New York Yankees star third baseman Alex Rodriguez had an injury-filled 2011 season in pinstripes which ended with him under-performing in the playoffs, batting a mere .211 in the post-season.

In hopes of speeding up his recovery and bouncing back to the level fans have grown accustomed to, “A Rod” has traveled to Germany for experimental medical treatment on his knee. The procedure is called Orthokine and basically involves removing blood, spinning it in a centrifuge and then injecting the blood into the injured area.

The theory is that the influx of blood to the area reduces irritation and pain in the area, which is what would hinder an athlete’s performance. Kobe Bryant is believed to be the one who recommended this treatment to A Rod, having undergone Orthokine treatment himself.

Yankees fans probably don’t really care what A Rod does, just as long as he returns to being the productive hitter he’s been throughout his career and earns his massive salary.

The New York Yankees open spring training camp soon enough, their first game is scheduled for March 2nd. The hope is that A Rod will be well on his way to recovery by then and be ready to start the season fresh and strong.

The New York Yankees home opener for the 2012 season will be held at 1:05pm on April 13 vs the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Find New York Yankees tickets for the home opener, spring training and the whole season (both home games and road games) at SelectATicket.com.

On Saturday night the New York Yankees pulled off an 8-3 win over the Kansas City Royals with a little help from Alex Rodriguez and the three homers he hit during the game.

Rodriguez is a master at home runs, as this was the 56th game where he was able to hit more than one homers in his 16-year career. This was the fourth time in his career that he was able to hit three homers in one game. With his four homers, he drove in five runs for the Yankees. That helped Rodriguez take over the RBI lead of the MLB with 97.

The home runs by A-Rod all traveled over 400 feet, and were picked on on by three different pitchers. In the sixth inning Rodriguez hit a home run, then in the seventh he hit a two-run shot. Then finally in the ninth inning of the game, A-Rod hit a two-run drive into left field that landed in the water fountains.

This season Alex Rodriguez has hit 21 home runs, and a total of 604 throughout his entire MLB career.

The New York Yankees will travel to Kansas City to play the Royals for their next game on Sunday, August 15, 2010.

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C.C. Sabathia guided the New York Yankees to a 7-2 victory against the Oakland Athletics Tuesday night at the Oakland Coliseum.

During the first two innings of Tuesday’s game it looked like the New York Yankees were headed toward their third straight loss. Luckily, Sabathia limited the Oakland Athletics to only two home runs before shutting them down, allowing the Oakland Athletics to only three hits and no runs over the final seven innings.

“I always want these guys to swing early in the count so I can go deeper in the game.” Sabathia said. “When they scored the two in the first two innings, I was just trying to keep it right there and let these guys come up to have a big inning. They did.” They certainly did, The New York Yankees took the lead in the sixth inning scoring a total of five runs, making the score of the ball game 7-2.

Tonight the New York Yankees will try to do it all over again when they play the Oakland Athletics for a final time in this series before squaring up against the Boston Red Sox on Friday.

Get yourself some New York Yankees tickets and see Sabathia lead the team to another victory.

Let’s face it – anyone familiar with the World Baseball Classic knows that the first round pools are set up so that the best teams have the best chance to move on. No one wants to see Japan vs. USA in round one so you get your power house teams, such as the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in the same pool as a couple of push-overs like Panama and the Netherlands. The pool was set up to make sure that WBC powerhouses (DR and PR) were in the best position to move on – only thing is: someone forgot to tell that to the Netherlands.

In game one of Pool D action, the Netherlands jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning and never looked back as they finished with three runs on three hits while Dominican Republic had two runs on eight hits. New York Yankees star, Sydney Ponson got the win with four innings of work, despite giving up both runs to the DR.

Next up for the Netherlands is Puerto Rico. A win there would all but guarantee them a second round berth. Stay tuned.

Many people know Joe Girardi as an All-Star Major League catcher, or a former MLB Manager of the year, but Girardi also fancies himself as bit of a pool shark… and on Monday, the Yankees skipper called off a team meeting and organized an impromptu field trip in order to share his “other” favorite past time with his team.

Girardi loaded up the Yankees and hauled them over to a local pool hall for a pool tournament in an effort to “build relationships”, and have a little fun as well, I’m sure. “I’ve never been on a team that’s done something like this before, but I often wondered why,” Girardi told MLB.com. “There’s a lot of other sports that do these types of things. We can get away from the park and enjoy each other off the field and get to know each other.”

As the “tournament” progressed, it was Mariano Rivera who came out on top, winning twice – once with Phil Coke, and again with Andy Pettitte. In the final game of the second tournament, he and Pettitte knocked off Nick Swisher and Hideki Matsui to clinch the eight ball recreational tournament.

New York Yankees fans surely hope that Girardi’s team building strategies will get them back on track this year and into the playoffs. Time will tell.

This week’s list of hot events on SelectATicket.com features some new additions to the list and some return visits from former top 5 events.

1. AC/DC Tickets
2. All My Sons
3. New York Yankees
4. Phantom of the Opera
5. New Jersey Devils tickets

With the new AC/DC tour and the closing of Yankee Stadium it is no shock to see those two make the top five.

And it is good to see the return of hockey season has not gone unnoticed as New Jersey Devils tickets are getting a lot of action on SelectATicket.com.

Come back again next week to see what makes the top five events!

Joe Girardi tends to be one of the more positive managers. He likes to see the silver lining on bad performances. But there was no silver lining to the Yankees overwhelming loss to the Pittsburg Pirates on Tuesday night. His response was without equivocation—“We stunk!” This loss was then matched by an equally great performance Wednesday by the same team and Joba Chamberlain on the mound.

Tuesday’s loss was their third loss in four games. All of those teams, I might add, have losing records. Hitless Alex Rodriguez, when being interviewed about the game, felt that Girardi’s expression of disgust was unnecessary. But being a leader is about stating the reality, and the reality is that the Yankees grossly underperformed Tuesday. They missed multiple chances for victory.

Wednesday’s win shows the Yankees in all of their promise and capacity. They won 10-0. Chamberlain proved Girardi’s decision to move him to starter. Girardi is quoted in the Daily News as saying:

“Joba has the ability to pitch games like this; that’s the kind of stuff he has. When you lose three out of four, you want to get back on the right track. Joba was up to the task.”

It’s hard to know who Yankees fans are going to see from one night to the next. Are they going to see a powerful winning team, or a team that throws all of it’s opportunity down the toilet?

As far as I know, there isn’t a tradition for baseball players to give a gift to their team on their birthday. I don’t even believe it’s a Japanese tradition. But in the case of Hideki Matsui, his 34th birthday was last night and he delivered a big gift to his Yankees team.

The bases were loaded in the sixth inning. Derek Jeter got himself on base with an infield hit. Blanton then walked Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez. There were zero outs. It was the perfect opportunity for a home run, which Matsui turned into a grand slam.

Just hours earlier, the Japanese media, which has a tradition of giving gifts, brought Matsui a large strawberry shortcake birthday gift. He graciously accepted the gift, blowing out the candles, but declined eating a peace of the cake with his game coming up. Talk about focus.

But that focus paid off with a gift of his own to a team very much in need of a win over the Oakland A’s. Andy Pettitte also contributed with a strong performance, allowing one run and five hits in eight innings. It’s his sixth win this season.

When all is said and done, I don’t think that a birthday had anything to do with the win. Matsui simply got a great opportunity to do something great, and he delivered.

Let’s hope for more great moments this season. To make sure that you don’t miss these great games you’ll want to buy your Yankees tickets online here.

Mike Mussina gave a great performance last night. And his team still managed to lose. It’s the heartbreaking reality that every fine pitcher must face. You can give it all you got and your team can still let you down.

For Mussina, the 39-year-old veteran starter, it meant giving 8 innings of superb performance. It meant only giving up 2 runs in that entire time. And it meant watching Mariano Rivera give up a ninth-inning home run handing the Kansas City Royals the win.

And I do mean handing it to them. The Royals are the third worst team in the league. The Yankees should have had this home game locked up.

If the Yankees had won, it would have given Mussina his tenth straight win. Joe Girardi is quoted in the New York Post as saying:

“(He was) great again. He threw the ball outstanding. It would’ve been nice to get his 10th win, but it wasn’t meant to be. Moose was so good. He went back out and did a nice job in the eighth. Two runs in eight innings, usually that’s going to win a game. It just didn’t.”

All of those fans who purchased New York Yankees tickets to watch the game in 94 degrees expected more from their middling team. It’s summer and time is ticking. Let’s hope that the Yankees can rebound with some last minute achievement in what’s turning out to be a disappointing season.

Joe Girardi says that he doesn’t mind Johnny Damon criticizing his decision to move Joba Chamberlain to the starter position. That’s a nice response for the media but I can’t imagine that any leader appreciating public displays of disagreement. Everyone knows that differences occur in every organization, but you always want to communicate an attitude of solidarity to the media, to your opponents, and to your ticket buying fans.

The problem that Damon has when he shoots his mouth like this is that he opens himself up for the exact same public discrimination. If Girardi is at all displeased with Damon’s recent play, he should make it well known. It’s fine to talk smack, but you better be ready to take it when it comes back to you.

The argument that Damon makes is that the Yankees are losing games by not having a strong pitcher like Chamberlain in the bullpen. Giardi vehemently disagrees.

In the Daily News, Girardi is quoted as saying:

“I want to know the games that we’ve sacrificed by doing what we did . . . It doesn’t always work that way.”

Damon is then quoted as saying:

“Yeah, we could have used (Chamberlain) on the last road trip. No doubt about it. Would we have won those games? Maybe. Maybe not.”

So Alex Rodriguez is back. All goodness should return to the Yankee universe, right? Well, this was not the case in a 12-2 massacre by the Baltimore Orioles.

A-Rod did hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning. But that doesn’t match 12 runs scored by the other team. Yes, it’s great to have a star hitter like Rodriguez, but when all else stinks, there’s not a whole lot the guy can do.

Baseball is perhaps one of the most team centered sports. You can’t rely on a Michael Jordon night after night to bring home the wins. Even ace pitchers play every five games or so. Baseball requires depth, and perhaps this is where the Yankees are falling short.

Filip Bondy of the Daily News proclaimed:

“Lousy pitching…questionable hustle…bad karma …a hopeless, early deficit. Robinson Cano failed to cover second base on what should have been a fielder’s choice and third out . . . Mike Mussina blew apart like so many Yankee starters this season, only worse . . . Another distressing error from Johnny Damon followed in the second, [bringing] another two unearned runs.”

What’s a team to do? I do think we need to give manager Joe Girardi some time to make this team his own, but I do think the responsibility falls on him. And the expectations are huge. New York Yankee ticket buying fans expect a winning team, and 20-25 doesn’t cut it.

This was not a day that Roger Clemens was looking forward to. No one wants to have to defend the honor of their name on Capital Hill. But that was where he sat, facing allegations from his former trainer, Brian McNamee, that he used performance enhancing drugs in an attempt to enhance his incredible career.

Their seating placement was slightly awkward. They sat one seat apart, with only the lawyer, Charlie Scheeler, between them.

Clemens asserted:

“I have never used steroids, human growth hormone or any other type of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I think these types of drugs should play no role in athletics at any level, and I fully support Sen. Mitchell’s conclusions that steroids have no place in baseball.”

This stood in stark contrast to McNamee’s testimony that he did inject Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone.

All in all, it was a sad but necessary day for baseball. Hopefully it will bring about the truth regarding Mr. Clemens, whatever it may be. Hopefully the full investigation by Congress will bring to light the bigger truth, that the use of these substances is rampant and out of control in professional baseball. Hopefully new regulations will be put in place to keep the game clean. Hopefully we can return to more positive issues with the sport.

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