Leave it to Alex Rodriguez and his agent, Scott Boras, to act like total asswipes and announce that A-Rod is opting out of his deal with New York ten days sooner than was necessary – and during the fourth game of the World Series, when the baseball spotlight rightly belonged to the Boston Red Sox.
But that’s A-Rod’s style and Boras’s MO. Boras later apologized to Major League Baseball, the Red Sox and Rockies, but he already had what he wanted in the first place: attention for his client and himself.
Reader comments on the New York Times on-line tilted heavily against A-Rod and in favor of the Yankees letting him walk. From the beginning, Yankee fans had a love-hate relationship with A-Rod: we loved his talent, his statistics, his swagger, and we hoped he was the piece of the puzzle that would bring another World Series title to the Bronx; we hated the way he swooned in the postseason.
What we discovered about A-Rod during his seasons with New York is the same thing fans in Seattle and Texas discovered: A-Rod is a great player, but he’s not a winner.
There’s a big difference.
A-Rod’s not a winner because he cares more about what happens to A-Rod than to the team he’s playing for. Yes, his regular season statistics are stunning, and there’s little doubt that A-Rod will one day be inducted into the Hall of Fame, but I’d be willing to bet that when he strolls through the doors of the Hall it will be without a championship ring.
Derek Jeter is a winner. Mike Lowell is a winner. David Ortiz is a winner. A-Rod doesn’t really comprehend what those guys bring to the field and the clubhouse every day.
The numbers don’t lie. TheYankees played in five playoff series during the A-Rod era – and lost four of them. In twenty postseason games with New York, A-Rod went 15 for 75, with only three home runs and six runs batted in. His average was just .200 and he struck out twenty-one times.
Contrast these dismal numbers with Boston’s Manny Ramirez, who in fourteen postseason games this October drove in sixteen runs. That’s clutch production.
Where will A-Rod land? The better question might be, what team can both afford to pay him what he believes he’s worth and put up with the sideshow he brings with him?
I know it’s a long shot, but I’m hoping A-Rod signs a blockbuster deal with the Red Sox. The way things are going, adding A-Rod to their line-up may be the only way to knock Boston from the winner’s circle.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Someone Else's Blood
The drums are beating in Washington again
Calling for another senseless war
The strategy of destruction
The calculation of collateral damage
Maps, charts, battle plans
Generals and diplomats
Senators and lawyers
Insist that our way of life
Depends on how many others we can destroy
They never mention the harm we do ourselves
By destroying others
But when you’re far from the battlefield
Removed from the horror
Safe from harm and sacrifice
From death
It’s easy to spill someone else’s blood
Calling for another senseless war
The strategy of destruction
The calculation of collateral damage
Maps, charts, battle plans
Generals and diplomats
Senators and lawyers
Insist that our way of life
Depends on how many others we can destroy
They never mention the harm we do ourselves
By destroying others
But when you’re far from the battlefield
Removed from the horror
Safe from harm and sacrifice
From death
It’s easy to spill someone else’s blood
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Long Ride to Los Algondones
Mexico sends us its poor, downtrodden and desperate. They come across the river, through the desert, under the fence, over the razor wire, to work in our restaurants, our farms, our meatpacking plants, our backyards, our nursing homes. They willingly do hard, unpleasant, and dangerous labor for wages that most Americans scoff at.
Mexico is a nation rich in history, culture, natural resources, and political corruption. In Mexico, the gap between wealthy and poor is startling.
And so, they come across our common border to do the work we are unwilling to do.
Mexico may live in the long wide shadow cast by the United States, but when it comes to medical care, Mexico gets the last laugh. Mexican towns like Los Algondones become destinations, magnets, for American tourists who cannot afford prescription drugs, dental work, eyeglasses or basic medical care on the red, white and blue side of the border.
For $135, you can hop on an air-conditioned Santa Barbara Airbus with your prescription drug or basic medical needs, and the next day spend five solid hours in Los Algondones getting them filled -- in a foreign country that most Americans think of as desperately poor; in a foreign country we blame for our “immigration” problem; in a foreign country that we have historically exploited and treated with contempt.
Take a moment to allow the irony of that to soak in.
By world standards, Americans are wealthy and we meet our basic human needs with relative ease. But when it comes to medical care, Americans are lost in an ideological wilderness, forever arguing about capitalism versus “socialized” medicine, free markets versus government regulation, and forever missing the humane, moral point that access to medical care is an essential human right, not a privilege of birth or wealth.
Poor Mexico exports its human capital -- the aforementioned day-laborers, dishwashers, gardeners, mechanics and home health care workers -- that we cannot do without, and imports gringos who can’t afford prescription drugs or dental work on this side of the border. What’s wrong with this picture?
Even a “backward” nation like Mexico understands that health care for human beings cannot be left to the prejudices and vagaries of the “free” market. In the industrialized world, only the United States clings to the fantasy that the for-profit market can deliver medical care for all.
We are so completely twisted that we allow insurance companies to make medical decisions, to override trained professionals, and to deny care so that they may profit. We are so twisted that we cannot even engage in a rational conversation about medical care without the profiteers springing from the woodwork to scream “socialized medicine!” “waiting lists!” “higher taxes!” We are so twisted, that a conversation that should be about health and sickness, life and death, becomes instead a conversation about dollars and cents.
Consequently, we pay more and get less, and millions of us go without because the cost is too high.
And some of us get on the bus and take the long trip Los Algondones.
Mexico is a nation rich in history, culture, natural resources, and political corruption. In Mexico, the gap between wealthy and poor is startling.
And so, they come across our common border to do the work we are unwilling to do.
Mexico may live in the long wide shadow cast by the United States, but when it comes to medical care, Mexico gets the last laugh. Mexican towns like Los Algondones become destinations, magnets, for American tourists who cannot afford prescription drugs, dental work, eyeglasses or basic medical care on the red, white and blue side of the border.
For $135, you can hop on an air-conditioned Santa Barbara Airbus with your prescription drug or basic medical needs, and the next day spend five solid hours in Los Algondones getting them filled -- in a foreign country that most Americans think of as desperately poor; in a foreign country we blame for our “immigration” problem; in a foreign country that we have historically exploited and treated with contempt.
Take a moment to allow the irony of that to soak in.
By world standards, Americans are wealthy and we meet our basic human needs with relative ease. But when it comes to medical care, Americans are lost in an ideological wilderness, forever arguing about capitalism versus “socialized” medicine, free markets versus government regulation, and forever missing the humane, moral point that access to medical care is an essential human right, not a privilege of birth or wealth.
Poor Mexico exports its human capital -- the aforementioned day-laborers, dishwashers, gardeners, mechanics and home health care workers -- that we cannot do without, and imports gringos who can’t afford prescription drugs or dental work on this side of the border. What’s wrong with this picture?
Even a “backward” nation like Mexico understands that health care for human beings cannot be left to the prejudices and vagaries of the “free” market. In the industrialized world, only the United States clings to the fantasy that the for-profit market can deliver medical care for all.
We are so completely twisted that we allow insurance companies to make medical decisions, to override trained professionals, and to deny care so that they may profit. We are so twisted that we cannot even engage in a rational conversation about medical care without the profiteers springing from the woodwork to scream “socialized medicine!” “waiting lists!” “higher taxes!” We are so twisted, that a conversation that should be about health and sickness, life and death, becomes instead a conversation about dollars and cents.
Consequently, we pay more and get less, and millions of us go without because the cost is too high.
And some of us get on the bus and take the long trip Los Algondones.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Hypocrite In Chief
I’ve been scanning the headlines of the Wall Street Journal ever since my neighbor in Unit A moved out; it’s his subscription that keeps giving me access to the Bible of the corporate-set.
Anyway, for a union activist, this is kind of like reading the playbook of the Capitalist class – or at least learning some of their lingo and getting a strong sense of what excites them.
A couple of days ago, in an article about the UAW and Honda, the Journal seemed right pleased with itself when it reported that, “The moves now are helping the foreign-owned plants to lower wage scales.”
Take that in and digest it. For the Capitalist class, keeping unions out and wages for workers down – which is why Honda chose to locate a plant in Greenburg, Indiana, and get Indiana officials to give it generous tax subsidies, and than allow the company to restrict hiring to a small sliver of the state population and geographic territory – is a noble thing. Executives reap big rewards for it. That’s called rigging the game in your favor, and the Capitalist class is skilled in the practice.
Anyway, I pick up the Journal from the driveway this morning, and there’s a piece about President Bush and trade. Here’s Bush, whose tax and trade policies have shifted billions of dollars in wealth from less well-to-do Americans to the wealthiest, whose policies have created a vast gulf between haves and have-nots, chiding corporate boards for giving Top Execs lavish salaries and stock options; Bush talking about how Americans want fairness, when his Administration has been anything but.
Does Bush believe that anyone buys his shit? He’s not a lame duck, he’s a moron, a complete, fucking moron. He had no trouble denying fairness to Katrina victims or Iraq vets discharged from the Army and denied disability benefits on the basis of bogus personality disorder claims or vetoing a decent bill that gave children a shot at decent medical care.
No trouble at all. He just smacked his titanium heart with his fist and claimed that the American economy is strong, robust, cooking, full of opportunity for all.
No wonder Bush smirks so much, there’s just no way to spew that crap with a straight or serious face. You either have to smirk or grimace or burst out laughing. Bush went to Yale on his family dime, studied occasionally, partied a lot, learned little, and still, still, the motherfucker thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us.
Here’s this dingbat airhead, saying that America has lost confidence in its ability to compete in the global economy. Memo to GW: we don’t build things in this country anymore! Instead of building products the rest of the world might want to buy, we play with paper, make deals out of thin air, produce nada. And your pals in High Finance make millions, and pay to keep guys like you in the saddle, and it’s because of you, and them, that average people have finally figured out that there’s no way for them to win at this game; they realize too that they will not do as well as their parents did.
This cold knowledge is at long last beginning to sink into the nation’s TV-muddled brain, the veil of distraction is lifting as the general misery deepens: housing, health insurance, food, gas, it ain’t getting any cheaper folks, and with these jackasses in full control, there’s damn little we can do about it.
Except bitch, rant, scream and swallow anti-depressants. A few souls will see that it may take a lot more than that for us to be noticed. We can’t interest people in the ballot box, and even when we do, the powerful can steal the fucking election out from under us, stick one of their own in the White House or the Congress or the statehouse or City Hall.
Rigged games go one way. It baffles me that it took so long for the majority to catch on. I mean, did we really believe that supply-side, trickle down bullshit? Yeah, just let the rich get as rich as they possibly can, justify their belief in the creed of Ayn Rand, talk about morality and self-reliance and the sanctity of the individual, and then close their purses and forget they ever heard the term trickle down.
They turned the full power of their PR industry on us, their think tanks, encouraged, cajoled, and seduced us to buy slob SUV’s, shop for cheap goods at Wal-Mart, hate unions, and worry more about gays in our classrooms than about the organized, coordinated, and legal theft occurring right before our eyes. These fuckers are genius, genius and money, Midas on crystal meth.
They don’t even piss on us, anymore; they can’t be bothered.
Hey, it says so in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, and who am I to doubt that venerable journalistic institution?
Anyway, for a union activist, this is kind of like reading the playbook of the Capitalist class – or at least learning some of their lingo and getting a strong sense of what excites them.
A couple of days ago, in an article about the UAW and Honda, the Journal seemed right pleased with itself when it reported that, “The moves now are helping the foreign-owned plants to lower wage scales.”
Take that in and digest it. For the Capitalist class, keeping unions out and wages for workers down – which is why Honda chose to locate a plant in Greenburg, Indiana, and get Indiana officials to give it generous tax subsidies, and than allow the company to restrict hiring to a small sliver of the state population and geographic territory – is a noble thing. Executives reap big rewards for it. That’s called rigging the game in your favor, and the Capitalist class is skilled in the practice.
Anyway, I pick up the Journal from the driveway this morning, and there’s a piece about President Bush and trade. Here’s Bush, whose tax and trade policies have shifted billions of dollars in wealth from less well-to-do Americans to the wealthiest, whose policies have created a vast gulf between haves and have-nots, chiding corporate boards for giving Top Execs lavish salaries and stock options; Bush talking about how Americans want fairness, when his Administration has been anything but.
Does Bush believe that anyone buys his shit? He’s not a lame duck, he’s a moron, a complete, fucking moron. He had no trouble denying fairness to Katrina victims or Iraq vets discharged from the Army and denied disability benefits on the basis of bogus personality disorder claims or vetoing a decent bill that gave children a shot at decent medical care.
No trouble at all. He just smacked his titanium heart with his fist and claimed that the American economy is strong, robust, cooking, full of opportunity for all.
No wonder Bush smirks so much, there’s just no way to spew that crap with a straight or serious face. You either have to smirk or grimace or burst out laughing. Bush went to Yale on his family dime, studied occasionally, partied a lot, learned little, and still, still, the motherfucker thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us.
Here’s this dingbat airhead, saying that America has lost confidence in its ability to compete in the global economy. Memo to GW: we don’t build things in this country anymore! Instead of building products the rest of the world might want to buy, we play with paper, make deals out of thin air, produce nada. And your pals in High Finance make millions, and pay to keep guys like you in the saddle, and it’s because of you, and them, that average people have finally figured out that there’s no way for them to win at this game; they realize too that they will not do as well as their parents did.
This cold knowledge is at long last beginning to sink into the nation’s TV-muddled brain, the veil of distraction is lifting as the general misery deepens: housing, health insurance, food, gas, it ain’t getting any cheaper folks, and with these jackasses in full control, there’s damn little we can do about it.
Except bitch, rant, scream and swallow anti-depressants. A few souls will see that it may take a lot more than that for us to be noticed. We can’t interest people in the ballot box, and even when we do, the powerful can steal the fucking election out from under us, stick one of their own in the White House or the Congress or the statehouse or City Hall.
Rigged games go one way. It baffles me that it took so long for the majority to catch on. I mean, did we really believe that supply-side, trickle down bullshit? Yeah, just let the rich get as rich as they possibly can, justify their belief in the creed of Ayn Rand, talk about morality and self-reliance and the sanctity of the individual, and then close their purses and forget they ever heard the term trickle down.
They turned the full power of their PR industry on us, their think tanks, encouraged, cajoled, and seduced us to buy slob SUV’s, shop for cheap goods at Wal-Mart, hate unions, and worry more about gays in our classrooms than about the organized, coordinated, and legal theft occurring right before our eyes. These fuckers are genius, genius and money, Midas on crystal meth.
They don’t even piss on us, anymore; they can’t be bothered.
Hey, it says so in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, and who am I to doubt that venerable journalistic institution?
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Fat Lady Sings, Curtain Fall for Yanks, Torre
Watching Game four of the ALDS was painful, like watching a champion racehorse come up lame in the home stretch and go down in a heap. What else to do but put a gun to the horse’s head and squeeze the trigger?
The Indians simply executed better than the Yankees in every aspect of the game. By the fourth inning, when I switched the game off for good and said so long to the Joe Torre era – because for this collapse he’s sure to be canned, and in fact should be canned – Cleveland was 13 for 26 with Runners in Scoring Position in the series, and batting equally well with two out.
In the first inning with the Yanks down 2-0 and Jeter at second and Abreau at first, Alex Rodriguez walked to the plate and dug in against Paul Byrd, and you had the sense that here was A-Rod’s moment to slough off the past, the futility of 2004, 2005, and 2006, to silence a few of his critics and earn the adoration of Yankee fans, but it wasn’t to be – the greatest regular season player in recent history struck out on three pitches.
Leading off the third, A-Rod struck out looking.
When the Indians were batting, the half innings passed with agonizing slowness, as the hitters went deep into every count, 3-1, 3-2, fouling off pitches from Wang and then Mike Mussina, taking close pitches, waiting patiently for a pitch to hit. When the Yankees were at the plate it was just the opposite – the Yankee batters always seemed to be down in the count, 0-1 or 0-2, forced to take defensive swings in their own storied ballpark.
It was ugly, but not unexpected. Yankee pitching was suspect all year, and though the offense was fearsome, too often the entire team went into a collective slump, and when that happened, they had trouble beating the likes of Tampa Bay and Kansas City.
I know that people will argue that it’s not Joe Torre’s fault, since he can’t throw a strike or swing the bat, but other managers have been fired for less. Look at the record and tell me a change on the bench in the Bronx isn’t absolutely necessary: 2002, bounced by the Angels; 2003, crushed by Florida in the World Series; 2004, the historic, record book making collapse against Boston; 2005, victimized again by the Angels; and in 2006, another first round exit, this time against Detroit.
If the Yankees were the type of organization that was content just to win the division crown or get to the play-offs, Torre’s job would be safe, but that’s not the case. For George Steinbrenner, getting close isn’t enough – he wants the hardware and the championship banners, the rings. Torre hasn’t delivered in years.
General Manager Brian Cashman may need to exit as well, since he’s the architect of the team, the man who signed A-Rod, Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi and on and on. Many of these acquisitions never panned out the way the Yankee brain trust hoped.
As Jackson Brown put it, “All good things must come to an end” and the Torre era in New York is certainly over. I’m sure Joe ducked into the clubhouse between innings and began packing his personal effects into cardboard cartons: Preparation H and Pepcid AC, Extra-Strength Excedrin, Tylenol, Bayer aspirin, Pepto Bismal, a bottle of Johnny Walker Red, chewing gum and breath mints, sunflower seeds, notes from players and fans, a birthday card from George Steinbrenner, from 2000, when the dynasty was intact. He’ll come back tomorrow and take the photographs from the walls and the knick-knacks from the shelves.
And so it goes for the losers. I can’t work up much sympathy for these multi-millionaire, pampered professional athletes, though I do feel bad for Derek Jeter, who for years has been the heart and soul of the Yankees, and the only player who could be counted on to produce when the rest of the boys were choking -- though even Jeter, as great as he has been, didn’t deliver this year.
The Indians simply executed better than the Yankees in every aspect of the game. By the fourth inning, when I switched the game off for good and said so long to the Joe Torre era – because for this collapse he’s sure to be canned, and in fact should be canned – Cleveland was 13 for 26 with Runners in Scoring Position in the series, and batting equally well with two out.
In the first inning with the Yanks down 2-0 and Jeter at second and Abreau at first, Alex Rodriguez walked to the plate and dug in against Paul Byrd, and you had the sense that here was A-Rod’s moment to slough off the past, the futility of 2004, 2005, and 2006, to silence a few of his critics and earn the adoration of Yankee fans, but it wasn’t to be – the greatest regular season player in recent history struck out on three pitches.
Leading off the third, A-Rod struck out looking.
When the Indians were batting, the half innings passed with agonizing slowness, as the hitters went deep into every count, 3-1, 3-2, fouling off pitches from Wang and then Mike Mussina, taking close pitches, waiting patiently for a pitch to hit. When the Yankees were at the plate it was just the opposite – the Yankee batters always seemed to be down in the count, 0-1 or 0-2, forced to take defensive swings in their own storied ballpark.
It was ugly, but not unexpected. Yankee pitching was suspect all year, and though the offense was fearsome, too often the entire team went into a collective slump, and when that happened, they had trouble beating the likes of Tampa Bay and Kansas City.
I know that people will argue that it’s not Joe Torre’s fault, since he can’t throw a strike or swing the bat, but other managers have been fired for less. Look at the record and tell me a change on the bench in the Bronx isn’t absolutely necessary: 2002, bounced by the Angels; 2003, crushed by Florida in the World Series; 2004, the historic, record book making collapse against Boston; 2005, victimized again by the Angels; and in 2006, another first round exit, this time against Detroit.
If the Yankees were the type of organization that was content just to win the division crown or get to the play-offs, Torre’s job would be safe, but that’s not the case. For George Steinbrenner, getting close isn’t enough – he wants the hardware and the championship banners, the rings. Torre hasn’t delivered in years.
General Manager Brian Cashman may need to exit as well, since he’s the architect of the team, the man who signed A-Rod, Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi and on and on. Many of these acquisitions never panned out the way the Yankee brain trust hoped.
As Jackson Brown put it, “All good things must come to an end” and the Torre era in New York is certainly over. I’m sure Joe ducked into the clubhouse between innings and began packing his personal effects into cardboard cartons: Preparation H and Pepcid AC, Extra-Strength Excedrin, Tylenol, Bayer aspirin, Pepto Bismal, a bottle of Johnny Walker Red, chewing gum and breath mints, sunflower seeds, notes from players and fans, a birthday card from George Steinbrenner, from 2000, when the dynasty was intact. He’ll come back tomorrow and take the photographs from the walls and the knick-knacks from the shelves.
And so it goes for the losers. I can’t work up much sympathy for these multi-millionaire, pampered professional athletes, though I do feel bad for Derek Jeter, who for years has been the heart and soul of the Yankees, and the only player who could be counted on to produce when the rest of the boys were choking -- though even Jeter, as great as he has been, didn’t deliver this year.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Heartbeat in the Bronx
For three innings it looked like more of the same – more futility piling up near the Yankee dugout, the priciest players in the game getting stomped by a bunch of talented young guys from Cleveland. Roger Clemens looked every day of forty-five as he limped from the mound after only 2 1/3 innings and his team trailing 0-3. It didn’t look promising when Derek Jeter grounded into double plays in the first and third innings. In fact, the Bronx night wore the aspect of a funeral.
Before the game Yankee owner George Steinbrenner laid down the gauntlet: win this game and this series or Joe Torre is gone. When the clutch Indians scored their twelfth run of the series with two-out, the chances of Torre ever wearing a Yankee uniform again seemed remote.
Prior to the fifth inning, the heart of the Yankee line-up was a collective one for twenty-four at the plate. This potent team that scored 968 regular season runs and smacked more than 200 homers, was locked down, unable to string two consecutive hits together. It was like 2003 when the Yankees offense sputtered against Josh Beckett, Carl Pavano and the Florida Marlins. To make sure the team never found itself shut down in a play-off series again, the Yanks went after and signed Alex Rodriguez in 2004, but the post-season has been cruel to A-Rod, transforming him from September stud to October dud.
Thanks to the baseball Gods for young Phil Hughes, who came on in relief of Clemens and mixed in a sharp curve ball with 90-plus MPH heat. While Hughes kept the Indians at bay, the Yankee offense finally got out of first gear. The ever-steady Hideki Matsui showed the boys how to take the ball to the opposite field, Cano sliced a double into the left-field corner, Melky Cabrera drove a run home, and Johnny Damon hit a pop-fly homer to right to give the Yankees the lead.
Are the big bats coming out of their slumber? Did the Yankees find the mojo hidden at the base of Babe Ruth’s plaque in Monument Park? And who will get the baseball from Torre for tonight’s do-or-die Game 4? Who does Torre turn to to keep the Yankees in the game until the offense can do its thing once more?
The fat lady may not be singing in full throat, but she is warming in the wings.
Before the game Yankee owner George Steinbrenner laid down the gauntlet: win this game and this series or Joe Torre is gone. When the clutch Indians scored their twelfth run of the series with two-out, the chances of Torre ever wearing a Yankee uniform again seemed remote.
Prior to the fifth inning, the heart of the Yankee line-up was a collective one for twenty-four at the plate. This potent team that scored 968 regular season runs and smacked more than 200 homers, was locked down, unable to string two consecutive hits together. It was like 2003 when the Yankees offense sputtered against Josh Beckett, Carl Pavano and the Florida Marlins. To make sure the team never found itself shut down in a play-off series again, the Yanks went after and signed Alex Rodriguez in 2004, but the post-season has been cruel to A-Rod, transforming him from September stud to October dud.
Thanks to the baseball Gods for young Phil Hughes, who came on in relief of Clemens and mixed in a sharp curve ball with 90-plus MPH heat. While Hughes kept the Indians at bay, the Yankee offense finally got out of first gear. The ever-steady Hideki Matsui showed the boys how to take the ball to the opposite field, Cano sliced a double into the left-field corner, Melky Cabrera drove a run home, and Johnny Damon hit a pop-fly homer to right to give the Yankees the lead.
Are the big bats coming out of their slumber? Did the Yankees find the mojo hidden at the base of Babe Ruth’s plaque in Monument Park? And who will get the baseball from Torre for tonight’s do-or-die Game 4? Who does Torre turn to to keep the Yankees in the game until the offense can do its thing once more?
The fat lady may not be singing in full throat, but she is warming in the wings.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Doom in Cleveland
Well, that was a typical October Yankee loss, an excruciating extra inning affair where every fan expects the Yanks to finally, finally, break out and hit in the clutch. But no, it wasn’t to be tonight any more than it has been the last six seasons. A-Rod, the great A-Rod, went 0-4 with 3K’s – one of them in a critical situation, with two outs and Bobby Abreu – the potential go ahead run -- standing on second.
Joba Chamberlain was rattled by the crowd, the pressure of a play-off game, and the bugs that swarmed around the mound and home plate. Joba cruised through the 7th and croaked in the 8th, issuing two wild pitches, two walks, and a hit batter. Joba choked, no question. Pitching in October is different than pitching in August.
The powerful Yankee offense, tops in the Major Leagues in runs scored, was completely shut down for the second game in a row. Two games, twenty innings, a pathetic eight hits and four measly runs pushed across the plate in Cleveland.
The longer this game went, the greater the chances were that the Yankees would lose. Once Mariano Rivera left the game – after pitching a strong ninth and a shaky tenth – the odds of a Yankee loss shot up the way the Dow Jones does after the Federal Reserve slashes interest rates. When Joe Torre gave the baseball to Luiz Vizcaino, I knew the goose was cooked. In sixty-plus innings during the regular season, Vizcaino walked forty-plus batters, hardly a sterling recommendation for a set-up man – unless you pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Naturally, Vizcaino threw four straight balls to the first batter he faced. Giving the ball to Luis in a clutch situation is like handing a primed hand grenade to a Sunni in a crowd of Shiites.
Jesus, sweet Jesus, Yogi was right, it’s deja vu all over again. I’m sure Joe Torre was on the phone with his travel agent minutes after the game ended, booking a flight to Honolulu, with a connecting flight to Maui, where he will hole up in a 5-Star hotel for the next eight weeks while the Yankee brass debates his future.
If the Yankees make yet another humiliating first round exit, and it certainly looks like they will, the Torre era is over. It was a fine run. George Steinbrenner may be old and in poor health, but he’s still a proud egomaniac who demands victory, and another dismal playoff performance will make the decision to cut Torre loose easy. The glory years are long ago now, a grainy highlight reel played late at night on ESPN. The magic ended when Luis Gonzalez dumped a hit into left field and drove in the winning run in the 2001 World Series. The Yanks scored fourteen runs in seven games that series, and, expect for the first three games of the 2004 ALCS, the Yankee offense has been a sputtering wreck since.
Yankees fans are again on the Rack of October, being stretched and humiliated.
I switch to the Angels-Red Sox game. The Angels struggle against the Red Sox in a way I have never seen them struggle against the Yankees. The Yankees always look off-balance and out of kilter against the Angels, a half-step slow, dazed, old. That’s how the Angels look in Fenway. The Green Monster looms over them, ominous and intimidating, like the shadow of Darth Vader.
But I’d rather be an Angel in Fenway than a Yankee aboard that quiet charter flight from Cleveland to New York.
Joba Chamberlain was rattled by the crowd, the pressure of a play-off game, and the bugs that swarmed around the mound and home plate. Joba cruised through the 7th and croaked in the 8th, issuing two wild pitches, two walks, and a hit batter. Joba choked, no question. Pitching in October is different than pitching in August.
The powerful Yankee offense, tops in the Major Leagues in runs scored, was completely shut down for the second game in a row. Two games, twenty innings, a pathetic eight hits and four measly runs pushed across the plate in Cleveland.
The longer this game went, the greater the chances were that the Yankees would lose. Once Mariano Rivera left the game – after pitching a strong ninth and a shaky tenth – the odds of a Yankee loss shot up the way the Dow Jones does after the Federal Reserve slashes interest rates. When Joe Torre gave the baseball to Luiz Vizcaino, I knew the goose was cooked. In sixty-plus innings during the regular season, Vizcaino walked forty-plus batters, hardly a sterling recommendation for a set-up man – unless you pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Naturally, Vizcaino threw four straight balls to the first batter he faced. Giving the ball to Luis in a clutch situation is like handing a primed hand grenade to a Sunni in a crowd of Shiites.
Jesus, sweet Jesus, Yogi was right, it’s deja vu all over again. I’m sure Joe Torre was on the phone with his travel agent minutes after the game ended, booking a flight to Honolulu, with a connecting flight to Maui, where he will hole up in a 5-Star hotel for the next eight weeks while the Yankee brass debates his future.
If the Yankees make yet another humiliating first round exit, and it certainly looks like they will, the Torre era is over. It was a fine run. George Steinbrenner may be old and in poor health, but he’s still a proud egomaniac who demands victory, and another dismal playoff performance will make the decision to cut Torre loose easy. The glory years are long ago now, a grainy highlight reel played late at night on ESPN. The magic ended when Luis Gonzalez dumped a hit into left field and drove in the winning run in the 2001 World Series. The Yanks scored fourteen runs in seven games that series, and, expect for the first three games of the 2004 ALCS, the Yankee offense has been a sputtering wreck since.
Yankees fans are again on the Rack of October, being stretched and humiliated.
I switch to the Angels-Red Sox game. The Angels struggle against the Red Sox in a way I have never seen them struggle against the Yankees. The Yankees always look off-balance and out of kilter against the Angels, a half-step slow, dazed, old. That’s how the Angels look in Fenway. The Green Monster looms over them, ominous and intimidating, like the shadow of Darth Vader.
But I’d rather be an Angel in Fenway than a Yankee aboard that quiet charter flight from Cleveland to New York.
It's October, All Over Again
Well, it’s October and the Yankees are losing – and not just losing – getting their clocks cleaned and spit-shined. If you can’t pitch, you can’t win. You give up more than ten runs in a playoff game and you can kiss the dream goodbye. The Yankees are great when they’re on, but mediocre when they’re not. The only way they can win is to hit; if they don’t hit, which they often fail to do when the opposing pitcher is Josh Beckett or Jared Weaver or John Lackey or CC Sabathia, they lose.
Damn depressing. The Yanks scurried off the field in Cleveland like wet rats, every last one of them with his head bowed in shame.
Another quick October exit, another Winter & Spring spent listening to twisted rants and merciless retribution from George Steinbrenner, a couple of stupid off-season signings of players beyond their prime by Brian Cashman, and then another season when the Yankees win ninety-plus games with their offense, only to see it all go south when they find themselves in a short playoff series against a club with solid pitching.
How about the Rockies? That team is on a major roll, but do they have the pitching staff to go much further? Wild Card teams have a good historical record of winning the World Series, however, so who knows? Colorado has the mojo, the Cinderella aura. Sometimes the October crown is won by the team that catches fire at precisely the right moment. When it’s all over and they’ve doused one another with cheap champagne and hoisted the championship trophy you can’t quite understand how they pulled it off against clearly superior clubs.
In baseball, weird stuff happens.
Indeed, and no one knows this better than my Yankees, many of whom remember the horrid collapse of 2004, when they had the Red Sox by the throat and let them get away. The boys can’t be sleeping well tonight. Their dreams will be tortured by crazed Indian fans wielding wicked unhittable sliders, high heat, and nasty, nasty off-speed stuff. A-Rod’s probably pacing the floor – unless he’s out chasing some floozy – and wondering if he will ever redeem himself in October, if Yankee fans will ever truly adopt him into the storied pantheon of Yankee greats, or if he will always and forever be known as a superb “regular” season player. Back and forth, back and forth, while the Cleveland night deepens and the homeless disappear into alleys, and traffic lights blink over deserted streets.
Damn depressing. The Yanks scurried off the field in Cleveland like wet rats, every last one of them with his head bowed in shame.
Another quick October exit, another Winter & Spring spent listening to twisted rants and merciless retribution from George Steinbrenner, a couple of stupid off-season signings of players beyond their prime by Brian Cashman, and then another season when the Yankees win ninety-plus games with their offense, only to see it all go south when they find themselves in a short playoff series against a club with solid pitching.
How about the Rockies? That team is on a major roll, but do they have the pitching staff to go much further? Wild Card teams have a good historical record of winning the World Series, however, so who knows? Colorado has the mojo, the Cinderella aura. Sometimes the October crown is won by the team that catches fire at precisely the right moment. When it’s all over and they’ve doused one another with cheap champagne and hoisted the championship trophy you can’t quite understand how they pulled it off against clearly superior clubs.
In baseball, weird stuff happens.
Indeed, and no one knows this better than my Yankees, many of whom remember the horrid collapse of 2004, when they had the Red Sox by the throat and let them get away. The boys can’t be sleeping well tonight. Their dreams will be tortured by crazed Indian fans wielding wicked unhittable sliders, high heat, and nasty, nasty off-speed stuff. A-Rod’s probably pacing the floor – unless he’s out chasing some floozy – and wondering if he will ever redeem himself in October, if Yankee fans will ever truly adopt him into the storied pantheon of Yankee greats, or if he will always and forever be known as a superb “regular” season player. Back and forth, back and forth, while the Cleveland night deepens and the homeless disappear into alleys, and traffic lights blink over deserted streets.
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