Bronx Bomber Ball

Photo credit: MLB.com The Yankees announced on February 22nd that they will be retiring No. 21 to honor the career of the great Paul O'Neill. O’Neill (who gave me my first-ever introduction to the Who’s ‘Baba O’Reilly’ as a kid as I’d watch him walk into the batter’s box) was a fan favorite especially for those of us who became Yankees fans thanks to the 1996-2001 group.  His continued commitment to the Yankees as a YES Network announcer (along with David Cone) is a reminder of a different time.  Per Yankees beat writer Bryan Hoch , “Paul O’Neill Day” will be celebrated at Yankee Stadium, featuring a number retirement ceremony, on August 21, 2022 prior to the start of the Yankees/Blue Jays game schedule to take place (barring any delays related to the CBA negotiations).  O’Neill will go down as the 23rd Yankee to have his number retired, and all guests in attendance on August 21 will receive a commemorative ticket.  Over his nine seasons as a Yankee, O’Neill hit .303...

Photo credit: Brendan Kuty

Throughout the past five games you could say the Yankees offense has been in a slump. The Bombers had not scored more than three runs in a game since last Monday night against the Royals. However, the Yankees had a chance on Sunday afternoon to close their brief home stand with a 4-2 record, and those wins would have been large in part due to pitching. Luckily while the offense has been cold these past few days, each pitcher has stepped up and kept the Yankees in the game, sometimes without their best stuff. Yesterday afternoon in the Bronx, C.C. Sabathia pitched his third solid outing in a row. Lasting six and a third innings, and only allowing two earned runs, the veteran was able to help the Yankees even up the series with the Athletics, striking out a season high nine batters. AP Photo/ Kathy Willens

Despite a very strong start from the struggling Masahiro Tanaka yesterday, the Yankees were unable to squeeze out a victory. CC Sabathia took the mound against an underrated Oakland lineup today sporting the sleek memorial day uniforms which feature a military green trim and camo cap. Although the Yankees only had two hits all day, Matt Holliday’s two-run home run in the sixth inning proved to be the game winner. Sabathia had a very good outing, leaving to a standing ovation after six and a third innings pitched of two run ball. Betances put the nail in the coffin and the Yanks locked up a 3-2 win. Photo Credit: Frank Franklin II | AP

I wrote recently here on the blog about Derek Jeter and the scheduled retirement of his iconic no. 2 in Monument Park this summer. The Yankees have certainly retired a lot of numbers throughout their history and have retired several more even within the last few seasons. Now following the retirement of Jeter’s number this upcoming season and the retirement of Joe Torre’s No. 6 during the 2014 season, the Yankees will no longer have any single digit numbers available in the future which is pretty remarkable considering that a lot of teams don’t even have nine (or in this case ten) players to consider retiring numbers for. As ridiculous as it may seem at times, if you ask any Yankee fan, I’m sure they would bring a strong defense for any of these players, but discussing those numbers that have already been retired is not why I’m here today. Instead, I’m going to look at and discuss a few candidates for the next number we could see the Yankees retire sometime in the future. Photo Cred...