Bradenton, Fla., February 26, 2014 — The season of 2014 Yankee Spring games, at least the ones against major league opposition, got off to a good start on Wednesday with a game vs. the Pirates in Bradenton. That the team scored two runs in both the first and second innings signifies this, but it doesn’t really describe it. New leadoff man Jacoby Ellsbury reached base three straight times, and scored twice. And the offense at the catching position the Yanks are unveiling this year had a good debut, as lefty-hitting backstop Brian McCann hit the third pitch he saw for a sharp rbi single, tellingly a bit to the left of second base. Continue reading →

Washington, D.C., March 29, 2013 — The Yankees played, and won, their penultimate 2013 Spring Training game a couple of hundred miles south of the Big Apple Friday, but considerably north of where they participated in a difficult camp, dominated by injuries, errors, generally light hitting, and a plethora of game losses. But if the results of this contest are any guide, this team is removed from the one that played its first game one month ago by a lot more than mileage. Continue reading →

Tampa, Fla., March 1, 2013 – Before re-signing during the just completed off-season, Hiroki Kuroda vacillated for a while. There were rumors of a return to the Dodgers first, then hints that he wanted to once again pitch in Japan. It was clear that the Yanks wanted him for one more season, which dovetailed into another report that he wanted to pitch two more years, one in the Bronx, one in Japan. Continue reading →

Tampa, Fla., February 28, 2013 – The Thursday 1-0 Yankees loss to the Blue Jays offered a lot less for fans’ viewing pleasure than the 10-7 defeat at the hands of the Orioles the day before. The blue skies, with lots of sun and low-70s temps both days, had less cloud cover, so breaking into a busy day with a reverie about what cloud banks resembled between innings was a non-starter. “Just beautiful” was about all I could come up with. Continue reading →

Tampa, Fla., February 27, 2013 – In a pre-WBC world, much of the Spring Training buzz, at least on the Grapefruit League side, was ballclubs complaining when visiting squads failed to bring a representative group of players to games. Perhaps we can all acknowledge that the purpose of this four-week (or more like six-week, this year) exercise is to get each team ready to battle for six months of regular season play, and hopefully for a bit more. But it also needs to be said that Spring Training has totally lost its amateur status: Corporate-size entities are charging paying customers real money to attend these games, to pay inflated concession costs, even to buy gear designed specifically for the Spring game alone. Continue reading →

Clearwater, Fla., February 26, 2013 – The biggest upset that took place at the Yankees/Phillies game Tuesday, even for a Yankee fan, was not that the home-standing Phils pulled off a 4-3 win on the strength of a two-home-run seventh inning off a nonroster invitee pitcher. Rather it was that they not only played the game following torrential morning rains, but did so on time, with no interruptions, amid nary a drop of afternoon rain. Continue reading →

St. Petersburg and Tampa, Fla., March 13, 2012 – Our travel through baseball mecca, southeast style, continued on Tuesday, with games in St. Petersburg in the afternoon, and the bizarre 1-0 Yankee loss to the Red Sox later in the evening. Once again the afternoon sun was hot and mostly cloud-free, and the evening pleasant, although a little more humid and less kissed with a cool breeze than the night before.

I won’t take a lot of time discussing the latter tilt; many with YES coverage will have seen it, and for others, well, there really isn’t much to say. The pitching news continues to be very good, with the caveat that no pitcher on either side in this contest was much challenged by the hitters. Nine pitchers posted 23 strikes outs among them, 13 thrown by the visitors. Home plate ump Marty Foster was a factor; 12 Ks were of the swinging variety, but Foster called the last strike on the other 11. The two teams split just eight hits evenly, with Jacoby Ellsbury’s first-inning double being the only one for extra bases. The Yanks received the only walk, and both sides had a pitcher called for a balk. The game was decided on errors: Zoilo Almonte’s shoestring attempt on Pedro Ciriaco’s ninth-inning single, and David Adams’s bad relay throw on the same play. Continue reading →

Dunedin and Tampa, Fla., March 12, 2012 – Another great day in West Florida, even if the second of two games we witnessed had the Yanks drop a 4-3 nail-biter. (Yes, I know they’re exhibitions, but I defy any true fan to see one like this in person and not get wrapped up in the outcome.) After watching the Blue Jays beat the Orioles under bright sunny low-eighties skies in Dunedin, we returned to Tampa for a three-hour-plus war of attrition between the Yankees and the Houston Astros. Continue reading →

Tampa, Fla., March 11, 2012 – A split squad of Yankees led by the staff ace and the starting infield treated a visiting split squad of Phillies pretty shabbily in a 3-0 shutout Sunday afternoon, while three hours south a traveling B squad dropped a game vs. the Twins. A day in Tampa that started with dark ominous clouds hanging over George M. Steinbrenner Field became a winner, as the intermittent cloud cover gave welcome periods of cool shade and little else.

Even though CC Sabathia walked shortstop Michael Martinez to begin the game, he set the tone by throwing strikes, finding the zone on the first pitch to the next 10 batters. Following his two-hit, three-inning outing, the Yanks kicked the stingy meter up a notch, beginning with Mariano Rivera’s first game action of the spring. Continue reading →