THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I GET BORED

You know, as productive as this off season has been for the New York Yankees, I am still sitting here and wanting more. It's like eating the most tantalizing dinner but....you still want dessert. I still want something to just put me over the edge. So, as I sit here and wait for the Yankees to just give me that perfect nightcap, I am sitting here thinking about an ice cream sundae with all of the fix-ins.

I am growing restless. Really. Really....restless. The off season started with a bang. I was getting a rumor mill adrenaline rush in the beginning but now I have crashed. It's sad. I haven't had that same excitement in awhile now. In fact, I told Casey that I was so bored that I could think of 20 events that have entertained me more recently just by reminiscing about recent off season events. Of course, with that....I was told to write about them. He's good like that.

So Yankees, for the sake of all fans everywhere....please bring back the excitement so no one has to read Jeana's off season amusement EVER again.

1. Girl Scout Cookie Season is back! Well....it will be. The only reason this amused me was because someone at work started talking about it and our own Erica Morales has her very own girl scout and I get to read about Cookie posts, constantly. That being said, there are new cookies this year, read HERE. Get ready to throw away those New Years resolutions! So much for trying to behave. I guess I can just blame Erica.

2. Yankee baseball was over, so I got sucked into The Voice. Pharrell and Gwen Stefani took over as coaches but didn't make the finals. Adam Levine had 3 finalists but miraculously lost to Blake Shelton's sole finalist. I can only imagine how much gloating Blake did after all of that. Can we say upset AND lack of baseball desperation? PLEASE stop the insanity!

3. My softball team WON! Yes ladies and gentleman. Stop the presses. The team I have written about because we are SOOOOO bad actually won a game. We met at the mound like the 2009 Yankees and partied like we won the World Series. So for the season we went 1-17! What an accomplishment. Let's see if the new season we can go 2-16.

4. The Classic "Monkey Monkey Underpants" banter between myself and Erica Morales. Seriously, we are a little silly. Just a little. But that's ok because well....we are entertaining. Extra cool and brownie points if you can actually tell me where that comes from.

5. Katy Perry takes Halloween to the extreme. Seriously, I am easily amused but come on....dressing as a Cheeto for Halloween? I laughed, and then I cried from laughing so hard. Points for creativity. does anyone else see Lady Gaga when you see her face?

6. The waste of my very valuable taxpayers dollars on the Jodi Arias trial. They say cats have 9 lives, does this sentencing retrial also? I have to stop watching the news before I go bonkers. I feel more and more broke everyday. Read what I mean HERE.

7. Buh-bye Beantown! Jon Lester signs with the Cubs. Sayonara, Boston! It makes all of the "Jon Lester has loyalty to the Sox" debates I had so much sweeter.

8. The Yankees fire Kevin Long...and the Mets take our leftovers. I love it! Have fun with that Mets fans!

9. Speaking of Mets fans.... did you know that Mets are favored to win the World Series 12-1 over the Yankees at 18-1? It's TRUE! Ask my Mets friends. Want to know their credible evidence? A Vegas gambling prediction! Science in its finest form, folks.

10. New Years Eve snow in Arizona. Yup, that is not a typo, folks. We had a light dusting of snow in the Phoenix Metro area and when I woke up on New Years day I could see snow on the mountain ranges surrounding me. It was WEIRD! Blame global warming. This isn't just weird, it is EXTREMELY weird, folks. I thought I woke up back east.

11. The Celebrity Apprentice is back! Usually I don't care about this show or Donald Trump at all but hey....Johnny Damon is on and since he isn't stealing bases anymore like he did in the 2009 World Series, I would like to see him steal a victory from the rest of his competitors for his charity the Johnny Damon Foundation.

12. The holiday season is not complete without one (or several) appearances from the Peanuts! Nothing says Holidays to me like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "Happy New Year Charlie Brown!" It brings back a lot of memories and cures a lot of boredom due to baseball withdrawals.

13. Pedro Martinez wanted to be a Yankee! Of course, this comes right before his probable Hall of Fame Selection so timing is suspect but it's still funny. Read that HERE. Again, timing is suspect but I still got a good laugh out of it. I wonder how Boston fans feel. Hmmmm....

14. Football frenzy - The Dallas Cowboys win the Wild Card game. Am I in the Twilight Zone?! Pinch me, I must have been dreaming. I can't say I had much interest in this particular game but whether you think it was a bad call or not....how could you not laugh at some of the reactions on Facebook and Twitter?

15. Speaking of football frenzy - Rex Ryan finally gets the boot after a 4-12 season! I don't envy his position through all of this but as a Jets fan I have to say good riddance. It is time for a change. Here's hoping for next season. What a bad parting theme....but it's all I have for now.

16. Hey Kim - you can't break the Internet! You know, when I saw Kim Kardashian's butt and her quest to #breaktheinternet I laughed. I honestly do not understand the fascination with this woman and I never want to. Sorry Kim, as outrageous as you think your booty may be scientists landing a rover onto a flying comet deep in outer space foiled your plan.



17. For as long as I have been alive the Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony has always been a "must see" event for me. Watching on TV is not as enjoyable these days, but it gives me a little piece of home. It all comes full circle when Mariah Carey sings "All I Want for Christmas is You." Not this Christmas. That was horrible. Mariah, I still love your song but you couldn't hit those notes and I feel jipped!

18. Christmas with the family. I am still living in the Christmas Joy here. It's hard having your family on separate coasts, so having my mom with me on Christmas was the best gift a girl could get. Can we hit the rewind button? I want a repeat.

19. Christmas was special, and so was New Years. Just before the ball dropped and 2015 was officially here, I became a godmother. You can bet my godson is going to be the most spoiled and loved kid on the planet. I have never felt so trusted before with anything in my entire life.

20. The Max Scherzer and Scott Boras saga. Boras is still trying to convince teams that Scherzer is worth a contract near 200 million at 8 years. Hey Boras! The Yankees just got a lot younger. We do not want or need that kind of contract. I will make you a deal. I have a bridge I am selling. You may have heard of it...its called the Brooklyn Bridge! I will sell it to you for a good price. You interested? Call me!

So I am still waiting for one late present and Stephen Drew isn't exactly that!

I need another rush, a longer lasting sugar high. Other wise, who knows what other crazy things I may start reminiscing about. I am easily amused Yankees, so it won't take much. Just pretty please with sugar on top make something happen and fast!



 
 --Jeana Bellezza, BYB Senior Writer and Editor
Twitter: @NyPrincessJ  




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REFLECTIONS: AN IMPORTANT PART OF WINNING

All that ridiculous banter about Rex Ryan’s tasteless tattoo basking in the sun of the Bahamas last week really got me thinking—shouldn’t Rex be reflecting on his season as head coach of the New York Jets?  Reflection is an important ingredient for lifelong learning and if the notion of “Hit me once, shame on you, hit me twice shame on me” is true then shouldn’t all coaches engage in reflection?

From his frenzied conversation with WFAN, to his press conference soundbites, New York Giants coach, Tom Coughlin, is doing everything but lying in the tropical sun.  He is frantically searching for answers and reflecting on a losing season.  "For us, right now, to not be in the playoffs; to be the Super Bowl champion and not be in the playoffs, if that doesn’t bring you down to earth and create the kind of humility that comes along with getting your nose back to the grindstone, I don’t know what does,” said the lamenting coach according to an article published in the New Jersey Star Ledger.

And let’s not forget that our very own Joe Girardi did his soul searching in the early part of the fall.  "I don't look back and second-guess myself. I was making moves, trying to win ballgames,” said Girardi at the end of October according to the New Jersey Star Ledger’s article Joe Girardi:  Yankees didn’t accomplish what they set out to do.  He added later in the article, "I believe when spring training starts we'll have a championship caliber club."  This kind of positive talk parallels the post we had up titled, THINK POSITIVE, NOT PERFECT. 

Sure, reflection needs to be ugly.  It needs to be honest and truthful.  That’s how you get answers on how to improve.  It’s where you conduct a full “Crime Scene Investigation” of your season, pick out the clues and artifacts that caused the season to go in that direction, make decisions, and move on positively.  You can’t cry over it, but you can do something about it.

It was hard, emotionally for the Yankees, who rely on their captain for not only offense but persistence and passion, to lose Jeter at the end of last season.  It was a terrible blow for them.  “It’s hard to put into words just how much losing Jeter hurts the Yankees. Not only is it a huge psychological and emotional blow to see the face of your franchise, a guy who doggedly plays through pain like Jete has been doing for a month, literally carried off of the field like that, but Jeter was one of their best hitters at the moment to boot,” said SNY’s Brien Jackson (HERE.)  And let’s not forget that we lost Mo at the beginning of the season, for the whole season. 

But, we know and certainly, Girardi knows that it was more than that.  Frankly, both Girardi and Coughlin both thought their teams were good enough to win.  But something very different happened on the field.  Something was clearly missing when it came down to actually closing the deal.  And each New York coach may have been missing something that you can’t readily see when everyone’s working hard in practice.  Yet Coughlin saw it as he reflected and Girardi may have also.

 "I had gotten myself so into this preparation, so into us playing well, my competitive juices were flowing so, I should have made sure everyone was drug along with me,” said Coughlin in the Ledger article Giants’ Tom Coughlin ‘walking around like a crazy man’ after missing the playoffs, (HERE.)

That sort of high-level reflection is what makes losing, gaining.  It makes losers, winners.  Coaches need to taste humility a little in order to be better in touch with their players.  Reflection teaches you that. 

What are your reflections?  We want to hear them because as fans we need to all be on that same competitive drug if we are going to cheer on champions in 2013.

--Suzie Pinstripe, BYB Opinion Columnist
Twitter: @suzieprof




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WHY TEBOW IS GOING TO THE JETS

In case you live under a rock, I just wanted to let you know that Tim Tebow is now a New York Jet after Peyton Manning signed with the Denver Broncos a few days ago. Read it HERE.

This is nothing more than an average quarterback coming over to a team with another average quarterback in Mark Sanchez. I base that I'm my opinion from the outside looking in. You know me, I'm a baseball fan first, a Yankee fan second and a New York sports fan 3rd. This isn't about the quarterback, this is about the spotlight. The Jets want the back page and they want to sell as many Tebow jerseys as possible. My son's already asking for 1. This is about money, and if the combo of Tebow and Sanchez can win them a championship, well, good for them.



I wish Tebow well and the New York Jets well. I can only imagine him doing his best "ear muffs" in the Jets locker room with Rex Ryan running his foul mouth. At any rate, it should be fun for New York, I'm looking forward to it.

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