The Guru on baseball

Baseball is the only sport where, no matter how old or out of shape you are, you are utterly convinced that you could go down to the dugout, grab a bat, and get up and knock one of CC's fastballs out of the park.

That's why baseball is so great.*

See you at the game . . .

* I paraphrased a bit. It's fun editing an editor.

Baseball in quotes



I guess my feelings on the new Stadium are best summed up by the baseball bat, which is now encircled and encapsulated by a set of stairs. They seem like a set of quotes around it - transforming it somehow from an easy place to meet people into an "historical" monument.

Quotes included.

The new stadium does that to the spirit of the old stadium, and baseball in general - the history is encapsulated in quotes.

But the references to the past are, well, just references. There's no actual history at the Stadium. And in fact that's one of its attractions - many of the people who are talking so positively about it are praising how clean it looks.

In the first weekend, balls were flying out of the park. Maybe that was Babe's revenge. The Yankees have claimed that the dimensions of the field are exactly the same, but anyone who has spent a lot of time there can look at right field and know the wall doesn't curve the same way. It doesn't really matter - unless you're Chen Ming Wang - but the insistence that history is being preserved is irksome.

It's too early to tell whether the park really does encourage home runs . . . and it's too early to tell if the "this park could be anywhere" feel I get walking in is a true emotion, or simply a stubborn reaction from someone who went to games at the old park since he was too young to know the difference between a fastball and a curve.

Or sour grapes at losing my field boxes.

For the moment, I struggle to keep an open mind. And more than anything else, the new Stadium has reminded of this: baseball is baseball, whether you play it at Yankee Stadium, or the sandlot across from your house.

Upon further review . . .



So A-Rod gets the historical footnote of having been the first baseball player to have a home run reviewed by instant replay.

I don't like it. Not A-Rod -- hard not to like a guy who's getting it from a rock star billionaire who still looks good at whatever age Madonna says she is. It's instant replay I can't stand. (At least not to review home runs. Intimate shots of - never mind ...)

Somehow it's not baseball. Football, all right. That's a sport where brute force and technology must mesh. But baseball . . . hell, if we can't complain about the umpires, all we're left to bitch at are the outrageous prices.

Bean-town love...

And he seemed like such a nice fellow when he was screaming 'murder the Yankee bastards' at the Stadium the other night . . .

New Yorker Beaten on Red Sox Turf

FALMOUTH, Mass. (July 7) - A man was ordered held without bail Monday for allegedly beating a New York man with a baseball bat because he thought the man was a Yankees fan.

As it turned out, the New Yorker allegedly beaten in the land of the Red Sox isn't even a big baseball fan... (William) Nestor said he's not a particularly big baseball fan and didn't know the Red Sox were playing the rival Yankees over the weekend. He was treated and released from Falmouth Hospital.

In May, a New Hampshire woman was charged with second-degree murder and drunken driving in a fatal crash following an argument over the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Ivonne Hernandez, 43, told police she was trying to scare off a group of people who were hitting her car and yelling after they spotted a Yankees sticker on her rear windshield.

Police said Hernandez drove away from the group, then turned around and headed directly toward them. Matthew Beaudoin, 29, of Nashua, was killed, and a woman suffered minor injuries...

If you've been to a Yankees-Red Sox game at the Stadium in the past few years, you know that not only do Red Sox fans attend the games in large numbers, but they have absolutely no qualms about being as obnoxious as possible. A sizable portion attend primarily to antagonize Yankee fans. Yet no fights break out.

All right, I've seen one in the past three or four years.... things are a far cry from the days when anyone wearing a Boston cap into the stadium would leave with broken bones and little hair...

Have Yankee fans become more civilized? Older, wiser, a little less drunk? More drunk?

One thing I know - a whole bunch are paying off their car loans by selling their tickets to Boston fans looking for an easy thrill...

They'll try anything

Ya don't gotta be dumb to be a Boston Red Sux fan . . .

. . . but it helps



I'm gonna guess this guy'll be sitting behind me Wednesday . . .

Here's how you curse a ballpark . . .

Rituals of winter

Every winter, certain rituals must be observed to appease the ancient gods of cold and ice. Among the most difficult and arcane is the annual selection of baseball tickets, a process so involved that it cannot be successfully completed without elaborate computer snafus. This is especially true for fans of the NY Yankees, whose suffering when they attempt to secure seats serves as a crude initiation ritual to make sure they truly deserve to worship at the Cathedral in the Bronx come spring. Call it penance.
Engaged in a critical part of the ceremony yesterday, Fellow Writer encountered a series of computer screwups unique even for the Yankees, who have set new standards for electronic chaos over the past few years. He kept calling me with reports as the day went on; between calls I studied the suicide prevention manual.
In the end, he came away with three times the number of tickets he'd tried to buy, and the realization that he's related to someone who works in the Yankee ticket office. Unfortunately, the Yankee employee is from the black sheep side of the family, which may explain why Fellow Writer had so much trouble. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he is convinced that every ticket he reserved will be flushed and, if any are forthcoming at all, they will be for seats behind the McDonald's a block from the Stadium.
"Weren't you on deadline today?" I asked toward the end of the day.
"Who could work on a day like this? My editor's a Mets fan; she understands."
That's the difference between the regular season and the off-season. If there were a pennant race on, she'd've nailed him to the wall.