Yankees 16, White Sox 3

Some thoughts on a game that went down like a good steak:

1. What cannot be stressed enough is that the Yankee will go as far as Abreu, Matsui and Cano will let them. Matsui (2 homers tonight) seems all the way back to his solid self.

2. A-Rod (0 for 5) headed for his second mini-slump of the season? Sitting on 499 as we speak.

3. A good strategy for Moose's starts: score thirteen runs. Seriously, starts like these for the rest of the year should be sufficient.

4. Not trading a prime pitching prospect to obtain Texiera was the smart move.

5. Professional trading deadlines have lost their allure. When was the last big deadline move in major league baseball? The Astros acquiring the Unit in '98? The days of the Braves aquiring Fred McGriff, or the Tigers acquiring Doyle Alexander, or the Red Sox acquiring Mike Boddicker--in other words, a July trade that will transform a pennant race or postseason, is all but over. No one wants to be the GM who gives up the next Jeff Bagwell for a Larry Andersen, or--for all the help Alexander was in '87, going 9-1 down the stretch as the Tigers beat the Blue Jays by one game--a John Smoltz for a Doyle Alexander. It was telling that the biggest trade this week was not even a baseball trade, it was a basketball one: Garnett to the Celtics (for, as Sill Simmons pointed out, the Al Jefferson poo-poo platter). Nobody in baseball wants to trade even a B-prospect, even for a retiring contract, which is why the Astros started the weekend with four third basemen and, after all the wheeling and dealing, were left with three. Mark Loretta is a .300 hitter who can play all four infield positions; Mike Lamb is a middling-fielding third baseman who can hit .290 with some pop. Both will turn free agent after this season; with Ty Wigginton (probably less talented than either of them) locked in for two more seasons, both will leave after this season, leaving the Astros nothing. The Astros, with nothing left to play for this season, will get nothing for them. And what they were offered for Lamb and Loretta was not enough to move them, even under these circumstances. Telling.

6. The one exception to all of the above may be Gagne, who a) may prove a difference in the playoffs, and b) may come at the price of a few future All-Stars. We'll see

Sons of El Duque

One of the more annoying tropes in contemporary sportswriting and--more often--broadcasting is the habit of portraying Cuban athletes as patriotic, altruistic amateurs in positive contrast to (this part is more or less compulsory) "greedy, spoiled, millionaire" American athletes. Every four years--usually right before the Olympics--we are treated to one TV reporter after another standing in front of Castro's sanitized Havana ballyard, every one of them reading from the same script: "No million-dollar contracts. No hold-outs. No strikes. These ballplayers do it for the love of the game, and for love of country."

What crap.

There has been a lot not to like about American sports lately, or pro sports in general: from Michael Vick's hobbies to Barry Bonds's joyless, soulless pursuit of 756. But don't anyone get Cuba wrong. These players may love the game--how could they not? They may love their country. But they don't play for "love of country." They play because Cuba is a penal colony run by a sadistic madman. They play because living conditions are marginally better for productive athletes than the normal run of Cubans--you know, the beneficiaries of Fidel Castro's marvelous health care system, the system in which aspirin and Pepto-Bismol are sold on the black market. These ballplayers don't strike because if they attempted to form a union they would be thrown into dungeons and probably tortured while the world looked the other way.

The only proof one needs is this: how many Cubans leave when they get the chance?

Answer: a lot. And good for them.

The latest from the Pan Am Games.

Yankees 10, Orioles 6

How are these for statistics:

Damon gets three hits, to raise his average--to .247.

Hope that fifty million spends well.

Vizcaino and Kardiac Kyle: 2 innings, four hits, three earned runs.

Another big red-letter day for the non-Rivera Yankee bullpen.

To mention no one else, Dave Wheeler from Houston was there for the asking.

Gagne--as Sun Devil Joe reports--wants to close.

So? So paging Chamberlain.

Birds 7, Yankees 5

So someone tell me again about the Yankees' revamped bullpen (remember April?).

The word is, Kardiac Kyle and Proctor are on the way out, while the three stooges (Bruney, Myers, Viz) couldn't be given away. Can ANYONE here pitch the seventh and eighth?

Yanks split

Or not.

Royals 7, Yankees 0

Iga . . . I-gaw . . .

Hughes. Package for Mr. Philip Hughes.

Yankees 7, Royals 1

But of course the Tribe has to rise up and beat the Sawx, 1-0.

A-rod, Matsui, Moose, Cano--good show you.

Yankees 9, Royals 4

Ah, to root for a team on a streak. Yanks-Royals, inexplicably blocked from my cable offerings tonight. So I'm left turning to ESPN, to see 5-0, then 6-0, then 7-0 Yanks.

Wang on the mound.

Good afternoon, and good night.

4 1/2 out.

Yankees 9, Royals 2

5 1/2 behind Cleveland.

Yankees 21, D-Rays 4

But make no mistake: 9-3 these past two weeks, coming out of the break, was probably the minimum in the Don't Have to Panic sweepstakes.

Heorics from A-Rod, of course. A nice showing by the kid Duncan.

But, barring a trade, the Yankee offense will go as the tortured trio of Abreu, Cano, and Matsui perform down the stretch (12-for-16 today, 21-for-29 the past two games, but against Tampa, folks). If Duncan can play, at least in the short run, if Melky moves to center field permanently and can produce at a .280-.290 clip with speed and the occasional pop, if Damon gives them anything at all in limited work (is .250 too much to ask?), 900 runs (I almost wrote "wins") are within reach. And we can forget the short-sighted "Texiera for Hughes" trade talks, and other such moves clear out of 1982.

They got their substitute catcher. He's a Molina. Fine by me.

Now . . . we await Hughes to return and replace Igawa, or maybe (ha ha) Moose.

Padraig Harrington wins British--oh, sorry, "The Open"

Luck O' the Irish indeed.

Where else but at Carnoustie does a golfer go water, penalty, water, penalty, up, and then down for a double bogie on the 72nd hole . . . and find himself in a playoff?

I would have loved it, incidentally, if Harrington had bounced his tee shot on 18 over the bridge in regulation. I've skipped so many shots over so many bridges at the local courses my friends have come to calling the shot my "Irish wedge."

So? So Sergio, given a seven-footer for the victory on 18, lips it out. Then Harrington wins in a playoff.

Up the Irish, as my Nanny used to say, especially when listening to Harrington's post-match interview: "I love me Claret Jug almost as much as me Lucky Charms."

Yankees 7, D-Back 3; Yankees 17, D-Backs 5

We all have those moments. If if if . . . if the light turns green, I would be sick all winter.

First game, fourth inning. I called up the score: 2-0 D-Backs.

"If they lose this game," I said aloud, "The season is over."

The first game was why naps exist.

Well, put it this way: I am continually in search of Christmas morning in my life. GSB will remember my habit at a restaurant: Order my food, wait five minutes, go to the restroom. In a perfect world, upon my return, Ah! My Mexican Flag Chicken. Or my Chicken Parm. My dinner, in short steamy and waiting for me at my place.

Christmas morning.

So, to recapitulate:

2-0 D-Backs. The Yankees' worst starting pitcher, Igawa, was on the mound, and wriggling out of one jam after another. (If this were Office Space, Brian Cashman would be perusing Igawa's performance file, and saying, "Iga . . . wa, I . . . ga . . . wa . . . Igawanting another job soon, anyway, ha ha ha," right before promoting That Guy from Swingers to Assistant to the Travelling Secretary.)

Clouds rolling in. Houston. 51 days of rain out of the last 53.

In other words, time for a nap.

I slept. I awoke. And it was a new day.

Down 2-0 in the fourth of Game 1, the Yankees outscored the D-Backs 24-6 over the next 14 innings to sweep, and put themselves back in.

What is happening here is no fluke. More than anything, the quiet bats of May and June have heated up, specifically Cano, Abreu and Matsui (combined 9-for-13 in the nightcap). A-Rod came out of his mini-slump ten games ago, Jeter and Posada have stayed steady all season, and Melky is, well, growing in office. (What's the over-under on the Yankees' attempt to eat Damon's contract? Does he really have three years to go after this one? Who do they think they are, the Knicks?)

Make no mistake: there are huge holes here. SunDevil Joe reported some a few nights ago. They need a second catcher, some power at first base, some more power from the right side, and one more arm in the bullpen, with Kardiac Kyle's days apparently numbered. (Kyle might be the one commodity the Yanks could part with without too much pain--especially in the National League, where he could feast on pinch-hitters in the late innings.)

But take a look at the Astros these days and see how things might have easily gone coming out of the break.

Now, some hope.

Devil Rays 14, Yankees 4

Well, my illness seems to have vanished.

Now Mussina is killing me.

Blue Jays 3, Yankees 2

Five-game winning streak, Two-oh lead for the staff ace, make it six . . .

. . . Ah, never mind.

Yankees 6, Blue Jays 2

Second late-inning comeback in as many nights.

For the division and Wild Card, we are around the 6-8 game margin.

Just enough to merit frustration, just enough to blow in 5 days.

Anybody know when Hughes is back? Wang, Rocket, Pettitte, Hughes, Moose. Go to war there.

What is the over/under on Kardiac Kyle? End of the month?

Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2 (10)

Just the sort of win to give you hope.

Unlike my other favorite team, the Astros, who broke from the break by losing four straight and essentially end their season (there are precisely two reasons to continue watching the Astros: the competent work of Carlos Lee and the sparkling play of rookie Hunter Pence, both of whom homered last night), the Yanks have given us reason to suspect the season will have some meaning after all.

Yankees 6, Bloue Jays 4

Winning when Igawa starts feels like sweeping a double header.

D-Rays 6, Yanks 4

Better today, enough to eat solid food.

And to awake to a country going insane--sixty years from now, the voices preaching retreat from Iraq, today, will sound as insane and narrow-minded as those of Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and the rest of Appeasement-minded England of the 1930s sound today.

And to a McCain campaign closer to the end than most people realize.

And to a world in which Roger Clemens gets thumped by Tampa.

Yankees 7, D-Rays 3

Well, that was interesting.

Tuesday and Wednesday this week, I was laid up with coughing that felt like lightening bolts inside my chest (and reminded me of my younger bout with asthma, the affliction that prompted me to take up jogging), along with dry-throat choking that was the breathing equivalent of bone-on-bone, plus a fever that crept ever upward.

In college and grad school, I used to bargain with my illnesses, managing them off so that they fell between semesters, or if necessary after large exams. One memorable Christmas Day, 1985, my mother drove me to John C. Lincoln Hospital in Phoenix, where my throat and fever were attended to by Jewish doctors who had traded their chits so they might have off Passover and Rosh Hashannah.

I think, in middle age, I'm approaching something much like the reverse of bargaining: that is, illnesses that specifically avoid weekends and vacation time and falls smack in the middle of work.

Case in point: I'd accumulated enough vacation time to take Monday and Tuesday off every week, plus a full week in August. This one week, the start of the second half of summer school, would be the lone exception.

This week happens to be, famously, the most boring sports week of the year (outside of the three weeks between the Super Bowl and pitchers-and-catchers-report, the regular season of the NBA having long since lost their allure for me). I'll watch the All-Star Game next year, in (Old?, do we call it that yet?) Yankee Stadium, but, really, after three months of the Yankees and Astros, I needed a break from baseball as much as they did. The only glimpses of baseball I watched all week were when Home Run Derby went an hour-plus over and I had to keep re-configuring the DVR to make sure I caught all of the first episode of "The Bronx is Burning." Then it was back to Friends with Money, or whatever Astro-Girl and I watched that night. Of the All-Star game, I saw the last out, and accidentally.

So: no sports to excite me, and no vacation to entice me.

Bingo: this was the week to get sick.

A lot of illness and fever has gone around in Houston--which, starting the night of my bachelor party (May 31st) straight through my wedding day (June 2), then through all of June, then through half of July, gave us 45 days of rain out of a possible 47. Essentially, the wind kept blowing in off the Gulf of Mexico and kept the same cloud bank in place for a month-and-a-half. When I was first laid low, I thought: Hmm: damp, rainy, bad chest cold, nothing. As the rain beat outside, I settled in for a comfy two days off and all twelve hours of Brideshead Revisited on DVD.

When, Thursday morning, I lept out of bed in a coughing and choking spasm, I recovered my wits and then thought: Hmm, off to the doctor.

And to the verdict.

Pneumonia.

No, really: pneumonia. And I suddenly felt like a heroine in a Bronte novel, whose first delicate cough was a prelude to a deathbed scene fifty pages hence.

I guess I had "walking" pneumonia, because I was able to have the perscription filled under my own power.

And here's the good part.

A day with the inhaler, a day-and-a-half eith anti-biotics, and the illness retreated at least over the nearest bluff and let me concentrate on . . .

Tonight's game. Pettitte solid, A-Rod, Jeter. Only one game, but nice.

This is the patch of season to make their move and win games in bunches.

"The Bronx Is Burning" premieres tonight

Oh, please, please, please, Dear God, don't let this thing suck.

In the pantheon of my sports-viewing life, four teams have stood out for me as the epitome of success, class, effort and teamwork: Larry Bird's Celtics, the Brady/Belichek Patriots, Pete Carroll and Matt Leinart's Trojans, and Joe Torre's Yankees, circa 1996-2001.

(Jake Plummer's ASU Sun Devils, by missing out on the prize by 19 seconds, are barely nosed off my personal Mount Rushmore. And the 1972 Boston Bruins, my first encounter with a champion always seemed a minor disappointment; this team, not Montreal, should have been to the seventies what the Islanders, and later the Oilers, were to the 1980s.)

The 1976-78 were, by any definition, a successful team: three pennants in a row, two World Series in a row--by all accounts, quite an impressive run against a field top-heavy with 90-plus-win teams: Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Kansas City, and--most fatefully--the Boston Red Sox, the only team in Divisional Play history to win 198 games in consecutive seasons ('77 and '78) and have nothing to show for it.

However: what made the Yankees so compelling was not just their superb play on the field, but the ongoing off-the-field drama that existed, so openly and so luridly, day after day. What was clear, just by reading the Phoenix Gazette and Sports Illustrated, was a four-part melodrama featuring Thurman Munson, Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner. What became clear, as the years passed, was that, in Roger Angell's account in the New Yorker, never a more joyless clubhouse existed. Whole factions of the teams despised other factions; Munson, Graig Nettles, Sparky Lyle and Lou Piniella barely bothered to hide their hostility toward Jackson; Jackson talked to third-string catcher Fran Healy and almost no one else; young Willie Randolph withdrew so much he earned the nickname "Corporal Moody" from Nettles; Mickey Rivers was forever piling up gambling debts and begging for advances on his salary; and Catfish Hunter, Chris Chambliss, Roy White, Ron Guidry did their best to stand clear of the whole mess.

Heading the team was bombastic George Steinbrenner--ranting to reporters during games, phoning the dugout to demands pitching changes--and manager Billy Martin, whose brilliance as a game tactician and judgment of talent was done in by his vast insecurity and his drinking.

The only really joyful part of the Yankees was between the lines--when, as has been repeated a thousand times, "they took their fight out of the clubhouse and onto the field."

In a proper world, the mini-series that starts tonight would capture at least some of that.

Maybe. But maybe not.