Keefe To The City

Jul 5, 2012

HOPE Week Reflections

Jerome Preisler looks back at HOPE Week 2012 and shares his behind-the-scenes experience from taking part in the events.

Last Friday afternoon, a few short hours after attending the Yankees’ final HOPE Week 2012 event at the Bronx Botanical Gardens, I was in the Yankee Stadium press box listening to a reporter go on about the whole program being a calculated publicity stunt. As the only writer to have observed HOPE Week planning sessions from behind the scenes, and the author of a book-in-progress about a previous year’s HOPE Week honoree, I’d seen and heard a lot of things that contradicted his assertions. But he visibly fazed me out when I tried to discuss it, and I thought that unfortunate.

HOPE Week is community outreach on a grand organizational scale. It recognizes individuals who’ve dedicated themselves to helping others or who’ve overcome great obstacles in their lives to set examples through their own optimism and perseverance. Each year the Yankees plan an elaborate series of surprises for their five honorees and their friends and families. All the events involve appearances the organization’s players, coaches and executives, and every active member of the team generally volunteers to participate.

The events are often elaborate. There have been surprise reunions on national television, meetings with the mayor at City Hall, celebrity appearances, a carnival on the Yankee Stadium field after a game, pizza deliveries to a New York tour bus from Derek Jeter, even a Staten Island block party with former Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett getting dunked by local kids and swimsuit model Kate Upton posing for snapshots with beaming neighborhood guys.

I’ve been writing about HOPE Week since its inception in 2009, having stumbled onto it while I was in the press box gathering material for a regular baseball column. I’d wandered over to where various stat sheets and press releases are stacked for reporters to pick up, and saw a HOPE Week press release about the next night’s event acknowledging Camp Sundown, a summer camp for people with a genetic condition known as Xeroderma Pigmentosum. XP is a disorder that essentially makes the tiny percentage of kids afflicted with it allergic to sunlight. Their skin can’t repair the damage caused by normal exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Most develop malignant carcinomas. Their often brief lives are lead at night or behind blackout shades.

My initial motive for requesting a credential was admittedly selfish. In my seventh Tom Clancy’s Power Plays novel, Zero Hour, I’d decided to make the principle antagonist, Hasul Benazir, a wealthy businessman-terrorist who suffered from the XP mutation. When I wrote the book in 2003 or thereabouts, I’d known almost nothing about the condition beyond its most obvious symptoms. But I liked giving my villains traits that distinguished them from run-of-the-mill America-hating badguys and thought it would let me present Benazir as a richer, more textured character.

The HOPE Week event for Camp Sundown was a chance to see to see how close I’d come to capturing the reality of living with the disorder. The Yankees, moreover, would be surprising the Camp Sundown kids with a carnival on the field after a game with the Oakland Athletics. Stilt walkers, jugglers, rides, refreshments, and players cavorting into the late hours. The whole thing tugged at my interest.

It proved a magical experience. The midnight rides and costumed performers amid the empty grandstands, the joy of the kids and their families, the enthusiasm of the Yankee players. Magical, memorable, and poignant. Jose Molina, who was the Yankees’ backup catcher, would become emotional speaking with me. Pitcher Alfredo Aceves stayed until two or three in the morning playing guitar. Other members of the team played soccer with the kids. By then the handful of television crews and reporters were long gone.

After writing my story, I stayed in occasional touch with the camp’s founder, Caren Mahar, whose youngest daughter Katie had the disease. In the spring of 2010, I drove up to Camp Sundown in Craryville, New York, to hold a writers’ workshop for the campers and their families. It was a big success. That day Caren told me and my wife that Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ public relations chief, had been a supporter of Camp Sundown for a long time. While still an intern with the Yankees organization, he’d watched a segment about the Mahars on a televised news magazine and quietly begun doing things with the Yankees to benefit their cause. Caren recalled Zillo telling her that he wanted to someday be able to do more. Years later when his concept for HOPE Week was embraced by the team’s front office, Zillo at once thought of the Mahars and kept his word.

During HOPE Week 2011 I met the Trush family. Daniel Trush, the week’s first honoree, was twenty-seven years old at the time. When he was 12, an aneurism in his skull had burst, plunging him into a deep coma. Danny remained comatose for about 30 days. His family was told the odds were against his survival, and that if he did live, he likely wouldn’t lead anything close to a meaningful existence – which was another way of saying he would remain in an essentially vegetative state. But Daniel defied expectations. He emerged from the coma and gradually recovered. Although he’d suffered brain damage that left him with multiple disabilities, he would not only prevail but inspire others to move past adversity with his spirited optimism and wry, infectious humor. Music had been important to him before his traumatic brain injury, and was crucial to his healing, and his family would eventually start a foundation that helped heal others through musical interaction. Danny became its driving force.

The Trushes touched and impressed me. Their family bond was special. Nothing had ever prepared them for what happened to Danny, yet they never gave up on him or lost faith that he would continue to get better, and had innately known how to best support him through his evolving challenges.

I wrote a column about Daniel for YESNetwork.com, and subsequently met with him and his father Ken to discuss a book that would tell their family’s story at greater length. We found we shared the same vision for the project and moved ahead. Part of my lengthy book proposal involved getting better acquainted with the work the Trushes did through their nonprofit, Daniel’s Music Foundation. In the autumn of 2011, they invited me to a small cocktail party-fundraiser in Manhattan. I knew Jason Zillo would be there. DMF had grown tremendously owing to the exposure it had gotten from HOPE Week, and the Trushes had wanted to thank him with an honorific.

It came as no surprise that the entire Yankees PR department was in attendance. But I hadn’t expected that Jennifer Steinbrenner Swindal, co-owner of the team, would be there too. She mingled a little with the other guests and then sat at a corner table watching members of the foundation perform. There were no cameras other than those used to capture the performance for personal remembrances. Steinbrenner Swindal stayed well out of the spotlight.

Shortly before Christmas, I attended DMF’s annual holiday show at a school auditorium. Again the Yankees PR department came, some with their families, to watch the performance. In May 2012, with a deal finally secured for the book, I observed rehearsals for DMF’s spring concert in their rented studio space. One night, Jason Latimer, a member of the Yankees PR department dropped by pushing his two-year-old in a stroller. He explained that he’d wanted to catch some of the rehearsals because would be unable to make the show, which would fall the same Sunday afternoon as a Yankees game. He stayed for about an hour.

A few weeks after their foundation’s spring concert, I contacted Jason Zillo to ask if could sit in on Yankees PR’s HOPE Week selection and planning discussions. Part of my narrative would involve the Trushes’ being chosen as honorees and I wanted a firsthand glimpse of the process. It was an unusual request, as these are closed-door meetings in Zillo’s office, but figured it would be worth a shot. Happily Zillo agreed. Although the picks had already been made, he told me I could observe the planning sessions. I later interested YESNetwork.com in a feature offering a behind-the-scenes look at HOPE Week and cleared it with Zillo. He placed no restrictions on what I could write about for YES, other than requesting that I keep a brief conversation about PR’s negotiations with a public figure off the record.

The group’s exchanges frequently concerned logistics and coordination. Some involved players: Which ones had signed up for particular events? Who was still undecided? There were also discussions involving celebrities, corporate sponsors and media outlets. But the subject always came back around to the HOPE Week honorees. Their needs remained at the core of the agenda. Could they help one man with his college tuition? With storage space for food? Or would a long-term supply of gas for his truck be more useful than the space? Is it better to get Costco or Hess into this? Beyond plotting HOPE Week’s highly public itineraries, the people in the room were determined to do what would most benefit the recipients when the cameras left and they returned to their everyday routines.

HOPE Week 2012 ran from June 25-29, coinciding with the Yankees’ final homestand before the All-Star break. I chose to attend three events, beginning with the second day. The Yanks had tagged it An Angel in Queens and it acknowledged a man named Jorge Munoz, who had dedicated himself to feeding the hungry. Munoz had very little in the way of savings or material possessions. He lived in a modest rental apartment with his mother, sister and young nephew and prepared over a hundred free meals a day in its tiny kitchen.

As Yankee players arrived to surprise Munoz with food supplies, the apartment was quickly packed with reporters and cameramen. I jostled my way inside and soon found myself in a small, cramped room facing one of two kitchen entrances. Packed into that tight space beside me was Jennifer Steinbrenner Swindal. She stood away from the cameras, peering into the kitchen where the players were helping to cook that day’s meal of rice, beans and chopped ham.

After a brief exchange with her, I asked for an interview and she agreed on the spot. She shared her feelings about the initiative overall, and emotionally recalled a moment the day before that had brought her to tears.

Back outside in the Munoz’s concrete driveway later, I watched Jennifer speak to neighbors drawn to the scene by the media caravans. She cooed over their children and told a couple of kids about Munoz’s selflessness, standing well away from the television cameras. The reporters assigned to the story were busy interviewing players and more or less ignored her. The kids, and many of their parents, had no idea who she was.

That night at Yankee Stadium, Munoz would throw the game’s ceremonial first pitch and then hasten back to Queens to distribute his meals. Before tossing the ball from the mound, he’d attended a dinner in the press conference room outside the Yankees clubhouse. Previous years’ HOPE Week honorees had arrived from around the country, their transportation aided by the Yankees. The dinner was unpublicized, closed to reporters, but I was there as the Trushes’ guest. Brian Cashman spoke a few words of greeting to the alumni. Zillo and several members of his team spent time catching up with them. Jennifer Steinbrenner circulated around the room, chatting informally with everyone. The Trushes were moved when a 2010 HOPE Week honoree spoke of wanting to do volunteer work with their foundation. More connections were forming.

My next event was Thursday at a nursing home in the Bronx. The honorees were members of a nonprofit group called Glamourgals, high school and college-age volunteers who give manicures and makeovers to the elderly at senior care facilities. The cafeteria was full of residents sitting at long tables when the Yankee contingent showed up. Some knew the players, some didn’t. They were mostly looking forward to manicures and lunch.

Scenes from that day would etch themselves in my mind. I recall a woman in a wheelchair happily exclaiming, “A smile doesn’t cost a penny!” when Nick Swisher sat at her table to work on another lady’s nails. She had a Yiddish accent and would tell me she was a Holocaust survivor, showing me the number tattooed on her arm. She’d lost her entire family in the death camps but had somehow survived, married, had children. Now she was getting a kick out of Swisher. He was hamming it up, charming the octogenarian ladies at the table, and it had put her in a cheerful mood. I asked her how she kept smiling.

“The Nazis wiped out my whole family. I told myself I wouldn’t go down, that someone would live to remember them,” she said. “Sometimes, I cry when I think of them. I’m human. But I try to remember the good times. My smile means the people who killed them didn’t win.”

Elsewhere in the room, David Robertson had been talking to a man who’d had a severe stroke. He was in a wheelchair and largely unable to move or speak. His friend explained that he’d been a Yankees fan since 1952 and still watched all the games.

“Hopefully we’ll win this year, be like 2009 all over again,” Robertson told him.

The man’s face lit up. Lips that could no longer form words shaped a broad grin.

Minutes later, I watched one of the Glamourgals volunteers slowly overcome the guarded suspiciousness of a woman suffering from dementia. Her gentle patience struck me. The woman, looked ancient, and was holding something close against her body. I glimpsed what appeared to be artificial hair between her tightly folded arms and wondered if it was a wig or fall.

The volunteer was a beautiful, raven-haired teenager of South Asian descent. She spoke softly to the woman. Kindly. The gulf in age between them was six or seven decades. They were of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds, and I could only imagine the variance in their experiences. The volunteer had noticed the object clasped in her arms.

“Is that a doll?” she asked.

The woman gave her a sharp, wary glance. Then, ever so gradually, she loosened her grip, the doll emerging into sight. “She’s my baby,” she said.

“She’s pretty,” the teenager said. “Can I hold her?”

The woman raised the doll off her lap. Hesitated. Pulled it close again.

The girl just smiled at her. Finally the woman relaxed her grip a second time, holding the doll out for her to take.

The volunteer told me afterward that it had been her second time out at the home with the Glamourgals. She explained that her grandparents lived far away, and that she rarely saw them, and that interacting with seniors helped compensate for their absence.

“It’s really being touched that means the most to them, the physical contact, so I like giving manicures,” the teenager said. “It takes longer, and you hold their hands.”

At Yankee Stadium that afternoon, Glamourgals organizers and volunteers would watch the Yankees’ batting practice outside their dugout. They cheered whenever a player raked a BP pitch, oohed and aahed as Derek Jeter appeared to sign baseballs.

“It feels good to be recognized,” one of them told me, a college freshman speaking for a group of three or four young women I’d interviewed. “We don’t do it for that reason, but it validates us.”

The following morning, Friday, I was back in the Bronx for the last HOPE Week event, held at the botanical gardens. The recipient of honors was an organization called CAP, or the Children’s Alopecia Project. Alopecia is a disorder of the autoimmune system that leads to childhood baldness, and kids who suffer from it suffer from self-esteem issues and are often bullied and ostracized by their peers. The lush green picnic setting, large player turnout, and planned activities for the kids – a scavenger hunt, head painting, other games – probably made this occasion the most fun.

For me it became the most moving. I was in the clubhouse where pizza was about to be served when I noticed one of the CAP kids, a teenage girl, sitting on a bench with a 30-something guy I assumed was a member of her family. She was completely bald, cute as a button, and had a mature intelligence in her eyes that belied her age. And she looked quietly happy.

I went over, crouched in front of her, and asked if she’d mind telling me how she felt about the day. She told me she was loving it. The whole thing had been a surprise. The guy sitting with her was her uncle, and he’d driven her and her mom all the way to New York from rural Pennsylvania. The population of her hometown, her uncle chimed in, was roughly equivalent to the number of passengers crammed aboard a Manhattan subway car. She had known there would be a CAP event but knew nothing about its scale or the Yankees’ involvement.

I asked the girl about living with alopecia. She said that if she had to suffer from a rare disorder, it was far from the worst. It wasn’t painful, life threatening, or physically disabling. It just made you lose your hair. Social ostracism wasn’t a problem for her, she said. Kids in her town didn’t make a big deal out of it.

Her uncle added that it had meant a lot for her to meet other kids with the condition, kids who could relate to the unique set of feelings that came with losing your hair at an age when boys and girls are very appearance-conscious.

As he spoke about that, her eyes moistened. On impulse, I patted the back of her hand, gave her a smile. I didn’t know what else to do.

A tear slid down her cheek. Another. I put my hand on hers again.

“We all have things in our lives that are hard to talk about,” I told her. “I have things in mine. And when I’m with someone else who’s had those experiences, it’s like there’s a bridge between us, and we don’t have to talk about them. We can just relax, and maybe let go for a while.”

The girl was crying outright now, softly, tears streaming down her cheeks. I felt awkward and guilty. I wondered if I’d said the right words. They were the ones that came to me. But I didn’t know. I was thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

The girl’s mother appeared, saw her shiny wet cheeks, asked if anything was wrong. She shook her head no, but said she was going to the restroom. The two of them went off together.

I apologized to the uncle. He said it wasn’t necessary. “Trust me,” he said. “Those were tears of joy.”

I answered with some clumsy, defensive half-joke about it not looking a whole lot like joy when his niece started weeping. But he brushed a hand through the air. “It’s good for her to see that people from a big city like New York can embrace her,” he said. “It makes life less scary.”

I knew he was sincere. But I still felt lousy. On a day when she was supposed to be having a good time, I’d made the kid cry.

It must have been half an hour later when her mother came up to me. “Can I talk to you a minute?” she said.

Of course, I told her, and felt a coil of tension in my chest, thinking I was about to hear it, bracing for her rebuke.

“I don’t know what you said to my daughter,” she said, “But whatever it was, I want to thank you. It meant a lot to her.”

I exhaled from my toes up. My relief was tidal. At that instant, I probably couldn’t have recalled my words to the girl for a million dollars. I was just glad I hadn’t hurt her and blemished her memories of the day.

I thought of that girl in the Stadium’s press box later on, faced with the reporter’s vocal denunciation of HOPE Week. For me, it is the perfect fusing of corporate philanthropy and public relations, and what makes it so perfect is that it is honest and heartfelt. Everyone involved benefits. The superstars and bright lights, as one alumnus told me, are part of what make it special for the honorees. They can forever look back at the day as a shining moment of recognition and acceptance.

I didn’t have any issue with the reporter’s skepticism. It’s vital that people question what is presented to them. But he wasn’t asking anything. It was a one-sided tirade. He hadn’t known of the book I was working on when he launched into it, or been aware of my inside look at the planning sessions. When I told him, he just shrugged his dismissal. When I asked the basis of his opinion about HOPE Week, he offered nothing but a critical and personal assessment of an individual involved with it.

I’m not writing this to give vent to my thoughts on one person’s obduracy (I happen to like the reporter) or really even address a more general cynicism toward HOPE Week that arose from certain fan quarters this year. I just want to present a set of informed observations for those who might be interested. Skepticism should be a probative tool. A pick for extracting truth. When it instead becomes an impenetrable wall, then there’s barely any spitting distance to separate it from ignorance.

Nobody should tell you what’s straight or what’s crooked. But if we aren’t willing to look, weigh and measure before deciding it diminishes us as a society, and the main thing I’ve learned from four years of writing about HOPE Week is that open eyes – and, yes, hearts – can take us all to a better place together.

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 3, 2012

Freddy Garcia Gives Reason to ‘Trust’ Him

Freddy Garcia had a lot on the line on Monday night in Tampa Bay in a crucial stretch for the Yankees, so it only made sense to do a retro recap of his first start since April.

“Dirty Dozen” is what the Daily News headline read on May 15, 2007. The Yankees were eight games out in the AL East and a 12-game stretch against the White Sox, Mets, Red Sox and Angels was said to be the defining moment of the season. Either the Yankees were going to climb out of their 17-20 hole, or Joe Torre’s job was going to be seriously questioned following two straight ALDS exits and whatever happened in the strike-shortened season of 2004 in which there were no playoffs.

Mike Lupica wrote a column that day that called for that headline. In it he talked to Brian Cashman about the state of the Yankees and whether or not an aura still surrounded the team. The Yankees’ answered Lupica’s question and the Daily News’ headline by going 4-8 over the 12 games and sat at 21-27 after the four series.

At the end of that season, the 12-game stretch – that I took as a set of 12 one-game playoffs because the Daily News made it seem like that – ended up being just part of a bad stretch to begin a 94-win season. The 2007 Yankees proved that it’s hard to distinguish the key moment in a season or the turning point of a season when the season is still going on. But this hasn’t stopped us from pulling out parts of the season and deeming them more important than other parts.

I first saw the week of July 2 the day the Yankees’ 2012 schedule came out: seven games on the road against Tampa Bay and Boston to finish the first half. Up until last Wednesday at around 11 a.m. I viewed this week as a chance for the Yankees to separate themselves even more than they already have in the division and possibly take themselves out of the one-game playoff scenario before the All-Star Game. (Crazy, right? A wise coach one said, “It’s not worth winning if you can’t win big.” Yes, that coach was Coach Reilly in The Mighty Ducks.”)

But on Wednesday at around 11 a.m. CC Sabathia hit the disabled list with a low-grade groin strain. About three hours after that Andy Pettitte’s ankle was broken by a line drive. About 31 hours after that, Joe Girardi managed the Yankees to a loss to the White Sox despite having a two-run lead entering the ninth. About 21 hours after that, Adam Warren making his major league debut in place of CC Sabathia blew a 4-0 first-inning lead and put 10 men on base in 2 1/3 innings as the Yankees allowed 14 runs (the most runs they have allowed this year) to the White Sox. The idea of trying to create even more separation in the division suddenly became a mission to just hold down the fort (a favorite Brian Cashman saying) until CC returns.

The biggest problem, aside from losing CC and Andy, became the idea that Freddy Garcia would rejoin the rotation for the first time since a disastrous April that has to make April 2009 Chien-Ming Wang and April 2011 Phil Hughes not feel so bad about their places in history. In four starts, Garcia put together this line: 13.2 IP, 25 H, 20 R, 19 ER, 5 BB, 11 K, 3 HR, 12.51 ERA, 2.195 WHIP. Who would want the owner of those numbers to take the ball every fifth day for them? More importantly, who would want the owner of those numbers to take the ball in Tampa Bay and then in Boston in his first two starts since being removed from the rotation? Not me.

Monday night marked an important game for the Yankees because it would start this seven-game finish to the first half against the team’s two direct threats, and it would be the debut of the return of Freddy “The Chief” Garcia. With such a significant game and start, I decided to watch Garcia’s outing and write down my thoughts during his innings of work for a retro recap. Here’s what happened.

First Inning
Freddy Garcia has a two-run lead to work with thanks to a four-hit first inning from the offense. Let’s see if he can do the opposite of what Adam Warren did with an early lead. I’m setting the over/under on innings at 4 2/3, hits at seven and wild pitches at two.

Garcia gets things going with an 88-mph fastball called strike to Desmond Jennings. Some velocity from The Chief!

Garcia gets a little bit of luck (no, not the Lotto guy) as Jennings hits a grounder up the middle and Garcia goes for it, but it deflects off his glove and to Robinson Cano for the first out. If that gets through then Jennings is off and running, and this might be Adam Warren Friday Night 2.0.

No one ever wants to see Josh Hamilton or Jose Bautista or Albert Pujols up against them, but to me, Carlos Pena falls into that same category even if his numbers don’t match up. I felt like the Charlestown Chiefs locker room when they found out Ogie Ogilthorpe was suspended when Pena moved to the NL Central last year. And I felt like the Charlestown Chiefs lineup when they saw Ogilthorpe skate out for introductions when Pena signed with the Rays and returned to the AL East this year.

Garcia gets Pena to 2-2 and then tries to paint the inside corner with a 90-mph fastball that looked like the signature Bartolo Colon two-strike pitch to lefties. The count runs full, but Pena flies out to center for the second out.

Ah, B.J. Upton … yet another guy that most fan bases wouldn’t understand why I don’t want to see him up against the Yankees.

Ken Singleton tells us that Upton is currently 3-for-41, and Lou Piniella says, “Upton should be more consistent than he is.” Everyone always say that Upton has all the potential in the world and should be one of the best players in the league. Upton will be 28 next month, so at what point do we stop thinking he is going to be a perennial All-Star and do we just accept the type of player that he is? I know the 2008 ALCS is a reason to believe that he can be one of the premier players in the game, but as a career .255 hitter, who hasn’t hit over .243 since 2008, he needs to start showing it.

Upton flies out to right field on a great diving catch by Nick Swisher (see, I can give Swisher credit when he deserves it) to end the inning.

After a 1-2-3, 14-pitch first inning from Garcia, I’m really too scared to comment on his performance or his stuff at this point. Why break up a good thing?

Second Inning
Jeff Keppinger replaces Hideki Matsui to lead off the second inning, as Matsui injured himself running after a Derek Jeter foul ball. I used to always think the Yankees were overreacting when they wouldn’t let Matsui play the outfield in 2009, and I thought it was a non-story when people were surprised that he was allowed to play it with the Angels in 2010 and the A’s in 2011. But I guess there’s a reason why Matsui is supposed to only be a DH at this point and not playing right field on turf.

Keppinger drills the first pitch (a fastball down the middle) to left field for a leadoff single and the first hit off Garcia. There goes the perfect game.

Ben Zobrist cranks a 1-2 pitch down the right-field line and it looks like it’s going to be a two-run home run, but it misses the foul pole by a few feet and now I have to erase the “Ladies and gentlemen, Freddy Garcia” tweet I had started typing. I only got as far as “Ladies and gentlem” before the ball went foul.

Zobrist hits a rocket to the gap, but Swisher gets there for the first out. (It’s probably not good when you’re worried about your right fielder making every catch.)

Luke Scott comes to the plate, and if you’re going to have the facial hair design that Scott has you better be an unbelievable hitter. Because if you’re going to go to the plate looking like that and the big screen in the outfield shows that you’re hitting .207 and Ken Singleton tells us that you are in a for 1-for-30 slide then you might want to think about toning the look down.

Scott hits a line drive, but right to Mark Teixeira who steps on first for a double play to end the inning.

Luck has certainly been on Garcia’s side so far. How does that saying go? It’s better to be lucky than good? I think Garcia would sign up for that since no one knows if he’s even good anymore.

An 11-pitch second inning and Garcia has faced the minimum.

Third Inning
Jose Lobaton flies to right on a 1-2 slider to start things off.

Here’s Will Rhymes, who I have never liked from his days with the Tigers, and really for no specific reason. But if that feeling is triggered then he must have done something against the Yankees in the last two years.

Rhymes singles to left on a 1-1 curveball from Garcia and the Rays have their second baserunner.

Elliot Johnson pops out to A-Rod and Garcia is one out away from three scoreless innings. If you had told me before the game that Garcia would pitch three scoreless innings, I would have laughed at you then cried tears of joy when I realized you weren’t kidding and then hugged you to make sure the world wasn’t going to end. We’re one out away from me hugging you anyway.

Jennings grounds out for the second time on 1-2 slider to second. Garcia throws just 13 pitches in the inning and is at a very economical 38 through three. He’s expected to throw between 65 and 70 for the game.

Fourth Inning
Garcia strikes out Pena to lead off the fourth inning, for his first strikeout of the game, and it’s always good to see Pena go down swinging (this time on a slider).

Just as I’m about to type a B.J. Upton joke, he hits a first-pitch slider for a solo home run to left field to cut the Yankees’ lead to 2-1. Upton had been 3-for-42, and just like most players who are slumping, the Yankees are always there to right the ship.

Keppinger goes down swinging and Zobrist grounds out to second to end the inning. A 14-pitch inning and Garcia is at 52.

One run through four innings isn’t bad for Garcia. Actually it’s unbelievable. I would have signed up for three runs in four innings from Garcia and that’s a 6.75 ERA. So, one run in four innings? This feels like watching Cliff Lee pitch for your team in the playoffs, which sadly I have never experienced.

Fifth Inning
Here comes Luke Scott again. Scott usually kills the Yankees and since Upton was in a 3-for-42 slump and then homered, I’m expecting some sort of dagger from Scott here now that he’s 1-for-31.

Garcia falls behind him 3-1, and if Scott sees that “fastball” we could have a tie game here.

A 3-1 slider gets Scott to pop out to A-Rod in foul territory and there’s one down in the inning. A 3-1 pitch from Garcia in April meant an extra-base hit so there’s clearly progress here.

Lobaton goes down looking on a slider for the second out. This game feels too easy. A Freddy Garcia start in 2012 is supposed to be painful and agonizing to watch, but this feels like a Sabathia or Pettitte start. It can’t keep up this way, can it?

Even though Garcia is cruising, this game won’t erase my fear of him starting in Fenway Park again this weekend. Speaking of which, there are four games in three days at Fenway Park. The over/under on hours of baseball is 18, and total runs is 44. I’m going to take the over on both and might even parlay them.

The pesky Will Rhymes singles on a line drive to center field to keep the inning alive, and he’s now 2-for-2 tonight.

Garcia bounces back to strike out Johnson swinging on yet another slider. Garcia has allowed one run on four hits through five innings. Is this real life? Seriously, is this real life? This Garcia start has been so good that I’m too scared to tweet during it because it feels like a perfect game. Yes, four baserunners feels like a perfect game.

Sixth Inning
Garcia is supposed to throw 65 to 70 pitches in this start and he will start the sixth inning at 69 pitches against the top of the order. I’m not sure if he’s batter to batter at this point with Joe Girardi, but you can’t blame Girardi for leaving him in the way he has looked.

Desmond Jennings grounds out on the first pitch (an 87-mph fastball) from Garcia, and there’s one down.

So, remember before when I said how Carols Pena is in the elite class of opposing hitters that scare me? Well, that’s why. Pena hits a 2-1 slider out of the park to tie the game on Garcia’s 74th pitch. Again, you can’t blame Girardi for leaving him, but there certainly are questions as to why Garcia was left in if his maximum pitch count was 70 pitches. And where are the two lefties in the bullpen to face Pena? That’s not me asking these questions of Girardi. That’s just me saying there are potential questions. I’m calm. Everything is fine.

Here comes Girardi to take out Garcia as he signals for the righty, Cody Eppley.

The Yankees would go on to take a 3-2 lead only to blow that lead as well and wind up losing 4-3 after David Robertson couldn’t get a big out and Mark Teixeira couldn’t field a ground ball for their eighth loss in a row at Tropicana Field.

As for Garcia it was obviously his best start of the year. The Chief showed that his thoughts about him lacking arm strength in April were accurate and he finished with the following line: 5.1 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 2 HR. He proved that he still has some 2011 left in him and that he can be trusted to fill the void left by Pettitte. Well, maybe “trusted” is too strong of a word. I probably shouldn’t throw a word like that around so carelessly until we see what he does this weekend at Fenway.

Blogs

Jul 3, 2012

Bouncing Around Boston with the Bleacher Creatures

Sheriff Tom and the Bleacher Creatures have made a lot of trips to Boston to see the Yankees and Red Sox over the years, but they haven’t always made it into Fenway Park for the game.

Some Yankees fans long to go to Fenway Park and never do. Others make a pilgrimage and speak in reverent tones of days of yore in golf voices as they gaze in awe at the Green Monster. Others win contests and go on someone else’s dime. Then there are people like me, who leave the comfy confines of Section 39 in the Yankee Stadium bleachers, armed with beer and bluster, and go up there and annoy all these other people.

I made my first storied excursion to that baseballian wonderland in 1996. We Yankees fans were about to become even more overbearing to our friends up north with all those rings coming up on the docket, so to get in some practice for this inevitability I headed to Boston with bleacher cronies Big Tone Capone, who currently holds a position of note in the New York media world, and George, who was burdened with two of the worst bleacher nicknames ever bestowed on a person. (Big Nose George for … well … moving on … and before that the “Little Drummer Boy” which came from the mouth of John Sterling on the air from George’s annoying habit of banging on the bleachers with giveaway bats until threats from both security and annoyed fans around him mercifully ended the practice.)

If you travel with the Creatures long enough, a bad sketch comedy show will begin. Hopelessly lost in the area as we tried to find a spot to park for the day, George pulled alongside a cop directing traffic on those interminable roads around Fenway. Down rolled the window, and he asked to be pointed towards a comfy parking spot near Fenway as Capone and I scrambled to hide our open containers. The cop started blathering away, culminating in a “You make a left when you come to the fahk in the road.” George’s eyebrows shot up at this and he giggled like a girl, raised his hand as if to make a point, and blurted, “You mean there are two people f-cking in the road up there?” Capone and I looked at one another and rolled our cloudy eyes. The cop, no longer amused, simply answered, “Move along, buddy.” George rolled off, bemused, until we patiently explained there is such a thing as a “fahk” in the road – otherwise pronounced outside of Boston as “fork.” The reason George couldn’t comprehend this was he had actually never heard the term “fork in the road before.” For the next 10 minutes we, and a healthy chunk of Boston, had to deal with George yelling out the window asking where he could find the “f-ck in the road.”

I have only scattered memories of this venture. No scorecard survived in my stash of 600-plus messy scorecards preserved from my decade or so of scribing this stuff. We spent some pregame time in a park, tossing a ball around. Where we got a ball and how we found a park is beyond the likes of me. At one point (and whenever Capone and I are deep into our cups this tale comes back up, so it will live as long as us) out of the woods burst an old lady dressed head to toe in white – her hair was a ghostly grey and she looked like a gargoyle off a stone wall. We stood agape as she spun around and danced to no music. After a minute or so she promptly disappeared back into the woods. Whether it was a ghost, or an old lady, or some sort of hallucinogen, it was still pretty freakin’ cool.

Capone was bounding up and down the thoroughfares, armed with a “Boston Sucks” T-shirt in hand, waving it like a flag until a tourist trolley would come around and then he would promptly hold it out for display, as people shook their heads in disgust. The shirt also dangled over highway overpasses, in restaurant windows and in front of a church. We proudly stood in front of the Yankees’ hotel as Capone stood like a sentry holding up his shirt, as if they didn’t already know Boston sucked.

Soon after we entered this hotel, which was attached to a mall. Our intention was to stalk the mall and let Capone hold up his shirt some more. Obviously we had beer, so we parked ourselves in the lobby to finish them off before entering the mall, and here comes Bernie Williams, strolling around the other side of the lobby. Recognizing us from all the pregame hobnobbing we would do when they still sold beer in the bleachers, so that we would be inside for batting practice, his face lit up. “Don’t you guys have jobs?” Bernie asked. We all chucked in uncomfortable fashion, wished him well, and he was gone as mysteriously as the crone of the woods.

My first impressions of Fenway Park? From outside it looked nondescript. At the time I was shopping in porno stores that had nicer outdoor facades. I grumbled about the grass poking through the cracks in the sidewalk, even though I was used to stumbling into and out of potholes right outside our beloved Yankee Stadium. The greens on the wall were more reminiscent of bile than lush greenery. The seats were rickety and cramped, and there were poles in the way. But, all this said, we knew the history there, and we respected that. Though, at the same time, we were sort of pissing all over it.

At one point during the game a beefy guy in front of us noted Capone’s New York Rangers shirt and asked if he liked hockey, which when you think about it was a brilliant question. After it was established that yes, the guy in the Rangers shirt liked hockey, the drunk mentioned his friend played hockey, and was quite accomplished to boot. He looked back at us like a puppy wanting a treat, waiting for us to ask who the hell his friend was. Losing patience fast, we asked, and he beamed and said with a flourish as if he was a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, “Scott Lachance!” Capone promptly choked on his beer and hooted, “Scott Lachance of the Islanders? He sucks!” Meanwhile, Scott Lachance was sitting in the row in front of us and two seats to the left with his drunken friend, and he shook his head in dismay.

Ah, the game! The Yankees lost 12-11, which was bad enough. They blew an 11-9 lead in the ninth after they had come back from a 9-7 deficit in the top of the ninth, which was worse. As you can imagine, when the Yankees took that ninth-inning lead, we were full of vigor and mirth, and not making many friends with our particular brand of hoot and holler. And, as you can further imagine, after the Red Sox stormed back and pretty much told us all to put it back in our pants, our night was done and we were showered in a potent mix of mock.

Our good friend John Wetteland was the catalyst for disaster, serving up three hits with a side of two walks, to plate three runs, in 2/3 of an inning. The legendary Vaughn Eshelman got the win that night to pour salt in the wound. Other interesting asides included a home run from clod Jose Canseco for Boston, another by Mariano Duncan for the good guys, a pinch-hitting appearance by Mike Aldrete and Wade Boggs swiping his first bag on the year. It was also yet another “near” four-hour affair for these two clubs, clocking in at 3:58. Upon further review, I see that this win put Boston a solid 15 games behind the Yankees in the division hunt. Good job, way to go, fellas!

There was a sad side note to the trip on that 17th day of July back in 1996. We had flipped on 770-WABC for the postgame, which was coming in clear up the East Coast, only to have Curtis Sliwa break in with the news that TWA Flight 800 had gone down off the coast of Long Island. We pretty much rode the rest of the way home in silence, which may have been a first and a last for the three of us.

A few years later someone was daft enough to rent a bus for a Creature trip to Boston. At this time we were the scourges of, well, everywhere. Baltimore politicos were publicly imploring locals not to sell those damn Yankees fans their extra ducats, and even our kindly friends up north in Toronto had tired of us by then after a series of road trips gone awry. I hopped on board for this one and drank all the way up. Hell, I even drank on the way to where we were meeting the bus for the ride up! I was quite the cock of the walk by the time we rolled into Beantown.

All went well until we were approaching the gate for entry into the storied park. I’m a noted critic of lines. I don’t’ like them, and usually make that point known while I’m in them, which endears me to few. I successfully handed off my ticket, which was an accomplishment in itself, considering how much I had to drink. Then I subjected myself to someone rummaging through my nifty vinyl Yankees giveaway duffle bag. Why I had a bag with me is beyond comprehension since all I really needed was my scorecard to make messy notes on that no one (including me) could read later. After my bag was checked I moved on my way. Well, four feet anyway. I was then stopped to have my bag checked again, and this flustered me to no end. Of course the easy thing to do would have been to open the bag, chuckle, and ruminate how this was already done while it was being done again. The proverbial no harm, no foul. I tended to veer left when a simple right turn would do. I balked about this transgression, insinuating it was an outrage, and that I was being discriminated against because I was decked in Yankees gear with a spiffy vinyl bag with a Yankees logo on it. No Boston fan would suffer such an indignity! I was causing quite the scene, which by then I was used to.

Someone in a position to make my life miserable walked over to find out what was going on. I continued my harangue until I was asked to leave. At this point I realized I might have flubbed. My apology was ignored. My initial attempt at begging was scoffed at. As I was led to the door I saw some fellow Creatures not only heading in, but trying to hide behind Boston fans to avoid getting involved in my plight. Once I was back at the exit reality sank in and I started playing the sympathy card to the police officer, who by now had walked over with a smile on his face. He was obviously a man of action and here was some to be had in spades.

“I spent hours on a bus to get here,” I pointed out. “Hope it had a nice bathroom,” the cop retorted. “My wife is inside,” I lied, as I not only didn’t have a wife, but I could not even keep a girlfriend. “I hope she has a good time,” the officer said, openly smirking now.

It was time to break out the big guns. “Well, I’m Sheriff Tom,” I said, pointing at the plastic toy badge on my T-shirt that proclaimed this very thing. “Yes,” he said, “and I’m Officer Clancy. It’s been nice meeting you. Now move along.” Between this and the “fahk in the road” incident I realized Boston cops liked telling people to move along.

He ushered me back outside, and as I muttered something under my breath that sort of sounded like, “I’ll just go in at another gate,” he proclaimed, “Oh, by the way, if I see you coming in another gate, you’re going to jail.” He then backed up, looked at me with a grin, proud of his work, and ambled off, whistling a happy tune. I was stuck outside.

What to do, what to do? First, I called the only Creature inside whose number I had in my phone: the infamous Bad Mouth Larry. After interminable rings, I got his voicemail. Totally befuddled as to why he wouldn’t pick up, I left a message explaining I was stuck outside, had no idea how I would find the group or bus after the game, and to send help. I slumped against the wall, cursing my fate. I tried Larry again, got the machine again, and by now I was speaking in more clipped and grumpy tones.

This went on for another half-hour, and another five or six calls. Each message on his machine from me grew louder and angrier. Passersby stopped to watch me bark into the phone, and it only stopped after I dropped my phone on the sidewalk and broke it. Oh, and why wasn’t Larry answering my cries for help? Because I was calling his home phone the whole time! He wasn’t home. He was inside Fenway Park. About 15 hours later, when he got home and checked his answering machine, he had quite the laugh.

And what became of me? I meandered like Moses. I sampled those Boston bars everyone kept talking about, and you know what? For all the crap Boston fans take, I saw none of it that day. I was lauded like a conquering hero. My sob story, as only I could tell it, with curse words sprinkled within and accompanied by funny pantomimes (you should have seen me act out how I dropped and broke my phone) got me free drinks.

We talked baseball. We talked road trips. We talked women! I invited them back to the bleachers, where I promised to guarantee them a hassle-free time, and lots of laughs to boot. Who doesn’t like lots of laughs? Little did I tell them I had no say in the “hassle-free time” and even if I did, peer pressure would have gotten to me once they were inside Yankee Stadium and I would have turned on them and gave them crap. But for that night, we were cordial enemies, sharing ale, talking ball, singing along to the jukebox, and making fun of the Mets.

The game ended and in a panic I stumbled right into the group and the bus. I guess the story would have been more interesting if I got stuck in Boston, but that’s a story for another day and another venue. As for the game? I have no freakin’ idea. I don’t even remember what year this was.

There are more Boston trips mixed in from over the years. There was the time I saw vocalist Dickie Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in a McDonald’s somewhere by Fenway. I looked at him, and he looked away (I was always good at that). This has since become the impetus for my “Dickie Barrett ordering a double cheeseburger at McDonald’s” impression, which has never gotten me anywhere or anything.

There was the time I was spent an overnight outside Fenway in a play for tickets for the next day with bleacher fixtures Justin and Grover, watching as a fan climbed up a pole in an effort to make “YAWKEY WAY” read “YANKEE WAY” with some stickers he brought along for this sole purpose.

And of course there was the time where a group of Creatures were whooping it up over dinner at a sports bar when someone hollered, “Hey, its Kenny Anderson!” and as I turned to look, my drunk ass tipped over the chair, and Kenny Anderson – otherwise busy that week in the NBA playoffs for the Celtics – had to save me from crashing to the floor. Not everyone can say Kenny Anderson saved them from falling out of a chair because they were drunk. (And I don’t even like basketball, so he was pretty much wasting his time.)

Finally there was the Boston trip, which ended with me somehow losing all of my money, staring at an empty wallet in absolute befuddlement. (I have no conscious memory of being robbed, but who knows with me.) So not only did I need to bum a good meal off of Justin at a Cracker Barrel on the way home, I had the balls to hit him up for another $16 on the way out the door so I could buy a harmonica out of their gift shop. Hey, it came with a book on how to play it! To show that most stories have a happy ending, I still have that harmonica … though I never did learn how to play it.

So yeah, I have memories surrounding the Yankees from out and about Fenway Park. Sure, they don’t involve Munson crashing into Fisk, Jim Rice going down on strikes with the bases loaded, or even a Yankees win, but they sure were fun. I have seen the Yankees beat Boston plenty of times right here at home. That certainly counts for something.

One day I’m sure I’ll make it back up to Boston, but this time I’ll have my wife and daughter with me, and the stories won’t have such an element of danger. But for now you can leave me with my memories with the Bleacher Creatures on the road to Boston, and I’m a happy man.

Cheers and beers … “Boston Sucks!”

Blogs • Yankees

Jun 22, 2012

Subway Series Storylines, Part II

It’s the second part of the Subway Series 2012 and that means more interesting storylines for both the Yankees and Mets this weekend at Citi Field.

Another meaningful Subway Series! Is this really the second meaningful one in two weeks after not having one for a few years? Are we sure about this? Quick, someone check the standings and make sure the Mets are relevant.

Three more games to go in the 2012 Subway Series and three good pitching matchups to go with it. We’ll see a repeat from the Sunday game in the Bronx with the Lefty Battle of Young vs. Old between Andy Pettitte and Jonathon Niese on Friday night, Ivan Nova and Chris Young on Saturday night (sorry no unique connections in that one) and the marquee matchup between CC Sabathia and R.A. Dickey on Sunday Night Baseball.

With only two weeks and nine games separating the two teams since they last met the storylines haven’t really changed. But even though it’s only been 12 days since the Yankees came back against the Mets’ bullpen and finished the sweep with a Russell Martin home run off Jon Rauch, it would feel weird if we didn’t look at interesting storylines for the second half of the Subway Series.

Initials This Weekend
For Part I of the storylines, we had the “No Initials This Weekend” storyline, but this weekend we get the initials with CC vs. R.A. Every once in a while when the time is right and the stars align and Jason Bay lands on the disabled list again, everything falls into place and you get a perfect Sunday Night Baseball matchup, and we have that this weekend.

It feels like CC Sabathia hasn’t been himself this year and he’s 9-3 with a 3.55 ERA. But there’s a reason he hasn’t felt like CC and that’s because before his complete game against the Braves on Wednesday, he gave up four earned runs against the Braves on June 12, lost to the Rays on June 7 (he allowed five runs, but just two earned) and gave up three earned runs to the Tigers on June 1. You know you have an ace when he allows nine earned runs in 21 innings (3.86 ERA) over three starts and you feel like he’s sucked. Sabathia has pitched at least six innings and thrown at least 104 pitches in all 14 of his starts. So I guess I’m a little off on thinking he CC hasn’t been CC, but I’m telling you that he hasn’t looked like himself and I think other Yankees fans would tell you the same thing.

R.A. Dickey is currently the best pitcher on the planet. He’s 11-1 (matching his career high for wins in a season in 14 starts) with a 2.00 ERA. He leads the league in wins, win percentage (.917), ERA, complete games (3), shutouts (2) and WHIP (0.889). He’s allowed just 67 hits in 99 innings with 103 strikeouts. He’s averaging 9.4 strikeouts per nine innings, which is his highest since 2003 when he pitched in 38 games (13 starts) for the Rangers and averaged 7.3 (his career average is 6.0). At 37, Dickey has gone from reinventing himself in 2010 and 2011 with the Mets to Cy Young frontrunner in 2012. Two weekends ago I said, “Part of me wanted to see what Dickey could do against the Yankees in what is turning out to be his best season.” I must have been drunk when I wrote that because I don’t want any part of Dickey right now.

(Once again, I forgot to start both Sabathia and Dickey in fantasy on Monday night costing me this line: 2-0, 18 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 23 K, 1.00 ERA, 0.611 WHIP. There’s nothing worse than someone talking about or complaining about their fantasy team, but I had to be that guy for a moment for this unique situation.)

Terry Francona is going to spend a lot of time on Sunday night comparing the knuckleballs of R.A. Dickey and Tim Wakefield, and I mean a lot of time, but it’s acceptable. I would rather have a color guy talking about something relevant to the game than to have Tim McCarver talk about the abilities of Bryce Harper and Mike Trout for an entire inning of a Yankees-Mets game.

You Scratch My Back and I’ll Scratch Yours
Since these two teams played each other two weekends ago the Yankees have gone 7-2 and the Mets have gone 6-3. While the Yankees were helping out the Mets by beating up on the Braves and Nationals, the Mets were returning the favor by sweeping the Rays and Orioles.

I love interleague play because it breaks up the schedule and gives fans the opportunity to see different teams and new players. However, I understand the mindset of those who would rather see more division games because there’s nothing like seeing Chris Davis, Edwin Encarnacion, Sean Rodriguez and Brian Matusz a few more times.

This weekend marks the final weekend of interleague play for 2012, and as a Yankees fan, I’m going to be sad to see it go since the Yankees have gone 11-4 against the Reds, Mets, Braves and Nationals. With the All-Star Game becoming less and less serious even though the stakes are high, interleague play is a necessity to compare the AL to the NL and gauge the differences in the leagues. But I’m not going to lie, I enjoy interleague play because it’s usually the point of the season where the Yankees use the schedule to create separation in the division and they’re doing it again.

Citi Field Complaints
If you don’t know a Mets fan that complained about Yankee Stadium being a bandbox after the three games in the Bronx then you either don’t have a lot of friends or you don’t get out much. Mets fans will find anything to complain about, especially when it comes to the Yankees, and they were out in full force two weekends ago to share their opinions on the “cheap home runs” at the Stadium.

I don’t know what games I watched two weeks ago because it looked to me like the dimensions of the walls were the same for both teams’ at-bats. I guess there is a chance that they could have moved the fences in for the Yankees when they were up and then moved them back when the Mets, and I just wasn’t paying attention, but I feel like I would have noticed something like that.

This weekend if the Yankees hit some balls that would have been out of the Stadium that are kept in, are Yankees fans going to complain the way that Mets fans did about the reverse happening? OK, I’ll answer that one: No.

Subway Series Finale
There’s a very good chance this is the last time we see two Subway Series in the same season with three games on each side of the city. With the Astros moving to the American League and scheduling changes in the works, it looks like we are headed for a Subway Series modification.

No one likes change. Well, let me rephrase that. No one likes poor change. But Major League Baseball is all about making poor changes like the All-Star Game deciding home-field advantage and two wild cards in each league and still letting pitchers hit in the National League. So I fully expect them to take away the six games between the Yankees and Mets that we have grown accustomed to, and that some people have grown sick of. Those same people will eventually long for the days of six Subway Series games.

If this is goodbye to the Subway Series format we have known for so long, I’m going to miss it.

Blogs

Jun 21, 2012

Henrik Lundqvist Has Been Validated and Other Thoughts

Thoughts on Henrik Lundqvist finally getting the recognition and credit he deserves and the glorious disaster that is the 2012 Red Sox.

There were 204 names called before Henrik Lundqvist’s in the 2000 NHL Draft. The Rangers took an 18-year-old Lundqvist in the seventh round with the 205th of the 293 total picks in the draft.

Here are the goalies selected before Lundqvist with the round they were selected in, their overall pick number and the amount of NHL games they played in parentheses.

1/1. New York Islanders – Rick DiPietro (315)

1/9. Calgary – Brent Krahn (1)

2/44. Anaheim – Ilya Bryzgalov (385)

2/45. Ottawa – Matthieu Chouinard (1)

2/60. Dallas – Dan Ellis (165)

3/70. Toronto – Mikael Tellqvist (114)

3/84. Pittsburgh -Peter Hamerlik (0)

3/90. Toronto – Jean-Francois Racine (0)

4/102. Detroit – Stefan Liv (0)

4/111. Buffalo – Ghyslain Rousseau (0)

4/116. Calgary – Levente Szuper (0)

4/120. Florida – Davis Parley (0)

5/143. New York Rangers – Brandon Snee (0)

5/164. New Jersey – Matus Kostur (0)

5/165. Los Angeles – Nathan Marsters (0)

5/166. San Jose – Nolan Schaefer (7)

6/168. Atlanta – Zdenek Smid (0)

6/169. Columbus – Shane Bendera (0)

6/177. Chicago – Mike Ayers (0)

7/203. Nashville – Jure Penko (0)

The amazing thing about this list isn’t that Lundqvist was the 21st goalie selected in his class or that 15 of the goalies picked before him played either one or no games in the NHL. The amazing thing is that the Rangers picked a goalie before Lundqvist in the draft with Brandon Snee at the 143rd pick. Snee had just finished his sophomore season at Union College where he was 8-22-1 with a 3.82 GAA and .892 save percentage after a freshman season in which he went 1-12-3 with a 3.50 GAA and .892 save percentage (and he’s 22 months older than Lundqvist.) Snee ended up playing 12 games in the UHL, 13 games in the ECHL and 12 in the WHA2.

There really isn’t a silver lining to a season that ends two wins short of a trip to the Stanley Cup Final at the hands of your rival in overtime, but I really do think watching Lundqvist win the Vezina on Wednesday night is one for Rangers fans.

I have been telling non-Rangers fans who don’t get to see Lundqvist on a regular basis how talented he is since the 2005-06 season, and it wasn’t really until this season and this postseason that he started to get the recognition and credit he has deserved for seven years. Even though Lundqvist had a better GAA this season (1.97) than last season (2.28) and a better save percentage this season (.929) than last season (.923), I think his performance over 68 games last year was better than his performance in 62 games this year. Yes, the Rangers were the best team in the Eastern Conference in 2011-12 because of him, but he kept the Rangers alive until Game 82 in 2010-11 playing every game from Feb. 7 through the playoffs, and posting three more shutouts (11) than he did this year (8).

Unintelligent people would use Lundqvist’s postseason record entering this spring and his postseason overtime record as a flaw in his abilities. They would cite the Rangers’ three first-round exits and two second-round exits with him as a reason for him to be just “hype.” No one cared to mention his surrounding cast, the Rangers’ lack of scoring during his career or the team’s young and inexperienced defense. On Wednesday night it felt like all of these misconceptions were finally erased.

Lundqvist thanked his teammates and said he wouldn’t be standing up there accepting the award without them. He thanked the entire Rangers organization and even Mr. Dolan for the last seven years. But really it would have made more sense to the have the rest of the Rangers, the front office and Mr. Dolan on the stage thanking Lundqvist because without him they wouldn’t be relevant again.

***

After what happened to the Red Sox in September I didn’t think things could get better as a Yankees fan. And by “better” I mean watching my arch-nemesis continue to be an embarrassment.

First it was Buster Olney reporting that the clubhouse was toxic on ESPN.com and now it’s Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com saying the same thing. Olney’s report was refuted by Josh Beckett, and I’m sure that McAdam’s will be too.

Beckett said Olney’s report is “completely fabricated” and said he doesn’t know where people get their information, and that the 2012 Red Sox are “one of the tightest-knit groups” he’s ever seen. But Beckett can tell me about the team’s family outings together like he told reporters on Tuesday, and he can even show me pictures of his family and the Valentines and the Lesters and the Pedroias on a joint vacation to Disney World if he wants, and I still won’t believe him. There’s a reason everyone is talking about the Red Sox’ internal problems and that’s because they exist. And I love every second of it.

When the Red Sox blew Game 162 and missed the playoffs for the second straight year, and Terry Francona and Theo Epstein left, and Larry Lucchino tightened his marionette strings on John Henry and Ben Cherington to bring in Bobby Valentine, I hoped the recipe for disaster that the Red Sox front office was creating would turn out to be just that. But I never thought it would be this much of a disaster.

We’re 42 percent of the way through the season and the Red Sox are two games over .500 and six games back of the Yankees. Most Red Sox fans have chalked this season up as lost and are counting down the days until the Patriots’ season opener. Those who haven’t given up are holding out hope for the Red Sox to appear in the one-game playoff and are citing the return of the Carl Crawford as a positive sign. The same Carl Crawford who posted a .255/.289/.405 line last year and apologized to fans midseason in his personal blog on ESPNBoston.com.

Aside from the clubhouse issues, Daniel Nava has the second-best OPS on the team, and Scott Podsednik is getting starts, while Jason Repko, Che-Hsuan Lin, Nate Spears and Mauro Gomez have all made appearances. Beckett is injured again, Jon Lester hasn’t been close to the pitcher that Dennis Eckersley has picked to win the Cy Young every year since 2008, Clay Buchholz has five quality starts in 14 games and Daisuke Matsuzaka doesn’t look like the best No. 5 starter in the history of baseball like NESN proclaimed he was last year. The best Red Sox starting pitcher has been Felix Doubront (8-3, 4.31) and one of their original rotation members, Daniel Bard, is blowing two-run save opportunities in Triple-A as he tries to transition back to the bullpen.

I never thought things could get this good for me and this bad for the Red Sox even when anonymous sources were snitching on the Red Sox’ chicken and beer problems and John Henry was making a public fool of himself on afternoon drive radio in Boston. I realize that all good things must come to an end at some point, but I hope this good thing can last the rest of the season.