The Babe.

Click here, then click on the video from the New York Times.

Mi amigo Bruce Bean laser-eyed this and it's just about the coolest thing a baseball fan could see. It's The Babe, striking out, then theatrically leaning on his bat while he bitches at the ump. And it's the Roaring Twenties.

It's just-discovered video; seriously--click here.

Derek Jeter: 2,722.

This is the year that I finally let go of the New York Yankees. When they abandoned the real Yankee Stadium to move into the $1.5 billion fake one, killing acres of Bronx parkland along with their irreplaceable shrine, I opted out.

If ballplayers can become free agents, so can fans.

I've lived in L.A. for the better part of 22 years, and now I bleed Dodger blue.

(Alright, it's still just droplets, but you know what I mean...)

Still, there will always be a little Yankee in me, and I will always root for Derek Jeter.

Tonight in that faux Yankee Stadium, Jeter produced its first historic moment, breaking the team record for hits set by Lou Gehrig--the Iron Horse--when he singled to right in the third inning off Chris Tillman of the Baltimore Orioles.

Jeter did it 24 years to the day after Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's record for most career hits. Rose played until he was 45, and finished with 4,256 hits. Jeter is 35, and has more hits than Rose did at the same age.

So here's to Derek Jeter, or as George Steinbrenner said today in a statement, "For those who say today's game can't produce legendary players, I have two words: Derek Jeter."

Read the New York Times account here.

The Artless Dodger.

     I am no longer shocked when I hear of yet another great baseball player caught with a needle in his ass. But for reasons that I'll try to briefly explain, today's news about Manny Ramirez whacked me more than any of the others.

     Manny Ramirez is a right-handed hitter of historical proportions. Like all hardcore fans, I've followed him since his Cleveland Indian days. His patience at the plate, ice-watered veins and natural exuberance combined to make him a unique, charismatic superstar.

     Fast-forward to his Red Sox years. I am--was, anyway--a Yankee fan, and here's this guy I loved on the Tribe kicking the pinstripes crooked on my Bronx Bombers. He was absolutely lethal, he was Manny Being Manny and he was cementing his place as one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game. I hated the Red Sox, but I couldn't hate Manny.

     Then came stories out of Boston that weren't Manny Being Manny-level entertaining anymore. The one about him knocking down an older Red Sox employee was particularly unsavory, and I wrote him off as just another pampered asshole.

     Last summer, I walked into the Poop Deck one afternoon, and my friend Dave--an L.A. guy by way of Boston--screamed at me. "We got Manny! We got Manny!" We had talked about the Dodgers a lot last summer because Joe Torre was here, the Yankees having largely told him "thanks, but no thanks" after the previous season. I was becoming more of a Dodger fan (root, root, root for the home team--in baseball, anyway), and now here comes Manny. We fist-bumped.

     I was cynical about which Manny the Dodgers had landed; the historically-dominate right-handed hitter or the guy who tackled an old man in Beantown.

     Then came the last half of last season.

     I was at Dodger Stadium the night Kirk Gibson hit the home run in Game One of the '88 World Series. It was the single greatest moment I've ever experienced at a sporting event, and I wasn't even a real Dodger fan at the time. The only other time I've seen Dodger Stadium close to that state of frenzy was last season, the night after they clinched the NL West. Everywhere I looked, there were "Ramirez 99" jerseys, kids in the dreadlocked promo hats the Dodgers began selling and the joint was rockin'. After that game, both Manny and Joe Torre took to the field and addressed the crowd. Dodger fans weren't leaving early that night.

     The Yankees now play in a fake Yankee Stadium, and I've been in L.A. too long now to move on with them. I already have a Disneyland here, so I'm not interested in the one I read about in New York papers or see on TV. I simply don't care anymore; I'm a Dodger fan now.

     I ended up giving Manny the benefit of the doubt regarding the stories I'd read about his final days in Boston. There were other stories, too; ones that hinted that maybe the Red Sox had hyped some of Manny's least-attractive qualities a bit more than they warranted. Ultimately, how the hell did I know the truth, and I loved watching the guy play. Torre was here, they were building a great young team and the young guys all worshipped Manny.

     We've read much about Manny's discipline, his routine, his preparation, his dedication to hitting. We never read about his name tied to cheating. His short time here has been infectious, and Mannywood was the hottest neighborhood in town. 

     Plus, Manny was becoming L.A.'s favorite athlete, which meant less talk about my least-favorite L.A. athlete--the unctuous Kobe Bryant.

     And then Manny got caught with a needle in his ass. 

     Just another pampered asshole, fucking up this beautiful game.

     There is no joy in Mannywood--mighty Manny has struck out.

The New Yankee Stadium Has A Hard Rock Café But No Middle Relief.

From the New York Times:

The Yankees cut by up to 50 percent the price of the $2,500-a-game Legends Suite seats for full season-ticket holders at their new stadium on Tuesday. They also announced that holders of the ticket plans behind home plate would be given an equal number of tickets free.

The price changes, announced in a statement by Hal Steinbrenner, the managing general partner of the Yankees, amounted to a major shift in strategy for a team that is charging the most of any team in baseball for seats in its $1.5 billion stadium. But the highest priced tickets have been among the toughest for the team to sell, and those unsold or unused Legends tickets have formed empty swaths of blue seats that have been painfully visible on television.

The moves by Steinbrenner amount to changing the prices on just a few hundred seats and follow up on his recent comments that some prices were too high.

“A few weeks ago I indicated that in light of the economy we would review the pricing of a small number of our premium locations at Yankee Stadium,” he said. He added that the team had sold 85 percent of its 4,000-plus premium seats.

Yeah, the Yankees planned this Disneyfied version of the real Yankee Stadium and set their pricing prior to the economy tanking. But gaudy greed is obnoxious in good times, too.

Hey, who wants to sit next to Rudy Giuliani, anyway?

It's a brand-new era, and the Yankees don't play at Yankee Stadium anymore. And I'm rooting for the Dodgers.

Now THAT'S A Birthday Present!

     I don't usually have positive things to say about the Boston Red Sox. While I am a lifelong Celtic fan and loved the Boston Bruins back when I liked ice, I was also a Yankee (and Montreal Expos) fan. Split allegiances were not that unusual in New York's North Country, where sports teams from New York City, Boston and Montreal were all in play.

     In fact, if I had gone to Fenway Park before Yankee Stadium or Jarry Park, I might have been a member of Red Sox Nation today.

     Thankfully, I did not.

     But when I came across this, I had to give the Sox my first shout-out. 

     From the New York Times:

     “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.

     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.

     Now at bat boy for the Red Sox: No. 100, Big Pappy.

     “I’m going to do whatever they tell me to do, like any good bat boy,” Giddon said in his home in Bloomfield, a suburb of Hartford, before referring to the Boston leadoff hitter Jacoby Ellsbury. “I’m hoping that after Ellsbury gets the first hit I can go out and grab his bat, but I don’t think they’re going to allow me to do that.”

     Read the rest here. And Happy Birthday, Big Pappy...

Jesus, I Gotta Pee!

      Notice anything missing in this picture?

     Yup. Paying customers in the A-hole Seats at the new, Disneyfied Yankee Stadium.

     There's something else missing in Yankeedom, too: the freedom to ignore flagrant displays of manipulative jingoism and religious dogma in a facility that was built with lots of public, secular funds.     

     Excerpted from The Nation:

     One day last August, Bradley Campeau-Laurion just wanted to leave his seat and use the bathroom at the old Yankee Stadium. The 30-year-old New York resident had no idea that nature's call would lead him down a road to perdition where he would be accused of challenging God, country, and the joys of compulsory patriotism at the ballpark...

     Not only do the Yankees expect fans to stand during the singing of patriotic songs, but during the Bush era they virtually mandated fan support for the Iraq War, all the while extorting tax breaks and other public subsidies from city, state and federal governments to build their new $1 .5 billion cathedral of baseball. (Separation of sports and state anyone?) For the Steinbrenners and the high-rollers who occupy Yankee Stadium's $2,500 (editor's note: actually, $2,625.00) top-shelf seats, this kind of power patriotism wedded to corporate welfare must be sweet as champagne...

     All Campeau-Laurion did was try to go to the men's room during the seventh-inning stretch. In swooped two New York Police Department officers working security detail, who reportedly roughed him up and threw him out of the ballpark. Now Campeau-Laurion has filed a civil suit against the the city, the cops and the team for violating his rights...

     (Campeau-Laurion said): "I don't care about 'God Bless America.' I don't believe that's grounds constitutionally for being dragged out of a baseball game... I simply don't have any religious beliefs... It devalues patriotism as a whole when you force people to participate in patriotic acts,..."It devalues the freedom we fought for in the first place."

     This ugly incident raises a series of inconvenient questions: why does America feel compelled to bind sports to patriotic ritual? Why are publicly funded facilities like stadiums used to promote private religious or political beliefs? And given the putrid start of the Yankees's season, shouldn't management be more concerned with what's happening with the players than with the fans? All should stand with Campeau-Laurion until we get some answers.

     Although Campeau-Laurion's run-in occurred last year at the real Yankee Stadium, there has been no change in club policy, and Yankee fans continue to be serenaded with both the standard pre-game "Star-Spangled Banner" and the additional "God Bless America." The latter--along with "Take Me Out To The Ballgame"--has remained a fixture of the seventh-inning stretch since immediately after 9/11. 

     It seems that according to Yankee brass, you'd be well-advised to take care of your business when you're buying your peanuts and Cracker Jack, and after you're expected to acknowledge an apparently pinstriped entity blessing the land of the free and the home of the brave.

     Yup, baseball's here. Go Dodgers. 

The Voice Of Yankee Stadium.

From the NY Times:

The new Yankee Stadium will sound different from the old one because Bob Sheppard’s authoritative voice will not be emanating from the public address system. Paul Doherty, an agent who is one of Sheppard’s friends, said Sheppard’s son Paul told him Wednesday that Sheppard was planning to retire.

“I think Bob just wants to take it easy and no longer have the pressure of ‘Can he? Will he? Or won’t he?’ ” Doherty said in an e-mail message. “And, at 98, who can blame him?”

Despite Doherty’s disclosure, Sheppard, who has been the P.A. announcer for the Yankees since 1951, declined to say that he was retiring. When asked if he was officially leaving the position, Sheppard said, “I never said it.”

Sheppard missed the 2008 season with a bronchial infection and will not work the exhibition games at the Stadium on Friday and Saturday or the home opener April 16. Sheppard also missed the final game at Yankee Stadium in September, although he prerecorded the lineups.

When Sheppard was asked about his plans for the season, he said: “I never said I’m not returning. I never, never said I’m not returning and I say it to you now.” Then Sheppard said “thank you” and hung up the telephone.

Sheppard is 98 and was not the P.A. announcer last year. Sheppard has a hallowed position in the Yankees’ rich history and is protective of it.

He did his first Yankees game on April 17, 1951, announcing a lineup that included Phil Rizzuto, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra.

Cushioning The Blow.

     The best seats in the house at the new, $1.3 billion Disneyfied Yankee Stadium will set you back anywhere from $500.00 to $2,625.00 each.

     They have teak armrests and come with concierge service.

     Those seat cushions sure will feel nice after all that pinstriped sodomy. 

The Yankees Don't Use Spring Training To Get Ready For Baseball Anymore.

They use it to stage photo-ops and press conferences so their stars can try to scrub the tarnish off their images. 

From ESPN: 

Alex Rodriguez will have a thick pinstriped wall of New York Yankees looking on during his news conference Tuesday, with teammates coalescing around A-Rod following his admission that he used banned drugs.

The Yankees still didn't know how many specifics of his drug use Rodriguez planned to divulge when he speaks in the tent behind the third-base stands at Steinbrenner Field.

While Andy Pettitte spoke from the heart during his news conference a year ago admitting use of human growth hormone, the image-conscious Rodriguez appears to be formulating his strategy surrounded by an entourage large enough to fill a television series.

Even before Sports Illustrated reported on its Web site Feb. 7 that Rodriguez tested positive for a pair of steroids during baseball's anonymous survey in 2003, Team A-Rod included agent Scott Boras and his staff, manager Guy Oseary and the William Morris Agency.

He has retained James E. Sharp, a lawyer who represented Pettitte and Sammy Sosa before Congress and then-President George W. Bush in front of a federal prosecutor. Rodriguez also brought in Outside Eyes, a media strategy and crisis management company based in Newport Beach, Calif., that includes communications specialists from Republican campaigns.

There are at least 27 current and former players with ties to both the Yankees and to steroids and/or HGH.  

I remember when Billy Martin owned the back pages of New York's tabloids because he liked to drink and fight. Seems kind of innocent now, doesn't it? 

I'm a Yankee fan, and it gets weirder every year. I'll watch this image-is-everything empty vessel and his yes-men try to sell his story Tuesday.  His admission to using a "banned substance" didn't surprise me; A-Rod coming clean at his press conference and coming through in the clutch in the playoffs would.