Sabathia To Serve As Honorary Judge

Major League Baseball issued this press release Wednesday, announcing their 2010 campaign in association with Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As they did last year, MLB will sponsor an honorary bat girl contest, with CC Sabathia serving as an celebrity judge. Also on the panel will be Red Sox pitcher John Lackey, White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy, Giants' closer/musical genius Brian Wilson, and my favorite MLBN analyst.

The Yankees participated in this contest last year as well. Polly Tompkins served as the Yankees bat girl during the May 20th game against the Orioles. She was graciously hosted by Nick Swisher, who caught the ceremonial first pitch from her, and proceeded to have a pretty good game for himself.

I'm happy to see continued participation in such events by the Yankees and their players. While it's easy for others to push or embrace the "Evil Empire" persona, the Yankees did an outstanding job last year in giving of their time and talents to reach out to the community and support worthy causes. HOPE Week was a great success in July, and coincidentally or not, their charitable initiatives off the field often ran parallel to extended stretches of success on the field.

And of course, even though they had to shake down Moshe and friends for the domain name, the organization maintains their Yankees Universe charity, with proceeds benefiting pediatric cancer care at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

We all support the team when it comes to what happens between the lines. I think we should all consider supporting some of these off the field efforts as well. In the grand scheme of things, they're far more important than baseball games.

Back with the preview in a bit.

Game 97: Hope

Big Willie Style and are are heading up to the Stadium for the first time in a long while so the preview gets short shrift. It goes like this:

Andy Pettitte is coming off a strong start against the Orioles in which he threw 7 1/3 innings of one run ball but got a no decision. He struck out 8 in that game, gave up six hits and only walked 2. He started once against the A's this year, going 7 innings and giving up 2 runs on 9 hits.

Gio Gonzalez goes for the A's and he's been, um, pretty terrible this year. He's been used as both a reliever and starter, but has been especially unsuccessful in the later role. In four starts he's only managed to last 17 1/3 innings and has surrendered 22 runs. His last outing, a 2 2/3 inning 11 run debacle against the Twins, certainly didn't help his line, but he's been far from good.

Jose Molina and Cody Ransom are in the line up but here's to hoping the Yanks can extend their record to 6-0 during HOPE Week.

Your shadow walks faster than you,
You don't really know what to do,
Do you think that you're not alone?

You really think that you are immune to,
It's gonna get that the best of you,
It's gonna lift you up and let you down.

But you don't...
Always...
Have to hold to your head...
Higher than your heart.

You better hope you're not alone.