Monthly Archives: December 2008

By Joe Posnanski

OK, look, I don’t really have a lasting Yankee Stadium memory. I mean, sure, I have them, but they’re no different than the 5,483,794 lasting Yankee Stadium memories that have been told the last six months or six years or six decades or however long this “Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory” series has been running.

So the only reason I’m even writing this is because Alex pretty much bullied me into it by noodging me about it three times a day, every day since before my second child was born. I just assumed he would forget about it at some point, assumed that even for him the expiration date on Yankee Stadium memories would pass, assumed that he would let me live in peace. No. This man, like Billy Martin, simply knows no peace. I am of the firm belief now that that the best way to find Osama Bin Laden is to have Alex Belth assign him a “Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories” essay.

Anyway, what kind of unique Yankee Stadium memory does Alex even think I have? Who am I, Robert Merrill? Hey, maybe my memory was the time that me and the other short-pants kids in the Bronx skipped school and slipped past the front guards at the stadium and caught the last of Larrupin’ Lou’s three homers, which just so happened to heal my sick little brother Tommy. Or maybe it was that day in ’78 when I was a kid sitting outside the stadium and Billy Martin first threatened to hit me in my fat face and then apologized (said he had confused me for “Steinbrenner or one of them”) and then invited me to sit by him and tell Reggie he was benched.

Or maybe, seven years old, and my dad takes me to Yankee Stadium. My first game. We go in through this long, dark tunnel underneath the stands. And I’m holding his hand, and we come out of the tunnel, into the light. It was huge. How green the grass was, the brown dirt, and that great green copper roof, remember? We had a black-and-white TV then, so this was the first I ever saw in color. I sat there the whole game next to my Dad. He taught me how to keep score. Mickey hit one out.

Yeah. Memories. Not my memories. But at this point does it even matter? Others have told all of my memories. Sure, I was there the night when Jeter hit the November homer and listened to the recording of Frank singing “These little town blues …” again and again and again. I was there when John Wetteland went to the mound – this had to be three or four hours after he had gotten Mark Lemke to pop out to clinch the Yankees first World Series in a generation. The stadium was almost empty, and Wetteland stepped on the mound, and he just looked around … it was like he wanted just one more look.

I was there to hear Bob Sheppard say “Yankee Way,” I was there to see DiMaggio’s two-hand wave, I was there to hear a real Bronx Cheer – and it is true that all others taste like grape juice to that fine wine. I was there to see Greg Maddux at his baffling best, there to see perhaps the second-greatest team in baseball history* destroy the Padres, there to see David Cone throw one of the guttiest games I’ve ever watched, there to see Albert Belle snap at some fans, there to catch a glimpse of Bruce Springsteen, there to see George Steinbrenner, there to see Spike Lee, there to see Rudy Giuliani, there to see Mariano Rivera close the door.

*I am writing a book about the 1975 Reds, so by law I must have the 1998 Yankees behind them, and the ’27 Yankees too, and also the ’61 Yankees.

And, yes the memory that Alex probably wanted, I stood in the rain in centerfield back in 1996, the day that Game 1 of the World Series was rained out. I stood out there where (more or less) DiMaggio stood, the Mick, Bobby, Mick the Quick, Bernie, Jerry Mumphrey. I looked around, took it all in, listened for the echoes, looked for the ghosts, all of that. There were a few policemen standing in the rain too, and I thought they were going to come get me, but they seemed to understand what I was doing.

In fact, as I trudged in I passed one of them. He said: “Getting your Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory for Belth, right?” New York police officers are wise.

Joe Posnanski is the author of The Soul of Baseball, columnist for the Kansas City Star, and superstar blogger for SI.com.

The 2 train was not part of the online revolution this morning. Everyone sitting, standing and leaning had their noses buried in a newspaper.

Robbie Ruiz from Mott Haven got his nose bent-out-of-shape when asked why he didn’t get his news online.

“Do I look like I’ve got a computer in my pocket?” he snapped. “They ought to try putting some more of that news in the paper so the rest of us can read it.”

Ruiz’s frustration came from The New York Times.

“They don’t care about us saps who read the paper,” Ruiz said. “I turn to page 4 and they tell me what’s on their Website: audio and video and special features. After I pay $1.50 they want to rub my nose in all the stuff they offer for free to people who have computers.”

The New York Times is still the standard for journalism in this country. And they show just how far that standard has fallen.

“You’ve got to dig for everything in this paper,” Ruiz explained. “The Metro section is part of the front section and the Sports section is buried in the back of the Business section. The first things I want to know are what’s going on in my neighborhood and what’s going on with the Yankees. They make me search for both and go online for the rest.”

There are some who say that online publications are the wave of the future. Declining circulations indicate that a lot of people aren’t reading newspapers anymore. But it was newspapers that first quit on readers a long time ago. They started by laying off reporters and photographers and then cutting pages and eventually whole sections. Some do it all online now and don’t even print.

Online publications may be good for business – there isn’t much overhead and they can certainly cater to the wealthy demographic that advertisers crave – but calling that journalism is like calling MLB 08 The Show baseball.

I know that newspapers are businesses, but I also understand that they are a critical piece of a functioning democracy. Limiting content and access can cause problems.

“I’m sure The Times is shafting me on the Yankees coverage,” Ruiz said. “Maybe they’re dumping more stuff online or something. They own a big chunk of the Red Sox and they’ve got it out for us in the Bronx.”

The standard for impartial journalism is certainly pretty low these days.

As our friend Will Carroll would say …. “powered by” the sounds of Guitar Shorty, here’s the latest news:

• Over at the Post, Joel Sherman will be keeping a careful eye on what Andy Pettitte does now that the Yanks decided not to offer him arbitration:

In his moment of need, when it was revealed Pettitte was both a liar and cheater, the Yankees stood by him last season. At that time, Pettitte was only too happy to say the Yankees were the only team he ever wanted to play for any more. He did not say he only wanted to play for the Yankees unless they offer him a paycut.The Yanks have indeed offered that cut. Pettitte made $16 million last year and, according to sources, he was offered $10 million to return in 2009. So far, Pettitte has rejected that bid while his camp has done nothing to dispel reports linking him to Joe Torre and the Dodgers.

• Over at LoHud, Pete Abe offers his non-ballot for the Hall (he doesn’t have the 10 years in the BBWAA needed to vote):

If I had a vote this year it would go to Blyleven, Henderson and Rice. … Rickey seems pretty obvious. People smarter than I have convinced me Blyleven belongs and I think Rice was the dominant hitter in the AL for a long enough period of time.

• Ken Rosenthal at FOXSports.com notes that the slumping economy even impacts the mighty Yankees, especially as shown in their not offering arbitration to Bobby Abreu.
• Bryan Hoch of MLB.com gives us a rundown of the Yankees Hot Stove activity leading up to next week’s Winter Meetings.
• At the News, Bill Egbert writes that with the demolition of the old stadium not starting till next April, a lot of neighborhood kids will be without a ballfield on which to play.
• While we are all cognizant of the declining health of George Steinbrenner, another team owner passed away Tuesday.  Ted Rogers, owner of the Blue Jays, died at age 75 (ESPN).
• Happy 48th birthday to Gene (not Jeff) Nelson.  Nelson pitched for the Bombers in his rookie season (1981), then was part of a package that brought the Yanks Shane Rawley.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately.  I can’t get into hoops, I’m not a huge football fan.  TV is dull.  It’s cold outside. So I’m brushing up on my sportswriting history.  Newspaper guys, magazine writers, guys who did both. Boxing writing.  You really have to dig to find a lot of the good stuff, especially newspaper columns. Not that much is on-line.  Only a small bit of it has ever been anthologized.  There are so many guys that are practically forgotten to younger generations. 

I’ve been through a bunch of Sport, some issues of True, the newspapers, of course.  I raided the Inside Sports microfilm at the library last weekend. That was a great magazine for a handful of years, maybe ’79-83ish, the early years. Tom Boswell was their baseball guy, Gary Smith became a star writing features about football, Pete Dexter did kick-ass profiles of boxers and assorted hardguys. Roy Blount, Jr and Robert Lipsyte had columns.

And you know else did some great bonus pieces for them? Tony Kornheiser. I’ve found stories he did on Nolan Ryan, Mike Schmidt and Bill Walsh, all of which are very entertaining. And he did a profile on Joe Namath that should be in sports writing anthologies.

Kornheiser had chops, he was a good reporter as well as a skilled craftsman.  He was able to apply the same loose intelligence and humor that he later used in his newspaper column and his TV persona to long-form magazine writing. 

Here are two random Kornheiser bits from when he was at the New York Times (’76-79):

Philadelphia was having its face slapped by a bully of a winter, and Jimmy was coming from practice where he had attempted murder on a few dozen tennis balls. He had a sealskin coat over his shoulders and the former Miss World on his arm. As he walked past a group of fans one of them called out in a fatherly way, “Button up, Jimmy. It’s cold outside.”

Jimmy didn’t bother to stop, he gave his exit line of his way out of the door. “This is seal, my friend–ever see a seal die of the cold?” The former Miss World began to laugh. Jimmy always leaves them laughing, even if most of his wisecracks can’t be printed.

Jimmy Connors is the master of the single-entendre. He says what he wants, when he wants, to whom he wants. He is a Star. Heis demeanor, his philosophy, is rooted in something the Fonz likes to say: Live fast, love hard, and don’t let nobody borrow your comb. The Fonz gets away with it because–aayy–he’s the Fonz. Connors gets away with it because he wins.

“The Star You Love To Hate”
April 10, 1977

Here is a nice little piece of writing from a feature story on Catfish Hunter:

Underneath the folksy, good-ol’-boy exterior, with all his talk about bird dogs, killin’ them hogs and farmin’ them soybeans, Jim Hunter is an intelligent, thoughtful, honest and astonishingly secure man, the kind of man who’ll wear raggedy overalls to town becacuse he’s a farmer and that’s what a farmer wears even if he has millions in the bank. He has a touch of Senator Sam Ervin in him, the ability to draw a perfect picture of a horse without having to label it “Secretariat.” “Cat doesn’t demand respect,” said Fred Stanley, his teammate, “he just gets it.”

July 3, 1978

Robert Motherwell

He was good.

This smokes.

By Charlie Sheen

(as told to Alex Belth)

I was born in New York but I’ve lived out here in L.A. since I was three. But I’ve always rooted for the Yankees. I also rooted for the Reds because my dad was a big Reds fan. Reggie was one of my childhood heroes and the reason I learned to hit left-handed. He took the world center stage in the Bronx. I was 12, 13 the perfect age. I remember the Reds sweeping the Yankees in ’76 when I was with my dad in the Philippines on Apocalypse.

But the first time I actually went to Yankee Stadium was in 1991. My dad was shooting in Pittsburgh and I flew in the nigh before he wrapped. He was a doing a movie-of-the-week or a mini-series. We decided to do a baseball pilgrimage. We went to game at the old Three Rivers that night. I think we saw both Bonds and Van Slyke go yard. After the game we got on the elevator to leave and Joe Morgan walks on. I happened to be wearing a Reds hat. And I had met him briefly at some point back in the day. He shook my hand and gave me a hug and I introduced him to my dad who was so impressed that I knew Joe Morgan.

The following morning we got out on the road and we took a road trip to Cooperstown to the Baseball Hall of Fame. We visited the Mecca. The next morning we drove to New York and went to a game that night at the Stadium. It was a trip because if I’m not mistaken they were playing Texas. Fifty-five has always been a recurring number for me and the first guy up was Brian Downing and he was wearing 55. You’d have to look it up if it was Downing but it was 55. I just remember thinking, “Wow, of course my first game and the first hitter would have to wear 55.”

We had a great time at that game. Pretty sure Mattingly hit a three-run bomb in the eighth to put it out of reach. When one of the security guys comes to us afterwards and says, “You guys want to see Monument Park?” Everybody’s gone and we got a private tour. Then we’re walking back across the field and I say to my dad, “Hey, let’s go to the dugout. Let’s see what this looks like from the players’ perspective.” So we’re sitting in the dugout and I look under the bench and there’s a ball wedged-up under one of the seat supports. So I pull it out and based on the tint of the ball—it had red clay on the stitches, it didn’t say ‘practice’ on it—I’m convinced that it was a used in a game. It was a foul ball that shot into the dugout and stayed there.

We kept it. I had to leave New York the following morning. I was digging through my stuff at the hotel room and I couldn’t find the ball. I’m like, Great, dad kept it. Okay, it was his first game, he’s entitled. So I’m on the plane the next day and about halfway through the flight I’m going through my carry-on and there’s the ball in a little plastic bag. It said, “Hey Charlie, Thanks for taking me out to the ballgame.” There was such a cool, full-circle feeling about that trip. Then of course, finding the ball on the plane. I still have it of course.

The other memory is a little bizarre. Went to a game in ‘96, mid-season before they started making their move. Took a buddy of mine, David O’Neill. He’s a director and a writer and an old friend of mine. We were in a box but he had never been there so he said, “I’m going to go see what this place is like, I’m going to go walk around.”

Comes back with a foul ball that he has caught off the bat of Paul O’Neill. What are the odds? And, another example of him being about the fifth person I took to their first game that got a foul ball. I’ve been to what, a thousand games in my life. Never even touched one.

I bought out the left field bleachers in Anaheim in the mid-‘90s in a game against Detroit. I bought 2,600 seats in the left field pavilion and I sat out there with three friends. I was going to force the hand of the baseball Gods and that didn’t even work. Nothing. Four balls hit the wall that night. And the next night, I watched on television as like maybe four or five landed not just in the section but pretty much in my seat of the day before. It was one of those reminders that you can’t force the organic flow of the American Pastime.

Charlie Sheen is the star of the CBS comedy Two and a Half Men.

My friend Javier almost never acts his age. Last night he played his music too loudly and started to dance around the apartment.

“I can’t help it,” he explained. “Chico O’Farrill always gets my feet moving.”

Some of the neighbors yelled and the guy downstairs pounded the ceiling with a broom handle. But the music blared until the old lady from across the hall banged on the door with a big ladle from her pot of minestrone.

“Are you deaf?” she yelled. “I’ve been knocking for 10 minutes.”

“I didn’t hear you,” Javier said. “I guess the music was too loud.”

The old lady shook her head.

“Kids,” she said.

Javier flashed the same smile he used on his mother back in Puerto Rico so many years ago.

“I can’t stay mad at you,” the old lady said. “You’re a good kid, Javier.”

Everyone in the neighborhood puts Javier’s age somewhere past 50, but the kid tag still fits. He eats too many chocolate donuts and swears a doctor once told him that onion rings are a vegetable. He shags fly balls before games in Franz Sigel Park and looks forward to Opening Day just like when he was, well, a kid.

“Baseball has always been music to my ears,” Javier said. “I guess it’s kinda like Chico O’Farrill.”

Javier broke out another smile.

“Bring on the horns and the big bats,” he said. “Then let’s dance.”

A Tuesday without “The Shield” …. sigh.  Here’s the news:

• As you probably know by now, the Yanks decided not to offer arbitration to any of the their free agents.  Pete Abe at LoHud has the lowdown from the mouth of Brian Cashman:

“The determination we made today was to make sure that we control what amount we’d be spending at least in the event that we’re fortunate enough to bring those players back. We did not want to put ourselves in a position of having that determined by a third party without knowing what that figure would be.”

• Joe Posnanski has an appreciation of Boss George at SI.com (you gotta go there if only to view the vintage SI cover of George on a horse).  Here’s an excerpt:

The story of King George is fascinating to me because, at the end of the day, the story goes wherever the narrator wants it to go. Do you want a hero? Do you want a scoundrel? Do you want a tyrant? Do you want a heart of gold? Steinbrenner is what you make him. He is the convicted felon who quietly gave millions to charity, the ruthless boss who made sure his childhood heroes and friends stayed on the payroll, the twice-suspended owner who drove the game into a new era, the sore loser who won a lot, the sore winner who lost plenty, the haunted son who longed for the respect of his father, the attention hound who could not tolerate losing the spotlight, the money-throwing blowhard who saved the New York Yankees and sent them into despair and saved them again (in part by staying out the way), the bully who demanded that his employees answer his every demand and the soft touch who would quietly pick up the phone and help some stranger he read about in the morning paper.

• Back over at LoHud, Pete Abe has some good news on the progress of Robinson Cano in the Dominican League.
• Rickey Henderson makes his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot this year, as reported by ESPN.  The Bombers are well-represented amongst the 23 names vying for entry.  Henderson joins Tommy John, Don Mattingly, David Cone, Tim Raines, Lee Smith and Jesse Orosco amongst one-time Yanks hoping for immortality.
• Is this surprising?: Sports Business Journal reports that the Bombers are the favorite out-of-market team (in terms of fan support outside their home city) in 2008.   They top the list of 122 franchises across the four major sports.
• Bob Kammeyer would have been 58 today.  “Kammy” had a non-descript brief trial with the Yanks in 1978, and then pitched in one infamous game in mid-September 1979.  In that game, he relieved to start the fourth inning, with the Yanks already trailing 4-0.  He allegedly took $100 from manager Billy Martin to intentionally hit Cleveland batter Cliff Johnson with a pitch.  His line for the appearance: eight batters faced, eight runs, seven hits (two homers), one HBP, all without retiring a batter.  That was it for his major league career.  He died from a pulmonary embolism at the age of 52.
• On this date in 1997, pitcher Steve Hamilton passed away, just two days after his 62nd birthday.

By Pat Jordan

I was 12 the first time I visited Yankee Stadium in 1953. I had been invited to appear on Mel Allen’s pre-game TV show because, as a Little League pitcher in Connecticut, I had pitched four consecutive no-hitters and struck out every batter I faced except two. I arrived in a tan suit, and tie, with my glove in a paper bag. I expected the Yankees to ask me to throw a few, and then sign me to a contract. But they didn’t. Mel Allen just talked to my parents, then asked me a question. I mumbled and answer and sulked. That’s all I remember about the Stadium on my first trip.

The next time I went to the stadium was in 1959, when I was 17, and trying to get the Yankees to give me a bonus. That trip, I remember clearly. The Yankee p.r. person ushered me and my older brother down to the team’s press room which, I was amazed to discover, had wood-paneling painted white with blue pinstripes.

Mel Allen was there, again, at a table. He mistook me for Rocky Colavitao, the Cleveland Indians slugging outfielder. Why not? We were both Italian. But he didn’t remember me from six years before. Then I was led to the Yankees’ clubhouse, where all my heroes were in various states of dress. I gawked at my idol, Whitey Ford, with his freckled red skin and blue eyes, and Yogi Berra, squat and homely, and Mickey Mantle, sitting in a whirlpool. I thought Mantle was ten feet tall as a kid but when he got out of the whirlpool I, at 6’1″, towered over him.

I dressed into a Yankee uniform, then went out to show my stuff to the Yankee scouts. When I stepped out of the dugout the vastness of the Stadium loomed up all around me. It was the biggest place I’d ever been in. Now that I was no longer a boy, I wasn’t interested in such things. The scouts sat behind the home plate screen while I warmed up on a mound behind home plate. Johnny Blanchard was catching me. When I finally cut loose with my first fastball Blanchard turned towards the scouts, said something, and tried to slip a sponge into his mitt, without me noticing it. But I did. After that, each succeeding fastball exploded in his mitt and around the Stadium like a canon’s roar. I will never forget it.

After I finished throwing, I went into the general manager’s office where the g.m and my brother bargained over my bonus, while I sat there silent at a big conference table. The Yankees offered me a $36,000 bonus and I was crushed. The Braves had offered me $50,000, but I desperately wanted to pitch for the Yankees in their Stadium which I had come to see, over the years, as my rightful baseball home.

But, alas, it was not to be.

Pat Jordan, the author of A False Spring and A Nice Tuesday, is a freelance writer.

I miss firejoemorgan.com. I think they could maybe be harsh at times, but they were seldom wrong, and that site is still the first thing I think of when I come across a really awful piece of sports writing; its recent silence has left a void. Yesterday I came across an ESPN the Magazine (quit looking at me like that — I get it free!) “Page 2” piece that really demands the FJM treatment.

I’m certainly no Ken Tremendous, but I’ll give it my best shot. And so without further ado I give you Mike and Mike – whose show I’ve never actually heard, and now I know why – on the Yankees’ offseason. It doesn’t seem to be available online, so I’ll just have to type out the highlights for you. Here we go:

The Big Question

THE YANKS NEEDED PITCHING, A FIRST BASEMAN, AND SOME PATIENCE. THE MIKES SAY TWO OUT OF THREE AIN’T GOOD.

Wait up. “Needed”? Did they sign Sabathia while I wasn’t looking?

GREENY:… after the success of the Rays and other small-market teams, is New York being smart by throwing money around instead of developing its farm system?

But… they haven’t spent any money yet!

Granted, they’ve offered Sabathia a pretty huge contract (though I don’t see how that prevents them from simultaneously developing their farm system). Moving on, then, I love the idea that since the Rays were successful last year, the best strategy for the New York Yankees would be to have a small budget – as if the Rays won because of that and not in spite of it.

Tampa doesn’t have a choice here; they’re not passing on Mark Texiera just because they prefer the young players in their system. If a one-legged man wins a race using a prosthesis, it’s inspirational, but that doesn’t mean you should train for your next 5K by cutting off one of your legs.

GOLIC: Unfortunately, what you don’t find with the Yankees is patience. They feel like they have to win right now.

Probably a fair criticism.

Last year, the team tried to go with young arms, but some of them got hurt, and it didn’t work. So while that may be the right thing to do, don’t expect them to do it… What I wanted to see is just how aggressive they’d get in bidding for the top players.

There’s that past tense again. Are they writing from the future? Tell me, Mikes, how was the Inauguration? Did Springsteen play?

GREENY: This strategy

The one they haven’t actually implemented yet?

is indicative of the biggest problem the  Yankees have: they lack a vision. Take the Steelers.

They play football.

… They have a blueprint for success and stick to it. The same goes for the Jazz.

There’s really not a baseball team you’d like to bring up here? Red Sox, maybe? A’s? No?

They’ve had the same coach for 20 years and the second-best record in the NBA in that time.

Is he seriously suggesting that the Yankees should try to be more like the Utah Jazz?  Nothing against the Jazz, who are a model of competence and class when compared to the Knicks (though to be fair, so was Lehman Brothers), but would anyone actually like to swap the Yanks’ last 20 years for the Jazz’s? Would New York be better off right now if they’d made it to the World Series only twice and lost both times?

If the Yankees really decided to build from within, it would be shortsighted to leave those plans behind just because of one bad year and some injury problems.

That’s true – it would be. Hey, has anyone told Brian Cashman about this?

GOLIC: You know if they’ll be able to help themselves.

What?

I don’t know if he maybe meant “You don’t know if they’ll be able to help themselves,” or perhaps “You know they won’t be able to help themselves,” but I also don’t care. This whole piece is like a PSA for what happens when magazines lay off too many members of the editorial staff in one go.

When the Hall of Fame Game died an unceremonious death on a rain-drenched Monday in June, Hall officials could have taken the easy route in opting for a low-maintenance minor league game between two Triple-A teams. Instead, they took a path that will require more work and preparation—but it’s a path that will benefit both the Hall of Fame and the Cooperstown community.

The recent announcement regarding the inaugural Hall of Fame Classic Weekend, which will replace the Hall of Fame Game and will be capped off by an old-timers’ game on June 21, should be received favorably by all fans who live within driving distance of Cooperstown. Given the state of the economy, it’s encouraging to hear that a major weekend of activity will coincide both with Father’s Day weekend and the official start of summer.

Frankly, this is something that the Hall of Fame should have done years ago. After all, what better place to celebrate nostalgia than a place where nostalgia is nurtured 362 days a year? The cancellation of the Hall of Fame Game gave Hall officials the vital push they needed to make an annual old-timers game a reality here in central New York. Let’s also not downplay the role that new Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson (the former PR director for the Yankees) played in the final decision. Former Hall leader Dale Petroskey had major reservations about the old-timers game concept; he once told me that the sight of older Hall of Famers struggling on the field of play could prove embarrassing. The Hall has addressed that shortcoming by attempting to draw from a pool of younger, recently retired stars.

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I lost my rhythm sometime last week. The days and nights had become an uneven mix. They were nothing close to a good jazz riff. There were no wins, no losses, no games up and no games back.

Baseball’s grip had slipped and it seemed like nothing short of pitchers and catchers reporting could get it back.

But I slept with my glove last night and dreamed a baseball beat.

Derek Jeter opened with a perfect saxophone solo and A-Rod swung a big bass. Jorge Posada blasted a tune on the trumpet and Joba was pumping on the old trombone. Robbie Cano picked on the guitar and Chien-Ming Wang made the piano dance. Johnny Damon belted out the words and Mariano finished with a flourish on the drums.

Then the whole team met in the middle of the club and the beat kept right on going.

Pitchers and catchers play the first real set in 75 days.

My rhythm is coming back already.

Is it December already?  Here’s the news:

• Mark Feinsand of the News talks to Phil Hughes about his AFL performance and his expectations for 2009.

Last winter, Phil Hughes was one of the hottest commodities in baseball, the centerpiece of a proposed trade between the Yankees and Twins that would have landed Johan Santana in pinstripes.

Now, as the Yankees pursue free agent pitchers CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe, the 22-year-old Hughes is uncertain whether he’ll even be in the majors when the 2009 season starts.

“It’s just one of those wait-and-see things,” Hughes said from his family’s Southern California home. “We’ll sign whoever we sign this winter, and I’ll go to spring training with the same attitude that I always do. I don’t worry about the things I can’t control.”

Hughes went 2-0 with a 3.00ERA in seven AFL starts, but if you take out his disastrous outing on Oct. 18 in which he allowed seven runs in 2-2/3 innings, Hughes posted a 0.99 ERA in his other six games. He struck out 38batters in 30 innings, routinely hitting 94-95 mph with his fastball – something he didn’t do during his time with the Yankees last season.

“I was there for the innings, but at the same time, I didn’t want to go out and get walloped every time I took the mound,” Hughes said. “I worked on some things, got my innings in and was pretty successful at the same time.”

and …

While Hughes bulked up his innings total, he also used the time to work on his cutter, a pitch he started to develop late in the season after he decided to scrap his slider altogether.

“My slider wasn’t working at all,” Hughes said. “I worked a lot this fall on my cutter and my changeup, and both have come a long way.”

• Pete Abe of LoHud hit us with three good pieces over the weekend:

1. An appreciation of Mariano Rivera, on his 39th birthday
2. An update on the Puerto Rican league performance of Ian Kennedy.
3. His opinions on why the Hot Stove has been so cold thus far.

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