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Tag: Robinson Cano

Blogs • Yankees

Mar 25, 2013

Welcome Back, Chien-Ming Wang

Once upon a time Chien-Ming Wang saved the Yankees and now he’s back with the organization.

Since I was seven years old, the Yankees have missed the playoffs once: 2008. I refer to that year as the Year Without October the way I refer to the 2004 baseball season as the Season That Never Happened. (There was a strike that season and no games were played. Don’t you remember?)

I remember the 2008 Yankees for being miserable and making my summer miserable. And because I relate specific years to how that Yankees season went, when I hear “2008,” I think, “That’s the year I graduated from college and the year the Yankees ruined my summer” and sometimes I think of those two things in reverse order. (OK, I always think of them in reverse order, but I didn’t think it would be a good look to put the Yankees ahead of college graduation.) The truth is that the 2008 Yankees didn’t suck and weren’t even bad. And given their circumstances they were actually pretty good.

That Yankees team went 89-73, which would have been enough to play in a one-game playoff if they were in the AL Central and would have been enough to win the NL West by five games. Their 89 wins were the fourth most in the AL and more than the 2000 Yankees had (87-75) and that team won the AL East by 2 ½ games and won the World Series. But the 2008 Yankees ended the run of 13 straight playoff appearances and because of that I remember them as a failure even if they really weren’t.

That season the rotation featured Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson for 35 combined starts. Andy Pettitte posted career worsts in losses (14) and ERA (4.54) pitching through injuries the entire year in the only .500 season of his 17-year career. Jorge Posada didn’t play in one game in May and played in his last game of the year on July 19. Jose Molina had 297 plate appearances, Chad Moeller had 103 and Ivan Rodriguez had 101. Pettitte, Posada, Jonathan Albaladejo, Wilson Betemit, Chris Britton, Brian Bruney, Joba Chamberlain, Johnny Damon, Dan Giese, Phil Hughes, Jeff Karstens, Ian Kennedy, Hideki Matsui and Alex Rodriguez all landed on the disabled list at least once. LaTroy Hawkins was in the bullpen and so were Billy Traber, Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez. Richie Sexson got to put on pinstripes. So like I said, “Given their circumstances, they were actually pretty good.”

Even during the Murphy’s Law season with all of those things happening during the same year in which the Yankees cared more about Jobamania and his transformation from the best setup man since 1996 Mariano Rivera to starter (which became a circus), the season really ended on June 15 in the sixth inning at Minute Maid Park.

The season ended when Chien-Ming Wang and his .000 career on-base percentage reached base on a fielder’s choice after a failed sacrifice bunt attempt and suffered a lisfranc injury running home on his way to scoring his first career run. The Yankees won that game 13-0 and Wang earned his second-to-last win as a Yankee to this day (the other coming on June 28, 2009 against the Mets), improving to 8-2 on the year with a 4.07 ERA.

To that point in the season, Wang had averaged 6 1/3 innings per start in 15 starts and the Yankees were 12-3 in games he started.  He had won 19 games in both 2006 and 2007 and looked to be a lock for that number again in 2008. With the win over the Astros he improved to 54-20 in five seasons with the Yankees and had become the “ace” of their staff even if Chris Russo strongly believed otherwise.

(To me, Wang was an “ace” during the regular season where his heavy sinker worked the majority of the time over 33 starts. But come postseason time when you didn’t know if Wang’s sinker would sink or not, he was a disaster when it didn’t. He didn’t have strong enough secondary pitches to get outs and would be stubborn on the mound trying to find the sinker because he had to be stubborn about it. He couldn’t really grind his way through starts without his pitch and because of it I consider him a “regular-season ace.” His playoff numbers would consider him that too: 4 GS, 1-3, 7.58 ERA, 19 IP, 28 H, 19 R, 16 ER, 5 HR, 5 BB, 7 K, 1.737 WHIP. The same pitcher who allowed nine home runs in 116 1/3 innings in 2005, 12 home runs in 218 innings in 2006 and nine home runs in 199 1/3 innings in 2007 somehow allowed five in just 19 postseason innings. “Regular-season ace.”)

The Yankees missed the playoffs by six games in 2008 with Rasner and Ponson starting 22 percent of the season and with Dan Giese, Brian Bruney, Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa also getting starts. Six games ended up separating the Yankees from the Red Sox for the wild card (and eight games separated the Yankees from the Rays for the division). You can’t tell me Chien-Ming Wang wouldn’t have made up that difference if he hadn’t been injured. He would have.

Wang saved the 2005 season (along with Robinson Cano’s emergence, Tino Martinez emptying the tank and Jason Giambi turning back the clock or possibly reverting to undetectable performance-enhancing drugs). Wang picked up the only win in the 2006 ALDS against the Tigers (Game 1) and from April 30, 2005 until June 15, 2008 (minus the two months he missed in 2005), he was the closest thing the Yankees had to a guaranteed win every five days before CC Sabathia came to town.

I eventually got used to Wang’s painfully slow windup and let the way he curved his hat go because when you win those things become trademarks and cool and mimicked by others. There isn’t any young baseball player trying to mirror A.J. Burnett’s herky-jerky, inconsistent windup. At least I hope there isn’t. (If A.J. Burnett used Wang’s windup or curved his hat the way Wang did, I would have had enough material for at least three or four more columns from 2009-2011. That’s the difference between winning and losing.)

But if I’m going to mention his 55 wins with the Yankees and his calm and collected demeanor and his victory in Game 1 of the 2006 ALDS then I’m afraid I’m going to have to mention how he single-handedly lost the 2007 ALDS with this majestic pitching line for two games: 5.2 IP, 14 H, 12 R, 12 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 3 HR, 3.174 WHIP. With that WHIP, Wang essentially loaded the bases every inning he was on the mound in Games 1 and 4 on his way to a 19.06 ERA for the series, which I thought would never be touched, but Phil Hughes made a run at those numbers with his 2010 ALCS performance against the Rangers. (I won’t put his numbers here for fear of having a nervous breakdown remembering that series, knowing it could have ended differently if Hughes had just been atrocious and not disastrous.) And also 2009 when Wang was supposed to be the Yankees’ No. 2 start, but instead was the worst statistical pitcher in Yankees history.

During the last half of the aughts, when Brian Cashman was trading for a 41-year-old Randy Johnson, giving $39.95 million contract to Carl Pavano and $21 million to Jaret Wright, begging a 45-year-old Roger Clemens to unretire and make 17 starts for the Yankees for $28 million and paying $26 million for the rights to give $20 million to Kei Igawa, Chien-Ming Wang was busy winning 68 percent of his starts for the Yankees while being grossly underpaid.

Wang is back where it all began on a minor-league deal with the Yankees that will have him start the season in Triple-A, a place that five years ago you never thought he would never have to pitch again unless it was a rehab start. When asked about Wang’s return to the team, Joe Girardi said, “He was a very good pitcher for the New York Yankees.” But he’s wrong. For four seasons, he was the best pitcher for the New York Yankees.

So welcome back, Chien-Ming Wang. You were never thanked for what you did. Here’s to hoping you get the chance to do some more.

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Blogs • Fake Mailbag

Mar 15, 2013

Fake Mailbag: March 15, 2013

It’s the debut of the Fake Mailbag with questions from Sam Rosen, Derrek Lee, Brian Cashman and Mark Teixeira.

I wanted a way to tie in multiple sports to one column without writing things in bullet points and trying to keep some sort of flow to it all and I didn’t really know how to make it all work. So I finally came up with the idea of a Fake Mailbag, which would allow me to create questions that I want to answer (it’s not as weird as it sounds … OK, maybe it’s a little weird) from real sports figures since they would never actually ask me these questions or ask anyone these questions. (Except for Brian Cashman. He actually did ask the question I wrote for him.)

We’ll take it slow with just a few questions this week and try to build it in the coming weeks, but I thought for this week it was important to address the Rangers’ and Yankees’ situations.

Why does John Tortorella always yell at me after his team loses?
– Sam R., New York, N.Y.

After Tuesday’s loss to Buffalo, Sam Rosen started John Tortorella’s postgame press conference by asking, “Do you think the Sabres were the hungrier team in this game?” Here’s how Tortorella responded.

“Oh, no … they were … no, no I don’t think the Sabres were the hungrier team. I thought we stunk and I’m not going to give Buffalo any credit. Well, I will give their third line credit. They outplay our top players and that can’t happen. I couldn’t be more disgusted and disappointed with the way our top guys played, the way we handled ourselves through it. That team was ripe to be beaten and we simply did not play the way we’re supposed to play. I don’t know what to tell you. Did you ask them? Did you ask them any questions? I don’t know why I always have to answer these questions. You should ask them occasionally about what happened. Did they answer your questions? Were they in the room? What did they say? Tell me. Let me ask some questions here.”

When Vince Vaughn’s character, Jamie O’Hare flips out on Rudy in Rudy at practice for his effort and Coach Parseghian asks him, “What’s the problem, O’Hare?” O’Hare responds, “Last practice and this asshole thinks it’s the Super Bowl.” Coach Parseghian answers, “You just summed up your entire sorry career here in one sentence!”

That’s what John Tortorella did with his Tier I meltdown. In 53 seconds, Tortorella summed up his time as head coach of the New York Rangers and discredited the Sabres’ win along the way (even though they were playing without Ryan Miller). It’s always everyone else’s fault. The players, the opponent, the media. It’s never John Tortorella’s fault.

But it didn’t end there.

After Tortorella asks the media if they asked his players any questions, which they obviously did since that’s their job, Rosen asks Tortorella to “talk about hunger around the net too,” and Tortorella looks at Rosen and then looks away and asks, “Does anybody else have a question?” Rosen goes to put the microphone to his face and Tortorella responds, “I’m sure you do, Sam.” So Rosen asks, “Well, the inconsistency, it’s got to be a little frustrating when you think that you’re starting to get inconsistent…” Tortorella cuts him off and says, “I just, I just told you what I thought. I told you what I thought.”

The Rangers aren’t good. They’re not bad. They’re average. That’s what you are when you win half of your games. And at 13-11-2 that’s what the Rangers have done in what has been a disastrous 62 percent of the season. And through that 62 percent, Tortorella hasn’t even hinted at the idea that any of the 13 losses could be any bit his fault.

I fully understand why Tortorella yells at and belittles Rosen in the postgame press conferences. Rosen broadcasts the Rangers games from high above ice level and has appeared in zero games for the Rangers this season or any season and he doesn’t create the line combinations or fill out the lineup, so it makes complete sense as to why the head coach of the team would take out his frustration on the MSG Network’s play-by-play man. Rosen clearly had a negative impact on Tuesday’s loss and it’s not like Tortorella has the power to decide who plays and when and who plays with who, and it’s not like it’s up to him to get the best out of the Rangers players. So while you might think I would feel sympathetic for Rosen, I don’t. It’s your fault the Rangers are in ninth place and can’t find any offensive consistency, Sam Rosen. Leave John Tortorella alone. He has nothing to do with this.

I’m 37 years old. I haven’t played in a baseball game since Sept. 28, 2011. I hit .267/.325/.446 in 2011. Why do Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees want me to play first base for them?
– Derrek Lee, Sacramento, Calif.

I’m not sure if Cashman suffered a concussion along with his broken ankle during his skydiving accident, but The Golden Knight is looking at his second-worst offseason as Yankees general manager. (The first obviously being when he decided that he would go into 2007 with Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa making up 40 percent of his rotation.)

If Cashman were to sign Lee, that would give the Yankees an Opening Day infield of Lee, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter and Kevin Youkilis. The outfield would be Brett Garden, Ichiro Suzuki and we’re not sure of the third outfielder yet. The catcher will probably be Chris Stewart to catch CC Sabathia since personal catchers are always a good idea. That lineup would be good for the mid-2000s Orioles, but the 2013 Yankees?

Lee last played in a Major League game on Sept. 28, 2011. He hit .267/.325/.446 in 113 games for the Orioles and Pirates. It would be one thing if Lee was looking to rebound off a bad 2012 and could come on the cheap after a solid 2011 to show that he isn’t that far removed from being productive. But Lee isn’t looking to rebound off a bad 2012 because he didn’t play in 2012 and he isn’t coming on the cheap after a solid 2011 because he wasn’t good in 2011.

But none of this really even matters since Lee turned down the Yankees’ offer. That’s right. Derrek Lee, at 37, turned down FREE MONEY to put on the pinstripes and serve as a role player with no pressure for the most prestigious and popular team in baseball. He didn’t want guaranteed money and to be a major leaguer again for the MakeShift Yankees. And I thought things hit rock bottom when Cliff Lee left money on the table to go to Philadelphia. But I think Derrek Lee not taking an offer from the Yankees when he has no other offers and isn’t playing baseball anymore is rock bottom.

I can’t find Chipper Jones’ agent’s number anywhere. Do you have it?
– Brian C., Darien, Conn.

If you thought things were bad or miserable to embarrassing when there were rumors that Cashman wanted Lee, how did you feel when you found out that the general manager of the New York Yankees didn’t have the phone number of one of the game’s best players over the last 20 years?

I didn’t think for one second that Jones would come to the Yankees (and I didn’t want him to either just like I didn’t want Lee to take Cashman up on his offer) since he had played all 2,499 games in the majors with the Braves and had already taken less money during his career to stay a Brave forever. So why would he throw that all away and join the Makeshift Yankees? He wouldn’t and he was never going to.

Everyone can make fun of me and say that I’m the new Jason Giambi and that I’m getting paid $22.5 million a year to only play defense and that my career is in decline and that I’m overpaid and that I got a free pass to criticism because A-Rod won us the World Series in 2009, but everyone is going to miss me for the first two months of the season. You’ll see. They’re going to miss me. I know it. Theyre’ going to miss me, right? Right?!?!
– Mark T., Greenwich, Conn.

I felt like a Vegas sportsbook pulling the Steelers game off the board with Ben Roethlisberger’s playing status uncertain when it was announced Mark Teixeira would be out for up to 10 weeks because the news completely altered the “2013 Ladies and gentlemen…” race and I had to quickly change the odds. With Teixeira out for two months I had to adjust the odds for this season’s overall winner and here are the current odds:

Joe Girardi: -600

Eduardo Nunez: -450

Francisco Cervelli: -320

Mark Teixeira: -250

Boone Logan -180

Field: EVEN

Teixeira is out with a strained wrist. A strained wrist. Not a broken wrist. Not something that requires surgery or a cast or a pin or a screw or reconstruction or a titanium rod. A strained wrist.

On Feb. 7, I broke down Mark Teixeira’s interview with the Wall Street Journal. And in that interview he hinted at the idea that he might break down.

“To think that I’m going to get remarkably better, as I get older and breaking down a little bit more, it’s not going to happen.”

It only took 27 days for that little bit of foreshadowing from the $22.5 million-per-year first baseman to come to fruition.

But to answer your question, Mark T. from Greenwich, Conn., I won’t miss Mark Teixeira’s April at the plate, but I will miss his defensive skills and the amount of errors and runs he saves at first base. If Teixeira would suck up his pride and try to hit to the left side of the field from the left side of the plate or just drop two or three bunts down the third-base line to end the Michael Kay “Martini Glass” Shift then I would really miss Mark Teixeira because he might be the .292/.383/.565 guy he was in 2009 and not the .251/.332/.475 he has become and was in 2012.

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Blogs • Yankees

Oct 26, 2012

How I Will Remember the 2012 Yankees

The 2012 Yankees will be remembered as a failure. Not because they didn’t win the World Series, but because they didn’t even show up.

How will you remember the 2012 Yankees? It’s a question that’s staring me down like something you have to answer for your senior year high school yearbook.

I’d like to believe in the whole “Win the World Series or the season is a failure” concept, but even I know that is an impossible expectation even if it sounds good and makes the Yankees organization sound good for supposedly living by it. But you can’t win the World Series every year. You can only hope you get to October and then from there get good pitching, some timely hits, a few lucky bounces and avoid the injury bug.

On Tuesday night, I was at a bar with my roommates and Game 4 of the 1996 World Series was on YES. The Yankees trailed 6-0 before Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Cecil Fielder and Charlie Hayes were able to make it 6-3 in the sixth. The Yankees tied it up in the eighth on a three-run home run from Jim Leyritz, and the bartender actually changed the channel to NBA preseason basketball in the middle of Leyritz’s at-bat. But as much as I wanted to see that home run off Mark Wohlers for the 593rd time, I also didn’t want to see it. I wanted to be reminded of what October was like when the Yankees were going to find a way to win, but I also didn’t want to be reminded of what October was like when the Yankees were going to find a way to win.

The 2012 Yankees wouldn’t have come back against Denny Neagle. They wouldn’t have even scored against him. The 1996 Yankees lost the first two games at home of the World Series and then had to go to Atlanta, to the home of the best team in baseball over the last two years, and they came out alive. The 2012 Yankees lost the first two games of the ALCS at home against the 88-win Tigers and then had to go to Detroit and try to send the series back to the Bronx. They shouldn’t have even gotten on the plane.

The 2012 Yankees season ended before they made Anibal Sanchez look like Cliff Lee and before Justin Verlander shut them down without his best stuff and before Max Scherzer repeated his 2011 postseason performance against them. The 2012 Yankees season ended when Derek Jeter couldn’t get up from the field and when the Yankees couldn’t win a home game in which they scored four runs in the bottom of the ninth to tie it. Seriously, how do you lose that game? No team in any sport loses a game in which they comeback in improbable fashion at home. Ever. It doesn’t happen. But I guess it’s a lot easier to happen when Nick Swisher 007 is playing right field.

I wasn’t as upset as I should have been when the Yankees lost Game 2 or Game 3 because of how upset I was after Game 1. After Game 1, I left the Stadium in the early hours of Sunday morning, devastated and depressed. I knew the season was over. Even though there was still technically a lot of baseball left to be played, I knew without Jeter and without winning Game 1 following the comeback that the season was over. I went into Phase 1 of the Yankees Elimination Process when Nick Swisher misplayed that ball in right field and it carried over to Sunday before Game 2. Phase 1 is when you know the season is over, but it’s not over yet. You probably experienced Phase 1 after Game 6 in the 2004 ALCS or after Game 3 in the 2006 ALDS or Game 2 of the 2007 ALDS or Game 4 of the 2010 ALCS. Sure things can change, but you know the inevitable isn’t far away.

Depending on when you enter Phase 1, the time between Phase 1 and Phase 2 can do crazy things to your emotions. You start to believe that even with the odds stacked against you that you can come back and the season can be extended. You can talk yourself into a comeback of epic proportions the way I did after Game 3 when I started asking, “Why not us?” to anyone I encountered throughout the day leading up to Game 4 like I was Curt Schilling eight Octobers ago. The time between Phase 1 and Phase 2 is full of false hope and that’s the last thing you need before Phase 2 sets in. Phase 2: The season is actually over.

Phase 2 can’t begin until the final out of the season is made. Even after CC Sabathia got rocked and the Tigers were still scoring runs against the Yankees bullpen in the final innings of Game 4, I was stuck in limbo on the outskirts of Phase 1, but oh so close to Phase 2. Phase 2 is when there are no more outs or innings or games. It’s over and it’s not coming back until April.

Phase 3 is the final phase and the phase I’m currently in. It’s the phase when there hasn’t been a game for a few days, so it feels like the All-Star break. But then there aren’t games for a few more days then a week then two weeks and then you realize there won’t be real, meaningful baseball until April. Usually this phase becomes easier because it is negated by the NHL season, but because Gary Bettman thinks a fourth lockout during his tenure as commissioner is a good idea, Phase 3 and the winter are going to drag on.

How will I remember the 2012 Yankees? As a failure. The 2012 Yankees won’t be remembered as a failure because they didn’t win the World Series. They will be remember as a failure because they didn’t even show up to get to the World Series.

I will remember the 2012 Yankees for the Goof Troop. That’s Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson. If you don’t think Mark Teixeira belongs in the Goof Troop because he had nine hits in the postseason then you’re lost. He had one extra-base hit, no home runs and zero RBIs. Let me remind you that he makes $23.5 million to be a power-hitting first baseman and a presence in the middle of the lineup. If he wants to be given a free pass for being a singles hitter then maybe he should give back some of his money away and he can hit with Brett Gardner at the bottom of the order. And if you believe that he makes up for Jason Giambi-like transformation with his defense then maybe you missed his defense in the postseason.

But for as bad as Teixeira was power-wise, the other four were a flat-out embarrassment. The only thing you can really do with Cano is chalk it up as the worst slump ever at the worst possible time. He is the “best” hitter on the team and the future and foundation of the lineup. You can only hope some team is willing to take on A-Rod and a small part of his contract. Granderson will likely be back for at least 2013, so you have to hope the eye doctor he recently visited found something related to why he is now a three-pitch strikeout. And Nick Swisher? The next time I want to see Nick Swisher in person is in right field at Yankee Stadium in the bottom of the first inning, playing for another team. If Nick Swisher is a Yankee in 2013, I won’t be going to the Bronx and that’s a promise. And you can’t even laugh and say, “I’m sure the Yankees will be fine without you there” because if you were at the postseason games, you know that they can use every single person in attendance they can get at the Stadium.

The Yankees finally got the starting pitching in the postseason that they needed in 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and 2007 and 2010, but they got the hitting they had in 2011. They had the easiest path to the World Series since 2006 when the Tigers also ended their season, but instead they ended up as the first Yankees team to be swept in a postseason series since the 1980 ALCS. They were a regular-season success and a postseason failure, and they didn’t even put up a fight. But after six months of laying down in the final innings of games (aside from Raul Ibanez’s late-inning heroics in the final week of the regular season and in the postseason), I should have seen it coming. You can only rely on your 40-year-old left-handed designated hitter making $1.1 million so many times. At some point A-Rod ($29 million), Teixeira ($23.5 million), Cano ($14 million), Swisher ($10.25 million) and Granderson ($10 million) have to do something. Anything! Seriously, get a hit with runners in scoring position. One effing hit.

Before the postseason started, I was scared that Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams” was going to be forever ruined if the Yankees were eliminated the way that Tinie Tempah’s “Written In the Stars” was last year. But even though this was the most embarrassing postseason performance from them since 2004 (though it’s hard to discount 2006 and 2007), I decided that the 2012 Yankees had ruined enough for me and they couldn’t ruin the theme song for the 2012 postseason too. Instead the song will serve to remind me of what went wrong over the final four games and six days of the season.

Ya leave behind your sorrows
Ya this day at last
Well tomorrow there’ll be sunshine
And all this darkess past

157 days until Opening Day.

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Blogs

Oct 25, 2012

The Right to Boo the Yankees

Sheriff Tom will boo the Yankees when they perform the way they did in the ALCS and he has earned the right to boo over the years.

Yes, I boo my own.

First, let me be clear.  It didn’t start as simply booing a Yankee because he used to be a Met, or even writing it off as booing a player I don’t respect because he is on Page Six too often. To me, applause and boos should be based on performance, not on proclivity alone. If I go to the aquarium and the seal drops the hoop during the scuba show, I’m booing. Bad performance. Tomorrow the seal may be on, and he will get his claps and he will get his little fish. What I don’t want to see is the seal drop this hoop and collect its fish anyway, sort of like Nick Swisher stinking up the postseason and collecting bank at the expense of the fans. If you’re not putting up performance, you’re putting up with us.

I’ve earned the right to boo. I’ve spent my money on Stadium grounds (even dropped some blood out there) and that’s not mentioning TV time, merchandise and discourse. Yeah, I have like 600 games in the docket, but that doesn’t make me any better than the fan who strolls in for the first time, as we all are allowed to boo. We paid our money for a show. If we don’t like the show, we have the right to bark and bray about it.

I’m not sure what surprised me more the last couple of weeks: the Yankees offense or the hue and cry that cloaked the sky as the boos rained down at Yankee Stadium. Sanctimonious Yankee fans in their own minds flying the flag of faith, against those who were straying from the parading herd. Sometimes Yankee fans are funny in that it’s us against the world, but if we turn on one another it’s the most egregious of offenses. I don’t see it that way. It’s not like the fans were booing 30 minutes before first pitch  (well, the ones who showed up, anyway) and all was forgiven game to game until the stink wafted from the field and the booing happened again. And oh, did it ever.

How many times in the nearly 30 years I have been going to Yankee games have I booed the Yankees? You can count them on two hands with a finger left over to flip at a Boston fan. But not only was I booing like a ghost this year, I was even doing so from my couch where the only people who could hear me were my wife, daughter and two disinterested cats. Come on folks, this was ridiculous. If the Yankees went down 6-4 here or 5-1 there then this wouldn’t have happened. Baseball happens and sometimes your team loses. There’s no shame in that unless you’re the Cubs and you haven’t won the big one since things were paid for with rocks. We have all seen the Yankees lose playoff games before (many of them in person) and probably too many of them in recent years. That doesn’t mean we booed. This was something different. This was something odious. This was something we may never again see in our lifetime … well, lets hope! To insure this, the Yankees need to jettison the likes of Nick Swisher and probably Curtis Granderson, and if this world is really a happy place and one full of candy canes and rainbows, the much maligned A-Rod.

Do you have to boo? Hell no! Are you allowed to frown while others boo because you subtly disapprove of their actions? Absolutely! Should you reprimand them? Well, go ahead, we don’t care and we will laugh at your lecture. Should you fight over it? Well, that’s just stupid although I saw and heard of people trying. What really puts a burr in my britches is this attitude out there that everything we see on that field is beyond reproach and that we’re supposed to keep staring at the horror show that unfolded behind our pinstriped blinders and possibly give a nice golf clap after someone in the home duds just struck out for the 11th time in his last 18 at-bats. Sorry, if I see the “Clap Car” pulling to the curb, I’m stepping aside and waiting for the “Boo Bus.”

Let me tell you of a time I once booed. It was the first regular season game I kept score and pretty much my first game in the bleacher seats. As enamored as I was with simply being in Yankee Stadium and seeing these wonderful, magical Bleacher Creatures for the first time, I still found it in me to boo. The Yankees had a four-run lead in the ninth inning and Steve “How” Farr “Will they hit it” coughed it up and the Yankees went on to lose the damn game. Not only did I boo – and lustily at that – but I vandalized. Well, to a point, and pretty much to my own property. I took my little souvenir bat and smacked it on the bench in front of me and shattered the thing. (They were still picking splinters out of there as that Stadium came down over a decade later.) To add more credence to my right to boo, I shared the Stadium that night with a mere 14,090 fans. So I put in the time and earned the right to wax venom. The last time you probably saw a mere 14,090 fans in that Stadium was when you were simply counting the people in front of you in the bathroom line.

Looking back on it, the main kicker of boos toward the home nine have been directed at those who held the closer mantle over the years, as they are set up for failure and sometimes the last wretched thing you see before a “W” shimmies away from the box score. Considering Mariano Rivera has been that guy since the halcyon days of the 90s, it hasn’t happened in eons. But man, in the early 90s and mid-90s, we made booing the closer an art form. There’s not much a guy like Rivera that could do to get a burst of boo. I have seen him leave after the rare blown save to a murmuring of discontent, but that’s more the “boo the seal who dropped the hoop” bad day sort of thing and there’s no malice in it. Guys like Farr, Steve Howe and John Wetteland (despite some fine work) heard the hoots for sure, usually coming from the likes of me. Because of them the desperate cry of, “Quick! Lock the bullpen gate!” was coined as relievers started warming up at the Stadium.

One of everyone’s favorite Yankee boo-birding moments came out of our twisted relationship with Jack McDowell. As he left the mound to a crescendo of boos one not so fine evening, he petulantly flipped that bird up in the air and pretty much told the fans, “Right back at ya.” That prompted one of the more jolly backpages I have seen over the years with a full page of McDowell, finger aloft and the block heading of  “JACK ASS.” That baby spent a couple of years taped on the closet door in my apartment for a quick look and a chuckle when I needed a pick-me-up or a get-up-and-go. Bring that story up to someone griping about the treatment of the circus clown Nick Swisher or the doting dugout courtier Alex Rodriguez and they will call for a pass and probably add something like, “Save your boos for Jack McDowell.” Well, Jack McDowell, who was looked at akin to the old man on the corner that waves his fist at kids skipping to the bus stop, went 15-10 in his year of service with an ERA on the south side of 4. But he is considered boo-worthy, when today’s pinstriped heroes are immune. Not on my watch!

I’ve seen good men rack up a Golden Sombrero and they were booed for that. In retrospect, it’s not easy to strike out four times in a game, so maybe they should have been applauded. But there is nothing wrong with saying, “Look, I’m not happy with what I saw out of you today. I want you to go home, think about it and not sleep well. Let’s hope for the both of us tomorrow will be a better day.” That said, I have seen dozens of more guys strike out three times on the day, and not get booed. Bad day. We have all had them. Actually, we had a lot of them watching the Yankees this October. So yeah, the three-strikeout guy was not necessarily booed. Well, unless one of them came with the bases loaded, of course.

There’s also a touch of hypocrisy in the “tisk, tisk” thinking of a lot of Yankee fans when it comes to the boos hurled at the heroes. Yankee fans are known to hurl the sharpest of invectives at the foes and are known for not only a rapier wit, but a mean streak that a badger would envy. So, when you think about it, when you have a dog in the house who will bite any idiot that walks in the door, it may turn one day and nip at you. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to realize it may come to that very thing. We are wired differently, and rightfully so. It’s not simply being spoiled. It’s looking up and noticing the payroll is $200 million. This team should win. Especially when part of that $200 million payroll comes from our $11 beers and our $35 parking charges.

There were rumors making the rounds that Nick Swisher turned into the little girl on the playground who had her pigtail pulled because of “personal insults” that rained down on the clown for one of a dozen reasons. I don’t endorse this and I can see where it would drive fellow fans crazy, but let’s save that stuff for when he comes back to Yankee Stadium next year in the Red Sox uniform. If he thought he heard boos before, wait until he comes to visit in his spiffy new road tags. He may end up being the most hated player in baseball history and not just the worst playoff player in baseball history.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. To “blame” Swisher for Derek Jeter’s injury is so laughable and silly that it should be discounted by him and not used as a reason to pout. Apparently he was taken aback and offended he heard this waft from the right field stands. Yes, Jeter would not have gotten hurt if the Yankees had been out of the inning, but there were a dozen things that led to that. Comments against his wife? Uncalled for, if they happened. I find this dubious, and if they did, it was a fan here and there, and not a pack of rabid Yankee fans looking for amends or his “Bleacher Creature friends turning on him” as this was offered up. Boos are great. Insults to the home team, not necessary, and counterproductive. That said, I believe Swisher should have had some cheese with that whine of his. (And his wife’s TV show sucked, and I’m glad it got cancelled.)

I read some petulant tweets a couple of days before the Yankees were shown the door that the A’s, their World Series hopes dashed, were then serenaded with a nice ovation from the local fans with comments like, “That’s class! Too bad we won’t be seeing that if the Yankees are eliminated.” Ding, ding! You win what’s behind door No. 2! You nailed it, ace!  After that postseason performance from the Yankees? I can sit here and recite the putrid numbers that were put on the board, but they can be found in the obituary section, as well as the record books. What the hell would I be applauding for? I did my share of applauding all year and it cost me a pretty penny to do so. I also sat through some bad baseball, and even worse, some lazy baseball. I’ve seen Robinson Cano get down the line so slowly that butterflies passed and beat him to the bag. This sort of thing should not be booed? Years of playoff ineptitude in the cases of Swisher and A-Rod should not be booed? (Yeah, I know “the Yankees would not have won that World Series without A-Rod,” but hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.)

In the end, there was a lot of support for the “I Will Boo a Yankee” doctrine I follow myself. One night, after Granderson stuck to plan and struck out, I took a picture on my phone of some lout in Yankee Stadium engaged in a hearty “Booooooo!” toward the field on my TV, which also featured a crabby looking lady in mid-holler behind him. I tweeted this work of art, with a simple “Boooooooo!” as the caption. Well, I continued this on and off over the next couple of days to a litany of my Twitter followers that soon were asking me to break it out if the situation warranted it. I got to know this booing guy in the picture quite well simply by forwarding him out three to four times a night when things were at their worst. While we don’t like what leads us to boo, we like to boo. It’s cathartic.

So here is the deal. Yes, I have booed Yankees. I’m sure I will do it again. It’s not a task I take to lightly, but I’m prepared to do so if the situation warrants it. I raise my glass to others who booed since they know a bad product when they see it. And if you think I’m not a real fan for booing, you never walked in my shoes and you can go to bed tonight in your Yankee pajamas and count Nick Swishers walking back to the dugout after striking out in your sleep.

Yankee ALCS baseball! Booooooooooo!

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Oct 17, 2012

ALCS Game 3 Thoughts: ‘Why Not Us?’

The Yankees lost Game 3 of the ALCS and are one loss away from elimination unless they can do what was once done to them.

What if I told you Robinson Cano would have three hits in eight postseason games and none of them are home runs? What if I told you Curtis Granderson would have 15 strikeouts in 29 at-bats in the postseason? What if I told you Brett Gardner would lead off Game 3 of the ALCS, Eduardo Nunez would play shortstop and Eric Chavez would start at third base? What if I told you that the Yankees would be held scoreless in 28 of the 30 innings of the first three games of the ALCS? What if I told you the Yankees would give up nine runs in the first three games of the ALCS and be down 3-0 in the series?

That’s how I envision the voiceover guy for ESPN previewing the “30 for 30” series remake of Four Days in October in a few years to document these next four games of the ALCS. Because for some wild reason I believe that this Yankees team can come back in the ALCS against the Tigers. (No, I’m not drunk as I write this.)

I thought about calling these thoughts about Game 3 “Hi, Mom” to honor Alex Rodriguez mouthing those words to the TBS camera before first pitch. A-Rod sitting on the bench once again for Eric Chavez is as much of a joke as his in-game antics, which are as much of a joke as how the Yankees have played the first three games of the series. A-Rod not being in the Game 3 lineup was the only problem I had with Joe Girardi’s Game 3 lineup.

Yes, A-Rod has been awful and unproductive and hard to watch and a complete waste of money in these playoffs, but he did hit two home runs off of Justin Verlander this season. And if you aren’t keeping track at home, Eric Chavez is still hitless this October. But Girardi did what he thinks he has to do every game now and benched A-Rod, which is the “cool” thing to do these days. (What, mom? Everyone’s doing it!) Maybe we will find out after the season ends that A-Rod is legitimately hurt and that is the cause for his slump and for Girardi putting him in the Eduardo Nunez Early-Season Doghouse.

Game 3 was about what Games 1 and 2 were about: the Yankees’ inability to score runs. Well, actually this game was about the Yankees’ inability to even put guys on base. Ichiro was once again the only Yankee who could do anything and Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson continued to do nothing related to power.

I’m not mad about Raul Ibanez and not A-Rod hitting against the left-handed Phil Coke in the ninth inning since the Tigers would have brought in the right-handed Joaquin Benoit to face A-Rod anyway. I’m mad that Ibanez swung at ball four against Coke, but let’s be honest, Nick Swisher wasn’t tying the game if got a chance to hit after Ibanez.

The Yankees are in the worst of spots. Five days after surviving one elimination game they will have to survive another. And if they want to make it out of the ALCS they will have to survive four of these games in the next five days. It’s improbable, but not impossible and even I (of all people) believe that this Yankees team can do it. (Again, I’m not drunk.)

I entered Phase 1 of the Yankees Elimination Process on Saturday night with the combination of losing a game in which there was an epic comeback turned and the loss of Derek Jeter. I’m not ready to enter Phase 2 yet and I don’t think CC Sabathia will let me get to Phase 2 yet. We’ll get to the different phases of the Yankees Elimination Process if there isn’t a Game 5 on Thursday, but I think there will be. I know there will be.

***

Here are my thoughts from Game 3 of the ALCS.

– If anyone still thinks Robinson Cano is a Top 5 player in the league, I can give you my MLB TV account and password so you can go online and re-watch these postseason games.

– I have watched five of the eight postseason games on TV and in all five games I haven’t been able to know if the pitch is going to be a ball or a strike until the umpire signals for one or the other. That’s not good, is it? No, no it’s not. Justin Verlander is either the best pitcher on the planet or he’s the second-best pitcher on the planet (I’m taking Felix Hernandez first.) He doesn’t need any help from the umpire. But in Game 3, Verlander was getting blatant balls called strikes while Phil Hughes, who needs all the help he can get, was getting blatant strikes called balls. If you want to have a non-textbook strike zone or a moving strike zone, fine. Well, it’s not really fine, but if you want to have either one of those then at least be consistent for both pitchers.

– If you believe in TBS’ slogan of “Legends are born in October,” well, Ichiro’s birthday is Oct. 22. The only problem with that is Robinson Cano’s birthday is also Oct. 22.

– Was Eric Chavez hooking up with the two girls A-Rod landed at the Stadium in Game 2? Unless he got shot with a paintball gun on the off day on Monday, he definitely got a hickey from someone.

– Russell Martin has caught every inning of the playoffs for the Yankees, including two 12-inning games and a 13-inning game. There he was during Game 3 having his hand and wrist looked at it in the dugout in the middle of the game and there’s most likely something wrong with it, but he continued to play. I can’t help, but think that Mark Teixeira was probably advising him to not play if he’s even at 80-percent health.

– Is YES going to show Kevin Long in 2013 when Curtis Granderson hits a home run off a lefty or are we finally over that? Maybe Kevin Long is only responsible for when things are going right for the Yankees offense and they are crushing No. 4 and 5 starters in the regular season and September call-ups. If Kevin Long can survive the offseason after this postseason disaster then the Yankees might as well give him a lifetime contract because if he’s not going to be fired for this then he can’t possibly be fired for anything related to the team’s hitting ever.

– My brother texted me to say that John Sterling called Eduardo Nunez’s foul ball in the ninth inning fair. Never change, John Sterling. Never change.

– Phil Coke has reached the Josh Beckett Tier of Athletes I Hate to Look At. There aren’t many people in this club, but Coke has made it. Congratulations, I guess?

– Nick Swisher better not be in the lineup for Game 4. He shouldn’t be in the lineup again this series. And if he isn’t and he has played his last game as a Yankee, I can proudly say that I didn’t enjoy having the opportunity to watch him play baseball for four years.

– My fear of having “Land of Hope and Dreams” forever linked to postseason failure from the Yankees is coming true. It might be time for TBS to play “Lonesome Day” or “Better Days” on the Tri-state feed when they go to commercial. I’m all for them changing it to the song about Linda in The Wedding Singer if they have to. We’re at that point.

A wise man named Curt Schilling once asked, “Why not us?” So, I ask that question today with the Yankees facing a 3-0 deficit in the ALCS. Why not us?

This train carries CC Sabathia in Game 4. Don’t make it the last stop.

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