A Blog
I’m sure there are a few things I’m leaving out, but here are some things on the calendar:
October 7/8: MLB playoffs begin
October 27: Release of Raditude, Weezer’s seventh Studio Album
November 26: Thanksgiving
December 25: Christmas
February 2010: Final season of Lost begins
February 14, 2010: Pitchers and catchers report/International Weezer Day
March 28, 2010: Wrestlemania XXVI/MLB Opening Day (a.k.a. The Days of Greatness)
April 7 (est.), 2010: The Civee and I are havin’ a baby.
Before the introduction of the Extra Innings package on cable, the only way a Yankees fan in Columbus Ohio could watch his (or her, in case there are others besides me) team was if a game was carried by Fox or ESPN as a national game.
There were a few drawbacks to having the Yankees being a national game, such as having to put up with the networks’ insufferable announce teams (both sides are guilty of this), “balanced” coverage, and awkward start times.
But for the past few years, as I’ve mentioned before, I pay to let MLB kick my ass subscribe to the extra innings get to watch pretty much every Yankees game (unless they’re playing Pittsburgh). I also get to see them when they’re on Fox or ESPN, but there have still been some negatives-see the aforementioned drawbacks, and add the fact that Fox will often pre-empt a Yankees game with a game featuring the Indians or Reds.
Other than that, you would think that having your team as one of two featured during the weekly nationally broadcast game would be a good thing. But there’s one instance when it’s not- when they face Boston. For some reason, it seems that every weekend series featuring the Yankees and the Red Sox includes a Saturday game on Fox followed by a Sunday night game on ESPN. And it always feels like these games are out-and-out slugfests (unlike last night’s awesome pitchers’ duel), are punctuated by shameless network self promotions, and last for six hours (but feel like 12 hours because of the horrible announcers both networks employ).
If it were once or twice a year, it wouldn’t be so bad. But it feels like this happens every time these two teams play. Every year.
And it’s just gotten worse.
Oh, how I pine for those random games where they play the Royals or Baltimore that the networks don’t care about.
July 24, 2009
Yankees 8, Oakland 3
This past weekend, The Civee and I headed east to New Jersey to visit King Classic. It was a nice, relaxing trip (even if I ruined my phone by letting it get submerged during a rafting trip down the Delaware River).
One of the big events (and I’ll get to the other later) was a trip to the new Yankee Stadium on Friday night to see the Yankees host the A’s. There were seven of us, and for all, it was our first trip to the Yankees’ all-new, all-different stadium.
I hadn’t been to The Bronx since August 9 2002, when the Yankees hosted the A’s at the old stadium. For that game, the Fat Triathlete and I had upper deck seats and stayed for every pitch of the 16-inning affair.
For Friday’s game, the first pitch was scheduled for 7, with the gates opening at 5. We figured if we left at 3, that would give us enough time to explore the new digs before game time.
We were wrong.
Between the GWB tollbooths and navigating the South Bronx looking for a parking spot, we were stuck in traffic for four hours. We barely made it in time to hear the National Anthem. We got to our seats, located in the “main” section of the bowl, the upper half of the first level of seats. The seats were great, and in a weird way, it felt like we were at the old stadium, with just a few minor differences.
Two of those minor differences bugged me, my only complaints about the new place:
1. The announcer, Paul Olden, while I’m sure he’s a nice guy, is no Bob Sheppard.
2. The location/look of Monument Park is horrible. The old monument park was vibrant, out in the open, and surrounded by plant life. The new park is in a gray little alcove beneath the center field batters’ eye. It barely stood out from inside the stadium and looked a little depressing. If you ask me, this off-season, the Yankees should switch Monument Park with the visitor’s bull pen and add some plants. Doing so would make the new park within a park stand out more.
But anyway, enough of the complaints.
The Civee and I watched Joba Chamberlain struggle through the first (his only rough spot of the game until the eighth, when he was relieved) before heading downstairs to the ‘Great Hall’ to get some food. If we had gotten to the Stadium earlier, we would have had enough time to adequately explore the place, but we only walked around a few sections because we didn’t want to miss any of the game.
The hall feature is nice and while I can see how some would complain about how it’s more of a mall atmosphere than a ballpark, I think the Great Hall is appropriate because it’s outside the field area (if that makes sense). You can watch all the action, but if you’re in your seat, the hall doesn’t detract from your experience.
As an added bonus, you can see the field (or parts of it) through the hall, and there are enough monitors around the place showing the game with speakers blaring the game’s radio feed.
The Civee settled for some pizza, and I went for some hot dogs (the sausage stand was all out of sausage) and we headed back to our seats. I’m a huge fan of the new seats. I’m 6’4″, and there were times in the old stadium where my knees would be bumping up against the seat in front of me all game. The seven of us in our group rotated seats (in the same section) throughout the game and I had no legroom or other comfort problems.
After giving up a run in the first, Chamberlain settled down, pitching a pretty good game. The Yankees came back in the third, scoring two, and adding a few more runs in the fifth and sixth.
By the eighth, Joba had only given up two hits and struck out six. He let two men get on, and was relieved. Phil Coke got out of the jam and the Yankees struck for four runs in the bottom of the eighth sparked by a Jorge Posada solo home run. By this time, the crowd was doing the wave and the Hip-Hip Jorge chant the Civee loves so much.
The A’s added two in the top of the ninth, but David Robertson recovered and finished off the game, and by this time, I was happy for two things:
-That this game didn’t go as long as the last game I attended.
-The Yankees winning.
We headed home while getting caught in another hour of traffic on our way. Everyone seemed to like the new place. For me, it was a great trip, and nice to see the Yankees finally get the stadium they deserve.
My one other comment about the stadium- people have said it’s not as loud as the old Stadium. Maybe it seems that way on TV, or in those April games when the Stadium was half-full. But on one Friday night in August, the New Yankee Stadium was just as loud as its predecessor.
Seventy years ago today, the most famous speech in sports history was delivered.
Lou Gehrig, who had just retired from professional baseball, was being honored during a ceremony between games of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. Lou was prompted to speak, and without any notes or preparation, delivered something very memorable:
“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.
“Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky.
“When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift — that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies — that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter — that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body — it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed — that’s the finest I know.
“So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for. Thank you.”
A few years ago, I read Luckiest Man, Jonathan Eig’s biography of Gehrig. It was an amazing book about a man who was overshadowed by his teammate Babe Ruth, but who remains one of the most underappreciated superstars of all time.
In other Yankees-related events, it’s also George Steinbrenner’s birthday.
Happy birthday George.
I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I figured this would be a good one to share in light of tomorrow.
August 21, 1996
Angels 7, Yankees 1
August of ’96 was a hot, humid month in New Jersey. My summer vacation (which I worked through) was nearing an end, and by this point, my father (King Classic) , brother (t-shirt boy) and I watched every Yankees game, hoping that this year’s run in first place would surpass the previous summer’s wild card finish.
Even though the team slumped in August, our hopes were high. We had been to a few games earlier that year (the last year before we got the Sunday ticket plan) and my father wanted to go to the last day game before I had to go back to school- a mid-Wednesday affair against the Angels (then from simply “California”).
There was a back to school promotion going on, with all kids 14 and under getting a Yankees pencil case (containing pencils, a ruler, pencil sharpener and a few other things). Even though I was going into my second year of college and was much taller than your average 14-year-old, the gate attendants gave me a pencil case, which I had until a few years ago.
Unfortunately, aside from a Derek Jeter home run in the bottom of the first, the Yankees’ offense wasn’t able to make it to the Stadium that day. Even though they managed 10 hits in six innings against Jason Dickson (making his first Major League start) and another three against relievers Mike Holtz and Troy Percival, they weren’t able to bring anyone else home.
Even though the game ended up being a Yankees loss, the highlight for the day wasn’t in Derek Jeter’s home run. Nor was it in the five runs the Angels tacked on in the top of the ninth. Instead, in that first inning, as the Angels scored their first two runs, something happened that changed us (well, more accurately, King Classic) in a deep and profound way from that day forward.
Our tickets were in the left field stands. We were a few sections to the left of the fair pole, with King Classic sitting in the aisle seat, me the third seat in and t-shirt boy in between us. In the first, with Jimmy Key pitching for the Yankees and Gary Disarcina on first, Chili Davis hit a long fly ball that was headed our way. It cleared the outfield wall by about 20 feet and the rest of the stadium booed as he and Disarcina rounded the bases to score the Angels’ first two runs of the game. The ball was still headed our way, and mostly everyone in the section was on their feet, trying to be in position to catch the ball.
No one caught it. The ball hit the concrete, proceeds to ricochet off the concrete and hits the one person not standing up for the home run ball in the arm.
My father.
After being hit by the home run ball, King Classic uttered something along the lines as “what was that?” while t-shirt boy and I laughed at him.
Someone else got the ball, but t-shirt boy and I walked away with something that will keep us laughing.
Happy father’s day, King Classic.
Looks like Hideki Irabu is giving up his life of noodle shop proprietor by day and bar fighter by night.
According to NPB Tracker, the Yankees’ all time leader in wins by a Japanese starting pitcher is considering a comeback:
Nikkan Sports is reporting noted fat toad Hideki Irabu is working out in LA and aiming to resume his career in the US independent leagues some time this season. The article says that he’s played in amateur games and is hitting 90 mph on the gun in his workouts.
I’ve made it no secret that for some reason, I’m a fan of Irabu. At times, his stuff was above average, and for a few months in ’98, he was the Yankees’ best starting pitcher.
But he had some major attitude issues and when he wasn’t trying, his stuff was all too hittable. That and a habit of not covering first base led to a trade to Montreal where Yankees GM Brian Cashman must have had some incriminating photos of Expos front office officials to get a few decent players back for Irabu.
Hideki floundered in Montreal and also served as the Rangers’ closer before “retiring,” opening up a noodle shop in LA and another in Japan.
According to the NPB link, he also tried out for Japan’s WBC team this winter. Looks more like he participated in the tryouts rather than actually made the team.
Still, if all he’s shooting for is another shot in the big leagues, best of luck to him. If somehow he happens to end up in Columbus pitching for or against the Clippers, I may have to dig one of my two Irabu T-shirts out of the closet.
(Actually, now that I think about it, I may have worn one last summer. Should I be admitting that in a public forum?)
I know I’m almost late with this, but happy Days of Greatness everybody!
Since 2005, WrestleMania and Opening Day (for the Yankees, at least) have been within 24 hours of each other. And if that isn’t cause for celebration, I don’t know what is.
Caught WrestleMania last night- it was an entertaining event, with 40-somethings Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker stealing the show in an epic battle. With only eight matches, it felt a little light, especially considering the 20-minute “concert” after the first match. Luckily, that gave us time to call for a pizza. Also, the event was padded by recap packages, which helped those of us who don’t watch Raw on a weekly basis anymore catch up.
Coming up in an hour or so is Opening Day for the Yankees. Unless it’s about Hideki Irabu or my trips to Yankee Stadium, I don’t really write much about baseball (although maybe I should). But I am looking forward to this season and I’m happy with the moves the Yankees made since October. If anything, baseball is a reminder that the days are getting longer and the weather is getting more bearable.
Like I said, if that isn’t cause for celebration, I don’t know what is.
Back in the day when Yankees games were telecast over the MSG network, my favorite broadcaster who covered the Yankees was Al Trautwig. Al didn’t specialize in baseball, but covered every sport–he’s done hockey, he’s done the Olympics, he even covered the Jamaican Bobsledding Team.
Al is a damn good broadcaster. When he did the Yankees games, he’d appear throughout the game and on the MSG pre and post game shows. Then the Yankees went to YES, and other than the Olympics (and the fact that I moved out of MSG’s viewing area), I haven’t had much of a chance to listen to Al–until now.
It turns out Al is a Lost geek. Al has started what looks to be a weekly video blog on the MSG Network Web site where he talks about Lost. And boy, does he talk–he goes on for seven minutes. I can’t say I agree with all of his analysis, but it’s solid. He makes a lot of good points, and isn’t ashamed to hide his fanaticism. He even plugs Lostpedia, which makes me wonder if he’s an active member of the online Lost community. If you’re out there Al, you’re always welcome at the Kingdom.
If you’re a fan of Lost, give Al’s podcast a view–hopefully, it’ll show you that we’re everywhere.
October 27, 1999
Yankees 4, Braves 1 (World’s Series Game 4)
After graduating college, it took me nine months to find a job doing what I wanted to do. I spent from May through December of ’99 sending out tapes and resumes to with TV stations around the country, snagging an occasional interview and little interest. To keep myself busy, I worked a few meaningless jobs and helped coach my former speech team.
I’d travel to Seton Hall at least once a week, mostly on Tuesday nights and coach for a few hours. Tuesday October 26 was game 3, so I did my few hours of coaching then hung out with my friend Jon (the convert) to watch the game. It was an exciting game with the Braves coming out to an early lead, followed by the Yankees coming back and finally winning it as Chad Curtis took center stage at the plate and on the mic.
Jon and I were Chad fans from a game a few years earlier (I have yet to get to in this segment) where he started in left field and acknowledged our cheers. Having the game end in extra innings on a walk-off home run was exciting. As I left and headed for home, I said something to the effect that there’s little that can happen the next day in game four to top game three.
Had I known I’d be going to game four, I might have not said something so stupid. Sometime early that Wednesday, a friend of my father’s gave him tickets to game four. For some reason, King Classic couldn’t go. So I called up Jon, who bowed out of a LCS game the year prior due to school newspaper commitments, and Setonian be damned, he was in.
I picked Jon up at Seton Hall and we drove my old car (an ’87 Buick Century Limited I held on to until aught-three) to the stadium, encountering little traffic on the way in. Our tickets weren’t that bad. We were field level on the first base side, but in the very last row. The only drawback to the last row is there’s about three fewer inches of legroom in the row, but that wasn’t a problem, because we stood for most of the game anyway. On our way into the stadium, some fans were passing out photocopied signs that read ‘Ban Jim Grey.’ I snagged one and actually think I still have the collector’s item somewhere in my possession.
Roger Clemens, who never seemed to fit in during his first year as a Yankee started the game and held the Braves scoreless through seven, before allowing two runners in the eighth, one of whom eventually scored off Jeff Nelson. The Yankees had scored three runs in the third off a pair of singles by Tino Martinez and [Hip-Hip] Jorge Posada. So between the third and eighth, all we were doing was hoping the Yankees could hold the Braves to as little damage as possible.
Thankfully, the Braves only scored one in the eighth. There was a big debate this point among some fans to the right of us whether the Braves should bring in controversial reliever and grade-A jackass john Rocker to keep the game close. Braves manager Bobby Cox didn’t do that, instead throwing out lefthander Terry Mulholland who was utterly ineffective in one season as a Yankees starter in ’94. Jim Leyritz was brought in to pinch hit for Darryl Strawberry and bolstered my confidence in the ineptitude of Mulholland with a home run off the lefthander.
The Yankees didn’t need any more offense, as Mariano Rivera threw a scoreless inning and a third to close out the game, with the World Series ending as Keith Lockhart’s pop fly landed in Chad Curtis’ glove.
Other than Roger Clemens dancing on the dugout, the team didn’t celebrate much as Right Fielder Paul O’Neill’s father died the night before. The fans weren’t so subdued, as Jon and I hung around for a while, before heading back to Jersey.
Of course, I realized early on that day that it would be much, much better than the day before.
October 13, 1998
Yankees 9, Indians 5 (ALCS Game 6)
My senior year of college I roomed with a friend, who shall go by the name of Frank Liscapital. Frank, because his first name was Frank. Liscapital wasn’t his real last name, but he was memorialized in our college yearbook because the word “Liscapital” was added via hyphen to his last name because of his insistence that the ‘L’ in his last name was capitalized.
Frank Liscapital was a good guy, with one failing- he was a Mets fan, and just as much an obnixous Mets fan as I was an obnixous Yankees fan. While the Mets didn’t have much to be excited about in the ’98 season, he was a huge Mike Piazza fan, and we had constant debates over who would have the better career from that point forward, Piazza, or Yankee flash-in-the-pan Shane Spencer. I can admit it today, but Frank won that debate. He repeatedly told me that summer and fall that it was “only a matter of time” before the Yankees’ historic season ended. And in the ALCS, he was close to right.
The Yankees won game one against the Cleveland Indians, but lost games two (at home) and three (in Cleveland), and for a few days, Yankees fans were nervous. It looked like for the second straight year, the Yankees would fall in the postseason to the Tribe, a team in the midst of a great run of its own. The Yankees won games four and five in Cleveland, sending it back to the Bronx for the possible clincher on a Tuesday night.
My father called me at school that afternoon to tell me he had tickets (through the Sunday plan) and my stepmother wouldn’t let my brother go to a baseball game on a school night, playoffs or not. I first called my friend Jon, but he had prior commitments. I figured that Mets fan or not, Liscapital might enjoy the game, so I asked him and he said he would meet my father and I in the parking lot when his shift at the radio station was over.
Liscapital and I hopped in the car, and we went with my father to the stadium. My father and I were decked out in Yankees apparel. But Liscapital presented a problem. He was wearing a jacket over a t-shirt. The jacket was buttoned up all the way, but one versed in such things could clearly tell that the t-shirt was a Mets t-shirt (a Piazza name-and-number shirt). We didn’t expect it to be much of a problem. Until we got to the stadium, and a few fans heckled Frank for the half-inch of Mets logo that peeked out from the top of his jacket.
Frank had never been to the stadium, so I showed him around. We were on the field level, when he started waving to someone down on the field. He told me that one of the walkie-talkie guys on the field was a coach of some sort at his high school and had talked of working for the Yankees in his free time. I think I said something like “well, if you know him, you should have called so he could have gotten us on the field.” Frank laughed it off and we quickly found our seats.
The crowd was crazy that night. A few of the Cleveland players had made disparaging comments about the Yankees and the Bronx while the series was in Cleveland a few nights earlier, and the Yankees fans weren’t about to let them forget it. Instead of hanging hand-drawn K’s after a strikeout, fans in the upper deck hung pictures of hand drawn UZIs. As Indian (and future Yankee) David Justice stepped to the plate, the stadium erupted in chants of “Hal-le-Ber-ry,” his recent ex-wife.
And that pretty much set the tone for the whole night. Despite giving up five runs in five innings, David Cone pitched a solid game, striking out eight and leaving the game with the Yankees holding a 6-5 lead. While the crowd was nervous, the Yankees scored three in the bottom of the sixth to give them some insurance. The Yankees held on until the ninth, when Mariano Rivera sealed up a 9-6 win that sent the Yankees to the World Series. Dad, Frank and I hung around the stadium, me hoping that I’d get a chance to go to one of the World Series games (I would, but that’s another entry) and Frank probably hoping that his Mets shirt would go unnoticed.
As we left the stadium, we bumped into that guy Frank knew, who actually was some bigwig with stadium security. The guy told us something to the effect of “Frank, it’s great to see you! You should have given me a call–I could have let you and your friends down on the field before the game.”
Thanks Frank.
