shut New York out, 4-0.
Can a goalie be the new Druce? I say he can. It's not about the stats -- it's about a guy we never heard of vying to be the next villain at MSG; our own Bucky Bleeping Dent.
But I don't think it will happen. I think the Rangers will be smarter tonight and will have some surprises in store for the rookie. I don't know what that will be, but I expect the Rangers to bring their best effort of the season in this, their most important game of the season. Effort, in fact, has not been a problem in this series, even in the horrific Game Three. I think the Rangers will win this one, drop Game Four Friday in Washington, then come home and wrap it up in front of the home fans.
LET'S GO RANGERS!
All Ranger fans who were old enough to know what was going on remember John Druce. Druce was the undecorated, pedestrian Washington Capital who exploded for nine goals in five games, including a hat trick in Game Two, as the Patrick Division champion Rangers -- division champs for the first time in 48 years -- fell in five shocking games to an inferior (record-wise) team.
The Capitals entered this series as the clear, if not prohibitive, favorite to beat the seventh-seeded Rangers, so that part of the equation is not in play. Still, the Rangers became the favorite when they stole Game One. Since then, an undecorated, pedestrian Capital, goaltender Simeon Varlamov, has been the story. The Russian goalie has allowed one goal in two games. That one goal was enough to lose Game Two for his team, but that performance clearly marked him as worthy of another start over the once-impenetrable but now-shaky Jose Theodore. That second start came Monday at Madison Square Garden, where he and his suddenly improved defensive teammates shut New York out, 4-0.
Can a goalie be the new Druce? I say he can. It's not about the stats -- it's about a guy we never heard of vying to be the next villain at MSG; our own Bucky Bleeping Dent.
But I don't think it will happen. I think the Rangers will be smarter tonight and will have some surprises in store for the rookie. I don't know what that will be, but I expect the Rangers to bring their best effort of the season in this, their most important game of the season. Effort, in fact, has not been a problem in this series, even in the horrific Game Three. I think the Rangers will win this one, drop Game Four Friday in Washington, then come home and wrap it up in front of the home fans.
LET'S GO RANGERS!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Captain Midnight
That's me. Captain Midnight. Working in a restaurant and watching games in the wee hours of the morning on the DVR (the greatest invention in history -- better even than EZPass) has made it so. And through two games of the Rangers' first-round series against the Capitals, I have to say I'm pleased with the results. It would be immature of me to take nights off from work -- we need the money, and in this day and age, who doesn't? -- to watch first-round games. Hell, I didn't even have to work tonight, and was all set to enjoy Game Three, yet I jumped at the offer of a late-night shift. My friend Jen gets to go home and see her new boyfriend, and I get to work her shift, which should provide great lucre.
I'm able to do this with the Rangers all the time. I bought the NHL package, and nobody ever spoils the outcome because, sadly, nobody gives a damn about hockey. That upsets me to no end, but the bright side is I can insulate myself from
Rangers results and watch games as if live when I get home late at night. The missus is asleep, so I'm not blowing off quality time with her to watch sports. She's not a sports widow. Major husband points for me!
As an aside, Boston, naturally, has gone ga-ga for the Bruins this year -- all a team has to do here is have the best record in its sport or win a title, and the fans come out of the woodwork. Of course, they were there all along. Whatever. Anyway, all the people at my restaurant will be glued to the Bruins' Game Three in Montreal, but I don't think anyone will be watching the crawl to find out how the Rangers are doing, because they're very new at this hockey-watching thing -- nobody will be able to convince me otherwise, especially at my place, which is not a sports bar -- so I'll probably get home without any idea how my beloved Rangers have fared. I cannot wait!
And I love how the sports gods have rewarded my responsible fandom with two wins on the road. The Garden should be absolutely rocking tonight. And when I say the Garden, I'm not talking about the TD Banknorth "Gahden," the nice yet disturbingly antiseptic home of the Bruins and Celtics. There is only one Garden, and a Ranger game there is just awesome. I remember going to the first game of the 2007 Big East basketball tournament at MSG. My Syracuse Orangemen against the hated Huskies of evil uconn. That has become an absolutely wonderful rivalry. Two great programs, both of whom have enjoyed tremendous success in the last decade or so (the 2003 national championship for Syracuse, two titles for the Great Satan). I sat there at that game, rooted my ass off for Syracuse, soaked in the atmosphere at the game, and thought to myself, "Hey, this is nice, but this doesn't even come CLOSE to how electric this place was Monday night." Monday night? Monday night was a Rangers-Islanders game, a virtually meaningless, regular-season tilt. The place was on fire. I can only imagine what it will be like tonight, with the Rangers returning home like conquering heroes.
But they have conquered nothing yet. They need a win tonight. Washington is way too talented a team to let back into this series. Simeon Varlamov played well the other night in his first playoff appearance. Of course, King Henrik was out of his mind again, and the Rangers played a far more disciplined game, but still only won 1-0. The Capitals could turn the tables tonight. Were the Caps to pull off two wins in New York, the Rangers would have lost everything they gained in two games in DC and will be dead men walking come Game Five. Even if the Rangers take a 3-1 lead back to DC, the Caps just have to win one at home, then steal one in New York, and again, Game Seven on the road does not bode well for the Rangers. This is the brilliance of the 2-2-1-1-1 format. You cannot overstate how much excitement this creates compared to the 2-3-2. (I'm not suggesting baseball abandon the 2-3-2 for the 2-2-1-1-1. It wouldn't work, logistically. I'm just sayin'.)
Man, I can't wait. Let's go Rangers!
OK, the Yankee portion of the blog -- this blog is supposed to be mostly Yankee talk, right? Right.
I will be recording almost all nationally televised Yankee games, as those will be the only ones I'll be able to see, other than games against Boston (coming up this weekend, by the way!). So I recorded yesterday's game on TBS, but was not sure when or if I'd be able to watch it, as it was the birthday of the Queen of the Embassy (she just told me she likes that name). But I just couldn't friggin' sleep last night. The cats didn't help, but I woke up at 4 and just wasn't tired. So I watched the game. Some very quick thoughts:
Was there nobody on the bench who could have pinch-run for Matsui in the seventh? I know it ended up making no differnce after Posada's home run, but still ... that was a bad bit of managing by Joltin' Joe Girardi-o. Who watched that game that did not know that A) Ransom was going to bunt, and B) whoever fielded the bunt was going to realize that the guy running from first to second is a near-35-year-old guy who missed most of last year with a knee injury and is at least two months away from playing the field because of pain in said knee? Matsui is the DH, for goodness sake. Put ANYONE in there to run for him. It's not as if that would have weakened our defense in the next inning. You're going for the win right there, and you can't worry about whether you'll lose Matsui's bat two or three innings down the line. All that did was give up an out to advance nobody. Bad baseball.
Posada's home run: I'm sure by now there have been volumes written on this in the tabloids and other Web sites, so I'll just leave it at this: instant replay will overturn a call once in a blue moon, but that's it. Fair or foul, or whether home runs hit on the right side of the yellow lines in centerfield in places like Fenway or AT&T parks, where that line separates "off the tall wall" (ball's in play) from "over the small wall, and then off the big wall behind it" (home run). But they'll never overturn something like what happened yesterday. There's way too much ambiguity -- unless you put a camera on the foul pole that points straight along the wall, you'll never know who reached over the wall and where the ball was. At least not often. The Jeffrey Maier ball would have been overturned. That was 13 years ago.
Carl Pavano sure brought it yesterday, eh? Good. Proves even more what a loser he is. The guy has the talent to pitch that way when he wants to prove something to his former team and the team's fans, who have every right to be furious at him for stealing money for four years. But he doesn't care enough to bring it 35 times a year -- or in some years, AT ALL. Congratulations, Tribe fans. He's all yours. Don't get your hopes up.
Oh, one last thing. Some of you may think I'm a sellout for not adjusting my work schedule to watch the Rangers in the playoffs. Look at it this way -- and this is exactly how I'm looking at it: The money I make tonight just may get put toward tickets to the aforementioned antiseptic Gahden -- where the Rangers, if they get by the Caps, likely will begin Round Two against the Bruins. Oh, and toward a standing-room ticket to Fenway for Friday's Yankee game. Please, Joe, no Chien-Ming Wang Friday night. PLEASE!
I'm able to do this with the Rangers all the time. I bought the NHL package, and nobody ever spoils the outcome because, sadly, nobody gives a damn about hockey. That upsets me to no end, but the bright side is I can insulate myself from
Rangers results and watch games as if live when I get home late at night. The missus is asleep, so I'm not blowing off quality time with her to watch sports. She's not a sports widow. Major husband points for me!
As an aside, Boston, naturally, has gone ga-ga for the Bruins this year -- all a team has to do here is have the best record in its sport or win a title, and the fans come out of the woodwork. Of course, they were there all along. Whatever. Anyway, all the people at my restaurant will be glued to the Bruins' Game Three in Montreal, but I don't think anyone will be watching the crawl to find out how the Rangers are doing, because they're very new at this hockey-watching thing -- nobody will be able to convince me otherwise, especially at my place, which is not a sports bar -- so I'll probably get home without any idea how my beloved Rangers have fared. I cannot wait!
And I love how the sports gods have rewarded my responsible fandom with two wins on the road. The Garden should be absolutely rocking tonight. And when I say the Garden, I'm not talking about the TD Banknorth "Gahden," the nice yet disturbingly antiseptic home of the Bruins and Celtics. There is only one Garden, and a Ranger game there is just awesome. I remember going to the first game of the 2007 Big East basketball tournament at MSG. My Syracuse Orangemen against the hated Huskies of evil uconn. That has become an absolutely wonderful rivalry. Two great programs, both of whom have enjoyed tremendous success in the last decade or so (the 2003 national championship for Syracuse, two titles for the Great Satan). I sat there at that game, rooted my ass off for Syracuse, soaked in the atmosphere at the game, and thought to myself, "Hey, this is nice, but this doesn't even come CLOSE to how electric this place was Monday night." Monday night? Monday night was a Rangers-Islanders game, a virtually meaningless, regular-season tilt. The place was on fire. I can only imagine what it will be like tonight, with the Rangers returning home like conquering heroes.
But they have conquered nothing yet. They need a win tonight. Washington is way too talented a team to let back into this series. Simeon Varlamov played well the other night in his first playoff appearance. Of course, King Henrik was out of his mind again, and the Rangers played a far more disciplined game, but still only won 1-0. The Capitals could turn the tables tonight. Were the Caps to pull off two wins in New York, the Rangers would have lost everything they gained in two games in DC and will be dead men walking come Game Five. Even if the Rangers take a 3-1 lead back to DC, the Caps just have to win one at home, then steal one in New York, and again, Game Seven on the road does not bode well for the Rangers. This is the brilliance of the 2-2-1-1-1 format. You cannot overstate how much excitement this creates compared to the 2-3-2. (I'm not suggesting baseball abandon the 2-3-2 for the 2-2-1-1-1. It wouldn't work, logistically. I'm just sayin'.)
Man, I can't wait. Let's go Rangers!
OK, the Yankee portion of the blog -- this blog is supposed to be mostly Yankee talk, right? Right.
I will be recording almost all nationally televised Yankee games, as those will be the only ones I'll be able to see, other than games against Boston (coming up this weekend, by the way!). So I recorded yesterday's game on TBS, but was not sure when or if I'd be able to watch it, as it was the birthday of the Queen of the Embassy (she just told me she likes that name). But I just couldn't friggin' sleep last night. The cats didn't help, but I woke up at 4 and just wasn't tired. So I watched the game. Some very quick thoughts:
Was there nobody on the bench who could have pinch-run for Matsui in the seventh? I know it ended up making no differnce after Posada's home run, but still ... that was a bad bit of managing by Joltin' Joe Girardi-o. Who watched that game that did not know that A) Ransom was going to bunt, and B) whoever fielded the bunt was going to realize that the guy running from first to second is a near-35-year-old guy who missed most of last year with a knee injury and is at least two months away from playing the field because of pain in said knee? Matsui is the DH, for goodness sake. Put ANYONE in there to run for him. It's not as if that would have weakened our defense in the next inning. You're going for the win right there, and you can't worry about whether you'll lose Matsui's bat two or three innings down the line. All that did was give up an out to advance nobody. Bad baseball.
Posada's home run: I'm sure by now there have been volumes written on this in the tabloids and other Web sites, so I'll just leave it at this: instant replay will overturn a call once in a blue moon, but that's it. Fair or foul, or whether home runs hit on the right side of the yellow lines in centerfield in places like Fenway or AT&T parks, where that line separates "off the tall wall" (ball's in play) from "over the small wall, and then off the big wall behind it" (home run). But they'll never overturn something like what happened yesterday. There's way too much ambiguity -- unless you put a camera on the foul pole that points straight along the wall, you'll never know who reached over the wall and where the ball was. At least not often. The Jeffrey Maier ball would have been overturned. That was 13 years ago.
Carl Pavano sure brought it yesterday, eh? Good. Proves even more what a loser he is. The guy has the talent to pitch that way when he wants to prove something to his former team and the team's fans, who have every right to be furious at him for stealing money for four years. But he doesn't care enough to bring it 35 times a year -- or in some years, AT ALL. Congratulations, Tribe fans. He's all yours. Don't get your hopes up.
Oh, one last thing. Some of you may think I'm a sellout for not adjusting my work schedule to watch the Rangers in the playoffs. Look at it this way -- and this is exactly how I'm looking at it: The money I make tonight just may get put toward tickets to the aforementioned antiseptic Gahden -- where the Rangers, if they get by the Caps, likely will begin Round Two against the Bruins. Oh, and toward a standing-room ticket to Fenway for Friday's Yankee game. Please, Joe, no Chien-Ming Wang Friday night. PLEASE!
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