Bronx, N.Y., September 7, 2009 — Before game two of the Yankees/Rays doubleheader in the Bronx Monday night, the scoreboard was brandishing this quote from recent Yankee hero Paul O’Neill: “You play the game to win the game, and not to worry about what’s on the back of the baseball card at the end of the year.” And of course, Paul is right. The sight of Chris Richard playing first base for Tampa late in the game that followed got me thinking. With all the madness swirling around the Yankee fourth starter and his new “rules,” and all the adulation the Yankee shortstop has been receiving, you can forget about what’s important. The Yankees won. They had taken the opener, and with the 11-1 thrashing in the second game, they swept two. Two wins, that’s the thing that’s important. Except when it isn’t.
The last time I saw the portsided Mr. Richard on the field of play was also in September, nine years ago. He was playing first base for the Orioles and we had scalped club-level seats in Camden Yards to watch the 2000 Yankees clinch the AL East. But Mr. Richard and another obscure ballplayer named Cal Ripken had other ideas. They thrashed Andy Pettitte, driving him from the mound in the second inning in a 13-2 Orioles drubbing of my beloved Yankees. Richard went yard twice, Cal once, in a beautiful park that drew Yankee fans from the north like flies, but still had a respectable home fanbase on the club level just three seasons removed from postseason play. A painful game to watch really, but then again, not so much. Because as the Yankees were being humiliated in Camden Yards, that park’s scoreboard was revealing what was happening in Tampa. The Devil Rays (as they were called at the time) were beating Boston 8-6. I had seen my clinching after all.
This musing comes from one of many (though not the 45,953 the Yankee Scoreboard claimed) Yankee fans who trudged away from the new Palace disappointed Monday night. Sure, the Yankees used a tense late rally to win game one, and an explosive eight-run third inning to trounce the Rays to win game two. Mark Teixeira, who scored the first Yankee run in game one and set up the winner with a single to right, homered twice in game two, neither blast having anything to do with rumors of a Bronx jet stream. Numbers 34 and 35 of Mark’s 2009 season would have been home runs anywhere, and they pushed his AL-leading rbi total to 106.
Sure, AJ Burnett pitched well, striking out eight over six innings, while allowing just four hits. And the patient but skilled Yankee hitters batted around twice, in both innings sapping a pitcher by forcing them to make more than 40 throws to the plate. Right fielder Nick Swisher scored twice and singled in this one, but the only reason he did not work Tampa hurlers into 3-2 counts four straight times was because the fourth-inning free pass he got came on just five pitches. Melky Cabrera had two hits and a walk, scored one and knocked in other. And light-hitting backup catcher Jose Molina had the offensive game of his life, 3-for-3 with two walks, even if all his fine work got him one measley rbi and no runs scored.
Burnett, who fell behind 1-0 on back-to-back doubles in the first, had his old command, getting flailing strike outs on his devastating curve after setting opposition batters up with consistent heat. You could make the case that the third-inning uprising calmed him, but it did come after he followed an Evan Logoria single in the third by striking out the next two batters swinging on just six pitches. His 65/34 strikes/balls ratio was good, he snuck in 13 first-pitch strikes to 25 batters, and he got visiting batters to swing and miss 12 times.
Tampa starter Andy Sonnanstine, on the other hand, was battered for eight runs on six hits and two walks in the third while throwing the ball 46 times. The seventh and eighth runs actually scored on hits off Chad Bradford, but because Derek Jeter’s hard liner to left hung up long enough for Fernando Perez to record the frame’s third out, Bradford almost gets a medal because he finally ended the bleeding on a mere six throws. Also deserving of a Tampa medal, I suppose, is reliever Jeff Bennett, because he took the ball from Bradford, and withstood rallies in the home fourth and fifth before surrendering the games’s last three runs on Teixeira’s second homer, a Hideki Matsui (2-for-3) walk and Swisher, Robbie Cano, and Cabrera singles in the sixth.
Once it got late, the game took on the look of a spring training affair. Joe Girardi appeared to use a dartboard to construct his eighth-inning defense, after he had Erik Hinske hit for Swisher (who had taken over at first for Teixeira), then play third, pushing Jerry Hairston to short, where Ramiro Pena had played the seventh for Jeter. Pena subbed for Cano at second because Shelley Duncan had hit for him, then Shelly took right field, removing Cabrera from the game after he had vacated centerfield for Brett Gardner the inning before. Got that? Well, we’re not done, as Molina moved to first, and Francisco Cevelli came in to catch. Finally, Edwar Ramirez, Jonathan Albaladejo and Michael Dunn pitched he last three innings, with the young lefty who finished striking out two and walking two to end the game in 3:21. Joe Maddon got into the fun as well, subbing in Shawn Riggans and Gabe Kapler late, along with Mr. Richard.
And as for Mr. Jeter, well, as will come as no surprise, there’s the rub. We all know that O’Neill is right, and that this is about winning games. It is no small accomplishment that the Yankee lead in the AL East ballooned to nine games off this sweep, and that they have a 6.5-game lead on Anaheim for best record in the AL. Also you do not have to look far (across the East River to Flushing?) to know that a significant lead in early September guarantees nothing. But doggone it, the Yankee captain is three hits from tying one of those records many of us will see the likes of just once in our lifetimes. More hits than Ruth? Than Mantle? Than Lou Gehrig? The most in Yankee history? Wow.
I’m sure it pains Derek more than most that so many of us were there primarily to see him make yet another notch in his Hall of Fame cred (and Yankee history cred, which, let’s face it, counts for even more). I’m sure Jeter, 0-for-8 on the long day, would (rightly) point out that his team won twice. And he did manage a walk, a run scored and an rbi in game two. All we groaning Yankee fans should know better. Waiting will fulfill, a wise man once said. Derek will break this record, and soon. After all, Mariano Rivera’s game one save moved him past Cy Young for 20th place in all-time appearances in baseball history, a mark I did not even know he was threatening.
David Steele of the 1980s group Fine Young Cannibals, who had a megahit 25 years ago with She Drives Me Crazy, turns 49 Tuesday. We Yankee fans know we have it good this year. We know our team is good and that it has a date with the playoffs. But for the next few days, we have a problem, one that I hope other fans can live with. Sure we’re on top, with the best record, but until Derek ties, then breaks this record,
- [We] can’t get
Any rest
People say
[We’re] obsessed
C’mon Derek, put us out of our misery. We promise to be good fans again, in just a few days. We’ll root for “wins,” just like we are supposed to. But then again, how bad could it be? The Bronx Bombers did, after all, sweep a Labor Day doubleheader.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!