Tagged: NY Daily News
Which MVP Candidate Did Mark Feinsand Vote For?
Mark Feinsand’s “Blogging the Bombers” blog in the Daily News is one of the best, so I went straight to the source to find out who will win the big award.
(That’s Mark on the right. Not sure who his friend is.)
Will it be….
Or…
Or…
Or even….
I asked Mark which player he voted for. As you’ll see, I really, really tried to get answers, but I guess I’m a really, really lame reporter.
http://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/jwplayer.swfhttp://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/embedded-xnl-stats.swf
Update: Congratulations, Joe Mauer! (And interesting that Tex came in second ahead of Jeter.)
Waiting For My Flight To NY
So here I am, sitting in the Delta Crown Room at LAX, wondering when my 10:20 a.m. flight to JFK will ever take off.
Apparently, this is happening on the East Coast?
They’re telling us we’ll start boarding at 11:40, but somebody else said it would be more like 12:40 – if that.
How to occupy myself? I tried reading the papers, but who wants to see this in the Post?
YANKEES WINLESS VS. RED SOX
Or this in the Daily News?
Red Sox rough up Chien-Ming Wang, extend win streak over Yankees to 7
Too depressing.
I thought about walking around interviewing other passengers with the She-Fan Cam. But they’re all talking on their cell phones and looking very….intense.
So I ordered a glass of wine. Yeah, it’s 10:38 in the morning, but it’s free and I’m terrified of flying into the storm.
And now that I have a little buzz, I can free associate about tonight’s finale against the Red Sox. My flight was supposed to land in plenty of time for me to catch most of the game, but who knows at this point.
So here’s what I think will happen, weather permitting.
* CC will shut down the Sox hitters and throw a complete game.
* A-Rod will shock the clever “You do steroids” chanters with a blast into the seats.
* Melky will emerge from the slump he’s been in since his shoulder injury.
* Jeter will stop swinging at the first pitch and, instead, torment the Red Sox with his patented inside-out singles.
* Tex will go on another offensive tear.
* Cano will walk.
Alcohol is a beautiful thing.
Report: “A-Rod’s Recovery Way Ahead Of Schedule”
According to the Daily News, A-Rod is doing well following surgery less than a week ago. “He’s in a good frame of mind,” said Joe Girardi.
Yeah, but how good? That’s what I wanted to know. The Daily News article mentioned that the patient is no longer dependent on these…
and that he’s about to continue his post-surgery rehab here.
But come on, what else? I needed more details than that. So I hopped on a plane back to Colorado and went in search of A-Rod to gauge his recovery for myself.
I landed in Vail, a picturesque village whose mountains were still capped with snow.
After getting my bearings (the flight was very turbulent), I asked the townspeople if they could direct me to A-Rod.
“He’s renting the Miller estate,” said the guy wearing the white cap.
I asked for the address, which he was kind enough to write down on a piece of paper for me.
“You can’t miss it,” he said. “It’s on the market for $10 million. This A-Rod of yours must be loaded.”
“He’s comfortable,” I replied. My mother taught me never to say the word “rich.”
I took a cab to the Miller estate.
I rang the bell and waited several minutes until a man – not Cousin Yuri but a butler – answered the door.
“Um, hi,” I said. “Is A-Rod home? Tell him it’s She-Fan just checking on his progress.”
“Mr. Rodriguez is not here,” he said. “He is engaging in some rather intensive rehabilitation for his hip.”
“Could you tell me where I could find him?”
“I suppose.”
Reluctantly, he gave me an address and off I went – only to be shocked by what I discovered. A-Rod was not only walking without crutches; he was walking really fast.
I tried to keep up, so I could pepper him with questions, but he got away from me.
An hour later, I tracked him down and was even more shocked when I saw how rigorously he was rehabbing in the pool.
I tried to speak to him, but he was underwater. And as soon as he came up for air, he was gone again – this time to a place where I couldn’t reach him.
“A-ROD!” I called up to him. “DON’T YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE PUSHING IT?”
He ignored me. When I turned away, only for an instant, he was gone yet again. Apparently, there was another exercise program on his agenda.
“YOU NEED SUPERVISION!” I yelled to him. “SOMEBODY SHOULD BE SPOTTING YOU!”
I hailed another cab and followed him to a local skating rink. This time he was not exercising alone.
Wow, I thought. This man is bionic.
After A-Rod and his partner finished their routine, they went back to the Miller estate to relax.
I felt like an intruder, but I asked him how he was feeling.
“Good,” he said. “Better than good. Please tell Yankee fans that my recovery is way ahead of schedule.”
“Will do.”
I was about to leave when A-Rod got up from the table and said he wanted to prove just how ahead-of-schedule his recovery is. All I can say is, I hope Dr. Phillipon knows what he’s doing.
An Open Letter To “Yankee Faithful” – Stand By Your Man!
This article in today’s Daily News really bothered me. The Yankee fans that were interviewed expressed their wish that Joe Torre could manage the ’09 Yankees; they don’t think Joe Girardi is up to the task.
Memo to them: The torch has been passed.
Torre had a great run and I was terribly sad to see him go, as I made clear in The New York Times. But he’s gone. He’s with the Dodgers. Cashman and Company picked Girardi over Mattingly (and Pena), and he’s the one who’s been sitting in the manager’s office for a year now. In other words, it’s time to rally around him.
Did his rookie year go smoothly? No. Were there “issues” right from Day 1? Sure. A few examples:
* Ian Kennedy was supposed to make a start, but it was raining. So Girardi ended up using him in relief. A head-scratcher.
* Girardi seemed to shuffle the lineup almost daily. At first I thought he was being creative. Then I decided he was being disruptive. Players like to show up for a game not having to wonder about their status from day to day. This year he needs to establish a plan and stick to it, barring injuries.
* Speaking of player injuries, Girardi had a very tough time explaining their various ailments to the beat writers, as if he’d be giving away state secrets. His evasiveness came to a head at the end of the season with the mystery surrounding Mo’s shoulder. A testy press conference ensued.
* Cano wasn’t getting it done, and Girardi waited until September to bench him. Hard to fathom.
* Girardi used Wilson Betemit in situations where even I would have been a better option. Seriously. And he had an odd attachment to Kyle Farnsworth, even though the rest of us hid our eyes whenever Farnsy came in to relieve.
* Girardi banned candy and junk food from the clubhouse, and there were rumors that the veteran players thought he was too uptight.
All that said, the man wants to win badly and he’s got a lot of heart.
He’s not cool and collected like Torre. He doesn’t sit on the bench sipping green tea. He doesn’t even sit – he stands constantly, clenching his jaw and looking like he’s living and dying with every pitch. Nothing laid back about this Joe.
Sometimes he loses it completely.
But don’t we want our manager to be passionate? Fiery? A risk-taker?
I laugh at those who say, “Girardi would have to be an idiot not to be able to manage the team the Yankees are handing him.”
Really? If the job were so easy, why did Jim Leyland have such a tough time in Detroit last year? He’s arguably one of the best managers in the game. Certainly one of the most experienced.
With all the talk of Girardi’s “short leash” should the Yankees get off to a slow start, I’m standing by my man. He wasn’t necessarily my pick to replace Torre; I vacillated between him and Mattingly. He doesn’t have a provocative bestseller on the shelves. Nobody calls him the “Sinatra of Baseball.” He doesn’t hang out with Billy Crystal. But he’s my manager, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.
What I’m saying is that I plan on us staying together – for the sake of the kids.
Misbehaving Jocks, Sparring Siblings And Other Issues Of The Day
Readers of the NY Daily News already saw this roundup today, but I just couldn’t help myself from posting it for others.
Which is your favorite meltdown? And which ones did they miss?
(Warning: Don’t eat before viewing the Mike Tyson snackathon.)
We’ve all had temper tantrums, although I think it’s safe to say we haven’t had them in front of a national audience or been injected with steroids before having them. Well, at least I haven’t. I’ve never used PEDs in order to gain an advantage over other bloggers, not even those front-runners over at Red State Blue State. Seriously. I’m clean. Never dabbled in the cream or the clear. Ask George Mitchell.
Speaking of whom, baseball’s steroids czar has been named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be the special envoy for Arab-Israeli affairs. No kidding. Mitchell made peace between the warring nations of our sport and now he’s going to make peace in the Middle East? Good luck with that.
And while I’m on the subject of steroids, how about Mark McGwire’s younger brother Jay?
(Jay is the desperately tanned bodybuilder; Mark is the midget-sized man on the right.)
As was reported on deadspin and MLB.com and now in today’s NY Times, baby brother Jay has been shopping a book proposal about how he turned Mark on to ‘roids. Never mind that the proposal is full of inaccuracies, and contradicts statements made by others; it’s just plain badly written. Sorry, guy, but not only are you a lousy person for ratting out a family member – you didn’t even bother to use Spell Check!
I really hope my older sister Susan Alexander, a faithful reader of this blog even though she doesn’t ever leave comments, will restrain herself from shopping a tell-all about me. Because hear this, Sue: You won’t get a penny for it. My life isn’t that interesting and you know it. Plus, as I said before, I’m clean.
Well, sure, I’ve made mistakes, sis. I was bratty when I was little. I get that.
And I experimented with cigarettes in your room one night and burned a hole in your precious bedspread.
And, yes, even though you said I had to stop sneaking around in your closet, I did it anyway – the second you left the house.
And, O.K. There was that time in high school – just one time – when you told me I absolutely, positively couldn’t take your new car out for a spin….and yet I did.
I swear I didn’t mean to park it so close to the meter and cause that huge scratch across the passenger side door. I only had my learner’s permit! What did you expect?
You never had temper tantrums like the athletes at the top of this post, Sue. So please. Don’t have one now. Leave the books to me, all right?
Off Topic: Men Dressing Like Women
I was feeling bored with the Hot Stove season – it really should be called the Lukewarm Stove season at this point – so I took refuge in other, non-sports sections of newspapers today. What a revelation! It turns out that men are wearing pantyhose. Not only that, these male pantyhose have a little name of their own: mantyhose.
Check out the story in the Daily News if you don’t believe me. I asked my husband if he would ever wear mantyhose, and he said: “You’re out of your ******* mind.” (Yeah, he cursed me. I retaliated by hiding the TV remote.)
After I was finished reading the papers, I jumped on to the blogs. And what did I find? More cross-dressing. Alex over at Coast-to-Coast Baseball posted this old clip of Jeter’s guest stint on “Saturday Night Live.” I bet Jeet is wearing mantyhose. Take a look. The sound quality isn’t great, so turn up the volume.
I bet David Wells is wearing mantyhose too. Who knew he had such shapely legs?
Was It Really a “Wasted Year?”
When I was on the road following the Yankees last year, voicing my distress about the team’s horrible first half to Mark Feinsand of the NY Daily News, he said, “Yankee fans have to appreciate how hard it is to win.” That line made it into the book. What got cut in the editing process was what he added. “Derek Jeter always says a season is a waste if you don’t win the World Series. I completely disagree with his all-or-nothing philosophy, because it’s trickled down to the fans, and I think it’s a shame.”
And now here is Jeter, telling Kevin Kernan of the NY Post the same thing: “This year was a waste.”
Was it? Obviously, it was disappointing. Clearly, we all wanted not only to make the postseason but to win a 27th world championship. No question, we were hopeful that Joe Girardi and the kids (not just Hughes and Kennedy, but Shelley Duncan too) would succeed.
But a waste? I beg to differ. I watched just about every game this season and there were pleasures to be had. In no particular order:
* Molina throwing out runners. Great job by a second string catcher who stepped up when Posada went down.
* Damon re-emerging as a solid leadoff hitter, batting .300 and running the bases like the Damon of old.
* The Veras-Bruney-Ramirez bullpen making a strong showing for most of the season. Once Joba moved to the starting rotation and Farnsworth and Hawkins were dealt/DFA’d, they got the job done and were later joined by Robertson, Coke, Marte and Giese. Bruney was good before his injury and even better after, and Coke has been a revelation.
* Joba adjusting from the pen to the rotation, seemingly with ease. Personally, I like him in the pen as heir apparent to Mo, but either way I’m flippin’ glad he’s on my team.
* Mo having one of his best years ever. The guy is 39! Now we hear he has a shoulder problem and pitched with pain all season, which makes his performance that much more amazing.
* Mussina coming back from a dismal year to become our ace. I sure hope he gets win #20 tomorrow. No one deserves it more.
* Abreu shining yet again at the plate. Six straight seasons with 100 RBIs, 20 homers and 20 stolen bases. Not too shabby.
* A-Rod putting up good numbers in an “off year.” Love him or hate him, I’m glad he opted in as our third basemen or we’d be talking about Joe Crede. I’ll take those 35 homers and 100+ RBIs any day.
* Nady landing in Yankeeville. The guy reminds me of the gritty Tino and Brosius and O’Neill. With a little more patience at the plate, he could be outstanding.
* Gardner speeding around the bases. Who knows if he’ll be able to hit consistently, but he was a spark plug late in the season when we needed one.
* Aceves showing some promise as a possible starter next year. Either that, or he’ll end up being the “Mexican Chase Wright,” as Peter Abraham called him.
* Jeter breaking Lou Gehrig’s record for hits at Yankee Stadium. Hello, Derek? Was making history this season really a waste? I didn’t think so.
Any other thoughts while I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy?
Confessions of a She-Fan 