R.I.P. - Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra died last night, at the age of 90.  He was legend - that long ago transcended baseball - and become a cultural icon.  Most people have probably use a few of his Yogi- isms (or variations of them) a week.  I can't count the number of times I've said "It ain't over till it's over" or "It's deja' vu all ever again" (probably my favorite).

You couldn't grow up a Yankee fan in the 70's and 80's without having the "feud" become a touchstone of your view of Steinbrenner (and management in general).  And wait for the inevitable reconciliation, so late in coming, in 1999 to bring the Yankee family back together.  The same day (for Yogi), both Berra and Larson were in the Stadium and watch Dave Cone throw a perfect game!  That was some kind of baseball miracle - "deja vu all over again" - writ large?!

Yogi is one of my all-time favorite Yankees (and baseball players, in general).  He's right alongside Thurman Munson (fellow catcher), Phil Rizzuto (fellow legend), and Don Mattingly - to mention a few, in no particular order.

Read his full obituary from the NY Times.

Rest in Peace Yogi Berra

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!!

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)!

yankee captain thurman munson died in a plane crash 30 years ago today

on august 2, 1979, thurman munson died tragically at the too young age of 32. can thirty years have flown by so quickly? he had been practicing take-offs and landings in his private plane at the canton airport. there were two passengers on board, both of whom survived the crash. it was subsequently determined that the plane crash was the result of pilot error.

the entire yankee team attended munson's funeral in canton, and his number 15 was officially retired by the team within days of his death. thurman munson was then, and still is, my favorite ny yankee. last month i read "munson: the life and death of a yankee captain" by marty appel. appel had co-authored munson's autobiography in 1977 and took the 40th anniversary of his death as an opportunity to write a more detailed account of his life and death.

r.i.p. thurman munson

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).

joe torre "the yankee years" book review

when the first leaks about the contents of joe torre's "the yankee years" dribbled out in late january, i was dubious. would joe torre, "mr. trust" personified, crank out a "kiss and tell" book in the wake of his less than flattering departure as yankee manager in 2007? from the snippets that circulated, it seemed so. now, after i finished the book, all i can say is "oh how the mighty have fallen."

first, there is no doubt in my mind that this book would never have been written, much less actually published, if joe torre was still the manager of the ny yankees today. it may have been planned as a retirement project, but as an active manager - impossible. second, "written in the third" person seems like a lame canard to distract attention from torre's responsibility for the contents. while the book does rely on tom verducci's excellent reporting skills for the league-wide steroid use coverage, the bulk of the material is entirely within torre's purview. what, if any, is outside his personal knowledge could easily have been attributed as such.

while i have no problem with torre writing this book (any book for that matter), it troubles me that as an active manager he so flippantly ignores any notions of "trust" and it's connection to the player conversations and behaviors he witnessed first hand. amazingly, and utterly ironic in this context, the most overworked (and abused) word in the entire book is "trust." it's used so frequently that, at first, it's humorous then, finally, by the last chapter it became nauseating. imagine yourself a current member of the dodgers today - how would you go about your business this season (or any season) with torre as manager?

as a die hard yankee fan since the early 1970's - i found the relatively brief coverage of the rise of torres' late 90's yankees given far less attention than the post-01 years of inglorious decline. the short recap of the great years is quickly forgotten after pages, blow by blow, that described how the wheels fell off the yankee bus. the most painful part of the entire book (again, purely as a yankee fan) was reliving the agony of the yankee immolation in 2004 - losing the alcs to the red sox, after a 3-0 start, in 4 straight horrifying games!

settling old scores with difficult players and the yankee organization is predictable. the a-rod business in particular is old news to any new yorker mildly tuned in to yankee headlines. but the "a-fraud" crack, carefully scripted so as not to be uttered by torre in the retelling, is new grist for stadium fans. any guess what may be heard at the stadium from rowdy fans when a-rod is having a bad game? coincident? but that's hardly worth noting. what galled me in particular was the gratuitous cheap shot taken at bernie williams!

for a loyal yankee and torre solider his entire time on the team, joe somehow found it necessary to relate how bernie once forgot his kids at the stadium. embarrassing? how about a second go of it? bernie also forgot his wife at the stadium once! what on earth do either of those anecdotes (and whatever absentminded implication they imply) have to do with the yankee - or baseball in general?

to say this book is disappointing is the best praise i can muster up. the sole highlight was the discussion of "moneyball" - the rise of statistics and numbers crunchers. the low point (aside from the comments on bernie williams), was reading how joe felt "betrayed" by the yankees. interestingly, the actual word "betrayed" was never written. coy? cagey? skillful prose? diplomacy? "trust" was employed so frequently that its use in this context was almost offensive.

did torre think the buck for the long string of poor post-season performances would not stop with him? fairly or unfairly? whining about getting the ax those circumstances (however artfully framed) was just lame. and torre wasn't actually fired! he was, in fact, offered a one year contract (albeit with a pay cut). while the terms may have embarrassed him, the yankees nevertheless gave torre the option to manage the team for another season! he elected to walk away - right or wrong?!

yankee fans, joe comes not to praise caesar - but to bury him. so be forewarned. sadly, this is a more a book for red sox fans and erstwhile yankee haters. instead, a much happier read was last year's "the greatest game" which focused on the now historic (in yankee lore) 1978 playoff game against the red sox.

or check-out the baseball book i'm anxiously awaiting, the new thurman munson biography due out this summer.

joe torre burns his bridges in "the yankee years" kiss and tell

wow, i had planned to finish up and post my manhattan half marathon race report this morning, but on the train ride to work joe torre's forthcoming book, "the yankee years," was the big news (imo) on the sports pages! if reports of its snarky contents are even close to accurate, "my how the mighty have fallen" should be the book's subtitle. the book is scheduled to be released next week, february 3, but the ny post somehow, and rather conveniently, managed to purchase an advance copy from a nyc bookseller - really?!

what on earth motivated torre to write this book? given he was one of the highest paid managers in baseball during his years with the yankees - hardly the money. to document his hardscrabble life as the yankee skipper for 12 years - isn't there time for that when he retires? or, more likely reason, to settle old scores and grudges against his enemies. his co-author, tom verducci, a writer with "sports illustrated," has already come to his defense, pointing out the book was written in the third person?! what a lame grammatical attempt at a fig leaf.

from this book we learn these tidbits: that a-rod was a prima donna with the nickname a-fraud; that joe thought gm cashman had his back in the final contract negotiations but, instead, was stabbed in that back by cashman; and, even more stunning, in 1999, torre learned of his own prostate cancer not from the doctors - but from george steinbrenner. if his stories comes off as this vindictive and petty in the actual book then joe torre is nothing more than a bitter old man taking cheap shots at his past enemies.

even if everything single thing he relates is true, and he's actually sugarcoating it to protect the truly bad, how can a working manager play this sort of gotcha memoir game? working manager is key here. what will his l.a. dodger players say in the locker room. christ, how will they act around torre knowing that he might publish anything they say or do that may offend him? how will it impact the team play? the context of what he's saying is irrelevant. it's that he's decided to spill it all now that calls his judgement into question.

aside from his current team, what about us poor old yankee fans? i for one rallied to his defense when the yankee organization dismissed him with absolutely no class, no honor, whatsoever. i thought it was beautiful karma that the dodgers made the playoffs with joe - and the yankees failed to get there without him! i am no fan of a-rod, cashman, or the yankee management, but now i feel like a chump for having defended torre. torre may be repaying the people who treated him poorly, but his reputation has forever been tarnished by taking this very low road. and i bet there are a few more yankee fans who feel the way i do.

so, with that vented and out of my system, i'll leave poor old joe with these rhetorical questions: how many copies of the book do you need to sell to rehabilitate your image? and, was it all worth it? while i won't buy this book, i'll eventually borrow a copy from the library and read it. but more importantly, i just can't wait to hear what joe himself has to say about all this when he embarks on the promo tour for the book.
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update: i've softened on the prospect of buying a copy of the book. joe torre will be at barnes and noble next week to kick off the book promotion tour (and include a visit to the dave letterman show as well). so i may just use up my last b&n gift certificate and get up a copy.

read excerpts from the book at the "sports illustrated" site.

check out this great ny times coverage on the third person narrative technique: "yankee book is a two-person effort, written in the third person."

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update: torre, finally commenting on the news coverage : "cashman didn't betray me."

update: i skipped the book signing at barnes and noble, ordering it from amazon instead. just started to read it (february 10).