Critical points made by John and Suzyn in their first broadcast of 2021

1. The first game of spring training is not all-important.

2. If you study last year's numbers, you'll find a lot of really great players had terrible seasons. Really awful seasons. Really, really bad. But that doesn't mean they won't rebound in 2021. Not by a longshot! (Wink, wink, Gary...)

4.  One real tragedy of the 2020 pandemic was that young Yankee prospects - such as  Oswald Peraza, who looks really exciting! - didn't get to play. They lost an entire year of development, and it will be hard for them to make it up.

5. Spring training add-ons will not receive personalized homer-hollers. For example, Rob Brantley - who hit the first Yankee HR of 2021 - did not warrant a specialized call. ("Rob... is on the job! Oh, Brantley, he is saintly!")  But Mike Tauchman - who homered moments later - remains "Mike Tauchman... the Sock Man." And of course, the two went "back to back... and belly to belly!"

4. Suzyn will handle the exhaustive work of noting in-game replacements. In the fourth, with hordes of new players checking in, John delegated the job to his capable First Lieutenant, though he did note the appearance of the exciting Oswald Peraza at shortstop. 

6. John will not claim to be perfect. After Tauchman's blast, he mistakenly called the game a 5-5 tie, until somebody whispered that the Yankees were still a run behind. He marveled at Suzyn's incredible ability to stay on top of the replacements - noting that he had to turn over his scorecard to find room for the names. At one point, he asked how she knew about the new Blue Jay players, and she replied that she saw them running onto the field. Uncanny.

7. That youngster, Oswald Peraza, can play shortstop like "the best of them!" And he's only 20!

8. Adam Warren has been with the Yankees many times before. That said, it's always good to see him back. 

9. It's great to see real fans in the stands, rather than cardboard cutouts and fake noise. Last year, John put up with both - what was a guy to do, complain? He's not a whiner. But he never liked them. For the record: real people beat cardboard cutouts.

10. If Oswald Peraza hadn't missed last year, who knows how good he might be? That young man looks special!