How awesome is that? Big thanks to Stephen (the artist formerly known as “sic”), Greg, and Christian for photoshopping that puppy. Here’s the original Nike ad if you missed it.

Now that there’s a smile on your face, feel free to use this as your open thread. The Nets, Knicks, and Islanders are all in action tonight, but I suspect you’d rather watch linoleum curl than those three disasters (combined record: 7-28).  Anything goes, just be civil.

Things in Yankeeland are a little slow these days, but for all the right reasons. Everyone is still celebrating the club’s 27th World Title, and the most exciting part of the Hot Stove Season doesn’t start for another two weeks or so. It’s been just three days, but I already miss the hell out of baseball. If, like me, you’re battling the withdrawals, you can check out the Arizona Fall League Rising Stars Showcase tonight on MLB Network.

It’s essentially the AzFL All Star Game, and even though Stephen Strasburg won’t be playing because of a muscle strain in his neck, the game still will feature oodles of talent. In the starting lineups alone, you have eight first round picks, three superhigh profile international signees, and a handful of late-round sleepers. The rosters read like a who’s who list of top prospects (off the top of my head, I see no fewer than 18 first round picks), so it’s almost like a second Futures Game.

The only Yankee farmhand participating in the game is lefty reliever Mike Dunn, who we saw briefly in September. He’s surely get to face a batter or two at some point. If you’re interested in checking out the game, it’ll be on MLBN at 8pm ET.

Feel free to chat about it here, or whatever else you want to talk about. The Rangers, Devils, Islanders, Nets, and Knicks are all in action tonight, plus you’ve got more college football games than I care to list. Anything goes, just be respectful of each other.

You can check out of all my pictures here. Apologies in advance for the quality, between the gazillions of people pushing and leaning on me nonstop and my crappy camera, most of them aren’t great.

Joe, myself, and a few readers set up shop at the corner of Ann and Park, where we got a good view of people throwing stuff out of nearby buildings. Spike Lee was walking around taking pictures, and people were climbing on everything, at least until the cops got to them.

You couldn’t miss CC Sabathia, while Melky was stylin’ with his hat. Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter were on the same float (Posada in the back, Jeter in the front), but Mariano Rivera got his own float to fittingly close out the parade (he’s the one with the scarf). None of us managed to see A-Rod (apparently he was on Jay-Z’s float, and why the hell was Jay-Z part of the parade anyway?), Phil Hughes, David Robertson, or Joe Girardi, and I think we counted three different Nick Swishers and two different AJ Burnetts. From where we were, it was tough to tell the guys apart.

If you have any pictures of your own, feel free to link to them in the comments. Otherwise, use this thread to talk about whatever you want. It’s Friday, so go ahead and be as vicious as can be to each other.

As promised yesterday, today’s Open Thread is dedicated to ribbing people who made some poor comments about the Yankees this season. I’ll try to leave out the trollish comments, since that’s to be expected of a troll. That is, unless it’s too good to pass up.

To start we’ll venture off this blog and over to LoHud, where Pete Abraham was in charge. On March 25, he had this to say.

I would suggest that if the Yankees did not have Alex, they would be far more likely to win over the long term. His 24 + 1 mentality is not conducive to championship play. I realize it’s spring training, but the Yankees have looked terrific. They’re a much better team when they aren’t sitting around waiting for him to hit a home run.

I’m surely not the last one who has pointed this out. Pete’s definitely hearing it from all ends today about this.

(And don’t forget the since-removed Ian O’Connor article on why the Yankees are better off with Cody Ransom than A-Rod.)

How would the Yankees have fared this postseason without Hideki Matsui? I’m glad I don’t have to ponder that too long. But if pc69 had any say in the matter, the Yankees would have DFA’d Matsui in June.

“I know I will catch all kinds of shit for this but Matsui is done and is liability to this team. Just DFA him and pay him his money.”

Sorry, pc69, but as Matt ACTY/BDD said, that’s just monumentally stupid.

From the same thread, Andrew said, “Even if this team makes the playoffs, they are going nowhere.” Oops.

Later that month, when talking about the Yankees performance with runners in scoring position, YankeeScribe said: “The offense lacks balance. I blame Brian Cashman…” It’s chic to blame Cashman, I guess. Sorry, YankeeScribe, but this was a pretty well-balanced offensive attack.

Garry, after the Yanks lost their second game to the Nats, said, “This is not a championship team. End of story.” Glad you’re not the one writing it, bro.

The fire Kevin Long comments always make me chuckle.

Ace, you are so wrong it’s painful. “The Red Sox are a flat-out better team than the Yankees in every facet of the game.” It does get better. On June 29th, he said, “I’d rather give Shelly, who is having a monster power year in AAA, a shot at DHing than have Matsui taking up a roster spot to fail at the only job he is physically able to perform.” He also asked us to come back at the end of August and “we’ll see how your precious Matsui is faring then.” Pretty damn well, Ace. Pretty damn well.

We’ll end this with a comment from yesterday. Yes, at 11:16 a.m. on the day that the Yankees would eventually win their 27th World Series title, Virginia Yankee said, “girardi has recreated 2004.” For the commenters, this gets the biggest oaktag of the season. I still need to ban this guy, I guess, as per my promise.

This took way too long, and there are surely lots more poor comments lingering in older threads. If you want to add to this, use the search function to the right and post what you find in the comments (with links, which are the time stamp).