Morning Linkaround

Good morning, Fackers. As much of the East Coast recovers from the winter storm that swept over it last night, the Yankees are down in Tampa beginning Spring Training in earnest. While we celebrate pitchers and catchers as the beginning of camp, as Joe Girardi said earlier this week, it doesn't really kick into full gear until the position players arrive.

Most of the new arrivals had already went through their physicals and took off by the time the writers hit the clubhouse yesterday, but today they will start doing their first drills as a full squad. Of course, we've still got a while to wait before any action appears on our televisions. A week from today, the first Spring Training game (against the Pirates) will be televised on YES. Marc Carig from the Newark Star-Ledger has the full TV schedule.

Here are some other links to start off the day:

Cliff Corcoran from Bronx Banter put out his annual Camp Classic. In it, he examines every player not guaranteed a spot coming out of Spring Training from the 40 man on down to the non-roster invitees.

Similarly, Matthew Pouliot from Hardball Talk continues his "Diving into the Depths" series with a look at the Yankees and organizes a depth chart by position.

Dan Novick from the Hardball Times spotlights an especially sabermetric statement Joe Girardi made about Robinson Cano's performance with runners in scoring position, via LoHud.

On XM Radio last night, Brain Cashman acknowledged that Brett Gardner might be one of the best center fielders in baseball, but said that Curtis Granderson was likely to be their center fielder this season. Ben from RAB thinks that Cash's statements might be an indication that the Yanks don't see Gardner as a long term solution.

On Twitter, Joel Sherman reports that the Yankees are converting Kei Igawa to a reliever in a last ditch effort to extract value from his $46M contract. Considering Joe Girardi is almost certainly going to select two lefties for his bullpen and Boone Logan might be the front runner for that spot, it appears that Igawa will be given a real chance. You can't blame them for trying to make use of him, but the reaction from fans won't be very positive if he stumbles out of the gate.

It's about the time of year that ESPN typically starts stacking new baseball "analysts" - read: past players and executives - on top to their already bloated crew. To wit, they announced that Aaron Boone and J.P. Ricciardi will be contributing to Baseball Tonight this coming season. We Yankee fans like Boone, and Ricciardi seems like a bright, sabermetrically-inclined sort of a guy, but they might need to add a second row of seats on the set of the show.

Larry from Wezen-Ball put together an interesting graphic showing the history of every Major League park marked with the Championships and Pennants won by the team that in habits it.

The ubiquitous Jonah Keri recently appeared on two podcasts that are worth checking out. The first is FanGraphs Audio, which as host Caston Cistulli proclaims "is like a bald eagle: less endangered now than it had been until recently". The second appearance is on Kissing Suzy Kolber's House of Punte. The relevant portion begins just after the 18:00 mark and there is a bit of overlap with the FanGraphs interview. The typical crowd over at KSK will probably not take kindly to the decided lack of poop humor, dick jokes and NFL character sketches, but you folks will likely enjoy the material.

Ozzie Guillen is on Twitter and already dropping gems like "going to eat in half hour why dye no have a job ?". In honor of his presence, Jonah compiles a list of the 9 sports figures who aren't on Twitter but would be in a perfect world.

Baseball America released its Top 100 Prospects list. Jesus Montero is 4th and they his his power a perfect 80 on the scouting scale. The only other Yankees was Austin Romine and he is 86th. Austin Jackson is 76th. Pat Andriola from the Hardball Times lists a couple of things he disagrees with, including ranking Jackson higher than Fernando Martinez.

We might have linked to this already, but for a more detailed and Yankee-centric prospect picture, check out Mike from RAB's Top 30.

The smart folks at BBTF weigh in on the Orioles/Highlanders/Yankees debate I talked about yesterday.

Josh from Jorge Says No! wonders if the Yankees reluctance to give Johnny Damon a two year deal foreshadows their interest in Carl Crawford.

Happy Trails, David Tyree

If you've been following the New York Football Giants' offseason closely at all, then the fact that they've cut Super Bowl Hero David Tyree shouldn't come as much of a surprise. After missing all of last season with various knee and hamstring ailments which carried over into this year's training camp, Tyree didn't sound surprised either:

You get the call and obviously you have the inclination of what you’re going to hear. It’s not like I wasn’t prepared or didn't know it wasn’t a possibility. It kind of simplifies things for me and causes me to rejoice in the years that I’ve had here.

>8

I didn’t have a great camp. I had a very average camp. It started terrible and worked up to average.

It's unfortunate that with the Giants current lack of depth at wide receiver that Tyree wasn't up to at least making the 53 man roster for special teams and that he wasn't healthy enough to contribute when Plaxico Burress went down last year. Him failing to make the roster kind of represents the opposite of the way his catch in the Super Bowl played out; the opportunity seemed to be gift wrapped for him and he couldn't make anything out of it.

The catch, on the other hand, was a wounded duck, lobbed in desperation and held onto in a way that had scarcely been seen before, under the brightest lights of all. And then, just like Aaron Boone (whose jersey number represents the Yankees' magic number at the moment), after making the biggest play in the penultimate game you could play against a team from Boston, he was gone the next season to among other things, a knee injury.

It's possible that there is someone else who has made a bigger name for themselves in sports than David Tyree off of just one play, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Fortunately for Tyree, he's only 29 years old and still has a good window of opportunity to continue his NFL career. His agent says that Ravens and Chiefs have both "expressed interest" in signing him.

So, best of luck to you Dave. It might have been a little too brief, but thanks for the memories.

Yankees Fathers and Sons [Part 1]

In yesterday's game preview, in honor of Father's Day, we mentioned that Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher are the two second generation Major Leaguers on the Yankee roster. It's Monday; you don't want to work; the team isn't playing too well right now, and we have an off night tonight. Let's kill some time by furthering yesterday's theme and looking at some past Yankees who were part of baseball families:

Shelley Duncan: Everyone's favorite high five/forearm bash enthusiast is pasting the ball at AAA Scranton and is the son of former Big League catcher and famous pitching coach Dave Duncan.

Tom Tresh: Tresh was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1962. He was a switch hitting shortstop with power, who was eventually moved to the outfield. So of course, he faced innumerable comparisons to Mickey Mantle. A back injury ruined Tresh's career and forced him to retire at 31. But before that, he had six pretty good seasons for the Yankees, played on three pennant winners and one World Series winner. Tresh was the son of former White Sox cather Mike Tresh, and passed away last October at 70.

Bill Kunkel: Kunkel pitched for the Yankees briefly in 1963. He washed out of the majors, but began a second career as an umpire, working the AL from 1968 to 1984. Kunkel retired when his son Jeff reached the Majors with the Texas Rangers. He is the last man to both play and umpire in the Major Leagues.

Dale Berra: Everyone knows Yogi, but his son Dale also played in the Majors, including a stint with the Yankees in 1985-86, during which he briefly played with his father as his manager. Dale wasn't very good in his time as a Yankee, with perhaps his most infamous moment coming in this game when he and Bobby Meacham were both thrown out at home on the same play.

Mel Stottlemyre: The former Yankee ace and longtime pitching coach had two sons, Todd and Mel Jr. pitch in the big leagues. Mel Jr lasted only briefly, but Todd had a decent and lengthy career and is now the Diamondbacks pitching coach.

Tim Raines: The former Yankee and current Newark Bears manager is the father of Tim "Little Rock" Raines Jr. After retiring in Spring Training in 2000, Tim Raines unretired for the 2001 season. He spent the bulk of the season in Montreal, where his career had begun. After the Orioles made his son a September call-up, the Expos traded Raines to the O's for the season's final week so he could join his son. They became the second father-son combination to play as teammates.

Ken Griffey: Ken Griffeys Senior and Junior were the first father-son teammate combination and the first father and son to be active in the Majors at the same time. The two hit back-to-back HRs in this game. Griffey Sr. is best remembered as Junior's father and as a member of the Big Red Machine, but he spent 4+ fairly productive years with the Yankees from 1982-86.

Bobby Bonds: If Ken Griffey didn't sire the best ballplaying son of a former Yankee then Bobby Bonds did. Bonds came from the San Francisco Giants in exchange for Bobby Murcer in a big trade for both teams. Bonds spent only the 1975 season with the Yankees, but it was a great one, as he hit .270/.375/.512 with a career high 151 OPS+. He hit 32 HRs and had 30 SB, becoming the first Yankee to go 30/30. He was traded after the season for Ed Figueroa and Mickey Rivers, two key components of the pennant winning teams of the late 70s. Bonds became a bit of a vagabond after that, moving from team to team and traded for several future Yankees: Rich Dotson, Jerry Mumphrey, and Claudell Washington. The Yankees re-signed him in 1982, but after toiling in AAA Columbus for a month, he was released, ending his career. Bonds spent the third year of his pro career playing AA ball in Waterbury, CT, close to where I live. He always liked the city, and in his retirement he ran a celebrity golf tournament there each summer until his death in 2003.

Felipe Alou: A Yankee from 1971-73, Alou's brothers Jesus and Matty were also Big Leaguers, with Matty joining him on the 1973 team. In addition to his son Moises reaching the Bigs, Felipe was also the cousin of Jose Sosa and uncle of Mel Rojas. That's a Big League family right there.

Aaron Boone: Boone did one huge and historic thing in his time in pinstripes and was absolute horseshit for the rest of it. Perhaps more than the Alous, the Boones are a baseball family. Boone's brother Brett, father Bob, and grandfather Ray all had long Major League careers. The Boones and the Bells are the only three generation MLB families to date.

Sandy Alomar: Sandy Senior was with the Yankees in 1975 and 76 and was the on-deck batter when Chris Chambliss hit the homerun that won the 1976 AL Pennant. Given that Alomar Sr. was .245/.290/.288 career hitter, we should all be glad that Chambliss hit that HR. His sons had far better careers and Roberto will likely reach the Hall of Fame.

We'll be back with some more later on.

Only A Year?

I hadn't heard of Matthew Pouliot before Circling the Bases was formed, but I've found myself linking to his thoughts pretty frequently as of late. He's got a theory about the Manny revelations today:

However, I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that he started up about a year ago.

I thought Ramirez was done as a superstar last May. His OPS dropped all of the way from 1058 in 2006 to 881 in 2007. He homered once every 12.3 at-bats in 2005, once every 12.8 at-bats in 2006 and once every 24.2 at-bats in 2007. The home run bounced back somewhat in the first half of 2008, but he finished the first three months at .286/.377/.514. It'd be a great line for the typical corner outfielder, but it wasn't typical Manny.

It wasn't just the numbers, though. Right-handers capable of throwing in the mid-90s and unleashing quality sliders were making quick work of him. Ramirez really is about as smart of a hitter that there is in the game, and he was still feasting on mistakes. But to my eyes, the quality pitches that he used to line for doubles were instead resulting in swings and misses. Ramirez was always a guy fans wanted up at the end of close games. However, that's when teams usually have their best pure arms on the mound and Ramirez just wasn't having any luck against them.

Ramirez had to know he wasn't catching up to fastballs like he once did. Maybe that's when he decided he needed a boost. A month or two to kick in, a trade to the easier league, a happier situation… the perfect storm?

Anyway, it's just a thought. It probably didn't go down like that at all. Nothing is going to surprise me.

It's an interesting thought, and it's just as plausible as any other theory you are going to hear thrown against the wall at this point.  

That's the frustrating part of all this PED bullshit. When there is some sort of dramatic reveal, it invariably only leads to more questions. All you get are intentionally vague half truths, which bring out the conspiracy theorists in all of us, trying to connect the dots.

While it's certainly tempting as a Yankees' fan to chalk Manny's .321/.411/.618 line against the Bombers to steroid use, we can't. His 50 2B, 55 HR, 163 RsBI and 448 total bases are all the highest totals against any opponent, and that's probably the reason behind the temptation. I got rightfully called out by Mass Hysteria earlier, for bringing the Sox' World Series titles into it. I still think it's a valid point, given the fact that the Mitchell Report (which is being exposed for the incomplete sham that it was with each passing outed player) named 9 Yankees on the 2000 World Series team, and we had to hear that bullshit too. 

But pointing back to previous World Series titles isn't going to change anything. They are in the record books. The emotions have come and gone and retroactively labeling them tainted isn't going to change them in our memories. I'll never forget going apeshit in Falcone 201 when Aarone Boone hit that home run. I'll still remember walking back to my dorm room on the sixth floor of Collins that night in 2004, and watching every elated Red Sox fan spill out into greenspace, losing their minds. 

It just goes to show how insidiously PED use weaved it's way into the game. It's like an invasive species. At a certain point, it becomes impossible to separate it from what originally existed. You can try to slice and segment what would or should have happened in Played X wasn't on Drug Y, but it's only imaginary, no different from re-playing the season on MVP Baseball 2004.

Even if you are a Yankees fan, I don't think there is cause for celebration. For every player who at one point or another who seemed beyond reproach is tagged for PED use, the less we have witnessed history. If baseball is ever able to get ahead of the drug use, much of this era will be dismissed in retrospect because so many of the best players were not clean.  

As Good As It Gets?

In a way, Aaron Boone needing to have heart surgery is sort of karmic justice for the collective cardiac trauma he inflicted on Red Sox Nation on October 16th, 2003:

Boone made the announcement Wednesday, saying he has known about his heart condition since college but tests done after his routine physical determined he needed surgery. It is not an emergency, but doctors indicated the procedure was needed.

He said doctors told him he could play baseball when he recovers, but he's not sure if he will.

Godspeed, Mr. Boone. You made one of the most monumental plays in the history of sport. That swing extended the "curse" one more year and topped off one of the best nights of my life. Your knee injury in a pick-up basketball game opened the door for A-Rod, and even after this offseason, I can't hold it against you.

In 50 years, will we still look at that parabola into the left field seats as the cresendo of the Yankees vs. Red Sox Rivalry?

How could it get more momentous? That homer left the bat of a guy who had been inserted earlier as a pinch runner. It was the 11th inning of a Game 7.

Bucky Dent's dinger was in the 7th inning of a play-in game. When the Red Sox struck back in '04, it was the 2nd inning and the rest of the game felt like a foregone conclusion. For something more dramatic to occur would take a script less realistic than Rookie of the Year.

[h/t Shysterball]

Number of Days Until Spring Training: Aaron Boone (#19)

Uh, remember this?


WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!?!?!

Remember when the Yankees were invincible and the Red Sox were just a bunch of gagging choke artists trying to suck three dicks at once?

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!?!?!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnn

/regains composure

The night Aaron Boone singlehandedly caused a record 326 heart attacks and 114 suicides the the greater Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I was attending Bentley College, in Waltham. My college tenure (2002-2006) coincided with some of the fiercest skirmishes in the history of the Yankees vs. Red Sox version of the Hundred Years War.

We were sophomores and happened to be living in a dorm populated by almost all seniors because my freshman year roommate won the 2nd pick in the housing lottery. My roommate Kevin and I got together with a few other Yankees fans (Kristen, Katie, Allissa, you out there?) and watched it in our room.

When the Red Sox were winning 4-1 in the top of the seventh, a few Boston loving, lobstah cracking, Storrow Drive driving, Kelly's Roast Beef loving (btw there is no fucking way you "created the orignial roast beef sandwich"), Jim Koch blowing, Boston Stranglin', Reveeah Beach walking (America's first public beach, huh? THEY WERE ALL PUBLIC WHEN THE FUCKING NATIVE AMERICANS LIVED HERE YOU RACIST OPRESSORS), yellow rain slicker wearing, NESN watching, chowdah gulping, Bernie and Phyl's shopping, Tia's on the Waterfront sweating, Tequila Rain dancing, Who's On First patrons who also happened to be motherfucking giant shiteating, fuckfaced fish mongers from fackin' Sawgus, Walpole, Reading, Taunton or some other godforsaken shithole, thought it would be a good idea to bang on everyone's doors and scream unintelligible shit.

Sorry, I lost it again for a second there.

It was before the ubiquity of the DVR and pretty much everyone on campus was watching the game at the exact same time. If you weren't tuned in, you probably still had a pretty good idea of what was going on, just by the collective audible reactions echoing throughout the dorms. It was fucking electric, and I can't imagine a baseball game ever getting to that place again.

The Red Sox have obviously since smartened up and became the Yankees pimp in recent years, so I guess there could technically be an epic playoff rematch, but I highly doubt it's going to come down to an 11th inning, Game 7, walk-off home run by a guy who never slugged .500 over a full season.

When it happened, everyone in the room went from deadly stoic to deliriously ecstatic in one swing of the bat. Being that most of the student body is from New England, we were one of the few rooms going absolutely insane, literally jumping around like a bunch of four year olds on a trampoline for the first time.

Because of that Perfect Storm, the aforementioned Matt Damon idolizing, NKOTB fawning, dock workers ended up eating a giant bag of shit for their premature celebration while the other Wellesley living, Nantucket vacationing, Tea Party having, Charles River trail running, Jordan's Furniture investing, Volvo driving, Phillips Exeter grads cried into the J. Crew sweaters draped over their shoulders and about 200,000 pink Sox hats got put back in the closet until the next October.

Whatever Sox fans, you won in 2004, con-fucking-gradulations, but Johnny Damon's 2nd inning grand slam could never hold a candle to Aaron-Fackin-Boone. Admit it. You were still worried until that last out was recorded. You will always be our collective bitches. Why don't you have a couple of glasses of Jameson and go for a drive?

For fuck's sake, can the season start already? Shovel off the Zeusdamn fields. I'll play!


Did I mention I hate Boston?

[Ed. Note: I could never have come up with all these Boston stereotypes by myself, and thus enlisted pretty much everyone I know that spend some time out there, including my sister, Joe, Kevin, Will and Cliff]