AL East

ESPN is reporting that the Boston Red Sox attempts to extend the contract of left fielder Jason Bay have stalled, and the team is backing away from the negotiating table.

Now what?

Last year, when the contract situation of Manny Ramirez became one of the ugliest situations between a team and a star player in recent memory, the team traded him in a blockbuster deal that brought in Bay from Pittsburgh.

Now, with Bay's contract expiring after 2009, the team faces the same situation this coming season.

The Yankees had a good day on both sides of the ball and beat the Minnesota Twins 5-1 at The Boss.

New York Yankees

Baseball America Top 10 Prospects

Lineup

1. Johnny Damon, LF
2. Derek Jeter, SS
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Hideki Matsui, DH
6. Jorge Posada, C
7. Xavier Nady, RF
8. Robinson Cano, 2B
9. Brett Gardner/Nick Swisher/Melky Cabrera, CF

Rotation

Well, they're here—the carrots at the end of the stick, the Three Gorillas in the American League East.

The Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox look like enormous, rampaging beasts who will run roughshod through the rest of Major League Baseball while recovering from titanic clashes with each other.

Baseball rarely shakes down according to specs, but it's really tough to see how the mere mortals of the MLB world can deal with these guys on a daily basis.  Even if you make every effort to see the gaps in armor and soft underbellies.

This update comes from the Yankees via Peter Abraham:

This probably won't be a popular article in Maryland, all the more so because a lot of baseball people are creating some irresponsible hype around the Baltimore Orioles.  I say irresponsible because Oriole fans deserve better than to be grossly misguided like that.

Make no mistake about it—Baltimore is done.  DOA.  Forget one fork, the Os have four protruding from their collective corpus.

One from the New York Yankees, one from the Boston Red Sox, one from the Tampa Bay Rays, and one from the Toronto Blue Jays.

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The New York Yankees played a split squad double header today beating the Huston Astros by a score of 3-1 at The Boss and Beating the Pittsburgh Pirates at McKechnie Field 13-10.

A few years back, 2007 to be exact, I used the term "effective" to sum up what Tim Wakefield was as a pitcher.  It was a debate about whether or not the Red Sox were good enough to win the World Series that season. 

And as any Red Sox fan knows, the pitching staff was a very important reason why we as fans thought the team to be good enough to win.  And I'm talking about the beginning of the season, when they took off with the division and left the Yankees behind.

Everyone is proud of his or her city, but none are prouder than New Yorkers. Because New York is and always will be the center of the universe. New York has welcomed millions upon millions of immigrants who were looking for hope and freedom in the new world.