Category: New York Yankees

A runner is thrown out by a step. A season ends. A team celebrates. The fan unleashes a smiling scream, his thirst for truth within the confines of sport measuring beyond naught, his more optimistic idea of human nature at least temporarily satiated.

Champagne adorns the clubhouse, on walls, soaking into the carpet, for all eternity. It will never dry. A manager accepts validation for his dedication, a player due adulation for an unforgiving occupation. An owner wipes away betraying tears. Commentators, live, attempt valiantly to trap a moment with words. Some succeed.

The sun sets earlier in the day; darkness accentuates winter, enveloping its essence. A hot stove flickers, belches, than burns. Amid the burning tumult, a team is delivered, forged and steadied, easily identifiable. We keep the game alive, us alone, carrying a tattered torch, at times expressively through will.

One day, nature scoffs at the calendar, and the air belies any tangible temperature. It feels lighter, looser; our mind automatically triggers a specific response. The mind searches for definition, until one magic word produces an exacting, all encompassing correlation.

Baseball, even in the winter we still think of Baseball.

The Ice melts. Days are counted, sped up, part of something greater than just game.

Finally, the pitchers and catchers report, our rhythm returns from the down turn of an infinitely epic crescendo, rising and flying again.

Ken Griffey’s bat waggles behind his head, a composer’s instrument of ultimate athletic expression, grace.

Nomar readjusts his batting gloves, Derek Jeter smiles while living the life we imagine, somewhere, sometime, Ernie Banks’ requests two.

Some fool analyzes his favorite team.

His name is Alex Rodriguez. Commercially known as A-Rod, he has the talent and benefit of playing in an era where salaries exploded, and a baseball player could add impossible digits to an already swollen bank account.

by Matt Waters

As the dogs days of August began to grudgingly give way to the promise of September, nary a thought of foreign politics or agendas swirled through my mind as I happily clutched the tickets to Cal Ripken’s final home game at Camden Yards. In just a few weeks, I’d be sitting in a modern cathedral, bowing at the altar of baseball history. The days dropped off the calendar with routine ease. September 9… September 10…

The “hot stove” has stayed cold for the Yankees thus far, especially for a team that needs to make a lot of improvements.

Just a quick note to George Steinbrenner: let Joe Torre do what he’s best at: managing. And do what you’re best at: giving the team money.

I’m sitting in a hotel room during late June, located ground zero in the “revitalized” section of downtown Detroit, staring blankly at the ninth rerun of SportsCenter. My father, brother, and me had taken a trip into the proud home of the Red Wings, Tigers, Lions and Robo-Cop on a sojourn to see our Yankees do battle in the newly minted Comerica Park. We had just seen Wrigley Field a week prior on our Baseball themed Summer Vacation, and once the initial and deserved shock of seeing what a cathedral that park truly is wore off, the main ingredient served in the back of my mind about seeing and experiencing a Cubs game was not the Ivy on the wall, the merrily obstructed views, or even the Hot Dogs [best in the free world].

It was the fans.

Cub fans are of a different sort. They weren’t watching the game in a modern, frenzied pace that is best reserved in Chicago for the middling Bears [a shuffling crew.] It was quite the contrary, as they took in the experience of a meaningless June against the Brewers wholly inside themselves. Pitch by pitch, inning by inning, one didn’t feel the momentum of the moment, a tie game, taking hold of the mass gathering bowing at the altar of their beloved Cubbies. Instead of tensing up, the crowd seemed to exhale as each frame ended, expelling all of which they had bottled up in the vast emporium that exists within any seasoned baseball fan’s mind. My brother and I had noticed the trend by the fourth inning. After Corey Patterson, a maddeningly gifted player who had not fulfilled his copious potential after ruining his knee during the ’03 season, failed to get a bunt down and than proceeded to strike out, a Corey Patterson trademark moment in a tight game which demanded perfection from both teams, we both prepared our eardrums for the venom sure to rise from the throats of those jaded by the stars Cub fanatics. There was booing to be sure. But there was something missing. Where was the anger? The booing had a different tone, a different tint if you will, that I recognized only later that night.

It was apologetic. Apologetic booing. How sweet.

” You believe these freaking people?” My brother Greg wondered it aloud in utter amazement.

I nodded my head in quiet understanding, than took yet another nervous quick glance at the romantic out of town scoreboard. The Yankees led Baltimore by one run, and hoped to stave off the ghost of .500 for at least one more night.

For more stories by Kent Summer, check out 3rdand10.com

For the eleventh time in twenty-two games, the Yankees came within one run of either winning or losing a ballgame. In tonight’s case it was winning, as Shawn Chacon gave his team a lights out performance, pitching 6 2/3 innings while giving up only one run. Chacon who, along with Aaron Small and Alex Rodriguez, is part of the trio that has been most valuable to the Yankees since the all-star break, has now lowered his era to 3.40, down more than 60 points from two months ago.

I know everyone has been ripping on the New York Yankees all season long and everyone wants to see the first $200 million dollar team not make the playoffs, but any fan can’t help but think what might happen if the Yankees do pull it off this week and win yet another division title. Think about it; how many starters have the Yankees used this season? Probably enough to fill three major league starting rotations. It has been a combination of good and bad for manager Joe Torre this season, but don’t be fooled because come October things could start cooking in the Bronx, and the Yankees could become a very, very scary team in the playoffs.

For more stories by Kent Summer, check out 3rdand10.com

This was a Tuesday night, but I was under the impression that I was watching the Chiefs-Broncos game. Something just wasn’t right (and now is when I stun you with my amazing statistical recall). Maybe it was the fact that the Yankees used eight pitchers through nine innings or the fact that starter Mike Mussina did not even make it through three innings. Of course the game did last for 4 hours and 16 minutes, coming within 360 seconds of becoming the longest 9-inning game ever played. And there was that whole thing about how scoring nine runs could fail in beating a team 22 games out of first place, while that team scored two touchdowns, made two extra-points and kicked a field goal to beat the first place team.

At the beginning of the 2005 season if someone heard that the Cleveland Indians would be better than the Yankees, that person would be laughing their head off. But no one on the Yankees is laughing now, seeing as that has come true. But it’s not really something that the players can fix. Guys like Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter have had amazing seasons but that’s not enough to put the Yankees in the playoffs.