Never boring in Yankeeland

And it's not even February yet! The good news is the Yankees came to terms with Andy Pettitte on a one-year deal with incentives, which made too much sense. Even though this likely means more service time in Triple-A for Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, et. all, it's not such a bad thing.

The bad news is the firestorm caused by excerpts from Joe Torre's new book, “The Yankee Years.” My encounters with Torre as Yankees manager in 1997-98 and 2003-07 were nothing but positive. He never struck me as the vindictive type, which is why I was shocked to read some of the swings he took at the Steinbrenners, Alex Rodriguez and Brian Cashman.

These attacks at Torre's character are premature. The book must be read in full to make a fair judgment, but the fact remains that his name is on the cover and he authorized every passage from start to finish. Expect this to be the lead story once camps open for the Yankees and Dodgers in three weeks.

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Shameless plug No. 1: I have a feature on Anthony Johnson appearing in FIGHT! Magazine,,one of the top MMA publications in the business, in either the March, April or May. “Rumble” is one of the exciting and rising young stars in the UFC whose compiled his first two UFC wins in a combined 64 seconds, but too little people are talking about him. His next bout is against the rugged Luigi Fioravanti February 7 in Tampa.

Shameless plug No. 2: I'll be live and in studio Friday night on the “Sirius Fight Club” (Sirius Channel 127) talking Georges St. Pierre-B.J. Penn and other topics with hosts Randy Gordon and Chris Thomas beginning around 6 p.m. Randy is the former head of the New York State Athletic Commission and Chris is an MMA insider with connections everywhere in the industry.