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Posts Tagged ‘Alex Rodriguez’

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The Half-Billion Dollar Yankee Lineup

In Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees on November 25, 2008 at 10:01 pm
New York Yankees second baseman Derek Jeters awaits his turn to bat at Yankee Stadium on August 16, 2008. (Photo courtesty triitalian, flickr.com)

New York Yankees second baseman Derek Jeters awaits his turn to bat at Yankee Stadium on August 16, 2008. (Photo courtesty triitalian, flickr.com)

What the hell, let’s sign ‘em all. This is New York, baby. We need a winner.

You think mom and dad with the 2.3 kids who need to refinance their home mortgage for bleacher seats on family day expect anything less?

And what about all the suits in the luxury suites that work for the mega corporations? They gotta spend their Federal bailout package money and they better be compensated for it with a winning team.

Hank and Hal, as you know the new Yankee Stadium has a hefty $1.3 billion price tag. It’s time to compensate the New York City taxpayers with lots and lots of homers.

We expect no less than spanking new World Series banners to decorate the new digs.

So, c’mon. Let’s do this. Who cares if this is “bad” for baseball or that Kansas City Royals fans are shaking their heads—fuggedaboutit!

The Batting Lineup

A $3,500 top-tier seat with a great view of the right-field foul pole and the Jersey coastline won’t keep me away from seeing this friggin’ batting order:

  1. LF Johnny Damon ($13 million)
  2. SS Derek Jeter ($21.6 million)
  3. 3B Alex Rodriguez ($28 million)
  4. RF Manny Ramirez ($25 million)
  5. 1B Mark Teixeira ($20 million)
  6. DH Hideki Matsui ($13 million)
  7. CF Xavier Nady ($3.35 million)
  8. C Jorge Posada ($13.1 million)
  9. 2B Robinson Cano ($3 million)

Jose Molina ($1.875 million) will be the backup catcher.

The Pitching Staff

Let’s put together the sickest pitching staff this year’s free agent crop can muster.

And if one of them underachieves, we’ll just make a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays for David Price and send them in return Kei Igawa, a bag of baseballs, and a near-mint Reggie Jackson baseball card.

Check out this starting rotation:

  • CC Sabathia ($24 million)
  • Chien-Ming Wang ($4 million)
  • Joba Chamberlain ($390,000)
  • AJ Burnett ($13 million)
  • Derek Lowe ($13 million)

Of course, the bullpen will include Damaso Marte ($4 million) with Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez ($14 million) setting-up Mariano Rivera ($15 million).

(Current players with the Yankees include ‘08 salaries. Current free agents are projected ‘09 salaries.)

Summary

Hank and Hal Steinbrenner—the baseball world is counting on you. Madison Avenue is counting on you.

We can’t bear another Tampa-Philadelphia World Series. One more of these and the consequences will make Marshall Applewhite proud.

With the Yankees, we’ve got pinstripes and Kabbalah. The richest team in American sports history meets the Material Girl. What could be more cool?

Without the Yankees, baseball is just a bunch of overpaid dudes swinging a piece of wood at a little ball. What could be more boring?

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Yankees Fans Outshine All Others

In Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees on November 25, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Rap artist Jay-Z

Rap artist Jay-Z is a diehard New York Yankees fan and has been spotted taking in a game or two at Yankee Stadium.

Red Sox Nation can keep Stephen King.

Yankees Universe has more stars than the Milky Way. Yankees games are spectacles where luminaries show up to root on the home team (this fact doesn’t escape the wrath of satirists).

Yankees Universe

The Music World

Among the stars who are among the constellations of Yankees fans are legendary musicians Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, and Bruce Springsteen.

In fact, McCartney signed former Yankees center-fielder Bernie Williams to his music publishing company.

Top rap acts 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Nas, Puff Daddy, and Chuck D of Public Enemy sport their Yankees gear proudly. Jay-Z, from Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, even considered buying shares of the team.

Athletic All-Stars

New England quarterback Tom Brady has been photographed on the tough streets of Manhattan wearing his Yankees cap. He is also friends with third-baseman Alex Rodriguez.

One of the best basketball players on the planet, Cavaliers small forward LeBron James, rooted his Yankees on during a playoff game in Cleveland, drawing the ire of local fans in Ohio. He’s also released a Nike sneaker line inspired by the Yankees.

Movie Stars

Comedians Adam Sandler, Robin Williams, and Chris Rock are Yankees fans. None however, can brag like Billy Crystal, who was signed to a one-day contract by the Yankees during spring training (he struck out on his one at-bat).

Director and producer Spike Lee loves the Yankees and included the team’s ‘77 World Series run in the film, Summer of Sam.

Movie stars Jack Nicholson, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, and James Gandolfini of The Sopranos are fellow pinstripers.

It’s been documented that Nicholson refused to wear a Red Sox cap during his role as a Boston gangster in The Departed, out of loyalty to the Yankees.

Politics

Politicians Henry Kissenger, Joe Lieberman, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton root for the Yankees. Although did Clinton by coincidence start attending Yankees games only during her election bid for New York senator? You decide for yourself.

Esquire named Giuliani the best mayor in America while he governed New York and reports that “when Giuliani was three and living in Brooklyn, his father made him wear a Yankees uniform around the neighborhood, a taunt to Dodgers fans, who’d periodically beat him up.”

Summary

The Yankees are the most revered and the most detested sports team in the universe. That is the price of an illustrious history of fame and success.

I can’t imagine that New York, one of the world’s most brilliant cities, and its variety of Yankees fans (satire), would expect any less from the home team and baseball’s best ever franchise.

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Reign Delay: Back to New York Yankees Glory in ‘09

In Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, New York Yankees on November 25, 2008 at 9:16 pm
If the New York Yankees can ink CC Sabathia to a free-agent contract, it'll go a long way towards restoring the Bombers' dominance of the late '90s.

If the New York Yankees can ink CC Sabathia to a free-agent contract, it'll go a long way towards restoring the Bombers' dominance of the late '90s.

The New York Yankees will not be denied. The Yankees will blow away all other suitors for pitcher CC Sabathia. Hank and Hal Steinbrenner will open up the vault and make Fort Knox look like a piggy bank.

Just Go All Out and Get Sabathia

Forget about all the other free-agent pitchers out there. Get Sabathia. Sabathia is the first priority.

Any talk from Sabathia about wanting to stay in the National League is, at worse, true, only to mean the Yankees will change his mind with a bigger number, or at best, a ploy to loosen the Yankees’ purse strings.

Either way, Sabathia knows the Yankees desperately want him and need him, and they’re able and willing to pay.

Sabathia will be the starting pitcher for the New York Yankees come Opening Day ’09. Put this in the bank.

Other Pitching Rotation Possibilities

Perhaps the Yankees can also add Derek Lowe, to round out the pitching staff, if the numbers make baseball sense, as the team has question marks with the possible retirement of Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte, and the worrisome lack of development of Phil Hughes.

Only Chien-Ming Wang is a certified ace on the current Yankees pitching staff.

Should Joba Chamberlain come out of the bullpen or start? With starters Sabathia, Wang, Lowe, and either Mussina or Pettitte, maybe Chamberlain makes more sense coming out of the bullpen.

A pitching-relief duo of Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera will ostensibly shorten games to six or seven innings.

The Yankees have made it clear, however, that they will start Chamberlain.

The Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series with one great starting pitcher, a lock-down bullpen, timely hitting, and guts.

With the pitching possibilities outlined above, let’s turn our attention to hitting and guts.

Other Key Positions: First Base and Center Field

Forget about first-baseman Mark Teixeira. The Yankees don’t need a $200 million fixture at first. Jorge Posada can move to first and play some designated hitter. (Jose Molina can take up the bulk of the catching duties and provide solid defense.)

New York needs an everyday player in center field, like they had in Bernie Williams. Perhaps they can workout a trade somewhere, but at what price? Can they wrest Nate McLouth from the Pittsburgh Pirates or even Rocco Baldelli from the Tampa Bay Rays?

Xavier Nady playing in right field is perfectly fine.

With dumping Jason Giambi and Bobby Abreu, the Yankees will have to replace some bats. I’ve made the case for Manny Ramirez on a purely emotional basis, but practically and realistically, I’m not sure it makes sense with the team’s current logjam of aging outfielders.

Batting Lineup

Maybe the answer to replacing these bats is closer than you think and doesn’t require a free-agent acquisition. The Yankees do have Alex Rodriguez, Nady, Johnny Damon (who had an outstanding offensive season last year), Posada, Hideki Matsui, Derek Jeter (who can provide some timely hitting), and Robinson Cano (with the hope of a turnaround season).

Summary

So in short: Get Sabathia, get Lowe at the right price, sign either Mussina or Pettitte, pass on Teixeira, make a trade for a center fielder, and hope that the Yankees’ bats from last year come alive as they should.

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The Case for Manny Ramirez in Yankee Pinstripes

In Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, New York Yankees on November 25, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Current free agent Manny Ramirez will look good in New York Yankees pinstripes. Ramirez is pictured here during a Boston Red Sox and Yankee game on April 22, 2007. (Photo courtesy of Just A Big Geek, flickr.)

Current free agent Manny Ramirez will look good in New York Yankees pinstripes. Ramirez is pictured here during a Boston Red Sox-Yankee game on April 22, 2007. (Photo courtesy of Just A Big Geek, flickr.)

I find it insulting how self-appointed baseball purists hide behind their staid placards like “tradition” or “purity” or “arrogance.” Go ride off on your moral high horse! And that includes fellow New York Yankee fans that hide behind that thin veneer as well.

“…I remember when the Yankees were all about Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle…”

When we read about our past idols, their faults and failures are conveniently swept under the rug by history’s broomstick. Don’t look to men who are paid millions to hit a hard, white leather ball with a piece of wood for moral rectitude. Quite frankly I find it gutless and hypocritical.

I can’t help but think of Roberto Clemente and the controversy he stirred up during his playing days because he was such the opposite of the somber Protestant ethos that all players at the time exhibited.

Ahem.

Why the Yankees Need Ramirez

That established, Manny Ramirez is a good fit for New York. I’m looking for fire and firepower. So what if I don’t like his matted dreadlocks. He doesn’t care. He overstayed his time with the Boston Red Sox. Kind of when you don’t quite know how to break-up with your girlfriend when you’ve grown overly comfortable and bored.

Anyway, he isn’t fazed by the heat of the bright lights that has made so many other players wilt. Ramirez is the type of player that shines brightest on the big stage, and their is no bigger stage than Broadway.

He is intimately invested in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. He’s from Washington Heights, NY. He’s playing in front of his (and this last remark will bring grist for the mill.)

Ultimately, his absence from the Red Sox lineup cost Boston a trip to the World Series. A championship actually because what’s more uninspiring than the Phillies? The Red Sox would’ve swept them.

On the flip side, he single-handily carried an anemic offense to the National League Championship Series in the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He’s got two or three solid years in front of him.

Quite simply, Ramirez has the mental acuity to play outfield in Yankees Stadium.

Mark Teixeira is nice, but he just doesn’t do it for me. He doesn’t exhibit the toughness to bat in the four spot in the Yankee lineup. He’s as excitable as wet cardboard. He can obviously hit, but, his bat will only work with the Atlanta Braves or Anaheim Angels.

On pure hitting prowess, just imagine Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez as your three and four hitters? Makes me salivate.

Ramirez Will Bring Passion to Yankees

What’s been missing on the Yankees is not a will to win, but intensity, ferocity. They had that in their pitchers during the championship seasons (Orlando Hernandez, the young Andy Pettitte, David Wells, and Roger Clemens.)

What we’ve got now are “quiet leaders” in Derek Jeter, the older Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina and Yankees players that haven’t earned that right—Alex Rodriguez.

Yes, I believe Ramirez can bring some fight to the team. Yes, I say that with a straight face. No, seriously.

The Yankees aren’t built for the long run—we’re built for now. If the price is right (apologies to Bob Barker) there’s no reason Ramirez shouldn’t be in pinstripes.

Now when I write about adding Ramirez to the Yankees, it’s neatly side-stepping the inconvenience of having several outfielders already in the apex of their careers.

I don’t pretend to know how to sort that out, but Manny Ramirez in a Yankee uniform is a great short-term move.