Jimmy Sez

In our first two installments of this series we covered the bottom half - in terms of quality - of plaques currently sitting behind the centerfield wall of Yankee Stadium. Now we're ready to dive into the good ones, the ones that start to capture the essence of why these guys matter to the most successful franchise in baseball history. If you ever visit Monument Park with the intention of learning something about the Yankees, I would start with these. In the bottom left corner above, you can see the original three monuments in the field of play at Old Yankee Stadium. Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain As was the case previously,  I won't share a picture of every plaque because they tend to run together and get redundant as you scan through them. For any that I don't have a picture of below, it's relatively easy to find via google . 16. Phil Rizzuto - dedicated on August 5, 1985 Scooter's plaque was made in 1985, so I know this isn't the case, but I could swear th

In the neighborhood I grew up in there was a dog named Shannon. To this day I'd probably count her as the nicest dog I've ever met. She was a Sheltie who was eager to make friends with everybody she encountered - including kids - and had boundless energy for play, especially if a tennis ball was involved. She was a joy to be around. When I was seven years old what I wanted more than anything in the world was a dog of my own. As luck would have it, Shannon was due to have a litter of puppies around that time and my parents agreed that we could adopt one. In the summer of 1990 we had a new family member named Mickey. He was an interesting looking mutt with the body frame and hair texture of his mother combined with floppy ears and the hair color of a Rottweiler. More importantly, he inherited Shannon's friendless and desire for playtime, albeit with the protective streak of a shepherd as he barked at any living thing that dared come near the house. Life with Mickey was everyt

Last month we began our review and rankings of the plaques on display at Monument Park. We're back with a new batch of bronze. The eight plaques featured here are a notch above the group we looked at last time, but they're not anything to write home about either. Rest assured that things will be looking pretty good from here on out. Ground-level view of the original Monument Park in Old Yankee Stadium. wallyg/Wikimedia Commons As was the case last time,  I won't share a picture of every plaque because they tend to run together and get redundant as you scan through them. For any that I don't have a picture of below, it's relatively easy to find via google . 24. Lou Gehrig - dedicated on July 4, 1941 A minimilast approach here for Lou, whose plaque was the second one commissioned by the Yankees after Miller Huggins. The first bit reads just like Babe Ruth's plaque, and awkwardly starts with this sentence: "A man." His consecutive games streak is mention

Recently, Joe Posnanski - the greatest baseball writer of our generation - undertook the task of ranking all of the plaques currently captured in the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It's an interesting project, and certainly a unique way to dig through baseball history. Naturally, those rankings got me thinking about the Yankees and how we could do a similar exercise with the plaques housed in Monument Park. At the very least, it would be a good way to distract myself from the beatings they took recently from the Red Sox, Orioles, Braves, and Mets. In these rankings I focused only on plaques that cover what I'll call "uniformed" Yankees. That is, players and managers only. The handful of other plaques in Monument Park tend to be quite different in nature. I'm also ignoring the blue plaques beneath the retired numbers in Monument Park. There's a subset of players and managers who have been honored with a bronze plaque that have also had their uniform number

Just a few weeks ago, Aaron Judge had wrapped up the month of April hitting .207, striking out at an alarming rate, and instilling general panic among the Yankee fanbase. What a difference a few weeks can make. Since the calendar turned to May, Judge has been consistently murdering baseballs and suddenly the Yankees lead the American League in runs scored, home runs, walks, on-base percentage, and OPS. Even with Juan Soto's auspicious start to his Yankee career, Judge now leads the team in home runs, walks, slugging and OPS. This is nothing new, of course. When Aaron Judge is healthy, he's always been among the best hitters in baseball. But the recent heater that he's on has revealed a new dimension to his game that we've never really seen before. It's a dimension that Foreigner - the soon-to-be Rock and Roll Hall of Famers - would be proud of . When it gets through to me, it's always new to me Prior to 2024, it was no secret that Judge's power came mostly

It only took about 25 years or so, but the New York Knicks are finally a part of the daily basketball conversation in America again. As a die-hard Knicks fan and Villanova graduate , I couldn't be happier about how they got here. But before we get there, let's briefly review their recent history. Since an improbable run to the NBA Finals in 1999, the Knicks franchise has been various combinations of disappointing, sad, embarrassing, comical, and just plain pathetic. They traded their way from a decent roster to a mediocre one to a bad one, then even worse. They tried piloting those rosters with Hall of Fame coaches who were clearly looking for a big contract and little else (as evidenced by Larry Brown literally choosing his starting lineup based on whose hometown they were playing near). They handed the keys to the franchise over to Isaiah Thomas who hit a dubious trifecta by failing as a GM, head coach, and human being during his tenure. Knicks decision makers almost came to

Yankee baseball that counts is almost here, and it can't come soon enough. For every feel good story we had this spring - like Giancarlo Stanton's resurgent form - there's been a mysterious elbow injury for Gerrit Cole or another foot injury for DJ LeMahieu or a bum shoulder for Oswald Peraza. Just start the season already... But before we do, let's see what's happening down on the farm in Yankeeland. Last month Keith Law released his annual Top 100 MLB Prospect List as well as his system rankings across the league. In recent years the Yankees have been slowly climbing up Law's rankings , coming in at #14 in 2023, but after a blockbuster trade for Juan Soto is the cupboard bare? All that and more will be answered below as we take a Sergio Leone-style dive into Law's treasure trove of information. The Good The Yankees' system is in the top ten of the major leagues! Despite last year's top prospect Anthony Volpe graduating to the majors and unloading