YANKEE/NOT A YANKEE

I said when they brought him back that I couldn't define a ture Yankee but I knew one when we saw it and Andy Pettite was the real deal. In the immediate advent of this series, I pointed out that I always like our chances with Andy on the mound. Tonight, with little bite on his breaking pitch, little control over his cutter and a 2 seam fastball that only occasionally hit the 90 MPH barrier and never broke it, Andy tamed the big bad Red Sox bats, sending Poopie home without a hit, Lugo and Varitek likewise, and surrendering only one run in 7 full to lower his ERA for the season to an amazing 2.66. To give you some context that is the exact same ERA as Josh Beckett, who has been the gold standard this year; it's about half a run better than Santana, a run and a half better than Shilling and 2 runs better than Dice-K. Torre awoke from his slumber to make the acute point that Pettite basically does it on courage. Great games for Damon, Jeter (3 hits apiece), Matsui (2 hits, 1 homer) and Cano (2 hits). If they could just get Cano going like last year they could move him up to 6th and get some continuity through the top of the line-up. Abreu and Giambi continue to founder and for the momet there seems no solution to the problems they pose.

Speaking of courage, tonight's not a Yankee is the most gutless sissy ever to wear the pinstripes. Carl Pavano has whined about needing elbow reconstruction surgery and even though 2 doctors say rehab might do the trick, Brian Cashboy, who is Pavano's rival in testosterone deficiency, has acceded to his sniveling demands to collect the rest of his 40 mil much as he has collected almost all of it to date, on the DL. Pavano's agent. doubtless a representive specimen of that sleazy tribe, claims that this is about allowing the 31 year old sissy to resume his career, albeit after his contract with the Yankees has expired. Why the Yankees care about the future of cahone-less Carl after he is done with them is beyond me. But the truth is that he will not have any future career anyway. Who is going to pay even the minimum for someone 33 years old, coming off major surgery for just one of the many ailments he's complained of over the past few years (including a boo-boo on his bum), someone who hasn't pitched more than a few games at any time since he was 28. No Pavano's career will now be defined, like Doyle Alexander or Steve Sax, by his failure as a Yankee. He's now a very affluent punch-line.

For his part, Cashboy claimed that Pavano had never once laid down on the team, a sentiment derisively disbelieved not only by the fans but by Pavano's teammates whose contempt for him has been made clear. Cashboy knows that Pavano's laziness, indifference and gutlessness all point to his, Cashboy's own shortcomings as a judge of talent, fitness and character, i.e. his increasingly apparent ineptitude as a GM. If Cashboy is not as big an idiot as Steve Phillips, he's mighty close. Someone should wake George up to the fact that Cashboy is abusing the owner's generousity by throwing money down as many pitching rat holes as he can find (Johnson, Mussina, Jared Wright, Kyle Farnsworth, with Pavano being the capper). I can't believe George wouldn't want to fire him were he compos mentis. Cashboy is to Gene Michaels what Pavano is to Pettite, the faux Yankee to the true.