SHOCK: Phil Mushnick UNLEASHES on CC Sabathia's Yankees Legacy | Is This PURE INSULT?

You ever get told when you're a younger child that there's no wrong opinions.

There's just disagreements in ways people feel, um, there are wrong opinions.

I'm here to tell you in my adult life that, that, that,

that fable that I was told as a child never became true.

There are wrong opinions.

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We have some news from around the league, including an injury to Raphael Devers,

Derek Cole's best friend.

We have things to talk about regarding the Yankees performances during spring

training, specifically Will Warren, who is doing pretty well.

But first, you know, I feel like every season, at least twice a season,

something happens with this particular person that we're going to be talking

about in segment one.

Brian, tell everyone what we're going to discuss.

You ever get told when you're a younger child that there's no wrong opinions.

There's just disagreements in ways people feel there are wrong opinions.

I'm here to tell you in my adult life that that that that

fable that I was told as a child never became true.

There are wrong opinions and Phil Mushnick of the New York Post more often than

not has very, very wrong opinions.

As it was announced last week, and we discussed the Yankees announced they were

retiring.

Ceci's about the is number 52.

Let me just remind you about who Ceci's about the is.

He's one of the greatest left handed pitchers of all time.

That's not hyperbole.

He's a first ballot, all of favor.

He struck out more than 3,000 guys in his career.

He's one of the wins leaders for the 2000s.

He carried the Yankees in part to a world series in 2009, and he was there

not named, but de facto team captain team leader and one of the most respected

Yankees of the of the decade of the 2010s.

He's a very deserving retired number, a very deserving addition to having his

number retired by the New York Yankees.

And Phil Mushnick decided to put a column out on Sunday's New York Post,

basically tearing down Ceci's about the and saying that Yankees are cheap

and they're cheesy and they don't need to keep putting players into

monument park.

Here's the things they say.

And I want to get your opinion on this because you watch all of Ceci's

career like I did.

I love Ceci's about the I'm a huge about the offend.

And when you watch his career, when you saw everything about his career

from from before he was even a Yankee to the run that he took the Milwaukee

brewers on to getting them into the postseason pitching every third day to the

Yankees literally going into an offseason when they need to fix their culture

while opening a new stadium after a bed 2008 where they missed the postseason.

They signed one player.

Now they had a big off season, but they signed one guy that they really wanted

to fix the culture of the franchise.

And he was that guy who gets brought in wins an ALCS MVP helps them

in the world series.

Just in an all time team may all time guy, anybody associated with the

New York Yankees franchise doesn't have a bad thing to say about Ceci's about

yeah, everybody loves this guy, except apparently Phil Mushnick who decided

to tear him down in a New York post article, absolutely ridiculous.

Here's the things they see when you're a team like the New York Yankees

who has 27 world championships, that's more titles than any team in team

sports in history across the US, Europe, Asia, name it.

You're going to have a lot of retired numbers.

You're going to have a lot of guys that are that are, you know, honored in

their past because that's how team sports work when you win a lot.

When you win a lot, you have a lot of retired jerseys and a lot of retired

numbers because you have a lot of a lot of engineering players that helped

you win those games.

Ceci's about the is one of those players.

So I hate that this slug of a reporter, Phil Mushnick or or or, you know,

painted whatever you want to call him.

The fact that he goes on there and they buy that you decide a tear down is

I mean, for people of my generation who like we're younger to the 2010s,

Ceci's one of my favorite Yankees ever.

He's one of all of our favorite Yankees ever.

So the fact that this, you know, waste of a reporter is out there writing a

column tearing down one of the most beloved Yankees in the last 20 years.

Get lost then.

This is not the guy to go after.

Yeah.

No, it's it's absolutely ridiculous for all the reasons that you mentioned.

Ceci was one of the best players in a period of time where everything started

off really well, they won the championship right away.

And then things kind of petered out a bit and there were some ups and downs.

But he came in to the Yankees, like you said, change the culture.

So much that guys that you normally wouldn't expect to be laid back,

became laid back because of Ceci's sabathea and he really did change everything

for the Yankees and now things are a lot different here in the 2020s.

And he had a big part in why things have changed so much for the Yankees.

They're not so stuffy.

They're not so business like I'm sure he would have loved for the beard policy

to go away when he was playing with them and you know, he missed that.

But I just don't understand what Phil Mushnik is doing.

I mean, I do because he's a curmudgeon and he likes writing articles like this.

But to go after someone like Ceci, ridiculous.

How dare you?

Here's one of the quotes in the article.

Everything about Yankees stadium except the ticket prices, the cost of parking

and eats and drinks seems to be done on the cheap and cheesy.

I again, you know, this is coming from again, a franchise that just built a $1 billion stadium,

you know, 20 years ago to in the Bronx, whatever, not even to include that in the whole thing.

To call, I mean, can we stop with calling it cheap and cheesy?

Again, this is a first ballot hall of fame.

Right.

And I'll give you the perfect comp because I've heard this a lot too.

A player that the Yankees as a franchise love and Yankees fans have an attachment to

that I would actually be aggravated if you got his number retired.

Brett Gardner, Brett Gardner played his entire career in New York.

Brett Gardner was a gamer, was a sliding to head first kind of player, right?

And gave up, gave up a lot of Yankees.

He was a true and true Yankee, great for the clubhouse, really good player.

He's not a monument park guy.

He's not.

He's a fan favorite that fans really liked for a while.

I was with the team for a long time, not a monument park guy.

And I would say that would be cheap and cheesy if they put Brett Gardner in the,

in the monument park.

It absolutely would be Ceci's about.

It is a first ballot Hall of Famer.

He's recognized across the whole league in baseball history.

And I'm not, I'm not, you know, saying this in particular,

but like there's also a lot of reference to this too.

Ceci's about to is one of the greatest African American players in the history of

baseball too.

Like that needs to be mentioned too.

When you talk about all the pitchers in the history, like Ceci is a,

a historian of the game when you hear him talk about the history of the game,

he feels honored to be as one of the, you know,

black aces that are out there.

He feels honored like that.

So to not even address that in the fact that this guy's career,

it's insane.

This is one of the greatest left handed pitchers in the history of baseball.

He has more than 3000 strikeouts in his career.

That's what bothers me about the whole thing.

It's so unnecessary.

Here's another quote that will really bother you because this one,

this one's the one that actually bothered me more than anything.

He was further known as a slob who spoke of all guarantees as a matter

of discourse while growing too heavy to field his position.

Imagine writing that about a player who's that beloved in New York City.

And that's why I came out with the comments.

And this is a pathetic opinion in peace by a pathetic man who decided to release

this on a player who, by the way, Ceci is about the address to this many times

about his weight because he,

he's not some guy that didn't acknowledge that he was overweight.

He came into camp one year down weight and was pitching with lower velocity.

That's when he came out with the great quote where mass equals gas

because he literally said when he was heavier, he was better.

So he put the weight back on and kept it off.

And by the way, if you guys haven't realized, go on social media,

go on Google, go anywhere and type in Ceci's about these weight loss

and take a look at what Ceci's about.

It looks like now if you haven't realized if you want to make fun of a guy

for being overweight that after his career took the weight off.

And he's in, I mean, fan artistic shape right now.

Like, where are the guys going to be opposite way, right?

Where the other guys who were in shape while they were playing,

I have now blown up.

And when you see them, you're like, whoa, where Ceci's gone the opposite way.

He's jacked at his mind.

He looks fantastic right now.

By the way, I'll name a guy that Ceci looks way better than right now

with the shirt off.

Phil Mushnick, Ceci looks way better than you, Phil Mushnick.

So again, this is not a guy that deserves to be attacked.

This is a future hollow famer.

One of the greatest African American players and one of the greatest

African competitors in the history of baseball.

Here's the thing, the whole he was known.

He was further known as a slob who spoke vulgarities as a matter of discourse.

When in the clubhouse, who cares what a guy says in the clubhouse?

Like, it wasn't like Ceci came out after every game and was cursing left and

right to reporters.

He wasn't doing that.

What is he talking about now?

And the one big moment that you have in his career where he's cursing on the field

and the motion is a is a is a moment what one of the most biggest team mate

moments ever at the end of the season against the raise where he intentionally

hit a guy and didn't get himself of half a million dollar.

That's what he's talking.

That's the goal.

Exactly.

That's the thing that you're upset about.

Whereas most people in sticking up for his teammate, Phil Bingo, Bingo.

Most people in team sports like as a Yankee fan, I'm honored to support a

player that sticks up for his teammates like that.

We saw all the time.

I'm gonna take a problem with it.

We saw it all the time.

We talked about you're already going nuts when a rod got hit by Ryan Debs.

I was trying to get it.

Ryan Demster was trying to hit him.

Ceci was going just his nuts.

That same game.

He was always the first one out of the dugout to go after people.

He never really went after people.

But, you know, he basically was a big presence coming out of the dugout and

letting the other teams know like, no, if you're going to mess with him, I'm going

to mess with you.

I mean, this is the guy too that like, by the way, like post career has been

completely is stayed in the New York area.

Yes, he never left his wife, Amber Spatia is very involved in the community.

Like they use their platform for good as well.

It's there is, what do you do?

Hard, yeah, writing awful articles about people and being a

emergent.

Do you do anything for the community?

Pathetic, like going after a guy like, and here's the last thing too, Ceci.

The Yankees, I'm not going to sit here and defend every player.

The Yankees have put in a uniform before.

We haven't done that and certainly when there are players, I mean, name one

recently, or all this Chapman, we've killed players for bad things that come

out publicly.

We do not sit here and wear the paint stripe glasses for anyone that's wearing

that uniform.

We are not like that.

But I'll tell you this, if there's one guy that absolutely deserves all

the defense in the world, it's Ceci's about the, for being a good guy.

There's a lot of bad guys that have played in Yankees uniforms before.

Ceci is not one of those guys.

So, you know, pathetic article, pathetic publication, pathetic reason to put

this out publicly, you're a loser for thinking that this is a piece that anybody

is going to stand behind, behind yourself.

Right.

All right.

Well, coming up next, Will Warren is having himself quite a spring training.

We're going to talk about that.

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Looking forward to that getting started soon.

So stay see as we head through spring training, I do want to mention this before

we talk about the real important stuff in this game.

Yankees won their game against the Phillies five to three.

I'm going to say this beforehand.

Nobody of any significance at the major league level did anything in this game

when it comes to one production.

So if you don't hear us telling you who homer who did what and drove and what runs.

It's because literally nobody that matters and the major league.

Brighton's not a homer to fit a Phillies.

There you go.

That's it.

No one else did anything remotely important in this game.

So we're going to talk about the big time Yankees players that actually went up

having good moments in this game.

And one of them winds up being will warrant who once again came out this spring

and really pitched well.

And now it's becoming a narrative of how good will Warren's been this spring.

Stacey this game against the Phillies goes three and two thirds one hitball.

No earned no walks three strikeouts.

His ERA is now down to one four two in the spring.

That's a really positive sign for a guy who's

had his ups and downs and struggled throughout his covers couple of years.

But I think overall the Yankees see a lot of potential in him.

They really like his arm.

They really like his stuff.

And you've seen it at the major league level.

There's some starts that like Will Warren is the very prototypical mid August.

Like did he just go eight innings of two hitball?

And he has that kind of stuff.

It's kind of just about putting it together consistently for Will Warren.

And this is a really positive sign.

One of the underlying top stories coming out of the spring so far.

Yeah, because you said what I was going to say.

He's one of those guys where he can have an outing where he only goes three innings,

gives up like five hits, three runs and you're just like, what happened here?

And then he can have an outing where he goes five innings, doesn't give up a run.

Strikes out eight people.

He's mowing people down and you're thinking, where did this come from?

And he did it a couple of times last year where there were a concept.

It was a consecutive like five start stretch where he was just awesome for them.

And then he just, you know, falls off and has a two ining eight run performance.

And it's like, yeah, where is it?

So it's, it is a typical young pitcher who's just trying to figure things out

and stay consistent throughout the entire year.

But this is a really positive sign, especially because they're going to need a guy like this

for the first month of the season while Colin Rodon.

I also want to mention this too.

Guys like this, these depth starters that you kind of need all over your roster.

This is him coming out of the season and pitching terribly.

Inherently puts more pressure on Colin Rodon to get back to where possibly it just does.

And if he's out there pitching, like I'm of the mindset, don't get me wrong.

I want to see Derek whole pitch as soon as possible.

I can't wait to watch him throw again for the betterment of the team.

I'm okay with Gary Cole not coming back till mid May or June.

Take your time.

Get your armor destroyed.

I don't need to see you in April.

I just, we don't, again, can't wait to watch Gary Cole.

But for the betterment of the New York Yankees, he doesn't need to be on a mound anytime soon

or on a mound at a major league game any time soon.

Right.

So, you know, we'll warn, but if we'll warn comes out and throws to a five ERA in the first three starts,

that's going to put Park fresher on Gary Cole to get his butt back to the Bronx.

Whereas if we'll warn pitches this well and is effective,

Gary Cole can feel like he's at all the time in the world to get back and take his time

and get up to strength and really be fully 100% until he returns.

I don't think the Yankees are going to push Gary Cole anyway.

Did he get my point?

So I, you know, this is really beneficial to me.

Him coming out in the spring, this well, this is a really, really, really good side so far.

Yes.

Yes.

I, I would, I was hoping that maybe this would be the season that he puts things together.

He doesn't need to pitch to a one for two ERA either.

You know what I mean?

Like he doesn't need to do what he's doing right now in spring training,

but I would like for him to be consistent.

You know, having a blow up start every once in a while, everyone has one.

Even the best pitchers in baseball have them.

I just want him to be more consistent and the thing is,

no one expects Will Warren to be the number one on the staff at all.

You know, so he doesn't even have that pressure on him.

Just be serviceable enough to be a four or five when they need you

until these guys come back and maybe even fight your way into the five spot

over people who were there.

Yeah.

And again, I think there's a chance that he could be the five start of this year.

There is, especially you haven't seen, you know, it hasn't been bad.

But you haven't seen earth shattering stuff out of Louise heels so far.

You don't know what you're going to get from Clark Schmidt.

So, I mean, there's plenty of potential for Will Warren to get himself some meaningful starts this year.

And so, and he could serve a big spot on this team.

So, yeah, I mean, with how he's looked in the spring so far,

I think he's been the most positive pitching story, you know, other than what LeGronne has done so far

with the attention of one.

I was just going to bring him up because he pitched on Saturday, right?

Yeah.

And he was getting the twins guys were like, wow, this guy is, this guy's amazing.

Yeah, it almost kind of feels like the reports on where he gets ranked in prospect battles and stuff

could be potentially wrong, right?

Like his stock has grown so much now in the last month or two.

It's just, it's crazy how much people are talking about him.

It's, I mean, you know, over the weekend, again, the Yankees pitch really well over the weekend too,

but he kind of gets lost in this how good they've been and how good he's been.

Yeah, it's, it really can be very interesting.

And I think there's a chance, I mean, people aren't saying it outwardly.

I really think there's a good chance you're going to see him in a majorly level this year.

Yeah.

And the other thing was Meredith interviewed him and I forgot how big he was.

And when I saw him next to her, because Meredith is tall, she makes Chase and Dominguez look like he's five foot two.

And Carlos LeGronne made Meredith look like she was five foot two.

I could, I, I, for a moment, I thought, wow, he is huge.

And then I remembered the conversation we had about how tall he was.

I was like, Oh, yes, that's right.

He is.

Well, that makes the delivery kind of hard to pick up to people have mentioned like it's funky,

because he's coming in.

It's such a weird angle.

Yeah, let's go over.

So Saturday's star was against the blue jays.

They won five one, but the pitching is a story here.

Um, Paul Blackburn goes four innings of four hitball, no earns, also really good.

Bednar goes out there and inning nothing happening against Bednar.

Fernando Cruz looked really good for inning.

I'll give up one hit.

He walked two batters, but he looked really good.

Tim Hill looks good.

Jake Bird looked good.

They literally threw all their big bullpen arms and all of them looked awesome.

Yeah, he's only got one run in the game.

And it was, um, the final, you know, it was late in the game.

So good job out of this game Friday.

Maybe the twins game was Friday.

Is that what I was thinking of?

Yeah.

And well, no, they, they play the twins on Friday that's again, they put up 17 runs and they played really well in that game.

And in that game, you did see LeGronne.

Hey, you all saw Louise Heel.

Louise Heel started that game and then the Yankees threw a bunch of nothing in the middle.

Um, Louise Heel went two and a third with two hits, one earned and one strikeout.

So looked, okay, but not earth shattering.

And LeGronne comes in three innings, one hit, no earned four strikeouts.

And LeGronne hates the R8 out in the spring is one five nine.

Yeah.

So it's not the side in that game, which was what got the twins commentators to be like, wow, look at what this guy is doing.

Yeah, he's, he's so far as advertised.

Also honorable mention.

I had a great game on offense and that game was Jason Dominguez.

He homer than the fifth inning.

He also had a big walk earlier on in that game to drive and run.

Uh, he's had a decent spring so far, heading over 300, too.

So there are some good storylines coming out.

And again, these younger players are going to get more playing time in spring training than normally would because of, you know, the world

baseball classic.

So it's something to look out for.

And again, LeGronne, hey, coming into these, these spots and, you know, now going three innings of four

like for it, like he's pitching and meaningful spots with a low ERA.

This kid's getting better and better and it's more and more of a talking point as we go on through the spring.

Yep.

All right.

Well, coming up news from around the league, including Rafael Devers having an injury.

Will that affect the opening weekend Yankees giants?

Remember Yankees giants on Netflix coming up in just a few weeks.

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Stacy, it's time for everyone's favorite segment of the week unless you're a fan of our other segments news from around the league.

Well, the cardinals extended Oliver Marmel for two years.

There's a club option for two thousand twenty nine on this now.

I want to say as a preface, I actually love this move because we seem more often and not in all of

sports, not just baseball, a run office tears down a roster puts no talent on the field or court or ice and then gets

med at the coach for the team not winning and then fires him never understood that.

So Oliver Marmel was three twenty five and three twenty three and his first four years as a manager in St. Louis.

I want to applaud them for keeping him extending him liking what they have in that part of their team as they go with him through this rebuild.

I always feel bad for the managers who get fired when it's clearly an ownership issue because of what they've done with the team ownership GM.

But you know, they're always the fall guy and the fact that they did this, like you said, is actually refreshing.

Yeah, and you know what, as despite them probably heading towards a really poor season, the cardinals seem to always do the right thing as a franchise.

They are one of the best run franchises and sports and if there's a team in baseball that's projected to have a down year that you could expect to be good

relatively, you know, quicker than expected, I think it will be the cardinals and I wouldn't have a problem betting on that at all.

Dylan Seas debuted for the blue Jason spring gave up a run with three strikeouts, but looked pretty good the other day.

Here's a, you know, I wanted to say it's a brutal one because of the name, but for the team, but that that that's missing this player.

It's not brutal because it's going to replace him with someone else and they'll be perfectly fine.

Dodgers announced that Blake smell will not be ready for opening day.

He is recovering still from the shoulder injury that he suffered last year that lingered throughout the entire year.

But he came back me 11 starts in the year, but really was never, he was good, but never the dominant Blake smell that he normally is was really solid on the post season.

But for them, it's all about October. So what does he care if he misses the first two months of the year, sounds good. They're all for it.

And like Stacy just said, he's the number five starter. They'll just plug someone else and it'll be fine. Let me repeat that real quick. He's their number five starter Blake smell.

Blake smell is a number five.

Behind glass now, Otani, I'm a moto. Yeah, it's ridiculous. How about this?

Rafael Devers was pulled from his spring game with the Giants due to a hamstring injury.

We'll see what winds up coming of this and how long he's now. I do know this though.

Teams are very, very, very peculiar and protective over hamstring injuries.

They're so weird because it just appears and it barks up. Yeah, or you can injure something else while you're coming back from your hamstring injury nursing the hamstring.

So you screw something else up because that's happened so many times to different players.

So you got to be really, really careful with hamstrings and this early on in the season, we've talked about it a million times, but it's a marathon on a sprint and baseball more than any other sport.

And not rush a guy back who's a great power. They're like this from a hamstring injury.

No, let it play out. It's going to be okay. So that's a, that's an annoying one for the Giants. And you know what?

I do like seeing the best players in the field against the Yankees. So like not seeing Devers kind of does, you know, a little bit stink, but also he kills the Yankees historically.

So really when call pitches.

And he won't be there for open opening series. So I guess they'll be fine.

Yeah. Yeah. How about this?

Tsutsuya Amai debuted for the Astros in a spring game.

10 pitches into his, I guess pitching in the United States career or I don't want to call his major league career because it's not, it's not started yet.

But 10 pitches in, he gets drilled by a comeback or in the leg.

Now good news is he did stay in the game. So he, he tucked it out and stayed in the game.

But that's a brutal welcome to the major league kind of moment for him. No.

I was at the game when Andy Pettit was pitching for the Yankees after like a long layover or layoff and he came back.

And he got hit with a Casey Koshman comebacker and broke his leg.

Not fun.

No, not fun at all. I mean, you know, Andy Pettit was a lot older than in my ears, but still you don't want to see a comebacker.

No, not that quick.

Not 10 pitches. That's like a sense of nightmare. That's it. Like you know.

That when that happened for those first few seconds that he got hit everyone in the Astros organization.

Guest so loud, you could probably hear them in Antarctica. Like, yeah, it's like.

And then he stayed in the game. So he was fine. But yeah, that that poor organization, you got to feel for them.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

But I will say it does feel like at least from this is something I've noticed so far in spring training this year.

Major league teams are kind of starting to publicly acknowledge at this point that spring training might just be a little too long.

And we're finally kind of acknowledging like you're seeing a lot of guys now debut like into March and like later into February.

The first two weeks, they're just not playing these guys because it's just not worth it.

I've said this for a while. You don't need a month and a half of baseball games.

And you don't need.

It's spring training like we talk about this all the time. If you're in every day or if you've been listening to us for years.

You've been listening to me for years with other people. We all talk about this all the time.

Spring training is not like it was even 20 years ago.

These guys start their baseball programs like as soon as the World Series ends if they're a team that's been eliminated early.

And if they're a team that has made it to the World Series played in the World Series.

They start within weeks of that even happening.

So these guys are in shape when they come to spring training.

They're not showing up, you know, 20 pounds overweight, hoping to lose it for spring training.

Like these guys train basically year round. They don't need even a lot of.

I know that the excuse to used to be all you need to pitchers there earlier because they need to like ramp up.

And then it's going to be a lot of these guys pitch year round.

They throw bullpens and they're like they're not they're not a major league regimen.

But they're throwing bullpens in December and January and local bullpen facilities in their home town waiting to start anything in spring training.

They've already started maybe even a month before you're supposed to report.

No one puts the glove down in their garage and picks it back up in March or February.

That's no play or works at that. So I don't I don't understand that it's not necessary.

I'm I'm full on us with you guys on the show.

Like I watch all 162. I'm as big of a baseball fan as you'll find spring training loses me.

I just I have a hard time finding keeping interest in it.

Again, I check the box scores every day, but I'm sorry.

Like if I have plans to go out when there's a game on I'm DVRing it and I'm making sure that I see every single play spring training.

I'm not hesitating to I'm going to check the box score.

I'm not hesitating to miss a spring training.

And the spring training box scores are a lot of fun with all the substitutions that happen in later innings and the box score is like, you know, 50 names long.

Yeah, or the or the pitchers that you're like, who?

Who are these game you've never heard of this guy? He's got 40 60 array in spring.

It's like, yeah, it's yeah, it's just it's too long and it's it's so and also, by the way, they play like every day.

Yeah.

Like they're traveling so much.

I know it's the seat of Florida, but it's not that we see everything every day because it's not.

Yeah, but like they're traveling every day.

They're back and forth. They're playing all the time.

Like they don't need a game every day and they can play once or twice a week and be fine.

It's it's it's yeah, maybe that maybe that you get fixed in the CB.

I don't think they'll address it. Maybe they should fix that.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know how that would work.

They have too many issues to work with this time.

Maybe it's maybe the next go round.

They'll just fill a figure out how to make spring training not so long.

We'll see.

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So that'll do it for this edition of locked on Yankees.

I'm Stacy Gotsellius.

I'm Brian McKin will catch you guys tomorrow.