Our long national nightmare is over - Yankees finally win!

It took a home run from an unlikely source - Francisco Cervelli, and a meltdown from Yankee manager Joe Girardi, but the Yankees finally won a game. Oh, and Mariano Rivera got to bat. And yes, Alex Rodriguez actually got a hit.

I was out for a walk last night, listening to the game on the radio, when I heard about Brett Gardner breaking up the Braves' perfect game with a walk, and then getting called out on a pickoff. (And yes, it was a bad call - I watched the replay of it.) Then Joe Girardi got ejected. And the momentum changed.

According to mlb.com's Brian Hoch, Joe Girardi apparently did not use any of the magic words managers usually get ejected for. Impressive! I can't get through one inning of attending a game with Squawker Jon without using at least one of those words!

Anyhow, however Girardi did it, the ejection sparked something with the Yankees. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, the Yanks had some watchable moments, from Cervelli's excitement over his first career homer, to A-Rod getting a big hit, to Mariano Rivera stepping up to the plate. Oh, and Joba Chamberlain finally got another win.

I particularly liked seeing Melky Cabrera giving Mo batting tips, and seeing the entire Yankee team intently watching Rivera's at-bat from the top step of the dugout. And seeing Mariano actually hit the ball, despite being told not to by the coaches!

True, it's only one game, but at least it put the wolves at bay for another day. Speaking of which, I don't quite know what to make about Mark Teixeira's postgame quote about Brian Cashman's surprise visit to Atlanta:

“He was a little fired up,” Mark Teixeira said. “There was no yelling, Cash isn’t that kind of guy. But he was here; he wanted to make himself known. … Sometimes the principal needs to show up in the classroom if the teacher’s having trouble with the students.”

What, is releasing Angel Berroa after he took up a roster spot for three months going to make everybody else worry about their job security? Not as long as Brett Tomko is still gainfully employed by this team. Besides, it's not like anybody's lining up to pick up, say, Hideki Matsui's $13 million contract.

But I do wonder about Teixeira's analogy. If Cashman is the principal, and,teacher Girardi is having trouble with the class, who are the students causing the trouble? And when will demerits be handed out?

What do you think? Leave us a comment!

Tacky day for Brian Cashman

I wanted to watch the Mark Teixeira news conference about as much as seeing a "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" type of show in which some zillionaire explains that he's going to put his new Rembrandt in the bathroom so it doesn't conflict with all his other treasures. But I did end up putting it on, just in time to see Brian Cashman explain how the Yankees switched gears to pursue the power hitter:

Our biggest need was to improve our pitching, but to use a sailing term, we might have tacked a little bit off the game plan.

When Cashman started using sailing terms, it occurred to me that the Yankees could have found a way to make yet another big-signing presser more interesting. They should have introduced Teixeira on a yacht. Put everyone in tuxedoes. Don't just talk about the carving board - show it, along with caviar and lobster.

I'd rather see the Yankees embrace being the big-money team, as it sounds like they will be doing with the new stadium, than have Cashman pretend they are no different than other teams. After the presser, Cashman went so far as to say that the Yankees, just like everyone else, were cutting payroll, and were now down about 15 or 20 million dollars from last year.

First of all, considering what last year's payroll was, this is like doctors congratulating a morbidly obese man because he's gone from 700 pounds all the way down to 600.

Then again, maybe it isn't, because the obese man will continue to try to lose weight, while the Yankees already have a $10M offer out to Andy Pettitte, and if that doesn't work out, who will be surprised if that sort of money or more goes to a different free agent. So the Yankees are likely to end up with the same payroll as last year. Or more - I seem to remember Cashman boasting about keeping the payroll down in 2007 when the season began before dropping $20 million on part-timer Roger Clemens.

My favorite thing Cashman did was when he momentarily forgot to introduce Joe Girardi and went straight to Teixeira. I wonder how long Girardi gets if the Yankees don't get off to a good start with their star-studded team.

As for Teixeira, it does look like he really wanted to be a Yankee. At least we didn't hear about any opt-out clauses in his contract.

As for the Mets, I hope there is some good news to report on them soon. As long as the Yankees don't have Pettitte in the fold, I fear they jump to the head of the line for the likes of Derek Lowe and Oliver Perez.

It will be bad enough if the Mets end up getting shut out on both Lowe and Perez. But then they at least should be able to spend money to spend on a corner outfielder, as long as they don't wait too long and see all of the good outfielders disappear as well. If the Mets end up filling their holes with the likes of Randy Wolf and Cliff Floyd, maybe they should hold that news conference on Lisa's Staten Island Ferry.