Baseball revenge

In Cuba, baseball has always been political. When the sport was introduced in the 1860s by a Cuban returning from studies in the U.S., Cubans saw it as a way to distance themselves from their Spanish colonial rulers, who favored bullfighting. U.S. teams traveled to Havana for spring-training games, and Cuban players thrived in the U.S.

This is from an utterly fascinating article in today's Journal about historical memory, both on a personal and national level, political and sports fanaticism, human tragedy and suffering, human arrogance and hubris, and about baseball.

The romaticism attached by some to Fidel Castro's name on a macro level is, as is so often the case, damaged (to say the least) when examined on a micro level. The one aspect of the Cuban Revolution that has always stuck in my craw is the need for Cuban authorities to prevent people from leaving the island if they so choose. That changes political revolution to military dictatorship, and whether by the vanguard of the proleteriat or any other person or group, dictatorship is dictatorship.

Who? Babe. Babe who?

Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. - Babe Ruth in the outfield, taken from a newly discovered film taken by an amateur photographer.















Joe Porciello, right, a producer at MLB Network film archives and Frank Caputo, the video library manager, looking at archival baseball footage.
















There's video in the story

October 9, 2009
Babe Ruth Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before
By JOHN BRANCH

SECAUCUS, N.J. — Babe Ruth has struck out looking. Displeased, he leans on his bat, right hand on his hip, and looks back at the umpire. He utters something that can only be imagined. Lou Gehrig, on deck, leans on his bat, too, as if he has seen this act before. Ruth finally shuffles away, head turned to the umpire, dragging his bat through the dirt.

The scene, along with eight seconds of footage of Ruth playing the outfield, was found by a New Hampshire man in his grandfather’s home movie collection. It provides a rare look at Ruth, a showman even in defeat.

No American sport has a past as deep and cherished as baseball’s. But precious little of the sport’s history is preserved in moving images. Much occurred before the television age, leaving only grainy, scattershot clips culled from newsreels and home movies — and rarely do the clips show a player of Ruth’s stature.

The newly arrived Ruth film is part of the video collection of Major League Baseball Productions, the league’s official archivist, which spans more than 100 years and includes about 150,000 hours of moving images. Most of the collection is stored in plastic cases that line metal shelves of a room labeled “Major League Baseball Film and Video Archive.” The overflow is stored a few miles away in Fort Lee.

Pieces of the collection receive wide circulation during baseball’s postseason each fall. Fans will see clips sprinkled through this year’s television broadcasts, including highlights of the 1959 World Series (won by the Los Angeles Dodgers) and Dodgers Manager Joe Torre playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, his team’s first-round opponent. Older clips will be seen repeatedly on commercials from the likes of Pepsi and Budweiser, which are corporate sponsors.

The latest Babe Ruth film, unseen publicly until now, is part of a 90-second clip shot from the first-base stands at Yankee Stadium. There is no sound. But there are sweeping views of the park. And there is Ruth, obvious by his shape and waddle.

He is shown in right field, hands on his knees, glove on his right hand. To a casual fan, it appears unremarkable. But it represents the archive’s only game action of Ruth playing in the outfield — where he spent more than 2,200 games — other than a between-innings game of catch.

Nick Trotta, baseball’s manager of library licensing, took a look at the newly arrived Ruth clip first. He realized it was something he had not seen before. When others saw it, it was “wow, wow, wow,” Mr. Trotta said.

The trick with the Ruth clip was to decipher when the film was shot and who else appears in it. That is where Major League Baseball’s video library turns into “CSI: Secaucus.” The archivists Joe Porciello and Frank Caputo — Yankees fans from Queens and Brooklyn — have starring roles.

Mr. Porciello, 47, began his baseball archivist career as a teenager 29 years ago. His main role is to fill the steady requests for clips, often for movies, television shows and commercials. (Varying fees are charged for such commercial requests.) Networks covering baseball often make last-minute requests — none more than MLB Network, which broadcasts from just down the hall.

Ask Mr. Porciello for a clip — say, of the Chicago White Sox wearing shorts for one game in 1976 — and he will have Chet Lemon, in shorts, on his screen moments later.

But to learn the names of every other player in the clip, ask Mr. Caputo.

“I probably know better how to find things,” Mr. Porciello said. “And he’s better at knowing what it is. He’s more the Rain Man.”

Mr. Caputo, 54, was a Wall Street credit analyst who hated his job but loved history. In 1995 he answered a call for a sports librarian, and got the job.

Now he mostly scrolls through forgotten film, perhaps found by a team in a ballpark closet somewhere or discovered by Mr. Caputo himself as he scrounges through the Fort Lee facility.

A 1970s-era regular-season game between the Cubs and the Giants was plopped into the machine to demonstrate how the video detectives work. Within 30 seconds they determined the game took place in 1975. The feat was even more amazing because the material was viewed on fast forward, a blur on the screen.

“Wait!” Mr. Caputo said. “That blond kid might be Nick Swisher’s father.”

Sure enough, in the dugout was Steve Swisher, then a 23-year-old catcher on his way to journeyman status. Five years later, in 1980, he became the father of Nick Swisher, now a member of the Yankees.

“We’ll use this for the playoffs,” Mr. Porciello said, making a mental note to pass it on to television producers.

It was not until 1998, when Major League Baseball took over the archives from a long string of licensees, that every pitch of every game was archived. Now, the collection grows annually by about 10,000 hours.

By comparison, all the well-worn images of Ruth — hitting home runs, trotting bases, mugging for cameras — fit onto an hourlong tape.

The latest Ruth clip requires further examination to understand more about that particular game. Mr. Porciello, Mr. Caputo and others have not investigated fully, but they believe, as does the film’s donor, that it was shot in 1928.

The players have no numbers on their backs; the Yankees began wearing them in 1929. (Most other teams started in 1932.) Gehrig took over as a starter (famously, from Wally Pipp) in 1925. Advertisements in the outfield, including on the fence, match photographs from 1928.

The seats are full and the shadows long, so archivists think it might be opening day or the World Series. The opposing team is not clear, so uniform designs will be studied and various team rosters will be examined for heights and weights of players at particular positions. Archivists sometimes will compare body language to other clips of the era.

To learn the game’s exact date, archivists will look at newspaper accounts, weather reports and box scores to see when Ruth struck out. They know that Ruth struck out in Games 1 and 2 of the 1928 World Series, both at Yankee Stadium, against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Whatever the final analysis, it eliminates another clip from the lengthy wish list of Mr. Porciello and Mr. Caputo.

“But we still have no footage of Babe pitching for the Red Sox,” Mr. Porciello said, referring to Ruth’s early years as an accomplished pitcher.

Mr. Caputo turned around. An argument ensued. Trips were made to the shelves. Black-and-white images whizzed by on monitors.

In the end, Mr. Porciello was right; Mr. Caputo was thinking of a clip showing Ruth pitching for a barnstorming team.

There is no film of Ruth pitching in a game for the Red Sox. Or, other than for some warm-up pitches, for the Yankees, either.

Not yet, at least.

Justice Sotomayor is making the rounds, it seems. First, dancing; then, baseball.

The annual gala of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts is known for drawing the stars -- but a D.C. luminary outshone the Hollywood kind Tuesday night. Justice Sonia Sotomayor would have been the belle of the ball even if she had never left her table, so the room exploded when actor Esai Morales pulled the Supreme Court's first Latino member onto the dance floor for an impressively confident salsa. (More story here; meanwhile you can see more video coverage of the Noche Musical gala at Washington Life's site.)

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dancing the mambo with Esai Morales from Washington Life Magazine on Vimeo.

September 26, 2009, 6:05 pm
Justice Sotomayor Throws Out First Pitch
By Jack Curry
The New York Yankees

Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic to be named a Supreme Court justice, performed in a much different capacity at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Sotomayor was a smiling Yankees fan who got to toss out the first pitch before the Yankees played the Boston Red Sox.
Sonia SotomayorJared Wickerham/Getty Images Sonia Sotomayor, a die-hard Yankees fan, threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium on Saturday.


After Jorge Posada escorted Sotomayor to a spot about 15 feet in front of the mound, Sotomayor, who was wearing a Yankees jersey, paused and took a deep breath. She then flipped the ball to catcher Jose Molina, who was crouching in front of the plate.

Sotomayor, a native of the Bronx, was briefly considered to throw out the first pitch at the Stadium 14 years ago. In 1995, Sotomayor, who was a federal district court judge in Manhattan at the time, issued a temporary injunction to end the baseball strike. When play resumed, the Yankees thought about inviting Sotomayor to throw out the first pitch. But the idea was tabled after Sotomayor suggested it would be inappropriate.

Who is the bright guy?

In today's Wall Street Journal there is a full page a kind of parody the the lost baseball season of the New York Mets: it details the woes that have beset the team this year. An interactive version takes it further. Both include this gem: "Starting in 2011, you must pay Bobby Bonilla, who hasn't played for you in a decade, $1.2 million every year until 2035."

Bonilla retired in 2001. I remember him from his days in Pittsburgh, when he and Barry Bonds were a great 1-2 punch. The Mets signed him as a free agent, and gave him a $29 million contract. The 1991 article has it this way:

Bonilla received a $1.5 million signing bonus, and will earn salaries of $5.5 million in 1992, $5.6 million in 1993, $5.7 million in 1994, $4.7 million in 1995 and $4.5 million in 1996. He will also receive $1.5 million for commercial endorsements.

That is 29 million, indeed, but clearly the exact arrangements weren't detailed, or, perhaps, known. So, now it turns out, there were deferred payments. One point five million a year for 25 years is $37.5 million, which is more than the original value of the contract. Yes, I know the arguments about the discounted value of cash flows over time, about present value versus future value, but the fact remains that 20 years after signing, and for the subsequent 25 years, the man is going to receive a million and a half dollars every year. Nice annuity.

O, and who was the bright guy who approved that contract?

Bad numbers

These numbers are appalling. The maximum scores are 800 in each category; the overall averages in each category are around 500, barely over 60% of the possible total. This should be considered a national disgrace, and should place the issue at the top of the critical priorities for the nation, instead of so much hot air and hate being spewed about the Second Amendment, purported death panels and the onrush of socialism.

Consider the average black score in the reading category is 100 points less than the average white score; same 100 points in writing; and 160 points than the average Asian score in Math.

Hispanic numbers are marginally better (26, 35, 27 points) than black numbers. Curiously, they exclude Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans, which raises two questions: why? and where are those numbers?

Another story in today's Journal, about a baseball player, contained a parallel number: Torii Hunter grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as did his half-brother.

Mr. Hunter and Mr. Thurman both graduated from high school, but many of their peers did not. The state's high-school graduation rate for black males is 61%, but only 29% of black students who start high school in Pine Bluff are considered college-ready when they leave, according to Marcus Winters, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

29% of black high school graduates are ready for college; what are the other 71% ready for?

The image is not reversed: Benny Distefano was a left-handed catcher in the majors 20 years ago. No lefty has played the position since.














August 16, 2009

Left-Handed Catchers Left Out

by Alan Schwarz

The letters keep coming. Every few weeks, Benny Distefano will open his mail and find a letter from a Little Leaguer, or a parent of one, asking for advice. He is the only person they know who understands.

Twenty years ago this Tuesday, Distefano, then a hanging-on major leaguer, served as a left-handed catcher in a major league baseball game. No one has done so since. Like Ladies Night and pitchers named Wilbur, left-handed catchers are effectively extinct — for reasons on which there is bizarrely little consensus.

“I have no idea,” said Joe Mauer, the Minnesota Twins’ All-Star catcher (right-handed, naturally).

“Is it because there are more right-handed hitters?” offered Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann.

“There’s been nobody come into a game for 20 years? Really?” said a nonplussed Joe Torre, an All-Star catcher throughout the 1960s. “Well, first off, left-handed pitchers don’t throw the ball straight.”

Pittsburgh Pirates - Benny Distefano, in 1989, extended his career by catching.



Major league teams have been panting for more catchers since shinguards, begging for mothers to allow their sons to play there, and yet they cut off an entire stream of talent that happens to throw left-handed. In the last 100 years, Dale Long caught two innings for the Chicago Cubs in 1958, Mike Squires the same for the 1980 White Sox.

And since Aug. 18, 1989, when Distefano caught for the last time, baseball has embraced retro uniforms and even revenue sharing — but not the likes of Distefano. The minor leagues do not have one left-handed catcher right now.

“It’s a slow-changing game,” said Distefano, now the hitting coach of the West Michigan Whitecaps, a Detroit Tigers Class A affiliate. “It takes a creative manager that’s willing to go with something that might be a little outside the box.”

Distefano had that in late 1988, when he asked his Pittsburgh Pirates manager, Jim Leyland, if he could become the team’s emergency catcher. Distefano had adored catching as a boy on Brooklyn ball fields but was moved to the outfield. Leyland recalled how the world did not spin off its axis when his old boss Tony La Russa used Squires that way, so he allowed Distefano to attend instructional league that fall to relearn the position.


The next spring, when an experiment with 24-man rosters cost teams flexibility, Distefano stuck as a backup outfielder, first baseman and, yes, catcher. He was brought into three games for six innings. The only runner to attempt to steal on him was the Braves’ Oddibe McDowell on Aug. 18.

“Curveball in the dirt,” Distefano said. “Fairly close. I had as good a chance of getting him as anybody else.”

No lefty has strapped on the gear since. Few people know why. Youth leagues see the occasional left-handed catcher — gloves for them are readily available in local sporting-goods stores — but never in pro ball. Distefano understands better than anyone which theories make sense and which do not.

None is more specious than the Right-Handed Hitter Conjecture, which holds that on steal attempts left-handers have to throw around righties, who outnumber hitters from the other side. But right-handed catchers do not seem to struggle throwing past lefties; besides, while right-handed hitters made 62 percent of major league plate appearances 50 years ago, it is now almost even, 56 percent to 44.

Torre’s Wayward Southpaw Thesis was immediately dismissed by his fellow catcher turned manager Don Wakamatsu of the Seattle Mariners.

“There’s a lot of left-handed pitchers who don’t reach the major leagues because their ball is too straight,” Wakamatsu said.

To the extent that a left-hander’s throw to second would generally tail away from the runner rather than into him, Distefano countered, “You can still fade it back into the base with more experience.”

Snap pickoff throws to first are less important than throws to third — as Torre put it, “The runners only go in one direction” — and on the latter, right-handed hitters would impede a left-handed-throwing catcher. But Distefano brushed that back, too.

“When I had to throw to third, I cheated a little bit — I sat a couple of inches farther back and my left foot was a little open,” he said. “I didn’t have to shuffle my feet because I had good arm strength. And when guys steal third, 9 of 10 times it’s on the pitcher anyway.”

Distefano offered two explanations. Bunts toward third base, he said, cause problems for left-handed catchers. In scampering to grab the ball, transferring it to their left hand and throwing to either first or second base, their bodies get closed and clumsy. Throws for right-handers are far more open and natural.

But the primary problem Distefano encountered was with plays at home. Because his glove was on his right hand, every accurate throw to the runner’s side of the plate would have to be reached for backhanded, impeding a quick tag. And on outfielder throws up the first-base line, reaching out with his right hand would leave his throwing shoulder wide open to the runner.

“If there’s going to be a bang-bang play, the left-handed catcher’s going to get hurt,” he said.

Distefano did manage to parlay his newfound versatility into a better-paying job in Japan in 1990. He attended the Houston Astros’ spring camp in 1992 — with the pitchers and catchers — and made the team in part because he could serve as emergency catcher. He never got into a game behind the plate, but they needed an extra body with Craig Biggio moving to second base.

Come to think of it, speaking of second base, why don’t any lefties get to play there, either? And not at shortstop, nor at third?

“I guess all the lefties end up as pitchers,” Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada said.

Apparently so. About 15 years ago, a left-handed teenager for the Lumps Gas Station summer-league team in Clifton, Tex., played one game at short before, he recalled, “They said left-handers aren’t supposed to play there” and was moved. That teenager was Zach Duke, now an All-Star left-handed pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Not one left-handed thrower has played an inning at shortstop in the majors in 100 years. As for second base, there have been only three since World War II: George Crowe for the 1958 Cubs (for two outs), Sam McDowell for the 1970 Cleveland Indians (for two right-handed batters before returning to the mound) and Don Mattingly (by an incensed Billy Martin for the last out of the infamous 1983 pine tar game).

“Second basemen can’t do it left-handed — you can’t turn a double play like that, because you’d accept the ball and have to turn all the way around,” said Texas Rangers third baseman Michael Young, who before this season played exclusively in the middle infield. “Shortstops, you’d still have trouble throwing the ball on a D.P. I’ve never seen it. And I don’t expect to, either.”

Which brings us to third base and the versatile Squires, who was one of the aforementioned southpaw catchers. A few lefties have briefly filled in at third (including Mattingly in 1986) but Squires played there in 13 games for the 1984 White Sox.

Left-handed third basemen have to backhand all plays in the shortstop hole to their left, which restricts their range — unless their coordination is so spectacular that they would be playing shortstop in the first place.

Squires, now a scout for the Reds, said that left-handed third basemen get eaten up on bunts, because flinging the ball quickly to their left while charging is virtually impossible.

But left-handed catchers? Squires doesn’t see why not.

“You’re talking about old-timers who don’t want to change,” he said. “I always wanted to be a catcher growing up. But I was not allowed to.”

Distefano became a catcher solely to extend his career. Instead, he lengthened his legacy, not only among baseball trivia buffs but within the left-handed catching community, for whom he remains a hero.

“I didn’t know the 20th anniversary of my last time out there was coming up,” Distefano said. “I definitely will celebrate now. It’s nice. It’s really rewarding to be remembered in a positive way.”

• Page One
• August 15, 2009

Foreign Talent Loads the Bases in Minor Leagues

More Visas Spur Deals From Haiti to India; Korean Teen Scores Big

By JOEL MILLMAN

BOISE, Idaho -- Like many teenagers spending this summer abroad, Hak-Ju Lee is immersing himself in a foreign culture, making friends and tasting exotic food like moose stew. Unlike most teens, however, he's getting paid three-quarters of a million dollars to do it.

Mr. Lee, 18 years old, is a shortstop, and the culture he is experiencing is American minor-league baseball, where major-league teams develop their talent in small towns across the country.

For decades, minor-league rosters seemed the essence of America's heartland. But thanks to growing numbers of foreign players like Mr. Lee, the minors are fast turning into a veritable United Nations.

The Boise Hawks' Imported Talent

View Slideshow

Sean Flanigan for the Wall Street Journal

Hak-Ju Lee is one of 18 international players on the Boise baseball roster.

The gangly infielder is one of three South Koreans playing this summer for the Boise Hawks, an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. The Hawks' opening-day roster boasted 18 of 25 players from abroad -- mostly Venezuela and the Dominican Republic -- making it one of the most "imported" of all minor-league teams.

Recent changes in U.S. immigration law and growing competition in baseball for raw talent have allowed the minor-league farm system to flourish with imported players. It has been a home run for globalization, but bad news for U.S.-born players, who suddenly have much more competition. Across the minor and major leagues, the total number of foreign-born players is growing fast, to almost 3,500 of the 8,532 players under contract this summer, from 2,964 three years ago.

Boise Hawks' hitting instructor, Ricardo Medina, a native of Panama who translates at team meetings in what has become almost a bilingual program, notes that Mr. Lee and his Korean teammates are getting something else from their summer in Idaho. "I think they may be learning more Spanish than English," he jokes.

The three South Koreans on the Hawks' roster matches the total number playing at the major-league level. Today, 19 Koreans play in the minor leagues, compared with just seven five years ago.

This summer's crop of foreign players in the minors includes baseball's first-ever pros from India, two of them on the Pittsburgh Pirates' Gulf Coast league team. That league's rosters include players from Honduras, Haiti, Russia and the Czech Republic.

Minor League Baseball Becomes Melting Pot

2:33

As a result of unlimited work visas, minor league baseball is seeing a new influx of international players. Joel Millman reports from Boise, Idaho.

Eight teams have minor leaguers from Brazil, including Fábio Murakami, an outfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies' Williamsport, Pa., minor-league team, the Crosscutters. Mr. Murakami is one of several South Americans of Japanese descent in the minors, a list that includes Claudio Fukunaga and Lucas Nakandakare, both from Argentina and under contract to Tampa Bay.

One Red Sox farm team boasts an even more exotic tandem: the brothers Crew Tipene Moanaroa, called "Boss," and Hohua Moanaroa, called "Moko." Born in New South Wales, Australia, the Moanaroas are believed to be the first members of New Zealand's Maori tribe to play baseball professionally in the U.S. "Boss" is a first baseman. "Moko" plays outfield.

New Zealand's representative in the minors is Scott Campbell. He plays third base for the Blue Jays' Eastern League affiliate, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

The surge of young foreign players into the U.S. minor leagues began in 2007, a few months after then-president and former major-league team owner George W. Bush signed the Creating Opportunities for Minor League Professionals, Entertainers and Teams Act, known as the Compete Act. It freed the farm systems of major-league teams from having to compete with all U.S. employers seeking H2B work visas for foreign employees, the supply of which usually was exhausted each year by February. Now, teams can import as many prospects as they want.

"There is no longer a limit on work visas," explains Oneri Fleita, the Florida-born director of minor-league development for the Cubs. "So, yeah, you might see more foreign players getting an opportunity."

The Cubs, who signed Korea's Hak-Ju Lee right out of high school, have become one of the most aggressive signers of foreign players. In 2006, 86 players in the Cubs' major and minor-league system were foreign-born. This year, 142 Cubs are imports.

The changes pose a challenge to American teens hoping to make the big leagues. Instead of signing hundreds of U.S. amateurs out of high school -- the traditional business model for stocking minor-league rosters -- teams are drafting fewer U.S. kids and signing more so-called nondraft free agents, the vast majority of them teenagers from Latin America.

Foreign Exchange

See the statistics of the players mentioned in this story:

Hak-Ju Lee (South Korea), Boise Hawks

Fabio Murakami (Brazil), Williamsport Crosscutters

Claudio Fukunaga (Argentina), Gulf Coast League Rays

Lucas Nakandakare (Argentina), Gulf Coast League Rays

Crew Tipene Moanaroa (Australia), Gulf Coast League Red Sox

Hohua Moanaroa (Australia), Gulf Coast League Red Sox

Scott Campbell (New Zealand), New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Eduardo Figueroa (Venezuela), Boise Hawks

George Matheus (Venezuela), Boise Hawks

Eric Gonzalez (Canary Islands), Lake Elsinore Storm

This summer, major-league teams spent over $70 million signing nondraft free agents from outside the country. That is up from $54 million last year, and just under $30 million in 2006, the last year before the Compete Act.

Economics plays a huge role. U.S.-born players drafted out of high school rarely sign a contract to turn pro without a cash bonus, most in excess of $100,000. This summer, the Cubs have forked out more than $6 million in signing bonuses to 26 U.S. prospects, an average of nearly a quarter million apiece.

While some foreign players like Mr. Lee got hefty signing bonuses, the majority do not. Latin players in particular can be had for a lot less -- just $10,000 in the case of Venezuelan pitcher Eduardo Figueroa, one of Mr. Lee's teammates. Third baseman George Matheus, another Hawk from Venezuela, received $15,000 for signing.

Lifting visa limits creates an opportunity for players like Eric Gonzalez, a 22-year-old Spaniard in the San Diego Padres' farm system. Mr. Gonzalez was the last player drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 2005, when he was a 17-year-old high-schooler in the Canary Islands. But under the work-visa cap then prevailing in baseball, the Braves would have had to release another foreign prospect to sign him, Mr. Gonzalez explains, "or else send me somewhere overseas to play, probably Australia."

So Mr. Gonzalez didn't get a shot, and instead polished his skills at the University of South Alabama. Signed by the Padres after graduating last year, he has already whipped through one level of minor-league competition, winning a promotion from the Fort Wayne TinCaps to the Lake Elsinore Storm in July. But the cash rewards will have to wait. "I signed for $1,000, before taxes," laughs Mr. Gonzales, one of two Spaniards in the minors this year. "Basically, I signed in exchange for a plane ticket and a work visa."

In the past, visa restrictions meant many foreign prospects were sent to play for sister teams in places like the Dominican Republic and Australia, where they tried to get enough visibility to fill a coveted visa spot. Nowadays, teams figure they can train foreign talent personally, and give youngsters a chance to learn English and assimilate with U.S.-born teammates.

On both counts, South Korea's Mr. Lee is an enthusiastic student. "Stolen base! Slider! Fastball! Right down the middle!" the teenager recently shouted with a smile, demonstrating the English terms he's mastered since arriving in Idaho.

Much like in an exchange-student program, local families host foreign ballplayers, getting season tickets in return. Mr. Lee lives in a suburban home festooned with heads of antelope and deer and other hunting trophies. He has learned to play Rock Band with his 17-year-old host-family "brother," a ballplayer who is entering his senior year in high school.

His typical teenage observation about life in America: lack of sleep. "Bus ride after game from Vancouver?" he groans, feigning fatigue. "Thirteen hours! Oh, my God. Tired!"

Strike

The President threw out the first pitch at this year's All-Star baseball game.

Loaded Issue: Mental Health

St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Khalil Greene has battled performance-hindering anxiety.











Detroit Tigers pitcher Dontrelle Willis said publicly that he had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.


Three professional baseball players have landed on the disabled list this season for a problem they can't ice, bandage or have surgically repaired: anxiety.

Never has it been talked about before, openly; mental health is simply not discussed.

Some fans might not feel much sympathy for the psychological burdens of professional baseball players -- athletes who typically earn huge salaries to do what many people would consider a dream job.

Playing baseball looks easy, but it isn't. And, many would think, what pressure?

Professional athletes in other sports have acknowledged debilitating anxiety, though often the disclosures have come after retirement. National Football League running back Ricky Williams suffered severe social anxiety. Another onetime NFL star, Herschel Walker, disclosed in a 2008 book that he suffers from dissociative identity disorder, formerly called multiple personality disorder.

The public's perception that professional athletes are impervious to the challenges afflicting mere mortals makes it harder for athletes to admit their struggles. And people who work with top athletes say their high public profile leaves them especially vulnerable to anxiety. The stakes are high. Slips in performance don't go unnoticed by 50,000 people in a stadium, some of whom are happy to provide less-than-constructive feedback.

Known as the boo-birds.

Red clouds

The threatening skies over Citi Field in the second inning could have been a sign that it was not going to be a good night for the Mets.














After work, I drove back to Queens, and stopped in the supermarket in the Cross Island shopping center to get bottles of seltzer (and bought two pairs of shoes in a newly-opened store). Around 6pm a huge dark cloud cover loomed overhead, and threatened a storm. Just before 6.30 the rain suddenly started, followed by a peal of thunder that boomed in tandem with a bolt of lightning. After dinner I went out for a walk with the dogs, around 8.30, and saw this sky: the color and the shape of the clouds were mesmerizing.

Woodie Held

Woodie Held in 1962.












Woodie Held, a veteran ballplayer who was acquired by the Cleveland Indians as part of a trade for the future home run king Roger Maris, died Thursday in Dubois, Wyo. He was 77.

Held played for seven American League teams in a 14-year career. He spent a majority of his career with Cleveland after being acquired on June 15, 1958, from the Kansas City Athletics in a multiplayer trade for Maris. A year later, Maris was sent in another big trade to the Yankees — the team that originally signed Held and brought him to the major leagues in the early 1950s.

No Butts abou tit

Headline writing is an art that the tabloids specialize in; this is a doozy.
























Mark Teixeira has words for former teammate Vicente Padilla as Rangers pitcher hits him a second time.
















Mark Teixeira goes hard into second after getting hit by pitch, forcing Elvis Andrus' bad throw that keeps inning alive and inspires Yanks



Mark Teixeira gets hit twice, fires up Yankees with slide in win over Texas

BY Anthony Mccarron
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Tuesday, June 2nd 2009, 10:35 PM
Keivom/News

Mark Teixeira has words for former teammate Vicente Padilla as Rangers pitcher hits him a second time.
Mark Teixeira goes hard into second after getting hit by pitch, forcing Elvis Andrus' bad throw that keeps inning alive and inspires Yanks. Stubblebine/Reuters

Mark Teixeira goes hard into second after getting hit by pitch, forcing Elvis Andrus' bad throw that keeps inning alive and inspires Yanks.
A.J. Burnett strikes out eight over seven innings to improve to 4-2. Keivom/News

A.J. Burnett strikes out eight over seven innings to improve to 4-2.
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* Harper: Mark of a champion

Mark Teixeira called it "a good coincidence" that his hard slide into second base came right after he was plunked for the second time by his nemesis, Vicente Padilla.

For the Yankees, the slide was much more - it was probably the key moment in their 12-3 victory over the Rangers Tuesday night. It was a game in which both teams were warned after A.J. Burnett retaliated for Teixeira's bruises by throwing high and tight to Nelson Cruz.

Teixeira upended Texas shortstop Elvis Andrus, his clean slide breaking up a potential double play, keeping alive the Yanks' seven-run fourth inning and setting off a celebration in the Yankee dugout. On the play, Derek Jeter scored the 1,500th run of his career to snap a 3-3 tie, and the Yanks went on to win for the 16th time in 20 games.

Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada each whacked a three-run homer and Burnett gave up three runs in seven innings as the Yankees improved to 31-21, the best record in the American League. The only blemish on the night for the Yanks was Posada's throwing error in the fourth, which ended the team's streak of 18 straight games without a miscue, a major-league record.

Teixeira was on first because Padilla drilled him in the rear with two runners on, continuing a long history of bad blood between two players who were Rangers teammates in 2006-07.

Teixeira slammed his bat on the ground, cursed and yelled, "Throw the ball over the --- plate," judging from television replays. Plate umpire Doug Eddings got in front of Teixeira and walked him partway to first, and Joe Girardi popped out of the dugout.

"Unfortunately that's not the right way to play the game," Teixeira said. "That guy's been doing it his whole career."

Teixeira went on to detail their history: "The first two at-bats of my career (against Padilla, June 9, 2005, when the pitcher was with Philadelphia), I hit home runs. Third at-bat, I got hit. And every time I've faced him since there have been balls near my head, near my body.

"We were teammates for two years. I remember getting hit a lot because he was hitting other players." Teixeira actually asked Padilla to stop hitting players. What was Padilla's response? "Nothing," Teixeira said.

"There's no reason for it in baseball," Teixeira added. "If you can't get a guy out, don't hit him. If you don't want to pitch to a guy, put out four fingers out there and walk him. Unfortunately, when I was a teammate, it happened a lot where he would hit guys and the three-four hitters, those are the guys who get hit and I got hit plenty of times."

Teixeira was hit only once while Padilla pitched as a Ranger - May 31, 2007 - but he was thrown at multiple times.

Padilla has initiated brawls in the past by throwing close to batters. On Sept. 16, 2007, he hit Nick Swisher, who was then with Oakland. It incited a fight that led to both players being ejected. Sounds like part of the reason Swisher was not in the starting lineup, although Girardi said he was giving Swisher a day off.

Much has been made of the Yankees' team chemistry this season, and Burnett might have done more for it by throwing near Cruz in the fifth than he did with all of his whipped cream pies combined. When Teixeira was asked if the purpose pitch made him feel like Burnett's got his back, he replied, "Oh, yeah. A.J.'s a veteran pitcher. I think there was a little message sent."

Burnett sent a message with his pitching, too, allowing three runs and eight hits - half of them in the third inning - in seven innings. He has beaten the Rangers in consecutive starts.

"All that matters is winning the game," Teixeira said. "Play the game the right way, that's the way we played. We scored a lot of runs today and A.J. was great."

Kerouac at Bat

New York Public Library, Berg Collection, Jack Kerouac Archive. Jack Kerouac’s fantasy baseball team cards, circa 1953-56.


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Almost all his life Jack Kerouac had a hobby that even close friends and fellow Beats like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs never knew about. He obsessively played a fantasy baseball game of his own invention, charting the exploits of made-up players like Wino Love, Warby Pepper, Heinie Twiett, Phegus Cody and Zagg Parker, who toiled on imaginary teams named either for cars (the Pittsburgh Plymouths and New York Chevvies, for example) or for colors (the Boston Grays and Cincinnati Blacks).

He collected their stats, analyzed their performances and, as a teenager, when he played most ardently, wrote about them in homemade newsletters and broadsides. He even covered financial news and imaginary contract disputes. During those same teenage years, he also ran a fantasy horse-racing circuit, complete with illustrated tout sheets and racing reports. He created imaginary owners, imaginary jockeys, imaginary track conditions.

All these “publications,” some typed, some handwritten and often pasted into old-fashioned composition notebooks, are now part of the Jack Kerouac Archive at the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library. The curator, Isaac Gewirtz, has just written a 75-page book about them, “Kerouac at Bat: Fantasy Sports and the King of the Beats,” to be published next week by the library and available, at least for now, only in its gift shop.


Slide Show ‘Kerouac at Bat’

Among other things, Mr. Gewirtz has learned that Kerouac played an early version of the baseball game in his backyard in Lowell, Mass., hitting a marble with a nail, or possibly a toothpick, and noting where it landed. By 1946, when Kerouac was 24, he had devised a set of cards with precise verbal descriptions of various outcomes (“slow roller to ss,” for example), depending on the skill levels of the pitcher and batter. The game could be played using cards alone, but Mr. Gewirtz thinks that more often Kerouac determined the result of a pitch by tossing some sort of projectile at a diagramed chart on the wall. In 1956 he switched to a new set of cards, which used hieroglyphic symbols instead of descriptions. Carefully preserved inside plastic folders at the library, they now look as mysterious as runes.

One vote for the Judge

Ron Jordan Natoli Studio/U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Judge Sonia Sotomayor ended a baseball strike in 1995.




On a Supreme Court Prospect’s Résumé: ‘Baseball Savior’

For some, that counts more than her Princeton degree.


Federal judges are rarely famous or widely celebrated. Yet during a brief period in 1995, Judge Sonia Sotomayor became revered, at least in those cities with major league baseball teams.

She ended a long baseball strike that year, briskly ruling against the owners in favor of the players.

Take me out to the ballgame.

The owners were trying to subvert the labor system, she said, and the strike had “placed the entire concept of collective bargaining on trial.”

Part of the reason [for her consideration as Justice Souter's replacement] is her approach on the bench, which she displayed as a trial judge in the baseball strike and for the last 11 years has shown as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York City. She questions lawyers vigorously, and delivers what her admirers say are crisp, forceful and reasoned decisions.

But her potential appeal to President Obama as a nominee to the Supreme Court also derives in part from her personal story, a version of the up-from-modest-circumstances tales that have long been used to build political support. Judge Sotomayor, 54, grew up in a Bronx housing project, a child of Puerto Rican immigrants. She would be the court’s first Hispanic justice.

I vote for her.

She went to Princeton, which she has described as a life-changing experience. When she arrived on campus from the Bronx, she said it was like “a visitor landing in an alien country.” She never raised her hand in her first year there. “I was too embarrassed and too intimidated to ask questions,” Judge Sotomayor said.

Selected case of Judge Sotomayor.

In addition to ending the baseball strike while on the trial court, Judge Sotomayor ruled in another case that homeless people working for the Grand Central Partnership, a business consortium, had to be paid the minimum wage.

And why not? Exploitation is exploitation.

In 1997, Republican senators held up her nomination by President Bill Clinton to the appeals court for more than a year, because they believed that as a Hispanic appellate judge she would be a formidable candidate for the Supreme Court.

That's rich. Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, they were simply the best candidates available, and simply happened to be white conservative men. Well, Thomas isn't white, but he sure is from the same mold as his three cohorts.

Some lawyers have described her courtroom manner as abrupt, but several others said in interviews that it represents nothing more than her direct, New York style. Judge Martin Glenn, who as a veteran appeals lawyer had appeared before her frequently, said that she was widely regarded as an excellent judge.

Abrupt? And the lawyers, is one to suppose, are kind and genteel?

Rod? Roid?

Some men just are amazing.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi is wondering why anyone would write “a book like this anyway.” And Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock is calling her a “hard-core feminist” and saying, “I don’t think she understands men that well.”“Anytime that you take on an icon, people are going to have their own point of view about who the messenger is. Is the messenger an outsider? Is she one of us?”

A book like this? One that takes the cloth of a cheater and a fake? Why would any journalist not want to write it is the real question that needs asking.

One of us? What, one of the boys? Precisely: the guy wants girls to stay out of his game. An icon? Rodriguez plays baseball, admits he cheated

330 Minutes With Selena Roberts

The sportswriter is not out to ruin A-Rod’s life. She just wanted to write about it.

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• By Will Leitch
• Published May 8, 2009

New York Magazine)

It’s Monday, May 4, and Selena Roberts is sitting in her HarperCollins publicist’s office being called “crazy” on WFAN’s “Boomer & Carton” show. “When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror,” Craig Carton asks her, “are you content with what you see?”

As the WFAN interview wraps up, Roberts, wearing “more makeup than I’ve put on in twenty years,” looks at her watch. “It’s only 9 a.m.?” She has a full day of this left.

Roberts’s new book, A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, is already being portrayed as a hit job by a woman “out to destroy A-Rod’s life.” So much for a nice promotional tour. The target of one of those media shit storms that our city does better than anyone else is no longer Rodriguez; it’s Roberts.

Only three months ago, Roberts, 42, shook the sports world with a scoop that Sports Illustrated editor Terry McDonell called “the biggest news break since I arrived in 2002”: A-Rod had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. All hell quickly broke loose. A-Rod dished out murky apologies, “a-roid” headlines led every tabloid, and Yankees general manager Brian Cashman called the third baseman an “asset in crisis,” the implication being that if he could drop that asset right now, he certainly would.

But that was then. Now Yankees manager Joe Girardi is wondering why anyone would write “a book like this anyway.” And Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock is calling her a “hard-core feminist” and saying, “I don’t think she understands men that well.”

“Anytime that you take on an icon, people are going to have their own point of view about who the messenger is. Is the messenger an outsider? Is she one of us?” Roberts says en route to an interview with WABC-7. (She has to go local because ESPN, which has filled hours of airtime with A-Rod steroid discussions, declined to have her on.) She checks her BlackBerry: “Here comes another one. More advice.” Throughout the day, she will keep receiving suggestions from friends and colleagues on how better to defend herself in confrontational interviews (which seems to be every interview; even Matt Lauer goes after her).

Someone suggests that she start pushing back by comparing A-Rod to Barry Bonds, pointing out that A-Rod has admitted to steroid use, yet is being considered—in this media go-around, anyway—more sympathetic. But Roberts tells her publicist that going on the offensive would be a mistake. “I can’t do it; I’ll start to sound like the shrill, crazy woman. That’s how it works with these sports guys.”

A-Rod wasn’t conceived as gotcha journalism. It began as a straight biography, and Roberts ended up discovering the steroid use. (“If I had known I’d find that, I’d have gone for a bigger advance,” she jokes.) While there’s no smoking gun, the book has plenty of circumstantial smoke. But, in a news cycle primed for an A-Rod Redemption Arc, it’s proven far too circumstantial for most. During one elevator ride, a fellow traveler notices a copy of Roberts’s tome: “Oh, is that that book?” he asks with a sneer.

Much of the criticism has been of Roberts’s use of anonymous sources, and she spends most of the day pointing out to interviewers that no one had a problem with those sources a few months ago. (She also keeps defending her record on the Duke lacrosse “rape” case.)

For her part, Roberts thinks the real source of her troubles is A-Rod’s comments to ESPN’s Peter Gammons in February, when he claimed that Roberts—or “that lady”—had been “stalking” him and trespassing on his property. None of this was true (as every journalist on the story discovered within minutes), but “it still sticks in people’s minds,” says Roberts. “There’s a part of them that says, ‘You know what? I bet she did break into his house,’ ” she adds, laughing. “For Alex, I don’t think he was thinking it was a strategy, but it probably ended up being a strategy for him.”

Roberts seems to be sticking to her own media strategy for the time being. But during the last interview I see her do, I can’t help but notice that her response, for the first time all day, contains a reference to Barry Bonds.

Danny Gans, Impressionist

Aaron Mayes/Las Vegas Sun, via Associated Press
Danny Gans performing at the Mirage in Las Vegas in 2000

Fascinating life story.


May 2, 2009
Danny Gans, Impressionist, Dies at 52
By WILLIAM GRIMES

Danny Gans, whose seemingly bottomless repertory of impressions, some of them spoken but most of them sung, made him one of the top headliners on the Las Vegas Strip, died on Friday at his home in Henderson, Nev. He was 52.

The death was confirmed by Jennifer Dunne, a spokeswoman for Wynn Resorts, which hired Mr. Gans early this year to perform at its new Encore resort.

A Clark County coroner’s spokeswoman told The Associated Press that an autopsy was pending, but a police spokesman, Todd Rasmussen, said that foul play was not suspected in Mr. Gans’s sudden death.

Mr. Gans was a show business anomaly, virtually unknown outside Las Vegas but a superstar on the Strip, performing to capacity crowds at one hotel-casino after another since being hired by the Stratosphere in 1996.

Aggressively promoted on billboards, taxi-top advertisements and a marquee at the Encore measuring 70 feet by 70 feet, Mr. Gans was an inescapable name and face for the millions of tourists and gamblers who visit the Strip each year, and one of the hottest tickets in town.

Five nights a week, 46 weeks a year, he took the stage and treated audiences to a carefully calibrated mixture of song and comedy, delivering, like a human iPod, as many as 60 vocal impersonations of singers as varied as Frank Sinatra, Rod Stewart and Anita Baker.

“In his performance uniform of dark suit, red socks and black-and-white spectator shoes, Gans comes across as a friendly, eager-to-please fella, with a bright perma-grin,” The Las Vegas Sun wrote in a review of his act at the Encore in March. “His niche is comfort-zone entertainment, avoiding anything even faintly controversial, usually aiming for the sentimental jugular.”

That combination earned him an estimated $15 million to $20 million a year.

Mr. Gans grew up in Torrance, Calif., and set his sights on becoming a third baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers. In pursuit of this dream, he played baseball in the late 1970s at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif., and California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

While playing third base for the Victoria Mussels in British Columbia, a Class A team that is now defunct, he was spiked in the Achilles tendon and, hobbled, gave up on baseball. His father, Sid, who had once entertained in the Catskills, encouraged him to use his talent for mimicry to develop a stage act.

Mr. Gans tried his luck in stand-up clubs, but he hated the hours and the dirty jokes, which did not square with the Christian beliefs he had embraced while recuperating from his injury. Instead he began offering his blend of comedy and impressions to audiences at corporate events. His clean, inoffensive humor and grab bag of impressions translated into a lucrative, if uncelebrated, career.

He appeared in small roles in films and on television, most visibly as Dean Martin in the 1992 CBS mini-series “Sinatra.” Doing double duty, he also provided the singing voice for the actor playing Sammy Davis Jr. On film, he finally realized his baseball ambitions by playing the role of Deke, third baseman for the Durham Bulls, in “Bull Durham.”

In 1981 he married Julie Russell, who survives him, as do their three children, Amy, Andrew and Emily, and his sister, Peggy Gans of Los Alamitos, Calif.

In 1995 Mr. Gans took his act to New York, in the one-man show “Danny Gans on Broadway.” It closed after six performances, but he struck gold when the Stratosphere hired him the next year as its permanent headliner.

As it turned out, audiences were hungry for a good impressionist, a niche left vacant since the heyday of Rich Little. Mr. Gans freshened the genre by including contemporary acts like Aaron Neville and Hootie and the Blowfish, along with standbys like Tony Bennett and Louis Armstrong. He could pluck the heartstrings with a tribute to George Burns, channel Kermit the Frog in a heartfelt rendition of “The Rainbow Connection” and chew the scenery as Al Pacino in “Scent of a Woman.”

Mr. Gans moved on to the Rio Hotel, then in 2000 took up residence in his own theater at the Mirage. In February he moved to the Encore Theater, where audiences paid $90 to $120 to see him and, routinely, rewarded him with a standing ovation.

Jack '‘Lucky’' Lohrke

April 30, 2009

Jack '‘Lucky’' Lohrke, Former MLB Infielder, Dies at 85

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 4:25 a.m. ET

Jack Lohrke, a major league infielder in the 1940s and 1950s who drew the nickname ''Lucky'' after several early brushes with death, died Wednesday. He was 85.

Lohrke died at a hospital in San Jose, Calif., two days after having a stroke at home, said his son, John.

Lohrke batted .242 with 22 home runs and 96 RBIs in 354 games with the New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies from 1947-53. He hit a record-breaking homer for the Giants as a rookie, and was loosening up at the Polo Grounds when Bobby Thomson launched his famous 1951 shot that won the NL pennant.

Yet what happened in Lohrke's time before baseball gave him his lifelong moniker.

''He didn't really like that nickname,'' his son said. ''It reminded him of too many things.''

Lohrke served in the Army during World War II and fought in the D-Day invasion at Normandy and later in the Battle of the Bulge. He recounted how four soldiers -- two on each side of him -- were killed in combat.

In 1945, Lohrke was leaving the service when he prepared to board a military transport for the trip home to California. Shortly before takeoff, he was bumped from the flight by a higher-ranking officer. The plane crashed, and all passengers were killed.

In 1946, Lohrke and his minor league teammates on the Spokane Indians boarded a bus for a ride across the state of Washington. During a lunch stop, Lohrke got word that he'd been promoted to Triple-A San Diego, took his gear and hitchhiked home.

That night, the bus careened off a rain-slicked pass through the Cascades mountain range and plummeted into a valley, killing nine players. It remains the most deadly crash involving an American pro baseball team.

By the time he reached the majors, Lohrke was ''Lucky.''

John Lohrke said his father didn't spend much time revisiting his baseball days or what occurred before them.

''My dad wasn't a talker or a boaster or a storyteller,'' he said.

In the early 1970s, one of Lohrke's old Giants teammates, Whitey Lockman, became manager of the Chicago Cubs. John Lohrke recalled going to Candlestick Park in San Francisco, where his father would take him into the Cubs' clubhouse to see Lockman and old pals.

''I remember sometimes it would get real cold and around the sixth or seventh inning, my dad would jump into the bullpen and go watch the rest of the game from the Cubs' locker room,'' he said.

Lohrke kept few souvenirs from his playing days.

He had a bat signed by the Giants from the 1951 World Series, during which he went 0 for 2 as a pinch-hitter in the six-game loss to the Yankees. The bat got stolen about 10 years ago, said his wife, Marie.

Lohrke did not get into the three-game playoff against Brooklyn for the pennant that year. Right before Thomson's bottom-of-the-ninth homer, Giants third baseman Don Mueller broke his ankle on a slide into third base.

Manager Leo Durocher sent Lohrke to the bullpen in deep right-center field, and he was warming up and ready to take over for Mueller if the game went into extra innings, according to the 2006 book ''The Echoing Green.''

Lohrke hit .240 with career highs in home runs (11) and RBIs (35) in 1947. On Sept. 1, he hit the Giants' 183rd homer of the season, breaking the team record of 182 set by the 1936 Yankees. He connected in the first game of a doubleheader, then homered in the second game, too.

''It remained for youthful Jack Lohrke to deliver the first blow,'' The New York Times wrote that day.

The teams gave Lohrke and other Giants gold rings with a green baseball diamond, inscribed with ''1947 HR Record'' and the number 221 -- their overall home run total. Lohrke kept that prize at his home.

Lohrke spent two years with the Phillies and played several more seasons in the Pacific Coast League. After retiring, he worked in security for the Lockheed Missile and Space Co. in California.

Red Sox Give Tip of the Cap to No. 100

Arthur Giddon, who turns 100 on Sunday, with his daughter Pam.

Hi ya, young fella.”

Babe Ruth greeted Arthur Giddon as he did most 13-year-olds, even those in uniform. Giddon chatted with the Babe for a moment but tore himself away because he had a job to do. It was 1922, and as a Boston Braves bat boy, Giddon had to break out the bats, polish some spikes and otherwise outfit his players for that afternoon’s game at Braves Field.






Giddon in his youth. As a 13-year-old in 1922, he met Babe Ruth and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.



Eighty-seven years later, on Saturday, Giddon will reprise his role for his now-beloved Red Sox — as a special 100th birthday present, he will serve as the team’s honorary bat boy prior to the game against the rival Yankees. The same hands that delivered bats to Billy Southworth and softened Rube Marquard’s glove will do the same for Kevin Youkilis and Jon Lester.






















The back of a jersey celebrating the occasion.

1 Yogi, 2 stadiums

Yogi Berra will throw out the ceremonial first pitch Thursday afternoon at the Yankees’ home opener in their new stadium.











At Yankee Stadium, a shot of Berra and Larsen embracing after the perfect game
















At Citi Field, fans can see Yogi Berra on Jackie Robinson’s steal of home in the 1955 World Series












Yankee Stadium’s museum has a statue of Yogi Berra catching Don Larsen, right, who threw a perfect game in the 1956 Series.













He lived through the Great Depression, fought in World War II, played on 10 World Series champions, won three American League Most Valuable Player awards as a catcher, managed both the Yankees and theMets into the World Series, and has met all but one United States president since Harry S. Truman.

“Truman’s from Missouri,” said Berra, who was born in St. Louis and sometimes speaks of departed people in the present tense. The only president since 1945 that Berra has not met is Barack Obama. “Not yet,” Berra said with a smile. “He’s been traveling.”

Republicans Look for a Reliever in Kentucky

Senator Jim Bunning has a focus on economic issues, but his demeanor sometimes draws more attention than his positions.

“When you’ve dealt with Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra and Stan Musial,” he said, “the people I’m dealing with now are kind of down the scale.”




One of the entrenched narratives in American politics is the case of the guy who refuses to quit, even though a lot of people on his own team want him gone.

While the Democrats are preoccupied with Senator Roland W. Burris and his ties to a tainted Illinois governor, the Republicans are trying to rid themselves of Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, the former baseball star who clearly has little use for some colleagues and party leaders, and who keeps exhibiting what one senator calls “behavior issues.”

I remember hearing that he was considered the stupidest Senator.

Key Republicans are gently (or not gently enough) trying to dissuade Mr. Bunning from seeking re-election in 2010 out of concern that his paltry fund-raising, declining approval ratings and irascible conduct have made him something between vulnerable and unelectable.

But in recent weeks, Mr. Bunning has shown no sign of stepping aside and delivered a string of incendiary pronouncements that have fed an impression that he is, to go with a baseball metaphor, a bit of a screwball.

If not stupid, weird, for sure.

In 2006, Time magazine named him one of the five worst senators in the country.

Well, there are four others, so he can take some solace for that.