Yankee4Life

Maybe I did miss some good games Jim. And you're right about those two games in London. The only good was knowing that the Yankees won both games but both those games took over nine hours to complete. That was too much! By the time the game ended yesterday afternoon I was completely worn out. For me it was painful. I punched my leg so hard on Saturday afternoon after they tied the game in the first inning that I have a bruise there right now. I'm happy to say that I broke nothing in my house during both games but if a Red Sox fan would've knocked on my door while those games were going on someone would've had to bail me out of jail.😕 Yeah it sure was painful. I'll be feeling it for a few days now!😄

Updated to 6-30 ...The Yankees have a way of ruining the month of July for me every year despite my attempts of trying to remain positive which, for me, can sometimes be too much to ask for. For me July has it all. There is nothing like baseball in the summertime. So's a picnic on the Fourth and lemonade and iced tea and catching a game on the radio in my backyard at night when the weather cools down some from the heat of the day. But then, as I said, I am a Yankee fan and that means for the entire month you have to worry that they will trade away a valuable piece of their future to get a quick return on the present. This year Clint Frazier is the player I am concerned about the most. All he did when Stanton and Judge were out step up and play well while delivering key hits. He's a good young player that I don't want to see wear the uniform of any of the team. If Frazier survives not being traded I can see him returning in September when the rosters are expanded and having a permanent role on the Yankees next year after Brett Gardner is gone. Gardner is someone that I don't understand was brought back this year. His bat disappears after the return from the break and the Yankees are fooling themselves if they think this year will be any different. He's about a .230 hitter now and for someone as fast as he is he hardly steals any bases. I get that he has had a good career with the Yankees but they can't keep on bringing him back on one-year contracts. Jeter was a good player too but you wouldn't want to see him play shortstop now. Pitchers didn't want to see him play shortstop five years before he retired. I just want Frazier to get a chance and until the trade deadline ends July 31st that's what I'm mostly going to be worried about. I know I can't control it and I shouldn't worry about it but without fail the Yankees do this to me every July. They almost make the hot dog I am going to have not worth it. ...For whatever reason the Nominating Committee of the National Radio Hall of Fame has decided to nominate New York Yankees color commentator Suzyn Waldman for membership in their Hall of Fame. It's obvious that the twenty-four person committee has never heard her screech during Yankee broadcasts or else her name would have never been considered. This is the same Hall of Fame that has already admitted people such as Mel Allen, Red Barber and Vin Scully. If Waldman somehow gets in it should be fair to say that anyone who has ever spoken over the airwaves at any time should at least be nominated also. If any of you who have never heard her and have the MLB package give her a listen one day. I promise you you won't even last an inning. ... Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Tommy Pham brought up a very good point recently about big market teams having an advantage in All-Star voting. And for those of you who think he's just complaining about nothing you don't have to look any further than the Yankees Aaron Judge. Judge has played in less than thirty games this year and yet he finished fourth in voting for American League outfielders. The names may change but each year one thing remains constant and that's the fans have no idea what they're doing. Pham is having a better year than the Yankees Brett Gardner and Boston's Jackie Bradley Jr. and yet he is way behind in the All-Star voting simply because he plays for a small market team. What Pham is saying has been said before by other players in the past who's home address was not New York, Boston or Los Angeles. Toward the end of his career Derek Jeter made the All-Star team on his name alone and not for what he did on the field. Most of the blame for this lays at the feet of ESPN and Fox because of their willingness to broadcast Yankee- Red Sox games as much as they can get away with. It's always been a popularity contest. Pham's just reminding everyone of this again. ... In Denver recently police were called to break up a fight between parents at a youth baseball game played between seven-year-olds because they were unhappy with the calls made by the umpire who at thirteen was not that much older than the players on both teams. The police said that several people have already been cited for disorderly conduct. There's a video of this online and in it the children are seen running off the field when the fight broke out. You can only imagine what was going through their heads when this was going on. Billy Martin has been gone for thirty years now and I don't even think that he would approve of what those parents did. Then again, maybe he would. One thing is certain and that's if that thirteen-year-old kid wants to continue being umpire he already has the experience of dealing with a rioting crowd. Grab his mask, run and let the crazies fight it out among themselves. ...If I were the city of Montréal I would tell the people who run the Tampa Bay Rays thanks but no thanks even if it means hosting major league baseball in Québec again. The Rays said that they received permission from the commissioner to explore a plan in which they would play home games in both the Tampa Bay area and Montreal and they went on to say that this is the most feasible way to save baseball in the Tampa Bay area. If this plan is approved the Rays would play early season home games in the Tampa Bay area and the remainder of the year in Montreal. To sweeten the pot both cities would get new stadiums. Why? If that happens one city is ultimately going to have a new stadium and no team. No matter how you look at it this plan makes no sense at all for Tampa and Montréal. What do the Rays consider early-season games? April and May? How does this supposed to help save baseball in Florida? Montréal was a good baseball town and after their growing pains years of the 1970s they built themselves a pretty good team. While hockey is number one sport there and always will be baseball has had a long and proud history there also. I understand that Montréal wants to return to the major leagues and honestly they should of never left but if they allow Tampa to do this they are just going to be taken advantage of again. My guess is that the Rays are doing this to gain an advantage in the stadium talks or they are indirectly saying that no matter what the city of Tampa does they are eventually going to leave no matter what. Let Tampa deal with their own mess. Montréal is too good of a city to have baseball walk on them again. ...For as much as I like him sometimes Paul O'Neill drives me crazy when he's in the Yankees broadcasting booth. The next time he's doing a game listen to how many times he says "I'll tell you what" when he has something to say. He does a good enough job but if if he can get out of that habit he'd be so much better. ...So sorry, but we shot the wrong guy, Dept.:A lot of people in the Dominican Republic are not accepting that the reason why David Ortiz was shot back on June 9 was because he was mistaken for somebody else. At 6'3'' and 240 pounds it's hard to mistake him for anyone. Eleven people were arrested in this murder-for-hire plot. The gun man's story was that the man sitting with Ortiz that day was the original target. He said he got confused because the two of them were dressed similarly but even that explanation makes no sense because the intended target is smaller and thinner than Ortiz and also has a lighter complexion. Try to picture Ortiz standing next to someone with the same build as Dustin Pedroia. This is the story that the Dominican authorities want everyone to believe and I think it's because they don't want to make other Dominican players nervous when they come home. It's too late for that because if a hit was put on someone is popular as Ortiz it could happen to anyone. Ortiz is doing better now and is out of intensive care at Massachusetts General Hospital after being flown up from the Dominican for additional surgery. It's worth mentioning that the doctors down there were the ones to initially work on him. They saved his life and made him stable to be flown to Boston.I'm sure he's grateful to the doctors in his country who helped him out but at the same time I'm wondering what he thinks of those officials who are trying to tell him that the other guy was supposed to get shot and not him? ...Tourism represents more than 17% of the Dominican Republic's economy and officials there are beginning to get concerned that travelers may become very reluctant to book their vacations because there have been at least ten American citizens who have died from apparent sudden health issues since June of last year. The United States Embassy in Santo Domingo has been actively working with Dominican authorities to ensure that American citizens are safe but it still makes you wonder if it's actually worth to go down there to begin with. Some people who have visited the Dominican Republic and returned home to tell about it brought home more than souvenirs and pictures when they got off the plane. Stomach cramps, diarrhea and other illnesses that lasted a long time after they returned home have been reported. What no one can explain is why many of the tourists died while they were in their hotel rooms. While the Dominican may be a very beautiful area with some of the nicest beaches in the world it's still a very poor country with a high crime rate. Not even David Ortiz who is a living legend down there is safe so I wouldn't want to gamble with my life there in or out of my hotel room. But this concern about traveling to the Dominican will soon be forgotten as soon as the travel prices to visit there are cut in half. Just like in a lot of cases money can clean up and fix just about anything. ...Sure I watched the FIFA women's World Cup games. Right after I watched a few Lifetime movies, read a romance novel and viewed Boston's World Series highlights from last year. Then I made sure to tune in. ...Last week Andrew Dice Clay and Roseanne Barr announced a new comedy tour called "Mr. and Mrs. America". What a combination those two are for a comedy duo. Barr, who thinks she is funny except when she is telling a joke and Clay who is famous mostly for pornographic nursery rhymes. Before hearing about this I didn't even know if Andrew Dice Clay was still alive since his last hit was the Adventures of Ford Fairlane which was almost thirty years ago. Clay said that the reason why they decided to start this tour was because of the current national obsession with political discourse in addition to the alleged policing of comedians’ language. I don't know if any comics have their language policed but I'm sure that Clay knows better about it than I do. He was funny at one time but that was a long time ago but having Barr around means that this little tour that they're going on is not going to last long because it's going to be hard to be funny to a bunch of empty seats. ...Amazon's highly successful Prime Day promotion will be running for two days this year starting at midnight on July 15 and will last for forty-eight hours. Amazon says the event will include more than a million deals around the world, such as steep discounts on Alexa-enabled devices. Prime day is used by Amazon to spotlight their own products and to get more people to subscribe to their prime service which costs $119 a year. This will be the fifth year that they have promoted this discount holiday and while they will have a lot of things for sale I have noticed that the things that they have marked down aren't really worth buying to begin with. I've been a prime member longer than five years now and I still have not purchased anything on Prime Day. The chances that you do find something to buy they only have twenty of and they're already sold out before you get there. But if you want a Kindle fire or a reader or an Amazon Echo wait until the middle of next month. Anything else I found it to be a waste of time. ...I am a baseball traditionalist and in being so it leaves me open to criticism that the game has passed me by. Maybe it has. While I still love baseball at the same time I can't help but think that they are changing the rules just because they can and not for the better. For as long as I can remember the rule above all others was no association with gambling. There was no way around it. Gambling was verboten. Ever since the 1919 World Series scandal the word "gambling" has always made baseball executives nervous. Not so much now it seems. In exchange for a cut of fans’ guaranteed gambling losses, MLB is requiring teams to submit their starting lineups fifteen minutes before game time for betting purposes. And to push it a little further the Chicago Cubs are considering adding betting kiosks inside and just outside Wrigley Field for easy and added in game action. If this is a big success in Wrigley it won't be long before you see them in every other major league park.It didn't take much for baseball to change their mind about gambling. All the game needed was a big cut out of their fans wallets and suddenly the over and under on the Atlanta - Milwaukee game for instance is not a big deal. Hey, who's it going to hurt? Just the game itself but don't listen to me. I'm just a traditionalist.

Mickey Rivers Originally signed by the Atlanta Braves, John Milton "Mickey" Rivers began his big league career in 1970 with the Angels, playing center field and third base. He stayed with them through the 1975 season. Rivers played part-time in his first few years, until becoming the starter in 1974. He led the American League in triples both years and stole a career-high 70 bases in 1975, tops in the league. Along with Ed Figueroa, Rivers was dealt to the Yankees in the 1975-76 off-season for Bobby Bonds, a trade that immediately paid dividends for the Yankees. Figueroa won 19 games and Rivers enjoyed a career year. Rivers was named to the All-Star team, batted .312, stole 43 bases and posted then-career highs in home runs (8) and runs batted in (67). Rivers placed third in the Most Valuable Player voting behind teammate Thurman Munson and George Brett and was named an outfielder on The Sporting News AL All-Star team. Rivers posted good numbers in his two other full Yankee seasons, including a .326 batting average in 1977, but was traded in the middle of the 1979 season to Texas. He set the single-season record for hits by a Ranger with 210 in 1980. He concluded his career in 1984 with a .295 lifetime average, 267 stolen bases and 1,660 hits. The Yankees faced the Kansas City Royals three years in a row, and Rivers starred in each one. In 14 total games, he batted .386, with an un-Rivers-like OBP of .417, belted 22 hits and scored 10 runs. His average in the 1978 series was a whopping .455. He didn’t fare as well in World Series play, though, only hitting .238 in 15 games. While Rivers played for them, the Yankees won the World Series in 1977 and 1978, both times against the Los Angeles Dodgers. They won the 1976 pennant, but lost in the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Rivers posted a .308 average in his 29 postseason games.

I believe that you can install that with the T.i.T. Program.

You used to own Mvp at one time isn't that right?

Updated to 4-28 ...Many years ago but then again not that long ago players like George Brett, Eddie Murray, Reggie Jackson, Alan Trammell, etc, would play in the majority of their games year after year. No one was surprised when they did because it was to be expected. These days and especially with the Yankees it's a cause for celebration when they can go two games without adding someone to the disabled list. I have never seen anything like it and I am hard-pressed to come up with an answer. Part of it has to be with getting limbered up and training down in the Florida sunshine and then going up north to play games in weather forty degrees colder than you've been used to. But looking at it closer that's only part of the problem because why don't other teams who train in Florida and Arizona have the same problems? They've played in just as cold weather as the Yankees. The injury that is really going to hurt the most is Aaron Judge's oblique injury. The Yankees said it was such a significant injury that there is no timetable for his return. In other words if you want to see Judge swing a bat in the coming months watch videos of him online. Same for Aaron Hicks. I think if he wasn't given that new multi-million dollar contract his back wouldn't be hurting right now. And if Greg Bird were a horse they'd have taken him behind the barn and shot him by now. If these guys would spend as much time preparing themselves for the long season as they do remembering the hundreds of different ways it takes to shake hands they would be better off. So far Brian Cashman has been defending his medical and training staff but if you know anything about the Yankees something's got to give. They always find a way to reprimand someone because they are masters at delegating blame.. I'd start with the strength and conditioning coach because it seems to me that he forgot the "conditioning" part of his job title. Something needs to be done. The Yankees have put too much time and money in this team to watch them fall apart this fast after less than three weeks into the season. ...Yeah, but can she cook, Dept: A thirty-five-year-old Japanese man married a cyber celebrity named Hatsune Miku in probably the oddest wedding ceremony that I have ever heard of. You may not have heard of Hatsune Miku but she is very popular in Japan. She also happens to be a hologram. The guy first fell for her about ten years ago when he first heard her sing and then it was love at first pixel. The couple got married in front of thirty-nine friends and relatives, none from the brides side of the family. Your first reaction probably would be to have a good laugh at this guy but I think he's crazy like a fox. Say he and his wife are having an argument. All he's got to do is unplug her and just like that the fight's over. And maybe they're watching TV and he sees another hot looking hologram that he wants on the side. All he has to do is put a blanket over her and she won't know what's going on. To each his own they say but this is really stretching it. I wonder how this guy would cope if the power went out in his neighborhood and he couldn't talk to his wife? He may have to resort to talking to someone with a pulse for awhile. ...The people running the Royal Caribbean Cruise line must have seen all kinds of people come and go over the years and the stories they must have would make for some fascinating reading but I don't know if anything could top what happened on one of their trips recently. A group of men were banned for life when one of them decided to jump from the eleventh floor of the ship while it was docked in the Bahamas. The man was not suicidal nor was he jumping into the water to save someone else who had fallen in. He jumped because he wanted to become a viral hit and be famous and jumping off an ocean liner sounded like a good idea at the time. After the cops picked him and was brought back on the ship to gather his things to leave he was asked about his fall. He told a reporter that his feet felt pretty good but it was his neck and tailbone that really hurt. He was barely able to walk for three days and was hardly able to sleep from the pain. That's a shame. Maybe after some time passes he can book passage on another cruise line company and try for another jump. Maybe that time he'll get it right. 😶 ...Things people do just to post on social media, Dept: Sadly the woman known as the "Bikini Climber" is no more thanks to a sixty-five foot drop down a ravine and a discernible lack of common sense. GiGi Wu, a thirty-six-year-old Taiwanese woman, better known as the Bikini Climber because she was known for sharing photos of herself on mountaintops in bikinis, fell to her death in Central Taiwan’s Yushan Mountain when she stumbled down a ravine and injured her leg and was unable to move. Despite her calls for help the emergency responders were not able to immediately reach her due to the dangerous weather conditions. Finally after twenty-eight hours she was air lifted out but by that time she was pronounced dead. The cause of death was over exposure to the elements brought on by a terminal case of attention seeking disorder. Not many people can say they died freezing to death on a mountain in a bikini. GiGi Wu had a big following on social media as she chronicled her bikini climbing adventures and it isn't hard to understand why. Who wouldn't want to see a young, attractive woman take photos of herself wearing skimpy bikinis mixed in with an element of danger? That's why she was a big hit. People were waiting for this to happen. Well, they got it. And she got it too.It is amazing in this day and age of knowledge and warning labels that natural selection continues finds a way. ...I hope that whatever NFL team you happen to follow had a very good draft except of course if your favorite team happens to play in the AFC West and is anyone except the Oakland Raiders. I didn't watch any of the draft because I don't think waiting around for teams to make their selections makes for riveting television. However there are many people who would disagree with me and who find the draft one of the most exciting and suspenseful events of the year. This year the draft was held in Nashville and that meant that the city was invaded by over two hundred thousand fans hoping to get a glimpse of some of the new NFL draftees and hobnob with the NFL greats that show up. That's all well and good but recently Nashville has gained the reputation of being a go-to place for bachelorette parties and when the football guys showed up they were not too happy about it. Some of them accused the NFL of swooping in at the last minute to hold their draft there and ruining their ability to have fun. The NFL announces a year in advance where the next draft is held and that is news that is hardly on a need-to-know basis. One lady was so furious she threatened to take out her frustration on her husband when she said she was not going to watch any football with him this coming season including the Super Bowl. That's right, hit him where it hurts. Make him watch the game alone so he can really concentrate on it and maybe even enjoy it since you won't be there running your mouth the entire game. That's the best gift she could ever give him but she thinks she's really sticking it to him. One bride-to-be had similar feelings. She didn't want to "hang out with a bunch of football guys" because she already has to watch football on Sundays. Really? I don't know of any man that tells his wife or girlfriend that she has to sit with him all day on Sunday watching football. Maybe the reason why she is mad at the NFL and all of the "football guys" that were there was they ruined her chances of hooking up with as many musicians as possible before getting married. 😄 ...When a parenting blogger (yes, there is such a thing. That's a woman who has a kid and then thinks she has to go to social media and let other women know how to raise their own child because no one knows how to do it better than her.) was on a cross-country flight with her two-year-old daughter, she noticed a passenger sitting nearby getting upset when the child started getting tired and began to act up by fussing and crying. The man, who was under the assumption that he paid for a quiet flight began to lose his patience when the child, who was sitting behind him, began screaming in his ear. The woman wrote later that the man turned around a few times to express his annoyance but that did not stop the toddler because as anyone knows who has been around an exhausted child once they start crying it's almost hard to stop them. Luckily a flight attendant stepped in and saved the day much to the appreciation of the man whose ears were beginning to hurt and to the other people who also had the bad luck to sit near this mother and daughter. Immediately after the flight attendant gave the child a cup and a straw to play with she calmed down and stopped crying for the remainder of the flight. It appears to me that this flight attendant that came to the rescue to give the little girl something to play with is a better parent than her mother the blogger because she provided activities for the kid while her mother brought her on a cross-country trip with nothing to keep her engaged. Maybe in the future if she spent less time on social media and more time looking after her kid, she would find that she doesn't have as much to "blog" about. ...For a few days I was confused as to why people were talking about Nipsey Russell again because from what I had remembered he had been dead for years. Then I found out they were talking about some guy I never heard of named Nipsey Hussle and I thought he was a relative of his, but he wasn't. Anyway, R.I.P. whomever you were. ...All I can say is leave it to the Red Sox. Last Tuesday night baseball's first all-female radio broadcast team took to the airwaves to announce Boston's class A Salem Red Sox game. I would have loved to been a fly on the wall between innings of the game to hear what they were talking about. Where'd you get your shoes?...Don't you just love Amazon Prime?...That third baseman's cute. What team does he play for?...Can we leave after nine innings? 😄 ...When this year began I had no idea who Jussie Smollett was nor did I care. It was a pretty stupid thing that he did and yet he had a lot of people coming out to support him which I could not understand. Aesop's Fables had a famous story called The boy who cried wolf and I'm guessing Smollett never heard of it or never got around to read it. If this ever happens to him again and this time without it being set up he'll know first hand what that story was about. ...Finally, this. Political correctness struck again last week and this time they targeted a woman who has been dead for thirty-three years. An unidentified person discovered two recordings done by singer Kate Smith back in 1931 and proceeded to waste no time reporting it to the media so they could have their fifteen minutes of fame. Well they got it but it cost the reputation of a woman who up to recently was highly regarded and respected. Her recording of “God Bless America” has been used by the New York Yankees during the seventh inning stretch at Yankee Stadium since 2001 but when the news came out about the recordings she made so long ago the song was removed faster than another Yankee player joining the disabled list. When the Philadelphia Flyers saw what the Yankees had done they said to themselves that they could do even better and sure enough they did. The Flyers used her version of the song as an almost unbeatable good luck charm when it was played before their games but they stopped playing it too. Smith also had a statue of herself that the Flyers covered up and then had taken away. That'll teach her! I did not hear these songs nor did I ever hear of them until now but just based on the titles of the two songs (“That’s Why Darkies Were Born” and “Pickaninnies’ Heaven”) you can immediately tell that they would not make America's top 40 playlist in the past fifty or sixty years. And that's my point. These songs were recorded back in 1931, eighty-eight years ago. Most people alive now that were around back then were only new borns. They had no idea what it was like then just like us. The songs that Kate Smith is taking flack for were also recorded by a black man named Paul Robeson. Robeson was far from an "Uncle Tom" character. This man was a famous singer, athlete, lawyer and social activist. Robeson also played an important part in bringing black baseball players, including Jackie Robinson, into the major leagues when he headed a delegation of blacks who met with commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and the major league owners in 1943 to bring black players into baseball. In attendance that day was Branch Rickey, who was there listening to Robeson and he left determined to make his plea come true. It should be noted that while it was brought out that Robeson did record these songs in question he is not being denounced by any leader of the black community. The reason could be because it's been eighty-eight years and things have changed for the better since then and there is no sense in going back that far to find something to be offended by because there is more than enough things today going on to keep you occupied for quite some time.

Jackie Robinson Jackie Robinson is perhaps the most historically significant baseball player ever, ranking with Babe Ruth in terms of his impact on the national pastime. Ruth changed the way baseball was played; Jackie Robinson changed the way Americans thought. When Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, more than sixty years of racial segregation in major-league baseball came to an end. He was the first acknowledged black player to perform in the Major Leagues in the twentieth century and went on to be the first to win a batting title, the first to win the Most Valuable Player award, and the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He won major-league baseball's first official Rookie of the Year award and was the first baseball player, black or white, to be featured on a United States postage stamp. The raw statistics only scratch the surface in evaluating Jackie Robinson as a ballplayer. Because of institutionalized racism and World War II, he did not play his first big-league game until he was 28 years old, and therefore his major-league career spanned only 10 seasons. His lifetime batting average was a solid .311, but because of the brevity of his career, his cumulative statistics are relatively unimpressive by Hall of Fame standards. But in what would be considered his prime years, ages 28 to 34, Robinson hit .319 and averaged more than 110 runs scored per season. He drove in an average of 85 runs, and his average of nearly 15 home runs per season was outstanding for a middle infielder of that era. And he averaged 24 stolen bases a season for a power-laden team that didn't need him to run very often. Colorfully described as a tiger in the field and a lion at bat, the right-handed-hitting Robinson crowded the plate and dared opposing hurlers to dust him off — a challenge they frequently accepted. He was an excellent bunter, good at the sacrifice and always a threat to lay one down for a hit. Not known as a home-run hitter, he displayed line-drive power to all fields, had a good eye for the strike zone, and rarely struck out. For his entire big-league career, he drew 740 walks and struck out only 291 times — an extremely impressive ratio. Second base was Robinson's best position. In a 1987 "Player's Choice" survey, he was voted the greatest second baseman of his era despite having played there regularly for only five seasons. Though not a smooth glove man in the classic sense, he was sure-handed and possessed good range and instincts. He made up for an average arm by standing his ground on double plays and getting rid of the ball quickly. Robinson also displayed his versatility by playing regularly at first base, at third base, and in left field when the needs of the team dictated it. It was running the bases, however, where Robinson's star shined brightest. He was a dynamo on the basepaths — fast, clever, daring, and rough. He was the most dangerous base runner since Ty Cobb, embarrassing and intimidating the opposition into beating themselves with mental and physical errors. Former teammate and big-league manager Bobby Bragan, who initially objected to Jackie's presence on the Dodgers, called him the best he ever saw at getting called safe after being caught in rundown situations. He created havoc by taking impossibly long leads, jockeying back and forth, and threatening to steal on every pitch. His mere presence on base was enough to upset the most steely-nerved veteran hurlers. Robinson revived the art of stealing home, successfully making it 19 times in his career — tied with Frankie Frisch for the most since World War I. At the age of 35 in 1954, he became the first National Leaguer to steal his way around the bases in 26 years, and a year later he became one of only 12 men to steal home in the World Series. Jackie's last years with the Dodgers had not been harmonious. He disliked both manager Walt Alston and owner Walter O'Malley, whose power play forced Branch Rickey out of the Brooklyn front office in 1950. Though the Dodgers had captured the 1956 pennant, the once dominating nucleus was growing old. Robinson himself was no longer a top performer on the field and had become increasingly outspoken on racial issues both inside and outside of baseball. The Dodgers brass was hoping he'd step down gracefully, but Jackie refused to announce his retirement. Finally the club forced his hand by swapping him to the New York Giants on December 13, 1956, for journeyman hurler Dick Littlefield and $30,000 in cash. On January 22, 1957 Robinson's retirement from baseball was announced in an exclusive article in Look magazine, in which he took a few parting shots at the remaining segregated teams in the majors. Jackie had actually decided to retire before he was dealt to the Giants, but couldn't say anything earlier because of his deal with Look. The Giants reportedly offered him $60,000 to stay, and the prospect of playing alongside Willie Mays definitely had some appeal. But when Brooklyn general manager Buzzy Bavasi publicly implied that Robinson was just trying to use the magazine article to get a better contract, he decided to prove the Dodgers wrong and declined the Giants' offer. In 1962 Robinson was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was inducted along with former Cleveland pitching great Bob Feller, who had once predicted that Jackie's "football shoulders" would keep him from hitting big-league pitching. A few years after his retirement from baseball, Robinson acknowledged that he suffered from diabetes. His health declined under the ravages of the disease and at the age of 53 he suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He died on October 24, 1972, only months after his number 42 was officially retired by the Dodgers.

Paul O'Neill Paul O’Neill’s first year in the majors was 1987. Working primarily as a pinch-hitter, he only hit .143 with 2 home runs and 6 RBI in the season’s first half, in which he played 36 games and had 42 at-bats. In the second half of the season, Reds Manager Pete Rose increased O’Neill’s playing time. In 48 second-half games, O’Neill made 29 starts. The regular playing time helped with O’Neill’s timing, and soon he was comfortable at the plate. He hit .297 with 12 doubles, 5 home runs and 22 RBIs, and posted a .909 OPS. In 1988, O’Neill finally became a full-time major leaguer. The Reds starting lineup included former minor league teammates Eric Davis, Kal Daniel, Chris Sabo, and Tom Browning, who made history on September 16, 1988, when he pitched a perfect game against the Dodgers. “With highlights like that, 1988 flew by, and in my first full-fledged, full-length season with the Reds, I came away with 16 home runs, 73 RBIs and 8 stolen bases” to go with his .252 batting average, he said later. In 1991, O’Neill batted only .256, but he had the best power numbers of his career: 28 home runs and 91 RBI. With the bigger power numbers came bigger expectations for O’Neill, whom the Reds management now viewed as a potential home run champion. O’Neill saw himself as a line drive hitter, and for the first two months of the 1992 season, he was an excellent one, batting .361 with 29 RBI. But he’d only hit four home runs, and on several occasions he was told point blank: “we want you to hit more home runs.” “My calling was never as a big home run hitter, and when I tried to be one, I fell flat on my face,” said O’Neill of his second half swoon, when he hit only .231. Paul’s attempt to swing for the fences led to the worst statistics of his major league career, batting .246 with 19 doubles, 14 home runs and 66 RBIs. On November 3, 1992, the Reds traded O’Neill and minor leaguer Joe DeBerry to the New York Yankees for center fielder Roberto Kelly. At the time, the trade created quite a buzz. Kelly had been the Yankees top young prospect since he first signed an amateur contract 10 years earlier, and he was coming off a season in which he made his first All-Star team. O’Neill’s first season in New York proved a success. In addition to his defense, he hit .311 with 20 home runs and 75 RBIs. It was also a good year for the Yankees, who won 88 games and finished second in the American League East to the eventual world champion Toronto Blue Jays. In just one season, O’Neill’s intensity and production had made him a fan favorite and a team leader in New York. O’Neill’s performance during the truncated 1994 season was outstanding. He led the American League in hitting with a career-high .359 average. It was the first batting title for a Yankee since Mattingly won in 1985. O’Neill also finished second in On-Base Percentage (.461), and fourth in slugging (.603) and OPS (1.064). In roughly two-thirds of a season, he hit 21 home runs, collected 25 doubles and collected 83 RBIs. He finished fifth in MVP voting. O’Neill cashed in on his remarkable season, and signed a four-year Yankee contract worth $19 million. "Paul is thrilled with the deal," O’Neill’s agent told The New York Times on the day the deal was announced. "He wanted to stay in New York. I think everyone knew that going in." In 1997, O'Neill played in 149 games batting .324 with 21 home runs and 117 RBI. He led the Yankees into the post season again but lost the division series to the Cleveland Indians. In 1998, O'Neill played in 152 games batting .317 with 24 home runs and 116 RBI. O'Neill led the Yankees into the World Series where they won against the San Diego Padres in a 4-game sweep and helped the team win a record 125 games. In 1999, O'Neill played in 153 games batting .285 with 19 home runs and 110 RBI. O'Neill played Game 4 of the 1999 World Series just hours after his father died. The Yankees eventually won the game and swept the Braves to win their 25th World Series Championship. In 2000, O'Neill played in 142 games batting .283 with 18 home runs and 100 RBI. He led the Yankees into the post season again, who won the World Series over the New York Mets. In 2001, O'Neill played in 137 games batting .267 with 21 home runs and 70 RBI. In Game 5 of the 2001 World Series, O'Neill received a sendoff from New York fans. While standing in right field in the 9th inning with the Yankees down 2–0, the entire stadium chanted his name. When the inning ended, O'Neill was still being cheered. With tears in his eyes, he tipped his cap, and another roar went up from the crowd at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees won the game 3–2, but lost the series 4 games to 3. Since his retirement after the 2001 World Series, his number 21 has only been worn once, when relief pitcher LaTroy Hawkins briefly wore the number to start the 2008 season but, on April 16, 2008, Hawkins switched to number 22 in response to the criticism he received by many Yankee fans, all the more suggesting that number 21 may one day be retired for O'Neill.