Some public service announcements
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Sep 04, 2009 
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A few charity and health-related items I wanted to make you aware of:
Nick Swisher is working with Lee National Denim Day to raise money to fight women’s cancer. Go to his page to make a donation to the cause. $5 is all it takes — along with wearing jeans on Oct. 2.
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In the first-ever effort during a New York Yankees game, Ed Randall’s Bat For The Cure charity will help fans fight the battle against prostate cancer by partnering with the New York Yankees in an unprecedented effort to save lives by providing free, simple prostate cancer screenings for any adult man attending the game at Yankee Stadium on September 9.
The free tests will begin at 3 p.m. when the Yankees open the Stadium gates a full hour earlier than they normally would for an evening game. The screenings will take place at the First Aid Office located on the Main Level behind home plate. The tests will continue throughout the Yankees’ game against the Tampa Bay Rays. In addition, the Yankees have agreed to continue the screenings for as long as any fan at the game wants to take advantage of the free tests.
This is the first time prostate cancer screenings will be conducted during a game at Yankee Stadium and provides a no-cost opportunity for men at the game, especially men over 40, to have their PSA levels tested for any indication of prostate cancer. High PSA levels are a recognized warning of prostate issues.
Doctors and medical technicians from St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center have joined with Ed Randall’s Bat For The Cure to provide the safe and simple screening. Men will be notified of the results within two weeks.
“It is an honor for my organization to partner with the most famous sports franchise in history at the most storied sports venue in the world for this lifesaving initiative,” Ed Randall, the Chairman and Founder of Ed Randall’s Bat For The Cure said. “I owe a debt of gratitude to New York Yankees’ Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost for suggesting the idea for the screenings. It’s a debt I won’t be able to repay. But I know the greatest reward for the entire Yankees’ family will be the lives saved because of this partnership.”
The latest statistics on prostate cancer are saddening: prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men with 240,000 new cases of prostate cancer expected in the US this year, enough to fill Yankee Stadium six times over. Overall, one in three men will develop a prostate problem, one in six will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and for African-American men one in four will develop the disease. Yet, through early detection, prostate cancer is almost 97 percent treatable.
last nights game thread had a lot of discussion about the ability of pitchers to throw strikes when they want to. often the pitchers with the most stuff have the most problem with throwing strikes. gaudin seems like he’s that kind of guy. burnett is often that guy.
pressure certainly adds to the problem with any pitcher and control.
a pitcher who’s tight has trouble releasing the ball consistently and that’s going to make the command very erratic.
part of the audition with new pitchers like gaudin is to see if they can be who they are and who the gm thought they were.
the audition is to see if they can relax and be themselves and do what they normally do.
no one is asking guys to be better than they are, but with the yankees it’s sometimes hard to be who you are with the pressure added.
FYI you can donate more than $5 if you wish. I did.
I’ll repost my thoughts about Bruney and playoff relieving again in this thread so that Betsy and others concerned about Bruney can relax and enjoy the rest of September baseball.
Kind of late for contingency plans when it comes to Bruney. I think some of you are overestimating the importance of Bruney’s role in the playoffs. With built-in off days in the playoff schedule, I don’t see Girardi deviating from using Rivera, Hughes, Aceves, Robertson, Marte and Coke. They will most likely have Joba available for the first round which gives them seven relievers right there. Bruney or Gaudin will be the after thought addition to the playoff roster.
Furthermore, if the Yankees finish with the best record in the AL they get the choice of having an off day between most of their first round playoff games which means they can go with CC, AJ and Pettitte as the three starters and use all their top relievers in every game. Again, the AL team with the best record will be offer the choice of having an off day between just about all of their first round playoff games.
Last year, every AL playoff team used only five relievers in the first round. When it comes to the second round, teams might use 7 relievers, but the 7th reliever might pitch 1-2 innings at the most for the entire round. If you get as far as the WS, some teams revert back to 5 relievers while the other team might use 6-7 guys, but again, the 6th and 7th reliever innings are very limited.
IMO, you guys are worrying too much about Bruney’s very limited role in the playoffs as Girardi will go with the hot hand and give the ball to his best relievers which are Rivera, Hughes, Aceves, Robertson, Marte and Coke in certain situations.
its a good and important cause
I told them at work, if they deducted $5 from my paycheck daily and let me wear jeans to work everyday we’d have cancer cured in no time
Thanks, Pete. Good info, and I hope people take advantage.
haha. Just saw the replay on the “cop-up”. One of the tags is “blooper”.
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.....id=6457581
Just when Alex had conquered his fear of the pop-up!
“I was in the game thread until the 7th inning last night.”
sj44-
thanks because there was quite a bit of discussion that it wasn’t you. basically the point of people who said you were an impostor was that you could not possibly draw any conclusions about gaudin from last night’s effort that would tell you anything about whether he’ll be on the playoff roster or how well he’ll do in the future.
my point is posters like you who with an educated baseball eye based on years of varied baseball experience can indeed give a good analysis of what to expect from someone from watching an individual performance.
your very right to speculate about the future from what you saw last night from gaudin was challenged.
nick in sf however asserted your right to do exactly that. i’m of the opinion that people who can predict with a relatively high probability future performance of a player from watching a small sample are the ones that i want to read.
this whole wait till all the resuts are in is nonsense because once all the results are in everyone knows anyway. the trick is to predict with as little clues as possible. that’s what makes a great scout. they can see it at a glance sometimes.
that said, everyone has bad days and it’s important to verify small sample projections. no one is always right, but sj, keep the projections coming. i think they are one of the best things going on the blog.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding the use of the PSA test for prostate cancer screening.
Please check the following link: http://www.4-men.org/prostate-.....versy.html
“A study by experts at Stanford University Medical School of Medicine suggests the test can no longer be relied upon to produce accurate results. The authors declared: The PSA era is over.”
“Experts increasingly believe the test leads to needless treatment such as radiotherapy, when men could be monitored and live with the cancer without it ever causing a problem. Researchers studied prostate tissues collected over 20 years, from the time it first became standard to remove prostates in response to high PSA levels to the present.”
CashisKing: Why would the Yankees go through the process of working Joba’s pitch count to 110+ before the post season and then put him in the pen for the division series?