Jane Heller

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author

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Party On!

October 4, 2017

Yes, it’s another old picture, but last night’s game ended too late for me to pop champagne. Suffice it to say I was celebrating in my mind. The Yankees are going to the ALDS!!!!

The game was such a bummer in the beginning. Severino was clearly overawed/nervous/too pumped, not to mention too inexperienced to start a one-game wild card playoff with everything on the line. He’s a kid. Too much pressure on him, as good as he’s been this season. He got knocked around in the first, couldn’t locate, couldn’t get outs – until he was out, and thank God. I kept yelling, “Pull him, Joe!”

And Joe listened. Chad Green was superb in early relief, truly. His strikeouts were huge, setting up a chance for the Yanks to come back in the bottom of the first (bless you, Didi; Gardner too). Of course, Judge had a homer as well in his first postseason game, because Judge has destiny on his side. Everyone in the Stadium crowd seemed to be wearing #99 on their backs. I loved that the pitch before the homer was up and in by Santana, and Judge glared at him – just as Gardner did – before taking him deep.

And then there was D-Rob. I hope his arm doesn’t fall off. He was a trooper, pitching so well for so long when he’s used to one or maybe two innings, no more. He got us through to the other relievers, who held the Twins scoreless the rest of the way. Sure, we burned the bullpen, which doesn’t bode well for the future, but that’s how it goes when you’re fighting for a spot in the ALDS.

I would love to have seen the Yankees do more scoring after the flurry early, just to give myself some breathing room and to let Joe use the mop-up guys in the pen, but I’m not complaining. I’ve been tough on Joe this season, but he made all the right moves last night.

Well, I am complaining, but it’s ESPN I’m mad at. Number one: why must the games start at 8pm and drag on forever thanks to their zillion commercials? And the commentary is mind-numbing; the trio in the booth never shut up.

But now it’s on to Cleveland and the start time on Thursday night is 7:30 on FS1. My Tribe fan friend tells me it’s supposed to pour that night. She also said she’s hoping for midges; it’s that time of year. The Yankees’ path to victory against the Indians won’t be easy (ugh- Cory Kluber), but we’ll see. We know how to deal with midges now, and it’s not bug spray.

Filed Under: Confessions of a She-Fan Tagged With: Aaron Judge, ALDS, Brett Gardner, Chad Green, Cleveland Indians, David Robertson, Didi Gregorius, Luis Severino, midges, Twins, Wild Card, Yankees

Post Subway Series, Now What?

August 5, 2016

subway-series-tickets

We saw Gary Sanchez get his first major league hit and serve as DH. We saw the successful return of Luis Severino out of the bullpen. But the Yankees held fast to their tendency to play .500 baseball with a series split against the Mets. They’re a different team but their results are the same. And so be it.

The big question everyone’s asking going forward – and Girardi is getting peeved about being asked day after day, can’t blame him – is what’s to be done with A-Rod? He gets no playing time. He’s just….there. I read an article in the NYT the other day about what a great mentor he’s been to the younger players and how baseball-smart he is (we could see that from watching his commentary on the TV playoff coverage). So what happens to him?

My guess is the Yankees organization will retain him for the duration of this season and then release him (unless the Marlins are willing to take him). And then he’ll either play for another year (again, for the Marlins most likely) to reach his milestones, or settle into the broadcast booth. As I said, he’s good in front of the camera when talking about the game as opposed to himself.

Meanwhile, the Yanks take on the now-powerhouse Cleveland Indians this weekend and that means facing Andrew Miller. It’ll make me sad to see him in their uniform.

Filed Under: Confessions of a She-Fan Tagged With: A-Rod, Andrew Miller, Cleveland Indians, Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Mets, Subway Series, Yankees

Nice Story About The Giambino

March 16, 2013

In case anyone missed it, I thought I’d post the article in the NYT by the always readable Tyler Kepner. The subject was former Yankee and proud ‘stache (and thong) wearer, Jason Giambi. I’d always heard how well-liked he is by his teammates, the beat writers, the fans and pretty much everybody in the sports world, so it was sweet to see he’s doing well. For your reading pleasure…….

Giambi Reinvents Himself, and Baseball Is Intrigued
By TYLER KEPNER

Jason Giambi, elder statesman. How can this be? The Big G? The man who swung big and lived bigger? The scamp with the dancing eyes, loose ethics and a bawdy tale for all occasions?

“Like anything, you grow up,” Giambi said the other morning, in the Cleveland Indians’ locker room, after a day at home in Las Vegas. “I still have fun. I mean, it’s a lot different fun than I used to have.”

Half of the major league teams train in Arizona, and Giambi is the oldest player out here. Two pitchers in Florida camps, Mariano Rivera of the Yankees and Darren Oliver of the Toronto Blue Jays, are older. Giambi is the dean of the Cactus League. He turned 42 on Jan. 8 — Elvis Presley’s birthday, naturally.

Giambi hopes to make the Indians’ roster as a pinch-hitter and occasional designated hitter, the kind of bench player his old general manager with the Yankees, Brian Cashman, calls a big, hairy monster. Two years ago, Giambi hit 10 home runs in 99 at-bats against right-handers. He still has pop, probably. He definitely has wisdom.

“He’s not a veteran, he’s the veteran,” Manager Terry Francona said. “I’ve already gone to him three or four times asking him questions. He’s solid. Brings a lot.”

Francona and Giambi have something in common: each interviewed for manager’s jobs after last season. Giambi interviewed twice for the job in Colorado, where he played the last four seasons. The Rockies hired Walt Weiss but offered to make Giambi their hitting coach.

He declined, he said, out of respect for Weiss; if the team started slowly, Giambi did not want to be seen as looming in the background, angling for his job. He also wanted to squeeze one more season from a career that stretches to 1995.

“Whenever he does end up retiring, he’s going to have to stay in the game,” said Troy Tulowitzki, the Rockies’ shortstop. “Going to the field and being around the guys is something he’s going to miss more than the average person.”

Giambi has always been popular in the clubhouse for his ability to laugh at himself and his generosity. Members of the Yankees support staff, who depended on playoff bonuses to augment meager salaries, would rave about Giambi taking up their cause. When his former coach in Oakland, Ron Washington, now the manager of the Texas Rangers, sustained damage to his New Orleans home after Hurricane Katrina, Giambi wrote a check, no questions asked.

He was also revered in the Rockies’ clubhouse, where a photo of Giambi celebrating a game-ending homer — bat flipped high in the air — still hangs in a hallway above the word “character.” This would seem incongruous to those inclined to dismiss Giambi’s career with a different word: steroids. The Rockies were not among those people.

When Manager Jim Tracy resigned after last season, the team said that it would seek a younger manager, with no experience necessary. That intrigued Giambi, who asked for an interview with Bill Geivett, a senior vice president. He then earned another interview with ownership, and his past steroid use was not an issue.

“For us to hold things against people, especially from a time when they were younger, I don’t think that we’ve ever done that or will do that,” Geivett said. “People learn a lot from their experience. We looked at Jason as a guy with a tremendous amount of qualities and very good leadership, for what we see right now. In the grand scheme of things, that’s what’s important to us — where he is today.”

Today, Giambi and his wife, Kristian, are the parents of a 16-month-old daughter. They have been married 11 years, and when they decided to start a family, Giambi said, he knew he could no longer party like a rock star, as his clubhouse T-shirt once said. He stopped drinking and has been sober for three years.

“It’s not to say that he isn’t still a fun-loving guy,” Tracy said. “But he’s come to realize his level of responsibility has changed dramatically.”

Giambi came to the Rockies in 2009 with an open mind, Tracy said, readily accepting a bench role. He compared Giambi’s presence to Robin Ventura’s on the 2004 Dodgers, a team Tracy took to the playoffs. Giambi, like Ventura, could reinforce the manager’s points in the clubhouse and teach younger teammates the nuances of the game.

Ventura became White Sox manager last year and did well, despite having never managed. Tracy said Giambi had qualities that could help him someday, but emphasized, “There is no substitute, whatsoever, for the experience of actually doing it.”

For now, Giambi said, his ideal path to a manager’s job would be to first work as a hitting coach, not to manage in the minors. He said another, unspecified team offered him a major league hitting coach job last winter.

Giambi has always been a student of hitting; in high school, he once said, he taped an illustration of Ted Williams’s strike zone onto his notebooks. With uncanny plate discipline and steroid-aided power, Giambi became the dominant offensive player in the American League, the most valuable player for Oakland in 2000 and the runner-up the next year.

Giambi remained a productive regular through age 37, well into the drug-testing era. Unlike others from his heyday, he was spared much of the wrath of fans because he was truthful before the Balco grand jury in December 2003. That, of course, was merely his civic duty. But against the backdrop of others who dodged and weaved, Giambi stood out.

“I made the greatest choice ever,” he said. “If you look at how everything’s transpired, my whole thing was over the day I went in front of the grand jury and told the truth. The freeing part, actually, was when my grand jury testimony got leaked. That skeleton in the closet was no longer just waiting to come out.”

With his words laid bare in The San Francisco Chronicle, Giambi could apologize without specifying his transgressions. But everybody knew, and he signed lots of autographs and never chafed at follow-up questions. He was comeback player of the year in 2005, and three years later, in his final season in New York, the Yankees held a giveaway mustache day in his honor. Mike Mussina wore one in the dugout.

Going from scorned to celebrated is one thing. But becoming so respected that he would be a serious managerial candidate, even before retirement, may be Giambi’s most remarkable act.

“The fact that he got interviewed, coming right off the field, speaks volumes,” Francona said. “I think he’d be great.”

Few could match Giambi’s experiences. He has played in the World Series and finished in last place. He has been an M.V.P. and a bench guy, a wild man and a family man, a cheater and a truth-teller. He remains eager to share it all.

“I’ve got a whole dossier of things to do and things not to do,” Giambi said. “I tell people, I’ve lived lifetimes already.”

Filed Under: Confessions of a She-Fan Tagged With: Cleveland Indians, Jason Giambi, Yankees

Hughes, Masterson And Strudel

July 6, 2011

(courtesy: sheknows.com)

That’s what I call Asdrubal Cabrera. He’s Strudel to me, what can I say? He fielded some amazing plays in tonight’s loss to Cleveland and he hurt the Yanks.

But Masterson hurt more. He made even our best hitters look foolish. Well, except Jeter, who is almost guaranteed to reach his milestone against the Rays this weekend – maybe even as soon as tomorrow night.

Hughes. Sigh. I know I’m supposed to be excited by his outing. He did settle down after giving up those two runs in the first and he did have improved velocity and strength and he certainly showed promise after his long layoff. But he also hit a couple of batters and couldn’t get any swings and misses and threw the ball right down the middle more often than not. Why do I have the sinking feeling that he’s still not the pitcher he was touted to be? I hope I’m wrong, I really do.

Our bullpen didn’t exactly inspire confidence either. We might have staged a comeback if not for MEAT TRAY. Why did Cashman re-sign this guy? What’s next? The return of Luis Vizcaino? Oh, wait. He’s serving a 50-game suspension for using ‘roids. Maybe Chris Britton is available. (Sarcasm is unbecoming, I know. I can’t help myself.)

So we lost the series. And tomorrow I have to go to L.A. for a meeting and will be on my way home, sitting in traffic on the 101 freeway, when the action starts at 4 pm here. I’ll record the game so I’ll have it in case Jeter does his thing, but while I’m in the car I’ll have this.

(courtesy: cnet.com)

Michael’s driving, so I won’t crash into anybody while I watch. Is the MLB At Bat app one of the best inventions ever or what?

Oh. I guess I should be paying attention to the Clemens trial that’s just getting underway. They’re doing jury selection. If The Rocket’s lucky, maybe he’ll get the Casey Anthony crew.

Filed Under: Confessions of a She-Fan Tagged With: Asdrubal Cabrera, Casey Anthony, Cleveland Indians, Derek Jeter, iPhone, Justin Masterson, MLB At Bat app, Phil Hughes, Rays, Roger Clemens, Sergio Mitre, Yankees

And You Thought We Had Problems

April 12, 2011

Just to name a few. (That last pic is of Pedro Feliciano, btw. Since we’ve never seen him pitch as a Yankee, it might be hard to tell.)

Somehow, our problems seem minor next to those of other clubs. At the moment anyway. While we were being rained out against the O’s tonight, here’s what else happened:

  1. Josh Hamilton broke his arm and will be out 6-8 weeks.
  2. The Red Sox lost again and are now 2-9.
  3. Vernon Wells has been given a “mental day” by the Angels – a euphemism for “benched.”

Doesn’t it seem as if this season is getting off to a rocky start? Well, unless you’re the Cleveland Indians, who have been doing an excellent impression of a really good team.

So let’s be grateful for what’s gone right so far with the Yankees:

  1. A.J. has been Good A.J.
  2. Russell Martin is everybody’s new fan fave.
  3. CC has pitched well enough to be 3-0.
  4. A-Rod has his stroke back.
  5. D-Rob has his Ks back.
  6. Mo hasn’t lost a step.

Let’s go Yankees.

Filed Under: Confessions of a She-Fan Tagged With: A.J. Burnett, Angels, Cleveland Indians, Freddy Garcia, Josh Hamilton, Pedro Feliciano, Phil Hughes, Rangers, Rays, Red Sox, Russell Martin, Vernon Wells, Yankees

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About Jane Heller

Jane Heller is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her fourteen breezy, witty novels of romantic comedy and suspense are now entertaining millions of readers around the world, along with her two books of nonfiction.

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