Game 89: Instant Classic?

Game 89, the first game after this year's All-Star break, was just on YES (for anyone interested, it'll be replayed tomorrow at 9AM). YES has declared the game a Yankees Classic, because it was the Yanks' first game after the death of team owner George Steinbrenner, and their first home game since the death of longtime PA announcer Bob Sheppard. I was at the game, and took a bunch of pictures (but none, sadly, of the pre-game ceremony) which I didn't have time to post at the time. Here's a photo album of that game:

Game 89

Game 97: Sun, Rain, and Waiting on 600

Yep, I'm blogging on a Wednesday about Sunday's game, but the rain delay really took the energy out of me Sunday night, and the pictures were just too good not to post. Seventy-plus hours after Game 97, the Yanks have added a win and a loss, and Swish and Granderson have added home runs, but Alex is still idling at 599 homers as the Yanks continue on a road trip that will take them from Cleveland to the Trop en route to their return to Yankee Stadium just after the trade deadline. The deadline looms large because, even though the Yanks have the best record in the majors, they don't look like the a complete enough team to stand pat on the trade market.

Back to Sunday's game. Mostly, I'll let the pictures do the talking here:



Phil Hughes, Sunday's starter, is either praying or communing with the rosin bag before throwing his first pitch. Either way, I hope he's asking the powers-that-be that he not turn out like Joba did.



Opposing Phil would be the Kansas City Royals, the miserable ruins of a once-proud franchise. Here's KC's catcher, the twice-washed-up Jason Kendall. He batted second in the lineup. Batting third? Wilson Betemit. Yes, that Wilson Betemit!



The bright point in the Royal's lineup was Scott Podsednik, another player who's had a few major league lives before winding up in KC. He had a career day, matching his high marks with two homers and 4 RBI. He would also make a spectacular catch in the eighth inning, which sadly I didn't catch on virtual film. Here, he's on base after his first-inning single, wearing some sort of sliding mitten on his left hand.



Royals pitchers focused on throwing inside all day. Here's newly-acquired Royal Sean O'Sullivan getting up close and personal with Derek Jeter in the first inning.



Of course, the big draw of the game was Alex Rodriguez's ongoing quest for his 600th career home run. Before each A-Rod at bat, we had the following scene of the ump trading in his regular set of balls for special marked balls, which could be used to verify the authenticity of homer number 600 should Alex manage to launch it in that at-bat.

During the game, Brother Jeff asked if the 600 milestone still meant anything. The answer is yes and no. It used to be that 600 homers meant you were closing in on Willie Mays--undisputed, authentic immortal, with only undisputed authentic immortals ahead of him. These days, it means you're closing in on Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr. No disrespect to those two, but that air is not so rarified as it once was. Same thing with 500--it used to mean inner-circle Hall of Famers, now it's joining a club that has kinda-greats like Eddie Murray, Gary Sheffield, Rafael Palmeiro, Jim Thome. Sure, some of that has to do with steroids, but a bit of it is just the normal dilution that happens to once-"unreachable" sporting achievements.

On the other hand, as we saw a few years back, even with Palmeiro and Thome et al, 500 still matters. On Sunday, 600 mattered: people were obviously there hoping to see history. Every time Alex came to bat, you could see flashes popping, even though the early innings were played in bright sunlight.



Down 2-0 in the third, the Yanks ripped out a four-run outburst, started by a Curtis Granderson homer and RBI doubles by Jeter and Rodriguez. The weirdest play of the inning was this little squibber off the bat of Mark Teixeira.



It was a weak little grounder, but the Teixeira shift and Jeter heading home from third combined to make this an RBI single. Of course, it didn't hurt that the Royals' infield was basically three utility guys (Chris Getz at third, Mike Aviles at second, and Betemit at first) and Yuniesky Betancourt. (Want to make a Royals fan angry? Bring up Yuniesky Betancourt.) All the infielders had a bit of Bad News Bears in them on Sunday--bad throws, bad catches, butterfingers moments.



But even with the lead, Phil Hughes didn't put much pressure on the Royals. He didn't walk anybody, but he did allow a second home run, a blast from ex-pitcher Rick Ankiel that looked like it might have damaged the third deck. Sure, the first homer he allowed was a cheap foul pole job to Podsednik, but all game long, it didn't look like Hughes had his good swing-and-miss stuff.

Luckily, Granderson responded to Ankiel's homer with a second dinger of his own. In the fifth, with the score 5-3 Yanks, Rodriguez came to the plate again, with the Captain on first and two outs. What followed was a pretty good demonstration of what pressing looks like. The ball was going everywhere but fair.



There were foul balls off the ankle guard...



...there was some falling down...



...there was an awkwardly rinky-dink foul nearly straight up that luckily went out of play. All while the crowd was waiting with bated breath to see history happen. On the 2-2 count, Jeter got bored and stole second. All this ended with a weak grounder to Betancourt.

By this time, clouds had been gathering all game long, and now the sky was steel gray.

Hughes got one batter into the sixth, and suddenly the wind kicked up, and the groundscrew leapt to roll out the tarp.

Luckily, the big rainstorm came on umbrella day at Yankee Stadium. J&R got big bang for their promotional dollar. There were no umbrellas for the grounds crew though, who had their hands full.



Sadly, during the rain delay, the Yankee Stadium screen's entertainment: (c) Failed miserably. Don't blame Swish, whose cooking segment was pretty decent, but it was sandwiched between obnoxious informercials for Yankee Stadium's various food stands and a freakin' documentary about Yankees fantasy camp. No one wants to watch scrubs with too much money play rec-league baseball--as Brother Jeff said, it's like watching watching someone's vacation photos, just you don't know them, and could give even less of a damn than you usually would. Did I mention, that as this was happening, Andre Dawson was at Cooperstown, being inducted to the Hall of Fame? Think a bunch of baseball fans would rather watch that, or a 48-year-old stock broker trying to turn two? Or any of the half-million documentaries in the YES network library? Three days later, I'm still steamed about this.



Two-plus hours later, the tarp came off. Only a small fraction of the crowd was still in the house, but those who stayed had one thought in mind: 600!





Before Rodriguez could get to the plate again, Brett Gardner worked some of his slappy opposite field magic to plate Robinson Cano in the sixth. Gardner, along with Cano and Swisher, has been key in picking up the slack left in the lineup by the Jeter, Teixeira, and Rodriguez's subpar performances. This season he's hit almost exactly what he hit in the minors; which was pretty much what he had to do to justify a regular place in the lineup.

The Yanks added what looked like an insurance run in the seventh, when Rodriguez hit a hard grounder to Aviles that spun the second baseman like a top, scoring Swisher. Sadly, the insurance would be necessary because the hollowed out shell of Joba Chamberlain came into the game in the 8th inning, and gave up a couple of runs on a long homer by Scott Podsednik. To give this some context, Podsednik's hit a homer about once every 100 plate appearances for his career. This is not a power hitter, but he raked Joba for a no-doubter into the right field stands. Aside from that, and walking the number nine hitter to set up that two-run shot, two of the three outs Chamberlain recorded were hard-hit.

qq2e

Just when it looked like the Yankees would have to summon Mariano Rivera to close things out, the Royals bullpen spit the bit. Improbably, reliever Blake Wood, with a healthy assist from his thirdbaseman and manager, brought A-Rod to the plate for one more shot at the milestone. With the bases loaded and one out, Rodriguez was swinging easier than he had in his previous at bats. The faithful who were still in the stands could taste milestone coming...



...but it was not to be. In a huge anticlimax, Woods came up and in to Rodriguez hitting him on the hand. Alex was down on the ground for a while, and the remaining crowd let Woods and the Royals feel the hate. Ultimately, the Yanks put up a five-spot, though, meaning that instead of Enter Sandman, we got Chan Ho Park.



Or as I like to call him, Exhibit B in why the Yanks can't stand pat coming to the trade deadline. Park only managed to give back one run of the lead--and he had a helping hand from Jorge Posada's face mask and Rule 7.05(d)--but the righthander showed no velocity and just plain refused to throw strikes. Dave Robertson can only throw so many of the non-Mariano innings, and unlike the situations with the Yankees DH spot, there just don't seem to be any reliable internal options to make up for the way Joba and Park have stunk this season.

Anyway, so that was the game. Here's hoping that Alex can get the monkey off his back against grounballista Fausto Carmona tonight.

Opening Day Photoblog: First Pitch

Bernie Williams prepares to unleash a one-hopper to the plate. Not sure what Matsui's doing in the background, though the Angels were warming up in the outfield throughout the ring ceremony, something which seemed the tiniest bit bush.

Opening Day Photoblog: Hideki-San

The best moment of the day was the team mobbing Hideki Matsui after he came out of the Angels dugout to get his ring. I'm pretty sure that's Jorge Posada quickly ducking out of the scrum with an "It's been real, H, but I've got a game to catch." Either that, or he took a loan from Matsui's video library last fall, and doesn't want Hideki bothering him about it now.

Opening Day Photoblog: Got Rings?

CC, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter stepping up to collect their World Series rings. Jeter naturally has to mug Yogi Berra when he gets to the table.

Opening Day Photoblog: Flags Fly Forever

The newest championship pennant atop the frieze. With all the ceremony the Yankees like to bring to things, Brother J and I thought that raising the flag on Opening Day was going to be a thing. No such luck--we entered the Stadium well before game time to find that both this and the big championship flag had been raised ahead of time.

Opening Day Photoblog: This Used to Be My Playground

The sight that greets people entering new Yankee Stadium is just plain ghoulish: what's left of the old Yankee Stadium (Yankee Stadium II, in Baseball-Reference.com parlance) looking like the victim of a scud attack. Much of last season, high scaffolds obscured our view of what the sports salvage & demolitions crew was doing to the Cathedral, but now it's out in the open for anyone to see. The new Stadium is nice and all, but this is just cruel. Why aren't they finished yet? Does Steiner still have more meat to pick off the Stadium's skeleton, or something?

Rainout Photoblog

(Click on any of the pictures for a larger view.)

So, hearing a rumor that they'd be Opening the baseball season today (after opening it a couple of weeks ago in Japan, and again last night in the nation's capital) Brother J and I went up to the Bronx, in hopes that there would be a game going on...


Cool! Forewarned of the weather conditions, we were wrapped in many layers and sporting ponchos to keep the rain away. Anyway, as you approach the old ballpark in the Bronx these days, you can't help but have your eyes drawn to its replacement, across the street:


At the beginning of last season, this was nothing but an extremely organized set of girders. By October, it looked like an arena, albeit one covered with scaffolding. But now, much of the outer shell of the new Stadium (what you could actually call a facade) looks like a completed product.


Looking up, you can see the lights already installed, and perhaps a hint of the outfield wall frieze (what some incorrectly call the facade):


Perhaps the most interesting touch was the Derek Jeter billboard (actually, one of those cloth screens) that's been set up inside what will be the main entrance.


Having toured the outside, Brother J and I headed in, through what we call the veal fattening pens--the security corrals set up by the left field gate. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get this picture to load rightside-up.

After a lot of waiting, to get to an inconsistent concept of security (we were waved through, without a second look), we finally hit the inside of the House that Ruth Built:


As you can see, the tarp was out, umbrellas were in evidence, and folks other than ourselves were sporting ponchos. When we walked in, the precipitation was nothing more than a strong drizzle. Still, the word being bandied about by the PA announcer and by Yankees apparatchik Michael Kay and John Sterling was that the forecast was favorable, and that the game should start after an hour delay.


With nothing much to do, we went to the escalator area to peek into the new Stadium, where construction workers and random Parks Department folks with Department-issue umbrellas roamed the structure.



Meanwhile, the Yankee Faithful did everything in their power to stay dry and warm during the delay. For folks in the Upper Deck, that meant crowding the concourses up there. For the Bleacher Creatures (OK, faux creatures sitting in the left field bleachers for Opening Day) that meant taking to the slight bit of shelter offered by the bleacher's back wall:


Then, we got the ugly announcement:

Apparently, "evaluating our options" meant sending Joe Girardi, Brian Cashman, and a third man I'm 70% sure was Reggie Jackson out to tour the right field line:

The crowd pleaded with them to play the game. It was barely raining, and the field was definitely playable.

However, our pleas fell on deaf ears.


After the game was called, Roy Halladay went out to get his throwing in. Earlier, AJ Burnett and Scott Downs had done a little light throwing. There hadn't been much sign of any Yankees players on the field, at least not while we were waiting.



Halladay had a coach standing in as a batter while he threw from flat ground. The coach didn't mime a swing, but with his legs he made the same weight shift a batter would while waiting for a pitch.


And that was as close to baseball as we got today. Soon, Stadium security was asking us to get moving, tossing us out into the throng trying to make it to the Subway. See you guys tomorrow night!

How to Hail a Cab in New York, Part I

I've been thinking about doing this for a while--cab etiquette is one of the great mysteries of New York, and I think the whole world could use a refresher--but the whole thing was catalyzed when I couldn't come up with a quick and easy mnemonic for my brother-in-law to explain how he was to know if a cab was available or not. Now, it was a joke--we'd just had a great meal at Prune in NoHo, and he was asking me to come up with something in meter that rhymed--but I figure that just 'cause I suck at poetry doesn't mean that I can't create a handy, dandy guide to hailing a cab in the Big Apple.

So I'll start with the first question: how do you know if a cab's available?

Let's start with the basics. As anyone who's seen an American movie in the last sixty or so years knows, New York taxis--at least the ones you can hail on the street--are yellow. Let's have a picture:

Modified from a photo by msspider66 on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

So here we have a good sample of the species. The red circle points out the part you'll want to pay attention to when you're hailing a cab on a rainy day in Manhattan. It's the rooflight, the thing that tells you whether or not the taxi's available. Taking a closer look:

Photo by mokolabs on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

You'll see the rooflight is split in three parts. In the middle, you'll have the cab's medallion number--four digits, mixing letters and numbers. On the sides, you have the off duty lights, helpfully marked "Off Duty." When the middle section is lit, the cab is empty; when it's dark--as it is on the rooflight above, the cab has a fare and is unavailable. Below, you'll see what a cab looks like when just that middle section is lit:

Photo by wallyg on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

From a distance, it looks like a short bar of light in the middle of the roof console. When you hail a cab like this, it should stop, pick you up, and take you wherever you want within the five boroughs. If it doesn't, it means that either the driver didn't see you, or you've been the victim of racial profiling. Man, I wish that was a joke.

However, don't rush to curse the cab driver as a racist just because a cab that had some lights on passed you by. If all the lights on the rooflight are on, you're not likely to get picked up, either. It looks like this:

Modified from a photo by magnus* on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

As you can see, the middle number is lit, but so are the "Off Duty" lights marked by the pointers. From a distance, this looks like a single, long bar of light, which can be hard to distinguish from the light of an on-duty unoccupied cab. When all the lights are on it means that even though there isn't a passenger in the cab, the driver isn't looking to pick up a fare, and they'll typically ignore anyone trying to hail them. This is usually because it's the end of the driver's shift, and they're headed home or back to the taxi company where another driver is waiting to start the next shift. When all the lights are on, the cab isn't supposed to be picking up passengers, but sometimes drivers will stop and roll down their window to ask you where you want to go--they're hoping to grab one last fare before ending their shift.

Depending on whether there are other available cabs around, this practice can be a great blessing or a big nuisance. Unlike when they're on duty, the cabbie isn't obligated to pick you up or take you anywhere, so if you're not going the cabbie's way (toward his home and/or base) or if he just doesn't like the look of you, the cab's doors will remain locked (to keep you out) and the cabbie will drive away. When that happens, all they've accomplished by stopping in front of you is to waste your time and block you off from on-duty taxis who would be obligated to take you where you want to go--it's very frustrating. But if you're making a short trip or headed in the right direction (Houston Street and Hell's Kitchen are popular destinations during shift changes, because there are taxi companies located there) an off-duty cab can be a godsend.

The final way you can find the rooflight signifies that a cab is occupied and off-duty. Then the two "Off-Duty" lights are on, but the middle section is dark. Looks like this:

Photo by faz the persian on Flickr. Used under the Creative Commons License.

This state is only relevant to you when you happen to be near a cab that's letting out its passengers. When an on-duty cab lets off its passengers near you, it's pretty much an invitation to take a ride--just remember that, no matter how ugly the weather is outside, you need to let the passengers get out before you enter the cab. (This sounds like common sense, but if you live in New York long enough, someone will eventually jump into the back seat while you're trying to calculate how much of a tip to leave, guaranteed.) But if a taxi's dropping off a fare and has its off-duty light on, it's almost impossible to change the driver's mind, no matter how persuasive you think you are.

So, as per my brother-in-law's challenge, I will try to reduce this to rhyming couplets:

Short light--you're good as gold;
No lights--you're stuck in the cold;
Long light--you'll have to beg and plead;
Two lights--you're screwed, indeed.

Hey! Stop that. I warned you I suck at poetry.