Below The Beltway

After a season that was wracked by a hamstring injury, Yankees ace Andy Pettitte has decided to retire:
The Yankees’ frustrating off-season took another discouraging turn with the news Thursday that Andy Pettitte would retire. Pettitte called Hal Steinbrenner, the team’s managing general partner, to tell him his plans. The Yankees confirmed in a news release [...]

Every fan of the New York Yankees can breath a little easier:
This past month has been by far the most tumultuous period of the Yankees’ otherwise cozy 18-year relationship with Derek Jeter, and it left an uneasy feeling across their empire. Even with his eventual return considered a certainty, the public dispute over the terms [...]

The contract negotiations between the Yankees and Derek Jeter have taken a decidedly acrimonious turn:
The Yankees have decided not to offer salary arbitration to shortstop Derek Jeter, according to two people in baseball briefed on the matter. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize their access to sensitive [...]

Three years to the day after he hit his 500th home run, with your humble correspondent in attendance, Alex Rodriguez broke a 17 game slump to hit number 600 this afternoon:
As the ball took flight, arcing toward center field, Alex Rodriguez jogged toward first base with his hands outstretched, his palms up. It is the [...]

Last night was the first game at Yankee Stadium since the deaths of Bob Shepard and George Steinbrenner and, it was, understandably, an emotional night:
As Yankee Stadium fell silent early Friday evening, Frank Sinatra’s voice wafted over the loudspeakers. Sinatra was singing “My Way,” a tune that George Steinbrenner no doubt knew well and with [...]

It’s been known for some time that George Steinbrenner was in bad health, but the news today of his death in Florida is nonetheless sad and shocking:
George Steinbrenner, who bought a declining Yankees team in 1973, promised to stay out of its daily affairs and then, in an often tumultuous reign, placed his formidable stamp [...]

Bob Sheppard, who was the public address announcer at Yankee Stadium for nearly sixty years died today just a few weeks short of his 100th birthday:
Bob Sheppard, whose elegant intonation as the public-address announcer at Yankee Stadium for more than half a century personified the image of Yankee grandeur, died Sunday at his home in [...]

You won’t have to worry about hearing the annoying vuvuzela at Yankee Stadium:
Those vuvuzela horns may be all the rage at the World Cup in South Africa, but the Yankees won’t let fans toot, toot, toot for the home team.
When “bleacher creature” Anthony Zachariadis wailed on one of the plastic horns at Tuesday night’s game, [...]

The most popular guy in New York this morning is a guy named Marcus Thames:
Marcus Thames has spent much of his career on the bench, and that is where he would have been, should have been, in the ninth inning Monday night. If Nick Swisher were healthy, he would have been playing right field. If [...]