The Daily Yankeeland

A new feature to take a quick look at what's going on in Yankeeland.

The biggest news of course was Joe Girardi's official intro to the media. It was kind of silly for the Yankees to hold a conference call earlier in the week and then introduce Girardi at the Stadium as well yesterday. It clearly would have made yesterday even more special and interesting if it had been the only get together. Conspicuous by their absence was Yankees ownership and most of the font office. Only Brian Cashman and Lon Trost accompanied Girardi to the press conference. No Hank? No Hal? No sense.

Girardi decided to wear #27 this season to show the Yankees goal of winning their 27th championship. Hopefully GI Joe gets to wear #28 when the new Stadium opens in 2009.

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The Yankees have until Midnight tonight to exercise the 2008 option on Bobby Abreu. What exactly are they waiting for? Perhaps they are thinking about offering a multi year deal. We wouldn't do that, unless it were maybe a 2-year, 25 mill deal, so Abreu would get less this season. We would still only pick up his option if we were in charge.

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After consulting with team physicians and doctors back in Japan, Hideki Matsui has decided to have his right knee scoped and cleaned out in prep for the 2008 season. Godzilla was hampered by the balky knee for much of the latter half of the past season.

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With Dave Eiland's promotion to pitching coach, the Yankees have brough in Rafael Chaves to take over as the pitching coach at Triple-A Scranton. Chaves was the pitching coach for the M's the past 2 years and had worked for the Mariners organization for a decade.

Source

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As part of their 20th anniversary celebration, WFAN held a contest that allowed fans to vote for the greatest 20 NY sports celebrities of the last 20 years. Mike and the Mad Dog revealed the list yesterday, and spoke with many of the players in-studio or on the phone.

Among those stopping by were Bernie Williams and Daryl Strawberry, while Derek Jeter was contacted via phone. Jeter took the top spot, while Joe Torre was 4th, Straw came in at #15, and Bernie took the 20th spot. You can go to WFAN's site to hear the interviews.