Archive for Whimsy
The poetic stylings of John Sterling
Posted by: | CommentsWith new Yankees on the team, one rite of spring involves John Sterling’s home run calls. We wait to hear what the announcer dubbed Pa Pinstripe can come up with, and invariably it will make us groan. We’ve heard “Russel has muscle” and “Andruw Jones makes his bones” already this year, and Eric Chavez has yet to homer. As part of The Sports Section’s coverage of Opening Week, New York Magazine writer Joe DeLessio explored the seven types of Sterling’s home run calls. It is, well, something.
I’m pretty sure DeLessio hit on the entire oeuvre. He talks rhymes, plays on players’ names, alliteration, foreign languages (that make little sense in English), the ever-popular Granderson cultural references, references to Babe Ruth and, of course, made-up words. At least it’s not Hawk Harrelson.
RAB Exclusive: A new look for the Subway Race
Posted by: | CommentsThe Yankees’ Great City Subway Race (sponsored by Subway) and I have a tenuous relationship. As a little kid growing up at the stadium, I loved the guy with his Noo Yawk accent broadcasting the race between what was then the 4, D and C trains. The video had live footage inside the subway system, and the race was a thrill for the little kids pulling for their favorite trains.
At some point over the past 15 years, after the B replaced the C in the Bronx, the race changed. It found a corporate sponsor and became all special effects. In early March, I explored how the subway race made no sense and how divorced from transit reality it was.
Today, the Yankees dropped a bombshell on us at Opening Day: The B, D and 4 trains are no more. Instead of using real New York City subway routes, the Yankees have taken the branding in house. The Road Gray and Midnight Blue trains have replaced the B and the D while the Pinstripes train — today’s winner — took over the East Side route for the 4. I am as speechless as you are.

The Yankees have replaced the B, D and 4 trains with their own subway colors. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
I was able to snap the image above after picking my jaw off of the frozen tundra that was the floor underneath my seats this afternoon. How could the Yankees do such a thing to the iconic New York imagery and their long-term between-innings entertainment? Did the MTA force a change? Did the Yanks want the chance to sell pinstripe-branded subway cars? The questions were endless.
Right now, I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’ve reached out to the Yankees for an explanation, and I’ll do the same with the MTA. Trust me; I will get to the bottom of this. We deserve the answers. In the meantime, we’ll ponder the fates of the B, D and 4 trains and find a silver lining: At least the injustice of the B winning the Great City Subway Race will no longer drive us nuts.
After the jump, a shot I snapped of the trains in motion. It just looks…wrong. Read More→
The Preemptive Airing Of Grievances
Posted by: | CommentsA new season is upon us, and it will surely bring exciting moments as well heartbreak. We just have to hope to have a healthy number of the former and just a few of the latter. Heartbreaking moments are inevitable over the course of a 162-game season, and they aren’t an indication of some kind of fatal flaw in the team. Sometimes things just don’t break right, that’s baseball, and we move on.
Thanks to the internet, we all have a way to covey our idiotic knee-jerk reactions to the masses at the click of a mouse or the enter button on your phone. We’re all guilty of it. We feel better, but that’s pretty much all it does. That’s what this thread is for, to preemptively complain about the inevitable. Get it out of your system now and you’ll feel better later. Here’s a nice long list of unfortunate things that are sure to happen at some point (more than likely multiple times) in 2011, but if you have anything to add, stick it in the comments.
- Derek Jeter will ground out weakly on the first pitch.
- Brett Gardner will take a fastball right down the middle for strike three.
- Mark Teixeira will swing over top of a changeup.
- Curtis Granderson will strike out against the lefty.
- Robbie Cano will swing at a pitch a foot over his head.
- Gardner will reach base and not attempt to steal in a timely fashion.
- Gardner will reach base and not attempt to steal. Period.
- Nick Swisher will strike out three times in one game.
- Alex Rodriguez won’t hit that game-winning homer.
- Jesus Montero will make an out, probably in his first ever big league at-bat.
- Mariano Rivera will blow a save. Might even be a walk-off loss.
- Rafael Soriano will blow a save.
- Soriano will blow a lead in the eighth.
- Joba Chamberlain will blow a lead in the seventh.
- Joba will blow a lead in the seventh, the Yankees will regain the lead the next inning, and then Soriano will blow it in the eighth.
- The Yankees will strand a runner at third.
- The Yankees will load the bases with no outs and fail to score a run.
- Phil Hughes will give up a homerun.
- A.J. Burnett will give up four runs in an inning.
- Freddy Garcia will suck. In general.
- Ivan Nova will stop looking like Cy Young once the lineup turns over.
- CC Sabathia will fail to throw at least eight innings in a start.
- CC will lose a game. Two in a row, in fact.
- Some non-prospect will get called up and shut the Yankees down in his first start. Presumably left-handed.
- Some team will steal Russell Martin blind.
- Evan Longoria will make A-Rod look old.
- Elvis Andrus will make Jeter look really old.
- Andrus will get another friggin’ infield hit.
- Adrian Gonzalez will take a Yankees’ pitcher deep.
- Kyle Farnsworth will save a game. Against the Yankees, in the Bronx.
- Tex will slump in April.
- Pedro Feliciano won’t get that one lefty he was brought in to face out.
- Someone on the staff will walk in a run. My money’s on David Robertson.
- Bartolo Colon will pitch well out of the bullpen, then suck in the rotation.
- One of the Killer B’s will get called up and not be awesome right away.
- Andruw Jones‘ long swing will make him look like the worst player ever for a stretch of time.
- Joe Girardi will make a weird pitching change.
- Frankie Cervelli will start entirely too many games once he’s healthy.
- Some Triple-A reliever won’t get called up when we all know he totally should have.
- Some Triple-A reliever will get called when he should have, then he’ll suck.
- Greg Golson won’t throw out every runner who tried to take an extra base.
- Jose Bautista will hit a homer against the Yankees.
- Some guy you never heard of will hit his first career homer against the Yankees.
- Old Timer’s Day festivities will last entirely too long.
- The Legends seats will be empty for a game.
- A-Rod will wear those funny white cleats during the All-Star Game.
- Some Yankee will get snubbed for the All-Star Game.
- That guy the Yankees should have signed will pitch well against them.
- Manny Ramirez is going to remind us of the old days, at least once.
- Granderson will take a weird route on a ball hit in front of him.
- Swish will make a boneheaded play in the outfield.
- Swish will make a boneheaded play on the bases and get tagged out.
- The Yankees won’t double steal with Gardner and Eduardo Nunez on base.
- Girardi will call for a sac bunt.
- Swisher will attempt to bunt.
- Cano will square around to bunt.
- Jeter won’t bunt when he should, then he’ll ground into a double play.
- The Yankees won’t draft the guy Baseball America says they should have.
- The Yankees won’t give that international free agent $4M.
- Kevin Millwood will get a chance before your favorite pitching prospect.
- Some pitcher the Yankees should acquire will get traded, just not to New York.
- Ian Kennedy will throw a great game on the same day the Yankees’ fifth starter gets rocked.
- Damaso Marte ain’t ever comin’ back.
- Kei Igawa will still show up in DotF.
So that’s all I got. Like I said, add anything I missed in the comments.
The Ruben Rivera Trade Tree
Posted by: | CommentsOn of my new favorite sites (or Tumblrs, I think that’s what they’re called) is MLB Trade Trees, which is exactly what you think it is. They’re graphics of MLB trades, like the one you see of Ruben Rivera above. Of course that one could be continued, since Robin Ventura turned into Bubba Crosby and Scott Proctor, then Scott Proctor turned into Wilson Betemit, then Betemit and two throw-in prospects turned into Nick Swisher. The Gary Sheffield tree is pretty cool too, amazing how much it impacted the Brewers. Anyone, I recommend adding the site to your bookmarks or RSS feed or whatever, this kind of stuff is always fun.
(Just a reminder: Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Fly Ball did a killer Swisher trade graphic for us not too long ago)
The musical stresses of Spring Training
Posted by: | CommentsMark Teixeira wants to rock, and he wants Yankee fans to know that every single time he strides to the plate in Yankee Stadium this year. The Twisted Sister, in fact, has been filtering through the TV broadcasts during Spring Training as well. So I take comfort in knowing that in 2011, Mark Teixeira wants to rock just as much as he did in 2010 and 2009.
Teixeira isn’t so stuck in his ways. As he explained last year to ESPN, he has mixed it up with his tunes over the years. He used to play Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” and added Pearl Jam’s “Alive” to his Bronx rotation in 2010. Even still, he always just wants to rock.
The Yanks’ first baseman though is a stalwart among changing tastes. As Mark Feinsand and the dear departed Fack Youk explored last May, the Yankee lineup featured an ever-changing mix of current hits and classic tracks. The Baseball Gods cursed Nick Johnson for his using Miley Cyrus during baseball games while Derek Jeter and A-Rod come to bat to their latest favorite. “This Is Why I’m Hot” gave way to “The Way I Live” for A-Rod one year. Or perhaps it was the other way around.
Inside the stadium, we used to be welcomed to the jungle by Axl Rose and Co. before every game. These days, Nelly reminds us that the Yanks have the heart of a champion, and the dulcet tones of Bobby Darin still remind us that it’s Sunday in New York. Those tracks are run by board operator Mike Bonner, but the players generally pick their own songs. It’s a process.
On Monday evening, Curtis Granderson — with some help from 12 Angry Mascots — let us into the process and showed us exactly what song we’ll be listening to this season as number 14 comes to bat. The, uh, fun is well worth the three minutes and three seconds.
An animated take on Hank’s comments
Posted by: | CommentsVia the good folks from Taiwan’s Next Media Animation studio comes the ultimate take on the Hank Steinbrenner/Derek Jeter spat. It includes a great shot of Jeter physically constructing his house, a distracted Derek in the field and Hank Steinbrenner’s literal back-pedaling. There’s nothing left to say; just press play.
Buying out A-Rod
Posted by: | CommentsLate last week, word spread that the Giants would “consider” buying Barry Zito out of the final three years and $64.5M left on his contract. It all turned out to be nothing but speculation, and the team has repeatedly denied the report. It doesn’t make a lick of sense for them either; Zito’s overpaid but not useless. Guys that you can pencil in for at least 180 IP with a FIP in the mid-4.00′s have value, especially when your rotation is a bunch of 20-somethings coming off career high workloads following a World Series run. Anyway, hearing that stuff made me think about the Yankees’ own albatross contract, the one belonging to Alex Rodriguez.
As many of you may know, I’m also a pretty big hockey fan, and unlike MLB, the NHL has a system in place that allows a team to buy out a player’s contract. It’s complicated and I won’t bore you with the gory details, but the general idea is that the player gets two-thirds of the money spread out over twice the years. There’s salary cap ramifications and all that, plus the actual year-to-year distribution of the cash is a little tricky, but the general idea is two-thirds the money, twice the years. If you want to read more about the process, check out the Understanding The Cap page at Blue Seat Blogs.
I wanted to have a little fun, so I applied the NHL buyout rules to the remainder of Alex Rodriguez’s contract. We’re a little too late in the game to buy out the 2011 season, so let’s just assume that this would occur next offseason. At that point, Alex will have six years and $143M left on his deal (yikes), so we’re converting it to 12 years and $95.3M. Here’s the breakdown of the annual payouts and savings, so make sure you click the graph for a larger view…
If the Yankees were to buy out Alex as per the NHL rules in my completely hypothetical situation, it would clearly be a trade of long-term pain for short-term gain. The team would save upwards of $20M in both 2012 and 2013, plus another $14M in 2014 before single-digit savings in each of the next three seasons. That brings us to when the contract is supposed to expire, but per the terms of the buyout, the Yankees would still have to pay A-Rod close to $8M a year for the next six seasons. That’s chump change for the Yanks, but $8M is still $8M.
So with Alex bought out, what would the Yankees do at the hot corner? I suppose they could always give Brandon Laird a shot, but that’s pretty much it for the in-house candidates. There aren’t many third baseman on the free agent market next offseason, with Bill Hall representing the only option that jumps out as affordable and reasonably productive. The Yankees aren’t going to buy out A-Rod only to sign Aramis Ramirez (another older and declining third baseman) to a big contract, so that rules him out.
The smart move would probably involve sliding Derek Jeter over to third and finding a new shortstop. That would open the door for Jose Reyes or J.J. Hardy, two guys scheduled to hit the open market after the season. The end result would be a younger team, certainly, but probably one lacking a big bat in the middle of the lineup, something A-Rod still provides at his age.
Would I do it? Eh, probably not. I guess it really depends on how Alex looks in 2011. If he has a big rebound year, say .290/.380/.530 with 35 homers or so, then I’d keep him. If he continues his slide and puts up something like .250/.335/.475 with 25 homers, I’d probably buy him out and take the savings. What about you?
MLB Experts on Babe Ruth
Posted by: | CommentsAll your favorite MLB writers and analysts and managers and more talk about the awesomeness of Babe Ruth. Enjoy.
Dissecting the Great City Subway Race
Posted by: | Comments
During old Yankee Stadium's final year, somehow, the B won the subway race 26 times. It's a New York City miracle. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
The between-innings entertainment at Yankee Stadium has largely run its course these days. Most fans who trek up to the Bronx would like to do unmentionable things to the Zales Fan Marquee guy; the YMCA merits an eyeroll; Cotton Eye Joe has been banished to points of the game when fans aren’t paying attention; and the blooper reel still features Montreal Expos and a Tommy Lasorda clip from the 2001 All Star Game.
By now, I mostly ignore the distractions. A few years ago, my dad decided to try to tune out the noise the PA system throws at fans between innings and just focus instead on what the players are doing. I’ll watch A-Rod take a long pass from Teixeira or check out Jeter throwing BBs from beyond third base as the guy on the mounds get ready. But one aspect of the stadium entertainment grabs my attention: the Great City Subway Race which arrives around the middle of the 4th inning.
Once upon a time, the Great City Subway Race had some charm. This guy with a heavy Noo Yawk accent used to announce the contest between the 4, D and C trains, but this was ages ago, when the C ran where the B does today. The DiamondVision screen used to show actual footage from inside the subway system, and the race kinda sorta resembled the real thing. Today, it’s all just special effects and some guy who sounds like he’s from Indiana.
But that’s not important. What really grinds my gears is the portrayal of the trains and their routes. It’s just wrong.

Supposedly, the BMT trains are at Herald Square and the 4 is starting from Grand Central. (Photo by Amanda Rykoff)
I’m not sure where to begin. What stations are these? The announcer claims its Herald Square on the left and Grand Central on the right, but a quick visual glance proves that neither are what they say they are. Meanwhile, the blue D train just doesn’t make sense. Blue is the trunk line color for the 8th Ave. line, and at no point is the D considered the 8th Ave. line. Meanwhile, why are the B and D on separate tracks at Herald Square? Is the B going to Queens? Who killed the F train?
As the trains depart from their mid-route terminals en route to Yankee Stadium, the announcer gets quite excited. We watch the B and D start to pull out, shift to the East Side to catch the 4 leaving and then…zoom past Times Square to get back to the B and D? The B and D never pass through Times Square, and to go from Grand Central to the 6th Ave. line involves a trek through Bryant Park. The camera is lost.
As the trains head uptown, the announcer likes to say they are “neck and neck” as they motor toward the Bronx. There is but one problem: Remember how the B and the D started out on separate tracks at Herald Square? Well, as the 6th Ave. express departs Rockefeller Center and heads into 7th Ave., it’s a single track. The B or D will have to go first, and if the D goes first, the B train — a painfully slow local that makes seven more stops than the D along Central Park — will never catch up. Even if the B goes first, the D will pass it before the Museum of Natural History. Yet, somehow, the two trains seem to draw even somewhere under the park. Some race, huh?

What are these trains doing aboveground? (Photo by flickr user fastlaine)
As we speed to the finish line, something funny happens. All of the trains are magically aboveground and seemingly at grade! These trains are now literally running through the South Bronx. Who needs parks when we’ve got open subway tracks? That’s neighborhood transformation at its finest.
Finally, someone has to win, and while the B in Brooklyn is my lifeline to law school in the morning, every time the B wins the subway race at Yankee Stadium, I die a little inside. The B makes eight stops that the D skips, and the 4 is faster (or if it’s a weekday and rush hour, slower) than either. What the Yanks need is some realism. Give me a sick passenger, an unavoidable delay and the D train making stops along the A from West 4th St. to Columbus Circle, and I’ll be a much happier camper.
I’d be remiss to end this post without mentioning the people who have heard me complain about this the most. Of course, my parents and sister get an acknowledgement as do Amanda Rykoff, Stefanie, Leonora, Jake, Mark Schwartz, Kiersten, and everyone else on Twitter who obsesses over the subway. Don’t forget: There’s always Second Ave. Sagas for all of your transit. Now back to your regularly scheduled hand-wringing over the Yanks’ rotation.










