THINGS GO BETTER WITH COKE!

PHILLIP COKE, Brett Gardner and Cody Ransom. They’re three of the lesser-known names on the New York Yankees’ roster but a trio who could make a significant contribution during the 2009 season.

There’s an old saying in baseball that spring training counts for nothing. If you’re looking for a stat to back that up then here’s one for you: Kei Igawa, the Yanks’ $46 million Japanese misfit, has yet to give up a run in nine innings pitched.

Igawa has been such a disappointment in Major League Baseball that he couldn’t even make the Japanese squad for the World Baseball Classic.

So does anyone seriously believe that this is anything more than a flash in the pan or that he’s going to force his way into the starting rotation some time this year? Probably not.

But just as Igawa’s improved performances may catch the eye of another team desperate for pitching, so Ransom, Gardner and Coke have been earning brownie points from manager Joe Girardi.

Up until a few weeks ago, Ransom could expect to play only a cameo role from the bench. Now, with Alex Rodriguez recovering from hip surgery, he is the Yanks’ first-choice third baseman.

For a man of his age (33), Ransom has made remarkably few plate appearances. He’s no A-Rod, but with nine runs and 14 hits in 35 at bats in spring training (.400 ERA) so far, he’s done enough to convince general manager Brian Cashman he can hold the fort until Rodriguez is ready to return.

Three musketeers earn shot at stardom

With eight runs (three of them homers) and 12 hits in 32 at bats for an ERA of .375, Gardner has been equally impressive. Already, he’s earned the right to start the season at center field ahead of Melky Cabrera. 

An excellent fielder, Gardner has tremendous speed and is always a threat to steal a base or two. Nobody is expecting him to be a power hitter in the majors. His job is to get on base and then distract the opposing pitcher.

If he can do that – and the signs are encouraging – then he will be a tremendous asset to the Yankees.

Coke, 26, started 2008 pitching in Double-A baseball for Trenton Thunder. He finished the year in the Yankees bullpen, allowing just one run in 14.2 innings.

Again, those stats could be misleading as the Yanks were out of playoff contention by then.

But Coke has continued where he left off in spring training, conceding only two runs in eight innings.

He’s made such a good impression with Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland that he could conceivably become the main lefty out of the pen ahead of the injured Dámaso Marte.

Of course, when the curtain goes up on the 2009 MLB season on April 6th, the spotlight will be on CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira.

But keep an eye on The Three Musketeers who are earning their shot at stardom down in Tampa.

LET THE REAL GAMES BEGIN, PLEASE

BORED WITH BASKETBALL? Irked by ice hockey? Sick of spring training and not wild about the World Baseball Classic?

Well, if you fall into any of these categories, the good news is that the real baseball season is now little more than three weeks away.

Quite frankly, it can’t come soon enough for this New York Yankees fan.

I’ve tried to form attachments to the other sports but it’s just not working. The Knicks and Nets suck, the Rangers are skating on thin ice and UConn – my wife’s alma mater – can’t even get past Syracuse in six overtimes.

It’s about time I backed a winner…and up until a week ago, I was pretty sure it would be your 2009 Yankees.

Now, before a ball has been thrown in anger, I’m not feeling quite so confident.

For all his faults, Alex Rodriguez is an integral part of the Yankees’ batting line-up and being without him for at least the first month is a major blow.

Jorge Posada has yet to catch a game in spring training and we’re still awaiting Mariano Rivera’s first pitch. 

The pair have reportedly made a full recovery from major surgery during the winter. But let’s not forget that they’re both in their late thirties so it’s asking a lot for them to return as good they were.

Most fans agree that, for once, the Yanks’ prospects of making the playoffs and beyond hinge on their starting pitching rather than bludgeoning their opponents to death with their bats.

And after spending top dollar on CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett, there should be a big improvement in this department.

Spring training not going smoothly for Yankees

However, there are no guarantees. It’s a little worrying that Sabathia was roughed up by Gary Sheffield and the Detroit Tigers on his latest start.

And let’s not forget his shaky start to last season when he went 0-3 with a 13.50 ERA in his first four outings.

That the Yankees overpaid for both Sabathia ($161 million over eight years) and Burnett ($82.5 million over five years) is beyond doubt.

The Boston Red Sox have just signed Jon Lester to a five-year contract extension at a cost of just $30 million. Lester went 16-6 with an ERA of 3.21 in 2008. Compare that to Burnett’s record of 18-10 with a 4.07 ERA.

Yankees fans will be expecting Sabathia and Burnett to start earning their money from day one, which may be unrealistic.

We’re also hoping for great things from Joba Chamberlain, providing he stays the course.

With Chien-Ming Wang and Andy Pettitte completing the starting rotation, the Yanks have a powerful pitching line-up on paper. And they also have Phil Hughes standing by as first reserve.

But they’ll need a lot more luck than they had last year when they were plagued by injuries.

The Yanks face a testing start with a nine-game road trip to Baltimore, Kansas and Tampa Bay.

If A-Rod is healthy by early May, if Posada can return as the everyday catcher, if Mariano is still the best closer in baseball, if Sabathia and Burnett are indeed ace pitchers, and if Joba really is a bona fide starter, the Yanks are going to be the team to beat in the American League East.

But that’s a whole lot of ifs…

ALEXANDER THE GRATE

AT LEAST the New York Yankees should be used to getting held to ransom.

No one comes cheap to the Yankees, least of all Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez.

The Steinbrenner family met the ransom demands set by Scott Boras in December, 2007, when they agreed to pay his biggest client $275 million over a ten-year period.

As the saying goes, act in haste, repent at leisure. Has anything good happened to the Bronx Bombers since then?

Come to think of it, has anything good happened to the Yanks since Rodriguez joined them from the Texas Rangers on February 15, 2004?

The most-fabled franchise in baseball has not won a World Championship since 2000 and last year, they couldn’t even finish in the first two in their division.

True, A-Rod has been voted the American League MVP in two of the last four seasons.

But isn’t that just symptomatic of the fact that it’s no longer about the power, the pride or the pinstripes. It’s all about A-Rod.

The Yanks go out and spend $423.5 on three players during the winter. But what have we read about CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett and Mark Teixeira?

As usual, it's all about A-Rod

Next to nothing, thanks to the never-ending soap that goes under a variety of names such as A-Rod, A-Roid or A-Fraud, but rarely Alexander the Great.

First it was his strained relationship with the skipper, Derek Jeter. Then it was the separation from his wife, Cynthia, and his supposed liaison with Madonna.

This year, it has been the steroids scandal, the lies, the public apology. Now it’s the cyst and the labrum tear in his right hip. An injury, by the way, that the club has apparently known about for nearly ten months.

The Yankees are hoping he can play through the pain. If he can’t, it looks like they will have to rely on journeyman professional Cody Ransom, who is 33 years of age yet has had only 183 at bats in Major League Baseball.

Perhaps it would be better for both the team and the fans if A-Rod went and had the surgery now.

That way we could enjoy the opening of the new stadium and embrace our new players without having to listen to the daily health bulletin on our third baseman.

Every time he opens his mouth, he puts his foot in it, prompting one of the Yankees’ beat reporters to suggest he would better served declining all interviews.

Not much chance of that happening. A-Rod, quiet clearly, loves being the center of attention. Why else would he invite his cousin – the same cousin who injected him with performance-enhancing drugs – to spring training. No one could be that naïve or stupid, could they?

Hank Steinbrenner, part-owner and senior vice president of the Yankees, says that despite it all, he’s still glad A-Rod is part of the organization; that he has no regrets about signing him to a new, long-term deal when the club could have cut him loose.

Today, I wonder just how many Yankees fans feel the same way?

PAKISTAN NOW A NO-GO AREA FOR WORLD SPORTS

SPORTS AND POLITICS should never mix. That old saying has never been more true following the tragic events in Lahore, Pakistan, today.

Six policemen were killed and seven members of the Sri Lankan cricket team wounded in the latest atrocity on the Indian subcontinent.

The ambush took place as the Sri Lankans were on their way to the Gaddafi Stadium to play a Test match against Pakistan.

Officials said the incident bore similarities to the deadly attacks in Mumbai, India, last November. The England cricket team, who were touring India at the time, returned home before agreeing to resume their tour the following month.

There is absolutely no chance of Sri Lanka following suit after an attack that will rock the very foundations of world sport, never mind cricket.

Haroon Lorgat, chief executive of the International Cricket Council, said: “It’s difficult to see international cricket being played in Pakistan for the foreseeable future.”

Should Sri Lankans have even been there?

But the question remains: Should the Sri Lankans have been in Pakistan in the first place?

Australia withdrew from a scheduled tour to Pakistan in March of the last year due to safety concerns and only last month, the ICC decided not to hold this year’s Champions Trophy for the same reason.

In India and Pakistan, cricket is like a religion. The top players such as Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Yousuf are worshipped like gods.

Crowds are large and boisterous. The advent of Twenty20 cricket and the formation of the Indian Premier League have led to a resurgence in interest and generated huge revenue.

Sadly, however, politics has never been too far away. And now, it seems, terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban see sportsmen as a legitimate target.

Former Pakistan Test captain Wasim Bari believes his country should not be subject to a boycott.

“What happened today is a great tragedy but at a time when terrorist attacks are taking place all over the world, Pakistan cricket should not be abandoned or isolated.”

Bari has a point but the fact remains that Pakistan has now gone from a red-flag destination to a no-go area.

Just as South Africa was boycotted by the other cricket-playing nations for 30 years due to apartheid, so Pakistan will be shunned until it can prove that it’s safe to return. That could be some time off.

I SAY STANFORD OLD BEAN, IT'S JUST NOT CRICKET

SIR ALLEN STANFORD is a name Americans are only just becoming familiar with. But, over on the other side of the pond, Stanford has been making regular appearances on the front page of the tabloids.

Stanford has become as notorious in Britain as Bernie Madoff is in the United States, mainly through his involvement with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).

Only last summer, the Texan billionaire, who is being accused of an $8 billion fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission, was hailed as the savior of English cricket.

Stanford landed his black and silver branded helicopter at Lord’s in London to make millionaires of England’s cricketers.

He agreed to support five Twenty20 (short-form) matches between the Stanford Super Stars – made up of international cricketers from the West Indies – and the England Test team at $20 million a pop.

The first “Stanford Challenge” took place in Antigua on November 1 and resulted in a crushing victory for the host nation.

But of far more interest to the editors of Britain’s “red top” newspapers were the pictures of Stanford bouncing the pregnant wife of the England wicketkeeper on his knee.

Apparently, some of the England team were upset about Stanford’s regular visits to their inner sanctum – i.e the dressing room.

It was then that some of England’s former cricketing greats started to voice their concern about whether the sport’s association with Stanford was entirely ethical.

So imagine the reaction last week when it was revealed that all their fears about Stanford’s possibly sleazy past look like coming true.

England officials stumped by Texan tycoon

There were calls for Giles Clarke, chairman of the ECB, to resign. Clarke, however, is determined to ride out the storm.

“We have to raise our monies from all kinds of place. Sport cannot exist without money,” he said.

“The issue at the time was ‘Can he (Stanford) pay?’ When somebody offers those sorts of sums of money you want to be completely satisfied he’s going to be capable of paying. He actually did pay and he was capable of paying.”

While Clarke insist the ECB conducted due diligence, the shocks waves of the Stanford affair are still being felt throughout the sports world.

New York Yankees baseball stars Johnny Damon and Xavier Nady had their assets frozen while Phillies reliever Scott Eyre says he’s “broke.”

England footballer Michael Owen and Fijian golfer Vijay Singh are other sportsmen believed to have been victims of Stanford’s Ponzi scheme.

As in the case of Madoff, the list is sure to grow in the coming weeks as 58-year-old Stanford, who holds joint US and Antiguan citizenship, is a flamboyant figure with links to prominent politicians and sports stars.

Stanford was tracked down to Fredericksburg, Virigina, last Thursday. For once, his personal photographer was not with him.

Who said there’s no such thing as bad publicity?

WHY GOLF NEEDS TIGER, TIGER BURNING BRIGHT

IN HIS ABSENCE, Padraig Harrington won the Oscar for Best Supporting Golfer. But it’s no surprise that the PGA TOUR is rolling out the red carpet for the return of its main box office attraction this week.

Much has happened since Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open Championship on one leg at Torrey Pines last June before hobbling off to have reconstructive surgery on his left knee.

Affable Irishman Harrington, and evergreen Aussie Greg Norman, have provided a few interesting sub-plots.

There’s an old adage in sports that no one player is bigger than the game itself. But in the case of Tiger Woods and golf, it comes pretty close.

Not even a rich man’s sport like golf has escaped the ravages of the recession. And the American taxpayer is increasingly underwriting the PGA TOUR tournament circuit.

No fewer than eight of the Tour’s 2009 events feature primary corporate partners that have received a combined total of $105.2 billion in federal bailout funds.

U.S. Bank has already announced that it will end its sponsorship of the old Greater Milwaukee Open after this year’s tournament in July.

And the PGA TOUR was dealt another blow last week by the news that the Stanford Financial Group, chaired by sports-loving Texas financier Sir Allen Stanford, is facing charges of “massive fraud” by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Stanford Group sponsors the $6 million St Jude Championship, played in Memphis, Tennessee, in June, as well as the LPGA’s season-ending Stanford Financial Tour Championship in Houston.

The bad news does not end there. A total of 22 PGA title sponsorships are due to expire next year and without Tiger, TV viewing figures are inevitably down.

A massive 55% fewer people watched the thrilling showdown between Harrington and Sergio Garcia in the final round of the PGA Championship last August compared to the 2007 event, won by Woods.

TV ratings plummet during Woods’ absence

So no one was happier to hear the news of Woods’ return in this week’s WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Tucson, Arizona, than PGA TOUR commissioner Tim Finchem.

It seems Tiger’s fellow professionals are also happy, even though they realize his presence significantly reduces their own chance of winning.

Phil Mickelson, the man in form after winning the Northern Trust Open on Sunday, summed up what Woods means to professional golf.

“The reason why we all want Tiger back is because he drives the game of golf,” explained Mickelson. “He drives the television ratings, the sponsors need him in their events and the fans turn out to see him.

“We’re very lucky in golf to have the No. 1 athlete in the world. I never thought that would happen. We had some of the greatest players in history, whether it was Ben Hogan or Jack Nicklaus, but nobody ever reached the status of the premier athlete in the world before.

“He does so much for us on a national level here and on an international level throughout the world. We’ve missed him.”

Every sport needs rivalries and it will be great to see Woods and Mickelson go head-to-head again in the coming months.

Only time will tell whether seven months away from the game has done any damage to Tiger physically, or whether the birth of his second child will diminish his desire to win trophies.

One thing, however, is for sure. PGA TOUR officials will be keeping everything crossed that in the words of William Blake, it’s still Tiger, Tiger burning bright.

HAS BECKHAM REALLY MADE A DIFFERENCE TO SOCCER IN THE STATES?

“I’M COMING here to make a difference.” Those were the words of David Beckham when he signed a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007.

Now, after one injury-hit season in Major League Soccer and just 30 appearances, “Becks” wants to turn his back on America in favor of Italian giants AC Milan.

It’s indisputable that Beckham has raised the media profile of soccer in the States. He’s the one player who can rub shoulders with A-Rod and Kobe on ESPN’s SportsCenter program.

There’s an interesting article about the 33-year-old Englishman in today’s New York Times under the headline: His Wish to Exit Hurts, but Beckham Has Helped. Has he really?

Yes, Beckham has brought a buzz to MLS, helped increase attendances and boosted the profile of the league around the world.

Don Garber, the commissioner for MLS, said that even his hiking guide in a small Chinese village was aware of the Galaxy last summer because of Beckham.

The league expects to increase its number of teams from 15 to 18 by 2011 and, by the end of next year, nine stadiums specifically built for soccer are scheduled to be operational.

But one can also argue that Beckham’s desire to cut short his stay in LA will do more harm than good.

During his short loan spell with Milan, Beckham has discovered that it’s much easier being a star when you are surrounded by other quality players.

Star set to quit Galaxy after just one season

He also knows that he has a much better chance of impressing Fabio Capello, the current England coach, in Capello’s native country of Italy rather than the USA.

Beckham playing his football in the MLS is a bit like a Triple Crown winner coming out of retirement to compete in a claiming race at Aqueduct. 

Considering the fanfare that greeted his arrival in the States, his departure after such a brief period of time would be a major PR setback for MLS as it enters its 14th season, not to mention the negative effect it will have on the Galaxy and their crowds.

David Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California, is quoted by the Times as saying: “Beckham at least rang the doorbell and a lot of people answered.”

But what good is it getting someone interested in a product if you can’t deliver on your promise? Next time, the customer won’t bother opening the door.

The simple truth is MLS needs Beckham more than Beckham needs the MLS.

Juan Pablo Ángel, the New York Red Bulls’ Colombian striker and perhaps the player with the second-highest profile, is not in the same league as Beckham.

Soccer is always going to struggle against American Football and baseball this side of the pond. Those two sports, with their constant interruptions between plays and innings, are so much more advertiser-friendly.

It’s encouraging that viewing figures for international matches are increasing. But MLS is still lights years behind the English Premier League, Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s La Liga.

Without players with the charisma of Beckham, it always will be.