Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
The Rocket got kicked around in Tampa Bay on Friday, the 13th as the Yankees lost, 6-4. The Bombers made Scott Kazmir work but had little to show for it (The Devil Rays flashed the leather all night along too). Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui hit back-to-back dingers late, but it wasn't enough. Phillip Hughes had another successful rehab start--Pete Abraham has the latest (Pete also has a nice little Chien-Ming Wang anecdote).
In other "news," Jason Giambi, blah, blah, blah, Gary Sheff, fat mouth, blah, blah, blah.
Yanks and Rays play again tonight. Stay cool peoples, it's another scorcher today...
"This is why you can't judge coaches on statistics every time. How they relate to a player sitting on the couch at 3:45 p.m. can be just as important as what happens later. Wang is already a heck of a pitcher and it has a lot to do with moments like these."
Ummmm, whaaa?
I did think it was a good anecdote, though. Nice to know that Wang has really found a niche in the clubhouse.
I work a few blocks from the Stadium - but to the south, so I don't really see the construction much. If I remember, I'll try to swing by and take some pictures.
Thanks to Pete Abe, I now understand better.
http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/future/YankeeStadiumII.htm
in the lower left corner.
Hope that helps.
That's a good one, tell another!
; )
By the time they started playing again there was only an inning or so left to play, and maybe 5000 fans left in the stands. Most of those few fans had moved down to better seats, to the upper boxes or the back of the lower deck.
But not the front part, where the corporate boxes were. They had security people standing at every single aisle, making sure that the riff-raff didn't get to put their cooties on those seats. It was actually a ludicrous sight, because there were a lot of people in the back half, but the front was completely empty, a great big Fuck You from the Yankees.
That's the kind of gratuitous slap that really lets you know how they feel. Would it have killed them to tell the security guys to go get a cup of coffee? Wouldn't it be worth it to make the super-loyal fans a tiny bit happy?
But that's not the Yankee way.
It was so different when I was a kid. I remember routinely going down to those box seats and never having had a problem.
It's as if they don't realize the cost of cultivating lifelong, diehard fans.
The other cataclysmic thing they did was to take the games off of channel 11. I fell away from baseball for many years between early high school and young adulthood for a number of reasons, but one of them was undoubtedly the fact that they stopped televising the games and we didn't have Sportschannel.
Heck, I remember walking up to this one guy at the ticket booth right before the game and getting front row seats that hadn't been sold for like $20! That was as recently as '95...
But when they did call the game, they didn't announce it in the Stadium until an hour or two after they announced it on ESPN. That was unforgivable.
I'm beginning to think that the unfriendliness has become status quo with the Yankees; perhaps a holdover or related to local politics, but for whatever the reason it is I am beginning to lose my interest in the team in general. Considering how they treated Bernie (I wanted him gone, but not in the way they did it), they've jeopardized the makeup of not only the current team, but for the next several years to come with the attitude they portray towards players in general. Posada is rightfully skeptical about what kind of treatment he can expect once his time is up, and seeing how they've basically painted themselves into a corner with A-Rod, you have to wonder what other available players are willing to believe or accept.
All that to say this: the Yanks have been going in the wrong direction for some time, so none of this should come as any surprise. Believe it or not, I think Cashman is probably better suited for Randy Levine's job. As for Torre, well, he's got his place in history, maybe he could be Cash's assistant. If not, Memorial Park, here we come (and do it correctly this time, or I'm truly out.)
In a way the Yankees' recent mistreatment of fans parallels the anti-marketing MLB has done during the Bud regime. It's also a product of the fact that NYY attendance has gone up so sharply over the past several years-- up 88 percent since '96 and 23 percent since 2003. The sad thing is that the combination of the last year of the current stadium and the honeymoon effect of the new one virtually ensure that the Yanks will be insulated from having to account for this shoddiness for at least another five years.
It's pretty maddening. But it's worth mentioning often -- sooner or later that might get through the thick arrogant skulls of somebody up there.
This will probably bring out some angry responses, but some a good bit of the unpleasantness at Yankee Stadium is generated by the cramped concourses, cramped bathroooms, cramped parking, clogged access to and from the park, etc. The present facility was simply not designed to handle 50,000+ every game. Moreover, there is little incentive for the organization to let fans linger around before or after the game.
But when I have been to, for example, Jacob's Field or Comerica Park, the problems of people flow have been greatly alleviated (including hen I went to the Jake during that big run of sell outs). There is also plenty of incentive for those organizations to keep fans within the confines of the structures because they have built so many retail and food facilities within the gates.
Basically, I'm hoping that the situation at the new Stadium will be better, even if it is only accidental by-product of Steinbrenner's greed or whatever. It certainly will not be any worse.
Yankee Stadium is not an oil rig in the Middle East, but let's face it, they don't have a positive opinion of the Bronx either, and neither do many of the fans. Thus the crowding.
I'm not sure why this is so.
Unfortunately, when it comes to watching the game, many of the ordinary fans will find that they've been rather literally marginalized. As someone pointed out earlier, the upper deck has been moved back quite a bit. Also, instead of the vertiginous pitch of the current upper deck, it will have a much more gentle slope.
The effect of all this is that the best seats in the upper deck will be substantially further away from the field than they are now, and the less-than-best seats will be a long, long way off. I suspect we'll find that they've pretty well killed the upper deck.
Of course, they'll also put more of the field level seats in the sun, and there won't be anymore overhang to get in the way of the luxury boxes. We wouldn't want that, no sir.
Someone told me that there will also be significantly fewer seats in the upper deck, and that they'll be replaced by more seats at field level. Great, so that means they'll be adding crappy seats at the back of the lower deck. Whoopee.
Not that it matters much. I'm not expecting to be able to get seats anymore in any event. I'll enjoy this season and next while I can.
I've sat in the upper decks in the some new parks and found that the greater distance from the action was more than comepensated for by the far superior sight lines. Again, I'm referrign to my own experience; those who have season tickets in the lower tier at YS will no doubt lose out.
And I think that you absolutely correct about the atmosphere. The new stadium will simply not have the same dynamic. That is the natural product of changing the architectural space.
6 IP 0 R 1 BB 8 K - retired 11 in a row at one point.
Hey... is there another thread you're not telling me about? 39 comments? Must be a good party in the Village.
Meanwhile, the Yanks have done well to come back, and Wanger has managed to hold the fort. Looking for 3 out of 4.
7 IP 3 H 0 R 1 BB 9 K - about 90 pitches
He looked just as advertised.
Wow, that was something.
Seriously, why does he keep pitching the 8th?
And Kombustable Kyle wonders why he's on a short leash out there with Mariano behind him. What a joke.
Like most teams have that hard-throwing 8th inning guy to get to the closer... we have that 8th inning 'will give up runs until it's a save situation (unless it already is and then still give up 1, minimum)' guy
People keep asking why Myers is on this team if he can only pitch to one batter... Why is Kyle on this team if he can't pitcht to ANYONE?!
When I watch him not only sign Kyle Farnsworth, but put up with Farnsworth's bullshit for two years, seemingly only because he throws OMG 100 mph!!!!!, its abundantly clear, combined with some of his other gems, that he's really not any better than any other GM in baseball.
Because he throws 100 miles per hour? Because he "finally turned the corner" after 2005? Because he's young? Because looking at the amount of runs a pitcher gives up is considered too "old school baseball" these days?
dammit.
It is, however, indefensible to continue to use him in high leverage situations.
Maybe to deek the runner at 2nd, I dunno.
Although, several years later, he spent 45 million dollars for a bit reliever, so maybe its the new math.
Either way, the idea that we use him in the 8th instead of any other member of a hideously constructed bullpen is infuriating enough.
But the idea that we're paying out the ass for this man and refuse to dump him drives me up the god damn wall. I never liked this signing, and after doing a bad job last year, I was sure it would be rectified. And he's still here.
That leaves me with two options. Either a) Cashman is a stubborn fuck who won't admit a mistake(which would explain the idiocy of keeping Pavano in a position where he needs to contribute) or b) he's awestruck by that fastball and doesn't want to give up an "arm like that"
Why did Joe get Mo up then only to not use him?
Farnsworth allowed a homerun and a walk and of the two outs he recorded, one was well struck to deep center.
What's-his-face was geared up to steal a base, and had he been successful, the tying run would have been in scoring position.
Why would Joe wait for that to happen to bring in Mo?
It makes no goddamned sense at all. If Jorgie doesn't get his man, we well could have lost that game.
The only other comment I have on the game (I only caught a bit of it) is that Abreu's opposite-field double was a thing of sheer beauty.
That was an overinvestment for a player with a spotty career record, no two ways about it. Yep, overpaid him. But that's a different issue from 66 "why is he on the fucking team." He's on the team because is, amazingly, still basically an average relief pitcher, so presumably better than about half of the ML options and a good number of the mL options.
By the way, even if Farnsworth is dumped--DFA'd or traded--"we" will probably still being paying all or most of the salary. That's a sunk cost at this point.
Cashman's mistake is paying him too much, hoping that 2005 was the 'real' Farnsworth. Torre's mistake is continuing to use him in high leverage situations in the 8th.
{89] Entirely correct.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XMJIhKf54JI
Joba's line:
7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K
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