ghost of miles

Hey all, apologies for the short notice, but for any Organissimo posters in the south-central Indiana area, Mike Reed's People, Places and Things will be playing this Friday night at the Bishop in Bloomington. If you're unfamiliar with Reed and his excellent series of tributes to mid-20th-century Chicago hardbop, check out this recent interview with him: Everything has its roots in something

Lee wants to be on a winner. My takeaway from that is that he does indeed dig being in Texas and has good feelings about the team's future, but he doesn't want to make it too easy on the Texas ownership in terms of a contract offer. Still, the way this series has gone down might push him even more towards staying with the Rangers.

What would you do if Nolan Ryan looked you in the eyes and more or less said, "Son, we need a hero around here besides me. I like your style, and I'd like for you to be the new hero for the Ranger family of fans, and I will do anything I can to help do that, if it's what you want. Can we do business?" This is Nolan Ryan looking you in the eyes and being as serious and honest as any baseball ownership figure is ever going to be with you. Now if you're a player, a player with a soul, a pitcher with a soul, some blabberjabber coming from a suited dwerb with a pinky ring and a cell phone and a big office and endorsement this and marquis that, well, what kind of a man are you anyway, that's what the question then becomes. Just a dream, I know, but what a sweet one it is. Well, that's what I mean. I really don't know much at all about Lee, except that he's got a kind of Texarkana air about him that would seem to make him a good long-term fit for the Rangers. NY is a whole 'nother enchilada... not saying Lee couldn't handle the pressure. I think he could. But the scenario you describe above would, I think, surely be tempting to him. Texas would be a stable, very comfortable environment close to his hometown roots. Most people think Lee will want 5-6 years at $20 million or more a year. If Texas can come close to that, I think he just might go with them over the Yankees, whatever NY ends up offering... at that level of pay you can afford to give up a few million dollars for a better shot at assured personal happiness. And I can see Lee seeing it that way too, esp. if Greenberg and company are working on his parents and his wife's parents as well...southern hospitality vs. Manhattan madness? I dunno, man, I think his heart might just end up in Texas after all. Myself, I sure won't cry if we do get Lee, but I'd just as soon see us develop more homegrown talents like Andy Pettitte (one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest postseason pitchers the Yankees have ever had) or Phil Hughes (on the other end of the career spectrum, but a guy who I think will prove to be a stayer). Lee's had some back issues, too, which might be rather worrisome when it comes to signing a 32-year-old pitcher to a long-term contract. That's another reason why some of the folks over at Pinstripe Alley aren't necessarily eager to see the Yankees pursue him.

They've got soul, as does their crowd. It's been a blast to watch the games at A T & T Park in both the NLDS and the NLCS. I love it that Sandoval's nickname is "Kung Fu Panda." And DAZED AND CONFUSED is one of my all-time favorite movies, so I'm a sucker for a stoner pitcher who looks so much like Mitch Kramer: Hey, if it turns out to be an Giants-Rangers series, I sure won't feel cheated in terms of an interesting match-up.

For Jsngry and other Texas fans--a NY Times interview with Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg. I don't know much about Cliff Lee, but what Greenberg says in there confirms my hunch that Lee may not necessarily walk away from the Rangers after this season. The Arkansas connection had crossed my mind before, and if they can convince Lee that this is a good, at-home place to be--and offer him money that's at least reasonably close to what the Yankees will probably offer him--then it might be a very tough decision. I know he and C.C. are buddies, but still, if he digs living and pitching in Texas, then it might well be worth taking the $100 million contract over the $110 million or whatever NY will throw at him.

Wow. I can honestly say that I did not underestimate Texas going into the ALCS, but I sure underestimated SF as an opponent of Philadelphia's. "These San Francisco Giants... Cinderella story, the crowd going crazy here at A T & T Park..."

Believe me, I'm not defending his overall performance--he had the highest ERA in Yankee history for any starter with more than 180 IP in a season, and we were 13-20 in games that he started. But given his 17-day layoff and all of the bad-A.J. mojo that's surrounded him, I thought until the home run to Molina that he had given the Yankees a quality start. Better than CC and Phil's first starts in this series, anyway! More on "Grim LeRogue" via the New York Daily News:

I thought A.J. actually pitched fairly well last night--if Joe Girardi had lifted him after the IBB, as he should have, that game might have had a very different outcome. (In fact, Jsngry, Joe's managing of the bullpen in Game 4 comes close to giving back what Texas gave to us in Game 1.) If, by some mad chance, NY made it to the World Series, we'd probably see A.J. again. Meantime, what was with the wild dude who stormed the field last night trying to attack A-Rod--allegedly because he's jealous of A-Rod's relationship with Cameron Diaz? Guy goes by the name of Grim LeRogue... posters over at Pinstripe Alley were joking that it was one of the mods.

Well, way to stay alive and all that for the Yankees, but I still think they're destined to be this year's edition of the 2009 L.A. Angels. (Good parallel for TX fans, as NY lost on the road while up 3-1 against the Angels last year and then wrapped the series up on their home field in game 6.) Sure, NY fans can hope that Phil Hughes reverts to previous form at Arlington, can hope that the bats come up with a few runs to support him...and then can hope that somehow Andy Pettitte/Kerry Wood/Mo pull off a 1-0 game against Cliff Lee in Game 7 (which would also ride on the hope that somehow NY scratches out a run against Mr. Lee or that one hitter manages to go deep on him). That's a helluva lotta hope if you ask me.

Just got home from work and tuned into WCBS... return of the MFY? Maybe. Given Texas' proven ability to tag us for lots of runs in the late innings, I'm not resting easy at all in terms of this game. (People have talked about the Rangers' bullpen... what about NY's? No way you guys are out of this one yet.) In terms of the series, I think only that it's quite kind of the MFY to put you in place for wrapping up the title on your home turf. You've got Cliff Lee in your back pocket, man! Even if you drop this game and Game 6, you've got that. Yeah, no guarantees in baseball, but Cliff Lee against the Yankees is about 99.8% of the way to being one. EDIT: tying run for Texas now on deck for the Rangers in the top of the 6th.

We re-aired David Young: a Quiet Strength last week. It remains archived for online listening.

There's so much to be gleaned from well-written commentary on jazz. Writers like Larry (whose praises in this regard I've sung before), Allen, Loren Schoenberg, Martin Williams, Mark Stryker, Jsngry and others will enhance both your interest and your listening experience (and if your listening experience extends for more than four hours call a doctor? Sorry, there must be a better way to say it that doesn't make good jazz criticism sound like a medical product...back to the coffee). Anyway, I'm grateful for it; some people really have a gift for talking about all of the beauty and details in the music that will make you love it even more.

Boy, this has become a regular ol' Texas Chainsaw Mass-a-cree... Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Yanks-Rays golf playoff in Florida next week?

C'mon, man, let me enjoy my creeping resignation in peace! I don't blame you for not wanting to jump to conclusions on your end--having sat through the apocalypse known as the 2004 ALCS, I don't blame you at all. (Though that Yankee team sure didn't have a Cliff-Lee-Game-7 ace to fall back on! ) And--I genuinely mean this--I'll be happy for the Rangers fans here if TX goes. Nolan Ryan taking over the club, Cliff Lee coming to town, and a possible World Series trip have made for a heady few months, a great ride, and if NY doesn't get to go for the ring again, well, last year was our great ride. Really hard to repeat these days for anybody, it seems.

No, I'm not giving up yet, but the odds keep getting higher and higher. We've been consistently outpitched, outhit, and just plain outplayed in this series. Outscored 27-10 so far! You guys are without a doubt the better team right now. NY's back in the same mediocre mode it was in for most of August and all of September. I have, however, found much consolation in listening to the music of Warne Marsh throughout this ALCS debacle. On another happier note, I just found out that somebody touted Night Lights to Ira Sullivan. :)

Sigh... looks like another epic fail in progress for NY. Dan, I may be joining you in the '11 pitchers-and-catchers-watch queue here pretty soon. I hope SF gets to the WS on the NL side (no offense and much respect to Philly fans).

Sounds like Tex may be out for good. No official report yet, but lots of speculation that he pulled or tore a hamstring. He hasn't hit a lick so far in the ALCS, but we'll sure miss his glove... probably put Berkman at first base from here on out, I'd guess.

That's the one I'd be most eager to get. I know most, if not all, of this material has circulated on the Internet, but I'd love to see a well-done box-set of it. Unfortunately, I think jazzbo's post may be right on target.

I think a few of these showed up on the Count Basie/Harry James Hep label CD BASIE RHYTHM, thought that title now seems to have gone OOP as well.

They're literally halfway there, and one of the things they've still got to dig out is a potential Cliff Lee start at home for Game 7. I was hoping that NY would tag Lee for at least a couple of runs tonight and get him out of the ballgame by the 7th or 8th inning--as I've noted before, they hit him early and late in Game 5 of last year's WS, even though they ultimately lost that game. After tonight, where are their heads regarding Mr. Lee? They couldn't pull it out at home in a Game 3 situation... that doesn't leave me feeling good at all about a Game 7 road situation. Like I said after Game 1, Texas is a damn good team; if NY went into this series underestimating them they're fools. Right now the Rangers look like a team on the rise and NY looks like a team that's edging a bit too comfortably into near-champion decline. They've been completely dominated, just 1/18th of a game shy of being down in the dreaded 3-0 hole. So far Texas has outscored us 20-7. 20-7! I mean, it's a slaughterhouse out there, when you look at the statistics. Again, congrats to the Rangers for playing so tough so far. They don't show any signs of stopping, Jsngry. That's interesting--I thought the crux of the matter was that Seattle really wanted Smoak and was using NY to get Texas to give him up. At the time I wasn't all that disheartened to see the Lee trade fall through, as I had real doubts about giving up Montero to essentially rent a guy for half a season who we had a good chance of signing anyway over the winter. Of course, at the time Andy Pettitte hadn't gone down with an injury yet and there was still hope for Javy and A.J. pulling out decent seasons as starters. In retrospect it might have been worth giving up Montero to get Lee, but I can't really blame Cashman for hesitating to give up better 2nd and 3rd prospects at the time, even if Seattle was indeed truly willing to deal Lee to NY and not just playing us to get Smoak.

More than kind of. Why is Joe G leaving D-Rob out there for so long? I guess he's just given up on the game, but can't be good for Robertson to just keep getting lit up like that. I don't know what it is about this year's team--last year's edition had some kind of spark, some kind of fight that appears only sporadically this year and hardly at all in the past two months. Outside of a good roll against the Twins in the ALDS they've played like a mediocre not-quite-.500 team since the beginning of August. Right now they look like they're in way over their heads against the Rangers. A lot of talent that just can't seem to pull it together anymore. That's why losing like this is far worse to me than the Rangers' blown game the other night. They could tell themselves after that game, "Hey, we outplayed these guys, they got on one hot streak and took it, but we outplayed them." The Rangers have outplayed NY all series long. What can we tell ourselves right now? We can tell ourselves we're lucky it's not a 3-0 series at this point. Well, I'm certainly not gonna begrudge Texas a pennant and a trip to the WS if they follow through over the next 2-4 games, and I'd be happy for the long-suffering Texas fans around this joint. Damn, though, I'd sure like to see NY go down fighting. Andy did tonight, at least.

Sorry, I hit the 8 key instead of the 9... If Hamilton scores you can book this game for TX. Also, is anybody warming for Texas in the pen? Or are they sending Lee back out? Like I said the other day, if the Yankees can't beat Cliff Lee in a postseason game, they don't deserve to go to the WS anyway. EDIT 2: yep, it's over. Nice... a bullpen meltdown on top of everything else. Credit to the Rangers for once again dominating us all over the place. Sorry to see Andy's fine effort go to waste.

You wanna talk about "demoralized" and "disheartened"...I wanna see NY's hitters come back after THIS game. And they'll have to do it likely from the big hole A.J. will dig for them. Yes, Cliff Lee is an amazing pitcher, but this is just an appalling performance from NY's side of the plate as well. Add in the factor that they'll now feel they need to win every single game from here on out to prevent a game 7 in Texas. If Texas holds on tonight, they're firmly in the driver's seat for taking this series.

Lee's at 109 pitches through 7. I'd be astonished if they don't bring him out for the 8th...and unless he runs into trouble, he should be able to finish it, setting up the 9th for Feliz. OTOH he'll most likely be facing the four dudes mentioned above who are performing in less-than-Murderers'-Row fashion so far for this series. BTW, much as I'm disappointed by the Yankees once again having such an epic fail against Cliff Lee, hats off to Mr. Lee for having become such an amazing pitcher over the past several seasons. The Yankees scored the most runs in MLB this year, so it's no mean feat to shut them down in such dominating fashion. Matter of fact, all three Texas starters have handled them with aplomb in this series.