Jimmy Sez

After cancelling the usual induction festivities this past summer due to the pandemic, the National Baseball Hall of Fame is looking to add to a class headlined by Derek Jeter with the newly released ballot for 2021 . On a ballot with 25 players, there are no slam dunks this year, but eight of them spent at least one season with the Yankees during their career. The results of this year's election will be released on January 26, 2021 but we'll take a look at each former Yankee's case well before then. As always, a player needs at least 75% of the close to 400-member electorate to vote for them in order to gain election. The first group we'll take a look at here all won at least one World Series as a member of the Yankees. Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte each have a body of work that matches up favorably to other Hall of Fame pitchers, if not for the major controversy that surrounded their careers. A.J. Burnett and Nick Swisher were certainly useful players that made si...

When Whitey Ford passed away a few weeks ago it left the Yankee Universe asking themselves a question that has had an obvious answer for a very long time. Ford was one of many former Yankees who racked up championship rings at record rates in the 1950's and 60's. Since that time, the team has been lucky enough to celebrate those teams by inviting the men who made them legendary back to Yankee Stadium every year. And of that group, there's always been a clear elder statesman, an old guy with a Hall of Fame resumé who serves as the unofficial patriarch of the extended Yankee family. For nearly 50 years this role was filled by Joe DiMaggio. The man who touted himself as the "Greatest Living Ballplayer" was treated as such whenever returning to the Bronx. There were others in the running of course, none more so than Mickey Mantle, but The Mick tragically died at the way too young age of 63 and DiMaggio held the title until he passed away in the spring of 1999. At tha...

What will go down as one of the strangest regular seasons in baseball history is in the books. Now an equally wacky post-season begins and despite their Jekyll  and Hyde  routine to close out the season, the Yankees are a part of it. The last time Major League Baseball was forced to go off-script with both the regular season and playoff schedule was in 1981 due to a mid-season strike . That year, a similarly streaky Yankee team reached the playoffs - and ultimately the World Series where they lost to the Dodgers - by finishing the "first half" of the season with the best record in the AL East. Never mind that they were below .500 in the second half and actually finished with only the fourth best overall record in the division. The slapdash playoff system was far from perfect. The similarities between the 1981 and 2020 Yankees go well beyond team streakiness, though. As they embark on another playoff journey, let's dig into a comparison between the current Yankees and thei...