On the Yankees beat

I'm sorry, was this supposed to be funny?

As long as he didn't call George W. Bush for financial advice, I'm sure ARod's bank account is going to be fine.

Diane,

In the last thread you mentioned "the case of the missing bloggers," (an unfinished story from Arthur Conan Doyle?)

Yes, it is quite a mystery. I guess a lot of folks disappear on weekends, a few on vacation (Ant has just made it back) and some have simply vanished altogether for months now. A case in point; Ruse Ca. I miss his posts and especially his invaluable stock of information that he seemed always to have at his finger tips.

I'm keeping a weather eye peeled on those helicopters; could be they're picking off Yankee fans!

yanks61,

I miss ruseCA too, along with Lucy who seems to have definitively vanished as well, and Michael PTRS and Marianne who used to post regularly and now only pop up from time to time, etc.

Of course I shouldn't complain because I ceased frequenting this space with any regularity for months and have now returned to check out the climate and the new format. But I do complain! Come back folks!

Now I have to get ready to leave on my usual Sunday morning agenda -- back later -- meantime eyes on the skies...

Jim, It's Redsox Fans aka Terrorists probably did this . They're sending emails to Ny Media to think William Buffet gave Arod Advice. They're portraying Arod some Greedy Person. Redsox Fans please stop this nonsense already...

I know it's early, but Anonymous at 09:12 wins the stupidest post of the day award. Congratulations moron!

Diane: It's nonsense like this that drove off Ruse, CA; Lucy etc.

Also, take note that Rick Keyes/BBB Champ has been MIA for a while now....ever since the A-Rod re-signing news broke.

Rick, where the heck are ya buddy? I took all your machetes when I visited so don't even bother looking for them!

Steve O, Maybe A-Rod should call Hillary Clinton. She's got some good inside information on some stocks!!

Warren Buffet is a disgusting person, having given BILLIONS to Bill Gates' alliance with the cause of assisting Planned Parenthood and the global baby termination jihad. (Fetal Tissue, patents on the human genome and other big dollar genetic tickets) It's truly sick! Why would Gates and Buffet be so interested in this with all of those billions of dollars? Whom do they serve? It's truly evil.

Anyway ... A Rod should stay away from him.

Remember Colby Rasmus whom I have mentioned? He hit an HR for TEAM USA in the world tourny.

The Tampa Tribune is all over the Yanks today, all over A Rod, GS, Torre and Mel Hall ... listing all of the worse people in sports, out 20 or so the Yanks ahve 1/4th.

Good to see A Rod back.

I think that may put us slightly ahead of Toronto.

It will be interesting to see if Cashman can make the team better than Cleveland, Boston, the Angels and Detroit.

Rodriguez feels at home with Yankees
Superstar glad to be back where he believes he belongs

[quote]http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071117&content_id=2302778&vkey=news_nyy&fext=.jsp&c_id=nyy

MIAMI -- Alex Rodriguez discovered happiness with the Yankees this season, and all along had a desire to stay, despite the specter of free agency.

As the power-hitting third baseman said Saturday at a youth clinic he conducted: "My wife and I finally feel like we're New Yorkers."

Declaring free agency was a business decision that appeared at one time to have the potential to go awry for Rodriguez. The Yankees seemed prepared to move on -- until Rodriguez contacted them recently about a new deal that turned out to be worth about $275 million over 10 years.

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that legendary investor Warren Buffet recommended that Rodriguez bypass his agent, Scott Boras, in renewing interest with the Yankees. He did, and now all signs point to a deal that figures to be finalized soon. It is presumably the last contract of his career.

"At least in baseball," he said Saturday with a smile.

Rodriguez still must take a physical, and Boras is expected to be brought in to scrutinize the final contract draft.

It all came together for Rodriguez this season. On the field he had the type of season that most power hitters can only dream about -- 54 home runs, 156 runs batted in, 143 runs scored, a .422 on-base percentage and a .645 slugging percentage.

In the clubhouse and particularly in the stands, where he has had trouble finding acceptance, things were much better, too.

Jose (Pepe) Gomez, one of Rodriguez's closest friends, said he felt the warmth among Yankees players, coaches and other employees toward his friend during a huge Labor Day bash the third baseman hosted at his home.

"It really seemed like it brought the team together," Gomez said. "They took off after that. And I've never seen Alex so happy, after going through so much together, to be part of a team and be part of a city."

Rodriguez said the Yankees had "great chemistry" and bonded well during the season.

"Oh yeah, this year was a magical season," he said. "The way things went, we came up a little short at the end. But other than that, I'm happy with the way the year went. My wife and I finally feel like we're New Yorkers."
[b]
Kevin Long, the Yankees' hitting coach who flew in from Arizona for Rodriguez's clinic Saturday, said when Rodriguez initially declared free agency, he wondered if the third baseman's days as a Yankee were over.

"It's exciting to see the turnaround if that's the case, which it certainly sounds like," Long said of Rodriguez's pending deal. "It's good for everybody. What a change of events. It was two parties that really pursued each other and really wanted to come together and be together for a long time."[/b]

Long, standing Saturday next to Rodriguez's high school coach, Rich Hofman, said the type of season Rodriguez had was particularly spectacular considering how opposing pitchers treat him differently than they do most hitters.

"We'll do a scouting report and they may say a guy throws 92," Long said. "I'll go over to Alex and say, 'You better add 3 or 4 mph to that for you.' Pitchers get up for him. The adrenaline is flowing."

Hofman, listening, piped in that when Rodriguez was in high school, the radar gun told them that opposing pitchers were throwing about 5 mph faster against Rodriguez than for Westminster's other hitters.

Said Long, "The kind of year he was able to put together this season was special. The consistency, month after month, at-bat after at-bat, it's hard to even fathom. It just all came together."

[b]Long grew silent for a moment, then offered, "Can he duplicate it? The funny thing is, I think he can do even better. A lot better? Well, when you get up as high as he is, that may be pretty hard."[/b]

Long said Rodriguez readily acknowledges that it would be extremely difficult to post such gaudy numbers without the hitting support he has around him -- guys like Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui come to mind.

Two other close friends of Rodriguez, Gui Socarras and Tony Meilan, told stories Saturday of just how driven the 32-year-old is.

Socarras said a group of the close friends had barely commenced a five-day trip and were heading out to dinner when Rodriguez found the Texas Rangers had approved his $252 million contract.

"I thought, 'Wow, we're going out and celebrate,'" Socarras said. "Alex said, 'Call Lisa [Gilson, who handles Rodriguez's travel scheduling], we're out of here.' We were on a plane home that same day. I said to him, 'What are you doing? You've made it. Relax, you don't have to work so hard.' He said, 'Now I have to work extra hard to prove I'm worth the money.' That's Alex. He definitely believes in work."

Chimed in Meilan, standing nearby: "Yeah, he's always working. He's got a boat that he can't enjoy because he's working. I think he knows what has gotten him this far and he thrives on work now."

Charlie Nobles is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
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Welcome Back Arod, I'm glad your back with The Yankees.

The third party was Kevin Long who give advice to Arod about going back to Hank and Hal Steinbrenners not Warren Buffet. It was Stupid Redsox Fans the one that did this by emailing Ny Media .

"I thought, 'Wow, we're going out and celebrate,'" Socarras said. "Alex said, 'Call Lisa [Gilson, who handles Rodriguez's travel scheduling], we're out of here.' We were on a plane home that same day. I said to him, 'What are you doing? You've made it. Relax, you don't have to work so hard.' He said, 'Now I have to work extra hard to prove I'm worth the money.' That's Alex. He definitely believes in work."
==============================================================

we'll see but deep comment

More likely ARod was distraught that no one else was willing to shell out the ridiculous money he expected to get, so he went crawling back to the Yankees for it.....if someone else had offferd the money, he'd be wearing that uniform next year.......

A-OPT is being characterized as "crawling" back to the Yanks "hat in hand". How does a guy in this "supposedly" diffucult\ackward situation, get a guaranteed $2 million dollar a year raise? H\H continue to prove we are currently witnessing "on the job training".

Whatever happened to Eric Almonte?

Here it is?

[quote]http://mvn.com/milb-tigers/2007/11/17/been-around-the-bend-erick-almonte/

Been Around the Bend: Erick Almonte

By Matt Wallace | November 17th, 2007

Erick Almonte is exactly the type of player I had in mind when I had the idea to profile minor league veterans at each position. He went from being one of the the top prospects for the Yankees to a journeyman minor leaguer. After being signed by the Yankees as an 18 year old Dominican in 1996, Almonte made his ascent to AAA at a pretty standard pace. It was in AAA that he had something of a breakout season that put him on the map as a prospect.

After working his way up through the system for four years with mostly underwhelming results, Almonte made it up to Columbus (the Yankees’ AAA affiliate at the time) in 2001. In 97 games and 345 at bats, he hit .287/.369/.464 and for the first time in a full season league had almost half as many walks as strikeouts. This earned him a cup of coffee with the Yanks and honors as the Yankees’ number seven prospect and the number eight prospect in the International League (both as ranked by Baseball America).

Despite the accolades, when he went back to the minors in 2002 he disappointed. He hit .235/.282/.412 with Columbus and eventually found himself back at the Yankees’ AA affiliate at the time, Norwich. He posted better numbers there - .241/.342/.406 - but it was still nothing to go nuts about. Ironically, it was after the 2002 season - not the breakout 2001 campaign - that he received his best shot at a big league job.

On opening day of the Yankees’ 2003 season, Derek Jeter was sliding into third base and dislocated his shoulder when he collided with Blue Jays catcher, Ken Huckaby, on a weird play. That earned Almonte a call from the Yankees and in his first game as Jeter’s replacement, he looked like he might be the beneficiary of some of that Yankee magic. He went 2 for 5 with a home run as the Yankees beat the Jays. Unfortunately, most major league pitchers don’t really get into magic and by the time Jeter came back from his injury, Almonte had been exposed. While with the major league club that season, he hit .260/.321/.350 in 100 at bats.

After that 2003 season, Almonte was actually reported as being in the competition for the starting third baseman job heading into 2004. According to an article by Pete Caldera of the Bergen Record, the competition at the time was Tyler Houston, Enrique Wilson and Miguel Cairo. I wouldn’t be surprised if George Steinbrenner called Brian Cashman and told him to get A-Rod immediately after reading that article. Anyway, Almonte clearly wasn’t going to get any infield starting gig once they traded for A-Rod and he wasn’t the first choice as a bench player either. So the Yankees cut him loose as one of their final spring training cuts.

The Rockies picked him up as a minor league free agent and stuck him in AAA Colorado Springs for the 2004 season. While his numbers there looked good - .318/.402/.507 - you have to be cautious about getting too excited about good numbers in that thin air. The Rockies evidently weren’t too impressed because they let him walk after that successful campaign.

Cleveland snatched him out of minor league free agency but sold his contract to the Nippon Ham Fighters a month later. Incidentally, despite the witty banter that team name always inspires among American baseball broadcasters, that team’s name does not honor men who mix it up with your Easter dinner. They’re just called the Fighters. Nippon Ham is the majority shareholder. So feel free to cluck your tongue condescendingly the next time Tim McCarver or Hawk Harrelson wonder aloud what the heck a Ham Fighter is. But I digress.

After spending a season in Japan, Erick Almonte came back stateside and caught on with the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League. He was on that team with a few familiar names - like Henry Rodriguez - and a few former Tiger minor leaguers - like Juan Gonzalez (not that one) and Kevin Tolar. With that brief foray into independent ball completed, we come to 2007. This was the season he joined the Tiger family.

After Brent Dlugach went down with his season-ending shoulder injury in May, and the Tigers evidently didn’t see Nick McIntyre as an everyday AA shortstop, they inked Almonte to a deal to fill in. That ended up going very well as he hit .293/.389/.414 in 174 at bats with the SeaWolves before getting called up to Toledo. His performance would have warranted the promotion, but the callup came because both Ramon Santiago and Kevin Hooper went down with hand injuries within a week of each other and the Hens needed a shortstop. In Toledo, he hit .276/.397/.358 in 123 at bats as a fill-in at shortstop and eventually third base.

The Tigers must have appreciated the efforts because they have already signed him to a minor league deal for next season. It will be interesting to see how the shortstop position shakes out in Erie and Toledo, but I would expect him to be the starter in Toledo when the season begins. If he can continue to flash the on-base skills he showed in 2007, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t played his last inning at the major league level.[/quote]

A-Rod - "I have unfinished business in NY"

[quote]
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2007/11/18/2007-11-18_arod_i_have_unfinished_business-2.html

A-Rod is BACK baby!

Diane,

You're right about the others. Lucy was a regular I enjoyed reading, but I think that she was driven off by one of our other well known bloggers. Could be wrong about that, but it seems to me that she left in quite a huff.

I hope Michael PTRS is only off for vacation or whatever. He's another frequent poster who is always fun to read. I think he'll be back. Anyway, Diane, glad to see that you've returned to the forum.

Jim A., I'm glad you removed the machetes. Perhaps that explains Rick's absence - he's out looking for them?! As I mentioned the other day, I can't begin to imagine the entertainment that he's going to provide us with over the next eight years of A-Rod's presence.

Talking baseball; I'm hoping that as things sort themselves out, that the Yanks have a Duncan/Betemit platoon at 1B going into the new year. I know that you're not too thrilled about that Diane, but Casey use to platoon like crazy and it worked pretty well for him! Also, they may be just holding down the fort until Derek or Jorge (more likely Jeter) takes over in a a few years, no? What do you and Jim think?

I will say goodnight to you all from 'la belle France.' Gotta take the doggie for a walk and put the garbage out.

Yanks61,
I actually like Betemit off the bench quite a bit and with Giambi's contract closing out at the end of this season, I thought the Yanks would try to solve the 1B dilemma by tring to sign Mark Teixeira as a free agent after next season. His good glove and switch hitting would provide the team with one solution to that position. The problem is what do you do with Duncan (DH and backup OF) and the others who will age and need to move like you mentioned (Posada, Jeter).

Jim A,

I couldn't stay away so I came back for one more swing before heading for the showers!

Yeah, I think it would be great to have Tex, but I've been reading that Atl. seems to have a very good shot at keeping him. The Jeter, Posada dilemma would be a problem for another day if they were able to sign him, but Tex would certainly complicate things at some point ( good problem to have, without a doubt.) I just have to say for now that it's going to be an interesting off season!

If you knew anything about Warren Buffett you would know that he does not live in a mansion. He has lived in the same house for many, many years.