Perusing the Internet this afternoon while waiting for my chance to head outside to enjoy this 75-degree weather we’re having, I came across that clip from last night’s Baseball Tonight via The Big Lead. As I watched Peter Gammons offer up his holier-than-thou take on Kyle Farnsworth’s seventh-inning pitch to Manny, I couldn’t believe how biased Gammons was being.
In the clip, he laughs off Kyle Farnsworth as “AAA pitchers … I mean, please.” Please, Peter. Please.
Please go back and watch the clip of Farnsworth throwing behind Manny. Please note that Farnsworth’s pitch, had it hit Manny, would have hit him in the exact same spot as A-Rod’s hit-by-pitch the night before. And please spare us the faux-outrage. You’re better than that.
Kyle Farnsworth shouldn’t throw at Manny’s head, and he didn’t last night. He threw Manny an exaggerated brushback pitch after Manny had spent five of the last seven days taking batting practice off the Yankees’ starting pitchers. Biased TV commentators…I mean, please.
Disclaimer: I do not actually believe the Yankees should do this. But I’m in a good mood after a solid win, and I feel like pulling out a hypothetical.
So Jose Molina’s been hitting the ball pretty well in his six games this season. It’s easy to get excited about that, especially at a time when the rest of the team has been struggling to produce runs. Plus, he’s a superb defensive catcher.
What I’m about to suggest is kind of crazy…okay, really crazy. Please, don’t take me seriously. I cannot stress this enough. But imagine if Molina is on the verge of one of those fluke years, where he hits like .320. Hey, it’s happened before.
Bear with me…imagine Molina is our starter. Jorge can then become the full-time first baseman. Would he be any good there? I can’t imagine him being worse than Shelley Duncan on defense. He looked fine last year when he started the game there in Colorado. At the least, it would give us offensive stability at the position.
Plus, he could be the backup catcher. So he catches twice a week and plays first base or DH for the rest, with a day off here and there. Giambi can slot in a couple of days a week, when Jorge catches, sits, or DHs.
This has the added bonus of curbing some wear and tear on Jorge. He’s signed through 2011, so we might as well keep him fresh as possible. With no viable starting catcher likely to emerge by next year, we’re going to need Jorge there (can’t count on another fluke year from Molina; what do you think I am, nuts?).
That also makes either Shelley or Ensberg obsolete. Not sure what to do on that front. But it’s nice to have a little flexibility.
Of course, that’s all completely predicated on the prayer that Molina somehow manages to hit .320. A man can dream, though. A man can dream.
We now return to your regularly scheduled, not-quite-batshit-insane programming.
We’ve all seen it: A beautiful day at the Stadium, not a cloud in the sky. The Yanks are winning, and all in attendance — save for the occasional Mets or Sox fan — are in a gleeful mood. And how do they express that glee? By standing up in unison with the rest of their section and throwing their hands in the air. Yes, I’m talking about the Wave. And yes, it is without question the dumbest ballpark tradition ever.
Don’t just take my word for it, though. The guys at Drunk Jays Fans — quite possibly the funniest team-specific baseball blog — have created their guide to doing the Wave. Their biggest tip on when to start the Wave:
Don’t try to start the wave in the seventh, eighth or ninth innings if the score is within three runs, or anytime that anything happening on the field is remotely interesting or could affect the final outcome, or in the middle of a feisty at-bat, or when the home team is at the plate and threatening to score, or if there are runners in scoring position, or basically ever.
Yeah, that about sums it up. I’d recommend your read the entire article, because it took me at least 10 minutes to decide which quote to pull. In fact, it’s so good that I’ve got to pull another:
OK, so maybe you’re trying to impress the girl you’re with. If this happens to be the case, try asking yourself, do I actually think that starting the wave is going to impress her? If yes, you might want to consider the possibility that she’s a retard, and that there are a whole lot better ways to go about impressing her, which won’t also happen to irritate the fuck out of the people sitting behind you. You should also consider the possibility that you are a retard. However, it is, in fact, most likely that you both are.
The Wave is one of many reasons I love sitting in the right field bleachers. Every time I’ve seen a Wave going at the Stadium, it’s stopped dead in right field. This is a good thing. Yeah, I understand some people have fun with it, but for many it’s nothing but a distraction from the game at hand.
While we’re on the topic of dumb traditions, can we please, for the love of poop, get rid of Cotton Eye Joe? Someone tell me that it’s going to be buried underneath the rubble of the old Stadium.
While all of you are struggling with the heart attack induced by my admittedly mean April Fools prank post, here’s a sight from the aborted Opening Day that isn’t a joke. The Yankees are counting down the games left in Yankee Stadium right on the scoreboard. Take a look:
To me, there’s something a little bit off-putting about this giant countdown. We know Yankee Stadium’s days are numbered, and we know this summer will be filled with tributes to the legends and myths that dot Yankee Stadium history. But do we really need to have the end of the House That Ruth Built rubbed in our faces like this for the next six months? Fans can’t miss the new stadium, and now they can’t miss this sign either.
Thanks to RAB regular Adam for the shot from today’s postponed Opening Day.
Setting aside issues of objectivity — it’s only a little fishy that a Red Sox blogger gets tabbed to write a cover story on Yankee poster boy Alex Rodriguez — Mnookin’s piece is mind-numbingly the same for anyone who’s followed the A-Rod Saga at all over the last few years. It starts out in October and rehashes the whole opt-out/falling-out triangle between A-Rod, Scott Boras and the Yanks. It backtracks to the early 1990s and follows A-Rod to Seattle, to Texas, to the Yanks, to the post-season where he struggled in 2007 and still managed to out-hit the rest of his teammates.
As the pieces drags on, it’s obviously heading to the same place: A-Rod is a great baseball player, but he doesn’t allow the public to see the Real Alex Rodriguez. Heaven forbid the man wants a little bit of privacy. A-Rod poses for photos; he answers questions by e-mail. But no one else wants to comment. While Mnookin tries to hint that this is some shortcoming of A-Rod’s, I’d like to think it’s a bunch of people attempting to respect the guy. The need to tear him down is overwhelmingly ridiculous.
Where Men’s Vogue gets it right is in a sidebar piece about A-Rod’s workout. I’m sore just pondering his routine.
But in the end, it’s all the same. Maybe one day, we’ll hear something new about A-Rod. We know Boras was a father figure; we know they don’t talk; we know A-Rod and Derek Jeter had to bury the hatchet on some seven-year-old comments. Until someone finds something new on A-Rod, do we really need to keep reading this?
“He’s a great hitter,” said Pettitte. “No doubt I backed him off. You just can’t lay it in over the plate for him. Got to move the ball in and out. Got to hopefully make a hitter feel uncomfortable. He’s a great hitter and you have to hopefully pitch him inside.”
See what I did there? I took an innocent little quote from Pettitte about keeping a hitter honest, and turned it into a blatantly untrue and ridiculous headline in an effort to draw attention. Murray Chass and Sir George Alfredson King III, Esquire, eat your hearts out. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but it’s nice to see at least one pitcher on the staff not afraid to challenge Ortiz. I’m sick of the guy just leaning his big ugly mug out over the plate and feasting on 2-0 and 3-1 pitches because everyone is afraid to make him move his feet.
In about 12 hours, the Yankees and Red Sox will square off for their first and only meeting of the Spring Training season. With Andy Pettitte making his first start since elbow problems prevented him from getting even with the Rays throwing last week and Bartolo Colon hoping to win a spot on a team suddenly a bit short on starting pitchers, the game has plenty of drama for the two teams involved.
But as this is New York and Boston, it also has the added bonus of being a media circus. Reporters will descend on Tampa tomorrow afternoon and wax philosophical about this meeting as though it’s a harbinger of things to come this season. They’ll expound on the storied rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox, mentioning the Sox’s two World Series wins over the last four seasons as some sign of dominance in the rivalry. They’ll talk about this as though it’s the be-all and end-all of Spring Training games.
And you know what? I’m sick of it. Spring Training, as we’ve tried to point over the last few weeks, isn’t about winning or losing. It’s not about fine-tuned rivalries or spring stats. It’s about rediscovering baseball and tinkering with pitches. It’s about getting a feel for the strike zone and timing a swing on a fastball. It’s about learning new ways to get hitters out, and it’s about finding new ways to close that hole in a swing.
For four weeks, the baseball season can survive without the Yankees and the Red Sox squaring off, and for four weeks, these two teams can make their ways through Spring Training without the added bonus of an over-hyped game. Both teams would still sell out every single Spring Training game they play with or without facing off against each other.
Sure, I’ll enjoy the game tomorrow afternoon, and maybe I’m being a bit too sensitive. But when all is said and done, Spring Training doesn’t count, but everyone covering this circus sometimes thinks it does.
Update: I’m not upset about the dissenting in this post…just wanted to note that a couple of paragraphs got cut out in the middle because I misread a quote attributed to Gomes which I originally has as Shelley’s words. So that kinda took the air out of that balloon.
PeteAbe told us this afternoon that Shelley Duncan slid into Akinori Iwamura with his right spike high. Okay, I thought. No big deal. No, you don’t want your guys taking out other guys’ knees at this time of year, but from the description, it seemed harmless. In fact, I even privately chastised Jonny Gomes for running in from right field. But then I saw this pic:
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
There’s a difference between sliding with your spikes high and sending your sole towards another man’s family jewels (I’ve always loved that euphemism, family jewels). So I pretty much agree with what B.J. Upton said: “Just a flat-out dirty play. Period.”
As if things couldn’t get worse, Tough Guy Gomes ran in from right field:
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
“I probably could have done a lot of things worse, but it is a baseball field and there’s fans and kids watching,” said Gomes. “I just had to let him know, that’s not going to fly with me on the field.”
Yeah, it’s nice to see the players fired up. But this needs to end now. It really should have ended after Heath Phillips drilled Evan Longoria. But since we’re far past that point, we need Girardi and Maddon to jointly say “enough.”
In my younger and more vulnerable years, I caught for a variety of baseball teams at different levels. I caught for eight years and bore the brunt of my fair share of dings, bruises, black-and-blue marks and home plate collisions. So when I saw Elliot Johnson run into Francisco Cervelli and the Yanks’ young catcher come up in pain, I was empathetic.
What I did not feel was outrage or this sense of injustice that seems to be emanating from some — but not all — Yankee blogs and from the Yankees and their fired-up manager himself. In fact, to me, the collision looked like a clean play between youngsters trying hard to make an impression with their Big League coaches. Cervelli’s injury was an unfortunate freak accident; it didn’t stem from any malice between the two players.
Back during my baseball days, I would spend the months from the spring through the summer playing ball. After school or in school, over the summer and into the fall, I would be on the diamond playing games. I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t terrible. I could hold my own on my high school varsity team and could have played in college too if athletics had been a priority.
Every year in March, my high school team would fly south for our own spring training. Seven or eight years ago, the weather in New York in March and April was unreliable, and with a short season, we had to get as much practice time and as many games in as possible. During out trips to Arizona and later on during our season, we would play games that didn’t count against out-of-league opponents. Some of these teams — the ones from Arizona — were really good; others — the ones from up north getting in practice in the sun — weren’t. During the season, we would play games against out-of-league teams such as Iona Prep and tense in-league contests against Poly Prep or Hackley that would determine how and when our season ended.
But day in and day out, one thing held true: No matter who we were playing, we came to win, and once we as a team stepped on to the diamond, it was very, very hard to turn it down until after the game was over. We would, in March, play to win. We would play hard; we would play tough. If that meant a tough slide or a play at the plate, so be it. Even if the games didn’t count in our overall record, we couldn’t just dial it down out of some sense of fairness. Baseball is baseball.
So now look at the Cervelli/Johnson collision. A then-23-year-old was rounding third heading home with a 21-year-old catcher blocking the plate. As any baseball player knows, you have to score, and in the split seconds between the base path and home plate, instinct takes over. Did Johnson have time to think to himself, “It’s Spring Training. I shouldn’t barrel over the catcher. I should try to slide around”?
As a former player, I can safely say, “Of course not.” Johnson knew what he had to do; he knew it from years of playing baseball, and he couldn’t just turn it off. That’s not how it works at any level. Once a baseball player hits that third base bag, years of baseball training and instinct take over.
What surprises me too are the reactions from the Yankees. Joe Girardi, an intense player and an intense manager, should know this. Shelley Duncan, mouthing off about retribution, should know this. Clearly, Don Zimmer knows this. He’s spoken the most sense over the last few days.
What happened over the weekend was unfortunate. It was also a bad accident. It involved a player trying to field his position and a runner acting as any baseball runner does. Maybe — but doubtfully — a veteran with years of experience would have tried to find a way to avoid a collision. Maybe another catcher tries a swipe tag. But Cervelli stood his ground; Johnson stood his; and neither the twain shall meet. This collision shouldn’t involve retribution; it should simply involve Cervelli’s healing as fast as he can and everyone else’s remember that a baseball player can’t just turn it down five feet from home plate.
Former Marlins’ first rounder Jeff Allison is back in camp with the team after 15 months of sobriety. I was hoping Allison would fall to the Yanks at the 27th overall pick in the 2003 draft, but alas, they ended up with Eric Duncan after the Fish made the high school southpaw the 16th overall pick. Allison’s story is a bit more self-destructive than Josh Hamilton’s, but if Hammy can come back, maybe Allison can too.
The more I think about Pedro Alvarez’s injury, the more I realize there’s almost no chance he falls all the way to the Yanks at #28. Mark Teixeira broke his ankle his draft year and not only went fifth overall anyway, he also received a deal worth $9.5 million. Alvarez isn’t in Tex’s class, but there are some out there that think he is. Something crazy could happen.
There’s still a big chunk of Spring Training left, but I can totally see Scott Patterson making the team. Girardi’s been using him in a fireman role - bringing him in the middle of an inning to work out of a jam - and he’s been perfect so far. Brian Bruney may have lost some weight and grown out his hair, but he’s still craptastically ineffective. Patterson’s making the most of his opportunity; Bruney isn’t. Simple as that.
Here’s your top twoprospects for the 2009 draft. Gibson’s video doesn’t do him justice; he’ll be the best pitching prospect to come out of the draft since Prior.
Eric Erickson is now 3-0, 2.75 ERA, 0.81 WHIP with a 23-2 K/BB ratio in 19.2 IP with Miami this year. The Yanks drafted Erickson out of high school in the 43rd round of the 2006 draft, but didn’t sign him. He’s the lefthander the system is sorely lacking. Ho hum.
Last but certainly not least: I know steroids are bad and everything, but weren’t the games more fun to watch when the players could do this? I’d say so.
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