Yankees re-sign Andrew Junes

The Yankees don't have a lot on their wish list this offseason, but one thing many fans have clamored for is to see Andruw Jones back in pinstripes.

Now he is, reports Jon Heyman, for one year and $2 million plus incentives. And it's hard to find fans upset with this deal.

Red Sox add Andrew Bailey, GM is #winning

New closers keep coming to Boston while the Yankees haven't had to change in 16 years.

After losing six-year closer Jonathan Papelbon to free agency (Phillies, $50 million, 4 years with vesting option), the Red Sox weren't quite set on plugging in flamethrower Daniel Bard as the full-time closer. So they added Mark Melancon, as noted earlier today, saying he would be in the mix for the job after a strong 2011 with Houston. Just minutes ago, the Red Sox acquired Andrew Bailey, the Athletics' All-Star closer.

Hideki Okajima, Yankees agree to minor league deal

The Red Sox signed an ex-Yankee earlier this offseason in Mark Melancon, now the Yankees have agreed to a deal with a former Red Sox player, tweets David Waldstein.

Hideki Okajima had a 3.11 career ERA in five seasons with the Red Sox, but spent most of last year in Triple-A with Pawtucket, where he had a 2.29 ERA in 51 innings. Okajima was shaky with the Red Sox in 2010, and his general upward trend in ERA indicates that he's lost his deceptiveness with major league hitters.

100,000 hits ... and counting

While I was slaving away last semester at Quinnipiac not blogging about the Yankees, some faithful readers still kept coming back here. (And I'll be honest, some random Googlers showed up, too.)

Faithful reader or not, this blog you are reading has been visited more than 100,000 times before it reached 3 years old. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This means a great deal to me.

Unlike most journalists, I happen to like math. With some quick arithmetic I can tell you that six-digit number breaks down to about 100 visits per day for 1,000 days. Or four visitors per hour, or one visitor every 15 minutes.

American Legion baseball lost a great man in Bill Broughton

I'm sorry to tell you that an important person in my life passed away recently, but I would be remiss not to mention him here.

Bill Broughton, the founder of American Legion baseball Post 22 and my coach for two summers, was an inspiration and a motivator to me and so many other kids who played baseball in New Hampshire over the last two decades. 

Bill Broughton is in the back row on the far right, and I'm standing behind No. 11 in the center. This season we made the playoffs for the first time in Post 22's history. (Click to enlarge.)

Make no mistake, if I didn't love baseball, this blog wouldn't exist. I didn't know a thing about blogging when I first started playing for him, and he wasn't the one who turned me on to this (he probably never knew the word "blog" existed). But he did strengthen my love for the game.

Below is a letter of appreciation that ran on the sports front of my hometown newspaper, the Valley News, this morning. Even if Bill Broughton is just a name to you, he was a man worth meeting and certainly worth writing and reading about.

Yankee Stadium right now: Uprights and hash marks

Rutgers plays Iowa State in the Pinstripe Bowl Dec. 30. I can't say I've ever made it out to the stadium for a non-Yankees game, but I bet it would be an interesting experience.

Photo via @ISUCy

Anyone ever been to a bowl game at Yankee Stadium? If yes, I'd love to hear what it's like. If not, do you like the idea?

The stadium is only a few years old and it already has hosted an array of non-baseball events. The first occasion was actually a prayer service, held by pastor Joel Osteen.



Here's a look at the first boxing match in the Bronx since 1976: Miguel Cotto vs. Yuri Foreman on June 5, 2010.

Opponents Boston loved to hate in 2011 [Globe]

I am back, faithful readers.

And I’m damn glad.

It’s been two and a half months since my last post — by far the longest hiatus this blog has ever gone through — but I have every intention to resume daily blogging activities from this day forth. I’m a little ashamed to say my first post back isn’t an original lenNYsYankees.com work, but I figured it would be a good start.

I’m still working for Boston.com (remotely from Quinnipiac, my home in New Hampshire and even once from Florida), and my latest work is a feature on opponents who Boston fans loved to hate in 2011. So yes, some Yankees made the list. One of them was even voted the most hated opponent of all (including basketball, football and hockey opponents).

Can you guess the three players on the list? Check it out here, and let me know in the comments if there’s someone I forgot, or if there’s someone you feel doesn’t belong.