A few season closing comments from a life-long fan…

As much as a respect Joe, there comes a time when change is needed; now is the time. Besides, if I recall correctly, when this “fire or keep Joe” issue reared it head last year at this time, Joe said (or at least hinted) that he was only staying one more year, so why the big surprise. Also, the press loves to spin anything they can: Torre’s contract is up in 3 weeks, that’s not getting fired, that leaving/not rehired! Hire Girardi - he’s got a little experience, no baggage, and knows the lay of the Yankee land.

Next - we lost the series because we didn’t hit, plain and simple. look at the stats, it’ll tell it all. yes wang sucked, roger should have never been started and bugs/NERVES got the best of Joba, but for a club that has dominated the hitting category so much, there is no excuse for one and done for 3 years now. Jeter, Arod, Posada, Melky, where were you?

A-Rod - stay or go? well, great guy during the season, but let’s face the facts here: NOT a playoff player. if the yankees had a reliable 3rd baseman that could hit, I would bench ARod during the playoffs - he’s become a “post season no-factor” and the opponents know it. yes, he’s puts feets in the seats, but that’s a lot of $$$ for one guy. we lost in the first round with you, we can lose in the first round of the playoffs without you…

re-sign reveria, see who’s out there before you shell out $$$ for posada, he’s had a contract year and he’s not going to keep this kind of performance for long. keep doug at first/jason’s gotta go along with farnsworthless…

i will remember this season as one hell of a ride. up and down, we failed and battled back through too many injuries to even mention. great visions of hope with the young ones, especially for me because i have seen most of them for a few years now in trenton. the “buy a championship” argument never made any sense, since we won the 90’s with homegrown players, and haven’t won since with big ticket items. now we have a chance to do the same, we just need the right pieces to fall into place.

my best memory this year was taking my dad along with my two brothers to the detroit game, sitting 6 rows off of third base and having the time of our lives. i thank my dad that i’m a yankee fan, and i’m thank the yankees for giving all us fans a quality product to watch year after year, as of late. let’s keep it going!

— Posted by mark

Maybe the new management will want to find a loophole to allow Lou P. to go elsewhere and get a real legend on board!

Agree on your point about ARod and the team play in the Cleveland games. All the bats were limp and team got outplayed by a better team. I don't lay the blame at ARod alone. Take a look at the whole team's hitting stats during that series if you need anymore proof as to why the Yankees lost.

I didn't know that ESPN or TBS was having actors portraying Red Sox fans. :)

Yes, there are some actual Sox fans that still bring up the payroll issue, even though the Sox payroll ain't exactly chicken scratch and goes with the highest ticket prices in sports. Yes, there are actual Sox fans who go on and on about free agent mercenaries on the Yankees when the majority of their lineup could hardly be described as farm team bred. And there are actual Sox fans that think they are the only real baseball fans out there and everyone else (including Yankee fans) is a pretender(meanwhile have you got your vote in for President of Red Sox Nation?) You can be arrogant and whiny, it seems.

Giggsy You know what, King? You'd be right, if it had actually happened. If Torre had actually been fired, it would be a huge story, but he hasn't actually been fired yet, has he?

No, and so I guess we disagree on this one. I'm comfortable with my judgment.

Roger Clemens retiring would be a huge story, too. ... Alex Rodriguez changing teams would be a huge story. ... Those would both be huge stories, but you didn't write about either of those things. Now, maybe I'm wrong, but I assume you didn't write about either of these things because they haven't actually happened and there's time to write about them when they do happen.

That's part of it. But a small part. Those stories are about things that everyone has known for quite some time are likely to happen. (Or not happen -- either way, a decision point is coming.) They're both drawn-out, in-process stories, and nothing is happening in them at the moment. The Torre story just broke, and something happened Monday -- the Yankees lost the game that puts Steinbrenner's ultimatum in play, and Torre, again, one of the all-time great managers who is on a run of success that has rarely been matched in baseball history, reacted to it.

If you had somehow been able to get on 20 crowded buses in 20 cities on Monday, what do you think you would have overheard people talking about the most? Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Joe Torre, or those Indians?

I've been in this business a long time, and while that doesn't mean my news judgment's always keen and I'm always right, I am right on this one: You'd have heard about Joe Torre, except in Cleveland.

You could argue that that's because people everywhere have been brainwashed by the media, and we'd just disagree on that too in this case.

bsgroup The ONLY reason this conversation (dissecting the Yankees losing yet another first round playoff series) is taking place is AROD'S slugging percentage. He was o-for throughout the series (that's no hits with men on base for you neophiles).

Emphasis added.

With men on base, Jeter went 1-for-6 in the series, with a one-run single with the bases loaded in Game 4 his only hit. He hit into three double plays.

Rodriguez went 0-for-5 with two walks, one intentional. In the one-run loss in Game 2, he struck out three times with men on base. He also had a leadoff single and scored a run in the Game 3 win, something Jeter never did.

The Yankees lost one game by nine runs and another by four, and in that second one A-Rod came to bat once with men on base: Two on, one out in the first, he struck out. If A-Rod had hit a home run in that at-bat, and everything else happened the same ("The ONLY reason ..."), the Yankees would have lost by one. Jeter came to bat three times with men on base in that game. Bases loaded, two out: Single. One on, two outs, lineout. First and third, one out: Double-play. A homer in the first one, or a double in the first and a single in the third, or ... etc. ... and the game would have been tied.

Why am I talking about Jeter? Because while A-Rod sucked, so did Jeter. So did the pitching (27 runs allowed in four games, for a nifty 6.75 runs per game, which would reasonably result in a winning percentage around .250). I just wanted to show how utterly absurd this line of thinking, which is incredibly common, is.

The Yankees got their asses absolutely handed to them, top to bottom, but it's all A-Rod's fault. Give me a break.