Andy Takes The Mound Today

“I bounced back pretty good after that last one, so we feel like an inning would be good tomorrow. I realized I feel good enough to pitch.”

And with that statement, it became official that Andy Pettitte would pitch in Spring Training.  He's been working hard since the day he announced he was coming back- going through drills and exercises to build up strength, throwing bullpens, throwing BP, throwing simulated games- and now that tomorrow has become today and today Andy Pettitte will once again take the hill as a New York Yankee.

I know I wasn't as super-jacked as most other people about Andy's return when it was first announced.  I kept looking at it strictly from a baseball perspective, probably too much of a future baseball perspective, and I questioned whether mixing Andy in with the young stable of pitchers would help or hurt their development if they ended up being the one who was kicked out of the rotation for him.  As it turns out, that was the wrong way to think about it and it was an incredibly smart move to make by the Yankees.  For someone like Andy, it was wrong of me to put my fan side aside for the baseball side and question people's motivations.  Just another example of why Cash is making the baseball decisions I'm sitting at a desk writing a blog.

When Andy retired, I honestly thought it was for good.  The timing was right, he had nothing left to prove, and there hadn't been any hints that he was even remotely interested in coming back until he popped up at camp this year.  As much as we all didn't want to see him go, he really had no reason to stay, at least until last December when he got the itch again.  Now he's back, he's healthy, and he looks good so far, almost like he never left.

I have no way of knowing how Andy is going to pitch today against the Mets or this season against everybody else at age 40. None of us do.  But right now, I really don't even care about that.  This afternoon, something is going to happen that I never thought I would see happen again.  Andy Pettitte, one of my favorite Yankees of all time, is going to take the mound and pitch in a Major League Baseball game wearing the Yankee colors, and that's pretty damn cool.

(Quote courtesy of The AP)