by Jane Heller
He is right. I am panicking. The Yankees are not off to a good start. There is no consistency. We cannot get any momentum going. And we are riddled with injuries to the point where Cashman fires the team’s fitness coach. Things just feel—I don’t know—wrong somehow.
Here is an example. We beat the Twins on the 9th and 10th, thanks to A-Rod, who hits a homer in both games. I definitely brighten whenever he comes to the plate now instead of hiding my eyes like I did last year. But then we lose the finale on the 11th. Mussina departs early with a strained hamstring, and Farnsworth gives up four runs in a third of an inning, causing me to hurl abuses at him. I don’t love his geeky glasses or his titanium necklace that is supposed to promote positive energy flow. Please. He doesn’t get batters out, and he sulks while he’s at it.
The A’s arrive at the Stadium on Friday, and we lose to them in 11 innings. Igawa is unimpressive again, but it is Farnsworth who serves up the homer in the seventh to tie the game at 4–4. We have to ship this guy back to wherever he came from and get someone else. We beat Oakland on Saturday—yes, A-Rod hits another bomb—but lose to the A’s on Sunday in a heartbreaking and disturbing way: Mo gives up a three-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to Marco Scutaro. He tells the media he is fine, but I will tell you who is not fine: Pavano and Mussina. They both go on the 15-day DL. This is why I am panicking. I have developed intermittent headaches and am ready to go on the 15-day DL myself.
AL EAST STANDINGS/APRIL 15
TEAM W L PCT GB
BOSTON 6 4 .600 —
TORONTO 7 5 .583 —
BALTIMORE 6 6 .500 1.0
NEW YORK 5 6 .455 1.5
TAMPA BAY 5 7 .417 2.0
Week 3 April 16, 2007
I don’t know if they’re superstitions or habits, but yeah, I have them. Like if we won last night, I’ll take the exact same way to the park the next day, whether there’s traffic or not. And if we’re really rolling, I’ll eat the same thing until we lose. I’m not the only one, either. Joe holds Derek’s bat during every game. And every time Joe goes to the mound, Derek taps him on the N-Y. We all have our stuff.
Cleveland comes into town for three games, and we finally have a punching bag. We sweep them. Chase Wright, the rookie pitcher du jour, wins his major league debut, but the series is all about A-Rod. He hits a homer in each game, and I am starting to fall for him in that way women fall for men who come to their rescue. He is coming to my rescue right now. He is a big, strong, good-looking hero who is giving me a reason to think that the Yankees will pull out of this funk. My only bone to pick with him is that he uses too much gloss. A hero who comes to your rescue should not have lips that are shinier and plumper than yours.
Like many fans, I am superstitious, and it is this weekend against the Red Sox at Fenway that this personality quirk of mine pops out like a rash. I remind myself that it is only April and the division title is not at stake, plus all the other bullshit things you say in an attempt not to descend into the madness that is this rivalry. Nothing works.
I can’t decide what to wear for the game or where to sit.
I have lucky clothes. If I am wearing my Bernie Williams T-shirt and the Yankees win, I will wear the Bernie Williams T-shirt until they lose. Only then does it go into the hamper, and only then do I pull out the Derek Jeter T-shirt.
I have lucky food. If I eat pasta for dinner and the Yankees win, I will eat pasta for dinner until they lose, then switch to, say, turkey burgers.
I have lucky sitting/standing positions. The living room’s sitting options are the white sofa directly across from the TV or one of the two club chairs, which are slipcovered in a nubby green fabric, have ottomans, and are sort of like chic Barcaloungers. If I am sitting on the sofa when the Yankees win, I will sit on the sofa—on the same cushion—until they lose, then either move to one of the chairs for the next game or watch it standing directly in front of the TV. And speaking of TVs, we have two in our house. If I am watching the one in the living room and the Yankees lose, I will move to the one in the bedroom the next time.
I never invite friends over to watch a game, not since Laurie and Peter Grad came for dinner during game seven of the 2001 World Series. It was not Mo’s fault that the Diamondbacks scored off him in the ninth. It was my fault for turning my head away from the TV to offer Laurie and Peter some chocolate mousse cake with crème fraîche. I will not make that mistake again.
And I pray for the Yankees in actual churches. I am a nice Jewish girl from Scarsdale, but my nonbeliever mother sent me to Camp Birchmere, a quasi-Christian sleepaway camp where I sang the doxology before every Sunday dinner for eight summers. I have been drawn to churches ever since—not to their dogma but to their rituals, their majesty, their beauty. In fact, Michael and I went to the Easter vigil at the Santa Barbara Mission on Saturday night. A historic landmark in California, the Old Mission is also a thriving Catholic parish, and the place was overflowing with worshippers. During the candlelight service, I made sure to throw in an appeal for the Yanks. “At the very least, please don’t let them embarrassme in Boston” is how I put it.
These maneuvers are simply my attempt to feel that I am in control over baseball situations when, in fact, I have no control over them whatsoever. I hate that.
The opener at Fenway on the 20th is a catchup between Schilling and Pettitte, and neither gets the decision. A-Rod hits not one but two homers, passing Willie Stargell and Stan Musial on the all-time list with 476. We are ahead 6–2 until the eighth, when Joe goes to Mo for a five-out save. I like Joe. I do. But I disapprove of his use of Mo in the eighth. To prove my point, Mo gives up a single to Varitek, a triple to Crisp, and a single to Cora, and we lose 7–6. I despise Red Sox fans for many reasons, one of which is that they cannot seem to let go of their bitterness toward the Yankees, even though they were the ones who won the damn World Series in 2004. Get over your sad and pathetic history, people, and move on! But what really galls me is how they brag that their players have “figured Mo out” and that their closer, Jonathan “Pap Smear” Papelbon, is better. Come back to me when he has over 400 saves.
We lose the Saturday game, too. This time it is by the score of 7–5. It is remarkable that we almost win, given that our starter is a kid named Jeff Karstens and their starter is their ace, Josh Beckett, and that David Ortiz—“Big Sloppy”—drives in four runs. There is nothing more sickening than watching that guy hang all over the plate and never having our pussy pitchers knock him on his ass.
We lose the finale on Sunday 7–6. The Red Sox sweep. Chase Wright, the rookie pitcher from the other night, gives up four consecutive home runs in the third inning, equaling a major league record. I gnash my teeth as I watch Manny, Drew, Lowell, and Varitek round the bases. Maybe God has a different idea than I do regarding what constitutes embarrassment. Or maybe He didn’t hear me at the Easter vigil because Easter is His peak season and He was overbooked.
After the game on Sunday night, Michael and I argue about Brian Cashman, of all people. I say the Yankees keep losing because of the crappy pitchers he is putting on the mound, and Michael says it is not Cashman’s fault that Wang and Mussina are on the DL.
“He’s using the rookies because he has no choice,” he says.
“What about Igawa and Pavano?” I counter. “He must have been delusional to think the Yankees could win with them in the rotation.”
“Winning.” He shakes his head in disapproval. “You’re supposed to appreciate the journey, not just the destination.”
“Money doesn’t grow on trees, a watched pot never boils, and two wrongs don’t make a right. Got it.”
“My point is that you should enjoy watching the games. Why are they such torture for you?”
When did I become the sort of fan who takes baseball so seriously? When did the simple pleasure of watching my team evolve into an all-consuming lust for victory?
Not in my teenage years, although lust of another sort figured prominently. I was in high s
chool when I developed major crushes on ballplayers. I loved Mickey, of course, and had pictures of him taped to the walls of my bedroom right next to my Beatles posters. But in 11th and 12th grades, I branched out and started focusing on other, lesser players like Steve Whitaker, who wore number nine, played right field, and was very, very cute. My fantasy was to date a Yankee and marry a Yankee and have lots of Yankee children. Never mind that most of the Yankees were already married; I was oblivious to their real lives. And never mind that I was a virgin with no clue how to be anything else; in my imagination, my special Yankee and I would flirt and hold hands and maybe even make out, but that was the extent of it. I wanted to know how to meet my Yankee, go on dates with him, and still get my homework done.
Susan, my older sister, was engaged to Bob, a lawyer who lived in the city in an apartment next door to three girls—three girls who happened to be baseball groupies. He introduced me, and they were kind enough to coach me in the art. All I had to do was swap my teenybopper, suburban look for an older, more provocative one, show up at the ballpark for batting practice, and hang out near the railing acting “approachable.” This was before Yankee Stadium was policed by security people who eject you for even thinking about acting approachable. “If a player likes you, he’ll send an usher to get your phone number,” said Barb, the ringleader.
I was a senior at Scarsdale High when the’68 season began. I was ready to head to Yankee Stadium to snag myself a player. There was just one problem: I didn’t have a car. I needed an accomplice. And it couldn’t be one of the boys with whom I often went to games. I didn’t troll for players when I was at the Stadium with my buddies Bubba, Jimmy, Christy, and Steve; I actually watched baseball with them. Besides, I would look unavailable if I were sitting with a guy.
Lee Eisner was my friend from Camp Birchmere. She had no interest in baseball, but she had a bronze Mustang. I convinced her that it would be fun to go out with a Yankee or at least try to.
We hatched a plan. Each time we ventured to the Bronx, we told our parents we were going to the library or someplace equally benign-sounding. We would hop on the Major Deegan and change into our slutty clothes once we got to the ballpark. We would tease our hair and go heavy-handed on the makeup and put on very short skirts and tight tops. Neither of us had a boyfriend nor a clue what to do with one; we were baffled by the mechanics of actual sex. Lee once used the shift of her car to demonstrate to me how to give a guy a hand job, but questions remained about how fast, how slow, when to stop.
We would arrive 2 hours before the game, buy tickets, strut down to the front row of the field boxes, and hover. There were no guards in those days, so nobody chased us away.
“Hey, Pepitone!” I would shout. “That was some shot you hit yesterday!”
“Thanks,” he would say and come over to talk to us.
It was thrilling. When the players went into the dugout after BP, we would maintain our position and wait for an usher to show up to secure our names and numbers. It didn’t happen. Not at first.
But then one of the players did call us. Well, he called me. Lee and I had gone to batting practice the day before, decked out like hookers, and I was chatting up Ruben Amaro, who was probably old enough to be my father. He asked for my number and I gave it to him, never imagining that he would use it.
I was getting ready for school in the morning when the phone rang. My mother answered it. She knocked on my bedroom door looking suspicious.
“A man named Ruben is asking for Juanita,” she said, tightening the sash around her bathrobe.
I felt my heart lurch. “He’s my Spanish teacher.”
Before my mother could remember that I took French that year, I ran downstairs to the phone in the kitchen. It had along cord so I could stretch it out and talk in the hallway.
“Hello?” I whispered. “This is Juanita. a. I mean, Jane.”
“Thisis Ruben,” he said. “Did I wake you up?”
“I had to get up for school. I have a calculus test this morning.”
“How about you and your pretty friend meet me and a friend tonight at Stella D’oro?”
Stella D’oro? Wasn’t that a breadstick?
“The restaurant,” he clarified. “Off the Deegan in the Bronx.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said, wondering what excuse I would give my parents this time.
“See you later,” said Ruben.
Oh my God! Lee and I were going on a date! With two Yankees! That very night!
I was not interested in marrying Ruben Amaro, but he was the Yankee who called, not Mickey Mantle or even Steve Whitaker, so we went. Lee’s date was a player neither of us can remember now. What we do remember is that the four of us sat at a table at Stella D’oro, had something to eat and drink, and flirted. But when the two Yankees reached for us and tried to kiss us on the lips, we would not let them. They were very sweet about it—they did not call us cock teases or throw drinks on us—but they realized we were not groupies after all, just a couple of chaste princesses from Westchester.
The incident emboldened us. We’d had a brush with sex and survived, so we kept going to batting practice to get picked up by Yankees.
Eventually word spread that we were not worth the trouble. Undaunted, I asked the girls who lived next door to my now brother-in-law for introductions to players on other teams, just for kicks. For example, I had drinks with two relief pitchers from the California Angels when they were in New York to play the Yanks: a journeyman named George Brunet and the infamous spitballer Jack Hamilton. I met them at a bar on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and got drunk on screwdrivers, the only alcoholic beverage I could think of to order. George and Jack were very large men who seemed amused by how much I knew about baseball and treated me like their kid sister.
In the summer of ’68, Lee and I took our act to France. We spent 2 months on the Riviera meeting cute French boys and then refusing to have sex with them, too. Lee just said no to them, but I was more creative. I carried a picture of Mickey Mantle in my wallet and when a boy got a little too friendly, I whipped out Mickey’s picture, pointed to it, and said, “Mon fiancé. Je l’aime.”
AL EAST STANDINGS/APRIL 22
TEAM W L PCT GB
boston 12 5 .706 —
baltimore 11 7 .611 1.5
new york 8 9 .471 4.0
toronto 8 10 .444 4.5
tampa bay 7 11 .389 5.5
Week 4 April 23, 2007
Everything’s contagious in baseball. How many times do you see a guy make a good play and then somebody else makes a good play? Then there’s a game where the ball hits off a guy’s glove, and then another ball doesn’t get run down in the gap. Winning is contagious. Unfortunately, so is losing.
After the sweep at Fenway, I start watching the games with a new wariness—an increased sense that this team, with its undeveloped rookies and its creaky vets, does not have it.
Here is why: On the 23rd and 24th, we lose two to the Devil Rays at Tropicana Field. If that is not the depths of misery, I don’t know what is. Igawa stinks up the first game, allowing seven runs. And Wang, fresh off the DL, starts the second game, only to have Myers serve up a grand slam to Carl Crawford.
Joe Torre says it is too early to panic, but the Yankees are officially panicking. They announce that Phil Hughes, the pitching prospect whose golden arm was supposed to get a full year of seasoning down on the farm, will make his major league debut versus Toronto on the 25th. It feels like a desperation move instead of a promotion.
It is on this night that the insomnia starts. I don’t sleep well when the Yankees lose, but I don’t sleep at all when they are in the cellar.
The first of the two-game home stand against Toronto is rained out on the 25th, so Hughes makes his debut on the 26th. He is not the phenom I was hoping for. We lose 6–0. Now the bats are cold, too. According to Michael Kay on the YES Network, the Yankees are off to their worst 20-game start since 1991.
I picture the Yankees team from 1991. They we
re a sad, sad group that year except for Mattingly, but—come to think of it—I didn’t get upset about losing in those days. I was still the sort of fan who enjoyed watching them no matter how badly they played. No rants about whether they were trying hard enough. No superstitious behavior in an effort to nudge them to victory. No gnashing of teeth. No insomnia. I just loved them and that was that, to honor and to cherish, for better or worse.
That is also the year I starting dating Michael. I was separated from my second husband and renting a house in Connecticut and figuring I would be off men for the rest of my life. I was 0-for-2, after all. But then I was set up with Michael at a friend’s dinner party, and he called a few days later, asking if he could stop by.
“Thanks, but I’m really busy right now,” I said.
“With what? It’s Sunday afternoon.”
“I’m watching a Yankees game. They’re getting killed, but they could always come back.”
“I’m a Yankee fan,” said Michael. “I’ll watch the game with you.”
“If you want.”
Even then I put baseball first. I don’t know why he didn’t run like hell in the other direction, but instead he drove right over.
I fell in love with him for many reasons. He is a guy’s guy who knows about race cars and can fix household gadgets and thinks being on a sailboat during a storm is fun. He is also a sensitive soul who is not afraid to tear up when something moves him. It didn’t hurt that he had a bearded-photographer, Bridges of Madison County hero look that I found rather appealing.
But I also fell in love with him because we shared a passion for the Yankees.
“When I was 13, I broke my ankle playing football with my friends,” he told me that Sunday afternoon. “My father wanted to take me to the hospital, but I just knew Roger Maris would hit his 60th home run that day. I refused to go until the game was over.”