Cervelli -- the next Yankee great?

Ruth. Gehrig. DiMaggio. Mantle. Jackson. Jeter. Cervelli. Add another name to the list of all-time Yankee greats. Francisco Cervelli took his turn winning a game on a walk-off for New York last night, singling through a drawn-in infield with one out in the ninth to give the Yankees a 5-4 win and a split of the two-game series. The walk-off was New York’s 219th such win this season.

The Jays should’ve had this one — they took a 4-2 lead to the eighth before Scott Downs coughed up a two-run homer to Jay killer Hideki Matsui. Jason Frasor did the honours in the ninth, giving up a leadoff hit to Brett Gardner, who then stole second and went to third on Derek Jeter’s ground ball before scoring on Cervelli’s single.

Vernon Wells had two hits for Toronto, running his current streak to 19-for-38 and bumping his average to .264. All-Star again! Marco Scutaro, Lyle Overbay and Travis Snider also each had a pair of hits and Jose Bautista hit his seventh homer of the year.

The loss was costly for the Jays. Well, costly if you care about the rest of the season, which you probably don’t. Brian Tallet left after two innings after getting hit by a comebacker and Downs suffered his “Leg/Foot Injury of the Week” and left a couple batters after Matsui.

The Jays head to Tampa Bay for a three-game series with the Rays, starting Friday with Scott Richmond and James Shields.

During the summer I worked at Evangelical Community Hospital located in Lewisburg, PA which is right down the street from one of my favorite card shops.  Yesturday in the mail I received a package from one of the ladies that I worked with over the summer.  She apparently saw my picture in the newspaper with the seven Heisman Trophy winners that was taken during this year’s National and decided to send me a few things for my collection.  What was inside just blew me away.

Along with a few newspaper clippings, she sent an old Washington Senators scorecard that she obtained at a game and is dated 8/4/1942.  The Senators were playing the Yankees that day and she was even able to get a few signatures.  It features signatures of the following:

• Joe McCarthy – Yankees Manager 1931 – 1946, HOF 1967
• Red Branch – Yankees Pitcher 1941 – 1942
• John Lindell – Yankees OF 1941 – 1950
• Red Ruffing – Yankees Pitcher 1930 – 1942 & 1945 – 1946, HOF 1967
• Robert “Red” Rolfe – Yankees 3B 1931, 1934 – 1942
• Jerry Priddy – Yankees 2B 1941 – 1942
• Frank Crosetti – Yankees SS 1932 – 1948
• Ernie Bonham – Yankees Pitcher 1941 – 1943

I couldn’t believe this piece when I pulled it out of the envelope.  For being 67 years old, the scorecard is in great condition.  The signatures look pretty good for being signed in pencil all those years ago.  The autographs look better in person, but I tried to get a few shots to show.  The Yankees lineup shows Joe DiMaggio and Phil Rizzuto playing that day.  You can click on each photo for a closer look.

The ads on the scorecard are funny to read.  Most of them are tobacco companies.  I specifically find it funny that back then you could purchase 6 season tickets to a Redskins home game for $9.90 per seat.  This is something that will stay in my personal collection forever.

These signatures look a lot better in person.  Pencil doesn’t always show the best on a scan.

This one is still strictly word-of-mouth…but for those of you wondering if Jamaican TV  landscape had already dried out into an abominable wasteland of shit,  here’s a couple small murmurs from the underbelly.

- The Last Don, KOTE Part II (interview) : Active Voice
- The Last Don Screening (review): Eve Mann

Brett Cecil, getting back on track

After plenty of clawing and scratching, the Jays are finally back up to .500. Well, actually they were only below the mark for a day, but let’s just pretend they didn’t start the season 27-14 — it just hurts too much to think about. Toronto snapped a three-game losing streak tonight in Baltimore against the mighty Orioles, winning 2-0 behind six shutout innings from Brett Cecil.

Cecil, who grew up in Maryland, stuck out five and gave up four hits, winning his first major league game in almost two months. My boy Jesse “The American Dream” Carlson continued his quest to regain his swagger, retiring all four batters he faced while helping make way for Scott Downs, who picked up his first save since being activated from the disabled list Wednesday.

In a shocking tun of events, however, Scott Rolen failed to pick up a hit in his 26th consecutive game, meaning Joe DiMaggio’s legacy will live on. In perhaps an even more shocking turn, Alex Rios led Toronto’s offensive attack with a pair of doubles, scoring the Jays’ second run in the fifth on David Dellucci’s groundout. Dellucci, by the way, is hitless in his first 17 at-bats with Toronto. Think Brad Wilkerson can be willed out of retirement as a replacement?

A win in the opener is nice, and it gets better — unfazeable rookie Ricky Romero gets the ball tomorrow, and the Jays never lose when he pitches. Romero, 7-3 with a 2.96 ERA, has won his last four starts, though he had his roughest outing of the year at Camden Yards in May, giving up 11 hits and five runs in his first start after pulling a muscle while listening to rap music in April.

Joe DiMaggio mashes everywhere

Rest easy, Joe DiMaggio — your legacy is again safe. Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman hung an 0-for-3 yesterday, ending his hitting streak at 30 games, a mere 26 short of Joltin’ Joe’s mark of 56 in 1941. The fact that coming within 26 games of the record is considered “close” just serves as a reminder of how remarkable DiMaggio’s feat was.

Tony Gwynn, an above average hitter in his on right, said years ago that a player will hit .400 again before DiMaggio’s streak is broken because over the course of a season you can have 0-fers (Gwynn, by the way, was the last player to seriously push for .400, at least as far as I can remember — he hit .394 in strike-shortened 1994). I agree, and for that reason I’d say DiMaggio’s record is least likely to be broken.

I’ve had a bit of a fascination with DiMaggio reading David Halberstam’s Summer of ‘49 last summer (summer of ‘08, to be exact). After that, I picked up Richard Ben Cramer’s biography of DiMaggio, The Hero’s Life. An interesting character, to say the least.

(P.S. This doesn’t mean I like the Yankees)

Seven-time All Star Dominic DiMaggio, who always lived in the shadows of Hall of Fame brother Joe and teammate Ted Williams, died early today at age 92.

DiMaggio still holds the record for the longest consecutive game hitting streak in Boston Red Sox history, yet his 34-game hitting streak games in 1949 was only the second longest hit streak in the DiMaggio family, forever over-shadowed by his brother Joe’s major league record 56-game hitting streak with the Yankees in 1941. If that wasn’t bad enough, it was Joe who caught a sinking liner off Dom’s bat to end his younger brother’s hit streak.

Dom DiMaggio, 2002

R.I.P Dom DiMaggio.  Man, a lot of baseball figures have passed away this year and its not even June yet.

As a Father, Man, and Husband I have to tell you I’m as excited as my 7 year old after downing a MOUNTAIN DEW.  How great would it be to be in the new house that RUTH BUILT !   Well maybe that STEINBRENNER built.  In a strange way I’ll miss the old stadium with it’s tiny seats, narrow hallways that were built for 5′ 3′ guy’s in the 1920’s with fedora’s on , and bathrooms that were so old that even the roaches wouldn’t go inside.   

    But the stadium had some great aspects also.  The old facade around the stadium.  Bob Sheppard…”  Ladies and Gentlemen..Boys and Girls… Welcome to Yankee Stadium” ( he might be at the new Stadium), and monument park in center field are pure classic and will be missed. Dearly.  But the new stadium will make the purists forget all the ghosts of Yankee past.  Such names as Berra, Kubek, Gehrig, Ruth,Ford, Martin, Mattingly, DiMaggio, Skowron, Guidry, Casey, Nettles, Chambliss, Munson, Reggie, etc etc , will still be in spectators minds but just in a different seat. But the new names like Sabbathia, Jeter, A-Rod, Cano, Mariano,Wang,Posada, will give it a new identity.   Oh we will miss you old classy lady, but your hot young daughter is pretty nice also.

Uh, 56 game hitting streak. Yeah, that record’s not going anywhere. Sorry.

 On this day in 1954 Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe tied the knot!!!  In what may have been the most widely publicised wedding of the decade, it’s arguable that there were no bigger stars in sports or Hollywood at that time than ‘Joe D’ and ‘Norma Jean’.

But since their wedding there have been a ton of athlete/celebrity weddings.  Some made it and some haven’t…  But they all have 1 thing in common: Media coverage!!

So, what couple reminds you most of DiMaggio and Monroe??  Nobody can compare to their ‘Spotlight Dominance’ but these couples do come close.   

1. Halle Berry & David Justice
2. Posh Spice & David Beckham
3. Eva Longoria & Tony Parker

Your pick??  Any Others??

Upper Deck has just completed the 2008 Timelines Cuts that are available through redemption.  Here are a few new images that Upper Deck has released.  To view the entire Cuts checklist click here.  My personal favorite is the Chuck Klein.  Right now, Upper Deck is working on the 2008 Iconic Cut set and should have some of the images next week.

Pg 307 – “Current research tends to focus on the Internet’s implications in five domains: 1) inequality (the “digital divide”); 2) community and social capital; 3) political participation; 4) organizations and other economic institutions; and 5) cultural participation and cultural diversity. A recurrent theme across domains is that the Internet tends to complement rather than displace existing media and patterns of behavior.”

~ Really the point I’m interested in is the 5th one.

Pg 307 – “By “Internet” we refer to the electronic network of networks that links people and information through computers and other digital devices allowing person-to-person communication and information retrieval.”

~ Good definition of Internet.

Pg 308-9 – “Sociology’s major theoretical traditions emphasize different aspects of electronic media. For Durkheimians, point-to-point communications media like telephones reinforce organic solidarity, while broadcast media like radio or television yield powerful collective representations (Alexander 1988). Marxists focus upon exploitation of communications media to enhance elite control of both politics and production through cultural hegemony and enhanced surveillance (Schiller 1996, Davis et al 1997). Weberians attend to the ways in which point-to-point media advance rationalization by reducing limits of time and space, and broadcast media provide the elements of distinctive status cultures (Collins 1979).”

~ I never knew there are so many different ways of talking about electronic media. But I think I like the idea of the “organic solidarity” of the telephone in terms of identity building.

Pg 310 – “Anderson et al (1995) were among the first to highlight the potential of inequality in Internet access to limit people’s opportunities to find jobs, obtain education, access government information, participate in political dialog, and build networks of social support. By “digital divide,” we refer to inequalities in access to the Internet, extend of use, knowledge of search strategies, quality of technical connections and social support, ability to evaluate the quality of information and diversity of uses.”

~ So the “digital divide” can also affect the development level of individuals because they are not exposed to as many identities because they do not have access to them through the Internet.

Pg 313 – “Yet Internet traffic is highly concentrated: 80% of site visits are to just .5% of Web sites (Waxman 2000a). As was the case with broadcast media, the growth and commercialization of the Internet has been accompanied by a commodification of attention.”

~ So with media being such a huge influence it creates a culture that is fairly similar, and yet the differences in personal history are really what affect the major portion of people’s identity.

Pg 314 – “More recently, two studies have suggested that the Internet may induce anomie and erode social capital by enabling users to retreat into an artificial world (Kraut et al 1998, Nie & Erbring 2000).”

~ So not only does the Internet affect one’s personal history and identity, but also culture in general by eroding the social capital.

Pg 314-315 – “Much of the debate over social capital is about whether the Internet attenuates users’ human relationships, or whether it serves to reinforce them. Experience with earlier communications technologies suggests that Internet users may substitute time online for attention to functionally equivalent social and media activities (Welss 1970).

~ Hmm, interesting, so people are using the Internet as a stand in for another identity. This might add to the formation/dissolving of culture to add a third section…redistribution of culture.

Pg 315-6 – “Kraut et al (1998), who used a rare longitudinal design to study 169 Pittsburgh-area families who were given computers and Internet connections over a two-year period, reported that higher levels of Internet use were “associated with declines in communication with family members, declines in social circles, and increased loneliness and depression.” The authors inferred that heavy users substituted interactions with weak ties on the Internet for time spent with close friends and relatives. Yet as the researchers followed their sample they discovered that, except for increased stress, negative psychological effects decayed to statistical insignificance and some positive outcomes emerged. They attribute these changes to increases in experience and competence and, more speculatively, to the Internet’s greater utility in the later period and to a change in sign of network externalities from negative to positive as more of these users’ friends and family went online (Kraut et al forthcoming).”

~ Nice case study on how something small, like Internet access affects personal history, which in turn affects identity, and then culture. This might make an interesting flow chart.

Pg 316 – “Nie & Erbing (2000) surveyed four thousand Internet users online and asked how the Internet had changed their lives. Most reported no change, but heavier users reported declines in socializing, media use, shopping, and other activities.”

~ So the more involved one is in a certain culture the more one’s other cultures/identities change. Good for the chart/theory.

Pg 317 – “The Internet seems particularly unlikely to corrode the social capital of women, more of whom than men employ the medium as a complement to other channels of social interaction. Similarly, a longitudinal study by Kraut et al (forthcoming) found that Internet use increased interaction with family members and reported closerness to friends, especially for users whose perceived social-support networks were strong before they began using the Internet.

~ The differences in gender also affect other identities, nice case study showing the implications of multiple identities bouncing off and relating to one another.

Pg 317 – “The Internet is unique among media in making it easy for people to assemble (at a distance) and communicate with many others at the same time in such settings as chat rooms or online discussion forums.”

~ So through this communication it is changing culture and identities since communication is kind of a base for all things dealing with identity. Would you even have a culture if you could not communicate? Or would it just be an identity?

Pg 325 – “Since 1980, changes in consumer demand have combined with new media technologies to segment markets and differentiate cultural goods, enabling individuals and groups to individualize their media habits. An as “interconnected network of audio, video, and electronic text communication that will blur the distinction between interpersonal and mass communications and between public and private communications” (Neuman 1991, p. 12), the Internet seems designed to take these trends to their logical conclusion.”

~ So, basically, the Internet has brought everyone together under a digital culture, but split cultures through its ability to individualize habits. Interesting, kind of like what I’m trying to do with my theory.

DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, W. R., Robinson, J. P. (2001). Social implications of the Internet. Annual Review of Sociology, 27. Retrieved November 9, 2008, from JSTOR database.

Yankee Stadium, The House That Ruth Built, perhaps the most famous sports venue in the world closed it’s door on 9/21/2008.  Also for the first time in 14 years, there will be no October for the New York Yankees.

There’s alway next year bitches

Just the mere mention of the name can do it.

Seeing the grass, the facade, feeling the aura…

Listening to their theme song…

Hearing Bob Sheppard announce it…

“Welcome to Yankee Stadium”

Tomorrow night the final game ever to be played at Yankee Stadium will be played before the team moves in to their new stadium for the 2009 season.

I’ve got the goosebumps already.

The New York Yankees.  Is there a more storied sports team in the world.  Nope?  Is there a more grand cathedral to play their games in than Yankee Stadium?  Nope.  Pinstriped suits.  Royalty.  Champions.  A memorial will be held all day tomorrow.  The greats will be remembered either live or represented by a member(s) of their family.  The names:  Babe Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra, Ford, Rizzuto, Maris, Dickey, Munson, Murcer, Mattingly, Jackson, Guidry, A-Rod, Of course, I’m missing/forgetting about a hundred other great names, Derek Jeter, and of course, Mariano Rivera — who fittingly will pitch the ninth inning tomorrow night and close the stadium for good.  Has anyone ever done it better?  Especially in the big spots?  On this stage.  On this night.  The New York Yankees are the talk of the town and fittingly, the baseball world.

I’ve been a Yankee fan for 45 years or so.  My early heroes were Mickey Mantle and Joe Pepitone who I caught at the end of their illustrious (well, Mickey’s for sure) career… soon to be replaced by my new heroes, Horace Clark and Roy White.  But, then up came Bobby Murcer, and all was good in the world again.  And like the swans returning to Capistrano, the Championships soon returned as well.

They may not win the World Series this year, but they’ll be Champions for this one night… and in my eyes, for ever.

Now you’re Talking Baseball.

Play ball!

(click on the hyperlinks to hear some famous audio relating to each player)

Joe DiMaggio 1938 Goudey #250

My Favorite All-Time Lineup (not necessarily the best)

1B- Jeff Bagwell

2B- Chase Utley

3B- Chipper Jones

SS- Nomar Garciaparra

C- Jason Varitek

CF- Ken Griffey Jr.

RF- J.D. Drew

DH- Joe DiMaggio

SP- Justin Verlander

SP- Cole Hamels

SP- Bob Feller

SP- Tom Glavine

RP- Dennis Eckersley

CP- Trevor Hoffman

I have six starting pitchers, but one could be another reliever. Joe DiMaggio is at DH since Griffey is at the CF position.