For the first time in nearly forty-five years, actually since October 13, 1960 when Bill Mazeroski hit a World Series winning homerun off of Ralph Terry the Pirates and Yankees will face each other tonight. The three game series starts tonight at the stadium. Believe it or not the Pirates actually have a better record then the Yankees. The Pirates payroll is only a fraction of the Yankees $200 million plus amount.

The Yankees should and need to sweep the Pirates. They are much better and need to play like they are. On Saturday afternoon a national television audience saw what the Yankees could be. They had Randy Johnson dominating a very good first place team lineup. The Yankees had timely hitting and great closing relief from Mariano Rivera.

Kip Wells is on the hill for the Bucs and Mike Mussina gets the start for the Bombers. They have to put a win streak together on this thirteen game homestand. After the Pittsburgh they play the Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the New York Mets. They need to go at least 9-4 on this homestand. After the homestand they finish out the month of June against the first place Orioles in Baltimore. The Yankees went only 3-9 on this just completed road trip. Actually, they lost only two games to the Orioles during the trip. It would be great if they could get the lead down to about two or three games during this homestand.

There are rumors that Joe Torre is in trouble and maybe Lou Piniella will be managing the Pinstripers next year. Piniella is really fed up with the Devil Rays and their reluctance to commit to winning. Is Piniella what the Yankees need? A fiery, no nonsense, hard nosed attitude is exactly what the Yankees need. They are too inconsistent and make way too many mental mistakes. As times they appear to only be going through the motions. Hopefully this will not be like the Royals series.