Sterling's Spring Training Starts Now

Pitchers and catchers don't report until February 14, but I can imagine that at this very moment John Sterling is in his home, sitting in front of the fireplace in a navy blue pinstripe suit, Chivas Regal in one hand, DVR remote in the other. He faces his 50" flat screen TV and watches highlights of Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, Brian Roberts, Carlos Beltran, abd Kelly Johnson hitting home runs. Occassionally a tear rolls down his cheek as he realizes he'll no longer say, "Robbie Cano, don'tcha know!".

He jumps around, setting his sights on one particular image and brainstorms new home run calls. "What words rhyme with the names? Are there any old Broadway references/ Is it something I can sing? Have I used it before? I got caught last year doing that. I can't let it happen again."

Just then Jacoby Ellsbury, clad in a Boston Red Sox uniform, hits a pitch into the Fenway Park bullpen.

"It is high, it is far, it is gone..Ohhh Ellsbury Fields Forever!" Hmmm..maybe. He pauses the recording, puts down the remote and scribbles the possible call on a pad of paper.  Remote back in hand, he skips back to the beginning and watches Ellsbury's home run again.

"Jaco-by hit that to Nairobi..no, no maybe not. Jaco-by using the force like Obi-Wan-Kenobi. Instant classic!!!"

Brian McCann, wearing his long time Atlanta Braves uniform, steps to the plate on the plasma.

"Oh, Brian..making the pitcher cryin'.....Oh, Brian lost that baseball like we lost a Mayan...hmmm, too obscure?"

"McCann just gained a fan! That would have to be after another call. Wait! Guys and Dolls."
"Can do Can do, McCann says his bat can do" He pauses the television and quickly grabs his cellphone to call Suzyn Waldman. He begins to sing his modified Broadway tune. Soon he and Suzyn are singing together, then break into "Luck Be a Lady" and "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat".

Sterling hangs up the phone. A satisfied look on his face, with a "McCann Can Dance still in his bag of tricks, he refills his glass and pops on video of Roberts. The light bulb immediately goes off - Mr. Roberts, Hank Fonda...a Broadway and movie classic, but not a musical. Damn it, so close. "Sterling loses, Sterling loses."

Undeterred, the modern voice of the Yankees watches Carlos Beltran appear on screen. "That's it, I'll go back to Roberts. Too many Brians. "Burn Baby Beltran..no, no, no..sorry Bernie.  Carlos puts the belt in Beltran...hmmm, maybe. It is high, it is far, it is gone! Carlos "Danger" Beltran. No, no that could cause more problems. And Beltran ra-an, he ran so far away-ay-ay, he touched home plate today. Ah, those Flock of Seagulls. What an '80s band. Suzyn will never get that one though. This is tough. I have to think about it more."

On to Johnson. "When he goes back to back, I can use back to back and a belly to Kelly! Yes, it's gold! But what about when he hits one alone. Kelly, he hit that one to Carnaegie Deli. Okay, I can save that for tape measure shots, but what's the sure thing? KJ made the ball yell May Day. That's it. Pure genius! The right blend of cornball and obscurity.  I've got to pack up and get down to Tampa early to try these out."

No matter who plays on the Yankees this year, you can bet that John Sterling will be well prepared with a pocket full of home run calls. Let's just hope he has plenty of them to call for the Bronx Bombers.

You Can't Predict Baseball, But You Can Predict John Sterling

Seriously...whoever buys the radio rights next year, Sterling needs to go. You can find a minimum 2-3 screw ups per game now (as in Saturday night's game vs. the Angels). It seems most of it is tied to eye sight or bad eye sight.

His shtick is old, his home run calls are beyond corny, and it's just not a fun listen.

On another note - due to injuries to Francisco Cervelli (concussion symptoms) and Russell Martin (which occurred during the game), Jorge Posada caught his first game of the year. The Angels immediately tested him (on the first pitch), but Posada threw out Howie Kendrick attempting to steal second base.

We're in Pain

Yes, the Yankees are losing, but we're in pain because of these two.

We're in Pain

Yes, the Yankees are losing, but we're in pain because of these two.

The Daily Yankeeland - 5/20

Maybe we should change that title to the sometimes Yankeeland, since we haven't been writing it on a daily basis. Anyway........

Bob Raismann doesn't write new stuff every day either which is why he's a week behind in his shot at Hank Steinbrenner. Even Suzyn Waldman took a shot at Boss Jr. when she was on with Benigno and Roberts on the FAN.

"No. I don't think anybody pays attention (to Hank Steinbrenner)," Waldman said. "... Every time Hank goes out and says something, 10 minutes later he's saying, 'Well, that's not exactly what I meant to say.'"

That's stunning coming from one of the all-time Koolaid drinkers. Of course Waldman does have a point. As the Post's Kevin Kernan reports, Hank said yesterday not to count out the Yankees.

The NY Times reports that the idiot who buried the David Ortiz jersey in the concrete of the new Stadium, also buried a scorecard from the 2004 ALCS. Does anyone really care? If you are a Yankees fan does this really bother you? Seriously? They should have left Ortiz's jersey down there, he was hitting like he was buried in cement. Perhaps they should just bury the construction worker instead.

In case you didn't see it, and we only saw the headline of the video (just why did NBC give him the weekly spot), Mad Dog Russo, that moronexpert on all sports, said the Yankees are dead. May not happen, but I guess he hasn't learned from the past couple of season. No matter how bad things are, you don't kill off a team in May.

And in case you missed it in yesterday's paper or online, Phil Mushnick gave the Yankees a well deserved tongue lashing for their treatment of fans on Friday night. As we said on Saturday it was a disgraceful act that also occurred on opening day.

The Daily Yankeeland - 5/20

Maybe we should change that title to the sometimes Yankeeland, since we haven't been writing it on a daily basis. Anyway........

Bob Raismann doesn't write new stuff every day either which is why he's a week behind in his shot at Hank Steinbrenner. Even Suzyn Waldman took a shot at Boss Jr. when she was on with Benigno and Roberts on the FAN.

"No. I don't think anybody pays attention (to Hank Steinbrenner)," Waldman said. "... Every time Hank goes out and says something, 10 minutes later he's saying, 'Well, that's not exactly what I meant to say.'"

That's stunning coming from one of the all-time Koolaid drinkers. Of course Waldman does have a point. As the Post's Kevin Kernan reports, Hank said yesterday not to count out the Yankees.

The NY Times reports that the idiot who buried the David Ortiz jersey in the concrete of the new Stadium, also buried a scorecard from the 2004 ALCS. Does anyone really care? If you are a Yankees fan does this really bother you? Seriously? They should have left Ortiz's jersey down there, he was hitting like he was buried in cement. Perhaps they should just bury the construction worker instead.

In case you didn't see it, and we only saw the headline of the video (just why did NBC give him the weekly spot), Mad Dog Russo, that moronexpert on all sports, said the Yankees are dead. May not happen, but I guess he hasn't learned from the past couple of season. No matter how bad things are, you don't kill off a team in May.

And in case you missed it in yesterday's paper or online, Phil Mushnick gave the Yankees a well deserved tongue lashing for their treatment of fans on Friday night. As we said on Saturday it was a disgraceful act that also occurred on opening day.

Michael Kay, Yea or Nay?

We've been hearing a lot of anti-Michael Kay talk over the last year. Let's quickly re-phrase that a bit. We've been hearing a lot of anti-Michael Kay talk for years, but it has gotten a lot louder the last year. We're only referring to his work as the lead Yankees broadcaster for the YES Network.

Not his work on Centerstage, which we feel he does very well, or on his radio show, which we could take or leave. There have even been "Fire Michael Kay" blogs started.

Let's review some of our own complaints about Kay as well as a lot of what we've been hearing from others. We won't even bring up his "fivehead". Oops, we just did.

Repetitiveness

Kay definitely has a penchant for repeating himself. We don't mean the kind of repeating that Tim McCarver does, where he's still dissecting a play from three innings ago. We're referring to his constant mentioning of certain things. Some examples:

The size of Kevin Mench's head; Every time the Yankees play the team Mench is on, Kay goes on about how large Mench's melon is. Okay, we get it. It's a throwback to the '70s when Frank Messer couldn't stop talking about how Carlos May had half his thumb blown off.

The repeat use of phrases, especially corny ones. "He's like the girl with the curl. He's either very good or very bad."

The "Martini Glass" defense to describe the shift when Jason Giambi comes up.

Part of this next example is obviously an issue with the YES director and production team. Every time David Cone is in the booth we don't need to see the last out of his perfect game. Kay is only partially duplicitous (we use that word here because he loves to use it) here since he just intros the clip.

Another irritating Kayism has even bothered his fellow broadcasters, though it's usually good natured. That would be Kay's use of $5 words to describe a scene that could be easily stated in a more user friendly manner. Don't get us wrong, education and expanding your vocabulary is great, but this is a baseball game not an English lit class. Some examples:

"His speech was filled with vitriol."

Act your age. We are all for immaturity, but when you're 47-years old trying to sound 20, you just sound stupid.

"Are you guys down with that?"

The corny factor.

"When we come back we'll put a bow on this one." Heck we can't even stand when he thanks us for tuning in.

Asinine gimmickry - "QuanGorMo" to describe the Yankees 7th thru 9th inning was stupid, and "Generation Trey" to lump Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Ian Kennedy together is obnoxious and loathed. What makes the latter worse is David Cone has picked it up. On the bright side, no one else has.

The obvious - Asking John Flaherty about his approach at the plate. Flaherty, except for a year or two, couldn't hit his way out of a paper bag. We don't want to know what his approach is.

The home run call - Coming up with a distinctive home run call is tough. No question about it. But "See ya" is really weak. It's also become the rallying cry for those who want Kay out of the booth. We also hate it because of the guy we played golf with one time who yelled it every time we hit a ball into the woods. We heard it a lot.

Exaggeration - You have to keep things interesting during a broadcast, but Kay overplays many plays. The grounder in the hole at shortstop is a routine play. It shouldn't sound like Brooks Robinson just dove into foul territory, got up, and threw a runner out. Kay is guilty of this all the time. Every ball hit to the outfield is "driven" even if it's a routine fly ball.

To his credit, Kay does a good job of getting the analysts involved in various discussions. But, we have a major issue with the guys in the suits who gave Kay exclusive play-by-play rights. Back in the day we enjoyed the rotation of announcers. At that point they rotated between radio and TV. What makes this worse is that the best play-by-play guy YES has is Kenny Singleton, and he only gets to have that role when Kay doesn't accompany the team to the towns he hates (i.e. Kansas City).

While he probably has a better grasp of the game than John Sterling, he too, like Sterling, seems like he spent his formative years at tap class rather than actually playing the sport. He makes pointless points, that wouldn't be agreed upon by smart baseball people. We also have an issue with Kay kissing ass on YES and then ripping the same people on his radio show (i.e. Joe Torre after his departure).

We would like to see Kay go...back to radio. We were annoyed at first by the Sterling-Kay extravaganza, but they grew on us. Since Suzyn Waldman is horrible on the radio broadcast, it would be a natural fit.

Michael Kay, SEE YA.

Now please fill out our poll and tell us what you think.

Michael Kay, Yea or Nay?

We've been hearing a lot of anti-Michael Kay talk over the last year. Let's quickly re-phrase that a bit. We've been hearing a lot of anti-Michael Kay talk for years, but it has gotten a lot louder the last year. We're only referring to his work as the lead Yankees broadcaster for the YES Network.

Not his work on Centerstage, which we feel he does very well, or on his radio show, which we could take or leave. There have even been "Fire Michael Kay" blogs started.

Let's review some of our own complaints about Kay as well as a lot of what we've been hearing from others. We won't even bring up his "fivehead". Oops, we just did.

Repetitiveness

Kay definitely has a penchant for repeating himself. We don't mean the kind of repeating that Tim McCarver does, where he's still dissecting a play from three innings ago. We're referring to his constant mentioning of certain things. Some examples:

The size of Kevin Mench's head; Every time the Yankees play the team Mench is on, Kay goes on about how large Mench's melon is. Okay, we get it. It's a throwback to the '70s when Frank Messer couldn't stop talking about how Carlos May had half his thumb blown off.

The repeat use of phrases, especially corny ones. "He's like the girl with the curl. He's either very good or very bad."

The "Martini Glass" defense to describe the shift when Jason Giambi comes up.

Part of this next example is obviously an issue with the YES director and production team. Every time David Cone is in the booth we don't need to see the last out of his perfect game. Kay is only partially duplicitous (we use that word here because he loves to use it) here since he just intros the clip.

Another irritating Kayism has even bothered his fellow broadcasters, though it's usually good natured. That would be Kay's use of $5 words to describe a scene that could be easily stated in a more user friendly manner. Don't get us wrong, education and expanding your vocabulary is great, but this is a baseball game not an English lit class. Some examples:

"His speech was filled with vitriol."

Act your age. We are all for immaturity, but when you're 47-years old trying to sound 20, you just sound stupid.

"Are you guys down with that?"

The corny factor.

"When we come back we'll put a bow on this one." Heck we can't even stand when he thanks us for tuning in.

Asinine gimmickry - "QuanGorMo" to describe the Yankees 7th thru 9th inning was stupid, and "Generation Trey" to lump Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Ian Kennedy together is obnoxious and loathed. What makes the latter worse is David Cone has picked it up. On the bright side, no one else has.

The obvious - Asking John Flaherty about his approach at the plate. Flaherty, except for a year or two, couldn't hit his way out of a paper bag. We don't want to know what his approach is.

The home run call - Coming up with a distinctive home run call is tough. No question about it. But "See ya" is really weak. It's also become the rallying cry for those who want Kay out of the booth. We also hate it because of the guy we played golf with one time who yelled it every time we hit a ball into the woods. We heard it a lot.

Exaggeration - You have to keep things interesting during a broadcast, but Kay overplays many plays. The grounder in the hole at shortstop is a routine play. It shouldn't sound like Brooks Robinson just dove into foul territory, got up, and threw a runner out. Kay is guilty of this all the time. Every ball hit to the outfield is "driven" even if it's a routine fly ball.

To his credit, Kay does a good job of getting the analysts involved in various discussions. But, we have a major issue with the guys in the suits who gave Kay exclusive play-by-play rights. Back in the day we enjoyed the rotation of announcers. At that point they rotated between radio and TV. What makes this worse is that the best play-by-play guy YES has is Kenny Singleton, and he only gets to have that role when Kay doesn't accompany the team to the towns he hates (i.e. Kansas City).

While he probably has a better grasp of the game than John Sterling, he too, like Sterling, seems like he spent his formative years at tap class rather than actually playing the sport. He makes pointless points, that wouldn't be agreed upon by smart baseball people. We also have an issue with Kay kissing ass on YES and then ripping the same people on his radio show (i.e. Joe Torre after his departure).

We would like to see Kay go...back to radio. We were annoyed at first by the Sterling-Kay extravaganza, but they grew on us. Since Suzyn Waldman is horrible on the radio broadcast, it would be a natural fit.

Michael Kay, SEE YA.

Now please fill out our poll and tell us what you think.

Crying in her Beer

Whether you thought it was professional, unprofessional, human, whatever, when Suzyn Waldman broke down in tears following the Yankees ALDS elimination, you probably moved on. Unfortunately, Suzyn has not. She wrote a lengthy op-ed piece in yesterday's Newsday.

Do the clickage if you want a gander.

Crying in her Beer

Whether you thought it was professional, unprofessional, human, whatever, when Suzyn Waldman broke down in tears following the Yankees ALDS elimination, you probably moved on. Unfortunately, Suzyn has not. She wrote a lengthy op-ed piece in yesterday's Newsday.

Do the clickage if you want a gander.

Play Bawl

You all remember Suzyn Waldman's over the top reaction to Roger Clemens' announcement that he was returning to the Yankees. Well last night on the air, she had a complete melt down on the air concerning Joe Torre, the coaches, and players.

The Yankees team isn't the only thing that needs changes.

Here's the link to the audio.

Play Bawl

You all remember Suzyn Waldman's over the top reaction to Roger Clemens' announcement that he was returning to the Yankees. Well last night on the air, she had a complete melt down on the air concerning Joe Torre, the coaches, and players.

The Yankees team isn't the only thing that needs changes.

Here's the link to the audio.

Oh Raw-juh

If you were listening to Sunday's game on WCBS radio during the Roger Clemens announcement, you might have thought Roger Clemens was having his way with Suzyn Waldman. This is one of the funniest/absurd moments from a funny/absurd broadcast team. There is also a decent interview with the Rocket once Waldman is done fawning.

Click on the link to go to the WCBS site.

Emotional Suzy

Oh Raw-juh

If you were listening to Sunday's game on WCBS radio during the Roger Clemens announcement, you might have thought Roger Clemens was having his way with Suzyn Waldman. This is one of the funniest/absurd moments from a funny/absurd broadcast team. There is also a decent interview with the Rocket once Waldman is done fawning.

Click on the link to go to the WCBS site.

Emotional Suzy