IS IT PANIC TIME FOR YANKEES FANS?

by Shorty, Milk Was a Bad Choice

With the New York Football Giants on bye next weekend after their return from across the pond and the New York Jets sitting at 1-7 on the season, there is really only one story on the New York sports scene for the next two weeks, the ongoing saga of the New York Yankees.

One day after the hated Boston Red Sox wrapped up their second World Series title in four years, the future of the Bronx Bombers is in a state of flux. First, there is the manager situation. The latest news is that the Yankee brass apparently believes enough in the Mattingly Curse to avoid hiring Donnie Baseball and instead will bring back Joe Girardi. The reasoning behind this decision seems solid enough. Girardi is a well respected former Yankee who's hard nosed persona is in strong contrast to Joe Torre's laid back approach, something Randy Levine and the Steinbrenner clan clearly perceive as a plus. Many media outlets have questioned whether Girardi can handle a clubhouse filled with high priced salaries, several of whom he played alongside just a few years ago. In the end, Mattingly's lack of managing experience may have been the deciding factor, after all, Girardi has already won the Manager of the Year Award in his promising, young career. Keep in mind, he also fought with management over the use of his young pitching staff and was eventually run out of Florida the same season he won the award. This is critical for a Yankee team which will hinge their future success on the young arms of Joba Chamberlain and Phillip Hughes over the next decade.

As if the manager storyline weren't enough, the latest news out of the Yankee soap opera is that M.V.P. Alex Rodriguez will opt out of his contract and become a free agent, for all intents and purposes, forever ending his relationship with the Pinstripes. If ever there were a case of a player caring more about financial gain than a team concept, this is definitively the case. A-Rod will forever be viewed as Scott Boras' bitch in my eyes. The only question now, is how do the Yankees replace him and how do they spend the money that would have gone to the least clutch postseason hitter in Major League Baseball history (yea, I'm just a lil bitter)? I'll tell you what I don't want to happen. I don't want the Yankees to sign World Series M.V.P. Mike Lowell. Don't get me wrong, Lowell is an outstanding defensive third baseman who more than holds his own with the stick. But do we need to keep signing these Red Sox players to huge contracts when they are clearly on the downside of their careers (ie: Johnny Damon). This is a team that has gotten younger the past few years and this trend needs to continue. Signing Lowell would be a step in the opposite direction. My suggestion would be to save that money for a run at Johan Santana and fill the lineup hole with a bat that won't break the bank in the off season.

I'd be lying if I said I'm not just a little bit worried about the state of the franchise. I know that the Yankee payroll is far too endless to ever let them slip below second place in the AL East, but the Red Sox seem to have swung the pendulum of momentum in their favor since the start of the new millennium. They have won two World Series Titles in the past four years and done so in convincing fashion, sweeping both series. Boston is now home to two of the greatest postseason pitchers of my lifetime in Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett. The scariest thing about that, is that while Schilling's career is just about finished, Beckett is just now reaching the apex of his career. I just hope that someday my kids aren't wondering if they will ever see a Yankee World Series victory, much like Red Sox fans did through the previous eighty years. In other words, I pray that the Red Sox haven't truly "Reversed the Curse."