Blogs – Page 233 – Keefe To The City

Aug 12, 2010

Rise of the Jets

Following the Yankees early exit in the 2006 ALDS, and the rise of the Mets in their near trip to the World Series that season, I was legitimately worried that maybe, just maybe the landscape

Following the Yankees early exit in the 2006 ALDS, and the rise of the Mets in their near trip to the World Series that season, I was legitimately worried that maybe, just maybe the landscape of baseball in New York City was starting to change in favor of the Mets.

That season, the Mets had produced the same record as the Yankees and had now advanced into the championship series of their league while the Yankees were home wondering how Kenny Rogers and Jeremy Bonderman embarrassed them, and also wondering whether or not Joe Torre would be back in the Bronx in 2007. While the Yankees had become a team overpopulated with “me first” personalities and a tabloid’s dream, the Mets had become the better baseball team for at least one season.

The Mets’ position as the talk of the town was short lived and lasted only about a week before the Cardinals ended their season. But that one week was scary enough that I started to envision life as a Yankee fan and a second-rate baseball citizen in the tri-state area. Luckily, the Mets lost Game 7 of the 2006 ALCS, collapsed in 2007, collapsed again in 2008 and had the season they did in 2009 and again this year to restore order in the baseball world in New York City and make everything right again.

Last season I began to watch a similar shift in power in the NFL with the area’s football teams. While the Giants were busy blowing a 5-0 start to the season and giving up 74 points a game, the Jets went from AFC East losers led by the class clown all the way to the AFC Championship Game completely changing their team’s future and how they are perceived in the sports world.

Here were the Giants, just two years removed from the greatest Super Bowl win in history, limping to an 8-8 season with the worst secondary to ever take the field and a pass rush that didn’t fully understand the concept of “rushing the passer.” And here were the Jets, perennial heartbreakers, whose stock was suddenly skyrocketing as they became the George Mason of the NFL postseason by creating a personality and identity that the Giants had lost since their Super Bowl win.

The problem with the pre-2009 Jets is that they were just an unlikable team – at least to me they were. Aside from Fireman Ed and a crowd that continues to make opposing fans fear for their life, there wasn’t a whole lot to like about the Jets. I’m not sure any kid or sports fan in the area without a favorite football team and looking for one to like would have adopted the Jets and called them their own before last season.

Now, when you look at the Jets roster it looks like one of the two rosters for the Pro Bowl. It’s full of superstars and household names. They have a coach that might be the most likable and entertaining in professional sports, and a franchise quarterback who makes it hard not to like him. It’s all these reasons why as a Giants fan, the Jets intrigue me. No, I am not a Jets fan and will never ever switch sides, but I fully understand why that same person searching for a football team to like that I just talked about would choose the Jets over the Giants right now.

The Giants would never let HBO document their training camp for Hard Knocks. They would never expose themselves or prostitute themselves as a sideshow to become a TV program for fans to watch uncensored, and I understand that and I support that. But with the Jets building their brand on the field and off the field, all the Giants can do to make sure they don’t concede their superior ranking in NYC football is to produce wins on the field, and after the way last season finished, I’m not sure how many wins we can expect from this team.

The new-look Jets are why I was more excited for Hard Knocks this season over any previous season in the show’s history. From the moment it was announced that the Jets would participate on the show, it was almost as if they started building their roster accordingly. Just following Rex Ryan and listening to Bart Scott would have been enough, but by adding LaDainian Tomlinson, Santonio Holmes and Antonio Cromartie and including the storyline of the most important contract negotiation in the AFC East and maybe the NFL, it’s almost as if the show became as scripted as Friday Night Lights.

The first episode of Hard Knocks on Wednesday night was as good as advertised. If you missed it, here are the three men responsible for stealing the show in the first hour of what will be the most memorable season of the series.

Rex Ryan
There are going to be a lot of people that watch Hard Knocks simply to see what Rex Ryan is like outside of his comedic press conferences and aside from his extravagant Daily News and Post headlines. After watching Rex freely make fun of his in-laws in the opening minutes of the show, you just knew he was going to make the most of this opportunity to have a camera and censor-free microphone in front of him for training camp.

In the show, Rex Ryan appears to be an actor rather than an amusing and overweight NFL coach. Some of his lines and actions seem a little over the top and rehearsed, the same way that the cast of Jersey Shore now plays up their personas to fulfill the roles of the celebrities they have become rather than be themselves like they were in the first season when the show gained popularity. (Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to watch Jersey Shore no matter how fake the cast becomes, just like I would watch Hard Knocks even if Rex Ryan were reading off cue cards.)

I think the pre-camp meeting was the best example of Rex being a head coach that knows there is a camera recording him. Rex made it clear that he wants his team to lead the league in the wins, but it was almost as if he was trying force every last swear word he could into this scene, so that fans would come away from Hard Knocks and say, “Wow, Rex Ryan is a badass.” But if you take away Ryan’s HBO vocabulary from that meeting, it definitely wouldn’t have passed through the final cut. A power point presentation on Day 1 of camp for NFL players? What player would pay attention to that? It was almost as if someone recorded the first day of class from each semester of college when the professor would just stand there and read the syllabus word for word before you letting you go early. Not exactly captivating TV without Rex trying to break the South Park movie’s record for most swears in one scene.

Rex has reached a point in my life that not many other people can achieve: the point where I could watch Rex Ryan do just about anything. It’s such an elite club that I can’t even think of another person on this list. Whether it’s trying to drop 37 F-bombs before taking a breath, wearing Chuck Taylor shoes given his body type, eating a lunch big enough for a family of four at Cafe Ryan, throwing footballs, punting footballs or just standing around making small talk, there isn’t anything Rex Ryan can’t do that wouldn’t be compelling. I only wish Tom Coughlin could be half as likeable as Rex Ryan.

Rex will never have trouble finding a job in the football world, which is disappointing, because the man could carry his own reality show. And like a lot of other people, I would watch every second of it.

Darrelle Revis
Rex Ryan and the Jets tagged Darrelle Revis as the best player in the league last season, and maybe he is because I’m not sure if anyone other than the best player in the league could take up as much air time as Revis did in the first episode, despite not even being at camp.

There is no chance that Woody Johnson likes watching Rex and the other Jets talking about Revis constantly throughout the show as they further instill the notion that the Jets need Revis to achieve their ultimate goal of winning the Super Bowl. It can’t be good for Woody’s negotiations and his stance on not budging on a new contract for Revis when every Wednesday night for the rest of training camp, you have other members of the Jets reminding Jets fans that, “Hey Woody, we really, really need Revis to come to camp, so how about you give him that money?”

I have been torn on both sides of the Revis contract talks. On the one hand, he did sign this contract and he is obligated to live up to his end of the deal, whether or not he has become the player he has since he initially signed. But on the other hand, he does deserve more than his current pay since there are a handful of Jets defensive players making more than him. Like Mike Francesa says, if Woody is going ask fans for every dollar they have to purchase PSLs to attend Jets games, how can he turn around and say he won’t use his own money to sign “the best player in the league?”

It’s time for Woody to pay up.

Joe Namath
Joe Namath appeared in the first episode for maybe two minutes, but every bit of those two minutes was entertaining.

Joe doesn’t exactly look like the guy I grew up watching on TV telling me to shop at “Nobody Beats The Wiz,” but eventually living life as Joe Namath and also as Broadway Joe was going to take its toll.

Namath was genuinely pissed off when Mark Sanchez fumbled during the goal-line drill in the rain, and it set him off, causing him to tell the Jets and Sanchez that Sanchez needs to change the way he receives the ball at the line. Watching Namath speak so passionately about the proper hand technique on the snap and just taking the rest of the coaching staff to school in the film room was like watching Shooter draw up plays in Hoosiers while everyone stood around knowing that the man talking knew more than anyone else, but not being absolutely sure if the man talking was still all there.

When Namath said he “had a good time on the field, but off the field it was all work,” before uncontrollably laughing, he came close to breaking into my Top 5 Athletes I Wish I Could Drinks Beers With For An Afternoon And Listen To Stories While In Their Prime list. The Top 5 is currently Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Jim Kaat, Bobby Orr and David Wells, but Broadway Joe is right on the bubble and with another appearance before the end of the season, it’s going to be hard to keep him off that list.

Blogs • The Joe Girardi Show • Yankees

Aug 3, 2010

The Joe Girardi Show

The Yankees no longer sit atop the AL East alone, but it didn’t have to be this way. It didn’t have to be this way if Joe Girardi didn’t want it to be.

I guess it was only fitting that on the night the Yankees lost sole possession of first place in the AL East for the first time in 42 days, the two losing pitchers to cause this happened to be the Carl Pavano and A.J. Burnett.

From June 20 to August 1, the Yankees sat alone on top of the AL East Mountain. Now they don’t. But it didn’t have to be this way. It didn’t have to be this way if Joe Girardi didn’t want it to be.

Somewhere between going to Tampa Bay with a two-game lead and losing to the Blue Jays on Monday night at home, Girardi decided to shake up a good thing. He decided that cruising through July was too easy, and he decided he needed to fix something that wasn’t broken.

Back in May, I wrote a piece as if I got to host The Joe Girardi Show instead of Michael Kay. With the Yankees enduring their first slump in over a month, I think it’s time for another episode of My Joe Girardi Show. Here are my questions for Joe:

What were you doing that was so important during the fifth inning on Monday that it took you as long as it did to take out A.J. Burnett?

Note: If you don’t know the three grades of A.J. Burnett meltdowns, then please inform yourself for the purpose of this section.

A.J. Burnett is 33 years old. He is 109-94 in his career. It’s safe to say we know who he is and what he is going to be for the rest of his career at this point. And no matter how hard Michael Kay tried to get Al Leiter to admit that Burnett sucks during Monday’s broadcast, Al wouldn’t succumb to the pressure. Al wouldn’t throw a fellow pitcher and former teammate under the bus, so I will do it for him.

Burnett scares the crap out me. He scares the crap out of me in the way that it would be unhealthy for me to watch him start a postseason game right now. And he scares the crap out of me in the way that we are only in the second year of his five-year deal, and I’m wishing I had the remote control from the movie Click so I could fast forward through the next three-plus years of his career with the Yankees.

On Monday night, A.J. Burnett started off on fire, and then quickly entered the early stages of a Grade 1 meltdown before being downgraded to a tropical storm. But after putting up zeroes in the third and fourth, the night quickly escalated to a Grade 3 meltdown. It all happened so fast in typical A.J. Burnett meltdown fashion: from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds.

In June, when A.J. was going as bad as you can go in the majors leagues as a starting pitching without getting traded, sent down or designated for assignment, I created a system of measurement to determine which Burnett would show up on any given fifth day.

Here is my definition of a Grade 3 A.J. meltdown from that June piece:

“You think A.J. has had his bad inning for the night and that he will enter cruise control, only to have the game unravel in a matter of pitches – and once that second crooked number starts to take shape, there is no stopping it until he is removed from the game.”

Why isn’t Girardi aware of this? How does he not know that there is no fixing Burnett mid-game? He either has it or he doesn’t, and he isn’t about to make an adjustment in the middle of a start or try to battle through without his best stuff. On Monday, he clearly didn’t have it in the fifth inning, but Joe stood in the dugout and watched a bonfire turn into a forest fire before he decided to put it out. The following happened in the fifth inning before Joe pulled A.J. …

Double
Home run
Walk
Double
Fielder’s choice
Double
Double
Strikeout
Double

It took six runs, six hits (all extra-base hits) and seven base runners for Girardi to say to step in and say, “Enough is enough.” By this point, the Yankees trailed 7-2, and it became 8-2 when Sergio Mitre came in and allowed a double in the gap. Burnett and Mitre made MLB history in the frame by becoming the third team ever to allow six doubles in an inning.

The Yankees are never out of any game with their offense, let alone a game at home, where they have won at an outrageous clip since the beginning of 2009. Does Girardi not know this? How does he not? The only logical explanation is that he bet the over last night, and he just wanted to make sure it clinched before he pulled A.J. from the game.

Why move Nick Swisher down in the order in Tampa Bay?

When Nick Swisher hit that second home run on Monday night – the mammoth blast that nearly grazed the top deck at Yankee Stadium – I desperately wanted him to turn around and give Girardi the middle finger or at least point in the dugout and scream, “That one’s for you, Joe!” to let Girardi know what was up.

The Yankees traded for Lance Berkman on Friday and on Saturday he was in the Yankees lineup. But the Yankees weren’t getting the Berkman that hit 45 home runs in 2006 or the Berkman that drove in 106 runs in 2008. This wasn’t even the Berkman that hit 25 home runs in 2009. Instead the Yankees got the Lance Berkman that was hitting .245 in the NL this year and the Berkman that had missed spring training because of knee surgery missed spring training.

Before we go any further, yes, I was and still am a fan of the trade for Berkman. If he can find what he has been missing all year, then the Yankees have a legitimate No. 3 major league hitter batting in the bottom of the order. But the part that gets me is that the Yankees have now had to use and pay Nick Johnson and Berkman and trade away Mark Melancon for a job that Hideki Matsui could have been doing for less money. But forget Johnson’s injured past, the guy is an on-base machine.

Back to my point … Where would you hit Berkman in the Yankees order in his first game with the team? Girardi decided he should hit second, where Nick Swisher is hitting .296 in 51 games this year with 14 home runs 38 RBIs. Joe thought it would be best to move his All-Star right fielder down to the bottom half of the order in favor of the ghost of Lance Berkman.

Berkman went 1-for-8 in his first two games with the Yankees. On Monday night in the Bronx, Swisher was back in the No. 2 spot and delivered an Eff You performance to Girardi by drilling two more home runs.

Why did you play the JV team against the Rays on Sunday?

You have a two-game lead in the division. You are playing against the team that is trailing you by two games at their stadium with a three-game series coming up against the fourth place team the following day. Which game makes sense to rest starters? According to Girardi, the most important game seemed like the best time.

No A-Rod. Mark Teixeira at DH. Berkman at first, hitting second. Ramiro Pena and Austin Kearns starting. Brett Gardner sitting. I would like to know what Derek Jeter’s mental reaction when he walked into Tropicana Field on Monday and saw the lineup that Girardi posted with the Yankees barely hanging onto first place.

My favorite thing about Joe Girardi is how he always seems to find the most inopportune times to try new stuff, and no one on his coaching staff talks him out of it. “Tony, Rob, Mick, Dave … we have a big game against the Rays. Let’s change the whole lineup. Let’s start the reserves and the reserves’ reserves. This is a good idea.”

Obviously players need their rest over the course of the season, and especially A-Rod who is just a little over a year removed from hip surgery. But how does it make the most sense to give every player that needs a day off, the same day off? Why not give Tex “Game A” off, and A-Rod “Game B” and Gardner “Game C?” Why would you dismantle your lineup as much as possible in the rubber game of the most significant series of the season to date?

I need a drink.

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 22, 2010

Chan vs. Chad

It’s Chan Ho Park vs. Chad Gaudin in a battle to be the 12th man in the bullpen of the best team in baseball. The winner gets to be the mop-up man for the Yankees.

It’s Chan Ho Park vs. Chad Gaudin in a battle to be the 12th man in the bullpen of the best team in baseball. The winner gets to be the mop-up man for the Yankees. The loser gets to pack his bags and wait for some National League team to sign him to a minor league deal. It’s the showdown Yankees fans have been waiting for because it means one of these right-handed relievers won’t be a Yankee anymore, and it’s happening this weekend.

When Sergio Mitre is activated off the disabled list to join the roster and rotation in place of Andy Pettitte, someone must go and it will most definitely be one of these two men. The reason I say most definitely is because it’s not like Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi haven’t made crazier roster decisions in the past (like adding Freddy Guzman to the ALCS roster), so I can’t say that it’s a 100-percent guarantee that it will be Chan or Chad.

I have written a lot of bad things about both pitchers, but hopefully after this weekend I won’t have to write anything more about at least one of them. If it all goes according to plan, one pitcher won’t be a Yankee and the other will start to get to his act together since he will now be the last man on the staff and possibly the last man on the rotation. Then I can save all of my negativity for Boone Logan, “the lefty specialist.”

If it were up to me, the decision would be easy: I would get rid of both Park and Gaudin. Unfortunately, it’s not my call, and all I can do is share my opinion and hope the decision makers agree.

So, let’s make a case for both and figure out who gets to stay for the time being.

Chan Ho Park
If Boone Logan never put on pinstripes, A.J. Burnett didn’t go 0-5 in June and I didn’t have to catch Nick Johnson sitting on the bench during camera shots of the dugout recently, I probably would have written about Chan Ho Park a lot more.

Since Opening Night, I knew the Chan Ho Park experiment wasn’t going to work out. He entered the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry by letting Dustin Pedroia crush a two-run bomb off the roof of the Cask and Flagon, and then he told reporters he had diarrhea (Look at Mariano in the background of that video looking at Park with the “Is this guy serious?” face). If he had diarrhea on Opening Night, that’s one thing, but what’s his excuse for the other three months?

Three nights after the diarrhea incident, Joe Girardi went with Park again to keep the game tied at 1 until the Yankees could take the lead against the Red Sox, and Park ended up pitching three innings in what was statistically his best performance of the season (3 IP, 1 H, 0 ER). The only problem is that your basic box score doesn’t tell the story behind how Park was able to get nine outs before giving up a run.

Baseball Reference says four of the six fly balls hit off Park were hit “deep” in the outfield, and I remember everyone at Fenway Park standing up and raising their arms into the Boston night at the sight of moon shots that looked like highlights from a 1998 baseball DVD during the height of the steroid era. With each pitch Park threw, I just knew one of them would eventually find the Mass. Turnpike or the bullpens, but magically and miraculously none of the shots off Park cleared the fence. If Opening Night wasn’t enough proof that Park wasn’t going to be able to hack it in the American League, his second outing sealed the deal.

I am really struggling here trying to find good things about Chan Ho Park. I am struggling like in high school when I couldn’t meet the page requirement for a paper about the themes and motifs in The Catcher in the Rye or Lord of the Flies, so I would move in the margins or take the last sentence of every page and move it down to the next page. It’s one thing to struggle like that when you are trying to write a six-page paper about a book you read on SparkNotes, but you shouldn’t have to struggle like that to think of reasons why a pitcher should still be on your team.

Let me put it as nicely as I can: Chan Ho Park has done nothing to deserve a spot on this team. He didn’t deserve the $2 million contract or the guaranteed roster spot off of his 2009 numbers because his 2009 numbers weren’t very telling, as I have talked about with Sweeny Murti.

I have tried to run every incompetent reliever out of town, and Sweeny has had to talk me off of the ledge on several occasions when it comes to the bullpen. But even he said last week, “I’m about ready to give up on Park too. What the Yankees saw in him just hasn’t happened, and he’s been given plenty of opportunities.”

Well said, Sweeny.

Chad Gaudin
Do you remember when people actually thought Chad Gaudin should start Game 5 of the World Series in order to save Burnett for Game 6 and Andy Pettitte for Game 7? If Joe Girardi had done that, the World Series would have gone seven games without a doubt.

I’m not going to lie; I was excited when the Yankees picked up Chad Gaudin last season. Even though he wasn’t exactly stellar during his time with the Padres at the beginning of 2009, I remembered him for the success he had during his time with the A’s. But it didn’t take long to realize why the Padres let Gaudin get away, and why the Yankees let him go at the beginning of this year and then why the A’s let him go again after the Yankees did.

Chad Gaudin has become part of the Insurance Run Brigade for the Yankees that also includes Park, Boone Logan and part-time member Joba Chamberlain. No lead is safe and no deficit will remain where it is when someone from the Brigade is on the mound.

The only thing I can say about Gaudin is that he has the ability to serve as a starter, long reliever and middle reliever. I’m not saying he is good at any of those things, but he is capable of being used in any of those roles. If for some reason one of the starters goes down (knock on wood), Gaudin could slip into the rotation to fill a hole. That is something that Chan Ho Park can’t do, and it’s something I’m glad he can’t do.

The Verdict

Back in early February, I talked about the Yankees bullpen and the expectations entering 2010, and I said:

“No bullpen is perfect and no bullpen is unbeatable. There is usually a Kyle Farnsworth or a Scott Proctor on every club. There will always be a game where a three-run lead turns into a two-run deficit, but as currently constructed it’s hard to pick out who will be this season’s LaTroy Hawkins. For the first time in a while, there might not be one.”

That paragraph seems ridiculous now, but it was also written 11 days before Chan Ho Park signed with the Yankees. And yes, in my mind, Chan Ho Park should take the fall when Mitre is activated.

If you’re Chad Gaudin, you can be happy that you are still on a major league roster and still part of the best team in baseball. But you shouldn’t be happy in knowing that it was between you and Park to be given the boot. Basically, Chad, you won by default.

No more Chan Ho Park will mean one less unreliable reliever for Joe Girardi to signal for, and that means the team is one step closer to cleaning up the bullpen.

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 14, 2010

Awarding a Memorable First Half

Four days without Yankees baseball in the middle of the summer feels like an eternity. The Home Run Derby was as boring as always, and if the Yankees are to defend their title this fall,

Four days without Yankees baseball in the middle of the summer feels like an eternity. The Home Run Derby was as boring as always, and if the Yankees are to defend their title this fall, they are going to have to do it without home-field advantage thanks to the loss in the All-Star Game.

With the Yankees returning home on Friday for a three-game series with the Rays, anyone in attendance on Friday night or Saturday afternoon for Old Timer’s Day should be prepared for a five-alarm gongshow. I was at Yankee Stadium on August 13, 1995, the day that Mickey Mantle died, and literally every nine minutes another crazed fan with a No. 7 painted on their chest was running around the Yankee Stadium field to honor Mantle. With the passing of both George Steinbrenner and Bob Sheppard, I wouldn’t be surprised if that memorable day isn’t replicated this weekend with first place in the AL East on the line.

Even though the Yankees are in first place, are 56-32 and have the best record in baseball, it didn’t start to feel that way until recently. Maybe it’s just me, but for some reason I still feel like the Yankees are just beginning to click on all cylinders, and can possibly even play better than they have over the last few weeks.

In honor of a successful first half for a team notoriously known as slow starters and strong finishers, I felt it was only right to hand out midseason awards to those Yankees deserving of one. These aren’t your standard Baseball Writers Association Awards, and not every Yankee came away with something. Luckily for those that didn’t receive one, there is a lot of baseball left for the Yankees in 2010.

The Entourage Award for “Wishing Something Was As Good As It Used To Be”
The same reason I keep tuning into Entourage even though it’s been going through a gradual demise for well over a year is why I am still holding out hope for Joba Chamberlain. I remember Entourage for its Season 1 and Season 2 greatness and not its recent year-plus run of horrible storylines and unrealistic writing, the same the way I remember Joba for his 2007 dominance and the way Joba Mania took over the Bronx three summers ago.

I have seen how great Joba can be, even if it was three years ago, and I know deep down somewhere beneath the cocky behavior and unaccountable attitude is the high-90s fastball and the slider that once shut down the American League. Right now Joba is the weakest link of the important players on the team and right now, a reliable Joba is the last piece to the puzzle that will make the Yankees complete moving forward in their quest for No. 28.

I need a setup guy I can trust and I need Joba to be Reliever Joba and not Starter Joba. But more importantly, I want Joba Mania back and I want to be able to trust the bridge to Mariano.

The Jim Joyce Award for “Doing A Job That No One Should Know Your Name For”
Unless you are a devoted follower of a major league team, there is no reason for you to know the third base coach’s name. Half of their job is to give signs and decide whether or not to send or hold runners home, and the other half of their job is to be the manager’s buddy and be a good time on road trips. They are essentially given a free pass to be part of a major league team, to have a job in the bigs and to hang out with their friends from their playing days. As long as they don’t screw up, no one really pays much attention to them, and that’s a good thing. More and more people are beginning to know Rob Thompson’s name, and that’s a bad thing.

There have been a few occasions this season where Thompson has gotten a runner thrown at home with no outs in an inning (I have been present for two of them), and he nearly ruined my celebration of our nation’s birthday on the Fourth when he got three Yankees tagged out at home in one game (I am still waiting to find out from the Elias Sports Bureau if three Yankees have ever been thrown out in the same game on the Fourth of July on a Sunday when the Yankees are playing the Blue Jays).

I will let Thompson’s first-half blunders slide because the Yankees are winning despite his incompetence and because he seems to be friends with Joe Girardi and really because he looks like Michael Scott. I am just hoping that Thompson doesn’t send someone at the wrong time in the wrong game over the final 74 games of the year.

The Michael Jackson Award for “Smoothest Transition From Home-Run Swing To Home-Run Trot”
This was a tossup between A-Rods patented “flip the bat … hop … stare into the Yankees dugout” and Robinson Cano’s version of the Moonwalk. In the end I had to give it to Cano.

No one could pull off that leg kick into a 360 spin into the moonwalk into the toe stand the way MJ could, and as of now, no one can pull off what Robinson Cano does at the plate following a home-run swing. There is no smoother player in the league when it comes to hitting a no-doubter and making a cool and perfect exit out of the batter’s box than Robinson Cano. In April, I wrote:

“I was waiting for the few notes of “Billie Jean” to come across the Fenway PA system when Robinson Cano hit his solo home run on Tuesday, as he swung, made contact and dropped his bat like it was on fire all in one smooth, flawless motion before gliding out of the box.”

… and it never gets old.

I would have liked to see Cano’s home-run antics on Monday night during the Home Run Derby, but not at the price of ruining his swing for the second half. My preseason pick for MVP from the Yankees continues to make me look smart.

The Seaside Heights Award for “Most Emphatic And Excessive Fist Pump”
After hanging onto this award for three years, Joba Chamberlain has surrendered it to Francisco Cervelli in a unanimous decision, mostly because Joba hasn’t had much to fist pump about all season.

Cervelli’s energy has been exerted through his right hand on clutch strikeouts and two-out RBI hits. No Yankee has cut through the air with their first as violently since Brien Taylor on that forgetful Florida night.

Are Cervelli’s antics over the top? Maybe, but I don’t care. I have grown immune to unnecessary celebrations in professional sports for the most part, and it’s not like Cervelli is going nuts after a one-out save in a three-run game like Francisco Rodriguez does. And it’s not like he is running around the infield grass after throwing a complete-game despite being 15 games back in the AL West like Felix Hernandez did on Saturday night. I’m all for Cervelli and his enthusiasm. I hope to see a lot more fist pumps from him in the second half.

The Gordie Howe Award for “Still Competing At The Highest Level Despite Your Age”
Last week on Twitter, someone wrote, “Is this Mariano Rivera’s best season ever?” I am beginning to think the tweet was a rhetorical question since I’m pretty sure it is his best year. You certainly can’t overlook what he did in 1996 as the setup man, but in terms of his 14 years as a closer, his numbers this season can go toe to toe with any of his other years.

Seriously, look at these numbers: 34.1 IP, 16 H, 6 R, 4 ER, 6 BB, 33 K, 1 BB, 1.05 ERA, 0.641 WHIP.

I am starting to think Mariano wasn’t kidding when he told the crowd following Game 6 of the World Series in November that he would be pitching for another five years. I am actually beginning to wonder if he will still be closing games when he is 50, and at this rate I don’t see why he won’t be.

While other closers appear to be breaking down (K-Rod, cough, cough) and losing their invincibility factor (Papelbon, cough, cough), Mariano just keeps on doing what he has been doing since 1997: saving games for the Yankees.

The LeBron James Award for “Becoming The Complete Opposite Of What You Are Known As”
Over the last few days, the LeBron James and Alex Rodriguez comparisons have taken over sports. In some ways I agree, but there needs to be some clarification with these comparisons because LeBron James isn’t becoming Alex Rodriguez. Rather, 2010 LeBron James is becoming 2004 Alex Rodriguez, and there is a big difference.

Prior to last week, LeBron James was the NBA’s golden child, but in one hour on TV that all changed. LeBron produced a two-out rally against himself by becoming a villain, tarnishing his image and destroying the brand he had carefully crafted since being drafted by the Cavaliers. Here was the face of the league, talking in the third-person and playing the part of the biggest scumbag in the NBA. It was the complete opposite of what LeBron James had been for the last seven years.

Now we have 2010 A-Rod, which really has been an extension of Fall 2009 A-Rod. Since last October, A-Rod has become the most clutch player in all of baseball, he has shed the “perennial loser” tag he has carried with him his whole career and has even started to rebuild the image he erased when he admitted to steroid use and being naïve and playing in a culture in Texas where steroids were as common in the clubhouse as short brunettes are in SoHo. There was A-Rod on Monday night, talking baseball with Chris Berman, Joe Morgan and Bobby Valentine during the Home Run Derby and presenting himself in a light in which he could have been perceived all of these years if he didn’t make such poor choices.

A clutch Alex Rodriguez for Yankees fans to love and a personable Alex Rodriguez for baseball fans to begin to like. Who would have thought?

The Clark Griswold Award for “Taking A Summer Long Vacation”
I’d like to think that A.J. Burnett thought he was on vacation during the month of June because if he was actually trying to get people out, then we have a serious problem. According to Michael Kay, Burnett had the worst statistical month in Yankee history, and I didn’t check the numbers, but I sat through all five of the eye-gouging performances and I will just take Michael’s word for it.

Burnett was 0-5 with an 11.35 ERA in June. Not even Tim Redding or Chase Wright or Sidney Ponson or Darrell Rasner could have imagined putting up those kinds of numbers. But here is the Yankees’ so-called No. 2 starter, making $16.5 million a year and $500,000 a start losing every single time he went to the mound for an entire month. Simple mathematics tells us that Burnett made $2.5 million in June. Not a bad payday for a guy who literally did not show up to pitch one single time for 30 days.

As much as my distaste has grown for A.J. Burnett over the first three months of the season and as much as Sweeny Murti probably wants me to stop badgering him about Burnett, the Yankees need him to pitch well.

The Joe Morgan Award for “Not Doing Your Homework For Your Job”
So the Yankees front office not only thought that it was a good idea to let Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon take off, but they also thought Nick Johnson would be a perfect No. 2 hitter and that Chan Ho Park would be a solid jack-of-all-trades out of the bullpen. I mean any time you can get a 37-year-old reliever with a 5.79 ERA in the AL before 2010, you have to do it, right? Excellent work, boys!

All you need to know to about Chan Ho Park is that he has appeared in 21 games this season and he has allowed earned runs in 11 of them. And in the 21 games Park has appeared in, the Yankees are 9-12.

The fact that Chan Ho Park is still in the majors is a bit disturbing. The fact that he is on the Yankees, making $2 million and was given a guaranteed roster spot out of spring training is disgusting.

Before the Yankees went to L.A. to play the Dodgers, Sweeny Murti told me this:

“Park’s guaranteed roster spot was just the result of getting him at an affordable price when a non-roster invite wasn’t going to be enough to get him. He pitched well in the World Series and that may have fooled the Yankees. It wouldn’t be the first time (see: Carl Pavano). The stuff he had in the World Series is not what he’s had so far. He’s really only had one good stretch for them this year and it came in the low-leverage situations I mentioned before. One scout who saw Park pitch a lot last year told me that’s how the Phillies got the most out of him last year and it was a bad job by the Yankees not to recognize that.”

No one really believed Joe Girardi in June when he kept telling the media that A.J. Burnett had good stuff, and no one believed him earlier this season when he said he didn’t skip Javier Vazquez a second time because Vazquez was pitching bad. As fans, we let things like that slide because Joe is supposed to stick by his players, be loyal to them and back them up. But when Joe Girardi sits there and tells the media that he believes in Chan Ho Park, it’s embarrassing for him and for me as a Yankees fan.

In the very near future, I am certain that Park will no longer be a Yankee, and that will be a glorious day … as long as it doesn’t mean that Boone Logan will be once again.

The Marc Summers Award for “Most Yankee Stadium Pies To The Face”
In the late innings at home, Marcus Thames has been like a contestant on “What Would You Do?” With a two-run walk-off bomb off Jonathan Papelbon in May that made an identical flight path to Aaron Boone’s 2003 shot and a walk-off single against the Blue Jays on The Fourth of July, Thames has been the only Yankee to take an A.J. Burnett pie to the face this season.

I always liked Marcus Thames given his unique story from his first at-bat in the majors for the Yankees bank in 2002, though my liking for him waned in 2006 when he was a member of the Tigers team that upset the Yankees in the 2006 ALDS. But I was happy that Yankees got him back to represent the biggest bat off their bench since Ruben Sierra was swinging from his heels on every pitch from 2003-2005.

Right now, Thames is the only true bat on the Yankees bench that includes Ramiro Pena, Francisco Cervelli, Colin Curtis and Kevin Russo. If the four of them had a Home Run Derby, it might last eight days before someone poked one out. Actually an Extra-Base Hit Derby between them might last that long.

I think the Yankees will be in the market for another bat at the All-Star break since Thames currently represents the only true threat for them. And with Nick Johnson using his free time to concentrate on his Farmville farm, who knows when he will be ready to rejoin the team? Not that I am hoping he rejoins the team.

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 13, 2010

Remembering Two Legends

With the loss of two Yankees legends in the span of three days, I thought it would be fitting to talk to Steve Lombardi, founder of the Yankees blog, WasWatching.com, and a follower of the

With the loss of two Yankees legends in the span of three days, I thought it would be fitting to talk to Steve Lombardi, founder of the Yankees blog, WasWatching.com, and a follower of the Yankees since George Steinbrenner’s first season as owner of the Yankees, back in 1973.

Keefe: You have been following the Yankees since 1973, and lived through the entire George Steinbrenner era. On a day like today, it feels surreal that The Boss is no longer with us. Even though George hasn’t been the in the forefront of the front office or the polarizing figure he once was for the last few years, it is still feel weird to think about the Yankees without him. What are your memories of The Boss?

Lombardi: I went to my first Yankees game on August 8, 1973 when I was 10 years old, so I sort of feel like George Steinbrenner and I have been running side by side with him in terms of our passion for the team. And now, there does feel like there’s a void there for me; granted, he has been out of the picture for the last few years, and he was 80 years old and in ill health when he passed, I should have been prepared for today’s news, but it’s still somewhat of a shock and surreal.

In terms of memories, like many Yankees fans, I’m only focusing on the good stuff now. Sure, there were times in the past where his quick trigger and impulsive moves made the organization look bad, but in retrospect, as Yankees fans, we were very lucky to have an owner who wanted to win so badly, who was not looking to stick profits into his pocket and who was willing to spend money to bring a winner to New York. As I have recently written, in his salad days, Big Stein was narcissistic, illogical, pompous, impetuous, delusional and pathological, and that made life terrible for all those who worked for him. But, at least 70 percent of the time, he gave Yankees fans teams that allowed them to walk the streets with their heads up and chests out. You can’t say that about a lot of owners in baseball or sports, period.

Keefe: George Steinbrenner was certainly a unique owner and extraordinary businessman, as well as a pioneer of the game in many different ways. He always made sure he reinvested his money back into the team and always tried to put what he felt was the best team on the field for the Yankees even if it didn’t always work out. What would you say was the most significant move George made during his time as the owner of the Yankees?

Lombardi: That would be signing Catfish Hunter back in December 1974. The Yankees had a pretty good team in ’74, yet signing Hunter (to what was then a huge contract) set the tone and let the rest of baseball know that the Yankees were going to do whatever it took to bring premium talent and winning ballplayers to New York.

Bringing Catfish was start. That, combined with Gabe Paul’s trades led to the pennant in 1976, and that led to Reggie Jackson coming and the rings in ’77 and ’78. During the 1980s, the Yankees had a lot of wins but no rings. Wanting to get back to those rings led to the magic of the late ’90s. But, again, it all started with bringing in Hunter. For what it’s worth, I think Steinbrenner has mentioned this in the past too.

Keefe: The Yankees also lost an iconic figure not just in New York, but in all of sports in Bob Sheppard. What are your memories of Bob Sheppard from the old Stadium and how will you remember him?

Lombardi: Bob Sheppard was a small part of the Yankees organization but a major part of their history. That’s not an easy thing to pull off. Pete Sheehy did it. Gene Monahan is doing it. And, Sheppard is in that group too. It’s a very small team picture.

I will always remember him as being part of the Yankee Stadium experience before the Stadium became what it was in 2009. It’s so different attending games now, and the difference is not all good. Bob Sheppard will forever be part of that special “before time” Yankee Stadium feeling compared to what the Yankees, and going to their games, is like today.