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...

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...

 "Obviously, we're in it to win it. So you know, we stayed the course." - Brian Cashman on August 1, 2023  When the Yankees' GM uttered these words right after the trade deadline, I let out an audible laugh. What else does he think is obvious? That dogs smell better after a long walk in the rain? That a trip to the DMV is a pleasant experience? That Rocky V is the best movie of the series? The Yankees are in full-blown free fall mode after doing absolutely nothing to improve a lineup with glaring holes both before and during this season. The only folks who seem to think this is not a problem are the ones sitting in the Yankees' front office making all of the key decisions. It's a bad look. Rather than digging into the current mess, I'd rather reminisce. The 2023 Yankees have me thinking a lot about the 1990 iteration of the team when they hit rock bottom as a franchise. That year they went 67-95 which was good for a .414 winning percentage, the lowest any...

People often warn you to never meet your heroes because you'll likely be disappointed. As a general rule, it probably works. Heroes tend to be famous and with fame and fortune, a healthy detachment from reality is a strong possibility. Despite this making intuitive sense, I've always been a bit skeptical. Maybe because the hero I've looked up to more than any other since I was a kid has the reputation for being as down-to-earth as they come. I've written before about how much Don Mattingly meant to me growing up. So much so, that recently I made a promise to myself that if the opportunity to meet him ever arises, I should do it at any cost. Well, I stumbled upon that opportunity by way of a massive Yankee autograph show that happened in North Jersey earlier this month. As a person who has never paid for an autograph before, the price seemed high, but if that's what it took to meet Donnie, so be it. As my excitement grew, I planned on accomplishing two things with ...

Earlier this month the Baseball Hall of Fame released the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era ballot . This is their latest iteration of a veterans committee designed to give former players a second chance at enshrinement. The eight-man group up for election is a star-studded cast that includes some former Yankees. Don Mattingly was a Yankee lifer and spent the maximum 15 years on the conventional ballot voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America ( BBWAA ). His share of the vote steadily declined over that time, but he's a player that was, and still is, adored by his contemporaries. Soon after Mattingly's run on the BBWAA ballot, the rules were changed to a maximum of ten years of eligibility. Roger Clemens spent a full 10 years on the ballot. However, he would have been a first-ballot slam dunk had it not been for the steroid controversy that defined the end of his career. In contrast to Mattingly, he spent only a brief portion of his career with the Yankees and his ...