Why I Like Baseball

It was a tidy little game at Legends Field tonight. The Yankees scored four runs in the second, in a nine-man inning kicked off by Alex Rodriguez. Alex had a much better day than Wednesday, tonight playing flawlessly in every respect both offensively and defensively. Also, everyone in the audience–in my section anyway–noticed that tonight he played with his socks high.

I speculate that this is in solidarity with–or perhaps just symmetry to–Doug Mientkiewicz, A-rod’s high school buddy and Yankees first baseman, who wears his socks high as a matter of course.

Technically it isn’t a player’s “socks” that are high, it’s the hem of his pants, raised to show more sock. But “high socks” is still the name for that style. It’s a style associated with dirt dogs, speedsters and old school players who can bunt and execute the hit and run. In recent years many of the big sluggers have adopted the opposite style, the “pajama pants” look, in which the hem hangs down over one’s endorsement-contract shoes (see Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, et. al.)

The pants/socks probably didn’t help or hurt. Alex led off the second inning with a single, moved up on a wild pitch, tagged and went to third on a fly to center, and then came home on a fielder’s choice. The Yankees went on to score three additional runs that inning. In the third, which he also led off since the Yankees had batted around, he hit a line drive but was robbed of a hit by a nice play from the Devil Rays’ shortstop, some kid named Ben Zobrist.

He also made two great plays in the fifth–he meaning Alex Rodriguez, not Zobrist–spearing a humback liner and then on the next play a great diving stop to his right, pegging the throw to Mientkiewicz, whom I shall call Minky from here on because that name is using up too many letters. Alex walked in the bottom of the inning and was replaced by a pinch runner.

On other news, Minky uses the Miami Vice them–the old one from the TV show–as his at bat music. Don’t know if he picked it or if the scoreboard department did. And someone must have read my column from the other day… several people updated their at bat music. Derek Jeter added Kanye West’s “Gold Digger,” which seems a truly weird choice for him but it’s got a cool riff.

Jorge Posada hit a home run off Rays righthander Jae Kuk Ryu. The amusing thing to note about this homer is that the first two swings he took, on the first two pitches, Jorge looked about as awful as a hitter can. He worked the count full though, and then tagged the next offering hard, just fair, and just hitting the top of the wall to go out for a dinger. I am guessing that once he had seen all the kid’s pitches, he picked up something that tipped him off to what was coming on the one he walloped. Jorge’s good like that.

And we got a look at Juan Miranda, the Cuban defector. he has a dangerous, slugger-like demeanor at the plate. Meaning that when he worked the count to 3-2 with the bases loaded and two out, everyone got excited. And that it was perfectly in character that he then struck out.

And then there were fireworks, paid for by the Yankees, for the simple fact that it was Friday night. The pleasures of the spring are simple ones.

At Legends Field tonight, people were complaining of the cold. The temperatures were in the mid-sixties, the wind on the cool side. Speaking as someone who left Boston yesterday where it was eight–yes (8)–degrees with a wind chill of minus-thirty, all I can say is: hah! It’s lovely here in Tampa and don’t you forget it!

The game, like the temperatures, was not so hot, being scoreless for seven innings, but as any newcomer to Spring Training quickly learns, winning and scoring runs is not what its about.

The excitement began tonight long before the first pitch, when the buzz going through the savvy Yankee fan crowd was that the man in the faded orange hat sitting down by the Yankees’ dugout was Roger Clemens, in the house to see his best bud Pettitte toss a few frames. As Pettitte warmed up, it was time for many in the audience to get reacquainted with the lefty.

“Man, he’s got long legs,” the man sitting next to me remarked. “I had forgotten that.”

“Yeah, but his ass is fatter than it used to be,” was my irreverent reply. Actually, Pettitte’s hindquarters were pretty chunky the last time he wore pinstripes, too, ever since he and Clemens became workout buddies and Andy started building leg and lower-body strength like the Rocket’s. But we’ve collectively forgotten that, too. What we remember is that greyhound-skinny kid with the Texas twang taking the mound in Yankee Stadium with the snow falling during the Home Opener in the magical year of 1996.

The game’s first moment of excitement came on the second batter Pettitte faced. Pettitte, for those of you re-acquainting yourselves with him, is a ground ball pitcher who was known for his nasty cut fastball before Mariano Rivera was. Pettitte saws off righties the way Mo does lefties, and the bat of Cincinnati’s Chris Denorfia sheared off in his hand. The barrel of the bat helipcoptered straight at Pettitte, who hit the deck but managed to snag his hand on the bat as it went by, immediately shaking it in pain. The predictable conference on the mound then followed; Pettitte stayed in.

Pettitte isn’t the only one I re-acquainted myself with tonight. So many little things which fade from ones mind during the long cold winter return vividly on a night like tonight. I had forgotten the storm of flashbulbs that come on every Jeter at bat. The way Hideki Matsui paws at the ground in the batters box, his eyes on the horizon, as he prepares to hit. Giambi’s immense cuts.

And it seems like almost everyone is still using the same at-bat music from last year. There are so many songs I only know 15 seconds of.

Pettitte started to look shakey in the seconds, prompting nailbiting about the possible flying-bat injury, as he loaded the bases with no one out. The clichŽd thing to say in the dugout at a time like this is “Oh, a strikeout and double play and we’re out of it.” That is exactly what Pettitte then delivered, and he would have had a one-two-three third inning too, if not for a crummy throw by Alex Rodriguez.

Chalk this one up as “another tough day in the life of Alex Rodriguez.” How else do you explain that a scrub like Bubba Crosby, who is now with the Reds, got a bigger ovation upon entering the game in the eighth inning than A-rod did when coming to bat in the second? Everyone loves Bubba, a scrappy little player with a lot of heart, a guy for whom the expectations are low. With A-rod, the expectations just keep getting higher. But it wasn’t mere skewed perception on the part of the fans; tonight, it really seemed like that 13 on his back was a jinx.

He led off the second inning with a ringing double. But he was thrown out at home plate on the very next play when third-base-coach hesitation may have cost him his chance to score. He came up with two out and two on the very next inning, and struck out looking. Meanwhile, what would have been the third out of the third, he threw up the line, and his high school buddy Doug Mientkiewicz was unable to apply the tag to the runner. Pettitte walked the next batter but was able to escape unharmed. In the fourth he made a play where the out was made, but he looked absolutely wrong-footed while doing it. For any player, that counts as a bad day, but for A-rod, where everything he does is magnified, it simply looks worse.

Repeat after me: It’s only Spring Training.

You see, if Alex had not been thrown out at the plate, the Yankees would have won the game in dramatic fashion in the ninth inning, 2-1. Instead, they merely tied the game in dramatic fashion. You see, reliever Luis Vizcaino looked impressive in the eighth except when he faced Joey Votto, when he gave up a solo shot. Meanwhile, Elizardo Ramirez, the fifth Reds pitcher of the night, held the Yankees scoreless in the seventh and eighth, just as the four pitchers who preceded him had.

Elizardo, which looks like it ought to be Spanish for lizard but as far as I know isn’t, finally tired in the ninth. A passel of “Yankees” wearing numbers like 93 and 64 scratched a run off him and gave the crowd the most excitement they’d had all night. The “Let’s Go Yankees” chant went up. And when Brett Gardner, wearing number 91, worked the count full with the bases loaded, two outs, and the score tied at one, the entire crowd actually got to their feet cheering for him to take ball four (or get a hit, but really, we weren’t that optimistic).

It was the climax of the game, for sure. Unfortunately, it was also a called strike three, which sent the game to a very anti-climactic and uneventful tenth inning, after which the contest was called a draw.

All I can say is, it beats doing anything in a minus-thirty wind chill.

Carl Pavano has a sore ass. Boo boo on the bum, sustained when he tripped and fell trying to field a ground ball and made a play at first base the other night. That is the final tidbit of news from Yankee camp this year. As I write this, the Yankee bus is visible from the press box at Legends Field, making its way to Tampa International Airport where a charter awaits the players and staff. They are on their way to Arizona for two exhibition games (supposedly make-goods attached to the Randy Johnson deal), and in usual Yankee style each player and coach is decked out in his finest leisure suit.

It’s funny how a suit makes some of these guys look older and some look younger. Larry Bowa looks positively ancient when he is in uniform, embodying the spirit of every crusty third-base curmudgeon who ever coached the game, but put him in a silk shirt and sport jacket? He could pass for forty something. The opposite happens with Tanyon Sturtze, who if he wasn’t so tall could play the part of overgrown Little Leaguer. In the clubhouse Sturtze is full of smiles and his eyes are round in mock surprise whenever a prank is pulled. Put him in a suit, though, and it gives him a thoughtful bridegroom aspect.

The last day of spring training is a lot like the last day of school. Instead of signing yearbooks, these guys sign autographs for the local staff and coaches, and for each other. Everyone has to clean out their lockers, take down their photos, and figure out what to carry home.

Today, a couple of players even skipped out early (though they had permission, of course). Jason Giambi had so much packing to do, that after one at bat (he walked) he was replaced with a pinch runner. Mariano Rivera, on the other hand, was not happy with the one inning he was scheduled to pitch. He came in early to do extra credit, threw 50 pitches in the bullpen, and then was done for the day.

The Yankees could have used him in the ninth inning, when, clinging to a 4-3 lead, they handed the ball to Matt Smith. Smith gave up line drives to the first two batters he faced, then got a pop-up and faced speedy Carl Crawford. A double-play was probably too much to hope for with the speedster at the plate. In the clubhouse, the players who were not in the game continued their packing. One of them, pitcher Mike Mussina (who had started the game), stood riveted to the clubhouse televsion showing the action on the field. Already in his earth-tone travel suit, Moose couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Smith threw slider after slider to Crawford, but he fouled some off, tipping one low in the zone that would have been strike three if only catcher Wil Nieves had held on. Then after four straight sliders, Smith finally came back with a high fastball, and Crawford chased it for strike three. One more out, and the game could be over, stranding the two runners. “Tough out to get,” Mussina mumbled, the brown of his suit seeming to bring out the dark circles under his eyes.

Moose was right. Jorge Cantu stepped to the plate, and hit a ringing double to bring in two runs. 5-4 Rays. Mussina quit watching after that.

The Yankees went quickly and quietly in the ninth, no chance of staying after school when that bus is set to leave. It wouldn’t have been unusual for the players’ kangaroo court to fine any batter who took a pitch, in fact. Bernie Williams, the ultimate upperclassman for these Yankees flew out on the first pitch, and in no time, the whole team was in the clubhouse, taking hurried showers and cramming the final bits of their possessions into boxes, bags, and suitcases.

Now the jocks are gone, and the honor society are next. After the final postgame chat with Joe Torre, the beat writers repaired to the press box where one by one they are filing their stories, packing their computers, and hightailing it to the airport. (The delay for some seems to be the challenge to come up with a way to write “Carl Pavano has a pain in the ass” without offending either their editors or their readers.) Some are off to Arizona to follow the team, others to New York to wait for the home opener.

Me, I’ll be on a flight back to Boston at the crack of dawn, so my spring training is over, too. And everyone can’t wait for summer vacation.

Baseball travelogue: Saint Pete. Today’s travels took us to Al Lang Field, spring home of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. This venerable old park was built in 1916, and the grandstand has been variously rebuilt at different times through the years. The Braves, Yankees, and Cardinals all used the park during their tenures in St. Pete, but nowadays it belongs to the Rays, whose home ballpark is just on the other side of downtown.

I hope the Rays have some fun this year. Lou Piniella is gone, and they are young, well-paid, and living the major league dream. You know they are not going to win very much. They are in a division with the two Beasts of the East, the Yankees and Red Sox, and the Toronto Blue Jays are also much improved. The fun isn’t going to come from winning streaks and the pennant race. It is going to have to come from the simple pleasure of playing baseball.

Rays fans, I imagine, must take a similar approach to the season, which is to enjoy the simple pleasure of watching baseball played. In fact, this is what spring training spectation is all about. Much of the time you don’t know the players you see, and of course the outcome in wins and losses does not matter at all in the spring. So you watch and you enjoy what you see for the simple fact that it is baseball.

This isn’t to say there isn’t enjoyment to be gained from seeing favorite players, or from winning. Today, in fact, if not for two little things, we might have seen the regular A-list of New York Yankees on the field. The two “little things” were that pitcher Mike Mussina just had a spring start against the Rays a few days ago, and they didn’t want the hitters to get a second look at him so close to the beginning of the season. The other was that catcher Jorge Posada just got out of the hospital after suffering one of the most ignominious baseball injuries ever. While playing catch with backup catcher Kelly Stinnett before Wednesday’s game, Jorge took his eye off the ball–it looked like he might have been distracted by a throw from a different game of catch–and got the ball right in the kisser. His nose was broken and today, three days after the injury, his eye is still swollen up. Hence his absence from the lineup.

It was a perfect day to watch baseball. On the cool side, mid-sixties, with brilliant sun and pleasant breezes. More on the breezes later. We arrived in St. Pete about an hour before game time, crept slowly through the pre-game traffic to a parking lot, and settled the car for the bargain-basement price of five bucks. (I hear the Rays’ latest enticement to get fans to come see them during the regular season will be Free Parking, but this doesn’t apply to the neighborhood business lots around Al Lang Field.) We had two pieces of business to take care of before game time–sell our extra tickets and buy a hat for my brother Julian.

We are accustomed to a sort of gray market carnival following the Yankees from place to place. Whether in the Bronx, Tampa, or on the road, there are the bootleg T-shirt vendors, cap sellers, and ticket scalpers who follow the money. There is one fella we have nicknamed Mr. Shyster who for several years we used to see selling beer inside Legends Field, then we would see him in the parking lot after games selling hats for five bucks, and then we would ALSO see him selling hats, shirts, and other Yankee-related souvenirs in the parking lots in Dunedin, Clearwater, and St. Pete. This year, apparently, he was at Legends for the first few weeks but he has since disappeared. Either he’s found a better racket, or the Yankees ran him off for some reason.

If only he were there today. Bypassing the obvious scalpers holding up professionally printed signs proclaiming “I NEED TICKETS,” we looked for genuine fans in Yankee gear who needed tickets. We had three to sell, quickly found a fella holding up three fingers, and sold him our extras for face value. Then it was off to find a hat for my brother. But sadly, it is late in the spring season, Mr. Shyster was not in attendance, and the only cheapo outside seller we found had a single style of hat that was not to Julian’s liking. He got a sunburn instead, which if you are my brother–and therefore macho about both your sun exposure and your headwear–is an acceptable tradeoff.

In the stadium we found the crowd heavily Yankee-partisan, which is not really a surprise. When the Yankees play the Rays in the regular season, the situation is much the same. Still, most of the cheering had a distinctly pinstriped feel to it. That might have also been because it was a complete drubbing of the Rays, as well.

The fun started in the top of the first, when Johnny Damon, still new to the Yankees, strode to the plate. “I’m still not use to this,” was corwin’s reaction to seeing the former Red Sock in a yankee uniform for the first time. “It’s just weird.” I told him what Joe Torre said the other night during his press conference. One of the beat writers from Boston asked him if it was going to be strange to be playing Boston that night and having Damon lead off for him. “Yeah strange,” Joe replied. “Nice and strange.”

Damon walked, and Jeter immediately followed with a triple. Ding! One run on the board. Torre has been saying all along that having Damon and Jeter at the top of the lineup together is going to drive the offense and “make things happen very fast out there.” There it was in action.

Damon was also playing his first game in center since tweaking his shoulder during the World Baseball Classic, and meanwhile Bernie Williams was playing right field (while Sheff DH’d). On the very first play of the day, Joey Gathright hit a pop fly that at first looked for sure like it would be Robinson Cano’s ball. But remember the breezes I mentioned before? They played havoc with pop flies all day, suddenly pushing the ball deeper than expected, until Bernie apparently remarked to Johnny, “I think you better catch that ball,” but by then it was too late and it dropped between the three of them. Damon, though chagrined, stuck by his spring training mantra, which is “just don’t get hurt, just don’t get hurt.” As he told reporters yesterday during a chat with the writers around his locker, “Spring training stinks. We’re ready for the season now. Now all we’re doing is trying not to get injured.” As he imagined the collision between himself, Bernie, and Cano, Damon apparently saw the pennant flash before his eyes. He let it drop, but the Rays did not take advantage.

In fact, the only run the Rays got, despite the fact they ended the day with 10 hits, was a solo homer by Travis Lee off righty side-armer Colter Bean. The Yankees, by comparison, had eleven hits, yet scored 10 runs. The steady diet of supremacy kept the fans smug and contented in the stands. Meanwhile, some kind of sailboat regatta was running in the harbor, and in slow moments we could see tiny sailing vessels threading their way in, one after another. The sky was cloudless, the beer was cold, and there was baseball.

In the sixth inning we ate ice cream. If you are waiting for anything more exciting than that, you are reading the wrong article. Come back in a few weeks when the regular season gets going. For now I encourage you to bask in the simple pleasures, as I am, because the pennant race will come soon enough.