Friday Linkstravaganza

They are making Negro Leagues stamps? Awesome.

Without getting into subjective things like game calling and pitch framing, Mike from River Ave. Blue attempted to quantify the defensive contributions of Major League catchers, with emphasis of course on Jorge Posada and Francisco Cervelli. Using stolen bases, caught stealing, wild pitches and passed balls, Mike created cRSAA/180 (Catcher's Runs Saved Above Average per 180 innings). A key point: it's a good thing Cervelli is hitting, because he's not the defensive whiz he was in the minors.

According to a survey conducted among MLB players by Sports Illustrated, Joba Chamberlain is the most overrated player in the league and by more than double the next closest guy (A-Rod, obviously). Translation: guys who play for other clubs really don't like him and resent the attention he got when he first broke into the league. Does he get more recognition than he deserves because of his unique name and what he did in 2007? Absolutely. Do people who look at baseball objectively overvalue what he does? I don't think so.

Sparked by a conversation on Google Reader about a paragraph on Rob Neyer's blog by two of the guys from IIATMS, Moshe Mandel from TYU talked a little bit about what makes a team "championship-caliber". I agree with Moshe: we don't need to get ahead of ourselves, but if the Yankees don't deserve that distinction right now, then no team does.

Speaking of those gents from IIATMS, they, along with a few others, wrote a trade deadline primer which you can purchase here for $10. It's packed with information about where the Yankees stand and who they might be looking to fill some of the gaps in their roster with.

According to TiqIQ, who has a really cool partnership with River Ave. Blues, the secondary market prices were climbing for Friday night's game even before it was announced that the Yankees would be honoring George Steinbrenner and Bob Sheppard. The fact that is the first home game since the 4th of July on a Friday night certainly is helping raise those prices.

Is it just me, or does The Boss deserve a better commemorative patch than this. Bob Sheppard's, on the other hand, is pretty sharp.

Red Sox fans payed tribute to George Steinbrenner and Bob Sheppard and were respectful about it. Seriously.

Hey look, the All-Star Game got the lowest ratings of all time. It might have been the interminable pregame ceremonies or the 8:50PM ET start, but I'd like to think that, without a hook like the last year of Yankee Stadium or something, mostly because of the infinite pitching changes and cameos by position players the ASG really just sucks. This isn't Little League, not everyone has to appear in the damn game.

You probably noticed that the radar gun was lighting up on Tuesday night. The appropriately-named Mike Fast at The Hardball Times looks into whether or not the readings were accurate.

In response to an email from a Twitter follower, Jonah Keri put together "a few" (more like a dozen) thoughts on some of the deeper (social, racial) implications of the Yunel Escobar for Alex Gonzalez trade.

Minor league maven John Sickels projected Major League character Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn's career statistics. Unsurprisingly, his propensity for free passes kept him from being truly dominant.

Ben Nicholson-Smith from MLBTR had an excellent profile of Daniel Nava, who signed with the Red Sox for a whopping $1 back in 2008 and is producing for the Big Leauge club now.

Not golf-related, but Wright Thompson has a typically great feature piece up at ESPN.com about the history of St. Andrews. A nice companion piece to some early morning British Open viewing, I say.

Perhaps you heard about the suicide bombings that took place in Kampala, Uganda that targeted a viewing of the World Cup final at a rugby club. Well, my sister is actually in Kampala right now. She was nowhere near the bombings and is just fine, but if you'd like to read her reaction to the attacks, here it is.

My buddy Frank has tickets to the Lacrosse World Championships, which had to be reshuffled because English officials initially wouldn't accept the hand-written passports presented by the Iroquois Nation's team.

It's not at all sports-related, but here is a great story about the guy did an incredible amount of research before he appeared on Price is Right and whose appearance culminated with him guessing the exact price of the Showcase Showdown. But was it just preparation and luck? The producers of the show think the fix was in.

"Send Swish" Succeeds... At Annoying The Sh*t Out Of Everyone

Hey Yankee fans! Check out the team's website this morning and tell me what the first thing you see is.

Is it a recap of last night's game, which most people who are up early on East Coast time would probably be interested in seeing? Why, no, it's yet another message from the Yankees telling you to vote Nick Swisher into the All-Star game to go along with the - not kidding - THIRTEEN other mentions of the Final Vote and TEN pictures of his face on the front page before you even have to scroll down.

We have:

1. A gaudy background design telling you to "Send Swish" and visit Yankees.com, even though you are already there.
   
   
2. A banner ad on top of the site.
   
   
3. Underneath the main picture, there is a link to this page created for the "Send Swish" campaign.
   
   
4. And a link to an article Bryan Hoch wrote about all the support Swisher is getting (with a video interview).
   
   
5. And a link to an article about Brian Cashman coercing children into stuffing the ballot box under the guise of charity work.
   
   
6. Another link to an article by Hoch on the status of the vote (Swish is in the lead!!1!). I'm sure Bryan is having a fucking blast writing all of these!
   
   
7. And a link to where you can vote under that.
   
   
8. And a contest (for two regular season tickets and an autographed ball! (/makes wanking motion)) that you could potentially have a 1:10,000,000 chance of winning if you vote for Swisher.
   
   
9. Another link to Swish's campaign headquarters.
   
   
10. On the right, there is the video with him and his surfboard that you would have to have been living in a hole not to to have seen ten times already.
    
    
11. Under that, there is a second link to the support article.
    
    
12. And a second link to the status article.
    
    
13. And yet another link to where you can vote.

This is in addition to the four or five emails the Yankees have blasted out, the shameless plug in the recap, the innumerable on-air mentions, more articles that Hoch has probably been forced to write at gunpoint, and pretty much every Yankee blog happily joining in this massive, elaborate PR circle jerk to maybe see Swisher play a couple of innings in an exhibition game over someone who is more deserving.

To be clear, it's not really the Yankees who are at fault here. They are just doing what they do best: flexing their considerable resources to gain an advantage over the competition. I'm sure the Red Sox campaign for Youk is equally exasperating. The true culprit here is the concept of the "Final Vote", which is baseball's equivalent of having a play-in game for the 64th spot in the NCAA Tournament - a stupid attention grab that means next to nothing.

Sure, all of the All-star voting is essentially a popularity contest and teams are all too happy to promote their own guys ad nauseam as soon as they have the chance, but the Final Vote takes everything that is wrong and irksome with the process and shoves it down your throat constantly for four days straight.

I get it, "Let's rally around our guy". Swisher is having an excellent year. In terms of WAR and wOBA, he trails only Robinson Cano on the team. He's never been an All-Star and since he's a corner outfielder, he's not going to get all that many chances to be one. From his perspective, the opportunity to rally the Yankees' massive fanbase around his candidacy is probably his best shot of ever being able to add the feather of playing in the Mid-Summer Classic to his cap. He seems to sincerely want it, too. But I don't care.

I'm not voting, and if I was - and I know this is tough to believe - I would vote for Kevin Youkilis (you know, the guy who is the best player among those available). He's been worth nearly a full win more than Swisher this year (with Paul Konerko, Michael and Delmon Young trailing well behind) and, as much as we hate him, deserves his third straight All-Star selection more than Swisher deserves his first. Furthermore, when push comes to shove, if the AL needs a pinch hitter in extra innings of the ASG to win homefield advantage in the World Series, I'd much rather see Youk at the plate than Swish. Wouldn't you?

Wednesday Linktacular

During his recap of last night's game, Hank Waddles of Bronx Banter really did justice to Colin Curtis' first Major League hit, something that we only mentioned in passing because of its limited significance to the game. Money quote:

There are a lot of reasons why I love baseball, but moments like these are high on the list. Basketball players don’t care much about their first basket, and I’m guessing that even quarterbacks forget their first touchdowns, but there seems to be something magical about a player’s first hit. Every once in a while, like Tuesday night in Arizona, we get to share in that moment.

Chad Jennings has more, including some audio from Curtis.

We also neglected to mention Joba Chamberlain's stellar inning last night but Mike from River Ave. Blues picks up that slack. We've seen these standout, stand-alone innings from Joba a few times this year and the hopeful reactions to them but remember that he was pitching with a seven run lead, in unusually warm weather against a team that's prone to striking out. A good inning is a good inning, but Joba has to rip off a bunch of them in a row before we have a legitimate reason to get excited.

Katie Sharp at ESPN's "TMI" Blog (still hate that name) looks a little deeper into Robinson Cano's improvements this year (subs. req'd), confirming what you probably have noticed about his approach at the plate:

One key change for Cano is that he’s finally learned to be patient and swing at more hittable pitches. Last year, he swung at 54% of all pitches and chased 35% of pitches out the zone with runners in scoring position – both of which were well above the major league averages of 46% and 24%, respectively. This year, he’s lowered his overall swing rate to 47.1% and his chase percentage has fallen to 29.1%.

Pending Pinstripes asks whether or not the Yanks should DFA Chan Ho Park. Judging by Joe Girardi's comments, it looks like the Yanks are going to stick with him for the time being. I certainly don't feel comfortable when he enters the game in a high leverage situations but his ability to throw multiple innings means he can still be useful on the roster.

The Yankees are playing better against bad teams than good ones? You've gotta be shitting me!

I don't have anything to link to just yet, but how about that USA soccer victory?!!

A Mickey Mouse sculpture adorned with Red Sox logos prepared for the All-Star Game was vandalized out in LA. Some may assume it was a group of Yankee fans who did it, but my money is on the Crips. Those folks don't take to kindly to people who wear red and display body language which seems to pose the question "What, bitch?"

The Sports Hernia inarguably has the greatest headlines.

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs argues that the only way to shorten the length of the games is to enlarge the strikezone. That or trim down the commercial breaks, but we all know that's not going to happen.

Over at U.S.S. Mariner, Cameron checks on with Lou Pinella's record seven years after he was traded to Tampa Bay along with Antonio Perez for Randy Winn, and hits on what I think is a fundamental truth in baseball:

The fact of the matter is that Piniella, like pretty much every other manager on earth, wins with teams that have talent and loses with teams that don’t. He doesn’t get more out of his players than anyone else. He doesn’t inspire his men to greatness. He doesn’t make brilliant tactical decisions or teach bad players how to become good ones. Right now, in fact, he’s making a debacle of the Cubs catching situation by benching Geovany Soto (who is really good) in favor of Koyie Hill (who is really bad).

Here's a cool interview with the founder of Baseball-Reference, Sean Foreman. It's on the Bleacher Report, but don't worry, it's not stolen from somewhere else or ridden with grammatical errors.

A site called Snippets used Google Maps to look at every baseball field in the MLB. They came up with some interesting facts that you may or may not be aware of and created some sweet graphics. It's a bit like the one Craig Robinson did for his site (Flip Flop Fly Ball) but with way more words.

Speaking of Mr. Robinson, the fine gentlemen of Pitchers & Poets did an excellent podcast with him a while back that I've been meaning to link to. For those familiar with Craig's work, you'll be unsurprised to find that he's an illustrator by trade. The interview runs about a half hour and I assure that it will hold your attention for that whole time.

Mark Teixeira's mom told the world that he started referring to himself as "Kurt Teixeira" after the lead singer of Nirvana killed himself back in 1994. Yeah, that's kind of embarrassing, but on the bright side, maybe he can pick a song other than Twisted Sister now that the cat's out of the bag.

I don't mean to end on a sad note, but death seems to churn up some decidedly poignant writing. First, J.C. Bradbury wrote about what will likely be the last Father's Day he spent with his dad. And secondly, during Monday night's blowout, from over the loudspeakers in Chase Field, Marc Carig was reminded of his sister, six years after the unthinkable happened. Both of those will choke you up a bit, but are well worth reading.

Wednesday Linktacular

Good morning Fackers. It's been a while since I've pulled together one of these, so grab a seat in front of the Coleman Lifelike Scoreboard (via Neyer) and let's take a trip around the baseballing interwebz.

Some quick Yankee items first before we get to the big stuff.

Here's a nice wrap up of the Yankees' second day of the draft from MLB.com with a video and a listing of all their picks.

Brian Costa of the WSJ took a look at some of the Yanks' late round picks of yesteryear.

Sean from Pending Pinstripes had a great post about giving more than lip service to the concept of "trusting the process" around draft time.

Brett Gardner was removed from last night's game with some discomfort in his thumb, likely stemming from the time that he broke it last year. As anyone who has fractured a digit can attest, pain can flare up at times for quite a while after the initial injury. Gardner said it's happened about 20 times since Spring Training, but it was a little worse tonight. Still, it's probably nothing to worry about.

Jorge Posada started taking catching practice once again, and hopefully should be available to resume that role part-time in the near future.

This isn't exactly news, but Dave Eiland was granted personal leave for an undisclosed reason and is not with the team at present. Bullpen coach Mike Harkey is occupying his role as pitching coach and Josh Paul - the coach of the short-season Staten Island team - is holding things down out in the bullpen for the time being.

Okay, onto the biggest topics of the last two days:

On Monday, Joe Posnanski went to great lengths to put the debut of Steven Strasburg into perspective and in so doing, said this:

But we live in a different time, our Christmas morning time, when expectation is more fun than realization, when potential costs as much or more than performance, when we happily get carried away, when it isn’t so much about that tired cliche of “what have you done for me lately?” but, instead, “what can you do for me tomorrow?”

If anything, Strasburg's jaw-dropping performance only served to increase the impossibly high expectations for him. Had he done something impressive but repeatable like striking out nine while walking two or three, that would have been one thing, but ripping of 14 Ks without issuing a single free pass? You have to go all the way back to 2007 to find any pitcher in the Majors that's done that, let along a rookie, let alone in his debut.

I'd obviously recommend reading through Poz's live blog of the game, but the most entertaining thing I found this morning about Strasmas was Dashiell Bennett's spot on vivisection of Bob Costas' call of the event over at Deadspin:

Bob Costas did more in just nine innings to craft the Legend of Stephen Strasburg then a lifetime supply of Baseball Almanacs ever could. Yet, he wants to use his same breaths to tsk-tsk the big bad media for losing their heads over the man. If you can't restrain yourself, Bob, why should anyone else?

If you think Dash is being harsh, click through for a mash-up of the historical name-dropping and "on the other hand" detachment Costas employs. I'm not saying there was a clear and easy path to walk for this kind of a game - something truly special was unfolding and it's tough to talk about that without going overboard - but it's the tone with which Costas speaks out both sides of his mouth, listing off legends of the game while saying that "others" might be going overboard with the hype, that neatly encompasses why so many people don't like him.

Deadspin was actually right in the middle of yesterday's second biggest baseball story as well - the one about Pete Rose's corked bat. Barry Petchesky did some real journalism and brought together the story of a PR4192 - a stick used in a game by Mr. Rose himself with an unbroken chain of custody - that X-rays show has a 6" piece of cork inserted right into the barrel.

Craig Calcaterra and Kevin Kaduk ask whether we should care about this and does it really matter, respectively. Beyond the story being a thoroughly enjoyable read, I do care and think it does matter.

It's not surprising by any stretch. We've long known that Rose has a shaky moral foundation (to put it kindly) and accusations of him corking date back to 2001. But his play on the field has always been unimpeachable. He was Charlie Hustle and any tarnish on his name had been confined to things he did without a batting helmet on. To my knowledge, no one ever questioned the veracity of his all-time hits record, save for the jab that he probably shouldn't have put himself in the lineup at the end of his career when he was a player-manager.

Even if MythBusters and other empirical research concluded that corking a bat doesn't really help. Fine, but it's still cheating, regardless of how much of an edge is provides. Again, not that this is shocking, but the one last leg that Rose had to stand on, now looks considerably more unstable.

Six Days Worth Of News, Notes, & Links

Good morning Fackers. I'm still getting myself back up to speed here, but I suppose, that like the majority of the Yankees roster at present, I'm day-to-day. Hope you all had a good Memorial Day Weekend. Mine wasn't too bad. In fact, if I were a Yankees minor league prospect and I was assigned to Charleston, I think I might intentionally tank in hopes of repeating the level and spending another year there. Let's get caught up on the past several days with some news, notes, and links:

As we mentioned in last night's preview, Jorge Posada was not activated in time for last night's game, despite being eligible to come off the DL and having run and taken BP without incident over the past few days. Rumor is he'll be activated in time for tonight's contest.

Posada's return likely means the end of Chad Moeller's tenure with the club, at least for the time being. However, Posada has yet to catch, which is likely to be the most strenuous activity as it relates to the fracture in his foot. It's also rumored that Posada may ease his way back into the lineup as a DH. It's not entirely out of the question that the team might keep Moeller around for a few more days, but with just a four man bench I can't see the team carrying three catchers right now.

In other roster news, Cleveland has claimed pitcher Shane Lindsay off waivers from the Yankees. Lindsay was claimed from Colorado just two weeks ago, but was promptly DFA'd to make room when Chad Gaudin was signed last week. Interestingly enough, Cleveland passed on an opportunity to claim Lindsay when he was waived earlier this month, but thought better of it this time around. The tall Australian spent the entirety of his brief Yankee career in Extended Spring Training, trying to improve upon his career 6.1 BB/9.

Speaking of relievers with control problems, former Yankee Brian Bruney, late of the Nationals, has signed a minor league deal with Milwaukee. Bruney handed out 20 free passes in just 17.2 innings of work this year.

Meanwhile, the Yankees may soon be stocking another arm in their minor league system. On Monday, reliever Kanekoa Texeira was designated for assignment by Seattle. Texeira was a Rule 5 pick from the Yankees system this past off-season. Seattle now has ten days to trade, waive, or release Texeira. Any team that picks him up inherits the Rule 5 requirement of keeping him on the 25 man roster for the remainder of the year. If he happens to clear waivers, Seattle must offer him back to the Yankees for $25k, half of the initial Rule 5 purchase price. The Yankees would not be required to carry him on either the 40 or 25 man rosters. As Mike Axisa at RAB noted, it never hurts to have depth, so I'm sure the club would taken him back if given the chance.

If he were to return, Texeira would likely be assigned to Scranton, who faced the great Stephen Strasburg over the weekend, and handed the phenom his first professional loss. Catcher Rene Rivera hit the first home run surrendered by the top pick in last year's draft. Rivera's job is likely in jeopardy when Posada is activated and Moeller goes back down, but at the very least he has a good story to tell for the rest of his days.

Scranton is getting somewhat healthy again as well, as outfielder/first baseman David Winfree and outfield Colin Curtis both returned over the weekend after missing time with injuries. As we noted last week, Curtis had been playing good ball prior to spraining his ankle and Brian Cashman stated that he would have been under consideration for a promotion had he not been injured. As we approach the one third mark of the season and the club begins to evaluate their roster needs for the remainder of the year, including looking for "versatile outfield bats", don't be surprised to see Curtis get a look before the trade deadline.

We're a few days late on this one, but weekend contributor Steve H, of Mystique and Aura, had a good post at RAB on Saturday, pointing out that handing a Major League job to Kevin Russo right now may hurt his development long term. At some point we may see Colin Curtis replace Russo so he can continue to develop as a supersub at the AAA level.

On Friday, Scranton lost a player, as pitcher Amauri Sanit was suspended for 50 games. The diminutive 30 year old Cuban tested positive for Mephentermine and had posted an 8.69 ERA through 19.2 IP this year.

In AA Trenton, slugger Jorge Vazquez made his 2010 debut last night. The 28 year old corner infielder was part of the Yankees haul out of the Mexican League in recent years, joining Alfredo Aceves and Ramiro Pena as useful pieces plucked from south of the border. He hit 13 home runs in just 225 at bats last year, but had missed the entirety of this season following an appendectomy. Fellow appendix-less prospect Manny Banuelos has yet to return action this year.

Fangraph's Jack Moore checks in on Tampa switch picher Pat Venditte.

For more minor league info, Pending Pinstripes' Greg Fertel has a post on how his top thirty prospects have faired thus far.

On Friday, ESPN's Rob Neyer riffed on Steve Goldman's pondering about making Curtis Granderson a platoon player. Granderson has recorded a hit off a left handed pitcher every day since that post published.

Seinfeld debuted just over twenty years ago, and went off the air just over twelve years ago. ESPN New York put together a list of Yankees references throughout the show's history.

Ok, that just about clears out all the things I had stashed away in Google Reader over the past few days. Back with more later on.

Friday Grab Bag

At Big League Stew, Old Hoss Radbourn reviewed a book about himself. Unfortunately, it more closely resembles an actual book review than the fantastic musings of the legendary Twitter account, but it's still worth a read. That's old Charlie with the mustache on the right there, doing his best Kevin Youkilis impression.

Larry from Wezen-Ball's Tater Trot Tracker has been featured in such illustrious places as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Fack Youk's linkarounds, but he has now he has really hit the big time. Tony Reali of Around The Horn brought it up on yesterday's show and Larry has the clip on his site to prove it. He was interviewed on an CBC radio broadcast for the posts he did on Charlie Brown's team's record and I'd bet you dollars to donuts that he's going to be on TV himself before the season is over.

I like Tim Marchman and understand that this is partially tongue-in-cheek, but come on, dude:

Is the pace at which the Yankees and Red Sox play baseball pathetic and embarrassing? Yes. Derek Jeter takes half a minute after every pitch to readjust his life giving glands, secure his gloves, check the seats for good looking women, read the defense, try to steal signs and so on, and he's probably not one of the five worst offenders on the two teams.

Jeter is scanning the seats for anyone who might be up to no good so he can foil their diabolical plots, just like any superhero worth his weight in salt would.

Speaking of Jeter, he talked to the WSJ about his approach to hitting, particularly when things aren't going well, and said he really doesn't think about what he's doing at the plate:

By his own admission, Mr. Jeter is not a true student of hitting. You will not find him in hitting coach Kevin Long's office too often, nor does he delve deeply into self-analysis. "I really don't dissect things like most people," he said.

It's kind of shocking to think that someone can just go up there without processing what they are doing but it made me think back to something that David Foster Wallace once said:

One more Jeter note: he doesn't use the internet? At all? I mean, I wouldn't expect him to go on read a bunch of stuff and waste his whole day on it like I do, but what about researching vacations or finding other ways to spend his copious amounts of money? For directions? To find a restaurant? EVERYONE USES THE INTERNET!

Marc Carig came up with the quip of the night about the infamous Pork Chop Chomper and his goofy looking pal.

Tom Tango thinks Bryce Harper should blindfold himself and throw the steering wheel out the window. Not literally of course.

In his space in the NYT Bats Blog, Baseball-Reference's Sean Forman explains that having the last at bat isn't the home team's biggest advantage. Instead, it's the amount of extra base hits they amass. Just spitballin' here, but I'm guessing it's probably due to the visiting outfielder's unfamiliarity with the dimensions of the field and to a much lesser extent that hitters are better at finding the gaps at the place they play most often, whether it be consciously or subconsciously.

Does the fact that the Mets swept the Phillies make you feel any better about the Yanks losing two out of three to them? Me neither.

Disappointed by the Phillies anemic offensive output in the first game and a half of the series, Meech from the Fightins went on a hunger strike in the fifth inning of Wednesday night's game which will supposedly last until the Phils score a run. He's going to have to wait until at least 7:00 tonight for a reprieve. Chris Volstad is starting for the Marlins, so fortunately for Meech's health and enjoyment of his Memorial Day weekend, it shouldn't be too long after that.

Although the Yanks won't be visiting it against until October at the earliest, it's still worth reading David Brown's review of Target Field. The wood mural of Rod Carew on the left might be the greatest backdrop of a bar that I've ever seen.

While perusing Twitter yesterday, Rob Neyer spotted an interesting couple of tweets from Rangers' pitcher C.J. Nitkowski. It turns out that C.J. saw Ted Lilly doing something illegal on the mound. Casey Blake noticed from first base and was angry but the broadcast crew didn't pick up on it at first.

Since then, Lilly was questioned about it and acknowledged the possibility that he might have been ahead of the rubber but said that he "wasn't thinking about it" (which means he probably was).

Not baseball related, but this converstion between Ben Stiller and Mickey Rooney pretty much sums up Twitter insomuch as I understand it. (via Aaron Gleeman's always excellent Link-o-Rama)

Since I love podcasts, here is the link to the latest and greatest from the excellent one produced by Pitchers & Poets. Here's an older episode in which Carson Cistulli of FanGraphs is the guest, if you need more listening material to get you through the day.

We talked about John Smoltz's failed quest to qualify for the U.S. Open a while back but it looks like Tony Romo actually got through his Local Qualifier with some late-round heroics that put him right on the cut line with four other golfers. Romo flubbed a chip on the first hole of the playoff (sound familiar?) but managed to save par and sneak in to the Sectional Qualifier with another par on the second sudden death hole.

This is just about the most over the top themed wedding that I've ever seen. Even if you and your spouse really loved baseball and had unlimited time and money, could you see yourselves going to that length?

Wednesday Linkage

Did the Twins beat reporter actually devote a story on MLB.com to the squirrel that ran on the field last night? Yes she did. Watch the clip embedded on that page and hear one of the Twins' announcers rip a squirrel he supposedly saw at Yankee Stadium 15 years ago. Not kidding.

When last night's game resumes at 5:00 today, it will be on YES.

Old Hoss Radbourn can't believe it was suspended in the first place.

Over at Big League Stew, Curtis Granderson fielded some questions from fans about his conditioning during the offseason, life in New York, what he thought of the Yankees as a player for another team and his opinions on some of the more advanced stats being used today.

Granderson's rehab stint rolled on last night in Scranton as he went 0-3 with a strikeout. So far he's 4-14 (all singles) with one walk. He's going to take tomorrow off, play one last AAA game on Thursday and then join up with the Big League team on Friday back in New York.

Javy Vazquez's finger felt fine during his bullpen session yesterday and as of now, he's scheduled to make his start on Thursday.

Alfredo Aceves' rehab is not going as smoothly. He suffered a setback while throwing off flat ground yesterday and will be flying back to New York to be evaluated by team doctors.

A.J. Burnett is into acupuncture? According to Marc Carig, Burnett thinks it's helped him stay healthy and part of the process of him signing with the Yankees involved Brian Cashman hiring an acupuncture specialist to work for the team.

Hideki Irabu's downward spiral continues. Two years ago he drank 20 beers and assaulted a bartender when his credit card got rejected this time he got a DUI after he nearly hit a parked car.

The WSJ talked to Yanks' VP of Operations, Mark Newman about the state of the farm system.

The Red Sox have taken the first two games of their series against Tampa, the one last night by shutout, allowing just one hit (but 6 walks). The good news is that it brings Tampa back down to earth a bit, but the bad news is that the Sawx are creeping up on the Yanks, now just a game and a half back.

Larry from Wezen-Ball has had his eye on David Ortiz's glacial home run trots all year long and one of Papi's leisurely strolls around the bases finally broke the unprecedented 30 second barrier. By comparison, Adam Rosales, owner of the fastest trot of the season had already gotten back to home plate in the time that it took Ortiz to get to second. Rays players were questioned about the amazing anti-feat but no word on whether or not Papi knows how historically slow he is.

The New York Times cited a study about pairs of brothers that played in the Majors and found that 90% of the time, the younger one tried to steal more bases.

Loyal commenter Matt on Earth conducted a mock interview with Michael Kay.

At Baseball Analysts Jeremy Greenhouse examined the differences between a 90mph fastball and a 95mph one. According to Jeremy's findings, David Robertson actually has one of the very best 90mph heaters in the game, even if it hasn't helped him pitch respectably this year.

The Fightins comes through with some prime Youkenfreude.

Remember how U2 made Major League Baseball juggle their schedule because apparently it takes 10 fucking days to set up their stage? Oh, well Bono's having back surgery so it was all for naught. This makes me like U2 even less (if that's possible).

The Super Bowl is officially coming to New York in 2014. It took the full four ballots for the Meadowlands to secure the vote over Miami and Tampa Bay, which pretty much never happens. Joe Posnanski calls it a "Real Super Bowl" while Matt Ufford from Kissing Suzy Kolber gives the pussies who are complaining about the weather a stern talkin' to. I hope it snows two feet.

Off Day Linktacular

Mark Teixiera put his beautiful 7,000 square foot house in Vaquero, Texas on the market for the second time, for the princely sum of $4.55M, down from $5.75M. I doubt too many of you have an extra five mil laying around and feel like picking up and moving to Texas but that link is good for some serious house porn. The game room on the right with a pool table, card table, big TV and a bar looks like an ideal place to kick it with several of your closest homies.

According to Bryan Hoch, someone apparently sent Nick Swisher a plush tan bathrobe with #33 and his initials embroidered on it and he was rocking it in the locker room. You know you've got a good job when people send you stuff for free and you can wear a robe around the office.

Hoch also got a great story about the late Jose Lima from Yanks' bench coach Tony Pena. Lima was certianly a character and Joe Posnanski captured the enigmatic hurler's quest for the spotlight beautifully. Walkoff Walk directs us to this video of him ad libbing to Sweet Home Alabama and Craig points us towards a eulogy from his former teammate C.J. Nitkowski.

Has Derek Jeter lost his fade? During last night's game, they showed this shot of him in the dugout and as you can see, it appears as though he has opted for a cut of a more uniform length all around instead of having it longer on top. Is this a recent development?

Although it certainly hasn't hindered his love life, he's caught a fair amount of flack for having an outdated coiff in the past from various haters. Ladies (or metro dudes), care to offer an opinion on the new look?

Katie Sharp of ESPN's TMI (sub. required) blog thinks that the Yankees should move Derek Jeter out of the leadoff spot and notes that he has zero walks in 78 plate appearances when he's leading off an inning. We already discussed why the move not going to happen, but that's a troubling stat.

Hardball Talk had an NBC Sports interview with the Fackin' Youkstah.

Hey look, someone crossed the mound forty years ago without the pitcher throwing a temper tantrum.

The WSJ profiled Kevin Russo and talked about what it feels like for him to finally make his Major League debut on the team his father (who passed away in 2007) rooted for.

Austin Jackson's eye was swollen almost completely shut after getting hit by a pitch on Saturday. The ball hit his helmet but in turn forced the helmet down on to his eye. He wasn't seriously hurt but missed yesterday's game and might be out of the lineup for another couple of days.

Carson Cistulli digs up some purple prose used to describe an extra innings, walkoff grand slam by Babe Ruth.

Joe Girardi did an interview with the Harvard Business Review and talked a lot about his approach to managing.

Baseball-Reference now features photographs of almost every player who made their debut before 1960. It's a pretty cool addition that really brings the site to life.

It appears as though the Roy Oswalt sweepstakes is heating up. David Golebiewski at THT asks how much he's really worth and Aaron Gleeman wonders whether the Twins should make an effort to acquire him but ultimately rules that it's not work the prospects plus salary.

And finally, a bit of whimsy from the Sports Pickle.

Like the Yanks, we are going to take it easy today. If anything comes up, we'll try to get to it, but chances are we won't have anything until tomorrow.

Thursday Afternoon Linkarooski

Like seemingly everyone on the Yankees, these links are day-to-day.

A recent calculation by Forbes determined that the Yankees have the most valuable brand of any sports franchise in the world. At least internationally, I think this has more to do with this association with New York than their history as a baseball team.

I'm sure others who have traveled abroad have had the similar experiences, but I've talked to a good amount of people in counties like China and South Africa who were wearing caps with the interlocking NY and had no idea what the Yankees even were. To them, the hat stands for New York City and not the Yankees as a baseball team.

On Monday, Curtis Granderson wrote about his road to recovery - which included a case of strep throat - at Big League Stew.

Thanks to everybody who sent this one in: the NC State baseball team's media guide had a fantastic misspelling of "Wolfpack" that us Fackers were all too happy to see.

Apparently Matt Garza hasn't stopped being a complete cock between last July and now.

Still down about last night's loss? The first comment on this page should cheer you up.

Both Larry from the Yankeeist and frequent commenter Jimmy suggested the same thing this morning: moving Derek Jeter out of the lead off spot. As Matt said in the comments, it wouldn't be worth the media backlash and given how many balls Jeter has hit on the ground, particularly to short, he would be on a record setting pace for double plays this year.

So it appears that Josh Beckett is really hurt, unless putting him on the 15 day DL is just another part of the Red Sox elaborate ruse.

The Yankees are purportedly interested in Yunesky Maya, a 28 year old, right handed Cuban pitcher who has recently been unblocked after defecting nine months ago.

Ross from NYYSI discovers the seedy underbelly of Yankee Stadium's Bat Day.

Here's a puff piece from USA Today about George Steinbrenner and his contributions to the city of Tampa.

Joe Posnanski wrote a post explaining his contention that it's "just barely above possible" that Derek Jeter will break Pete Rose's hit record and then made some more predictions about which career numbers players including A-Rod, CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera will reach.

The WSJ says that Rivera is the best Yankee pitcher of all time. I don't agree with their methodology because Mo has a distinct advantage in categories like ERA and I'm not sure how they are isolating his "impact on attendance", but it's hard to argue with their conclusion. Mo is the man.

By now you know that Hanely Ramirez was benched for jogging after a ball that he booted into left field and was back in the lineup last night after apologizing to his team. Morgan Ensberg took him to task for it, David Ortiz told him to apologize, Bert Blyleven thinks how he dealt with it in the media was the real problem, and Posnanski mined some comments from his readers who imagined what Derek Jeter would have done in that situation, such as:

Jeter wouldn’t have chased the ball. The ball would have chased Jeter.

Plenty of words have been spilled about Ramriez think already, and it's basically over, but very quickly, I think it's kind of amazing amazing that we expect athletes to give maximum effort (or at least act like they are) on every single play, and for the most part, they do. We are imperfect as humans but we are capable of trying pretty damn hard.

Theo Epstein went to a Pearl Jam concert during a Red Sox game. Wearing a disguise. No big deal, Matt did the same thing when he saw them in Hartford. Gotta find a way to deflect all the attention from the roving hoards of Fack Youk Floozies, you know?

Ryan Wilkins explored what exactly the addition of historical WAR to Baseball-Reference.com means for the future of baseball history.

Angel Pagan hit and inside the park homer and started a triple play yesterday. And the Mets still lost.

Dave Cameron wonders why the respect for Ken Griffey Jr. is a one way street.

Ultimate Zone Rating just got a facelift. Over at FanGraphs, MGL lays out the updated primer and David Appelman announces the introduction of home/road splits for UZR (which unfortunately will be a small sample size minefield and probably only useful for outfielders).

Carson Cistulli's series at FanGraphs rolls on with Why Tommy Bennett Writes. It's both incredibly well-written and a veritable tour de force in one downsmanship. Here is Will Leitch's installment as well.

Bronx Native Randy Ruiz has been released by the Blue Jays and is heading straight for Japan.

Ben Jacobs from THT was at the game Stephen Strasburg started against the Rochester Red Wings last night and wrote about the phenom's performance.

Monday Afternoon Linkdown

Yesterday would have been Billy Martin's 82nd birthday. Even if he didn't die in a car crash back in '89, you get the feeling he wouldn't have made it this far. Some people just live too hard to see their 80's.

Yankees Magazine is 30 years old and Martin was the first person to grace the cover once it switched from a newspaper to a magazine. Does anyone actually buy these at the Stadium? They sold 250,000 of them last year so I'm guessing some people do.

The Reds signed Cuban outfielder Felix Perez, a player who the Yankees were in discussions with last year. The Yanks eventually found out that he wasn't 20 years old, as he had claimed, and steered clear. The MLB suspended Perez for a year for lying about his age but he's eligible again and headed for a Reds' minor league affiliate somewhere in the near future.

Marc Carig took a look at Brett Gardner's patient and effective approach and shows that he's basically the anti-Vlad Guererro. The article is complete with quotes Carig got from Kevin Long and stats fetched from FanGraphs. Not many writers combine analysis and reporting like that, but Marc does (and does it well).

If you've read our interview with The Yankeeist, you know why Matt and I write, but what about Craig Calcaterra? He does it for the ladies, of course.

Via Tango, ESPN stats guy Mark Simon ranks the most valuable players of the Yankees-Red Sox series since 1995 by WPA. Would it surprise you if the Youkstah came in above David Ortiz? How about Paul O'Neill still being second among Yankee hitters and Derek Jeter coming in at 13th?

According to MLBTR, Javier Vazquez is still a Type-A Free Agent, but just barely.

R.J. Anderson at FanGraphs investigates Mark Teixeira's slow start and fingers the prime suspect: a low BABIP. Same as last year.

Aaron Gleeman celebrates the Twins long-awaited victory over the Yankees and examines just how poorly the Twinkies have faired against the Yanks - as opposed to basically every other team in the AL - in the Ron Gardenhire era.

Justin Sablich of the New York Times finds that you can make a team out of the players the Yankees have parted ways with in the past few years. It would totally suck, but you could do it.

Three of the guys in that bullpen, Edwar Ramirez, Brian Bruney and Chad Gaudin were all released from their teams over the weekend, so if you want to starting putting that squad together, now might be a good time.

Sean from Pending Pinstripes looks at LSU pitcher Anthony Ranaudo, a high risk, high upside arm in this year's draft, as a possible target for the Yanks.

Tyler Kepner revisits the deal that very nearly made George Steinbrenner the owner of the Indians back in December of 1971.

The Trenton Thunder have won 10 straight. Boom!

Yesterday's grand slam means that Mariano Rivera will be forever tied with Eric Gagne for the longest streak without blowing a save at home (unless of course he rips off 52 more before he retires, which isn't totally inconceivable (okay, yeah it is)).

The Yankess just donated a display with seven World Series rings to the Hall of Fame. Also, May 22nd and 23rd is World Series Weekend in Cooperstown. The trophy will be there and they'll be giving a special "Yankee-centric" tour of the museum.

Diane Firstman from Bronx Banter talks triples.

Baseball-Reference.com now has WAR.

Sawx reliever Ramon Ramirez walked in the winning run against the Tigers. That video never gets old.

Matt Klaassen at FanGraphs teaches the lesson of Pat Burrell. No, it doesn't have anything to do with sleeping with a porn star.

It turns out that baseball wasn't universally on board with integration after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. I blame Bud Selig.

It's that time of year. Over at Deadspin, Drew Magary delivers an unsolicited address to the class of 2010. It's good but, 2008 remains the best. An excerpt:.

"You think you’re gonna make a difference? You got some nerve, asshole. You’re just part of another class going through the same routine as the class before you. You’re no different. You’re just as full of douchebags and shitheads as any other class. In fact, given the rising popularity of lacrosse, your class is probably even worse. The rest of us eventually had our dreams crushed by the cruel realties of the world. I see no reason not to burst your bubble right here and now. Heed these words, then fall in line like the rest of us."

Here's 2009's as well.

Back with the preview in a few.

Interview With The Yankeeist

We'll have a full batch of links coming up in a little while, but we wanted to direct your attention towards an interview that Larry from The Yankeeist conducted with Matt and me.

We've linked to the excellent Q&A's Larry has done with Was Watching, RAB, Bronx Banter, The Replacement Level Yankees Weblog, and TYU and we are extremely pleased that he was interested enough in our blog to ask some really thoughtful and thought-provoking questions of us.

The interview runs over 7,000 words, so it's long enough that you might want to print it out, but we think there is a lot of interesting stuff in there. If you want to know more about the background of the blog or where Matt and I are coming from, please check it out.

Thursday Morning Linkarooski

As we mentioned a couple of times yesterday, Jay-Z and Eminem were slated to show up in the Yankees' broadcast booth during the second half of the doubleheader, and turned out that they were on air during the only inning during which Phil Hughes' had any trouble - the fourth.

The two renegades were there to announce two shows that they are playing in September - one at Comerica on the 2nd and the other at Yankee Stadium on the 13th. Appropriately, Jay-Z will headline the show in New York - the first concert at the new place and his first show in a stadium anywhere - and Eminem will take top billing for the one in Detroit.

During their time in the booth, Michael Kay said Eminem's new song "Not Afraid" was only the second ever to debut at #1 on the Billboard charts. Um, it's the 16th. No one batted an eyelash at that and surprisingly, the most awkward moment belonged to Ken Singleton. Kenny had apparently been told that Eminem did "poetry" nearby the current location of Comerica Park "back in the day". Em's response, "Um, Poetry?"

Jay-Z attempted to steer the conversation back on track by clarifying that "Rap is poetry" and they eventually changed the subject.

Other highlights:

• Jay-Z bragged about getting Betty White's number when he met her on Saturday Night Live and said he and Eminem were going on a double date with her and "the othah one". Michael Kay then clarified it was Rue McClanahan he was talking about and Eminem said they actually had to get going and meet up with them.
  
  
• Em said that, in light of what they did in the draft, he can't remember the last time he's felt this good about the Detroit Lions, which is not saying all that much.
  
  
• He then sabotaged any and all of his credibility by saying he was also a Cowboys fan.
  
  
• Michael Kay referred to "Lose Yourself" as "one of the best songs ever" and claimed that he works out to it and it was the reason that "he's the shape he's in",
  

Like any other guest appearance it totally detracted from what was going on in the game, but as far as these promotional things are concerned, it wasn't that bad. Fortunately, the first time around I was watching without any sound and it didn't make a difference at all.

Now, onto the rest of the links:

Andy Pettitte wanted to pitch yesterday but he still has to throw one more "downhill" session (off a mound) before he can rejoin the rotation.

After six long weeks languishing in the top 5, the Yankees have finally ascended #1 of the Beyond the Box Score power rankings, which are based solely on the team's statistical output this year. Incredibly, the Red Sox, whose Pythagorean winning percentage is a humble .484, have played like the fourth best team in the league, according to BtB.

Via Lisa at Subway Squawkers, here is a ranking of the Yankees' warm up jackets over the years. I like the ones that say "Yankees" across the front as opposed to the ones with the interlocking NY, but I've always felt that wearing a warm up jacket out with casual clothes looks kind of weird.

On the heels of the AP story about teams scouting umpires that we linked to on Tuesday, Jeremy Greenhouse of Baseball Analysts attempted find evidence of pitchers altering their approach based on who was behind the plate.

Navin Vaswami's road trip swung through Chicago this week, first stopping at Wrigley and then the Cell. You can also check out the photo album from his trip right here.

Big League Stew has the video of Dallas Braden's appearance on Letterman, including the top 10 thoughts that were going through his mind when he was pitching on Sunday. Carig has the transcription of that list.

The Wall Street Journal's sports section hasn't been around for very long but they are already cranking out crusty and nostalgic pieces like this one about the good ol' days when batters didn't dare step out of the box, lest Bob Gibson fire one at their head.

Via the Book Blog, here is an incredibly deep analysis of wind effects on baseball parks.

The greatest thing about being rich and famous? People give you shit for free. Reminds me of the end of this Louis CK bit.

Via Jonah, this tumblr site is sheer brilliance. Similarly, so is this shirt.

Also from Mr. Keri, Bloomberg Sports has upped the ante with Mustrash Talk, a series of videos of Keith Hernandez giving you the business about the goings on in your fantasy league.

At Walkoff Walk, Dan McQuade notes that if the Phillies aren't duplicating the oldest trick in the book by stealing signs with binoculars and the bullpen phone, it's pretty damn close. Meech from the Fightins' found visual evidence that the Phils' bullpen coach does indeed have "opera glasses".

What do Mike Sweeney and Carmello Anthony have in common? Neither tolerates snitchin'.

The "10th inning" of Ken Burns' Baseball is scheduled to air late this September.

An interesting tidbit about the upcoming season of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

Did you know that you can get a DWI on a golf cart? Thankfully there aren't very many cops patrolling the links or we'd all be screwed.

Could the Super Bowl be coming to New York in 2014? The wheels are in motion.

They found a hole in space. Whaaaa? Wrap your head around that one without it exploding.

Amidst all the action yesterday, we neglected to wish Yogi Berra a happy birthday. Happy belated 85th, Yogi, and many more.