The Daily Yankeeland

Hideki Matsui feels his surgically repaired knee will be ready to go come opening day. For Matsui that means being able to play left field. How Joe Girardi ends up using Matsui, Johnny Damon, and Jason Giambi remains to be seen.

Mike Mussina says things are not going to be easy for Andy Pettitte this season. The team is expecting 190-200 innings and 15 wins out of the left-hander, but Moose knows how much crap Pettitte will have to put up with in visiting ball parks.

Despite previous enthusiasm, it wouldn't be surprising at all if Pettitte disappeared from the public spotlight after this season.

Derek Jeter says the game has definutely taken a hit from all of the steroid controversy and is truly embarrassed by the poor publicity that the game is dealing with.

Brian McNamee's attorney Earl Ward said yesterday that Roger Clemens shouldn't worry if he ends up with jail time. That's because the Rocket's good buddy Dubya would most certainly pardon him. Rusty "JR Ewing" Hardin's response to Ward's allegations? "He needs to stop smoking his own dope."

No one should be surprised by the disgraceful split among party lines during the hearing. That's just Washington, D.C. at its' worstbest. Rep Dan Burton (R-Indiana) could definitely have his pic next to the word "hypocrite" in the dictionary. The best response yesterday though probably came from Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman:

“I think Clemens and McNamee both came out quite sullied, and I didn’t think it was a hearing that needed to be held in order to get the facts out about the Mitchell report,” Waxman said.

Then why did you have a hearing, Henry? It's your committee!

Phil Hughes has some great pics on his blog from his weekend at a NASCAR event with Shelley Duncan and Ian Kennedy. He also convinced IPK to answer some questions from fans.

Randy Levine is pissing someone(s) off for a change. This time it is Bronx Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr.. Diaz asked Levine how many Bronx residents were hired to work on construction of the new Stadium. Levine could not provide an answer, upsetting the Bronx pols.

Then Levine got into it with Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo. She wanted to know why a community foundation that was supposed to dole out 800k a year from Yankees contributions to Bronx non-profits,had taken more than a year-and-a-half to hold its' initial meeting. Levine told her to go ask Bronx Borough Prez Adolfo Carrión. A ticked off Arroyo blasted Levine and walked out of the meeting.

Keep up that great P.R. work there, Randy.

No decision yet in Chien-Ming Wang's arbitration case, but the right-hander was not upset by yesterday's proceedings, which in fact went quite smoothly.