Back in the Game

Baseball, like boxing recently, has changed for the better. There is parity, there is speed, there is youth, there are great franchises. These are all things that have basically doubled boxing's popularity in the last year-the lower divisions are stacked with youth, power and blinding speed, there are definitive stars, and the majority of the truly important fights are promoted by Golden Boy productions. Boxing is trying to shed its image of Mike Tyson biting ears and huge sleeping giants and too much Don King. Baseball is trying to shed the steroid era, and huge forearms and intentional walks and decent runs batted in totals are being replaced with stolen bases, good defense, and some good, young baseball players. Just as you can turn on any important fight this year and see two men actually boxing, actually moving, you will see baseball teams this year actually play baseball.

In this first week of the baseball season I've seen more hit-and-runs and sacrifice bunts and base runners disrupting pitchers than I've ever seen in any week. Last year, teams like the Rays went after teams with that style, and in the mean time they got major contributions from their power hitters. The Phillies did the same. this year, the Yankees will do it.

And do it so often that you get tired of it. Gone will be the days of not being able to score runners from third base with less than two outs. John Sterling will no longer be screaming into his microphone about how "positively abysmal" the team is playing in August. The Yankees will be playing baseball this year, only with better players. The will beat the rest of the league at their own style. They will out-single the Angels, they will out-pitch and out-defend the Rays, and they will prove to be considerably better than the Red Sox. What Joe Girardi has is a team just like his 2006 Marlins team that nearly made the playoffs-a team built on pitching and defense who's power hitters will hit unlike the ones on any other American League team.

The Yankees are going to play eighties baseball. The players who will lead the team in home runs and wins will lead the league. And the totals will be 39 and 25.

They will repeatedly play games under three hours and get long, pretty, strike-one after strike-one starts from all of their starters except for Chamberlain, who should be in the bullpen.

The Yankees will win the World Series.

This is the first truly good Yankees team in ten years. Every playoff appearance since then has been remarkable with the plague of bad decisions and bad press and organizational flaws all over that franchise. Right now, the emphasis is at least in the right place, and its the same time that they've spent the most money. for the first time since 1998, the Yankees did maximum spending, and will be working the machine for maximum results. They have a very special team this year.

Remember that I said it.


Watch for teams that wear "A"s on their caps. They're sneaky.