Yanks rock Hard Rock at new Stadium

NEW YORK -- The first pitch in the new Yankee Stadium won't be thrown until Friday night, but that didn't stop the place from rocking Thursday morning.

Prior to the Yankees' first workout in their new cathedral, the team officially opened the Hard Rock Cafe Yankee Stadium, with the grandiose style that both name brands are famous for.

Sports and music icons strolled down the blue carpet in the Great Hall, with Yankees legend Bernie Williams joined by rock legends Ace Frehley of Kiss, Scott Ian and Frank Bello of Anthrax, Anton Fig of The Late Show Band and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run DMC.

In lieu of a traditional ribbon cutting ceremony, the rock stars, Seminole tribe members and Yankees representatives, including Hal Steinbrenner, smashed 27 guitars, each one representing a championship the franchise has won, and an extra one for the title they seek this season.

"It's amazing. It's beautiful. I'm just thrilled that they invited me," the Bronx-bred Frehley said of the stadium. "To help them open the Hard Rock Cafe, especially with the team I grew up with, is just great."

Jim Allen, president and CEO of Seminole Hard Rock Entertainment, said, "We are thrilled to partner with the New York Yankees and to be part of Yankee Stadium. Hard Rock Cafe Yankee Stadium will bring two iconic brands, in sports and music, together at this world-class venue."

Following the controlled mayhem, Williams took the stage with children from the Bronx-based Renaissance EMS, which received Hard Rock guitars at the Cafe ground-breaking last spring. The Hard Rock Cafe also donated $5,000 to Renaissance EMS on Thursday.

Williams, who is releasing his second CD, "Moving Forward," led a rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," playing his custom-made blue and white Fender Telecaster guitar, imprinted with a large Yankees logo and his legendary No. 51, which he then donated to the restaurant to hang on the walls.

"What a day," Williams said. "It feels great. They did a great job with the stadium. It looks wonderful. I'm looking forward to watching a couple games here. I think it's going bring the Bronx even to a higher level, as far as a tourist attraction. A lot of people are going come here. It's certainly going mean a lot to the community."

For an apropos encore, Frehley, Ian, Bello and Fig played the classic song "Back in the New York Groove."

"I've been a Yankees fan forever," Ian said. "I couldn't wait to tell people I was playing Yankee Stadium with Ace Frehley."

The 7,000-square-foot restaurant will be open year-round and is located near right field, on the corner of 161st Street and River Avenue. It holds 210 guests, serving both ticket and non-ticketholders on game days and has a full bar and patio seating.

In addition to the musical souvenirs lining the restaurant, the Hard Rock Cafe Yankee Stadium also has several pictures of New York-area musicians, such as Jay-Z and Jennifer Lopez, sporting Yankees gear. The Yankee Stadium cafe's Rock Shop will offer both music items, as well as collectible Hard Rock Cafe merchandise that will only be available at this location.

"Adding popular and premier dining options such as the Hard Rock Cafe was done with our fans in mind," said Yankees chief operating officer Lonn Trost. "By creating year-round restaurants that provide substantial full- and part-time employment for those in the local community, we are able to make Yankee Stadium a source of pride for Bronx residents."

Before the event, Ian walked through the Great Hall and stood near the foul pole in right field, having pictures taken of him with center field in the background. Clad in a leather jacket, he seemed indifferent to the morning chill and fog that obscured the sky.

As he turned around and arched his neck to see the rest of the stadium, the hardcore guitarist's face resembled that of a 5-year-old child. With a reaction sure to be matched by millions in the coming season, Ian shook his head in amazement, eyes wide and mouth agape, left uttering a single word to himself -- "Wow."

Royals sign Wright to Minors deal

Jamey Wright, a 6-foot-6 right-hander who once had a brief fling with the Royals, is back in the organization after six years.

Kansas City signed Wright, 34, on Tuesday to a Minor League contract and invited him to its Major League camp, which opens Saturday in Surprise, Ariz.

In 2003, Wright started four late-season games for the Royals after spending most of the summer in the Minors. He completed the first two of his four starts, losing at Anaheim, 3-1, and then winning at Detroit, 7-0. He was roughed up in his last two starts, however, and was 1-2 with a 4.26 ERA.

Last season, Wright, after being a starter through most of his career, turned strictly to relieving and worked in 75 games for the Texas Rangers. He finished 8-7 with a 5.12 ERA.

In 13 years with six clubs -- Colorado, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, San Francisco and Texas -- his career record is 79-110 with a 5.06 ERA.

Wright becomes the 12th non-roster pitcher invited to Spring Training, taking a spot vacated by Luke Hudson, who instead will be doing rehabilitation work on his shoulder. The Royals expect a total of 31 pitchers in camp.

Rock icons to play Citizens Bank Park

Citizens Bank Park will play host to Billy Joel and Elton John for a concert on July 30.

Joel and John launched their first tour together in Philadelphia in 1994.

"We are delighted that Billy Joel and Elton John will reunite at Citizens Bank Park," Phillies president David Montgomery said in a statement. "Both Billy and Elton have a special history in Philadelphia and we know this is going to be a memorable night for everyone at what has become a very popular concert venue under the stars at Citizens Bank Park."

Joel and John will play together and individually with their own bands. Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. ET, exclusively through ComcastTIX at 1-800-298-4200, online at ComcastTIX.com, in person at the Wachovia Center box office or at select Acme Markets.

Burns to take 'Baseball' to extra innings

Sixteen years after its memorable ninth inning came to a close, "Baseball" will add its first extra frame.

The Emmy Award-winning nine-"inning" documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns, which debuted on PBS in 1994 and became the most-watched series in the history of public television with more than 48 million viewers, has been updated with another segment entitled "The Tenth Inning" that will be broadcast in the spring of 2010, PBS announced.

"So much has transpired in baseball since we last examined the game and all of its many nuances," said Burns, who co-directed "The Tenth Inning" with his longtime collaborator, Lynn Novick, and co-wrote it with Novick and David McMahon.

"Above all, this new installment furthers a sense of celebration and introspection around one of our nation's greatest institutions, the seemingly simple stick-and-ball game whose infinite variations and possibilities have entranced our ever-changing nation for nearly 200 years."

"The Tenth Inning," a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, D.C., in association with Major League Baseball Productions, will pick up where "Baseball" left off.

The film will show the game from 1993 to 2008 and showcase the great moments on the field, plus some of the hardships baseball has endured during those years, including the '94 strike and the controversies surrounding the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

It will feature interviews with managers Joe Torre and Felipe Alou, players Omar Vizquel and Ichiro Suzuki, fans from across the country and overseas, and a host of the memorable contributors to the original documentary, including broadcaster Bob Costas and writers Roger Angell, Daniel Okrent, Gerald Early and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

"Ken and I are passionate baseball fans ourselves, so it's a project that resonates with us on many levels," Novick added. "We were extremely fortunate to capture a cross section of compelling perspectives on the game and to gain a deeper understanding of what it means in our ever-changing world."

"The Tenth Inning" will coincide with a rebroadcast of the "Baseball" series, which is currently being shown Tuesday nights on the new MLB Network.

"We're thrilled to revisit 'Baseball' with Ken, Lynn and all of the talented folks at Florentine Films," said John Boland, chief content officer of PBS. "For all of the loyal viewers who have clamored over the years for a new chapter of 'Baseball,' we can now officially say it's time to 'play ball' once again."

Stats-crunching finds a new hero

According to Nate Silver, you should keep a serious eye on the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers in 2009.

And if you've been paying any attention to politics in the tumultuous year of 2008, you probably already know that Silver is a guy worth listening to.

Silver is a household name to the growing sect of baseball fans known as sabermetricians. He is one of the managing partners of the statistic-bible called Baseball Prospectus.

He developed the PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm) system of projecting players' future performance, the QERA, a defense-independent pitching statistic, and he writes a well-received Web column urging baseball fans to look beyond conventional statistics that he believes are now far behind the times.

And on Nov. 4, 2008, Silver stunned the political world when his political projection site, FiveThirtyEight.com, nailed Barack Obama's victory over John McCain in the presidential election better than any poll could ever dream of.

FiveThirtyEight.com, named for the total amount of electoral college votes during the presidential election, predicted that Obama would win by 6.1 percentage points (he won by 7.0) and was correct in 49 of the 50 individual states plus the District of Columbia.

Silver says the business of statistical prognostication in baseball and politics aren't as far apart as you might think.

"A lot of what we do at Baseball Prospectus is try and debunk or improve upon conventional wisdom," Silver says. "You see things about clutch hitting or batting average vs. on-base percentage, and we're trying to build a better mousetrap. Discussions in papers or on radio is not as well-informed as to what really goes into winning baseball games.

"And having experienced that for a lot of years, a lot of same conclusions really hold in politics. CNN or Fox or any other networks' discussions are not really that well-informed. Conventional wisdom has people overreacting to randomness in polls. I wanted to create a better-informed discussion."

He did it the same way he calculates baseball stats, through meticulous research of past performance and a few things he learned on the way to Election Day.

"We started out taking average of state polls," Silver says. "But we did one thing differently from other sites. We weighted polls based on which pollsters have been better in the past. All we did at first was take those polls, average the 50 states, and simulate different scenarios.

"But as we got more into it, it got more involved with demographics and started to guess a little more how the polls would go."

Silver has been fascinated by numbers -- and baseball -- for all 30 of his years.

Growing up in Michigan, he fell in love with the Detroit Tigers when they won the 1984 World Series, and he began playing fantasy baseball as a teenager. He graduated with honors in economics from the University of Chicago, and he has been helping revolutionize the statistic-based approach to baseball ever since.

He acknowledges that while many modern baseball minds have embraced new-school work pioneers such as Bill James and the theories that he and his Prospectus colleagues have been working on for decades, many "old-school" baseball minds who rely solely on the reports of scouts in the field have rejected it.

He says it's not quite like that in politics.

"Campaigns are pretty sophisticated," Silver says. "They know how to use data. In the Obama campaign, for example, a quarter of the employees were working on data. It was a quantitatively oriented campaign. And it's not just Democrats. Karl Rove is a big data geek. And that's the one thing winning campaigns share.

"So you don't really have the tension like you've seen in the conflicts between stats and scouts."

But well-run baseball teams have to have a balance, Silver admits.

"You look at the Red Sox or Rays, and they both have scouts and input from stats guys," Silver says. "They're using resources, which is what well-run political campaigns do. The good campaigns understand that to begin with. The poorly run ones don't."

Silver's dead-on projections for the 2008 election have earned him numerous TV appearances, including MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" and "The Rachel Maddow Show," Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" and CNN's "American Morning," plus an upcoming multi-book deal with a major publisher.

But he's not resting on his laurels right now.

"I'm working on the PECOTA forecasts for next year," Silver says. "We have to get our book to the publisher by Christmas."

In the meantime, Silver says he's happy to be back talking baseball.

"One thing that's nice about baseball is that you don't run into people who are necessarily ideological," Silver says.

"And I guess baseball is a little more fun than politics, too."

Dan Plesac joins MLB Network

The roster for MLB Network is getting bigger and stronger, with Major League depth at every position.

On Friday, it was announced that veteran Comcast Sportsnet Chicago studio analyst and former Major League pitcher Dan Plesac has been added to the already-star-studded clubhouse full of on-air talent, which includes Matt Vasgersian, Al Leiter, Harold Reynolds, Joe Magrane, Trenni Kusnierek and Hazel Mae.

Plesac will join the of "MLB Tonight," the live, nightly studio show that will be the signature program of the new network, and "Hot Stove," a live, nightly offseason studio show. All of the on-air personalities will appear on both shows, as well as other programming across MLB Network, which will launch on January 1, 2009, in approximately 50 million homes as the largest network debut in cable history.

"With extensive experience in the Major Leagues and at Comcast SportsNet Chicago to draw upon, Dan's thoughtful analysis will be a great addition to our current roster of on-air talent," said Tony Petitti, President and CEO of MLB Network.

Plesac, who previously served as a studio analyst on Comcast Sportsnet Chicago for the Chicago Cubs live pre-game and post-game shows and made weekly appearances on "Chicago Tribune Live," covering the Cubs and White Sox, will now be a part of the MLB Network exclusively.

While in the Major Leagues, Plesac was a three-time American League All-Star reliever for the Milwaukee Brewers. The durable left-hander posted a 3.64 ERA and collected 158 saves in his 18-year Major League career, and his 1,064 games pitched ranks sixth in baseball history.

He also pitched for the Cubs (1993-94), the Pittsburgh Pirates (1995-96), the Toronto Blue Jays (1997-1999, 2001-2002), the Arizona Diamondbacks (1999-2000) and the Philadelphia Phillies (2002-2003).

From Yankees bat boy to best-seller

Ray Negron's life with the New York Yankees started on the magical day in 1973 when he was caught spray-painting the team's famed "NY" insignia onto the outside wall of Yankee Stadium.

The tagline of that occurrence reads like a can't-miss blockbuster movie: Young graffiti artist with heart of gold and untapped potential apprehended by new team owner George Steinbrenner, hired as bat boy, and eventually becomes team executive and one of the closest confidants of "The Boss."

Negron has had plenty of interest for a book and film on that exact concept, but he's got his own Hollywood dreams that are close to coming true.

Negron's three best-selling children's books, all about the Yankees and all published by HarperCollins, have been combined into one film script, the soon-to-be-in-production "Keeper of the Pinstripes."

Negron's got actor Josh Lucas already on board as well as former Yankees players Bernie Williams and Darryl Strawberry. The movie, which will feature scenes at the recently closed old Yankee Stadium, will be directed by former "One On One" actor Robby Benson and could start filming as early as April.

"I feel the books and the movie are something kids can really relate to and love," says Negron, whose stories weave classic kids' lessons of tolerance, good will and education in with fantastic stories of time travel and rare meetings with long-departed Yankee legends.

"That's the key here. That's the importance of it. I don't want anybody ever to forget the real Yankee Stadium.

"The new one is going to be wonderful for the next generation, but at the same time, the spirits of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Thurman Munson and Bobby Murcer, I don't want them to ever forget that."

Negron hasn't forgotten his Yankee roots.

After being plucked by Steinbrenner and put to work, Negron climbed up the baseball ladder, serving as a loyal batboy in the glory years of the late 1970s. He became a good enough shortstop at Springfield Gardens High, in Queens, N.Y., that he was a second-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates and minor leaguer before landing gigs with the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers as team counselor.

These days, Negron works for the Yankees as a personal consultant to Steinbrenner and also serves as director of community relations for the equipment company Spalding.

Negron's also a member of the Screen Actors Guild, having appeared in numerous television commercials and motion pictures, including "The Cotton Club," which starred Richard Gere.

Gere, a New York resident and Yankees fan Negron has been friends with for 25 years, is set to play the voice of Gehrig in an animated movie project Negron's also working on.

"I took my last tour around Yankee Stadium with Richard," Negron says. "I showed him every nook and cranny of that stadium, and to see him shake and have tears in his eyes as he saw parts of the park, that was a thrill for me. To know that today, he's still talking about that, it's very special. Even at the fantasy camp, he was telling all the campers."

Negron has many stories to tell, too, and he says he started doing it in written form after a tragic event hit the Yankees -- and baseball -- community in 1979.

"I started writing when Thurman Munson died," he says. "It was a way to get over the emotion of what we were all going through. And I've always written throughout the years."

But when Negron was offered a major publishing deal for his Steinbrenner-graffiti story -- which was to be called "The Boss and the Batboy," he rejected it.

"Emotionally I didn't want to do a Steinbrenner book," he says. "But I said, 'Hey, I have a children's book that you might like.' The publisher laughed and said, 'OK, let's check it out.' She read it and loved it and I got a three-book deal."

The third and latest book in the series, "One Last Time: Goodbye to Yankee Stadium," is the one Negron says he's the most proud of. It's also going to be a major focus of the upcoming film.

"It's all the spirits coming back for one last game," Negron says.

And don't think for a minute that Steinbrenner won't be a big part of the story.

"I'll always be grateful to him," Negron says. "I idolize the guy because of the personal relationship I've had with him. He took me in and I got to know the real person. I have always been grateful for that and have always enjoyed his support. He showed me in his own way how to be a man and how to be strong."

Negron now passes on the same life lessons to his four children and to the many readers of his books, and, if everything goes as planned, he'll have a much bigger audience "some time between Christmas 2009 and Opening Day 2010," as he says.

"It's all a wonderful thrill, no question about it," Negron says. "The fact that I came out with three books, and to have these dreams and share them with the world and hopefully motivate all people into giving it their best shot, that's the key. Not money or anything like that.

"That's how I live my life."