Yankees honored for HOPE Week

The New York Yankees represented by pitcher A.J. Burnett and media relations director Jason Zillo were awarded for their work during HOPE Week. The award was given by the St Louis Sports Commission. The award was the National Sportsmanship award. It is a award given to recognize athletes and personalities from across the nation for their integrity, class, selfishness, perseverance, kindness, community service and overall commitment to sportsmanship. If you don't know what Camp Sundown is, it is a program in upstate NY for children that suffer from Xeroderma pigmentosum. The disease is a rare genetic disorder that prevents those who have it from going outside in the sunlight. If they are exposed to sunlight or even UV light at all they will get skin burns and eventually skin and eye cancer. Most people with this disorder don't live past the age of 20. The Yankees sponsered HOPE Week this past season and the highlight of the week is when they sponsered this group to come to a night game and then have a carnival afterwards to 3 or 4 in the morning for these kids on the field. This took place on July 23, 2009 and the Yankees should be rewarded for this venture, it was a great idea and went off well. The Yankees are loved by many for their great tradition of excellence and hated by many for the same reason. The thing most people don't know or don't care to pay attention to is the fact that the Yankees do many charitable things like this and should be commended for their work. George Steinbrenner has done many things over the years for charity and didn't want the spotlight and that should be commended also. The Yankees truly are a first class organization in many many ways.

Things getting feisty tonight

We had Brian Bruney talking again and now K-rod fired back saying "He needs to keep his mouth shut and do his job." "If he was a big guy I would probably pay attention, If he was someone big like Mariano, I'd respect that. But if I don't know who he is I don't listen." "Instead of sending a message through the paper next time when he sees me at Citi Field come up to me and say it to my face. Don't be sending a message through the media. I don't even know who that guy is, somewhere in Double A? I believe he hasn't even pitched one full season, he is always on the DL and that is all I know right now." He say's he doesn't know who he is but knows that he is always hurt that is pretty funny to me. There are others who don't like K-rod including MO but I don't know what got Bruney started on this and why it would matter. Brad Penny also reacted tonight to Joe Girardi saying he intentionally threw at A-rod the other night. "I don't give two f---s what Joe Girardi says. I am coming inside, I don't care. Anybody can say that, we can say it about the time they hit our guys. I am just trying to pitch inside. Maybe he should worry about managing and let the umpire crew do their job." Wow it seems the Yankees are fired up and got others fired up, maybe this will lead to the Yankees playing well again I hope or could this all be nonsense and distract them, only time will tell.

Game 7: Yankees at Rays (RIP Harry Kalas)

Here is your lineups for todays opening game of a 3 game series with the defending AL champs the Tampa Bay Rays. That still sounds wierd considering how bad they were for so long. Yankees Jeter(ss) Damon(lf) Swisher(1b) Posada(c) Nady(rf) Cano(2b) Matsui(dh) Ransom(3b) Cabrera(cf) Rays Upton(cf) Crawford(lf) Longoria(3b) Pena(1b) Burrell(dh) Navarro(c) Gross(rf) Iwamura(2b) Bartlett(ss) Chien-Ming Wang will try and rebound from his terrible first start, he has had good success in his career against the Rays. He is 5-2 3.74 era in 8 career starts at the Trop. Derek Jeter is 1 for his last 17 and Ransom is 1-20, Melky Cabrera is 9 of his last 43 dating back to last year. Mark Teixera had a MRI today and it was ok, no damage, he expects to be back in the lineup tomorrow. Alex Rodriguez was in Tampa today and did some light jogging, fielded grounders and hit off a tee and from a coach soft tossing to him. He took 78 swings, 36 off of a tee and 42 from a coach tossing it to him. He worked out on the field for 45 minutes and then met the media after. He said he is dedicated solely to baseball now and wants to be like he was in 07, expect him with the earplugs in before games and not talk too much. The bottom line is he has to produce and help the Yankees win a championship then no one cares about anything else. He said the month in Colorado really allowed him to look at things and reevaluate and he knows he has to put the other things to the side and only concentrate on baseball. He said his hip had been bothering him since last June and he can tell now that something was fixed. I expect to see him on the bench and maybe here more from him pregame tonight. Peter Abraham of the Journal News and http://yankees.lhblogs.com/ had a lot of this info on his blog so thanks goes out to him, if you don't already do so make sure you check out his blog, he does a great job. Harry Kalas the longtime phillies announcer passed away today at the age of 73, condolences go out to his family and the Phillies family as that is a great loss to them.

Yankees lose two from the family

The Yankees had two members of their family pass away, Arthur Richman who was the teams senior advisor of media relations and Johnny Blanchard who was a yankee from 1955-65 and played in 5 world series helping the Yankees win two of them. The Yankees will have statements regarding these two men, later on today. I will have some minor league notes later on as the Yankees are off today, Andy Pettitte is pitching for single A Tampa in a game today.