Keeping Hope Alive

Last week's HOPE week for the Yankees--a week dedicated to community outreach in which every Yankee took part--has been hailed as a resounding success.

The Yankees participated in a youth mentoring program, visited a child with cerebral palsy, an adult with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and staged an overnight carnival for children who have an allergy to the sun, among other things.

While HOPE week may have been great for the Yankees, the best part, for the fans, is that it doesn't have to end.

Everyone can contribute in some way to community outreach, and with that in mind, here's how you can help some of the causes promoted by the Yankees.

Youth Outreach

There are many ways in which one can help to make life a little bit better for a child, but one of the most recognizable programs is that of the big brothers/big sisters. The program, which has been around for more than 100 years, pairs adult mentors with children who need (or want) a role model.

It is hard to understate the value that one positive role model can have in a child's life, especially when that child may have come from a background in which he or she does not receive any of the care or love one would expect from his or her own home.

The great thing about mentoring is that there are so many options available--some that involve a lot of training and others that involve much less, and the best thing of all may be the gift that you give to children--the gift of hope.


Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral Palsy is a "term cerebral palsy refers to any one of a number of neurological disorders that appear in infancy or early childhood and permanently affect body movement and muscle coordination but don’t worsen over time." (NIH).

Since the severity of cerebral palsy can vary, so too can the treatment, although many options exist to try to help children have as close to normal lives as possible.

At the bottom of this page, there is a long list of organization whose goals include further research into cerebral palsy and providing care for those children who are stricken.

There are multiple ways to get involved, and cerebral palsy is a common enough condition that most people are aware of it, even if they don't know anyone that's been stricken.


ALS

ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, is a condition that will be familiar to nearly any Yankee fan familiar with the team's history. Both Lou Gehrig and Catfish Hunter succumbed to the neurological disease, in which brain cells gradually lose motor function.

The Yankees, as one might expect, have never been shy about promoting the cause of research, as ALS has no cure and is ultimately fatal (with the apparently curious exception of Stephen Hawking).

The ALS Association seeks not just to find a cure for ALS, but to enrich the lives of those and their families who have been stricken.

The ALSA is affiliated with Major League Baseball, and offers opportunities to combine baseball with helping ALS research.


XP

Xeroderma Pigmentosum is a rare condition in which children are actually allergic to the sun--and any other UV light.

Any exposure to UV light leads to severe burns and possibly skin and eye cancer--and it's rare for XP patients to live past the age of 20. Some of you who watch the TV show House may remember an episode a few seasons ago in which a girl was diagnosed with that condition.

The Xeroderma Pigmentosum Society is the group which runs Camp Sundown, which was publicized by the Yankees, but that is only a small portion of their work.

The group provides information on the condition and promotes scientific research as well, but because the condition is so rare, it does not receive the publicity that many other groups do.

The society offers multiple ways to help, from donation to how to help with fundraising or volunteering.



other

The four causes here are, of course, not the only causes that are worth considering.

On a personal note, I have donated to cancer research many times because, like many people, it is a cause that strikes especially close to home for me.

You may have another cause that strikes home to you--and it doesn't have to be a medical condition, either. It could be a cause dedicated to eradicating illiteracy, to promoting education for girls in areas in which women have few (if any) rights, a cause dedicated to providing care packages for troops abroad...

The options are extensive, and not all of them ask for your money; some just ask for a little bit of your time.

If you are sitting here, reading this post, you probably have a pretty decent life. So why not try and make it decent for some others as well?

So They're Tearing Down Yankee Stadium

Right now, they're tearing down Yankee Stadium.

As we watch the Yankees play in Atlanta, where so many memories from that October in 1996 still reverberate, forming part of our conscience as turn-of-the-millennium Yankees fans, up here, amidst the rain and the unseasonable chill, they are tearing down Yankee Stadium.

When you walk past it, on your way to the new park, do you acknowledge it? Do you notice it? Do you remember it?

Or does it just stand there, like that relative you only think about when you go to the funeral?

It's still standing, sure, but it's a wounded animal. Eviscerated. Crying out to be saved, but with no one who seems to notice.

We marvel at the new because in an era of iPods, iPhones, Blackberries and WiFi, we are taught that only the new is good. Only the new is worth saving, only new is worth fighting for.

We forget the past.

In the age of Obama and hybird cars, could you, young fan, show your elders the site of the Polo Grounds? Ebbets Field?

These places exist only in our memories. Is it enough? Go ask a Dodgers fan that remembers the team's Brooklyn days. Go to Brooklyn, to the Ebbets Field/Jackie Robinson Apartments. Tell me you think it's the same. Tell me you feel like you're on the field in 1947 when Jackie Robinson integrates baseball. Tell me you feel like you're on the field in 1955, that one, magical next year for Brooklynites.

I know, I know, we're Yankee fans, with our own tradition, and our own history and not Dodger fans, but think about it.

If the Dodgers lost all this when Ebbets Field went down, what will we lose?

We don't have one magical season.

We have twenty-six of them.

We have the Babe and Lou (and Sweet Lou) and Joltin' Joe and Yogi and the Mick and Reggie and Donnie Baseball and Jeet, and so much more.

We have the called shot, the pope(s), the New York Football Giants, Bob Sheppard, and the healing of a broken city in 2001.

We celebrated the Stadium last year. We celebrated the memories and we said our good-byes, joyously celebrating the All Star Game in July and the Final Game in September, even if the sadness of a lost October was somewhere in the air.

The celebration has ended now, and the old Stadium has shifted into the shadows.

It will be gone before we blink, and only then will we shake our heads and say "what a shame."

This is our reality.

This is the price we are chosing to pay so that our team can be newer and better, like all of the other gadgets we own, so very 21st-century.

We'll get so wrapped up in the now, in the present, in the future that we'll forget the past. We'll forget the legacy that is our one responsibility to save. We'll forget to mourn while we still can, and only, when our grandkids ask us, "what was it like, the original Yankee Stadium?" will we answer: "It was home."

"A home," we'll continue, "that we should have saved."

Yankees Move To Ten Over .500 (Postgame Notes 02 June 2009)

Sometimes you win with pitching, sometimes you win by luck...

...and sometimes you decide you don't like it when the other pitcher hits you, go hard (but clean) into second to break up a double play, score seven runs in an inning, break a close game open, and never look back.

The Yankees won today not so much because they outhit the Rangers (though they did), but because they out scored them--if you look at the line score, the total hits-13-8 would indicate that the game was a lot closer than it was.

To be fair, over the first three innings it was a close game, but then the fourth happened.

The past few years, had a Yankees' batter been hit by a pitch in the way Teixeira was (and he was actually hit twice) the response would have been to simply ignore it.

While, in theory, the turn-the-other-cheek-mentality would nominate the team for sainthood, baseball players aren't, and are not supposed to be, saints. Heroes, yes; saints, no.

So today, Teixeira didn't try to be a saint...but he also took his revenge the right way--playing hard and clean on the basepath.

It's the fight in this team that we've seen all year that makes this the most fun it's been to watch the Yankees in years.


As for pitching, it was not AJ Burnett's best-ever start, but he walked only one over seven, and the Yanks will take that, likely, every single time.

I think the statistic is that the last nineteen of twenty-one games, Yankee starting pitching has pitched at least five innings.

The stat I like more? Since the start of the Yankees' nine game win streak--way back when on May 13th--the starting pitching has lost a grand total of one game. The Yankees have lost more games than just that one, of course, but those losses were taken by the bullpen which indicates 1) yes, the bullpen is an issue, 2) the Yankees aren't getting blown out, and 3) the Yankees are making a fight of it nearly every single time.

The Yanks are 16-5 in their last 21 (.761) and haven't lost two in a row since that five game losing streak that had everyone ready to jump off a cliff.


Do the Yankees have issues? Sure. They need to figure out that bullpen and whatnot, but at the same time, they're winning in a way we haven't seen in ages.

Everyone's contributing; they're playing well in nearly every facet of the game and not only are they beating teams like Baltimore and Cleveland, whom they're supposed to beat, but they are also winning against teams like Texas--and until tonight they had the best record in the AL--and they all count.



Some late night breaking news to wrap this up: Jesus Montero, it has been confirmed, has been promoted to Trenton. If you haven't, check out his stats for the Tampa Yankees. Dude can rake.

Start Blog, Get Stuff (AKA How I became the world's biggest Trenton Thunder fan)

Most of the time, there aren't a whole lot of tangible rewards for writing a baseball blog--you do it because you love the team, because you love writing--and those reasons are usually enough reward in themselves.

Sometimes, however, you do a good deed, and it's returned in kind.

Last year, after supporting Tom Kackley's Domestic Violence Project auction of memorabilia, the Trenton Thunder clubhouse manager told me he had a couple extra bobbleheads from giveaways and asked if I'd be interested.

Since I'm the crazy-old-lady-in-the-attic-with-knick-knacks type of person, I said, sure, send 'em my way.

Last night, a prompt two days after my birthday, the doorbell rang. It was the UPS man, with a huge-ass box.

My first reaction was that it was probably the birthday order I placed with Amazon (before the AmazonFail debacle), but then I realized I hadn't ordered that much. Anyway, DVDs don't need a huge box. So I looked at the return address and saw: Trenton Thunder.

And I promptly jumped for joy.

I rushed to open the box, and this is what I found inside:


A T-shirt that I will wear should I get the opportunity to make it down to Trenton.


Magnetic schedule, and now my fridge has some decoration.


Thunder hat. Don't mind the mess in the background. I clean for visitors.


Statue of Lou Gehrig.


Thunder mascot bobblehead.


Ian Kennedy bobblehead. The caliber of players whose bobbleheads I unwrapped improved if the unwrapping went on. I was pleasantly impressed. Yes, that's a Sox shot glass in the background. My friend got it as a gag gift. Don't worry-my two Yankees' shot glasses firmly outnumber the one Red Sox one...


Old school lunch tin. I'm not sure what I'll put into it, but I'll think of something.


Melky Cabrera bobblehead.


A bobblehead dog! Maybe I'll name it Bo!


Phil Hughes bobblehead. I put him next to his friend Ian Kennedy.


A second Melky bobblehead that I actually unwrapped before the Hughes one.


My entire baseball display. The baseball there is signed by Jose Molina-who hit the last home run at the old Yankee Stadium. There's also an All Star game hat, two programs (one from the Final Game and the other from the Cubs exhibition series) and two shot glasses. I have a Yankees' pennant hanging over my TV.


Yankees wristbands. If I worked out, ever, I could use them. right now they're just pretty to look at.

Alex Rodriguez Should Have Surgery Now

I know. I'm sick of the Alex Rodríguez posts, too, but right now, he's not a story, he IS the story in Yankeeland.

While no surgery has been scheduled yet, courtesy River Ave Blues via Pete Abraham and Brian Cashman,the fact is that surgery will be likely needed at some point in time, and sooner rather than later.

It makes no sense to put the surgery off, even a little bit.

Think about this:

While the human body possesses an incredible ability to heal and cure itself with minor injuries, a torn hip labrum doesn't really fit that label.

A seriously injured hip will only deteriorate if left untreated, much like the teeth of someone that avoids the dentist, or cataracts or glaucoma. Now, Rodríguez might not be in danger of losing his teeth or his sight, but he is in danger of losing his ability to pivot, and, for a hitter, that's no small thing.

So the question here is, what do the Yankees and Alex Rodríguez gain by delaying surgery? Potentially some playing time in April and maybe May? While Rodríguez's Spring Training numbers have been all right, there's no telling how good they could be if he was healthy. Rodríguez's production will likely decline as the injury worsens, and it will reach a point where it is more detrimental to play him than to sit him; it's only a matter of when that happens.

If the Yankees lose Rodríguez for four months, is it not better to lose him now? There still is the entire month of March; if Rodríguez was to have the surgery tomorrow he could theoretically be back before the All Star break, healthy and right in time for a pennant race. What's more, there are still free agents on the market--the Yankees could sign someone like Mark Grudzielanek to a one year deal with relatively little harm done, and it's not as though the Yankees have issues with signing players with impossible-to-spell names (Doug Mientkiewicz, anyone?)...just sayin'.

If it's a situation about getting the most value out of your asset, would not the Yankees get more value from a healthy Rodríguez than an injured one that deteriorates as the season goes on?

Or have the Yankees/Rodríguez/anyone with any possible say in the matter completley forgotten what happened to Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui last year?

Heroes and Zeroes

Over at It's About the Money, Stupid, Jason posts an excellent post on how the media ignored the steroids scandal in baseball.

At River Ave Blues, Joseph P offers his take and comments on the following Ken Rosenthal quip:

“That is our greatest sin, extolling these guys as something more than they were. Some of us had a feeling that something was amiss. We are more guilty of making McGwire and Sosa into heroes when they weren’t.”

Joe's comment:

First of all, McGwire and Sosa are not and never were heroes, even if they hit all those home runs clean. Baseball players are not heroes. They are entertainers. We might attach some narrative lore to them, especially the legendary ones, but that doesn’t make them heroes. There are people who sacrifice their lives for the betterment of others. That’s when you can get into the hero discussion. It does not apply to people who hit baseballs 400 feet.

In an ideal world, Joe is perfectly right. Baseball players aren't heroes, not in the way that firefighters, EMTs, soldiers, the members of the Coast Guard and those that risk their lives to help others are. There's no real comparison between them and guys that get paid hundreds of millions to play a game as a living.

The problem is, however, that we don't live in an ideal world.

We live in a world-and I've said this before-where what matters is not so much the reality as does the perception.

In 1998, the majority of us baseball fans perceived at least one of the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa bashing duo as a hero-and in many cases, we thought they both were. In that instance, Sosa and McGwire became de facto heroes, even if they never planned to be considered as such.

See, the thing is, when you are a marquee employee of a multi-billion dollar industry, you don't get to pick and choose what you want to be-if the fans decide you are a hero, if they think you are a hero, however misguided their notion may be, well, then, you are a hero.

So when these guys do something that's not just disallowed by the governing body of their employer, but in many cases illegal as well, you can't just brush it off and say it doesn't matter.

I wish it didn't matter. Really, I would love more than anything not to care, and if you've talked to me recently, you know that my state of delusional grandeur doesn't extend to the belief that 99% of baseball players are clean and there are only a few bad eggs. We know this wasn't and, likely, still isn't true.

An alarming percentage of baseball players likely used-a conservative estimate of 103/800 yields a percentage of 13%; there are only 750 25-man roster players active at any one time-it might seem like an inconsequential number, but over one in ten using would easily mean that yes, someone on your favorite team's roster is using as well.

The public-the paying public-will probably still pay to see the game, even if only to boo the cheaters, but much of the harm done is irreparable.

The Yankees signed Alex Rodriguez to a ten year deal, when they knew that at the tail end of the deal A-Rod is likely to be dead weight because he was the one that was supposed to "cleanly" break Hank Aaron's record. Alex might still go on to hit 800 home runs, but how many of the runs are tainted? If people demand that McGwire's numbers and Bonds' numbers be tainted with asterisks, there is no reason to think they won't demand the same of A-Rod.

I can't actually tell you that most baseball players have no interest in being heroes, but if the opportunity arose, I wouldn't hesitate to make that bet. Baseball players are, as Joe says, in reality entertainers. The perception of them as heroes is unfair...but it's still there, just the same.

As I said before, the steroids scandal isn't likely to keep fans from the game-if you see a decline in attendance figures this year, you're probably best off attributing blame to the recession/economic collapse/second great depression-but the argument that baseball players aren't heroes and thus how they do what they do shouldn't matter is fallacious.


Baseball players have tremendous ability-they can inspire kids to play and thus stay out of trouble, they can inspire kids to dream and they can provide us adults with an escape from the humdrum of every day life (well, unless you're a Nationals fan, but that's not the point). In that sense, baseball players are heroes, and as much as I have issues with Ken Rosenthal, he is not entirely off the mark.

A-Rod Looks to Sell House, Remains Rich While Doing So

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Alex Rodriguez has dropped the asking price to his Miami mansion from $14 million to $12.5 million.

What does $12.5 million buy?

Take a look.

Now, then, the way I see it, there's rich, super rich and then the type of rich that gets you your own private dock on Biscayne Bay.

I'm not sure I want to know how much it costs to hire cleaning help for that place...


***

Going to watch the football games today at a friend's party. Although I am not particularly a fan of either team, I will be rooting for the Giants and the Steelers.

ADHD and baseball

I posted about this topic once before, but it bears looking at again.

****

In this article from ESPN.com, there is an alarming statistic presented right at the beginning of the article:

Eight percent of Major League Baseball players last year qualified for ADHD exemptions to take stimulants that would otherwise be banned by the MLB.

Now, let's ignore my own personal history, which renders me intimately familiar with ADHD, and look at this from an objective point of view:

ADHD is a neurological disorder, one of the most common in children, that results in inattentive, impulsive and sometimes hyperactive behavior. It affects 3-5% of all chilren, meaning that in a class of 25, there will probably be at least one child that has it.*

Let's dissect that.

First, ADHD is one of the most common neurological disorders in children. While it's true some professional baseball players are still adolescents, most are adults, in both the physical and legal sense.

Secondly, ADHD affects 3-5% of all children. It would be understandable if the rate in baseball mirrored the actual average, even if many adults are able to develop coping mechanisms and thus not exhibit the signs or symptoms of ADHD. However, the eight percent rate given by ESPN has to turn a few heads.

While it's true that some disorders can find a higher prevalence do to environmental factors--like a higher incidence of depression in extreme northern areas like northern Canada and Scandinavia due to the long, dark winters--it makes no sense that baseball would draw those that have ADHD.

Baseball is a sport that demands a lot of focus for long periods of time. This, of course, would explain why a drug like Ritalin or Adderall would be so attractive to a baseball player, but, at the same time, it makes it hard to imagine that someone previously diagnoses with ADHD would choose this particular sport. One or two cases? Sure...but nearly a tenth of all baseball players?

Unless psychologists and psychiatrists are peddling baseball as the new ADHD cure-all, that just doesn't fly.

Consider also the following, from the article cited above:

The diagnostic guidelines also contain specific requirements for determining when the symptoms indicate ADHD. The behaviors must appear early in life, before age 7, and continue for at least 6 months. Above all, the behaviors must create a real handicap in at least two areas of a person’s life such as in the schoolroom, on the playground, at home, in the community, or in social settings. So someone who shows some symptoms but whose schoolwork or friendships are not impaired by these behaviors would not be diagnosed with ADHD. Nor would a child who seems overly active on the playground but functions well elsewhere receive an ADHD diagnosis.

If ADHD was that prevalent in baseball, you would think that ESPN and Baseball Tonight would be airing a few more 'fluff' pieces about playing the game with the neurological disorder...

The point here, and it's a point that needs to be made to the general public, as well, is that ADHD isn't just having a hard time paying attention.

ADHD is being inattentive to the point that it seriously impacts multiple, if not all, facets of your life. It's not just being unable to sit still in class; it's being unable to do what the coach asks in basketball practice, stay tuned to the same episode of Lost for more than ten minutes, maintain silence when a friend is speaking...all of these things.

Perhaps the most damning, is, again taken from the above cited, this paragraph about adult ADHD:

To be diagnosed with ADHD, an adult must have childhood-onset, persistent, and current symptoms.18 The accuracy of the diagnosis of adult ADHD is of utmost importance and should be made by a clinician with expertise in the area of attention dysfunction. For an accurate diagnosis, a history of the patient’s childhood behavior, together with an interview with his life partner, a parent, close friend, or other close associate, will be needed. A physical examination and psychological tests should also be given. Comorbidity with other conditions may exist such as specific learning disabilities, anxiety, or affective disorders.

(bold my emphasis)

For ADHD to be properly diagnosed in adults, there must be evidence of childhood symptoms.

This is a tricky thing--children are, by nature, hyperactive and lack long attention spans. When diagnosing a child, one has immediate access to a child's school environment and can tell fairly easily if a child is that much more inattentive than the rest of the children around him or her.

As an adult, however, one only has access to memory, and, if they're lucky, former school records, not to mention that as time progresses, different standards are expected from children. There's simply no surefire way of knowing if behavior as a child was along the lines of ADHD or simply a child misbehaving.

Is it possible that there are one or two baseball players that have ADHD and meet all of the diagnostic criteria? Of course.

The idea, however, that nearly a tenth of them are reported to have the condition, brings it to almost epidemic proportions--and is worthy of further examination.



*National Institute of Mental Health.

Your Chance to Do Some Good

In the spirit of giving and hope and change and all of that---

Tom Kackley, the equipment manager for the Trenton Thunder, is running an auction to benefit the Domestic Violence project.

You can find the auction here


I won a Phil Hughes hat last year...and I have to say, it felt like the best money I spent all year.

Domestic violence is a horrible thing, I shouldn't need to tell you, so any chance to contribute to its end is one we should take.

There's Some Good in the World...

The good folks over at River Ave Blues have teamed up to organize a pledge drive to support Jorge Posada's foundation to fight craniosynostosis.

Even if you only have a few nickels to spare, it's worth checking out.


You know, now that were on charities, I thought it might be a good time to check out what various Yankees do for a good cause....

Johnny Damon is active with the Wounded Warrior Project. From the website: "The WWP seeks to assist those men and women of our armed forces who have been severely injured during the conflicts in Iraq , Afghanistan , and other locations around the world. Many of the injuries are traumatic amputations, gunshot wounds, burns and blast injuries that will retire these brave warriors from military service. "


Derek Jeter has his Turn Two Foundation. The Turn Two foundation says "our mission is to create and support signature programs and activities that motivate young people to turn away from drugs and alcohol and "Turn 2" healthy lifestyles."

Bobby Abreu was the Phillies' 2004 representative for the Roberto Clemente award. He bought $10,000 worth of tickets for children in the 2003 and 2004 baseball season for his Abreu's Amigos program.

Alex Rodriguez is active in the Boys and Girls Club of Miami, University of Miami and the Children's Aid Society.

Hideki Matsui personally donated $500,000 to the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Jorge Posada has his own foundation. The foundation provides emotional support and financial assistance to families of those diagnosed with crainiosynostosis.

Robinson Canò is a member of the 2008 Red Cross Celebrity Cabinet.

Andy Pettitte is involved in the San Jacinto College Foundation and has visited Walter Reed.

Mike Mussina serves on the Little League Board of International Directors.

Mariano Rivera is involved in numerous charities in his native Panama.

So there you have it, some of the other Yankees and their community involvement. Of course, you can't forget the Stienbrenners' community service, or community service done at the minor league level as well.

Optimism Campaign 2008

After hearing about George King's article today, and reading the ESPN capsule preview, I've come to one conclusion:

It's time to launch the 2008 Optimism Campaign: Mission 27/08


What's the Campain?

The Optimism Campaign is a campaign to spread an optimistic outlook on the New York Yankees, to focus on what's right, and not what's wrong, but what can be improved. It is a campaign to spread the belief...nay, the knowledge...that the Yankees are fully capable of their 27th World Championship, and that intangibles, the things you can't get from sabermetrics matter. It is a campaign to appreciate the glorious history of the franchise with an eye on the well being of our future. It is a campaign that recognizes that while the team will make mistakes, it does no good to dwell on them, and, instead, to focus on how we can prevent it from occurring again.

What do we believe?

• There are 27 outs to a baseball game and you must play all of them before the game is officially over.
• Everyone on the Yankees roster has the capacity to be the hero of that game, regardless of past actions.
  
• That intangibles, such as clubhouse chemistry and ability to perform in the clutch, matter.
• That whether or not Joe Girardi is the right choice of manager isn't the big issue (even though he is), but that we will support him throughout the season in one of the toughest jobs in all sports.
• That, whatever comes out of his mouth, Hank Steinbrenner (and his siblings) know what he (and they) are doing.
• That the youngsters, here defined as Melky Cabrera, Robinson Canò, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy and Shelley Duncan, may go through harsh growing pains, but that their upside is tremendous and that not trading any one of them has been a good idea.
• That Jason Giambi and Mike Mussina will have bounce-back years.
• That Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Chien Ming Wang and Andy Pettitte will continue to perform at a level appropriate for their position.
• That pessimism is a product of tabloids and certain broadcast media that exists to provide entertainment and rile emotions.
• That negative opinions have every right to exist as long as they are expressed in a civilized and reasonable form, even if we do not hold them ourselves.

How can I be a member?

All you have to do is say you're an optimist, and you're in! While you don't have to agree with every single bulleted point above, the first one is absolutely crucial.

What are the perks of membership?

Sharing a bond with Yankee fans just like yourself, and scientific studies have shown a positive outlook increases life expectancy.

What is Mission 27/08?

It is the mission for 27 Championships in 2008.

If These Walls Could Talk...

It's not the Coliseum. It's not the Tower of London. It's not even the Statue of Liberty.

Yet, even so, when I read the plan is to tear down Yankee Stadium, I still feel my stomach tighten, my eyes get a little moist, my composure shakes a bit...

My first thought is not about how I'll miss being able to go to games there or how I'll likely never get to witness history at the old Yankee Stadium, but instead, my first thought is:

What about the ghosts? Where will they go? They need a home, too.

I am not obsessed with the supernatural, but it's not a lie for me to say that I do believe in ghosts. There's just too much about baseball that can't be explained otherwise...at least, not in a way that sticks with me. I mean, how else do you explain the Chicago Cubs?

I think of the ghosts and I think of how, if you tear down these walls, the ghosts will have no shelter from the winter winds. We hope, of course, they'll come with us just across the street, but something in my mind tells me: ghosts don't move their haunts.

My second thought, and the one that overrides the first, that consumes it, is that tearing down Yankee Stadium is tearing down history. It's saying we don't need the history exist here anymore, the memory of it is good enough for us.

Memories will not leave us--I've said this before--not while we have our cameras, our videos, our own methods of recollection, but over time, they fade.

We can live the memories because we've been there, we've been in the solid steel and concrete of the stands, we've felt the August sun and the October moon. We can tell our children about them, our grandchildren as well, and maybe even our great-grandchildren...

...but sooner or later, we turn to dust, and then all we have are the memories. There's no place for our children (if you're as young as I am), our grandchildren or our great-grandchildren to live them.

You can tell someone about the magic of Ruth, of Gehrig, of DiMaggio, of Berra, of Mantle, of Jackson, of Jeter...but it's not the same when you're not there. There's no question about it.

There is perhaps nothing that binds us together, as Yankees fans, or is such a large part of our being as Yankee Stadium.


If baseball is America's pastime, Yankee Stadium is America's ballpark. There are other historic parks, like Wrigley and Fenway, but there is nothing like Yankee Stadium. I know I sound like the obnoxious Yankee fan when I say it, but there's no other ballpark that's played host to 26 championship teams...and in baseball, home-field advantage actually matters.


Time moves forward, and we can't change it. The facilities at Yankee Stadium are old, and there's no doubt, that at least from a sanitary and safety point of view, a new stadium is needed.


Why should we feel as though we have to tear down the old, though? Why should we feel that it's okay to tear down history? Because other teams have done it?

Yankee Stadium need not be an empty shell; keep it, keep the field, use it as a park...maybe the Little League team or that middle school team from the Bronx can use it as their home park?

What about it?

Imagine it, the eleven year-old boy with mossy hair and the scraggly, lanky body, who can barely lift the bat over his shoulder comes up to bat with two out in the bottom of the ninth, the team's best runner on second, his team down by one, the burly thirteen year-old pitcher from some other team (maybe one in Queens), sets, pitches, there's a crack of the bat that echoes through the empty stands, giving rise to the ghosts, rise to the memories...

Dei Gratia (Or, the Thanksgiving Post)

Okay, hopefully I didn't just offend my atheist readers, in which case, I apologize.

Anyway.

We all have something for which we are thankful. For me, personally, it's been an amazing year--having spent the first four in Europe, and then September 'til now I've had this blog, which has given me so much more than I thought it could possibly give to me.


One of those things it's let me do is help others.

What do I mean?

Well, perhaps you remember me advertising an auction for the Domestic Violence Project.

When I first got the email asking me to advertise the auction, Tom Kackley, I was told that the goal was to double last year's auction total of $1400, with all proceeds benefiting the DVP--ie, a goal of $2800.

Maybe it was all the Joba, Phil and Ian stuff, or maybe it was that Yankee fans really are a do-good lot, but quoting directly from an email I received a week ago,

"
Thanks in no small part to your help in getting the word out, I'm
thrilled to say that we'll be giving the DVP a check for over $5000
sometime before Thanksgiving."

So for anyone that clicked on the link, browsed the items or bid on any of them, you've helped.


I've got a lot to be thankful for this year.





Enjoy the turkey. Go watch parades and football. I'll see you all later.

Just Some Notes

The charity auction I mentioned here is beginning to wrap up, so if you want to put some bids in, you might want to think about doing it soon, here.


Over the past week or so I've added a few blogs onto the side-bar; all of them, including the non-Yankee ones, are worth a look.


My cousin is a big Dodgers fan, so I felt obligated to send him an email telling him to hide the Dodger's bullpen at all costs. Especially Scott Proctor.


I've been spending most of tonight working on The Season; it's been so much fun to write so far, and hopefully it will continue. The best part today, however, wasn't the writing, but rather when I realized that certain things I have planned plot-wise actually fit together very, very well. I won't get into any more detail than that, but suffice it to say I am extremely excited about this!

I love the weekend.

Your Chance To Do Some Good

This morning I received an email from Tom Kackley, the clubhouse manager for the Trenton Thunder, asking if I'd mind linking to a charity auction he is running in support of a domestic violence charity.

This is part of the email:

"I've been working in baseball 20 years, all at the minor league levels. Ten years ago, about a week before opening day, my wife's sister was murdered by her husband. I was angry for some time over the fact that I didn't get the chance to do something to save her. So, since then what I do is raise her son, and now this auction.

Hope you can help. Thanks."


Being the good little internet soldier I am, I went and researched to make sure the auction is legit, and sure enough, it's linked to on the home page of the Trenton Thunder website.

The auction itself can be found here. It's a nice collection of minor league memorabilia, including some Ian, Joba and Phil autographed pictures, balls and baseball stuffs.


You can read about the Domestic Violence Project here, and you can see the link through the Trenton Thunder homepage here


Domestic violence is on my unforgivable crime list, and it should be on your's as well. Give the auction a look-see, and help support a good cause.


Back later with NHL Round-up. I feel like last night's World Series game was like a bad dream...