Looking Back, Looking Forward

Am I the only one who thought that slogan for the Yankees on the YES Network was the best of the bunch? Why did they get rid of it? It pretty much perfectly describes what they do at the network with all Yankeeographies and such along with the live games and studio shows.

Anyway, let's take an afternoon climb across the interwebs and see what people are saying about last night, as well as tonight:

Joe Posnanski tries to understand what was going on in Johnny Damon's mind when he took of for third base last night. Also from Mr. Posnanski, it's about time someone did this.

Craig Calcaterra knows Damon's one man double steal was not unprecedented in baseball history but thinks it was pretty damn cool anyway.

River Ave. Blues reviews A.J. Burnett's (short) history of pitching on three days rest and examines the rise of Damaso Marte.

Joel Sherman compares Johnny Damon's at bat against Brad Lidge last night to Paul O'Neill's in Game 1 of the 2000 World Series. My buddy Joe texted me the same thing during the game last night, but unfortunately you can't link to that.

FanGraphs breaks down the impact (or lack thereof) of replacing Melky Cabrera with Brett Gardner in center. Unfortunately, the time to start Melky over Gardner would be a game like tonight with a dominant left handed starter on the mound. Whether or not Melky is only out for tonight remains to be seen.

Chris Jaffe at the Hardball Times takes a historical look at the teams that have faced a 3-1 hole in a best-of-seven World Series.

Big League Stew looks back at what things were like the last time the Yankees won a Fall Classic.

Also from The Stew: And you thought Jimmy Rollins was being presumptuous...

John Dewan handed out his Fielding Bible Awards today.

And finally, if you were watching FOX when the broadcast first started up last night around 8:00, you were treated to one of the most contrived promotions of all time. They showed a mash-up of highlights from the World Series alongside clips from Avatar, the new semi-animated James Cameron movie that doesn't come out until the middle of December.

I noticed this as it was happening and wondered why they thought it was a good idea to use a movie that no one had seen to promote a game. How could you miss the undeniable parallels between this epic movie and the compelling series that was taking place? Oh, probably because no one has fucking seen the movie yet. Nice job, FOX.