RIP Yogi Berra (1925–2015)

Legendary philosopher (and baseball player) Yogi Berra died yesterday of natural causes.

Yogi Berra was a legend among legends and was known not just for baseball but also for his "Yogi-isms". The ESPN article above mentions several of his famous ones, but here is another one I like: "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is."

You can read more about him at his Wikipedia page.

(Tip of the cap to Gregg Schneider.)

Update: Here are several of Yogi Berra's one-liners. Here is one sportswriter's top-10 list of Yogi-isms.

Update 2: Rob Neyer has compiled some links commemorating Yogi Berra. (It includes one link that shows a headline about the death of "Yogi Bear" --- which was an inevitable boo-boo. [rimshot!])

Update 3 (9/24/15): Rob Neyer has written another piece about Yogi Berra. This piece includes a link to his old commercial for Aflac (where Yogi absolutely confounds the Aflac duck). Yogi was awesome. I can't stand the Yankees, but --- like many people who can't stand the Yankees --- still find Yogi Berra (who is very obviously most associated with the Yankees) to be absolutely awesome.

Mariano Rivera Sets Saves Record: Arrrrrrrr!

Ahoy, Mateys!

Yankee relief pitcher Mariano Rivera, t' best Major League reliever ever, recorded career save number 602, which puts him ahead o' Trevor Hoffman for #1 on t' all-time list. And that doesn't even include his postseason excellence.

And in case you're wonderin' why I be writin' this way, it's because today I be celebratin' one o' t' most important holidays o' t' year.

Avast, ye Scurvy Dogs!

Update (9/20/11): Apparently, the Pirate Party did very well in the Berlin elections on Sunday. Arrrrrr! (Tip of the cap to Karen Daniels.)

Derek Jeter Records 3000th Hit

Derek Jeter recorded his 3000th Major League hit today, becoming the first person to ever get 3000 hits in a Yankee uniform. I don't want to be accused of jeterating, but it is somewhat amazing that the Yankees of all teams have never had a player do this before. (I know, I know. There are only 28 Major League players with 3000 or more hits, but I am thinking in the context of the fact that there are quite a few rather excellent players who spent their entire careers or almost their entire careers with the Yanks.)

The Onion is officially awesome!

Trust The Onion to come up with a headline like this. I approve!

Their baseball articles often amuse me immensely---especially when they make fun of Derek Jeter! (And I'm not jeterating when I make that claim.)

(Tip of the cap to Rob Neyer.)

RIP George Steinbrenner (1930-2010)

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (aka, "The Boss") has died. King George was certainly a visible baseball owner and---love him or hate him---he will end up in the Hall of Fame, and (in my opinion) he'll deserve it.

Another Yankee legend, former Yankees public address announcer Bob Sheppard, died a couple of days ago at the age of 99.

Update (7/15/10): This is in incredibly poor taste, but The Onion came up with a laugh-out-loud doozy.

I hate the Yankees. (Oh, and A-Ha is awesome!)

I know I am writing quite a few blog entries today, but here's at least one more that I want to do tonight.

Did I mention that I hate the Yankees? They won the World Series this year. Bastards.

Also, now that the baseball season is officially over, I also wanted to mention that 2009 is the first season is something like 25 years in which I did not see even a single baseball game in person. Lame. I will make up for that in 2010.

On a separate note, I went to London to see A-Ha in concert last night. It required a total of 2.5 hours of train rides and 1.25 hours on the tube, and I only made the last train back to Oxford (which had me entering my apartment at about 1:40 am), but it was totally worth it. I'll eventually do a mega-media roundup (with something like a year's worth of stuff!), so maybe I'll say more later, but let's just say that I was seriously geeking out---there were certain songs that I had been waiting to hear live for more than 20 years! Hell yes!

Did I mention that I hate the Yankees?

Apparently, the Yankees just signed Mark Teixeira. Fuckers.

RIP New York Yankees (1995-2008)

Well, the Yankees have officially been eliminated and won't be playing in baseball's postseason this year. About fucking time.

(Note: I had the RIP idea on my own, but apparently the folks at ESPN had similar ideas, given the graphics they're using for their headline for an article by Buster Olney.)

New Word of the Day

Sometimes, a new word is coined whose name has clearly come. Today's (ok, last week's) new word is jeterate, which was defined last week by baseball writer and blogger Joe Posnanski as follows:

jeterate (verb) meaning “to praise someone for something of which he or she is entirely unworthy of praise.”

Here are a couple of Posnanski's examples:

Example: “The father could not but jeterate his daughter for coloring on the wall because she looked so cute.”

Example: “The doctor jeterated his patient for not actually gaining any more weight since the visit four days earlier.”


This word, of course, is named after Yankee shortstop (and future Hall of Famer) Derek Jeter, who has been an excellent player for many years and will obtain his first-ballot election to Cooperstown (and deservedly so!) after he retires. The thing is if you listen to Yankee fans, broadcasters, writers, and other fetishists, you get the impression that he can't do anything wrong, is the best thing since sliced bread (this is an odd expression, don't you think?), etc. It just gets on lots of people's nerves---especially, for example, when people praise his defense even when he has been one of the worst-fielding shortstops in the Majors for years! The argument one typically hears after questioning this is typically along the lines of "If you saw him play every day, you'd see that he deserves a Gold Glove for his stellar defense." I quite obviously hate that argument rather passionately. Every single bloody person can make the exact same argument about their shortstop or anything else---it's just impossible to refute and is basically another way of saying "I want to bear Derek Jeter's child and I really don't give a flying fuck how good a shortstop he actually is." It just pisses me off sometimes, so I very much appreciate this new terminology!

In sum, I approve! (Tip of the cap once again to Rob Neyer, who linked to Posnanski on his blog.)

Reversing the Curse of the David Ortiz Jersey

The Onion recently published this article about the Yankees' attempt to reverse the recent curse of the buried David Ortiz jersey.

How did they do it? Simple. They buried former Yankee Bernie Williams for good luck. The article describing the details is absolutely hilarious.

(I found out about this article from Rob Neyer's blog.)

Digging for Jerseys

Here's a really neat story.

Apparently, one of the construction workers who worked on the new Yankee stadium is a Red Sox fan and buried a David Ortiz Red Sox jersey amidst the concrete foundation of the stadium in order to curse the Yankees. The jersey was recently excavated.

Anyway, I approve! It's the type of vignette that would be great to see in a baseball movie.

Mike Mussina wins 250th career game

Mike Mussina won his 250th career game today.

You can see Mussina's career stats here. I think he belongs in the Hall of Fame, though he's not a shoo-in. And deserving pitchers like Bert Blyleven are gettings screwed over by the voters, so we'll see what happens. Of course, Mussina is going to get extra credit for being a Yankeee...

Meanwhile, the National League pennant races continue to be interesting. Maybe the Rockies will continue to steamroll past everybody (they just swept the Padres this weekend and have now won 8 games in a row!) and sneak their way in. (Those bastards completely nailed the Dodgers, but given that we have no hope, it would be nice for the Phillies to overtake the Mets, the Padres to overtake the Diamondbacks, and the Rockies to also overtake the Diamondbacks. We'll see what happens.)

Baseball Update

After today`s debacle, 't seems that th' Dodgers be intent on breakin' me heart yet again.

Th' Rockies swept us in a double header, puttin' us 4.5 games behind San Diego fer th' wild card an' 5.5 games behind NL West division-leadin' Arizona. Both th' Padres an' Phillies won (again!), an' all three divisions in th' National League be still up fer grabs. Th' Mets lead o'er th' Phillies be now only 1.5 games, th' Diamondafts be 1 game ahead o' San Diego, an' th' Cubs an' Brewers be tied fer th' NL Central lead. We only be havin' 11 games an' we be now in dire straits. (Sometimes ye`re th' windshield an' sometimes ye`re th' bug.)

Meanwhile, things be much more settled in th' American League. Th' Angels be havin' a giant lead o'er th' Mariners, an' th' Indians be havin' a large lead o'er th' Tigers. Th' Red Sox lead o'er th' thrice-blasted Yankees be reduced t' jus' 2.5 games (damnit!) an' th' Yankees be ahead in th' wild card race by 4.5 games o'er Detroit.

Thar be some interestin' teams that will make th' playoffs, but unfortunately th' Yankees will very likely be one o' them an' th' Dodgers won`t be. At least th' Giants be in last...


Update (9/19/07, 10:30 pm): Th' Dodgers lost t' th' Rockies again tonight. Fer th' second game in a row, our vaunted (an' deservedly so, recent failures notwithstanding) bullpen mainstays blew a lead. Th' Rockies be havin' now leaped ahead o' his in th' standings, leavin' th' Dodgers in 4th place in th' National League West an' a full 5.5 games behind th' wild card-leadin' Padres. (Th' Padres beat th' Seafarin' heartys again tonight! Th' Seafarin' heartys canna e'en win on International Talk Like a Seafarin' hearty tide! What kind o' bullsh'tis that!?!) Thar be only ten games port in th' season, so th' Dodgers be pretty screwed at this point. We had a shot, but th' Padres an' Phillies be havin' played really well an' we completely choked. Also today, th' Yankees won an' th' Red Sox lost, so th' Sox be now only ahead o' th' Yankees by 1.5 games. If th' Yankees win th' AL East, this choke (in terms o' th' size o' th' lead that will ben lost) will end up bein' one o' th' historically monumental ones... In that game, Andy Pettitte earned his 200th career victory.

Update 2 (9/19/07, 10:30 pm): I reckoned that I wrote this post on Septembree 19th, so I changed th' "language" I used in order t' properly celebrate today`s holiday.

RIP Phil Rizzuto (1916-2007)

On Monday night, Hall of Famer and former Yankee great Phil Rizzuto died. A defensive whiz, Rizzuto was a marginal Hall of Famer at best and (unfortunately) receivede extra credit for being a Yankee. After his playing days ended, he had a long career as a broadcaster --- including a guest appearance in Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights".

Dodger (and Yankee) update

Lost amidst the things going on in my life recently is the fact that the Dodgers have sucked ass lately. We have lost 6 games in a row and 9 out of ten. We have been shut out three times in a row for the first time in more than forty years. (In fact, we've been shut out four of the last five games and have lost 1-0 twice. We haven't scored a single run for more than about thirty innings or so.) The Dodgers are now in 4th place, five games behind the Diamonds for the division lead and three games out of the Wild Card lead (with tons of teams ahead of us). Meanwhile, the thrice-damned Yankees have continued to kick ass and are six games out of the AL East divison lead and -- even worse! -- just half a game out of the AL Wild Card lead. That sucks! This must be because of all the bad karma I've accumulated...

Baseball outside of Fenway and The Bronx

Courtesy Rob Neyer, here is an article in The Onion that nicely sums up what an uncomfortably large number of sportswriters seem to think of any baseball news that doesn't pertain to the Red Sox or Yankees.

This short article (so don't be afraid to click on the link) basically hits the nail on the head. I approve!