Why are the Yankees Wearing Red Hats?

Let me preface this post by saying this: I love America and I respect and honor our veterans.

Now, then.  I HATE that the Yankees are wearing red hats today against the Rangers in honor of Memorial Day.  The hats, the picture to the right, look atrocious when worn with the Yankee uniform.  I get that MLB wants to make money and feel like they can do so by selling these hats and other alternate hats and jerseys (see also stadium specific hats for Yankees and Mets, dumb patches on jerseys).  To tell you the truth, I actually have the old school version of this hat, which came out before 9/11, although the red is a bit loud for my conservative tastes.

That aside, I think it’s terrible that MLB makes teams wear these hats that are completely contrary to their color scheme.  It looks ugly.  I’m not on What Not to Wear or any of those stupid shows, but even someone as fashion illiterate as me can make the earth-shattering suggestion to MLB: why the hell can’t teams wear their normal colored hats with the stars and stripes inside the outline of the logo?  For instance, why can’t the Angels wear a red one, the Yankees a blue one, the Marlins a black one?  Seriously.  Why not?  Because it’s not consistent?  A more conservative MLB used to have teams sew an American flag on the side of their hats.  After 9/11 teams had the flag sewn onto their jersey.  I’d take either of those alternatives to the stupid MLB-wide colored hats.

MLB is not the NBA or NHL where alternate jerseys and tacky money-making ploys reign supreme over the integrity of the game.  I’m disappointed that over the past two years, MLB has sunk to this level.

Peavy Turns Down White Sox

Content in San Diego and playing for no shot at the postseason, Jake Peavy turned down a proposed trade to the White Sox, exercising his no-trade clause to block an agreed upon deal.

I think this is an interesting turn of events for Peavy, who was slated to go to the Cubs of Braves in the off-season.  In my humble opinion, this is all about the American League, where Peavy has already said he doesn’t want to go.  I had thought that if the Padres worked out a trade with the Cubs, Peavy would be more than happy to go there.  Peavy invoked his family as the reason why he vetoed the trade and that’s always the PR-smart move, but I think there’s something more.

Maybe he was uneasy about playing for the White Sox, where they were no guarantee to go to October.  Maybe he didn’t want to play for Ozzie Guillen.  Maybe he really was happy in San Diego.

Here’s my issue.  If you really have that competitive fire, don’t you want to increase your chance of winning any way you can (i.e. by accepting a trade to a contender)?  Peavy is owed $60 million on his current contract which runs for another three years, so he’s going to be rich – that’s not the problem.  Is this just a case of the player choosing where he wants to go?

Michael Kay is an Idiot, Part II

Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay must have learned from Part I in this series because I haven’t noticed him saying anything too stupid lately.  Until, that is, this past weekend.

I was at the Yankee game on Saturday (to improve to 1-2 on the season, 2-2 if you count the exhibition) when A-Rod hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th inning after Mark Teixeira walked to lead off the inning.  I enjoyed myself at the stadium that afternoon and didn’t have to listen to Michael Kay.  Sunday, I was watching the third game of the Yankees/Twins series when A-Rod comes up and Kay says something dumb.  Something to the effect of:

“When Alex was up yesterday in the 11th with Teixeira on first, I said on the broadcast that I think he should bunt Teixeira over.”

Wait…  What?  You want the best hitter on the team (don’t even talk to me about his “clutch” stats) to bunt?  And I suppose since he didn’t go 11-for-10 to start the season, he should be dropped to the bottom of the order?  I mean, really.  There is no reason to have your cleanup hitter bunt…ever.  Kay even continued with this anecdote and added that he talked to A-Rod in the clubouse before Sunday’s game about bunting and Rodriguez admitted that he has bunted only a handful of times in his major league career – when he used to bat 2nd/7th when he came up with Seattle.  Newsflash, Michael.  Alex hasn’t played with the Mariners since 2000 and probably hasn’t hit in those spots in the order since 1994 or 1995.

Great, so not only does Michael Kay want the Yankees cleanup hitter to bunt, but he wants a guy who hasn’t bunted in the big leagues in over 13 years to sacrifice.