Results tagged ‘ Suzyn Waldman ’
Yanks to stay on WCBS radio through 2013
The Yankees and WCBS-880AM radio reached agreement to extend their current radio broadcast agreement through the 2013 season.
The radio station, which provides nighttime coverage to more than 30 states, will carry all regular and postseason games as well as select spring training games. WCBS has been the team’s flagship station since 2002.
John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman, who have called games together since 2005, are expected to return to the booth. Sterling has been the radio voice of the Yankees since 1989.
WCBS is owned and operated by CBS Radio, one of the largest major-market operators in the United States, reaching nearly 70 million over-the-air listeners on a weekly basis. CBS Radio operates 127 radio stations across 28 markets, including all of the Top 10.
Kuroda subdues monster lineup
The strange thing about Hiroki Kuroda’s no-hit bid Tuesday night was that while the Rangers went six innings without a hit the Yankees went just as long without a point. The teams that are 1-2 in runs scored in the American League (Texas 580, Yanks 577) were scoreless through the sixth.
So for all of his brilliance, Kuroda was always one pitch from disaster. Rangers lefthander Matt Harrison matched Kuroda with zeroes in the runs column if not the hits column. The Yankees had four hits off Harrison through six but were unable to score.
Texas ended Kuroda’s dream when Elvis Andrus led off the seventh with an infield single. A lot of Yankees fans will probably argue whether Derek Jeter would have been able to do what Jayson Nix could not, which was to throw out Andrus at first base after making a diving stop. My take is that it did not matter who was playing shortstop. Andruw was going to beat the play. Jeter would have also had to leave his feet to prevent Andrus’ ball from going through the infield as Nix did. But once on the ground, a shortstop would have scant chance to throw Andrus out. It was a pretty clean single in my view.
Kuroda and the Yankees should send a thank-you note to Rangers manager Ron Washington for helping them finally put some numbers on the board in the seventh inning. Washington removed Harrison from the game after he gave up a one-out single to Jeter, who was the designated hitter, in the seventh.
The manager knows his personnel better than I do. Perhaps Harrison was fried after throwing 106 pitches. That really isn’t the point. What is the point is bringing in a righthander, Alexi Ogando, to face switch-hitting Nick Swisher, turning him around to the left side and taking aim at Yankee Stadium’s tempting right field porch. Washington paid for it, too, because Swisher ended up hitting a two-run home run, one night after he belted a grand slam, also batting left-handed, that buried Texas.
Swisher’s numbers this year are decidedly one-sided. He is batting .271 with 13 home runs and 52 RBI as a left-handed hitter and .250 with three home runs and 13 RBI as a right-handed hitter. Swish had a great at-bat as well. He fought off some high-octane gas (Ogando’s fastball ranged from 95 to 99 miles per hour), took a nasty 2-2 slider just off the plate to run the count full before he caught up with a 98-mph heater for his 16th home run.
“I wanted to put velocity on Swisher,” Washington said. “I think the ball that Swish hit was eye-level, but he caught it. He saw so many fastballs in that at-bat that he finally timed one.”
Ogando had barely recovered from that when Mark Teixeira also went deep for his 25th home run.
That was all Kuroda needed, and he has often needed better run support this year. He is 11-8 with a 3.06 ERA, but Yankees manager Joe Girardi said that with better run support Kuroda “could have 15 or 16” victories by now. Two starts ago, he pitched brilliantly for 6 1/3 innings allowing one run and seven hits but ran into a buzz-saw named Felix Hernandez, who pitched a two-hit shutout. This time, Kuroda was the buzz-saw. This time, he pitched the two-hit shutout.
“This is a very great lineup he shut down,” Girardi said, referring to the Rangers, who lead the AL in batting with a .278 average. “It was probably our best pitching performance of the year.”
Kuroda threw 21 first-pitch strikes, using sinkers and sliders to get ahead in the count and then resorting to a devastating splitter to finish off hitters, particularly left-handed ones. Some of the Rangers’ swings against Kuroda’s nasty stuff were downright ugly.
During his time with the Dodgers, Kuroda pitched a one-hit shutout against the Braves, losing the no-no on a hit by Teixeira. Asked to compare the two games, Kuroda told WCBS radio’s Suzyn Waldman that Tuesday night’s game was bigger because the Texas lineup was far more muscular. He also told Suzyn that “the best is yet to come.”
That should be music to the Yankees’ ears.
Yankees Magazine edition dedicated to women
The professional sports world in America has not been a men-only province for a long time as the current issue of Yankees Magazine that goes on sale Tuesday will attest. The club’s flagship journal is the first team publication in American professional sports to dedicate an entire issue to women.
Yankees fans will get an up-close look at the females in the organization and those pioneers in baseball and other sports that have changed the landscape of the industry.
The cover of the issue features a photograph of Joan Steinbrenner, widow of the late George M. Steinbrenner III; Yankees vice chairperson Jennifer Steinbrenner Swindal; vice chairperson Jessica Steinbrenner and Christina Steinbrenner, wife of Yankees co-chairperson Hal Steinbrenner. The edition includes a feature story about the philanthropic work of the Steinbrenner family and the charitable endeavors of several Yankees players’ wives.
“Where else but with the New York Yankees do you have the opportunity to create history on any given day,” team vice president and assistant general manager Jean Afterman said. “I am proud to participate in the first-ever professional sports team magazine devoted to women. It’s great to be a Yankee every day, and on the day that this issue goes to print, the Yankees will again prove how historic this organization is.”
Jean is among the women featured in the magazine, along with Yankees senior vice president of marketing Deborah Tymon, plus such female icons as tennis legend Billie Jean King, softball pitcher Jennie Finch and soccer star Mia Hamm, among others. Yankees fans who listen to radio voice Suzyn Waldman on WCBS-880AM and watch clubhouse/on-field reporter Kimberly Jones and studio host/Yankees Magazine moderator Nancy Newman on the YES Network will get the chance to know them better. Also featured is a look at the office women behind the scenes who have been fixtures in the organization for more than three decades.
“We are excited to launch such a unique issue of Yankees Magazine, and one that celebrates the contributions of women throughout the sports world,” Yankees director of publications Alfred Santasiere III said. “The Women’s Issue is certain to be a keepsake to Yankees fans and sports fans because it is the first of its kind.”
Yankees Magazine, which has served as the team’s game-day program since its inception in 1980, is available at Yankee Stadium, through 800-GO-YANKS or online at http://www.yankees.com/publications.
YU members enjoy special event
More than 400 Yankees Universe members of the Champion and MVP levels attended a special event in the Great Hall at Yankee Stadium Tuesday and got a chance to meet general manager Brian Cashman and other Yankees celebrities.
Cashman was joined by former Yankees stars Jeff Nelson and Charlie Hayes, assistant general manager Jean Afterman, YES Network analyst John Flaherty and WCBS radio announcer Suzyn Waldman for the 90-minute autograph and photo session.
It was the first of four events scheduled for this season. The others will be Aug. 23, Aug. 24 and Sept. 6. Events are open to Yankees Universe members on the MVP and Champion levels.
Danya Varano, Honorary Bat Girl
Dayna Varano, the Yankees’ winner of the Honorary Bat Girl Contest, will be honored Thursday night when the team concludes a three-game series against the Royals at Yankee Stadium. A cancer patient from Wayne, N.J., Dayna will be the Yankees’ on-field guest during batting practice and assist in the delivery of the lineup card to the plate prior to throwing out the game’s ceremonial first pitch.
Major League Baseball and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest breast cancer organization, announced the winners of the 2011 Honorary Bat Girl Contest, a campaign to recognize baseball fans that have been affected by breast cancer and demonstrated a commitment to fighting the disease.
Dayna is one of the 30 winners, one for each major league club, among more than 1,500 entrants that were selected by more than a half-million fan votes on http://www.HonoraryBatGirl.com, a Web site powered by MLB.com, and a panel of celebrity judges.
Among those on the panel were cancer survivors such as Yankees radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman; Billye Aaron, Komen Global Ambassador for breast cancer and wife of Hall of Famer Hank Aaron; Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker, Founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure; actress Gabrielle Union and Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester. Other panelists included Angels pitcher Jered Weaver, whose mother is a breast cancer survivor; Twins designated hitter Jim Thome, whose mother passed away from lung cancer, and former pitcher and MLB Network analyst Mitch Williams, whose late mother had breast cancer.
On Valentine’s Day 2007, while already battling a brain tumor, Dayna was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. Amid countless surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation, Dayna has continued her efforts in educating and counseling those affected by the disease. She is a chairperson for the Young Survival Coalition in NYC, an organization dedicated to offering resources and outreach to young women who are diagnosed with breast cancer. Dayna has also helped collect more than 10,000 toys for children who have either lost a parent to cancer or have a surviving parent that is experiencing financial hardship.
The Honorary Bat Girl program was introduced in 2009 to raise additional awareness and support for the annual Going to Bat Against Breast Cancer initiative celebrated on Mother’s Day. In three years, nearly 4,000 testimonials have been submitted and more than six million fan votes have been cast. Going to Bat Against Breast Cancer is a joint partnership between MLB, its licensed partners and Susan G. Komen for the Cure to raise awareness about the breast cancer cause, while also raising funds to support breast cancer research.
On Mother’s Day this past Sunday, hundreds of players used pink bats by Louisville Slugger, the official bat of MLB, stamped with the MLB breast cancer awareness logo and wore the symbolic pink ribbons on their uniforms along with pink wrist bands. Commemorative dugout lineup cards were also colored pink. Game-used Louisville Slugger pink bats from Mother’s Day games will be auctioned exclusively on MLB.com at a later date to raise additional funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever. In 1982, that promise became Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which is now the world’s largest breast cancer organization and the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer with more than $1.9 billion invested to date. For more information about Susan G. Komen for the Cure, breast health or breast cancer, visit komen.org or call 1-877 GO KOMEN.
Red Sox are conceding nothing
As the Yankees went into a four-game series against the hated Red Sox Friday night, I couldn’t help thinking about what Boston did in the 2004 post-season. Down 3-0 in the American League Championship Series, they followed their manager’s mantra of winning the next night’s game. Don’t think about anything else, Terry Francona told his players, but that night’s game.
The Red Sox did this, of course, for eight straight games, knocking off the Yankees and then sweeping the Cardinals in the World Series for their first championship since Babe Ruth was in their rotation. That always stayed with me about Francona, who is probably the best manager never to win a Manager of the Year Award. The stakes aren’t so high in this series, but dire consequences could set in if the Yankees push Boston around.
“We’re at a point of the season where every game is meaningful,” Francona said. “We have to embrace the challenge rather than whine about it.”
Boston is pretty beat up. The Red Sox have been without 2008 Most Valuable Player Dustin Pedroia for a month and just lost first baseman Kevin Youkilis, the team’s spine, for the rest of the season. The Sox came to Yankee Stadium in third place trailing the Yankees by six games. After Friday night’s 6-3 victory, Boston is five games behind the Yankees. Francona is back to one game after the next.
The Sox lineup had some unfamiliar faces, none more so than left fielder Ryan Kalish. The recent callup has been tearing it up, batting .471 entering the game. WCBS radio’s Suzyn Waldman made him the subject of her pre-game interview and went on at length about him over dinner with Lee Mazzilli, John Sterling and me. She mentioned that Kalish grew up in Red Bank, N.J., and had left six passes for friends and relatives. He said he was too embarrassed to ask for more.
Kalish struck out in his first two at-bats, but he gave his people in the sellout crowd of 49,555, the largest gate at the Stadium this year, a moment to remember with his first major-league home run, a two-run shot in the sixth off Javier Vazquez, who had a rough outing and lost for the first time in six starts since June 30.
Vazquez, who was skipped over in the rotation twice earlier in the season to avoid pitching against the Red Sox, gave up a first-inning home run to David Ortiz, which was trumped by Mark Teixeira’s two-run blow in the bottom of the first. It marked the fourth straight game in which the Yankees had a two-run homer in the opening frame, but they have lost three of those games.
A player who scored ahead of the homer hitter in each of those games was Derek Jeter, whose first-inning single tied him with the Babe on the career hit list with 2,873. Unlike Jeter, not all of Ruth’s hits were with the Yankees. Jeter had the most impressive at-bat of the game, with two out and nobody on in the ninth. He outdueled Red Sox closer Jonathan Paplebon for 12 pitches, including six straight fouls on two-strike pitches, before drawing a walk. It went for naught.
The Red Sox are playing for relevance, trying to get back into the AL East mix with the Yankees and Rays. The Yanks maintained their half-game lead in the division over Tampa, which lost at Toronto. Vazquez and his catcher helped the Red Sox in the second inning when Boston scored three unearned runs to regain the lead. One out after a leadoff double to Adrian Beltre, Cervelli dropped a popup by Mike Lowell, who sauntered up the line and was lucky the ball fell far enough away from Cervelli to get to first base safely.
Vazquez was on the verge of working out of trouble as he struck out Kalish, who swung at a ball around his ears for strike three. Vazquez then did the unthinkable, walking 9-hole hitter Jed Lowrie to load the bases. Jacoby Ellsbury walked as well, forcing in a run, before Marco Scutaro doubled in two more runs.
Okay, so it wasn’t like giving up that grand slam to Johnny Damon in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, but it was a chance to put the Red Sox away wasted.
Yankees fans enjoyed Hall weekend
My pal in Cooperstown, Craig Muder, director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, sent along a report on the World Series Weekend event in which the Yankees’ 2009 trophy and other artifacts from last year’s 27th championship season were on display in the museum’s exhibit, “Autumn Glory, which celebrates each year’s playoff and World Series teams.
Among the items were the cleats Johnny Damon wore for his double steal in Game 4, bats used by Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui and the catching gear of Jorge Posada and Jose Molina in the clinching Game 6, caps worn by Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera and the scorecard belonging to Suzyn Waldman, the first female broadcaster in World Series history.
“My wife and I had planned to be here this weekend anyway, but when we found out the trophy was going to be here it made it extra special,” said Brian Povio, a Yankees fan from Rochester, N.Y. “Seeing it brings you back to the World Series all over again.”
A crew from the YES Network was in town to capture the excitement. Yankees jerseys were the uniform of the day as pinstripes adorned nearly every corner of the museum – especially at the new “Pinstripe Pictures” exhibit, which opened Saturday. Located on the museum’s third floor, “Pinstripe Pictures” features photographs reproduced from the Associated Press book, “New York Yankees 365,” a photographic history celebrating more than 100 years of pinstripe baseball in the Big Apple. The exhibit will be on display through the end of 2010.
”This is great – right where the trophy should be,” said Jackie Campbell, a Yankees fan from Troy, N.Y. “And it will be back here next year, too, after the Yankees win it again.”
The Hall also announced Tuesday that singer-songwriter John Fogerty will perform his 1985 baseball hit, “Centerfield,” during the induction ceremony July 25 at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown. This is the 25th anniversary of the song that has been a fixture at Hall of Fame ceremonies and ballparks throughout North America.
“Because of the lasting contributions to baseball and Americana made by John Fogerty, we are thrilled to pay homage to him and the song, as we celebrate the silver anniversary with his live performance in Cooperstown,” Hall president Jeff Idelson said. “The song captures the spirit and energy of those of us who have dreamed of being a baseball star and playing center field, like Robin Yount, Duke Snider or Willie Mays.”
Jeff chose three living Hall of Famers for his statement, but Fogerty told the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner in an interview that he grew up in Berkeley, Calif., as a Yankees fan before the Giants moved to San Francisco and that among his inspirations for the song were two other center fielders, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.
Andre Dawson, who played center fielder for the Expos before he moved to right field with the Cubs, will be inducted that day along with former manager Whitey Herzog and former umpire Doug Harvey. Also honored will be ESPN and Giants broadcaster Jon Miller with the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence and New York Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden with the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for contributions to baseball writing.
Jack O'Connell
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