Yankee Banter

Before we kick things off, here’s a couple of pictures (hardly award-winning snapshots) I took of the Brian Bruney-Francisco Rodriguez incident that took place at Yankee Stadium this morning at 11 a.m. For those who don’t know, Bruney said he was thrilled to see K-Rod on the mound when Luis Castillo dropped the infamous pop-up on Friday because he’s sick of K-Rod’s over-the-top antics on the mound. Watching it unfold up-close, you knew nothing was serious was going to escalate. Nothing but talk and no action.

(K-Rod is the one pointing his finger and Bruney is standing to the left of Phil Coke, who is wearing No. 48.)

Now, my thoughts of the week:

The Yankees should consider themselves lucky to be only two games behind the Red Sox after another meltdown in Boston last week. At some point this season, the Yankees, if they have any championship ambition, are going to have to beat this team. It looks to me the Yankees panic whenever a bounce or two doesn’t go their way versus the Sox, while Boston always believes it will find a way, no matter what the score is. That mentality is a reflection on both teams’ managers if you ask me.

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I know the new Yankee Stadium’s small dimensions are a big reason why, but I am surprised, nonetheless, at Derek Jeter’s offensive production so far this year. After a somewhat lackluster 2008 season, it appeared Jeter was going to settle in as a decent singles-hitter as he headed into the final years of his illustrious career. Mark Teixeira, aside, Jeter has been the team’s offensive MVP up until now, sporting an impressive .310 batting average to go along with nine home runs, 30 RBI, a .378 on-base percentage, 39 runs scored and 13 stolen bases in 14 attempts. It will be interesting to see if he can keep this up.

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If I were Phil Hughes, I’d be preparing for a regular spot in the starting rotation. With Chien-Ming Wang on life support and Andy Pettitte looking hurt the last two weeks, Hughes is going to get plenty of opportunities throughout the summer.

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It’s fine that Jose Veras is friends with Francisco Rodriguez, but it’s not fine to go up and give K-Rod a hug in the outfield minutes after one of your teammates got into an altercation with him. Veras has stunk up the joint this season and may be on the brink of getting released. Embracing an opponent right after something like that will certainly not help his cause.

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Minutes after getting in the car today in the eighth inning (I usually stay until the end, but at 13-0, beating the traffic was a more enticing option that watching the backups on both teams close out the final inning), John Sterling had this observation: “It’s impossible to lose when you shut someone out.” Now that is some great insight.

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I checked StubHub and there are hundreds of tickets available for the Nationals series this week at Yankee Stadium for under $20 a ticket. Most people I talk to think that all Yankee tickets will cost you an arm and a leg and maybe a kidney, but if you don’t mind who the opponent is, you can purchase tickets on the secondary market for a decent price.

Some other random observations:

Sports journalism had one of its darkest days in history when the Associated Press recently quoted Shaquille O’Neal in a story using his near-illiterate post from Twitter. I understand Twitter has its advantages for news items, however, I don’t believe printing quotes in stories that look like text or instant messages is the right direction journalism should be heading in.

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Brett Favre. There I said his name, can we move on?

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Rumor has it that the NHL season ended this past week. Who knew it actually started? (Cheapshot by a bitter Whalers fan)

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Sighting of the week: An Al Bundy Polk High School football jersey at Yankee Stadium Sunday (pictured at right). If you don’t know who Al Bundy is, either you are very young or didn’t own a TV in the 90s.

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If you are into disturbing reality television then “Brooke Knows Best” on VH1 is the show for you. To say the Hogan family has gone off the deep end would be a bigger understatement than Spencer Pratt declaring his love for himself on NBC’s horrid, “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!”

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Speaking of television, if you are an old school “Saved by the Bell” fan, than this is a must watch.

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While I am typing this, the Lakers are beating Orlando by 16 in the fourth quarter and are on their way to the NBA championship tonight. For all the people who like to talk about Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan in the same sentence, the NBA Finals MVP count after tonight is Michael 6, Kobe 1. If Kobe does enough work to match Jordan’s total, then we can sit down and have a chat.

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Quick programming note: I know I promised a photo blog touring the new Yankee Stadium and that will be posted this week. Also, I snapped a few more shots today of the old Yankee Stadium demolition and I’ll be putting those up on Tuesday. We’ll have our weekly, and hopefully the last, “What to do with Wang?” breakdown and, as always, if an interesting story comes up, I will share my analysis with you.

Thanks for checking in.

When Bobby Meacham’s six-year playing career, which featured a .236 average, eight home runs and 114 RBI, came to an end in 1988, one may have thought that horrendous production would be the end of the harm he would inflict on the Yankees.

Hardly.

Last June 15, in the midst of a 13-0 romp over the Astros in Houston, Meacham, the then-third base coach for the Yankees, decided it would be a good idea to send an athletically-challenged Chien-Ming Wang, who had minimal base-running experience, home from second on a single to right off the bat of Derek Jeter.

Three hundred and sixty-one days later, that stupid decision is still haunting the team.

As you know, Wang, coming off two consecutive 19-win seasons and sporting an 8-2 record at the time, stumbled on his way home, looking like Barbaro trying to cross the finish line. He missed the rest of the season, the Yankees missed the playoffs and he is now off to the worst start by a starting pitcher in the history of baseball (his 14.34 ERA is the worst all-time for a pitcher in his first five starts of a season).

After three brutal outings to begin 2009 against Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Cleveland, the Yankees placed Wang on the disabled list, which was the right move, even if he wasn’t injured like many have suggested. It gave him a chance to clear his mind and go on a minor league rehab stint to regain confidence.

Wang seemed to be on the right track back to normalcy as he cruised through the Triple-A lineups with ease. With one more start slated for Scranton, the Yankees instead activated Wang and placed him in the bullpen as insurance after Joba Chamberlain got struck by a line drive in the first inning against Baltimore on May 21 (that wouldn’t have happened if Joba was in the bullpen like he should be, but that’s another story for another day).

The Yankees would’ve been better off keeping Wang on the original schedule instead of leaving him in limbo for two weeks in the bullpen. His first two starts since coming back, including last night’s at Fenway in a 6-5 loss, have been less than inspiring to say the least.

Even though his numbers (2.2 innings, 6 hits, 4 ER, 3 walks, 3 strikeouts) last night were brutal, I don’t think it was as bad as people are making it out to be. Two of the runs did come of the cheap variety - Bay’s first inning single took five hops to get through to left (Where was A-Rod, by the way?) and Nick Swisher butchered a fly ball to right from Dustin Pedroia, allowing a run to score.

Wang’s velocity was strong and his sinker had strong movement. The two problems are clearly mechanical and mental. The Yankees hierarchy have not guaranteed Wang his next start, which I believe is a mistake.  There were enough signs to show that this can be salvaged.

Other than CC Sabathia, the Yankees starting rotation is full of question marks. A.J. Burnett has been an $80-million dollar bust so far, Joba, for the most part, can’t get past the sixth inning and Andy Pettitte is nearing senior citizen status. If  the Yankees have any plans of making the playoffs, getting this Wang situation fixed is a must.

His next turn comes up against the hideous Washington Nationals at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday.  At home against that lineup could be the remedy Wang needs to get past this.

If he gets bombed, though, all bets are off.

Thanks, Bobby Meacham.

When you attend a game at the new Yankee Stadium, you can’t help but notice the slow and tortuous demise of an American Icon, the original Yankee Stadium. The best way I can describe this sight is that it’s like you’re trapped at a never-ending wake and the body is slowly rotting in front of you. It’s a sad, sad sight. Throughout the season, I’ve been documenting this with my camera.

Here is my latest batch of pictures, from this past Sunday:

First, here’s is the outside of the Stadium when you come out of the 153rd street garage. There is now a blue fence that surrounds the entire Stadium and you can not get within 10 feet of the building.

I was able to slip my camera inside one of the fences and grab a couple of shots.

Up in the Section 412 of the Grandstand at the new Stadium, you can get at good look up at the top row. The next picture shows a view of the back of the bleachers wall being removed. I then zoomed in at the hole bulldozed at ground level.

Look at the mess inside. It looks like a dirt bike competition is about to break out.

As you can see, the seats have been removed in the upper deck and there have been construction numbers spray-painted above each section.

In this final picture, you can see through the frieze that the bleacher benches are gone. Also, the old Budweiser sign from 2001, which was covered up for the past seven years, has been uncovered and is clearly showing it’s wear and tear.

Later this week, I’ll post pictures from the new Stadium. Like many people, I have mixed reviews of the place and I’ll critique them extensively. For now, take a moment and pay homage to a wreck that should’ve been avoided.

I attended Sunday’s Yankee game and took a lot of photos of the current demolition of the old Yankee Stadium and several different views of the new digs.

I will be posting a blog on each park this week, starting with the old Stadium either tonight or tomorrow. Also on Friday, I will have analysis of the Yankees-Red Sox series and thoughts on the upcoming Subway Series. Just a heads up, tickets for the Red Sox series at Fenway are cheaper than I have ever seen them on the open market – you could get a decent pair of seats on StubHub in the $50 range. Every baseball fan needs to experience the rivalry in Fenway at least once. If you have a day off or have any sick time, I highly recommend the trip.

That’s a wrap for now, talk to you throughout the week.

I would like to welcome everyone to Yankee Banter. This is a blog we’ll be producing based on the New York Yankees. However, as some of my longtime readers know, from time to time I like to touch on all types of subjects from football (the Giants must trade for Anquan Boldin) to reality TV (I’m sick of Jon and Kate Plus 8).

Here’s a quick rundown about me (for my career rundown, if you actually care, click on the About Me link above):
I became a Yankee fan in 1990, mostly in part because of Don Mattingly. Even though that team was atrocious and on the road to last place, I treated every game like it was Game 7 of the World Series (if only Oscar Azocar and Mel Hall did, who knows how things would’ve turned out). Steve Sax and Kevin Maas were like Jordan and Pippen to me.

I was lucky enough to have parents that liked going to Bronx and we went 3-5 times a year and always sat in the upper deck, watching the likes of Yankee greats Deion Sanders, Andy Hawkins, Tony Fernandez and Dion James. In 1999, I made my debut in the bleachers for Game 4 of the World Series. Since that wild night, I was a regular in the right field bleachers, eventually purchasing a Sunday ticket plan in 2004 for the nice price of $8 a ticket in Section 37. This year, much to my dismay, I was relocated to the left bleachers in the new stadium. We’ll get into that long story down the road.

While I will be writing the content on this blog, I want you to feel like it’s yours, not just mine. If you want to submit a guest entry, all power to you. Just email it to me. If you want me to touch on a certain subject, I’ll be more than happy to. And, of course, all comments are welcome, provided you leave out most of Chef Ramsey’s vocabulary.

This will not just be a blog with daily posts about whether or not Joba should be in the bullpen (he should). We’ll focus on the seemingly never-ending run of Yankee front office follies, the teams around the league, ticket prices and, one of my favorite subjects, old games. I’ve been to almost 200 games over the years and every once in a while, I’ll pull out an old ticket stub, look up the stats from the game on Retrosheet.org, and we’ll relive the glory years.

Thanks for taking the time to read and keep checking back.
Email: tiscipa165@yahoo.com