I mean I knew in my mind that I wouldn’t be posting until June, but this still feels like a hell of a long break.

But there’s good reason and I won’t bore anyone who still looks in at this site once in a while with many of the details. See, I just finished my first year of teaching Sports Journalism to high school students. Seriously, it was a trip…and in our last month I taught them how to make sports blogs. Honestly, a great experience I wouldn’t trade for the world as my kids started with game recaps, learned sports columns, profiles and finally the blogs…from writing a new curriculum, to writing grants for supplies and taking educational grad classes, there was just no time for the blog. Still, I managed to squeeze in coverage of a few games here and there (Rangers, Knicks, Mets and Yanks)…and now, with school out for the summer, I’ve got nothing but time.

So here the Yankees are seven games out and off in Oakland…did anyone expect much else? New manager…young (and oft injured) pitchers…I have to say if Joe Girardi has made one good move (and he’s made several), it’s that he threw Jason Giambi back at first base. It seems that everyone in the world besides Joe Torre knew that Giambi hit better when he also played in the field. Call it a psychological quirk or what have you, the numbers simply did not lie…yet Torre insisted on sitting Jason for health reasons even when he was healthy — Joe T. used to worry about Jason’s knees — and for defense. Well, after starting the season with a woeful .165 average in April, Giambi hit .315 in May and is at .364 for the month of June. Not to mention that Giambi is 4th in the AL in home runs. Kudos, Joe G.

Meanwhile, Giambi has 4 errors in 43 games at first for a fielding percentage of .990…his glove is always good for a scoop and even though he won’t get to all the balls in the hole, he’s not losing games with his defense.

Not bad at all…

Anyway, I don’t see any reason why I won’t be back at this on a regular basis throughout the summer. Hopefully, I haven’t been gone so long as to lose all of my readers. Certainly, it feels good to be writing again.