What a difference a year makes. Last season, Carl "The American Idle" Pavano took the hill on Opening Day for the Yankees, and it was a microcosm of sorts for the Yankees' season.
This year, erstwhile ace Chien-Ming Wang gets the nod, and all looks to be right in Yankee Universe. Happy Jack Chesbro and Whitey Ford, Red Ruffing, Lefty Gomez, David Cone, all have started the year for the Bombers, more often than not in the correct fashion. Again in a microcosm, our lads overcame the presence of Pavano to ultimately prevail.
Maybe there IS no stopper as I write this, but looking back through Yankees history, just how many totally dominant aces have we had? Chesbro, Ford, Guidry all had monster seasons, and each had other good years, but we've never really had a Mathewson, a Grove, Spahn or Walter Johnson. Then again, we haven't needed to in order to reach 26 World Championships. Many good pitchers will often trump one gigantic one ;-) Wang, Pettitte, Hughes, Mussina, Kennedy, for starters. I like our current crop pretty well.
Here's part 2 of my comment, though: Happy Jack Chesbro. Ever hear of him? Won 41 games for us in 1904. As fans of the New York American League franchise, we do not celebrate Happy Jack well enough, in my opinion. He never won a title for us, alas. The Highlanders, as they were known back then, lost the pennant race on the last day of the season to those Bostonians, and languished, title-less, for the better part of two decades until that most holy icon, George Herman Ruth, arrived to reverse our fortunes. Chesbro. Good pitcher, good man. Happy Jack!
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