The Sunday plan landed me at Yankee Stadium last night, for the most comfortable Yanks/Sox game I've attended since 2002 or so. With the Pinstripers taking the first three games of the set in dramatic fashion, there was a "found money" quality to the game--a loss would sting, but it's still three out of four, right?--and the spacier environs of New Yankee Stadium made it a bit easier for Yanks and Sox partisans to make their respective ways to the beer and bathroom lines without tripping over each other. When people who hate you come into your house, it's definitely nice to have some elbow room.
I wasn't expecting much from the matchup. The MoLester has been sterling against the Yanks for his career--he only has one bad start against the team, and that came before his cancer diagnosis in 2006. Andy Pettitte's record against the Beantowners was much more mixed--15-8 against them for his career, but in the last few seasons it's been more Bad Andy than Good Andy.
Fortunately, it was all about Good Andy last night, running up another seven shutout innings to go with the combined effort shutouts on Friday and Saturday. The only players who really gave him trouble were JD Drew and Nick Green, although Andy avoided pitching to Mike Lowell as if he were the second coming of Albert Pujols.
It was 1-0 in the eighth (on an Alex Rodriguez line homer to center) when both managers tried to cough up the game. With Andy at 112 pitches, Joe Girardi called on Phil Coke to face the top of the order. It made sense to play a matchup against Jacoby Ellsbury, and the third batter of the inning, Victor Martinez, is marginally better against righties than lefties in his career, but then you have two more righthanded hitters, Bay and Youkilis. So while it wasn't a surprise to see Coke come into the game, it was a surprise that after he left the bullpen, no one else was warming up. Not Rivera in case a four out save is needed. Not Phil Hughes. Not even Brian Bruney "just in case." I like Coke and I'm all in favor of confidence, but this was just lousy planning--this is the same guy who gave up 6 runs in a third of an inning just last week. You give that guy a safety net, if you can. Coke gave up the lead on a 2-run V-Mart homer, and was fortunate to escape more damage when Jason Bay rapped into a double play.
After the game, Girardi defended his decision by saying that he wouldn't pitch Hughes in three straight games--the Phil Hughes Rules, anyone?--but if that was the case, why on earth did Girardi only get two outs (on nine friggin' pitches, total) out of Hughes in those appearances?
Anyway, in the bottom of the eighth, Tito Francona has his house much more in order. Josh Bard comes out of the bullpen to face the #9 spot, Derek Jeter, and Johnny Damon. As Bard comes in from the bullpen, we could see that both Hideki Okajima and Jon ("I prefer Jonathan") Papelbon are warming up, and not just soft-tossing, either. The stage is set for Bard to face a pinch-hitter and Jeter, Okajima to face Damon, and Papelbon to stretch out to four outs if either pitcher gets in trouble. I mean, that's the only way that having both pitchers warming up behind Bard makes sense, right?
As you probably saw last night, after Bard retired Hideki Matsui (pinch-hitting for Jerry Hairston) and Derek Jeter--making the Captain look bad in the process--Francona lets Bard face Damon. As I twittered at the time, Brother Joe, who's with me at the game, says "This is a risk. Damon could pop one in this park." He barely finishes saying it and Damon has lined a shot into the seats. Bard then faces Teixeira--a more defensible call, Tex kills lefties this year--and the big first baseman pops one so high in the air we never saw it come down. I'm told it was a fair ball. A couple of insurance runs later, we're off to never never land, and Boston was swept.
Some of the Red Sox fans in my section headed for the exits immediately after the Tex homer landed, when the Yanks had just a one-run lead. A couple of them had wrapped up their Boston regalia and tucked it under their arms, so as to hide that they were members of the RSN. It was an odd reaction, given Boston's recent history against the Yanks. You're up 8-4 on the season series! You lead the wild card, from whence you've won the World Series...twice!
This is ridiculous. The Red Sox are a good team. People are blaming Theo Epstein for not picking up Roy Halladay, oblivious of the fact that aside from John Smoltz's blowout Thursday, the Red Sox starters held the Yankees to four runs over three games, even while playing at Coors-on-the-Hudson Stadium. Things happen, and no one wins the pennant on August 10 anymore.
***
Overheard Outside Yankee Stadium--Man in Yanks paraphenalia talking to young woman of no visible affiliation, wearing a cardigan on a brutally humid night: "You covered up your tattoo? C'mon, show your tattoo. Why not? Show your tattoo. No one is gonna beat you up. Seriously, no one is gonna beat you up."
Showing posts with label Red Sox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red Sox. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Who Do You Trust?
I was going to break my blog-silence in a more official and positive fashion, but I wasn't quite done with that piece (which should run tomorrow) when the latest 2003 steroid test leaks came out (courtesy of the New York Times), and I had to say something.
You see, I've been waiting for this story a long time. Remember when the BALCO grand jury testimony leaked, and folks lined up to beat Jason Giambi like a piñata? Remember the folks who swung the sticks with just a little extra gusto, because he was a Yankee? Remember when the Mitchell Report came out, implicating Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte? To most baseball fans, it was a dark moment in the game's history; to a lucky few, it was a day of jubilee. A National holiday, if you would.
We're not even going to talk about the Alex Rodriguez revelations earlier this year. Each time the gloating started, each time people geared up to cheer "STEROIDS" when the Yanks came to Beantown, my reaction was the same. Wait. Just you wait.
Because you had to figure this day was coming. Those Red Sox fans who chose to act superior on this issue were throwing their stones while sitting in a glass ballpark. Did they think the Red Sox were the one team in baseball to "just say no" to performance enhancement? Didn't they ever look at the middle of their own lineup? I grew up in Washington Heights, so I can attest that Manny Ramirez was always a big guy. But he wasn't as big as he got when he arrived in Boston. Meanwhile, it was always surprising that the same people who self-righteously obsessed over Roger Clemens's hat size never seemed to have looked at David Ortiz's noggin, ever.
When Manny Ramirez caught a PED suspension earlier this year, it was a blow for the more sanctimonious members of the RSN, but they'd also dodged a bullet. Ramirez had already been repudiated by the Sox and most of their fans when he was suspended. The Red Sox wound up looking good for jettisoning Manny, headcase and now cheater, before he was caught.
What some people missed in Manny's suspension was that he pretty much admitted that he was one of the 104 players who'd flunked MLB's 2003 survey testing. At the time, the Players Association released a statement on Manny's behalf which included the following: "I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons." That might sound like a strident declaration of innocence--but only if you didn't know that there were drug tests prior to the past five seasons. When you remembered that, it sounded more like a confession by omission.
Now, even if you accepted that Manny was a juicer, and that he likely was during his Sox tenure, it wasn't that big a black eye on the franchise, because you could just add it to the list of eccentricities known as "Manny being Manny." Heck, for most of his time in Boston, Ramirez was treated as if he was a child or mentally disabled--someone you couldn't hold responsible for his own actions. It's a different matter with David Ortiz, who's never been infantilized by baseball fans the way Manny or (to a lesser extent) Sammy Sosa were. Even Ortiz's nickname gives the impression of responsibility and adulthood; he's been one of the most respected players in the game. That's why this is big news.
Look, the point here isn't that I'm happy about this. I'm not. Even though he plays for the Red Sox, I've always admired Ortiz. As a Dominican-American, I'm not happy to see more Dominicans ensnared in this PED mess. Also, it's not like Ortiz and Ramirez's failings expiate Clemens, Pettitte, Giambi or A-Rod.
Furthermore, I can understand the pressure on Ortiz to get on the juice. You have to remember that at the time of the survey testing, Ortiz had washed out of the major leagues with the Twins. He had been non-tendered, and he was facing a battle for playing time with a number of other 1B/DH types with the Sox, including BALCO juicer Jeremy Giambi. At the same time the CBA basically created a "first positive test is free" environment that year. The disincentives against steroid use were as low as they would ever be (unless you predicted that law enforcement would intervene in the destruction of the survey tests and unscrupulous lawyers would leak names to the media).
The point isn't that Ortiz is a bad person, it's that it's pretty hard to know with certainty who the "good people" are in the Steroid Era. After Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record, everyone looked to Alex Rodriguez; he would be the guy who erased Bonds from the record book, giving baseball a "clean" career home run leader. That lasted less than two years, until Selena Roberts got a few guys to spill the beans, under veil of anonymity, of course.
Even after A-Rod, everybody has someone they point to, claiming that this is the guy who did things "the right way" while everyone else was giving in to temptation. Until Thursday morning, some folks pointed to David Ortiz in that way. Others stake their reputations on Albert Pujols being clean, or on Junior Griffey or Ryan Howard or Jim Thome or Chipper Jones. But with due respect to all of those guys--none of whom has been implicated of anything, as far as I know--the simple fact is, you can't know that they're clean. You might think or believe they are. You can ask them, and you can take their word for it, and you can note that so-and-so's a straight shooter and what's-his-name's a good guy. You could still be wrong.
David Ortiz is, by all accounts, a good guy. So was Mark McGwire. So, I would think, are many of the 97 remaining players on the 2003 survey testing list whose identities have not, as yet, been revealed. Should the rest of those names come to light--and that seems inevitable, either in one lump sum by court order, or by dribs and drabs every March, July, and October, as pointed out by Brother Joe--we'll have more villains to point at and jeer and feel superior to, but will those not named be exonerated? Will we suddenly have confidence in the MLB testing program's efficacy, and declare the game clean?
Yesterday the Red Sox joined a group that includes, but is not limited to, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers on the list of clubs who've really lived under the shadow of PED--with a valued star who's still on the roster and whose exploits fans will still cheer marked as tainted. Now Red Sox fans get to discover things some of the fans of those teams have already gone through: the "maybe it was just that one time," the "maybe the test results were wrong," the "that reporter is an unethical scumbag," the potluck of rationalization, denial, recrimination, and acceptance. The loss of trust. Welcome to the club.
You see, I've been waiting for this story a long time. Remember when the BALCO grand jury testimony leaked, and folks lined up to beat Jason Giambi like a piñata? Remember the folks who swung the sticks with just a little extra gusto, because he was a Yankee? Remember when the Mitchell Report came out, implicating Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte? To most baseball fans, it was a dark moment in the game's history; to a lucky few, it was a day of jubilee. A National holiday, if you would.
We're not even going to talk about the Alex Rodriguez revelations earlier this year. Each time the gloating started, each time people geared up to cheer "STEROIDS" when the Yanks came to Beantown, my reaction was the same. Wait. Just you wait.
Because you had to figure this day was coming. Those Red Sox fans who chose to act superior on this issue were throwing their stones while sitting in a glass ballpark. Did they think the Red Sox were the one team in baseball to "just say no" to performance enhancement? Didn't they ever look at the middle of their own lineup? I grew up in Washington Heights, so I can attest that Manny Ramirez was always a big guy. But he wasn't as big as he got when he arrived in Boston. Meanwhile, it was always surprising that the same people who self-righteously obsessed over Roger Clemens's hat size never seemed to have looked at David Ortiz's noggin, ever.
When Manny Ramirez caught a PED suspension earlier this year, it was a blow for the more sanctimonious members of the RSN, but they'd also dodged a bullet. Ramirez had already been repudiated by the Sox and most of their fans when he was suspended. The Red Sox wound up looking good for jettisoning Manny, headcase and now cheater, before he was caught.
What some people missed in Manny's suspension was that he pretty much admitted that he was one of the 104 players who'd flunked MLB's 2003 survey testing. At the time, the Players Association released a statement on Manny's behalf which included the following: "I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons." That might sound like a strident declaration of innocence--but only if you didn't know that there were drug tests prior to the past five seasons. When you remembered that, it sounded more like a confession by omission.
Now, even if you accepted that Manny was a juicer, and that he likely was during his Sox tenure, it wasn't that big a black eye on the franchise, because you could just add it to the list of eccentricities known as "Manny being Manny." Heck, for most of his time in Boston, Ramirez was treated as if he was a child or mentally disabled--someone you couldn't hold responsible for his own actions. It's a different matter with David Ortiz, who's never been infantilized by baseball fans the way Manny or (to a lesser extent) Sammy Sosa were. Even Ortiz's nickname gives the impression of responsibility and adulthood; he's been one of the most respected players in the game. That's why this is big news.
Look, the point here isn't that I'm happy about this. I'm not. Even though he plays for the Red Sox, I've always admired Ortiz. As a Dominican-American, I'm not happy to see more Dominicans ensnared in this PED mess. Also, it's not like Ortiz and Ramirez's failings expiate Clemens, Pettitte, Giambi or A-Rod.
Furthermore, I can understand the pressure on Ortiz to get on the juice. You have to remember that at the time of the survey testing, Ortiz had washed out of the major leagues with the Twins. He had been non-tendered, and he was facing a battle for playing time with a number of other 1B/DH types with the Sox, including BALCO juicer Jeremy Giambi. At the same time the CBA basically created a "first positive test is free" environment that year. The disincentives against steroid use were as low as they would ever be (unless you predicted that law enforcement would intervene in the destruction of the survey tests and unscrupulous lawyers would leak names to the media).
The point isn't that Ortiz is a bad person, it's that it's pretty hard to know with certainty who the "good people" are in the Steroid Era. After Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record, everyone looked to Alex Rodriguez; he would be the guy who erased Bonds from the record book, giving baseball a "clean" career home run leader. That lasted less than two years, until Selena Roberts got a few guys to spill the beans, under veil of anonymity, of course.
Even after A-Rod, everybody has someone they point to, claiming that this is the guy who did things "the right way" while everyone else was giving in to temptation. Until Thursday morning, some folks pointed to David Ortiz in that way. Others stake their reputations on Albert Pujols being clean, or on Junior Griffey or Ryan Howard or Jim Thome or Chipper Jones. But with due respect to all of those guys--none of whom has been implicated of anything, as far as I know--the simple fact is, you can't know that they're clean. You might think or believe they are. You can ask them, and you can take their word for it, and you can note that so-and-so's a straight shooter and what's-his-name's a good guy. You could still be wrong.
David Ortiz is, by all accounts, a good guy. So was Mark McGwire. So, I would think, are many of the 97 remaining players on the 2003 survey testing list whose identities have not, as yet, been revealed. Should the rest of those names come to light--and that seems inevitable, either in one lump sum by court order, or by dribs and drabs every March, July, and October, as pointed out by Brother Joe--we'll have more villains to point at and jeer and feel superior to, but will those not named be exonerated? Will we suddenly have confidence in the MLB testing program's efficacy, and declare the game clean?
Yesterday the Red Sox joined a group that includes, but is not limited to, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers on the list of clubs who've really lived under the shadow of PED--with a valued star who's still on the roster and whose exploits fans will still cheer marked as tainted. Now Red Sox fans get to discover things some of the fans of those teams have already gone through: the "maybe it was just that one time," the "maybe the test results were wrong," the "that reporter is an unethical scumbag," the potluck of rationalization, denial, recrimination, and acceptance. The loss of trust. Welcome to the club.
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