“I’ve been through plenty of ups and downs in my career and the back of my baseball card says it all,” said Teixeira….

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you guys, I had a great May,” Teixeira said in an exasperated, defensive tone. “You have a couple bad games, you don’t worry about it. You put it aside and you go play today. If I had struck out six times (Sunday), you probably could have written an article saying, ‘Man, there’s something wrong with Tex.’ But I swung the bat really well. I didn’t get any hits, but results are going to show up if I keep swinging the bat.”…

Asked about the stark dropoff over the past three weeks, Teixeira quickly dismissed the significance of those numbers.

“You guys can do that all year long – and go ahead,” he told reporters after Sunday’s game. “It’s fun to do, because stats are what’s fun about this game. But as a player that plays 162 games a year, you don’t live and die with every good game or every bad game.

– Mark Feinsand, N.Y. Daily News.

This is a fascinating article. The early edition of the News actually had a front-page inset that boasted special coverage of Teixeira’s slump (which has since been bumped for the Fashion Oscars) and Mike Lupica chimed in with a column of his own.

Here’s the funny thing: The “exasperated, defensive” first baseman is absolutely right. Teixeira’s rate stats are almost all in keeping with his career lines. He is hitting the same amount of line drives as he did last year. The principle difference in his production comes from a .229 batting average in balls in play that’s a full 75 points below his career .304 line.

Mark Teixeira is suffering through a prolonged run of terrible luck. He happened to strike out six times in a game on Saturday, and that’s bad, and the type of thing that prompts multi-page special features about his slump. But his strikeout rate is, again, perfectly in keeping with his career total.

The numbers will normalize. Hits will fall. Mark Teixeira understands this. It’s almost as if that guy knows a thing or two about baseball.

More with Jonathan Mayo:

Our friend Todd Drew passed away almost a year-and-a-half ago. In the days after his death, I coped with the sadness by staying busy. I didn’t want to sit with the pain. We talked about Todd on the site as the Banter sat shiva. What can we do? The rest of the Banter writers and I talked about it. What about a compilation of Todd’s work, from his blog Yankees for Justice, and his Shadow Ball columns here at the Banter?

Then Diane Firstman suggested that we compile the Yankee Stadium Memories series into a book. It would have a broader appeal. Made sense to me. So when Skyhorse approached me about doing just that, I knew we had the perfect farewell to Todd.

I’m proud to announce that Skyhorse will release Bronx Banter Presents: Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories this October.

– Alex Belth, BronxBanterBlog.com.

I didn’t know Todd Drew, but I loved his Shadow Games column on Bronx Banter. Belth tells me Drew was a champion of the working man and a fan of great sportswriting. Both were apparent from Drew’s writing.

I wrote a piece about Yankee Stadium 3.0 for the book, and by the time I was done with it, passing it back and forth with Alex for edits, I liked it a lot. That’s not a common phenomenon for me — usually after I spend a certain amount of time on anything, I get sick of it and determine it sucks by the time I actually finish it.

Even if you’re a Yankee-hating Mets fan, I recommend checking out the book. Alex got contributions from an amazing slate of writers, and I feel straight-up honored to be listed in the same table of contents (assuming there’s a table of contents).And there are a ton of your fellow Yankee-haters in there.

Plus I got to use uncensored expletives, which is a no-no here on TedQuarters. I actually got a little carried away with them the first time through and Belth had to ask me to tone it down.

This is everywhere today, but it’s not here yet:

I can say from experience that people will do some outrageous, bizarre things when they see a news camera. Believe me, I’ve been on both sides of the interaction.

Most of the times it’s plain jackassery from people who are way too excited at the prospect of getting on TV. We filmed a segment in Philadelphia in 2008 and had to shoot our wrap about 15 times because idiotic Phillies fans kept interrupting. It was annoying, mostly because no one did anything funny, they just harassed us and gave us the finger and such.

But eating a pork chop out of a reporter’s hand is funny. Not revolting or disgusting, funny. And Jones and Michael Kay only made it funnier by getting so broken up about it. “OH MY GOD!”

Apparently that guy was pestering Jones all game — which really makes you wonder why she’d keep doing standups from right in front of him — but there’s just nothing gross about an hour-old pork chop. Pork chops are delicious, and Kim Jones got what she deserved for waving it around in that guy’s face for so long.

Also, I’ve got to get to Target Field. Pork chop on a stick!

Brien Taylor is 34 now, and he lives at the end of the road named for him, with his parents, Willie Ray and Bettie. The trailer he was raised in has been replaced with a two-story brick and frame home, the House that Brien Built with the record $1.55 million bonus he got from the Yankees. He also bought a black Mustang 5.0 back then, a car that is still on the road. Otherwise, evidence of his long-ago windfall is in scant supply on Brien Taylor Lane, where the cab of a tractor-trailer is sunk into marsh grass and vines, and the yard is strewn with old cars and a heap of rusted lawnmowers.

– Wayne Coffey, N.Y. Daily News, via LJWorld.com.

I can’t remember now why Brien Taylor came up in a conversation on Sunday, but it led me to his Wikipedia page, which led me to Wayne Coffey’s 2006 feature on the Yanks’ No. 1 pick from the 1991 draft.

If you’re interested in being depressed, read the whole story. Sounds like Taylor was at peace with all that happened to him as of 2006, at least.

Taylor’s baseball-reference page on its own is pretty tragic. He dominated High A ball at 20, then was very good, albeit wild, in Double-A at 21. Then, after he tore up his arm in the fight Coffey details, he was about as bad as a pitcher can be.

The Jeter alone is worth the price of admission, which is $0.