David Ortiz

One has to wonder about all the hype and the hooplah associated with David Ortiz's first plunk from the Yankees in 1 full season worth of games (162) between the 2 teams. Sure, the Red Sox do tend to hit a lot of Yankees, but is this hatred, crowding the plate, bad pitching or what? And sure, it is the unwritten code of baseball as exacted by great men like Bob Gibson that a certain 17" of plate is mine and that a certain amount of respect is mine. All good pitchers ever knew this. That's why Pedro was so dominant (you gotta love that Gerald Williams hit - it sure did scare Tampa Bay, that's for sure). All good hitters knew this. That's why Barry Bonds wore tank armour on his arm.
Who cares who takes offense to a flipped bat? For years, the Yankees made people put up with their fecal material (as if it didn't stink) because they were winning and they were on top. Now, they are starting to suck. They're starting to get old.
If the best thing that the Yankees can do to trump up to justify CC taking a shot at the sluggi one is that Joe Girardi was worried about the feelings of poor little Hector Noesi (and since the Yankees pitching staff is injured, thin, and brittle in mind and body, they've got a lot of protecting to do), then so be it because it's New York and they'll do what they can to stay in the forefront of everyone's mind - even when they're on the decline.
"Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax," Columnist Mike Royko once said.
We agree. That said, if you haven't seen the following video of Big Sluggi getting nailed by CC Sabathia on  MLBTV's Intentional Talk, then you're really missing out.
In the end, if Sluggi is having a great year and rebounding from the usual early season crappiness and post steroids drought that he has been forcing Boston fans to put up with, then bring on the retaliation towards him - we haven't thought anything about him since Obama ran for president, but hey, if he's 2004 David Ortiz, we'll take that he's going to be a target. For us, Papi can be in it to win it and make the Yankees hate him all that he wants. They still owe him a foot on that game one shot he almost put out of the stadium in the 2004 ALCS (game 1) when the Red Sox started to rally back after Mussina had left them in a stagnant morass. The time has come to pile on the misery to make the Yankee fans remember the 1980s and early 1990s for what they were - a complete joy to all non New Yorkers!
So let Girardi and crew cry. They'll be making us put up with their Jeter 3000 lovefest soon enough, which frankly put, is enough to make us vomit (even if we're doing better with getting over that whole Jeter sucks thing - besides, it's all about hating on A-Rod).

Jason Giambi

In 2000, I got myself a Jason Giambi rookie. In 2001, I gave it away after he signed with the Yankees and got rid of his dirtbag image for pinstripes.
Somewhere in those years afterward, I never forgot that he was once the guy that Mark McGwire took under his wing and even begged St. Louis to sign (instead of Tino Martinez who the Yankees cast aside for the Cardinals despite his contributions to the magnificent run that all of their fans thought they had over the past 5 years). Sure, he was salivated over with Seattle in that year that the Mariners beat the Yankees in 1995, but it wasn't the same way that the Yankees lusted after Giambi. Like someone else's girlfriend that is hovered over when the imminent breakup is about to occur, but that doesn't work out when the window of opportunity is there (is everything a Seinfeld episode, or is it just me?)... Tino went to the Yankees, but he was quickly cast out when the opportunity came to get Giambi.
And so the Yankees did, but for the fact I gave his rookie card away (I wouldn't touch Yankee cards at that period of my life - especially ones that featured former "one of my favorite players"). I felt the same way with Randy Johnson and Kevin Brown. Randy was someone that I once adored the hell out of in only the way that a grown straight man can feel for a baseball player that he'll never know. Brown was someone whose talents I really liked. I didn't know much about his temper, but I'll tell you... I loved seeing him smash his hand in the dugout during a stretch run collapse.
Who knew that it was a sign of fierce competitor-ness / roid rage?
And when Giambi got struck by "parasites," I wasn't thinking about how he took Miguel Tejada to task in the 2001 playoffs for being a schlub. Though I never forgot that, I just felt that it was the universe paying him back for taking Yankee dollars and creating a demise of the Oakland team that was dominating August to make the playoffs year after year (Zito, Hudson, Mulder, Tejada).
He was 33, 43, and 38 for home runs in those last 3 Oakland years as he rose from the ashes of a dismantling that saw McGwire shipped to St. Louis. He was first in MVP in 2000 and second in 2001. He batted .315, .333, and .342 those last 3 years. He was 123, 137, and 120 for RBIs those years. He was also 105, 137, and 129 for walks in those campaigns! In the end, he was holding down the first sack and leading a team of dirt bags to the ALCS only to see them implode to the Yankees - we can blame the universe or we can blame his fat ass brother for that, but all the same... the A's were never to be again.
Giambi found a new hope and he found BALCO, and after 2 seasons without scruff, he wasn't the same man again. He did bounce back, but never to the level of his time in Oakland or his 2 41 home run seasons that began his New York tenure (and so began the Curse of Jason Giambi and Mike Mussina - the 2 players that the Yankees had to have at the end of their 3-year run, but couldn't win it all with).
He went back to Oakland in 2009, and it meant well at the beginning, but by the end of the year, he was playing in Denver, a town he still plays in. It's a bit role, and he sort of resembles the guy that he used to be - with a little more gray in the beard... the mustache thing is now over as he looks scruffy again, and for one evening, the old Jason was back killing Philadelphia substitute pitching (Kyle Kendrick) last night.
In the end, he had 3 homers and 7 RBIs.
Now that he's 40, he finally has a 3-homer game. He joins Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, and Reggie Jackson on that short list. For that, we wish him well and back in the lineup on a regular basis, but sadly, the end is coming... there will be no Cooperstown due to his non-specific apologies, but we will remember... that evening with Tejada's playoff goat self.
He was once the man.
Last night he was again.

Carl Everett

We live in a culture that all too often lacks respect for life. For example, no sooner did my 86-year old neighbor pass away than one of those "we buy houses" people called his 82-year old widow and asked if she wanted to sell the house. She's a nice person, but she told him what was what, which is a good thing. That said, we're hoping for lightning and karma. They're more thorough.
In the end, they had clearly no respect or understanding what the meaning of life and living is (it comes down to 4 simple things: 1) Love and only love 2) Doing your best at something 3) Impressing the people who matter and 4) Experiencing the happy things in life.
This does not include: 1) Treating people like crap 2) Manipulating other people for personal gain 3) Getting so messed up that normal functioning is impossible 4) Committing crimes against people, businesses, or humanity 5) Forcing stupid views of life on humanity (even if it's allowed by a Constitutional amendment).
Thus, it's clear to see that there are some people out there in the baseball world that can use some serious help.
With that, Carl Everett and his dinosaur are back. When last we heard from Jurassic Carl, he was talking about the relative merits of Creationism, which for its purpose, does have some interesting science behind it, but alas, Carl was all about stating how "God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve. The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Somebody actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex."
It's one thing to quote science... another thing to just quote the Bible. For that, we can quote the
word of Giorgio - the potential to be just as absurd - slightly more entertaining.
Nevertheless, when your only good deed ever is breaking up a Mike Mussina gem with 2 out and 2 strikes in the bottom of the 9th, there isn't much else to say for you. In his nearly 14 years of MLB time, he hit 202 home runs for 9 teams and batted .271. This netted him almost $45million from 1993-2006. A pretty good haul for a guy who had a lot of talent but was regarded negatively on and off the field - religious conviction not included.
Last night, he didn't do much to change the world's opinion of him as he ended up in jail for assault and witness tampering, but it's all in a day's work when you're angry at the world.
Nevertheless, he isn't alone.
Also included in the list of people who need to understand the meaning of community is our good friend Elijah Dukes, who is also what can only be referred to as "an angry black man" (like Everett), was picked up for driving with a revoked license. Add this to threats and surliness, and we have a true idiot.
Yep... that's not changing his outlook in the world of post baseball.
And as for baseball as a whole, African Americans make up just 8.5% of baseball, which is its lowest total in years. Granted, we're not as flashy as the NBA or hard hitting as the NFL, but we're THEE major sport. It's not that problems don't cut across ethnicities, but to think of attitude problems presented from the inner city experience (Albert Belle, Lasting Milledge, and Gary Sheffield come to mind), there definitely seems to be more in the public eye (and perhaps this is a racist media, but if you're in the limelight, don't you think you would do what Jackie Robinson did (WWJRD)? And while this leads me to question if there is an unwritten rule where certain players are written off if their street sense makes them too little of a team player, I really have to wonder if this is just self-fulfilled prophecy of doom? After all, we're in an era of integration and acceptance. This isn't black cats on the field and spikes aimed high with slurs from the stands as things to be accepted.
But to wonder what is and what should be and how we got the way that we did, we only have to go back to the #4 game of the past 50 years on MLBTV and I think of Andy Van Slyke telling Barry Bonds what to do and getting the "international peace sign" for it. Have we divided back to the early 1950s again where only a few select African Americans get to play, and if so, who chooses the names? Have we created this situation with our socioeconomic divisioins or is there something else? If the MLB won't take this, why will the NBA and the NFL?
Granted, there have been tons of angry white guys in baseball... none more so than the violent racist scum Ty Cobb, and for this, he too was hated, but players wanted his bat in the game for their team. What does it say when players have talent and aren't wanted?
It's not that we're excluding all blacks or even all inner city blacks. Torii Hunter is a role model to the game (as is CC, Heyward, and Howard), but what about these guys past and present?
It's a sad world.
Here's to the good things that comes with all people playing the game right and living life to the max.

Derek Jeter

I know... I know... I've said it before about a great many things: A) I'm a Red Sox fan and a "Certified Yankee Hater" (I've got the t-shirt to prove it).

B) Derek Jeter's flip play is the most over-rated play this side of Willie Mays' backward catch (great play, but Mays was well known for losing his hat to make plays more theatrical and that yard was really deep - players today would watch a homer rather than get a chance to duplicate the feat) in the history of baseball.

C) Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty was a great book and an even greater feeling (though we wouldn't know for sure until the Angels in 2002 and the Marlins in 2003; Detroit in 2006 was just the icing on the cake) to know it was over... yeah!

D) I didn't watch the original single of the Luis Gonzalez game winner. All of my talk about Mariano Rivera being over-rated was shown for what it really was - knowing the truth as I went to bed after the end of the 8th inning. I did celebrate the next day, but it would be ages before I saw the video of the whole inning.

E) I have come to grudgingly respect Joe Torre since Tom Verducci's excellent Yankee Years book. In fact, some of my greatest dreams (and worst experience in the last 5 years of teaching) came from Mike Mussina and Jeter rallying the troops together in 2005 and thinking that giving my students a motivational push would make them want to do the same for me. Fat chance of that, but it's still a nice dream for a Mr. Holland moment.

F) Since the Yankees didn't make the playoffs in 2008 and since the Red Sox won in 2007, I have lost some of my hatred for the Yankees. Well, that and the fact that I don't watch full Yankees / Red Sox games religiously since I spend more time with my wife (we met at the end of 2007).

That being said...

On Saturday, I watched Nine Innings from Ground Zero, which is actually an HBO production, and let me just say...

It was the best documentary this side of Ken Burns Baseball. However, I don't think I would or even could watch it twice. Yes, there are scenes that stand out (the aforementioned flip, the George Bush first pitch, and Brielle Saracini), and those can be watched again, but even those are super emotional - especially Saracini.

When you watch Saracini, she's a tween reading a letter about being bummed out over the events of 9/11, but she's writing it to Derek Jeter and asking if he can cheer her up with a phone call. Not knowing who she is or isn't, it's at that moment that they reveal that her father was Victor Saracini, the pilot of Flight 175, which was horrifically slammed into the World Trade Center on that September morning, killing everyone aboard (for a total of 2,819 victims). And it's at this moment that the emotion of the rest of the film truly hits - it's human lives lost, stopped, and completely eliminated. It's survivers that don't know how to make sense of it. Looking at the link to all of the dead and what the stats mean (the lives, the money, the city, our America), it's just catastrophic and over-whelming and completely emotional.

I was a blubbering wreck.

Watching Jeter 10 minutes before tell Bush to throw from the mound or face being booed while giving him advice to throw a strike brings it all home... as my friend Dale said, to not include that on Ken Burns' The 10th Inning, wasn't right. It is our game and what our game can do. For all of the pro Yankee sentiment that they should have won (and while I wouldn't have wanted them to win ANY of the other 5 World Series they won since my rebirth interest in baseball after the Air Force, I don't think I would have minded that one for all of these reasons in hindsight). To understand that there was a visible presence of anti-Arizona sentiment for what this win would mean for New York... it just said everything. But we forget that... and we forget that the Mets almost went to the playoffs that year before folding as America cheered for them, too - from the moment of Mike Piazza's game winner to their last hurrah in that elongated month of baseball.

And it goes back to the event of the flip... fat ass Jeremy Giambi chugging around the base path on a shot to the corner, and somehow, some idiot decision allowed him to move around third even though he had to be gasping for air, and if only he wasn't Jeremy Giambi, but rather, someone who didn't look like a softball player from a beer league, he would have made it a half step sooner or slid to avoid the tag... but he didn't.

And for that, he was out and the New York comeback was in motion and that was it for Oakland. It was finished. Seattle was soon to be history, and it was all because some force of nature compelled Jeter to be a superhero that post season. His game winning home run in the World Series against Byung-Hyun Kim, perhaps the worst reliever this side of Joe Nathan and Rod Beck, and the set up for the second comeback the next night against Kim... it all made it seem like he really did save the day...

And then Rivera folded like an ironing board being put into storage, and it was all over. And for this new perspective... it's really there and understandable in truth and reality and perspective and sadness and nostalgia from the Yankees, their fans, and Rudy Giuliani. And perhaps, there is a lot of anti-Yankee hate in some of the Amazon reviews... and perhaps there is some for Rudy and Bush, too, but politics aside, they were the men of the hour. Bush was at his finest in that pitch and with the bullhorn. After all, this is 2 years before Iraq and in a time when people wore anti-Osama Bin Laden shirts... a time before we all took the following statement from Condoleeza Rice (as taken from CNN): Still, she disclosed that the U.S. intelligence community had intercepted communications from al Qaeda suspects during the summer of 2001 that included these words: "Unbelievable news in the coming weeks;" "Big event ... There will be a very, very, very, very big uproar;" and "There will be attacks in the near future." Rice described these interceptions as "troubling, yes." But she added, "They don't tell us when; they don't tell us where; they don't tell us who; and they don't tell us how."

to mean that America was somehow complicit in the act of 9/11 because we didn't know enough to stop it. And for this partisanship, perhaps, it's the ultimate treason in America to believe that we did this (even Bill Clinton condemned the attitude of blaming our own country for this radical act of jihad).

But alas, we have forgotten so much about that day. I remember one time in teaching 9/11, I had a video of the events from Youtube, which played the news clips and people left the room in tears. They had literally never seen it before or it was personal to them (we never know who in the room has lost a friend, neighbor, or relative), and I felt truly bad for daring to show a video so that I could make them understand the statistics and events that they were to try to write about (in part because many of their comments weren't grounded in reality - through no fault of their own, but based on how they were caught in a post Iraq / Afghanistan uprising attitude of the media and the world around them).

And yet, I knew why I did it. This was our history, and the same tears I felt at MANY times in the video were something that makes me realize that we should never forget.

And it was something that says no amount of understanding what America could have done to make someone hate us so much that they would plan out a heinous attack on this level WOULD EVER JUSTIFY their having done what they did or even TO ALLOW US TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO KEEP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN. And while I don't claim that America is innocent or totally happy go lucky nice to the whole world, I don't see that search for WHY as being worthwhile - only WHAT can we do to eliminate this evil from the world and make sure it never comes back again. For that, I have come to wonder that if by doing anything so rational as hunting for understanding, we are in a sense enabling the evil in the world that would seek to destroy us, and for that, I have changed from the 30 year old man that stood in front of a room slack jawed as the building came down while 9th graders looked to me for understanding and I had none - only an all too wrong idea that the only thing that mattered after 9/11 was maintaining our lives and rights as normal - when in reality, we were changing for always and needed to adjust to winning a war that we would quickly be forced into.

But all of this detracts from what is good with America, and the end result of that is baseball (amongst other things). For anything that gives us happiness in its entertainment and sense of pleasure while making our day brighter is good, and this isn't something that a cornered dog lashing out with 19 of his minions to devastate the true sense of normalcy and the world that we live in some sense of jihad purpose would ever be able to understand.

And if there are rights and truths in the nearly 10 years since this day they are that anyone can offer something, even something insignificant to a large part of the world, to make the world a better place.

For that, I love baseball, slot canyons, waterfalls, Christmas, music, the history and culture of the country I live in, my family, and especially my wife.

And for that same reason, I despise tyranny and blind partisan hatred and agression.