With just under a week left in the decade*, the lists have started flowing. The Daily News has four of them today: best New York athletes, worst New York athletes, best New York sports moments, and worst New York sports moments. We’ll check in on the Yankees from each list, but as will become evident almost immediately, this is more of a “our favorite New York athletes,” rather than a measure of athletic ability.

Alex Rodriguez checks in at No. 4 on the best athletes list, topped only by Martin Brodeur (who doesn’t play in the Big Apple), Mariano Rivera, and, of course, Derek Jeter. On the worst athletes list, Kei Igawa holds the No. 7 spot, worse than Jerome James, but not worse than Eddy Curry. The list features many Mets, but two Yankees rank worse than any players from New York’s second team. Kevin Brown rates the third worst athlete, while Carl Pavano rates second worst. Only the unassailable Stephon Marbury stands between Pavano and the top spot. Again, the list is more “athletes we hate” than “bad athletes.”

On the best sports moments list, Derek Jeter’s flip play ranks No. 8, the 2001 World Series miracles rank sixth, Aaron Boone’s walk-off ranks fourth, the 2009 series ranks third, and the 2000 Subway Series championship ranks second. That’s a pretty Yankees-heavy list, though they didn’t own the top spot. That deservingly belongs to the Giants for beating the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. On the worst list, Clemens’s bat toss at Piazza rates the eighth worst moment, the 2001 Series ender rates sixth worst, and baseball’s steroids issue rates fifth worst. I won’t even make mention of the decade’s worst moment in New York sports. You all know what it is.

The lists are mostly for fun, but they do underscore just how much the Yankees own this city. They not only dominate the best of lists, but also the worst of lists. Hey, it’s tough to hate something if you don’t care. Also clear: the angst over the Knicks. But that’s a subject for another day, on another blog.

*No, there was no Year 0. If you want to go strictly by the calendar, the decade goes 2001-2010. But guess what? The year before Year 1 was…Year 1. We’ve come to celebrate decades from 0 through 9, so please, no decade bickering in the comments.

Peter Abraham is leaving the Journal News for the Boston Globe. Everyone already knows; no reason to pussyfoot around it. After nearly three years of dedicated service on the LoHud Yankees Blog, Pete’s headed to a gig at a much bigger paper. It’s an excellent opportunity, and it couldn’t go to anyone more deserving. While I’ll miss Pete covering the Yanks and providing multiple daily updates on the blog, I wish him only the best of luck as he transitions to the rival beat.

Mike and I met Pete at the Winter Meetings last year. We introduced ourselves, expecting we’d have a quick exchange and then be on our way. But Pete chatted with us for a while, talking Yanks, newspapers, coverage, and anything else that might have come up. We were first timers and didn’t want to look out of place. Pete helped us with any procedural questions we had. He didn’t have to do any of that. But not only did he, but it seemed to please him. He also seems happy to answer all of my annoying emails asking for information. There are so many people who wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t go out of their way to help just some blog, but Pete always did. And I’ll always appreciate that.

People have varying opinions of the man, but there are two things no one can deny. First, Pete is a good reporter who gathers and disseminates information in a timely and professional manner. Second, he gets it. He proposed the idea of the blog to his bosses at a time when blog was still a dirty word. He slogged through it when only die-hards were reading. I remember someone pointing me there during those Winter Meetings, and I wondered why the hell everyone wasn’t doing that. Since then, the industry has wised up and learned that a blog is a good medium for journalism. Pete was ahead of his time.

It’s always hard to lose someone like Pete, who has been with us for so long. All the beat writers have blogs now, but none of them are quite Pete’s. Someone will eventually fill the void he’ll leave in two weeks, but it still won’t be quite the same. I hope that some of the people who don’t think of Pete as highly as I do can at least appreciate his contribution to journalism.

Take care in Boston, Pete, and good luck.

Ben is out for the next week and a half, so to help carry the load we’ve contacted a few Yankees bloggers to help out with some guest articles. First up is Jay from Fack Youk. He takes an interesting look at the Mets and how they relate to another blue and orange New York team, the Knicks. No, this is not Yankees-related, but I think it’s a good read, as is Jay’s whole blog — his partner in crime, Matt, should hit us with something else next week.

If this isn’t your cup of tea, you can check out our trade deadline open thread and Mike’s post on what to do with Chien-Ming Wang.

The similarities go beyond just the blue and orange. Both teams are owned by father/son duos and have been plagued by recent failures despite having payrolls near or at the top of their respective sports. Each franchise has only two championships in their history and has made the playoffs exactly one out of the past eight seasons. They both have had their front offices’ dirty laundry aired in the New York tabloids in recent years.

Not that Jose Reyes ever asked a Mets intern if she was going to “get in the truck,” or Omar Minaya sexually harassed a fellow member of the front office, but there is a big distinction between having an unsuccessful franchise and having the details of why your organization is a disaster printed for the world to see. At the center of these two debacles are two executives who have/had close relationships with the owners of their teams but terrible ones with the media.

While serving as President of Basketball Operations for the Knicks, Isiah Thomas spoke with the placid monotone of someone who was heavily medicated, spouting off cliches and dropping wincers such as “To me, it’s win or die. And I literally mean death. I don’t mean walk away. I mean death. That’s how I approach it”. Omar, on the other hand has a penchant for mixing metaphors, inaccurate tensing (“He has lobby myself”) and verbal tics, you know what I’m saying?

Initially credited with making the Mets an attractive destination and recruiting players like Pedro Martinez, Carlos Delgado and Billy Wagner, Omar’s track record is tainted by severely overpaying for Luis Castillo, giving Moises Alou $15M for 414 plate appearances and locking up Oliver Perez, (who is currently humming along to the tune of a 7.42 ERA) for three years and $36M. The Johan Santana trade alone puts Minaya ahead of Thomas in terms of transactions that turned out favorably for their team, but the number of playoff appearances and dollars each team has spent speak for themselves.

Back on March 12th, 2007, with Knicks holding a record of 29-34 and sitting at 8th place in the Eastern Conference, James Dolan singed Isiah Thomas to a three year extension. Nine months earlier, Dolan had issued an ultimatum, saying the Knicks would have to make “evident progress” in order to Isiah to return as coach the following year.

The team had gone 23-59 under Larry Brown the year before, so they did improve, but the timing was curious. Dolan could have waited to see how the season turned out, but instead said “the improvement needs to be recognized now and not wait”. The team responded with a horrid 4-14 stretch and finished 7 games out of the playoffs. Thirteen months later, Thomas was “reassigned” and banned from having any contact with the team, effectively ending his tenure as Knicks GM and coach.

Immediately following the conclusion of the 2008 season, the second one in a row which concluded by the Mets getting nudged out of October on the last day of the season after holding a significant lead with less than three weeks to go, Jeff Wilpon offered Omar Minaya a three year contract extension. The timing again was questionable, as the GM had a full year left on his current deal, but Wilpon said “we think he deserves another chance to keep getting us to where we want to be”.

The Mets are currently in 4th place in the NL East and behind seven other teams in contention for the Wild Card, 5.5 games back. Unfortunately for Minaya, the on-the-field performance can be largely explained away by injuries, but the power structure of the Mets organization has come under fire as of late. First with the clumsy axing of Willie Randolph last year, but most recently the zany antics of Tony Bernazard and the ensuing unsuccessful attempted public sacrifice of beat writer Adam Rubin’s journalistic integrity, the team has become a punching bag for the New York Media. Rubin wondered aloud how he could continue his duties as a reporter covering theMets after the incident, but one has to question whether Omar can continue running them.

Even since they hired Donnie Walsh to head their basketball operations back in April of last year, the Knicks have had an air of credibility around them, even though their play on the floor was still sub-par. A well-respected veteran of the Pacers’ front office, Walsh is candid with the media and his Wikipedia page doesn’t require a separate section for “Controversy”. Could the Mets benefit from a similar move?

It’s quite unlikely that the Mets leapfrog seven teams (or three in the NL East) and sneak into the playoffs this year. Since Minaya’s new contract doesn’t even start until the end of this season and won’t end until 2012, keeping him around would be a prudent financial move. Rob Neyer doesn’t think that will play a role in the decision, though.

Has Omar passed the point of no return?

I personally don’t think so and don’t feel certain that his successor would necessarily bring a new direction to the franchise, other than the symbolic overture of axing Minaya. That said, public perception and fan placation is a big part of being a successful sports team in New York, and the Wilpon’s have to be prepared to deal with a lot of backlash if they stand by their man.