David Wells, a reluctant retiree, made his Old Timers’ Day debut yesterday afternoon, and the media was on hand to check in with the outspoken southpaw. Both Newsday’s Arthur Staple and MLB.com’s Willie Bans caught up with Boomer, and they find him living life to the fullest after retirement. Who woulda guessed?

MLB Trade Rumors (where you can catch me every Saturday morning from 10 ’til 2) has an interesting note this morning: David Wells wants to come back to the Yankees. What’s worse, there are indications — whatever the hell that means — that Hank Steinbrenner is interested as well. Despite the Yankees troubles with starting pitching to this point, I can only hope this is a rumor started by a rogue publication just to stir up the fan base.

But stirred we will not be! Why not? Because we know the Yankees are smarter than this. Wells threw 157.1 innings last year, all for NL West teams, and finished with a 5.43 ERA. He’s 45 years old. In other words, he’s cooked. There’s no way around it. In fact, I can give you a list of pitchers within our organization that I’d rather give a shot than David Wells (in no particular order):

Kei Igawa
Jeff Karstens
Alan Horne
Brett Smith
Steven White
Jeff Marquez
Carl Pavano
Dan McCutchen
Ross Ohlendorf
Humberto Sanchez
Chase Wright
Dan Giese
Steven Jackson
Phil Coke
Jason Jones
George Kontos
Ian Nova
Michael Dunn
Zach McAllister
Ryan Pope

If every one of these pitchers failed, yeah, then I’d give Wells a call.

Portrait of Wells from Frank Galasso.