Below The Beltway

It’s not official yet, but all the signs are that the Yankees’ Mike Mussina will be announcing his retirement this week:
Jim Palmer has known Mike Mussina for 17 years, but rarely had his friend seemed as loose and carefree as he did this summer. Mussina was pitching well at age 39, his elbow sturdy, his [...]

The first baseball game at the new Yankee Stadium will be against the Chicago Cubs:
The Chicago Cubs will play the first exhibition games at the new Yankee Stadium, meeting the Yankees at night on April 3 and again the next afternoon.
The $1.3 billion ballpark, scheduled to be substantially completed by Feb. 17, will host its [...]

The bidding war for CC Sabathia begins:
When the Milwaukee Brewers saw their season end on Oct. 6, CC Sabathia said he planned for a quick resolution to his status as a free agent.
“They’re going to have to come to me,” the left-hander said.
The Yankees answered that challenge yesterday, offering Sabathia what would be a record [...]

Peter Abraham has a series of blog posts up with pictures of what things look like at the Bronx Bombers’ new home.
There are some great shots of center field, the field from the first base side, the whole field with a view of what looks like one heck of a scoreboard, left field,, and the [...]

You’ve got a boat load of money, a new stadium, got shut out of the playoff for the first time in 15 years, and your boss’s last name is Steinbrenner.
What do you do ?
You go shopping:
The Yankees are about to go shopping again — and after missing the playoffs for the first time since [...]

Given that it featured two smaller market teams with limited national appeal, I can’t say that this is surprising:
The three-inning conclusion of the suspended Game 5 of the World Series attracted 19.8 million viewers on Wednesday night. Combined with those who watched the first five and a half innings Monday night, the game averaged 15.8 [...]

It’s been twenty-eight years since the Phillies won the World Series, so last night’s celebtration was especially sweet:
PHILADELPHIA — For a quarter of a century, it was an agonizing cycle for Philadelphia sports fans. Hope, despair, bitterness. For 9,282 days, other places had earned the right to raise banners and hoist trophies. No city with [...]

The weather intervened to cut what should have been a Philadelphia triumph short:
PHILADELPHIA — A city that has waited a quarter-century for a major professional sports championship will have to wait even longer. The fifth game of the World Series was suspended in the middle of the sixth inning at Citizens Bank Park on Monday [...]

The Tampa Bay Rays are headed to the World Series:
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The doubts have smothered the Tampa Bay Rays all season. From arduous games to demanding tests, the Rays were expected to fade away. Sooner or later, the inspirational Rays would go home. But the Rays are not going home after all. They [...]

For the first time in fifteen years, the Philadelphia Phillies are in the World Series:
LOS ANGELES — Only one of the Philadelphia Phillies grew up near the city where they play. It is Jamie Moyer, the 45-year-old pitcher, and he is old enough to remember when Philadelphia was a city of champions. The heartache of [...]