ghost of miles

Yankee parade live in NYC. EDIT: I think Mo should run for mayor after he retires. EDIT 2: Kind of poignant to watch this--just realized it's the first WS Yankee parade since 9/11.

Sounds fantastic, Lazaro! Thanks for the plug of the Central Avenue show as well.

I was helping my dad move back from Austin, Texas to Indiana the night of that ALDS game against the Mariners, Dave. We were driving a rental truck and listening to the game on the radio...kept losing the signal, then picking it up again...and the game just went on and on, while my dad and I listened to it and talked together in the darkness of the cab. One of my most amazing baseball radio experiences. (I still love listening to a game, any old baseball game, on the radio--a wonderful medium for the sport.)

Some news already, from today: Angels re-sign Abreu for two years Red Sox acquire Hermida from Marlins Hudson, Braves close to 3-year deal

Will the Yanks try returning Phil Hughes or Joba Chamberlain to the starting rotation next year? And what will they do if Pettitte elects to retire? Then there's the Damon/Matsui conundrum, mentioned above... Sorry, those are rather Yankee-centric. Here's a more general one (though it could end up applying to the Yankees as well, esp. if Pettitte doesn't come back)--what pitchers of note besides John Lackey will potentially be on the free-agent market?

Weird--what is the story behind this? Here's a Twitter post re: NBC report: Three military guys going on a shooting rampage together?

From Slate: Geezers win! Geezers win! They are a very old team--that's why this championship feels very different from the 1996-2000 titles...much more like a last hurrah, at least for the old guard of Jeter and company. If Philadelphia picks up another decent starter in the offseason, I'll give them very good odds of taking back the title from the Yanks or whoever else the AL ends up sending to the WS in 2010.

Nice quote from A-Rod in Rhoden's NY Times piece today:

Two Times stories on reaction to Matsui and the WS in Japan: Matsui goes wild, and so do his fans Japanese fans celebrate Matsui's MVP performance

I'd love to see Damon and Matsui each come back for another year. The team's definitely getting older--A-Rod's 34, Jeter's what, 34 or 35, Pettite's 37, Rivera turns 40 soon, Matsui and Damon each around 36, Posada 38. They might have one more championship, or at least one more really good run at a championship, in them. CC and Tex are still young and in their prime... NY will definitely be a contender for the pennant again next year. Do you think Pettitte will come back? What I really hope they can hold onto is their sense of team--their chemistry. It came up again and again tonight in the post-game interviews, how different the clubhouse atmosphere was this year, how everybody was really focused on pulling together to win and yet having a lot of fun at the same time. MartyJazz, Dave, other NY fans--did the Yankees exorcise the demons of 2004 tonight? I feel like they did. And 2001, to some extent, as well... that meltdown at the end of Game 7, after the incredible 9th-inning home runs in Games 4 and 5, all coming in the weeks after 9/11 (I'd say those HRs in my top 5 of all-time incredible baseball moments, emotionally enhanced considerably by the atmosphere of the city and the crowds at Yankee Stadium) always felt like a sad, wrong ending for the O'Neill/Cone/Brosius era. Even if Pettitte/Jeter et al never win another championship, I feel as if they've finally put the right punctuation mark on the story of their careers. And with that said... Can't wait for the hot-stove thread!

Man, hats off to Philadelphia--they are a GREAT team. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them back in the WS yet again next year. They really gave me a sense of dread while they were blowing through the NL playoffs...I'm still a bit in disbelief that NY actually managed to win it all against them.

J.H., Noj and Patrick... Thanks so much. I'm just really, really happy to see the Core 4 win another championship in what is undoubtedly the twilight of their careers. Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, Posada... they truly belong in the Yankee pantheon with Gehrig, DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra and all the other past NY greats. There's a good chance that this is their last hurrah as world champs. I can't imagine that I'll ever see another generation of Yankee players like that in my lifetime. What a likable and unrelenting team NY had this year. Lots and lots of heroic moments throughout the season from everybody, and the metamorphosis of A-Rod from where he was during spring training to where he ended up in the postseason was just amazing to watch--and moving, too. God, they made me fall in love with baseball all over again.

I'm very lucky--I'm supposed to play jazz in the office... it's part of my job. Bernard Gordillo-Brockmann, who writes WFIU's widely-syndicated early-music show Harmonia, snapped a pic of my desk while I was away from it for a few minutes yesterday:

Clear weather forecast for tonight, but rain for tomorrow (Thursday) evening. What if Philadelphia wins tonight and Game 7 has to be pushed back to Friday? Then you'd have CC on 4 days' rest, and the Phillies would have the option of pitching Cliff Lee on 3 days' rest. Surely they would... would be a hell of a finale. Obviously I'm hoping it won't come to that and that NY will put it away tonight. Great match-up, Pettitte and Martinez going against each other!

Sorry, Big Al, fixed (and thanks, rockefeller center).

These guys have all the angles figured out: Spinal Tap on jazz

We're re-airing this program this week on Night Lights--it's already archived for online listening: Come On Down to Central Avenue: Jazz & More in Mid-20th Century Los Angeles

I still like the Yankees chances. Pettitte, pitching at Yankee Stadium with the crowd behind him, certainly has a better shot at getting by on three days rest than did poor A.J. Burnett. Pedro has to get over his Yankee Stadium history and even if he does, the Phillies are stuck between a rock and a hard spot if this goes to seven games. Lee is out unless they need him for an inning, so that leaves them with slim pickings. If Pettitte doesn't have it, then Sabbathia goes and if he doesn't, Burnett didn't pitch enough tonight so as to be completely off the list. Like I said, I still like the Yankees chances. Knock on wood. Up over and out. I do too, Dave. I really didn't think NY had much of a shot at winning tonight--though it's a shame to get 5 ER off Lee and not come away victorious. I am concerned about Pettitte on 3 days' rest, but Mo should be rested enough to pitch 2 innings. Get a lead, hold the lead, and get to Mo. I'd love to see NY win it at home with Pettitte leading the way. It'll be a hell of a showdown, that's for sure. Kudos to the Phillies for their win tonight, and to their fans. I'll say it again--we did well to take 2 of 3 there, especially given Philadelphia's 11-1 record at home against everybody else in the postseason for the past two years.

God--Tex has just been worthless this WS. Killing us with all of those outs batting third. At least the Yankees put some drama into it there at the end.

Hasn't the #/% of African-American players decreased since the 1970s, Matthew? Well, if nothing else comes of this game, at least Phil Hughes got in 1 1/3 innings without giving up a run.

Crap! If Phil Coke hadn't given up those 2 HRs, this would be a ballgame again. NY couldn't ask for more than getting 4 runs against Lee at Philadelphia and chasing him with no outs in the 8th... but they need to score 4 MORE runs just to tie. It would have to be the WS comeback of all-time. Sigh.

Yeah--one hell of a WS performance, and if the Phillies end up winning it all, he'd seem a cinch for MVP, even over Lee. Take away Utley's hits tonight and it would be a 3-2 ballgame. Maybe we should start walking him to get to Ryan Howard, eh? EDIT: OK, this game is thoroughly OVER. No 6-run comebacks in the works here, I'm afraid. I just hope NY can get it together again by Wednesday night...not good at all to let a team like Philadelphia bounce back up off the ground so vigorously. Hats off to the Phillies for thoroughly kicking pinstriped butt tonight. At least Mo will be well-rested and ready to throw 2 innings Wednesday night if necessary. Hopefully this shuts down all of the premature celebration/expectation that I saw out there in media/bloggerland today; NY will have their hands full w/Pedro and a revived Phillie lineup come Wednesday (and 37-yr-old Pettitte on three days' rest). I'm just happy to be leaving Philadelphia and its sea of waving towels with a 2-1 split in NY's favor.

Patrick, the reasons for my long-running Yankee fandom are a bit off the wall--I actually posted them on the NY Times Bats blog a few days ago (they asked readers for accounts of how they came to be lifelong Phillie or Yankee fans). I was 8 years old in 1974, starting my first season of Little League, in search of a team to follow. I was obsessed with the Civil War and militantly pro-North... I'm sure I'd heard the name "Yankees" before, there was probably a team in our league with that moniker, but I saw it one day in the AL scores round-up of our local paper and thought, "There's my team!" Later that afternoon I went down to the corner drugstore to buy a pack of baseball cards (I'd just started collecting) and when I opened it, Horace Clarke was on top of the deck. I've been a fan ever since, and I've followed them through some pretty crappy years...not to compare such a lot at all to folks who've followed teams for decades without ever seeing them land in the WS. And I'm very sympathetic to the smaller markets...I wish baseball could devise a better way of giving them more opportunity. The Yankees do pay a hefty luxury tax for the payroll that they carry. Short of a more radical redistribution of the baseball wealth, I'm not sure what the answer is. I guess I get a bit irked that other teams have long since jumped into the free-agent market and tried to buy themselves championships as well (I remember Gene Autry trying to do it with the Angels in the late 1970s), and yet it's NY who continually gets vilified for it. Part of the pleasure of following NY for the past 15 years has been the presence of Jeter, Rivera, Posada and Pettitte (w/Pettitte gone for several years, and Posada not coming aboard until the late 1990s). I think all of those guys are worthy of the great, classy Yankees of the past. I'd love to see them win one more WS before they start to call it a day. None of them were free-agent signings...neither was Bernie Williams, another player I just loved to watch. Brosius and O'Neill were incredibly scrappy and likeable players who came to NY via shrewd trades. The late-1990s team had an incredible chemistry that had little or nothing to do with high-paid guns for hire. There's such a sense of history and greatness with NY, which is one big reason why so many players DO want to play there, and that again doesn't have anything to do with money. But I don't begrudge anybody their animosity towards NY, really. I mean, it's baseball, and there's a long-running narrative of "damn Yankees." All I can say is that NY, when their teams come together--particularly with Jeter leading them--gives me a little-kid-like sense of being in love with baseball all over again. One last thing--I think this year is their best shot at winning it all. They are starting to age a great deal...and nobody will be able to replace the spirit of Jeter, Mo, Pettitte and Posada after they're gone, no matter how many $$$ the Yankees are willing to spend.

If the Phillies keep this up and win tonight, there'll be bigtime second guessing about starting Burnett on 3 days' rest on the road. I'd normally feel really good about having Andy Pettitte on the mound at home for Game 6, but he's 37 and he'll be going on 3 days' rest as well. We might as well have started Gaudin...he couldn't have gotten hit much harder than Burnett's been hit so far. Martyjazz may scold me, but with Burnett collapsing and Philly staking a 5-1 lead, I just can't see NY getting back in this game...even with Lee just a bit off tonight. This is turning into a slaughter, and it'll breathe a lot of life back into the Phillies for Game 6 and a possible 7. EDIT: hell, put Phil Hughes in there! It can't get any worse...

If anybody has a copy of this CD, could he or she contact me via PM or e-mail? I'm working on a Brookmeyer program and would like to include a single track from the album. Many thanks in advance for any assistance.