The Post in Which I Prostrate Myself Before the Sage's HOF Plaque and Beg for His Benificent Forgiveness

I'm sorry, Yogi-san. I should never have doubted the wisdom of your words.


Yankee wins give pennant race new look

If this week's kid, Ian Kennedy, strikes my fancy tomorrow in his MLB debut, my season-long betting discipline is going directly out the window.

Ho Hum- Yanks Sweep

While the sweep was probably like a swift kick to the nuts to the reactionary WEEI mouth foaming pessimist fan, many enlightened Sox fans, like myself, are not very concerned about 3 straight losses. Here are five reasons:
1.) A big division lead fosters a lackadaisical attitude to the games. You want your team heading into the playoffs hot, playing hard like somebody shoved a hot poker up your ass.
2.) As we've seen, the 2007 Yanks have shown the ability to from white hot to ice cold. Each time the Yanks have closed the division gap, they coughed it back up faster than young Jimmy getting a handy from Mary Lou.
3.) The Sox starters havent lost their ability to pitch well.... the hitters (Mostly-Manniless) were scuffling this series against decent pitching, but goodbye NYC, hello Baltimore! 'nuff said there.
4.) The complexion of those games would have changed had they occurred at Fenway (JD homer= out, 2 Cano homers- out, out, A-Rod homer= single)
5.) Even if the Yanks creep in ala Wild Card, they'll get bounced by Anaheim in the A.L.D.S. (as we ALL know)

A Moment of Silence, Please

Sic transit gloria mundi

Hilly Kristal, Founder Of CBGB, Dies Of Cancer

Hilly Kristal, whose dank Bowery rock club CBGB served as the birthplace of the punk rock movement and a launching pad for bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, has died after a battle with lung cancer, his son said Wednesday. He was 75.

Jeez, I have no idea the number of nights I spent in that dive. Good times.

“He created a club that started on a small, out-of-the-way skid row, and saw it go around the world,” said Lenny Kaye, a longtime member of the Patti Smith Group. “Everywhere you travel around the world, you saw somebody wearing a CBGB T-shirt.”

Godspeed, you Magnificent Bastard, and thanks for all the memories.

Say "hello" to Dee Dee, Johnny and Joey for me... and kick Thunders in the nuts for puking on the floor in Rock & Roll Heaven.

It's Over

Yeah, they might earn the wildcard slot, but that just means they'll get blown away in Round One:
Time Torre throws changeup at rotation:

"A few days ago, Mike Mussina scoffed at any notion that he needed to pitch well last night to retain his spot in the rotation. 'Who would they replace me with?' Mussina asked dismissively. Three innings into a third straight disastrous start last night, you couldn't help thinking those might be remembered as famous last words from Mussina."

Melky saved him from getting yanked in the first inning. They can't DL Mussina; the league would never stand for it. The Yanks have two gaping holes in the starting rotation: Moose and Clemens. You can't--if you are honest--trust either one of them. It's Pettite, Wang, and "flip a fucking coin."

And now the Red Sox come to town.... Oh, Joy!

Tick Tick Tick...

With the sweep of the double-header and the Skanks loss in extras the magic number is now 28. Sox go 18-14 down the stretch and the Skanks lose 10 then the 'Destiny and Aura' era is over.

By-the-by, TC: your boys are now 3 back of the Fishermen in the wildcard race. Found the panic button yet?

So What Will Santana Cost?

Mussina's a busted nut; it's time to re-up.

I'm Watching Righetti's No Hitter...

on YES's "Yankee Classics," and it amazes me just how godawfully shitty that team was.

How Piniella didn't decide to just kill some of those chumps is confounding.

They Better ALL be Wearing Number Ten tonight

(Cooperstown, Main lobby "The Holy Cow")

or I swear there will be hell to pay....

Patience with prospects paying off for Bombers

He still has to answer for Kyle Farnsworth and Kei Igawa, to be sure, but Cashman doesn't look so dumb anymore, does he?

Not until Duncan's "Bash Brothers" shit breaks someone's wrist. Don't get me wrong: I love seeing that enthusiastic stuff... but he's gonna damage someone from the older part of the lineup. Melky can take it, easy; maybe even Cano. Jorge? He might end up on the DL.
Patience with prospects paying off for Bombers

The "C&C" Youth Juice

A bit old, but piss off; I was on vaca.
On the Yankees beat:Cabrera and Cano

via The Bronx Block

Oh, BTW, Nationites: How's that "15.something ERA" Gagne thing working out for you?

God Bless "The Mick"

“That boy hits baseballs over buildings. He runs as fast as Ty Cobb.”
— Casey Stengel

Me and the Yankees is all this guy's fault; his star overrides being born in the Bronx and a murderous intent for damn near anything to do with Queens that's coded into my genes. I'll never forget the resignation that registered on Da's face when he handed me the sliotar that he'd smacked home for the winning point in a game at Gaelic Park and I, already havving my soul stoled at the ripe age of five, immediately forged Mickey's signature on the sucker and demanded he take me to that afternoon's game at The Stadium.

PS: Costas' eulogy: "But I guess I'm here, not so much to speak for myself as to simply represent the millions of baseball-loving kids who grew up in the '50s and '60s and for whom Mickey Mantle was baseball.

"And more than that, he was a presence in our lives – a fragile hero to whom we had an emotional attachment so strong and lasting that it defied logic. Mickey often said he didn't understand it, this enduring connection and affection – for men now in their forties and fifties, otherwise perfectly sensible, who went dry in the mouth and stammered like schoolboys in the presence of Mickey Mantle."

or will always be thinking "what could have been" if his knees had held up. Kinda like Bobby Orr; if they had the luck of good health, they would have rewritten the record books. First time I met him, at his joint in Manhattan, I was, according to a friend accompanying me, "reduced to a gibbering idiot."

Nah, I just reverted to that five year old kid.

Official Mickey Mantle Web Site

Hall of Fame page

The Bronx Block

The Bronx Block | MVN - Most Valuable Network

Pretty good Yankee blog. The guy running the joint, Jim Johnson, seems to know his stuff.

As an added attraction, he doesn't fly off the handle like a certain blog admin we all know... hey, what?

This Guy Should Die In A Fire

Condé Nast Cocksucker Ambushes Darth Boss George

Oh Captain, Our Captain

8/2/79: Thurman Munson Dies In Plane Crash

Possibly the Stupidest Baseball Hack on the Planet

I'm serious. After skimming over a couple of his other columns, this crap: How Sox's Deal for Gagne Helps Yanks, only hints at what an ass Steven Goldman truly is when writing about baseball.

"Shel-ley Dun-can!" (clap clap clapclapclap)

I am falling in love with that kid. With him, Cano and Melky we got a rollicking "SI Yankees' Three Amigos" thing going on in the dugout. It is too frickin' cool to have seen them (and Andy Phillips, Wang et al) go from NY-Penn to the Big Show in da Bronx.

Proctor and not Farnsworth?

TC, your boys on the island got it right.

I still can't believe that Wilson Betemit is a Skank and Gagne isn't.

Yep, He's Still "Good Ol' A-Hole"

When the lights shine bright he disappears in the night:

Nearly everybody and his uncle were knocking balls over the wall last night for the Yankees. Seven Bombers effortlessly ripped eight homers, tying a franchise record from FDR's days back in 1939. You got the feeling the bat boy might have lined one off the left-field foul pole, if given half a chance during the 16-3 victory against these White Sox pitching imposters.

But Alex Rodriguez kept flying out - deep, deeper, deepest; then shallow and sharply shallow. His balls died like wounded quails out there by the warning track, where they usually take flight. He finished the night 0-for-5, sagging along on an 0-for-17 slump since his 499th homer Wednesday.

And while it is easy to feel for the guy, this may be yet another unfortunate indicator that A-Rod is still not A-Man for A-Moment. The cameras flashed. The star fizzled.

When the heat is on, it seems he's not so hot