Incoming weather

The weather map for the next several hours certainly looks ominous...

Merry X-Mas and New Year's

May the Spirit of Generosity bring you much joy!

If you give a crap about the Yankees....

and I haven't gotten the impression that anyone who reads this blog does, but I thought the Bronx Bummers made a great move today trading for Javier Vasquez. If you remember, Vasquez had a go-round with the Yankees a few years back, and I didn't think he was terrible, but we gave up on him after on year. He's a little long in the tooth, maybe 33, but he had a solid year with the Braves last year, and seems like the type of pitcher whose not near the end by any means. Anyhow, I'm glad we got him to shore up the rotation....

But, we gave up Melky Cabrera to get him. Cabrera was a fairly solid center fielder for us last year, but he has had kind of and up and down career. On the up side, he's fairly young and has performed fairly well under the NYC spotlight. Howevever, Cabrera clearly became expendable when we picked up the great (former Seawolf) Curtis Granderson from the Tigers. There was talk that Melky would start in left, but I'm not sure he has a big enough bat for the Yankees to be completely satisfied with him as the full-time leftfielder. So, we dumped him for some starting pitching depth.

Which leaves us with a hole in left field - not necessarily a bad thing considering that three of the current top free agents are left fielders: Johnny Damon, Jason Bay, and Matt Holliday. Damon, of course, is a proven commodity, but Bay and Holliday likely have more upside - as they both are younger. That said, if this article is true, and Damon has reduced his contract demands to a two-year term, then, we should probably jump all over it. Yes, we'd be leaving Holliday and Bay on the market for the BoSox, but Damon is probably a better fit for the Yankees' line-up. He's a lefty and did a great job in the number two hole last year. Yeah, we'd probably need to refresh the position in another couple years, while Bay or Holliday could conceivably be a long-term solution - but it's worth keeping in mind that Holliday was kind of a washout in his only A.L. stint with the A's last year, and that Bay is a right-handed pull hitter that might not be a good fit for Yankee Stadium - nor may he be able to cover enough ground to be an effective defensive left fielder in the (not quite so as in the past, but still fairly) cavernous confines of our home park. Based on their recent track record, I'm sure the Yanks are checking all this stuff out and am confident they will make the right move.

The Yankees, already the reigning World Champions, have had a great offseason and look really strong heading into 2010, which is the year I thought they could win it all based on last season's moves. I think Jeter and Posada each have at least one good year left in them, A-Rod should be back stronger than last year....I really think we could have an all-time great team next year. Just what all you Yankee haters wanted to hear I'm sure.

Cheers.

Ralph

Matsui to Angels

There's been a lot going on in this baseball offseason so far, especially the Yankees picking up centerfielder Curtis Granderson from the Tigers. Granderson was one of the Seawolves' all-time greats and I'll never forget watching him at the Uht. By all accounts he's a class act as well (but, then again, wasn't Tiger Woods, well, maybe not...but we'll leave that for another day). That all said, this small story that moved across the wire this morning was a bit disheartening.... it seems World Series hero Hideki Matsui is moving on from the Yankees to the Angels. After coming over from Japan, Godzilla had played his whole MLB career with the Yankees. He was generally a solid, clutch player whose intensity could not be questioned. He was the quintessential professional ballplayer.... right down to his collection of porn videos, which reportedly numbers greater than 50,000.

I guess when you consider his hobby and how Times Square has evolved in the past 20 years, then, perhaps Southern California is a better fit for him. But, Hideki, from one Yankees fan at least, thanks for all you've done for the team over the past 7 years - in exchange for that $70 million the Yankees gave you....

Ralph

White Running Backs

Here's an interesting article (written by an African-American, ok, black, journalist) speculating that prejudice is a factor in the lack of opportunities being given white running backs in big time college football and the pros. He makes some really good points. The impetus for the article is the great season that Stanford's Toby Gerhart is having. I'm not sure who else is in the running for the Heisman, but this guy has more than 1,700 yards and 26 TDs and has helped lead the surprising Cardinal to wins over USC, Oregon, and Notre Dame (a game in which he even threw a big TD pass). I had heard talk that he was going to pursue a professional baseball career, but more recently I've heard people talking about his prospects for the NFL Draft.

Although there have been white fullbacks, Tom Rathman comes to mind, that have had some success catching passes out of the backfield, the last white back who enjoyed any sustained success carrying the ball, I believe was Craig James. James, who split time in college at SMU with the great Eric Dickerson, rushed for more than 1,200 yards for the 1985 Pats. I don't know if he got injured the year after or what, but he never came close to duplicating that success and was out of the league a couple years later. He did go on to a very successful career as a sportscaster.

Anyhow, James' 1,000 yard season was almost 25 years ago. Should we start calling Gerhart the Great White Hope? After all, my 10-year-old son keeps asking me if there is any chance he can make it to the NFL. He was the build and skill set of a back, but I told him that based on history he better hope he grows to at least 6'-3" and hope his arm continues to develop if he wants to have even a very slight chance. If Gerhart succeeds in the NFL, well, maybe he can expand that scope of hope a little bit...

Cheers.

Ralph

Bus makes the right call

If anyone his interested, Jerome Bettis continues to do great work for sportsillustrated.com. Here's a quote from his latest column, which was presumably posted yesterday:

"I like the Saints Monday night in a runaway win. It may not happen right off the bat, but Drew Brees will eventually eat this New England secondary up. The Patriots can't hold these guys off for four quarters." - Called it pretty much perfectly.

But also had some interesting comments on Dennis Dixon to start the column. He was obviously much more impressed than I was, and I have always been a Dixon fan. Maybe I was expecting too much. But, if the Bus calls it a good performance that establishes Dixon as a solid back-up, I'm buying in.

Final note on the Bus - he went to Notre Dame, which just fired its coach. That's the third time in 10 years that a coach there has been canned. Every coach since Lou Holtz. No doubt it's a tough job. From what I've read, the school boasts graduation rates for football players of higher than 90%. So, not only do they want you to win football games, they expect you to graduate players. Hats off to the Irish for being demanding on both fronts. Bettis' fine writing (and I'm not a Notre Dame alumnus or fan, just a fan of good sportswriting) is a product of that system. Let's hope they can find a coach who maintains the educational standards, while also fielding a more competitive team. After all, Fighting Irish football has a great tradition of winning as well. I've heard Jim Harbaugh's name mentioned...