October 26th, 2006 → 10:27 am @ Seth Mnookin
The Times‘s Tyler Kepner has an update on the love affair between Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. (How could a headline like “Jeter Unable to Make it Easier for Rodriguez” not be good news for the Yankees?)
During the year I spent with the Red Sox, my opinion of Jeter improved greatly; I went from thinking he was among the most overpaid and overrated players in baseball history to appreciating his — and yes, I know this is going to sound shockingly close to the “Captain Intangibles” crap that Yankees fans so often get mocked for — approach to the game and his leadership. He goes out of his way to take young players under his range-less wing; he’s much more likely to give you a good at-bat than are most players; and he’s among the better winners in the game (compared to, say, Kevin Millar). But if A-Rod is going to be with the Yankees next year, Jeter — who told some Sox players, sotto voce, that he didn’t disagree with their criticisms during the ’05 pre-season — should find a way not to telegraph the fact that he hates his partner of the left side of the infield. To wit:
“Jeter said he expected Rodriguez to be back, but did not have any ideas on how he could make life easier for his teammate. Jeter, the Yankees’ captain, has been criticized for his seemingly lukewarm support of Rodriguez.
‘What would you like me to do?’ Jeter said. ‘You’re there and you support him. Everybody supports all your teammates at all times. I don’t really know if there’s anything else I can do. Maybe I’m not that smart; maybe you can help me out.'”
Jeter is smart — at least compared to most baseball players — and he knows he could do a lot more than say, “yeah, whatever, that guy’s not bad.”
That aspect of Kepner’s piece is sort of amusing — it’s (almost) always fun to watch 30-something multi-, multi-millionaires act like petulant little bitches. What bugs me is the piece’s lede:
“ST. LOUIS, Oct. 25 — Derek Jeter has been traveling in Europe, and he said Wednesday that he had not seen any of this year’s World Series. This is the time of year when Jeter, the Yankees’ shortstop, would rather be playing than watching.”
As opposed to whom? Pretty much every single major leaguer in the world would rather be playing in October; even Manny knows that. The endless articles celebrating Jeter’s desire to play in the World Series are ridiculous. Yes, we know Jeter likes the Series; that’s about as far from unique as is possible. And yes, we know he, along with the rest of the Yankees, he thinks of the Series as more of a right and less of a privilege; that’s the unique part. If you want to point something out, focus on that.
Post Categories: A-Rod & Derek Jeter & Sports Reporters
October 26th, 2006 → 10:08 am @ Seth Mnookin
For all your enviro-conscious New Yorker types, Ben Jervey — a Middlebury grad who went to school with my brother (Jervey, for those of you are curious, is nicknamed the Gerbler (I have no idea, so don’t ask)) — is discussing his book “The Big Green Apple: The Eco-Friendly Guide to New York” tonight from 7-9 pm at Brooklyn’s 3r Living, at 276 5th Avenue between 1st Street and Garfield Place in Brooklyn’s beautiful Park Slope. Come for the beer, stay for the baby carriages and patchouli.
Post Categories: Ben Jervey
October 25th, 2006 → 12:50 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Jon Friedman, self-proclaimed “hard-bitten” journalist (is that legal?) says he “gaped and gawked” at a recent Obama siting; nonetheless, Friedman says (in an article charmingly run through with exclamation points!), Obama “failed to wow” a conference of magazine editors and publishers.
So the self-hating and often confused Friedman says neither he nor the rest of the media world is impressed; meanwhile, Bloomberg News, Time, The Washington Post, and many others say he’s an electrifying and ascending star.
Really, I don’t even need to comment on this one.
Post Categories: Jon Friedman & Media reporting
October 25th, 2006 → 11:56 am @ Seth Mnookin
In an effort to spice up one of the least watched World Series in history, sports writers around the country keep on searching for some gold in what’s now commonly known as Dirtgate. A couple of my favorite pieces (blatantly cribbed from Buster Olney’s daily wrapup on ESPN.com) are this NY Post story by Mike Vaccaro and this piece by the Toronto Sun’s Bob Elliott.
Vaccaro finds a new angle with which to slam Tony La Russa and, well, I’m a fan of any story that slams Tony La Russa (and I’m a fan of Vaccaro’s to boot). In the wake of Tony’s claiming he didn’t ask the umps to inspect Kenny Rogers’s hand during Game 2 because he didn’t want to hurt the purity of the game, Mike suggests La Russa apply for the job of Little League commissioner: “Then he can he can bathe himself in sanctimony all he likes and he can tell us all again about the high plane of baseball ethics he subscribes to.” My favorite section is the following: “La Russa knows the rules – jeez, if there’s one thing we can say with certainty in baseball, it’s that La Russa knows the rules. The same guy who held up Game 6 of the NLCS by questioning a balls-and-strikes count when it was obvious to everyone in Shea Stadium what the count was – apparently, that was well within the spirit of competition – didn’t go the distance this time.” Also, my obligatory sunglasses rant: Tony, man, take off the fucking shades already. Even Corey Hart is lets people see his naked face these days.
Elliott, taking a more humorous approach, chronicles all the varied instances of cheating, touching on well-known suspects (Gaylord Perry) and less-known ones (Nolan Ryan). My favorite anecdote involves Eck; this story is from the 1989 ALCS in which the A’s played the Jays. “The night before, a clubhouse attendant from Dunedin, helping with the laundry, found an emery board in Eckersley’s glove. When Eckersley finished his warm-up, and with the A’s leading 4-2, [Toronot manager Cito] Gaston approached plate ump Rick Reed asking him to check the closer’s glove. Crew chief Davey Phillips arrived and checked Eckersley’s glove. Finding nothing, he returned to Gaston, who claimed Eck put something down his pants. ‘I can’t ask him to pull down his pants in front of 50,000 people,’ Phillips said. When Eckersley struck out Junior Felix to end the game, A’s catcher Terry Steinbach gave the Jays dugout the finger. It wasn’t inspected, either.” No ambiguity about that, and for that reason alone it might top the infamous Derek Lowe crotchchop as one of the best screw-you’s in baseball history.
Post Categories: Cheating & Dennis Eckersley & Mike Vaccaro & Oblique references to Harry Nilsson songs & Sports Reporters & Tony La Russa & Uncategorized
October 25th, 2006 → 11:52 am @ Seth Mnookin
Three quick things.
* I know all the cool kids are reading Pitchfork, the website that’s going to singlehandedly put Rolling Stone out of business and solve the Middle East crisis. I’ve been all into Stylus Magazine as of late; a friend pointed me to their site because of a recent multi-part series on the Boredoms, the super-awesome Japanese noise/meditative band that “managed to fully realize the drive for transcendence in heavy metal is the same as the one in new age.” (If you’ve never heard the Boredoms — or Yoshimi’s (of “Yoshimi and the Robots” fame) OOIOO you should check them both out. Now.) Any site that can write, with equal facility, about ELO and the Boredoms is, at the very least, worth investigating.
* Another entry in a never-ending series celebrating the genius of Kelefa Sanneh. Check out this section from his review of a recent Paul Simon concert:
“In the years before and after ‘Graceland,’ Mr. Simon has explored everything from salsa to batucada. If this rhythm obsession seems like an odd preoccupation for a mellow folkie, Saturday’s concert showed why it isn’t. Mr. Simon’s obsession with rhythm is related to his obsession with language. By packing his verses full of words, he emphasizes the complicated rhythms of spoken English. He needs a rhythm section that can keep up with his mouth.
You could hear this clearly during a sparse and propulsive version of the title track from “Graceland.” One stanza begins:
There is a girl in New York City who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I’m falling, flying or tumbling in turmoil I say, ‘Oh, so this is what she means.’
That’s a mouthful. But if you add a nimble bass line, Mr. Simon sounds less like a chatterbox and more like a great percussionist.”
* Speaking of cool kids, I know I’ll get crap for this one…but the new Phish release reminded me of why I loved the band when I was 17 years old. The three-disc set, culled from a series of 1988 shows in Colorado, is officially being released on Halloween. If you hate Phish, you’re not going to give this a chance anyway. If you’ve ever been intrigued by the band but have a hard time figuring out why hundreds of thousands of blissed-out hippie freaks would travel up to Maine to watch them play for three days straight, these discs, recorded when the band was still playing at bars, should help explain things.
Post Categories: Boredoms & Kelefa Sanneh & Music
October 24th, 2006 → 3:36 pm @ Seth Mnookin
I’m a serious man, and I like to think that I spend my time working on serious things; because of this, I was attempting to get through the week without spending any time thinking (or writing) about the death of Nelson De La Rosa, the two-foot, four-inch actor, man about town, and Mini-Me inspiration who became known as a Red Sox good luck charm after Pedro embraced him during the ’04 playoffs. (Nelson was also one hell of a tiny dancer.) De La Rosa (aka Mahow Mahow), who was 38, died at early Sunday morning at the Rhode Island Hospital. The cause was unknown.
For anyone who didn’t follow the Nelson-Pedro romance, the two Dominicans went through an ugly breakup after Pedro signed with the Mets. Pedro called Nelson a “palm-sized pipsqueak” at his introductory news conference at Shea; Nelson responded, like all jilted lovers do, with a mixture of hurt and anger, saying that Pedro had broken his heart and that he’d root for the Red Sox regardless of where Pedro was pitching.
You’d think that’d be the end of the story…but you’d be wrong. As one high-powered and influential lawyer in Washington wrote, there wasn’t much “in the way of healthy journalistic skepticism about the cause of death. What really happened? Has Brian Cashman made a statement? The US Attorney’s Office? The State Department?” Said lawyer implored me to plow my sources. In lieu of that, I’m plowing my readers. (Pervert: not that way.) Please send in all thoughts/conspiracy theories/bad jokes.
Post Categories: Conspiracy Theories & Nelson De La Rosa & Oblique references to Elton John songs
October 24th, 2006 → 12:04 am @ Seth Mnookin
How is it no one’s taken advantage of “Lose Yourself”‘s opening stanza — “Look, if you had one shot / one opportunity / to seize everything you ever wanted / one moment / Would you capture it / or just let it slip?” — when called on to produce pithy headlines for Dirtgate? (Eminem might rap about murderous incest and all that, but let’s be serious: before the ’06 Tigers, he was pretty much it for Detroit.) “Rogers takes shot, doesn’t let it slip”, “Rogers needs help to seize everything he ever wanted”…I mean, c’mon!
Post Categories: 2006 Playoffs & Eminem & Kenny Rogers & Oblique references to Gob Bluth
