what about cohesion? and team playing? and ego-management, and everybody being happy with their place in the big picture? those are the kinda things that make or break a team, not whether this guy or that guy, etc etc....

just saw some fella on ESPN yesterday say he thinks it's gonna be RedSox vs Cubs. heh. he suggested that the yankees aren't gonna be able to keep everyone healthy and happy and on-task. go figure.

cubs beat the red sox in 5. just sayin.

Here we go:

Yankees / Winnemac Park Electrons

1st base:
Al Stern vs. Travis Lee/Jason Giambi: Giambi is an average fielder. Al Stern is an outstanding fielder, Giambi is a better power, average, and RBI hitter than Stern. Giambi drinks 6 Jack and Diet Cokes the night before a game. Stern drinks straight Jack during warm ups. Edge Electrons

2nd base:
John Tacha/Ryan Rezvani/Steve Albini vs. Enrique Wilson: Wilson's a poor hitter. Overall, with Rezvani's speed, Tacha's marijuana addicition, and Albini's bat (.500 for the season?), Wilson would be their bitch. Edge Electrons

ShortStop:
Novotny/Goode vs. Jeter: Jeter was on Saturday Night Live and really was not that funny. Novotny is a stand up comedian who actually is funny. Goode is a poetry writer/waiter. Jeter spends a lot of time grooming, Goode doesn't pull his socks up. Edge Yankees

Third base:
Similio/Braver vs. Alex Rodriguez. Arod and Jeter are going to fall in love with each others' beauty and forget that they are there to play ball. Similio and Braver have been passionalte lovers for years. Edge Nobody

Catcher:
The day Brian Feldman or Jimmy Freund ever dream about shining shoes, well, most likely they are just hallucinating behind the plate again. Posada is too fuggin ugly, what can I say? Edge Electrons

Left Field:
Paul Beaty/Brian Orchard vs. Hideki Matsui. Beaty is a power guy and hits for vengance. He wears a bandana to intimidate the other team. Hideki is an RBI machine. Matsui about a million times more mobile in the field than Beaty, but Beaty, much like the others, is high as hell. Edge nobody

Center Field:
Cesar/Javier/Feldo/Freund vs. Bernie Williams/Kenny Lofton: This one really is tough. Bernie Baseball and Lofton have speed, power, and integrity, the Electrons once again are high on pot. Okay, this time: Edge Yankees

Right Field:
Greg Norman vs. Gary Sheffield. HA...a laugher. Edge Electrons. What?, he's fuckin Greg Norman, dude. You know, he's 'gotta piss like a Mexican drug dealer. Who said drug dealer?!'

Closer:
David DiMaria vs. Mariano Rivera: the guy who warms up by rolling up like a pillbug vs. the best closer EVER? Okay, Edge Yankees.

Starting rotation:
Kevin Brown - great pitcher, lower ERA last year than any Electron's pitcher (I believe - not sure about Zorc's ERA) but fragile health wise
Cesar Garcia - great pitcher, low ERA, and never lasts more than 6 innings not being high. Would smoke cigarette's while pitching if allowed
John Leiber - 20 game winner coming off injury. Questionably health
John Federici - threw harder than any pitcher I saw, most shutout innings of the Electrons staff, never know where the hell he is or if he still want s to play.
Jose Contreres: one day he's brilliant, the next he's getting bombed. Unpredictable
Javier Figeuroa: one day he's brilliant, the next he's getting bombed. Unpredictable
Mike Mussina: great, solid pitcher.
Frank Verciglio: above average, solid pitcher, plays in a plus 40 league too.
David DiMaria: yes, the Sox are experimenting with David DiMaria (Italian for "FORGOT TO PAUSE BEFORE PITCH") as a starter to fill their 5th spot
Javier Vasquez : power pitcher, great ERA, unproven on a big stage.
EDGE - if anything it goes to the Yankees, but I'll give Cesar Garcia the benefit of the doubt and call it a toss up.

OVERALL EDGE: By far, Electrons.

You see, this BS talk about the Yanks, Cubs, and Red Sox is a waste of time....bring it to the CMBA, beotch!

You wanna talk about team chemistry, a cohesive unit, and all that?

Let's talk about Joe Torre - the MASTER of the cohesive unit. Joe Torre has won World Series with formerly troubled personalities, and troubled personalities with significant contributions to those World Series victories I might add, David Justice, David Wells, Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Chuck Knoblauch, Jeff Nelson.

Getting this group of all-stars to play up to their potential is going to be like watching over a pre-school class during nap time, compared to those past guys.

If you wanna introduce intangibles into the argument, then let me introduce the tradition of so-called egotistical, selfish ball players magically turning into model on-the-field citizens when putting on the pinstripes.

And let's also talk about the fact that The Red Sox as a team are uniformly tired of Manny Ramirez' aloof nonchalant irresponsible approach to the game, Pedro Martinez is already implying that team mate Kevin "Cowboy Up" Millar should keep his mouth shut and his braggadocio to himself before making predictions on the World Series, Nomar can't stop telling the press how much the off season trade rumors hurt him, how the Red Sox will not get a "home team discount" when trying to re-sign him next season, and that his goal for this season is produce at a high level in order to prove the Red Sox have treated him wrong, and that nobody has any confidence in Byung Yung Kim, the guy the Sox are attempting to convert into their 5th starter.

By the way, Vegas odds-makers have come around - and odds on favorites for the World Series are the Yankees v Cubs.

A little note to all you Chicago natives. You live in a nice city, good food, good music, a rich basketball tradition.....and a very public dearly loved team playing in THE WEAKEST DIVISION IN BASEBALL, which you barely squeaked out of last year on the last weekend of the season. You AND The Astros have accumulated nice little pitching staffs that ought to get fat on wins within your pathetic division, but neither of you have an offense to speak of. The Marlins are STILL better than you even though you got their first baseman. The Giants are much better than you. The Cardinals and Astros are at least as good as you, and even the Phillies might be better than you. Look forward to an October of getting ready for another bad Bears season, not playoff baseball.

come on, man, where's that yankee noblesse oblige?

yes, the yankees have had a good decade. yes, they will be pretty good this year. they might win it all, if they don't eat it courtesy the d-backs, angels, or marlins.

of course, no one but yankee and red sox fans care. you guys should just sleep together and get it over with.

but of course you are right about the cubs

go astros, or cardinals for that matter

tm

ch029448 wrote:If you wanna introduce intangibles into the argument, then let me introduce the tradition of so-called egotistical, selfish ball players magically turning into model on-the-field citizens when putting on the pinstripes.

Is this really what you meant to say? Let’s see, recent Yankees good deeds ON the field…Karim Garcia and Jeff Nelson beating down a Fenway crew member in the bullpen during the ALCS. Clemens beaning Mike Piazza in the head, then throwing shards of his bat at him in the World Series because he “thought it was the ball” (so he really meant to throw the BALL at him…okay).

OFF the field, of course they’ve had Johnny-Do-Goods like David Wells, who earned the ire of his own teammates by bragging in print about pitching a no-hitter (maybe it was even a perfect game) while hung-over. He’s made more headlines for his drinking escapades than his pitching, evidenced by getting his teeth knocked out in a diner at 6am for saying something about a guy’s mother, yet he barely made it out of the first inning in his World Series start because he was so out of shape. A friend of mine saw him drinking in a bar surrounded by a throng of skanks (he’s married, BTW) and Wells still had the nerve to hit on one of the girls in my friend’s group. It comes as no surprise that Wells and Steinbrenner are good buddies, and it was their kindred spirit that brought Wells back to New York. At least they had the good sense to let him and his lame-ass lower back go to San Diego.

And what does it say about the Yanks that Pettite and Clemens both traded in their pinstripes to play in their hometown of Houston? Clemens actually came out of retirement to do so, and believe me, the fair weather fans in New York have quickly forgotten how much he’s meant to them over the past few years. No matter, they’re a dime a dozen in this town (err, more like about $120 million a dozen).

Steinbrenner reminds me of Buddy Rich…a tyrant who motivates his team through fear and intimidation. They even have the same “no fucking beards on my bus” policy. As for selfish players turning into team guys when they become Yankees, all I can say is when you pay people whatever the fuck they want and you say jump, they damn well better ask how high.

I agree with you about Joe Torre (he reminds me of an uncle I never had), and I find him and probably Mo Rivera to be the only redeeming things about this “team.”

As someone who has lived in New York for the last 6+ years, but who wasn’t born here, I feel I have some perspective on the whole Yankees phenomenon. And in my experience, the only thing worse than the Yankees…are Yankees’ fans.

Prediction: A-Rod hits 60 HRs with his opposite field power and the Stadium's short porch in right field. The Yanks DON'T win it all. Again.

Cheers,

Steve M.

Yes, that is really what I meant to say.

Let's not present isolated shards of the big picture in order advance your anti-Yankee agenda. Nelson and Garcia were involved in a bullpen fight with a goundscrewman, who initiated the instance with verbal AND physical attacks. Not only that, but the bullpen incident came on the heels of a tremendously emotion bench-clearing donnybrook, in which a 30-something athlete (in the wrong) threw a fat 70-something old man (in the wrong) to the ground. The actions on both sides, as well as the Clemens-Piazza incident, can be chalked up to "in the heat of the battle" emotions. Every team has them. Dodgers have jumped into the stands in Wrigley Field, Robin Ventura charged Nolan Ryan on the mound, Tori Hunter threw a baseball at a pitcher who brushed him back - baseball is full of these incidents.

Yes, players previously thought of as "bad apples" have cleaned up their acts under the tutelage of Joe Torre, and it will happen again this year.

It makes laugh when people, such as yourself, predict that the Yankees will "not win it all again.” You might be right. The Yankees aren’t going to win the World Series every year, but that’s no indication of any wisdom or foresight on the part of people like you. Going into the season, anyone with any sense of logic any rational thought process whatsoever, sees that the Yankees are clearly the team best equipped to win it all, and when they don't it's merely a function of good ole fashioned "DUMB LUCK" and your (and I don't mean YOU personally - I mean the hordes of people that share you disgust for the Yankees) jumping on, what is the ultimate hypocrisy in all of sports, the "anti-Yankee" bandwagon. It's extremely ironic to me, that the biggest bandwagon in sports is the "anti Yankee" bandwagon, which is fueled by some convoluted idea that all Yankee fans are inherently bad because they're "Bandwagoners.” That’s analogous to Christian fundamentalists MURDERING abortion doctors because they believe abortion is MURDER!


The Yankees CLEARLY have the best team in baseball, AGAIN, for whatever reason. Some of you are naive enough to think that small market owners actually ARE struggling financially and can't afford marquee players. Unfortunately Fortune 500 Magazine has plenty of evidence to back up the fact that most unsuccessful teams are unsuccessful, whether they be small are large market, for one reason only - they are poorly run by owners who don't put a premium on winning, but rather penny pinching in order to fatten their pockets, even to the extent of hiding and laundering money through their minor league systems. And, teams that ARE successful, again be it small or large market, are so because they are well run - Yankees, Marlins, Angels, Diamondbacks.

...

Serious question for Marilyn Monroe: Who are the Yankees going to get to play second?

Serious response - WHO GIVES A SHIT! What, you plug a .250 hitter in there who can field adequately, and that's gonna sink the team? Please! Most likely Enrique Wilson or Miguel Cairo, who will both keep errors in the field to a minimum, and probably hit 8-10 homeruns at the most, and put up somewhere around 50 RBIs. Whoever it is, is gonna hit 9th, and is gonna see A LOT of good pitches considering the other 8 All-Stars, all power threats, batting around him. Personally, I'd like to see them start off the season giving Erik Almonte a shot at full-time 2nd base...maybe there's a diamond in the rough. He hit better than expected when filling in for Jeter last season.

If you wanna introduce intangibles into the argument, then let me introduce the tradition of so-called egotistical, selfish ball players magically turning into model on-the-field citizens when putting on the pinstripes.

Yes, that is really what I meant to say.

Okay, so that's what you really meant to say. And you have defended this how? You retorted to some incidents claiming it was the groundskeeper who "started it", then you further admitted that your 70 year old fat bald coach was at fault. So basically you have nothing to show for the Yanks being model on-the-field citizens.

Look, I don't give a shit if the Yanks came up with the AIDS vaccine and spoon fed it to kids in Ethiopia, I am going to hate the Yankees organization and a lot of the players involved. But they are not model citizens, your logic sucks, and I am certain that it haunts you every time you click "submit".

Please click here to see what a real group of citizens do "on-the-field.":

http://objective.jesussave.us/kidz.html