Archive for March 2009

Reviews of Yankee Stadium and Citi Field from The New Yorker. The reviews themselves wind around in typical New Yorkery style, but end up here: A stadium is a stage set as sure as anything on Broadway, and it determines the tone of the dramas within. Citi Field suggests a team that wants to be […]

Given that the Astros’ catching situation was described as “dire” last week, this makes a lot of sense: Catcher Ivan Rodriguez has agree to a one-year, $1.5 million contract with the Houston Astros, a source told ESPN’s Steve Phillips on Monday. Rodriguez can make an additional $1.5 million in performances bonuses. At the World Baseball […]

The Yankees, unlike every other business in the world, are not having trouble securing credit: The New York Yankees earlier this month borrowed $105 million from a group of banks led by Goldman Sachs to cover final cost overruns at the new Yankee Stadium, sources said. The loan brings the total debt on the stadium, […]

Many of you couldn’t give a hoot about the plight of newspapers and the future of media. If you’re one of the hootless, please move along. If you do hoot, then you have some must-reading today, in the form of Clay Shirky’s devestatingly insightful post about the death of newspapers and how, for all of […]

Willie Mays is helping Aaron Rowand: When Aaron Rowand took a seat at Mays’ table in the Giants’ clubhouse last week, something important was happening. For all the talk of Rowand’s prolonged hitting slump during his first season with the Giants, his fielding troubles might have been more crucial. Rowand did not always get great […]

In law school they tought us that fans more or less assume the risk of balls and bats and stuff flying into the stands at ballgames. Not so in Iowa, at least when you’re a kid: The lawsuit stems from a June 2003 Quad City River Bandits game in Davenport that Tara Sweeney, 8, attended […]

I always liked Ron Silver. Even if his daughter didn’t know that her boyfriend’s father WAS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY!!!

Lew Wolff has given what seems like the final kiss-off to Oakland: The Oakland A’s have “exhausted” their time and resources with the city of Oakland in a search for a new home, and have “no interest in covering old ground again,” A’s owner Lew Wolff said in a statement released Friday . . . […]

I continue to not get excited about the WBC, but that doesn’t mean that the off-the-field stuff isn’t interesting. For example, there’s all kinds of fun stuff in Jack Curry’s WBC notes piece. Like the fact that Bernie Williams was either (a) wrongfully accused of striking that woman or (b) is really getting the wagons […]

You’ve seen him on YouTube. Now learn more about him at the NYT: [Gar] Ryness has a singular talent: an ability to perform comically dead-on impressions of major league baseball hitters upon request. Little Leaguers have been known to try to imitate their favorite ballplayers. Ryness, 35, a married father of two, can do the […]