The Official New York Yankees Thread

tcaporale

Managed to catch the last two innings.

Kerry Wood was fucking great in that 8th inning, he came through big time.

Cliffy6745

tcaporale wrote:

Managed to catch the last two innings.

Kerry Wood was fucking great in that 8th inning, he came through big time.

That was dominant. They didn't have a chance.

Newch91

tcaporale wrote:

Managed to catch the last two innings.

Kerry Wood was fucking great in that 8th inning, he came through big time.

He definitely was lights out in the 8th. Great pick up for the Yankees.

PJGirl321

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

PJGirl321 wrote:

Now with their great packaging - how much did you pay for this? 10, 15, 20 dollars for rubber bands?

Actually...it was $5 for 2 - one white; one blue in the same package. This was created by Boomer and Carton and they are selling for charity. Thought it was cute. Gave one to my nephew.

igotid88

Wonder if Ed will show up to one of the games to support Kerry? What would happen if they go to the WS against the Phils with Ibañez? Two of his baseball buddies in 2 different teams.

Commy

cheering for the yankees is like going for the house in vegas: they're supposed to win. they have the best players, they spend more than all the other teams.

igotid88

Commy wrote:

cheering for the yankees is like going for the house in vegas: they're supposed to win. they have the best players, they spend more than all the other teams.

other teams can spend also. their owners just choose not to. and most of their payroll is mostly due to a handful of their players. They do have by MLB standards minimum wage players.

intodeep

Commy wrote:

cheering for the yankees is like going for the house in vegas: they're supposed to win. they have the best players, they spend more than all the other teams.

Coming to a yankee thread that is over 200 pages and takling about how they spend so much money is very orginal.

come on man its an old song and it's played out.

Anyway great game last night. The strike zone was a little shadey but it was for both teams.
To nitpick 3 times the yankees had a runner on 3rd base and they could not bring him home with les then 2 outs. That is terrible.

hopefully hughesy can finish this one off tomorrow!

neilybabes86

Commy wrote:

cheering for the yankees is like going for the house in vegas: they're supposed to win. they have the best players, they spend more than all the other teams.

call the wahhhhhhbulence

neilybabes86

PJGirl321 wrote:

ohhh my

xavier mcdaniel

Commy wrote:

cheering for the yankees is like going for the house in vegas: they're supposed to win. they have the best players, they spend more than all the other teams.

you know the idea of revenue sharing, which is hardly a capitalist idea, is for the teams that get it (Pirates, Royals etc) to use it on the team and creating a team that people will want to spend money on seeing and creating more revenue for these teams. It's actually kind of sad that more corporations don't follow the Yankees' priniciples of investing in good employees, since a good product in any idea industry will make people want to spend money on the company.

Newch91

Article from Yahoo talking about what Rivera does best: break bats.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=j ... lumn100710

Rivera’s broken bats are a broken record

MINNEAPOLIS – The best pitch ever notched four more kill shots Wednesday night. Mariano Rivera(notes) throws a cut fastball that at its 55th foot takes a hairpin turn into the fists of left-handed batters, and their feeble attempts to hit it end up reinforcing a long-held certitude: The only thing more dangerous to lumber than wood-boring beetles is the New York Yankees’ closer.

The impressiveness of Rivera’s four-out, four-broken-bat save during the Yankees’ thievery of home-field advantage from the Minnesota Twins in a 6-4 victory in Game 1 of the American League Division Series wasn’t because he set some record. He once cracked five bats in an outing. Nor did he earn extra credit for turning baseballs into buzzsaws. An out is an out, shrapnel or not.

What’s mystifying – what has mystified for more than a decade now and will continue to mystify until Rivera retires, which, even after his 40th birthday, remains a long way off – is that he throws a single pitch, a dirty bomb of a pitch, yes, but just one nonetheless. Not only can hitters damn near never make solid contact, they fare so poorly that the lone weapon at their disposal often turns into a useless recyclable.

“He could build a log cabin with all the bats he’s broken,” Yankees outfielder Nick Swisher said.

Instead, the wounded wood ends up in the hands of batboys who bring it back to the dugout gingerly, the fear of splinters evermore palpable following a meeting with a cutter. The bat goes one of three places: in the trash can, a charity auction or a trophy case, affixed with the label: Mo got me, too.

He’s been breaking bats, after all, since the 1997 day when the cutter mysteriously appeared. Rivera credits it as a gift from God. Hitters have prayed to deities since he learned it. And though Sandy Koufax’s curveball and Steve Carlton’s slider and Nolan Ryan’s fastball and Pedro Martinez’s changeup may argue, Rivera’s cutter is the best because it stands alone – nothing to complement it, nothing to throw hitters off its scent, no mystery, no compromise. Here it is. You cannot touch it. If you manage to, give your bat its last rites.

“If you ask anyone else, they get excited when they take a bat,” Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain said. “I know I do, because I don’t take too many. But it’s just another bat to him.

“He’s taking someone’s gamer that they’ve had a couple hits in. He makes sure there are no more hits left in that thing.”

Exactly how many bats Rivera has slain is unknown. The New York Times kept a tally during the 2001 season and counted 44, including the five-spot against Toronto. Over 80 2/3 innings, that comes out to more than a half-bat per inning, and extrapolating that figure over Rivera’s regular season and postseason innings, he has broken approximately 700. At about $100 a bat, Rivera has caused around $70,000 in wood damage. Termites would be proud.

Per postseason custom, the Yankees summoned Rivera for a four-out save Wednesday. With runners on second and third and the two-run lead precarious, Rivera threw three consecutive balls to Denard Span before forcing the count full. Span’s swing on the 3-2 pitch ended routinely: a nothing ground ball to shortstop Derek Jeter, and a fleck of Span’s bat separating from the rest. When Mariano’s on,” Yankees catcher Jorge Posada said, “he does that.”

Orlando Hudson led off the ninth inning. He fought off cutter after cutter – high and inside, then low and inside, then low and outside, then high and outside. Finally, he got what looked like a hittable pitch. His bat crumbled like balsa.

“That’s why he’s the best closer in baseball,” Hudson said. “That’s the reason he’s still out there. He’s still throwing that.”

Standing inside the batter’s box and watching Rivera’s cutter – it’s an experience almost beyond description, Hudson said, and when he tried to do so, his most effective communication came via an onomatopoeia: “Vooooom!”

Rivera voomed two cutters at Joe Mauer, the second hitter in the ninth and the reigning AL MVP, and his bat cracked near the handle on a soft line drive to first base.

“That cutter is sharp,” Yankees starter CC Sabathia said. “When it’s barreling in, you really have no chance. Every time out, he’s got a chance to break all of them.”

And he didn’t quite do that. Delmon Young lined a ball to right field that Greg Golson caught for what should’ve been the game-ending out. Only the umpiring crew missed the call and gave Rivera an opportunity to rekindle some broken-bat glory.

Up stepped Jim Thome, the fourth left-hander Rivera would face. In his previous 26 plate appearances against Rivera, Thome had swung at the first pitch twice, the last time nearly 12 years to the day, Oct. 7, 1998, in Game 2 of the AL Championship Series. The lumberjack’s hack Thome took ended with the distinct thud of fractured timber, and the ball soon thereafter settled into Alex Rodriguez’s glove for the final out.

The deed was done. Four outs. Four broken bats.

“I don’t keep track of that,” Rivera said.

Because he knows that not all dead wood is equal. One time, he fractured three bats in one inning. All three swings fell for hits, including one of the most famous ever. Even on the worst night of his career, Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, Rivera was breaking bats.

That he continues to do so truly is a marvel. Jeter is showing the signs of aging. Andy Pettitte, the Yankees’ starter in Game 2, had difficulty staying healthy this season. Posada’s defensive skills are nonexistent, and the wear of the position limited him to 78 starts there this season, two fewer than Francisco Cervelli.

Meanwhile, Rivera chugs on, the one-pitch express, the ageless wonder, the bat-breaking genius. Hitters will rejoice when he leaves baseball, tickled that they no longer have to wonder why they can’t figure out what should be so conquerable. Though they’ll be far from the most excited.

That night, there will be one hell of a party on bat racks everywhere.

neilybabes86

told all you cats to fuck homefield and take our chances against the twins then worry bout texas or tampa

tampa is probably wishing they did

Dirtie_Frank

I wrote this in the ESPN board. Looking for thoughts if I seem correct.

I just read a few comments about the pitch that was a strike, but TBS just showed the pitch sequence and people seem to overlook the first pitch was called a strike and it was outside. That is the way the umpire is calling the game, but yeah it's a conspiracy.

Cliffy6745

Dirtie_Frank wrote:

I wrote this in the ESPN board. Looking for thoughts if I seem correct.

I just read a few comments about the pitch that was a strike, but TBS just showed the pitch sequence and people seem to overlook the first pitch was called a strike and it was outside. That is the way the umpire is calling the game, but yeah it's a conspiracy.

Pavano was living 4 inches or so off the outside corner to lefties all day and this one pitch is getting so much attention.

Bathgate66

igotid88

good first inning from Hughes

tcaporale

Marcus Thames!!

Bathgate66

Hughes looking verycomfortable and the Bombers bats are brimming over thge top with confidence.

Bring on The Rangers and then the Phillies.

neilybabes86

MY HEART IS GONNA EXPLODE