The Wages of Sin, Part IV

You ever get an idea, then forget what the idea was actually about? That happened here. Lawton got suspended, and at the same time the below story got some play in the newspapers, and I thought that the perfect title for a blog post about it would be "the wages of sin." I was rushed in posting part one, and just forgot about the companion story. So here's that, plus a little extra:

Reebok Signs Giambi -- It's an endorsement contract, and it generated all the usual self-righteous declarations from the online community, which we've come to expect whenever steroids enter the picture. As happy as I am that Giambi's bat has returned to life, and as sympathetic as I've been about Jason's cancer struggles, I'm pretty flabbergasted by this move.

Jason won the Comeback Player of the Year Award, which gives Reebok some positive publicity by signing him. He also reportedly switched cleats to Reeboks mid-season, around the time that Jason turned his year around. So it makes sense that the company sees him as an exploitable asset, now. But the fact that he's receiving a reward, so soon after his steroid testimony to the Grand Jury, but without making any admissions to the public, or issuing a genuine public apology, or doing so much as recording a single anti-steroid PSA...it smells wrong. It sends the wrong signal.

The fact is, the size of Giambi's deal with Reebok is unknown, so we don't know how important this development is. Most folks think "endorsement contract" and we think of Tiger Woods getting millions from Nike and AmEx, Michael Jordan having his name on a line of shoes. For all we know, this deal might just keep Jason in fresh cleats for the rest of his career. Probably the biggest thing that it accomplishes for Giambi is that it takes the stigma off him of having no endorsements. It returns him to normal society again. Perhaps a bit too soon.

It's not like the steroid story is going to die anytime soon. Apparently, there will be a huge expose about it in ESPN the Magazine.

Special Bonus Sin:

Urbina Charged with Attempted Murder -- This stems from an incident late last month, where workers at one of Urbina's houses were reportedly attacked with machetes and threatened with incineration, supposedly over a missing firearm. Now, one can see how a missing firearm would be an issue for alarm to Urbina, given that his mother was kidnapped last year by drug dealers. Still, machete attacks and pouring gasoline over your employees does seem rather extreme.

In his defense, Urbina now claims that the only conflict that he had with the workers was over their unauthorized use of the pool, and that he simply gave them a stern talking to, and went to sleep. Latin america's a strange place sometimes, ultramodern and sophisticated in places, and then just short of feudal in others. Hopefully, the truth will find its way out in this case, eventually.

Urbina, by the way, is a free agent.

The Wages of Sin: Part III

The Sabermetric Counter-Revolution: I know we've talked about this before, but the hits keep coming in the Theo Epstein quitting/not being re-signed saga. Since last we talked about it, there was a farewell press conference attended by Epstein and owner John Henry, but not by alleged meanie Larry Lucchino. Despite the fact that Epstein insisted that Lucchino was not pushing him out of Boston (although, semantically, he did leave room for people to conclude that Lucchino was one of the reasons he was leaving), counteroffensive articles abounded this week, giving Theo a rhetorical smackdown. It's ironic that Mike Lupica and Ian O'Connor would both profess such a concern for Theo's career--both were on a "You'll never have it this good again, kid," kick--while also saying that he isn't that important, would have been overpaid, and is basically a loser, World Series ring or no World Series ring.

An article in Sunday's Daily News by Bill Madden seems to boil the whole thing down. Part of the Theo-bashing is probably Lucchino trying to re-apply his teflon coating; but the other part of it is plain-old generational warfare. Around baseball, young, statistics-saavy, Ivy League-educated execs are the rage. This off-season has seen Theo's second-in-command in Boston, Josh Byrnes, hired in Arizona, and the even younger Jon Daniels hired to lead the Texas Rangers. Andrew Friedman, a 28 year old former Wall Street analyst, is now in charge in Tampa Bay. To some, this has caused worry that the annual GM Meetings will soon start to resemble Logan's Run.

Since guys like Madden aren't likely to renew on Carousel, they feel threatened by this prospect. Luckily, plenty of folks have come to the defense of the new school GMs--Jay Jaffe, over at Futility Infielder has a rundown of the best.

There are a couple of other things going on here, with the Sabermetric Revolution and the young GMs, beyond all the cries of "stat geek" and "Moneyball." Baseball owners of the past were often hobbyists who got a kick from hanging out with the ex-jocks and time-worn "baseball men" who ran their franchises. Today's owners tend more towards being successful businessmen, who treat their ballclubs like businesses rather than playthings. Such people are used to putting their confidence in like-minded individuals--folks with MBAs and Ivy League diplomas. The fact that Moneyball has popularized statistical analysis in baseball just makes their natural instinct (to surround themselves with JDs and MBAs from the Ivies) more socially acceptable.

The other thing--and this is speculation--is that it seems that these "boy genius" GMs work for bargain prices. There's nothing that baseball owners like more than keeping labor costs down--not even winning.

Hopefully I can end this discussion with the judicious use of bullet points:

• For all the guys who are worried about Theo's career decisions--I'm pretty sure the guy can write his own ticket, either elsewhere in baseball or outside of the game. After all, the top line on his resume does read "General Manager, 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox." I doubt anyone's going to let him starve.
• Every anti-Epstein article, and even some pro-Theo ones, all make a point of how many times more money Epstein would be making under the Red Sox alleged offers than he had been making before. What's the point? Epstein was about to become a free agent, as much because the Red Sox didn't bother to try to extend his contract earlier as for any other reason. What's relevant to his salary other than what the market will bear?
• It's only in sports where we forget how creepy it is to have strangers discuss your compensation in public. I don't know how much some of my closest friends make, I certainly don't know how much Lupica, Madden, and O'Connor make, but I do know in great detail how much salary each New York Yankee earns.

Signing season: a quick comment here, with no links. We're in the prime free agent wooing period, which always brings reports with headlines like "Country Boy Wagner Impressed by Mets," where a free agent will say stuff like "I never thought about living there, but New York sure does interest me. My wife loves those Broadway musicals."

They're just being polite. The real title of these pieces should "Player X says he's interested in money." Which, come to think of it, wouldn't really be news.

New favorite nickname, from Jeff Angus's Management By Baseball Blog, we have Joe Kerrigan, The Bullpen Coach of Damocles. Used in a paragraph:

[The Yankees' hiring Kerrigan to back up Ron Guidry is] also sad in a way, because it allows Steinbrenner a classic XYY maneuver, which is holding the Bullpen Coach of Damocles over Guidry's head all the time. Guidry knows they have this completely qualified replacement standing off to the side, and Steinbrenner is perfectly capable of using that to torment Guidry whenever it gives the owner pleasure to do so.

You'll have to head on over to Jeff's blog to find out about his XYY Theory, but trust me, it's well worth the trip. Angus's work is reminiscent of Will Carroll's, in that both men have found fairly unique angles from which to approach the game of baseball: Carroll with his ground breaking injury analysis, Angus by looking at the lessons that baseball strategy holds for business management, and vice-versa.

The Wages of Sin, Part II

More News Items:

The Yankees Finalize Their Coaching Staff -- Donnie Baseball is the sole coaching holdover, joined by Larry Bowa at third, Lee Mazzilli on the bench, Joe Kerrigan in the bullpen, Ron Guidry as the pitching coach, and Tony Pena as the first base coach.

I guess the "wages of sin" part here pertains to Pena, one of my odd favorites from the 80's. Pena was a hacker with a bit of pop, and he never played for a team I rooted for. Yet he was one of the most unique receivers I've ever laid my eyes on, and the type of guy you could see was really working with his pitchers during games.

Pena quit his managing job in Kansas City under a bit of a cloud, being named as the other man in a divorce suit by a former neighbor. He joins the Yankees staff as a catching coach/pep talker/Latino embassador. It'll be fun seeing him in pinstripes, but the overall makeup of the coaching staff smells like trouble brewing.

Joe Torre is now surrounded by former managers--everyone but Mattingly and Guidry has been at the helm of a ballclub in the last five years. In previous years, there were no recent former managers on staff. The opportunitities for backstabbing are astounding. With Guidry an unknown quantity, will Kerrigan try to jump in the second the Yanks go through their first pitching-induced losing streak? If the team has an April and May like last year, do Bowa, Mazzilli, Pena, and Kerrigan start jockeying for position to take Torre's place?

Only the shadow knows.

The Wages of Sin, Part I

A bunch of Pinstriped news items, and a few not-so-pinstriped ones to get through, in mini-posts:

Lawton Tests Positive for Steroids -- The longer MLB's steroid policy grinds along, the more pitiful the offenders get. Lawton's season flatlined when he was dealt to the Cubs from the Pirates. He was traded to the Yankees, and his performance somehow got even worse. No offense, no defense, no nothing. And this was a man in his walk year.

We don't know when he started taking the stuff. We do know that he wasn't even taking a steroid made for humans--this was a veterinary steroid, for horses. The one thing we can be pretty sure of is that it didn't help him, because his performance couldn't have been worse if he tried.

Now, anyone who picks Lawton up has to deal with that 10 day suspension. For a veteran trying to catch a job in Spring Training, that's murder. Look for him to retire.

The Golden Child, Part II

Well, it happened again. The Gold Gloves were announced this week, and once again, Derek Jeter is the American League's Gold Glove shortstop.

There is, of course, much gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes that's been going on over this. Like anyone who becomes popular, Jeter has a dedicated contrarian anti-following--you know, folks who think he was just showboating when he made The Catch last year, or who believed that Joe Torre should have chewed him out after the 2001 ALDS Flip Play because he had abandoned his position.

We talked about this last year, the first time the Captain took home the hardware. Here's a quote:

It is unfair that Jeter won the award when he wasn't the best fielder in the league, and when the voters probably placed inordinate weight in one hype-filled play.

Based upon the numbers, it looks like Miguel Tejada should have won the Gold Glove. Clay Davenport has Tejada as BP's gold glove vote, and Tejada tops the list in UZR. Other candidates with better or equal claims to Jeter's include Guzman, Crosby, Jose Valentin, Carlos Guillen, and Julio Lugo.

I still think--and just about every measure of defense in the world agrees--that Jeter isn't the best shortstop in the AL. This isn't just the numbers speaking, but the naked eye. My observation is that Jetes makes a lot of highlight reel catches to his right, and going back on pop flies. But a lot of grounders to Jeter go for singles, particularly grounders up the middle. The singles he saves in the hole and going back on Texas leaguers probably don't completely balance out the singles he allows on relatively routine grounders which are out of his reach.

However, there are a few reasons that I can't get too riled up about this award:

1. It's the Gold Gloves, fer Chrissakes! GG voting has long been a joke, riddled with double-standards and faulty thinking. Sometimes players get the GG after having a banner offensive season, on the logic that if so-and-so was at the peak of his game with the bat, he must have had a good season with the glove (this year, for example, Bobby Abreu seems to have won a Gold Glove on the basis of his stellar performance in the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game). Some voters tend to take the stance that the Glove is the incumbent's to lose, and barring a defensive breakdown, a guy with a good defensive rep can keep winning the award a year or three after he's lost a step in the field.

2. The Field Hasn't Been Overwhelming. The high-profile defensive shortstops this year--guys like Rafael Furcal, Jack Wilson, and Neifi Perez--are in the National League. That leaves some lesser-known guys in a wider, shallower pool of AL talent. Jose Uribe gets a lot of lip service right now because of the amazing plays he made in the World Series--plays the GG voters didn't see before casting their ballots. Jhonny Peralta, who had a breakout season for the Indians, is another candidate who comes up high in some of the stat leaderboards (said leaderboards seldom agree, which is one of the challenges performance analysis faces going forward). Still, there is no Ozzie Smith, or even an in-his-prime Omar Vizquel, in this crowd.

3. Jeter Has Improved to the Point Where This Isn't An Embarassment. As I remarked over BP's internal mailing list, by most measures, Derek Jeter is a vastly improved defensive player over the past two years. Over Jeter's career, "PADJ"--Past A Diving Jeter--has been a recurring notation in my scorecards. This year, not only did I write (and think) this less often, but Jeter actually seemed better positioned and to make plays more easily. By Prospectus' ratings, he's gone from being 21 runs worse than an average fielder in 2003, to two runs worse in 2004, and now five runs better than an average shortstop in 2005. Someone who was overrated defensively when he sucked will obviously look like a champion if they make that kind of improvement.

Overall, congratulations to the Captain, and to all the other winners, deserving or not.

*****

Speaking of Derek Jeter, I've been reading BP's new book, Mind Game. Haven't finished it yet, so no review, yet--you can find a couple of nice reviews at Hardball Times and Management By Baseball.

But reading through the mid-summer chapters of Mind Game--which deal heavily with Nomar Garciaparra--brought to mind Derek Jeter's complete destruction of the Holy Trinity of Shortstops in 2004.

You remember the Trinity, right? Back in the late 90's Garciaparra, Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez were the vanguard of a new generation of shortstops, raised up in the image of Cal Ripken--big kids with big bats. All three players were American leaguers, making shortstop the AL's glamor position. Folks argued intensely about how the three shortstops ranked against each other, and whether outsiders such as Miguel Tejada or Edgar Renteria might someday join the group.

In 2004, over the course of about six months, Jeter was the only member of the Trinity left. In February, the Yanks acquired Alex Rodriguez, under the condition that he uncomplainingly move to third base, in favor of the lesser offensive and defensive player. Then, in July, Jeter effectively ended Garciaparra's run in Boston, by showing him up, making the big catch into the stands while Nomar conspicuously sat in the dugout, sulking. By the end of the month, Nomar was a Cub. By early this season, he was suffering from another huge injury. If his career continues, it will likely be in one of the infield corners.

And while other shortstops have risen in prominence since then--Miguel Tejada had a monster season last year, and Peralta has joined the party in a big way--that mystique of the Trinity is probably gone forever. The only one left is Jeter.

It's as if he announced "I am Derek Jeter of the clan Jeter. I am a shortstop. There can be only one."

Boston Breakup

Tell you the truth, I went into this off-season thinking the Yanks would be thrown into chaos by the loss of their GM, and that the Red Sox re-signing Theo Epstein was simply a formality. Man, was I wrong.

I heard almost simultaneously that Epstein had re-upped on a three year contract, and that he'd quit, both through BP's internal email system. I rushed to check, and the whole thing was confirmed. The story that's out there loudest is that Epstein quit because his relationship with club President Larry Lucchino had deteriorated to the point where Prince Theo no longer wanted the job of his dreams. Most sources pointed to this pro-Lucchino article written by the Curly Haired Boyfriend (as Carl Everett used to call the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy).

Now, the article is biased, patronizing, and somewhat idiotic (in CHB's mind, being in the Basketball NCAA Final Four thirty or so years ago makes you a "baseball man"). Still, it doesn't seem like justification for quitting your job. I guess it's all in the context--if I go through some work to try and save my relationship with someone, think that I've done so and make a career decision based upon that belief, and THEN read a story planted by that person with the biggest hack journalist in town...

...Well, I'd be mad, that's for certain. Maybe it would be enough to make me give up the job that I've worked for my entire life. Maybe.

I can't help but contrast this with Brian Cashman's situation. I think that Lucchino's an SOB--the kind of guy who comes in handy when you want to twist some arms in order to get a new ballpark, but not the kind of guy you want to keep around when there's no one to extort or threaten. Why? Because if he's not using his dark skills on your behalf, he's liable to get bored, and wind up using them on you.

But for all of Lucchino's skills with leaking information to the press, throwing tantrums, and doing hurtful things to his officemates, does anyone really think he holds a candle to George Steinbrenner? Sure, you figure that Big Stein is old and benign now, but if you want to talk about abuse, I'm sure that he can still dish it with the best of them.

Steinbrenner taunted Cashman with unflattering comparisons to Epstein, who we are told is one of Cashman's closest friends in the business. Steinbrenner did this publicly. He also publicly humiliated his GM on a half-dozen occasions--not letting him go to the Winter Meetings one year, openly hollering at him during a playoff game another. And this is only during Cashman's tenure--the Boss has been torturing his front office folks for as long as he's been an owner.

Yet Cashman stays, and Theo goes. The honeymoon in Boston lasts a year--just barely. And that's really what's at stake in Epstein's decision to leave. He did a great job with the Red Sox the past three years, but as an executive, it is extremely likely that Epstein is replaceable. The good vibe he brought into Boston? Perhaps less so.

Cash In

Brian Cashman stays with the Yankees, which is good news...I think.

It's always been hard to tell just how good a GM Cashman is, because the Yankee hierarchy during his tenure presents so many obstacles: is it Cashman, or is it the fact that he has a nearly-unlimited budget; is it Cashman, or is it Steinbrenner making or vetoing the big moves; is it Cashman, or does the Tampa brain trust really make the big decisions? It's pretty hard to judge management as it is, but control of the Yankee organization is so decentralized that isolating Brian Cashman's contribution is nearly impossible.

Part of the Cashman deal, it appears, is that he will be the one in charge. This, we will believe when we see it. But for whatever it's worth, Cashman doesn't move on to the GM vacancies in Tampa Bay or Los Angeles, or even to the potential vacancy in Boston. As that he's a familiar figure, and one that we like, it's good to see him cash in, even though I don't know if this makes the Yanks more or less likely to win the World Series.

It could be that 2006 is the year we finally find out how good Cashman is.

****

Meanwhile, the coaching staff continues in flux. Larry Bowa seems to be in at third, and deposed Oriole manager (and former pinstriped first base coach) Lee Mazzilli is expected to return to replace Joe Girardi as bench coach. Where this leaves Luis Sojo, who wasn't a terribly good third base coach, but is widely hailed as a future manager, we do not know. It really stings that Sojo, who has all the "intangibles" buzz of Joe Girardi, plus managing experience the former catcher lacks, isn't considered for the bench coach position, and isn't getting interviews as a managerial candidate. Also in flux is Roy White, the incumbent first base coach, who might find himself bumped by Sojo, or reassigned.

Ron Guidry is rumored to be the favorite to take over the pitching coach position. Neil Allen, who was considered one of the top contenders, won't get the job, and apparently won't even be on the major league coaching staff--losing his bullpen coach position. Potential Red Sox spy Joe Kerrigan could be up for the pitching or bullpen coach spots. He's apparently one of Cashman's favorites.

The 2005 World Champion White Sox

The Official Post-Yankee Playoff Team of the Weblog That Derek Built (the TOPYTWTDB, as we call them) was swept last night, unable to generate a single run in the interest of avoiding humiliation in their home ballpark. It was sad, but fitting.

The Astros certainly had their chances. Last night, I was at the pool hall, and in keeping with the low ratings, most of the TVs in the joint were tuned to something else--regular season hockey, pre-season basketball, the lumberjack events, the World's Strongest Man competition, the International Foosball Federation's Monte Carlo Grand Prix--you know, something with local ramifications.

After I won my match, I saw one at bat that told me what the result of this game would be. Bottom of the sixth inning, score tied at zero, Freddy Garcia had just walked Mike Lamb to face Jason Lane, with two outs and the bases loaded. Garcia quickly ran the count to 0-2, and then Lane started to battle. Foul ball, foul ball, foul ball. AJ Pierzynski did a great job of blocking a splitter in the dirt to keep the runner at third. Another foul ball.

And then, suddenly, Lane lost the contest of wills. The pitch that struck him out was high and inside, and no threat to catch any part of the plate. Threat over, and, I felt at the time, game over.

It's strange to see a sweep where the games are fairly close, the underdog is well-regarded, yet it just feels like they are also completely overmatched. Maybe it's the sour way the Series started, with Roger Clemens unable to answer the bell after the second inning. The key to the Astros chances was having that fearsome Big Three, and once that became a Big Two, they just didn't have enough offense to hang in there.

As for the White Sox, over at Baseball Prospectus I took a look at how so many good folks underestimated them so much at the beginning of the season. For those of you who remember my pre-season picks, I had them FOURTH in their division. PECOTA, Nate Silver's player projection system, showed the ChiSox as a .500 team, somewhere between 80-82 and 82-80.

My analysis shows that PECOTA actually did a pretty good job of predicting Chicago's offense, but was dashed upon the rocks by unexpected and interrelated improvements in their defense and pitching. Check it out.

Notebookin'

The curse of the Black Sox looks like it will soon be broken, chaos reigns around the world...and I'm engaged in self-promotion. Dropped a Notebook piece on the Rockies and their relievers over at Baseball Prospectus.

Check it out. Seriously, go ahead. It's not like the Astros are going anywhere...

(I get a little bit bitter when teams are bitten by the Curse of the Weblog That Derek Built. More on this tomorrow.)

Movie Review: Capote

I didn't know a lot about Truman Capote's work going into the eponymous biopic directed by Bennett Miller. Like many of New York's legendary literary and artistic figures, to some extent he's famous as much for being part of a scene as he is for any particular piece of writing. I hear Capote's name and I think about the Black & White Ball, and hanging out with Marilyn Monroe. Pressed, I can only name two of Capote's works "Breakfast at Tiffany's"--far more famous these days as the Audrey Hepburn movie than as Capote's novel--and "In Cold Blood."

This movie is about Capote's experience writing the latter book, which started off as a piece for the New Yorker magazine before taking on a life of its own. As the story goes, Capote notices the a small newspaper article about a family murdered in Kansas, and quickly makes for the midwest to report on the crime. After the perpetrators are captured, Capote becomes fascinated by one of the murderers, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.) who he imagines as a funhouse mirror version of himself.

When the murderers are sentenced to death, Capote gets them lawyers--he needs them alive so they can tell him their story. But Capote finds himself in a quandary, because, at the same time, their story isn't over until they are executed. Literature ensues.

The movie stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman in what is pretty obviously a "Give Me My Damn Oscar" project. I'm not the person to ask is Hoffman's mimicry is dead on, but the actor certainly disappears into the character in this role. Hoffman is ably supported by Clifton, as well as Catherine Keener, in the role of Nelle Harper Lee. There are some neat twists early in the movie, including an introductory cocktail party that looks like it was lifted, frame-by-frame, from Holly Golightly's apartment in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

However, while it was interesting learning about Truman Capote's past and the way he pursued the "In Cold Blood" story, I wonder what the point of the movie was--other than providing a vehicle for Hoffman to chew the scenery. Capote's Scheherazade-in-Reverse relationship with Smith is the center of the story, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere in the final reel. Worst of all, the literary achievement that "In Cold Blood" is presented as doesn't have much weight, because we live in an era when that kind of reporting is commonplace--the film doesn't really show us what was groundbreaking about the book when it was written. The first rule of biopics should be that the audience leaves with an appreciation of what made the subject special. I'm not sure I got that from this film.

Not a bad film, but one I would wait for on video.

Pre-World Series Gumbo

Was at the pool hall last night night while game 6 of the NLCS was going on.

Not that I was watching it, mind you. I was in the back of the pool hall again (at the famed Abe Rosen table), and unlike Game 7 of last year's ALCS, they didn't tune every TV set in the place to the game. Indeed, most of the sets that I could see were tuned to Rangers/Islanders.

It's a testament to how far the NHL has fallen that Rangers/Islanders couldn't get my interest, at all. Someone else had to point out to me that it ended with the Isles winning their first-ever shootout.

I started off my match with my one-handicap-rank-lower opponent, Barbra, going on a nice run in the first game of 8 ball, which gave me a pleasant scare, and got me shooting well. After tying up the table a little bit, I pulled out the first game, then proceeded to sweep her--hard--in the next two games of 8 Ball. After the first game it wasn't even close.

But the seeds were already sown for my destruction. I started to feel bad for her during the 8-ball match, since it looked like she was getting frustrated. I also started to think about other stuff, like my handicap going up--I was 14-5 going into the night's match, so it figured that a third straight winning week would get the league director's attention.

Worst of all, I'd been winning without making any long shots. Going into 9-ball, this is a recipe for disaster.

And so, I messed up in the first game, going on a nice run that ended just before Barbra's handicap ball. Then, a blind shot she took into a cluster kicked the nine ball in in the second game. Then, in the third game, I rattled my opponent's handicap ball (the Eight) in the corner, leaving it right in front of the pocket. I was about to do the sportsmanlike "this shot is too easy for you" thing and concede the game, but she insisted on shooting. She made the shot, but the cue ball hit three rails and dropped into a pocket on the other side of the table.

With ball in hand, on the nine ball, I missed a nonchallant side pocket shot, from maybe three or four inches away from the pocket. Tied match.

One more rattled eight ball later, it was over. I'm still disgusted.

The most prized thing in sports is the killer instinct, a reaction that when your opponent is reeling, you not only refuse to let up on them, but you turn up the pressure even higher. It just kills me when that instinct fails to kick in, and you start finding ways to beat yourself.

On a perhaps unrelated note, another thing that occurred to me was that playing Barbra was perhaps the first real interaction I've had with a woman I didn't know since getting married. It's strange, since I've been off the market for more than two years now, but I felt just a little bit awkward. Different.

OK, now that I'm done boring you with my pool game (and personal life), after my match was done, I caught the action in the NLCS on one of the HD's by the bar. It was the bottom of the sixth, and the Astros were already leading 4-1. Oswalt was just filthy--his 95+ heater slicing into the corners of the strike zone. Reminds me a bit of vintage Ron Guidry, in the way it seems incongruous for someone so slight of build to whip it so damn hard. By the time Morgan Ensberg singled in Craig Biggio with the Astros' fifth run, the Redbirds looked beat. And in time, it was official.

So the Astros meet the White Sox in the World Serious. As Alex Belth puts it, Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez against Andi Pettitte and Roger Clemens. One team that hasn't won in 88 years, against one that hasn't won, ever (that would be since 1962). History made either way.

Here's to one last good taste of baseball before we go off to that cold winter.

******

Meanwhile, there's been a bit of noteworthy news in Yankeeland that probably merits a few blurbs:

News Item--Mel Stottlemyre Calls It Quits as Yankee Pitching Coach (Blum/Yahoo Sports) Long time coming, and probably for the best. I doubt Mel was ever as good a pitching coach as was believed when he was coaching the 1986 Mets, or as bad as he was thought to be his last few years in Pinstripes. Like Don Zimmer's departure a few years back, I'm sad he's leaving, but I'm happy he gets away from the backbiting and office politics of the World of Yankee.

News Item--Joe Torre Will Remain Yankee Manager (AP/ESPN.com) This one surprised a little, because of George Steinbrenner's long history of not tolerating failure, and of interpreting the word "failure" in a very liberal fashion. Still, it's welcome news. There's no manager out there that I can see doing a better job than Torre, and it's not like he has lost the respect of his players. So firing the manager now would be change for change's sake.

News Items--Leo Mazzone Speaks to Yanks (Borden/NY Daily News) But Joins the Orioles (Rubin/NY Daily News) Getting Leo in pinstripes was a pipe dream, but I'm surprised that Mazzone left Atlanta despite turning down the Yanks' offers. Factor in that search was probably the Orioles retaining Leo's longtime pal as their manager. I guess we'll get to see how much of a miracle worker Leo has been, all these years--the Braves and Orioles are teams to watch next season.

With Mazzone and Stottlemyre out, the candidates for the pitching coach range from Neil Allen (organizational favorite) to Joe Kerrigan (possible Red Sox spy favorite) to Ron Guidry (emotional favorite) to the unknown. Right now, despite things to like about each candidate, I favor the unknown.

News Item--Joe Girardi To Manage the Marlins (Frisaro/MLB.com) We've been hearing for a decade about how Girardi will make a great manager some day. I don't know what this talk is based on, but the Marlins sure hope the buzz turns into reality. This leaves one more vacancy in the Yankees coaching corps, and no current favorites to fill the bench coach position.

News Item--Felix Heredia Suspended for Steroids (Noble/MLB.com) I guess someone got sick of Larry Mahnken calling him a fairy. Still, the one distinguishing thing about the steroid cheats is what a pitiful list of characters this is--guys just hanging on to their careers, for the most part. The other thing--which hurts me to note as a Dominican American--is that so many of these guys are Hispanic. Like the Agegate scandals, it sends the message that Latinos are just more willing to cheat than other people. I'd prefer to think that this means that supplement companies throughout Latin America got some 'splaining to do (to paraphrase Desi Arnaz).

When You Assume...

The cost of a nice 2 week vacation, and returning on the day that your younger brother gets admitted to the Bar, is that you wind up working late when you finally get back to work. How late? I was following the Astros/Cardinals game at work, via computer.

I was scanning along, eventually coming to terms with the fact that I wouldn't get home in time to catch any part of Andy Pettitte's starting performance, when Lance Berkman hit his big three run shot in the seventh inning, putting the Astros up, 4-2. Houston has a pretty lights-out bullpen, so I left the office thinking that the Astros/White Sox World Series matchup was a done deal.

Man, was I wrong.

The question is, can the Astros come back from losing after being a one strike away from the World Series, at home? Over at ESPN, Bill Simmons thinks not. Simmons thinks that this is the kind of blow from which the Official 2005 Playoff Team of the Weblog That Derek Built cannot possibly recover, because the psychological damage from losing after being one strike from the World Series is too much to overcome. His words:

Sadly, the rest of the Astros-Cards series seems predictably depressing (unless you're a St. Louis fan). Not only are the Cardinals back at home, not only have they been handed a second life, but out of every sport, baseball hinges on emotion and momentum more than anything else. In the NBA, teams can lose the most devastating game possible and bounce back two days later as a completely different team (like the Nets after Game 3 of the 2002 Boston series). That doesn't work in baseball. Once you have the momentum, the other team has to take it back. And they can't do that when they're reeling on the road and wondering what the hell just happened. That's why I believe the Astros are finished, just like that '86 Angels team was.

Now, he's got a great point about the disadvantage the Astros face going back to St. Louis. The 'Stros were just 35-46 outside of the Juice Box this year, while the Cards maintained twin 50-31 records at home and on the road this year. So the Cardinals are very much alive in this series, and have a shot to beat out Houston for the pennant. But at the same time, I don't give much credence to all this talk of momentum, much less Simmons' unsupported theorem that momentum matters more in baseball than any other sport.

Sunday night, the Astros had all the "momentum." The Cards had not just lost and put themselves on the brink of elimination, they had fallen apart, with LaRussa and Edmonds getting ejected from the game, the team making mistakes in the field.

Houston's momentum lasted just shy of 24 hours, until the Cardinals finally managed to put a couple of people on base for the most dangerous hitter in the National League. That's all that really happened. Giving up a big fly to Albert Pujols is not the same creature as allowing a homer to Scott Podsednik (or Bucky Dent). But when we talk about "momentum," that is all we're talking about--a bad pitch to a really good hitter.

In other words, to quote Earl Weaver, "Momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher." And here, the Astros have the decided advantage, bringing to the mound a 20 game winner (Roy Oswalt) and the guy who won the ERA title (Roger F'ing Clemens). Against this, the Cards have their sometimes-achy #2 starter, Mark Mulder, and a couple of decent-to-good guys, Jeff Suppan and Matt Morris.

So the chances of the Cards' "momentum" lasting through Thursday seem quite distant.

Rooting Interests

Yeah, the Intercontinental Blogging is over. So is the Yanks' season. I'm going to have to review the ALDS by MLB.tv (if they still have condensed games for the off-season) later on, but I can't say I'm too surprised that in the end, good pitching stopped good hitting. In one of my few in-Stadium games this year, I got to see the pitching matchup we wound up with, Mike Mussina against Earvin Santana. I said back then the kid had some good stuff, and it looks like that held up.

Looking out at the big hitters of Yankee Blogging--the Bronx Banters, Futility Infielders, and Pinstriped Blogs of the world--it looks like they've done a great job analyzing the Yankee postseason. Most of them have come out against the apparent scapegoating of Alex Rodriguez, and have started looking to the future.

Right now, I'm not even ready to think about the future. I'm jet-lagged and confronted with a playoff doubleheader on FOX, Astros/Cardinals followed by Angels/White Sox. This season, virtually every game I've seen has featured the Yankees, or has had some angle to my work at Baseball Prospectus--researching this team or that, watching a particular player.

Watching baseball's postseason just as a fan, the question becomes who am I rooting for? Neutrality's difficult to manage, and I've always been the kind of guy to pick sides in baseball's postseason, particularly when the Yanks are out of the running. Here's how the Championship Series' stack up this time around:

White Sox--Pros: they're already up 3-1 in the ALCS, so cheering for the other team could be a short-lived affair; they have history going for them, since the Sox (White) haven't won a big one since 1917. Cons: Ozzie Guillen is annoying. He's the AL's manager of the year, but I've always found the guy annoying. Can't root for Ozzie Guillen.

Angels--No pros and cons about this one, I can't cheer for the guys that knocked the Yanks out of the playoffs, either. Between this and 2002, I just don't have much room in my heart for the Halos, who've made up for all those years of Yankee fans shouting them out of the house in Anaheim--er, Los Angeles, whatever--during the regular season for their entire existence. Only thing worth liking about the Angels is Vlad Guerrero.

Cardinals--Pros: Classy team, missed last year's title, so they have something to prove. Albert Pujols is one of the unique talents in the game, and I've been a fan of Larry Walker for a long time. Cons: Other than the big three hitters (they're missing Scott Rolen this time out) and Chris Carpenter, the rest of the team is bland. Tony LaRussa is a different kind of annoying from Ozzie Guillen--I liked TLR once upon a time, but it seems like the guy believes all that stuff that George Will wrote about him. As I write this, he's getting himself thrown out of a playoff game.

Astros--Pros: World Series drought? Check, the Astros haven't won a championship, ever, and have only won one playoff series in their history. Something to prove? Check, this NLCS is a rematch from last season's NLCS, which they lost to the Cards. Former Yankees? Check. Other longtime favorites? I've been a Craig Biggio guy since back in the day when I used to play Strat-o-Matic, and Biggio was a catcher, who could run, and play second base. Pure gold. The Houston Astros are the only MLB team other than the Yanks whose lid I've worn (another Strat-o-Matic thing, back in High School). Yeah, these guys are the pick. Cons: it would be bittersweet to see the Rocket and Andy Pettitte win a World Series in another team's uniform.

So Let's Go Astros!

*****

I mentioned jet lag. I'm coming off a transAtlantic flight right now, and I was really thankful for KLM's in-flight on-demand movies on both of my 6+ hour flights. On the way to Europe I caught Sin City, which was just an amazing job of converting a comic book to the screen, and I'd gotten to see the beginning of Troy (Troy was selected using criteria for in-flight movies: is this something I would bother to see if I wasn't on an airplane? If it is, I might decide to sleep or do something else, knowing that I will see the movie eventually. If not, I'm catching it on the plane rather than paying to see it later). The return flight allowed me to finish business with Troy, and make it a Brad Pitt doubleheader with Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Much to my surprise, Smith was a fun little movie. Not the next Godfather or anything, but a competent film, despite some plot problems. The basic story is pretty simple: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play spies, who get married after a not-so-chance meeting in South America. Now, as a married couple, neither knows what the other really does for a living, and both are feeling the doldrums of a typical suburban marriage. Obviously, this situation does not persist, or you wouldn't have much of a movie.

The problem that Mr. & Mrs. Smith faces is that it falls between the cracks of the action/adventure and romantic comedy genres. Overall, the film is closer to the latter, but was marketed as being the former. It's a shame, because the leads can actually carry the romance part of a romantic comedy, and Pitt has pretty good comic timing. Because the film sells the action portion so hard, this film has one of the harsher soundtracks I've heard in a while, all loud music and deafening explosions.

I know, somewhere out there there are movie execs who figure that anyone my age or younger has permanent ear damage from listening to too much loud music on our headphones, and that we need even more ear-splitting audio at the cineplex to get out attention. I ask those movie execs to get stuffed, and lower the volume.

While I was writing this, the Official 2005 Playoff Team of the Weblog that Derek Built beat the Cards, to take a 3-1 lead in their series. Look like a big front-runner now, don't I?

An American Yankee Fan in Italy

You might wonder why things have been so quiet around here lately. That's because I'm currently in Europe, on vacation.

One of the wonders of being in Europe is that it has been virtually impossible to follow baseball. The ALDS has come in odd flashes: the first couple of nights, our hotel had CNN world, which meant watching the same highlights over and over again, almost a day late. For the weekend, however, I went out to the countryside...which meant no baseball info at all, with the series tied 1-1.

La Chiquita understood how hard this was for me. With the time difference here, there isn't the option of just heading off to a bar with a satellite dish--game time is 2:00 AM. Before the next city we would hit, I knew full well the series--and the Yanks' season--could be over.

Luckily, it seems that we have survived the weekend, to return to Los Anaheimos de Angeles for a conclusive game 5. All I can say is Let's Go Yanks!

That, and I'm sure I'll hear all about it tomorrow.

Tempests In A Teapot

The talk in this off-day is all about managers. Managers quitting, getting fired, getting invited to leave (and no, those three are not all the same thing). Managers accusing each other of lacking integrity, however obliquely. Managers preparing for the playoffs.

First, the one that has a local angle. It seems the Yankees weren't too happy at the way that Buck Showalter played Sunday's game against the Angels. The Angels' come-from-behind victory--combined with the Yanks' loss at Boston--gave the Halos home field advantage over the Yankees in the ALDS.

Now, Showalter is the type who likes to talk about "tradition" and go to the press with his opinions of whether other managers are meeting his lofty standards for the profession, so maybe pulling his star players early in the final game--the Rangers were up 4-1 when Showalter gave Mark Teixeira, Hank Blaloch, and Michael Young the day off in the 3rd inning--is a bit of hypocrisy. The fact of the matter still is, the Yanks had their destiny in their own hands, and spit the bit. It isn't Buck Showalter's job to get the Yanks home field advantage in the playoffs, it's Joe Torre's. No whining allowed. That means you, A-Rod.

In other news managers started biting the dust as soon as the season was over. In Los Angeles, Paul DePodesta refused to grant manager Jim Tracy a contract extension, meaning that Tracy and the Dodgers will "mutually part ways" without anyone firing or quitting. In Detroit, Alan Trammel is gone--definitely a firing. The Motowners supposedly have the hots for Jim Leyland.

In Florida, Jack McKeon quit the Marlins, although some think it was a "quit or be fired" type deal. Last week I wrote a Notebook piece on the Marlins, in which I outlined the reasons I felt jettisoning McKeon wouldn't be too bad for the Fish. Mainly, it looks like he's a Billy Martin-type who quickly burns out the players under him with his negativity.

Back to the manager the Yankees have, rather than the three that just hit the market, Joe Torre has selected Mike Mussina as his Game 1 starter, and Chien Ming Wang to start game 2. When the action moves back to Yankee Stadium, Randy Johnson will answer the call, at home.

What about Shawn Chacon, the guy who allowed only one earned run in his last three starts? He pitches Game 4, if the Yanks get that far. Why?

Seniority. Mussina may not have been effective terribly often in the last two months, but he's a proven Yankee(tm). Johnson and even Wang all have more Yankees tenure than Chacon.

Please tell me this isn't really how we're running things. Please let this be a smokescreen for some real reason that Mussina is starting game one of a playoff series...like he's been faking injury and ineffectiveness for months just to set up Mike Scioscia.

I have much fear.

Here We Go Again...

OK, so it turned out one out of three was good enough.

The Yanks clinched Saturday, which took most of them (but not the Captain, Derek Jeter) by surprise. Turned out that since the Indians didn't keep up the pressure they'd put on in the second half, the Yanks won the AL East by virtue of having a tiebreaker in the season series.

Confusing, ain't it?

With a fractional chance to deliver the knockout punch today, the Yanks whiffed, losing 10-1 to the Sox behind Curt Schilling. Turned out that the Red Sox victory wasn't necessary, since the Indians finished their late collapse with a 3-1 loss to the White Sox. So the Sox are once again the second place team in the division, despite finishing with the exact same record as the Bronx Bombers. Like last year, Red Sox are also the AL's Wild Card team. Which means that the Yanks and Sox are a couple of ALDS victories away from reprising--again!--the ALCS drama of 2003 and 2004.

Standing in the Yankees' way will be the Los Anaheim Angels of Angeles (the title would get even more exciting if Peter Angelos bought the team). I'm sure Cliff Corcoran will be dishing the statistical skinny on the Halos at Bronx Banter, and it looks like the inimitable Chris Karhl will be previewing the series at Baseball Prospectus. However, the quick and dirty summary has these two teams as Yankees and Anti-Yankees. The Bombers have suspect pitching (8th in the AL in ERA), and a thin bullpen, carried by a monstrous offense (2nd in runs). The Angels have excellent pitching (2nd in ERA) with a deep pen married to a mediocre offense (7th in runs). The Yanks scored 131 more runs than the Angels this season, and allowed nearly a full run of ERA more.

So the question is, does good pitching beat good hitting? Can't help but recall that this resembled last year's ALDS matchup with the Twins.

The Yanks beat the Twins last year, but then ran into the Red Sox killing machine. This time out, the Sox have to contend with...the Sox, of the White variety. The matchup once again mirrors the Yankees, since the Chicagoans depend on run prevention.

A few months ago this sort of thing would have carried Clash of the Titans type implications. But the "Small Ball" White Sox lost a lot of their mystique in allowing the Indians to draw so close at the end of the season.

Exciting times. More tomorrow.

Three Games (Maybe Four)

As someone I know would say, "Lordy, is this exciting!" Last night, I almost became a Blue Jay fan, thinking that the Jays would hold their lead against the Red Sox.

Then David Ortiz happened. I spent a bit of time on BP's mailing list the other day, ragging on the Ortiz-for-MVP campaign. But it sure is hard to fight when the guy keeps on coming up huge the way that Ortiz has.

The Yanks come into Fenway with a one game lead--that's a chance to clinch an AL East tie with one win, two wins for a playoff spot (under any circumstances, I think, if the Yanks win two more games in the 2005 regular season, they're in).

It says a lot about this season that Chien Ming Wang leads off the most important series of the year. He faces David Wells, the loud-mouthed, former Yankee fan favorite (or is that "Yankee former fan favorite"?). I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

And I'm going to miss the whole thing. More married guy stuff. Leaving town tonight, just as the game begins, entertaining family in Michigan, during tomorrow's game, travelling again at gametime Sunday. Any volunteers to TiVO this?

Have a great weekend, and Let's Go Yankees!

The Rain in Spain...

Between the raindrops, the Yanks win a laugher, 11-3, against the Orioles at Camden Yards. The Unit gets his 16th win with six innings of shutout ball. The Yankees carried the shutout into the ninth...but we'll get to that in a second. Jason Giambi hit his 31st, a comforting shot after the back troubles that have slowed him lately. Will Carroll believes that those back problems are related to some of the erratic throws that Giambi has had to take from Jeter of late--and from the fact that Sheffield is occupying the DH slot, which forces Giambi to play the field. Alex Rodriguez matched Giambi with 3 RBI, Jeter had 2 RBI of his own.

The Red Sox were less lucky than the Yankees with the weather. Their matchup with the Blue Jays at Fenway was rained out, and now they have a doubleheader scheduled for Tuesday.

This is big on a few levels: first, by winning while the Sox sit, the Yanks have put themselves a half game up; second, the Sox have no days off the rest of the way, and plenty of incentive to keep pace with the New Yorkers, which puts pressure on them; and third, maybe it messes up the Red Sox rotation for the weekend series against the Yanks. Schilling would have to pitch on short rest to keep his date with Randy Johnson on Saturday. More likely, the Unit and Tim Wakefield reprise their epic Sept. 11 matchup, because Wakefield's more likely to do well on short rest. That's a shame, because the Schill/Unit matchup was somewhat momentous--supposedly, the two greats had never faced each other in major league careers stretching back to the 80's.

The plot thickens.

****

After watching the Orioles get three runs off of him, in a garbagetime 9th tonight, I have to ask: can we just declare the Alan Embree Experiment over?

He sucked all year in Boston, he was released, he came to the Yankees, and he's continued to suck. This is supposed to miraculously change? There is no tomorrow for Alan Embree. If the Yanks want a lefty reliever, they have only a few days left to find him.

Tied (the Knot)

Long time no see, so I'm dropping you a note courtesy of my brother's wireless connection. In the interim, La Chiquita and I have become Wife and Husband. What preceded was a weekend of too many terrific meals in Chicago, an outdoor wedding washed out by lightning storms, only for the sun to burn through the clouds the second we locked into our indoor Plan "B," and more love and goodwill from our respective relatives (now simply "our relatives") that we have no way to repay or even appropriately give our thanks. It's been an amazing weekend, and I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

Oddly, married doesn't feel any different. There's the ring, which is so light it constantly feels like it's gonna fall off. Otherwise, everything's the same.

More on this later.

Meanwhile, a lot of baseball happened, and I missed all of it. The Yanks were able to make that full game lead on Thursday, and hold it through Friday, until Saturday's loss locked the Yanks and Boston into their natural state of being, a mutual deathgrip from which one must go away crying.

It's strangely appropriate: these two teams were made to battle each other. Right now, the Wild Card leader (currently Cleveland) has a one-game advantage on the AL East leader, so if everyone kept pace over the next week, one AL East team would go home.

Enjoy the last week.

One Half

It took a five-run 8th inning last night by Tampa Bay, but the Yanks are--for the moment--in sole possession of first place, by a half game. While the Red Sox were losing to the Devil Rays, the Yanks were riding the left arm of Randy Johnson, and the brought-back-from-the-dead bat of Matt Lawton to a tight, tight victory, 2-1 at the Stadium.

I'd doubted we would get here. But now that we are, the problems haven't gotten any simpler. The Yanks are still banged up, the pitching is still a question mark, the bullpen beyond Mariano Rivera and Tom Gordon is utterly suspect (and the dynamic duo aren't quite the sure thing they were last season, either). The defense is still bad.

But at this point, we'll enjoy first place while we can. Tonight, the Yanks complete their four-game set against the O's. The Orioles have lost the last three in a variety of painful ways--the walkoff, the slugfest (in which they lost their best player, Brian Roberts), and now the pitcher's duel. They have to want out of Yankee Stadium, bad.

As Alex pointed out at Bronx Banter, since the Red Sox are idle, the Yanks will finish the Orioles series either tied for first or a game up on Boston. Mike Mussina goes against Bruce Chen, just to make things even more pivotal.

***

New notebook piece at BP, this time about the Devil Rays. Since we're done with Tampa for the year, I get to give my boy Jorge Cantu his props, and take the Rays brain trust down a peg, if that's possible. Check it out.

Toronto's got next, at the Stadium. Can't guarantee much coverage, or any postings this weekend, because La Chiquita and I are walking down the aisle (figuratively speaking--we're actually getting hitched someplace that has no aisle). I'm sure you'll get along fine without me. Wish me luck, and go Yanks!

Requiem for a Dream

I'm not the kind of person that actually remembers much of their dreams, much less discusses them on the Internets. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to tell you about a weird freakin' dream that I had Tuesday morning, baseball related:

I dreamt that there was another Yankees/Sox ALCS, and that throwing aside all logic, I was at the game at or near field level. Batting practice was going on, and the Red Sox were each taking their turns at the cage. Then things got weird. There was one guy coming to the batting cage, it looked like his skin had been cooked off. Regardless of this fact, this Burnt Man took batting practice, launching bombs toward the leftfield seats. Although Burnt Man didn't look at all like Jason Varitek (aside from looking like something out of a monster movie, BM had the build and swing of former Yankee and Red Sock Jack Clark) I knew he was the Red Sox captain. So I said "Why is this guy playing, for pity's sake?" A helpful Red Sox fan nearby told me that the Burnt Man had cleared himself to play--lots of stuff about this being a big game and morale and all.

I couldn't pay more attention to the fan's rapt speech about Burnt Man's dedication, since it looked to me like the guy might just die at any moment. Burnt Man's mode of dress recalled the Incredible Hulk--uniform pants scorched, torn, and ruined to the extent of being shorts now, otherwise bare-chested and barefoot.

The game started, and Mike Mussina took the mound. Quickly, a Mussina Inning started, first with a single, then a pair of ten-pitch walks to load the bases. Burnt Man batted cleanup, in his same getup, only with a batting helmet on.

For some reason, I was incensed that Burnt Man was allowed to play out of uniform. It's one thing for a team's helmets to be loaded with so much crud that it looks like an elephant crapped on all their heads, quite another to send a shirtless, shoeless burn victim onto the field.

"Couldn't they at least get him a new pair of pants?" I asked.

"What, are you crazy?" a slightly meaner Sox fan interjected. "He's got second and third degree burns over 90% of his body. They try to take those pants off him, he'll die."

The mean Sox fan said it as if I'd intended to sign Burnt Man's death warrant by depantsing him.

I tried to retort, but before I could do so, Burnt Man sent a drive to dead left field, into the main section stands. As Burnt Man circled the bases gingerly, my emotions weren't anxiety or anger at Moose for putting us down 4-0. More, it was a sense of queasiness, knowing that at any moment Burnt Man's skin could crack and slough off like so much pustulous mud.

Then I woke up.

I got no clue what this means. Any dream interpreters in the audience?

Bumps & Bruises

...Brother J called Bubba Crosby's 9th inning walk-off shot, by the way.

But let's back up, first. The Yankees came into tonight's series opener against the Orioles on a huge downer. On Sunday, the Yanks lost an incredibly winnable game, 6-5. Now, you can't win them all, but the "music" from this loss was all wrong. It came on the same day as a Boston loss, so it was a missed opportunity. It ended with Derek Jeter at the bat and the tying run on base, something which is never supposed to happen, I guess.

The defense was bad. Please someone stop Ruben Sierra before he takes the field with a glove again! Sierra on defense was a bad idea eight years ago--Sierra's lateral movement is pretty bad, but the true horror comes if you ask Ruben to move forward or backward to get to the ball.

But the worst part of Sunday's loss, is that the Yanks looked beat up afterward. During the game, Jaret Wright managed to get nailed with a broken bat--not a shard of broken bat, but a fairly intact barrell came flying right at Wright, the second time a comebacker has hit Wright on the mound this season. Watching this on TV, it was absolutely scary: you couldn't tell if the bat made contact with Wright, but as he went down he was cradling that pitching arm of his.

I thought for certain something in that shoulder went snap.

As it turns out, Wright's elbow is bruised and bloodied; we don't yet have an idea of what that means, long-term. This is disquieting because Mike Mussina's bullpen sessions haven't gone too well, and Alan Embree sucks. The Embree part isn't injury-related, it's just reality.

But wait, there's more! Jason Giambi left Sunday's game with back spasms. Gary Sheffield revealed that he might not play the field again this season--and sadly, that has nothing to do with his love life, and everything to do with his strained thigh muscles.

It's enough to get anyone down, and over at Baseball Primer, the Yankee haters were having a field day.

Which brings up our pre-game time silver lining. For all the kvetching, going into tonight's game the Yanks had won seven out of their last nine. They'd taken three straight series from division rivals. The complaints against the Yanks have been of the "well, they're not in first place, yet!" variety.

I'm bizarrely comforted by this. Rationalization seems to precede failure (remember when we were trying to convince ourselves that it was OK that the Red Sox won ALCS games 4 and 5 in Fenway, because that meant that we could clinch at home). Last weekend, when the Red Sox sounded like they were happy not to get swept by the Yankees, I detected a whiff of loser in the rationalization.

Which brings me to tonight's action. I missed most of the game, but looking at the box I'm heartened to see Tiger Wang back in the groove, A-Rod keep up his RBI thing, and Cano continue his hot hitting. But most of all I'm glad to see Bubba Crosby out there, rescuing the Yankees from the defensive stylings of Ruben Sierra. Hanging in there against a mediocre lefty can't hurt, either. Some help from the Devil Rays puts the Yanks within 1/2 game of first place in the East, holding steady for the Wild Card.

**********

Whoa, the American League sure plunged into chaos, didn't it? I mean, there are bonafide divisional races in each division, the Wild Card is packed pretty tight, and the White Sox--set on cruise control a month ago, are in danger of seeing their playoff hopes dashed against the rocks.

In other words, good times. I just wish all of this excitement weren't likely to bite the Yanks in the petard.

Aiming a little higher than the rear end, the profile of Rickey Henderson in last week's New Yorker is just heartbreaking, some of the best sportswriting I've read this year. I wish it were available online so that I could link it.

Movie Review: The Constant Gardener

I've seen the Constant Gardener referred to as a "spy film," which is probably just a reaction to the fact that the movie is based upon a novel by John Le Carre. Given the modern associations to the concept of espionage--associations molded a score of James Bond films and their knockoffs--nothing could be farther from the truth.

Indeed, Constant Gardener's protagonist, Justin Quayle, would be too embarassed to order a martini "shaken, not stirred." He's not the type to shake anything up--a middle-management British diplomat perfectly content to mouth the party line, even if it's with a decided lack of enthusiasm. One day, while he's doing exactly that as a substitute lecturer, he comes under attack by Tess (the absurdly hot Rachel Weisz) , an activist who has all the passion Justin lacks, and then some. After meeting extremely un-cute, the two improbably wind up in the sack, and shortly after that, when Justin's work takes him to Kenya, the two wind up improbably married.

If you're wondering where the intrigue comes in, I should mention that the movie begins with the news of Tess's murder, and from there the story of Tess and Justin's relationship unfolds, in flashback. The mystery is, naturally, why is Tess dead? And each clue only adds to the mystery: Why was Tess inseparable from the Kenyan doctor she was traveling with just before her death? Why was that pharmaceutical company testing HIV-positive Africans for tuberculosis? Why was Tess constantly flirting with Justin's boss, Sandy? Why, exactly, did a wild flower like Tess marry a boring bloke like Justin?

Ralph Fiennes does an amazing job as Justin, one of the best performances of the year. It's one of those performances that is so subtle and well-contained that it's doubtful that Oscar voters will remember it once the "quality movies" season opens in November--there's simply no flash there. However, the whole story hangs on the audience sympathizing with Justin--and Fiennes does a great job of making Justin vulnerable and somewhat clueless rather than callous and petty. Here, Justin has to be suspicious and naive at the same time, all without looking like a loser. Fiennes does the trick.

Another prime asset in this film is Fernando Mereilles, whose direction I liked so much in City of God. I've criticized films about white people and Africa in the past, and it would be easy for this film to fall into the type of condescension that makes some films so annoying. So often, the mandatory "everyday life" shots that directors use to establish their location feel like walking through a photo gallery, as the director and cinematorapher try to capture "the essence of Africa" for the audience.

Mereilles, much as he did in the favellas of Brazil in City of God, has his camera mixing it up with the natives, running with them and around them, in a rather unsentimental fashion. In one throwaway scene, the camera follows some Kenyan children as they set up an impromptu road block to stop Justin's car, and shake him down for some money.

There's no judgment made, by the director, or by Justin when he haggles with the kids to let him pass.

Highly recommended, particularly in this brain-dead summer of major motion pictures.

Just Business, Never Personal

Now that the Yanks are in "must win every game" mode, even matchups against the Devil Rays have become epic struggles. In that context, Robinson Cano could be said to have come up with one of the big moments of the season, with a 6th inning Grand Slam, in the Yanks' 9-5 win over Tampa Bay. Cano's big fly tied a 5-1 game, and was followed by some more home run magic by Alex Rodriguez (tied for the league lead in homers with 42).

On the downside, the magical pixie dust on Aaron Small seems to have worn off a bit--since shutting out Oakland on September 3rd, he's given up nine runs in 13 innings. He is still undefeated, but this looks like a blinking warning light on the dashboard. Also, there was a bit of struggle by Gordon and Rivera to close out the game--Gordon couldn't finish out the inning, forcing Torre to extend Mariano, again--before the boys put up a couple of insurance runs in the top of the ninth.

It's great to finally sweep the Devil Fishies, but man, that was a lot of effort. Luckily, everyone else seems to also be "grinding it out" in the AL: the Indians are within five games of the seemingly-untouchable White Sox; the A's and Angels are locked together, and haven't been much more than three games apart for a month or two; and the Yanks are within two games of the Red Sox, who have been continuously rescued by the dramatic homers of David Ortiz. This is a white-knuckle ride, and I'm just happy I can still type with my hands gripping the handlebars (metaphorically speaking).

*****

This is one of those things about clubhouse chemistry--when he was with the Twins, Ortiz was branded a bad clubhouse guy. Bad conditioning, didn't like to work, wouldn't accept coaching--and this was why Tom Kelly, who planted these stories with the press, kept on jerking him around for a job.

Now, Ortiz is one of the more universally-admired types in the game. He's the glue that holds the Red Sox together. Even though Ortiz has murdered the Yanks time and time again I cannot bring myself to hate him.

Was Big Papi magically transformed when he came to Fenway? Did he learn hard lessons from all that time in AAA, which made him from a crumb to a solid clubhouse citizen? Maybe. Or it could be that much of the time, what we are told is "clubhouse chemistry" is actually just a story made up by sportswriters, based upon the agendas of their clubhouse sources?

Maybe.

Remember back in October, when we said that heads would roll for the Yanks' 2004 ALCS loss? This may be like one of those Samurai movies, where you see flash of the sword, but only after a five second dramatic pause does the opposition's head fall away from the body. If you believe Bill Madden in the Daily News, the rolling head belongs to Stick Michaels, who has been marginalized among the Yanks' Tampa Politburo by Damon Oppenheimer and Bill Emslie. Given that Michaels is on the outs, Cashman's in his walk year, and Steinbrenner has receded from public life, we could be looking at a full-fledged coup d'etat in Yankeeland. Stay tuned.

Taking Out the Trash

I've missed the past two games against the D-Rays (work stuff) but I can't complain about the results. On Tuesday, the Yanks whupped up on Tampa Bay with a vengeance for all the trouble the Devil Fishies have caused the Yanks' playoff hopes, 17-3. Jason Giambi hit is 30th homer, and had five RBI. Jorge Posada picked up his weak season totals with four RBI, and was on base four times on the night. All of this came backing a strong outing by Jaret Wright.

Whenever you have that kind of win, there's always a strong possibility of letdown. Back in April, the Yanks scored 13 runs in one inning on route to a 19-8 win against Tampa, and then the next day they couldn't even beat Hideo Nomo.

The Yanks avoided that fate this time out, but by a more narrow margin than you would like, posting a 6-5 victory against the Rays in Tampa. Chien Ming Wang (5 R in 6 1/3 IP) hasn't been the same fellow who lit up our lives earlier this year. Since he's come off the DL he's allowed 8 runs in 11 1/3 innings. Or maybe it's just the D-Rays? Both of Wang's post-DL starts have been against Tampa Bay, and back in May, the D-Rays became one of the few clubs to lay a glove on the Wangster, again dishing out 5 runs in his six innings of work.

Here's hoping for a sweep, and for one of the rivals (in order: Red Sox, Indians, Angels) to stumble.

Film Review: A Sound of Thunder

Just in case anyone thought that all I do is give positive reviews, here's a true, natural-born turkey. Peter Hyams' new film, A Sound of Thunder is bad. Way bad. I'm pretty certain it's the worst movie I'll see this year, and it may just be the worst movie I've ever paid to see.

Here's the plot of the Ray Bradbury short story that the movie is based upon, which I skimmed in about three minutes while waiting for a train at Penn Station: man interested in exotic pleasures goes on time-travel safari where they're hunting dinosaurs; despite repeated admonitions not to stray from a safe path, things go wrong and man goes off path; when they return to the present, they find that things have been changed by man's misadventure--a german despot has been elected president--and man discovers that even the most insignificant creature can have a profound effect on the future; man gets wasted by his safari guide, who is understandably miffed that man has destroyed his reality.

It's a fairly simple story, not terribly long, quite deep for its time, although it is so well-known and imitated that other stories have taken better advantage of its premise by now.

To extend this very short story to a 103 minute screenplay, great violence is done to Ray Bradbury's creation. The basic premise of a time travel safari remains, as does the name of the tour guide. Everything else seems to get chucked--Nazi's take over the world is replaced by some silly concept of gradual reality change with "time waves" which change the evolutionary path of creatures, in reverse order of their evolutionary complexity.

If that last sentence sounds like nonsense, that's because it is. It's all an excuse to repopulate the planet with scary monsters--killer vines, giant bats, toad/dinosaur/ape things--for a Special Effects Extravaganza(tm). The idea is that the past has been changed, repopulating the earth with all these beasties in waves (like a video game). Now, this is wholesale change of reality, but all the buildings and stuff remain the same. Don't ask.

Now, maybe think that the nonsense could be justified by the filmmakers creating a world of fantastic creatures so real, that you're not about to quibble with the details. You'd be wrong. These are the worst digital effects ever, perhaps the worst special effects seen since Plan 9 from Outer Space. The background keeps shifting from absurdly artificial backgrounds (I'm talking stuff out of Tron, here) and hideously cheap--but all too real--sets. I won't be the first to claim it, but the CGI dinosaur in this movie somehow looked worse than the cheesy special effects in the Saturday morning TV series, Land of the Lost. It was just brutal.

The star of this flick is Ed Burns, cast as a reknowned biologist/hunter--in a world where wild animals have all been wiped out by a mysterious plague. Casting Burns as a biologist is a stroke of genius based on the fact that all of his characters exhibit such curiosity. By this I mean, that in almost every film where Ed Burns has appeared as an actor, he plays the role of the plain-spoken, down-to-earth working class guy, who always has the line "What I don't get is..."

As in "What I don't get is, how anyone who read this script willingly paid a single dollar to help make this movie. I simply can't understand this. Can you explain this to me?"

Yep, sounds like a scientist to me (that line, specifically, is not in the movie; however, it might as well be). Early in the film, Burns engages in "witty" banter with a HAL-like computer. At the time, I told my pal Rich, who came with me to see this turkey, "I bet that's the most chemistry he shows with anyone in this movie." I was right.

More credibly scientific is Catherine McCormack (who looks like she's aged about 20 years since Spy Game) as the Scientist Who Knows of the Danger. Her roll consists of looking mildly daft and extremely passionate, while simultaneously knowing altogether too much about the movie's cockeyed idea of time travel theory. She does an excellent job of keeping a straight face while uttering complete idiotic nonsense. Generally speaking, she deserves a better script, role, lighting, and makeup, than she gets in this film.

The other performances barely merit any mention whatsoever. Ben Kingsley is in this movie, albeit for just a ridiculous over-the-top cameo. The mortgage must have come due, or perhaps the movie's producers had photos of the great thespian in bed with a dead woman or a live boy. The other actors serve no other purpose than to act as cannon fodder in the great game of "who gets eaten next?" The answer is almost always who you expect, using the standard rules of engagement for monster movies.

After all of this, I must admit that--in a perverse way--I enjoyed this movie greatly. Don't get me wrong, it's bad, but it's so bad that if you're in the right frame of mind, you can get some good laughs out of the brutally dumb stuff that's in this movie.

What makes for a "so-bad-it's-good" movie is that a few smart ideas are sprinkled in with the dumb ones. For example, there are little touches about the time travel that make sense: the time travellers wear space suits, for example, to prevent the possibility of leaving microbes from the future in the past. They also use bullets made out of ice, so that no evidence is left behind when they kill the dinosaur.

But for everything this movie gets right, something huge is bound to go mind-numbingly wrong. Take this example of peliculum non comprehendis, the characters make it quite clear that each time they go on safari, it's the same dinosaur, that they're killing. That, I guess, excuses them from having to have multiple dinosaur effects, or something.

But does that make any sense? They go on multiple safaris during this movie, and the movie gives the impression they've done many, many, more. How can you go back to the exact same place and moment in time, over and over again, to kill the same creature? Wouldn't the hunting parties run into each other? It makes no damn sense!

Man, I just realized I could have done this review in a single sentence. Stay away from this film, unless you're in the mood to experience some Mystery Science Theater 3000-level sci-fi.

September 11, Again

As promised, I left town to attend the very excellent wedding of my pals Pete and Lei Ann, up in Boston. The whole thing simply could not have been better--there was simply a massive turnout of Lei Ann's relatives, from as far away as Hawaii and the Philippines, and lots of Pete's and my pals from college. The whole thing was a real treat, working on the tux squad with old and new friends.

We started off on Friday, with a dinner for family and friends that coincided with Yanks/Red Sox, David Wells against Aaron Small. Small's dream season continues, but largely due to great run support. Small survived a three run breakout in the second inning, thanks to home runs from Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez, and some overall sloppy play by the Sox in an 8-4 victory. Not that I knew any of this as it happened. The only piece of the game I saw was the pitching change when the removed Small in the 7th inning--I saw this and the score while passing by a bar on my way from the party to our next stop of the evening.

On Saturday, I was in the church, trying to make sure that the groom didn't see the bride at the start time of game 2, Curt Schilling vs. Shawn Chacon. By the time I was unrolling some sort of white carpet for the Bride's entrance--don't ask--Schilling had done his best to prove me wrong, wrong, wrong for what I wrote in my recent Notebook piece about him. The Schill cruised through eight innings, yielding only two runs and striking out six. Meanwhile, the Red Sox made Chacon their girlfriend, popping him for five runs in three innings of work. Alois finally came out of the bullpen, but only for a surrogate start, pitching 5 2/3 innings in a 9-2 loss. I caught the score sometime between the photo session (now ingrained into my memory: "keep your weight on your back foot," and "fingers don't photograph well") and the coolest reception ever.

Today, it was back on the road before game time, with little hope to make it to New York before it was all over. So, for the first time in ages, I experienced the Yanks on radio, starting with Red Sox-side coverage in Mass and Northern Connecticut, shifting over to Sterling and Suzyn Waldman for the later innings. I'll admit that I enjoyed the Sox coverage better, even though they seemed to have a harder time doing the simple stuff--like telling us the score. We were with the Sox broadcasters when Kevin Youkilis collected the Sox first hit of the day, "[Randy] Johnson just screamed out something I can't repeat on seeing he gave up a Texas League hit."

Turns out he should have been upset, his stuff was that good.

Another interesting tidbit from the Boston radio crew:

Color guy: Johnson's into photography, that's his hobby.
Play-by-Play guy: ...You'd think that being a photographer, he wouldn't push around camera men...
Color guy: Maybe he's into still lifes.

The Boston guys also trilled with glee as Tim Wakefield racked up strikeout after strikeout, completely confounding the Yankee lineup, and at one point stranding Bubba Crosby at third after a one-out triple.

By comparison, the Yankees broadcast was rather dreary, although less homeristic than I expected, given the regular abuse this radio team suffers. They didn't seem to slight any of the Boston players, and indeed were extremely impressed by Wakefield's start. However, Waldman is hideously underutilized in that booth, contributing little other than reading live spots (game-context radio ads). Aside from that, Sterling's voice steam-rolled over hers, on what sounded like a microphone that was set at times and a half the volume of Waldman's. Not fun.

Anyway, the Unit, Tom Gordon, and Mariano Rivera combined to make Jason Giambi's homer off Wakefield stand up for a 1-0 win, after a bunch of unnecessary excitement in the 8th and 9th innings. Overall, the Yanks took two out of three from the Sox at home, leaving the weekend three games behind Boston. At the same time, they lose ground to the Indians, and are now 1.5 games back of the Wild Card.

****

One of the downsides of this beautiful weekend was that the weather itself reminded me of tragedy of four years ago. In Boston, Pete and Lei Ann's wedding was blessed with gorgeous weather--warm but brisk, clear and sunny, with a "high sky" of clear blue with only the slightest wisps of clouds. Exactly the same weather as there was in New York on September 11, 2001.

The weather took me back to that day--the hushed streets and quiet foot traffic, looking to give blood, and all the while not knowing that there weren't enough survivors to need a pint of my A positive. The blood banks kept turning us away.

The memory has had me on edge all day, particularly hearing the moment of silence during the 7th inning stretch of the Yankee game. Four years after the terrorist attacks, and nothing has improved. Nothing has been built at the WTC site. We haven't even started to fill up the sky over the Big Empty, instead taking four years to select an ugly, unorthodox, design, quarrel with the landlord over the ugly design, only to make it more conventional, then scrapping it for a mediocre but completely conventional design, built on top of a "super safe" steel box.

After the September 11 attacks happened, there was a hopefulness that fell into place after the attacks. While people feared terrorism, it also energized and galvanized them. There was a feeling of resolve and enthusiasm in the American landscape. People were ready to do anything to make a difference against the type of terrorism that had killed so many people in the Towers and at the Pentagon, and you had the feeling that all anyone had to do was point us in the right direction and we'd surge to the cause--riveting war planes together, conserving fuel, translating Farsi--whatever we could do to help out.

Four years later, that enthusiasm has been wasted. No one pointed us in any direction, and life continued as normal. For a while, there was a great feeling of community, at least in New York. I still remember cheering fire trucks as they rumbled down the street: a strange combination of "thank you" and "condolences on your losses."

Compare that with what has gone on in New Orleans over the last few weeks. The community broke down under the pressure of rising water, and set upon each other with guns. Is this an aberration, or the future?

As day faded into night, the "Pillars of Light" came on, towering over lower Manhattan. That memorial--still far more simple and effective than all the fancy video screens and reflecting pools that have been planned, but not built, at Ground Zero. Hit me like a gut punch. I can't believe it's been four years. I can't believe how little progress we've made.

Wayne Franklin: Murderer of the Yankees' Season

I've got good news, and bad news, and bad news, and bad news.

The good news is that Chien Ming Wang made it back to the Bronx, after being derailed with shoulder problems.

The bad news is that Gary Sheffield couldn't start, with a strained thigh muscle suffered in Wednesday's game. Sheff may miss part of the Yankees' showdown with the Red Sox, this weekend.

The bad news is that Wang wasn't sharp, and allowed three runs in five innings.

The bad news is that after Wang finished his work for the day, Joe Torre turned the game over to Wayne Franklin, who retired the first batter he faced, then allowed a single to the bad Alex Gonzalez, and a double to Joey Gathright. He then gave way to Scott Proctor, last seen melting down against these same Devil Rays in extra innings. Two doubles later, the game is 6-0.

The bad news is that the Yankees lost a series, at home, against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Cleveland Indians have taken the Wild Card lead.

I won't mention minor good news--that the Red Sox were shut out, so the Yanks don't lose ground in the divisional standings--because this was a terrific chance for the Yanks to gain a game, put themselves in a place where they could (not will, not should, just could) sweep their way to the division lead. That's out the window now.

Why is Wayne Franklin here? Why on earth is Joe Torre giving this guy non-garbage time innings? The Yanks came back to score four runs. Might've been meaningful if the Yanks hadn't just donated some additional runs to the Devil Fishies for no damn reason.

The losses get dumber and dumber. Maybe this team doesn't deserve to make the playoffs.

****

I'm unlikely to get much commenting done about this weekend series because I'm busy seeing my pals Pete & Lei Ann off to matrimony. So congrats to them, and have a nice weekend if we don't speak before then.

I'll have a Notebook piece up at Baseball Prospectus later on (in case ya can't get enough of me), this one dedicated to the Pirates and Lloyd McClendon.

Flippin' Through the Notebook

Just in case you think I've given up on writing about the Yankees, I have a piece up at Baseball Prospectus on the Bronx Bombers. It's about roster uncertainty in the House that Ruth Built, and it goes a little something like this:

A more interesting possibility is that--should the Yankees find sufficient depth in the rotation--Alois Leiter could find his way to the bullpen. Leiter has been effective against lefties over the past several years (664 OPS against), which indicates that he could be effective as a LOOGY in relief.

Like many of the other solutions the Yankees have stumbled across this season, putting Leiter in the bullpen would be more creative than their roster usage has been over the past several years. It’s a cliché to state that necessity is the mother of invention, but it’s only fair to point out that the Yankees haven’t had this much necessity in nearly a decade.

A LOOGY, for those of you new to these shores, is a Lefty One-Out GuY, the reliever you send in to get that critical lefthanded batter (coughDavidOrtizcough) in a tough spot. Right now, the Yankees would probably use Tom Gordon in that spot, because Mariano Rivera is a "closer" and because the rest of the bullpen, particularly the lefties, are rather craptastic.

After my Notebook piece hit the presses, word hit the streets that Leiter is scheduled to be skipped for his next start, with the Yanks starting Chien Ming Wang against Tampa Bay, instead. So it looks like Leiter may have a shot at bullpen glory. And I'm cheering for him, if only because I consider the alternatives.

Alan Embree has looked promising at times, but we have to admit that 50% of the appeal of picking up guys like him and Mark Bellhorn is the off-chance that they will provide an in-your-face moment in the ongoing war against the Red Sox. Steinbrenner has always operated this way, realizing that there is room for a little psychological warfare in the game of baseball. That's why he has always picked up the opposition's discards--in the past ten years, the most prominent ones have been Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden from the Mets, Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens from the Red Sox, but there have been others.

While none of those stars shone quite as brightly in pinstripes as they had for the Yanks' rivals, anything you get out of such players not only helps the home team, but it chips away at the opposition. It killed some of my Mets fan friends to see Doc Gooden pitch a no-hitter in Yankee Stadium. Wade Boggs' horse ride after the '96 World Series win put a knot in the stomachs of my pals in Boston.

There's a chance that Embree gets a key strikeout, or Bellhorn hits a key home run down the stretch, or (if they make it) in the playoffs. And if they manage to do that, Red Sox fans are going to wind up scratching their heads--why exactly did Boston DFA two players at positions (second base, lefty reliever) where their arch-rival needed help? Couldn't they pay off one of the baseball Syberias to take these guys off their hands, and keep them out of Brian Cashman's clutches?

However, aside from the PR benefits of playing Embree and Bellhorn, you can't quite depend on them to carry the team to a pennant. After all, there were reasons the Sox let these guys go, and reasons the rest of baseball didn't snap them up on waivers. So it pays to have a Plan B. In this case, that's Leiter, and the sooner he practices jogging to the mound from center field, the sooner we discover if he can serve the team as a reliever.

****

Damned Devil Rays. The bad news is that the Devil Rays own Randy Johnson. The good news is that if the Yanks get to the post-season, Johnson doesn't have to worry about facing the Devil Rays. On the other hand, if the Yanks don't make the postseason, Vince Naimoli and the Tampa crew get to say "In your face!" to Steinbrenner and the Yankees.

I'd include Lou Piniella in there, except I think that if the Yanks miss the Playoffs, Piniella will be in pinstripes in short order.

Notes from a 24 Marathon

Yesterday was Labor Day, and the weather, at least in New York City, was glorious. Warm, but with just a touch of a breeze to remind you that Fall is on its way.

So whose brilliant idea was it to give the Yankees a day off?

Last day of the summer, federal holiday. Y'know, the type of occasion where people might want to spend some time at the ballpark, experiencing one of life's true joys--daytime baseball. Except MLB's schedule makers decide to only run eleven games today, out of a possible 15.

It's not that I begrudge the ballplayers a holiday off, but it does seem like they could just as easily rest on Tuesday. Just my $0.02.

****

Few things will suck you in faster or more precipitously than a "24" marathon. The real-time nature of the show lends itself to people catching it in large chunks. Week-to-week, it's pretty hard to follow, but four or five episodes in a row is an excuse to waste your afternoon.

It also has side-effects. After watching a few episodes of Jack Bauer's crisis management style, La Chiquita's speech patterns changed. What would usually be "Honey, could you please get me some ice water?" became "I need water, ice and a glass, NOW!"

Or maybe she's just preparing for marriage.

I know I'm not the first to mention this, but, I remember when A&E stood for the Arts and Entertainment Network. They used to show high-fallutin' fare about history and artsy movies. Their signature program was Biography, which now has its own network, somewhere in the Cableverse.

Watching the commercials during the 24 Marathon, A&E should just change its name to the Trailer Park Network. Basically, outside of reruns of broadcast network series like 24, the network is completely dedicated to reality TV shows. And listen to some of these winners: Dog the Bounty Hunter (about a family of bounty hunters who dress and look like professional wrestlers); Inked (which seems to be Bravo's Blow Out, just set in a tattoo parlor); Growing Up Gotti (about being famous because you're related to criminals); Intervention (a reality show about people televising their interventions for drug addicted relatives). This is real highbrow stuff.

I fear that it's just not profitable enough to try to appeal to smart people. This is sad.

***

One more note: here's wishing a happy 29th to my little brother, TJ.

Links & Notes

Since they bested King Felix, the Yankees have lost 5-1 to the Mariners, as Jaret Wright got nailed by a line drive which hit him on the collarbone, and then were humiliated 12-0 by the Oakland A's, with news that Mike Mussina may be done for the season, with his painful elbow.

This is the way it is, in Yankeeland 2005. One minute you're riding high--won 5 out of 6, guys are coming off the DL and back into the rotation, Randy Johnson's looking better, and then suddenly you've lost 3 of 4 and you've scored 13 runs on the week, the majority of them on Monday.

Aaron Small starts today, and if he pitches the way he has, it looks like he might have a permanent job. A word to Chien Ming Wang--get better, soon. Al Leiter might have found his way into the bullpen, although I'm not sure that he'd be all that effective in the role. I'd run that down here, but I'm on deadline for my monthly Yankees jam at Prospectus, and I have to prestidigitate something to talk about.

I'm feeling gloomy about baseball on a glorious pre-Fall day outside. Let's look at some links:

I mentioned my Prospectus Notebook gig before. Friday I took on the Red Sox, looking at the decision to perform experimental surgery on Schilling's ankle--an injury which still hasn't healed, 10 months later. Enjoy.

Over at Baseball Analysts, they have a great piece by Bob Klapisch about his obsession with pitching. I've never been a great fan of the Klap's columns--I always got the impression that he was just a little too in-your-face for my comfort level, the kind of guy who injects himself into the team's story. But to hear him talk about playing catch with Al Leiter, in the context of a blog rather than a piece of reporting? It's good stuff.

I was reading an article by Bill Simmons (another person who needs a permanent link on the righthand side, there) earlier this week about the possibility of an NFL strike, when it occurred to me: part of the reason that the NFL is so popular is because they managed to crush their players' union. It's ironic--football players are (other than boxers) the athletes who take the most physical punishment for our amusement. They sacrifice their health, and often leave the sport with their bodies broken, or seriously impaired. But NFL fans begrudge the players guaranteed contracts or a decent pension. I guess that's because if NFL players had these luxuries, you'd never know if they were trying their hardest.

Bleagh. As Brother Joe mentioned this week, people suck.

When you call a show "Battle of the Network Reality Stars" you probably don't know what an oxymoron is. The appeal of the old Battle of the Network Stars specials was that they showed a bunch of actors--people who are actually stars--competing in an unfamiliar, non-fictional setting, sports. These reality TV guys aren't stars, just celebrity wannabes. All that we've seen them do is compete in silly games on TV.

In other words, I'm pretty damn tired of Omarosa being herself on TV. And I haven't even seen any of the things she's been in since the Apprentice. Next time I see any of these guys, I want to see them exhibiting some sort of skill they actually have--be it singing, acting, or (most likely) taking my order at a local McDonalds. Other than that, please go back to your damn lives.