And it gave me something I could finally sing in the shower without scaring the hell out of anybody within earshot; I can hit those low notes. If I could be anyone, anywhere with a microphone in front of me, it would be Cash in front of the Tennessee Two. "I hear that train a-comin', it's rollin' 'round the bend, and I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when..."
Plenty of obituaries of and tributes to the man are out there today, and plenty more will be rolled out in the days to come. But the words which resonate most for me were written by Langford, as eloquent a musician as you'll ever come across, in the liner notes to a tribute album he did in 1994:
He is the polar opposite of the cozy, safe, sexless and bland that white America usually clutches to its all purchasing, suffocating breast. Decency, truth, honesty... around him these gutted terms retain some of their original meaning and in a country that fears self-criticism above all else he holds a mirror up to its rotten hide... ironically it is patriotism and terrible guilty grief that fuels this righteous rage at totalitariansm, racism, genocide... going into the prisons & reservations, putting his own weakness under the same microscope.
Johnny Cash is gone, and he will be dearly missed. The world has lost a great voice.
As the man himself once sang, "I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way."
Salon.com writer King Kaufman, whose work I've dug for a long time, has an excellent article today about the dearth of football blogs compared to baseball ones. Pointing out that while there are no fewer than 155 blogs linked via Baseball News Blog, he notes that the pigskin sport is quite neglected online. As he writes, "[S]earching for football blogs is like looking for Metallica fans at a Clay Aiken concert. There might be a few around, but you're not tripping over them. After quite a bit of searching, I know of more blogs devoted to the Detroit Tigers than to the NFL."
Based on interviews with bloggers from both sports (including some recognizable names, such as Bronx Banter's Alex Belth and Bambino's Curse's Edward Cossette), Kaufman cites four reasons baseball outpaces football on the web: the game's literary tradition, its season length, its daily nature, and the popularity of sabermetric analysis. He pulls a couple of great quotes comparing the two sports, including this one from the Washington Post's Bob Thompson: "Baseball is a fat Victorian novel, replete with colorful minor characters and discursive subplots, into which a fan can disappear for months; football is a series of quick- cutting TV cop shows."
Answering Kaufman's premise, Belth is even more succinct, drawing upon one of my all-time favorite quotes from Oriole managing legend Earl Weaver, as told to the Post's Thomas Boswell years ago: "This ain't football. We do this every day." I think that hits the nail on the head. For those of us in the world of baseball blogs, this stuff -- whether it's spring training, the dog days of August, the World Series, or the Hot Stove League -- is as essential as the morning cup of coffee. You don't stop drinking it just because it's December.
One thing that's worth noting is that Kaufman's own style is very blog-influenced; his column went daily back in June, and unlike many mainstream columnists, his work is full of hyperlinks; most established media entities (the publications, not the writers) sweat in fear that if you click on a link -- gasp! -- you'll vanish into the ether of the Net, never to return to their site. Kaufman's even made minor sabermetric splash with his own contribution, the Neifi Index. Named after stathead whipping boy Neifi Perez, he of the career 686 OPS, the Index measures a team's winning percentage with and without a player in the lineup. The better the record without, the higher the Index. In other words, a stat that's very compatible with the world of the futility infielder.
One of Kaufman's interviewees notes that football has traditionally lagged behind baseball in other interactive areas like fantasy leagues and trading cards. Again, a very telling remark. When was the last time you heard somebody fretting about that long-lost Roger Staubach card from their childhood? For all of the ways in which the sport lags behind in its current marketing, baseball's connection to its fans is so much more intimate, individual, and multifaceted, it's no wonder that it's so easily intellectualized. While that may be a lot to digest (in every sense of the word), it's worth knowing that the game and its devotees are always there for you, ready to provide sustenance at the push of a button, 24-7-365.
The same archaeological dig into my old bedroom desk which netted me autographs from the 1986 Cactus League, brought me remembrances of another spring past. I found a long-lost envelope of photos from the 1989 Grapefruit League, when I saw four straight Dodger games at Vero Beach with my family. The world was a sunny place that spring -- I was a freshman at Brown University, and the Dodgers were fresh off their improbable World Championship. Aside from the fact that I was nearly failing Engineering 4, anything seemed possible. I even managed to live down oversleeping my flight to Florida (caught out of position, thanks to my girlfriend at the time), though I got endless shit for that.
Too cool for school, I didn't buy a scorecard or keep any notes about the games I saw, in which the Dodgers played the Expos, the Mets, the Yankees and one other team I can't recall. But seeing these photos brings back some memories, so I thought I'd put together a little exhibit. Click on each link for a photo in a new window:
• Kirk Gibson was the reigning NL MVP who brought his dirt-eating style over to the Dodgers from the Detroit Tigers. Felled by a hamstring injury during the playoffs, he came off the bench to pinch-hit that famous homer in Game One of the Series. Alas, Gibson was headed for an injury-marred campaign, .213 with 9 homers in 71 games.
• Eddie Murray was the new man on the scene, signed as a free agent after twelve years in Baltimore. He had a disappointing year as well, .247 with 20 homers -- the first time in his major league career that he fell below .277.
• Fernando Valenzuela was on the comeback trail. Suffering through a shoulder injury in 1988, Valenzuela had gone 5-8 with a 4.24 ERA. He pitched only two games after July, none in the postseason. He made it through the entire season in 1989, tossing nearly 200 innings, but he went 10-13 with a 3.43 ERA.
• Rick Dempsey was a gritty catcher who I always liked as an Oriole, and even moreso when he joined the Dodgers as Mike Scioscia's backup. After a fine 1988 (.251/.338/.455 with 7 homers in 167 AB), Dempsey slumped in 1989 to a .179 average. I always expected he'd become a big-league manager, and I'm surprised he hasn't done so yet.
• Dodger coach Manny Mota, the team's former pinch-hitting specialist, was popular with the Vero Beach fans for grand enterance every day -- on a bicycle. Fourteen years later, he's still at it.
• Manager Tommy Lasorda, with a second World Championship under his belt, was even more full of himself that spring. Even managers need to practice their craft in spring training.
• The Mets' Darryl Strawberry was still quite the superstar, and coming off of a 39-homer, 101-RBI season. His 1989 would be a disappointment (was something in the Vero Beach water?) hitting only .225 with 29 homers and 77 RBI. But Strawberry enjoyed two more highly productive years after that, one with the Mets and one with the Dodgers, before his career went into a tailspin.
The 1989 Dodgers turned out to be a lackluster team, finishing fourth in the NL West at 77-83. It was the age-old story for the Dodgers: good pitching (a 2.95 ERA, tops in the league), lousy hitting (only 554 runs, 3.46 per game, last in the league). Orel Hershiser, who keyed the Dodger championship run with 59 consecutive scoreless innings and postseason heroics, had another fine season with a 2.31 ERA, but poor run support held his record to 15-15. Gibson was terrible, Murray was atypically lackluster, and the rest of the lineup that had been so ridiculed the October before played down to its potential. Can somebody please find Mike Marshall and beat the snot out of him for being so lousy?
Photos aside, I have two vivid memories from that spring training that, alas, have no mementos attached. Before one of the ballgames, I happened to cross paths with Vin Scully, the great Dodger announcer. Thinking quickly, I borrowed a pen from a bystander and got his autograph -- but I've never been able to turn up that piece of paper. And at the final game against the Yankees, a non-roster outfielder named Mike Griffin got four hits and received a warm ovation from the crowd. Griffin never made the majors, and I always wondered what happened to him.
I unearthed a few more items in my big dig, the best of them being a baseball autographed by Tom Seaver, an 1983 All-Star Game program and a scorebook -- a C.S. Peterson Scoremaster, bought for $0.50 at the same time my current one was purchased -- in which I'd scored games from 1982-1983, including an '82 Series game and the '82 All-Star Game. Back in those days I kept score only for the team I was rooting for, leaving behind a rather imperfect account. The scorebook still has plenty of room for new games, so I dragged it back to New York City.
The other great item I found was a scrap of paper containing my Little League stats for 1982, the one year I played (I wasted most of my Little League career playing goalie on a soccer field). I was a member of the Phillies of the Wasatch Heights League in Salt Lake City, coached by the father of one of my classmates, and populated by two of his seven siblings (they were Mormons, and they all had the initials J.J.; no wonder I made the team).
We won the league championship, and I played a key part, stroking a bases-loaded, game-tying RBI single in the fourth inning of the championship game. Alas, I was removed shortly afterwards to make sure everbody got to play -- we had about 15 players, including one girl, and the coach made sure everybody got PT. This explains this overall stat line:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB AVG OBP SLG
9 10 2 3 1 0 0 2 2 4 2 .300 .417 .400
PO A E PCT
0 4 0 1.000 LF-4, 2B-2, SS-1, 3B-1, CF-1, P-1
Twelve plate appearances in nine games? Thanks for showing up. Alas, I was a true futilityman, seeing time at six different positions. The appearance at pitcher was for fielding purposes only -- during the first half of the season we hit against machines or an adult pitcher who threw against both sides, with a player for the fielding team responsible for covering the consequences. No joke: one of the adults who pitched was a coach named John Candelaria, just like the Pirates star at the time. Strange, some of the stuff your mind digs up to go along with the mementos.
Anyway, I suppose I owe my mom a bit of thanks for not throwing all of this stuff out, and for egging me on until I finally got around to cleaning out that desk.
Escobar took care of the Yanks in the second, but he was wobbly again in the third. Giambi led off with a single, a good sign that he may yet emerge from his slump. Williams forced Giambi at second, and then Matsui hit another double, with Bernie stopping at third. Boone slapped an RBI single to left, 4-2 Yanks. But with first and third and only one out, the Yanks failed to capitalize further. Garcia struck out again, and John Flaherty popped one to short rightfield, where Hudson made a diving catch that drew a respectful ovation from the Stadium crowd.
Escobar's number was up in the fourth. Three straight singles by Soriano, Johnson and Jeter added a run. Giambi walked to load the bases, still with nobody out. Bernie Williams hit into a fielder's choice, forcing Giambi at second but beating the throw to first to avoid "The RBI of Shame" (which actually isn't an RBI at all), and making the score 6-2. That was Bernie's day in a nutshell; a day after providing the Yanks with a much-needed power boost, he slid back into his funk.
Matsui singled again for his third hit of the young afternoon, scoring Jeter, upon which Jays manager Carlos Tosca mercifully pulled the plug on Escobar. But the comedy of errors continued, literally. On new pitcher Brian Bowles' first batter (Aaron Boone), Eric Hinkse mangled a grounder beyond recognition, then threw it into rightfield, as Williams scored. Bowles settled down and did the one thing Escobar was able to do consistently: strike out Karim Garcia. By the fourth inning, the Yankee rightfielder was wearing a silver sombrero. The 8-2 margin wasn't enough for my pal, who took Garcia to task for once again failing to plate a runner at third with less than two outs.
Karim made up for his transgressions in his next trip to the plate. After a Boone double, he singled up the middle on the first pitch, capping the Yankee scoring for the day at nine runs. Meanwhile Mussina had settled down admirably, with only Hudson and Vernon Wells gave the Yankee pitcher any bother at all. In the fifth Hudson doubled for the second time, later scoring on Wells' single, his third hit of the ballgame. Besides that, Moose pitched well, especially to Carlos Delgado, who he K'ed three times. He's owned the fearsome slugger, having limited him to 2-for-18 with 11 strikeouts this year, and 10-for-61 with 22 K's overall. On the day, Mussina pitched seven innings, allowing three runs and striking out eight (including all three outs in the seventh) while walking only one, winning his 15th game. A nice outing for the Moose.
A couple of interesting relievers made the scene in the late innings. A Toronto rookie named Vinnie Chulk made his major-league debut and threw two shaky but scoreless innings. We immediately dubbed him "The Incredible Chulk," noted that as a rookie he was quite green, and marvelled when he bested Matsui by striking him out in the seventh. Hey, how often do you see Godzilla battle the Incredible Chulk?
On a more serious note, the Yanks brought in recently-acquired lefty Felix Heredia to clean up the mess Antonio Osuna made in the eighth. With men on first and second and two outs, Heredia calmly disposed of Hinkse on three pitches. He set the Jays down 1-2-3 in the ninth, something Yankee relievers seem to have a hard time doing these days. Given Gabe White's struggles since returning from his groin injury -- hell, given every single goddamn Yankee reliever's struggles since March 31 -- Heredia may end up being a very useful acquisition. He's no angel (he's got a year-old assault with weapon charge whose outcome is still pending), but the Yanks aren't really in a position to be picky.
• • •
I've revamped the Stadium Sojourns page, where I link my game reports, pulling several from within my blog and making them into separate pages for posterity. It may not mean much to you, but it helps me sleep at night.
But even if his suit didn't fit so perfectly, no Yankee pitcher was more perfectly suited to pitch this ballgame. Wells came in with a 41-18 lifetime record and 3.80 ERA in Yankee Stadium, and a proven capacity to shut out the bad vibes and simply T.C.B. Back in the spring, when the controversy caused by his newly-published autobiography swirled around the team, Boomer found refuge on the mound, pitching lights-out baseball -- 10-2, 3.40 ERA and only 4 walks -- in the season's first three months. It took no genius to envision him rising to the occasion again.
Rise he did.
On gorgeous sunny Sunday tailor-made for a pennant race, Wells squared off in a tense pitching duel against Jeff Suppan. Though neither dominated, both pitchers made short work of opposing hitters. Scoreless, the first six frames flew by in under 90 minutes. A fistful of popups (including two by Manny Ramirez) enabled Wells to limit the Sox to three hits in that span. He wriggled out of trouble in the fifth following a leadoff double by Kevin Millar by inducing groundouts to Jason Varitek and Gabe Kapler which failed to advance the runner, then striking out Damian Jackson on three pitches. The Fat Man wasn't messing around today.
Neither was Suppan. Before being acquired on July 31, the Sox starter had spent nearly all of his nine big league seasons safely distant from any semblance of a pennant race, eating innings in places like Kansas City and Pittsburgh because, well, somebody had to. He'd caught a hot streak in Pittsburgh, at 10-7 with a 3.57 ERA making himself into a more desirable commodity. But since coming over from the Pirates he'd been less than stellar, yielding a 6.34 ERA. But on this day, he baffled the Yankee batters, limiting them to one hit in the first six innings, a single by Derek Jeter. Jeter, who'd missed the previous five games with a pulled rib-cage muscle, showed no ill effects from his night on the town the previous evening.
The same could not be said for my companion for the game, my brother Bryan, for whom a combination of vodka gimlets and Jeter-induced giddiness had produced a bit of a hangover. Long story short: out with friends the night before, Bryan had come across Thee Yankee Shortstop at the World Bar in the mezzanine of Trump World Tower, where Jeter resides. A phone call and 15 minutes later, and we were all sitting 15 feet from Derek, gawking like the pathetic fan-boys (and -girls) we otherwise never allow ourselves to be... Anyway, as I headed for the concessions stand between innings, Bryan slowly croaked out his order. "The largest Coke you can procure. One hot dog. Four Advil. Two Alka-Seltzer. And a stomach pump."
The seventh brought another threat for Wells in the form of a leadoff double to rightfield by Ramirez. Karim Garcia's strong peg off the carom nearly nailed Manny as he nonchalanted his way to second base. Boomer settled down to strike out the dangerous David Ortiz on three pitches, then battled Millar to a full count before giving up ball four. On the next pitch, Varitek ripped a scorcher into the hole between short and third. Jeter dove and gloved the ball, not only saving the potential run but recovering in time to force Millar at second, and barely missing a double play. Kapler then worked Wells to another full count, with Varitek stealing second. With two men now in scoring position, Wells got Kapler to ground to third again, ending the threat.
By this time the caffeine and grilled meat has brought some color back to Bryan, and he'd even pumped his fists after Kapler's groundout. The night before had ended with a rare partisan display from him, a rallying cry of "Lets Go, Yan-kees!" on the way to hailing a cab. For somebody who gave me shit about my own evolution into a Yanks fan, this was a breakthrough, albeit a well-oiled one. Now in the bottom of the seventh, with Jeter leading off, my brother turned resourceful. He folded up his Teton Gravity Research hat into a Rally Cap, and urged me to do the same to my Yanks cap. I followed suit, but after Jeter grounded out, I turned to him and asked, "Is this thing even plugged in?" I restored my cap to the upright position as Jason Giambi popped out to third baseman Bill Mueller in shallow leftfield. The Yankee offense was looking down the barrel at its 18th consecutive scoreless inning.
But when Jorge Posada drew a two-out, four-pitch walk, I reconsidered my options and returned to the Rally Cap. The slumping Bernie Williams needed all the help he could get; Bernie had gone 13-for-64 since his last homer on August 19 and had recently been dropped to sixth in the batting order.
On Suppan's 2-2 pitch, Williams connected, lofting a towering fly ball to rightfield. The ball hung in the air so long I swear they started playing the theme from The Natural while it was still midflight. Kapler chased it back to the wall, but he ran out of real estate eventually -- a two-run homer! The Stadium erupted as "Disco Inferno" blared, a surprisingly bipartisan crowd of 55,212 at last coming down squarely on the side of the home team. Hideki Matsui followed with a double, just the third hit on the afternoon for the Yanks, but Aaron Boone flew out, ending the inning.
Wells began the eighth in strong form, striking out pinch-hitter Lou Merloni looking. Johnny Damon then hit a grounder to short, but Jeter had to rush his throw and missed his target. E-6. Mueller blooped a single to shallow left, with Damon stopping at second. At last, this spelled the end of Boomer's afternoon, and he got a richly deserved standing ovation from the crowd, doffing his cap on his way to the dugout.
In a surprising move, Torre called upon Mariano Rivera. His closer had been struggling with some of his longer save opportunities, but with Nomar Garciaparra, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz the next three batters, Joe was -- to put it bluntly -- in no mood to fuck around with the fickleness of his setup men today. Fair enough.
Rivera retired Nomar on a flyout, but Manny then pooched another base hit into short right, scoring Damon. But Ortiz hiit into a force, keeping the Yanks ahead by a run.
They widened the margin in the bottom of the eighth with Suppan gone. Facing Alan Embree with one out, Alfonso Soriano, who'd had lousy at-bats all day (so what else is new?) swung at the first pitch and replicated Ramirez's bloop to right. With Kapler, Merloni and Millar converging on the ball, Sori turned on the afterburners and stretched his hit into a double. He stole third two pitches later, then scored as Nick Johnson slapped a single to right. Boston manager Grady Little continued his bullpen shuffle, bringing in Scott Williamson to walk Jeter, then Scott Sauerbeck to induce Jason Giambi to ground into a double play.
The ninth started ominously, as Millar lashed Rivera's second pitch up the middle for a single. But Varitek hit into a fielder's choice and pinch-hitter Trot Nixon popped out. Pinch-hitter Todd Walker then slapped Rivera's first pitch right back to the mound, and Rivera, mindful of his own fielding woes, jogged the ball halfway over to first before underhanding it to Nick Johnson. Ballgame and season series to the Yanks, and at last, a bit of breathing room.
If you live in New York, you take celebrity sightings in stride. I've come across Al Pacino (stumbling down St. Marks Place at 9 AM, wearing rose-tinted sunglasses), Willem Dafoe, Hillary Swank, Benicio Del Toro, Ben Stiller, Joaquin Phoenix, Drew Barrymore and her beau, Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti, and a Sopranos trifecta of Drea de Matteo, Aida Turturro, and Dominic Chianese, among others. Most of them were smaller than life, or at least shorter than they looked on the big screen. It's something to talk about, but at the same time no big deal. I never sought any of them out, never chased them down. Until last night.
I was at home, watching a movie with Andra (my girlfriend). A half-assed drinks plan with Bryan (my brother) had apparently failed to materialize, but I was comfortable enough on the couch with my gal on one side and my beer on the other -- a quiet Saturday night. Then the phone rang around 11:15, Bry finally checking in via the cellular.
"I'm at a bar with Derek Jeter," he said.
The din in the background on his end was pretty heavy, so I said something witty: "Whaaat?"
"Derek Jeter is sitting here in the corner of this bar where I'm having drinks. He's talking on his cell phone. I'll give you to Scott, who can confirm that I'm not talking out my ass."
Bryan had met Scott and Wendy, a couple of in-town b-school friends, for drinks at the World Bar in the mezzanine of Trump World Tower ("one of the most luxurious residential towers in the world," according to the website). They'd chosen the spot because earlier they had met up with Wendy's brother, who lived there. When the Yankee shortstop made the scene, Wendy told Bryan that Jeter's presence is not uncommon, because he lives in the building as well.
Given my perch on the couch deep in the East Village, the bar's location some 40 blocks uptown, and the time of night, I initally declined the invitation to join them. But while I'd been on the phone, verbally reconfirming everything Bryan had said so that Andra could hear, she'd dressed to go back out, donning a black sequined top and high heels by the time I got off the phone. "We're going," she said.
Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting fifteen feet from Jeter, trying to stifle shit-eating grins. Jeter sat in the corner of the balcony, wearing a long-sleeve heather gray Air Jordan t-shirt, black nylon athletic pants, and all-white Air Jordan hightops. He was talking on a cell phone while a male friend fiddled with another phone. Then they switched phones, and Jeter talked some more, nipping on what Bry guessed was a rum and Coke, apparently assembling a posse for the evening.
Bry gave a verbatim repetition of George Steinbrenner's line in Jeter's recent Visa commercial with the Boss: "You're our starting shortstop, how can you possibly afford to spend two nights dancing, two nights eating out and three nights just carousing with your friends?" We laughed aloud, then started into making jokes about Manny Ramirez's nightlife activity. Though we kept glancing over, most of the crowd -- a largely Indian contingent (this bar is across from the United Nations building) -- feigned obliviousness, as did Jeter. A wide-eyed gal sitting directly behind me tapped me on the shoulder, giddily asking the inevitable question. She turned to nudge her friend. "See? I told you so!"
By this time, a pair of Jeter's friends, an athletic looking black man and a stocky, buzz-cut white guy showed up (neither of them were Yankees). One sat on the ledge overlooking the stairway while the other talked to Jeter's companion. Finally two tall, attractive women penetrated the cone of privacy surrounding Jeter, one producing a camera from her purse and asking him if they could get their pictures taken with him. Clearly less than thrilled, he obliged, and they lingered to chat for a few minutes, much to the shortstop's visible discomfort.
The women departed and another couple, a petite brunette with long hair and a taller man, arrived, clearly part of Jeter's entourage. After a few minutes of chitchat and more cell phone activity, they decided to roll. A leggy blonde in a silver halter top and a long black skirt slit well up her thigh embarrassed all of us who'd been coolly observing the scene by chasing after Jeter down the stairs. She came back empty-handed as the posse departed. Headed for dancing, eating or carousing? We weren't sure, but given the hour, we hoped the Boss wouldn't make a fuss.
