The LoHud Yankees Blog

Here’s Jesus Montero waiting on deck to face Brackman.

I’m standing a few feet behind P. J. Pilittere (and a fence) as Andrew Brackman throws.

It looks like he’s right on top of you. His breaking stuff is tight.

Here’s CC Sabathia covering first in a drill.

There are cases of Mountain Dew stacked outside the clubhouse.

I don’t expect much sympathy from those of you in colder climes, but it was a frosty 48 in Tampa this morning and it’s windy.

The Yankees are stretching now and there will be live BP again with Andy Pettitte and Chien-Ming Wang among those on the mound.

Back later with some observations.

The Daily News did a big story today on some shady trainer A-Rod knows.

It’s similar to a story ESPN.com did two two years ago.

Some big leaguers hang around with unsavory people. A-Rod has surrounded himself with assorted moochers and sycophants for a while now. But unless you can prove he took PEDs either before 2001 or after 2003, not much has changed.

If he did use at other times, he should be suspended by the commissioner and/or the Yankees for being such a lying disgrace. It’s hard to believe he would be stupid enough to lie about that twice knowing everybody would be checking.

Then again …

Anyway, so much for the all-natural blog. But I’ll post plenty of baseball items all day. If any steroids discussion can be limited to this entry, that would be appreciated.

Bernie Williams and George Steinbrenner made unexpected visits to training camp yesterday. For Bernie, it was part of not being able to quite let go of baseball.

Alex Rodriguez appreciates the support of the fans at Steinbrenner Field. This notebook also has updates on CC Sabathia, Edwar Ramirez, Jose Veras and Damaso Marte.

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The Twins took Jason Jones off the Yankees roster in the Rule 5 Draft. Jones is happy to be away from the organization it seems.

He has some harsh words for the Yankees and even jabs Brian Cashman. It’ll be interesting to see what happens if he comes back.

I wrote several times over the winter that it would be wise of the Yankees to sign Andy Pettitte because of his ability to give them a large amount of innings at league average or better.

What I didn’t bring into the equation was his leadership.

As we spoke to CC Sabathia today, a question was asked about how he was fitting in with his teammates. He almost immediately mentioned Pettitte.

“Having Andy in camp has been cool; a veteran lefty who has been here for a while,” Sabathia said. “He can help me and teach me different things just by watching him. He’s definitely a guy I’ll be leaning on all year.”

I’ve heard much the same thing from Joba Chamberlain and A.J. Burnett, whose locker is next to Pettitte at Steinbrenner Field.

Leadership can’t be quantified and we certainly do not yet know how well Pettitte will pitch. But his one-year deal certainly looks like a much better move than bringing in Jon Garland, Oliver Perez or somebody like that.

Here’s one of the Photo Day shots of Andy Pettitte.

He looks terrified.

It’s not everyday a player like Bernie Williams walks into the room. Consider where he stands in franchise history:

Games: Fifth with 2,076.

Hits: Fifth with 2,356.

Home runs: Sixth with 287.

At-Bats: Fourth with 7,869.

Doubles: Second with 449.

RBI: Sixth with 1,257.

Runs: Sixth with 1,366.

Given all the great players the Yankees have had, it’s quite an accomplishment. So here some audio from today of Bernie talking about his day in camp and why he’s still playing at 40:

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