Say Uncle

Christmas is a time to be with family, so as we take it slow here at Fack Youk over the next couple days here are two family related baseball notes:

• Mark Feinsand reports that former Yankee third base coach Larry Bowa played in role in steering his nephew, Nick Johnson, back to the Bronx. Bowa encouraged Johnson to return, citing the uniqueness of the Yankee experience and the opportunity to win. Perhaps most noteworthy about this is that Bowa seemingly hasn't completely soured on the organization. He left for LA with Joe Torre two years ago and was clearly on Torre's side in the aftermath of that messy breakup.


• Earlier this year we poked a little fun at Gregg Zaun and his website. Zaun's uncle is one time Yankee and longtime Oriole Rick Dempsey. Dempsey apparently is trying to one-up his nephew on the embarassment scale and has released his own Christmas album. Dempsey's got a long way to go to replace my favorite Christmas song though: