The remarkable thing about baseball in the 21st century is that there really is no break in the action any longer. On the first day after the World Series ended, we had one trade, one near-trade, and the news that one of the top potential free agents, Bobby Abreu, would not be reaching the market. So even as the Yankees celebrate with a parade and the Phillies pack up a season two wins short of their goal, both front offices are looking ahead to 2010 and the decisions that will have to be made to get the teams back to the World Series.
Before the 2007 season, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman had T-shirts made up that read "Mission 27." It was just one more piece of motivation for a franchise that defines itself by a singular annual goal -- winning the World Series -- and a reminder that anything less than achieving that goal is a failure.
You're either with them -- or you hate them. That sums up the way baseball fans feel about the New York Yankees. And that's also why the team, which clinched its 27th World Series on Wednesday night, is the Goldman Sachs of American sports.
The following is a screed about the Yankees' payroll. If you are a Yankees fan uninterested in a screed about the payroll, don't read it. You won't enjoy it. Go out, buy a championship T-shirt, reminisce about this great team, enjoy the victory. I'm telling you: Don't read it.
NEW YORK -- The aroma that one perceived, as one walked off the field and inside toward the home clubhouse in the moments after the Yankees had won their 27th World Series on Wednesday night, was strong. It was one part expensive perfume, and one part expensive champagne, and it was unmistakable. It was Eau de WAG.
The New York Yankees, who became World Series champs for the 27th time Wednesday night, logged the highest payroll in baseball for the 2009 season. This time, they definitely got what they paid for.
NEW YORK -- The last image we saw of Alex Rodriguez in the 2009 season was very different from the first one. In the beginning, A-Rod was, as he has so often been throughout a career marked by excesses of tumult and talent, the center of attention for all the wrong reasons. In February, he sat in a tent in Tampa, Fla., at the Yankees spring training complex and tried in vain to fight back tears and explain how and why he had taken steroids when he was with the Texas Rangers.
NEW YORK -- The unique Yankees foursome of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada probably didn't need to win one more World Series together to prove anything. But they did, anyway. And they did it 13 years after their first one together. No other foursome can say that.
1. Sometimes Goliath wins, or, if you prefer the most appropriate analogy after World Series Game 6, Godzilla kicks butt.
NEW YORK -- The Yankees clubhouse reeked of champagne, it smelled the way you might imagine Don Ho's living room used to smell. Well, this is what you get when you win a World Series. Here Mariano Rivera stood in the doorway waiting for family. There Mark Teixeira wore goggles and talked about how God led him to the right team. Over there two Yankees players prepared to double-team Johnny Damon with a champagne attack. The sound was laughter and happy souts and the popping of champagne corks.
The remarkable thing about baseball in the 21st century is that there really is no break in the action any longer. On the first day after the World Series ended, we had one trade, one near-trade, and the news that one of the top potential free agents, Bobby Abreu, would not be reaching the market. So even as the Yankees celebrate with a parade and the Phillies pack up a season two wins short of their goal, both front offices are looking ahead to 2010 and the decisions that will have to be made to get the teams back to the World Series.
Before the 2007 season, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman had T-shirts made up that read "Mission 27." It was just one more piece of motivation for a franchise that defines itself by a singular annual goal -- winning the World Series -- and a reminder that anything less than achieving that goal is a failure.
You're either with them -- or you hate them. That sums up the way baseball fans feel about the New York Yankees. And that's also why the team, which clinched its 27th World Series on Wednesday night, is the Goldman Sachs of American sports.
The following is a screed about the Yankees' payroll. If you are a Yankees fan uninterested in a screed about the payroll, don't read it. You won't enjoy it. Go out, buy a championship T-shirt, reminisce about this great team, enjoy the victory. I'm telling you: Don't read it.
NEW YORK -- The aroma that one perceived, as one walked off the field and inside toward the home clubhouse in the moments after the Yankees had won their 27th World Series on Wednesday night, was strong. It was one part expensive perfume, and one part expensive champagne, and it was unmistakable. It was Eau de WAG.
The New York Yankees, who became World Series champs for the 27th time Wednesday night, logged the highest payroll in baseball for the 2009 season. This time, they definitely got what they paid for.
NEW YORK -- The last image we saw of Alex Rodriguez in the 2009 season was very different from the first one. In the beginning, A-Rod was, as he has so often been throughout a career marked by excesses of tumult and talent, the center of attention for all the wrong reasons. In February, he sat in a tent in Tampa, Fla., at the Yankees spring training complex and tried in vain to fight back tears and explain how and why he had taken steroids when he was with the Texas Rangers.
NEW YORK -- The unique Yankees foursome of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada probably didn't need to win one more World Series together to prove anything. But they did, anyway. And they did it 13 years after their first one together. No other foursome can say that.
1. Sometimes Goliath wins, or, if you prefer the most appropriate analogy after World Series Game 6, Godzilla kicks butt.
NEW YORK -- The Yankees clubhouse reeked of champagne, it smelled the way you might imagine Don Ho's living room used to smell. Well, this is what you get when you win a World Series. Here Mariano Rivera stood in the doorway waiting for family. There Mark Teixeira wore goggles and talked about how God led him to the right team. Over there two Yankees players prepared to double-team Johnny Damon with a champagne attack. The sound was laughter and happy souts and the popping of champagne corks.
NEW YORK -- The Yankees christened the first season in their new ballpark the same way they opened their old stadium in 1923: with a World Series championship.
Most of his teammates were not even in the showers and Pedro Martinez was already out the clubhouse door, hustled by a handler through the basement of Yankee Stadium, stopped only when he had to wait for an elevator up to the parking lot. As Martinez spoke -- "I'm extremely proud," he said. "I had fun and enjoyed it. I don't regret anything" -- a Yankee fan chanted softly in the background, "Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy?" No matter what he did, or where he went, Martinez could not escape it.
The World Series works best as a concept in Cincinnati and places like it. It's a TV show. When I was in grade school, my teachers would stop instructing long division long enough to let us watch the latest Apollo launch on the black-and-white Philco. We knew we'd probably never get to visit outer space, but it was cool to see the blast-offs. That's what the World Series is like in Cincinnati in the fall of 2009. Strictly vicarious.
"Mr. Steinbrenner deserves another championship." --Joe Girardi, after the Yankees won the pennant
The majority of the Philadelphia Phillies' players appear to have come to regard the dozens upon dozens of media members who fill their clubhouse after every World Series game in the same way that a family of picnickers, who had looked forward to an idyllic al fresco autumn meal, might regard a swarm of ants. The strategies that the Phillies -- who seem genuinely surprised that the media's glare is so much more intense during their series against the Yankees than it was during last year's matchup with the Rays -- have utilized to deal with the horde are varied.
NEW YORK -- Recently, Andy Pettitte noticed a change in his drive into the Bronx from his home in Westchester.
1. So the World Series comes down to this: the old and familiar. Stop me if you have heard this before: a Yankees team with Andy Pettitte, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera trying to get through Pedro Martinez to a world championship. Game 5 barely was over in Philadelphia when even Jeter, rarely reflective, immediately understood that the World Series is reduced to a most familiar confrontation, an old narrative well told.
The Pirates will acquire second baseman Akinori Iwamura in a trade with the Rays, SI.com has confirmed. The trade could be announced Tuesday night.
PHILADELPHIA -- Just to the left of the 374-foot marker in left-center field at Citizen's Bank Park, sandwiched between advertisements for Southwest Airlines and Budweiser, is a sign that brings in no money but may be just as valuable to helping the Phillies cash in this World Series. It is of a microphone between the letters HK, and it is commemorating late Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas, who passed away earlier this season. For the fans and the team, it serves as a reminder of the man whose distinct baritone was the voice of the team for nearly four decades. For Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard, it is something else: his latest target in an ongoing effort to shake a puzzling and powerful slump.
1. The matchup so nice we had to have it twice: Six days after he used a darting changeup and great movement to hold the Yankees to three runs in six innings, Pedro Martinez will take the mound in the Bronx one more time, this time trying to stave off elimination of his Phillies. In last week's Game 2, Martinez allowed just two solo home runs, both on tough pitches, in his first six innings, keeping the Phils in a game in which A.J. Burnett was just a little bit better. Serenaded by chants of "Who's your daddy?" -- and quietly hearing worse from one fan whom he chose to upbraid at his postgame press conference -- Martinez showed both the showmanship that makes him a star and the skill to back it up.
PHILADELPHIA -- While the Yankees have to be considered a fairly heavy favorite with only one win needed as they head back to the Bronx, the Phillies still have some characteristically serious fight in them. Until last rites are read to the Phillies, they should be assumed to have plenty of life.
PHILADELPHIA -- The biggest catchphrase in this World Series, besides instant replay of course, is short rest. Who's getting it? Who's giving it? Who's refusing it? Charlie Manuel did not ask Cliff Lee to pitch on short rest in Game 4 and the Phillies lost. Joe Girardi did ask A.J. Burnett to pitch on short rest in Game 5 and the Yankees lost. Both managers exposed themselves to criticism even though they made exact opposite moves.
Mr. October is taken. So is Mr. November. Chase Utley will have to settle for a historic hot streak that has helped push the World Series to a Game 6 for the first time in six years.
PHILADELPHIA -- That swing is so quick. It's rattlesnake quick. Jai Alai quick. Shell game quick. That swing is so quick, it should make a cracking sound, like the tip of a whip. That Chase Utley swing.
1. With the sound of Alex Rodriguez's ringing double to left field, the Phillies' situation went from "bad" to "desperate" late Sunday night. Philadelphia is now down 3-1 in the World Series, a position from which very few teams have ever recovered: Those in this position have gone 5-28 in best-of-seven Series, and the last team to come back from a 3-1 hole was the 1985 Royals. Teams in the specific position of the Phillies, down 3-1 in the World Series without home-field advantage in 2-3-2 format, have won just two of 13 times: the 1979 Pirates and the 1958 Yankees.
Fill in answers as in a crossword -- except the answers are numbers. For rows or columns with multiple clues, enter answers consecutively. The sum will equal the red total at the end of each row/column.
The World Series may not be over, but many fans of the defending Philadelphia Phillies are apparently giving up, leading to a plunge in the asking price for tickets being sold through ticket reselling Web sites.
PHILADELPHIA -- Earlier this week, Jamie Moyer was lamenting that nobody just sits around and talks about baseball anymore. So Jamie Moyer, 46 years old and now in his 23rd season and without much else to do since he is not on the Phillies' World Series roster, decided that he would sit around and talk baseball. And so that is what he did during the Phillies off-day last Friday. Talk. About pitching in general -- how to throw a slider, why cutters can be effective without hurting your arm and the difference between being a pitcher and a thrower -- and about Cliff Lee in particular.
PHILADELPHIA -- Ninth inning, tie game, two outs, World Series, and Johnny Damon noticed something: The pitcher was not covering third base. This was an interesting discovery. New York and Philadelphia were tied, 4-4. Damon had moved into scoring position -- a single could make him the winning run. But third base ... it was open.
PHILADELPHIA -- Alex Rodriguez has turned around his perennial playoff struggles and with one swing of his bat brought the Yankees within 27 outs of their 27th World Series championship -- and his first.
PHILADELPHIA -- With two out and a tie score in the top of the ninth inning, nobody on base and a 1-2 count to Johnny Damon, Phillies closer Brad Lidge uncorked one of his signature sliders, 84 miles per hour and diving toward the plate. Damon swung. The crowd erupted. Several Phillies lurched toward their dugout. But Damon stood stubbornly in the batters box. He was one of the few people at Citizens Bank Park who recognized that he had nicked a piece of the ball and catcher Carlos Ruiz had failed to glove it. "He kept himself alive," Lidge said.
PHILADELPHIA -- It wasn't more than one week ago that one NL scout claimed it looked like Yankees manager Joe Girardi was "managing scared, like he's afraid to lose his job'' and accusations of overmanaging were coming from all quarters (including this one). But Girardi looks Northwestern smart today.
PHILADELPHIA -- At stake for the Phillies on Sunday night is a season, a repeat, possibly a dynasty. On the mound is Joe Blanton. He is 6 foot 3, 250 pounds, a former first-round draft pick who is built like a beer-leaguer, only with high stirrups and a sharp curveball. He pitched wonderfully in last year's World Series, won more than he lost this season, and was decent enough against the Dodgers in the NLCS. The main problem with Blanton is that he is not Cliff Lee.
Sports Illustrated baseball writer Tom Verducci breaks down Game 3 from Philadelphia: 1. If Game 3 is the turning point of the World Series -- 68 percent of teams up 2-1 go on to win it -- then a Yankees championship began with one pitch from Cole Hamels that will be remembered as one of the great gaffes in recent Series history. The beginning of the end for Philadelphia was a first-pitch curveball Hamels threw New York pitcher Andy Pettitte with no understanding of basic baseball. When Pettitte stepped in, Hamels was working with a 3-2 lead, a runner at second base and -- here's the key part -- one out. Pettitte is a career .134 hitter who has come to bat a total of 12 times over the past three years. Hamels could dispose of him with fastballs, the way J.A. Happ would do the next inning, and he would be one out away from being out of the inning. Instead, Hamels threw a first-pitch curveball up, and Pettitte slapped a single to tie the game. Why in the world would he throw
PHILADELPHIA -- For opposing pitchers, the Yankees offense must seem as unwelcome and inevitable as the onset of winter. It's going to arrive sooner or later, and when it does, it's going to last a long time, it's going to be brutal and it's going to send you scurrying for cover. The Yankees 8-5 win in Game 3 of the World Series on Saturday night brought the 2009 baseball season ever closer to its winter slumber. That the end seems near is due largely to the way Yankees bats finally emerged from their own somnambulant state to take a 2-1 lead in the Series.
Andy Pettitte gave up more runs than he had in any of his first three starts this postseason but got them back by singling home the tying run and scoring the go-ahead tally.
During the past few days, Pedro Martinez has spent a lot of time telling us -- usually rather amusingly -- about all of the things that Pedro Martinez is. He is the most influential player that has ever stepped in Yankee Stadium. He is the would-be King of New York. He is a Christian. He is a father.
1. Unless you were Jimmy Rollins, you had to believe that this World Series was going to be a long one, as closely matched as are the Yankees and Phillies. So while Philadelphia lost Game 2, 3-1, to a stellar pitching effort by Yankees starter A.J. Burnett, they scored a small triumph that may pay dividends as the series is extended: they chipped away at the seemingly indestructible nature of Mariano Rivera.
Ryan Madson has an analogy to explain Cole Hamels' woes this season.
NEW YORK -- The fabulous Phillies were unfazed by their Game 2 defeat that left the World Series even. This team does not lack confidence. Star shortstop Jimmy Rollins was asked whether he still believed in his prediction of a five-game Phillies victory after the Yankees' 3-1 Game 2 victory, and Rollins responded, nonchalantly, "If that's what it takes."
The pair treat World Series fans - and players - to a raucous rendition of "Empire State of Mind"
NEW YORK -- It was an old villain in a new ballpark that did in Pedro Martinez.
Former Diamondbacks third-base coach Chip Hale is being hired to fill that role for the Mets, sources said.
NEW YORK -- Every trade or signing that's involved underrated pitching star Cliff Lee looks like an incredible bargain so far. But pretty soon it will be Lee's turn.
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