Results tagged ‘ Bob Gibson ’
King Felix wears crown at Stadium
For those in the Yankee Stadium crowd of 47,067 Saturday, do not expect a long explanation about what they saw at the game. Oh, wait, the Yankees did actually get one runner past first base. They also had three other base runners. So Felix Hernandez was not perfect. He was just the next thing to it.
The day after getting a complete-game effort from CC Sabathia, the Yankees ran into a touché performance from the righthander known as King Felix. Hernandez was every bit his regal self in shutting down the Yankees, 1-0, on two hits and two walks with six strikeouts in a dazzling, 101-pitch outing.
“We had one shot today,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said, referring to Robinson Cano’s two-out double in the first inning. “That’s how good he was. He didn’t give us anything to hit. He was never in any bad counts, except for the time he walked Raul [Ibanez] on four pitches [in the seventh inning]. There was about one ball per batter. He was great today.”
Cano was left stranded at second base in the first inning as Mark Teixeira lined out. The Yankees’ other hit was Ichiro Suzuki’s daily single, a roller past first baseman Mike Carp, leading off the third inning. Ichiro was erased on a double play by Russell Martin. Their only other base runner was Curtis Granderson, who walked with two down in the sixth.
That was it, boys and girls. Hernandez put on an absolute clinic in pitching, which he has made a habit of at the current Stadium. In five starts in the Bronx since 2009, King Felix is 4-1 with an absolute Gibson-esque 1.13 ERA (Bob Gibson had a record 1.12 ERA for the Cardinals in 1968). In eight starts combined at the old and new Stadiums, Hernandez is 5-2 with a 2.06 ERA.
How good would he look in pinstripes? The Yankees would certainly have interest, but the Mariners have no plans on trading Hernandez, who is 10-5 with a 2.63 ERA, a remarkable record considering Seattle’s anemic offense. Their lineup Saturday contained one player batting higher than .260. The key to winning for a team like that is to keep the other team from scoring.
It was a hard-luck loss for Hiroki Kuroda, who was defeated for the first time in eight starts since June 19 despite allowing only one run in 6 1/3 innings. Carp’s two-out single off a 3-2 fastball in the second inning drove in that run. Hernandez proceeded to make one run seem insurmountable.
“It is part of the game,” Kuroda said through a translator. “It is what it is. When you are in a game like that, you know you have to minimize the damage. That is what I tried to do.”
For the most part, Kuroda was successful. Carp’s hit was Seattle’s only one in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position. The Yankees’ problem was that King Felix allowed them only one runner in scoring position.
There really isn’t much else left to say. Mariners manager Eric Wedge put it best when he said, “That was just special stuff today. I told him that it was probably the most impressive start that I have ever seen as a manager. I’ve seen a lot of good and great pitchers pitch over the years. This ballpark, that lineup, the swings and misses, the missed hits with so many good hitters over there, the efficiency in which he did it in a 1-0 ballgame, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Remebering Bill Bergesch and Bill Gallo
A moment of silence was observed before the Yankees-Royals game Wednesday night in honor of a couple of guys named Bill, Bergesch and Gallo, who both died Tuesday.
Yankees fans may recall that Bill Bergesch served the team in various capacities in a 50-year career as a baseball executive, notably as general manager in the early 1980s. Bergesh, who was 89, first worked for the Yankees from 1964-67 as stadium manager after a two-year stint as assistant general manager and farm director of the Mets in their first two seasons at the Polo Grounds under former Yankee GM George Weiss.
As Yankee Stadium manager, Bergesch was instrumental in arrangements for the Papal Mass celebrated there by Pope Paul VI in October 1965 and received a medal issued by the Vatican to commemorate the occasion.
Bergesch’s other duties with the Yankees included director of scouting, vice president of player personnel and senior consultant. During his tenures with the Yankees, the team won the World Series in 1978 and 1996 and American League pennants in 1964 and 1981. He also held a variety of executive positions with the Cardinals, Athletics and Reds. As farm director of the Cardinals, Bergesch, a St. Louis native, signed future Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson in 1957.
Bill Gallo, who was 88, spent more than half a century as the sports cartoonist with the New York Daily News and penciled drawings of Yankees stars from Joe DiMaggio to Derek Jeter. I got to know Bill well when we worked together at the News in the late 1980s. He loved baseball, but his real passion was boxing.
I recall a promotion the News sponsored at a mall in Jersey City in which I and Bill, Yankees stars Dave Winfield and Willie Randolph and others took part in a forum discussion.
I lived in Yonkers at the time, as did Bill, and the News sent a limousine there to pick us up. Along the way, we stopped in Manhattan to pick up Mark Breland, then a contending welterweight, and two retired champions, heavyweight Floyd Patterson and middleweight Rocky Graziano. I got an education about the fight game that day.
“Through his work as a cartoonist and columnist, Bill Gallo was the voice of generations of New Yorkers,” Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner said. “My father was a frequent subject of his work, and he had tremendous respect for Bill’s talents. My family and the entire Yankees organization offer our condolences to his wife, Dolores, and the Gallo family.”
Cy Young holiday for Halladay
No American League club was happier to see Roy Halladay cross over into the National League this year than the Yankees. The one bad thing for the Yanks about Halladay going from the Blue Jays to the Phillies was that it triggered Philadelphia trading Cliff Lee back to the AL with the Mariners.
But it was good riddance for Halladay, who regularly thumped the Yankees to the tune of 18-7 with a 2.98 ERA, seven complete games (including three shutouts) and 195 strikeouts in 38 appearances (36 starts) covering 253 1/3 innings. Halladay did not find the new Yankee Stadium to his liking. He was 1-1 with a 6.16 ERA there in 2009 after having gone 7-4 with a 2.97 ERA in the old Stadium.
Halladay had a remarkable first season in the NL this year and was rewarded Tuesday by winning the Cy Young Award. He became the fifth pitcher to win the award in both leagues, having won in the AL with Toronto in 2003, and the 16th multiple winner.
The righthander was in Mexico on vacation when he received word of his election. I had the opportunity to tell him how popular he is in press boxes throughout North America because it is an extremely pleasurable experience to watch him pitch. He is a pro’s pro with no wasted motion and a focus that is sadly lacking among starting pitchers of this period.
“That’s very satisfying to hear,” the man called “Doc” said. “I hope the fans feel the same way.”
Halladay was the 13th unanimous choice in NL voting as he received all 32 first-place votes from two writers in each league city to score a perfect 224 points, based on a tabulation system that rewards seven points for first place, four for second, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America expanded the Cy Young Award ballot from three to five pitchers this year.
Halladay, 33, posted a 21-10 record with a 2.44 ERA in 33 starts and led the league in victories, innings (250 2/3), complete games (9) and shutouts (4) and was second in strikeouts (219). He pitched a perfect game May 29 at Miami in a 1-0 victory over the Marlins. Balloting takes place prior to the start of post-season play, so his no-hitter over the Reds in Game 1 of the NL Division Series was not a factor in the voting.
Cardinals righthander Adam Wainwright (20-11, 2.42 ERA), who finished third in 2009, was the runner-up with 122 points based on 28 votes for second, three for third and one for fifth. Rockies righthander Ubaldo Jimenez (19-8, 2.88 ERA) was third with 90 points. Halladay, Wainwright and Jimenez were the only pitchers named on all the ballots. Righthanders Tim Hudson (17-9, 2.83 ERA) of the Braves and Josh Johnson (11-6, 2.30 ERA) of the Marlins rounded out the top five. In all, 11 pitchers received votes.
Halladay joined the company of Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Gaylord Perry as Cy Young Award winners in both leagues. Clemens won six in the AL (1986, ’87 and ’91 with the Red Sox; 1997 and ’98 with the Blue Jays; 2001 with the Yankees) and one in the NL (2004 with the Astros). Johnson won four in the NL (1999 through 2002 with the Diamondbacks) and one in the AL (1995 with the Mariners). Martinez won two in the AL (1999 and 2000 with the Red Sox) and one in the NL (1997 with the Expos). Perry won one in the AL (1972 with the Indians) and one in the NL (1978 with the Padres).
Unanimous winners in the NL were Sandy Koufax all three times he won and Greg Maddux twice among his four victories, along with Johnson, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Rick Sutcliffe, Dwight Gooden, Orel Hershiser and Jake Peavy. There has been a unanimous winner in the AL eight times: Clemens, Martinez and Johan Santana twice each, Denny McLain and Ron Guidry.
It marked the seventh time a Phillies pitcher won the award, including Carlton four times. The other winners from Philadelphia were John Denny and Steve Bedrosian. In addition to Koufax, Maddux, Carlton, Clemens, Martinez, Johnson, Perry, Gibson, McLain and Santana, other pitchers to have won the award more than once were Tom Seaver and Jim Palmer three times each, Bret Saberhagen, Tom Glavine and Tim Lincecum twice apiece.
Halladay is in pretty heady company and deserves to be.
Gallant effort from Andy
It was almost dj vu all over again for Andy Pettitte in the sixth inning Monday night. Following the same pattern as the first inning, Elvis Andrus grounded out on a slow roller fielded by Pettitte and Michael Young singled. Josh Hamilton then hit a fly ball to deep right field.
Unlike the first inning when the ball landed in the stands for a two-run home run, Hamilton’s drive off a hanging slider didn’t have the same distance in the sixth, and Nick Swisher gloved it in front of the wall. Pettitte ended the inning by getting a third strike past Vlad Guerrero, who is having a brutal series.
The Yankee Stadium crowd got excited when Brett Gardner led off the bottom of the sixth by shooting a single through the middle. Fans may have visions of another big rally started by Gardner in the eighth inning of Game 1. With Derek Jeter up, Gardner stole second, thereby becoming the first runner in the game to move into scoring position (Young was on first base when Hamilton homered in the first).
Cliff Lee muscled up and struck out Jeter on a 2-2 fastball. It was the 10th strikeout of the game for Lee, who became the first pitcher to reach double figures in strikeouts in three consecutive post-season games in the same year. The only other pitcher to do that was Hall of Famer Bob Gibson in his last appearance in the 1967 World Series for the Cardinals against the Red Sox and his first two starts in the 1968 Series against the Tigers.
Gardner was able to advance to third base as Swisher grounded out to the right side, but Lee held tough and got Mark Teixeira on a grounder to short. The Yankees were raising Lee’s pitch count, but not in the best way with all those strikeouts. His 100th pitch retired Alex Rodriguez leading off the seventh.
As for Pettitte, he stayed toe to toe with Lee for seven innings in another sturdy post-season performance. But this was beginning to look like Game 6 of the 2003 World Series against the Marlins when Pettitte battled Josh Beckett, who held the Yankees in check as Florida triumphed.
Speaking of post-season heroes, the Stadium crowd got a look at three of them in attendance who were shown on the on the giant video screen in center field – El Duque Hernandez, Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neill. Tino also threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Maybe the Yankees’ best chances were to put them back in uniform.
Jack O'Connell
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