Who'd a thunk it, but selling books is even harder than writing them. No wonder the predilection toward fire-arms for writers; the author photo on the back cover of my book may be more prophetic than I knew when I submitted it to my graphic designer. As May wraps up, I can count the number of print editions that have flown off the print-on-demand shelves with one hand. C'mon, you know you want to help make me count with two hands, right?

A Rose by Any Other Name

An Alphabet of Tales About a Man & a Woman

Authored by Brian Mazo
"A Rose By Any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales about a Man and a Woman" is a collection of twenty-six snap-shot short stories, each about a moment between two people at a crossroads. From New York to Los Angeles, from Black Rock City, Burning Man and back to Brooklyn, the tales give us a voyeur's view to sweet first kisses all the way to the bitter final ones:

A man in the midst of an ugly break-up rips out the last page of each of his lover's book collection and then wishes he could change their ending ("Last Paige"). 

A flower-bearing man, who hates taking taxis, has the duration of a ride to win over his cabdriver and her alluring smile ("Hail Mary"). 

A piece of jewelry solves a mystery and leads to a twisted tryst ("The Cross of Lorraine"). 

An unexpected, second chance at love and happiness amongst Senior Citizens in Florida is sparked by a hurricane and the ability to drive at night ("Mustang Sally").

Also included: a tale of breakups and breakdowns ("Nina, the Pinto & the Santa Ana Winds"), fortunate mistaken identity ("A Rose by Any Name"), one man's obsession with his bartender ("Fiona, the Irish Girl"), sex during a torrential downpour ("Hannah & the Hitchhiker), jealousy ("Charlotte's Web)", deceit, ("Victoria's Secret") and one woman's first foray into nude modeling ("Ursula, Undressed").

You can still read about a fourth of the book free of charge, here: http://www.wattpad.com/user/BrianMazo

And you can read reviews, purchase the Kindle version, or even a reduced price print edition copy via Amazon, by clicking here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SABVQC/ref=tag_dpp_yt_edpp_rt

Meanwhile I've been spending most of the Memorial Day Weekend at such an appropriate place, the VA hospital.

Enjoy your grilling...

Cheers,
Brian

WHY WE MISS BRETT GARDNER MORE THAN YOU THINK

If you asked Nolan Ryan – both as a pitcher and as president of the Rangers – he would most likely say it’s a BS-number to look at, but to just about everyone else around the game of baseball these days, pitch count has become something like the National debt. As Yankee fans we need look no further than the ever-present YES scoreboard box. This, in the minds of the television brass, is where the most pertinent data is displayed on the screen. Back in the day, this just provided the score. Later, the count and the outs were added; then the runners on base and the speed of the last pitch: clearly the information we have deemed crucial.

But these days, the YES box always has the pitch count; the same information is now displayed prominently at most ballparks’ scoreboards. And the adherence to this number has become something of a “cover your ass” statistic for most managers and pitching coaches everywhere. If a reporter asks why a starter was taken out despite how well he was pitching, the reply these days is more often than not something along the lines of, “Well, he was over one-hundred pitches, so…” The same works for leaving a guy in too long: “He was only at eighty-seven pitches, so…”

And this is an area that the Yankee line-up has exploited for many seasons. Forget about adherence to all the tenets of “Moneyball,” but seeing a load of pitches is, in my estimation, about as crucial a tactic a line-up can take against just about any other team’s rotation. If there is a weak underbelly to any staff, it’s those guys who are called in early. Not the starter with good stuff, not the set-up guys or closers, but if you’re going to make traction and score “put away” runs, your best bet is nearly always going to be against those pitchers who come in from the third to the sixth.

Obviously, the season ending injuries to the seemingly indispensible Mariano Rivera and the disappointment of having to wait ‘til next year on Michael Pineda and Joba Chamberlain have taken their toll; hopefully Robertson will be back soon. But I don’t feel like I am going out on a limb when I say the loss of Brett Gardner has possibly been more disadvantageous to the team on a whole than any other.  A team is a puzzle and the loss of certain pieces can have something of a “domino effect.”

The numbers bear this out. In 2010, Brett Gardner led all of the American League by seeing an average of 4.61 pitches per AB. That season, the Yankees had four guys in the regular starting line-up in the top twenty-five in pitches seen: Gardy, Granderson, Swisher and Texeira seeing an average of over four pitches per AB. In 2011, the Yankee line-up was even more impressive as those same regulars comprised four of the top eleven spots in the AL in pitches seen per AB with Curtis Granderson leading the way with 4.44.

But in looking at the qualifying batters for this season, only Curtis Granderson (at number six with a 4.26 pitchers per AB) ranks in the top twenty five in the AL. Swisher, in his contract year and seemingly trying to impress with power over his batting eye, still has a representative 4.02, but his walks are down significantly. I had to look way down the list to find Tex at 53^rd (3.76) and A-Rod at 55^th (3.74). I then went to check on the guys who have been “replacing” Brett Gardner in the line-up, but guess what? I couldn’t find the names of Nunez, Jones, Nix or Ibanez anywhere on the list of tops in the statistic of pitches seen per AB although the ESPN list “only” went down eighty four spots.

Yes, the Yankees have started to hit more like the Bronx Bombers over the last few games, but I don’t think the line-up – and by extension, the whole jigsaw puzzle of a team – will start performing to heightened expectations until that little spark-plug of a pesky number nine hitter, Brett Gardner, is back playing every game, seeing so many pitches that it helps his teammates get into the other team’s bullpen early and driving the engine that has made this Yankee line-up fire on all cylinders.

Injuries are part of the game and it would be easy to blame the season ending ones that have put first Michael Pineda (young-stud starting pitcher) and Mariano Rivera (closer supreme) on the shelf for the 2012 season. But as the Yankee season has just slogged and stumbled across the quarter-done mark, to my eyes, it's the injury to speedy left-fielder, Brett Gardner, that may be having the most impact at present.

Right now, just about everything is failing. The pitchers expected to make up for the anemic offense -- an offense that lives up to that word: the Yanks are hitting less than a buck with RISP for a week or so now -- the bullpen, now also minus David Robertson, can't pick up the slack especially when counted to throw some many "keep the team in the game" innings.

For awhile I had been saying that as soon as the team got Nick Swisher (since returned from the DL) and Gardy back in the lineup, things would pick up. And yes, Swish is back, but he's not the same hitter he has been for the Yankees the last three seasons. Swisher's in the walk year of his contract and it seems like he is re-inventing himself to a degree as more of an RBI guy than the patient hitter who would take a slew of pitches and the accompanying walks and increased OBP.

I am not a stats/numbers guy so I am not going to look this up, but take my word for it when I say that the extended absence of Gardner and the change in Swisher has affected the entire team dubiously. These two guys take so many pitches that they not only let their teammates see them as well, the wear down starting pitchers which helps the entire lineup get into the other team's bullpen more quickly. This directly leads to more runs scored, alleviating the pressure on the starters to be perfect and, in turn, permitting the relievers to not be over-taxed, making them more effective when they are called in to the job.

Yes, the Yanks are in last place right now and have played themselves there. But, it is also still early in the season and the AL-East is pretty bunched up as every team is at least at .500 with 40+ games played. The Yanks have a nice stretch upcoming versus teams playing under the average line which will help, but mark my words: when Gardner returns and when Swish goes back to Kevin "Cage Rat" Long, their highly esteemed batting coach to ask, "WTF?" who in turn will get the excitable right-fielder going things could pick up in the Bronx.

They had better...

Cheers,
Brian

ps-- The traffic has slowed on the site(s) where you can get more info/buy my new book, "A Rose by Any Other Name" so there's no excuse now, is there? If you would like to read about a fourth of the tales that comprise the book, click here: http://www.wattpad.com/user/BrianMazo

Hey y'all: sorry for the lapse in posting; my laptop wound up in the shop and the back-up would work for about 2 minutes everyone 13 hours...

Also meant I didn't get to see the Yankees play for much of the week which, even though they're losing, was a personal hardship; caught the last couple hours of Saturday's loss against the Reds w/DTA, but that was that...

This is the scribbled together blog post for BBD yesterday; it's as timely now as then; maybe not so much.

"Preaching to the Converted"

"Yeah, yeah," they'll bitch in Boston. "Bought another pennant," they'll lament in Los Angeles. And everywhere Yankee fans will take a long moment from celebrating number twenty eight to have to have that same old, it's exhausted  argument; this argument is so old and musty it should be hanging in a museum. Admittedly, it was valid in the late 1970s when George M. Steinbrenner bought the languishing team from CBS and took advantage of the first wave of free agency and imported Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter who helped the Yanks return to their proper place as World Champions.

But those teams were built around farm-raised stars like Thurman Munson and Ron Guidry, aided and abetted by players "stolen" in trades such as Sparky Lyle, Lou Pinella, Chris Chambliss, Willie Randolph and Graig Nettles. And this was just as true in regards to the champion teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Let's never forget that the "Core Four" of Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Derek Jeter were not purchased via the auction block.

Now, this is a New York Yankees blog and to a great extent I am preaching to the converted, but one thing should be clear: payroll does not equate success on the field. Seriously-- we don't even have to look outside our own division to see crystal clear evidence of that. The Tampa Bay Rays have figured out a way to win and to succeed with payrolls that would leave the Yanks about twenty players short a roster after paying A-Rod, Tex, CC and Jeter. But for all their success, their fans still stay away in droves. Perhaps a new ballpark will help, but I only need to look at all the "help" that beautiful, new Target Field has done for the suddenly hapless Twinkies.

But let's stay in the AL-East for a while longer: perhaps you've heard but the Boston Red Sox (#3 in team payroll) are in last place and the Philadelphia Phillies (#2 in team payroll) are also in last place. In case you were wondering, the Blow-sox were also third in team payroll last season and we know how well all that $161M spent worked out for the Nation.

And yes, it is nearly the end of May and the Baltimore Orioles are in first place, but I'll bet you my Robinson Cano rookie card that the wheels will fall off that cart. The O's haven't even played .500 baseball for fourteen seasons while spending over a billion dollars of Peter Angelos' money in futility. Clearly: money doesn't buy happiness when it comes to baseball and yet, we Yankee fans tend to be happy more than anyone else.

Things are different in the Bronx. The Yankees can never take a season or two off from competing and call it a "re-building" year; we leave that kind of organizational plan to teams in other cities, like the Mets. Yes, the team in Queens has the same record as the Yankees, but don't make me play my Cano rookie card again...

Of course the New York Yankees' payroll is going to be higher than that of anyone else. Do you ever hear about a player's agent using the Kansas  City Royals to drive up the price of a free agent? Now, I'm not saying the Yankees are guilt-free on some of the spending. As Yankee fans we still get angry when we feel like we're being ripped off; like it was our own money going into Carl Pavano's pockets for doing NOTHING! But it was Tom Hicks in Texas and not Mr. Steinbrenner who initially gave A-Rod his exorbitant deal. And while the back-ends of his and Tex's deals will sting, the Yanks can afford to absorb such things. Time will tell how that will work out for the teams holding the big paper on Pujols, Fielder and Werth: case, case and point.

Baseball more than other sport seems designed to elicit discussion (outside of New York City this is commonly referred to as "argument") -- it's part and parcel to the enjoyment. I love talkin' baseball; I'll often know nearly as much about your team as you fans of "other" teams do, but all that these non-Yankee fans have in their argument arsenal is the tired, old yada yada yada of "buying the pennant." Very much like having to walk about from a conversation about music with someone who claims they love the Dave Matthews Band, I'll just turn my back and walk away when the conversation is nothing but payroll.

Major League baseball is a business and if there was a more obvious indicator of this or if you don't believe this to be true I have two words for you: revenue sharing. This is how I personally have taken to ending these not-really-about-baseball arguments. I remind the other so-called baseball fan that due the Yankees higher payroll (after again reminding them of what they already know: EVERYTHING is more expensive in New York City; you want a discount, move to Pittsburgh) we - The Yankees - put money in their team's coffers and what does ownership do with it? You can nearly hear the crickets chirping in the distance as I wait for an intelligible reply.

I will then fill in that uncomfortable silence by asking that White Sox fan a question: what would you want your team's ownership to do with all that money coming in? Yes, the Yankees have the great television deal and lead the Universe in marketing their brand, but as a baseball fan what could possibly be better than spending that money in an effort to put the best possible team on the field? That's when I look that other baseball fan in the eye and sincerely inquire as to how else they would want their team to spend the money? The light goes out in their eyes, the air goes out of their argument. They sputter and will repeat their tired, old complaints about the Evil Empire.

So, Yankee fans, how do you respond to the Yankee haters in your baseball world?

Thanks
B

I got to feel like a restaurant in taking yesterday off from this here blog, but didn't want to serve you an 2-day old oysters. Andy Pettitte wasn't bad seafood making his first start on Sunday since the end of the 2010 season  and he wasn't chopped liver either, but he did lose to the Mariners, who can't hit a lick. Pettitte should have been comfortable facing what amounts to not much more than a AAA lineup for Seattle and Andy threw three hitless innings to make us think for a moment that this was 1999, but he got in trouble with some walks and those wound up being followed by a couple 2-run homers and Pettitte also took his first loss since 2010.

Ok, apparently I tweaked something in the important right writing wrist and this blog is hurting me more than it's hurting you.

But I bet if you went and picked up a copy of "Rose" - my book (in case you're new or just stumbled across this site) - that may make my wrist feel better and I'll write another one of these some time this week.

Yeah, body telling me to back away from the computer. If someone want to finish this up for me-- go for it...

Thanks
B.

Lou Gehrig’s Disease: May is National ALS Awareness Month

Lou Gehrig’s Disease: May is National ALS Awareness Month

LOU GEHRIG’S DISEASE: May is National ALS Awareness Month

It’s probably the most famous speech a Major League Baseball player has ever delivered despite over seventy years of history been then and now. Delivered on the 4^th of July from behind home plate at a sold-out Yankee Stadium, Lou “Iron Horse” Gehrig’s words still ring out strong and lasting; we know how they go:

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans."

- Lou Gehrig at Yankee Stadium, July 4, 1939

May is National Awareness Month for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or, more commonly, “Lou Gehrig’s disease,” named for the Yankee Hall of Fame firstbaseman who died, at the way too young age of thirty-seven, a short five months after delivering his speech to nary a dry a eye in the entire Stadium.  So much time has passed since then: the Yankees now seek championships across the street and scientists and researchers still seek a cure for this incredibly heinous disease.

For the last handful of years, MLB and especially the New York Yankees have been involved in outreach and fund-raising programs toward the goals of both awareness and the hopeful cure of this highly degenerative disease.  From the ALS Association (www.alsa.org) webpage: “(ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.”

Last November, former Yankee manager Joe Torre was honored by the New York chapter of the ALSA at a dinner that helped raise over three-quarters of a million dollars toward research. But Lou Gehrig is not the only famous Yankee felled by this horrible affliction. Jim “Catfish” Hunter, a big part of the great Yankee teams of the late 1970s, died in 1999 from Lou Gehrig’s disease as well. Catfish has his own chapter on the ALS site (www.CatfishChapter.org) where the motto is: “Leading the fight to treat and cure ALS.”

Yes, today is Mother’s Day and while ALS is a disease that more often than not affects men, let’s think about Dad today and let’s think about Mr. Gehrig and his speech while we’re at it. I would like to think that when Lou was telling the Stadium and the world that he considered himself “the luckiest man on this face of this Earth” he didn’t quite know what was in store for him; Catfish Hunter surely did. Right now, I am watching a dear friend live with this disease with much of the same dignity and strength that Gehrig represented on that Independence Day in 1939. The world would indeed be a better place if we could be free of this truly horrible, deadly affliction. Take a moment today to be thankful for your health and that of your family and if you have the desire and means to give to one of the ALSA chapters, please do so. Thank you.

Brian