The Big Unit finally withdraws

Randy Johnson aka- The Big Unit announced his retirement this evening. He finished his career with 303 wins which is 22nd all time. Here are some more of his career accomplishments: His first game was with the Expos in Sept 1988 against the Pirates. 1st strikeout victim was Orestes Destrade He played 22 years for 6 teams 1999-2002 won 4 straight Cy Youngs-won 5 overall 2001 was a World Champion with Arizona and co MVP of the World Series along with Curt Shilling He won 17 games in back to back seasons with the Yankees in 2005-06. His 10.67 strikeouts per 9 innings were 1st all-time for starting pitchers 188 hitbatsmen is 3rd all-time 4.875 strikeouts are second all-time and 1st among left handed pitchers 7.24 hits allowed per 9 innings pitched is 10th all-time 37 shutouts is 57th all-time 20 strikeouts in a game on May 8, 2001 He pitched a perfect game on May 18, 2004 He is the 5th pitcher in MLB history to pitch a no-hitter in both leagues joining Cy Young, Jim Bunning, Nolan Ryan and Hideo Nomo. These stats were courtesy of Wikipedia. I will have more on Randy Johnson tomorrow, some comments he made at the press conference and other thoughts on his career.

Todays awards-Mangers of the Year

I misspoke yesterday when I said today would be the NL Cy Young, that will be tomorrow. Today the AL and NL manger of the years will be announced. The awards will be announced at 2:00PM. I know a lot of people especially Yankee fans will say that Joe Girardi deserves it and if you are going by on field accomplishment only well then of course especially after missing the playoffs last year and then bringing them back to a World Championship this year. He will get consideration but I think Mike Scioscia will win the award and I do think he deserves it. I don't particularly like the guy but you have to look at what the Angels went through this year and see that he did a wonderful job with them. It all started with the tragic death of Angels Pitcher Nick Adenhart and then they had a lot of injuries especially early on and came back from all of that to make the ALCS and lose to the Yankees in 6 games. I think Ron Gardenhire will get a lot of votes and he deserves it also bringing them to the playoffs after chasing the Tigers all year and then finally catching them and defeating them in the classic one game playoff. He had a limited roster especially with all that young pitching and got them to the playoffs but I don't think anyone will be able to overcome the fact that Mike Scioscia dealt with something that no one else did and no one else could even imagine having to deal with. I do think Joe Girardi will get some votes but there will be a lot that would never vote for the Yankees manager because of the resources. Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers and also Don Wakimatsu of the Seattle Mariners deserve consideration but I don't think they will get much. The National League is an interesting one as Freddi Gonzales did a good job with the Florida Marlins, Charlie Manuel will get some consideration for taking his team to a second straight NL Pennant and doing it with no bullpen at all. I think Jim Tracey of the Colorado Rockies will win this award, they were a dead team that he took over for in May and took them to the postseason which is a great job by him. I think Tony Larussa will also get some consideration for taking a St Louis team that no one was predicting to 91 wins and a postseason spot. I am going to go with Jim Tracey though. I was 0-2 with the rookie of the years and I did get the Cy Young right yesterday so i am 1-2 overall and hope to get on the winning side with these two picks, we will find out shortly. I will be back with the announcement and some reaction later on.

Welcome Home Yankees

The New York Yankees will play their first official game in the New Stadium this afternoon at 1:00pm or around 1:15pm to be more exact. There will be a big ceremony from 12-1 so for anyone going be in your seats at twelve noon. The Yankees finished up the first road trip of the season on a high winning their last two and going five and four. Here are some notes and then the lineup for the Yankees. Yankee Stadium is the first new AL park since Comerica Park in Detroit opened in 2000. CC Sabathia will be facing his old team for the first time. He was with the Indians from 1998 when he was drafted to last July when he was traded to Milwaukee. He had a record of 106-77 in 237 starts for the Indians. There shouldn't be any doubt about Brian Bruney handling the eighth inning for now, in his last 4 2/3 innings he has allowed no runs, hits or walks and has ten strikeouts. Cliff Lee the Cy Young award winner last year and Cleveland starter today is 3-3 with a 5.62 era career against the Yankees, he did beat them last July though throwing a seven inning shutout. I would throw that start out last year as we know how bad the Yankees struggled offensively with the injuries. Robbie Cano looks like the all star version we figured he would always be hitting safely in eight of the first nine games. He has also looked good defensively, no lazy talk anymore. Nick Swisher has been on base exactly half of the time he has been up. Everyone enjoy the festivities and hopefully the Yankees get another win on opening day. They haven't lost a home opener since 1997. Thanks to Peter Abraham for the information on his blog. I forgot to post the lineup in my excitement so here it is Jeter(ss) Damon(lf) Teixera(1b) Swisher(rf) Posada(c) Cano(2b) Matsui(dh) Ransom(3b) Gardner(cf)