Dan Gould

What an f-ing aggravating game that turned out to be. What the fuck is the purpose of using video if they still get the fucking call wrong? Hitting the glove of a fan (if it did) shouldn't make it a home run, and otherwise it didn't reach the stands, now did it? It bounced off the top of the wall and back into the field. Of course in the end it doesn't matter after Cody Ransom's shattered bat double. I have never in my life seen a bat shatter like that, with only the handle in the guy's hand, and it carried 310 feet - at least not without some cork inside the bat. Yanks stole one today.

Off another home run into the first row of the closer-in bleachers.

Which doesn't really make sense, if you consider the alignment of the stadiums: There's no way the wind carries out to right field any different than it used to, nor would the building next door have anything to do with wind patterns in that direction. The reality, however, is that while the Yankees claim to have duplicated the dimensions of the old stadium, its simply not true. They duplicated the measurements at the old markers, but right field out to right center is shorter, plus the wall is shorter too: That's from the Hit Tracker website, via the Was Watching blog. Hit Tracker has concluded that the balls appear to be a bit more juiced this year, neutralizing for atmospheric conditions. If the data is correct and Yankee Stadium will play smaller than the park it replaced, and the balls are juiced, I think its a bad thing for the Yankees, overall. I think there will be quite a few games blown up by the No-Name Bullpen, and its also possible that as the weather warms up, even the better members of the staff will be victimized by some cheapie home runs. It will put more pressure on the aging lineup to put runs on the board. If Posada and Matsui don't do their jobs, it could indeed be a long year in the Bronx.

But that ain't no mountain range on the left .... Oh yeah, happy birthday, Aggie! :party:

Yeah, great Cub game, hope Chuck stayed to the end. I'm sure he did. Meantime that's an awful Scott Kazmir start tonight. 6 runs in 4+ innings?

Thanks so much for posting that, Dave. Very interesting and I can't wait to read Part 2.

Hey Yankee run prevention isn't that bad - they've got two safeties!

Earlier in the week, Wang threw his bullpen as a live batting practice - apparently the pitching coach's idea. And everyone agreed he looked much better, that his balls stayed down. After the first inning, I wondered if he was going to be the Wang of old again, and then the second inning just went bad in a hurry. I wonder if they will disable him or send him down (wouldn't be surprised if he still has options since he made it to the majors and pretty much stayed). It does look like his confidence is shot so it wouldn't be a bad idea to let Hughes take over. Would be easier to reach that goal of 21 runs if they didn't load the bases with no outs and not score at all.

I'm gettin more info from the Lohud Yankee blog - The Sox did score 14 against the Marlins, it was in 2003 and happened in the first inning - and Carl Pavano was the starter. In fact I think they scored like 9 runs before an out was recorded, or something insane like that.

14 runs ties the Cleveland mark for runs in an inning, and 14 runs, 13 hits is the all-time mark for hits/runs allowed in an inning by a Yankee team. I seem to recall a few years ago the Sox scored 14 in one inning at Fenway against the Marlins en route to a 24 run outburst. Then they had a big inning the next game and somehow lost the game, iirc. See? We need Stark to get the lowdown on this type of insanity.

I don't know what's more astounding - that Wang came into this game with an ERA tick under 30 - and it rose after lasting an inning and a third or that the Indians hung a 14-spot on the Yanks in that disastrous inning. I'd like to see Jayson Stark's take on 14 run innings in the next edition of the Useless Info column. Seems to me its likely to be a very long time before the Yankees take back that Stadium mark for most runs scored in an inning. And speaking of the Stadium, amazing but not really surprising to see all those rich folks that snapped up the $2500 tickets showing up dressed as empty seats. I have to wonder how this park is going to play for visiting teams. Corporate types instead of hard-core fans down front, vast majority of every-day people way up in the bleachers, further away from the field than before due to the new design. There have already been columns written about how quiet it was in the first two games, and I could see this stadium not being nearly as intimidating as it was for visiting teams. Not to mention the fact that Mystique and Aura, the old strippers, haven't made it across the street yet.

Happy Birthday to the only "King" that everyone agrees on. :party:

Back to the present - thank heaven the Sox faced the abominable Oriole pitching staff at home tonight. Penny was awful, allowing seven runs in the second and eight overall, but the Sox came back from 7-0 and 8-5 to win 10-8. Another strong performance by the bullpen but they have to start getting some consistent length from the starters. And, this came on a day with potentially bad news for Jed Lowrie. He's seeing another wrist specialist and may need season-ending surgery. They may have no alternative to Julio Lugo for the rest of the year. I know people question Lowrie's skill but when healthy, he has been a consistent hitter. Its obvious his wrist has kept him from showing that in the majors.

Glad you enjoyed it, Harold. Some good calls on the Gene/Not Gene but not 100% right. I think you'll be surprised by the Autumn Leaves and On The Trail tracks, which have been identified, if not completely in the case of the former. Now, where's Soul Stream with his review of the second disc?

I know there were games attended at Wrigley but the first game I remember would have been around 1972 or '73, Cubs visiting the Mets at Shea. When we lived on Long Island Dad used to get tickets from an old friend who was GM or something at WOR-TV, so we'd have great seats just to the left of the Cub dugout. Often we got tickets to doubleheaders back when they didn't have separate admission. So what I remember about this particular game was that it was Banner Day, and we made up our own Cub banner - "WE'RE MASOCHISTS - WE LIKE THE CUBS" or something to that effect. So toward the end of the first game we congregated out beyond the LF wall, then came in through center, me and my older brother proudly carrying the ends of the bedsheet we had written our message on. Everyone came down the center of the field, and then were supposed to split off just before home plate and go back up along the baseline. There was no way in hell I was going to get that close to home plate without touching it, and I ran up and did the double-foot, just-won-the-game stomp as some Mets flunkie stepped forward and grabbed my arm, moving me away from the sacred plate. Afterwards I found out from Mom that the camera was following me and the Mets announcer said something about me. Too bad this was long before VCRs.

Its only the second time he's done it prior to July in any season, and the time before was in late June, his last start for Cleveland before the trade.

What Aggie said. Can't let anything happen to the Sonny Clark collection until I'm finished filling it out.

and how long can you really expect to keep saying that?

Well now we know why they wanted to get as many outs as possible from Sabathia. What a putrid bullpen performance that was. "We Want Swisher" is the plea of the crowd. Seriously though, I could see the fans turn on Marte and Veras very quickly this season. They epitomize "untrustworthy" and are likely to blow up multiple winnable games.

I know Sabathia is a horse but why send him out for the sixth inning at 105 pitches? He ends up throwing 122 for 5 2/3 innings, can't be the winner, on the hook for the runner he left ... all those innings and pitches over the last two seasons, and all that money committed to him. I'd be a lot more careful with him, especially early in the year.

When Jim brought this blog up again last night, on a whim I went looking for this LP. Made an offer on a NM/VG++ copy on eBay and got it for $20 (the buy it now was $29). I just hope that organist doesn't ruin it, because the rest of the band should sound pretty good.

Max Roach 4 Plays Charlie Parker Hank and KD sound great on this, an all-time favorite.

The worst defender on the field makes the first "web gem" as Jeter catches some huckleberry straying off first on a pop up to shallow left, double play to get Sabathia out of trouble. I hope you are right, Jeff but I'm not holding my breath.

Not exactly. I'm wondering if this game has "reverse lock" all over it - opening day at the new stadium, C.C. vs a struggling Cliff Lee, but as Lee has given up a hit and an HBP I have little hope that Yankee fans won't go home happy today.

Madden and Sumerall were great together, but the past few years, Madden's shtick became a little too familiar and predictable. But definitely a broadcast legend and deservedly so.