The Daily Yankeeland

A-Rod's 519th home run last night put him within 2 long balls of Ted Williams and Willie McCovey for 15th place on the all-time list. It was also the 174th of his Yankees career.

Shelley Duncan and Melky Cabrera are scheduled to meet with Bob Watson on Monday to appeal their 3 game suspensions.

The minor league affiliates begin their seasons today. Scranton (Triple-A) hosts Lehigh Valley, Trenton (Double-A) is at Binghamton, Tampa (Advanced 'A') hosts Lakeland, and Charleston ('A') is in Rome.

Morgan Ensberg learned the hard way that you can't talk on your cellphone will driving in New York City. He'll have to shell out $50 for the ticket he received.

Much has been made of Joba Chamberlain's over the top celebration after a big strikeout. But not everyone is bothered by it. Growing up, one of Joba's heroes was Frank Thomas, who he blew a fastball past to end the 8th inning on Tuesday. Joba's dad Harlan had a chance to talk to Thomas and told him about the poster Joba had hanging up of the Big Hurt when he was growing up.

"I just wanted to tell him how much of a dream that was," Harlan said he told Thomas.

Thomas told Harlan, "He brought it, and he deserved it."

And Thomas said he took no exception to Joba's fist pump after the strikeout.

"Well, the game has changed a lot in the last six or seven years," Thomas told reporters. "The bottom line is, if I get a hit in that situation, it doesn't happen."

Girardi said he would not tell Chamberlain to give up the fist pump.

"I'm not going to take that away from him," Girardi said. "Because I don't think he's showing people up. I think it's emotion, and you want emotion in this game. And sometimes people take the emotion the wrong way, that we're supposed to be just kind of -- playing. But I think emotion is good in this game as long as you're not showing anybody up."

Alex Rios now has a 22 game hitting streak against the Yankees. That's the longest string since the White Sox' Nellie Fox did it in 1951-52.

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