PeteAbe Puts In His Two Weeks

Good morning, Fackers. According to reseach recently conducted by the FYISB (Fack Youk Institute Of Sports Bloggery), given that you are reading this blog, there is a 99.887% chance you also read Peter Abraham's LoHud Yankees Blog as well. Furthermore, there is a 25.446% chance that the first you've heard of this little establishment came from Pete as well, via this post back in February. It was the biggest day in the history of our site at the time, thanks mostly to that link.

He was the first beat writer in the New York market to have a blog in any sport, and his readership reflected that. He crossed the million comment mark not to long ago, had 29,000,000 pageviews way back in February and routinely topped 100,000 PVs in a single day.

Since it was an off night, you might not have checked LoHud, but Pete dropped bit of news from out of the blue:

So here it is: I’m leaving The Journal News after nearly 10 years and going to work for The Boston Globe.

I’ll be covering baseball — yes, the Red Sox — and blogging for Boston.com. The Globe approached me in August, right around the time my newspaper was going through some painful restructuring that you all heard about.

>8

I have two weeks left and I’m not going to waver in my commitment to get you as much news as I can on the Yankees.

It's a shame that Pete won't be covering the Yankees anymore. Despite what the LoHud.com and Gannett might like to think, the readers of his blog weren't loyal to the paper as much as they were loyal to his diligent coverage. He might pull some of his readership over to the Globe (I'll probably subscribe to the feed), but similar to the above, his readers weren't as loyal to him as they were to the Yankees. Had he switched to another New York paper and still covered the team, he could have taken essentially he entire online readership with him.

The LHYB was the first Yankee blog I ever read, starting sometime in the 2007 season. My friend and occasional contributor to this site, Joe, used to send me links from time to time, but it didn't initially stick.

At first, the format of a blog was confusing and it took me a while to realize that I could depend on it for a steady stream of Yankee-related content. If you spent a good amount of time on LoHud, you knew that Pete was cool with the Big G and the Moose, and not too fond of A-Rod. Pete had his opinions and certainly didn't always agree with him, but we were only aware of them because he was so candid with them on the site, something beat writers can't really be in their newspaper columns. He was always timely with Yankees news and gave me as much information and blog fodder as Michael Kay and John Sterling combined.

Like most good bloggers, he was active in the comments and responded to every email I can remember sending him. He didn't have to do that, and he didn't have to maintain the blog as well as he did. Will all due respect to Tyler Kepner, Mark Feinsand, Marc Carig or any other Yanks beat guy I'm forgetting (and whose blog I don't read), PeteAbe's online coverage was by far the best.

The guy has two weeks left, so I don't know why I'm talking about him work in the past tense, but chances are, I'm not going to feel like writing an ode to the dude 14 days from now.

I doubt the Pete is going to read this but he deserves to be recognized for defining what a beat writer's blog could be. Maybe there are other guys in other cities who do a better job with their blog than Pete but I tend to doubt that. The way that he maintained the LHYB was above and beyond the call of duty.

As such, I think this would be an appropriate time to re-air his Yankeeography which created for him by the fine folks at IIH, IIF, IIc but never linked to on his blog for various reasons (mainly the editorial policies at the Gannett Corp.).

Enjoy: Peter Abraham: LoHud Of The Rings.

Best of luck to the Yankee Quipper in his future endeavors.

Get Back To Me In 2016

You know it's bad when PeteAbe starts stirring the pot, but this is just incorrect:

$423.5 million doesn’t buy what it used to

After 70 games in 2008: 37-33, six games out of first.
After 70 games in 2009: 38-32, five games out of first.

So by that logic, after these 70 games, the Yankees will have spent nothing, correct? Or are we just going to use that $423.5M figure ad infinitum? Nevermind the fact that the Yankees' payroll is actually lower than it was last year by about $8M.

The amount of money the Yankees will spend this year on CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett is $54.5M. So for the first 70 games of the season, the Yankees have spent $23.5M on those players. I guess that seems like a lot, but unlike last year they've also spent a grand total of nothing on Jason Giambi, Bobby Abreu, Kyle Farnsworth, Carl Pavano and Mike Mussina.

I understand the temptation to add up contracts that account for t-w-e-n-t-y player seasons and act like somehow the Yankees have already spend that money over just 43% of one season. But that's no better than something Wallace Matthews would write. Sorry Pete, but I expect more from you.

The LoHud of the Rings also took two shots at his favorite target, A-Rod, last night. From the post linked above:

This comment from A-Rod should cheer you up:

A-Rod said his swings are getting more aggressive. Well that’s good.

And...

“I’ve got to take it one day at time. I certainly don’t think it’s going to be a bad year. I think I’m going to do a lot of good things to help the team win. I have complete certainly I’m going to do a fine job.”

Well, complete certainty. You can’t ask for much more than that. As your[sic] his slump, maybe it’s October on the Kabbalah calendar. Somebody needs to check that out.

He's never had a bad season in his career, what do you want the guy to say: "I'm absolutely horrible, I have no idea whether I will ever break out of this funk, and I'm not sure if the team will ever recover"? Personally, I don't have a problem with athletes being optimistic.

PeteAbe Unsure Of Bob Sheppard's Genus, Species

From the Yankee blogger of record:

BREAKING NEWS — UPDATE, 2:24 p.m.:

The New York Times is reporting that Bob Sheppard has decided to retire. The long-time announcer, who is believed to be 98, announced yesterday that he was not well enough to be at Opening Day.

The Yankees have hired Paul Olden to announced the Cubs games this weekend. No permanent replacement has been named.

He "is believed to be 98"? Is he a Galapagos Tortoise?

There are ways to find this out. The Times is pretty sure, and so is Wikipedia.

-----

Sorry, I didn't mean to blaspheme the Voice of God (or the LoHud of the Rings, for that matter). I really wish he could just come back for the first inning of the first game at the New Stadium. Even just the first batter.

"Now batting: Number 2, Derek... Jeter... Shortstop... Number 2."

Come on Bob, do it for the asshole that just photoshopped your head on a tortoise!

I Always Knew There Was Something Special About This Kid

Image via LoHud of the Rings.

Joba Chamberlain, just before he entered the phone booth.

That was for you, Shawn.

Selig Earned $18.5MM in 2007

According to Sam Borden (who is running the show at LoHud while Peter Abraham goes on vacation to chill with hobbits), Bud Selig made $18.5MM in the fiscal year that ended on October 31, 2007.

This includes $17.47MM in base compensation with an additional $461,540 in employee benefit contributions and $422,590 in expense accounts and additional benefits. The amount was a 22% increase over the previous year.

This begs the question: What has Selig done to deserve a 22% increase?

And are you telling me that in order to make this amount of money that all that I have to do is become a used car salesman and bitch about player salaries? Maybe law school was not the answer. Also, Jay, I'm sorry but I may have to start up my own blog at http://www.ridiculouslyoverpaidmlbexecutives.blogspot.com/

LoHud Of The Rings

Arranged in a clandestine meeting of the blogsmen early this morning, we have been granted the privilege by Wailin' Suzyn of IT IS HIGH, IT IS FAR, IT IS... caught to show their their groundbreaking Yankeeography "Peter Abraham: LoHud Of The Rings." This masterpiece chronicles the beat writer's ascent through the hellish environments of UMass Amherst and the Mets' beat via the use of his Thesaurus to the top of the sports world... covering the Yankees. Truly epic.



Be sure to check out their blog. It's satirical, snarky and irreverent, which means if you're reading this, it's probably right up your alley.

Here is an example, based on our (least) favorite Red Sock.