Mussina Starts a Game, but Only for Nostalgia http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/sports/baseball/20mussina.html?_r=1&ref =baseball At the new Yankee Stadium on Sunday, the former pitcher Mike Mussina was the newest Yankee old-timer and probably the most physically fit. He started the nostalgia game, allowing hits to the first four batters. “Just more proof I should be home doing what I’m doing,” said Mussina, who is in Pennsylvania coaching Little League. When he turned serious, Mussina, 40, ruled out a comeback, even for a Yankees team in need of a fifth starter. “Nah,” he said. “I’m good with where I’m at.” Mussina finished with a record of 20-9 last season for the Yankees — the most victories in his 18-year career. Few starting pitchers have retired with flashier statistics in their final season. Sandy Koufax went 27-9 in 1966, his last year with the Los Angeles Dodgers. But some stars take a different approach, the way the former Met Pedro Martinez did by holding auditions before settling with the Phillies last week. “I saw he signed and they put him on the disabled list,” Mussina said of Martinez. “So he’s not ready to go yet. If he wants to keep pitching, he can keep pitching.” With another injury to starter Chien-Ming Wang, the Yankees will bring up the veteran Sergio Mitre from Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to start Tuesday against Baltimore. Mitre, who did not pitch last season, is coming back from reconstructive elbow surgery and a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy. When someone asked Mussina if he could come back for a partial season the way Roger Clemens did, Mussina smiled and shook his head. “There’s less than half a year left and it would take me a month, easy, to be even close to ready, and I don’t know what ready would be for me,” Mussina said. “Full speed might be 78 miles per hour.” Pitching is not the only hard part about being a major leaguer, he added. “I can still play,” Mussina said. “It’s just that there’s a lot of other stuff involved, and sometimes that stuff wears you down. All the other old- timers are older than I am. But it’s O.K. I’ll be an old-timer the rest of my life.” With a career record of 270-153, Mussina will also be a candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013. Had he pitched another year or two with a good team, he might have enhanced those statistics and strengthened his resume. “I never looked at it that way,” Mussina said. “I could have come back and been 5-15 or had an injury. When you get to be my age, you just don’t know how many more good months, let alone good years, you can put together.” Asked whether the Yankees or other teams had contacted him, Mussina replied, “Not that I’m aware of.” Mussina said his agent would have told them “I had no intention of playing.” Mussina’s 10-year-old son, Brycen, was with him and warmed up before the exhibition by playing catch with David Cone. Mussina said his son pitches and plays other positions. Among other honored guests Sunday were Mel Stottlemyre, the former pitcher, and Don Zimmer, a former Yankees coach. Zimmer was warmly applauded, as were the final three stars as they were announced: Reggie Jackson, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra. There were also cheers for the widows of Elston Howard, Catfish Hunter, Bobby Murcer and Thurman Munson. The grandstand was silent as the broadcaster Michael Kay read names of baseball people who died in the past year, including Woodie Held, George Kell and Mark Fidrych. The speaker system played recordings of Bob Sheppard saying “Welcome to Old- Timers’ Day” and of Robert Merrill singing the national anthem. Then, finally, a recording of Bruce Springsteen singing “Glory Days, well, they’ll pass you by, glory days.” Moose 我們想念你 Q Q -- 宇宙裡的微小塵埃 http://www.wretch.cc/blog/AllyDai --

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