BRONX EMBALMERS ... HOLD UP
It seemed all too symbolic not to be truth.
I mean, if there's one day out of the entire year where the Yankees should annihilate the Red Sox, that date would be the 4th of July, no?
Instead, on July 4, Boston beat New York -- at Yankee Stadium -- 6-4, the Yanks' third loss in four games. The Yankees, after 87 games of the 2008 season, were just 45-42. Adding injury to insult, their most dynamic player this season, Johnny Damon, went on the DL following a freak play that you're just never going to see again for years. Damon chased down a deep drive by Kevin Youklis, one of those Red Sox players who seems to elevate his game against the Pinstripes (e.g., Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Jason Varitek and, at one time, Damon himself), caught the ball momentarily, and then crashed into the left field fence.
Down went Damon. Up went the ball, where it landed perfectly atop the fence. It sat there for a moment or two, as if trying to determine the fate of the remainder of the Yanks' season. Then it fell back onto the playing field. Youklis had a triple and Damon went on the DL ... joining New York's other left-fielder, Hideki Matsui.
It's been a topsy-turvy (what is "turvy" by the way?) season in the Bronx, which is to say typical. Jason Giambi apparently is auditioning to appear in a sequel to "Boogie Nights", while A-Rod has apparently been cuckolded by the world's most famous woman who does not also have her own daytime talk show. And according to Monday's papers, the A.L. MVP has graduated from two-timing to three-waying.
Two All-Stars (Damon and Matsui) are on the DL as is the supposed present staff ace (Chien-Ming Wang) and future staff ace (Phil Hughes). Of those four, only Damon should really be counted on to return and offer any help this season.
But you know what?
After Sunday's 2-1 victory over the Athletics to complete a 3-game sweep, New York found itself just 4 1/2 games out of first place in the AL East. And just 3 games back of the Red Sox, who apparently are more lost on the road (21-34 this season ... shameful for a team that is 4-0 in its last four World Series road games) than those two characters from Cormac McCarthy's eponymous novel.
Have the Yankees, 8-3 since that 4th of July debacle, at last turned a corner? The weekend's sweep of the A's was New York's first sweep of an AL foe with a winning record since ... 2007. New York has had four three-game sweeps this season, but two of them came against the NL (Houston and San Diego) and the other two victims were the same inept Seattle Mariner ballclub. The worst team in the American League.
This weekend the Yankees not only swept an Athletics team that had a winning record, but one that entered the series with a better record. And while it's too early to discuss season-deciding series (ask the Mets about that), I will note that three of New York's next four series will also come against teams that have better records than the Yankees: Minnesota, Boston and the Los Angels Angels of Irvine ... or Santa Ana ... or wherever. Like it matters.
Why have the Yankees begun to turn it around? Pitching, of course. Since that loss to Boston on the 4th, New York has given up 28 runs in eleven games, an ERA of 2.54. The hitting is still intermittent, and timely hits are still a rarity with this club, but the Yanks are doing what it takes. For now. On Sunday against Justin Duscherer, who came into the game with the AL's lowest ERA, New York scratched together two runs. One came on an A-Rod sacrifice fly and the second, the game-winner, on the cheapest home run you'll ever seen Pornstachio hit in Yankee Stadium. But it was enough.
And as for symbolism? For the penultimate out of the game, the Yankee right-fielder overthrew the cut-off man only to have an infielder (in this case, A-Rod) shrewdly back up the play and make a flip to a teammate (in this case, Derek Jeter) for the out. And it helped that the A's displayed some dumb baserunning. Shades of the '01 ALDS, no?
It's way too early to say what's going to happen in the AL East. But it is good to know that next weekend's series at Fenway is going to matter.
FINN-TASTIC
There's infatuation, there's love, there's the kind of obsession that I have with Gilmore Girls, and then there's the critical mass appeal that The Hold Steady are currently enjoying. You cannot shake an annoying subscription card out of a magazine this month without coming across an article on the critically acclaimed Brooklyn-via-Twin Cities band.
You think I kid? I was flying out west last week and had three magazines with me: New York Magazine, Blender, and Esquire. All three contained an article about The Hold Steady, which have gone from underground to overhyped in the time it takes to get your hand stamped outside Mercury Lounge.
They not only appeared on Letterman last week, but that kinda-but-not-so-much funny comedian who does pre-taped bits for them did a segment in which he hung out with lead singer Craig Finn. The gag was that Finn is the least rock-star-looking lead singer on the planet, which is true. Not only does he look like your sophomore year Biology teacher, but Finn wears khakis onstage and is an embarrassingly bad dancer when he rocks. Trust me, you never looked this dorky dancing to Billy Idol in 7th grade. I'd like to see a special episode of "Rock of Love" in which Bret Michaels watches and appraises Finn's performance.
The tunes are solid, though. I first caught on to The Hold Steady two years ago, with their release "Boys and Girls In America". There was a tune called "Chill Out Tent" that featured fellow Twin Cities native Dave Pirner (of Soul Asylum) on guest vocals. The song was all about a guy and a girl, strangers who each had too much to drink/ingest/smoke/what-have-you at a show and each wound up in the "chill-out tent". A brief romantic interlude commenced.
The opening track on that disc, "Stuck Between Stations", is so Springsteen that The Boss should demand royalties. The tune would have fit perfectly on "The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle" and indeed Finn is a Bruce devotee. And a witty writer, to boot, which explains The Hold Steady lyric that goes, "Tramps like us...and we like tramps."
The current album, "Stay Positive", features what will become the band's breakout hit (this from a band that has yet to sell 150,000 records so far). The song, "Sequestered in Memphis", features the line that the band's fans will be screaming at one another for years (or, this being indie rock, months): "In barlight, she looked alright/In daylight, she looked desperate."
Check 'em out. Before the backlash begins.
Meanwhile...
My brother Porge, who is always five steps ahead of everyone (and in step with the immortal Billy H., who sends me 20 "Best of 2005/2006/2007/2008" CDs per year), clued me in to a band that every last periodical has yet to discover. They're called The Love Me Nots, a two-guy, two-gal band out of Phoenix who appear to be living in a time warp: for them it's 1968 and they play as if their next gig will be at an acid-test with Grace Slick and the Grateful Dead. They're totally shagadelic, baby. Check 'em out.
Iran ... Iran So Far Away
I'm not very personable on airplanes -- or anywhere else, at least not lately -- but last week I found myself seated in the same row with a likeable young man who was on his way home from his first post-graduation job interview. And he is trying to get into journalism (hopefully, the fact that I was seated in coach and nearly two decades older than he has inspired him to seek an alternative career).
Anyway, he was a fascinating young guy, as he is of Iranian descent and has visited Tehran a couple of times. His name: Iman. And so all week long I've been telling friends -- wait, "friend" ... who am I kidding? -- about "My man Iman from Iran." One friend has been keeping count as to how many times I've used that phrase. It's in the teens now. And I wonder why so few people take my calls.
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NBCSports.com's John Walters goes into the world of college sports and well beyond. From Notre Dame to the latest in pop culture, JDub tackles it all.
How did the term "topsy-turvy come to mean "in disarray" or "upside down"? Has this anything to do with Uncle Tom's Cabin's "Growed like Topsy?" -- J.C. Maçek III, via the internet.
Good question. In fact, last spring I wrote a column on "Topsy," a character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, and when it came time to post the column on this web site, I couldn't resist titling it "Funny, she never even mentioned her sister Turvy."
Before we go any further, I suppose I should bring the rest of the gang up to speed on "growed like Topsy." The plot of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," written in 1852, centers on kindly old Uncle Tom, a slave owned by Augustine St. Clare. St. Clare's daughter Eva becomes friends with the young slave girl Topsy, and the novel recounts a conversation in which St. Clare's cousin Ophelia raises the topic of God with Topsy, asking her "Do you know who made you?" "Nobody, as I knows on," replies Topsy, "I spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me." Within a few years "it growed like Topsy" had become a popular figure of speech to describe something that grew or increased by itself, without apparent design or intention.
"Topsy-turvy," however, has no apparent connection to the Topsy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and is at least 300 years older to boot. The original sense of "topsy-turvy" when it first appeared around 1530 was simply "upside down" or "with the top where the bottom should be." This sense is still in use, although the figurative meaning of "mixed up" or "in disarray" is perhaps more common today.
If we separate the two parts of "topsy-turvy," the term is a bit easier to decode. The "topsy" element is simply an elaboration of the word "top." The "turvy" part is somewhat more obscure, but most likely is derived from the obsolete verb "terve," meaning "to turn over or topple down." The specific form "topsy-turvy" probably owes its longevity both to its "T" alliteration and to what linguists call "reduplication" -- the same sing-song effect found in "hoity-toity," "namby-pamby" and other popular phrases
Thanks, Cliff.
Dubs, what is the SPF of choice at Yankee Stadium? Is it a 30 crowd? 45? Will that protect them from the Rays when they're in town?
It is a dangerous business to separate certain words. Where would topsy be without turvy, hurvy without scurvy, or yin without yang? To cast them asunder would be akin to committing lexical hari kari. Your Honor, I rest my case.
Ruth speaks truth. Where would Bora be without Bora? Trinidad would be beside itself without Tobago, no? So many bon mots would just become, well, bons. Or mots. Cannot have that.