OK, This Is Big News. And Sad. Big And Sad News.

Shelley Duncan To Go 0-5 Vs. Pawtucket Tonight Homered, Sorry. Coffee Helps!

So guess who else is on Twitter? Heroic, exhausted Shelley Duncan! He just spent a million years on the Scranton team bus to Pawtucket, bitching about everything! Here's a picture HE HIMSELF took TODAY:

Duncan, who is 4 for his last 39, linked to the pic in this hilarious tweet:

HA! So what else does he have to say?

God, why is everyone on Twitter such a dick?

Welcome back, Shelley!

No, not the lyric poet!

Jeez! This is a Yankees blog, right?

Poetry? Sure, Scooter's musings were powerfully poetic, enduring and evocative, but the It Is High crew welcomes our pal Shelly Duncan back to the line-up.

Spikes up, dude!

Shelley To Scranton!

Allegedly, to make room for the Attorney General, but possibly as a ringer for the Dunder Mifflin Passover Softball Tournament.

What would Shelley Duncan Do?

Shelley Duncan Had a Chance to Crush a Ray at Home Plate

And he'd didn't.

This from Chad Jennings' great Scranton blog, which tells more about the Yanks than half the NY sportswriters' do, while they suck-up and slobber.

There's recent history between the Rays and Devil Yanks. Thursday, it came to a play at home plate, when Shelley Duncan -- our most badass bad ass -- came a-thunderin' round third. For a moment, you better believe Tampa manager JoJohn Maddon figured his catcher was about to face retribution for the Rays did two weeks ago to Francisco Cerveli.

Shelley could done to the guy what the Meramec River is doing to Missouri.

Level the playing field, I believe it's called.

This is what he did, captured by photog Jason Farmer, whose spectacular sequence of shots can be seen here.


It's what Elliot Johnson, the famous death Ray, should have done two weeks ago, and what Tampa ought to admit he should have done.

In an exhibition game, you play hard. You do not spear a guy at home plate.

And if you're the manager, a day after one of your players did it (which was the case going into the Yankee game), you take your team aside and you say... guys, let's not do that.

That's all this was ever about:

The wisdom of encouraging players to smash into each other in meaningless situations.

Maddon may be a decent guy. He was wrong. Girardi was right.

And in the regular season, when Shelley comes a thunderin' round third...

Hey Tampa Bay, quit your bellyachin'

From this angle, looks like a clean slide to us!

Tino, We could use you...

Our 1B problem is starting to scare me.

What were we thinking? That refugee Juan Miranda, emboldened by the end of Fidel Castro, would suddenly learn to use a glove?

Here’s what’s happening in Grapefruit World:

Shelley Duncan is having a great spring. We love the guy. He’s hitting .333 with 3 HR. Over a whole season, he can hit 30 HR and bat .275 – but that's in a DH and RF mode. Play him 100 games at 1B? I dunno. The guy's a defensive end. That huge body has a pile of errors in it. What happens after a couple tough losses because his glove went clank? Long year. WE LOVE HIM. KEEP SHELLEY DUNCAN. But find him a safer place in the lineup.

Jason Giambi is having a decent spring. Batting .333. with 1 HR. OK, contract year. They say he's stroking them to all fields. (We've heard that before.) Still, the guy should hit. What he can't do is play 1B. We know this. Haven’t we seen this movie? How many times do the voters have to reject the school budget before you don't put it up again? We now have two (2) DH's.

Morgan Ensberg is batting .310, no home runs, five RBIs. Do we really think he can cut it? If so, he's our third 1B/OF/DH.

Nathan Lane is batting .273 with 2 HR. Same thing. How many 1B/DH can we carry?

By the way, while you're at it, add Matsui and Damon to the list.

The problem is that Brett Gardner is having the best spring of any young Yankee. This is the component we have been needing for the last four years -- the breakaway speedster who can steal a base any time we need it.

QUESTION: Who on this team plays 1B 130 games, so we don't have to carry the entire population of Utica, NY?

ANSWER: Nobody.

This is starting to look like Boston's closer-by-committee plan of 2002, back in the days when the Redsocks always did it the Haywood Sullivan way.

Except that today, we are doing it the Haywood Sullivan way.

POSTSCRIPT: Just saw the box from a minor league Scranton game Monday. The two guys that would have been considered outside shots at 1B, Eric Duncan, and Juan Miranda, never took a ball at that position. Duncan played 3B, a sign that he has cast into Purgatory. Miranda played DH. If this keeps up, we should have Tino's replacement by 2024, for President Jenna Bush.