New York Yankees

Morgan Ensberg, backup third and first baseman for the New York Yankees, knows that fans don’t flock to Yankee Stadium to see him.

“For the fans, I am so overshadowed, which makes sense,” Ensberg said, sitting at his locker with a copy of a Dan Brown novel in his left hand prior to Thursday’s game against Cleveland. “I’m not that big-name guy. They get to see me if somebody is hurt, or needs a rest.”  read more »

When the Yankees chose to open the 2008 season with Phil Hughes, 21, and Ian Kennedy, 23, in the starting rotation, some growing pains were expected. But while Kennedy had less of a track record to count on, there was ample reason to think Hughes, who got the call Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Detroit Tigers, would be ready to log at least league-average innings.

But Hughes hasn’t merely been mixing good starts with bad thus far—he’s been almost uniformly awful.  read more »

Sixteen different New York Yankees played in a dramatic 4-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians April 26. None of their names were at the top of The New York Times’ game story the next morning. Instead, The Times led with the news that Joba Chamberlain had not appeared.

Ross Ohlendorf, the pitcher who gave up the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, didn’t appear till paragraph three. It took six paragraphs for The Times to mention any of the Cleveland players by name, and nine to identify catcher Victor Martinez as the one who got the hit.  read more »

Jorge Posada’s mysterious shoulder injury has not yet healed to the point that he can resume his duties as everyday catcher for the New York Yankees.

"He won't throw today," New York manager Joe Girardi said prior to Sunday’s game against Baltimore. "We'll check again on Tuesday—see how he is and see if the arm is back to full strength."  read more »

Since 2003, the Yankees and Red Sox have been about as even as two teams can be. New York holds a 50-47 edge during the regular season heading into their matchup Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium. New York has won the American League East three times to Boston’s one.

The Red Sox have elite hitters (David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez), the Yankees have elite hitters (Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano). The Red Sox have a top closer (Jonathan Papelbon), the Yankees have a top closer (Mariano Rivera). The Red Sox have promising young starters (Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester), the Yankees have promising young starters (Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy).  read more »

Don’t let the scoreline fool you: Mike Mussina is living on borrowed time.

His fastball during last night’s 6-1 win over Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium wasn’t particularly fast—MLB.com’s Gameday listed his initial 85 mile-per-hour fastball offering as a changeup—and his once-great curveball was merely good. This will not be good enough against the American League’s better lineups.

Mussina has built a solid Hall of Fame case on a pair of factors—dramatic difference in velocity between his good fastball and excellent curveball, along with above-average control. But Mussina’s maximum velocity is down considerably, eliminating one of his advantages. It also has led him to nibble off the corners, trying desperately to expand the plate—and eliminating his other major advantage.  read more »

Joe Girardi’s decision to use Jason Giambi as his regular first baseman was anything but a no-brainer. Certainly, Giambi’s recent history argued against it.

Giambi is hoping that a doctor’s diagnosis and his first-ever winter that included running will allow him to be an exception to the rule that first basemen become designated hitters, then slowly fade away. And Girardi is clearly betting Giambi will be the exception to the rule, playing him at first base in each of his first three games as Yankee manager.

Since signing a seven-year, $120 million contract with the New York Yankees prior to the 2002 season, Giambi has been an increasingly irregular presence in the lineup, and seeing him in the field has been an even greater rarity. In his first two seasons with the Yankees, Giambi played in 313 of a possible 324 games, 97 percent, including 177 at first base. But in the past four seasons, Giambi played just 441 of 648 games, and just 211 of those at first base. Last year, Giambi appeared in just 18 games at first base, and often was replaced in the late innings for defense.  read more »

Joe Girardi’s first game as manager of the New York Yankees Tuesday night was an easy one, at least compared to his other Opening Day debut, as a rookie catcher for the Chicago Cubs.

“I was a lot more nervous than I was today,” Girardi said during his pre-game news conference, about three hours before yesterday’s game against the Blue Jays. “I was very nervous. [Cubs veteran pitcher] Rick Sutcliffe said he’d take care of me, that he knew the hitters, and that [leadoff batter] Bob Dernier never swings at the first pitch.  read more »

The dust has cleared on the New York Yankees’ spring, and the many unresolved questions at the beginning of the preseason about their pitching are … still unresolved.

The already fragile coalition that makes up the starting rotation may be splintering. And the veterans at the top of the bullpen have held their spots thus far, but not decisively, meaning that a group of unheralded relievers may end up needing to supplant Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins as the season progresses.  read more »

 A strong and fond memory of being a kid and growing up in New York City was my first trip to Yankee Stadium. You came out of the tunnel that led to the stands and you looked up to see the beautiful blue sky standing in contrast to the white façade above the upper deck. Then your eyes focused downward and the field came into view—and it was the deepest green you could ever imagine. The Stadium really was an urban field of dreams. Recently, major league baseball decided that more than the field should be green.

Baseball is, in many ways, a preindustrial 19th-century sport. Its pace is slow, leaving lots of time for beer and relaxed conversation between pitches and between innings. This week baseball came full circle. Billy Crystal may have stuck out, but he was a Yankee for a day. And this week both the Mets and Major league baseball went green.

The Met’s new stadium, Citi Field, will be built using recycled steel, water efficient plumbing and other green principles.  read more »

The Yankees may have been encouraged by Mike Mussina’s second outing of the spring over the weekend, when the 39-year-old veteran struck out 5 batters in just 2 2/3 innings. Then again, he also walked a pair and allowed a home run, failing to finish the third frame.

It’s too soon in the spring to draw conclusions from any pitching performance. But the Yankees are keeping a particularly wary eye on Mussina, who limped to the 2007 finish line.  read more »

Is slugger Bobby Abreu copying fellow Yankee outfielder Johnny Damon’s real estate moves?  read more »

Watch out, Equinox! New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter is partnering with the international 24-Hour Fitness chain to open three new “classy” sports clubs in Manhattan this year.

What, you were expecting a Roger Clemens-run juice bar?

The first will be a 28,000-square-foot facility on Fifth Avenue, conveniently located just a short guilt-ridden walk from Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.

Additional locations are planned for SoHo and also in Midtown, a few blocks from the pro slugger's own $13 million pad in the Trump World Tower.

The healthy and wealthy Yankees shortstop recently took a breather to talk with me about the project.  read more »

Celebrated baseball writer Peter Golenbock, author of Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949-64, has signed a contract with John Wiley & Sons to write a biography of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, it was announced today. The book will be called The Boss, and it is scheduled for publication in spring 2009.  read more »

Players including prominent New York Yankees Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte were named in former U.S. Senator George Mitchell's comprehensive report on steroids use in baseball released Thursday afternoon.

Below is the complete list of players implicated in the report. Depth of evidence varies, of course: Brian Roberts was named by a teammate through hearsay, while the report contains cancelled checks from Paul Lo Duca along with a handwritten thank-you note on Dodger Stadium stationary.  read more »

Steve Kornacki thinks there are parallels between Jimmy Carter's primary campaign and Mike Huckabee's, but by losing his "dark horse" status this early, Huckabee will run into trouble.

Also from the Observer, Howard Megdal finds it hard to believe that the Yankees would let Johan Santana go to another team.

If Hank Steinbrenner is to be believed, the Yankees are out of the Johan Santana sweepstakes.  read more »

In case you missed it, Steve Kornacki muses on how, during last night's debate, Rudy Giuliani somehow managed to get the worst of an exchange with Mitt Romney over baseball.

How big a mistake was it for Rudy Giuliani to pander to New Hampshire voters last month by telling them he was pulling for the Red Sox in the World Series?

Big enough that his status among the G.O.P. candidates as The Big Baseball Fan may have been usurped last night by Mitt Romney, a man who almost certainly can't tell the difference between a splitter and a forkball. But to casual viewers of last night's debate, it was Mr. Romney who seemed like the authentic fan and Mr. Giuliani who conjured memories of Hillary Clinton and her "lifelong Yankee fan" nonsense.  read more »

New York, evidently, needs Johan Santana.

Since the Minnesota Twins made their star pitcher available in a trade, the Yankees’ Hank Steinbrenner made it known that the team is negotiating to put him in pinstripes. Meanwhile, Mets general manager Omar Minaya is fixated on landing Santana to throw the first pitch at CitiField, and resolve a three-year obsession with landing a number-one starter.  read more »

Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees have agreed to the framework of a 10-year, $275 million contract, bringing a happy resolution to a process that the Yankees announced had ended on October 28, when Rodriguez opted out of the final three years of his contract.

According to the New York Times, the Yankees are willing to offer incentives to push the contract beyond the $300 million mark if Rodriguez passes current all-time home run leader Barry Bonds.  read more »

In an offseason so far dominated by high-profile departures, the Yankees finally got to announce an addition to the 2008 squad, introducing Joe Girardi as Joe Torre’s successor to manage New York.

We know that Girardi accepted to a three-year, $7.5 million deal. But precisely what else he agreed to still remains unclear.  read more »

The Yankees ultimatum not to negotiate with Rodriguez if he opted out of his contract has backfired.  read more »

The Yankees have banned ESPN from future conference calls with managerial candidates, Newsday reports. Yankees PR boss Jason Zillo took the action after ESPN aired a conference call live last week (when officials announced Joe Torre wasn't returning) even after the Yankees had requested that networks broadcast the call only in recorded form.

The consequence? No future access for ESPN to managerial candidates Don Mattingly, Joe Girardi and Tony Pena, all of whom are being made available by the Yankees in an unusual move. (Said Zillo: "Instead of them chasing down Joe Girardi or Don Mattingly or Tony Pena at IHOP trying to get a quote from them, we're trying to do this in some type of organized fashion.")

Zillo on the ban: "I want to resolve this but they've backed me into a corner where I don't have many options if they think they're bigger than the organization they're covering."

Micah Kellner, a Democratic Assemblyman from Manhattan and a Mets fan, takes a whack at Rudy Giuliani for supporting the Red Sox.

"This is the biggest flip-flop ever for him," Kellner says.

The New York Post is reporting this morning that George Steinbrenner's sons have taken over daily operations at the New York Yankees ball club.

The New York Post said the details about the control of the franchise will be ironed out at top-level meetings the Yankees are holding this week in Tampa. According to The Associated Press manager Joe Torre's status for next season will be decided during discussions starting on Tuesday morning.

"George has taken on a role like the chairman of a major corporation," team president Randy Levine told the paper.  read more »

• 1 comment

There are lots of reasons the Yankees have been able to climb out of a 21-29-record, 14.5-games-back hole to all but clinch a playoff spot with a week left in the regular season.

There is Alex Rodriguez’s otherworldly season: 52 home runs, a .418 on base percentage and a .641 slugging percentage. Joba Chamberlain’s 21 2/3 innings of 0.42 ERA, 31 strikeout pitching hasn’t hurt either.  read more »

Sunday night’s game was about reaching back to the past, with heavy implications for the upcoming postseason.  read more »

Hughes is a better bet than the Rocket for October.  read more »

It’s hard to justify the schedule worries at this point: only a complete collapse will prevent New York’s entry into the American League playoffs.  read more »

What is the reason for Wang’s frequent struggles, and what can the Yankees expect going forward?  read more »

The Yankees gamble a miracle-pitcher's future.  read more »

Of all the narratives to have emerged from the Yankees’ winning tear since the All-Star Break, one of the most unexpected has been the emergence of Shelley Duncan, an unlikely hero just up from the minor leagues on a team with a score of highly-paid, established players.  read more »

The trade deadline came and went, and the beleaguered New York Yankees bullpen, rather than adding, subtracted. They are dependent, now more than ever, on the right arm of Kyle Farnsworth.

As yesterday’s game at Yankee Stadium showed, this is not a good thing.  read more »

The six-foot-nine pitcher has baseball scouts and fans drooling with Pavlovian certainty. Is he the real thing?  read more »

Brooklyn Cyclones general manager Steve Cohen surveyed his team’s sold-out ballpark from the terrace above home plate during the season opener Tuesday night with a look of general satisfaction on his face.

“It’s great, fantastic,” Cohen said about the day. “We’ve got a couple of things we’ve got to fix. Little operational things, things some people wouldn’t even notice. We’ve got to get the lines down for food, thin out the crowds in the concourse a bit.”  read more »

Since the start of the Yankees’ dramatic turnaround this month, 26-year-old left pitcher Sean Henn has seen almost no action.

This is not a coincidence.

“Everybody here has tasted winning before,” said Henn, a long reliever, in a clubhouse interview prior to New York’s ninth straight victory on Thursday. “The clubhouse is filled with perennial all stars and future Hall of Famers.”
 read more »

If you want to know why New York has become the Mets’ city, don’t look at today’s standings. Look at today’s pictures – the pictures from last night’s 5-4 Met win over the Giants at Shea Stadium.  read more »

Hillary Clinton will participate in her first presidential debate on April 26, which Rick Carlin thinks is soon.

When she's at Al Sharpton's event later this month, Hillary will be the only candidate to have her comments broadcast on Sharptons radio show.

Hillary is more worried about Al Gore than Barack Obama, according to Dan Gerstein.

By the way, Gore will be here soon.

The Brennan Center notes that the $25 million Barack Obama raised for his 2008 bid could, if he ran for office in New York, have been raised by as few as 1,381 contributors. Matt Schuerman reports on the city's decision to help build a parking lot with 3,000 additional spots for the new Yankee Stadium, which makes some neighborhood advocates angry.

A DOT official swears she doesn't hate cupcakes, but is just following the law.

George Pataki said "the lessons of New York" could be helpful to the people rebuilding New Orleans, and Cooper wonders how.

The acting executive director of the Nassau County Democratic Party left that position for a new job.

Rockland County Democrats endorsed Ken Zebrowski, Jr. to run for the seat his late father held until recently.

And pictured above is what happens when taxi cabs turn 100 years old.

-- Azi Paybarah

The city is planning to finance a set of garages and lots that would add almost 3,000 more parking spaces near Yankee Stadium even though the new ballpark is going to seat 6,000 fewer patrons than the current one.

A hearing Thursday before the Industrial Development Agency, an arm of city government, drew a limited but earnest response from watchdog groups and community organizations, asserting that the more parking spaces you build, the more people will drive. They argued that instead of using public funds to encourage driving, the money should be put toward a proposed Metro-North station that reportedly needs another $35 million to come into being.

The I.D.A. will vote on whether to authorize $190 million in tax-exempt bonds for the project in May or June, according to a spokeswoman. The agency's analysis shows that the city will spend $20 million to reconstruct parkland on top of the garages and will lose another $2 million in forgone taxes on the bonds, which will be tax-free.

Eventually, the city will make more than double its money back through new taxes, lease payments and shared revenues, though it will do so over a 43-year period, the I.D.A. said; it would not release the assumptions for the revenue numbers.  read more »

Mike Bloomberg backed away from a health department plan to advocate circumcision as a means of reducing the spread of AIDS.

A contractor with ties to the mob and Bernie Kerik probably shouldn't be working on the new Yankee Stadium, Bloomberg said.

The Daily News editorial board wants Andrew Cuomo to put aside his personal opposition to the death penalty and help the Queens District Attorney.

Mike Gormley looks at Eliot Spitzer the candidate versus Spitzer the governor.

Betsy Gotbaum wants more seats in city public schools.

Reverends Calvin Butts and A.R. Bernard are teaming up with the guy who wanted to buy Starrett City.

Christine Quinn's budget proposal is $61 million higher than the budget Mike Bloomberg proposed.

The police department will get a new $1 billion facility in Queens.

Mitt Romney leveraged his own money in order to raise contributions for his presidential campaign.

Governor Jon Corzine asked his ethics adviser to review recent labor contracts to see if they were influenced by his relationship with a union leader, Carla Katz. Barack Obama will be in New York on Monday to raise more money.

And Tom Cruise will raise money here on April 19 for a Scientology-based New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project.

-- Azi Paybarah

One of the loose threads in the construction of the new Yankee Stadium was who was going to build new parking garages that the team wanted built. The Yankees said at first that the private sector would step up to the, um, plate, but skeptics didn't see many companies out there clamoring for the privilege. This month, to build the garages, the city is calling upon a nonprofit organization with ties to Michael Bailkin, a lawyer who pioneered the city's earliest economic development incentives during the Koch era. The Industrial Development Agency, an arm of city government, is getting ready to award $186 million in tax-free bonds to Community Initiatives Development Corporation, a Hudson, N.Y., organization that is headed by William S. Loewenstein, Mr. Bailkin's former partner at Stadtmauer Bailkin Biggins LLP (which has since turned into Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co.).

As a nonprofit, CIDC qualifies for tax-exempt loans that it has used to develop senior centers, affordable housing complexes, senior centers and municipal garages in upstate New York and Pennsylvania, according to its tax filings. It is unclear whether the firm plans to keep the Yankee garages' revenues or turn part of them over to the city. (Mr. Loewenstein has not returned a telephone message.)

Originally, when the Yankees announced the stadium deal in June 2005, the team said that garage revenues would go to the state in return for contributing $70 million to the $281 million project. In addition, the city will pitch in $21 million--although that is supposed to be used to build a park on top of the garages, according to documents released by the I.D.A.

The tax-exempt bonds will cost the city $2 million in lost taxes, on top of another $400 million-plus in other sorts of subsidies for the project, according to watchdog group Good Jobs New York. The I.D.A., which will hold a public hearing on the garages Thursday, asserts the benefits in terms of added sales and other taxes will more than make up for that.

Meanwhile, the proposed Metro-North station at the new Yankee Stadium is still looking for a sponsor.

- Matthew Schuerman UPDATE: This post was updated with additional information about the nonprofit developer of the garages.

Two New York critics of the taxpayer-subsidized Yankee Stadium have been invited by Congressman (and presidential hopeful) Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, to appear before a House subcommittee on Thursday in Washington, D.C. The panel will hear testimony from Save Our Parks member Joyce Hogi and Village Voice writer Neil deMause. It's an oversight hearing, which means there is no pending legislation.

The hearing is called: "Build It and They Will Come: Do Tax Payer-Financed Sports Stadiums, Convention Centers and Hotels Deliver as Promised for America's Cities?"

Maybe not the catchiest campaign slogan, but Mr. Kucinich may end up picking up a few votes in the Bronx nonetheless.

The full media advisory is after the jump.  read more »

- Matthew Schuerman