Today in The Journal News
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- March
- 8
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Billy Traber, once a first-round pick of the Mets,is plugging along trying to make the Yankees. His career numbers against left-handers are certainly eye-catching.
A-Rod and Jorge Posada have the same minor injury. This notebook also had word on a dominating performance by Mariano Rivera, a video review by Chien–Ming Wang, a happy day for Andy Pettitte and a big race today for the Steinbrenners.
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Peter King of Sports Illustrated is on a USO tour of military bases in Afganistan with NFL players Tommie Harris, Mike Rucker and Luis Castillo. Whether you’re a fan of the NFL of not, I’d urge you to read his dispatches to get a sense of what sports means to the men and women serving overseas.
This blog gets e-mails from servicemen and women every few weeks thanking me for updating them about the Yankees. Thanking me? It’s us who need to thank you guys.
So if you’re in the military and reading this blog, thanks for giving the rest of the freedom to concern ourselves with something as silly as baseball. Jeter, A-Rod and the rest aren’t heroes, you are.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 6:55 am by Peter Abraham.
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Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
Josh Thomson
True Dat! you guys rock in iraq, afghanistan, korea, germany, under that pacific, and everywhere else!
Sor far I’m impressed by Eiland’s hands-on approach with the pitchers. Here’s hoping the good results follow.
At the risk of misusing the term, I found it ironic, or at least amusing, that Daisuke Matsuzaka will not be flying with the Red Sox to Tokyo on March 19th, because that is his wife’s due date. They are hoping he will be able to join the team in Japan at some point. This tidbid was in today’s Star Ledger.
In the so-what-else-is-new arena of baseball news, Mike Hampton pulled a hammie 38 pitches into a game.
Absolutely, Pete.
So to all our brave men and women in the American armed forces who are now serving, in some capacity, in Antigua, Colombia, Saint Helena, Guantanamo Bay, Ecuador, Netherlands Antilles, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Greenland, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Turkey, Norway, Spain, UK, Italy, Germany, Marshall Islands, Australia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Diego Garcia, Japan, South Korea, Egypt, Kenya, Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ghana, Yemen, Jordan, Israel, South Korea, Thailand, Philippines, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Iraq. I’m sure I left out some, but that’s pretty much the entire world deployment of the US military.
Thank you so much for serving and for my freedom!!!
Pete,
I want to congratulate you on this profile of Traber. Its a really excellent piece of sports journalism.
Its’ remarkable how often in the enormous NY Media market the papers will have exactly the same story running on the same days.
And when there’s nothing else to do they make up some faux story about ARod. And now it look like when they’ve got nothing else and don’t want to go with the ARod angle they’ll just write about Joba, yet again (see today’s NY Post).
But the type of profile article on traber you wrote is the kind of thing that is missing in spring training coverage. Spring training is a about guys like Traber.
They Yankees have been perpetually trying to find an effective lefty since Mike Stanton deteriorated. Its a major issue.
They’ve tried the veteran retread route before. Hasn’t worked. Bringing in Traber and Phillips was a new direction and who knows, it may have worked.
It’s great information to know that Cashman systematically looked at Traber’s performance and was creative enough to look at what Traber does well and rethough his potential role.
Not a lot of big market teams do that kind of thing. Look at the mets this year – they got Santana but now with the injuries they’ve had (fairly predictable ones at that) they are desperate for a Right handed bat.
How badly could they use a guy like Ensberg right now to fill in for Delgado. Or Lane to platoon with Church or fill in for Alou.
They didn’t make those small moves that require new ways of thinking about how players are used.
Traber is a great example of how the Yankees have moved in that direction.
Your piece really shows that.
Matsuzaka has to play in Japan. Otherwise the Japanese media will rip him. Doing your job is more important than family duties to them.
Support the troops. Support their mission.
jimmy1138,
As one of “them”, what a load you spout. It will be discussed by the media here to some extent, indeed it already has been, but not nearly as much as you fantasize; and I’m sure a variety of opinions will be expressed on the topic, as indeed have already been expressed, and for the most part the commentary has been and will be understanding and respectful of Matsuzaka’s decision. In fact, almost all the commentary has been simply explaining the situation and what additional comments I’ve come across usually just wish Matsazuka and his wife good luck. Sorry to burst your bubble. May I just add, as one of “them”, that you don’t know crock about what I and my neighbors and almost everyone I’ve ever known actually think about the relationship between family and work with duty. Anyways, here’s hoping Matsui has a good season. And thanks Pete for your wonderful blog.
Ito
Kansai
May I add, I wholeheartedly second Mr. Abraham’s best wishes to the American troops.
To every service man and woman reading this blog: I hope you come home safely soon, and thank you!
How about we just thank the troops for their service and sacrifice and leave it at that, and stop making every mention of them as an excuse for a bloody political soapbox.
I have to agree with CB too, a really good article on Traber. Thanks for that.