Parsley, Sage Rosenfels, and Thyme

The Final Countdown

2008-09-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

It's the second to last game in the history of Yankee Stadium, the outcome of the game is basically

meaningless, and the back of the starting pitcher's jersey says "91." Not exactly how I pictured it, although I guess I never really cared to picture it.

It seems odd that MLB didn't schedule the Red Sox to come in for this last series but there are a few reasons that I think its cool that we have the Orioles:

1) I want to go out with a win and an unmotivated Orioles team does wonders for that possibility.

2) Back in 1903 when the New York Yankees franchise came into being, they were called the Baltimore Orioles. It seems oddly fitting that they will close down the park that is a symbol of their history against a team whose name represents the franchise's even more distant history.

3) Baltimore is Babe Ruth's home town or (wait for it)....the House that Built Ruth?

4) Nobody's ever gonna forget the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, but the Yanks and O's have had some good times together as well: The Armando Benitez brawl/Tim Raines home run, the Jeffery Maier game, the end of Cal Ripken's consecutive games streak, Arthur Rhodes' entire career, the David Wells/Jimmy Key pseudo-trade in the winter of 1997, and a 6-3 Yankee win on my 7th birthday that occurred while I sat in a broken-down Chevy on the Tri-Borough bridge.

The game is scoreless through one after A-Rod popped out with two outs and a man in scoring position, one of the many proud Yankee Stadium traditions whose life is coming to an end. Michael Kay reports that Babe Ruth said, on Opening Day 1923, that he would give a year of his life to hit one out that day. No word on whether he upped the offer to 30 years of his life and all of his vocal cords prior to first pitch.

Came up with a list of my 10 favorite Yankee Stadium experiences this morning. They are as follows, in reverse order of total awesomeness:

10) Braves 4 Yankees 0, Game 2, 1996 World Series: My first World Series game gets a 24/10 for pre-game enjoyability and a minus-6/10 for in-game enjoyability. Greg Maddux wrote an autobiographical book about this game entitled "1-3."

9) Yankees 6 Mets 5, Game 2, 2000 World Series. In the second most inexplicable moment of my baseball-game-attending life (see #2 for the most inexplicable), I watched from the top row of the upper deck as Roger Clemens fired a shard of broken bat at Mike Piazza. Clemens later explained that his actions were misunderstood, and that he had much more understandably thought he was holding the baseball and aiming his 90-mph throw at the bat boy (This is not a joke). This game gets bonus points for the most important forgotten catch in Yankee history (Clay Bellinger casually reaching over the fence to bring back what would have been a game tying homer in the 9th) and for Mariano Rivera's game-ending 3 pitch strikeout of Kurt Abbot, such an exercise in dominance that no words can do it justice. In the immortal post-game words of Joe Torre: Jesus Christmas!

8) Yankees 2 Red Sox 1, July 7, 2003. The best regular-season game I ever went to and also the weirdest. Here is a basic synopsis of the game: Deaf right fielder misjudges fly ball in first inning leading to a Red Sox run, hated Red Sox head-hunter injures the entire Yankees middle infield in the first two at bats of the game, veteran Yankee starter brushes off miscue to retire 22 batters in a row and pitch an 8-inning 2 hitter, ultra-mediocre utility infielder enters game after injuries and adds to legend as a killer of the best pitcher of his generation -- scoring the game-tying run, closer for whom Stadium is a house of horrors enters in ninth inning and gives up walk-off error to the deaf right fielder who had looked like the probable goat. I think it's safe to say that one won't ever be repeated.

7) Yankees 5 Rangers 4, Game 2, 1996 ALDS. Back-to-back games on this list culminated in a walk-off error. Charlie Hayes tried to bunt Jeter over to third, Dean Palmer fires the ball into right field, Yankees win my first ever postseason game, someone from the upper deck throws a roll of toilet paper that hits me in the back of the head. Great Trivia Question here: What Rangers pitcher got the loss in this game? Answer: Mike Stanton.

6) Yankees 7 Indians 2, Game 1, 1998 ALCS. One of the all-time greatest games in the long, proud history of bitterness, catharsis, and schadenfreude. The Yankees faced off against Jaret Wright, who personally took them out of the previous season's playoffs, and opened the game thusly:

C Knoblauch: Single to RF (Line Drive)
D Jeter: Single to CF (Ground Ball thru SS-2B)Knoblauch to 2B
P O'Neill: Single to RF (Line Drive to Short CF-RF) Knoblauch Scores; Jeter to 3B (1-0)
B Williams: Single to CF (Ground Ball thru SS-2B) Jeter Scores; O'Neill to 2B (2-0)
T Martinez: Groundout: 2B-SS/Forceout at 2B (SS-2B) O'Neill to 3B
T Raines: Strikeout Swinging, Martinez Steals 2B
S Spencer: Wild Pitch; O'Neill Scores; Martinez to 3B (3-0)
J Posada: Single to CF (Ground Ball thru SS-2B); Martinez Scores; Spencer to 3B (4-0)

Chad Ogea replaces Jaret Wright pitching

S Brosius: Single to LF (Line Drive to Short LF); Spencer Scores; Posada to 2B (5-0)

That's 8 batters for Wright, 6 hits (all singles), a wild pitch, 5 earned runs, 2/3 of an inning
pitched, and an early shower. Really can't describe how good this one felt to anyone who didn't
suffer through the 1997 ALDS. This game also stands out for becoming more cathartic 10 years
later after Wright joined the Yankees and was absolutely terrible.

5) Tigers 15 Yankees 4, August 1, 1990. The one that started it all! At five years and two days
old, this was my first Yankee game. I have three clear sensory memories:

1) Being very, very afraid of the Bronx
2) Thinking that the 22,288-person crowd's cheer when the Bombers took the field was the loudest
noise in the history of the world.
3) Being shocked -- a month shy of starting kindergarten -- that everybody was allowed to talk
and yell and walk around during the game. I distinctly remember yelling gibberish as loud as I
could once I found out this was acceptable ballpark behavior.

The game itself was a lot less exciting: Andy Hawkins and Eric Plunk got smoked by the Dynamic
Duo of Mike Heath and Travis Fryman. To rub salt in the wound, an injured Donnie Baseball sat
while Kevin Maas played first. Bad times all around.

4) Yankees 4 Braves 1, Game 4, 1999 World Series. I have no better way to express my thanks
to Yankee Stadium than to say that I saw them clinch a World Series title and that this is only my
FOURTH favorite memory in the park. Can't say I'm completely proud of the standing ovation that
I helped give Roger Clemens when he departed his masterpiece with two outs in the eighth, but I
did see Jim Leyritz hit the last home run of the 20th Century and likely open the door to years of
insufferable drunken braggadocio whenever he got together with a group of actual Major Leaguers.
Nobody in the stadium moved for an hour after Chad Curtis clutched the last out -- just loud yelling
while the PA looped "New York, New York" and "We are the Champions." Really freaking cool.

3) Yankees 9 Angels 8, July 25, 1993. I will open this by saying that this game is not only my 3rd best
Yankee Stadium memory but probably 1) the single most-memorable day of my pre-adolescent life and
2) as revealing a testament as any to why Yankee Stadium is unlike any other place to watch a ballgame.

The game's start time was 1 PM, it was roughly 146 degrees outside, and a group of 3 guys and a girl sat
down 2 rows behind us in the upper deck at 12:45 PM, already hammered and carrying another 6 beers.
This was roughly the 10th Yankee game I'd attended and I had never seen them win -- a streak that
looked safe when the then-California Angels tossed up an 8-spot on future Hall of Famers Melido Perez
and Rich Monteleone in the top of the second inning. But the Yankees began to slowly claw back, starting
with a Mike Stanley solo homer in the second and climaxing with a 2-run double by the newly acquired
Paul O'Neill that made the score 8-7 in the 7th.

But I didn't see the double by my future favorite Yankee. I was crying my 7 year old eyes out in the
tunnel next to my section.

At 8-4, during the seventh inning stretch, the three drunk guys behind us had decided that they were
going to fight over the girl in the group. Two of them -- fueled by double digit beer consumption and triple
digit heat -- grabbed the third and threw -- not pushed...not shoved...THREW -- him over the row in front
of them. He bounced and flew, screaming, past my right ear and rolled down a few more rows,
stopping -- teetering -- just shy of falling out of the upper deck. Cops came flying out of nowhere and
broke up the situation, emptying our row into the tunnel in the process.

Order was restored, but not before I was given one of the most bizarre mental images of my life. Back in
my seat, I watched Don Mattingly line into a double play with the tying run on third in the 8th. All seemed
lost. But the Yanks rallied in the ninth, O'Neill struck again (tying the game on a sac-fly) and
second-baseman Pat Kelly (not to be confused with Andy Stankewicz or Alvaro Espinoza) blooped a single
into short left center that scored the immortal Hensley Meulens and brought me my first live victory as a
Yankee fan on a day that probably left me in need of counseling.

2) Yankees 5 Orioles 4 (11 inn.), Game 1, 1996 ALCS. Objectively, maybe the best baseball game I ever
watched, let alone attended. Yanks squander big opportunities in the 1st and 2nd but get a run in each
inning on RBI groundouts by Bernie and Leyritz. Orioles counter with homers in the 2nd and third by Brady
Anderson and Rafael Palmeiro.

(Quick aside: Orioles fans spend so much time bitching about how unfair the outcome of this game
was that you'd think the umpires were George Steinbrenner, Billy Crystal, the ghost of Casey Stengel, and
a shrieking teenage girl in a pinstriped #2 jersey. BUT LOOK AT THAT LAST SENTENCE! Home runs by
Brady "Cream" Anderson and Rafael "Clear" Palmeiro?! They should have had a pee cup sitting in the
left-handed batters box! If George Mitchell was the official scorer, Jeffrey Maier could have taken the
eighth inning off. Wait...what's that you say? The Yankees pitcher was... dammit. Never mind.)

Anyway, the Orioles built off of the homers by the Syringe Sisters and took a 4-2 lead. Bombers got one
back in the 7th on a bases loaded walk. 4-3, bottom 8, and the hand of fate pointed at Tony Tarasco and
said "Right Field." World-class piece of shit Armando Benitez struck out Leyritz (present in far too many of
these memories) to lead off the inning, setting the stage for rookie shortstop Derek Jeter. Somewhere in
the rightfield grandstand, 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier smacked his glove, an unwitting spotter for Jeter on
the first leg of his climb into Yankee lore.

Everybody knows what happened next: Jeter lofts a long -- but not quite long enough -- fly into right.
Tarasco under it, Right-field ump Richie Garcia in perfect position, Maier making a beeline for the fence.
Maier reaches, Tarasco reaches, Maier gets there first. Tarasco points in disbelief, Garcia signals home run,
stadium explodes, Davey Johnson argues, Tarasco has a conniption, Chris "Mad Dog" Russo spends 12 years
trying to convince New Yorkers that the entire Yankee Dynasty is tainted. From my seat behind home
plate (due to a serendipitous family connection to Pepsi, official soft drink of Parsley, Sage Rosenfels, and
Thyme), it just looked like a home run and a totally inexplicable argument. That's my story and I'm
sticking to it.

But wait, there's more...

Mariano Rivera enters the game (of course he does) and pitches two scoreless innings, striking out three (of
COURSE he does). This takes us to the bottom of the 11th inning, with Randy Myers on the hill. First
batter, Bernie Williams; third pitch, hanging slider. High...far...gone, deep into the Bronx evening. That, my
friends, is a baseball game. And it would have been my favorite Yankee Stadium game ever, but for...

1) Yankees 9 Padres 6, Game 1, 1998 World Series. I never hope to follow another team like the 1998
Yankees. Luckily -- or, more appropriately, due to the generosity and foresight of my dad, who recognized
the season for what it was in mid-April -- I went to more games that year (I'd put it at 18 or 20) than any
other before or since. The Yankees won EVERY SINGLE ONE of those games. We had a partial season
ticket package that got us -- my dad and one of me or my sisters -- to every Friday night home game and the
first home game of every playoff series (Note: See #6 on this list). When we pulled into our seats two rows from
the top of the stadium -- third-base side -- for Game 1 of the World Series, we saw ourselves as attending a
coronation rather than a competition.

And then Kevin Brown (God, in your infinite wisdom, banish him to the depths of hell) happened.

Ricky Ledee hit a two-run double in the 2nd that put the Yankees on top, but that was all they got off of Brown
through the first 6. Meanwhile, three Padre homers (One by Tony Gwynn, in his first World Series game in 14
years, and two by Greg Vaughn) staked the Friars to a 5-2 lead. Yankee Stadium was as quiet as I heard it all
year as the Bombers came up for their turn in the 7th. A Scott Brosius groundout made it even quieter.

And then all hell broke loose.

Ledee singled, Posada (batting ninth!) walked, Kevin Brown left the game, and Chuck Knoblauch (hate him, bash
him, but never take this moment from him) lined a Donne Wall pitch into the left field seats, tying the game and
initiating mass hysteria.

5-5.

Next: Jeter singled (OF COURSE HE DID!), O'Neill flew out, and the next two batters were walked -- Bernie
intentionally, Chili Davis...less so -- to load the bases.

2 outs, 3 on, Tino Martinez -- benched in the '96 World Series, batting .184 in his Yankee postseason career, and
best known in the five boroughs for being someone other than Don Mattingly -- steps to the plate.

2 balls, 2 strikes.

Fastball...belt high....no swing. Crowd groans. One hundred thousand eyes lock in on home plate umpire Rich
Garcia's (Yes...amazingly, the same Rich Garcia from #2) arm.

It doesn't move.

Ball three.

Sometimes fate needs a little push in the right direction.

3-2, Langston throws the same pitch. Tino swings mightily.

Jon Miller's immortal radio call was four words long:

"The pitch, IT'S GONE!!!"

My first high school writing assignment was to pick any moment in the history of the world and write
a one page essay that captured it as a photograph. With apologies to the Magna Carta, the Crucifixion, and
Lou Gehrig's luckiest man speech, I wrote my twelve sentences about the moment that ball -- seconds
removed from Mark Langston's left hand -- nestled unassumingly in the upper deck in right field. I wrote
about the Stadium shaking violently under my feet. I wrote about hugging my screaming father. I wrote
about Tino's right arm frozen above his head in an instant of perfect redemption.

I don't need that essay. The photograph is in my head. And I always knew that Yankee Stadium would never
give me a memory to top it. Tomorrow doesn't change that. It just makes it official.

Fare thee well, House that Ruth Built. I'll see you in another life.

What's Really Wrong with the 2008 Yankees

2008-08-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

Thirteen straight postseasons and now this. Two games against the Sox for our fast-departing lives. The LAST two games against the Sox in The House That He of the Expired Curse Built (Seriously, what have you done for us lately, Mr. Sultan?), and its US, the New York freaking Yankees, on the ropes. That is, to borrow a phrase from Jules Winnfield, "some fucked-up, repugnant shit."

Where did it go wrong? How can it get right? Everybody's pointing to injured pitchers, Robbie Cano, and -- shockingly -- a certain PR-inept third baseman who can't seem to stay out of his own way. But the Bombers have actually patched their injury holes surprisingly well (say what you want about Ponson, but they're a .600 team when he starts), gotten yet another HOF-caliber regular season out of the Rod, and, as for the disappointing year from Cano -- I mean, a .263 batting average from an eighth-hitting second baseman isn't enough to single-handedly doom a team.

So what's the malfunction? Here are some issues that I think have flown under the radar:

1) The absence of an over-achiever: It's not so much that anyone's having a terrible year. The bigger problem is that, by my count, the Yankees have exactly one (1) player whose performance has vastly exceeded expectations: Mike Mussina. That's it. Jeter's been a little worse than usual, A-Rod's a little worse than last year, Cano is substantially down, Damon is a little bit up, Abreu and Giambi are about where you would expect, and Posada and Matsui haven't been able to stay on the field.

On the hill, Pettitte's been a slightly worse version of his normal self, Ponson and Rasner have given moderately less than we expected to get from Hughes and Kennedy, and Wang has been MIA since he was last asked to run 90 feet. None of those downgrades are damning when taken individually, but with nothing except a 16-7 record from a 38-year-old righty to balance out the considerable amount of slightly subpar seasons, you get mediocrity. And nothing says mediocre like 70-61, 6 games out of the Wild Card.

2) Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio (and Yogi Berra, Joe Gordon, and the real Derek Jeter)?: The post Ruth and Gehrig Yankees have been built -- to an incredibly skewed degree -- on talent up the middle. Joe Dimaggio(3), Yogi Berra (3), Mickey Mantle (3), Joe Gordon, Phil Rizzuto, Elston Howard, and Thurman Munson have all won MVP awards as catchers, centerfielders, or middle infielders.

Not only are the Yankees the only team that has garnered an MVP at each middle position (The Tigers (Cobb, Gehringer, Cochrane) are missing a shortstop, the Reds (Bench, Larkin, Morgan) and Dodgers (Robinson, Wills, Campanella) each lack a centerfielder), but the thirteen Yankee MVPs at ONLY these positions surpass the total MVPs won by any other franchise besides the Cardinals, Giants, and A's.

And daunting as that statistic is, it says nothing of the contributions of Bill Dickey, Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Mickey Rivers, Roy White, Alfonso Soriano, Robinson Cano, or Jorge Posada. All the offense that the Yankees have traditionally gotten out of positions that are not typically known for run production have afforded them a considerable head start over their opponents for the past 70 years.

This year? Jeter and Cano haven't been themselves. Jose Molina, Chad Moeller, and the Artist Formerly Known as Pudge have split time behind the plate. Melky Cabrera's evil -- and less-talented -- twin brother took a giant dump on the legacies of those who preceded him in center, before mercifully being banished to the minors. The Yankees have been reduced to a team that only gets offensive production from the corner positions. That doesn't make them terrible, it just makes them similar to roughly three quarters of every other team in baseball history. And roughly three quarters of the league doesn't make the playoffs.

3) The Arizona Cardinals Corollary: One of the darkest days in the history of the New York Football Giants came when the NFL announced it would be realigning its divisions and moving the Phoenix Punching Bags out West, where they probably should have been all along. Every fan of the Big Blue saw two annual wins disappear before their very eyes. The (Devil) Rays didn't get moved to the AL West, but this was the year they put an end to their role as the Yankees personal stress ball. And, while nobody was looking, The Toronto Blue Jays shot up to a +50 run differential and the Orioles upgraded from "an absolute disgrace" to "still, pretty bad." The Bombers were 46-28 in division 2 years ago, 39-33 last year en route to th Wild Card, and are just 27-25 this year. A lot of that's on their own shoulders, but not all of it.

4) Just wait 'til next year...no, seriously...we mean it: No....I mean seriously. When they said "We're not gonna keep worrying about this year at the expense of our future," that wasn't a joke. This is what a rebuilding year looks like or, more specifically, what a $200 million rebuilding year looks like, which is a whole lot better than what Royals fans watch. In fact, to illustrate this point further, check out...

5) The unflinching laws of probability: I mean, it had to happen eventually. Before you get too down on the Yanks, let's do some math:

Assume that a given baseball team goes into every game with a 60% probability of winning -- indisputably excellent by MLB standards. In an average year, that team goes 97-65 -- almost always good enough to make the playoffs. However, that same team has a 14% chance of winning 90 games or fewer in any given sample of 162 games and a 6% chance of winning 87 games or fewer. That is, once every seven years a team "good enough" to expect 97 wins should win less than 90 and, once every 16 years, that same team should win less than 87.

This year, the Yankees -- after 13 straight years in the playoffs (and 15 straight of winning or being on pace for at least 87 wins) -- are on pace to win exactly 86.5.

It hasn't been a fun ride -- no argument there. But it is very possible that what we're witnessing is a still-talented team whose current performance is at the bottom end of its standard range of expectations. In a month, a lot of money will free up to bring in new talent. Over the winter, a handful of young pitchers will have time to mature. We still could be looking at a monster next year.

For the time being, though, let's see if they can take the Sox down with them.