Jimmy Sez

In Cooperstown, there was a recent announcement of the eight former players on the 2026 ballot for the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee to vote on. The ballot is comprised of eight former players who primarily played in the 1980's or later. Of the eight candidates, three of them spent at least a portion of their career with the Yankees. The committee determining the fate of these former stars is made up of 16 prominent baseball figures ranging from current Hall of Famers to major league executives and even a few media members. In order to earn baseball's highest honor, the candidates must get votes from 75% of the committee. Since all former Yankees being voted on spent the maximum allowed time on the standard BBWAA ballot for the Hall of Fame and failed to earn 75% that way, this will be harder than it seems. Still, most of these recent veterans committee elections have resulted in at least one new plaque in Cooperstown. The results of the vote will be announced this Sunda...

We saw more of the same from the Yankees in 2025. They're a sometimes great, sometimes awful, highly flawed, but overall pretty good baseball team. That earned them a spot in the MLB playoffs - as they've done in eight of the last nine seasons - but they also fell short of their stated goal in every one of those seasons. You can guarantee that the Yankees' brain trust won't do enough this offseason to get them out of "pretty good" purgatory in 2026. Lather, rinse, repeat. As a New York Giants fan I know it could be a lot worse, so I won't complain much more about this. Instead, let's focus on what the 2025 Yankees accomplished in the context of franchise history. There were some pleasant surprises, a near miss, and another transcendent season from an all-time great. Despite a disappointing result, there was plenty of fun to be had in 2025. Some Yankees earned a seat in franchise history in 2025, and they didn't even have to buy it from Steiner Spo...

It's been a year since I   wrote a tribute   the best dog I'll ever know. As these things tend to go, sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. The Casa de Sez still feels a bit empty without Buddy, and we all still miss him terribly. With a year gone by now, he's been on my mind more than usual, so it feels like a good time to share a quick story about friendship, loss, and the overwhelming power of Ray Charles in front of a piano. Soon after we said goodbye to Buddy boy, Mrs. Sez and I drowned our sorrows by binge-watching Boardwalk Empire , because we're only about 20 years behind on good TV shows. In the middle of season three, there's an episode focused on Al Capone where he does many things you might expect from Al Capone. However, there's a subplot about his deaf son being bullied at school. After initially trying to teach his son to physically fight back - which doesn't go well - the episode ends with a brief momen...

Since he took baseball by storm in 2017 Aaron Judge has been superhuman on the baseball field. There are hundreds of ways that I could prove this by using both fancy and non-fancy statistics, but I would just be stating the obvious. In a world where just about any topic can be divisive, I think we can all agree that there are at most a handful of humans in the history of baseball that could hit a baseball better than Aaron Judge currently does. Judge is only rendered ineffective when he's literally not on the field due to injury. [This is where some people will scream out loud, "But he sucks in the playoffs!" There's some validity to that eloquence, but we're gonna keep the scope of this to the regular season only, for reasons you'll see shortly]. Unfortunately, we've seen a few extended stays on the injured list for Judge over the years and his most recent stint got me thinking: What impact does Judge's absence really have on the Yankees? Do they miss...

As we wallow through middle age, Mrs. Sez and I do our best to stay active in the hopes of delaying the aches and pains of old age. Mrs. Sez is decidedly better at this than I am. My version of staying active typically includes lumbering on an elliptical machine while watching old Yankee games on YouTube for 15 or even 20 minutes at a time, if I'm feeling frisky. She, on the other hand, trains for things like 5K's and 10-mile runs and half marathons. I get tired just watching. Watching these events means waking up while it's still dark out, driving to a crowded place with little to no parking, and spending hours looking to find Mrs. Sez among a sea of people in better shape than I am. I'm happy to do all of this for two main reasons: (1) I get to support my favorite person in the world, and (2) I don't have to do any of the running. One of these events sticks out among the rest for selfish reasons, though. The Broad Street Run has been a Philadelphia tradition for ...

Last year I embarked on a journey to definitively rank the plaques that adorn the walls of Monument Park, lurking behind centerfield in Yankee Stadium. After a long pause, we're ready to bring you the thrilling conclusion and reveal the top eight pieces of bronze that thousands of Yankee fans flock to go see each year. I know the suspense has been killing you... One thing I learned in doing this project is that there is no perfect plaque in Monument Park. Much like the plaques in the Baseball Hall of Fame, even the best ones have their flaws. Regardless, if you have the time to stroll through them during your next trip to Yankee Stadium, these are the can't-miss plaques you should tell your friends about. A view inside Monument Park in New Yankee Stadium. Most of the plaques covered in this series sit behind the wall of retired numbers in the foreground. PVSBond/Wikimedia Commons As was the case previously, I won't share a picture of every plaque because they tend to run...