Baseball is Back!

Baseball is Back!

What better way to start off a blog site than to talk about my favorite past-time, Baseball. Specifically the NY Yankees. I will try to appear as unbiased as possible but let's face it, I'm a huge Yankee fan. I have been since I was around 8 years old. I remember the days when Yankee Stadium was a tomb. They couldn't give away seats in the 80's and now you can barely get a ticket that's not in the bleacher's for a reasonable price. I suppose that is the price for having a winning team for so many years.

There is nothing better than walking into Yankee Stadium and understanding the history behind this franchise. In the old stadium you were able to see the same field where baseball greats like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra all the way up to Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera just to name a few. I could go on forever but all I would be doing is naming Hall of Famer's for the entire post. I don't just love the Yankees because they won 27 World Championships and 40 American League Pennants. The Yankees are modern day baseball history. There are organizations playing since the late 1800's who still cannot claim close to the amount of success of the Yankees. This is what draws me as a fan.

2010 Yankees:  Who thinks the 2010 Yankees were a failure? Some, but not me. Yes, I was disappointed in the end of the season but only one team can walk out World Series Champion. Realistically, one team cannot possibly win the World Series every year. The Yankees fell 2 wins short of going back to the World Series for a second straight year. Two more wins against a very good Texas Rangers team, but it was not meant to be. I waited eagerly all winter for the new baseball season and finally it's here!

2010 Offseason: MLB had an active off season with some monster moves but none by our good old Yankees really shook the foundation of the league. Cliff Lee went to Philadelphia for less money. Good for him. Stay in Philly, Cliff. We'll see you in October. The Red Sox went on a Yankee-like spending spree buying Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Bobby Jenks etc. You would think those Red Sox were looking pretty darn good. Fast-forward to the first 2-3 weeks of the 2011 Season....

2011 MLB Season starts: The Yankees have been off to a good start so far this year. They're in first place early with a 7-5 record. I'm not going to crown them Champions yet but it's not a bad start. And those Red Sox?  2-10 record. Looks like money well spent there Boston. Only 4 teams in baseball history have started worse and made the playoffs. Then again, the Red Sox have been consistent with breaking history. This isn't the same Red Sox team from '04 and '07. Nope, these guys aren't using steroids. Right David Ortiz? Manny Ramirez? I'll go into the whole steroids issue in another post. Before I go any further, yes, I think A-Rod, Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens are idiots for doing steroids at any point in their careers. Like I said, I'll go more into this in another post.

Phil Hughes is now on the Disabled List (DL) with a dead arm. I'm a big fan of Hughes. I think this kid is going to go a long way in this league and will be an elite pitcher in the future. I hope Phil recovers quickly and finds his mojo again to help out the team.

Early on, it looks like Bartolo Colon is back in form. He'll finally get a start with Hughes on the DL. Freddy Garcia had his first start today and pitched an amazing game. He pitched 6 innings of shut-out baseball allowing only two hits. Maybe he can keep this up for the season but it's still too early to tell for sure.  Rafael Soriano has been disappointing so far. Hopefully he will pick up his game as the year goes on but so far the money seems to be wasted.  We're going to be hearing about Derek Jeter's 3,000 hits until July when he will likely hit number 3,000. Anyone think he's going to catch Pete Rose's 4,256 hits? If Derek can stay healthy he might have a chance but I cannot express enough how incredibly difficult it will be for Derek or any human to reach that number of hits in this era.

I realize this post is getting longer and longer as I keep typing so I'm going to cut it short here. More will follow throughout the year but probably not as extensive. Comment, post, follow as you wish. I will post again next week. Not sure about what yet. You'll just have to tune in and find out!

Albert