News and notes

Joba to the pen; ball in Mussina's hands

No surprise that Yankee skipper Joe Girardi made the early call to start the season with Joba Chamberlain in the bullpen. It's the right (only) move for Girardi to make, and it came at the right time. With just over a week left until Opening Day, Chamberlain needed to know where he was going to be. The mental make-up of a reliever is so different from that of a starter, and the timing of this move gives Chamberlain the appropriate amount of time to wrap his mind around his role.

Apparently, this means the rotation will look like this: Wang-Pettitte-Hughes in the top three slots, with Mussina and Kennedy battling for the fourth position. With the innings restrictions on the young guys, look for Kennedy to take the fifth starter role as Girardi hopes Mussina can eat up some innings and give the younger arms a break. But if Mussina ends April at 1-3 with a 5.75 ERA, how long can Girardi keep Chamberlain in the pen?

Yankee fans have never really warmed to the moody Moose. If he fails to get off to a decent start next month, how long will Yankee fans wait before the "Mooooooose!" chants turn to "Booooos!"?

A crazy 45 minutes

Who says spring training can't be compelling?

After turning on the Red Sox-Blue Jays telecast yesterday to get a look at the Yankees two main rivals for the AL East crown, it was stunning to see the Red Sox in the dugout and catcher/captain Jason Varitek giving his impromptu press conference regarding the pay snafu involving assistant coaches and members of the training staff. Although it wasn't drama of the highest level, it certainly was entertaining.

How close did the Sox come to calling off the whole Japan (fiasco) trip? It's unlikely we'll ever know, and MLB will publicly insist that it was never that close to being cancelled. But for nearly an hour it sure seemed as if all bets were off.

Whatever compensation the coaches and trainers get from this trip, it can't be worth more than the respect the Red Sox earned for that ballsy stance.

Is Reggie serious?

"Hall, yes!" says former Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson, who recently expressed his desire to see principal owner George M. Steinbrenner inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame. If there was a vote here, consider it "no."

For any non-player or non-manager to get into the Hall, shouldn't that person have done something to change or effect the game in some very significant way? The answer here is "yes." And that begs the next question: Aside from presiding over six Yankee World Series titles and nine Americn League pennants, what has Steinbrenner done for baseball?

Maybe someone else out there has an answer, but I don't know what it could be. He was suspended for having Dave Winfield followed. He made a mockery of the hiring/firing process with managers in the 1980s. He has constantly sought (until recent years) to raise his own profile above that of his team and sometimes above the game itself. All Yankee fans have a love/hate relationship with Steinbrenner and his moves with the team, but any honest fan has to admit that there have been as many headshaking moments as there have been handclappers.

Put Big Stein's likeness out in Monument Park, but not in the HOF. A big personality shouldn't be an easy ticket to the Hall.