Jesus Can Save 2012 Yankees

For the second straight year, the New York Yankees were eliminated from a postseason baseball series on an Alex Rodriguez strikeout.

At least A-Rod swung and missed to end Game 5 of the 2011 American League Division Series against the Detroit Tigers. He didn't go down with his bat on his right shoulder, as he did to end the 2010 AL Championship Series against the Texas Rangers.

Still, there is no joy in Yankeeville. Once again, mighty A-Rod has struck out.

But it's time to stop bashing the 36-year-old Rodriguez. Yes, he made $30 million for the 2011 season and hit a measly .111 (2-for-18) in the ALDS. But he wasn't the only high-priced underachiever on the Yankees -- sportsworld's most profitable franchise with a net worth of $1.6 billion.

Derek Jeter, 37, failed too often in the clutch against the Tigers. Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher, both 30, were downright awful against Detroit. And CC Sabathia, 30, was missing more than the periods in his name versus the Tigers. He lacked command of his fastball. And he allowed mediocre hitters like Brandon Inge and Ramon Santiago to beat him in Game 3.

It's time for the Yankees to get younger and more athletic, and the key to that infusion is 21-year-old Jesus Montero (pictured left). A powerfully built right-handed hitter with a quick bat, Jesus needs to become a regular in 2012.

Jesus has the potential to become a Mike Piazza-type catcher -- a consistent offensive threat with adequate defensive skills. Russell Martin, 30, the incumbent catcher, is a .230 hitter. He simply doesn't provide enough offense to start 130 games in 2012.

But if the Yankees are insistent that Martin play regularly, then they need to bench Swisher (sorry, ladies) or refuse to pick up his option for 2012 and instead convert Jesus into a right fielder.

Right field is the easiest of the three outfield positions to play at Yankee Stadium, and Jesus has a strong-enough arm to make the transition.

After being called up from the minor leagues in September, Jesus was not overmatched against major league pitching. Indeed, he showed the maturity to hit outside pitches to right field with authority, and he handled fastballs inside like a veteran.

All Jesus needs is regular playing time to become a power-hitting threat in the middle of the Yankees' lineup -- exactly what A-Rod used to be.

And Jesus might just become the postseason clutch hitter that the Yankees need. In the last several years, we've learned that A-Rod, Teixeira, Swisher and the aging Jeter are not up to the task.

Alex Rodriguez joins baseball's 600-home run club

With one mighty swing on August 4, Alex Rodriguez made history.

The New York Yankees third baseman belted a fastball over the center field fence in the first inning at Yankee Stadium and became only the seventh player in Major League Baseball history to hit 600 career home runs.

Rodriguez, 35, also became the youngest player to reach the 600-home run mark. Rodriguez, a right-handed batter hit the historic home run off Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Shawn Marcum in the first inning of a game the Yankees won, 5-1.

After Rodriguez was met at home plate by his happy teammates, a crowd of 47,659 gave him a standing ovation. Because the crowd continued to cheer, Rodriguez emerged from the Yankees’ dugout and waved his batting helmet to the fans.

The other players to hit at least 600 home runs are Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa.
Rodriguez is the only man on the list who is still playing.

Rodriguez hit his 599th career home run in a July 22 victory against the Kansas City Royals. That means it took him 12 games and nearly two full weeks to hit No. 600. He had gone 17 at-bats without a base hit before the big home run.

Rodriguez is a 13-time All-Star, and he has been one of baseball’s finest players since his pro career began with the Seattle Mariners in 1994. He switched from shortstop to third base when he joined the Yankees in 2004 because the Yankees already had an All-Star shortstop, Derek Jeter.

Although he is the highest-paid player in baseball, making a reported $27.5 million a year, Rodriguez is not a sure bet to make it to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, where the sport’s greatest players are celebrated. That’s because in 2009, after many years of denials, Rodriguez admitted he took steroids – an illegal drug – to try to improve his performances earlier in his career.

Medical experts say steroids help athletes work out for a longer period of time and recover faster from a workout so they can get stronger, and that gives them an unfair advantage over other athletes.

But because Rodriguez said he took steroids in 2003, several years before baseball began testing for the illegal drug, baseball officials did not punish him for it.

Rodriguez has not failed a drug test since baseball began steroids testing.
Many believe he will someday pass Bonds’s total of 762 and become baseball’s all-time home run king.

Who is ALEX RODRIGUEZ?
Age: 35
Date of birth: July 27, 1975
Birthplace: New York, New York
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 225 pounds
Job: Baseball player
Current team: New York Yankees
Position: Third base
Previous teams: Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers
Previous position: Shortstop
Reported annual salary: $27.5 million
Family: Divorced with two daughters

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL’S ALL-TIME HOME RUN LIST
(as of August 7, 2010)
1. Barry Bonds 762
2. Hank Aaron 755
3. Babe Ruth 714
4. Willie Mays 660
5. Ken Griffey Jr. 630
6. Sammy Sosa 609
7. Alex Rodriguez 600

A Yawn Greets A-Rod's Pursuit of Baseball History

On this his 35th birthday, Alex Rodriguez will take mighty swings for the New York Yankees in pursuit of career home run No. 600.

Normally, this fact would be of great interest to this lifelong baseball fan and former Yankees beat writer. But A-Rod’s bid to become the seventh man in major league history to hit 600 homers only reminds me of B.B. King’s biggest hit: “The Thrill is Gone.”

To cheer A-Rod’s every at-bat, as many fans will tonight at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, is to deny reality.

That is because Rodriguez is a tainted player. Tainted by his own weakness of character, which compelled him to use performance-enhancing drugs.

Rodriguez has said he used illegal drugs for three years, from 2001-03, in what he described as an ill-advised attempt to justify the then-record $273 million, 10-year contract he signed with the Texas Rangers. But he still cheated the game whether he did it for three years or three games, or whether he’s still cheating in a league that does not give players in-season blood tests to detect use of human growth hormones.

It’s impossible for me to get excited about A-Rod hitting home runs because it’s impossible to know how many of his long balls have been artificially enhanced.

It’s hard to look at A-Rod and not see the player who lied to Katie Couric’s face—and to ours—when he said on “60 Minutes” he had never used illegal drugs and never, ever would.

Because of his nationally televised turn as Pinocchio, A-Rod will always be an athlete of immense talent, and almost no credibility.

The Yankee fan in me wants to see A-Rod do well only because it helps my team. But as an adult who believes it is always best to do the right thing, I find him an extremely difficult player for whom to root.

That will be the case three years from now when A-Rod is likely to hit his 700th homer. And in the year 2015 when a 40-year-old A-Rod figures to supplant another morally challenged slugger, Barry Bonds, atop the all-time home run list.

I’ll never forget the excitement of watching Monday Night Baseball on NBC on April 8, 1974, the night Henry Aaron—baseball’s true home run king—hit No. 715 off Al Downing. “Hammerin’ Hank” had eclipsed Babe Ruth, “The Bambino,” “The Sultan of Swat,” as the greatest home run hitter ever.

But on August 7, 2007, the night Bonds hit No. 756 off Mike Bacsik to surpass Aaron, I didn’t even watch the game on ESPN.

Bonds was not worthy of the most coveted individual record in team sports then, and he isn’t now. Nor is the almost certainly drug-stained Sammy Sosa worthy of his current position of sixth place on the all-time home run list, just below Willie Mays and Ken Griffey Jr.

A-Rod, barring injury or a sudden act of vengeance from the baseball gods, will pass Sosa, Griffey, Mays, Ruth, Aaron and Bonds in the next five years. And he’ll do it in the uniform of the most successful franchise in all of team sports, a franchise representing the media capital of the world.

It will be treated as a big story in many quarters. Not this one.

When A-Rod hits No. 763, I won’t hear cheering but instead the sound of B.B. King’s famous guitar Lucille:

“The thrill is gone

“The thrill has gone away…

Johnny Damon Needs to Follow A-Rod's Lead

As a veteran observer of all things Yankee, I don’t believe reports that the team’s divorce from Johnny Damon is final.

General manager Brian Cashman says the Yankees won’t resign the 36-year-old outfielder because the club needs to get younger and more athletic and keep the 2010 payroll under $200 million.

I’m not buying it.

When has payroll mattered to the New York Yankees?

The Yanks have never cared about paying a luxury tax (not even this season’s $25 million tax) for exceeding baseball’s salary threshold as long as they’re getting maximum bang for their bucks.

And a 27th World Series championship certainly qualifies as money well-spent.

During the Steinbrenner Era, the Yankees have always tried to field the best team money can buy.

The Yankees can achieve that again in 2010 if Damon takes the initiative and follows a strategy already executed by Alex Rodriguez.

No, that doesn’t mean Damon should divorce his wife and date free-agent starlet Kate Hudson.

Instead, Damon should tell agent Scott Boras exactly what A-Rod told him after negotiations with the Yankees had been severed following the ’07 season:

Butt out.

If Damon himself tells Cashman and the Steinbrenner boys, Hank and Hal, that he wants to stay, then they’ll make a deal.

Boras, in typically nauseating fashion, alienated the Yankees by saying publicly the club should give Damon the kind of multi-year deal it gave catcher Jorge Posada at age 36 and relief ace Mariano Rivera at age 39 and will give shortstop Derek Jeter who turns 36 in June.

That is not going to happen. Nor should it happen.

Jeter, Rivera and Posada have become Yankee icons. Along with southpaw Andy Pettitte, they’re the only on-field links to the dynastic Yankee teams of the late 1990s-early 2000s.

Those players have earned special treatment.

Boras also used the media to tell the Yankees not to make an offer to Damon unless it’s a three-year deal.

The Yankees essentially told Boras to take a flying leap.

The Yankees then traded for former Tigers All-Star Curtis Granderson—at 29, a superior athlete and outfielder to Damon—and signed free agent Nick Johnson, an ex-Yankee whose on-base percentage is one of baseball’s best.

Damon should remind Boras that he works for the player, not the other way around.

The Yankees would offer Damon a two-year, $16-million deal if he wants it. I’ve followed this club long enough to know that.

A-Rod is a Yankee today—with a world championship on his resume, finally—because he personally told the club he wanted to stay and he muzzled Boras.

There may be more upfront money elsewhere for Damon, or even a three-year deal, but he wouldn’t be a Yankee. He wouldn’t be playing for the reigning world champions, the most celebrated franchise in professional sports, in the media capital of the world.

It can’t make more sense to Damon to finish his career with the White Sox, Orioles or Royals.

Would the Red Sox offer him a return to Beantown?

Maybe. But only to try to tweak the Yankees, the team that tweaked them when Damon signed his four-year, $52 million deal after the ’05 season.

But that move wouldn’t make sense for the Sox, who need to get younger and more athletic just like the Yankee team they’re now chasing.

Damon should want to be part of the 2010 Yankees, part of what would be one of baseball’s most potent lineups ever:

SS Derek Jeter

LF Johnny Damon

1B Mark Teixeira

3B Alex Rodriguez

C Jorge Posada

CF Curtis Granderson

2B Robinson Cano

RF Nick Swisher

DH Nick Johnson

You could quibble with the batting order. You could even bat Granderson ninth (if he’s not insulted), but this lineup coupled with the Yankees’ pitching staff would be favored to win another world championship.

Damon should want a piece of that action.

But first he needs to follow A-Rod’s lead and check his agent at the door.

Hey, Johnny Damon, Curb Your Agent

For Johnny Damon to return as a New York Yankee in 2010, he will need to take a page from the Alex Rodriguez playbook.

And I don’t mean Damon needs to divorce his wife and then cavort with an aging rocker followed by a comely blonde actress in her early thirties.

What Damon needs to do is tell agent Scott Boras to curb the rhetoric because the Yankees can win in 2010 and beyond without him.

A-Rod nearly played his way out of New York after the 2007 season.

Taking Boras’s advice, he exercised his contractual option and announced, during Game 4 of the Red Sox-Rockies World Series, that he had become a free agent.

Only after A-Rod muzzled Boras and contacted the Yankees himself did he and the club work out the 10-year deal that allowed A-Rod to finally win his first World Series title.

Damon needs to borrow the Boras muzzle from A-Rod before it’s too late.

Clearly, Boras loves to use the media to negotiate contracts for his clients.

But his strategy often succeeds only in making a client a better-paid loser in a new city while alienating the fans in the city that player left behind.

Case in point: Former Seattle Mariner Alex Rodriguez of the Texas Rangers.

Another case in point: Former Los Angeles Dodger Chan-Ho Park of the Texas Rangers.

Yet another: Former Texas Ranger Pudge Rodriguez of the Detroit Tigers.

Damon turned 36 on November 3, the day before the left fielder helped the Yankees win their 27th league championship — a pro sports record.

Actually, November 3 was the day before Damon limped off the Yankee Stadium turf during Game 6 with a hamstring injury so severe he would have had to sit out Game 7, had there been one.

That is part of the problem: The Yankees need to get younger and more athletic in the outfield, and Boras’s rhetoric could compel the team to look elsewhere for a left fielder.

According to Boras, Damon’s durability is “off the charts.”

Yes, Damon has played in at least 140 games in 14 big-league seasons. But he played hurt more often than he should have to achieve that streak, and he has the weakest throwing arm of any starting outfielder in baseball.

According to Boras, the Yankees should pay Damon “market value” for a player of his age and track record.

Clearly, Boras is suggesting the Yankees offer Damon a multi-year deal commensurate with the four-year, $52 million contract signed by catcher Jorge Posada who was 36 at the time, or the three-year, $45 million contract signed by relief ace Mariano Rivera who was about to turn 38, or the multi-year deal that shortstop Derek Jeter will sign to remain in pinstripes as a 36-year-old.

The Yankees won’t do that. Nor should they.

Damon, however important he was to the Yankees’ championship season, is not remotely as vital to the team as Posada — a switch-hitting catcher with power from both sides and a team leader — or Rivera — the finest relief pitcher in major league history.

The Yankees should offer Damon a two-year contract worth between $20 million-$22 million.

If Boras convinces Damon the offer isn’t good enough…Sayonara.

The Yankees could then pursue Los Angeles Angels free agent Chone Figgins, who is 31 and faster than Damon with a better arm.

The Yankees could also hope World Series Most Valuable Player Hideki Matsui recovers well enough from knee surgery to play 40-50 games in left field in 2010. Figgins, or a rotating group of players, could man the position the rest of the season.

If that happens, it would be, as Yankees legend Yogi Berra would say, “déjà vu all over again” for Damon.

The Boston Red Sox let Damon walk after their 2004 world championship when he rejected their four-year, $40 million offer.

The Yankees came to the rescue with a four-year, $52 million deal.

That won’t happen this time.

Boras seems blissfully unaware of that. It is up to Damon to muzzle his media-loving agent while explaining it.

Why I Love the Yankees

By winning another World Series, the best team money can buy is good enough for other baseball fans to hate again.

I’m old enough to be the father of most players on the 2009 New York Yankees.

But to watch them celebrate their 27th World Series championship on the field at Yankee Stadium gave me as big a thrill as their titles in the '70s when I was a teenager.

My devotion to the Yankees began in the '60s, when I first spotted them on the family’s black-and-white Zenith in my Brooklyn neighborhood.

The Yankees usually lost in those days, and their most popular player, Mickey Mantle, hobbled around the bases, a shell of the legend he had been.

Still, I knew the Yankees had the richest baseball tradition and more World Series titles than any other team.

They also looked classy in their home uniforms: white with blue pinstripes and an overlapping NY on the left breast. Athletic business suits.

The advent of free agency in the ’70s allowed tempestuous owner George Steinbrenner to pay top dollar for talent, and the Yankees became great again.

Watching free agent Reggie Jackson smash three home runs on three pitches against three different pitchers to clinch the ’77 World Series remains the greatest athletic feat I’ve ever seen.

Jackson smiled when I told him that two decades later, when I became a Yankees beat writer for Gannett Newspapers.

Covering the team I rooted for as a boy was a dream job. The thrill was never greater than on October 27, 1996—the night the Yankees beat Atlanta, 3-2, to clinch their first World Series in 18 years.

Fortunately, I listened to veteran sportswriters and didn’t wear good clothes to that game because ballplayers do get a kick out of dousing reporters with champagne.

Those Yankees teams became a dynasty under manager Joe Torre, winning the World Series in 1996, ’98, ’99 and ’00.

Critics grouse that the Yankees “buy” their championships. Nonsense.

Baseball imposes no cap on players’ salaries, like football or basketball. Any baseball team can spend whatever it wants to acquire the best players.

Don’t you think Pittsburgh Pirates fans, whose team has had 17 consecutive losing seasons, wish ownership could target the right players and pay them like the Yankees?

You bet they do.

And because baseball has revenue sharing and imposes a luxury tax on teams that spend above the threshold on players’ salaries, the Yankees indirectly financed the Florida Marlins who beat them in the ’03 World Series and the Tampa Bay Rays who reached the ’08 World Series.

I love that the Yankees spend aggressively to put the best product on the field every year.

The Yankees don’t always win — this year’s title was their first since 2000 — but they always try.

Money from such revenue streams as the new $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium that opened in 2009 and the eight-year-old Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network helps the Yankees keep their core players under contract.

A quartet of young stars from the ’96 team I covered — shortstop Derek Jeter, catcher Jorge Posada, starting pitcher Andy Pettitte and relief pitcher Mariano Rivera — won their fifth World Series rings in 2009.

I’m proud of them. I’ve watched them grow up. And I look forward to the day Jeter and Rivera are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Money helped the Yankees surround their veteran corps with stars like third baseman Alex Rodriguez, pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and first baseman Mark Teixeira.

And money helped the Yankees sign Japanese slugger Hideki Matsui in 2003.

Yet even loyal Yankees fans understand baseball is a business.

Matsui is 35 now, with knees so creaky he can’t play the outfield anymore.

The Yankees will likely replace him, even though he earned World Series Most Valuable Player honors for driving in six runs with three hits in his final game.

Matsui will always have 2009, and the thrill of experiencing a championship with the team he loves.

So will I.

For the Yankees, it's all up to A-Rod

So much for the theory that actress Kate Hudson is the key to Alex Rodriguez’s dramatically improved hitting in the 2009 postseason.

No, A-Rod’s romance with Hudson was not the reason the New York Yankees third baseman hit as well during the American League Division Series win over the Twins and the AL Championship Series triumph over the Angels as he did in a 30-home run, 100-RBI regular season.

If Hudson had had anything to do with A-Rod’s offensive exploits, then they wouldn’t have ended so abruptly in Games 1 and 2 of the World Series.

A-Rod reached a historic low by going 0-for-8 with six strikeouts against the Phillies at Yankee Stadium.

Never before had any player gone 0-for-8 with 6Ks in his first two World Series games.

Were George Steinbrenner still the megalomaniacal Yankees owner of old, he surely would have fired Hudson by now.

"Hey, Alex, what about that gal from 'Friends?'" Steinbrenner would have asked. "The blonde gal with the hair? What’s her name?"

"Jennifer Aniston," a Yankees minion would have responded.

"Yeah, that’s her," Steinbrenner would have said. "She’s always looking for a man. It’s kind of pitiful, really. How about if I pull Kate’s tickets and invite Jennifer for the rest of the World Series? Would that help you, Alex?"

Truth is, nobody but A-Rod can help himself out of this slump. No one can stop A-Rod from lunging at pitches out of the strike zone and getting himself out, as he had done in postseason games from 2004 ALCS through 2007.

The A-Rod who looked so "locked in," as today’s players say, with every at-bat against the Twins and Angels, the A-Rod who, to borrow another jock cliché, "let the game come to him," now looks confused as he takes fastballs down the middle and gives up on off-speed pitches that break over the plate.

Although the Yankees managed to beat Philadelphia 3-1 in Game 2 with nary a contribution from A-Rod, they simply cannot win this best-of-seven series without a hefty contribution from their cleanup hitter.

A-Rod hit .438 in the first two rounds of the postseason with 5 home runs and 12 RBI. That includes late-inning, game-tying homers in Games 2 and 3 against the Twins and Game 2 against the Angels.

Rodriguez tied a postseason record in the first two rounds, driving in runs in eight consecutive games. The Phillies haven't seen that player so far in the World Series.

Since there are no more than five games left, beginning with Game 3 tonight at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, A-Rod needs to put an indelible stamp on each game. He isn't being paid a major league-high $28 million this season for nothing.

And it’s not enough for people to point to Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard’s 0-for-4, four-strikeout horror show in Game 2 and say, "Both teams’ cleanup hitters are struggling."

Howard already has had a starring role in the series with two doubles in Philly’s 6-1 romp in Game 1.

A-Rod’s only impact on the series so far came when he failed to field Matt Stairs’s grounder, which gave the Phillies a short-lived 1-0 lead in Game 2.

While it’s true the Yankees have a lineup of All-Stars and former All-Stars, no player is as important to the team’s offense as A-Rod.

Remember how the Yankees, especially first baseman Mark Teixeira, floundered at the plate until A-Rod made his 2009 debut on May 8 in Baltimore — slugging a three-run homer on the first pitch he saw?

That was no accident. The Yankees have been the best team in Major League Baseball ever since.

But now, the Phillies have an edge in Games 3-5. That’s because the games will be played by National League roles.

No designated hitter. Hideki Matsui, who as the No. 5 hitter usually provides protection for A-Rod, will be on the bench while Yankees pitchers flail hopelessly at the plate.

To overcome that disadvantage, the Yankees need A-Rod to perform as he did against the Twins and Angels.

And neither Kate Hudson nor The Octomom will have anything to do with it. It is all up to A-Rod.

The Angels' Best Hope: Joe Girardi

Although the odds may be against the Angels overcoming a 3-1 deficit and snatching the American League pennant from the New York Yankees, Los Angeles can take solace in three things:

• Just two years ago, the Boston Red Sox rallied from being down 1-3 to defeat the Cleveland Indians in the AL Championship Series in seven games;

• In 2004, the Yankees became the first team in baseball history to choke away a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series when they lost to the Red Sox. Five key members of the 2009 Yankees (Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui and Mariano Rivera) played on the infamous ’04 club; and

• Joe Girardi will manage the rest of the series for the Yankees.

Girardi (a.k.a. Captain Hook) could lose this series for the Yankees by himself. It is only because he has so much talent to work with — the best team money can buy — that a harsher light has not been shone upon his anal, wrongheaded managerial style.

In Game 3 of the ALCS, Girardi blew through relief pitchers the way a chain-smoker goes through a pack of cigarettes, allowing the Angels to win 5-4 in 11 innings.

Should the Yankees lose this series, Girardi will be remembered, if not vilified by Yankees fans, for removing David Robertson with two out and nobody on in the bottom of the 11th in Game 3 only to have Alfredo Aceves allow a single and game-winning double to the next two batters.

Never before in postseason history, which dates back to 1917, had a team lost a game in extra innings after a manager replaced a pitcher with two out and nobody on base in an inning.

As Casey Stengel, a truly great Yankees manager, used to say, "You could look it up."

Girardi made the needless decision to put Freddy Guzman on the ALCS roster instead of Eric Hinske (who played in the last two World Series with the Red Sox and Rays, respectively).

Then, as if to justify that personnel decision, Girardi took A-Rod, the most dominant player in the postseason, out of Game 5 for pinch-runner Guzman with the Yankees trailing 7-6 in the top of the ninth.

What, A-Rod, who has run the bases swiftly and superbly the entire postseason, even stealing bases against the Twins and Angels, had suddenly forgotten how to run?

Only Captain Hook would inject himself into a postseason game in this way.

If the George Steinbrenner of old were still in charge, Girardi would have been called onto the owner's carpet a long time ago.

Sons Hank and Hal Steinbrenner don't know baseball well enough to see how ridiculously bizarre many of Girardi's moves have been.

Strangely enough, it would have been fitting for the Yankees to lose Game 5 by 8-7 (instead of 7-6) with Guzman scoring the tying run on a bases loaded walk in the 9th (something A-Rod could have done) and the Angels scoring the winning run in extra innings because the Yanks got no offense and inferior defense from A-Rod's replacement at third base, Jerry Hairston.

Only Captain Hook would yank A-Rod for Guzman and Hairston.

Only Captain Hook would yank Johnny Damon from left field and insert Hairston with Angels on first and third and one out in the 10th in Game 3 because Hairston has a slightly better throwing arm.

(And it is only slightly better. Hairston’s throws do not invite comparisons to Jesse Barfield.)

If the Yankees don't win the World Series, or even get there, Girardi will be the reason.

Charlie Manuel may sound like a country bumpkin from West Virginia, which he is, but the Philadelphia Phillies manager is smart enough not to take Ryan Howard out of a game for a pinch-runner.

The Yankees remain the favorites to meet Philadelphia next week in the Fall Classic because Game 6 of the ALCS, and a possible Game 7, will be at Yankee Stadium.

But the Angels still have a prayer, whenever the guy managing the Yankees decides to lay his hands upon the series.

Captain Hook Sinks Yankees in Game 3

Because the New York Yankees’ 5-4 loss to Los Angeles on Monday was their first defeat of the 2009 postseason, the manic over-managing of Joe Girardi has not received the national attention it deserves.

It should now.

There was no bigger culprit in the 11-inning loss Monday at Angel Stadium than Girardi.

If the Yankees lose this best-of-seven American League Championship Series to the Angels despite having the superior talent, graduate schools of business will be able to offer a new elective: Micromanaging a $200 Million Payroll to Defeat.

Girardi, in his second season as Yankees manager, has earned a dubious nickname — Captain Hook — for his rapid removal of pitchers throughout the postseason.

Captain Hook’s decision to replace right-hander David Robertson with righty Alfredo Aceves with two out and nobody on in the 11th inning Monday was the final, head-scratching affront to Yankees fans.

Aceves promptly blew the game, allowing a hard single up the middle to Howie Kendrick and a booming run-scoring double off the left field fence to Jeff Mathis.

"We thought Ace [Aceves] was a better matchup against Kendrick and that’s why we made the move," said Girardi, who actually made the move by himself. "It didn’t work."

During action in the ALCS, Fox network cameras often show Girardi with his back to the field poring through the pages of a large notebook containing computer printouts of head-to-head matchups — Yankees pitchers vs. Angels hitters and Yankees hitters vs. Angels pitchers.

Captain Hook would be better off just sitting down and watching the game.

The computer printouts to which Girardi has become enslaved show that Kendrick had faced neither Robertson nor Aceves more than a half-dozen times, hence there was not really enough of a statistical sample upon which to make the kind of decision that could lose a game for your team.

Kendrick was 1-for-2 against Robertson, a strikeout and a bloop single. And Girardi yanked Robertson? And that's how the Yankees lost a playoff game?

Mind-boggling?

Before the fateful ending, Mariano Rivera channeled his inner Houdini and pitched out of a 1st-and-3rd, nobody-out jam in the 10th, an inning he should have started.

Instead, Captain Hook started Phil Hughes in the 10th, even though Hughes had pitched in the eighth and the ninth and had not pitched in relief in three innings in the same game all season.

In the eighth, Girardi replaced southpaw reliever Damaso Marte with southpaw reliever Phil Coke on consecutive batters.

Being a slave to computer printouts compelled Girardi to burn through both of his bullpen lefties before the ninth inning in a playoff game. Incredible.

Trusting your talent and putting good people in position to succeed is a tenet of sound management, in sports as well as the corporate world.

Girardi, however, does not inspire confidence in his pitchers because he yanks them at the first sign of trouble, or, as in the Robertson-for-Aceves switch, because he fears there might be trouble.

In Games 2 and 3 of the Division Series against Minnesota, Girardi went through pitchers the way a chain-smoker goes through a pack of Marlboros. He inexplicably gave starter Andy Pettitte the hook in the eighth inning after just 81 pitches with a 2-1 lead in Game 3.

Because the Yankees swept the Division Series, Girardi escaped scrutiny.

Were it not for late-inning, game-tying home runs by Alex Rodriguez and baserunning blunders by Twins players Carlos Gomez in Game 2 and Nick Punto in Game 3, Minnesota could have won Game 2 and would have tied the score in Game 3.

The Yankees now lead the ALCS two games to one. But the work of Girardi has shown that if the Yanks are to win a record 27th World Series title, they will do so in spite of their manager, not because of him.

Captain Hook has the privilege of managing the best baseball team money can buy. All he can do at this point is screw it up.

In Game 3, he did.

Yankees Exorcise Ghosts of Playoff Failures Past

When I covered the New York Yankees for Gannett Newspapers in the 1990s, the club treated an American League Division Series clinching as no big deal.

The goal was always higher: World Series or bust.

Although the 2009 Yankees are saying much the same publicly, their Division Series sweep of the Minnesota Twins was a big deal.

Very big.

Because these Yankees — from general manager Brian Cashman to manager Joe Girardi to the game’s highest-paid player Alex Rodriguez to veteran shortstop Derek Jeter to this year’s big free-agent acquisitions CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira — had much to prove.

A decade of postseason failure had turned the Yankees into an expensive baseball team of underachievers, much like the teams assembled by owner George Steinbrenner that missed the playoffs every year between 1982 and ’94.

The Yankees reached a crossroads in 2008 after finishing third in the AL East behind the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox. Questions abounded:

Had the Yankees erred by making Joe Torre an offer he could refuse, prompting the popular manager’s move to Los Angeles, where he has guided the Dodgers to two straight National League Championship Series?

Was Girardi, fired after one year as Florida Marlins manager, really the best man for the Yankees job?

Was Rodriguez on the decline after his spring-training outing as a drug cheat and subsequent hip deterioration (a possible result of repeated injections)?

Had Jeter so lost his range that he had become a defensive liability?

Could Sabathia and Burnett, with no previous postseason success, be counted on to win in New York?

The Yankees silenced those doubters in their Division Series sweep. Teixeira delivered the game-winning homer in the 11th inning in Game 2.

Jorge Posada, the gritty 38-year-old catcher, shook off a pride-wounding benching in Game 2 (because he and Burnett don’t mesh) to hit the game-winning homer in Game 3.

And then there’s A-Rod, a lightning rod for controversy in past years who has become bland in his interactions with the media and clutch on the field.

Before the Division Series, A-Rod in the playoffs had been 0-for-his-last-27 with runners on base and 0-for-29 with runners in scoring position and had just one RBI in 59 previous at-bats.

But Kate Hudson’s beau erupted against Minnesota, hitting .455 with 2 homers and five RBI, including a game-tying, two-run homer off Joe Nathan in the bottom of the ninth in Game 2 and a game-tying solo homer off Carl Pavano in the seventh inning of Game 3.

(If the Yanks win it all, does Kate get a ring. . .from A-Rod or the club?)

The Yankees’ pitching was superb. And the Yanks were far better on defense and in situational hitting than the Twins.

Despite Girardi’s penchant for pulling his pitchers too quickly, this Yankees team has the look of eagles. No longer does it resemble a postseason club in need of the Heimlich Maneuver.

There is still much work to be done. The Yankees don’t need to be reminded of how they have fared since winning their last world championship in 2000 against the Mets. But here’s the rundown anyway:

2001: Lost to Arizona Diamondbacks in World Series
2002: Lost to Anaheim Angels in Division Series
2003: Lost to Florida Marlins in World Series
2004: Lost to Boston Red Sox in League Championship Series
2005: Lost to Anaheim Angels in Division Series
2006: Lost to Detroit Tigers in Division Series
2007: Lost to Cleveland Indians in Division Series
2008: Failed to make playoffs
2009: ?

The Angels will be a formidable foe in the ALCS. So will the National League champion in the World Series. But the Yankees look like the class of Major League Baseball. Now it is up to them to continue to prove it.