Results tagged ‘ Johnny Damon ’
Sexson in the City
Richie Sexson, all 6-foot-8 of him, is in the lineup tonight for the Yankees at first base, batting fifth. The original plan was to give Sexson tonight to get acclimated, but Joe Blanton jumped ship from the A’s for Philadelphia, bumping up lefty Greg Smith for Oakland and wiping out Sexson’s free day.
Sexson spoke for about 10 minutes in the clubhouse before the game and said he’s looking at the Yankees as a fresh start — the better he plays against lefties, the more likely he believes he is to grab some at-bats against righties. On first impression Sexson seems soft-spoken and ready to accept his role with the Yankees. He may fit in fine.
Here’s Joe Girardi: “He used to ruin a lot of my nights when I was with the Cubs and he was with the Brewers. That’s what I remember most about him. I actually said to him today that if he had been on my team then, maybe I would have slept a little bit better at night. He seemed to always come up with a big home run late in a game. He was a force.
“Sometimes you have down years but that doesn’t mean you’re not still a good player. I believe Richie Sexson is still a good player. … He’s 33 years old. It’s not like he’s an old man. I still think there’s a lot of good baseball left in Richie Sexson.”
Other notes and quotes: The Yankees had a 1 p.m. workout at the Stadium. Everyone except the All-Stars, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera had to attend. They worked on PFP, throwing and BP. … Johnny Damon will rejoin the team in New York. He’ll work out and try to get back to game form on this homestand. … Brian Bruney is still a few appearances away but could join the Yankees around the end of the month. He last pitched July 14 for Trenton vs. Binghamton. …
Jeter, A-Rod, Mo named All-Stars
Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera have made the All-Star team. You can also place a vote for Jason Giambi to bring his big-swingin’ mustache to the Home Run Derby. A-Rod topped voting for the second consecutive year, edging Chase Utley in a tight race.
As for Mike Mussina? He’ll be headed to the county fair unless someone gets injured.
The Yankees have placed outfielder Johnny Damon on the disabled list and are recalling Justin Christian from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Damon could go to the DL
It looks more and more like Johnny Damon could be headed to the disabled list
for the first time in his career, though that’s still not 100 percent
certain. They planned to re-evaluate him on Sunday but when a guy can’t
put his uniform jersey on, he’s a long way from playing left field at
Yankee Stadium.
Speaking of that, did Dustin Pedroia think Damon was still playing left
field in the first inning or what? Nice throw by Brett Gardner and it
got a pretty good reaction from the crowd. That’s a heck of a heads-up slide by Jason Giambi there to put the Yankees on the board as well. You wonder what was going through his mind as he huffs and puffs around third base, then sees the ball is going to beat him by a great margin.
Still waiting for the energy to pump this building up. It’s warm, hazy and I know it’s Yankees-Red Sox, but it seems like there’s still 55,000 people (less the people wearing red, and there’s a lot of them) waiting for a reason to explode. Maybe some of them are feeling under the weather like Jorge Posada is.
Let there be light
This is a gorgeous afternoon in Detroit, and there’s pretty close to a full house on hand here at Comerica Park. Day games seem to be good news for the Yankee bats — the Yankees have three of the American League’s top five hitters in day games, with Hideki Matsui (.429, 12-for-28), Derek Jeter (.405, 15-for-37) and Johnny Damon (.390, 16-for-41).
Interesting town, this Detroit. The Yankees don’t stay downtown, preferring to bus in from about 40 minutes away, but a lot of the writers do. Outside my hotel this morning I watched them setting up for a country music hoe-down. Someone I was talking to was checking into the hotel and was told, “Oh, you must be here for the hoe-down.” Country music isn’t necessarily my cup of tea but I’d check it out if we had the time.
The Hockeytown bar across the street from Comerica Park, to contrast, was blaring loud hip hop into the streets after midnight last night. We could make out lyrics from blocks away. Then we got into the worst smelling taxi cab I’ve ever experienced in my life. Apparently – and this is no joke – the driver was carrying around his dirty laundry in the trunk. If I had to guess, his day job is manure hauling.
With the strange scheduling here — I know this is a day game, but it’ll be night when we’re all wrapped up — it seems I’ll be lucky just to squeeze in a few hands at the poker tables in town. As I’ve been telling everyone, Detroit is kind of like playing a three-game series in Atlantic City. Someday I’ll have to swap travel stories with Chris Britton. He’s probably become quite the familiar face with all his trips between New York and Scranton.
Check these stats of the day — Jeter’s first-inning home run was his first in 128 at-bats, the longest such streak to begin a season in his career … Yankees relievers have not allowed a run in 11 IP over the last three games … Yankees pitchers have allowed one walk in the last two games.
Looking to avoid a sweep
The Yankees had absolutely no answers for Cliff Lee on Wednesday, which hardly sets them apart from the rest of the American League. Lee’s resurgence has been one of the most remarkable stories of the young season, but the Yankees were in no position to appreciate it, getting pitches to hit but pounding them into the infield grass.
Apparently, Cliff Lee makes use of the New York City subway system.
Johnny Damon was one who wants to be held personally responsible, and after going 0-for-9 so far in the Cleveland series leading into Thursday’s series finale, it’s valid — but it’s not like Damon is the only cylinder not firing in the Yankee engine. When’s Alex Rodriguez coming back again? (They say Thursday at the earliest, but my money is on Friday vs. the Mets).
Mike Mussina tries for his fourth straight victory this afternoon under overcast skies at Yankee Stadium with a nice crowd — and lots of kids — on hand.
Meanwhile, here’s a great quote about Mariano Rivera in today’s New York Times, courtesy of Cleveland’s David Dellucci: “Facing him is like playing a video game. His ball is
an optical illusion. It’s fun because it’s so nasty. You want to go up
there and see that pitch because of how nasty he is.”
A similar refrain from Johnny Damon
Last season at this point, it was fair to wonder what Johnny Damon’s future held. This was the month that the Yankees decided to bump Damon out of center field in favor of Melky Cabrera, who was clearly outplaying Damon in every facet of the game and made an immediate impact, especially on defense. (Remember the chants of “Energy! Energy!” after the Wild Card clinching in St. Petersburg? That was all about Melky.)
Not too many people talked about it, but privately Damon wondered if there was even any future for him in New York. He wasn’t even at the halfway point of a four-year contract he’d signed to play center field for the Yankees, and already he’d been pushed aside like a spare part. Damon was assured by the front office that they indeed did want him as a Yankee, and that seemed to satisfy his concerns. He had a pretty good season by the end of it.
Why bring this all up? What it gives you is a fairly accurate glimpse into how proud a player Damon is. He knows that the Yankees probably aren’t the last team he’ll play for in his big league career, and that’s fine — from Kansas City to Oakland to Boston to New York, there’s been change.
But Damon still hopes people look to him as the sparkplug that makes the Yankees go.
“I consider myself a pretty good player in this league, and I don’t want people to forget about me,” he said after Saturday’s game.
Hey, and if you have 30 minutes to kill, check out Yankees On Deck in a repeat airing Sunday at 5:30 p.m. ET on YES. I’ll be checking in helping show a young cub reporter what it’s like to cover the Yankees.
Johnny Damon goes to bat for a good cause
I recently received this e-mail and thought I’d pass it along. It seems like a very worthy cause from Johnny Damon, who continues to impress us all with his giving spirit.
CHF’s Johnny Damon Yankees Home Run Club is a fun way that fans can root for the Yankees and help bring quality health care to homeless and low-income children. For 20 years, CHF Projects across the country have provided health care to thousands of disadvantaged children via mobile medical units.
In 1988, Yankee legend Don Mattingly helped launch CHF’s Yankees Home Run Club to raise money and awareness for our programs that provide comprehensive health care to underserved children. After the first baseman’s retirement, centerfielder Bernie Williams stepped up to the plate to captain the Club. Continuing a strong tradition of leadership, Johnny Damon took over the role of captain in 2006.
Anyone can become a member by either making a pledge per home run hit by the Yankees this season, or by making a one-time gift for the entire season. Members may be eligible to win field-level box seat tickets to a game in this final season at Yankee Stadium. Thanks to the generous support of loyal Yankee/CHF fans, the Club has grown over the years and raised more than $1,000,000 to support children in need.
Please visit CHF’s Johnny Damon Yankees Home Run Club for additional information.
(more…)
It’s a whole new world
Mike Mussina was grumbling sarcastically as he walked through the Yankees’ clubhouse this afternoon, munching on a can of peanuts.
“There’s nothing to eat in this place,” Mussina said.
Joe Girardi’s new movement to banish sweets from the players lounge may hit Mussina, a self-professed sugar junkie, the hardest. You’re talking about a guy whose blood type is practically Mountain Dew. Mussina is making more than $11 million this year, so you’d think he could supply his own ice cream and M&Ms, but it’s the principle of the matter.
Meanwhile, here’s something Joe Torre wouldn’t have approved of. Johnny Damon lugs a portable white karaoke machine everywhere the Yankees go now, and it has a jack to put anybody’s iPod in and crank up some tunes.
Brian Bruney was the guest DJ this afternoon and, in a completely random succession, we were all treated to Young Jeezy’s ‘Go Getter,’ the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Under the Bridge,’ Kid Rock’s ‘Devil Without a Cause,’ and Seven Mary Three’s ‘Water’s Edge.’
Chien-Ming Wang is still the coolest kid in school. None of this bothered him as he sat at his locker, silently (what else?), flipping through an exotic car magazine.
Opening Day, Part Deux
We’ll all be back here at the big ballyard in the Bronx on Tuesday — April Fool’s Day — and there’s a lesson to be learned in all of this. Since 1923, there has never been a Yankees game played here in the month of March. Maybe this is the baseball gods’ way of reminding us that Opening Days are supposed to be played in April?
Nothing changes as everything gets pushed back for a day. Chien-Ming Wang will celebrate his birthday with 0.0 innings pitched under his belt, and Joe Girardi gets another day to sit around and wait for the butterflies that he said did not come. Reggie Jackson has approximately 27 more hours to loosen up his left arm and prepare it to fire a strike across home plate, and Johnny Damon can head home and keep wondering why this series didn’t open under the inviting roof of the Rogers Centre.
Other than that, we’re all settled up here in the big press box overlooking a white tarpaulin. I’ve got some Pearl Jam going on the iPod and there hasn’t been a rain drop in about 45 minutes. It’s actually beginning to look crisp and dry.
If it looks this good leading up to game time tomorrow, we’ll all be very, very happy.
Bryan Hoch
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