Bronx, N.Y., May 14, 2006 — I got greedy Sunday afternoon, deciding the Yanks would play their third straight game under semi-pleasant skies in a weekend that seemed doomed to bring to the fore the title of Julia Roberts’ first Broadway show running some 90 blocks south, “Three Days of Rain.” So I showed up clad in shorts, and ready to lend support, with my no. 41 Randy Johnson Pinstriped home jersey fluttering in the breeze. I guess the only good news is that the weather disappointed more than Johnson did. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., May 12, 2006 — I’ll chalk it up to a rainy Friday with a weekend forecast for more, but it’s a rare day when I’m not eager to attend a ballgame in Yankee Stadium. The disappointing Thursday loss to the Red Sox contributed to my malaise, I’m sure, as did a tough week at work. And the experience of witnessing Hideki Matsui’s horrific accident first hand figured in as well. But bottom line, I was reluctant to train and subway it to the Bronx among the crowds because I suspected the game would be rained out. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., May 11, 2006 — The Yankee/Red Sox contest in the Bronx Thursday was finally played to a conclusion in three hours and 59 minutes. It was a tough loss for the team and its diehard Yankee fans, but the heartbreaking moment came much, much sooner. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., May 9, 2006 — To many attending Tuesday night’s Yankee game against the Red Sox, the big fear was that the weather would ruin the festivities. I arrived in the Bronx via the 4 Train at 6:32, 37 minutes before first pitch, in an intermittent light rain that threatened to become much more. But the rain had subsided by the time I took my seat, and although the evening ended much cooler than the 61 degrees at which it began, the weather played just a small part in how the game would transpire, with one glaring exception. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 30, 2006 — It is not with a self-congratulatory tone I tell you that scoring games can be a weird way to enjoy a ballgame. It’s a sport that reduces itself well to numbers, but if you love the game like I do, the experience definitely adds up to more than the sum of all the figures. I was musing about this right after the Blue Jays had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the third of Sunday’s last of the three games in Yankee Stadium. Sad to say, the superb Mike Mussina was in a bit of a pickle, not only due to a few tosses a bit too much in the zone, but also because game veteran Bernie Williams was having a forgettable inning in right field. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 28, 2006 — Although the big crowd who showed up for the series opener vs. the Toronto Blue Jays in Yankee Stadium Friday was eager for a good time, it did not take long to realize that a significant percentage of them were not confident in the contest’s result. Jaret Wright, coming off a disappointing 2005 season and an ineffective outing in his only previous start this year, would be facing former Cy Young Award-winning righty Roy Halladay, whose 3.60 era coming in was exactly half that of Wright’s. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 27, 2006 — It wasn’t just the home team’s victory that made Thursday night baseball in the Bronx so much more pleasant than the 10-inning, 4-2 Yankee loss to the Devil Rays Wednesday. To begin with, the temperature was 10 degrees warmer, and you can double that difference if you take the harsh Wednesday wind into account. Also, 10,000 more fans piled into the Baseball Cathedral to watch this one than the night before. Finally, the crisp 2:42 playing time was a full hour and 14 minutes shorter than the Wednesday night marathon. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 24, 2006 — In the long run, you’d have to say that Randy Johnson’s neatly performed 7-1 domination of [most of] the Orioles Sunday was the big story, but that was just one highlight of a surprisingly pleasant afternoon in the Bronx. Rain-delayed for 39 minutes and begun under the bleakest of skies, it ended 3:32 later under dazzling sun. The Unit went at his business like a conductor whose train got a late start leaving the station and who meant to do something about it. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 21, 2006 — An attempt to pick the Yanks’ unlucky number via a quick glance at Friday night’s line score would probably come up with three, as that is the amount of runs the Orioles posted each time they managed to send runners across the plate. The visitors prevailed 6-5 in a tight game on a cold night in front of 50,000-plus in Yankee Stadium. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 13, 2006 — The Yanks piled it on with a five-run eighth inning Thursday afternoon, sweeping the Kansas City Royals out of town 9-3 in a game that had a split personality. The Yankees were very good, and hot right out of the box. Staff ace Randy Johnson threw early strikes, and retired the Royals quickly in the top of the first, coaxing two ugly third swings around a popup to short. Continue reading →