Bronx, N.Y., September 24, 2002 — I was going to title this column Tender Is the Night in honor of F. Scott Fitzgerald (of The Great Gatsby fame) because he would have been 106 Tuesday, and it was a truly pleasant evening, but that tale of mental illness, collapse, alcoholism, drug abuse, along with recovery but failure too, didn’t seem appropriate. The game time temp was 73 degrees, with 55 percent humidity and a gentle westerly breeze of five mph (if I understand how that is recorded correctly; the breeze was coming from the west).
I carried rather than wore the sweatshirt I brought along just in case (though I would have frozen without it Monday night). Although there was some kind of pharmacy fire billowing brown smoke to the south in the daylight when I arrived, the evening was calm and serene when darkness fell. The perhaps three-quarter (certainly waning) moon rose over the left field fence as the Yanks failed to score in the fifth; it was a mixture of red and orange.
I arrived particularly early, and grabbed a New York hot pastrami sandwich at the Court Deli two or three blocks up 161st St. from the Stadium, across the street from the Bronx County Courthouse, which is the huge building that fills much of the view beyond the right center field wall. Sated, I entered the Stadium and was in my seat for much of the Devil Rays batting practice, while the scoreboard played the Don Mattingly Yankeeography, pretty touching for me, a big Donnie fan and one of the YES-deprived among the fan base.
Aside from the usual goings on on the field there was a Devil Rays coach with a unique talent for hitting fungos out in right field. He was both instructive for the players and a big hit with the fans. Deep in right (30 feet from the wall perhaps?), he was facing home plate while hitting high pops with a lot of english on them that caused them to knuckle back over his head toward the wall. The players had plenty of adventures trying to track them, and enough landed in the seats to keep the paying customers satisfied and humming with excitement.
Soriano was the first Yankee exercising on the field, starting his running at 6:52. Although I’m sure it’s exciting, all the adulation and focus must be getting to him, as the rumble that went up then and each time he made an apprearance tonight (even when he was just emerging into the on-deck circle) was loud and long-lasting. Thankfully he was soon joined in the outfield by Nick, Robin, Derek, Raul and Bernie.
Moose was throwing darts from the beginning, and it was a relief that Jason drilled a two-run homer to left to get things started in the first; I’m sure some fans worried we were flat after last night’s apparently lackluster effort (which is always the way they look when they’re not hitting). He had actually hit one we thought was out two pitches earlier, but it just went foul. (In an ironic twist, Nick Johnson would hit an upper deck shot barely foul with one out in the ninth, the two foul misses framing the game, so to speak. But Nick followed his by taking strike three.)
Once Travis Harper came back to strike out two to close the first, Moose survived the first of two not very daunting threats on the evening. He surrendered one of two singles he would allow all night, this one to Huff leading off the second, and Toby Hall pinned Rondell to the left field fence to haul in his one-out blast. With the crisis averted, Mike posted five strike outs by the time Nick led off the third. And seven pitches into that frame, most of the crowd thought we were seeing the 40th home run we had all come to see. Unfortunately Winn caught Alfonso’s long drive on the track in dead center, but all was not lost. Derek singled and Jason boomed his 40th, this one a classic Giambi loft job to right center. Bernie garnered his 200th hit on the next pitch, a double into the left field corner, and a clearly rattled Harper proceeded to walk Posada and Ventura on nine pitches. Abandoning the “watch four pitches and take your base” approach in favor of Bernie’s first-pitch attacking style, Raul lined another double into the left field corner. The score was, and would remain, 6-0, and all that was left was one more Devil Rays threat, the one that caused Moose to take a pitching performance that was already coasting along, and turn it up a notch.
Mike’s strike out count was holding at five when Grieve walked leading off the fifth (strange that Moose would walk only two and it was Grieve both times), and Toby Hall hit a soft single to right on Mike’s first pitch. We were still six up, but the Rays had two on with no one out, and five more innings with which to work. If you had asked Moose, I think he would have described it as 15 more opportunities to be creative he had to work.
And work he did. Lefty Cox went down swinging on three pitches, and Sheets took strike three on Mike’s fifth toss. By the time Escalona (who had replaced Gomez at short) whiffed on five pitches, the K count was up to eight and the D Rays were done. Grieve did manage a walk in the seventh but Hall followed with a 6-4-3. And a pitch count that neared 80 in five innings was held in check by four economical innings in a row, with all 12 outs — and the complete game — costing Moose only 42 more pitches.
The Thidwick of my title of course comes from one of many brilliant characters created by Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), who passed away 11 years ago September 24. My significant other feels that Mussina proved himself to be as big-hearted as the title character in the good doctor’s tome, Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose (aptly named for the correct animal species), by the way he rose to the occasion tonight, and has risen largely, since his season hit its nadir five or six weeks ago when his era flirted with the five-runs-per-game mark.
But I think he differs from Thidwick in the sense that is conveyed in a classic — and baseball-centered — Twilight Zone episode. A man creates a robot that is, in effect, a pitching machine. He can throw it harder than anyone has ever seen, curve it any way he wants, and all with pinpoint accuracy. The man gets the robot a tryout, and the skeptical hometown manager sees stars, wanting to sign him right away. The league checks him out, and agrees he can pitch, if they give him a heart, like all the other pitchers. The robot’s creator makes it so, and he and the manager are beside themselves with glee, until the robot’s day to pitch arrives. He proceeds to give up hits to every batter. Equipped similarly to his teammates, he no longer has the “heart” to humiliate and defeat all the opposition batters.
Mike Mussina operated with the precision of an engraver tonight, and took no prisoners. He whiffed 12 Devil Rays, at least one in every inning but the fourth, where all three batters hit the ball to a fielder before they even had two strikes on them. He struck out the side once, and two in an inning three times. Four batters took a called third strike, the other eight went down swinging, on one of which Jorge was credited with an assist for holding on to a foul tip. The five lefties in the lineup struck out six times; so did the four righties. He used 49 of his pitches to record the 12 strike outs; the other 71 garnered him seven ground outs, seven outfield flies and one foul pop to Jorge, along with the two singles and two walks.
Joe will be sitting with his coaches and weighing choices this weekend. Mike just made his case — and made it as effectively as any lawyer who has ever tried a case a couple of blocks up the street from the Baseball Cathedral.
The Mussina Defense Rests.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!