fbpx

Tag: New York Yankees

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!”

Read More

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.

Read More

Blogs

Jun 21, 2012

How Did I Get Here?

Jerome Preisler doesn’t watch the Yankees with the same emotional attachment he once did, but that hasn’t changed his desire the game or for his team to win.

Well, whaddya know, I’m back.

To those who read my sports writing for any portion of the eight years it appeared on YESNetwork.com, it’s good to be here, and I hope you’ll bear with this introduction.

My first running column for YES, Deep in the Red, kicked off in the winter of 2004 coming off the Yankees’ ALCS playoff loss to the Boston Red Sox, and Boston’s subsequent World Series victory. It was a fan’s column. Back then I was spending half my time in Maine surrounded by gleefully ecstatic members of so-called Rex Sox Nation, and it seemed as if the whole town was waiting to jump me when I drove back up from New York after the Yanks’ ALCS defeat. It was aggravating, funny and, I thought, good fodder for an interesting series of columns. A Yankees fan stuck in Red Sox country suffering the consequences of the team’s historic collapse. Nice angle, I thought, always ready to turn my pain into a buck.

So I pitched the column to YESNetwork.com. It was a fun catharsis to take vengeful jabs at the neighbors – and eventually broadcasters and other personalities associated with baseball. But after four years the thing got stale. I was also increasingly uncomfortable writing about myself. Most importantly stuff had happened in my life. Serious stuff. It changed me.

What I mean is this: In 2005, I was at the Maine place when the Yanks were eliminated from the playoffs in their ugly ALDS Game 5 loss to the Angels marked by the infamous collision between Bubba Crosby and Gary Sheffield. After the game, I recall breaking a few Yankees figurines in my office and then sitting out in a New England downpour awhile with a headless McFarlane Derek Jeter in my fist.

I would not react that way to the team’s subsequent postseason eliminations. Sometime after ’05, I had my own brush with a kind of elimination, and the Yanks hadn’t cared about me. It’s like that bit of dialogue from the movie A Bronx Tale. In a scene set after the Yanks fell to the Pirates in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, Sonny (a gangster played by Chazz Palminteri) tells “C” (the young son of a hardworking bus driver played by Francis Capra) the gritty realities of life as he sees it.

Sonny: “So you must be pretty upset after the Yankees lost.”

“C”: “Bill Mazeroski … I hate him. He made Mickey Mantle cry. The paper said that The Mick was crying.”

Sonny: “Mickey Mantle, is that what you’re upset about? Mickey Mantle makes a hundred thousand dollars a year. How much does your father make?”

“C”: “I don’t know.”

Sonny: “You don’t know? We’ll see if your father can’t pay the rent, go ask Mickey Mantle and see what he tells you. Mickey Mantle don’t care about you, so why should you care about him?”

I didn’t have anything close to Sonny’s sneering, dead-eyed cynicism toward the game (or life in general) Hopefully, I never will. But my attitude wasn’t much like the kid’s anymore, either. There was a streetwise wisdom in Sonny’s words. I still loved baseball, loved everything about it with a passion – the records, the skill and guts it demanded of players, its open, unclocked pacing, and the odd, contradictory perfection to be found in its essential imperfectness, which for me starts with the varying dimensions and quirky configurations of its parks. I still liked when the Yanks won much better than when they lost, but you wouldn’t catch me getting soaked in the rain over a game or series loss anymore.

The key word for me became game, however. What happened on the field could parallel and illuminate our lives in certain respects, but that didn’t make it the same thing. If a team goes down at the end of a season, it’s pretty much guaranteed another shot come the next one. Not so for people in the real world. We’re playing for mortal stakes.

Thus by the end of 2009 Deep in the Red had run its course. It would have been fraudulent to continue writing a column with a personal and often hyperemotional Yankees fan’s-eye view, given how that view had gone through a major ground-shift. Moreover, I’d been writing in a more objective journalistic fashion throughout that season. The column as originally conceived no longer existed. All that remained was to make it official with a name change.

With YES’s support, Yankees Ink debuted in 2010. It primarily featured opinion, analysis, and human-interest stories about players and people around the ballpark. The stories were my strong suit, the thing that kept me from being a redundancy with a laptop. Most of the people in stadium press boxes, including the beat crews, aren’t narrative writers. They’re news reporters. Being a writer of narrative nonfiction – or what the great Gay Talese has coined “literary journalism” – requires a different mindset and skill set.

While narrative nonfiction must be as well-researched and factually accurate as any news article, it uses many of the same techniques as fiction. It’s about finding and illuminating truth through storytelling, and as a novelist, that’s one of my strong suits.

Yankees Ink allowed me to do what I do best for multiple reasons. First, it was a freelance gig. I filed whenever I wanted and wrote about whatever struck my interest. Unless it was something I’d promised my editorial producer by a particular time, I didn’t have to submit my pieces on the night of a game or even after the conclusion of a series. If I felt I had nothing unique to say about a series, I’d often take a pass on writing about it, or possibly write about something off-topic. One of my favorite columns, for example, was a profile of the 35-year veteran beer vender Rick Goldfarb, known to Yankee fans as Cousin Brewski. How, I wondered, are historic moments at the ballpark viewed by a guy who sells beer there? Has he gotten to know the fans he’s served, watch their kids grow up, get married, maybe have kids of their own? Goldfarb answered that question in poignant, colorful fashion.

In 2010, I became the first person in the Yankee Stadium press box to live-tweet Joe Girardi’s postgame Q&A sessions and clubhouse player quotes. I didn’t consider the idea a mental lightning bolt. News editors demand quotes, but the stories I wrote didn’t always require them, and when they did, I knew I could always crib off a friend or two. Consequently, I didn’t have to record or jot them down. I had been looking for ways to make my use of social media from the Stadium more responsive to fans’ needs, and it seemed that I could best utilize Twitter by sharing the postgame comments in real time. The service would fill an obvious void, since many of my Twitter followers lived out of market and didn’t receive Yankees postgame shows. For me the only question was whether the mobile Twitter app on my cell would hang on me from the clubhouse in the Stadium’s basement. When it worked, I knew I was in business. Live-tweeting from the clubhouse has since become a staple of media coverage. I’ve mostly stopped doing it. As I said, I don’t want to be redundant.

My 2011 work was probably my best. I’d gotten a firm handle on how I wanted to write about sports. I’d taken a lead role in YES’ written coverage of HOPE Week – something that became a real passion, and would lead to my current book project about Daniel Trush, one of the 2011 honorees. My live tweeting of the Jorge Posada-removing-himself-from-the-lineup incident provided an exciting day that even prompted an interview request from one Neil Keefe for his Keefe To The City Podcast on WFAN’s site. By the season’s end, I felt I’d really hit my stride and was planning ways to break new ground with the column in 2012.

When YESNetwork.com dropped Yankees Ink as an ongoing feature after almost a decade, it admittedly caught me by surprise. The site had gone to a new operating model that left me only an occasional contributor, leaving me to figure out what to do next as far as writing about baseball. I felt my voice and perspective worthy of sharing with readers, and, although my professional relationship with YES remained solid, I still wanted to do a regular column that was synched to the rhythms of a baseball season. At the same time, my particular brand of writing was not an easy fit for most outlets. It took a while to find a landing spot, or figure out if one even existed. But since you’re reading these words it tells you I have. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr. Keefe.

What you’ll get here at Preisler Ink is essentially what you got from me before. My focus will still be Yankees-centric, but, as the tweaked column title indicates, I expect to digress into other teams, and maybe on occasion other sports. In all the years my columns appeared in their blog roll, YES never put constraints on my work and that remains the case to the present. But in concept, I feel I can be a little freer and broader of scope here outside a corporate umbrella. What that means in execution, admittedly, is something I can’t wait to find out – and I hope you’ll stop by and visit often and find out along with me. We’re in this together.

As Cardinal Timothy Dolan once told an overzealous Yankees security guard who tried to stop me from accompanying some team members into St. Patrick’s Cathedral: “All are welcome.”

Read More

Blogs • Yankees

Jun 19, 2012

The Unsung Heroes of the Yankees’ Bullpen

The Yankees are getting big outs from unlikely arms, and their success has forced power rankings for the makeshift bullpen.

When I hear “Tuesday’s Gone” I think of Happy Gilmore. When I hear the word “magic” I think of Happy Gilmore shaking his caddy on the ground after clinching the Waterbury Open with Pilot’s “Magic ” playing in the background. With the way the Yankees’ bullpen has been performing, the only explanation is magic and because of it, I want to celebrate by shaking Joe Girardi while screaming, “Oh, ho, ho, it’s magic you knowwww! Never believe it’s not so!”

If you told me on the morning of Opening Day that on June 19 I would be writing about the Yankees bullpen currently featuring Rafael Soriano as the closer, Boone Logan and Cory Wade as setup men and Clay Rapada and Cody Eppley as middle relievers, well let’s just say I would be living in Europe and writing about Euro 2012. Luckily no one told me this was going to happen.

The Yankees are 41-25 and in first place in the AL East with the best record in the AL thanks to a 10-game winning streak, which this group of ragtag relievers (that’s the first and most likely the last time I have and will ever use “ragtag,” and you can thank Jack Edwards for putting that word into my vocabulary) has been a large part of. Sure, it’s easy to win games the way the Yankees did on Monday night when CC Sabathia pitched a complete game against the Braves (Side note: I forgot to start CC and R.A. Dickey, who pitched a one-hitter against the Orioles, on my fantasy team. Devastating.) But it’s not so easy to win games when Cody Eppley and Clay Rapada are being asked to serve as the middle relief bridge.

It’s crazy that right now I have confidence in everyone in the bullpen not named Freddy Garcia, but I don’t trust anyone in the bullpen not named David Robertson. And since David Robertson has become the must trustworthy Yankees reliever not named Mariano Rivera since 2007 Joba Chamberlain, I’m leaving him out of these power rankings that I have created to figure out the my personal bullpen pecking order. I’m also leaving out Rafael Soriano since he is now the closer and because he’s making $11 million this year, so he should be expected to get outs.

I have heard these ragtag (OK, there it is again) relievers called a lot of things over the last couple of weeks. Most of the things I have called them while yelling at games or shouting at my TV have been derogatory, but I have heard different forms of the word “hero” thrown around to describe this relief corps. Dwight Schrutte said, “A hero kills people, people that wish him harm. A hero is part human and part supernatural. A hero is born out of a childhood trauma, or out of a disaster, and must be avenged.” I don’t think that’s the type of hero that these guys are, so let’s go with “unsung” hero. And let’s go through the bullpen to figure out who should get the ball from top to bottom.

Number 48, Boone Logan, Number 48
I want to start this off by saying it’s effing scary that Boone Logan is the No. 1-ranked pitcher on any list I create. Oh yeah, Robertson and Soriano aren’t on this list. OK, I feel a little better.

If I make Boone Logan a mixtape that includes Chicago’s “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” do you think he will forgive me? Actually I don’t want him to forgive me. Because deep down I know that the Boone Logan I watched in 2010 and 2011 in key moments is just waiting for me to let my guard down before he ambushes me. He did it to me on Sept. 14, 2010 when I finally wrote an apology to him only to have him on that same day give up a go-ahead, three-run home run to Willy Aybar in Tampa Bay. So Boone, I’m manning up here to say I’m sorry. You don’t have to accept my apology or the mixtape, or the flowers or the fruit basket I am having sent to the Stadium on Tuesday night. Just go out there and keep putting up zeroes and that will be enough for me.

Number 53, Cory Wade, Number 53
Last Monday (June 11) was the one-year anniversary of the Rays releasing Cory Wade. I know what you’re thinking: Where was the party? Well, there wasn’t a party, but there should have been in either Cashman’s office or Girardi’s.

In 68 games and 67 2/3 innings with the Yankees, Wade has 60 strikeouts and 14 walks, a 2.39 ERA and a 1.020 WHIP. He has been prone to the home run (like he was on Saturday) with four allowed in 28 innings this year, but he’s gone from the scrap heap to the reliever “B” team to the reliever “A” team in a year. Thanks again, Tampa Bay!

Number 38, Cody Eppley, Number 38
In real life, Cody Eppley would have gotten sent down and David Phelps would have stayed with the Yankees. But this isn’t real life since Eppley is getting huge outs for the Yankees, and also because the Yankees needed Phelps to go back to the minors to get stretched out to be a starter again.

Eppley getting that double play on an 0-2 pitch last Wednesday against the Braves to preserve a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning with runners on first and third and one out is enough to buy him some time in my book in the even that he remembers he’s Cody Eppley and not Jeff Nelson. (Yes, I’m willing to forget that he gave up hits to two of three hitters he faced before the 6-4-3 double play.) How much time that double play will buy him has yet to be determined.

Number 39, Clay Rapada, Number 39
Clay Rapada has become my Pitching Whipping Boy for 2012 (Nick Swisher remains the Overall Whipping Boy) now that A.J. Burnett is pitching in Pittsburgh and Boone Logan has become (or rather been forced into being) a valuable part of the bullpen.

Entering this season, Rapada had appeared in 78 games with the Cubs, Tigers, Rangers and Orioles. He had a career 5.13 ERA in 52 2/3 innings with 32 walks. Everything about Rapada forced me into the lengthy “Nooooooooooooooo!” that Michael Scott used upon Toby’s return. I wanted the Yankees to have nothing to do with Rapada because I wanted to have nothing to do with him interfering with my baseball season and my summer. But because he throws a baseball using his left arm, (if you have watched Clay Rapada and you have a child and aren’t tying their right hand behind their back until they are 16 then you are doing whole parenting thing wrong) you just knew that Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi were going to find a spot for him on the roster.

Rapada has been goo… Rapada has been goo… He’s been… He’s been goo… OK, he’s been good. There, I said it. Are you happy now? He’s been better than I expected and lefties are just 7-for-46 (.152) against him. However, don’t let him fool you. He will blow up at some point in this season. Let’s just hope it isn’t in a big spot because it’s going to happen. I “Mark Messier guarantee” it’s going to happen.

Number 36, Freddy Garcia, Number 36
I hate to break it to the Freddy Garcia fans out there (if there any), but the 35-year-old righty no longer belongs on the Yankees. Sorry, Freddy and sorry to your fans.

Garcia came up huge in the 12th and 13th innings in Washington on Saturday to earn his first win since last September, but he owed that performance to Yankees fans. I still can’t get over the writers who cover the team tweeting about how Garcia is a “gamer” and sarcastically asking their followers if they still want Garcia off the team after his effort in extra innings? I guess they forgot about him giving up 19 earned runs in 13 2/3 innings in his four starts in April? Maybe they forgot that in those four starts he got pulled in the second inning twice (against Boston and Detroit) and the only reason the Yankees went 2-2 in his starts instead of 0-4 is because they came back against the Orioles on April 10 and erased a 9-1 deficit at Fenway Park on April 21? And how much of a “gamer” was Garcia when he lost Game 2 of the ALDS to the Tigers? Isn’t the postseason when a “gamer” shows up? (I understand what the Yankees got out of Garcia and Bartolo Colon last year was a replica of the lightning caught in a bottle with Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon in 2005, but let’s be serious.) So, to answer your question, yes, I still want Garcia off the team.

And I want Garcia gone because he doesn’t serve a purpose. He has become the long reliever/extra innings/mop-up duty man only because Rivera is out and Robertson has been hurt. Those are actually the roles for Eppley and Rapada, but their recent success and those same injuries have moved them into more important roles. The only thing Garcia presents out of the bullpen is a scary option for Joe Girardi to turn to when his other relievers need a rest.

The problem is there’s a good chance that Garcia will survive the season with the Yankees unless Eppley and Rapada keep getting the job done and Joba Chamberlain and David Aardsma can make healthy returns, and he will survive because he’s owed $4 million this year. If you don’t plan on eating a meal anytime soon, then think about this: Garcia will make $4 million this season and R.A. Dickey will only make $4.25 million.

Read More

Blogs • Yankees

Jun 11, 2012

Subway Series Diary, Part I

It was a beautiful weekend full of winning as the Yankees swept the Mets at the Stadium in the first part of the Subway Series.

Meet the Mets, Meets the Mets, Step right up and greet the Mets! Bring your kiddies, bring your wife; Guaranteed to have the time of your life! Because the Mets are really sockin’ the ball; knocking those home runs over the … OK, I’ll stop.

What a weekend that was. A Subway Series sweep (the first for the Yankees since 2009 and the first in the Bronx since 2003), as the Yankees keep pace with the Rays while the Mets season is following the blueprint of Mets seasons since 2007.

I feel weird calling this a diary since I have never had a diary before. I remember in elementary school when we were forced to have a “journal” in one of those black-and-white Mead notebooks (FYI: Brian Monzo still uses one of those notebooks to keep contact information for guests for WFAN and NHL Live. Hey Monzo, it’s 2012. There are electronic devices to keep this information on.) The word diary makes me feel like a junior high school girl writing in a pink book with a pink pen that has a feather attached to the top of it, but luckily I can’t store this under my pillow or mattress. I couldn’t use “Retro Recap” like I do for other things since this isn’t a play-by-play blow of what happened at the Stadium. It’s more of, well, a diary.

FRIDAY
I was in the Stadium for this one and I actually thought Hiroki Kuroda was going to pitch a no-hitter. I might need to rethink my “Coin Flip Kuroda” nickname for Hiroki since he hasn’t been much of a coin flip lately. In his last three starts, he’s allowed 12 hits and two earned runs in 22 innings. He has caught fire along with Phil Hughes and Ivan Nova, and if CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte can just do what’s expected of them, the wins are going to start mounting even more than they have over the last 16 games.

I have seen my fair share of one-hitters, but I have never seen a no-hitter in person, and the Mets’ swings against Kuroda were that bad that it looked like we might be watching something special happen in the second start in a row for Johan Santana, except for the good guys.

I’m not sure how many games I have been at for back-to-back-to-back home runs, but I remember the Sheffield-Rodriguez-Matsui back-to-back-to-back home runs in that 13-run eighth inning in the epic comeback against Tampa Bay on June 21, 2005. I was in Fenway Park for Chase Wright to allow back-to-back-to-back-to-back bombs to Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek on April 22, 2007. And even though it wasn’t back-to-back-to-back or back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs, the three grand slams against the A’s at the Stadium on Aug. 25 last year were even better. My only wish on Friday night was that Raul Ibanez would have followed Andruw Jones’ blast for four straight to put a dent in the awful memory of Chase Wright’s night.

SATURDAY
Phil Hughes has to figure out this home run problem because it’s a problem. Hughes has now allowed at least one home run in all 12 of his starts this year (15 total), which projects out to 40 home runs if he makes 32 starts this season. Now the home runs he allowed on Saturday night were both solo shots and the Yankees were able to overcome them, but this can’t continue.

Do you remember the season when Jason Bay hit 36 home runs and 119 RBIs for the Red Sox and led the AL MVP conversation for a large part of the year? I’m not making it up. It really happened. I swear! How many times does a day does Bay think about what could have been had he accepted the Red Sox’ $60 million rather than the Mets’ $66 million? I’m going to set the over/under at 5.5 times per day. And while that $6 million does represent 10 percent more money, I don’t think what he has endured with the Mets has been worth it, and I think he would tell you the same thing. (Unless he likes his name being linked to the term “designated for assignment” and he likes sucking and losing, then maybe he will tell you it was worth the $6 million.)

Bay was a force in Boston. He hit 45 home runs and drove in 156 runs in 200 games with the Red Sox, he hit in the clutch and he produced instantly after being asked to fill the void left by Manny Ramirez. Bay peppered the Green Monster and killed the Yankees. I was sitting behind home plate at Fenway on April 24, 2009 when Bay hit a game-tying, two-run home run to dead center off Mariano Rivera. I feel like Bay in a Red Sox uniform on Saturday night, as the tying run at the plate in the ninth inning would have hit that first-pitch fastball from Rafael Soriano out. But in a Mets uniform, Bay just isn’t the same player. I’m glad 2009 Jason Bay no longer exists.

It’s hard to find people who enjoy the way Joe Buck and Tim McCarver call a game. I’m actually still searching to find one person. I don’t really enjoy their broadcasts, but Joe Buck’s voice does give any game a big-game feel to it whether or not you agree with the things he says or his lack of enthusiasm for major moments. Whenever you hear Buck’s voice it gives the game a playoff atmosphere and some extra juice. Tim McCarver, on the other hand, has become the Jason Bay of color commentating. McCarver calls people by the wrong names, and gives incorrect stats and facts all the time, which never surprises me. But even I couldn’t believe it when in the late innings on Saturday he said that he “thinks David Wright is a bigger threat than Andres Torres.” Really, Tim? Really? Well, in that case, I think high-definition TV is better than standard-definition TV.

SUNDAY
It was a big deal to me when the Yankees traded A.J. Burnett to the Pirates because I hated Burnett on the Yankees more than anyone. But I didn’t realize how much bigger of a deal it was going to be to not have him on the team than I do now. There wasn’t going to be enough room in my life for both Burnett and Nick Swisher to be on the Yankees, and there wasn’t going to be enough space for my anger (or tweets and the Internet has infinite space) had they both been on the team this season.

Nick Swisher can’t be serious, can he? Two on and no one out in the second inning, and he BUNTS against Jonathon Niese. Not only does he bunt, but he bunts into a force out at third base. Here are some questions I have about Swisher’s decision.

1. Why are you bunting in the second inning of a game you’re already trailing by three runs in?

2. The theory behind Swisher is that he doesn’t hit good/elite pitching, so why would he be giving himself up against Jonathon Niese who isn’t a front-end starter?

3. Nick Swisher isn’t good at playing fundamental baseball and he might have the lowest Baseball IQ in Major League Baseball. This isn’t the first time this has happened with Swisher. He once bunted, on his own, a runner from second over to third with one out already in the inning. So how has no one on the team told him to never bunt under any circumstance?

4. Andy Pettitte just gave up three runs. The Yankees follow that with a four-pitch walk from A-Rod and a single from Cano. Two on and no one out and Niese feeling the pressure of the Yankees’ lineup combined with trying to be the stopper of a losing streak and trying to prevent the sweep in front of a sold-out Yankee Stadium. Why would you let him off the hook and help him settle down and give away that first out? After Swisher’s bunt, Niese struck out Jones and Martin to end the inning. Why would you give away an out in that spot? Why?!?!

I have had it with Nick Swisher. Only a big hit in the postseason could change my feelings and opinion on him at this point, and we all know that’s not happening. And even though I like to have a good time with Michael Kay’s broadcasting techniques, I thoroughly enjoyed him taking subtle shots at Swisher about the bunt on Sunday.

Clay Rapada needs to stop pitching in high-leverage situations. Seriously, make it stop, Joe. Rapada is not good. It’s June 11 and he has made it over two months longer on this team than anyone originally thought. He has more walks (12) than (10) strikeouts in 16 1/3 innings, and I trust him less than I ever trusted Jose Veras. At what point do we decide that Rapada shouldn’t be pitching in high-leverage situations let alone be on the team? Or are we just waiting for him to implode and cost the Yankees in a big spot before we realize that he isn’t trustworthy? (How is there no better option than Rapada in the minors?) I know Sweeny Murti would tell me he is the 25th man on the roster (or 24th if you think Cody Eppley is the 25th), but the 25th man shouldn’t be trying to preserve a one-run lead in the late innings.

How awkward is the Joe Girardi-Terry Collins Dunkin’ Donuts commercial? I would feel more comfortable letting Rapada save a game against the Red Sox than I do watching that commercial. It makes the Joe Torre-Willie Randolph Subway commercial from a few years back seem normal. I hope Girardi enjoys that Dunkin Iced Caramel he’s sipping on.

I have gained a lot of confidence in Boone Logan. A year or two ago I wouldn’t have written that sentence if you had a gun to my head. Part of my confidence in Logan is because I don’t have a choice but to be confident in him. With Rivera and Robertson out, Logan (or Wade) has become the best reliever outside of Rafael Soriano. When you think about the Yankees’ RISP and bases-loaded issues coupled with the names that are running out of the bullpen in to hold leads, I would have thought they would be in the Red Sox’ position in the standings. (Let’s all take a second to laugh at the current state of the Red Sox.) But what is that line about not being able to predict something that some broadcasting duo always says?

What an amazing play by the fan in right field on Russell Martin’s two-run home run. Too many times do fans of the home crowd not give it their all to help their team, but the guy that made the catch from keeping the ball from going back on the field deserves some free tickets or some memorabilia or batting practice with the team on the next homestand. After seeing the replay, if that guy doesn’t make that catch they might only score one run, or worse, it could have been second and third with two outs.

There isn’t a Yankees fan that didn’t hear a Mets fan complain about Yankee Stadium being a “bandbox” and allowing “cheap home runs” over the weekend. Yankee Stadium was built for strikeout pitchers and power hitters and what do you know, the Yankees have created a team comprised of strikeout pitchers and power hitters? What an idea! What a concept! How come no one ever complains about the Green Monster or the Pesky Pole, or about Camden Yards, or about the height of the fences in the corners in Anaheim or the short fence in left field at Tropicana Field? I guess no one complains about those fields because at Yankee Stadium the hated dimensions are only present when the Yankees are hitting…

With all the talk over the weekend about how to “fix” the Subway Series (I don’t think it needs to be fixed), you’re certainly not going to get any Mets fans that want the Series to keep the same format. When you have to play six games against the Yankees every year, it’s probably not good for your postseason chances (if the Mets really do have postseason chances).  But on the flip side I enjoy the Series because it’s six games against the Mets, and that means wins, and I like wins, and wins get you to the postseason, so to me, the current format is perfect. I also like the Subway Series because I love what it’s about and I love creating more of a rivalry between the city’s two teams.

A sweep always feels good, but it feels even better when it comes against the Mets, and because of it I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee fan.

Read More