http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090504/zirin2
A Pinstriped Patriot Act
By Dave Zirin
One fine day last August, Bradley Campeau-Laurion just wanted to leave his seat and use the bathroom at the old Yankee Stadium. The 30-year-old New York resident had no idea that nature's call would lead him down a road to perdition where he would be accused of challenging God, country, and the joys of compulsory patriotism at the ballpark.
Under the thirty-six-year watch of George Steinbrenner--and now his offspring--the New York Yankees have always wrapped their fans, like it or not, in red, white and blue bombast. This is the team that so loves God and country that it mandates the singing of two national anthems--Francis Scott Key's 1814 epic, "The Star-Spangled Banner" and Irving Berlin's 1918 anthem, "God Bless America."
For a while after 9/11, "God Bless America" was standard fare in major league ballparks. But while most ball clubs have let the practice slide, the super-patriotic Steinbrenners have ramped up the flag-waving, extending the seventh-inning stretch to include "God Bless America" along with the traditional "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Sometimes "God Bless..." is performed live by Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, but most often the tune is delivered over stadium loudspeakers via a scratchy vintage recording by the operatic warbler Kate Smith, who first popularized the song in 1938. But no matter who's singing, the Yankees have been known to cordon off the aisles and put off-duty police officers in place to ensure the multitudes stand at respectful attention. (Fans of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but a long-dead singer and the chains on your bleachers!)
Not only do the Yankees expect fans to stand during the singing of patriotic songs, but during the Bush era they virtually mandated fan support for the Iraq War, all the while extorting tax breaks and other public subsidies from city, state and federal governments to build their new $1 .5 billion cathedral of baseball. (Separation of sports and state anyone?) For the Steinbrenners and the high-rollers who occupy Yankee Stadium's $2,500 top-shelf seats, this kind of power patriotism wedded to corporate welfare must be sweet as champagne.
But as the global economic meltdown has proven, there ultimately comes a time to put the brakes on corporate execs--to say nothing of mindless patriotism. And while some Yankees fans have grumbled and a few intrepid sports bloggers, like former Deadspin Editor Will Leitch, have raised concerns, it took one man's full bladder to hoist the Yankees organization with its own petard.
All Campeau-Laurion did was try to go to the men's room during the seventh-inning stretch. In swooped two New York Police Department officers working security detail, who reportedly roughed him up and threw him out of the ballpark. Now Campeau-Laurion has filed a civil suit against the the city, the cops and the team for violating his rights.
"New York's finest have no business arresting someone for trying to go to the bathroom at a politically incorrect moment," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Campeau-Laurion in the lawsuit. According to the complaint, Campeau-Laurion drank two beers and took the seventh-inning stretch to mean he could actually go stretch.
"As he walked toward the tunnel leading to the concourse, a uniformed New York City police officer put up his hands and mumbled something to Mr. Campeau-Laurion, " according to the complaint, blocking his way to the bathroom during the singing of "God Bless America."
As Campeau-Laurion tried to move past the officer, the policeman grabbed his arm and said, "He's out" to another officer, who twisted his left arm behind his back, hustling him down the ramp and out of the stadium.
The NYPD tells a different story.
"The officers observed a male standing on his seat, cursing, using inappropriate language and acting in a disorderly manner while reeking of alcohol and decided to eject him rather than subject others to his offensive behavior," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in an e-mail reply to my query. This account strains credulity. If it were standard procedure for the NYPD to kick out every drunken fan from Yankee Stadium, the place would be emptier than a John Ashcroft concert at the Apollo Theatre.
Campeau-Laurion disputes the NYPD account. "Not a word of that is true," he told Bloomberg News. "The whole incident didn't occur at my seat. It occurred at my section when I went to use the restroom."
"I don't care about 'God Bless America.' I don't believe that's grounds constitutionally for being dragged out of a baseball game... I simply don't have any religious beliefs... It devalues patriotism as a whole when you force people to participate in patriotic acts," he continued. "It devalues the freedom we fought for in the first place."
This ugly incident raises a series of inconvenient questions: why does America feel compelled to bind sports to patriotic ritual? Why are publicly funded facilities like stadiums used to promote private religious or political beliefs? And given the putrid start of the Yankees's season, shouldn't management be more concerned with what's happening with the players than with the fans? All should stand with Campeau-Laurion until we get some answers.
[Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com]
Showing posts with label Yankee Stadium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yankee Stadium. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Yankees New Stadium
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/sports/baseball/17rhoden.html
Sports of The Times
With New Stadium, Yankees Replicate Charm, but Lose Advantage
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
April 16, 2009
By the middle of the seventh inning Thursday, the Yankees’ highly anticipated home opener had officially been declared a disaster. The Yankees opened a new season and christened a new stadium in the eerie shadow of the old.
The home team trailed, 10-1, after a nine-run seventh by the Cleveland Indians on the way to a 10-2 loss. And Yankees players were showered with boos in the new $1.6 billion stadium.
For most major league baseball teams, the home opener is the essence of the clean slate, the fresh start. For the Yankees, the idea of starting with a clean slate is daunting, like climbing Mount Everest. After they were pasted Thursday, the incline became a lot steeper.
This was much more than a simple home opener: This was the opening of a lavish new Yankee Stadium, built by a franchise with baseball’s highest payroll, despite the economic collapse around it — a franchise accustomed to winning championships, although it hasn’t won a World Series title since 2000. Old Yankee Stadium represented one of the greatest, or at least one of the most storied, home-field advantages in North American sports. Visiting players routinely gushed about walking into the Stadium and soaking in its history.
With a simple move across the street, that part of the Yankees’ legacy is gone and the franchise, payroll aside, is now on a level playing field with the competition.
After Thursday’s game, pitcher C. C. Sabathia was asked whether the new Stadium, with its amenities, felt as special as the one he used to visit when he was a member of the Indians.
“It still has that feel because the park still looks kind of like the old Stadium,” Sabathia said. “But it’s a weird feeling, too, going out with a clean slate and us starting a new era of Yankee baseball.”
The focus on the Yankees’ mystique tends to be baseball-centric, but what gave the old Yankee Stadium its luster were classic championship moments that cut across sports. The old Stadium was a veritable museum of American sports history:
¶ Knute Rockne’s famous “Win one for the Gipper” speech delivered at halftime of Notre Dame’s 1928 victory over Army.
¶ Joe Louis’s 1938 victory over Max Schmeling in a heavyweight title bout.
¶ The Baltimore Colts’ sudden-death victory over the Giants in 1958 in the Greatest Game Ever Played.
¶ The string of World Series appearances through the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, then from 1996 to 2003.
Before Thursday’s game, Derek Jeter, asked about the recent losses in Tampa Bay, including a 15-5 pummeling, said that a six-month baseball season was hardly over in April. Indeed, a month from now, the embarrassment in the home opener may well be a footnote.
Manager Joe Girardi said that Thursday’s game was “hard to watch,” but he added that the Yankees’ fate and the legacy of the new Stadium wouldn’t be decided on the first day.
True enough, though Thursday’s rout, three days after the rout against Tampa Bay, raises questions about how long it will take these Yankees to fill a new stadium with the sort of championship moments that made the old Stadium so special.
Soon? Longer? Never?
Before Jeter’s first plate appearance Thursday, a bat was placed across home plate. The bat, we were told, was used by Babe Ruth on opening day 1923, for the opening of the old Yankee Stadium. Ruth homered that day and the Yankees swept the opening four-game series against the Red Sox, then cruised to the pennant and the World Series title.
On Thursday, Jeter flied out and the Yankees were pummeled.
Asked what he would miss about the old Stadium, Jeter said, “You’re going to miss everything about it.”
On its own merits, the new Stadium is a gem. Every effort was made to duplicate and, in many instances extend, the charm of the old Stadium. The signature frieze at the top of the stadium bowl is back, the manually operated auxiliary scoreboard is replicated, and a gap between the bleachers and right field allows us to get a peek at the No. 4 elevated train.
But some crucial things did not make the trip across the street — and they never will.
Mystiques are created by championships and championship moments: title fights, football classics and World Series victories. The old mystique is gone. You can argue that the mystique began to fade seasons ago.
What will that legacy be? Who will be the first group to win a championship in the new Yankee Stadium?
How the Yankees transfer that mystique from the old building, now gray and dark and awaiting its demise, to the new is Girardi’s challenge.
The questions may not be answered for years.
The architects and the Yankee organization did a great job of moving as much memory as they could into the new Stadium.
Sadly for these Yankees, some spirits just don’t travel that well.
E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com
A version of this article appeared in print on April 17, 2009, on page B15 of the New York edition.
Sports of The Times
With New Stadium, Yankees Replicate Charm, but Lose Advantage
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
April 16, 2009
By the middle of the seventh inning Thursday, the Yankees’ highly anticipated home opener had officially been declared a disaster. The Yankees opened a new season and christened a new stadium in the eerie shadow of the old.
The home team trailed, 10-1, after a nine-run seventh by the Cleveland Indians on the way to a 10-2 loss. And Yankees players were showered with boos in the new $1.6 billion stadium.
For most major league baseball teams, the home opener is the essence of the clean slate, the fresh start. For the Yankees, the idea of starting with a clean slate is daunting, like climbing Mount Everest. After they were pasted Thursday, the incline became a lot steeper.
This was much more than a simple home opener: This was the opening of a lavish new Yankee Stadium, built by a franchise with baseball’s highest payroll, despite the economic collapse around it — a franchise accustomed to winning championships, although it hasn’t won a World Series title since 2000. Old Yankee Stadium represented one of the greatest, or at least one of the most storied, home-field advantages in North American sports. Visiting players routinely gushed about walking into the Stadium and soaking in its history.
With a simple move across the street, that part of the Yankees’ legacy is gone and the franchise, payroll aside, is now on a level playing field with the competition.
After Thursday’s game, pitcher C. C. Sabathia was asked whether the new Stadium, with its amenities, felt as special as the one he used to visit when he was a member of the Indians.
“It still has that feel because the park still looks kind of like the old Stadium,” Sabathia said. “But it’s a weird feeling, too, going out with a clean slate and us starting a new era of Yankee baseball.”
The focus on the Yankees’ mystique tends to be baseball-centric, but what gave the old Yankee Stadium its luster were classic championship moments that cut across sports. The old Stadium was a veritable museum of American sports history:
¶ Knute Rockne’s famous “Win one for the Gipper” speech delivered at halftime of Notre Dame’s 1928 victory over Army.
¶ Joe Louis’s 1938 victory over Max Schmeling in a heavyweight title bout.
¶ The Baltimore Colts’ sudden-death victory over the Giants in 1958 in the Greatest Game Ever Played.
¶ The string of World Series appearances through the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, then from 1996 to 2003.
Before Thursday’s game, Derek Jeter, asked about the recent losses in Tampa Bay, including a 15-5 pummeling, said that a six-month baseball season was hardly over in April. Indeed, a month from now, the embarrassment in the home opener may well be a footnote.
Manager Joe Girardi said that Thursday’s game was “hard to watch,” but he added that the Yankees’ fate and the legacy of the new Stadium wouldn’t be decided on the first day.
True enough, though Thursday’s rout, three days after the rout against Tampa Bay, raises questions about how long it will take these Yankees to fill a new stadium with the sort of championship moments that made the old Stadium so special.
Soon? Longer? Never?
Before Jeter’s first plate appearance Thursday, a bat was placed across home plate. The bat, we were told, was used by Babe Ruth on opening day 1923, for the opening of the old Yankee Stadium. Ruth homered that day and the Yankees swept the opening four-game series against the Red Sox, then cruised to the pennant and the World Series title.
On Thursday, Jeter flied out and the Yankees were pummeled.
Asked what he would miss about the old Stadium, Jeter said, “You’re going to miss everything about it.”
On its own merits, the new Stadium is a gem. Every effort was made to duplicate and, in many instances extend, the charm of the old Stadium. The signature frieze at the top of the stadium bowl is back, the manually operated auxiliary scoreboard is replicated, and a gap between the bleachers and right field allows us to get a peek at the No. 4 elevated train.
But some crucial things did not make the trip across the street — and they never will.
Mystiques are created by championships and championship moments: title fights, football classics and World Series victories. The old mystique is gone. You can argue that the mystique began to fade seasons ago.
What will that legacy be? Who will be the first group to win a championship in the new Yankee Stadium?
How the Yankees transfer that mystique from the old building, now gray and dark and awaiting its demise, to the new is Girardi’s challenge.
The questions may not be answered for years.
The architects and the Yankee organization did a great job of moving as much memory as they could into the new Stadium.
Sadly for these Yankees, some spirits just don’t travel that well.
E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com
A version of this article appeared in print on April 17, 2009, on page B15 of the New York edition.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
A-Rod, Anabolic Agonist Sports
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090223/zirin
A-Rod, Anabolic Agonist Sports
By Dave Zirin
February 9, 2009
Should we pity Alex Rodriguez? The three-time MVP, owed $275 million over the next nine years, has been exposed as a steroid user, the latest in Major League Baseball's endless series of anabolic agonists. The creative minds at the New York Post summed up the mood of the moment with one blaring headline: "A-Fraud." ESPN senior writer Jayson Stark was no less overwrought; his headline proclaimed, "A- Rod Has Destroyed Game's History."
However, the list of frauds and history defamers extends far beyond the Yankee third baseman. Before we gather the torches and pitchforks, let us round up some of the real villains. When it comes to steroids, no one, as A-Rod's alleged paramour Madonna might say, is like a virgin. For instance, there's league commissioner Bud Selig, who touted A-Rod as the man who would replace the "unclean" Barry Bonds as the all-time leader in home runs. Then there is the Major League Baseball Players Association. Once arguably the most powerful union in the United States, the MLBPA has in its possession the infamous list of 104 players tested in 2003. That year a deal between the owners and the union was supposed to be based on anonymity and trust. If more than 5 percent of the players tested positive, more testing with suspensions would ensue. The union promised its members that it would destroy the list. Instead it inexplicably held onto the list long enough for the government to seize it for the BALCO investigations.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Steinbrenner family also have anabolic egg on their faces. They were depending on A-Rod to be the cherry atop the sundae of the new billion-dollar Yankee Stadium expected to open this year. Hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars have gone into this public works project, with specious promises of economic renewal. Now it may just set the stage for a season-long, agonizing fall from grace.
Finally, there are the owners-at-large, who have yet to have to face any kind of Congressional subcommittee, grand jury or operatic media melodrama for their role in cheapening the sport. Stark, in his piece blaming A-Rod for shredding the very fabric of baseball history, writes:
In baseball, we love our numbers. And we love our heroes. And that brings us to Alex Rodriguez, a man who has committed a crime he doesn't even understand: a crime against the once-proud history of his sport.
What Stark and his misguided minions ignore is that if we are upset about the way numbers and hallowed records have become cheapened over the past fifteen years, ownership is the problem--and it extends far beyond steroids.
Owners actually had a multifaceted strategy to try to make baseball more like beer-league softball--and it was about as subtle as a tabloid's back page. As legendary baseball writer Bob Klapisch said, "Somewhere someone decided that baseball needed more runs. It was made at a very fundamental level. And little by little, step by step, this became the new reality. There has been too much to write it off as coincidence."
The reasons for the home run boom extend far beyond the steroid dealer. The boom reverberates in every urban budget, every underfunded school and every library that closes early. In the past twenty years, more than fifteen publicly funded baseball parks have been built in the United States. They are supposed to be fan-friendly--that is, unless your child happens to go to a school whose shrinking budgets were paying the tab. The shorter fences at these parks are engineered to yield more home runs.
Then there are the balls and bats. Countless baseball insiders believe that the ball is now wound tighter than it was twenty years ago. As for the bats, as recently as fifteen years ago, players used untreated ash bats. Now the bats are maple and lacquered. That means the ball goes farther.
Then there is the strike zone. The area where a pitched ball can be called a strike has shrunk, in the words of retired pitcher Greg Maddux, to "the size of a postage stamp." The owners consciously engineered this trend toward the microscopic strike zone. When umpires refused to agree to a uniform strike zone, Major League Baseball crushed their union and instituted a machine to monitor their abilities. Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer said, "The loss of the high strike has changed the game more than any pill."
But an equally big reason home run numbers are up is that the game finally shed its nineteenth-century view of strength conditioning. The training standard until the 1990s was that if Joe "Ducky" Medwick didn't do it in the '30s, then it shouldn't be done. For example, it has been the conventional wisdom for most of baseball's history that weightlifting would destroy your swing. Many teams even fined or suspended players if they were caught pumping iron. Weightlifting is now as much a part of every team's regimen as shagging fly balls.
Alex Rodriguez is set to be the next former slugger torn to pieces by columnists, fans and the sports radio blabbocracy. They all need to crack open some Michael Phelps medicinal magic and relax. Rodriguez may not deserve your pity, but he hardly deserves your scorn. Reserve that for the owners, political leaders and Bud the commissioner--who robbed our cities blind and distracted us with dingers so we wouldn't notice.
Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and the forthcoming A People's History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, SportsIllustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive. He is the host of XM Radio's Edge of Sports Radio.
Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
A-Rod, Anabolic Agonist Sports
By Dave Zirin
February 9, 2009
Should we pity Alex Rodriguez? The three-time MVP, owed $275 million over the next nine years, has been exposed as a steroid user, the latest in Major League Baseball's endless series of anabolic agonists. The creative minds at the New York Post summed up the mood of the moment with one blaring headline: "A-Fraud." ESPN senior writer Jayson Stark was no less overwrought; his headline proclaimed, "A- Rod Has Destroyed Game's History."
However, the list of frauds and history defamers extends far beyond the Yankee third baseman. Before we gather the torches and pitchforks, let us round up some of the real villains. When it comes to steroids, no one, as A-Rod's alleged paramour Madonna might say, is like a virgin. For instance, there's league commissioner Bud Selig, who touted A-Rod as the man who would replace the "unclean" Barry Bonds as the all-time leader in home runs. Then there is the Major League Baseball Players Association. Once arguably the most powerful union in the United States, the MLBPA has in its possession the infamous list of 104 players tested in 2003. That year a deal between the owners and the union was supposed to be based on anonymity and trust. If more than 5 percent of the players tested positive, more testing with suspensions would ensue. The union promised its members that it would destroy the list. Instead it inexplicably held onto the list long enough for the government to seize it for the BALCO investigations.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Steinbrenner family also have anabolic egg on their faces. They were depending on A-Rod to be the cherry atop the sundae of the new billion-dollar Yankee Stadium expected to open this year. Hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars have gone into this public works project, with specious promises of economic renewal. Now it may just set the stage for a season-long, agonizing fall from grace.
Finally, there are the owners-at-large, who have yet to have to face any kind of Congressional subcommittee, grand jury or operatic media melodrama for their role in cheapening the sport. Stark, in his piece blaming A-Rod for shredding the very fabric of baseball history, writes:
In baseball, we love our numbers. And we love our heroes. And that brings us to Alex Rodriguez, a man who has committed a crime he doesn't even understand: a crime against the once-proud history of his sport.
What Stark and his misguided minions ignore is that if we are upset about the way numbers and hallowed records have become cheapened over the past fifteen years, ownership is the problem--and it extends far beyond steroids.
Owners actually had a multifaceted strategy to try to make baseball more like beer-league softball--and it was about as subtle as a tabloid's back page. As legendary baseball writer Bob Klapisch said, "Somewhere someone decided that baseball needed more runs. It was made at a very fundamental level. And little by little, step by step, this became the new reality. There has been too much to write it off as coincidence."
The reasons for the home run boom extend far beyond the steroid dealer. The boom reverberates in every urban budget, every underfunded school and every library that closes early. In the past twenty years, more than fifteen publicly funded baseball parks have been built in the United States. They are supposed to be fan-friendly--that is, unless your child happens to go to a school whose shrinking budgets were paying the tab. The shorter fences at these parks are engineered to yield more home runs.
Then there are the balls and bats. Countless baseball insiders believe that the ball is now wound tighter than it was twenty years ago. As for the bats, as recently as fifteen years ago, players used untreated ash bats. Now the bats are maple and lacquered. That means the ball goes farther.
Then there is the strike zone. The area where a pitched ball can be called a strike has shrunk, in the words of retired pitcher Greg Maddux, to "the size of a postage stamp." The owners consciously engineered this trend toward the microscopic strike zone. When umpires refused to agree to a uniform strike zone, Major League Baseball crushed their union and instituted a machine to monitor their abilities. Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer said, "The loss of the high strike has changed the game more than any pill."
But an equally big reason home run numbers are up is that the game finally shed its nineteenth-century view of strength conditioning. The training standard until the 1990s was that if Joe "Ducky" Medwick didn't do it in the '30s, then it shouldn't be done. For example, it has been the conventional wisdom for most of baseball's history that weightlifting would destroy your swing. Many teams even fined or suspended players if they were caught pumping iron. Weightlifting is now as much a part of every team's regimen as shagging fly balls.
Alex Rodriguez is set to be the next former slugger torn to pieces by columnists, fans and the sports radio blabbocracy. They all need to crack open some Michael Phelps medicinal magic and relax. Rodriguez may not deserve your pity, but he hardly deserves your scorn. Reserve that for the owners, political leaders and Bud the commissioner--who robbed our cities blind and distracted us with dingers so we wouldn't notice.
Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and the forthcoming A People's History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, SportsIllustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive. He is the host of XM Radio's Edge of Sports Radio.
Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Mariano Rivera wants stadium bullpen mementos
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ys-motarivera092008
Mariano Rivera wants stadium bullpen mementos
By Mariano Rivera, Special to Y! Sports
Sep 20, 2008
Editor’s note: Mariano Rivera has played his entire 14-year career with the New York Yankees, appearing in 847 games and saving 480 – second-most of all-time. He spent time with Yahoo! Sports reporter Jose Mota to reflect on the closing of Yankee Stadium.
I have a plan as to which items I want to take with me after the last game. We all talk about it in the clubhouse and get a good laugh. I have every intention of taking the bench from the bullpen. This bench means a lot to me and to the members of the bullpen, it’s right in front of the mural. It’s mine.
Also I want to take a chair and the pitching rubber from the bullpen, along with plenty of dirt and grass. You know, it’s like my home, and all of these things have a special meaning to me. Some people might wonder why I’m so attached to that bench. I’m already hearing, ‘Why are you taking it?’ Man, it’s like moving from your childhood home.
I can’t think about that stadium and not think about the whole Yankee tradition, the arches, the championships, the names that built it, as they say ‘The House that Ruth Built.’ Not just him, all of the greats that laid the foundation for what is now the rich history of our team and our city, especially the Bronx. I think about all the pitchers that stepped on the mound and grinded it out, sweating. There are so many things that come to mind with all the great teams that I have been blessed to be a part of, thank God.
To be part of so many celebrations with my teammates, Mr. (Bob) Sheppard’s voice announcing my name, the music, the hot summers, the snow … so, so many things that all of sudden I realize how they’ve become part of who I am. In all of it, please let’s not forget Mr. Steinbrenner and everything he has put into making the Stadium what it became, by caring so much about the fans and the teams he put together for us. George is a huge part of Yankee Stadium.
In all of that I’ve learned to value even more the significance of wearing this Yankees uniform and the uniqueness of the die-hard fans. This building has made me stronger in every sense, there’s nothing quite like when the noise is high and the rocking atmosphere at Yankee Stadium. I’ve come to know more about its history in other events, like the Pope, boxing matches, concerts, soccer and football games, too … things I didn’t know. I also think about the tragedy of 9/11 and how close it was to here, for all of the victims and their families.
Let me share something I experienced here and that I will never forget. I see people that come to this stadium and they grind it out in their daily lives, pay their money and watch us play. It really hit home with me one day when we were playing a game and I wasn’t able to do my job. I lost the game and let so many people down, and I was very upset.
As I started to walk off the field, I noticed people gathering around a particular fan. I remember how hot it was, because this was after a mid-summer day game. This fan had suffered an apparent heart attack – the next day someone told me the person had died – and here I am so upset about a loss, still fuming, and this Yankees fan comes to the ballpark to enjoy the game and is fighting for his life in the stands. That moment still impacts me today. God showed during that time the importance of having a realistic perspective on things, especially losses. I was so miserable thinking, ‘Here I am, ticked off about a game, and yes, it is my job, but I saw this person fighting for his life, man. A life!’
I can clearly recall the successful outings and also the ones where I failed, couldn’t get the job done. Knowing that I gave 100 percent every single time out there makes me feel at peace with what I leave at the Stadium. A lot of my character has been built on that mound, not only for what I’ve been able to accomplish on the field, but also with who I’ve become as a person because of all of the tough moments.
Mariano Rivera wants stadium bullpen mementos
By Mariano Rivera, Special to Y! Sports
Sep 20, 2008
Editor’s note: Mariano Rivera has played his entire 14-year career with the New York Yankees, appearing in 847 games and saving 480 – second-most of all-time. He spent time with Yahoo! Sports reporter Jose Mota to reflect on the closing of Yankee Stadium.
I have a plan as to which items I want to take with me after the last game. We all talk about it in the clubhouse and get a good laugh. I have every intention of taking the bench from the bullpen. This bench means a lot to me and to the members of the bullpen, it’s right in front of the mural. It’s mine.
Also I want to take a chair and the pitching rubber from the bullpen, along with plenty of dirt and grass. You know, it’s like my home, and all of these things have a special meaning to me. Some people might wonder why I’m so attached to that bench. I’m already hearing, ‘Why are you taking it?’ Man, it’s like moving from your childhood home.
I can’t think about that stadium and not think about the whole Yankee tradition, the arches, the championships, the names that built it, as they say ‘The House that Ruth Built.’ Not just him, all of the greats that laid the foundation for what is now the rich history of our team and our city, especially the Bronx. I think about all the pitchers that stepped on the mound and grinded it out, sweating. There are so many things that come to mind with all the great teams that I have been blessed to be a part of, thank God.
To be part of so many celebrations with my teammates, Mr. (Bob) Sheppard’s voice announcing my name, the music, the hot summers, the snow … so, so many things that all of sudden I realize how they’ve become part of who I am. In all of it, please let’s not forget Mr. Steinbrenner and everything he has put into making the Stadium what it became, by caring so much about the fans and the teams he put together for us. George is a huge part of Yankee Stadium.
In all of that I’ve learned to value even more the significance of wearing this Yankees uniform and the uniqueness of the die-hard fans. This building has made me stronger in every sense, there’s nothing quite like when the noise is high and the rocking atmosphere at Yankee Stadium. I’ve come to know more about its history in other events, like the Pope, boxing matches, concerts, soccer and football games, too … things I didn’t know. I also think about the tragedy of 9/11 and how close it was to here, for all of the victims and their families.
Let me share something I experienced here and that I will never forget. I see people that come to this stadium and they grind it out in their daily lives, pay their money and watch us play. It really hit home with me one day when we were playing a game and I wasn’t able to do my job. I lost the game and let so many people down, and I was very upset.
As I started to walk off the field, I noticed people gathering around a particular fan. I remember how hot it was, because this was after a mid-summer day game. This fan had suffered an apparent heart attack – the next day someone told me the person had died – and here I am so upset about a loss, still fuming, and this Yankees fan comes to the ballpark to enjoy the game and is fighting for his life in the stands. That moment still impacts me today. God showed during that time the importance of having a realistic perspective on things, especially losses. I was so miserable thinking, ‘Here I am, ticked off about a game, and yes, it is my job, but I saw this person fighting for his life, man. A life!’
I can clearly recall the successful outings and also the ones where I failed, couldn’t get the job done. Knowing that I gave 100 percent every single time out there makes me feel at peace with what I leave at the Stadium. A lot of my character has been built on that mound, not only for what I’ve been able to accomplish on the field, but also with who I’ve become as a person because of all of the tough moments.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
A-Rod is a $300 million migraine
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AqYZcgXmuHwg3tDIHBh5_VYRvLYF?slug=jp-arod083108
A-Rod is a $300 million migraine
By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports
8-31-8
The $300 million headache has graduated to a migraine.
They’re booing Alex Rodriguez at Yankee Stadium again. These are not standard-issue rants, either, from an esteemed group of Chicken Littles and DUIs-in-waiting. Even the sane and sober are giving their vocal cords extended workouts to razz one of the great numbers hoarders of all time, the sort of Bronx jeer reserved for only the most loathsome Yankees.
Carl Pavano is more popular right now than A-Rod. Think about that.
And then think about the last year, perhaps the most seminal of Rodriguez’s life. He gagged again last postseason, clumsily opted out of his contract during the World Series, revealed himself a pliable ninny by blaming his agent, broke up his marriage by latching on to Madonna (who at 50 could be his mom), again forgot how to hit in the clutch and now is stuck in one of the worst stretches of his career, glug-glug-glugging with his sunken ship.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, Rodriguez re-signed with the Yankees for 10 years, and that is now the issue at heart. He is not even one full year into the richest deal in professional sports history, and already it looks like a marriage made in hell. Or, better yet, purgatory, because both sides are stuck.
A-Rod is grounding into double plays and striking out and putting together – no hyperbole – the worst clutch-hitting season in all of Major League Baseball, owner Hank Steinbrenner has cased his verbal paintballs in favor of BBs, with the bazooka at arm’s length, and everyone knows A-Rod can’t go anywhere else because the money is too big and Rodriguez’s career-long struggle with important at-bats is again popping up like a zit.
Every player has his demons; Rodriguez’s happen to come with the magnifying glass tilted toward him. That he fries like an ant is nothing new. With a few exceptions, such as last season, Rodriguez’s losing battle in clutch situations has stained what is otherwise a career of marvelous achievement, no-doubt first-ballot Hall-of-Fame induction and likely the all-time home run record.
Never has it been as bad for Rodriguez as this season. Numbers back up the cries of Yankees fans, whose complaints about Rodriguez look, on the surface, like those of a scorned lover, what with his .306 batting average, 29 home runs, 81 RBIs and .968 OPS. They say he never hits when it counts – home run No. 29, a solo shot Sunday when the Yankees were down 4-0, is a prime example – and a deeper look, with a metric that analyzes clutch hitting, shows they are onto something.
Win Probability Added (WPA), as tracked by fangraphs.com, assigns a different value to every situation. For example, a run-scoring single to tie a game in the seventh inning is worth significantly more than a bases-empty single in the first inning. Over the entire season, it adds up the positives, subtracts the negatives and produces a number that shows how many wins a player contributed to his team – and, ostensibly, an indicator of how well a player fared in clutch situations.
This year, Rodriguez’s WPA ranks 93rd of 158 eligible players.
It gets truly ugly when compared to another metric that takes away the extra credit for coming through in a close game – the Leverage Index, it’s called – and treats every at-bat equally. Rodriguez’s WPA/LI is 18th in baseball.
In other words, the difference between how well Rodriguez produces in regular situations compared to how poorly in high-leverage ones is staggering. The resulting metric, called “Clutch,” ranks A-Rod last in the major leagues this season, 158th out of 158.
This is nothing new. In eight of Rodriguez’s 13 full major league seasons, he has ranked in the bottom half of Clutch rankings. Even last season, when his WPA ranked first in the major leagues – he contributed nearly seven wins – A-Rod’s Clutch score was only 17th.
In 2007, he did show an ability to hit well when it mattered. Rodriguez hit eight home runs in the ninth inning. Five came in games that were either tied or within one run. Twenty-eight of his 54 total homers came with the Yankees tied or behind. He was the American League MVP, the Yankees’ savior.
And he drove in one run over 15 postseason at-bats.
That matches his number of RBIs in the ninth inning this season. Rodriguez has come up 11 times this season in the ninth with runners in scoring position. He walked twice. He singled once. And he carries a .111 average and .111 slugging percentage in such situations into September.
The Yankees’ misery with runners in scoring position this season is as much a part of their woes as injuries and spotty starting pitching. Their .737 OPS in such situations ranks 21st in baseball, directly behind San Diego, Kansas City and Pittsburgh, three of the game’s more anemic offenses.
To scapegoat Rodriguez is natural. Because of the money he makes, the profile he keeps, the things he says and the talent he possesses, much responsibility should fall to him. Yet the suggestion that the Yankees would be better without him is ludicrous, regardless of how awful his numbers are in the clutch.
Whether that’s true going forward is a different story. Something needs to change in Rodriguez’s relationships. With the fans and with the franchise and with himself. He is theirs. They are his. To-be-determined ever after. Till retirement do them part.
Step one of mending the relationships could come in the next few weeks. On Sept. 12, New York starts the final homestand at Yankee Stadium. The fans will have had time to cool down, to forget about A-Rod’s 11 double plays in August after hitting into four the season’s first four months, to come to terms with the last game at the historic ballpark coming in September and not October. They have a chance to do things properly and make those 10 days about the stadium, not their frustrations.
Though it will be tough. Because when Alex Rodriguez, the highest-paid player in baseball with the lowest aptitude in important situations, steps to the plate, they’ll know that this year no medicine can cure the $300 million migraine.
Jeff Passan is a national baseball writer for Yahoo! Sports
Win Probability Added
When analyzing how “clutch” a player truly is, sabermetricians turn to a statistic called WPA, or Win Probability Added, that calculates how many wins a player added to his team by giving more credit to important situations. Fangraphs.com comes up with a “clutch” score by comparing WPA with WPA/LI – Win Probability Added with the Leverage Index removed, i.e. making all at-bats equal, regardless of the situation.
Except for a couple of seasons, Alex Rodriguez has been anything but clutch. And this season, his Clutch score is the lowest in baseball and 20th-worst since 1974.
Year WPA Rank WPA/LI Rank Clutch Rank
2008 0.27 93rd 2.91 18th -2.67 158th of 158
2007 6.85 1st 5.82 2nd 1.00 17th of 162
2006 1.09 76th 2.41 39th -1.37 150th of 160
2005 5.52 3rd 6.27 3rd -0.65 109th of 148
2004 3.08 26th 2.96 29th 0.24 57th of 161
2003 4.15 11th 4.82 6th -0.12 82nd of 165
2002 3.75 26th 4.98 11th -1.27 133rd of 151
2001 5.23 12th 5.96 8th -0.69 125th of 156
2000 5.27 8th 5.62 7th 0.09 64th of 162
1999 1.19 69th 3.22 34th -2.02 151st of 157
1998 4.51 13th 4.00 20th 0.63 33rd of 159
1997 1.97 49th 2.32 37th -0.38 96th of 144
1996 3.79 18th 4.20 13th -0.55 106th of 147
Source: fangraphs.com
A-Rod is a $300 million migraine
By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports
8-31-8
The $300 million headache has graduated to a migraine.
They’re booing Alex Rodriguez at Yankee Stadium again. These are not standard-issue rants, either, from an esteemed group of Chicken Littles and DUIs-in-waiting. Even the sane and sober are giving their vocal cords extended workouts to razz one of the great numbers hoarders of all time, the sort of Bronx jeer reserved for only the most loathsome Yankees.
Carl Pavano is more popular right now than A-Rod. Think about that.
And then think about the last year, perhaps the most seminal of Rodriguez’s life. He gagged again last postseason, clumsily opted out of his contract during the World Series, revealed himself a pliable ninny by blaming his agent, broke up his marriage by latching on to Madonna (who at 50 could be his mom), again forgot how to hit in the clutch and now is stuck in one of the worst stretches of his career, glug-glug-glugging with his sunken ship.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, Rodriguez re-signed with the Yankees for 10 years, and that is now the issue at heart. He is not even one full year into the richest deal in professional sports history, and already it looks like a marriage made in hell. Or, better yet, purgatory, because both sides are stuck.
A-Rod is grounding into double plays and striking out and putting together – no hyperbole – the worst clutch-hitting season in all of Major League Baseball, owner Hank Steinbrenner has cased his verbal paintballs in favor of BBs, with the bazooka at arm’s length, and everyone knows A-Rod can’t go anywhere else because the money is too big and Rodriguez’s career-long struggle with important at-bats is again popping up like a zit.
Every player has his demons; Rodriguez’s happen to come with the magnifying glass tilted toward him. That he fries like an ant is nothing new. With a few exceptions, such as last season, Rodriguez’s losing battle in clutch situations has stained what is otherwise a career of marvelous achievement, no-doubt first-ballot Hall-of-Fame induction and likely the all-time home run record.
Never has it been as bad for Rodriguez as this season. Numbers back up the cries of Yankees fans, whose complaints about Rodriguez look, on the surface, like those of a scorned lover, what with his .306 batting average, 29 home runs, 81 RBIs and .968 OPS. They say he never hits when it counts – home run No. 29, a solo shot Sunday when the Yankees were down 4-0, is a prime example – and a deeper look, with a metric that analyzes clutch hitting, shows they are onto something.
Win Probability Added (WPA), as tracked by fangraphs.com, assigns a different value to every situation. For example, a run-scoring single to tie a game in the seventh inning is worth significantly more than a bases-empty single in the first inning. Over the entire season, it adds up the positives, subtracts the negatives and produces a number that shows how many wins a player contributed to his team – and, ostensibly, an indicator of how well a player fared in clutch situations.
This year, Rodriguez’s WPA ranks 93rd of 158 eligible players.
It gets truly ugly when compared to another metric that takes away the extra credit for coming through in a close game – the Leverage Index, it’s called – and treats every at-bat equally. Rodriguez’s WPA/LI is 18th in baseball.
In other words, the difference between how well Rodriguez produces in regular situations compared to how poorly in high-leverage ones is staggering. The resulting metric, called “Clutch,” ranks A-Rod last in the major leagues this season, 158th out of 158.
This is nothing new. In eight of Rodriguez’s 13 full major league seasons, he has ranked in the bottom half of Clutch rankings. Even last season, when his WPA ranked first in the major leagues – he contributed nearly seven wins – A-Rod’s Clutch score was only 17th.
In 2007, he did show an ability to hit well when it mattered. Rodriguez hit eight home runs in the ninth inning. Five came in games that were either tied or within one run. Twenty-eight of his 54 total homers came with the Yankees tied or behind. He was the American League MVP, the Yankees’ savior.
And he drove in one run over 15 postseason at-bats.
That matches his number of RBIs in the ninth inning this season. Rodriguez has come up 11 times this season in the ninth with runners in scoring position. He walked twice. He singled once. And he carries a .111 average and .111 slugging percentage in such situations into September.
The Yankees’ misery with runners in scoring position this season is as much a part of their woes as injuries and spotty starting pitching. Their .737 OPS in such situations ranks 21st in baseball, directly behind San Diego, Kansas City and Pittsburgh, three of the game’s more anemic offenses.
To scapegoat Rodriguez is natural. Because of the money he makes, the profile he keeps, the things he says and the talent he possesses, much responsibility should fall to him. Yet the suggestion that the Yankees would be better without him is ludicrous, regardless of how awful his numbers are in the clutch.
Whether that’s true going forward is a different story. Something needs to change in Rodriguez’s relationships. With the fans and with the franchise and with himself. He is theirs. They are his. To-be-determined ever after. Till retirement do them part.
Step one of mending the relationships could come in the next few weeks. On Sept. 12, New York starts the final homestand at Yankee Stadium. The fans will have had time to cool down, to forget about A-Rod’s 11 double plays in August after hitting into four the season’s first four months, to come to terms with the last game at the historic ballpark coming in September and not October. They have a chance to do things properly and make those 10 days about the stadium, not their frustrations.
Though it will be tough. Because when Alex Rodriguez, the highest-paid player in baseball with the lowest aptitude in important situations, steps to the plate, they’ll know that this year no medicine can cure the $300 million migraine.
Jeff Passan is a national baseball writer for Yahoo! Sports
Win Probability Added
When analyzing how “clutch” a player truly is, sabermetricians turn to a statistic called WPA, or Win Probability Added, that calculates how many wins a player added to his team by giving more credit to important situations. Fangraphs.com comes up with a “clutch” score by comparing WPA with WPA/LI – Win Probability Added with the Leverage Index removed, i.e. making all at-bats equal, regardless of the situation.
Except for a couple of seasons, Alex Rodriguez has been anything but clutch. And this season, his Clutch score is the lowest in baseball and 20th-worst since 1974.
Year WPA Rank WPA/LI Rank Clutch Rank
2008 0.27 93rd 2.91 18th -2.67 158th of 158
2007 6.85 1st 5.82 2nd 1.00 17th of 162
2006 1.09 76th 2.41 39th -1.37 150th of 160
2005 5.52 3rd 6.27 3rd -0.65 109th of 148
2004 3.08 26th 2.96 29th 0.24 57th of 161
2003 4.15 11th 4.82 6th -0.12 82nd of 165
2002 3.75 26th 4.98 11th -1.27 133rd of 151
2001 5.23 12th 5.96 8th -0.69 125th of 156
2000 5.27 8th 5.62 7th 0.09 64th of 162
1999 1.19 69th 3.22 34th -2.02 151st of 157
1998 4.51 13th 4.00 20th 0.63 33rd of 159
1997 1.97 49th 2.32 37th -0.38 96th of 144
1996 3.79 18th 4.20 13th -0.55 106th of 147
Source: fangraphs.com
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Cost of new Yankee Stadium up to $1.3B
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-newyankeestadium&prov=ap&type=lgns
Party suites, martini bar: Cost of new Yankee Stadium up to $1.3B
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer
February 8, 2008
NEW YORK (AP) -- The granite and limestone exterior is designed to evoke the original 1923 Yankee Stadium, before it was remade in the 1970s.
But the new stadium's interior will offer amenities unheard of in Babe Ruth's day -- or in Reggie Jackson's.
Scheduled to welcome fans on opening day 2009, the new stadium will have party suites, a members-only restaurant, a martini bar and a price tag to match all the luxury -- $1.3 billion, up from a $1 billion estimate last year, the Yankees said Thursday.
"We tried to reflect a five-star hotel and put a ballfield in the middle," said Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost, who hosted a media tour of the new stadium.
The new ballpark is being built directly across the street from the old House that Ruth Built in the Bronx. For now, the stadium is a welter of cranes and construction trailers, with hard-hatted workers instead of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez patrolling the infield.
The field's dimensions will be the same as at the old ballpark, which will be partially demolished. But the 58-by-103-foot center field television screen will be six times the size of the current stadium's video screen.
Inside, there will be such features as a conference center with video conferencing, so a corporate group could have a daylong meeting and then stay for a ballgame, Trost said.
A concierge will be available to procure theater tickets or restaurant reservations. There will be 51 luxury suites, two large outdoor suites and eight party suites with seating for up to 410 people in total.
Trost said the cost overruns included $150 million in such enhancements as the giant video screen, $138 million in food and beverage costs not included in the original estimate and $50 million from delays due to a lawsuit by community groups that sought to halt construction of the stadium.
The groups sued because two city parks were razed to make way for the new stadium. The Yankees have said the lost parkland would be replaced at the site of the old stadium and elsewhere in the Bronx.
Asked whether the Yankees had been securing additional financing, Trost said, "We will be."
Party suites, martini bar: Cost of new Yankee Stadium up to $1.3B
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer
February 8, 2008
NEW YORK (AP) -- The granite and limestone exterior is designed to evoke the original 1923 Yankee Stadium, before it was remade in the 1970s.
But the new stadium's interior will offer amenities unheard of in Babe Ruth's day -- or in Reggie Jackson's.
Scheduled to welcome fans on opening day 2009, the new stadium will have party suites, a members-only restaurant, a martini bar and a price tag to match all the luxury -- $1.3 billion, up from a $1 billion estimate last year, the Yankees said Thursday.
"We tried to reflect a five-star hotel and put a ballfield in the middle," said Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost, who hosted a media tour of the new stadium.
The new ballpark is being built directly across the street from the old House that Ruth Built in the Bronx. For now, the stadium is a welter of cranes and construction trailers, with hard-hatted workers instead of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez patrolling the infield.
The field's dimensions will be the same as at the old ballpark, which will be partially demolished. But the 58-by-103-foot center field television screen will be six times the size of the current stadium's video screen.
Inside, there will be such features as a conference center with video conferencing, so a corporate group could have a daylong meeting and then stay for a ballgame, Trost said.
A concierge will be available to procure theater tickets or restaurant reservations. There will be 51 luxury suites, two large outdoor suites and eight party suites with seating for up to 410 people in total.
Trost said the cost overruns included $150 million in such enhancements as the giant video screen, $138 million in food and beverage costs not included in the original estimate and $50 million from delays due to a lawsuit by community groups that sought to halt construction of the stadium.
The groups sued because two city parks were razed to make way for the new stadium. The Yankees have said the lost parkland would be replaced at the site of the old stadium and elsewhere in the Bronx.
Asked whether the Yankees had been securing additional financing, Trost said, "We will be."
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