I'm not a fan of the New York Yankees. They are a testament to excess. At the end of every season, every failed season of late by their standards, they try to figure out how to improve.
Should we build a great farm system? Nah, that's too hard and it takes too long.
Should we stop collecting All-Stars and find players who know how to run the bases and play their positions, guys who don't go high in the Fantasy draft but understand how to win? Nah, those guys all play for Minnesota.
Well, what should we do? Hey, I know. Let's go out and offer outrageous sums of money to free agents. But didn't we do that last season and the season before and the 14 seasons before that? So?
So before the season, the Yankees signed free-agent slugger Mark Teixeira and free-agent pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.
And this time it worked. They were the best team in baseball. And even though the talented Los Angeles Angels are a trendy pick to upset them, I don't see anybody beating New York.
Most seasons, the Yankees are easy to dislike. Unless you're a fan, contempt comes naturally. But even though they destroyed my Minnesota Twins last week, I kind of like them.
Along with being a high-priced slugger, Teixeira is a superb fielder and a clutch hitter. The Yankees haven't had many of the latter. CC was mediocre most of the season. But as the season wore on, he began to wear out hitters. The Yankees didn't overwork him the last month and he looks fresh.
My favorite New York pitcher is Andy Pettitte. I like the old guys (he's 37) who get by on guts and guile.
In his spare time, Pettitte helped expand the language. In an affidavit, Pettitte wrote that Roger Clemens told him that he used human growth hormone. Clemens informed a house panel that Pettitte misheard him.
That's a cool word, misheard. I tried it. "But honey, you misheard me when I said I was coming straight home after the game."
It didn't work any better for me than it did for Roger.
When New York fans claim they have a nice rotation, you did not mishear them. Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte fit beautifully.
The Yankees finally are more than a testament to wanton spending. They play smart and they play clutch (even Alex Rodriguez) and they play really well. The Angeles are very good, and the winner of the Philadelphia-Los Angeles Dodgers also will be.
But for the first time in nine seasons, the Yankees will win it all.
Spending $265 million on three players is a very good reason to hate this team. Hope the Angels sweep them.
Posted by: Fleiter | October 16, 2009 at 12:53 PM
They built most of the team through the farm system. Perhaps their biggest postseason strength is the bullpen built primarily through the farm system, Joba-Hughes-Rivera, is probably the best 7th-8th-9th combination in all of baseball. Their pitching staff against Minnesota only had 4 pitchers who weren't originally drafted by the Yankees, Burnett, CC, Gaudin and Marte. And these Yankees of 2009 have less salary than the Yankees of 2008, and look for their salary to drop even more in 2010.
Posted by: Joe | October 16, 2009 at 01:32 PM
The mostly hated NY Yankees who were renamed in 1913 from the NY Highlanders own MLB and have since The Babe was traded there in 1918 after he had won Boston the Series in 1916 and 1918 as a pitcher. The curse was lifted 86 yrs later and the Sox won in 2004 and in 2006. Since Ruth was bought for 100k in 1918 the Yanks have won the Series 26 times in 2000, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1978, 1977, 1962, 1961, 1958, 1956, 1953, 1952, 1951, 1950, 1949, 1947, 1943, 1941, 1939, 1938, 1937, 1936, 1932, 1928, 1927, 1923.
Posted by: underworld | October 18, 2009 at 08:48 AM
A lifelong Oriole fan since the team was returned to major league status at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium in 1954, I have nonetheless always admired many of the Yankees players individually through the years.
Pitcher Whitey Ford seemed such a classy master of his craft when I recall how hard it was to get very many runs off him when he was on the mound. You might get a couple of early runs but then Whitey would settle into his groove and opposing bats would go silent. Seeing "the M&M Boys," Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, come to Washington to play the Senators in the early 1960s, was certainly a thrill.
In the 1970s, meeting Jim (Catfish) Hunter in his native Hertford in Northeastern N.C. on a cross-state hike from Manteo to Murphy was "tops," for he exemplified the professionally accomplished North Carolinian who wanted nothing more than to keep the home fires burning during baseball's off-season.
Reggie Jackson's three consecutive World Series homers and his personal style in batting and running the bases demonstrated flair yet a refreshing moderation in times of celebration: relish the competition, savor the moment, then make way for the next group of players.
In the early '80s, playing music in the French Quarter of New Orleans, we got a kick out of meeting Greg Nettles when he loped down Bourbon Street sporting those fancy Western boots, thus becoming the subject of animated conversation among baseball enthusiasts among our cadre of musicians, including one bass player who got to chat with the Yankee third baseman:
"So, what did you ask him?" we wanted to know.
"'Hey Greg, how's it going?'"
"Well, what did he say?"
"'Great.'"
But it seems to me that the extension of Major League's post-season into the first week of November has taken some of the luster and glamor away from the previous pursuit of pennants and World Series honors in the first half of the sunny and chipper month of October. If this year's Series goes seven games--and assuming there are no weather delays--a majority of these 2009 World Series games will be played in the month of November!
Then this "cold, wet, late-night baseball" during the playoffs seems to be a most phlegmatic affair, with pitchers having to blow into their hands to keep them from getting too chilled and fielders having trouble with routine grounders at crucial junctures in the game (Game 2 of the Yankees-Angels ALCS).
We are asked to choose between our traditional late-October college football rivalry games and a baseball extravaganza which has passed its prime season of interest. So no matter whether you are a Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies, White Sox, Cardinals, Angels or Dodgers fan, the whole competition seems to slide down a notch into a contest of surviving the elements, which is a far cry from when watched Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Bob Gibson and Brooks Robinson bring out the most sparkling aspects of the game's autumntime showcase performances.
Can the stars play their best baseball after Halloween? Who will become to first player to win plaudits as "Mr. November?"
Posted by: David McKnight | October 18, 2009 at 09:50 AM
E - Me. I should have spelled it Graig Nettles in the above post.
Posted by: David McKnight | October 18, 2009 at 09:55 AM