Thanks to the largesse of my daughter Molly, our newest friend Shawn Kelly and I (that’s us below, flanking Mister Balloonhead) got to go to see the Yankees and Orioles on Friday, June 20th. Shawn, who is very knowledgeable about baseball (although this appears to be way down on the list of things he knows …
A Yankee season that was by turns surprising, lousy, exciting, and disappointing has a sweet and affectionate close as New York said goodbye to two stalwarts of the team’s most recent golden era. The peerless Mariano Rivera–the Great Rivera, of 19 seasons and 652 regular seasaon saves and 42 postseason saves with an astonishing 1.34 …
Ginny and I spent a humid day ay Yankee Stadium watching the Yanks patiently scrimp together a 3-0 lead, which they prodigally squandered by allowing the Orioles a seven-run seventh. If they miss the playoffs by one game, this will be one of the ones they will point to. I believe this is the first …
The Yankees became the first team in major league history to hit three grand slam home runs in one game. Robinson Cano, Russell Martin and Curtis Granderson each went yard with the bags packed in a 22-9 Yankee victory over the Oakland Athletics, a game which saw the Yankees trailing by a score of 7-1 …
In an astonishing, Jack Armstrongish day, the peerless Derek Jeter reached the milestone of 3000 career hits by slugging a third-inning home run off hard-throwing right hander David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays. Jeter marked the day by going 5 for 5, with the hits including the homer, a double, and three singles, the …
Down 5-1, the Rangers looking capable and confident, C.J. Wilson pitching the game of his life, the Yankees strike. Gardner beats out a slow roller with a head-first slide. Jeter doubles, scoring Gardner. Score is 5-2. Rangers change pitchers. Swisher walks. Teixiera walks. Rangers change pitchers. On the first pitch, Rodriguez smashes a grounder to …
After a middling October in which key players struggled and the team gave away a first-place finish in the standings, I didn’t have a great feeling about the Yankees’ chances this October. Now, after a three-game sweep of a very good Twins team–one which was accomplished without much from Alex Rodriguez and only a very …
I finally cashed in the fabulous Father’s Day gift I received in June, as Ginny and Molly and Cara took me to see the Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7 to 5, on a picture-perfect end-of-summer afternoon in the Bronx. We sat in Section 306 in the Terrace, which put us in a prime …
A wholly personal and entirely idiosyncratic ranking of the what were the very best elements of what, apart from these and a few other gems, was a beast of year: 1.) London. A full week living the life of a roving journalist, enjoying posh circumsances, a limitless credit line, and the company of smart, thoughtful …
In this week’s issue of The New Yorker, Roger Angell offers his customary valediction to the baseball season–the year’s not over until Angell sings. Although he rightly singles out Johnny Damon‘s at-bat in the top of the ninth of Game Four as the pivotal moment of the series, the great Angell punts the description a …