New York Yankees

The Yankees’ winter unofficially began at 10:19 P.M. Monday night. Trailing 6-2, with runners at the corners and one out, a capacity Yankee Stadium crowd was silenced when Derek Jeter grounded into an inning-ending double play.

New York eventually fell to Cleveland 6-4, falling short of getting to the World Series there for the fourth straight year and making it seven years without a championship.  read more »

happened at Yankee Stadium last night, after the Yankees lost to the Indians 6-4 in the fourth game of the American League division series and the fans were filing mournfully out of the stadium?

George Steinbrenner, the Yankees' principal owner, who had tied Torre's future to the outcome of this series, was said to be fuming in his office and left without taking questions, ushered away by his daughter.

 read more »

Though they showed signs of holding the Yankees in check early, asking Indians pitchers Jake Westbrook and Aaron Fultz to keep the Yankees away from the big innings proved to be futile, while the collapse of pitching icon Roger Clemens was rendered irrelevant thanks to the heroics 21-year-old Phil Hughes.

The 8-4 win by the Yankees, which averted a three-game sweep by Cleveland, was typical stuff for a team that scored 968 times this season, roughly six times per gam  read more »

The Yankees saved their skins—and by some accounts, their manager Joe Torre—when they rallied past a two-run deficit and Roger Clemens’ injured hamstring to beat the Cleveland Indians last night at Yankee Stadium 8 to 4.  read more »

With runners at first and second and one out, already leading 1-0, the script must have seemed familiar to the Yankees, who are used to jumping all over pitchers.

But they don’t often face pitchers the caliber of C.C. Sabathia, who struck out Jorge Posada, and induced a weak groundout from Hideki Matsui.

The Yankees have not had a pitcher as effective as Sabathia for quite some time—a period of time, incidentally, that coincides with their postseason drought. And their ability to reach a different result in 2007 will be to overcome two pitchers better than any they possess.  read more »

Despite his illustriously shaggy hair and dirty mouth, sexagenarian Scottish comedian Billy Connolly  read more »

It always seemed like a funny trick to get support for the new Yankee Stadium: build a new Metro North station nearby, not with the Yankees' money, mind you, but with the public's. Unfortunately, the $45 million that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had set aside for the project, which was supposed to start this spring, is not nearly enough.

Try $80 million instead.

All of which, Real Estate Weekly reports in its March 21 issue (available in print only), led Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión to look for another way to pay for it. Wait, how about asking the Yankees to pitch in? No, Mr. Carrión has another idea.

He wants to let a developer build "an extensive mixed-use development" on top of the station in return for paying for the station's construction.

Bidder up!

- Matthew Schuerman

Look, you can see Britney Spears’ former penthouse,” said real-estate agent Adam Modlin,  read more »

As spring training turns serious and the Mets and the Yankees limber their hamstrings in the Land of  read more »

On a recent afternoon, David Boies, 65, and his son Christopher, 38, pulled up chairs for an intervi  read more »

Amid the frustration and heartbreak in the Mets locker room after Game 7 of the National League Cham  read more »

The Speyer family does everything fabulously, and the only reason you don’t hear more about them i  read more »

The Speyer family does everything fabulously, and the only reason you don’t hear more about th  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg came into office vowing to end corporate welfare as we know it. And he did.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg came into office vowing to end corporate welfare as we know it. And he did.  read more »

Hillary Clinton called Representative Eliot Engel on Monday morning to ask him to support her potent  read more »

Sean (Puffy) Combs was on the phone from a yacht in the Bahamas, and he was laughing.    read more »

Sean (Puffy) Combs was on the phone from a yacht in the Bahamas, and he was laughing.  read more »

• The cost of single-family homes in pretty little Westchester has hit a record high. And that's bad news, obviously, because it's inevitably all downhill from here. (And because there's going to be the first year-to-year decrease in sales since the elder Bush administration.) (AP/NY Daily News)
• Jay McInerney is leaving his lady friend's 72nd Street apartment for the Village, but first he's going to hit up "all the Upper East Side restaurants." He couldn't get into Jean-George's favorite Sushi Seki, so he went to Maya (which "has long been one of the best Mexican restaurants in the city.") And yet it made McInerney's tummy hurt. (House and Garden)
• It's (almost) official: The Whitney is ditching Renzo Piano's Madison Avenue expansion plans for the hipster High Line. "Hope springs eternal," says the Upper East Side. (NY Times)
• Boston Baseball Real Estate: The Yankees' Johnny Damon sold his old Red Sox house for over $5 million, but the Mets' Pedro Martinez has been forced to cut his Brookline house down to $1.895. (And poor old Nomar Garciaparra can't unload his Boston waterfront condo.) (WSJ)
• The mysterious Public Authorities Control Board controls New York, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Secrecy is so in right now. (City Limits)
- Max Abelson  read more »
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These days, Rudolph Giuliani is not coy about running for President.  read more »

The New York Times is now carrying official police identification of one of two bodies found at the scene of today's airplane crash as Yankees pitcher Corey Lidle.

CNN had reported:

New York Yankees Manager Joe Torre told CNN that the plane that was a Cirrus SR-20 registered to team pitcher Cory Lidle.

In a somewhat bitter irony, The Times offers "related articles" on the side which include this Tyler Kepner piece about Lidle and his plane:

He is Cory Lidle, who has been a major league pitcher for nine years and a pilot for seven months. He earned his pilot's license last off-season and bought a four-seat airplane for $187,000. It is a Cirrus SR20, built in 2002, with fewer than 400 hours in the air.  read more »

A player-pilot is still a sensitive topic for the Yankees, whose captain, Thurman Munson, was killed in the crash of a plane he was flying in 1979. Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, said his plane was safe.

"The whole plane has a parachute on it," Lidle said. "Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you're up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the whole plane goes down slowly."

- Tom McGeveran

From ESPN:

New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was the pilot of a small airplane that crashed into a 50-story condominium in Manhattan, and Lidle is one of two confirmed dead.

UPDATE: A witness tells the Times, Lidle: "was on an incline, accelerating as he passed. Then he hooked around the corner, he hit the north side of the building, and you heard a tremendous explosion."

Ben has more stories here.

And the AP adds:

On Sunday, the day after the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs, Lidle cleaned out his locker at Yankee Stadium and talked about his interest in flying.

-- Azi Paybarah

By the time Todd Zeile dug in his foot to keep from overrunning second base, 55,695 fans at Shea Sta  read more »

By the time Todd Zeile dug in his foot to keep from overrunning second base, 55,695 fans at Shea Sta  read more »

Michael Bloomberg says he is not running for President in 2008.  read more »

Time Inc. was in trouble.  read more »

Anti-Semite Fulani Fleeces the City    read more »

Anti-Semite Fulani Fleeces the City  read more »

Welcome back, gang!    read more »

Welcome back, gang!  read more »

What baseball analogies best describe the players in this political season (which seems to be ending prematurely)? Jay Gallagher of Gannett News Service solves the mystery!

"Eliot Spitzer is to New York politics what the New York Yankees are to major-league baseball: they're both winning big, but they're taking the fun out of their races."

Hillary Clinton-The Yankees (same as Spitzer)

John Spencer-The Mets

"[T]he Mets are running away with their divisional race. But baseball's National League and the New York's Republican Party are clearly the weaker organizations this year, almost sure to meet an unwelcome fate this fall."

Steve Minarik-Casey Stengel

"[A}s the Mets manager in 1962 when the Amazins won 40 games and lost 120."

Jeanine Pirro-Frank Thomas

"Thomas was the Mets' only respectable hitter in that dreadful year..."

Charlie King-Kansas City Royals Sean Maloney-Tampa Bay Devil Rays

"The Royals and Rays are 35 and a half games and 24 and a half games, respectively, behind in their division races."

No Derek Jeter?  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

New York Gets Smarter  read more »

New York Gets Smarter    read more »

If journalistic activities were sporting events, then surely counterfactual storytelling would be tee-ball: a simulation of the real thing with all the difficulty taken out of it, suitable for hapless children. And counterfactual storytelling about sporting events, of course, only threatens to compound the embarrassment. It leads the way to lame esoterica best suited for lonesome late-night sports radio. (If the "tuck rule" play had been upheld as a fumble, would the Raiders have been a football dynasty? If Jeffrey Maier had had his hands chewed off by ants in his crib, would Mike Mussina have ever gone to the Yankees?) The results are hackwork, space filler, a way of hiding from the realities of the here and now.  read more »

It is hard to say which is worse: to dwell on one's own athletic conquests, basking in the wan glory of an inherently ephemeral success, or to dwell on having been conquered, brooding over events that can never be reversed. Yet we also see the appeal of an approach that combines honest self-criticism with taking the judicious measure of one's foe.

• All-star slugger Bobby Abreu didn't get that $3.9 million apartment at One Beacon Court for nothing. This weekend the Yankees managed to acquire Mr. Abreu from Philadelphia, which finally makes him teammate to Beacon-mate Johnny Damon. Those two will surely be the talk of East 58th. (NY Daily News)
• Governor Pataki has further infuriated the Upper East Side: last week, The Other White George signed a bill into law that will publicize the sales prices of New York co-op apartments for the first time in history. (At long last, has he no shame?) In equally sad news: Louise "The Icon" Sunshine is officially gone from the Sunshine Group. (New York Times)
• How does the city lure prude developers into constructing 24 million square feet of office space at the Hudson Yards? By offering to pay lots of their taxes for nearly two decades. How romantic. (Crain's)
• McCarren Park may house wonderful hipster pool parties (everyone likes 5,000 kids in striped shirts!), but it's also home to four enormous new condo projects. The Times happily announces: 'Welcome to Luxury Condoville.' (New York Times)
• The Second Avenue Deli, which has been closed since the New Year on account of "a rent dispute," will be replaced by a Chase Bank branch. But as everyone knows, one simply cannot get a killer pastrami-on-rye at Chase. Is this some sort of Jewish conspiracy? (NY1)
- Max Abelson  read more »
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Trash Talk  read more »

Trash Talk    read more »

Before last night's Community Board 2, representatives for the proposed Trump International Hotel and Tower (to be located at 246 Spring Street) nervously paced the linoleum halls of Housing Works, at 320 West 13th Street, thumbing at cell phones and BlackBerries.

Unfortunately, Sean Yazbeck, the most recent Apprentice winner--who the Donald has tapped to manage the project--was not in attendance.

As The Real Estate reported yesterday, community activists led by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation are opposing the Trump-led plan to build 45-story condo-hotel in Hudson Square.

At the heart of their opposition is the claim that the newest Trump Tower would violate zoning laws by placing permanent residences in an area zoned for manufacturing.

Last night, GVSHP's Andrew Berman told the gathering of about sixty Village residents that the project is a "Trojan horse" and a "back-door method to sneak in illegal development."

Berman began his self-described "spiel" by asking those in attendance to raise their hands if they opposed the Trump venture. As in a first-grade class obeying its teachers, a roomful of hands shot up.  read more »

Today, the New York Post reports that both the Mets and Yankees are interested in acquiring Philies slugger Bobby Abreu. But would the all-star outfielder move to Manhattan full-time?

Well, in May 2005, The Observer broke the news that Mr. Abreu had purchased a $3.9 million pied-a-terre at One Beacon Court (where Yankee Johny Damon later moved in).

Here's what Mr. Abreu's agent told The Observer at the time:

"Originally, it was for an investment," said agent Edward Greenberg. "He had some real estate that he'd purchased and rented out, and he wanted to buy something in New York."

"[Bobby Abreu] likes New York, and he always thought he'd like to have some place in New York after he stops playing," said Mr. Greenberg.

Hmm...after he stops playing?  read more »

- Michael Calderone

MAMARONECK, N.Y.—Baking in the sun in their parked golf carts, fancy all-access credentials da  read more »

Pataki: Is He for Real?  read more »

MAMARONECK, N.Y.—Baking in the sun in their parked golf carts, fancy all-access credentials dangli  read more »

Pataki: Is He for Real?    read more »

It’s World Cup time, and soccer is coming of age in New York.

Sort of.  read more »

Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest    read more »

Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest  read more »

He Gets It   To the Editor:    read more »

He Gets It To the Editor:  read more »

On a Long Island Rail Road train heading toward Shea Stadium, four Mets fans drank beer out of brown  read more »

HOWARD: I'm a baseball addict. I spend hours building fantasy teams in my head. I sing "Meet the Mets" in my sleep. Rachel, too, has always enjoyed baseball, but casually.

Finding a middle ground involves compromise. For example, I'll need to be updated by a groomsman on the night of our wedding. (Mets vs. Nationals starts 7:10, my wedding starts 7:30.)

Since becoming engaged, I've realized that developing Rachel into a passionate baseball fan might make everyone's life easier. In an effort to familiarize Rachel with our team, the two of us created a chart in the shape of a Shea Stadium. The players (represented by pictures, names, numbers) are positioned on the field on post-it notes. We change the starting pitcher daily.

Now, it's becoming a joy to watch baseball with Rachel because I'm watching with an insightful fan. For example, we braved the cold and wind to see the Mets take the Subway Series from the Yankees. In the eighth inning, down 4-2, the Yankees loaded the bases with nobody out. Derek Jeter hit a sacrifice fly to the right fielder Xavier Nady. With no chance to get the runner at home, Nady's throw to third kept the runner at second base.

As I started to explain she cut me off: "That's huge," said Rachel, already ahead of me, "a fly ball won't tie the game now."

An ex-girlfriend of mine once asked me, "What do you love more, me or baseball?"  read more »

Rachel doesn't even have to ask.