Compliments to Chad Jennings, and LoHud. Chad has included several Smurfy award winning interviews, especially noted of Yankee pitchers. Those guys (Phelps, Hughes, CC, Nova, Kuroda, Robertson and Garcia) have expressed their thoughts more fully, frankly than I can remember seeing anywhere else on a day-to-day basis.

The guys aren't admitting when they're having trouble hitting their spots, nessarily, but they have said some things that clearly express their consistently constructive attitudes toward pitching and team. Even Garcia's frustration with the front office for overbooking were limited and reasonable, and he's still willing to bend to stay a Yankee.

Phelps deserves the Ode from Smurfy, most of all, for his fine song of peace and cooperation: "Oh, yeah, Warren and I are buddies. We root for each other like brothers." That may not be exact, but my fan head is still spinning.

So Chad and the Yankee staff have to share recognition for this good baseball talk. Chad gets them to open up and provides good color through rejoinder. Nobody else I know of (tell me, please) reports so thoroughly from Yankee ST. Thanks to LoHud, too, for providing such good coverage through its blog. New York Times, Post or Daily News don't.

Also, Tex is looking sexy again. That is, 15 pounds lighter, and five years younger. And Derek is just wailing on a craft lefty today.