Congratulations, New York Yankees.

On Thursday, our sister site Hot Stove Philly had an awesome opportunity to chat with the Eagles’ Brian Westbrook, who is promoting an online program presented by Gatorade called REPLAY.  

HSP’s Jonathan Atwood spoke with the star running back on a variety of topics ranging from his offseason rehab to the possibility of Ocho Cinco heading to Philadelphia, and even touched on what he feels Braylon Edwards could bring to Big Blue.

For the entire interview head on over to Hot Stove Philly.  Nice work, Jon!

As expected, Sean Avery is headed back to the New York Rangers.  

The notorious agitator was claimed off re-entry waivers from the Dallas Stars today and comes at a half-price discount.  New York will be on the hook for half of the remainder of the four-year, $15.5 million contract Avery signed with Dallas during the offseason.  

Of course, with zero interest around the league and the team’s payroll already precariously close to the salary cap, the dollar figures hardly amounts to a bargain. It’s another gamble by General Manager-for-life Glen Sather, whose penchant for rolling snake eyes has peppered his nine-yes, NINE-year tenure in New York.

Earlier this season, while serving as an analyst for Canada’s TSN, new Rangers coach John Tortorella stated that Avery “doesn’t belong in the league.”  So we’ve got that going for us.

In all seriousness, I’m curious to see what sort of impact Avery has on this lineup. I think the disruption he could potentially cause in the locker room has been overstated.  I’m more interested to see what Avery can do on the ice, and whether he can still be the sort of difference-maker he was during his first tenure with the team.

Some housekeeping notes: The Rangers have reportedly waived Aaron Voros and Erik Reitz in order to clear some cap space on the active roster.  The moves come a day after the newly-acquired Mark Bell was assigned to Hartford, and I wonder if something bigger is perhaps brewing prior to tomorrow’s trade deadline.

For reaction to Avery’s return from Chris Drury and Henrik Lundqvist, among others, check out Steve Zipay’s Blue Notes blog.

Perhaps the biggest move the Knicks made today was a transaction they didn’t make.  With eyes around the league fixed squarely on cap space for the free agent class of 2010, Knicks President Donnie Walsh reportedly passed on an offer from the Sacramento Kings that would have rid the roster of Jared Jeffries and the team’s $6.8 million obligation to him for the 2010/11 season.  

The deal would have come at the expense of the NBA’s 2006 and 2009 Slam Dunk Champion, Nate Robinson, himself a restricted free agent at the end of the season.  While there is little chance that the team can afford to resign both Nate and fellow restricted free agent David Lee this offseason while preserving their chances of landing one-or-two marquee players in the summer of 2010, trading Nate now for little more than salary cap space would have been a clear signal to the fan base that the team is not serious about making a playoff push this year.

Instead, Walsh spoke loudly in the moves he did make, acquiring center Chris Wilcox from the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Malik Rose, and swapping Tim Thomas, Jerome James and Anthony Roberson in exchange for Chicago’s Larry Hughes.  None of the players sent packing would have impacted the team’s cap in 2010, nor do the players imported improve the team’s payroll flexibility down the line.  Rather, the finances of these maneuvers effectively equate to a wash, while the Knicks have acquired the shooting guard and post presence they have desperately lacked since shipping out Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph in November.

Blockbuster acquisitions?  By no means.  However the Knicks have improved their roster while remaining fiscally conscious – something we haven’t seen at the Garden in more than a decade.

Rejoice, Knicks fan.  Your team is on the precipice of relevancy!

update: A-Rod has admitted to using steroids during a three-year period beginning in 2001, according to Espn.com.

This is not a drill, folks.  

I can understand your skepticism, especially given Jose Canseco’s allegations in December 2007 that the Yankee third baseman belonged on Senator George Mitchell’s list of steroid cheats.  Once again, Canseco was dismissed as a clown whose 2005 book Juiced exposed baseball’s dirty steroid scandal but apparently earned him little credibility.  

Once again, Canseco has been vindicated, and the  fallout from today’s revelations could shake the sport.

Selena Roberts and David Epstein of Sports Illustrated are reporting that Alex Rodriguez, the 2003 AL MVP and home run king, tested positive for the anabolic steroids Primobolan and testosterone while playing for the Texas Rangers.  The 2003 survey testing was commissioned by Major League Baseball in order to determine the extent of the sport’s steroid problem and to evaluate the necessity of instituting mandatory random drug testing.  As part of a joint agreement with the MLB Players Association, the identities of the 104 players who tested positive were to remain anonymous.  Oops.

As Journal News reporter Sam Borden notes on the LoHud Yankee blog, Selena Roberts is a well respected reporter in the field of sports journalism.  Prior to joining SI, she was a columnist for the New York Times. Not surprisingly it appears that she has thoroughly dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s.

While media outlets, particularly the trashier ones, might occasionally run an inflammatory story based on a lone source, the majority would require at least two corroborative sources for a story of this magnitude, according to Borden. Today’s story cites four independent sources.  Four of them.  Bottom line, reports don’t get a whole lot more credible than this one.

It is deliciously appropriate that none of this would have been possible without Barry Bonds, whose federal investigation on perjury charges led to the search and seizure of the ‘03 test results containing Rodriguez’s information.  Though A-Rod is hardly universally adored amongst baseball fans, or even Yankee fans, there had been a general consensus among most that it would be nice to see Rodriguez, who has 553 career home runs, topple Bonds’ record of 762, restoring the crown of MLB’s home run king to a “clean” competitor.

No one understood this better than the Yankees, who in November 2007 signed Rodriguez to a 10-year contract worth a guaranteed $275 million and laden with incentives that would boost the total value of the deal to as much as $305 million.  Under the terms of the agreement, A-Rod reportedly would receive an additional $6 million each time he were to tie one of the top four players on baseball career home run list: Willie Mays (660), Babe Ruth (714),Hank Aaron (755) and Barry Bonds (762), and an additional payment of $6 million upon breaking Bonds’ tainted record.  The contract also reportedly requires Alex to “make extra promotional appearances and sign memorabilia for the Yankees as part of a marketing plan surrounding his pursuit of Bonds’s record.”

According to the SI report, the contract contains no language about steroids, which makes the Yankees look very stupid right about now, particularly in the wake of Jason Giambi’s ill-fated tenure in New York.  That’s right, Yankee fans.  It appears you’re stuck with him.

updated: Bill Madden is reporting that the deal is for $180 million and includes a $5 million signing bonus and a full no-trade clause.

ESPN’s Buster Olney is reporting that free-agent first baseman Mark Teixeira has reached an agreement with the New York Yankees on an eight-year contract worth more than $170 million.

Helloooo Hot Stove Nation!  I wanted to pass along some information on a neat opportunity to meet some local New York sports legends while helping a worthy cause in the process.  You can’t go wrong, right?

On Sunday, November 23, former Mets Ace Ron Darling, Knicks point guard Mark Jackson, and Rangers two-time MVP Adam Graves will offer clinics for the Otsar All-Star Spectacular at Aviator Field in Brooklyn from 2 to 6 PM. The event will also include silent and live auctions, dinner with the players, and special rock-climbing and ice-skating sessions for event participants.

All proceeds benefit Otsar Family Services, a Brooklyn-based organization, established in 1980 by family members of children with special needs to provide quality programs and services for individuals with developmental disabilities.

Darling, a pitcher for the 1986 World Champion Mets team, is fourth on the team’s all-time wins list.  He also played for the Montreal Expos and Oakland Athletics, and was a member of the 1985 National League All Star team and the first Mets pitcher to win a Gold Glove in 1989.  Currently a color commentator for nationally broadcast baseball games on TBS, as well as Mets broadcasts on SNY and WPIX, he won an Emmy Award as Best Sports Analyst for his work on local broadcasts.

Jackson, the 1988 NBA Rookie of the Year, was a star at St. John’s University before playing for the New York Knicks, Los Angeles Clippers, Denver Nuggets, Toronto Raptors, Utah Jazz, and Houston Rockets.  He represented the Knicks as an All-Star in 1999 and ranks second on the NBA all-time assists list with 10,323.  He is currently a color commentator with ESPN and ABC.

Graves’s #9 jersey will be retired on February 3 by the Rangers, for whom he played for 10 years, representing them as an All-Star; winning a Stanley Cup; and setting a franchise record for goals scored during the 1993-94 season.  During his career, he won numerous community service awards, including the King Clancy Memorial Trophy; the NHL Foundation Award; the Sporting News Good Guy award; the Crumb Bum award for services to New York youngsters; and the Steven MacDonald Award five times. He also won the Stanley Cup in 1990 as a member of the Edmonton Oilers and now works as a special assistant with the Rangers.

Aviator Sports and Recreation complex, which operates at Floyd Bennett Field, includes NHL regulation sized ice skating rinks, football, soccer and lacrosse fields; basketball, volleyball, and handball courts; rock-climbing walls; and a gymnastics center.

For more information, visit www.otsar.org.  Looks to be a good time for all involved. 

The Mets have acquired reliever Luis Ayala from the Washington Nationals in exchange for minor league middle infielder Anderson Hernandez.

Hernandez, best known during his cup of coffee in the majors for being Jose Reyes’s best buddy, was hitting just .188 this season in Triple-A New Orleans, and Argenis Reyes had clearly blown past him on the depth chart (not to mention as Jose’s new best buddy).

In Ayala, the Mets add a veteran arm to a bullpen in crisis. Ayala is having a nightmarish season of his own, pitching to a 5.77 ERA in Washington. However prior to 2008, the right hander had a career ERA of 3.19 and the Mets will hope a change of scenery can be the cure for what ails him.

With the news that closer Billy Wagner will not be ready to come off the disabled list when he’s eligible on Monday, and another gem last night by the bullpen crew, which somehow saw the tying run come to the plate in a game that had been 7-1, any new face coming out of the pen will be a welcome sight.

Regardless of what you think of notorious radio personalities Mike Francesa and Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, this is a sad day for New York sports fans and fans of talk radio in general. Like it or not, Mike and Chris were the best in the biz for 18 years, and now, just two weeks shy of its 19th anniversary, their enormously popular and influential “Mike and the Mad Dog” show is at its end.

Newsday’s Neil Best reported earlier this summer that a personal feud between the co-hosts might spell the end of their partnership, however the news became official this evening when WFAN announced that Russo would be leaving the company with Francesa receiving a contract extension and serving as sole host of the show.

According to Best, Russo is expected to move to Sirius Satellite Radio.

Meanwhile, the YES Network’s simulcast of the show tomorrow becomes must-see-TV for yours truly. I wonder, will they waste any time in dumping the ubiquitous Mike & the Mad Dog jingle? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Saw something in the Yankee game yesterday that I hadn’t seen in a long time: Both middle infielders attempting to cover the bag on a routine stolen base. Now I know Wilson Betemit doesn’t play a whole lot of shortstop, but even so, he should know the signs by now, shouldn’t he? My friend Dino tells me that Richie Sexson missed a sign the other day as well. Hey, it happens. But it’s happening too much lately for Joe Girardi’s Yankees.

Underline that last part, because these aren’t your big brother’s Yankees. These aren’t Joe Torre’s Yankees. These are Hank Steinbrenner’s Yankees, and in case you missed it, he’s already laid out a comfy mattress in case his new manager gets knocked to the canvas. We’ll get ‘em next year, tiger.

Torre, meanwhile, is laughing all the way to the postseason.

By the way, one could argue that the Marlins are having a better season in ‘08 with an inferior roster than they sported in ‘06 under Manager of the Year Joe Girardi. Just sayin’.

Seriously though, a pragmatic Yankee fan had to have seen at least a hint of this coming in the offseason when the team showed Torre the door after 12 straight playoff appearances under the skip. Sure there was a large segment of fandom that felt Torre had lost his touch, and his laid-back attitude was to blame for the team’s frustrating and indifferent play in the postseason. However, it was never a particularly rational sentiment. For me, the biggest X-Factor wasn’t Joe Girardi walking in the door, but whether or not a dark horse team or two would rise up to the challenge and exploit a fragile Yankee team. Thus far, underdogs like the Rays and Twins have answered the bell.

You can kill the Yanks for refusing to part with Ian Kennedy for Johan Santana if you want, but how’s that working out for Minnesota?

And speaking of Johan and his Amazin’ Mets, can you imagine a more nightmarish middle infield combo than Jose Reyes and Robinson Cano? Don’t get me wrong, I think Jose has extraordinary defensive ability, and Robbie can pick it as well when he’s properly motivated, but the pair of them would have their heads in the clouds for eight out of nine innings.

Some more food for thought: Might it finally be time to move Derek Jeter down in the order and slide Bobby Abreu into the 2-hole? Such a move would allow Xavier Nady, hitting .329 with a .943 OPS, to bat third in the order and provide a maximum of RBI opportunities for Alex Rodriguez and his .996 OPS in the cleanup spot. The rest of your order would then alternate lefties and righties very nicely with Jason Giambi, Jeter, Cano, Pudge Rodriguez, and Melky Cabrera. The notion that Giambi ever hits higher than Xavier Nady in the lineup is confusing to me.

And while we’re talking about the X-Man: I can’t say I remember seeing it live, but I know that the Pirates had played Nady in centerfield at various points over the last two seasons. Willie Randolph was always down on Xavier’s defense during his time with the Mets, but I honestly think he may have been a bit hard on the guy. Nady’s a decent defensive player, and might even benefit from a move to center where it’s often easier to get reads on balls that aren’t hooking like they do in the corners. Obviously I’d like to look at some tape from Pittsburgh before throwing him out there, but it seems to me it’s an idea that should at least be under consideration with Johnny Damon’s arm no longer adequate for the position and Melky Cabrera on the cusp of being run out of the Bronx by pitchforks and torches.

It’s time to Think Different in the Bronx.