SABATHIA: THE MAKING OF A MONSTER

CC Sabathia was never this good, but with the Yankees, he as seasoned as some of the greats, Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax. That’s right, I put the guy in that category because who else can either be so incredibly dominant on his best day, on on his worst day, grind out and reinvent himself to scratch out a win, or at least go down trying. Gamer? I’d say so.

Not sure if you know why I refer to CC as CC Monster but my explanation is simple. To me, the guy is a monster. He stands on that pound in that big frame, larger than life and just chucks it in as if to say “Just try and hit it.” You’d want your entire rotation to be that confident. Message to AJ, this is your teammate, ask questions and learn how to get some balls out there. So, yeah, CC is a monster but there’s another reason. My 2 little guys watch Sesame Street religiously. Cookie Monster is one of their favorites, so between the 2, one of my older sons starting toying with the idea of putting CC and Cookie Monster together… a mashup if you will and I started to like it. I have a 9 year old brain, what do you want from me? I’m running with it and maybe it’ll catch on.

When CC came on the scene back with the Indians I never thought he was anything special. A work horse, yes. Someone who could eventually be dominant? Yes, but damn did we get lucky. It seems that CC really came into his own right around his Milwaukee stint and when he came to the Yankees, the guy just was all sorts of awesome.

As a Yankee fan, I look forward to every time CC is out there. Like I’ve said, when he’s not dominant, it’s brilliantly masked with the invention of pitches and grinds better than anyone. He never gives up. I was listening to the radio the other night. Someone asked Johnny Damon out of every pitcher in the American League, if you needed to have 1 guy out there for your team in a Game 7 of the World Series, who would it be. Now remember, this is a former teammate of CC’s on the 2009 Yankees and now on the rivalry Tampa Bay Rays. Johnny Damon paused like he does… then he said “It’s got to be CC.” How the hell don’t you proud at that moment hearing that?

Check out the past 3 seasons with the Yankees:

2009: 19-8, 3.37 ERA, 230 IP, 197 K, 67 BB, WHIP 1.148

2010: 21-7, 3.18 ERA, 237.2 IP, 197 K, 74 BB, WHIP 1.191

2011: 19-8, 3.00 ERA, 237.1 IP, 230 K, 61 BB, WHIP 1.226

CC will not get his 20^th win this season. The plan is to rest him and get him to do a bullpen session or simulated game today and prepare him to start game 1 of the ALDS. Read about it HERE. CC was close to getting 20, but 19-8 is great for the big guy and huge for the Yankees.

One more thing about CC. He was nominated for the 2011 Roberto Clemente Award. This award is given to players who make efforts to improve their communities. CC Sabathia leads the charge with his terrific Foundation called PitCCh in Foundation he runs with his wife. CC is a stand up guy and gives back. Take a moment, vote for CC for the Roberto Clemente Award HERE and check out PitCCh in HERE.

(Shoutout to Topps Cards who let me borrow the image of Roberto Clemente's 1955 card image.)

The playoffs are coming Ladies and Gentlemen and we have one of the best starting pitchers in the AL right now. CC is on a mission once again and with the help of the Yankees, hopefully there will be a strong following by the rest of our starters and we will reach our goal in our Quest for 28. After all, without CC Monster, let’s face it, we’d be just another ball club. That’s a fact.

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WHY DAVID ROBERTSON IS CY YOUNG WORTHY

Heading into this year's Spring Training, I think I was like most Yankee fans when it came to David Robertson. We saw glimpses last year of a consistent, powerful pitcher out of the Yankee bullpen but I certainly would not have called him dominant. This season I figured his role would be once again to get out some tough hitters and be part of the bridge that would get us to Rafael Soriano and, eventually, Mariano Rivera. I certainly expected the 2011 D-Rob to be better this year than last but I have to admit, I never expected him to possibly make history.

Do you realize, statistically, David Robertson is having one of the most dominant single season pitching performances in Yankee history? Let that soak in for a minute. One of the greatest statistical pitching performances in New York Yankee history! Now I understand that there is a lot of baseball yet to be played and anything can happen. But at this pace D-Rob will put up numbers that will have many Yankee fans screaming "CY YOUNG!"If D-Rob continues to dominant American League hitters like this, his name will be among the greatest Yankee pitchers of all time: Names like Whitey Ford, Ron Guidry, Andy Pettitte, Catfish Hunter, Mariano Rivera, to name a few.Okay, so let me give you some of DRob's amazing stats so far this season:

• Including last nights game, DRob has appeared in 53 games this season and pitched 49.2 innings. In those 49.2 innings DRob has given up only 31 hits and struck out 74 batters! That breaks down to an average of 13.5 strikeouts per 9 innings. How sick is that? But wait, there's more...

• DRob has given up a total of 7 earned runs and has a 1.27 ERA.

• Of the 31 hits he has given up, only 7 have been extra base hits and, he has yet to give up a HR.

• Opposing hitters are hitting only .175 against him.

• And, he has yet to hit a batter.

Impressive numbers and if you dig a little deeper his stats just keep on giving...

• D-Rob is actually getting more dominant as the 2011 season progresses. I'll break down for you the key stats by months:

• April: In 11 games he faced 37 batters and gave up 9 hits and struck out 12.

• May: In 12 games he faced 44 batters and gave up 7 hits while striking out 23. Opposing batters his just .159 against D-Rob in May.

• June: In 11 games he faced 39 batters and, again, only gave up 7 hits while striking out 17 batters.

• July: In 10 games D-Rob faced 36 batters and gave up just 6 hits while striking out 16.

• August: So far in 9 games this month, he has faced 23 batters and only given up 2 hits. Opposing hitters are only hitting .167 against Robertson in August.

So as you can see DRob is only getting stronger as the season moves forward. More stats that stood out for me were his numbers against right handed hitters & left handed hitters. DRob has shattered the notion that he is simply a righty specialist. In fact, he has faced more left-handed-hitters this year than right-handed. DRob is an equal-opportunity dominant reliever!

• Vs. Right-handed-batters: DRob has faced 83 batter and given up just 16 hits, which comes to a .193 Avg. Of those 83 right handed batters he struck out 28.

• Vs. Left handed hitters: DRob has faced 94 batters while surrendering only 15 hits and striking out 45. Yep, he has almost struck out half of the left handed batters he has faced! Just a reminder, DRob is a right-handed pitcher!

Look, right now David Robertson is a middle reliever so no matter what kind of numbers he finishes with this year chances are he won't win the AL Cy Young. But in my opinion he deserves, at the very least, some consideration. Even some votes from the writers. It is hard to ignore and not reward a guy who is putting up statistics like the ones DRob is compiling as we speak. So here's to you DRob! If I had a vote for the Cy Young award I wouldn't think twice about throwing it your way! Thanks for an incredible season so far and we look forward to you helping us get #28!

DRob is one of BYB's favorite Yankees, not just for his on the field dominance but for the class and compassion he has off the field. For more on Roberstoson including BYB's exclsuive interview with D-Rob, please check out our previous articles:

WHY HITTERS RESPECT DAVID ROBERTSON
HELP ROBERTSON MAKE A DIFFERENCE
WHY ROBERTSON MAKES US PROUD
WHY ROBERTSON DESERVES AN ALL STAR BID
WHY KINDNESS MAKES THE WORLD GO 'ROUND
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: HIGH SOCKS FOR HOPE
WHY ROBERTSON'S AN INSPIRATION
WHY ROBERTSON DESERVES MORE CREDIT
WHY ROBERTSON WILL DOMINATE



--Mikey Blue, BYB Senior Writer
Email: DonnieBaseball2323@gmail.com

Twitter: @MikeyBlu23



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THE ART OF ART DITMAR

Speaking to my friend David about Art Ditmar, you'd think he was the shining light and driving force behind the New York Yankees in the late 50's, early 60's. He wasn't, but he was a pretty good pitcher with a couple tough breaks while on the Bombers. The first break was being overshadowed by an already talented rotations during his years in pinstripes. The second was losing 2 World Series starts in terrible fashion, yet, Art Ditmar did what every great New York Yankee does in their career; He tried to compete and tried to win, every time. That's all you could ask for and that's why David loved Art Ditmar so much.

Art Ditmar was a right handed pitcher and quite good, for a short amount of time. More importantly, he was quite consistent which makes for a heck of a pitcher, especially when you are in a rotation that consisted of greats like Whitey Ford, Don Larsen, Bob Turley, Ralph Terry and Bobby Shantz. Yes, Art Ditmar was in rotations with those guys and because of it, he didn’t get to pitch a lot during his stay in New York. He did however get 15 wins, a career high for him back in 1960.

(In Photo: Ditmar, left, Casey Stengel, Bobby Shantz, right)

Ditmar had 3 pitches, his fastball, slider and curveball. His fastball was by far the best of the 3 pitches. During his span with the Yanks, Ditmar won 47 games. Those years were from 1957 to 1961. During that 5 year span, Ditmar was apart of 1 World Championship team, and that happened in 1958 against the Milwaukee Braves. As far as American League pennants are concerned, the Yankees won in 1957, 1958, 1960. In the 1960 World Series though, Art Ditmar started and lost both Game 1 and Game 5 for the Yankees. Those 2 games he put an absolutely horrible display only pitching 1/3 of an inning in Game 1 and 1 1/3 in Game 5. Horrendous doesn’t even begin to describe it. The story goes like this, Casey Stengel wanted Ditmar to start Game 1 instead of Whitey Ford because he thought Whitey would be a better matchup in Yankee Stadium. Read it HERE. We all know what happened, the Yankees lost that World Series to the Pirates 4 games to 3.

Ditmar played 9 years in the Major leagues. During that time, he first played for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1954 and compiled an American League record high 22 losses. After that season, he went to the Yankees and then to the Athletics again, this time to the Kansas City Athletics from 1961 and 1962. His career numbers are 72-77 with a 3.98 ERA and 552 strikeouts.

The most interesting tid-bit I found out about Art Ditmar is something that really isn't about Ditmar at all. It's about Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Back in 1954, Art was with Philadelphia Athletics and he defeated the Yankees 8-6 in the last game at Shibe Park in Philly. This was before the team moved to Kansas City. the nugget comes here; In that game, Yogi Berra played his first and only game at third base and Mickey Mantle played shortstop for the Yankees. That's right...Mickey Mantle.

So, while Art Ditmar doesn't have an outstanding career in pinstripes, he sure has a unique one. And while there are thousands of Yankees players over the years, everyone has a favorite or one they loved to watch play. I guess that one for David, was Art Ditmar... and that's alright by me.

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WHY GATOR HAD PRIDE FOR THE PINSTRIPES

I’ll mention a couple words and you tell me what Yankee comes to mind…

GATOR...okay, next word, LOUISIANA... Don't know? Time’s up! If you didn’t get it by now, you're reading the wrong blog.

True Yankee fans know I'm talking about the one, the only, Ron Guidry. Perhaps the most dominant Yankee lefty pitcher in my lifetime for sure. Again, I stress my lifetime. I am sure most older Yankee fans will argue that Whitey Ford was perhaps, not only the greatest Yankee lefty pitcher of all time, but one of the best left handed pitchers in MLB history, period! The younger generation will argue that Andy Pettitte is clearly the most dominant lefty we ever had on the Yankees. It would be hard to argue against either one of those guys. And maybe that’s a blog for another day. But I did not write this piece to argue over Ford, Guidry, and Pettitte, and who was the best of the three. For argument’s sake, let's just say as Yankee fans we were lucky to have three of the most dominant and clutch lefty pitchers ever. Am I right?

Okay, so why did I write a piece on the great Ron Guidry? Because he deserves alittle recognition. People tend to forget the great ones, and we're not about to here. If you never saw Ron Guidry pitch and you just looked at his final career stats, you would probably say they are above average looking. Certainly nothing to sneeze at, but probably not Hall of Fame caliber. And, you are probably right. I am not going to argue in this piece that Guidry should be in the Hall of Fame, although there are people that can make a solid argument that he should be. I respect that. What I did want to do was point out that, for a short period in Major League Baseball, Guidry was the most dominant pitcher in the game, hands down. There was a 2-3 year stretch (1977-1979) that Guidry was the most feared pitcher in baseball. Think about that for a moment…How many pitchers can say that during their career in in the Pros at some point they were the most feared pitcher on the mound... not many. He had a closer’s fastball that he could throw for 9 innings with a slider that literally made thousands of professional hitters look like little leaguers.

And of those games from 1977-1979, I want to specifically focus on the year 1978. In 1978 Guidry won the Cy Young Award with 100% of the writers votes. He put up numbers that will just blow you away. That season, he had one of the greatest single season pitching performances ever…EVER! Yankee fans, you know how you feel when we give the ball to Mo in the 9^th inning of a 3-2 game? The game's basically over, right? Well, that is exactly how the Yankee fans felt in 1978 when it was Guidry’s turn in the rotation. Just look at these numbers:

• 25 wins vs. only 3 losses:That’s a .893 winning percentage
• 1.74 ERA: Under two runs for an entire season as a starting pitcher! His ERA alone in 1978 is among the top ten in baseball‘s modern era!
• 9 shutouts
• He had 248 strikeouts in 1978 and only allowed just over 6 hits per 9 innings and American League batters hit UNDER .200 against him!
• On June 17, 1978, against the California Angels, Gator struck out 18 batters in a 9 inning game. At the time, it was a Major League Baseball record that has since been broken, but it is still a Yankee record.
  

I also wanted to point out this fun fact to the younger Yankee fans reading this: You know how Yankee fans stand and cheer and clap whenever an opposing batter has two strikes on him? Do you know when that tradition started? Yep, in the Bronx on that night of June 17, 1978. As Guidry started mowing down one Angel batter after another, the fans at Yankee Stadium began to stand and cheer and clap every time Guidry had two strikes. Now, of course, all stadiums copy this two strike cheer. So now you know, that is where that two strike chant started... by Yankees fans, of course. Compliments of a dominating Ron Guidry.

Guidry’s 25^th win in 1978 was the most dramatic and significant of that brilliant season. He was the winning pitcher in the “Bucky Dent homerun” game as well. That homerun and that game will forever go down as the greatest Yankee game I've ever watched. I was very young at the time and remember watching the game with my older brother and I just remember him screaming when Dent hit that homerun but I also remember that night... It was Gator who got the win against the dreaded Red Sox. That was clutch. Think about the pressure on his shoulders for that game. He was wrapping up one of the most dominant seasons a pitcher ever had and now it all came down to that game.

Something else to remember about the Yankee vs. Red Sox rivalries in those days. We all know how we “hate” the dreaded Red Sox today. Well in 1978, the Yankee fans and Red Sox fans genuinely hated each other, but more importantly, unlike today, the Yankee players and Red Sox players literary hated each other too. The pressure on Guidry’s shoulders for that game was probably equal to, if not more than a Game 7 of a World Series, and Louisiana Lightning came through! He wasn’t dominant that day, but he was clutch for sure.

After 1978, as we all know, the Yankees wouldn’t win another World Series until 1996. But Guidry continued to shine and build upon his Yankee legacy. After that 1978 season, Guidry continued to baffle hitter's with his rising fastball and his sick slider. In 1985, he led the AL in wins with 22, and he almost wrapped up his second Cy Young award but, unfortunately, he fell a few votes short to a rookie sensation named Bret Saberhagen. I always thought he should have won it that year, but then again, I am biased towards my Yanks, and you know it. In fact, in a nine year period, Guidry finished in the top ten voting for the Cy Young award six times. That’s pretty impressive!

Guidry hung ‘em up midway through the 1989 season after shoulder surgery basically did not work. The man retired from the game with dignity and class and from the team he made his legacy with, the New York Yankees! The Yankees gave Guidry the ultimate honor and retired his #49 in 2003, setting his place among the Yankee greats! Guidry is still involved with the Yankee organization. He heads to Tampa every Spring to work with our pitchers and makes appearance in the Bronx every Old Timer’s Day. He still gets one of the loudest ovations, and deservedly so. Ron Guidry was and is, to this day, a great Yankee!

Check out these facts about Gator:

• Guidry was Yankees Co-Captain from 1985-86 along with Willie Randolph

• Guidry was a 4 time All Star

• Guidry went 4-0 in the postseason (1977 & ’78) with 3 complete games in 5 starts, allowing only nine earned runs in 37 1/3 innings pitched

• Guidry only gave up one homerun to a lefty the entire 1978 season

• All three of Guidry’s losses in 1978 were to left handed pitchers named “Mike” (weird, right?)

• Guidry won the 1978 Cy Young and only finished 2^nd in the AL MVP voting to Jim Rice.

• In 1983 Guidry had 21 wins, all of his wins were complete games.
  

• On August 7, 1984, Guidry struck out three batters on nine pitches in the ninth inning of a 7-0 win over the Chicago White Sox. Guidry became the eighth American League pitcher and the 20th pitcher in Major League history to accomplish the so-called "immaculate inning." He was the first pitcher to do so in the 9th inning of a complete game, a feat which has since been matched only once.

• Louisiana Lightning was the Yankees pitching coach from 2006-2007

• Guidry won the Gold Glove 5 straight years.

Let's never forget the greats. Let's give a salute to Gator. He was a true Yankee. And a shoutout to @JeterFan_02 who is from Gator country. She gave me the idea.




--Mikey Blue, BYB Senior Writer




Please comment and let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.