Ranking the Yankees By Best Dog Name

... That would be the title (and purpose) of my new post at Bugs & Cranks. "Melky" is #1, of course, while "Chad" came in dead last. Terrible name for a dog, Chad.

If you only read one analysis of the 2009 Yankees, don't make it this one. But if you read dozens of them, you might consider it.

This train of thought was sparked by Brian at Random House, whose own dog, Goose - as in Gossage - was once personally petted and complimented by Derek Jeter on the Upper East Side. My dog came with the name Pearl, and it suits her; but left to my own devices I might have come up with something a bit different, and quite possibly baseball-related. So it's likely for the best that I didn't get to make my own pick, or I might spend my mornings in Prospect Park calling for Bris Lord ("Human Eyeball, come! Come here, girl!").

If something exciting doesn't happen soon this offseason, I'll do the Mets next.

Almost the Only Orderly Thing in a Very Unorderly World

And then there were a series of tableaux, some familiar – Jeter’s raised arms and yell, Rivera’s grin, Posada’s near-skip towards the mound – and some new: Mark Teixeira’s fiercely goofy expression as he jumped up and down, Nick Swisher tearing wide-eyed and open-mouthed towards the infield, Francisco Cervelli hopping around like a caffeinated bunny, Joe Girardi’s gaunt face an open book of anticipation and then, for just a moment, pure, unguarded happiness.

That's from my Bronx Banter writeup of last night's Yankees World Series win. I hope I did it justice - not the game, which was pleasant but not a classic, but the outcome. The last time the Yankees won the Series, I was a college sophomore - I watched the games with my Mets fan friend Dan, on my common room coach - and it had never even crossed my mind to write about baseball. Of course I understand that nine years isn't a long time, not even close, between sports championships; but in an individual life it is a pretty major chunk of time. And "time" is my theme for the day, since the Yankees clinched about 10 minutes before my birthday.

Anyway, I'll just cling to the Series for another day or two, because it's going to be a long, cold, baseball-free winter. But I'm going to keep the blog going throughout - Mets and Yankees and general baseball news, plus maybe some movie and book reviews to pass the time - and while I haven't figured out the details yet, I'm even planning to move off Blogger and onto a real site at some point in the next couple of months.

For now, though (look away, Mets fans):

One More for the Money; Also Facial Hair

My writeup of last night's game is up at the Banter.

In other vitally important news (via Rob Neyer), I am quite pleased to see that Diamondbacks reliever Clay Zaveda - who also has a fine baseball name - has won the American Mustache Institute's coveted "Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year." It is well deserved. The Phillies and, especially, the Cardinals, among other teams, could learn a lot from this guy about proper facial hair technique. (Last night a friend of mine expressed the opinion, unprompted by me, that Jayson Werth "looks like a human rattail").

To summarize:

This is how it's done.

No.

No.

Absolutely not.

A THOUSAND TIMES NO.