It’s Time.
Via River Ave Blues
Jesus Montero, C: 3 for 4, 1 R, 1 HR, 1 RBI – 13 for his last 30 (.433) with four doubles & three homers … that’s his third homer in the last four games … was pinch run for in the 8th, when they were down a run
Via @conorfoley: Interesting caught stealing stat: Cervelli – 16% CS, Posada – 17% CS, Austin Romine – 18% CS, Jesus Montero – 24% CS.
Via @bkabak: Since July 1, Jesus Montero is 40 for 106 (.377) with 8 HR and 9 2B.
Via @ledger_yankees Posada was unavailable to pinch hit due to a “cranky shoulder”.
Yeah. It’s time. Call up Jesus.
Derek Jeter reads my blog, or something.
Since my Jeter-should-not-lead-off ultra-rant the other day that got called “stupid”, among other things, Jeter is batting .368/.455/.526/.981.
Sometimes, being wrong is nice.
As you were.
A night full of ….Buh?
Some pictures from the Batter’s Eye seats to make you go …buuuhh
(Swisher goes Shakespeare!)
PBP Interview: Jose Peña RHP (DSL Yankees)
Si usted no puede entender ingles, se puede leer la entrevista en español. Oprima “read the rest of this entry” para hacer eso. Si hay errores, solamente son mios.
We all love prospects. We all love to follow them when they’re no older than high school students and follow them from the lowest levels all the way up to their professional debuts, so we can say we “knew” them before they were famous. In the era of the internet and instant box scores, it’s now easier than ever to track prospects–and not just the top rated Jesus Montero, but guys such as Ramon Flores and Gary Sanchez, who are multiple years away from seeing the big league roster–if they’re lucky enough to get there.
With that in mind, I was lucky enough to have the chance to interview Jose Peña, a 19 year old right-handed pitcher in his second stint with the DSL Yankees. Peña does not speak English, so the interview was done in Spanish. The original Spanish interview can be found after the jump. Some of Peña’s Spanish answers have been edited for clarity (as in, internet abbreviations such as ‘k’ becoming ‘que’).
Note: The translation is my best effort, but in instances in which I am not entirely sure, the phrase is in italics. If you know where I messed up, drop me a line! If there are errors in the translation, they are mine and mine alone.
You can view Peña’s stats basic here and his splits here; he reckons he has two more starts this season.
Rebecca: My first question is, can you tell us a little about yourself? Where were you born? How did you start to play baseball?
Jose Peña (JP): I was born in Monte Cristi in the Dominican Republic. I started to play baseball when I was seven.
Rebecca: How did you become a pitcher?
JP: One day my friend saw me playing left field and told me that I should go to the mound if I wanted to be professional because I had a good arm.
Rebecca: Not all that different than Mariano…he was a shortstop, but his team needed a pitcher one day, and that was that. So then, how did the Yankees find you?
JP: One day I thought I was going home and my coach told me that he was going to bring me to the Yankees, who were going to sign me, with God going forward God willing, and I give thanks to God for giving me the opportunity of my life that has been what I’ve always wanted since I was a child.
Rebecca: Can you describe the signing process? It was the same day as Gary Sanchez, and others, but what was the process like?
JP: I never thought that I could sign that day because the competition was very great and because the other guys were much younger and if I didn’t sign that day it would have been another year outside professional ball and my retirement from baseball.
Rebecca: So you signed late in the day? What were you thinking when you signed your name with the Yankees?
JP: Yes, I never thought that I was going to sign with the Yankees because I had never gone to their academy.
Rebecca: But someone had to see you! Do you know who?
JP: That was a day I was being watched (scouted) by Boston and my boss talked to one of the talent agents scouts of the Yankees to get them to invite me to the academy, and with the luck of God, the day I came went, Mark Newman was there.
Rebecca: If someone’s going to see you, no one better than Newman!
JP: Yes and I thank him for giving me the opportunity to be a professional and some year from now, to be a big leaguer with the Yankees.
Rebecca: So, can you describe a typical day in the Dominican League when it’s a day that you are pitching?
JP: Here in the Dominican league, I’m always concentrating on maintaining my control and pitching strategythrowing strikes.
Rebecca: Sure, but what do you do? Get up early? Eat something special, like the players here? Do you have a routine?
JP: Yes, but I never eat anything before pitching. I only drink coffee and nothing else.
Rebecca: Hah. I can’t imagine, but they say that it’s better to exercise before eating.
JP: It’s because, one day I didn’t eat anything until I finished pitching, and I felt better.
Rebecca: Ah, good. So, can you describe your pitches? How hard is your fastball? What else do you throw?
JP: Sometimes my fastball reaches 93; it’s always low and I have various (other) pitches.
Rebecca: Can you give us some more details?
JP: My curve is very good when I have control of it, and the same with my change, but my best pitch is my sinker…it’s a pitch that sinks all the way down and gets many swings in the dirt…Right now, it’s the pitch with which I am dominiating hitters…I feel that that pitch is what is going to make me a great pitcher and with it I can get anyone out, no matter what league.
Rebecca: What do you like to do when you are not playing baseball?
JP: I like to spend time with my family and friends, and maintain my training.
Rebecca: Do you have a large family?
JP: Yes, my mother and my father, and two siblings, a sister and a brother.
Rebecca: Who are your favorite Major Leaguers?
JP: Ubaldo Jimenez and CC Sabathia
Rebecca: Cool, but the other day you told me Andy Pettitte! Has it changed?
JP: I like Pettitte in tight situations…because he makes it look easy to get out of jams
Rebecca: So, last question: My friends will kill me if I don’t ask you about Melvin (Croussett). What can you tell us about the pitcher?
JP: He’s one of the best here in the DSL, and has had the best changeup in the league for four consecutive years.
What’s it like to have a lead off hitter? I forget
In the eighth inning of tonight’s game, I sat with long time blog reader Jordan (you know him as JGS), and his friend, and we discussed what we saw, which included the possibility that if Austin Kearns could draw a walk, we’d see Derek Jeter up with the bases loaded and two out, himself as the go ahead run.
We groaned.
Think about this for a moment. Derek Jeter, the Yankee Captain, the lead off hitter, a first ballot Hall of Famer…all of these things, and we are groaning, practically wishing that someone else, anyone else not named Ramiro Peña or Francisco Cervelli was on deck.
Something’s not right with this picture.
So I go to Baseball Reference to try to find out what gives, and this is what I discover:
- Derek Jeter’s .335 OBP is the third worst out of any Yankee that’s seen regular playing time–only Francisco Cervelli, the back up catcher, and Curtis Granderson, who missed a month with an injury, are lower.
- Jeter’s .386 slugging is lower than any regular except Francisco Cervelli.
- Put the two together, and Jeter’s OPS is lower than every regular except Francisco Cervelli. That’s right, Jeter’s OPS is lower than that of Curtis Granderson. Heck, Jeter’s OPS on the road is .610–almost Molinaesque, as Jordan stated.
- Jeter has the most plate appearances of any Yankee (478)…and only the sixth-most walks.
If Jeter was not Derek Jeter, if he was, say, Brett Gardner or even Nick Swisher with these numbers, he’d be hitting at the bottom of the line up, the type of weak hitter you can manage in a line up full of All Stars because his defense makes up for the lack of his bat.
In no instance would you think of batting this player lead off…and yet, that is exactly what Derek Jeter is doing.
“Well,” you say, “if Jeter doesn’t hit lead off, then who should?”
If the goal of the lead off hitter is to get on base, then one might suggest Brett Gardner–whose .395 on base percentage is one of the top in all of baseball, and don’t tell me you saw that coming because you didn’t–and Gardner has the almost requisite speed as well. You can argue that over exposure will hurt Gardner, but statistically speaking, what would happen if Jeter hit eighth or ninth and Gardner led off?
There would be a gigantic media malestorm and fan outrage and the headache might not be worth the results–especially to Joe Girardi, Gardner, Granderson or Jeter, those concerned–but, ultimately, statistically, what would it do? I leave the question open ended because I don’t know. Maybe Gardner gets on base more often, Swisher keeps on forgetting that the Send Swish Campaign already won, Teixeira keeps up his hot second half and, whaddya know, the top of the Yankee line up goes from being the league leader in runs scored, to an utter monster that no one, not even Tampa Bay can contain.
Or maybe nothing happens, at all.
Jeter did have a decent game on Monday, going 2-5 and scoring two of the Yankees’ five runs, and the Yankee offense, as a whole, still remains one of (if not the best, by various measures) offenses in the game. So it might seem extrodinarily petty to be talking about Derek Jeter as such, and maybe you (and many times myself) think that one should just shut up and enjoy what the Yankees have, but here’s the rub: the Yankees are now tied for the best record in baseball, and the team they’re tied with plays in the same division.
The division may very well be won or lost in one run late September games–just think about this weekend’s past series–games where missed opportunity means everything, and for those of you who think that winning the division is insignificant (a feat of which I have recently been guilty myself), remember that the wild card team likely goes on to play Texas–and face Cliff Lee twice–in a short series.
The Yankees are good, great even, but it’s going to take over 100 wins to take the AL East (and quite possibly the Wild Card), so it would behoove them to try to utilize every possible advantage. Even if it means Derek Jeter should not hit lead off.
Nick Swisher on E:60
This via ESPN:
ESPN’s E:60 Profiles Yankees’ Nick Swisher
ESPN’s award-winning primetime newsmagazine E:60 will feature an exclusive interview with Nick Swisher of the New York Yankees and profile what he has brought to the team in the episode airing Tuesday, Aug. 3, at 7 p.m. ET.
When the Yankees signed Swisher as an insurance outfielder prior to the 2009 season, he wasn’t quite an afterthought–but his was the least-heralded of the Yankees’ mammoth free agent signings that winter. Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett were the headliners; Swisher was just that other guy. Eighteen months later, Swisher is arguably the second-best player on baseball’s best team.
But his productivity is just part of the story. Into a clubhouse that was known for its seriousness, Swisher injected some much needed joie de vivre. His relentless energy and enthusiasm initially encountered some resistance in the business-like atmosphere in the Bronx–but eventually his teammates were won over by his attitude and performance. With Swisher, the Yankees won the World Series for the first time in nine years and, for the first time since perhaps long before then, they’ve been having fun. Jeremy Schaap reports for E:60.
I’m headed out to tonight’s game and will be sitting in right field…who knows, maybe Swisher will wave at me! (Okay, okay, I’m dreaming but that’s not the point…)
Let’s Go FJMing!
Today’s beauty comes via
Mike Lupica of the Daily News.
The other teams in baseball want to win. The ones with a realistic chance to win, and that means win it all, do the best they can to put themselves in the best position to do that. The Yankees are different. The Yankees have to win, and that never just means the American League East with them. The Yankees are operated in a way, even when they have the best record in baseball, that makes you think that if they don’t keep adding players and spending money, they are going to somehow turn into sports dummies like the Dolans.
Only fools think like that. Maybe it’s because I’m not actually a fan of any team owned by the Dolans (I like my Prokhorovs, Johnsons and who owns the Devils, anyway?), but I don’t think that if the Yankees make one bad move or one bad signing that all Hell is going to break loose. I mean, didn’t this team just win a World Series last year? Don’t they have the best record in baseball right now? They could have traded Jesus Montero for Matt Capps and I would have yelled and screamed and thrown things, but they still wouldn’t be the Baltimore Orioles, or even the Toronto Blue Jays.
Hell, last year, when the Yankees won everything, they traded for Eric Hinske (who’s got this weird karma thing going on and it’s no wonder Atlanta’s in first place), Jerry Hairston Jr. and Chad Gaudin. That’s hardly moving mountains.
So now they bring in Lance Berkman, Kerry Wood and Austin Kearns as this year’s difference-makers at the trade deadline, even though guys like that are nothing more than sidebars to Roy Oswalt, at least at this point.
Oswalt is kinda sorta overrated. At least when you consider his salary, and that he’d have to move from the NL to the AL.
While Cliff Lee would have been overkill nice, the fact is that the Yankees’ weakness is not in their starting rotation, and thus it might actually be the last thing that they needed to improve. CC Sabathia is an ace (even if he’s the only starter that lost in Cleveland, go figure), AJ Burnett is…well, AJ, a healthy Andy Pettitte (he threw off a mound today, so he is making quite excellent progress) is pitching like it’s 1996, Javy Vazquez has been the Yankees’ best starter since mid-May, and Phil Hughes is proving quite competent in his role. There are at least 28 other baseball teams that wish they had this rotation.
And what is interesting about these moves, a few weeks after the Yankees don’t pull off the trade for Cliff Lee, is that the Yankees continue to be general-managed, in an almost twitchy way, as if there’s something missing. As if the Rays, a team spending nearly $140 million less than Brian Cashman gets to spend on baseball players, scare them more than the bogey man.
Huh?
What’s so twitchy about the philosophy that if the team has weak spots, and you can improve them, that you go and improve them?
Let me remind you that Brian Cashman parted with none of these: Jesus Montero, Austin Romine, Phil Hughes, Brett Gardner, Dellin Betances, Manuel Banuelos, Adam Warren, Hector Noesi, Eduardo Nuñez, or Slade Heathcott.
Lance Berkman, Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood cost the Yankees cash (sort of), and Mark Melancon.
That’s like getting a PS3 for your Atari. And don’t play the vintage card, you know I’m right.
So they go hard after Lee even before Andy Pettitte went down with a groin injury. They think they have Lee locked down good before they get too cute and the story on Lee gets out prematurely. Now Berkman, who somehow has gone from hitting over 40 home runs in the big leagues to 13 this season, is supposed to make up for the fact that Nick Johnson, the great pitch-taker, never really showed up this season.
Kearns? He is supposed to make up for the fact that Curtis Granderson can’t hit lefthanded pitching here any better than he did in Detroit.
Why not go after Lee if he’s available? He’s the best friggin’ pitcher in the AL, and the Yankees had the prospects to get it done, minus David Adams’ ankle. Yes, it’s overkill, but it’s hella fun overkill.
They didn’t trade for Berkman to hit home runs, and if you think that that is what matters, you need to go back to 1998. They traded Berkman to do what Nick Johnson does, which is get on base, and while Berkman had an o-fer yesterday, can you blame him? Dude probably hasn’t slept in 24 or 48 hours. Even Yankee fans will give him a day or two before starting to scream BUST BUST. And he won’t be a bust. We hope.
What’s so bad about trying to get someone that can hit lefties better than Granderson and isn’t the apocalypse in the field like Thames? I don’t get it.
And maybe both of them are supposed to supply enough home-run stick down the stretch to make up for the fact that Alex Rodriguez, who was on his way to hitting 54 home runs in a season exactly three years ago, now has 16 home runs as we begin the month of August.
The Yankees have more runs than anyone else in baseball.
You get runs in a variety of ways. Such as walking, stealing a base, and then scoring on a single. Or hitting a double, going to third on a ground out and scoring on a sacrifice fly. No, it’s not shiny like a home run is shiny, but they all count the same in the score.
Home runs are way overrated, and have been since, well, at least since I’ve been following baseball. It’s like what’s the difference between Luis Vitton luggage and the carry on I bought from ebagz? One is shiny, but the other works just fine.
The Yankees have to win.
They have to win and that doesn’t just mean No. 27. Hal Steinbrenner let Cashman spend more than $400 million on CC Sabathia, A.J. (Whoops, I slipped) Burnett and Mark Teixeira last year, and he didn’t let Cashman lay out that kind of cash to win just one World Series.
And Cashman is the one who thought the Yankees could win with Granderson and Johnson instead of Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon. So now Berkman, whose home run totals really have dropped like an anchor over the side of a boat, is the DH that Matsui could have been for one more year at the Stadium, and Kearns becomes another outfielder.
The Yankees can still win the World Series without Johnny Damon (.281/.373/.432, 7 HR, 32 RBI) and Hideki Matsui (.251/.331/.418, 14 HR, 55 RBI).
Need I remind you that Brett Gardner (.296/.396/.398, 5 HR, 36 RBI) is having a better year than either of the dearly departeds? I guess, given that you think that the Yankees traded for Berkman to hit home runs, that since Gardner doesn’t have as many home runs as Damon or Matsui, that the Yankees are strongly lacking.
At any rate, here I would argue that Cashman did a quite excellent job. He let Damon and Matsui go at exactly the right time instead of signing them for sentimental reasons. Nick Johnson is Nick Johnson, but when he was in the line up, he still managed to get on base at an over .400 clip. No, Granderson is not great against lefties, but he plays a fine defensive center field and more than once has come up with the big extra-inning or late-inning hit.
Berkman is 13 homers, 49 RBI, a .245 batting average. Matsui? He is 14 and 55 and .251 with the Angels, and you can only imagine what his numbers would look like with the kind of boppers the Yankees would have put around him again. Damon is .281 for the Tigers, seven homers, 32 RBI, not up to his Yankee standards. But you think those numbers aren’t better hitting behind Jeter and ahead of Teixeira, and the right-field wall beckoning at the Stadium?
Using home runs, RBI and batting average without the benefit of on base percentage alone makes you lose your statistical argument. Not to mention that Berkman has improved every month, which is what you hope to see when coming off of knee surgery.
Given the year that Derek Jeter is having, I’m not entirely sure Damon’s numbers would be any better, not to mention that I want no part of Matsui’s knees. None. Zero. Zip. Hideki, I love you and you were a most excellent Yankee, but I still don’t love your knees.
Again, what is it with the home runs?!
Seriously, if you’re a Yankee fan, you want to go to war with Matsui and Damon, or with this year’s trade-deadline saviors?
Given that the Yankees have the BEST. RECORD. IN. BASEBALL, I think I’ll stick with this year’s team.
This isn’t just about Yankee money, even though you’d think the Yankees, at $210 million (what happened to the “budget”?), would be more fully-formed at this point in the season. This is about the weird insecurity around a team that is loaded with All-Stars and legends and came into Saturday with a record of 65-37 and seems to be well on its way to another 100-win season.
What insecurity? They’re a good team trying to get better. Even the 114 win Yankees had weaknesses (can you imagine what we’d be saying about their left field situation today? Or about Hideki Irabu?). There’s nothing wrong with that.
In fact, the worst thing the Yankees could do would be complacent–it’s one thing if no deals materialize, entirely another if you never bother to look.
But the Rays are only two games behind despite Saturday’s loss to the Yanks. The Rays are young and exciting, you saw that after Friday night’s win. The Rays don’t add former All-Stars at the trade deadline and don’t add more payroll to the $76 million payroll they’ve got – with the Yankees, $76 million means first base, third base, shortstop – and seem willing to take their chances down the stretch with what they’ve got.
They’re willing because they have to be. The Yankees have the benefit of being the Yankees and a very generous budget, but you can’t tell me that if the Rays had a shot at Cliff Lee, that they wouldn’t have taken it. They’re young and exciting, yes, and they’ve built their team wisely, but they are far from perfect, and have had the rough stretches to prove it.
The Yankees, on the other hand, have yet to be swept in a three game series this year.
Will the Yankees beat them out of first place in the East in the end? That’s the way to bet. And that’s not the real question here.
The question goes something like this:
Why do the Yankees seem to be so worried that they can’t?
Actually, Mike, no.
The real question is, since both the Yankees and the Rays will probably make the playoffs, unless one team drastically starts sucking, who cares if the Yankees win the East or not?
All you have to do is get in.
(But the Yankees are winning the East, anyway).
October in Leo*
Sometimes, when one watching his or her team play an entire weeks’ worth of games against the cellar-dwelling Royals and Indians, it can be hard to remember what it feels like to play games that mean something.
The Rays, it seems, are doing an excellent job of reminding us.
Two games, two games decided by one run, two games well pitched and played cleanly and crisply, two games in the middle of a hotter-than-you-could-ever-want summer, two games split even, just like the season series, is all it takes.
If Friday and Saturday’s games are any indication, and heck, why not, if the Yankees and the Rays end up meeting in the ALCS (something that seems almost predestined unless the not-even-feisty-just-plain-good Rangers have something to say), we’re in for one hell of a show.
When’s the last time you saw Tropicana Field sold out?
Some have called Yankees-Rays the new Yankees-Sox; I’m still hesitant to do so.
The Yankees and Red Sox rivalry goes back the majority of a century, back to when there weren’t antibiotics and there was a Russian Czar (well, that’s stretching, but only a little). There’s so much history, that when the two teams do play meaningful games, all else in the baseball world seems to stand still.
The Yankees and the Rays are certainly putting something together, especially over the last few years when the Rays have firmly entrenched themselves in the realm of respectability, but I would argue we’re probably looking at something more akin to the Yankee-Royals rivalries of the late 70s and 80s than Yankees-Sox.
Even so, it’s still a rivalry very worth having.
The Rays are young, funky, and a media darling. Evan Longoria has (in my opinion, anyway) the best walk up music in the league, Rafael Soriano has one of of the best nicknames ever (MFIKY, which of course means motherf—– I kill you), and Joaquin Benoit has stats that make you close your eyes and re-open them just to make sure you’re seeing them correctly. Then, of course, you’ve got Carl Crawford running roughshod over, well, everyone, Matt Garza no-hitting the Tigers, David Price being David Price, and what have you.
Then you have the Yankees, the defending champions, playing now for their dearly departed Boss (and PA announcer, and former manager and please-don’t-die-anyone-else-because-there-isn’t-any-more-room-for-uniform-patches). You have Robinson Canó having the type of season everyone he could potentially have as though it’s a piece of cake, Brett Gardner showing us that he’s not, in fact, a fourth outfielder (and neither is Nick Swisher), Andy Pettitte making like it’s 1996 (when he’s healthy) and Mariano Rivera who right now has an ERA under one and allowed four earned runs all season–three of them in a single five day span.
So you take these two teams, you put them in a ballpark together and press play, and what do you get?
Your very own October appetizer.
*this series is being played both in July and August, so I can’t call this piece “October in July” or “October in August”, however, it is being played entirely during the domain of Leo. For those that are into such things.
*****
Obligatory trade deadline comments:
Lance Berkman: I prefer Big Puma to Fat Elvis, but either will do just fine. As will he, DHing against righties. As long as Thames DHs against lefties and doesn’t see the light of day in the field everything should work out just fine. Make sure you read Mark Feinsand’s Blogging Bombers post in which Berkman speaks quotes worth reading.
Austin Kearns: Cannot be any worse than any of the previous Yankee bench options, so why not?
Kerry Wood: Cannot be worse than Chad Ho Mosely, so why not?
The idea of the deadline for buyers is to improve your team without parting with anyone too precious, and given that the Yankees gave up a struggling Mark Melancon and, well, cash, I think we can live with it.
This Baseball Life
Last night, while out for drinks, a topic of conversation arose in which we discussed the best and our favorite things we have seen live at a baseball ball park.
This afternoon, I asked the question on Twitter, and here are some of the answers I’ve recieved:
@5states: I went to Don Mattingly Day in 1997. That was pretty excellent.
@yankeemeginphl: I was at Yaz’s last game at YS and Guidry’s 21st win (9/23/83) as well as being at Ripken’s last game of his streak.
@UC_SID: I saw my fave Red Barry Larkin’s last base hit. Saw Junior belt 2 HRs in a game (either 579, 580 or 580, 581) & a no-no in milb gm
@richardiurilli: ALDS game 2 last year
@rebexarama: opening day 1996 in the snow, probably
@ejgoose: My first (and only) World Series game: Game 1, 2003. Would have been Game 7 of the ALCS if I could have gone.
@riffraff513: It’s a cheesy answer, but for me it’d be the last game at the old Stadium.
@kschmidt2: David Justice’s home run in the 2000 ALCS. Craziest I’ve ever seen Yankee Stadium in person.
@nerfsqueezer game 4 in 1999 left the stadium with my dad in exultation and it was the last time I saw him
@kdumont33: Can’t decide: First Yankee Stadium trip when I was 12 – saw a Neikro pitch; or 1997 playoff game against Cleveland…/Playoff game: back-to-back-to-back homers by Bernie, P. O’Neill and somebody else. I may have also high-fived a dancing hot dog
@andyinsunnydb: I once attended a Florida Marlins sold-out game, It was Game 3 of the 2003 World Series.
@simmonsclass: Game 1 of the 2000 World Series, upper deck was shaking after Vizcaino got that hit. Fell asleep on the ride home
@markdavitt: 5/1/96. Camden Yards, Tino’s 15th inning grand slam in the rain won the game.
@bniche: My answer: it’s gotta be the last game at Yankee Stadium. Such a surreal experience and something I’ll never forget.
@brienjackson: I was at Great American Ballpark the night Adam Dunn hit a HR out of the park into the Ohio River.
@yankeegirl049: 1976 ALCS when Chambliss sent us to the series. I was 10 and while I was a fan..being at THAT game made me obsessed!
@glenngiangrande: Coolest exp: for work, being on-field for New YS opener, in-house for closing in ’08, seing D.Bush take no-no into 8th in PHI…Wait, I take it back. Replace D.Bush with Strasburg MLB debut in DC. Definitely sick. Great buzz, fans going nuts, sea of red.
@joeroe23: I think mine was 30-stadium road-trip with buddy in 2002.
@christina1014ny: 08 all star game at Yankee Stadium… I still can remember seein steinbrenner out on the golf cart and yelling “look its george”
@jaydestro: 96 parade. Walking around downtown manhattan and seeing the spoils of victory.
@simplysmoov: I saw Yankees clinch AL East in ’96 — single-admission doubleheader vs. Brewers
@jay_jaffe: Attending the 1999 World Series clincher, the last of 16 at old YS. The upper deck shook! (see #1 http://bit.ly/asmbqw)
So, how about it? What’s your coolest baseball experience?
For me, it’s a toss up between seeing the Expos play in Montreal or Game 2 of last year’s ALDS between the Yankees and the Twins (not that Game Two of the World Series was too shabby, either, or Game Six when Chris Meloni walked into the bar, but I digress).
The awesome thing about baseball, though, is that because so many games get played every single season, you really don’t know what’s going to happen, what you are going to see. Any game now, Alex Rodriguez will hit his 600th home run; any game can turn into a no-hitter, any game can become a miraculous ninth inning come back…
So go and leave your coolest baseball experience in a comment below. I can’t wait to read them.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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