4/15/09

Nady could be done for the year

Xavier Nady left the game on Tuesday with elbow pain. He has said that his MRI showed a tear, and that he will need surgery. So, all of us that wanted Swisher starting full-time got our wish, but at the price of seeing a fine ball player get injured. This most likely means that Melky will get more playing time as the 4th outfielder on the club, filling in on those days when Gardner, Damon, or Swish need to rest.

4/14/09

Update

8 Pound 6 Ounce Baby Swish hit another out tonight. Meanwhile, AJ is throwing a No-No through 5. LETS GO.

Update- No-No through 6!

6 Pound 8 Ounce Baby Swish?

I'm not going to lie, I'm a huge fan of Nick Swisher. Not only is he on a hitting tear, hitting .450/.542/1.150, he seems to really bring the clubhouse to life. You can also throw in the 1 IP, 1 K, 0.00 ERA up there too. As I advocated for during the offseason, I really think Swish should be out there in RF instead of Nady. And maybe have Pena at 3rd?

AJ goes tonight. Let's hope it goes better than last night...

Here's the lineup-

Gardner- CF
Jeter- SS
Teixeira- 1B
Swisher- LF
Posada- DH
Cano- 2B
Nady- RF
Pena!- I looked at the lineup after I wrote my little piece above!
Molina- C


Bernie Williams

I was on mlb.com today and I saw this really cool video of Bernie playing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". Bernie is my favorite player of all time, so I figured I'd share it with you. He is the man.


4/13/09

He does it all...

Our Yanks got spanked by Tampa today, but Nick Swisher had a fairly good day. Nick "Superman" Swisher went 1-3, with a home run. He drew a walk, scored two runs, and had one RBI. Oh, he also pitched a shutout inning, and notched a strikeout (of Gabe Kapler).

In case anyone was wondering, our starting pitcher, the Taiwanese icon, and former Yankee ace, Chien Ming Wang pitched 1+ innings, allowing 8 earned runs on 6 hits and 3 walks, with only one K. So our backup RF/1B out-pitched the man we considered our ace for the past few years...

We Have a Winner...


After much consideration, Kevin and I have decided on a winner for our DVD contest! Because of the hilarious irony of his entry, Brandon has been selected! To all of those who submitted entries, thanks so much and we hope we can do this again soon.

Here's Brandon's entry-

When I was about 10 my dad took me to my first Yankees game. It was Yankees vs. Blue Jays at the stadium and the pitching matchup was Jeff Weaver vs. Roy Halladay. My dad and older brother kept talking about how good Jeff Weaver was and how he could win the Cy Young (it was the first month of the year) and I got really excited about the Yankees being favorites to win this game. So I go to the game, the first thing I notice is how good this random guy on the jays looks. So I say "this guy looks good guys" "He isn't very good son, he won't be in the majors for long." The Yankees would lose the game 8-2 and my family would be wrong about both players. I was also on the big screen that game and my friend saw me. 

Jeff Weaver > Roy Halladay? The Yankees would have certainly been a different team. Thanks again for the entries, I'll be back later to review 2001 WS Game 4 from the DVD set.


4/12/09

Happy Day of Resurrection

Today, Our Lord the Savior shall rise from the realm of the ordinary, upon the bench, and shall re-take his post as Lord of Dominance. Our Lord the Savior shall take the mound, and demonstrate the art of perfection to all that disbelieve. That's right, today is Joba's first start of the year. Through 2 innings so far he's thrown 23 pitches(16 strikes/7 balls). No runs, no hits, no walks. And he's already struck out two. Don't think it's any coincidence that the day Joba returns to his place in the universe is also the day that the savior of some other religion supposedly returned to his place in the universe. Here's to Lord 6 Pound 8 Ounce Baby Joba.

4/10/09

.500

We're 2-2 now, thanks to 7 innings of 1 run ball from Andy Pettitte today. Brian Bruney pitched a scoreless innings, as did Mo, to get himself the save. We faced our old friend Kyle Farnsworth for an inning, and he struck out the side. Here's the box.

4/9/09

Victory

Our boys, led by AJ Burnett, beat Baltimore today for our first win of the year. Tex, Swish, and Robby Cano all homered. AJ struck out six over 5.2 innings. Gardner stole a base. And we won 11-2. It's nice to get that first W, and I'm sure we'll see many many more as the year goes on.

ALCS Game 7, 2003

We are reviewing Essential Games of Yankee Stadium which is a six disc series featuring 6 historic games at the Cathedral. I have below my review of Game 7 of the '03 ALCS. We all know what happened in the game, and there are no real "special features" on the disc, so below are just thoughts and comments regarding the game.

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Game 7

2003 ALCS

New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox

Red Sox

CF Johnny Damon

2B Todd Walker

SS Nomar Garciaparra

LF Manny Ramirez

DH David Ortiz

1B Kevin Millar

RF Trot Nixon

3B Bill Mueller

C Jason Varitek

Pitching-Pedro Martinez

New York Yankees

2B Alfonso Soriano

1B Nick Johnson

SS Derek Jeter

CF Bernie Williams

LF Hideki Matsui

C Jorge Posada

DH Jason Giambi

3B Enrique Wilson

RF Karim Garcia

Roger Clemens-Age 41. Won his 300th game in 03.


Maybe this wasn’t that long ago, as when Clemens’ takes the mound the announcers talk about how everyone wants to know if this would be his last appearance.

Manny didn’t have the long dreads he has now. It seems like he actually had a shaved head.

I had forgotten that Boone didn’t even start in the game.

Look at some of the non-stars on our team, Nick Johnson, Enrique Wilson, and Karim Garcia. That’s almost as bad as when we would play Jose Molina, Melky Cabrera, and Wilson Betemit last year.

Jeter batting third was weird.

In the first inning, Hideki takes ball 3 and starts to jog towards first. He forgot the count. Ha Ha.


They keep saying “This could be the final time Roger Clemens is on a Major League mound.”

Wilson throwing error lets Varitek score and Damon gets to second.

In the 3rd inning they show some footage of Manny as a high schooler at George Washington High in Washington Heights. He was a skinny kid, what happened?

We were getting rocked, 4-0 in the 4th after a Kevin Millar homerun.

Mussina comes in in the 4th, first bullpen appearance of his career.

The first time we scored was on a Jason Giambi solo homerun in the 5th. 4-1

Giambi hit another solo shot dead center in the 7th . 4-2

Giambino was batting 7th. Remember when Torre batted A-Rod 7th and there was a big fuss about it? Why couldn’t Alex do what Giambi did?

Kevin Millar made a great play on an Enrique Wilson groundball, but didn’t do a quick flip, and Wilson reached safely. The announcers say it was a weird angle, but you should always be able to do a 6 foot back-handed flip. Second baseman do it almost every day. There was no risk, Wilson wouldn’t have gotten another bag. Poor thinking is all I can say.

It’s weird to see Grady Little in the visitors’ dugout instead of Terry Francona.

Soriano strikes out with 2 on and 2 out in the seventh. His FOURTH strikeout of the game, yikes.

Great play by Enrique Wilson at 3rd on a hard hit Manny grounder. Manny used to hustle so much more than he does now…

David Wells comes into the game. His first pitch is jacked to right field by David Ortiz. I had forgotten that Torre used Clemens, Mussina, and Wells all in the same game.

You can read Wells' lips, and he drops the f-bomb, when Ortiz hits it out.

5-2 as we go into the bottom of the 8th.

They have brought up the brawl at Fenway when Pedro took out Don Zimmer just about every inning.

Jeter scores on a Bernie single to Damon. 5-3

Grady Little leaves Pedro in, even though he’s already thrown 115 pitches. Seems like he asked Pedro whether he wanted to stay in or go out. Really? Who’s going to say they want out of Game 7 in a playoff series?

Hideki hits a ground rule double down the right field line. Bernie’s on 3rd, Hideki’s on 2nd.

Posada hits a bloop to center field that is equally far from Damon, Walker, and Nomar. Bernie and Hideki score. No one covers the bag as Jorge goes to 2nd. 5-5. Tie game. Pedro comes out. Imagine if Little had taken Pedro out before Hideki came to the plate? It could be a totally different ball game. Alan Embree is the new pitcher.

Alan Embree looks a lot like Wakefield. Maybe it’s just the goatees…

Also, Embree is one of the few guys that still chews while on the field. It’s disgusting how much tobacco he is chewing while he’s pitching.His cheek is bulging like a chipmunk.

They bring in Mike Timlin and the Yanks pinch hit for Enrique Wilson with Ruben Sierra. Sierra is intentionally walked. To fill 1st base while Jorge’s on 2nd. Finally Aaron Boone enters the game as a pinch runner for Sierra. So the Yanks pinch hit for Wilson with Sierra, who was given a base, and then pinch ran for him with Boone. Seems to me like that’s a lot of substitutions for one AB.

Karim Garcia walks. Bases loaded for Alfonso Soriano who is 0-4 with 4 K’s to this point. Willie Randolph gives Fonsy a little pep talk. I love seeing him in a Yankee uniform.

Fonsy grounds up the middle, off the mound, and Todd Walker makes a great jumping play on the ball. With Soriano going 0-5 with 4 K’s to this point, you have to wonder who’s more clutch…Soriano or A-Rod? I know Soriano won Game 5 in the 07 WS, but just food for thought…

Mo’s pitching the 9th. The announcers are trying to compare the situation to his last game 7, which was in ’01 when Luis Gonzalez hit that single that ruined the entire year of 2001.

Johnny Damon’s up. He looks so much younger. Amazing what 5 and a half years can do.

As Tim Wakefield takes the mound in the bottom of the 10th they talk about how good he has been so far this series. They say, he’s been as valuable of a players as the Red Sox have had all series.

Mariano threw 3 shutout innings. What a beast!

Aaron Boone’s brother, Bret Boone, is one of the announcers.

Boone’s stats before his home run.

.161 Avg, 0HR, 1 RBI in the postseason so far. .125 AVG, 0 HR, 1 RBI in the ALCS.

BOONE HITS A HIGH FLY BALL TO LEFT. IF IT”S OUT IT”LL SEND THE YANKS TO THE WORLD SERIES. THAT BALL IS GONE. THAAAAAAAA YANKEES WIN.

Bret Boone is standing in the press box, arms crossed, with a big smile across his face.

Just looking at Pedro makes me hate him.

Aaron says “…like Derek told me, the ghosts would show up, and they did.”

The announcer on the field says “Bret Boone, World Series hero.” Ha ha wrong name, wrong series.


Great Game. I literally screamed and jumped as I watched Boone's homer. Yes, I mean as I watched it on the DVD 5 years after it happened. I miss Boone, he'll always have a spot in the heart of every Yankee fan.