Pinch Hitting Guest Blogger: Old Ranger

"Chris" a True Fish Story

I was fishing one day when a young man joined me. we started talking about baseball and he said he was taking a few weeks off from baseball.

It seamed he was a pitcher for a minor league team and was not getting the job done.
I began by asking him what he threw and the speed of each.

He said a 90-93+/- FB, very good change, curve (working on) a power slider that is workable and a so so cutter.
I asked him how he threw, short or long arm, side, over the top, 3/4 what?

He started by saying, what do you mean short or long arm? I asked him to show me, he did, he was another Ewell Blackwell type (long arm). I told him there were a bunch of kids (17-21) playing at the park (very good park), the fish don't like us, let's go.

He was a bit impressed when I told him I had a big time fast ball at about 82-86, he laughed and said most people say they had a 92-95 fastball, let's go.

Well, to (try) and make this short I asked him (with the blessing of the kids) to just pick up the ball and throw to 1st a few times, well it showed me his natural motion is short arm. I asked him to throw all his pitches.

His fast ball had good pop and jump, his change could be a big time pitch (had great feel for it) but, I asked him to throw his cutter after 3 changes and change again. I asked him how many times he was beat by throwing a cutter after a change or a change after cutter. Then do the same with a curve and cutter and a slider and a curve.

Then I asked him to just mix-up the FB, curve, and change. It seemed as though a light went off in his head. After explaining what Eddie Lopat told me about using short and long arm with the same pitches gave one six pitches not three (and worked for me somewhat) junk the cutter and slider. Unless they are dependable pitches...they go a long way when hit.

The following spring he showed up while I was fishing, we talked an had a good day with our catches. As we were leaving he said he had done very well in the winter league and would be moved up a step.

His pitching coach liked his idea of dropping his cutter and slider and try short arm but, the coach told him to stay with his motion (as had I) he said he is getting a bit more bite on his pitches and was thinking about adding his cuter to the mix come ST. I suggested he forget about the slider and concentrate on making his pitches great.

His name was Chris ???????. I moved to another state, later that year. Never have seen him again. I hope it worked out for him.

Pinch Hitting Guest Blogger: Ken Reed

MICKEY MANTLE, THE UNDERRATED SUPERSTAR

I wonder how great Mickey would've been if he hadn't been injured so seriously and so much. The knee injury from the 51 Series was just the first. I saw a picture of Mickey on crutches detailing the injuries he suffered in his career! He had to tape himself from shoulders to knees before every game. He never complained - he just became bigger then life to some of the Yankee Fans. "We all knew, if the game was on the line and Mickey was coming up, we still had a very good chance of winning it"...said Bobby Mercer.
I think The Babe, Mantle, and Mays are top 3 (OF) of all time (not counting "Shoeless Joe"). But I honestly believe Mickey is the greatest ballplayer I ever saw. He did so much during his career while he was hurt. Without the injuries, there would have been no limit to the records he would have set maybe even brake Babe Ruth's career HR records and many other records along the way.

Joe D was famous for making every catch look graceful and easy. I've seen him play and as many, read books about Joe D, he was not a very nice guy! First words to a rookie were "Don't mess with my WS money"! Us kids from Hells Kitchen (Kitchen Trash) were never given a smile, wave or word from him. His words after  his 56 game hitting gig were (something like) "Hell I could have got more money from Hinze (57) with that last hit".

DiMaggio hot dogged it (some say, not me) going after the ball seeing Mantle coming on and only at the last moment yelled I got it. To be fair, Joe never dove or jumped for a ball, he was that good reading the ball, a talent very very few OF have...even the better ones! In this case his very late call, caused Mantle to try and stop, snag his foot on a sprinkler, the rest is history! Without DiMaggio's (so called) grandstanding, Mantle might have been the best of the best. In my mind, I saw one of the best outfielders of all time.
Some have read stories told by him, and others, about his partying, drinking etc. Without knowing Mickey or the way he talked, one may have gotten the wrong impression of him as a player...the played hard and lived harder...his drinking never got in the way of his playing the game.


One day after a double hitter, Casey told him he wouldn't play the next day, so, being Mickey he made a night of it at the Clubs. The next day he was more sleeping than awake in the dug-out when late in a tie game Casey told him he was going to Pinch Hit. Well, the thing is; he had only wrapped part of his legs, not all of them. he stepped up and untied the game with a HR...he could hardly trot around the bases so as he crossed home plate he said something like, "They will never know how hard that was!" after the game someone asked him, how hard was it to hit it out after sitting all game? Mickey looked at the guy and said, "I saw three and hit the middle one!" He was being self deprecating with a joke.

There will never be another Mickey Mantle but, the best of all, is A-Rod! Drugs and Drinking oh, what they could have been!

Pinch Hitting Guest Blogger: Jerry Evans

In our latest pinch hitting guest blogger we get an article from my very good friend, drinking buddy, twitter follower, and all around good guy Jerry Evans. I will say this in open forum that I love this guy and he is like a member of my extended family. I am very excited to have Jerry on here with his first blog post and I hope you enjoy his take on the new acquisitions. Here is a short bio about Jerry from himself:

So I would start off saying that being a Yankees fan when you’re not in New York is pretty rough. Just to prove your loyalty or fandom to the local fans of whatever team is in the town you’re in. Then them knowing you’re a Yankees fan, the second they lose or rumors start circling around you’ll be the first to hear it even though you've been on twitter to vent about it or ESPN a million times to get the score correct. That being said I grew up a Yankees fan as long as I can remember. A handful of people I know have respect for me being a Yankees fan so far away from New York probably because its not a bandwagon thing or because they have the most money thing, its a loyalty thing.

-Jerry Evans

Follow Jerry on Twitter by following @YankeeLovinMofo

The one thing I get hassled about at work nowadays is with the Yankees new acquisitions is their age. I know that's a big thing with us, we sign an all star four or five years after their prime. “How old is your outfield?” a friend of mine asked and the answer is, wait for it, 173 years old and that's not including Vernon Wells because I just consider him a DH nowadays. With Curtis Granderson gone and with the Yankees acquiring Jacoby Ellsbury you can’t really compare last seasons stats. Curtis was gone over half the season with those hand injuries but I’m just glad to have a solid replacement for him. Another player the Yankees got during the offseason is Carlos Beltran which is going to add to our home run count, he’s still got the defense, and his postseason numbers are ridiculous. We also needed a catcher with some pop and I think Brian McCann is just that. A lefty who hits 20 or so HR's consistently with good defense. So as long as he’s healthy we shouldn't have a problem. The only thing I’m looking forward to getting is some more help on the starting pitching side because that has always been our weak point. See you all on the road to 28. 

Pinch Hitting Guest Blogger: David Jones

We have decided that we want to run a series of guest blogging, or pinch hitting, blog posts from our readers, fellow bloggers, and aspiring writers. Our first pinch hitter will be David Jones, @DLJTwo on Twitter, who is a fellow blogger, Twitter follower, and reader of The Greedy Pinstripes. Here is a short write up from David about himself and his inaugural Pinch Hitting Guest Blogger post.

My name is David Jones and I'm a 43 year old I.T. Professional from Rochester, New York, born and raised. I'm a husband to my beautiful wife Liz and the father of 5 great children. My hobbies are photography, music production, saltwater aquariums and anything related to the Yankees.

I've been a Yankee fan all my life and had the chance to attend my first game at Yankee Stadium in 2011. My dream is to visit all the MLB stadiums (and hopefully see the boys play there) over the next 10 years with my wife. I started my blog called Let's Play Nine (letsplaynine.wordpress.com) a little over a year ago as a way to talk through some of the things that intrigue me, baffle me or frustrate me. I love writing and hope to write a book within the next 2 years. Feel free to follow me on Twitter, my handle is @DLJTWO.

"No One Man is Above The Team" - Coach James DeBell Sr.
(A frequent quote by my high school baseball coach)

I knew it was coming eventually. Not the move to another team, not the way that it was done, not the money involved, not the turning his back on the city of New York and the Yankee fans and not the leaving behind a chance to be immortal in the garden that is Monument Park. It was that one question from my wife that I really needed days, not hours, to ponder... "How do you feel about Cano leaving the Yankees?" A question that was so raw and one that I never thought in a million years that I'd have to answer.

I met my wife Liz 3 years ago and though I've been a life-long fan of the Yankees, I'd never been to Yankee Stadium before. She's not a fan of sports at all, but, my very first visit to the stadium was in the form of tickets for my birthday, thanks to her. We played the Blue Jays during Labor Day Weekend... Jeter had the day off due to a late night extra-inning game the night before, Bartolo Colon pitched good enough to keep us in it and Cano, true to form, had the biggest hit of the game... a two-run double to give us the lead and eventually the win. It was a great day and now my wife is as much a Yankee fan as I am, CC Sabathia is her favorite... and she named our puppy after my favorite player. The Yankees are a part of our everyday lives in some way, shape or form. You will always see the logo or some reminder of the team somewhere in our home. Baseball has and always will be a part of my life. I've played the game since I was able to hold a bat and swing it, it's important to me and I love the "game". Fans of other sports find us crazy because we sit and watch what they consider to be a "boring" sport, yet they have no idea just how smart you have to be to either play it or understand this game that we love.

"I don't know how I feel about it babe, I mean... I'll miss him but we have to think about the team as a whole, we can't afford bad deals anymore."

I know that this really gets over-used but sports folks say it all the time, "There is no 'I' in team." However, there is definitely an M & E in "Team" and that's exactly what Robinson Cano was thinking with his demands for a record breaking contract. And to be frank, I personally couldn't care less that he's walking away from the Yankees and possible immortality when I really think about it. Robinson Cano is one of the most talented baseball players I've ever had a chance to watch grow into a major league player. The only flaw that I've ever seen is his game is him not feeling the need to hustle out some at-bats here and there but I personally think there's a deeper reason behind it. I think the game is boring to him and he no longer finds any challenge in it, at least in New York with the Yankees. I saw it this season in his at-bats, in his fielding when flipping the ball to first after having to barely move to get it. Cano is so good at what he does that to the casual eye, he's truly amazing (which he is) and what he's doing is effortless, but, to the trained eye he's just going through the motions and bored with being in that moment. Over the weekend it was mentioned that Cano wanted out of New York because he didn't like playing for Joe Girardi and while I have no idea how much of that is true or not, nothing screams "selfish" like complaining about where your manager puts you in the line-up, especially publicly.  Managers are paid to manage and players are paid to play and the saddest part about this, if it's true, is that Joe bleeds Yankee blue and was tossed from 5 games this past season, mostly for defending his players. But, he's a horrible guy to play for because he just can't seem to put Cano right where he wants to be in the lineup... I get it. Whatever. I personally don't think Cano is the "star" that he thinks he is or that his representation has convinced him that he is. While he was healthy for most of the season and other's like Jeter, Texeira and Granderson were hurt, the Yankees reportedly lost $58 million in ticket sales. If Cano had $240 million star power, I personally think those figures would have been more 'green', seeing as how he spent most of his time on the field this past season.

When Cano first signed with Jay Z's Roc Nation, I thought it was as bad a move for Jay Z as it was for him. Jay is the self-proclaimed "King of New York " and could possibly be labeled as the single person who priced one of our most talented assets right out of the Bronx. He's boasted on songs that he's made the "Yankee hat more famous than a Yankees can"... too much bravado about an organization that he clearly knows little about. The Yankees were winning championships before the Great Depression and while I love Jay and some of his music, this isn't the music business. Legends are made in this game called baseball... through hard work, dedication, patience and hustle. And while most can live with the lack of hustle from Cano, I can't. Mainly because he wants to be paid like a super-star team leader, but, doesn't want to act like one on the field during the final year of his current contract.  I was taught from day one when learning the game of baseball that no matter what, you ran to first like you were ultimately going to be safe, you respected the game and the people that played it before you and you respected your coaches and the umpires even if you didn't understand their decisions. The game of baseball is not easy to play, though the legends in the making who are playing in the majors today make it seem that way. Ted Williams once said something to the effect of players who fail 7 out of 10 times at the plate will end up being some of the greatest to ever play the game.

There is no organization on this planet like the New York Yankees. When you see the logo, you know who it is, if you see a picture of The Frieze, you know where it is and when you see the pinstripes, you know what they're about. Winning. Pride. Loyalty. I've turned the page on my loyalty to Robinson Cano and as being one of his fans. When I look at the men who have played in Pinstripes before him and how most have humbled themselves for the betterment of the team, I'm grateful that Monument Park isn't a part of his vision for his own career. I can't cheer on someone who is okay with coming to the yard every day and making it about themselves instead of the team. I've heard free agent after free agent come to the podium over the years and say, "Being a Yankee has always been a life-long dream of mine, so this is one of the greatest days of my life!" They've come from every organization, even the Red Sox. So while I wish Robinson the best, I really won't miss him or the fact that Jay Z thinks that he would have been the man to help "sell the Yankee brand". The Yankees don't need any player to sell what they have to offer. The proof lies in those free agents coming to the podium... this stuff that the Yankees have sells itself.