Snowman On Fire

The New York papers are abuzz with rumors of Joe Torre’s imminent firing. I hope the reports of his coaching death are greatly exaggerated, because Torre was far from the one to blame for the Yankees’ post-season demise. He was handed a pitching staff that might have been young (as opposed to the Padres’ Chris Young, who looked spectacular) a decade ago, sporting Carl Pavano (who didn’t throw a single pitch in pinstripes this year) as its poster child. Matsui and Sheffield got hurt, and along comes Melky Cabrera. Who knew? Joe knew. Joe managed, and played the hand he was dealt, and played it well. If Steinbrenner is going to give him the equivalent of 7-2 offsuit hole cards in a game of hold’em, Joe knows how to play it.

On my way to the airport this morning, the sports talk radio was filled with “Ditch A-rod” and “Take Jeter’s captaincy” complaints. The engineers were hitting the dump button more than for the Howard Stern show, deleting invective laced with expletive. Everyone seems to think it’s Jeter’s problem that A-rod doesn’t feel loved, and if A-rod isn’t loved then he can’t play well.

Excuse me? A-rod gets paid in a year what most people make in ten careers. That’s love. That’s the fans love of the game translated into insane ticket prices and $7 beers and $9 sausages and $25 t-shirts to pay for Mr. “I want to be liked”. You want to be liked? Start with the fans, and the community, and your teammates. Don’t wait for people to come to you, go to the people. Do the work. Joe Torre is in front of the press, win or lose, every day, doing the work even when his team isn’t.

Young, exciting prospects sell tickets and jerseys too. And they are eager to build up some street cred, on the street, so they’ll engage with the community. Veterans who want to win with every fiber of their (able) bodies sell tickets. Ray Borque, anyone? Pudge Rodriguez?

The Yankees will retool, and there will be a long winter of discontent when everyone is a manager, coach, third baseman, and negotiator, and then it starts again in 22 weeks. For once, it would be nice if the Yankees opened up with a clear gap between the average age of the players and that of the year-round residents around training camp. I just hope Joe’s still there to point out the players.

Stick a fork in the Yankees. They’re doing their best Atlanta Braves imitation, consistently winning the division and then failing to advance in the post season. This season’s choke-fest, though, was spectacular: They went without a run for 20 consecutive innings. Want to call a turning point? How about A-rod failing to do anything - anything at all - with the bases loaded in Game 2, at home, in front of a crowd that so very much wants him to be a hero.

The Yankees need pitching. They need to get Sheffield out of the infield, and maybe to the golf course permanently. More than anything else, they need leadership. Not “Jeter, the captain,” but someone in the club house who will step up and be the consistent performer; the player willing to do the work every pitch of every game. No whining about tags. No whining about called strikes. Sacrifice flies when they’ll break a tie, personal attention discarded in favor of team contribution.

At the 2000 All-Star Game in Seattle, my son was wearing a Texas jersey with “Rodriguez” on the back. Not A-Rod, but Pudge. Pudge, who put in his time in Florida, and then went to Detroit where he did the work through a few miserable seasons. We got some jeers from Seattle locals still reeling from A-rod’s departure for a Texas-sized contract — our four-letter word of choice was Ivan, not Alex or something else thrown our way.

I ignored the economics talking until I had a chance encounter outside the player’s hotel with A-rod. He walked by, spotted the two of us in our baseball finery, and kept walking. No autographs. No effort to reach out, literally, to the fans. All about A-rod.

I’d wager that Steinbrenner pays part of A-rod’s contract in an effort to deal him elsewhere. You can’t put a price on disappointment.

Livingston American Little League has made it to the championship game of the Mid-Atlantic Regional. This is a Very Big Deal. The AL team first won the NJ District 8 championship, going undefeated in winning the Essex/Hudson/Union county bracket of about a dozen teams. From there it was on the Section 2 championships, where they emerged as one of the four state finalists, and then a long weekend in Neptune, NJ crowned them state champions. The Americans lost only one game along the way. Because the tournaments up to state level are double-elimination, one loss doesn’t end your run. From Neptune, it was Bristol, CT, the home of ESPN and the Mid-Atlantic championship.

They went undefeated in the Mid-Atlantic pool play, going 4-0 to earn a top seed in the semi-finals. Friday night the Livingston team won again, setting up Monday night’s championship game. The winner gets on a bus to Williamsport, PA.

Sixteen teams end up in Williamsport, PA for the Little League World Series. Eight of them represent the United States; eight represent the other regions around the world and this year include teams from Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Curacao. They are the best 11- and 12-year old teams — not individual players, but teams — from around the world.

Why the excitement? Livingston has two Little League charters — American and National Leagues. My son has played in, and I have coached and served on the board of, the National League. But once June arrives, and the tournament starts, our allegiances merge if one of our teams advances. Think about this from the perspective of my son’s 7-grade classmates: They’re playing on ESPN on Monday night, opposite a Major League Baseball game on national television. They have the hearts and minds of a town of 35,000 behind them, and a state of 8.6 million boasting Jersey pride. For a few weeks in August, our local boys are more popular than the Yankees and Mets combined.

This is what Little League is supposed to be about, the feeling that baseball is about having fun and playing hard and representing your town. I’m proud that our town is represented all the way to Connecticut, and hopefully, all the way out I-80 into next weekend.

Jose Reyes hit for the cycle tonight. My son and I saw the triple, which made him 3-3 and left Reyes only a single away from accomplishing the feat, and then we managed to catch his single that put him on this list of rare accomplishments.

What other baseball statistical class includes Willie Stargell, Honus Wagner, Kirby Puckett, Ted Williams, Stan Musial and Joe DiMaggio, but excludes Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds and every Yankees player since 1995? Hitting for the cycle requires power, speed, bat control and sometimes a bit of good mojo at the plate.

It’s one of those goofy, unimportant sports events you remember for a long time. The first player I saw hit for the cycle was Richie Zisk of the Pittsburgh Pirates, in a 14-1 drubbing of San Francisco in 1974. Brought up to replace Roberto Clemente, Zisk proved himself a hitter in all aspects that day, and he became the first Buc in 10 years to hit for the cycle. At that time, the last Pirate to join the club was Willie Stargell, who hit for the cycle in his third season. A generation from now, we won’t remember who won the game (the Mets blew it in the 9th), or who else was playing, but my son and I will smile when we think about the last school night of 2006. Sure beats studying for a social studies quiz.

Ouch. I’m not normally too much of a wuss when it comes to seeing people get mangled on television, but watching Hideki Matsui fracture his wrist last night almost made me revisit my dinner. This is horrible for Matsui - here’s a guy who doesn’t complain, shows up to work hard and play great baseball every day, hasn’t missed a day of work in about 10 years (how many people do you know who can say that?) and he breaks his arm while making an extra effort to take away a hit. Surely, it’s bad for the Yankees too, and the rumors about Torii Hunter are at gale force now, but this calls for some major sympathy for Godzilla.

Under the best of circumstances, he’s back in mid-August, possibly for the playoffs (if they’re in the Yankees’ future this year), but let’s just hope he’s back. For all of us weaker Little Leaguers who were stuck in left field game after game, Hideki Matsui is something of a patron saint (how’s that for mixing your metaphors). I’ll appeal to any other saints anyone feels are appropriate to get him back in one piece.

Yesterday was one of those very cool days when things just seemed to go right. Unless you were wearing pinstripes in the Metrodome, in which case they went wrong at the wrong times.

We had our first Little League game yesterday, after losing a week to rain and school vacations. After opening up leads of 11-2 and 15-8, our opponents closed the gap to a few runs in the top of the 6th (and final) inning. Bases loaded, one out, and it was a 1-run game. We got a force at home, thanks to some smart fielding by our first baseman (10 years old) and catcher (recently turned 12). Next ball was rapped sharply back up the first base line, picked up and used to tag out the runner by the same first baseman, game over, final score 15-14. Snack bar treats enjoyed by all.

I wish A-Rod could have seen this, for two reasons. First of all, the sports media widely reported that A-Rod was particularly hard on himself after the Yankees blew last night’s game in the Twin Cities. I can’t fault him for wanting to win, but I can dislike his grimace at the plate. When he came to bat in the later innings of the game, he looked like he’d had a steady diet of pain and suffering for the past week. In the words of Willie Stargell, my original baseball hero, it’s supposed to be fun. Play ball, not work ball, right?

The second reason A-Rod needs to lighten up is that he’s a role model as a Yankees star player. Kids (most kids) look up to him, try to mimic him, want to be him. If he’s faulting himself for not being perfect, what does that say to the 10-year old pitcher who gave up six runs in a half-inning? Sports reveal our character, according to John Wooden, and we should make sure the character traits so exposed are those we want the next generation of ball players to emulate.

Here’s my advice to A-Rod: on your next off day in the Bronx, go watch a Little League game. Go check out the 10-12 year olds on the 60-foot diamond, the batters who hold up their right arms to the ump like Jeter or run their fingers through the infield between plays, dirt like Posada or Cairo. Tell them it’s perfectly acceptable to make mistakes, as long as you’re a team player and always exhibit good sportsmanship. And before anyone dismisses this as wishful thinking, let me point out that I’ve seen Patrik Elias on the little league field fences, watching a softball game, cheering politely while signing autographs and being a good role model. Sometimes it’s good to remember how and why we started playing sports.

Our kids mirror our behaviors, professional or amateur, big league or little league, on TV or in front of it.