Clearing the Bases Episode I–in which a frazzled graphic designer cleans house on a bunch of topics… • Three weeks ago, I (along with a few others around the web) examined Derek Jeter’s struggles. Since then, he’s been playing like the one in the catalog, hitting .429 (33/77), scoring 21 runs, and playing error-free shortstop. …
Archive of entries posted by Jay Jaffe
Beer-Spurting Broadcast Blues In general, I hold the Yankees television commmentators on the Madison Square Garden Network in high regard. Jim Kaat and Ken Singleton are knowledgable veterans with 40 years of big-league playing experience between them. They are masters of tone, perfect for tuning in day after day after day, with a solid command …
Flogging Tino On Friday night, I was watching the Yankees game with my brother, who lives in New York City as I do, but is not a Yanks fan. The Yankees trailed the Angels 3-2 in the 7th inning when Tino Martinez came to bat. As the announcers made a remark about how Tino had …
Hall of Fame Inductions I didn’t see today’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony, except for about 2 minutes of highlights on SportsCenter. But I have no beef with any of the three players (Bil Mazeroski, Kirby Puckett, and Dave Winfield) who got in–I’d have voted for each as well, despite Puckett’s shortened career and Mazeroski’s …
Mussina: the Curse of the Futility Infielder? A few weeks ago, I reported on how the great Mariano Rivera has stumbled during the times I’ve seen him in person this year. Today, I discovered that I hold a hex on another key Yankees pitcher, Mike Mussina. I’ve been to four games he’s pitched this season, …
“He was going on his ass. We were going to drill him.” Milwaukee Brewers manager Davey Lopes earned himself a two-game suspension for those words, which were aimed at San Diego Padres outfielder Rickey Henderson. Henderson had just stolen second base in the seventh inning, with a 12-5 lead. An enraged Lopes came out of …
The Origins of Baseball I couldn’t resist posting this editorial cartoon. It appeared in the New York Times Op-Ed page on July 14, the same week it was reported that a librarian at NYU had discovered two references to the game of “base ball” in an 1823 newspaper. The cartoon is by Barry Blitt, and …
Junior Achievements In the wake of my little pot-shot at Ken Griffey, Jr. during my house-cleaning column (I admit it, I do love to kick whiny superstars when they’re down), I wanted to examine one aspect of Griffey’s career a little more closely. In his Seattle days, Griffey was touted as the player who could …
Cleaning House Having traveled the past two weekends and been bogged down with work in between, I haven’t had as much time to keep up with my web log. But I wanted to jot down a few thoughts on some recent trades and other baseball news before it becomes too old. So consider this something …
Support Your Local Batting Cages I’m back from Milwaukee, where I enjoyed a wonderful weekend OD’ing on baseball, pork products, humidity, and the hospitality of the Hardt family, my hosts. Aside from my visit to Miller Park (which I’ll report on soon), the highlight of my trip came on Sunday afternoon, when I paid a …