Yankees Daily

The New York Yankees are looking very good. Wait a second. Did I just post that? Now why would I post something like that? They’re not really looking “really” good, they’re looking great!

Curtis Granderson is smoking the ball and getting clutch hits like Hideki Matsui did. Brett Gardner is stealing bases and scoring runs like a supernatural. Alex Rodriguez is getting big hits, witness yesterday’s marvelous double. Nick Johnson might be batting .136 but he leads the team in walks with seven. The hitting is superb. You can “feel” that it’s last year’s team but with a few different players.

The big three of Andy Pettitte, C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett are giving us exactly what we thought they would. They’ll most likely end up pitching with close stats similar to last year. I’ll take it.

Ok, ok, I’m going to let you guess how the bull pen is doing.

Ooh! Ooh! Can I guess Sean?

Sure you can. What do you have to say for yourself?

Four players in the bull pen have an era of 0.00. Mariano “God” Rivera, David “the Jolt” Robertson, Alfredo “Champion” Aceves and Damaso “the producer” Marte.

Wow, look what I just typed. I’m shaking my head in amazement. I can’t believe it but I can. If feels good not to believe something because it means some thing great is happening. Do you sense great things happening Yankee fans? Do you feel it? The feeling of being invincible? Indestructible? Unconquerable? It’s all there from last year. Just keep riding Yankees, just keep riding. ALLL the way to the world series again.

“The Lineup: New York’s All-Time Best Baseball Players” will premiere on Tuesday, March 23 at 10:30 p.m. ET on MSG Network with “Catchers,” the first of ten weekly episodes. Each 30-minute episode of “The Lineup” will present a number of nominees for consideration at each position, from the Yankees, Mets, New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, with one episode dedicated to the best New York manager of all-time. MSG’s Fran Healy will host a panel, consisting of Hall of Fame Mets catcher Gary Carter, former Yankee bullpen ace Sparky Lyle, New York Magazine contributing editor and baseball aficionado Will Leitch, and executive vice president of the Elias Sports Bureau Steve Hirdt. The panel will whittle down a larger list of players from each position and determine the top five from each spot on the diamond. By the end of each episode, they will crown the top player at each position and name him to the official “Lineup” card.

With an interactive fantasy game launched in conjunction with the on-air program and hosted on MSG.com/lineup, viewers can see how they stack up against The Lineup’s experts. Fans will try to predict the five players who will be nominated each week and ultimately who will be selected as the starter in the final “Lineup.” Participants will receive points for each correct pick and will be eligible for weekly prizes such as signed memorabilia from baseball greats like Don Mattingly, Joe Torre, Reggie Jackson and Derek Jeter. At the end of the series, the participant with the most points will win a Grand Prize. The site will also feature chats for fans to interact and debate each position, quizzes about the nominated players, photo and video galleries, and player statistics for fans to comb through before making their picks.

The first episode of The Lineup airs on Tuesday, March 23rd at 10:30 p.m. ET on MSG Network, but you can already head over to MSG.com/lineup and make your picks for the best catcher in NY baseball history. Piazza? Posada? Yogi Berra?

The Lineup: New York’s All-Time Best Baseball Players – http://www.msg.com/lineup/

The New York Yankees are not going to give contract extensions to Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera.

Hal Steinbrenner says..

“Everybody does business in a different way,” the team’s managing general partner said Tuesday following a news conference to announce details of the first Pinstripe Bowl at new Yankee Stadium, “I just don’t believe in contract extensions, and that’s throughout the organization, no matter who it is. Hopefully nobody takes that personally. It’s just business.”

It’s actually a great business model for the Yankees. If some one is loved by the fans, that player won’t let the fans down especially if they are in their later years. Also, no one can out bid the Yankees so the Yankees can always wait and see if the player sustains a career ending injury.

According to GEORGE A. KING III from the NY Post, Cuban shortstop Adeinis Hechavarria is free to negotiate with Major League Baseball teams.

He’ll most likely command eight million from the New York Yankees who are the favorites to land him.

According to Dan Perry of FoxSports, the New York Yankees are not going to repeat because their run differential was lucky last year, they’re old, they play in a tough division and because of the unpredictability of the post season.

1. Even if their run differential was lucky, they dominated in the post season.

2. Mariano Rivera, 40; Jorge Posada, 38; Andy Pettitte, 37; Derek Jeter, 35; Alex Rodriguez, 34.

Mariano can play until he is 50 because he uses only one pitch that has movement. He doesn’t rely on over powering batters.

The Yankees have a lot of young catchers in their system that is ready to step up when Posada retires. Posada wasn’t the main reason the Yankees won last year however.

Andy Pettitte relies on deception, not arm strength. He’ll pitch until he is 50 also. He has a rubber arm.

Jeter might be 35 but he has motivation to reach 3,000 hits.

A-Rod might be 34 but he has motivation to be the home run king.

3. No matter who is in the division, all you have to do is make the playoffs where the Yankees are now battle tested.

4. I’ll give him this one. Anything can happen in the post season.

Bottom of the ninth. The game is tied. Chan Ho Park comes in the game and Johnny Damon hits a moon shot to the right-field porch. That would be a terrible feeling and a “I told you so” type of moment.

I kind of don’t understand why the Yankees still didn’t want him.

How about Manny Ramirez? Saying he won’t come back to the Dodgers in 2011?  He’s making too much money for a 38 year old and he was a steroid user any way.  I doubt he’ll be good again. Even if he was younger, I have a feeling the steroids made him a great player from a good player.

You know what? Looking at the picture above, it looks like Johhny Damon was using steroids himself.

Some one in my family passed away and I’m going to their wake at 1:00 PM. The good news is that I might have some one really good lined up for a radio interview.

Who the hell wants to wait until 10:00 PM to watch a game? Talking about sucking. They should just get rid of the Seattle team altogether just for making us real fans have to watch a game that late. No one cares about Seattle anyway. They should do a franchise dump and get rid of them.

I missed reading this yesterday. It was in Newsday and a writer named NEIL BEST posted it. I’m sure Neil Best posted it because he had nothing else to write about like a lot of Yankee writers don’t especially when the game starts at 10 o’clock at night.

I’m sure most of you know John Sterling’s home run calls but here’s a list of them anyway.

Some of Sterling’s famous home-run names:

Alex Rodriguez: “An A-bomb from A-Rod”

Melky Cabrera: “The Melkman Delivers”

Derek Jeter: “El Capitan!”

Jason Giambi: “The Giambino”

Bernie Williams: “Bern, Baby, Bern”

Mark Teixeira: “It’s a Tex Message!

You’re on the mark, Teixeira”

Hideki Matsui: “It’s a Thrilla, by Godzilla!

The Sayonara Kid does it again! . . . ”

Nick Swisher: “Swishilicious”

Jorge Posada: “Jorgy Juiced One!”

Johnny Damon: “It’s a Johnny Rocket!”

Robinson Cano: “Robbie Cano, Don’t You Know”

Eric Hinske: “Hinske with your best shot”

I read that Pedro pitched for the Phillies yesterday and pitched ok against the Cubs. I’ll admit that I secretly admired watching Pedro Martinez pitch while he was with the Red Sox even though I hated the Red Sox.