RIP to Bob Turley, the AL Cy Young Award winner for 1958 and a mainstay of the Yankee pitching staff from 1955 to 1961. More and more the great players of the Mantle era are leaving us, sadly.
And it's only taking two innings so far to indicate this is liable to be one grueling year for the Yankees. Sabathia looks awful and the defense is showing little range as the Red Sox are already up 4-0.
A disastrous beginning for the Yankee season with an 8-2 loss in which they came off looking like a third-rate team on all levels of pitching, offense and defense.
Let's see if the tigers never leave first place like they did I believe in 1984.
So much for that pipe dream. Reliever by commitee indeed. Didn't work well today. The difference between this year and 1984 can be summed up in five words: Sparky Anderson and Willie Hernandez.
Iron Pyrite vs. The Real Deal - Or The More Things Change, The More They DON'T Stay the Same Department:
As the season gears up and everyone starts salivating re their respective champions and championship teams, it recently struck us the definitive difference between Now and Then where baseball is concerned just by juxtaposing the false celebratory euphoria over the above's alleged historical significance and the authentic article represented
by this titled Trinity ...
What's emblazoned below is far from irredeemably true but ya gotta wonder if - ala academia, the legal profession, hospitals and most other institutions - when Sports also stopped pretending they were anything else other than money-making enterprises (whoever thought Hollywood would seem the exception since it's never presented itself otherwise) if seemingly antiquated notions like Integrity and a Moral Code also generally ceased to be of specific value?
There is it seems as the years go by a total absence of basic dignity in so much of professional sports. The elegance and class of the sports icons of generations past has been replaced by a coarseness and cheapness that perhaps also just merely reflects the coarsening of culture in general and the fact that no more are we expected to aspire to the higher standards that defined an earlier generation.
Looks like I have to apologize again for the Tigers tearing apart the Yankees. 8-4 this time. Just think, Verlander is pitching tomorrow for Detroit. Play ball!
While the Mets have had an "easy" schedule so far to start off the season, I have been impressed so far with the starting pitching. They have also cobbled together an outfield of journeyman veteran Marlon Byrd, Collin Cowgill, and the homegrown Met Lucas Duda.
Cowgill is a little sparkplug with heart who is still relatively young and plays hard and is a decent defensive centerfielder. Byrd is 35, has had issues other places but is filling a gap for the time being after having a good spring with the bat and winning a starting job. The outfield situation could have been a lot worse. Both Cowgill and Byrd are not making a ton of money and both just wanted a chance to play. They are getting it.
Bobby Parnell has indeed been given the ball as the closer and so far he seems much more settled out there. Parnell has been mixing up his pitches better this spring to much better success and is not simply trying to blow hitters away with his 100mph fastball.
Veteran catcher John Buck came to the Mets as a part of the R.A. Dickey trade to Toronto, and he has been a leader behind the plate and on the bench mentoring the young pitching staff. Buck is a former All Star backstop with some pop. I've been very impressed with him but I'm trying not to like him too much as it's no secret that when the main piece of the Dickey trade young Travis d'Arnaud is ready to come up to eventually take over as the starting catcher Buck will most likely be moved in a trade. Buck is wearing former Met Jason Bay's old uniform #44, and it's nice to finally see someone wearing that number get a key hit (or any hits for that matter) once in a while..
Matt Harvey has now replaced R.A. Dickey this season as the "must see" pitcher on the Mets. I hope he stays healthy and continues to impress as he did in his first start this season. (Dickey has been roughed up in his first two starts for Toronto which has come as a bit of a surprise.)
The Mets schedule will get much tougher (to put it mildly) right before the All Star break when they have to leave Citi Field and hit the road to play a tough schedule that will have them facing some of the best teams in baseball all in a row. I'm sure we will learn a lot more about this team after that trip. The 2013 All Star Game will be played at Citi Field, the Mets home ballpark.
JV did not have his A game going for one inning and that was all CC and Yankees needed as they clobbered the Tigers today. The Tigers left their hitting shoes somewhere else. oh well I'll take 2 out of 3 from the Yankees any day.
Well today the real Tigers showed up. 11-1 win over the Blue Jays. Doug Fister was Doug Fister. I don't think Villireal pitched at all after walking 3 straight yesterday. Would be nice if we could get baseball weather instead of drizzly cold crap weather.
