Yankees Christmas Ornaments - New York Yankees Christmas Decorative Ornaments

Buy New York Yankees Christmas Decorative Ornaments Online at DieHardFans.com

Price: $39.95
ORDER New York Yankees Christmas 3D Ornament

Price: $23.95
ORDER New York Yankees Christmas Silver Coin Ornament

Price: $19.95
ORDER New York Yankees Christmas 3in. 'New' All Star Light-up Snowman

Price: $29.95
ORDER New York Yankees Christmas 30th Edition Inside Art Ornament

Price: $39.95
ORDER NY Yankees Christmas 3D Ornament

For more collection visit: New York Yankees Christmas Decorative Ornaments Store

New York Yankees: A Season to Look Forward to

by Brandon Katz

Who ever said money can’t buy happiness obviously never talked to a Yankee fan.

The kind of dough New York is capable of shelling out without a moment’s hesitation is always a reassurance for all Yankee fans. And this off season’s spending proved to be quite effective as the Yanks added some key components to a struggling team.

Their spending effectively changed the Yankee team from an underachieving and aging ball club to a perennial playoff threat. Let’s take a look at the Yankees' major moves and how they will play out during the season.

CC Sabathia

Arguably the Yankees' best offseason acquisition was ace pitcher CC Sabathia. This hefty-lefty’s arsenal is scary for any major league hitter.

With a shifty 94-99 MPH fastball, a hard slider at 84-86 MPH, a swooping curve that drops to 79-82 MPH, and a devastating circle change, Sabathia is armed with an array of challenging pitches that he can throw for strikes in any count.

This ace has the ability to put a team on his back as he showed while surging the Brewers forward to their first post-season in over 20 years.

Sabathia will also alleviate some much need pressure off of Chien Ming Wang. Wang has been struggling to be the Yankees true number one pitcher for the last couple seasons.

While still putting together some very impressive numbers, Wang failed to ever become the dominating ace teams would like to have head their rotations.

Now with the addition of Sabathia, Wang no longer needs to feel pressure to be the Yank’s number one. This trickle down effect will do wonders for Wang, who I see having a very successful year (15+ wins, mid to low 3’s ERA).

Sabathia went 17-10 with a 2.70 ERA and 251 K’s while splitting time between Cleveland and Milwaukee last season. The only question mark I have with him is how durable his arm will be. Since entering the league in 2001, Sabathia has averaged 207 IP per year.

The major concern is if this heavy workload has taxed his arm, and if so will it show late in the season? Hopefully for the Yankees, the answer is no. Overall, the addition of Sabathia is a major plus for the Yankee organization.

Mark Teixeira

This was a great move for the Yanks and definitely an upgrade from the aging and inconsistent Jason Giambi. At 28 years old, New York has found its long-term solution at first base. Teixeira gives the Yanks excellent numbers in almost every offensive category.

Last season Marky Mark put up a .308 AVG, with 33 HR, 121 RBI, 102 R, and a .410 OBP. If those stats don’t impress you than you shouldn’t be a fan of Baseball.

Oh and did I mention he’s a two-time Gold Glove winner at 1B? Teixeira is simply a producing machine that gives a team everything they could ask for. However, he is notorious for getting off to slow starts at the beginning of each season.

But with a healthy Hideki Matsui batting fourth for the injured Betray-Rod, Teixeira is getting some real solid protection in the lineup and should be productive early on. And when he-who-should-not-be-named returns to the lineup, the Yankees should posses the best 1-2 punch in all of Baseball.

As a Yankee fan, I am really excited to see what he can do for our team if he stays healthy.

AJ Burnett

The other half of the pitching initial twins is AJ Burnett. Burnett is essentially a two-pitch pitcher throwing a forceful fastball at 95-98 MPH and a batter-freezing curveball that possesses a sharp break.

However, Burnett also has a developing change-up that would be a nice compliment to his repertoire. Burnett is coming off a very solid season posing a 18-10 record with a 4.07 ERA and 231 K’s with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Girardi has already announced that the rotation will start with CC, and then be followed by Wang, and then Burnett. This strategic move will give opposing teams a difficult change of pace which will only help Burnett this season.

The major concern with Burnett is that he is very injury prone. He has only started over 30 games twice in his career…and both of those years were contract years.

Weather this stat is related to bad luck or a bad work ethic, it still remains as a looming problem for the Yankees. Hopefully the Yankee organization and the fans will get their moneys worth, approximately $82.5 million, out of Burnett this season.

With the end of spring training and the start of the regular season drawing closer every day, Yankee fans should be very excited. The team is much improved and has the potential to make a deep playoff run. Certainly this is a season to look forward to.

Why the New York Yankees Will Return to Dominance in 2009

The Yankees Have Not Been to the World Series Since 2003 - Here's Why They Will Be Back There in 2009

Sports Illustrated had an interesting article about the Yankees pitching staff and their relationship to the key to their success. The last time the New York Yankees reached the World Series in 2003, they had an arsenal of good pitchers - Clemens, Pettite, Wells, among others. Since then, they have never had dominant starting pitching with Clemens and Pettite leaving for Houston, Wells going into pseudo-retirement only to emerge in San Diego. And with so many problems plaguing the pitching staffs of the New York Yankees from 2004 to 2008, including injuries, horrible signings (Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano come to mind), and controversy (Clemens, Pettite, Joba), could the story be turning a new page in this storied franchise's chapter?

When was the last time you could think of a New York Yankees team that was built like this - with Burnett, Sabbathia, Wang, Chamberlin and Hughes? The expectations are there, but this time around, it's not just about the pitchers. For the first time since 2003 and since the Yankees lost some of their most respected hitters - O'Neill, Williams, Martinez, Soriano, among others, they have an offense that looks and hits like the Yankees when they were so dominant. With Tex, Damon, Matsui, Cano, Posada and Jeter, there's more experience, depth and talent on the offensive side than there's been in years.

The only possible stumbling block to the Yankees this year, which actually might be a blessing in disguise, is the controversy surrounding Rodriguez and the fact that he'll be out 6-8 weeks. This will hurt them offensively, but may prove in the long run to be the best thing for the Yankees because it'll allow the team to focus on hitting and give opportunities to guys like Ransom and Cabrera to fill the hole left by Rodriguez. Other things to watch out for is injuries to their aging stars: Posada, Jeter, Damon and Rivera. If they can avoid injuries, keep a healthy team, then the pitching and hitting should do their jobs and win over 100 games this year.

New York Yankees Plan to Cap Joba Chamberlain's Innings

According to the New York Daily News, Joba Chamberlain will be on an innings count this season. They say he will total around 150 innings this season. He only threw 100 1/3 innings last year, but it might change his value to the team.

The Yankees have said multiple times that he will be a starter, so I don’t see that changing. I have no problem with that, but let the guy pitch! They act like he was never a starter before.

Now..the question is whether or not they will move him to the pen later on in the year. It is going to be very interesting to see how they handle him this season.

New York Yankees find free-market way to stop scalpers

Ever since the movie "Groundhog Day" came out in 1993, that term has been used to describe events that happen over and over. And that is a perfect description of the practice of ticket-scalping. So it is entirely fitting that the big controversy over the scalping of Bruce Springsteen tickets began on the morning of Feb. 2.

That fight ended last week with Attorney General Anne Milgram announcing a settlement in which Ticketmaster will pay the state $350,000 and agree not to link its main ticket site to its other website in what is known as "the secondary market" -- the polite term for scalping.

But the actual scalping continues as surely as events of Groundhog Day repeated themselves for Bill Murray in that movie. If you doubt that, I invite you to visit TicketsNow, the site at the center of the controversy. There you will be asked to pay as much as $1,070 for a ticket that some lucky soul bought for $95.

To Springsteen fans, this looks like a ripoff. But to economists, it looks like a classic case of supply and demand.

"Among economists, the fundamental argument is that if there are long lines, the price is too low," says Steve Happel. "So why do venues not raise prices when they see long lines?"

That question has been amusing Happel for years now. He is a professor of economics at Arizona State University who is an expert in the market for tickets to entertainment and sporting events. He's been watching Springsteen struggle against scalpers for more than two decades. The problem, says Happel, is that the Boss wants his true fans to see him play at a reasonable price. But the fans don't always play along.

"If I stand in line for four hours for that $50 ticket and it's value is going up to $400, I might stop being a true fan and become a scalper," he says.

On this past Groundhog Day, thousands of Springsteen fans emerged from their burrows and saw a shadow website. After logging onto Ticketmaster they encountered a "no tickets found" message along with a message telling them to try TicketsNow.

"They didn't know it was a resale site," said Milgram when I spoke to her the other day. "There's so much time pressure and Ticketmaster was taking advantage of that."

The A.G. is still investigating just how all those tickets got onto TicketsNow so quickly. Some tickets even appeared on the secondary site before the box office opened, said Milgram.

"When we looked at the tickets that were on sale before 9 a.m., we saw seats that didn't even exist," she said.


Apparently the scalpers would take the money and then try to come up with a reasonable substitute for the ticket sold. As part of the agreement, TicketsNow will no longer list tickets for sale prior to the official box-office opening.

But that won't stop scalpers, said Happel. The only way to do that, he says, is through what economists call a "Dutch auction." This is the reverse of a regular auction. Instead of rising, prices drop. A ticket that starts at perhaps $400 might drop $10 a day until all are sold. Scalpers won't invest in a product that is declining in value, Happel said.

No one has tried this yet, said Happel. But the first such experiment may now be underway courtesy of the man they call "the Boss." Not Bruce Springsteen -- George Steinbrenner. The Yankees have priced seats for this season at a level that would make a scalper scream. Seats behind home plate home in the new Yankee Stadium are going for as much as $2,500. That's for one game, not the season. Seats along the baselines are selling at $350 a pop -- but only in a 20-game package.

Why so high? Happel theorizes that the Yankee management is thinking, "We need more revenue so we can buy more players and finish third again." You can tell from that quote he's no Yankee fan. I am, however, and I can recall that the first game I went to as a kid cost $3.50.

I sure won't be paying a hundred times that much to go to a game. A lot of others will feel the same way, Happel predicts, and as an economist, he's having more fun watching this market than most fans have watching a baseball game.

"This will be a good one if the Yankees have to come off of this," he said. "Maybe you'll see a really heavy Dutch auction. Those tickets may be dropping fast."

The Yankees aren't commenting. But I for one can't wait to see what the price for a single seat will be this season. Somehow, I can't imagine some guy in an alley offering to sell a $400 seat for a regular-season game at $500.

So that's the big difference between George Steinbrenner and Bruce Springsteen. The man they called "the Boss" on the other side of the river may not have solved his pitching problems yet. But he sure has solved his scalping problem.

Canon Extends Sponsorship with New York Yankees

Canon U.S.A., a provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions, has extended its sponsorship with the New York Yankees, one of the most storied franchises in professional sports, through 2011.

As part of the agreement, Canon will be the "Official Digital Camera, Copier, SLR Camera and Printer of the New York Yankees." The sponsorship will include signage on Yankee Stadium's left field wall as well as a home plate rotating advertisement. Additionally, as part of a special Canon promotional day, scheduled for May 20, 2009, the first 18,000 fans in attendance will receive a cap featuring both the Canon logo and Yankees logo.

Jack Suzuki, senior director and general manager of Corporate Communications Division at Canon U.S.A., said: "Canon and the New York Yankees are two iconic brands that have complemented each other well throughout our partnership over the last decade. Being partners with the Yankees as they usher in a new era with the opening of their new Stadium is going to be a gratifying and a proud moment for both brands. We hope to see many Yankees home runs hit over our sign throughout the season."

Michael Tusiani, Yankees Senior Vice President of Corporate Sales & Sponsorships, said: "We are excited to be continuing our long term alliance with Canon. It is a fully-integrated relationship from premium signage and a giveaway day, to the installation of Canon copiers in the Stadium's offices.”

Originally Published At: http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3064256

New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez gets mixed reception

Alex Rodriguez was booed, then homered in his first game since admitting he took performance-enhancing drugs. The New York Yankees slugger started the spring training season with a two-run homer and two walks Wednesday against Toronto. The third baseman left in the fifth inning.

There were a lot of cheers, a smattering of boos and occasional cat calls from hecklers. Rodriguez recently said he used banned substances from 2001-03 while with Texas. Many in the crowd at the Blue Jays' facility in Dunedin, Fla., cheered as he circled the bases after homering in the fourth inning. By the third time he went to the plate, hecklers who earlier shouted "Hey, A-Rod, where's your cousin?" and "Madonna" were drowned out by applause.

"When you're playing, it's hard to focus on standing ovations or boos,'' Rodriguez said. "I didn't see anything that was bad at all."

His day was not without controversy, though. He left the facility in a vehicle that, according to two media outlets, was driven by Rodriguez's cousin, Yuri Sucart — who allegedly bought steroids and injected Rodriguez.

DODGERS — The team made a fourth bid for Manny Ramirez, this time offering the outfielder a $25 million, one-year contract with a $20 million player option for 2010. That is similar in dollars to a previous $45 million, two-year offer with a buyout or a club option. The new offer gives him a chance stay with the Dodgers in 2010 or become a free agent again.

INDIANS — Closer Kerry Wood hasn't thrown off a mound since last weekend because of a sore back, and manager Eric Wedge says the team will give him a few more days of rest. Wood, who signed a two-year, $20.5 million contract in December, has a long history of injury problems.

TWINS — Pitcher Boof Bonser is expected to miss the season after arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder detected partial tears in his labrum and rotator cuff.

ROCKIES — Pitcher Jeff Francis has undergone arthroscopic surgery on his pitching shoulder and is expected to miss the entire season.

BREWERS — Outfielder Tony Gwynn Jr. said he could miss up to a month of spring training because of a right shoulder ailment.