"Remember the Mitchell Report"

I can't put my finger on it, but something in all the coverage the last two days of the release of the Mitchell Report is missing. There's just something not there.
Maybe this article by Howard Bryant on ESPN.com gets at it..

By not addressing the statistics produced during more than a decade of drug use, Mitchell left his report open to the notion that the sensation produced by the names in the report is more important than the long-term implications of how this period in history is interpreted.

I've not really composed my thoughts on this coherently.. and I've only scratched the surface on all the material that's been produced in the wake of the report..

But here, in very brief, are my basic reservations:
1) Bryant uses the phrase more than a decade of drug use... Does everyone think the 'doping' in baseball started only in 1997 or so? Does no one remember how people were talking about Jose Canseco as early as 1987? Remember the Bash Brothers? We all knew what was happening in that A's clubhouse. Maybe it goes back even farther than that year, but I can't recall anyone with that much muscle mass in baseball prior to that time. This has been in baseball, and noticeably so, for two solid decades. Period.

2) so much focus on the Yankees and the Championships. Are they tainted? Undeniably. More tainted than EVERY RECORD BROKEN SINCE 1987? No way. Not even close.

So long, Donnie Baseball...

So the Yankees have selected Joe Girardi as their new manager over 1st Base Coach Tony Pena and Bench Coach Don Mattingly...
I had misgivings about the Yanks cutting Joe Torre loose..
but nothing about this whole scenario has affected me as much as this:
the thought of Don Mattingly in any uniform other than Yankee Pinstripes..

Because, apparently now that the job is Girardi's, Donnie Baseball has told the Yanks that he's gone as well.. and speculation seems to be that he'll follow Torre wherever he may land-- currently that would appear to be in the LA Dodgers dugout.

Don Mattingly a Dodger?

Mattingly was a boyhood hero for me, growing up. He was everything that was right and humble and work-a-day about baseball. Go out, put the bat on the ball, help your team win.

I realized a few days ago that I just couldn't support Mattingly for the manager's job. He's got no management experience at any level. And the last thing I'd want would be a Mattingly tenue to go down in flames... so Girardi seems like the right choice.. for right now..
But there's a big part of me that hopes that Mattingly will be back in a Yanks uniform before too long.. in some capacity.. and at some point, running the show from the dugout.

(Photo credit: NY Daily News)

More on the Scooter..

Buster Olney's got a nice piece on Rizzuto here

And a couple more pictures, via the NYT..

Photo: Associated Press

Photo: Vincent Laforet/The New York Times

The Scooter has passed

Read this sad news just now:
Phil Rizzuto, Yankees Shortstop, Dies at 89

The likes of Casey Stengel and Howard Cosell both told him that he'd never make it... but he was everything about watching baseball for me as a kid growing up. Watching Yankee games has never been the same since Rizzuto left the press box...

Nice work, Roger.

I'm as skeptical as the best of them about Clemens' return to the Yankees and what a 44 year old pitcher can do for a team floating around 10-games out of first place.
But today, I must say it was good to see Roger come in, give 6 reasonably solid innings for the win.. and capping a 5-game winning streak and pulling the Yanks within 2 games of 500... hard to believe the hole they're having to dig out of, but it's still early June. Very early.

Welcome home, Andy.

I know, I know. New York isn't Andy Pettitte's home. Houston is. It's where he's from biologically.
But can anyone deny that New York is where his baseball family lives? It'll just feel right to have him back in pinstripes.
Welcome back, Andy.
Let's just hope that he's still as clutch in September and October as he used to be.
And nevermind my misgivings about the Yanks continuing to pursue over-the-hill veteran pitchers while neglecting youth. The Yanks got Pettitte back without having to sacrifice prospects-- unlike the deal they made for the so-far-disappointing Randy Johnson-- and so far this off-season, the Yanks appear to be learning their lesson that front. We'll see what the rest of the winter holds.