Bobby Valentine Hates the Yankees - Join the Club

Article first published as Bobby Valentine Hates the Yankees - Join the Club on Blogcritics.


Bobby Valentine, the new manager of the Boston Red Sox, is already making headlines with his "I hate the Yankees" quotation. As if the winter meetings in Dallas haven't been exciting enough, you can always count on Bobby V to get things interesting. If Reggie Jackson was the straw that stirred the drink, consider Valentine to be the ladle that pours out the gravy.

Like him or not, Valentine is someone who has an energy that makes things happen. When he was manager of the Mets you could always count on him for some kind of quip or reaction that would make over the top seem low. Once, when he had been thrown out of the game by an umpire, he sat in the corner of the dugout wearing a disguise (sunglasses and a mustache) and was caught by the cameras. It is an unforgettable moment and I can still laugh about it.

Of course, there is a serious side to Valentine, and this was never more evident than after September 11, 2001. Valentine honored the families of the victims and handled himself well as the Mets played the first professional sports game held in the city after the attacks. Whatever else people think about him, at that time he and his players gave New York just what it needed most. It too is unforgettable and I will always respect Valentine for the way he spoke and acted at that time.

Now, of course, he wears a different uniform and manages the Boston Red Sox. People calling into the sports shows on talk radio here in New York were getting crazy today. It was kind of like "How dare Valentine say that about our Yankees?"

These people have to be kidding themselves. I have no illusions; Yankees fans hate the Red Sox just as much if not more. They broke the Curse of the Bambino and things haven't been the same ever since in the American League East. Yankees fans know it and everyone else does too.

Beside, unless you are a Yankees fan, you probably hate the Yankees. Valentine was being honest (a rarity in sports these days) and saying what most fans of other teams think: we all hate the Yankees. As a Mets fan I can say I like Bobby V even better today than I did before. That will last until the Mets are facing the Red Sox in the World Series again, and the way the Mets are going, that probably won't be until sometime after 2020.

So this Mets fan wishes Bobby Valentine well in Beantown. I hope the Red Sox and their fans will appreciate the man for his many talents, and forgive him when he says the wrong thing. Like Rex Ryan, that probably will be more often than not, but Valentine is entertaining and knows how to run a baseball team. You can bet Joe Girardi and his players are a little worried about that.

Photo Credit: bleacherreport.com

The House That Truth Built: Girardi Reveals Yanks Need Home-field Advantage in Playoffs

This article first appeared in Blogcritics.

The words said by New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi seemed as if they came in a private conversation; however, they were uttered during a post-game interview. As a New York Mets fan listening to the radio, I immediately noticed that this revealed truth is salient and yet seems to be lost on most Yankees fans, and thinking about it I see this as either being the Yankees' greatest strength or ending up to be their Achilles' heel.

What did Girardi say? He spoke candidly about what the team needed to do to have success in the post-season. "We still need to win some games because we want to have home-field advantage." After a follow-up question, Girardi reiterated the obvious: "It's (home-field advantage) real important. I really believe that we were built around this ballpark."

"Aha!" I thought, how true this is because the Yankees have always been built around that ballpark. When the first Yankee Stadium opened with Babe Ruth as the star, a convenient right field "porch" made it possible for the Sultan of Swat to bang lots of homers. Of course, we can argue that Ruth could hit homers in any park, but playing half of his games in Yankee Stadium certainly didn't hurt him. This is also true for Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, and current players like Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira.

Girardi's revelation may not be a surprise to many, but I think it is crucial to understanding the Yankees' success story. When he says that the team is "built around this ballpark" we can understand that he means that Granderson and Teixeira need the dimensions (314 feet down the right field line and 318 feet down the left field line), as do the other players, to succeed. We can only guess about how many championships might have never been if the Yankees played in a different stadium.

Take my suffering New York Mets and their home ballpark. Citi Field is like the Grand Canyon of baseball parks compared to the home run friendly Yankee Stadium. How many homers are lost in the field that Citi helped build will never be known, but just take a look at David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay, and others whose power has diminished while playing there.

Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks coined the phrase "the friendly confines" when referring to Wrigley Field. We can well understand his liking the park where he had so much success (512 career home runs), but imagine someone like Willie Mays who went from the Polo Grounds in New York to a place like Candlestick Park in San Francisco, where he lost so many homers in the wind. How many homers would Mays have hit if he had played in a more homer friendly arena? In my humble opinion he would have had more than Hank Aaron, who for many years played in a very homer-friendly Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta.


So Joe Girardi revealed a truth which may or may not be ugly, depending on your point of view. Yankees fans will no doubt scoff at the notion that their team's history of success is based on the dimensions of Yankee Stadium, but most everyone else knows the truth: the House that Ruth Built was designed to have Ruth and other Yankees players hit lots of homers.

Certainly, opposing players might be seen to have the same advantage, but I beg to differ. I think that many great opposing players came into Yankee Stadium salivating for the chance to chip the ball into the short right field porch, but the execution of that is not so easy as it is for those Yanks who play eighty-one games a year there. Trying to pull the ball many hitters came up short, just as many guys who tried to poke one over the Green Monster in Boston's Fenway Park found out.

By the way, Girardi got his wish. By sweeping the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and with the Boston Red Sox losing to the lowly Baltimore Orioles, the Yankees have clinched the division. It seems Girardi is going to get what he wants: to have the home-field advantage during the playoffs. Now we have to see if that will be a deciding factor in the Yankees going all the way. Girardi got what he wanted; for the rest of us, it seems that is the reason why they are known as those Damn Yankees!

Photo Credits: NY Daily News

It's Over: The Fat Lady Sings for the Yankees in Texas

Article first published as It's Over: The Fat Lady Sings for the Yankees in Texas on Blogcritics.

Okay, I'm not going to lie about it. I took a little pleasure in turning on the TV the other night and seeing that the New York Yankees were down 5-1 to the Texas Rangers in the sixth game of the American League Championship Series. Oh, come on, you could say, you're a New Yorker and you want those Texas boys beating your Yankees? Hey, they aren't "my" Yankees and never will be. When Texas beat them, why wouldn't I be happy about it?

When manager Joe Girardi sent Mariano Rivera out to pitch the bottom of the eighth, you knew he knew it was over. This doesn't mean that the Fat Lady is singing just about this championship series, but the whole Yankee era of Jeter, Rivera, Posada, and the ghosts of Paul O'Neill and Bernie Williams and all those other Yankees who played for Joe Torre along with them. After this year and this loss, things will never be the same.

After the game Girardi said something about it not being easy to see the other team celebrating after a loss in a postseason series. Well, it only reminds me of Jeter and company celebrating at Shea back in 2000 when they beat my Mets. We Met fans all had to suffer through seeing that one, on our sacred ground no less, where Seaver, Agee, Jones, McGraw and all the rest played and won two World Series titles in 1969 and 1986. It was hard to see the Yankees whooping it up back then, so it felt great to see Jeter staring out at the field in something like disbelief. Keep looking Derek, because you're 36 and probably might never see another World Series ring.

One thing this series taught me is that all the king's money and all the king's men couldn't put the Yankees back together again. The highest paid team in baseball couldn't hit Texas pitching. Beside Robinson Cano (who had four homers in this series against the Rangers), the Yankees looked like guys I see up at the park hitting those softballs into the dirt. A-Rod hit a buck ninety and had no dingers. Swisher did a lot of swishing (struck out seven times), and the pitchers might as well have been soft tossing those big softballs the way Texas was whacking the ball (the Yankees staff ended with a 6.58 ERA in the six games).

I'm sorry to have to say it, but the Yankees actually got lucky in this series. They almost got swept. If they hadn't come back and won that first game, it would have been a clean sweep. Yankee announcer - and bloviator par excellence - Michael Kay pronounced the series "over" after the Yankees came back and won the first game. Can you believe that guy? Hey, Michael, what do you have to say about that now? And how about the most annoying announcer in baseball, the Yankees' John Sterling? Could he maybe do a prolonged "The...Yankees...lose; The...Yankees...lose" just to make every Mets fan's day?

So, yes I know we Mets fans have to wait until next year. I know we didn't even make the playoffs and lost 83 games. I know, I know, I know, but guess what? Yankees fans have to wait until next year too, and some of the Yankees players will have to wait forever.

This winter Andy Pettite is probably going to talk about retirement as many times as Brett Favre, and Jeter needs a new contract. A-Rod is starting to act his age without the joy juice flowing through his veins, and Mariano Rivera, now 40 years old, just might be feeling the years as well. Posado will be seeing a lot more DH next year or perhaps not catch at all, and the team has to be thinking free agent outfielder sooner or later. Swisher better take a good look around while cleaning out his locker; the trade winds are in the air.

Will the Yankees make a run for Cliff Lee? Uh, I can hear the Steinbrenner brothers unlocking the family safe as I type this thing. The Yankees need pitching, they need hitting, and they need something that my guys across the river have in abundance: humility; but waiting for the Yankees to lose that inherent arrogance is like waiting for a train in the New York City subway system. You hope it is coming but you have no idea when it will get there or if it will even stop when it does.

I'm betting on Texas over the Giants in six games. Cliff Lee, best pitcher in the universe, will lead the way. Will he be in pinstripes next year? Yankees players and fans will be wondering that as they watch the Series on TV. Keep dreaming, Yankees fans. The Mets fans and players will be watching too, and maybe the Wilpons will finally open their own safe, drag out some of that cash that Bernie Madoff didn't swipe, and give the Yankees a run for their money for Lee.

The way things are it will be a long and cold winter for Mets and Yankees fans, and by Christmas the thought off Cliff Lee in either uniform might be better than sugar plums dancing in their heads, but don't bet on Lee having to get himself a MetroCard. If he goes on to win the whole enchilada with Texas, the Rangers' owner Nolan Ryan could find the money and incentives to keep Lee in the Lone Star State for a long time, and that just might make Texas the new sheriff in the American League. Yippee ki-yay, Yankee fans.