Girardi Takes Number 27

I think it's awesome that Joe Girardi took Number 27 as his uniform number for the Yankees. As everyone knows, the Yankees have won 26 World Series. ...Under Girardi, hopefully they can win their 27th next October.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Joe Girardi Becomes Yankee Manager

I grew up with Don Mattingly as my idol. I own 813 single Don Mattingly cards. I'm a Mattingly fanatic; probably bordering on the stalker level.

But still, I think the hiring of Joe Girardi was the right choice for the Yankees. The team needs someone to shake them up. There's a bunch of young players who are going to be the core of the team this year and it needs someone to kick them in the ass. I'm not sure if Don Mattingly could do that.

I do think that Joe Girardi is the right person to lead the Yankees in 2008 and beyond. We'll see how it goes. It's been a weird off-season already in just a few short weeks and is only going to get much crazier.

A-Rod Opts Out

You have to question Alex Rodriguez's timing when he's announcing that he's opting out of his current contract with the Yankees on the same day that the Red Sox are sweeping the Rockies in Game 4 of the 2007 World Series. It's truly stunning timing.

Is he trying to rub salt in the wound? Does he not care about Yankees fans and did he not care about the ton of good will that he generated with Yankees fans this season?

Does he honestly believe that we believe his money grubbing agent Scott Boras when Boras says: ""Essentially Alex just didn't feel he could make any decision in the short period of time because he wanted to know the composition of the team," Boras said. "He wanted to know what Rivera and Posada and Andy Pettitte were going to do."

That's the biggest amount of bullshit I've ever heard.

If he did care about that, he would have let the Yankees select their manager (probably tomorrow) and then work to sign Posada and Rivera in the coming days. Instead, he didn't even sit down with the Yankees to discuss a contract extension. He just opted out hoping for another record contract.

In response, the new Boss Hank Steinbrenner said to the Daily News: "It's clear he didn't want to be a Yankee. He doesn't understand the privilege of being a Yankee on a team where the owners are willing to pay $200 million to put a winning product on the field. I don't want anybody on my team that doesn't want to be a Yankee."

Sounds like a gigantic line in the sand to me.

And it sounds like he certainly won't be back as a Yankee.

Congrats

I met my best friend in 1996 when we both attended the University of Maryland.

Despite the fact that I was a Yankees fan and he was a Red Sox fan, we became best friends and ended up living together for the next 7 years. ... And through those 7 years, he lived with me as the Yankees won 4 World Series.

In 1996, we lived in the same dorm room when the Yankees came back from a 2 game deficit against the Braves to win their first World Series in 15 years.

In 1998, we lived in a college suite when the 125 win Yankees swept the Braves.

Nothing changed in 1999 when the Yankees swept the Padres.

In 2000, we had graduated from college and moved onto an apartment in Arlington in time to watch the Yankees defeat their cross-town rival Mets in the World Series.

He lived through 14 straight Yankee World Series victories.

He lived through all of my gloating.

Even though we no longer live together, I had to live with it in 2004 and now I have to live with it again.

Congrats to the 2007 World Series Champion Red Sox.

Finally, the 26 Time World Series Champion Yankees have a worthy rival.

What the Hell?

I was flipping through the channels tonight and saw that there was a game between the Red Sox and Rockies being played. I didn't realize that baseball season was still going on... Weird, huh?

Entertain Me with....Twin Peaks

I always heard a lot about Twin Peaks, but never watched it.

Whenever there's a strange movie or show on TV, it's always compared to Twin Peaks, the penultimate of weird entertainment. Even though it's a show that's right in my wheelhouse - because I love shows and movies like Push Nevada, Memento, Mulholland Drive, etc - I never watched the show. Maybe it's because it was on in 1990 when I was 13 years old and my parents wouldn't allow me to watch it....there's definitely evidence in favor of this as I mentioned to my Dad the other day that I was watching Twin Peaks and he told me that it was a messed up weird show.

Anyway, Smelmooo let me borrow the 2 hour pilot of Twin Peaks and Seasons 1 and 2 a few weeks ago and I tore through the pilot and Season 1 like the murderer who tore through Laura Palmer. The wife had initially started watching the pilot with me and soon left the room as it was just a little too weird for her as well.

Despite moments that would appear to make more sense if you were stoned, I thoroughly enjoyed Season 1. While it became quickly apparent -- at least to me -- who the killer of Laura Palmer was, the producers did a wonderful job of peeling back the layers of all of the characters to reveal their true selfs and motives.

Season 1 was really great and Smelmooo tells me that the show gets progressingly more boring as Season 2 progresses, but I am still looking forward to starting Season 2. I throughly recommend Twin Peaks to anyone looking for a murder-mystery that is slightly out of the ordinary.