River Avenue Blues

The RAB Radio Show – April 23, 2009 – Episode 23

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After a brief hiatus the RAB Radio Show is back this week. Mike and I are ready to break down the team as we always do.

Chien-Ming Wang is the main topic of conversation to kick things off, as he should be. No one could have expected this. So what to do with him? The Yanks threw him in Extended Spring Training today — after we broadcasted — and it appears that he’ll miss his next start. Nardi thinks he still needs to build arm strength. This means Phil Hughes on Tuesday. Mike and I express our opinions on the Phranchise making his 2009 debut.

There’s plenty more in this edition. It was kind of a last-minute thing — we’ve been trying to re-tool the Radio Show to be a bit more interesting. Guests are forthcoming, so it won’t just be two schmucks talking baseball.

Onto the podcast. It is available in a number of formats. You can download it here by right clicking on that link and selecting Save As. Load it onto your MP3 player and listen to it on the commute home. If you want to play it in your browser, just left click the link. You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, which will send it to you every Thursday. You can also subscribe in iTunes. Finally, we have the embedded audio player below.

[audio:http://riveraveblues.com/podcasts/RABRadioShow42309.mp3]

Update on Chien-Ming Wang

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PeteAbe has an update on Chien-Ming Wang’s day down in Extended Spring Training. He threw 91 pitches (scheduled for 100), 70 for strikes (76.9%), striking out eleven and walking just one. Apparently he was sitting around 91 with his sinker. The numbers are nice, but we have no idea how his stuff actually looked. Updates to come as they roll in.

A Pitch f/x look at Bugs Bunny

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Thanks to a trio of abysmal Chien-Ming Wang starts, the Yankees’ bullpen has thrown 46.2 innings this year, fourth most in the AL. Edwar Ramirez has bit the bullet twice in relief of Wang, throwing a then-career high 51 pitches on the 13th before establishing another career high with 58 pitches on the 18th. All of that extra work gave us a meaningful enough sample of pitches that we can use to take a closer look at Edwar’s one trick pony act.

Let’s get it started with the usual, the pitch trajectories. I’m only going to look at Edwar’s fastball and changeup, but he does through the occasional slider and it’s clearly his third offering. In fact, he’s thrown just eight this year according to Pitch f/x’s classifications, and that’s out of 162 total pitches. As with all of our Pitch f/x graphs, you can click these for a larger view. Let’s start with the bird’s eye view:

Bird's Eye View

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Review: Mohegan Sun Sports Bar Seats at Yankee Stadium

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By A. Fan

As the byline implies, this is a guest post. For reasons we deemed reasonable, he wishes to remain anonymous.

I haven’t seen any reviews of the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar at Yankee Stadium so I thought I’d share my thoughts.

I attended Sunday’s game, which the Yankees won thanks to Jorge Posada’s disputed home run. I bought tickets online Friday night and had no problem getting seats.

The Mohegan Sun Sports Bar offers four rows of seats. I would guess the four rows contain approximately 125 seats.

This bar has received much criticism because it obstructs the bleacher seats on either side. Many have called for its dismantling after the season and even the Mohegan Sun has expressed its displeasure over the situation.

I have a different take, having watched a game there. I think the Yankees deserve praise for creating seats with a unique vantage point. The photos you’ve seen don’t do it justice. The seats offer a tremendous view of the field — dead on. You see the game pretty much as Brett Gardner does and as Mickey Mantle once did. If Mohegan Sun backs out of their deal, the Yankees should rename it the Batter’s Eye Sports Bar.

I hope the Yankees keep these unique seats intact and make some much-needed improvements (see below). I would prefer to see the Yankees remove the $5 obstructed bleacher seats to create a larger area for Monument Park.

What I Liked

Privacy: Unlike the pricey Legends seats across the field, the Mohegan seats offer privacy. Because you’re sitting inside behind one-way glass, you need not worry about being caught on TV if you’re playing hooky from work or other responsibilities.

Unique View: I already mentioned the unique view of the game these seats provide. Ross Sheingold of New Stadium Insider expressed concern about glare. I can report that there’s no glare. I sat there from about 12:15 to 4:30.

Seats: The seats are not fixed. You can move them around. There’s ample space between the seats so it’s not cramped. The artist renderings on the site show fixed seats. The Yankees should replace these with actual photos.

Food: You need not order from the bar’s menu. You can take a short walk to Lobel’s or any other concession and bring the food back to your seat.

Kids: Kids are welcome. That was nice to see.

Beer: The beer selection is excellent for a baseball stadium — Brooklyn Lager, Newcastle, and Hoegaarden to name a few. Plus my favorite lowbrow beer — Yuengling (much better than Bud or Pabst in my opinion).

Service: The servers are friendly and helpful. You can go to the bar on your own, which would not have been a hassle on Sunday, but if the bar becomes jammed (as I suspect it will for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night games), it’s nice to know that you can order from your seat.

Indoors: Attending a baseball game on a cold April or October night just isn’t as pleasant as attending during warm weather. For those of us who hate cold weather, it’s nice to have an indoor option. If the Yankees make the postseason, I’ll try to get tickets in the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar. Plus, what better place to wait out a rain delay?

Bathroom: Not only is it relatively clean, but there’s a full-time attendant so no one misbehaves and the supplies remain stocked.

What Needs Improvement

Menu: I have a fairly wide palette yet I found nothing appealing on the menu. Instead, I went to the concessions (two Nathan’s hot dogs and garlic fries). I realize the Yankees run their own food services operation, but they should swallow their pride and bring in some people who know how to create great bar food. I would vote for Rite On (PS 450, Vig 27, etc.), but there’s lots of talent out there. The current menu is an embarrassment. See for yourself (ed. note: PDF file).

Booze: I’d like to see frozen margaritas, especially once the hot weather arrives. Most frozen drinks are too girly for your typical baseball fan (i.e., male, 25-55 years old), but everyone likes frozen margs.

Sound: If you think the new stadium is quiet when you’re sitting outside, try sitting inside. You cannot hear anything, including the PA system. Unfortunately, the Yankees pipe in the radio broadcast. I would prefer the YES broadcast as I’m not a Suzyn Waldman fan (is anyone?).

TVs: The folks without seats in the upper bar area have TVs to view, but you cannot see these TVs from the seats. And of course, the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar resides below the scoreboard so you can’t see that either. Thus, you cannot watch instant replays. I suggest hanging a TV from the ceiling perpendicular to the seats so you can see important plays like Jorge’s disputed home run.

WiFi: I could not use the WiFi network. I found it, but it requires a login and offers no way to create an account.

AT&T: AT&T’s service was spotty. It worked, it didn’t work, it worked. When it worked, it was helpful to catch up on game details easily missed from way out in center field.

Other Thoughts

Price: Tickets cost $90. As a guy who believes in market forces, I can’t really offer an opinion. I had fun and felt I got my money’s worth. Most of the seats seemed empty (but you never know how many sold) so perhaps the Yankees will drop prices. However, these seats could become a big draw because of the unique view, the beer selection, and the waiter service. It would make for a great bachelor party and other events.

Casual Fans: Several people with seats sat down, ate a meal, watched an inning, and then disappeared for long stretches. Some never returned. I think these casual fans now exist in all corners of the new stadium. Unlike other fans, I don’t necessarily see this trend as a bad thing. It’s probably inevitable. Steve Wynn realized that Las Vegas could grow larger only by appealing to non-gamblers. The Yankees probably feel the same way about casual fans. And yes, these folks don’t cheer as loudly. That’s no reason to vilify them.

Conclusion

Don’t knock the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar until you’ve sat through a game there. I bet you’ll have a good time. Let’s hope the Yankees improve these already enjoyable seats.

The Final Game as seen through the eyes of a fan

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Those of us lucky — or rich — enough to attend the final game at Yankee Stadium last September all witnessed a spectacle of photography. There were over 56,000 fans at the game, and as the flashbulbs went off at every pitch, it seemed as though there were just as many cameras.

Most of just didn’t do much with the pictures. I tossed mine up on flickr and wrote a post about it. That was the extent of my sharing. The pictures remain digitized for posterity, and the post sits buried deep in the RAB archives.

Jeff Fox, though, had other ideas. Fox had been attending games at Yankee Stadium since May 26, 1962 when he was 11 years of age. He’s seen numerous World Series, a complete stadium renovation, some time at Shea and countless games in between. After attending the the Swan Song for a Cathedral — and snapping just as many pictures as everyone else, if not more — Fox put his photos together in a self-published book, and it’s a beauty.

Entitled Yankee Stadium: The Final Game, the book lives up to its subtitle. It truly is a fan saying good bye. The book, a nice addition to any Yankee fan’s coffee table, starts out with a personal essay from Fox. “Watching the game wouldn’t be enough,” Fox writes in his proclamation of love for the House that Ruth Built and its surroundings. “I needed to soak up the neighborhood in all its glory and filth, observing it as it would never quite be again.”

What follows then is the neighborhood and stadium through the eyes of a die-hard fan. There’s Harlan Chamberlain signing autographs outside the park. There are some early tailgaters hankered down at Stan’s Sports Bar. Inside the stadium, people dominate the picture. The ballpark looks pristine on a sunny September Sunday in New York, close to the start of autumn, and Yankee fans are all over the place.

Fox takes his laps — around the Stadium, around Monument Park, around Upper Deck — and gets some stellar shots for it. The most poignant are those of the fans. My favorite is one of the far edge of Section 35, dangling over nothing. One fan in his Yankee hat and jersey is standing there simply surveying the scene for one last time.

As the game draws near, the Yankee Legends fill the pages of photos, but the fans steal the show. Mariano Rivera jogs in; the game ends; and the fans begin, after a forty-minute Irish wake, to filter out. The book ends, as my photoset does, with a shot of fans crossing the stadium threshold one final time. It is a fitting conclusion to a Yankee Stadium saga.

Jeff Fox’s Yankee Stadium: The Final Game is available for sale on Amazon and at its own website. With views from the stands and not the exclusivity of the pressbox, it is a great way to appreciate and see images from the final game at Yankee Stadium.

Stadium hits: Politics, rent and rocks from a Sox fan

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Old Yankee Stadium is looking a little naked in the rear these days. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

The Yankees are heading up to Boston for their first trip to Fenway Park this weekend. Thursday is an off-day, and while there’s no game for the Yanks, we have a lot of content today. So stick around, jump into a comment thread if you haven’t before and take our reader survey.

We start things off today with a bunch of stories about Yankee Stadiums, new and old. Most of these are following up on long-running stories I’ve covered in the past.

Yanks owe city $67K in backrent

Times are tight for New York City, and the powers-that-be aren’t going to let their tenants off easy. As has happened on what seems like a quarterly basis these days, City Comptroller and mayoral hopeful William C. Thompson has determined that the Yankees owe the city around $67,000 in rent. An audit by Thompson’s office revealed that the Yankees improperly claimed a slew of maintenance credits last spring on the old home. The team plans to repay the amount, pending approval of other credits by Thompson’s office.

Yanks, Brodsky spar over subpoena

The Yankees and Richard Brodsky are at it again. The ongoing dispute over stadium financing and construction costs between the Yanks and the Westchester Assembly rep may be heading to court. Brodsky has subpoenaed a series of documents involving ticket price at the new stadium and the granting of luxury suites to certain New York politicos. The Yankees have objected to the subpoena and now must persuade a judge why these documents should be kept public. The AP has more on the story, and I don’t see this as a fight the Yanks can win.

Sandomir: Yanks should bring in seat-fillers

In a rather tongue-in-cheek look at the Yanks’ empty seat conundrum, Richard Sandomir of The Times offers up an easy solution: seat fillers. If the team knows seats are going to be empty, just bring some folks down from the upper deck for a premium experience. From a PR point of view, it sure would look better than a half-empty seating bowl.

Granite from Sox country

Finally, we get to the granite. In a rather amusing bit of reporting, the AP uncovered the fact that a granite quarry owned by a Red Sox fan supplied the rocks that make up much of the new paths around the stadium. I guess that makes up for the David Ortiz jersey, right?

Crazy little thing called Melky

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Yesterday was Melky’s day, except when it wasn’t. Take away two of his at bats and he’s 2 for 4 with two homers, a walk, and 3 RIB — including, of course, the game-winner. He did have those two at bats, though, and he looked helpless in both, striking out both times on eight pitches total. This game basically embodies Melky’s young 2009 season. He’s 7 for 25 on the season with four homers (to three singles). Yet on the majority of those 18 outs he’s looked pretty foolish.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand Melky Cabrera. Some times he looks like he could be an average starting center fielder, getting on base at a decent clip, though not with much power, and playing a solid if unspectacular defense. Plus, his arm doesn’t hurt his case. Other times he looks like he can’t catch up to a Jamie Moyer fastball. We saw way too much of the latter last year, so that’s what most people remember. There was a time when Melky had quite a few more advocates.

The hype around Melky started in early 2005, after Pinsripes Plus ranked him the No. 2 Yankees prospect. Baseball America had him at No. 8. Despite a poor 2005 campaign the Yankees called him upon July 7. They ended the experiment just six games later. He had little chance of breaking camp in 2006, but he made a statement by hitting .385/.430/.566 in 135 AAA plate appearances. That earned him a call-up after the Yanks lost both Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield to injuries.

Many a Yankees fan fell in love with Melky that summer. It was hard not to. He had youthful energy the team lacked at the time. Plus, he didn’t suck, hitting .280/.360/.391. That’s not bad for a 21-year-old. It seemed everyone was high on Melky during the 2006-2007 off-season. That wore of a bit after he started slow in 2007, hitting .190 on May 1. Compounding matters was Johnny Damon and his calf issues. But Melky stepped up, OPSing .762 in May, .811 in June, .939 (!!) in July, and .818 in August. Then it all came crumbling down again, and his September was as bad as his April.

We all remember last year: beast in April, horrible the rest of the year. How could someone — who has two solid Major League seasons under his belt — go from hitting .299/.370/.494 in April to finish the year .249/.301/.341? I’m having a hard time recalling exactly how Melky looked in April 2008, but I wonder if it’s kind of how he looks now: Overmatched at times, in control at others. Apparently, I thought this way in 2007.

What does it all mean? If only there were an answer. After having watched him with my lying eyes for the past three-plus years I say fourth outfielder. Yet he shows flashes of brilliance. Do they reveal his true potential? I don’t know. All I do know is that I alternate between saying Melky! and saying it like this (usually after a flailing strikeout):

I wish Melky would just pick one and stick with it.