The Yankees won their 27th championship tonight, roughly three times as many as any other franchise. They won their second this decade, to go with 4 pennants and 8 division titles, making them once again the team of the decade. I say once again because the Yankees have been the team of the decade 7 times (20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 90's, 00's) out of the 10 full decades in which they have played. The Red Sox were TOTD once, in the 19-teens, the A's were once, in the 1970's, and the dodgers were once, in the 1980's. To beat Pedro not once but twice this Series, to wrest the Team of the Decade mantle out of the hands of the Red Sox, who looked to get it entering the season, is to banish the ghosts of 2004, and even to mitigate the more powerful ghosts of the 2001 desert.
Although this blog has long since been abandoned, I felt I had to mark this occasion if only for one reason. None of this would ever have come to pass had the Yankees stuck with the slow Joe. Giarardi had them playing better fundamental baseball, had them committing to situational hitting, had them running the bases and taking risks, had them playing small ball, had them fielding their postions, all of the things that Torre failed to do. We were right on this blog from day one and the WS championship just proved it. Start Spreading the News. Slow Joe Left Yesterday. And we made a brand new start of it, New York, New York.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Thursday, August 7, 2008
THE LAST POST
When I was two, my dad bought me a tiny wooden bat, a tiny glove and a little rubberish ball...oh yes and a tiny Yankees uniform. He instilled in me a passion for the Bombers that has lasted to this day, taking me from our home in Philadelphia to the Stadium to see Yankees' games. This passion was but a very small bit of the legacy I owe to my father, still the most principled individual I have ever known.
My father died a week ago. After a 15 month battle with stomach cancer, which he had fought to a draw, a bout with viral meningitis, which he won but at great cost, he succombed to yet another infection, of unknown origin, which unexpectedly shut down his organs over the course of 24 hours. I had the excruciating and terrifying experience of watching him go.
In the days immediately following, I resumed my habitual activities and thought I could get on with life more or less normally. But emotionally things have gone from awful to much worse and I find that outside of my family and my friends I have lost heart for everything: for work, for sport, and, yes, for this blog. The need to attend to my father's illnesses has been behind the hiatuses in the blog this summer and now, having caught up the few things I have been meaning to say lately, and with apologies for my truancy, I am going to pull down the curtain, as I probably should have done for good at the end of last season. Good-bye and be well.
I'll give my Dad the last word:
"The problem with mediocre people is not that they are themselves mediocre, but that they have a vested interest in preventing others from rising to excellence." http://williamdvalente.blogspot.com
My father died a week ago. After a 15 month battle with stomach cancer, which he had fought to a draw, a bout with viral meningitis, which he won but at great cost, he succombed to yet another infection, of unknown origin, which unexpectedly shut down his organs over the course of 24 hours. I had the excruciating and terrifying experience of watching him go.
In the days immediately following, I resumed my habitual activities and thought I could get on with life more or less normally. But emotionally things have gone from awful to much worse and I find that outside of my family and my friends I have lost heart for everything: for work, for sport, and, yes, for this blog. The need to attend to my father's illnesses has been behind the hiatuses in the blog this summer and now, having caught up the few things I have been meaning to say lately, and with apologies for my truancy, I am going to pull down the curtain, as I probably should have done for good at the end of last season. Good-bye and be well.
I'll give my Dad the last word:
"The problem with mediocre people is not that they are themselves mediocre, but that they have a vested interest in preventing others from rising to excellence." http://williamdvalente.blogspot.com
RETURN TO WHITENESS
Nomar. Pedro. Orlando Cabrera. Renterria. Soon Julio Lugo. The Red Sox were the last team to break the color line (Pumpsie Green, early sixties) and it was widely understood that the Yawkeys ran a less than racially friendly organization that mirrored the less than racially friendly nature of the city. Now we are seeing a return to the whiteness of the past in the make-up of the Red Sox. When they take the field, the only position player who is a minority is Jacoby Ellsbury, a American Indian. No African Americans, no Latins of color on the field. Outside of Dice-K, the rotation sounds like the board of a yacht club--not just all white but all wasp: Beckett, Bucholz, Lester, Wakefield. The bullpen has two Latins, Lopez and (for now) Del Carmen and of course there is Ortiz. But for comparisons sake look at the Yankees. In additon to an Ameican Indian (damon), they have Posada, Rodriguez and Molina at catcher (that's right they have as many Latins at catcher as the Sox have on their entire team), Cano, Betemit, Jeter, Cabrera, Abreu, Nady, AROD, Rivera, Veras, Marte, Ponson.
When Manny talked about the Sox arganization slandering great players when they wanted to get rid of them, it is worht noting that all of the players he mentioned (or meant) were players of color--which is why Boston currently has the pastiest team in baseball. Is this the way they folks in Boston like it?
When Manny talked about the Sox arganization slandering great players when they wanted to get rid of them, it is worht noting that all of the players he mentioned (or meant) were players of color--which is why Boston currently has the pastiest team in baseball. Is this the way they folks in Boston like it?
RED SOX (AND THE) NATION
When Hank Steinbrenner earlier this year doubted the existence of Red Sox nation, he was widely and perhaps justifiably ridiculed. Sure the existence of some virtual, unofficial community of sorry ass chowderheads can in fact be detected in the universe. But I think he was trying to say something else. I think he was trying to dispute the perception promulgated at ESPN aka Red Sox Network that the Sox had replaced the Yankees as America's team. In that I think he was both right and wrong. The Yankees had not been America's team before, in my view, and the Sox are not America's team now except in the minds of the Baseball Tonight crew who blithely dismiss the heartfelt and entirely correct charges of East coast bias hurled by baseball fans from Atlanta to Seattle. The truth is baseball is too regionalized, despite the existence of national networks, to sustain an" America's team." There are debates about who is the midwest's team (Cubs or Cardinals), California's team (LA or SF), and even Florida's team (the Marlins or the Rays, the latter having recently entered the specious America's team debate).
What the Sox have become, however, since the advent of John Henry's ownership, is an American team. Under the stewardship of the Yawkeys, the Sox remained at once an utterly provincial phenomenon, restricted to Boston, and a strangely international phenomenon, taking their ethos from the mother country of the great majority of the chowderheads, i.e. Ireland. As the great Irish literature of the modern period tells us, byt the end of the Victorian age, if not before, sanctified defeat had become the semi-official ideology of the Emerald Isle. There was seen to be something holy in failure and something correspondingly vulgar in success. The Irish saw their geo-political struggles as at once fated and improving, soemthin beyond their control but something that both contributed and testified to their moral superiority. Such was the attitude of the Red sox fan during the long drought from the sale of Ruth to, roughly, the acquisition of Ortiz. As the ever tiresome, Dan O'Shaughnessy would mander in that insufferable accent of his, The Red Sox were a team of dark destiny, condemned to lose in bizarre and painful ways. But far from accepting this fate as a mark of organizational, let alone cultural inferiority, Boston fans took it as the sign of their purity as supporters of their team and devotees of the game. Losing somehow made them holier than thou, particularly if the thou was a Yankee fan. I would submit that it was not the losing itself that produced this defence mechanism. I come from Philadelphia and our franchise is the losingest in history, and yet I have never heard anyone even suggest the possibility of some moral uplift in that sad state of affairs. No, it was the Irishness of Boston, its infusion with the historical outlook endemic to that land, that gave rise to the single greatest loser-superiority complex in the history of American sport.
But now it is all about winning in Boston, the effect of a certain organizational commitment, the series of near misses after the acquisition of Pedro and Manny and the ultimate breakthrough in 2004. Now when the chowderheads preen themselves on their collective superiority, they do so on the same grounds that Yankee fans always have: the winning quality of their team. The Boston Red Sox are not, Hank is right, America's team. But they are now, at long last, a properly American team. For if, as has been said, America is the one country built not on a bloodline but an idea, that idea is not freedom or equality but winning. The chowderheads have not just joined the party, they have joined the country.
What the Sox have become, however, since the advent of John Henry's ownership, is an American team. Under the stewardship of the Yawkeys, the Sox remained at once an utterly provincial phenomenon, restricted to Boston, and a strangely international phenomenon, taking their ethos from the mother country of the great majority of the chowderheads, i.e. Ireland. As the great Irish literature of the modern period tells us, byt the end of the Victorian age, if not before, sanctified defeat had become the semi-official ideology of the Emerald Isle. There was seen to be something holy in failure and something correspondingly vulgar in success. The Irish saw their geo-political struggles as at once fated and improving, soemthin beyond their control but something that both contributed and testified to their moral superiority. Such was the attitude of the Red sox fan during the long drought from the sale of Ruth to, roughly, the acquisition of Ortiz. As the ever tiresome, Dan O'Shaughnessy would mander in that insufferable accent of his, The Red Sox were a team of dark destiny, condemned to lose in bizarre and painful ways. But far from accepting this fate as a mark of organizational, let alone cultural inferiority, Boston fans took it as the sign of their purity as supporters of their team and devotees of the game. Losing somehow made them holier than thou, particularly if the thou was a Yankee fan. I would submit that it was not the losing itself that produced this defence mechanism. I come from Philadelphia and our franchise is the losingest in history, and yet I have never heard anyone even suggest the possibility of some moral uplift in that sad state of affairs. No, it was the Irishness of Boston, its infusion with the historical outlook endemic to that land, that gave rise to the single greatest loser-superiority complex in the history of American sport.
But now it is all about winning in Boston, the effect of a certain organizational commitment, the series of near misses after the acquisition of Pedro and Manny and the ultimate breakthrough in 2004. Now when the chowderheads preen themselves on their collective superiority, they do so on the same grounds that Yankee fans always have: the winning quality of their team. The Boston Red Sox are not, Hank is right, America's team. But they are now, at long last, a properly American team. For if, as has been said, America is the one country built not on a bloodline but an idea, that idea is not freedom or equality but winning. The chowderheads have not just joined the party, they have joined the country.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
THE LAST STRAW?
The injury to Joba will be widely seen as finishing off the Yankees this season. But the truth is their major problems have persisted even through the post All Star game surge, which ground to a dramatic halt over the last 11 games (4-7). They are still wildly inconsistent on offense, padding their statistics in routs only to surrender games without firing a shot. They still can't seem to beat the Baltimore Orioles. And of course they still leave too many men stranded, wasting chance after chance, even when they win.
In the absence of clueless Joe, two culprits have risen to the fore, Brian Cahsman for assembling this collection of losers and AROD for being the only man in recent baseball history that one could classify as both a superstar and a loser. ut I really have to give Cashboy props for his performance at the deadline. The Nady-Marte trade was brilliant. Whatever Karstens' success in Pittsburgh, he was never going to be given another chance to fail in New York and Nady is just the sort of hitter this lineup needs. As long as Giardi restricts Marte to the lefthanded specialist role--as he failed to do on Monday--he will be an unqualified boon. The Pudge trade wasn't bad either. An improved Farnsworth still wasn't all that dependable and with Bruney back he was also quite expendable. On the other side, the bill of indictments against AROD is getting longer all the time. His 3 homers since the break have all been meaningless; he has taken to hitting into rally killing double plays--one last night and one tonight (which could have been prevented had he bothered to run hard)--and he consistently founders in the late innings unless the Yanks are comfortably ahead. I saw where one wag noted that AROD should be lifted in the seventh for offensive purposes. One at bat really summed up AROD's chokiness for me. In the last game at Fenway the Yankees were down 7-0 in the middle innings, when suddenly they mounted a threat, loading the bases with noone out. Jeter got an infield hit, driving in one run and then a clearly laboring Jon Lester walked Abreu on four pitches. AROD strode to the plate and took the fifth and sixth straight balls from Lester, whose pitch count for the inning was now over 25. The situation clearly called for AROD to take a pitch, unless he got one in his zone. Lester threw a fasball borderline high and in, not the kind of pitch AROD typically drives for his meaningless roundtrippers, but he jumps at it here and hits a soft liner to third for the first out, advancing noone. It is the business of a Mays, a Williams, an Aaron, a Mantle, all the names that AROD is mentioned alongside of, to deliver in just that sort of a situation. It is the habit of AROD to fail, miserably, which makes one wonder why he is placed in their company. They had the nerves; he just has the nervousness.
Actually, AROD has been far worse in the clutch this year than last, when he was receiving such grief from the fans. While his woes have been remarked in print, they no longer prompt outrage at the park, where the faithful seems numbed into resignation or cowed by trhe pundits into accepting empty statistics as the genuine article. Either way the decision, be it Hank's or Cashman's, to sign this guy on for ten years at price that dwarfs the GDP of small nations is the single most destructive error committed by Yankee management in their storied history. Not the stupidest, but the most destructive. The decision may well condemn the Yankees to the longest and most expensive championship drought they have ever experienced. I said AROD did them a huge favor when he opted out and he has done nothing since to prove me wrong. If only they had accepted the gift he was offering them.
In the absence of clueless Joe, two culprits have risen to the fore, Brian Cahsman for assembling this collection of losers and AROD for being the only man in recent baseball history that one could classify as both a superstar and a loser. ut I really have to give Cashboy props for his performance at the deadline. The Nady-Marte trade was brilliant. Whatever Karstens' success in Pittsburgh, he was never going to be given another chance to fail in New York and Nady is just the sort of hitter this lineup needs. As long as Giardi restricts Marte to the lefthanded specialist role--as he failed to do on Monday--he will be an unqualified boon. The Pudge trade wasn't bad either. An improved Farnsworth still wasn't all that dependable and with Bruney back he was also quite expendable. On the other side, the bill of indictments against AROD is getting longer all the time. His 3 homers since the break have all been meaningless; he has taken to hitting into rally killing double plays--one last night and one tonight (which could have been prevented had he bothered to run hard)--and he consistently founders in the late innings unless the Yanks are comfortably ahead. I saw where one wag noted that AROD should be lifted in the seventh for offensive purposes. One at bat really summed up AROD's chokiness for me. In the last game at Fenway the Yankees were down 7-0 in the middle innings, when suddenly they mounted a threat, loading the bases with noone out. Jeter got an infield hit, driving in one run and then a clearly laboring Jon Lester walked Abreu on four pitches. AROD strode to the plate and took the fifth and sixth straight balls from Lester, whose pitch count for the inning was now over 25. The situation clearly called for AROD to take a pitch, unless he got one in his zone. Lester threw a fasball borderline high and in, not the kind of pitch AROD typically drives for his meaningless roundtrippers, but he jumps at it here and hits a soft liner to third for the first out, advancing noone. It is the business of a Mays, a Williams, an Aaron, a Mantle, all the names that AROD is mentioned alongside of, to deliver in just that sort of a situation. It is the habit of AROD to fail, miserably, which makes one wonder why he is placed in their company. They had the nerves; he just has the nervousness.
Actually, AROD has been far worse in the clutch this year than last, when he was receiving such grief from the fans. While his woes have been remarked in print, they no longer prompt outrage at the park, where the faithful seems numbed into resignation or cowed by trhe pundits into accepting empty statistics as the genuine article. Either way the decision, be it Hank's or Cashman's, to sign this guy on for ten years at price that dwarfs the GDP of small nations is the single most destructive error committed by Yankee management in their storied history. Not the stupidest, but the most destructive. The decision may well condemn the Yankees to the longest and most expensive championship drought they have ever experienced. I said AROD did them a huge favor when he opted out and he has done nothing since to prove me wrong. If only they had accepted the gift he was offering them.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
THIRTY TWO AND COUNTING
I know it's Roy Halladay and all, but he has lost 6 times this year, and the degree of Yankee futility on offense is just staggering--just two hits. What is more they wasted another good start (3 runs over 6.2 innings). The starting pitching over the last couple of weeks has been nothing short of stellar and somehow the Yankees have wasted a good deal of it. It won't last of course. Even though the Yanks' pitching is not as bad as advertised, it isn't this good either. By the time the bats wake up, if they wake up, the team will be finding another way to lose half their games.
The Rays are in collapse; the Red Sox aren't that great; the division is really there for the taking. but at this point, I'd say the Orioles are as likely an upstart candidate as the Yankees. Cashman's cure: Richie Sexton. Just what we need: another guy who can't make contact to save his life and sgtays in the league on the strength of the odd home run.
What we do need is a new GM.
The Rays are in collapse; the Red Sox aren't that great; the division is really there for the taking. but at this point, I'd say the Orioles are as likely an upstart candidate as the Yankees. Cashman's cure: Richie Sexton. Just what we need: another guy who can't make contact to save his life and sgtays in the league on the strength of the odd home run.
What we do need is a new GM.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
DO I HEAR THIRTY ONE?
Another game lost on offense--once more against a non-descript lefthander-- and to one of the sorriest teams in MLB. Actually the Yankees managed to lose the series to the Pirates this year--after sweeping them each of the last two. Only 2 runs scored, and you have to put part of this loss on Giardi. He seems to think that just putting nine players out there in pinstripes is sufficient to score and win. Given that you have neither Damon nor Matsui, can someone tell me why the single most productive bat in the lineup, Giambi, is sitting on the bench. I have in the past railed against the offensive futility of Jose Molina, complaingin that the crater sized hole in his bat disqualifies him as a viable back-up catcher. Can someone tell me when and why he became the Yan kees' number one catcher. Game after game Posada either DH's or plays first base, while Molina weakens the bottom of the order. Bad enough. But without the Dh, when playing no way Jose means sitting Giambi or Posada, when it means a bottom third that reads Christian, Molina, Mussina (who had one more hit than Molina by the way), then I don't see why Giardi dopesn't put Posada behind the plate. What's the worst that can happen? He commits a throwing error? Well Molina had one of those as well. Tonight the Yankees' failure to break the two run barrier (which should have a catchy name like the Mendoza line) was less about choking with RISP than fielding a really weak lineup.
Having said that, the weak line-up does put added pressure on the one superstar uniquely unable to handle it. I refer of course to AROD (Reggie had a candy bar named after him; I suggest Alex go with an ice cream treat: Mr. Softy. The last time I lambasted Mr. Softy, Anonymous complained that Abreu had failed just as badly in the same clutch situation. Since then, Abreu has hit a game winning double yesterday and driven in the only two runs tonight while AROD has done...nothing (Mussina had one more hit than he did too). In fact, once Abreu had tied the game in the seventh tonight, AROD cam up with two out and two on and a chance tto get the Yankees the lead or even bust the game open. He bounced out to raise his left on base number for the evening to four. He's just not the kind of superstar that lifts all boats, which is why you cannot surround him with a subpar line-up and expect him to deliver victories.
With the Rays losing again, the Yanks had a chance to get them selves right back in the East division race, and they blew it against a AAA level club. There are no real solutions here, easy or otherwise, but they really need right handed bats.
Last point: it didn't matter tonight, but when Giardi hhas noone to hit after the number six guy, he should bat Cano fifth and Posada sixth. Cano runs well enough to score on a Posada hit, Posada will still be out there on the bases after a Cano hit, waiting for the likes of Molina to push him home.
Having said that, the weak line-up does put added pressure on the one superstar uniquely unable to handle it. I refer of course to AROD (Reggie had a candy bar named after him; I suggest Alex go with an ice cream treat: Mr. Softy. The last time I lambasted Mr. Softy, Anonymous complained that Abreu had failed just as badly in the same clutch situation. Since then, Abreu has hit a game winning double yesterday and driven in the only two runs tonight while AROD has done...nothing (Mussina had one more hit than he did too). In fact, once Abreu had tied the game in the seventh tonight, AROD cam up with two out and two on and a chance tto get the Yankees the lead or even bust the game open. He bounced out to raise his left on base number for the evening to four. He's just not the kind of superstar that lifts all boats, which is why you cannot surround him with a subpar line-up and expect him to deliver victories.
With the Rays losing again, the Yanks had a chance to get them selves right back in the East division race, and they blew it against a AAA level club. There are no real solutions here, easy or otherwise, but they really need right handed bats.
Last point: it didn't matter tonight, but when Giardi hhas noone to hit after the number six guy, he should bat Cano fifth and Posada sixth. Cano runs well enough to score on a Posada hit, Posada will still be out there on the bases after a Cano hit, waiting for the likes of Molina to push him home.
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