7 Days Until Spring Training: Mickey Mantle

There's a reason Rodney Dangerfield changed his name from Jackie Roy, Kirk Douglas wasn't satisfied with Issur Danielovich, John Wayne didn't go by Marrion Marrison, and Cary Grant's real name wasn't Cary Grant; it was Archie Leach. Studies have shown that students are excellent at predicting which college professors they will enjoy having before they even hear them speak. But that probably says more about how much first impressions shape our interactions with other people than our powers to judge them based solely on their looks.

Of course, baseball is far more of a meritocracy than Hollywood and its players aren't judged based on the first time they play in front of someone, but there is a certain subjectivity involved in selecting those who are fit for higher levels of the game. There's even more bias involved in determining who becomes a superstar. A prospect must be noticed, scouted, signed and promoted through the ranks. To become a star, a player must be talked about and popularized through the media and by fans. Having a catchy name certainly doesn't hurt in either of those pursuits.

All of this is a long way of saying that Tom Greenwade, the scout who first saw him in Baxter Springs, Kansas in 1948, was probably more intrigued by the name "Mickey Mantle" more than his teammate Billy Johnson, the first time he saw the two listen in a game program.

Greenwade said he was the best Yankee prospect he could remember. Mantle was offered $400 for the rest of the season and a $1,100 signing bonus. Eventually, Joe DiMaggio agreed with Greenwade's assessment and Casey Stengel added, "He's got more natural power from both sides than anybody I ever saw".

Of course, they were right; Mantle's talent was undeniable. He tore through the minor leagues and made his Yankee debut on April 17th, 1951 as a lanky 19 year old, with just 20 games experience above C-ball. After a brief slump punctuated by a four strikeout effort against the Red Sox, Mantle was sent back down to Kansas City. He stayed in AAA for 5 weeks and hit .361 in 40 games before getting called back up to the Bigs.

Mantle spent the rest of the season with the team and was included on the roster when they faced the New York Giants in the Fall Classic. He and Willie Mays actually made their World Series debuts in the same game. Mays went 0-5 and Mantle 0-3. It would be 11 years before those two met in another World Series game and the Yankees would prevail in the 1962 Fall Classic as well.

In his first full season with the Yankees in 1952, Mantle replaced Joe DiMaggio in center field, hit .331/.394/.530, made the All-Star Team and finished 3rd in the AL MVP voting. It was his first of 14 straight All-Star berths and the first of 6 times he'd finish in the top 5 of the MVP voting without winning. He did, however, win three MVPs. They came in 1956, in 1957 when he hit .365/.512/.665 and barely edged Ted Williams in the voting, and in 1962 when he took home the only Gold Glove of his career (the first year they were awarded was '57).

The Mick was also a part of 7 World Series winners during his playing days. The Yanks were still obviously lucky to have him, but his postseason batting line of .257/.374/.535 was not nearly as good as his regular season line of .298/.421/.557.

Mantle had unprecedented power as a center fielder. He was legendary for not only the number, but the length of his home runs, as the term "tape measure home run" was coined for his one of his prodigious blasts.

That shot, perhaps his most famous, came at Griffiths Stadium in Washington D.C. on April 17th, 1953. It was said to have traveled 565 feet, a claim originally made Yankees PR man Arthur "Red" Patterson. There was a breeze blowing out to left field that day and Mantle crushed a pitch off of a middle reliever named Chuck Stobbs off the Natty Boh beer sign and out of the Stadium. Patterson set out to retrieve the ball.

He claimed to have found a ten year old boy at 434 Oakdale Lane by the name of Donald Dunaway in posession of the ball. He offered young Donny $1 and two signed balls in exchange for Mantle's souvenir and claimed to have take a tape measure from the stadium to the ball's landing spot. Peterson admitted later in life that his claim of measuring the home run was less than accurate but insisted the part about Donald Dunaway was true. However, numerous baseball historians have set out to find someone with that combination of age, name and address but come up empty. Still, the term "tape measure home run" was born.

The famous graphic to the right triangulates another legendary home run, with slightly more concrete mathematical calculations. Mantle drilled one off the facade of Yankee Stadium which was still 118 ft high 370 feet from home plate.

For all his swiftness and brawn, Mantle struggled mightily with injuries but usually played through them. He had both acute and chronic ailments in the bones and cartilage in both of his legs. In his World Series debut mentioned above, he and DiMaggio both sprinted towards a fly ball, but Joe called him off, causing Mickey to stop short. Mantle tore the cartilage in his right knee as his cleat got caught on a drainage cover hidden in the outfield grass. To mitigate the damage he might cause after that, he applied thick tape wraps around each knee before games.

In addition to injury, Mickey battled alcoholism. His father died when Mantle was 20 years old and he was nagged by the dread of his own mortality. As a result, he lived hard. He gave incredible effort on the field, but also partied recklessly away from the Stadium. Mick, Whitey Ford and Billy Martin frequented Toots Shor's and the Copacabana.

One infamous night at the Copa, a bunch of the Yankees were there with their wives and an especially unruly group of people fresh off of a bowling league victory came in and sat down. Sammy Davis Jr. was performing that night and the bowlers started heckling him. A few of the Yankees took umbrage to that and asked them to quiet down. Words were exchanged and led by Billy Martin and Hank Bauer the group of Yanks were soon involved in a full scale brawl out near the coat room.

While they walked away unscathed, Billy Martin was traded as a direct result of that incident for being a bad influence on Mantle as well as Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra - players who normally stayed out of trouble and meant far more to the team on the field than Martin. They had to go in from of a grand jury, but none of the Yanks were ever brought up on charges.

Eventually, all the partying and all the injuries caught up with Mantle. He was only 36 years old but could barely run when the 1968 season came to a close. His power had finally started to leave him and in his final two years his failing legs kept him exclusively at first base. His career batting average dipped below .300 in his final season and the Yankees finished 5th in the American League.

Years later his wife Merlyn recalled: "When Mick retired, a big chunk of his self-esteem went out the window. I question whether he ever had much to begin with".

Baseball followed, even haunted Mantle after he hung up his cleats:

For years after he stopped playing, Mickey Mantle said, he would dream he was in a taxi, in uniform, late. ''I could hear them saying, 'Now batting, No. 7, Mickey Mantle,' and I'd try to crawl through a hole into Yankee Stadium and I'd always get stuck. Looking through the hole, I could see Casey Stengel and Whitey Ford and all them out there and I couldn't get in. And I'd wake up and I'd be sweating like hell. I had that dream a long time.''

Alcoholism followed Mickey long after his playing career too, right up until he died at age 63 in 1995. He had checked into the Betty Ford Center in 1994, but by then, the damage had been done. Upon his examination, a doctor from the BFC told his that his liver was so damaged that "his next drink could be his last". Before he died, Mantle acknowledged his alcoholism and was able to reflect on the harm it had caused him and more importantly those around him.

While he was the hero of an entire generation of Yankees fans, Mantle certainly wasn't without his flaws. A character plucked from the cornfields and brought to the big city, the story of Mickey Mantle was something Hollywood might have dreamed up had it not actually happened. His self-perpetuating fight with his inner demons that led to his own demise seemed plucked from a Greek tragedy. Mantle may have appeared to be more of a legend than a man during his playing days. However, as the years wore on, his humanity and mortality became increasingly obvious.

Mantle's tale is both inspirational and cautionary. He got a lot out of his 63 years on this earth, but it' clear that if he had taken better care of himself, he would have got a whole lot more. Even still, he was one of the greatest Yankees of all time.

What Went Wrong With Wang

As a fan of the Yankees in general and of Chien-Ming Wang in particular, it was extremely difficult to watch the demise of the former staff ace play out over the course of the past two years.

Wang started out 2008 strong, winning 6 of his first seven starts. Then he hit a rough patch, working up an ERA of 6.45 over his next six outings before briefly getting back on track just as the second round of interleague play was beginning. Of course, he injured the arch of his foot running the bases after 5 innings of shutout ball in Houston and it was all downhill from there.

When he came back in 2009, he had one of the worst three game stretches possible to begin the season. In just six innings, he gave up 23 runs. Wang had transformed from a dominant sinkerballer to a batting practice pitcher.

What caused this seismic shift?

According to pitch f/x data from FanGraphs (which only dates back to 2007), 73% of the pitches Wang threw in '07 and '08 were sinkers. However, in 2009, only were 57% sinkers. Is that possible? I know it's a small sample size, but it's hard to believe that he would have changed his repertoire that dramatically.

From my read of the data, it seems as though Wang was throwing the same amount of sinkers, but some were so flat that they were being miscategorized as two-seam fastballs. Two-seamers move similarly to sinkers but less downward and more to the right. Lets take a look at the velocity and movement of Wang's versions of those pitches:

In 2009, it appears that Wang's sinker was actually straighter and sunk more than in previous years. However, that can be explained.

Wang has always thrown sinkers that were miscategorized as two seamers, but there was a sharp increase in 2009:

So the movement on his sinker looked better in pitch f/x because all of the ones that were so flat that they were identified as two-seamers were taken out of the sample. So it's not that Wang's pitches sank less, instead they started running more side to side. So much so that they basically became a different pitch.

As Pat Androila pointed out at the the Hardball Times yesterday, Wang's numbers against lefties have always been bad, but were especially terrible in 2009. Why? I have a bit of a theory about this. I think Wang's increased side to side movement in '09 caused him to have difficulty throwing strikes (highest BB/9 of his career at 4.1), in addition to making the pitches that did travel through the zone much more hittable, particularly to lefties (gave up a 1.146 OPS against southpaws).

In general baseball terms, some pitches travel through the strikezone on planes that are more difficult to square up with than others. My contention is that those elite pitches find slots - angles of movement - that run counter to the barrel of the bat and minimize the time that they can be struck squarely. From the batter's perspective, this is similar to a golf swing. The longer your clubface is square through the impact zone, the better chance you have of hitting the ball straight. If your club is turning on the way through, you need to get very lucky to hit it flush.

Randy Johnson's slider was death to lefties because it crossed the zone from an extremely wide angle, diving down and to the right. Mariano Rivera's cutter is even tougher than lefties than it is on righties because it veers in on their hands and away from the thick part of the bat.

Though it seems odd to say now, Wang's sinker was one of those elite pitches over the course of almost three full seasons. Batters knew it was coming 3/4 of the time and still had trouble making solid contact. I remember Brandon Inge saying during an interview played on a broadcast that he used to literally try to swing under the pitch and would still sometimes drive it into the ground.

Take a look at these two graphics I made from Wang's at bat against Nick Markakis in the first inning of the game on April 8th, 2009. But keep in mind that this is far from exact; I'm trying to provide a 2-D visualization for a 3-D problem. The yellow lines represent some potential slots that Markakis' bat could fall into while the red represents the trajectory of Wang's pitch. The graphic on the left is meant to resemble a sinker and the one on the right shows what pitch f/x would classify as a two-seamer.

An effective sinker by Wang is running nearly perpendicular to the bat once it reaches the strikezone, while his drifting 2-seamer is much closer to parallel. They often say baseball is a game of inches and the break on Chien-Ming Wang's sinker is a perfect example of that.

Of course, this doesn't get to the part of the scenario that any team looking to sign Wang actually cares about: Will he ever be able to command the sinker that made him so effective before his injury in Houston again?

When Wang is finally able to pitch this year, it will have been almost two years since he could throw enough effective sinkers to be a solid Major League starter. It seems as though the Yankees messed up his rehabilitation by telling him not to exercise his legs when recovering from his lisfranc sprain, which probably contributed to his inability to find his old sinker. It took an intricate combination of forces and no small amount of touch to toss that pitch and his failed rehab might have thrown him irreparably off course. To continue with the nautical analogy, he might have already run ashore and there's no telling if he will be able to rebuild his ship.

The troubling part is that the line between being awesome and awful for Wang is so thin. It only takes one bad pitch to ruin an at bat, and just a 17% drop in good sinkers made him one of the worst pitchers in the history of the game over his first three starts. He's never thrown good enough offspeed pitches to get guys out so any team who gives him a deal is betting on whether or not he recoups the magic sinker. Personally, I hope Wang finds it. Objectively, I don't think he will.

Joel Sherman Uses Old Story To Drum Up New Drama

In Sherman's column in today's Post, he dusts off the story about Derek Jeter's belief that he was still a good defensive shortstop before he started special training to improve his range between the 2007 and 2008 seasons. Joel suggests that his "arrogance" as an athlete might lead to some contentious contract negotiations come November:

So Cashman took Jeter to dinner in Manhattan and told the Yankees captain that his side-to-side actions must improve. Jeter has an outsized athletic arrogance. He believes in himself completely, which allows him to deftly block out criticism and negativity. This trait enables him to thrive in the cauldron, but also prevents him from seeing personal shortcomings the way others perceive them. Still, to his credit, he agreed to try a new way.

With the Yankees paying the bills, Jeter enlisted Jason Riley, the director of performance at the Athletes Compound in Tampa. Riley formulated a plan to increase Jeter’s first-step quickness, particularly in fielding grounders to his left. Power lifting was diminished, agility — especially in the hips — was emphasized , weight was lost. The results came slowly at first in 2008 and in a wave last year when Jeter had one of his finest defensive seasons.

“The player Derek is, he took to it and said, ‘Watch, I will prove you wrong,’ ” Cashman said.

This story is instructive in anticipating how Jeter’s contract talks will play out when his 10-year, $189 million contract concludes after this season. First, like the Cashman-Jeter meeting remaining untold publicly until now, Jeter will demand that his negotiations are done privately. Second, the good news for the Yanks is that Jeter is a competent shortstop again; the bad news is he is a competent shortstop again.

If this story sounds familiar, that's because Ian O'Connor wrote about everything but the dinner meeting the day after the 2009 regular season ended. Does this dinner meeting tell us anything, as Sherman is trying to infer? How else was Cashman going to have this conversation with him? At the top of his lungs in the locker room? Whether it was in his office or at a restaurant, it was going to be a private and delicate discussion.

So this dinner anecdote leads Sherman to the following revelation: Derek Jeter would like to negotiate his contract in private. You know, unlike all the other baseball players who sit down and exchange numbers with their teams on live television.

Jeter's contract negotiations will be interesting and like Sherman says, made more difficult by the the shortstop's defensive renaissance. Both sides have a lot of leverage given that Jeter needs the Yankees just as much, if not more than they need him. But we already knew that Jeter's ego was going to make this difficult. I think the years of him refusing to acknowledge his deficiencies as a shortstop or change his position were a lot more informative than one dinner with Brian Cashman.

Debating the merits and estimating the size and length of Jeter's next deal are wholly futile at this point, despite the fact that this is a hotly debated topic and will be revisited ad naseum throughout the season.

How Jeter performs this year is going to go much further in shaping his next contract than any facts of the situation as they currently exist. If the Captain continues his excellent offensive production and is again solid at shortstop, the Yankees are going to be backing up the truck in a big way. If he struggles at the plate or in the field or God forbid, gets injured, the franchise isn't just going to give him a blank check.

Paradoxically, the better Jeter plays this year, the uglier the back end of his contract has the potential to look. Of course, we'd all "settle for" a great season and the resulting huge contract, but the best of both worlds scenario would be for Jeter to have a good but not great season and go back to being great in 2011. The first and foremost concern though, is Jeter's ability to stay productive in his later years, and unfortunately for the Yanks' checkbook, there is a direct relationship between the probability that he will continue to produce at an elite level and how much they are going to have to pay for the privilege of retaining his services.

Have Damon And Boras Lost Their Collective Mind?

Good morning Fackers. I know Johnny Damon's endless search for a contract is well beyond played out at this point, but I'd like to take a moment to call attention to the lunacy of the recent and rather pathetic attempts at public relations and spin that Scott Boras is attempting to execute on behalf of his client. They fly in the face of all rational thought. I'm not sure if these two are crazy like foxes or just plain crazy, but I'm fairly certain it's the latter.

Nearly two weeks ago, I questioned whether the recent misplays of Scott Boras are indicative of the super agent losing his touch. Monday, Tim Dierkes at MLBTR questioned whether Boras has failed unsigned clients Johnny Damon, Jarrod Washburn, and Felipe Lopez this off-season.

Boras has been reduced to an embarrassingly transparent PR blitz in Detroit, one of a few remaining potential landing places for his client. Boras has had success in the past duping Detroit into overpaying for convincing Detroit to sign his clients, so he's really turning on the charm here. He's largely bypassing general manager Dave Dombrowski and appealing directly to owner Mike Ilitch.

In an advertisement interview with the Detroit Free Press yesterday, Boras stated "Johnny came to me about Detroit. He told me, 'If I can't play for the Yankees I want you to let the Tigers know I want to play for them. I can make that team a winner.' " He further explained that Damon has long been a fan of the Detroit Red Wings, who incidentally are owned by none other than Mike Ilitch. If that weren't enough, Boras went on XM yesterday afternoon to hammer his talking points further; Jason tweeted most of the details.

Meanwhile, Damon appears to be working an angle with his other remaining suitor, the Braves, telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Braves "are definitely at the top of my list". Is that the top of the list next to the Tigers, above the Tigers, or just below the Tigers?

Yet according to Boras, Damon has passsed on "four or five" offers since it became apparent that he wasn't re-signing with the Yankees. If this is true, it's apparently because he's holding out for a two year deal.

To which I say: are you out of your minds?!?! Look, I understand that Damon and Boras are trying to get the best deal possible. I understand that Damon will likely be forced to sign a contract that pays him less than what he'll be worth next year. I understand that there's pride involved here, and that Damon's assets were frozen for a time last year as the result of some bad investments, so maybe he does need the extra money he's holding out for.

But at some point these two have to wake up and smell the coffee. As much as they try, they cannot create the market they want for Damon's services. Spring Training starts in a week and Damon's suitors are limited. The Reds apparently have bowed out, and aside from the two teams listed above, the Rays are the only other possible landing spot. They're trying to outwit GMs who aren't likely to be outwitted. We're not talking about the types of guys who would hand a job to Mike Jacobs.

Damon should just take his best offer and sign. He's already cost himself millions by refusing the Yankees' offers. There's no way he's getting a two year deal now, and given how badly his market crashed this off-season, he's probably better off signing a one year deal and having another go at it next year anyway. Boras can't seem to handle more than one client at a time this off-season, so the sooner Damon signs, the sooner Boras might be able to salvage what little interest is left in Jarrod Washburn before he decides to retire, and the sooner we'll be freed from the siege of daily Damon updates.

8 Days Until Spring Training: Yogi Berra

Like his good friend Phil Rizzuto, Lawrence Peter Berra had a formative experience as a young man with a respected Major League figure who told him that he would never become a professional baseball player. In 1942, Yogi was 17 years old and playing minor league ball when he was approached by Branch Rickey, then the general manager of the Cardinals. Rickey offered him $250 to sign with the Cards but Berra refused. When he did, Rickey supposedly said, "He'll never make anything more than a Triple A ballplayer at best".

Yogi held out for $500 from the Yankees and was assigned to their club in Newport, Virginia. In some ways, you can understand why Rickey wasn't willing to shell out the extra $250. Berra never looked the part of a baseball player (or athlete of any kind, for that matter). He was 5'8" and a sturdy 190-something pounds in his playing days, but his fire plug build made him perfectly suited for catching. They don't call Berra's kind of built "squat" for nothing.

When Yogi turned 18, the year was 1943 and World War II was kicking into high gear. Instead of waiting to being drafted into the armed services, he set aside his dream to play professional baseball and enlisted in the Navy himself. Unlike many established Major Leaguers who were part of the military, Berra spent his years in active duty and participated in the D-Day invasion as a gunner's mate on a rocket-launching craft. After Normandy, he was stationed in North Africa and Italy but suffered a hand injury and was sent back across the Atlantic.

When he got back to the States, Berra was stationed at the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. After he was discharged from the Navy, he began playing for the Yankees' affiliate in New London. According to lore, Giants manager Mel Ott saw Yogi play in New London and offered the Yankees $50,000 for him. Yanks GM Andy MacPhail wasn't familiar with Berra but was pretty sure that if Ott wanted him that badly, he was worth hanging onto. The following year, Yogi spent half of the season with the AAA Newark Bears before being called up to the Yankees.

Growing up in St. Louis, the only time Berra had seen Yankee Stadium and said he was rendered speechless because it was so much bigger and grander than Sportsman's Park where he had watched the Cardinals as a boy.

It took Berra two seasons to take the starting catcher's job from Aaron Robinson and once he did, he never looked back. The 1948 season began a stretch of 15 uninterrupted All-Star game appearances which included three MVPs and four more top 5 finishes. Yogi's career also encompassed fourteen World Series appearances and ten championships, both of which are Major League records. In addition to those, he also holds the records for World Series games (75), at-bats (259), hits (71), doubles (10), singles (49), games caught (63), and catcher putouts (457).

Between 1949 and 1955, on a team filled with offensive studs including Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, it was Berra who batted clean-up and led the Yankees in RBI for seven consecutive seasons. Yogi was famously excellent at hitting poor pitches. Despite swinging at balls in the dirt and those over his small frame, Berra had nearly as many career home runs (358) as strikeouts (414). In 1950, Berra whiffed only twelve times in 656 plate appearances. When asked about swinging at bad pitches, Berra was reported to say, "If I can hit it, it's a good pitch."

As a fielder, Berra second to none. Under the tutelage of Bill Dickey, he blossomed to one of the better defensive catchers in the league. He was spry and cat-like in his crouch, leading Casey Stengel to say "he springs on bunts like it's another dollar". He led all American League catchers eight times in games caught and chances accepted and left the game with the AL records for catcher putouts (8,723) and chances accepted (9,520).

Yogi was also well-renowned for his ability to handle a pitching staff. He handled pitchers differently depending on their disposition, alternatively coaxing or prodding hurlers based on who he felt needed what. Casey Stengel got a lot of credit for how he deployed his pitching staff during the dynasty of the 50's and 60's, but Berra played a large part in that success as well, displaying a knack for what pitches to call and when. He caught both of Allie Reynolds no-hitters in 1951 along with Don Larsen's perfect World Series game in 1956.

Yogi was also remarkably tough and durable. He averaged 118 games behind the plate from 1949-1959 and caught more than 133 games every year from 1950-1956. In June 1962, at the age of 37, Berra caught an entire 22-inning, seven-hour game against the Tigers.

He was a part of the Yankees until 1963 and even in his last season he was productive, punching up a 138 OPS+ in 164 plate appearances. The following year, he served his first stint as Yankee manager. Despite leading the Yanks to 99 wins and a World Series appearance against his hometown St. Louis Cardinals, Berra was fired and replaced with Cards' manager Johnny Keane.

He resurfaced across town with Mets in 1965 as a player-coach. He put in two games behind the plate and two more as a pinch hitter in May, picking up 2 hits in 9 at-bats but soon decided that he was finished as a player. His coaching career, however, would go on. He stayed with the Mets for the next 8 seasons as an assistant manager under at first under Casey Stengel. He eventually took over as manager in 1972 after the sudden death of Gil Hodges. That same year, he was elected to the Hall of Fame along with Sandy Koufax and Early Wynn.

In 1973, he led the Mets to the World Series and in so doing, became only the second manager to win a pennant in both leagues, following only Joe McCarthy. He had also completed the feat in only 3 seasons as a skipper.

After two more years as manager for the Mets, he rejoined the Yanks as a coach and the team won its first of three consecutive AL titles. This uncanny ability to bring about good luck was not unnoticed. Stengel once said of him, "He'd fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch." Berra was eventually elevated to Yankee manager before the 1984 season. The team won 87 games but finished a disappointing 3rd place in the AL East.

Berra agreed to stay with the job for 1985 after receiving assurances from George Steinbrenner that he would not be fired. However, the notoriously impatient Boss axed him after a 6-10 start to the season. Instead of notifying Yogi personally, Steinbrenner dispatched GM Clyde King to deliver the news for him. This caused a rift between the two men that would not be mended for almost 15 years. Yogi's replacement? If you guessed Billy Martin, you may or may not be a baseball historian.

On August 22, 1988, Berra and his predecessor Dickey were honored with plaques to be hung in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. Berra's plaque calls him "A Legendary Yankee" and cites his most frequent quote, "It ain't over till it's over." However, the honor was not enough to cure the relationship between Steinbrenner and Yogi. That would not happen until January of 1999 when Steinbrenner publicly apologized to Berra. According to Steinbrenner at the time, "It's the worst mistake I ever made in baseball." The power broker behind the meeting? Suzyn Waldman.

Armed with only an 8th grade education, an unenviable physique and an uncanny wit, Berra became on of the most famous people in the world. Yogi has been featured in advertisements for Yoohoo, AFLAC, Entenmann's, and Stovetop Stuffing. Although he wasn't especially fond of being called "Yogi Bear", he did have the honor of having a Hanna Barbera cartoon named after him.

Of all the Yankee legends still with us, Yogi is undoubtedly the greatest character. Eighty four years young and still active with the franchise, today's Yankee fans are incredibly lucky to have him around. He currently operates the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center in Montclair, New Jersey. He spends a lot of time at the facility so if you make a trip out to the Museum, you just might have the privilege of chatting with the man himself.

Non-Roster Invitees Announced

At long last, the Yankees announced their non-roster invitees for Spring Training yesterday, tacking the list on to the tail end of the press release announcing the Marcus Thames signing. The announcement of the list comes just shy of the start of Spring Training, about a month later than it is usually announced, but most of the names on the list had either leaked previously or are no surprise.

A non-roster invitee is any player in camp who is not on the 40 man roster. Essentially the list is comprised of young prospects who don't yet need to be added to the 40 man, fringe prospects who aren't good enough to make the 40 man nor be selected in the Rule 5 draft, and veterans signed to minor league contracts. The Yankees' 40 man roster is currently full, so someone would need to be placed on the 60 day DL, traded, or designated for assignment in order for one of the twenty non-roster invitees to make the club. Very few of them have any real chance of making the team; most of them will serve to play the late innings of spring game and round out the split squad rosters. The Yankees have a lot of veterans on their team and none of them are likely to volunteer to make a three hour bus trip to Fort Myers.

That said, here's a look at the invitees:

Pitchers (10)
Wilkins Arias, LHP
Jeremy Bleich, LHP
Grant Duff, RHP
Jason Hirsh, RHP
Kei Igawa, LHP
Zach McAllister, RHP
Royce Ring, LHP
Amaury Sanit, RHP
Zach Segovia, RHP
Kevin Whelan, RHP

The lefties - yes even Igawa - have the best chance to earn a roster spot as second southpaw in the pen after Damaso Marte. To do so though, they'll have to leap frog Boone Logan, who was acquired as part of the Javier Vazquez trade. McAllister will be interesting to watch. He's the most polished starting pitcher in the organization and could see the Bronx at some point later in 2010. Hirsch, who has 150+ innings of experience with the Rockies and Astros, will likely start in Scranton. Bleich was a supplemental first round pick in 2008 but still figures to be a year or two away. Duff and Whelan are hard throwing relievers with control issues, both of whom just missed being added to the 40 man roster prior to the most recent Rule 5 draft.

Catchers (5)
Kyle Higashioka
Jesus Montero
P.J. Pilittere
Mike Rivera
Austin Romine

As exciting as it will be to see Montero and Romine in Major League camp, don't get your hopes about either sticking around. The Yankees will have 32 pitchers in camp and someone has to catch all those bullpen sessions. This actually will be the third consecutive year the young catching duo will be in Major League camp. Still, it'd be awfully nice to see these two top prospects do some damage at the plate this spring. It may not mean anything, but it'll certainly keep our hopes up for the future. Higashioka is another interesting prospect who figures to spend this year at low-A Charleston. Rivera has spent parts of the last four seasons as the Brewers' back up and is this year's Kevin Cash/Chad Moeller emergency option. Pilittere is an organizational player who should join Montero and Rivera in Scranton.

Outfielders (5)
Colin Curtis
Reid Gorecki
Marcus Thames
John Weber
David Winfree

Thames, as previously covered, will compete with Randy Winn and Jamie Hoffmann for the final two outfield spots. The rest of the invitees will likley combine with recent acquisition Greg Golson to make up the Scranton outfield. The Yankees' system is thin on upper-level outfield depth, particularly in the wake of dealing Austin Jackson, DFA'ing Shelley Duncan, and allowing John Rodriguez to walk this off-season. Curtis, coming off a strong stint in the Arizona Fall League, will be the only returnee from last year's AAA squad. Gorecki, Weber, and Winfree all spent last season in AAA for other teams. Gorecki and Weber are beyond prospect status, but Winfree is just 24 and may still have a future ahead of him.

8 Days Until Spring Training: Bill Dickey

With the possible exception of center field, no spot on the diamond has a greater lineage in Yankee history than catcher. We've had the privilege of watching Jorge Posada over the past thirteen seasons. Fans in the seventies had Thurman Munson; the sixties had Elston Howard; the fifties and late forties had Yogi Berra. But the line of great Yankee catchers began with Bill Dickey.

Born in Louisiana and raised in Arkansas, Dickey was purchased from the Jackson Senators in early 1928. Assigned to Class A Little Rock, Dickey spent most of the season there, played three games at Class AA Buffalo, and then made his Major League debut in August. Dickey played sparingly, coming to the plate just 15 times in 10 games, and was a spectator as the Yankees captured their second consecutive World Series.

The following season Dickey took over as the starting catcher, a position he would hold for the next fifteen years. Teammate Babe Ruth had ushered in an offensive era a decade earlier, but any offense coming from up-the-middle positions was still considered icing on the cake for the most part. Dickey, as well as contemporaries Mickey Cochrane, Ernie Lombardi, and Gabby Hartnett would help change that expectation for catchers.

Through the first eleven full seasons of his career, Dickey hit better than .300 ten times, posted an OPS+ of 109 or better each year, including nine seasons of 120 or greater, six seasons greater than 130, three seasons greater than 140, and a whopping 158 in 1936, good for second in the American League. He posted four straight seasons of 20+ HR and 100+ RBI as the Yankees won an unprecedented four consecutive World Series from 1936 through 1939. In an era when catchers were valued for defense first, if not defense only, Dickey was amongst the offensive elite at any position.

Dickey began to slow starting in the 1940 season, his workload gradually being reduced to slightly more than half the schedule. While he no longer posted the same lofty numbers of his prime years, he still produced quite well for a catcher. In 1943, with the talent pool depleted by World War II, Dickey enjoyed a renaissance, posting a .351/.445/.492 line (173 OPS+) in 85 games, setting career highs in average, on base, and OPS+. All three would have been good enough to lead the AL, but the 36 year old catcher did not accrue enough plate appearances to qualify for the leader board.

Dickey enlisted in the Navy the following spring, and missed the 1944 and '45 seasons while serving in Hawaii. He returned to the Yankees for one last season in 1946, but it would be one to forget. In limited duty, Dickey posted decent numbers for a 39 year old catcher, but it were issues outside the lines that made for an unpleasant return. Longtime manager Joe McCarthy resigned 35 games into the season, plagued by off field issues and by conflict with the new Yankee front office. As the veteran leader of the club and the last tie to the Ruth years, Dickey was handed the reigns to the club as player-manager. He managed the club to a 57-48 record over the next 105 games, but didn't finish the season. He appeared in his final game on September 8th and then resigned four days later. Despite their superstars returning from World War II, the team struggled to a third place finish.

Dickey was given his release on September 20, 1946, missing the Major League debut of the next great Yankee catcher by two days. Yogi Berra, a good hitting, poor fielding catcher came up from Newark and made his debut on September 22nd. He spent the next two seasons splitting time behind the plate and in the outfield, hitting extremely well but leaving much to be desired with the glove. In 1949 Dickey rejoined the Yankees as a coach, and as Yogi said "he learned me all of his experience". Berra inherited Dickey's old number eight, and improved vastly behind the plate, going on to become arguably the greatest catcher in history.

Dickey remained on the coaching staff through 1957, scouted in '58 and '59, and rejoined the staff in 1960.

For his career, he made eleven All-Star teams, including nine straight from 1936 through 1943, and finished in the top ten in MVP voting five times. Including his brief stint on the '28 team, he played on nine AL Pennant winners and eight World Series championship teams. He went on to earn another six rings as a coach.

At the time of his retirement, amongst catchers Dickey trailed only Gabby Hartnett in home runs in slugging, was second to Mickey Cochrane in batting average and runs, was fourth in OBP, and was the leader in RBI. He remains on the catching leaderboard in most major offensive categories and still has the fourth best all time OPS+ amongst catchers. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1954, and the Yankees retired number eight for both him and Berra in 1972. The pair were later given plaques in Monument Park in 1988.

Marcus Thames Returns, Nostalgic Offseason Continues

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.

9 Days Until Spring Training: Roger Maris

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.

The Super Bowl Under The Stars

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.

9 Days Until Spring Training: Graig Nettles

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.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

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.

Super Bowl XLIV Prediction

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.

Enjoy the game!