"It's great to be young and a Yankee."

First: I started blogging for Pinstripealley.com, so I'll link to my game recaps there. Today's game round-up is here.

Additional thoughts on today in baseball:

• The 2 fan-umps behind home plate were confusing. I mean, there's jackass topless chest painters. And there's people who get tickets to the most expensive seats in the stadium and come in full ump gear with baseballs, count tickers, the ump apron thingy, face masks, etc. And act like people who aren't in fan-ump gear are the weird ones. That must be cool to think like that.


• Manny Ramirez is back. And he gets Obama-like treatment. Jayson Stark just became my new favorite ESPN writer. I didn't even know people like this were allowed on their payroll:

• Well, played, Stark. Excellent piece. I don't understand this, what makes one person's sins more excusable than another person's identical sin. This phenomenon will never, ever cease to amaze me. The double standard of Manny getting warm embraces, whereas ARod walked into a den of "You ruined the game!" guilt. Obama spends $170mil on his inauguration and it's a small price to pay. Bush spent $45mil and he's Satan for abusing the nation's funds for a glorified tea party. Donte Stallworth kills a man because he was drunk driving and gets 4 months in jail. Michael Phelps smokes pot and becomes the subject of a national inquiry into his moral worth. Just pointing this out..


• Kevin Long's tutelage is showing, particularly in Melky, Gardner, and Cano. Get to the rooks while they're still blobs of clay and fix the kinks when they're malleable. Melky's swing is beyond different, Gardner is swinging at appropriate pitches and can actually see where the ball's moving, and Cano is (save today) not swinging at everything that's throw in his vicinity.


• 100 pitches into the game, Sterling notes "Well, now's about the time you gotta think about getting AJ out and putting in someone else. And you HAVE to go with the hot hands. Coke and Hughes. Or, well, actually I guess you have to see what batters are coming up before you make a decision." I don't know who Sterling's been talking to, but under the Girardi Manifesto, you don't base bullpen decisions on ANYTHING. Period.


• I'm a little exhausted of hearing about how Branyan's HR hit the Mohegan Sun restaurant. Is this a big deal? He didn't hit it out of the stadium. We're making him out to be Paul Bunyon or something.