Bye Bye Yankees!

The baseball playoffs just got a little more fun to watch…

My apologies to Mr. Tomahawk in advance, but what made this thanksgiving weekend a tad sweeter was watching the Yankees make another early post-season exit. I can only imagine the kind of four letter words George is spitting out right now out of frustration from the lack of offence that was present from his two hundred million dollar lineup. I guess there’s always next year, but I’m sure New York will overhaul the system and go after every premiere pitcher on the market to try to comeback better than ever next year.

I find watching the Yankees get kicked out of the playoffs is almost as fun as watch the Red Wings and the Patriots get the boot from their respective post-seasons as well. You just love to watch the top teams fall and give the little guys a chance to win something for a change. With the A’s and the Tigers going into the ALCS, I’m pleased to see one of these teams moving on to the finals. With St.Louis and the Mets on the other side, this is going to be an interesting playoff. I think a NY Mets/Oakland or Mets/Tigers final would be cool, but any teams would be fine now that the Yanks are out.

I can see George firing a lot of people over the next few days. There are people here at the center holding a pool to determine how many people he’ll give the axe this week. My number is 4. Torre and all three coaches are out the door… but that includes players so the number is as high as ten or eleven. Many believe A-Rod is going out as well, but the dude has a no trade clause and isn’t going anywhere without his prior written approval. Torre is gone for sure. Four straight seasons with early pre-world series exits are too many for George, and there is word going around the net right now that Lou Pinella is the early favorite to take over the helm for Yankees next year. I think that is a good fit for the team. Right now the Yankees are not doing well under the calm and mellow methods of Torre, whcih means they do need a hot head in the locker room to kick all those overpaid prima-donnas in the arse and put them in their place.

There are other interesting managers out there capable of taking over the team. If George wants a new face but a similar approach to what Torre was doing, Dusty Baker might be the man he’s looking for. But it he wants a skipper that will play the game and not care about whose toes he steps on, Joe Girardi might be a good pick as well, but I don’t think him and George would mesh well together. Joe was fired from Florida, despite being a canidate for NL Manager of the Year. Girardi had been in owner’s bad books ever since he told the owner to shut up during a game. The owner was in the front row, telling off the ump, and Girardi came out of the dugout to put the owner in his place and not interfere with the game. Not sure if that was the best thing to do, Umps are used to being heckled. But that kind of conduct might not work well for New York… so I think someone else like Robinson, Baker, Pinella or Showalter might be better fits for the next year’s Yankees.

It will also be interesting to see how much George tries to spend to buy another title. Word is he’s going to offer Barry Zito a small continent in exchange for his south paw services. Yet I don’t think it will be that easy for them to recruit new players. Working for George and living under a win everything or get shipped out of town attitude might scare potential Free Agents to other places. After watching how abused A-Rod was for having what in other cities would have been considered a great year, they have to be careful of what they do or face alienating themselves from future talent coming in to help out.

I really feel for those Yankee fans. Losing to the slumping Tigers had to be a tough loss to swallow. But the fact is the real Tigers who had been kicking arse all year showed up for this series. It’s a bad break, but that’s why they play the games. It will be interesting to see what happenes next year because when my Blue Jays win the AL East, who will they blame then?

Peter