All Things Bubba

I think Saturday afternoons are my favorite time of the week. I have chores to do and errands to run Saturday morning, but once those are out of the way, the weekend stretches ahead of me, full of promise. Sunday's not as much fun. Work looms the next day, which kinda puts a damper on things, but Saturday afternoons are great.

Unfortunately, the Yankees put a bit of a damper on this Saturday afternoon, losing a heartbreaker to the Indians. Ian Kennedy wasn't great, but he only gave up three runs. The Yankees managed to tie it up on a base-clearing Posada triple. Might have been an inside-the-park home run if someone faster than Posada had hit it. Alas, it was all for naught. Joe sent Ross Ohlendorf in to pitch the ninth, instead of Mariano Rivera. And Ohlendorf promptly loaded up the bases and gave up the winning run on a Victor Martinez single. Maddening.

The Yankees aren't very good this year. Their young pitchers have a ton of upside, but they're struggling right now. As perhaps should be expected. But the Yankees aren't a team to be patient with young players.

The Yankees have made a lot of moves over the last couple of days. Former Red Chad Moeller was DFA'd, despite hitting .350 / .435 /.600 / 1.035 in his stint with the Yanks. Wonder if he'll clear waivers? Brian Bruney was put on the DL, and Chris Britton and Jonathan Albaladejo called up. Shelley Duncan was recalled, and Billy Traber sent back down.

Now Joba Chamberlain has some kind of hamstring problem. Don't know if he'll go on the DL, but he probably should. Hamstrings always take longer to heal than they predict.

Meanwhile, Andy Phillips is in the starting lineup tonight for the Bats. He's batting cleanup and playing 1B. And sometime while he was out nursing his sore hamstring, they updated his photo. They now have one of him in Bats gear, instead of the SWB one they were using. (I think it's a real photo, not a Photoshop job.)

I like this year's Bats photos better than last year's. Last year's looked like mug shots. At least if you got a mug shot taken while you were wearing a baseball uniform. This year, the players are at least smiling.

And hallelujah, my banner is back up at Bubba Crosby's Baseball Cube page. No, I did not cancel my sponsorship of Bubba's page. For some reason they took it down, and I had a heck of a time contacting them about it. The "contact us" forms at their site weren't working (perhaps because they're doing a major re-design), and I didn't get any reply to messages sent via e-mail or posted to their blog. I was starting to wonder if they were losing interest in the site or something. But I e-mailed them again yesterday, with the bill they sent me last time as well as receipt for my payment. (Which I probably should have done earlier.) And Gary replied promptly this time, and was very nice. He apologized, put my link back up, and said he'd give me some extra time on my sponsorship. Very cool. I really like The Baseball Cube, so I'm glad they're still maintaining it. And glad that Bubba's page is no longer unsponsored. Wouldn't want people to think I'd lost interest or anything.