The Paperback Cafe

Greatest NY Yankee Managers:

1. Joe Girardi (brilliant evaluator of talent, handler of pitching staffs, and of men)

2. Ralph Houk (two championships, three pennants, won 93 games in 1970 despite Jerry Kenny as his 3rd baseman; recently died, and no one cared)

3. Joe Torre (had the horses, and a doghouse; mishandled ballpen; won with the horses; great manager overall, but not fantastic)

4. Casey Stengel (hard to say how successful he’d be in the modern era)

5. Miller Huggins (also hard to say how successful he’d be in modern era)

6. Bob Lemmon (won with a team Billy Martin was losing with in 1978)

7. Bill Virdon (responsible for ‘band on the run’ season of 1974. Almost won with a rag-tag team; and had Orioles not won last 11 straight and 18 of last 21, maybe Yanks of Murcer/Munson/Nettles would’ve had ring)

8. Buck Showalter (very anal)

Dead Last. Billy Martin (burned out pitching staffs (see 1981 A’s); was an angry drunk who was drunk much of the time)

According to Boston Globe, Ray Williams — great Knick basketball player of the late seventies — is now homeless and living in his 1992 Buick. http://tinyurl.com/3ys6lje.

Spotted his car immediately, since I drive the same car — mine a 1995 Buick Roadmaster. Falling apart at the seams; just commented today it is one of the worst designed cars in history; a big floating hulk of metal. The pieces constantly fall off of GM cars — the chrome pieces on the exterior, interior pieces, mirrors, etc. The engine leaks oil; the gas tank had to be replaced and I still always smell gas; the fender’s falling off. God damn engine though — Northstar V8 — is magnificent. Most powerful engine I’ve ever had in a car. Phenomenal power.

I loved watching Ray Williams play in his prime and I hope that he can get a job with the Knicks. Seems like there should be a way, with a franchise that makes so much money, to have Ray Williams work for them in some way..
 

As reported by Tim Bontemps in today’s NY Post:

The Yankees’ Tampa franchise in the Florida State League — their high-A affiliate – went 30-37 in the first half, but 47-19 in the second half to enter the playoffs in 2009. They featured the following players:

• Austin Romine, the catcher, was named the FSL Player of the Year — he hit 13-72-.276, and stole 11 bases out of 16 tries.
• Brandon Laird, 3B was named to FSL’s post-season all-star team.
• Lance Pendleton, Starting Pitcher was named to FSL’s post-season all-star team.
• Jonathan Hovis, Relief Pitcher, was named to FSL’s post-season all-star team.

Triple A

Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre entered the playoffs looking to win their second straight title; They featured the following players:

• Shelley Duncan led the league in homers (30) and RBI’s (99) and was named Player of the Year.
• Austin Jackson — 4-65-.300 with 22 stolen bases was named Rookie of the Year.
• Kevin Russo — 5-31-.326 — was an all-star second baseman.

Down in Single A — In Staten Island

The single-A Staten Island Yankees, who were also a first-place team, featured

Outside of the NY Post article, following the Staten Island Yankees, the Yanks’ low single A club in the NY-Penn League, on siyanks.com nets you the following info — they won their division in this half-season league finishing 47-29 (1.5 games ahead of the Brooklyn Cyclones), and featured the following young Yankees coming up:

Their entire outfield made the all-star team:

• DeAngelo Mack - 7-41-.306 — finished 6th in batting average in the league.
• Neil Medchill — 14-41-.278 — led league in homers by a lot; next closest had 8.
• Zoilo Almonte — 7-39-.274

Also:

• Jimmy Paredes, their 2nd baseman, also made the All-Star game and was in fact the game’s MVP. His season numbers: 2-17-.302. He finished 8th in the league in batting.

Their best pitchers:

• Sean Black — 6-0 1.62
• Gavin Brooks — 5-1 0.62

Hidecki Matsui has been a boon to the Yankees, not necessarily to their offense, but in making the Yankees the number one favorite team in Japan.

Matsui is 35 years old this year. It will be interesting to see how long the Yankees keep him around.

This is a test of the upcoming Paperbacknovel.com blog site. One of the first orders on our agenda will be to write a blog detailing why ARod sucks and why the Yankees have ruined their team to large extent by signing him to an albatross 10-year contract.