Sunday Morning Links

Here’s some reading material for a quiet Sunday morning before a busy day night of playoff Baseball. Red Sox-Angels play at noon in Fenway, Yanks-Twins starts at 7:00 in Minnesota and Phillies-Rockies starts at 10 PM in Colorado, assuming they don’t have another blizzard.

-Ian O’Connor interviews fan fave Tino Martinez discusses how this Yankee team reminds him of the late 90′s teams he played on. Here’s a sample:

Tino’s teams almost always seized those moment-of-truth nights in the division series and ALCS, games against the A’s, Indians, Rangers, Mariners, whoever.

The Yankee teams of the recent past?

“Those teams probably would’ve folded in the ninth,” Martinez said. “They would’ve packed it in. And it’s been demoralizing to a former player to see other teams celebrating at our expense the last few years, especially when you know how Jeter and Mariano [Rivera] are feeling.

“But this team never quits. It’s reminiscent of what we did.”

-The NY Times has a story with some recently discovered footage of Babe Ruth dating back to 1928, with video link.

-Baseball Intellect asks where Joba’s fastball has gone.

-Rob Neyer asks why Wild Card teams have won more often than their opponents with home field advantage.

-David Golebiewski of Fangraphs examines Nick Swisher’s resurgence in Pinstripes.

-Beyond the Boxscore has a chart looking at each team’s chances facing each other in possible playoff/World Series match ups. Yanks come out on top in every instance.

-Baseball Daily Digest looks at A-Rod’s clutch history on the post season.

-Allan Barra of the Wall Street Journal examines the elusive definition of ‘clutch’ and puts A-Rod’s post season struggles in context of other Yankee greats. I’ll have a full length piece going up later today about A-Rod in the post season discussing both articles.