I don't think Brian Cashman would actually make decisions based on something as irrational as nostalgia, but he has spent much of this offseason reacquiring players that were dealt away when the Tampa "brain trust" was purportedly controlling the Yankee organization. First it was Javy Vazquez, next Nick Johnson and this afternoon the Yanks signed Marcus Thames - who was dealt to the Rangers in exchange for Ruben Sierra back in 2003 - to a minor league deal.
Thames had spent six seasons in the Yanks' minor league system before he was dealt. After being drafted in the 30th round of the 1997 draft, he was placed in Rookie ball, slowly moved up through the levels of the farm and was promoted to AA in the middle of 1999. After a marginal 2000 campaign, Thames broke out with a massive 2001 in which he jacked 31 homers for the Norwich Navigators and hit .321/.410/.598. His excellent season earned him a promotion to AAA the following year but he regressed badly, mustering a line of only .207/.297/.378. Despite those dismal results, he still earned a call up to the Major League club in June and famously debuted by hitting a home run of Randy Johnson.
Thames was traded at the behest of George Steinbrenner who was dead set on acquiring a left handed bat for the team. The 37 year old Ruben Sierra apparently fit that bill, but had only a 90 OPS+ over his last 6 seasons in the majors. The salaries were pretty much comparable and the Rangers decided to take a shot on Thames. Neither end of the transaction worked out especially well but the Yankees did slightly better. Sierra hit .276/.323/.432 (100 OPS+) in 189 plate appearances while Thames was fairly dreadful (47 OPS+) in 84 PAs for the Rangers. Thames was DFA'd by Texas at the end of the season to make room on their 40 man roster.
The Tigers signed Thames the following offseason. He provided solid value for Detroit over the first two years of the deal but was below replacement level in both 2008 and 2009. Last year, he missed two months with a severely pulled muscle in his rib cage. The Tigers elected to non-tender him instead of going through arbitration on his salary of $2.275M.
The deal with the Yankees could be worth up to $900K if Thames makes the Major League team. Not coincidentally, Randy Winn's base salary was $1.1M (with $900K in incentives, based on PAs) so regardless how the competition for the 4th outfielder in Spring Training goes, the Yanks will be paying out a maximum of $2M for that spot, all told.
Thames has a career .360 wOBA against lefties as opposed to .324 against righties, so he could be useful as a platoon option in right field. But as we are slowly learning, platoon splits are not always as pronounced as they seem. His value is derived from his power; he's hit an average of 33 home runs per 500 ABs over the course of his career. Thames provides an interesting depth option for the Yanks and with the structure of the deal, it's essentially a no-risk move. I don't think the team has any use at all for Juan Rivera, but at this point I wouldn't be totally shocked if they traded for him anyway.
In a perfect world, Mantle would have been the one to break Babe Ruth's single season home run record. Instead it was an aloof North Dakota native named Roger Maris who didn't come up with the Yankees, wasn't comfortable in New York, didn't get along with the media, and was never fully embraced by the fans.
Maris was signed by the Indians in 1953 for $5,000 and chose the path of professional baseball over a standing offer for a scholarship to Oklahoma State. In his first full season as a minor leaguer, Maris was assigned to the B-level Keokuk Kernels of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa league. It was there that manager Jo Jo White taught him how to pull the ball and transformed from a solid hitter for average to a bona fide home run threat. That year, Maris hit 32 round trippers in 134 games and made his first significant strides towards becoming a Big Leaguer.
He made his debut on Opening Day 1957 for the Indians and hit the ground running with a 3 for 5 effort against the White Sox. The following day, he hit his first Major League home run, a go-ahead grand slam in the top of the 11th inning.
Maris was the starting center fielder for Indians in '57 but played all three OF positions, appearing in 116 games in total. He left his high batting averages in the minor leagues, hitting only .235 but his 14 home runs helped him to be a better than league average hitter (105 OPS+).
During the 1958 season, Maris was dealt to the A's for, among others, the immortal Woodie Held. Maris doubled his home run output from the previous year to 28 but hit only 19 doubles, saw his on base percentage dip below .300 and his OPS+ drop to 97. In 1959 he was transitioned to right field and began to put it all together at the plate, hitting .273/.359/.464 (123 OPS+) and was rewarded with a selection to the All-Star team.
The Yankees were tantalized by Maris' left handed power and were looking to give their team a boost after a third place finish in '59. They sent World Series hero Don Larsen, their two starting corner outfielders from the previous season, Hank Bauer and Norm Siebern along with 25 year old first baseman Marv Thornberry to Kansas City in exchange for Maris, Joe DeMaestri and Ken Hadley.
As he did in his first game in Cleveland, Maris made a great first impression as a Yankee, smacking two homers and a double in his debut against the Red Sox. He went on to win the AL MVP that season, nudging out Mickey Mantle by a scant 3 points in the voting. They had similar years at the plate but Maris, batting behind Mantle, drove in 18 more runs in 66 fewer plate appearances.
While the writers were willing to recognize Maris' accomplishments, many fans refused to embrace him as a True Yankee®. The Bombers were still very much Mickey Mantle's team and Maris' icy relationship with the New York media only served to further extend that perception.
While some still hold Maris' single season record up as the all-time mark, 1961 was far from a normal year in baseball and comes with it's own share of caveats.
Before 'the 61 season began, the AL expanded from eight to ten teams, adding the Los Angeles Angels and the Washington Senators by way of an expansion draft. Both teams selected Yankees with their first picks; the Angels took Eli Grba and the Senators claimed Bobby Shantz. The Yanks also lost Duke Maas, Dale Long, Bob Cerv, Ken Hunt, Bud Zipfel. The expansion draft weakened the overall talent pool in the league fairly significantly, but despite the pillaging, the Yankees were among the teams least affected.
That same season, the schedule was lengthened from 154 to 162 games. Commissioner Ford C. Frick, initially announced that in order to break Babe Ruth's record, it would have to be done in 154 games. He said:
Any player who hit more than sixty home runs during his club’s first 154 games would be recognized as having established a new record. However, if the player does not hit more than sixty until after his club has played 154 games, there would have to be some distinctive mark in the record books to show that Babe Ruth’s record was set under a 154 game schedule and the total of more than sixty was compiled while a 162 game schedule was in effect.
This was met with strong media backlash. The Sporting News placed it at #15 of the "most shameful acts in baseball history" and columnist Leonard Koppett called the decision "a remarkably foolish thing".
The prevailing wisdom at the time said the decision was prompted by Frick's loyalty to Ruth which could be traced back to Frick's days as a newspaper man. Frick had ghostwritten for Ruth in the past, allowing Ruth to "cover" every world series from 1921-1936 and wrote glowing columns about Ruth during his time with the New York Evening Journal.
Regardless of his perceived bias, Frick was making a logical choice. The tag of single season is rather arbitrary and it was clearly easier to reach 60 home runs given 8 extra games to say nothing of the substantially thinner pitching that resulted from expansion. Frick was stuck with two difficult choices: keep two separate rule books for each season length or give all players who came after 1961 an unfair advantage in breaking counting stat records. It was popular at the time, but his choice of the latter allowed one of the most hallowed records in sports to fall under dubious circumstances.
Maris' pursuit of the record wasn't especially popular with some living legends of the game either. Legendary second baseman Rogers Hornsby said at the time, "It would be a disappointment if Ruth's home run record were bested by a .270 hitter."
Partially because of the controversy surrounding his quest for 61, Maris was heckled and even had objects thrown at him on the field. He received hate mail, death threats and claimed his hair fell out "in clumps" as the season progressed. He had 59 HR after 154 games and hit his 61st on the last day of the season in the home half of the fourth inning against the Red Sox.
Maris spent five more seasons with the Yankees but his peak had decidedly past. While he was an above average hitter each of those five years, Maris never hit more than 33 home runs in a season and missed large chunks of 1963 and 1965 with injuries. He was ultimately traded after the 1966 season to the Cardinals in exchange for Charley Smith.
Despite breaking one of the most hallowed sports records of all time, Maris remained sour about the experience. During an interview at the 1980 All-Star game, he said:
They acted as though I was doing something wrong, poisoning the record books or something. Do you know what I have to show for 61 home runs? Nothing. Exactly nothing.
He passed away 5 years later from Hodgkin's Lymphoma at the age of 51.
Maris was a victim of our casting. Despite the fact that sports are unscripted, we still expect the right characters to come out on top. Mickey Mantle was the former farmhand, Yankee legend, the Hall of Famer, the rags to riches story from Oklahoma. He partied with the rat pack, Joe D. and Marylin Monroe, and had the key to the city. He was supposed to be the one to break Babe Ruth's record. Maris was the ostracized Kansas City transplant, who should have came up short. But that's not the way life works and while Maris' peak was far too short to earn him a spot in Cooperstown, he has a place in Monument Park.
Every year for the past 27 years, my friend Frank's family has hosted a Super Bowl Party. Like most gatherings for the big game, it's well-attended and appointed with a fantastic array of food and drink. Unlike most Super Bowl parties - or other gatherings that take place during January or February in the Northeast, for that matter - it's staged outside.
You might think this is a pretty insane idea. And you would be right. Last night in Albany, the temperatures were somewhere in the teens but there was a steady breeze which made it feel even colder. People were decked out and layered, wearing hunting and skiing gear with heavy hats, gloves and boots, lined with hand and toe warmers. The chill was inescapable but the constant supply of grilled meat and alcoholic beverages was helpful in forgetting the fact that I couldn't feel my feet.
There were two large grills set up and piled with food starting at around 4:30. A large steamer behind them was loaded with clams. Across the yard there was a table with crock pots containing bear stew and venison chili alongside some Cajun shrimp which unfortunately froze solid before the game even began. There were rabbit legs with a honey mustard glaze, seasoned venison, bear and pork tenderloins, bison burgers with jalapenos and cheddar, Swedish meatballs made with bison and Italian sausage, skewers of venison wrapped in bacon and pastry pouches stuffed with minced venison, garlic and extra sharp cheddar cheese alongside sweet and sour Asian dipping sauces.
The most revered of all the cuisine was the Spedini. Or was it Spellini? Spinnini? I don't think I heard the name pronounced the same way more than once all night but whatever it was called was a thin piece of beef wrapped in a robust Italian cheese and grilled to perfection.
A vast array of microbrews were stuffed in a makeshift snowbank. Irish coffees were distributed during the 3rd and 4th quarters.
Unsurprisingly, the only female in attendance was a Newfie named Stella who was equipped with a bottle opener around her collar and one of these vests.
The party started back in 1983 when Frank's dad, his brother and his cousin were kicked out of his mom's house just down the street from where this party was held for being rowdy. In a moment of impromptu creativity and resourcefulness, they decided that they'd just bring a TV outside with them. While the first party was a born out of necessity, it's become a great tradition.
The part actually attracted a news crew from the local CBS affiliate who took a bunch of footage so they could pair it with a lukewarm voiceover and play it on the 11:00 news to give the Super Bowl coverage a "local angle":
The newscaster is clearly - and understandably - baffled by the fact that a large number of people would willfully stand outside in the dead on winter to watch a football game when they could just as easily huddle up indoors. I can't say I blame her, but if she was there last night, she would have understood why the crowd has grown so much over time.
Next week will mark the six year anniversary of the trade that sent Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers to the Yankees. Up until the time of the trade, A-Rod had been a shortstop, but with Derek Jeter entrenched in that position in the Bronx, A-Rod shifted over to the hot corner. In the years since, Rodriguez has established himself as the greatest third baseman in Yankee history. But before there was A-Rod, there was Graig Nettles.
Born in San Diego, Nettles attended San Diego State University, starred on its baseball team and spent the summer of 1964 playing in Alaska with future Major Leaguers Tom Seaver and Ricky Monday. He was selected by the Twins in the fourth round of the very first amateur draft in 1965.
Nettles began his pro career the following year in Wisconsin Rapids with the Twins Single-A affiliate. He had cups of coffee in Minnesota in both '67 and '68 but spent most of the '68 season with Twins top farm club in Denver. It was there that Nettles first played for Billy Martin.
The next year, both Nettles and Martin graduated to the Majors. Billy took over as Twins manager and he brought Nettles along with him. Neither would be there when the 1970 season rolled around. Unable to push the great Harmon Killebrew off third base, Nettles played sparingly, and saw most of his action in the outfield. The Twins won their division, but were swept by Baltimore in the very first American League Championship Series. Despite the team's success, Martin was fired for the first of many times as a manager. Nettles, still blocked by Killebrew, was dealt to Cleveland as part of a package that brought back former Yankee Stan Williams and future Yankee Luis Tiant.
The Indians installed Nettles as their everyday third baseman, and he blossomed. He finished 10th in the AL in walks in 1970, then repeated the feat in 1971 while finishing tenth in RBI, seventh in times on base, and fifth in home runs. Nettles also began forging a reputation as one the top defensive third basemen in the game.
Following the '72 season, Nettles was shipped to the Yankees as part of six player deal. He would spend the next eleven seasons as the team's third baseman, a potent bat in the middle of the line up, and a key a contributor on five division winners, four pennant winners, and two World Series champs.
Nettles joined the Yankees just in time for their final season in the pre-renovation Yankee Stadium as well as for the final year of manager Ralph Houk's thirty five years of service to the organization. Nettles tied Bobby Murcer for the team lead in home runs that season, led the team the following season, and then led the American League with 32 in 1976. He came back with 37 more dingers the following year, good for second in the AL and a fifth place MVP finish. With Brooks Robinson finally retired, Nettles also won his first Gold Glove in '77, and repeated the feat in '78 when he finished sixth in the MVP voting.
Perhaps Nettles' most famous defensive work came in Game Three of the 1978 World Series, when he put on a defensive clinic against the Dodgers. Nettles recorded two putouts and five assists over the course of the game, started a double play, and robbed numerous Dodgers of hits with diving, highlight reel stops.
Nettles remained with the Yankees through the 1983 season, staying productive into his late thirties. He was named Yankee Captain in late January of 1982. I always wondered how Nettles felt about that, given that the two previous Yankee Captains - Thurman Munson and Lou Gehrig - both met untimely ends. Thankfully Nettles avoided that fate, but his Yankee career did meet a premature end.
In early 1984, like many of his Bronx Zoo teammates before him, Nettles released his autobiography, the humorously titled Balls. It chronicled the entirety of Nettles' career, with a focus on the 1983 season, which was mired with the same level of dysfunction typical of Yankee teams of that era. Always known for his quick wit, Nettles didn't pull any punches in his criticism of the organization, of Steinbrenner, and of his contentious contract extension negotiations throughout the '83 season and into the off season. As excerpts of the book leaked prior to publishing, it became apparent that Nettles' days with the Yankees were numbered. Just days before the start of the '84 season the Yankees shipped Nettles to his hometown Padres.
There, Nettles rejoined long time teammate Goose Gossage, and the two helped lead San Diego to their first NL Pennant. After All-Star season in 1985 in which the 40 year old Nettles posted a 120 OPS+, he was all but finished. He spent one more year in San Diego, before rounding out his career spending a year each with Atlanta and Montreal as a pinch hitting specialist. He returned to the Yankees as first base coach for the 1991 season and has been a regular at Old Timers Day since his retirement.
Third base is the most under represented position in the Hall of Fame, with just ten men in the Hall being third basemen primarily. I don' think that Nettles is a Hall of Famer, but he is amongst the best fifteen or twenty third basemen of all time. He is tremendously under appreciated, and suffers comparatively by spending his defensive career in the shadow of Brooks Robinson and Mike Schmidt, and his offensive career in the shadow of Schmidt and George Brett. Nettles still holds the AL record for home runs as a third baseman, and trails only Schmidt, Eddie Matthews, Chipper Jones, and Darrell Evans on the all-time third baseman home run list.
Nettles was the final Yankee to wear number nine before it was retired in honor of Roger Maris in 1984. Other prominent Yankees to wear the number include Joe DiMaggio in his rookie season of 1936, Charlie Keller for most of his career, and Hank Bauer for the majority of the Stengel years.
Good morning Fackers. How's your hangover this morning?
As we all know by now, the Saints won the Super Bowl last night, which of course is a victory for all of America, right Bill Plaschke?
I don't know about all that. I'm just happy it was a good game. And that football season is over, meaning baseball is right around the corner.
Anyway, I'm sure we're all a bit sluggish this morning. I've long felt that the day after the Super Bowl, as well as Opening Day, should be a holiday. But since that legislation has yet to be enacted, we'll just ease into to it today before he we get back to our regularly scheduled business. Here are three from my favorite New Orleans band.
After 2 weeks of alternate sports programming, the Pro Bowl, photos of Brett Favre's ankles that were released by his agent Buss Cook for some unselfish reason (sarcasm alert), speculation about who Archie would root for, discussion of Tim Tebow's wisdom or lack thereof to discuss a hot button political and constitutional issue in front of undoubtedly the largest existing television audience, the advent of Ochocinco News Network (a surefire competitor to Fox News and CNN), rumors about a possible Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian matrimony, the feelgood story of Pierre Garcon and what he means to Haiti, my and Matt's fellow BC alum Jamie Silva being awarded the award for best hair in Super Bowl history, endless talk about a Syracuse alum's ankle, and even more endless fellating of Eli's big brother, Super Bowl Sunday is finally upon us.
For those of you who enjoy online football betting but aren't content to bet on the game itself, our sponsors at Bodog are offering some fun prop bets. You can wager on the length of Carrie Underwood's national anthem, the number of windmill moves Pete Townshend will do on his guitar, whether or not he will smash said guitar and what it will hit, what color Gatorade will be dumped on the winning coach and who the MVP will thank in their speech.
Before you settle down with friends and family to imbibe one of the many beers that will make your Monday morning at work a living hell or chow down one of the billion chicken wings that Americans are projected to eat, you may want to read my final prediction for the 2010 NFL Playoffs. Or you may not want to. I am currently 5-5, hopefully I end up at .545 and not .455.
New Orleans Saints at Indianapolis Colts, Sun Life Stadium, Miami, FL, Sunday February 10 @ 6:25, CBS:
How the Colts Got Here: The #1-seeded Colts, led by the only four-time MVP in the history of the NFL, Peyton Manning, started off 14-0 before rookie head coach Jim Caldwell and GM Bill Polian decided to call off the dogs and rest their star players for the Playoffs at the expense of momentum. Interestingly, their first loss came against the Jets, allowing them to get into the playoffs and subsequently lose against the Colts in the AFC Championship game.
While the Colts did not lose any players to injury in the final weeks of the regular season, their star defensive end, Syracuse alum Dwight Freeney suffered a third degree ankle sprain (which is the equivalent of a torn ligament) in the AFC Championship and the team with all the momentum in the world, the San Diego Chargers, lost to the Jets in the AFC Divisional Round. In their wins against the Baltimore Ravens in the Divisional Round and the Jets, the Colts looked anything but rusty. The Colts are here despite ranking last in the NFL in rushing during the regular season and 24th in the league against the run.
How the Saints Got Here: Like the Colts in the AFC, the Saints are the top seeded team in the NFC. Like the Colts, the Saints started 13-0. However, they lost their first game to Dallas in Week 14 after the Cowboys played a bend, but not break defense that avoided giving up the big play that has fueled the Saints attack all year. Like the Colts, the Saints were led by QB Drew Brees, who threw for 4,388 yards with 34 TD, an NFL-leading 109.6 QB rating and an insane 70.6% completion percentage Brees' stellar efforts led him to become only the second quarterback in NFL history with four consecutive 4,000 yard campaigns.
Manning is the other QB, having thrown for over 4,000 yards for six consecutive seasons from 1999-2004 and has done so for four straight campaigns from 2006-09. Unlike the Colts, the Saints ground game led by Pierre Thomas and Reggie Bush ranked 6th in the NFL. Pretty balanced. However, their defense ranked 25th overall, including 26th against the pass. So far in the playoffs, the Saints have defeated the Arizona Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings, both of whom are pass happy like the Colts. Now they are in their first ever Super Bowl, setting the table for a crazy February in Nawlins.
How the Colts Can Win: Their Tampa II scheme is able to stop the big play from Brees, Freeney is able to push off from the line effectively so that Jeremy Shockey or Dave Thomas have to stay on the line to block, and Peyton is able to avoid putting the ball in Darren Sharper's hands.
How the Saints Can Win: Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas are able to provide effective relief on the ground for Brees, blitz like they did against Arizona and Minnesota to force Manning into throwing INTs.
Prediction: Most of the public is rooting for the Saints due to the Hurricane Katrina aspect, but most, including oddsmakers, think that Peyton will get his second ring as the Colts prevail in a shootout. I am not sure who I am rooting for, and I am not sure who will win. Regardless, I think this will be a great game. Brees throws for over 300 yards along with 3 TDs with 1 INT while the Pierre Thomas/Reggie Bush combo run for 200 yards and score another TD. Manning bests Brees with 300 yards and 4 TDs, but throws 2 INTs, providing Nawlins with an extra possession that turns out to be the kingmaker. Saints kicker Garrett Hartley follows his game winning field goal in overtime against the Vikings with a field goal in the last minute.
New Orleans Saints: 34 Indianapolis Colts: 31 MVP: Drew Brees.
The 1956 celebration of Old Timer's Day took place on August 25th. At that point, Phil Rizzuto was already a bit of an old timer himself, nearly 40 years old having spent 13 seasons with the Yankees and served 3 years in the Navy during World War II. Scooter had lost his position as everyday shortstop for the Yanks to Jerry Coleman and Willie Miranda starting back in 1954 and had struggled in the plate appearances he was given in '56, hitting only .231/.310/.231. It was clear that his career was nearing its end, but the way that it came to a close blindsided Rizzuto.
Before the game against the White Sox that day, Casey Stengel called Phil into his office. The Yankees had just acquired Enos Slaughter from the Kansas City Athletics off of waivers and Stengel began discussing ways in which he could fit him on the 25 man roster. He had Rizzuto read down the roster and suggest players that could be moved to make way for Slaughter. Scooter would read off a name and Stengel would reject the idea. He kept looking over the roster until it was clear that Stengel was trying to get him to chose his own name. Naturally, Rizzuto was less than pleased with the way the Yankees had gone about this.
Stengel and general manager George Weiss assured Rizzuto that he would be added to the World Series roster as a back up for Gil McDougald should the Yankees make it that far. But adding to the fire, Weiss and Stengel reneged on their offer, eventually choosing Billy Hunter instead. Scooter felt betrayed and that broken promise very nearly ended Rizzuto's relationship with the Yankees. Fortunately for generations of fans of the Bombers, Rizzuto was the bigger man, forgave the team and went on to become one of the most recognizable ambassadors of the franchise for the next 50 years.
Rizzuto's Yankee career began almost twenty years before the infamous Old Timer's Day event and it might not have begun at all if it weren't for Casey Stengel. A Brooklyn native, Rizzuto explained that he grew up rooting for the Dodgers because it was easier to sneak into Ebbets Field than Yankee Stadium. Fresh out of high school, Rizzuto showed up at Ebbets Field to fulfill his childhood dream and try out for the team. The Old Perfessor was managing the Dodgers at the time, took a quick glance and Scooter's 5'6" frame and famously told him to "go get his shinebox" because that was the only way he was going to make a living.
Although dejected by the dismissal, Rizzuto didn't give up. Shortly thereafter, the Yankees invited him to a one week tryout camp. Even at that early age, Scooter was already and adept fielder, bunter and base stealer. Those skills, along with a home run that he hit during one of the scrimmages netted him a deal with the team.
Rizzuto spent the next four years in the minor leagues, jumping from D to B to AA-ball and maintaining an average over .300 wherever he went. During his 1940 season in Kansas City, he hit .347 and was named Sporting News minor league player of the year. He made his major league debut on April 14th, 1941.
As a 24 year old rookie, Scooter started 128 games a shortstop, hit .307 and finished 20th in the MVP voting. The Yankees went on to win the World Series against the Dodgers that year, although Rizzuto only manged 2 hits in 21 plate appearances. He was named to the All-Star team the following year and the Yankees made it back to the World Series but lost to the Cardinals.
In 1943, he was drafted into the Navy. Scooter never saw active duty and instead played on the Navy baseball team alongside Dodger's shortstop Pee Wee Reese, Dom DiMaggio, Don Padgett and Benny McCoy. He served for three years, missing the '43, '44 and '45 MLB seasons.
When he returned to the Yankees, it took Rizzuto a few years to regain his form as a hitter. He struggled through three below average seasons before Casey Stengel took over the reigns as manager. In 1949, Stengel moved Rizzuto from the bottom of the line up to the top, which coincided with a bump in his performance and a second place in the MVP vote behind Ted Williams. More importantly though, the Yankees won their first of 5 consecutive World Series, this one again over Rizzuto's childhood team, the Dodgers.
In 1950, Scooter finally put it all together, hitting .324/.418/.439 and winning the AL MVP. It was especially sweet with Stengel as manager - the most emphatic way possible that Rizzuto could have proved his offhanded dismissal of him at Ebbets Field years before was wrong.
After his MVP campaign, Rizzuto played two more years as the Yankees' full time shortstop before eventually becoming a part time player. While he was never a force offensively, he was better than most shortstops of his time. His career OPS+ was 93, but the a big reason that the Yankees were able to have the success that they did during Rizzuto's time in Pinstripes was that he offered roughly league average production from a premium defensive position. And Scooter's defense was well renowned. His former teammate Vic Raschi once said, "My best pitch is anything the batter grounds, lines or pops in the direction of Rizzuto."
After his unceremonious dismissal from from the Yanks in 1956, Rizzuto considered severing ties with the team. He felt spurned but eventually set his pride aside and joined the organization as a broadcaster the following year.
He was added to a booth with veterans Mel Allen and Red Barber and didn't initially fit in very well. Rizzuto felt that the two resented him for his inexperience. It would be precisely that lack of finish that endeared him to Yankees fans over his 40 year career in the booth.
While Rizzuto was known for his ability to play baseball the right way and lauded for his alertness in the field, his broadcasting style was much of the opposite. He was prone to miss things that happened during the game and interjected the broadcast with moments of personal levity and downright goofiness, such as "Bouncer to third, they'll never get him! No, why don't I just shut up!". He would openly advertise the fact that he was leaving the game early to beat the traffic over the George Washington Bridge and take time to wish friends and family a happy birthday over the air.
Rizzuto's success as a player earned him great respect throughout baseball but his trademark broadcasting style endeared him to generations of Yankees fans in a way his on-the-field play never could have. By narrating tens of thousands of games to people in driving in the cars or sitting in their living rooms, he became a familiar part of their lives. By sharing intimate details about his likes (golf, canolis) and dislikes (spiders, traffic, lightning) he was more than just a disembodied voice coming through the radio and eventually the television set.
The Yankees retired his number and dedicated a plaque in Monument Park to him on August 4th, 1985. He was passed on for the Hall of Fame repeatedly by both the writers (15 times) and the Veteran's committee (11 times) but eventually gained entrance in 1994 partially because of a persuasive speech given by Ted Williams. During it, Williams said that if the Red Sox had Rizzuto, they might have been the ones who won those pennants in the 40's and 50's.
By all accounts, Rizzuto was one of the kindest and friendliest personalities in all of baseball. When he passed away in 2007 at 89 years old after a few years of declining health, the Yankee community lost one of its pillars. He was the oldest living Hall of Famer at the time of his death.
Yogi Berra used to visit Scooter in the nursing home where he lived on a regular basis during the final years of his life. As a tribute to his best friend, he appeared briefly in the broadcast booth that night. It was difficult for Yogi as he was choked up for most of the appearance, but he went through with it as a way to honor all the years that Scooter spent in the booth. Earlier that day, Yogi talked about his lifelong pal during a lengthy media session in the Yankees dugout with Joe Torre at his side:
Yankee history has more than its share of historic and memorable home runs: Tino Martinez, Derek Jeter, and Scott Brosius in the 2001 World Series, Bucky Dent in '78, Reggie's three bombs in Game Six in '77, Roger Maris' 61st in '61, Mantle's shot off the facade, Gehrig's four in one game in '32, the Babe's disputed called shot in the World Series that same year. But perhaps no home run in Yankee history was more momentous than the one hit by Chris Chambliss on October 14, 1976.
Chambliss was selected out of UCLA by the Cleveland Indians with the first overall pick in the 1970 draft. Placed immediately into AAA, Chambliss made his Major League debut in late May 1971 and went on to win the AL Rookie of the Year. Chambliss posted good, but not great, numbers through his first three seasons. Then, less than a month into the 1974 season, he was traded to the Yankees in a blockbuster deal.
The Yankees shipped pitchers Fritz Peterson, Steve Kline, Tom Buskey, and Fred Beene to the Indians for Chambliss and pitcher Dick Tidrow. The trade was initially heavily criticized. Not only had the Yankees traded away nearly half their pitching staff, it was yet another trade with Cleveland. The Yankees were in their second year of ownership under Cleveland native George Steinbrenner, and general manager Gabe Paul formerly held the same post with the Indians. The Chambliss deal was the fourth trade the Yankees and Indians made since the end of the 1972 season.
Despite the initial reactions, the Yankees got a steal of a deal. Beene and Kline were essentially finished by the end of the '74 season, and the remainder of Buskey's and Peterson's careers were unspectacular. But in Chambliss and Tidrow the Yankees had two key pieces to three pennant winning and two World Series winning ball clubs for the remainder of the decade.
When Chambliss stepped to the plate to lead off the ninth inning of the tied fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, he was coming off his best season to date, and perhaps the best of his entire career. He batted .293/.323/.441 (123 OPS+) with 17 HR and a career high 96 RBI, that would earn him a fifth place finish in the MVP balloting. Facing Royals relief ace Mark Littell, Chambliss launched the first pitch over the fence in right center field, giving the Yankees their first pennant in twelve years.
By the time he reached second base the field was mobbed with celebrating fans, and the bag had already been swiped. Chambliss was forced to tag it with his hand as the thief fled the scene. By the time he reached third he had removed his batting helmet so that the revelers couldn't steal it off his head. By the time he reached home plate the throng was so thick that no one could really tell if touched the plate. Later, after the commotion died down, Yankee manager Billy Martin ensured that Chambliss returned to the field with an umpire to tag the plate. By then the plate too had been stolen, leaving Chambliss to step on a hole in the ground.
Chambliss remained the Yankee first baseman through 1979, picking up two World Series rings and Gold Glove. Following the 1979 season, with the team in need of a catcher after the death of Thurman Munson, Chambliss was traded to Toronto as part of a six player deal that saw Rick Cerone come to the Bronx as the new Yankee catcher. Cerone inherited Chambliss' number ten, and finished seventh in the 1980 MVP voting. Cerone never came close to duplicating the success of his 1980 season, but he remained with the club through the 1984 season and was the last player to wear number 10 before it was retired in honor of Phil Rizzuto in 1985.
As for Chambliss, he never played a game for Toronto as they flipped him to Atlanta a month after the trade with the Yankees. He would spend the final seven seasons of his career with the Braves, playing three of them under manager Joe Torre. Chambliss retired after the 1986 season, spent 1987 as a minor league hitting instructor for the Yankees and joined the Major League staff as hitting coach for 1988. He briefly came out of retirement in early May, striking out in a lone pinch hitting appearance for the last plate appearance of his career.
Chambliss left the Yankees following that season, managing in the minors for the Tigers and Braves, but later resurfaced as Torre's hitting coach with the Cardinals in the early nineties. When Torre took the Yankees job prior to the 1996 season, he brought Chambliss along with him. Chambliss served as the Yankees' hitting coach through 2000, picking up four more World Series rings in the process. His son Russ played in the Yankees' minor leeague system during that time. Chris spent last year as the manager of the White Sox AAA affiliate.
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For a look at another notable Yankee number ten, check out this post on Tony Kubek from when he was honored with the Ford Frick Award during Hall of Fame weekend last summer.
A special Super Bowl Sunday good morning to you Fackers. Today is clearly a day for pigskin, but I'm grateful to know that we're a day closer to pitchers and catchers.
As we continue through our countdown to Spring Training, we're understandably in history mode here as we go back and brush up on some of the old time Yankees we've been profiling. Our countdown doesn't extend all the way back to number 42, so former World Series MVP Jerry Coleman doesn't get his own post, but he did make a cameo in name and in picture in Friday's Gil McDougald post.
Following his playing career, Coleman joined the Yankee broadcast team, working both TV and radio from 1963 through 1969. After spending two years calling games for the Angels, Coleman joined the San Diego Padres booth in 1972. He's been there ever since, save for spending 1980 as their manager.
Sadly, it was announced Thursday that Coleman would work an extremely limited schedule of just twenty to thirty home games this year (h/t BBTF). At 85 years old, I suppose it's only natural that Coleman's workload be reduced, but the Padres had no problem signing the spry 75 year old Dick Enberg to a multi-year deal this off-season, one that will see him call up to 120 games per year.
If Coleman's still up for working a full schedule, I'll pay his moving expenses to come back to New York. There's a couple folks in the Yankees Lowes Broadcast Booth whom I would love for him to replace.
Yankee history is teeming with all-time great offensive forces: Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle. But its history of hurlers is a little less prolific. There are several former Yankee pitchers in the Hall of Fame, most of them there primarily for what they accomplished in pinstripes. But the Yankee pitchers in the Hall of Fame lack the "inner circle" status of their offensive brethren.
The earliest Yankee pitcher in the Hall is Jack Chesbro. Poached from the Pirates when the Highlanders began play in 1903, Chesbro pitched for the club during their first six seasons of existence. He led the AL with 41 wins, 48 complete games, and 454.2 IP in 1904, but notoriously uncorked a ninth inning wild pitch on the season's final day, costing the Highlanders the back end of a double header against the Boston Pilgrims and handing the pennant to their future arch rivals by a game and a half.
Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock led the pitching staff through the 1920s, as the team won their first pennants and World Series titles. But both were acquired from other organizations, as was Red Ruffing, a Hall of Famer himself, who joined the club in 1930. For the next thirteen years Ruffing would team the Yankees first homegrown ace to lead the team to seven pennants and six World Series championships.
Vernon Louis Gomez was adorned with the same nickname virtually every southpaw pitcher answered to in that era: "Lefty". Purchased from the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League in 1929, Gomez followed Tony Lazzeri from the same talent-rich northern California pipeline that the Yankees would later use to acquire Frank Crosetti, Joe DiMaggio, Gil McDougald, and Billy Martin. Gomez was of Mexican descent, but he was fortunate to be fair skinned enough to play in the Majors in the years before integration.
He made his Major League debut early in the 1930 season but also spent part of the year at the Yankees' AA affiliate in St. Paul. His Major League line wasn't pretty, just 2-5 with 5.55 ERA over 60 innings, most of them coming in relief. Gomez rebounded in a big way for his sophomore campaign, becoming the staff ace and leading the club in IP, wins, strikeouts, and ERA. His ERA slipped slightly below league average the following year, but he still led the club in wins and ERA, and finished fifth in MVP voting as the Yankees won their first World Series in four years. In post season play for the first time in his career, Gomez went the distance in Game Two of the Series, allowing just ten baserunners and a lone earned run on the way to a sweep of the Cubs.
Lefty turned in another solid campaign in 1933, again leading the Yankees in wins and ERA, falling just a third of an inning shy of tying Ruffing for the club lead, and leading the AL in strikeouts for the first of three times in his career. He followed that with the best season he would ever have. He led the American League in wins, winning percentage, ERA, ERA+, complete games, shutouts, strikeouts, and WHIP, earning him a third place finish in the MVP voting.
Gomez' record slipped below .500 in 1935, but his peripheral numbers were still excellent as he and Ruffing again fronted the pitching staff. The two would combine to carry the staff to an unprecedented four straight World Series titles from 1936-1939. Gomez went 64-38 (.627) over that stretch, with a 138 ERA+. He led the league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts in '37, marking the second pitching Triple Crown of his career. He also led the League in shutouts in '37 and '38. He won five World Series games over that run, leaving him with 6-0 record and 2,86 ERA in seven starts in the Fall Classic.
Gomez began to fade a bit towards the end of that historic run, falling just under 200 IP for the first time in his career in 1939. He was limited to just nine games in 1940, but rebounded pitch on pennant winners in 1941 and '42. He didn't see any action in those World Series, and was sold to the Braves in early 1943. Gomez never appeared for them, landed in Washington for one last start, and called it a career.
At the time of his retirement, Gomez was likely the best pitcher the Yankees ever had. A seven time All-Star, Gomez got the start in the first three All-Star games in history, five overall, and earned three wins in the Mid-Summer Classic. He had three top ten MVP finishes in the days before the Cy Young Award, and retired second to Ruffing on the Yankees all time wins, innings, strikeouts, games started, complete games, and shutout lists. His ERA+ of 125 bettered Ruffing (119) and still ranks ninth on the team's all-time leaderboard.
Always a quick thinker and quipster during his playing career, Gomez became a favorite on the off-season banquet circuit after his retirement. He remained in the Yankees organization as a manager, skippering the AA Binghamton squad in the late forties. Whitey Ford would go on to replace Gomez and Ruffing as the best pitcher in franchise history. Both Gomez and Ford were honored with plaques in Monument Park in August 1987. Ruffing would join them there in 2004. Gomez was unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1972, five years after Ruffing and two years before Ford.
When Buck Showalter was growing up in the 1960's in small town called Century on the panhandle of Florida, Little League games drew a crowd. The town had a beautiful, well-lit baseball field, so on countless summer nights hundreds of townspeople would gather to watch the kids play. Considering Buck's childhood home bordered on the field, perhaps it isn't much of a surprise that he took a liking to the game at a very young age. It also helped that, in addition to being the principal of the local high school, his father was also coach of its baseball team.
Buck took his smooth and level left handed swing to college at Mississippi State and was named an All-American in 1977. He batted .459 that year, splitting his time on defense between first base and the outfield. Despite having little to no power, he was drafted by the Yankees in the 5th round that year and assigned to A-ball in Fort Lauderdale.
As his college pedigree predicted, Showalter had the ability to hit for average and that skill carried him steadily through the Yankees' minor league ranks. Buck slapped his way to a .324 average at AA Nashville and led the Southern League in hits during the 1980 season which earned him a call up to AAA in 1981.
Unfortunately, Buck hit the wall in Columbus. He spent all of '82 back in Nashville, led the Southern League in hits for the second time and earned himself one final shot at AAA in 1983 where he struggled against superior pitching once again. Even if he had figured out International League pitching, Showalter's path to the Bronx would have been blocked by Don Mattingly.
He was briefly converted to a pitcher himself in an effort to salvage his playing career but it seemed as though Buck's life in baseball wasn't meant to take place on the field.
Having always displayed a natural baseball acumen, Showalter moving right into coaching after his playing career was over. He started off with the Yankees' New York Penn League team in Oneonta in 1985 and led the squad to a 106-41 record in his two years at the helm. That earned him a promotion to Fort Lauderdale where he presided over two consecutive winning squads.
His continuted success earned him a promotion to the Albany Colonie Yankees (AA) in 1989. It was that season in Albany that really jump-started his managerial career. His team went 97-46, he won Baseball America's Minor League Manager of the Year and was given the position of third base coach for the Yanks in 1990. Showalter replaced Stump Merrill as manager of the Big League club in 1992.
After going 76-86 in '92, Showalter guided the Yankees to a second place finish in 1993 with 88 wins. When the strike stopped the 1994 season, their winning percentage was even better (.619) and they were on pace to win over 100 games. Showalter was named AL Manager of the Year but they would have to wait a bit longer to break the Yanks' long playoff drought.
In the strike-shorted 1995 season, Showalter led the Yankees to their first postseason in 13 years. Although they lost to the Mariners in 5 games, it was clear that the organization was healthier that it had ever been. They had plenty of young talent on the team with much more waiting in the wings in the minors. However, this wasn't enough for George Steinbrenner. The Boss demanded that he fire two of his coaches after losing to the Mariners, but Showalter refused. Instead, he got the axe himself.
It didn't take long for Buck to land on his feet. He was quickly snatched up by the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks two years before they were scheduled to play a game. He was active in the construction of their roster and eventually served as their first manager. He led them to a 100 win season in 1999 and left after an 85 win campaign in 2000, just before the D-Backs unseated the Yanks in the 2001 World Series.
His last managerial tenure came in Texas from 2003-2006. He was 10 games under .500 during that stretch and was eventually replaced by Ron Washington. Since then, he has served as a senior advisor for the Indians and an analyst for ESPN.
Much of Showalter's success was attributable to a strong work ethic which, along with he stern demeanor, he was said to have inherited from his father. He worked so much that according to legend, he found himself inside a grocery store for the first time in 5 years during the 1994 strike.
Due to some unfortunate timing, Showalter never really got the credit he deserved for the role he played in turning the Yankees around. Had Steinbrenner not demanded that he unload two coaches after leading the team to the playoffs for the first time in over a decade, Buck could very easily have been at the helm of the late 90's dynasty. He ducked out of Arizona just a bit too early as well.
Showalter has begun to make appearances at Old Timer's Day and was included in the video montage during the last game at the Old Yankee Stadium. Perhaps Buck will never receive the adulation that many contributors to the Yankees dynasty do, but fans who watched the team closely during the early 90's or understand the club's history know how much he meant to the franchise.
A special Saturday good morning Fackers. After today we'll have just ten days left in our Countdown to Spring Training, meaning we'll be sixty percent of the way through the countdown that started back when there were twenty five days to go.
We'll have today's posts a little later on. But as we start off this morning I wanted to give a big tip of the hat to the awesome yankeenumbers.com. The site is a comprehensive source on the history of Yankee numbers, for players, coaches, and managers alike. It's a cool place to go to kill some time when you're bored and it's been a great resource for Jay and me as we go through the countdown.
One of the interesting things to note in looking through the site is that when uniform numbers were first introduced that weren't really utilized in the ways we're accustomed to now. These days, a player's number is part of his identity. For the bigger names in the game, their numbers can become synonymous with their names. But when the Yankees first introduced permanent numbers in 1929, they served a different purposes.
In the days when the game was brought to the public almost exclusively through print, in the infancy of radio, and long before the existence of TV, cable, internet, Extra Innings, and MLB.tv, the fans in the park knew far less about who was whom on the field, particularly for the visiting team. Adding numbers to the uniforms helped in identifying the players. As well all know, the Yankees issued their numbers based on the batting order: Earle Combs was number one, Mark Koenig two, Babe Ruth three, Lou Gehrig four and so on. While this worked well for the regulars, it was a bit more nebulous for pitchers and reserves.
As such, the concept of a number "belonging" to a player hadn't yet been established. If the batting order changed from year to year, or if players worked their way from the bench to the starting line up, the players' numbers changed. Later on, when players went off to World War II, in their absence their numbers were issued to new players. With the exception of the unique and tragic circumstances surrounding Lou Gehrig, the Yankees didn't retire anyone's number until Babe Ruth in 1948.
Thus, uniform numbers were very fungible until the 1950s. Top players like Tony Lazzeri and Herb Pennock switched numbers multiple times in the early thirties. Established veterans like Charlie Keller, Tommy Henrich, and several others wore multiple numbers over the course of their careers, compounded by their numbers being reissued during their service in the second World War. As a result, when we look at candidates for posts for a given day in the countdown, we often several deserving candidates, but find it difficult in some cases to determine which number best represents a given player.
Even the legends aren't immune to this. The great DiMaggio saw his number five reissued during his military service. Players like DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Billy Martin, and Mickey Mantle all broke in wearing one number, only to be immortalized in Monument Park wearing another. Eight different players wore Babe Ruth's number three between his release after the 1934 season and his number retirement in 1948.
One interesting thing I came across in researching the Gil McDougald post is that while he held number 12 for the entirety of his career, from 1951 through 1960, a player by the name of Woodie Held is also listed as wearing number 12 in 1957. At no point was McDougald out for more than a few games in '57, and he wasn't sent down at any point. So how could two players have had the same number? Checking Held's gamelog, he appeared in just one game before getting traded to Kansas City. The game was on May 8th, and while Held pinch hit in the ninth, McDougald played the whole game. Could two Yankees have worn the same number in the same game? I don't know, but these are the mysteries one can find when poking around yankeenumbers.com
Even before John Lackey signed with the Red Sox for a deal nearly identical to the 5 year, $82.5M one that the Yankees gave A.J. Burnett a year prior, many saw the two as being very similar. Both pitchers are right handed, oft-injured about six and a half feet tall and around 30 years old with intimidating on-the-mound demeanors. Today, however, I wanted to compare Lackey to Javer Vazquez given their parallel entrance to the Yankees vs. Red Sox rivalry and their disparate reputations in regards to handling pressure.
Lackey has been in the league since 2002 and has averaged 188 innings per season since then. Over that same time period, Vazquez has averaged 215. Lackey's ERA is about a quarter of a run lower over stretch, but that's essentially erased by having to fill in those extra 27 innings a year with a replacement level pitcher.
In general, when John Lackey is healthy, he's a better pitcher than Javy Vazquez. But he's also the Red Sox highest paid player ($18M this year) and is expected to contribute to the top of their rotation. The Yankees are paying Vazquez only about 2/3 as much and hoping that he slots in as their number four.
But what about their reputations under pressure? The idea for that comparison between the two comes from fellow LoHud pinch hitter and editor at the Harvard Crimson, Yair Rosenberg. On Sunday, Yair dropped me an email with the following suggestion/request:
I think the more productive comparison for AL East purposes would not be to Pettitte or Glavine, but to Lackey, whose reputation is that of a big game pitcher, and who is essentially the corresponding addition to this year's Red Sox as Vasquez is to the Yankees. It would be really interesting to see if the stats bear out Lackey's clutch rep - and might go a long way towards predicting the key factors in the coming Yankees-Red Sox race. I'd love to see a post on that.
So here we go. Fighting in the red corner, we have John "Big Game" Lackey, the winning pitcher in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series and supposed consummate clutch performer as anointed by his former manager. In the blue corner is Javier "Can't Handle New York" Vazquez, the man responsible for one of the more infamous home runs in Yankee history, who was called out publicly by Ozzie Guillen for not stepping up when it counts.
There is no question as to who has the better postseason resume. Lackey was thrust into the spotlight at an early age, his team reaching the playoffs in his first season in the majors and asking him to start Game 7 of the World Series only four days after his 24th birthday. Since then, he's been back to the postseason 5 times and pitched a total of 78 innings to a 3.12 ERA.
Vazquez, on the other hand, was trapped on bad Expos teams (no offense, Jonah) for the first six years of his career, and didn't pitch during October until 2004. His performance in the postseason has been pretty dreadful (10.34 ERA), but he's only had a chance to throw 15 2/3 innings in the playoffs.
That first and more in-depth inquiry into Vazquez's purported lack of clutchiferousness began with his FIP/ERA differential. Coincidentally, Lackey and Vazquez have identical 3.83 career FIPs. However, Lackey's career ERA is 3.81 while Vazquez's is 4.19. Leaving aside team defense - which would be very difficult to quantify over multiple years and teams - it's helpful to look at situational and leverage statistics when trying to explain FIP/ERA differentials.
There are some notable similarities between the Vazquez and Lackey in the chart to the right. Both pitch better with the bases empty than with runners on. They have similar tOPS+ distributions when the score of the game is within 4 runs.
Naturally, the biggest differences come in the smallest sample sizes. Lackey has done much better with the bases loaded than Vazquez and far worse when the game is out of hand.
Both Lackey's distributions are optimal and both are significant. If you could choose a situation to pitch your best in, it would be when the bases were loaded. If you had to give up runs, you would prefer to allow them when the margin of the game was greater than four runs. But there is a limit to how much these numbers can tell us. Lackey has only 141 plate appearances with the bases loaded while Vazquez has 163.
The sample sizes are larger for when the margin is greater than four (394 for Lackey, 811 for Vazquez) but those at bats are by definition less important. Lackey is obviously better in those situations, but not likely by as much as the numbers indicate.
What about the leverage index, though? While Lackey's numbers don't tell a coherent, progressive story like Vazquez's do, it's still clear that he pitches his worst in high leverage situations. Again, high leverage is based on the smallest sample size among the three levels, but each pitcher has over 1000 plate appearances to draw upon. So perhaps Lackey can't simply summon his best performances when the stakes increase.
If there was something about Lackey's internal constitution that gave him to ability to elevate his performance under pressure, wouldn't it show up in the leverage index? Shouldn't he be able to sense when the game is on the line and reach back for a little extra?
This contradiction begins to chip away not at Lackey's resume in particular but at the manufactured archetype of the "big game pitcher". It's one thing to have had good results in the postseason but it's another entirely to universally improve as the leverage increases. You can argue that the playoff results are more important, but Lackey has only faced 328 batters in postseason play. I think the regular season numbers tell us more.
While it may be convenient to label certain pitchers as big time performers and others as choke artists, they rarely fall neatly into one category or another. More correctly, there are players who have performed well in certain situations and others who have not.
As far as this season goes, it will be interesting to see who is better, Lackey or Vazquez. It's very likely that Lackey will have a lower ERA than Vazquez but based on their respective histories, Vazquez should be the better bet to throw more than 200 innings. However, perhaps this is the year that Vazquez's heroic workload over the past decade-plus catches up with him and it's also the first time in 3 years Lackey makes more than 30 starts.
Time will tell, but remember that the Yankees only need to get 2/3 the performance out of Vazquez to get as much value as the Sox do out of Lackey.
I don't think Brian Cashman would actually make decisions based on something as irrational as nostalgia, but he has spent much of this offseason reacquiring players that were dealt away when the Tampa "brain trust" was purportedly controlling the Yankee organization. First it was Javy Vazquez, next Nick Johnson and this afternoon the Yanks signed Marcus Thames - who was dealt to the Rangers in exchange for Ruben Sierra back in 2003 - to a minor league deal.
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