Yankees Set To Unveil New Uniforms

The New York Yankees have long been synonymous with "pinstripes", but that, as this report shows, may soon be changing.

The Yankees are now set to unveil new home uniforms, which include plain white uniform pants and a navy blue jersey similar to the ones that they wear now in Spring Training, and perhaps, most importantly, including player names on the jersey backs.

As the source quotes GM Brian Cashman, "the new uniforms, we feel, will bring the Yankees into the 21st century, and we felt that with the unveiling the new Yankee Stadium, the time was right to make the change."

No doubt, fan reaction to this will be sharply divided; it seems a sudden move for a team that's prided itself so long on tradition.

There's more to read at the source

Not a Petty Problem

Well, 2009 is here, and the Yankees still have a few questions they need to answer--even if they did the impossible and signed Sabathia, Teixiera and Burnett.

The biggest question, perhaps, is what to do with Andy Pettitte.

If the season were to start tomorrow the Yankees' starting rotation would be:

CC Sabathia
AJ Burnett
CM Wang
Joba Chamberlain
Whoever wins the Phil Hughes/Phil Coke/Alfredo Aceves/Ian Kennedy battle in Spring Training

Assuming every pitcher there remains healthy and pitches up to his potential, that is a pretty solid rotation already.

However, it doesn't take too long to poke holes in the rotation:

1) Can Burnett stay healthy in a non-contract year?
2) How has Wang recovered from his bum foot?
3) Can Joba pitch a year as a starter and not get hurt?
4) Can Phil Hughes, you know, win a game in the regular season?
5) If the Yankees make it to October, can Sabathia actually win in October without being overused?

The reaction that many people are having is that the current rotation is good, but that signing Andy Pettitte to a one year deal would make it just that much better. Perhaps the difference between 90 and 94 wins--94 wins likely being the minimum to make the AL Wild Card.

However, the simple fact is that 2008 was simply not a good year by Pettitte's standards.

His fourteen wins were nice, of course, but his fourteen losses were the most of his career. His ERA, at 4.54 was the second highest of his career (1999, 4.70) and while his strikeouts were up, his runs allowed, at 103, was the highest of his career.

Whether the statistics--poor by his standards--are the result of age or unacknowledged injury, we don't know. However, to hope that Pettitte could come back in 2009 and pull a Mike Mussina (okay, I'll admit it, this entire post is just so I could write that line) would be a tremendous leap of faith.

On the other hand, however, Pettitte has made his desire to pitch well-known and there were rumors that the LA Dodgers had offered him a three-year deal.

For fans that remember the Yankees of the late 1990s (okay, most of us), there is no understating how much Pettitte means to the team or how large of a part he played in the championships of '96, '98, '99 and 2000.

However, the problem with being a fan of the Yankees is that sometimes you get so caught up in the past, that you forget to look at the future.

If the Yankees were to re-sign Pettitte as a fifth starter, it would be hard to argue with the signing--he will make every (or nearly every) start and he will pitch innings. However, the Yankees are perhaps at a point where pencilling Andy in means blocking others--what happens, for example, if Hughes has a stellar spring training and then dominates AAA ball in April and May while Pettitte goes 3-6, 4.50 at the ML level?

It's not an impossible scenario.

The Yankees have done a lot this off-season, but one of their toughest off-season questions is still unanswered.

A Few New Years' Resolutions

I, Rebecca, hereby resolve for the year 2009:

1) To watch every Yankee game I am able, and not to turn the game off, even if it is a loss--even if it is a blowout loss.

2) To update this blog at least once a day and not twice a month, even if I don't have much to write about.

3) To make my way to the new Stadium at least once (and preferably more than that)

4) To do all of this and still (somehow) complete my MA thesis.

5) Voy a estudiar màs español porque tengo que tomar un examen.

6) To attempt to see another major league baseball park besides Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium/CitiField and Fenway Park.


Have a happy and healthy new year, and please stay safe!

If These Walls Could Talk...

It's not the Coliseum. It's not the Tower of London. It's not even the Statue of Liberty.

Yet, even so, when I read the plan is to tear down Yankee Stadium, I still feel my stomach tighten, my eyes get a little moist, my composure shakes a bit...

My first thought is not about how I'll miss being able to go to games there or how I'll likely never get to witness history at the old Yankee Stadium, but instead, my first thought is:

What about the ghosts? Where will they go? They need a home, too.

I am not obsessed with the supernatural, but it's not a lie for me to say that I do believe in ghosts. There's just too much about baseball that can't be explained otherwise...at least, not in a way that sticks with me. I mean, how else do you explain the Chicago Cubs?

I think of the ghosts and I think of how, if you tear down these walls, the ghosts will have no shelter from the winter winds. We hope, of course, they'll come with us just across the street, but something in my mind tells me: ghosts don't move their haunts.

My second thought, and the one that overrides the first, that consumes it, is that tearing down Yankee Stadium is tearing down history. It's saying we don't need the history exist here anymore, the memory of it is good enough for us.

Memories will not leave us--I've said this before--not while we have our cameras, our videos, our own methods of recollection, but over time, they fade.

We can live the memories because we've been there, we've been in the solid steel and concrete of the stands, we've felt the August sun and the October moon. We can tell our children about them, our grandchildren as well, and maybe even our great-grandchildren...

...but sooner or later, we turn to dust, and then all we have are the memories. There's no place for our children (if you're as young as I am), our grandchildren or our great-grandchildren to live them.

You can tell someone about the magic of Ruth, of Gehrig, of DiMaggio, of Berra, of Mantle, of Jackson, of Jeter...but it's not the same when you're not there. There's no question about it.

There is perhaps nothing that binds us together, as Yankees fans, or is such a large part of our being as Yankee Stadium.


If baseball is America's pastime, Yankee Stadium is America's ballpark. There are other historic parks, like Wrigley and Fenway, but there is nothing like Yankee Stadium. I know I sound like the obnoxious Yankee fan when I say it, but there's no other ballpark that's played host to 26 championship teams...and in baseball, home-field advantage actually matters.


Time moves forward, and we can't change it. The facilities at Yankee Stadium are old, and there's no doubt, that at least from a sanitary and safety point of view, a new stadium is needed.


Why should we feel as though we have to tear down the old, though? Why should we feel that it's okay to tear down history? Because other teams have done it?

Yankee Stadium need not be an empty shell; keep it, keep the field, use it as a park...maybe the Little League team or that middle school team from the Bronx can use it as their home park?

What about it?

Imagine it, the eleven year-old boy with mossy hair and the scraggly, lanky body, who can barely lift the bat over his shoulder comes up to bat with two out in the bottom of the ninth, the team's best runner on second, his team down by one, the burly thirteen year-old pitcher from some other team (maybe one in Queens), sets, pitches, there's a crack of the bat that echoes through the empty stands, giving rise to the ghosts, rise to the memories...

Are You Not Entertained?

So on Sunday, or tomorrow, I'm driving back up to my one-bedroom apartment, where I'll have a precious few hours to get everything clean and ready for the first day of class on Monday.

I know it sounds really weird, but I like everything to be neat and clean when I'm at the start of the semester because I know it only gets way, way worse from there.

Anyway, the point is, with the Spring Semester starting, it can mean only one thing:

Baseball is on its way!

I will give you that February in Syracuse does not lend oneself to thinking about spending lazy afternoons in the ballpark, but that's why they train down in Florida and Arizona.

So that means that now might be a nice time to take stock of the off-season, if not just for the Yankees, for baseball as a whole as well.

There is still a month to go before pitchers and catchers, but that doesn't mean we can't look at what has happened thus far.


The biggest news this off-season, of course, has nothing to do with any trades or FA signings (I'll get to A-Rod in a moment), but with that thing that some call a report. I won't recount the details of the MR; unless your dwelling involves a subterranean existence, you'll know to what I'm referring.

However, there's no denying the MR has been a major source of gossip, especially now as the McNamee-Clemens saga has ceased to be about 'roids, but instead has turned into "As the Roid Turns" soap opera. (Playing every day on ESPN, et al). It's a he said-he said, the truth somewhere buried on that island in Lost, and kind of like Britney or Paris, no matter how much we want to, we just can't stop paying attention to the anamoly.

Thank heaven, then, that other things have occurred this off-season as well!

Among the things you may have forgotten:

First, there was the A-Rod non story. In short form, A-Rod went from Deity-Rod to Playoff-Goat-Rod to Opt-Out-Fraud and then back to A-Rod. I certainly don't know A-Rod's thought process, but he might just be the most clever guy on the planet, willing to sacrifice his sense of dignity and pride just to get a top contract...wait, no, A-Rod would never do that...but that Agent dude, Boras (Bore Us? ), he might be just the type...

Second, there was that bit where Detroit and Florida did this thing where you send some players from Team A to Team B and vice versa. In baseball we like to call this a trade. Detroit sent Cameron Maybin, et al, to Florida for Dontrelle Willis an Miggy Cabrera. Most people think Detroit came off better in the deal, but I am actually of the belief that Florida will come out better. Consider:

1) Willis is an NL pitcher who struggled last year and now has to pitch in the bat-happy AL.
2) Miggy C has weight issues and defense issues that may be a concern, and will easily command a top dollar contract, like Willis.
3) Florida likes the five year rule, having won their first world series five years after their inception, their second five years after that (1997, 2003) and now, 2008...whaddya know, five years? Okay, so 2003-1997 is actually six years...so maybe the Marlins are more due in 2009 or 2010, but that's besides the point.


Third, Oakland fleeced Arizona, giving 'Zona "ace" Dan Haren for basically the entirety of 'Zona's farm system. 'Zona's got a nice young team as is, but, as Yankees' fans know from the years 2003-2006, it's generally a good idea to have a farm system no matter how good your team is on the top level.


Fourth, Johan Santana is still a Minnesota Twin. First he was supposed to be a Yankee, then a Red Sox, now local articles have him as a Met, but if tomorrow was February Fourteenth, he'd be reporting to Twins' camp. There are all sorts of different ways this can be interpreted, and yes, I admit that it can be fun to play "let's pretend you're Bill Smith and he's Theo Epstein and I'm Brian Cashman and she's Omar Minaya", but that won't actually make the trade happen. Unless you actually are Bill Smith or Theo Epstein or Brian Cashman or Omar Minaya, in which case I say "Hello, and Thank You for reading the blog. Go Yankees!"


Fifth, in case you forgot, the Yankees managed to resign their most "key" free agents besides A-Rod: Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Jose Molina. Mo and Po earned their keep, getting unheard of contracts for closers and 36 year-old catchers. Andy Pettitte came back after, among other things, incredible fan support. If you missed it, Steve Lombardi of Was Watching initiated P46, a letter writing project to get Pettitte to come back, and it looks like it worked.


Sixth, in what seems like ages and ages ago, Joe Torre turned down a contract offer and in something that sort of resembled the dating game, Joe Girardi beat out Don Mattingly and Tony Peña for the manager's job. Torre landed softly on his feet in a job managing the LA Dodgers--Torre grew up a Brooklyn fan--and, whaddya know, his favorite reliever of all time, Scott Proctor is right there waiting for him. Of the Yankee coaches on staff for next year, perhaps none is more welcoming than the appointment of Dave Eiland as pitching coach--Eiland worked with the Trinity (that is, Phil, Joba and Ian) in the minors, and, well, we know what they can do...


There is still a month of the off-season to go, and anything can happen--if I know myself correctly, the second I post this, we'll all see Johan Santana has gone to the Angels and the Cubs have decided to stop playing at Wrigley--but that's the fun of it.


So, all things considered, I have to ask, of the past few baseball game-less months, in my best Russell Crowe voice, ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?



I know I am very, very entertained.

The State of the Yankees: Why Rebecca is going to ACE her GREs!

Greetings!


Well, here we are: 2007 was quite a season, wasn't it? After finding themselves 14.5 games back in May, the Yankees had quite an acclivity to summit, and while they didn't quite reach the pinnacle, they came pretty close.

So now we're in the off season, and the Yankees have a lengthy and complicated agenda.

So let's propound some of the more important points.

First of all, there is Alex Rodriguez, whose mellifluous, mawkish comments about loving New York turned out to be a hurtful lie to Yankee fans, such as this ingenuous blogger.

While we may deride Alex's emolument, there is no doubt that his ability to be a factotum will be greatly missed in the Yankee line up.

Yankees' fans can also not afford to be blithe about the potential departures of Mariano Rivera and/or Jorge Posada; the Yankees should not brook even the possibilities of them leaving the team.

It will take much cerebration on the part of Brian Cashman to rectify the situation, especially as concerns third base, given the limited market. There is no doubt that the endless speculation will eventually pall even the most ardent Yankees' fans, especially if it produces nothing but chaff.

However, Yankees' fans should not be hypercritical. The doings of Phil, Joba, Ian and even Austin Jackson and José Tabata are hortatory, and, hopefully, a portent of the Yankees' future the rest of this decade and next. Joba is so far the most sacrosanct of all the prospects, though that is not to say he is infallible.

We will have to weather the next few months with much patience; with luck our faith in the Yankees' future will be warranted




Yep. I am SO acing this test.