A Visit To The Evil Empire

Cross off another must from the bucket list. On July 2, we finally got to Yankee Stadium for a game, won by the Yanks 18-7 over the Rangers courtesy of a grand slam and many errors. Former wOes Sidney Ponson started for the Yankees and was chased from the game, behind 7-5. We gave an Os cheer during the anthem, but found ourselves cheering the Yankees, the Giambino, and Hip Hip Jorge in the end (whodathunkit?) This is the final season in the old ballpark but the team promises to move its ghosts over to the new place next door. There are only 38 games to go.



Here's the AP summary for the game, from WaPo:

Giambi, A-Rod power Yankees to win over Rangers

By DAVE SKRETTA,
AP Sports Writer

NEW YORK (AP) Hank Steinbrenner demanded to see more offense, and Jason Giambi and the New York Yankees obliged.

If only it were that easy all the time.

Giambi hit a grand slam and drove in a season-best six runs, Alex Rodriguez added a three-run shot to move another notch up the career home run list, and New York pounded the Texas Rangers 18-7 Wednesday night to avoid a series sweep.

The Yankees had been struggling at the plate, scoring just seven runs and batting .172 in losing three of their last four games, prompting the club's co-chairman to say things were "getting ridiculous."

"We've got to start hitting," Steinbrenner said earlier in the day in Tampa, Fla. "They've got to start waking up."

Consider the Yankees wide awake.

Rodriguez scored four times, the last coming on his line-drive homer to right during the Yankees' season-high nine-run seventh inning. It was Rodriguez's 535th homer, moving him past Jimmie Foxx for 14th on the career list and within one of Yankees Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle.

So did Steinbrenner's edict have anything to do with the scoring outburst?

"I wish," Giambi said. "They could yell at us every day for all I care."

Milton Bradley and Chris Davis each hit two-run homers for the Rangers, who are 0-7 after taking the first two games of a three-game series. Josh Hamilton also drove in a pair of runs.

Edwar Ramirez (2-0) picked up the win in relief for the Yankees, whose bullpen pitched four scoreless innings after the Rangers chased former teammate Sidney Ponson.

Derek Jeter's run-scoring single in the eighth gave every Yankees starter a hit. Seven players in pinstripes drove in runs, including youngster Brett Gardner with his first career hit during New York's big seventh inning.

"All of a sudden their bats just woke up and we had nothing to neutralize them," Rangers manager Ron Washington said.

Giambi sparked New York's offense with one big swing in the third.

Johnny Damon was aboard with a one-out single when second baseman Ian Kinsler botched a fielder's choice grounder by Jeter. A-Rod walked to load the bases, and Giambi drove a 2-1 pitch from Luis Mendoza into the upper deck in right to give the Yankees a 5-3 lead.

It was Giambi's 18th homer of the year and 13th career grand slam, and the big designated hitter rewarded a standing ovation by stepping from the dugout and tipping his helmet.

"The kid just made a little mistake," Giambi said of the hanging sinker. "I'm glad I could come through tonight and pick up the ballclub a little."

Bradley and Davis put the Rangers back ahead in the sixth with their two-run homers, knocking Ponson from the game and giving Texas a 7-6 lead.

Short-lived, as it turned out.

Rangers relievers had given up just nine earned runs over their last 27 1-3 innings coming into the game, but they gave up that many in the seventh inning alone.

Bobby Abreu doubled and the next four batters also reached off reliever Warner Madrigal (0-1), who was making his big league debut. By the time Gardner drove in Robinson Cano, the Yankees had gone back on top 11-7.

"That's what our lineup is capable of," Gardner said. "Tonight we broke it open."

Starting in place of slumping center fielder Melky Cabrera, Gardner swiped second and scored on Damon's base hit. Abreu walked to reach base for the second time in the inning, and A-Rod lined a shot to right that never got much higher than the outfield wall.

Warner wound up with a forgettable debut: one-third of an inning, six runs, five hits and a walk.

"I told him, 'Keep your head up. It couldn't have been much worse,'" fellow Rangers reliever Jamey Wright said. "Looking at that lineup, it should happen every now and then."

Kinsler, who leads the American League in batting, singled and scored in Texas' three-run third to extend his hitting streak to 15 games.

Ponson, the rotund right-hander from Aruba whom the Rangers let go early last month because of off-field problems, gave up seven runs and nine hits in five-plus innings in his second start for New York.

"Well, we came in here and took two of three from New York," Washington said, putting a positive spin on an ugly night for the Rangers. "I don't think when we arrived here anybody gave us a chance to do that."

Notes: Rangers SS Michael Young left the game after the third inning with a mild left groin strain. He's day to day. ... Brandon Boggs started in LF for Texas in place of struggling David Murphy. ... Rangers RHP Scott Feldman will skip a turn in the rotation and start Tuesday against the Angels.

Len Retires

When I started at the Post, Ben Bradlee was still boss but Len Downie ran the daily story meetings in a self-assured manner that was a wonder to behold. He announced plans to step down on Monday; here's a clip of his remarks:

My BlogPotomac Talk

I've got to do something about those "umms." Here's the opening of my talk about blogging, social media and The Washington Post at something called BlogPotomac in Falls Church. "Corporate Blogging Book" author and unsession co-chair Debbie Weil introduced Dan (total time: 8 minutes).

Why Newspapers Are Great: By Bert and Ernie

Ah, the wonder of the newspaper in the good old days:

Good Advice

I found these commandments on a FaceBook group called "Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs)":

+15 Startup Commandments

1. Your idea isn't new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.

2. Stealth startups suck. You're not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

3. If you don't have scaling problems, you're not growing fast enough.

4. If you're successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you're in that position, and hope that you're smart enough to not fall for it.

5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that's really the case, you shouldn't be doing your startup.

6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

9. You don't need business development people. If you're successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you're not spending any effort trying to get them.

10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

11. Starting a company will teach you what it's like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

12. Your startup isn't succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What's it going to be?

13. If you don't pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

15. You're doing a web app, right? This isn't the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor's most polished software application.



+10 More Startup Commandments

1. You will have at least one catastrophe every three months.

2. Outsource effectively, or be effectively outsourced.

3. Do you thrive on stress and ambiguity? You'd better.

4. The best way to get outside funding is to be successful already. Stupid but true. But you, cheapskate, don't need money, right?

5. People will think your idea sucks. They're even probably right. The only way to prove them wrong is to succeed.

6. A startup will require your complete attention and devotion. Thought your first love in High School was clingy? You can't take out a restraining order on your startup.

7. Being an entrepreneur requires a healthy amount of ignorance. Note I did not say stupidity.

8. Your software sucks. So what. Everyone else's does also, and re-architecting is the kiss of death for a startup. Startups are no place for architecture astronauts.

9. You do have a public API, right?

10. Abject Terror. Overwhelming Joy. Monstrous Greed. Embrace and harness these emotions you must.


- Mark Fletcher ( http://www.startupping.com/ )
~Founder of Bloglines.com

The Promise of Everyblock

Former Postie Adrian Holovaty has unveiled his idea of local journalism called "Everyblock." It's not available here yet, which is a good thing --- that means ColumbiaTalk is safe for at least another few months ;)

If he pulls off what he is trying to do, and the searches of public information provide quality feeds, then this is really something to watch -- think the power of a Google search on a local Zip Code level. Here's his introductory blog post explaining what Everyblock is all about.


Introducing EveryBlock

Posted January 23, 2008 by The EveryBlock Team

"What's happening in my neighborhood?"

For a long time, that's been a tough question to answer. In dense, bustling cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco, the number of daily media reports, government proceedings and local Internet conversations is staggering. Every day, a wealth of local information is created — officials inspect restaurants, journalists cover fires and Web users post photographs — but who has time to sort through all of that?

Our mission at EveryBlock is to solve that problem. We aim to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. We're a geographic filter — a "news feed" for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block.

Today we're launching in three American cities: Chicago, New York and San Francisco. On each site, you can type in any address to read local news and public information near you. You'll find three main types of news:

* Civic information — building permits, crimes, restaurant inspections and more. In many cases, this information is already on the Web but is buried in hard-to-find government databases. In other cases, this information has never been posted online, and we've forged relationships with governments to make it available.
* News articles and blog entries — major newspapers, community weeklies, TV and radio news stations, local specialty publications and local blogs. We do the work of classifying articles by geography, so you can easily find the mainstream media coverage near particular locations.
* Fun from across the Web — local photos posted to the Flickr photo-sharing site, user reviews of local businesses on Yelp, missed connections from Craigslist and more. We figure out the relevant places and point you to location-specific items you might not have known about.

We like to toss around the word "news" to describe all of this, and that might surprise you at first. Isn't news what appears on the front page of the New York Times? Isn't news something produced by professional journalists?

Well, it can be — and we include as much of that on EveryBlock as possible. But, in our minds, "news" at the neighborhood or block level means a lot more. On EveryBlock, "Somebody reviewed the new Italian restaurant down the street on Yelp" is news. "Somebody took a photo of that cool house on your block and posted it to Flickr" is news. "The NYPD posted its weekly crime report for your neighborhood" is news. If it's in your neighborhood and it happened recently, it's news on EveryBlock.

Our team of four has worked long and hard for several months to bring you these three sites, and we're excited to unveil them to the world — but they're just the beginning. In the grand 21st Century tradition, our site is a work in progress, and we intend to add data and features rapidly over the coming days, weeks and months. If you have ideas, or find kinks in the system, we hope you'll take a moment to send us feedback at feedback at everyblock.com. Every message goes to all four of us, and we read every one.

In the immediate future, look for about three to four more data types in each city. And we're actively working on obtaining dozens of more data types from city officials. There's a long way to go. Again, we need your help — please do e-mail us with any data-source ideas you might have.

Finally, as we've been working on EveryBlock and accumulating expertise in this area for several months, we've got much more than a single announcement's worth of ideas and writings — so please come back to read this blog (or subscribe to the RSS feed) if you're interested in what we're doing.

We've had a ton of fun clicking around our sites while we've been building them, and we hope you find them useful, fun and serendipitous. Enjoy!

The EveryBlock Team
Chicago, IL