It's Official...and A Few Housekeeping Items

It's official, Joe Girardi is the new manager of the Yankees. Anyone who reads this page knows my feelings on this decision so I don't want to sound like a broken record. What I will say is that straight out of the gate I am impressed with this ambition. Hank Stienbrenner seemed to be giving him an out just in case he didn't make it happen next year by asking for patience. But Girardi, who is no stranger to New York, had this to say:

"I expect to be playing in the Fall Classic next October," Girardi said. "I think that's every one's expectation. You do everything you possibly can to get there and then you see where you are."

Your damn right Joe, I like your moxie!

As predicted Torre seems headed for LA. I think that this will be a huge test for him. For the last 6 years he has pretty much been on cruise control with the Yankees. His players were a well known commodity and he knew for the most part who he could count on and when. It will be interesting to see how he readjusts to the National League. In fact it will probably be a much bigger challenge for him than New York ever was.

Interestingly enough a friend of mine was cleaning out his old room in his parents house and found a treasure chest of old baseball and sports memorabilia which he sent to me and another friend. One of the items that he sent was Sport Magazine from July of 1984 which contains an article by Bill James ranking the baseball managers. One of the managers ranked happens to be none other than Joe Torre who was with The Braves at that point. The contents of the article don't go into too much detail on Torre, but the cover pretty much says it all "Torre, Not Brave Enough, Second Division." Let's hope that Joe can continue to prove him wrong 24 years later.

I would like to switch gears here and take a moment to respond to an anonymous comment from yesterday's post. Normally I wouldn't do this but since I am pretty sure that I know who the commenter is I thought I would formally respond. Here is what he wrote:

"It's hard to face facts but the Red Sox are now the new Yankees. I don't think the Yankees will win a world series for a long, long time with all of these changes and shake ups. And what the hell are they building a new fricking stadium for?!?!? You don't tear down the House that Ruth Built!!!!!! That's probably what is going on!!! Babe Ruth is mad and has reversed the curse!!!"

Wow, the irony of this comment is so thick you could almost cut it with a knife. So now the Sox fans are comparing themselves to the Yankees. It's like a little brother trying to one up his older brother, or Canada saying that it is the new United States. Should we expect to see t-shirts that say "Boston - the New New York?" What does this mean for the future of the Yankee Suck chant if in fact the Sox are the new Yankees? The fact of the matter is that while yes, the Sox are well positioned for the next couple of years it is too early to start throwing around the word dynasty. Let's not forget that the Sox failed to even make the post season last year and have yet to mirror the Yankees success of the late 90's with multiple World Series wins, and even more appearances. I'm not saying that it can't happen, I'm just saying that it hasn't happened yet. It's absurd to think that the Yankees are out of it already. I'm not going to go into too much detail on this because I wrote about it yesterday, but consider all of the young stars coming through the Yankees system right now. New York is well positioned for another few years based on those rookies alone. You bring up superstition. While I agree that I think that it is blasphemy to tear down Yankee Stadium, I think that you have to attribute the Yankees recent down turn with poor acquisitions and trades rather than the ire of the Ghost of Babe Ruth. Bad moves like Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, and Randy Johnson have much more to do with the drought than banshees.

Now a Few Housekeeping Items

I'm sure that by now my regular readers have noticed the countdown clock and the addition of a poll. I'll be trying to spice some things up in the off season to keep it interesting for you all. Any comments and suggestions (or criticisms) are welcome.

I would also like to say thank you to all my regulars. I've had 1,000 hits in just over a month which at least makes me feel as though I'm doing a better job of analyzing the game than I did when I started this. I even got a shout out on DCblogs...thanks guys!