Castle may be the only show in the history of television whose most loyal fans were relieved that it was canceled. The alternative, or so it appeared, was killing off NYPD Captain Kate Beckett, becuse her portrayer, Stana Katic, was not give a new contract for a new season.

And (spoiler alert), at 10:57 PM Eastern Time last night, it looked like the fandom's worst fear had come true: Beckett and her husband, mystery novelist turned private detective Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), were shot and apparently dying, by the hand of (in true James Bond film style) the last remaining henchman of the evil organization they had taken down together.

At 10:58, we found out that they survived -- at least for another 7 years, by which point they have 3 small children. (The "little Castle babies"that the fangirls, and many fanboys, have wanted all along.)

Tonight, the season finale of NCIS airs. It is Michael Weatherly's last episode as Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. They have been hinting at a reunion between him and former Special Agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo). And while the promos for the Castle finale suggested that Beckett would die, the promos for NCIS are suggesting that DiNozzo will walk out of the Navy Yard office alive.

The NCIS showrunners know the pitfalls of killing off beloved characters. They've already killed off Special Agent Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander), NCIS Director Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly), former Special Agent Mike Franks (Muse Watson), Mossad Director and Ziva's father Eli David (Michael Nouri), current NCIS Director Leon Vance's wife Jackie (Paula Newsome), and other, less key characters. And have ended seasons with the lives of Tony, Ziva, Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum) and, last year, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) in serious doubt. So they probably know better than to end this episode with either Tony or Ziva dead.

Yesterday was also the 20th Anniversary of the Seinfeld season finale that killed off Susan Ross (Heidi Sweberg), fiancee of George Costanza (Jason Alexander). It wasn't a huge surprise to find out that she and George wouldn't get married, or even that she died, but the other characters' reaction to her death was cold and despicable.

Yesterday was also the 30th Anniversary of the Dallas season finale that revealed that, contrary to the events of the previous season's finale, Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) was alive. The writers weaseled out of that one by having his wife Pam (Victoria Principal) say the entire season, starting with his death, was all a horrible, horrible dream.

Killing off characters has been controversial, from Alice Harper (Mrs. Joe Cartwright, played by Bonnie Bedelia) on Bonanza in 1972 to Jon Snow (Kit Harington) on Game of Thrones last season (although he's been brought back by magic).

None more controversial than M*A*S*H killing off the Korean War Army hospital's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, on their Season 3 finale, on March 18, 1975. This was the 1st time a TV show had actually said that a main character had died. Previously, when an actor died, either the character was played by someone else, or written out and not mentioned again. The same thing was done when an actor simply left the show.

But when McLean Stevenson left M*A*S*H after 3 seasons, the producers and writers killing Henry off. They had the announcement right there in the script.

Americans had seen people on their TVs that a President, and other beloved figures, had been murdered; that the scenes of wounded soldiers they were seeing in Vietnam were real; that there really were riots by protestors and beatings, even shootings, by police and national guardsmen at political demonstrations; that a President had committed crimes, and that he was resigning rather than face impeachment over it.

But they had never been told that a TV character that they liked, played by a person who, then, was very much alive, was dead -- and just as he was going home from a war, too.

Whatever happened between Stevenson and the showrunners, this was unjust. People still complain about it, 41 years later.

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the M*A*S*H Producers for Killing Off Henry Blake

5. It Was Their Show. Whether it was right or wrong, fair or unfair, they had every right to do it.

4. McLean Stevenson. He wanted out. If he'd wanted to stay, Henry would almost certainly have continued as the 4077th MASH's C.O.

3. The Novelty. Main castmembers had been written out of previous shows, but never explicitly mentioned as having died. Little Joe's wife on Bonanza was an exception, and not a particularly big one, because she was introduced and killed all within the space of a single hourlong episode. We didn't have time to get to know her. Henry Blake was the 1st one -- and we're still talking about it, 41 years later.

2. War Is Hell. Hawkeye wasn't the main character of M*A*S*H, war was. Not even the Korean War per se, but war itself.

There were many references in the show to World War II (As in, "If we let the Communists get away with things, it'll be like we appeased the Nazis all over again," and all the references to Major Frank Burns, played by Larry Linville, being like Hitler), and to World War I (such as the service of the new C.O., Colonel Sherman Potter). The old Korean soldier who fought for Japan in the Russo-Japanese War. Even the American Civil War, the Crimean War, the Napoleonic Wars and the American Revolution got mentions.

As Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda) put it, "I think war is worse than Hell. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell."

1. It Worked. The show was better with Sherman Potter as the commanding officer, and it was better with Harry Morgan playing the C.O.

And people who say the show was better with Henry, Frank and Captain "Trapper" John McIntyre (Wayne Rogers) than with Potter, Captain B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell) and Major Charles Winchester (David Ogden Stiers), before Alda started pontificating, are idiots. Or, as Charles would say, "cretins."

May 18, 1946, 70 years ago: Reginald Martinez Jackson is born at Abington Memorial Hospital in Abington, Pennsylvania, and grows up in nearby Wyncote, just north of the Philadelphia City Line.

From May 15, to July 16, 1941 -- 75 years ago this Summer -- Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees hit in 56 consecutive games.

No other player in the history of the game has topped 44.

In today's New York Daily News, Chuck Modiano claims that the streak is bogus, because it was achieved in all-white baseball.

This is just plain stupid. It is every bit as ignorant as the racism he says is responsible for the streak.

Let me cite his points, and demolish them:

1. Joe DiMaggio did not face the best pitchers in baseball in 1941. Modiano specifically cites Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith, both Negro League legends who are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame, along with DiMaggio. DiMaggio called Paige the best pitcher he ever faced, and Modiano calls 1941 Smith's best season: 11-1 and 0.92 in official league games.

Now, I realize I can't cite Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez, Yankee teammates that Joe, obviously, wasn't facing. But he did face Bob Feller and Ted Lyons, both Hall-of-Famers. They won 526 games between them -- despite missing time due to World War II and pitching in front of non-contenders for much of their careers. To say, as Modiano did, that, "Joe DiMaggio never had to face a player of Satchel Paige's caliber during his streak" is monumental ignorance.

And, by the way, it works the other way, too. True, DiMag didn't face Paige or Smith. But Paige and Smith didn't face DiMag. Nor did they face Ted Williams. Nor did they face Jimmie Foxx. Nor did they face Hank Greenberg. Nor did they face Joe Medwick. Nor did they face Johnny Mize.

By the dawn of the 1950s, it was obvious that the best players in the Negro Leagues would also be among the best players in the previously all-white major leagues. But the average player in the Negro Leagues was not as good as the average player in the majors.

We saw evidence, if not proof, of this when players who had put up big numbers in the high minors reached the majors, and it just wasn't the same. Joe Hauser and Joe Bauman were both serious sluggers in what we would now call Triple-A. But Hauser was a flop in the majors, and Bauman never even got there.

Lots of players excel in the minors, but not in the majors. We Yankee Fans can cite Hensley "Bam-Bam" Meulens. Met fans can cite Gregg Jeffries. Satchel Paige proved that, at age 42, he could get major league hitters out. We have no such evidence for Hilton Smith.

He could have been another Bob Feller, had he been allowed to pitch in the majors. He also could have been another Daisuke Matsuzaka, thrilling but ultimately disappointing. He also could have been another Kerry Wood, showing promise but getting derailed by injury. He also could have been another David Clyde, sabotaged by the way his manager, coaches and front office handled him. He also could have been another Todd Van Poppel, a hyped prospect who simply didn't pan out.

Perhaps a more accurate parallel is to Clint Hartung. Being white, Hartung, a.k.a. the Hondo Hurricane, was eligible to appear in the major leagues before 1947, although that's the year he actually did make his major league debut. While serving in World War II, he played on various military baseball teams, and probably faced competition similar to the Negro Leagues or the high minors: A few great players, mostly ordinary ones, including some that wouldn't have made the majors regardless of their race. On those teams, Hartung went 25-0 as a pitcher and batted .567.

But he only lasted 6 seasons for the New York Giants. He was average at best at both pitching and hitting. True, he was a member of their 1951 Pennant winners, the dubious "Miracle of Coogan's Bluff." But his biggest contribution was pinch-running for an injured Don Mueller right before Bobby Thomson hit the Shot Heard 'Round the World. A 2012 Bleacher Report article named Hartung baseball's all-time biggest bust (divided by hype, that is).

Hilton Smith didn't get the chance to even be as good as Clint Hartung was, but how do we know he would have been better? It would be nice to know, but we don't, and we can't. So citing his absence, and those of Satchel Paige and other black pitchers, as a reason that Joe DiMaggio was able to get a hit in 56 straight games is disingenuous.

There's something else to consider: There was no Interleague play in 1941. Even if Paige, Smith, Smokey Joe Williams or whichever other Negro League pitcher of that time was good enough to make the majors actually had, there's no guarantee that they would have ended up in the American League to face DiMaggio. At least, until the World Series: DiMaggio faced the Giants' Carl Hubbell and Hal Schumacher in the 1936 and 1937 World Series; Dizzy Dean and Bill Lee (no relation to the later Red Sox pitcher of that name) of the Chicago Cubs in the 1938 Series; the Cincinnati Reds' talented staff of Bucky Walters, Paul Derringer and Johnny Vander Meer in the 1939 Series; and Whitlow Wyatt and Kirby Higbe of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1941 Series.

With teams playing intraleague opponents 22 times each in the regular season, that could mean 4 or 5 appearances against a good pitcher in your own League, but none against one in the other. Satchel Paige could have been every bit as lights-out for the Dodgers as he was for the Kansas City Monarchs, and, at least as far as DiMaggio was concerned, it wouldn't have mattered a damn from May 15 to July 16; not until October 2, when the World Series began, long after the streak ended.

2. How Chase Utley's Streak Ended. The last big streak in Major League Baseball was by Utley, in 2006: 35 games. The pitchers who ended the streak were Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez (a black Cuban), Darren Oliver (a black American) and Pedro Feliciano (a Puerto Rican who probably would have been considered too dark-skinned to play in 1946). It was another 10 games before Utley was held hitless by an all-white pitching combination.

Well, gee, it's been over 30 years since I've had a basic math course, but 35 + 10 = 45, and 45 < 56, dumbass.

Look at the Cleveland Indian pitchers who stopped DiMaggio's streak on July 17, 1941: Al Smith and Jim Bagby Jr. Smith was an All-Star once, in the wartime-depletion year of 1943. Bagby was also an All-Star that year, and in 1942. But neither of them was a great pitcher, even briefly.

It doesn't take a great pitcher to stop a streak. When Pete Rose tied the National League record with a 44-game streak in 1978, the Atlanta Braves pitchers that stopped him were Larry McWilliams and Gene Garber. (Dave Campbell also pitched for the Braves in that game, but did not face Rose.) Garber was a very good reliever, but McWilliams was a nobody.

3. One-Hit Wonder: Joe's Streak Was Very Vulnerable. Modiano mentions that Joe had multiple hits in only 22 of the 56 games.

This reason is really, really stupid. All this stat means is that Joe still managed to get it done on days when he wasn't "in the zone." That makes the streak more remarkable, not less.

4. Joe Was Shielded from Afro-Latinos, Too. Now, Modiano is simply repeating himself. We've been over this. You might as well say that Satch was shielded from Italian-Americans.

Besides, it's not like DiMaggio said, "I won't play against (whatever word he would have used for black men at the time) or (whatever word he would have used for Latin men at the time)." He didn't have a choice. And if he had spoken up, and said, "Let them play in organized baseball," do you think it would have made a difference? Not as long as Kenesaw Mountain Landis was Commissioner, it wouldn't have.

5. How Bob Gibson Changed White Baseball History. Willie McCovey wasn't this much of a Stretch. Modiano cites St. Louis Cardinals ace Gibson shutting down Mickey Mantle of the Yankees in the 1964 World Series and Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox in the 1967 World Series.

Damn. This one is so easy, a caveman could do it. Hell, it's so easy, a Met fan could do it!

First of all, while the Yankees lost to Gibson in Games 5 and 7 of the '64 Series, they also beat him in Game 2 -- in St. Louis, no less. And Gibson lost Game 7 of the 1968 World Series, in St. Louis, to the Detroit Tigers, who had some serious holes in their lineup, even taking "The Year of the Pitcher" into account.

Bob Gibson was great. But he was not unbeatable. No pitcher is.

Second of all, if Modiano wants us to discount DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak because he didn't face black or Latino pitchers, then what are we to make of Gibson's also mind-boggling 1.12 ERA in 1968?

Gibson faced batters of all races, right? White, black, Hispanic.

Wrong. Bob Gibson never faced an Asian batter. He never faced an Ichiro Suzuki or a Hideki Matsui.

Sadaharu Oh was at the peak of his career with the Tokyo-based Yomiyuri Giants. Suppose the Yankees' 1st baseman in 1964 was not the overrated Joe Pepitone, but Oh, that year's Most Valuable Player in Japan's Central League.

Oh, who would hit 868 home runs over the course of his career in Japanese baseball. Oh, who was lefthanded, and would have been aiming at the 310-foot right field fence at St. Louis' Sportsman's Park in Games 1, 2, 6 and 7; and at the 296-foot right field fence at the pre-renovation old Yankee Stadium in Games 3, 4 and 5.

Even if Gibson did manage to shut Oh down, that doesn't mean the other Cardinal pitchers would have had any more luck against him in '64 than they did against the Mick, or in '67 than they did against Yaz.

The hole in Modiano's Reason Number 5 is big enough to drive a Mitsubishi truck though.

*

If you want to argue that DiMaggio had an advantage in not playing against black, Hispanic, or, to be fair, Asian pitchers, you also have to consider several other things:

* He did it playing mostly day games, not with the reduced light of night games, even with modern lighting.

* He did it playing on rock-hard infields that didn't exactly let him utilize his speed to the best of his ability.

* He did it in harder ballparks. The pre-renovation Yankee Stadium was 461 feet to center field, 457 to left-center, 415 to straightaway left. Cleveland Municipal Stadium, where the streak ended, was 320 feet to the left field pole, but 380 feet to straightaway left. Sportsman's Park was 351 feet to the left field pole. Griffith Stadium in Washington was 402 feet to the left field pole. Shibe Park in Philadelphia was, like Griffith Stadium, small in number of seats, but huge in outfield space. Comiskey Park in Chicago was no friend to hitters. Briggs Stadium (Tiger Stadium) in Detroit was much friendlier to lefthanded hitters than to righthanded ones. True, he got to play up to 11 games a season in Boston's Fenway Park, but those were the only 11 games, out of 154, that he got to play in a ballpark favorable to his swing.

* He did it while playing center field at that Yankee Stadium. Not easy on his legs. Legs are kind of important in hitting.

* He did it while riding on trains. You think 6 hours on a plane from New York to Los Angeles is rough? Try 24 hours on a train from New York to St. Louis.

* He did it in a less comfortable uniform than today. You ever wear a wool shirt in May, June or July? I don't recommend it. Joe was carrying several extra pounds of sweat by the time he made his last plate appearance every game.

* They changed the rules on him. Sort of. He was told the record was 41, by George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns in 1922. But someone checked, and, while Sisler did hold the AL record, Willie Keeler of the old National League version of the Baltimore Orioles did 44 straight in 1897, a record already discounted because it was before "the modern era." (1941 - 1897 = 44. 2016 - 44 = 1972. Does 1972 sound "pre-modern" to you?)

* His favorite bat was stolen. Between games of a doubleheader in Washington that would have been Games 41 and 42 of the streak, somebody swiped his bat. Probably for a souvenir, not to hurt his chances. Joe reclaimed a bat that Tommy Henrich had borrowed from him, and got to 42. He later got the preferred bat back.

* Finally, Joe carried the Yankees on his back with the streak. When it began, they were in 4th place, 6 1/2 games out, under .500, and seemed to be going nowhere. When it ended, they were in 1st place, and stayed there.

In short, he did it against conditions that would have made today's coddled players run in stark terror.

Every player is bound by the rules that he has at the time. (Except for the 21st Century Boston Red Sox, apparently. They can do whatever the hell they want, and won't be punished.) Joe DiMaggio in 1941 had to bat against the pitchers that were available to him, just as did Willie Keeler in 1897, George Sisler in 1922, Pete Rose in 1978, Paul Molitor in 1987 (39 straight, longest in the AL since DiMaggio), Chase Utley in 2006, and anybody who manages a long streak this season.

Give me whatever reasons you want why DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak is dubious, and I can give you a reason why any other achievement, by an athlete that you admire, is dubious.

You want to say that Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith haven't gotten their just due as baseball heroes? Go ahead. You've got an excellent case.

You want to say that Joe DiMaggio, or any other white baseball player before the arrival of Jacie Robinson, gets more than his just due as a baseball hero? Go ahead -- but prepare for a rebuttal.

I don't know that Ty Cobb would have been able to get a hit off Clayton Kershaw. Nor do I know that Christy Mathewson would have been able to shut down Bryce Harper.

I do know that Cobb got a few hits off Walter Johnson. I do know that Mathewson was able to get Honus Wagner out much more often than not.

I do know that Joe DiMaggio did something that no one, with the same "advantages" that he had, including white privilege, ever did before. And that no one, with steroids or any other "advantage," has done since.

It's okay to ask what DiMaggio would have done against black pitchers.

But it is stupid to say that he only got the streak because he didn't have to face them.

It is every bit as ignorant as the racism that made that excuse possible.

Ever since October 2001, the less said about the Yankees when they go to Phoenix to play the Arizona Diamondbacks, the better. So let me tell what happened in as brief a way as possible:

On Monday night, Chad Green a righthanded pitcher from South Carolina about to turn 25, made his 1st major league appearance, wearing Number 38. He got into the 5th inning, striking out 5 and walking only 1. But he allowed 6 runs (4 of them earned) on 8 hits. Nick Goody was no better.

Conor Mullee, a 28-year-old righthander from the Washington, D.C. suburbs, but a graduate of Jersey City's St. Peter's University, also made his big-league debut, wearing Number 50. He pitched the 6th inning, and allowed a run. And he was the best Yankee pitcher of the night. It's hard to be the worst when Phil Coke pitches, and Joe Girardi trusted him to pitch the rest of the way, and he allowed 4 runs in 2 innings.

Mark Teixeira got 3 hits. The rest of the Yankees combined reached base only 6 times. Diamondbacks 12, Yankees 2. WP: Robbie Ray (2-2). No save. LP: Green (0-1).

*

On Tuesday night, Michael Pineda pitched poorly, allowing 5 runs in 5 innings. Chasen Shreve and Kirby Yates pitched 3 innings, allowing only 1 baserunner between them, which is encouraging. But it was too late.

Starlin Castro hit a home run, his 5th of the season. Otherwise, the Yankees had only 6 baserunners. The fact that Zack Greinke was pitching should have made no difference: With what the Yankees spend on hitters, they should be able to knock any pitcher out of the box.

Diamondbacks 5, Yankees 3. WP: Greinke (4-3). SV: Brad Ziegler (8).. LP: Pineda (1-5).

There is now a rumor going around that the Yankees are fed up with Pineda, and may be looking to offload him.

Right: Pineda loses his job, but Girardi and Brian Cashman keep theirs? Something is wrong here.

*

Last night, it was Nathan Eovaldi to the rescue. Nasty Nate went 6 innings, allowing 1 run on 1 hit, no walks, 5 strikeouts.

This time, we got some runs. Brett Gardner hit his 5th home run of the season, Jacoby Ellsbury reached base 5 times (3 hits and 2 walks) including an RBI double, and the much-maligned Chase Headley got 2 hits.

Yankees 4, Diamondbacks 2. WP: Eovaldi (4-2). SV: Aroldis Chapman (now 4-for-4 in save opportunities since becoming eligible). LP: Shelby Miller (1-5).

*

The Yankees escaped from Arizona to the Bay Area with a record of 17-22, 7 games behind the Baltimore Orioles. As the late, great Yogi Berra might have said, it's getting a little late to be saying it's early.

Here are the projected starting pitchers for the Yanks' 4-game series away to the Oakland Athletics:

* Tonight, 10:05 PM: Ivan Nova vs. Kendall Graveman.

* Tomorrow, 9:35 PM: CC Sabathia vs. Sonny Gray.

* Saturday, 4:05 PM: Masahiro Tanaka vs. Sean Manaea.

* Sunday, 4:05 PM: Pineda vs. Jesse Hahn.

Come on you Bombers!

The Mets hosted the Washington Nationals this week. Next week, starting on Monday, the same teams play in D.C.

In 2012, the Interleague schedule meant that the Yankees also played a series there.  This season, they will not.

Before You Go.  D.C. can get really hot in summer, and mid-May could be counted as "summer." So, on some roadtrips down there, you'll have to remember to stay hydrated. But for next week, The Washington Post is predicting low 80s for the afternoons, and low 60s for the evenings. They're not talking about having any rain, so it should be dry.

Washington is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to fiddle with your clocks, digital or otherwise.

Tickets. From their 2005 arrival through the end of 2011, the Nats were terrible. But they won the National League Eastern Division in 2012 (no Washington baseball team had been in first place late in the season since 1945, and none had finished in 1st place since 1933) and 2014. They led the NL East much of the way last year, before collapsing, allowing the Mets to overtake them.

As a result, attendance is good: Last year, they averaged 32,343 fans per game, a record for Washington baseball. This year, they're averaging 26,737, and that will surely go up once school lets out.

So getting tickets for a baseball game in Washington is a bigger problem than it's been since the 1924-25 Pennant-winning Senators, and a lot of New Yorkers & New Jerseyans may have the same idea as you – and many of them are federal government employees or college students already living and working in the D.C. area. In fact, the transient nature of the federal government was a big reason the Senators never made it: People came in from places that had teams, and rooted for them, not the Senators; only went to Griffith Stadium and its successor RFK Stadium to see their hometown teams; and rarely went back home having been converted to Senators fans. The Nats seem to have the same problem, and it remains to be seen if winning will prove to be a long-term cure.

Dugout Boxes will cost $100. Infield Box, $78. Baseline Box, down the foul lines, $70. Baseline Reserved, $60. Outfield Reserved, $37. Left Field & Right Field Corners $45, Left Field & Right Field Mezzanine, $39. Scoreboard Pavilion $25. Gallery (upper deck) $34, and Upper Gallery $23.

Getting There. Getting to Washington is fairly easy. However, if you have a car, I recommend using it, and getting a hotel either downtown or inside the Capital Beltway, because driving in Washington is roughly (good choice of words there) as bad as driving in New York.

It’s 229 miles by road from Times Square to downtown Washington, and 238 miles from Citi Field to Nationals Park. If you’re not "doing the city," but just going to the game, take the New Jersey Turnpike all the way down to the Delaware Memorial Bridge (a.k.a. the Twin Span), across the Delaware River into the State of, well, Delaware. This should take about 2 hours, not counting a rest stop.

Speaking of which, the temptation to take an alternate route (such as Exit 7A to I-195 to I-295 to the Ben Franklin Bridge) or a side trip (Exit 4, eventually leading to the Ben Franklin Bridge) to get into Pennsylvania and stop off at Pat's Steaks in South Philly can be strong, but if you want to get from New York to Washington with making only one rest stop, you're better off using the Delaware House Service Area in Christiana, between Exits 3 and 1 on the Delaware Turnpike. It’s almost exactly the halfway point between New York and Washington.

Once you get over the Twin Span – the New Jersey-bound span opened in 1951, the Delaware-bound one was added in 1968 – follow the signs carefully, as you’ll be faced with multiple ramp signs for Interstates 95, 295 and 495, as well as for US Routes 13 and 40 and State Route 9. You want I-95 South, and its signs will say "Delaware Turnpike" and "Baltimore." You’ll pay tolls at both its eastern and western ends, and unless there’s a traffic jam, you should only be in Delaware for a maximum of 15 minutes before hitting the Maryland State Line.

At said State Line, I-95 changes from the Delaware Turnpike to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway, and you'll be on it for about an hour (unless you want to make another rest stop, either the Chesapeake House or the Maryland House) and passing through Baltimore, before seeing signs for I-895 and the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, Exit 62.

From here, you'll pass through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. Take I-895 to Exit 4, and you'll be on Maryland Route 295 South, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Crossing into the District of Columbia, M-295 will become the Anacostia Freeway. Take Exit 3B for South Capitol Street East, go over the Frederick Douglass Bridge over the Anacostia River, and you’ll be right there.

If all goes well -- getting out of New York City and into downtown Baltimore okay, reasonable traffic, just the one rest stop, no trouble with your car -- the whole trip should take about 4½ hours.

Washington is too close to fly, just as flying from New York to Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, once you factor in fooling around with everything you gotta do at each airport, doesn't really save you much time compared to driving, the bus or the train. So forget about flying from JFK, LaGuardia or Newark to Reagan National or Dulles International Airport. (John Foster Dulles was President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State.)

The train is a very good option, if you can afford it. Washington's Union Station is at 50 Massachusetts Avenue NE, within sight of the Capitol Building. But Amtrak is expensive. They figure, "You hate to fly, you don't want to deal with airports, and Greyhound sucks, so we can charge whatever we want." New York to Washington will run you $176 round-trip, and that's if you take the regular Northeast Corridor, instead of Acela Express (formerly the Metroliner), which would be $542 round-trip. And that's before you add anything like Business Class or, God forbid, Amtrak's overmicrowaved food. Still, it's less than 3 hours if you take the Acela Express, and 3 hours and 40 minutes if you take a regular Northeast Corridor train.

Fortunately, Greyhound has rectified a longtime problem. They now use the parking deck behind Union Station as their Washington terminal, instead of the one they built 6 blocks away (and thus 6 blocks from the nearest Metro station), in the ghetto, back in the late 1960s. So neither safety nor aesthetics will be an issue any longer. Round-trip fare on Greyhound is $76, but you can get it for as little as $28 on advanced purchase. It takes about 4 1/2 hours, and usually includes a rest stop about halfway, either on the New Jersey Turnpike in South Jersey or on the Delaware Turnpike.

Once In the City. Founded in 1800, and usually referred to as "The National City" in its early days, and "Washington City" in the 19th Century, the city was named, of course, for George Washington, although its "Georgetown" neighborhood was named for our previous commander-in-chief, King George III in England.

Its "state," the District of Columbia, comes from Columbia, a historical and poetic name used for America, which was accepted as its female personification until the early 20th Century, when the Statue of Liberty began to take its place in the public consciousness. "Columbia" was derived from the man who "discovered America," Christopher Columbus, and places throughout the Western Hemisphere -- from the capital of South Carolina to the river that separates Washington State from Oregon, from the Ivy League university in Manhattan to the South American nation that produces coffee and cocaine, are named for him.

Like a lot of cities, Washington suffered from "white flight," so that, while the population within the city limits has seriously shrunk, from 800,000 in 1950 to 650,000 today; the metro area went from 2.9 million to double that, 5.9 million. As a result, the roads leading into the District, and around it, the Capital Beltway, Interstate 495, are rammed with cars. Finally, someone wised up and said, "Let's build a subway," and in 1976, the Metro opened.

That metropolitan growth was boosted by the Maryland and Virginia suburbs building housing and shopping areas for federal-government workers. And, perhaps more than any other metro area, the poor blacks who once lived in the city have reached the middle-class and built their own communities (especially to the east, in Maryland's Prince Georges County). The metro area now has about 6 million residents -- and that's not including the metro area of nearby Baltimore, which would boost it to over 8.6 million and make it the 4th-largest "market" in the country, behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and slightly ahead of the San Francisco Bay Area.

So, if you want to say "the area" has a National League team, the Nats, and an American League team, the Baltimore Orioles, that's not quite correct, but it is understandable, especially since Maryland Commuter Rail (MARC) does link the 2 cities, and for much of the major league interregnum between the Senators' departure in 1971 and the Nats' arrival in 2005, people living in D.C. -- especially part-timers who worked in, or media personalities who covered, the federal government would head up the railroad, I-95 or the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and watch the O's at Memorial Stadium, then at Camden Yards.

The NBA's Bullets moved from Baltimore to Washington in 1973, and became the Wizards in 1997, and Baltimore still follows them. The NHL's Capitals began play in 1974, and Baltimore has adopted them. However, during the NFL interregnum between Robert Irsay's theft of the Colts in 1984 and the arrival of the Ravens in 1996, Baltimore never accepted the Redskins as their team, despite 2 Super Bowl wins in that period. Still, the Nats-O's rivalry matters very little to Baltimore, and while it matters a bit more to people in the Washington area, given the choice, they'd rather beat the Mets or the Phillies than the Orioles.

When you get to Union Station, pick up copies of the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun. The Post is a great paper with a very good sports section, and in just 6 seasons (now into a 7th) has covered the Nats very well, despite the 1972-2004 era when D.C. had no MLB team of its own. As a holdover from that era, it still covers the Orioles well. The Sun is only an okay paper, but its sports section is nearly as good as the Post's, and their coverage of their town's hometown baseball team rivals that of any paper in the country -- including the great coverage that The New York Times and Daily News give to the Yankees and Mets.

Do not buy The Washington Times. It was founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1982 as a replacement for the bankrupt Washington Star as the area's conservative equivalent to the "liberal" Post. (That’s a laugh: The Post has George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Gerson and Kathleen Parker as columnists!) Under editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden, the Times was viciously right-wing, "reporting" every rumor about Democrats as if they were established, proven fact, and giving Republicans a free pass. Moon’s "Unification Church" sold the paper in 2009, and Pruden retired the year before. But it has cut about 40 percent of its employees, and has dropped not only its Sunday edition but also its sports section.

And now, there's another paper, the Washington Examiner, owned by the same company as the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, and it is so far to the right it makes The Washington Times look like the Daily Kos. It is a truly loony publication, where Michael Barone of the American Enterprise Institute and Byron York of National Review are considered moderates.

So avoid the loonies and the Moonies, and stick with the Post. Even if you don't agree with my politics, you're going down to D.C. for baseball, and the Post’s sports section kicks ass.

The sales tax in the District, once as high as 9 percent, is now just 6 percent.

The centerpoint for addresses is the Capitol Building. North and South Capitol Streets separate east from west, and East Capitol Street and the National Mall separate north from south. The city is divided into quadrants: NW, NE, SE and SW. Because of the Capitol's location is not in the exact geographic centerpoint of the city, NW has about as much territory as the other 3 quadrants put together. In fact, the Navy Yard and the Nationals Park area take up about half the SW quadrant.

Remember: On street signs, 1st Street is written out as FIRST, and I Street is written out as EYE, so as to avoid confusion. And for the same reason, since I and J were virtually indistinguishable in written script when D.C. was founded in 1800, there is no J Street. Once the letters are expended, they go to to 2- and then 3-syllable words beginning with the sequential letters: Adams, Bryant, Clifton, etc.

Going In. Washington's subway, the Metro, was not in place until 1976, far too late to help either the "Old Senators" at Griffith Stadium or the "New Senators" at RFK Stadium (though both locations are now accessible via Metro), but it works just fine for Nats games. Take the Red Line from Union Station to Gallery Place, and transfer to the Green Line to Navy Yard-Ballpark station. (Those of you who watch the TV show NCIS will recognize the Washington Navy Yard as home base for Leroy Jethro Gibbs & Co. Rule Number 17: Never go anywhere without a FareCard.) Since these games will be played on weeknights, going in, you'll be arriving during rush hour, so the fare will be $2.15 going in. Going back, and each way on the weekend, it'll be $1.75.
Coming out of the Navy Yard-Ballpark station, you’ll be at M Street and New Jersey Avenue SE. Turn right on M, and walk past 1st Street and Cushing Place to Half Street. Yes, between South Capitol Street (in effect, the city's north-south "zero line") and First Street is "Half Street." Make a left on Half Street, and in one more block, there is Nationals Park. From Union Station to the ballpark, via subway and then foot, should take 25 minutes, about as fast as it does to get from Midtown Manhattan to Yankee Stadium, and slightly less than to get to Citi Field.
The official address of Nationals Park is 1500 South Capital Street SE, about a mile and a half south of the Capitol Building and about 2 miles southeast of downtown. Parking is plentiful in the area, and can be bought for as little as $9.00.

You're likely to walk in at the center field gate, at N & Half Streets. There, you will see 3 statues, of Washington baseball legends Walter Johnson, Josh Gibson and Frank Howard. I'll elaborate in "Team History Displays." On your way in, you might also notice the Racing Presidents, on whom I'll also elaborate later, dancing and greeting fans.
The field points northeast, and is natural grass, but the dimensions are not symmetrical: 337 feet to left field, 377 to left-center, 402 to center, 370 to right-center, and 335 to right. The park seems to favor pitchers, but not by a lot.
The longest home run yet in the new park was hit by Michael Morse of the Nats (now with the Giants), in 2012, 465 feet. Howard hit the longest at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, a shot estimated at 500 feet shot in 1970, which is still commemorated with a white seat.

The longest home run at Griffith Stadium is hard to figure: Although Mickey Mantle was credited with a 565-foot blast in 1953, every quoted eyewitness confirmed that the ball hit a scoreboard at the back of the left-field bleachers before flying into a backyard a block away. Since you're only supposed to measure from home plate to where the ball first hit something, that was more like a 460-foot homer; still, it was the only ball ever to clear those bleachers. Babe Ruth may have hit a longer homer at Griffith in the 1920s, and Josh Gibson may have done so while playing a home game there for the Negro Leagues' Homestead Grays (who divided their home games between Washington and Pittsburgh -- Homestead is a town outside Pittsburgh), but there simply aren't specifics as to when, or to how long.

When the location for Nationals Park was chosen, the idea was to have a view of the Capitol dome and the Washington Monument. Unfortunately, they can only be seen from the 1st base/right field half of the stadium. But in the outfield, they planted another Washington trademark: Cherry blossom trees. That's nice, but by late April, let alone the late May of this roadtrip, the blossoms are already gone.

Nationals Park hosted the 2015 NHL Winter Classic, in which the Capitals beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 3-2.

Food. Very good. Not only do they serve good hot dogs and other standard ballpark fare, but "Frozen Rope" (Section 135) serves good ice cream, and they also have that "futuristic" ice cream known as Dippin' Dots. The Red Loft Bar, in the second deck in left field, is their version of a McFadden's. They serve pretzels in the shape of the script "W" logo that they inherited from the "New Senators."

And the Nats do not have to look up I-95 at Boog's Barbecue in Baltimore, Bull's Barbecue in Philly, Brother Jimmy's at Yankee Stadium or Blue Smoke at Citi Field, and feel any envy. In the right field corner is their own Blue Smoke stand. I kid you not: They serve the best piece of ballpark food I have ever eaten, a big hunk of meat named "the Rough Rider" in honor of Theodore Roosevelt. Eating that gave me more pleasure than any ballpark experience this side of the Aaron Boone homer. It's $12, but it will be worth every flick of the tongue.

Guess what, Met fans? Nationals Park has a Shake Shack! It's under the right-field stands. And, while I haven't been there since they opened it in 2011, I'll bet they manage the line better than whoever runs Citi Field does.

Team History Displays. The "old" Washington Senators played from 1901 to 1960, and moved to become the Minnesota Twins. The "new" Senators played from 1961 to 1971, and moved to become the Texas Rangers. The Expos/Nationals franchise has some history, but until 2012, it was all in Montreal.

Nevertheless, there are tributes to the history of Washington baseball. A pedestrian path leading into the south entrance is marked with certain dates:

* 1859: The birth of Washington's 1st organized baseball team, the Olympic Club.

* 1910: President Taft becoming the 1st President to throw out the 1st ball to start a season.

* 1924: The city's only World Series win so far.

* 1937: The city's 1st MLB All-Star Game. (And also the arrival of the NFL's Redskins.)

* 1948: I don't know what this date represents.

* 1961: The Old Senators leave, and the New Senators arrive.

* 1971: The New Senators leave.

* 2005: The Nationals arrive.

* 2008: Nationals Park opens.

Outside the north gate, you will see 3 statues: Walter Johnson, "the Big Train," the great pitcher for the Old Senators from 1907 to 1927, the game's former all-time strikeout leader with 3,508 and still its all-time shutout leader with 113; Josh Gibson, the catcher for the D.C.-based Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues, the man so powerful he was known as "the Black Babe Ruth"– although some black fans suggested that Ruth be called "the White Josh Gibson"– and Frank Howard, the slugger for the New Senators known as "Hondo,""the Monster" (he was 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds in his prime, and was also played basketball at Ohio State and was drafted by the NBA's Philadelphia Warriors) and, due to D.C.'s status, "the Capital Punisher."

You might remember Howard as a coach for both New York teams and, briefly in 1983, the Mets’ manager, before Davey Johnson came in and turned the franchise around. Howard, along with George W. Bush, threw out a ceremonial first ball before the first Nationals game in 2005. He turns 80 in August, and, a longtime friend of the Steinbrenner family (George's widow Joan is, like Howard, an Ohio State graduate), he has worked for the Yankees as a player development instructor since 2000.

The Washington Baseball Ring of Honor, patterned after the multi-sport Hall of Stars at RFK Stadium, was erected at Nationals Park in 2010, and is on the facing of the upper deck.

It honors these figures from the "Old Senators": Pitcher/manager/owner Clark Griffith, pitcher Walter Johnson, 2nd baseman/manager Bucky Harris, left fielder Henry "Heinie" Manush, right fielder Sam Rice, shortstop/manager Joe Cronin, left fielder Goose Goslin, catcher Rick Ferrell, pitcher Early Wynn and 3rd baseman Harmon Killebrew.

It also honors some Homestead Grays: Catcher Josh Gibson, 1st baseman Walter "Buck" Leonard, center fielder James "Cool Papa" Bell, pitcher Ray Brown, 3rd baseman Ernest "Jud" Wilson and outfielder/manager/owner Cumberland Posey (who had the retroactively obscene nickname "Cum").

And it honors the 2 Hall-of-Famers from the Nats' Montreal Expos years, Gary Carter and Andre Dawson. Frank Robinson, manager of the Expos/Nationals franchise during the switch, is in the Hall of Fame (for his accomplishments as a player), and he was placed on the Ring of Honor last year.

Oddly, Bucky Harris, due to his status as a scout with them, is the only figure from the "New Senators" honored on the Ring. Even Frank Howard isn't, yet.

Old Senators Joe Judge, Ossie Bluege, George Case, Cecil Travis, Eddie Yost, Roy Sievers and Mickey Vernon (who also managed the New Senators) were honored on the old Hall of Stars, but not yet on the new Ring of Honor. This is also true of New Senators Howard, Gil Hodges (he managed them between retiring as a Dodger and Met player and becoming the Mets' manager), Chuck Hinton and George Selkirk (the former Yankee outfielder had been their general manager). While these were notable figures from Old Senators or New Senators history, none of them, as yet, has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and that's probably why they haven't been elected to the new Washington Baseball Ring of Honor -- although, like Johnson and Gibson, Howard has that statue outside Nationals Park.

Johnson -- the highest-ranked pitcher at Number 4 -- Goslin and Wynn were the Senators named in 1999 to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players. So were Homestead Grays Gibson, Leonard, and Bell; and Oscar Charleston, briefly with the Grays but better known for playing for other teams.

The Expos retired Number 8 for Gary Carter, Number 10 for both Rusty Staub and Andre Dawson, and Number 30 for Tim Raines. All of these numbers were returned to circulation after the move, and, except for the Number 42 retired for all of baseball for Jackie Robinson, the Nats have no retired numbers. Nor do they yet have any Hall-of-Famers of their own, unless you want to count Frank Robinson, who was already in the Hall of Fame for 23 years when the team arrived in D.C. And, unlike the Mets, who retired 37 for Stengel even though he won nothing for them – far too close to being literally true – the Nats have not retired Robinson’s 20.

Stuff. There's a team store called Rushmore's in the left-field corner. It's got loads of jerseys, T-shirts, caps, and stuffed toys such as the Racing Presidents and the mascot Screech the Eagle.

In 2013, Frederic J. Frommer (travel expert and son of travel icon and Yankee Fan Harvey Frommer) and Bob Schieffer (CBS News legend and D.C. resident) collaborated on You Gotta Have Heart: A History of Washington Baseball from 1859 to the 2012 National Legue East Champions. The same year, Elliott Smith and Bob Carpenter (no relation to the family long owning the Phillies) published Beltway Boys: Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper and the Rise of the Nationals.

This coming Friday, the Yankees fly down to Florida to play a 3-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays.

If you want to go, be advised that this is Memorial Day weekend, and flights, train rides, bus rides and hotel rooms may be hard to come by.

Last year, I saw a blog post (don't know who wrote it) by someone who called San Diego "the Tampa of California." I think he owes San Diego an apology.

Before You Go. While the games will be indoors, you'll still have to get around, so you should know about the weather.

For this weekend, the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) and the Tampa Tribune
are both predicting thunderstorms, but only for Friday. They're also predicting daytime temperatures to be in the high 80s, and nighttime temperatures to be in the low 70s. Florida must be where the cliche, "It's not the heat that's so bad, it's the humidity" began. So even if you manage to avoid the rain, be prepared to sweat when you're outside the dome, if your visit is later in the season.

The Tampa Bay region is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you don't have to change your watch, or the clock on your smartphone. And while Florida was a Confederate State, you won't need to bring your passport or change your money.

Tickets. The Rays averaged just 15,403 fans last season -- dead last in the major leagues, 30th out of 30. This season, they're averaging 16,242, ahead of only Cleveland. Aside from their 1st season, 1998, when they could count on the novelty of even having Major league Baseball, and drew an average of 30,942, their peak attendance is 23,147 in 2009, the year after they won their Pennant.

This was disgraceful support of a winning team, and if they can't draw fans to a lousy ballpark with a winning team, it begs the question, "Can they draw fans to a good ballpark with a winning team?" Considering the trouble they've had getting a location, let alone a deal, we may never find out. Along with the Oakland Athletics, the Rays are the current MLB team most likely to move in the next few years. The factor that may keep them in the Tampa Bay area is that nobody else seems to have a suitable ballpark ready for them, unless MLB wants to go back to Montreal and its Olympic Stadium.

So, even with all the ex-New Yorkers and ex-New Jerseyans in the Tampa Bay area, you can probably show up at the Trop on the day of the game and get a decent ticket.

The Rays classify a game against the Yanks as a "Diamond Game," meaning they will charge their highest prices: Lower Boxes (infield) are $95, Baseline Boxes (corners) are $60, Outfield seats are $30, Press Level are $55, Upper Boxes are $30, and Upper Reserved, including the left field Party Deck (a.k.a. The Beach) are $26.

Getting There. It is 1,136 road miles from Times Square in Manhattan to downtown Tampa, and 1,167 miles from Yankee Stadium II in The Bronx to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. Sounds like you're gonna be flying. If you play your cards right, you can get a round-trip, albeit not a nonstop, flight for only $725.  (Tampa International Airport was originally named Drew Field, after John H. Drew, a land developer who gave it to the Army.)

If you want to take a side-trip to Disney World, you could fly to Orlando (it's 92 miles between the downtowns of Orlando and Tampa) and rent a car, but I suspect that hotels will be cheaper in the Tampa Bay area, and get more expensive the closer you get to Disney.

Amtrak is longer, but a lot cheaper: $323 round-trip. Tampa’s Amtrak station is at 601 N. Nebraska Avenue, and you’ll need a bus to get across the bay to St. Petersburg. Amtrak’s Silver Star train leaves Penn Station at 11:02 every morning, and arrives in Tampa at 12:34 the following afternoon. That’s right, 25½ hours.

If you're staying for the entire 3-game series, you may have to leave early on Sunday: The Silver Star leaves Tampa at 5:17 PM (arriving in New York 7:18 the following night), so a 1:40 start, coupled with Joe Girardi's tendency to use most of his bullpen in order to beat the Rays, means you may not be out of the Trop before 5:00, and you'd still have to get across the Bay.

You can get a Greyhound bus out of Port Authority at 9:15 Thursday morning and be in St. Pete by 4:45 Friday afternoon. That's 31 1/2 hours, but it gives you time to get to the game (and maybe even a hotel in-between). You'd leave St. Pete at 6:20 PM on Sunday. That includes changing buses in Richmond and Tampa.

Round-trip, $216, maybe as little as $178 on advanced purchase. The catch is that you'd have to change buses 3 times: In Richmond, Orlando and Tampa. Unless you get a hotel in Tampa, in which case you'd only have to change buses twice. And the layover in Richmond is 3 hours and 15 minutes. And I don't like the Richmond Greyhound station, and I doubt that you will, either. There's also hourlong layovers in Fayetteville, North Carolina and Jacksonville.

Greyhound's St. Petersburg station at 180 9th Street North, a 5-block walk from Tropicana Field. The Tampa Greyhound station is at 610 E. Polk Street, 4 blocks from the Amtrak station. To get from either to the Trop without a car, you'll have to take the 100X bus to Gateway Mall, then transfer to the 74 bus. It will take an hour and a half.

If you do prefer to drive, see if you can get someone to split the duties with you. Essentially, you’ll be taking Interstate 95 almost all the way down, turning onto Interstate 10 West at Jacksonville and then, after a few minutes, onto Interstate 75 South. Taking that into Tampa, you’ll soon go onto Interstate 275, and cross the Howard Frankland Bridge – a bridge so traffic-ridden it's known locally as “Frankenstein” and “the Car-Strangled Spanner” – over Tampa Bay and into St. Pete. Take Exit 23B onto 20th Street North, and it’s just a matter of blocks until reaching The Trop at 16th Street South and 1st Avenue South.

It should take about 2 hours to get through New Jersey, 20 minutes in Delaware, an hour and a half in Maryland, 3 hours in Virginia, 3 hours in North Carolina, 3 hours in South Carolina, 2 hours in Georgia, and a little over 5 hours between crossing into Florida and reaching downtown Tampa. Given proper 45-minute rest stops – I recommend doing one in Delaware, and then, once you’re through the Washington, D.C. area, doing one when you enter each new State, and then another around Orlando, for a total of 7 – and taking into account city traffic at each end, your entire trip should take about 26 hours. Maybe you can do it in 24 if you speed and limit your rest stops to half an hour each, especially if one of you drives while the other sleeps, but I wouldn’t recommend this.

Once In the City. "Tampa" is believed to be a Native American name meaning "sticks of fire," while St. Petersburg, like the city of the same name in Russia that was known as Leningrad in the Soviet era, is named after the first Pope, the Apostle Peter. Tampa, founded in 1849, is home to 350,000 people; St. Petersburg, founded in 1888, is home to 250,000; and the metro area as a whole 2.8 million, so while neither city is big, it's a decent-sized market (and thus should be drawing more people for baseball games).

In Tampa, Whiting Street divides the city's streets into North and South, and the Hillsborough River into East and West.  In St. Petersburg, as I said, Central Avenue divides the city into North and South, and while there appears to be no East-West divider, 1st Street seems to set off a section with Northeast addresses.

Although the locals -- the ones who are not transplanted New Yorkers or New Jerseyans, anyway -- really, really hate the Yankees and Yankee Fans for repeatedly "taking over their ballpark" (as if it were much of a task, or much of a prize), they will not fight you. Aside from the occasional brawl between football players in the "hate triangle" between the University of Florida, Florida State University and the University of Miami, there is rarely violence at sporting events in Florida.

HART, Hillsborough Area Regional Transit, runs buses, $2.00 Local and $3.00 Express. PSTA runs $2.00 buses around St. Petersburg. So taking the 100X bus from downtown Tampa to St. Pete ($3.00) and transferring to the 59 to the stadium ($2.00) will be $5.00 each way.

The sales tax in Florida is 6 percent.

Going In. Tropicana Field has an official address of 1 Tropicana Drive, 2 miles northwest of downtown St. Petersburg and 22 miles southwest of downtown Tampa. It is bounded by 1st Avenue South on the north (Central Avenue, St. Pete’s north-south divider, is 1 block north), 16th Street South on the west, Stadium Drive on the south, and a service road and a creek to the east.

Opened in 1990 as the Florida Suncoast Dome, and nicknamed the White Elephant because of its exterior color and lack of a tenant for the sport for which it was intended, the name was changed in 1993 when the NHL's Lightning came in, making the stadium the ThunderDome. But they were only there for 3 seasons, until the building now known as the Amalie Arena opened.
In their home opener, October 10, 1993, the Bolts set what was then an NHL record of 27,227 fans in the quirky seating configuration the place had at the time. So an expansion hockey team -- in Florida, mind you -- in the era before you could buy game tickets online, managed to outdraw a winning, Internet-era baseball team.

Anyway, when the Devil Rays (as they were known from 1998 to 2007) arrived, the stadium's name was changed to Tropicana Field -- but, make no mistake, this blasted thing (or thing that should be blasted) is a dome. In 1999, it became the only building in Florida (so far) to host an NCAA Final Four; Connecticut beat Duke in the Final.

According to the team website, the Rays provide carpoolers access to free parking in team-controlled lots, Lots 2, 6, 7, 8 & 9. Vehicles with 4 or more passengers may park free for all Sunday games. For all other games, the first 100 cars with 4our or more people park for free up to an hour before game time, with other main lot Tropicana Field parking rates ranging from $15 to $30 per vehicle. Fans attending games at Tropicana Field are encouraged to arrive early to enjoy tailgating and baseball activities.
Gate 1, the Rotunda, is at the northeast corner of the stadium, dead center field. Gate 2 is at 1st base, Gates 3, 4 & 5 behind home plate, and Gate 6 at 3rd base. Gates 1 & 4 are Will Call pickup areas. However, unless you're a season ticket holder (and, being a Yankee Fan, you're not), the only gate by which you can enter is Gate 4.

The official current seating capacity is 31,042, but that's with several sections of seats tarped over. The actual number of seats is 42,735, but even the reduced capacity doesn't give the Trop an "intimate setting." Like the hardly-mourned Kingdome in Seattle, the high, gray roof gives the stadium the look of a bad shopping mall.
Those "catwalks" around the rim don't help. And that awful field -- one of the few ever to have a dirt infield with the rest of the field being artificial turf, instead of just dirt cutouts around the bases -- may make you nostalgic for Giants Stadium's awful experiments with real grass. But the seating design itself may look familiar to you, in shape if not in color: It was copied from Kauffman Stadium (formerly Royals Stadium) in Kansas City. Don't look for fountains in the outfield, though: That would be too classy for this joint.
The Trop may turn out to be the last MLB stadium built with the bullpens in foul territory, which was always a bad idea. It is also, with the Minnesota Twins having gotten out of the damn Metrodome, currently the only non-retractable domed stadium in Major League Baseball, with Houston, Miami, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Seattle and Toronto having retractable roofs. And, with Toronto planning to put real grass down at the Rogers Centre, The Trop will turn out to be the last MLB stadium with artificial turf. Good riddance.

Yes, that is a pool in center field, which is reminiscent of the one in right field in Phoenix. No, it is not for people. They have a live cownose ray in there. No, I'm not kidding. It's called the Rays Touch Tank, and while they do let people touch the ray (very carefully), it is not the kind that killed "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, so you can relax. If you're into that sort of thing. I am not.
The roof slopes downward toward center field. The field is not symmetrical. The left field pole is just 315 feet from home plate, the right field pole only 322. In spite of this, it's generally a pitcher's park, which goes against the trend of the domes built in the 1970s and '80s. The power alleys are 370, and center is 404. In 2001, Vinny Castilla hit what remains the dome's longest home run, going 478 feet.

Food. Whatever I say about this ballpark being bad, I cannot fault it for its food, which reflects the Tampa Bay region's Spanish and Hispanic heritage. Cuban sandwiches, featuring freshly sliced ham, pork, and Genoa salami on toasted Cuban bread with Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, are sold throughout the stadium.

Stands for Everglades BBQ serve barbecue-themed items. The right field concession area has a Checkers burger stand. Both the First Base and Third Base Food Courts have stands for Papa John's Pizza, if you don't mind giving money to a billionaire who raised his prices to offset the cost of Obamacare, because he was too cheap to provide his employees with health insurance.

The First Base Food Court has the Del Ray Cantina, a full-service bar specializing in tropical drinks, and the Third Base Food Court has the similar Oasis Bar and the Outback Steakhouse Food Court -- in recognition of Outback's Tampa headquarters and the NFL Buccaneers' hosting of the Outback Bowl, which was known as the Hall of Fame Bowl when it was held at the Bucs' old stadium.

The thought of having an Outback Steak appeals to me -- especially since I watched the 1st 5 innings of the 2009 World Series clincher at the now-closed Outback at 56th & 3rd on the East Side -- and the idea of having a Bloomin' Onion at a ballgame, while hardly healthy, also has, pardon the pun, appeal.

Oddly, considering the stadium's name, there is no juice bar.

Team History Displays. Stop laughing. The Rays do now have some history. The area could have had more, but near-miss moves by the Chicago White Sox for the 1989 season, the San Francisco Giants for the 1993 season, and seriously considered moves by the Minnesota Twins in the 1980s and the Seattle Mariners in the 1990s, all fell through.

(Can you imagine the Yanks and the Tampa Bay Mariners -- the region's nautical heritage means they wouldn't have had to change the name of the team -- being AL East opponents? All the Jeter and A-Rod comparisons? Plus all those times having to face Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson and Ichiro Suzuki?)
The Rays' 2008 and 2010 AL Eastern Division Title banners are to the left of the center field scoreboard and the "K Counter" on a small wall.

Over the Captain Morgan Deck, the Rays post their 2 retired numbers, plus the universally-retired Number 42 of Jackie Robinson. The 1st was the Number 12 they retired for Tampa native Wade Boggs, who played the last 2 years of his career (1998-99) with the Devil Rays and got his 3,000th career hit at the Trop. (Boggs was also named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Players in 1999, and named the Rays' fans choice for the DHL Hometown Heroes poll in 2006.)

They've also retired a number for Don Zimmer. A native of Cincinnati, Zim and his wife Soot had long lived in Tampa, where the Cincinnati Reds used to have their spring training camp. When Zim finally had enough of George Steinbrenner after the 2003 season, he decided enough was enough, but the Rays offered to let him coach in uniform, and he wouldn't have to take roadtrips. He accepted, and continued the shtick he'd been doing since becoming part of the inaugural coaching staff of the Colorado Rockies in 1993: Making his uniform number the number of seasons he'd spent in professional baseball. He died after his 66th season, and so 66 was the last number he wore, and the Rays retired it.
But the stadium's big feature, history-wise, is the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame. It was moved to the Trop after its original facility in Hernando, Florida (the town where Ted lived the last few years of his life), went bankrupt. It houses exhibits on Ted's careers both with the Boston Red Sox and the United States Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War, and the monuments to the members of the Hitters Hall of Fame, complete with memorabilia. Ted did not induct himself into his own Hitters Hall of Fame, and was inducted in 2003 only after he died.
The museum is only open on game days, opening at the same time as the park and closing after the 7th inning with the concession stands. Admission is free, and the museum is open to all ticketholders.

Stuff. The main Team Store is located in Center Field Street near Gate 1, and is open during Rays home games and special public events. Additional merchandise locations and novelty kiosks are open throughout the stadium during all home games.

As you might guess, having been to one World Series (and lost it) thus far, the Rays don't have team history videos on sale. But there have been a few books written about the Rays, and they may be available at the Trop. Most notable, probably, is The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First, by Jonah Keri.

During the Game. A recent Thrillist article listed the Rays 21st on a list of "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans": "After all these years and some pretty good teams, the few real Rays fans that exist have come to terms with the fact that they're still the best place to see your real favorite team after you retire, thanks to the lowest attendance in all of MLB."

The few real Rays fans don't like it when Yankees, Red Sox, whoever else fans "take over the ballpark." Well, there's a simple remedy for that: Buy tickets, show up, and sit in the seats before opposing fans can do those things. 

Nevertheless, these people are more laid-back Floridian than chip-on-their-shoulder Southern: They won't try to stop you from cheering on your team. After all, you probably outnumber them.

"The Happy Heckler" is a fan by the name of Robert Szasz, a Clearwater real estate developer. He has season tickets near home plate, and is known for his rather boisterous heckling. He is so loud that he is clearly audible on both TV and radio broadcasts. Of course, that's possible because the Rays get small crowds, so individual fans can be heard, much as Cleveland phone-company worker John Adams could be heard on his drum all the way out in the bleacher of Cleveland Municipal Stadium when he was surrounded by 65,000 empty seats, less so now that the Indians are in Jacobs Field and drawing much better. Szasz is considered an "ethical" heckler, heckling opposing players only based on their play, and never throwing personal insults. Despite this, he has drawn the ire of some opposing players.

Just as the Yankees have Bleacher Creature Milton Ousland and his cowbell, and the Mets have Eddie Boison, with "COW-BELL MAN" and the Number 15 on his Met jersey, the Rays have cowbells as well. It was originally a promotional idea thought up by principal owner Stuart Sternberg, who got the idea from the Saturday Night Live "More Cowbell" sketch. Since then, it has become a standard feature of home games. Like the Happy Heckler, this is an annoyance.

The most famous proponent of the cowbell is Cary Strukel, who is known as "The Cowbell Kid." Strukel can be seen at most home games sitting in right field and wearing some kind of costume, typically topped with a neon colored wig (like former JOHN 3:16 banner guy Rollen Stewart) or Viking horns. The cowbells are rung most prominently when the opposing batter has two strikes, when the opposing fans try to chant, and when the Rays make a good play.

The Rays hold auditions for National Anthem singers, rather than having a regular. Their mascot is Raymond -- at least the name makes sense. He's not a ray -- manta, sting- or otherwise -- he is a furry blue creature wearing a large pair of sneakers and a backwards baseball cap, completed with a Rays jersey. He is described officially as a "seadog," and bears a physical, though not in color, resemblance to Slider, the mascot of the Cleveland Indians.

They also have a secondary mascot, a disc jockey in a cat suit. No, not a nice-looking woman playing records while wearing a catsuit. I mean a man in a cat costume, D.J. Kitty, based on a video showing a real cat, with help from special effects, spinning records while wearing a tiny Rays jersey.

The Rays have a "mascot race" between people dressed as Pepsi products: Pepsi, Pepsi Max, Aquafina and Sierra Mist. I guess they didn't want Diet Pepsi in the race, figuring, being on a diet, he'd be in better shape, and thus have an unfair advantage.

The Rays do not have a regular song to sing after "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch. Their postgame victory song is "Feel the Heat," by Derren Moore.

After the Game. Downtown St. Petersburg is not an especially high-crime area, and, as I said, Rays fans do not get violent. You might get a little bit of verbal if you're wearing Yankee gear, but it won't get any worse than that.

There aren't a lot of interesting places to relax with a postgame snack and drinks near the Trop, although Ferg's Sports Bar & Grill, at Central Avenue and 13th Street, a 10-minute walk from the dome, is described by one source as "a popular haunt right after a game, for the Rays fans and Rival fans alike."

The Birchwood Hotel, at 340 Beach Drive NE at 4th Avenue, caters to New Yorkers, including at its rooftop bar, The Canopy. It's a mile and a half from the ballpark, though -- but that still makes it a lot closer than Legends Sports Bar, Billiard, Hookah and Grill, the home of the New York Giants Fan Club of Tampa Bay. But it's at 1339 E. Fletcher Avenue, on the north side of Tampa, 31 miles from the Trop. The home of the New York Jets Fan Club of Tampa Bay, Peabody's Bar & Grill, is similarly far away, at 15333 Amberly Drive on the north side of Tampa, 35 miles.

Sidelights. The Yankees' spring training home, George M. Steinbrenner Field (formerly Legends Field), is at Dale Mabry Highway and Tampa Bay Blvd., across from the home of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Raymond James Stadium. (Raymond James is a financial holding company, not a person native to Tampa who deserved the naming rights.) The University of South Florida (USF) also plays football at Raymond James, and the U.S. national soccer team has played 4 games there, and has never lost, winning 3 and drawing 1. It is 1 of 4 stadiums currently being considered to host Super Bowl LIII, in February 2019, or Super Bowl LIV, in 2020. So it has a 50-50 chance of hosting one of them.

North of Raymond James was Al Lopez Field. (Lopez, a Hall of Fame catcher and manager, was a person native to Tampa who deserved the naming rights.) North of that was the Buccaneers' first home, Tampa Stadium, known as The Big Sombrero because of its weird shape. It was built in 1967 with 46,000 seats, and expanded to 74,000 when the Bucs were expanded into existence in 1976. The Giants won Super Bowl XXV there. It also hosted Super Bowl XVIII, in which the Los Angeles Raiders beat the Washington Redskins, and 3 games of the U.S. soccer team. It was demolished in 1999.

The entire group of current and former stadium sites is north of downtown Tampa, near the airport. Take the Number 30 bus from downtown to the Number 36 bus to the complex.

One of the legendary homes of spring training baseball, Al Lang Field (now Progress Energy Park), named for the Mayor who promoted St. Pete as a spring training site, is at 1st Street SE & 2nd Avenue S., 2 miles east of the Trop, in downtown St. Pete on the shore of Tampa Bay.
The spring home of the Yankees from 1947 to 1961, the Mets from 1962 to 1987, and the St. Louis Cardinals from 1947 to 1997, it is no longer used as a major league spring training or Florida State League regular season facility. In fact, the new Rays ballpark was supposed to be built on the site, but they haven't been able to get the funding, so Al Lang Field remains standing. It is the home of the new version the Tampa Bay Rowdies, in the new version of the North American Soccer League, the second division of North American soccer. Bus 100X to Bus 4.
Tampa-based teams have won Florida State League Pennants in 1920, '25 (Tampa Smokers), '57, '61 (Tampa Tarpons), '94, 2001, '04, '09 and '10 (Tampa Yankees). St. Petersburg teams have done it in 1975, '86 (St. Petersburg Cardinals) and '97 (St. Petersburg Devil Rays, who won a Pennant before their parent club had even played a game). The Clearwater Phillies won a Pennant in the same year as their parent club in Philadelphia, 1993, and won another under their current name, the Clearwater Threshers, in 2007, presaging their parent club's success.

The Tampa Bay Times Forum, formerly the Ice Palace, home of the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning, is at 401 Channelside Drive in downtown Tampa, near the Convention Center, the Tampa Museum of Art, the Tampa Bay History Center, and a mall called Channelside Bay Plaza. They're a 15-minute walk from the Greyhound station, or 5 minutes on the Number 8 bus. The Forum hosted the 2012 Republican Convention, at which Mitt Romney was nominated for President.

Tampa Bay does not have an NBA team, nor is it likely to try for one in the near future. The Orlando Magic play 93 miles from downtown Tampa, while the Miami Heat are 279 miles away. Yet, mainly due to LeBron James (but also due to Shaquille O'Neal being much more recently in Miami than in Orlando), the Heat are more popular in the Tampa Bay region than the Magic are -- and the Los Angeles Lakers are nearly as popular as the Magic, probably because of Shaq and Kobe. If Tampa Bay was an NBA market, it would rank 20th in population.

This should provide you with a couple of non-sports things to do in the Tampa Bay region. And, if you want to go there, Walt Disney World is 70 miles up Interstate 4, an hour and 15 minutes by car from downtown Tampa.

Malio's, in downtown Tampa at 400 N. Ashley Drive at Kennedy Blvd., is a locally famous restaurant, known around there as George Steinbrenner's favorite. He had a private room there, as does the still-living Tampa native and Yankee Legend Lou Piniella.

The Tampa Bay region doesn't have a lot of tall buildings. The tallest, at 579 feet, is 100 North Tampa, named for its address at Whiting Street downtown, formerly named the Regions Building.

Oh, and, get this: As New York is known as the Big Apple, Tampa likes to call itself the Big Guava. In the words of the immortal Jack Paar, I kid you not.

*

So, if you can afford it, go on down and join your fellow Yankee Fans in taking over the Rays' stadium. Let's just hope the Yankees' bats and arms are as good as their fans. We need to make a statement against these guys. Tell them, as Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck) said in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "You'd better mind your P's and Q's, buster, and remember who you're dealing with!"

New Yankee Fan! My 3rd niece was born this morning! Mother and child both resting comfortably at a New Jersey hospital.

I've already succeeding in convincing the 1st 2 to become Yankee Fans.

From the "You can't make this stuff up" department: The Babe was born at 7:14.

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Anyway... As Blake Lively probably shouldn't say, this past weekend, the Yankees kicked some Oakland booty.

On Thursday night, the Yankees began a 4-game series with the Athletics at the Oakland Coliseum. They got 6 innings of strong start from Ivan Nova, and a scoreless inning each from Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman.

They got enough runs to back it up. Carlos Beltran hit his 9th home run of the season. He, Brett Gardner and, yes, Chase Headley each got 2 hits.

Yankees 4, A's 1. WP: Nova (3-1). SV: Chapman (5). LP: Kendall Graveman (1-6).

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On Friday night, East Bay native CC Sabathia pitched against his childhood team, and pitched like the CC of 2001 to 2012, going 6 strong innings, striking out 8 and walking only 1. Beltran and Didi Gregorius each had 3 hits, Jacoby Ellsbury and Ronald Torreyes each had 2. A 5-run 4th inning put the game away.

Yankees 8, A's 3. WP: Sabathia (3-2). No save. LP: Sonny Gray (but we were sweeping the... A's away; 3-5).

*

Saturday afternoon, it was Tanaka Time. Masahiro Tanaka was allowed to go 7 innings by Joe Girardi. And with a cushion, Girardi gave most of the bullpen the night off, letting Nick Goody pitch the last 2 innings.

Starlin Castro had 3 hits, Beltran 2, and Rob Refsnyder, who's really gotten a raw deal (first last year, getting stuck behind Stephen Drew, and now with Castro getting signed and blocking his path at 2nd base), hit a 2-RBI double. Again, it was the 4th inning that made the difference, with the Yankees tallying 4 times.

Yankees 5, A's 1. WP: Tanaka (2-0). No save. LP: Sean Manaea (1-2).

*

On Sunday afternoon, Michael Pineda got the start, and fell behind 1-0 in the 1st inning. But home runs by Brian McCann in the 2nd (his 6th of the season) and Ellsbury in the 3rd (his 2nd) gave the Yankees the lead. The A's tied it in the 5th, but the Yankees got 2 runs in the 6th and 1 in the 7th.

Betances was fine in the 7th, but Miller fell victim to an error and an unearned run in the 8th. But Chapman did what we acquired him to do, which was slam the door in the 9th.

Yankees 5, A's 4. WP: Pineda (2-5). SV: Chapman (6). LP: Jesse Hahn (1-2).

*

So, 7 weeks into the 26-week season, this is how the American League Eastern Division stands:

Baltimore Orioles, 26-16
Boston Red Sox, 27-17, behind on percentage points
New York Yankees, 21-22, 5 1/2 games behind, 6 in the loss column
Tampa Bay Rays, 20-21, 5 1/2 back, 5 in the loss column
Toronto Blue Jays, 22-24, 6 back, 8 in the loss column

Despite a horrendous start, the Yankees are by no means out of the race, are only 1 game under .500, and are on a 5-game winning streak.

Today is a travel day, and then the Yankees start a home series against those pesky Toronto Blue Jays, who are not looking like defending Division Champions, or like a team that reached the AL Championship Series last season.

Here are the projected pitching matchups:

* Tomorrow, 7:05 PM: Nathan Eovaldi against former Met R.A. Dickey.

* Wednesday, 7:05 PM: Nova vs. Marco Estrada.

* Thursday, 4:05 PM: Sabathia vs. Aaron Sanchez.

Come on you Pinstripes! Do it for Mackenzie, your newest fan!

This week, the Mets are in Washington, D.C. to play the Washington Nationals

The Mets should be playing these games in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, against the Montreal Expos, the team the Nationals were from 1969 to 2004.

Washington is a great city. Of course, it deserves to have a Major League Baseball team. But so does Montreal, and they got screwed.

Most frequently blamed for the Expos' move is Jeffrey Loria. In 1999, the New York-based art dealer, former owner of the minor-league Oklahoma City 89ers, and unsuccessful bidder for the Expos in 1991 and the Baltimore Orioles in 1994 bought the Expos for $12 million (U.S.).

He demanded a new ballpark to replace the 1976 Olympic Stadium -- which still wasn't paid off (and, as it turned out, wouldn't be until 2006). But the City of Montreal wouldn't pay for it. Nor would the Province of Quebec. To make matters worse, Loria didn't get a TV contract for the Expos for the 2000 season -- on either an English station or a French one.

In 2002, a musical chairs of ownership saw Loria sell the Expos to the other 29 MLB owners, Florida Marlins owner John W. Henry sell his team to Loria, and Henry buy the Boston Red Sox from the Yawkey Trust. Then Loria moved the Expos' entire front office staff, on-field staff, and even broadcast staff (including Hall of Fame broadcaster Dave Van Horne) to Miami to join the Marlin organization. He even took the Expos' office equipment, leaving them with, essentially, nothing but the players and coaching staff.

Near the end of the 2004 season, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig (essentially, the Expos' controlling owner) announced that the team had been purchased by a group that would move it out of Canada and into America's capital, becoming the Washington Nationals.

Montreal has had preseason exhibitions at the Olympic Stadium in 2014, '15 and '16, but has been without an MLB team for 12 seasons now. And, despite speculation and jokes about the Oakland Athletics and the Tampa Bay Rays moving in the next few years, the odds of Montreal getting a replacement team are long. It took Washington 33 years to get a new team, and it may take Montreal longer than that.

And to really add insult to injury, in 2003, the Marlins won the World Series. In 2012, Loria got what he wanted in Montreal, but got it in Miami: A new stadium with a retractable roof, close to downtown.

Montreal still has a weird and empty stadium, not well-suited to baseball, and no baseball team to play in it (although the CFL's Alouettes and MLS' Impact do play some home games there).
So, Loria is the biggest reason the Expos moved, right? It would seem that way. But, as ESPN host Brain Kenny said on their series The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame... , "Things aren't always what they seem."

Note that Loria's ownership of the Marlins has nothing to do with the following. How he's mishandled them is a whole other debate.

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Jeffrey Loria for the Montreal Expos Moving to Washington

5. Quebec Separatists. Jacques Parizeau led the separatist Parti Quebecois to victory in Quebec's 1994 provincial election, making him the Premier of the Province, equivalent to the Governor of one of our States -- and, with about 8 million people, Quebec has more people than all Provinces except Ontario and all but 12 of our States.

Parizeau immediately set about putting a referendum on independence on the ballot. On October 30, 1995, with Quebec nationalists led by Parizeau and Canadian nationalists led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, himself a Quebec native, both having advertised heavily and held massive rallies, the Non side just barely triumphed over the Oui side. The number of spoiled ballots was actually larger than the margin of victory.

Having failed by the slimmest of margins, Parizeau (not exactly slim himself, one critic called him "the Elephant Seal") resigned as Premier. Lucien Bouchard, leader of the federal Parliament's version of the PQ, the Bloc Quebecois (that's right, the federal government had a party devoted to taking 1/4 of its people away), was elected the new Premier.

And when Loria demanded a new ballpark, Bouchard told the National Assembly. Quebec's Provincial legislature, that they shouldn't pay for it. His successor, Bernard Landry, also refused. Even when the Liberal Party won the 2003 election, and installed Jean Charest as a Premier that wanted to keep Quebec in Canada, the NA wanted to focus on things that a Provincial/State government should focus on. Considering Quebec's high standard of living, in 2004 and in 2016, I can't say they were wrong.

In addition, the Quebec separatists cast the Province in a very bad light for the rest of Canada. Independence would have cut the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador), all of them considerably closer in road and air miles to the Expos than to the Toronto Blue Jays, off from the rest of Anglophone Canada. Lots of people began to assume that the Pequistes would keep trying until they finally got what they wanted, calling it "The Never-endum."

There had been an earlier referendum in 1980, but it lost 60-40. It is now believed that the current PQ government won't schedule another until they think they can win with room to spare, as they don't want another loss, which would be humiliating in ways that 1995 was not.

And it depressed attendance. When you don't know for sure what country you're going to be living in this time next year, even though you have no intention of moving out of your current building, your next thought is not likely to be, "Hey, the Cubs are in town, let's go to the Big O and watch them toss the ol' horsehide around!"

More likely, it could be, "What if I want to visit my brother in Ottawa? My Canadian passport is going to be no good anymore!" Or, "Les Anglais in Toronto and New York won't trade with us, so our economy is in tatters, and my Banque du Quebec $5 bill is worth more as toilet paper than as currency!" (At least, at the time, Russia was run by Boris Yeltsin rather than Vladimir Putin, so not being part of NORAD anymore wasn't going to be a problem if Quebec separated.)

4. The Exchange Rate. On January 18, 2002, I was in Montreal. It was a good day to be there. Not because of the weather -- it was very cold and snowing, as you might expect of Montreal in January -- but because this was the day in history on which the U.S.-Canada exchange rate most favored Americans: C$1.60 = US$1.00, or C$1.00 = US 62 cents.
That, plus Canada's taxes (see, they actually pay for social services, instead of demanding said services but also demanding low taxes, and, as any idiot knows, and any non-asshole accepts, you can't have both high services and low taxes), meant that it was harder for the Expos (and the Blue Jays) to pay for anything, including player salaries, than it was for U.S.-based teams.

In 1994, the Expos had Pedro Martinez, Jeff Fassero, Ken Hill, John Wetteland, Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Rondell White and Moises Alou. And they had the best record in baseball before the Strike of '94 hit. But they couldn't afford to keep those guys.

In contrast, in their last season in Montreal, 2004, they had a Cabrera (the decent Orlando, not the superstar Miguel or the steroid-aided star Melky), a Hernandez (a washed-up Livan, not a still-serviceable Orlando), 2 Beltrans (pitchers Francis and Rigo, neither of them a hitter like Carlos), a Cordero (Chad, not Wil), a Tony Armas (Jr., a decent but not great pitcher, not Sr., a very good hitter), a Hill (Shawn, not Ken), a relief pitcher from Korea named Kim (Sun Woo, not Byung-hyun), a catcher named Diaz (Einar, not the late Phillies All-Star Bo), a Batista (Tony, not Jose Bautista), a Chavez (slick-fielding outfielder Endy, not good-hitting 3rd baseman Eric), a Rivera who once played for the Yankees (outfielder Juan, not pitcher Mariano), a banged-up Nick Johnson, a genuine All-Star in Jose Vidro, and an all-time great in Frank Robinson (a 68-year-old manager, not a 30-year-old Triple Crown winner).

3. The Strike of '94. The Expos never really recovered from it. Not on the field, and not at the box office. Fans began to get the idea of, "What's the point?" And this was a few years before Loria bought the team.

2. Claude Brochu. The owner before Loria is hardly blameless. He could have managed the fallout from the Strike better, and he could have pushed for a new ballpark anytime between his June 14, 1991 purchase of the team and the August 12, 1994 date of the Strike. He didn't.
It wasn't that he didn't want to. It was that he couldn't. He and his investors simply didn't have the money. They stepped in to stop the Expos from being moved to Phoenix, but it only delayed what might have been an inevitable. It's worth asking if a completed 1994 season, with the Expos winning the World Series, would have made a difference.

(Maybe not. The Boston Braves won a Pennant in 1948; 5 years later, they were in Milwaukee. They finished only 5 games out of 1st in 1964; 2 years later, they were in Atlanta. The Brooklyn Dodgers won a Pennant in 1956; 2 years later, they were in Los Angeles. And those are just examples from baseball.)

And if you still think Loria is more to blame than Brochu, just remember that it was Brochu who sold the team to Loria. Maybe Brochu wasn't as malicious about it as Loria -- the old saying is, "Never ascribe to malice that which can be blamed on incompetence -- but he's at least as much to blame.

1. Bud Selig. Allan Huber Selig was the Commissioner of Baseball -- Acting Commissioner after Fay Vincent was fired in 1992, and then full Commissioner from 1998 to 2015. Theoretically, the owners could have ganged up on him and demanded something, and, if they didn't get it, fired him.

That was never going to happen, because, for 28 years,from 1970 when he purchased the Seattle Pilots and moved them to become the Milwaukee Brewers, until 1998 when he was named full Commissioner (including 1992 until 1998, making him a walking conflict of interest), he was one of them. The owners rarely turn on one of their own. Bill Veeck and Charlie Finley were the last exceptions, and they both sold out in 1980.

If Selig wanted the Expos to stay in Montreal, he would have made it happen. Instead, he wanted Montreal out of MLB, and Washington in, and both happened.

The Verdict: Not Guilty. On the lesser charge of being a jerk, Loria is unquestionably guilty. But the Expos were probably doomed before he came along.

I hope MLB returns to Montreal soon. If it's the Rays, who are probably never getting a replacement for their stupid dome in St. Petersburg, a real dome somewhere in the Tampa Bay area, at least they wouldn't have to be moved out of the American League Eastern Division. It would make scheduling easier, and there would be the built-in rivalry with Toronto.

Last night, the Yankees did what they haven't been able to do all this year: Get to .500, and forge a 6-game winning streak.

And they did what they didn't do enough of last year: Beat those pesky Toronto Blue Jays.

Jacoby Ellsbury led off the Yankees' side of the game with a triple off former Met R.A. Dickey. Brett Gardner walked, Mark Teixeira struck out, and then Carlos Beltran grounded into a force play, on which Ellsbury scored.

As it turned out, that was the only run the Yankees would need. but it was not he only one they would get. Beltran hit a home run in the 4th inning (his 10th of the season). Austin Romine hit an RBI double in the 7th, followed by an RBI single by Ellsbury. In the 8th, 2 more runs came home on a sacrifice fly by Chase Headley and a single by Didi Gregorius.

The Yankees actually allowed more baserunners through walks than hits. Here's all the baserunners the Jays got:

* 2nd inning: Troy Tulowitzki singled off Nathan Eovaldi. Jimmy Paraedes walked. Neither scored.

* 3rd inning: Josh Thole drew a leadoff walk. Cliche alert: Those walks'll kill ya. Except when they don't. Jose Bautista singled (but did not flip his bat). Josh Donaldson bunted them over. But Eovaldi worked out of the jam, and allowed no further baserunners as he pitched into the 7th. This was key, because it was only 2-0 going into the bottom of the 7th, and you know how the Yankees have struggled to get results this season when they don't get at least 3 runs. Indeed, the Jays didn't get another hit after this.

* 7th inning: Eovaldi walked Tulowitzki, and Girardi removed him for Dellin Betances, who got the next 3 batters out.

* 8th inning: Kirby Yates walked Bautista, but stranded him.

* 9th inning: Luis Cessa (almost certainly, by accident) hit former Yankee Russell Martin with a pitch. He did not score, and it wouldn't have mattered much if he had.

Yankees 6, Blue Jays 0. A 2-hit shutout. Our best game, all-around, of the season thus far, and against the defending American League Eastern Division Champions, struggling at the moment though they may be. WP: Eovaldi (5-2). No save. LP: Dickey (2-6, whose story has been full of hard luck since he came to Toronto).

In the 1st game they played after I was born, in he 1st game they played after my sister was born, and in the last game they played before my father died, the Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox. (Neither of my parents was a Yankee Fan. In the 1st game they played after my father was born, they beat the Washington Senators; in the 1st after my mother was born, they lost to the Philadelphia Athletics.)

In the 1st game they played after my twin nieces Ashley and Rachel were born, the Yankees won... beating the Minnesota Twins. Now, in the 1st game they've played after my niece Mackenzie was born, the Yankees have won.

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In other news, Alex Rodriguez made his 1st injury rehab start. In his 1st at-bat for the Trenton Thunder, he popped up.

He's already in October form.

As for that Other Team, Matt Harvey got rocked again. Does anybody still think he's an "ace"?

*

It's been 3 weeks since I did a countdown:

Hours until the U.S. national soccer team plays again: 6, at 8:00 PM Eastern Time tonight, at Toyota Park in Frisco, Texas, home of FC Dallas. It is the last warmup match for the 2016 Copa America, the 100th Anniversary of the tournament, being hosted on U.S. soil for the 1st time. (The U.S. normally wouldn't compete, and nor would Mexico: It's traditionally the continental tournament for national teams in South America.)

Days until the New York Red Bulls play again: 3, this Saturday night at 7:00, home to Toronto FC.

Days until the 2016 Copa America kicks off in the U.S.: 9, a week from this Friday.

Days until Euro 2016 kicks off in France: 16, on Friday, June 10. A little over 2 weeks.

Days until the next Yankees-Red Sox series of the season: 51, on Friday, July 15, the 1st series after the All-Star Break, at Yankee Stadium II. A little over 7 weeks.

Days until the Red Bulls next play a "derby": 53, against the Philadelphia Union at Talen Energy Stadium (formerly PPL Park) in Chester, Pennsylvania. The next game against New York City F.C. (a.k.a. Man City NYC, Man City III, Small Club In Da Bronx and The Homeless) is on Sunday afternoon, July 3, at Yankee Stadium II -- although after the greatest humiliation any MLS team has ever endured, that 7-0 defeat in The Bronx last weekend, I wonder if NYCFC (now 0-4 all-time against RBNY) will even want to show up. The next game against D.C. United (a.k.a. The DC Scum) is on Sunday night, August 21, at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. The next game against the New England Revolution is on Sunday night, August 28, at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey.

Days until The Arsenal play at the opponents in the 2016 Major League Soccer All-Star Game: 64, on Thursday night, July 28, at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, California, home of the San Jose Earthquakes. A little over 2 months. Three days later, The Arsenal will play C.D. Guadalajara (a.k.a. Chivas), one of the biggest clubs in Mexico, at the StubHub Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, in Carson, California. This will be just 2 years after The Arsenal came to America to play the Red Bulls in New Jersey. I was lucky enough to get a ticket and attend that match. I don't think I'll be going to either of these: Even if I could get a game ticket, paying for a plane ticket would be tough.

Days until the 2016 Olympics begin in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 72, on Friday, August 5. A little over 10 weeks.

Days until The Arsenal play another competitive match: At least 87. The 2016-17 Premier League
season is likely to open on Saturday, August 20. Their game could be delayed to Sunday the 21st, or Monday the 22nd. Under 3 months.

Days until Rutgers University plays football again: 101, on Saturday, September 3, away to the University of Washington, in Seattle.

Days until East Brunswick High School plays football again: 107, on Friday, September 9, probably away, since, while the 2016 schedule hasn't been released yet, the Big Green opened last season at home.

Days until the New Jersey Devils play another local rival: Unknown, but at least 135. The schedule for the 2016-17 NHL season has been announced as being released on June 22. The new season is likely to begin on the 1st Friday in October, which would be October 7. But the Devils are not likely to play either the New York Rangers (a.k.a. The Scum), the New York Islanders or the Philadelphia Flyers (a.k.a. The Philth) in the opener.

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge Thanksgiving game: 173, on Thursday morning, November 24, at the purple shit pit on Route 9. Just 6 months.

Days until the Contract From Hell runs out, and Alex Rodriguez' alleged retirement becomes official: 524, on October 31, 2017, or at the conclusion of the 2017 World Series, if the Yankees make it, whichever comes last. A little over 17 months.

Days until the next World Cup kicks off in Russia: 750, on June 14, 2018. A little over 2 years. The U.S. team will probably qualify for it, but with Jurgen Klinsmann as manager, particularly in competitive matches rather than in friendlies, you never know.

Just when you thought it was safe to be optimistic about the Yankees again...

They reached .500 by beating those pesky Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night, extending their winning streak to 6.

But it would end there. The Wednesday night game was unusual in that the Yankees scored 4 runs and still lost. Chase Headley hit his 3rd home run of the season, and Austin Romine his 1st. But Russell Martin hit 2. This is not a good thing, because he doesn't play for the Yankees anymore. Headley got 1 other hit, and Didi Gregorius got 3. That was all the Yankees got.

Ivan Nova had pitched well lately, but not this time. His strikeout-to-walk ratio of 8-2 was good, but he gave up 4 runs in less than 7 innings. The bullpen was worse: Chasen Shreve and Nick Goody are simply not good enough to pitch in the major leagues.

Blue Jays 8, Yankees 4. WP: Marco Estrada (2-2). No save. LP: Nova (3-2).

*

Yesterday's game was a rare 4:05 PM home start. (A game starting at 4:05 Eastern Time is not surprising if it's on the West Coat, making it 1:05 Pacific.) CC Sabathia pitched very well, going 7 innings, allowing 2 runs, neither of them earned (thanks to an error by Gregorius), on 2 hits and 1 walk, striking out 7.

The Yankees simply didn't back him up. And, again, he fell victim to 1 bad inning, although it wasn't that bad: 2 runs in the 3rd.

The Yankees actually took a 1-0 lead in the 1st, on Starlin Castro's 6th home run of the season. But the Yankees wasted a 1-out walk by Brian McCann in the 2nd, Romine grounded into a double play to wipe out 1-out singles by Headley and Gregorius in the 5th, wasted a 1-out walk by Aaron Hicks in the 6th, wasted a 2-out walk by Headley in he 7th, wasted a leadoff single by Jacoby Ellsbury in the 8th, and went out weakly in the 9th.

This time, Joe Girardi used Dellin Betances in the 8th and Aroldis Chapman in the 9th, going against his type (i.e. "Do whatever the hell the Binder tells me to do"), and using good relievers when behind. Chapman allowed a run.

Blue Jays 3, Yankees 1. WP: Happ (6-2). SV: Antonio Osuna (10). LP: Sabathia (3-3).

*

So now, the Yankees fly down to face the Tampa Bay Rays. Here are the projected pitching matchups:

* Tonight, 7:05: Masahiro Tanaka vs. Jeremy Archer.

* Tomorrow, 4:10: Michael Pineda vs. Matt Moore.

* Sunday, 1:10: Nathan Eovaldi vs. Jake Odorizzi.

Come on you Bombers!

The Yankees began a 3-game series in St. Petersburg against the Tampa Bay Rays last night. It's always good to start off a series with a win, and they got what they needed.

They needed a strong starting pitching performance. They got one. Don't touch Masahiro Tanaka. Not unless you want to get burned.

Hiro went 7 innings, and allowed just 4 baserunners: A single by Steve Pearce in the 5th (meaning he had a perfect game through 4), a reach on a fielder's choice (a busted-up double play) by Logan Morrison right after that, another reach on a fielder's choice by Desmond Jennings right after that, and a double by Brandon Guyer in the 6th. That's it: 7 innings: 2 hits, no walks, no hit batsmen, 2 fielder's choices.

Dear Met fans, you stupid Flushing Heathen who are now booing Matt Harvey: Masahiro Tanaka is an ace. So is Nathan Eovaldi. So is CC Sabathia, now that he's sober. You have none.

The Yankees also needed to back that pitching up with runs. With 1 out in the top of the 6th, Brett Gardner drew a walk. Rays starter Chris Archer tried to pick him off, but threw the ball away, and Gardner got all the way to 3rd base. Carlos Beltran grounded to 2nd, and Taylor Motter was able to hold Gardner at 3rd, but he dropped the ball, allowing Beltran to reach 1st. Brian McCann grounded into a forceout, scoring Gardner. One-nil to the Bronx Bombers.

By this point, Archer was thoroughly rattled, and he gave up a blast to the returned-from-injury Alex Rodriguez. It was A-Rod's 6th home run of the season. 3-0 Yankees.

Beltran added a homer in the 8th, his 11th. Andrew Miller pitched a scoreless 8th, but Kirby Yates allowed a home run to Steve Pearce in the bottom of the 9th. Joe Girardi decided to go against the binder, and bring in the closer even though it wasn't a save situation. Aroldis Chapman got the last out.

Yankees 4, Rays 1. WP: Tanaka (3-0). No save. LP: Archer (3-6).

The series continues this afternoon, at 4:10 PM. Michael Pineda starts against Matt Moore. Both pitchers have struggled lately. This game could get ugly.

Oh, wait, it's going to be in Tropicana Field, so it will be ugly no matter what.

Next Friday, the Mets will begin a series in Miami against the Marlins.

Stereotypically, South Florida in general, and Miami in particular, is where old Italian and Jewish New Yorkers go to retire. Along with the railroad and air-conditioning, New Yorkers essentially made that region possible.

And how has Miami thanked New York? Well, the Dolphins have made fools out of the Jets (not that the Jets have needed much help), the Marlins have beaten the Yankees in a World Series (2003) and tormented the Mets in 2 season-ending knock-'em-out-of-Playoff-contention games (2007 and '08), and the Heat have fought with the Knicks, figuratively and literally (1997 & '98).

But the Marlins' new ballpark is so sparsely populated these days that, starting this coming Monday night in a 3-game series, Met fans can do what Yankee Fans do in Tampa Bay: Take over the ballpark, and make it into the Sixth Borough.

Before You Go. It's South Florida: Presume that it will be hot, and that it will be rainy. This is why the new ballpark has a retractable roof. Most likely, it will be closed. Check the Miami Herald
website for their local forecast before you go.

Currently, and the Herald is one of the few papers I've seen that extends its forecast more than a week in advance, they're saying that next weekend's daytime temperatures will be in the high 80s, while nighttime will be in the high 70s, plus a threat of rain on Sunday. So, yuck. (If you don't mind me using a technical term.) But, as I said, the roof is likely to be closed, so while you might get rained on, you won't get rained out.

Miami is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to fiddle with your watch or the clock on your smartphone. And, while Florida was a Confederate State, and parts of Miami may seem like an extension of Cuba or the Dominican Republic, you won't have to bring your passport or change your money.

Tickets. Last season, the Marlins averaged 21,632 fans per game – dead last in the National League, and ahead of only Oakland and cross-State Tampa Bay in the American League. This season, so far, they're getting 20,169, 26th in the majors but still last in the NL. The novelty of the new stadium has worn off like a 24-hour virus, and the shattered expectations of new acquisitions that either flopped or, like Jose Reyes, have already been dumped has killed whatever buzz they had.

Although they opened strong as an expansion franchise in 1993 with 37,838, and were doing well in 1994 with 33,695 before the strike hit, only in their 1997 World Championship season, 29,190, and in their first season in Marlins Park, 2012, have they since topped 24,000. Even in their World Championship season of 2003, they averaged just 16,290. Although Sun Life Stadium (the 7th name the facility has had in its 24 years of operation) has 75,192 seats for football and, during World Series play, topped out at 67,498, much of the upper deck was tarped off, and official baseball capacity was 38,560, turning what could be the largest stadium in the majors into one of the smallest. And still, they couldn't sell it out.

Official capacity of Marlins Park is 36,742 -- meaning they're currently averaging 16,000 short of capacity. So getting tickets will probably not be problem: Pretty much anything you can afford will be available. As with any roadtrip, I advise ordering your tickets in advance, but you can probably get anything you can afford.

This would not, however, include the upper deck "Vista Boxes" and "Vista Reserved": These are not on sale for the Marlins vs. Mets series. My guess is, they're being tarped off, with the club thinking they can't sell them. Oh really, with all those older ex-New Yorkers living nearby?

Home Plate Box seats go for $79, Baseline Reserved are $62, Bullpen Reserved in right field are $34, and the upper-deck Home Run Porch seats are $26. In left field, the "Clevelander" section goes for $40.

Getting There. It's 1,283 miles from Times Square in New York to downtown Miami. Knowing this distance, your first reaction is going to be to fly down there. This is not a horrible idea, as the flight is just 3 hours, but you'll still have to get from the airport to wherever your hotel is. If you're trying to get from the airport to downtown, you'll need to change buses – or change from a bus to Miami's Tri-Rail rapid transit service. And it is possible, if you order quickly, to find nonstop flights for under $600 round-trip.

The train is not a very good idea, because you'll have to leave Penn Station on Amtrak's Silver Star at 11:02 AM and arrive in Miami at 6:05 the next day's evening, a 31-hour ride. The return trip will leave at 8:10 AM and return to New York at 11:00 AM, "only" 27 hours – no, as I said earlier, there's no time-zone change involved. Round-trip, it'll cost $236. And the station isn’t all that close, at 8303 NW 37th Avenue. Fortunately, there's a Tri-Rail station there that will take you downtown.

How about Greyhound? There are 5 buses leaving Port Authority every day with connections to Miami, only one of them nonstop, the 10:30 PM to 4:20 AM (2 days later) version. The rest require you to change buses in Richmond and Orlando. (I don't know about changing buses in Orlando, but I have changed buses in Richmond, and I can tell you: It is not fun.) The ride, including the changeovers, takes about 30 hours. Round-trip fare is $208, but you can get it for $132 on advanced-purchase.

The station is at 4111 NW 27th Street and, ironically, is right across 42nd Avenue from the airport. It's worth the fact that it'll cost twice as much to simply fly down. Plus, you might be reminded of the end of the movie Midnight Cowboy, and nobody wants to be reminded of that.

If you want to drive, it'll help to get someone to go down with you, and take turns driving. You'll be going down Interstate 95 (or its New Jersey equivalent, the Turnpike) almost the whole way. It’ll be about 2 hours from the Lincoln Tunnel to the Delaware Memorial Bridge, 20 minutes in Delaware, and an hour and a half in Maryland, before crossing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, at the southern tip of the District of Columbia, into Virginia. Then it will be 3 hours or so in Virginia, another 3 hours in North Carolina, about 3 hours and 15 minutes in South Carolina, a little under 2 hours in Georgia, and about 6 hours and 15 minutes in Florida before you reach downtown Miami.

Given rest stops, preferably in one in each State from Maryland to Georgia and 2 in Florida, you're talking about a 28-hour trip.

Once In the City. A lot of people don't realize it, because Miami is Florida's most famous city, but the most populous city in the State is Jacksonville. However, while Miami has about 425,000 people within the city limits, there are 5.6 million living in the metro area, making it far and away the largest in the South, not counting Texas.

Because Florida is so hot (How hot is it?), and air-conditioning didn't become common until the mid-20th Century, Miami was founded rather late by the standards of the East coast, in 1825, and wasn't incorporated as a city until 1896. The name is derived from the Mayaimi tribe of Native Americans. Miami Avenue is the east-west divider, Flagler Street the north-south.

The Herald is the only major newspaper left in the city, but the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale should also be available. And, considering how many ex-New Yorkers are around, you might also be able to get the Times, the Daily News, or, if you're really desperate (or really conservative), the Post.

The sales tax in Florida is 6 percent, but it's 7 percent within Miami-Dade County. Since 1984, Miami has had a rapid-transit rail service, Metrorail. However, the ballpark isn't all that close to it. You will need to take the Number 7 bus from downtown. The fare for the Metrorail and the Metrobus is $2.25.

Going In. The official address of Marlins Park used to be 1390 NW 6th Street, but it's now 501 Marlins Way. It's 2 miles west of downtown, between 4th and 6th Streets, and 14th and 16th Avenues. Parking is $10.

Three of those surrounding streets have specialized names for the stretches that border the park: 16th Avenue is Marlins Way; 4th Street is Bobby Maduro Drive, after the Cuban baseball executive who was forced to flee his native land during Fidel Castro's revolution and had the old Miami minor-league stadium named in his honor; and 6th Street is Felo Ramirez Drive, after the legendary baseball and boxing announcer who has been the main Spanish radio voice of the Marlins from day one in 1993, and is a winner of the Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford Frick Award for broadcasters.

Due to South Florida's climate – the city probably gets more rain than any other in the major leagues, including Seattle – the ballpark was built with a retractable roof, going from the 1st base side across to left field. The park points southeast, but is west of downtown, so you can't really see Miami's skyline from inside. Which is too bad, because Miami is undergoing a building boom, including the "Biscayne Wall" along the waterfront. The seats are all a bright blue.

Marlins Park has a natural grass field. The outfield distances are 344 feet down the left field line, 386 to left-center, 420 to the furthest point, the left-center region they call "the Bermuda Triangle," 418 to straightaway center, 392 to right-center, and 335 down the right field line.

Every bit as much as the Dolphins' stadium was in its baseball configuration, this is a pitcher’s park. The longest home run in it is a 484-footer by Giancarlo Stanton in 2014. Andres Galarraga, as a Colorado Rockie, hit the longest in Miami's major league history, a 529-footer at Joe Robbie Stadium in 1997.

There's funky (or tacky, depending on how you look at it) artwork all over the place, including the tropic-themed Home Run Sculpture in left field. And then there's "The Clevelander." Something the Marlins captured during their 1997 World Series win over the Indians, maybe? Nope, it's something they call "South Beach Comes to the Ballpark!" They have a poolside bar and grill, restricted to fans age 21 and over. In other words, it's the Arizona Diamondbacks' right-center-field pool kicked up a notch. It's something that does not belong at a ballpark.
(I don't know if there's a connection, but Julia Tuttle, the local booster who convinced railroad baron Henry Flagler to help her make a modern city possible in the 1890s, was from Cleveland. Because of her, Miami is sometimes called the only American city founded by a woman.)

Food. With a great Hispanic, and especially Cuban, heritage, and also being in Southeastern Conference country (hello, tailgating), you would expect the baseball team in Miami to have great food at their stadium. They certainly go heavy on the regional cuisine at Taste of Miami, behind Section 27: Cuban sandwiches, Pan con Lechon, Chicharron, Fish Ceviche, Cuban coffee and Mariquitas. This is not to be confused with the Miami Mex taco stand at Section 4.

Burger 305 (named for the city's original Area Code) has several stands, and includes a "Miami Shrimp Burger." There's 3 Sir Pizza stands -- after all, what would Miami be without Italian senior citizens? There is a Kosher Korner at Section 1 -- after all, what would Miami be without Jewish senior citizens? Brother Jimmy's BBQ, introduced to New York sports at the new Yankee Stadium, is at Section 8.

Team History Displays. Not much. The Marlins hang banners for their 1997 and 2003 World Championships, their only trips to the postseason, in the windowed area behind left field.
The only retired number they've ever had was for Carl Barger, their team president, who organized the team for the start of the 1993 season, and then died right before it. He was a friend of Joe DiMaggio, who lived in nearby Hollywood, Florida, and threw out the first ball at the Marlins’ first game. (There was precedent for a legend of one team throwing out the first-ever first ball of another team: Ty Cobb's last appearance in a big-league ballpark was throwing out the first ball at the Los Angeles Angels' 1st home game, because he was a friend and former teammate of their 1st general manager, Fred Haney.)

In Barger's memory, and in connection with his friendship with the Yankee Clipper, original owner Wayne Huizenga retired Number 5 for Barger, who never wore it – not even for fun. But upon the opening of the new park, it was unretired, although it is not currently being worn.

So, now, the only retired number they recognize is the universally-retired Number 42 of Jackie Robinson. Their notation for it is in left-center, next to The Clevelander.
The team did honor Barger with a plaque at the new park, but that's hardly the same thing, unless it's part of a team Hall of Fame display, which they don't have: Not a display, nor a team Hall of Fame. Nor even an all-time team as chosen by the fans, not even last year with the team celebrating its 20th Anniversary. Maybe they'll do that in 2018, for their 25th.

There are 3 players who played for the Marlins who are in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown: Miami native Andre Dawson, and former manager Tony Perez, both of whom currently work in the Marlin organization; and Mike Piazza, who was a Marlin for about 10 minutes between the Dodgers and the Mets in 1998.

It should be noted, though, that Perez never played for the Marlins, and Dawson only did so for the last 2 years of his career, a grand total of 121 games. They have as many broadcasters "in the Hall of Fame" as they do uniformed personnel: Felo Ramirez, and Dave Van Horne, who came down from the Montreal Expos when Jeffrey Loria essentially moved the Expos' organization, if not its players, in 2002.

No player for the Marlins was named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Players in 1999. In 2006, Dontrelle Willis was chosen by Marlin fans for the DHL Hometown Heroes series.

Stuff. The Marlins have team stores in the stadium, but nothing out of the ordinary: Caps, jerseys, T-shirts, bats, gloves, stuffed Billy the Marlin dolls.

A few books have been written for the Marlins, and may be available in the team stores. Dan Schlossberg, Miami Herald columnist Dave Barr, Kevin Baxter and Marlin star Jeff Conine collaborated on Miracle Over Miami: How the 2003 Marlins Shocked the World. Jenny Reese wrote
The History of the Florida Marlins, published in 2010.

One book you will almost certainly not see in the stores is Dave Rosenbaum’s book about how original owner Huizenga "went all in" to win the 1997 World Series, then broke the team up, going from 92-70 that season to 54-108 the next, having practically come out and told everyone that a 100-plus-loss next season was likely. The title of the book? If They Don’t Win It’s a Shame. (Yeah, tell that to the Giants, who they beat in the NLDS and who had never yet won a Series in San Francisco; and to the Indians, who blew a 9th-inning lead in Game 7 of the Series and still haven’t won a Series since 1948.)

Although the Marlins have won 2 World Series and have been around for nearly 20 years now, there is, as yet, no commemorative DVD of their World Series highlight films, and no The Essential Games of the Florida Marlins DVD.

During the Game. South Florida is loaded with people who came from elsewhere, including ex-New Yorkers. The stereotype is that, when a New Yorker gets old, if he has enough money to do so, he moves to Miami. Especially if he's Jewish. Or Italian. As a result, you may see a lot of Met fans, few of whom switched to the Marlins. You may run into a few Yankee Fans who adopted the Marlins as their "second team" or their "National League team," although how many of them kept that status after the 2003 World Series is debatable. (Blast you, Jeff Weaver – Alex Gonzalez sure did.)

I don't know if your safety will be an issue. The new ballpark, on the site of the Orange Bowl, is in a questionable neighborhood. However, if you leave your car at the hotel and take the bus in, the police presence will probably mean you're protected from the local criminal element.

As for the Marlin fans, a recent Thrillist article put them almost right in the middle, 14th out of 30, on a list of "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans." You will almost certainly be fine. Miamians might fight if they're at a Dolphins game -- or a University of Miami Hurricanes game, especially against the University of Florida or Florida State -- especially if provoked by visiting fans, but not at a Marlins game. Any leftover bad juju from Dolphins or Hurricanes games the Orange Bowl isn't going to be a problem.

The Saturday game will be a promotion: Mike Lowell Bobblehead Day. The Sunday game will also be a promotion: Giancarlo Stanton Kids Batting Gloves Day.

The Marlins hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. heir mascot is Billy the Marlin, whose name was chosen by Huizenga because a Marlin is a "billfish"– and it has nothing to do with Billy Martin, in spite of the character’s large nose. Since the change of team colors upon moving into Marlins Park in 2012, Billy's costume was altered to show the new colors.

Billy sometimes "water-skis" in behind a golf cart built to look like a boat. Any resemblance of this setup to Richie Cunningham driving the boat that allowed the Fonz to jump the shark on Happy Days is strictly coincidental.

Worse than a dopey mascot, the Marlins had cheerleaders. No, I'm not making this up: They were the one and only MLB team with cheerleaders. Or, as they would put it, a dance/cheer team. The Marlins Mermaids debuted in 2003.

As noted Phillies fan Bill Cosby used to say in his act, before we decided we never wanted to see his act again, "Don't ever say, 'It can't get any worse.' It can always get worse. 'Worse' is rough." In 2008, the team debuted the Marlins Manatees, an all-male "dance/energy squad" who performed alongside the Mermaids. They even wore costumes, like a fat version of the Village People.

Speaking of the Village People: You want to blame the Yankees for having the grounds crew dance to "YMCA," go ahead, that’s one "Yankee Tradition" I don’t like, anyway; but this, as noted Met fan Oscar Madison (Jack Klugman on The Odd Couple) would say, is as ridiculous as Aristophanes. Thankfully, upon moving into Marlins Park in 2012, the team abandoned these concepts, and formed a co-ed "energy squad" without a stupid name.

The Marlins do not have a regular song to play in the 7th inning stretch after "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Their postgame victory song is "Echa Pa'lla (Manos Pa'rriba)," meaning "Move (Hands Up)," by Miami native Armando Christian Pérez, a.k.a. Pitbull. It could be worse: They could play Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine. Worse yet, Miami-based discoteers KC and the Sunshine Band. Or, worst of all, Robbie Van Winkle, the suburbs-of-Dallas loser who, very briefly, tried (and failed) to fool us into thinking he was Miami gangbanger Vanilla Ice.

After the Game. As I said, the Marlins Park area is a bit rough. My advice is to get back downtown as soon as possible, and either look for a nightspot there, or get across the Causeways to Miami Beach, or stay in your hotel and try their bar. If you're too hungry to wait, on opposite sides of 7th Street, just north of the ballpark, there's a Wendy's and a Subway. Batting Cage Sports Bar & Lounge is a couple of blocks away, at 1704 NW 7th Street.

I checked for area bars where New Yorkers gather, and found one for each of the city’s NFL teams. American Social is the home of the local Giants fan club, and also caters to fans of the Yankees and Knicks. HammerJack's Sports Bar & Grille is the home of the South Florida New York Jets Fan Club, The problem is, they're both nearly 30 miles north of downtown Miami: American Social is  at 721 East Las Olas Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale, while HammerJack's is at 5325 S. University Drive in Davie. Thus, both are better for the New York football teams playing away to the Dolphins than for the baseball teams playing away to the Marlins.

Sidelights. Miami's sports history is long, but aside from football, it's not all that involved. Marlins Park was, as I said, built on the site of the stadium known as Burdine Stadium from its 1937 opening until 1959 and the Miami Orange Bowl thereafter. It was best known for hosting the Orange Bowl game on (or close to) every New Year’s Day from 1938 to 1995, and the NFL's Miami Dolphins from their debut in 1966 until 1986.

It was home to the University of Miami football team from 1937 to 2007 (famed for its fake-smoke entrances out of the tunnel). It was also the home of, if you count the All-America Football Conference of the 1940s, the first "major league" team in any of the former Confederate States: The 1946 Miami Seahawks. But the black players on the Cleveland Browns would not accept being housed away from their white teammates in segregated Florida, and in that league, what the Browns wanted, the Browns got. So the Seahawks (in no way connected the NFL's Seattle team of the same name) were moved to become the Baltimore Colts after just 1 season.

The Orange Bowl also hosted the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl, a game involving the 2nd-place teams in each of the NFL’s divisions from 1960 to 1969, a charity game, a glorified exhibition. Also known as the Playoff Bowl, it was considered so lame that Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi publicly called it "the only game I never want to win"– and he didn't. The stadium also hosted the Miami Toros of the North American Soccer League from 1972 to 1976.

And it hosted 5 Super Bowls, most notably (from a New York perspective) Super Bowl III, when the Jets beat the Colts in one of the greatest upsets in sports history, on January 12, 1969. Super Bowl XIII, in 1979, was the last Super Bowl to be held there; all subsequent South Florida Super Bowls, including the one the Giants won in 2012, Super Bowl XLVI, have been held at the Dolphins' stadium.

The U.S. national soccer team played 19 matches at the Orange Bowl, from 1984 to 2004. They didn't do so well, though, winning only 2 of them, drawing 10 and losing 7. And the biggest crowd they could get was 49,000 -- you'd think that, being in a heavily Hispanic city, they could draw "futbol" fans. Instead, most of the Hispanics came to see them play Latin American teams, and root for those teams. It was also the home of the North American Soccer League's Miami Gatos and Miami Toros, before they moved up I-95 to become the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. London soccer giants Arsenal played their 1st game in America at the Orange Bowl, on May 31, 1972, beating the Gatos 3-2.

The Orange Bowl was where the Dolphins put together what remains the NFL's only true undefeated season, in 1972. The Canton Bulldogs had gone undefeated and untied in 1922, but there was no NFL Championship Game in those days. The Chicago Bears lost NFL Championship Games after going undefeated and untied in the regular seasons of 1932 and 1942. And the Browns went undefeated and untied in the 1948 AAFC season, but that’s not the NFL. The Dolphins capped their perfect season by winning Super Bowl VII, and then Super Bowl VIII. And yet, despite having reached the Super Bowl 5 times, and Miami having hosted 10 of them, the Dolphins have never played in a Super Bowl in their home region. (They've done so in New Orleans, in Houston, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and twice in the Los Angeles area.)

They also haven’t been to one in 31 seasons, which includes all of their history in their new stadium. Curse of Joe Robbie, anyone? Which brings me to...

* The facility currently, officially, named New Miami Stadium. Better known by its original name, Joe Robbie Stadium, after the Dolphins' original owner (although legendary entertainer Danny Thomas also had a stake in the team in its first few years), it's also been known as Dolphin Stadium, Dolphins Stadium, Pro Player Stadium and Landshark Stadium. They're waiting on a new sponsor to buy naming rights.

The Marlins reached the postseason here twice, in 1997 and 2003, and won the World Series both times. In other words, they've never lost a postseason series. Contrast that with the Dolphins: Only once, in their first 29 seasons in the Dolphin Tank, have they even reached the AFC Championship Game (in January 1993, and they lost at home to the Bills).

But don't think that the stadium was better for the Marlins: It was a football stadium, with a baseball field wedged into it, and it wasn't really adequate for the horsehide game. It is, however, still regarded as one of the better stadiums in the NFL, despite having been built before Camden Yards rewrote the rules of stadium construction.

It's hosted Super Bowls XXIII (1989, San Francisco over Cincinnati), XXIX (1995, San Francisco over San Diego), XXXIII (1999, Denver over Atlanta), XLI (2007, Indianapolis over Chicago) and XLIV (2010, New Orleans over Indianapolis). It will host Super Bowl LIV (2020).

It's hosted several of soccer games, including matches with such storied names as Arsenal (beat Argentine club Independiente in 1989), Manchester United and A.C. Milan. The U.S. national team played Honduras there on October 8, 2011, and won -- but only 21,900 attended.

Now that the Marlins are out, the official address of the stadium is 347 Don Shula Drive, for the number of games that Shula won as an NFL head coach -- although that counts the postseason, and the games he won as boss of the Colts. (But not Super Bowl III, which he lost as coach of the Colts.) It's between NW 199th and 203rd Streets (199th is renamed Dan Marino Blvd.), and NW 21st and 26th Avenues. Take Metrorail toward Palmetto, and get off at the Martin Luther King Jr. station. (I doubt if a sports stadium in the Miami suburbs was a part of Dr. King’s dream, although stadiums and performing-arts venues with racially-integrated seating, particularly in the South, sure were.)

* Comfort Inn. This hotel, across 36th Street from the airport, was built on the site of the Playhouse, once considered one of South Florida’s finest banquet halls. It was here, on January 9, 1969, 3 days before the Super Bowl, at a dinner organized by the Miami Touchdown Club, that Joe Namath of the Jets was speaking, and some drunken Colts fan yelled out, "Hey, Namath! We’re gonna kick your ass on Sunday!" And Joe said, "Let me tell you something: We got a good team. And we're gonna win the game. I guarantee it!" He was right. NW 36th Street between Curtiss Parkway and Deer Run. MetroRail toward Palmetto, to Allapattah Station, then transfer to the 36 Bus.

* Site of Miami Stadium. Also known as Bobby Maduro Stadium, this was the home of the original Miami Marlins, of the Florida State League. Seating 13,000, it was known for its Art Deco entrance and a roof that shielded nearly the entire seating area, to protect fans from the intense Miami weather.
The FSL team that played here was known as the Sun Sox from 1949 to 1954, the Marlins from 1956 to 1960, the Marlins again from 1962 to 1970, the Miami Orioles from 1971 to 1981, and the Marlins again from 1982 to 1988.  It was the spring training home of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1950 to 1957, the Dodgers in their first season in Los Angeles in 1958 (it can be said that "the Los Angeles Dodgers" played their 1st game here, not in California), and the Baltimore Orioles from 1959 to 1990. The FSL Pennant was won here 7 times: 1950, 1952 (Sun Sox), 1969, 1970 (old Marlins), 1971, 1972 and 1978 (Orioles).
It was demolished in 2001, and The Miami Stadium Apartments were built on the site. 2301 NW 10th Avenue, off 23rd Street. It’s just off I-95, and 8 blocks north and east from the Santa Clara MetroRail station.

* American Airlines Arena. The "Triple-A" has been the home of the NBA’s Miami Heat since 2000, including their 2006, 2012 and 2013 NBA Championship seasons. 601 Biscayne Blvd. (U.S. Routes 1 & 41), between NE 6th and 8th Streets, across Port Blvd. from the Bayside Marketplace shopping center (not exactly their version of the South Street Seaport) and the Miami outlets of Hooters, the Hard Rock Café and Bubba Gump Shrimp. The closest rapid-rail station is Overtown – ironically, the same stop for the previous sports arena…

* Site of Miami Arena. Home of the Heat from their 1988 debut until 1999 (the new arena opened on Millennium Eve, December 31, 1999), and the NHL's Florida Panthers from their 1993 debut to 1998, this building was demolished in 2008. Only 20 years? Apparently, like the multipurpose stadiums of the 1960s and '70s, and the Meadowlands Arena and (soon?) the Nassau Coliseum, it served its purpose – getting teams to come in – and then quickly became inadequate.

Nevertheless, when the Overtown race riot happened in January 1989, just before Super Bowl XXIII, area residents took great pains to protect this arena from damage (and the Miami area from the public-relations nightmare that would have occurred had there been a riot during Super Bowl week), and succeeded. 701 Arena Blvd., between Miami Avenue, NW 1st Avenue, and 6th and 8th Streets. Overtown/Arena rail station.

* BB&T Center. The home of the Panthers since 1998, and there's a reason the team is called "Florida" instead of "Miami": The arena is 34 miles northwest of downtown Miami, and 14 miles west of downtown Fort Lauderdale, in a town called Sunrise. 1 Panther Parkway, at NW 136th. If you don’t have a car, you'd have to take the 195 Bus to Fort Lauderdale, and then the 22 Bus out to the building, named for Branch Banking & Trust Corporation.

* Fort Lauderdale Stadium and Lockhart Stadium. Built in 1962, the Yankees moved their spring training headquarters to the 8,340-seat Fort Lauderdale Stadium after being assured that, unlike their spring home of St. Petersburg at the time, their black players could stay in the same hotel as their white players. The Yankees remained there until 1995, by which point Tampa was not only long since integrated, but was willing to pretty much anything city resident George Steinbrenner wanted, including build him a new spring home for the Yankees.
The Yankees' Class A team in the Florida State League also used it as a home field. After the Yankees left, the Orioles used it from 1996 to 2009. Although it no longer has a permanent tenant, or even a spring training tenant, it still stands, and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers use it as a practice facility. 1401 NW 55th Street.

Built in 1959, Lockhart is a 20,450-seat high school football stadium, across 55th Street from Fort Lauderdale Stadium, along 12th Avneue. It's been home to 4 different teams called the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, including the original NASL's version from 1977 to 1983, and the new NASL's version since 2011. It's hosted 3 games of the U.S. national soccer team, and also hosted Florida Atlantic University's football team from 2003 to 2010, after which their on-campus stadium opened. 5201 NW 12th Avenue.

For both stadiums, take MetroRail to Tri-Rail, then Tri-Rail to northbound to Cypress Creek. From there, it's about a 10-minute walk.

Florida International University is at 11200 SW 8th Street, 16 miles west of downtown. Its FIU Stadium, seating 23,500, is at 11310 SW 17th Street. Bus 8. It should not be confused with Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Its 30,000 FAU Stadium is at FAU Blvd. & N. University Drive. Tri-Rail to Boca Raton station. On October 14, 2014, the U.S. soccer team had a 1-1 draw with Honduras at FAU Stadium.

* Sports Immortals Museum. This museum is in Boca Raton, at 6830 N. Federal Highway (Route 1), 50 miles north of downtown Miami. It's got a statue of Babe Ruth, and some memorabilia on display. However, some people have reported that much of the memorabilia they sell has been judged to be fake by authenticators, so buyer beware. Theoretically, it's reachable by public transportation from Miami, but you'd need to take a bus to a train to a bus to a bus (32 to Tri-Rail to 70 to 1), and it would take about 3 hours. If you don't have the time to make for this, by car or otherwise, skip it.

* Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. For the last 30 or so years of his life, the Yankee Clipper lived in South Florida, and while he pretty much ignored his one and only child, son Joe Jr., he adored his grandchildren and children in general. He was a heavy donor to local hospitals, and the Children's Hospital named for him was established in 1992. There is now a statue of him there. 1005 Joe DiMaggio Drive, Hollywood. about 20 miles north of downtown Miami. 22 bus to Hollywood Tri-Rail station, then a mile's walk.

Someone got a copy of an expired DiMaggio driver's license (possibly at an auction), and posted it online. It shows the Yankee Clipper's address as 5151 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. This, and any other Miami Beach location, can be reached via the 103, 113 or 119 Bus, or car, over the MacArthur Causeway. If you do visit, remember that it is still a private residence, and you will not be allowed inside, and should not bother whoever's living there now.

* Miami Beach Convention Center. Opened in 1957, it seats 15,000 people. The American Basketball Association's Miami Floridians played here from 1968 to 1972. The 1968 Republican Convention, and both major parties' Conventions in 1972, were held here. Why? Simple: They wanted to be away from downtown, putting water between themselves and wherever the hippies and another antiwar demonstrators were staying.

This building hosted the heavyweight title fights of 1961 (Floyd Patterson-Ingemar Johansson III, Floyd won) and 1964 (Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston I, Clay winning and then changing his name to Muhammad Ali). Just 9 days before Ali forced his "total eclipse of the Sonny," on February 16, 1964, the Beatles played their 2nd full-length U.S. concert here. (A photo exists of the Beatles visiting Ali at his Miami training center, and he knocks the 4 of them over like dominoes.) Elvis Presley gave a pair of concerts here on September 12, 1970.

Convention Center Drive between 17th Street and Dade Blvd. The Jackie Gleason Theater, where "The Great One" taped his 1960s version of The Jackie Gleason Show (including a revival of The Honeymooners) is next-door.

* Coconut Grove Convention Center. This former Pan Am hangar, attached to the Dinner Key Marina, was used as a Naval Air Station, convention center, concert hall and sports arena (the Floridians played a few home games here).

It was also known as the Dinner Key Auditorium. On March 1, 1969, The Doors gave a concert here, and lead singer Jim Morrison supposedly committed an indecent act there. (Yeah, he told the crowd, "I’m from Florida! I went to Florida State! Then I got smart and moved to California!")

More recently, it was used as a TV studio, particularly for the Miami-based series Burn Notice. It was demolished in 2013, shortly after that series wrapped production. Pan American Drive at 27th Avenue. Number 102 Bus to Number 48.

* Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. Formerly the Olympic Theater, Elvis sang here early in his career, on August 3 and 4, 1956. 174 E. Flagler Street, downtown.

Miami isn't a big museum city. The big two are the Miami Science Museum, at 3280 S. Miami Avenue (Vizcaya Station on Tri-Rail); ; and the Miami Art Museum, at 101 W. Flagler Street (downtown).


Several TV shows have been set in Miami. A restaurant called Jimbo's Place was used to film scenes from Flipper and Miami Vice, and more recently CSI: Miami and Burn Notice. It’s at 4201 Rickenbacker Causeway in Key Biscayne, accessible by the Causeway (by car) and the 102 Bus (by public transportation). Greenwich Studios has been used to film Miami Vice, True Lies, There’s Something About Mary and The Birdcage. It’s at 16th Avenue between 121st and 123rd Streets, in North Miami, and often stands in for Miami Beach for the TV shows and movies for which it’s used. 93 Bus.

If you’re a fan of The Golden Girls, you won’t find the house used for the exterior shots: It’s actually in Los Angeles. If you're a fan of those not-quite-golden girls, the Kardashian sisters, the penthouse they use to tape the Miami edition of their "reality show" is on Ocean Drive between 1st and 2nd Streets in Miami Beach.

*

You don't have to be old to be a New Yorker in Miami -- but it helps to be a sports fan. Who knows, the Mets might even get a little bit of revenge for those season-ending series of 2007 and '08.

Right now, Michael Pineda's best friend is Matt Harvey. So much fuss is being made over "The Dark Knight" not pitching like an ace that Pineda's struggle is barely being noticed.

Yesterday afternoon, at Tropicana Field, Pineda fell behind 5-0 after 2 innings, and didn't get out of the 4th. Joe Girardi thankfully did not waste the good relievers on a game already lost, instead sending out Luis Cessa and Nick Goody.

Carlos Beltran hit his 12th home run of the season, the 404th of his career, and his 2,500th career hit. Chase Headley and Austin Romine each had 3 hits, and Jacoby Ellsbury had 2. The Yankees got 5 runs, and that should be enough.

It wasn't. Rays 9, Yankees 5. WP: Matt Moore (2-3). No save. LP: Pineda (2-6).

The expression on Girardi's face as he takes the ball from Pineda tells the story.

So what's the story? Is Pineda hurt? They should check him for injury. If not, send him down to the minors for a while, and let him find his command, control and rhythm against minor-league hitters.

But if the Yankees are going to make the Playoffs, they need to have solid starting pitchers in all 5 slots: Pineda, CC Sabathia, Masahiro Tanaka, Nathan Eovaldi and Ivan Nova.

Luis Severino is making a rehab start in A ball in Tampa today. Meaning he'll probably make one in AA in Trenton, and one in AAA in Scranton, before rejoining the Yankees.

Sabathia, Tanaka and Eovaldi are as good as any top 3 starters in baseball. Certainly, they're better than the Mets' top 3. But for the last 2 starting slots, 2 of these 3 must come through regularly: Pineda, Severino and Nova.

Right now, I'm not sure we can count on any of those 3. Hopefully, Severino's problem was just his injury, and that will mean we'll only need to count on 1 of 2 for the last slot.

The series concludes this afternoon. Eovaldi starts vs. Jake Odorizzi. Then, the Yankees head across the border to Toronto, to face those pesky Blue Jays. And they'd better play them better than they did in The Bronx last week.

At least, if they do, they won't whine about it, like Met fans in regard to Harvey. Or in regard to Noah Syndergaard and the rest of their Small Club In Flushing vs. Chase Utley.

This morning, after I said words to the effect of, "The Mets are stupid" on Facebook, a Met fan suggested that I wished I were a Met fan instead of a Yankee Fan, because the Mets have "heart."

Bitch, please. The Mets are a Wizard of Oz team: They have no brain, they have no heart, and they have no courage.

David Wright disappears every time the Mets need him most. Matt Harvey (who, in all fairness, pitched his best game of the season this afternoon) whined about an innings limit. And not since 1986 have the Mets gotten through a World Series without baserunning blunders.

A team with "heart" manages to find a way to win even when they are held to 1 hit.

That happened to the Yankees yesterday. Jake Odorizzi of the Tampa Bay Rays took a perfect game into the 6th inning, when Dustin Ackley reached 1st base on an error. He took a no-hitter into the 7th.

But with 1 out, Odorizzi walked Brett Gardner. And then Starlin Castro took him deep. That made the score Yankees 2, Rays 1, and that's how the game ended.

Technically, a home run hitter isn't a "baserunner," but gets counted as such. It was Castro's 7th home run of the season, and only the 3rd baserunner the Yankees got all game long. There would not be a 4th.

The Yankees have been faulted for poor hitting since the September 2012 nosedive that almost cost them the American League Eastern Division title, and did cost them the 2012 AL Championship Series, Playoff berths in 2013 and 2014, and the Division title and the Wild Card Game in 2015. This time, they got just enough to win.

It was like the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps' sniper service: "One Shot, One Kill." Fitting, on Memorial Day Weekend, the Yankees got "One Hit, One Win."

WP: Nathan Eovaldi (6-2). Each member of what's now being called "The Three-Headed Monster" pitched a perfect inning: Dellin Betances in the 7th, Andrew Miller in the 8th, and Aroldis Chapman in the 9th (for his 7th save). LP: Odorizzi (a hard-luck 2-3).

*

So, here we are, 8 weeks into the 26-game MLB regular season. Here are the AL East standings going into tonight's games, taking today's afternoon games into account:

Boston Red Sox, 31-20
Baltimore Orioles, 28-21, 2 games behind, 1 in the loss column
Toronto Blue Jays, 26-26, 5 1/2, 6 in the loss column
New York Yankees, 24-25, 6, 5 in the loss column
Tampa Bay Rays, 22-26, 7 1/2, 6 in the loss column

The Yankees have played a game more than the Rays, and as many as the O's. They have 2 games in hand on The Scum, and 3 in hand on the Jays.

Tonight, the Yankees begin a 3-game series in Toronto against those pesky Blue Jays. Here are the projected pitching matchups, with all starting times officially listed as 7:07 PM:

* Tonight: Ivan Nova vs. Marco Estrada.
* Tomorrow: CC Sabathia vs. J.A. Happ. A lot of initials out there. They were on opposing sides in the 2009 World Series (CC for us, Happ for the Philadelphia Phillies).
* Wednesday: Tanaka vs. Aaron Sanchez.

Then the Yankees go to Detroit to make up a rainout on Thursday, then to Baltimore for 3 against the O's, before returning to New York to start a homestand by playing the Los Angeles Angels of Katella Boulevard, Anaheim, Orange County, California, United States of America, North America, Western Hemisphere, Planet Earth, Sol System, Alpha Quadrant, United Federation of Planets, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group of Galaxies, Known Universe.

*

Hours until the U.S. national soccer team plays again: 99. See the next entry.

Days until the 2016 Copa America Centenario kicks off in the U.S.: 4, this Friday. The Copa America is celebrating its 100th Anniversary by being hosted on U.S. soil for the 1st time. (The U.S. normally wouldn't compete, and nor would our arch-rivals, Mexico: It's traditionally the continental tournament for national teams in South America. The U.S. team beat Bolivia 4-0 in their final warmup match. They will play Colombia on Friday night, at 9:30 PM Eastern Time, at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, the new home of the San Francisco 49ers. At 8:00 PM the following Tuesday, they will play Costa Rica at the new Soldier Field in Chicago. The following Saturday at 7:00 PM, they will play Paraguay at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. The Final will be at the Meadowlands on June 26.

Days until Euro 2016 kicks off in France: 11, a week from this coming Friday.

Days until the New York Red Bulls play again: 20, on Sunday night, June 19, at 7:30, home to the Seattle Sounders. This is after a break for the Copa America. In their last match, Metro cruised to a 3-0 win over Toronto FC.

Days until the next Yankees-Red Sox series of the season: 46, on Friday, July 15, the 1st series after the All-Star Break, at Yankee Stadium II. A little over 6 weeks.

Days until the Red Bulls next play a "derby": 48, against the Philadelphia Union at Talen Energy Stadium (formerly PPL Park) in Chester, Pennsylvania. The next game against New York City F.C. (a.k.a. Man City NYC, Man City III, Small Club In Da Bronx and The Homeless) is on Sunday afternoon, July 3, at Yankee Stadium II -- although after the greatest humiliation any MLS team has ever endured, that 7-0 defeat in The Bronx last weekend, I wonder if NYCFC (now 0-4 all-time against RBNY) will even want to show up. The next game against D.C. United (a.k.a. The DC Scum) is on Sunday night, August 21, at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. The next game against the New England Revolution is on Sunday night, August 28, at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey.

Days until The Arsenal play at the opponents in the 2016 Major League Soccer All-Star Game: 59, on Thursday night, July 28, at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, California, home of the San Jose Earthquakes. Under 2 months. Three days later, The Arsenal will play C.D. Guadalajara (a.k.a. Chivas), one of the biggest clubs in Mexico, at the StubHub Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, in Carson, California. This will be just 2 years after The Arsenal came to America to play the Red Bulls in New Jersey. I was lucky enough to get a ticket and attend that match. I don't think I'll be going to either of these: Even if I could get a game ticket, paying for a plane ticket would be tough.

Days until the 2016 Olympics begin in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 67, on Friday, August 5.

Days until The Arsenal play another competitive match: At least 68. The 2016-17 Premier League season is likely to open on Saturday, August 6 -- not on August 20, as I had previously been led to believe. However, Arsenal's opening League game could be delayed to Sunday the 7th, or Monday the 8th. Under 10 weeks.

Days until Rutgers University plays football again: 96, on Saturday, September 3, away to the University of Washington, in Seattle.

Days until East Brunswick High School plays football again: 102, on Friday, September 9, probably away, since, while the 2016 schedule hasn't been released yet, the Big Green opened last season at home.

Days until the New Jersey Devils play another local rival: Unknown, but at least 130. The schedule for the 2016-17 NHL season has been announced as being released on June 22. The new season is likely to begin on the 1st Friday in October, which would be October 7. But the Devils are not likely to play either the New York Rangers (a.k.a. The Scum), the New York Islanders or the Philadelphia Flyers (a.k.a. The Philth) in the opener.

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge Thanksgiving game: 168, on Thursday morning, November 24, at the purple shit pit on Route 9. Just 6 months.

Days until the Contract From Hell runs out, and Alex Rodriguez' alleged retirement becomes official: 519, on October 31, 2017, or at the conclusion of the 2017 World Series, if the Yankees make it, whichever comes last. A little over 17 months.

Days until the next World Cup kicks off in Russia: 745, on June 14, 2018. A little over 2 years. The U.S. team will probably qualify for it, but with Jurgen Klinsmann as manager, particularly in competitive matches rather than in friendlies, you never know.

This week, Pittsburgh hosts the Stanley Cup Finals, the Penguins vs. the San Jose Sharks. Next Monday, the Mets head there, to face the resurgent Pirates, who have now made the Playoffs 3 seasons in a row, after not doing so for 20 years.

Before You Go. Pittsburgh is at roughly the same latitude as New York City, so roughly the same weather can be expected. As always, check out the newspaper website (the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) before you head out.

For Monday, they're predicting low 80s for the afternoon, mid-60s for the evening. For Tuesday, low 70s by day, high 50s by night. For both days, they're predicting rain early, but it shouldn't be enough to affect either game. For Wednesday, mid-60s by day, mid-50s by night, and no rain.

Pittsburgh is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to adjust your timepieces.

Tickets. No problem. No problem at all. Despite having moved from Three Rivers, an artificially-turfed concrete doughnut, to a beautiful new ballpark with a view of Pittsburgh's very sharp downtown skyline – maybe the best view any big-league ballpark has – and despite having broken their strings of 21 straight seasons without a winning season and 21 straight seasons of missing the postseason with 3 straight seasons of making it, the Pirates do not draw well. The team is currently averaging 26,684 per home game, which is actually a decrease of about 4,200 per game over last season.

Their attendance struggles are less because Pittsburgh is a football town (the Steelers nearly always sell out, even when they're bad), and more because, going into 2012, they hadn't had a winning season, let alone made the Playoffs, since George Bush was President. I’m talking about the father, not the son. That's an entire generation out of the Playoffs. And all 3 of those postseason berths wer via the Wild Card. The Pirates are 1 of 3 teams that have not won their current Division; their last Division title was in the National League Eastern in 1992, and they moved into the NL Central in 1994. The other 2 teams are the Miami Marlins and the Colorado Rockies, and they have reached the World Series more recently than the Pirates, via the Wild Card route.

Aside from the Seattle Mariners, who've been in business since 1977 and have never won a Pennant, and the Chicago Cubs, who haven't won one since 1945, no team has gone longer without one than the Pirates. Their last Pennant, and their last World Series win, was in the Carter Administration, in 1979, led by "Pops" Stargell and "The Family." That was 37 years ago. Of the teams that have actually won a World Series, only the Cubs (1908) and the Cleveland Indians (1948) have longer droughts.

As a result of having a full generation of ineptitude, you can just walk up to the ticket window at PNC Park and buy pretty much any seat you can afford. The Pirates, even with a seating capacity of just 38,362, aren't going to sell out. In fact, considering there's less than 400 miles between New York and Pittsburgh, Met fans could "take over the ballpark" -- if, that is, they were willing to take over any ballpark. Frequently, you guys have enough trouble taking over your own.

By MLB standards, Pirates tickets are cheap. Infield Box seats, Sections 109 to 124, will set you back only $39. Outfield Boxes are $30, Grandstand (upper deck) seats are $24, Outfield Reserved (right field) are $28, and Upper Grandstand (left field) are $19.

Getting There. I'm not going to kid you here: There's only one way to do so, and that's by car. You do not want to fly, because you'll end up spending over a thousand bucks to go less than 400 miles, and the airport is out in Imperial, Pennsylvania, near Coraopolis and Aliquippa, so it's almost as close to West Virginia and Ohio as it is to downtown Pittsburgh.

The Amtrak schedule doesn't really work. The Pennsylvanian leaves Penn Station at 10:52 AM, and doesn't get to Pittsburgh's station of the same name until 8:05 PM, after the first pitch. And there's no overnight train that would leave at, say, 11 PM and arrive at 8 AM. And going back, the Pennsylvanian leaves at 7:30 AM and arrives back at 4:50 PM. So in order to watch all 3 games of this Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday series, you'd have to leave New York on Sunday morning, and leave Pittsburgh on Thursday morning. At least it's cheap by Amtrak standards: $118 round-trip.

Greyhound isn't much better, but at least you have options. There are 14 buses a day between Port Authority Bus Terminal and Pittsburgh, but it's a bit expensive considering the distance, $160 round-trip (though advanced purchase can get it down to $74). Leaving at 8:00 AM on Monday will get you to downtown Pitt at 4:30, giving you just enough time to get to a hotel and then get to the ballpark for a 7:05 start. The Greyhound station is at 55 11th Street, across Liberty Avenue from the Amtrak station.

The only sensible way is by car – especially if there’s more than one of you going and you can take turns driving. It’s 373 miles from Times Square in Manhattan to downtown Pittsburgh, and 383 miles from Citi Field to PNC Park. (Yes, the naming rights to both are owned by banks. PNC's service is so bad people say the letters stand for "People Never Count.") This is far enough that, if you need to see all 3 games in a weekend series, and you have a standard Monday-to-Friday job, you’ll have to take Friday and Monday off. Better to skip the Friday night game, and leave early on Saturday morning (say, 8:00) so you can get there in time to get to a hotel and see the Saturday night game, and leave right after the Sunday afternoon game and get home around midnight Sunday-into-Monday.

From the City, you’ll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike. Take it to Exit 14, to Interstate 78. From elsewhere in New Jersey, taking Interstate 287 should get you to I-78.  Follow I-78 west all the way through New Jersey, to Phillipsburg, and across the Delaware River into Easton, Pennsylvania. Continue west on I-78 until reaching Harrisburg. There, you will merge onto I-81. Take Exit 52 to U.S. Route 11, which will soon take you onto I-76. This is the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the nation’s first superhighway, opening in 1940.

You'll be on it for another 3 hours – Pennsylvania is huge compared to a lot of Northeastern States. The political consultant James Carville, who got Bob Casey Sr., father of current U.S. Senator Bob Casey Jr., elected Governor in 1986, says, "Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in the middle." He wasn’t kidding: Between Philly and Pitt, it is very, very rural, hence the nickname "Pennsyltucky." It certainly explains the State's love of football: The Philadelphia Eagles, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Penn State and high school ball.

You'll take the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Exit 57, the signs showing I-376 and U.S. 22 – the same Route 22 you might know from New Jersey, which I-78 was designed to replace – and the sign will say "Pittsburgh."
There will be several exits on I-376, the Penn-Lincoln Parkway, into the city of Pittsburgh. Most likely, if your hotel (which I hope you've reserved before you left) is downtown, you'll take Exit 71B, "Second Avenue."

From anywhere in New York City, allow 6½ hours for the actual driving, though from North Jersey you might need "only" 6. I recommend at least 2 rest stops, preferably after crossing over into Pennsylvania around Easton, and probably around either Harrisburg or Breezewood. So the whole thing, assuming nothing goes wrong, will probably take about 8 hours.

Once In the City. Pittsburgh has, by American standards, a long history. It was settled by the French as Fort Duquesne in 1717, and captured by the British in 1758, and renamed Fort Pitt, for Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder.

The General who captured it, John Forbes (for whom the Pirates' former park Forbes Field would be named), was a Scotsman, and he intended the town that grew around it to be named "Pittsburgh" -- pronounced "Pitts-burrah," like the Scottish capital Edinburgh. From 1891 to 1911, the H was dropped from the city's name, and this was reflected on the Pirates' uniforms, which sometimes read "PITTSBURG," as seen on the famous 1909 "T-206" baseball card of Honus Wagner. But the Germanic "Pittsburg" went back to the Scottish "Pittsburgh," while keeping the Germanic pronunciation. (There is, however, a town named Pittsburg, no H, in Kansas.)

With this long history, a great architectural diversity, and a dramatic skyline with lots of neat-looking skyscrapers, Pittsburgh looks like a much bigger city than it actually is. While the metropolitan area is home to 2.7 million people, the city proper has only 306,000, having lost over half its population since the nearby steel mills, coal mines, and other factories closed starting in the 1970s.

The reduction of blue-collar jobs led people to take comfort in their sports teams, especially in the 1970s. Either the Pirates or the Steelers made the Playoffs in every year of that decade, both of them did so in 4 of those 10 years, and the University of Pittsburgh (or just "Pitt," though they don't like that nickname at that school) had an undefeated National Championship season in 1976. The Pirates won 2 World Series in the decade, the Steelers 4 Super Bowls in 6 years. Calendar year 1979, with spillover into January 1980, was an annus mirabilis, in which the "Steel Curtain" won Super Bowl XIII in January, the "Bucs" (or "Buccos," or "Lumber Company," or "Family") won the World Series in October, and the Steelers then went on to win Super Bowl XIV, with the Pirates' Willie Stargell and the Steelers' Terry Bradshaw being named Co-Sportsmen of the Year by Sports Illustrated and the city government advertising itself as the City of Champions.

(It was also at that time that, in order to ride the Pirates/Steelers bandwagon, the NHL's Penguins switched their colors from navy blue and yellow to black and gold, but it was several more years before they became a championship contender.)

While the loss of industry did mean a sharp, long-term decline, the financial, computer and health care industries opened new doors, and Pittsburgh is very much a now and tomorrow city. And they love their sports, having won 14 World Championships in 19 trips to their sports' finals (which gives them a .737 winning percentage in finals, the best of any city of at least 3 teams) -- and that doesn't count the 9 National Championships won by Pitt football, the Negro League Pennants won by the Homestead Grays (10) and the Pittsburgh Crawfords (4), or the 1968 ABA Championship won by the Pittsburgh Pipers.

Pittsburgh has numbered streets, moving east from Point State Park, where the Allegheny River to the north and the Monongahela River to the south rivers merge to become the Ohio River -- hence the name of the former Pittsburgh sports facility, Three Rivers Stadium.  North-south streets start their numbers at the Monongahela, and increase going north.

There is a subway system in the city, and it's free within the downtown triangle. But outside that area, a one-zone ride is $2.50, and a two-zone ride is $3.75. A 75-cent surcharge is added during rush hour -- in other words, on your way into the Thursday and Friday night games, making the charge $3.25 instead of $2.50. These fares are the same for city buses, although they're not free within the downtown triangle.
The sales tax in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is 6 percent, and Allegheny County (including the City of Pittsburgh) pushes it to 7 percent.

The old Pittsburgh Press, once the 2nd-largest newspaper in Pennsylvania behind the Philadelphia Inquirer, went out of business due to a strike in 1992, before the city's remaining daily, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, brought it back in online form in 2011. That strike gave Richard Mellon Scaife, the current head of the legendary Pittsburgh metals and banking family, a chance to turn a local suburban paper into the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, spouting his right-wing fanatic views. It may be that the P-G brought back the Press to give the city 2 liberals voices against the 1 nutjob voice.

Going In. From most of downtown, PNC Park is within a mile's walk, crossing the 6th Street Bridge, now the Roberto Clemente Bridge, over the Allegheny River, shortly before it joins with the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River – There are local buses (including the Number 14) that go from downtown to the ballpark. Pittsburgh's subway/light rail system's Blue Line has now been extended to North Side Station, at Reedsdale & Martindale Streets, 2 blocks from the park.
The park is bounded on the 1st-base side by Mazeroski Way, on the 3rd base side by General Robinson Street (George Robinson was a Revolutionary War leader), on the left-field side by Federal Street, and on the right-field side by the Allegheny River, just before it merges with the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River -- together, the namesakes of Three Rivers Stadium, home of the Pirates and Steelers from 1970 to 2000. The official address is 115 Federal Street. There are several nearby parking garages, most of them charging only $5.00.

Most likely, you will enter the park at 1 of 2 rotundas (rotundae?): The Trib Total Media Rotunda (especially if you're coming in by light rail or bus), or the Allegheny Sports Medicine Rotunda at the left field corner (especially if you're walking in from over the bridge).

Behind the park's left-field stands, you'll see the Roberto Clemente Bridge, formerly the 6th Street Bridge. (It was already Pirate yellow before they renamed it.) On game days, the Bridge is closed to vehicular traffic, to allow fans to walk across from downtown.

Behind the park's 1st-base stands, you’ll see the Fort Duquesne Bridge – reflecting the original French name of the city before the British took it in the French & Indian War – and beyond that, the new home of the Steelers and Pitt football, Heinz Field. In between Heinz and the bridge is a parking lot where Three Rivers Stadium stood. Roughly between the site of Three Rivers and PNC Park, including the northern end of the Fort Duquesne Bridge, was the site of Exposition Park, where the Pirates played from 1891 to 1909.
PNC Park is not a multipurpose facility, it's a baseball-specific stadium. Every seat has sufficient width, legroom and alignment to view a game in comfort. Behind you will be concession stands that are plentiful and varied, restrooms that are clean and not beset by noxious fumes, and no 2-inning-long lines at either. In front of you are informative and attractive scoreboards, and a nice, natural-grass field, instead of the hideous pale-green carpet at Three Rivers, which was one of the most foul-looking rugs in sports (even in fair territory). I don’t know how the Pirates and Steelers, between them, won 6 World Championships on the stuff: How could they look at that turf and not get sick? What kind of home-field advantage could they have had?

The field, which points southeast, is not symmetrical: It's 325 feet down the left-field line, 383 to left-center, 410 to the deepest part of the park to the left of center, 399 to straightaway center, 375 to right-center, and 320 to right. The right field wall is 21 feet high, partly to offset a short distance, and partly to honor Clemente, and his Number 21 is displayed above the scoreboard on the wall.
PNC is generally considered to be a pitchers' park -- which is ironic, because the Pirates have historically been an offense-first team (in the 1970s, before they were "The Family," they were "The Lumber Company" because of their powerful bats), and there are no pitchers in the Baseball Hall of Fame who, in the last 100 years, have had the Pirates as their primary team.

Sammy Sosa of the Cubs (with, uh, help) hit the longest home run at PNC Park, 484 feet in 2002. Oddly, while Willie Stargell hit the longest home run at several stadiums, Three Rivers was not one of them: Greg Luzinski of the Phillies was, in 1979, hitting one 483 feet -- perhaps poetic justice for Stargell hitting the longest at the Vet, in 1971.

The longest at Forbes Field is believed to be one that Dick Stuart hit in 1959, which wasn't measured, but almost certainly cleared 500 feet. The man known then as Stonefingers and later as Dr. Strange-glove couldn't field, but he sure could hit. Babe Ruth's 714th and final home run, with the Boston Braves in 1935, went over the right-field roof at Forbes, but no distance was suggested at the time, and anybody estimating its distance now would just be guessing. But it may have been longer than Stuart's blast.

PNC Park has hosted concerts, but, as yet, no sports besides baseball. Pitt and Duquesne began playing what was officially labeled "The City Game" there in 2003, but stopped in 2010, after Duquesne dropped their baseball program.

Food. Pittsburgh is a city of many ethnicities, and most of them love to eat food that really isn't good for you: Irish, Italian, Polish, Greek, and African-Americans with Soul Food and Barbecue. (Yes, I did mean to capitalize those last two. They deserve it.) Reflecting this, a "Tastes of Pittsburgh" series of stands is on the main concourse, including Primanti Brothers sandwiches: Meat, cheese, hand-cut French fries, tomatoes and cole slaw. All together between slices of Italian bread.

Like several other ballparks, such as Baltimore with Boog Powell and Philadelphia with Greg Luzinski, the Pirates have one of their retired greats holding court in right field (on "the Riverwalk") at a barbecue stand named for him, Manny's BBQ. This is Manny Sanguillen, 1970s catcher.

They have Dippin Dots and Rita's Italian Ice. They have a food court named after their favorite-son fat man, Stargell: Pops' Plaza. They have another food court called Smorgasburgh, including a steak sandwich stand called Quaker Steak and Lube. Another bonus of PNC Park is that they let you bring your own food in – but why would you, with all those choices available?

Team History Displays. There are a whopping 11 statues outside the ballpark. Honus Wagner, the Pirate star of 1900 to 1917, still usually considered the greatest shortstop who ever lived (yes, even ahead of such modern heroes as Cal Ripken and Derek Jeter), originally had a statue outside Forbes Field, and it was moved to Three Rivers and then to PNC Park.
Roberto Clemente, legendary right fielder from 1955 until his death in a plane crash in 1972, had a statue dedicated outside Three Rivers, and it, too, was moved to PNC Park. Willie Stargell, the 1st baseman of 1962 to 1982, had his statue dedicated at Opening Day of PNC Park, April 9, 2001 – but he died that very morning from a long-term illness, having thrown out the first ball at the Three Rivers finale the fall before.

A statue of Bill Mazeroski, second baseman of 1956 to 1972, was dedicated in honor of the 50th Anniversary of him hitting the home run that won the 1960 World Series. (A lot of Yankee Fans who are old enough to remember it are still bothered by it.) A monument to former owner Barney Dreyfuss used to sit in center field at Forbes Field, and was moved to the concourse at Three Rivers and then to PNC Park.

And on June 26, 2006, in anticipation of the park hosting the All-Star Game the next month, 7 statues were unveiled, honoring Negro League greats who played in the city: Leroy "Satchel" Paige, Josh Gibson, Walter "Buck" Leonard, Oscar Charleston, William "Judy" Johnson, James "Cool Papa" Bell, and Smokey Joe Williams.

Because the Homestead Grays divided their "home" games between Pittsburgh (where Homestead actually is) and Washington, Josh Gibson is the only man who never played in Major League Baseball who is honored with statues at 2 different major league ballparks, and in 2 different cities, no less. As someone who has now tried it, I can tell you: Explaining why black players weren't allowed in "organized baseball" prior to 1947 is not easy. But it must be done, so that people whose sole experience with New York baseball is fully integrated, and at the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, will understand.

The Pirates have won 9 National League Pennants: In 1901, 1902, 1903, 1909, 1925, 1927, 1960, 1971 and 1979. This 78-year span is pretty impressive, especially when you consider they clinched their 1st when the bodies of Queen Victoria and President William McKinley were newly in the ground. It gets less impressive when you realize that their last was clinched when Jimmy Carter was President, disco was king, and Radar was sent home on M*A*S*H.

They've won 5 World Series, in 1909, 1925, 1960, 1971 and 1979, which are noted beneath the press box. In a quirk, every World Series they've ever been in but one (1927, swept by the Yankees), win or lose, has gone at least 7 games. (In 1903, the 1st year of the World Series, it was a best 5-out-of-9, and the Boston Red Sox beat them, 5 games to 3.)
The Pirates have a display honoring their 9 retired numbers, on the facing of the upper deck overhang. Wagner played before numbers were worn, but as a coach he wore Number 33. He was also a player-manager in his last season, 1917. The other Pirate statue honorees have also had their numbers retired: Mazeroski 9, Clemente 21 and Stargell 8.
Also honored with the retirements of their numbers are: 20, Harold "Pie" Traynor, 3rd baseman 1920 to 1934 and manager 1934 to 1939; 11, Paul Waner, right field 1926 to 1940 (his brother, fellow Hall-of-Famer Lloyd Waner, a center fielder, has not been honored with the retirement of his Number 10); 1, Billy Meyer, manager 1948 to 1952; 4, Ralph Kiner, left fielder 1946 to 1953 and Met broadcaster 1962 to 2013; and 40, Danny Murtaugh, manager on and off between 1957 and 1976.

Jackie Robinson’s Number 42, honored throughout baseball, is also displayed. And, as mentioned, the Barney Dreyfuss Monument survives and rests on the concourse.

The Pirates do not have a team Hall of Fame, but they have had quite a few Hall-of-Famers. In addition to Wagner, Mazeroski, Clemente, Stargell, Traynor, the Waner brothers, Kiner, Murtaugh and Dreyfuss, they are: Jake Beckley, 1st base, 1888-96; Jack Chesbro, pitcher, 1899-1902 (then became one of the Highlanders/Yankees' first stars); Fred Clarke, left field and manager, 1900-15; Vic Willis, pitcher, 1906-09; Bill McKechnie, 3rd base, 1907-12 and manager 1922-26; Max Carey, center field, 1910-26; Burleigh Grimes, pitcher, 1916-17 and 1928-29; Hazen "Kiki" Cuyler, right field, 1921-27; Joseph "Arky" Vaughan, shortstop, 1932-41; and Bert Blyleven, pitcher, 1978-80 (just 3 years, but 1 was a title season).

Connie Mack (1891-96) and Al Lopez (1940-46) were catchers for the Pirates, and Lopez was a pretty good one, formerly holding the all-time record for games caught; but both of them were elected to the Hall of Fame for what they did as managers, after they left Pittsburgh. Frankie Frisch managed the Pirates (1940-46), but they weren't very good at that time, and he was elected to the Hall for what he did elsewhere.

In 1933, baseball's 1st All-Star Game was played. Pie Traynor and Paul Waner (but not his brother Lloyd) were selected from the Pirates. In 1999, Wagner was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. That same year, he, Traynor, Paul Waner, Kiner, Clemente, Stargell and Barry Bonds were named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players. So were Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and James "Cool Papa" Bell, who played in town for either the Crawfords or the Grays. In 2006, Pirate fans chose Clemente in the poll for DHL Hometown Heroes.

Stuff. The Majestic Clubhouse Store at PNC Park is located on Federal Street, outside the Left Field Gate entrance, near the Willie Stargell statue. There are plenty of pirate-themed novelty items, including hats, bandanas, eye patches and foam swords. The late-1970s retro caps, resembling late 19th Century caps, are also sold, although not with the "Stargell Stars" that Pops put on them in the "Family" years.

Newly published this Spring is The Bucs!: The Story of the Pittsburgh Pirates, by John McCollister and Pirate reliever turned broadcaster Kent Tekulve. In 2013, David Finoli published Classic Bucs: The 50 Greatest Games in Pittsburgh Pirates History. As to individual Pirate teams, he also wrote The Pittsburgh Pirates' 1960 season. Bruce Markusen wrote The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates. (That season, the Pirates not only won the World Series, but became the 1st major league team to start an entirely nonwhite lineup.) And McCollister wrote Tales from the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates Dugout: Remembering "The Fam-A-Lee."

The Yankees went into a 3-game series away to the Toronto Blue Jays last night, needing to show the defending American League Eastern Division Champions that they were ready to take back what is rightfully theirs, starting with the Division title.

It didn't happen. Ivan Nova fell behind 1-0 in the 1st inning, 3-0 after 3, and 4-0 after 5. Overall, he wasn't terrible, allowing 4 runs in 8 hits and just 1 walk over 6 innings. And, between them, Nick Goody and rookie reliever Richard Bleier pitched 2 perfect innings.

Maybe if the Yankees had backed Nova up with some runs, it would have made the difference. But they didn't. Jacoby Ellsbury led off the game with a single, and drew a walk in the 3rd. Carlos Beltran led off the 4th with a single. Starlin Castro led off the 5th with a walk. But none of them scored.

The Yankees didn't even seriously threaten until the 8th. Again, Castro led off with a walk. After Jays starter Marco Estrada, still in the game, struck out both Chase Headley and Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks doubled, but Castro could only get to 3rd base. Not the slightest bit rattled, Estrada got Ellsbury to pop up, ending the threat.

Aaron Loup came on to finish the game off. He hit Beltran with a pitch, and Brian McCann gave the Yankees some home with a home run, his 7th of the season. Drew Storen was brought in to relieve, and he allowed a double to Mark Teixeira -- a rare hit for him lately. Suddenly, with only 1 out, Castro was the tying run.

But Storen got Castro to fly to right, and struck out the now-useless Headley to end it. Jays 4, Yankees 2. WP: Estrada (3-2). SV: Storen (3). LP: Nova (3-3).

The series continues tonight. CC Sabathia starts against J.A. Happ.

Can we have some early runs, Yankees? Please? Before we fall behind 4-0?

The Yankees went to Milwaukee every season from 1970 to 1997, when the Brewers got kicked over from the American League to the National League. Now, they only go there when the quirks of the Interleague schedule work out that way. And they won't go there this season.

The Mets, however, will, for a 4-game series, starting next Thursday.

Before You Go. Milwaukee is on Lake Michigan, which makes it chilly in the winter.  But this is early May, so the weather shouldn't be much of an issue.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website is predicting low 80s for the afternoons and high 60s for the evenings. They are predicting rain for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so bring an umbrella. However, Miller Park has a retractable roof, so it won't rain on you during the games.

Milwaukee is in the Central Time Zone, an hour behind New York. Adjust your various timepieces accordingly.

Tickets. In spite of 2 Playoff berths in a recent 4-season stretch (2008 & '11), the Brewers are only drawing an average of 27,825 fans this season, due to their tailoff. Still, that was better than they usually do, it's a lot better than the White Sox. Nevertheless, as the Mets and Brewers have never had a rivalry, you should be able to buy any ticket you can afford.

On the Field Level (lower), Infield Boxes are $70 and Outfield Boxes are $50. On the Loge (middle), Infield Boxes are $50 and Outfield Boxes are $44. On the Terrace (upper), Boxes are $27 and Reserved are $21. Bleachers are $30.

Getting There.  Downtown Milwaukee is 879 land miles from Times Square. And Miller Park is 893 miles from Citi Field, 887 miles from Yankee Stadium II. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there.

At first, unlike some other Midwestern cities, this seems like a good idea if you can afford it. If you order today, American Airlines can fly you there for under $600 round-trip. However, there is a catch: There are no non-stops between any of the New York area airports and General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee: You will change planes, most likely in Chicago, and you'll spend nearly as much time on the ground at O'Hare as you do in the air. The GRE bus will get you downtown in a little over half an hour. (Billy Mitchell was a Milwaukee-area native, a General in the U.S. Army Air Service, and an early advocate for air power. Although he didn't live to see its establishment, he is called the Father of the U.S. Air Force.)

The Milwaukee Intermodal Station, which serves both Greyhound and Amtrak, is at 433 W. St. Paul Avenue, at 5th Street. There are 3 daily Greyhound runs that will get you from New York to Milwaukee. Two require 2 changeovers. The one that only requires 1 leaves Port Authority at 10:15 PM, and includes rest stops at Milesburg, Pennsylvania; Cleveland, and Elkhart, Indiana, before arriving in Chicago at 2:30 the next afternoon (Central Time). There's an hour's wait before leaving Chicago at 3:30 and arriving in Milwaukee at 5:35.  That's 20 hours and 20 minutes, counting the time change. So if you leave Port Authority at 10:15 on Wednersday night, you'll arrive in Milwaukee with just enough time to check into a downtown hotel and get out to the ballpark in time for the Thursday night game. You can return home at 8:05 Sunday night, although you'll have to make transfers at Chicago (10:45 PM), Cleveland (8:35 AM) and Buffalo (1:00 PM) to get back to Port Authority by 9:50 PM.  Round-trip fare is $334, but you can get it for $226 on advanced-purchase.

Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited (formerly known as the Twentieth Century Limited when the old New York Central Railroad ran it from Grand Central Terminal to Chicago's LaSalle Street Station) leaves New York's Penn Station at 3:40 every afternoon, and arrives at Union Station at 225 South Canal Street in Chicago at 9:45 (Central Time) every morning. From there, you have to wait until 1:05 PM to get on "Hiawatha Service," which will bring you to Milwaukee at 2:34. That's 23 hours, 49 minutes. If you start this trip on Wednesday afternoon in order to see the entire 4-game series., you can leave Milwaukee by Amtrak on 5:45 on Sunday afternoon, be in Chicago at 7:14, and leave Chicago on the Lake Shore Limited at 9:30 and arrive back at Penn Station at 6:23 PM on Monday. Round-trip fare is $262.

If you decide to drive, it's far enough that it will help to get someone to go with you and split the duties, and to trade off driving and sleeping.  You'll need to get into New Jersey, and take Interstate 80 West. You'll be on I-80 for the vast majority of the trip, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. In Ohio, in the western suburbs of Cleveland, I-80 will merge with Interstate 90. From this point onward, you won’t need to think about I-80 until you head home; I-90 is the key, until it merges with Interstate 94, which will merge with Interstate 43, but you have to worry only about I-94.

I-94 will split off from I-43 at downtown Milwaukee, and then "turn left," becoming the East-West Freeway. Take Exit 308A for Mitchell Blvd., then turn right on Frederick Miller Way (named for the founder of Miller Beer; a left turn will get you onto Selig Drive, named for the Commissioner and former Brewer owner). The ballpark will be on your left.

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and a half in New Jersey, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Pennsylvania, 4 hours in Ohio, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Indiana, an hour and a half in Illinois, and just under an hour in Wisconsin. That's about 15 hours and 45 minutes. Counting rest stops, and accounting for traffic in both New York and Chicago, it should be no more than 20 hours, which would save you time on both Greyhound and Amtrak, if not on flying.

Once In the City. As Alice Cooper taught us in the film version of Wayne's World, Milwaukee gets its name from a Native American word meaning "the good land." But this may not be true: Another version says the name comes a word meaning "Gathering place by the water." Either way, it's true: The land of Wisconsin is good for farming, and Milwaukee is based on a confluence of 3 rivers that flow into Lake Michigan: The Milwaukee, the Menomonee, and the Kinnickinnic; so there's plenty of water. The Milwaukee River separates the city's streets into North and South, and the other 2 rivers separate them into East and West.

Founded in 1846, the city has about 600,000 people, making the 3rd-largest in the Great Lakes region behind Chicago and Detroit.  But the metropolitan area has only about 2 million, making it dead last among the 30 MLB teams, about 200,000 less than Number 29, Cincinnati; about 400,000 less than Number 28, Kansas City. But the construction of modern Miller Park means that the Brewers, unlike the Braves to Atlanta in 1965, won't be moving out of Milwaukee in the foreseeable future.

Wisconsin's sales tax is 5 percent, but inside Milwaukee County, it's 5.6 percent. Which is still lower than those of the States of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut even before local taxes are added on. The Milwaukee County Transit System has buses only, no subway or light rail, and has a fare of $2.25.

Going In. Getting from downtown to Miller Park by public transportation is a little tricky. The Number 10 bus goes down Wisconsin Avenue, but its closest point is a little over a mile from the stadium. You'd need to get off at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and 44th Street, under I-94, to Selig Drive. You'd make a right on Selig, and on your left will be Miller Park, and on your right is a baseball field on the site of its predecessor, Milwaukee County Stadium. Make a left on Brewers Way and proceed to the home plate gate.
Milwaukee has its bad neighborhoods, but like County Stadium, Miller Park is an island in a sea of parking, so regardless of whether you took a bus or drove, you should be safe. The stadium points southeast, as did County Stadium before it, but that doesn't matter a whole lot, since you're 4 miles west of downtown and Milwaukee doesn't exactly provide a great view of skyscrapers.
Speaking of County Stadium, it was on the opposite side of Brewers Way from Miller Park, and a new baseball field was put on the site. The official address for "The Keg" is 1 Brewers Way. Parking at Miller Park is $25.


Outside the ballpark, there is a sculpture titled "Teamwork," in memory of the 3 construction workers killed in the collapse of a crane in 1999: William DeGrave, Jerome Starr and Jeffrey Wischer. The collapse not only killed those men, but damaged the unfinished stadium so badly that its opening date had to be pushed back from April 2000 to April 2001.
As I said, Miller Park has a retractable roof. At this time of year, the roof is likely to be open, unless it gets hot -- and, as I said when citing the forecast, it probably won't get hot (but rain may be a factor). The park is not symmetrical: Left field is 344 feet from home plate, left-center is 371, center is 400, right-center is 374, and right is 345. It's better for hitters with the roof closed, better for pitchers with the roof open. The field is natural grass, and points southeast.
Russell Branyan hit the longest home run at Miller Park so far, a 480-foot shot in 2004. I can't find a definitive answer as to who hit the longest homer at County Stadium, although the only player who appears to have hit one all the way out of it was Cecil Fielder, with  a 1991 drive that went 502 feet. Oddly, his son Prince Fielder would later play for the Brewers, but didn't hit the longest at Miller Park before going to the American League and playing for his father's team, the Detroit Tigers. (For all the home runs hit by sluggers such as Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, Gorman Thomas and Rob Deer while County Stadium was their home park, I can find no record of any of them hitting one there that was longer than Cecil's 502-footer.)

Miller Park hasn't yet hosted pro football, but it's hosted "futbol." During the 2014 All-Star Break, Swansea City of Wales and Chivas of Guadalajara, Mexico played to a 1-1 draw. During the 2015 All-Star Break, it was Britain vs. Mexico again: Atlas defeated Newcastle United 2-1. The ballpark has also hosted concerts, including Bruce Springsteen in 2003, Paul McCartney in 2013 and One Direction last year.

Food. In Big Ten Country, where tailgate parties are practically a sacrament, you would expect the Milwaukee ballpark to have lots of good options. With Wisconsin's German heritage in mind, there are Beer Carts and Brat Boys stands all over the place, and a Friday's Beer Garden at the Left Field Gate. A "bratwurst with red sauce" has been one of Major League Baseball's most-honored culinary delights since the Braves were in town. The Brewers also serve various other sausages, many of them of ethnic varieties, as reflected in the Sausage Race.

Like Greg Luzinski in Philadelphia, Boog Powell in Baltimore, and a few others, Milwaukee has a barbecue stand operated by a club legend, in this case "Stormin' Gorman" Thomas. Gorman's Corner is behind Section 103 in right field. There's a Fry Bar at Section 106, baked potato stands at 125 and 214, and "Hot Cheese" at 208. (Hot cheese? Yes, they serve grilled cheese sandwiches and cheese fries.) Big B's Diner has locations at 110 and 126, and Bernie's Clubhouse, named for Bernie Brewer, at 422. Friday's Front Row Sports Grille -- named after a line from a Miller Lite commercial that Bob Uecker did back in the day -- is in left field.

Fortunately, the ballpark has several ice cream stands. Unfortunately, the ice cream is Blue Bunny, which I suggest staying away from. Blue Bunny is so bad, it makes Turkey Hill taste like Breyer's. But there are also Dippin' Dots stands.

Team History Displays. In addition to "Teamwork," Miller Park has statue honors for 4 significant figures from Milwaukee's baseball history: Hank Aaron of the Braves (who also played his last 2 years with the Brewers), Brewers founding owner Allan H. "Bud" Selig (now the Commissioner), shortstop Robin Yount, and Bob Uecker, who was the 1st Milwaukee (or even Wisconsin) native to play for the Braves, and now longtime broadcaster for the Brewers.

It was because Major League was filmed in Milwaukee, rather than Cleveland, that Ueck was hired to play the Indians' acerbic, hard-drinking broadcaster Harry Doyle -- a man much closer in personality to Harry Caray than to the real Ueck.

The Brewers' retired numbers are high above center field: 1, Bud Selig, owner 1970-98 (never worn by him, obviously); 4, Paul Molitor, 3rd baseman and designated hitter 1978-92; 19, Robin Yount, shortstop-center field 1973-93; 34, Rollie Fingers, pitcher 1981-85; 44, Hank Aaron, designated hitter 1975-76; and the universally-retired 42 of Jackie Robinson.
The Brewers have also not reissued, though not also retired: 17, Wisconsin native Jim Gantner, 2nd baseman 1976-92; or 28, Prince Fielder 1st base 2005-11. They have also honored Uecker with a not-retired, still-in-circulation Number 50, which hangs with the retired numbers in honor of Uecker's first 50 years in pro baseball. If you saw Mr. 3000, sorry, but Stan Ross (1st base, 1978-95 & 2004 -- taking the place of Cecil Cooper for a few years) is fictional, and while his Number 21 is not currently being worn, it has not been retired.

The Brewers have a team Wall of Honor, with a whopping 59 members:

* Straddling the eras: Selig and Uecker.

* From the 1970s, but not making it into the team's 1st era of contention: Aaron; pitchers Ken Sanders and Jim Colborn; outfielders Dave May and Johnny Briggs; catcher Darrell Porter; and 1st baseman George Scott.

* From the 1978 team that was the 1st Brewer squad to make it into a Pennant race, but not making it to the 1982 Pennant: Pitchers Bill Castro and Bill Travers, outfielder Sixto Lezcano and 3rd baseman Sal Bando.

* From the 1982 Pennant winners: Yount, Molitor, Fingers, Gantner, Sutton, Thomas; manager Harvey Kuenn (a Milwaukee native who had once played for the Braves); pitchers Jim Slaton, Jerry Augustine, Moose Haas, Mike Caldwell, Bob McClure and Pete Vukovich; catcher Ted Simmons, 1st baseman Cecil Cooper, 3rd baseman Don Money, left fielder Ben Oglivie and right fielder Charlie Moore.

* From the close calls of 1987 and 1988, but joining after the 1982 Pennant: Pitchers Teddy Higuera, Bill Wegman, Chris Bosio, Dan Plesac and Chuck Crim; catcher Bill Schroeder (now a Brewers broadcaster), and outfielders Rob Deer, B.J. Surhoff and Darryl Hamilton.

* From the 1990s: Pitchers Jaime Navarro, Cal Eldred, Mike Fetters and Bob Wickman; catcher Dave Nilsson, 1st baseman John Jaha, 2nd basemen Fernando Viña and Mark Loretta, shortstops Pat Listach and José Valentín, 3rd basemen Kevin Seitzer and Jeff Cirillo; and outfielders Greg Vaughn and Jeromy Burnitz.

* From the 2000s, but not making it to 2008: 1st baseman Richie Sexson and outfielder Geoff Jenkins.

* From the 2008 Wild Card team: Pitcher Ben Sheets, and infielders Bill Hall and Craig Counsell. Counsell is the only player thus far honored from the Brewers' 2011 NL Central Division Champions.

The Brewers also have a Milwaukee Baseball Walk of Fame, honoring greats from both teams. In addition to Selig, Kuenn, Uecker, Aaron, Yount, Molitor, Fingers, Money, Thomas, Gantner, and Higuera, it honors former general manager Harry Dalton. From the Braves, it honors Aaron, Kuenn, pitchers Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette, 3rd baseman Eddie Mathews, 1st baseman Joe Adcock, shortstop Johnny Logan and general manager John Quinn.

In addition to Aaron, Spahn, Mathews, Yount, Molitor, Thomas, Gantner, Kuenn, Cooper, Selig and Uecker, the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame has honored minor-league Brewers stars Charlie Grimm and Joe Hauser, and Wisconsin-born Hall-of-Famers Kid Nichols and Addie Joss.

Aaron and his fellow Milwaukee Brave Warren Spahn were named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. That same year, The Sporting News named Aaron, Spahn, Braves star Eddie Mathews, Fingers and Molitor to their 100 Greatest Baseball Players. In the TV special that NBC did for the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, John Rawlings, then TSN's editor, admitted that, despite being a Hall-of-Famer, a member of the 3,000 Hit Club and an MVP at 2 different positions, Yount was one of the last players cut. Yount was, however, honored by Brewer fans as their team's entry in the 2006 DHL Hometown Heroes poll.

The Brewers hang their notations for their 1981 American League Division Series appearance, their 1982 AL Pennant, their 2008 National League Wild Card berth, and their 2011 NL Central Division title over the left-field fence, over the Front Row Sports Grille. There is also a Braves Monument at Miller Park. But there is no mention of the Braves' 1957 World Championship or 1958 NL Pennant, or the 8 American Association Pennants won by the Triple-A version of the Milwaukee Brewers in 1913, 1914, 1936, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1951 and 1952.
Stuff. The Brewers Team Stores are located at the Home Plate and Left Field Gates. The usual items that can be found at a souvenir store can be found there.

The Brewers have been around for over 40 years now, but because Milwaukee, as a city, gets lost in the shadows not only of Chicago, 90 miles to the south, but the smaller yet higher-profile city of Green Bay, 115 miles to the north, the Brewers tend to get forgotten. They trail not only the Packers, but also the football team at the University of Wisconsin in popularity among Badger State teams. (They may even trail that school's very successful hockey program, even though Milwaukee doesn't have an NHL team.) Their recent success has moved them ahead of the NBA's Bucks, though: While the Bucks are usually good, they haven't reached the NBA Finals in almost 40 years, and their 1971 title seems so far back that it might as well have been won by a team that moved away and has since been replaced, as with Minneapolis and the Lakers.

As a result of this, there aren't many good books about the Brew Crew. Todd Mishler wrote Baseball in Brewtown: America's Pastime in Milwaukee. It covers not just the Brewers, but their preceding Triple-A namesake, and the Braves, and the teams that called the city home in the 19th Century. But it was published in 2005, and doesn't cover the recent renaissance that saw the Brewers win the NL's Wild Card in 2008 and the NL Central in 2011.

Milwaukee's greatest baseball moment -- their only World Championship in the sport to date -- came when the Yankees, finding the much smaller city's over-the-top reaction to the Brewers to be comical, called Milwaukee "Bushville" (as in "bush league"), and came to regret it. This story is told in John Klima's book Bushville Wins! The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball. The title is longer than the Series was -- and both the '57 and the '58 Series went the full 7.

The 1957 World Series' official highlight film seems not to be in an official package sold at either Brewers or Braves games. The Brewers do have a DVD honoring their lone Pennant: Harvey's Wallbangers: The 1982 Milwaukee Brewers. Uecker narrates this story about Kuenn and his leadership of a club that had been terrible until 1977, then became a "close but no cigar" team under George Bamberger, before Bambi was fired and Kuenn was brought in, turning "Bambi's Bombers" into "Harvey's Wallbangers."

There is also a DVD titled The Essential Games of the Milwaukee Brewers. While there are a few bonus features, there are only 4 games on it, as opposed to the standard 6: 1982 AL Championship Series Game 5, in which the Brew Crew won what is still their only Pennant; 1982 World Series Game 4, a come-from-behind victory in a Series they went on to lose in 7; September 28, 2008, a date which lives in Met infamy but in Brewer legend as they clinched the Wild Card berth by beating their arch-rivals, the Cubs; and 2011 NL Division Series Game 5, in which they beat the Arizona Diamondbacks to win a postseason series for the 1st time in 29 years (and only the 2nd time in their 1st 43 years of play).

During the Game. A recent Thrillist article on "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans" ranked Brewer fans 30th. Dead last. In other words, the most tolerable: "You'd be hard-pressed to find a more affable fanbase than Brewers fans. They just kind of roll with things."

Brewer fans, as you might expect in America's foremost brewing city, like to drink. If this were a Packer game and you were wearing Chicago Bears or Minnesota Vikings gear, you might be in trouble. If this were a UW game and you were wearing University of Minnesota gear, you might be in trouble. If this were a Bucks game and you were wearing Chicago Bulls gear, you'd probably be safe. If this were a Brewers-Cubs game, and you were wearing Cubs gear, you might be in trouble. But it's a Brewers-Mets game, so if you don't start anything, they won't continue anything. Wisconsans are good people.

The Friday, Saturday and Sunday (but not Thursday) games of these series feature promotions. Friday is Free-Shirt Friday, with a T-shirt giveaway. Saturday is Noah's Ark Waterpark Ticket Giveaway. (Since it's named for Noah's Ark, they should give away 2 tickets per fan, good for the next 40 days.) And Sunday is a Kids Eat Free Sunday: All kids 14 and under will receive a voucher upon entrance to Miller Park good for a free hot dog, apple slices, ice cream treat and bottled water. 

Since 1973, the Brewers have had a mascot, Bernie Brewer. At County Stadium, there was a giant keg and beer stein behind center field, with a chalet next to it. Upon each Brewer home run, Bernie, a man in a costume whose big foam head had a big blond mustache, would slide down a chute from the chalet into the mug, releasing balloons.

The setup was removed in 1984, but restored in 1993. A new version was installed in left field when Miller Park opened in 2001.

The Sausage Race began in in the 1980s, as a cartoon show on the scoreboard. Live races by men (sometimes women) in 7-foot-3 sausage suits began in 1994: They would come out of the left field gate and run toward home plate.

The original sausages are #1, Brett Wurst (a bratwurst in lederhosen, representing the city's German heritage); #2, Stosh (a guy in a rugby-style shirt, cap and sunglasses, representing a Polish sausage), and #3, Guido (wearing a chef's outfit and having a long, thin mustache, representing an Italian sausage). #4, Frankie Furter (a guy in a baseball uniform and wearing eye-black, representing standard hot dogs) was added in 1995; and #5, Cinco (a sombrero-wearing Chorizo, a nod to Latino fans) was added in 2006.
The original cartoon version was inspired by the "Dot Race" that used to appear on the scoreboard at Texas Rangers games, which also inspired the Airplane Race on the DiamondVision board at Mets games and The Great City Subway Race at Yankee games. Since then, the Rangers have returned the favor, having made the Dot Race live-action, but they are designed to resemble Texas pioneers Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and Sam Houston.

In addition, the Pittsburgh Pirates have the Great Pierogi Race, the Washington Nationals have the Racing Presidents, and several other teams have mascot races involving their various sponsors.

The Brewers hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. In the 7th inning stretch, after playing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," the Brewers play "The Beer Barrel Polka": "Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun... " Their postgame victory song is "Best Day of My Life" by the American Authors.

After the Game. As Miller Park is separated from the city by parking, safety should not be an issue. Although Milwaukeeans like to drink, this is not a Packers or Badgers game, so you should be fine. Unfortunately, this same distance from, well, anything means that there's no good places to get a postgame meal or drink within walking distance.

The difference between the Brewers' ballpark (past and present) and the Bucks' arena (past, present and future) could not be more stark. At 340 W. Kilbourn Avenue, across 4th Street from the MECCA and a block from the Bradley Center is "Milwaukee's Sports Headquarters," one of the most famous sports bars in the country, Major Goolsby. "The Major's" has been catering to Wisconsin sports fans since 1971. That was when the Bucks won the NBA title... and they haven't won it since. Hmmmm... Curse of Major Goolsby, anyone?
Unfortunately, I can find no reference to any Milwaukee bar or restaurant that caters to New York expatriates.

Sidelights. Milwaukee's sports history is long, but not especially successful, especially when you consider the 119-mile distance between the city and the State's most successful sports team, the Green Bay Packers. Milwaukee County Stadium was located behind the home plate entrance to Miller Park (which was built across center field from its predecessor).

The Braves played there from 1953 to 1965, the Brewers from 1970 to 2000, and the Packers played several home games there from 1953 to 1994, first 2 out of their 6 (when the NFL had a 12-game schedule), then 2 of their 7 (14), and finally 3 of their 8 (16), plus a preseason game (an another preseason game at the University of Wisconsin's Camp Randall Stadium). The Packers played a Playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams at County Stadium in 1967, before winning the NFL Championship against the Dallas Cowboys at Lambeau Field on New Year's Eve, the famed Ice Bowl.

County Stadium hosted the only game, to date, played by the U.S. national soccer team in Wisconsin. It was on July 28, 1990, against East Germany, in one of that foul country's last games before being reunited with their Federal Republic (West German) brothers. We lost.
* Borchert Field. The minor-league Milwaukee Brewers played here from 1888 to 1952, at a wooden park originally named Athletic Park and renamed for former owner Otto Borchert. These Brewers were the 1st pro baseball team owned by Bill Veeck, from 1941 to 1945, before he moved on to the major leagues. It was at "Borchert's Orchard" that he first tried his promotional stunts, and it made Milwaukee one of the most successful minor-league markets, not just on the field but at the box office.

The Brewers won 8 American Association Pennants there: 1913, 1914, 1936, 1943, 1944, 1945 (that's 3 straight under Veeck's ownership), 1951 and 1952 (in their last 2 seasons of existence before the Braves came in).

The Milwaukee Bears of the Negro Leagues also played here, as did the Milwaukee Badgers of the NFL from 1922 to 1926, and the Packers played the occasional Milwaukee game here from 1933 to 1952.

Actually, the place was better for football than for baseball: Like the Polo Grounds, it had a distant center field but foul poles that were much too close, 267 feet. An overhanging roof that covered the infield stands didn't help matters. As Veeck himself put it, "Borchert Field, an architectural monstrosity, was so constructed that the fans on the first-base side of the grandstand couldn't see the right fielder, which seemed perfectly fair in that the fans on the third-base side couldn't see the left fielder. 'Listen,' I told them. 'This way you'll have to come back twice to see the whole team.'" 

Borchert stood between North 7th & 8th Streets, and Burleigh & Chambers Streets. The entire land area is now occupied by Interstate 43, the North-South Freeway, and entrance-and-exit ramps. It's in a bit of a rough neighborhood, so unless you're just that into baseball history, if you have to cross one item off your list, this is the one. Number 50 bus to Holton & Burleigh, then Number 60 bus, or walk 12 blocks west.

* Milwaukee Mile. This racetrack, on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Fair in suburban West Allis, is the oldest continuously-operating auto racetrack in the world. "But Mike," you say, "auto racing is not a sport. Why are you talking about it?" Because the track's infield was used as the Packers' main Milwaukee-area home from 1934 to 1951.

Seating 45,000, the stadium was nicknamed the Dairy Bowl for Packer games, including the 1939 NFL Championship Game, in which the Packers beat the Giants, 27-0. The Milwaukee Chiefs of the 1940-41 version of the American Football League also played here.
I don't know if this is the earliest remaining stadium to have hosted an NFL game (1933), but it's almost certainly the oldest site (racing began there in to 1903). 7722 W. Greenfield Avenue at 77th Street. Number 60 bus to 60th & Vliet Streets, then transfer to Number 76 bus.

* Bucks arenas. The old and current Milwaukee arenas, across State Street from each other at 4th Street, are loaded with history. The old one, built in 1951, now known as the U.S. Cellular Arena, was originally known as the Milwaukee Arena, then from 1974 to 1995 as the Milwaukee Exposition Convention Center and Arena (or MECCA). Two NBA teams called it home: The Milwaukee Hawks from 1951 to 1955, before moving to St. Louis (and later to Atlanta); and the Milwaukee Bucks from their debut in 1968 until 1988.

The Bucks played their 1971 NBA Championship season, their only title, there, although they clinched on the road in Baltimore. The Milwaukee Admirals, a minor-league hockey team, played here from 1973 to 1988, and won the 1976 United States Hockey League title.

Elvis Presley sang here on June 28, 1974 and April 27, 1977. The Beatles played here on September 4, 1964. The inductees to the previously mentioned Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame are honored here in a Wisconsin Athletic Walk of Fame, which also includes Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks, Wisconsin Badgers, and State natives who made it big elsewhere.

The current arena, now the BMO Harris Bradley Center, has been the Bucks' home since 1988. While they've usually been good, they haven't reached the NBA Finals since 1974 (at the MECCA) or even the Conference Finals since 2001 (at the Bradley Center). The Admirals also call the Bradley Center home, and won the 2004 Calder Cup here. Marquette University, which reach the 1974 NCAA National Championship and won it in 1977, also plays at the Bradley Center, after having played at the MECCA and before that at the site I'm about to mention.

The University of Wisconsin, in Madison, is the only other Wisconsin school to reach the Final Four, and that was all the way back in 1941, although they've reached hockey's version, the Frozen Four, many times.

The Bradley Center, like a lot of NBA and NHL arenas that have recently been replaced or are about to be, opened right before Baltimore's ballpark, Camden Yards, rewrote the rules for stadium and arena construction. As a result, while the Bradley Center is in good shape and has good sight lines, it does not have lots of revenue-generation luxury boxes. And, with Milwaukee being a small market (only the Packers' special status keeps Wisconsin capable of supporting an NFL team, and the Brewers were in serious trouble in the 1990s before Miller Park opened), the Bucks need those luxury boxes.

For that reason, ground will be broken this month on a new arena, just to the northwest of the Bradley Center, at 5th Street & Highland Avenue. The Bucks and Marquette basketball are expected to move in for the 2018-19 season. Presumably, the Bradley Center will be demolished, while the MECCA will remain standing due to its historical significance.

The nearest NHL team is the Chicago Blackhawks, 93 miles away. If Milwaukee had an NHL team, it would rank 23rd in population among NHL markets. The nearest MLS team is the Chicago Fire, 104 miles away.

Wisconsin, let alone Milwaukee, has never produced a President -- although, in 2012, Congressman Paul Ryan was the Republican nominee for Vice President, and he's now the Speaker of the House, and still fairly young by political standards, so he could run for President in the future. But the Milwaukee Auditorium, built in 1909 at 500 W. Kilbourn Avenue downtown (across from the MECCA), has been one of the city's most historic sites. It's where Theodore Roosevelt, running to return to the Presidency on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912, gave a speech on October 14. For an hour and a half. After having been shot.

The shooting happened a block away, at the Hotel Gilpatrick, now the Hyatt, at 333 W. Kilbourn. He recovered, and finished 2nd to Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson, but ahead of incumbent Republican William Howard Taft.

Other Presidents, and men who tried to be, spoke at the 4,000-seat building now named the Milwaukee Theatre: Taft in 1911, Wilson in 1916, Wendell Willkie in 1944, John F. Kennedy in 1960, Michael Dukakis in 1988, and the George Bushes, the father in 1991 and the son in 2000. Martin Luther King gave a noted speech there in 1964. Elvis sang there on June 14, and 15, 1972, even though the MECCA was already an established arena.

* Happy Days. Airing from 1974 to 1984 but taking place in Milwaukee from 1955 to 1965, this ABC sitcom did as much to make Milwaukee famous as beer and the Braves did. A statue of Henry Winkler as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli -- a.k.a. The Bronze Fonz -- is at 117 E. Wells Street, on the Riverwalk, across from the 1895-built, 353-foot-high City Hall, which will be recognized by fans of Happy Days' spinoff series, Laverne & Shirley, although the sign saying, "WELCOME MILWAUKEE VISITORS" is long-gone.
The Cunningham house was said to be at 565 North Clinton Drive, an address which does not actually exist in the Milwaukee area. The exterior was shot in Los Angeles, near the Paramount Pictures studios. Both the original building used as the exterior for Arnold's, in the Milwaukee suburbs, and its replacement, in Los Angeles, have been demolished. The exterior shot for Richie and Joanie's alma mater, Jefferson High School, was filmed at Milwaukee's Washington High at 2525 N. Sherman Blvd.

Milwaukee doesn't have museums on the level of New York, Philadelphia or Chicago, but of note is the Milwaukee Public Museum, at 800 W. Wells Street, at 8th Street downtown. The Milwaukee Art Museum is on the lake, at 700 N. Art Museum Drive, off E. Mason Street. If you're a motorcycle enthusiast, the Harley-Davidson Museum -- Brewtown is also Harley's headquarters, and also that of lawnmower and farm equipment manufacturer Briggs & Stratton -- is at 400 W. Canal Street, right about where the city's 3 rivers meet. Number 80 bus gets the closest.

The tallest building in Wisconsin is the U.S. Bank Center, formerly the First Wisconsin Center, at 777 E. Wisconsin Avenue & N. Van Buren Street. Opening in 1973, it is 601 feet high.  It's not much to look at, unlike the building it replaced as such, City Hall.

If you want to go on a brewery tour, be my guest -- or, rather, put your money down and be their
guest. But I have no interest in it, so you'll have to look up your own info.

*

Milwaukee may not be one of America's biggest cities, but it's one of the most fun.  And sports, including baseball, is a big part of it. A Brewers game is a good time, whether the team is good or not.

Tonight, the Mets begin a 3-game series away to the Miami Marlins.

The Marlins will not win the National League Pennant this year. Why? Because they don't have enough talent? It wouldn't matter if they did: They will not win the Pennant because their manager is Don Mattingly.

The Curse of Donnie Baseball is the one unbreakable curse in sports: No team with Don Mattingly in uniform has ever won a Pennant, and none ever will:

* 1982-95 Yankees: Mattingly as player.
* 2004-07 Yankees: Mattingly as coach.
* 2008-10 Dodgers: Mattingly as coach.
* 2011-15 Dodgers: Mattingly as manager.
* 2016-present Marlins: Mattingly as manager.

*

Despite not winning a single Pennant, or even a single postseason series, with Mattingly as a player, the Yankees dedicated a Plaque to him for their Monument Park.

Why? What did he do to deserve it?

The most common answer is a variation on, "He was a great player during a dark time."

So was Bobby Murcer, and he eventually played on a Pennant winner. He doesn't have a Plaque. The same is true for Dave Winfield.

A "great player"? The Yankees have a different standard. The Yankees are about winning.

Wally Pipp. Lou Gehrig. Babe Dahlgren. Johnny Sturm. Buddy Hassett. Nick Etten. George McQuinn. Joe Collins. Moose Skowron. Joe Pepitone. Chris Chambliss. Bob Watson. Tino Martinez. Jason Giambi. Mark Teixeira.

I may have mentioned this before, but I don't like the Toronto Blue Jays. This week, at the Rogers Centre, those pesky Blue Jays swept the Yankees. That's 5 out of 6 this season.

Unacceptable.

On Tuesday night, CC Sabathia pitched 6 solid innings, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits and 1 walk. But Joe Girardi blew it by talking him out after throwing 80 pitches.

But did it really matter that Dellin Betances let in 2 more runs in the bottom of the 7th? No, because the Yankees, again, did not hit. Indeed, the 1 run they scored game on a groundout, not a base hit or even a sacrifice fly.

Blue Jays 4, Yankees 1. WP: Joe Biagini (3-1). SV: Antonio Osuna (12). LP: Sabathia (3-4).

*

Then on Wednesday, Toronto completed the sweep. Don't blame Masahiro Tanaka: Like CC, he was terrific for 6 innings away to the defending Division Champions. He allowed 2 runs (only 1 earned) on 7 hits and 1 walk.

But Girardi panicked as usual, and saw a pitch count of 104, and took him out. And put it Kirby Yates. Who completely imploded.

But can you really put all of this one on Girardi's shoulders? No, because, again, the bats did not produce.

Brian McCann drew a leadoff walk in the top of the 2nd inning. Mark Teixeira grounded into a forceout. Didi Gregorius singled. Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran singled in the 3rd. Alex Rodriguez doubled in the 4th. Brett Gardner walked and Beltran singled in the 5th. Ronald Torreyes and Ellsbury hit back-to-back singles in the 7th. That's 10 baserunners. Scored? Exactly none.

Blue Jays 7, Yankees 0. WP: Aaron Sanchez (5-1). No save. LP: Tanaka (3-1).

As the late, great Yogi Berra would say, It's getting too late to say that it's still early out there.

*

So, yesterday, the Yankees received proper punishment for their miserable performance in Toronto: They went to Detroit. They had to play a rainout makeup against the Tigers at Comerica Park.

Michael Pineda, who has been a source of worry this season, got the start. He was much better: 5 2/3rds innings, 1 run, 7 hits, but no walks, and 8 strikeouts.

Of course, they still had to score runs. At first, it didn't look like they would. Tiger starter Matt Boyd got halfway to a perfect game. Until Chase Headley walked with 2 outs in the 5th, the Yankees didn't get a single baserunner. Through 5, the Yankees trailed 1-0 and had no hits.

But just as they won a game last week on only 1 hit, a home run by Starlin Castro, the Yankees found a way to win anyway. Rob Refsnyder led off the top of the 6th with a double, breaking up the no-hitter. Aaron Hicks' flyout got him to 3rd. Ellsbury flew to center, and that sac fly scored Refsynder to tie the game.

Alex Rodriguez (Remember him?) singled to lead off the top of the 7th. Headley singled. Austin Romine grounded into a forceout to eliminate A-Rod. Refsnyder singled home Headley to give the Yankees the lead. Tiger manager Brad Ausmus took Boyd out, and replaced him with former Met Bobby Parnell. As you can probably imagine, this was a mistake. Hicks singled home Romine. Ausmus then replaced Parnell with Kyle Ryan. (Does Ausmus have his own version of Girardi's infamous binder?) Ellsbury socked a triple to right field, scoring Refsnyder and Hicks.

"The three-headed monster" was a little shaky: Betances allowed a run in the 7th, Andrew Miller allowed one in the 8th, and Aroldis Chapman one in the 9th. But the Tigers didn't find the tying run.

Yankees 5, Tigers 4. WP: Betances (2-2). SV: Chapman (8). LP: Boyd 0-1.

*

With Toronto and Detroit in their rearview mirror, the Yankees are about to begin a 3-game weekend series in Baltimore against Buck Showalter's Orioles.

Let's hope the Yankees score more than the U.S. soccer team does in tonight's Copa America opener against Colombia at the new San Francisco 49ers stadium!

The way people have reacted to Muhammad Ali has said more about America than he could ever say about himself.

Which is surprising, because he loved to talk about himself.

*

He was born with the name Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. His father was named for Cassius Marcellus Clay, the son of a prominent Kentucky slaveholder and a cousin of storied Congressman and 3-time Presidential candidate Henry Clay. He became an abolitionist, working for the end of slavery, which cost him his seat in the Kentucky legislature. He was shot, but not only survived, but pulled a Bowie knife on his attacker, wounded him, and threw him over an embankment. On another occasion, 6 pro-slavery men beat him, and 1 stabbed him, but Clay fought them all off, and, with the same knife, killed 1 of them.

He was an officer in the Mexican-American War, a publisher of anti-slavery books and magazines, and one of the founders of the Republican Party. He was one of the earliest recognizers of the talent of Illinois politician and Kentucky native Abraham Lincoln.

Before giving a speech, he would say, "For those of you who believe in the laws of God, I have this," and reach into his coat pocket, and pull out a Bible. Then he would say, "For those of you who believe in he laws of man, I have this," and reach into his opposite coat pocket, and pull out a book whose cover announced that it contained the Constitution of the United States. Then he would say, "For those who you who believe in neither, I have these," and reach into his vest pockets, and pull out a pair of revolvers.

He was instrumental during the Civil War in convincing President Lincoln to write and sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln appointed him U.S. Ambassador to Russia, and he secured Russian support for the Union. He and Secretary of State William Seward were behind the purchase of Alaska.

I find it hard to believe that the man who became known as Muhammad Ali didn't know everything that was available to know about the original Cassius Marcellus Clay. But, for the rest of his life, Ali called his birth name "a slave name."

*

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., the boy who would become Muhammad Ali, was born on January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. His father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, was a commercial painter who played piano. His mother, named Odessa O'Grady before her marriage, was a maid. Cassius Sr. and Odessa had 5 sons and a daughter.

Their son Rudolph Valentino Clay, known as Rudy Clay before he, like his brother, converted to Islam, taking the name Rahman Ali, was also a boxer. His 1st professional fight was on February 25, 1964, on the undercard at the Miami Beach Convention Center when his brother first won the title. He won 14 of his 1st 15 fights, but none of the next 3, and retired to work for his brother.

In 1954, at the age of 12, Cassius was seen moping down the street by Joe E. Martin, a Louisville police officer and boxing coach. Cassius told him that his bicycle had been stolen, and that he was gonna "whup" the thief. The cop told him he'd better learn how to box first. He did, winning 6 Golden Gloves titles in his State and 2 nationally.

A year later, photographs of the tortured and murdered Emmett Till appeared in national magazines. When Cassius saw what had been done to this 14-year-old black boy from Chicago -- only 6 months his senior -- when he was visiting relatives in Mississippi, it changed something in him. It made him aware of inequality in a way he had never personally experienced.

In 1960, just 18 years old, he won the Gold Medal in the light heavyweight division at the Olympic Games in Rome, Italy. He was a star.
He returned to America, and would later tell the story of how he was refused service at a white restaurant in Louisville, while still wearing the medal, and, in anger, walked onto a bridge over the Ohio River, and threw the medal in. Most people who knew him would later say that, while the incident at the restaurant happened, he most likely lost the medal sometime later.

*

Cassius Clay turned professional, and had a few fights in Las Vegas. It was there that he met professional wrestler George Wagner, a.k.a. Gorgeous George. George was flamboyant (but straight), wore his hair very long by the standards of the 1950s and '60s, sometimes wore makeup in the ring, and called himself not only "gorgeous" but "the greatest wrestler in he world!" Cassius took note.

He soon moved to Miami Beach, and set up his training camp there. It was there that he met entertainment legend Jackie Gleason, who liked to call himself "the Great One" and had a nearby theater where he taped a revived version of his 1950s variety show, including new Honeymooners sketches with Art Carney (but replacement actresses for Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph). Gleason told him to think of himself as great, and he might well live up to it, and to enjoy life along the way.

Soon, the rising heavyweight contender was telling interviewers he was "pretty" and "the greatest." He wanted to prove it by beating Heavyweight Champion Floyd Patterson. But Sonny Liston beat him to it.

Ali didn't like Liston being champion. It wasn't that Liston was merely a big strong puncher, not a true all-around boxer like Light Heavyweight Champion Archie Moore or former Middleweight Champion Sugar Ray Robinson. And it wasn't that Liston was a thug, a muscle man for the Mob before he made it big in boxing. And it wasn't Liston's nasty personality that bothered him, either. No, it was Liston's face: Clay would tell anyone who would listen, "He's too ugly to be the world's champ! The world's champ should be pretty, like me!" He called Liston "the big ugly bear."

He got his shot at Liston. It would be on February 25, 1964, at the Miami Beach Convention Center. By this time, he had already hooked up with the two men who would guide his career: Drew Brown, who had been a cornerman for Robinson (they were both black); and Angelo Dundee, who had been a cornerman for Carmen Basilio (they were both white and Italian). Basilio had taken the middleweight title from Robinson in 1957, and Robinson took it back in 1958. Brown and Dundee were on opposite sides, but joined forces to work for the young man already known as the Lousiville Hummingbird for his speed and quickness in the ring -- and as the Louisville Lip for his talk out of the ring.

Brown -- whom Ali always called "Bodini," a variation on his middle name, Bundini -- gave the boxing starlet his first big quote:

Float like a butterfly,
sting like a bee!
The hand can't hit
what the eye can't see!

Sometimes, to psych Clay up, Brown would look him in the eye, and, together, they would yell, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! Ahhhh! Rumble, young man, rumble! Ahhhh!" Clay was telling people, "I am the greatest!" Brown was telling him, "Born the champ in the crib!" Dundee wasn't yelling or creating quotes, but he and Brown were both getting him ready.

Liston, due to his Mob background, previous imprisonment, and unpleasant demeanor, was not popular with the boxing public. Lots of people wanted Clay to take the title from him. But many didn't like Clay, either. Asked in the leadup to the fight what percentage of the crowd was coming to see him, as opposed to Liston, Clay said, "Well, 100 percent are coming to see me, but 99 percent are coming to see me get beat! 'Cause they think I talk too much."

He'd had a habit of predicting the round in which he'd knock an opponent out. It was just bravado, until he took on Archie Moore, and said he'd knock Moore out in the 4th round -- and he did. (Moore was the Satchel Paige of boxers: His age was seriously in dispute, but he was at least 45 years old at the time, but still officially Light Heavyweight Champion of the World. He fought once more and retired.) He went to London and fought Henry Cooper, the Heavyweight Champion of Europe, at Wembley Stadium, and said the knockout would come in the 5th round. But in the 4th, Cooper him him with a left, known in H-dropping London as 'enry's 'ammer, and knocked him down. Clay needed the whole of the minute's break to clear his head, and then opened a cut on Cooper's eye, and the referee had to stop it -- in the round Clay had predicted.

(As champ, he would fight Cooper again, also in London, this time in 1966, at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, home of soccer's Arsenal Football Club. He won by decision, and one of the men who helped set the ring up was a 15-year-old apprentice electrician who was playing in Arsenal's youth system. His name was Charlie George, and he would later become one of Arsenal's biggest stars.)

So when the fight with Liston for the title came, everyone wanted to know when he was going to knock out Liston -- who had knocked Patterson out twice, both times in the 1st round. He said:

For those of you unable to watch the Clay-Liston fight, here is the 8th round exactly as it will happen:

Clay comes out to meet Liston, and Liston starts to retreat!
If Liston backs up any further, he'll end up in a ringside seat!
Clay swings with his left! Clay swings with his right!
Look at young Cassius carry the fight!
Liston keeps backing, but there's not enough room!
It's just a matter of time: There! Clay lowers the boom!
Liston crashes through the roof with a terrible sound!
But the ref can't start counting until Sonny comes down!
Liston disappears from view! The crowd is getting frantic!
But our radar stations have picked him up: He's somewhere over the Atlantic!
Who would've thought when they came to the fight
that they'd witness the launching of a human satellite!
The crowd did not dream when they put down their money
that they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny!

The odds were 8-1 in Liston's favor. Like Han Solo, Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali was a man you would never tell the odds. He'd tell anyone who would listen, especially Liston, "If you'd like to lose your money, be a fool and bet on Sonny!"

Clay was in Liston's head, citing his appearance, his courage, and his age: "You're 40 years old, if a day, and you don't belong in the ring with Cassius Clay!" (Like Moore, nobody really knew how old Liston was. Officially, he was 31, but nobody believed he was that young.) Sportswriter Bert Sugar, who knew more about boxing than any man alive, said, "Liston could handle anything except crazy people. And Clay, then his name, struck Liston as a crazy person."

The 1st 4 rounds went exactly as planned. Clay danced around the ring, and Liston hardly laid a glove on him. But with advantages in height, reach and speed, Cassius messed Sonny's face up. Anybody who said that Liston threw the fight needed only to look at a photo of Liston's face. Clay turned it into hamburger.

Like Mike Tyson, 33 years later against Evander Holyfield, Liston knew he was in trouble, and that cheating might get him out of it. In the 5th, he got his glove into Clay's eye, and suddenly, Clay started blinking. He couldn't see. And Liston finally started landing punches.

When Clay got back to his stool, he was, for the first time in his boxing career, scared. He told Dundee, "I can't see! Cut the gloves off!"

History -- that of boxing, and that of American culture -- hung in the balance at that moment. Everything this 22-year-old boxing contender would become, and everything he would mean to anyone, might not have happened. Dundee saw a white powder on Clay's glove, from where he'd wiped it out of his eye. Dundee washed Clay's eyes out, and told him he was too close to the title to give up now. He told Clay to use his great footwork to stay out of Liston's way until his eyes cleared, and then go after him again. Late in the 6th round, Clay's eyes cleared, and he resumed his demolition of Liston's face.

The bell rang for the 7th round, and Clay was ready to finish the job. Liston decided that, his cheat unsuccessful, the job was finished. He quit on his stool. Cassius Clay was the Heavyweight Champion of the World.

On the surviving TV broadcast, he can be heard yelling, "I just knocked out Sonny Liston, I don't have a mark on my face, I just became the world's champ, and I'm only 22 years old! I must be the greatest! He wanted to go to heaven, so I knocked him out in seven! I am the king of the world! I'm pretty! I'm a bad man! I shook up the world! I shook up the world! I shook up the world!"

Certainly, he'd thrilled the world. But the shakeup was yet to come.

*

"I'm young, I'm handsome, I'm fast, I'm pretty, and can't possibly be beat!"

As it turned out, there was one man who could beat Cassius Clay. He even wiped him out of existence. And his name was Muhammad Ali.

What the people around him knew, but the general public did not, until the Miami Herald broke the story a few days before the fight, was that he'd been studying Islam. Malcolm X, seeing a potential publicity goldmine in Clay, became his friend and helped him along the path to conversion. When Malcolm left the Nation of Islam, Clay stuck with the group's leader Elijah Muhammad. It would be 1975, after Elijah Muhammad's death, that Ali left the Nation and observed more mainstream Sunni Islam, which he maintained to the end.

He took the name Muhammad Ali: "Muhammad," the name of the first prophet of Islam, meaning "One who is worthy of praise"; and "Ali," the name of an early caliph, meaning "high" or "elevated" (the Hebrew name "Eli" is an equivalent). He initially followed the NOI's views that segregation was right, that blacks and whites shouldn't live together, and that white people were "devils." But he had so many white friends that he found it difficult to accept this. One of those white friends, Dundee, would tell him, "I hope I'm half as good a Catholic as you are a Muslim."

How good a Muslim was he? Raised a Methodist, I am in no expert on the subject. But he married and divorced 3 times before marrying his 4th wife, Yolanda Williams, known in marriage as Lonnie Ali. He had 7 daughters and 2 sons -- 2 of the daughters with women who he never married. In his later years, Lonnie was his manager, and spoke when he no longer could.

Daughter Maryum became a rapper, under the name May May -- considering her father's impromptu poetry recitals, she can be said to have gone into a family business. Another daughter, Laila, went into the family business, boxing professionally from 1999 to 2007, adopting a variation on her father's old slogan: "She Bee Stingin'." Some -- including Jackie Frazier-Lyde, boxer and daughter of Smokin' Joe -- have questioned the quality of Laila's opponents. But she went undefeated: 24-0, including a 2001 decision over Frazier-Lyde.

All 4 of his wives converted to Islam, and the 7 children they raised with him were raised under it. But Laila did not stick with it. She is married to NFL receiver turned broadcaster Curtis Conway, and raised 5 children, 2 they had together.

Most people continued to call him "Cassius Clay." Tickets for his fights, including his 1965 rematch with Liston -- which, due to the various controversies around him, was moved from the Boston Garden to Lewiston, Maine -- still listed his name as Cassius Clay. Nearly every journalist still called him by his birth name. Howard Cosell of ABC Sports did not, and, despite contentiousness between them at times, Muhammad never forgot that Howard -- who had gone the other way, changing his name from Howard Cohen to hide his religious affiliation, because when he started out it was disadvantageous to be known to be Jewish -- called him by his chosen name.

When Ali finally fought Patterson in Las Vegas in 1965, Floyd kept calling him "Cassius." For once, another boxer was in Ali's head. But Floyd was well past his glory days, and Ali decided to punish him. He was not going to knock Floyd out. He carried him through the entire 12 rounds. All the way through, he would yell, loud enough to be heard on the TV microphones, "What's my name, fool?" Patterson never gave in and said, "Muhammad Ali." Whether that was principled, courageous, or foolish, who knows.

In 1967, Ali fought at Madison Square Garden for the 1st time -- the only time at the old Garden. Why did it take so long? Was Ali offended, as a Muslim, by the Garden being referred to as "the Mecca of Boxing?" (It was also called "the Mecca of Basketball.") No, it wasn't because of what the company running the Garden called the building. It was because of what they called him. His boxing license still read, "Cassius Clay," and they called a boxer whatever his license said. The license was changed, and the Garden printed tickets with "Muhammad Ali" on them, and he was introduced as "Muhammad Ali." He fought Zora Folley, and knocked him out in the 7th round.

*

A month later, on April 28, 1967, the world was truly shaken up. Muhammad Ali, 25 years old and in amazing physical condition, was drafted into the United States Army. And he refused to accept it.

When he registered for the draft on his 18th birthday, January 17, 1962, he was listed as 1-A. That means there was nothing to stand in the way of his being drafted. In 1964, he took what's been described as a "mental test," and it revealed that his IQ was 78 -- below the military threshold, and in the range of retardation. (For comparison's sake, the best-known retarded person in American literature and film, Forrest Gump, had an IQ of 75.)

Clearly, Ali was neither retarded nor stupid. But when asked about the result, he said, "I said I was the greatest, not the smartest." He was given another test, and again scored 78. Is it possible that the test wasn't geared toward nonwhites? Whatever the reason, he was reclassified 1-Y: "Fit for service only in times of national emergency." Whatever the Vietnam War was, it wasn't a national emergency for America.

But in 1966, the Army changed its rules to allow someone with an official IQ that low, and Ali was reclassified 1-A. And when he was ordered to report to the induction center in Houston, where he was living and training at the time, he did his duty and reported. And when his name was called, he refused to do the legal thing and step forward. (I've heard that the name they called was "Cassius Clay." If so, then the Army had a problem. If the name on his boxing license had been changed, then his legal name must have been changed. So if they didn't call "Muhammad Ali," then he had every right to stay put. But if they did call his new name, then the legal onus was on him.)

He announced that he was a conscientious objector: "War is against the teachings of the Holy Qur'an.
I'm not trying to dodge the draft. We are not supposed to take part in no wars unless declared by Allah or The Messenger. We don't take part in Christian wars or wars of any unbelievers."

("Allah" is the Arabic word for God. It does not mean a God separate from the one in the Bible. Indeed, many figures from the Bible are also in the Qur'an, or the Koran as it's sometimes spelled. Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet and a teacher. They revere Mary as well. And Abraham and King David.)

Ali also said, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong."This statement that he had no reason to oppose America's wartime enemy infuriated white mainstream America more than the act of refusal itself.

He went further. This is the first time I have ever used this word on my blog, and I fully intend it to be the last. I haven't even used it when writing about what Jackie Robinson faced. (Jackie himself always called Ali "Cassius.") I use this word only because I want to quote Ali correctly, in context, with no euphemism. What he said must be repeated, because his point, which he made so strenuously 49 years ago, must be made again. As one of his explanations for refusing to accept being drafted into the U.S. Army and being sent to fight the Viet Cong, Muhammad Ali said, "No Viet Cong ever called me 'Nigger.'" 

But many white men had called him that. And white men indicted him for refusing to be drafted. And the New York State Athletic Commission revoked his license to box in that State. And the other 49 States immediately followed. And because of this, the World Boxing Association stripped him of their recognition of him as Heavyweight Champion of the World. The World Boxing Council did the same, and there would be "unification fights" until 1970. This is the beginning of the schism of the heavyweight title that my generation, barely old enough to remember Ali as an active fighter, and those that have followed us know now.

Ali would ask crowds, black and white alike, "Can my title be taken from me without me bein' whupped?" When the crowd answered back, "No!" Ali would tell the reporter interviewing him, "That's all I can say." Muhammad Ali knew when to speak, and when not to.

He would be convicted of draft evasion, but remained free upon appeal. On June 28, 1971, in the case of Cassius Marsellus Clay, Jr. (sic) also known as Muhammad Ali v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that Ali's request to register as a conscientious objector was improperly handled, and therefore he should not have been convicted, and the conviction was thrown out. The vote was unanimous: 8-0. It was easily the most important unanimous decision in the history of boxing.

(Ironically, the one Justice who did not participate in the ruling was Thurgood Marshall. It wasn't because Marshall was the 1st black Justice on the Supreme Court. It was because he wasn't appointed to the Court until after the case had been initially decided: That had happened while he was working in the U.S. Department of Justice. Thus, one of the few black Americans more important in history than Muhammad Ali, a civil rights icon long before he reached the Supreme Court, had to recuse himself from this case.)

*

Even before his conviction was overturned, Ali got a license to box... from, believe it or not, a Southern State, Georgia. He had given up 3 1/2 years for his principles. Years when he was 25, 26, 27, 28 years old.

This wasn't like Sandy Koufax and Jim Brown retiring, as both did in 1966, at the ages of 31 and 30, respectively. They'd both had enough (Koufax of injury, Brown of dealing with his team's owner.) Nor was this like the later example of Michael Jordan, retiring from basketball at 30 and returning at 32. And it certainly wasn't like Michael Vick, going to prison at 27 and getting out and resuming his football career at 29. Ali gave up his prime years, and was ready to give up his freedom, and even his life ("I'm ready to die," he would tell people) in the name of his principle.

And this wasn't in the days when there was big money in endorsements for athletes even when they weren't playing. Ali couldn't do commercials for Vitalis or Brylcreem with a black man's hair. And with his religion, he couldn't do ads for alcohol or cigarettes. But even for those things for which he wasn't forbidden to endorse, no company, and no advertising agency, would go near him with a draft-dodge conviction hanging over him. He was radioactive.

Even by the time he fought Joe Frazier the 1st time, by which point more Americans opposed the war than supported it, he was still not universally seen as having been right along. Even people who opposed the war didn't necessarily support him, angry at the way he opposed going into it.

From April 1967 to October 1970, Ali stood up for what he believed in, and threw away a chance not only to make (by the standards of the time) gobs of money, but also to fight so well that there would have been no doubt that he -- not Jack Dempsey, not Joe Louis, not Rocky Marciano -- was what he had been saying he was: The greatest heavyweight boxer of all time.

(Incidentally, in 2013, Epic Rap Battles of History had comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele play Jordan and Ali, respectively. And the script for Peele as Ali did not have him use the words, "the greatest of all time." That's like having a rap battle with Franklin Roosevelt and not having him say, "The only thing you have to fear is me!")

So Ali fought Jerry Quarry in Atlanta, and knocked him out early. Then he fought South American champion Oscar Bonavena at the new Madison Square Garden, and won by a technical knockout. He probably should have had one more tuneup fight before taking on the man by then recognized as Heavyweight Champion, Joe Frazier. But he didn't.

Frazier, like Ali, had won an Olympic Gold Medal, in 1964. Frazier, like Ali, had never lost a professional fight. This was the 1st time that 2 men who were undefeated heavyweight champions had faced each other in the ring. Of course, it had to be at the Garden. It was March 8, 1971. Like many others, it was billed as The Fight of the Century. It was also called The Super Fight. It was also called simply The Fight.

How big was this? How tough a ticket was it? Frank Sinatra, the biggest living name in entertainment, and a great fan of sports, especially boxing, and the man whose 1968 charity concert opened the building, couldn't get a ticket. So he made arrangements to be Life magazine's official photographer for the fight.

Most of the fight was even. But as it went on, Ali's rustiness began to show. In the 15th and final scheduled round, Frazier's famed left hook knocked Ali down, the 1st time he'd been knocked down since Henry Cooper at Wembley 8 years earlier. He got right back up, but it was too late: The knockdown was enough to give Frazier a unanimous decision, and the undisputed title.

Muhammad Ali had lost a professional fight for the 1st time. He had been 31-0. Sports Illustrated would put the knockdown on their cover, and used the headline "END OF THE ALI LEGEND."

Well, that time, "The Dreaded SI Cover Jinx" fell on SI itself. Ali stayed in the ring on a regular basis, winning 10 straight fights, until fighting Ken Norton in San Diego in 1973. Norton broke Ali's jaw -- "Perhaps poetic justice," Cosell would say -- and won a split decision. Undeterred, Ali fought Norton again, 6 months later at the Forum outside Los Angeles. Again, it was a split decision. This time, it went in Ali's favor. And then he fought Frazier a 2nd time, also at the Garden. After 12 rounds, he won a unanimous decision.

But Frazier was no longer champion. He'd been destroyed in just 2 rounds by the man who succeeded him as Olympic heavyweight champion, 1968 hero George Foreman. On the tape of the ABC broadcast, Angelo Dundee can be heard, before the 1st knockdown, yelling, "Frazier's hurt!" And Cosell started to point that out, when the knockdown came: "Angie Dundee, Ali's trainer, is saying... Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!" Next, Foreman fought Norton, and kicked the stuffing out of him, too.

Ali signed to fight Foreman, to get the title back. It's important to note the context. Here is Muhammad Ali, 32 years old. This is hardly too old to be a good boxer. But of his last 15 fights, 2 have been defeats, 1 has been a split decision, 3 were over guys he'd already beaten before (Patterson, Quarry, and Canadian champion George Chuvalo), and none was especially impressive, even his defeat of Frazier.

And here is George Foreman, 25 years old. A great age to be a good boxer. He is 40-0. His last 12 fights have lasted a total of 25 rounds. His last 8 have lasted 15. His last 3 have lasted 5, and included TKOs of the only men ever to beat Ali as a professional. (He's always been called "Big George." Actually, he wasn't bigger than Ali: Both were 6-foot-3, and Foreman's 220 pounds at the weigh-in made him only 4 pounds heavier than Ali.)

There were very few people who thought that Ali could beat Foreman. Indeed, there were people who thought that Foreman was going to kill Ali. I don't mean figuratively: Some people thought that Foreman was actually going to end Ali's life in the ring. Ali was doing all his usual trash-talking (only we didn't call it that yet), but Foreman calmly stared into a film camera and said, "I'm gonna kill you." Then he grinned, to show everyone that he wasn't really going to try to kill Ali.

If I tell you that a mosquito can pull a plow, don't argue. Hitch him up.

Or, as Sinatra put it, in the words of Sammy Cahn, "Everyone knows that an ant can't lift a rubber tree plant. But he had high hopes."

Well, there were 3 people who believed Ali could win: Ali himself, Angelo Dundee, and Drew Bundini Brown. They had the fight set for Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The trip allowed Ali to embrace his African roots, and for Africa to embrace him. They introduced him to a chant: "Ali, boma ye!" Hearing this for the first time as he got off the plane, Ali asked someone what that meant. He was told it meant, "Ali, kill him!" So he started pumping his fist and chanting along with them.

(Why were the Zaireans supporting Ali? Was it "Black Power"? No, because Foreman was also black. Was it because of religion? No: Muslims make up only 8 percent of the country, Christians 80 percent. It was because Foreman arrived first, and got off the plane with 2 dogs. German shepherds. That was the breed used as police dogs by Belgium when they controlled the country until 1960. That really, really turned the people away from Foreman. And he had no idea until it was too late.)

Ali was probably in the best mood of his life. He wasn't predicting the knockout round, but he was rattling off rhymes:

Last night, I hospitalized a stone, I murdered a brick.
I'm so mean, I make medicine sick!

You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned?
Wait until I kick George Foreman's behind!

It was October 30, 1974. The fight was billed as "The Rumble in the Jungle." And it's been said that Ali used a strategy of leaning against the ring's ropes, absorbing Foreman's punches, until Foreman got tired and would be unable to face Ali's attack. It was called "rope-a-dope."

It's a great story. But it's not true. I've seen the tape of the fight a few times. Ali was not just biding his time. He was, as they say in English soccer, getting stuck in. On my card (not that I'm a qualified boxing referee), Ali won the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th rounds, and was winning the 8th. Foreman won only the 2nd and the 6th. Ali was winning the fight the whole way.

In an interview long after the fact, Foreman said that, after bell ending the 6th round, Ali yelled, "Is that all you got, George?" And Foreman admitted, "Yep, that's about it."

It was. Late in the 8th round, Ali, leaning on the ropes, grabbed Foreman, gave him a half-spin, and then let loose a flurry of punches. Had those same punches been delivered in the 1st few rounds, they probably wouldn't have hurt Foreman much. At this point, they were enough to knock him down. He tried to get up before the count of 10. He couldn't quite do it. Ali had regained the title.

In the locker room afterward, David Frost, who had called the fight with Jim Brown for the BBC, congratulated him on winning, and Ali asked Frost, "Is this camera working?" Told that it was, Ali pointed and said, "I told you I was the greatest of all time when I beat Sonny Liston! I am still the greatest of all time! Never again make me an underdog until I'm about 50 years old!"

*

And people got it. Richard Nixon was no longer President. America only had a token force left in Vietnam. Most people not only knew now that the warmakers were wrong, but accepted that Ali was right. Even the American establishment began to celebrate Ali. Sports Illustrated named him Sportsman of the Year for 1974. (Indeed, until Jordan came along, no one was on more SI covers than Ali.)

DC Comics honored him with a special issue: Superman vs. Muhammad Ali. It's typically convoluted, to the point where Ali tells Superman he's figured out that he's actually Clark Kent. It ends, of course, with both men victorious.
British reggae singer Johnny Wakelin recorded a song titled "Black Superman (Muhammad Ali)." Ali didn't like it, and wanted nothing to do with it. Once, Ali was on a plane getting ready to take off, and a black stewardess told him that he needed to put on his seat belt. Ali told her, "Superman don't need no seat belt!" The stewardess told him, "Superman don't need no plane." Not often did Ali admit defeat, but, this time, he was whupped.

Speaking of guys who liked to wear a cape, even before he completed his comeback, Elvis Presley, a big believer in America, an Army veteran, and, sadly, a fan of President Richard Nixon, met with him in Las Vegas, and showed he was a fan. Angelo Cataldi, the morning man on Philadelphia sports radio station WIP-FM these last few years, has said that even Elvis didn't have the charisma that Ali had.

Ali was, uh, honored by a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, with fellow Rat Packers Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. on hand, as well as Gene Kelly, Orson Welles and Red Buttons. Also Floyd Patterson, former Middleweight Champion Rocky Graziano, basketball superstar Wilt Chamberlain (who famously challenged Ali to a fight after his loss to Frazier in 1971, then wisely backed down), black comic Nipsey Russell, The Jeffersons stars Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford, and 2 new comedians: Puerto Rican New Yorker Freddie Prinze, and Jewish Long Islander Billy Crystal.

The diminutive Crystal wowed them with impressions of Ali and Cosell (who was also there). Ali cracked up, and afterward, met him, and said, "From now on, you are my little brother." Crystal would later develop a routine he called "Fifteen Rounds," telling Ali's life story. He liked to tell the story of coming out of a meeting at a Hollywood studio, when a limo pulled up, and the window rolled down, and it was Ali. Ali invited Crystal to play golf with him the next day. Crystal asked which club. Ali told him.

Crystal: "Champ, I can't play golf there. They won't let me."
Ali: "Why not? You a bad golfer?"
Crystal: "No, I'm Jewish, and it's a restricted club." They still had those in the 1970s.

Ali, thinking about this ridiculous idea for a moment, finally said, "But I'm a black Muslim! If they let me play, they gotta let you play!" And they did.

One time, on The Tonight Show, Jay Leno asked Crystal about him impressions, the thing that first made him famous. He said, "I love to do impressions, but they don't always work. I tried to do Marlon Brando, but it ended up sounding like Muhammad Ali: 'Michael, I never wanted any of this. All I ever wanted to be was the greatest of all time!'"

In 1996, during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in Atlanta, Ali was invited to be the final torchbearer and light the cauldron. A special system had to be rigged up, to accommodate his condition, but he did it, to a thunderous ovation. By this point, he had become so accepted as an American icon, that when somebody wrote a letter to the New York Daily News complaining that Ali had dodged the draft, over the next few days, the Daily News printed several rebuttal letters, essentially telling that old conservative to get over it and get a life.

*

Ali's 1st fight after Zaire was in the Cleveland suburbs, against a journeyman from New Jersey, Chuck Wepner, a man known as the Bayonne Bleeder. But Wepner stepped on Ali's foot in the 9th round, and, accidentally, knocked him down. Ali let him have it after that, but it took until the 15th round to knock Wepner out. A struggling young actor and screenwriter named Sylvester Stallone say this on TV, and wrote the script that became Rocky, playing the challenger himself, and basing the fictional champion, Apollo Creed, played by Carl Weathers, on Ali -- if an unapologetically pro-America version of Ali.

On October 1, 1975, Ali fought Frazier for a 3rd time. This one was at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, the capital of the Philippines. Somehow, it got into people's minds that it was in the country's largest city, Manila. It was billed as The Thrilla In Manila.

And this time, these guys wanted each other bad. Ali went back to his old tactic of calling opponents ugly. He called Frazier "The Gorilla." As in, "It's gonna be a thrilla and a chilla and a killa, when I get The Gorilla in Manila!" He brought a little rubber gorilla to a press conference and started punching it.

He also called Frazier an "Uncle Tom," meaning a black man who is subservient to white men. That really burned Frazier up. Except Foreman, who somehow maintained friendships with both men, later suggested that Frazier was confusing "Uncle Tom" with "Peeping Tom," meaning a man who spies on women getting undressed. I guess only Frazier knew for sure.

Frazier would say after the fight, "I hit him with punches that woulda brought down buildings." One such punch really stung Ali in the 6th round. After the bell rang, Ali yelled, "They told me Joe Frazier was washed up!" Frazier said, "They lied!"

Ali rallied in the 8th, but Frazier pounded him in the 9th, and when Ali got back to his stool, he told Dundee, "Man, this is the closest I've ever been to dying." Somehow, Ali held it together. Early in he 13th round, he crashed a right into Frazier's jaw, sending Smokin' Joe's mouthguard flying out of his mouth and out of the ring. Whatever Frazier had done to Ali in the 6th and the 9th, Ali did to him in the 13th and the 14th.

Frazier wanted to get back out there for the 15th and final round. But both of his eyes were swollen. He couldn't see. He protested, but his trainer, Eddie Futch, said, "The fight's over Joe. No one will forget what you did today."

This may have inspired the scene in Rocky, where Apollo's trainer Duke, played by Tony Burton, tells him after the 14th round, "Champ, you're bleedin' inside. I'm gonna stop the fight." And Apollo says, "You ain't stoppin' nothin'!" And Rocky tells his trainer, Mickey Goldmill, played by Burgess Meredith, "You stop this fight, and I'll kill you!"

Ali-Frazier III was stopped. Ali got off his stool, raised an arm in victory, and collapsed. If Frazier had just been allowed to get up, he would have won.

Cosell would later say, "A big part of Ali remained in that ring." He really wasn't the same, ever again. He should have stopped there.

He didn't. Jean-Pierre Coopman in Puerto Rico. Jimmy Young and Alfredo Evangelista at the Capital Centre outside D.C. Richard Dunn in Munich. A 3rd fight with Ken Norton at Yankee Stadium, the only fight held at The House That Ruth Built after its renovation (and the whole thing was a messy situation, and some people think Norton got robbed). Earnie Shavers at the Garden, a fight he won despite taking serious blows, a fight that SI would call on its cover, "ALI'S DESPERATE HOUR."

Still, he wouldn't retire. Then he fought 1976 Olympic champion Leon Spinks in Vegas. Spinks was 24, with 8 professional fights to his credit before that night. Ali had just turned 36, was 55-2, and had first been champ 14 years earlier. Spinks won a split decision. It was as if Andy Gibb had been given a Grammy that had rightly belonged to John Lennon.

On September 15, 1978, at the Superdome in New Orleans, in the 1st prizefight I can ever remember seeing on TV, Ali won, and rightly so, a unanimous decision. He had become the 1st man to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World 3 times. Spinks was never a serious contender again, although he did get another title shot against Larry Holmes, and that was a mistake. His brother Michael Spinks dethroned Holmes, but was annihilated by Mike Tyson.

Still, Ali wouldn't retire. At first, he did... but, like too many boxers before him and after him, he couldn't stay away. On October 2, 1980, he made one more challenge for the title, against Holmes, who had unified the title after Ali vacated it by beating Norton.

That fight hurt both men. It hurt Ali because it was clear that he was already impaired, and it made things much worse. It hurt Holmes because anyone who supported Ali came to look at him as "the guy who hurt my hero." Holmes probably never got he credit he deserved, because of this one fight. SI called the fight "Doom in the Desert."

And still he wouldn't give up, and fought once more, on December 11, 1981, against Trevor Berbick. Another loss, which became known as "The Trauma in Bahama."

By the mid-1980s, newspaper and magazine articles were suggesting that all those punches he took, especially from the Thrilla in Manila onward, had left him with Parkinson's disease. Eventually, the truth had to be admitted, and Ali became a major fundraiser for Parkinson's research.

*

In 1990, Ali was a guest on The Arsenio Hall Show. Arsenio brought out Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard, who testified to Ali's greatness. Arsenio asked Ali what would have happened if he fought Tyson in each man's prime.

Ali: "I was a dancin' master. I was so fast. But if he hit me... " (He leaned back as if knocked out.) "That's if he could catch me." (Big if.)

Tyson: "I'm vain, I know I'm great, but can I tell you something? Every head must bow, every tongue must confess: This is the greatest of all time."

Later that year, Paul Hogan was a guest on Arsenio. Arsenio asked him who inspired him when he was growing up in Australia, and trying to establish himself as a young actor there. He would have been 23 when Ali first won the title, but he cited Ali as a big inspiration: "Oh, yeah, Muhammad Ali, he's the most famous man in the world!" Not the President of the United States, "the leader of the free world." Not the Queen of England, who is still head of state for Australia and every other country in the British commonwealth. Not the Pope. Not Nelson Mandela, who'd done some boxing in his youth. Ali.
The next year, 1991, ABC celebrated the 30th Anniversary of its anthology series Wide World of Sports, of which Ali had been so much a part. A feature was done on him. Football player turned broadcaster Frank Gifford narrated it. It showed Ali surrounded by people, especially children, well after his last fight, in places like Russia, China, and, as Gifford (probably with help from a scriptwriter) put it, "India, where there's never been a professional fight." (That is no longer the case.)

In 1996, Muhammad Ali was invited to light the cauldron at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Atlanta. And he was given a new Gold Medal to replace the one he once had.

In 1997, at its annual ESPY Award ceremony, ESPN gave him their annual Arthur Ashe Courage Award. In 1999, SI, ESPN and the BBC all named him their Athlete of the Century. In 2005, while hardly a supporter of his when younger, George W. Bush invited him to the White House and awarded him the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Muhammad and Lonnie Ali had a farm in Berrien Springs, Michigan, on Lake Michigan, not far from Chicago. They eventually sold that and bought a home near Phoenix, and another back in his hometown of Louisville. In 2005, they established the Muhammad Ali Center on Louisville's waterfront, as part of its Museum Row, a short walk from the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge, which may have been the bridge he spoke of throwing his medal off. It "features exhibitions regarding Ali's core values of respect, confidence, conviction, dedication, charity, and spirituality." By a weird coincidence, there's a museum named "Frazier" 2 blocks away: The Frazier History Museum features military memorabilia from all over the world. I cannot confirm that either museum is run by someone whose title is "Foreman."

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier would feud, make up, feud, make up, over and over again. By the time Frazier died in 2011, they must have been at peace, because Ali attended his funeral, and nobody objected to his presence.

In 2001, Will Smith starred in the film Ali. After the 9/11 attacks later that year, more attention was focused on Muslims in America, and on Islam by Americans, than ever before, even during Ali's most controversial moments. A TV special, airing on all networks, to raise money for relief, featured some of the biggest performers in the world: Singers singing songs of peace and tolerance, actors reciting words of hope and brotherhood. Smith and Ali both spoke. Ali's hands shook throughout, and he had a lot of trouble speaking, but his message was clear: Violence, even in the name of his own religion, was wrong.

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Muhammad Ali died yesterday, at a hospital in Phoenix, from respiratory issues brought on by the effects of Parkinson's disease. He was 74.

As the great Los Angeles sportswriter Jim Murray said when Casey Stengel died, "Well, God is certainly getting an earful tonight."

The reaction to the man's death has been as immense as his life:

George Foreman: "A part of me slipped away. The greatest piece."

Lennox Lewis: "A giant among men, Ali displayed a greatness in talent, courage and conviction, that most of us will EVER be able to truly comprehend. (I'm presuming he meant "NEVER.")

Manny Pacquiao: "He was one of my inspirations. His accomplishments, we will never forget."

Boxing promoter Don King: "People who didn't like him had to respect him."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball legend, who also adopted an Arabic name upon converting to Islam (he had been Lew Alcindor): "To the African-American community, he was a black man who faced overwhelming bigotry the way he faced every opponent in the ring: Fearlessly."

Pelé, soccer icon, one of the few people alive who could match Ali for fame: "The sporting universe has just suffered a big loss. Muhammad Ali was my friend, my idol, my hero. We spent many moments together and always kept a good connection throughout the years. The sadness is overwhelming. I wish him peace with God. And I send love and strength to his family."

Reggie Jackson: "The Greatest, a Giant that represented all our world, a true leader for all mankind, Every being, culture, color, creed, a gift from God for all... Proof He puts Angels among us. I was lucky to be called 'friend.'" (Reggie made his major league debut 6 weeks after Ali was stripped of the title, and won his last World Championship in his sport 5 weeks after Ali did the same. And there's no way Reggie would have been as celebrated without Ali's stand. Certainly, without that stand, the criticism Reggie faced would have been worse.)

Jerry Izenberg of The Star-Ledger, the greatest of all New Jersey sportswriters: "With Muhammad Ali, it was always the people. It didn't matter whether they were rich or poor, black or white, celebrity-famous, blue-collar weary or welfare poor. It didn't matter what language they spoke, what God they worshiped, what gender they were... His was a bond forged with a constituency that didn't have to meet him to know him, a constituency that transcended all economic, racial, ethnic and political barriers. With his passing, they lost a hero. With his passing, I lost a friend." 

Moonwalking astronaut Buzz Aldrin: "I first met Muhammad Ali when we rode in the Rose Parade together in 1988. The world has lost The Greatest!"

Oprah Winfrey, whose rise to fame would have been inconceivable as soon as it happened without him: "The world has lost a Legend and real Champion."

Whoever writes the Twitter feed for DC Comics: "Today we lost a true superhero. You will be missed, Muhammad Ali."

President Barack Obama: "He shook up the world, and the world's better for it. Rest in peace, Champ."

It is safe to say that, if Muhammad Ali hadn't done what he did outside the ring, it might have taken another generation before a black person could be elected President. Obama has a very different personality, but he knew he could take all the crap he's taken, because Ali had taken similar crap -- and Obama isn't even a Muslim.
Bill and Hillary Clinton, in a joint statement: "Hillary and I are saddened by the passing of Muhammad Ali. From the day he claimed the Olympic gold medal in 1960, boxing fans across the world knew they were seeing a blend of beauty and grace, speed and strength that may never be matched again. We watched him grow from the brash self-confidence of youth and success into a manhood full of religious and political convictions that led him to make tough choices and live with the consequences. Along the way we saw him courageous in the ring, inspiring to the young, compassionate to those in need, and strong and good-humored in bearing the burden of his own health challenges."

Donald Trump: "Muhammad Ali is dead at 74! A truly great champion and a wonderful guy. He will be missed by all."

Really? After all the things you've said about Muslims and nonwhites?

Tom Fletcher, writer and former boxer: "Don't just those running for office by the eloquence of their tributes to Ali, but how they would treat a 20 year old version of him now."

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Ali once claimed he was going to save boxing: "If not for me, boxing would be dead."

In the wake of his death, people are throwing around the phrase he used during his "exile": "The People's Champion."

Who is the Heavyweight Champion of the World today? Because of the split among the governing bodies, I didn't know. I had to look it up:

* World Boxing Council (WBC): Deontay Wilder, a 30-year-old Alabamian, known as the Bronze Bomber, 36-0, all but 1 of those wins by knockout.

* World Boxing Association (WBA): Ruslan Chagaev, a 37-year-old Uzbek, 34 wins (21 by knockout), 2 losses, 1 draw, 1 no-contest (reinstated as WBA Champion after losing the title when the man who beat him failed a drug test).

* International Boxing Federation (IBF): Anthony Joshua, a 26-year-old Englishman of Nigerian descent, 2012 Olympic Gold Medalist, 16 professional fights, all knockout wins.

* World Boxing Organization (WBO): Tyson Fury, a 27-year-old Englishman, 25 fights, all wins, 18 by knockout.

If you're wondering what happened to the giant Ukrainian Klitschko brothers, Wladimir was beaten by Fury last November, and Vitali retired from boxing in 2012, giving up the WBC title, and has been elected Mayor of Kiev.

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I have a newborn niece, named Mackenzie. She has older sisters, twins, Ashley and Rachel, who will soon be 9 years old. Ashley and Rachel know the name of Muhammad Ali, but they can't possibly know what he meant to so many people. It's up to grownups like me to tell them just how important he was.

Someday, I will tell Mackenzie that the planet Earth has existed for over 4 billion years, and that, for 11 days, she lived on it at the same time as Muhammad Ali.

It was skill that made him the greatest boxer of his time, perhaps of all time. But it was circumstances, and the way he handled those circumstances that made him "The Greatest of All Time."
Because of those circumstances, there will never be another person like him. There was only one Muhammad Ali.