Why I Like Baseball

(Originally appeared on February 18, 2000. Reposted at new URL on December 10, 2008.)

So, today spring training gets underway in earnest. So many of the articles I’ve been reading have been about the players who have rehabbed from injury or surgery during the winter. Even Cal Ripken! Pitchers galore. And more.

I’ve been “recovering” from a back injury since 1996, so I can say something about strength, or lack thereof, and about how it takes a kind of focused mindfulness to come back from injury.

I’ve been practicing tae kwon do for over a decade now. And I’ve had my set-backs because of injuries. Doing something physical at a very high skill level, I’ve come to appreciate just how hard it must be for some of these players.

I injured my knee skiing in 1991, right after starting up in tae kwon do again after a three year hiatus. That time, I was stupid. I “stayed off it”–meaning I didn’t work out for about a month, but I was still walking from the T station to work every morning, and working on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator. I did untold damage to the knee by not going to the doctor right away, but I was between health insurance providers at the time (my job had just switched companies and I didn’t have a doctor assigned yet). Besides, it was the first time in my life that I’d ever been injured. That’s right, all those years running cross country track, but I’d never sprained my ankle. Never broke a bone or needed stitches. Never dislocated my shoulder. So I had no mentality for how to deal with injury or rehab.

Then there’s the fact that I was out of shape in the first place. I never would have hurt my knee in the skiing fall if I had been in shape. But after all those years of cross country track, teaching skiing professionally, and tae kwon do in college, I had no concept of what being out of shape was. never in my adult life had I been so inactive as those two years at a desk job. I didn’t jog, didn’t ski, didn’t do anything. I even ruined my eyes at that job. (Don’t get me wrong, it was a good job, an exciting and fulfilling one… but it led me to neglect my physical self.)

That’s why I wanted to get back into tae kwon do so badly, and why it was particularly heartbreaking to have to stop again after only about two months of it, because of the knee.

Like I said, I “stayed off it” for a month. Then I went back to tae kwon do class, because I was bound and determined that I wasn’t going to slack off.

And that’s when I did the real damage. The muscles still being weak in my leg, and giving no protection to the ligaments, I blew it out again in class.

That time it was a year I was out, but that time I finally went to a doctor. Got an orthopedist. Then got a physical therapist. And started doing quad exercises.

I’ll never forget the moment though, when the physical therapist said to me that I’d probably never compete again. Here I’d been going in to therapy with the mindset that I’d be as good as new when I was done. Insert Six Million Dollar Man music here…”we can rebuild her, we have the technology…” But he brought me up short with that dose of reality. I remember feeling physically ill at that moment, dizzy. To tell you the truth, I didn’t have plans to win any more medals and had figured I was done with that years before. But to hear him say it was no longer an option… it was a blow to my spirit. I cried when I got home.

Later, though, I came to decide he was wrong. I look at someone like David Cone, or Kerry Wood, or Jackie Chan, for gods sake, who have not only recovered from serious injury, they have returned to form and been able to perform at a very high level. I kept doing my exercises with the thought that although some things are unlikely, they are not impossible.

I’m still doing those exercises today, nine years later, because the inherent flaws in my knees are still there, and given the noises it has been making, I think the “good” knee is going to be the one to go next. But as long as I keep doing my exercises, I have a chance to keep it together.

That’s hard when my back is out. The back injury was a similar story to the knee, only this time I was in the best shape I had ever been in in my life. When I got my black belt I weighed 10 pounds less than I do now, could work out two to three hours at a time without feeling tired, and felt more or less invincible. That’s the problem–I felt invincible, and thought I could lift something that I could not. And–crack–I threw out my back.

I didn’t go to physical therapy this time–I didn’t need machines to do the rehab really. What I needed was to do lots of stretching, lots of trunk strengthening exercises I can do at home, and I needed to stop doing a lot of things that put stress on my back.

Nothing makes a person feel old like a bad back, though. Instant old lady feeling. “Oh, my back!”

Now it’s a couple years later on the back thing, and really only about three months ago did I feel like I could start trying to get back in shape. My cardiovascular system is at another all time low, my flexibility is shot, and I have a long way to go to get back to the level I was at in 1996 when the injury occurred.

But I look at guys like Cal Ripken, and the other players who are suffering through the dull winter months on their machines and doing their sit ups and their stretches and so on, and so forth… and I think maybe I can make it. Sure, they have professional trainers working with them, and sure, they get paid to get in shape, and I’ve just got me.

But maybe that’s all I’m going to need. Me, and the inspiration those guys give me.

(Originally posted on February 17, 2000 and re-posted to the new URL on December 10, 2008)

I’ve waxed poetic before about Yankee Stadium, and well, I’m about to do it again. Yankee Stadium embodies, for me, the Platonic Ideal stadium. If my baseball history is right, it was the first three tier stadium, as well. Add to that the fact that it is The House That Ruth Built, and the tremendous amount of baseball history that has been made in that park, and, well… I could go on and on. (But won’t.)

It does occur to me, though, that my views on Yankee Stadium are a bit skewed by the fact that, well, I’ve never really been anywhere else. There was one year when the stadium was being refurbished in the seventies. I remember going to Shea for a Yankee game that time–but most of what I remember about it was that it poured rain. And I do mean poured; Niagara-like spouts of water were shooting from the upper decks. We arrived home sopping wet and wringing out our clothes. I was probably about seven years old at the time.

So, not counting that one soggy trip, I was at Shea for a concert in the 1980s (was it 1983?)–The Police, Joan Jett, and R.E.M. I don’t think that counts either.

And I’ve been to Fenway Park only once, despite the fact that I lived a block from the place for five years, and it was to see a high school World Series game in around 1995. (more…)

(Originally posted February 16, 2000, reposted to new blog on December 9, 2008)

So, I never really thought about the difference between female baseball fans and male baseball fans, until the whole Derek Jeter thing.

Let me explain. Growing up as a kid, I was a tomboy, and was always doing this that the “guys” did: I ran cross country track, and played the sousaphone (tuba), and I was the one girl in my fifth grade class who traded baseball cards. (Because I only cared about the Yankees, I didn’t mind letting the guys bid on my other hot players who were non-Yankees… the going rate for a “trade” back then was a penny a card, or a card of equal “value” for a card… which meant someone like Reggie Jackson wouldn’t go for less than 75 cents, and could get bid up to about $3. In milk money, that was a significant amount! I was also my class’ treasurer… and I made a killing shedding the Dodgers, Reds, and Mets I didn’t want…)

Anyway, the thing is, I didn’t really think of baseball fandom as a masculine thing, particularly. And I still don’t, especially not with all the women I always see when I go to games. And they’re not there as tag alongs to their boyfriends or husbands.

Then again, in New York, maybe they are just there to see Derek Jeter.

I was slightly shocked when I went to a game at Yankee stadium in 1999 to find that, as the players were introduced, the decibel and pitch level of the screams for Jeter were considerably higher than for other players. Being the baseball exile I was for so many years, and not being in New York, I had missed the whole Jeter-as-Heartthrob phenomenon. I thought to myself, hmm, yeah, he’s kind of cute, single, and plays shortstop, chicks dig that. But I didn’t really see the attraction myself. Maybe, I thought, it’s because I’m, ahem, seven years older than he is–I mean, s**t, he’s the same age as my little brother.

During the post-season this year, though, I’m not sure what it was, but all of a sudden I “got” Jeter fever. This was especially weird since I haven’t had that Beatle-mania kind of feeling for any athlete, movie star, or pop singer since I was, oh, a teenager. But, as Mel Stottlemeyer is fond of saying, Jeter is “special.” The more I watched him play, the more fascinated I became. Who is this guy? I wondered.

Then came the offseason, and as I was surfing the Internet, I came across many great Jeter articles and interviews I’d missed while in baseball exile. Turns out, he’s also the nicest, best-mannered guy in the sport. Jeez. I read features from Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, GQ (!), Time Out New York, People (!!)… Perhaps even more intriguing was that rarely did I read these interviews on their original magazine’s sites. More often than not they were lovingly scanned, or perhaps painstakingly re-ryped, word for word, by dedicated fans of Mr. Jeter. I found hundreds of Jeter fan sites. And not surprisingly, most of these sites are run by young women, in their teens and twenties.

I was deeply involved with teen heartthrob fandom myself when I was young (I ran a fan club for Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, and yes, I met Ricky Martin many times back when he was thirteen–you’ll have to wait for my autobiography to hear more…). So I know the turf. I was capitvated by features on the sites–the modern day equivalent of home-made fan club newsletters–like “101 Reasons I Love Derek Jeter” and the still-ongoing speculations about Jeter’s relationship with Mariah Carey (despite the fact they broke up years ago).

Even more captivating was all the actual baseball talk that got tossed in with the discussions of Jeter’s eating habits, social life, and eye color. Okay, granted, there were many, many messages posted on the boards with subject lines like “OMIGOD DJ IS SOOOOOO HOT!!!!!!!!” but maybe that’s why it was so surprising to me to find women arguing about Chuck Knoblauch’s throwing problems, for example.

Then again, think about the character of Annie in “Bull Durham.” She wasn’t just a dugout groupie–she knew her baseball.

No, I really shouldn’t have been surprised at all, I guess. I salute baseball women, the “diamond girls,” whether what thrills their blood is Jeter’s smile, or his lightning throw to first. Or both. And I’m proud to be one of them.

(Originally published on February 15, 2000, and reposted to the new blog on December 7, 2008)

OK, OK, I’ve talked before about being a Yankee fan in Red Sox Land. It’s tough, let me tell you. I go into the copy shop where I do thousands of dollars in business a year wearing my Yankees cap, and they give me s**t about it. The give me the evil eye in the post office, too. And yet, I see more people wearing Yankee caps both here in Boston and in my travels around the country, than I see of any other hat.

But really, although I was ecstatic, of course, that the Yanks went all the way and won it in ’99… wouldn’t a Red Sox/Mets series have been an incredible sight to behold? A replay of the Bill Buckner series, but without Bill Buckner? (You know that poor sap had to move out of New England because no one would ever let him live it down? Even in New Hampshire he couldn’t pump his own gas without getting booed. And I think I have it tough at the post office…) Even Sox/Braves would have had an age old rivalry to it, the Braves originally being from Boston. (And a Mets/Yanks series would have turned New York upside down!)

The Sox deserve to have their shot at winning it all. This “Curse” business, you have to take it seriously, if only because at the very highest levels of play, it’s the slight mental edge that makes the difference. The Yankees have a winning attitude, and that contributes to them winning more. The Sox, no matter how much the players say they don’t think about the Curse, you know it has to pop up in the back of their minds from time to time.

The Sox are great baseball because there is always drama associated with them. They play in one of the great old parks–though of course there is talk now of building a new stadium, a bigger stadium, which would pull better profits, and allow them to increase the payroll, and pull in more Yankee-killing pitchers, and so on. Maybe a new stadium would break “the Curse” if only for a psychological fresh start. But how can you think about tearing down Fenway Park! Man, it pains me just to think about it.

Then again, they are talking about tearing down Yankee Stadium, too. Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, though, may be the places with the most historic overall baseball significance of any of the old parks.

I tell you, if those two old ballparks go, it will be the end of an era in baseball. The end of an entire age. I suppose it may be inevitable, what with the loss already of Tiger Stadium, and many of the other beloved parks.

But I was talking about why I like the Red Sox. There’s always drama. And my Yankee fandom aside, I like to root for the underdog. And the current Sox are such a likable team. I watched most of the Sox post-season games in ’99, watched them battle through trying to get a crack at the Yankees. And it looked so good, too–they had a winning record against the Yanks in ’99, and hopes were high…

But in the end they were ground up in the Yankees postseason juggernaut (except for Pedro Martinez, who you just gotta love), and a truly, truly incredible story did not come to pass. And hearts were broken everywhere.

And maybe that’s what it takes to be a real Red Sox fan. The strength to carry on despite heartbreak. I don’t think I quite have the constitution to survive Red Sox fandom. But you can be sure I’ve got my eye on them, and I’ll be waiting for that day when they rise above.

(Addendum: And yes, once they eliminated the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS I knew it was their year, finally, and rooted for them!)

(Originally posted on February 14, 2000, reposted to at new site on December 6, 2008)

There are a lot of reasons why I like baseball. I’ve already talked about formative experiences of youth, bonding with my father, and so on.

But I think there’s more to it than that, and this has to do with sports in general. Because in recent years I’ve found my interest in all sports becoming more intense.

It began with Olympic coverage in 1996–frankly, I was disgusted with it. Every bar or restaurant we went into (we had no tv then and we still have no cable or regular reception), we were glued to it. But the network had tried so hard to create a “story” around each American athlete, that it actually worked counter to the drama of the games themselves. The drama and suspense was ruined because you knew that the three people they would show you profiles of would be the three medalists, and they didn’t show you enough of the actual competition and games, since they were spending so much time on the interviews and background features. I was, to say the least, annoyed. And I realized that a lot of the drama in sports is on the playing field itself. Yeah, you want to know who the players in the drama are, but it’s the actual amazement you feel at their achievement, (the amazing plays, the competitive edge, the home runs), the actual thrill of victory and agony of defeat you feel at the end of the game, the heartbreak of errors or bad calls… all that is what is actually compelling about it. I remember getting up early in the morning to see matches the year the US Hockey team did the impossible and won gold. The way the Olympics are covered now, there’s not time for that kind of drama to develop. The 1996 Olympics left me with a hankering for what they lacked.

Then, I read the novel INFINITE JEST by David Foster Wallace. Much of the book revolves around life at an elite tennis academy, and the inside game of tennis. This was an amazing book for reasons having nothing to do with tennis, but I suddenly got interested in tennis. I actually hated playing tennis as a kid–my mother and father basically strong-armed me and the friend who got married on the day of Game One of the World Series (see above…) into taking lessons together when we were like 11 years old. We were terrible at it. And my parents were always watching tennis on tv. Which I found boring. But I remember watching these apocalyptic showdowns between Borg and McEnroe and really being glued to the set. (no pun intended)

So anyway, inspired by reading Infinite Jest, while traveling for business we’d channel flip in our hotel, and come to ESPN2 broadcasting the Monaco Open or something, and we’d get sucked right into it. corwin and me both. Or even better, Classic Sports Network showing those selfsame Borg/McEnroe matchups. Yeah, this after about ten years of not watching any televised sports.

Add to this the fact that I write fiction for a living. I write short stories, novels, novellas. In the past I’ve written screenplays, tv scripts, (none produced, mind you) and to like, too. So when I see a tv show or we watch a Hollywood movie, I know what’s going on in the writer’s mind a lot of the time. Hollywood works on certain formulas, and, OK, this works to some degree because the movie isn’t a satisfying entertainment experience for much of the audience unless certain criteria are fulfilled. I.e. in an action movie you have to have a car chase (or boat chase, or whatever ‘spin’ on the car chase the director decides on), a shoot out, etc. Good guys usually win, and so on.

But as we all know, plenty of bad movies come out. The formula doesn’t always work. And at some point I just run out of compassion for characters who are weakly drawn or badly acted or just plain fake.

But baseball is real. Sports drama is real.

You don’t have to suspend your disbelief because these are real actual guys whose job it is to go out there and compete every day. And they are amazing at what they do. Believe it. And the back story? The baseball season is like a soap opera. On any given day, nothing earth-shattering may seem to happen. But who will rise above? Who will slump? Who will have the clutch hit at the critical moment? Who will get tagged out at third to end the rally? Who will get injured? Who will recover from injury?

This is why even teams that don’t have winning records have fans. Because it isn’t, actually, all about winning. It’s about being there. It’s about not knowing what will happen. No one is scripting
the happy ending for you. You never know if today will be a tragedy or a comedy.

This is why the Yankees are so compelling to me. The media have taken to calling them “the most storied” sports franchise in history, and I think that is really true. You could make a movie about a hundred different players or situations or seasons with the Yankees.

The Red Sox are pretty storied, too. But their story is so inextricably linked with the Yanks story, it’s hard to be objective.

Ah, who needs objectivity anyway? When I was a kid, I was a fan of a lot of things, Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, Duran Duran, and the Yankees. These days, I get interested in something like, oh, The X-Files, but it doesn’t last. I eventually feel cheated by the writers of the series who have other concerns than being true to the characters or satisfying me, the fan. But baseball, that’s real. That’s something you can get into, and stay into, because it’s happening live, right there, in front of you. The players you like, the teams you hate, it’s all unfolding in real time.

And this season, I’ll be right there for the whole thing.

(Originally posted February 13, 2000, reposted to new site December 3, 2008)

In 1999, corwin and I had been together eight years. Eight years! And now that we’re both in our thirties, we’ve gotten on to a kind of second-childhood kick. (We also took a vacation to Disney World this year.)

I decided that, with our limited funds, we ought to take a vacation to New Jersey, and it was high time he experienced two of the things that were really formative to me as a kid. One, the Jersey Shore (Seaside Heights, specifically) and two, Yankee Stadium.

I went to two games, one with corwin and one without. On Sunday afternoon, I’d gone with my brother and his girlfriend. The Yanks had beat the Mariners that day, but the victory was bittersweet for us, because my parents were supposed to be along with us, also. But my father ended up hospitalized and in the Intensive Care Unit a few days before. (He’s fine now, thanks!) So he was laid up and my mom decided to stay there with him. Ricky Ledee hit an inside the park home run, and Ken Griffey Jr. was held powerless to do anything, really… (gloat, gloat)

But then came the next night. We went with two friends, my best friend from high school, Bonnie, who was on that birthday trip to the stadium all those years ago, and her then-fiance (they’re married now), Aaron. It so happens that Aaron is a huge sports fan and knows the inside scoop on all the players, even the opposing team. It’s Yanks versus Oakland A’s on a beautiful summer evening in New York.

We arrived early, with the traditional fried chicken in our bags, met our friends and found our seats (lower deck, third base side). corwin made an audible gasp as we came through the dark, dank, concrete corridor that leads to the seats and out into the intense green and blue open space that is Yankee Stadium. I said “you think this is cool, let’s go up to the upper deck just to see the view from there!” We did, and then a cop chased us away since that section was empty.

It was the best kind of game, the come from behind victory. We got to see a little bit of everything that game. Controversial umpire calls. Home runs. Double plays. Rookies blossoming. Old hands making their comebacks. History in the making.

On the drive back to my parents house, corwin said, “That was really fun.”

“Yes, dear, it was.”

“No, I mean really, that was incredibly fun.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why three million people are going to do it this year.”

“No, Really…”

You get the idea. He was hooked.

I had no idea just how hooked, though, until the next day, when we were due to drive back to Boston in the evening. We had some errands to do in North Jersey, sort of near the George Washington Bridge.

As we were getting on the road, around 6pm or so, corwin looked across the Hudson River toward the stadium and said, “You know, we could go to the game.”

But being as the errands we had done included buying a couple hundred dollars worth of furniture and stuff, it didn’t seem wise to leave the car parked in the Bronx.

Then, the road we were on became blocked by a horrendous accident. It took over an hour before the cops began to re-route traffic, and we sat in the car, and sat, and sat…

“You know, we could listen the game on the radio,” said corwin.

We turned to the pre-game show. And then we were happy as clams. In fact, we started to get worried when the traffic broke up. Because we were probably going to drive out of range before the game would end…

So picture this. Halfway through Connecticut hours later, we’re north of New Haven, and the signal starts to go. corwin’s driving.

“I’m going to pull over,” he says.

We pull off the highway into an abandoned factory parking lot. The game goes to the ninth inning.

“I’m getting hungry,” I say.

The game is tied up. Going to extra innings!

We suffer. We get back on the road. We search for a Hartford station. We pull off again. John Sterling’s voice is being eclipsed by static. Suddenly we find a Hartford radio station carrying the game. Off we go again!

At 11:30 pm we pull into the parking lot of the Olympia Diner. The Olympia used to be open 24 hours, but now they are only open until midnight. So it is a good thing that in the bottom of the thirteenth inning (13 innings!), the Yanks were unable to make the hits they needed, and they went down in defeat. And at 11:45 pm, after sitting in the car all the way through the final out, we finally get out and went into the diner.

“I can’t believe they lost,” says corwin, while staring at the menu.

“Yeah, and I want a Sabrett Hot Dog,” I grumble. They’re just not the same if you eat them anywhere else but Yankee Stadium.

The next day I came home from teaching tae kwon do (which I do three night a week) to find corwin in the kitchen, where he was supposed to be making dinner. He had his head in a cabinet, but no food was being prepared. “Look what I did!” he announced.

He had been downloading the RealPlayer G2 to his laptop and then hooking it up to our home stereo system so we could listen to the game live while in the kitchen.

I forgave him not having dinner ready.

And you know what else? Those two friends who came to the game with us? They had the nerve to get married during Game One of the World Series. (Aaron says if he ever gets married again, he promises he’ll check first…) From their wedding, we went on our Disney vacation, and one evening went to the Disney All-Star Sports Cafe to watch Game Three. It was almost like being at a game–they have a live DJ there who plays all the little fight songs and things. Earlier in the day, we had been in a restaurant at Epcot Center where they had crayons on the tble, and I drew the Yankee Top Hat logo on the placemat. I was still carrying that placemat and kept my scorecard on the back of it, with a pen I bought at Disney Wide World of Sports, a ball point pen with a baseball on the end. I don’t know if it was lucky or what, but they won the game. (That was the Chad Curtis home run game.)

And yeah, I can’t wait to go back for another game. And neither can he. And I’ve been jonesing for more baseball ever since, reading the news on the Internet every day. Checking the trades. Reading the STATS INC book over Christmas. corwin’s now reading “The Physics of Baseball.” Yeah, we’re hooked. We’ll probably even see some non-Yankees Red Sox games this year!

To be fair, we recently mentioned a Derek Jeter interview in SI.com which featured much talk about him playing in an EA Sports Video Game Tournament with Tiger Woods.

Well, now Alex Rodriguez is in a commercial for Guitar Hero, with Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps, and Tony Hawk. Ripping off Tom Cruise, no less. This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen since Jack Cust fell down between third and home one night at Camden Yards…

(Originally posted February 13, 2000, reposted to new site November 1, 2008)

So, how did a young fan of Reggie Jackson, the Year of the Comeback, Bucky Dent, Ron Guidry, and Thurman Munson, a woman who still counts among one of the best days of her life witnessing Dave Righetti’s Fourth of July No-Hitter live at Yankee Stadium, lose her faith in the late ’80s, forget the sport of baseball entirely, and then find it again in 1999?

Let’s turn the clock back to the 1970s first. There I am, a young tomboy growing up in suburban New Jersey. I have to credit my Dad with getting me hooked on baseball, though I never got hooked on any of the other sports he liked to watch on tv (golf, tennis, football…). Perhaps this is because although we watched a lot of ABC’s Wide World of Sports (remember back when that was pretty much all there was?), the only sport we went to witness live and in the flesh was baseball, and the place we went was Yankee Stadium.

As a kid, I was very concerned with history and fame. How did famous people get remembered? I had this notion that I wanted to be famous someday, or at least remembered for something. I remember going to Yankee Stadium when I was about 9 or 10 years old and thinking, wow, history gets made here every day. Pretty mind-blowing for a ten year old.

There’s also no doubt about it that a lot of the bonding that went on between me and my Dad happened while we were sharing a scorecard at the ballpark, or stuffed into the same armchair at home watching the games. (We were skinny back then.) He’d tickle me during the commercials. At the ballpark, we’d take turns keeping score. I still keep my scorecard the way I learned back then–it’s a little less fancy than the mini-diamonds they have now. But, let’s not skip ahead.

When I was eleven years old, I was at 4-H camp when Thurman Munson died in a plane crash. My parents were really worried I’d be devastated, and were fretting over how to tell me when I got back to the real world. But as it turned out, I had already found out. One kid at camp had twisted his ankle or something and gone to the emergency room, and while at the hospital had seen the news report. With a whole staff of counselors on hand they announced the sad news in the dining hall that night. When I got home, I made a little shrine on my closet door, with a poster of Munson, and fifteen pictures of him I cut out from the newspaper in the weeks following his death. Fifteen because that was his uniform number.

For either my 13th or my 14th birthday party I made my parents take not only me to the park, but all my friends, as well. Our family tradition was to pick up a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way, because at Yankee Stadium you can bring in your own food (as long as you don’t bring cans or bottles). Two carloads of teenage girls, plus my parents and brother–how could we not have a good time? You know, I don’t even remember who they played or if they won. I suppose in my childhood memories, they always won, even though I know they didn’t.

I remember sitting behind home plate once. My father and my grandfather and I had gone to the ballpark, just the three of us, and bought our tickets at the gate. Those seats must have been held in reserve for press or players’ friends, and were released before the game when they went unused. That was the night I learned what grand slam was. Bobby Murcer came in to pinch hit with the bases loaded, and hit one out. I remember everyone around us jumping up and down and screaming. I was too short to actually see Murcer cross the plate what with all the adults around me standing up. But I guess you never forget your first grand slam.

And of course there was that incredible Fourth of July, thanks to Dave Righetti. It was already an incredibly exciting day for me and my brother (his name’s Julian, by the way), because Chuck Mangione, who we thought was the coolest for some reason, played the national anthem, and then paratroopers came flying down into the stadium on parachutes with smoke shooting out of their shoes. Cool. Then comes young, good-looking, Dave Righetti to the mound. The opponents were the Red Sox, who we had been indoctrinated to loathe by other fans (“Boston sux! Boston sux!”) so tension was high. Righetti was pitching perfectly, and after the first couple of innings the words “perfect game” were on everybody’s lips.

OK, then at some point someone got walked. I can’t remember who, but I’m sure if I wanted to I could find a scorecard of the game somewhere on the web or in a stats book. So then “no-hitter” became the watchword.

It was the most exciting game I’ve ever seen, and all because almost nothing happened!

The tension and suspense was almost too much to stand. By the eighth inning, the two strike claps were becoming one-strike claps. (They tell me two-strike clap–the audience making rhythmic claps on two strikes hoping for a strikeout, which started with Ron Guidry in Yankee Stadium– has spread to some other ballparks as well.) The audience was going crazy and yet also subdued, holding our breath, not wanting to blow it for the young pitcher.

And he didn’t blow it. He did it! And so me and my family were witnesses to history in Yankee Stadium. After the game we waited outside the clubhouse with the media, tv cameras, etc… and a lot of screaming fans. We waved to Dave Righetti as he departed the park. We were a little disappointed that you couldn’t see us in the newscast that night, but so what? As if that wasn’t great enough, from there we went to the East River to see the awesome fireworks, and then to Chinatown for a dinner that, as Arlo Guthrie says, couldn’t be beat.

With memories and formative experiences like that, how could I leave the Yankees and baseball fandom behind?

Find out more in tomorrow’s entry.

(Originally posted February 13, 2000, reposted to new site November 1, 2008)

I never anticipated how difficult the offseason was going to be this year. It’s my first offseason since my return to baseball fanaticism, and I just had no idea it would be this hard to get through the dark months.

Oh, sure, in November there were a few tidbits, like the awards and such, that counted as “news.” Trade rumors. Actual trades. A trickle here, and a trickle there. I found myself re-reading my dog-eared copy of Yankee Magazine from August ’99, and watching video highlights of past games on various web sites.

As of this writing, it’s February, and to get my “fix,” I’ve been surfing the web almost every day. I’ve grown fond of The Sporting News site, and I also pop in to majorleaguebaseball.com, and I check the Yankees web site (which is terribly over-designed, by the way–very graphics-heavy and printed in tiny, tiny white type on a dark blue background… it’s painful to look at but I have to keep going back…). I get most of my direct Yankees news from the Yankees index of The Bergen Record online. Pathetic, aren’t I?

But today Spring Training officially started, and not only that, it was above freezing here in Boston! All of a sudden, real anticipation is shooting through my veins–the 2000 Season is upon us!

My boyfriend, corwin, who lives with me, thinks I’m nuts. But when he gets on my case about my obsession, I remind him of last fall. That’s when he was the one who was so dejected when a Yankee game was called off due to rain, we ended up going to see the Kevin Costner movie “For the Love of the Game” that night! This after he’d had to rent “Bull Durham” and “Field of Dreams” on two other “off” nights. (Here in Red Sox Land the only way we can hear the games is to listen to them on the world wide web through Real Audio. It’s not as if we missed going to an actual game…)

When I was a kid, I never missed baseball this much. Maybe because even as a young fan, I never followed the season quite that closely. Or maybe it’s because there’s no more zealous zealot than the born-again, eh?

In any case, the wait is almost over. And I can hardly stand it. Play Ball!

Baseball season is really over, and the pickings become slim for us information junkies. I’ll be dong my part this offseason to keep things interesting as I migrate my old posts from ceciliatan.com to the new URL here at Why I Like Baseball. So look for a new posting here every day from the old site! I’ve got posts from 2000 – 2006 to move, so there will be plenty of good reading.

Meanwhile, some fun places to look into. The Baseball Early Bird, a daily newsletter of baseball news, history, recs, and more, will continue to be published in the offseason! Check it out at baseballearlybird.com.

Over at Jim Nemerovski’s site GirlsPlayBaseball he has republished Dorothy Jane Mills’ article Our Mother’s Game, about how women are storming the gates of baseball scholarship (as well as front offices, umpiring, and the field itself).

Alex Belth’s Bronx Banter blog is moving from Baseball Toaster over to the SNY group of blogs. You’ll find him and his crew all over at www.bronxbanterblog.com. Always readable.

You know how we make fun of the fact that Derek Jeter never says anything of substance? In this kind of goofy interview with SI.com, he actually comes out and tells the interviewer he’s not going to say anything. (Although to be fair, the interviewer was trying to ask him about his love life and politics…) SI.com.

Re-posting starts tomorrow!

The World Series is not yet over, but snow fell in parts of Pennsylvania yesterday, and I woke up this morning with my skin feeling dry. So dry that several calluses on my left hand were peeling.

I stared at them for a while after I got out of the shower, trying to figure out what they were from. What could I have been doing that built up a callus there, on my left hand, on the pads between the second and third knuckle of my grip?

I think these are my batting calluses, finally wearing off, nearly 14 months after I played my final game of hardball.

I used to go to the batting cage at least once a week. It was bit the way other people must make surreptitious stops at bars and whorehouses. Sometimes I’d make a special trip and plan to go to the cage, but more often than not, in my busy life, trying to fit baseball in around two jobs, community volunteering, writing, editing, and socializing, I’d have to sneak in a trip on my way to or from somewhere else.

I’d go to the Home Depot near the cage instead of the hardware store closer to my house, to justify the trip. I’d meet friends at the movie theater near there, but leave an hour early so I could get some hitting in, first.

I’d bring batting gloves with me on vacation. I’ve hit in batting cages in Aruba, Florida, the Jersey Shore. (Never did find one in Mexico, though.)

My car still has a pile of Iron Mike tokens in the ashtray.

But my last two years playing, I hardly went to the cage at all. I was too busy. My work life has gotten more and more pressing (which is good, it means I’m earning more through writing and editing). Just making time to get to the games I was supposed to play in was getting harder and harder.

And it showed on the field. After the season where I batted nearly .500 for fifteen games (and dropped to just under .400 after a slump in the last few – it’s only a 20 game season), my hitting dropped off the following year. The time not spent in the cage was part of it.

My fading eyesight is the other. No, it’s nothing so dramatic as Kirby Puckett—I’m just over 40 now and dusk light is the hardest to see in. The baseball that was bright and white and whose seams I could see spinning easily in the first inning would be dirty and sunset-colored in the fifth, melding into the dying day like a ghost. We play(ed) on a field without lights.

I’s funny, because one would think I’d miss playing baseball the most during the summer, which is when I played, but here it is, more than a full season since I retired and it’s only really hitting me, today. I worked hard for those calluses. I’ll miss them.

Of course, there’s nothing to say I can’t still go to the batting cage…

Baseball in 2008 as a haiku:

“Devil” was struck out
Thrown out of the Rays team name
World Series here we come

You can’t make this kind of thing up. The team that has been so bad for so long, the perennial butt of jokes, finally not only has a winning season, they win the AL East, then beat the Red Sox in 7 games, AND go to the World Series. It remains to be seen whether the final flourish in the tale will be actually winning the World Series, or if just reaching the biggest stage of all for the first time will be the top of the mountain.

Tonight’s game saw the flourishing of a new breed of fans in Tampa Bay, too, starting what could be their own continuing traditions if their club continues to be good in seasons to come, like the proliferation of cowbells. When there was just one “cowbell guy” in Tampa, whose percussive enthusiasm rang hollowly in their usually half-filled domed stadium, was one thing. Now that there are droves and droves of cowbell-ringing fans, game seven’s starter, Matt Garza, wore earplugs. One fan held up a sign that read: MORE COWBELL.

Another clever fan held up a sign that read “The Improbable Dream,” a historical nod to the team they were about to beat, the Red Sox, whose “Impossible Dream” in 1967 revived baseball in Boston, as 2008 has revived it in St. Pete. Ownership there has been trying to get the city to build them a waterfront, open-air ballpark… Winning a World Series seems a great PR move in that direction.

The Rays, whose franchise is only 11 seasons old, will face one of the oldest franchises in the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies, whose franchise was founded in 1883. They adopted the name Phillies officially in 1890, and have won exactly one World Series since then, in 1980.

The homer happy Rays should have a good time in the hitter haven that is Citizens Bank Park, while the Phillies outfielders will probably not enjoy trying to play balls against the beige canvas dome at Tropicana Field. The franchises have faced each other before in Interleague play.

An interesting note which may or may not presage anything: of all the NL East teams, the Phillies have had the worst record in interleague play. Often this has come from playing “down” to bad teams in the AL East like the Orioles and then-Devil Rays, rather than getting beat by the historically strong teams like Boston and New York. In 2001, the Phillies ended the season only 2 games out of first place, but had been swept at Tampa Bay earlier in the season.

When the two teams met in 2006, both Cole Hamels and James Shields were rookies pitching for their respective teams. Now they are both aces. The three-game series was played in Philadelphia and both Shields and Scott Kazmir earned wins for the Rays, facing a lineup that looked similar to the one the Phiting Phils will field on Tuesday: Jimmy Rollins leading off, and Chase Utley and Ryan Howard coming soon after, and other familiar faces like Shane Victorino. Hamels was hammered for 7 hits, 6 runs (5 earned) and knocked out in the fourth inning.

The one Phillies pitcher who did beat them back in 2006 was a highly touted prospect, Ryan Madson, who this season was a cog in bullpen, one piece in the “bridge to Lidge.” He notched a 3.05 ERA and an excellent 1.23 WHIP.

Of course, all the numbers mean nothing once the game actually starts. Great hitters can fail, shaky pitchers can get at’em-balls, and anything an happen. In fact, it is exactly the things that are against all odds that amaze us the most about baseball. Each and every game can be an Improbable Dream.

I was listening to the Red Sox broadcast last night of the Sox/Rays showdown. While wallowing in misery when it was 7-0 in favor of the Rays, Joe Castiglione, that most bipolar of broadcasters, mentioned that former Yankee Tom Tresh had passed away at age 71.

I was sad to hear that. Tresh was one of the good guys, a smart, articulate, funny man who was gracious with his time when I was working on the book “The 50 Greatest Yankee Games.” He, like so many retired ballplayers (and others…) lived in Florida, just a few hours from my parents. I got his address through a contact at the Yankees and I wrote him out of the blue asking if he’d be willing to get together for an interview. We set one up, and one sunny morning I drove south from Tampa to a Cracker Barrel intending to meet him for lunch.

When I arrived, there was no sign of him. I didn’t know what he looked like now, and so spent quite a while going in and out trying to see if there was anyone browsing the shop or sitting in the rocking chairs outside who might be my quarry. It was quite busy—there was not a parking space to be had, either. Eventually I determined he wasn’t there, and called his house.

His wife answered to say she thought he was playing golf. He’d left about an hour before. My heart sank. Nine holes of golf takes like three hours. Eighteen holes takes all day. And I had to be back in Tampa that night for the game. She said she’d call his cell phone though, and try to see what he was up to. A little while later he called. I could hear he was outdoors, but he said he was just finishing up and would be right over. He was very apologetic. Friends from out of town had dropped in for a few days and got his schedule all out of whack.

Now I felt guilty, because I was sure I was pulling him away from a day of golf with good friends. When he arrived he told me not to worry, he had only had a golf lesson that morning, and so he really was finished when he came to meet me, and he was incredibly apologetic for forgetting.

We talked for hours. We got a table—by the the crowds had begun to abate—and talked all through the meal and then sat for a long time afterward. I ran out of tape; I think that’s the only reason we ended when we did.

What follows is an edited transcript of the interview. When I say Tresh was articulate, it’s quite evident in the long paragraphs that I include in his own words.

So who was Tom Tresh? He was the Derek Jeter of his generation of home-grown Yankees. In his rookie season, 1962, he won the shortstop starting job out of spring training as Tony Kubek had to leave for a stint in the military. That year Tresh won Rookie of the Year honors, and in the World Series led the team in hitting. When I spoke to him in the spring of 2004, Tresh had a lot to say on what it meant to be a Yankee.

Cecilia Tan: You had a cup of coffee at the end of the ’61 season, just in time to catch the end of the Maris/Mantle home run race, right?

Tom Tresh: I came up the last month of the season. You know when you dream of being a New York Yankee for many years….? My idol was Mickey Mantle, even though he was about 7 years older than I was. I was playing in Richmond, VA in Triple A ball and they increased the roster the first of September and I was the only minor league player they called up. They were in a race at that time and they had a one game lead over the Tigers. So I met them on the first of September. I got to the stadium before anybody else did. You’d met most of the guys, it wasn’t like I hadn’t yet, because being in the organization for three and half years at that time, you’d met Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and Bob Richardson and Tony–spring training and so on–but you don’t know them well. You’re still kind of a minor leaguer at that time, they’re a major leaguer, but they know who you are and you know who they are, so it’s a little different than being traded and meeting everybody at once.

CT: What happened on September first?

Tom Tresh: So I got there that morning, earlier than anybody else would be there. And I went in and Pete Sheehy–the clubhouse man who was there forever, a great man–met him and he took me over to my locker and they had my locker right next to Mantle’s, and my locker number was 15 which was my dad’s number. My dad played in the major leagues for 12 years and wore number 15 with the White Sox, so you know everything was just a thrill. And I did the thing that everybody does, you know, I walked out through the dugout and I walked out to home plate and stood there in my dress clothes with the sun shining and nobody is in the stadium yet, and you look out there and you see the center field area where the monuments are… it was a tremendous feeling to know that Babe Ruth stood there, and DiMaggio, and Gehrig, and Mantle and all these great players throughout the history of the Yankees. That was it and you were there.

CT: Do you remember anything else from that time?

And then games started and it seems to me, and I might be wrong, but it seemed to me that we won every game that homestand. You can check that but it just seemed to me we never lost while we were home. Maybe that’s just my memory of it. [Ed: Tresh's memory is quite good. Starting September 1, 1961, they swept three home series in a row, 12 games against Detroit, Washington, and Cleveland. Then they had a 13 game road trip where they went 6-7, and came home to play the final 5 games of the season, going 4-1. So they did win every game that homestand, and only lost one while he was there that year at home.]

Mickey and of course Roger were in the midst of a home run derby, and my locker being next to Mickey’s meant that right after the game was over–and there was a lot of papers in New York then and they were getting a lot of coverage from Japan and foreign countries, and my locker was on the end and Mantle’s was right here (holds up hands)–the press would come right in. You had screens between your lockers and they would move right into my locker [to be able to see and hear Mickey]. So as quick as I got in I would get right out, it wouldn’t matter if I sat there or not because they’re going to be hanging over here trying to get to ask Mickey questions and whatever. And right across from me on the other side of the locker room was Maris with HIS crowd, so it was this constant crowd, this back and forth from one locker to the other.

CT: How did you deal with it?

I quickly learned that the thing to do was to go in and take off my uniform real quickly and head for the training room, and grab a beer or a pop or something and go into the training room until it was all over, and then go out and get dressed. It was a tremendous thrill to be a part of that. I was in the game where Roger hit his 61st home run. It’s kind of a dream come true, the excitement of it. In those years, the Yankees were the number one sports team in the world. There wasn’t anything comparable, so being a part of the New York Yankees at that time was a tremendous feeling. You’re part of a limited roster of players that have that opportunity. In those days there wasn’t a whole lot of movement of team players. You kind of got there and stayed there–or didn’t. It was a big thrill.

CT: So then in 1962, you got your shot at a starting job, because Kubek went to the army, and you and Phil Linz competed for the job.

Yeah, Phil and I were the two better middle infielders coming up at the time. I had started a little bit before him, so I had the jump on him. He was playing one level lower than me. In 1961, to begin the season, we were both at Richmond, and I think they had him working out at third, and they decided to send him back to double A in Amarillo. So I got called up at the end of the season and he didn’t, so I still had that kind of a lead on him so to speak. And when Tony went in the army, also Joe DeMaestri retired. So not only was Tony gone, but the utility shortstop was gone. So they really had two positions in spring training open. So Phil and I just approached it where there were two positions, and we could tell real quick that the press wanted to try to get something competitive going on, and we just weren’t going to let them do it. When they talked to me about Phil I would just tell them good things about Phil and I thought he was a heck of a player and then he’d do the same thing for me. We never bad-mouthed each other in the press, and we’ve been very very close friends and are today. But we probably did both know that we both would make the ball club. I think we ended up leading the Yankees in hitting that spring training, he was first and I was second. [Ed: Again Tresh's memory is good.] So we both had a real good spring. But he was in an unfortunate situation because I had the lead, and you’re both doing the same, but you can’t catch the other person because the other person isn’t falling down. He could have easily been a starting shortstop with any other team in the league. But at that time, they could protect players, and they weren’t about to get rid of Phil Linz and give him to somebody else. Then when Tony got back, they moved me to the outfield, and that put Phil in the utility job still, didn’t change his status, so he was just second to Tony.

CT: They basically had to find you a position because you were hitting too well to be taken out of the lineup.

They couldn’t do that. When Tony came back, they couldn’t move me from the lineup, and left field just worked out well because it was a platoon. They were playing Hector out there, and Johnny Blanchard out there, Yogi, Elston, that was in ’61 when the Yankees catchers hit over 60 home runs–they didn’t do it as catchers, some of them did it while they were playing the outfield and the other one was catching, so a couple of them were in the game at the same time. I’d be interested to see how many home runs did they hit where there were one in each game, because if both guys are playing in the same game, that shouldn’t count. Although if somebody hits two, you can count one… you’d have to look and see which one the one was catching hit, not the outfielder.

CT: So you moved to LF when Kubek came back, yet you still won rookie of the year in ’62…

Yep. There’s a lot of advantages being a rookie playing on a team as good as the New York Yankees are, on the one hand. On the other hand there’s a lot more pressure to play well on the Yankee team. One of the biggest thrills I ever had was hitting in the third hole in the World Series. Generally that’s reserved for their best hitters. But we had so many ‘best hitters’ you couldn’t designate which hole the best one should be in. I always think that was a thrill, when I look through the lineup and the guys around me — that showed they had a lot of confidence in me.

CT: There are two themes in that 1962 series, rain and the redemption of Ralph Terry. Did the guys ever talk about what had happened in 1960?

The Pittsburgh game? No, they never did talk about it that much. They really outplayed Pittsburgh by a ton, and yet they lost, and that’s the only thing they talked about. They really felt that they won that series, they should have won that series. Big time statistically, Bobby Richardson, I don’t know if he still holds the record but he used to hold the record for 13 RBI in a World Series, in Pittsburgh in the losing effort. You have to give the credit to Pittsburgh, because they won.

CT: What kind of guy was Ralph Terry?

He was the ultimate professional pitcher. He didn’t have an overpowering fastball, or an overpowering curve ball, but he knew how to pitch. He knew how to get people out. That was the name of the game. You have your pitchers and your throwers. He was a very competitive individual, quiet-spoken, but a real nice individual. I don’t know if there’s any one thing to say about him. Just picture a real quiet easy going southerner–even though he’s from out in Kansas or somewhere. That’s the way he was. Didn’t seem like anything bothered him.

CT: Was he still laid back after winning that game?

I don’t know. Things can get pretty chaotic there.

CT: The game ended with McCovey hitting that line drive into Richardson’s glove. Could you even see that from left field?

It happened so quick. I mean, you’re a nervous wreck. You know a mistake can mean the ball game. Some of these guys, you know, Cepeda, and Mays, and McCovey, just to name a few, these are great players, coming up all the time. It’s hard to get through a ball game like that and win it one-nothing. You look back and the one run that we got came on a double play ball. That’s exactly the move that you make early in the ball game, you give up a run to get the two outs. Very seldom would that one run ever win you a ball game. It was a great ball game. Most nervous I’ve ever been in a ball game.

CT: So how did you know it was over?

Well, you know how many outs there are, and you know what has to happen, it just happened so fast that you’re kind of shocked. The ball was hit-caught. It’s one thing if it’s a long-running catch or something, but this was boom-boom. I’m glad he hit it to Bobby. I’m glad he didn’t hit it to me. I’d had enough that day and I didn’t need another one. That was a great game.

CT: So then what did you do, go running in?

Oh yeah. That’s part of it, right? That’s what you’re in training for, so you can get in there and get on the pile! The hardest thing is that being in the outfield, it takes you a lot longer to get to the pile. The good news is that you don’t get spiked because you’re on the top. It was a great thrill. To be young and to be with those guys.

CT: So I have that you led the team in hits that series.

I think I led in hitting too, with .315. [Ed: He did lead in hitting. with .321.]

CT: And you were the youngest player on the team. How did that feel?

Yeah, I was. I guess I was deserving to hit in third whole then, huh?

You know, I grew up with my dad being a major league ball player and because everything was there in front of me all the time, I never paid a whole lot of attention to it, to stats and all that. But I tell you there are a lot of people out there today who do. Playing in these fantasy camps and so on you really run into people who know everything. They know everything about you. Those have really been fun, for the players as well as the people who come. I’ve been doing them for over 20 years now but some of my best friends are people I’ve met through fantasy camps. It’s like every year you have a week’s vacation with your friends. So it’s fantastic. As close friends as I’ve ever had. I’ve got friends of my own background that I might have known longer that I don’t see a week a year. But the thing that makes it all work is that everybody has a love of the game, they have that one thread of common thing, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a fireman from New York or you’re an attorney from Tampa, there are so many different variations of jobs and careers and so on that are all mixed together, and nobody wears that hat during that week, everybody wears a Yankee hat. It just really works well. I really enjoy it.

So, the Red Sox and Rays are getting ready to have a pennant showdown, and I find myself getting very antsy that there has been NO BASEBALL for the past several days. I know this new schedule is supposed to boost the TV ratings of the various playoff series’, but it going to be the opposite for me. I’ll be busy all weekend and see NONE of it, whereas the past few nights after dinner I’ve been twiddling my thumbs. Heavy sigh, winter is coming.

The date of the ALCS beginning, October 10th, is an auspicioys one for the Red Sox, though. It is the infamous day on which the fledgling New York Yankees challenged Boston for AL supremacy for the first time, only to have their chance thrown away—literally.

The culprit was “Happy Jack” Chesbro, the pitcher without whom the New Yorkers would not have contended at all. In 1903, their first year in the American League, the New York club (called variously the Highlanders, Hilltoppers, and many other nicknames including “Yankees” by the newspapers) was inconsequential, while Boston won the league and the World Series. But in 1904, Chesbro served notice on the champs on Opening Day, facing Cy Young and leading New York to an 8-2 win. The two clubs would battle all season, and the balance of power between them was evened when AL president Ban Johnson arranged for one of Boston’s dominant sluggers to be traded to their rival in exchange for sickly Bob Unglaub (who was so sick,he didn’t even play).

Chesbro would finish the year with one of the best single-season performances for a pitcher in the 20th century, going 41-12, pitching complete games in 51 of his starts, and relieving in 4 others. In the final 3 weeks of the season, he started 9 games and relieved during a doubleheader, earning wins on both ends. And because of rain-outs and rescheduling, the pennant race came to a crescendo at the wire; the final five games of the season would all pit Boston against New York, including two doubleheaders, one in New York, and one in Boston.

Chesbro pitched the first game of the five in New York and earned a hard-fought 3-2 win. With four games to play, New York needed to win any two of the remaining contests and the pennant would be theirs. They headed to Boston on the train to play the next two. Manager Clark Griffith planned to leave Chesbro in New York and pitch him again when they returned, but Chesbro chased the team to the station and talked his way into taking the ball. Griffith granted his wish, but Chesbro faltered in the fourth and Boston won both games.

Now New York needed to win both of their games in the home doubleheader. There was a day off thanks to rules against Sunday baseball, which allowed Chesbro to rest. He looked fresh and strong upon taking the hill on the fateful day, retiring the first three batters easily. He escaped a few jams, but guarded a 2-0 lead jealously into the 7th. Jimmy Williams, New York’s second basemen, made three unfortunate errors that inning, letting in two runs. With the game tied 2-2, Chesbro went out to pitch the 8th inning.

With two outs and Boston’s catcher Lou Criger perched on third, Chesbro needed only retire Freddy Parent, a hitter he had owned. Throwing his signature spitball, Chesbro quickly put Parent into an 0-2 hole. One more unpredictable, impossible-to-hit spitter would do it.

Unfortunately it was impossible to catch. The ball went to the screen, the run scored, and the Yankees’ bubble had been burst. Newspaper accounts describe Griffith as falling to his knees at the fateful pitch and Chesbro collapsing in tears. Though they batted twice more, New York did not rally. The second, now-inconsequential game, was called off after 5 innings. New York would not contend again until the arrival of Babe Ruth in 1920.

By the way, I’m rooting for the Rays.

You can Save Tiger Stadium.

This from the Old Tiger Stadium Convervancy:

Reports of Tiger Stadium’s demise are greatly exaggerated. For over a year The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy has been quietly working on a plan to preserve the entire playing field and a significant portion of the beloved old ballpark. (See what is still standing: http://www.aerialpics.com/G/TigerStadiumDemo.html)

On Tuesday, the Detroit City Council rejected a plan that would have demolished the entire structure, but have given the Conservancy only until Friday to come up with the money to fund their plan. The Conservancy has “reached agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding that will ultimately transfer title to the stadium to the Conservancy and grant a long-term lease of the playing field. We … are continuing to pursue our goals of preserving and redeveloping the historic Navin Field grandstand and upper deck, restoring the playing grounds as a first-class youth baseball facility and revitalizing Corktown, Detroit’s oldest neighborhood.”

To move forward, the Conservancy needs to raise $50,000 by Friday “to provide for six months of onsite security while we put our long-term financing in place. Our $15M project plan expects to receive $4 million via a federal earmark and more than $6 million in historic preservation and economic stimulus tax credits.” They have already raised $170,000 and must hit their goal of $219,000 in the next 24 hours.

Make your donation at http://www.savetigerstadium.org. The Conservancy is a registered Michigan non-profit corporation and has been accorded 501(c)3 status by the Internal Revenue Service, making all donations tax deductible.

For updates, visit: http://savetigerstadium.wordpress.com/

So, since the Yankees are out of it, and I find myself without a real rooting interest, I am looking at the postseason like if a daytime soap opera suddenly decided to wrap up its run with a prime-time mini-series. All questions will be answered! All the suspense hangs in the balance! Here are the subplots I’m looking to see tied up. There are nine of them in my lineup, of course:

1. Will the Cubs be the first Cubs team in one hundred years to win a World Series? They’ve been so good all year, but the monkey on their back (or is it a goat? the monkey’s in Anaheim…) is even bigger than the one the Red Sox shook off in 2004. Even their crosstown rival White Sox got rid of their “curse.” Could this be it? Do Cubs fans even dare to hope?

2. The Rays. Who writes this kind of a script? Perennially losing team, the only franchise in baseball history to still have never reached the postseason, removes the word “devil” from their name, and immediately wins the impossibly tough AL East. The baseball gods, that’s who. The story is already amazing, the only question is how much more amazing can it get?

3. Which means more, that the Red Sox have beaten the Angels soundly in every postseason meeting between the two teams in the Scioscia-Francona era, or that the Angels trounced the Red Sox in nearly every regular season meeting this year? The Red Sox can always be schizoid, as in last year’s ALCS where for a few days it looked like they were going to steamroll the Indians, then suddenly it looked like they were never going to get the job done… only to steamroll the Rockies. The Angels can be kind of like that, too, though. Could be a sweep, could be a seesaw.

4. Will C.C. Sabathia’s arm fall off? He pitched his team into the playoffs on three days rest. Now he’s going to pitch again on three days rest, with the PLAN to pitch him AGAIN on three days rest. A lot of teams are just counting the hours until he becomes a free agent (the Yankees among them), and you know each time he goes out there, they are cringing that he’s adding wear and tear to his arm. But Brewers fans have to be loving it, and any fans of old school hard-nosed baseball.

5. Philadelphia beat out the Mets at the wire two seasons in a row, now, but last year that momentum didn’t help them in the playoffs. They were summarily bumped from the first round and the pressure is on them to avoid that this year. The first game they lose, expect half the city’s attention to turn to the Eagles.

6. Manny being Manny. He’s been hitting .400 since going to LA, playing a good left field, and in the opening game against the Cubs, actually beat out an infield hit! To Boston fans, that only proves all the more how he was dogging it while a Red Sox. The Sox were taking BP last night when Manny blasted a home run one-handed at Wrigley. If Jason Bay hadn’t broken the ice in the Sox’ own game a few hours later with a homer, then the trade of Manny would have surely been lamented. Instead, Boston fans can continue to say good riddance… unless the Sox and Dodgers end up facing each other. Another World Series MVP trophy would suit Manny just fine.

7. Joe Torre’s vindication. The Steinbrenners decided they’d had enough of a good thing, apparently, and let Torre walk away. Now the Yankees are at home carving pumpkins with their kids for the first time since 1994′s work stoppage, and Torre is loving life. But he still has to get his team out of the first round to be able to really gloat. (Not that Joe would gloat.)

8. What will Ozzie Guillen say this time? Whether the White Sox win or lose, Ozzie is always good for some great quote that will set the media and the clubhouses buzzing. The White Sox had to fight tooth and nail to finally quell the uprising of the Twins, they might now have their hands full with the Rays. But wouldn’t it be a fine thing to see Junior Griffey be a hero?

9. Who am I going to root for? Since I don’t have a horse in this race, should I root for a cool matchup in the World Series? Cubs/White Sox would be a spectacle. Cubs/Red Sox could have a nice historical appeal, and I could drag out all my old stories about 1918. (There are some doozies from that World Series.) I don’t like the Angels or the Red Sox, though. Honestly, I rooted for the Red Sox in 2004, but I’m kind of tired of them winning now. Red Sox/Dodgers would be cool for the Manny angle. I think, though, ultimately, I have to root for the Rays. They’re new, they’re young and exciting, and they’ve got nothing to lose. I’m an AL gal at heart, and besides, that’d just make it sweeter when the Yankees beat them next year.

Here’s a trivia question you’ll be able to stump your friends with in 2013. Who hit the last home run in Yankee Stadium?

Answer: Jose Molina.

Jeter tried to do it, but his line drive was caught just short of the wall. Johnny Damon tried to do it, blasting a three-run shot to put the Yankees ahead in the third inning. But after the Orioles had tied it up again in the top fourth, it was Molina who came up with the two-run blast that put the Yankees ahead for good.

If the Orioles’ defense had been a little bit better, then Mariano Rivera would have gotten a save. Instead, it was a comfortable 7-3 lead when the strains of Enter Sandman blared for the last time, but the appearance was no less pressure than in any playoff game. National media watching. Fans in full voice.

Oh, and did I mention, the Yankees elimination number stood at one when the game began? (more…)

Following last week’s post about September 22, 2007, in which I had arrived at the press box at 9am, following a 14 inning night game the night before, and then didn’t leave until nearly 9pm because of rain delays and another extra inning affair, what follows is the account of what I did during the delay, which was chat with Bob Rosen from the Elias Sports Bureau.

I’ve had some of my most memorable times at ballparks during rain delays. In Columbus, OH one time I spent the evening listening to the stories of Joe Santry, the historian for the Columbus Clippers, then a Yankees farm club for most of my life. Today that day dawn foggy and gray, but the sun was trying to break through the mist all morning. Batting practice had been cancelled because of last night’s extra-innings marathon, so when the writers met with Joe Torre in the dugout all was quiet in the ballpark. The sun looked as though it would burn off the mist fairly soon, and just before noon everyone trooped inside as usual to have lunch and get ready for the game.

Going up in the elevator from the clubhouse to the press box, though, some fans on their way to the luxury suites looked particularly wet.

“Is it raining?” I asked one particularly bedraggled looking young woman.

“Yes, and it sucks,” she replied.

Indeed, I got upstairs to find the tarp on the field and steady water pouring down. I had set up my computer and such in the third tier of the press box–the top row in seats means the bottom rung in terms of writer seniority–and sat down to make some notes.

A gentleman with no computer had sat in the chair next to mine and was busily filling in a crossword puzzle, but when he looked up from that I introduced myself.

Turns out he was Bob Rosen, a life-long Dodgers fan who after the team left in 1957 swore he would never pay to attend another baseball game. He loved the game itself, though, and by 1962 had gotten a job with the Elias Sports Bureau, which has had him attending major league games for free (in fact, for pay) every since.

We proceeded to regale each other for the next hour of rain delay with tales and stories of our lives as baseball fans who are also baseball professionals.

There is no cheering in the press box, that’s true. But no one signs up for a job covering or working in baseball who does not love it. It wouldn’t be worth it otherwise.

Among the topics we covered: the wild card, expansion, difficulty keeping up with all the teams, will A-rod stay or will he go, stadiums around the country, fans around the country, our first ballgames when we were young, and so on.

Bob went to his first game when he was already 12 years old. His father “wasn’t a baseball fan. he was a Brooklyn fan. He was a fan of Dixie Walker and Duke Newcombe. He didn’t know anything about other teams.” Bob was bitten hard by the bug, though, and soon was not just a Dodger fan but a baseball fan, playing dice-based baseball games and keeping stats. “That was what I liked, stats.” How perfect, then, that he found a home with the Elias Sports Bureau.

“I was working my way up the corporate ladder and hating it,” he explained. “But my wife, who was truly wonderful and still is the most perfect wife to me, told me if you don’t give this a try, you’ll always wonder.” So he took the job with Elias 45 years ago and never looked back. The boy who loved baseball stats made it his livelihood.

“Did you ever join SABR?” I asked.

“Nah. That seemed like overkill. You?”

“Yeah, I joined because I thought it would be a good chance to meet people who love baseball as I do.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. Yes, definitely.”

“The people I meet in this business are incredible,” he said. “Bob Sheppard and I are like this,”–here he held up his crossed fingers–”and I’ve made so many good friends.”

Well, Bob, it was lovely to meet you, which means, I couldn’t agree more.

And best wishes to the other Bob, Sheppard, who as of tonight it appeared would not be well enough to do the announcing at tomorrow’s curtain call for the Stadium.

Last season, on September 22, 2007, I had press credentials at Yankee Stadium, doing some photography for one project and some interviewing and writing for another, so I arrived at nine in the morning, and ended up keeping the following log as I went along that day. I just found it and decided it could make a nice post unto itself.

9 am
Foggy over the Hudson and East River, sun trying to burn through.
There are already fans parking their cars and lined up one deep at the barriers toward the press gate. Autograph seekers.

The calliope begins to play shortly before 9:30.
Loose-wheeled ‘trains’ of carts laden with Cracker Jacks, pulled by small tractors, rattle through the concourses.

9:45 am
A lone player, unrecognized, runs along the warning track.
Tony Pena exchanges greetings in Spanish with the door guard at the press gate.

By 10:15 the sun is starting to come through, making the grass seem to glow. A trio of women works as a team to hand-clean every seat in the lower stadium bowl, their equipment and supplies pushed in a shopping cart.

Everywhere there is polishing and washing going on, including on the field where a groundskeeper spends 45 minutes tamping down dirt around the batters box and making it perfect.

Others work the infield and mound

Every plaque in Monument Park gleams like new.

At ten am sharp Bobby Murcer takes his seat in the YES booth, begins reading the newspaper while techs are still doing techy things around him.

Down in the press dining room they are serving brunch, scrambled eggs, a salad bar, coffee.

The Toronto writers begin to trickle in before New York’s. The jays bus arrives at 10:30, but the Yankees will be slower to come in after the late night last night. [It had been an epic, extra innings game.]

From the press box, one can hear but not quite see, the gap in right where the trains go by.

What will the press box in the new stadium be like? Will it be glassed in like the one in Tampa, with windows that open? Or will the try to recreate what it’s like here? This is possibly the last true open-air press box in the majors.

These are the best seats in the house… and yet the foul lines down the line are still obscured. Sitting in the upper deck above this might be slightly better if farther from the action.

Two players are working out with a coach, two Yankees. The coach is hitting grounders to a guy at third base while a first baseman stands by just to take his throws. The first baseman really looks like Giambi but from here it’s hard to be sure — I haven’t brought my binoculars.

No idea who the kid is, but he might be wearing a U of Texas hat, some kind of faded orange hat.

The replay of the previous night’s game is on the monitor above my head right now, at 10:40am Jorge Posada is clearly safe on replay at first, sparking the rally.

The guy who worked the batters box is now working on the slope of the mound

On Cano’s broken bat hit, Halladay’s face is one of shell shock, stricken, whereas when Giambi strokes a ball into left to tie the game, he looks purely glum and holding it in for all he’s worth.

GAME NOTES

3:07 pm — men on the corners, no one out, Jorge at the plate, first outbreak of “Let’s Go Yankees” of the day.

From the press box everything seems louder; I think bc the shape of the stadium angles the fans and captures the sound.

At the same time it is quieter — we are not listening to the broadcasts and everyone in here is concentrating on the game or on writing something so there is not the kind of boisterous chatter one gets in the stands.

It is a very pure baseball watching experience.

Giambi lashed the bat in frustration after swinging at strike 3 with a man on 3rd and no outs.

As Cano came to plate in 2nd, 2 on, one out, one in, the sun came out.

5:24 pm folks in the LF bleachers start the wave while the Blue Jays are batting and Jose Veras has put two men on with no outs. Section 39 of the RF bleachers proudly and steadfastly refuses to participate. (I approve.)

After the wave goes around 5 times, Veras strikes out Matt Stairs.

5:31 After throwing a wild pitch that moved men to second and third, Veras strikes out Alex Rios (with no help from the crowd this time).

6:05 pm One of the writers in the front row–can’t quite see who–slams his computer shut and then bangs it forcibly against the desk in a fit of emotion. It’s doubtful it’s caused by the 3-2 count that Bobby Abreu has just received, though perhaps he’s put off by the organist playing a riff from Beethoven to outline the tension.

6:07 Abreu walks.

6:08 A-rod gets yet another two-out hit to put the Yankees ahead. Today, he’s the epitome of not doing too much.

6:16 Posada sets up low and away. Farnsworth’s pitch is up and in. Farnsworth goes to a 3-0 count on Reed Johnson and gets booed.

6:17 Farnsworth walks Johnson on the next pitch. Gets booed. Joe Torre goes to the mound. Gets booed for leaving Farnsworth in.

6:24 After giving up the tying and go-ahead runs, Farnsworth is booed. Torre emerges from the dugout and is cheered. Farnsworth gets one more round boo before disappearing.

6:37 Jorge Posada manages an infield hit. No, I don’t make this stuff up. Mr. Tantrum’s computer seems to be working fine, by the way. No, I can’t see what brand it is from here. Probaby something cheap, though.

6:43 As the Jays’ seventh pitcher goes to a full count on Wilson Betemit, I notice the guy in the seat in front of me surfing eBay. A game with thirteen pitching changes in it already, on top of a 90 minute rain delay, will do that.

6:53 Mariano Rivera throws his first pitch of the day to a burst of flashbulbs. Every succeeding pitch draws another flurry.

8:22 pm The stadium is empty, all the players but Matsui are gone. The lights are low at the stadium and the writers have returned from their quote-gathering expedition to Joe’s office and the clubhouse.

8:23 Family of a Yankee or employee make their way onto the field. Two small children and one older one with three adults, gleefully tossing white baseballs back and forth and catching them in undersized gloves.

A single bulb on the Armitron scoreboard is flaky. In the expanse of black, it flickers like a lone candle, sometimes barely visible, other times wavering into brightness.

Well, I have probably just seen my last game at Yankee Stadium, at least the stadium as I knew it. My very earliest trips to the stadium were before the mid-70s renovation. I even remember a doubleheader at Shea on a day it poured rain so hard that the decks looked like waterfalls. But the vast majority of my baseball memories are of the renovated stadium. It was a favorite destination for birthday parties and family outings. Longtime readers of this blog will remember that we were there when Dave Righetti pitched his no-hitter, which to this day is still spoken about as a famous day in Tan family history.

And now there are only ten games left at the place, and I will probably not be back again this season. I’ve put my tickets for the final game on sale and it seems likely they will be bought.

Am I nostalgic? Yes. But I managed not to cry, although the National Anthem almost did me in (as usual) and I only staved off tears by singing louder than usual.

It seems to me the Sunday crowd sings more than on other days of the week. Not only was the National Anthem audible, but there was definitely high participation on Take Me Out to the Ballgame also.

The game itself was not that memorable. The Yankees lost to the Blue Jays 6-2, after Pettitte walked the leadoff batter and then Nady lost a ball in the sun in the first inning. It was pretty much downhill from there, except for two solo home runs off Halladay, one from A-Rod, who heard some real cheers for the first time basically all week, and Jason Giambi, who has been, as they say on Lon- Gisland, “awn fiyah.” I saw three games at the Stadium this week; Giambi hit a homer in each one. (He must be getting the memos that say I’m there.)

The weather was beautiful, though, warm and dry, with a blue sky barely marred by just one or two clouds throughout the afternoon. The Yankees’ playoff hopes fade day by day, and you can feel the lethargy in the crowds as they wonder whether they should get excited or not. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle: the team doesn’t seem to have the horses to make it, so people won’t clap, and you can’t will a team to do more than it’s capable of, can you?

Anyway, the thing is… even with the team losing, the playoffs dwindling on the horizon, and the destruction of the Stadium imminent, it was still a pretty nice day at the ballpark. Am I a sap? Yeah. But we got to see the major league debut of Alfredo Aceves, who pitched two scoreless innings and struck out three. His throwing motion looks a lot like Mariano’s, but he differs from Mo in one major way, which is that he throws a change-up.

I now present a collection of observations and snippets of overheard conversation from the past week of baseball here in the Bronx:

Prior to the Wednesday game against the Red Sox, these words were delivered wistfully: “It must be nice to have a new Stadium.”

Prior to Sunday’s sold out tilt, to a scalper: “You got any cheap tickets?” The reply: “Yeah. At Shea Stadium.”

The Red Sox fans sitting next to us the other night, as A-Rod came to bat. The girlfriend said something we couldn’t hear, which prompted the boyfriend to respond: “With Madonna?!?! But she’s old!”

Did Carl Pavano always have a lazy eye, or did that happen after he got hit in the head with a ball?

Talk about feeling like it was the 1970s again; there was old school sky writing above the Stadium today. It read: I N T R E P I D M U S E U M . C O M

We watched yesterday’s game from a bar on the boardwalk (Spicy in Seaside Heights), where there was a live singer with a guitar (I’m so sorry I didn’t get his name—he was quite good). He kept pausing between songs to ask us what the score was. He tried to egg on the White Sox (who are playing the Red Sox) by playing “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” The scoreboard department today opted for AC/DC “Highway to Hell” when the Yankees failed to rally.

While watching the game from the bar, which is a pleasant experience thanks to the weather and booze and nice music, even when the Yankees lose as a result of a Cano error (but I’m not bitter)… we learned that the song “When I Come Around” mashes up perfectly with “No Woman, No Cry.” While we’re at it, have you noticed that “Sweet Home Alabama” mashes up with “Werewolves of London?”

I admit my sadness over the ending of the Yankees’ season is tempered somewhat by a feeling that certain things are inevitable. First off, Cashman has pulled a rabbit out of his hat year after year after year to replace injured players and find the last pieces of the puzzle so many times. From David Justice to Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small, he keeps plugging the holes. This year, though, there was really no way to replace the loss of Chien Ming Wang and Jorge Posada. Pudge Rodriguez doesn’t have enough left in the tank to fill the need (he’s like 10 for 55 since putting on pinstripes), and using Sidney Ponson and Darrell Rasner in place of Hughes and Kennedy hasn’t lifted them above mediocre. So, Cashman’s luck was bound to run out some time.

The inevitability, though, stems partly from the overall feeling that an era is coming to an end. The Stadium is coming down. We’ve already lost Eddie Layton, and Bob Sheppard seems sure to go next; I’m not sure he has been well enough to work even a single game this year? Even Derek Jeter is having an off year and whispers about his age are starting to crop up.

So it’s hard to separate my feelings about the season from all the other things that seem to be winding down. Or maybe it’s just that I literally do not remember what it is like not to make he playoffs, so I don’t know how to feel.

I actually have not given up. But it is feeling a lot like it’s the bottom of the eighth and we’re down by a lot of runs, making the comeback unlikely. But not impossible. And how amazing it would be if they did.