Tom Verducci’s “The Yankee Years” caused a tremendous stir in spring training, when the tabloids got hold of it and railed Joe Torre for allegedly violating the cardinal rule of keeping clubhouse events in the clubhouse. YES Network fired Verducci from “Yankees Hot Stove” for the way he portrayed the Yankees’ front office in the book, and he was put on the spot by numerous outlets, including our own Alex Belth in an SI.com Q&A.

I finally got around to reading the book, and I wholly disagree with the negative criticism heaped upon Torre, Verducci and the book earlier in the year. It’s not an “as told to” story, as Alex points out. It reads like a well-researched textbook on the Yankees from 1995 to 2007, with notes and observations by a reporter who had been there through all of it. The anecdotes from the Yankee manager of the time, as well as former players, coaches and staffers enrich the context of the story.

As a Yankee fan, I almost think you have to read this book to gain an understanding of the teams of the YES Network era and just how tough a job Joe Torre had, and how difficult it was to pull those 2005, ’06 and ’07 teams into the playoffs after what they went through those years.

Was there information I knew already? Certainly. The details of Bernie Williams’ near move to the Red Sox and Andy Pettitte’s near trade in 1998, the Roger Clemens trade in 1999 and the components of the dynasty breaking up following the Game 7 loss of the 2001 World Series have been recounted in numerous books this decade, most notably in Buster Olney’s “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty.” Moreover, covering the team from 2002 through ’06, Torre would tell the local press corps some of the anecdotes Verducci recalled in the book, like the fan in Tampa during Spring Training of 2002 telling him, “Don’t worry Joe. We’ll get ’em this year,” and his fondness for Pettitte, given the way he stepped up in Game 5 of the ’96 World Series, out-dueling John Smoltz. I got to see the best and worst of David Wells’ second tour of duty, Jeff Weaver (Torre said the day of Weaver’s introductory press conference: “That kid will be leading the parade here some day.”), Gary Sheffield, Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown, and of course, Carl Pavano, and Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and A-Rod’s brain cramps in the clutch and Chien-Ming Wang’s inability to handle being the ace of the staff.

For me, the most revealing quotes came from bullpen catcher Mike Borzello, who was the key source on the “A-Fraud” items, and Mike Mussina, who was great because he presented the point of view as an outsider to those championship Yankee teams. He acknowledged the greatness of Mariano Rivera but looked back on three games: Game 7 of ’01, and Games 4 and 5 in Boston in ’04, and wondered why and how he blows those three games? It sounded selfish at first, but if you were in the same spot, how would you have answered? I came away from this with a different level of respect for Moose. His insight helped shape the book.

The stories of the emotional toll dealing with Management took on Torre over the last three years of his tenure got me thinking about his current situation in Los Angeles. He has a similar makeup to what he had in 1996 and ’97. A good mix of veteran free agents like Manny Ramirez, Orlando Hudson and Rafael Furcal, and young players like Russell Martin, James Loney, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, and an even younger pitching staff figuring out how to win. But beyond that, the loyalty of the coaches he brought with him shifted as well. The way Verducci portrays Larry Bowa and Don Mattingly and their places in the coaching hierarchy during Torre’s last few years on the job, it’s easy to see why they followed him to L.A.

Why bring this up at this juncture of the season? The Yankees clawed back to sniff first place and had a chance to hold or share first place and had a chance to sweep the Angels in Anaheim. The makeup of the team, particularly Joba Chamberlain’s place on it, is under heavy scrutiny. It’s looking like a repeat of the last four years, only with a greater sense of impending doom because the Yankees’ run of 13 consecutive playoff appearances ended, while Torre’s didn’t.

If it happens again, Verducci might want to consider a similar book for Mr. Girardi.

From Banterer PJ: “What happened to our friend Will Weiss? I really wish he stop by so the Yankees can start winning again.

No Will Weiss at Banter is unacceptable…”

PJ, you’re absolutely right. It’s unacceptable. As Cliff will tell you, a new daughter and the associated parental duties, plus a new job with some travel thrown in will deregulate the writing schedule and stretch the boundaries of acceptability. At least our fearless proprietor Alex is one of the most understanding people in the business and is unyielding in his support for all of us who contribute. I will say this: my daughter likes watching the Yankees (although there hasn’t been much to watch lately), and she let out a shriek of delight when I told her Jose Veras was designated for assignment.

On to the column…

Since I don’t have to ride a train to work anymore and I don’t own an iPod (gasp!), I have been listening to a lot of sports talk radio. In the mornings, it’s a flip between Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton on WFAN and Mike and Mike on ESPN, and in the afternoons it’s Mike Francesa and Michael Kay/New York Baseball Tonight. (I still haven’t decided if this is a good thing. Now that Matt Pinfield is back, I think I’m going back to music in the morning.)

In the last two weeks, we’ve been bombarded with stories about Jorge Posada’s management (or mismanagement, depending on your perspective), of the pitching staff; Joe Girardi’s management (or mismanagement, depending on your perspective), of well, everything; the defense that went a record 18 games without committing an error has committed at least one error in 14 of the last 19 games; and oh yes, there’s Derek Jeter’s inability to drive in runs in clutch situations. Of these stories, the Posada issue is not new and the Dead Horse Alert is strong in my ear; the defensive woes would not be a story if the team was winning, and Jeter’s malaise is not subject to just him. This is not to give Jeter a free pass, but when you score 15 runs in one game and then proceed to score 12 over the next seven, it doesn’t seem right to single out one player.

Jeter alone is not the reason the team has not won three in a row since May 27-30. A-Rod has one hit in his last 22 at-bats – a span of seven games – and hasn’t had a multi-hit game since going 5-for-5 at Texas on May 25. Mark Teixeira has driven in only four runs in the last 10 games. Plus, there’s the team’s Achilles’ heel: pitchers they’ve never faced before. Even in their championship heyday of the last 15 years, rookie/no-name pitchers look like All-Stars pitching against the Yankees (see Pete Caldera’s recap in the Bergen Record for more details). Most recently, it’s been Fernando Nieve, John Lannan, Craig Stammen, Josh Johnson and Tommy Hanson. Johnson and Hanson will be big-league studs, but to lose four of six to the Nationals and Marlins, teams the Yankees were supposed to beat up on to gain ground on the Red Sox, is a reflection of something deeper.

Which brings me to Girardi. If the manager sets the tone for the team, then his management of A-Rod and CC Sabathia could be leaving the team in a lurch. This from Bob Klapisch:

…There’s more to managing than simply bodysurfing a winning streak. Girardi looked crisp and in control when the Yankees were mauling the AL a month ago, launching all those crazy comebacks. But now they’re struggling — the Red Sox’ domination of the Bombers is nothing short of humiliating — and Girardi’s confidence has turned to a square-jawed form of desperation.

That’s why A-Rod played every day until he couldn’t bring his bat through the strike zone anymore — and, as he’s hinted, his hip is so stiff. It’s the reason why no one comes to Sabathia’s rescue in the seventh or eighth innings.

It’s because Girardi knows his managerial career will be over if he gets fired by the Yankees.

The decision to sit A-Rod due to fatigue came from above Girardi. Sabathia says he’ll pitch Friday, but Cashman is putting on the brakes. Girardi is in the background.

Esiason and Carton posit that Girardi is being made to be the fall guy for the team’s travails. If he is managing for his job, he should stand up for himself the same way he did in Florida. Esiason added that despite Girardi’s championship credentials, he doesn’t believe the players respect Girardi in the same way they did Joe Torre.

Maybe that’s true. Some veterans are describing Girardi as “tight,” as Klapisch also notes in his column. We don’t know what is said in the clubhouse – and it should stay there – but the rash of flat efforts leave much to be desired. I don’t get the sense he’s inspiring confidence in his players. I’d love to hear him say something like, “We’re not overlooking any teams on the schedule. Sure, we’re at a slight disadvantage playing in National League parks, but our lineup should be able to hold up against any pitcher in any park.” Instead, we get the same monotone and the tired lines about how interleague play is a necessary evil and that it’s unfortunate the games count in the standings. Does that get you fired up as a fan? Me neither.

What’s left? Could the Yankees pull the trigger on Girardi mid-season? They haven’t made such a managerial change since Bucky Dent replaced Dallas Green after 121 games in 1989. Granted, this Yankee team isn’t nearly as lost in Mark Knopflerville (aka Dire Straits) as the ’89 squad, but if the team falls further south of Boston in the standings, it may seem that way to the powers that be.

The wheels on the Yankees bus … need air.

Wednesday afternoon, Yankees GM Brian Cashman held a press conference in which he discussed Chien-Ming Wang’s return to the starting rotation.

“He’s a starter and he’s got a huge history of nothing but success,” he said. “It’s time to find time to slot him in.”

Now is, and was, that time. Wang made Cashman and manager Joe Girardi look smart for two innings, until he reverted to the pitcher whose ERA resembled the national debt ticker in midtown Manhattan. Was that what the Yankees were waiting for?

Speaking of waiting, the way the Yankees have treated Wang, admittedly rushing him back before accurately gauging his progress, one wonders if he was accelerated and placed in the starting rotation in order to be showcased to potential trade suitors. Cashman would never say that and no local scribes have gotten that provocative yet, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.

Newsday’s former Yankee beat man Jim Baumbach went there, sort of, giving some insight into the tenuous relationship the organization has had with Wang, going back five years.

The Yankees gladly would have traded Chien-Ming Wang in a package for Randy Johnson during the 2004 season if only the Diamondbacks had any interest in him. After the trade deadline passed with no moves, the Yankees even let Wang pitch in the Olympics, something they never would have done if they thought Wang was a legitimate prospect.

Is he right? Think about it. The Yankees could have signed Wang to a long-term deal last year, but opted not to. They instead signed Robinson Cano to a long-term deal and took Wang to salary arbitration, where the pitcher was awarded a $4 million contract. This year, the Yankees and Wang went to arbitration again, with the righty getting a $1 million raise.

Baumbach wasn’t done, though. In a column recapping Thursday’s victory, in which the Yankees got Wang off the hook, Baumbach wrote:

Seemingly every time the Yankees talk about Chien-Ming Wang, they reference how he won 46 games for them in the previous 2 1/2 seasons, as if that should count toward something here in 2009.

But we’re more than a third of the way through this season, and pretty soon the Yankees will have to come to grips with the fact that the pitcher who used to be their ace hasn’t been heard from since he hurt his right foot last June in Houston. And there’s no guarantees that pitcher is going to make it back this season.

It should be noted that the pitcher who won 46 games from 2006-08 only won one playoff game in that time frame. In 2007, his second straight 19-win season, he lost both of his ALDS starts, pitching just 5 2/3 innings over those two appearances and logging a 19.06 ERA. Why is this relevant? The Yankees told Wang what they thought of his ace status by shelling out $242 million in long-term contracts to pitchers they believed had a better upside. That the 2009 version of Wang looks more like the pitcher who faced Cleveland in ’07 as opposed to the one who helped lead that team to a wild-card berth hasn’t helped his case.

As far as Phil Hughes is concerned, he is in the bullpen now, and as Baumbach and others have written, the Yankees view his future in the rotation. The same is true with Wang. He’s viewed as a starter. But what happens if and when Brian Bruney or Damaso Marte return to their respective relief spots? Whose future is in the Yankees’ rotation then? Will the Yankees wait that long to make their move?

We’ll know the answers soon enough.

There was so much hype about Carl Pavano facing the Yankees. The tabloids ate it up, and Suzyn Waldman, as far back as the Texas series, said, “If there’s any justice, C.C. Sabathia will pitch against Carl Pavano in Cleveland.”

Sabathia and Pavano both pitched, but not against each other. Sabathia faced his No. 2 two years ago, Fausto Carmona, on Saturday, while Pavano squared off against Phil Hughes, which may have been a more intriguing matchup considering Pavano’s history with the Yankees and his five victories in May, and Hughes’ stellar outing in Texas and continued effort to stay in the rotation.

As I was listening to the game on the radio (another Sunday spent driving), I got to thinking about the myriad options the local editors and writers had for the game. Would Pavano be the lead? Would I make Phil Hughes’ mediocre start coupled by Chien-Ming Wang’s three scoreless innings of relief the lead, playing up the intrigue of Wang’s possible return to the rotation? Poor umpiring was a theme of the day. Where would that fit in? Are all these topics combined into one or do you do take one story as your base and go with the others as supplemental pieces?

I probably would have made Pavano the focus of the game story and made Hughes/Wang a featured supplement, tying in the early note that Andy Pettitte expects to be ready to start on Wednesday. How would you have presented Sunday’s game? Thinking of the broadest audience possible, how would you have set up your Yankees section as an editor? How would you have attacked the game if you were on-site? It’s two different thought processes. I’m curious to get your thoughts.

An examination of the eight local papers covering the Yankees revealed the following:

NY TIMES: Jack Curry had Pavano leading but alluded to the Hughes/Wang situation, melding everything into a tidy recap with analysis and historical context. Typical goods from Mr. Curry.

NEWSDAY: Three individual stories from Erik Boland, who’s now off the Jets beat and has replaced Kat O’Brien: Hughes/Wang leading, a Pavano piece tied with notes, and a short piece on Gardner’s failure to steal.

NY POST: As of this writing, only George King’s recap had been posted. Interesting to see that he focused on the bullpen, specifically Coke and David Robertson. (Had I been reporting, that would have been the angle I took with the game recap.)

NY DAILY NEWS: Mark Feinsand tied everything together, but it looked and read strangely like an AP wire story.

JOURNAL NEWS: No full game recap posted, but Pete Abe gives more in about 200 words on a blog than most other scribes do in 800.

STAR LEDGER: Marc Carig copied off Erik Boland’s paper in that he had individual stories on Gardner and Wang/Hughes, But he had a couple of other tidbits: 1) His recap was short and had additional bulletpointed notes. I thought this was an interesting format. It reminded me of an anchor calling highlights and then reading key notes off the scoreboard graphic. 2) He had a full feature on Phil Coke and his blaming the umpire’s call on the 3-2 pitch to Trevor Crowe. Check out the last paragraph. Looks like he copied off Pete Abe’s paper, too.

BERGEN RECORD: Only one story on the game from Pete Caldera, but boy does he know how to write a lead paragraph.

HARTFORD COURANT: Associated Press recap. Not much to say except this paper is an example of what’s happening in the industry. Dom Amore’s words are missed.

And this just in … on the “Inside Pitch” segment of the midnight ET edition of Baseball Tonight, Karl Ravech and Peter Gammons said the Yankees were the best team in baseball. This revelation comes hours after the ESPN ticker read “Pavano dominates Yankees” in the first half of its description of the game. I’m not sure what to make of this. I know Ravech, my fellow Ithaca College alum, is as good as it gets, but when Gammons agrees, I get concerned.

I’d say the best team is the team with the best record, and the team that’s playing most consistently on a daily basis. That team is being managed by Joe Torre.

This week’s briefing begins with a note from WFAN’s Richard Neer. As I drove home from the golf course Sunday, Neer was entertaining a call from a Mets fan, who in typical Mets fan form – actually, he was calm – ranted about Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran and how the Mets’ core players don’t play smart, and they don’t play hard.

Neer poo-pooed the call, saying – and I paraphrase – that Mets fans are looking for things to get upset about while the team is in first place. Mets fans can’t exist unless there’s something to kvetch about. Well, those calls are even more heated now, since the team from Queens changed its logo from “METS” to “BEARS,” and replaced their names with the “Chico’s Bail Bonds” sponsorship patch.

It got me thinking, though, about the legitimacy of the recent Mariano Rivera arguments that have pervaded local and national Yankee telecasts. Are fans and media alike looking for a negative amidst the best positive streak the Yankees have had this season? Or is it valid that due to his age, Rivera 1) should not pitch more than one inning when called upon, and 2) should not pitch on consecutive days?

My answer to both questions is no. I’m actually surprised the Rivera argument is the focus, when he remains the most consistent pitcher on the Yankees’ staff. From a relief pitching standpoint, who is more reliable? Who has been able to consistently throw Strike One? Phil Coke has, sometimes. So has Alfredo Aceves. Jose Veras? Edwar “Leave off the ‘d’ for ‘Don’t you know I’m throwing a changeup with two strikes’ Ramirez? Brett “I gave up Mark McGwire’s 62nd home run in ’98 and now I’m a Yankee” Tomko? Not so much.

Yes, Joe Girardi has to be mindful of Rivera’s age and use him wisely. Take Monday night, for example. Rivera had logged three innings and thrown 44 pitches over the previous two games. He had not pitched three consecutive days all season and was given the night off. A wise move by Girardi, and with a big lead, his decision seemed validated. That was, of course, until the ninth inning, when the ESPN team of Chris Berman and Orel Hershiser strained as Coke struggled to a “save” to complete the series sweep of the Twins. Intermittently, ESPN cameras cut away to Rivera sitting in the bullpen with his jacket on, looking like he wanted to warm up and get in there if necessary. Poor Phil Coke. At least he didn’t have to endure Berman’s incessant references to “Coke Classic,” “New Coke,” and anything other beverage jokes he could come up with. And he did secure the victory, much to the chagrin of the headline writers of the Post and Daily News, who were probably salivating at the chance of plastering “PHIL CHOKE” on the back page.

Wednesday night, Michael Kay lamented Rivera’s eighth-inning entrance both during the game and in the post-game analysis. Kay’s main beef was that someone else should have pitched the ninth inning, especially after the Yankees blew the game open with six runs in the bottom of the eighth. Rivera threw four pitches in the eighth and needed 10 to get three outs in the ninth. He also yielded his fifth home run of the season.

Kay used those last two points to validate his argument, which upon reading over again, still seems weak, and here’s why: Recent history has shown that the guys who were available – Veras, Ramirez, Tomko, and Jonathan Albaladejo – could not be counted on to get three outs and hold an eight-run lead. Kim Jones didn’t ask why Rivera pitched the ninth on Wednesday, and if it was asked later on, Girardi’s answers will be column fodder for Thursday’s rags.

My opinion: Girardi made the right move. As I’ve written in this space before, and reviewed many times when Steven Goldman’s columns passed my edits, sometimes a save occurs in the eighth inning. This game against the Orioles was one of those times. Leaving him in to pitch the ninth: why not? Isn’t that partly why he’s getting paid upwards of $15 million? What about the possibility that Rivera asked to pitch the ninth? Having been his former catcher, isn’t it possible that Girardi believes that Rivera knows his body better than anyone and that maybe he left the decision to the future Hall of Famer?

Looking at Rivera’s profile, his 2009 workload is being carefully planned, primarily based on pitch count. Wednesday was only the third time all season River was asked to get more than three outs in an appearance – it just so happened that it was the second time in his last three games. And he was pitching on two days’ rest, so he was fresh. Rivera averaged 30 pitches in the two four-out or more appearances. He threw just 14 on Wednesday.

If you were the Yankees manager, how would you handle Rivera? I would likely do the same thing Girardi’s doing. Oh, and under no circumstances, ever, would I have Tomko warming when I need to get one batter out in the ninth inning.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“When the misses are in the same spots (up and in to lefties and up and away to righties) and no adjustments are made, you have to wonder if anything’s going on between the ears.”
— Orel Hershiser, during Phil Coke’s ninth-inning struggles Monday

Until next week …

The past 10 days have seen an immense range of stories leapfrog to the forefront of New York sports fans’ collective consciousness. In no particular order, with some analysis and commentary mixed in…

• The Yankees slashed prices for the primo seats, an altruistic move that still leaves many of us thinking, “You know, you have your own network, and it’s on my cable system. I’ll contribute to your bottom line that way and I won’t feel like I got stabbed in the wallet.”

• Alex Rodriguez did everything necessary in extended spring training and returned to the lineup Friday. He punctuated the return with a home run on the first pitch he saw, thus fulfilling his job as the media-anointed savior of the team’s season. He proceeded to go 1-for-10 with two strikeouts in the remainder of the series, and perhaps fearing aggravating the hip injury, didn’t hustle down the line to run out a ground ball, thus reclaiming his role as the team’s most prominent punching bag.

• The Yankees lost two straight to the Red Sox at home and have lost the first five meetings of the season. (Sound the alarms! Head for the hills! There’s no way the Yankees can win the division without beating the Red Sox! Except that they can, and they have. In 2004, the Yankees went 1-6 in their first seven games against the BoSox, ended up losing the season series 8-11 and still finished 101-61 to win the American League East by three games.)

• Joba Chamberlain 1: His mother was arrested for allegedly selling crystal meth to an undercover officer. Following Chamberlain’s own brushes with the law during the offseason, it stood to reason that the tabloids attacked this story like starving coyotes. It’s remarkable that he was able to pitch at all given the negative attention he received.

• Joba Chamberlain 2: Flash back to Aug. 13, 2007. Chamberlain struck out Orioles first baseman Aubrey Huff in a crucial late-inning at-bat to end the inning and in the heat of the moment pumped his fist in exultation. Yesterday, following a three-run home run in the first inning that gave the O’s a 3-1 lead, Huff mocked Chamberlain’s emotional outburst with his own fist pump, first while rounding first base, and again when crossing home plate. Apparently, Mr. Huff holds grudges. Thanks to the New York Daily News’s headline, “MOCKING BIRD” with a photo of the home-plate celebration, this story will have wings when Baltimore comes to the Bronx next week. Even better, as it currently stands, Chamberlain is due to start in the series finale on Thursday the 21st. Get ready for a rash of redux stories leading up to that game.

• Mariano Rivera surrendered back-to-back home runs for the first time in his career last Wednesday night, a clear signal that something is wrong. Maybe.

• The team as a whole. The Yankees are 15-16 through 31 games, and some rabid fans (the “Spoiled Set,” as Michael Kay likes to call them; the group of fans between ages 18-30 that only knows first-place finishes for the Yankees) are calling for Joe Girardi’s head. As in the above note on the Red Sox, some context is required. The Yankees’ records through 31 games this decade:

2000: 22-9 (finished 87-74, won AL East)
2001: 18-13 (finished 95-65, won AL East)
2002: 18-13 (finished 103-58, won AL East)
2003: 23-8 (finished 101-61, won AL East)
2004: 18-13 (finished 101-61, won AL East)
2005: 12-19 (finished 95-67, won AL East)
2006: 19-12 (finished 97-65, won AL East)
2007: 15-16 (finished 94-68, won AL Wild Card)
2008: 15-16 (finished 89-73, missed playoffs)
2009: 15-16 (finish TBD)

No one is going to make excuses for the team with the billion dollar stadium and the highest payroll, least of all your trusted scribes here at the Banter. Looking at the last three years — including 2009 — it should be noted that similar issues of injury, age, and woes throughout the pitching staff have befallen the Yankees.

(more…)

One of the hottest stories this year has been the continuing decline of the newspaper industry. I’ve written about it in this space, and with the shuttering of the Rocky Mountain News, the Seattle P-I going to a completely online format, and more papers reducing coverage of their hometown teams, the current trend is not likely to change any time soon.

What does this mean for baseball coverage? Russell Adams and Tim Marchman presented a telling look at the industry in an April 7 Wall Street Journal article. Being a baseball reporter for a newspaper used to be a job people would kill for. Now it’s likely a job that will be killed.

With that in mind, I’ve begun asking numerous questions of veteran baseball writers and columnists to get their respective takes on the industry. This series of Q&As will run periodically throughout the season and beyond, as trends develop. The first is with Newsday’s Kat O’Brien, a Yankees beat writer since 2007. Prior to moving to New York, O’Brien covered the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from 2003-06.

In her short time on the beat, O’Brien has witnessed the sweeping changes and cutbacks in the industry firsthand, and has decided to leave the beat to go to graduate school. The following exchange was conducted over a series of e-mails last week.

Will Weiss: What made you want to be a sportswriter? Even more specifically, what made you want to be on a beat?

Kat O’Brien: I never really set out to be a sportswriter. I was interested in writing and journalism, and sort of wound up in sports. I went to Notre Dame, and initially worked on both sports and news on the daily (Mon-Fri) student newspaper. That was too time-consuming, so I focused on sports, as it was a lot more fun and more-read among the students. For a long time, I thought I would switch back to newswriting, but I kept having great opportunities on the sports side and I enjoyed it. Doing a beat was kind of the natural progression. Baseball made sense as it was one of my favorite sports, and I also speak Spanish, which is useful in covering baseball.

WW: When and how did you use your Spanish? I’m curious, because I speak the language also and have written several anecdotes through the years about my adventures in the Dominican Republic, and with various Latino players in the Yankee clubhouse.

KOB: I double majored in Spanish in college after studying abroad. I’ve gone to the Dominican Republic a few times to do some baseball stories. I use it more on a day-to-day basis, both in interviewing players whose English skills are minimal (i.e. Melky Cabrera) and in talking to players who are comfortable in both languages (i.e. Mariano Rivera and Bobby Abreu). Even with the latter, I often find it helps build a rapport with players when they know you speak their language. It was huge with Alfonso Soriano when he got traded over to the Rangers, who I was covering at the time.

WW: Did anything specific happen to make you thinking about changing your career path?

KOB: It wasn’t any one thing but a combination of things. The writing jobs I had aspired to long-term, like writing takeout features and so on, barely exist anymore. I feel that there are other jobs I would enjoy doing and would be good at, and that this would be a good time to move in that direction. I’ll miss a lot about writing and covering baseball, particularly the relationships you form on the job. But this is the best move for me long-term.

WW: What changes in the industry have you witnessed in your time on the beat?

KOB: Wow, so many, and that is in just a few years. The Internet was not even a shadow of what it is now when I began. Now the Internet is priority No. 1, and it should be. The blogs have become extremely important, and most of those did not even exist when I started.

I also think there is a tendency towards more negativity and sensationalism, not necessarily on the beat, but in the media in general. This may be at least in part due to trying to compete with Internet sites, some of which are more gossip than news, but it’s not a good change in my opinion.

WW: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said recently that newspapers should give up trying to compete (with Internet sites). In your opinion, are newspapers dead? If not, what would you do to try to revive them?

KOB: I really hope that newspapers are not dead or on life support. That said, things don’t look good for most papers at the moment. One thing that is crucial is finding a way to get revenue from the internet. One idea I like is that of getting as many papers as possible to join a consortium. Then a person could pay a subscription fee — say $10-20 per month — and get access to all those papers. Because it’s not realistic to think people are going to pay to read every paper they ever look at online, but papers need revenue.

But papers have to stop cutting costs so much that their best and brightest are either forced out or leave because they don’t think the quality of the product is worth sticking around and being a part of.

WW: You told me offline that given the current state of affairs, leaving the beat is the best decision for you and your future. Why?

KOB: Unfortunately, I am not at all confident about the future of newspapers. I’m sure there will always be some sort of journalism by which people get their news and information. But it’s been devastating to watch newspapers get torn apart in the last couple years, due partly to the failure of the industry to get on-board with the internet early and adapt, and partly to economic conditions.

I see so many colleagues who have been forced from their jobs, or who want to try something else but are constricted due to family considerations, children and mortgages. I am young enough that I can go back to school, so I am doing that while I can.

WW: While it may not be the case with the major New York papers, numerous papers around the country have cut costs by not sending writers to road games, etc., and in some cases local teams receive no hometown coverage at all. Is this a disservice?

KOB: It is a disservice, but unfortunately an unavoidable one right now. Many papers are barely surviving — slashing jobs and costs wherever they can. Local team coverage is one of those costs being cut.

WW: Is the philosophical divide between print and online generational?

KOB: I think there is somewhat of a generational divide between print and online. I see a bigger generational divide over blogging, though. That seems by and large to be more accepted among younger people.

WW: I remember that some of the beat writers who are staunch traditionalists resisted to the blog movement; not only that they were being required to post to blogs, but to the group of writers that has made a name through the blogosphere. What was your reaction to this, and what’s your opinion of baseball writing on the web? Who do you read now and how do you see baseball reporting growing?

KOB: I think there is a place for all sorts of baseball coverage, both traditional and of the blog variety. I think the web permits a much broader amount of coverage. There’s a long list of blogs that I follow. But an example of the different types of writing would be in three of the Yankees blogs I read most often: RiverAveBlues, BronxBanter and WasWatching. All three do a great job of keeping up with Yankees stuff, but each has a different slant/angle. Each site has its favorites and its least favorites on the team, and each provides a different writing style.

Still, there can be a danger in losing sight of the fact that the blogs don’t necessarily provide the same information as the traditional newspapers/sites since many are giving opinion or compiling information instead of doing reporting themselves. I am not saying this in any “anti-blog” fashion, just that I think both are necessary.

WW: Thanks for the compliments and for following us here at BB. What, if anything, could both the blog sites and the newspapers do better to coexist?

KOB: Probably give each other a little more credit where credit is due. Not in all cases, but there are definitely some snarky comments from one side to the other, and vice versa.

WW: What will you miss most about the beat? The least?

KOB: Most: A number of things. Being there to get the story firsthand, the story that people are talking about and reading about and you are giving it to them. Writing for a large and passionate audience. And I’ll especially miss the people — the other writers and the people I am writing about such as players, coaches, managers, GMs, and behind-the-scenes folks.

Least: Witnessing and worrying about the constant decline in the newspaper industry. And it might be nice to have a somewhat more normal schedule, with less travel and more nights and weekends off.

WW: What’s next for you? Do you see yourself eventually getting back into sport media, or editorial?

KOB: I’m going back to school. I start a dual degree program at the University of Pennsylvania next month, getting a Wharton MBA and a Masters of Arts in International Studies from the Lauder Institute. I don’t envision myself getting back into sports media or editorial on a full-time basis. I would love to keep my hand in by doing free-lance writing. After I graduate I might get involved in the business side of sports, but that’s yet to be determined. I’ll miss sportswriting and all my friends in the biz, though.

The last time a sense of newness and expectation this powerful converged with the New York Yankees was 2002. The YES Network had been clear for takeoff — it launched on March 19 on Time Warner Cable and RCN in New York (Cablevision would be left out until March 31 the following year). The major signing was a power-hitting first baseman brought to New York from an American League West stalwart.

This year, a massive new stadium — in size and cost — sets the backdrop for a Yankee team that has brought in another powerful first baseman from the AL West, but two stud pitchers to solidify the starting rotation.

The Yankees opened the 2002 season on a Monday afternoon in April, in Baltimore. The same scenario comes to the fore today. Seven years ago, Roger Clemens took the hill and was tattooed in a 10-3 loss. Clemens injured his pitching hand trying to snare a hard-bouncing ground ball with his bare hand.

What will the outcome be today? Will history repeat itself? Will C.C. Sabathia, the highest-paid pitcher ever, try to barehand a line drive and damage the investment the Yankees have placed in him? Will Mark Teixeira, the topic of much discussion over the weekend, particularly after Saturday’s two-home-run performance, do what Jason Giambi couldn’t: get off to a great start in New York and convince the fans that he can hang in New York?

The greatest differences: the 2002 team, while starkly different than its predecessor, was coming off a Game 7 loss in the World Series and a potential four-peat. This Yankee team, at least in the makeup of its core players, is not that different than last year’s, and is coming off its first playoff absence since 1993.

How about the season? Will history repeat itself there also? The opening-day loss didn’t faze the 2002 group, which went on to finish 103-58 and coasted to a fifth straight AL East title only to get complacent and lose to the Angels in the first round. A 103-58 record is possible, but the intradivision competition is tougher. The Angels lurk again.

From everything I’ve read, seen and heard, I sense the air of purpose from this team is as strong as the Joe Torre championship teams. I’m as curious as the rest of you to see how it all plays out, and I can’t wait.

The last week of March signals the beginning of the regular season like light at the end of a tunnel. In Florida, beat writers and their backups, many of whom have been stationed there since the beginning of February, are gathering the final roster notes and putting the finishing touches on their season preview specials for next Sunday’s paper, while the columnists, most of whom are based in New York, continue to track the off-field news and craft profiles of the key players involved in those scenarios.

It’s an exciting and stressful time for all the moving parts of a baseball operation, from the team itself to the media outlets covering the team, but if you work in sports and if baseball is the sport in which you’ve chosen to specialize, it’s the best stress you can have outside of being involved in the postseason.

STORY OF THE WEEK
Much has been made of Joe Girardi’s decision to flip Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon in the batting order. Much was written about this topic in the winter and spring leading up to the 2006 season, Damon’s first in pinstripes. At the Baseball Writers Association of America dinner in December of 2005, I remember asking SI’s Tom Verducci, who is a proponent of Sabermetric analysis, what he thought about putting Jeter in the leadoff spot. He agreed that the combination of Jeter’s ability to get on base more consistently (he was coming off a year with a .389 OBP to Damon’s .366), and Gary Sheffield batting third—which would have kept the righty-lefty-righty element in play that Joe Torre favored—made Jeter the better choice for the leadoff spot. But that spring, when the writers asked Torre about his plan, the Yankee manager was undeterred about keeping Damon as the leadoff hitter. Torre, in his way, usually deflected the discussion by saying, “You only have to worry about the leadoff batter for the first inning. Then the rest of the lineup takes care of itself.” It was as if the decision was predetermined from the moment Damon signed with the Yankees.

What we know as baseball fans is that the numbers rarely lie. Jeter’s lowest seasonal on-base percentage pre-Damon was .352 in 2004. Head to head, Damon, whose career has spanned the same exact time frame of Jeter’s, had a higher OBP than Jeter only once prior to his arrival in New York (in 2004: Damon .380 to Jeter’s .352.). The trend has held true since 2006, as Jeter has bested Damon in OBP twice: .417 to .359 in ’06, and .388 to .351 in ’07.

Adding further credibility to Jeter as a leadoff batter is the number of times that Jeter has grounded into double plays versus Damon. Over the course of their respective careers, Damon has grounded into 120 fewer double plays than Jeter (75 to 95), an average of nine fewer GIDPs per season.

Cliff Corcoran, through Pete Abe, did a great job of breaking down the numbers earlier this week.

Here’s a thought, though: If Girardi is adamant about Jeter in the leadoff spot now, did he think about this at all in 2006 when he was Torre’s consiglieri on the bench? If so, and if he had Torre’s ear, why didn’t he suggest it? By the numbers, and the fact that Damon is entering his Age 35 season and Jeter will turn 35 on June 26, this decision appears to be three years late.

OTHER THINGS WE LEARNED

• Alex Rodriguez not only wooed escorts and strippers and admitted his steroid use to them, now he doesn’t care what people think of him. (Does this list include WWE star John Cena?) The good news: the last time he adopted this M.O., he had an MVP season.
• FOX Sports.com’s Ken Rosenthal is a master of the obvious. On a similar note, the recent surge by Melky Cabrera may lead to a trade, as MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch reported
• Joel Sherman, while he’s on point in this article, is about two weeks behind Bronx Banter on the analysis of Chien-Ming Wang.
• Newsday’s Anthony Rieber is not a fan of Hideki Matsui, v.2009.
• Arthur Richman and Johnny Blanchard, two indelible links to Yankees history, will be missed.

Until next week . . .

Politics has become a focal point of the sporting world in the past year, particularly on the international stage. For example, there were numerous protests leading up to, and during, the Beijing Olympics last August. Six weeks ago, the Israeli female tennis player Shahar Peer was barred from the Barclays Tennis Championships in Dubai, due to Israel’s military action in Gaza. The Emirate’s decision caused a strong response, including Andy Roddick boycotting the men’s event and The Tennis Channel removing the tournament from its broadcast schedule.

The World Baseball Classic has not been immune to politics. In fact, it was a topic of conversation this week on some sports talk radio programs. I happened to catch one of these discussions, between Michael Kay and Al Leiter. Prior to the Puerto Rico-U.S. game in Miami, Kay, like many of his broadcasting brethren, lauded the enthusiasm of the Latin American players and fans, and how seriously they took the WBC. This should be a non-story. So why is that not the case? Because Kay demonstrated a shallowness and a lack of understanding of the sport he covers and the people who play it.

Yadier Molina, who hit the home run to put the Cardinals into the World Series in 2006, delivered a go-ahead double in the eighth inning against the Netherlands to advance Puerto Rico into the second round of the WBC. Afterward, Molina told reporters that the moment would “be in his heart all his life,” and that he considers the WBC “to be his World Series and that he enjoys it more.” That the game took place at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan likely added to the emotion.

Kay was incredulous at the Molina quote. “I don’t get it,” he said. “You mean to tell me that that base hit meant more than getting to the World Series? Come on.”

Come on? I beg to differ with my former YES Network colleague. He’s been around the game long enough to know that Molina’s comment makes perfect sense. Playing Major League baseball is a job to many of the Latino ball players; a means to help their families and/or communities out of poverty. Prime examples can be found in Roberto Clemente, Rico Carty, Juan Marichal, Luis Sojo, and Pedro Martinez.
Leiter, replying to Kay, issued an impressive response. He understood Molina’s point and went into a short explanation of Latino pride and nationalism, adding that it is even greater at the annual Caribbean World Series. Leiter also added that Venezuelan fans booed Magglio Ordoñez because he supports Hugo Chavez. (You didn’t see fans who are registered Democrats booing A-Rod because he donated to George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign.)

Former Met Endy Chavez, who’s playing for Luis Sojo’s Venezuelan contingent, had a telling quote in an interview with Tyler Kepner:

When we’re in the majors, it’s our job. We are professionals. You play for your team, but you just try to do your job. Here [in the WBC], it’s something special. You feel like a little kid. It’s not money. No matter who you are, you have to play hard for your country. I think it’s the biggest thing that has happened in my life.

The U.S. complacency is as understandable as the Latinos’ fervor. It’s a matter of conditioning. We’re taught that being a Major Leaguer and playing in the World Series is the pinnacle of the baseball experience here in the United States. That’s not the case elsewhere, where representing your country is the greatest honor you can achieve. With that in mind, the U.S. players give the impression they’re playing out of deference to the public relations disaster it would cause Major League Baseball, which runs the tourney, if they didn’t play. Thus, on a game-by-game basis, the U.S. team has been forced to match the intensity of their opponents, a reaction to the “playoff atmosphere” that many have described.

Deep down, I believe Michael Kay knows this and understands this. If he was playing the “Ugly American” ethnocentric card for radio, it was a poor strategy that only made him look bad.

An open letter to A-Rod’s handlers …

To whom it may concern:

In light of recent events where Alex Rodriguez has spoken to the media, in both controlled and extemporaneous settings, it is my belief that you should consider a gag order for your client/relative. (New York Times columnist Harvey Araton agrees.) Certainly, you’ve read the analysis of his press conference performance in this space and elsewhere, and are aware of the dent your client/relative’s credibility has taken. This past week, his comments about Jose Reyes would have been fine if he hadn’t added these 13 words: “I wish he was leading off on our team, playing on our team.” In fact, it spurred the Daily News to run a Top 10 list of dumbest A-Rod quotes last Wednesday.

Now, with the labrum tear in his hip — naturally, people will jump to conclusions that it’s steroid-related, despite reports to the contrary — there are greater questions to ponder. Why do the partial surgery as opposed to getting the whole thing done? Is this short-term solution best for the long term? What led to that decision? Is Alex in consistent pain? Does the hip hurt after extended periods of rest? Sleep? How about walking up and down stairs? While cortisone shots would help, would they have an adverse effect on the healing process? Inquiring fans want to know, provided he can tell us something without inadvertently offending someone and then issue an apology through a publicist. Maybe the Yankees don’t want him to speak and potentially say anything incriminating. Judging from the commentary of how the organization has handled his hip injury over the last 10 months, you have to wonder if Brian Cashman and the rest of the brass are not fully committed to nine more years of Alex Rodriguez in a Yankee uniform.

We know Alex is going to be a target. He’s the highest paid and arguably most talented player in professional baseball. In general, Yankee fans are concerned about his health, mainly because it’s impossible to replace the production he can provide in the lineup. He’s still the most important piece to their offense. We want to see Alex recover, get back on the field and help the Yankees win their first World Series since the turn of the century. What we don’t want to see is him speaking to the media, fumbling his words and giving us more reasons to liken him to Manny Ramirez with a different type of insanity. Some fans are already at that point.

Maybe Bernie Williams is right; time away from the team, and the game, will be good for him.

We hope so.

Regards,
Will Weiss

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ELSEWHERE …
• Harvey Araton espouses on the First Amendment, A-Rod, and Selena Roberts in a column published last Monday. For anyone entering Journalism School or interested in reporting and mass communication/media theory, this is a must-read. [Props to Diane Firstman for the recommendation.]

• With A-Rod out, the shift in Yankee coverage is shifting toward C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. This makes sense, since both will be under even more pressure to perform, now that the team will be without Rodriguez for an extended period of time.

• Though he’s not affiliated with the YES Network anymore on a full-time basis, Jim Kaat shared his thoughts on the PED issue with Kevin Kernan of the Post, and proved once again why he’s one of the classiest individuals you’ll ever meet.

• Maybe this is being nitpicky, but did anyone else notice that the flag patch on the right sleeve of the United States’ World Baseball Classic team’s uniforms had the stars on the wrong side? (It was in the upper right corner, instead of upper left.) Neither Dave O’Brien nor Rick Sutcliffe noticed it on the ESPN broadcast. And nothing I read as far as game coverage noticed the gaffe.

NEXT WEEK: What should the key stories be as we count down to Opening Day, and how would you like to see them covered? Send your submissions here.

Until then …

Alex Rodriguez’s performance at last week’s press conference was all anyone could talk about on the airwaves here in New York for days. Driving around as I did for much of the weekend, it didn’t matter if I turned on 1050 or WFAN, it was “Let’s skewer A-Rod,” followed by “What the hell is Jerry Manuel doing with the lineups,” “Fire Renney,” and “The Knicks play in New York, too, so we have to talk about them.”

On the written side of things, there was more diversity in the Yankee coverage, ranging from the requisite holier-than-thou columns on A-Rod to the investigative journalism unearthing the details of A-Rod’s PED story. The muckraking that ensued was to be expected, but with all this information being brought to light now, shouldn’t investigative reporting at this level been done proactively in the beginning of the decade, instead of reactively now? Of course, there has been a great amount of what we’ve all been waiting for: actual baseball stories from camp: roster projections, players to watch, the ongoing discussion regarding what to do with Xavier Nady and Nick Swisher, Joe Girardi’s personality, and the questions regarding ticket prices as Opening Day approaches.

Of all those articles, I was particularly drawn to one that added even more perspective to the steroid investigation. It was a blog entry posted Wednesday on the Daily News Web site by investigative reporter Michael O’Keeffe (not the Michael O’Keefe who played Danny Noonan in “Caddyshack” and was married to Bonnie Raitt), and it profiled a sports activist, Charles S. Farrell, who moved to the Dominican Republic to help open a sports and education academy. Farrell, a former director of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Sports, commented on the prevalence of steroids, the legality of them and the ease by which they can be obtained in a recent newsletter.

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A couple of items to attend to before getting into the article:
1) Thank you for the well-wishes in the BB community following my last post. My daughter was born Thursday, February 5, at 8:32 a.m. EST. She has a tremendous set of lungs and long fingers. I think she’s going to be a singer-songwriter, maybe a prodigy like Alicia Keys.
2) Cliff, Alex and Diane have done a kickass job here following the A-Rod story and keeping everything strong.
3) I’m back on schedule now. Welcome to Spring Training!

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I’ve been watching Tim Roth’s new show on FOX, “Lie To Me.” The premise: Roth, as Dr. Lightman, heads a private company that assists in federal criminal cases, using scientific studies in body language and facial expressions to determine whether a suspect is lying. At various points in an episode, still photos of Sarah Palin, O.J. Simpson, etc., are shown to demonstrate how in real life, facial expressions can communicate emotion and in turn, veracity or falsehood of statements.
Far-fetched? Depends on your point of view. Provocative? Certainly.
In the three weeks since the show premiered, the A-Rod situation has blown up, and I’ve begun thinking about the show more and more, and yesterday’s press conference gave a perfect opportunity to role play and try to apply some of the science to breaking down what was a brilliantly staged spectacle.
“Hard to Believe” was the headline on ESPN.com. It’s a great headline because of the many ways it can be interpreted. Hard to believe A-Rod was being honest? Jayson Stark thinks so, as illustrated below in Diane Firstman’s excerpt. Hard to believe A-Rod read his statements so stiffly, as if he’d never rehearsed them? Hard to believe that he never mentioned the word “steroids” at all? Hard to believe that when asked if he considered what he did to be cheating, he dodged the answer and didn’t say anything definitive? (More on this later.) Hard to believe that he’s still trying to pull the “young and naïve” argument on us, and that he’s blaming his curiosity on not receiving higher education? Hard to believe he sold out his cousin? Hard to believe that he’s the scapegoat of the 104 players who tested positive in 2003? Hard to believe that Gene Orza of the MLBPA sold him out? Hard to believe that Bud Selig doesn’t want to take accountability for the state of the game breaking down, resurrecting itself, and breaking down again on his watch? Hard to believe A-Rod had no clue what Jamie Moyer said earlier this week? Hard to believe that this wasn’t a classic case of the media putting an athlete on a pedestal only to tear him down after learning of his transgressions? Hard to believe that a few callers dialed into Mike Francesa’s show and Michael Kay’s show yesterday afternoon buying into the Bill Madden theory that the Yankees should eat the remaining $270 million of his contract?

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Perhaps no other sport can elicit the level of debate among fans and pundits alike as baseball can. I believe this has everything to do with the numbers that drive the sport. Like golf, in the end, the numbers are your most tangible results. And few players in the history of the game posted numbers as gaudy as Rickey Henderson.

Henderson, the second straight ex-Yankee to be inducted, may arguably be the most obvious first-ballot choice of this era. (Congratulations also to Joe Gordon, the Yankees¢ second baseman on the 1930s dynasty and one of the best offensive players at that position of all-time. His induction, even by the Veterans Committee, was long overdue.)  The mainstream local media have treated him well, particularly with the retrospectives from former teammates Willie Randolph and Don Mattingly. And they will laud him again — maybe with similar profiles and features — at the end of July. His speech may be the most fun and accidentally eloquent we’ve ever seen. I put the over/under on 50 third-person references.

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On Jan. 1, the much-ballyhooed launch of the MLB Network took place, with Don Larsen’s perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series as its flagship program. The game, which had never before been seen anywhere, was a kinescope film of the telecast, with Hall of Famers Mel Allen and Vin Scully on the mike, and more Gillette commercials than anyone has seen, anywhere. This was, for me, a chance to watch history — as the game took place long before I was born — as well as an opportunity to do a three-hour cultural study (male fans in attendance wearing suits and hats, for example), and review how far we’ve come in terms of broadcasting baseball on television.

The program interweaved Bob Costas’s hosting of a Q&A with Yogi Berra and Don Larsen in front of a live audience in MLB Network’s Studio 42 and the game itself. When Costas wasn’t ignoring spoiler alerts and telling us what to watch for in the program (as if we couldn’t figure it out for ourselves), he was playing to his greatest strength — allowing his interview subject to tell the story. The highlight, in my opinion, was the discussion session that followed the final out. Larsen admitted that he knew he pitched a no-hitter but didn’t know it was a perfect game; he didn’t even know what a perfect game was. (I was instantly reminded how when the Astros no-hit the Yankees with six pitchers in 2003, that Jeff Kent didn’t know why his team was celebrating so vigorously until he looked at the scoreboard.) Perhaps Larsen’s most prescient comment, though, came in that same segment. Costas mentioned that 15 Hall of Famers played in that game, and that for Babe Pinelli, the home plate umpire, Game 5 was the last game for which he called balls and strikes. Following that, Larsen said he thinks about the perfect game every day, the Hall of Famers, and that so many of them — especially on the Brooklyn side — are not around now for him to thank them for being part of it also.

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Before we get into today’s topic, I would like to relay an update to the community on Todd Drew’s progress. His wife, who is keeping up his e-mails for him while he recovers from his surgery, said he’s in stable but serious condition, and has turned a corner. She added that he was “touched” by the response all of his “baseball blog friends” had to the “Baseball and Me” post on December 22. As of this writing, she hadn’t yet given Todd the news of the Mark Teixeira signing.

It may be a couple of weeks before he is online again, and contributing here.

On behalf of all of us here at the Banter, Mrs. Drew, if you’re reading this, Todd’s baseball blog friends hope the corner he’s turned allows him to coast into home without a play at the plate.

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It’s winter in New York. The Giants are in prime position for their third Super Bowl trip to Tampa in 18 years, the Jets are the Jets, the Rangers and Devils are in another dogfight for metro area bragging rights and playoff position, and the Knicks, although they still have a long way to go, are at least more entertaining than they’ve been in years past. But even with all the other sports jockeying for backpage headlines, the main attraction is baseball. If there was ever a doubt about this, look no further than last week, with the acquisition of first baseman Mark Teixeira.

Leave it to the Yankees to lie in the weeds, swoop in and land another big free-agent fish. Since the inception of free agency, no team has played the game better, with more fervor, or worked the system to its favor, than the Yankees. This mindset, the relentless commitment to spend whatever it takes to get the necessary pieces to win, has defined the Yankees organization, even before Free Agency (remember the old joke that the Kansas City A’s were the Yankees’ Major League farm team)?

As a result, the Yankees make sports editors’ jobs very easy.

Tex’s migration to pinstripes brought unleashed the haters from all walks of the media landscape. (Again, credit goes to Diane Firstman for her link work here at the Banter, keeping us apprised of all the Yankeecentric goings-on in cyberspace. Diane, I hope your back doesn’t hurt from all the heavy lifting. Tip: Use the legs and hip flexors.) That was to be expected; the Yankees are arguably the most galvanizing organization in professional sports. The analysis through all walks of the Internet coverage, both for and against the signing, and the stories that relayed the ancillary effects of the signing, was excellent. Best of all, it was entertaining.

That’s not always the case. Events like the Teixeira signing tend to bring out a mixture of the best and worst in terms of reporting, fact-checking, story construction, and follow-up. Few stories fall into the mediocre gray area. In my opinion, the resultant coverage of CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett signings and press conferences elicited throwaway pieces (my own blog in this space included). There was little beyond the obvious.

With Teixeira, though, something clicked. The local beat crew and columnists, as well as the national group — FoxSports.com’s Dayn Perry in particular — brought their A games. The blogosphere has been especially prescient. Cliff Corcoran’s work on this site, particularly on the economics of the 2009 Yankee roster compared to 2008, has been spot-on. Baseball Prospectus stalwarts Joe Sheehan, followed Cliff’s lead. Steve Goldman has done his typical yeoman’s work at YESNetwork.com. Replacement Level’s straight-up numerical analysis on the recent signings and the effect Andy Pettitte would have on the ’09 rotation has been educational and necessary. Pete Abe got sabermetric in his disgust at the Yankees’ treatment of Chien-Ming Wang.

If all the scribes maintain this level, we are in for a tremendous year on the baseball writing.

What’s going on now is true information sharing. No longer is there an “eyes and ears of the fan” for the press. More often than not, the fans, or as I like to call us, the “outsiders,” are as educated, if not more so, than the people employed by the major media outlets holding BBWAA cards.

The only thing they have on us is access.

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CORRECTION: Before I get into this week’s topic, I’d like to correct the item from my last post. I mentioned Scott Boras as C.C. Sabathia’s agent, when it’s Greg Genske. Thanks to the readers who brought that to my attention. I should have caught that.

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The Yankees have officially committed $243.5 million over the next seven years to C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. Much has been written and said over the last 10 days, and in truth, I expected the coverage to be more rancorous, particularly given the economic climate. (Kudos to Diane Firstman for being on top of every link and bringing it here.)

Once the Burnett signing became official, I couldn’t help but think of the article in The Onion from a few years ago with the headline “Yankees Buy Every Major League Player: Ensure World Series Title,” and photos of Pedro Martinez, Mike Piazza and just about every other All-Star in the game. The signings, on one hand, were necessary. The Yankees had to do something, but was this the correct route? The consensus seems to be yay on Sabathia and a vociferous nay on Burnett. That nay could turn into battery-throwing fits if the Red Sox sign Mark Teixeira before Christmas, which they seem poised to do, according to reports by Peter Gammons and Buster Olney.

I make a concerted effort to take off my fan hat when I read, watch and assess the coverage and conjecture at this time of year, as well as during the season. This time more than ever, I looked for reasons to have the Yankees be likeable. My takeaway: the signings of Sabathia and Burnett fill a hole, to be sure, even if the money thrown at the duo is ghastly. But the money, considering how many people are hurting – people in the Yankees’ fan base, season ticket holders who they’ve priced out – creates a PR mess that incites anger and resentment.

The television broadcasts don’t help. The back-and-forth on Yankees Hot Stove on YES Thursday night, coupled with the dual press conference itself, brought me back to every major press conference I covered or assisted in covering between 2002 and 2008. My eyes are still rolling. The only material differences are the players, obviously, and Yankees PR man Jason Zillo emceeing the event (although Zillo’s vocal inflection is eerily similar to that of his predecessor, Rick Cerrone). Every major Yankees official except for COO Lonn Trost speaks. Randy Levine does everything but put his thumbs in his ears, stick his tongue out and give a playground jibe to the effect of, “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah! We got them and you didn’t!” If you did a shot every time the word “win” or “winning” was mentioned, you’d be wasted in 10 minutes.

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Is it me, or has the three-week time frame since the Yankees extended the six-year, $140 million offer to CC Sabathia represented a Dead Zone? John Harper noted as much in today’s Daily News.

Perhaps the greatest hitch in the lack of offseason movement so far, as many local scribes have hinted, is Scott Boras, who not only represents Sabathia, but the three other major names in whom the Yankees are reportedly interested: Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe. Maybe it’s also because the local headlines have reflected a fascination with the Plaxico Burress PR disaster and the BCS College Football mess.

As we all know, New York, despite its fervor for the Giants, Jets, Rangers and the Knicks, is a baseball town. Keeping up with everything at this time of year is no small feat. I applaud our Diane Firstman for linking the hell out of the coverage, which can get messy.

Every year, I try to observe which reporter has the goods on the story — or stories — and gets the jump on his competition. Here’s how you know: When a reporter from a competing newspaper — and yes, they all read each other — credits you by name in a column, you’re on point.

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In my sophomore year of college, as part of my Sport Studies minor, I took a Philosophy of Sport class. The professor made us swear an oath to not divulge the nuances of the class, but out of courtesy — he was my advisor and mentor, and remains a good friend — I asked his permission to violate that oath for this column. Anyway, one of the tenets of the class was “dying at the right time.”

Roberto Clemente literally died following a serviceable 1972 season — his final hit was the 3,000th of his career, and he hit .323. Who knows? Had he lived, he may have been compelled to retire at age 37. However, to die at the right time, in sport philosophy parlance, means to have the self-confidence, self-assurance, and self-recognition to say it’s time to retire and move to the next phase of your life.

Still, few athletes “die” appropriately, or at least, in the way we discussed in class. Mark Harris demonstrates the concept brilliantly in his Henry Wiggen series, tracing the ballplayer from a talented kid who rises to the Majors in “The Southpaw,” to the staff ace who comes to grip with his selfish behavior in “Bang The Drum Slowly,” to the 38-year-old veteran in “It Looked Like Forever” who has problems with his “prostrate” and his fastball, but rejuvenates his career as a closer only to see it ended by a line drive hitting him in the head.

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