twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

The New York Yankees – The Batters in September and October (2016)

Posted on October 11, 2016 by twilightdawning

The New York Yankees surprised us all by how long they stayed in contention for the second wild card before slipping away in the final week or so of the regular season. However, in reality they didn’t really maintain the momentum that they had worked up in August and the team both in terms of their batting and pitching struggled over the last few hurdles and the much vaunted Baby Bombers began to look a little more ordinary after the initial excitement around the call-ups had settled down…

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees – The Pitchers in August (2016)

Posted on September 7, 2016 by twilightdawning

The Yankees had more outgoing pitchers than batters in the trade deadline clear out but there were less new faces on the pitching staff than there were batters with starters, Luis Cessa and Chad Green who had been around on and off since the beginning of year suddenly thrust into the limelight. Let’s see who over-achieved and who under-achieved…

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees – The Batters in August (2016)

Posted on September 4, 2016 by twilightdawning

I would be the first to admit that I didn’t expect to see the Yankees have their best month of the season in August. With the departure of Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran it seemed so unlikely. Just as unlikely as Ronald Torreyes leading the team in batting average. Who could guess?

Continue reading →

“Having been praised for bluntness, (he) doth affect a saucy roughness”

Posted on September 1, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: King Lear by William Shakespeare

Who: Royal Shakespeare Company

Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK

In the recent Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) presentation of Hamlet, a classroom scene is created at the beginning at which the title of the play is spoken to announce young Hamlet’s graduation and then the scene is cleared and the play proper begins. I think it was meant to be clever but really it served no purpose. At the beginning of this performance of Lear a group of maybe 10 actors take the stage shrouded in something like lepers’ attire or flimsy beggar garb as shelter against the cold night. When the actors enter for the first scene proper they leave hastily too – shooed away. But this time the importance of this scene is not lost on the rest of the production. Rather, it adds. And like most everything here, it is solid and meaningful.

Solid.

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees – The Pitchers in July (2016)

Posted on August 14, 2016 by twilightdawning

If the Yankees made some radical changes to their batting line up in July with the departure of Carlos Beltran that was nothing to the way that they changed their pitching staff around.

Let’s recap… At the end of last year, the Yankees signed Aroldis Chapman for 4 minor league prospects including Caleb Cotham who had seen some action in the Majors in 2015. Now, Cotham has hardly set the world alight since joining the Cincinnati Reds (0-3, 7.40 ERA) but even so Chapman was a controversial signing. He was being investigated under the Major Leagues’ domestic violence ruling, was likely to be suspended and anyway, he was a closer – and the Yankees had one of the finest closers in all baseball, in 2015, in Andrew Miller.

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees – The Batters in July (2016)

Posted on August 13, 2016 by twilightdawning

When I was writing my coverage of the New York Yankees in Spring Training and April, I mentioned that this team looked like it could be an echo of the team that represented the Bronx Bombers in 1989.

(see for example my article “And on the Eighth day the Yankees did nothing” https://twilightdawning.com/2016/03/04/the-new-york-yankees-off-season-update-january-february-2016-and-on-the-eighth-day-the-yankees-did-nothing/ )

Little did I realise how much…

Continue reading →

Straight Ahead!

Posted on August 5, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: Bob James Quartet

When: 1-3 August 2016

Where: Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London

“pop jazz”

“smooth jazz”

Whenever you hear mention of Bob James one of the above will inevitably be mentioned. But when you come to see a Bob James show like this series of dates at Ronnie Scott’s, there is little in sight or sound that would fit that description. Sure, Mr James is keen to come up with carefully arranged material but that was never a crime and the solos and improvisation are as adventurous if not as radical as much you will hear in modern jazz. So why does Mr James have such a rough ride from some reviewers who have filed him under “bland” forty years ago and left him there?

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees – The Pitchers in June (2016)

Posted on July 19, 2016 by twilightdawning

In June, some of the pitchers that the Yankees felt they could rely upon started to creak. Meanwhile, some of those who looked like they weren’t going to perform began to improve. Rollercoaster. The team ERA during June increased from 3.75 in May to just below 5. No point in your batters improving if this is going to happen!

Continue reading →

Ahead …by some distance

Posted on July 7, 2016 by twilightdawning

Who: Steps Ahead

What: Reunion tour 2016

When: July 4th, 2016

Where: Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London

Hey, kill me, but I’m one of those irritating fools that likes to take a few photos at a concert but one of the downsides of Ronnie Scott’s is that they have an absolutely no snapshots rule. Now I wouldn’t want to be snapping away on a smart phone or with something that flashes in the artists’ eyes but a few memories enhances the experience for me.

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees – The Batters in June (2016)

Posted on July 6, 2016 by twilightdawning

The Yankees bats finally began to break out in June but their win/loss record on the month wasn’t much different from how it had been in May. We’ll see to what degree the pitchers were responsible for that in our next article. In the meantime let’s survey the batters and see who was responsible for a month that saw them surge to a .278 BA on the month against May’s .232 and .424 SLG against the previous month’s .385.

Continue reading →