Piniella to play starters

If you were wondering about the Cubs cashing it in for the final week of the season after clinching the NL Central, think again. Lou Piniella will be resting players, but it looks like he's got his team's best interests in mind by getting the regulars their at bats.

"I can't let these guys all sit," Piniella said. "We have to use them to keep them as sharp as possible. We'll play our regular lineup in these games [against New York]. The worst thing that can happen is Major League Baseball calls us and tells us, 'Hey, you people have a responsibility,' and we're going to honor that.

"At the same time, if I need to rest a player here or a player there, that we can do," Piniella said. "I can't play a lineup like we're playing [Sunday] the rest of the week. It wouldn't be fair to the rest of the teams."

The article talks about players like Micah Hoffpauir, Chad Gaudin, Jeff Samardzija, Randy Wells and Bob Howry as potential bubble players for the playoff roster.

Everyone's a Yankees fan

Just a note on my only experience at Yankee Stadium. It was in the late 90's. 1999, I think. I cannot remember. I don't recall the final score of that lone Yankees game I had the opportunity to travel to with my college buddy Adam, but I know they won. We drove down from Syracuse through tiny upstate New York towns, taking 3 1/2 hours to reach the Bronx. It was worth every minute of a 15-hour day.

In the deepest recesses of my mind, I remember looping through the final portion of the interstate alongside the biggest baseball park I'd ever seen. Some parks may be bigger, but in sure stature with those concrete walls, Yankee Stadium seems the biggest.

Once inside we didn't tour monument park. There was a 45-minute line, and we wanted to take in batting practice, instead. I wasn't into nostalgia, and I'm not into it in general, but Yankee Stadium overtakes you. It is big, heavy, homey and magical. It is old and dark. It is still beautiful.

I cannot recall for you a single play from that lone game I attended in the Bronx. I think Juan Encarnacion was patrolling left for the visiting Tigers. We might have visited a souvenir shop on the way out. It's not in my memory banks. It was deleted due to the overwhelming nature of what was around me. I only remember the dark hallways underneath the park, the eyehole passageways to the grandstand and the incredible view from right behind home plate in the upper deck. It was spellbinding, and seeing it for the final time tonight was altogether a disappointment and a thrill. What a way to go out. Thanks for the vague memories, as well.

I sent Adam a text tonight thanking him for taking me to my one Yankee game at Yankee Stadium. "Glad you could make it there," he said in reply. Me too. Anyone who's ever been to that ballpark and seen what a testimonial it is to baseball would instantly find a place in their heart for the Yankees. Even if you denied it you'd know it was true. Yankee Stadium was magic, is magic and forever will be a magical place where baseball really lived. If the new stadium is only half as successful as a monument to the world's greatest game, it will still be a great success.