I, as a fervent New York Yankees fan, was surprised to learn that former first baseman Chris Chambliss actually played more games with the Atlanta Braves than he did in the Bronx. Chambliss, who will be 63 this Dec. 26, was a large part of the successful Yankees clubs of the mid-1970s.

He was a line-drive hitter who played for 17 seasons in the big leagues, delivering one of the most famous homers in Yankees history. However, Chambliss’ career with the Yankees was much more than that pennant-winning blow against the Royals in 1976.

The Cincinnati Reds twice drafted Chambliss, first in the 1967 amateur draft and then again the next year. Chambliss would not sign with the Red Legs on either occasion, eventually taken by and signed by the Cleveland Indians in 1970. He became the American League Rookie of the Year with the Tribe in 1971, hitting .275.

Cleveland, always starved for pitching in those days, sent Chambliss to the Yankees in 1974 for hurlers Steve Kline and Fritz Peterson, among others. The deal was seemingly lopsided in Cleveland’s favor, since Chambliss had never hit more than 11 home runs or knocked in over 53 runs in his first four campaigns. Chambliss turned out to be a reliable run producer for New York, knocking in 72 runs in 1975. Over the next three seasons combined, he was extremely consistent, with 276 runs batted in. Chambliss never hit for power, even though he was a left-handed batter in New York. His highest home run total while with the team were the 18 he clobbered in 1979 at the age of 31.

In the postseason, Chris was a .281 hitter, including the stellar .524 average he posted in 1976 against Kansas City in the American League Championship Series. His home run to end that fray is his signature moment with the franchise, but he also won a Gold Glove at first base and never hit under .274 with the team.

New York traded Chambliss to the Blue Jays in 1979, who rapidly turned around and dealt him to the Braves. He played 886 games with Atlanta; he played one more game for the Yankees in 1988, getting into one tilt before retiring as a Yankee at the age of 39. Chambliss collected 2,109 hits, knocking in 972 runs and hitting .279 for his tenure in the majors.

Source:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/chambch01.shtml

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Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien said Wednesday he halted design of a new stadium for the New York Yankees Triple-A baseball franchise until the county and the company that will own the team nail down a definitive deal for the stadium construction and lease.

Officials on both sides said they see no significant threats to a final deal and it’s simply a matter of getting one done at this point. Mr. O’Brien said only the county had spent any money on the project a year after a memorandum of understanding that is the basis for the final deal.

“The Yankees have had plenty of time to reduce the deal to writing,” Mr. O’Brien said. “I’m optimistic things will work out, but we have gone as far as we can go. SWB Yankees has to step up to take it the final few feet.”

Under the memorandum, signed in November 2010, the county stadium authority will sell the team to SWB Yankees LLC, a company co-owned by the Yankees and Mandalay Baseball Properties, for $14.6 million in exchange for a 30-year lease on the stadium, PNC Field in Moosic. The state has set aside a $20 million grant for the $40 million renovation of the stadium.

County Commissioner Bruce Smallacombe, who said he knew nothing of the reason for the work stoppage, said he and Commissioner Mike Washo were scheduled to meet today in Philadelphia with officials of the project architectural firm, Ewing Cole.

“That meeting has been canceled, and I don’t know why,” Mr. Smallacombe said. “I’m frustrated by it. The money is there. The money is in place, and the only way the Yankees will stay is if they have a nice stadium.”

Mr. Smallacombe and Mr. Washo said the stadium design work is almost done.

“The only thing left to negotiate is the fine points of what the Yankees want that we can’t afford, and then figure out who is going to pay for it,” Mr. Smallacombe said.

Mr. Washo, who acknowledged he did not discuss the decision to stop work with Mr. O’Brien, nonetheless agreed with the decision, saying he had made it known it should have happened sooner. He said SWB Yankees was “dragging its feet.”

“I don’t care that I wasn’t told,” he said. “Quite frankly, they (SWB Yankees) don’t want to pay. They want to wait as long as possible to come up with the money. … He (Mr. O’Brien) is joining my position.”

Art Matin, Mandalay’s president and CEO, characterized what is happening as “the final throes of working on a definitive agreement.”

“Using a poker term, we’re all in; we have our team on the road at great expense for 2012,” Mr. Matin said. “We’re all working very hard to get an agreement that is fair for everybody and lines up with the best interests of both the team and the county.”

Mr. O’Brien said the county hopes to break ground on the new stadium in March. With construction expected to take a year, the Triple-A team will play all its home games out of town next year.

Mr. Matin said there is no specific deadline for finishing the deal, though both sides want it done as soon as possible to ensure the construction timetable is not affected.

“I don’t think we’re close to that (affecting the construction schedule) yet, but that doesn’t mean we’re not working fully in earnest on everything,” he said. “The discussions are going on as we speak.”

Mr. Matin said he does not know what Mr. O’Brien was referring to when he said “SWB Yankees has to step up to take it the final few feet.” Mr. O’Brien declined to elaborate.

“This is just a normal process of resolving a long-term, 30-year lease,” he said. “You’re going to have a lot of terms and a lot of things that you have to work through and you want to make sure language matches intent and protects both parties. … I think Corey’s right that we need to push this through to a conclusion here, hopefully sooner rather than later.”

DAVID SINGLETON, a Times-Tribune staff writer, contributed to this story.

Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com

The 2011 offseason is looking very similar to the 2010 offseason for the New York Yankees. The one major difference is that this year they haven’t even made a play for a major free agent.

In 2010 the Yankees came away with nothing because they put all their proverbial eggs in Cliff Lee’s basket. Once Lee decided to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies the Yankees were left with scraps.

In 2011 all has been quiet. The only thing the Yankees have accomplished is resigning C.C. Sabathia. While keeping the team’s ace was huge, they haven’t done anything to improve the rotation. In fact they resigned Freddy Garcia, which I think is a mistake. They got lucky with Garcia this season, but they really shouldn’t have pressed their luck trying to squeeze another decent season out of him.

On Friday, December 9 general manager Brian Cashman said the Yankees are open for business. Well it would have been nice if business had opened up before the winter meetings had ended. Now I didn’t want the Yankees to go after Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols or even C.J. Wilson, but I thought they might have been in the running for Mark Buehrle. Instead the Miami Marlins got Buehrle and others, while the Los Angeles Angels got Pujols and Wilson. With those signings came the big front page headlines, while the Yankees didn’t even make the paper.

The one hope I have is that Cashman may go after Japanese phenom Yu Darvish. The 25-year-old righty has had an earned run average of less than 2.00 in each of the last four seasons in Japan. He has also performed well in the World Baseball Classic, which just adds to his value.

Darvish’s Japanese team, the Nippon Ham Fighters, posted the pitcher last week. That means MLB teams have four business days to decide if they want to make a bid for rights to deal with the pitcher. As an example the Boston Red Sox ponied up $51 million in posting fees for Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2006. Boston then signed Matsuzaka to a six-year contract worth $52 million.

The thing I like about Darvish is that it only costs the Yankees money. They won’t have to relinquish draft picks or prospects, just the greenbacks. There is no doubt the Yankees can afford money.

So the time for Cashman to step up is now. Although the Yankees track record with Japanese pitchers is suspect, see Hideki Irabu and Kei Igawa, this kid seems different to me. The rotation needs help and the team needs to get younger, a Darvish deal would address both needs. Yu Darvish and Yankee pinstripes might be the perfect combination and make the offseason a success.

Darren Pare is a third generation Yankees fan. The unique thing is that he lives in the middle of Red Sox nation, Maine, and has for all his life and that gives him a different perspective. You can follow him on Twitter @dpare71.

More from this contributor:

A Yankee Fan’s Five Favorite Red Sox Players

The Marlins Must Be Thinking They Are the Yankees

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The New York Yankees avoided a dangerous opt-out by C.C. Sabathia(notes) and arrived at a new contract agreement that features an average salary just shy of $25 million over the next five years. Virtually simultaneously, the team re-signed General Manager Brian Cashman for three years for an incredible anyone-could-do-this-job-with-that-payroll $9 million.

There is no question the Yankees need to protect the integrity of their pitching staff. Though Bartolo Colon(notes) and Freddy Garcia(notes) provided more than ample stop-gap production this past season, it was near miraculous they performed as extraordinarily as they did. Cashman, and the Yankee braintrust, correctly assume they cannot expect that level of quality again.

But $25 million? For a pitcher who will only have impact every five days? I believe C.C. Sabathia is great. He is the quintessential ace on which you can depend every time he takes the mound. But it is an absurdly high price even in an era of absurdly paid baseball players. I declare this knowing the Yankees could afford to pay anybody any amount of money. I remember being a lone dissenting voice when the New York Mets were plowing a hay field worth of bucks into Johan Santana’s(notes) pickup truck. Geez, I thought, what happens if this doesn’t work out (it didn’t) or he gets injured (he did) or the team tanks (they did)? There’d be nothing left in the till (there isn’t).

Certainly, the Yankees don’t have to worry about any of the above. And we know there are several absolutes. Sabathia was doing just fine prior to re-upping, so we’re really just talking about an extra $30 million in Yankee dollars. They’re not nearly finished signing people…look for Mark Buehrle(notes) at an insane annual number. They already pay A-Rod in the upper $20 millions, Mark Teixeira(notes) in the upper teens, Derek Jeter(notes) in the mid-teens, and on and on. A small country could survive quite nicely with those dollars.

Is there never a limit to their preposterous spending? It’s not new, but continues to be infuriating.

Glenn Vallach has been a New York Mets fan since foolishly abandoning the mighty Yankees in his youth after Mickey Mantle retired. Since the fond, fleeting memories of the Tom Seaver, Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee years, he sits quietly yearning for a fraction of the success enjoyed annually by the team that inhabits the borough in which I was born…waiting and hoping…waiting and hoping.

Sources:

• · Yahoo! Sports New York Yankees page
• · Yahoo! Sports C.C. Sabathia page
• · Yahoo! Sports Derek Jeter page
• · The Sports Xchange, Brian Cashman signs three-year deal with Yankees

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