A Red Sox State of Maine

Yankee Snippets

The Yankees have been on my mind over the week, in no small part because of ARod, but also because I just finished The Yankee Years. Some random thoughts...

1. Even if he did write (or dictate) the book, and even though there isn't one word of direct criticism of him in it, Joe Torre still comes off like a complete wimp-worrying constantly about his job, allowing Steinbrenner to treat him like crap in the most public of venues, groveling for an extra year from a team that even the most casual observer could clear see hadn't wanted him for several years. Reading the book, you get the idea that Joe had been living in a bit of a fantasy world since '04 on that score.

2. Another thing that really jumped out at me was...who was managing the Yankees all those years, Torre or Derek Jeter? If there is no real critical appraisal of Joe Torre in the book, Jeter comes off as absolutely Christ-like, a serene, infallible being floating in a sea of fuck-ups. Whatever Jeter said or did is portrayed as the balm of Gilead in triplicate, absolutely necessary for the Yankees at the time, any time. 'A perfect fit in New York', 'playing hard is the only baseball Jeter knew how to play', the endless references to his "heroics" and "clutchness" in the postseason, especially in comparison to Rodriguez (who, before he hit the Bronx, had pretty good post-season numbers himself, actually). I mean, it makes you want to barf.  Just more evidence, in my opinion, that Jeter is second only to Iago for passive-aggressive manipulation and treachery.

3. One guy who comes out looking less than stellar is Roger Clemens. First off, Joe, I did not have to know that other guys rubbing linement on his balls got the Roider all hot and bothered-that's a visual I can't shake and I'll hate Torre forever because of it. But, visuals aside, the goofiest story had to be the one about Clemens breaking down sobbing after he threw that chunk of broken bat at Piazza during the 2000 World Series because he thought it was the ball (hey, I mistake sharp pieces of wood for soft cyclical objects every day, don't you?) Yeah, right. My guess is he was only crying because he missed taking out Piazza's kneecaps.

4. For all the nauseating Jeter fawning, Torre has no problem throwing other guys under the bus *cough* Johnny Damon *cough* David Wells *cough* Randy Johnson *cough*.

5. Speaking of Damon, did you hear that he's broke? At best, he can't get ahold of his money and is having to give out IOUs. I find this ridiculously amusing, especially considering who his gold digging wife is. Can't you just imagine her freaking out, calling at him and screaming after her credit card gets declined at Saks? Sheesh. Johnny better be careful-Alex Rodriguez is single now, has full access to all his moolah, and clearly has no problem taking sloppy seconds.

6. ARod deserves his own post, but pretty much everything nasty that could be said about him has been, and I agree with it all. You know things are bad when the chief Yankee apologist, Keith Olbermann, has it out for you. Over the past couple of nights Olbermann has been hammering ARod with the kind of contempt he usually reserves for The Three Stooges (Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Gonzales), essentially calling him an idiot and liar (and a choker before he was a liar.) Here it is, from last night:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Love Richard Justice's remark..."He's switched the topic from what did you do and when did you do it to, how dumb are you?"

(Keith makes a brief slip back into Yankee apologentsia when he says Giambi has been completely forgiven. I don't think that's true-it's just that he's old news now. He's never recovered the respect he had.)

Man, ARod is just lucky our economy is too messed up for Congress to bother with him right now. (He might not get the Republican brown-nosing Clemens did, seeing as he's not a Texas right-winger or anything.) The worst he'll likely have to face, at least for now, is Fenway.

The Non-Fiction Meme

Thanks for the tag, Melissa...

What issues/topic interests you most--non-fiction, i.e, cooking, knitting, stitching, there are infinite topics that has nothing to do with novels?

1. Politics-I devoted a post on my other blog as to what political/social interest books I am most looking forward to reading this year, probably over my summer break. Melissa also got me interested in The Commission.

2. Sports-I love sports books, not about stats and performance, but about the lived experience. I've become a big fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers by reading memoirs of people who loved them (Doris Kearns Goodwin, Tom Oliohant). There's a real echo of Red Sox fan in them. Shut Out is one of my all-time favorites in this genre.

3. Historical-Thomas Cahill, who writes ancient history for the masses, is one of my favorite authors. Books about religious history I particularly enjoy, although I consider myself an atheist.

Would you like to review books concerning those?

Only if I could pick and choose what I wanted to read. If i got an assignment, that would turn a pleasurable hobby into work. The reason I have never envied a film critic's life is that in order to make a living, I would have to be exposed to endless crap on film that I would hate in order to see the one film I really like. Not everything about politics or sports interests me, and I wouldn't want to have to read books on those subjects. It would make me very resentful, I fear. 

Would you like to be paid or do it as interest or hobby? Tell reasons for what ever you choose.

A hobby, for previously stated reasons.

Would you recommend those to your friends and how?

Most people and friends with whom I associate seem to prefer novels, which I almost never read. When I tell them I'm reading something like And I Haven't Had a Bad Day Since, they look at me like I'm cross-eyed. Every time I try to take an interest and apply it to a novel, I fail. I love Civil War history, for example, so i was told I should try  The March by E.L. Doctorow. I didn't make it through a third of the book before giving up.  

If you have already done something like this, link it to your post.

I write reviews of Red Sox and Patriot games. That's about the best I can do! 

I thank Melissa for tagging me.....and I'll pass the baton to"

Lori

A Book Plug

A must-read for all sports fans with a social conscience.

"When professional athletes speak out for social justice, it's usually the sign of deeper discontent in society. Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Billie Jean King were exceptional individuals, but also products of social movements that shaped them and that they in turn helped shape.

The responses to Hurricane Katrina, among other recent rumblings and grumblings in our SportsWorld, writes Dave Zirin in an excerpt from his new book, demonstrates that struggle and its relation to sports is a question not of the past but of the future.

If you like this excerpt from Welcome to the Terrordome, check out the book itself. Zirin is currently in California in the middle of a series of readings. Click here for the full national schedule."

If you like what you see and want to read the book, please consider ordering from your locally owned bookstore instead of Amazon. I got mine from Nonesuch Books in South Portland.