Baysox Photos

I went to the Bowie Baysox baseball game on Sunday and took my camera with me.  Here are a few of the photos from that day.

Cowboy Monkey Rodeo

I have been looking forward to this day since I first saw it on the promotional calendar for my hometown Bowie Baysox.  Today was Country Day at the ball park and as part of the entertainment between innings the Cowboy Monkey Rodeo was on display.

Let's face it.  I am a guy.  I like sports, and like most guys, I like monkeys.  If you want to have a hit commercial during the Super Bowl, you have monkeys in the ad.  Now, combine baseball and monkeys and you have the ultimate in guy entertainment.

Oh yeah, and there was also a baseball game which the Baysox won handily.  A great day at the ballpark.

Drop by Dude Write to check out this and other blog posts by the dudes that are participating this week.

Spring Has Sprung

Image via Wikipedia

It is mid-March and temperatures today were getting awfully close to 80 degrees.  That is unusually warm for this time of year here in Maryland, about 20-25 degrees more than average.  It is definitely giving me a little bit of spring fever.  We have picnic tables outside of our office building so I took my lunch and Kindle outside with me to enjoy the nice weather.

The other I start thinking about when the weather starts to get a little warmer is baseball.  It is only three weeks until my Bowie Baysox start their 20th season in Bowie.  Now that my son is away at school, one of the first things that I do when the Baysox release their schedule is to compare their home schedule with his scheduled breaks home.  This year, unlike last year, every weekend he comes home the Baysox have games scheduled.

His next break happens to coincide with the opening week of the season.  It also happens to coincide with his 18th birthday. The Baysox have a game that day, and one of our friends with the team has arranged to let him throw out a ceremonial first pitch.  Naturally for this big event, we want to let our extended family know in case they want to come out to the park to help us celebrate and to cheer on our son as he throws his first pitch.

It was while investigating the schedule and looking for tickets to that game that I discovered a new ticket pricing policy that the team has implemented this season.  First, they have raised the price of all tickets by $1 per seat.  In these tight times, I am not happy about that, but it is also to be somewhat expected.  The price of everything is going up these days.

The other thing that the team did with ticket prices is something I really think is a bad move.  In addition to raising the base ticket price by a $1, they have now added a premium of $2 to the price of a ticket if you decide to purchase the ticket the day of the game.  So, if you wake up one morning and decide it would be a great day to go to a game, that ticket will cost you $3 more than last year, and $2 more than if you bought the tickets in advance.

I wrote an email to the club to complain about the new policy.  The general manager of the team emailed me and gave me a call to discuss different options for our family.  That is one of the great things about the team.  They really do go out of their way to reach out to the fans.  He sent me info about their flex ticket plans that will save us $5-$7 per ticket.  Today, I placed my order for a 16 ticket plan for the upcoming season.  As we use these, I will probably end up buying a couple of additional plans as needed. 

In addition to ordering my tickets, I also took a look at the Baysox upcoming promotional schedule.  As usual, there are a lot of great events scheduled, with the best fireworks show in the area.  One particular promotion that I am looking forward to is in June for Country Day featuring the Cowboy Monkey Rodeo, where monkeys dressed like cowboys ride dogs like horses.  It looks like that will be a fun day to be at the park. 

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Bowie Baysox Ripped Off

Image via WikipediaThis will probably come across as a little bit of sour grapes, but being a rule of law guy here goes.  I have mentioned many times here that my family and I are huge Bowie Baysox fans.  As the baseball season was drawing to a close, the Baysox were in the hunt for a playoff spot.  Going into yesterday's games, the Baysox needed to win their final game of the season, but needed the Altoona Curve to defeat the Richmond Flying Squirrels in order to make the playoffs.

For those that are not familiar with the game of baseball, a game typically consists of nine innings played.  In the event of a tie at the end of nine innings, they do play extra innings.  However, their are occasions when a game can be shortened due to rain or other circumstances.  In order for a game to be considered official, at least five innings need to be played.  There are other rules that govern when a game is considered official.

In baseball, the visiting team bats first and the home team bats second.  If the home team is ahead after the visiting team has their final set of at bats, they do not bat.  In the event of a rain shortened game, if the visiting team scores runs in the top half of an inning, the home team has to have an opportunity to take their turn at bat to have the opportunity to win the game.  In other words, each team should have the same number of at bats, unless the home team is ahead.

That brings me to the point of my rant today.  Both the Baysox game and the Richmond game were shortened yesterday due to rain.  In the case of the Baysox, they were the home team in their game.  Going into the final inning, the Baysox were ahead in their game 3-1.  The visiting team scored one run in the top of the inning making the game 3-2 when the rains came halting play.  The game was called due to the rain and the Baysox got the victory.

In the case of the Richmond/Altoona game, Richmond was the visiting team and Altoona the home team.  The score was tied 1-1 going into the top of the 8th inning.  Richmond took a 2-1 lead in the 8th inning when the rain started and halted the game.  It was determined that Richmond was the winner of the game, even though baseball's rules would dictate that Altoona would need to bat in order for the game to be considered official.

Now it is very likely that Richmond would have managed to hold on and win the game anyway to secure their spot in the playoffs.  Had the game not had any importance in terms of the teams that would make the playoffs, it would probably not be that big of a deal to me that it was decided that Richmond was the victor in this case.  However, I can not help but feel that my Bowie Baysox were royally ripped off in this case. 

Another Long, but Fun Day

Image by JasonTromm via FlickrWe have had a lot of activities this Labor Day Weekend.  Friday night was Autism Awareness night at the Bowie Baysox game, so we naturally had to attend that.  Yesterday was our day at the Baltimore Grand Prix.  We originally were not going to do anything after that, but the house was hot because the air conditioning isn't working again, so we headed out to the Baysox at the last minute for baseball and fireworks after the game.

The Baysox lost each game on Friday and Saturday nights.  They have been fighting for a playoff berth, but they really hurt themselves with the two losses the past two days.  Still, they have an outside chance of making the playoffs if they win their last two games and the Richmond Flying Squirrels lose their last two games. The Baysox did their part by winning their game this afternoon.  As I write this, Richmond is tied with the Altoona Curve 0-0 in the 6th inning.  Come on, Altoona.

We also went to today's game.  It was "Meet the Team Day" and "Fan Appreciation Day" at the stadium.  It was also the day they have their annual crab feast for the team, front office staff, and the Baysox Boosters.  The Boosters do a lot of work for the players that the team does not do.  They provide dinners after every Sunday home game, provide travel bags for road trips, and give each player a personalized scrapbook at the end of the season.  As members of the Boosters, we get to attend the season ending crab feast.

It was another hot day at the stadium.  Still, it was better than sitting in a hot house without air conditioning.  On this particular day, they have all of the players sit on the concourse level for about an hour before the game to sign autographs.  A member of the ground crew that we are friendly with gave my wife a game used, cracked bat used by Ronnie Welty.  We got to the game early so that she could wait in line to get him to sign her bat.

Another feature of Fan Appreciation Day is a series of raffles sponsored by the team.  There was no charge to enter the raffle, and they had a lot of different memorabilia from autographed baseballs and bats, bobble head dolls, and gift certificates to local restaurants and businesses.  My name was one of the first ones called.  I walked away with a black Louisville slugger baseball bat signed by the team. 

After the game, we were treated to an all you can eat crab feast. In addition to the crabs, they also had hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled chicken, assorted salads, and a lot of different desserts. Oh, and you can't have crabs without beer so they also had Bud and Bud Light on tap.  My wife provided a big batch of her chocolate chip cookies.  That is usually her contribution as a booster for the dinners each Sunday. 

We also had the opportunity to say goodbye to one of our favorite members of the Baysox front office staff. She has accepted a new position with a minor league hockey team and will soon be moving to Norfolk VA. We have known her for four years and she has always been very sweet to our son. She talks to him, and teaches him all of the between inning dance steps. When he nearly back out of his ceremonial first pitch, she was the one who got him down on the field. I nearly teared up when I thanked her for all she had done for him.

We left the house this morning just before noon and got home a little after 7:30pm.  All of that time was spent outdoors in fairly hot and humid weather.  My son usually would lose patience quickly on a day like today, but he was well behaved the whole day.  The Baysox have one more game tomorrow unless they manage to make the playoffs. We were originally planning to go, but they are saying that it may be stormy most of the day. We will either be at the game or at Dave and Buster's playing skee ball followed by wings at Hooters.  

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Jim Thome-600 Home Runs

Image via WikipediaI have been a baseball fan nearly all my life.  When I was a kid, my father used to take me to a few Washington Senators games until they moved to Texas to become the Texas Rangers when I was 10 years old.  My hero from those days was Frank "Hondo" Howard.  Howard was one of the more feared batters during his day and hit some titanic home runs.

When I think of some of the all time great home run hitters, a lot of the usual names come immediately to mind; Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson and a few others.  One name that does not immediately jump out to me is Jim Thome, who did something the other night that only 7 other baseball players have ever done; he hit his 600th career home run.

The top 10 home run hitters of all time are:

1. Barry Bonds-762
2. Hank Aaron-755
3. Babe Ruth-714
4. Willie Mays-660
5. Ken Griffey, Jr-630
6. Alex Rodriguez-626
7. Sammy Sosa-609
8. Jim Thome-600
9. Frank Robinson-586
10. Mark McGwire-583

The thing about Thome that has stuck out in my mind during the steroid era is that unlike some of his contemporaries in the list above there has not been an inkling of scandal or implication that he has used performance enhancing drugs.  Still, because of the era in which he played, there will be those who will look at his career with suspicion.  Unlike some of his contemporaries who had large swings in statistical performance, Thome's career has been a model of consistency, workman like effort.  Congratulations to Jim Thome for a fantastic career.

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June Break is Over

Image via WikipediaI hope that everybody had a great 4th of July weekend.  All things considered it was a pretty good 4th for our family.  It was the last day of my son's slightly more than two week break between the end of the school year and the start of his summer session.  His next break will not be for another seven weeks when he will get another two week break.

What better way to spend the 4th of July with two quintessential American activities, a baseball game followed up with a fireworks show after the game.  It has become a family tradition of ours to go to the Bowie Baysox minor league park on July 4th.  The Baysox always have an excellent fireworks show, and it is even better on Independence Day.

Usually, this time of year, we run into the threat of severe thunderstorms or overly oppressive heat and humidity.  While it was a fairly warm day yesterday with a bit of humidity, there was enough cloud cover that it was not unbearably so.  In fact, it even got to be somewhat pleasant sitting in the stadium.  We did get a few sprinkles here and there, but no real rain.  We were pretty lucky, because I looked at the radar maps a couple times on my cell phone and it looked like rain was all around us.  There were some heavy storms about 30 miles south of where we were.

As I said, the Baysox always put on a great fireworks show.  Little did we realize that they would be providing a bunch of fireworks of a different kind during the game.  It may have been the highest scoring Baysox game that we have ever been to.  Fortunately, the home team ended up on the winning side of the scoreboard against the Reading Phillies.

At first, it didn't look like it was going to be a positive night for the Baysox.  They fell behind early in the game by the score 3-0.  The Baysox scored the next 5 runs to take a 5-3 lead.  The Phillies then scored 3 more runs in the top of the 6th inning to regain the lead 6-5.  The Baysox then score 7 runs in the bottom of the 6th and 5 more in the bottom of the 7th to take a 17-6 lead into the 9th inning.  The Phillies made it interesting scoring 6 runs in the 9th to get to the final score of 17-12.

The 4th of July game is one of the few games where the Baysox nearly completely fill the stadium.  There is only one road out of the stadium, so my normally 10 minute drive home from the stadium took considerably longer last night.  Combine that with the traffic leaving the community fireworks show a couple miles from the stadium led to gridlock.  The direction we had to travel was not as bad as the opposite route, but it still took me 30-40 minutes to get home.

After the game, I was working on burning a DVD of a Rich Mullins concert for my son to take with him to school.  I have bought three different copies of this particular video, but he has broken them in the past.  It usually takes me a couple hours to complete a DVD for him on my laptop.  Unfortunately, there was an error when it was burning, and I was unable to get the DVD burned for him before he left.  When he got up this morning, he was looking through his binder of CDs and DVDs and told me "Rich Mullins is missing."

I was a little disappointed that I was unable to get his DVD made for him before he left.  My wife had decided that she wanted to try to take him back to school by himself.  She has said, and probably rightfully so, that when I stay home from work on the days he goes back to school that he resists because he knows he is going back.  With his change of classrooms, I kind of wanted to go with them today, but it was probably best that I not be around to make it easier for her to get him back to school.  They made it back with no incidents.

Three Games

It was an extremely busy weekend for our family.  Our Bowie Baysox were in town for a three game homestand.  Since my son is a huge Baysox fan, we decided to attend all three games.  We usually would not have gone to all three games, but with my son being away at school and so few games scheduled during his breaks we just had to do it this time.

It was a beautiful weekend weather wise for attending baseball games.  The temperatures were in the mid-80's with low humidity.  Friday night's game was a birthday celebration for the Baysox loveable mascot Louie.  In celebration of his birthday, several of Louie's mascot friends were in attendance to play games with Louie between innings.  Since it was his birthday, Louie naturally won all of the contests, even though the Maryland Terrapin mascot got the loudest applause during the air guitar contest.  After the game, there was a great fireworks show.

 

It was Star Wars night for Saturday night's game.  I heard that R2D2 was in attendance roaming around the concourse, but I wasn't able to see him.  Between innings, there were Jedi knights dueling with light sabers.  After the game was over, there was a battle between the Jedi's and a disturbance in the force.  It looked like the dark side had won when all of a sudden Louie charged out with his own light saber to save the day.  The storm troopers were in attendance, and there was another post game fireworks show.

 

Today's game was the biggest game of the weekend.  My wife and I are members of the Baysox Boosters.  The Boosters do special things for the players like provide them with blankets and pillows for their road trips.  Our participation usually consists of my wife providing chocolate chip players for the dinner the Boosters provide to the players after every Sunday home game.Since we are up at the stadium so often, we have become friends with some of the team front office. 

There are two young ladies that are very friendly with our son, and he is very fond of them.  One of them made arrangements to allow our son to throw out a ceremonial first pitch.  He had been very excited about the prospect of throwing out the pitch.  Unfortunately, he started to get a little nervous before the game and thought about backing out.  Then one of the ladies, who he has known the longest and dances with him a lot, waved for him to go down on the field with her.  That was all it took.  Here he is with his souvenir ball from the event.

I think the smile on his face after throwing the pitch says it all.

It was a great day at the ballpark overall for our entire family.  First my son getting to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.  Then my nephew went on the dugout to participate in the Green Turtle Shell Shuffle where they show a video of a shell game on the video screen.  He guessed the correct shell so everyone in our section won a coupon for free wings at The Green Turtle restaurant.  Then my wife caught a frisbee to win a coupon for a free Dippin' Dots ice cream at the stadium.  Oh, and today's game was the only one that the Baysox won, so all in all it was a great day and weekend.

June Break

Well, on Father's Day, we picked up our son for his two week June break from school.  Since he is on an extended school year program, he gets a couple weeks off in June and a couple weeks off in August unlike a lot of kids who get the full three months off during the summer.  With his special needs he really needs the year round schedule so that he retains what he learned during the year.

We already had a busy two weeks planned for him while he was going to be home from school.  I have mentioned before how much our family enjoys going to Bowie Baysox minor league baseball games.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for my wallet, the Baysox are only in town for four games during the entire 17 days he is home from school. 

I will be taking off this Friday and Saturday night from my pizza delivery gig in order to go to all three games this weekend.  Friday and Saturday nights games will all feature a post game fireworks show.  The Baysox always have a top notch fireworks show.  On Sunday, it will be a meet the team day, and the team has arranged for my son to throw out a ceremonial first pitch prior to the game.  He is pretty stoked about it.  Finally, we will also be attending the Baysox July 4th game for more fireworks before break ends.

The other day, we were going through a bunch of the papers that were sent home with our son.  One pile of papers was all the work he had done in class since his last break.  There were also a few awards.  He won Student of the Week honors just before the break.  He also won an award for "technical achievement" for his computer typing skills.  The Aquatics Department of the school gave him a certificate for being the most improved swimmer in his class.  Awesome work.

Then there were all of the other fun things in another packet that we have to get done before he goes back to school.  There is the list of supplies and clothes that need to be bought and brought to school after the break.  It has been a while since his last haircut, and he is getting rather shaggy.  He needs to get another physical from our family doctor.  While the haircut and physical are hard to get his cooperation on, we usually can get those accomplished.

However, the last thing that we need to get done will be the most difficult, a dental exam.  We had to try to get one before he started the school in November.  We got him into the office, where he promptly dropped to the ground and refused to get up.  He eventually got into the dentist chair and they were able to do a visual exam, however, we were not able to do a cleaning or x-rays.  So that one will be a real adventure.

Since he has been home, I have lost control of the television in the evening, I am using my computer to download and burn CDs and DVDs for him, and I am spending a lot of time with him sitting next to me playing Panda Pai Gow Poker on Pogo.com.  He loves it when we lose hand or guess wrong when trying to predict whether the hand is a win, lose, or push.  It is nice to have my time to myself when he is at school, but while he is home, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Music Monday-John Fogerty "Centerfield"

Opening day of Major League Baseball took place a few days ago on Thursday. Usually, baseball has a game on a Sunday and the bulk of the opening games on a Monday. I am not sure why they started on a Thursday this year, but I am always glad  when the baseball season starts.  In honor of opening day, I think it is appropriate to play the best baseball song since "Take Me Out to the Ballgame;" John Fogerty and "Centerfield."

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the ACTUAL LINK POST here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

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Music Monday-Trace Adkins "Swing"

Spring training started for Major League Baseball last week.  That means spring is just around the corner.  In less than two months the baseball season will begin.  For my family, that means getting ready to go out to watch this year's version of the Bowie Baysox and the Delmarva Shorebirds, two of the minor league teams in the Baltimore Orioles organization.  For that reason, my Music Monday choice will have a baseball flavor to it, Trace Adkins and "Swing."

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the ACTUAL LINK POST here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

A Major League Tantrum

When I was a kid, I was a huge Washington Senators fan.  When they left DC to go become the Texas Rangers, I eventually became a Baltimore Orioles fan.  During those years, I got to see several animated arguments from their manager, the legendary Earl Weaver, over the years.  Not that Earl was the only one to get a little over the top with his arguments.  There was also some pretty good disagreement from the fiery Billy Martin.  Lou Piniella also had some pretty good ones too.

These days, most of the baseball games I see are minor league games.  For the past 10 or 12 years, we have become avid fans of the Bowie Baysox, usually attending 15-20 games per season.  In those games, we have seen a few arguments with the umpires, but nothing that compared with the likes of Earl, Billy, and Lou.  I guess I always thought that those types of major hissy-fits were reserved for the major leagues.

But no more.  I found this video on Yahoo! this evening.  It features manager Gary Robinson of the State College Spikes (a class A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates of the New York-Penn League.)  Robinson is debating a call where the umpire ruled a batter hit by pitch.  He thinks that the ball hit the bat instead of the batter and should be ruled a foul ball.

After the usual yelling, kicking of dirt, and gesturing, he gets thrown out of the game.  He walks over to first base and pulls the bag from its base.  Instead of tossing the base onto the field a la Lou Piniella, he does something I have never seen before.  He takes out a pen, signs the base, and hands it to the fan.  Truly a major league tantrum and a great souvenir for the fan.

Washington Nationals Home Opener

There were two things that I learned from the Washington Nationals home opener yesterday.  First; with the Nationals losing 11-1 the season is off to a rousing start.  Their poor spring training has flowed right into the start of the regular season.  Sure it is a long season, but a blowout to start the season isn't encouraging.

The second thing that I learned, as you can see in the ceremonial first pitch below, is that Barack Obama hasn't been working on his arm during his time in office.


Compare that with his pitch in the 2009 All Star Game.


And just for old time sake, here is an example of what a ceremonial first pitch should look like.

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Barack Obama's First Pitch

I missed the opening ceremonies of the All-Star game last night so I did not get to see Barack Obama's ceremonial first pitch live. So this morning, I was making my hour long drive into work listening to talk radio. They spent a little bit of time criticizing his throw, saying that "He threw like a girl." I was fully expecting to totally trash him tonight. It was not as bad as I thought it would be.

First, I have to give him credit for wearing blue jeans and tennis shoes to a baseball game. The White Sox jacket is also a nice touch. It always bugs me a little bit when people overdress for the occasion. After all, it is just a ball game, not a state dinner. Second, there seemed to be a smattering of boos in the crowd. As much as I disagree with Obama and despise the direction he is taking this country, I still believe you should respect the office. I hated it when people booed George W. and feel in that situation it is better to do nothing than to boo.

So back to the actual pitch. It was not as bad as I thought it would be after listening to the radio. It wasn't the worst pitch I had ever seen. I once saw NASCAR driver Kurt Busch throw one and it was far worse than Obama's. However, Barack can't hold a candle to his predecessor's first pitch.


But neither one of them can compare to this.

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Reasons I Love Minor League Baseball

I have always been a sports fan. As a kid, I remember going to Washington Senators games with my father. It was always special to be at the ballpark. Back in those days, we basically had two choices locally, the Washington Senators or the Baltimore Orioles.

These days it is so expensive to try to take a family out to a ball game. I consider myself fortunate that the choices have improved greatly since I was a kid. In addition to the Orioles and the Washington Nationals, there are probably four or five minor league teams in the area, one of which is in my home town of Bowie. It's a good thing too, because my son loves going to the games, and the cost of a minor league ticket is so much more affordable than the big league teams.

Aside from the financial aspect of the cheaper ticket price, there are a lot of other reasons why I prefer minor league ball over the majors these days. It is such a family friendly atmosphere, and that is so important. You don't hear a lot of taunting or heckling at a minor league game like at the big league level. There is always something going on before the game and between innings to keep you entertained. Here are just a few of them.
Recently, prior to a Baysox game, the Chesapeake and Potomac Baseball Club gave an exhibition of vintage baseball. It was kind of cool to watch baseball how it was played in the 1860's. No gloves and totally different rules. They had an announcer explaining the different rules during the exhibition.
Another thing that I like is that ordinary people get to have the opportunity to go out on the field for a ceremonial first pitch. Here a young man with Downs Syndrome got to participate in the activity. I am sure it was a thrill for him because I know how I felt when my son got to go out on the field several years ago to throw out a pitch. He was so excited.
Then there are all of the between inning activities. Here, three kids from the crowd get to participate in a horse race.
The sumo wrestler challenge is one of my son's favorite activities. While this is going on, he is usually pretending to sumo me by jumping on top of me.
Another, and certainly not the last nor least reason, it the friendliness of the Baysox front office staff. They get to know a lot of the fans, and here one of them takes the time out of their busy game day schedule to pose for a picture with my son.

Some Baysox Photography

I know that baseball has been over for a while now, but I just wanted to post a few photos I took during the last two seasons at Bowie Baysox games. One of the things I love about minor league baseball is that there really isn't a bad seat in the house.

Adam Loewen pitching.

Oscar Salazar makes contact.

Chorye Spoone delivers a pitch.

Nolan Reimold connects for a homer.

Joe Torre and the Yankees

I have always hated the NY Yankees. When my Washington Senators left town, I eventually adopted the Baltimore Orioles as my favorite team. That is until the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals.

While I have always hated the Yankees, I have always respected Joe Torre and his demeanor while in NY. Joe always exhibited a lot of class. In 1996, his first year as manager of the Yankees, Torre led the Bronx Bombers to their first World Series title in 15 years. They missed making the World Series the next year, but then picked up three straight titles.

During the remainder of his 12 year career, Torre and the Yanks wouldn't win another World Series. They would make the Series in 2001 and 2003, but ended up losing. In the last four years of Torre's tenure with NY, they would make the playoffs each year, but fall short of making the World Series. With each elimnination in the playoffs, the speculation began on whether or not he would be fired. Finally, after the end of the 2007 season, the Yanks offered Torre a contract with a paycut with incentives and bonus incentives for each post season series the team won. Torre turned it down.

That is why I take pleasure in the fate of the Yankees in 2008. Torre moved on to manage the LA Dodgers, and Joe Girardi took the helm in NY. During all 12 of Torre's seasons as manager, the Yanks made the post season every year. This year, they failed to make the postseason. Meanwhile, out on the left coast, Torre and his Dodgers have won the first three games of their playoff series against the Chicago Cubs. Nothing against Joe Girardi, but it serves NY right for getting rid of a class act who did nothing but get the most out of his team, and did it with class.