The LoHud Yankees Blog

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada C
Nick Swisher RF
Brett Gardner LF
CC Sabathia LHP

Joe Girardi wanted to split the lefties because the Dodgers left-handed relievers. Arizona had not lefties in the pen, so it wasn’t an issue.

One other thing to keep an eye on tonight…

Andrew Brackman has been promoted from High-A Tampa and will make his Double-A debut tonight in Trenton.

After a rough 2009 and a rocky start to this season, Brackman had 55 strikeouts and only eight walks in his last 10 appearances for Tampa. In an email, pitching coordinator Nardi Contreras said cleaned up mechanics have made the difference.

“Has confidence to go with a cleaner delivery to command better,” Contreras wrote.

At one point yesterday afternoon, Brian Costa and I started laughing at the scene we’d just left behind.

The Yankees were not playing in Anaheim, but the Dodgers clubhouse had been full of more New York writers than L.A. writers. When Joe Torre finally walked into the dugout, he made a few cracks at George King, then said the obvious about tonight’s game.

“It’s going to be crazy,” he said. “But that’s fine.”

Yankees fans seem torn at best, angry at worst. Alex Rodriguez seems indifferent to his old manager, but the Core Four can’t wait to see Torre again. Me? I have no strong feelings about the man. As a player he had some great years on St. Louis teams that my dad really loved, and until I got this job, that was my strongest connection to him.

But I tend to agree with Mike Vaccaro: Yes, the ending was ugly, and that should not be forgotten, but it also should not erase some of the great years in this franchise’s history.

These next three games are going to be crazy, and you’re going to be pounded over the head with images and stories of Joe Torre. If you’re not sick of them already, you probably will be by Sunday.

But there’s also a lot to be enjoyed about this weekend, and I hope you’re able to do that as well.

All times are Eastern.

Tonight
LHP CC Sabathia (8-3, 3.68)
vs.
RHP Vincente Padilla (1-1, 6.67)
10:10 p.m., YES Network

Saturday
RHP A.J. Burnett (6-6, 4.83)
vs.
RHP Hiroki Kuroda (6-5, 3.06)
7:10 p.m., FOX

Sunday
LHP Andy Pettitte (9-2, 2.48)
vs.
LHP Clayton Kershaw (7-4, 3.24)
8:05 p.m., ESPN

As I’m sure you remember, Phil Hughes was supposed to start the opener of this series, but he was bumped back to cut down on his innings.

Associated Press photo of Sabathia

Kind of late notice on this, but here’s the press release about a second Jay-Z and Eminem concert at Yankee Stadium. Tickets go on sale this morning at 10 EST.

The concert doubleheader of JAY-Z and Eminem have added a second date -– Tuesday, September 14 –- to their Yankee Stadium appearance.

Tickets for the added show will go on sale Friday, June 25 at 10:00 a.m., online at www.livenation.com, via Ticketmaster phone at (800) 745-3000 and via Ticketmaster TTY at (800) 943-4327.

On May 12, it was announced that Yankee Stadium would hold its first official concert on September 13, featuring the award-winning duo of JAY-Z and Eminem.

The Yankee Stadium concerts will be the second of a home-and-home series of shows for New York City-native JAY-Z and Eminem, who was raised in the Detroit metropolitan area, as the pair will also perform at Detroit’s Comerica Park on September 2, with a second show also added today for September 3.

After Joe Torre answered two questions about the Dodgers this afternoon, a Los Angeles reporter looked at the group of writers huddled in the dugout and said, “It looks like you have some old friends here.”

“Who told you that?” Torre said. “Them?”

The Yankees are playing in northern Los Angeles tomorrow, but tonight most of the Yankees beat writers are in Anaheim. Early morning flights from Phoenix, early afternoons spent stuck in L.A. traffic and finally a few minutes with Torre, who began quickly joking with the reporters he knew so well in New York.

“The odd thing for me is I’m going to be over there in that dugout pulling against people I’ve never pulled against before,” he said. “That’s the weird part. I’m sure the competitiveness comes out and you probably won’t think about it as much then as I am now.”

Torre said he ate lunch today with Yankees trainers Gene Monahan and Steve Donohue, and with Yankees clubhouse manager Lou Cucuzza. “Some of my old gang,” he said. He expects tomorrow to be emotional for him, at least until the game starts.

“Considering that while I was there we eliminated all of their weaknesses, I’m sorry I did that now,” he joked.

Here’s the audio for most of the interview, 11 minutes or so. Torre talked quite a bit about the book, his relationship with the front office and the impact of moving to Los Angeles.

“The thing that gets me is last year, I’m watching the World Series, and not one minute did I wish I was in the dugout to be honest with you,” he said. “It was great and I did it a lot of times, but that was enough.”

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From our friends over on the news side of The Journal News, former Yankees catcher and current broadcaster John Flaherty is part of an ownership group that is working to bring baseball to Rockland County.

Flaherty is from the area and is part of Bottom 9 Baseball, the group that is working to lease a new stadium so that Rockland can have a team in the Can-Am League.

While we’re linking to things, we’ll throw a link to poor Shane Lindsay, who seems to have several teams that like him, but none that like him quite enough. Lindsay in the Yankees system briefly this season — if you blinked, you missed it — before being claimed off waivers by the Indians earlier this month. Today Lindsay was designated for assignment again — third time this season — to make room for a Jayson Nix waiver claim.

Until 1996, Joe Torre had much stronger connections to the Braves, Cardinals and Mets than to the Yankees. He had played for three different teams and managed three different teams before he finally wore the pinstripes.

Don Mattingly is a different story.

“Donnie looks a little bit more weird to me than Joe,” Jorge Posada said. “Joe, I have seen him in different unis before he got to New York, but Donny looks strange in that blue.”

There will be a lot of sentiment toward Torre this weekend, but it’s doubtful Mattingly will be completely lost in the shuffle.

“Donnie can do whatever he wants in baseball,” Alex Rodriguez said. “Coach. Manage. General manager. Front office. He’s just got a perfect demeanor. Full of information. He was one of my role models growing up. He played the way that every young child should want to play the game. I wish him well. I think he’s in line to get a great managing job.”

Within the Yankees fan base, opinions of Joe Torre have changed in the past few years. He didn’t leave the organization on good terms, then he co-wrote the book and now he’s seen in some corners as a traitor.

But for the players most closely associated with him, Torre seems to be the same. Before last night’s game, Derek Jeter said he had already talked to Torre once that day. Of course, as he always does, Jeter called his old manager Mr. Torre.

“I was 21 when I came up,” Jeter said. “It’s out of respect. Not saying I don’t have respect for you guys if I don’t call you mister, (but) he’s been like a father figure to me. It’s just out of respect.”

What do the Core Four and Torre’s replacement remember about him?

Jorge Posada
“The way he treated me. Not only me getting a chance to play. Obviously I’m going to thank him forever, and the organization, but the way he treated me was really special. I will always remember that.”

Andy Pettitte
“He’s like a father figure. He was not only my manager, he was just somebody that you could talk to. Not about baseball, just talk to him about life. At a very young age he was always there. You all know how much he supported me, through the good times and the bad times. When I struggled, he stood for me. They wanted to trade me, and he put his neck on the line for me. That obviously means an awful lot to me.”

Mariano Rivera
“Joe was more than a friend. He was a mentor. I would say, a guy that always was there, giving me the best advice that he can give. Always supporting me. I remember 97, my first year as a closer. I was struggling a little bit in the beginning. He said, ‘Don’t worry about what you do. As long as I’m here, you will be my closer.’”

Derek Jeter
“I learned a lot from the way he handles people, the way he deals with people. I’ve said it before about, people always say you treat everyone the same. You don’t treat everyone the same. You treat everyone fairly. I think he was pretty good at that.”

Joe Girardi
“I was his bench coach and he allowed me to do a lot of things as a bench coach. He allowed me to manage the game and make whatever suggestion I wanted. For that I’m forever grateful. It was his job to decide how many good ideas I had, but there were open lines of communication and he allowed me to say whatever I was thinking. It was great.”

Here’s the audio from Jeter.

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And from Rivera.

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Associated Press photo

As I’m sure you remember, on Sunday the cast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition surprised the Lutz family at Yankee Stadium.

This morning Bernie Williams, David Cone and approximately 50 Yankees front office employees visited the site of the new Lutz family home in Setauket, Long Island. The former Yankees will help with the build.

From a press release…

The Lutzes are another representation of the kind of family “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” aims to help by building a new home in just seven days. Unable to have children of their own, loving couple Grace and John Lutz gave their hearts to 18 adopted kids in all, including seven with Down Syndrome. After the couple passed away, their daughter, Kathleen, gave up her career and gladly came home to take care of six Down siblings who currently range in age from 20 to 25 years old. Everyone agreed that putting the kids in a group home or institution was not an option.

It was a good plan, until Kathleen suddenly and unexpectedly had a grand mal seizure, and was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Her brother, John Jr., was next at bat, sacrificing his successful career as a gymnastics coach to move home and care for his sister and siblings. Kathleen’s health is now stabilized and both brother and sister care for their family as a team.

Bottom line is, right now their family home is falling apart, and so they’re getting a new place to live. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full episode of the show, but I’ve seen a little bit of it and it’s hard not to feel great for the families that are selected. Once again, good job by the Yankees to get involved in something like this.

No word on when the episode will air, but the theme will be “New York! New York!” and it will apparently include some Broadway-style singing and dancing.