Via Bill Madden -

All his life, Jason Marquis, Staten Island product via Brooklyn, had waited for this experience — waited and wondered what it would be like for a kid from the boroughs, who grew up a Yankee fan, to start a game at Yankee Stadium.

Never did he dream what a maelstrom of emotions he would be feeling when the opportunity finally availed itself Wednesday night — a night in which he left nearly 50 tickets for his friends and family, including his wife, Debbie, herself a Staten Island product, and their 7-year-old daughter, Reese, who, a month earlier, had been given a “50-50” chance to live by doctors at the Staten Island University trauma center after suffering a serious injury in a bicycle accident.

The 33-year-old Marquis — who was last seen on a major league diamond last August in Arizona, limping off the field an inning after a line drive off the bat of the Mets’ Angel Pagan had broken his leg — was finishing up spring training with the Twins in Fort Myers when he got a call from home informing him that Reese had had an accident on her bike and that doctors were furiously trying to save her life from internal bleeding.

It turned out she had fallen on the handlebars and suffered a laceration of her liver. She eventually lost 3½ pints of blood.

For the next nine days, she was under sedation as the doctors required four surgeries to close her wound — at one point she suffered a collapsed lung — before she finally was able to breathe on her own.

Ever so slowly, Reese began to heal, but by now the Twins had broken camp and the season was underway. Instead of going with them, Marquis, who signed a one-year, $3 million contract to be their fifth starter, was sent to their Double-A farm team in New Britain, allowing him a close commute to Staten Island to be with Reese in her recovery.

“Never mind the pitching,: Twins GM Terry Ryan told him. “You’re a father first. Take care of your daughter.”

This is some story. Always good to remember that ball players are people too. And, their life is not always one big rock concert.

Over his last 30 regular season games, Alex Rodriguez’ BA/OBP/SLG line is .205/.341/.348 (in 112 AB).

If his numbers are in the same range a month from now, how will that play in Yankeeland?

13 is behind this one.

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Gives you some perspective on how amazing Moyer is for still getting the job done.

Via WEEI.com -

Mark Melancon achieved a dubious sort of Red Sox and major league history. He was shelled for six runs without retiring a batter, giving up three home runs, including back-to-back home runs (one an absolute moonshot by Josh Hamilton to right, another a blast to dead center by Adrian Beltre). He tied a major league record (at least dating to 1918) by allowing three homers without recording an out. In just two innings this year spanning four appearances, Melancon has allowed five home runs, matching his total yield in 74 1/3 innings in the entire 2011 season with the Astros.

Melancon has been scored upon in all four of his outings, making him the first Red Sox pitcher ever to give up runs in four consecutive appearances of one inning or less to start his Red Sox career. The six runs he allowed without recording an out are also tied for the most by a Red Sox pitcher since at least 1918.

Melancon’s struggles have been sufficiently extraordinary (of the 18 batters he’s faced this year, he’s retired six) that despite the incredibly early stage of the season, the Red Sox may be in a position where — assuming that he is not injured and in need of a trip to the disabled list — they have to consider extraordinary measures, chiefly, whether to option Melancon to the minors.

Somerset awaits?

Representing the class of ’62!

Are the Rangers and Tigers the cream of the crop in the A.L. this season?

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You just don’t see this everyday.

Players since 1918 to be hit by a pitch 3+ times in the same game:

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Obviously, Reed Johnson is the king of this trick.

Seems like we were just doing this two years ago.

Prince Albert vs. A-Rod.

Enjoy the game today.

According to Elias Sports Bureau, when Jaime Moyer, at 49-years old, faces Madison Bumgarner, at 22-years old, it will represent the largest age difference for a pitching match-up since 59-year-old Satchel Paige faced 29-year-old Bill Monbouquette on September 25, 1965.

Remember when the Cleveland Indians had a streak of 455 consecutive sellouts between 1995 and 2001? Well, this is now the news out of Tribe Town -

In the seventh inning, at least 24 sections of the [Indians'] ballpark were devoid of humanity. Another 14 sections were populated by fewer than 20 fans each. Official attendance (tickets sold) was 9,072, but there probably were no more than 2,000 people in the seats.

That was the good news for the Tribe. The fewer people who watch what the team is doing on the field now, the better.

Times change, eh?

Boston, you are on the clock.

…here’s Johnny!

Nice to see Damon land a home.

Via the Patch -

Yankees first baseman Mark “Tex” Teixeira has a new team.

No, the four-time Gold Glove winner hasn’t been traded.

He’s signed on with Patch, as “Commissioner of Patch Baseball.”

Teixeira will interact with Patch users by regularly responding to questions, sharing baseball tips, and posting exclusive videos. Teixeira will also offer young athletes advice on how to stay in shape and why healthful eating is so important for optimal performance.

“I live in a Patch town now and I keep tabs on my original hometown via the Patch site there, so I’ve seen the ways that Patch supports its communities,” said Teixeira. “I’m excited to be a part of that by connecting with Patch users who have the same passion for baseball that I do. I’m eager to see what kinds of questions they toss my way!”

“Baseball is such an important part of so many of the communities we’re in–and if something’s important to our users, it’s important to Patch,” said Rachel Feddersen, Chief Content Officer at Patch. “Mark is a great representative of what Patch stands for. We’re thrilled to offer this exclusive opportunity for our communities’ baseball players, from little leaguers to college prospects, to interact with this World Series champion.”

Now that he’s the commish, does this mean Tex will have even more “pull”?

Here is the list -

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Teixeira may be adding to his total this season.

Ken Davidoff has food for thought on the question.

Hey, the Padres saw something in him.

Here is the list -

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That’s alotta oh’fers…

…this game was played.  Sum’ballgame, huh?

Since 1918, the Yankees have lost the first four games of their season only twice:  1973 and 1930. 

In 1930, they lost their first five games of the season.

The worst start in Yankees history, post-1917?  That would have to be 1966 when they opened the season with a record of 4-16.

Where we are today with the latest trouble that Ozzie Guillen has made for himself - via the Miami Herald:

Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen said prior to Monday’s game against the Phillies that he would travel back to Miami after the game and hold a press conference Tuesday to address comments in a recent Time magazine article concerning Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Guillen was quoted as saying he respected Castro for having been able to remain in power in Cuba as long as he has.

Guillen later apologized for the comment during the team’s road trip this past weekend to Cincinnati, saying: “I’m against the way he [Castro] treats people and the way [he has treated] his country for a long time. I’m against that 100 percent.”

The press conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at Marlins Park.

“I was planning to do something Friday, but [Tuesday] we have the day off and I want to make everything clear so people can talk to me face-to-face,” Guillen said. “They can ask me whatever questions they want, and the sooner the better for the people, for the ballclub and for me. I want to tell people what is going on in my mind and what I believe.”

Guillen said he has been struggling with the situation the past three days and hasn’t been able to sleep.

“I want the people there,” Guillen said. “I feel embarrassed. I feel guilty not because I’m lying, but because this thing hasn’t let me sleep for three days. Only my wife knows how bad it’s been last few days. I feel very guilty, sad and embarrassed. Anyone who wants to be there, feel free. I want the Cuban people to understand what I’m going to say because everything I’m going to say is true.”

Guillen said he wasn’t surprised by the reaction and knew how deeply it would affect the Cuban community.
“I have to face it,” Guillen said. “I have to make people feel good about themselves. I will say what I said a couple of days ago. I don’t want to just make a statement and that’s it because I think when you do that, that’s a bunch of crap.

“I feel sad because I know I hurt a lot of people,” Guillen added. “I’m Latino. I live in Miami. I have a lot of friends and players [that are Cuban]. They know who I am. They know how I feel.”

This Ozzie thing reminds me of 1992 when Marge Schott said “Everything you read, when [Hitler] came in [to power] he was good…They built tremendous highways and got all the factories going…Everybody knows he was good at the beginning but he just went too far.”

At the time, Bud Selig, fined Schott $25,000 and suspended her for the 1993 season. Will he do the same now with Guillen?

My current Yankees jacket is four years old.

This morning, I had a couple of errands to run.  And, at both my stops, a woman (there) complimented me on my Yankees jacket.

This has happened before…but, I was still caught off guard, both times, today.

Maybe I should write a song with the lyric “..I made the Yankee jacket more famous than a Yankee can…”?

If you were not sure that George Steinbrenner was dead, you now have your proof.

The silence following the Yankees opening the 2012 season with three straight losses (to the Rays) in the adopted hometown of “The Boss” is evidence that Big Stein has truly moved on to another place.

I recently had a chance to check out Robert K. Fitts’ new book “Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan.”

Here’s more on it from the publisher:

In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of “Banzai! Banzai, Babe Ruth!” The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan, and spreading goodwill.

Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the amity generated by the tour—and the two nations’ shared love of the game—could help heal their growing political differences. But the Babe and baseball could not overcome Japan’s growing nationalism, as a bloody coup d’état by young army officers and an assassination attempt by the ultranationalist War Gods Society jeopardized the tour’s success. A tale of international intrigue, espionage, attempted murder, and, of course, baseball, Banzai Babe Ruth is the first detailed account of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the 1934 All American baseball tour.

Rob Fitts is an expert on this subject matter. And, this book is very well researched.

The Blog High Heat Stats recently did a review on this one. (Click here to check it out.)

There’s a lot to this story. And, to learn more about it, you should consider checking out “Banzai Babe Ruth.”

The story and the video:

Via the Republic -

The daughter of Babe Ruth loves the Diamondbacks — but does not have similar feelings for the New York Yankees, the team her father led to four World Series championships.

“No, indeed,” said Julia Ruth Stevens, 95, who was at the Diamondbacks’ opening game Friday at Chase Field. “I haven’t been a Yankee fan for years now.

“It’s the Diamondbacks here, and when I go home I pull for the Red Sox (the team that sold Ruth to the Yankees) in the other league.”

Stevens spends part of the year in Sun City and the summer months in New Hampshire.

She said the thrill of an Opening Day still resonates with her: “Oh, absolutely, nothing like it.”

Taste in teams aside, how great is it that she’s 95, still kicking, and going to baseball games?  Some wiki info on the Babe and his daughters:

[Babe] Ruth married Helen Woodford in 1914. Owing to his infidelities, they were reportedly separated around 1926. Helen died in a fire in Watertown, Massachusetts, on January 11, 1929, in a house owned by Edward Kinder, a dentist whom she had been living with as “Mrs. Kinder”. Kinder identified her body as being that of his wife, then went into hiding after Helen’s true identity was revealed; Ruth himself had to get authorities to issue a new death certificate in her legal name, Margaret Helen Woodford Ruth.

Ruth had two daughters. Dorothy Ruth was adopted by Babe and Helen. In her book, My Dad, the Babe, Dorothy claimed that she was Ruth’s biological child by a girlfriend named Juanita Jennings. She died in 1989.

Ruth adopted Julia Hodgson when he married her mother, actress and model Claire Merritt Hodgson. Julia Ruth Stevens currently resides in Arizona, and threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the final game in the original Yankee Stadium on September 21, 2008.

By one account, Julia and Dorothy were, through no fault of their own, the reason for the seven-year rift in Ruth’s relationship with teammate Lou Gehrig. Sometime in 1932 Gehrig’s mother, during a conversation which she assumed was private, said, “It’s a shame [Claire] doesn’t dress Dorothy as nicely as she dresses her own daughter.” When the remark inevitably got back to Ruth, he angrily told Gehrig to tell his mother to mind her own business. Gehrig in turn took offense at what he perceived as Ruth’s disrespectful treatment of his mother. The two men reportedly never spoke off the field from that moment until the famous “bear hug” in Yankee Stadium on Lou Gehrig Day in 1939.

It’s a small list -

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Richie Hebner?

They used it a lot against the Yankees today. But, that’s nothing new for them.

I’m starting to wonder if using the shift on defense is going to be like the “On Base Average” wave of a few years back…where it was used by a few and then copied by just about everyone?

Well, the kid won’t get out-worked, that’s for sure.

Sad news via Yahoo –

One of the nation’s top baseball prospects, a bright student headed to Vanderbilt, was found dead along the side of a Tennessee road on Tuesday after an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sending shockwaves throughout the Volunteer State baseball community.

As reported by the Jackson Sun, the Nashville City Paper and a variety of other Nashville-area news sources, Parsons (Tenn.) Riverside High ace Stephen Gant was found dead in Perry County shortly after the local sheriff’s office had been called about a man walking up and down the road with a gun threatening to commit suicide.

“We found the body of Stephen Gant about 30 feet from the roadway with a gunshot wound,” Perry County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Nick Weems told the Sun. “We do believe at this time that it was self-inflicted; however, we will continue to investigate to look at other possibilities to make sure it was suicide.”

To call Gant’s death a stunning turn of events is a vast understatement. The senior was a Vanderbilt signee with what many anticipated would be a bright future at one of the nation’s most impressive college baseball programs. In all three of his prep seasons he had been named the Sun’s Baseball Player of the Year, a remarkable achievement in a tough Tennessee baseball region.

In fact, Gant’s arm was so strong that some had even penciled the senior in as a likely first round draft pick in the forthcoming MLB draft.

On Tuesday, the communities that knew him and were looking forward to his arrival were still struggling to come to grips with the teenager’s tragic death, as Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin made clear in a statement released to the press.

“This stops you right in your tracks,” Corbin said in the release. “These are life occurrences that can’t be explained … there are no ‘do-overs.’

Indeed.

If they say it, then it must be true.  Enjoy the opener today!