It’s nostalgic - twisted, but nostalgic - listening to Hank Steinbrenner these days. The classic quotes just keep on coming. Here are two more to be added to the catalogue, from yesterday: 

“I know we're gonna come on at some point in this season, but right now, other than Wang,  Rivera,  Jeter, Matsui and Mike Mussina, after I got on him a little, we're not doing jack shit.” 

Do you see it? The “George-ism?” If not, look between the words “Matsui and” and “we’re not.”  Now do you see it? The reason we got a great start out of Moose yesterday, the reason he has upped his record to 6-3 now isn’t because of experience combined with God-given talent, it is because Steinbrenner left him out of talks concerning the Yanks rotation, when he was doing his “I want Joba to start” rants, thus inspiring him to greater pitching heights. 

Hank – master motivator, or masturbator? 

It was a typical George move – when the Yanks play lousy it’s because they suck. When they do well, it’s because he motivated them to do so. 

Here’s one more: 

“What bothers me is that these guys are all working for me and my brother and they're all making more money than we are. That makes me mad.” 

Remember all the times we heard George complain about how much he was paying Reggie, Winfield, Jeter, Martin or fill-in-the-blank-with-your-favortie-player/manager-whipping-boy. The one difference between George’s comments and Hanks quote above is that we never heard Big Stein say anybody made more money than him – but he was self-made, not daddy-derivative like Hanky. 

The Bronx Zoo. Re-stocked with new exhibits and open to the public! 

I decided to blog a bit on this topic today because a poster – FrankC73 - mentioned in the forum that Kennedy is on the mound for the Stanks today, yet saw no mention of it by me in the newsletter, where I have twice used plays against him for the mutual benefit of all our bank accounts. Newsletter picks are usually of the weekend variety, not including Thursday games, so I didn’t pick on Kennedy this week. But I hope you’re picking up the newsletter each week, where Best Bets are steadily hitting above the 60% mark. And now, there is a new interactive version in which you can actually join us - put on your boxers, pop a beer, and hang around the living room on Barco Loungers with us while we ‘cap and watch the games. Oops! I’m sorry, that’s not the interactive version, that’s the Virtual Reality version that is still in development over at Casa De You-know-who. 

If you ever meet me to catch a game, bring vino (Cab, not Rob) – I don’t drink beer. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know – “NO BEER??!! Un-American.” 

What do you expect from a guy whose only TV consumption other than sports is Project Runway?