A Slimmer CC Sabathia Means Business in 2011

Despite being the best pitcher on the most successful franchise in sports, CC Sabathia is underrated. The New York Yankees ace has won an American League-leading 40 baseball games the last two years while helping his team win the 2009 World Series. But each time, he got snubbed by voters for the Cy Young Award, which goes to the best pitcher in each major league. Cy Young voters seem to prefer pitchers who excel on lesser teams, as Sabathia did in 2007 when he won the award as a Cleveland Indian. The Yankees, with their major league-high $221 million payroll, are hardly underdogs. But Carsten Charles Sabathia — who prefers to be known as CC without the periods - seems determined to be more dominant in 2011 and beyond, whether he wins awards or not. During the winter break, the 6-foot-7 left-hander shed 25 pounds, from 315 to 290, he said, "by not eating Cap’n Crunch every day. I could eat a box at a time." Dropping that bad habit was smart. According to the product’s nutritional information, one box of the cereal contains 1,400 calories. Eating a boxful is equivalent to 10 tablespoons of sugar. Sabathia, 30, has also begun working with a personal trainer and a nutritionist. "This was just something to try to extend my career," he said. Sabathia, a four-time all-star, said he intends to lose more weight, which is fine with the Yankees because he has shown in two starts this season that he’s lost nothing off a fastball that consistently tops 90 miles per hour.

The Indomitable Mariano Rivera

With Trevor Hoffman announcing his retirement from baseball this week, Mariano Rivera stands ready to take possession of the only significant record for relief pitchers that he does not currently hold.

Hoffman, who ended his career with the Milwaukee Brewers, retired with 601 career saves.

Rivera, the New York Yankees relief ace since 1997, has 559 saves, only 42 behind Hoffman.

The number 42 is particularly significant for Rivera. He is the only player in the major leagues still wearing No. 42.

Jackie Robinson was baseball’s most famous No. 42. Major League Baseball officially retired the number on April 15, 1997 — the 50th anniversary of Robinson becoming the majors’ first black player with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Players who already wore No. 42 during the 1997 season were allowed to keep the number until they retired. Rivera is the only such player left.

Rivera has worn No. 42 with such distinction that he, like Robinson, will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer someday.

No relief pitcher in the history of baseball has been better than Rivera. Here’s a point-by-point comparison between Rivera and Hoffman:

Age:
Rivera: 41
Hoffman: 43

Major League Baseball seasons:
Rivera: 16
Hoffman: 18

Regular season saves:
Rivera: 559
Hoffman: 601

Regular season games:
Rivera: 978
Hoffman: 1035

Regular season ERA:
Rivera: 2.23
Hoffman: 2.87

All-Star appearances:
Rivera: 8
Hoffman: 7

Postseason saves:
Rivera: 42
Hoffman: 4

Postseason games:
Rivera: 94
Hoffman: 12

Postseason ERA:
Rivera: 0.71
Hoffman: 3.46

World Series championships:
Rivera: 5
Hoffman: 0

As the numbers clearly show, Rivera has been far superior to Hoffman in postseason games, when the stakes are highest and the pressure and media scrutiny are the greatest.

Only once did Rivera and Hoffman go head-to-head in the postseason. In the 1998 World Series, Rivera’s Yankees swept Hoffman’s San Diego Padres. Hoffman went 0-1 with one blown save and a 9.00 ERA while Rivera was perfect, saving all three games in which he appeared without allowing a run.

And Rivera is equally impressive off the field.

Growing up the son of a fisherman in La Chorrera, Panama, Rivera learned at an early age the value of hard work, religious faith and giving back to others.

Yet he remains humble, hard-working and altruistic despite the phenomenal success he has enjoyed as a Yankees reliever since 1995.

(When the Yankees won the 1996 World Series, Rivera excelled as John Wetteland’s set-up man. Rivera became the closer a year later.)

Married and the father of three sons, Rivera has helped finance the construction of an elementary school, a church and computer centers in his native country.

This winter, Rivera has delivered Christmas gifts to children in Bronx, NY, where the Yankees play their home games, and Panama. He does this without seeking publicity.

But his many contributions on the mound have been impossible to conceal.

Rivera dominates hitters with a devastating fastball that seems to grow teeth and bore in on hitters, often turning their bats into firewood. The fastball, along with his mental toughness and resilience, has set Rivera apart.

"I think the key to be successful in the closer role is to learn how to bounce back after the blown save or the losing circumstance," Rivera says. "Learn to come back from that and put that behind you."

Rivera overcame adversity in his first season as the Yankees’ relief ace. With the Yankees just four outs from winning the 1997 American League Division Series against the Cleveland Indians, Rivera gave up a game-tying home run to Sandy Alomar Jr. Cleveland went on to win the game and the series.

Rather than be haunted by that failure, Rivera came back stronger. He helped the Yankees win the next three World Series — and did not allow an earned run in any of his 18 postseason appearances in 1998 and ’99.

Consistency on the field and off has been a major reason for Rivera’s success. He doesn’t just kill time in the bullpen and wait to be called upon in the late innings. He remains a student of the game.

"Watch the game, pay attention to the hitters and once I do that I have some kind of idea on how to attack them," he says.

Yankees fans have come to expect satisfaction whenever Rivera emerges from the bullpen at Yankee Stadium to the tune of Metallica’s "Enter Sandman." And Rivera rarely disappoints.

Rivera, who recently signed a two-year contract worth $15 million a season, has averaged 35 saves a year during his career. That means sometime during the 2012 season, he should surpass Hoffman and become baseball’s all-time leader in saves.

Rivera is already baseball’s greatest relief pitcher ever. But after he breaks Hoffman’s record, there won’t be any doubt.

Why I Love the Yankees

By winning another World Series, the best team money can buy is good enough for other baseball fans to hate again.

I’m old enough to be the father of most players on the 2009 New York Yankees.

But to watch them celebrate their 27th World Series championship on the field at Yankee Stadium gave me as big a thrill as their titles in the '70s when I was a teenager.

My devotion to the Yankees began in the '60s, when I first spotted them on the family’s black-and-white Zenith in my Brooklyn neighborhood.

The Yankees usually lost in those days, and their most popular player, Mickey Mantle, hobbled around the bases, a shell of the legend he had been.

Still, I knew the Yankees had the richest baseball tradition and more World Series titles than any other team.

They also looked classy in their home uniforms: white with blue pinstripes and an overlapping NY on the left breast. Athletic business suits.

The advent of free agency in the ’70s allowed tempestuous owner George Steinbrenner to pay top dollar for talent, and the Yankees became great again.

Watching free agent Reggie Jackson smash three home runs on three pitches against three different pitchers to clinch the ’77 World Series remains the greatest athletic feat I’ve ever seen.

Jackson smiled when I told him that two decades later, when I became a Yankees beat writer for Gannett Newspapers.

Covering the team I rooted for as a boy was a dream job. The thrill was never greater than on October 27, 1996—the night the Yankees beat Atlanta, 3-2, to clinch their first World Series in 18 years.

Fortunately, I listened to veteran sportswriters and didn’t wear good clothes to that game because ballplayers do get a kick out of dousing reporters with champagne.

Those Yankees teams became a dynasty under manager Joe Torre, winning the World Series in 1996, ’98, ’99 and ’00.

Critics grouse that the Yankees “buy” their championships. Nonsense.

Baseball imposes no cap on players’ salaries, like football or basketball. Any baseball team can spend whatever it wants to acquire the best players.

Don’t you think Pittsburgh Pirates fans, whose team has had 17 consecutive losing seasons, wish ownership could target the right players and pay them like the Yankees?

You bet they do.

And because baseball has revenue sharing and imposes a luxury tax on teams that spend above the threshold on players’ salaries, the Yankees indirectly financed the Florida Marlins who beat them in the ’03 World Series and the Tampa Bay Rays who reached the ’08 World Series.

I love that the Yankees spend aggressively to put the best product on the field every year.

The Yankees don’t always win — this year’s title was their first since 2000 — but they always try.

Money from such revenue streams as the new $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium that opened in 2009 and the eight-year-old Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network helps the Yankees keep their core players under contract.

A quartet of young stars from the ’96 team I covered — shortstop Derek Jeter, catcher Jorge Posada, starting pitcher Andy Pettitte and relief pitcher Mariano Rivera — won their fifth World Series rings in 2009.

I’m proud of them. I’ve watched them grow up. And I look forward to the day Jeter and Rivera are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Money helped the Yankees surround their veteran corps with stars like third baseman Alex Rodriguez, pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and first baseman Mark Teixeira.

And money helped the Yankees sign Japanese slugger Hideki Matsui in 2003.

Yet even loyal Yankees fans understand baseball is a business.

Matsui is 35 now, with knees so creaky he can’t play the outfield anymore.

The Yankees will likely replace him, even though he earned World Series Most Valuable Player honors for driving in six runs with three hits in his final game.

Matsui will always have 2009, and the thrill of experiencing a championship with the team he loves.

So will I.

For the Yankees, it's all up to A-Rod

So much for the theory that actress Kate Hudson is the key to Alex Rodriguez’s dramatically improved hitting in the 2009 postseason.

No, A-Rod’s romance with Hudson was not the reason the New York Yankees third baseman hit as well during the American League Division Series win over the Twins and the AL Championship Series triumph over the Angels as he did in a 30-home run, 100-RBI regular season.

If Hudson had had anything to do with A-Rod’s offensive exploits, then they wouldn’t have ended so abruptly in Games 1 and 2 of the World Series.

A-Rod reached a historic low by going 0-for-8 with six strikeouts against the Phillies at Yankee Stadium.

Never before had any player gone 0-for-8 with 6Ks in his first two World Series games.

Were George Steinbrenner still the megalomaniacal Yankees owner of old, he surely would have fired Hudson by now.

"Hey, Alex, what about that gal from 'Friends?'" Steinbrenner would have asked. "The blonde gal with the hair? What’s her name?"

"Jennifer Aniston," a Yankees minion would have responded.

"Yeah, that’s her," Steinbrenner would have said. "She’s always looking for a man. It’s kind of pitiful, really. How about if I pull Kate’s tickets and invite Jennifer for the rest of the World Series? Would that help you, Alex?"

Truth is, nobody but A-Rod can help himself out of this slump. No one can stop A-Rod from lunging at pitches out of the strike zone and getting himself out, as he had done in postseason games from 2004 ALCS through 2007.

The A-Rod who looked so "locked in," as today’s players say, with every at-bat against the Twins and Angels, the A-Rod who, to borrow another jock cliché, "let the game come to him," now looks confused as he takes fastballs down the middle and gives up on off-speed pitches that break over the plate.

Although the Yankees managed to beat Philadelphia 3-1 in Game 2 with nary a contribution from A-Rod, they simply cannot win this best-of-seven series without a hefty contribution from their cleanup hitter.

A-Rod hit .438 in the first two rounds of the postseason with 5 home runs and 12 RBI. That includes late-inning, game-tying homers in Games 2 and 3 against the Twins and Game 2 against the Angels.

Rodriguez tied a postseason record in the first two rounds, driving in runs in eight consecutive games. The Phillies haven't seen that player so far in the World Series.

Since there are no more than five games left, beginning with Game 3 tonight at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, A-Rod needs to put an indelible stamp on each game. He isn't being paid a major league-high $28 million this season for nothing.

And it’s not enough for people to point to Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard’s 0-for-4, four-strikeout horror show in Game 2 and say, "Both teams’ cleanup hitters are struggling."

Howard already has had a starring role in the series with two doubles in Philly’s 6-1 romp in Game 1.

A-Rod’s only impact on the series so far came when he failed to field Matt Stairs’s grounder, which gave the Phillies a short-lived 1-0 lead in Game 2.

While it’s true the Yankees have a lineup of All-Stars and former All-Stars, no player is as important to the team’s offense as A-Rod.

Remember how the Yankees, especially first baseman Mark Teixeira, floundered at the plate until A-Rod made his 2009 debut on May 8 in Baltimore — slugging a three-run homer on the first pitch he saw?

That was no accident. The Yankees have been the best team in Major League Baseball ever since.

But now, the Phillies have an edge in Games 3-5. That’s because the games will be played by National League roles.

No designated hitter. Hideki Matsui, who as the No. 5 hitter usually provides protection for A-Rod, will be on the bench while Yankees pitchers flail hopelessly at the plate.

To overcome that disadvantage, the Yankees need A-Rod to perform as he did against the Twins and Angels.

And neither Kate Hudson nor The Octomom will have anything to do with it. It is all up to A-Rod.

Seeing the Yankees through Pinstriped Glasses

Since the New York Yankees are a great team again, a team on the cusp of a record 27th World Series championship, I am eager to hand out this year’s Penny Crone Award.

Never heard of Penny Crone?!

When I served as a Yankees beat reporter for Gannett a decade ago, Crone worked as a general assignment reporter on Channel 5, New York’s Fox network affiliate.

Those of us on the Yankees beat would never see Crone until the postseason, which was an annual rite of autumn for Joe Torre’s teams.

Crone, then a fifty-something bleached blonde with a voice that sounded as if she gargled with Drano, would sweep through the media workroom every day wearing a Yankees cap, on her way into the clubhouse or the stands to do the kind of fawning, pompom-waving "news" pieces for which local stations have become infamous.

While doing her stand-ups at the old Yankee Stadium, Crone wearing her Yankees cap was never heard on Channel 5 discussing the team without saying "we" or "us."

As in, "If we beat the Braves tonight, we’ll win our second World Series in a row and the third in four years. And does anybody hear think Atlanta’s gonna beat us?"

To which a crowd of onlookers, just thrilled to be on TV, shouted "Noooo!"

Anyone who thought New Yorkers were too sophisticated for such blatant shilling needed only to see and hear Crone. Come playoff time, she saw the world through pinstriped glasses.

Crone’s Yankees reports became memorable because when it came to sucking up to all things Yankees, she had no peer.

Alas, Crone continued to age. And once her face clearly revealed a woman in her sixties, Channel 5 decided to, in sports parlance, put her on waivers.

Other, much younger women and men have tried to take up the gauntlet. And if the Yankees finish off the Angels and advance to the World Series against the Phillies, a new Yankees media mascot is bound to emerge.

(I’ve got my eyes on Megan Glaros of Channel 2.)

One more thing: Any sports reporter who does not know that the Yankees have a fight song — and that the music from the Yankees’ fight song is heard before and after every Yankees broadcast on WCBS Radio — should not be working in the metropolitan New York market.

Scott Stanford is a hack, someone better suited to do sports reports in Kansas. Yet he draws paychecks from two local media outlets: Channel 5/Channel 9 (both owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation) and WCBS Radio.

At 8:15 this morning, Stanford opined on WCBS that the Yankees would have trouble matching up with the Phillies because "the Yankees don’t have a fight song." He then played an excerpt from the Phillies' fight song.

Here, for Stanford and other ignorant New York media types, are the lyrics to the Yankees' fight song, "Here Come the Yankees":

Y-A-N-K-E-E-S
Here come the Yankees
Let’s get behind and cheer the Yankees
They’re gonna learn to fear the Yankees
Everyone knows they play to win ’cause they’re the New York Yankees
Show ’em today why you’re the Yankees
No other way when you’re the Yankees
Whaddaya say we win a brand new ballgame
We’re gonna shout when ya powder the ball
We’re gonna scream, "Put it over the wall!"
The other team’s gonna know what it means to play the
Y-A-N-K-E-E-S
We love the Yankees
Shout it out loud
We love the Yankees
We’re really proud of our Yankees
And we’re gonna win today.

Stanford is so bad he makes me wistful for Penny Crone.

The Fall of the Major League Umpire

Nobody knows who’s going to win the 2009 World Series. But it is clear two weeks into the postseason who the biggest losers are: major league baseball umpires.

It has become painfully obvious that umpires can no longer call the plays in big-league games without more assistance from video replay technology.

Such technology is now used to determine disputed home run calls. Now, that same technology should be utilized to determine if a batted ball lands fair or foul, or if a player is safe or out.

There have been so many embarrassing blown calls, that it’s increasingly likely the World Series may be decided not by brilliant pitching (e.g., Orel Hershiser of the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers), or phenomenal defense (e.g., Brooks Robinson of the 1971 Baltimore Orioles), or awe-inspiring hitting (e.g., Reggie Jackson of the 1978 New York Yankees), but rather by an umpire error.

In the fifth inning of Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, Derek Jeter was called out at first base when replays clearly showed the Yankees shortstop had beaten the throw. Instead of the Yankees having runners on 1st and 3rd with one out, they had a runner on third with two out.

Big difference.

In the 10th inning of the same game, the Yankees had the winning run on second base because an umpire ruled Los Angeles Angels shortstop Erick Aybar missed the bag on an apparent double play. Replays showed Aybar's foot brushed the bag.

Fortunately, the Yankees did not win the game because of an umpire’s misjudgment. But they could have.

Minnesota Twins fans remain convinced their team would have beaten the Yankees in Game 2 of the American League Division Series had left field umpire Phil Cuzzi not called foul an obvious leadoff double by Joe Mauer.

That Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel, the Twins’ next two batters, followed with base hits only added to Minnesota’s misery.

Umpire CB Bucknor personally blew three calls at first base in the opener of the Angels-Boston Red Sox A.L. Division Series.

Umpires missed three calls on the bases in Game 1 of the Philadelphia Phillies-Colorado Rockies National League Division Series.

And the Phillies’ winning rally in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the series was aided by an umpire’s mistake that put Chase Utley on base on a ball that had first hit his leg.

When viewers at home, watching frame-by-frame replays from multiple angles, are getting a better look at crucial plays than the umpires on the field, there’s a big problem.

Here’s a solution that should be implemented on Opening Day 2010:

Major League Baseball should assign a Booth Umpire to every game. The Booth Umpire will be the final arbiter on close plays on the bases, disputed home runs or whether a ball landed fair or foul.

The Booth Umpire would have the same access to frame-by-frame replays from multiple angles as TV viewers.

The Booth Umpire can buzz the home plate umpire whenever he wants to review a call, or the crew chief can ask the Booth Umpire — undoubtedly after being prompted by a team’s angry manager — to review a close call.

The argument against increased use of video replay technology is that baseball games would take too long. Well, games are already too long. The most important thing is to get the calls right.

Ball-and-strike calls would not be subject to replays. And it should not take long to decide if a ball was fair or foul, or if a runner was safe or out.

For baseball to do nothing at a time when umpires’ mistakes threaten to overshadow the excellence of the players and the excitement of the games would be the biggest error of all.