Sportscolumn - mlb_nyy

[MLB] Rebutting the D.Y.F.C.[Dumb Yankee fan Contingent, Northeast Chapter]

There is, of course, a mind-bending level of stupidity entailed when jeering your home team's best player. The reasons are often varied, and always retarded. Maybe you're angry he makes more money than you, even though you could never do his job, not in a million years, which is why, of course, he makes more money than you. Maybe a jilted sportswriter told you not to like him, and you followed like a trained seal, clapping for a biscuit, [Do seals eat biscuits?] overwhelmed by the titanic brainpower of literary heavyweights like Woody Paige. Maybe he had a rough playoff series and made you cry, emotionally scarring you for two whole days. Whatever... the reasons are secondary, anyway.

[MLB] The Frustration of 2008

You may hate to say it, but if you're a Yankees' fan you may just have to swallow some pride and admit it. Yesterday's 11-4 loss to the Angels may have been the "nail in the coffin" for 2008. Out in Anaheim for a three-game set, a place the Yankees never seem to be able to win at, Ian Kennedy started the series off Friday night pitching much as he had the entire season in the majors: in losing fashion. A day game Saturday and Yankees manager Joe Girardi called on home-town kid Dan Giese, looking desperately for a win from a starter in a rotation that looks like it has been put together entirely from chance. Ironically, Giese pitched the game of his life in front of many of his family members, surrendering a lone solo shot to Mark Teixeira in the 6th inning before leaving having only given up three total hits to baseball's best team. He was then forced to watch and hope the Yankees bullpen could hang on for three more innings. Oh, how quickly things change...

[MLB] Joba To 'Pen Is Right Move

by Matt Wells

When Joba Chamberlain was called up from Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre last year to pitch for the New York Yankees, he took the baseball world by storm. A pitcher in his early twenties who could make hitters look foolish with 100 MPH fastballs and then freeze them with wicked sliders was surely a diamond in the rough. A pitching prospect like Chamberlain certainly doesn't come around all that often.

[MLB] Bobby's Year?

Bobby Abreu must be used to living in other people's shadows. After all, he stands in them every time he takes the field at Yankee Stadium.

And even when he's on the bench in the shade of the dugout with his pinstriped teammates, he's still considered to be 'under the radar'.

[MLB] The Gift and the Curse

"I like songs about drifters - books about the same.
They both seem to make me feel a little less insane.
Walked on off to another spot.
I still haven't gotten anywhere that I want."

-Modest Mouse, The World at Large

OK, quiet down for just a second, cease and desist with the anger and indignation. Because I love telling this story, never get tired of it.

It was an unbearably hot afternoon at Yankee Stadium. We're playing Texas, Juan Dominguez on the mound. Alex Rodriguez is at the plate, in the midst of a phenomenal 2005 season, carrying the team.

[MLB] Say it ain't so Joe, say it ain't so....

On Thursday, October 18th, the Yankees said goodbye to a legend in Joe Torre. Now, they could miss three more players....

[MLB] Debris: The remants of the '07 Yanks

By Billy Fellin

The 2007 Yankees season is in the books after the disappointing loss in the ALDS against the Indians. To keep the book analogy going, we may have seen the final chapter in the saga that has been the Yankees under Joe Torre, if George Steinbrenner's comments hold true that is. There are many questions to be asked when it comes to where the Yankees go from here.

[MLB] Flashes of Night

There was Carl Pavano, the supposed anchor turned albatross, battling on Opening Day of the 2007 season, searching futility for a strikeout pitch. He appears out of place in Yankee pinstripes, assuming a secondary skin, awkwardly wrenching arm overhead, seeking the pristine mechanics and precise command that bought him to the doorstep of stardom. Yes, seems too long ago, when Pavano, young, healthy, and fearless, owned the consensus as the top pitcher within 05's hot stove menu. Matt Clement was deemed erratic, Pedro Martinez dubbed weathered. He was the one.

[MLB] Aaron Bleepin' Boone

I've been to Beaver Stadium in the middle of a 25,000 "White Out", I've stood with 8,000 soccer fans on the road in a crappy Northern town and seen them get promoted, and I witnessed David Wells throw a perfect game. But I have never experienced a day like the one I experienced in October 2003.

[MLB] Fear and Loathing in the Bronx

The Stadium is teetering, Mo's bridge burning down, Torre's magic touch dissolving. The boss blusters, Abreu is flustered... too many problems need solving. And while chaos ensued, and the denizens booed, there wasn't a game left to save. We are left with the ghost of memory, and whoever else decides to stay.

And I wonder:

What's the point of worrying again?