Cloudy and muggy here in Tampa today. Dad getting a sandwich for us to share. We have a half hour still until baseball. Mom teaching aqua.

Starting pitchers today. Sabathia for #Yankees, Charlie Morton for Pirates. Still looking for Pittsburgh’s lineup.

Sabathia’s first pitch slider for a strike. Third pitch, meatball down the middle, hit up the middle for a leadoff single.

Ronnie Cedeño now doubles. Men on 2nd and 3rd and no out. Is Sabathia working on something? Fastball location not where he wants it.

Lastings Milledge hits an RBI single, and then Garrett Jones cleans up in the fourth spot with a three run homer. Tra la spring training…

Wow, fearless. Sabathia snares soft liner right at him as the broken bat flew right at him. Then a pop up. But then another double.

8 Pirates batted. Four runs on five hits. Now Yankees coming to bat. Jeter, Johnson, Posada, Arod.

No, it doesn’t get old. The world series trophy is on display until the fifth inning. Dad and I may run down and get pictures.

Nick Johnson homers to right center. Second one this spring! Welcome back, Nick.

Posada singles, Arod walks. Here comes Granderson with one out.

Granderson caught looking. Up to Swisher to cash them in.

Swishalicious! RBI single plates posada.

Winn flies out. But we got two runs back. Sabathia back on hill.

Nice easy grounder to third gets Jaramillo. Then goes full count on McCutchen, but gets grounder to Jeter. Cedeño strikes out! 1-2-3.

Up for the Yankees, Cuban defector Juan Miranda. To be followed by Kevin Russo, Jeter, Johnson. Miranda robbed on liner to first!!

Both Russo and Jeter chased high fast balls from Morton. Russo struck out and Jeter hit a comebacker. Hmph. Sabathia out for the third.

Sabathia strikes out Milledge, now faces Jones, who homered in the first.

Jones hits a pop fly that falls in front of Winn and gets a double out of it. Scores quickly on an Andy LaRoche single up the middle.

Sabathia done. Walked clement. Now in Dustin Moseley.

Moseley strikes out Crosby and gets Young on liner to center. Coming up for nyy, Johnson, Posada, Arod.

Nick Johnson goes yard again! But that’s all we get. Moseley greeted by leadoff single in the fourth, now facing McCutchen again.

RT @BryanHoch Yankees have traded RHP Edwar Ramirez to the Rangers for cash considerations.

Pirates tack on another run. Two out, man on 2nd, Moseley facing Garrett jones who is having a big day… But Jorge catches runner napping!

New pitcher for Pitt. Lefty Brian Burres. Swisher. Walks.

Two walks to start inning. Then had Miranda down 0-2, worked to full count, then got him to chase some junk. One out, Russo up.

Burres walks Russo. Meeting on the mound before facing Jeter with bases loaded. Burres really doesn’t like facing right handers.

Burres goes 2-0 on Jeter. Not close. Jeter then chops ball to third gets one run in. Jon Weber pinch hits for Johnson, plates two! Double.

So Jorge bats with go ahead run on second. 6-6 game. Burres still on mound.

Posada RBI single takes lead, knocks Burres from game. Had full count, Burres didn’t want to walk him in front of Arod, got good pitch.

Ronald Oviedo’s first pitch to Arod almost went to the screen. Second one Arod fouled into the coaches and Nick Swisher, who ran into dugout

New Yankees pitcher, Royce Ring. Also Brandon Laird now at 3rd, Eduardo Nunez at ss. Unless like yesterday the announcer is wrong.

Ring gets a quick 1-2-3!

Granderson greets Pitt pitcher DJ Carrasco with a triple. Swisher up.

Swisher mad at himself. Struck out on sucker pitch. Now Winn.

Winn strikes out too. Ugh. And Miranda broke his bat on ground out. Granderson stranded.

Romulo sanchez looks built like Albaladejo but he pitched better. Another 1-2-3 and the yanks are back at bat trying to add to lead.

Sanchez strikes out former Yank prospect Jose Tabata, walks Argentis Diaz and leaves game. Lefty Boone Logan now pitching.

Logan gets a nice 4-6-3 double play. Still 7-6 Yanks. Montero now up to bat. Hyped and touted. Flies to right on first pitch.

Donnie Veal sits the yanks down 1-2-3. Seven innings in the books and my battery is getting low.

Tie game. Bobby Crosby Rbi double off Logan. Men on 2nd and 3rd one out.

Fielders choice brings in 8th pirate run. Logan gets next man on liner, gives way to new pitcher Hector Noesi. 8-7 pirates. 2 outs.

Noesi has really high leg kick. Gets lots of foul balls.

To the ninth. Two walks in 8th came to nothing. 8-7 Pitt still.

Sigh. Bleich now pitching. Error kept inning alive. Pirates batted around. Now 12-7 pirates going into bottom of the ninth.

Pirates won. Arrrr.

Kid in front of me has NY logo shaved in his hair. #Yankees http://twitpic.com/17dylm

Phillies caps are neon red, with their bright blue jerseys looks like a college team. Now time for anthem

Must be warmer today. Umps switched to light blue shirts. Feels like about 70 degrees. Lots of phillies fans here. #Yankees

No Jeter, no Arod today. Kevin Russo 3b, Ramiro pena ss. When did we get Marcus Thames back?? He is in left field. Gardner, Swish, Teix.

Rollins whacks Vazquez first pitch for a home run. #Yankees

I know, I know. At least he threw a strike… Next batter, polanco, Cano robbed him on a soft liner.

Utley looked silly with a barn door swing and miss to strike out.

Some skinny kid pitching for the phils. Never heard announcement of his name. Might be Kyle Kendrick? He gets Gardner to pop out.

Phillies kid throws strikes. Johnson popup also. Teixeira feeling for it. Another fly ball, deeper, but still an out. Now to the second.

Ibanez strikes out. What is with Jorge overthrowing Vazquez though? Other than leadoff homer Vazquez looks good

Vazquez struck out the side. He knows these phillies well.

Just tried to use MLB.com AtBat Lite to figure out phillies pitcher. Four at bats later it still hadn’t loaded anything. Gave up.

Uh oh. Albaladejo pitching for Yankees now. He stank Saturday. Retires first man on fly to left. Meanwhile The Boss just wheeled in.

Steinbrenner really looking frail and old. I’m glad I got to meet him back when he was still feisty. We writers used to lie in wait for him

Rollins reaches on bunt for a hit. Then polanco hits back to albaladejo who just gets glove on it but cano could not pick it up. 2 on 2 out.

Albaladejo lucky! Gave up a run but they say Polanco was hit by batted ball and called out, third out before Rollins scored.

Dave Robertson now pitching for #Yankees. Ryan Howard at bat. Roberson first pitch high outside.

Second pitch big swing and miss! Third called strike. But thn Howard hit a roller through second base hole.

Robertson has high ground ball rate. Underappreciated. Gets nice double play! Now to Werth. Walked him. Close call, Jorge framed it.

All of a sudden Robertson goes wacko. Wide pitch into L batter box, then bounced one.

The walk hurts. Francisco fouls off three in a row then doubles in the gap and werth scored.

How quickly it can go wrong. Robertson had Werth 3-2 and walked him instead of ending inning. Now 2 runs in, 2 on, still 2 out, pitching chg

Anyone know anything about Amaury Sanit? Other than he’s now pitching for the #Yankees?

MLB.com At Bat app finally tells me it’s Kendrick pitching for Phillies. Except they just changed pitchers. I think it’s Ramon Aguero? [Later: It was Jose Contreras, not listed on the printed roster.]

@YankeesWFAN ensberg’s tweeting, otherwise I’d have forgotten him. Sweeny, what do you know about Sanit?

@YankeesWFAN Sanit sure is looking better than Albaladejo… Thanks for the word about Aceves.

The Yankees finally score! Swisher doubles to the wall, nice drive, brings in Posada and Cano.

Sanit gets Polanco on excuse me swing soft grounder to first. Utley grounds a single up the middle. Howard at plate now.

Sanit gets Werth looking to end the inning! Now let’s get some runs!

I think Kevin Russo’s family is sitting two rows in front of us. They were the only ones clapping when introduced, going nuts now he doubled

Pena reaches, russo to third, then Gardner grounded to first to get run in! Tie game!

Johnson walked. Now Brandon Laird pinch running. Gerald’s brother. Posada walks too bases loade for Cano.

Cano delivers! Sharp hit through right side of infield for two runs. Swish up two on, two out.

Swish killing the ball today! Ground rule double to left. Gets nice hand as he is replaced by pinch runner. 5-3 Yanks, pitching change.

Typo. That is 6-3 Yankees.

Thames, former Yankee, ninth man to bat in inning, has two strikeouts. Time to join party…

Denied. Struck out looking.

Christian Garcia now pitching for #Yankees. First batter took him all the way to CF wall. Then a homer! But now nice doubleplay to escape.

Now we’re to the “who??” part of a spring game. reed gorecki now batting and playing center for #Yankees.

Now batting for Johnson (pinch ran for him) David Sublett. Struck out looking. Time for the YMCA.

Nice 1-2-3 inning for Garcia. Got two men looking including Ryan Howard, World Series Strikeout King.

Tracking players difficult at these games. Player earlier announced as Eduardo Nunez actually David Adams. He homers, 7-4 Yanks.

Especially hard when the At Bat app is a whole inning behind! Why call it “At Bat” when it’s not showing who is at bat at all? Sucks.

Top of the ninth. Where is Mariano?? Bradenton? I think that’s Zack Segovia on the mound trying to close it out.

Meanwhile in Bradenton, Yankees won 6-0.

Jimmy Parades, you’re no Brandon Laird. Leadoff Philly reaches on error. Also earlier I said Laird was in, but no, it’s David Sublett.

Dang. Valdez squirts a ball thru right side. One out, two on. Two outs to the win but slow in coming.

Segovia is losing his control. Needs a double play!

Bocock singles! 7-5 Yanks now. Bye Segovia, new pitcher trying to close it. Kevin Whelan. Let’s Go Yankees.

Whelan has a high set, leg kick. Strikes out Andy Tracy! One out to go!

Dominic Brown for Phillies down to last strike….

The Yankees win! Two wins today makes up for otherwise lackluster record so far. Feels nice even if it doesn’t count.

This is a typical spring activity, but one would think that with modern information technology things would get easier.

One would be wrong.

I started out this morning trying to print out the rosters from MLB.com which was all well and good, but what about the non-roster players? Those are the guys you need to know the most. So I went next to SpringTraining.com and printed out lists of the non-roster players, too. But I couldn’t help but notice the Phillies hadn’t assigned numbers to them by the time they went to press… so the list could be of limited usefulness.

Things started out easy enough, since both the Yankees and Phillies began with most of their regular starters. Missing from the Yankees were Jeter, A-Rod, and Granderson, who had all taken the bus trip to Bradenton to play the Pirates in a split squad. But the Phillies had a very similar lineup to what we say in the World Series last year: Rollins, Polanco, Utley, Howard, Ibanez, Werth, Francisco, Mayberry, Ruiz (aka Chooch).

Things started out not so easy for Javier Vazquez, whose last pitch in a Yankees uniform (according to the Twitter feed of Sweeny Murti of WFAN) was a grand slam to Johnny Damon, and whose first pitch back was… a home run to Jimmy Rollins.

But after that Vazquez looked good, throwing some off-speed stuff and striking out four of the next six batters he faced.

Meanwhile, I was trying to find out who the pitcher for he Phillies was, which was not in any of the tweets from press members I looked at, and the MLB.com “At Bat” Lite application for iPhone spent an entire inning trying to load game data and then I gave up. It looked like he was wearing #38, and according to the SpringTraining.com roster that would make him Kyle Kendrick. He was a skinny right-hander. (The reason we weren’t sure what his number was has nothing to do with technology and entirely to do with the fact that all the people I sit with have worse eyesight than mine, and mine is spotty through the screen.)

The Phillies changed pitchers in the fourth. No. 52. A dark-skinned guy. I checked the roster… there was no #52 listed. I went back to MLB.com’s “At Bat” app. “At Bat” now loaded and told me that currently pitching for the Phillies was… Kyle Kendrick. NOT HELPFUL.

Well, the Yankees shelled the mystery pitcher, getting two runs off him in his first inning of work, and then another four in the next one. The mystery was solved after he left the game and I went back to check “At Bat,” which was running a whole inning behind, and saw that it was Jose Contreras. Aha.

Meanwhile, on the Yankees side of the ledger, Jonathan Albaladejo looked a bit better that Saturday (when it would have been difficult to look worse, allowing 8 of 9 batters to reach, including a 3 run homer…). David Robertson looked good, letting a ground ball single go through and then a double play to erase the runner, but he had two strikes on Werth and could have ended a tidy inning if he’d retired him. Instead, Werth walked, and Robertson ended up leaving after facing three more batters, retiring none and giving up two runs. Amaury Sanit then came on and put out the fire by striking out Rollins, and then getting out of the next inning without allowing a run.

Still don’t know much about Sanit, but it’s clear the Yankees are intrigued by him and want to see what he can do.

Meanwhile, word came from Bradenton that Alfredo Aceves had pitched to 12 batters, retired them all, and struck out three. Nice. And the Yankees were up 3-0 there.

My scorecard is a bit of a mess, because there were various times when the PA announcer didn’t know how a player was, either, and announced the wrong one. Like at one point #94 came in to play second base and was announced as Eduardo Nunez. However, later that player hit a home run, and we’re pretty sure it was actually David Adams, not Nunez. (Just checked the box score… yep, Adams.) The only Yankee who played the whole game was Kevin Russo, whom we speculate was playing to impress his family. At the very least, two rows in front of us were a group of people who cheered really loud when he was announced before the game, and who went nuts when he doubled to lead off the big rally in the fifth… Definitely family, or family friends.

That was most of the excitement. Nick Swisher had a nice day at the plate, with a double to the wall in right center, and a ground rule double to the wall in left center. Super-hitting prospect Jesus Montero struck out looking, not much to say there. Marcus Thames is back with the Yankees… he finished the day with three strikeouts. Shrug. The Yankees got another run in the seventh, and the Phils added a John Mayberry solo shot, such that going into the top of the ninth it was 7-4 Yankees.

Normally that would be Mariano time, but this is spring training. We were forced to guess that #70, who had pitched the bottom of the eighth, was Zack Segovia.

Segovia got a little tight in the closing situation though, when Jimmy Parades, who had taken over third, made a blatant error to let the leadoff man on, and then with one out, Segovia let in back to back singles, scoring Kevin Nelson. That was enough for him, and so on came Kevin Whelan, who was at least printed on the roster. Whelan struck out Andy Tracy and then got a fly ball from Dominic Brown, which for half a second looked like it was going to put the Phillies on top… but no, it was hauled in for the final out. The game was over in a tidy 2 hours 46 minutes.

A shout-out to Dan McCourt of TakeHimDowntown. and one of the contributors to the YANKEES ANNUAL, who was at the game with some of our other pals from the Behind the Bombers bulletin board! (You guys! Email me the photo(s)! And enjoy the baseball and nice weather!)

Hello and welcome to another Spring Training! I’m in Tampa all week, and with any luck I’ll also be stopping by Lakeland. I’m not working on any high-powered books or articles at the moment (the YANKEES ANNUAL just came out so that is all done!) so this week I get to be just a fan, and sit in the stands and eat all the hot dogs I want.

Well, actually, I’m on a diet, but you get the idea.

Today’s fun in the sun took place at George M. Steinbrenner stadium, the place formerly known as Legends Field and still called that by many locals. Last night as my mother drove me from the airport to their house north of the city, we passed the brand new Steinbrenner High School. The Steinbrenners have been big philanthropists in Tampa, which is why you’ll see the New York Yankees logo on police cars and the like. (I imagine some poor Red Sox fans getting busted for being drunk and thinking it must be some kind of conspiracy…)

My mother couldn’t come to the game today (she was at a Haiti fundraiser), so I had an extra ticket to get rid of before the game. I milled about with some scalpers near the parking lot, but as game time drew nearer it was obvious no one wanted to buy just a single ticket. A scalper near me was also trying to sell just one ticket.

Finally, he approached me. “You’re selling one, but do you have two? How about this, will you trade me your two upper level seats for this one lower level seat which is a much better seat? It’s like fourth row.”

I looked at the ticket. It was for row DD, section 117. I knew from prior experience that would probably put me in the sun, and given that it’s only in the low sixties today in Tampa, that sounded like a plus. My regular seats are in the shade. Also, I knew row DD, when behind the dugouts, is the first row, not the fourth. I went for it. He was happy and I was happy.

Sure enough, my seat was right behind the Blue Jays dugout. As such, I decided not to “live tweet” the game, because I needed to be paying attention for foul balls. I got to my seat and had gotten out my regular paper scorecard just as the National Anthems began.

Canada’s anthem is really pretty, isn’t it? (Apologies to anyone who is sick of it right now; I didn’t watch any of the Olympics so this is the first time I’ve heard it since the last time I saw the Blue Jays.)

Observations from the game:

1st inning:
Every single Yankee is on the rail, watching the game. They are rapt as A.J. Burnett gets in and out of trouble. Burnett looks like his usual self, meaning he’s getting some swings and misses here and there… but is too prone to giving up the walk. This time it’s with two on, two out, and a 3-2 count, he walks Lyle Overbay. Argh. He escapes by popping up the next batter (Jeremy Reed) but has thrown a lot of pitches. Worse, every ball that has been hit has been a rocket.

2nd Inning:
AJ goes 2-0 on his former catcher Jose Molina. Then gets a swing and miss, and eventually a soft grounder to short. He’s the only guy Burnett really has looked “good” against, though. Snider, Bautista, and Hill all hit ropes off him. Sitting this close–we’re only about 110 feet from the batter–you can really hear the crack of the bat. I’m sure A.J. hears it even louder. He gives up two runs and is yanked after Hill’s RBI single.

On comes Amaury Sanit, a pitcher I’ve not only never seen before, but never even heard of. No one else in our section has heard of him either. He escapes by luck, serving up a deep drive to Adam Lind that Granderson hauls on on the warning track.

Third Inning:
Sanit gives up a leadoff hit and is gone. On comes Boone Logan, the lefty who came from the Braves with Javier Vazquez. I’d been hoping to see him, and they bring him in to face two lefties in a row, Overbay and Reed. He gets Overbay to live to first, doubling off the runner (nice play Miranda) and then Reed to ground out.

In spring training, not only can you hear the crack of the bat better, you can hear everything else better, too. The crowds are pretty quiet, and even the scoreboard music doesn’t sound like much during the innings. As such, you can hear what everyone around you says. Behind me there were two kids. One of them said, “I don’t understand why it’s called a dead ball. The ball isn’t ‘dead.’” His friend: “It just means no one can run.” First one again: “That’s morbid.”

Then Alex Rodriguez adjusted his anatomy, as ballplayers are wont to do, prompting a guy behind us to yell, “Yeah, Alex, it’s still there.”

Francisco Cervelli led off the bottom of the inning with Zach Zinicola pitching for the Jays. He tried to duck away from a Zinicola pitch and got it squarely on the noggin. Worst helmet hit I’ve seen since the Clemens/Piazza beanball. It sounded like a salad bowl, dull and plastic, and the ball kangarooed high in the air. Cervelli went immediately to all fours, both the umpire and Molina bending over him, and then didn’t move a muscle for a while. Trainer and coaches coaxed him to his feet after a minute or two and then he walked off the field, but upon checking the Twitter feed of YankeesPR later in the game we learned he had a concussion. Ouch.

Fourth Inning
Boone Logan looks pretty good. He threw a live fastball that he was able to spot on the outside corner for a strike, and he gave the Yankees their first (and only) one-two-three inning of the day. E

Ever notice when Jorge Posada wants a pitcher to really listen to him, he touches him on the chest while they’re talking? Sometimes repeatedly. (I get the feeling sometimes Jorge wants to smack them in the face to make them listen… but only sometimes.) He kind of taps them with all his fingertips splayed, sometimes in different spots on their chest. I’d think maybe it was some kind of signal except I haven’t picked up any pattern to it.

I also noticed from this angle that when Jorge wants to see eye to eye with a pitcher who is taller then him, he backs the guy down the back of the mound until their eye levels match.

Jorge’s throwdown to second looked really good today after every warmup. However, seconds after I made note of that, he overthrew third base on the around-the-horn after a strikeout. Hey, it’s spring training.

Overheard in the Yankees half of the fourth:
“So I was watching Antiques Roadshow and this guy had a Hank Aaron bat. it was awesome, the bat had all the bruises from the balls hitting it.”

During A-Rod’s second at bat: “$100,000 a day, hit the ball!” (He then struck out.)

Fifth Inning:
Albaladejo is apparently Spanish for “awful.” When Jonathan Albaladejo took the mound in the fifth, it was still a game, 2-1 Jays. When he left, he had faced nine batters, given up seven hits and one walk, and the one out he recorded was a line drive that Miranda miraculously snared! Five runs. That was pretty much it for the realism of the game. The biggest cheer of the entire day was for Dave Eiland when he came to take Albaladejo out.

After that, most of the regulars came out of the lineup, and it was a parade of second stringers. We did get to see Andrew Brackman pitch, the former college basketball star who has been in the Yankees system for a little while now. You could tell it was Brackman right away because of all the comments from people in our section along the lines of, “****, this guy’s tall.” He did give up a two-run homer, but the score hardly mattered at that point. We were also impressed by the fielding of Brandon Laird, the man who took over third base after A-Rod left the game. Laird is the brother of the catcher Gerald and made several nice plays and strong throws to first.

In the end the Jays had 16 hits, the Yankees only 5, but the shade and chilly didn’t reach us until the ninth inning, so I really can’t complain. It was all of 45 degrees in Boston today, and I’m not sorry I’m not there right now one bit. Nor am I sorry that I’ve sunburned my right ear (the sun was on that side of me all day).

Next game is Monday! I may live tweet it from @whyilikebb, or look for my next writeup here on Monday night!

I’m a member of the Boston chapter, but also one of the first “online chapters,” the SABR charter community of bloggers known as the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. Since I’m feeling a bit under the weather and may not make it to my Boston chapter meeting, I figured I’d offer this trivia quiz for seamheads everywhere to enjoy.

Caveat: I am not a serious baseball trivia type. At the annual SABR convention, I don’t think I’d even make it past the first round in their trivia contest. Pictured at left are myself and fellow baseball writer Stu Shea (I’m the one with the Bun of Doom, in case you couldn’t tell…) chit-chatting at the convention. However, my head is packed full of miscellany, so out come questions like the following.

There’s no prize for getting the answers right, by the way, other than that terrific feeling of superiority. No Googling! (Although the answers to these can be found in my books The 50 Greatest Yankee Games and The 50 Greatest Red Sox Games… Just sayin’.) But no, the answers aren’t ALL Red Sox/Yankees. Just some.

I’ll post a separate post with the answers hidden under a link.

1. The only modern players (post 1900) to record three hits in a SINGLE INNING both played for the Red Sox. Can you name them both?

2. This past year Melky Cabrera hit for the cycle. Can you name the previous TWO Yankees to accomplish the feat?

3. Three times in history a single pitcher has recorded a no-hitter, but lost the game. I’m not talking about guys like Harvey Haddix, who pitched 12 perfect innings only to give up a game-winning homer in the unlucky 13th, but guys who actually gave up no hits and lost anyway. The first was Ken Johnson on April 23, 1964, who pitched 9 no-hit innings for Houston but lost 1-0 to Cincinnati. Can you name the other two unlucky souls?

4. Who holds the record for most putouts by a catcher on two consecutive days? Hint, he’s one of the catchers who caught a game where his pitcher struck out 19 or more men in one day. He caught 20 strikeouts one day, and 16 the next.

5. Three times pairs of teammates have thrown no-hitters in the same season. The first time was in 1917 when Ernie Koob and Bob Groom did it for the St. Louis Browns, on back to back days, no less. The last time was in 1962, when Earl Wilson and Bill Monboquette both turned the trick for the Red Sox. Who are the other two pitchers to do it?

6. Aaron Boone did it in 2003. Bernie Williams did it in 1996 and 1999. Mickey Mantle did it in 1964. But who was the first Yankee to hit a walk-off home run for the Yankees in a postseason series? Can you name him and what pitcher he hit it off?

7. This past season saw both Nick Swisher and Nick Green take the mound for their teams. In 1940 a position player more noted for his bat took the mound and struck out Rudy York. Who was he?

8. Three Yankees have hit three triples in a game. The first was Hal Chase in 1906. Earle Combs did it in 1927. Who was the third? He did it in 1938, his third year in the big leagues.

9. Only two players in history have 400 home runs or more AND 10 or more steals of home. Can you name them? Hint: they usually batted back to back in their lineup.

10. Randy Johnson pitched a perfect game when he was 40. David Cone was 36 when he threw his. But there is one man who was 37 when he accomplished the feat. Who?

Okay, give up? Find the answers here.

Are you sure you’ve already looked at the questions? Okay, here you go. The answers:

1. Johnny Damon and Gene Stephens are the two players who have gotten three hits in a single inning, and they both happen to have been Red Sox when they did. Damon is the first player to get three different types of hits in a single inning (he lacked only the homer), and he did it June 27, 2003 in a 14-run first inning against the Florida Marlins. Stephens did it on June 18, 1953, in a 17-run inning against the Tigers, where even the pitcher, Ellis Kinder, had two hits for the Sox.

2. Prior to Melky Cabrera hitting for the cycle, Tony Fernandez did it in 1995. Fernandez was slated to be the starting shortstop in 1996, but then broke his arm in spring training, opening the door for Derek Jeter. The team sent Fernandez a World Series ring even though he didn’t play a single inning (or maybe because he didn’t…?) The night Fernandez hit for the cycle, one of the broadcasters of the game was Bobby Murcer, who had been the previous Yankee to do it, 23 years earlier.

3. Andy Hawkins pitched a losing no-hitter for the Yankees, and Matt Young did it for the Red Sox. Young’s came in 1992, and he lost 2-1 to Cleveland. Hawkins’ came in 1990 and he lost 4-0 to the White Sox in Chicago. Those were the days, eh?

4. Rich Gedman caught Roger Clemens’ 20 strikeout game on April 29, 1986. The very next day, Boston again faced those free-swinging Mariners and Bruce Hurst struck out 8, and the bullpen another 8.

5. Lew Burdette and Warren Spahn both pitched no-hitters for the Milwaukee Braves in 1960, on August 18 and September 16, respectively.

6. Tommy Henrich belted a walk-off homer against the Dodgers’ Don Newcombe in the 1949 World Series, starting a fine postseason tradition.

7. Ted Williams! The Splendid Splinter pitched two innings, gave up one run on three hits, and as noted did not issue a walk and struck out York. He has a lifetime ERA of 4.50 as a result.

8. Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio. There were a billion trivia questions I could have asked about him, but I figured I’d pick a really, well, trivial one.

9. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig are the only two players to have hit 400 or more home runs and have 10 or more steals of home. Both men usually stole home as one half of a double-steal, rather than an outright theft of the plate.

10. Cy Young was 37 years old in 1904 when he threw his perfect game. I don’t have any funny anecdotes about Cy Young, so I’ll tell this one about David Cone instead: Expos manager Felipe Alou was asked after Cone’s perfecto, when he started to think Cone might have a chance at a perfect game. “When I wrote down the lineup and saw that we didn’t have anybody who had faced him,” Alou deadpanned.

Thanks for participating in SABR DAY IN AMERICA!!

As the 1945 film begins there is no sound, presumably because the soundtrack was lost or damaged, which only serves to intensify the feeling that what we’re watching is archival. It picks up quickly enough in the intro, though, and it’s clear that in this, the third World Series film in a row done by Lew Fonseca and crew, they are still pushing the envelope and searching for ways to make the film more entertaining and watchable. This time the key players on each club are introduced with little bios and accomplishments, and then the lineups are given. There are also some faces here that reinforce that notion that pitchers are greyhounds–made of long limbs and graceful faces–while catchers are pugs and bulldogs–embodiments of flat-faced, broadshouldered cragginess. The two examples that epitomize these standards, pitcher Hal Newhouser and Tiger’s manager Steve O’Neill (a former backstop).

Another lively little feature in the film shows shots of ballplayers who are back in the major leagues after finishing their military service, including Joe DiMaggio and Bob Feller.

The Cubs get off to a grand start in Game One at old Briggs Stadium in Detroit, and just watching this made me nostalgic for old Tiger Stadium even though I never saw a game there. (The city never should have torn it down. Unbelievable.) Meanwhile Wrigley Field looks much the same now as it did then. Game 6 was the real nail-biter, a 12-inning battle that comes across as tense and gripping even in the archival format. But of course in Game 7, Hank Greenberg and the Tigers exploded all over the hapless Cubs to take the championship in a cakewalk. There is no mention of a goat anywhere in the film.

Then came 1946. It opens by trumpeting the fact that over 18 million fans attended big league games that year, too, and has shots of various parks and their attendance figures, including Yankee Stadium, which drew over 2 million. The film gets even fancier here, incorporating for the first time an encapsulation of that year’s All-Star Game, too. That year, the AL won by a score of 12-0 in Fenway Park and Ted Williams hit two homers in the game. They showed the footage of Williams taking an “eephus” pitch from Rip Sewell, and then hitting a homer on the next one. (Decades later Alex Rodriguez would do the same thing off the Yankees’ Orlando Hernandez in a regular season game. El Duque showed him the pitch once. Later, he tried it again only to see it leave the park in a hurry.)

I have to wonder if part of the reason the All Star Game is included in the film is not just the great footage they had, but also to make up for the fact that Ted Williams doesn’t hit like expected in the Fall Classic–having gotten hurt a few days before the World Series while playing in a Red Sox exhibition game that has been arranged so the players would “stay sharp.”

The film features a new, improved camera angle, and much more of the camera tracking the ball’s flight. They do also show that the Cardinals employed a shift against Ted Williams, who finally bunted up the vacated third base line for a hit in Game 3. There are lots of stop-motion plays and it is amazing how young Joe Garagiola looks. It’s clear as one watches the film that these were the days of pitchers taking a really full windup and also the days before sunglasses in the outfield.

In watching the footage of the seventh game, of course, there were two moments I looked for, one of which is clearly visible, the other is not. One is Dom DiMaggio, tripping on his way around first base on his crucial base hit, meaning he had to leave the game and wasn’t in center in the Cardinal top of the ninth. The other is the throw to Pesky to try to mail Slaughter at the plate… did Pesky hold the ball? The announcer says he hesitated but it really doesn’t look like much if he did. It took until 2004 for Sox fans to believe it, though, I think.

Finally we capped off our night watching the 1947 series, which was Dodgers versus Yankees.

This time the film opens extolling the 20 million attendance figure and also talking about how various major league teams went to veterans’ hospitals and the like to play exhibition games for the disabled vets who otherwise would never be able to travel to a game. There is again an All Star Game recap, this time another AL win at Wrigley Field. And they also have some footage from the College National Championship (they didn’t yet call it the ‘College World Series,’ I guess) played that year between Yale and UC Berkeley. Oh how times have changed, eh? The films talks about how major league umpires were tapped for the game and it was played on neutral ground in Kalamazoo, MI. They didn’t say who won, though.

Then the action begins. There is of course no mention at all about the controversy of Jackie Robinson. He is just shown and mentioned like any other ballplayer.

Perhaps it was just that corwin and I are so much more familiar with the players on this roster, or maybe the play really was not only more dramatic but presented in a slightly more dramatic way, but this one really had us on the edge of our seats, even though we knew the Yankees won it. Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra… they’re all in this series.

It feels like the most “modern” style baseball we’ve seen in the DVDs, as well, with lots of guys working unintentional walks, more power hitting and pinch hitting, and much more bullpen use and pitching changes. Also take a look at Brooklyn’s batting cage which looks indistinguishable from a modern one.

This is the World Series with one of the most uncanny games ever, the one in which Bill Bevens takes a no hitter for the Yankees into the ninth inning and ends up losing it and the game in Brooklyn. It’s also the one where Al Gionfriddo makes an incredible catch to rob DiMaggio of what would have easily been the three game-tying RBIs, DiMag who kicks the dirt in a rare display of emotion. Yes, they show the dirt-kicking, and also in the outfield you can see the two monuments there on the field of play.

The Yankees do win it in seven games, to cap off three years in a row when it went to seven each time.

I began watching the DVD collection from MLB, The Official World Series Film Collection, last night. My friends pooled their money together to purchase it for me as a Christmas gift and I’m finally getting the chance to watch it.

As determined by WILBB reader suggestions, I started at the beginning. The first film in the collection is the 1943 series, Cardinals versus Yankees.

Watching the film is truly like turning back time. Recall that the first major league game to be televised was just a few years earlier, in 1939, on an experimental station in New York City, W2XBS (what would become NBC). Only about 400 TV sets were owned in the metropolitan area at the time, but the World’s Fair was going on and new technology was a big to do. Regular programming on TV was still several years away, though (1946) and World War II brought most television production to a halt.

Movies, though, movies were a much more mature technology and the war only created even more desire for people, in both the US and UK, to want to go out to see films. After Al Jolson’s the Jazz Singer in 1927 created a sensation with its synchronized sound and picture, by 1929 nearly all Hollywood films were “talkies,” and the 1930s and 1940s are considered the “Golden Age” of Hollywood. Baseball was no stranger to the movies, and you had celebrity ballplayers like Joe E. Brown of the Cubs starring in “Alibi Ike” (1935), and movies like “It Happened in Flatbush” (1942) and the classic biopic about Lou Gehrig starring Gary Cooper, Pride of the Yankees (1942).

The first World Series film was made to be sent to the troops overseas as a patriotic lift, a reminder of home and all they were fighting for. As such, it is packed with a kind of stoic, rah-rah patriotism that we can rarely display these days without irony. It is easy to imagine, as you watch the film, being crammed into a make-shift movie house erected by the army with your squadron or battalion to see the reels played for the first time.

“The first four decades of World Series films were created as archival programs designed to capture the highlights for posterity,” writes MLB senior writer Jeff Scott about the collection. “The narration was staccato and to the point – much more play-by-play than storytelling.” The highlights of each game are run through chronologically, but there are other documentary moments, like establishing shots of the old, old Yankee Stadium, and the crowds making their way across the field to exit, that embellish the film. Also in the opening of the film is an acknowledgement of the MLB players currently serving (170 men) including a shot of Joe DiMaggio (as well as Ted Williams, Bob Feller, and others…)

One other thing I did not know, the film was written by Lew Fonseca–the same Lew Fonseca who had been an infielder for the Indians (and Reds, Phillies, and White Sox). As his Wikipedia page currently reads, ‘Fonseca is perhaps best known as one of the first men to use film in analyzing baseball games and finding flaws in players. It is said that his interest with cameras began while shooting Slide, Kelly, Slide in 1927. As manager of the Chicago White Sox, he used film extensively. After retiring from playing the game, he was director of promotions for both leagues. Fonseca worked on World Series highlight films for almost 25 years, as an editor and director, and occasionally narrated them as well.”

The narration is dry and yet peppered with normal, colorful baseball lingo like “Texas Leaguer.” The one thing that stands out immediately to me on watching the action highlights is that every ballplayer seems incredibly lanky. Perhaps some of that is the baggy, flannel uniforms, as well as the fact that players did not bulk up in those days, unless you count Babe Ruth overeating. They all seem to run like deer, on the balls of their feet.

The other thing you notice is all the errors and intentional walks. You can see in the footage how rough the infields are, and of course the gloves were smaller and not quite as sophisticated as the cowhide scoops we have today. (Check out this one of Bob Feller’s: http://www.sportsartifacts.com/gfeller.JPG)

And pitching duels. Lots of pitching duels.

The Yankees won the 1943 series, in five games, after having lost the previous year to these same Cardinals. Among the storylines that do emerge even in the dry play by play–the Cardinals were in every game. They scored first in the first three games, and would have probably taken a 2 games to 1 lead in the series in Game Three if their defense had not fallen apart in the bottom of the eighth, allowing for a five-run Yankee uprising.

One story not told in the film is that the one game the Cardinals did win (G2) was pitched and won by Mort Cooper, and caught by his brother Walker, on the same day that their father Robert died.

The duels continue in the 1944 series film, which I couldn’t help watching also, since after all, once we were sitting down in front of the TV, we might as well, no? And the older films are relatively short. 1944 was the All St. Louis series, with all six games played in Sportsman’s Park (presumably because it was the larger of the two home parks in town). It opens with a direct address from Connie Mack to the American soldiers, in which he touts America’s pastime of baseball as every bit as central to the American character then as it was when he first played ball in 1884. Wow.

Fonseca’s crew stretched themselves a little bit more in this one, using some techniques like slow motion and sound dubs of crowd noise. Of course, they only seem to have two little bits of crowd noise that they play over and over, but you can feel they’re trying to liven up the film. They also add the starting lineups to the beginning, showing a shot each player swinging his bat as the narrator gives his last name.

Again the Browns had chances to win that they missed, especially in game one, which went into extra innings and was lost in the bottom of the eleventh. Poor Ted Wilks, gets knocked around by the Browns in Game Three, and loses, but ends up earning the save in the clincher.

Pretty fascinating stuff if you are into baseball history–which I am. More reviews to come as I work my way through the collection!

The Yankees lose two, probably three main starters from last year’s lineup. Matsui is gone, signed with the Angels, Melky Cabrera is gone, by trade, and likely Johnny Damon is gone, since the Yankees say they won’t meet his agent’s asking price.

With the acquisition of Curtis Granderson they fill the center field vacancy, and Nick Johnson appears to come in at full-time DH. That leaves at the moment Brett Gardner to start in left field and hit in the nine hole.

My two main questions on the batting order are who hits behind A-Rod? And how to the lefty-righty splits of some of these players affect things? Does Jeter keep the lead-off job?

Let’s say that he does. How about this against right-handed pitching:

Jeter
Granderson
Teixeira
A-Rod
Posada
Cano
Johnson
Swisher
Gardner

This way against left-handed pitching:

Jeter
Johnson
Teixeria
A-Rod
Cano
Posada
Granderson
Swisher
Gardner

Posada slugs better against righties, whereas Cano is better against lefties. Granderson has meager numbers against lefties, something that hitting coach Kevin Long will supposedly be working on fixing this off season and in spring training, but don’t expect a complete makeover.

I do wonder if we’ll see Swisher blossom into more of a force, given the adjustments he made during the World Series last year, and according to MLB.com has continued to work on.

Some numbers from Baseball-Reference.com:

Curtis Granderson L/R Splits 2009:
Split     G  PA   AB   H   2B 3B HR RBI SB CS  BB SO  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS  TB  IBB BAbip
vs RHP   144 511  451  124 19  8 28  62  0  0  57 99 .275 .358 .539 .897 243   4  .295
vs LHP    86 199  180  33  4   0  2   9  0  0  15 42 .183 .245 .239 .484  43   0  .226

Jorge Posada L/R Splits, Career
Split            G   PA    AB   H   2B 3B  HR RBI SB CS  BB  SO  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS  TB  IBB  BAbip
vs RHP as LH  1454 4484  3774 1013 228  5 179 685 16 13 629 909 .268 .378 .474 .852 1788 26   .307
vs LHP as RH   874 1827  1591  475 114  4  64 279  0  5 208 369 .299 .381 .496 .877  789 30   .351

Robinson Cano L/R Splits, Career
Split           G    PA    AB  H  2B  3B HR RBI SB CS BB  SO  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS  TB IBB BAbip
vs RHP as LH   667 2105  1995 617 144 13 64 273 11  9 84 212 .309 .338 .491 .829 979  14 .319
vs LHP as LH   446  931   860 258  55  4 23 121  1  5 45 123 .300 .341 .453 .794 390   0 .326

What think? Or really… what do you think Joe Girardi is going to think? Since ultimately he’s the one who makes out the lineup card, not me.

Cecilia Tan: Has your perspective changed on your career now versus when you were younger?

Randy Johnson: My career is almost over. I’m not in the middle, I’m not in the beginning, I’m more towards the end. So, you know, I don’t really know how to answer that question other than to state the obvious, yeah.

CT: Was the decision to come to New York part of that knowing you are coming to the end?

RJ: I think it was more the decision to continue to be challenged toward the end of my career. The challenges were obviously there when I was young early in my career, the middle of my career, and I don’t think there is any bigger challenge toward the end to come here and have your reputation as a pitcher that can go out and do the things I do and still do them at the age I am doing them at. So that’s obviously the greatest challenge. If you are not into challenges, this obviously wouldn’t be the place to come late in your career.

CT: In fact, I’d say there are some guys who late in their careers left here to get away from those challenges.

RJ: Yeah, you’re right. I’ve always wanted to be challenged in my career and there is no greater place to be challenged than here. They expect to win, and that is what I’ve been expected to do everywhere I have gone.

CT: How does it feel to be part of that?

RJ: Good. It’s a good fit.

CT: The fans seem to respond to you, also.

RJ: They respond to anybody that wins, and fans are very appreciative of your effort when it’s there and obviously when you pitch poorly they will do whatever they do accordingly. That’s to be expected. That’s the way it is everywhere. If you get a bad steak or go to a bad movie, you send it back to get it cooked right or you walk out of the movie halfway. So, that comes with the territory.

CT: Are you looking forward to this year? Will it be different?

RJ: I think it will be. I think it’s a new year and I’m looking forward to doing this again.

CT: I think the AL East is going to be tough.

RJ: I think it’s the toughest division in all of baseball. There’s another challenge in hand. And if we want to continue talking about challenges, not only coming to the Yankees late in my career, but being in the toughest division, and then also playing in the American League, which is slightly tougher than the National League because you’re not facing the pitcher. There’s several challenge there. But I’m up for challenging all of them.