Top 10 Yankee First Basemen

Honorable Mention to Ellsworth Tenney "Babe" Dahlgren, 1937-40. Part of the Yankees' 1920s and '30s San Francisco connection, he was only a starter for 2 seasons, but 1 of those was the 1939 World Championship season. After a bad season in 1940, manager Joe McCarthy dumped him. He actually got better after the Yankees got rid of him, including an All-Star season with the 1943 Philadelphia Phillies. But the Yankees started winning again, so they didn't miss him.

Still, he'll forever be remembered, albeit not for any particular feat, rather simply taking the place of Lou Gehrig on that sad day in Detroit, May 2, 1939.

Honorable Mention to Johnny Sturm, 1941. Due to World War II and a subsequent injury, this was his only season in the major leagues. But it was a World Championship season.

Honorable Mention to John "Buddy" Hassett, 1942. Known as the Bronx Thrush for his home Borough and his fine singing, he was a 3-time .300 hitter, twice for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was the Yankees' starting 1st baseman in 1942, winning a Pennant (something Don Mattingly never did) and batting .284. But he went off to war, and never played in the major leagues again.

Honorable Mention to Nick Etten, 1943-46. He had 107 RBIs for the 1943 World Champions, led the AL with 22 homers in 1944, and led with 111 RBIs in 1945. But when the good pitchers came back from The War, he wasn't as good a hitter anymore. He played his last big-league game shortly before his 34th birthday.

Honorable Mention to George McQuinn, 1947-48. A 6-time All-Star, twice for the Yankees, he was the 1st baseman on the only St. Louis Browns team to win a Pennant, in 1944. He was released by the Philadelphia Athletics before the 1947 season, because he was about to turn 37 and had batted .225 the year before. He looked done. This was the kind of decision that led to the A's moving after 1954.

The Yankees took a chance on him. This was the kind of decision that led to the Yankees dominating baseball for a generation, as they had in the previous generation. McQuinn batted .304, hit 13 homers, drove in 80 runs, and helped the Yankees win the World Series. He tailed off in 1948, was released, and retired, but, for 1 year, he and the Yankees were good for each other.

Honorable Mention to Joe Collins, 1948-57. The native of Union Township, Union County, ew Jersey was the starter on 4 World Championship teams: 1950, '51, '52 and '53. He then served as a backup to Moose Skowron. He was a good fielder who might have won a Gold Glove had the award been established a few years earlier, and had a little power.

Tommy Henrich, normally a right fielder, played the most games at 1st base for the Yankees in the 1949 World Championship season, including catching a popup for the final out in the Pennant-clinching finale against the Boston Red Sox.

Honorable Mention to Bob Watson, 1980-82. He was only a Yankee for 2 seasons and the start of a 3rd, but he batted .307 in '80, his only full season in The Bronx, and was the general manager who built the 1996 World Champions.

10. Johnny Mize, 1949-53. He put up big numbers for the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Giants before being acquired by the Yanks, and, at age 36, most people thought he was done. Manager Casey Stengel thought otherwise, and the Big Cat was an All-Star twice more, with a 116 OPS+ as a Yankee. (That's well below his career OPS+ of 158, which got him, albeit belatedly, into the Hall of Fame.)

The Georgian, a distant cousin of Ty Cobb, was with the Yankees 5 seasons, and they won the World Series all 5. He wore Number 10 as a Cardinal, 3 as a Giant before going off to World War II and 15 after coming back. As a Yankee, he wore 36, and was probably the best Yankee to wear the number until David Cone.

9. Wally Pipp, 1915-25. He's remembered today as the man whose headache -- possibly as a result of getting beaned in those pre-batting helmet days -- allowed Lou Gehrig to step in and not miss a game for 14 years. This led to anyone thinking about asking for a day off to worry about "getting pipped." That's not fair, because, by the standards of his time, Pipp was a very good player.

The native of Grand Rapids, Michigan led the American League in home runs in 1916 and '17 -- albeit, in those last few years of the Dead Ball Era, with 12 and 9 homers in those seasons. He led the AL with 19 triples in 1924, his last full season as a Yankee. He batted .300 3 times and just missed 2 others. He hit 311 doubles despite playing his big-league last game at age 35 and in the parks of the time, most of which had faraway center field fences. And, yes, he helped the Yankees win the 1921 and '22 Pennants and the '23 World Series.

The truth is, he was in a nasty slump when Gehrig began his streak on June 1, 1925, batting only .244 after having been at .321 on May 11. He wasn't benched because of a headache, or a concussion, or a fractured skull, or whatever version of the story you heard; the condition, whatever it was, apparently came later. No, he lost his job because he wasn't getting it done.

After that season, the Yankees sold him to the Cincinnati Reds (which was odd, because interleague transactions were rare in those days), and he had 3 more productive seasons in the majors and one more in the high minors with the 1929 Newark Bears (meaning, in a 30-team MLB, he almost certainly would have played well in The Show).

His lifetime batting average was .281, he had 6 seasons of at least 100 RBIs (5 with the Yankees), and had there been an All-Star Game in the 1910s and '20s, he probably would have played in 8 or 9 of them. He is worth remembering, and for his presence, not just his absence.

8. Chris Chambliss, 1974-79. The 1971 AL Rookie of the Year came to the Yankees on April 26, 1974, in a controversial trade that sent 4 party-boy pitchers to the Cleveland Indians. With Watergate in the headlines, some called the trade the Friday Night Massacre. But it was a great trade: None of the guys going to the Indians did much for them, while the Yankees got Chambliss and Dick Tidrow, a versatile pitcher without whom the 1976, '77 and '78 Pennants would not have been won.

Nor would they have been won without Chambliss, who grew up in Oceanside, California. He gave the Yankees their first really reliable 1st baseman since Moose Skowron. (Say what you want about Joe Pepitone, but "reliable" is not an adjective that comes to mind.) You need 17 homers in a season? You need 90 RBIs? You need a good glove at 1st? Chambliss was your man.

He was an All-Star in 1976, and he gave the season its exclamation point on October 14, hitting a home run to win Game 5 of the ALCS and the Pennant over the Kansas City Royals. He also hit a home run that tied Game 6 of the 1977 World Series, setting up The Reggie Jackson Show.

Speaking of Reggie, he was in the ABC booth for that '76 ALCS, assisting Keith Jackson and Howard Cosell, and he said it was a shame that there was no MVP award for the ALCS at the time. Chambliss batted .512 with 2 homers and 8 RBIs, meaning that if the award had been in place, he might have won it even without his capper. Overall, he batted .282 as a Yankee, and his career postseason average was nearly identical, .281. He hit 185 homers, 79 as a Yankee.

The Yankees sent him to the Toronto Blue Jays after the 1979 season, to get Rick Cerone to fill the catching void caused by the death of Thurman Munson, while Watson came in to play 1st in 1980 and '81. But the Jays foolishly traded Chambliss to the Atlanta Braves for outfielder Barry Bonnell, who did nothing in Toronto.

Chambliss helped the Braves win the NL West in 1982 (their only postseason appearance from 1969 to 1991), and forged a friendship with manager Joe Torre that led to being hired as Torre's hitting instructor when he managed the St. Louis Cardinals and later the Yankees.

His Number 10 has been retired by the Yankees, albeit for Phil Rizzuto. But he should be remembered as a fine player, and not just for one amazing moment, a hot bat on a cold night in The Bronx.

7. Joe Pepitone, 1962-69. The Brooklynite played his last big-league game at age 32. He said that once his father, his biggest fan, died, he began to lose interest. Clearly, he was one of these guys who was more interested in being a star than in being a great athlete. He knew he'd blown it: He titled his memoir Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud.

He sure could have. After a cup of coffee in '62, the Yankees traded Moose Skowron to make room for him, and at first it worked. He was an All-Star the next 3 seasons, helping the Yankees win Pennants in '63 and '64, hitting a grand slam in Game 6 of the '64 Series.

But that was his high-water mark, and he was only 24. Despite 3 Gold Gloves and 219 homers (166 as a Yankee), Joe played himself out of baseball, and I don't mean on the field: Times Square when he was with the Yankees, Rush Street when he was with the Chicago Cubs, and the Ginza in his brief, scandalous (over there, anyway) tenure in Japan. His post-baseball life has had its difficulties as well. He now lives on Long Island, and has kept his nose (and liver) clean for about 20 years.

Fast facts with which you can amaze your friends: Like John Lennon, Joe Pepitone was born on October 9, 1940, made his "big-league debut" in 1962, was a huge star by 1964, but left his "group" in 1969. Too bad Joe never found his "Yoko": He's been divorced 3 times.

But at least he's alive, which is not true of John, and back in the good graces of Yankee management, for whom he does public-relations work. He will never get a Monument Park Plaque, or Number 25 retired in his honor. But he's doing okay now, and that's not something that could always be said of him.

6. Jason Giambi, 2002-08. Okay, the Giambino, shall we say, had help. Unlike those lying and cheating bastards David Ortiz, Mark McGwire, Ivan Rodriguez and Luis Gonzalez, all of whom contributed to Yankee postseason defeats (and Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez, who did not, and Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, who never even got the chance), Giambi was man enough to admit it and stop.

He hit 440 career home runs, 209 with the Yankees. He helped the Yankees to the postseason 6 straight times, and his 2 homers kept the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS against the Roid Sox long enough for the alleged Curse of the Bambino to work one last time. (Unless you count that 13-inning dance of death of July 1, 2004, featuring Derek Jeter flying into the stands -- and I don't count it as part of The Curse.)

He hit at least 30 homers in 5 Yankee seasons, and had 100 or more RBIs in 3. He's a 5-time All-Star, 3 as a Yankee. He flopped in the '03 World Series (.235) and the '06 ALDS (.125), but overall he's got a .911 OPS in postseason play.

He'll never make the Hall of Fame or Monument Park, and his Number 25 stands a much better chance of being retired for Teixeira than for Giambi (or Pepitone), but it's unfair to call Giambi's tenure in Pinstripes a failure. After all, he was better over those particular seasons than Tino Martinez was.

5. Mark Teixeira, 2009-present. The man from the Baltimore suburbs will be 35 shortly after Opening Day, and has had 7 full seasons in Pinstripes. But don't be shocked that I have him so high on this list. The 1st 3 were fantastic seasons.

In 2009, he led the AL with 39 homers and 122 RBIs, batting .292. In 2010, he dipped to .256, but still hit 33 homers with 108 RBIs. In 2011, he dropped to .248, but hit 39 homers with 111 RBIs. He;s battled injuries ever since, although, as in 2009, he was having a monster year with Alex Rodriguez hitting behind him, until he got hurt and missed the last quarter of the season.

He's hit 191 of his 394 career home runs as a Yankee. His 3 100-RBI seasons with the Yankees makes 8 overall. His OPS+ is 124 as a Yankee, 129 overall. And he's won 5 Gold Gloves, 2 as a Yankee. It's too early to say that he'll get Number 25 retired, a Plaque in Monument Park, and election to the Hall of Fame. But I wouldn't bet against any of those.

4. Bill "Moose" Skowron, 1954-62. A 6-time All-Star, he hit 211 home runs (165 as a Yankee) in spite of playing his entire career in pitcher's parks, particularly as a right-handed hitter in the pre-renovation Yankee Stadium, with its 402 feet to straightaway left, 457 to left-center and 461 to center.

In spite of those dimensions, Moose still hit 28 home runs in 1961 -- joining with Roger Maris' 61 and Mickey Mantle's 54 to produce 143 home runs, still the highest total ever by 3 teammates. He was also a great fielder for a big man.

The nickname "Moose" had nothing to do with his size: As a kid, he got a crewcut, and someone said it made him look like Benito Mussolini. He kept the crewcut for the rest of his life, although in his old age his hairline had receded to the point where it looked right.

He won 8 Pennants (1955, '56, '57, '58, '60, '61, '62 and '63 -- the last after being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers to make room for Pepitone) and 5 World Series (1956, '58, '61, '62 and '63 -- 4 with the Yanks, 1 with the Dodgers). He is also one of the few players to hit World Series home runs for both leagues, including a grand slam in Game 7 of the '56 Series against the Dodgers in the last postseason game ever played in Brooklyn.

Moose was elected to the National Polish-American Hall of Fame -- that's for all walks of life, not just sports. Na zdrowie, Moose. I have another reason for liking him: We share a birthday, December 18, albeit 39 years apart.

3. Don Mattingly, 1982-95. Only Number 3? This is the New York Yankees. We are about winning World Championships. Saint Donald Arthur of Evansville never even won a postseason series. Donnie Regular Season Baseball.

But if I'm going to be completely fair, I not only have to say all of that, but I have to say all of this: The guy did more than anybody in those years to get the Yankees in a position to win, and, talk of mythical sports-related curses aside, it wasn't his fault that it didn't happen.

His 145 RBI in 1985 are the most by a Yankee since Joe DiMaggio in 1948. His .352 batting average in 1986, although not enough to win the AL batting title as his .343 was in 1984, is the highest by a Yankee in a full season since Mickey Mantle in 1956. (Paul O'Neill batted .359 in strike-shortened 1994.) His 238 hits in 1986 are a Yankee record, breaking the 231 by Earle Combs in 1927. He's probably the best-fielding 1st baseman in Yankee history (although see Wally Pipp above), winning 9 Gold Gloves.

No, he never won a World Series, a Pennant, or even a postseason series. And he was far from, as Michael Kay of the YES Network puts it, "the most popular athlete in New York history." But Don Mattingly earned his Monument Park Plaque and the retirement of his Number 23.

Does he belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame? His lifetime batting average is .307. His OPS+ is 127. He was a 6-time All-Star and, as I said, a 9-time Gold Glove. But he had just 2,153 hits and 222 home runs. He had 14 stolen bases -- in his entire career. As Yogi Berra would have said if he'd thought of it first, Even when he could run, he couldn't run.

On its Hall of Fame Monitor, on which a "Likely HOFer" is at 100, Baseball-Reference.com puts Mattingly at 134, meaning he should absolutely be in. But that measures peak performance. On its Hall of Fame Standards, which is geared more toward career statistics, and at which the "Average HOFer" is at 50, he comes in at 34, thus he falls well short.

Its list of his 10 Most Similar Batters is as follows: Cecil Cooper, Wally Joyner, Hal McRae, Kirby Puckett (the man who gave him the nickname "Donnie Baseball"), Will Clark, Magglio Ordonez, Jeff Conine, Tony Oliva, Matt Holliday and Keith Hernandez.

Only Puckett is in the Hall, although Oliva and Hernandez, his New York contemporary to whom he is so often compared (right down to also having his career cut short by a back injury), arguably should be; while Holliday is still active and could get himself into consideration. The others all fall short. So does Mattingly: He is not a Hall-of-Famer, neither in fact nor in evidence.

2. Tino Martinez, 1996-2001, with a brief comeback in 2005. The Bamtino ahead of Donnie Baseball? Blasphemy! No, it's not, and I'll give you 4 reasons why: 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000. In 1997 -- oddly, not one of the Yanks' Pennant years -- he had 141 RBIs, and his 44 homers were the most by a Yankee between Roger Maris (and Mickey Mantle) in 1961 and Alex Rodriguez in 2005.

The Tampa native hit 339 home runs, 192 as a Yankee. And he hit 2 of the most dramatic homers in Yankee history, the grand slam that won Game 1 of the 1998 World Series, and the homer that sent Game 4 of the 2001 Series to extra innings.

Tino will never make the Hall of Fame. Baseball-Reference.com lists his "10 Most Similar Batters" as Lee May, Gil Hodges, George Foster, Paul Konerko, Boog Powell, Joe Adcock, Jack Clark, Willie Horton, Norm Cash and Derrek Lee. Konerko has a shot at the Hall, and Hodges should be in, but none of the others ever will be.

Tino was the 1st player of the Joe Torre Dynasty to get a Monument Park Plaque, although his Number 24 remains in circulation. (At this point, it certainly won't be retired for Robinson Canó.) As much as anyone else, he was one of the guys who got the Yankees over the hump in 1996, and kept them there into the dawn of the 21st Century.

1. Lou Gehrig, 1923-39. When Major League Baseball and MasterCard held the balloting for the All-Century Team in 1999, Gehrig got the most votes. Even more than Babe Ruth.

How do you briefly sum up the greatest baseball player to actually come from New York City? (He grew up in Harlem, when it was still full of white German immigrants.) Said All-Century Team. Hall of Fame. His Number 4 was the 1st to be retired in all of baseball. A Monument -- not a Plaque -- in Monument Park. He was the 1st Yankee to win the Triple Crown. Illness stopped him just short of 500 homers and 2,000 RBI.

His brief callup in 1923 did not allow him to play in that year's World Series, but he played for the Yankees in 7 World Series (1926, '27, '28, '32, '36, '37 and '38), winning all but the first and as Captain for the last 4 of those. Moreover, when people think "Yankee Captain," the first name that comes to mind is not Derek Jeter or Thurman Munson, it's Lou Gehrig.

That's almost certainly due to the film The Pride of the Yankees starring Gary Cooper. The film doesn't really hold up well: Cooper looked like Gehrig, but didn't sound like him, and had never played baseball in his life, while it's not really a movie about a baseball player, it's a love story between Lou and Eleanor (played by Teresa Wright), and the leading man's job happened to be that of baseball player.

But the story is timeless, because Lou was timeless. The Iron Horse still runs, if only in our memories. A person would have to be about 85 years old now to have seen him play. But because of the movie, and because the Yankees have been so good at presenting their history, this man who died 75 years ago this June is still with us. Lou Gehrig lives.

Top 5 Reasons the All-Star Home Run Derby Needs to Stop

5. It's tainted. Let's get the obvious one out of the way first. The steroid revelations have put a cloud over the home run that the meanest of protests from John McGraw and Ty Cobb against Babe Ruth could ever do.

It has been won 9 times by a player a steroid user either caught (Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, David Ortiz -- in his case after he was revealed to have been caught), confessed (Wally Joyner, Mark McGwire), or seriously suspected (Juan Gonzalez, Sammy Sosa, Luis Gonzalez).

How many times, Ed Rooney? "Nine times!"

4. The winners often get hurt. From a Yankee perspective, this happened to Jason Giambi after he won it in 2002. It also happened to not-yet-Yankee Bobby Abreu when he won it in 2005.

3. It's a one-dimensional competition. The NHL doesn't get much right in its All-Star Weekend, but it has a skills competition that involves hardest shot, most accurate shot, and fastest skater. Does baseball have a hitting to all fields competition? A fielding skills competition? A running competition? A pitching for speed or accuracy competition? No.

2. Where are the stars? I understand putting in guys who are having great home-run seasons this season, like Jose Bautista and Adrian Gonzalez.

But... Robinson Cano? I love the guy, but he's a well-rounded player who's not known for either the number or the distance of his home runs. Prince Fielder is in it, but neither of the Phillies' big boomers, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, is. I understand that Josh Hamilton has a good reason not to participate this time, and that Alex Rodriguez is hurt and Albert Pujols is still working his way back in from injury.

But the biggest name other than those who's in it is... David Ortiz? And he's the American League's Captain in this contest? So MLB is rewarding him for hitting a lot of home runs, for long distance, and in big moments -- which we now know he did by cheating, and getting caught, and lying about it, thus getting exposed as a liar and a cheater.

If this were my childhood, it would be like Reggie Jackson, Johnny Bench and Mike Schmidt not appearing, while Graig Nettles, who led the AL with 32 in 1976 and finished 2nd to Jim Rice the next year with 37, but had already been caught "corking" his bat with Super Balls, being allowed in. Along with the rather surly Dave Kingman, who at least qualified on length and frequency.

Or, if this were 50 years ago, having Roger Maris, but Mickey Mantle being hurt, Willie Mays not bothering to show up, Hank Aaron not being invited (at that point in his career, he was considered more likely to bat .400 than to hit 500 home runs, let alone 715), and being left with... (consults the list of players on the 1960 TV show titled Home Run Derby)... Bob Cerv, Gus Triandos and Wally Post. Good players, but hardly among the first few names you'd think of. Come to think of it, Post would have been an improvement on some of the 2011 participants.

In essence, the Home Run Derby has become MLB's answer to the NBA All-Star Game's Slam Dunk Contest. Which was played out long before the NBA's best dunkers started dropping out of it.

1. It lends it self to flukes. I can't say it's ever been won by a bad hitter, or a guy who "didn't hit home runs." But of the 25 times it's been held, the average number of career home runs by the winner has been 409. Not 500, and not that much over 400. Taking out Ryan Howard, who at age 31 has 268 and will almost certainly be a threat to reach 500; Prince Fielder, who at 27 has 213 and will also probably make a serious run at 500; the average becomes 424. But this still includes such winners as:

* Justin Morneau, 2008, who has 185 at age 30, which gives him a shot at 400, but not 500.

* Wally Joyner, 1986, who, to be fair, probably looked like a threat for 500 at the time, but ended up with just 204.

* Bobby Abreu, 2005, who, while a very good hitter for average, currently has 277, and at age 37 has to worry about topping 300, let alone 400.

* Eric Davis, 1989, a very good all-around player, but not really renowned as a slugger even then, and saw his career ended too soon with injuries, and finished with 282.

* Ryne Sandberg, 1990, except for the injuries fits the same description as Davis -- right down to the exact number, 282.

* Garret Anderson, 2003, another pretty good player, but hardly a Hall-of-Famer like Sandberg, or a guy who might have made it if not for injuries like Davis, who finished with 287.

* Miguel Tejada, 2004, who got caught using steroids, and still has 302, and at 37 is unlikely to add a lot more.

* Luis Gonzalez, 2001, who retired with 354 homers -- 57 of them that season, and his best total other than that was 31. He has publicly denied using steroids, but who's kidding who? He wasn't the only '01 Diamondback to be suspected, and a couple have confessed. The Yankees would like that 2001 title back.

* David Ortiz, 2010, who, in spite of his proven blatant cheating, has (for the moment) just 368 home runs -- less than Red Sox icons Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, even Dwight Evans.

So what is winning the Home Run Derby really worth? Heck, when Morneau won it in 2008, the guy they were really talking about is the one he beat out for the title, Josh Hamilton. He's 30, but has only 104 -- and I'll be shocked if he reaches 400, and he may not even get to 300.

The Home Run Derby is like fireworks on the 4th of July: It's flashy, but it's not what the celebrations are all about, and can come back to burn you. And, unlike said fireworks, really adds noting the the festivities.

As Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, of the Washington Post and ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, would say, the Home Run Derby is in a gots to go situation.

Top 10 Yankee First Basemen

The batteries are done. As Tony Reali would say on ESPN, Let's go around the horn!

Honorable Mention to Bob Watson. He was only a Yankee for 2 seasons and the start of a 3rd, 1980-82, but batted .307 in '80, his only full season in The Bronx, and was the general manager who built the 1996 World Champions.

10. Mark Teixeira, 2009-present. He'll be 31 shortly after Opening Day, and has had only 2 full seasons in Pinstripes. But they've been fantastic seasons: In 2009, he led the AL with 39 homers and 122 RBIs, batting .292; in 2010, he dipped to .256, but still hit 33 homers with 108 RBIs. That's 72 homers as a Yankee, 275 overall. His 2 100-RBI seasons with the Yankees makes 7 overall. His OPS+ was 141in '09 and 125 in '10, and it's 134 for his career.

It's too early to say that he'll get Number 25 retired, a Plaque in Monument Park, and election to the Hall of Fame. But I wouldn't bet against any of those.

9. Johnny Mize, 1949-53. He put up big numbers for the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Giants before being acquired by the Yanks, and at age 36, most people thought he was done. Manager Casey Stengel thought otherwise, and the Big Cat was an All-Star twice more, with a 116 OPS+ as a Yankee. (That's well below his career OPS+ of 158, which got him, albeit belatedly, into the Hall of Fame.)

He was with the Yankees 5 seasons, and they won the World Series all 5. He wore Number 10 as a Cardinal, 3 as a Giant before going off to World War II and 15 after coming back. As a Yankee, he wore 36, probably the best Yankee to wear the number until David Cone.

8. Wally Pipp, 1915-25. He's remembered today as the man whose headache -- possibly as a result of getting beaned in those pre-batting helmet days -- allowed Lou Gehrig to step in and not miss a game for 14 years. This led to anyone thinking about asking for a day off to worry about "getting pipped." It's not fair, because Pipp was, by the standards of his time, a very good player.

He led the AL in home runs in 1916 and '17 -- albeit, in those last few years of the Dead Ball Era, with 12 and 9 homers in those seasons. He led the AL with 19 triples in 1924, his last full season as a Yankee. He batted .300 3 times and just missed 2 others. He hit 311 doubles despite playing his last game at age 35 (he closed his career with the Cincinnati Reds from 1926 to '28) and in the parks of the time, most of which had faraway center field fences.

And, yes, he helped the Yankees win the 1921 and '22 Pennants and the '23 World Series. He is worth remembering, and for his presence, not just his absence, whatever the real cause.

7. Chris Chambliss, 1974-79. The 1971 AL Rookie of the Year came to the Yankees on April 26, 1974 in a controversial trade that sent 4 party-boy pitchers to the Cleveland Indians. With Watergate in the headlines, some called the trade the Friday Night Massacre. But it was a great trade: None of the guys going to Cleveland did anything for the Indians, while the Yankees got Chambliss and Dick Tidrow, a versatile pitcher without whom the 1976, '77 and '78 Pennants would not have been won.

Nor would they have been won without Chambliss. He gave the Yankees their first really reliable 1st baseman since Moose Skowron -- say what you want about Joe Pepitone, but "reliable" is not an adjective that comes to mind. You need 17 homers in a season? You need 90 RBIs? You need a good glove at 1st? Chambliss was your man.

He was an All-Star in 1976, and he gave the season its exclamation point on October 14, hitting a home run to win Game 5 of the ALCS and then Pennant over the Kansas City Royals. He also hit a home run that tied Game 6 of the 1977 World Series, setting up The Reggie Jackson Show. Speaking of Reggie, he was in the ABC booth for that '76 ALCS, assisting Keith Jackson and Howard Cosell, and he said it was a shame that there was no MVP award for the ALCS at the time: Chambliss batted .512 with 2 homers and 8 RBIs, meaning that if the award had been in place, he might have won it even without his capper. Overall, he batted .282 as a Yankee, and his career postseason average was nearly identical, .281. He hit 185 homers, 79 as a Yankee.

The Yankees sent him to the Toronto Blue Jays after the 1979 season, to get Rick Cerone to fill the catching void caused by the death of Thurman Munson, while Watson came in to play 1st in 1980 and '81. But the Jays foolishly traded Chambliss to the Atlanta Braves for outfielder Barry Bonnell, who did nothing in Toronto. Chambliss helped the Braves win the NL West in 1982 (their only postseason appearance from 1969 to 1991), and forged a friendship with manager Joe Torre that led to being hired as Torre's hitting instructor when he managed the St. Louis Cardinals and later the Yankees.

Chambliss was recently hired as the hitting instructor for the Seattle Mariners. His Number 10 has been retired by the Yankees, albeit for Phil Rizzuto. But he should be remembered as a fine player, and not just for one amazing moment, a hot bat on a cold night in The Bronx.

6. Joe Pepitone, 1962-69. The Brooklyn native played his last big-league game at age 32. He said that once his father, his biggest fan, died, he began to lose interest. Clearly, he was one of these guys who was more interested in being a star than in being a great athlete. He knew he'd blown it: He titled his memoir Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud.

He sure could have. After a cup of coffee in '62, the Yankees traded Moose Skowron to make room for him, and, for a while, it worked. He was an All-Star the next 3 seasons, helping the Yankees win Pennants in '63 and '64, hitting a grand slam in Game 6 of the '64 Series.

But that was the high-water mark, and he was only 24. Despite 3 Gold Gloves and 219 homers (166 as a Yankee), Joe played himself out of baseball, and I don't mean on the field: Times Square when he was with the Yankees, Rush Street when he was with the Chicago Cubs, and the Ginza in his brief, scandalous (over there, anyway) tenure in Japan. His post-baseball life has had its difficulties as well. He now lives on Long Island, and has kept his nose (and liver) clean for about 15 years.

Fast facts with which you can amaze your friends: Like John Lennon, Joe Pepitone was born on October 9, 1940, made his "big-league debut" in 1962, was a huge star by 1964, but left his "group" in 1969. Too bad Joe never found his "Yoko": He's been divorced 3 times. But at least he's alive, which is not true of John, and back in the good graces of Yankee management, for whom he does public-relations work. He will never get a Monument Park Plaque, or Number 25 retired in his honor. But he's doing okay now, and that's not something that could always be said of him.

5. Jason Giambi, 2002-08. Okay, the Giambino, shall we say, had help. Unlike those lying and cheating bastards David Ortiz, Mark McGwire, Ivan Rodriguez and Luis Gonzalez, all of whom contributed to Yankee postseason defeats, Giambi was man enough to admit it and stop.

He recently turned 40, and re-signed with the Colorado Rockies, so they, as well as he, think he's not done yet. He has 415 career home runs, 209 with the Yankees. He helped the Yankees to the postseason 6 straight times, and his 2 homers kept the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS against the Roid Sox long enough for the alleged Curse of the Bambino to work one last time. (Unless you count that 13-inning dance of death of July 1, 2004, featuring Derek Jeter flying into the stands -- and I don't count it as part of The Curse.)

He hit at least 30 homers in 5 Yankee seasons, and had 100 or more RBIs in 3. He's a 5-time All-Star, 3 as a Yankee. He flopped in the '03 World Series (.235) and the '06 ALDS (.125), but overall he's got a .911 OPS in postseason play.

He'll never make the Hall of Fame or Monument Park, and his Number 25 stands a much better chance of being retired for Teixeira than for Giambi (or Pepitone), but it's unfair to call Giambi's tenure in Pinstripes a failure. After all, he was better over those particular seasons than Tino Martinez was.

4. Bill "Moose" Skowron, 1954-62.  The nickname had nothing to do with his size: As a kid, he got a crewcut, and someone said it made him look like Benito Mussolini. He still has a crewcut today, only now his hairline has receded to the point where it looks okay.

A 6-time All-Star, he hit 211 home runs (165 as a Yankee) in spite of playing his entire career in pitcher's parks, particularly as a right-handed hitter in the pre-renovation Yankee Stadium, with its 402 feet to straightaway left, 457 to left-center and 461 to center. In spite of those dimensions, Moose still hit 28 home runs in 1961 -- joining with Roger Maris' 61 and Mickey Mantle's 54 to produce 143 home runs, still the highest total ever by 3 teammates. He was also a great fielder for a big man.

He won 8 Pennants (1955, '56, '57, '58, '60, '61, '62 and '63 -- the last after being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers to make room for Pepitone) and 5 World Championships (1956, '58, '61, '62 and '63 -- 4 with the Yanks, 1 with the Dodgers). He is also one of the few players to hit World Series home runs for both leagues, including a grand slam in Game 7 of the '56 Series against the Dodgers in the last postseason game ever played in Brooklyn.

Moose, once again living near his native Chicago, is a member of the National Polish-American Hall of Fame -- that's for all walks of life, not just sports. Na zdrowie, Moose. I have another reason for liking him: We share a birthday, December 18, albeit 39 years apart.

(Another player with that birthday, Gino Cimoli, died this week. He was an outfielder who hit 40 doubles for the '59 Cards, and his 15 triples for the Kansas City Athletics led the AL in '62.)

3. Don Mattingly, 1982-95. Only Number 3? This is the New York Yankees. We are about winning World Championships. He never even won a postseason series. Donnie Regular Season Baseball.

But if I'm going to be completely fair, I not only have to say all of that, but I have to say all of this: The guy did more than anybody in those years to get the Yankees there, and, talk of mythical sports-related curses aside, it wasn't his fault that it didn't happen.

His 145 RBI in 1985 were the most by a Yankee since Joe DiMaggio in 1948. His .352 batting average in 1986, although not enough to win the AL batting title as his .343 was in 1984, is the highest by a Yankee in a full season since Mickey Mantle in 1956. (Paul O'Neill batted .359 in strike-shortened 1994.) His 238 hits in 1986 are a Yankee record (breaking the 231 by Earle Combs in 1927). He's probably the best-fielding 1st baseman in Yankee history (although see Wally Pipp above), winning 9 Gold Gloves.

No, he never won a World Series, a Pennant, or a postseason series. And he was far from, as Michael Kay of the YES Network puts it, "the most popular athlete in New York history." But Don Mattingly earned his Monument Park Plaque and the retirement of his Number 23.

2. Tino Martinez, 1996-2001, with a brief comeback in 2005. The Bamtino ahead of Donnie Baseball? Blasphemy! No, it's not, and I'll give you 4 reasons why: 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000. In 1997 -- oddly, not one of the Yanks' Pennant years -- he had 141 RBIs, and his 44 homers were the most by a Yankee between Roger Maris (and Mickey Mantle) in 1961 and Alex Rodriguez in 2005. He hit 339 home runs, 192 as a Yankee. And he hit 2 of the most dramatic homers in Yankee history, the grand slam that won Game 1 of the 1998 World Series, and the homer that sent Game 4 of the 2001 Series to extra innings.

Tino will never make the Hall of Fame. Baseball-Reference.com lists his "10 Most Similar Batters" as Lee May, Gil Hodges, George Foster, Paul Konerko, Boog Powell, Joe Adcock, Jack Clark, Willie Horton, Norm Cash and Derrek Lee. Konerko has a shot at the Hall (he'll be 35 in March and already has 365 homers despite playing his entire career in pitcher's parks), and Hodges should be in, but none of the others ever will be. And at the rate Robinson Cano is going, he's a much more likely candidate to get Number 24 retired for him.

But Tino deserves a Monument Park Plaque. As much as anyone else, he was one of the guys who got the Yankees over the hump in 1996, and kept them there into the dawn of the 21st Century.

1. Lou Gehrig, 1923-39. When Major League Baseball and MasterCard did the balloting for the All-Century Team in 1999, Gehrig got the most votes. Even more than Babe Ruth.

How do you sum up Gehrig briefly? Said All-Century Team. Hall of Fame. His Number 4 was the first to be retired in all of baseball. A Monument -- not a Plaque -- in Monument Park. First Yankee to win the Triple Crown.

Illness stopped him just short of 500 homers and 2,000 RBI. His brief callup in 1923 did not allow him to play in that year's World Series, but he played for the Yankees in 7 World Series (1926, '27, '28, '32, '36, '37 and '38), winning all but the 1st and as Captain for the last 4 of those. Moreover, when people think "Yankee Captain," the 1st name that comes to mind is not Derek Jeter or Thurman Munson or, God forbid, Mattingly: It's Lou Gehrig.

That's almost certainly due to the film The Pride of the Yankees starring Gary Cooper. The film doesn't really hold up well: Cooper looked like Gehrig, but didn't sound like him, and had never played baseball in his life. While it's not really a movie about a baseball player, it's a love story between Lou and Eleanor (played by Teresa Wright), and the leading man's job happened to be that of baseball player.

But the story is timeless, because Lou was timeless. The Iron Horse still runs, if only in our memories. A person would have to be about 75 years old now to have seen him play, and closer to 80 to remember him at his peak. But because of the movie, and because the Yankees have been so good at presenting their history, this man who died 70 years ago this June is still with us. Lou Gehrig lives.

Jason Giambi: What Is His Legacy?

Before I go back to gloating over the disintegation of the Red Sox, their postseason chances, and the long-term reputation of their 2003-09 team with their 2 phony World Championships, I need to say something about Jason Giambi.

After 8 turbulent years with the Yankees, the Giambino went back to the Oakland Athletics this season. In 98 games, he hit 11 home runs, but batted just .198, and they released him. He's 38. Whether he's done is not quite clear, but what is clear is that the 2 teams with whom he's spent his entire career no longer want him. Unclear is who would want him.

A broken-down, heavy 1st baseman with a checkered past, and occasionally a bad attitude, plenty of power but strikes out too much, no speed and not much defense... Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I'm thinking Jason Giambi may be about to meet the Mets!

If Giambi isn't done, then done is now within view. Chances are, his career stats are not going to improve by much, so let's examine them:

15 seasons.
Lifetime batting average, .282. Good, but hardly great.
Four times batting over .300, with a peak of .342.
On-base percentage, .405. Very good.
Slugging percentage, .527. Great.
OPS, .932. Very good.
OPS+, 143. Great.
Hits, 1,864. Good, but not even very good.
Eight times hit at least 30 home runs in a season; three times, 40; peak, 43.
Seven times at least 100 RBIs, including six straight; peak, 137.
Five times hit at least 30 doubles; peak, 47.

Seven seasons of 100 or more strikeouts -- but also seven seasons of 100 or more walks, which explains why his batting average isn't Hall of Fame-worthy but his on-base percentage is.

Five-time All-Star. Nice, but hardly evocative of HOF worthiness.

Most Valuable Player in the American League in 2000, and finished 2nd in the voting in 2001.

Postseason play: Reached Playoffs 8 seasons, all in a row: 2000 and 2001 with Oakland, 2002 through 2007 with the Yankees. Won Pennant with Yankees in 2003. Batted .289, on-base .405, slugged .489, OPS 909, 7 homers, 18 RBIs, in 42 games. Batted .286 and .353 in his two postseason appearances for the A's, so don't blame him for their losses. Nor for the Yanks' loss in the 2002 ALDS, when he hit .357. Batted .231 in the 2003 ALCS, but hit 2 homers in Game 7, making the 4 straight doubles of the 8th inning and Aaron Boone's homer in the 11th possible. But, in his only World Series appearance, batted .235 with just 1 RBI, on a solo homer. His various ailments kept him off the 2004 postseason roster entirely, not the biggest reason the Yankees didn't win the Pennant but a noticeable one. Batted .421 in the 2005 ALDS, but just .125 in the 2006 ALDS. Overall postseason record: Mixed, and except for one game not especially heroic. In other words, he doesn't help himself much here.

In an entry on June 26, 2008, I tried to judge Giambi's worthiness based on his career home run total, then at 381, comparing it to other players, both in the Hall and not. Let's try it again, with his current (final?) total:

Home runs, 407. Same number as Duke Snider. Looking at other players in the Hall of Fame, that's more than Al Kaline, George Brett, Rickey Henderson, Robin Yount, Roberto Clemente and Paul Molitor -- but those guys all had over 3,000 hits.

It's more than Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Yogi Berra, Gary Carter, Roy Campanella, Gabby Hartnett, Bill Dickey and Ernie Lombardi -- but those guys were catchers.

It's more than Ryne Sandberg, Joe Morgan and Brooks Robinson -- but those guys were elected for their defense as much as for their offense.

It's more than Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Mize and Hank Greenberg -- but those guys each missed 3, and in Hank's case 4 , seasons due to serving in World War II.

It's more than Orlando Cepeda, Ralph Kiner, Kirby Puckett and Joe Medwick -- but those guys, as well as Campanella, DiMaggio and Greenberg, had their careers shortened by injuries.

It's more than Hack Wilson -- but he shortened his own career with alcoholism, and he's really only in the Hall because of one season, 1930, when he set a National League record with 56 home runs (presumably only broken by Ryan Howard with 58, unless he proves dirty, too) and a major league record with 191 RBIs.

It's more than Al Simmons, Rogers Hornsby, Chuck Klein, Earl Averill and Jim Bottomley -- but those guys started out before the Lively Ball Era really took hold; and besides, Simmons and Hornsby had almost 3,000 hits, Hornsby batted .358 lifetime, and Klein was a lefthanded hitter who had a 280-foot right-field fence at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, something even Giambi didn't have at Yankee Stadium (314 at the time).

And it's more than Larry Doby -- but, like Campy, he was elected with the full knowledge that he missed some potentially big seasons due to the color line.

That leaves Tony Perez and the newly-inducted Jim Rice -- and would you take Jason Giambi over either of them? Even if you didn't know about his, uh, problem?

We know Giambi used steroids. He apologized -- without really admitting. Do we take that into consideration?

Here's my take on Giambi, and what I think should be Yankee Fans' take on him: He does not deserve the Hall of Fame, or Monument Park, or even, though his story is compelling, a Yankeeography.

But he was a really good hitter for a long time, even without steroids. And he never acted like an ass, which is not something you can say about a lot of players, not that I'm going to mention any names, not even the one who hit the 15th inning homer to win it last night.

For the Yankees, the Giambi experiment failed. But that doesn't mean he was a failure. He had a fun career, and that's more than we mere mortals who were not blessed with that kind of talent can ever have.

And Giambi appreciates this. For that, alone, he has my appreciation, and (sometimes) my respect. Not a bad legacy to have.

Time for Yanks to Make Their Move

I'm getting concerned about Edwar Ramirez. He turned what should have been an easy Yankee win today into a typical Yankee-Oriole 4-hour slugfest. In the 1st half of the season, he looked like a potential Mariano successor. Now he's starting to look like Paul Quantrill.

And again, Darrell Rasner didn't get out of the 5th. So he won't be in the postseason rotation.

That's the bad news. The good news:

We swept on the road. Yes, it was Baltimore, or as Michael Kay calls it, "the Really South Bronx." But the O's have been a pain in the neck the last few years.

A-Rod, Giambi and Cano, all of whom have been rightfully ripped and needed to step it up, have. Cano was 3-for-4 today, with 2 doubles, and his homer in the 7th made the difference in the 8-7 game.

Xavier Nady continues to make the Mets look like fools for letting him go. And when it comes to looking like fools, the Mets don't need any help: They are quite capable of doing that for themselves.

And we gained a game on Tampa, finally. Thank you, White Sox.

Next up, the Dark Side. The Red Sox. Wonder if Lindsay has taken little Carla Yastrzemski Wrightman and left Ben with his real "life-partners," Troy, Gerard and The Bald Anesthesiologist?

This is the time to make the move. Especially since Josh Beckett won't be pitching in this series.

*

Speaking of whom: Beckett has been said to have "tingling" in his arm. That could be a lot worse than a mere baseball injury. David Cone had that in 1996, and it turned out to be an aneurysm. He came back and was a World Series hero -- not just that year, but four times. But it could have been the end of his career. Even his life.

The Sox doctors better be absolutely sure this is nothing like that before they send Beckett out there again. Especially since he's already won two World Series, one with them: Another isn't worth risking his life. The Red Sox will probably still be contenders next year if he's healthy (especially since he does much better in odd-numbered years, like Bret Saberhagen used to). No need to roll those dice, unless and until you know this is not a life-threatening condition.

(UPDATE: It wasn't something life-threatening.)

*

The Mets. Does anybody still think they're a postseason team? I mean, the Astros ain't that good. No way they should take 2 of 3 in Flushing. And they would have swept the Mets if Jerry Manuel hadn't let The Great Johan Santana throw a complete game Friday night. (Still, the Mets didn't pay for 12-7, did they?)

*

Shawn Merriman, the controversial linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, has a torn-up knee. He may be out for the season. If so, the Chargers, a lot of people's pick to be a serious Super Bowl contender, can forget about it.

Is this injury the result of his past... steroid use? Or has Bill Belichick hired Tonya Harding and her goons?

*

A baseball team losing 1-0 is disappointing, but usually not lousy. A soccer team losing 1-0 on the road, even to a crosstown rival, is disappointing, but this early in the season, it's hardly a crisis. But Arsenal did just that at Fulham yesterday.

The Gunners need midfield help, as soon as possible, if not sooner.

So why did they lose to an apparently inferior club? Maybe they were Tottenham in disguise.

No, I take that back! I'm sorry! That was over the line! (Too bad the Gunners didn't put 2 "footballs" over the line!)

Incidentally, the name of Fulham's home ground is misplaced. "Craven Cottage" more accurately describes the owner's box at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge.

UPDATE: Later in the season, Arsenal faced Fulham again, at the Emirates, and it was a turgid 0-0 draw. And the Arsenal fans booed their own players off the pitch.

This got their attention, and they played much better for the rest of the season, eventually reaching 3rd place, and the Semifinals of both the FA Cup and the Champions League.

*

(This was the first time I ever did the countdown on this blog.)

Days until Rutgers kicks off: 8.

Days until East Brunswick kicks off: 19.

Days until the last regular-season game at Yankee Stadium: 28. (Sob... )

Days until the Devils drop the puck: 45. (Days until the Rangers suck: 0, always 0!)

Days until the Nets' next-to-last season in New Jersey begins: I don't give a damn anymore. Let them move. There was never any point in rooting for them anyway. So who's my favorite NBA team now?

Do I have to have one? I don't know...

Sometimes it seems like I don't know anything anymore.

But I will always know more than Met fans, and Ranger fans, and Penn State fans, and Man U fans, and people from Old Bridge.

Hit Or Sit

Once again, that the Yankees were playing a good team -- the Minnesota Twins got back into 1st place in the American League Central Division with this win and the Chicago White Sox' loss, and thanks a lot for rolling over against Boston, Ozzie Guillen -- is irrelevant. That Glen Perkins pitched a shutout in the supposed Homerdome is irrelevant.

These are the New York Yankees: Their hallmark is hitting the tar out of the ball.

Let's see what we got: Two hits from Bobby Abreu, one from "the third baseman," one from Robinson Cano, 3 walks, and 2 double plays. On a night when Sidney Ponson gives up only 2 runs over his first 5, 3 over his first 7.

You can't waste pitching like that, but this is the 3rd straight time the Yankees have. Which goes to show that whoever said pitching was 75 percent of baseball was wrong.

I remembered Billy Martin pulling a lineup out of a hat, and a big winning streak resulted. He did it because his mentor Casey Stengel once did it to get the Yanks out of a similar slump. It worked wonders in the Fifties for Casey and in the Seventies for Billy.

I decided to try it myself, to see if I could shake things up... but the first name I pulled out was Giambi. Jason Giambi, hitting leadoff? As Yogi Berra would've said if he'd thought of it first, even when he could run, he couldn't run. So much for that idea.

Vince Lombardi told the 1-10-1 Packers he inherited in 1959, "We may not win, but we won't be losing with the same people."

It's time for Girardi to go into beast mode. Everybody's got a clean slate, but from this point forward, anybody who doesn't produce gets benched.

If that means A-Rod takes A-Seat, it's still A-Great Idea. If that means the Captain gets court-martialed for a day, sorry, Derek, but hit and it won't happen to you. Show them that nobody -- but nobody -- is untouchable. Same goes for the bullpen: If the bullpen had done its job on Saturday and Sunday, the Yankees beat the Angels both times, and we're only 2 games behind the Idiots and well within range of the Frauds.

If the Yankees are going to put pressure on Boston and Tampa, they've got to put pressure on themselves first. Hank, Joe... It's up to you.

Credit the Opposition? No, Chew Out Your Own Team!

So the Yankees get 2 strong starting pitching performances. And they were within 1 run in all 3 games. And yet they not only lost all 3, but got blown out in the first 2.

I could just credit the Los Angeles Angels of Katella Boulevard, Anaheim, Orange County, California, etc., etc., etc.... for being a smart, tough, talented team that knows how to win and shows a lot of character and have earned the consensus pick as the team that has the best chance to win this year's World Series. Certainly, they earned these 3 games. Certainly, they were at home. Certainly, for as long as I can remember, the Yankees have had trouble winning in Anaheim Stadium. (Or whatever they're calling it this year. Will you guys pick a name for your team and a name for your stadium and stick with it?)

Yes, I could credit the Angels.

To hell with crediting the opposition. I've got to do what Joe Girardi is already doing, and what Hank Steinbrenner needs to do, since it's worked 3 times already this season: Chew out my team!

The Yankees need to start hitting like Yankees. Jason Giambi was on a hot streak, but he's tailing off a little, and swinging at some truly awful pitches. It needs to stop.

Derek Jeter is stuck in the .280s, and while that's good, "good" is not good enough. Time to step up and lead, "Captain."

Bobby Abreu is falling into the trap of last year: When he hits, we win; when he doesn't, we lose. Bobby, if you want to be here next year, start hitting in the rest of this year.

Wilson Betemit has got to go: He has given the Yanks very little since he arrived.

The key, of course, is the $275 Million Man. At the risk of sounding like a scene from that horror film Fever Pitch...

Alex, I already know I like August Guy, but you're turning into October Guy again, and I don't like you as October Guy. I want you to play like August Guy all season long, including in October. But in order to get to October, you need to stop hitting like a guy who's got 543 career home runs (i.e. is nearing the end of a glorious career) and start hitting like a guy who's got something to prove -- which, in case you've forgotten, Mr. Ciccone-in-training, you do.

The Yankees move on to Minnesota to play 3 against the Twins, who are in the thick of the AL Central and Wild Card races despite having traded The Great Johan Santana to the Mutts and having pretty much lost Nelson Liriano to injury again. I am really impressed with them, and while the Yankees are one of the few teams that seems to play well in the Metrodome, we've got Sidney Ponson going tonight.

Your Uncle Mike tells you that Sidney Ponson is like a box of chocolates: He can be delicious, or he can be messy and nuts. The Twins have Glen Perkins, who I never heard of before, but he's 8-3 and doesn't walk guys. I'm not feeling it today.

Good Trade, Better Win vs. BoSox

Ross Ohlendorf is gone? You know the old saying: "Great trade! Who'd we get?"

Ohlendorf gone: Good.

Jose Tabata gone: Not impressed with him, though he could probably start for the Pittsburgh Pirates right now, a far cry from the team whose outfield has had, at various times in its history, Jake Beckley, Fred Clarke, Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner, Ralph Kiner, Roberto Clemente, Bill Virdon, Richie Zisk, Dave Parker, Barry Bonds (when he was skinny, honest and good) and Brian Giles. The other two guys: Why should Yankee Fans care?

Xavier Nady: An OK player, but now he's got a chance that he didn't have as a Met: The chance to win a Pennant in New York.

Damaso Marte: If he does for the Yanks what he did for the Pirates, it's a good trade. Joel Sherman of the Post was right when he spoke on Channel 9 after the game: If this trade does what the Yankees expect, and all they gave up was four guys they won't miss, then it's the Yanks who were the "pirates."

Of course, in the 8th tonight, once again, Kyle Farm-him-out made me wish he was the one who'd been traded. But Mo got a 5-out save. That might mean he can't go tomorrow... So we'll just have to be leading by more than 3 runs in the 9th.

Joba provided the high cheese, and Kevin Youkilis provided the whine. Shut up, Red Sox: You bums have plunked our guys plenty of times. If Joba really wanted to hurt you, he would have hurt you. Mike Lowell, it was a perfect pitch. In case you didn't notice, it was from Mariano Rivera, the best pitcher you'll ever see.

Of the 3 games in this series, this is the one I wanted the most. I wanted to beat that punk Beckett. Actually, he was really solid tonight. The reason he lost is that Jason Giambi finally figured out that the shift can be beaten. No one to blame for this loss, Sox fans: The better team won. Not by much, but by enough.

Goodbye, My Love: My Last Game at the Real Yankee Stadium

On May 27, 1978, I attended my 1st Major League Baseball game, at the closest big-league ballpark to my home, Yankee Stadium.

It didn't turn out so well: The New York Yankees lost 4-1 to the Toronto Blue Jays, a 2nd-year expansion team. They ended up winning the World Series anyway, and Yankee Stadium became a home away from home for me.

On July 20, 2008, 30 years later, I attended my last game at the original Yankee Stadium.

At least, I'm presuming it will be the last. There are 29 home games left in the regular season, but tickets are few and far between.

As with a few other parks -- including Boston's Fenway Park and Chicago's Wrigley Field, built prior to World War I and now about to be the last remaining parks built before the Space Age -- you come out of the public transportation system, and you see guys talking about tickets: "You buying? You buying?" When you say no, they switch to, "You selling? You selling?" Not this time: It was all, "Anybody got any extra tickets?"

I went up on Saturday, because the Yankees were playing the Oakland Athletics, formerly the Philadelphia Athletics, one of the oldest franchises in the American League, going back to the League's founding in 1901, although they've been in their current city only since 1968.

Still, my initial plan this season was to see 7 games, one against each of the other 7 franchises that were around at the AL's founding. But the schedule wouldn't permit it: I got one in against the Detroit Tigers, but I missed the Cleveland Indians' only visit of the year, so I focused on seeing an old club for my last game.

The Saturday game was sold out except for $400 seats. Four hundred smackers? For that much, I'd better be sitting in the Yankee dugout! Or in the Steinbrenner family's air-conditioned luxury box. (It was 92 degrees, and a dehydration alert was announced, with the locations of "hydration stations" announced.)

I asked what they had for the Sunday game. A $29 seat in the upper deck, right over 1st base. Section 17. Which, I think, was the same section where I saw the 1st game, 30 years ago. Fitting. One might even say I had come full circle. I went for it.

On the way back to the Subway, carrying the envelope with the ticket in it, I must've been asked by about 50 guys, "You got an extra ticket?" They sounded desperate. Were they scalpers, trying to buy my ticket for list price and then selling them back to desperate fans at an outrageous markup? Or were they, themselves, the desperate fans? I'll never know.

It's been said that every man has his price, but I'll never know what mine would have been, because I told them all, "No," or, "Not at any price," or, "Under no circumstances! This is it, my last game at Yankee Stadium!"

So I went back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and back to New Jersey. And the next day, did it all over again.

Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor who spent $50 million on a campaign for President and got exactly 1 delegate, was at the game, and he brought John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona, the man who actually (or, at least, presumptively) has won the Republican nomination for President.

They were shown a couple of times on the DiamondVision board. I yelled down, "Hey, McCain! The A's aren't in Philadelphia anymore!"

They moved to Kansas City while he was at the Naval Academy, and to Oakland while he was in Hanoi. So it's not just a "McCain is so old" joke. Keep in mind, in 1996, Bob Dole was running for President and referred to the Brooklyn Dodgers, who'd moved to Los Angeles almost 40 years earlier.

The game was a tight pitching duel between Andy Pettitte, the longtime Yankee star (with a brief sojourn in his hometown of Houston) who's easily the pitcher I've seen the most live games of, and Justin Dutscherer of the A's.

A week ago, I'd never heard of Dutscherer. Then he pitched here in the All-Star Game, and today he was very strong. But he gave up a home run to ex-A's star Jason Giambi (Fear the 'Stache) in the 6th, a screaming liner into the right field stands (a.k.a. the short porch), giving the Yanks a 2-1 lead.

Andy, who recently turned 36 and has had injuries, was on fire, and not just because of the intense heat: 8 innings, 1 walk, 10 strikeouts. Aside from his great pitching and fielding in Game 5 of the '96 World Series, I don't think I've ever seen him pitch better -- certainly, not live.

There were a couple of bizarre plays in the 9th, but Mariano Rivera closed it out, again.

If there must be a "last game at the original Yankee Stadium" for me, especially considering how hard it would be to get in there again, a game like that is what I would have designed. (Except for the heat.)

I didn't want to leave. I haven't cried after a Yankee loss since the 1981 World Series, but this was the first time I've cried after a Yankee win. Because I knew this was it. I took my camera and snapped a few shots, because, as strange as it may seem, while there are existing photographs of me at other ballparks, there were none of me at Yankee Stadium. Now there are. (Even if they're just computer images at the moment, not yet put on paper.)

I looked out at the new stadium, whose exterior seems to be nearing completion, and spoke to it: "It's nothing personal. You didn't do anything wrong."

I said, "I guess my childhood really is over now."

Then I closed my eyes and said, "Goodbye, my love," and turned around and walked down the ramp.

If this is what I was like for my last live game, what am I going to be like when the real last game is played -- either the regular-season finale, on September 21 against the Baltimore Orioles, or in the postseason?

Or when the day comes when it finally is demolished? Oh, I've got the words for that awful day.

They were provided by Charlton Heston, at the conclusion of the original film version of Planet of the Apes:

Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally, really did it.

You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

*

UPDATE: I was surprisingly calm for the last game, on September 21, 2008. Maybe I would've felt differently if I were there, instead of watching it on TV at home. Even my 1st time at the new Stadium, April 20, 2009, with the old Stadium still standing across the street, I was fine.

But in 2010, seeing the empty space where the old Stadium was, was hard.

Giambi In the Hall? Yeah, Sure! Wait...

Somebody asked me today if I thought Jason Giambi was going to the Hall of Fame. Not as a visitor, but as an elected member.

My 1st reaction was to quote another controversial Yankee, 1960s pitcher Jim Bouton: "Yeah, surrrre!" First of all, the voters would have to get past the steroid question. And then there's his defense, his failures in the clutch, and...

But wait: He has, at this moment, 381 career home runs. Steroids or not, that's nothing to sneeze at. It's more than the following Hall-of-Famers: Orlando Cepeda and Tony Perez with 379, Carlton Fisk 376, Ralph Kiner 369, Joe DiMaggio 361, Johnny Mize 359, Yogi Berra 358, Gary Carter 324, George Brett 317, Al Simmons 307, Rogers Hornsby 301, Chuck Klein 300, Ryne Sandberg 282, Joe Morgan and Brooks Robinson 268, Robin Yount 251, Goose Goslin 248, Hack Wilson 244, Roy Campanella 242, Roberto Clemente 240, Earl Averill 238, Gabby Hartnett 236, Paul Molitor 234, Jim Bottomley 219, Kirby Puckett 207, Joe Medwick 205 and Bill Dickey 202.

Let's get some of the misleading stuff out of the way first:

Cepeda, Kiner, DiMaggio, Wilson, Campanella, Molitor, Puckett and Medwick all missed significant time due to injuries. (In Wilson's case, boozing caused teams to give up on him.) DiMaggio and Mize also missed significant time due to serving in World War II. Perez, Mize, Brett, Simmons, Hornsby, Yount, Goslin, Clemente, Averill, Molitor, Bottomley,

Puckett and Dickey were much more renowned as contact hitters. Dickey, Fisk, Berra, Carter and Hartnett were catchers, who generally don't hit as many home runs anyway, and were elected as much for their defense as for their offense, which was also true of Sandberg and Morgan, and Robinson was elected almost exclusively for his defense, although he did win both regular-season and World Series Most Valuable Player awards, and collected over 2,800 hits despite playing in a pitcher's park, so he was a very good hitter.

That leaves Klein, who had the benefit of a very short right-field fence.

Barring further injury, Giambi will finish with over 400 home runs, maybe 450, but almost certainly not 500, which, prior to the steroid questions, was considered an unofficial "automatic induction." He also won the American League MVP in 2000, and nearly did so again in 2001. He's had 7 seasons of at least 100 RBIs. He's had 4 .300+ seasons.

The players with between 381 and 499 who are in are: Johnny Bench 389, Al Kaline 399, Duke Snider 407, Billy Williams 426, Cal Ripken 431, Carl Yastrzemski 452, Dave Winfield 465, Willie Stargell 475, Stan Musial 475 and Lou Gehrig 493.

Kaline, Ripken, Yaz, Winfield and Musial all have over 3,000 hits. Bench was a catcher and his career was injury-shortened. Snider might not be in if he didn't play in New York. Same with Williams in Chicago. And Stargell and Gehrig were each one of the great power hitters of their or any era.

Players between 381 and 499 who are eligible but not in: Albert Belle 381 (injury-shortened & steroid-tainted), Jim Rice 382 (not enough for a Fenway guy), Frank Howard 382 (huge guy's last good year was at 34, fits the steroid profile even though they almost certainly weren't available, will never get in anyway), Harold Baines 384 (newly eligible, 2,866 hits gives him a shot), Dwight Evans 385 (see answer for Rice, but was also an excellent defensive right fielder), Graig Nettles 390 (not enough for a Yankee Stadium short-porcher, and his .247 BA dooms him, but a great 3rd baseman), Joe Carter 396 (won't get in, not even with the big one he hit), Dale Murphy 398 (not enough for a guy who played in Atlanta's "Launching Pad"), Andres Galarraga 399 (Coors Field and the new Turner Field in Atlanta, not enough), Darrell Evans 414 (.248 BA dooms him), Andre Dawson 438 (would have had 500 if not for injuries, will get in eventually), Dave Kingman 442 (.236 BA is pathetic) and Jose Canseco 462 (even if we didn't know about the steroids, it's his only stat that qualifies him).

Players between 381 and 499 who are not yet eligible: Larry Walker 383 (won't make it), Chipper Jones 402 and counting (might make it), Mike Piazza 427 (also .308 BA, he'll get in), Juan Gonzalez 434 (how do you say "Steroids" in Spanish?), Carlos Delgado 442 and barely counting (2 more good years might have done it), Jeff Bagwell 449 (he'll make it), Gary Sheffield 484 and counting (if they give him a pass on steroids, he's got a shot) and Fred McGriff 493 (eligible in 2 years, tough call since he fell just short of 500, but he did play on a World Series winner in Atlanta).

By that standard, I don't think Giambi makes it, even if we don't consider his steroid use.

But you never know: If he hangs on and helps the Yankees win this year, and they take a chance on him, or someone else does and he helps them win, it could be another answer.

In the meantime, I welcome his resurgence, and hope that he keeps it up through the end of October 2008.

*

UPDATE: Rice, Dawson and Piazza have since been elected. Giambi retired after the 2014 season. He finished with 440 home runs, and a 139 career OPS+ -- meaning that, over the course of his career, he was 39 percent better at producing runs than the average player. He was an All-Star 5 times, but never a Gold Glove winner.

It also didn't help that the Yankees won the World Series the year after he left. He's reached the postseason 9 times, with 3 different teams (2000-01 A's, 2002-07 Yanks, 2009 Rockies), but only won 1 Pennant (2003 Yanks) and never won a World Series.

On its Hall of Fame Monitor, on which a "Likely HOFer" is at 100, Baseball-Reference.com has him at 108, meaning he should get in. But on their Hall of Fame Standards, which is weighted more toward career statistics, and on which the "Average HOFer" is at 50, he's at 44, meaning he falls a bit short.

They have his 10 Most Similar Batters, which is (more or less) weighted toward players of the same position, as Delgado, Paul Konerko, Canseco, Stargell, Willie McCovey, Galarraga, Mark Teixeira, Bagwell, McGriff and Andruw Jones.

Stargell and McCovey are in. Bagwell and McGriff should be. Delgado, Konerko and Jones could be. Canseco, Galarraga and probably Teix never will be. So 2 in, 4 should be, possibly as many as 7.

It's not encouraging. He'll be eligible in the election to be held in January 2020, but, even if HOF voters decide to forgive everybody who used PEDs for using them, he'll never get in. He just doesn't have the numbers or the other achievements.

Now It IS Worse: Changes Must Be Made

First, on Friday night, a rainout. Then, on Saturday afternoon, Andy Pettitte doesn't have it, and the Yankees cannot get enough runs against a Johan Santana who pitched like considerably less than the all-time great that Met fans trumpeted him as. Now, on Sunday night, Chien-Ming Wang's Sinker of Doom doesn't work, the bullpen gets shelled, the Yankees let Oliver Perez embarrass them, and we lose 11-2.

This is the first time in the 12-year Interleague experiment that The Other Team has taken two games of a series at Yankee Stadium.

That was the most disgusting display of baseball ineptitude in the history of the grand old ballpark.

Against the Red Sox in June 1967, getting pounded by bats, beanballs and fists? Understandable, considering how bad the Yankees were at the time.

Against the Blue Jays in May 1978, the first game I ever saw live, blown in the 9th against a second-year expansion team? Well, it was only 4-1.

Against the Indians in September 2004, 22-0? The Yanks took the next 2 from the Tribe, making it all but meaningless.

Against the Sox in October 2004, the end of the Curse? As hideous as that was, at least they were trying, however poorly, and it wasn't against a .500 team as the Mets have been for almost a year now.

This? Bad enough it was against The Other Team. But it wasn't even the drubbing. It was the weakness. It was like in Major League, when Bob Uecker looks at his scorebook, and says, "That's all we got, one goddamn hit?" This was 3 hits, against Oliver Perez (Oliver Freakin' Perez?!?), and the Met bullpen. When they bring in Scott Schoenweiss, they're pretty sure they can hold a 9-run lead.

This is the New York Yankees. No opponent's lead should ever be safe.

They didn't even sufficiently respond when they got a gift on Carlos Delgado's "foul ball." Yes, Matsui hit a 2-run homer, but they could have at least tied it up that inning. Instead, they got no closer than 4-2, and it ended 11-2.

Absolutely unacceptable.

Time for some changes.

A-Rod coming back on Tuesday isn't enough, especially since he might be a little tentative for a while. Will even Posada coming back be enough?

Dave Eiland must go. He is as good a pitching coach as he was a pitcher, which is to say unacceptable. And who, exactly, is the hitting instructor? Kevin Long? I'm guessing it's Claude Rains. Get it? "The Invisible Man." Either that, or, as Rains said in "Casablanca," his heart "is my least vulnerable spot."

Kyle Farnsworth must go. Now. Immediately! And so must Ross Ohlendorf. Where'd this guy get his invitation to the major leagues, as the prize in a Cracker Jack box?

Can't blame this one on Jason Giambi, but I think he has to go as well.

Jose Molina needs to go. Chad Moeller is no worse in calling a game, and roughly equal with the bat. I'd rather have him until Posada gets back. Molina couldn't do squat -- figuratively or literally -- against the Mets. Unlike, say, his brother Yadier. (Speaking of whom, as bad as he made Aaron Heilman look on that drizzly night at Shea, Farnsworth looks worse than Heilman ever has.)

So the time has come to ask: Was Joe Girardi the right hire? Or should he be targeted for termination?

None of this is up to me. It's up to Hank Steinbrenner. Well, if this was up to George in the 1980s, we'd be seeing the headline "BILLY'S BACK!" by the time the Yanks took the field in the next game Tuesday night.

The other day, a Met fan offered me a trade: Randolph for Girardi. I wouldn't take it then.

Now? In the words of the immortal Jack Benny, "I'm thinking it over!"

(UPDATE: If you had told me at this time that Giambi would leave the Yankees at the end of the year, I would have been grateful. But if you had told me he would still be playing in the majors 6 years later, I never would have believed it.)