Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown
Observations From Outside the Lines |
Carney's newest book,
Burying the Black Sox: How
Baseball's Cover-up of the
1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded, will be available soon.
Pre-order your copy today.
Click to subscribe to 1919BlackSox Yahoo Discussion Group
DAMN GOOD YANKEES
I was thinking Seven, but the Series tied the record for the shortest ever -- another four-game sweep. So we are denied our first Halloween ball game, or (weather requiring), our first Mr November. Yet there was a certain feeling of satisfaction when the curtain rang down at last on the '99 season, and I called on Mr Shakespeare out of the pen (OK, quill) for my Game 4 headline, "All's well that ends well."
This is not quite a Hail to the Yankees tribute, but I do believe in giving credit where it is due, and Yankee Stadium is precisely where it is due this October. Twelve straight wins is something to rave about inside any season -- when it happens outside, in the World Series, no less, well, that's amazing. Not so exciting that I will root for the Yankees to be back for the last Series of the twentieth century (October 2000), but if it happens, so be it.
On the other hand, if the Yanks don't get the chance to extend their streak for another few years, and wind up trying against my Pirates (in their brand new digs) -- even better.
This issue might have looked back at the long ride, from spring training to Atlanta's Last Stand, but instead I will focus on the Fall Classic still fresh in mind. You can't read all about it here, no interviews, I stay outside the lines, but you can read more about it.
And you can read more about Pete Rose, whose surprise appearance on the All Century Team prompted Mr Selig/MLB to permit him to appear on the field before Game Two, where he was promptly ambushed by Jim Gray. The interview quickly became the conversation piece of the week, with the Yankees' disposal of the Braves (as professional a job as any hitmen could have pulled off) sometimes taking the back seat.
I wind up this issue (regulation length after all) with a couple of reprinted items, from the NOTES Archive, both wrapped in pinstripes.
I now head off to the Birthplace of Rounders, that ancestor of The National Pastime -- too late to celebrate Halloween with a proper pagan ritual at Stonehenge or a ghostly castle, and too late for cricket season, I think. Last time over there, in April 1992, I had to track down scores. Not this time. The Game sleeps.
CALL HIM SENOR OCTOBER (GAME ONE)
A few days before the Series opener, I noted on the SABR Digest that, as I recall, when the Lords initially gave in to the TV execs and let them move the games from days to nights, the big question was what about the weather? I don't think it occurred to anyone then, that the TV folk would start the games so late. No, it was the idea of playing without the warmth of October's sun, that worried fans back then. (It was 1971, and since I attended that first night game, I always get the trivia question correct.)
When Game One began on a Saturday night in 40-some degree weather, in Atlanta, yet, this old worry popped to my mind again. I don't mind watching quarterbacks blow on their fingers and rub their hands together to keep them warm, but I don't like pitchers doing it. Nor do I like to see fans in football attire at the ballpark. Or umpires in heavy jackets and gloves.
It was a fine setting, however, for a pitchers' duel, and Greg Maddux and Orlando Hernandez staged a fine one. El Duque might as well change his first name to October. I suspected that the cooler night might affect the native of Cuba more, but not so. Apart from the gopher to the long-overdue Larry Chipper Jones, Hernandez was in control of the low-octane Braves.
Greg Maddux, pitching on short notice for the ailing Mr Glavine, rose to the occasion, and was equally in charge. Until the eighth, that is, when a few calls went the other way, and defensive replacement Brian Hunter made two errors, and stopper John Rocker (pronounced, on this evening, "Walker") rushed in and poured a little kerosene on the fire before snuffing it out.
The Yankee rally had the smell of getting even, the walked-in run in reply to the Kenny Rogers' gift in the previous game at the Braves' home field, and the corner-calls going against the home team, a kind of evening-up for what has seemed like years of outside-strike calls going their way. Yin, yang, Yanks.
I doubt that New York fans became alarmed when their stopper, Mariano Rivera, yielded the second Atlanta hit, in the ninth. The three-run lead was money in the bank, and Rivera has his own style of preventing withdrawals.
Fans look for omens in Game One. I did not see any. I saw what we all expected to see, great pitching, and the game going to the opportunistic. If the Braves had pried open a crack in El Duque's armor, we might have seen Rocker come in and wrap it up. Both teams will battle and claw. But after Game One, neither a sweep, nor a Game Seven would surprise me, could go either way.
Would the bats for both teams have boomed a bit more in the afternoon sunlight? We will never know, of course, but why was it necessary to play this one (and Sunday's) at night?
PETE ROSE
While I was surprised to see Pete Rose land a spot on the All-Century Team -- ahead of Shoeless Joe & Roberto Clemente and others I felt were more deserving -- Pete did not deserve the frontal attack launched by NBC's Jim Gray before Game 2.
I suspect Pete got a lot of votes, simply because fans feel that the All-Time Hit Leader ought to be in the Hall of Fame, and Bud Selig/MLB refuses to deal with the issue. (I cast a vote for Bill Mazeroski, the All-Time Gloveman, for a similar reason, and not because he is one of the top three second baseman of the century; he is clearly not.)
But there is no use getting upset with these surveys, Pete was voted in fair and square. He received a long ovation at Turner Field (imagine the reaction if the Reds had brought the Series to Cincinnati!) No matter how one comes down on The Pete Rose Question, this was a night that Pete and his family and friends should have had to remember, for all time.
Jim Gray (is he still with NBC?) apparently had no sense of propriety. I heard someone say that the same interview, conducted later or after the game, away from the crowd, might have been acceptable, but I think not. Not on an evening of celebration. I hope O.J. Simpson is taking notes: elected to football's All-Century Team, O.J. can expect to be ambushed by a journalist asking, "Well, O.J., why not just admit here that you killed them? I mean, the evidence ... why not come clean?"
Sure, there is something in us that enjoys seeing famous people squirm under the pressure of interrogation. But Gray's questioning of Rose was like Clinton undergoing impeachment hearings while at Chelsea's birthday party or graduation -- it's poor timing, poor taste, poor judgement -- just poor. Is Gray still with NBC?
TALL MEN, SMALL MEN
The recent death of Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain naturally got me thinking about how few really tall men have succeeded in baseball, I mean, enough to make it to its top level. Of all of the players who made it in both the NBA/NBL and MLB -- and there have been more than you think, including Dick Groat, Danny Ainge, Dave DeBusschere, Ron Reed and Dick Ricketts; Bob Gibson and Fergie Jenkins were Harlem Globetrotters -- only Gene Conley, a 6'8" Celtic and Brave pitcher, was a giant.
We know, thanks to Michael Jordan, that exceptional skill in hoops does not mean success in baseball. Still, I wonder how Wilt might have done. I count exactly two very successful players, of all those over 6'8" -- J.R. Richard, and Randy Johnson. (There have only been six or seven ballplayers over 6'8", so that's not a bad percentage, actually.) Randy is the tallest ever, at 6'10". Eric Hillman of the Mets was also 6'10", but he was no Randy Johnson.
The shortest players? Obviously, Bill Veeck's stunt midget, Eddie Gaedel, at 3'7", has this record. But after Eddie, who? Well, it was not Wee Willie Keeler, at 5'4½", and not Albie Pearson (5'5 and three-eighths inches.) No, they could play center on the basketball team alongside folks like 5'3" Dickey Pearce, Cub Strickler, Stubby Magner, Yo-Yo Davalillo, and nine others 63 inches tall. (I thank Tom Ruane and his trusty 1998 Fan Park Encyclopedia, and Total Baseball, for this info.)
Dickey Pearce was a pioneer pro who broke in with Brooklyn in 1856, and played 22 seasons at shortstop, fielding superbly.
Tom Ruane has studied the average heights of hitters and pitchers over the last thirteen decades or so, and posted his findings on the SABR Digest in July 1998. In Dickey Pearce's heyday, the 1870s, all ballplayers averaged just 5'8" -- first basemen 5'10.3". The average height rose steadily in every decade since, going over six feet tall in the 1940's. In the 1990s, the average is 6'1.38". Pitchers average 6'2.45" (they have Randy Johnson and Hillman in their numbers.)
Pitchers' average heights went over the six foot mark in the 1910's, by the way, when hitters were on average just over 5'10".
I am not going to draw any profound conclusions here. But it may be noteworthy that baseball can be mastered by both tall men and short (and women, too, but that's another issue.) I'm not sure that the NBA or NFL can trot out thirteen 5'3" guys, and the pros in those sports (with many exceptions, such as Doug Flutie) seem increasingly other-worldly, different, distant, just because they are typically abnormally large.
The mention of Randy Johnson always reminds me of an incident a few Octobers back. With friends over, I was politely watching the Seattle-Yankees game with the sound off. My wife and our friends (non-fans all) spotted Randy on the hill, hair matted and whipping. "That guy is ugly," was their consensus. I rose to the defense, "He's not ugly, he's Randy Johnson." But I've heard others suggest it since, Randy might be the ugliest guy in MLB. Which would give him, remarkably, two titles.
Handsome, ugly, that is eye-of-the-beholder stuff. Tall, short, thin, fat -- in baseball, all that does not matter. And that is part of the sport's appeal, I think -- it's what you do, not how you look, what you believe, how much you earn (although that pretty much determines where you play your home games.) If a player can throw strikes and get batters out, or hit the ball or catch it, that's all we care about.
Randy Johnson is beautiful -- look at the zeroes on the scoreboard behind him. Pass me a K to hang on the railing.
CAN'T BUY ME HITS (GAME TWO)
The Atlanta Braves seemed to be humming that variation on an old Beatles song, as they struggled through Game Two. This time they were up against David Cone, who had a mere nine days rest. This is a little side benefit for the teams that do well in the early playoff rounds, that sometimes goes overlooked. Cone didn't get much rest in this game, not a 1-2-3 inning till the sixth, yet he didn't need to sweat much, either.
Handed a 3-0 lead, that swelled to 7-0 by the fifth, David Cone had just one anxious moment. In the first, with two outs and a runner on third (thanks to his own error), Cone served one up to Brian Jordan, who smacked it deep to left. The fans out there rose to their feet to welcome the ball into their collective grasp -- YES! and now it's just a 3-2 lead! -- but the thing fell short, Ledee had it, and that was that.
In my mind, David Cone is the original "Hired Gun," the arm that is purchased to win games down the stretch and in October. A native of Kansas City, he was drafted by his home team in the third round in 1981. Traded to the Mets for Ed Hearn and change, Conie burst on the ML scene in 1988, with a sparkling 20-3 mark. He never won less than 14 the next four summers, but at the end of 1992, he found himself helping the Toronto Blue Jays nail down their first flag. (Pitched well, no decisions against the Braves in the Series.)
Free as an agent, he signed with his first team, the Royals, and won 27 in two seasons there. In 1995, he was traded back to the Jays, then (July 28) to the Yankees, where he has been a mainstay since, despite some serious arm problems. Although he has not reproduced his 20-3 gem in the Bronx, he has pitched in 20-3 style, with the apex coming this summer at the Stadium, the perfect game (see NOTES #195, "When David Became Goliath.") He pitched Game Two like it might be his last in pinstripes -- and it might -- this is the team that let David Wells go.
For the offense, the Yankees sliced and diced their way through the young Kevin Millwood, who may have still been shaky from having a 5-0 lead snatched away from him by the Mets in his previous start. Everybody got into the act, and Millwood seemed most vulnerable when he had two strikes on the batters. A barrage of singles must hurt more than a single mistaken gopher ball. And given the silence of his teammates' bats of late, there can be no doubt that he was putting extra pressure on himself.
Teams that win Games 1 and 2, and handily at that, are almost expected to go on to take the Series. It's not a given -- the Yankees dropped the first two and came back just recently, against these Braves, so there's a getting even thing at work. But the Braves hardly seem dynastic, and have a terribly uphill battle now. It is hard to imagine them taking four of the next five -- Conie will be waiting -- but hey, you never know.
BOMBS AWAY (GAME THREE)
It was a must-win game for Atlanta -- they have just been immersed in "no team down three has EVER come back" in their previous series with the Mets -- and they didn't.
The Yankees, on the other hand, may have recalled their own "down 0-2, sweep on the road" path to victory, just a few Octobers ago.
Fans without much of a stake in this Series might have been most interested in seeing how the lefties, Glavine and Pettitte, would fare. Or in whether Jim Gray would be in NBC's lineup. His sort-of apology ("if ... THEN I'm sorry") seemed to be made under protest, but at least he made it. I'm sure that I was not alone in sensing the sweet irony of Gray badgering Rose to say he was sorry, then (for a while) refusing to say it himself.
Atlanta came alive at bat, but somehow their 5-1 lead never felt safe. There was too many innings to go, and sure enough, the bombs started chipping the lead away and then erased it. Again, an unearned run also factored in -- without it, the Braves win 5-4 in regulation. But it was Chad Curtis, Tino Martinez, then Chuck Knobloch, the man whose right arm has developed a mind of its own, teeing off. Then Curtis again, game over.
In the summer of 1989, Pete Rose and then-Commish Bart Giamatti kicked up a cloud that hung over the summer with the odor of well-used sweat socks. When Pete accepted his ban, a collective sigh of relief could be heard. But it was not over, and ever since, "the Pete Rose question" has been a distraction in every discussion of the Hall of Fame, an annual irritation that has perhaps culminated in, of all places, this World Series, thanks in part to Mastercard and their All-Century thing. (Has the Gray interview stirred up so much sentiment in support of Pete that he will make the starting lineup, ahead of Ruth?)
We cannot blame Pete, of course, for getting elected by the fans to the A-C Team, or for getting ambushed by Jim Gray. Pete really was innocent in all this, no one can be surprised at his conduct in the interview, only that he failed to slug Gray.
But it is sad that the morning after, fans ask (after "Did you stay up for the end?" in the east), "What did you think of the Curtis non-interview?" instead of "the Curtis home runs?" It is too bad for baseball, but of course, it is baseball that set up this Sisyphus-like situation for Peter Edward Rose.
Something in me wants this to come full circle -- Jim Gray, up for that award which would give him a place in the mythical "wing" of Cooperstown's shrine, fails to get the votes, because his on-air mugging of Rose this October is remembered. Then Pete Rose, inducted at last in 2040, uses the occasion to make an impassioned plea for forgiveness of Gray. It could happen!
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (GAME FOUR)
I was surprised when I looked at the boxscore Thursday morning, to discover that Ryan Klesko was not charged with an error on that play that opened the door for the Yankee's completion of the sweep -- one more time.
I had been thinking how fitting it was for Roger Clemens, who left after seven innings in Game Six in 1986 with a lead, then watched the World Championship slip away, between the legs of firstbaseman Bill Buckner. (I don't blame Buckner, I don't think he should have even been on the field, and this was "just" a Game Six.) Now it was Roger on the mound again, when a ball bounces his way and off Klesko's arm (shouldda had it!), and although he was in pinstripes, there was a symmetry at work.
What the Red Sox needed in 1986 -- what every team needs -- is a closer like Mariano Rivera, the deserving MVP this time around. Slit his deadly right wrist, and I bet ice water would pour out. Signed as a "non-drafted free agent" by the Yankees in 1990, Mariano started his pro career in the Gulf Coast (Rookie) League, and posted an ERA of 0.17, going 5-1 in 22 games and 52 innings (58 K) ... and somehow, down the stretch and in the cool night games of October, that's the kind of pitching he has resumed, except this time, he's on the world's stage.
I don't think of Rivera as a Panamanian, because Manny Sanguillen was a Panamanian, and Manny never quit smiling. The old Pirate catcher would surely be ear-to-ear grin catching Mariano. Especially in October's Game.
After a while in Game Four, all that was left to our curiosity was whether Jim Gray would survive the Yankee locker room interviews. I believe I was not the only one disappointed that he did a fine job there, with everyone from King George to Darryl Strawberry -- not one mention of drugs!
My reaction to Paul O'Neil's presence at the Stadium was very mixed. Yes, it takes his mind off his father's death, but can we expect his head to be in the game 100%? It's not like he carries this team. I do not call my coworker who drags himself to the office with the flu (passing it on) a warrior -- I'd rather see him home, on the mend. And no one expected O'Neil to be anywhere except with his family. They needed him more, I hope.
It was very cold and very dark when I got up, the morning after. Baseball is gone, for the next four months, anyway, then we'll start it up again and see if the Yankees can defend their title.
It is good to have dynasties. I think it makes things more interesting, I really do. Every win scored against the Yankees by any opponent (till they are de-throned) will taste sweeter. I tip my (Pirate) cap to them, and to Joe Torre, surely one of the best things to happen to the Yankees and to baseball -- this century.
REWRITING HISTORY, BASEBALL-STYLE
"Last issue, I wondered if Pete [Rose] was baseball's Richard Nixon. Con men, surrounded with sleazy folks who mostly all went to jail, but somehow, never impeached, never proven guilty, just forced out, victims of the media, of personal vendettas. Nice guys, really, average guys who scratched and clawed their way up. Successful beyond anyone's predictions, pushed to the heights by their own stubbornness and narrow focus. Heroes shot down, kicked around, down but never quite out, always lurking, always ready for one more run, unsinkable, you know, not perfect, of course, but who is without flaw, who indeed?
"Nixon, of course, is dead, although he still makes appearances on Imus in the Morning. But Pete Rose is still out there, and sooner or later baseball will have to deal with him, because he's just not going to go away. We hoped he'd hire a psychiatrist, but he instead hired a publicist. Uh oh.
The above first appeared in NOTES #116, almost exactly four years ago. (My take on the Pete Rose Thing is in the Notes Archive, at The Baseball Archive, baseball1.com -- which has much, much more on Pete from others. I have recommended Sean Lahman's "Frequently Asked Questions" here before. Sean is working hard to get The Dowd Report at the web site.)
Anyway, thanks to Mastercard and Jim Gray, Pete Rose is back and smelling like, well, a Rose. Nixon came back, even though he promised (we hoped) that we wouldn't have him to kick around any more (that was after an election loss in California in the sixties.) In fact, even after he resigned, there was a concern that he would regroup, and come back again.
Riding the crest of his All-Century Team election, the Ovation at Turner Field (perhaps the best sound Pete has heard since he passed Cobb), and the very definite sympathy he has found after the Gray Ambush -- it will be interesting to see what Pete does next. Or what the media does for him.
I suspect Pete will just be Pete, and if he's smart this time, he will allow the media to build up the pressure that will finally cause Selig/MLB to (reluctantly) reinstate him and put his name on the Hall of Fame ballot.
One of several stories found at The Baseball Archive and printed out, was a 10/25 Sporting News article, "Dowd: Rose caused 'embarrassing night.'"
John Dowd back in the news? Will Walter Mondale be next? Yes, there was John Dowd, a decade after his Report, whining that Pete, having made the A-C Team (hardly his fault), was invited to Turner Field. "Like inviting Willie Sutton to a banker's meeting." Huh? "I tip my hat to Jim Gray," Dowd went on, "I thought he had more guts than any guy I've ever seen." Whoa. This Dowd fellow shore ain't been around, if he meant that.
Fay Vincent, now a TV-watcher in Connecticut, was cut and pasted into the Dowd interview, making it a kind of tag team match against Charlie Hustle.
"Dowd insisted Rose is incapable of admitting guilt." Does Dowd have any opinion about Pete's serious addiction to gambling. which he denies, but which is underneath everything else? There is no reference to that psychological problem. Instead, Dowd brings up ties with the mob. Which is like focusing on the bartenders, if Pete was alcoholic. Interesting, but not really getting at the heart of things.
"'The idea that Bart [Giamatti] would have reinstated Pete is ludicrous,' Vincent said Monday." Whoa there, Fay. That is an attack on Bart, not Pete -- they both signed the agreement, and if Bart had no intention of hearing an appeal, that's bad faith.
In Lords of the Realm, John Helyar calls Fay Vincent "Maximum Fay," out to crush Pete Rose as leader of MLB's legal defense. "Vincent liked the idea of both breaking Rose with legal bills and busting him out of baseball for life. Vincent wanted to make him pay for desecrating baseball, and he didn't care how long it took. ... Vincent's first offer: a ten-year banishment."
Dowd's selective memory recalled Rose resisting a hearing with Giamatti in August 1989. He fails to mention that Bart had tipped his hand, and whatever else that hearing might have been, it would not have been fair and impartial, Bart's mind was made up. If I was in Pete's spikes at the time, I might have had my lawyer argue for something closer to justice, too.
Dowd talks on today about Rule 21, failing to mention that the agreement Giamatti signed included these words: "Nothing in this agreement shall be deemed either an admission or denial by Peter Edward Rose of the allegation that he bet on any MLB game."
Dowd did get specific, saying that he had collected evidence showing the Pete Rose "bet on the Reds to win 52 times from April 8 to July 5, 1987." Did that evidence come from sleazy plea-bargainers eager to please MLB in return for a good word that might mean a lesser sentence? (Where was Jim Gray when we needed him to ask hard questions?)
Perhaps it was significant that MLB distanced itself from Dowd's remarks. (Not long ago, the Commish's office sued Dowd for breaching confidences, but the suit was dismissed.) Perhaps not.
I never liked Nixon, and I never liked Pete Rose. But I find myself wanting Pete to receive better treatment from MLB. No one knows how forgiving Giamatti might have been, had he lived another year or ten. Bud Selig is no Solomon, but MLB seems to be sensitive these days to public pressure, and that seems to be the new arena for the ongoing saga of Pete Rose. He has not reconfigured his life, but Mastercard & Jim Gray have unwittingly reconfigured his public image.
From the Archives of NOTES (#69, June 6, 1994)
In honor of the Team of the Decade, or Century, or Whatever, I revisit my first time at Yankee Stadium. I've been back, but you know what they say, there's nothing like that first time....
HOUSE CALL
"If Yankee Stadium is the House that Ruth Built, then in Cooperstown is the one he furnished." I first made that observation while writing DEAR PATRICK, and later worked it into my poem on the Hall of Fame. I've visited the Hall countless times, but -- even though I've lived in Upstate 20 summers -- I had never made the trip down to The Stadium. Until last Memorial Day, that is. It wasn't a pilgrimage -- but it wasn't just another visit to a ballpark, either.
Growing up, Yankee Stadium had the same image as Mount Olympus: gods lived there, they wore pin-striped suits and went about winning pennants in a correspondingly businesslike way. They ganged up in Rows on NL champs (like the '27 Pirates) and murdered them. Today it was Mantle & Maris, but they were just the latest generation of dominators, their line was well-known, traced back through DiMaggio and Dickey to Ruth and Gehrig, and the power of these titans raised up those around them, Meusel and Combs and Lazzeri and Henrich and Crosetti and now Berra and Howard and there was no end in sight.
This mythic view was qualified forever by the 1960 World Series, however, when my Buccos, after being shut out 10-0 by Ford in Game 3 (which followed on the heels of a 16-3 shellacking at Forbes), came back to win Games 4 & 5, by 3-2 and 5-2 scores. Both wins ended with tiny Roy Face on the Yankee Stadium mound, lost in those dark shadows that played havoc with color TVs, snuffing out the Bronx bombs before the fuses could even be lit.
After 1960, The Stadium became again what it was before, the place where half of October's Games would be played, but it could never again intimidate me; it was safe, there were no gods, and no monsters.
Only in recent summers have I become curious to visit The Stadium, but I've always acted too late to book seats on the several bus tours to the Bronx from Utica each season. When I was shut out again this spring -- and I called in April, the earliest ever, I phoned Don Drumm, who writes a local column ("The Fan") and often comments there on his drives south for Yankee games.
By chance, he was planning on a Memorial Day trip, with his wife Heather; there was plenty of room in his Chevy wagon for me and my kids. (My wife Barbara, you may recall, had seen her quota for 1994 already, the game at Camden Yards.) Thanks to ESPN, it was a 4 PM start -- perfect. We hit the road about 8:30 AM and were back just after midnight, a holiday spent entirely with the Yankees-White Sox game at its center. We talked about other things (Don & Heather are avid Scrabble players, probably out of my league) and listened to the radio a lot the last few hours (KDKA was mercifully behind a cloud of static, so we listened instead to Jon Miller out of Baltimore, who went well over an hour without giving me the Pirate score, which was finally disappointing.)
Don had cheered at both the Old and New stadiums many times, and so he proved to be a marvelous guide, which I appreciate when I visit The City, as surely as the city slickers appreciate guides when they prowl the Adirondacks. I was sorry that more of the old wasn't around, but I was hardly let down by the new.
I'm sure my notes from outside these lines will spill onto the pages of future issues. For now, suffice to say that while I intended to root for the home team, I found myself impressed by the ChiSox, who took the lead off Jim Abbott with two stolen bases by Lance Johnson (following one of his four hits), built it on a 3-run dinger by Darrin Jackson (it carried suspiciously) following a bruising liner off Abbott by Frank Thomas (a terrifying thought, isn't it?), produced three exciting triples (two by that Lance guy), and impolitely muffled the two most popular Yanks, Mattingly (5 LOB) and O'Neill (who started the day at .456, but 0-fer-4'd.)
The short porch in right was littered with rabbit balls during BP, but during the game, the Bronxians kept falling short: 18 outfield putouts (half by Lance -- he was all over.) Just one keeper there all day (Daryl Boston's) -- Jackson's was heaved back, and the ball was soon followed by a dozen or two pairs of socks -- the giveaway du jour. We sat in the upper deck behind home, by the way, a fine perch. Lots of fouls to our left and right, none our way.
Beats me why only 30,000 showed up to watch two division-leading teams go at it, on a perfect holiday afternoon. But then, we pulled into the Stadium lot right off the highway, we might as well have been on Mars as in the Bronx, for all we saw of the surroundings.
On the island, the fans who did show were well-behaved, and proudly attired: lots of pinstripes, and an amazing variety of Yankee caps were visible everywhere. New Yorkers ... inhabitants of the melting pot, where the struggle goes on to lose or find or maintain an identity, and one's own accent, even as The City's colors each voice. At the Stadium, it ain't over til the Thin Man sings, and (win or lose) Sinatra starts belting out New York, New York after the final out. The song says much about the way the city sees itself, I think. Win or lose, New Yorkers, and proud of it. Sucessful, because to survive is to succeed. Celebrate it, carpe diem, top of the heap, House That Ruth Built.
One More from the Archives of NOTES (#58, March 24, 1994)
Nice to have a dynasty to pick on ....
YOU GOTTA HAVE HEART
I was reminded of my poem/review of Damn Yankees when I read a review in the 3/14/94 Newsweek of the revived musical now on B'way. "'Heart' epitomizes the spirit of this production, the chorus of ball-players is so eager to please that it numbs you with heartiness, an effect that is reinforced by the show's over-amplified sound system."
I was stunned to read in the review that George Abbott, who turned Douglass Wallop's The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant into Damn Yankees back in '55 -- is still alive, and an active 106! Makes you suspect that he made some deal with Mephistopheles!
I love the soundtrack to the film version (worth renting from your video store, the Tab Hunter-Gwen Verdon-Ray Walston trio every bit as entertaining as anything Tinker Ever threw to Chance). Why its opening song, "Six Months Out of Every Year," isn't more famous has always been a puzzlement to me.
When I read Wallop's book back in the fifties, its title really did suggest fiction. The Yankees not winning the pennant? I'm glad the revival didn't try translating the play to the 90's. Today, we celebrate mini-dynasties, teams that win three straight divisional playoffs, or two straight Series. I certainly do not want to take anything away from the Braves or Blue Jays. They seem to be favorites to rematch in late October (just getting into the Playoffs won't seem that special from now on, will it?) But neither team seems to me to be so head-and-shoulders above their leagues, that a few injuries wouldn't lower expectations.
Which brings up this hard question, that reporters seem to shy away from: Will Clinton's health care plan cover broken legs that cost someone $5.5 million? Ron Gant wants to know!!!