Sure, Billy Crystal got to live out his life-long fantasy Thursday, the day before his sixtieth birthday, when he signed a one day contract with the New York Yankees and appeared in their spring training game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Sure, he got to hob-nob with all the famous and not-so-famous Yankees, spending Wednesday working out with the team and following Derek Jeter around the field like a puppy - and by the way, if you're going to follow someone, who better than Jeter?
Sure, he was nervous in his one and only plate appearance, a strikeout on a 3-2 pitch from Pittsburgh's Paul Maholm. Who wouldn't have been?
But with all the attention focused on Crystal, how about a little nod to the pressure poor Paul Maholm must have been feeling? Here's a kid who's 25 years old, a veteran of just two full big league seasons, with a career record five games under .500 and an ERA last year over 5.00 - in the National League! - and he has to face a 60 year old comedian who hasn't played baseball competitively since high school.
Talk about your pressure situations! Can you imagine if he had given up a hit to Crystal? He grooves a fastball and the guy takes him deep? He tosses up a curveball that doesn't break and Billy Crystal slugs a double off the wall? Billy Crystal?
How do you explain that one to the manager? "Sorry Skip, I guess I shoulda moved him off the plate early in the at-bat. Made him move his feet or even knocked him down. He was a little too comfortable up there, but what do you expect? After all, the guy has hosted the Oscars, right Skip? Pressure's nothing to him. What? What do you mean you're moving me to the bullpen?"
Or how about this scenario - A fastball gets away from Maholm and he drills the legendary Billy Crystal right in the earhole. Can you imagine being known forevermore as the guy who killed the New York Yankees most famous die-hard lifelong fan? How do you get past that one?
At least, as a National Leaguer, you wouldn't have to venture into Yankee Stadium every year and hear it from their fans, and as a Pittsburgh Pirate, you wouldn't have to worry about meeting them in the World Series, but still. Pressure.
As it was, Maholm flirted with disaster as the sixty year old comedian, a man old enough to be his grandfather, narrowly missed actually getting a hit on a ground ball down the first base line that missed staying fair by only three feet or so.
In a way, it's too bad the ball didn't stay fair. We could have been treated to the sight of Billy Crystal trying to stretch his single into a double and maybe coming into second base with spikes high, catching Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson somewhere above the knee with his metal cleats. According to Shelley Duncan, that's how you play hard, isn't it?
Spring training in Major League Baseball is normally a time of stretching, two or three at-bats per game for the regulars, and plenty of golf for everyone. This year, though, it seems the Yankees and Rays have decided to engage in their own little tong war.
First came some guy you never heard of for Tampa Bay running over some other guy you never heard of playing catcher for New York on a play at the plate late in their Grapefruit League game Saturday. The Yankee guy you never heard of held on to the ball for the out before leaving the field in obvious pain and being rushed to the hospital where it was determined he suffered a fractured wrist.
It was an outstanding play by the Yankee catcher, Francisco Cervelli (See, I told you you never heard of him), to hold on to the ball, considering the Tampa runner, Elliott Johnson (See?) had a full head of steam going and ran Cervelli over like John Daly headed for the beer tent.
After the game, the quotes were predictable - outrage from the Yankee side and offended innocence from Tampa's clubhouse. The Yankees felt a meaningless spring training game was no place for, you know, real hustle, and that Johnson should have....uh....well, no one really ever said what else he was supposed to do, but what he did wasn't it, dammit!
It was probably inevitable that there would be retaliation from the New York side, baseball's unwritten codes being what they are, but who would have imagined it would come just four days later? After all, both teams reside in the American League East, which means they would have ample opportunities to settle their differences over the course of the season, considering they will face each other eighteen times in 2008.
Nevertheless, in the second inning of Wednesday's game between the two teams, Shelley Duncan of the Yankees went hard into second base with his spikes high trying to stretch a one-base error into two, taking out Rays second baseman Akinori Iwamura. In the A.P. photo you can clearly see Duncan's spikes raised almost to the top of Iwamura's leg, and there is a clear dirt mark on Iwamura's uniform where the shoe struck the Ray's second baseman above the knee.
A total of two players and two coaches were ejected as a result of that play and the pushing and shoving and name-calling that followed it, and that's after Yankee pitcher Heath Phillips was ejected in the first inning for hitting the Rays' Evan Longoria with a pitch.
The Yankees, again predictably, claimed no ill intent on Duncan's part, but the picture seems to prove otherwise pretty conclusively, and therein lies the difference between the two incidents. Saturday's collision at home plate was something you see a couple of times a week during the baseball season - a good hard clean play at the plate. It was unfortunate someone got injured, but if you watch the video, there is no question the play was clean.
The Yankees point was that the Tampa player no one ever heard of should not have barrelled over their catcher in a meaningless game, but no spring game is meaningless to a player no one ever heard of - every play is an opportunity to show the organization you know how to hustle. If the Yankees truly believe what they were saying, they should simply instruct their catchers never to block the plate until the regular season. End of problem.
Wednesday's play, however, was the essence of dirty, with Tampa manager Joe Maddon calling it "contemptible" and "borderline criminal." Look at the above photo again and it's hard to argue otherwise.
Fortunately for Iwamura, and for Shelley Duncan as well, the Tampa second baseman was unhurt. It would be an awful thing for Duncan to have to live with if he ended another player's career with a dirty, vindictive play and that is exactly what it was, although Duncan will never admit it.
Hey everyone, I know it must seem like I've dropped off the face of the earth, but it's nothing like that.
I've been busy writing - two full-length novels so far, plus over a dozen short stories - and working hard to try to get an agent. If you are curious and have a few minutes, check out my website, www.allanleve rone.com.
If you're a literary agent or if you know one, by all means contact me! In the meantime, I'll be here when I can - love this forum - and as always, thank you for checking out my blog, especially considering how many great ones you could be reading instead....
