On Thursday I took Baseball Prospectus/Pinstriped Bible author Steven Goldman up on an offer to trek to the Brooklyn Public Library in search of photos to augment his forthcoming biography of Casey Stengel, Forging Genius (due in October from Brassey's). Focused as the book is on Casey’s career before he made routine work of winning pennants as Yankee manager, Steven was looking for photos of Stengel’s time with the Dodgers either as a player (1912-17) or a sub-.500 manager (1934-36) -- Dem Bums, indeed. He'd been led to believe the library had stacks and stacks of old Dodger photos on file, and anticipating both the need for assistance and my own glee at sifting through such arcana, he invited me along.
Also accompanying him was Andrew Baharlias, the former staff counsel of the Yankees (1997-2002), whom you may recognize from a few articles on Baseball Prospectus, most recently one on what he termed the Yankees Defensive Employee Retention Program. Through some miraculous luck on a three-train odyssey, I arrived at the library on time, only to find that Steven and Andrew were two rivers away, still stuck in traffic entering the Holland Tunnel on the Jersey side. I took the opportunity to avail myself of some mediocre Chinese food while soaking up the gorgeous sunshine on the fringe of Prospect Park, checking out the war memorials at Grand Army Plaza as I awaited their arrival. Hey, it beats working.
Once they arrived, it quickly became apparent that the three of us were swatting flies with a sledgehammer. The librarian handed Steven only about a dozen manila folders, many containing only one or two photos, a stack hardly as thick as a dime-store novel. Even after poring over the binder listing every potential folder, we came up with only about two dozen files which seemed relevant. Donning white cloth gloves so as not to mar the photos with our fingerprints, we spent about an hour carefully examining each shot, reading captions on the back and laughing at some of the more outrageous pictures: Dodger manager Wilbert Robinson, "Uncle Robbie," riding a bicycle, Giant manager John McGraw and his wife, who looked exactly like him (not a compliment), a young Yogi Berra with a basketball, a great shot of some not-so-tough-looking Brooklyn schoolkids burning Casey in effigy during the 1952 World Series, one holding up a sign that said "Casey Stinky Stengel." Hoodlums!
Steven rejected many photos for being outside the time period, several with players wearing the wrong uniforms (Van Lingle Mungo as a Giant just doesn't cut it). In all we only came up with about seven as relevant to the book: Dazzy Vance, the great Brooklyn hurler of the Twenties, the aforementioned Uncle Robbie bike shot, a good one of Yankee manager Joe McCarthy with owner Edward Barrow and another of Barrow with Larry McPhail and George Weiss, a shot of Max Carey and Bill Terry, and so on. Hardly the bonanza we'd envisioned. Still, it was a fun exercise, perhaps moreso for me since I didn't have to cross state lines, nor did I have anything at stake other than an opportunity to pick Steven's brain a bit and hear a few of Andrew's war stories from his time with the Yanks.
Since the photos in question, mostly from the defunct Brooklyn Eagle, aren't online, for today’s Lunchtime Link, I'll leave you with a shot that is. It's one of my all-time favorite baseball photos from another source, the Library of Congress: Casey as a Dodger circa 1915, wearing a pinstriped uniform and sunglasses, looking like one cool mofo standing in the Ebbets Field outfield (the shot was also recently used in the SABR publication Deadball Stars of the National League). Casey's mouth is open like he’s carrying on some long monologue in Stengelese, and if you’re like me you'd willingly shell out a pretty penny to hear those thoughts.
The Big Apple Baseballist outing to Yankee Stadium was a success, both for the eleven of us who attended the game and for the home team, who beat the A's 5-1 behind Jose Contreras' surprisingly decent performance. Representing were bloggers Alex Belth, Alex Ciepley, Cliff Corcoran, Avkash Patel, and Jason Wojciechowski, as well as Justin Poon, Geoff Silver, Nick Stone, Ameer Youssef, my girlfriend Andra, and myself. We sat way up high -- Row U, two from the top -- but as we were about halfway between home plate and third base, we still had a pretty decent view. Hey, what do you expect for $5 (or $9 once TicketRapist takes their cut)? Some people swear by (and in) the Yankee Stadium bleachers; me, I'm an upper deck guy -- I love the birds's eye view of the field, though I almost always sit in the lower portion (Tier Boxes) instead of the nosebleeds. Geoff, who worked for the Cincinnati Reds for four years and is currently pursuing another job in baseball, said it was the worst seat he'd had in years, but he had obvious fun talking everybody's ears off, and I think everybody else enjoyed the game as well. Alex C. got to play with his new cell phone, which has a little camera built in, providing a few mementos of our night: our view from the top, myself and Justin, Alex B., Nick and Cliff.
For the first time since early 2000, I didn't keep score at a Yanks game, preferring instead to mingle within the group. Both Belth and Corcoran kept score, though I teased Alex when I looked down and saw him missing about three innings worth of the A's hitting. The horrific "security" at the Stadium cost us a good bite of the first frame, as the Yanks did most of their damage while we were settling into our seats. They put together a three-run rally on the strength of three singles, two walks, and a sac fly, keeping the line moving in the Nine-Eight Style.
But the big story on the night was Contreras. After three disastrous starts, the Cuban -- well shepherded by Jorge Posada -- earned his first win of the season. He scattered four hits in six innings, made one mistake that highly-touted A's shortstop Bobby Crosby hit over the leftfield wall, and only dawdled a couple of times. As Sam Borden of the New York Daily News put it:
There were hairy moments, but this time Contreras worked around them instead of buckling under. Last night's third inning had the potential to become like the third inning 11 days ago, when Contreras imploded despite holding a six-run lead, but something was different this time.
After Bobby Crosby led off the frame with his third homer of the season, Contreras steeled himself - and got a little help from his fielders, too. With two outs and two men on, Eric Chavez smoked a line drive that Jason Giambi said he didn't see "until it was behind me." Still, the first baseman flopped to his right and snagged it, saving at least one run and getting Contreras out of his biggest jam of the night.
Giambi's gem was all the more surprising given the low regard with which his defense is held, but that was a play that would have made a Gold Glover proud. Big G later stroked a solo home run, as did Posada, who retook the AL lead with 8. Derek Jeter continued his struggles, falling to 0-for-32, although he reached on an error and drew a walk. With the early lead, the crowd got behind Jeter every trip to the plate, forty thousand fans chanting his name and rooting like hell for a hit. Alas, he didn't even get the ball out of the infield. The rumors are starting to build that his hands are hurting, though he refuses to admit that's the case. Next up on his epic futility streak is Joe McEwing's 0-for-33 in 2002; company like that is not good to keep
The only other downer on the night was the news about Bernie Williams, who tweaked his surgically repaired knee the night before, and who's had plenty of chances to remind us his shoulders aren't in such great shape either. I've seen his future, and it includes lots of DH time; Bernie's days as a Gold Glove winner are over. Speaking of bad news and shoulders, Travis Lee is headed to Dr. James Andrews and will likely have surgery. All of this means that Tony Clark, rehabbing Kenny Lofton, and Bubba Crosby -- who's on a slide of his own lately, having gotten only one hit since his big day a couple of weeks ago (did I tell you?) -- will be sticking around for the foreseeable future. Jorge DePaula having gone under the knife, the Yankee system is notoriously bereft of tradeable talent, with catcher Dioner Navarro the plum of the system, though GM Brian Cashman has been talking up the likes of AA pitchers Sean Henn and Chien-Ming Wang and Class A closer Edwardo Sierra. Get used to this team, as it will likely be awhile before the Yanks can add another name that doesn't make fans scratch their heads and go "He's still alive?" But if they keep playing like they're supposed to, it won't matter so much.
The Yankees shook themselves out of their four-game funk with a six-run rally in the eighth inning on Tuesday night against the Oakland A'S, coming from behind to win 10-8. Ruben Sierra delivered a pinch-hit two-run double that hit the chalk of the leftfield foul line, exactly the kind of break the Yanks have been starved for lately -- though they certainly had their share in the inning, with Gary Sheffield getting a key infield single. The team was all smiles afterwards, looking as though the weight of the world had been lifted from their shoulders. Even surly Mike Mussina, who barely managed to avoid going 1-5, was upbeat.
Because Andra was TiVoing her teen dramas, I listened to the game via the web starting in the fifth. By the time the bottom of the eighth arrived, announcer John Stirling (he of the infamous, annoying "Thhhhhhhheeeeeeeee Yankees win! The Yankees win!" call) had all but buried the team, saying that there was no way the Yanks were going to pull this one out after blowing a 4-1 lead and then falling behind 8-4 on a series of bad breaks and defensive miscues. I never did get a chance to hear him eat those words, as midway through the rally, Andra's show ended and I switched over to YES just in time to see Sierra's at-bat.
Despite the win and the ten-run outburst, Derek Jeter continued his slump, falling to 0-for-28. But he received plenty of respect last night in the form of a hearty ovation from the fans in the seventh inning and in an intentional walk from Ricardo Rincon just after Sierra's double. Think about that for a moment: the guy's hitting .169 and carrying the league's longest 0-fer (and the longest Yankee slide since Tin.000 Martinez went 0-for-28 in 2000), yet with two runners in scoring position, first base open and one out, the A's elected to give him a free pass to set up the double play rather than give him a shot at breaking the game open with what surely would have been a dramatic hit. It may just have been sound baseball strategy, but it was also an acknowledgement that sooner or later, Jeter's going to get a hit that will make him look just as clutch as he always was, and he'll be back in the good graces of the Yankee Stadium throngs.
I'm headed to tonight's game in the company of several other bloggers in the form of my Big Apple Baseballists posse. While I wish the weather was a bit warmer and I already dread watching Jose Contreras fiddle around, it feels a whole lot better to head to the ballpark with the Yanks back on the good foot.
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Lunchtime Link: Most of you who read me regularly know that I'm not always able to post on a daily basis, in part because I hold myself to a high standard -- If I can't write at least four or five paragraphs on a topic, whether it's original or an article I read elsewhere, I generally don't bother. But as a way of rewarding my daily readers for stopping by, on days where I might not post something longer I'm going to make every effort to give you a quick hit relatively early, something to read at lunchtime or print out for your commute home. I won't be able to offer as much commentary as I usually do, but at least I can point you in the right direction for something I found of interest.
Today's link is from The Hardball Times: Steve Treder's piece on the West Texas-New Mexico League of 1937-1955. Treder dug out his old Spalding Baseball Guides and Sporting News Baseball Guides to take readers on a tour of this obscure league, where high altitudes in places such as Albuquerque made for a hitter's heaven and a pitcher's hell -- we're talking league batting averages above .300 and runs per game topping 7.0 per team. Amid this museum of the statistically absurd, Treder points out a pitcher with a 15-13 record and a 9.21 ERA and an oufielder named Bob Crues who in 1948 hit .404/.491/.848 with 69 homers and 254 RBI in only 140 games. Crues' team, the Amarillo Gold Sox, scored a whopping 1267 runs that year and hit .323 with 214 homers. Suffice it to say that if you like to ogle eye-popping stats, check out Treder's entertaining, well-researched piece.
If you're a Yankee fan, the funk is everywhere today, and I don't mean in the good, George Clintonian sense. It's on every back page tabloid, every local newscast, and the look of every interlocking NY-wearing fan. Gray skies and rain in the city, combined with an off day, leave little to think about but the severe beatdown administered by the Red Sox. Behind a fairly vintage-looking -- in result, if not speed of fastball -- Pedro Martinez, Boston took the third game from the Yanks on Sunday, completing their sweep of the weekend series and extending their advantage to 6-1 thus far this year. Javier Vazquez gave a noble effort on three days' rest, but one hanging mistake to Manny Ramirez cost him the ballgame, 2-0. The Yanks scored four measly, stinkin' runs the entire series, two of them merely window dressing on a game that had long been decided.
"I'm going to go home, kiss my wife, hug my kids," Cashman said, "and kick the (blank) out of my dog."
Even Derek Jeter got booed, and with that 0-for-25, it's understandable. Red Sox fans and even local writers such as George Vescey get it wrong if they think that Yankee fans are spoiled, short of memory and quick to turn. Jeter is the Yankee captain, carrying a $189 million contract, and when Yankee fans boo him, they're not booing the clutch shortstop of six World Series teams so much as releasing their pent-up frustration at the lousy play of this overpriced team and reminding, in the words of a man from nowhere near New York City, "Nobody Slides, My Friend." We know the Yankees will do better, but polite applause and encouragement won't tide us over until then. New York City -- and the Yankees -- ain't for the fragile or the faint of heart. Fuck that weak shit.
Bless his intangibles, Jeter knows this as well as anybody else, which is why he didn't give anything but his usual pat, bland answers when questioned about the booing on Friday:
"I don't blame them," Jeter said flatly... "We would have booed ourselves tonight, too. It's hard to imagine being worse than we were tonight. Put me at the front of that list."
A civic crisis might have erupted if Sox fans had treated Nomar similarly -- Pedro would have demanded a trade -- but in Da Bronx, it comes with the territory. If our hometown heroes can't get over a case of the April boo birds, then they won't be worth a tinker's damn when the chips are down in October.
Which isn't to say any Yankee fan should walk around miserable, looking to bust the nearest Sox fan in the chops when he taunts you over the weekend's results. Smile, play nice, adjust your imaginary monocle and tell him something like, "Your Beantown side surely got the best of us in this exhibition, old chap, but when the real games start, our Bronx nine shall top you." In the grand scheme of things, both the season and the all-time rivalry, this weekend's sweep quantifies as small tater tots. As a wise man said back in 1978: "It doesn't matter where you are when the leaves are on the trees, it matters where you are when the leaves are on the ground."
Better days lay ahead, but if you want to revel in the past, check out Cecilia Tan's list of The 50 Greatest Yankee Games of all time -- she's working on a book, due out next February, and she's left one slot open to be decided via a readers poll (I'm going to suggest nine in the ninth from '98). Who knows? By this October the next Aaron Boone may make that last slot a moot point.
Having missed the brunt of their 11-2 humiliation the night before, I was optimistic the Yanks might shake out of their funk behind Kevin Brown. Perhaps it was the crystal-clear day and the sight of 55,000 people wearing their war paint and plenty of red-and-bllue 1918 regalia -- nouveau couture for tauting the Sox faithful. But all I had to do was look over the Yankee lineup, with four out of nine hitters -- Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Travis Lee and Enrique Wilson -- stationed below the Mendoza Line, to rid myself of that optimism. This is a team in the throes of a dreadful slump, looking every bit the overpriced, over-the-hill, uninspired, fragile worst case scenario that an analyst could conjure in March. They're not hitting, the rotation outside of Brown and Vazquez has been a disaster, and suddenly a scuffle for the Wild Card seems like a very real possibility.
Facing the Sox for the second time in six days. Brown started out as shaky as can be, walking the first two batters of the game. He knocked Manny Ramirez in the dirt as the crowd showered him with epithets, but the Boston slugger got even by swatting a sacrifice fly to put the Sox on the board first. Brown's problems in the second were even more of his own making. A sharp comebacker off of the bat of Kevin Millar prompted the pitcher to hurry his thrown to first, but the ball went well over Travis Lee's head and into the stands. Then Mark Bellhorn grounded to Lee, who underhanded the ball to Brown as he reached first; he dropped the ball for his second error in as many batters. He plunked Gabe Kapler to load the bases with nobody out, and suddenly this must have seemed like a bad dream for the gritty hurler. Pokey Reese stroked a sac fly, but Brown escaped the inning with further damage. Still, he walked a tightrope. David Ortiz led off the third with a double into the left-centerfield gap, and with one out Jason Varitek walked. But Alex Rodriguez backhanded a hard Millar smash down the thrid-base line, saving at least one run and drawing a hearty ovation from the crowd.
Meanwhile, the Yanks couldn't touch Sox starter Bronson Arroyo. He walked Derek Jeter to lead off the game, but DJ was immediately erased on a strike out/throw out double play. When A-Rod topped a dribbler back to Arroyo, the crowd booed intensely. In the second Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield both took called strike three. It was going to be that kind of day.
After Brown put together his first 1-2-3 inning in the thrid, A-Rod pumped some life into the frustrated Yankee crowd with a solo homer to left. That was the sole hit the Yanks got through Arroyo's first six innings, and the score held 2-1 as Brown retired ten out of eleven batters. But he was doing so in an uncharacteristic manner. Fourteen times out of the 31 batters he faced, Brown started off with ball one, not exactly a recipe for success. Five times in his seven innings, the leadoff batter got on base. He induced ten flyouts against ten grounders, unusual for a pitcher with a career groundball/flyball ratio of 2.74, and not until Ortiz struck out in the seventh did he record a single strikeout. Even more amazingly, until that Ortiz at-bat not a single Sox hitter swung and missed against Brown all afternoon. He could hardly have made it tougher on himself, but he nonetheless did an admirable job of keeping the Yanks in the game on a day which he had very little going for him.
Arroyo began the seventh facing A-Rod, who again couldn't get the ball out of the infield as he topped a slow roller to Bill Mueller at third. In a move that must have had the entire front office cringing but nevertheless delighted the crowd, A-Rod belly-flopped into first base in a cloud of dust: SAFE! Giambi singled through the two dozen fielders clogging the right side of the infield, and A-Rod took third when Millar bobbled the ball. Sheffield tied the score with a single, and the crowd became jovial for the first time on the day.
That spelled the end of Arroyo's day, and Scott Williamson came on in relief. An infield grounder by Jorge Posada -- practically the only Yankee batter with a pulse but nevertheless stuck in the six slot -- sent the runners to second and third. Williamson then intentionally walked Lee to face Bernie Williams, in such a dreadful 1-for-April slump that he and his sub-Mendoza average were hitting eighth. With the bases loaded and one out, the crowd rose to its feet at the sight of the man who has delivered so many huge hits over the years. But number 51 is growing old before our very eyes; he grounded meekly into a 4--6-3 double play to snuff the rally.
Tom Gordon blew away the Sox in the eighth by striking out the side, but got into trouble when he walked Kapler to start the ninth. Surprisingly for the sabermetrically inclined Sox, Reese sacrificed him over to second, but Gordon shut the door by retiring Johnny Damon on a grounder and then getting Mueller to pop up to Jeter. The sac bunt theme reared its ugly head in the bottom of the inning when A-Rod walked against Alan Embree and Bubba Crosby, who'd pinch-run for Giambi in the seventh, got knocked over trying to bunt two high fastballs, both of which popped foul. Crosby nevertheless lay down as perfect an 0-2 bunt as you'd ever care to see, which is to say that it beat striking out, but ultimately didn't help much. One out later, Embree walked Posada intentionally to face Lee, who grounded out to end the threat.
Mariano Rivera came on in the tenth and the Sox again got a runner into scoring position. Ramirez singled, was erased in a forceout, and then Jason Varitek got picked off of first. But Lee's throw to the second base bag went wide left, and Varitek was safe. Fortunately, Millar popped out to Posada to end the inning.
Against Sox relief ace Keith Foulke, the Yanks returned to the infernal sac bunt strategy in the tenth. Ortiz misplayed Bernie's leadoff grounder for an error and then Miguel Cairo, in for Enrique Wilson, moved Williams over. After Jeter grounded out, Matsui walked, and then A-Rod was intentionally walked to load the bases and get to Crosby. Yankee manager Joe Torre countered by calling upon the undead Ruben Sierra (when your OPS is around .400, the zombies have clearly taken over); he could manage only an inning-ending infield grounder.
Rivera loaded the bases in the elevenh with one out but to no ultimate harm, but the Sox finally put over a run in the twelfth off of Paul Quantrill. Manny greeted him with a double off of the right-center wall that appeared to befuddle both Bernie (who looks completely lost on defense these days) and Sheffield. Varitek moved Ramirez over on a grounder. Quantrill hit Millar, and then Bellhorn lofted one into the left-center gap. Bernie made a nice reaching grab, but his weak arm was no match and the Sox third run scored -- all three on sac flies. It turns out that Boston went 0-for-19 on the day with runners in scoring position, the worst such clutch failure in 27 years. It was still too much for the Yanks, who couldn't even get a runner on against Mike Timlin in the twelfth and fell to the Sox yet again.
The team is now hitting .221/.332/.377. Jeter is 1 for his last 26, hitting a meek .184/.262/.224. Williams is .179/.303/.214. Torre continues to write Wilson's name in the lineup despite a .394 OPS and the fact that Cairo has 4 RBI in his 10 plate appearances, two more than Wilson has in 49. the best hitter on the team, Posada, is stuck batting sixth despite a .745 slugging percentage, a share of the league lead in homers and second in the league in RBI. The next four days find the Yanks facing Pedro and then the big three of the Oakland A's, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito. The Yanks are 3.5 games out for the first time in nearly two years, and it may well get worse before it gets better. Enjoy it while you can, Yankee haters.
