New York Yankees

Both New York teams have a new starting outfielder on their squads this year.

Both are upgrades over their 2009 counterparts.

The Mets signed free agent Jason Bay while the Yankees pulled off an old-fashioned trade as they acquired Curtis Granderson from the Detroit Tigers in a three-team, seven-player swap.

That trade also involved the Arizona Diamondbacks, and appears to be good for all three teams involved.

In less than 24 hours, the 2010 baseball season starts with the defending champions, the New York Yankees, taking on their long-time rivals, the Boston Red Sox.

This is the first time that the Yankess have opened up the season as the defending champs since 2001, but it definitely feels sweeter this time around.

The Red Sox will turn to Josh Beckett for their opening day start.

First off, I would just like to wish everybody a very happy, secular, non-denominational day of spring and painted egg collecting.

But for most of us, the most special part of this day is the first night of baseball in America.

Tonight at 8pm (or probably 9pm because of ESPN’s commercials), the New York Yankees will take on the Boston Red Sox in what will be the first day of baseball for the 2010 season. As die-hard a hockey fan as I am, nothing feels like Opening Day baseball, especially when the fate of your team is unknown.

Baseball fans have been repeatedly told that the New York Yankees are the greatest dynasty in sports history, but they are rarely told that since 1958, the Yankees' dominance with respect to winning the World Series, has decreased.

From 1921-1958, the Yankees won 24 pennants and 18 World Championships.

From 1960-2009, the Yankees have won 16 pennants and nine World Championships.

Yankees Supremacy 

Give FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal credit—before reaching for the Chicago White Sox as his prediction to win the 2010 World Series, he prefaced it with (probably real) editor guidelines.

The first two essentially prohibited him from tabbing either the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.

Fine, the powers-that-be wanted him to zig when everyone else zagged.

Working in a local supermarket, I have a front row seat for all the latest hollywood gossip and glamour. There are upsides and downsides to this.

For example: downside, I can name about twenty celebrities who have cellulite, and how many plastic surgeries Heidi Montag has had.

A clear upside: the Swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, or any magazine that has Kim Kardashian on the cover.

After winning their first World Series in nearly a decade, the Yankees refused to stand pat and spent the off-season making wholesale changes to an increasingly-aging roster. As a result, they re-tooled for another AL East title and put themselves in position to challenge for back-to-back championships.

Last October and November was a time that all Yankee fans will never forget.

The Yankees blew through the post season to their 27th world championship, and their first championship since 2000. 

Just about everything seemed to go right for the Yankees last season.  C.C. Sabathia lived up to the contract that he signed and A.J. Burnett stayed healthy and showed flashes of a dominant pitcher.  Mark Teixiera was an MVP candidate in his first season in pinstripes, not just clubbing home runs, but by spectacular defensive play as well.

Now that the decade of the 2000s has just ended, I thought it would be a good time to make a list of the best relief pitchers from this decade.

Now keep in mind, this list is a list of the best careers, so far. It is not a list of the best right now. This needs to be kept in mind while reading this list; I’m talking about the best careers, not the best 2009 seasons.

Some argue that the position of relief pitcher is an unimportant position. I disagree.