Bats:Both

Harold Reynolds

Archive for April, 2010

“We’re gonna shout when ya powder the ball.”

Apr 26

Posted by Jerry Milani in History, New York Mets, New York Yankees | No Comments

The excellent New York Times BATS blog has a piece today intended to be interactive regarding the Yankees and Mets “signature songs,” following up on a story in the paper by Richard Sandomir on Sunday.  “Meet the Mets,” the more popular (and in the opinion of most the better) of the two, helped introduce the nascent franchise to the city.  “Here Come the Yankees,” which is still used on Yankees radio broadcasts, but in instrumental form, was, in effect, an “answer” to the catchy Mets tune.

Sandomir’s light-hearted piece gives a bit of the history of both and catches up with the original writers, and the BATS post asks fans to submit their own, updated lyrics in the comments.

Written out, the original lyrics — especially those of the Bombers’ song — seem a bit comical nearly a half-century later.  (“We’re gonna scream, ‘Put it over the wall,’” “Oh, the butcher and the baker and the people on the streets, Where did they go?”).  They probably seemed a bit comical in the 1960s as well…

But, then, so do college fight song lyrics written in the early 1900s.  Like fight songs, the Yankees tune is more timeless than the lyrics.   The “Meet the Mets” lyrics have proven to be more enduring, even if “…step right up and BEAT the Mets” probably followed minutes after the first Yankees fan heard the famed first line.

When I used to hear the Yankees tune before and after broadcasts in the 1970s, they were already using the instrumental version.  I just assumed that the song had been around for many years, and it wasn’t until years later that I found out that it had lyrics and that it was actually written during the team’s dry spell, which lasted more than a decade from the mid-60s through the mid-70s.

I have the full version of “Here Come the Yankees” on my iPod, and it shuffles in every so often.  For both songs, their corniness is part of the charm.  They don’t need updated lyrics or new versions, as “unofficial anthems” like Sinatra’s “New York, New York” or Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” finding their own place in Yankees lore, the latter helping the team keep up with the times.

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The Last Time

Apr 19

Posted by Jerry Milani in History, New York Yankees | 1 Comment

1926 Yankees

Sports are full of things that seem meaningful but really are not:  bold, profound-sounding statements that by giving some slice of the past are supposed to predict the future or place certain players or teams into categories, like Hall of Fame or Best Team Ever.  Tidbits like “teams that win the first two games win the series x percent of the time,” (of course they do, they’re usually the better team in the first place), or “Only five players in MLB history had x number of hits, y stolen bases and z hit by pitches,” with the reasoning that one who is otherwise not in the class of the other four should be considered as such.

But applied properly, items like “the last time such-and-such happened” speaks to how true the idea is that you can see something new just about every time you watch a game.  Who would have thought, for example, that the last time the Yankees won the first four series of the season — just four series! — was 1926.  They still weren’t a dominant force in the league, having won just one title (1923).  It was the first year that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were teammates together at the start of the season, and that team went on to win “only” 91 games, a nice total but one of the lowest ever for a Yankees pennant winner.

That team, of course was just one year away from being the outfit that some still consider the greatest in baseball history, and the starting eight and five regular pitchers were part of both squads.  The ‘26 Yanks actually won the first five series, then promptly lost three straight to the Philadelphia A’s, who would finish third, just six games out.

Further, 52 Yankees teams have won more than 91 games, 48 of them after 1923.  Yet none of them were able to win the first four series outright.  That’s almost 90 years ago.  Some of the best teams ever, the aforementioned ‘27 squad, 1939, 1953, 1961 and 1998 teams among them, never did that.  Fans may recall that the ‘98 Yanks lost four of their first five games and were 3.5 games out of first (!) before ripping off 25 of the next 29 and never looked back.

It doesn’t guarantee anything, but I like the tie to history that “the last time” notes suggest.  And the more basic and apples-to-apples the fact — “won the first four series,” as opposed to “won 10 games started by lefties in day games,” the better the connection.

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Around the Horn: Wednesday, 4/14/10

Apr 14

Posted by Tom Biro in Around the Horn, History, Uniforms | No Comments

Links of interest from around the baseball world on Wednesday, April 14, for your clicking-and-reading pleasure.

  • Our own Jerry Milani shares some news at Baseball Digest about Thursday being declared as “Jackie Robinson Day” across MLB, with all players wearing Robinson’s #42.
  • Yankee fans aren’t exactly ecstatic about Javier Vazquez being back in his old-time Yankees form, to say the least.
  • Bill Ivie points to the preseason predictions of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, who apparently have netted out on the Yankees and Phillies making it to the Fall Classic again this year.
  • The NYT’s Fred Bierman has the lowdown on those basketball-shoes-that-are-really-baseball-cleats (or something like that) that Yankees hurler CC Sabathia has been rocking.

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The 3.7 Percent Solution

Apr 11

Posted by Jerry Milani in New York Mets, New York Yankees | No Comments

The Yankees and Mets have each played six games to date, which equates to roughly 3.7 percent of the season.  That’s the equivalent of:

  • the first half of the first game of an NFL season
  • the third quarter of the second game of an NBA season
  • the first two minutes of the third game of the NHL season

Which basically means, no one in their right mind would base an entire season outlook on that small a sample size.

But we’re not talking about people in their right mind, we’re talking about baseball fans.  Worse, New York baseball fans and media, who Brian Cashman colorfully described as “forensic scientists” in their dissection of every decision in every game.

I had to listen as Seth Everett complained on 1050 ESPN Radio that Marcus Thames played left field instead of Brett Gardner or Randy Winn against Jon Lester.

Just imagine the uproar if C.C. Sabathia had entered the ninth inning yesterday with a no-hitter intact and Joe Girardi had taken him out.  Some have already questioned Javier Vazquez’s ability to pitch in New York (never mind that the game was in Tampa) and don’t even visit any Mets forums or comment pages, it’s not a pretty sight.

Here are my takeaways from the first week of the New York baseball season.

* Winning four of six on the road against your biggest division rivals is a great start, but more important is that Curtis Granderson and Nick Johnson have made contributions right away.  Granderson is going to be a huge fan favorite, and even though Johnson doesn’t have the hitting stroke down yet, he’s been keeping the line moving with walks.

  • The Yankees relievers are a big improvement over this time last year.  David Robertson, Chan Ho Park and/or Damaso Marte, to Joba Chamberlain to Mo Rivera might be the best sixth-inning-on combo in the game (Jose Veras, Jonathan Albaladejo and Brett Tomko filled three of those roles to begin 2009).
  • Mets fans have been in a panic since pitchers and catcher reported, and losing four of six at home didn’t help.  But they showed they can hit home runs at CitiField, and when Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran – and even Daniel Murphy — return full-time the lineup will suddenly look a lot better.
  • Joe West might not like it, but those Yankees – Red Sox games were a great way to start the season.  More on that here.

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Wondering about the West Vest

Apr 5

Posted by Jerry Milani in Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Sports on TV | 1 Comment

Major League umpires took quite a hit last year, with missed calls getting even more attention than normal, it seemed.

And in last night’s Yankees-Sox game, there was Angel Hernandez blowing the first close call of the season, ruling Mike Cameron out on a bang-bang return to first on a Marco Scutaro liner.

At least he waited until the second inning.

But my umpire-related commentary toda is not about that play or the home plate work by Joe West, which I found to be quite good last night, even for Joe West.  I wonder though, what arrangement must have been in place for him to clearly display “West Vest” on his inside chest protector.

The West Vest is an apparatus developed by the 33-year MLB ump that offers umps better protection, and according to the company Website is used by more than 90% of the big league umpires and is the only chest protector endorsed by MLB.  And with all the injuries suffered by arbiters in recent years, anything that helps protect them is great by me.

But if a player were to invent a piece of equipment, would he be able to have its name displayed so prominently in a national televised game?  The “Pedroia Destroia” shoes with 5-inch lifts?  The “Ramirez Radar” for tracking fly balls?

I’ll be interested to see if the name is as visible on the other umps in today’s games, and if that exposure is part of MLB’s endorsement.

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For Starters, Yanks-Sox a Hit

Apr 4

Posted by Jerry Milani in Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds, New York Yankees, Sports on TV | No Comments

Jack Chesbro

“You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.” - Joe DiMaggio

For most of the 30+ years that I have been a baseball fan, I’ve looked forward to Yankees Opening Day almost from the last game of the previous season.  Because the Red Sox have been the Yankees’ Opening Day opponent only four times in the past 36 years, it seems like the matchup is a rare one.  The Yanks have opened on the West Coast, in Tokyo, and against Central and Western Division teams, but only in 1985, 1992 and 2005, and now tonight, have the Yanks and Sox gone at it in game one, since 1973.

But the teams have actually met 29 times in the opener, with New York holding an 18-10-1 advantage.  Just about every other year from 1917 through the 1930s, the rivals squared off for the first game, though not with the same anticipation as the 2005 game presented.  That, of course, was the first meeting between the teams after Boston’s first World Championship in 86 years (when they also opened the following season against the Yanks), and of course the Red Sox’ historic comeback from 0-3 in the ALCS.  That day, Randy Johnson beat David Wells as the Yanks won, 9-2.

The first time the two franchises met in the season opener was 1904, when the Highlanders’ Jack Chesbro won the first of his A.L.-record 41 games, beating none other than Cy Young, at the old Huntington Avenue Grounds, the team then known as the “Americans” coming off the first World Series title in 1903.  The Yankees won 14 of the 16 Opening Day matchups with Boston from 1923-1960, when expansion and increased air travel made it less likely that the teams would meet in the opener.  Indeed, they have played just seven times since then, the Sox winning five.

Some have argued that the Cincinnati Reds should host he first game of the year, as they did for more than 100 years because of their status as the first recognized major league team.  I think this former tradition, while nice, is easily usurped by a showcase of one of the two or three biggest rivalries in the game in prime time on ESPN on Sunday night.

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R.I.P. Mike Cuellar

Apr 3

Posted by Jerry Milani in Baltimore Orioles, History | No Comments

I read this excellent piece by George Diaz at the Baltimore Sun the other day about Mike Cuellar, a four-time 20-game winner for the Orioles, who had been in the last days of terminal stomach cancer.  Cuellar died Friday at 72, the cancer finally taking him after a series of other health issues over the past year.

After a 15-year Major League career, Cuellar pitched his last game in May 1977, just as I was becoming a fan, so I never got to see him play.  But I recall, even early on in discovering the game, a certain connection I felt towards Cuellar.  I remember reading a lot about the four 20-game winners on the Orioles staff, and seeing the highlights of those early 70’s World Series that the Orioles were in, and seeing Jim Palmer and Dave McNally and, to a degree, Pat Dobson, getting more attention.  Then I’d look at Cuellar’s numbers in the Baseball Encyclopedia and wonder why he didn’t get more acclaim.

I think it’s exactly because he wasn’t like Palmer that Cuellar fascinated me.  He didn’t have the dominating fastball or the underwear ads or the TV persona that Palmer had.  Plus, Palmer was still going strong in the late 70s, and Cuellar was already retired, which made him a little more of a mythic figure to me.  Cuellar wasn’t famous outside of Baltimore — certainly not in New York — and he wasn’t even a Yankee (!).  Yet I remember connecting with him.

Diaz’s piece drove another point home to me, one that I think is lost on today’s young fans.  Cuellar, though clearly one of the best pitchers in the game for a solid six years right in the middle of Baltimore’s championship run, never made enough money in the game (max salary: $45,000) to take care of his family.  Cuellar just missed out on free agency, and had he put that 67-win, three-year stretch together today — as a lefty, to boot — he’d be a $10-million-plus player.  Cuellar gave his whole life to the game; it was all he knew.  He’d been pitching so long that he had played for Havana when it was still in the International League, pre-Castro.  And he ended up working part time as a starter and ranger at a country club after he retired.

The point of Diaz’s column is that Cuellar didn’t let that define him, just as his recent illnesses couldn’t break his bond with family an ex-ballplayer friends like Felix Millan.  It was a life well lived, and to be celebrated, even by a Yankees fan who never saw him play.  R.I.P. Mike.

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Around the Horn: Thursday, 4/1/10

Apr 1

Posted by Tom Biro in New York Yankees, News | 3 Comments

Some news and updates from around the world of baseball from Thursday, April 1, 2010.

  • 20 years ago this week (April 3, 1989 to be exact), Ken Griffey, Jr. made his MLB debut for the Seattle Mariners. Over at Hardball Times, Richard Barbieri takes a peek at a few other players who are of the best at their positions, but hold no World Series ring.
  • At the NYT’s Bats Blog, Justin Sablich shares part 2 of a series rounding up how some Yankees bloggers are looking at the 2010 season. (Part 1 is here)
  • Glam Gal’s Heather Zeller says that the Minnesota Twins’ Joe Mauer is “Who’s Haute”
  • Baseball Crank’s talking about JD Drew being clutch. Or unclutch. You decide.
  • The AP reports that Andrew Thomas Gallo, charged with the death of Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart, wants to move the trial away from Orange County, CA.
  • Former Major League OF Doug Glanville is joining ESPN as a baseball analyst.
  • Yep, that’s apparently Thurman Munson’s pilot’s license on eBay. Mike at SteadyBurn calls it “atrocious” as a find. [via BallHype]

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