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

"Johnny Damon considering retirement? It's like a child not being able to play with it's favorite toy, sob until someone cares."
--My buddy K.J.'s Facebook status yesterday


"L.I.G." In my mind, saying this to a significant other amid a spat, should have the same effect as pouring water from the Holy Grail over bullet wounds. L.I.G. Let it go. Move on, drop it, pick your battles, etc. (It rarely, if ever, works.) Similarly, I want to tell the Yankees to L.I.G. with Damon.

I'm still unclear about how the Yankees are planning to handle their blatant lack of bench players that can be mixed and matched in the outfield. I know they like to treat anyone other than the pitchers and middle infielders are wildly versatile and interchangeable, but if I had my druthers, I'd prefer not seeing Jorge in RF or Tex in center.

Why TPTB don't have much faith in Gardner is a mystery to me. Do they know something I don't? From where I'm sitting, Gardner looked like an excellent fielder, chock full of all the Melky-esque "Aint no pop fly high enough" determination.

Brett Gardner runs a hard 90.

I guess if you're into the stats stuff, there's this:


So while B-Gard had less than half the ABs, he still did ok for himself. But what means more to me about this player is that he's teachable. He's a quick study. And he has demonstrated his ability to improve based on the needs of the club.

I do very much like Damon, but it's time for the Yanks to L.I.G. It's time for Archie to stop obsessing over whether Veronica is ever going to come around and give him the time of day, because adorable Betty is in the wings, who is just as cute, and infinitely more willing to adapt.

But, again, this torrid love triangle with the brass and our OF isn't as concerning to me as the lack of torrid love triangle with the brass and other available OFs. The 2009 Championship Yankee team started off its season with Brett Gardner, Johnny Damon, and Xavier Nady. If we were ok with starting Gardner then, why not now? When he's had a year to mature?

The more time goes by, the more I'm convinced Girardi is doing the same thing he did with the 3-man rotation in the playoffs. Maybe it'll work with LF. After all, in home games, it's not like an opponent is swinging for anything but the RF short porch.

In equally as troubling news, I learned yesterday that they are remaking "The Karate Kid." The ONLY quasi-salvable facet of this is that they're not calling it "The Karate Kid IV" or something. Which drives me bananas, when they remake a movie and call it a sequel. Or make another version of the movie that's not a remake at all, but actually just is a knock-off of the basic plot elements.

• Cruel Intentions II
• American Psycho 1 and 2 (probably the most ridiculous and offensive of the lot)
• Teen Wolf, Too (For some reason, making the II into a "too" annoys the hell out of me. Much in the same way it annoys the hell out of my dad when product names have capitalized letters in the middle of the word a la JetBlue)
• Cutting Edge 2 (C.E.1 is arguably in the top 5 of Movies I Would Be Reluctant to Admit I Love on a First Date)
• Skulls II through whatever outlandish number they're on now

How could you do this to me, world? Karate Kid is one of my favorite movies of all time. And no matter how good the remake is, unless THIS EXACT SCENE is in it, it's going to be AT BEST a pale version of the original.

So how is this in any way pertinent to the Damon/Gardner debate? I don't know if it really is, actually, but far be it for me to shy from an opportunity to make a completely ridiculous analogy.

In fact, I may just go ahead and throw another metaphor into the mix. When I'm reading a really great book, I start getting agitated about three-quarters of the way in, because I know I'm not going to be able to put it down til I finish it, and then when I finish it, I won't have it to read anymore. So when that happens, my initial reaction is to seek out another book immediately that's almost exactly like it, so it'll be like re-reading the really great book I just had read.

HOWEVAH, this is no good.

Because even if I DO find a book that bears somewhat of a resemblance, it's not the same, and it does little to nothing in the way of slaking my appetite. I'm never going to find a book like that again, and it's fruitless and exhausting trying to recreate that. So really the best bet is to look in alternate sections of Barnes and Noble and find a different book and hope that works out. Which, many times it does. Other times, not as much.

So instead of trying to recreate what Damon did for us, or regurgitating the magic of the original Karate Kid, maybe the Yankees should focus on what novel attributes Gardner brings to the table. He's not Damon, he never will be, but until the Yankees see him as that, and not just as a means to fill the exact hole that Damon left, then they're never going to fortify their outfield.

L.I.G. And let Damon "retire" or whatever nonsensical BS he's pitching. And not for nothing, but it would behoove Hollywood to dig around in new ideas instead of spinning out flashy versions of classics.