Travelling Back to the Year 2000

As a history student, I have a thing for nostalgia. So I'm busy looking at my official MLB guide to the 2000 season.

It's got nuggets such as:

Millennium Men (p 28): Who will be the stars of the new millennium? Their predictions:

C: Michael Barrett, Expos (uh, who?)
1b: Paul Konerko, White Sox (he always ends up on at least one fantasy team of mine. Always.)
2B: Carlos Febles, Royals (again, who?)
SS: Alex Gonzalez, Marlins
3B: Adrain Beltre (you'll find his picture next to "contract year")
RF: Richard Hidalgo, Astros (Wasn't Hidalgo a horse?)
CF: Carlos Beltran, Royals (okay, this one's legit)
LF: JD Drew, Cardinals (no comment)
P: Freddy Garcia (no, I'm not making this up)


Long at Short:

"Young superstars Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have led a three-headed revolution of the shortstop position during the past few seasons...there are, however, other upstarts who could soon challenge that talented trinity..."

Miguel Tejada 23 (sure), Athletics (Young? Tejada? I feel an Angel Berroa joke coming on...)
Alex Gonzalez, Marlins (what ever happened to him?)
Tony Batista, Blue Jays (see above)
Neifi Perez, Rockies (Not to be confused with the Rangers' young pitching prospect)
Edgar Renteria, Cardinals (he got old fast, didn't he?)
Alfonso Soriano, Yankees (well, he didn't stick at short, but dude can hit)
Rafael Furcal, Braves (I used to confuse him and Albert Pujols. Not so much any more.)


Players that were candidates for 2000 Rookie of the Year (selection copied here to save you space) (31):

AL

1B: Nick Johnson, Yankees
2B: D'Angelo Jimenez, Yankees (was in a nasty car wreck not long after)
3B: Mike Lamb, Rangers
Carlos Guillen, Mariners
SS: Alfonso Soriano, Yankees
OF: Vernon Wells, Blue Jays (he's really been around that long?!)
Michael Coleman, Red Sox
P: Kip Wells, White Sox
Danys Baez, Indians
Kazuhiro Sasaki, Mariners
J.C. Romero, Twins
Ed Yarnell, Yankees (I don't think that really worked)
Dan Wheeler, Devil Rays (Dude, isn't he the Yanks' favorite whippin' boy?)
Mike Mulder, Athletics
Dan Reichart, Royals


NL

1B: Adam Kennedy, Cardinals
SS: Adam Everett, Astros
Rafael Furcal, Braves
OF: Pat Burrell, Phillies
Corey Patterson, Cubs
Lance Berkman, Astros
P: Rick Ankiel, Cardinals (yes, that Rick Ankiel)
A.J. Burnett, Marlins
Eric Gagné, Dodgers (remember him?)
Tony Armas Jr., Expos
Brad Penny, Marlins (Can you imagine if Beckett, Burnett, Penny and Pavano were still in the same rotation? The Marlins would have been the team of the early 2000s. Maybe.)
Ted Lilly, Expos


New ballparks (41-42):

Safeco Field, Seattle:

"Fans can get "caught up" in a giant bronzed baseball mitt that sits just outside the left-field entrance...Safeco Field has an 11,000-ton retractable roof that can move as fast as six inches per second"


Enron Field, Houston:

"Another 'throw back', Enron Field will be the only ballpark in the Major Leagues with a flagpole sitting in the field of play"


Pacific Bell Park, San Francisco:

"The park's short right-field wall will mean that home runs will make even more of a splash--a well-hit dinger could actually drop into San Francisco Bay"

Comerica Park, Detroit:

"A 200-300 seat theater will give fans a chance to catch a flick at the ballpark. The theater will show films documenting Tigers history...boasts the largest scoreboard in baseball"

2010: A Base Odyssey (105-122; my edition seems to be missing the last few pages)

"Take a journey through the next decade of milestones that could be reached by today's biggest stars"

September 2000: Boston's Pedro Martinez becomes the first pitcher to win 30 games in one season since 1968 (no).

October 2000: Randy Johnson fans his 384th batter, the most strikeouts recorded since the 1800s (I don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong).

September 2001: Slugger Mark McGwire blasts a ball completely out of Shea Stadium for home run 71 (Uh, no.)

May 2002: Barry Bonds becomes the first player to reach 500 in both home runs and stolen bases (Bonds stole bases? Where was I?)

October 2002: Sweet-swinging Larry Walker strokes his way to baseball's first Triple Crown since 1967 (pretty sure this didn't happen, but Walker was a fun player to root for).

June 2003: Ivan Rodriguez nails nine baserunners in a game to break a 105-year-old record (don't remember this ever happening but my memory is shot)

October 2004: Switch hitter Chipper Jones goes deep twice from each side of the plate during an NLCS game (fairly certain the Braves didn't make the 2004 NLCS)

October 2005: Derek Jeter becomes the first player to win a batting title, MVP, Gold Glove and World Series in one year (if only...)

September 2007: Sammy Sosa becomes the first basher to launch 50 or more homers in 10 straight seasons (BAHAHAHAHAHAH)



And lastly, the 2000 season NY Yankees roster as of 1/6/00:

Pitchers

59 Bradley, Ryan
41 Buddie, Mike
22 Clemens, Roger
36 Cone, David
64 DeLosSantos, Luis
Dingman, Craig
67 Einerston, Darrell
58 Erdos, Todd
Ford, Ben
38 Grimsley, Jason
26 Hernandez, Orlando
57 Juden, Jeff
55 Mendoza, Ramiro
43 Nelson, Jeff
Noel, Todd
46 Pettitte, Andy
42 Rivera, Mariano
29 Stanton, Mike
62 Tessner, Jay
27 Watson, Alan
Westbrook, Jake
52 Yarnell, Ed

Catcher

20 Posada, Jorge

Infielders

35 Bellinger, Clay
18 Brosius, Scott
2 Jeter, Derke
59 Jimenez, D'Angelo
Johnson, Nick
11 Knoblauch, Chuck
13 Leyritz, Jim
24 Martinez, Tino
58 Soriano, Alfonso

Outfielders

17 Ledee, Ricky
84 McDonald, Donzell
21 O'Neill, Paul
Pena, Wily
47 Spencer, Shane
39 Strawberry, Darrell
51 Williams, Bernie


(Of that roster, only Posada, Jeter and Rivera are still in pinstripes. Soriano, Johnson and Westbrook are active with different teams; I'm not sure about any of the other guys; if Wily Peña is the same as Wily Mo Peña then there's another...)





Credit to: Major League Baseball 2000: The Official Guide to the 2000 Season, published by Corporate Sports Marketing Group, (c) 2000

Pettitte Rejects Offer and a Vexing Question

Andy Pettite has officially rejected the Yankees' $10 million offer.

The Yankees probably still want another starter, so it will be interesting to see which avenue they pursue.

However, you can read about that on pretty much every Yankee site in existence, so I won't bore you when I just posted about it a couple days ago.

***

A more vexing question:

Tonight I went to the New Jersey Nets/Sacramento Kings basketball game--I go to Nets games about once a year; I went more when I was younger.

Anyway, my party (myself, my brother, my boyfriend and my brother's friend) had Row 1 tickets, but they weren't courtside seats--that is, we were behind the wall that demarcates where the hockey rink would be if we were at a hockey game.

So, when people in the courtside seats got up to use the restroom or get a snack, they would walk past us. Being the stalker I am, I was on the lookout for anyone famous, and while I did not spot Jay-Z or Beyonce, I did see something also interesting:

A man, the same man, walked past me twice, on his left hand wearing a 1998 Yankees World Series ring.

He walked past so fast that I could not grab a picture (anyway, it would have been rude to do so), so I am at a loss as to who said person was, if his ring was an actual 1998 series ring (he's got courtside seats...so...that lends me to believe it is) and what the heck is he doing at a Nets game?

I can only offer vague physical details, but:

Said man was bald(ing), wore glasses, medium height (on the tallish side of medium) and looked fairly out of shape--not horribly out of shape, but not in shape, either.

He had a fairly medium skin tone--at least, as far as I could tell.

So, on these details alone, who did I see?

My guess would be someone on the coaching or front office staff as opposed to a player, but I don't have the 1998 roster memorized and my first guess was off the mark.

So, Yankees' fans, who did I see?

Everything Changes

Yesterday, the MLB Network debuted by showing Don Larsen's perfect game in 1956, in its entirety, and a nostalgic conversation followed amongst many Yankee fans:

The players look almost normal-sized!
Look at how light the bats look!
The mound was so much shorter!
Yankee Stadium looked so different!
The racist comments!

To me, a medievalist, fifty years is nothing. Fifty years ago is current events when I'm used to reading and writing about events seven hundred years ago.

So it's a small miracle that a game with the history and impact in baseball could change so much in such a short time.

To many of us, fifty years seems like a long time--half a year, if you will.

So it should be no surprise that the game changed, and the only question should be one of degree--how much has the game changed?

On the flip side, though, it makes you wonder:

How much will the game change in the next fifty years?

Will we see women break the gender barrier on the field? Expansion to other states or perhaps another Canadian city? There will almost certainly be new scandals, new banned substances, but there will also be new records that seem unbeatable, new icons, new legends.

That's the thing about this game.

We're always looking towards the past--we have the luxury of doing that in our sport. Unlike football, which is relatively young, our championship game is almost 110 years old--there is no one alive today old enough to have remembered the very first World Series. (There's also probably few, if any, alive that remember the last time the Cubs won, but that's another story).

Sometimes, though, we get caught up in the past and forget about the future. It's changing now--with Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America, prospects names are becoming more familiar, and now even casual Yankee fans will know a little something about the Scranton or Trenton teams.

The game that we hold so dear will change between now and 2059. Maybe a little, maybe a lot.

There will be people that utterly despise the changes, like some still do the designated hitter, and others that welcome them and think they are completely necessary.

The constant, though, is that someone will still be here, watching it. Hopefully it'll be us, but the important thing isn't how the game grows, the important thing is that it will.

All Things Must Pass

That's it, then.

The end of Yankees baseball 2008.

Right now seems a far cry from when the season started, from those days in February and March when we were all psyched for what looked like the start of an unforgettable season.

The Yankees were supposed to be an offensive powerhouse supplemented by a core of young pitchers, with some veteran guidance and a firm resolve not to get off to the same, slow start as nearly derailed the team in 2007.

Alas, the thing about sports--nothing ever plays according to the script.

Players get hurt. Sometimes they miss a couple games, sometimes the entire season. Sometime they're borderline major leaguers, sometimes they're the stars of your team.

Players under perform. Sometimes coaches can discover the reasons why; sometimes they can't.

Other teams improve. Sometimes they're in the other league; sometimes they're in your own division.

Some teams recover, some don't, but if there's one thing baseball tells us, it's that time can be measured in eternity, or in thousandths of a second.

The memories of Yankee Stadium will last forever. The fleeting moment where one mistake pitch is the difference between a win and a loss is never gotten back.


No matter what we might think, going forward, we won't forget 2008.

Whether it's because it's the first time since 1994 we won't see baseball in October or because it's the year we paid tribute to Yankee Stadium, that's up to you. I, being my delusional, optimistic self will choose the latter--but I don't blame you if you choose the former.

Of course, the end of 2008 also means looking forward to 2009, and so we shall.


We will look forward to what will likely be one of the most eventful, if not entertaining, off-seasons in recent Yankees history. Among the issues that need addressing:

a) Will Brian Cashman come back?

a1) If not, who replaces him?
a2) If so, for how long? With any conditions?

b) Do we go after CC Sabathia?

b1) What are we willing to spend to get him--not just in terms of cash, but in terms of time?
b2) If CC is uninterested, do we look at AJ Burnett? Ben Sheets?

C) Who plays first base?

c1) What do we offer Teixiera?
c2) Do we re-sign Giambi or Abreu as a DH?
c3) What if Posada doesn't heal well and can't catch?



The list goes on. The fact is, the Yankees in 2009 might look very different than 2008.

With a new Stadium, a new team might seem fitting, but no Yankee team can forget the past.

Joba Chamberlain will be there in 2009, and so will Derek Jeter.
Phil Hughes will (likely) be there in 2009, and so will Mariano Rivera.

I will be there, and, I hope, so will you.


The Quest for 27 in 2009 starts now.

The Moose is Loose and the Win Sinks In (Postgame Notes 19 September 08)

So I'm watching the Yankees tonight, watching Mike Mussina leave the mound and getting his ovation, possibly the last Yankee Stadium ovation he will ever receive, almost certainly the last at this Stadium, anyway.

And it hits me.

It hits me that this is it.

That after Sunday, watching a Yankee game will never be the same.

This has not been the best season for the Yankees. It's not been the worst, not by a long shot, but it also hasn't been anything close to what many of us were hoping for after the way we finished last year.

The mediocrity, however, has been exaggerated because of what this season means in the history, the lore, the psyche that goes into being a Yankee or being a Yankee fan.

So it's perhaps a bit of a surprise that it's taken this long for it to sink in--it did a little at the All Star game--but not, at least for me, like it did tonight.

I have to believe the ghosts were there tonight.

It wasn't an exceptionally dramatic game, but there were moments that were...well, they gave me goosebumps.

Like when the oldest living ball-player, at 102, Emilio Navarro, threw the first pitch, and if that wasn't chilling enough, if you catch the video, just as he's doing it, there's a squirrel--perhaps Scooter, perhaps not--running across the mound.

Like when Mike Mussina came out of the ballgame to a huge ovation, tipping his cap and entering the dugout with a giant smile, wearing, if just briefly, his heart on his sleeve. Oh, and the quest for 20 is still alive.

Like when Humberto Sanchez and Francesco Cervelli made their major league debuts and I realized, that might be the last time anyone makes their major league, Yankee debuts, at the Stadium. Juan Miranda, too. The three of them might be the very last to get those chills--hey, kid, you're in the game--at Yankee Stadium. There are three games left, but I'm not sure there's anyone left that the Yankees have called up that haven't already debuted.

This game probably won't be one we remember three years from now, unless our name is Humberto Sanchez, Juan Miranda or Francesco Cervelli (and maybe Mike Mussina), but it may have gotten to me much more than the game on Sunday will.

Because it's not when nostalgia is shoved down your throat, but when it comes naturally and almost by accident, amidst the chatter of the crowd and the jokes from the announcing crew about the answer to the night's trivia question, that you realize how much it means.

Playing Like It's 1998 (Postgame Notes 08 July 2008)

If there was any way to follow up Sunday's thrilling extra-inning win against the Boston Red Sox, tonight's win was certainly it.

Shut down starting pitching. Clutch hitting. Solid defense. A one-two-three inning of relief.

The Yankees tonight played shades of the type of baseball that helped them three-peat in the late nineties--not flawless, but they hid their weaknesses and took advantage of the opportunities they had.

Andy Pettitte pitched as though he was pitching game seven of the World Series, going eight innings and surrendering just four hits. He had five strike outs, no walks, and only had one inning in which he allowed more than one Ray to reach base. It was easily one of his best starts this season, and had his pitch count been just a little lower, he had a shot at a complete game shut out, as well.

Pettitte is 7-1 in his last ten starts.

The Yankee offense wasn't brilliant, but Derek Jeter had a clutch two out, two run double in the bottom of the third to put the Yankees up 2-0, and the Yankees never looked back.

The Yankees didn't score again until the eighth, but they picked up three insurance runs against a much improved Tampa Bay bullpen. Melky Cabrera had his first home run in nearly a month; he now has more home runs than he did all of last year.

Derek Jeter also helped the Yankees on defense--in the seventh inning with two outs he made a brilliant jump-throw to second base for the force on Dioner Navarro to keep the Yankees' lead at 2-0.

The Yankees now have a chance to get within 6.5 games of Tampa with a win tomorrow--no easy task with Sidney Ponson on the mound--but then again, stranger things have happened.

The best thing the Yankees can possibly do now is to head into the All Star break on a high; the win tonight certainly helps their cause.