The 'Sopranos,' one day later

Just finished re-watching the final Sopranos, convinced more than ever that we all witnessed a classic, something that held me (at least) spellbound for most of its hour. What I missed the first time--or forgot, actually--was the extent of Butchie's frustration with Phil, and the accompanying intransigence of Phil that becomes Phil's undoing.

The sit-down in the freezing cold, the performance of Hairy FBI Guy, the varied nuttiness of Paulie and Uncle June--these are things that approach perfection. Tony's last scene with the exasperating Janice, the bargain-basement variation of Micheal Corleone's changing relationship with Connie.

And, that final scene. One thing.

There was no hit. This piece of the puzzle comes courtesy of Dean Barnett, aka the Sainted Soxblog. Barnett posits that:

*If seven seasons (and the past few weeks) have demonstrated, hits are complicated endeavors. Writer Chase made a point of making Holsten's a last-minute decision made withing the small-f family (unless you count Rhiannon as a potential rat--anyone think so)? No way Butchie or anyone else could set up a hit that fast.

*Phil was whacked with the implicit approval of Butchie, who is due to move up to Boss. All quiet on the Hudson Front.

To which I would add:

*No way Bathroom Guy is the shooter, someone who would sit, stare, then go to the restroom. Tony's sixth sense would be too strong for such a risk. (The notion that the gun was in the toilet, ala Michael Corleone's take-out of Sollozzo, is prepostrous. For one thing, I'm guessing even Holsten's doesn't have the old-fashioned toilets sported by Louie's in the Bronx, and the whole point of planting the gun was that Michael was frisked by the crooked cop.)

*Cub Scout Guy and Girlfriend Guy aren't even worth mentioning. Old Guy, too.

*The two black guys at the end? A reminder of the second time Uncle June went after Tony (using, as Christopher wrote, "Boys II Men"), and the attempt was a disaster. The guys were more interested in the food than anything.

*Finally, the worst-kept secret in Jersey is that Tony is facing, finally, some serious legal problems. Why not let the Feds do your work for you?

So, then, the final scene.

My extended family comes not only from that region, not only from that state, but that extended series of metropoli; my father reports he passed Satriale's hundreds of times.

This series had its basis in Tony Soprano's psyche: his depression, his panic attacks; but also his sociopathology, his self-pity, his compartmentalization, his narcissism. (Does anyone remember its comparison with the long-forgotten film Analyze This?) Vito Corleone took to crime in desperation, only after being fired as a grocer's helper, and then took to murder only when a local crime boss threatened this new livelihood. He did what he did ("I don't apologize") to feed his family; the rationalizations came later. Tony Soprano was born into the life, brought in by his father and Uncle June when, as a middle-class white male, he was free to choose from a thousand different other professions. Something in him wanted the money, the big house in Jersey, the jewelry for his wife. Something in his sociopathic mind enjoyed what he did, and what it brought him . . . but at the same time, given his native intelligence, he could not escape the realization that his enemies were real, and armed, and that his victims were flesh and blood.

The first episode was Dr. Melfi, the panic attacks, and the ducks. The last episode was Holsten's. As an analogy, we proceed from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to A Beautiful Mind: from an external manifestation of psychotic disorder to an inside-out dramatization of the actual experience. Tony may serve a stretch on the gun charge--leaving, ugh, Paulie in charge. He may be killed tomorrow. What we saw in the last scene was a Tony's-eye view of the world, in all its paranoia and dread.

Bathroom Guy? Are you kidding me? But if you're Tony Soprano, something like Bathroom Guy is enough to make you physically ill, every time, for the rest of your life.

So, the blackout--for a count of ten--that caused tens of millions to jump from their sofas. Message: that's it. The crap is gonna come without warning.

Other obserevations, chronologically:

1. Again with the casket . . . organ music tinkling into classic rock; I'm more convinced than ever that Chase wanted to give us a few seconds, at the beginning of the episode, to think Tony was dead.

2. Darkness turning to light at the airport runway, illuminating Tony's face: shades of the first appearance of Orson Welles's first appearance as Harry Lime in The Third Man.

3. Carm (seeing Rhiannon come down the stairs, pull on a boot): "That bothers me."
Tony: "Who's she gonna tell?"

4. At the Wake: Vivaldi's "Winter."

5. Paulie; "You can take Two Thousand and Seven and give it back to the Indians."

6. Butchie, in the cold, on the same street used for the Italian festival in Godfather II, for my money the best sequence of either original or sequel: DeNiro's stalking, and killing, of Fanucci.

7. In the SUV, a demonstration--yet again--the Bob Dylan has done more damage to narcissistic youth than any Post-War American artist besides JD Salinger.

8. Line of the night. AJ: "We need to break our dependence on foreign oil!"

9. Priceless: The expression on Carm's face when she discovers that Meadow's loser girlfriend is in her second year of med school. Really? Great!

10. AJ roaring into the school parking lot with his Beamer. Guess he's okay.

Ultimate 'Sopranos'

So . . . let the carping begin.

I think.

For whatever reason, series finales always come in for a lot of complaints. Run a regular, day-in-the-life-of-the-workplace episode (Hill Street Blues, save for Bundtz's firing), and everyone complains. Change the uber-reality of the show's world (St. Elsewhere), and everyone complains. Run a glorified clips show, complete with a curtain call for the extended over-the-years cast (Seinfeld), and everyone complains.

Go the it's-a-wonderful-life route (Dallas), and nobody cares.

So we have tonight. As soon as the opening credits ran, as soon as I read "Written and Directed by David Chase," I knew there was going to be no whacking ala the Christening Massacre in The Godfather, nothing like the post-Lufthansa massacre in Goodfellas. I started with the previous Sunday, where--for the first time, save in a musical montage in The Godfather--we were treated to the first actual witnessing of mob guys going "to the mattresses," a pathetic sight if ever there was one. All their big talk, all their swag, all their guns, and here they were: a collection of frightened, flabby old men hiding for their lives, then ordering pizzas like a group of 12 year-olds on a sleep-over.

My worst feeling was in the show's first few seconds, when Tony was asleep--adrift, perhaps--in what looked like a casket. I thought, Oh, no. Tell me the show won't go the Sunset Boulevard route, with Tony dead and all of us wondering: What Brought Him Here?

Because we know, damnit.

Okay. Crisis averted.

I've been thinking, these past few days, about the influx of great TV going on the past dozen years or more. Just counting the shows that made it: The Simpsons, The X-Files, The West Wing, The Gilmore Girls, Frasier, Seinfeld, Cops, 24, Lost, NYPD Blue, Southpark, The Restaurant, Grey's Anatomy, The Practice, Boston Legal, Friday Night Lights. And this doesn't even count a few other shows that came and went: A terrific reality-based high school show called Yearbook, just this past year the black Groundhog Day on ABC, that lasted six weeks. Anyway, just thinking. What these shows had, in large part, was a sense of the intelligence of their audience, the idea that things could be said but not explained. So tonight, when Tony complained that AJ was taking something and "Making a molehill out of it," when of course he meant the opposite, we were meant to catch on without being told.

In the first half, three things:

1) The FBI guy (the Flonaze dude), himself with marital problems, treating Tony almost as a moral equal . . . than showing us why, as he has his own girlfriend, in the person of a hottie armed Special Agent; and goes out of his way to basically allow Tony to set up Phil, whom both families now realize is at the heart of their problems.

2) AJ, constantly thrown into the presence of women who, in the normal course of events, would be untouchable. A month ago it was his literature professor (but of course Chase went Russian Dude on us, and dropped her without comment); then a 15 year-old fashion model, then another hottie psychologist. So he gets Rhiannon (on which, more soon).

3) This was Astro-Girl's catch. Patsy's wife, played by . . . Donna Pescow*!, whom John Travolta dumped for the Manhattan chick in Saturday Night Fever, and who we now, at this late date, we catch checking the service on the bottom of the plates. Class with a capital K.

Now, three last things from the second half.

1) AJ in the Army, then not. Those who thought AJ would go the way of Fredo weren't watching the past month (mei culpa). It now appears the pool scene of a few weeks ago was the metaphor for his life; perpetually, AJ will be fished out of trouble. After a season of whiney self-pity, followed by a torching of his SUV, he has A) a movie job; B) a Beamer; C) A horny fashion-model girlfriend. Some people fall upwards.

2) The Jersey FBI office, which--thanks to the Middle East? the Stockholm Syndrome?--has gone from Tony's rival to his friendly rival to practically his ally, announcing, "Damn it, we're going to win this thing!" This is the Stockholm Syndrome writ large.

3) The one killing: Phil. This was a delicate matter, with Phil's captain Butchie finding what was, to him, a delicate middle--essentially, giving up Phil, conceding that New York will not lift a finger if Phil dies, but not going that one extra yard and revealing his location.

4) Finally, the last scene. I thought the show would go out one of two ways: either a blaze of glory, or else everything back to normal, with Carm dishing out the baked ziti in the dining room with Janice and the kids and Rhiannon in tow. What we had was a strange, wonderful, middle: Tony with "Don't Stop Believin'" on the jukebox; Carm in after him; then AJ with his pissing and moaning; then Meadow with her parking space. An indictment over a stupid gun charge hanging over Tony. One menacing guy at the counter. Two black guys entering. Then . . . blackness, silence.

What a perfect evocation of the dread that has hung over this family, and this Family, since the first day.

Well, brilliant, anyway.

*(Update: Helpful reader corrects: Donna Pescow, not Prescow.)

Ninety minutes out

A few thoughts, as down the stretch they come:

1. There are a few consensus memes being thrown around radio, TV, and the internet as regards the final Sopranos. To wit: Tony does not die (no Gandolfini, no potential movie deal down the line; we have, in Gandolfini, an actor who has dominated an ensemble show as confidently as James Arness did Gunsmoke, as Daniel Travanti did Hill Street Blues, or as John Spencer did The West Wing, before medical considerations, and ultimately death, curtailed his participation). Meadow does not die (too close to the unfortunate Godfather III; comedian Larry Miller's greatest quote: "I saw Godfather III again last night, and it's still terrible.") Phil does not die, for the simple reason that evil triumphs (this seems the weakest of the three, but David Chase has made millions running away from expectations, so who knows?) To which I would add: Carm does not die (too close to the original Godfather, with Apollonia, and can anyone imagine a Sopranos movie without Edie freaking Falco? That would only leave AJ, so AJ dying would be too easy, so AJ doesn't die. The rest I leave to the passage of time: Sil, Paulie, the rest.

2. As I type this, Astro-Girl (aka Mrs. Texasyank) is cooking home-made lasagna. Wanted to throw that in.

3. Long-running television shows offer an advantage you won't find in movies or plays: the benefit of watching characters grow in real time, of actors aging along with their parts. The best example I can think of is Hill Street Blues, in which--over the span of seven years--we saw JD LaRue progress from a falling-down drunk to an amiable rogue, Belker from a self-loathing loner to a husband and family man, and Captain Furillo from a screwed-too-tight recovering alcoholic police captain to a more relaxed, still straight-as-an-arrow recovering alcoholic police captain. (I've always felt that Cpt. Furillo has gotten short shrift as a historical TV character; as a figure of restraint and moral ethos, he ranks with Captain Kirk, Marshall Dillon and the Fonz.) In The Sporanos we have watched the simultaneous ascent of Meadow and descent of AJ, the steadying presence of Silvio (as long as he wasn't asked to be boss), Junior's descent into madness, Bobby's (RIP) late coming-of-age, Christopher's demons, Paulie's Wal-nuttiness, etc., etc. With enough time to watch, absorb, and reflect over the years, the characters have become like, yes, the worst cliche, people we know.

4. So what now? Guessing at this point would be futile. So I'll just watch.

Yankees 13, Pirates 6

What a difference a week makes.

We've gone from "What's wrong with A-Rod?" to two home runs and 5 RBI in a Yankee Stadium that surely (I didn't see it) was in full meltdown all afternoon.

This Was The Week That Was.

And now we have a season, with the Yankees' sights on, in order:

1. .500.

2. Detroit, and that deep, young pitching staff. This is a team that, with the Yankee first base and bullpen problems, is probably more talented than New York. So, uphill.

3. Boston. If the D-Backs hold on, the lead is nine, with the Sox heading into the most brutal stretch of their season.

Not the best of scenarios.

But at least we have a race.

Yankees 9, Pirates 3

Roger's return--to, if all indications hold true:

1. A moderately successful year: say, ten wins.

2. At least one stint on the DL, either an aching back or a balky groin.

3. Five- and six-inning starts that will sap an already-drained bullpen.

Right now, Clemens is slotted as either a third or fourth starter, behind Wang and Pettitte for sure, and maybe Moose.

It is undeniable that the Rocket returns at a propitious moment. With 60 percent of the season still to go, the Yankees stand five games in the loss column behind Detroit for the wild card.

So, the season started yesterday.

Yankees 5, Pirates 4 (10)

All at once, some movement.

The important is the deficit on Detroit for the Wild Card: 5 1/2 games back.

Four in a row.

Yankees 10, White Sox 3

This is how one gets to .500, and hence in the wild card race.

This is not a Yankees team that will rip off 15 wins in a row. No, they'll have to two-out-of-three the opposition to death.

And for God's sake, it's the first week of June. A-Rod has 22 homers, including a slam tonight. He's heating up again. But. But: he dogged it out of the box last night, something neither O'Neill nor Tino nor Scottie would have been caught dead doing, which reinforces my opinion that the 1998 Yankees were the best team in history. When Scottie Brosius hit his home run against Trevor Hoffman in Game 3 of the World Series (a homer that sealed the game, with Mo-in-waiting; and the Series, with Pettitte, Wells, Cone and El Duque ready to go the full Monty, if needed) he was halfway between first and second when the ball cleared the fence.

He sprinted out that fast. It might have been a double off the wall.

Jeter plays this way, every at-bat, every inning. Posada does, as far as he can. And Damon. Melky is Boy Robin in the outfield. For Matsui, to play less than at his best would be a dishonor.

But the rest? Guys, would it kill you to run when you hit the ball?

Yankees 5, White Sox 1

Wow. A lights-out, put-you-to-sleep performance from the staff ace.

Imagine.

The team to chase is not the Red Sox. That ship has sailed. What made '78 possible was Gator throwing a two-hit shut-out every fifth day; ain't gonna happen, not with this bunch.

Eyes on Detroit--and, yeah, yipes.

The Tigers are a team resembling the A's of twenty years ago, a team so overstocked with good young pitching they're actually dealing pitching prospects. LaRussa's A's (this is 1986-87, not the World Series flops, and more in a minute) were so overstocked with young arms they basically gave away one who bit their ass in the World Series, Jose Rijo; and kept converting who was left to narrower and narrower specialties. It was LaRussa, remember, who basically invented the modern bullpen as we know it. Before La Russa, closers like Fingers, Sutter, and Goose would be expected to come in whenever trouble occurred--be it the seventh, eighth, or ninth--and finish the game. (This was actually a relaxation from previous decades; in the seventies, Sparky Lyle might be asked to get the last out of the sixth; in the forties, especially in September, Casey Stengel might bring in Joe Page in the fourth inning. Not for nothing, Page finished second to Ted Williams for MVP in 1949; had there been a Cy Young Award, Page would have won, and unanimously.)

So LaRussa had Rick Honeycutt, and invented the eighth-inning specialist, and he had Eck, who would pitch the ninth--and only the ninth, but in seventy appearances a season instead of the traditional forty.

Funny thing is, LaRussa was too clever by half. In converting Honey and Eck, in trading Rijo, in giving the likes of Todd Jones a sliver of an assignment, he left his lineup bereft of dominating starters. Baseball scholars will look back on the A's of the late eighties, at Carney Lansford, McGwire, Canseco, Weiss, Dave Henderson, Ron Hassey, Dave Stewart, Welch, Honeycutt, and Eck (and eventually, mind you, Rickey Henderson, at the peak of his powers), and think--wha? One World Series championship from that bunch?

Yes. Because LaRussa put so much stock in two starting pitchers, Stewart and Welch, and let the back end of the rotation languish, LaRussa killed his team's chances. It is significant that the only World Series his A's won was the Earthquake Series, in which the two-week lay-off allowed Stewart or Welch to start all four games.

Ahh, just thinking out loud.

Penultimate 'Sopranos'

"About halfway through (John Updike's) Rabbit at Rest, the reader will start to hear a horse whisper in the background. You may hear it is your own heart that is doing the murmuring (for the book is all about ageing, about seizure and closure: it is itself an ending). Later on, though, the noise becomes more raucous and more generalized: perhaps it belongs to the sports arena or the auditorium; there is something of the herd instinct in it, involving you in a pleasant loss of individuality. At last you acknowledge that this is nothing other than the sound of applause, American applause: the ows and yays, the stomp of feet, the vociferous whistling."
--Martin Amis

The above was the comment I sought out today, after sitting through the second-to-last-of-all-time Sopranos episode last night.

I pride myself on coming early to the Sopranos, going back to when I first saw the requisite HBO "Making of . . ." documentary.

Wow, I thought. James Gandolfini, who had served as background for a dozen mob films, and--in a bit of business here, a line of dialogue there--had revealed himself as an actor headed for something big. He had done good work (had overcome an unfortunate miscasting) as a meek-willed but good man in A Civil Action.

Now--as William Manchester said of Winston Churchill--the moment had met the man.

I remember looking over the rest of the cast: Michael Imperioli, who had played Spider in Goodfellas, here the upstart. Little Steven, last seen in Springsteen's "Glory Days" video, here as Silvio, with the greatest hairpiece not belonging to Rod Steiger. Paulie Walnuts, a dozen bosses in a dozen mob movies, here a captain.

Damn, what a cast.

I was married over the weekend; I said to my Aunt Peggy, "Okay. New York versus New Jersey, right?"

Easy, as it turned out.

The New York-New Jersey feud that has been brewing since Tony muscled Uncle June out of boss.

A thousand red herrings (one writer recently wrote, "The next person who asks me about the Russian in the snow gets kicked in the balls.") A thousand characters, dead or alive.

And it comes down to this.

Two great references:

*Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, from the opening credits to Raging Bull. On a special early 90s episode of Siskel and Ebert, just before the release of Goodfellas, Gene Siskel asked Martin Scorsese: What is the one scene you'd keep, if you could only keep one? Scorsese could have mentioned "You talkin' to me?" or the gun purchase or the climax from Taxi Driver; he could have mentioned "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" from The Last Waltz, or the gun scene from Who's That Knocking at My Door? Or he could have pushed Goodfellas, "What, like I'm a clown?" or the midnight supper at Mamma's, or the "Leyla" coda sequence. What Scorsese picked, as the one scene above all else, was the opening credits to Raging Bull, DeNiro in the ring. And I agree.

*The killing of Bobby. Saw this coming up I-95, but notice the use of the model trains. Shades of--is anyone with me?--The Bridge on the River Kwai--whose climactic seconds were thrilling even as they fell flat, because 1) the trains that tumbled over the bridge were clearly made of cardboard, and 2) well, that's it.

Anyway, that's what I got.

White Sox 6, Yankees 4

You keep waiting and waiting for things to kick in . . . .

And then, another three-run inning, another ground ball thrown to the stars, another multiple men left on base, another set of runners not brought home with less than two outs.

Three runs in the ninth. Meaningless.

Did I hear correctly? Damon to first?

Yankees 6, Red Sox 5

Eaily the best game of the year: good fielding, timely hitting, Mo.

Ballgame.

Wonderful way to start my first full day of matrimony.

Yankees 10, Blue Jays 5

And . . . tied with Toronto for fourth, and behind every other American League team, save two.

So . . . subtract three division winners. And Toronto, even. And the two.

Leaves . . . seven teams to climb over.

Blue Jays 3, Yankees 2

Today: the marriage license.

Easy, or so we thought.

The Harris county website lists 1001 Preston, downtown Houston, as the location of the county clerk for such as what we wanted. So, this afternoon, it was into the car and into downtown, to the only portion of the metropolis, which extends into six counties, where parking is a serious hassle.

Zing--a parking meter a mere two hundred yards from 1001 Preston. Enough coins for 44 minutes.

Into 1001 Preston, a building I remember from my once-a-year trips to renew my car registration.

County Clerk, such as marriage licenses, three flights up.

Elevator, up to the fourth floor.

Big Sign: COUNTY CLERK RELOCATED TO THE SO-AND-SO BUILDING, MAY, 2006.

One year earlier.

And no change on the website. Or the building legend. Nothing but a woman sitting at a desk in an open front office, presumably for nothing but to serve as the first line of information for those who rely on the website and building legend.

"It's at the so-and-so building," she explains. "Down to the first floor, then go out that back of the building, then over to the blah-blah Street, then down to Caroline Street. The building looks like this."

In front of her on the counter, a laminated picture of the new building. Look over her shoulder, out the big picture window, see the exact same building, three blocks away.

"But nothing's changed on the website," I say.

Laughter. "You know," she says, "everyone says that."

So, out on the street. Unlike New York City's mid-town, Houston has no famous buildings to point out. Unlike San Diego, the weather is nothing to enjoy, except in October or the marvelous stretch between Valentine's Day and Easter. Late May, just sweat.

So, into the So-and-So building.

County Clerk, third floor.

Out the elevator, and arrow.

Information. Okay, information.

Astro-Girl: "How much money did we put in the meter?"

"Enough."

Ah-Hah! Below Information, a sign on the wall, and this list:

COPIES
Something
Deed something
Something
Marriage Licenses

So, end of the line.

Ten minutes, front of the line. The best line-related word: Next.

"Yes?" asks the woman, one of a dozen who seem, behind the counter, to be walking at the bottom of a filled swimming pool.

"Marriage license," I say.

She gives us the once-over. "So when were you married?"

"No," I say. "We need a marriage license."

"Well then you're in the wrong place," she drawls.

"But," I start, "It says . . ."

"Copies," she says. "Copies of marriage licenses that already exist. You need to go to the other end of the building, turn left past the elevators, then take a blah-blah turn and blah-blah-blah."

So, office number three. Behind us in line, after a few seconds, a pair of men.

"You know," I said to one of them, "the signage in this building is terrible."

He answered in a West-Indian dialect:

"What you be sayin'. I go to eighth floor they say fourth floor, fourth floor they say third floor."

Finally, after being ushered to a desk, presenting our driver's licenses, swearing that we had never been married before, were not married, and were neither delinquent in child support nor related by blood or adoption, 41 dollars later, the license was ours.

"There," the woman said. "That was easy."

Saturday. Three days to go.

Blue Jays 7, Yankees 2

Make it stop.

Angels 4, Yankees 3

This is getting ridiculous

Angels 3, Yankees 1

Actual conversation, on the way to the wedding photographer's.

Me: "So what street is this place on?"

She: "Either Chimney Rock or Fountainview."

Me: "Either? You mean you don't know?"

She: "Not exactly."

Me: "So how are we going to get there."

She: "Ummmm . . . by car?"

Angels 10, Yankees 6

So:

Astro-Girl and I are presently in the midst of the "what else can go wrong" marriage sweepstakes.

Our minister, who I've known for 15 years, met us on our college campus, a campus currently in the center of 20 acres or so of demolition: every building around us is being demolished, and God knows how many chemicals and poisons are being released into the air. Come to find, no one is taking it worse than the Reverend, who spent the balance of our last meeting excusing himself to blow his nose and/or hold his head in his hands.

"Oh, man," he said, then wiped his eyes. He bent over, face in hands. "Oh, maaaaaan." Sat up. "Okay, your vows. Oh, wait." Another tissue, another bugle blast that Prewitt in From Here to Eternity would have envied. "Okay, your vows."

It was then off to the florist, who had put off Astro-Girl four times before agreeing to meet near her store--and then arrived in some asphalt/warehouse sun-stricken hellhole that reminded me of the lot DeNiro used to photograph Pacino and the other cops in Heat. The DeNiro in Heat would have come in handy, actually, for breaking and entering, as the florist had locked herself out of her shop--something about her husband having one set of keys and she another, and how he was across town at a meeting, and she was here. I guessed some was truth, some fib--and some she probably didn't know. None of it was made easier by 1) the contract, flapping in the breeze, she kept urging Astro-Girl to sign, 2) the check she kept urging Astro-Girl to write, or 3) the florist's three children, who incessantly banged their fists against the inside windows of the florist's Four-Runner, demanding Chick Fil-A or somesuch.

The florist was nothing compared to the phone call Astro-Girl received from the Beauty Salon. Here was the story: the hair stylist Astro-Girl had used for years, the stylist whom she had lined up six weeks in advance to do herself, plus the matron of honor, plus the bridesmaids, all on the wedding day, had apparently endured an emotional fist-swinging break-up with his boyfriend, then had suffered a nervous breakdown and returned to Mexico. His mother and sister had cleaned out his apartment. He was gone.

So, while we wait for resolution . . . .

The Yankees and Astros allow 22 runs between them tonight.

Good night now.

Yankees 8, Red Sox 3

Really, the only satisfying part of this game was that Schill got roughed up.

There is no joy in Mudville, save that things did not get worse.

I mean, look at this team. Jeter, A-Rod, Posada are producing--really, playing their hearts out. Damon is at least trying. Matsui, who the hell knows. Menk is Menk: batting ninth and catching the damn thing when its hit or thrown to him, pretty much what came with his luggage.

Who the crap did we expect with Menk, the second coming of Chris Chambliss?

But then.

Cano, Abreu, Giambi: Good Lord, don't get me started.

I almost don't want to blame the bullpen--Torre has run them out so many times it hardly seems fair. Really, gang, we are down to two reliable starters: Wang and Pettitte and then forget it.

Well, and then the kids. I love DeSalvo. Anyone who thinks he's gonna win seven straight, circa Ron Guidry, '77? Hands?

As for the others.

I almost want to enroll in journalism school so I could get a job on the Kansas City Star, work my way up to baseball beat writer and into the Baseball Writers Association, all for the sole purpose of voting against Mike Mussina for the Hall of Fame when his name comes up in eight or so years.

I don't care if Mensa Mussina wins 300 games. I don't care that he provided my family one of the great thrills of our lives, Labor Day Weekend, 2001, on Sunday Night Baseball, retiring 26 red Sox in a row before Carl Everett singled to center to break up the perfect game--nine days, exactly, before the world went to hell.

What I'll remember is what happened six weeks later, when Mussina started Game One of the World Series against the Diamond Backs and was gone within two innings.

The sporting press rushed to his defense. The eight-day lay-off. The new ballpark. And I heard the same thing when he bombed in Japan, when he bombed after a rainout, when he bombed because the manager wanted to juggle the line-up.

Wah-wah.

ENOUGH. Ron Guidry thought enough of the pennant race in 1978 that, in late September, he voluntarily chopped a day off between starts, in part because the Yankee staff was in such tatters after so many injuries and late-season cliffhangers, and in part because Guidry could read a calendar, and knew that a three-day rest between starts would leave him perfectly suited to start a play-off game with the Red Sox . . . on, mind you, three days rest.

The play-off with Boston came to pass. And, on three days' rest (and with a little help from his buddy, the tortured Bucky Dent), Guidry pitched 7 2/3 innings for two runs and the win, in the greatest game ever played.

Mind you: this was no Lamarr Hoyt, one-shot deal. The following year, Guidry would go 18-8, this in part due to a 12-1 second half and an ERA championship, a good enough string to warrant a second Cy Young, except that 1) the Yankees finished in fourth place that year, and 2) Guidry had voluntarily sent himself to the bullpen in April, after closer Goose Gossage broke his thumb in a shower-room scuffle with back-up catcher Cliff Johnson. Guidry's sacrifice surely cost him a second twenty-win season.

(A digression here. I find myself writing about teams that, unlike the late 90's Yankees, never reached their full potential. The 1979 Yankees had solid starting pitching (supplemented by free agents Tommy John and Louis Tiant), a core infield of Chambliss, Randolph, Dent and Nettles; and, if anything, too many front-line outfielders: Reggie, Mickey, Roy White, Sweet Lou, and a bunch of kids. During the regular season, the outfielders were interchangeable. In the infield, Jim Spencer could fill in for Chambliss; Brian Doyle and Chicken Stanley could play shortstop or second. Nettles--who for my money belongs in the Hall, if Santo does--would be hard to replace, but the only truly indispensible Yankees were Guidry, Goose, and catcher Thurman Munson. Cliff Johnson's scuffle with Gossage had sealed his fate. Reggie Jackson, he of the pithy quote, said, "If you f*** with the G-Men (ie Guidry and Gossage) the big guy with the boats (ie the Boss) will seal your fate." Johnson was traded to Toronto. The Boss would have wished Siberia, but was told there was no club there recognized by the American League. And then Munson died in a plane crash.)

Look, I've seen interviews. I've seen players. I know the oh-crap-we're-facing-Guidry face. Guidry had his down years in his '77-'85 prime--1982 was a lost year, 1984 wasn't good for anyone--but he pitched enough in the others to be the bull who ended losing streaks, the stopper with the exploding slider.

They feared Gator.

Which is why Gator belongs in the Hall a thousand times before Mussina.

(

Red Sox 7, Yankees 3

The game? Bah.

Now becomes an opportune moment to mention here what I've not mentioned before.

I'm getting married.

As it happens, in eleven days.

To Astro-Girl, of course.

Today Astro-Girl reminded me of her theory that, in her opinion, the NBA Lottery should work in the reverse system than it does. Never mind the teams, she said. What you should do is list all the teams in order--doesn't matter, alphabetical, record, reverse record. Then, a commission should be studied to pick the thirty best players.

Then, (can you sense her excitement?) the players' names should be put on ping-pong balls and drawn from the hopper, one at a time, for assignment. Atlanta, you get Yi. Boston, Noah.

And so on.

Okay. Some solace here.

As Bill Simmons has noted, has any team in sports had such buzzard's luck for the last two decades than the Boston Celtics? In the spring of 1986, coming off an incineration of the Houston Rockets (maybe the only 4-2 series ever properly described as a blow-out), the Celtics were primed for three more championships, maybe more. The frontcourt of Bird, McHale, and Chief was being called the best ever; Bill Walton had found the fountain of youth as Sixth Man of the Year (were there a Sixth Man of All Human History, he might have won that); Wedman and Sichting were there for off-the bench brio; DJ was the point guard/defensive god. Ainge knew what his role was: wait for the double team to kick in on the front court and drain three-pointers.

David Thirdkill could play defense.

Rick Carlisle was smart.

Greg Kite tried, at least.

And then there was Len Bias, the incoming rookie, who could do what none of the Celtics could do (play above the rim, with tomahawk slams if need be). Red Auerbach made it clear: as a forward, Bias would have to come off the bench at first, behind the power forward, McHale, and the godlike forward, Bird.

But nobody with that much talent stays on the bench for long. I envisioned Bias--no kidding--as a black John Havlicek, a swingman who could play forward or guard, who could score, rebound, pass, defend, whatever was needed.

Coach K once said there was one player in the history of the ACC who he'd put ahead of Len Bias.

Michael Jordan.

I believe him.

My parents remember Kennedy. John and Bobby both.

Not to diminish those awful days.

But I remember, for various reasons, four other events.

Belushi. The Challenger. 9/11 of course, the worst day in the history of the world.

And Bias.

I was home for the summer, home in the same living room where my mother had dug out the wine and toasted the Celtics' championship a few weeks earlier.

Bias had been drafted two days before. I was resting, getting ready for my evening's assignment as a night watchman at the Phoenix Civic Center. My senior year in college awaited--and so, I thought, did a string of Celtics's championships as Bird and McHale rounded out their brilliant careers and gave way to the new superstar.

My brother, Robby-Boy, called me; he was a lifeguard at a city pool and heard the information on a radio, and then called me.

"My God," he said. "You won't believe it. Len Bias died."

Yeah. Not that sports, in the end, mean much of anything, but that was the start. Walton's broken leg, Wedman's torn ankle, Sichting's catatonic (and career-ending) shooting slump, Magic's junior sky hook, the emergence of the Bad-Boy Pistons, Bird's bad back, Reggie Lewis's death, ML Carr, Rick Pitino, the Duncan lottery fiasco, the Vin Baker trade (this, courtesy of Bill Simmons) . . . . all of the preceding beat a path to tonight, where the two men who could have helped salvage this franchise were placed hopelessly out of reach.

Anyway, I'm getting married.

Yankees 6, Red Sox 2

Asa this is written, the Yankees lead the Sox 4-0, off homers by A-Road and Giambi and effective, if not great, pitching from Wang.

By the end of the week, the Yankees may have shrunk the Red Sox' lead to single digits and ripped off six wins in a row--though I doubt it. In the meantime . . .

I remember last October, beginning my day the way I begin all autumn Saturdays, with ESPN's "College GameDay." This was when ESPN reported the Joe Torre had been fired and then replaced by Lou Pinellia.

My first reaction was, "Hmmm . . . that kind of makes sense."

I never pretend to go on inside players' heads. But once Mike Mussina gave up the lead in game two of the ALDS to the Tigers, the Yankees eventual defeat in that series seemed so . . . inevitable. The dreariness of the Yankees' postseasons since the titanic World Series of 2001 has been one first-round defeat after another, interrupted for two years by the grand Yankee-Red Sox Passion PLay of 2003-2004.

For all their star power, for all their first-ballot Hall of Famers (and I counted four on last year's team: A-Rod, Jeter, Unit, Mo, with Moose getting in eventually), the Yankees, post-2004 meltdown, have seemed . . . . I don't know. Boring. Lethargic. With a certain Oh-no-here-we-go-again about them.

I wasn't the only one who noticed. Jeff Pearlman, writing in espn.com, echoes the thoughts I've had for over a year.

A portion:

When George Steinbrenner first hired Torre to replace Buck Showalter back in 1996, I was among the legions of people befuddled by the move. In his 14 years of guiding the Mets, Braves and Cardinals, Torre captured just one division title (with Atlanta in 1982) and never won 90 or more games. Surely there were more qualified candidates -- Gene Michael … Clyde King … Billy Martin's ghost … Alf … me.


Yet, in one of the great managerial achievements in Yankees history, Torre took a team of castaways (Mike Aldrete, Matt Howard, Charlie Hayes), youngsters (Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera) and big-name vets on the downside of their careers (Dwight Gooden, Cecil Fielder, Tim Raines) and molded the franchise's first world champion in 18 seasons.


Torre's touch was subtle, yet undeniable -- he knew when a button needed to be pressed, and when a player was best left alone. He allowed pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre to handle the arms, and hitting coach Chris Chambliss to deal with the intricacies of bat control. And he rarely overmanaged, opting for trust in his players over trust in his own brilliance.


Over the ensuing five years, Torre and the Yankees were an ideal match. The front office always managed to find the right piece -- be it Scott Brosius, Luis Sojo or Chili Davis -- to fit Torre's world. These were mostly mature, self-motivated men in their early-to-mid 30s who didn't need to be pumped up by their manager before a big game. Torre's greatest strength was not his handling of the bullpen or sticking with a steady lineup (in both areas he was only fair), but his innate ability to relate. Black players loved Torre, white players loved Torre, veterans loved Torre and rookies loved Torre. When the 32-year-old Jeter refers to his manager as "Mr. Torre," it is done not for effect, but out of respect.

Unfortunately for Torre, times have changed. With the departures of coaches like Stottlemyre, Willie Randolph and Don Zimmer, he is left with a cast of failed managers (Tony Pena, Larry Bowa) and future failed managers (Don Mattingly) as his assistants. Whereas once the Yankees built a team primarily through player development and small- and medium-scale trades, now it seems like the team (with rare exception) is built on other franchises' blocks. When you nurture and develop the Jeters and Riveras and Jorge Posadas of the world, those men will live and die for those pinstripes. On the other hand, when you shell out fat wads of cash for Alex Rodriguez and Carl Pavano and Jason Giambi, are you buying skill and passion, or just skill?

The solution, Pearlman continues, was to bring in some passion, some fire--someone who could make everyone care the way Jeter and Damon care. Pearlman's solution?

Bobby Valentine.

Hmmm.

I thought last October that if you change managers in order to light a fire under this team, the replacement had better 1) have the requisite personality, and 2) have the requisite resume. To me, the only person that had both qualities was Piniella. It is the case that Steinbrenner and Lou have always had a good relationship, that Lou desperately wants in the Hall of Fame, and that Pinella's CV (two rings as a player, an connection to the bad-ass Yankees of the seventies, another ring as a manager, numerous division titles, a 116-win season with Seattle) is sufficient to command respect.

But Bobby Valentine.

I suppose what colors my perspective was the one time I saw Valentine manage up close, in the 2000 World Series. What struck me was the Mets'insufferable laziness on the basepaths, which cost them at least Game One. There is also, with Valentine, a certain strain of weirdness (anyone remember his Uncle Louie moment, the fake mustache and glasses after being run)? The last unbalanced Yankee manager was Billy Martin, but his unbalance was alcohol (coach Stick Michael used to say the best time to talk to Billy was "between drinks four and seven"), and he had played with Dimaggio, was best friends with the Mick.

So I don't know what to think.

Tonight was vintage recent Yankee: Strong start by Wang, power by A-Rod and Giambi, good fielding, strong bullpen.

Need about 75 more of those.

So who would get them there?

Yankees 6, Mets 2

Ah, but what a dreary litle season this is shaping up to be.

Mets 10, Yankees 7

That ball off Damon's glove--that's the Yankees' season.

Mets 3, Yankees 2

Ahhh, someone else tell me what happened.

White Sox 4, Yankees 1

Put it on the board ... ah, screw it.

White Sox 5, Yankees 3; Yankees 8, White Sox 1

Which, on a day in which the Red Sox were rained out, changed not a thing.

It is time to find out how this season will go.

Mariners 2, Yankees 1

On, of course, the same day the Red Sox score six in the ninth to win 6-5.

Yankees 7, Mariners 2

DeSalvo!

Let's build on this.

Mariners 3, Yankees 0

Ahhhhhh. How do you win without runs?

On a lighter note, Graduate School Pal, a few nights ago, conjured up memories of my overnights to Dallas:

It was "The Balcony Club." It was "The Whiskey Bar." It was 15-year-old Scotch and Macanudos, and refusal of free watermelon shots. It was Stevie Ray Vaughan never coming up on the Juke, but trying anyway. It was rain and sun and one year a friend who had recently smashed his face into gravel via bike ride. It was it was it was.

Oh yes, GSP. It was getting that softness in my chest when I drove through Ferris, Texas, a town that was not only the name of my cat but the signal that my drive had only twenty minutes to go. It was the sight of downtown as I drove north. It was the taste of the first Shiner of the day in somebody's second-story walk-up. It was regrets over the previous night halted by a shout of "Ooh, Bubba's!", the indication that the best breakfast place in East Texas was in sight.

The sight of someone lusting after Mike Mussina.

When you go to grad school, your thirties are your days.

Rangers 14, Yankees 2

Stupid getaway games.

Schneider and Ebert

Thing is, I do this mostly for myself.

My site-meter reads that I had 35 readers today, which means my readership hovers between one one-hundredth and one one-thousandth of the best at this beat: James Lileks, Mark Steyn, and Hugh Hewitt, whose site has only improved since he took on Dean Barnett, aka, the sainted Soxblog.

And I can't approach Brendan Loy, the Irish Trojan, who was nice enough to take me on his dedicated server and nicer still to link to me from time to time.

Oh: and I'm stuck on a computer that won't link on URLs, so: no links.

So: for right now it's me, Blue, Robbie-Boy, SunDevil Joe and about two dozen others in what I called, last October, the Smelly Lounge. Come on in if you like.

When I started, politics, USC football and the New York Yankees. And movies. But again, for myself. Whatever I'm thinking.

Lately, though, politics has depressed me no end. Sixty or so percent of people think we're moving in the wrong direction--this, in a time when the Dow Jones has essentially doubled in 4 1/2 years, where unemployment hovers around 4 percent (basically, a job for whoever will go out and look for one), where inflation (the bugaboo of my youth) is battened down, and where gas, yes, is ready to go above three dollars, right until after Labor Day, when it will go down below two dollars.

Zero terrorist deaths on American soil since 9/11, a pro-American elected in France, of all places, and bin Laden on the run, and what does our President have? A 33 percent approval rating.

And why?

One word.

Well, you know it.

Lately, I've been re-reading the second volume of William Manchester's biography of Churchill, the period of 1932 through 1940, when Churchill, almost alone in Great Britain, saw Hitler for what he was, and gave speech after speech after speech warning England, the United States, and the greater western world--all to the growing emnity of his colleagues, who eventually had him banned from appearing on the BBC--to the growing terror they would face. Well, I'm no Churchill. But I have a sense of the world we will live in--an emboldened Iran, a delerious Al Qaeda--should the United States stand down in Iraq.

We're there. And it stinks. But leaving is tantamount to surrender, a surrender far worse than in Vietnam.

The genius Steyn has it right. In New York and Boston, Iraq is about Iraq. In Damascus and Tehran, Iraq is about us. Our country. Our will.

Oh, as far as linking, an article from Roger Ebert that I wanted to recount in full:

A beautiful bouquet of flowers was delivered to the house the other day. A handwritten note paid compliments to my work and wished me a speedy recovery.

Who was it from? A friend? A colleague? An old classmate? The card was signed, “Your Least Favorite Movie Star, Rob Schneider.”

Saints preserve us.

It will help to establish a context if I mention that my review of Schneider’s latest film, “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo,” contained three words which provided me with the title of my new book: “Your Movie Sucks.”

I regard the flowers and intuit they were not sent in the spirit of irony. Despite my review, Rob Schneider was moved to make a kind and generous gesture, one person to another.

The bouquet didn’t change my opinion of his movie, but I don’t think he intended that. It was a way of stepping back. It was a reminder that in the great scheme of things, a review doesn’t mean very much.

Sometimes when I write a negative review, people will say, “I’ll bet you can’t wait to hammer his next film.” Not true. I would far rather praise the next film to show that I maintained an open mind.

When Vincent Gallo’s “The Brown Bunny” played at Cannes in 2003, I walked out of the screening and declared it “the worst movie in the history of the film festival.” This was an unwise thing to do. My policy for years has been to avoid giving a negative review of a festival film until it has a chance to open.

Gallo issued a curse on my colon. I responded that the video of my colonoscopy was more entertaining than his film, and there the matter rested until 2004, when Gallo released a “final cut” of “The Brown Bunny” which was re-edited and 30 minutes shorter. I went to see it, and now I could see better what he was getting at, and I gave it a positive review.

“Ill bet you hated to change your mind,” I was told. No, I was happy to. It is a hard and frustrating thing to make a movie, and credit must be given where due.

Now we come back to the flowers. They were a reminder, if I needed one, that although Rob Schneider might (in my opinion) have made a bad movie, he is not a bad man, and no doubt tried to make a wonderful movie, and hopes to again. I hope so, too.

Thanks, Rob.

I mean, I have loved Roger Ebert for thirty years, despite how his politics have influenced him to give rave reviews to imbecilic movies, including JFK and The Contender.

And Schneider is a funny guy, thought poorly served by his handlers.

I read that post, and I'm in tears.

Yankees 6, Rangers 2

One of those games that correspond to life going well, when the roofing is in good shape and the investments are solid.

Moose, Jeter, Mo.

Life the way it should be.

Substitute Teacher in the Box

Funny thing: I love proctoring exams. The quiet, the escape. I save books I've been dying to read, and take them out during finals week. My students file in, I distribute exams, then sit back for two to three hours of solitude and quiet.

Sometimes I play Professor. This is when I get up, walk up and down the rows, desk to desk, thumb and forefinger tucked beneath my chin. Hmmmm.

(Which does raise a point.)

Occasionally I walk to the little rectangular glass window cut, by law, into every college classroom door constructed after 1966. Peer up and down the hallway.

All 'scopes green, Cap'n.

(One thing, though. Something always bothered me about Animal House, a movie I held in higher regard than the ultimate great-guy movie Caddyshack, except for one segment that threw me. Okay. Bluto and D-Day steal the fake Psych mid-term; Kevin Bacon has picked up the real exam and dropped a fake exam in the trash. Now they're taking the Psych midterm as the Professor walks about them. Wouldn't occur, at least to Bluto and D-Day, that the exam they stole was (here Boone chimes in) the wrong f***** exam? Bluto and D-Day are alcoholics, sure, but dumb? Not so much.)

Okay, back to reality.

So, when, last week, Astro-Girl told me that family business would interfere with her Psych finals, my reaction was two-fold: Me! and Me!

A good day. Yes, and 8-2, Yanks over Rangers didn't hurt.

Mariners 3, Yanks 2

Didn't see it (Astro-Girl treated me to an elegant evening at Olive Garden), but I understand the call was brutal.

Still--Mo, you're killing me.

For those enjoying as much as I am the running commentary between Blue and Robbie-Boy (see below), a bit more. First, has anyone noticed that, Igawa aside, the starting pitching has actually been the Yankees' greatest strength for over a week? (Blink of an eye, I know. But right now you take what you can get.) Pettitte, Moose, and Wang: all back and effective, Wang more than so. Rasner, DeSalvo: solid the first time through. Add the presumptive return from Clemens (and take it from someone who saw him up close for three seasons--his AL return will fall somewhere between his last two seasons for the Astros and his final season with the Yankees--say, 10-5, 3.15, with one DL stint because of his groin), and the rotation glistens with possibilities. Rasner and DeSalvo have earned a second look, the older guys have rounded into form, and when Hughes comes back (right around Clemens's first start) he'll still have not allowed a baserunner.

So Torre and Gator's mission: find five healthy, serviceable starters out of a possible eight. Not counting Igawa.

The offense has been a bother, and with a terrible sense of timing--the thing is, when you score 11 runs, the idea is to do so when the opposition scores no more than 10. But this is a team that will score runs--maybe 900, maybe more.

Then . . . the bullpen.

What was said lst year is still true: it is bad to be a reliever Torre hates, but fatal to be a reliever Torre loves. Proctor, Bruney, Vizcaino, will all have their arms in slings by July unless that situation gets sorted out.

A stable rotation will help.

I'm still not worried about the Hammer of God.

Yet.

Home runs happen.

While I was Out

First, the formalities.

Yankees 8, Mariners 1
Yankees 5, Mariners 0

Now . . .

As to the other event of this Sunday.

(Understand, Astro-Girl sits ten feet away, cursing at the TV as I type. Astro-Girl, so named because of her status as the world's biggest Astros fan, has her own feelings on the Clemens signing. I join her mid-screed:

"He came here and said he wanted to come home. How touching. Well, f*** you, buddy. Hope the Red Sox kick your ass. He promised to come here and help us to the World Series and all that bull****, well he could have damn well stayed here and help us now. All this, 'It's not about the money,' Well, f*** you, buddy. All this, 'This really isn't about money. I picked the Yankees because they have the best chance to win.' Well, f*** you, pal. Go ahead and trash your old teammates. What, they Astros don't know how to win? And you can f****** put that on your blog. Sh****** on your old teammates that way. F*** you, asshole. Go have sex with Pettitte for all I care."

My fiance, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, back to the post.)

So anyway . . . Wang picks the Saturday night sports collision to announce his return, taking a perfect game into the eighth. Dealing as I did with the Rockets' first-round fade-out (as expected) and Mayweather's victory over De la Hoya (same), I missed Wang's return to the front rank.

Let us take in the events of the past week. Last Tuesday, Philip Hughes's cranky hamstring was seen as the death knell of the Yankee rotation. Now, as of June first, with the top four spots set (Wang, Moose, Pettitte, Rocket), with Rasner pitching as well as he did (against the Mariners, mind), and with Igawa due for another few chances this month, Hughes may go straight from the DL to Triple-A.

Yes . . . Moose, Pettitte and Rocket may not last the season. And the Red Sox are scary good.

But what a difference a few days make.

Seattle 15, Yankees 11

Thing is: these are the games they used to win.

Went north nine years ago, in May, 1998, for the Yankees' annual trip to Arlington. The plan, which I adhered to for years, was to drive from Houston to Dallas, hook up with a grad school buddy, drive to the ballpark (known, then, as The Ballpark), watch the game, then finish off the evening in a bar near Greenville Avenue, one whose name and address was a mystery to me, plus everything else, except that it was on a second floor and accessible by way of a stairway that ran up the exterior of the building.

A guy played a piano. Give him a couple of bucks, he'd play "Strangers in the Night."

Sleep over, then drive back to Houston. Four hours.

First time I did it, as I say, 1998. David Wells started for the Yanks, who raced out to a 9-2 lead early.

Game over, right? Think again. These were the Rangers of Pudge and Juando, the team of football scores awaiting almost every inning. David Wells (who would pitch a perfect game two weeks later, who would win 18 games against 4 losses and be the MVP of the ALCS) coughed up the majority lead in about twenty seconds. Just like that, 9-8.

Oh, crap.

The Yankees scored five more runs, to make it 14-9, and the feeling was, Well, that's that.

Bang. A few Ranger hits (Wells was long gone by now) followed by a Juan Run. Tie game.

14-14, and, Oh, did the Ranger fans let me hear it, with my Yankee gear and so on.

Top eight, Yankee base hit. Runner on second. Jeter, base hit. 15-14.

Now, Rivera.

This was Rivera before Rivera was Rivera. The Yanks had let 1996 World Series MVP John Wetteland get away in '97, and had endured a year's worth of misery because of it. In 1997, Mo had blown three saves in April, then blown the Divisional Series by surrenduring a homer to Sandy Alomar, and how stupid were the Yankees for letting John Wetteland go?

Well, now it was 1998. Now Rivera would begin compiling his Hall-of-Fame resume as the best closer of all time. I watched him as he glided in across the outfield, watched his impassive face as he threw his warm-up pitches.

Two innings. Six up, six down.

From that point on, right up until that terrible ninth inning in the desert four years later, the expression on Rivera's face meant Enough Already.

Didn't hurt that Bernie hit a homer, made it 16-14. Your final score.

But, as before: They used to win these games.

Yankees 4, Rangers 3; Yankees 5, Rangers 2

Good stuff from Pettitte and Moose.

Otherwise, in the context of the whole season, a little like winning three hundred at Blackjack the night after dropping a couple thousand.

Normally, three hundred equals ecstacy. Now?

Hamstring

The word came this morning.

Philip Hughes.

Hamstring. Four to six weeks.

Well, just wonderful.

One month ago, Hughes was a treasure shielded from the rigors of major league pitching, cossetted by Brian Cashman until--probably--2008.

Six days ago, the consensus was, "Well, let's hope the kid can help us."

Today--with Moose growing old, Igawa unsteady, three or four injuries to the rotation, with the team not hitting and the bullpen (which two weeks ago looked to be a major upgrade over '06)looking unlikely to last into June--the instant, universal reaction was, Crap, what will we do without Hughes?

Well, it was some kind six-and-one-thirds innings--really, aside from A-Rod's heroics, the only bright spot of this whole dreary month.

Yankees 10. Rangers 1

You start with the kid.

Phil Hughes.

In my lifetime, who have I seen, coming up from the Yankee minors, with this much promise?

Gator.

Rags.

Drabek, maybe.

Leiter.

Taylor, and never mind that punk.

Mo.

Pettitte.

And then, and then, and gentlemen, and then . . .

Ah, not so much.

Lilly? No. Ridiculously overpaid.

I thought it was nice in the first few innings, how Hughes worked around a few walks for a couple of double plays.

And then.

And then, and then, and gentlemen, and then . . .

Jeeeeeeeesus. Anybody get a load of this kid's stuff?

I had thought Bert Blyleven's slow curve was the best I'd ever seen.

And then.

And then Hughes threw a ball that started at a batter's teeth and dropped over his shoes.

A pitch you can't hit--thrown for a strike, no less.

Holy crap.

The kid's got speed, control, location. Movement. He throws high fastballs no one catches up to, curves he can spot, changeups that make the hit-happy Rangers look like fools.

So, of course, given this season, he leaves in the seventh. No-hitter going.

Hamstring.

All things Yankee. Circa 2007.

But, uh, the kid stays in the picture.

The smell of the grass, or whatever

So we return to the sheer joy of the game.

Out of, you know, desperation.

I always think of my favorite baseball summers. In descending order: 1996, 1978, 1998.

The first: Return to Glory.

The second: Greatest Comeback Ever. (This would get the winner's purse, except that sports information was rather ancient in those days. Any Phoenix sports fan over 40 remembers the Republic Sports Line, which was basically an answering machine featuring one guy (I always imagined him as having a beard plus hair to his shoulders) reading the scores in a bored monotone that suggested a coroner's emotional attachment to the deceased. Those a little older may remember the ESPN sports phone number, chanted in commercial after commercial: 900-976-1313! I called fourteen times one month, and caught it from my father over the seven bucks I had wasted, never mind I had to call because the freaking Bud Light commercial ("Bring out your best!") drowned out the freaking scores. Newspapers were worse. In those days, the Republic wouldn't even try to have the scores from the West Coast, a whole one hour behind where we were; when the Yankees played Seattle or Oakland, we got the results two days later, like we were at the freaking South Pole.)

So: greatest comeback ever. But viewed from afar.

The third: Greatest Team of All Time. Too close to '96 to be earth-shattering. But something.

You know whom I have a soft spot for?

1988 Yankees.

Not much love, to be sure. A check of the records indicates they finished . . . oh, I can't remember. Second, third, fourth. They had the hitting (Mattingly, Winfield, Henderson, Clark, Pags, Sluggo), but their starting pitching was bad (John Candelaria started well but was hurt, likewise Al Leiter, likewise Richard Dotson; Ron Guidry was at the end of the line, likewise Tommy John; Rick Rhoden went .500, does that count?) and the bullpen was worse (Rags was ready to move on, some other relievers did what they could).

So: the reason for my soft spot?

Well.

1988 was the first time I enjoyed baseball on a daily basis. Ah, I thought. This was how the game is meant to be watched, and listened to: as John Updike wrote, something about "a tissue-thing difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill." This was far preferable to restricting my baseball-watching to NBC's "Game of the Week" and ABC's "Monday Night Baseball," an activity that reduced individual games to college football.

Another thing. 1988 was the last time the Yankees had a decent radio crew. Hank Greenwald and Tommy Hutton--sharp, crisp, giving us an honest account of the game--were fired at the end of 1988. The scuttlebutt was that Greenwald and Hutton were canned for not being cheerleader enough, a fair enough assumption, as their replacement, John Sterling, endeared himself in the first month of the season for calling two Yankee home run balls that weren't, to wit:

IT IS HIGH!

IT IS LONG!

IT IS GONE!

NO IT ISN'T!

Lovely.

So I came in front of the TV tonight. Win or lose, let's enjoy some baseball.

Off Day

So: the 'Stros and Yankees have, between them, provided one blissful day in the past nine: this past Saturday.

Joe Torre was going to be fired, or not--an act that might have made sense last October, but would make none now. You fire a manager for one of three reasons:

1. His managerial skill set (judgment of talent, analysis of statistics, and game strategy) is suspect;
2. His personality has become either a distraction or a non-factor, meaning the players are tuning him out;
3. Some better candidate is available.

In the case of Joe Torre:

1. He has always been solid in the first two categories and passable in the third. These things don't change.
2. By all accounts, the players (read Jeter) love him; his best asset as a manager (providing cover for the players while not allowing them to slacken in their duties) is as sound as ever;
3. Who is out there? Lou Piniella would have the stature to flog the team into a stretch of intensity, but he's taken; Mattingly and Girardi are miniature Torres, comforting presences, minus four World Series rings. (As a manager, anyway.)

So, what? Torre can't go out to the mound and pitch. He can't bat for his players. Fire him, fine. But don't think that Girardi or Donnie Baseball will catch Boston with a rotation that belongs in Triple-A.

What comfort I could take in the weekend was found in the New England Patriots, a team so loaded heading into the fall that I would be happy to forgo what is shaping up to be a dismal summer and head into the fall. The Patriots, who were one first down away from the AFC Championship (and an almost certain win over the Bears), have added three wide receivers, all better than any of the receivers they had last season. The true test of the Randy Moss acquisition was that the Pats were Super Bowl favorites before the draft. Now, adding the kid from Miami, along with Moss, was simply a bonus.

Perhaps only a lifelong Patriots fan could appreciate the team as now composed. I awoke this morning to "Mike & Mike," heard of the Moss trade, and said, out loud, "Um, what?" And all day, heading from office to classroom to car to campus to classroom, kept thinking about the trade as if remembering the three hundred I'd won the previous night at Blackjack (for instance). Never has a gamebreaker come into a situation with less screw-around room.

Repeat: The Patriots were overwhelming Super Bowl favorites before the past weekend. Meaning: if Moss messes up once, the Hoodie will cut him loose.

It didn't hurt that Miami made a hash of its draft day, that Buffalo seems at least a year away, that the Jets will have to play a second-place schedule in 2007.

Rain today. Saturday was a million miles away.

Red Sox . . . . ahhhhh.

Didn't have the strength.

Yankees 3, Red Sox 1

Igawa. Mo. We need them.

Not every day is a great day . . .

What made me fall in love with my Saturdays was my decision, in 2001, to spend much of the day jogging, sometimes twelve or more miles. I am slow, slow . . . there is no getting around this; these long jogs would consume three hours, four if I drove somewhere and parked, then drove home.

Slow. But very cathartic.

I attempted such a run today, the second or so in a few months, and I wondered: how could I have let this routine escape me? For absolute bliss, the pieces must be in place. I must jog:

1. at least twelve miles
2. on a Saturday
3. when the sun is shining

Mess with any of these elements (or have God mess with number three, I suppose) and bliss is avoided. Do all of these . . . and, well . . .

Headed out around noon, having seen the first few picks of the NFL draft, and with Astro-Girl ensconsed on the sofa, nursing a sore knee, and promising to call with developments. Love that Astro-Girl, cranky knee and all. (Or is it more of a balky knee, as she hyperextended the joint on a treadmill? George Carlin was right: sports injuries somehow involve rhetoric that is never used elsewhere. Who besides an athlete is hobbled by an injury? Do you trip and fall, sprain your wrist, and describe your injury as merely a wrist?) In any case . . . with Cleveland, at number three, having chosen offensive tackle Joe Thomas over Notre Dame quarterback Brady* Quinn, the day bristled with possibility.

Last year the big story, after the Mario/Reggie/Vince saga, was Matt Leinart sliding all the way to tenth, after being rated as high as third. That slide would have nothing on Quinn if Minnesota (seven) or Miami (nine) didn't pick him. Off to jog.

Down Westpark to Kirby, then a right on Kirby down the business district, then a left on Bissonet and a stretch through a residential district known as Southampton (south of Hampton Street; no private beaches here). A right down Hazard. Ring.

"Tell me something," I said. "Minnesota took Quinn."

"No," she said. "Adrian Peterson."

"Why Peterson? They already have Chester Taylor."

"That's what the guy said."

"Well," I said, "Miami for sure."

Occasionally, at a poker table, the best hands are those I have no participation in, having thrown in my 3-7 off-suit and paid no money, and thus reduced myself to a spectator as the pile in the middle of the table rises and one person (the cranky old guy with the Budweiser hat, say) will suffer humiliation in the presence of nine other players. Today was such a day, even as I was twice removed, my Walkman having gone missing months earlier.

Miami was Quinn's flush draw. Dolphins or bust.

Rice University, turn left. The dirt track is a shade less than three miles around, or so I'm told. Ring.

"Miami," I said.

"No," she said. "Miami took Ted Ginn, Jr. Who's he?"

"The guy who scored the opening touchdown against Florida in the BCS. Then his teammates piled on him and hurt him and he left the game."

"And they picked him over Quinn."

"That's what you're telling me."

"Quinn doesn't look so good. He was talking about how he knew the Dolphins' playbook and their coach, and then when the announcement came he kind of hid his face. How can you feel sorry for a Notre Dame quarterback?"

"Life of the green room."

Adult athletes--paid hugely, with access to the best restaurant in town, a meal ticket through life, and incredible tail--are subject to very few off-the-playing-field humiliations. One is this: The Last Man in The Green Room, subject to the classic ESPN medium-wide shot, just enough to take in the spread of empty tables around him. In the past, it used to be worse: no family, agents, or friends. Just one solitary soon-to-be millionaire looking like one of the unicorns Noah left behind. Now, help is other people. I wished I was there.

A cut through Rice, a drink at my favorite fountain, the one attached to a building that probably goes by a different name but is certainly the computer lab. Into the quad. Ring.

"The Texans," she said.

"Not Quinn."

"No," she said, "Amobi Okoye."

A good pick, at tenth, with Okoye having three hundred pounds and about as many IQ points. Good Will Punting is nineteen, the youngest NFL draftee ever, by virtue of graduating from Louisville at such an age. (Sniff--Louisville. Save it. Okoye was accepted to Harvard.) His family emigrated from Africa, he spoke no English, but a few years later, at twelve, was begging the local high school principal to let him enroll. Two months, he said. If I can't do the work I'll leave. Instead of leaving, he finished high school at fifteen.

Wonderful story. Now if he can use all those brains and motivation to placing Peyton, Vince, and Byron on their collective asses.

"So," I said. "I almost hate to ask. Quinn."

"He's still there," she said. "He's got a hot girlfriend with him."

"She's about to go sit with Ted Ginn."

"That's mean."

"Who's next?"

"San Francisco," she said.

"They've got Alex Smith. Next."

"Buffalo."

"Maybe. But I think they'll stick with Losman."

"St. Louis."

"Bulger. Next."

"Carolina."

"Carr backing up Delhomme. Next."

"Pittsburgh," she said. "Would Pittsburgh take him?"

"Ever hear of someone named Rothlisberger?"

"Yeah. Okay. Next is Green Bay."

"Aaron Rogers backing up Favre. Next."

"Jacksonville."

"Byron Leftwich."

"Then Cincinnati."

"Carson Palmer. Don't think so."

"Tennessee."

"Vince Young."

"Yeah, don't think so. Then the Giants. Oh, Eli Manning." She ponders this. "So in other words, he just slid out of the top 20. I mean, we're getting to the good teams. And good teams are usually good because they have a good quarterback. So like the lower he goes, the lower he goes."

I wondered: who, in the twenties, would take him? The draft was face approaching the realm of the elite, the territory of Rivers, Brady, and Peyton.

Would Chicago, at #31, dump Rex Grossman?

I concluded my jog an hour later. She met me at the door. "They're up to 22," she said. "They took Quinn out of the Green Room and into the Commissioner's private room."

Hey, I thought, not fair. This kid (who by the way is 2-8 vs. USC, Michigan, and bowl opponents) gets to run and hide from ESPN when the going gets tough? Is he saving his gumption for Ray Lewis?

On TV, someone announced that Dallas was shopping #22.

"Oh," I said, "That's it. Probably to Cleve--"

I said it here, it came out there. Magic. And out came Quinn, with the expression of a latter-day Willie Loman who had just been told that the head buyer will see him, after all.

Then it was off to the ballpark, to the Astros, and to the newest discoveries at Minute Maid Park:

1. Really, really good fajitas that cost less than hot dogs, and
2. Hunter Pence.

Sportswise, it is hard to endure the week I just endured. My first team, the Yankees, and my second team, the Astros, lost an aggregation of fourteen games in a row. As Robbie-Boy pointed out, the best Yankee game all week was the rain-out. The Yankees followed form by leaking in the press that Torre might be gone by Sunday sundown, should the Sox sweep. (For whom? Girardi? Mattingly? Is this a team that will respond to Torre lite? Mount Piniella was the only logical replacement if Torre had to go, and Sweet Lou--by virtue of so many years in the American League--is slowly discovering that the Cubs are less a ballclub than an excuse to drink in the afternoon. Piniella is taken.) The Astros, fully used to falling behind and mounting a cavalry charge late (it worked in '04 and '05, not so much in '03 and '06), simply brought up centerfielder Hunter Pence, aka, Brightest Everyday Prospect Since Berkman.

Arrived at the park at four. (Beach blanket day, first ten thousand.) Roof open. Let us take the scene as read: Long shadows chiseled against the bright green grass, etc. Astro-Girl went off to look for t-shirts, I went down to watch home batting practice.

At the cage, there were the guys: Bidge, Brad, Berkman, Lee. The new guy, Loretta.

I decided to be cynical. No one pretends to mountains of knowledge like the batting practice crowd--the people by the cage, that is, not the minions out in the bleachers shouting, "Here! Here!" every time a ball makes the warning track. These were serious people. And this was serious business, aided by dialogue inspired, it seemed, by Kiss Me Deadly.

"Puma looks good."

"Needs to go the other way."

"Overanxious."

"Should stay in his shoes."

"He'll get going."

Okay, I thought. Here's my chance. To everyone and no one I asked, "Where's the boy wonder?"

Silence. Finally, painfully, a woman asked, "Who?"

"Pence," I said, feeling an onslaught of ass-sweat.

"Oh," one guy said. "He's busy throwing up in the dugout."

Ah. smiles all around. A look to the outfield scoreboard: 2-0 Yanks. Yes, but for how long?

Then, to my seat, and to the Astros-Brewers game:

Second inning, 0-0. Up comes our boy: lanky, with the classic hiked-up pants leg look. First major-league at-bat. Pence goes to two strikes, fouls off about a thousand pitches, then takes called strike three. First time I've ever seen a hometown player get a standing O for striking out.

Up again a few innings later, he's hit by pitch. Pence trots to first. One batter later, breaks up a double play. Cheers.

Few innings later: There now, his first hit, a clean single. Then a call for the ball, one of the all-time coolest sports traditions (rivaled by, top of my head, buying a round for the house after a hole-in-one. And maybe Midnight Madness. And that USC plays Notre Dame every year).

Now, the really good part. Batting behind Pence, Adam Everett, the Doctor of Leather, gets one of his two doubles of the night. And . . . here it comes . . . Pence flies around the bases . . . no, he glides around the bases in huge, effortless strides that recall Dave Winfield in pinstripes, or perhaps Bernie Williams circa 1998.

"Good Lord," someone says.

Imagine this: From the crack of Everett's bat, 40,000 minds were as one: second and third. No. Left field in Minute Maid is the smallest in the National League, the smallest in all of baseball save Fenway's. Three-fifteen to the foul pole, and it damn well stays three-fifteen until the scoreboard gives out, at the power alley. Everett's double, then, travelled 315 feet on the button. Not an inch further. Length of one football field, plus half of one end zone. And by the time Geoff Jenkins had collared the ball . . . done deal.

Pence scored standing.

From first.

Didn't even draw a throw.

There were other hi-lights--a great running catch here, some clever Berkman baserunning, good pitching from Sampson and Lidge--but really, this was the game.

10-1 Astros.

Along the way I saw: 3-1 Yanks. Torre keeps his job for another day.

Both losing streaks over.

Oh, it got dark eventually, without my noticing.

And?

And this:

Not every day is a great day.

But today was a great day.

(*Corrected by Anon.)

One year ago today . . .

It hardly seems worthy of anyone's attention now, but last year marked one of the most notorious mornings in major-sports draft history. This was the day that the Houston Texans took Mario Williams over Reggie Bush--or, for that matter, Vince Young. I wrote of the event thus:

There is no better place to measure the pulse of the Houston sports scene than the Buffalo Wild Wings sports bar in Rice Village. BWW had been planning its draft party for weeks. Special “Vince or Bush” pint glasses were made up. An ad read that “parties of 8 or more” would receive specials on wings.

For a big event–-a UT football game or an Astro post-season game–-you can barely get in the door there. Clearly a mob was anticipated for today. Instead, the place was a graveyard; only ten people in the dining area, maybe double that in the bar. The bar itself should have been three deep; today, two people sat silently and stared ahead.

Back in the dining room, the extra staff lined against the wall and looked at rows of empty tables. When Mario Williams’ name was called, the booing was half-hearted, almost obligatory. Why pick on the kid? Some cheering from the Longhorn faithful when Vince was chosen, some “Oooh”ing for picks four through nine (translatins: Matt’s still on the board!), then when Matt went everyone turned their attention to the Astros game.

Houston has become a baseball town, and pro football here is officially a joke. I honestly didn’t think that was possible.

This year, I couldn't even rouse myself to leave my apartment. I'll watch the first few picks, then go for a run.

The Houston Texans aren't even worth my anger.

Red Sox 11, Yankees 4

In lieu of flowers . . .

Blue Jays 6, Yankees 0

Too depressing for words.

Devil Rays 6, Yankees 4

I was too depressed even to type the above.

The Yankees are currently in their "give up one lead and they're dead" phase.

Wang comes out, 3-2 Yanks. Crawford hits a grand slam to make it 6-3 . . . and the ballgame basically ends right there. What's worse, Yankee fans everywhere know it.

Depressing.

The New York Times Again betrays its ignorance

Sometimes I wonder: does the New York Times even bother to check its own stories?

Or does it even care, so desperate is its editorial DNA that every story between the Hudson River and the Los Angeles Resevoir has to be placed in the big picture, the notion of What it All Means?

Because every foray into flyover country has been a disaster.

There was a murder/suicide in Houston Monday. This was bad. What was--well, let's not say worse so much as disgraceful--was the thumb-sucking story in the Times, which somehow linked the shooting to the murder/suicide at NASA, as in third murder/suicide in Houston in four days.

Now, leaving aside the monumental stupidity of implying a trend between three completely unrelated murder/suicides within one geographical area--can it be too much to ask that when you make the connection, you make sure the pattern you're claiming is confined to a certain geographic location is actually confined to a certain geographic location.

They call Houston "Space City," sure, and everyone knows "Houston, we have a problem," but anyone who knows Southeast Texas knows NASA is located thirty miles to the south of Houston, in the area including Kema and, especially, Clear Lake. To a head-scratcher in Manhattan, the distance must seem negligible, but imagine if, on the night John Lennon was gunned down outside the Dakota in Midtown, another person had been killed 30 miles away, down the Jersey Shore, imagine if the Houston Chronicle had run with "Lennon, one other gunned down in New York City."

Cost of living in flyover country, I guess.

D-Rays 10, Yanks 8

As inevitable as the dawn.

Some thoughts:

1) Years from now, as historians talk of A-Rod's historical April, the fact will emerge that, through it all, the Yankees lost more games than they won.

2) Is Philip Hughes the next Rober Clemens? Or the next David Clyde?

3) Ahhhhhh . . . this is the sort of game that comes out out a Yankee-Red Sox tilt. Blah blah blah.

Red Sox 7, Yankees 6

Not as bad as we thought it would be . . . and yet worse than we feared.

This is a loss Yankee fans put on the board three days ago. At 3-0, we thought, Maybe. At 5-4, we thought, Maybe. When Phelps came to bat, at 6-7, tying run at third, and Phelps hit the ball on a rope, we thought, This is it.

Snagged by the second baseman. Then Papelbon in the ninth.

So the Yankees, at their weakest, get outscored 21-17 and lose three games to a Red Sox team at its strongest. Sixty percent of the Yankee rotation is down, the bullpen (read: Proctor) is incredibly overworked or (read: Kardiac Kyle) devoid of reliability. A-Rod is visibly worn out from the strain of playing one-aganst-nine. Giambi and Jeter are just now coming around.

This weekend was awful. But not as awful as it might seem.

Red Sox 7, Yankees 5

Earl Weaver had a saying about momentum in baseball.

"Momentum?" he said. "You take momentum. I'll take Jim Palmer."

In the end, I was happy the Boston-New York tilt was blacked out in Houston, so we might watch the notoriously underexposed Cubs take on the Cardinals. I actually had some business to attend to early. To wit:

Over a space of time extending from a little over two years ago to a little over a year ago, I was hired to craft a narrative for a documentary having to do with a Local Figure. This, I think, is as far as I can go; my employer is fanatical about non-disclosure, and he and Local Figure have been snarling at each other since before I came on.

There is some metaphor in the military--Mutually Assured Destruction, maybe--to describe what goes on between two people who might sue each other, but don't, because both know that if A sues B, B will counter-sue A, and maybe C will sue both A and B, and nothing will be resolved except that a few lawyers will get rich. The way it sometimes works today, A and B and C will refrain from suing one another, nothing will still get done, and everyone will keep their own money. This is the state that A (my employer) exists in, not suing B (Local Figure), while C (Third party) goes as the wind.

I'm trying not to be cute here. Local Figure used to have events that attracted multiple TV stations, plus a reporter from the Houston Chronicle who served almost as his Bosworth, plus a healthy collection of acolytes. Today's event attracted a freelance video cameraman intent on selling his footage to five different TV stations, maybe 30 acolytes, and nobody from the Houston Chronicle. I did get my ear bent by one of a tribe who seems to albatross around Houston, the big talker with the universal theories of the world (Short answer: The Knights Templar own half the world, the Catholic Church owns the other half, dog is God backwards, Enoch explains everything, and the truth can be found in a story that is half Catcher in the Rye, half 2001. He asked me: what did I write?

I gave him my stock answer: "Anything." As a screenwriter, I've plunged into the life of Local Figure. I've written sports, entertainment, politics; I've been lucky to sit across a desk from David Lynch, to sit in a hotel room with Woody Harrelson, to interview Michael J. Fox, John Lithgow, Joan Collins, Rhea Pearlman, and the writing staff of the Letterman show. I've shared breakfast with Scorsese. On a lark, I called Congressman Hyde at his hotel room during the '92 convention, and ended up with a solid, ten-minute interview. I've done criticism, think pieces, fiction--everything but poetry.

"So let me call you," he said. Fine. I'll do anything if the money's green. What one needs is a shock-proof BS detector; money talks, etc.

Afterwards, my employer bought me lunch and drove me home. I slept the nap of the saved, the awoke at four--highly propitious, as the Boston-New York score was 4-4. Lay back for another snooze wake up . . . 7-4 Boston.

Ballgame, I knew.

With Dice-K going tomorrow.

Red Sox 7, Yankees 6

Let's all have a seat, people.

And let us consider what we don't have to worry about, in roughly ascending order:

1. Mo. Does anyone remember two seasons ago, when Rivera was fresh off the Red Sox's historic comeback, when he was served up a Standing-O at the Sox's Fenway ring ceremony because, supposedly, the Sox had ruined him? Remember the expert analysis on "Baseball Tonight," when Kruk demonstrated how everyone had figured Mo out, how all any batter needed to do was to drop his front foot back and anticipate the cutter?

Remember how Mo was finished?

Oh, really.

When Mo goes down, he goes down freakishly. Dave Roberts beats Georgie's throw by a thousanth of a second. A homer hits the screen of the foul pole.

Or tonite. A flare is followed by a freakish hit down the right field line, which, when hit just so at Fenway, resembles a ball spun in a Roulette wheel.

Then, a flare over a drawn-in infield. Gonzo II.

Don't worry about Mo.

And, by the way, with a 6-4 advantage, why wasn't Menk guarding the line? Coco's bounding five-hopper would have been dead meat that way.

2. Yankee Relief. In general. Viz screwed up by walking Man-Ram. He'll learn.

3. Yankees in General. The Yanks scored six runs tonite. A-Rod scored three and drove in four, which doesn't compute.

It's a long season.

Yankees 8, Tribe 6

A-Rod heroics all over again.

Two walkoffs in a week.

Yankees 9, Tribe 2

Details here.

A-Rod, looking like player of the month. Still and all, it comes back to the pitching, the pitching.

Can the kid, Wright, pitch?

And can Igawa?

Can Pettitte stay healthy?

If so, in all cases, you may have a rotation to match the Yankees' patchwork outfield of last year.

Yankees 10, Tribe 3

A-Rod, yes of course. But we'll need a lot more games like this until the starters get healthy.

And we await Igawa tomorrow.

A dose of sanity

When I was an undergraduate at USC, and the issue of campus security came up, the administration held fast to three Nos: No fence, no wall, no gates.

Understand, this was the University of Southern California, a school catering mostly to middle- and upper-middle class suburban kids, located adjacent to one of the most economically depressed neighborhoods in urban America. We lived in South Central Los Angeles, which at the time did not have the ghetto cache of Watts (which, counter to the popular notion of 'SC, is actually located twenty blocks to the south), but was certainly not the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This was far from a benign environment, plus crack was making its first foothold, and there were always stories of break-ins and car thefts, though very few muggings. For those individuals who felt they needed it, an (unarmed) escort service was available to accompany one from place to place after dark. Beyond that, USC security reserved the right to demand a student ID from any suspicious character (and since the surrounding neighborhood was 95% black and Hispanic, that inevitable meant that the overwhelming number of people stopped by security were from a minority, which led to accusations of racism and comparisons to apartheid, quite the thing at the time).

Still, the university refused to seal off the university from the surrounding community, on the grounds that doing so would cause more harm than good. As it happened--and for whatever reason--the physical university survived the King riotof 1992 entirely unscathed, even as whole neighborhoods to the north and west burned to the ground.

Still, deciding to leave the campus open brings with it some certainties, one of which is: Nothing, nothing is in place to prevent whoever should desire to bring a weapon on campus. Nothing exists to prevent said person from opening fire on whoever he or she decides to shoot.

And finally, no mechanism exists--none--to alert a sprawling campus of 26,000 students and 2600 acres as to a "lock-down," evacuation or whatever.

In Godfather, Part II, Al Pacino put it well: "If history has proven anything, it's that you can kill anyone."

Lee Strasberg, as Hyman Roth, put it better: "This . . . is the business we've chosen."

Jack Dunphy (a nom d' cyber of an LAPD officer writing for NRO), puts his expertise to good use:

Let us suppose that the police had indeed shut down the school at 7:30 A.M., just after the first shooting. The Virginia Tech campus has scores of buildings spread across 2,600 acres, and there are 26,000 students enrolled there. There aren’t enough police officers in the entire state of Virginia to seal the campus off completely. But even if it had been shut down, then what? How long does it stay shut down, and how do you know when it’s safe to open it up? Do you strip search every last person on campus before letting them leave? And if the suspect is contained within one of the buildings, what’s to prevent him from killing the people he’s contained with?

The rush to blame the school’s administration and police is a reflection of a society that believes any and all misfortune can be averted by the proper application of government will. At this very moment, politicians in Richmond, Va., and Washington, D.C., are exerting their tiny brains trying to be the first to propose legislation that will “prevent the next tragedy.” The number of laws the killer broke on Monday will probably run to more than 20, but there are those who actually believe he might have been deterred by a few more strokes of a legislative pen. I can’t put it any more simply than this: There are evil people in the world, and no amount of laws will make them any less so.

There may be a level of security that would deter a suicidal maniac from carrying out the kind of horrors seen on the Virginia Tech campus Monday morning, but I doubt anyone would want to attend the school that implemented it.

Va Tech killer: Cho Seung-Hui

A day later we find out.

There is something more to this.

Headline: "Global Warming rally cut short by cold weather"

And to think I didn't think I'd get a laugh at the end of the day.

Va Tech

Some thoughts, on officially the next day.

1. I've written on Irish Trojan and elsewhere, there's something fishy about how long it is taking to release the name of a deceased suspect.

With every passing hour, the chance grows that this kid is a) Muslim, b) connected to terrorist groups, or c) both; and no one wants to cop to it.

If there';s another explanation, I'm listening.

2. I always tell people a story (probably apocryphal) that I've heard about the USC Film School. Thanks in no small way to the largesse of Messrs. Lucas, Spielberg and Carson, USC, two decades ago, opened a film school that was essentially a small studio plunked down in the middle of campus. In the intervening twenty-plus years, thousands of students have passed through, hoping to make a sufficient enough mark to find their way in Hollywood--producer, director, screewnwriter, studio exec. Some, like my friend Cinco Paul, have succeeded.

The old saying goes: a writer needs his pen and paper, a painter his brush, canvas, and oils--and a filmmaker needs his army. As someone who has seen the effort involved in producing so much as ten seconds of usable film, and then sat in editing rooms watch directors and editors work for five and six hours at a time so the punch will coincide with the sound of the punch, I can attest: making even a fifteen-minute student film requires mental and psychological patience and strength that most people simply do not have. Making a film is tough--not like how studying for physics is tough, but like how shoveling coal while reciting state capitals is tough. The strain can be enormous.

So it was in 1992 that a group of seniors struggled to bring in a Cinema 480 (read: major senior project) in on time. As the deadline approached, they abandoned their living spaces, brought blankets and pillows to their work space at the film school, and literally lived in the post-production room, living on two and three fitful hours of sleep at a time. They ate out of the vending machines, or sent some underling PA across Jefferson Boulevard to Burger King. They slaved in this fashion for a week, and then finished. And . . . in a scene one of them might produce on celluloid one day, the director and his editor went out to the mini-bungalow to the long, motel-style balcony. It was late afternoon. Exhausted, elated, they stood there for a moment. Then the editor turned to the director.

"Uh," he asked, "do you smell smoke?"

A few hundred yards away, the Rodney King riots had been raging for three hours.

The points here are three:

*The notion that the university could have warned the studentry harkens back to the "Why didn't Bush leave the classroom" question on 9/11. Well, yes, he could have, but to what end? This past afternoon, a woman on CNN, here presented as an expert, wondered why no email was sent to students--a email that would have been helpful to those students who were online, checking their e-mail, and refreshing the page at precisely that moment. As a tool for instant communication, e-mail is wildly overrated, to be hardly worth the effort. Ninety percent of the students at that time were in class, having breakfast, or asleep.

*Colleges of any substantial size (anything over 10,000 students) resemble wholly contained communities more than any other entity of learning. Outside of cable news (which is available to anyone in America with a TV and fifty bucks a month to spare), there simply is no instant distributor of campus information on the order of a town crier or Paul Revere, electronic or otherwise. Those film students are metaphors for the college community. There are very few places of public access more given to isolation than a library's stacks. Or a field house locker room at 10 am. Or the elaborate grounds and interiors of a building heavily endowed, but housing an unpopular major. (There is no finer building on the USC campus than the Philosophy Building, and as far back as when I was a freshman, in 1983, its library had long since been given over to evening faculty receptions and to rent by movie and television enterprises wanting to evoke the Ivy League. Certainly there were few enough students to inconvenience.) Were I a college student, I would no more expect university security to alert me of a problem on campus than, as a citizen out in the real world, I would expect the Houston Police Department to bang on my door with news of a double homicide committed five blocks away. And as for Va Tech's warning horn--to what end? To draw students from the very classrooms that provided their safety? Suppose UT had employed a horn in response to Charles Whitman. How many more students would have died?

This is the frustration people face when other people--with no notion of what they write about--write anyway.

Red Sox 7, Angels 2

Filed under my "One time until I die" list is attending a Red Sox game on Patriots Day, then rushing from Fenway to catch the last of the Boston Marathon.

But that's not why I note today's game.

Josh Beckett is 3-0. Dice-K should be 2-0, save for the best-pitched game of the year by Felix Hernandez. If Curt Schilling figures it out . . . if the Sox have Beckett, Dice-K and Schilling in the rotatin, with Papelbon to close . . .

. . . if JD Drew stays healthy enough to bat behind Papi and Manny . . .

Oh, crap.

Look. The Hell. Out.

This with Moose and (knock me over with a feather) Pavano headed to the DL.

And Pettitte (and really, what are his chances of pitching so much as 200 innings this season?) not due to pitch until Friday.

Look, I know the Yankees are famously ginger with their pitchers, on the theory that since they'll be close in September anyway, why not sit someone who's not right?

I've not felt this since 1995, when the Yanks saved their season by acquiring David Cone for the September run. Not when they started 11-19 in 2005. Not when Jeter separated his shoulder on Opening Day, 2003. I didn't think what I think now.

This season could be trouble.

A's 5, Yankees 4

Stomach punch.