Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Sep 10, 2009 
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Derek Jeter tied Lou Gehrig on the career hits list night and, by the way, the Yankees beat the Rays.
Sam Borden writes that Jeter has always been about winning.
Chien-Ming Wang is optimistic about 2010. But do the Yankees feel the same way? This notebook also has an update on Joba Chamberlain.
It will be interesting to see how Cashman handles the Wang situation.
Congrat DJ, I love you man.
I do not get why people hate this guy. It’s like hating Michael Jordan (I guess if you’re a Celtics fan, you would, but cmon.)
He never runs his mouth, consummate team player, consummate Yankee, congrats Jerek Deter.
I wonder what Jeter told Joba when Jeter looked him straight in the eyes on the mound after he allowed two runs already with guys still on base?
Then, something happened. Derek Jeter calmly walked to the mound, and in a rare moment of emotion on the field, he got in Joba’s face. After the game, Joba danced around the issue, saying only that Derek told him to “slow it down” and throw strikes. More telling, though, was Joba’s comment that Derek rarely gets in anyone’s face. He leads by example and not by anger. Tonight, though, Derek had seen enough and whatever he said produced results.
Joba reared back and finished off very strong. He struck out Chris Richard and Gabe Gross to escape the first. He needed just 14 pitches to mow through the Rays in the 2nd and nine in the 3rd. Five ground-outs and one fly-out later, Joba’s night was over due to his pitch count. By the end of his start, he was sitting at 95 with his fastball and had a rhythm and urgency on the mound we’ve rarely seen this year. It was progress indeed.
from rab
wang at best will be offered a ml contract
he had a devastating surgery & will be out most of 2010
I wonder if Michael Kay woke up in Jeter’s bed this morning?
Nope, that was me.
Today may be a day off for the Yankees but it is a very important day because Dave Robertson goes to see Dr. Andrews today. We should all cross our fingers (and toes) to hope for good news.
pitchers used to throw batting practice as part of their bullpen sessions (so they could make adjustments and gauge effectiveness b/w starts) – should more teams (especially younger players) do this?
Even though I’ve been a die hard Yankees fan since 1953 I don’t share the ‘life and death’ attitude towards the Yankees (or Giants, Knicks, or Rangers) that many of you seem to have. I’ve seen Yankees teams in the ’50s and early ’60s that were in the WS virtually every year, seen teams for the next 15 years that stunk, saw the revival of the late ’70s and early ’80s, the Stump Merrill lost years, and the great run under Joe Torre. So I know that there are no givens in baseball or life and am prepared for both sides of the coin (even though I much prefer teams like this year’s version, of course).
For me, when the season is over, it’s over. Each year is completely different than the previous year. I don’t care if the Yankees lost to the Sox in 2004, it has no bearing on what happens in 2009 just has winning 4 World Series in 5 years has no bearing on this year either.
I’m not offering any advice, just sharing one fan’s approach to sports and to my favorite team. At the end of the day, sports is a diversion, not a life form. It doesn’t make me any less of a fan than anyone else (or any more of a fan either).
hard to believe wang won’t be back, as he can be stashed on the 60 day along with garcia (i believe the rules change in the offseason concerning eligibility).
It will be more interesting to see how Cashman handles,Jeter’s new contract. Maybe for the 1st time it will have incentives,since he’s after all, one of the Yankees great.
Congrats Jeter,on being tied in hits to another Yankees great,Lou Gherig.
When it comes to baseball, yankee baseball in particular I have had a priviledged viewing life. I fell inlove with the yankees in 1954 and we’re still married so to speak.
Been priviledged to watch so many superstars and varying personalities, I so love this team.
Derek Jeter only adds to the priviledge of being a Yankee fan. A joy and a yankee blessing. So lucky am I.
-mg
I hope they stash Joba there for the rest of this season.
He looks spent and out of shape.
Needing to be shut down,Joba is a mess right now,and a drain on the fielder’s and batters.
“It will be interesting to see how Cashman handles the Wang situation.”
that’s like letting the drunk driver handle the care and do the physical therapy of the guy he ran over.
cashman has to know he screwed up very badly with wang when he threw him into a normal spring training without doing what he needed to do to know that he was in no physical condition to pitch.
except for wang, cashman has had a great year. i suspect he’ll want to distance himself from the mistakes he made with wang and get rid of wang as soon as possible .
winning a world series this year will deflect any criticism of cashman’s handling of wang.
maybe if the yankees don’t win it all. it will dawn on a few people that sabathia, pettitte, burnett, and wang may have had a better chance of running the table.
probably not though. cashman will get a pass on his negligent handling of wang because of the success of the yankees this year.
for some reason cashman and his management team are like oil and water with wang. the coaches and stat guys he hires don’t get wang and seemed to be always trying to change him to a pitcher who threw more pitches.
it’s really best for both sides to go their separate ways. like i said, i think cashman knows he screwed up with wang and will want to distance himself from he scene of the crime. my prediction is wang leaves.
all that said, if i were girardi, i would not let wang travel with the team. the reason is precisely because wang is a reminder to the other pitchers and players how quick it can all go south. it sounds heartless, but there is a reason that players are sent to other places for rehab. it’s a reality it can be negative imagery to have them around.
add that to the fact that cashman is not going to want to talk about wang, i suspect that we won’t see wang around as much as wang thinks. we’ll see.
i just hope he puts the whole thing behind him and gets ready to pitch next year wherever that is.
I think part of what people have missed with respect to Jeter’s accomplishment and all the hubbub and faux controversy about Jeter being singled out for an individual award when he’s been the consummate team player is the reason why this mark is so special.
And why that is, in many ways, has nothing to do with Jeter at all.
It has to do with the man whose record he tied. It’s as much to do with Gehrig as it does Jeter. As such, the process of celebrating Jeter is simultaneously a process commemorating Gehrig. That’s why it’s special. It’s not Jeter alone.
Even now it’s difficult to comprehend the magnitude of Gehrig’s accomplishments and the force of his skills.
If you haven’t looked recently at Gehrig’s career production I highly recommend it. I’ve put the link for his baseball reference page at the bottom.
Gehrig had a run of 11 straight seasons with an OPS of over 1.000. During those 11 seasons he never had an OPS+ of lower than 166. And the two seasons bookending those 1.000+ OPS seasons he had an OPS of .969 and .932.
No player on the Yankees this year – not Tex, not Alex – has an OPS of more than .932. Gehrig reached that level of performance while he was starting to die.
Think of how good say Reggie Jackson was. Reggie had one year in his entire career with an OPS of over 1.000. He had two years with an OPS+ of greater than 166. Gehrig did that 11 years in a row.
Gehrig performed at the highest peak level Reggie ever achieved and made that run last for over a decade.
Dimaggio reached those levels of performance 5 times in his 13 year career.
Take the best 5 years of Joe D’s career and double that run and Gehrig still out does that by 1 season.
And for that entire period of time Gehrig of course never missed one game. Think back to Cal Ripken’s streak of consecutive games when it was clear at times that Ripken playing everyday was taking a toll on his batting average, his power, or his ability to get on base consistently. Gehrig performed at some of the best peak rates the game has ever seen and did so every game day in and out year after year after year. That’s the part that isn’t appreciated enough about Gehrig’s streak. It’s not just the consecutive games – it’s the consecutive games of brilliant play inning after inning after inning that made the whole of it so amazing.
Gehrig played in 34 post season games – all in the World Series because there was no playoffs back then.
In those 34 games he hit .361 with a .477 OBP and slugged .731. That’s a 1.208 OPS in the World Series for his career. A 1.200 OPS in the world series. He slugged over .700. He got on base nearly half of all of his world series plate appearances. Utter domination.
The brilliance of Gehrig is even now difficult to understand.
And it’s the glowing background of that history that makes Jeter’s accomplishment now luminesce the way it does.
http://www.baseball-reference......lo01.shtml
How wonderful it is to be a fan of Derek Jeter,and the New York Yankees.Derek is such an ambassador for all things good about the Yankees
.Congrats on your big night Jeter!
CB: And Gehrig was always overshadowed by Ruth and DiMaggio…
I’ve never heard of anyone hating Jeter.I alway hear he’s classy,all about the team.
“It has to do with the man whose record he tied. It’s as much to do with Gehrig as it does Jeter. As such, the process of celebrating Jeter is simultaneously a process commemorating Gehrig. That’s why it’s special. It’s not Jeter alone.”
cb-
sitting at the kitchen table watching the yes announcers talking aboout jeter approaching the record my 88 year old father who watched gehrig play in oerson many times said that gehrig would have had years more of playing time if his life wasn’t cut short.
my father loves jeter, but gehrig to him is just on another level. he means no disrespect to jeter,but i think gehrig to his generation was just a baseball legend who was bigger than life.i think his sudden death shook him and the country.
to this day i can hear the reverence he held for gehrig in his voice. he has told me a thousand times how his older brother drove from maine all night (no easy feat in those days) to see gehrig’s famous speech when he retired).
jeter breaking gehrig’s record clearly celebrates both players and links two great players and eras.
If Wang leaving means the decrease of whining from Randy about Cashman then I’m all for that result.
Jeter is by far my favorite Yankee since Mattingly retired and is one of my favorites of all-time, but Ruth, Gehrig, Joe D. and Mantle are still the four best position Yankee players. Berra might be the fifth guy, but Jeter is right behind him.
randy,
That’s a wonderful story about your dad and uncle’s reverence for Gehrig.
Gehrig is a legend – and yet he’s still under rated now. It’s mind numbing how good he was.
I agree with your dad – Jeter is a first ballot hall of famer, but he’s clearly nowhere close to Gehrig as a player. And that says much more about Gehrig than it does about Jeter.
People tend not to realize fully enough now because many of his career totals fall short of bench marks for accumulated greatness. In particular, because he never hit 500 home runs (hit 493) and didn’t get 3000 hits, Gehrig’s greatness gets lost.
The one mark he did have that everyone discussed – the consecutive games played mark tended to overshadow his performance.
What’s particularly poignant about the link between Gehrig and Jeter is age. Jeter is 35.
Gehrig’s last full season of play was his age 35 season. During that season this was his production –
.295 .410 .523 .932
That level of play is better than what Teixeira is doing now and Gehrig did that while he was starting to die from ALS. I just can’t get over that.
And of course Gehrig was embarrassed by the “off season” he had when he was 35.
Think about how much skill and physical talent the man had. He was literally starting to die of a disease that wastes muscle away and he was still an all star.
Gehrig essentially ended his career at the same age Jeter is now. He should have played at least another 3 years. He would have hit over 600 HR and gotten close to 3300 hits. He would have put up several more seasons of 1.000+ OPS’s.
Lots of fans around baseball get sick of hearing about Yankee history.
They never had Lou Gehrig playing for their team.
Jeter has to be kept one way or the other. No way he ever wears another uniform. I see no reason why he couldn’t have huge bonuses for 3,000 hits and other potential milestones.
As for Wang, they cannot retain him without offering him at least $ Four Million seems highly unlikely. My guess is he’s non-tendered and the Yanks try to sign him for $ One Million with performance incentive should he make it back to the big leagues.
Randy — Give it a rest! You don’t know all the details nor do I. However the most likely scenario is that Cashman, following medical advice recommended a re-hab schedule.
Wang thru his agent was not obligated to follow it and the CBA allows for second and third opinions at team expense. I agree his re-hab was screwed up, but everyone involved shares some of the responsibility. Your obsession with blaming Cashman is not only off-base, it’s a little creepy.
Yes, I know Neil Allen is a God in your eyes. However he is the pitching coach for the Montgomery Biscuits. And his pitching staff is tied for last in the Southern League in ERA.
“Gehrig’s last full season of play was his age 35 season. During that season this was his production –
.295 .410 .523 .932″
IMO without any evidence to back it up, I think Gehrig was getting sick during that season as you look at his stats the season before that one which shows a decline in the 1938 season.
cash is king-
why do i get the feeling that you only use the word ” whine ” when you’re not standing in front of the person you’re referring to.
“why do i get the feeling that you only use the word ” whine ” when you’re not standing in front of the person you’re referring to.”
Because your feeling is wrong. Why should I be afraid to use that word in front of you or anybody else when I’m more than capable of taking care of myself?
“I think Gehrig was getting sick during that season as you look at his stats the season before that one which shows a decline in the 1938 season.”
He was. He started feeling subjectively weak that season, particularly towards the end and started having difficulty moving. There’s no doubt it affected his game – that’s why he himself felt that he’d had an off season.
He just didn’t like to talk about it so he kept playing.
It shouldn’t come as a shock if Jonathan Albaladejo makes the postseason roster if David Robertson has problems after his visit with Dr. Andrews.
Every time Bruney comes in from the bullpen, most fans hold their breath.
Chris
September 10th, 2009 at 10:08 am
It shouldn’t come as a shock if Jonathan Albaladejo makes the postseason roster if David Robertson has problems after his visit with Dr. Andrews.
Every time Bruney comes in from the bullpen, most fans hold their breath.
————————————————
the only person who matters in this is Joe Girardi and he obviously has some (not complete) confidence in Bruney.
Bruney has been very successful in recording first batter outs this year (opponents are batting .129 against him with 4 walks, including last night’s). If used properly (match up situations) he has done a good job although he has some issues with full innings or more. I doubt that Albadalejo would jump over Bruney in the pecking order between now and the end of the year although the impact either would have in the post-season is minimal at best.
Hey Rover I SAY DIDO TO THAT. IT HAS BEEN GREAT WATCHING THE YANKEES SINCE 1957. MY FIRST GAME WITH DAD MICKEY HIT A HOMERUN AND I WAS IN LOVE WITH THE YANKEES FOREVER. DJ IS ONE OF THE ALL TIME GREATS AND WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE BEST SS EVER TO PLAY FOR THE YANKS. THIS YEAR WE NEED TO WIN THE BIG ONE. NOTHING BUT THE CHAMPIONSHIP WILL BE ACCEPTED.
I think Wang never pitches for the Yankees again.