Peter Abraham, a well-respected Yankees scribe, posted this howler on his Lohud blog last night: An open letter to Red Sox’ manager Terry Francona, suggesting the manager of the World Series champions should choose Yankees’ closer Mariano Rivera as the starting pitcher in next Tuesday’s All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. No, you are not hallucinating; and yes, Mr. Abraham appears to be sincere. If you needed any additional evidence that the Red Sox own the Yankees’ soul, well, here it is: A Yankees beat writer pleading with the Red Sox to extend an olive branch to the Yankees and their fans.
These are excerpts from Abraham’s column, interspersed with the commentary of a sane person, i.e., me.
An open letter to Terry Francona:
It doesn’t look like the Yankees will be making the playoffs this season, so this could be the last time the grand old stadium is in the national spotlight.
(Apparently he’s forgetting that New York Rangers hockey game.)
Here’s an idea that would make the game even more special: Name Mariano Rivera the starting pitcher for the American League.
Yes, we know, Rivera is a closer. But he also has been the best pitcher in the American League for more than a decade now. Here is an opportunity for his greatness to be recognized at his home ballpark in front of a worldwide audience.
(Peter, Rivera was such a great starting pitcher that he was converted into a reliever.)
Have you ever known a fully energized rally to lose steam as quickly as yesterday’s 9th inning sequence by the Red Sox? They had Mariano Rivera looking punch-drunk and stupid, the Yankee “Universe” questioning God’s intelligent design, and Tim McCarver pronouncing this unfolding situation as, quite possibly, the point when the Yankees’ season received its well-deserved death blow. The Sox had done next to nothing all day against Mike Mussina, who yesterday set the all-time record for career whines against home-plate umpires, who’ve apparently been squeezing him for years on his panty-waist, paint-the-corners routine. After Kyle Farnsworth didn’t allow the Sox to creep closer, the outcome seemed settled, what with Mariano Rivera coming it to pitch the ninth with a 2-0 lead. But J.D. Drew singled on a 3-2 pitch, Manny Ramirez got plunked, Mike Lowell singled, Kevin Youkilis got plunked, the Sox were now within one — with the bases loaded and nobody out and Mariano Rivera drilling every ass that moved — and Coco Crisp, Jason Varitek and Julio Lugo set to bat….
Remember Kathy Bates in "Misery"? This girl reminds me of her — a lot. She wants to win an internship with the Red Sox, so she put together this video, outlining her qualifications and her love for the Sox, Boston.com, and The Boston Globe. Nice job. She seems perfectly crazy qualified.
Voting for the All-Star Game at the Ashtray in the Bronx ends tonight and several Red Sox are engaged in the fights of their lives1, so follow this link to the official All-Star ballot at MLB.com, and throw your support behind Jason Varitek, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis and J.D. Drew, who are all in close races to become starters. Let’s have an All-Star Game with as many Red Sox (and as few Yankees) as possible. After all, if the American League wins, the Red Sox will have home-field advantage in the World Series. Ya know, provided the Tampa Bay Raymonds stop handing us our lunch.
1 or not
* Josh Beckett hasn’t pitched like the guy who led the Sox to a World Series title last year, but expect him to be on his game versus the D’Backs and Dan Haren tonight. In the past, a familiar knock against Beckett was that he tended to lose focus versus lesser opponents, yet brought his A game against perceived challenges. Haren is certainly that. Besides, the game is on ESPN, so expect Beckett to look pissed and focused.
* I’m working on an investigative piece, trying to determine if the 2008 Red Sox pitching staff owns more necklaces than any staff in baseball history. There’s a lot of rope around these necks, and I comfort myself in thinking that these necklaces are made of hemp, and that Beckett, Okajima, Wakefield, and Timlin will be smoking their necklaces in celebration of a third World Series title in October.
* To the Cardinals’ players who had their pant legs pulled up and their red-and-blue striped stockings on proud display this past weekend: I saw “Sex and the City” with my wife, and Carrie Bradshaw wants her look back.
* Craig Hansen, my confidence in you grows every day.
* The Sox called up Jed Lowrie to take over at shortstop, right? He’s just lost en route, correct? Perhaps Lowrie needs Lou Merloni to bring him up to speed on the best backroads between Pawtucket and Boston.
During this morning’s call-in to WEEI radio station, in which Curt Schilling revealed that he’s having season-ending surgery, Schilling also raised the possibility of returning as a second-half hired gun once he’s healthy in 2009.
"If I did everything I wanted to do, and did everything I could do and needed to do, and I was healthy, and I was better than that 2007 end of the season guy, and it wasn’t painful, I’ve got a decent track record after September," Schilling said. "Putting myself out there next All-Star break as healthy and auditioning for whoever’s in contention and pitching the final three months of the season, kind of in a David Cone hired gun kind of thing, I wouldn’t care where it was or what it was."
With all due respect to David Cone, he hasn’t been a second-half hired gun in more than a decade. When we think of mercenary glory hounds these days, we think first of Roger Clemens, who most recently tried this messiah tack last year, arriving at Yankee Stadium to announce that major military operations had come to a halt, i.e., Mission Accomplished. Are we to believe that Schilling, who has often cited Clemens as an early-career mentor, simply forgot about Mr. Mitchell Report? Considering Clemens has been in the news more than Barack Obama this year1, that seems unlikely. What’s more likely is that Schilling is genuinely envisioning a future career as a post-season savior, and that he doesn’t want to associate himself with a public pariah like Clemens.
This spring, when my wife and I were trying to decide on a middle name for our daughter, “Drew” was among the names we bandied about. Not because we’re fans of Drew Barrymore or Nancy Drew, but because we’d settled on an unorthodox first name – Sailor – and we wanted something “normal” for a middle name, just in case our daughter reached adolescence and decided her parents had smoked too much pot during the 90s. Having a middle name like “Drew” would give the girl options, leeway, leverage. But then, while driving home from dinner one night, my wife pointed out the obvious – or, the obvious to someone who actually pays attention to life, that is: “People will probably think we named her after J.D. Drew.” Once I’d righted the wheel and caught my breath, I said, “That settles that, no freaking way.” After all, J.D. Drew — regardless of his postseason heroics last year — was still an injury-prone Nancy; an occasional stud who more often than not had me screaming, “That freaking hump" after rolling over on an off-speed pitch or striking out with the bases loaded. His inability to man up on Opening Day in Tokyo just confirmed my opinion: No daughter of mine would share anything in common with that poof.
I don’t take another man’s job dismissal lightly (unless that man is Julio Lugo), but after another gut-wrenching performance from Mike Timlin last night, I have to ask, “Will he go the way of Tavarez soon?” Timlin hasn’t pitched well in important spots all season, which is obvious to the Red Sox’ coaching staff, who’ve done an admirable job of getting him work in 9-0 games. Ask Timlin to keep the deficit at 4-2, however, and you get middle-inning batting practice from the Philadelphia Phillies.
No sooner had JD Drew shoved a Duracell up the Philly faithful’s collective wazoo than Timlin removed it with Vaseline and latex gloves. Mighty considerate, Tim, but whose team are you on? I used to know, but you’ve lost our trust. In fact, right now I’d trust Chien-Ming Wang before I’d trust you. After all, CMW just treated me to this double-entendre headline, “The Yanks’ Wang on crutches till September,” which nearly made up for your depressing performance last night.
In fairness to Timlin, he had lowered his ERA from a season-high 81.00 on April 13 to a season-low 5.89 entering last night’s contest. But after allowing four earned runs in two-thirds of an inning, his ERA is once again trending in the suck direction, and now sits at 7.06. When it comes down to it, he hasn’t gotten much work lately. The last time he had the opportunity to really give me angina – May 27th against Seattle – he came through, allowing the walk-off winner in the 9th inning, an outcome so predictable that I cursed myself for losing sleep to watch it unfold.
Kevin Youkilis’s game-winning home run on Saturday was only the second opposite-field home run of his career, according to stats gleaned from baseball.reference.com. Youkilis, who now has 48 career roundtrippers, also went opposite field in 2006. (I can’t tell you where he did that because I haven’t paid my BR.com subscription, and that kind of breakdown is only available to people who pay bills.)
A .500 career hitter on hits pulled to the left side, Youk is only a .259 hitter on hits to the right side. Taken all together, this makes Saturday’s home run all the more surprising — until, that is, you remember the game was played in Great American Smallpark, where Coco Crisp just hit home runs in back to back games for the first time since…well, I don’t know, but I’m sure a Baseball-Reference subscriber would be able to tell you. For our sake, let’s just assume it’s never happened.
Now the Sox are off to The Bank in Philly, where I expect J.D. Drew to hit several home runs and dodge thousands of D batteries. Expect lots of fights between Sox fans and Phillie fans, and expect one of my Bugs & Cranks brethren – Meech of The Fightins’ – to have the best videos.
Cam Martin is a Sox fan who lives in Yankee country (Fairfield County, CT). He also writes for Bugs&Cranks and Rotohog. E-mail: cdavidmartin@yahoo.com
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