New York

The Yankees were presented with their World Series rings on Opening Day with former Bombers Jerry Hairston Jr. and Hideki Matsui on hand to get their rings.

Melky Cabrera and Eric Hinske, now with the Braves, got theirs from Hairston; Chad Gaudin and Edwar Ramirez, now with the A’s, got theirs when the Yankees went to Oakland; and Xavier Nady, now with the Cubs, got his when GM Brian Cashman brought it to Citi Field.

There are probably fewer things more frustrating to a sports fan than watching an expensive, recently imported veteran player repeatedly fail in his efforts to help the team.

The more prior success he's had, the more money he's making, the more you had to give up to get him...well, that all just makes it worse.

And then there's Javy Vazquez.

Vazquez had all of those things against him:

He is not the savior, and he was never a prodigy, but he was a talented right-handed pitcher who had a popping fastball and killer, knee-buckling curve.

The fact that Phil Hughes carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning of last night's game on the road, against an American League West opponent in his second start of the season, seemed familiar to Yankee fans.

It's the call most Mets fans wanted in spring training.

Ike Davis became a fan favorite with his impressive spring, but the Mets organization wanted to see him play more in Triple-A.

They chose to give the first base job to a combination of Fernando Tatis and Mike Jacobs while waiting for Daniel Murphy to return from injury.

Well, that didn't work out so well.

Jerry Manuel needs to go.

Let me preface this by saying I will miss him dearly. His post-game sound bites are tremendously amusing. I feel this way because I am a Yankees fan who has to listen to Joe Girardi be his vague self everyday.

Manuel will be missed in that regard, but from a baseball standpoint he will not.

At around 8:30 last night I decided to move on to something else, as the Mets were heading into the 13th inning. I returned to that channel at around 10 PM and found the Mets were still playing in the 18th.

If you were a fan of the Yankees or Red Sox in the mid to late 90's, you no doubt took a side in the Nomar Garciaparra/Derek Jeter debate.

Jeter and Garciaparra were two of the new breed of shortstop. Shortstops were no longer defensive specialists and merely adequate with the bat—Jeter and Garciaparra were two of the premier hitters in baseball.

Both won Rookie of the Year awards, Jeter in 1996 and Garciaparra one year later.

The Yankees have won each of their first three series by a count of two games to one, and they'll hope to keep that success going this weekend as they welcome the Texas Rangers to town.

The Rangers are 5-4, tied in the loss column with first-place Oakland, and have received some solid pitching so far. Texas is third in the American League with a 2.95 ERA, fourth in batting average against (.238), fourth in WHIP (1.28), and third in quality starts at seven.

They'll put those solid stats to the test during these three games against the powerful Yankees lineup.

The Mets went into this past offseason with the intention of upgrading their pitching staff but came away deciding to stand pat with the five they had.

They justified it by saying that those same pitchers they currently had were all pitchers that had had success in Flushing in the past and that they would again in the future.

After two starts for every other New York Yankee starting pitcher, 23-year-old Phil Hughes made his first start of the 2010 season last night against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Hughes got the win, pitching into the sixth inning. He was good, at times overpowering, and also inconsistent.

Hughes struck out six but also walked five. He gave up only three hits, one of them a home run, and finished the game having given up two earned runs in five innings.