Comments on: Yanks make it official: Pettitte to duel Pedro in Game 6

By: Otelia Ryburn

Otelia Ryburn — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:29:11 +0000

A thoughtful insight and ideas I will use on my blog. You’ve obviously spent some time on this. Well done!

By: John

John — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:05:38 +0000

Sorry Ditto that is all I have to offer. Congrats to you and your Yankees! Now leave me alone and let me choke down this humble pie & JD in peace. PHILLIES ARE OUT!!! MARK MY WORDS!!!

By: Ditto

Ditto — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:06:18 +0000

Phillies in Seven? Seven what? I marked your words, and only wasted ink. Thanks John. Thanks for nothin’.

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:17:19 +0000

Oops! It seems I’ve become so flustered with all of this talk regarding great literary works that I forgot to close my last message with… PHILLIES IN SEVEN!!! MARK MY WORDS!!!
I only hope that I haven’t jinxed them in anyway by not doing so. *crosses fingers*

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:14:25 +0000

I will take note of “Blood Meridian” and put it on my books to read list. Now let me ask if you’ve ever read “A Confederacy of Dunces” by the late John Kennedy Toole? If so disregard the rest of this post but if you haven’t read it you must add it to your books to read list as it features many, if not all, of the elements used by Vonnegut & HST. And you’re right for they do indeed live on… along with Mencken.

By: TF in Tampa

TF in Tampa — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:25:58 +0000

Ok, Ok, I feel your pain too. The Trop is old and tired and the Rays need new diggs. However, When its 90 degrees at game time and its a cool and comfortable 70 degrees inside, we do what we have to do and don’t complain too much about it.
I was hoping for the new stadium to be approved at the downtown waterfront local, but NG for now.
So, do I get an invite to the wedding, [you guys really connected] or are you and John calling it quits after tonights game? [I'll miss the indepth renderings]
Enjoy the game!

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:15:22 +0000

John - Just a quick comment, still off-topic and gleefully so - transgression is my essence, my life-force. If you loved Thompson, Vonnegut and Mencken (who are not dead but yet live!) and you want to experience a really sick sense of humor at work, you gotta read Cormac McCarthy's real masterpiece, Blood Meridian (The Road is a great work but it's not in the same league as Blood Meridian). Imagine Larry McMurtry crossed with Shakespeare on very bad strychnine-laced acid. Now back to business. This ought to be a great game tonight. It's cold as a bucket of penguin drech up here in New York (and what the hell am I doing north of Jacksonville in November, anyway?) so the team with the most mulled cider in the clubhouse wins.

By: TF in Tampa

TF in Tampa — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:57:41 +0000

Slow down there Ace. I’ve been to a couple of games in the Bronx, even a few Pennent chasers. You cannot believe the electricity that gets generated during some regular season rival games, let alone the sixth [and I might say final] WS game. If you ever thought home field advantage didn’t matter, Think Again!!
Right now the Boys of Summer are arriving at the Stadium, stepping out of those megabucks speed rockets they drive, Thousands of their fans are there chanting their names like they do at the beginning of each game, getting the players all pumped, and this all before the game starts. Once inside, the intensity builds to the point of….. no return! And that , my friend John and to all your followers, is the final Headline.
“Yankees Dethrone Phillies Win World Series in 6″
Enjoy the game,
TF in Tampa

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:55:33 +0000

See my opinion of sporting facilities in the Tampa Bay area on the Iwamura to Pittsburgh blog. I was being charitable, too.

By: Shely

Shely — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:23:26 +0000

This is serious now. John, don’t forget the shrinks appointment tomorrow A.M.
REMEMBER:
Bombers in 6

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:01:13 +0000

You’re absolutely right TF back to the business at hand, enough with all of this gobbly gook regarding dead authors… as great as they may have been, for tonight Philadelphia takes one more step (the step before the final step) to another WS title!
And bfd, I’m sorry but you’ll have to wait at least one more year for your beloved Yankees to get that elusive 27th WS Pennant but look on the bright side 10, as opposed to 9, is a nice round clean number. PHILLIES IN SEVEN!!! MARK MY WORDS!!!

By: bfd

bfd — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:32:37 +0000

john, you are funny!!! i am reading all of these and i get a kick out of them. both pettite and burnett pitch very well on short notice, unfortunately, burnett just had a bad day. pettite has a ton of experience in tough games and i think he will prevail. as for wearing my team proudly, i wear yankee gear whether they win or lose. that is a true fan. you take the good years and the bad years. i have been waiting for 9 years for another title and i wear them proudly. it seems like everybody else brings up the yankees payroll not the yankee fans. everybody else is just jealous that the yankees have the best fans in the world because if it wasn’t for us, they wouldn’t be who they are today. YANKEES IN SIX!!!!!! THE EVIL EMPIRE WILL COME THROUGH!!!!!

By: TF in Tampa

TF in Tampa — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:15:23 +0000

Helloooo there John and Old Gator, you guys are really sharp and intelligent too, we can all see that. Next we’ll be hearing about wedding balls I mean bells and all that nasty stuff that follows.
This is suppose to be about Baseball and the WS, not critiquing each others downtime reading habits. Get back to the business at hand, you both must have forgotten to take your Focus Factor meds this morning.
My wife was put on notice Tues morning over coffee, the 60′HDTV is mine from 7:30pm till Rivera and Posada are hugging each at the mound and Frankie’s singing “NEW YORK, NEW YORK” for the last time this season.
What drama tonight! The Heros from centerfields Monument park will be all over the new stadium tonight and smiling when its finished and in the history books. Oh no, I’m back to the books thing again.
Think Baseball!!!

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:46:08 +0000

I must say that I enjoyed your synopsis of Vonnegut and Mencken. Like you I too picture Gene Kelly’s dashing looks whenever I think of Mr. Mencken and for some odd reason I also picture Spencer Tracy’s face as Henry Drummond as well. But I digress for while I can’t come close to any of the experiences you shared regarding both writers I can say that I share the same love of both. Actually what got me into reading both Vonnegut and Mencken were the constant references of each in the various works of Thompson (only later did I learn that the Hornbeck character was based on Mencken).
While I haven’t read the complete set of Mencken’s “American Language” I have read parts, along with various short stories and articles by him. After reading his obit of William Jennings Bryan one can clearly see the influence he had on HST, especially when reading the obit he did on Tricky Dick, both of which are scathingly funny and sad depending on one’s opinion of Bryan & Nixon I guess.
As for Vonnegut the first work of his I read was “Breakfast of Champions” and have been hooked ever since. Just recently I finished “Armageddon In Retrospect” and loved every bit of it especially the final speech he wrote (presented by his son) at Clowes Hall in Indianapolis.
Rolling doughnut indeed! PHILLIES IN SEVEN!!! MARK MY WORDS!!!

By: willmose

willmose — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:26:19 +0000

As I said before, pitching AJ on three days rest was the biggest mistake of the series. Why? Because it leads to Pettitte on three days rest, and then CC on three days rest. Pettitte line won’t be any better than Burnett’s. Of course, the Yankees could come back late and win it tonight. If there is a game 7, it will again feature a Yankee starter on three days rest. Setting the series up so you have to pitch the starters with three days in the last four games is not easiest way to win the series.

By: James

James — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:51:06 +0000

I have always despaired at ‘team fans’ with this gotta win, gotta win dont care how but gotta win.These’team fans’ will even slag off their own players if they have an off night.
For a change do yourselves a favour and please enjoy the game for what it is – entertainment, and cease this tit for tat fanaticism that demeans us all.

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:28:21 +0000

Very, very...synchronous (Jungian for "weird"). See the message I put up for you on the "Lawyers, Guns and Money" blog re Zervon and Thompson just before segueing overt thisaway. Let's do Mencken first. Got my big, leather-bound two volume set of The American Language proudly displayed up on the shelf here and, to make matters even more synchronous, my dad used to take me to Luchow's - Mencken's favorite restaurant this side of the stargate - on a regular basis when I was a kid. There was a photo of Mencken dining there on the wall above our usual booth, signed, and I didn't appreciate who he was until about twenty years later. Great schnitzel a la hollstein there, by the way; Mencken was definitely right about the food (as about most other things). Someone once long ago called Geraldo Rivera the "H. L. Mencken" of his age and I damned near cracked a rib laughing. But even though he looked slightly like the real Al Capone but with hair, I'll always confuse Mencken in my own fevered imagination with Gene Kelly as Hornbeck in Inherit the Wind. Vonnegut. I used to read to my youngest son from Cat's Cradle (as well as from Kafka's Metamorphosis) instead of Mother Goose when he was little. Musta took because he systematically moved my entire library of Vonnegut, reading volume by volume starting with Sirens of Titan slowly from my study to his room throughout junior high school. He's in pre-law at Bard College now, fully intending to become the next William Kunstler, but he wants to win his cases. It has to be the Vonnegut. Anyway, I saw Kurt speak down here once, and he was, predictably, hysterical. When he died I went around in sackcloth and ashes for a week. Like I did when Jeffrey Loria dismantled the Marlins again. And best of all, if you ever get on the wrong side of an issue from me, I can tell you that you know what you can do with your rolling doughnut and know that you got the message loud and clear.

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:55:37 +0000

And I mean that as a compliment as HST was one of the greats! Right up there with Vonnegut and Mencken. PHILLIES IN SEVEN!!! MARK MY WORDS!!!

By: John

John — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:49:56 +0000

Old Gator are you sure you’re not Hunter S. Thompson incarnate? For that last passage had a definte Gonzo feel about it. PHILLIES IN SEVEN!!! MARK MY WORDS!!!

By: Hey It's Todd

Hey It's Todd — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:32:13 +0000

Will PED-it and HGH-Fraud be able to bring a title to CASHMan’s Yankees? Here’s to a good case of swine flu ripping through the Yank’s clubhouse!

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:08:03 +0000

To John and Bowman: you two guys remind me of that wise old saying: “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don’t.”
I don’t think anyone is going to be “rocked” tomorrow. Burnett may have taken all the evil spirits and rotten karma downtown with him. I think it’s going to be the tightest, tensest, most interesting game of the series, no matter who wins. As they say, I have no horses in this race; I prefer cockfighting and ratting dogs, this being Santeria country down here. Last week we sacrificed the local PETA chapter secretary to Ghede Nimbo and just let the roosters have at each other. Really rattled the old gazebo. Divining from the chicken entrails, I saw Petite and Pedro and their respective teams locked in a classic gutbuster. Not being particularly invested in either team, I can just sit back and enjoy the pure theatre.

By: John

John — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:09:22 +0000

Couldn’t have said it better myself Theif and Lair. You know regardless of what anyone says about you you’re alright in my book. PHILLIES IN SEVEN!!! MARK MY WORDS!!!

By: your daddy

your daddy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:03:26 +0000

MC, i can’t argue that there are knoledgable yankee fans in the world, and that the ones i have unfortunately had to deal with are not the majority. i regret never getting to a game in old yankee stadium because of the history that happened there. anyone that in not envious of the accomplishments the yankees have had would be lying if they said different. i’m not playing the ’04 card, i was just trying to make the point that with the majority of the fans i have had the displeasure of dealing with get stuck in an endless loop of throwing the 26 titles in my face in “conversation”. i know plenty of yankee fans that i would take a bullet for. as far as ’04 goes, yes the sox were outscored and for the most part outplayed in that series. there are also the sox fans that can’t say anything other that that as well and they are no better. i read a post from a yankee fan the other day that said something about making money and then investing it back in to the team, thats how you grow and become stronger. very true. not taking away that the yanks are a diehard bunch and will do just about anything to stay on top. nothing wrong with that. and truthfully, it not their fault that they grew up in decade that was purly dominated by the yanks so for a lack of a better tearm they have been spoiled by it, just realize everyones shite stinks and what goes around comes around. enjoy what you have while you have it

By: MC

MC — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:44:08 +0000

Your Daddy, you seem very cynical towards the fans of the Yanx. If you were to attend a game and notice how a majority of the fans there are quite knowledgable about the game and truely do know baseball. Listening to fans that are from nebraska who are “yankees” fans is not a good way to form your opinion.
To answer your other questions, the yankees fans who know point to 26 world titles because the nearest competition is at like 12. The Yankees have LOST more WS’s than any other team has won. The yankees had one bad situation in 2004. That should never overshadow 26 good ones. And up until that point they had also completely and utterly dominated the team involved in that debacle. So play whatever card you want. The true yankees fans know that A) their owner is more committed than any other in the league, and that B) 27 is just around the corner. No matter what John says,,,,mark my words….

By: RD

RD — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:11:06 +0000

Burnett had a bad day, but the Yankees roughed up Lee for 5 runs, if they can get 6 runs off Lee, just think what do to Pedro without him
getting extra rest, plus Matsui is in the Lineup. Yankees in 6, Andy
Pettite always is clutch.

By: kilroy

kilroy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:09:30 +0000

Ummmm………..I read what you wrote and its pure garbage!!!
“when you lose its living in the past with “we have 26 titles” and excuse after excuse to why the payroll didn’t work this time….when anyone form another team brings up somethink like 2004 ist “thats history, quit living in the past”….you can’t have it both ways…thats why no one likes you….win graciously & lose graciously, or better yet JUST SHUT THE F UP!!!!!”
Its crap like this that YOU wrote where I say SHUT THE F UP BITCH!! While your at it, take a class in English and learn how to spell.

By: Mode:Theif and Lair

Mode:Theif and Lair — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:08:52 +0000

John, can I take a shot at this?
How’s this for making sense, PHILLIES IN SEVEN!! MARK MY WORDS!!!

By: Ditto

Ditto — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:59:21 +0000

John – you also keep repeating a sentence that makes little sense.

By: John

John — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:58:54 +0000

And you Bowman clearly lack proper grammar, punctuation and spelling skills. Along with that you clearly take things waaaaay too serious. PHILLIES IN SEVEN!!! MARK MY WORDS!!!

By: your daddy

your daddy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:58:42 +0000

ummm, again, never said anything about the team, money, farm system, etc…just the poor sports, win or lose, MOST yankee fans are….and again, i’m a fan of the game…even when a-rod makes a sick play, i give credit…go to anger management classes, take a breath and read what i had to say again…