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Yankees Take Game One Of The Series

Published

12 years ago

June 14, 2014

Oakland, CA – It just wasn’t their night. It took one inning to set the tone and from there the New York Yankees never looked back. Sonny Gray who usually has a stellar outing, yielded three runs in the first frame. That was all the momentum the Yankees needed to shutout the A’s 7-0.

“Sometimes it goes that way,” said Oakland’s manager Bob Melvin. “You’ll get hits in bunches and everybody’s hot, and then other times, it cools off as a club. We’ve been in a little bit of a funk for maybe a week or so.”

New York got off to a good start in the first when the first three batters knocked singles left and right. Jacoby Ellsbury’s RBI single scored in the first run while Brian McCann’s sacrifice fly extended the Yankees lead 2-0. Sonny Gray was able to get out of the jam by forcing the next two batters to ground out to end the inning.

Gray got himself into another jam in the second. He struck out the first batter to start the inning but Andy Parrino’s error at second base allowed Brain Roberts to be safe at first instead of being the second out of the frame. Brett Gardner’s RBI single made it a 3-0 game.

“They put the ball in play early, and I left a few balls up, and they were able to take advantage of it,” Gray said. “They were aggressive and once we were able to start making pitches down in the zone, we got them out. It was just a little too late.”

Gray escaped the second with just one run scored but he got up to 49 pitches. He forced Mark Teixeira to fly out to left field stranding three runners after Gray loaded the bases twice in the inning. It looked like the bullpen was going to be called upon but things quieted down once the righty got out of the inning without too much damage being done.

David Phelps retired the first ten batters he faced and got plenty offensive support from New York. He snapped a four-game losing streak, which was the longest losing streak of his career. Phelps held the A’s scoreless through 6 2/3 innings. He allowed two hits, three walks and four strikeouts.

“It’s definitely one of the best starts of my career,” said Phelps. “To come in here against a team that’s first in its division with one of the best records in baseball. My biggest thing is going out and trying to give us a chance to win every time out.”

Phelps walked John Jaso in the fourth but Oakland failed to score in a run. Derek Norris broke up Phelps “no-no” in the fifth with a single to left field. Unfortunately, the A’s mustered only two hits against Phelps and couldn’t get a baserunner past second all night. It certainly isn’t the same team that has dominated with their power-hitting. Yet they still lead the American Lead with the best record.

“For as well as [Phelps] pitched, he threw a lot of balls, which usually we take advantage of that,” Brandon Moss said. “But any time when we would get the pitch count up, we always seemed to have two strikes. We’d get a guy on and just couldn’t get anything going.”

Quite a turnaround for Gray who had pitched four straight scoreless innings, with seven strikeouts. He tossed six innings, allowed three runs and one walk. The bullpen came in and yielded another run to the Yankees in the eighth. Then Jeff Francis surrendered two more runs when Roberts hit a RBI single to right field and Ichiro Suzuki scored on an error at home plate by the catcher.

After Francis struck out Ellsbury to leadoff the eighth, New York opened up their offense. They took a 7-0 lead after Francis surrendered four runs, allowing five singles in the inning. Oakland’s luck didn’t fare on the infamous Friday the 13th as three of their top hitters went 0-for-4 for the night not getting one hit.

“I guess they say hitting is contagious,” Moss said. “A few of us are now struggling a little bit right now.”

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.