BACK TO BASICS

Jose Contreras had an impressive start yesterday for the Columbus Clippers, throwing five scoreless innings, allowing three hits and striking out eight. Apparently, the big Cuban's heater was clocked at 98mph, a far cry from what we saw from him when he was with the Yankees. To be fair, Contreras is a starter, and was regulated to the bullpen in New York.

Mariano Rivera is ready to go for the Yanks, and Derek Jeter was back with the team last night, shit-eating-grin and all. Jeter was goofing around on the bench, certainly a sight for sore eyes for us Yankee fans. He expects to be activated in a couple of weeks.

With a base on balls last night, Nick Johnson has now walked in thirteen consecutive games. He leads the AL in that category too.

Not for nothing, but I'm glad that Suzyn Waldman is not calling the games for YES any longer. He strength is doing the pre and post game shows, and I think she does that fine (although she's better suited for the radio, and I used to like her coverage of the Knicks as well as the Yanks). But I've noticed that she has become so breathy, that I'm going to start calling her ol' Iron Lungs. Each breath she draws sounds dramatically like it will be her last. Not only that, but she's looking more and more like Karl Malden with each passing day.

The Yanks face ol' man Moyer in the Bronx tonight. Moyer has an even better Bugs Bunny change than Chris Hammond. I don't know what his numbers are against the Yankees, but I always feel like he kills us. And it's a slow, painful death at that. I practically feel like jumping out of my shoes at home. My cousin Gabe said it would be good for baseball if the Yanks lost tonight (making it three in a row). "Then they can win 44 straight of whatever."