Seventh Inning Stretch

A The Daily Growler Sports Extra With marvelousmarvbackbiter
No one in the Growler offices tonight--it's dry and stuffy like it must be these days in the New York Yankees back office. They won tonight, 6-3, and they're back to .500, 18-18, but it's been tough and they're 4 1/2 behind the Red Sox and it's a tougher division this year than it was last year, like Tampa Bay's in second place ahead of the Yanks. The Yanks got 4 home runs tonight to give Mussina his 4th win in a row, home runs from batters hitting under .200, including the mighty Steroid himself, Jason Giambi, and always slow-startin' Robinson Cano. Joe Girardi's doin' the best he can; he's keeping that defiant stern look on his face but he can't hide it like Joe Torre could. What a spot this poor jerk is in. He either excells with this highest-paid team in baseball with the minor-league pitching staff--he's got to go all the way to the World Series since he's already bragged that he can do it--or the baseball-dumbass Steinbrenner pompous asses will ruin him--he'll be selling beer in Northern New Jersey or setting pins up at Yogi Berra's bowling alley next year if he doesn't do what the Steinbrenners have told him he either does or it's coaching out on Staten Island if he stays in baseball.

What a tough fucking job Joe Girardi has. He can't fill Joe Torre's shoes. Nobody can do that; Joe Torre's the best manager in either league, and he's managed in both leagues and he's won in both leagues and he's back in the National League and check out the L.A. Dodgers, and, yes, New Yorkers in both leagues hate the Dodgers--and the Mets just clobbered 'em 12-1 or something like that--except the Dodgers are at .585 and are remarkably only a handful of games behind the tough-ass Arizona Diamondbacks--and the Dodgers were thought to be too young to have any chance in that division this year--only thing not factored into that equation at the end of last year's season was that Joe Torre would be their manager this year. And how sad is it at Yankee Stadium now--it is for me--to see this fine old ship sinking this year--how sad to ironically see the old worn-out has-been pitchers, like Mike "Even-Steven" Mussina and Andy "My Hero Took Steroids" Pettite, keeping the team afloat--and they've got A-Rod out and Posada out and they still have their minor-league pitching staff and pitching coach and they still have Kyle Farnsworth and Joba Chamberlain is acting like the minor-league kid pitcher he is and he gave up a long home run against the Indians last night--and forget about Hughes and Kennedy--their Roman candles proved to be overblown sparklers--Joe Torre knew that last year--he knew Brian Cashman, the luckiest worst general manager in baseball, through the backriding of old senile George "the Boss" Steinbrenner, had saddled his ass with these wonderkin pitchers who he and Ron Guidry knew weren't ready for the pressure of the big leagues, especially the extra-added pressure of being a Yankee and having George Steinbrenner use you as pawns against his manager. Brian Cashman again through the wiseass PR idea of George Steinbrenner brought Roger Clemens out of retirement and foisted his ass on Joe Torre--still Joe took them to the playoffs!!!--and then when Roger let them down and even though he pitched some remarkable games as a nearly-50-year-old player George said Fuck him and soon Roger was in all this steroid usage and lyin' like the dog he is trouble and now they find out Rajah was bangin' an moppet to boot! Boy did somebody fuck up Rajah's last days of hurrah! There's talk now of taking his Cy Youngs away from him. Why not, he's just one of the greatest of the modern-day pitchers, I mean winning the number of Cy Young awards he won with all the different teams he bailed out of poor attendances to put them on the map--the Red Sox, the Blue Jays, the Yankees--so why not ruin his ass? Steinbrenner showed HIM. And now the Steinbrenner son is in charge. Oh holy shit! And already the son has shot his spoiled brat mouth off--like his father and Brian Cashman, Little Hank knows absolutely nothing about baseball--belching out about why not start Jaw-bone Chamberlain?--Hank says its idiotic (meaning Joe Girardi is proving to be an idiot) to keep a 100-mph fireballer off the starting rotation. Hey, dumbass, you got the best closer combination in baseball with Jawbone and Mariano Rivera--why you want'a fuck that up? What pitcher in either league can throw 100-mph for 7 innings?--soon your pitch gets to slowing down and the hitters get fixed on it--your speed's your ace in the hole and when you lose your speed you lose your advantage and BLEWY, they start hitting your ass hard. But Hank doesn't know that. Already he's hacked the pitching staff up badly and has sent Hughes and Kennedy packing--trotting back out the last of the Yankee Japanese hack pitchers, he's awful, and poor old Sean Henn--who's like a jack-in-the-box with the Yankees--and they've called back up Darrell Rasner, a bum if ever there was one. Plus they gave up Gary Sheffield for this wonderkin hitter Shelly Duncan, who, wonderkin or not, ain't hittin' this year. Gary Sheffield even injured is having a better year.

Yet, I just can't abandoned a team I've followed for as long as I can remember. You always expect the Yankees to be in the fight all the way to the end, even in the days of the hapless Major Houk Yankees of the mid-sixties (Hector Lopez and Roy White were their best players--remember them?) you still kept the faith. But now. This Steinbrenner bastard--he's on the verge of wrecking the Yankees--oh the Yankees will always make money--they've got a huge fan base--but still it's a crying shame how Steinbrenner has used the Yankees as though they were an industrial mop, you see, able to just mop the league clean with one swipe. Joe Torre gave Steinbrenner his most glorious years in baseball--you see how Steinbrenner respects that? You see, Steinbrenner's a natural born unathletic loser--even though his father was an Olympian--a swimmer, I think--George was a private-school-raised ninny--and George later blew millions on his unsuccessful venture as a basketball team owner, the Cleveland Pipers--and, oh by the bye, George made a mess of his father's successful Great Lakes shipping business, too--the Yankees have been George's only successful venture--even his horse-racing stable is a loser stable--but being a loser, it's naturally against George's will to win--he feels more powerful when he's losing. Of course, now that Alzheimer's is reducing George to a bossy vegetable, son Hank will carry on the losing part of the Boss's nature.

If Joe Torre were their manager this year, I'm sure the Yankees would be only a game behind the BoSox--who ain't what they used to be either.

And in the National League. Poor Willie. He's got a tiger by the tail in this year's Mets team. They're good, but like last year's Yankees, they're gonna be hard to handle and they're in a hell of a tight division this year--I mean, come on, how the hell are the Florida Marlins doing so great--and yet the Mets are still only 2 games out of first.

It's early. Pitching is the key to winning. If your pitchers are hot, your team is hot. When the pitchers go cold it doesn't matter how good the offense is doing--you lose.

The Yankees at the moment don't have the pitching to win this year. All they need is one good one--but Brian Cashman wouldn't know a good pitcher if one threw a 100 mph fast ball and hit him right between the eyes. Maybe they'll rebuy Old Sawhorse Johnson back--he's pitching hard back out in desert-air at Phoenix--where he should have stayed in the first place.

I'm pissed, but I'm hangin' in there.

marvelousmarvbackbiter
for The Daily Growler

Some New Businesses We've Never Heard of Before Who Are Now Advertising Heavily Nationwide
1) Edward Jones--"Making sense of investments" old Ed claims his finance-management company does in his tagline--Edward Jones, quite a generic name--we're sure it was made up by some branding firm.

2) Energy Tomorrow.org.--Looks like the petroleum industry is behind this .org company we never heard of until just the last few months--their expensive prime-time commercials are enigmatic--they are saying they are investigating all forms of alternative energy though they never say who they are. One of their statements is, "We [whoever "We" is] have enough oil to provide heating for 200 million people for 60 years." That's a pretty powerful statement. Who are these people?

3) Hotwire.com--this newcomer--they replace old hip-replacement star Cap'n Jim Kirk (alias William Shattner ("We say 'sa-vahg' in Canada")) and Price Line.com except their schtick is booking you unbooked hotel rooms at "sometimes as much as 50% off the regular price"--and these businesses have been around for years--we've got stories about these companies, but we'll save them for later.

Gleaned From Teevee
From a PBS kiddie show--seen on Channel 51, the Long Island PBS station, they sang a little dittie with a verse that went, "It sounds QUEER/But it's true/You never see Q/Without U." That certainly sounds homosexual to us, too. We jest, of course.

thestaff
for The Daily Growler