On the Yankees beat

Very nice of Coach Wooden to visit with the Yankees. If anybody out there wants to read a book that applies to both life and sports, get "They Call Me Coach." Wooden wrote it during his later years at UCLA, and has numerous personal stories concerning Kareem, Walton, Wilkes,Lucious Allen, Walt Hazard,etc. It is a great, great book.

what chapter is a-rod on in that book, pyramid of success? we need him to do a little speed-reading.

I just don't get it? Can somebody please explain!!!The yankees are short on pitching,am I right so far? Namely starting pitching. Has anyone looked at the pitching stats at Columbus? There is a guy there named Colter Bean who the yankees seem to avoid like the plague!! He is only 9-2 with a era in the 2's & a whip of 1.32!In 76 innings he's only given up 52 hits & with 102 K's!!!! Cashman are you & the other braintrust deaf,dumb, & blind!!!!

A-Rod's "Pyramid Of Success"...sign a $250 million dollar contract !

Coulter has had a couple of cups of coffee in the Bronx and coughed up both of them. His delivery is so goofy looking and deliberate you could almost hear Jeter and Giambi goofing on the guy. Coulter looks like Colin Montgomery on the mound as well. Stats in Columbus with the line-up they have and the competition they face can be decieving. Maybe Coulter will stick next time. Proctor went up and down a few times as well.Could be that Bean will get a Sept call-up and provide killer innings out of the pen, you never know. My feeling is Coulter is a minor leaguer at best and hopefully he does a good job getting us a young starter in trade from someone "smarter" than we are.

Most of you fans just don't get it....A-Rod is actually on an upswing! Now, he is ONLY striking out and not hitting into crucial rally killing DP's. At least this way, someone else gets a chance to pick up the slack. The only problem is that the next guy is not a .320 hitter like Cano. Alex Winfield needs to be traded ASAP or sent to Columbus for this team to have any chance at a ring!!!

The only thing Alex needs is for evryone to get off his ass and let him play out of the slump. All of a year ago Jeter couldn't hit the broad side of a barn for a month and a half and noone said anything other than we need to support Derek and get him on track. Every athlete goes through these times it is a marvel that this is probably the first time A-Rod has hit a wall in his career. Leave him alone and let him work it out with Donny and you will have nothing to say very soon.

Throw in the towel. Right now, Rodriguez is like a boxer up against the ropes taking unanswered blows to the head. How long before someone stops this fight with himself? Meanwhile he is a black hole in the middle of the order costing us games. What a nightmare.

"Alex Winfield needs to be traded ASAP or sent to Columbus for this team to have any chance at a ring!!!"

Yeah, that's like TOTALLY realistic!

"Meanwhile he is a black hole in the middle of the order costing us games. What a nightmare."

Darn him for pitching so badly! He gave up 12 runs all by himself!

To Good luck with that: I notice you seem to see the same black hole that I do with Alex Winfield. As far as the pitching problems, please see that I have several blogs commenting on that mess.

Continuing to support K-Rod's presence in the lineup as he goes through this emotional breakdown is highly suspect. Boras must be planting moles in the media for damage control in anticipation of the next contract renegotiation when the inevitable move out of NY happens. It's obvious K-Rod can't hack it in NY where it matters. He's a window dressing, numbers hanging player, not a team player, and not suited to the heat of a championship race. He doesn't belong on the Yankees and he will continue to be crucified for as long as he remains here. If anyone thinks that a few clutch hits in the post season will relieve him of the boos they are mistaken. He will never be accepted here because of his prissy sisssy personality and because of how poorly he comes up against Jeter. He cannot win here. People like Michael Kay preaching how great he is just make it much worse for him. Yeah, in the end, he'll have great numbers, but individual numbers are irrelevant in NY. K-Rod is perceived as a weak sister and whether or not that is an accurate evaluation, he is stuck with that tag, and he is finished in NY. Kaput. It's over. Everytime someone defends him it fuels the flames because people don't want to hear it. Say goodnight, K-Rod. You're done here. It will be best for everyone concerned if you just get out.

"To Good luck with that: I notice you seem to see the same black hole that I do with Alex Winfield."

Huh? What does this even mean?

"Everytime someone defends him it fuels the flames because people don't want to hear it. Say goodnight, K-Rod. You're done here. It will be best for everyone concerned if you just get out."

Can we just trade slimy fans like yourself?

I have as many hits as K-Rod does in the Angels series and I don't even play the game.

I'm sure Coach Wooden has benefitted many athletes in his time. All the mental mumbo jumbo is not the answer. A-rod should sit on the fastball and hit what he sees. Yogi said it best and I'll paraphrase, "If you have to thing to do, you'll never do." A-rod swing at the fastball and put it in play.

On another note, I'm as frustrated as any realistic Yankee fan who has followed the game for many decades. It will not hasten the cure to boo him. The Yankees are much better with A-rod in lineup producing than they are with him fighting himself and the Yankee fans. Remember the stage that MLB plays. A player even with all his talent can go into a slump in a heart beat because of competition. Give the guy a break. He's down but he's on our team. And with the pitching that we have its best to have all the hitting we can get our hands on.

amen to what larry and andy said. you've got to ride this slump out. back in 1952, gil hodges was hitless for around 20 at-bats in the world series so they prayed for him, literally, in a brooklyn church service. sure, it was a simpler world then, but i like that approach to a slumping player's problems better than the mindless booing that so defines our modern "fans."

Get used to the object of your hate mail, he aint going anywhere for about 5-6 years. He is a young uber-talented baseball player. Maybe he ends up an outfielder or at fiirst base in a year, but he will be batting 3-4-5 or 6 in the Bronx until 2010 and beyond. Once he breaks out all will be well. NOONE stacks up to Jeter, amybe Alex's problem is he wants to too much. Derek is a special breed like Joe Montana, or Michael Jorden or hell even Tiger Woods who thrive on pressure and lead others into battle. A-Rod isn't that kinda guy, neither is Sheffield, Giambi or Mussina for that matter. They all have shown cracks repeatedly when the rubber hit the road. To win the World Series you need one or three Jeters ie Mo and whomever steps up. We had Leyritz step up, Girardi, Soho, Vizcaino,Spenser, Stanton, all guys who weren't Jeter types come up big! We dont need Alex to be huge, just big enough and someone or two else to step up. This team puts too much pressure on itself allreeady. They need to let Melky or Cano or Johnny do the damage and just get on base and do the little things right. The gods take care of the rest.

"To win the World Series you need one or three Jeters ie Mo and whomever steps up. We had Leyritz step up, Girardi, Soho, Vizcaino,Spenser, Stanton, all guys who weren't Jeter types come up big!" - Andy

We LOST a World Series because of Mo. Those other guys was also around to witness that lost. Remember?

As I sit and watch our Yankee pitchers or the number 1 on your scorecard who is now Farnsworth. If in the off seaon Brian Cashman spends a dime on anything but pitching. He should be removed. "I can't take this no more." You can not expect to win the WS with pitching of this calibre. Farnsworth our 8th inning guy couldn't throw it into the Pacific Ocean if he was standing 60' 6" from it. Sorry for the negativity but you see what I see.

If you blame the loss of that series on Mo you only watched one inning. Randy Johnson pitched out of his mind, the D-Backs played out of their heads and we were still almost able to beat Schilling and take it on the road. All those other guys have rings. Are we supposed to win every World Series every year? We are 6.5 games up in late August without Matsui or Sheffield and you guys are pissed? Get real or get a new team.

i'm with andy. we've got a 6.5-game lead. joe has a month to fiddle with the staff, find a No. 4 starter, and get the bullpen rested and ready.

and as fans we have a relatively stress-free september in front of us, because the red sox have broken down like an old edsel.

let's chill and see what happens.

No team wins a World Championship by "chillin," and sitting on a lead. Both the Red Sox and the Yanks remind me of Ali and Frazier. One wins, but neither are the same following the clash. The Yanks need to go all out, and put Boston out of its' misery. As for that World Series loss to the D.Backs, we lost that game when Brosius received the force out throw from Mo, and didn't throw across the diamond to 1st for a douple play. The replays from overhead clearly show this.

A-Rod looks lost at the plate right now. There aren't any answers other than he's just got to work it out. We can complain about it and believe me, I'm as frustrated about this as any of you are, but Joe's NOT going to pull him from the lineup!! That's the reality of it. I just hope that he gets his act together and SOON!!
The pitching has been bothering me. Other than Wang and Johnson, we're in trouble!

I would like to say that I'd go to war with Giambi anyday. Without his two home runs off Pedro in Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS we aren't talking about Aaron Boone and the Red Sox might have won two in a row. Mussina really disappointed me in Game 1 of the 2001 World Series and though he has won several big games for the Yankees over the years that initial bombing probably cost us the series. Sheffield is a great hitter much the way A-Rod is normally a great hitter, but neither are leaders. I really admired Sheff for playing with one arm during that one season and still producing, but after his initial words of praise regarding the Bobby Abreu acquisition his true colors have surfaced again. I still think the smart play is to pick up his option and ship him off the NL where the Red Sox can't get at him, but that's not likely to happen. I'm going to respectfully disagree however that Giambi is not a leader and or somebody who will ultimately fail in the clutch. The steroid fiasco aside, he's been, more or less, what the Yankees bargained for way back when. Somebody should have paid more attention to his inability to play 1B, but as far as a bat and a clubhouse guy that other people like Jason is the real deal. As for the 2001 World Series we did beat Schilling, make no mistake, as he would have been the loser after Soriano's homer if Mariano had made a nice throw to 2B on the bunt attempt. That play too could have been a double play with the lead footed Damian Miller running. Brosius might have made that play for sure, but Mariano owns that inning all the way around. 0-2 hit to Mark Grace, botched throw on bunt attempt, base hit to, gulp, Tony Womack, and then he was unable to keep Gonzalez on the ground with the infield in. And count me in among those who are pleased as punch to have a nice margin for error heading down the stretch this year. And we won't be rid of A-Rod for at least a couple of years so we may as well get used to that idea as well.

I can still hear myself yelling,"throw it!!!!" at Brosius that night.OMG!