Some Saturday Links

- First off Paul Catalano of Dugout Central has a great article about how the Yankees and their spending is NOT bad for baseball.

Sportswriters declared this winter: “Just declare the Yankees the champions. Why have a World Series?” “The Yankees are bad for baseball.” And my favorite, from Phil Sheridan of the Philadelphia Inquirer: “The New York Yankees represent the very worst of America.”

Oh, please. The Yankees are the best thing to happen to baseball. There is a reason that when the Yankees visit a city, the home team breaks attendance records. (In 2004, when the Yankees visited Los Angeles, the Dodgers recorded over 55, 000 fans in attendance, or the highest recorded attendance in 31 years – including World Series games.) There is a reason that when the Yankees play an away game on a getaway day, the game is scheduled at night, even though most teams play day games on getaway days. Why? Because the local television wants to broadcast the games at night when people are home from work, because they know they will get the highest ratings of almost any game that year.... Read On

- Peter Gammons says 2009 will be a year that celebrate youth in baseball.

In this post-amphetamine, post-HGH, post-steroids, post-whatever era, 35 is the new 40, or, as Hall of Famer Jim Bunning said in the congressional hearings three years ago, "when I played, when you turned 35, you were old." And it may be that way again, no matter how much better the nutrition, how much better the training, or how many more players are devotees of Athletes Performance Institute and its ilk.

Dave Studenmund has a great piece in this year's Hardball Times Annual about the greening of baseball, or how the game is getting younger. Studenmund points out that the decline in average age between 2007 and 2008 was the largest in major league history and that 24 of the 30 teams got younger between 2007 and 2008. The Twins were the youngest team in the major leagues at 25.5, and won 88 games without the great Johan Santana, one fewer win than the New York Mets.

- Jon Heyman lists the top 20 remaining free agents, the three (former) Yankees, Bobby Abreu, Andy Pettitte, and Jason Giambi did make the list. Surprisingly, Abreu got topped his list.

1. Bobby Abreu, OF. He's a better player than folks seem to be giving him credit for. Sure, he won't run into walls; but hey, the cautious approach keeps him healthy. Abreu, Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols are the only three players with at least 100 RBIs in each of the past six years. Looks like he may be California Dreamin', with the A's, Angels and Dodgers all possibilities, plus Tampa Bay.

- Did you know Bucky Dent played high school baseball with Mark Teixeira's father John? Kevin Kernan of the NY Post has the story.

- Jack Curry of the NY Times discusses the terrible trip Don Larsen had to endure when he went to tape an interview for the MLB Network about his perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

- Peter Abraham goes over a few things that make him crazy; the Joba debate, people that think the Yankees should sign Manny or Orlando Hudson, hating on young players, the idea of trading for Erik Bedard, and the idea of trading Hideki Matsui. Check it out here.