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O's - Yanks no game thread. Oh the horror.

8istheman

By 8istheman
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TonySoprano Hangout Grand Counsel

TonySoprano

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Did NYY banish Ronan Tynan? I've not seen him sing there in a very long time. :confused:
He's with the Red Sox now.
When pressed, however, he admits that life here has become strained: the barrage of angry e-mail messages and letters; the death threats; the surgeon who wrote saying he would let him die on the operating table, if Mr. Tynan were his patient; the prominent chef who steered him away from a table of customers because one of them was a Jewish man who refused to meet the singer.

“It hasn’t driven me out, because I love this city so much, but it has saddened me,” Mr. Tynan said in an interview this week at a friend’s apartment in Manhattan. “I’ve cried and I’ve laughed with New Yorkers, irrespective of creed or whether they’re Jewish or Catholic or Protestant.”

Mr. Tynan grew up hobbling around on heavy leg braces on a Kilkenny farm, became a doctor in Ireland and a successful Paralympic athlete before taking up singing at age 33 and rising to much acclaim.

Since emigrating, Mr. Tynan has become the voice of a certain strain of patriotic New Yorker. His powerful “God Bless America” — he often leads with Irving Berlin’s rarely heard first stanza, which begins “While the storm clouds gather far across the sea, Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free” — has rung out in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Carnegie Hall and Town Hall, and at numerous 9/11 funerals and memorials.

He sang it at a smoldering ground zero for rescuers while volunteering on food lines. He has sung for American troops in Iraq and done many performances for Jewish groups. Most of this work, including for the Yankees, has been done free.

Mr. Tynan, who was part of the group the Irish Tenors, has been a fixture at events for the city’s Fire and Police Departments, and his patrons included Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and Rudolph W. Giuliani.

The comment that led to his excommunication from Yankeedom was a reference to two women who were being shown the vacant apartment next door to his on the East Side. Mr. Tynan said a real estate agent referred to them innocuously as “two Jewish ladies.” Mr. Tynan chatted with them and concluded the “two Jewish ladies” might not enjoy living next to a loud tenor.

An associate of that agent saw Mr. Tynan on Oct. 16 and told him the apartment had been sold, joking, “Don’t worry, they’re not Red Sox fans.”

Mr. Tynan said his reply — “As long as they are not the Jewish ladies” — was misconstrued by a woman accompanying the real estate agent, who later complained to the Yankees.

“I made a comment that was misunderstood,” said Mr. Tynan, who said he was teased and singled out while growing up with heavy braces on his legs because of a congenital condition that would later lead to amputation. “If anyone knows the pain of discrimination, I do.”

Mr. Tynan said he used the term “Jewish ladies” not to disparage their religion, but as a shorthand identification of the people he believed would not enjoy the apartment. (They were not the eventual buyers.)

“The Yankees never reached out, and they never wanted to hear the real story,” said Mr. Tynan, who wore his diamond-studded 2000 World Series ring during the interview. Asked for comment this week, a Yankees spokeswoman, Alice McGillion, said simply, “We wish him all the best.”

Shortly after the remark, Mr. Tynan met with officials from the Anti-Defamation League in Manhattan. He agreed to join its education initiatives, and he sang at its annual dinner.

“It was a stupid comment, which he understands was hurtful,” the league’s national director, Abraham H. Foxman, said Thursday. “He publicly apologized, and he wants to be a soldier in the struggle against bigotry. What else can you ask for?”

source - NY Times, Mar 2010
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epic Major Leaguer Cup of Coffee

epic

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What's with the umpires these days? Why do they all suck?

Matusz's 2-0 pitch was a strike, and the 3-0 pitch was a strike too. He even owes Matusz a pitch after that terrible strike call on Jones.

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