AL East

Baseball is a sport that transcends time. It is one of the few activities in America that a Civil War veteran, if he was miraculously raised from the dead, would understand.

And the uniforms have changed a bit, but are still generally recognizable. The socks and stirrups get a little longer or shorter depending on the era, and the clothes are not as baggy now since they are made out of super-duper high tech sweat absorbent space age materials now, but the overall look is the same.

Some uniforms have stood the test of time. The Dodgers, with their classic script, comes to mind.

Trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh inning, Alex Rodriguez’s 19th career grand slam gave New York a lead they would not relinquish in an 8-4 win over Minnesota Friday night at Yankee Stadium.

Joba Chamberlain (1-1) struck out the side in the eighth inning to earn the win. Scott Baker (4-3) suffered the loss despite striking out nine in six innings.

There's no doubt the New York Yankees has had some pretty good prospects over the years: Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Derek Jeter. These days' prospects are Jesus Montero, Francisco Cervelli, Austin Jackson (who left via trade), and Phil Hughes.

Austin Jackson was supposed to be the starting center-fielder, but Brian Cashman traded him for Curtis Granderson, who is now injured. Jackson is thriving as the leadoff guy as a Detroit Tiger.

Brian Cashman kept all four players as they were coming up with the Core Four.

Ivan Nova has always been an interesting prospect to me. He’s usually received glowing reports from scouts, but his numbers generally haven’t been there in the minors and his peripherals, like walk rate and strikeout rate, haven’t really been there either.

In his defense, like I said, he does get good scouting reports, he’s a big guy at 6′4″, he throws hard in the mid-90’s, and has been on the younger side at each level he has pitched.

Make sure you don’t miss my article on Phil Hughes and the importance patience plays when producing young pitchers. Here are a few other notes for today:

One thing I’ve heard and read a lot over the past couple of days—people saying that they were wrong about Phil Hughes.

In my rant about Dallas Braden ’s

Yankees Minor League first baseman Juan Miranda would probably be in the Major Leagues if he were on at least 15 other teams around baseball, but he’s a Yankee and stuck behind Mark Teixeira. It did make for interesting news the other day when he was almost called up only to find out that it was outfielder Greg Golson who was called up instead.

DeSean Jackson has been finding himself in the headlines a lot this week.

One interview with The Sporting News has turned into a giant fiasco, pitting Jackson against his former quarterback and his offensive coordinator.

Dan mentioned this in his game recap last night, but I thought I’d explain in a little more detail .

Nick Swisher left last night’s game in the eighth inning when an old biceps injury flared up. He initially felt something in his arm a few weeks ago, but thought nothing of it because it went away so quickly. He re-aggravated the injury while hitting in the batting cages between games last night.