Bronx, N.Y., May 16, 2009 — Agonizing through an endless top of the eighth inning Saturday afternoon, I was thinking about one of the earliest games some kids play in their baseball-learning process. “Bombs away” is the way I and a string of nieces and nephews refer to the game that came to mind, a pastime that has the player(s) located near a convenient stream, river, pond, lake, or even bigger body of water. A partaker picks up a rock, stone, shell, stick, or some other object and tosses it in the water while yelling “Bombs away!” Artistes sometimes go for flourishes such as skipping stones, but really, the splash is the hoped-for (and almost always achieved) outcome. A big spash is a crowd pleaser, but bottom line, this game is about quantity, not quality. The more you can throw, resulting in more splashes, the better.
Why the long reverie? Well, it’s not like I didn’t have the time. You see, the home team was going through a line of relievers, great “Bombs away” players one and all, and the Yanks were winning this (child’s) game big time. While Yankee starter Joba Chamberlain labored through six frames, he threw the ball 107 times while Twins righty Nick Blackburn got by on a paltry 91. Jose Veras relieved Chamberlain, throwing “the rock” 11 times good for just one out (a sacrifice the Twins had to work to earn). As the Twins took the (baseball game) lead in the eighth and then the Yanks tied it, the home team continued to throw more pitches, 129 to 98 after seven, 159 to 123 through eight, and 188 to 140 through 10 long innings.
Of course, a big pile of “splashes,” or throws, was not showing up positively in the baseball game line score at all. But accept this aside as a tribute to Mr. Blackburn, who may not be able to do as many things with the rock as Chamberlain, but who pitched one heck of a game. Through seven innings, he allowed no Yankee not named Mark Teixeira a base hit except for Johnny Damon, who reached on a 65-foot roller to the right side in the sixth. Blackburn suffered through one brief bout of wildness in the home third, issuing his second and third walks before the aforementioned “Tex” blasted a 1-0 pitch well over the wall in center for a 3-1 Yankee lead.
The Yanks and their fans have been patiently awaiting a Teixeria offensive explosion for six weeks, and had he not had one this day, Blackburn would have gotten himself a win. Mark drilled what would have been a run-scoring double in the first two pitches after Derek Jeter, on via a walk, was thrown out stealing; Tex homered in the third; and singled following Damon’s trickler in the sixth. And once that abortive rally fizzled, the smooth-gloved first baseman came through with his biggest hit in the eighth, scoring pinch runner Ramiro Pena from third with a two-out line single to right that equaled the game at 4-4 through eight innings.
Worthy of mention here is Chamberlain, who left this contest up 3-2, although if Joba can’t find a way to pitch into a seventh inning, he’ll lose more W’s along the way. Another: Hideki Matsui, who made that eighth-inning equalizer possible by doubling off the left center field wall pinch hitting leading off the home eighth; and lefty reliever Phil Coke, who could very well have taken the loss after surrendering two tallies in the top of the eighth, because at least he gave his team a chance by throwing enough strikes to retire four of the first five Twins he faced once he relieved Veras in the seventh. The always superb Mariano Rivera deserves big kudos as well, because he dominated in the top of the ninth, yes, but also because he continued to throw strikes once the Twins scratched together back-to-back base hits to start the top of the 10th. Fans root better when pitchers pitch, and fielders “field” too, which accounts for the fine grab centerfielder Brett Gardner made on Brian Buscher’s sinking liner one out later, preserving the tie.
Jeter had already made a fine play up the middle on a Denard Span bouncer in the third, and Coke made a nifty grab of a Joe Mauer high hopper in the eighth, crucial both because Mauer had homered for Twins run number two earlier, and because Justin Moreau was about to homer to tie matters at 3-3. But once eventual winner Alfredo Aceves took the mound in the top of the 11th, the good-pitch, good-field template struck once again, as Jeter flashed leather in nabbing Brendan Harris’s two-out hopper up the middle, and Swisher made a gold-glove-worthy snatch corraling the bouncing throw.
Not unlike many season days, May 16 features all kinds of Yankee history highlights, from the culmination of four straight complete-game shutouts Pinstriped pitchers hurled in 1932, and Jorge Posada’s two-run walk-off two-run home run that crowned a Yankee come-from-behind win from nine down vs. Texas in Yankee Stadium in 2006. This would also have been Billy Martin’s 81st birthday, and not at all coincidentally marks the day on which Yankee players made highlight reels for a brawl in New York’s Copacabana nightclub in 1957.
May 16 also marks the day Mickey Mantle hit his first Yankee Stadium home run in 1951. Following the great play that Jeter and Teixeira made to end Aceves’s dominant 10-pitch top of the 11th, Tex began the bottom half by walking on five pitches, the only time he came to bat this day and did not get a hit. Next to the plate was the struggling-to-find-his-timing Alex Rodriguez, who had not yet hit safely at all in New York in 2009. When southpaw Craig Breslow tried to sneak an 0-1 fast ball by him, Alex mimicked The Mick by blasting his first long ball in the new Yankee Stadium. It resulted in a 6-4 walkoff win. It appears Rodriguez was playing his own version of a classic game.
Bombs Away!
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!