ticker tape parade to celebrate yankees' world series championship!!

that's the view outside my office window just before 8 a.m. this morning - looking down vesey street towards broadway. within another hour, the streets become so thick with fans there to see the ticker tape parade honoring the yankees' world series victory - that crossing broadway was impossible! and that was hours before the parade even kicked off at battery park and made its way north along broadway to city hall! it was the only picture i managed to take because my batteries died :(

it's been 9 years since the yankees won the world series title and the city threw a parade down the canyon of heros to celebrate (but two years since the last parade - for the superbowl champion giants). when i got to the office this morning there were huge plastic bags filled with shredded paper confetti in the lobby for tenants to bring upstairs for the parade. later that morning our building management got further into the spirit of things and set up a table with coffee and breakfast fare in the lobby!

the parade ended at city hall park, where after introductions and short speeches, mayor bloomberg gave the team keys to the city! and the most fun news was that giardi would change now change his number from 27 to 28 - anticipating next year! giardi also announce that pitchers and catchers had to report for spring training in only 91 days!

now, with the post-season over, time to focus on football. unfortunately, the giants flew under the nyc radar screen for the last 3 weeks and ran up a losing streak. let's end that on sunday!

needless to say, no work got done in my office today.

yankees beat philadelphia and win their 27th world series championship!!

that picture says it all!! yankees won game 6 at the stadium last night, 7-3, and the series, 4-2, and earned their 27th world series championship - woo hoo!! it was an incredible way to end the season at the brand new yankee stadium.

last night was all hideki matsui - who batted in 6 of the 7 runs the yankees scored, and tied a world series record for rbi's in one game in the process. watching matsui battle pedro martinez in the his first at bat in the bottom of the second, which resulted in his first of 2 home runs, was impressive. martinez had nothing on him last night. matsui (who went 3-4) was named the series mvp - deservedly so!!

it's been nine years since the yankees won the world series. rudy guiliani was mayor in that pre-9/11 season. last night he (one of the yankees biggest fans) was there, along w/his successor in office, mike bloomberg. according to bloomberg, new york city will stage the biggest celebration ever to honor the yankees.

as i walked to the office this morning, worker were already unloading gear from trucks and setting up the viewing stands at city hall!

bring it on... ticker tape parade on friday - awesome!!

michael lewis, "moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game" book review

"moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game" is a fantastic book. i just finished the 2003 michael lewis book about the impact of statistical anaysis on the unsuspecting old baseball guard this weekend. the book, which examines the 2002 oakland a's is simultaneously dated and fresh! it's dated because revisiting the 2002 season, now 7 years removed, is a trip down memory lane - we know how things turned out for oakland.

but, since i stumbled across this title from reading joe torre's book, "the yankee years," last winter it's all new to me. in fact, i came across "moneyball" at the library book fair - and for just one dollar, snatched it up. as a detached fan of the the art of statistics (caveat: i came away from college statistics with the jaded view that numbers can be made to say whatever you want them to say) i was curious to see the baseball application. now it suddenly became the perfect read for the post-season.

i had heard of "liar's poker," lewis' more famous earlier work - but hadn't read it. i found lewis' writing style instantly approachable - in the "easy read" category. i was draw into his narrative immediately, and suddenly i found myself interested in the young billy beane, his agonizing career decision making process, entry into professional baseball (via the mets), and unusual exit strategy (from player to front office scout)! most of beane's contemporaries were incredulous that he would voluntarily step off the field and chose not to play baseball - but scout others who did want to play!!

on a parallel track, lewis introduce the godfather of baseball stat geeks -bill james. james complied ream of data and self-published his "baseball abstract" to what seemed like an infinitesimal audience. but he kept garnering "readers" - if that term can be seriously applied to someone whose main focus is to pour over the columns (and columns) of numbers contained in the "abstract!" words were secondary to james (and his followers) - who preferred to let the numbers talk for themselves. it seemed that james' fans and followers were everywhere - except in the offices of major league baseball!

the book works because it shows how beane - practically a heretic to his profession - bypassed the collective wisdom of his own scouts to find "undervalued" players in the draft (and later in trades with other teams), via stats. and by stats he doesn't mean the typical baseball numbers relied upon by the other teams - but yardsticks developed by thinking outside the box (or in this case, the diamond). his approach was ingenious - but only after it produced some interesting results. it's a testament to how far on the cutting edge beane was in 2002 as witnessed by how many team have adopted the methodology to some degree or another, in today's game.

"moneyball" isn't just about data - there's plenty of colorful personalities to flesh out the numbers. but it's certainly a book well worth reading for any baseball fan who wants to dig deeper than the traditional box score data. after reading this book, an at bat will never seem the same. a deep pitch count and a walk will take on new dimensions! but don't get lulled into believing that raw statistical analysis, however sophisticated the model, will someday replace common sense - and skill - on the ball field.

derek jeter breaks lou gehrig's new york yankees all-time hits record!!

last night, derek jeter hit a single in the third inning of the yankee - baltimore game. it was jeter's 2,722nd hit and moved past lou gehrig to become the all-time hit leader for the new york yankees!

congratulations jeter!!

in an interesting coincidence, in 1995, cal ripken, jr., playing for baltimore, surpassed lou gehrig's then major league record of consecutive games played (2,130)!

mets v. st. louis cardinals: a couple of pictures from the game

yesterday my old friend david and i took the afternoon off and slipped over to queens for the mets game. as a yankee fan, i didn't have much stake in the outcome. but this was david's (a definite mets fan) third trip to citifield this summer.

so for his benefit, i behaved myself a little by not wearing my yankee cap to the game (shades of elaine with a baltimore cap at a yankee game where she and george sat in the owners box - ha). that didn't stop a family down the row from us arriving dressed in cardinal colors. we had a great time and the mets won easily, 9-0. unfortunetly, that victory came at a price since two players got injured during the game.

on a side note, i was utterly surpised to find some excellent beer at the food court! i had a widmer brothers hefenweizen and a goose island honiker's ale. david went with a landshark lager and a corona.

marty appel, "munson: the life and death of a yankee captain" book review

haven't had this much fun reading a book about the yankees since last year's "the greatest game: the yankees, the red sox, and the playoff of '78" by richard bradley. in between these two good books was the grim kiss and tell, "the yankee years" by joe torre, which left a bitter aftertaste when i was done. since thurman munson is my all-time favorite yankee, and since i read marty appel's "autobiography" of munson more than 30 years ago, this was a much anticipated summer read for me. i grew up watching munson play from the mid to late 70's, with the highlight being the 1978 season.

it's not often an author gets a "do-over" when covering a subject (especially when he did it well the first time). with 2009 as the 3oth anniversary of munson's plane crash, the timing of book is fitting. i wasn't sure there would be much new material - anything worthwhile that hasn't already been said or written about during that time span. but a combination of the deeper look at munson's unhappy family life during growing up, and a more exhaustive review of the events that led up to the crash and the post-crash reactions of the yankees, the book is definitely worth reading (for thurman junkies or yankee fans in general).

one thing the book did is it put to rest any lingering hope i may have harbored that munson should be in the hall of fame. emotion always blinded me to his borderline qualifications. the bottom line is he just didn't play long enough to generate the bona fides needed for induction. people argue what could have been (but munson's declining physical condition made his continued role as catcher sketchy at best), but the hall of fame is for what players have done. many a hall of fame career is prematurely derailed by injury. munson's tragic death was an extreme expression of that very sad fact.

check out this interview with marty appel on ny baseball digest.

"munson: the life and death of a yankee captain" is a must read for yankee fans (of all generations).

bobby murcer: r.i.p.

bobby murcer died of cancer yesterday at the young age of 62 of a malignant brain tumor. while i'm not as big a yankee fan as i once was, he was my first yankee favorite player. my first yankee tee shirt carried his number one on the back.

when he was traded in 1974, my new favorite player became thurman munson! following munson's death and having returned to the yankees, bobby once again became my favorite yankee.

when he moved on to the broadcast booth, the games he and phil rizzuto called were the best.

bobby was a true gentleman and sportsman - he will me missed.