Talk Bronx New York

Miriam Chan once lived in a house a few blocks from the one that Ruth built.

“Oh, what a player that Ruth was,” Chan said recently as she pulled a Yankee cap over her head. “What a beautiful swing.”

Chan, who was 6 when her family moved to Manhattan from the Bronx, has been around to celebrate all of the Yankees’ 26 World Series championships, including the first in 1923, which came at the expense of the New York Giants.

“I’ve been a Yankee fan my whole life,” she said, “and that’s a pretty long time.”

When asked how long, she balked.

“Let’s just say I’m in my 80s and I’m lying about it,” she said.

Chan, a widow and mother of two who lives on the Upper East Side, still takes the train to her old neighborhood to watch the Yankees play, and she plans to visit their new house next season.

“It’s kind of sad that my guys are moving to a new stadium, but time changes everything,” she said. “I guess I’ll just take my memories across the street.”

Those memories stretch from Babe Ruth to Lou Gehrig — “Oh, that poor man, that’s all we could talk about when he got sick,” she said — to Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle to Bobby Murcer to Don Mattingly to Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.

Chan has been a regular at Yankee Stadium since the mid-1930s, when she was an art student at Hunter College. She later became a sketch artist in the fashion industry.

“One year, there was a fire at Hunter, so the students were moved to an unoccupied building in the Bronx,” she said. “On the train ride home from school, my girlfriends and I would pass Yankee Stadium. We started getting off the train and going to the games, and I’ve been a die-hard ever since.”

Chan spends a good part of her year at her home in Palm Beach, Fla., but is back in New York before the start of each baseball season.

“A good dose of the Yankees and a little of that New York pollution keeps my system going,” she said.

Through the years, Chan has seen a number of great Yankees come and go, but her favorite is Bernie Williams.

“He carried himself with so much class and dignity,” she said, “and he was such a graceful player, kind of like DiMaggio in that way.”

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Yanks Score 11th Straight Home Opener With WIN! 

Chien-Ming Wang hurled seven solid innings, and Melky Cabrera homered as New York edged Toronto, 3-2, in the 84th and final home opener at the current Yankee Stadium.

“The House That Ruth Built,” which opened in 1923 and was renovated from 1974-75, will be replaced by a $1.3 billion state-of-the-art ballpark, which will also be called Yankee Stadium, in 2009.

The game also featured the debut of new Yankees manager Joe Girardi, marking the first time that the Bronx Bombers took the field without Joe Torre at the helm since 1995.

After four World Series titles and 12 straight years of reaching the playoffs, the Yankees decided to offer Torre an incentive-laden contract, which he quickly turned down. So, the Yankees handed the managerial reins over to one of Torre’s former bench coaches, Girardi, who earned Manager of the Year honors in his one year as skipper of the Florida Marlins in 2006.

Wang (1-0) allowed just six hits and two runs for the Yankees, who have won 11 straight home-openers, a big league record. Alex Rodriguez finished 2-for-3 with an RBI and scored the game-winning run, while Bobby Abreu was 2-for-4 with a run scored.

Star closer Mariano Rivera capped Girardi’s first win in the Bronx with a perfect ninth to earn the save. Rivera then gave his new manager the ball after recording the third out.

“It was an outstanding game,” Girardi said. “Melky played great and so did Jason (Giambi). This means a lot.”

Shannon Stewart and Marco Scutaro drove in a run apiece for the Blue Jays, who are coming off an 83-79 season. Toronto ace Roy Halladay (0-1) pitched well, surrendering three runs on seven hits in seven innings en route to the hard- luck loss.

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 Alex Rodriguez won his third AL Most Valuable Player award last month after hitting .314 with 54 homers and 156 RBIs.

A-Rod Hanging In The Bronx For $275M 

Alex Rodriguez set another record for baseball’s highest contract, finalizing his $275 million, 10-year agreement with the New York Yankees on Thursday.

A-Rod set the previous mark with his $252 million, 10-year deal with Texas in December 2000. Traded to the Yankees in 2004, he opted out of that contract Oct. 28, during the final game of the World Series.

Yankees senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner said New York would not negotiate further with Rodriguez because his decision eliminated the $21.3 million subsidy the Yankees were to receive from Texas from 2008-10, a figure negotiated at the time of the trade.

But Rodriguez then approached the Yankees through a managing director at Goldman Sachs and negotiated his new deal without agent Scott Boras.

Rodriguez won his third AL Most Valuable Player award last month after hitting .314 with 54 homers and 156 RBIs.

SOURCE: wcco.com

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GREED MAY FIND GREEDY SUITOR

The Yankees may have lost all the respect they almost earned for once. When third baseman Alex Rodriguez opted out of his enormous contract during Game 4 of the World Series, the front office of the Bronx Bombers put their collective feet down and said that enough was enough. It seemed to be a decision that had to be made, regardless if they were a better team with him. What seemed to be an irreparable relationship that was headed for divorce court just made a detour at a marriage counselor.

Looking for a raise from $25.2 million a year to a repulsive $30 to $35 million, A-Rod walked away from his $252 million, 10-year free agent deal he signed with the equally oblivious Texas Rangers in 2001. The Yankees did not want to lose the Rangers? $21 million pay-off throughout the final three years of the original deal and publicly stated that they were not going to negotiate with Rodriguez if he decided to opt out, which was a stipulation put into the contract.

The Yankees were set to sit down and talk with Rodriguez and his agent, Scott Boras, on an extension, but the slugger and Boras decided to use the opt-out clause before giving the Bombers a chance to make their offer, even ignoring requests from the team for a face-to-face meeting. This apparently infuriated Hank Steinbrenner, theson of George and main decision-maker since the elder Boss has taken a back seat of late.

On October 29, Hank Steinbrenner made a statement that included, ?If a player doesn?t want us, we don?t want them. That chapter is closed.? But on Wednesday, he apparently had a change of heart after Rodriguez initiated a meeting in Tampa. Following a session in the Sunshine state, Hank Steinbrenner told reporters, ?At this point it appears he?s (Rodriguez) willing to make sacrifices to be a Yankee.?

Some of those sacrifices were leaving Boras out of the room during the meeting and apparent subsequent negotiations, and a lowering of Rodriguez?s earlier demands of a 10-year, $350 million contract. The deal being discussed is for the same length, but a paltry $275 million.

Rodriguez did not leave his fans twisting in the wind and released a statement on his website that read as if he was doing the Yankees a favor by meeting with them. ?Prior to entering into serious negotiations with other clubs?,? ?We know there are other opportunities for us?,? ?I reached out to the Yankees through mutual
friends?? Through the goodness of his heart, A-Rod somehow pulled himself to have this third party call the people that are drowning him in lettuce, and may do so even more for the next decade.

The troubling thing is that if there were so many other clubs out there in his price range that he was about to enter ?serious negotiations? with, why is he willing to accept a pauper?s pittance from the Yankees that is $75 million less than what he was looking for? Is a $300,000 annual raise enough for him? How will he deal with the consequences and possible fallout from all of these shenanigans?

Coming off an MVP-caliber year where he batted .314 and hit 54 home runs and drove in 156 runs, why would he not shop himself around for a bigger payday? The reason may be that he and his super-agent have even out priced themselves. There are only a handful of teams that can even think of spending that kind of money for one player and the vibes may have been cool. Not wanting to lose a good thing he already had, Rodriguez may have erased a mistake by approaching the Yankees with hat in hand.

How fitting would it have been if he was sitting out there not willing to go below his demands and no one was biting? Unfortunately, the Steinbrenners seem to be going back on their word and all of us paying our bills from check to check will have to wait for redemption.

SOURCE: Long Island Times

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Fans help keep A-Rod in Bronx

This is a story about Anthony and A-Rod. One you know. The other you don’t. If you are a Yankees fan, know this: You owe your undying thanks to Anthony. Perhaps.

Three-time MVP Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees continue to hammer out the terms of a new, mega monster deal. The numbers are unfathomable to most of us, 10 years for $275 million, probably more after you factor in the bonus potential.

We may soon know the influences that first drove A-Rod to opt out of New York, and then opt back in. He has said that the true story will soon be known. We don’t need to wait. It was Anthony.

Anthony Berardi is 11 years-old, and a 6th grader at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Anthony is baseball crazy, a Yankees fan, and his favorite player is Alex Rodriguez. When A-Rod said he wanted out of New York, Anthony was angry.

“Being a huge A-Rod fan, I was disappointed, and mad,” Anthony said.

Anthony is a boy of action. Some just call sports radio programs to weep and whine. Not Anthony.

“When I first heard about it, I went to the computer and wrote A-Rod an e-mail,” Anthony said. “I was mad he opted out. I asked him why. I told him that the Yankees would give him the greatest opportunity, and that he would have a better career if he stayed with them.”

Maybe the big lug at third base listened.

SOURCE: REP-AM.com

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