Results tagged ‘ Memorial Day ’

Yanks in the military

Memorial Day is a time to remember those who sacrificed their time and in many cases their lives in defense of the United States. The Yankees had 41 players who lost service time in order to serve their country in the military. Below is the list of those players. Hall of Famers are in boldface.

Rich Beck 1967
Norm Branch 1943-45
Bobby Brown 1952-54
Tommy Byrne 1944-45
Tommy Carroll 1958
Spud Chandler 1944-45
Jerry Coleman 1952-53
Bill Dickey 1944-45
Joe DiMaggio 1943-45
Frank Fernandez 1967
Whitey Ford 1951-52
Joe Gordon 1944-45
Rudy Gumpert 1943-45
Buddy Hassett 1943-45
Mike Hegan 1967
Rollie Hemsley 1945
Tommy Henrich 1943-45
Billy Johnson 1944-46
Jerry Kenney 1968
Tony Kubek 1962
Al Lyons 1945
Hank Majeski 1943-45
Billy Martin 1954-55
Tom Morgan 1952-53
Ross Moschitto 1966
Bobby Murcer 1967-68
Steve Peck 1942-45
Mel Queen 1945-46
Phil Rizzuto 1943-45
Aaron Robinson 1944
Red Ruffing 1943-44
Marius Russo 1944-45
Ken Sears 1944-45
George Selkirk 1943-45
Ken Silvestri 1942-45
Charley Stanceu 1943-44
Johnny Sturm 1942-45
Jake Wade 1945
Roy Weatherly 1944-45
Bob Wiesler 1951-52
Butch Wensloff 1945-46

6-3 Coast trip revs Yanks up for Red Sox

Bartolo Colon’s return Sunday to Angel Stadium of Anaheim, which was his home base of operation for four seasons (2004-07), was a mixed bag for the Yankees, who ended a successful West Coast trip with a 5-3 victory. They won six of the nine games, a satisfying finish after they had lost the first two games at Seattle.

The first-place Yankees maintained their one-game lead in the American League East over the Red Sox, who come to Yankee Stadium for a three-game series beginning Tuesday night. The Yanks keep avoiding pitchers with back problems. Dan Haren was scratched by the Angels from a scheduled start Saturday night due to back stiffness. The Red Sox will push Clay Buchholz back from Wednesday night to Friday night for the same reason and insert Tim Wakefield. The Yankees will also push back a pitcher, Ivan Nova, who is not hurt, to Friday night so that CC Sabathia can stay on turn and start Wednesday night against Boston.

Colon was lights out for two innings as he retired the Angels in order each time with a total of three strikeouts. He looked as if he would continue the run of scoreless innings he put up in a complete-game shutout on Memorial Day at Oakland.

But typical of teams under the guidance of one of baseball’s sharpest managers, Mike Scioscia, the Angels adjusted to Colon’s aggressiveness by jumping on first-pitch fastballs and other early-count offerings, few of them off-speed, to dent the righthander for two runs in the third that tied the score. A sensational play by second baseman Robinson Cano helped Colon get out of that inning without further damage, and he came right back with a 1-2-3 fourth.

It was almost as if Colon was pitching to the scoreboard. The second of Mark Teixeira’s two home runs regained a two-run lead for the Yankees in the fifth, but Colon gave back another run in the bottom half after two were out. He was in trouble again in the sixth but was saved in part by that rare scene by an Angels player – a dumb move on the bases.

Colon was out of the game by then. David Robertson came on with one out and a runner, Alberto Callaspo, at second base. Mark Trumbo, who had homered in the third off Colon, hit a ground ball to shortstop. Callaspo inexplicably tried to cross to third base, which made no sense because the ball was hit sharply, and was thrown out by Derek Jeter.

Robertson made things interesting after that rally killer by walking two batters to load the bases, but he rebounded big-time by striking out Maicer Izturis on a 2-2 hook. Robertson has held foes scoreless in eight consecutive appearances and has allowed one earned run in 15 outings dating to May 1 in which he has an ERA of 0.64 with 26 strikeouts in 14 innings.

His work was part of an ensemble effort by the Yankees’ bullpen. Joba Chamberlain withstood two singles to keep the Angels off the board for 1 1/3 innings, and Mariano Rivera notched his 16th save by also making two singles in the ninth meaningless. Mo is only the third reliever in history to have 16 or more saves in a season at age 41 or older. The others were Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, who had 30 saves in 1996 and 36 in 1997 for the Cardinals, and all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman, who had 37 in 2009 for the Brewers.

It was a big game for Teixeira, who passed Curtis Granderson for the team lead in home runs, 18-17, and tied him for the club RBI lead with 41. Usually a notoriously slow starter, Tex hit six home runs in March/April and slugged 10 in May, the most in the majors. Five days into June, he already has two.

Nick Swisher hit his third home run of the trip, a solo shot off the right field foul pole, in the eighth that proved a vital insurance run taking some of the heat off Mo in the ninth. Another good sign was a two-hit game for Jorge Posada.

Jeter’s third-inning single pushed him past Hall of Famer Sam Rice into sole possession of 28th place on the career hit list with 2,986. With the Yankees’ next 10 games scheduled at home, can the Captain get to 3,000 at the Stadium?

Colon provides relief for Yanks’ pen

The national holiday of Memorial Day turned out to be a full day off for the Yankees’ bullpen as well Monday. The relievers have Bartolo Colon to thank for that with an old-fashioned complete game shutout, the ninth of his career but the first in five seasons, in a 5-0 dusting of the Athletics.

Except for the date on his birth certificate, there doesn’t appear anything old about Colon, who turned 38 last week but has turned back the clock for the Yankees this year. Still wounded by a no-decision May 18 at Baltimore when he came out of the game after eight scoreless innings of three-hit, seven-strikeout ball only to watch the game go 15 innings before the Yankees finally pulled it out, Colon took care of business for himself Monday.

His pitch count was still a manageable 96 entering the ninth inning, and Colon remained on the mound after he gave up a leadoff double. The runner got to third base but no farther as the A’s for a second time in the game wasted a leadoff double.

The other occasion was back in the second, one inning after the Yankees had staked Colon to a 3-0 lead. The veteran righthander, who pitched a game reminiscent of his 2005 American League Cy Young Award season, set the tone of the game in that inning by keeping the runner at second by getting a foul pop, a strikeout and an infield out.

That began a stretch of 12 consecutive outs that Kevin Kouzmanoff ended with a leadoff single in the sixth. Colon ran off six more outs in a row before yielding another leadoff hit, an infield single by Kurt Suzuki in the eighth. Mark Ellis followed with a grounder up the middle that Colon wisely let go past him to shortstop Derek Jeter, who fielded the ball, stepped on second and threw to first to finish off a double play.

Except for some warm-up throws by Joba Chamberlain in the ninth, the bullpen was quiet. After being forced to use his relief corps for 7 2/3 innings in Saturday night’s 12-inning loss at Seattle, Yankees manager Joe Girardi enjoyed watching Colon and CC Sabathia combine to pitch 17 of the next 18 innings. Only Lance Pendleton’s mop-up job for CC Sunday counted as a work day for the bullpen.

The victory was welcomed by Colon, who had not had a winning decision in his previous five starts and was 0-2 with a 4.60 ERA during that stretch. Colon’s first victory since April 27 got his season record even at 3-3 to go with a spiffy 3.26 ERA.

In what has been a habit for the Yankees on this West Coast trip, they struck early against the starting pitcher, in this case Trevor Cahill, who got off to a 6-0 start this year but is now winless in his past four starts despite a decent 3.51 ERA during that stretch. With an offense ranked 12th among the 14 AL teams, Oakland leaves little margin for error to its pitchers.

On the 16th anniversary of his first major-league hit, Jeter opened the game with a knock and scored one out later on Mark Teixeira’s two-run home run. That made it 16 jacks for Tex, who tied Curtis Granderson for the club lead and passed the center fielder in RBI, 38-37. Teixeira is on a homer binge lately with four in his past five games and seven in his past 11. Tex hit 10 homers in May. He didn’t get to 16 home runs last year until July 9.

Colon hadn’t stepped on the rubber yet, so who knew that would be all the runs the Yankees would need. Robinson Cano mae it 3-0 with a double to score Alex Rodriguez, who had walked. Jeter and Francisco Cervelli, who caught while Russell Martin nursed a sore left foot, supplied pad-on runs with late-inning sacrifice flies.

Cervelli sure didn’t act like a catcher on the bases. He had two steals, as did Brett Gardner. The duo’s running in the seventh after drawing walks helped the Yankees to a run without a hit. The rest was all Colon, who made this Memorial Day memorable.

I’ll be out of town the next few days to attend the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, an annual event at the National Baseball Hall of Fame where academics and other baseball aficionados gather to discuss seriously through individual presentations and panel groups the connection between the game and the American experience. I am honored to give the keynote address. I only hope my delivery is as effective as that of Bartolo Colon.

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