The LoHud Yankees Blog

The winner is …

Uncle Ellsworth!

This comment at 3:05 p.m. — I’d like to take this time to Nominate Erica for rookie of the year. Who will second? — was No. 1,000,000.

Send me your address, you win.

Because Erica was mentioned, she will get a fabulous second prize.

Thanks to everybody for playing, that was fun. Now calm down!

UPDATE, 3:18 p.m.: Oh, wait a second. An enraged Kanye West just busted into the press box and said that Beyonce actually won. Security is wrestling him away. Kelly Clarkson is furious.

But Uncle Ellsworth will get the prize, I promise you.

Stop commenting so I can figure it out!

68 comments to 1,000,000.

The prize is waiting!

This is really funny, seeing you guys try and come up with stuff.

UPDATE, 3:06 p.m.: Getting closer now — 28 to go. I hope a regular wins, I really do.

Here’s a little breaking news via Chad Jennings:

The Yankees have promoted OF Freddy Guzman to the majors. RHP Anthony Claggett was DFA’d to make room for him on the 40-man roster.

Guzman has played only 37 games in the majors, none since an eight-game cameo with Texas in 2007. He was 19 of 89 in those games but stole 22 bases. The Yankees appear to be considering him for a postseason roster spot as a pinch runner. In theory, they could go with one less pitcher in the first round and keep Guzman.

Guzman started this season in the Red Sox organization and bounced around before the Yankees acquired him from Baltimore on Aug. 31.

Also, Ian Kennedy will be pitching for Scranton on Wednesday in the International League playoffs. He’s expected to start and go 3-4 innings. Good step on the road back for Ian.

The Yankees won 13-3 yesterday. So Johnny Damon’s bonehead play in the fourth inning that allowed the Orioles to score a run didn’t really matter.

Only it sort of did. Instead of CC Sabathia having a 3.38 ERA it’s 3.42. I don’t think the big man is getting the Cy Young Award this season. But what if that play caused him to go from 2.98 to 3.02? In the eyes of some voters, that could be a difference maker.

Let’s review: With Justin Turner on second and one out, Jeff Fiorentino hit a flay ball to left. Damon had trouble finding the ball in the sun and staggered around a bit before catching it. Turner tagged up and went to third.

Damon gave an exaggerated sigh of relief then turned to throw the ball in the stands, thinking there were three outs. As Spicoli did his thing, Turner kept running and scored. By the time Damon realized what he had done, it was too late.

The official scorer, Jordan Sprechman, correctly ruled the play a sacrifice fly. Fiorentino got an RBI.

Scorers are bound by certain policies, official and unofficial. Unless an outfield gets a glove on the ball, there is rarely an error charged. There are also no such things as mental errors.

But in a case like this, Damon’s blunder is clearly an error as it allowed a runner to take an extra base he otherwise would not have. There should be a provision where Damon could be charged with an error on that play and the run be unearned on Sabathia’s ledger.

The problem is that the quality and common-sense of official scorers varies widely. The guys in New York are top notch. But in other places — Florida, ahem! — it’s brutal. But MLB should be able to come up with some sort of way to handle these matters in a fair way.

As of noon today, this blog had 999,306 approved comments since Jan. 17, 2007 when we installed the new software that counts the comments.

Whoever checks in at 1,000,000 today will get the following fabulous prize mailed to them:

• A Yankees soup cup given away at the Stadium last week.

• Yankees luggage tags given away the Stadium over the weekend.

• Marty Appel’s terrific book Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain.

• A Yankees ski cap.

• A Hope Week baseball cap courtesy of Jason Zillo, The players all have these and they are a limited edition.

• A LoHud Yankees Blog t-shirt from our 2008 outing that I just found in my car.

That’s a lot of stuff. So make your comments good ones, they could earn a prize.

Here is a quick update on the minor-league playoffs:

Triple-A Scranton: The Yankees are in the International League finals and face Crash Davis and the Durham Bulls in a best-of-five series that starts Tuesday. It’s a rematch of the finals from last season. If you’re interested in catching a game, Scranton hosts Game 3 on Thursday. Game 4 (if needed) would be on Friday and Game 5 (if needed) on Saturday would also be at PNC Field.

Go to the team site for more information.

Single-A Tampa: They are tied 1-1 in the best-of-five Florida State League finals. The final three games are at Charlotte starting tonight. The Yankees will send D.J. Mitchell to the mound tonight.

Rookie League Staten Island: Staten Island faces Mahoning Valley in the best-of-three New York/Penn League finals starting tonight. Staten Island hosts Game 1 tonight. Games 2 and 3 are at Mahoning Valley, wherever that is.

2009 draft pick Adam Warren starts tonight for Staten Island. If you’re interested in attending,

Go to the team web site for ticket information.

Is one game a series? Is it a serie? Why do I care?

Tonight: RHP Jered Weaver (15-5, 3.76) vs. RHP Joba Chamberlain (8-5, 4.45), 7:05, YES.

Here is why you need to care about this game: The Yankees are five games up on the Angels for the best record in the AL and home-field advantage throughout the postseason. Tonight is the first of four games left between the teams. So anything can happen.

Counting the postseason, the Yankees are 6-19 at Rally Monkey Land since the start of the 2005 season. So playing an extra game at Yankee Stadium in the ALCS could well be the difference in getting to the World Series.

The Angels have 20 games left, the Yankees 18. After tonight, here is what they have left:

Yankees: Toronto (2), at Seattle (3), at Los Angeles (3), Boston (3), Kansas City (3), at Tampa Bay (3).

Angels: At Boston (3), at Texas (3), Yankees (3), Oakland (3), Texas (4), at Oakland (3).

The Yankees beat the Orioles 13-3 yesterday. But a dust-up with umpire Marty Foster was the story of the day.

There’s an important game with the Angels tonight. This notebook also has updates on a flub by Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter and Brian Bruney.

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If you use Safari as your browser, you’ll probably have trouble clicking to the second page of the stories. I’ve alerted the tech people about the issue several times and hopefully they’ll fix it. An easy work-around is to click “print this story” and you get the whole version.

Our apologies.

The Red Sox are about to sweep the sleepin’ Rays. That will leave the Yankees seven games up with 18 to play. They lead the Angels by five with four games left against Los Angeles.

That’s it for tonight. Interesting game tomorrow, come back for more.