Perfect end to a memorable season
Well, it’s been extraordinary, the length of the season matched by its success, excitement and abundance of compelling story lines.
Today’s parade provided perfect punctuation to a memorable year — and that’s coming from someone who generally loathes parades. This one was fun.
Where did the Yankees season turn? There are several reasonable answers, but one ultimately stands out: When Alex Rodriguez returned.
With one swing of the bat he instilled confidence. And regained confidence. You could argue, and I have, that this was his most valuable season as a Yankee. Really.
The MVP always comes down almost solely to numbers, which I find silly. There is an intangible nature to the word “valuable.” Voters never seem to take that into consideration.
(If the award were Most Outstanding Player, I would understand all the obsessive numbers crunching. It’s not.)
And, to be clear, I’m not suggesting Alex should be the league MVP; Joe Mauer’s season was remarkable and the award should be his. Just suggesting that Alex has never been more valuable to the Yankees.
And who could have imagined that seven or eight months ago?
“This Week in Football”: I have been delinquent in making my picks for the week. Giants over Chargers. Why do I continue to pick the G-Men? Because their defense is getting healthier and because they have to win this game. Have to. And the Eagles over the Cowboys. The birds looked like a team ready to take off last week against the Giants. DeSean Jackson in particular.
I’ve been called for jury duty on Tuesday. If I don’t have to go, I’ll see you on “This Week in Football” next week.
I’ll pop up on WFAN in the meantime. And will continue to blog. As always, thanks for reading.
The Kimberly Jones Blog 
Actually Kim, I disagree. By your definiton of MVP, Hinske is the mist valuable player! His teams have gone to the WS each year he’s been on the team.
The Most Valuable Player is the one who contributes the most to giving his team the best chance to win. The guy with the best “numbers” just means he has contributed positively to his team’s chance to win more than anybody else, so of course you judge by numbers!
Actually Kim, I disagree. By your definiton of MVP, Hinske is the most valuable player! His teams have gone to the WS each year he’s been on the team.
The Most Valuable Player is the one who contributes the most to giving his team the best chance to win. The guy with the best “numbers” just means he has contributed positively to his team’s chance to win more than anybody else, so of course you judge by numbers!
Sorry for the double post.
MVP’s come and go by the numbers and really, this year, it does without a doubt, belong to Mauer! However, I’ve been watching the Yankees since the mid 50’s and was in the stadium the day before Maris hit his 61st – I’ve never seen a first baseman contribute so much to the teams success as this years first baseman – and that includes the ever so popular Tino and Donnie baseball. How many games were saved by Tex? How many times did he turn the 3-6-3 DP when the team needed it done? Perhaps he gets the “team” MVP or does it go to Alex or CC or either one of their DH’s? Who gets your vote?
Actually, the most perfect end to a memorable 2009 season and parade would be if Kim got a key to the city!!
H E L L O B L O O M B E R G ????????
My Dear Kimmie,
I think you RULE!! I am very proud of you and all your wonderful work, BUT not proud of the fact that you did not receive a Key to the City with all the the Yankees Clan!! Not Fair and stupid if I must say so!!
We all watch you from start to finish, everyone on the scene
listens to you and is crazy about you, but yet, you were not a part of the festivities..BOOOOOOOO the city!!
How can they make that mistake????
You getting a Key to the City would have been the strawberry on top of the 2009 season and parade.
Fondly,
A Big Fan Of Yours,
Eileen From Queens, NY (NO, not a Queens MET FAN, LOL)
I think the thing really is that regardless of Mauer’s outstanding numbers, without him the Twins don’t make the playoffs or even come close. He was easily the Twins MVP of the year. However, that was not the case in 2006 when Morneau wrongfully won it over Derek Jeter. No doubt, Morneau is an outstanding player as well. BUT, that particular season a MAJORITY of people agree that there was NO clear distinction of who the MVP was on the Twins: Morneau, Mauer, or Santana. If you can’t pick an MVP on a team, how can you pick for the entire league? The writer who voted Jeter 6th was a D-Bag and should never be allowed to vote again. Do people even remember that year? Sheffield was out. Matsui was out. ARod was flat out terrible. Like, really. That was probably his worst year ever. Who carried the team on his back with clutch hit after clutch hit after clutch hit? Derek Jeter. I mean, seriously, Pedroia has an AL MVP? Seriously? I mean, seriously.
Again, there is no doubt that Mauer had a TREMENDOUS season. But, I find people who are drooling over his stats because “catchers don’t have these types of numbers” and use that as fuel for his MVP in the wrong. How many 35 year old shortstops put up numbers like this? Doesn’t THAT get any consideration? For me, it’s easier to be a 35 year old catcher squatting in one position (not to say that squatting itself is easier) than to be a 35 year old shortstop having to range to the left and right, leap for line drives, dodge players trying to knock you from here until next week to break up a double play, run to the outfield on shallow fly balls to make overhead catches, run to the outfield as the cut off man, etc. He did a great job of it this year and hopefully he keeps it up for the next couple of years.
Lastly, are you or any of your colleagues getting a WS ring? I ask this because if I’m not mistaken, Mrs. Singy mentioned on her blog a little while back that Ken has like, 3 rings. And one of them is from one of the 90s championships where he received one for being an announcer. So does that mean Kay or Sterling may have a ring also? And if you were given a ring, what would you do with it/where would you keep it?
Hi Kim, I really like the work you do with YES network, and that’s why I have to ask you something that’s been bugging me. According to Torre’s book, Yankee management fed you questions to make him look bad. I want to hear the other side before I make any judgement. Any comment on that?
Great blogging as always, Kim – and great to see you during the postseason. Hey, I want to ask your audience who are members of the MLBlogs community to please leave a comment at http://mlblogs.mlblogs.com with any wish-list items you would like to see in terms of our MLBlogs functionality both in the software and on the blog pages. Reloading the big guns for 2010 blogging and beyond and want to make sure we have all of our existing MLBloggers’ wishes represented, everything considered and could be any platform (currently Movable Type). Nothing would be lost if we make transfers but right now just need to get the wishlist out there…and fast. Have about two-dozen musts already, from video uploading to speed to easier photo usage and so forth. Would need this tonight or first half of day tomorrow. Can you please spread the word and thanks everyone who helped make this the best and biggest baseball blogging community in traffic and volume of blogs. – Mark/MLB
Nice Picks. 🙂
I’m an upper deck fan…somehow in all the madness, I met a man at the airport who started talking yanks bb with me at the end of the season. We talked a lot about arod. During the playoffs, and later for game 6 he called and said he just couldn’t use his seats that night…would I like to go? SURE…he emailed them to me…RIGHT ON THE FIELD. My companion met Paul Simon in the mens room…talked about Arod having a big night. That was the HR off of Nathan. All post season, I’ve been trying to find a way to tell arod that his song should be “you can call me Al” since that was what Girardi and Jeter had referred to him as..not Arod, not Alex….just plain old “AL”….it’s amazing what shutting up will do for you….and I love being able to refer to him as “al”,,,Kim…get the message to him….paul simon is a big fan…and we giggled about there being “angels in the architecture”…during the relief break…..right before the HR against Fuestes…
honest disclosure…paul simon didn’t want any part of this suggestion nor was he buying into the song idea
Kim,
Thanks for the amazing job you did all year. Was really fun to have an insider keeping us up on what was going on in Yankeeland. Just out of curiosity…what happened to Swisher’s collage?
I did have one complaint this post-season…I HATED listening to TBS and FOX announcers! They were truly nauseating and once again made me appreciate the incredible job the YES team does in the broadcast booth. By the ninth inning of every game, winning or losing, my nerves were shot and I couldn’t wait to switch to YES for post-game coverage. I, personally, would have given ANYTHING to listen to Kay, Singleton, and O’Neill or Coney (or both) call those games. Maybe YES needs a radio broadcast during the post-season?? Or better yet, MLB needs to let their FOX contract expire and not renew it! They have their own network now, why can’t they broadcast the post-season?
Anyway, thanks again for all of your hard work!
Heather
Oklahoma City
Hi Kim,
This has nothing to do with your current post, but did Nick Swisher ever reveal his collage of pics he made all season?
Hey kim, I just wanted to tell you that you did a great job this season. From the start of opening day all the way to the last day of the parade. I just want to thank you so much for all you did to bring the fans as close to the players as possible… I was kind of mad that they didn’t give you a key to the city with all the work you did this year. Anyway kim God Bless you and I hope to see you around for the hot stove if not i’ll see you in spring training.
Jimmy V
Matsui’s true value is that he is far from steroid business. I bet you gonna miss Godzilla on next September. He? might be gonna play for that SUX or Hanshin Tigers in Japan.
What if he could play as outfielder for other team, oh, boy, what a loss. This year, Yanks never let him defend. But that never means he cannot. Yes, he is ready. He’s gonna make it.
Hi Kim:
Thanks for your blogs all year. They really added to my experience this season.
I agree. This was the season that A-Rod was most valuable to this team. Certainly he’s had better regular seasons, but as we all know, with the Yankees it’s all about October and he was awesome this post season…unconscious even.
I’m with you on the parade. I’m totally not a parade person. Macy’s parade…keep it! But I did enjoy this parade even though I was up at 5am to get to a reasonible spot to see the action.
Well as a Bills fan, the football season doesn’t have a lot to offer me yet again this year, so I’ll have to try and keep awake during hockey games and keep close tabs on the hot stove league.
Have a great winter Kim!
-Chris