On Tuesday, one of our longtime commenters, Mode (who does some writing himself), mentioned that he was going to be attending last night's game. He said:
I got great seats right behind the Yankee dugout for tomorrow night's game (a bargain at $175 a pop). Hopefully the weather doesn't mess things up since I am loooking forward to watching Hughes pitch.
Look for me behind the dugout sporting my vintage (and well worn) Columbus Clippers hat.
As Hughes mowed down the A's last night in dominating fashion, made a run at a no-hitter and set a career high in strikeouts, Matt and I chatted on GMail and both kept and eye out for a blue hat with a red "C" and a sailboat on it. As the camera pulled away from a shot of Phil Hughes' parents and former Yankee, Angel, Giant & Red Sock J.T. Snow in the top of the 4th, Matt thought he might have caught a glimpse of a Clippers hat behind the visitor's dugout. But upon further review, it was not.
However, after the game concluded, Ken Singleton kicked it down to Kim Jones so she could interview Hughes' parents, and look who was standing right behind Phil's mom, Dori:
The MLB.tv broadcast cut out about three seconds after they switched to his camera angle so this is the best screengrab I could get, but on the live telecast the interview lasted for a couple of minutes and Mode was just kickin' it in the background, prompting this praise from Ben Kabak of River Ave. Blues:
A+, indeed and $175 well spent, sir.
Mode lives about an hour away from the Coliseum and last night is about as good as it gets for an displaced fan of any club: your favorite team stops by, a young pitcher has a an awesome start, your guys hit back-to-back triples and win a close contest in exciting fashion.
If you live within a reasonable commute of Yankee Stadium chances are that you take for granted the option to go to as many games as you can fit into your schedule and afford - I know I did when I lived on the Upper West Side and still do to some extent now that I'm Upstate. But if you live out of town - even if you're lucky enough to live in a city that the Yanks visit - you are at the whim of their schedule and have to hope it works out in one of the few times you have a chance to go. In true California fashion, Mode caught this wave right when it was cresting and rode it for all it was worth. I'm sure he'll have more in the comments at some point.
On the Bats Blog at the New York Times, Richard Sandomir points out something that never ceases to annoy me about the postgame interviews conducted by network reporters:
Fox needs a question coach for Mark Grace. One of the failings of many sideline/stadium reporters is that they do not jot down good, solid, clear questions to ask the stars of a game.
There usually isn’t much time to prepare, but coming up with three pertinent thoughts to frame as questions, or as leading statements, shouldn’t be as hard as a nervous Grace made it when he interviewed Jimmy Rollins after the Phillies’ 8-6 win against the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series on Monday.
Sandomir uses Grace as an example and transcribes some example from last night, but you could easily switch his name with Kim Jones, Ken Rosenthal or countless other reporters. (Here's a clip of the Rosenthal & Grace interviews from last night). It seems as though, in the cutthroat world of TV journalism, interviewers are constantly trying use their queries to display how smart they are as opposed to asking questions that lead to good responses.
Since the best baseball players - the ones most likely to be interview after the game - are interviewed so frequently during the season, they answer the questions - or in many cases weak leading statements - with relative ease. The player knows what the interviewer is getting at and usually obliges them with the type of vague and vapid answer they think they are looking for.
ESPN has actually tried to correct this problem by hiring an interview guru named John Sawatsky to conduct seminars on the proper way to interview (sort of like the "question coach" Sandomir suggested). Here is an 8 minute radio segment and accompanying article from NPR from back in 2006 on that very subject.
Sawatsky is a full time employee in Bristol and has his own office, complete with a giant question mark on the door. Max Kellerman used to talk about the "Sawatsky Technique" on his old radio show on 1050AM in New York, but would struggle to take the advice, like he did in his botched interview with Floyd Mayweather after the Juan Manuel Marquez fight.
In the seminars, Sawatsky uses interviewers like Barbara Walters and Larry King as examples of exactly what not to do. Don't ask long-winded questions (or worse, make long-winded statements) or pose inquiries that only demand a "yes" or "no" response. Ask only one question at a time. Try to learn, not validate your own opinion. Don't try to insert yourself into the interview, because the interview isn't about you:
The best questions, argues Sawatsky, are like clean windows. “A clean window gives a perfect view. When we ask a question, we want to get a window into the source. When you put values in your questions, it’s like putting dirt on the window. It obscures the view of the lake beyond. People shouldn’t notice the question in an interview, just like they shouldn’t notice the window. They should be looking at the lake.
Makes sense, doesn't it? No one wants to hear Ken Rosenthal or Kim Jones awkwardly attempt to interject their observations on what just happened. They want to hear what the player was thinking. Typically the athletes don't really have anything interesting to say either, but maybe if the people interviewing them could put some effort into crafting questions that would provoke some thoughtful responses, that wouldn't be the case.
Good morning, Fackers. How are we feeling today? Better than yesterday I would imagine. Not only did the Yanks win last night, but they did so in dominating fashion behind a powerful performance by CC Sabathia with a 9th inning offensive outburst for a metaphorical cherry on top.
As discussed in the recap, A-Rod continued his blistering postseason by churning the Yankees' offense (along with Melky Cabrera and Johnny Damon) to a 10-1 victory. During his typical three minute chat with the press following the game, he was asked if the hardest part of his his day has actually become explaining how he's performed so well on the field to the media. He responded:
No, I don't really talk much anymore, so I don't ever have to explain myself. And that's a good thing.
It certainly is a good thing. This change in media strategy has been a direct result of handing over the reigns to Yankee's media relations manager Jason Zillo. Instead of being gassed up by agencies like William Morris or douchebags like Guy Oseary, A-Rod has optimized his P.R. strategy for the baseball media. He doesn't try to bear his soul for other people anymore and vowed to refocus his efforts towards baseball and not becoming a global brand.
It seems like his biggest troubles started when he started listening to people like Guy Oseary, who may know how to handle this stuff for the likes of Madonna, but has no clue what sports media is like. Lining up Alex to do a photo shoot where he kissed himself in a mirror is the perfect example. That stuff is edgy and perfect in the music/entertainment world, but this guy is a ballplayer.
I guess it's only natural that people in themedia would want to attribute his incredible postseason to his new media strategy. But my question to them would be, "Why didn't it show up during the regular season?" That's not to say Alex didn't have an excellent season - he did - it's just that it fit right in line with the other great ones he's had in the past. Why didn't his new P.R. plan lead to huge numbers then?
The reality is that people in the media are going to stories about the media. That fact that he has limited the access reporters have to him has probably taken some pressure off of him in that he no longer is trying to be something he's not. But Jason Zillo isn't taking any at bats for him. A-Rod is mashing this postseason because he's a historically great hitter and was going to have a massive run in October eventually. We've all seen him go through streaks like this at times, it just so happens that this one is occurring at exactly the right time.
What's really great about A-Rod not having to explain himself (as he said above) is that people probably wouldn't understand him anyway. He's a bit of an odd duck, as displayed by his newfound hobby of dropping in on live interviews.
Michael Kay and Ken Singleton were talking about the man himself after last night's game when he thought it would be amusing to give Michael Kay a drive by tap on the shoulder.
The good news is that you don't have to be a normal person to be awesome at baseball. Maybe we'd like the best players on the team to be guys you could imagine drinking a beer with but what we really want are dudes who bash clutch home runs and steal bases too. As long as they aren't somehow offensive to our sensibilities in the 30 second sound bytes we get from them, it's fine. If that means A-Rod has to keep some things behind the curtain, or in this case, the plastic tarp, please, by all means...
Good morning, Fackers. Last night, a suddenly contrite and shockingly self-actualized Joba Chamberlain told reporters that he would "fold towels" if that's what it took to win with the Yankees during the postseason.
Aside from the towel quote that Sam Borden transcribed in his post, here is another exchange that caught my ear from the audio he provided.
Joba: You know, I didn't have fastball command at all. It could have been a lot worse than it was but it was just lack of fastball command from the get-go... Mechanics-wise, I wasn't great. My delivery wasn't great and the delivery affects your command in every aspect.
Kim Jones: You were so good your last time out. How do you explain the inconsistency?
Joba: If I had an explanation, I could probably fix, you know, quicker than things go. That's part of this game and that's why people go in and do bullpen work and look at watch video and figure out what you can do better.
Perhaps this is only because the Royals are astoundingly bad at hitting, but more likely it's that someone with the Yankees organization finally explained to Mr. Chamberlain how the media works. They aren't your parents trying to get you to admit your shortcomings as a way to make you take responsibility for them. Reporters need to pair your performance with a reaction so they can write a story about it that conveys what happened to the fans and get the fuck out of there. That process doesn't work when you give up 7 runs and say everything is fine and dandy.
It turns out that Joba wasn't just a delusional headcase, unable to acknowledge his mistakes. He was a kid from Nebraska being forced to come to terms with his failures in front of cameras and reporters with microphones and was getting a little defensive.
Joba mostly dodged questions about about his place on the postseason roster but made clear with his offer to do the work of a clubhouse attendant that he's not going to pout about being used out of the bullpen. I personally think that he is still enough of an asset to warrant occupying a spot on the postseason roster. I'd prefer a hypothetical ALCS Game 4 start to be made by Chad Gaudin and backed by Alfredo Aceves but Joba is still a better option to pitch an inning or two out of the bullpen than Brian Bruney. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but Joba seems to find his stroke when the pressure builds; Bruney just walks a lot of guys.
Since today is an off day, it's conceivable that Girardi uses Chamberlain sometime during the last two games of the Tampa Bay series to get him an inning or two out of the 'pen if indeed they plan on bringing him along for the ALDS. It would give him 3 or 4 days of rest which should be enough to free him up for a limited number of pitches.
I'm a lot less worried about Chamberlain's role in the postseason than I was a week or two ago, though. He's going to be one the the least important players not named Eric Hinske on the postseason roster if he is even ultimately included on it. The Yanks have won 102 games this year in spite of Joba, not because of him.
Much has been said about Joba Chamberlain's reaction to his start yesterday. It's a rare occasion when the tabloids pass up a good opportunity for fear mongering about the Yanks 5.0 game (gasp!) lead to point out just how delusional Joba has been in regards to poor performance. This is nothing new. Back in early July we compared his comments to Ian Kennedy's shortly before he was demoted in August of 2008.
However, the difference now is that Kennedy's was a one-off incident and Joba has made these types of comments over and over again, every time he's grilled about his poor starts.
If you listen to the audio that PeteAbe provided, Joba first starts off by acknowledging that other people are going to be disappointed with him start, "I let my teammates down, you know, pretty much embarrassed them with what I did. You know, not being able to pick my teammates up and get out of here with the series win. That's the frustrating part." But then immediately says, about his stuff "You know, it was all working, surprisingly" and claims that if you take away one or two pitches, it's one or two runs.
With each question, you can hear the incredulous tone in the reporter's voices starting to sharpen. "When you say it was all working, but you give up 7 runs, how does that work in your mind?" Kim Jones said. PeteAbe then asked, "Joba, you said you want to take a positive out of everything. What positive can you take out of today?"
Like we've acknowledged before, there isn't a perfect correlation between throwing the ball well and having good outcomes on the mound. The batter, luck, the defense and the home plate ump all have a lot to do with it. That said, Joba's inability to take responsibility for his poor performances makes him seem even younger than 23. Like 12.
Joba treats the media like prying parents, demanding contrition for the mistakes he's made. He admits that he let his teammates, who are his peer group, down but sees the media as the authority figure in this case, the one who wants him to be accountable for what happens.
Is this a media story or a baseball story, though? Are we saying that Joba's refusal to face his failures head on makes him a poorer pitcher? Is it necessary that he admits his mistakes in order to pitcher better? Perhaps the fact that he doesn't let his bad starts bring him down is actually an asset. Maybe the fact that he's getting smeared in the papers is more of a personal vendetta against him by the writers whose questions he won't answer directly.
Along with the media, the fans also want their pound of flesh. They've been embarrassed too, and when they see or hear or read comments from the pitcher who just ruined their chance to watch their team win, it's not very endearing to hear him compliment the other team's batters and say how great his stuff was. The media is the conduit to the fans and some of the blame has to go to the organization for not conveying this dynamic to him better.
Let's just hope Joba pitches better against the Red Sox at home the next time out. He's much less delusional when he doesn't suck.
Just a quick reminder that we will be chatting live from the internets during the game today. It's the Monday after a holiday weekend, do you really feel like getting things done? Of course not, you've got the rest of the week for that.
We are going to use Cover It Live, which enables us to import the Twitter feeds of the beat writers who are too cool to actually chat with us and upload pictures among other cool stuff. Should be fun. Stop back at 1:00. It will be 10 times more entertaining than Kim Jones' chat, I promise.
Let's try this again. After getting washed out yesterday, the Yanks and Rays will kick off their series today when the weather will be much nicer. From a strictly selfish standpoint, I was somewhat happy that last night's game was called early. I had tickets for last night, and will be there today as well, so the last thing I wanted to do was drive in the rain and NYC traffic during Friday rush hour, pay $19 to park, then get rained out or have a game last until 1 AM, then drive home and do it again in the morning. I'm not at all complaining about going to games, but that would have been less than ideal. I've sat through a ton of rain delays the last few years it seems. The early cancellation saved me some driving.
Switching gears for a second, today is also the Belmont Stakes, the final leg of horse racing's Triple Crown. The Sport of Kings was once amongst the most popular sports, if not the most popular sport, in America. I'm by no means a horse racing fan or expert, but I love watching the Triple Crown races, the most exciting two minutes in sports. I'm not really even a gambler; I'm just intrigued. I like watching a one ton animal move that fast. I like watching the drunken spectators go nuts. I like laughing at how funny the jockeys talk before they return home to their gorgeous wives. I like the possibility that something horrific may happen. 2007 was Barbaro; 2008 was Eight Belles; we're running out of time for this year.
The Yankees recently had several loose connections to the world of horse racing. Joe Torre, Don Zimmer, and Jim Kaat all dig the ponies. Hank Steinbrenner has been very involved in the family's thoroughbred business. Torre, Zim, and Kaat are all gone from the Bronx now, and Hank thankfully appears to be under some sort of gag order, so today I'll be your Yankee horse racing expert. Pick Mine that Bird. It's a no brainer. As of this writing he's going off at 2 to 1, but it doesn't matter if it's not a high profitability bet. I don't see anyway he loses this race. He put on a show at the Derby, and if the Preakness were two lengths longer he would have overtaken Rachel Alexandra, who isn't even running today.
Given the relatively weak field and Mine that Bird's knack for coming off the pace, I just see no way he loses. At a mile and a half, The Belmont is the most grueling leg of the Triple Crown. Many a good horse has fallen victim on its home stretch. After leading most of the race, Real Quiet lost the Triple Crown to Victory Gallop by a nose at the wire in 1998. In 1973 Secretariat won by an astounding 31 lengths in a record 2:24, one of the dominating performance in racing history if not all of sports. You couldn't even see another horse when he crossed the finish line. I don't think Mine that Bird will equal that, but I don't expect the rest of the field to even be close to him.
The aforementioned 1998 race is the closest I've come to seeing that elusive Triple Crown. We won't see it this year either as Mine that Bird and Rachel Alexandra split the first two legs. But, in an unorthodox, if not unprecedented, fashion, jockey Calvin Borel (a jockey since the tender age of 8) won both races. With Rachel Alexandra out today, Borel is back on Mine that Bird and has the chance to win the Triple Crown as a jockey. I hope he does it, and you should too if only to listen to his ridiculously amusing Cajun accent during his post-victory interview. I'll likely be driving home at post time, but I'm thinking of stopping at the OTB on the NY-CT border to watch the race. As I found out on Derby Day, horse racing does not translate well to radio.
Back to baseball. The Yanks and Rays send two thoroughbreds to the mound today in CC Sabathia and David Price. It seems as if the Yankees have had many of these lefty-lefty match-ups already this year. Price is the consensus top pitching prospect in baseball. Since making his Big League debut against the Yankees last September 14th he's been lights out, posting a 2.35 ERA and 29 K over his first 23 innings. The Rays really should have him pitching the eighth inning.
CC has been cruising of late, so this should be a good pitchers duel. CC hasn't pitched in a week due to Wang rejoining the rotation and yesterday's rainout, which is a bit concerning, but the big fella should be alright.
Meanwhile last year's Cinderella team is turning into a pumpkin, playing .500 ball and in fourth place. Dioner Navarro, B.J. Upton, and Andy Sonnanstine are all struggling. The double play combo of AkiIwamura and Jason Bartlett is on the DL, with Iwamura out for the year. Pat Burrell, Scott Kazmir and Troy Percival are also on the DL and all have been brutal while healthy. And unfortunately Eliot Johnson is in AAA Durham, so there will be no revenge for Frankie Cervelli this weekend.
Once again, I'll be at the game, but for those of you watching on TV, don't be looking for Kim Jones on the pre-game. She'll be on Long Island, getting ready to break from Gate 11 sometime around 6:27.
In honor of today's day at the races here's some vintage Lowell George era Little Feat and "Day at the Dog Races". I highly recommend you listen to some Feat and I strongly suggest you don't listen to anything from after Lowell died. Since this one's an instrumental, there will be no lyrics today. Enjoy.
[Ed. Note: Joe, Frank & I might have made some of those up]
The man has a lot of demeaning nicknames for a 3 time MVP with the career trajectory and guaranteed contract that put him on pace to break the all-time home runs record, primarily as a shortstop and third baseman.
The best seats I ever had to a Yankee game were about six rows back from the Yanks' batter's box. The game had been rained out the night before and I was still playing online poker for a "living", so I was more than happy to rearrange my so-called schedule and scoop them up. Chien-Ming Wang threw 7 2/3IP of scoreless ball en route to a win over the Tigers (A-Rod went 0-3 and reached on a wild pitch).
In A-Rod's first time up, he grounded into a double play. When he was standing in the on-deck circle before his second at bat in the home half of the fourth, a guy in front of us got up and yelled, "ANDY RODDICK IS THE REAL A-ROD!!!". He was a Yankees fan.
Our 2007 Saturday package granted us the privilege of witnessing both his walk-off grand slam against the Orioles and his 500th career home run. Our seats were in Section 7, giving us the absolute perfect view down the left field line, and while everyone was still leaning to see if it was going to stay fair, we were already going apeshit.
I've been dreading writing this post ever since no one else claimed it a week and a half ago. There's too much to go into. The booing, the messy divorce, the Freudian implications of him dating Madonna, the Jeter friendship saga, and him playing for the Dominican Republic in the WBC despite never having lived there. Of course there were also his 2007 season, the above moments, the 2004 ALDS, and the home run he ripped off of the facing of the left field upper deck (watch).
Even during his blistering 2007 season, whenever he hit a dramatic home run, on his way to first base, he would still look into the dugout for approval.
Every Yankee fan has their own balance of love and hatred for him. I would place mine at about 70/30, respectively. It flipped to about 10/90 when he opted out of his contract during the '07 World Series. Usually what a player does off the field is not that big of a deal. It all comes down to what you do after the manager hands in the line-up card and before Kim Jones does her terrible post game interview.
But God Almighty, this fucker does his best to make you care. He is so polarizing, he polarizes people within themselves.
For better or for worse, the Yankees married A-Rod last offseason with the incentive-injected 10 year, $275M contract they extended to him. If he leaves the Yankees, it will make his divorce with Cynthia look tidy and private.
I would like to end this post by giving A-Rod the type of friendly advice that actual friendship, by nature, would preclude you from ever giving:
"Alex.
Dude.
You really need to break up with Madonna. Can you not see the writing on the wall? She is GOING TO RUIN YOUR FUCKING LIFE.
The last thing you need is to date someone with an ego that might be even bigger than yours. She's insane. The Kabbalah thing...
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